Back to reality! Sad, so weird?

Back to Poland, back to reality. I am finally back home. After 140 days in Asia. My last trip was fantastic and I visited northern Vietnam and Laos. If I just have time I will post some pictures.

Asia trip summary:
8 - countries visited

(South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea)
52 000 km - by plane
3500 km - by train
to much (more than 6000 km) - by bus
many hours - by boat
800 km - on a scooter
80 - days studying
60 - days traveling
a lot - people met

What I have learnt:
That same words and actions mean something completely different when you are so far away from home.

Why you should go there:
Because it exists!

Strategic planning

Here is my plan. My plan is simple. Go to Hanoi and travel. Look for adventures and meet some nice people. Destination: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. Departure: Saturday, May 31st.

Bangkok

There were three of us.
Me, myself and I. Almost a crowd. 16 days, hundreds of kilometers, dozens of Pad Tai. This is how it starts. In Bangkok.

The first I heard of the beach was In Bangkok, on the Ko Sanh Road. The Ko Sanh Road was a backpacker land. Almost all the buildings had been converted to guest houses, there were long-distance telephone booths with air-con, the cafes showed brand-new Hollywood films on video, and you couldn’t walk ten feet without passing a bootleg tape stall. The main function of the street was as a decompression chamber for those about to leave or enter Thailand; a halfway house between the East and the West.

Alex Garland, “The Beach”

This is not a kind of place you like. This is a place you need to get smoothly into a new reality. The reality you have never expected to experience on your own, but the reality you would desire if you could only know it exists. This is a place where you feel like a freshman. A FNG as a matter of fact. All you have to do is to go with the flow. Don’t take me wrong. Do not follow Westerners.

I arrived on Ko Sanh Road in the middle of the night. No reservation, no nothing. Some bars were still open, a friendly prostitute was offering her services to British and German retirees. Not to me, cause they know, that I know, that here in Thailand I can have it easily for free.

I was tired and sweating and in a big need to find an accommodation. After half an hour I found one on Soi Rambutri street in Balamphu. That was not a luxury hotel. In fact my single room was just a little larger than a bed. Walls were made of Formica and they moved when I touched them. I had a feeling that if I leaned against one it would fall over and maybe hit another, and all the walls of the neighboring rooms would collapse like dominoes. Just short of the ceiling, the wall stopped, and across the space was a strip of metal mosquito netting. One could see a corridor thru the net after climbing up on the bed. There were no windows. A fan was giving me a relief from heat and humidity. I fall asleep.

On another day I was supposed to see Bangkok, but I didn’t want to do it at all. I am fed up with big cities. Last few months I have spent in Seoul. I visited Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore. I want to see something else. Under those assumptions I decided to travel north, to the mountains, the day after. I bought a ticket for overnight bus and started exploring the city. To have a clear conscience I had to see at least one temple (Wat). The biggest and most crowded Ko Ratanakosin cost me 2 big dinners. The place was beautiful and whole covered with gold. That was enough.











In the afternoon thanks to friendly Thai I have found a nice little restaurant called Café Corner. I met there a long Bangkok expat from USA. We talked a lot about our travel plans. They served a great lemon shakes.







In the evening I decided to see some Muay Thai at Lumphini Stadium. I still do not know why I bought ringside ticket. Only tourists. The real fun was couple meters away where for half the price you could shout and cheer your favorites with local people. Maybe next time. Somebody told not to buy tickets from people on the street, but I did it. When I started thinking that I lost my money instead of making a good deal it appeared that everything is okay and I can enter.





The second day I have spent sitting in the bar on Soi Rambutri, drinking orange/lemon juice from big jag, learning Korean language and most of all watching people on the street. It is amazing how many interesting things happened during that time. Finally I could understand why Thailand is a poor country. People here are good. They smile and love their king, but they are simply lazy. All they do is selling weird crap on the street or offering redundant things to tourists. Tuk-tuk drivers can sleep in their vehicles for hours. Other are trying to rip off people passing by. You can also see aforementioned retirees in their late 70’ hugging extremely young Thai girls who are paid for companionship during the day and night.

This is also the day when I started my adventure with Pad Thai, a dish made of fried noodles, vegetables and a meat. Those who know me well can predict that it was always a chicken. I continued this adventure every single day of my stay in Thailand and I do not regret.

Updates

At least I have managed to update some posts on my blog. On previous pages now you can see the rest of the photos from Japan. I also added pics from BBQ party and Karaoke.

Also Youjin Acapella night is covered now.

First part of Thailand is coming very soon. I am still looking for afflatus (nice word, I have found it in vocabulary and it means: “wean twórcza”. I would rather say that this is a part of the body or something).

Do it Acappella - Youjin's concert

Below you can see some photos from the vonderfull evening. It was a concert of Youjin's acappella group. Great music, lots of soju. What else do you need?

In front of them all - Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)

North vs. South. In front of them all. Since 1953 probably the most heavy guarded strip of land. The border between future and past. The Orwell-like area where you feel like under continuous observation. We started from Lotte Hotel on Saturday 26^th of April.

We took a bus to The Korean Demilitarized Zone which is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. The DMZ cuts the Korean Peninsula roughly in half, crossing the 38th parallel on an angle, with the west end of the DMZ lying south of the parallel and the east end lying north of it. It is 155 miles (248 km) long and approximately 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and is the most heavily armed border in the world. We were heading to Joint Security Area (JSA) which lies just next to the village of Panmunjon.Before entering JSA we had a briefing about the rules in the area. Most of them refer to photographing which is forbidden in most of places. Other refers to pointing things with ones finger. You can not do it because North Korean soldiers can mistake it with the pointing gun and shoot at you. We were often told to follow the rules because any misbehavior could end our trip.
Our guide together with the soldier that escorted us to the area were talking about many stories and incidents that happened in DMZ since 1953. Hopefully none of them ended with another war but some people were killed.
After the sightseeing we went to the gift shop where one can buy North Korean soju or handicraft. To sum up the trip was very interesting and definitely worth going. Sorry for this post, but this my field trip report for Korean Business and Culture classes at the same time.
Aha, None of us was shoot during the trip, no animals were harmed.

Karaoke Bang and much more

Yesterday’s evening started innocently. We were supposed to have a meeting in prof. Chung apartment. All together (our Lidership Seminar class) with prof. Asif and Mrs. Elizabeth. We did not expected what will be the meeting like, but after few seconds it was all clear. The first words of prof. Chung were: Hi guys, nice to see you. Here is the beer, help yourself!!! And then she added: There is also some wine, if you want. The evening started great. We had a barbeque, gift giving and a lot of chatting with our Korean mates.

Later we (Me, Kristo, Koji, Piotrek) decided to move to Kyoung Hee University for the concert. It was a local version of “Juwenalia” but smaller. As a guy who organized couple of concerts by himself, I was checking how do they do it here. It was so much different. First, I did not see even one police officer or security guy. Nowhere. In front of the stage there was no fence or any other kind of compound. It seems that Korean students can have fun without violence and riots. Weird country, haha.

Later we moved to our regular bar to have some cocktail soju. In the bar we met other KAIST students and moved to another, and another bar. We ended up in the huge karaoke room. After couple of beers I was singing “La bamba”. Yulien started singing in Korean language. Kristo did not sing. He couldn’t, haha. It was a great fun for us but unfortunately huge hangover another day. Anyway, worth doing it.

On some pictures you can also see a story about Yulien. This is the guy that looks more and more miserable on following photos.

In the morning Kristo told me that after the last night he will not drink alcohol for at least 3 days. He just called me that he started again.