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Cambodia
After 4 months in Thailand — almost entirely in Chiang Mai — I finally moved on to another country! Clearly I hadn’t envisioned this schedule when I set out last year, but I have been very pleased at how things have panned out. I need to be back in Chiang Mai in April for 2-3 weeks for Songkran and other merriment (and some work), so I know I’ll be back, but it still felt really weird to be leaving my new home. The best summary I can give is that these days I can’t read half of my Facebook newsfeed…
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Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center
Given the sheer number of photos I took at this place, I figured it deserves its own blog entry, but first, a quick introduction. The rescue center is home to many exotic animals that are being rehabilitated for injuries or are unable to live in the wild or are targets for poachers. There are some individuals who are looking to make money in the lucrative — and illegal — trade of wild animals, sometimes as pets, sometimes for food, and often for “medicine”. I’ve heard the same story over and over about animal parts being used in Chinese medicine because…
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Chiang Mai Part III
Good god, has it been three months since my last post? Chiang Mai has been very busy for me, to the point where I didn’t have the time or mental capacity to sit down and write about it. It’s a story with two very different chapters, so here goes wrapping up the last 90 days. After the magazine internship ended, several of my FFA friends were still in town, so the rest of the year was filled with various fun activities and not much work (yet). From what I can remember and from what I have in my photo albums,…
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Chiang Mai Part II
As with my last post, I have to apologize for going so long between updates. Between working at Citylife and spending time with FFA friends, I have had zero time for anything else. The fact that I remembered to jot down notes of what I’ve been up to is impressive to me. Let’s backtrack to three Mondays ago, when Lindsey, my fellow magazine intern, and I went to the night safari outside of town to do some preliminary investigation on a possible story. The story didn’t happen as there were other higher priority things to be done, so it really…
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Chiang Mai Part I
Upon arriving at the Chiang Mai airport, Omar and I said our (temporary) goodbyes and parted ways, me to the Friends For Asia guesthouse and him to a hostel. The rest of that weekend was set aside for meeting the FFA staff and fellow volunteers and various orientation activities, such as Thai language lessons, lectures on culture, safety, and visas, and a big lunch for everyone to meet each other. After the lunch on Saturday, we visited a couple temples in the city (see my previous post for pictures of those). The real treat of the weekend though was the…
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KL, Phuket, and Chiang Mai
Here’s a quick update because it’s been two weeks since I’ve written anything and it could be a while before I have time to write anything more. Kuala Lumpur I flew from Langkawi back to KL for a few days to take care of some errands, the most important of which was getting a 60-day tourist visa for Thailand. I slightly fouled up the application process my first time at the Thai embassy — I didn’t have a photocopy of my passport — and the embassy was closed the following day because of a national holiday, so I stayed in…
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Langkawi
On a hot and bright Monday morning in Penang, I caught the 8:30 Langkawi “fast ferry”, a simpler alternative to flying or taking the bus. As I learned that morning, the term “fast ferry” is a euphemism for “massive speedboat”. A bit before 9:00, about a hundred travelers boarded the boat and as we left the dock, everyone was in high spirits, looking out the windows, pointing, laughing, smiling, and taking lots of photos. However, the overall mood of the boat’s occupants was about to change very quickly. As we left Penang and accelerated to full speed, the bluish skies…
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Penang
For some inexplicable reason, it took me a little while before I got into the swing of things in George Town. I’d say it took me a solid 48 hours before I was starting to feel the city. I don’t have a good reason for this other than maybe the weather was getting to me; if it wasn’t hot and humid, it was raining. But I’ll give credit where credit is due: in the evenings in between torrential downpours, it’s very pleasant here. If it’s not too muggy. The art walk is what turned it around for me. In the…
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Middle of Malaysia
Taman Negara The minibus ride along the winding highway from KL to Jerantut was pretty uneventful, though I did have an unexpected moment of nostalgia along the way. At one point, I looked up from my book (On The Road, funny enough) to admire the countryside and was greeted by an expanse of rolling hills and valleys covered in dark green trees. A rest stop with a McDonald’s whizzed by, as did a massive billboard for paintball. Involuntarily, I was transported twelve years back in time, sitting on a Greyhound bus making its way along the winding highways in Pennsylvania…
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Kay Ell
Before getting into my thoughts on Kuala Lumpur and what I’ve been up to for the last week, I’d like to share the view I currently have from my table at Skybar: Yup, that’s happening. The Petronas Towers are the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. They’ve got a futuristic look but they still have the classiness of sparkling diamonds. I’m so enraptured by these buildings that they alone could almost convince me to work for Petronas, if only it wasn’t an oil and gas company. Here are some much better photos taken with my camera and tripod: A quite…
