Koh Chang

On May 2nd, while sitting at my resort's bar on Koh Phangan, I asked a traveler drinking with me her thoughts on where I should end my trip in Thailand.  I told her I was going to have about five extra days at the end of my stay in Thailand, between my sister leaving and my flight to Vietnam, and I wanted her input on where I should go.  She seemed like the person to ask, as she had visited Thailand some absurd number of times, and also lived there for a stretch as a scuba instructor.  I told her I wanted something that wasn't too far from Bangkok.  She didn't hesitate with her answer, "Koh Chang", and from that day on I was set on finishing my time in Thailand there.  After researching a little about the island, I was even more excited to go there.

Koh Chang is the second largest island in Thailand after Koh Phuket, but unlike the developed Phuket, Koh Chang is still mostly jungle.  About 85 percent of the island is part of the Mo Koh Chang National Park and is protected and wild.  The interior of the island is mountainous rain forest with many waterfalls and hiking trails.  Before World War II, Koh Chang was only inhabited by some families that made their living growing fruits and coconuts.  Due to its location close to Bangkok, and near the Thai and Cambodian border, it would be a relatively short journey for me and very convenient to get there.

On May 24th, I woke up and was once again solo in my travels.  My sister Caitlin, who I had spent the last 10 days with, had left the night before.  She got picked up by a shuttle to the airport after dinner.  After she walked away, I sat there alone for about thirty minutes and felt quite lonely.  Although I had traveled to Thailand alone, I spent the first week and a half with a Niels, the Dutch guy I met on Koh Phangan, and the rest of the trip with my sister.  I sat there with a beer and was contemplating my next move.  I had options because my high school friend Jason was living and working in Thailand in a small city to the Northeast.  He said I was free to visit whenever, but I also wanted to get back on an island because I really enjoyed the south of Thailand.  Remembering my research about how undeveloped Koh Chang is, I knew that I had to go there.  After finishing my beer, I took 5 steps over to a travel agent conveniently located within the restaurant.  I purchased a ticket to Koh Chang leaving first thing the next morning.

After breakfast, I waited to be picked up in front of my hotel by a travel company.  Right on time, a man came walking up to my hotel with my name on a piece of paper and told me to follow him.   We then stopped a few hotels down the road from mine and picked up another traveler who was still finishing his breakfast.  We were brought to a small van and driven around the block to where many travelers and a few buses were waiting.  After loading up, we were off and stuck in wonderful Bangkok traffic.  Luckily I was sitting next to an interesting Australian fellow and right behind a guy from Tasmania and his German girlfriend.  All three of them were quite interesting and I enjoyed the couple describing there travels in Nepal and India.  I chimed in a few times when they asked me some questions and we had a nice time making friends.  It turned out that the couple was also going to Koh Chang and the Australian guy was heading to Cambodia. After we arrived in Trat, near the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, all the travelers going to Koh Chang waited in a bus station while those traveling on to Cambodia got on another bus.

Following a short wait in the bus terminal, we were put on a ferry to Koh Chang.  The island is not very far from the mainland and it was clear in the distance immediately.

Not long after the ferry left, I was standing alone watching Koh Chang approach, and the Tasmanian guy from the bus came over to me and asked if I wanted to try to locate accommodation in the same area of the island with him and his girlfriend.  I was, of course, welcome to the idea since I knew that one of the best parts of traveling is the fellow travelers you meet along the way.

Once we arrived on the island everyone had to board taxis since every town on the island is located on the opposite side.  The taxi ride was awesome because of the jungle landscape and beautiful vistas as we made our way up the step sides of the mountains.

We decided to find a place to stay on Lonely Beach, near the South East tip of the island.  After wandering around and checking out a few options we decided on some rather nice places on the beach.  We negotiated with the guy working there and got the rooms for 300 baht each.  If this had been peak season I imagine the rooms would probably cost 600 to 800 baht a night, so we got quite a bargain.

On my first night I had an encounter with a huge cockroach in my room that was quite cunning, but after some patience I tracked him down.  That coin is the size of an American quarter.

Most critters never make it into the rooms because of the dozens of Geckos that are patrolling the outside walls of each bungalow.

The island is very beautiful!

I spent the next 4 days on Koh Chang relaxing and exploring the island.  One day we rented scooters and drove all the way to the other side of the island and did some exploring.  We also stopped at one of the islands most famous waterfalls and went for a swim.  The park where the waterfall was located charged Thai people 50 baht to enter the park, but 200 baht for foreigners.  This was met with a bit of frustration from my fellow travelers, but I wasn't bothered by it.  The way I see it, this place is their country, so they should have easier access to it.  Not only that but 200 baht (6 dollars) is less money to me, relative to my income, than 50 baht (1.50 dollars) is to them, so I just shrugged it off.  It isn't that I work any harder to earn a higher income than they do.  I actually think many work much harder than I do and only earn less because I work in countries where the cost of living, and therefore the incomes, are much higher.  I am sure many others don't agree with my point of view, but I thought it was a non issue and paid without a second thought.

During our trip around the island, my companions' scooter ran out of fuel, so we had to hunt for a shop selling fuel.  On these islands the fuel comes in old glass bottles that you can either pour directly into the tank or carry along with you for future use.  After refueling, and stocking up on water, we continued around the island.  Eventually we reached a dead end because the road that circles the island's coast does not go all the way around.  So when we reached the end we were forced to turn around.  Before we turned around we parked the bikes and walked on an awesome little boardwalk that goes through some wetlands.  It was amazing!

On the way back we stopped to eat.  There are very few people on this side of the island, but the ones we met were really friendly and happy to cook us a meal.

Once back on the populated, southern side of Koh Chang we stopped to take some pictures before descending back onto the beach level road that is lined with resorts and restaurants.

Even from the area in the picture above we were far below the highest peaks on Koh Chang that you can see in the picture below.

I highly recommend Koh Chang to anyone visiting Thailand!  I am happy that I made the decision to go there.  It is a little bit out of the way if you are traveling to the Phuket area, but if you are in Bangkok it is a really easy island to get to.

Into Cambodia

June 16, 2013

8 am

I repacked my backpack in my hotel room in a Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) like I always did before traveling to a new city.  First, to make sure I had all of my essential things and also to ensure that there wasn't anything in my bag that wasn't supposed to be in there.  I made my way downstairs and into the alley outside the hotel.  The hotel was run by a very small woman, of about 35, who was born with deformities to her hands, arms, legs and also had crossed eyes.  She was only about 4' 6" and she couldn't walk properly.  Her birth defects were similar to the pictures I had seen in the Vietnam War museum of children born after their mothers' were exposed to Agent Orange and other defoliants that America dropped on Vietnam to strip the forests' of their leaves.  I don't know that her birth defects were the result of such chemical contamination, but I certainly never saw anyone in America or anywhere with such strikingly similar birth defects to the pictures I had seen.  She slept in a room on the ground floor of the hotel, and when she wasn't cleaning, she spent her time in a neighboring building with other women who ran hotels nearby.  I gave her the key, thanked her, and then was off to breakfast and to the travel agency down the block where I had purchased my bus ticket to Phnom Penh the previous day.

After a motorbike taxi picked me up and speedily brought me to where a bus was waiting, I was standing on the sidewalk unsure if I was supposed to enter the bus waiting there.  The motorbike driver had just stopped the bike and walked away without any sort of direction to me.  A few minutes later he walked over and handed me a bus ticket and drove off.  The bus was being loaded with all sorts of food, building supplies and other random items that you don't normally see being put on a passenger bus.  When it got close to the time that I knew my bus was supposed to depart, I approached someone who looked like they worked on the bus and presented my ticket.  He told me to get on the bus and asked for my Cambodian Visa.  I signaled by making an X with my hands that I didn't have one and said in English that I could get one at the border.  He spoke in what sounded like a harsh tone to me in Vietnamese that could have only been interpreted to me as "You don't have one? You need one! It should be on one of these pages!" as he flipped through my passport.  After the rant, he signaled for me to get on the bus and walked away quickly.  Now this was not what I wanted to hear as I was getting on a bus to a border crossing of two third world countries, but I knew that I didn't need a Visa prior to arrival at the border.  I had made sure of this before leaving South Korea and knew others who had crossed the border without one.  I even had a backpacker magazine with me, that I grabbed in Hanoi, that laid out all the Visa requirements for all the countries in South East Asia.  I knew I was right, so I wasn't too worried, but was wondering if I was the first American that he had ever taken across the border or if he just had a horrible memory.  Certain I was right, I took my seat, and eventually the rest of the passengers got on the bus. 

As the bus began to leave, they put a DVD in so we could all enjoy a movie during the ride.  As it was queuing up I was wondering if I would even be able to understand whatever was about to come on.  What is the chance they would play something in English as I was the only Westerner on the bus.  To my surprise, the DVD that began to play was "Vietnam in HD", a documentary about the Vietnam War.  I had recently seen this documentary, and knew that it showed all the horrors of the Vietnam war and America's treatment of the Vietnamese civilians. The video had Vietnamese subtitles, and it seemed to me that most, if not all of the people on the bus were Vietnamese. Needless to say, this was quite the awkward position to be in as I was the only American in their midst.  I couldn't even pretend to be Canadian because the man on the bus, as well as several others around me, had seen me with my passport out just a few minutes before.  Not once during the film did anyone on the bus look at me in a bad way or make me feel uncomfortable at all. 

 About 30 minutes after we left Saigon, the man working on the bus walked around and collected everyone's passport.  When he got to me, I reminded him very bluntly that I didn't have, and didn't need, a Visa and he said something very loud in Vietnamese and walked away without taking my passport.  I again read the fine print of my magazine that clearly said Americans did not need to get a Visa before arrival in Cambodia and told myself that it would be alright and this guy was just an idiot. I figured that he must have known that he could get me across the border otherwise he wouldn't be taking me on a bus to the border, right?  Unless he really didn't care if he had to leave me at the border to wait for a bus traveling back to Saigon.  About 30 minutes later, I could hear him on the phone as he was sorting out the arrangements for the rest of the passengers to get across the border.  When his phone call was finished he came up to me and took my passport without saying a word, but his demeanor had changed a bit.

When we arrived at the border, there were tons of people standing in a line pushing each other to get to one small window.  The man from the bus company had my passport, so I went to the bathroom and then stood in the back of the room and waited.  Eventually, he came up to me and I followed him back to where our bus was waiting. He signaled that I should stay by the bus and he got on the back of a motorbike and went across the border with my passport.  I sat there and watched many people pushing their motorbikes across the border, and I assumed they were not permitted to drive them through this government area.  I did see a few rule breakers, including the man who taxied away the man with my passport, cruise across the border and out of sight without a problem.  Maybe ten minutes later, he returned and handed me my passport with a colorful Cambodian visa freshly inserted inside.  I got back on the bus and sat down, breathed a sign of relief, and listened to some music.  Eventually, everyone else got back on the bus and we entered Cambodia and into some heavy rain.

After a stop at a restaurant, and a sketchy river crossing on a ferry, we eventually began to enter a more heavily populated area which I knew was Phnom Penh.  I booked my hotel in Phnom Penh using the Agoda App on my IPhone.  I knew when I arrived I would not have wifi and would need to be able to find my hotel without the use of my GPS, so I took several screen shots of the map Agoda provided of my hotels location.  Agoda's maps are not detailed at all, showing only outlines of roads and no names, but a few blocks away from my hotel were a few distinct looking roads, including a circle, and also a large river that I knew I would be able to recognize on a map when I arrived.  I took several screen shots from different zooms, to help me find it on my own if need be. This was just a backup and obviously my first option would be to show the name of my hotel to a taxi driver and hopefully they would take me there. 

At around 4 pm we arrived in Phnom Penh and everyone got out of the bus.  I had absolutely no idea where in Phnom Penh we were or if we were anywhere close to the hotel I had made reservations with.  All of the Tuk Tuk taxis waiting were trying to grossly overcharge me.  One driver said he could take me there for 5 dollars and I immediately walked away.  He followed me for a few blocks and dropped the price down to 3 dollars.  Now this sounds like a ridiculously cheap taxi ride to me now, and I am sure to anyone else reading this, but they are not charging locals 3 dollars for a ride within the city.  Most Cambodians earn less than 3 dollars a day (Cambodian 2012 nominal GDP was $926 which is $2.56 a day) and certainly could not afford such a fare, but since I am a tourist they like to take advantage which is totally understandable.  In hindsight, I was just being stubborn to make the point that I wasn't a chump, but I didn't want to be ripped off and preferred to get there my own way.  Thinking back on it now, I would like to give money to every person I walked past there because they do live a life of poverty while my life is luxurious by comparison.  However, when you are immersed in that region for a few months you start to think of the fair value of goods and services there quite differently.  You begin to understand the going rate of things and don't want to pay 5 or 10 times the real price just because you can afford it.  I noticed that this mentality had taken over other travelers the month before, when I was in Thailand, and I didn't really care then, but after getting ripped off a few times I began to think the same way.  I knew I would pay more for some things, but if there was a way around it I would find it. So I began to walk and scan my surroundings.

A few blocks later, I saw what looked like a decent hotel, and walked in to see if there was a city map I could buy or take for free.  The girl behind the counter didn't understand English, but I was able to get across that I was in need of a map.  She signaled that she didn't have one, but pointed to one of the walls which sure enough had a city map hanging.  I walked over and compared my Agoda map to this detailed city map and  located the distinct road layout near my hotels location.  I asked her where we were now by miming and she scanned the map for a few minutes and then pointed to a location.  I immediately realized that it was actually quite a straight forward trip to my hotel, although it was probably 45 minutes or so by foot.  I took several pictures of this map with my phone, thanked her and made my way down the road.  I have always been good with maps and used to like to draw them as a child. With pictures of the city map in my phone I felt confident I could find my way without trouble. 

The walk across the city was a really cool experience.  There was a good shoulder on the road and I got to see more of the city than I could have if I quickly passed by everything in a Tuk Tuk. It was drizzling a little bit, but in that humidity it was a welcomed relief and I was able to find my hotel without much trouble.

I'll blog about Phnom Penh and the rest of Cambodia soon!

Day 1 on Koh Phangan

May 2, 2013

The resort I made reservations with on the mainland had a taxi pick me up at the port of Koh Phangan.  The taxi was a pick up truck with a covered bed and bench seats on both sides.  There were about five of us in the truck bed.  The man sitting across from me introduced himself to me as Niels from Holland and we had a nice chat as the truck took us to a more sparsely populated side of the island.  About 20 minutes into the trip, the other two or three people in the truck with us were dropped of at a resort.  Niels and I were told to remain in the truck because our resort was further away.  We eventually turned down a small driveway onto a hilly, unpaved dirt road that looked like it had been washed away during the last rain storm.  After an extremely uneven, bumpy ride, we arrived at our resort and were surprised to find that it was completely vacant except for the two of us.  Another surprise was that half of the resort was under construction.  Apparently the owner of the resort was not renewing the lease for one half of the property, so he was moving the restaurant and a number of rooms to the side of the property he owned.

After arriving, we got settled into our rooms.  I had opted for the cheapest kind of bungalow with no air conditioning.  The bathroom had a thatched roof and stone walls.  I could look over the walls of the bathroom into the surrounding jungle.  Animals could easily enter and exit my bathroom and there were a number of spider webs along the ceiling which was only a few inches over my head.  Niels, on the other hand, was in one of the nicest rooms at the resort.  It was a proper room with walls and a proper shower.  It was also situated in front of an in ground pool right along the beach.  After we showered, we met for lunch at the restaurant of the resort.  The burgers we ordered were not very good at all, but we both were happy to be on the island and relaxing.  We made small talk about our backgrounds and got along very well.  Niels had already been in Thailand for about two weeks.  He had traveled through the Northern Thai cities before venturing to South to Koh Phangan.  I found him to be quite interesting and a very nice guy.  I knew that we were going to get along well.

After eating, we decided to explore the island a bit.  It didn't take us long to realize that we had made a mistake choosing this resort.  If there were other people there it would be quite a great place, but because it was the low season the whole place seemed deserted.  We got a ride from one of the workers there and he dropped us off at a busier beach area along the Southern shore.

This is the view we had during lunch that first day.

I had originally chosen to come to Koh Phangan because a friend I knew in South Korea, named Sarah, was actually going to be on the island that week.  She and I had become friends after having discussions about traveling to South East Asia on a Facebook group for the foreigners in our local city in South Korea. She had given me all sorts of good advice and we ended up meeting and hanging out a few times in February right before she left South Korea.  She had already been in South East Asia for about two months by the time I arrived in Thailand and we had plans to meet up once I arrived.  She told me that around the first week of May she would be in Koh Phangan, so I decided it was as good a place as any to start my trip.  I didn't have any idea where on the island she was, so Niels and I just decided to wander around until she made contact with me.



We found that Koh Phangan was not nearly as busy as we thought it would be, but it was very beautiful.  We walked down the beach and asked others where we should go.  After getting a beer, we eventually made our way to a place that Niels had heard of on the South Eastern tip of the island called Coral Bungalows.  It was a nice place with a pool on the beach and many people there.  We decided that we would book rooms here for the following night.  There was a huge monthly pool party happening at this resort later that night.  Niels and I were not really in the mood for a crazy party because we were both extremely tired.  Niels had just endured literally 24 hours of traveling including a 12 hour train from Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand to Bangkok and then an overnight bus ride to Southern Thailand.  After we had dinner and drinks, we watched the sunset, and made our way on foot to see what else was on this side of the island.  The island had a really relaxed and laid back feel to it and was mostly locals.

                 
                                                    

We walked around some roads, waiting to see a taxi to take us back to our resort.  It was not easy to find one that was not already full of people.  We eventually arrived at what appeared to be a small taxi hub and we sought out the first driver we saw and asked how much it would cost to get back to our resort.  After a nearly two hour showdown of egos between Niels and a taxi driver, over the price of the taxi ride back to our resort, Niels finally gave in.  Niels was pretty savvy about appropriate prices for transportation in Thailand and also pretty stubborn if he thought we were getting overpriced.  Witnessing this scene was really funny to watch because both men were extremely stubborn and I didn't really mind waiting because it was only about 9 pm. Niels only gave in after I pointed out that they were arguing about a few dollars and that this amount of money was not much to us, but it meant a lot to him.  Not to mention that he was working for someone else, so it wasn't like he was keeping all the money from our fare.  Once we got into the taxi we thought our day was over, but to our surprise, the taxi driver appeared to make a detour and then picked up his wife and young son.  Then he stopped for dinner, and also picked up a local father and son.  I would learn that this was pretty normal in Thailand, but on that day it seemed rather strange.  After almost 40 minutes in the bed of his pick up truck, we arrived back at our resort.

When we arrived, there were a few people at the bar of our resort, so I pulled up a chair and introduced myself.  Niels went to sleep because he was far more tired than me from his long trip from Chiang Mai. The bartender was a British expat in his mid to late 40's.  Sitting in front of him were a British woman of about 30 and a German man in his late 30's having beers.  About 20 minutes after I arrived at the bar, an Irish man in his 50's wandered up from the beach and sat next to me.  He was really drunk and the bartender knew him as somewhat of a regular.  The conversation that ensued was one of the funniest I have ever heard.  The Irish man insisted on talking about subjects that I wouldn't even think to say out loud, and the rest of us were tearing because we were laughing so hard.  The conversation ranged from blatant racism against all Thai people, sexual fetishes of tall women, various situations when he was arrested, and his insisting that he wasn't a pervert while bringing up subjects that would point to the contrary.  There was a point where he was actively insulting the British woman's uncle and she was laughing so hard she said that she would be angry later, but couldn't help hysterically laughing now.  

Eventually I made my way back to my bungalow and had to deal with the mosquito net that was bunched up over my bed.  I did my best to get the net around my bed, but it only left the very center of the bed untouched by the bottom of the net.  Also, the bed had a backboard that made it impossible to get the net to fully enclose the bed.  In fact, the one area of the bed that wasn't well covered by the net was right where my head was.  Following about 5 minutes of fiddling with the net, I figured I had it the best I was going to get it and got in.  Like out of a movie, the second I turned off the lights and got myself in the bed comfortably, I heard the fluttering of a huge bug underneath the bed.  I immediately sprung up and out of the bed, turned the light on, and searched under the bed for the source of the sound.  I couldn't locate the bug, but I knew that there had to be all sorts of critters in the room and I just had to deal with it.  I decided to put my earphones on and listen to music to deafen myself to the sounds of all the creatures sharing the room with me.  As long as I couldn't hear them I knew I would be able to relax and fall asleep.  It worked well and I was asleep quickly.

The second day on Koh Phangan was a Half Moon Party, and a much more interesting day.  Eventually I will get to blogging about it.  

First Day in Hue, Vietnam and crashing the "Buffalo Run"

June 7, 2013

After an amazing time in northern Vietnam, I traveled on an overnight bus from Hanoi to Hue.  This overnight bus ride was my first in Vietnam and it was an interesting one.  My seat was all the way in the rear of the bus, and I was laying in the middle of two other foreigners.  All of the other seats on the bus were single seats except for the six in the back of the bus.  There were three on the bottom, where I was, and three right above us.  These three seats were pretty much one huge seat and the three of us where laying shoulder to shoulder.  The guy on my right joined the ride about 2 hours into the trip and had headphones on and didn't really say a word.  The guy to my left was an interesting 24 year old British guy who had just spent the last 4 months traveling in China alone.  We had a nice conversation, for the first few hours of the ride, about our travels.  The rest of the bus consisted of single seats along each side of the bus and single seats in the middle of the bus with an isle on each side of the center seat.  Being placed all the way in the rear of this bus seemed like a stroke of bad luck because it was right above the engine and there was heat coming up from under the seats.  I also felt a little bit claustrophobic because I was crammed in between two men and I felt that if there was an accident, or the bus somehow ended up in water, I was surely doomed.  The isles of the bus were barely wide enough for me to walk through and I had no idea if there was actually an emergency exit.  Another thing that would have made it more difficult for me to escape were the Vietnamese people that were sleeping in the isles of the bus.  Apparently, once the bus is full, people can ride in the isles of the bus for an extremely low fare. Many poorer Vietnamese use this mode of transportation all the time.  Also, being right above the engine made me think of the possibility of a fire and that also scared me.  After about 4 hours in the bus, it stopped at a rest area.  I went to the bathroom and then stood on the side of the building in front of our bus with the British guy.  We talked some more as he had a cigarette and watched the dish washing operation for the restaurant on the side of the building.  I took a picture of it as we waited to depart.

As I was in a very uncomfortable situation in the rear of this bus, and just wanted to sleep to pass the time, I took an allergy pill that has a wonderful drowsy effect.  I fell asleep listening to music shortly after departing the rest area and slept peacefully.  About 5 hours later it was daylight and I woke up sweating and uncomfortable.  For some reason, the driver turned off the air conditioning on the bus and it got really hot especially where I was over top of the engine.  The stuffy, hot air was making my feeling of claustrophobia quite a bit worse. I was getting really sweaty and the British guy and I were discussing the intellect of the Vietnamese people operating the bus.  After about 20 minutes, the air conditioning came back on and I was able to breath again. I took a few pictures at this time as we waited to arrive in Hue.

At around 7 or so in the morning we arrived in Hue and everyone got out of the bus.  Once I got my bag from under the bus, I met a Dutch guy who was also looking to find the Hue Backpackers Hostel where I had a reservation.  We found out that it was only a mile or so walk away, so we began to make our way there on foot.  It was then that I realized that I had lost one of my flip flops which I had kept them in the side pocket of my bag. I gave the remaining flip flop to the Dutch guy because he only had one shoe.  We easily found the hostel and there were no vacancies, so the Dutch guy went down the road to find accommodation.  I had a reservation, but I couldn't get into my room until 11 am, so I took a seat at the bar inside the hostel and ordered some breakfast and coffee.  I struck up a conversation with a guy from Turkey that was living and working at the hostel.  He had been there for about a month and wasn't sure exactly how long he would stay there.  He said they gave him a place to stay and paid him enough to be able to enjoy himself.  I thought he was truly living an adventurous life and found myself quite jealous.  I remember working out the details in my mind and wondering if I would enjoy doing something similar for a few months.  I guess that possibility still exists for me.

I had stayed at the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel and this hostel in Hue was owned by the same three Australian guys.  I was very interested to talk to this Turkish guy and we discussed the Hostel's operation and what good business they do.  In Hanoi there are two Hanoi Backpackers Hostels and they are both huge and full of foreigners traveling around.  They have free breakfast and they coordinate trips.  They also have computers and amazing wifi.  Staying in their hostel in Hanoi was a great way to meet people and find out about places to go.  The Vietnamese women that work in these hostels speak English and are very helpful and friendly. As the Turkish guy and I were talking, a man of about 40 came up and joined the conversation.  After a few minutes, I realized that this man was one of the three owners of the Hanoi and Hue Backpackers Hostels.  He was a really down to Earth, nice guy and we had a nice chat.  After about 30 minutes of talking with him, he asked me what my plans were for the day.  I told him that I didn't have any plans, but I guessed I would walk around Hue a bit and see what there was to see.  He told me that there was a group going to a beach where a Frenchmen he was friends with was in the process of building a resort and asked if I'd like to join.  I asked how much it costed and he said this time it's free, so I agreed to join.  After eating, the owner told me there was a shower I could use next to the bar, so I got clean and waited until the group was leaving for the beach at 10 am.  While I was waiting I spoke with one of the Vietnamese women that worked there about a tour of the Khe Sahn air base.  I really wanted to see some of the war history and Khe Sahn, which was the site of a major siege during the Vietnam War, was only about an hour and a half away.  She made a call and booked a tour for me for the following day.

At 10 am the van to the beach was getting ready to leave, so I stood nearby and waited to see if the owner remembered that he invited me.  Sure enough, once people started to get into the van, he asked me if I still wanted to go and I eagerly jumped in the van with a smile.  Once inside the van, I exchanged names with the man who was sitting next to me.  It turned out that he was one of the other owners of the Hanoi/Hue Backpackers Hostels.  He was actually one of the original owners of the Hanoi Backpackers and he and the guy that invited me were childhood friends. In the van, were the two owners of the hostel, a driver and about 9 other traveling backpackers. I had a nice discussion with the owner sitting next to me about our trip to the beach.  I was wondering why the two owners were taking a group of backpackers to the beach.  He told me that 6 of the 9 other travelers on the bus were part of the new "Buffalo Run" tour that the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel just started. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNk-vR5va_Q  This was actually only the second time the "Buffalo Run" tour had been done and the owner was still working out the logistics.  The best way for him to figure out the most efficient way to run the tour was to actually do it himself and work out any problems.  Once he had worked out all of the kinks he would train someone who worked for the hostel to be the leader of the tour in the future.  This tour consisted of a 4 day scooter ride from Hanoi to Hue with stops at various places along the way.  While in Hue, the tour goes to the beach for the day to relax after a long ride.  After Hue the tour continues south along the coast to Hoi An.  Myself, and the other two guys who were not part of the tour, were just in the right place at the right time and got a free trip to the beach because there were open seats in the van.  Before leaving Hue for the beach, we made a quick stop at a famous temple.  It was a beautiful day, so I was able to get some nice pictures.

Inside this park was the car that the famous Buddist monk Thich Quang Duc had set himself on fire next to in a 1963 protest against the South Vietnamese government's persecution of Buddists.

Here is a picture of Thich Quang Duc on fire in Saigon. (Notice the car behind him)
                                       

Here is a picture I took.

After visiting this park and temple we made our way to the beach.  There was nothing on this beach except for a private beach bar and some small little thatched roofed huts people could lay inside.  The beach was rented by a Frenchmen of about 45 and his Vietnamese wife.  He was in the process of building a small resort of bungalows and his wife had just opened up this beach bar.  The 11 of us took seats around the bar and ordered beers, relaxed and ate steamed clams.  It was such a nice day that I immediately took some pictures.

This last picture is of the two owners of the Hanoi/Hue Backpackers as they were enjoying their beers and conversation.  The woman in this picture is the Vietnamese wife of one of one of the owners.

After a few beers and some wine, all of us went for a swim in the ocean.  It was such an amazing day and the water felt great.  In early May, a month before this, I was in Southern Thailand and believe me this beach easily rivaled those beaches. Vietnam would be a popular tropical destination if they had islands like Thailand does.  During the 10 hours we were at the beach I made friends with the other travelers.  They were from Ireland, Canada, the USA, Norway and England.  Actually one of the guys that came with us to the beach, but also wasn't part of the Buffalo Run, was an American that I hung out with the week before in Hanoi.  He and I spent a few hours hanging out with two Dutch girls outside the Hanoi Backpackers the day before I went to Sapa.  The guy from Norway, who also wasn't part of the tour,was about 19 or 20 years old and had purchased a scooter in Southern Vietnam.  He was making his was through Vietnam on the scooter alone.  I met more than a few people who were doing that same thing and they all raved about how amazing the trip was.  The beauty of traveling by scooter is that they buy the bike in either the north or the south and when they arrive on the other side of the country they can just sell the bike to another person for about the same price they originally bought it for.

In the evening, we played volleyball until we could no longer see the ball well enough to play.  I also made time to take some pictures.  These pictures are not photo-shopped at all.  The sky really had all of those colors.  It was an amazing day!

I could not have planned a day this perfect.  I arrived in Hue with no plans or expectations about what to do or see.  I just knew that I was open to experiencing life and meeting new people.  This was my plan for the whole trip and many many times it worked out wonderfully for me, but this was a magical day.  Remembering this day reminds me that the World is full of possibilities and all I have to do is put myself out there and let them happen to me.

From the US to South Korea

The day I left for South Korea will always be a day I remember very well.  It was the beginning of the greatest adventure that I have ever been on.  I will attempt to describe the events of that LONG day the way I remember it.

November 30, 2011

I did not sleep the night before I was due to leave for South Korea.  My flight out of Philadelphia was at 7:35 AM and I was much too excited to sleep, so I spent the night watching a movie in my basement.  The basement at my parents house had been my area of solitude since I moved home in November 2010.  I had a 42" plasma TV down there that I had relaxed in front of every night after 11 or 12 hours of work.  On my last night in the house I wasn't watching my plasma TV because I had moved it into my mother's room, so she could use it during my absence.  Instead, at around midnight, I set up an old 20" TV, so I could relax and pass the time.  As I stared in front of me at the absence of my plasma TV, I could feel my absence from this place becoming a reality.  Many things in the basement were mine, but the plasma TV was the biggest and most obvious.  Without it I felt that the basement was missing something.  I thought of how if someone were to come down there while I was away this is what they would see.  How this basement would be a quiet, empty place while I was away.  I didn't feel sad at the time, just contemplative.

At around 5 am I was dropped off at the Philadelphia airport by my father and it was still pitch black outside.  We removed my luggage from the trunk and he embraced me very firmly.  As we said our final goodbyes, I could feel the emotion in his voice, so I quickly gathered a hold of my two large bags and began to walk away.  I feared a teary goodbye because I didn't want to begin my journey in that way.  I knew it would be a long day and I did not want to let emotion drain my energy.  I knew I would have plenty of time on the airplane to reflect.  

The next steps in the journey were a 2 hour flight to Chicago and then a 13.5 hour flight to Seoul.  I didn't really sleep at all during my flights because I was so excited and nervous all at the same time.  I can still remember the first time I looked upon the Korean landscape out of the window.  It immediately struck me that it looked nothing like any of the places I had visited in my entire life.  The small rocky islands I could see as we approached the coast were beautiful.  After arriving at the Incheon airport, I had to collect my bags, and take a shuttle to a smaller airport called Gimpo that was about 15 minutes from Incheon.  The flight from Gimpo would bring me to the Gimhae/Busan airport.  Luckily, after going through customs, there was another confused American looking to catch a shuttle to the Gimpo airport.  Ironically, his name was also Matt and we joined forces to navigate our way.  We found the shuttle with some help from a few friendly Koreans.  Before we knew it, we were at the Gimpo airport and it was once again night time.  After wasting a few dollars trying to use the pay phone, I successfully called my parents and notified them that I had arrived in South Korea in one piece.  After about an hour, Matt and I said good bye as he boarded his flight to Gwangju and I boarded my flight to Gimhae.  He was the first fellow expat I would befriend during the next 19 months and not enough can be said for meeting a stranger while traveling.  Although you don't know them, the comfort of common understanding in an unfamiliar place can really put a person at ease.

My flight to Gimhae was full of Korean businessmen and one other foreigner.  South Korea was covered by overcast that night, so I couldn't really see much from my window. After an hour flight, we descended and circled the airport above Busan and I took in the beauty of the city lights.  After exiting the plane, I struck up a conversation with the other foreigner who was on my flight. He turned out to be an American, and we exchanged names and decided to stick together.  That didn't last long, as the moment we walked into the terminal a Korean (his school's recruiter) approached us and escorted him away.  I was alone and I quickly realized after walking around the room that there was no one there waiting for me.  There were Koreans waiting there, but no one waiting for me, so I just waited around for about 10 minutes.  After becoming impatient, I attempted to use another dreaded payphone similar to the type that I already had issues with at the Gimpo airport.  I was attempting to call my recruiter, as that was the only phone number that I had.  After two failed attempts I was all out of Korean coins and no closer to knowing why there was no one there to pick me up.  I was getting stares from around the room as I was the only foreigner and obviously looked confused.   Then a Korean man came up to me and gave me some coins and attempted to help me call.  He couldn’t speak a word of English, but he was very kind and persistent in helping me.  After a few frustrating minutes, and no one answering on the other end of the phone, another Korean man hurried up behind me and grabbed my bags and said “come”.  I tried to ask him if it was Matthew that he was supposed to be picking up, but he didn’t speak any English and I just trusted that this was my ride.  After we got in his car, he dialed a number and spoke in Korean to someone on the line.  Then he handed me the phone and I was greeted by a  woman’s voice speaking to me in English.  I assume she was someone from the recruiting company, and she told me that this man would bring me to meet my director and that I should “Do a good job.”  After I hung up, we drove down the streets of Gimhae and I got my first glimpse at the city that would become my home.

Although I was extremely exhausted, I couldn't stop staring out of the window at my new surroundings.  It was fascinating to finally be in South Korea after so much time thinking about being there.  After about a 30 minute drive, the driver pulled the car onto the sidewalk, which I thought was weird, and he purchased me a drink at a convenience store that was below my academy.  A few minutes later, my director came downstairs and introduced himself and asked if I was hungry.  He said that everything was closed except McDonald's and the “Korean McDonald's”, since it was after 11 pm.  Five minutes later, I found myself eating a chicken sandwich as my director and the driver watched me and spoke in Korean.  After I finished eating they took me to my apartment building.  The ends of the hallways of my apartment building were open to the outside, so it was cold, dark, and not very welcoming.  We entered my room and I was instructed to remove my shoes.  My room was freezing because the sliding door at the back of the apartment was open and the cold December air was blowing in.  After teaching me how to use the water heater for the shower and floor, and reminding me that someone would come by at around 11 AM the next day to take me to the school, my director and the driver left. Alone in my room for the first time, I was much too excited to go to sleep, so I unpacked all of my belongings and put them in the closet.  Then I took a shower and made up my bed.  After reading for a little while I went to sleep for the first time in Korea.

I can still remember opening my eyes for the first time the next day, and it dawning on me that I was in Korea.  It was a strange realization at first, but it was quickly followed by a wave of excitement.  It had been my dream to be on my own in a faraway land and experience everything that comes with that.  When I think back on the day I left the familiar and went to South Korea, I feel really great.  It was such an important step for me personally.  The next 17 months in Korea would be a true adventure for me.

Since arriving back home in the States I have met some people who see teaching English abroad as a waste of time.  They might point out that our late twenties are when large increases in salary occur or other important career advancements happen.  They see the job, "English Teacher" and wonder why someone like myself, who is not a licensed teacher in America, would want to teach English. What they don't see in the job title is all that comes with living abroad.  For me teaching children English was an amazing experience, but the most amazing parts were everything else that came with living abroad.  Things that I would need a book to describe and emotions that I can't really explain to someone who hasn't done it.  I am left with a feeling of unrelenting optimism about life that I never had prior to living abroad.  Life is an adventure and those that just look at what job you work at, or how much money you earn, are missing an important part of what being alive is really about.  Seek adventure and do something different because I believe it's a great way to begin the task of seeking who it is you really are, what you love, and what you can become.  In the end, I don't lecture people that don't understand my decision to live abroad.  I understand that it is not for everybody and that they don't know what they are missing.

This first picture is of part of my apartment.  You can't see my bed in this picture, but it is just to the right.

The next few pictures are among the first shots I took of Gimhae the week after arriving.

Local market located about 2 minutes from my house on foot.

               
 Market at night.                    

First Overnight Bus in Thailand

Early morning
May 2, 2013

I was awoken in the middle of the overnight bus journey to Southern Thailand to a stopped bus.  As I was opening my eyes, I could hear the storage compartment of the bus being opened. There was apparently someone else joining our bus. After a minute, our driver entered the door in front of me and there was a woman of about 30 behind him.  He pointed to the empty seat next to me, and she promptly took her seat. We nodded hello to each other as I moved my bag and made room for her to sit down.  I was only half awake, but was a bit disappointed that my extra leg room was being taken away from me.  I couldn't really complain because I was the only person on the bus that had a vacant seat next to them.  As much as it sucked to give it up, I had to appreciate the extra room I got for the first 3 hours of the ride. While she was settling in, and I was re-situating myself, I looked out the window.  What I saw out the window was a first for me.  There was a 20 year old woman driving a scooter with what appeared to be her mother, of about 40 something, sitting on the scooter behind her.  Her mother was sitting with both of her legs hanging off of one side of the scooter as she sat sideways.  She was holding an infant of no more than 3 months out in front of her.  I think she was holding the small baby like this to maintain her balance while they began to move.  Neither woman was wearing a helmet and they were doing a U-turn in the middle of the road. Now, in South Korea, I witnessed all sorts of unorthodox scooter practices including, an entire family of 4 on a single scooter, scooters driving on sidewalks, down crowded alley markets and through red lights.  However, I had never seen an infant on a scooter before, let alone one being held by a woman who didn't even appear to be safely seated herself. After the scooter disappeared from view, the bus pulled away and I tried to fall back asleep.  This would just be the first time I would see ridiculous situations on scooters in South East Asia.  I would eventually become quite numb to the danger and craziness and Vietnam would eventually set a new standard of scooter insanity.

About an hour later, the bus was once again stopped and I woke up.  People started to stand up and the bus doors opened.  I looked out the window and realized we were at a rest area, so I got out of the bus with everyone else.  I walked into the building and took my first look at a South East Asian rest area.  The first thing I noticed was a strange smell that was not appetizing in the least.  I can't describe the smell, but it was something awful. Closer to a smell I would expect in a port-o-potty, not a place where I might eat something. The building did not have a wall in the front and was opened to the driveway where buses were parked. There were rows of things for sale and a kitchen in the back.  The kitchen had a counter with a window in front of it, and there were some girls working in the back.  To my surprise, there were travelers ordering food and sitting down to quickly eat before the bus would leave.  The food was white rice covered with some sort of meat and vegetables, all covered in a brownish sauce.  Now maybe I'm just paranoid, but there was no way I was going to eat anything coming from that kitchen.  Not only did the smell dispel any slight appetite I had, but I was about to get back onto a bus for another 8 hours.  I mean I like to try different things, but that is only if there is a bathroom nearby.  Granted the bus did have a tiny bathroom, but not one I would choose to have an upset stomach in.   I don't mind an upset stomach in my own home, but I would prefer not to have one in the middle of the night, in a third world country, while I'm surrounded by a bunch of strangers.

After deciding that I wasn't going to eat the "fresh food", I decided to check out what kinds of packaged foods were for sale.  They mostly had all sorts of unidentifiable snacks that I won't even attempt to guess at.  I could tell that there was a fair amount of dried fruits that looked edible, but I wasn't in the mood for that.  After I wandered a bit, I decided to go to the bathroom.  While I walked down the dark corridor to the bathroom, I could see the reflection of a woman in one of the mirrors at the end of the hall.  I immediately thought I was walking into the women's bathroom, so I turned around  and walked back to the beginning of the hallway.  When I reached the store again, I looked around and saw that the women's bathroom was indeed across the room and I was in the right place.  So I walked back and awkwardly passed the woman that was brushing her teeth and proceeded into the area with the toilets.  I was greeted by a dark, damp room that had a bunch of stalls with squat toilets in them.  Each stall was really dirty, and wet, and the whole place reeked.  There were also dozens of lizards crawling on the walls and ceiling.  I quickly did my business and got out of there, as it reminded me of a place that I might imagine in a nightmare.  After getting back to the front of the building, I got on the bus and hoped I hadn't touched anything in that place.  A few minutes later, everyone else finished their food and cigarettes and we departed.  At around 2 am, about half of the people on the bus got off the bus and went somewhere else.  I think they were getting on a ferry to another island further North.  I really had no idea at the time and didn't bother to find out.

I was able to sleep for most of the remainder of the trip, and we arrived at Surrathani a few hours earlier than I had anticipated.  It was about 5 or 6 am when the bus stopped at a small house that had been turned into a store and office. The sun was just peaking over the horizon when we were told to get out of the bus.  The sky was clear and the air was humid, but not too hot.  The driver unloaded everyone's bags from beneath the bus and set them on the ground.  After the bus left, I walked around confused by our current situation.  I was under the impression that we were being taken to a dock to get onto a ferry to Koh Phangan.  Instead we were in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere with no water in sight.  I took a seat next to some other travelers and watched the stray dogs on the road.  One of them was missing a front leg and was hobbling to walk very slowly. I felt quite sorry for him and wondered how he managed to lose his leg.  The dog laid down in the road and rested as some cars and scooters drove past him. Then another dog appeared down the road and the three legged dog sprung up and sprinted over to greet it.  It ran so well on three legs that I don't even think his condition slowed him down at all.  It was only walking that was apparently difficult for him.  I would come to love the stray dogs in Thailand.  In America, strays tend to stay away from people. They tend to be very wary of people and don't always seem very nice.  Strays in America have learned that people generally try to capture them and bring them to the pound.  People also tend to mistreat stray dogs and fear contact with them because of diseases.  I found that in Thailand the strays are the nicest dogs.  I met hundreds of strays while traveling and they were as friendly as any dog you might find in your friends back yard in America.  They might be covered in scars and missing a leg here and there, but they are wonderful to interact with while traveling.

Here's a view of the sunrise while we were waiting that morning.

This is a stray I met on Koh Chang later in the month.  You can see that his back is covered in scars.

After a few hours of waiting, I was called into the building.  All of the other travelers had already been called into the building one by one and I wasn't sure exactly what they were doing in there.  When I got inside, I was told to take a seat and a man was sitting at a desk.  He asked me if I already had accommodation on the island and I told him that I did not.  He asked me if I wanted to stay in the busy area of the island or in an area with less people.  At the time I didn't have any idea where the best place to stay was, but I knew I was just booking the first night and I could always change location the next day.  After looking at a map, I opted for a more quiet location on the island.  I paid the man for the accommodation and he gave me a card with the name of the place, so I could find the free hotel taxi when I arrived on the island.  This situation is another example of how easy it is to get around Thailand.  I didn't even have to plan or search for a place to stay.  There was always a quick and painless transition from one place to the next.

When I left the building, everyone was already in a van, so I grabbed my bags and hopped in with everyone else.  After a 10 minute van ride, we pulled up to a bus and joined a larger group of backpackers.  The van was old and the seat in front of me was broken and kept falling in my lap.  I remember that a group of German guys around me were having a good time teasing some girls from Hungary that were sitting next to us.  They had a few laughs with some jokes that included "Oh you are from Hungary? Are you Hungry?" I remember being embarrassed for all men everywhere.  After a thirty minute bus ride, we pulled up to the ferry and I was happy to finally get a glimpse of beautiful Southern Thailand.

The ferry ride was beautiful and the deck on top was extremely hot, but I made sure I got a few pictures while I was up there. After we stopped at Koh Samui, to drop some people off, we made our way to Koh Phangan.  I finally arrived at the first tropical island of my trip and my vacation could really begin.