It has been a while, but I just didnt feel like I had a lot of good stories to tell. The good news now is that I know have a bunch to say. So lets begin:
Last you heard of me I was in Laos and had just left the homestay. From there I made my way to the capital city and had to spend a few days there to get a 60 day Thia visa. I often find capitals and big cities boring and try to get out as soon as possible but Laos being on the under developed side it was a bit different. My time spent there was largely just chilling out and relaxing. From the capital I was making my way north trying to hit a couple of more cities before I went into the north of Thailand. The next city was called Vang Vieng, the infomus party tuding city. Everywhere I went in South East Asia everyone said I had to go tuding in Laos in Vang Vieng because "it was the best time they ever had." I got there and it was pouring ran but that wasnt going to stop me from having fun until I released that no one else was going that day. That put me in a tough spot because I only really had time for one night unless I wanted to cut out something from somewhere else. I spent most of the rainy day at a resterunt watching Friends reruns with some other people I met that where taking shelter from the rain. That day I came to an interesting insight in myself and as a traveler. I dont like party tourest town or people. To be honest the party stuff I would much rather do with really close friends then random poeple I just met. The peolpe in these places (although this is a large genralization) tend to be people that I really cant relate to, what you can say not my kind of people. I guess I now know I am not a huge party person and would perfer a great conversation then getting wasted. Oh the wonders of travel. As you can guess I never went tubbing and I moved onto my next town. It was a great choice because I got just what I was looking for, I met really great couple that I was able to have interesting intellectual conversations with. I really enjoyed there company and I also ened up taking a cooking class with them. I thought I knew how to cook before but I came to the realization that I know very little. I guess I will just have to add that to my list of other passions to persue. The next day after the cooking class I left Laos for the north of Thialand on a 24 hour bus journey.
After the long ass bus journey I was on my last stop of my travels, my 5th counrty in 4 months. I wanted to see a bit of North of Thailand before I met up with my sister in the south. As I sit in Bangkok now I see how different the two parts of the counr\try really are. The north is alot less untanted by tourism and the people are very sweat. Example - I spent two days hanging out with a shop owner in the North because he just wanted to talk to me. Although the people in the south are nice you can tell that they have been tanted by the grind of the tourist.
I now stand between me and two weeks before I go home. The whole idea just freaks me out alittle bit and I dont know how to discribe it at this point. I also just met up with my sister and I am extremly excited to spend time with her and see where our adventures lead together.
Well that it for now because my internet time is up but more to come soon. Cant wait to see thouse of you in boston and then maybe others soon after in California.
Love You All
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
From Cambodia to Laos
I am now in Vientiane, Lao for those of you who didnt know. Ya I know it has been a while and its because Laos is not that developed (which I really like). No one worry because I am more then ok and really enjoying my latest travels.
Let me first back track back to Cambodia and tell you what that picture is of me with a bunch of kids and a monk. Well that is students, a teacher and me. I taught and English class for a day. Basically I met a monk (which I do often) and he invited me to come to his class and help out. He runs a free english school in Battombong to underprivileged and orphan kids. It is an impressive and inspiring place which is continuously growing (10 class rooms, 200 kids). I just showed up the next day and he was like wow you came. He showed me around the school and then showed me to the class. He handed me some chock and said "teach." That was a little intimidating but I did what he said and jumped right into it. The monk teacher was there and he was able to help me translate to them what words they didnt understand from me. The kids seemed to be enjoying the lesson (of course they were probably nervous giggles and me doing things they were not accustom to), we worked on pronunciation and prefixes and suffixes. After the class was over it left me in a weird place. I was thinking: Could I be a teacher? Would I be good at it or was this just a one time thing? Can a dyslexic teach english? I came to the conclusion that I will need to do more teaching to get the answers.
From Battombong I went to Ankor Wat, Cambodia's biggest attraction. It might look familiar to you because Indiana Jones and Tomb Ryder was shot here. Basically what is it is ancient ruins from the 11th century. Its spread out over something like 20 or 30 square km. Hindus and Buddhist both occupied it at one point. Its the biggest religious center in the world (from what I am told, I could be wrong). It was so cool, I felt a little like Indiana Jones myself searching the ruins for lost treasure. The only problem was that there was hundreds of westerners and if there was any gold or jewels to be found I probably would have been the last to know. Despite all the white people I had a really fun day exploring this said to be 8th wonder of the world. Since it was such a tourist attraction the town where I stayed was full of them too. It was fun though and I met some great people to see the temples with. From there I went to Laos.
On August 31 after a long bus journey the day ended with me on a hammock, riverside enjoying the sunset. Not a bad start for Lao. The place was is called 4000 Islands, its called that because the Mekong creates 4000 little island at the bottom of Laos. It was an amazing place just to relax and recuperate after Cambodia and the emotional drain I had been feeling. Nothing really can beat sitting on a hammock rocking back and forth reading Waldon by Thoreau. After my days of simplicity I started making my way to the north of Lao. First I wanted to stop at this underground cave before I was back in the more modern north.
Kong Lo cave is a 7.5 km (about 4 miles to you who dont know the metric system) that the Mekong has carved out in this limestone mountain. I hired a boat and went into the darkness with just a flash light, a boatman and 2 other people I had met. It was wild, from 30 feet ceiling to just 5 foot ones. It was just so mysterious and spooky I was just mystified by the whole experience. But that wasn't even the best part of the stop over, that night I stayed in a home-stay. A home-stay is more or less you just staying with a family and doing as they do, eating, sleeping and even showering with them. The only difficult with this particular one was they didnt speak any english because I was in some little village in a national park about an hour away from a small town. In the end english didnt matter at all. I ended up finding a extremely nice family that really took care of me and a friend that I met. Earlier I said we showered together and I wasnt lying, we all were covered in the appropriately areas and we took bucket showers from the same bucket (i can add that to my list of cool opportunities). They made a great mean and I spent most of the night playing with there little son. We all went to bed pretty early considering there is not much to do after you eat and a hard days work (most of the families tend there rice fields and take care of there animal. the home stay is just a side thing to make a little extra money). The next morning it was sad to leave. The grandfather guided us to the bus and was just the sweetest little man. He waved goodbye until we couldnt see him any more. A true picture-esc site!
From there I caught a bus to a large intersection, got out and tried to wave down a big bus going to the capital. It looks like I must have got one because as you can see I have internet.
I have less the a month left which is both sad and exciting to see whats next for me in the next chapter of my life.
-A new insight I learned from being on the bus with locals and having a language barrier: share your food. Its easy as that and you can make new friends.
Cheers and wish me luck as this last month quickly comes to an end.
Let me first back track back to Cambodia and tell you what that picture is of me with a bunch of kids and a monk. Well that is students, a teacher and me. I taught and English class for a day. Basically I met a monk (which I do often) and he invited me to come to his class and help out. He runs a free english school in Battombong to underprivileged and orphan kids. It is an impressive and inspiring place which is continuously growing (10 class rooms, 200 kids). I just showed up the next day and he was like wow you came. He showed me around the school and then showed me to the class. He handed me some chock and said "teach." That was a little intimidating but I did what he said and jumped right into it. The monk teacher was there and he was able to help me translate to them what words they didnt understand from me. The kids seemed to be enjoying the lesson (of course they were probably nervous giggles and me doing things they were not accustom to), we worked on pronunciation and prefixes and suffixes. After the class was over it left me in a weird place. I was thinking: Could I be a teacher? Would I be good at it or was this just a one time thing? Can a dyslexic teach english? I came to the conclusion that I will need to do more teaching to get the answers.
From Battombong I went to Ankor Wat, Cambodia's biggest attraction. It might look familiar to you because Indiana Jones and Tomb Ryder was shot here. Basically what is it is ancient ruins from the 11th century. Its spread out over something like 20 or 30 square km. Hindus and Buddhist both occupied it at one point. Its the biggest religious center in the world (from what I am told, I could be wrong). It was so cool, I felt a little like Indiana Jones myself searching the ruins for lost treasure. The only problem was that there was hundreds of westerners and if there was any gold or jewels to be found I probably would have been the last to know. Despite all the white people I had a really fun day exploring this said to be 8th wonder of the world. Since it was such a tourist attraction the town where I stayed was full of them too. It was fun though and I met some great people to see the temples with. From there I went to Laos.
On August 31 after a long bus journey the day ended with me on a hammock, riverside enjoying the sunset. Not a bad start for Lao. The place was is called 4000 Islands, its called that because the Mekong creates 4000 little island at the bottom of Laos. It was an amazing place just to relax and recuperate after Cambodia and the emotional drain I had been feeling. Nothing really can beat sitting on a hammock rocking back and forth reading Waldon by Thoreau. After my days of simplicity I started making my way to the north of Lao. First I wanted to stop at this underground cave before I was back in the more modern north.
Kong Lo cave is a 7.5 km (about 4 miles to you who dont know the metric system) that the Mekong has carved out in this limestone mountain. I hired a boat and went into the darkness with just a flash light, a boatman and 2 other people I had met. It was wild, from 30 feet ceiling to just 5 foot ones. It was just so mysterious and spooky I was just mystified by the whole experience. But that wasn't even the best part of the stop over, that night I stayed in a home-stay. A home-stay is more or less you just staying with a family and doing as they do, eating, sleeping and even showering with them. The only difficult with this particular one was they didnt speak any english because I was in some little village in a national park about an hour away from a small town. In the end english didnt matter at all. I ended up finding a extremely nice family that really took care of me and a friend that I met. Earlier I said we showered together and I wasnt lying, we all were covered in the appropriately areas and we took bucket showers from the same bucket (i can add that to my list of cool opportunities). They made a great mean and I spent most of the night playing with there little son. We all went to bed pretty early considering there is not much to do after you eat and a hard days work (most of the families tend there rice fields and take care of there animal. the home stay is just a side thing to make a little extra money). The next morning it was sad to leave. The grandfather guided us to the bus and was just the sweetest little man. He waved goodbye until we couldnt see him any more. A true picture-esc site!
From there I caught a bus to a large intersection, got out and tried to wave down a big bus going to the capital. It looks like I must have got one because as you can see I have internet.
I have less the a month left which is both sad and exciting to see whats next for me in the next chapter of my life.
-A new insight I learned from being on the bus with locals and having a language barrier: share your food. Its easy as that and you can make new friends.
Cheers and wish me luck as this last month quickly comes to an end.
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