Last leg of journey

I took the overnight train from Chiang Mai on Tuesday night. It was a nice experience. The sleeper car initially has seats before conversion to beds. The three people I was sitting next to were a girl from Taiwan who was studying Thai in Chiang Mai, an English programmer, and his Italian girlfriend. Turns out the girl is an engineer and works for FoxConn, the Chinese electronics giant that was in the news in the states recently (they make iPhones). That made for interesting conversation.

After the sun went down we turned in and I got a pretty good nights sleep. We arrived in Bangkok at around 9:30 and I made my way to a district near the center of the city to find a place to stay. Kind of being sluggish today. Have a sort of stomach bug I think (or my GI tract is just sick of spicy curry dishes) so I haven't been too ambitious. Took a nap to escape the heat, and then went to the National Museum of Thailand which happens to be located right near my hostel.

I will spend two more days here (Thursday, Friday) and fly to Hong Kong ---> New York on Saturday. Apparently there will be a full moon party tomorrow (Thursday) so that will be interesting. I should arrive in New York at 9 pm on Saturday and my sleep schedule will be completely whacked. I'm thinking the smart play is stay awake until Sunday at 3 pm and then go to bed after an early dinner. On Monday morning I start at Bridgeport Hospital in the burn ICU.

Also currently having a debate with myself. I haven't purchased a single souvenir or trinket since I've been here. There is a custom tailor near my hostel who will make you a suit with pretty nice fitting material and he can make cold-weather coats for you as well. Asking price was 10,000 Thai Baht for a full suit and a coat, which is about $ 330 USD. I bet I can talk him way down from that, in which case it will be tempting, because I don't have a dark suit other than my nice black coat that I interviewed with (and its too formal for a lot of things).

Phi Phi Island Day 2

On Saturday I joined with some Irish people and went kayaking briefly around the island. Didn't go far - went around the bend to a place called Monkey Beach, which is frequented by monkeys. Rented some snorkeling stuff there but unfortunately the equipment wasn't great. Still, the water was clear and there was some coral and impressive amounts of fish would surround me sometimes. There are tons of offers for people to take you out for scuba dives at reasonable prices. Will definitely do that in the future.

Just now I am headed back to the ferry (arrived here Friday, leaving now Sunday). I catch a flight tonight to Chiang Mai which is in northern Thailand. Will spend a couple days there, overnight train on Wednesday to Bangkok, and then back to NYC after a couple days in the capitol.

Trip at 1 week - summary thus far

The reason I post pictures randomly in groups of three is because thats the max amount that I can send through email to the blog. If I randomly come across an internet connection that my wifi picks up, I'll send out three pictures with a title but not much in the way of explanation because the formatting isn't so great. So thats part of the reason why things aren't organized so well.

Anyway, so here is a brief summary of the trip so far:

Monday - landed in Singapore, spent early morning in casino, toured city, slept from 3 pm till 8 am Tues.
Tuesday - national museum in Singapore, toured city, had oyster heart-attack omelet, went to the top of boat hotel, gentle flicks of wrist through the evening cost casino tens of thousands of dollars in payouts to me and my friends at the craps table.
Wednesday - catch bus at 6 am into Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur, find hostel, sight seeing, went to Petronas Twin towers, up the KL tower, get rained on a lot.
Thursday - toured caves / Hindu shrine on outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, saw some government buildings, more sight seeing.
Friday - to KL airport for 6 am flight, arrived in Phuket at 730, caught ferry to Phi Phi Island at 830, spent day on beach and in water, beach parties at night.
Saturday - planning to snorkel and not get burned.

I believe I haven't explained much about the last two days. I was originally going to take the train from KL north but unfortunately I delayed, and I guess the weekend gets booked, so I missed out on good train options. I decided at the last minute to just fly direct to Phuket Island (which saved me a light of transit time because even with an overnight train, there is a 6 hour bus ride otherwise). Phuket Island (which I originally pronounced "fuckit" but is actually pronounced "puke-it") is in southern Thailand (or, north of Kuala Lumpur) situated on the Indian Ocean. Just off the coast of Phuket Island is a small Island called Phi Phi where I am now (I was pronouncing "fi-fi" but is actually pronounced "pee-pee"). I had heard of Phi Phi Island before I left from a co-resident at Yale who spent some time in Singapore doing research. Phi Phi is where some of the James Bond movies were filmed, and another island by Phi Phi is where the movie "the Beach" was set.

Phi Phi is a travelers/hippies/westerners resort island. Most of the people here are from western Europe; there are disappointingly few Americans. Everyone is a backpacker I think. Its very expensive by Thai standards but pretty cheap by our standards (I have a single room with a big bed for like 20 US dollars per night; a beer is 3 bucks, meals are 5 or less and they're good). The island is very small, the center is jam-packed with hostels, restaurants/bars, small hostels / hotels. Lots of options to go scuba diving, snorkeling, sailing, etc. The water is almost too warm and the beaches are great. The music is really loud late into the night so if you are a early to bed type or can't sleep through noise probably not your place (I can sleep through anything).

I'm debating how the rest of my trip will go. There are some really neat ruins near Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia). I don't think I would have time to get there on the ground. If I could get a flight from Phuket to there I could see the capitol, the ruins, and go to Bangkok by bus. Securing a visa is the sticking point. There is a city in northern Thailand where apparently I can ride an elephant bareback, so that is tempting. I have my Vietnam visa still so I could fly to Saigon, then Bangkok, then home. Or I could just stay at Phi Phi a while longer and go to Bangkok the overland route, taking my time and seeing more of southern Thailand. Will look at train/flight options and make a decision today or tomorrow.

These first four pictures are views of Kuala Lumpur from the top of the KL tower.

A sign posted on the nature trail walk that I went on in KL.

A building in KL...I thought mosque, but may be a government building.

Mosque.

Entrance to caves / shrine.

At the top of the stairs to the cave...I thought this was funny. Two primates sitting on the rails in similar poses (small monkey on the right).

There were monkeys everywhere, because people feed them. This is an alpha male monkey who doesn't care about anything.

Cave.

Cue universal girl noise: "awwwww"

Couple shots of KL near my hostel.

Kuala Lumpur

I arrived at the capitol of Malaysia around lunchtime yesterday. Made my way to Chinatown where I had one hostel reserved, but I was having trouble finding it and another one I came across had an empty room so I took it. Kuala Lumpur is a bustling city with a ton of diversity. It is in some ways advanced yet still has a wild-west feel a little bit. Honestly, my first impression is that it was a blend of Nairobi and Hong Kong.

Yesterday I spent most of my time wandering around. I went to the Petronas twin towers but couldn't get a ticket to the top so I went up the "KL Tower" instead, which is a really tall spire w/ a rotating restaurant at the top. Got a good view of the city that way but it was foggy so pictures probably aren't fantastic. After that, I went down on a hike on the side of a hill in a sort of nature-preservie-type-area (as much as there could be one in the middle of a city).

That night I asked the taxi driver to take me to "a good authentic Malaysian restaurant". He took me to this place, the name of which I tweeted earlier, that I quickly discovered was a total tourist trap. The food was dumbed down for a Western palate, and there were some "ethnic" performances that seem somewhat contrived. I was disappointed - will hopefully do better tonight.

During the day today I did some walking and then went to some caves, pictures of which I will post soon. The caves were originally the location of a Hindu shrine, although I think its been tourist-ized to some extent now.

I was originally going to take a sleeper train into Thailand but unfortunately I delayed and the tickets are sold out. I secured a last minute flight for not too much that will go direct from Kuala Lumpur to Phuket island, which is in southern Thailand, a good resort area with some beaches and maybe snorkeling.

I figured out what was wrong with my craps game:

wrong continent.

I had two errands to do last night. First of all, my debit card got eaten by an ATM machine immediately upon arrival in Singapore. I am not quite sure why, but I was confused by the screen format and it was sending me mixed signals. In the time it took me to figure out what was going on it ate my card.

I have two other credit cards and another debit card but the backup debit card account is the one with only a token emergency reserve of money. I was thinking about alternative plans. Meanwhile, I wanted to go to the top of the boat-shaped hotel (the same one from the daytime) for night-time pictures and a drink.

Incidentally, the casino I went to on the first night is attached to the boat-hotel. I also knew that a casino can charge a credit card and return cash; the fee here was 2.3%, not an atrocious deal. So after enjoying the view at night and having a drink I headed down to the casino and took out a hunk of money for my travels. And what the hell, I didn't have anything better to do, and didn't lose (in the casino) on my first night, so I figured I'd play some craps.

There were a couple Americans at one point playing "the dark side" which in craps-speak means they were essentially betting against me. After losing few grand each they switched and started betting on me instead of against me. Earlier they insisted they were purely "dark side" players, so then they started calling me Luke Skywalker after I converted them. On an early roll, I hit the point four times; a later roll was over an hour long. (That roll was good but the statistic is a bit misleading. The casino had just opened craps 11 days ago and the dealers were VERY new. The wait between rolls was sometimes painfully long.)

I had to wake up at 6 am today to catch a bus so I *wanted* to leave the casino earlier than 3 am, but I kept winning. I suppose thats a good problem to have. Anyway, after increasing my total to 800% of my buy-in, I went home for a few hours of sleep and then woke and made my way to the bus rendevous to go to Kuala Lumpur. I made it to the meeting point 30 minutes early and I was absolutely starving. Went to this shop and they had a stack of eggs - I asked how they were cooked, and they said boiled - I was absolutely thrilled. So I sit down and they bring me a couple pieces of toast and two eggs in a mug of really hot water. I think thats odd, but in my mind the purpose of the water is to *warm* the eggs to make them taste better or something - not to cook them.

After the first egg got splattered all over my hand, I left the second one in long-enough to be what I considered sterile and then just downed it. Felt a bit like Rocky Balboa.

Singapore day 2

Singapore is an incredibly clean place, extremely efficient, great standard of living. The buildings are often built around the good weather: open malls (with coverings for rain and sun), out-door escalators, things like that. The subways are paved with marble, look brand new, and the trains are fast and smooth. Singapore reminds me a lot of Hong Kong actually. I went to the national museum today, and got a good sense of the history here. It is no surprise that it has been successful given its perfect location for Asian trade.

There is another way in which Singapore is like Hong Kong: consumerism. If there was an Olympics for places that epitomize a culture of consumption, Hong Kong and Singapore would win gold medals every year. There is SO much shopping here it is ridiculous (really). Coming from someone who has spent a lot of time in NYC, it's saying a lot that New York doesn't hold a candle to Hong Kong or Singapore as far as obsession with 'things' go.

On the flight over, I saw a documentary called "the Light-Bulb Conspiracy" which was very interesting and touches on these subjects. I guess my parting thought would be that if China's 1.3 billion people want to someday behave like the rest of us have (not to mention India's billions), and especially like the people in Hong Kong and Singapore do, we (humanity) may be in a lot of trouble unless we make some serious breakthroughs in physics.

I think our species could use a good deal of soul-searching, but its easy to preach as a Westerner who has had a lot of opportunities. Fighting against consumerism is sort of like abstinence-only education. Both are bound to fail because you are trying to combat fundamental human urges and instincts by encouraging reason and restraint. Anyway. Tomorrow am I will wake up and take the bus to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Will be a 6 hour ride or so.

Singapore

First leg of the trip was a 16 hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong, and then a short 3.5 hour flight from Hong Kong to Sinagpore. I landed in Singapore at 1 am or so Singapore time. Given that 1 am would be mid-afternoon back home, my plan was to not to bother arranging a place to stay the night of my arrival. What would the point be? I'd get to the hostel/hotel at 2 am at the earliest and then probably not be able to sleep anyways (because my body would think it was mid-afternoon).

This logic seemed sound when I was thinking about it a few weeks ago but I didn't anticipate that I would be fairly tired after my travels and also I should have considered that, on a Sunday night, not a ton would be going on. After landing I'm sort of brainstorming about what kind of place will be open and happening at 1 am on a Sunday night. Something to entertain me until morning. Hmmmm.

Casino.

So my trip started with me playing craps for 6 hours or so while I waited for some daylight to appear. I won a little bit, but I made the other people at my table a TON of money. Since I was just trying to make my money last through the night (which I did successfully), I wasn't placing the big bets that in hindsight would have paid off because I was rolling well. I had to have made the guy to my left a thousand dollars. Oh well. Any time one spends 6 hours in a casino and walks with 10 dollars profit thats a big win.

Once dawn broke I headed to the hostel; I still got there much earlier than my check-in time, though. The owner was barely awake but she was nice enough to let me drop off my bag - but I couldn't stay until my official check in time. So I dropped off my bag and have been wandering aimlessly through the city for the last several hours. Which is good I guess, but I'm pretty tired at this point. I think a nap is in order.

Colonial-style is pretty common in Sinagpore.

We flew over the North Pole. Sweet.

Getting closer to Siberia. Please please please don't exile me here, Comrade Stalin.

My hostel is in Chinatown.

More colonial style.

Random shot of city.

George Orwell called and he wants his ministry name back.

Catholic Church (it looked neater in person, looks bland in photo).

Temple.

Malay Penninsula

I'd like to give a shout-out to my residency program for having the best vacation schedule a residency could have - two separate 2-week blocks. Having spent one block in Florida with the family, I'll use the second one to visit a few places that I've always wanted to see.

I will fly from NYC to Hong Kong and then to Singapore. Once there I will take the train north through Malaysia and into Thailand, stopping along the way as I so please. Right now the plan is to fly out of Bangkok two weeks later, routing again through Hong Kong before proceeding back to NYC. The current itinerary looks something like this:

I settled on this trip over a few other options. I thought about backpacking from Hanoi to Saigon, but I decided to pass - I'd prefer to do Vietnam with someone familiar with the local language or custom. Japan I considered strongly, but the weather has been crazy there lately and they've been having some major power issues with the nuclear disaster (cost in Japan is more of an issue too). South America is high on my list, but there will be a lot of hiking on the Inca Trail which would be more fun to do with someone else than solo (same goes for climbing Kilimanjaro in Tanzania).

The good thing about this trip is that I won't suffer through the language barrier as much; Singapore's official language is English, Malaysia used to be a British colony, and Thailand has a lot of English speakers come through anyway. Traveling by train is a plus; maximum flexibility, perfect for a solo traveler who has no plans other than to "wing it" each step of the way.

Additionally, the itinerary could change at the last minute. The only constant is that I need to make it back to Hong Kong by March 10th or so when I fly back to NYC. There are lots of cities in the area that I'd really like to see, so a detour could be possible if I can secure a flight back to Hong Kong:

Of these possibilities, Saigon is most likely. I had already applied for a Vietnam visa because I thought I might be going there, so routing through Ho Chi Minh City at the end could be cool if I have an extra 2-3 days.