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.

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!

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

From Bangkok to Railay Beach

I have made it to Railay Beach, a small peninsula off of southern Thailand that is only accessible by boat. The trip down here involved my first ever train ride followed by a bus trip and finally a small speedboat. The train ride was so much fun. I left the Bahi'a school late Wednesday afternoon after spending a very peaceful day recuperating from the hectic pace I have going at since arriving in Bangkok. Scott, a fellow I met that arranged for me to stay at the school, had one of his Thai friends drive me to the train station on his motercycle. What an experience! Driving a motorcycle here is nothing like in the states. Lanes are disregarded, and zipping in and around traffic is common place. Add me carrying my 25 lb. pack to the mix and it was quite a fun ride. I think we only came to a complete stop twice during the 15 min ride, and a few times I had to make sure my knees didn't get caught on either of the two cars we were slipping in between. Scott's friend did not speak much English, but he insisted on stayed with me until the train I needed came and that I was all situated before returning home. I very kind fellow =] Once on the train, I immediately met two of my fellow passengers when they saved me from dropping my bag on my head trying to get it onto the storage rack. Dominick and Andy are from London (actually a small town outside that I can't remember the name of) who were traveling to Samui for holiday. We struck up a conversation and ended up talking and hanging out for most of the train ride. They taught me how to play Beanies (a type of Rumy that has a rotating wild card) and we played and drank beer in the Buffet car until they kicked us out. It was tons of fun, and I got a lot of great advice and recommended places to see all over SE Asia from them. The car we were staying in was a 2nd class sleeper car, which meant the seats folded down to make beds and an upper bunk was folded out of the wall. I paid a bit lower price for the upper bunk, but really enjoyed it. It was an surprisingly comfortable night, with the rhythmic sound of the train on the tracks and the smattering of rain on the roof lulling me to sleep. We awoke at 5:30 in the morning, hopped off the train at Krabi and grabbed banana smoothies for breakfast while waiting for our buses. (the shake cost only $1.20 by the way) =]
We three ended up getting on the same bus after breakfast, but after half an hour I swapped to a different bus and bid farewell to the two blokes from England. Unlike the first bus, the bus I joined had no other tourist or English speakers, so I just had to hope that the driver was looking out for me and would let me know what stop to get off at. After a few hours, a bit of napping, a frantic search for a toilet at the one rest break we had, and numerous drop offs and pickups I was getting a bit worried I had missed my stop. Luckily I soon saw a sign for Krabi and new the ride was almost over. I was the last to get dropped off, and felt a bit apprehensive as the bus drove to a remote, secluded group of buildings and stopped with no other people in sight. It turns out I was actually at a spot where I could get a van ride from here to any of the three docks providing rides to Railay Beach. For only 159 baht (and no other options for a ride) I headed over to one of the docks. How quickly I was able to leave Krabi was dependent on the boat taxi finding enough passengers, and since this was low season I ended up waiting for almost 2 hours. The 45 min ride was pretty bland; except it starting raining halfway there and we only had a rough tarp spread over piping for cover, so we all ended up a bit damp. I am sure I made quite a sight, with my fedora pulled low, sunglasses, a bandana covering the lower half of my face and my rain jacket pulled halfway on to cover my arms!
I finally waded onto East Railay beach (luckily the rain had stopped for a bit) and went searching for a room for the night. Let me say this about Railay, I am going to be in such good shape after staying a week or two here! Everything back from the small beach is steep walkways and stairs, and there are no cars and only a few motorcycles here, so I will have a bunch of hiking to do. It is also amazingly beautiful. A picture perfect tropical rainforest mixed in with amazing sheer limestone cliffs and emerald green water. After a few minutes of hiking around, I finally found a bungalow in my price range (300 baht which equals $9). I grabbed a quick shower and then headed out to explore the area and find some food. I didn't make it far before the smell of Pad Thai and the smiling face of a lovely Thai woman drew me into a Rastafarian Bar right on the beach. I ate my fill and hung around for a bit because the skies had opened up again and were dumping a tons of rain. Here I met Job and Laura, two travelers from Ireland, who recommended I stay at Railay Cabanas (cheaper and nicer) and invited me to hang out while I was on Railay. Job has been coming here for the past 4 years and has really gotten to know the locals and where all the best food and atmosphere is. I didn't reconnect with them later in the evening, because I went back to my room for a nap and ended up sleeping the whole night through.

Bangkok, Thailand

Wow, this trip has been jam-packed so far. A bit too much I am realizing. Before I get into how I am feeling today, let me back track and fill you in on what I have been up to. Day 1 (Sept. 17) I landed in Bangkok after a semi-uneventful 28 hour flight from Chicago. I managed to get out of the airport within an hour and a half, and caught a bus to my hostel. The ride was an eye opening introduction to this amazing city. Crazy traffic, beautiful old buildings next to 21 century skyscrapers with a tin roof slum around the corner. Dingy and colorful at the same time. Everything is always moving around here. The nights are when everything really heats up, but it is pretty fast paced during the day as well. Everyone I have met here in Thailand has been so helpful...admittedly most are trying to sell me something, but helpful none the less. Once I got to my hostel, this incredible little place in the heart of the city, I dropped my bags off and grabbed breakfast. I had intended to eat and then sleep for a few hours, but I struck up a conversation with the fellow sitting next to me at the breakfast table and next thing I knew we were both headed toward the Sky Train to hit up the mall to buy me a cell phone. David, who is from California and has been in Thailand the past 2 months, helped me get my travel legs under me and showed me the ins and outs of Bangkok. After buying my phone, we decided to head to Chinatown which involved taking the River Taxi (very cool).


Chinatown is a whole different type of amazing. One stall after another filled with so many neat things. Statues, amulets, silks, paintings, food, books, cloths...you name it, it is here. Skinny little walkways wind around block after block of sellers, with a few temples thrown into the mix.


After Chinatown we headed to Kaw San Road, the stereotypical backpacker local in Bangkok. It was interesting, and I ended up spending a night there after a few days, but for the most part I didn't like it. Most of the travelers spent all there time on this pretty tiny street, only interacting with other travelers and never really getting to see what Bangkok is really like. Cheap food, cloths and accommodations, plus lots of English books for sale are the only reasons to go. This pretty much finished up my fist day in Thailand. We headed back to the hostel and I was only going to take a nap and then met back up with David to smoke Hookah, but I crashed and burned around 6pm and didn't wake up until 9 hours later (around 3am). I managed to fall back asleep and got a good 13 hours of sleep! =]

Bus Trip From Hell

Friday, September 11 at 7am I left Austin, TX via Greyhound, headed for Bloomington, IN. It was a grueling bus ride with several layovers and quite a few eye-opening interactions with some interesting folks. I left Texas with a disjointed feeling of not knowing why I was so hell bent on traveling to SE Asia and wondering if the choices I had made in the past year were the right ones. One year ago I left what most of my friends are currently struggling to find. A good job that payed fairly decent, I never had to worry about putting food in my mouth or a roof over my head. A really good guy that I had established a 9.5 year relationship with. Four amazing “kids”, two cats and two dogs, that are some of the best pets a person could ask for. The problem was that individual components of my life made me happy, but the sum total did not and I felt like I had no clue who I was or what I wanted out of life.

As I rode out of Austin I was feeling quite lost and wondering just how screwed up I had made my life. Then I met Debbie in Louisville, the recovering meth addict whose daughter is in jail for dealing, and whose son is with her abusive ex-husband. Jose in Memphis, who has been traveling all over the states for the past 11 years following the harvest season and trying to make enough money to feed himself and send some home to his family. The 5 random guys I was woken up from a nap by them talking about their jail time, various drugs they love and how messed up their lives are and they can't understand why. The fellow at the Indianapolis terminal that was headed to Mexico so he could avoid being arrested and dying in jail from Hepatitis. Listening to their stories has had an interesting affect on me. I realiz how amazing my life has been so far, and how amazing it will continue to be. I may not know what the hell I am doing, or what I am looking for, but I have the opportunity to go out into the world and look for it. And somehow, in a bizarre way, they made me feel better about the decisions I have made about this trip.

My long and tiring bus ride finally ended in Terra Haute, since this was the closest town to Bloomington that I could book a bus ticket to. The local nickname “Armpit of Indiana” is not far off the mark. The greyhound terminal was a barn converted into a store where passengers were dropped off. There was no hope of finding a ride to Bloomington from here, so I looked in the local phone book and found a simple map of the area. Highway 46 ran straight to Bloomington, and I could get to 46 by traveling north on Highway 70 for roughly 10 miles. The sole attendant at this “terminal” told me that 70 was about a mile South. So I threw my pack on my back and started walking. I finally reached 70, and was told my a local fellow I met under the overpass that if I followed Margaret Street east for a few miles I would come to a truck stop on 46 and probably have an easier time finding a ride than hitching on 70. So I back tracked a bit and started walking down Margaret Street. 3 miles later, with most of the time with my thumb out, I stopped off in a gas station to refill my water bottle and ask exactly how far 46 was, since the bridge dweller had told me it was only “a few miles”. The kindly attendant told me I was looking at roughly 5 more miles. Then a wonderful lady that was paying for gas asked where I was headed and if I was walking there. She and her husband offered to give me a lift to highway 46, and told me that if there weren't headed to Indianapolis for their mother's 80^th birthday, they would drive me to Bloomington. I love nice people! A short air conditioned ride later, including an extremely kind-hearted conversation with the couple involving trying to think of anyone they know that would take me to Bloomington, I was dropped off at the truck stop on Highway 46.

I then spent an hour trying to procure a ride, until finally a truck driver asked where I was headed and was going in the same direction. Jerry had a rig with several cars he was actually hauling down to Texas, one being a beautiful '69, hot pink hotrod he had just bought for himself. After a bit of fussing around, Jerry finally decided that he really didn't need to take his entire rig to Bloomington because he was planning to stay the night in Terra Haute, but he would take me there any way. So he pulled his personal truck (not the hotrod) off his rig and drove me into Bloomington, even thought it was completely out of his way. I finally met up with Vanessa at the local mall where Jerry dropped me off around 7pm, thus ending my marathon 31 hour journey.

Wine & Music Festival in Kerrville

I am back in Austin after a wonderful 5 1/2 days at the Kerrville Wine & Music Festival. What an experience! It continues to amaze me how much fun, stress, emotional overload, amazing people, close friends and great music can be compressed into one festival. I worked my ass off and I played my heart out, and I loved every single minute of it. I met some amazing new friends and was able to reconnect with a ton of old ones. It is really quite difficult to try and record everything that happened, so I will give the highlights.

Wednesday afternoon Michael Adams and I headed West out of Austin - destination: Kerrville.

"Welcome Home"
One of my favorite things out at Quiet Valley Ranch is the feeling, and encouraged belief that the ranch is your home. Everywhere you go, from beginning to end, from close friends to utter strangers, you hear "Welcome Home". This greeting is usually accompanied by a wonderful, unrestricted, totally heartfelt hug. There is nothing like it.

"Thursday Afternoon River Trip”
After a long hard day of toiling in the sun and sweating my ass off trying to get the ranch ready for the festival a group of us headed down the road for a river trip. Layton, Michael and Raina hopped in a car, Steve and I hopped on his bike and we all set out for a little known spot in Center Point. This place was perfect: a wide, lazy section of the river with a rope swing and good paces to sit on the shore. We all had a blast and were able to cool off and reward ourselves for a hard days work.

“Campground Security"
This was my second fest ever and I was promoted to a Second for Campground Security. I am now equal to Mustang! Craziness. My first shift as a Second was absolutely wonderful. I had fun managing my crew, helped out a group of Kerr-virgins discover what fest is all about and how being on staff just makes it that much better, and still had the opportunities to interact with the festival goers and hang out in camps and make new friends. I love this place so much.

“Everything Else”
There were so many little, amazing moments during the fest that helped make it a special weekend. Running around transferring my stuff to Mustang's tent in camp Ohm Sweet Ohm when rain threatened, and then running around some more getting Michael's stuff into Cara's tent since he was on shift. Meeting Shamus and getting the chance to hang out and get to know him (plus the sweet bracelet he bought me hasn't left my wrist yet!). Drinking home-brewed sake with Secret Steve. Enjoying a refreshing cup of Snake Juice at Rebel Kitchen with Pops and Hillbilly, Scott and Mike, and many others. Staff party Sunday night and dancing until a dropped to the drum circle. There are so many more that should be included here, but I just don't have the time.