I've tried to write again 100 times since the islands, but whether it's been running to a new city or country every 48 hours or lack of sleep from not sleeping properly in the hostels in each place, I haven't been able to formulate a thought. Southeast Asia is a really different place to travel than I had anticipated. This trip is also very different this time around for me too though. In 2011 I had dreamed, saved and upon making it to South America, I felt I was actually living a dream. Places i had stared at pictures of and stories from blogs I had subscribed to and read every word of. It was different. I was looking for an experience. Asia is more of a rite of passage, a place mostly everyone I know has traveled through at one point or another, so I felt the need to see all of these places up close - albeit this trip came at a weird time in my life. I hated what I was doing - my job description changing incessantly day by day. Having to work for people that shouldve been fired before they even started (well, at least one of those). Feeling like I was in a real-life version of Atlas Shrugged, dealing with brainless second handers daily. Constantly fighting to do things that shouldn't have been a battle, but were exactly that, withh my only solace being my daily coffee breaks with the select few people I grew close with during the last year. I was burnt out. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Not to mention my personal life being stagnant, after finally eliminating a couple of bad repeats from my past that should have been buried long ago. This didn't help me to figure out who or what I'm looking for any more, and at 30 I'm supposed to know this. But years of letdowns and trust issues have bubbled together to make me not even want to try anymore. So my obvious answer is leaving. Now that I'm here, whether I like a place or not is greatly determined by my mood. There are countries I think I'm going to love because everyone had told me I would. And then of course my expectations are too high and I can't leave fast enough. And then there are the places that I've spontaneously decided to go just to deviate from the backpacker route, and have felt more at peace. I'm questioning things about myself on this trip. Everywhere I go that I planned I seem to want to be somewhere else. It's been hard to just sit back and enjoy things, so I've had to continue to not plan ahead and have any expectations, which allows my ADD - ridden self enjoy things. There have been a few occasions where I've found myself grinning from ear to ear, fascinated by my surroundings and truly living in the moment. Watching elephants paint masterpieces, taking a cooking class and creating my own Thai curry, and bike riding through the Temples of Angkor have made this journey worthwhile. But once Becca left, I found myself not really trying too hard to meet other people, which makes other experiences kind of boring, since there are places you really can't enjoy solo. It's crazy, because back in NY I savor the times my plans cancel, thrilled to have a moment alone to do something like take a yoga class or just wander aimlessly through the park with Foxy. Here, when im by myself I don't seem to know what to do with myself most of the time. Ive been fortunate to meet a few people, but the times I haven't have made me realize that solo travel isn't really for me anymore. Asia is hard for me to navigate. I get frustrated way too easily. Certain places, like Vietnam, I think i would have despised myself. I luckily hadAdams roomie from college who's been living in Hanoi for the last month to bring me around and navigate through the streets of the Old Quarter. It was wonderful to not have a clue where I was or where I was going, and whether we were looking at Ho Chi Minh's preserved dead body, chilling with locals at a nightclub that I graciously described as a recreation of my high school spring break with the cast of Miss Saigon, or pulling up plastic stools on the sidewalk amongst the locals to eat dishes that i couldnt be positive of their contents, I had a fantastic time exploring northern Vietnam. I loved witnessing the differences between North and South Vietnam, as well as the lovely little towns in between (ok, the one town Hoi An that I went to. I would up skipping all of the rest in lieu of going to Beijing to see the Great Wall and a panda or two, which resulted in a day long fiasco of having to rearrange all of my plans once I realized I didn't have the required visa to enter China but could play around with their 72 hour visa - free scenario. I will say the nicest thing about this trip is really having zero expectations and simply going with things, trying to entertain myself as much as possible and not give any thought as to what I might do once I get home. I've played with driving cross country with Foxy, starting my travel site for real, working part time at Lululemon on smith street, meeting my friend in Spain after his 500 kilometer bike ride from France, or popping over to Seattle since I've never really seen it minus my dinner at the space needle. So since I haven't really provided any highlights from the trip aside from a handful of pictures on Facebook, here's a quick run-down of some of the things I've loved and hated over the past month:
Love:
Angkor wat temples
Authentic Thai food
Masea elephant camp
Night markets everywhere
Getting up close and personal with tigers
Zip lining in Kanchanaburi
Bike riding to the beach in Hoi An
Learning how to eat every food imaginable with chopsticks
Cooking class in Chiang Mai
Eating an entire meal and realizing I only spent $2
Climbing to the highest point in Luang Prabang to watch the sunset
Relaxing one of the most beautiful beaches in the world
Figuring out how to navigate an entire country in under an hour
Singapore Universal Studios!
Going to the Bangkok airport 4 times and refusing to venture into Bangkok
Pizza hut trip in Hanoi!
And most recently, tutti fruitti self serve froyo in saigon!!
Things I could have lived without:
A pathetic attempt at a purse snatching in Kuala Lumpur
Getting ripped off by taxi drivers with rigged meters
Feeling like a walking dollar sign as I walk through any market
Crossing streets in Vietnam. I don't know how I haven't been hit by a motorbike yet, or why they don't believe in traffic lights!
The lack of chocolate everywhere :(
Some of the Thai islands being way too commercial
Missing Breaking Bad and PLL!
Hostels with roaches and lizards crawling around. I'm too old for this!!
A monsoon in Laos that caused a hole in my hotel room
Chinese people. Sadly, mostly all of them traveling. No offense to any of my Chinese friends!
The constant layer of dirt on me at all times the second I walk outside. Mostly in Vietnam. I know NY isn't the cleanest place in the world but this is insanity.
After Saigon I head to Hong Kong and then Beijing, and then home!
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