i'm home in st. louis park, mn. it's strange to be here. morgan is still in ca with friends and our parents. i've gotta say, i'm missing being on the road... but there are some really great things about being back, too. one of those is getting photos developed. i have 25 of 29 rolls printed. i'll scan some of them soon. it's great to be able to see the trip again this way. i have so many memories of taking specific pictures so it's really fun to see the outcome.
to wrap up the trip: singapore (for 1 night) and fiji (for 2 weeks)
singapore is a very clean modern city. a city, to be sure, but a very manageable one. we got to see our friend Sebastian, a guy we met in vietnam last june. he introduced us to some of his friends, and they took great care of us during our visit.
fiji is a beautiful group of islands. it was really super hot while we were there. like 100 degrees in the shade hot. we had a blast with seda and jenny, who came over from korea to be there at the same time as us. we stayed with seda's parents for a good chunk of our time there. what amazing hosts they were. the rest of the time we were in a village, at a resort, and then in another village. we ended drinking a lot of kava (made from the powder of a root, mixed with water), a mild intoxicant. mostly it just makes your mouth and throat numb. i actually like the flavor because it reminds me of some weird mints i had once... the water was incredibly clear. morgan and i went scuba diving and saw a bunch of reef sharks. amazing. we had a great time there.
after fiji, we flew to san francisco. i met jen zipp for the first time (!) and we got to see other friends: clem, martha, jen, katia & pete and their beautiful kiddos. fun times. i also went up to bodega, which marked the first time morgan and i have been separated in a few months. also strange. great to spend time with the family... my aunt, uncle, and a couple of cousins came up to bodega bay. nice.
i got back to st. louis park almost 2 weeks ago now. the first week was consumed by wedding plans. (not mine.) congratulations to eliza and michael! since they left on their honeymoon, i've been hanging out and working on my resume. time to return to reality. so-- if anyone hears of a job in the event planning/project coordinator area, please let me know! i'm especially looking in colorado and northern california...
not sure how much i'll post on here now that i'm back in the country. please be in touch; it would be lovely to hear from you and get a chance to catch up on your life!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
raining cats and cats
one more funny thing about malaysia: there aren't stray dogs like we've seen in every other country. instead there are tons of cats wandering the streets. they're pretty friendly, not feral, and don't seem to have a lot of fleas. most of them have stubby little tails, which is normal for cats in malaysia, from what i've read. purrrr- i love cats.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
one more country down
we leave malaysia tonight, on a train bound for singapore. we've had a good time here. we spent a few days in penang, known for the delicious food of chinatown and little india. i have to say that the indian food we had there was better than some we had in india. but not as good as the best, for sure.
next we made our way to kota bharu, where the highlights were: scuba diving off the coast, taking a batik class, and seeing a master shadow puppet maker at work.
then we took the "jungle train" (beautiful ride) down to the taman negara rainforest. it's the oldest in the world at 130 million years! that's too ridiculous an amount of time for me to comprehend. while we were there, we went on a beautiful 11-kilometer trek to a hide, which is basically a cabin on stilts where you can look over a clearing where animals may come during the night. well, we didn't see any. on our way there we saw a little poisonous snake, and on our way out we saw a poisonous spider. though i hate spiders, i have to admit that this one was beautiful-- about 2 inches long, with a black and yellow striped body. we took the easy way out of the jungle by hiking 2 kilometers to a jetty and then taking a boat the rest of the way. my legs were sore anyway. too long without substantial exercise, i guess.
now we're getting ready for an overnight back on the jungle train. we arrive in singapore tomorrow morning, and we'll get to have a reunion with a friend we met in vietnam. fun. it's great to see fellow travelers down the road.
next we made our way to kota bharu, where the highlights were: scuba diving off the coast, taking a batik class, and seeing a master shadow puppet maker at work.
then we took the "jungle train" (beautiful ride) down to the taman negara rainforest. it's the oldest in the world at 130 million years! that's too ridiculous an amount of time for me to comprehend. while we were there, we went on a beautiful 11-kilometer trek to a hide, which is basically a cabin on stilts where you can look over a clearing where animals may come during the night. well, we didn't see any. on our way there we saw a little poisonous snake, and on our way out we saw a poisonous spider. though i hate spiders, i have to admit that this one was beautiful-- about 2 inches long, with a black and yellow striped body. we took the easy way out of the jungle by hiking 2 kilometers to a jetty and then taking a boat the rest of the way. my legs were sore anyway. too long without substantial exercise, i guess.
now we're getting ready for an overnight back on the jungle train. we arrive in singapore tomorrow morning, and we'll get to have a reunion with a friend we met in vietnam. fun. it's great to see fellow travelers down the road.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
i'm still alive and well
i realize it has been a LONG time since i wrote last. what has happened?
morgan and i had fun traveling separately, and had a nice reunion. we met up again in mumbai, and left the same day for thailand. when we got there (the next morning) we went to our airport hotel to await the arrival of the parents. yup, my mom & dad (and good friends jane & rich) came out for a visit. we flew to koh samui, a beautiful island in the southern part of the country. our days there were spent luxuriating on a beautiful sandy beach. morgan and i went scuba diving one day, and were awed by a 5-meter long whale shark swimming directly above our heads. amazing! definitely a highlight of our travels.
now we're back in pai, where we have been a couple times before. we stay (and work) at tacompai, an organic farm run by a remarkable man named sandot. it's another home for us at this point. it was so fun to get to show it to my parents.
they left today for chiang mai, and soon they'll travel to cambodia and spend a week there. morgan and i are busy planning our upcoming trip through malaysia. anyone have any thoughts on places we can't miss? we need to be in singapore for a flight on february 28.
it's becoming hard to live in the moment now, as the end of our travel sneaks up on us. after malaysia we'll spend 2 weeks in fiji and then it's time to return to the states. i don't mean to complain, so please don't read it that way. but travel time is relative--a month remaining is a long time compared to the 2 weeks of vacation provided by my former full-time job. but it feels like a heartbeat after the (gulp) 11 months we've experienced so far. and what a trip it's been. i can't believe it's been so long, but then i recall all of the amazing things we've done and realize how lucky i am. there's no way that all of those events could have taken place in less time, and i can hardly believe everything that's happened in the last year. incredible.
morgan and i had fun traveling separately, and had a nice reunion. we met up again in mumbai, and left the same day for thailand. when we got there (the next morning) we went to our airport hotel to await the arrival of the parents. yup, my mom & dad (and good friends jane & rich) came out for a visit. we flew to koh samui, a beautiful island in the southern part of the country. our days there were spent luxuriating on a beautiful sandy beach. morgan and i went scuba diving one day, and were awed by a 5-meter long whale shark swimming directly above our heads. amazing! definitely a highlight of our travels.
now we're back in pai, where we have been a couple times before. we stay (and work) at tacompai, an organic farm run by a remarkable man named sandot. it's another home for us at this point. it was so fun to get to show it to my parents.
they left today for chiang mai, and soon they'll travel to cambodia and spend a week there. morgan and i are busy planning our upcoming trip through malaysia. anyone have any thoughts on places we can't miss? we need to be in singapore for a flight on february 28.
it's becoming hard to live in the moment now, as the end of our travel sneaks up on us. after malaysia we'll spend 2 weeks in fiji and then it's time to return to the states. i don't mean to complain, so please don't read it that way. but travel time is relative--a month remaining is a long time compared to the 2 weeks of vacation provided by my former full-time job. but it feels like a heartbeat after the (gulp) 11 months we've experienced so far. and what a trip it's been. i can't believe it's been so long, but then i recall all of the amazing things we've done and realize how lucky i am. there's no way that all of those events could have taken place in less time, and i can hardly believe everything that's happened in the last year. incredible.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
lions & tigers & bears, oh my
yesterday we went to a national conservation area outside of bangalore. they have a rehabilitation program there to take care of wild animals. we got to see the aforementioned ones, plus a couple others. it was pretty cool to see the tigers, especially a couple of white bengals along with their 6-month-old cub. but for the most part, the "safari" was pretty lame. the little vans traveled caravan style around the same track all day, and the animals were lured close to the road by food. it was not a very natural setting--much more like a zoo (which i hate). the fun part about the whole thing is that we took our tuk-tuk driver's son in with us. he must have been about 6. his reaction to the animals was more than worth the admission price, even if the rest of it was pretty lame.
for the last couple of days, morgan and i have been staying at our friend puneet's house. so great to see him! it's been so many months since meeting at the ashram. morgan and i really did very little while visiting him... laundry, next leg of the trip planning, email catch-up, etc. and this after doing nearly nothing while we were in arambol.
the beaches there were spectacularly beautiful. we had a bungalow on a path between two gorgeous ones. from our front porch, only the path separated us from the ocean. our view every evening was the sun setting as a brilliant red orb over the water. besides lounging on the beach (would you believe i managed to not get tan in 10 days there...?), we took yoga every day. well, morgan did when he wasn't running to the toilet. otherwise, what a beautiful vacation. interesting that when one travels for so long, one needs a vacation from traveling. sounds so extravagant, but truly it's necessary for the sanity. anyway, we got our vacation.
now, for the first time in almost 11 months, morgan and i are spending a little time traveling separately. there was a day during our time back in the states in december that we didn't see each other, and it was LITERALLY the first time since march 5, 2008. now morgan has just arrived this morning in hampi, a great sounding town in the south with amazing boulder & rock formations. i'm headed back up to see friends in pushkar, the beautiful little place where i spent my birthday. we're looking forward to our week of independence, and i think we'll also look forward to reuniting when our time is up. so, traveling alone in india-- not something i really ever expected to do. and yet, i'm not nervous about it at all. helps that i'm headed back to someplace familiar, and that once i'm there i won't really be either traveling or alone. but it is still a good thing to go through, i think.
this morning i arrived in delhi (a city i'm not very fond of), and tonight i'll take an overnight bus out of here. one day in town is plenty for me, and i'm actually just planning on staying in this area today and finding a nice little cafe to spend some time reading or something. so that's where i'm off to now, dear friends.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
coca cola and the bbc
what a crazy last couple of days...
we arrived in mumbai on monday night, and on tuesday morning we were approached to be extras in a bollywood commercial. who can say no to that experience! it turned out to be an ad for coca cola about a clown falling off a bike. we were two of only 20 or so people there (not including all of the tech people filming the thing) so were featured prominently throughout. not sure if it will ever make it anywhere, but if it does, you'll be able to google it in about 1.5 months. we did that all day tuesday and wednesday morning. wednesday evening, we were sitting in the leopold cafe (which still has bullet holes from the attacks in november) and our table was filmed for the bbc. our south african friend was interviewed, and we'll all be on the bbc's indian financial report on sunday! (could you tape this, mom?) pretty amazing.
wednesday night we were supposed to take the train to arambol, in goa, but we could only get waiting list seats, and they weren't confirmed, so we stayed one more night in mumbai. we ended up spending the next day with our friend from italy in the largest slum in asia. it was very intense. talk about poverty. but there's a realization that we all had: in some ways the poor people in india are better off than the poor people elsewhere... yes, they live in abject poverty, but there is a large and somewhat sustainable community. there are also very cheap services & goods available to them. it's not like the u.s. where if you're poor you can't afford anything. chai is cheap, and you can find street food for a few rupees. i'm not saying it's an easy existence, but the people we met (we were mostly surrounded by kids) smiled all the time. and it was amazing to see that the people who have the least asked for nothing but attention and photographs. my earlier disappointment with the people here has been largely reframed by meeting locals and straying from the tourist trail.
so, now that we've left mumbai (on an overnight bus last night, arriving in arambol this morning), we've entered the other extreme... people with money relaxing on the beach. it's a change i appreciate for what it is, but i wouldn't trade the experiences we had yesterday for anything. intense and raw, but real and worthwhile.
we arrived in mumbai on monday night, and on tuesday morning we were approached to be extras in a bollywood commercial. who can say no to that experience! it turned out to be an ad for coca cola about a clown falling off a bike. we were two of only 20 or so people there (not including all of the tech people filming the thing) so were featured prominently throughout. not sure if it will ever make it anywhere, but if it does, you'll be able to google it in about 1.5 months. we did that all day tuesday and wednesday morning. wednesday evening, we were sitting in the leopold cafe (which still has bullet holes from the attacks in november) and our table was filmed for the bbc. our south african friend was interviewed, and we'll all be on the bbc's indian financial report on sunday! (could you tape this, mom?) pretty amazing.
wednesday night we were supposed to take the train to arambol, in goa, but we could only get waiting list seats, and they weren't confirmed, so we stayed one more night in mumbai. we ended up spending the next day with our friend from italy in the largest slum in asia. it was very intense. talk about poverty. but there's a realization that we all had: in some ways the poor people in india are better off than the poor people elsewhere... yes, they live in abject poverty, but there is a large and somewhat sustainable community. there are also very cheap services & goods available to them. it's not like the u.s. where if you're poor you can't afford anything. chai is cheap, and you can find street food for a few rupees. i'm not saying it's an easy existence, but the people we met (we were mostly surrounded by kids) smiled all the time. and it was amazing to see that the people who have the least asked for nothing but attention and photographs. my earlier disappointment with the people here has been largely reframed by meeting locals and straying from the tourist trail.
so, now that we've left mumbai (on an overnight bus last night, arriving in arambol this morning), we've entered the other extreme... people with money relaxing on the beach. it's a change i appreciate for what it is, but i wouldn't trade the experiences we had yesterday for anything. intense and raw, but real and worthwhile.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
happy new year
i'm hoping that 2009 brings lots of good news. 2008 was truly intense. a lot of great times, but a lot of not-so-good towards the end of the year.
in about 45 minutes, morgan and i will be off to the airport to continue our trip. we fly through newark, where we will take advantage of our 10-hour layover by going into nyc. my best childhood friend, eliza, will meet us in the city. then we're off to mumbai (directly from newark! i think it's about 18 hours on that plane ride.)
i'll write again when we arrive in india to let you know we made it, and to post a few more photos.
in about 45 minutes, morgan and i will be off to the airport to continue our trip. we fly through newark, where we will take advantage of our 10-hour layover by going into nyc. my best childhood friend, eliza, will meet us in the city. then we're off to mumbai (directly from newark! i think it's about 18 hours on that plane ride.)
i'll write again when we arrive in india to let you know we made it, and to post a few more photos.
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