The Misadventures of Joey Tafuro

After over 30 hours in airports and on airplanes I finally touched down in Tampa last night. My mom was at the airport to pick me up and it was actually more emotional than I thought it would be. I am glad I came home but I have immediately started feeling the mixed emotions and felt the culture shock returning home. A soft taco costs 1.69? What is this tax thing that Americans have to pay ? They drive on the “right” side of the road here? Ayeeee.

I am glad to be home, I am going to keep this short. I need to go back to sleep. The clock in my body is confused.

Who would have thought the biggest challenge I would face would be simply returning home.

I am now sitting in an internet cafe in the Tuban neighborhood near Kuta Beach in Bali. The weather is gorgeous, albeit hot, and not a cloud in the sky. I am waiting an hour and a half for Skype to finish downloading so I can contact Expedia about my case# and once and for all figure out my plan for tonight.

My mom has been on the phone with supervisors at expedia while I have been emailing and dealing with Japan Air and Northwest here on the island. The latest information from my home is that I am to show up at the airport tonight with a 6 digit confirmation code and my identification and there should be no problems. It isn’t the norm for Japan Airlines to take an e-ticket but this will be an exception. Well, I decided I wanted to go to the airport early today to find out if this is going to work but there were no Japan Airlines counters open and the one for my flight isn’t till 8pm tonight. My flight is at midnight. It is now 3:30pm. So I go into the main office for Japan Air at the airport and spoke with the woman who couldn’t help me the first time. She got me in contact with reservations and the woman basically told me they couldn’t do anything with the confirmation code and that I need to contact Northwest Airlines because it isn’t their problem to deal with. I tried to explain that this is what Expedia put together to fix my problem and that they were already in contact with both Jap and NWA.

I had already contact NWA 2 days ago since they have an office on the island. Their systems weer down so she told me she would call me back. I tried a few times and didn’t get an answer and this afternoon NWA called me at my hotel to tell me they need me to come out to the otherside of the island which is about an hour by taxi and file a police report indicating a lost ticket. I would then have to go to the NWA office and have them issue me a paper ticket. This is all well and good but I am nowhere near that part of the island, the taxi is expensive both ways and the NWA office closes in 1.5 hours.

So, I now sit here with only the hopes that Expedia’s plan for me to show up at the ticket counter to check-in with the confirmation code will be enough. I am hoping that the people I talked to today in the Japan Airlines were just unknowledgable of the situation. I will get to the airport as soon as the ticket counter for my flight opens which is 8pm. I have to check out of my hotel at 6. If I can’t get on this flight with my ticket I may have to purchase a brand new full fare that Expedia claims they will refund me. The only bright side of all this is that I may be getting a first class seat if all of economy class is full.

I just want to get home though really.

I just wanted to give a quick update. I had a great weekend in Bali and I am still here. A few of my friends left this morning back to Singapore and my flight home is in 48 hours. I am having an issue with my ticket. It was purchased as an E-ticket through Northwest Airlines but the first leg of my trip is Japan Air and they don’t use E-ticketing so my tickets were mailed to my parent’s house in Tampa. Ouch. So, with only 2 days left to get this straightened out I am stressing a little. Thanks to my mom she is taking care of the phone calls and leg work but I have been emailing expedia and trying to contact the airline offices here to get a new one reissued. NWA and Japan Air don’t have any system set up for this so they have been getting supervisors involved. I’m sure it will be all ok but I might have to take time out of my last 2 days to take care of business rather than lay on the beach.

Oh well, chalk another one up for learning experiences.

Ok, I have to admit, I’m was pretty disappointed arriving in Bali last night. It was probably because it was late and I don’t know my way around and everything is much more spread out in the main tourist areas and I didn’t realize I would need a taxi everywhere I went. The airport customs was a pain in the ass as well.

I am staying at an upmarket hotel a little ways from the beach itself because that is where Shawn and a few friends will be staying. They arrive tonight pretty late so I’m excited about that. I purchased a cheap bottle of Grey Goose vodka at the duty free in Kuala Lumpur for celebration purposes. This will be my final week as I bought my flight home. I arrive back at Tampa International at 420p next Thursday. I have mixed feelings about coming home but ultimately it is the right choice. I do want to come home but at the same time I am going to miss the traveling. It will be a strange transition back into the normal pace of life which will at times feel slow and other times feel too fast.

You are probably wondering why my location states that I am back in Kuala Lumpur. Well, while hanging out in Cambodia I was chatting with my friend Shawn (the one I visited in Singapore). He has a DJ gig in Bali, Indonesia this weekend and in attempt to wrap up all the loose ends and visit the places I originally planned before I head home, I am on my way there now.

I would have flown direct from Siem Reap to Bali but I ran out of passport pages and needed to get to the US embassy and flying through Kuala Lumpur was the cheapest way. I actually arrived at customs in Cambodia with no pages left and I had to bribe the customs agent in order to put the visa over a previous stamp.

I arrived back in Kuala Lumpur yesterday afternoon but the American embassy was closed so I headed there this morning. It was pouring rain and there was a long line on the outside of the building filled with Malaysians hoping to get an interview for their work visas and immigration. After a few security checkpoints I was back home in the United States for a brief while. I was bumped ahead of everyone in the building. I actually felt somewhat guilty. You have all these Malaysians dressed in their business suits and ties and nice clothing all probably feeling extremely nervous about what was ahead of them hoping for the chance to get to plea their case for why they should be approved to enter America. Here I am in my camoflauge cargo shorts, t-shirt and flip flops cutting ahead of the line to get extra pages added to my passport.

It was interesting overhearing some of the questions that the embassy staff were asking.

Staff: “Do you know anyone in New York?”
Malay: “No”
Staff: “Well, where exactly do you plan on staying when you get there?”

I was in and out in a matter of 30 minutes or so. I now have a full set of pages to continue my travels. Indonesia’s visa requires a full clear page so I am glad I got this taken care of. I don’t know if a bribe would have worked.

I fly to Bali tomorrow afternoon and at this point I’m not sure if I am going to spend just 1 week and then fly home from there or if I am going to go for an extra week. I think I will figure it out once I see what Bali has to offer.

BEER LAO ADDITION

Laos… one of the poorest countries in the world, a very simple people… produce one of the best beers you will found outside of the western world.

BEER LAO

Beer Laos is cheap and full of flavor and nothing beats relaxing in a restaurant or bar on the banks of the Mekong River chugging down a large sized Beer Lao. It actually has flavor and fullness and doesn’t does like water which most of the other beers around here do. It is a premium lager and can put some european beers to shame.

As far as pizza goes… I only had it once in Laos. Later that night I had terrible diarrhea. That being said, the pizza was actually pretty good but you won’t catch me trying it again just incase some ingredient was the culprate.

The main attraction of Cambodia and the cause for the boom in tourism in Siem Reap are the temples of Angkor just outside of the city. They are centuries old and were uncovered in the early 1900’s. Personally they are more impressive than any other group of ruins that I have seen in my travels and the best part is the sites are not overcrowded.

I had met a British couple at the airport on the way into town and we grouped up to keep the price of the driver down. We all got a 3-day pass for $40 each and headed to the temple complex. It is really huge so a driver of some sort is a must.

After passing by Angkor Wat which is the main temple we came across Bayon which is famous for massive face carvings cut into large towers. Describing everything in Angkor is pretty difficult to do and is something that actually needs to be seen in order to grasp the full experience. Even pictures don’t capture the full colors.

After Bayon we spent the morning hopping around from temple to temple with lots of interesting carvings and stories being told on the walls. Being in the low season it was quite dead at most of the temples but at Ta Promh the tourists were about. This site is famous for the overgrown trees that intertwine the temple ruins. If you either play the video game Tomb Raider or have seen the movies some of it was filmed here or themed after this and it is the classic image of the temples of Angkor. This was my favorite temple so far and it is unfortunate that we showed up at the same time as a few tour group buses but it was still interesting and as you can see I was still able to get photos with out people in it.

We visited several more temples throughout the afternoon and every one had a unique characteristic for itself. Some were set with huge towers, others were more focused on detailed carvings and some were just basic and not much to look at.

The driver took us around to each area and one of the annoying but at the same time unbelievably cute things about temple viewing are the tons of local children that run up to you and try and sell you stuff. These kids are really sharp and pick up on a lot from tourists that come through and are usually better communicators than their parents. One child will come up and try and sell you a cold drink while the next will have a fist full of postcards for $1. Their sales pitches are usually similar but occasionally vary.

Little girl: ‘Hello Mr. where you from?’
Me: ‘America?’
Little girl: ‘Washington DC it is the capital. What state you from?’
Me: ‘Florida’
Little girl: ‘Tallahassee is the capital you buy postcards from me?’
Me: ‘no thank you’
Little girl: ‘maybe you buy later if you buy you buy from me’
Me: ‘no thank you really’
Little girls: ‘if you buy you buy from me’

Repeat a similar conversation over and over and you have your experience walking up to the temples. Luckily they have set up ropes on the ground that the children are not allowed to cross so that you aren’t bugged the entire time. The kids like to sing songs to you or even show off their ability to count to 10 in 20 different languages. They do what they can to win the hearts of the tourists but the whole thing is just not good. Unfortunately, their parents forcing them into labor and most likely punishing them harshly if they don’t sell. This little girl was just sitting in the window of a pretty abandoned temple. She wasn’t a begger.

The final temple of the day was Angkor Wat which is the most recognizable and the main temple of the entire complex. It was also, in my opinion, a pretty big let down. It is impressive just for its massiveness but other than that it was no more to look at than any of the other temples. It is the largest religious complex in the world and I have heard calls to add it to the list of the Wonders of the World.

Once we finished off here and had enough of the temples for the day we headed back into Siem Reap to get some rest. The first day was a lot of fun and I was impressed with what I saw. A lot of times when you travel you go places that you think will be great but are usually a let down but overall the temples of Angkor are some of the most impressive sites I have ever seen. To think that is took hundreds of years for them to be rediscovered in the jungles of Cambodia and just imagining what it would have felt like to see it for the first time. I joke a lot about feeling like Indiana Jones when I travel but this is the first time I actually could picture him going through the ruins with a torch and fighting off the Khmer Rouge on his way to find a hidden relic. It was definitely worth the trip to Cambodia itself.

Angkor Wat

Look mom! I’m temple raiding!!!

If you notice the top of the blog states my location as Siem Reap, Cambodia. Which might be surprising since just a couple of days ago I was posting in Laos about how I was going to be traveling there for the next month or so. Well, I decided to start wrapping my trip up. I’m not sure if it is the smog in northern Thailand and Laos or I am just on the road so long, but I am worn out. The fatigue isn’t going away. I’ve been getting sick too often and I just wanna take care of my body. I have had a great time and I told myself before the trip started that if the day comes when I am just no longer enjoying it fully and it is becoming too tiresome to move from place to place then it is best to just come home.

As part of my trip I didn’t want to miss the temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia so I decided to fly here today and since I have seen so much and accomplished a lot I am ready to come home and get back to a normal routine with the money I will have saved by not continuing. The 2nd summer session at school starts June 30th so it will give me a chance to get prepared before that.

I’m not sure of the exact date that I will be flying home but it will be through Bangkok within in the next few weeks. I will keep everyone updated as soon as I know so you can start planning your welcome home parties and start buying your gifts for me. 🙂

I’m back in good shape. I visited the Kuang Si waterfalls just outside of Luang Prabang. Those of you that I worked with who came to my desk in the 6 months prior to me leaving might remember my waterfall wallpaper. Well these falls graced my computer desktop for a long time.

Things were going good there for a few days. I was having a blast on the river, got to Luang Prabang and met a few nice people and planned to travel through Laos with them for a few more days. Unfortunately, for the 2nd time in 1 week and the 3rd time in 2 months I caught some sort of stomach bug. I think I may have figured out the reason this time. It definitely wasn’t food because I had been sticking to mainly western cuisine and since Laos is a former French colony there are plenty of baquettes to eat. Plus no matter where you go in this world you can find spaghetti or some sort of pasta. It has to be liquid. I didn’t have bottled water one night so I had to brush my teeth with the tap but I can’t imagine that little bit got me that quickly. The only other possibility is milk. I realized the last 3 times I got sick I had drank a milk shake earlier that day. Milk shakes were usually no problem at the beginning of my trip and you get them in just about every country and the milk is normally pretty good. I think I may have had some bad milk once and ever since then it has been getting me sick.

I am not really sure and I am no doctor but for the rest of my time on the road I am staying away from it. Too risky and I am tired of having my trip stalled for a couple of days over a stomach bug.

I am doing better now and I am going to visit a local waterfall and go swimming when my bus arrives to get me. Tomorrow I am going to head east to check out the sites I was supposed to see the last couple of days. So I will be back on track just a few days behind the rest of the people that were on the boat with me from Thailand. Maybe I will catch up.