Fort Benning, Georgia: It's really hot here...

Dearest reader,

Up until about 18 seconds ago, this was a travel blog, pure and simple. I traveled, I blogged (and often, I traveled, I didn't blog, but that's neither here nor there). In my four years at school I've been to some pretty awesome places, traveling the width and breadth of Russia, the back roads of rural west Europe, the jungles, beaches and breathtaking beauty of South-east Asia, and a whole lot else in between. Unfortunately, all of the time I spent traveling I perhaps could have spent in pursuit of further education in my chosen profession: an Armor Officer in the U.S. Army.

So without further ado, I am starting a new-ish blog! I haven't decided what to name it yet (from Two months in the future me:actually I have, find it @ http://treatemrough.blogspot.com/2011/07/treat-em-rough.html), but I'll think of something clever and classy at some point... I'll keep this one active for the next time I go on a grand vacation. Which I hope is sooner rather than later.

Good night and good luck,

Chris Hawkins

Salamat Jalang, KK; Salamat Datang KL

I just finished my first 24 hours in KL and I’m quite shocked to observe that it seems to me that I’ve only got about 20 left. Left in KL and left on my trip. Not ready to leave about sums it up…

But before I get all philosophical and start reminiscing, I need to go ahead and finish talking about my time in KK and talk at least a tiny bit about KL.

It’s always hard when I let too much time come between my experiences and writing about them, so I’m going to just hit the highlights.

KK Day 4: After a 5 star breakfast of eggs on toast a la Mr. Cham, we went white water rafting on the Kiulu River. Here Nathan and I were the only white people in a vast sea of another type of traveler hitherto unencountered (yes, I realize that isn’t a word): The Young Female Asian Tourist. It was me, Nathan, and eight photo snapping, giggling girls from Singapore or KL or perhaps China. Of all the boats, we were the only two who didn’t shriek when we got wet or drop our paddles to make peace signs every time a camera appeared. Because of this, the harried guides naturally gravitated to us and we shared many a chuckle at the expressions of terror and disappointment as these girls realized they’d paid money to do physical labor (paddling) and get drenched. Needless to say, Nathan and I had a blast and the shyness of the girls may have kept them from talking to us, but they weren’t afraid of taking pictures of us not drowning (also known as swimming) in the water. That night we had some fine Chinese dining and shared ostrich, crocodile, and corn fed chicken with some of Mr. Cham’s rather amusing business partners.

KK Day 5: Laid on a beach. Turned our lifejackets into lederhosen and embarrassed the very few whites on the beach. Snorkeled. Dodged jellyfish. For dinner we went to a little hole in the wall Chinese place with more business associates and sat at a table filled with little bowls. In said little bowls were literally every part of the pig one could eat. Intestines, kidneys, ligaments, knuckles, eyelids, and meaty bits (only one of these isn’t true…). It actually turned out, like all of the food we had in KK, to be absolutely divine. Desert of Es Campur (that’s the Indonesian spelling, I know it’s a bit different in Malay, but it consists of shaved ice and 15 different jellied things from beans and corn, to seaweed and crunchy things) followed at a Malay place and it was as not tasty as the one I had in Medan.

KK Day 6: Went to one of the many many many Catholic churches in KK. The service was in English and several of the hymns were not only the same words, but also the same tune. Singing ‘One Bread, One Body’ with a church that was packed 30 minutes before mass started. Afterwards a lady came up to me and said, “I hope you enjoyed mass, I know it’s so different here!” I thanked her, but didn’t mention that far from different, the service was, of course, almost word for word the same as ours back home. The two differences: Chinese and Malay people can’t sing the sound –th which was pretty amusing and during the sign of peace, people bow to each other rather than shake hands. This is AWESOME. A breakfast of roast duck and roast pork and Chinese coffee at another hole in the wall completed an excellent morning. We spent the rest of the day trying random foods, going to random resorts, watching random golfers, and finally bidding goodbye to our most gracious host and getting on the flight to KL!

I really do miss KK and it was a wonderful, bustling, welcoming town blessed with abundant and excellent food and amazing natural beauty. A must see on any South East Asian tour.

Well, I promised a bit about KL, but it’s 3:30AM here and I’m starting to have difficulty seeing straight, so I’m going to call it a night. Update tomorrow? I think so.

G’night!

It's Worth it for the Sunrise

The title is actually a heading for a section of the Lonely Planet Malaysia guidebook that deals with the hike to the top of Mt. Kinabalu. The irony will become clear further on in the post.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for my lack of activity on this blog in the past several days. Mr. Cham has kept Nathan and I unbelievably busy with the terrible burden of fine dining, fabulous company, and the wonderful sights and smells of that lovely little metropolis they call Kota Kinabalu. That's my excuse, and as proof, it's midnight here and I'm fighting to keep my eyelids open as I fulfill my duty to my loyal readers. Therefore, believe me when I say this is my first free 30 minutes in the last three days.

But enough about that. So! Mt. Kinabalu. The mountain is about 14000 feet or 4000 meters, was first climbed in 1851, and boasts a 8.5 kilometer climb covering about 6,800 ft. That's about a 680 story building... We started the climb at about 10AM with nothing but some of Mr. Cham's hard boiled eggs in our pockets and self confident smiles on our faces. I think Nathan and I understood the mathematics of what we had to do that first day, 6km, literally every step of which was up, up, up, up. But we didn't quite get what that actually meant. We stopped about every kilometer as the air thinned, the trees thinned and our endurance thinned. We made it to the rest house below the peak after four grueling hours and collapsed thankfully into the chairs inside.

The rest house is another 2.5 kilometers below the peak, but it was where we were to spend the night before heading out at 3:00AM the next morning to make the peak before sunrise. We ate dinner, watched an uncommonly beautiful sunset, got cold in the thin air, and met other hikers (coolest ones: Joel and Jen, a Kiwi-Malaysian couple in Uni in New Zealand, and forgot-her-name, an Aussie who had taken Russian at community college. Not so coolest ones: The Angry Australian. I don't know what this guy's deal was, but we ran into him about 8 times on a very large mountain and he was always whining and ticked off about something or another. He didn't make it to the top. Justice.)

We got a good night's sleep, got up at 2AM had a quick breakfast and prepared for the toughest part of the climb. We knew the top would be cold and windy, so we packed all of the warm gear we'd packed for our trip through one of the warmest places in the world. On Mr. Cham's suggestion, we'd bought gloves and beanies to supplement our rain coats, long pants, and warm socks. We started up at 3AM and quickly passed the already struggling hikers who'd left earlier. By the time we made it halfway through the last 2.5km, we were pretty much alone, well ahead of the pack. The going was tough. There were thick ropes to pull yourself up the steep rock faces, puddles of freezing water to accidentally step in, not to mention the unbelievable cold, the pitch blackness (we had lamps) and the ferocious wind that you can only experience on top of a mountain. Additionally, the thin air meant that every exertion made your heart hammer and caused you to gasp for breath. Despite our frequent and painful breaks, we summited Mt. Kinabalu at 4:50AM.

That's when the real ordeal began. My joy at finishing the climb was quickly replaced by the realization that I was freezing. Nathan and I huddled behind a rock, safe from the wind and began the wait for the sunrise at 6AM that was supposed to make it all worth it. I was wet from hiking up through a cloud so I wrapped a towel around my head and put my extra pair of dry socks on my hands and pulled my gloves on over them in a vain attempt to keep them warm. Then it started raining. I couldn't believe it. However, we believed that the sun would burn off the cloud and all the people on the other side of the rock we couldn't see would enjoy the incredible view that was supposed to make it all worth it. However, after 1 hour 15 minutes on the summit, with the sun brightening through a wall of raincloud, we realized that no one else was waiting up there. Everyone who'd made it up with us was already well on their way back down.

Thus, soaked through, with the temperature hovering just above freezing, and the wind whipping us violently we decided we needed to start down. And FAST. I was shaking violently and all the mirth of our shared misery at the top turned into a very real fear that we wouldn't be able to make it down the slick and steep granite in the condition we were both in. Luckily, with no little exertion, and a few falls on rubbery and freezing legs, we warmed up enough to only make the descent down to the rest house mildly terrifying. At the rest house, several cups of hot coffee and wrapping myself in a warm blanket helped to ward off danger and allowed us to find out from our fellow climbers that probably less than 1/3 of the people had made it to the top. The rain had caught almost all of them on the trail up and most immediately turned back. This, of course, made making it all the more special and we almost forgot the disappointment of not getting to see the ultimate Borneo sunrise...

We eventually made it all the way back down and back to KK by the afternoon. It was in the high 80s in KK, which was a stark contrast to the freezing rain and the 30s of the summit. It was amazing that less than 12 hours after wondering if I'd ever be warm ever again in my life, I was, in fact, perhaps too warm. But I forgot my misery, enjoyed another 5 star meal and prepared for white water rafting the next day!

The Land Below the Wind

KOTA KINABALU. If, while in my fetid pile of misery in that festering city of Medan I had tried to imagine what paradise was like, it might have been something like this. In fewer words: I am in paradise. This city is in Malaysia, located right on your desktop entitled "Google Earth" if I'm not mistaken. Just kidding... That was perhaps needlessly belligerent! KK as it's affectionately known is the capital of Sabah, the eastern Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. It's an old colonial capital nestled between the South China Sea (beautiful) and the mountains, of which Mt. Kinabalu is the most prominent (beautiful [adjectives aren't my strong suit...]).

It's called the land below the wind because this is probably the only place by the sea in the world where there is simply no wind to be had, and considering how close we are the the equator, it's probably the only place in the world that desperately needs wind. But it's ok, really, because unlike the rest of southeast Asia, this place comes standard with AC. Much like Penang, KK is about food. I have now been here for just over 24 hours and I have already had my top 1 and 2 lamb experiences, the best chicken I've ever had and two of the best coffees. And while I write this, I'm looking out over the city from my lofty perch on the 12th floor of the highest building in KK.

I owe all of this to the fantastic patronage of Mr. Ronny Cham, the father of a dear friend from high school days. Mr. Cham, it turns out, knows all 800,000 residents of KK. At least the ones worth knowing. He went to school with the Governor of Sabah, is related to someone in every industry from pastries, to corn fed chickens, semi-legal lottery to (most importantly) travel organizers. This last one was particularly helpful when we found out that Mt. Kinabalu can only be climbed if booked MONTHS in advance. We tried three weeks in advance, were told that everything was booked and gave up. We mentioned this in passing to Mr. Cham and, within 30 minutes, we were booked for the next days hike. I don't want to reveal my methods, but the Minister of Tourism and the Chief of Sabah National Parks may or may not have been involved...

Anyway, I know this is all a bit disjointed, but I'm still in raptures at the kindness being shown to myself and Nathan. So more later about the city and the cultural stuff, I promise!

And if all else fails, just come to KK and see for yourself.

Travel Update

Dear Readers,

Just to fill the void between the last post and the next one without actually saying anything; a travel update!

We're finally leaving beautiful Indonesia and heading to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia tomorrow. I was beginning to love it here in Padang-Padang, but Nathan and I just found out surfers were actually quite rude and one of the beach hawkers took my drying shirt and tried to sell it. True story... So we're ready to go! I'm planning on doing country summaries at the end, so suffice it to say Indonesia was lovely.

So, tomorrow will be a travel day (our last one!) so the update may be a little while in coming. As I've learned to say here: Live well, dear readers, live well. Far out. Peace.

Chris

The Children of the Sun

Well, not much to report from the shack by the sea in Padang-Padang. Beautiful sunsets, beautiful people, and cheap food have made this stay both enjoyable and uneventful. The beach here is a veritable Tower of Babel; Russian, French, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia, and a number of languages I didn’t recognize all bandied about. Luckily, the lingua franca of the East is English, so we’ve lucked out. In fact, a Spanish gal and an Aussie are conversing amorously in English just outside my bamboo leaf walls.

So, instead of telling all about my sunscreen application techniques or the time I got sandy and swam for a bit then got sandy again, I’m going to discourse for a bit about the people I have met along the Southeast Asia backpacking road. Backpacking is a concept that I’m vaguely familiar with, having run across backpackers from Munich to Moscow and everywhere in between. However, these were European backpackers, usually in search of the European experience for a few weeks or months, enjoying the cultural adventure before heading back home. It is completely different here, for the most part. Different places here have different types of backpackers, but they fall into three main categories, with surprisingly few outliers.

1) The Tourist

Myself, Nathan and Meredith fall into this category. From all over the world (besides America apparently, ourselves excluded), this group of down to earth explorers is fine with following the beaten path, but do so in order to extract the maximum out of their limited time and resources. They generally seek to enjoy and experience the culture, but never forget that they are, in fact, not locals. I have found The Tourist most commonly in Sumatra (Bukit Lawang and Lake Toba) as well as Panang and Java (Yogyakarta and Mount Bromo). These places are generally cultural, fairly difficult to get to (only public transit) and lack completely any sort of stereotypical Western amenity. The Tourist is enjoyable to talk to, share experiences with, and get advice from.

2) The Spring Breaker

Short shorts, Ray Ban sunglasses, dumb tattoos, cheap beer in hand, these perpetual partiers convinced their parents that spending the summer in Ko Phi Phi or on Bali would be, “like, way more educational then that wicked awesome month in Miami with the other frat bros.” Whenever a group of these crazy dudes congregates, one can be sure to find an airport with direct service to LA and NYC, a Western burger joint and a night club with native fire-twirlers nearby. Generally staying at resorts and zipping around in private cars bought with funds siphoned straight from daddy’s bank account, these hard-partiers can often be spotted talking about how far-out it is vacationing in a third world country while using the free wi-fi at the pizza place. Back home, when asked about Thai or Indonesian food, they will say without irony that, “It’s just like here, man!” This group is living proof that, with enough money and a can-do attitude you can party like a frat star anywhere on the globe.

3) The Children of the Sun

My least favorite fellow travelers. Considered ‘bums’ in the United States, these dreadlocked, sun darkened, spiritual creatures drift along the mainstream backpacker currents impressing the gullible and innocent with their wondrous tales of travel. Most gave up their comfortable lives in the West in order to ‘find themselves’ in the spiritual East. They seek to leave behind the materialism of home, declaring time and technology a capitalist construct. Generally, their hypocrisy knows no bounds. Instead of connecting with the natives, I have found most of these guru wannabees in the most commercialized, Western places I’ve visited. The closest thing these guys get to communing with locals is through the thoroughly jaded tattoo artist or the poor guy who’s teaching Mui Thai boxing to the 13th white kid that day. I imagine that 30 years ago, these type of people weren’t pathetic, probably actually finding a little jungle village and staying there for years learning their language, religion, customs and really ‘leaving it all behind.’ Not a lifestyle that I would choose for myself, but certainly respectable. However, Lonely Planet has made that dream accessible to the likes of, say, me, and instead of branching out farther afield, these trailblazers have become sheep, pathetic sheep in desperate need of a bath. One more conversation about some cannabis fueled exotic Eastern journey and I’m going to yank them by the dreadlocks until they wish they’d had some of that Advil they so gladly left behind.

Americans are extremely hard to come by. I have perhaps seen 10 outside of Ko Phi Phi in my three weeks here. I find this odd.

Toodles.

Bali: Underwater Paradise, Jury's Still Out on the Shore

I got my SCUBA diving license! Nathan and I went through the super intense course (we condensed the 4 pool dives to one and turned our four open water training dives into pleasure dives). The first dive was on one of those vertical coral reefs which was pretty incredible, especially for my first ever dive... Mangku, our instructor, would give us about 10 tasks we'd accomplish right under the boat, we'd do two of them then we'd spend the rest of the time swimming around in a sea of fish, coral, and other crazy things that fell in between those two categories. We saw lion fish, real Nemo fish and all sorts of creatures that I'm pretty sure went home at night and plugged themselves in to recharge the crazy assortment of blues glowing from their bodies. Pretty cool. The second day of "training dives" were at the wreck of a WWII transport sunk by a Japanese submarine in 1942. The diver in me was in awe of the challange and fun while the historian in me was absolutely in raptures as well. And presto! We were certified.

To celebrate, Nathan, Meredith and I had a bottle of Bali wine (quite good) and a few rum and cokes. Then Nathan and I went out to the beach and came across a pack of Indonesian men clustered around a camp light. Sure enough, it was a gambling ring with fistfulls of cash being thrown onto a roulette type apparatus and a ball getting rolled around over numbers. Nathan and I watched and even participated a bit with the aid of a helpful local, but we never did figure out the rules of the game... Needless to say, we limited our losses and headed home. And that was it for Lovina Beach, Bali! We just arrived at Padang-Padang on the south of the island and I think I'm in paradise. Pictures and description later, but I think we're staying in a tree house on the side of the cliff over the ocean. Not bad...