Disneyland

Well Im back in Singapore. It's a bit of a late blog entry, since I'm standing 50 meters away from Gate C25 for flight QA something something to take me back home. I saw the free internet sign and I thought, why not. There's too much to catch up with so I'll just keep this one in the present tense.

Presently, I'm feeling pretty good. No end-of-trip depression to be seen at the horizon. The music in my ears is positive and my attitude is one of satisfaction, whatever the destination is. I've met with a couple more people at my last hostel, in a sort of last-minute let's still meet while we're open for it kind of vibe. Because where I'm going to tonight, we do not talk to strangers. Oh sure, we all dream of scenarios involving charming strangers and improvised urban adventures. -Let's ride till we hit the ocean, Barbie! -Oh Ken, I'll follow you anywhere.
Sounds familiar? Of course not. Besides, who in their right mind names his child Barbie? Seriously though. I miss that already. Travellers talking to eachother out of the blue. Oh well, change what you can and accept the things you can't. It's a choice more than a fact, and I know which option has my preference.

I'll say this trip has been about balance to me. Last year I redefined my norms. Wheter it is love, social skills or expectations out of life and myself, it was deffinitely about radical change. The following year took a lot of energy from me; re-adjusting to daily life. To adventures on smaller scales. Relationships moving at the pace of glaciers. Bad weather (do not undermine the effect of winter on one's enthusiam). I stretched the uplifting as far as I could through the ensuing months but the higher the flight, the harder the fall. Worked my way back to being an enthousiastic dreamer, an optimist and an adventurer. This trip has only concluded this. Set the new norms higher for another year. Steady energy. Certain pace. Constant openness to change and chaos. I know what I want and I know the path and I'm on it and right now it needs me to board on flight QA something something heading home.

Enters the Dice Man.

Umpf

Tal

Vietnam

Well I'm in Vietnam now.
I realise its been a long time since my last blog entry.
Ive been busy jumping countries like a trampoline.
Not a good idea, its hard to mee people when you're in a hurry.

Quick review then.

Cambodia was not bad at all. Too bad my only image of Cambodia is Angkor and Phnom Penh.
Both are barely a reflection of the real Cambodia, from what I heard. Very touristy, with begging kids selling postcards and hassling moto-taxi drivers. You spend your day saying No Thank You. And still that barely matches Vietnam. But thats for later. Angko was pretty impressive. For the anecdote, while Angkor was populated by a million of citizens around the year 1300, London counted 50.000. That kind of puts things in perspective, doesnt it. The way we learned history, not much was going on outside of europe. We discarded Asia's empires, from Siam to the Khmers and the Chinese dynasties in less than a chapter, before going back to the oh so relevant feudal system of the Merovingians. Anyway, I'll readily admit it: Tal is a racist. Yes I am. I don't like japanese tourists. I dont think of myself as superior though, just... let's say... more respectful to the man made wonders of Angkor and its 50 square kilometers of titanical architectures. But no, apparently Japanese people think the best approach is to photograph the fuck out of every stone. And I could show some understanding to that, if it wasnt for the way they tour around the archeological site in huge aircon busses. Most travellers rent a bike, or maybe a tuk-tuk driver for the day. But our Asian friends, they move around like fish schools. Arrive at one temple and they take over the place like ants on a chocolate cake. They'll shout at eachother from one temple tower to the other. Pose in front of temples like ad-people selling you a new house or a trip to the bahamas. Both palms held to their right, saying "You wanna buy? Call now for your vintage limited edition piece of Angkor !" Anyway, one morning I woke up for the sunrise and went to this temple, Ta Phrom which isnt a good place for a view of the sun rising, but that means you have it for yourself. And since its the only temple where they let the trees grow through the stones, their roots finding their way in every crease of the temple's wall, its pretty surreal and as peaceful as it gets. So that was Angkor.

Then to Pnomh Phen where I met a bunch of very cool people. Funny how it is with the people I clicked most that I spend the least time. This one guy Andrew I met only for one night though I knew this was my kind of fellow traveller. Too bad but emails and maybe a soon visit to England and who knows. With Hannah, John, Izzie, Stacy and Mac, we went volunteering in a village 70 km outside of the capital. Just for two days. We went there full of positiveness and motivation, but we left pretty grim. The guy running the organization was barely organized. We thaught english to kids, but there was no continuity, no program, no idea which kid had had which lesson or how much they could speak. It was a start-from-scratch every lesson again. Pretty frustrating. And when we found out that the 6 dollars we paid for accomodation, all went to the cook, that's when we gave up. If you'd travel in Asia you knew there was no way three meals could cost 6 dollars. Not the meals we got, not in Asia. We even sat down with the owner and estimated the price of eggs, vegetables, rice, meat and spices, and the numbers didnt add up. Wheter the cook was ripping off the owner, or the owner rippins us all off, or whatever... But knowing that not a single penny went to the children, or schoolbooks, or pens or dictionaries or whatever, its still painful. I dunno...

Then I jumped to Vietnam. Its pretty cheap here but every local hassles you to take their tuk-tuk, to buy their chewing gum, their postcards, their home made breads. And the worse is, they sell books. New books. They simply photocopy bestsellers and sell them. I mean photocopy the way we do at home. Take the book, scan the page, print. What you get is a cheap tissue of pages too white, too clean to be anything but fake. Clinically fake. Books like Catch 22 or the Alchemist, surgically fake. Painful even to look at.

Right now Im in Na Thrang, a beach-diving spot on the east coast of Vietnam. It seems I grossly underestimated the distances of vietnam. Im looking at several 12 hours bus trips through the country. That aint' a fun perspective. I got to the point where I look at the map, count the kilometers, remember how long my last bus trip took, and I go 'Oh fuck'. General fatigue and not very meaningful encounters makes me wanna move less and less and just relax somewhere. Except Im on a tight schedule. Gotta be there by that date. Catch a flight back to Singapore. Then back to Belgium. Then be present at my summerjob on the 1st. Too much action and not enough time to know where Im headed and how I feel about it. Need to sit and think.

Time's up, before they charge me the whole hour of internet access.
Tired of arguing about worthless amounts of money that do mean alot for a traveller on a shoestring budget. But make the Vietnamese people who still have a bad taste left by the Americans in their mouth, understand that. Oh well. Can't complain, I'm travelling my ass off.

Umpf

Tal

FAQ

A couple of FAQ brought up to date:

How old is Tal exactly?
Today Tal is exactly 21. He wishes himself a happy birthday, though attaching little value to the specific date. Still, Tal has treated humself to a more than satisfying Thai massage, even though it hurt from time to time. Our protagonist found himself amazed at the wisdom of these masseuses, who seemed to know exactly where to press for instant pain. It was, all in all, a very relaxing experience.

Where is Tal right now?
Right here.

...?
In Bangkok, Thailand. More precisely on Khao San Road, the never sleeping always busy beehive where backpackers are more like ants and everybody appears to be going somewhere, still rarely they leave this one particular street that has everything to offer.

Wait a minute, hasn't he been here before?
Yes. 2 years ago. With his best friend from South Africa. It is in fact a tear-jerking best-seller-story of two friends separated in their early years, only to be reunited 10 years later in a foreign country. Tal's first acts on Khao San Road were to retrace the same paths used before. Checked in at the same hostel, looked for the same cafe, ordered a lemon-mint juice and spend some time at the bookshop. Ony once the ritual was comleted, could a new page of history be written.

Where is our hero heading next?
To Angkor Wat, Cambodia, where the renowned temples of ancient Siam await him. It seems the journey will take him the whole day, of which the second part will be done on the back of a pickup, hopefully rain excluded.

Aything else?
Not much. I'm glad I'm out of Malesia. Simply can not feel comfortable in a country where they pray five times a day, chanting words not exactly friendly towards the infidels. As towards the jews, well history speaks for itself.

That's it for today. I'm off to bed, tired of the long train ride (22h) between Penang (Malesia) and Bankok (Thailand)

Umpf

Tal

Pehrentian Islands

Im actually back from the Perhentians.
What is it with islands and everybody being asocial?
Not that I spent 4 days alone in a corner, but still.
Somehow people barely nod to eachother.
My explanation is this: you find yourself at a place where tourists form 98 percent of the population. The meager 2 percent of locals are tending shops and serving you food. Maybe you're lucky enough to have a fishing village somewhere. And they're clever enough to stay the fuck away from the beaches turned into diving factories. And still. The Pehrentian islands aren't what I expected. Far less developped than Koh Tao (Thailand) or Utila (Honduras). That precarious stadium where the only roads are the sandbays between chalets and infinite blue liquid. Paths cross the island, with lizards the size of this keyboard to keep you company. This and the locals are still nice. They barely try to rip you off because they probably don't feel ripped off by foreigners. Yet. Hmm, where does all my anger come from. I had a great time on the island. Oh right, why people are asocial. Because the main beach is simply filled with foreigners, that you don't feel like a traveller in a far away country. You feel at home and you start acting like it. The way I don't talk to strangers in my city. Not on the train, not on the beach. Whereas when you find yourself in some hole called Penang and you're barely blending into the local Chinatown and nobody's paying any attention to you (thus continously nearly-hitting you with their car) and you're the only white guy sweating more water than you remember drinking; when you are and you see another white person and the salty lakes underneath their armpits bares ressemblence, then you nod and you smile and you ask where they're from or headed and if they're hungry and what they think of the local food. And they might be your next travel companion at least until your paths fork and you go on to new adventures.

And that's why Im more than happy to spend my days underwater on diving islands where you cant talk to eachother anyway (if you'd want to) and the fish are more interesting than the loser with his baseball hat waiting for the full moon party to start up in Thailand.
So I dived. Three times actually. The first dive was clumsy and I had trouble finding the right buyoncy and keeping my mask from filling up and stuff. But we still saw plenty of fish and eels and stingrays and even a small catshark taking a nap underneath a rock. The second dive was way better and I managed to use my oxygen sparsely and we spent 56 awesome minutes breathing in, breathing out, breathing in... your brain shifts a couple of gears down. You still have thoughts, but they barely ricochet somewhere far, far in the distant synapses that form your consciousness. It's like your always present thinking self is bypassed and the thoughts going back and fourth skip your own person. The way your stomach digests food without your attention. You think:
Fish.
There.
Up.
More up.
Left.
Breathe.
Equalize ears.
Further away, you hear bits of your own voice. Something like Did I... key to... left money... later.
It doesn't matter.
You're floating and everything is in its right place and the perfect soundtrack to this moment is eternal nothingness the way Buddha must have hummed it underneath the Banyan tree.
Ok back to reality. I dived a third time to a ship wreck. That was great too. Many more fishes. More corals. Bamboo sharks. Still haven't seen turtles. People go snorkeling and they see turtles. Guess I'll snorkel next time. Hopefully up north in Vietnam.

Amd now I'm in Penang. Another island but the way Singapore is an island. Just a big city that happens to be surrounded with far from paradisiac beaches. One big chinatown with a small district called little india. Little India inside China. Sounds like Nostradamus's prediction for the year 2066. The future isn't bright. The future is too spicy for me to digest and yes I went for a Mc Donalds this afternoon. Because there isn't something called the code of ethics for travellers. And nothing says you HAVE to eat local food for 35 days straight. The same way nothing says you HAVE to be growing your own brand of mushrooms between your toes. And you SURELY dont HAVE to climb Mount Kinabalu with Havanianas. So I had McDonalds. A local hamburger actually, called the Grilled Chicken Rollover and you can't find it in the Netherlands so I guess I tasted the local culture just the same as last nights chicken tandoori that kept me awake in my dorm bed wondering if spicy food really keeps mosquitos away or if its just another travellers legend. The bites on my left earlobe say its a big pile of camel's crap.

Anyway my iPod is recharged and I bought this great book called The book of the dice and I'd ready to face the 22 hour train ride to Bangkok even though I couldnt find anybody crazy enough to be headed the same way I was (without stops) and I should load my bag with food too. But the book. The book from the same author that fucked up my mind with The Dice man. The idea to start living your life randomly, dictated by the two little cubes already famous in casinos. Now a weapon against confined lives of routined encounters with daily matters. People, it doesn't take a flight to Singapore for that. Dice men, rise and lead the way to higher whims.

Umpf

Tal