We are safe and sound in Malaysia. The weather is great, nice and sunny all day long and into the nights. We are staying with a couchsurfer who also has a swimming pool!
So where should i start...
We left Singapore by train and arrived into Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 6 hrs later. You would think that it would be a long and boring train ride, but to our surprise, we were fulling entertained with a movie on the train. And it was no ordinary movie, it was none other than, "A cinderella Story" with Hillary Duff and our very own, Chad Micheal Murphy. Who would have thought that while on a train in Malaysia, we would be watching "A Cinderella Story." Which is a great movie by the way.
We arrived in Malaysia late at night and was greeted by our Couchsurfer Rodna. She's Indian-Malay, working full time with Nokia, living with her two cousins, and a true believer in the idea of Couchsurfer.
So far, Kuala Lumpur is pretty much like any other big city in a third world country. We have been to all the typical tourist sites. On our second night here, we attended a Malay Couch surfer meeting where we met some amazing locals as well as other travelers. We met this one guy who started his own IT business in Malaysia but after taking a vacation trip to Cambodia, fell in love with that place, and just recently opened up his own school in a rural village. It is amazing the people that you end up meeting and the experiences you encounter when you just open yourself up to the world.
So we have safely arrived into Thailand. We left the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia last night and took an overnight bus, which by the way is the most comfortable bus i have ever been on, and arrived early this morning. The Cameron Highlands was amazing and leaving it was pretty damn hard. We spend our days jungle treking into the wild, diving into waterfalls, and getting lost in the tea plantations. We climbed the second tallest mountain in the highlands, 6,000 feet high up into the mountains and dove into the cold freezing waterfalls afterwards in our bras and undies. Indian food and papaya filled our stomachs as we spend most of our afternoons sitting and conversing with the locals.
On our last day in Malaysia, we took part in the Thaipusum festivals of the Hindu religion. We got up at 5:00 in the morning and climbed into the mountains to pray with the locals inside tje ancient Batu caves filled with Hindu shrines. As we sat and watched the sun rise, people caring statues, places, bowls, walked pass to make sacrafices to the gods. This is also where I got my red bracelet for the upcoming new year from a man in a trance sitting on top of hundreds of tiny needles.
February 2008
We are now in Krabi Thailand after an amazing time in Songkhla with Blake and island hoping in Li Pei. Songkhla was a crazy culture shock. We spent our days feeding wild monkeys and watching them have wild monkey sex and spent our nights hanging out with the local bar flies (prostitutes) and watching them work their magic on Blake. Girls who were exactly our age if not younger worked at these bars for a living traveling from bar to bar to find the western men. While playing pool with them, they seem like any other girl that we could have went to college with, and possibly even became really good friends with. We went swimming our last night in the ocean after a drunken night of bar hopping.
We stayed on the island of Li Pei for about three days and was seriously considering staying for a week. we spent most of our days snorkeling, sleeping under the shaded trees and getting fed sticky rice and fried chicken by sea gypsie, hanging out with the manager of the Reggea Bar, watching fire dancing and listening to Thai Reggea at night...and meeting local islanders. But the journey must continue so we forced ourselves to pack our bags and move on. We are heading to a small village, not even listed on any maps, to work at the orphange. Theres no numbers to call and all we have is the name of the school and a contact person name Ted. Its a donated orphanges and volunteers are welcome to just drop by and stay as long as they want. We will stay there for two weeks and then figure out a way to extend our visas so we can stay in Thailand longer.
Teaching English in Khao Phanom
We are now in Khao Phanom. We found this amazing school and this great host family. We took this bus and they literally dropped us off on the side of the road with all our bags and then we had to walk thru these winding roads to find the school. That school actually could not accept us as volunteers for some logistical
reason that due to the language barrier, we were not really able to understand. But they called the director of the educational system in this province and she arranged for us another school and a host
family. They drove us for 30 mins into the middle of NOWHERE!!! We are currently staying with an elderly couple who have hosted volunteers before from the US, Belgum, England...etc. We have our own
room in their amazing house which he built all by himself out of wood. They also own part of the rubber forest so theres dried rubber patches all over the house which leave a rather unpleasant smell throughout the whole house. Neither of them speaks english so we try our best using non verbal ways to communicate. After we arrived, we were told to change into nicer cloths. Ash and I tried our best to piece together a somewhat decent outfit not really knowing what we were getting dressed up for. We get in this really nice car and they drive for another 10 mins where theres this huge gathering of people in tents in the middle of nowhere. It turns out that we were invited to a Thai Wedding. The whole thing pretty much consisted of eating and running and we stayed for no longer than an hr but it was still a pretty cool experience.
We started teaching on Monday. The school is a 30 min walk from where we are staying and with no public transportation whatsoever, we have to make this trek every morning which i guess is a nice way to start the day. We are seriously living in buttfuck nowhere!!!
They have us teaching 5-6 classes per day!!! we are both absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. On our second day of school, we attended a funeral during our lunch break! apparently, one of the students was hit by a bus just a couple of days ago.
My birthday was amazing. Ashley completely surprised me, which is surprising since i'm with her literally 24 hrs a day. but some how, she arranged to sneak off and inform all the teachers. So in the middle of me teaching class, all the teachers showed up with presents and a cake!!!
Today is chinese new years so we have a 4 day weekend. Ash and I will be doing some island hopping starting tomorrow.
Now that I've arrived in Pai, its reconfirmed that I'm definitely not ready to leave Thailand yet. Something about this country is magical, mystical, and the perfect place to remind you of the capacity of humanity to give and to love. The stories are endless. I've met some amazing people like Lek. The owner of a cafe called the Witching Well where a water well filled with waters from 12 different sacred sources flow. He was a graduate from the Academy of Art University (my old job) what a small world. And recently watched his partner die in his arms. Sitting and talking with him felt like I was home. This place feels like home...
This is all for now. I miss you all very much and sends all my love.
and remember...in the end, its not about how well we can take care of ourselves, its about how well we can take care of each other!
So where should i start...
We left Singapore by train and arrived into Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 6 hrs later. You would think that it would be a long and boring train ride, but to our surprise, we were fulling entertained with a movie on the train. And it was no ordinary movie, it was none other than, "A cinderella Story" with Hillary Duff and our very own, Chad Micheal Murphy. Who would have thought that while on a train in Malaysia, we would be watching "A Cinderella Story." Which is a great movie by the way.
We arrived in Malaysia late at night and was greeted by our Couchsurfer Rodna. She's Indian-Malay, working full time with Nokia, living with her two cousins, and a true believer in the idea of Couchsurfer.
So far, Kuala Lumpur is pretty much like any other big city in a third world country. We have been to all the typical tourist sites. On our second night here, we attended a Malay Couch surfer meeting where we met some amazing locals as well as other travelers. We met this one guy who started his own IT business in Malaysia but after taking a vacation trip to Cambodia, fell in love with that place, and just recently opened up his own school in a rural village. It is amazing the people that you end up meeting and the experiences you encounter when you just open yourself up to the world.
So we have safely arrived into Thailand. We left the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia last night and took an overnight bus, which by the way is the most comfortable bus i have ever been on, and arrived early this morning. The Cameron Highlands was amazing and leaving it was pretty damn hard. We spend our days jungle treking into the wild, diving into waterfalls, and getting lost in the tea plantations. We climbed the second tallest mountain in the highlands, 6,000 feet high up into the mountains and dove into the cold freezing waterfalls afterwards in our bras and undies. Indian food and papaya filled our stomachs as we spend most of our afternoons sitting and conversing with the locals.
On our last day in Malaysia, we took part in the Thaipusum festivals of the Hindu religion. We got up at 5:00 in the morning and climbed into the mountains to pray with the locals inside tje ancient Batu caves filled with Hindu shrines. As we sat and watched the sun rise, people caring statues, places, bowls, walked pass to make sacrafices to the gods. This is also where I got my red bracelet for the upcoming new year from a man in a trance sitting on top of hundreds of tiny needles.
February 2008
We are now in Krabi Thailand after an amazing time in Songkhla with Blake and island hoping in Li Pei. Songkhla was a crazy culture shock. We spent our days feeding wild monkeys and watching them have wild monkey sex and spent our nights hanging out with the local bar flies (prostitutes) and watching them work their magic on Blake. Girls who were exactly our age if not younger worked at these bars for a living traveling from bar to bar to find the western men. While playing pool with them, they seem like any other girl that we could have went to college with, and possibly even became really good friends with. We went swimming our last night in the ocean after a drunken night of bar hopping.
We stayed on the island of Li Pei for about three days and was seriously considering staying for a week. we spent most of our days snorkeling, sleeping under the shaded trees and getting fed sticky rice and fried chicken by sea gypsie, hanging out with the manager of the Reggea Bar, watching fire dancing and listening to Thai Reggea at night...and meeting local islanders. But the journey must continue so we forced ourselves to pack our bags and move on. We are heading to a small village, not even listed on any maps, to work at the orphange. Theres no numbers to call and all we have is the name of the school and a contact person name Ted. Its a donated orphanges and volunteers are welcome to just drop by and stay as long as they want. We will stay there for two weeks and then figure out a way to extend our visas so we can stay in Thailand longer.
Teaching English in Khao Phanom
We are now in Khao Phanom. We found this amazing school and this great host family. We took this bus and they literally dropped us off on the side of the road with all our bags and then we had to walk thru these winding roads to find the school. That school actually could not accept us as volunteers for some logistical
reason that due to the language barrier, we were not really able to understand. But they called the director of the educational system in this province and she arranged for us another school and a host
family. They drove us for 30 mins into the middle of NOWHERE!!! We are currently staying with an elderly couple who have hosted volunteers before from the US, Belgum, England...etc. We have our own
room in their amazing house which he built all by himself out of wood. They also own part of the rubber forest so theres dried rubber patches all over the house which leave a rather unpleasant smell throughout the whole house. Neither of them speaks english so we try our best using non verbal ways to communicate. After we arrived, we were told to change into nicer cloths. Ash and I tried our best to piece together a somewhat decent outfit not really knowing what we were getting dressed up for. We get in this really nice car and they drive for another 10 mins where theres this huge gathering of people in tents in the middle of nowhere. It turns out that we were invited to a Thai Wedding. The whole thing pretty much consisted of eating and running and we stayed for no longer than an hr but it was still a pretty cool experience.
We started teaching on Monday. The school is a 30 min walk from where we are staying and with no public transportation whatsoever, we have to make this trek every morning which i guess is a nice way to start the day. We are seriously living in buttfuck nowhere!!!
They have us teaching 5-6 classes per day!!! we are both absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. On our second day of school, we attended a funeral during our lunch break! apparently, one of the students was hit by a bus just a couple of days ago.
My birthday was amazing. Ashley completely surprised me, which is surprising since i'm with her literally 24 hrs a day. but some how, she arranged to sneak off and inform all the teachers. So in the middle of me teaching class, all the teachers showed up with presents and a cake!!!
Today is chinese new years so we have a 4 day weekend. Ash and I will be doing some island hopping starting tomorrow.
So Ash and I have split up!!! No worries, we are both safe, but just decided to travel to different places for this part of our trip. So Ash is now in Cambodia and I'm now in Northern Thailand. I'm staying with the couchsurfer collective right now in this amazing house with a sauna and mini pool! This village is beautiful and I'm quickly falling in love with it. We were in Bangkok two days ago which was a huge culture shock after living in a small village for two weeks. Afterward, I left for Chiang Mai (northern Thailand) it was a 12 hour bus ride but I was asleep for the most part. After arriving in the city, I walked around to find the bus station and came across a monastery. The gate keeper of the monastery motioned for me to enter so I did, afterward, we started talking and it turns out that he is Chinese -Thai so we were able to communicate in Chinese. I told him of my desire to live in a monastery for a couple of weeks and he took me around the town and showed me this nunnery. There are only 3 nuns who live there and they have never had a foreigner stay with them but they were very open to the idea of me staying with them. Afterwards, I sat and had lunch with them inside the monastery and got a inside tour of the whole place. However, due to the fact that my visa for Thailand is going to expire in 4 days, I had to part ways but I told them that I would be back in a month.
This is all for now. I miss you all very much and sends all my love.
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