Adventures in Peachiness.
2 years ago
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Funny Fact
I am in Melaka, Malasia now and had a blast today exploring the food and shops in Chinatown. Funny conversations abounded! I found out while I was in Georgetown that my tattoo has a meaning I never knew about. Aparently in Chinese Astrology three rectangles in a row means "man"; however, the right arm is your female arm and the left is your male. So I have man tattooed on my female arm! I think that is best representation of tomboy you can get! heh. In relation to today, I was stopped no less than 5 times by folks who wanted to comment on this interesting fact, and I overheard several people walking by start talking about man and female arms. =] Good day.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Jungle Trekking
I had a wonderful day trekking around the jungle in the Cameron Highlands with a couple other travelers. It all started with a group of us talking over breakfast about the various trails through the hills and jungle and our desire to see one or two before we moved on. With little more planning then, "ok, I have a map out of my guide book" we headed out. We stopped off in town for a couple bottles of water and headed to the trail head.
The path we chose started out quite nicely, from a garden of a local couple that had landscaped and terraced a large section of their property. It quickly turned into an easily distinguishable jungle path that was quite a bit more up hill than my poor, recently ill body was happy about.
The signage for our pathway also left a bit to be desired.
Once we reached to top of the climb, the views were impressive and well worth the effort. Plus, it felt good to finally be healthy enough to do some actual physical exertion, even if it did feel like I was dying. After taking in the views, our day took a turn for the interesting. We decided instead of backtracking down the path we came up, we would follow a different route home. The problem was there were absolutely no trail markers or signs, and several potential paths to take. Looking at our trusty torn-from-a-guidebook map, we chose a path and headed off.
What followed was an interesting adventure of slipping down jungle hills, wading through streams to find lost trails, backtracking numerous times, hacking our way through spiky vines and huge bushes and following a concrete drainage ditch for a while. We were finally able to see a road and started heading that direction along any trail we could find.
We eventually ran into a power station and we so excited to see civilization! We were on the opposite side of the station from the road and could see someone inside the fence, so we waved and waved trying to get their attention so we could ask directions. All we wanted was to confirm how to get back to town, but he would not come near us, just waved us away and indicated we had to walk around the power station. So we had to shimmy our way around the fence of this huge power station, with the jungle grown in right next to the fence. So much for those really helpful Malaysian folks! We finally got around and headed up the road looking for a sign indicating where the hell we were. After walking about 20 minutes we got to the main road and were able to hitch a ride back to our guesthouse.
After a hot shower, copious amounts of soap and the few cuts and scrapes we had gathers were fixed up we all enjoyed a round of beers and a good laugh over our jungle adventure.
On the docket for today: tea plantations, honey bee farms and strawberry picking...lets see what sort of adventures we can get into today!
The signage for our pathway also left a bit to be desired.Once we reached to top of the climb, the views were impressive and well worth the effort. Plus, it felt good to finally be healthy enough to do some actual physical exertion, even if it did feel like I was dying. After taking in the views, our day took a turn for the interesting. We decided instead of backtracking down the path we came up, we would follow a different route home. The problem was there were absolutely no trail markers or signs, and several potential paths to take. Looking at our trusty torn-from-a-guidebook map, we chose a path and headed off.
What followed was an interesting adventure of slipping down jungle hills, wading through streams to find lost trails, backtracking numerous times, hacking our way through spiky vines and huge bushes and following a concrete drainage ditch for a while. We were finally able to see a road and started heading that direction along any trail we could find.We eventually ran into a power station and we so excited to see civilization! We were on the opposite side of the station from the road and could see someone inside the fence, so we waved and waved trying to get their attention so we could ask directions. All we wanted was to confirm how to get back to town, but he would not come near us, just waved us away and indicated we had to walk around the power station. So we had to shimmy our way around the fence of this huge power station, with the jungle grown in right next to the fence. So much for those really helpful Malaysian folks! We finally got around and headed up the road looking for a sign indicating where the hell we were. After walking about 20 minutes we got to the main road and were able to hitch a ride back to our guesthouse.
After a hot shower, copious amounts of soap and the few cuts and scrapes we had gathers were fixed up we all enjoyed a round of beers and a good laugh over our jungle adventure.On the docket for today: tea plantations, honey bee farms and strawberry picking...lets see what sort of adventures we can get into today!
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Thailand Recap
Wow...I have been traveling in SE Asia for over 30 days now! and the experiences are starting to pile up. I really do want to apologize for updating so infrequently but it is hard to sit down and write about what I have done after the fact - especially since it means I am not currently doing something new.
I loved traveling through Thailand - beautiful places, wonderful locals and a few interesting experiences thrown into the mix. Some of the highlights include: going rock climbing in Railay with a Thai named Tex (he was so excited to take a Texas girl climbing he personally took me out for 4 climbs and wouldn't let me pay a dime!), watching the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life on Koh Lanta where I had the beach entirely to myself and the sky looked like it was on fire, and hissing at a troop of monkeys that were harassing me on my walk back to my room and having the dominant male look at me like I was the craziest human he had ever encountered. Being proposed to on the beach by a local Thai Rastafarian man who wanted to "take care of me for every day of the rest of my life", riding on the back of a motorcycle in Bangkok with my full pack on my back trying to get to the train station on time, and being the only traveler on a packed bus to say hello (in Thai) to the Muslim woman that got on with her 7 year old daughter and being given the most grateful smile and half the cookies she brought for her little girl while I taught them how to say hello, thank you and good bye.
Something that has taken some getting used to is the assumptions most people (travelers and locals alike) make about me. 1: I am American - this has lead to some fun and frustrating conversations and interactions. In Thailand, if someone knew only 1 or 2 words in English, one of them was guaranteed to be "Obama" (always delivered with a thumbs up and a big grin). Other assumptions included that I must be rich, I hate everyone not American, I am stupid and several others that I forget now. 2: I am traveling alone - this usually lead to at least one of the following assumption - that I need help, don't know what I am doing or where I am going ever, I don't have any friends, I can't make friends, I am stuck up...and so on. 3: I am female - I will fall for every scam in the book, I can't learn Thai, I can't count money, I need help picking anything up, I want to shop all the time, I hate local food, I love cocktails and want to drink copious amounts of them and I can't play pool. 4: I am female and traveling alone - so I MUST want to sleep with everyone. Locals and travelers alike all think that I am just itching to get into bed with them. Lord knows I am not a prude, but it is extremely frustrating to have every male, and most females, think that I am constantly on the prowl and easy to bag.
But enough ranting: I loved Thailand, and I love traveling and learning about the world, its people and myself.
p.s. I am going to try and start dedicating every other morning to updating my flickr and blog. Shorter blogs with a bit more current and spur of the moment info. Wish me luck!!
XXOO
Heather
I loved traveling through Thailand - beautiful places, wonderful locals and a few interesting experiences thrown into the mix. Some of the highlights include: going rock climbing in Railay with a Thai named Tex (he was so excited to take a Texas girl climbing he personally took me out for 4 climbs and wouldn't let me pay a dime!), watching the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life on Koh Lanta where I had the beach entirely to myself and the sky looked like it was on fire, and hissing at a troop of monkeys that were harassing me on my walk back to my room and having the dominant male look at me like I was the craziest human he had ever encountered. Being proposed to on the beach by a local Thai Rastafarian man who wanted to "take care of me for every day of the rest of my life", riding on the back of a motorcycle in Bangkok with my full pack on my back trying to get to the train station on time, and being the only traveler on a packed bus to say hello (in Thai) to the Muslim woman that got on with her 7 year old daughter and being given the most grateful smile and half the cookies she brought for her little girl while I taught them how to say hello, thank you and good bye.
Something that has taken some getting used to is the assumptions most people (travelers and locals alike) make about me. 1: I am American - this has lead to some fun and frustrating conversations and interactions. In Thailand, if someone knew only 1 or 2 words in English, one of them was guaranteed to be "Obama" (always delivered with a thumbs up and a big grin). Other assumptions included that I must be rich, I hate everyone not American, I am stupid and several others that I forget now. 2: I am traveling alone - this usually lead to at least one of the following assumption - that I need help, don't know what I am doing or where I am going ever, I don't have any friends, I can't make friends, I am stuck up...and so on. 3: I am female - I will fall for every scam in the book, I can't learn Thai, I can't count money, I need help picking anything up, I want to shop all the time, I hate local food, I love cocktails and want to drink copious amounts of them and I can't play pool. 4: I am female and traveling alone - so I MUST want to sleep with everyone. Locals and travelers alike all think that I am just itching to get into bed with them. Lord knows I am not a prude, but it is extremely frustrating to have every male, and most females, think that I am constantly on the prowl and easy to bag.
But enough ranting: I loved Thailand, and I love traveling and learning about the world, its people and myself.
p.s. I am going to try and start dedicating every other morning to updating my flickr and blog. Shorter blogs with a bit more current and spur of the moment info. Wish me luck!!
XXOO
Heather
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