Serendipity

just arrived in Thailand… ended up doing a visit-with-family marathon and barely made it out of jakarta!! It’s amazing how time flies. Basically the biggest project was to go to the beach with whoever was able to make it during the weekday, which basically means those willing to follow in the time-honored (by me) tradition of hard core slacking.

For those interested in chilling indo-style, here are the photos.

Now I’m in Bangkok, just arrived to the touristy area… first planned to take a cab for 400bht but figured that I was a pro so I took the train for 10bht (which is about 25 cents). Was going to take a cab from the train station but then somebody told me how to take the bus which was 5 bht. I walked from there and already found how to get visas for Vietnam, Laos, and China. They can do everything but you have to trust the agent with your passport, which I have done with some trepidation. She said not to worry….

There are tons of backpackers and tourists here; after travelling as a local indonesian for 3 weeks I must say I don’t really feel in the same frame of mind. So I ate here:

Don’t think i will stick around here too long, I plan to go to an island near ko samui tomorrow or the next day; my visas should be ready in about 1.5 weeks.

dentistchair

old pic–i was having a little tooth ache so i went to a random place to get some dental work done. i was a little nervous…

orchid_twins

fortunately the dentist turned out to be a cousin of mine and the work was free! here are some examples of local flora and fauna.

I think I’m getting used to the new way of life here after a week, it is always such a shock. Everything is different, and little things like how to take a shower or go to the bathroom are all changed and it is disorienting. Well it is the quickest and surest way to explode the comfort zone. After the first three days I had about 30 mosquito bites on me, mostly on my feet, some i scratched so much that it gave me blisters!! the mosquitos here have a particularly irritating venom to which the local population have seemingly adapted. Fortunately I was then re-aquainted with my new best friend sari-puspa, an anti-mosquito ointment which i now apply religiously before bedtime. i believe the average # of festering sores on my skin is now decreasing, insha Allah.

I’ve only been here a week and I already dropped some weight. But I’m feeling pretty good so I’m not worried. the problem is that it’s very hot and the food is a little bit monotonous, i’m not used to eating rice every day, so my appetite is a little bit down. maybe i can go to an air-conditioned KFC and eat a bucket of chicken or something. then again i just now saw about 30 live chickens being transported on the back of a single motorcycle, which is always a bit concerning. Well anyway I will survive.

I’m having a really good time getting to know my cousins again, and hanging out. Mostly just visiting relatives, eating, living the slow-paced rubber time live here. It’s a good training for my journey because plans in indonesia always change and people here don’t hurry, so there is always a lot of waiting. sometimes patience on the order of zen mastery is required, otherwise you can become crazy. But last night there was some action, I went out with my party-friendly cousin Reny to a bar with live music, with some of her friends; the place was lame but we had a really good time. Been taking pics with my cousins, I cannot upload pics here on this super modern windows98 PC but will do some later.

I’m going to do some more visiting but probably next week i will go somewhere different; I might go to Aceh to help cousin Iwan out with his civic works project research but it might not be in the cards. Could also go to a surfing beach, or to some more remote place like sulawesi or lombok. we will see…