don’t call me a backpacker…

Have you noticed a ridiculous overusage of “Top 5, 10, or 20 lists” in the media over the last few years. Know why? Another symptom of the internet age shortening people’s attention spans and media outlets watering down content to retain readers. They (the lists) annoy the shit of out me.

I’ve noticed upon my return home, that people don’t want to “just” ask me about my trip, because they don’t want to spend more than a few minutes hearing about it, or I must be pretty unbearable. So they ask for a Top 2 instead.

It also amazes me how some supposed friends of mine can’t take 10 minutes out of the last 6 months to even glance at my travels and get an idea of what I did. (you’re all off the hook) Whatever. It was for me, not them.

So without further ado, I reluctantly present to you my Top 6 of my 9 country whirlwind backpacking “don’t call me a backpacker” trip.

6. Lisbon, Portugal – having friends/tourguides made the quick visit of this cool city very thorough, not to mention home cooked meals.

5. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece – yeah

4. diving on Ko Tao, Thailand – an improvised plan that was such a great decision

3. Cordoba, Andalucia, Spain – just a perfect small Spanish town, and the Mezquita was very moving for me. In retrospect maybe it’s just the feeling one gets the first time you see Moorish architecture in person, but still a very special city.

2. Kochi, Kerala, India – the last bastion of old, slow, friendly, beautiful southern India. I sooooooo want to go back and explore more.

drumroll please Anton…

1. Borobudur, Central Java, Indonesia – simply incredible monument surrounded by spectacular scenery.

pictures do not really do it justice. they do not convey feeling.

I took a little break from the blog to get my life back together and finally relax at home. Been pretty busy for being unemployed: drinks with friends (ok i do have a few still), doing my taxes, doing a lot of obsessive-compulsive-grocery-shopping and experimental cooking, had my first job interview today with another tomorrow…

But now I’ve got some free time, the “lost photo” gallery is up. I also found some missing pictures that should have been in previous galleries – so Portugal, Indonesia 2, and Spain 2 have been updated. The pics from my cell phone turned out pretty crappy, but previously overlooked photos include a few gems, like this one…

I took close to 2000 photos. I’m pretty sure that’s more than I’ve taken in the last 10 years combined.

I’ve been working on technical blog stuff this week as well – wordpress updates, and I added a long overdue MAP of my trip in the sidebar! I was trying to get the map going before and during the trip but it just got frustrating finding the right software.

The coolest thing is to zoom in on Java, look in particular the volcanoes, on my map with Google’s satellite pictures. The Mt. Bromo area can be seen perfectly in incredible detail. I attached my pictures so you can see the pictures with the overhead views – pretty damn cool… If you have a lot of time on your hands, Ha Long Bay is also really interesting to see.

The big four – Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu.

I visited the largest gothic Cathedral in the world.

I visited the largest Buddhist monument in the world.

I visited one of the 3 most sacred mosques in the world (in its day, hehe.)

and I visited some Hindu temples of little consequence. (dang I should have hit Cambodia and Ankor Wat after all, oh well, we can’t have it all.)

Ok so this post is really about Sevilla.

I’ve been in a lot of churches and cathedrals, the size of Sevilla’s Cathedral didn’t quite sink in at first. But when you walk out of the main hall into a chapel, the art room, or the Giralda tower, and then walk back into the nave – you are indeed struck by the enormity of the place each and every time. It was designed this way, around 1400, to be on a ridiculous scale, an “unrivaled monument to Christian glory.”

The rest of Sevilla was not quite what I expected, although I didn’t do a lot of research about it beforehand. I expected a little more of an old, dark, gothic place I guess. It has big wide streets, pretty modern, busy, it has some cool areas that appealed to me, namely Plaza Hercules and some other hipster area nearby. I could live here, it’s nice.

They were tearing up most of the main streets around the tourist area to put in a light rail. At this point I was also sick to death of having a map practically glued to my face trying not to get lost. Again, running myself a bit ragged trying to do too much.

The Alcazar is yet another spectacular Moorish monument, some details even more amazing that what I’d seen in other cities. It’s mostly divided into two parts, the old Moorish palace, the Carlos V palace from a different era, and then a nice huge garden behind them. But it’s an interesting mish-mash of different eras and styles. My favorite fast fact was when the cruel and ruthless al-Mu’tadid enlarged the palace to house his harem of 800 women!

I also hit up the free art museum, Museo de Belles Artes, after I’d seen everything else. Mostly old religious paintings as some of the rooms were closed while I was there.

A lot of people asked about whether language would be a problem on this trip.

When I saw Indonesian people talking to French people…
Thais talking to Danes…
Germans talking to Israelis…
Vietnamese talking to Portuguese…
North Indians talking to South Indians…

Guess what language they all spoke?

ENGLISH!

What language do you speak? English! This gives you a decided advantage on traveling to faraway lands. A lot of southeast Asian people also told me I am easier to understand than a lot of people they talk to. Let me tell you, language is no excuse not to go somewhere in this day and age. I don’t speak any of the languages of the countries I went to and got all of my needs met. (I made the not-so-brilliant choice of studying Latin in high school. /cry) Just try to learn a few of their words, speak slowly, don’t use contractions, and smile a lot.

And… always carry a pen. I’ve actually formed a rather close bond with my pen, we’ve been through so much together. Or it may be a sign of losing my mind due to traveling this long alone.

(From what I’ve read, Russia and China are two big countries where you may run into zero English, if you are planning such a trip.)

Almost everyone I encountered in Asia would actually try very hard, and even apologize for bad English, to which I always would apologize in return that I don’t speak their language and tell them they speak great English. Many even were trying to learn, or would want to talk because they wanted to improve.

An interesting note I picked up is that people from countries where American films and TV are dubbed in native language, as opposed to hearing English with subtitles, makes a huge difference in their learning English. Notably French, Spanish, Chinese, and German, countries where the population is big enough to spend the money to dub foreign films. Vietnam for instance, the only place I went to see a movie, they get subtitles, so they hear English more.

Last night I watched E.R. in Spanish, it was difficult and kind of disturbing.

Speaking of Spanish, this is the one language I actually know a lot more words, phrases, and the basics going in. But I am far from conversational, sadly, and definitely can’t keep up with the rapid pace.

Spain however, is so far the worst country I have found at finding English speakers. It’s kind of what I pictured France to be like. They don’t speak it, and some are a bit snobby about it. But it’s going ok and I’m going to know a lot more when I leave. I bought la diccionario.

One major note, the official countrywide language of Indonesia is called bahasa Indonesia. There were literally hundreds of tribal languages in the Indonesian archigapeligo before they put this common language together. It uses english (cough * Latin) alphabet and no tones like other southeast asia languages.

hello = halo, name = nama, doctor = dokter, beer = bir, polisi = police, etc…

If I had known how easy it was to speak, read, and learn, I would have started that one before I went. It also explains why they can easily learn English. So if you are planning a trip there, I highly recommend learning it if you want to interact with the people, I certainly will.

Plane crash in Java right after I leave Java…

New Years Eve bombs in Bangkok shortly before I go there…

Train bombs in India just after I leave India…

anyone noticing a pattern here? The reality is these things happen anywhere and everywhere.
But what I really wanted to say here, is I have felt totally safe traveling alone in just about every place I’ve been.

Truth be told, I was a little nervous at times in Java, but nothing happened, and the people from Java that I met were some of the nicest along the way. I did choose Mumbai because it is well known to be much safer than Dehli, the capital, and I felt very safe there.

The American media and government seem to want to make you believe that the rest of the world is this wild and dangerous place. It is not. Many people I meet in Asia think that everyone in America carries guns and you’re likely to get shot if you visit New York City. Now you and I know that is not reality (but not that far from the truth either, haha.)

Obviously if a country is at war, like India/Pakistan, there are greater dangers in those areas. But everywhere I’ve been has been fine. So there’s that.

I’ve been thinking about the “7 wonders of the world” since the beginning of my trip, but neglected to blog about it until now. I was of course wondering whether I should plan my trip around any of them, cause I wouldn’t want to miss one if I was in town.

Waaaaaay too often people casually throw out, “isn’t THAT one of the 7 wonders of the world?” Like the Hong Kong skyline. Great Wall of China? Or Borobudur. Or the Golden Gate bridge… After a while you begin to wonder, how many “wonders” are there REALLY? and why have I heard about so many different ones?

I even brought this up several weeks ago, with Tom, Cristina, Giovanni, et al, when we were traveling through Java. None of us could remember and we were all trying to play guessing games at what they were, which of course made it more confusing.

So I went to wikipedia after I got back online in Bali to clear it up. There are several lists of 7, including natural wonders, and man-made wonders of different time periods. Then there has been the “8th Wonder” of each list granted to things which seem to be conflicting. Then more recently there have been lists of official nominations, and updated lists, because those original 7 Wonders were done like a centuries ago or something.

So no wonder we’re all confused. Clear it up for yourself here.

So Ha Long Bay – ON THE LIST my Rough Guide says? No! It’s fighting the Grand Canyon for 8th wonder!

I like the Top 21 nomination list, but maybe a list of 10 or 14 would be best. More than 7 but less than 21. But what a mess. What do you think?

Like I said, Amed, Bali seems more my speed. Well, except for the internet speed, which is dialup. eeek! I blew it off and am just blogging offline.

I always wanted to swim in one of these pools. $10/night.

I took my moped down a few towns to the spot where a WWI Japanese patrol boat sunk, literally right off the beach. Coral has formed all over it, and there was amazingly large coral all across this beach, and tons of beautiful tropical fish. I had a great morning snorkeling, until I got tagged on the elbow by a small pink jellyfish, which I figured was the sign that it’s time to go.

I was debating actually diving instead, as this is the premiere dive spot in Bali. But to get a license it actually takes several days, so I think I will do that in Thailand where it is a little cheaper, and I will have some days to kill.

Lesson learned the hard way today… don’t go to remote villages without checking to make sure you have enough money to leave. How quickly I forgot ATM machines are not universal. I realized this problem shortly after arriving, and that’s also why I rented the moped. I had a nice drive in the afternoon, an hour each way, into the nearest town with an ATM. The adventurous part was I had to make sure not to get the attention of the police (polisi in bahasa Indonesia.)

All of the Balinese staring at me as I drive around is probably not a good indicator that I’m blending in. And I had a near miss with the polisi on the way into the big town. It was then that I decided to park the moped and walk through town. ATM #1, no luck. ATM #2, 1,000,000 rupiahs! I’m riiiaatch biiiaatch!

On my way home I was trying to stall until dusk so I could try and sneak home under the cover of darkness by stopping for dinner in Amlapura. Still didn’t work, they all still stare at me. But I had my first Indonesian fried chicken, which seems to be a common dish here. REALLY GOOD. I think it was one rib and one leg, and included the liver, all still attached to the bone and lightly fried, with rice (everything here is with rice) and a REALLY spicy hot sauce. They love to tease whitey about spicy food. They always warn me, and I tell them to BRING IT! They brought it, and my nose was running.

Moped returned, no polisi, no accidenti.

I also just tried my first Indonesian Arak. Rice booze. Tastes like sake, feels like cheap whiskey. hehe.

Now, back in Ubud today… my last 24 hours in Bali, a little sad. Tomorrow it’s a late flight and overnight in Bangkok before starting Vietnam the next day. I will probably take it easy there in Hanoi for a few days.

Like I said earlier, Tom and Cristina made my trip back bearable because otherwise I probably would have lost it along the way, feeling utterly angry and alone.  But fortunately I wasn’t.

Part of that anger was because I’m pretty sure we all got “jobbed” by the transport company.  Right when our bus was supposed to arrive, this suspicious little midget who ran that travel office in Probolingo told us (which now included a random German couple) that our bus was 3 hours late.  And that we should take this shuttle van that’s going to take us to another bus.  I’m quite sure this was all B.S. and that we were getting scammed, and Tom and I even said it out loud.  The scam being they downgrade the tourists to cheaper public buses, ship them off, and keep the profits.  But what are you supposed to do?  Say, “no, we’ll wait here in this dump for 3 hours!”.

So the scams continue and we continued on our adventure.

This crap coupled with the constant money grubbing here is really leaving a bad taste in my mouth.  I expected more from the Balinese especially.  But desperate times call for desperate measures I guess.  Everyone is trying to extract money from whitey.

Do I sound crabby?

The ferry ride was much less of a carnival this time around, way fewer people and cars, and we actually got back into our Bali destination ahead of schedule.  The three of us headed to Ubud to try to find a hotel with someone that was awake to check us in at 12 AM.

They ended up splurging for a nice place, but I had to draw the line because I feel I’ve been spending too much money here.  We said our bleary-eyed goodbyes.  I didn’t walk 2 hotels more until a guy flagged me and gave me a nice room with AC in an empty hotel, for half what they paid.  Sometimes it pays to keep walking a bit.

Ubud is interesting.  The travel guides call it upscale, which I’ve come to realize means “overpriced and for old people.”  I’m probably not giving it a fair shake, because I know a lot of the “real” Bali artistry goes on behind the scenes here, but I am just seeing the tourist side.  It is really beautiful and nice to see a mellow yet developed town.

In Ubud even the transport dudes are upscale.  I got 5 business cards in 12 hours. heh.

I was also seeing what appeared to be the same paintings in different shops.  That’s kinda jive.  I won’t be buying any mass produced art.

As you can see, I haven’t really been sitting still.  I’ve had a lot of energy and I have just kept moving to see as much as possible of this country.

Later that day: Cut and run.

I would be remiss if I didn’t put this in my journal.  Sometimes meeting other travelers doesn’t always work out… After walking around the street trying to work out my transport to Kuta and back (to pick up my power adapter) I was summoned into a cafe by a tall blonde hippie chick.  Enter Autumn, from British Columbia/Canada/San Francisco.  She had just been in Bali a few days, by herself, was having her own culture shock, and was dying to talk native English with someone.  I knew the feeling, so of course I obliged.  Conversation started off good, I told her I wanted to head back to the beach somewhere and she offered to take us on her rented moped.  I was like, uhhhh, do you have a license?  (I heard the fines are steep.)  But hey it’s an adventure right?

We hung out that night.  After hearing her self-centered life story in detail, her causing a scene EVERYWHERE we went with spastic behavior, me finally pegging her age at 22, and the fact that I had serious reservations about the safety of our traveling, I was not feeling good about our plans.  But I was still like, this will probably be fine, and mopeds are fun.  When we met up the next morning to go, she got kind of snappy with me and I was like, that’s it.  I cannot spend the next 24 hours with this person, and I bailed on her.

Hippie chick was harshing my mellow.  How ironic.

She was disappointed and defensive, and that’s hard for me because I don’t like to let people down.  But it had to be done, and I’m hoping blogging it will make me feel better.

So I hopped on the tourist shuttle (a lame ass way to travel) to Amed, a sleepy east coast fishing village with the best diving and snorkeling in Bali.  This place rocks.  Farm animals everywhere, few tourists, empty hotels and restaurants.  I saw a guy slaughter a chicken tonight (but didn’t get too close, avian flu you know.)  I rented a moped for 24 hours to get around the village.  I’m sitting here under the stars by the ocean typing this in my sweet $10/night room.

I could stay here a while.

(the Borobudur post below has been updated in case you didn’t notice…)

It was fun, I don’t regret it, and I had nice trekking companions, but it was not worth the time, effort, and life threatening driving to visit this volcano. Part of it was my fault as after reading about the various hike-able volcanoes with similar names, you tend to get them confused. It was not the volcano or experience that I was expecting.

But, I can say I walked around the rim of a smoking volcano.

Oh – by the way, in regards to my last post… I read another thing today in my Rough Guide that made me cringe. It was talking about the long distance and overnight buses, and that the drivers are often on speed or other drugs to help them stay awake. Great, thanks. So much for skimming the travel guides.

About one minute after we left on our way up the volcano by the last shuttle van, a motorbike pulled up next to us yelling at the driver. He was making a harrowing delivery of a passenger we forgot, enter Hirome from Japan. She spoke almost perfect English, and I told her I thought she was American, but she had lived in Canada and now teaches English back in Japan. She was cool, and the 5 of us (Tom, Cristina, Giovanni, Hirome, and myself) had dinner in our hilarious lodge, and laughed about the fact that it seemed like we had been transported to the Swiss Alps or the Himalayas.

So Giovanni, Hirome, and I met up at 4 AM to hike the sunrise hike, Tom and Cristina opted for the posh Jeep transport so they could visit two sites. It was cold. At this point I was glad I packed 2 items: my mini flashlight, and a knit cap, even though there were locals standing outside our hotel at 4 AM selling knit caps. I kid you not.

The hike was interesting, through some woods, across a “sea of sand”, until you can see several volcano peaks. It felt like we were on another planet while it was dark. We all sprained an ankle. The volcano we want then has 200 stairs to finish the climb. I felt horribly out of shape. We got to the top and then ingested a lot of cold wind and sulphuric white smoke as we enjoyed the sunrise, and I think I got some interesting and perhaps great pictures.

We hiked back and I promptly fell back asleep after a hot shower. But it was just a nap, Gio and Hirome woke me up giggling as we needed to leave at 9:30 for another day on a bus to get back to Bali, oh joy.

Every time there’s a volcano eruption somewhere, and you think to yourself, “who the heck would live under a volcano???” Well, farmers who grow your $12 per pound coffee, that’s who. The rich soil is too good to pass up. It was one of the beautiful things I saw on that trip, the zig zag mountainside crops that we hadn’t seen anywhere else. I guessed it was a lot of coffee, tea, and leafy veggies.

These people are savages. I have no problem saying that. What I saw in Bali was just a hint of the madness that is the Java highways.

Dad, you absolutely would have had a heart attack if you saw what I saw from the back seat of our tourist minivans. I can’t believe I didn’t see anyone die. Really.

Mopeds, cars, vans, buses, and working trucks, that most all of which have been decked out like something from Mad Max with lots of multi-colored lights, shimmering multi-colored glare guards on the windshield, and giant steel bars of various designs… just waiting to win the next head-on collision.

It’s madness I tell you.

On our long “Journey-of-constant-near-death-lane-passing,” from Jogja to Mt. Bromo, I was at least fortunately joined by Tom and Cristina from Brussels (but Cristina is from Spain originally) and Giovanni from Italy.

Giovanni has been traveling from 7 months and has just been through 8 countries hitting just about every one between India and Indonesia.

We were all obviously discussing our “Journey-of-constant-near-death-lane-passing,” and whether this was the worst driving we’d ever seen, and between the 4 of us, we’d been to a LOT of countries. I remember Costa Rica being pretty bad, but mostly because of potholes. The worst Tom and Cristina had seen was Palermo, Sicily. Ironically, Giavanni had never been there, and seems to hate southern Italy. He said India driving was pretty bad but mostly cars and cows, Vietnam is pretty insane but it’s all mopeds, but he said this is the most dangerous he’s ever seen.

Today I frantically tried to google some statistics to back up my claims of this madness. I haven’t come up with much yet, but dammit I will! African countries have the highest rate of auto deaths per person, but southeast asian countries are a close 2nd according to 2003 info I read today. And Costa Rica has a very high rate of auto deaths as well, highest in Central America.

Anyway, we (me, Tom, and Cristina) were so happy to pull into the Denpasar, Bali bus station last night in one piece.  I actually don’t think I could have kept my head together without their companionship.