Worst Blog Post from Best Airport

I'm at an internet kiosk in the Bangkok airport during my 5 hr layover before my flight to Cambodia. This keyboard is terrible, so excuse my typing please. (it sometimes just starts typing in Thai...see:ำพรา ยฟเำ รห แนนส)

Anyway, aside from this keyboard, this is perhaps the best airport ever to have a 5 hr layover. Some reasons:

• massage at airport at minimal mark-up from going rate. do i actually need to list any other reasons or are you already as sold as me...(keyboard has no question mark....grrrr)
• airport is about 1 year old, so clean, big, neato,fancy etc.
• endless opportunities to check out old-white-man with young-thai-woman couples and contemplate the social, moral and creepizodial aspects of these relationships.
• food is pretty good; has a starbucks.

OK, so Singapore actual is a better airport (better food, more english, and free internet with real keyboards) but that first bullet trumps all, and this is the better place to be. I got a foot massage here earlier (by accident really: i ordered a shoulder massage which apparently is 30 minutes on feet, 30 on shoulders...) and it was awesome. Maybe I can catch a later flight and have another!

Fly into Phenom Phen tonight and need to find hotel and then find a phone set up (Skype or new SIM card) as it sounds like I might have a phone interview tonight for a long term consulting gig that would start as soon as i get back. PP sounds pretty wild west and is probably the most dangerous place i'm going through on my trip (but still probably safer than most US cities...). Should be a bit of a culture shock after friendly, mellow, easy Thailand...

I'll try to post again once I settle in and get to a real computer with a real keyboard...

until then, ะฟาำ แฟพำ นด ันีพหำสอำห.

-erik

Katie's Gone...

(Author's Note: it is with great restraint that I decided to use this photo instead of the "toilet seat up" photo I took this morning. You're welcome...)

Well, the 2 week intermission from SoliDuding is over now and Katie should be on a flight somewhere over the Pacific now. We did have a nice time together, though Katie was a little travel-frazzled by the end. Her visit I think confirmed what we thought when we planned: (1) it was a very good idea for her to come it the middle of the trip and (2) it was a very good idea that she didn't travel for more than a few weeks. But we had alot of fun - ate good food (alot!), saw beautiful places, swam, slept, etc...

And it really wasn't in the middle of my trip. It was near the end. I only have just over 3 weeks left!! How the hell did that happen? I know it would, but jeez...So here is "the Plan" from here for me:

• 2 more days chillin' in Thailand


• fly to Cambodia. A few days in the capital Phenom Phen, then several days in Siem Riep, which is the town new Ankor Wat (the largest religious monument in the world that is suppose to be crazy cool...)
  
• fly from Siem Riep to Luang Prabong in Laos on Sept 27. LP is suppose to be an amazing place to be (beautiful, laid back, cheap, great French/Laotian food, etc), which great adventuring around if needed.
  
• Fly home on Oct 10th from Bangkok, so some time to figure when and how to get from LP to Bangkok...

OK, maybe that's it for now. Its about 1000 F in this internet cafe and I'm starting to feel faint...

-erik

Fun in the (sometimes) Sun

Greetings from Erik and Katie both! (SoliDuding is suspended for another 4-5 days...). Here's a picture of us from tonight eating (waaay too much...) at our new favorite restaurant Papaya on Koh Phi Phi. Today was the first truly sunny day we've had and Katie capitalized on it by getting totally sun burnt. That's making efficient use of her short visit! (We also look so shiny because, as is the custom here, we are sweating, and because we just both got oil massages. mmm, daily massages....). Yesterday was a good one too. We took an all-day boat cruise with snorkeling, swimming and kayaking. We thought the weather was great because it only looked like it was going to rain the whole day, but never really did. While snorkeling we saw a cute sea turtle, a (big!) jelly fish with long (scary!) tentacles and some (cute!) Nemo fish and many other colorful fish and corrals. And Katie even hand fed some monkeys pineapple on Monkey Beach....until they tried to steal our kayak, at which point we fled...Tomorrow we are splitting up. Oh, we mean we are doing different things. Erik is going scuba diving (hopes to see a whale shark!) and Katie is taking a Thai cooking class (hopes to make a mean green curry!). That's about it from us for now. Hope y'all are well and we'll talk to you later....

Erik & Katie

Katie's Here!!!

She made it!!! Katie found her way to meet me in Singapore and after a fun 1.5 days there, we are now we are now in Phuket Thailand (and didn't even have to fight our way through any picket lines at the airport!). The weather has been a little crappy (so that's why they call it the "wet season"...), but that doesn't really affect the massages or the eating and drinking, so we are doing fine and having fun. (speaking of which, please excuse the many typos that are certainly in this entry, as we just had a massage and then split a "Phuket Paradise" and then a "Tequila Sunrise" - it's happy hour here now...). Off to Ko Phi Phi tomorrow and hopefully we'll find some sun there. I guess a better near term goal should be that the weather is good enough so that we don't both get sea sick on the ferry to Phi Phi...In Phi Phi, Katie might even try her hand a scuba with me. That'll be fun! Anyway, definitely nice to have Katie here, though I think she is quickly remembering why it hasn't been too hard for her to live without me these past weeks. We're getting along well though and, so far, I've been pretty good about putting the seat down. OK, I think its just about time to go eat again...Later....

-erik (and katie!)

Wild Times

Ok, I'm sure putting this picture in the public domain will come back to haunt me, but there it is. This is me and one of my new friends from Borneo out during the jungle trek. I told you things were pretty basic there, but did you believe me?

Anyway, in Singapore now and it seems pretty nice. Glad I accidentally got an extra day here. Singapore is soo organized and clean that it is like a vacation from SE Asia, right in the middle of SE Asia. And I'm actually enjoying that quite a bit right about now. An example: as far as I can tell most Asian cultures do not que up in lines: they just go. To the Westerner, this means that they are always cutting in front of you. This pisses me off, even though I know that it is a cultural thing and they mean nothing by it. Anyway, when I got off the bus from Malaysia in Singapore, the first thing I saw was a line of about 50 people waiting for a bus. But the really remarkable thing was this line was super ordered. I mean it looked military-perfectly straight, perfectly spaced. I swear. I should have taken a picture but I was too shocked to think to reach for the camera.

Ok, now the random mumblings:

• I've seemed to establish a "brief narrative followed by bulleted items" format. Bite sized nuggets for the MTV generation. Is it working for y'all?
• Speaking of y'all: I was talking to a Danish woman the other day (sooo many Danes here!!!) and she told me that she had just met some loud Texas in Amsterdam. The thought of Texasan in Amsterdam representing America really freaked me out. Why didn't we let them do that lone-star state thing? I think they still want to do it, and the rest of us probably want it too. Is it too late? We can let them out and DC in and we wouldn't even need to change the flag.
  
• Katie arrives in about 6 hours! Can't wait to see her!! I just looked up her flight and I looking like it flies from SFO to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Singapore. I know about the Hong Kong stop, but not the Bangkok stop. Luckily she will probably be to tired to be mad at me for finding that "great" flight.
• Speaking of Katie being mad at me, it seems that 37 years of "put the toilet seat down" training are no match for 7 weeks of SoliDude traveling. Actually it was probably in week 2 that the automated reflex was last seen. I hope she doesn't fall in...
  
• Now that I have fast internet, I've put a zillion new pictures on my Picasa site. Once again for those of you who have made my picture page your homepage (oh right, because my blog is your home page...) it's at: http://picasaweb.google.com/erki666. I think every folder there that was added/updated in August/September is new or has new stuff in it...Yes, there are more embarrassing pictures of me buried in there...
  
• Looks like I'm starting to finally set some solid job stuff lined up! So I might actually be able to come back and pay off the credit cards that I charged up for the this trip afterall (rather than just staying here and hiding from my creditors...). One of the job leads is from somewhat that might actually be reading this blog and wants to hire me to write something. How crazy are they?
• Actually, I've gotten many nice compliments about my blog from people, and I appreciate that. On a related note, when I took a big step back and thought "what do I really want to do" not "what should I do" with regard to my career, the idea of being a travel writer was something that came up pretty strong. (Probably happens to everyone who travels, but...) So if any of you really do like my blog and have super connections into the world of travel writing, hook me up! (Travel writers have editors, right?(
• Speaking of travel writing, I think I have a super-sweat travel related scam I want to try out. Background: The Lonley Planet guidebooks are KING here. I know they are everywhere, but I literally don't think I've seen another guide book on my trip. I was thinking that if I had a notebook that said something like "2009 Lonley Planet Update notes" casually displayed at hotels and restaurants as I traveled, good thinks might follow. (Until i leave it unattended and they see that it just has blank pages and misc doodles in it...). I might try it anyway just for kicks...

OK, gotta run. Been in here too long....Seeya later...The next SoliDude entry might be a TogetherCouple entry instead.

-erik

Almost a big screw-up

Another quick pictureless blog from an airport...(I have sooo many great pictures too! grrr...). Flew from Mulu to Miri today. Suppose to fly from Miri to Singapore tomorrow and arrive a few hours before Katie. Or so I though. I stopped by the AirAsia ticket office after landing in Miri to see what they had to say about the Phuket (Thailand) situation. They didn't know. But they did take the opportunity to tell me that they don't fly from Miri to Singapore tomorrow! Upon closer review, I must have booked the wrong date, and was scheduled to go the following day - a day after Katie gets in! Oh, she wouldn't have liked that! Anyway, $40 later, I got a seat on the flight that goes out today (in about 45 minutes...) so I'll be there a day before Katie now. That was a close one. Probably my biggest travel goof so far, and only a $40 penalty (and I actually get there earlier...) so I guess that's not too bad after almost 2 months of travel...

Mulu was amazing, as I said before. It is mainly all about the caves in Mulu, but the rainforest there is pretty awesome too. I believe Mulu has the worlds largest cave passage, the worlds largest cave chamber and one of the worlds longest underground rivers. And it was a cave (the cave passage one actually) that has approx 2-3 million bats in it that come out at night to hunt. They stream out like smoke - it is pretty unreal. I got alot of nice pictures (and videos) or that. Aside from that, caves are great, but don't make for great pictures, though I tried. In any case kopefully I'll have a change to upload some shots tomorrow in Singapore.

Final note: I didn't get any leeches at all today!!! (that I'm currently aware of...)

Gotta run. Really don't want to miss this flight...

-erik

Last Days in Borneo

It's not to often that you sit down to check your email and you get shat on by a (very large) gecko. But that just happened. Ah, Borneo. I have been here for about 4 weeks now and I'm pretty ready to leave. That said, when I think about all the things I've down, I really wouldn't have skipped a thing. The natural beauty and outdoor activities here are never ending. Culturally and culinary, it is not super exciting, but the nature...wow. Anyway, just another quick, pictureless blog from an expensive, slow computer. I'm in Mulu National Park today (day 3 of 4 here) and its amazing like everything else here.

Some quick notes:

• What the hell is going on in Thailand?! Katie and I are suppose to fly into Phuket (which was shut down for several days because of protests) in about a week! I wish those Buddhists would more passively resist...
• I am sooo ready to be done with leeches. Had some extreme leech adventures on my visit to Long Pasia and then again some here in Mulu yesterday (including one that settled in for dinner way to close to the area that no man wants a leech...)
• After a week in Long Pasia, where the toilets ranged from delux (shared, squating pot-a-potie) to basic ("walk that way, make sure you are downsteam of where we do the dishes") I've very excited to have my own sitting, flush toilet again. I sometime just going in there to hang out just for fun.
• Speaking of toilets (sorry...) the "jungle toilet" is actually a little tough here because you are hard pressed to find a sq. foot of earth without a least a dozen insects (many that look strange and possibly nasty...). Certainly doesn't make you want to stay and read the paper...
• Speaking of insects, there are alot here. There is pretty much always an insect on your arm and it is pretty much always one you've never seen before.
• I've barily had any alcohol for the last month because Malaysia is muslim and they aren't into that. In fact I gather that muslims don't drink or eat pork and can't touch dogs. Those are 3 of the most important things in my life! Guess I can rule out converting to Islam...

OK, gotta run. really want to wash this gecko guano off me. Hopefully I can post again and share some of the incredible pictures I've gotten withing the next few days to a week.

Seeya!

-erik