Livin’ the Dream

Oh these blog entries are getting harder and harder to keep up.  Think slow internet connections, noisy and smokey 95+ degree internet cafes in different languages and you might get a taste of our situation.  Nonetheless, some great travels to report on.

Bangkok –
Right now we are in Bangkok, it’s the hottest time of the year and the temperatures have been in the upper 90’s all week Steve and I have been walking around in a daze which is bad in a country where you don’t speak the language. This place is so confusing. While I’m not a big fan of the BKK in general we spent the morning  exploring the grand palace and the temple which houses the emerald Buddha. I’ve
never seen anything so incredible! The buildings are all covered in gold and colored glass. The Buddha is actually entirely carved out of a single piece of jade. They don’t know who our when it was carved but it was first discovered in 1450 when some one realized that it was only covered in plaster not made out of it. It was amazing you walk
into this temple after taking your shoes off and high up on this thrown is the Buddha in front of him is an alter covered in lotus flowers and everyone sits on the floor in reverence. The monks sit and pray on the sides of the room. Although we’re obviously not Buddhist it was hard not to be caught by the spirituality of the place.

Other than that BKK is a crazy place it is definitely a shoppers haven (Christine it is calling you) but I think what is the most interesting are all of the food stalls on the street. Lining the streets people cook full meals over gas stoves. The food is so interesting super cheap and generally better than the restaurants though it certainly feels like you are risking your health every time you eat there. I’ve been opting for the deep fried options in the hope that the hot oil kills off all the unsavories. Though the fruit stands are hard to resist.

In another day we head to the island of Ko Chang near the Cambodia border for our volunteer work.  Looking forward to what experiences await us.

Bali, Indonesia-
What an experience from very beginning to end!  Baggage scanners break in Sydney airport leaving many bags behind and put us several hours late into Bali.  Though luckily our bags make it onto the plane, the delay causes us to miss our connecting flight out over to Lompoc and the Gili’s.  Tensions were high as we failed again to get on a standby flight the following day.  In an attempt to cut our losses we quit trying to fly out that day, formally book a ticket for the following morning and head to the nicest closest hotel possible, the Kuta Seaview.  An excellent decision as the $45/nt oceanside resort is fantastic and immediately boost our spirits.  Bali is very pretty and surprisingly clean (smoke and incense excluded).  It was our first time in an Islamic country (88% Muslim) and the people for the most part are extraordinarily friendly making the terrorism in Bali particularly unfortunate.  Scooters zoom through the narrow Bali streets, and though the place thrives on tourism, Bali still has a remarkable sense of culture.  Memorable were the musical bells and picture perfect surfing waves at Kuta Beach.

Gili Trawangan, Indonesia-
The trip to the Gili’s was no easy task.  Cab-Flight-Cab-Public Boat-Cidomo (a horse drawn carriage…of sorts).  Our difficult to obtain $30 GT Air flight to Lomboc included a super sketchy 40 passenger retired military craft with problematic landing gear.  Later this airline would report ‘technical difficulties’ requiring us to find alternate means for returning to Bali.  But we made it and the trip to Gili Trawangan was well worth the effort.

Snorkeling –
While staying at Dream Village we met a very nice Dutch couple – Lynn and Martin. We decided to charter a boat with them fro a private snorkeling trip around the three Gili islands.The boat was an ancient fishing boat that had been converted into a glass bottom boat. The captain was great – very relaxed and friendly. The first snorkel site we arrived at we jumped in and found tons of stinging jellyfish which our captain assured us were no dangerous but we decided to get back into the boat as quickly as possible anyway and head to the next site. Although we enjoyed the company the snorkeling was depressing – it was like seeing a waste land. It turns out that over the last decade the entire reef has been decimated by dynamite fishing. Although there were plenty of fish they were left to swim above the rubble. It looked awful! The only coral we say were a few soft corals nothing extensive. Lynn who had been to the Gili Islands in 1997 said it was a 100% changed. Nevertheless we did still see a number of sea turtles which was great.  Diving with the turtles and clown fish a few days later was especially memmorable.

Gili T was a great small town with in 24 hrs of being there is was hard to go anywhere without seeing some one you knew. We must have run into Joe from Sulawesi close to a dozen times after we ventured across the island one night with him on a failed attempt to see the turtles laying eggs. There are no motorized vehicles on the island and the time of day was only clocked by the 5 daily prayers blasted over broken loudspeakers at the mosque (nice the first day but pretty painful at 5am the rest of the week). I suppose Gili T is as close to paradise as you can get. The beaches were incredible everything was really affordable aka $30 a night for
your own bungalow, less than $10 for a very nice meal, and the people were incredibly nice. It is hard to think of a better place to burrow in and relax for a couple of days.

Sydney –
After checking into the sparkling clean Sydney central YHA and cleaning up we went to see a ballet performed by the Bangarra Dance Troop and the Australian National Ballet. It was a combo of ballet and aboriginal dance set mainly to classical music. The dance was incredible but what really stood out was the aboriginal song master (singer) as well as the final act when they poured water and white paint on the dancers. Very unusual. I can say I never thought I would
were Chacos to the ballet before. The Opera house was spectacular at night and during intermission we walked out on to the balcony and had an incredible view of the harbor.

Sydney Aquarium – we got to see a platypus! They are actually a lot smaller that I thought, which was a surprise in comparison to all of the other animals in Australia which e larger than expected. The other interesting part of the aquarium were the 3 giant tanks in the harbor. The great barrier reef tank was really interesting  with clown fish
tangs and a type of leopard shark. That separate shark tank was also interesting as it took you through tubes at the bottom of the tank so that the sharks swam over you. Some of the sharks were up to 2 meters in length.

Rocks – The historic part of Sydney was the original site of the convict colony. This was perhaps the most beautiful part of Sydney as it was filled with rambling cobblestone streets. Not really a layout for a city I would have chosen it I were living with thousands of convicts but oh well. This was certainly a very sad part of history. It is hard to realize that many of the people were sent to Australia for petty crimes that would ordinarily have been short sentences, but
being sent to Australia was essentially a life sentence no matter what the crime.

Vacation, Traveling and Tourism

So we are officially on day 26 of our world adventure and I figure
that with all of this blogging and emailing it would be useful to
define a few terms. Ironically, vacation travelling and tourism are
used almost interchangeably when in reality, as we have learned they
lead to wildly different experiences.

Let me start with Vacation: we all are intimately aware of vacation at
our first job we are dutifully dolled out 15 precious days of PTO
which we accrue at a snails pace and then hoard away with the
diligence of a miser until we can take it no more and jet off for a
precious 4 day weekend or in a wild splurge take “gasp” a whole week
off. We plan carefully making sure to leave on a Friday afternoon
return late Sunday night so as to squeeze almost a full 9 days vacation
out of 5 precious working days off.

So what is the vacation that we so carefully calculate for? Vacation is
the hunt for the most elusive of sentiments … relaxation. Vacation at
it’s ultimate is a beautiful secluded beach a hammock and with an umbrella, oh yes and maybe a
cabana boy. Vacation comes in many colors but the goal is always the
same a few moments to escape from the stress and madness of the
everyday.

On the contrary traveling is none of these things. Though you may come
across the occasional exceptional fruity cocktail there are no cabana
boys in traveling and relaxation is as elusive as in the office.

Yes traveling is something completely different. Traveling is the quest
to roam the world like a primitive nomad. It is a journey were toilets
are little more than vial holes in the ground, where touching the soap
seems more dangerous than not washing your hands, where youth hostels
become a luxury, and where brushing your teeth in public seems
acceptable. This my friends is traveling.

Why do we travel? I’m still looking for the answer. It seems to be a
deep seated need in human nature perhaps left over from the time when
we depended on the land and were constantly looking for the new
resources maybe it is to challenges the limits of our own horizons to
push ourselves to the limits and see how we do. Maybe it is to marvel
at the greatness of our own species. I’m really not sure but without
fail after 4 months of staying at home the bug hits and if I’m not
gone by 6 months I feel as though I will lose my mind. So we travel.

By far the most curios of these experiences is tourism. Perhaps it is
companies attempt to blend travel with vacation, to allow people who
really want a vacations to do a little exploring without any of the
stress normally associated with it. But in my experience tourism is
really the unique scenario of paying incredible amounts of money to
have the unique experience of feeling like cattle. It is the moment
when after shelling over your hard earned dollars you are expected to
shuffle onto a bus at the crack of dawn to then be herded around a
variety of site or excursions with 20-40 of your fellow tourists. You
are told when to apply sunscreen, where to stand for your picture, and
the exact number of steps it will take you to make it to the top of
that temple, where you can commune with your fellow tourist pals.

The best example tourism was when Steve and I took a horse back ride
to a waterfall in Mexico (actually one of the best trips ever). After
being picked up and placed in a saddle we were led tail to nose up
hill through the jungle single file with 20 other tourists. We swam in
the pool and had an endless supply of beer (I love Mexico) then the
vaqueros literally herded – yes think cattle drive – our horses with
us till on it through a river back to the ranch. I pity cows.