Friday, March 21, 2008

Post Script and Beach Time

So I was sitting around thinking and I forgot to mention several things from those first few hours in Indonesia. First off is that while on the bus from the port to Medan, Jason and I were chatting and just getting to know each other. I mentioned that I was teaching in northern Thailand and he said, "Are you teaching in Lampang?". That blew me away. While he was traveling in Thailand, he came down to Lampang and actually hung out with Nick, one of the guys I'm teaching with now. This was about 5 years ago, so I wasn't there, but needless to say it was pretty crazy to meet this random guy who hung out with one of my colleagues back in Lampang. The second concerns my trip from the city to the bus station. I rode on a betuk, the Indonesian version of a tuk-tuk. It's essentially a motorcycle with a sidecar. While we were driving the driver asked me different questions about myself - my name, how old I am and where I am from. As soon as I said I was from America, he looked at me (and remember he was also driving on SE Asian streets) and raised his right arm and said "I love Obama!! Do you?". I said I liked him (I think saying otherwise would have endangered my safety) and we chatted a bit more. He told me that he loves Obama because he stayed in Jakarta for a while when he was younger. He said most Indonesians feel the same way. That's especially interesting given the current attitude towards Bush (most disdain him...and for good reason). This conversation was essentially repeated several times as I made my way onto the bus.

And so with those postscripts out of the way I can pick up where I left off the other day. I arrived in the morning and made my way to the port. I thought that there was a ferry at 9:30 so arriving at 8:30 was perfect. It turns out the ferry didn't leave until 11:00, so I had some time to kill. The journey to the ferry terminal was a very interesting one - but one I'll wait to comment on until I cover my return trip. Banda Aceh was devastated by the tsunami in 2004. As I drove to the ferry, we passed straight through the worst hit areas. I'll come back and touch on that later when I talk about my time spent in Banda Aceh. For now, it's the island. While I was waiting for the ferry I grabbed some breakfast at one of the little stalls near the terminal and sat down to read. I didn't get very far. Every so often different people would come up to me and start talking. Most couldn't get further than the simple introductions, but others stayed and chatted for a while. I connected with this group of boys, students, who had come away for a few days. One of them spoke good English and the others just hung around. We got on the ferry and began our two hour trip to the island. We got off only to climb into a minibus which took off (or more accurately, crawled) across the island towards the beaches. We made are way along the coast up and down hills and around pot holes bigger than the road, through packs of dogs, goats and monkeys before coming to rest (an hour later mind you) at the beach. From there it was a short hike along a little pathway to different clusters of bungalows. I found one nestled in the rocks perched right above the water with a hammock swinging from the deck out front. I thought it would do nicely. I spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering from the long journey here. I ate dinner at a great little place - they had avocados so I was happy. I guess I should describe where I am (or at this point, was). I was on Ipoih Beach on Pulau Weh (Weh Island) which is off the northwest coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Ipoih Beach is a small collection of bungalows and restaurants catering mostly to travelers who come to snorkel and dive. It's very idyllic and peaceful. The road ends at the mosque and the only way to get around is to walk or swim. Over the next few days I started and finished a book, wrote a ton in my journal, went for some walks, and more importantly went for some good swims. The first swim took me along the coast below my bungalow. The coral got better as we went along, but the fish were spectacular the whole way. It was stunning. I've been to some beautiful spots to snorkel and this ranks as one of the best - plus it wasn't very crowded, heck I was the only one in the water. The second journey consisted of me swimming across a little channel between the beach and another small island just offshore. Then I walked across the island and snorkeled back around the island. It was a good four hour trip and was amazing. The coral was stunning - they call it a Sea Garden because of the colors and variety of coral. The fish were spectacular as well. Over the course of the two trips I saw a handful of sea turtles, several octopus (or octopi?), sting rays, lobsters, and the highlight (something I hadn't seen before) - a huge manta ray which let me swim over top him and sort of play a little. It was cool! I went to bed early and woke up early. I read and fell asleep when I was tired. It was a great couple days of relaxation. But eventually I had to leave that oasis and head back into "real" Indonesia. So I packed my things and headed back to Banda Aceh.

But that will have to wait until next time as I've run out of time again. Hope you are well.

Ryan

Thursday, March 20, 2008

It's not the destination, but the journey

Hi again!

Last I left you I was getting ready to embark on an epic journey across oceans and mountains. I have since completed that journey and am able to write about it. I left Penang at 9 in the morning on what I thought would be a 5 hour trip across the Straights of Malacca - it turned out to be more like 8 hours. But that was okay as the ferry had plenty of shoot 'em up movies to keep playing the entire time. It was a bit overwhelming. At first I was excited since they had movies in English, but after the first one, I got a bit bored and would have rather listened to music or read my book but the sound was overpowering. We started with Rambo IV and then went straight into a car racing movie of some sort then actually finished the journey with a flick actually called Shoot 'Em Up. We pulled into the harbor but hadn't reached our destination. While I was forewarned about this next challenge, it added another hour to my journey. When you leave Penang, you purchase a ticket to Medan. That ticket doesn't actually get you to Medan. It gets you to the port closest to Medan, but the port is about an hour from the city. I got off the ferry and proceeded to go through immigration. They hearded all the white people off the boat (there were about 8 of us) and ushered us to a counter which was labeled 'BANK'. Here we forked over our crisp $25US entry/visa fee. They then gave us a nice skip of paper which we carried to the next counter where they processed our visa and stuck it into the passport. Fairly simple. Once we left immigration, however, things got more complicated and we were attacked by the many people trying to get us to go with them somewhere (they really didn't care where). Luckily I had met an America guy, Jason, who had taken the ferry over to Penang a few days earlier to get a new visa. He was traveling around for two months and you can only get a one month visa. He was a really cool guy - a budding evolutionary biologist. So he was able to guide me to the right bus which took us the last little way into Medan. It was also fortuitous since I was then able to leave my bag in his room while we explored the city before my overnight bus to Banda Aceh. My introduction to Indonesia was fantastic. Arriving in Medan, the bus ride, the sights, the sounds, the smells re-ignited a feeling in me that I haven't felt in a while. It was the feeling I had when I rode through the streets of New Delhi in the middle of the night coming from the airport. It was the same feeling I had crossing the border into Honduras on a whim. It was this feeling that comes with entering a new and foreign place. It's hard to describe, but those who have traveled now what I mean. And for me, it's been a while since I've felt that sensation. I've done a lot of traveling but most places I've been too are relatively familiar to Thailand. They challenged me and were fantastic places, but this for whatever reason sparked this feeling. I'm still processing that (I think part of it is the general sense that Indonesia is somewhat forbidden or off limits to Americans) and will get back to you. Walking down the streets of Medan, we were met with such enthusiasm that it was almost as if we were clowns performing. We drew so much attention and the "Hello Mister's" were never ending. Everyone wanted to be our friend, and then take us somewhere. It was quite an experience. We found the requisite ATM and then went to grab dinner. For an introduction to Indonesian fare, I couldn't have asked for a better menu. We ate at a little roadside stand which beckoned us with its mound of fruits in the cart window. Piled high with a wide assortment of fruits and veggies, we answered the call. I had Satay Padang and a chocolate and avocado shake. Satay is found in Thailand (it's marinated meat on a skewer and grilled) but this was served over pressed rice chucks and covered in a peanuty/garlicy sauce that was to die for. The avocado and chocolate shake was one of the most wonderful drinks I've ever had. I would never have guessed that combination would work, oh but it does. My habit of being a food traveler has again pushed itself to the front and I find myself eating more often than not. But I'm okay with that. I then headed to the bus station to catch my overnight bus. From Medan, it's about 12 hours to Banda Aceh. I climbed on board and we took off fairly on schedule. The bus ride was characterized by three things: the freezing temperatures inside, the steadily increasing noise and nuisance created by the trash which was thrown on the floor and then slid around and lastly the incessant moving about in my chair as the bus careening around corners, stopped for passengers along side the road and slammed on the breaks to avoid hitting someone. It was a long night. But I've come somewhat accustomed to rides like that so I was actually able to get some decent sleep despite it all. I think the temperature bothered me the most. I got in early and made my way to the ferry for the short (well, relatively speaking) journey to Pulau Weh, my destination. But that'll have to wait until next time as my time is running out.

Have a wonderful day!

Ryan

Oh! I almost forgot. After we hit the ATM, Marcus, a German guy who was also with us, stopped at McDonald's for a quick burger. He ate it and the then was carrying the wrapper around waiting to find a bin to toss it in. He didn't find one. He brought it with him into the place where we ate dinner and left it on the table as we left. The shop owner came running after us as we left with the wrapper. In Indonesia, any rubbish you carry around with you is something you want to keep because if you didn't want it you simply tossed it aside.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Puppets and Me

Greetings again.

Since leaving Krabi I made my way east (and slightly north) and found myself in the quiet town of Nakorn Si Thammarat. It's one of the bigger cities on the east coast gulf side of Thailand and isn't on most tourists lists of places to go. It was on my list however and for one overriding reason - it's home to one of Thailand's most well-renowned shadow puppet craftsmen and performers. I was introduced to the art of shadow puppets in Malaysia last summer and really enjoyed it. The Malay and Indonesian puppets are similar to the Thai puppets (there are similar characters etc.) but there are different unique features to the Thai puppets, so I wanted to take a look. It was short hop (about 3 hours) from Krabi and was then easily connected to my next destination so I jumped at the chance. I got in late in the evening and one of the people I was traveling with helped me find a place to stay, which was nice. I had a nice big dinner of Thai food, which was a change. For that past few days in Krabi I'd been eating wonderful foreign food. The abundance of choices and the similarity in price to Thai food made it an easy choice. Why pay exorbitant prices for Thai food I can get at home much cheaper and why not eat good foreign food that I can't eat at home? I couldn't come up with an answer so I ate. But it was nice to have Thai food again. The next morning I hit the street running only to run into rain. I holed up in a little coffee shop for a little while and waited for the rain to pass and then went to the Shadow Puppet Museum. I was the only one there so I had the whole place to myself. It's a little family home that's been turned into this museum. They show you a bit of the history of the family and their involvement in making puppets as well as a bit about the history of the art itself but the neatest part was watching them make the puppets and the performance. I spent about an hour and a half talking with the daughter of the puppet maker (Suchart Supin) after walking through the museum. She was really cool and walked me through the whole process. After that I headed off to the National Museum where I walked around for a while. It was...a museum. Then it was a stroll past several of the temples and remnants of the old city walls and whatnot before I hit the Internet to escape the heat of the day. A little net then a little dinner and a surprise on HBO in the form of The DaVinci Code in English rounded out my evening. One of the highlights of this part of the trip was the enthusiasm I was met with when people discovered that I spoke Thai. I don't know what it was about this town, but everyone I met whom I conversed with in Thai was so enthusiastic. The lady at the shadow puppet museum was very happy and excited but all the reactions pale in comparison to the reaction I got from the guy working at the post office. I went to mail a package back to Lampang (I bought some things and they were a bit too large to carry around so I mailed them home). I went up to the counter to mail the package and said in Thai, "I want to send this to Lampang" and the guy just about burst! He immediately reached across the counter grabbing my head and shaking it vigorously while exclaiming, "You can speak Thai! So fantastic!" He continued to this effect for quite some time before starting the normal line of questioning i.e What's your name? Where are you from? Do you have a girlfriend? and so on.
We shook hands about 5 times while I stood there sending my package. It was awesome.

From there I hoped on a little minivan and scooted south to Hat Yai where I changed minivans and headed for Penang, Malaysia. It was a pretty simple trip with the usual antics at the border - lines and stamps and short trips in no mans land in between the border checkpoints. I got to Georgetown, the capital of Penang and found a place to stay. I rode down from Hat Yai with some folks from England so after getting settled and a quick orientation stroll around the city, I met up with them for dinner and drinks. It's been nice to have a few drinks in the evening in Krabi and then again last night. It's been good to have something other than whiskey and water or Leo beer. Last night was Carlsburg, Tiger and even a Guinness Stout.

I spent the day wandering around town. There were a few museums and temples and such to see but mostly just walking around taking it all in. I booked my ferry ticket so I'm all set to head out tomorrow. Tomorrow it's off to Indonesia - I'll arrive in Medan and then hopefully will be on an overnight bus to Aceh where I'll then get on more buses and boats and by the end of the day Sunday (today is Friday) I'll be on the beach on Pulau Weh.

Talk to you later.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Summer Fun

Hi!

My blog has been suffering over the past few months. There is a list the size of a small whale posted to my desktop on my computer listing the different things that I need to write about. I'd like to think that I'll eventually get there. At this point though that's neither here nor there because I've started another adventure which I hope to document as I experience it - it's called Summer Vacation 2008 Part 1 and it started a few days ago.

Classes finished up several weeks ago. The students took finals last week. I spent the beginning of this week grading those finals and submitting grades. Come Wednesday evening, I was finished and ready to go. Thursday morning found me on a bus heading to Bangkok. Once in BKK I took a taxi across the city from the northern bus terminal to the southern bus terminal where I met Yui and a bunch of friends. We got onto the bus and began our 12 hour journey to Krabi. We got in at about 9am and headed straight to the guesthouse. There are 8 of us so were were staying in the National Park bungalow right on the beach. We stayed on Noppharatara Beach, which is just north of Ao Nang (one of the more famous beaches in Krabi). Just about as soon as we had gotten our bags inside, a truck came to pick us up and we headed out to meet the long-tail boat. We were hiring the boat for the day to take us out to several of the closer islands. We ended up going to four different islands by the end of the day. The first island was just a simple little island near several very stunning islands. The views of the cliffs were spectacular. We ate lunch on the beach and played in the water for a bit before jumping back into the boat. We then headed out and around the island towards Chicken Island where the main sight is a rock formation that looks uncannily like a chicken. We moved on and parked offshore another island. We jumped in and the guide started throwing bits of bread into the water which was instantly gobbled up by the hundreds of fish that swarmed towards it. He got his laughs by throwing the pieces of bread close to us and watching our reactions as the fish would poke and ram into us as they tried to eat the bread. There were so many and so thickly packed that I reached out and several time had one or two in my hands for a moment or so. We then swam into shore and hung out on the beach for a while and ended up getting into a sand ball fight - that was fun. Our next destination was one of the most famous sights in Krabi. There are two islands which are connected by a sandbar. At high tide both appear discontinuous however at low tide the sandbar appears and you are able to walk from one island to the other. We timed it so that we were there pretty close to low tide. While the sandbar wasn't exposed, we were able to walk across in about 4-5 inches of water. As we were crossing, it started to rain. We sought refuge in the boat for a while until the rain passed and then headed out to the last island of the day. This island was beautiful, but was unfortunately the home several classy resorts. There was some neat things to see and of course the amazing cliffs that dominate the coastline here were stunning, but the resorts and the people ruined it a little. And with that we headed back to shore where we stumbled onto dry land only to be drenched by a fast-moving rain storm shortly there after. We sought refuge in a restaurant where we ate dinner while we waited for the rain to pass. Then we picked up the obligatory two bags of ice and headed back to the guesthouse for showers and a night of UNO, Go Fish and drinking.

The following morning I woke up feeling like I was on vacation. Despite having been on vacation for a day already, it was so long and tiresome and followed a tremendous bus ride that I just felt a bit out of sorts all day. But waking up Saturday morning ushered in those wonderful feelings of serenity and peace. Ah. It was going to be another busy day, but I was ready for it this time. We headed out to meet the boat - today however we were riding on a speed boat and heading out to the more distant islands. After a 40 minute ride which left me wetter than if I'd swam there, we piled out of the boat onto the beach for our first snorkel of the trip. The conditions weren't ideal and the coral wasn't that spectacular, but I was the only one who had snorkeled before so they all loved it. We then headed out to another spot which was significantly better. It was a beautiful little bay surrounded by high cliffs which has a secluded beach on one end. We did a little hiking and headed to the other side of the island before getting back on the boat and snorkeling in the bay. Krabi has many 'famous' sights including James Bond Island (the island from one of the James Bond movies (I can't remember which) and the island that was used in the movie "The Beach". That was where we headed next. Just a quick look around and it was time for lunch. For lunch we went to a restaurant on Phi Phi Don island. The buffet was fantastic and it was wonderful to get my fill of food. One thing I've failed to mention so far is that Krabi and Phi Phi were severely impacted by the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. Phi Phi was the hardest hit place in Thailand and as we approached it, it was easy to see why. The largest concentration of buildings is at the center of the island which sits at the back of a long bay which gets progressively narrower as you move inland. Not only this by the bay is lined with spectacular cliffs - both of which would funnel water straight towards the heart of the island. There are two things that have stuck me - the newness of all of the towns that I've spent time in so far and the ever-present tsunami evacuation route notices. We ate dinner and then walked around the island. Apart from what I mentioned, there was little evidence of the tsunami. But I wonder what the non-touristed areas look like. Of course the tourist destinations are going to get re-built quickly. After Phi Phi island we headed to several more snorkeling destinations before heading home. Oh! The guide who was leading our little trip here eventually started asking about me. I was traveling with a group of 7 Thai people and she got curious and phased the question in such a classic way. She basically asked one of my friends where they brought this foreigner from. They said Lampang. She then replied inquisitively if my plane had crashed in Lampang. Classic. Once she found out I was a teacher she started calling me 'Ajaan'. It was humorous.

After showers we headed out for our seafood dinner. We loaded up on all kinds of seafood - clams, squid, fish, crab etc. and ate until we all nearly burst. It was fantastic. We worked a little bit of it off as we went to buy more ice for our evening festivities. Unfortunately the whiskey ran out early in the evening so we had to start taking shots of whatever we had in the room. We ran out of everything at about 11. But by that point we were half asleep as it was so we happily went to bed.

The following morning we all got up and had breakfast and got ready to head out. Everybody else had to go back to BKK to get back in time for work Monday morning so we had lunch together and then they took off. I moved into another guesthouse and took a nap and relaxed on the beach all afternoon. I had originally planned to leave with them and go to my next destination on Sunday but decided against that. After watching the sunset, I headed off to a great little bar/restaurant and had a Happy Hour cocktail while the sun set and then had their salad bar buffet for dinner (which was amazing! They had baked potatoes!) and another cocktail before calling it a day. Sitting there on the roof of this little bar sipping my gin and tonic watching the sun go down with a great ocean breeze at my back was the ultimate way to relax. As I was sitting there I could feel all the stress and anxiety being blown out to sea. Bliss.

Since I didn't leave Sunday, I planed to leave Monday but seeing as it's Monday and I'm still here, that didn't happen. I just wasn't ready to leave and to travel again so I spent the day here sleeping and reading on the beach. I really didn't do much today other than that. I did get an amazing sandwich from this sandwich shop though. That was the highlight of the day today. I do think I'll head out tomorrow though. My next destination is Nakorn Si Thammarat, which is a city on the Gulf side of Thailand famous for their shadow puppets so I figured I'd check that out. From there, I'll work my way down to Penang, Malaysia where I'll catch the ferry across to Medan, Sumatra, Indonesia where I'll spend about two weeks in Sumatra. I'll be sure to update the blog soon. Hope you all are doing well (if anyone is still reading this).

Ryan