Day 415 (Tokyo, Japan)

Been in Japan for 3 weeks now and have a little over a week left before flying back to Kuala Lumpur. I am going to live there until at least the end of June and then likely will be moving on to Australia, unless plans change again. My first week in Japan was an interesting one, the capsule hotel in Osaka had a policy of locking out it’s guest from 10 AM till 5 PM which caused some trouble. Some nights if I got home late enough from partying I would only get an hour or 2 of sleep which gave me the horrible idea to just keep drinking to avoid the hangover. I had several groups of people throughout the week to hang out with and it was actually a really good time, although it got tiring after a while. I made some good friends and hope to see them again in the future, some of them I have seen several times more throughout my Japan travels. Also while in Osaka I visited the Aquarium, went to a CS meeting near the castle and did a day trip to Nara to see the deer.

From Osaka I went to Kyoto for a few days with no real plan and ended up resting in my hostel most of the time. It was a good hostel to relax in and is rated #5 in Asia on Hostel World. I met some good people there also but never really did anything except go to a few temples and walk around. It was a good chance to see the cherry blossoms (Hanami) which were perfectly bloomed when I was there, which made finding a hostel quite difficult. I ran into several people I had met in Osaka and got to do things with both of them which was pretty cool. To save some money I took the bus from Kyoto to Tokyo which was almost 3 times less than taking the bullet train so I think was well worth it.

Now I have been in Tokyo for over a week and spent equal amounts of time in a hostel and with a couch surfer. I was happy to get back into couch surfing as I haven’t done it in almost half a year since I was in Israel. The hostel I stayed at was even more compact than the capsule hotel but the owner was very friendly and it had a lively common room sometimes. The people I met here were a mixed bag of cool and annoying and I never really clicked with them as well as I did in the other 2 hostels. Most of my time in Tokyo has been spent walking around and just checking things out, which has gotten tiring and now I feel the need to actually do some of the things I had planned. Going to Yoyogi park on Sunday to see the craziness of people was a real treat and everyone in the park seemed so happy.

Tomorrow I get a tattoo under my left arm on my ribs which will hurt quite a bit. I have planned to go out to a fancy club right after getting the tattoo which I may later regret but it’s my second last day in Tokyo and I want to go to a proper party. I went to a so so one last Thursday and it was not very good. After the club which will be an all night thing, I may try and go visit the fish market which is best to do early in the morning so it should work out well, assuming I have any energy left. After all that I take a rest day and then go to Yokohama the next day to visit another couch surfer. Then it’s back to Osaka to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur. Wish me luck on the all nighter.

Day 391 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

Well it’s been an exciting and interesting month. After Siem Reap I moved onto Phnom Penh to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur. I stayed in Phnom Penh for a few days but didn’t really do much of anything except one night out with a German guy. I really enjoyed my time walking around KL (Kuala Lumpur) and met some really awesome people in the city and at my hostel. It was a lot of days of drinking and partying which I usually don’t let occupy my entire time in a city but in KL it basically did, except a short stop over to watch a movie at Petronas Towers. I really did enjoy exploring KL on foot as it’s a beautiful city to get lost in. The monorail is a nice transportation system, the prices are reasonably close to Thailand’s prices and the alcohol at KK-Mart is cheap.

My next stop was Singapore for a week which ended up being similar to my KL visit in that it was dominated by partying. I mostly hung out on Read Bridge in the Clarke’s Quay area as it’s cheaper to just drink some 7-11 beer on the bridge than attempt to visit the super expensive clubs. My hostel was completely empty for most of my time except for the last few days in which I hung out with some German guys who were really fun to go sightseeing with. In 1 day we did most of the main free touristy things in Singapore and by night we hung out on the bridge.

After that I flew to Jakarta which was a mixed bag of boring for me mostly. Again I started with an almost empty hostel but still managed to find some people to go to a club called Stadium with. I went there 2 nights in a row and it’s the kind of club that I need to be drunk in to enjoy so my second time through I was pretty drunk and had a great time, first visit though was disappointing and short. I attempted some sightseeing with an American and we walked for many hours around Jakarta’s main strip. It was mostly uneventful and besides the nightlife I found no redeeming qualities for Jakarta.

After that I was suppose to go to Bali as I had the plane ticket to and fro but last minute I decided I was done with the month long partying and wanted to rest and relax back in KL before my trip to Japan. I also really wanted to visit some friends I had met on my first stop in KL. I lost some money on those tickets but it was well worth it and it’s a lesson for me to not book so many tickets in advance, even if it looks like a good price, it’s not worth being locked into any kind of schedule. I will be in KL for another 4 days before my flight to Japan where I will be visiting for a month before flying back to KL. At that point I may or may not stay in KL longer and visit friends, if so I will forfeit my Australia plane ticket and need to book a new one within 90 days when my new Malaysia visa will once again expire.

1 Year (Siem Reap, Cambodia)

Well it’s finally arrived, the 1 year mark of my world travels. Some days it feels like I just started traveling, other days it feels like it’s been years. I’ve had lots of highs and lows and am grateful for all of them. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way and still do with annoying frequency, but travel is as much a learning experience as life itself. I’ve tried many different types of budgeting which has sometimes meant sacrificing things I wanted to do and other times splurging (usually with alcohol involved). If I could redo the year I would do a few things differently but I wouldn’t say I regret those decisions as they are part of the experience.

The last 45 days have really thrown me back into travel, possibly too hard and fast which has brought about my indecisive mood as of late. The problem started with me booking far too little time between landing in Thailand and visiting Malaysia while I was buying my tickets in India months ago. I’ve since planned far into the future so those tickets were not going to be changed. But it has been far too much of a rush through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam & Cambodia and I will 100% need to come back to experience many missed opportunities. I’m hoping it’s this that has put me in a bit of a “travel funk”. I have an entire week in Kuala Lumpur and another week in Singapore coming up which I think will give me much more time to balance exploring and relaxing. If I took away only one thing from this mistake it’s that I clearly don’t like traveling too fast, which I already knew but now I have up and close experience with the beast.

Now to get to what I’ve been up to and what’s in the future. Since my last post in Thailand I went on through Laos and Vietnam to arrive in Cambodia before I fly to Malaysia on March 6th. I sadly took barely any pictures in the last little while, partly because of being lazy and partly I didn’t want to carry my camera to areas were I would be swimming or with high crime which was a lot of the areas I went recently. From Ko Phi Phi I went back up to Bangkok for a day before going to my last stop in Thailand called Chiang Mai. I actually found it to be a pretty boring city, there was things you could sign up to do outside the city and there was a few things to see within the city but in general I wasn’t impressed. Then I took a 2 day boat up to Luang Prabang in Laos. I didn’t think it was a very interesting stop either except for the waterfall outside the city which was pretty fun as I got to swing on a big rope swing. I went through Laos pretty fast, stopping in Vang Vieng and Vientiane for only a few days each. I didn’t do the tubing in Vang Vieng for a few reasons but if I ever go back I will give it a try. After Laos I went to Hanoi in Vietnam for a few days before flying to Ho Chi Minh City in the South of Vietnam. I’ve actually been rather underwhelmed with Laos and Vietnam which may have been because I had to travel so fast but I think it’s a lot of the same stuff you see in Thailand which may be party why I am not as impressed by yet another waterfall or temple. I will be going to Angkor Wat tomorrow and will have some good pictures for my next post from there.

My future travels are locked in for the most part with a bit of improvising in Japan. The itinerary until April 30th is Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Australia. I’m hoping for a change of pace with my future destinations as I will have more time and hopefully they will be a little less backpacker centered travel destinations as I need a break from the 1-3 month party backpacker types. I could do an entire post on the different kinds of backpacker/travelers I have met but there is no way to make it not sound negative so I will just say it’s been a mixed bag of stereotypes that I am sure I fall into somewhere with my own flaws and annoyances. I know Japan will be a different experience and it’s been high on my list of places to go see for a very long time. As far as Australia, I have changed my mind about how I intend to travel it, I have decided that my first destination of Perth is where I will stay and attempt to find work. All the Australians I have talked to tell me the pay is better on the West and I have liked what I have read about Perth as a city. Assuming I find a job, the plan will be 6 months in Perth before making my way to the East of Australia, doing sightseeing along the way.

I would quickly like to mention a few past posts I did back in February 2011. The first post I ever did on this blog was about my travel gear which has changed many times in the past year. I recently took a new picture of the gear I am carrying which I put beside this paragraph so you can see what I have now. I have gone through many clothes changes and subsequently given the clothes away along the way. Even after taking this picture a week ago I have had my shower sponge and a pair of underwear stolen. Although in the opinion of the hostel owner they were lost or misplaced but I am certain she stole them as she is a bitter kleptomaniac who should not be running a hostel or even be near people. The other post is the one I did about my future travel itinerary in which I tried to predict my year to come and where I was going to go. One quote from that post is relevant now as it goes “it will be fun to read this in a year and see how it’s all going and possibly how crazy I was to have had such a lofty goal”. After reading the post myself I see that I wasn’t that crazy at all and actually did more than I even predicted I would. It’s surprisingly accurate seeing as how I forgot about this post weeks after starting my trip and didn’t try to follow it at any point. The only real changes were cutting the UK a bit short and spending more time in Eastern Europe.

Thanks everyone who has been following my blog for the past year and I hope to have exciting posts for a long time to come as my trip is nowhere near over and the money I hope to get in Australia will give my funds a complete reboot. Also in case everyone is wondering why this post is on March 1st and not March 2nd when I left, it’s because this year is a leap year so March 1st is 365 days.

Day 343 (Koh Phi Phi, Thailand)

I finished my time in Goa several weeks ago and moved on to New Delhi for over a week. I decided to stay at a hostel for a bit more money so that I could meet some people and just hang out a bit. I met many people and did many thing during my stay there. It was actually very cold for the first few days in Delhi so I decided to buy a nice hoodie that will last for the rest of my trip hopefully. While in Delhi I went to most of the main attractions and went back to eating local Indian food for a while which sadly might have made me sick up until right now. The metro in Delhi is great for getting around and I highly recommend it as one of the cleanest and most organized things in India.

I also got a new tattoo while in India on my left foot. It’s of an Iceland Rune called a Vegvisir and it hurt quite a bit getting it on my foot. It turned out like I wanted but it’s hard to get a picture of it with the lines straight as the skin on my foot stretches a lot, also I might have preferred it a bit smaller but oh well, I don’t mind much on my feet anyway. I will likely get some tiny birds around the tattoo eventually. My next major one will likely be in Japan and may be some symbols in Kanji on my left rib under my arm. I will do more research once in Japan. I also finished my 7 weeks of Muay Thai classes and am very eager to keep going with the training. So when I get to working in Australia I will be signing up for classes right away. I figure after 3-4 months of classes I will be in really good shape.

I met another Canadian who had been traveling with me for a few days all the way from India to Thailand where I am now. We went separate ways after Bangkok after we both got our Vietnam visas. While in Bangkok I got a lot of new clothing such as all new shirts, socks and underwear. I also replaced my old towel with a bigger one that actually fits my entire body. I am going back to Bangkok in a few days for a 1-2 day stop over before making my way to my last stop in Thailand called Chiang Mai. While back there I may get my Laos visa and will try and buy a shirt that I wanted last week but they didn’t have in stock.

I was just in Koh Pha Ngan for the last few days and did a lot of partying as it was the time of the Full Moon Party. I met some people from my hostel and hung out with them mostly. I didn’t take any pictures as I was worried my camera may get stolen but some people did and if I find them on Facebook I will post those pictures. After the main party on the 7th I stayed up all night and took the morning boat-bus-boat to Koh Phi Phi. I have only been here for a day but it looks nice and I am looking forward to visiting Maya Bay which is the beach from the movie “The Beach”. During my time in Thailand I have sadly lost over $80 in bad decisions and scams but it’s all a learning experience and I am getting better at South East Asia everyday. I had gotten used to the much cheaper prices in India but I have been told Laos and Vietnam should be cheaper so we will see.