2/12-21: Malaysia

In keeping with my resolution to update this blog more regularly, I figured I’d do a short write-up of my time in Malaysia while I’m waiting in the Kuala Lumpur airport for my flight to Phnom Penh.

I flew into KL last Sunday, Feb. 12, from Indonesia- which ended up being one day before Kim Jong Un’s brother was assassinated here. It’s been wild following the news of his assassination and the ensuing diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea.

As soon as I landed in KL last Sunday, I hopped on a bus down to Malacca. Malacca is a coastal city two hours south of KL that played a key role in early trader routes and was interchangeably controlled by Portugal, Holland and Britain prior to the Japanese occupation in WWII. During that occupation, many Malaccans were forced to construct the Death Railway in Burma.

Today, Malacca is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has an economy centered around tourism. Its old Dutch buildings are well-preserved and there are many museums in the town dedicated to its history as a trading hub and to the Peranakan Chinese traders who greatly influenced its early economy. The city feels like a more condensed version of Hoi An in Vietnam, and spending one night there was plenty of time to take in most of the sights.

Here are some photos from the city’s heritage area:

         

A couple other notes about Malacca:

• Their trishaws are far and away the most decked out ones that I’ve ever seen:

   

• They also have probably the best city slogan that I’ve come across:

• Their food is spectacular. I had purposefully timed my trip on the weekend so that I could  make their night market, and it didn’t disappoint. Pictured below are grilled bird eggs on a stick.

After a night in Malacca, it was back to Kuala Lumpur to take in Malaysia’s capital city, home to 7.2 million in its metro area. It was around this time when I got a bit sick, as I mentioned in an earlier post, so I laid low more than usual during my four nights there. However, I was still able to get out and see (mostly eat) some things.

The hostel I stayed at, Sunshine Bedz (would highly recommend), was located right next to Jalan Alor, a bustling food street. Every evening the restaurants open up and spill into the streets with layers of tables and plastic chairs. Street food vendors crowd in where they can find space. It seemed to be packed every night, and the food there is as good as the options are diverse (Indian, Malay, Chinese, you name it).

I wandered around the city as much as one is able in the stifling heat, and enjoyed the city’s diverse architecture:

      

A couple of my other favorite things in KL:

• The city is home to the preeminent Islamic arts museum in Southeast Asia. I can’t pretend that I have any deep knowledge of the subject, but the museum was beautiful and the collection was extensive. Pictured below is an inverted dome that is part of the museum’s architecture, and a model of the Taj Mahal, which was one dozens of other models of religious landmarks across the world (mostly mosques).

   

• I made the obligatory tourist venture to the Batu Caves north of KL. A series of caves that house various shrines in the side of a limestone hill, the typical tourist sights were pretty underwhelming. Danang’s Marble Mountains definitely was a more impressive cave experience. However, I had read beforehand that another cave (the aptly called “Dark Cave”) had been reopened to the public and that a guided tour was about $7, with funds going toward conservation efforts. I did the tour and was glad I did. The cave is home to tens of thousands of bats and the rarest spider in the world… which definitely terrified me. But the tour was perfectly safe, if a bit pitch black at times. The rock formations inside the cave were honestly breathtaking- the photos certainly don’t do it justice (also pictured below is the massive Murugan Statue at the entrance to the Batu Caves).

          

After KL, it was time for a trip to the countryside: the Cameron Highlands, specifically. The Cameron Highlands are mostly known as being home to many tea plantations as well as expanses of untouched jungle area. The bus ride from KL involved more hairpin turns on mountainside cliffs than I ever want to experience again. I was thankful that I hadn’t eaten much for breakfast.

Since I only had one full day in the Highlands, I immediately signed up for a full-day tour through my hostel. To be totally honest, it ended up being a letdown. While the sprawling tea plantations were beautiful and our brief hike through the jungle provided cool scenery, many of the other stops (a butterfly “farm,” actually just a small room with a couple dozen butterflies; strawberry “fields,” actually just rows of boxed strawberry plants on concrete, etc.) were poorly done tourist traps. It also wasn’t much of a tour, more just a driving service where you’d get dropped off at a location and have to make it back to the Land Rover (that was the one fun part) after a certain period of time.

Nevertheless, it was nice to get a quick break from the city, and here are a couple photos from the Highlands, along with a sign in my hostel that is commonplace around Malaysia and Singapore (this helps explain why):

         

And just like that, it was time for another half-day bus ride to get from the Highlands to Penang Island off the northwest coast of Malaysia. I had read and heard great things about George Town, the capital city of the island that, along with Malacca, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Unlike Malacca, George Town is much bigger (the second largest city in Malaysia) and shares Penang Island with an expansive national park and many beaches.

I only had two nights in George Town so my exploring was again necessarily limited, but I crammed a lot into the time I was there. Most importantly, however, I met a fellow Mainer on my way there. And not just any Mainer- a guy from outside of Skowhegan! He has been teaching in Korea for the last few years, but it was amazing to have someone with whom to chat all about Maine after being gone for what feels like forever.

Once I got to George Town (after our entire bus had to deal with our driver pulling over at a bus station on the other side of the harbor from Penang Island and trying to convince us all to get off and take the ferry; everyone protested and he eventually took us to our actual destination), I set out to find some food and explore the city. Like Malacca, the streets are filled with preserved examples of beautiful Dutch architecture as well as a bunch of museums. Unlike Malacca, the city is much more spread out and feels more like a place where people actually work and live rather than just serving as a tourist stop.

During my one full day in Malacca, a few new friends from my hostel and I set off on bicycles to the botanic garden a couple miles outside George Town. The garden was fine, but the ride was sweltering, so we took our time in getting back. Later in the day, a friend and I decided to do a comprehensive tour on bikes of George Town’s street art. It was a cool treasure hunt, and I’ve included some of the best examples of art and architecture below.

                        

So, that’s Malaysia for you. It was great exploring a city through a means as enjoyable as street art, and I wish I had had a couple more days in George Town to discover even more.

Oh, one final note: there are a few Dunkin Donuts in Malaysia (God Bless), but they have the oddest menus and donut selections (look below). To add insult to injury, when I tried to order an iced coffee at the airport Dunks, I was informed that they were out of iced coffee… what? Anyways, A for effort all the same.

1/24 – 2/12: Singapore, Indonesia

Hi friends! I’m still in the slow process of catching up with all the missed updates here, but this post should make it current as of my arrival in Malaysia this past Sunday. I’m getting over a bit of an illness (unfounded theory is that the water filter I’ve been using should have been replaced by a new one much earlier), but will be heading out for a full-day tour of the Cameron Highlands tomorrow, which look beautiful.

Singapore (Jan. 24-29):

So, I was expecting a culture shock when I left Vietnam after four weeks for the uber-modern Singapore, and that is exactly what I got. Singapore makes Boston feel third-world. Seriously. It’s the second most densely populated country in the world, has the seventh-highest GDP per capita in the world (behind mostly small tax havens), and yet the city feels remarkably… sane, especially compared to Hong Kong.

There is, of course, a pretty simple explanation for this. The country was described in a famous 1993 article as “Disneyland with the death penalty.” Sure enough, if you spend a couple days in Singapore you’ll hear from tourists who were charged an exorbitant fee for accidentally eating on the subway. Or you can do your own research on how 26,000 fines were handed out in Singapore last year for littering- fines that carry up to $2000 for the first violation. Singapore even has a restricted zone for driving in the downtown area, to decrease the traffic congestion.

Armed with all this knowledge and determined to not slip up, I was excited to get underway with exploring the city. These were the highlights:

• Touring the Battlebox bunker at Fort Canning. Fort Canning, which was used as the Malay army headquarters during WWII before Singapore fell to the Japanese, is located in a large park near the museum district in Singapore. The park features tons of old buildings from the war, but I had read online beforehand that the underground bunker (called the Battlebox) had recently opened to the public if you signed up for a guided tour. I was lucky enough to have only one other visitor on my tour, so we received practically a private tour. While photos weren’t allowed in the bunker, I’ve posted some below of the park. The bunker has been nearly fully restored, and our tour guide spent an hour and a half detailing to the two of us the history of Singapore during the war. Having visited Hiroshima earlier in my trip, it was interesting to see the a-bombing presented in such a positive light on this tour, as it ended the horrific Japanese occupation of Singapore.

   

• Visiting the Marina Bay Sands complex and the Gardens by the Bay. I unfortunately was not able to sneak into the ultra-exclusive infinity pool on the rooftop of the Marina Bay Sands, but I did check off the obligatory tourist items of visiting the observation deck at night and wandering around the expansive Gardens by the Bay next door. The Singapore skyline is only rivaled by that of Hong Kong thus far, and the gardens were replete with waterfalls, sculptures, and every flower under the sun.

Photos below, clockwise from top left: the futuristic MBS hotel as seen from the gardens; the view of the gardens (including the two domed exhibits) from MBS observation deck; view from behind the waterfall in one of the domed exhibits; skyline at night.

         

• Museums, museums, museums. If you like museums, Singapore is the place for you. With over 60 museums, there is no way that it doesn’t vastly outpace all other countries in “museums per capita.” Fortunately, I love museums, so I indulged in ones ranging from straightforward subjects like national history and art to more obscure ones, like a stamp museum and even a vintage toys museum. I’m not going to lie, the latter of these museums was definitely my favorite. Here are a few pics:

      

Two final notes about Singapore. First, it lived up to its expectation in terms of strictness of laws. Check out the collection of signs below, as well as the plainspoken back of the entry card.

Secondly, some other folks from my hostel were fortunate enough to meet a couple that had an extra night at a 5-star luxury hotel (Fort Canning Hotel, located right in the park) and were happy to give it away. I tagged along, and it was a nice reprieve from the hostel life!

Jakarta, Indonesia (Jan. 29 – Feb. 2):

And just like that, it was back to utter mayhem. Hanoi streets have nothing on the streets of Jakarta: 5-6 lanes wide, no crosswalks and few stoplights, and constant traffic barreling down the road as fast as possible. A certain Bon Jovi song came to mind every time I crossed the road and put my life in the hands of fate. Oh, and sidewalks.

   

Aside from the crazy walking adventures, there wasn’t a ton to write home about in Jakarta. It was interesting seeing the city, considering it’s one of the largest in the world (outpacing NYC, Seoul, and Bangkok, among others), yet is seldom talked about. There was a cool art museum there with a nice gallery of contemporary pieces, and the city boasts their national monument which looks a little bit like ours back home.

   

Jakarta also has a beautiful Old Town area that is home to many old Dutch buildings that are now museums. It was raining the entire time I was there, but still a nice area to walk around. And I’m still awestruck by the street performer below.

   

Hands down the coolest thing in Jakarta, though, was visiting Barack Obama’s elementary school. I was tipped off to the site by a tour guide near the national monument and set off to find the school. I was pleasantly surprised to find a sculpture dedicated to him there and got a photo with it, even if it meant attracting stares from a few of the parents and children there!

Bali, Indonesia (Feb. 2-9):

So, I won’t try to conceal my excitement for visiting Bali. I was stoked. I had planned to spend the first 3 nights in Kuta (the southern, more party-heavy area), the following 2 in Ubud (think Eat, Pray, Love), and the final 2 on the east coast where I could do some snorkeling.

I won’t waste time talking about Kuta. It was honestly a pit, but that’s probably because it was pouring the entire time I was there. If you’re looking for generic clubs packed predominantly with Aussies on week-long vacations, as well as beaches entirely covered with trash, this is your place. If not, move along. Here’s two photos I’ll leave you with.

Ubud, however, was absolutely amazing and probably my favorite place that I’ve visited thus far. This is partially a testament to how meeting and exploring with cool people can make your experience (especially when traveling alone) so much better, as happened in Ubud. Overall, the area is an oasis of rice paddies, all types of nature (waterfalls, monkey parks, trails), fantastic art museums, and cheap but delicious cuisine.

A few things I (or we) did:

• Hiked up an active volcano for the sunrise. Which didn’t actually turn out to be much of a sunrise due to the clouds, but was a blast anyways.

      

• Donned sarongs and visited the bathing temple. Which is exactly what it sounds like- a temple where people ritually bathe. We didn’t partake in the bathing, not sure why.

   

• Trekked through rice paddies. Pretty much every five feet you’re asked for a donation at another “checkpoint.” You learn to just ignore them. The scenery was beautiful.

   

• Swam in a waterfall. The water was brown because of it being wet season and all, but you couldn’t tell once you were swimming around in it.

   

• Ate delicious food. Seriously, so much of it. For so cheap. And there were often amazing views to boot.

      

• Oh, and watched the Patriots absolutely demolish Atlanta. I had done my research beforehand about Super Bowl parties in Ubud and, sure enough, there was one starting at 7 AM (kick-off 7:30 AM) right down the road from my hostel. Amazingly, I ran into a bunch of people from Massachusetts there, as well as two Mainers (the first I’ve encountered on this trip)! Almost all of the folks I spoke with live and work full-time in Bali… which I need to look into.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia (Feb. 9-12):

I was bummed to leave Bali, but excited to close out my Indonesia leg in Yogyakarta, a city renowned for its temples and art.

Sure enough, as soon as I set off to explore Yogyakarta with a couple new friends, we were approached by a kind, older man. He told us about how he worked at the nearby palace and we got talking to him about our backgrounds and his children. He let us in on a scoop that there was a one-day student art show going on at a gallery nearby and, having heard about Indonesia’s batik artwork, we expressed interest.

He was kind enough to call over a couple local tuk tuk drivers to take us there. Once there, the master artist at the gallery demonstrated to us the process of making batik art, and then let us browse the gallery of batik paintings, all with fixed (and reasonable) prices. I ended up spending a decent sum of money on five paintings, and my friends bought some as well. It was a pleasant experience and we were excited with our purchases.

…until later in the day I started thinking about how the whole scenario was just a bit “too perfect.” Sure enough, I googled the name of the gallery (the Ori Gallery, for those of you who find my blog while doing the same thing), and many other tourists had had the exact same thing happen to them, down to the conversation with the first man. It became clear that we had fallen victim to a larger scheme, and we all felt taken by their kindness.

One of my friends and I went back the next day and ended up getting 1/3 of our purchase price returned to us. We kept the paintings, which was fine by me because they’re still beautiful, whether authentic batik art or not. The whole experience left a sour taste in our mouths, though. Here are a few photos of the gallery (featuring a very unsuspecting, and an about to become much more jaded, me):

      

So, that whole experience aside, Yogyakarta was quite nice. There’s a large historic section of the city that’s well-preserved, and there is also street art everywhere you look. Given that I only had two full days in Yogya, though, I prioritized making it to the two most well-known temples in the area: Borobudur and Prambanan.

I woke up for the sunrise hike for Borobudur (I don’t know why I keep doing this when Indonesia is in wet season), and while there again wasn’t a sunrise, visiting the temple afterwards was astounding. It’s the world’s largest Buddhist temple and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Oh, and if you’re a fair-skinned tourist like myself, you’ll be asked for hundreds of selfies on your way to the top (notice the growing crowd behind me in the photo below).

      

I had a fun time reaching the second temple, Prambanan. I was told that the last admission to the temple was at 4pm, so I set out from my hostel at 2:30pm via city bus assuming that I would reach it with plenty of time (Google Maps said it would take 50 minutes). Of course, I had once again underestimated Indonesia traffic. The bus itself didn’t arrive at the station until 2:50pm, so I was already sweating it a bit.

At 3:25pm, we pulled into the next bus station and disembarked to wait for the next bus that would drive by the temple. But after consulting Google Maps and realizing the current bus station was pretty much just as far away as the first one, I decided it was time to make a game time decision. So I did the one thing that no tourist is ever supposed to do, and I left the station and found where all the motorbike drivers were hanging around and yelled “help!”

Well, not actually. I asked the first guy how long it would take to get me to the temple. It was now 3:30. He said 45 minutes. I said make it 30 and you’ve got a deal. He wasn’t up to the challenge but found someone who was, who set a nonnegotiable price of 100,000 IDR (about $7.50- a king’s ransom for a 30-minute ride, but I was desperate), and told me to hop on. To make a tedious story less tedious, we made it, and I later found out that I would have been perfectly fine arriving up until 5pm.

The temple was cool though. Here are some photos:

      

Okay, I think that just about does it for Indonesia, and I can’t imagine anyone’s still reading this anyways. I’m determined to write a blog post after each country henceforth so I don’t have like months of backlog again. Next up is 4 more nights in Malaysia, then Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar (which I just got my visa for!). If you have any recommendations or know anyone with whom I might cross paths, you know how to reach me. Cheers!

12/27 – 1/24: Vietnam!

I haven’t been able to shake the feeling yet that the news has been following me to each country I visit. In South Korea, we touched down in the midst of their presidential scandal which saw the largest protests in the nation’s history. I watched on television screen from a bus station in Jeonju when President Park first offered to resign.

Two days into our time in Japan, we read that the country’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, would be the first Japanese prime minister to visit Pearl Harbor, a sign of goodwill toward the U.S. during the same year that President Obama visited Hiroshima.

In Vietnam, we overlapped in Hanoi with Secretary Kerry, who made his final visit as Secretary to the country where he fought half a century ago. He toured the Mekong Delta to observe the river’s restoration efforts, one week before I traversed the same waterway.

But nothing quite compares to the past three days I’ve spent in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country. I am currently in Jakarta, the same place where Sardar Hussain, like so many others across the globe, is now stuck in limbo due to Trump’s recent actions. At a Middle Eastern restaurant last night, one of the waitstaff stopped by my table and we began talking. He is Yemeni, living in Jakarta now. After I told him my nationality, he told me that he has a brother living in Seattle.

While it hasn’t surprised me, I still think that it’s a testament to humanity that I’ve nonetheless been received with warmth and kindness by everyone here. In the northern part of the city today, I had countless schoolchildren ask to practice their English with me or to pose for a photo with them. But in these encounters I’ve felt guilt and shame about my country. Sure, I did a lot to keep Trump out of the White House, but I’m still an American, and he’s still my president. I suppose the most important thing that I can do right now (that we all can do) is to just be as kind as possible to everyone I meet.

I’ll talk more about Jakarta later in this post, but my head has just been constantly spinning with all the news back home and I wanted to start with those thoughts – even if it means I’ve probably lost half of my reading audience by now!

And a quick addendum: I now write this from Kuala Lumpur, where earlier this week Kim Jong-Un’s brother was assassinated at the international airport… a mere 24 hours after I had passed through there. It’s sort of getting uncanny.

—

It’s been over a month since the last post here and, while most of you probably already are aware, it’s now just me (Simon) traveling. Billy hurt his knee when he fell off a motorbike in early January and went back to the States. He is doing fine but still needs to rest it for a while longer. I am continuing on by myself for a few months longer – though of course if you’re reading this and want to take a break from the madness back home and give me some company, let’s talk!

Billy and I arrived in Vietnam in late-December and in the ensuing two weeks we got to thoroughly know Hanoi, trekked across the rice fields in Sapa, and relaxed in Halong Bay until the accident occurred. We then went back to Hanoi briefly before we split off; I proceeded to Vietnam’s mid-coast for five days (Danang and Hoi An), and then continued south to Ho Chi Minh City for close to a week. I flew to Singapore on Jan. 24, and spent five days there before continuing onward to Jakarta, where I spent three nights and started writing this blog post.

From Jakarta, I flew to Bali where I spent three nights in Kuta and four in Ubud. From there, I jumped back over to the island of Java to spend three nights in Yogyakarta. I then left Indonesia on Sunday, en route Malaysia, where I spent the first night in Malacca, and am now finishing up a four-day stay in Kuala Lumpur. From here, I head north to the Cameron Highlands and Penang, and then fly out of Malaysia on Feb. 21 for Cambodia. Whew!

Since it would be impossible to cover all of the cool places of the past month in this post, I’ll just stick to the highlights from that period.

 

Hanoi (Dec. 27 – Jan. 2, Jan. 5-6, Jan. 11-13):

We did a lot of bouncing back and forth between Hanoi and other destinations, and I’m so glad that we got as much time in the city as we did. Hanoi’s Old Quarter, where the vast majority of hostels and English-friendly restaurants are located, is a network of narrow streets crowded with motorbikes and street vendors, surrounded by French architecture.

A couple of favorites from Hanoi:

• One of the employees at the hostel we stayed at (Flipside) was great and took us, along with a British tourist, for a bicycle tour of the Hanoi area. It was a bit nerve-racking driving through the infested streets on nothing but a rickety old bicycle, but we were able to take in a lot of the area and even did some off-roading through banana fields!

   

• Vietnam War history is, totally unsurprisingly, everywhere you look in Hanoi. Old propaganda posters, captured American aircraft, tributes to the military, etc. One visit stood out above the rest, though, and that was touring the so-called “Hanoi Hilton.” Originally a prison built by the French to house Vietnamese revolutionaries, the complex was later used by the Vietnamese to imprison and torture Americans during the war. What interested me the most was the degree to which propaganda continues to infuse Vietnam’s historical narrative of the war. Most of the prison was devoted to showing how well Americans were treated there (tons of recreational time, delicious food, quality healthcare, etc.), with nary a mention of the torture that so many American POWs endured. The photo on the right below, for instance, was on display and shows Vietnamese villagers rescuing Senator McCain from a river after his plane crashed. The display left out the part about him being bayoneted as soon as he was brought to shore.

   

• Probably the coolest experience of all, though, is one that I don’t have a single photograph of. The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is the resting spot of Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed body. To see it, you have to line up between 9-11am in the morning and observe strict dress rules out of respect. The line moves swiftly through the mausoleum and no photographs are allowed in the memorial (if you really want to see what it looks like, google it). HCM is revered like a god in Vietnam, and the pilgrimage to see his body is a big deal for many. I’m glad Billy and I roused ourselves early enough to take part. (Photos of the outside of the mausoleum below.)

   

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention two other fun things from Hanoi. First, it was fantastic overlapping with my cousin Nate and his family on New Year’s Eve!

And, Vietnam (to this date) wins the award for cheapest beer anywhere. Bia hoi is a draft beer that’s brewed daily in Vietnam and sold on the streets for dirt cheap (cheapest in Hanoi was $0.22 per glass; later found some in Hoi An for $0.13 per glass). You don’t want to drink more than a couple, but it’s a local must-do.

Sapa (Jan. 2-5):

While we knew we’d be hitting it terribly off-season, Billy and I had heard good things about trekking the Sapa rice fields and our hostel offered an affordable two-day, one-night trekking tour that included spending a night at a local homestay. Oh, and the tour was bookended by two overnight buses.

Despite it being incredibly muddy (each of us had a local guide who helped us along the trail, with the catch that we spent a good sum on local handicrafts from them at the end of the trail), and raining intermittently, we still had a good time! The land was beautiful and the locals were friendly, if a bit insistent on selling us goods. Remarkably, we were even able to find a bar near our homestay- the local beer in Sapa isn’t bad!

      

Halong Bay (Jan. 6-11):

There were a ton of options when it came to visiting the famed Halong Bay: party getaway, staying overnight on a house boat, camping out on a small island, etc. In the end, Billy and I chose the more laidback option of commuting to Catba Island, located in the neighboring (but just as scenic) bay, and using that as our base camp for exploring.

The island itself doesn’t offer much. There’s a strip of cheap restaurants and clubs that mars the otherwise beautiful waterfront, and there are a couple of old military forts on the island. There are also a couple beautiful beaches, which we spent some time enjoying.

   

The best part was our day-long cruise through Halong Bay. We started off early and first stopped by a floating fishing village. From there, we cruised out to the bay and did some swimming, kayaking through caves, and beach exploring. Then we relaxed with a couple of cold beers as our boat cruised back to Catba Island to end the day.

    

Danang and Hoi An (Jan. 13-19):

After Billy and I separated ways, I continued onward to Danang and Hoi An, in the center of Vietnam’s coast, for a few days. In retrospect, I probably budgeted a little too much time for each of these destinations, but they were both still worthwhile.

Danang is a beach-side city that was home to the busiest airport in the world during the Vietnam War, used by both American and South Vietnamese forces. It was rainy for most of the time I was there, so I didn’t soak up many rays, but I did check out:

• The Marble Mountains, which are a series of marble and limestone hills, with the most prominent of them housing many caves, sculptures, and temples.

   

• Lady Buddha, a giant sculpture on the coast which is totally a tourist trap (there’s no history behind the sculpture) but also a pretty cool sight.

   

The ride between the two places was also very cool. Check out the deserted beach below!

   

Hoi An, whose Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, was a crucial trading port back in the day and continues its legacy of commerce as a tourist mecca for shopping and tailoring. It’s a beautiful little village, with race patties and a half-decent beach on its outskirts. I did a lot of exploring on bicycle, competing with water oxen for road space. The Old Town itself is well preserved with a buffet of temples and historical homes open for visitors. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves! (And yes- those are terracotta sculptures of the Capitol and the Washington Monument below; there was a whole park of global landmarks!)

           

Saigon (Jan. 19-23):

From Hoi An, I flew down to Saigon for the final leg of my Vietnam trip. I was excited to see the country’s largest city, which I’d heard was vastly different from Hanoi. Sure enough, Saigon has a much more western and European feel to it. While painstaking efforts are clearly taken in Hanoi to preserve its historic nature as much as possible, skyscrapers and wide streets are preferred in Saigon. Aside from Jakarta (below), this is also the city with the craziest traffic so far, and practically zero crosswalks. And people ride their motorbikes on the sidewalks. Really, it’s great.

If I’m going to be honest, the real highlight of Saigon for me was the emerging craft brewing scene there. I was able to try a different craft brewery each night, and finally drinking IPAs in Vietnam went a long way to compensate for Trump’s concurrent inauguration. I won’t bore you with the specifics, but if you’re a fan of good beer and find yourself in Saigon, I’d be happy to make recommendations!

These were the non-beer highlights:

• Touring the Mekong Delta. This is a must-do when in southern Vietnam. Rather than doing an overnight trip, I opted for the day-trip from Saigon. Although we timed it terribly with traffic as people were fleeing the city in hordes for Chinese New Year, the tour was a blast. From watching the process of making coconut candy, to holding a snake and subsequently taking a shot of snake wine, to exploring side rivers in small wooden boats, we were kept busy for the day.

      

• Crawling through the Cu Chi Tunnels. Before getting to Saigon, I had read about how there are two different sets of Cu Chi Tunnels. The first and most popular set (Ben Dinh Tunnels) are the ones that tour groups are always brought to, but were built specifically for that purpose. The second set (Ben Duoc Tunnels) are a bit further outside the city but are the only ones actually used by Viet Cong soldiers during the war. Of course, I was hellbent on visiting the real deal. I searched without luck for a tour company that runs tours there, rather than to the fake ones. So, I hailed an Uber and, to the driver’s surprise, asked him to drive me the 2.5 hours out of the city to the tunnels. He obliged and ended up teaching me some words in Vietnamese along the way, and then I paid him to take me back as well.

The tunnels were an experience. I was the only tourist there at the time so I received a personal tour… which basically means the tour guide opened up a small hatch in the ground and gave me directions on which way to crawl, and then closed it behind me. And oh yeah, there are bats that will fly by you but don’t worry about them. Awesome. (But actually, it was a very interesting experience.)

   

• Two final stops that are worth mentioning: the War Remnants Museum and the Saigon Opera House for a production of the A O Show. The museum is an obligatory stop for anyone interested in the history of the Vietnam War, as it showcases the horrors of Agent Orange and details other atrocities. The A O Show was an incredible acrobatic performance in which the performers strictly used bamboo. Their athleticism made me feel pretty terrible about my physical shape…

 

 

Post to come in the next couple days detailing Singapore and Indonesia. Stay tuned!

12/18 – 12/27: Hong Kong!

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, and right now that place happens to be our hostel’s rooftop bar in Hanoi, where Billy and I are taking a breather after a busy day in this crazy city (and enjoying some $0.55/bottle local beer).

But before we get to that, I wanted to share some stories and photos from the 10 days we just spent in Hong Kong. This was our longest stay yet in any one place, but even then it wasn’t nearly enough time to take in all that is HK. While we continue to hear and read from other backpackers who are intimidated by Hong Kong’s reputation as a more expensive destination, we got by on the cheap (and a few too many meals at McDonald’s) and were blown away by how varied and dynamic the city proved to be.

Dec. 18: We arrived later in the day and checked into our guest house (booked through AirBnb) in the Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood in Kowloon. For those of you, like myself a few days ago, who are novices in HK geography, the city consists of a peninsula of mainland China and then a bunch of islands (most notably, Hong Kong Island). Kowloon is the tip of the mainland peninsula facing HKI. Unlike HKI, which feels like Midtown Manhattan in its densest areas, Kowloon is more notable for its vast street markets and blaring neon lights.

Anyways, we arrived on the later side and then ventured down to Victoria Harbor (the body of water separating Kowloon from HKI). We were greeted by the view below, and stayed to check out the “3D Christmas Light Show” (English version). Hong Kong doesn’t joke around when it comes to Christmas (or light shows).

Dec. 19: We stayed on the Kowloon side of the Harbor for our first full day in Hong Kong and traversed it by foot. We first stumbled upon a few of the street markets. In Hong Kong (and we’re now finding in Hanoi, also), entire streets will be devoted to a particular commodity. During our morning walk, we happened upon such streets as the ones devoted to aquarium creatures, pet birds, and flowers.

We then checked out the Kowloon Walled City Park, which has a fascinating history as first a military fort, and then later as a “high-rise squatter camp” that boasted the densest population of humans on the planet. It is now a gorgeous municipal park that features remnants and historical anecdotes of the former Walled City.

We progressed onward to a Taoist temple, and then to the Nan Lian Garden and Chi Lin Nunnery. The extravagant nunnery is a Buddhist temple complex founded in 1934 as a retreat for Buddhist nuns. The adjoining garden was created much more recently but is a beautiful classical Chinese garden.

Dec. 20: Second full day, and we ventured under the harbor to Hong Kong Island. As soon as we stepped out of the subway, the contrast with Kowloon was stark. Towering buildings, meticulously maintained parks, and a heavy presence of law and order.

We checked off a bunch of sites during the day, beginning with the municipal park- which boasts a couple waterfalls, a small zoo, and a sprawling aviary. From there we visited a temple and the popular SoHo neighborhood, completed a sunset hike to Victoria Peak (the mountain that towers over the island), and ended the day checking out the winter amusement park on the water.

Dec. 21: It rained, I won’t bore you. We spent a lot of the day at the Hong Kong history museum, which was great (and free). Most notably, we indulged in some delicious eggettes with ice cream at Oddies Foodies, and later some local craft beer at The Ale Project.

Dec. 22: Since our first trip up Victoria Peak had just followed an old road and didn’t entail much hiking, we spent the morning and into the afternoon making our way up the Peak via the park on its back side. It was a beautiful, lush green hike the whole way up. Once we reached the top, we set out to find the actual summit (all of the tourist stuff denoting the “peak” is in fact a bit down the mountain).

We found it, sort of. It turns out the actual summit is restricted area controlled by Hong Kong’s water department, but we got as high as we could without trespassing. And you know all of those side-by-side photo comparisons of what the ideal tourist photo looks like versus the reality of the location? Yeah…

Anyways, after we got off the mountain and cleaned up from the muggy hike, we got over to the Happy Valley Racecourse. During the horse racing season, there are weekly races at the venue and it costs less than $1 to enter the racecourse through the beer garden. Neither of us had been to a horse race before, but why not?

It ended up being a fun time and a totally worthwhile trip.

Dec. 23: One of the top recommendations we received before heading to Hong Kong was to check out Macau during a day trip. So, on December 23, 2016, that is precisely what we did.

Macau, like Hong Kong, is an autonomous territory classified as a Special Administrative Region in China. Macau was a Portuguese territory until 1999 (Hong Kong was a British one until about the same time), and the Portuguese culture infuses the city. Macau is also known for its bevy of casino offerings.

While Billy and I didn’t make it to the slots, we hustled around the city and took in many of the historic sites. These included (from left to right, below): Baroque-style St. Dominic’s Church, ruins of St. Paul’s Church, the historic Mandarin’s House, the Macau skyline at dusk while searching for an elusive church, and the Historic Centre (a UNESCO site) lit up at night.

   

   

Despite having to go through immigration four times in a single day (leaving HK, entering Macau, leaving Macau, entering HK), and rough seas as well as shoddy service by TurboJET on our way back, it was great spending a day in a place so different from Hong Kong.

Dec. 24: For Christmas Eve, we stayed on the Kowloon side of the bay and started off the day with a trip to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, which we’d heard a lot about. After accidentally mistaking a nearby ancestral hall for the monastery (we’re terrible; to be fair, there was a prominent temple at the ancestral hall), we found our correct way.

And man, were there a lot of Buddhas, of every variety one could imagine. In all, the monastery boasts over 12,000 Buddha sculptures, with the vast majority being smaller figurines housed in a memorial hall.

   

   

We then checked out the rest of the area around Sha Tin, which included a few encounters with wild monkeys and this cool graffiti wall (don’t do drugs, kids).

We ended the day in Lan Kwai Fong, party central of Hong Kong Island where locals and tourists alike spilled into the streets to celebrate Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day: To celebrate Christmas, Billy and I decided to (what else?) start the day at McDonald’s and then head out for a long hike. We headed to the largest of Hong Kong’s island, Lantau, which is also where the airport is situated. After another lush hike, we summited and paid a visit to the “Big Buddha”- all 110 feet of him.

The mountain atop which he’s perched was shrouded in mist, and the nearby village, Ngong Ping, was crowded with holiday tourists. It was a great hike, though, and we celebrated with a Christmas meal of bean curd made from mountain mineral water (tasted sort of like oatmeal back home) and some grilled fish. Also at the top of the mountain were quite a few abandoned buildings, which are a minor obsession of mine. The one pictured below is literally being swallowed by the forest.

   

   

Dec. 26 (Boxing Day): First off, it was with a heavy heart that I missed the Suslovic Boxing Day extravaganza for the first time in a while, and I hope I have their forgiveness.

For our final full day in Hong Kong, we frantically scrambled to check off a few final things. We visited the Maritime Museum which was a great education on the prominent role that boating has played in Hong Kong’s history. We then wandered around SoHo and picked up a few knickknacks before trying another dim sum restaurant and then another bar with local beers. We capped off the day with a nighttime trip across Victoria Harbor on the Star Ferry.

   

Yesterday, we flew out from Hong Kong to Hanoi. Never have I been more grateful that I inherited my mother’s genes of arriving everywhere hours too early, as Billy and I were thrown through the ringer trying to print travel documents, get visa photos printed, and withdrawing U.S. currency at the airport.

That’s all for now. We miss all of you and appreciated all of the holiday wishes. Please stay in touch by email or social media, and let us know if you have any recommendations for Vietnam or the rest of Southeast Asia!

 

12/9 – 12/18: More Japan!

HIROSHIMA

Hey everybody!! Our next blog installment picks up with a 2-day stay in Hiroshima. When planning our trip to Japan, we had a few cities that we absolutely wanted to see, Hiroshima being one of them. Hiroshima is a must-visit if the opportunity arises. Describing the emotions you feel walking through the city is impossible. The destruction inflicted by the atom bomb left much of the city beyond repair. Hiroshima has been restored with tremendous care and it shows. The history lesson we received exploring the city was unbelievable.

After checking in with our host, Yukako, we headed over to the Hiroshima Castle.

  

The Genbaku (Atomic Bomb) Dome is the site above which the bomb was dropped. It exploded several hundred meters above the roof, leaving the building partially intact (model of explosion to right).

Peace Boulevard: the city was feeling the holiday spirit (and we were too)!!

We kicked off the morning in Hiroshima with a run along the waterfront then headed over to the Shukkei-en Garden. Feeding koi is very popular!

Next we made our way to the Peace Memorial Park and Memorial Hall.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum has a large exhibition on the atomic bomb, 6 August 1945, and everything related that followed. Sadako Sasaki developed leukemia as a result of the atomic bombing. During her time in the hospital, she folded origami cranes with the hope that after folding 1,000 she would become better. The Children’s Peace Monument was built in her honor, for the hope for world peace. You can see her holding an origami crane on top.

 

 

OSAKA

On the 11th we departed Hiroshima to see Osaka! First thing we did was check out Dotonbori: a huge shopping area in the downtown. It’s not hard to get lost here. There is no end. If there is, we couldn’t find it. It might extend for hundreds of miles.

 

A notable attraction of Osaka is their aquarium Kaiyukan, which has a 30 ft deep tank with a myriad of species. In this tank, the main feature is their 2 whale sharks. This filter-feeder (they feed on plankton not people) reaches lengths of 40 ft!

FISHTORY LESSON: The coelacanth was thought to be extinct until one was pulled from the depths of the East African coast by a fishing vessel. The inability to preserve the first found specimen led a mad scientist to spend over a decade pursuing this elusive beast. This living fossil was thought to have gone extinct along with the dinosaurs, and is one of the fishes most closely related to tetrapods (land vertebrates).

The food dish above is okonomiyaki: a savoury pancake that is eaten off a grill. Much of the 14th was spent traveling, where we stopped in Nagoya. I had tried dried Japanese mackerel the night before and it did not sit well with me the next day!!!

TOKYO

Birthday weekend in TOKYO! With Simon’s 25th birthday on the 15th and with mine on the 17th, we couldn’t not spend our birthdays in the biggest city in Japan. We arrived the afternoon of the 15th and made our way to a tower to get an aerial view of the city.

On the 16th we continued or Tokyo explorations. The Nezu Museum has an amazing outdoor garden. Also, we stumbled upon a light show downtown.

For our last full day in the city we roamed the Shinjuku Gyeon National Garden.

And went to the Museum of Yebisu Beer: a popular Japanese malt beer then had dinner in “Piss Alley”. Dinner included Eel tempura and some delicious sort of gastropod. And also below is the world’s biggest crosswalk!

On the 18th we left Japan and we are now in Hong Kong, where we’ll be until the 27th. Stay tuned for a post about Hong Kong! 🙂

Origami crane made by Yukako:

 

 

11/30 – 12/8: Korea -> Japan!

Hello family and friends!

Simon here for the second installation of Running the Earth (dot org). Just to start things off, Billy and I are still looking for sponsors and advertisers for our trip and this blog- so if you know any businesses that are looking for a great marketing opportunity, especially ones that might provide us free shoe deodorizer balls or extra pub money, let us know!

On a more serious note, the trip is going great so far and we have yet to hit any major snags, other than wandering around Fukuoka, Japan for about two hours this week looking for our bus terminal (don’t worry Mom, we found it). Since Billy wrote, we departed Jeonju and spent a night in Gwangju, Korea, then two nights in Busan, hopscotched over to Japan on December 3 for one night in Saga, and are now wrapping up our fourth day in Kyoto. We head to Hiroshima on an early morning bus tomorrow, followed by Osaka and Tokyo.

I’ll highlight a few of the coolest things from the past week in this blog post. Overall, it’s just been amazing to make it around to so many cities and their respective cultural and food destinations, though. Billy and I have prioritized walking between locations and are consistently racking up 15-20 miles of walking per day, and this kind of mileage has definitely led us to see the cities we’ve visited in a more complete scope by the time we leave. It’s also resulted in us stumbling upon hidden gems that we hadn’t read about in tourist guides (e.g. the udon noodle restaurant that we visited tonight- mmm).

 

Gwangju:

Gwangju ended up being one of our destinations where we wished we’d had more time.

The city is known for being the hub of pro-democracy efforts in Korea, and was the site of the May 18 Democratic Uprising. The city’s park boasts a couple of breathtaking monuments as tribute
to this event, including the one to the right.

We also had an amazing lodging experience in Gwangju. We stayed at Pedro’s House, which doubles as a cozy cafe / bar / restaurant (here’s Billy enjoying some
local Gwangju beer there).

Pedro was also a fantastic host, and showed the two of us around Gwangju that evening- and while the soju tents were nowhere to be found, we did happen upon a hidden book store bar that served Sam Adams (!!!), and a restaurant where we grilled our own meat. If you’re reading this and happen to pass through Gwangju at any point, make sure to stay with Pedro!

Busan:

The final city we visited in Korea was Busan, which is the second largest in Korea behind Seoul. I just read on the Wikipedia page for Busan that it’s home to the world’s largest department store, and Billy mocked immense sorrow that we ended up missing it.

We ended up wandering around Busan the first day, and stumbled upon an amazing city park that used to serve as an imperial Japanese Army base, and then as a U.S. Army base up until just a decade ago. It’s now a stunning park and museum, take a look:

  

   

Later that night, we happened upon a Buddhist shrine with a beautiful pagoda as well as a well-lit trail up a mountainside that we explored. (Oh, and Billy also tried squid ink pasta later that night… it was actually pretty good!)

   

The next day we checked out the Gamcheon cultural village in Busan, as well as some of the bars in the expat area of Haeundae… and then it was off to Japan on December 3!

   

Saga / Fukuoka:

We flew into Fukuoka and spent our first night in Japan about an hour south in Saga, where we stayed in a beautiful Japanese temple (the wonders of Airbnb). Oh, and Fukuoka does not mess around with their holiday lights.

   

We then spent an uneventful and drizzly day in Fukuoka, capped off by our bus-terminal-finding struggles and then an overnight bus to…

KYOTO!

which is the city that I’ve, admittedly, been far and away the most excited about visiting. Everything that I had read about Kyoto, which was formerly the Imperial capital of Japan, touted it as having historical landmarks around every corner, fantastic food, and, well, even more historical landmarks around every corner.

It has not disappointed, and Billy and I agreed earlier today that it’s our favorite city that we have visited yet. Here are a few highlights, in roughly chronological order:

We first happened upon the Kenninji Temple (the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto), as well as the Higashiyami District, located a couple blocks from our hostel:

    

We then checked out the Kiyomizudera Temple where, aided by a friend from the hostel who could read Kanji, we drew our fortunes. Unfortunately, Billy drew one that professed bad luck, so he tied it up with all the other ones expressing ill fortune for the gods to take away:

   

Our second day here, we decided to walk across Kyoto for a couple destinations on the western side of town. Along the way, we found a few more parks and shrines. The photo on the bottom is of prayer cards at a shrine that have been left for the gods:

   

Our first destination was Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion. This is one of the main tourist draws in Kyoto and you may have seen photos of it, but it did not disappoint in the slightest. The building was truly magnificent and we managed to break through the throngs of fellow tourists for a couple photos (also check out Billy’s photo):

   

We finished the day with a visit to Ryoanji, a Zen temple that is home to one of the world’s most acclaimed rock gardens. In addition to the rock garden, the grounds of the temple were also beautiful and we got there right at sunset:

 

Knock on wood, we’ve been incredibly lucky to have good weather this trip thus far. Yesterday was no different, and we managed to make it to a monkey park perched high over Kyoto (easily one of my favorite stops during this trip) and also the breath-taking Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, along with a few other cool sights along the way:

   

   

And that brings us to today, our final one in Kyoto! It was a final dash, where we started with a long morning run on the Kamo River, followed by trips to the Nijo Castle, Sanjusangendo Temple, and the Fushimi Inari shrine and a hike up the Inari mountain. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside the castle or the temple (which boasts 1,001 Kannon statues- you can find on image on Google; it was amazing), but here are a few from our final day:

   

And finally, the food. So far we’ve indulged on bento boxes, udon noodles, and street food in Kyoto. The best by far, though, was ramen that we got from Ramen Sen No Kaze. Here’s my photo from Instagram (sorry in advance):

Anyways, that’s a wrap from Kyoto! As we plan out our itinerary for the remainder of Japan, be sure to drop me or Billy a line if you happen to have any sightseeing recommendations or know anyone locally with whom we should connect.

Also, as we continue to update this blog, fill out this super quick contact form if you want us to shoot you an email each time we put up a new post. Cheers!

11/16 – 11/29: Portland to Jeonju, Korea

Our goal for this blog is to keep you (our friends and family) updated with our travels, because we would love to share our experiences with you! The aim of this adventure is to see as much of the world as we can by visiting new places, learning about other cultures, making friends and of course, by running in cities around the Earth.

Our trip began with a night in Incheon (after over 40 hours of traveling and a layover in Moscow’s airport), followed by 5 nights in Seoul, the capital of Korea and the 16th largest city in the world. Words can’t describe how spectacular Seoul is, so hopefully some pictures can give you a taste.

View from Namsan (Seoul) Tower after a morning run

The Seoul Lantern Festival:
hundreds of lanterns along nearly a mile of stream

Gyeongbukgong Palace

Following Seoul (on the west coast), we made our way to Sokcho: a fishing-driven town on the east coast. We spent our Thanksgiving in the best hostel we could find (the Mr. Egg Guesthouse)! After our night in Sokcho, we began our journey to the south, with 6 more cities to explore during our stay in Korea.

Thanksgiving

Gangneung consisted of an action packed day where we spent our morning learning about Yi-Yi, a 16th century Confucian scholar on the 5,000 Won note (about $4.25 USD). Next we took a trip to Unification Park, a site with retired fighter jets, tanks, and a battleship are on display. One main attraction at the site is a North Korean submarine that met an unsuccessful attempt to enter South Korea’s coast. From there we sprinted to a nearby art museum/park (Haslla Art World). Along the way, a soldier told us that we were on private property (oops!). Haslla was certainly a world of art, featuring a multi-story Pinocchio exhibit, a strobe light tunnel, and an extensive park with mildly creepy sculptures lurking in the woods.

Sculpture at Haslla Art World

Moving onto Jeonju, a smaller town, we got a change of scenery from the larger cities. Here we took a tour of the Hanok Village, containing traditional houses and home to a few remaining portraits of past kings.

We hope from now on to post updates on our blog more frequently, and we hope you enjoyed reading our first post with some of the highlights from our first 2 weeks of travels! 🙂

-Billy