Malaysia and India

It has been well over two months and pushing three in another part of the world besides the United States. I am happy to find out that my visa has been approved and I will start my job searching in Australia in the beginning of March. My journey has been an incredible experience that I will cherish forever. I have two weeks left till my flight leaves out of Bangkok and I have decided to spend those two weeks in North India. I will see the Taj Mahal and be there for Holli day. Before this trip I was in Malaysia for five days to check out the city Kuala Lumpur.

I’ll be honest with you we didn’t really check out any of Malaysia. We basically just saw the Petronas Towers and went to shopping markets. Why is this? Because honestly we were tired of always being on the move and just wanted to relax, lay back, and have some brews. A vacation in a vacation. It amazes me how when you travel for a while and are on vacation, shit starts to get real tiring real quick. Someone’s reading this and is probably like, give me a fucking break, I’m working 40 plus hours a week and your complaining about traveling. Trust me I know, and I try to tell myself that every day. Take in the moment because soon you will be working again wishing that you were traveling. But man I’ve been to a lot of places in less than three months. I’ve been 9 cities in Thailand, 3 cities in Laos, 10 cities in Vietnam, 1 city in Singapore, and 1 city in Malaysia. That’s a lot of shit in 2 and half months man. So like I was saying, we decided to do nothing for five days in Kuala Lumpur, rent an air bnb, and just drink. We deserved it.

I liked Kuala Lumpur from what I saw. The city felt like it was a mix of Thailand’s craziness with Singapore’s infrastructure. Had the same kind of mix culture vibe with people from every corner of the world. Felt like a real melting pot. The bars were really cool. Very modern like the U.S. with a little bit of a middle east vibe. People were friendly and outgoing, and everyone knew how to speak english. The food was the bomb, and if you don’t like SE Asian food they had really good western food. I ate a lot of western food here to fatten me up for India. Plus you get really sick of Asian food after months. At least I think so. Again I’m just an average american traveling Asia for a good bit. Opening up my mind and seeing what these places are really like and trying new things like the food (but it gets old). Getting out of my comfort zone and exploring the unknown. But I’m not a hippie. Probably a bad term to say and I have no problem with hippies, but I didn’t come to Asia for enlightenment. I didn’t think this trip was going to change me to a spiritual being that sees a whole new way of life. Fuck that would have been great but I know myself, and I am not like that. I looked at this trip as time to clear my mind and figure out what I want to do, and do a path that most people don’t usually take in the U.S. I read some people’s blogs about traveling and I’m just like fucking hell they thought everything was magical as hell and life’s never been so perfect and there’s fairy dust everywhere. For some parts of this trip I feel them and I have wrote some blogs about certain magical times in my trip like biking through Vietnam through these amazing mountain ranges. The whole adventure though I’m just saying isn’t so magical. It gets to a point where your just like oh that’s pretty cool. Or that’s neat. Or even like this is shitty. However every 3 or so days you see something that just stimulates the fuck out of your mind and you’re like hell yeah! that’s so cool! It sucks to think this way, but I am just telling you it is the truth. Thing’s just start becoming the norm when everything is not normal. It’s a weird concept but I’m just letting the mind flow. People hype shit up. Sorry for going on a tangent. I was just talking about food and went completely another way with that. Oh well.

Anyways so back to Malaysia. We had a super sick condo right on drinking street. Basically drank almost every night, met amazing people with the same idea, and had a break from seeing the world. Pictures below are the Petronas Towers:

Now I’m chilling in India. I’ve been here for about five days now. I remember being in college and one of my friends wanted to go to India and teach kids how to speak english. I told the man that he’s fucking crazy and India seems just like a shit hole with too many people running around and acting weird and shit. I said I would never go to India and I have no desire. Well traveling has opened my mind a little bit and now I’m eating crow. My buddies have convince to come to India to explore the cities Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and New Delhi for holli day. I said, “you know what why the fuck not?” If I don’t like it I’ll never come back but I won’t know unless I go, so here I am.

India I kind of like. It’s a weird chaotic place that kind of is a shit hole with uncleanliness, but there’s something about it. Everywhere you look there’s something that interest you. Like a cow blocking a 3 lane highway and everyone is waiting for this cow to move because it’s sacred. Traffic is chaotic, and outside the traffic there’s hecklers doing business and people performing weird tasks like crushing up weird shit that you don’t know why he’s crushing it up, putting some liquid on it, and then throwing it into a fire, then thinking why the fuck did he do all that just to throw it in the fire? Buildings are pretty and old. Never seen building like these. They look like what I would see in Aladdin and that’s probably a horrible reference because I’m thinking Aladdin is probably somewhere completely different than India. The people for the most part are nice if they aren’t trying to get money out of you. The colors are vivid here. I see these women in the most gorgeous colors that make them full of light and they glow. Maybe that’s what I like the most so far? The colors. They all express themselves through colors that captures the eye. Foods great here too. I thought I was going to starve because everyone said Indian food is worse than Thai food but boy are they wrong.

The craziest thing I have done so far in India is met a gypsy that was my tuk tuk driver and go to his house in the slums to met his family after his shift at night. This was in Jaipur in the poorest slums. There was barely a roof that they lived under and there was 15 people living in this building that had to be less than 20 foot by 20 foot upstairs and downstairs. I was mind blown. However he told me it’s not about the money it is about if you are happy, and that is the most important part. I told him you hit it right on the nail bubba. He and his family played music to me all night and his little boys were singing and dancing with the biggest smiles on their face. It does amaze me how people can be so happy in the worst places, but they were and are truly happy.

I am now in Jodhpur. I took a 8 hour bus from Udaipur that was cramped and had no A/C. This city is called the blue city and it’s all blue. Other than that I don’t know what to do here then see the blue city. What I am looking forward to is riding a camel in the desert and camping out, seeing the Taj Mahal, and celebrating the end of my Asia trip with Holli day. These experiences are what I am looking forward to, and hopefully they will be amazing. Down here is some of the pictures I have taken so far while being here:

Thailand and Singapore

Southeast Thailand In the Islands:

It’s been awhile since I last wrote. I have made it back down to Thailand to visit the islands in the south. I decided to get my open water license in scuba diving in Koh Tao. I figured when I visit Austrialia I will eventually see the great barrier reef and will need to scuba to see it. So being in Koh Tao, the worlds cheapest place to get a diver’s license, might as well. Diving was fun. You went through a lot of training and learning. Learning the diving tables and when decompression sickness starts, and also the techniques you need to know in case of emergencies. The fish in Koh Tao were pretty neat. I have to say though that there’s something far better when diving in Florida. I feel like Florida’s underwater life is more vibrant and energetic. Bigger fish to see at 60 feet than over here. The only good thing about over here though is once in a while you will see a whale shark. Never saw one though. The place where I got certified was called big blue diving school. The instructors where great and the school you stayed at was right on the water. Everyone that I dove with was in their 20’s just backpacking through Asia. After I got certified in open water scuba I stayed back for a little bit on the island to chill out, waiting to hear back about my visa. My visa is unfortunately still processing and has not yet been approved. Therefore, I plan on continuing my travels through Asia. Right now I am heading to Krabi to see a couple islands on the west side of southern Thailand and then I am heading down to Singapore. After few days in Singapore I will make it up to Malaysia, then fly to India. Hopefully by the time I make it to India my visa will be approved and then I’m off to Australia.

A series of unfortunate events has happened this last week. After 2 months of being abroad I finally came down with food poisoning and also a fever. I have now recovered but it has been hell this last week and a half. I had to get my diver’s license when this was happening and my god I was dying. Another unfortunate thing that happened was when I went to the full moon party in Koh Phang. I lady boy came out of nowhere and snatched my family crest right from my neck. This guy was real slick about it. He came out of the crowed grabbed my privates as hard as he can. I leaned down obviously to grab myself and screamed, “what the fuck!” showed him away and he disappeared. Pissed off at the guy I walked off and five minutes later realized my necklace was gone. If you go to that party stay away from the lady boys and do not bring any values. On top of all this my visa has not been approved which is also unfortunate.

I’m a positive person though. Shit happens. Sometimes when you on a string of badluck you just got to smile and push through. Things will eventually get better. I’m breathing and that’s all that matters and I could be stuck behind a desk hating life everyday so I really have nothing to complain about. Today however I feel fucking fanatastic. Sickness is gone, the sun is shining and I feel like dancing. The fact that I am officially wandering with no general plan has put me into a state a peace. I’m going to ride this mysterious wave and see which unknown lands it takes me.

Koh Phi Phi and Singapore

Koh Phi Phi is a pretty island. It’s located on the West side of southern Thailand and it is one of the places that made me choose to travel Thailand. There is this place called Mayan Bay which is this beach wrapped around by massive mountains in the middle of the ocean. It is truly paradise. This is the main reason I came to this island. All I did is arrive at the port, check in my baggage at this shit hostel that partied till 2am with loud music, and hike to see the sunset at a view point. Coming back from this I saw a fire show on the beach at night and drank a couple beers and then got ready for bed because the next day I had to be up at 6am to go to Mayan Bay. Why so early? Well if you go to Mayan Bay at lets say 11am, there is so many people on the beach you are practically touching shoulder to shoulder. So on that note I wanted the whole beach to myself. I woke up early the next day, took a private boat with some friends and landed on the beach. We had to pay a 400 baht national park fee but honestly I think it is not real. They guy kept yelling at us to pay or the police will come but when we gave him the money he just smiled and walked away. There was no police. So if you ever go there ask where to pay and just walked toward the boat he tells you to pay at and then when you are far enough away turn towards the beach and walk right in. Anyways the beach was beautiful. There was about 20 other people on the beach but that’s it. It’s definitely worth going to but like most pictures on the posters in Asia. Assume it’s not going to be as good as that, but it was good enough. I took a couple pictures on the island but the sun wasn’t fully up so most of the crystal-clear water was in the shade. I’m a Florida boy though and the water looked as clear as the keys so it was very nice.

My short travels to Koh Phi Phi were done like that. I took the pictures, saw the honey hole and went off to see Singapore next. I was in Singapore for three days and god I loved it. Everyone says Singapore is so clean and nice when I’ve been traveling around Asia and I just thought to myself, “yeah that’s because shit is dirty over here it’s probably like the states.” When I got there however they were right. The city was virtually spotless of trash and everything looked new and organized. The architecture and infrastructure was amazing and so beautiful. I was getting a little engineer hard on looking at it all. Transportation everywhere was easy and efficient and Singapore seemed like a big melting pot with people from all over the world working there. On the first night, the people I have been traveling with and I went out to the nicest place in town in our nicest clothes and shared a few drinks on the 57^th floor of this tower looking over all of the city. The view was stunning, the drinks were good and I burned a little hole in my wallet. All worth it to celebrate our travels together for two months. The next day we toured the city. We went to see the Gardens by The Bay landmark and other major sites. The whole time again during this day I just was appreciating the infrastructure. At night, we again went to Gardens by The Bay and after saw a water fountain light show. Gardens by The Bay was amazing. Whoever designed and made that place my hats off to you. It’s a must see when you go to Singapore.

I am off to Malaysia now for five days. I hear they have good food and drinks are cheap. After those five days, I make my way to India for a couple of weeks. I still feel fantastic. I’m at one hundred percent right now and have been really happy traveling every day. It just hit me after my sickness and just thinking to myself what you’ve been doing has truly been an amazing experience and the journey gets to continue for a little bit more. I’ll post some pictures below again like one of my previous blogs. Yeah I know most of my blogs are sloppy and the details are not very define but that just happens when you’ve seen so much man. It is really hard to write a less than two-thousand-word blog when you start adding details. I’m just a simple man that decided to travel a little bit and give my thoughts on the matter. Plus taking so pictures while I’m on my way.

Koh Tao: