Final Few Days, Returning Home, and Job Searching

It’s been a few since I last wrote. A lot has happened… I wrapped up my trip in Scotland, flew home, reunited with Ivy, trying to get a job (or a least an income), and beginning to scope out some of the spiritual thingys out there. It's going to  be a long one...

I'll start from the beginning, the last I wrote I was on my way to Edinburgh. I did stop over at Aviemore to look at our “mountain”. The mountain that they set on fire was actually mostly a cliff face and the rest was a craggy hill. I snapped some photos and hiked around for awhile in the park devoted to it which was really pretty. After a few hours, I caught the train to Edinburgh. Side note: One thing I like about most of the trains in Europe is that you buy a ticket without a time. For example, the train runs every 90 min during the day from Aviemore to Edinburgh. If I had have missed the one at 3, I just show up to the next one. No need to change my ticket or anything. End note. On the way to Edinburgh I passed through Sterling. The only reason why I mention it is that Sterling hosts the William Wallace monument.

A Little Grantime

It seems fitting, in some way, that although I left without any need to find myself, I am here in the land of my ancestors finding shit out about myself. Well, not really about me, just about where I came from; my roots, if you will. I'm glad I saved this part for last (or close enough to last). It seems to wrap things up well. This post will be about Inverness and Grantown, but mostly about the Clan Grant, so if you don't care about cool shit this will bore you.

Holland, London, and a Quarterly Check-in

Even though this is my one year check-in, I'm going to try to keep this one brief. I left Ostend a couple days after writing the last post. I needed some slow down time and it offered it. I mainly just kept to myself, walking the beach when the sun was out and eating when it wasn't. They have a sweet park there that I spent some time in. I even got the room to myself on the last night. When I left it was with the intention to go to Antwerp, but every thing was booked up. So was Amsterdam.

Beer Tour Belgium

I have not been thrilled at the availability of internet. Why they charge in many hostels, even for WiFi, is beyond me. It's up to about $5 an hour here, which judging by the speed of the connection is not much more than a normal deal you'd have at home, means they pay off the entire months bill within a day or two. Luckily, the hostel I'm at in Ostend has free internet (from a computer) and free WiFi for an hour or two at a time (its a weird system). Also, this is from my phone and not proofread - FYI. I'll explain how I came here and how I found some time to write this post...

Prague Through Berlin

I have had a surprisingly hard time finding time, for writing. Mostly, it is a combo of lack of accessable computers and doing stuff with friends. That should be at least calmed down a bit as I don't anticipate seeing anyone I know till I get to London next month. Maybe I'll have better access to computers, but I doubt it.
To get on with the trip, not really much in the way of cool stories happened in Prague; a lot happened in Munich; and Berlin was pleasant, though different than expected.

Lots of Flying Butts in Poland

I am of course speaking of the only thing I retained from my college art history course, flying buttresses. Being that there are a shit load of massive, 5+ story, churches here, there are a ton of flying butts. Flying butts are not anything impressive either, but appear to just be a waste of time and money. Then, again, that's what the church loved more than anything back in the day and still does to some degree today. That may be the name of the post cause I like playing on words, but I don't care about churches so I wasn't going around looking at them and really, it won't be a focus of this post.

Well Then, I'm Happy to Tell You That God Loves You

This post is Croatia to Vienna, so it'll be long...


Croatia is lovely, but really, it's kinda dull. It's expensive (min of around €40 a day), and while nice, it lacks anything really special to hook you. It's got nice, clean beaches in warm Mediterranean clear water; it's got walled cities and intact fortresses; it's got mountains; it's got somewhat interesting cultural things. But so do other countries around it that are much cheaper. Originally, I was going to spend a bit more time, but the cost really put a damper on that and I only stayed about 5 days.

Easiest Way From Greece to Croatia? Italy

In my last post I had made it to Rethymno and met some cool people. Even did a tour of the Minoan Knossos. I left the day after that post for Santorini, Greece's poster boy. I must say that Santorini is dramatic. Three of five towns are built not just on the top of 500 meter cliffs, but down parts of said cliffs. The town I was able to get a hostel was Perissa.

Island Hopping in Greece is the Bee's Knees

I took the ferry from Çeşme to Chios (pronounced kios) on the 3rd. I was the lucky recipient of being the sole person to have to empty the entire contents of my bag for border control. The guy thought I'd some how come up with a way to fit cocaine into the air pockets of the foam cushioning in my bag. I was almost certain he was going to slice it open. Then had me answer a dozen times that this was indeed my bag. Thanks for being a dick just because I was American.
Chios isn't much to write about. The town is like most island towns here, it is built around the marina as the main focal point of the city. In Chios, the main road goes along the harbour and splits the shops and restaurants from the walk path. The affect this has is that it sucks; you don't want to sit in a cafe cause you have cars in your face and you don't really want to walk the path cause its uninviting. it does have a wall around part of it, but compared to other towns in Greece, its impressive. There is nothing resembling a hostel, so its not a great destination if you are traveling alone. I spent most of Wednesday morning trying to find a cheap place to stay. There are the hotels and pensions, but Greece has places that have a sign outside advertising rooms for rent. These are your cheapest option next to hostels. In the end I got one for €20. Always ask if they have cheaper rooms or will go less. Almost all will show you a room that isn't their cheapest, or they'll drop the price €5. The place I stayed had a great typical Greek lady running it. She was on the heavier side and hilarious. She spoke some English, but it was heavily accented so it was tough to understand.
It also turned out she was a level 2 reiki. She mentioned it to me when I asked her some places to see on the island. She said there was a sea cave that was great for reiki. She asked if I knew what it was, so I grabbed my big book of chi and turned to the reiki chapter. I tried to see if she'd do a session on me, but she said she couldn't for some reason.

Turkey Post, Finally

I've been neglecting posting lately. Mostly that's because of access to a computer. I'm writing this from my phone, which I hate. It's hard to type long prose and I basically can't proof it, not that I do too much proofing anyway. So FYI.

After all that fuss that the picketing agent gave me in Bangkok, all I had to do was walk up, say I wanna go in Turkey, and they gave me a visa. When I got to immigration, the hardest part was the 5 min. line I had to wait in. I'm not sure one person looked at me to see if I was even the same sex as on my passport. I guess it may be because they have women with burkas comings through all the time and checking a passport against a small slit where you can only see their eyes really means nothing. No, they don't have to remove them, but yes, you as a man will need to remove your hat.

Quarterly Update 3, A Little Late

Sorry this is a bit late. I hit 9 months on my birthday and there was no way I was writing then or the following day. Then, I was traveling, then I was behind on some other posts, and then I didn't have access to a computer. I am going to include the last couple weeks in this, so consider it a quarterly update, plus Turkey. I still didn't when I "wrote" this post. I used the speech to text function on my phone and am borrowing a computer from a guy at my guesthouse. That means that this will probably be full of spelling and formatting errors. So without further ado:

Tigers

As a sorta birthday present to myself, I decided to go to hangout with tigers. There are a couple places you can do this in Thailand. The Tiger Kingdom in Chang Mai and the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi are the only places that I know of. Before visiting either, I had heard mixed reviews from travelers and definitely polarized reviews on the Temple.
After getting a positive review on the Kingdom from the Irish couple doing the Gibbon Experience, I decided that it would be wise to go to that one, and perhaps if I felt up to it, do the Temple as an additional one.

Beer Wıth Me

I have several posts that I'm working on simultaniously, including my 9 month check in, so bear with me. Also, if you were one of the people interested in beer with me, Oktoberfest is fast approaching and it'd be prudent to get tickets soon. Jordan and Chelsea have informed me that they just purchased theirs!
Ok, so quick update - I'm ın Istanbul now. Yesterday was brutal.

Ever Had Fresh, Right Off the Tree That Almost Fell On You, Papaya?

No?! Well, it can't be beat.
I'm sure the big question, esp. after I posted the ziplining videos on FB, is how was the Gibbon Experience? Well, for most of the men out there, it was like living out a childhood fantasy. I lived in an awesome treehouse in the jungle, hiking and zipping around the jungle at my leisure. For the women, I guess it's the equivalent for you would be if I got to get married and cook and clean for 2 nights. Isn't that what you fantasised about?

Blurb to Update Cause I Don't Plan on Internet for the Next 5 Days

So, really briefly...
Three things I forgot in the last post. One, the power in Luang Prabang cuts out randomly for random lengths of time. One day, part of the town didn't have power for five or more hours. Maybe that particular one was due to the storms that have been hitting the area, but the  power would cut out at least once a day even on the sunny days. Two, I was a bit in a funk when I was writing the last email. I don't really know why. It was after hanging out with the elephants. I came home and practically passed out, only to be awaken by my "take malaria pills" alarm shortly there after. When I woke, I was in a fog and a bad mood, but that mood lasted the rest of the night and I tried to avoid seeing anybody I knew. On the bright side, the next day the "boss" of the coffee shop allowed me to download music. I walked away with about 600 songs. Most hadn't heard, and a lot is jazz (there are a few gems but I will be deleting most of the jazz). I've gone through about half and am deleting about 1 in 8 songs. The third thing was that I found out that I will most likely not being receiving $1,000 of which I had budgeted into my trip. It involves a friend back home whom I lent money to. I don't know all the details or all the sides of what has transpired so it's not fair for me to speculate on here. Suffice to say that a combination of job loss and legal problems will no doubt put paying me as a last priority. I hope this not to be the case and I want to trust that this person can get their act together enough to pay me before I come home. It would be a bummer to have that issue waiting for me upon my return.

OK, now to the reason for this post -

Just a Brief Update From Laos

I know I haven't written in a while. The one computer that is free to use at my guest house, has been occupied non-stop. Not that there is a super amount of things to write about.
I stayed in Vang Vieng 3 nights. The scenery there is quite beautiful, but the town is solely designed for young partiers. If you so chose, you could rent a moto and go see some caves or lagoons or just hangout in the beautiful countryside. Then, you have to go back to town and see all the drunk or otherwise kids roaming around being fucking annoying. Why are they so intoxicated? They go tubing. There is a river that goes along the town that is usually calm enough to go tubing down. I've always been a big fan of grabbing some beer and taking a leisurely tubing trip with friends. Vang Vieng takes it up a notch. There are bars along the river, about a dozen in total (though I heard yesterday that most got washed away in the storm that's been hitting SE Asia). These bars not only sell or give away cheap shitty whiskey called Lao Lao, but some bars offer "happy" shakes or food that can have mushrooms, opium, or pot in them. Therefore, you can begin to see why there are so many people wandering town bandaged up or why they have a dozen people drown a year.

Dylan Is the Most Awesomest Being Evar - Guest Post by Ivy Gahn

OK, the title is my own.
I asked Ivy to write about the experience from her point of view. I wanted to give you guys a view from a different perspective. She remembered a few things that I had forgotten as well. It was nice for me in another way as well. I had never read anything that she wrote. I didn't even know she had written or even enjoyed it, but it turns out she is pretty good. Check it out:

Savannakhet, Loas Update and Book Review

After my last post, which ended with me dropping Ivy off at the airport, a couple of nice things happened to me to help cheer me up a bit. After leaving her at the airport, I took the train to the city. It doesn't stop anywhere near where I was staying, but I figured I'd just take a tuk-tuk the rest of the way. However, when I got to the last stop I was in no mood to do so. I guess I needed a good walk. On the way back a couple temples caught my eye, so I wandered in. I arrived at the second temple just as the monks were wrapping up praying. I was lingering about and one of the monks motioned me in as the last trickled out. He showed me how to pray and while it's pretty simple, involving three head to floor prayers, there is no way I'll remember what the speaking parts were. I talked to him a little bit in broken English and he said his name, but it was impossible for me to even pronounce. He also made me take a picture of their Buddha shrine. It was a really nice moment. Next, I stopped at another temple that was at the top of a "mountain" as the sun was waning. When I got back to my guesthouse, I went to the roof to find rabbits in what used to be a bar and a laundry girl that spoke near perfect English. I talked to her a bit about her life and then got some recommendations from her. The recommendations were spot on. I ate some fantastic baby clams and then had a beer in a tucked away deserted bar (I didn't want to be around anyone).I realized that Bangkok isn't the shit hole I thought it was. It has hidden little gems amidst a see of crap. Although, I'm not sure that I'll ever find a reasonably priced and not a dump, place to stay. So, those two things helped to cheer me up a little. Also, the next day I found a guy who reinforced the stress points on my new backpack (Ivy brought my dad's backpack which was identical to mine and we switched). He didn't do quite the job that the guy in Peru did, but it will definitely help to keep it from breaking.
Still, I needed to get out of Bangkok as quickly as possible. The first thing I did the next day was book a bus to Vientiane Laos. Then, the backpack thing. Then, a couple new books. I've been looking for The Celestine Prophecy based on a recommendation from Golden, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I didn't find either. Not that they aren't out there, just that when you go to a book store or whatnot, the books are stored happenstance. It is quite frustrating trying to find specific books as I'm sure you can imagine. However, there is something to it. In a way, it allows you to find things you weren't sure you were even looking for. I ended up picking out Dan Brown's new one (see book review below) and Into the Wild. I didn't know I was looking for them, but as I was looking for those specific ones above, they were the books that vividly stuck out.

Cambodia, Thailand, Ivy, and Jason/Angie

Sorry folks, but this will probably be a long one. It encompasses a little over two weeks of stuff and Ivy.
Originally, I planned on going through Laos to Thailand and meeting Ivy in mid-June. However, her work and idiotic bosses had other plans. They nearly made it so that she would never be able to visit. Why? Because two weeks off is too much. It is a sad, sad state of affairs in the US. First, we only get about 3 weeks off a year - maybe 4 if you're lucky or upper management or spend 20 years at the same place. Then, most people can't take more than a week off at a time. Most of the time it's just stigma. I mean, if we get our work done, or if it's shared work when we are out (as in Ivy's case - coworkers are required to cover for people on vacation), then shouldn't we be able to do whatever we want with our vacation time. When talking with European or Australian people, or even some of the third world, they are baffled about how we view work. Even British get twice as much time off as us, and they are workaholics too.
Our work paradigm is better spent for another post, so getting back on track, Ivy's work had another person out for a couple days of the original time, so they wouldn't let go on our original plans, then they were reluctant to let her go for two weeks. I'm not sure I would have allowed her to come if she could only get one week, it's simply a waste of money and we'd likely have not been able to Bangkok. We'd have had to take tours out of Bangkok for a couple days, but going to the islands in the South would have been out because we wouldn't be able to afford the time to not fly and we'd not have been able to fly there cause we are on a budget. Thankfully, her bosses came around, though I (and my parents) was about to have words with them had they not.
So, I flew from Hanoi to Bangkok for under $100 and was scheduled to arrive thirty minutes before her. I figured I'd go to her gate and meet her, you know, all romantic like.

Last Part Vietnam

Last you heard, I was in Hanoi eating snake hearts and pooping. I spent a couple more days there, but mostly just walking around the city. Ho Chi Minh has his corpse mummified there, but unlike Stalin, you don't get to look at it and they have a changing of the guards every now and again in front of the mausoleum. Also, there are all the ministries - on that subject, surprise, the biggest ministry was defense. It may have been on more acreage than our Pentagon. If not, it at least looked like a resort. Those defense strategists need their spas, but don't worry it's all inclusive. Moving on, I decided to go to Sa Pa.