Nature and History are Woven Together and Guess Who Wins?

One of the most impressive things about our visit to the Angkor Wat ruins in Cambodia is how time has affected the condition of these ancient structures.  In view of the fact that they were built over a thousand years ago, and then abandoned, nature has a way of reclaiming what was once jungle and forest.

Part of what makes this place enchanting is the way that nature has entwined itself into the fabric of these buildings.  In other words, if you wait long enough, nature is gonna make a comeback.  

Perhaps one of our favorite things (among many) about the Angkor Wat ruins is how trees and other plants have grown up, in, and around these once magnificent buildings.  It gives us all a view of how time marches on, and empires crumble, and ... ashes to ashes ...?
The forces of nature should not be lightly dismissed.  A building that took a thousand slaves one hundred years to build can, over time, be humbled by a single tree.  

We saw repeated examples of this.  The climate and conditions in Cambodia favor spectacular botanical growth of an almost infinite variety - trees of legendary heights - orchids you can only dream of - and with that, nothing can stand in its way.

And we're not talking about apple trees in your backyard, these are massive, almost gigantic, trees reaching 200 feet into the sky, trying to top their competitors (other tall tropical trees) to compete for the sunlight.
Which begs the question ... what is greater?  Man, and his endless empires (which always end?)  Or ... who really created all this? 

This Is Why You Travel ...

    One of the anticipated highlights of our trip was coming to Cambodia to visit the Angkor Wat ancient ruins.  We've been doing that for a couple days now and have been thrilled with what we've seen.

    In short, Angkor Wat is astounding!  We've traveled a fair amount and seen a lot of things, but this has to be among the very best historical sites that planet earth has to offer.  Upon seeing it for the first time, we were speechless, it is absolutely mind boggling!

This structure is actually taller than a forty storey building

    For starters, the scale of this place is massive, it's really an ancient city.  It goes on for miles. It was buried in the jungle for centuries, and was re-discovered around 1600 by a Portuguese monk who wrote: "It is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe with a pen, particularly since it is like no other buildings in the world.  It has towers and decorations and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of." 

    It is far larger than we expected and is spread throughout the jungle on several large sites.  Many have been restored to a great extent, but many more are just as they were discovered, almost enveloped by the jungle.  The feeling as you walk through is of complete amazement and fascination.

    Another French explorer who laid eyes on it had this to say: "These temples would rival that of Solomon, as though erected by an ancient Michaelangelo, and would take an honorable place among our finest buildings, they are grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome."

    So I am using quotes from historical figures to describe this historical place, because frankly I can't find the right words other than incredible, unbelieveable, stupefying, fantastic, etc.  

    Part of what makes it so magical is that it was concealed by the jungle and still has that Indiana Jones mystical quality about it.  Every turn contains another amazing view, and it covers many, many square miles.  

    Pictures just don't do it justice.  Like the Grand Canyon, it's more of a feel.  The grandeur and size of the buildings is amazing, and the detail and design elements are intricate, creative, artistic, and unique.

    

We travel around by tuk-tuk, a open three wheeled transportion device (sort of like a modern day rickshaw) that allows one to take in the scenery and absorb the environment ... and enjoy the warm, sunny weather.

This is a view of the causeway across a large moat entering one of the main temples.

 It's been two days of non-stop touring and walking and looking, and we have another couple days here.  I hope we can fit it all in.  Look for more postings on this segment of our trip.

This is me (oh really?) overlooking one of the main temples from up inside a giant tower

Emotional Highs and Lows and Extremes and ... Comfort Zone Blowout

So it was that kind of day, with a million things going on, and most of them turning out ... okay?

It's better just to list them in a bullet point format.  This might take a minute to read:  Sorry, no pictures on this narrative.

• Bangkok, Thailand Feb 11, 2015
• I try to go for a run every day, and this morning I ran several kilometers through a really beautiful park near where we are staying ... wonderful!
• Started out with breakfast where we spent the night at our good friends, Phil and Cindy Porter, and it's Cindy's birthday, so everyone is in a good mood.  Breakfast with good conversation and fellowship and great homemade yogurt and salsa and omelettes! 
• Cindy announces that as a part celebration of her birthday, we are all going to a Thai massage place for a super duper massage. 
• This puts me (Kevin) in a quandary - I'm not a big massage guy, in fact my only real experience with massage stuff was an unmitigated humiliating disaster, and ironcally, it was in Bangkok a few years back.
• So I immediately hedge and say, "well, maybe ..." meaning Hell no, I will never do that again!  I'm still tramautized from the last time!
• At noonish, Cindy and Phil Skype with their kids who are all around the world, before we set off for a day of activity and unforeseen excitement (anxiety?)  We have a busy schedule before we catch a plane to Cambodia in the evening.  This busy schedule includes going to a Thai hospital to get a Yellow Fever inoculation because it will be required during the remainder of our trip. 
• By this time, I have consented to submit to a Thai massage, hey man, "I'll go along with this and I'll take one for the team, etc."  in the meantime, I'm still terrified. 
• So the massage thing is our first stop and it's done as a couple with Fiona and I in the same private room with a couple of expert Thai ladies doing this aroma massage thing and ... frankly, it was a very nice experience, and at one point I went into a dream like state and never felt better, at least for a while.
• So then we all went to the ministry facility where Phil and Cindy have done phenomenal things, and it's starting to get later in the day and we are beginning to get a little pressed for time.
• We make our way to downtown Bangkok (not an easy thing to do with extreme traffic) and we find this hospital with a good reputation and we are going to get a Yellow Fever shot. 
• This is like ... Way out of my comfort zone.   The massage thing was already a stretch, and now I'm gonna get a needle poked in me with a deadly third world disease vaccination?  I'm thinking, we're in a hospital in a remote place and they are going to inoculate me against a disease that I might get in another remote place?  Why am I doing this kind of thing?  Isn't travel supposed to be fun?
• And we're starting to run out of time, it looks like we will miss our plane to Cambodia, and the stress starts to sky rocket.  Hey, we just spent good money on a fantastic massage and now I'm freaking out with a lady going to stick a needle in me, and by the way, they do a blood pressure check and I'm supposed to be calm?  What the ... ?
• So we finally get the shot and I'm pray to God that I will be okay, and we have squeezed the time down to zero margin of error to get to the airport to make our flight to Cambodia.
• We jump in a Taxi and go about one kilometer in a half hour.  By this time Fiona has totally lost it and figures there is NO WAY we are going to make this flight and we are going to have to .... well, your mind has to find ways to cope with bad stuff and you begin to construct scenarios of how the rest of your life may turn out ...
• Beyond all reason and logic, we make the flight, we're talking miracle here ... and I don't use that term lightly ... and as I write this, we are sitting in our hotel room in Siem Reap Cambodia, and we are exhausted and cannot comprehend what has happened today ...
• 
  

How Long Does It Take To Travel 1,000 miles on a Boat, Train, Bus, Taxi?

So we've been on the road for a few days now, in this case, the railroad.  We had planned to take the train from Singapore to Bangkok, passing through Malaysia to do this.  It worked out in the end, although not like we had envisioned, and now we are in Bangkok Thailand, for a day and a half.  

  We had to transition from a bus after the bungled attempt to get a train in Singapore.  Then in Kuala Lumpur, we had to work hard to get a train to the north of Malaysia, a place called Penang (the English name for this place is Butterworth, like the pancake syrup?).   Anyway, once in Butterworth, we had a nice hotel and plotted our next step.  
  There is virtually no information available on train schedules, so we had to wing it, stopping by the train station at the appointed hour, only to find it closed ... !  So we had to wait for a few more hours which gave us time to take the ferry over to Penang Island, very fun, interesting, and the weather is fantastic!

   Eventually we could only get a train to the border of Thailand. Then  the advice was: "you have to find train ticket there ... maybe".
   Uncertainty is not my best trait, but off we went. Some-times you have to balance the adventure - and take things as they come - with "man, this is a stinkin' hassle!" 

   However, at the border we actually had no problem getting a ticket on the sleeper berth, the overnight train with bed accommodations.  The overall trip took around 30 hours, well over 1,000 miles, including the bus, and only cost around $40 each.  But you really have to want to do this.  It was not easy.

    Slept pretty good though on the overnight train, and met some cool people from all over the world, and talked about travel a whole
bunch.  Often there isn't much else to do, although passing through the beautiful scenery is very peaceful.  

   Arrived in Bangkok today at noon, and we are staying the night here with good friends Phil and Cindy Porter. (Happy Birthday Cindy!) 

Got to see a lot of the countryside on the way here, and once you're on the train, travel is very laid back and relaxing.  Just be sure to bring along a good book.https://www.google.com/maps/@13.7246005,100.6331108,10z

Took a Bus - Not the Train, yet ... Hip Hop Bus Driver

After all that, didn't take the train, ended up taking a bus!

Everyone wanted to know (after the border incident) how we actually got on the train.  Well, we didn't, we took a bus!  The train thing was just too hard to figure out, and it turns out, there were no seats left. Looking back at the whole thing, it wasn't worth risking my neck. 

So the bus ride was a five hour trip from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, and it was a pleasant trip through tropical jungles and endless palm trees, except that ... well, we had a Hip Hop bus driver guy that was weird and a little dangerous.

Hip Hop Driver on the Bus?

Let me explain.  So we left Singapore in the morning and crossed over into Malaysia, legally this time.  No problems, although I was still a little traumatized by the border thing. 

As soon as we get across the Straits, the body of water that separates Singapore and Malaysia, the driver breaks out his cell phone and starts talking, like real loud.  

Okay, so we're in the front two seats behind the bus driver, anticipating a better view that way, but no, it was far from peaceful.

The driver was this big heavy Malaysian dude, with the front bill of his cap facing straight up, he looks like 50cent in full gangsta mode, and he starts making endless phone calls, each time he begins talking in this Hip Hop style.

As he gets someone on the phone he breaks out:

"HEYYY BRO, DUDE! BRO, MAN, WHASS HAPPENIN!?!?!? - WHAT is GOIN' ON?  DUDE! BRO! MY MAN, HEY ... DON'T MAKE ME BRING THE RICE OUT, WU-TANG!"  ... goes on forever, longest greeting in the world.

     Like every ten minutes, I swear it was almost the whole five hours, and it's super loud, like he is shouting ... (is it more cool that way)?  We kept trying to sleep and every time you would drop off, it's another round of "HEYYY BRO-O-O-O!!!"

     Not only that, but one point the bus is starting to wander in and out of the lanes, and I look over his shoulder and he is texting!  Are you kidding me?  This is supposed to be a professional bus line, and this guy is what, making drug deals?  The whole thing was so not relaxing.  I got kinda nervous and so did Fiona.  

     We finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur and it's actually a pretty nice city, modern and green.  I'm not taking the bus the next time, though. 

    We are actually catching a train this afternoon to Penang, Malaysia.

Update: On our Way by Train to Bangkok

     So it's Sunday night here now and we're in Penang, in northern Malaysia, and we took the train the whole way up from Kuala Lumpur, six hours. 

    In the morning we catch another train, this one to Bangkok, Thailand, which will take 22 hours.  

    So I will have to go dark on the blog thing for at least a day, while traveling by train across Southeast Asia.  

    The trip today was fun, Malaysia is a very beautiful country.  

I appreciate all the comments and likes on the blog, and I intend to continue to write something as much as I can during our travels. 

A Man Without A Country ... (how do I get myself into these things?)

So I had a near death experience today ...
Not exactly, but it was a rather harrowing time at the border between Singapore and Malaysia.

It all started when I decided to take a trip across Singapore to the train station where the two countries meet.  Fiona had not been feeling well and she encouraged me to go there on my own to figure out how to get the train from Singapore to Bangkok, Thailand, which runs through Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

It's a long trip out to this border area, about an hour by local transit, and when I got there at the supposed end of the line, there was no train station in sight.  I asked some guy (most people in Singapore speak English) and he said, "you have to catch a bus there, go downstairs"

So I followed his advice and went down to the busy bus station, with a lot of people milling about.  I saw a sign that said "Bus 950 takes you to the checkpoint and train station"  Bingo, I thought, this is what I want.  So I stood in line with like 150 people and the bus comes and guess how many people fit on the bus?  149 - yes, I had to wait for the next one, which took a long time.

So I'm still thinking this is the bus I want, and I load up on the next bus and we take off.  I ask the lady next to me, "so, this bus takes me to the train station so I can get tickets and make arrangements for the trip to Bangkok, right?"

She turns to look at me ... always a bad sign ... and says, "no this bus does not go to the train station, this bus goes to Malaysia!"   Hmmm, or rather - Yikes!   I looked around at the full bus and said, "you mean everyone on this bus is going to Malaysia?" and she says "yes, and at this point - so are you"

This is a problem, I said, and first of all explained that I don't have my passport.  She looked at me with a look of total astonishment - "You don't have your Passport?!?!"   This completely blows her mind - "you are on a bus to Malaysia and you don't have a passport?"  Left unsaid was her reaction, something like - what kind of an idiot are you?

I try to explain, hey man, I was just trying to get to the train station ...  She thinks I am the biggest moron of all time.  This is beginning to look bad, when she explains that there is no way out of this predicament, and that I will have to go through customs and ... deal with the border guards, and ... not good.  She said she would try to help me and talk to the police and explain that I am a stupid American and "please have mercy and don't shoot him and he is mentally deficient and ... "

So we get to the border station and sure enough I am taken into custody.  How do I get myself into these things?  They ask me for my passport and guess what ... ?  You already know the answer, no passport.  They demand some kind of identification, so I take out the only piece of ID that I have - my Oregon Drivers License, and they scoff at it and say what kind of fool has this for an ID? What is this rubbish? ... and who is Oregon anyway?  Who is Oregon?  It's a state, but they really don't care and they have guns and they take me to a take me to a detention holding room and walk off with my license.  I can't contact anyone because our US cell phones don't work here and I don't have any way to call someone.  At this point I am not in either country, but I'm being held in limbo in a no-mans land of purgatory and non person status. I have become a lot more apprehensive at this point.

Eventually I am taken to an "interview" room with an interrogator and they fingerprint me and ask a bunch of questions like "so ... you were just trying to go the the train station?  Ha! You expect us to believe that?  You think you can pull the wool over our eyes?"  And I'm thinking, What the ...?  I'm being held at gunpoint and the only thing between me and years in prison is my Oregon Drivers License.  At that time, I resort to intense prayer ...

So I managed to convince them that I am not a threat, not part of ISIS, and I really just made a dumb mistake, which I am very good at, and please can I go now, and will you please put those guns down?

So after a few hours of this nonsense, they let me go.  I had to walk through the "Red Line" back across customs between the two countries and I am released back into Singapore.
As I say goodbye ... my last words to the border guards were ... can I have my license back?

All the Tea in China - Observations

Full of excitement as we began our round the world trip, our first stop was Beijing China.  It had been a whirlwind last couple weeks getting ready before we left, and we were looking forward to sharing our adventures (via the Internet, email, pictures, blog, etc.) as the journey started.

Unfortunately, we were unprepared to find out that in China they block most of the stuff on the web that we use everyday to communicate.  We were stunned when we realized that everything related to Google was blocked.

No Gmail, no You Tube, no Google Search, and worst of all - no blog!  Wanna use Google maps to find your way around Beijing?  Ain't gonna happen.  Need to access your documents on Google Drive?  Not in China ...

Facebook?  No way, it is not just blocked, it doesn't even exist in China (they have some bogus Chinese substitute).  Twitter?  Nada, zero, zilch.  And they're not too friendly with Apple either. And, oh yeah, your smart phone doesn't work.

Okay, so I'll just Google an alternative to ... Dang it!  Doesn't work.  It's a world with no access to most of what you use everyday on the Internet.  Furthermore, often when you try to get to some of the really common stuff, it locks up your device.  Bummer dude!

So we had to work around the Chinese censorship and send messages by carrier pigeon to my daughter Alison who could then post and share updates.

And you have to be careful what you say because in China they read and scan your emails and everything you send.  Don't even think about logging into your bank account.  And all that "monitoring" makes the Internet really sloooow.

We really enjoyed our time in China.  The people were very friendly, and it's a fascinating country, but they need to open up their society to freedom on the Internet.   We had to learn to adapt using some pretty creative methods to communicate with the outside world.

First off, Singapore is ...

Okay, the first thing about Singapore is that the climate is the opposite of Beijing.  After several freezing days and nights (serious cold temps), arriving here in Singapore is like visiting the tropics.  In fact, it is the tropics, palm trees, very warm, humid, very green, almost right smack dab on the equator ... all in all, a pleasant transition from ice and heavy clothing to shorts and t-shirts.

Singapore is a dynamic and successful city-state that is very modern among the jungle like surroundings.

We got in late last night from Beijing via Manila, Philippines.  Once again, we are reminded that the joys of travel include some not so joyful things, like long delays (in Manila) and lack of organization on the part of airports and airlines.  But we made it here and we continue on our journey.

A few quotes

In addition to funny signs, there were a few quotes that I will include verbatim - in other words, they are not filtered.  In regards to the third quote, hey, I didn't say it, I'm only reporting what was said!

We were looking for a place to watch the Super Bowl (which turned out to be a real nail biter) and we asked a bunch of people where we could find the game.  

Unfortunately, it was on at 7:30 on Monday morning here because of the time change.  Anyway, most people had not heard of the game and had no idea where to watch it.  One Chinese guy said:  " In China, nobody like American football!"

We stayed in a couple different places in Beijing and so we're checking into the second place,  and the guy at the front desk looks at the reservation and says "Are you Mr. Killer?"  ... well, I guess that's close enough ...

Lastly, the Chinese have a lot of weird critters that they seem to like, sort of mythical stuff like dragons and such.  One of these creatures was kind of bizarre and unusual and the tour guy was describing it.   He said it had a "Big head, wide mouth, big belly, and no asshole"  !!! Wait? What?  

Easy for you to say

Today as I write this, we are preparing to depart Beijing and head to the next stop.  We've been in China for six days, and it's been fascinating.  I really want to share my thoughts but one has to be careful because you really can't speak freely on the internet.  More to come on that later, once we are in another place ...

Among other things, it's been rather amusing to read the signs and the attempt to translate into English.  The Chinese people are friendly for the most part, and a lot of the young people here speak English.  But trying to put their signs into another language? ...  well something gets lost in translation.

Here are a few of the signs that we've seen: