Second Part of Cambodia

The next day we were in Siem Reap we slept in for the first time in a while and it felt great! By the time we got up and ready to go it was to late to do anything to special so we walked around the city some more and went to the market there to do a little souvenir shopping. We also found a nice little grocery store in the mall so we picked up some bread and stuff so we didn’t have to buy meals all the time. Then we finished our walk around the city by going to pub street and picking up a 50 cent draft angkor beer. The rest of the night we spent at our guest house catching up with the real world by skyping our friends and family and stuff.

On Saturday we got up at 4:30 am so that we could catch the sunrise at angkor wat which ended up being a dud because there were clouds blocking the sun from shining through. We spent the whole first half of the day checking out 10 or so temples including angkor wat, angkor thom, and the tomb raider temple. All the temples were very unique in their own way, its hard to describe what they were like but all of them were massive. You could do whatever you wanted on the temples, you could walk through all of them and climb up to the tops of most of them it was awesome! I encourage everybody to check them out. Even though we didn’t get to see the sunrise it was a good thing we got up early because we finished going through all the temples at around 2 pm and just as we were walking out of the last temple it began to downpour for the rest of the afternoon. It’s rainy season in Cambodia so it rains almost everyday around 2 and can last anywhere from a half hour to like 5 hours. But once we got back from angkor we cleaned up and headed out to Viva which is a mexican restaurant on pub street, they have dollar tacos and 50 cent beer so figured that would be a great place to get a lot of food for cheap because we were starving. 

The last day we just hung out around town again and picked up few more things. Not a whole lot happened but it was still a great time hanging out around the city. Today we took a bus at 11 am from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh but about an hour and a half through our ride our bus broke down. We had to wait about an hour for anther bus to come and get us. The hour long wait wasn’t so bad though cuz we met a guy from Massachusetts who has lived there for 30 years and was originally from Cambodia and we met another kid Malcolm who is in our grade from from Ada! It was crazy to meet someone else in Cambodia from the Grand Rapids area. We got to talking to him and he went to Calvin College and he knows our friend Bill Wang. It was the craziest thing. We finally made it to our hostel at about 7 tonight. We have a couple more days in Cambodia then we are headed back to Australia.

First Part of Cambodia

So Alec and I had a 19 hour lay over in the KL airport which really sucked but we got through it by alternating from the check in area and the McDonalds. We managed to get about 4 hours of in and out sleep so we were absolutely beat for our first day in Cambodia. We arrived in Cambodia at about 8a.m. and took a taxi to our hostel which was actually a really nice place it has a pool, pool table, and a nice bar/lounge area to meet people. We shared a room with 5 other people who we ended up hanging out with later on that night. 

Once we arrived we took a dip in the pool and took showers with hot water which was a great change of pace since we haven't had a hot shower in over a month. After we got ready we took a tuk tuk to the genocide museum. A tuk tuk is basically a moped with a carriage type thing on the back of it that can hold like 2 or 3 people, those are the cheapest form of transportation around here. The genocide museum was a great way to learn about the history of the Khmer (Cambodian) people. The “museum” is actually the place where tons of people were held captive and beaten and tortured. It was a school that got turned into a jail type of thing. It was crazy to think that all that happened like 30 years ago. You could walk through most of the rooms in the school and they had the bed frames and shackles and stuff they were tortured with laying out in most of the rooms. In the second part of the school they had all kinds of jail cells still up they were held in as well and pictures of the people that had been held captive. It was crazy they had barbed wire up in front of all the hallways of the school to prevent the captives from committing suicide just so they could torture them more. There were rules that the captives had to follow and they were...1. You must answer accordingly to my questions - don’t turn them away 2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that you are strictly prohibited to contest me 3. Don’t be fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution 4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect 5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution 6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all 7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something you must do it right away without protesting 8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret traitor 9. If you don’t follow all the above rules you shall get many lashes of electric wire 10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five electric shocks. I just thought that it was crazy that they would actually do that to people. After the museum we took our tuk tuk to the killing fields which is another place were thousands of Khmer people were murdered. You can walk around the fields and you can see peoples bones and tons of pieces of clothing coming up from the ground. The first part of the day was a great way to learn the history and really hits home so that is why we finished our tour off by going to the Russian market. The market is full of souvenirs and lots of cheap knock off clothing and jewelry. There is also a huge food market that has tons of nasty local food, it smells so disgusting! For those of you that watched the Cambodia edition of Anthony Bourdain’s show we are pretty sure that is the market he ate at. 

Once we got back from our tour around the city we just chilled at the hostel for a bit. We ended up talking to our roommates down there for a long time about our trips and eventually ended the night by getting dinner with them down by the riverside.

The next day we got up bright and early to catch a 6 hour bus ride to Siem Reap. It was a terrible bus ride, we had tiny seats and my arm rest was broken off so we had crappy seats. Every single road on the way to Siem Reap is crappy too, half are dirt roads and the ones that are paved are half paved and bumpy so we had a bumpy 6 hour ride. Once we arrived in Siem Reap we took a $1 tuk tuk ride to our hostel and just walked around town for a bit.

Everybody has asked why we are going to Cambodia and are quick to judge the country and say they here bad stuff about it but all those people are wrong. Cambodia is a very nice country and is way more modernized than what I thought it’d be. All the Khmer people are really friendly and are willing to help out, they will ask of you need a tuk tuk ride and we will say no thanks and they will reply by saying thank you. So far I have nothing bad at all to say about Cambodia and I encourage anybody that travels to this side of the world to stop in Cambodia because you will be surprised at what you see.

Most of the trip

The second stop of our trip was to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We started the day off by flying for 8 hours to Singapore then from Singapore a short 1 hour flight to KL (Kuala Lumpur). Once we arrived in KL we went outside to meet the Tans out by the McDonalds but it ended up being a really busy and packed airport. After about 45 minutes of looking around for the Tans we decided to try and get internet somewhere so I could get their phone number off my e-mail. Once we got the number we borrowed some random guys cell phone to call them and they ended up being right by us the whole time. We finally got on the road to the Tans by about 10:30 or so and still had an hour drive to the city. On the way home they took us to an awesome local Indian restaurant which was outside so you can enjoy the night. Not going to lie I was pretty sketched out at first because it looks like it would have been a bad part of town but apparently it’s a pretty popular place to eat. 

The next day we slept in and got some breakfast with their daughters Stephanie and Sharon and then from there we went to this giant 7 story mall where we had to wait for our bus to Genting. Genting is like a whole little city located on the top of a mountain that is famous for its casino and little theme park. To get there we had to catch an hour long bus ride from the mall to probably like part way up the mountain. Alec and I were freaking out the whole but ride because the driver drove really fast around the turns up the mountain, it felt like we were going to tip over. Once we got off the bus we had to take a gondola up to the top of the mountain which was another half hour. It could have taken a lot longer though, on our bus ride we met a local who had the priority pass so which lets you go in front of the line so he let us skip the line and ride up with him. The view from the mountains was awesome, you could see all kinds of little towns located on the mountains. Later that night we went out to dinner at another outdoor authentic Chinese restaurant with Sharon, Stephanie, and Stephanie's boyfriend (I forgot his name, it was something foreign).

On our last day we got a tour of the city by one of the Tans friends from church named Kenny, he took us to all the well known landmarks of KL like Petronas Towers, Chinatown, little India, the central market, national mosque, national monument, and a few other places. The city was great to see but the best part of the day was when we went to play futsal with a bunch of Kenny’s friends. Futsal is basically soccer but played on a field that is a 3rd of the size. It was great hanging out with some more of the locals and getting to know more about them and being able to tell them a little bit about the US. Playing futsal was great but it was got tiring after a while because it was close to 102 degrees out all day.

The next day we had to catch a taxi to the airport and we were off to Bali. Once we arrived in Bali we caught a taxi to Suka Beach Inn where we met Jordy Kay and his friends Amy and Evan. Jordy showed us around town a little but and showed us all the hottest clubs in town to go to. Bali is full of tourists and has tons of clubs and restaurants there. 

We got up the next day at about 11:30 and just missed the free breakfast from the hotel so we went to the minimart and picked up some food. The minimart is basically a 7/11 so we ended up eating there for most of our meals in Bali. For the rest of the day we basically just walked around town and sat in the pool then went out at night again. 

Our 3rd day in Bali started off the same way, we got up and got breakfast then sat in the pool all day. We met another kid James while we were in the pool and he ended up showing us how to get to the beach and where the local McDonalds was. We ended up hanging out with James and his friend Pete for the rest of the day and night. The best part of Staying at Suka Beach Inn is definitely the people there, everybody that stays there is a surfer who travels the world. Its so easy to meet people there because they are all so friendly and are in the same boat as everyone else. Alec and I met tons of people there that have been traveling all over the world for months at a time. I don't think we met one person who was there for vacation, it was just another stop on their crazy trip.

Right now we are in the Gili Islands and I just met Kyle here but we had a bit of a miscommunication i thought he was getting here later than what he did so he ended up sitting at some restaurant for a few hours waiting for us. The beach here is awesome! We don't really do a whole lot just get up go to the beach and snorkel and hang out a lot. On monday wednesday and friday there are party nights so we usually go out and on those nights. We have been eating peanut butter sandwiches a lot here so we save money. At night we go to the night market usually and get some decent food for once.

The second night Kyle was here we had a beach fire with the 3 of us and chilled and drank some bintangs which is the local beer around here. Pretty much everyday we do the same thing though around here one of the days we walked through the middle of the  island to get to the other side. In the middle of the island there is actually a really big open field which eventually leads into one of the villages on the island. The village back there isn't like the rest, all the “houses” are little shack things with like tarps around them for walls and palm tree type things for a roof. 

The last week we went took a ferry to Lombok. Once we arrived we got hassled by tons of people to take their taxi’s and what not into the city but we decided to rent mopeds. The mopeds look like they would only do like 20 mph but they actually go about 60 mph so they frickin haul. Once we got our bikes we took an hour and a half long ride up through the mountains. There are monkeys all over the sides of the road and the views from the mountain are unreal. The driving can be pretty sketchy everybody hauls past you on their motorbike and cars and stuff just cut you off but luckily we all stayed alive. We ended up going to Mataram which is the capital of Lombok, we wanted to go there so we could eat McDonalds since   all we had been eating for the past 2.5 weeks was peanut butter, chips, and local food. The mall there is pretty crap so we decided to ride back to the port and cruise some other roads since we all loved driving the mopeds around. We ended up going on this road that went all along the coast of Lombok so we had some pretty sweet views of the beaches and water, pictures don’t even come close to describing what it was like. On the way back to the port Alec looked back to see if I was still behind him and ended up swerving off into the dirt and kinda laid his moped down. Alec was totally fine but the moped had a tiny scuff mark about an inch big which isnt a big deal at all but once we got back to the port about 6 Indonesian teens surrounded us and demanded that we pay 500,000 rupiah to fix it or else they would call the cops and you don’t wanna deal with the cops in Indonesia so we paid the money and high tailed it off the island. It really pissed us off though because we know they wont fix it, every single Indonesian is money hungry and will do anything to try and get money out of you so we got totally screwed. We actually ended up paying for 7 seats on the ferry just so we could leave sooner because more people we going to try and get more money out of us.

The next day we went to Gili Air which is the first island of the Gili’s and basically just hung out on the beach all day. Gili Air is a lot more peaceful and less touristy compared to Gili Trawangan. The last 2 nights we spent with some if Alecs friends from back home who are staying in the Gili’s for a while as well. They brought all kinds of meat with them so we had a barbecue the last 2 night. It was so good! we had steak, ribs, hamburger, and sweetcorn 2 nights in a row which was a great change of pace. 

We had to get up early on the last day to catch our fast boats back to Bali which worked out great for Alec and I but Kyle ran into some trouble with his fast boat service. They didn’t give him a ticket for his return back to Bali even though he bought a roundtrip ticket but the manger said he could ride anyways and that they would give him a ticket but when he was taking his taxi back to Kuta Bali they demanded 350,000 from him or else they would leave him on the side of the road, so he paid that and got screwed over just like Alec. Kyle went back to the place who he got his ticket through and ended up getting his money back. 

Indonesia is a great place to go and I would love to go back someday but I was not impressed with any of the people there except our neighbor Han who lived across the street from us a local guy Roy and the owner of the internet cafe Dan. Han was our go to man if we ever needed anything fixed or whatever, he was always so happy to help out no matter what. He is probably one of the nicest guys I have met. One time he cleaned all our floors and our whole porch and stuff while we were gone and he did it all for free he wouldn’t accept any money for us. And Roy was one of the locals that we met one night and we would keep on running into him throughout the weeks we were there, he always wanted to just sit down a hang out with us and offer us free drinks. We had the same music in common we both like to listen to metal/screamo bands which was pretty cool. The last night we were there he gave us his number so that we can hang out if I were to ever go back and he wanted something to remember us by and the only thing I really had was a bracelet that I had been wearing for months and he had a bracelet so we traded bracelets so that we could remember, I thought that was a pretty sweet thing that happened. He was pretty sad that we were leaving. Dan was the owner of the internet cafe that we went to all the time and he was always very excited to see us each morning as well he would always call us by our first names, I thought it was cool that we had a first name basis with the owner unlike anybody else. Dan also gave us a deal on our internet and would always trust us to pay him back later that day if we didn’t have the money on hand. 

The first night we were in Bali we got pizza hut (thanks mom) which was another sweet meal since I haven't had pizza since we left for the trip and then met up with our friend James again who we met there last time go out to the clubs. Basically we did the same thing everyday in Bali we would walk around town and shop and catch a nice lunch at McDonalds or something then chill some more go out for dinner and then go to the clubs again. It was great to hang out with James again though he introduced us to some more of his friends so we always had a decent size group to hang out with at night.

That Brings me to today, Alec and I got up at 5 to catch our 3 hour plane ride to KL and now we have to sit in the airport for 19 hours until our next flight so thats why I decided to finally post in this bad boy lol. 

Australia

Sorry I havnt had the time to really write in this blog yet, we have been so busy over the past couple of days and the internet was a bit dodgy while we were in Australia so the only times we could really get on the internet was when we were using the free computers in the airport.

Lets see here, we started our trip by getting dropped off at O’hare International Airport where we had a 4 hour flight to LAX and then an 8 hour layover there. Finally we got on our plane to Australia at about 10:30 pm and flew through the night. It was a nice to surprise to see that Meg had skipped school to pick us up from the airport with Andy. Meg showed us around the city and took us to places like the shrine, federation square and just down a couple of the main streets in Melbourne that had tons of places to shop. Later that night we went to watch Meg try out for the under 21’s state field hockey team (she is really good) then went back to her place for dinner. 

The second day we were in Australia Jamo skipped school and hung out with us for the day and showed more of the city. One of the places she took us was this sweet sort of hidden alleyway that has tons of little outdoor restaurants and bars. We also went to the outlet malls and went to this store called Frat House which was funny to look at because it had all kinds of hollister and abercrombie clothes, it was funny to see because nobody wears that kind of stuff in Australia its all about the look and fashion not the brand. Finally we ended the night by going out to eat at the Veggie Bar with Andy, Angie, Jamo, and Ashlee where Alec and I got to experience getting a beer at a restaurant for the first time lol.

On Friday Alec and I were on our own so we decided to drive to Brighton Secondary College which is were they filmed the show summer heights high, it was hard to see though because the have security all over so we decided to try and see if we could get a tour by saying we are international students who were thinking about going there but that didn't work either. The drive to and from there was a bit crazy as well since Alec had to drive and the driving is on the left had side but thankfully we made it there safely. That night we got to go to a footy game (aussie rules football) which was insane, it was the biggest game of the year and it tool place in the stadium that was built for the olympics back in the 50’s I believe. Over 80,000 people where there for the game that night.

Our last day in Australia was spent in Mornington Peninsula which is where Jamo’s mom lives, it was awesome! I am very jealous of Jamo I would kill to live there. You get the best of both worlds, you get the awesome beaches/surfer type towns and a little further up there are miles of rolling country hills and wine country. We basically did a lot of sight seeing that day and did some wine and beer tasting. Jamo had an 18th birthday party to go to later that night so Trent Kay took Alec and I to crown casino which was a great way to end our last night. I cannot wait to go back to Australia at the end of our trip.

hopefully ill be able to post in this more often but so long for now.

-Jordan