Blondes SE Asia Thread

[Mr. Blonde]

I've been in Korea 15 months and only had about 5 days off where I could actually leave the country. In that 5 days (and the two weekends) I went to Japan and Taiwan. It was awesome, but rushed, and Japan was expensive as balls.

My last day at this job (i extended my contract 3 mos) is Friday. I am going to be in Seoul all weekend, then on Monday I fly to Bangkok. I'm not sure if i'm going to stay in the city long or not, depending on how it is when I get there. Things seem a lot better than the past couple weeks. Also things here in Korea aren't looking too good so my vacation seems nicely timed.

I have 6 weeks and about 5 grand to do whatever the fuck I want. I literally have no concrete plans; a one-way flight, a backpack, and a Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia on a Shoestring book. The first week or two I'll probably head south to the beaches/islands of Thailand to just chill the fuck out after teaching goddamn kids for so long straight. Then i'll be down to do a lot more travelling, hiking, temple hunting etc. Might head to one or any combination of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Probably won't go south to Malaysia, Indonesia or Philippines in this trip; I really dont' want to spread myself too thin. I only have a 30 day visa in Thailand so i'm sure i'll have to go to at least one other country anyways.

Suggestions?

[Ugly Bastard]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I have 6 weeks and about 5 grand to do whatever the fuck I want. I literally have no concrete plans.

That sounds so fucking awesome. You want a suggestion? Try shunning technology for a stretch of time during your trip or maybe even the entire trip (though I concede that this would be very hard/impractical). But seriously, if I were in your shoes on this trip, I would have plans to say goodbye to the internet world for at least a week at some point. Taking pictures with the intent to upload them when you reconnect is fine, but beyond that, the idea of being totally unplugged sounds fucking fantastic to me.

Trip sounds awesome. Have a blast.

[DJ FC]

I've heard from friends that Vietnam is cheap and awesome.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

Try shunning technology for a stretch of time during your trip or maybe even the entire trip

This is something i've seriously been considering (see:sexbox). I don't know how far I could get by without hopping on a computer on a hostel or whatever, but I don't really think it will be that hard to do. I originally thought 6 weeks, but figure my family will probably at least want an email or something a few weeks in...I dunno. I'm taking 3 or 4 books and going to do lots of reading as a subsitution for internetting (which, at it's core, mostly consists of reading anyways.)

I think everybody (especially in our generation) has fantasies about being completely cut off from society for a while, a la The Beach or living on a fucking monastery on a mountain somewhere in buttfuck Asia for a while. That being said, being alone in a foreign country is enough as it is, especially when you're in the middle of nowhere. The psychological soothing effect of the internet is pretty astounding.

I sometimes find myself wondering if I could have stayed in Korea as long as I have without the internet, and unfortunately I tend to think I wouldn't. For instance, 20, even 10 years ago...strange to think about.

[Ugly Bastard]

Hike up a mountain, eat a piece of fruit that you personally picked from its tree, meet and make love to (can't say that, sounds too gay) have sex with a beautiful girl and give yourself no way to contact her again after you part ways, shove some kids into the ocean, rent a boat, walk aimlessly with no regard for time or destination.

Those are some things I would do if I was in your shoes.

[Dent]

Decide what you're going to do when you get there

[vaga1220 *]

Have sex with a 13 year old. (It's completely legal over there.)

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

You should buy a pony.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

Hike up a mountain, eat a piece of fruit that you personally picked from its tree, meet and make love to (can't say that, sounds too gay) have sex with a beautiful girl and give yourself no way to contact her again after you part ways, shove some kids into the ocean, rent a boat, walk aimlessly with no regard for time or destination.

Those are some things I would do if I was in your shoes.

I like this idea.

Also, fight someone in thailand. They'll be more than happy to let you "train" there as they love to beat up on foreigners.

[Mr. Blonde]

Flying out in a few hours. I'll update later this week mb. cheers dudes

[Mr. Blonde]

Hey fagtots, i've been here for a couple days and already seen a bit. I got into Bangkok at about 11:30 and was wandering around randomly talking to homeless people before I saw some westerners and asked them for a good hostel or guesthouse. One of them asked if i was a couchsurfer, which I am, and invited me to stay at his instead. So i've been staying rent free, (, on a floor) and yesterday we went around a bit and took a river trip, as well as I got to see Khao San road, the crazy tourist party place here in Bangkok. Was out until about 4AM, danced with this fucking hottie Thai girl all night who didn't want to give it up, then on the way home almost got a "massage", from some random chick who looked kind of hot until she spoke and there was definitely something off about her voice. Also it was just a super shady situation in general with the "room" she had and how much baht they wanted to charge me, pretty much all my spider senses, even severely handicapped by alcohol, were going off to get the fuck outta there. I am now 90% sure she was a ladyboy.

Didn't wake up till super late today, I wanted to go see some temples and shit but oh well, will probably do that tomorrow. In a couple hours i'm going bowling with a bunch of Thai couchsurfers, so that should be good. Don't really want to go out and get drunk again, but I may not have a choice.

Going to stick around Bangkok with these folks for another few days and then get out of the city on Sunday. Dunno if i'm going North or South yet, South is the beaches/Islands, but I might save that till the end of the month so I can catch the Full Moon Party, which is supposedly awesome. I'd like to head north and go mountain trekking for a bit to get away from the alcohol, so I don't make any silly fucking mistakes.

tl;dr: Ladyboys are a legitimate concern whilst drunk

PS: a techno-vacation probably won't happen when i'm in a big city, there are cheap internet cafes everywhere, not to mention peoples places i'm staying at usually have computers.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

sounds badass so far dude. Have fun and good luck.

[Mr. Blonde]

I've gotten high under two different waterfalls in two days. Sex is harder to come by here than I thought it would be,(if you want a good looking girl, anyways), but i haven't ventured south to the beaches yet. Most of it is just meeting awesome people from all over. I've barely met any Americans, so that's been nice.

[BigDongedHoe]

High as in smoke pot?

For your first time?

[Dent]

.

[Mr. Blonde]

On top of having less time when traveling in general, you'd be amazed at how little time you want to spend online when you're paying for it. Thailand was awesome, ended up spending a whole month there, somehow completely sex free, and certainly not by choice. Somewhere along the line I decided hitting on chicks was for douchebags and only douchebags, and that attitude clearly isn't working out on me. You have to admit it though, almost every time you've witnessed a dude hit on a chick, he's been a complete douchebag or complete loser. There are the exceptions, but everytime I see a db make his move I cringe worse than watching Steve Carell on The Office. I often wonder if that's what I looked like in what I see (unfortunately) in my sexual glory days in AZ. I can't seem to reconcile acting like a douchey fuck just to...fuck. Seems so...compromising. Without being too self-stroking, it seems that i'm having quite a bit of difficulty balancing my intellect with pursuing chicks, bro.

On top of that, somehow I only tend to befriend women with boyfriends, gay dudes and guys who just flat up don't care about hooking up with girls, which makes it a lot harder to approach a group and snag one when you're the only one looking to fuck. But I suppose that will surface in another thread.

Thailand was awesome. I'll post more in depth later, but in short I partied a bunch on Khaosan Road in Bangkok, saw some famous temples, traveled around on scooter a bunch to some amazing sites, rode and swam with elephants, laid on tigers ("on" being the key word, don't get excited, Mistoffolees.), traveled on night trains and night buses, and ended the trip with a week on an island and the infamous Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan, which was insane. No drugs were had at the party, however, despite there being ample supplies of mushroom milkshakes and apparently ecstacy, see above post about befriending relatively lame people. If i'm going to trip balls, i'm doing it under the buddy system.

Today I left Bangkok and arrived in Vietnam. I met some pretty cool French dudes and am staying at the same guesthouse. Almost got into a fight with the taxi driver from the airport who was trying (and succeeded) in jewing us out of an extra dollar. The principle, of course. Wasn't me who was being antagonistic this time however, which should be surprising for those who know me. I was being pretty calm and it wasn't until he grabbed my bag after I gave him the agreed fare that I paid him the extra he claimed he was due. Basically they gave us a taxi van (for 3 people) instead of a regular taxi (without asking and with the sole intention of extorting the extra dollar out of us.) Like I said, it was definitely the principle and the fact we had an agreed fare before we left the airport. Normally I wouldn't let something like this go, but this crazy fuck had a look in his eye i've never seen from pretty much anybody but I can imagine it's how a guy high on PCP wanting more would regard a police officer who just confiscated his stash. Usually you can haggle, bargain, compromise, joke, insult, etc. and it's still a relatively safe situation. This guy raised his fist as if to hit me (I was in the front seat) once and grabbed my bag and wouldn't let go once we reached the destination, despite there being 3 other men practically twice his size in the van. I'm not getting into a fistfight with an obviously batshit fucking crazy Vietnamese guy within hours of arriving into the country, not to mention the legal implications that would surely follow, over a fucking dollar. Battles of these sort, unfortunately, were not made to be won by foreigners.

Which brings us to the attitude of the Vietnamese thus far -- That was my first one, and I was clearly not impressed. I had heard from practically every traveler who had ventured here that the Vietnamese were surly "fuck you" people and didn't pander to the tourists for them to spend money, and were more likely to verbally abuse and harass them. While I initially was able to confirm this, everybody else here has been fantastic. The people are super nice, especially the women who are particularly flirty. Vietnamese women, from what i've seen here in Hanoi, are gorgeous. Way cuter than Thai women, whom for the life of me I couldn't see most of them as anything but first, possible whores, and second, possible ladyboys. Thai chicks (with the obvious exceptions in all populations) are just not hot. Vietnamese chicks, however, are fucking banging, and apparently the french dudes and I are meeting some tomorrow night. I may venture to drop my pseudo intellectual superiority in the meatmarket and try to pursue some good-ole-fuckin', especially since I splurged a whole 10 fucking dollars for my room.

Which brings me to money. Southeast asia is so fucking cheap. If I had known my money would go so far, I would have planned a much longer trip. Mostly Europeans here, the USA looks at holidays entirely wrongly (too wrong?). I'd say75% of the travelers I meet are traveling for 6-12 months, on a sabbatical of sorts to celebrate highschool or college. The rest are on summer breaks from uni, or in between jobs. Its amazing that most Americans work their entire lives at bullshit jobs for a meager 2 weeks a year and benefits. Going to be really hard to go back to that after this experience, and my next one.

My next big trip will come next August. I know it's a ways ahead, but i'm already planning it. I won't post it here like I did in my other thread, cause plans can change drastically in a year and I think when they do, it's personally embarrassing. Sorry. I will let you know that unless something drastic happens to return me to the States prematurely (my grandpa died 2 weeks ago, and I didn't return home, so more drastic than that), it will likely be an entire 3+ years before I set foot on U.S. soil again.

What else. I think that's it for now. I've barely slept at all since Friday, so i'm going to crash for, I don't know, forever. Hope you enjoyed the read, fuckheads.

[vaga1220 *]

If you don't start banging more chicks I'm going to be pissed.

[thekremlin]

Hanoi is the shit. Everyone will try to rip you off because you're white, my advice is to not worry about paying the guai lo tax, sometimes you will find yourself haggling and then realize, wait a minute, this is 12 cents I'm arguing about. I am jealous about the amount of pho consumption you will take in. I would definately recommend going east to Ha Long Bay, it is incredible, I stayed on the big island for three nights and fucking loved it. You should also try your best to spend 100 US dollars on your last night, it is very difficult and you will be treated like a king.

[Mr. Blonde]

Heading to Halong City tomorrow, looking forward to spending a bit more time on the beach, in Thailand I only got about 5 days. Making my way down the coast to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon for those unawares) before heading back to the ROK in a couple weeks.

[thekremlin]

When you leave Ha Long city, the boat guys will try to make you buy a return ticket as well. Don't.

[Mr. Blonde]

Ha long Bay was cool, Cat Ba Island is fucking terrible. I've been here not even 15 hours and want to get on a fucking boat back to mainland and head down the coast, this is the worst tourist trap i've ever found myself in. I might stick around for the weekend but i'm going to try real hard not to.

[Mr. Blonde]

Well my trip is coming to an end. just got to saigon. i have a little over 24 hours to experience this city; i fly back to korea tomorrow night. Saigon seems pretty fucking awesome thus far. Just left my shit in my hotel and of course first thing I do is seek out the internet. I've never been on a trip like this really before solo; I've done the whole thing okay solo or bumming around with people I meet, but now i'm in some kind of awkward limbo.

Basically I just kinda want it to be over with. It practically is, but right now my motivation to do practically anything is just at empty. I was pretty sick with who knows what the last few days, so i've just been lazing around, and now that i'm in an awesome, actual real city (first time i've seen a convenience store or hot Western chicks in 2 weeks), I don't know what to do with myself. I'll probably go see the Cu Chi Tunnels tomorrow, but I don't know what I'll do the rest of the time.

Wander around? Buy souvenirs? Go to the airport hours early (flight doesn't leave till around midnight) and sit around and read till I board?

I don't even know what i'm going to do tonight. It's only like 9 and as much as I'd like to go out and just get shithoused as it's my last proper night in Vietnam, i'm by myself so i'm already a pseudo weirdo, not to mention this is one of the pickpocket centrals of Asia. Don't want to get too drunk and robbed. Tons of hotties walking around though.

In sum, the trip was pretty awesome, but it wasn't and I never expected it to be some life changing "find myself" kind of trip. If anything I see it as part of the continuous world travel i'll probably be indulging in for the rest of my life. When you're on trips like this, moving all the time, in buses, trains, planes, and boats, talking to locals, saying "no no, i don't want a motorbike ride/a hotel/marijuana/ANYTHING I DON'T WANT FUCKING ANYTHING FROM YOU LEAVE ME ALONE" literally every moment you're walking around, you don't get a lot of time for reflection. I'm sure any reflection on what i've seen and done here will come after the fact, looking through pictures and through random memories.

All in all, the trip was too short. I only did two countries, 4 weeks in Thailand and 2 in Vietnam, Vietnam being significantly harder to deal with of the two, but saw some amazingly beautiful things that still haven't really set in yet. I imagine it won't until I get back to Korea, but I miss my friends and the semblance of a "life" that I have there. I'm looking forward to getting back and having a "home base".

I don't know what i'll get into tonight or tomorrow, but for all intents and purposes, this trip is done. It was sweet and i'll upload photos when I get settled in Korea.

Traveling by yourself can be pretty awesome, because you get to do whatever the fuck you want whenever you want, but it's also pretty sweet to travel with a friend, preferably a best one. I did that with Australia and it made the bitterness that can come with traveling a lot easier to deal with. You can bounce ideas, prices, motivate each other, split rooms for cheaper rates and overall have more moral support. I'm not on the verge of a breakdown or anything, but it's going to be real nice to see some friends again.

/emo

[Mr. Blonde]

I never gave this thread the proper closure, so here are some picture highlights of the trip.

Bangkok and Chiang Mai





















One of my favorite pictures of the trip: We wandered into the jungle down a trail we found for about an hour and found this monk living out there by himself just meditating.

[Mr. Blonde]

Pai and Mae Hong Son







































There was sunlight and rain coming down through this patch in the jungle. It was amazing.

[Mr. Blonde]

Hanoi, Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island















































We hiked up a trail in a place called "Monkey Island" and didn't see any monkeys at all. At the very top, the trail stopped and at the end was this guy sitting there, not doing anything at all except catching flies out of the air and eating them. He wasn't chained up or anything, he was just chilling out as the guardian of the mountain. It was one of the most surreal things i've seen.



Different monkey. Approximately half a second after I took this (left the flash on and startled him) he bared his teeth and lunged at me. Terrifying.





This is inside a hidden cave in a mountain. It's called "Hospital Cave" because the Viet Cong used it as a medical facility during the Vietnam/American War. Pretty sweet.