Jackie's World Tour 2009 – Let the mayhem begin!

Ok, so I am resigned to the fact that I am really bad at updating my blog! Yep, I have been consistent at letting at least a month go by in between blogs. Guess that is a good things since I am usually so busy that I don’t have time to update!

Well since I last left you, my trusty readers, I was off to Phuket, Thailand to get my butt kicked everyday by a bunch of tiny Thai dudes! There is only one word to describe my experience at Rawai Muay Thai….AMAZING!!! I absolutley loved every minute of it, well almost every minute of it. It was totally what my mind and body needed. I wish that I had more time to stay there longer. I really loved being physically abused on a daily basis. Training consisted of 2-5 rounds of shadow boxing, 5 rounds of padwork with a trainer, 5 rounds of bagwork (did mention that we also had to do 10-20 push-up’s in between rounds?) and then about an hour of technique. Depending on the day, we worked on different techniques ranging from kicks, blocks, punches, clinching (grappling), sparring and wai cru. It was alot of ass kicking smashed into 2-3 hours! And then after all of that we did 200 knees and 200 push kicks on the bag and 150 situps. We did this 2x a day. The morning session started at 7:30 and the afternoon session started at 4:00. It was really intense! So the days kind of looked like this: wake up, train, shower, eat breakfast, go back to room and sleep, wake up and train, shower, eat dinner, pass out in exhasution and wake up the next day and do it all over again. As the weeks progressed, I actually took shorter naps and this awesome guy Martin, started meeting me at 12 and I did weight training. I basically lived, ate and breathed Muay Thai for the month! I met so many amazing people at Rawai (that was the gym). It was so much better than I expected. Now I know that it sounds very boring but I did do other stuff besides just train. Training was Monday through Saturday so on Saturday night lots of people from the gym often went to Freedom Bar to get their drink on. It was always alot of fun. I did do a tiny bit of exploring around Phuket as well. Most of my exploring was done on the back of a scooter and I have come to love riding on the back of scooters. This was most people’s main mode of transportation so I often found myself on the back of someone’s scooter. Nothing like having the wind blow through your hair as you are zipping through Phuket. Of course there were this one day that me and 3 other guys decided to rent a car and go and visit the Big Buddah of Phuket. The Big Buddah is exactly what it sounds like, a huge Buddah on top of a mountain. The buddha is impressive and you can be blessed by a monk in the temple which was a very cool experience for me. But that is not why I am mentioning the jaunt to the temple. In true Jackie style, of course the day did not go smoothly! Being broke Muay Thai trainees we decided to rent the super cheap jeep down the road from the gym. Little did we know that this was going to be the equivilant of a Flinstone car. Actually, I think I may be insulting the Flinstone car by saying that. It was a fight to get the car to shift out of first gear. We started with Paul driving the car. Let me give you an explanation of exactly what Paul looks like so we can put this into perspective. Paul is an ex-professional mixed martial arts fighter, unbelievably huge with muscles coming out of everywhere and inked pretty much everywhere you can see. He is one intimidating looking dude who could probably rip the head off a cow with one hand. Now that I explained what Paul looks like I will say that Paul fought the jeep and the jeep won! It was like a Muay Thai work out on crack to get the car to  shift. I think Paul used every muscle in his body to get into 2nd. We should have realized at that point that this was a bad idea but no, we decided to forge on and make the best of it. Paul finally gets us onto the main road and we start cruising until we hit 55mph when we start shaking, violently. I thought the car was going to fall apart. Ok, no going over 55mph I guess. We now realize that this trip to the big buddah is going to be a long journey. So we settle in, cruising speed around 50mph (freakin mopeds are passing us for gods sake!) and we start to head up the windy roads to take us to the Big Buddah when we realize that we have no gas! Yes, people this is a comedy of errors! But we averted that disaster after a tense 15 minutes of hunting for a gas station. Whew! Finally we start to head up the very steep road to the temple and…. come on people, guess what happens next….whoever gets it right gets a free toaster…of course we stall on the middle of the mountain and then we can’t get the car started!  Can this trip get any better? Tons of Thai people stopped to help us and when they were getting ready to set up the jumper cables the car decides to make us look like complete jackasses and start up on the first turn of the key. I swear this car is the devil’s spawn and truly hates us. Eventually we make it up to the temple. I felt like making an offering at the temple as thanks for getting us there alive! Now going home was also an adventure cause the car decided to stall every time we shifted from 1st to 2nd. This made it really interesting when we had to cross the stupidly busy road filled with crazy Thai drivers. Turning across oncoming traffic in Thailand is a scary prospect. Turing across oncoming traffic with a car that stalls 7 times while trying to cross is just suicide. I just closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable crash. Thankfully we made it across but I think everyone in the car found god again for the 5 minutes it took to cross the road. We made it home ok but any thoughts of driving around Phuket were ruined and we just called it a day and decided to go back to our trusty scooters! LOL All, I can say is that it is never dull in my neck of the woods!

I also got to see a bunch of fights. Alot of the people training at the gym were fighting and I have to say we had alot of kick ass fighters. Suprisingly enough alot of the fighters were women and they seriously kicked some major butt. I could sit here and write a book about how amazing my experience was in Rawai but I will leave it off here cause I don’t want to bore you!

After my month in Phuket I headed off to do my GAP tour through Cambodia and Laos. I really enjoyed the tour. I met some really great people that helped to make the tour a great experience. There of course was a little bit of high school drama but I guess that is to be expected when you travel with a group larger than 3 people.

So I will start with Cambodia. In my opinion we did not spend nearly enough time in Cambodia. What a magical place. It seriously struck a chord with me and Cambodia will hold a special place in my heart. I can’t really figure out why I loved it so much. I think it is the fact that the Khemer people have been dealt such a shitty hand thoughout the years and yet they still have this prevading sense of hope and pride. I am not sure how many of you know about the Khemer Rouge and Pol Pot. I did not know anything about what occured in Cambodia in the 70’s but man did I get an education. Basically Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge took power from the existing government and instituted his version of chinese communism. It was brutual and relentless. All of the educated people and their families were killed, all of the cities were evacuated and the people were forced to work the fields. All money was abolished and many people died of starvation. Basically millions and millions of people were either executed or died of starvation or disease. It wiped out almost all of the adult population and  almost all of the educated populous. When the Pol Pot regime was defeated by the Vietnamese, Cambodia was left with a population of mostly uneducated people and a war torn country. One of the places we visited in Cambodia was one of the prisions where they carted people for questioning, torture and execution and then the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields os comprised of over 100 mass graves where thousands upon thousands of people were buried. Many of these graves were shallow. As you walk through the killing fields you can still see bits of bones and clothing in the ground. It is unbelievable. Our tour guide through the prison and Killing Fields was an actual survivor of the Khmer Rouge and his story of survivial was amazing. It was probably the most emotional day I have experienced on my whole trip. It is just unbelievable that so many people died over such a short period of time and it happened in the last 30 years! That is just crazy to me! Even now, Cambodia has a corrupt government and the people are pretty much in a shitty situation. Through it all though the people have such hope and this amazing outlook on life. It would be so easy to be bitter but they aren’t. They just keep smiling through it all and almost of the Cambodian people I met were wonderful, happy people. It was such a great place. The day that we went to the Killing Fields we also went to dinner at a resturant that was run by an orphanage. That was the highlight of my trip. After dinner we got to meet a bunch of the kids from the orphange. All of these kids were hand picked by the charity to come and live there and they were sent to school. They ranged in ages from 2 years old to 18 years old. All of them either lost both parents or 1 parent was dead and the other parent was not able to support their kids so they were brought to the orphange. These kids were just phenominal. I wish I had more time to spend with them. It was such a great way to end a really emotionally hard day. If anyone is interested, I have the website for the charity so you can check it out. They obviously can always use donations and I can tell you that it would be a great way to give back. The kids are totally amazing and deserving of any help they can get. Ok, enough preaching! All in all Cambodia was amazing. I obviously went to Siem Reap as well. We watched the sunrise there and we visited 4 different temples. Just unbelievable. The Jungle temple was my favorite. That is where they filmed parts of Tomb Raider. Very cool temple. I also did a cooking class which was very cool. Learned how to make  some tradtional Cambodian dishes and I got a cook book at the end so I can try to replicate them at home. Watch out people, I have a Cambodian cookbook and I plan to use you all as guinea pigs! LOL Hmmm…..what else, oh yeah I also got to try my first snake in Cambodia. That was interesting. Didn’t taste much like anything but if I had to give it a flavor I would say kind of like hard boiled eggs.

Now onto Laos. Laos was really, really laid back! I enjoyed Laos and again the people were very nice. We arrived in Laos and went to this island Dong Den. We stayed there for 2 days which was a nice little break. On the second day there my friend Caroline and I decided to rent bicycles and ride around the whole island. Four hours later we made it back to our hotel. It was a very fun journey and the kids we met on the way were so cute. They would run out of their houses to say hi and they loved to pose for pictures. It was so much fun except for the  aftermath. Let’s just say my body was angry with me….very angry with me. Well really it was more my ass that was angry with me. If it could have staged a revolt and physically removed itself from my body and walked away in protest I am sure it would have. It took a couple of days for my body to make nice, nice with me again. But besdies that it was great! We also got to go swimming in the Mekong. Actually all the girls decided to go on in our clothes. Kind of spur of the moment and lots of fun. A bunch of us tried to have a race against the current and it was kind of comical. We got maybe 10 feet before we were exhausted. The current was damn strong!

After Laos it was back to Bangkok and then onto Egypt! I am actually in Egypt at the moment on the nightbus to Cairo. I cannot say enough great things about Egypt so far. The people have been so friendly. I wasn’t expecting them to be so friendly and helpful. I have been pleasantly surprised! The other bonus is that Egyptian men like their women with junk in the trunk. I have been getting alot of “attentiton” since I have gotten here. No one has been innappropriate thank god but it has been nice hearing that I am beautiful on a daily basis! LOL Now only if the men back home could be so forthcoming with the compliments! The other really funny thing is that I have been asked if I was every nationalty but American. The most popular ones I have gotten has been Italian, Egyptian (I don’t get that one at all), English and Spanish. I mean they even hear me talk and still think I am anything but American. I guess my NY accent is pretty lame. I am doing a bad job of representin! LOL I have done a bunch of diving thus far and the Red Sea is amazing! There is so much life here and even snorkeling is out of this world! I am really excited to be in Egypt cause I have gotten to see Johanna, my friend that I met all the way in the beginning of my travels in New Zealand and who I also met up with again in Fiji. We just spent the last week together doing some diving and touring around Cairo. She left this morning. 🙁 But I get to hang out with Nathalie and Robert (my two kick ass friends that I spent 2-1/2 months with in Fiji- Robert was my dive instructor) for the next week or so! I can’t wait to get to spend time with them.

So the agenda is looking like Egypt, Jordan, Isreal, Turkey and Italy and then HOME SWEET HOME! I have to say that the closer I get to coming home the more and more I miss being home. I am so excited to get my butt back home so I can see all of my friends and family. If my job doesn’t work out I may not being staying home for very long but it will be so nice to get home at least for a little bit! Well, I love you guys and I miss you. I will try to update again in a more timely fashion. BIG EGYPTIAN HUGS!

Here I am sitting laying on the sleeper train going from Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur (in Malaysia if you are wondering) and I am a mix of emotions. Part of me is at peace and is very happy, the other part is lonely and missing lots of different people and things. I am especially missing my Poopers. Everytime I turn on my computer there is her adorable little face staring up at me. I miss her so much! I just want to scoop her up in my arms and give her lots of kisses. I am really afraid that she is not going to remember me when I finally get to see her. She will have not seen me in a year. God, I will be devastated if she doesn’t remember me. Is it possible for doggies to forget their Mommy? I hope not.

Wow, that was kind of a sucky way to start off my blog but I guess not everything can be peaches and roses, right? I have my down moments and I guess this is one of them. I am alone for the first time in awhile and I guess it is making me think about how much I miss home, my family and friends. You know you never really think to much about missing people when you plan a trip like this and for the most part I have been ok but it totally hits me at points. I just want you all to know that although I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, I think about you guys often and I really do miss you all. I have a pretty kick ass life and friends  outside of my travels and I can’t wait to get back to you guys in another 6 months!

Ok, enough being mushy and stuff…onto BALI!!!!!! I absolutley LOVED Bali. Well I really should say that I loved Ubud. Ubud is the cultural town of Bali. It is where they have all the artist villages for woodworking, stone work, jewelry, painting and metalwork. It is also a very chill laid back town with lots of crystal hugger types. Lots of yoga freaks (sorry yoga peeps but there are some of you out there, not any of the people that I know,  that are just a little too weird and out there with it!) make their home in Ubud so there is this wacky spiritual thing going on there as well. I didn’t get involved with that but I loved everything else about it. There were great little eateries with all healthy and organic food and just a great vibe to the town. I swear I could have stayed there for months. Claire and I decided that we were going to treat ourselves a little bit and stayed at this awesome place, Ketut’s place. It was up a side street from the main drag and it was beautful. Our room was on it’s own floor with a little pond, veranda, balcony and places to sit. Across from our baclony was the jungle with a river running about 150 feet below us. It was so peaceful. We had breakfast every morning on our veranda and just listened to the flowing water. It was just amazing. It was nice, we were able to get into a little bit of a routine. We signed up for yoga classes and went to yoga classes everyday. Yoga was great. The classroom was on the second floor and had no walls. It was beautiful cause the studio overlooked these lush emerald green rice paddy fields. So serene and just a perfect setting for yoga. We rented bicycles to get around the town and did alot of exploring during the day. We also did lots of shopping. We went to an amazing jeweler and spent way too much money on some really outstanding jewelry. We also went to see traditional Cecak dancing which was mesmerizing. I took place in a temple and it there was no music. All of the music was done by a group of about  men sitting in a circle around the stage and making different noises with their mouths. Lots of chuck, chuck, chuck kind of stuff with varying tempo and volume. It was so cool. The dancers danced the same story as the one we had previously saw in Jogja so it was nice to actually know the story. It was great. The dancing was of course amazing. I love to watch Thai dancing and they make it look so eays. I took a class and thought I was going to die. It is really strenuous and way harder than it looks. It is beautiful and I wish I had more time to properly study the artform. Like I said, I could easily stay in Ubud for months. The other random thing I did in Ubud was visit this famous local healer. It was really interesting. We went to his house which was like all traditonal Balinese houses. It was a compound where his whole  extended family lives. These compounds are usually pretty large considering that huge families are living there. It is pretty cool. Anyway, he had me sit down with my back facing him and he then felt all around my head and face pinpointing areas that were not 100%. He would find a spot that hurt and he would tell me what it was associated with. He bascially said that I am still living in the past and I need to let go of whatever is holding my heart and be happy again. hmmmm…..interesting. He then had me lay down and he used this littel twig thing and pressed on certain pressure points on my foot. There was one spot on my foot where I almost leaped out of my skin it hurt so much. He said that area was for my heart. He did some prayer thing over my body and then went and pressed the twig into the same spot again and it didn’t hurt anymore. It was so weird. He said that he opened up the blockage I had from my heart to my liver. It was pretty cool. Can’t say I feel much different but I was blown away at the fact that the pressure point no longer hurt after her did that little prayer thing over me. 

We spent 8 awesome days in Ubud and then decided that we should probably experience some other areas of Bali. So we left to go to Kuta ( a huge beach party town) and then onto the Gili Islands. As much as I loved Ubud I am glad that we did this. I fell in love with the Gilis. It was so much fun! Kuta was ok, just a typical beach town with lots of resturants, shops and bars. I could have stayed there for a couple of days but probably would have gotten bored pretty quickly. Now the Gili Islands are a different story. Claire and I both LOVED it. It is such a cool island with such an amazing laid back attitude. We met a couple of people on the boat ride over to the island who we wound up hanging out with for the whole time we were on the island. Hugh wound up being my dive buddy for the week and we had a great time. Claire and I stayed at one of the diving hotels called the Big Bubble and it was a great experience. Claire did her Discover Scuba diving course which was a super huge accomplishment cause she is afraid of water. I did 4 dives while I was there and I enjoyed them all. The water was warm and I really liked the divemaster that took us on our dives. And Hugh is as much of a jackass underwater as I am! Whoo-hoo, good times! The dive sites were pretty nice but I think that I am a bit spoiled from Fiji. It is hard to compare to Fiji in my mind. All in all Gili’s was just what I needed. It was a nice balance of chill and party. The first night we were there our little crew went out had dinner and then made our way over to the shisha bar. It was all down hill after that. We all went to a bar after that and drank our faces off. So much fun! Oh yeah and guess what, my room was right by the mosque so I got to hear the wonderful singing at 4:30 in the morning again! I told you I couldn’t escape those damn call to prayers! LOL
Claire and I both agreed that we would have stayed in the Gilis for another week or so if our visas weren’t running out! After a week we had to leave cause our visas were expiring so we decided to head over to Malaysia and go to the Perhetian Islands.

Getting to Malaysia was pretty uneventful. Took our flight into Kuala Lumpur and then another flight over to Khota Baru. We then hopped on a ferry to the Perhentian Islands. There are 2 islands, Besar and Kecil. We stayed on Kecil cause it was much cheaper and more laid back. We managed to find a room right off the bat which was just a steak of good luck for us. You see they do not pre-book rooms on the island so you just have to show up and pray you find something. I have heard stories of people having to sleep on the beach cause they couldn’t find any rooms. Like I said, we were lucky. 🙂 The room was pretty basic but I liked the place. It had a certain kind of run-down charm. And the bonus plan was that it was not near a mosque! LOL! I did some diving which was ok. Nice dives but nothing to write home about. I think the snorkeling was better than the diving. We went snorkeling twice and the first time we went we saw a school (around 8) black tip sharks together swimming around. I have never seen that before. It was pretty amazing! I see lots of sharks but I have never seen 8 together at one time. Very, very cool! We also met up with our friend Nigel who we had met in Singapore. He was in Malaysia and I told him we were going to the Perhentians and he decided to come on over and hang with us. It was really nice to see him and we all had a great time.

Now of course this would not be a Jackie blog if something silly didn’t happen and of course the Perhentians delivered! The last night we were there I had decided to go to bed somewhat early. I woke up around 2 in the morning cause I had to go to the bathroom. Our room did not have a bathroom in it so I had to go around the back of the room to where the toilets and showers were located. I stumble out of my room half asleep and go to open the gate to the toilets only to discover that they are locked!!! The only place where half of the people staying could go to the bathroom had a huge padlock on the door. WTF?!?! So I go to the front desk and of course no one is there. I then see a bunch of guys who work there walking past. I tell them that the bathrooms are locked and I need to go to the bathroom. I was told that they had no water so they locked the bathrooms. I am sorry, you did what? Half the rooms here do not have attached bathrooms so basically we are shit out of luck if we have to pee? I didn’t say that to the guy although I really wanted to. Instead, I asked him what I was supposed to  do cause I had to go to the bathroom. So the guy tells me to come back in the morning! WHAT????? I have to pee NOW!!! That is the whole point of this conversation. All he could tell me was to come back in the morning. Of all the answers I would have expected, come back in the morning was not one of them. I was disgusted so I just left and wandered around to other places that had a toilet. Thank god I found one before I pissed myself. Unbelievable!!! I swear this shit only happens to me.

Besides my little toilet incident, the stay on the island was really good. It was a really nice way to finish off my time with Claire. After 3 days we hopped back on the ferry and went back to the airport. claire headed off to Kuala Lumpur to go back Singapore and then home. I headed to the train station and took an overnight train to Kuala Lumpur ( much cheaper than flying!) Obviously that is where this blog started. But now I am past the train and I have been to KL and other places so I will update you on that as well.

Got to Kuala Lumpur in the morning and took the really good public transportation to my hostel in Chow Kit. I have to say that I found it very easy to get around KL. Ther transport in not really linked together but it is really easy to understand. KL is another big city with tons of shopping! The first day I got there I headed to Petronas Towers and to the mall that occupies the ground floor. It was a huge mall and there were tons of stores. I spent the day doing nothing really and just cruised around the mall and surrounding areas. It was just what the doctor ordered after the overnight train! The next day I hooked up with Rich who I met at the hostel and we decided to go Batu Caves. Batu Caves were pretty cool. We took a darkness tour which basically takes you through a side cave and then we went and visited the shrines built inside the caves. It was really different and very cool. After that we went over to Chinatown and perused the markets and got some food. It was another good day. The rest of the days I spent in KL were kind oflow key just doing some browsing thru the mega malls and hanging out. Nothing to amazing but it was nice.

After KL I decided to head over to Semporna to try and dive Sipidan, which is a world class dive site. It was a somewhat expensive flight but I had high hopes for Semporna and Sipidan. You see the problem with Sipidan is that you need a permit to dive there. They only allow 120 snorklers and divers there a day. People book there permits months in advance. Lots of times there are cancellations so you can get a permit regardless of having booked in advance or not. So I get to Semporna and check in with the dive shop, Scuba Junkie. No cancellations for Sipidan for the next day but I am scheduled into 3 dives at Mabul, which is supposed to be great diving as well. Ok cool. I go check into the Scuba Junkie hostel where I had booked a dorm room. Oh my god, what a SHITHOLE!!! I tried to make the best of it but man it was pretty bad. I figured I was just tired and in the morning it would seem better. So I sleep the night in the shithole, get eaten alive by mosquitoes and get up stupid early to meet the boat for my dives. Ok, the dives were really good. I especially loved the first dive, which incidentally was my 100th dive! Whoo-hoo, go me! 🙂 NO wonder I am broke, I pick all the expensive hobbies! Anyway, I can’t say I really liked the staff at Scuba Junkie. It wasn’t anything specific but I left feeling like I didn’t really want to give them anymore of my money and I cancelled my next days dives. After coming back from the dives I came to realize that Semporna did not look any better than it did the night before and all I really wanted to do was get the hell out of there. So I checked out the next morning and left town with Andrea, another diver who was staying in the dorm and felt the same way I did. We took a taxi to Sepilok and checked into this really nice jungle resort by the oranghutan rehab center. Yes, I know, more oranguhtans! I can’t get away from them. This place was really nice and it was such a step up from Semporna! Really a ditch in the side of the road would have been better than Semporna but this place legitimally was nice. We were in heaven. I was a little hesitant about travelling with Andrea. I was not sure if our two personalities would mesh well together but I am really glad that we did decide to join ways. She is very candid and upfront and intelligent. We had a really great conversation over dinner talking about everyting from politics, perceptions of other parts of the world and just life in general. I spent the next couple of days with Andrea. We spent one day in Sepilok swimming in the pool and exploring. We then took a flight over to Kuala Lumpur. We got in about 11pm and wound up having to stay by the airport so Andrea could work some things out with Air Asia. Well the ONE hotel by the airport was fully booked so we were told that we could stay in the lobby as long as we did not sleep. So what ensued was about 6 hours of using the internet and drinking lots of caffenated drinks till the service desk opened at 5:30 in the morning. That was a fun evening! 🙂 But thankfully, Andrea was able to get everything worked out and we headed over to our hostel. The hostel was REALLY nice and we loved the fact that we had AC. Yes, AC is aluxury for someone backpacking on a budget. LOL Spent the next couple of days with Andrea doing some random shopping, getting massages and just hanging out. Nice and relaxing.

During this time I decided that I wanted to find a place to park my butt for a month before I went to on my tour of Cambodia and Laos. I looked into going to Kho Pangang in Southern Thailand and taking yoga classes for a month but then it dawned on me that I could take Muay Thai classes. So, I found a place in Phuket where I could train 2x a day, 6 days a week for a really reasonable price. So I decided to get my ass in shape and go do some hardcore training. I have been here for 6 days so far and I have trained 5 days so far. It is really hardcore and it is seriously kicking my ass. I love it though. I will definitley be in great shape after a month of this. I will be updating some more in a couple of weeks. I am exhausted and need to go to bed! As always, miss you all! 🙂 BUG HUGS!

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