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hi again,wow it's been so long, it seems, since i've written. veryuncharacteristic, no? i missed it, but i guess i just wasn't ready towrite.my trip is very different now that ed is gone and we are not biking anymore. i am still going through some kind of withdrawal symptoms. ourbiking trip was hard physically and emotionally and it faced me with manythings that i would rather not know about myself and others; but it was soreal, and i really miss that. now we are doing the touristy thing, andalthough i am enjoying it and relaxing, i cannot help but feel that it ismuch more superficial and set up than what we did before. like a puppetshow really - you go to nice places where everyone treats you like atourist, and you don't get to see any of the real life that the people areliving, you just see the show they put on for you to get your money. whyis this sounding so negative? maybe because i don't like to identifymyself with tourists, i don't want to fit in with them; but i don't fit inwith the locals either, i am a stranger to these places after all...andyet i love to travel...anyway, as i said i have been doing the touristy thing for the past twoweeks or so. and in spite of the impression you may have gotten readingthe above, i did enjoy it.after ed left, i was by myself in bangkok for two days. this felt reallyweird at first, but i kept myself busy walking around, going to littlestalls on the side of the road for food, buying lots of fresh fruit andreading. bangkok seemed really safe, i had no problem at all. i went tothe same place for lunch every day, and the family who owned the stall gotto know me and trated me really nice. because of them, i felt some senseof belonging and closenes in this big, crazy city.my sister, john and andy arrived late on the 25th of aug. we spent anotherday and a half in bangkok. we saw things that i hadn't seen before, keptfor them - the highlights were a visit to a snake farm where they extractvenom from poisonous snakes to make antivenom serum. there were two guyshandling cobras, vipers and pythons of various sizes, some very large(10ft). this was pretty impressive. we also visited the royal palace and the temlpe of the emerald buddha. theroyal palace is so incredibly gaudy, something from a children's fairytale book. because of this i liked it.after bangkok, we flew to penang island in malaysia. we spent one full daythere. at this point, it started to become clear to me that the budget edand i had been travelling on for 3 months was no longer adequate. first ofall, things were more expensive because we were in touristy places, andsecond my sister andy and john all seemed to want more confort than i wasused to. which i understand since it's their vacation...but still, it wasa bit of a shock, and i'm afraid i gained myself a reputation of beingquite stingy with these three...it took a while, but we all adjusted toeach other.anyway, about penang. we were in georgetown on the island of penang. thisis a small town, and it was quite calm when we were there. its attraction(to me at least) lies mainly in its multitude of cultures, and the varietyof ethnic foods. while there, we visited several chinese taoist templeswhich were very different from anything i had seen in southern china. infront of these temples, incense was being burned. the biggest incensesticks i ever saw, literally a man's height and maybe about my thickness.the air was smoky with incense and the temples seemed to have an air ofmystery because of this.we also visited a south indian hindu temple. this was the first hindutemple i have ever visited, and i was really impressed. before entering wetook of our shoes and washed our feet. we went inside and sat quietly in acorned, observing a group of women who were chanting and praying. i wasreally touched by the atmosphere inside the temple and by the women'schants and prayers. i would've stayed there a long time, if only icould've made myself invisible as not to interfere and not to disturb.interruption:i am so excited to be writing again...and to share all these things...back to the subject:we also passed by an islamic mosque which was closed, unfortunately.as we got back to our hotel late in the afternoon, i started feelingreally sick. it hit me all of a sudden. fever and muscle aches again. ithought it may have been the sun and information overload from all we hadseen during the day. so i told the others to go to supper without me. ifelt nauseous and couldn't eat. this, i was really upset at, because ithink the indian food sold at the street stalls was to kill for. iwould've given anything for some samosas and roti, but my body wantednone of it.after everyone went to supper, i went to bed. but in about half an hourfelt restless and thirsty...i decided to go buy some water and send anemail. as i walked the streets alone, it was almost dusk. then, all of asudden, from an unseen place chanting began. i recognized it as theislamic call to prayer, same as i heard in egypt. except that this time,when it started, it just stopped me in place, and standing there in theroad, i felt like crying so much. i couldn't understand any words, but themellody and rythm of the chant resounded something inside me that made meso happy and sad at the same time. not a bad sad though, if you know whati mean. this was one of the best moments i have had on this trip. when iwent back to the hotel, i felt exhausted and fell asleep. andy showed upsome time later, and i woke up. although i still wasn't feeling too hot, idecided to go and get some roti on the street. i was going to run down inmy pyjamas, but andy didn't think it was a good idea, so i got dressed. igot roti with curry sauce from an ambulant cart guy in front of our hotel.i came back upstairs and ate it in bed. it was absolutely amazing, bestroti ever. and the cury sauce! i practically drank it. then i went tosleep again.after penang (which is on the west coast), we took a taxi to kuala besuton the eastern coast of malaysia. from there we took a boat to theperhentian islands. this was supposed to be a 1-1.5hr boat ride.unfortunately a storm caught us half way on the water and i had seriousfears that we may capsize. it came all of a suddern, the storm. the skylooked really spectacular and scary and hopefully my pictures will comeout. it started to rain really hard, and the wind was blowing and creatingpretty big waves (4ft or so). i was worried about my sister who can't swimthat well, but it turned out that both andy and john were lifeguards...soi felt better. we made it to the islands ok though, really drenched.now, these islands, the perhentian, are a paradise. i have never seenanything like it. it's really indescribable, but i'll try. the water ishot (30deg C) and so clear that you can see more than 20ft down. the coloris the most beautiful shades of blue, green and everything in between.there are many beaches, some more busy of others. many beaches arecompletely deserted. the sand is really soft and clean. the islands, otherthan the shores which are more or less developped, are jungle. there areall kinds of animals - we saw apes (gibbons) the size of a 10yr old child,and huge lizzards of 5ft or more in length; saw some small snakes also,and small lizzards. there were supposed to be pythons as well, but wedidn't see any. all these animals were in the wild, in their naturalhabitat. fortunately, the islands are verry little developed - only on theshores are there restaurants and huts, nothing otherwise. i really lovedbeing there, i kept having to remind myself that it is real...oh, we alsosaw some huge bats, the size of a seagull or bigger.we did a lot of things while on the islands: went to the beach, lay aroundand played with coconuts in the water. i invented a game where two peoplewould throuw 1 coconut each in the air simultaneously and try to hit eachother's coconut. it was really fun. we went snorkeling and saw some coolfish, coral, sea cucumbers and urchins, etc. we did a jungle treck onwhick i started feeling really faint (low blood sugar and iron), so i waskind of spaced out. fortunately andy had brought granola bars along...oneday i went climbing over some cliffs at the edge of the water. i followedthe shore and found a spot where there was nobody and i had a spectacularview, so i sat there on a rock, under a tree, looking at the water. it wasreally nice, until i got hungry again and had to climb back over all thecliffs again before i got too weak...but my favorite thing we did while on the island was kayaking. two days ina row, andy and i rented a double kayak and went out on the water the fullday.we discovered all these amazing things: deserted beaches, with clear bluewater, white sand, and surrounded by cliffs and jungle. we found one beachon which sea turtles come to lay their eggs at night. huge turtles, bytheir tracks, andy and i figured they must've been about 2ft in diameter.we saw an egg sticking out of the sand (some fool had dug it out...). wealso discovered a cave between two cliffs, that looked really cool butstank of bat dung really badly. there were tons of bats inside, hangingupside down. what was amazing about kayaking is that we got to go toplaces where there was nobody else and explore on our own. this was a lotmore like my biking trip than anything else we have done. the third day ofkayaking, i went by myself. i rented a single kayak and had a really goodtime. it took a while to get used to it, especially since this was not asea kayak and so it was a lot more sensitive to any maneuvering. but sooni was steering properly, out on the water by myself, with nobody else insight. just blue sky, water and green islands. it was a bit scary to lookdown and see how deep the water was, but it was also really beautiful.paddling by myself i was a lot more aware of my surroundings, because ihad to be. i went to a small beach with nobody on it, and spent a fewhours there cooling off in the water, swimming, picking shells, looking atthe birds and the jungle and reading. i am reading two books right now:awakenings (same as the movie), written by a doctor who worked withpost-encephalitic parkinsonian patients. this book is incredible, the wayit deals with the mind and human nature. it brings up so many subjects,like neurological disease, alienation, compassion, chaos, time, humanperception, etc...i really recommend it.i am also reading "virungas:the passion of dian fossey". this is alsoreally interesting, i like reading about the mountain gorillas, aboutafrica and about fossey's life. it makes me really want to go to africa.the guy next to me just remarked what a long email i am writing. i toldhim it's been a while, got to have my fix.we left the perhentian islands yesterday morning, and as a goodbye gift wehad a beautiful rainbow over the sea.right now we are in krabi, thailand, which is a lot more touristy than theperhentians, but nice so far. lots of things to do, more kayaking (yes!)through mangrove forests and caves, rock climbing, more jungle, etc. itshould be nice, we'll see. lots of shopping too...andy and john both got sick on this trip. stomach upset, but they are bothbetter now. unfortunatelly if i want to eat at street side stalls with thelocals, i have to go by myself, nobody else will come with me. i canunderstand though... got to go now, but i will write again soon.write to me if you have some time, i'd really love to hear from you,raluca |
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