Tag: asia

• Day 40 – The Best For Last

  The last day of our trip started with naught a cloud in the sky. We went up to the lounge for breakfast, Hannah and Is favorite breakfast this trip was by far soft scrambled eggs on rice. The Hilton did not disappoint us on this front. As we ate our breakfast on the 37th floor we looked out longingly to Mt Fuji, and its snow covered beauty. We intended on going there, but it never made sense with the rest of our plans. Today we decided to go to the Warner Bros Studio Japan to see the the Harry Potter exhibit there.

  

  The view of Mt Fuji from the lounge over Tokyo.

  

  After a 30 minute train ride we arrived at the studio. Hannah and I are both pretty nerdy about Harry Potter, so even though I had little expectation that the tour was going to be worth the $80 entrance fee per person we were excited.

  

  From the moment we walked from the bright sunshine outside into the studio, my expectation of it not being that great was blown out of the water completely. Everywhere around us were grown ass adults, fully decked out in wizarding ropes and costumes from the movies. I mean 3 out of 5 people where dressed up. Immediately feeling underdressed, we hit up the absolutely massive store at the entrance and got ourselves decked out in our house colors.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Now I could write a 3 page essay on our trip to the Warner Bros Studio, but I’m not. To sum it up it was one of the coolest experiences Hannah or I had ever done ever. Especially with all the people including ourselves dressed up, It was quite magical. It however proved a point that Hannah has been trying to shove down my throat the whole time we were here. I am a nerd, correction both of us are nerds.

  

  After a few hours of chilling in the room recovering from our 5 hour studio tour, Hans and I went and helped ourselves to some more canapes and bottomless champagne in the lounge. Ill miss that lounge, the views were stunning. It was a great place to get loaded up on champagne before hitting the town and going bar hopping at the Golden Gai.

  

  From the hotel we walked the 20 minutes to Golden Gai through downtown Shinjuku. What a place it is, there is like 10 cross walks at this one intersection. Golden Gai is a few small streets of teeny tiny bars that seat between 4 and 8 people. It was quite the place.

  

  

  We had an absolute riot at Golden Gai, we went to two bars. The first was a super fancy spirit bar where we had an amazing vodka cran. The second was a sake bar, at the second bar we met 2 other small groups of travelers. We stayed there for hours. After 3 giant bottles of sake had been drunk dry by our new friends and us, we parted as a much larger group of ten. From there we went into downtown Shinjuku to a karaoke bar and proceeded to terribly sing every song we could think of from our younger years. From karaoke things got hazy for a while, I came back to reality at another bar, some 2 hours had past. This was such a fun night. We said goodbye to our new friends and got a taxi back to the hotel.

  

  Till tomorrow.

  February 27, 2025

  asia, japan, shinjuku, tokyo, travel

  ---

• Day 39 – Hiroshima To Tokyo

  Hannah and I were up early to leave Hiroshima, we grabbed a quick hotel breakfast and caught a cab to the train. Side note, cabs in Japan are extremely cheap for short journeys, but extremely expensive for long ones. So weird. The train from Hiroshima to Tokyo takes about 4 hours, Hannah and I both made good progress in our books.

  

  At this point the train system in Japan is really starting to make sense, I am very jealous we don’t have such an Intricate and functional system back home in Canada. After the 4 hour shinkansen train to Tokyo station, we caught a subway to Shinjuku. Now this was the only stay we booked where it wasn’t really that great of a location. The Hilton Tokyo is kind of off in a corner in Shinjuku, so its about a 10 minute walk to get into the more lively area.

  

  So as this was our last stay of the trip we went all out with the hotel and booked a junior suite at the Hilton. Now we did not realize, that all suites come with access to the Hilton executive lounge on the 37th floor. That’s complimentary breakfast everyday, as well as canapes and open bar every night.

  

  Very nearly as we arrived in Tokyo, Hannah was feeling off. We had tried another 711 sandwich of fried egg and teriyaki chicken on the train, but it did not sit well with her. After we tried to eat lunch she was full blown food poisoning. Kind of a bummer for our second to last day to spend it in bed. I am quite a restless person so with Hannah tucked in bed with some room service and a movie I set out to explore a bit in Shinjuku and maybe try Pachinko again.

  

  My first experience with pachinko was such a riot, I think that’s what made my second venture into the game doubly abysmal. I lost $40 in like 15 minutes. I have an addictive personality, because of that I set limits on gambling if i ever try it so my plan to kill time was a complete failure. From the crowded insanely over stimulating pachinko parlor, I set off to try and find a particular convenience store favorite of Hannah’s, the rare salmon maki. We found this snack by means of a TikTok video Hannah had watched some weeks earlier. After successfully finding it on our first forage in Tokyo, She has looked for them in every Family Mart, 711, or Lawson that we have passed. Its funny when you are actively not trying to find something its always there, but as soon as you start looking for it, its nowhere to be found. I think I hit 9 different convenience stores on my way back to the hotel with no luck at all. this however did kill another hour. With Hannah having slept for a few hours she was feeling a lot better when I got back.

  

  When she was feeling fit enough to get out of the hotel, which was only a few hours after being violently ill. I am pretty proud of her for rallying so quickly. We set off for the executive lounge with its bottomless champagne and canapes. We met a couple from Guam while we were sitting in the lounge and proceeded to chat with them for a couple of hours whilst getting nice and tipsy. When the lounge closed we decided to head down to the sushi restaurant in the hotel. We did not check the price of this restaurant, before we got a table. My goodness, we ordered 6 pieces of nigiri and 6 pieces of sashimi and 2 glasses of champagne. It was incredibly good sushi, but the price of $200 for that was definitely steep. All in all it was a pretty good day.

  

  Till tomorrow.

  February 27, 2025

  asia, food, japan, tokyo, travel

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• Day 33 – Tokyo Supreme

  What a big day Hannah and I had planned for today. We started our day with a short walk to an incredible Japanese/western fusion breakfast restaurant, called Ivy Place. We shared an smoked salmon avocado toast with Brie and fresh greens, and some yogurt with granola and fresh fruit. It was delicious.

  

  Having Hannah with me, has changed my eating habits a bit. I mean this woman loves a snack. We have been trying so many interesting new snack foods. Today was a snacking day for sure. Between the hours of 7am and and 1pm, we had breakfast, family mart snack sushi, Krispy Kreme donuts, hash browns, udon noodle soup, swirl cake, and a teriyaki chicken burger with a small fries from the tallest McDonalds I have ever seen.

  

  During the middle of this walking snack tour of Shibuya, and Shinjuku we went to a place called Samurai Restaurant Time. Well lets just say we had no clue what we signed up for in the slightest, The whole place was covered in anime titties and fake jewels when we entered. Was it lunch, was it a dance show, music, strippers? Well it wasn’t strippers, but not far off, It ended up being a samurai themed musical theatre performance. And it was loud and exciting and absolutely crazy. Both Hannah and I left the show feeling a little shell shocked. The food they served was ok but nothing to write about.

  

  

  

  We checked out piss alley after the show and it was cool but without knowing we had showed up before most of the stalls had opened for the day. At this point we already been walking and eating for 7 hours, both of us were feeling gassed. We had seen a lush store on a previous outing near our hotel, Hannah had the bright idea to get a bubble bar, and have a bubble bath back at the hotel. Now Japan is not really renowned for the size of its bathtubs, or having them at all, but our hotel had an amazing 2 person bath. It was quite rejuvenating in the middle of a big day.

  

  Something that has become Hannah & I’s thing on this trip, Is strawberries. Strawberries in Japan are ludicrously expensive, and insanely good, So on our way back to the hotel for bath time, we found a little market that sold some “golden” strawberries. Gotdamnit, they are so good.

  

  

  After a little hangout to rest our legs a bit we jumped on a train to go to Teamlabs, It is an interactive multimedia immersive experience. There is multiple Teamlab exhibits in Asia. Borderless is the one we went to, There was no map no explanations, every animation flowed into the next, all the different rooms were hidden and needed to be explored. It was really easy to be confused as to where you were as the floor to ceiling animations changed over time, making it really hard to set mental waypoints. There were so many different rooms and experiences, I think Hannah an I’s favorite was Infinite Expanse. The room was filled with floor to ceiling Led Diodes set up in a grid pattern, thousands of strings of LEDs all changing designs and effects synchronized to music. It was utterly breathtaking.

  

  

  

  

  

  From Teamlabs we tried to go to a popular conveyor belt sushi restaurant. It took us ages to actually find it, Google maps decided to be useless in our hunt for this one. After finding it we made the realization that Japan is unlike Canada, People wait hours for seats in good restaurants. The waiting queue, was 53 tables strong with a minimum wait of 115 minutes. We had been busy all day and hadn’t eaten anything since about 1, Hannah had had it with not being fed in that moment. We Bailed on sushi and got a seat in the closest restaurant that served pasta we could find. To be honest there was no way I was going to wait for over 2 hours for food. Thankfully most restaurants here are in kind of upscale food courts, so getting a different decent place to eat was easy.

  

  Both Hannah & I had pasta, meatballs and a limoncello soda. The food was decent, not the best Italian Id ever eaten, but what do you expect in Tokyo. At this point we were nuked, we ended up walking close to 24 kilometers throughout the day. It was a big day, We hit up a family mart on the way back to the hotel for our third round of Japanese snacks of the day. I found Spam Masubi, prepacked ready to eat. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve eaten, but also so delicious that I almost went and bought another one. Hannah has become very fond of snack sushi rolls, where you unwrap the rice and filling and the nori at the same time then freshly wrap the rice in the nori. They are pretty darn tootin. I think we have amassed about 12 different random bags of candy at this point from several trips to convenience stores around Tokyo.

  

  After getting back I booked us some train tickets and got our next hotel room in Kyoto. Then we both fell straight asleep.

  

  

  Till tomorrow

  February 12, 2025

  asia, food, japan, tokyo, travel

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• Day 30,31,32 JAPAN!!

  Welp, I really have been slacking on writing. Its wild how much doing this exercise of writing down a chronicle of my life on this trip has actually helped bring a lot of calmness and peace to me. The last 3 days have been an absolute whirlwind.

  

  My flight from Bali to Japan was a doozy, I traveled all damn day. When I finally arrived at my hotel, 15 hours had passed and my wallet was $36560 Yen Lighter. For those who don’t know the conversion, that’s $365.60 Cad. I was very tired and used to just taking airport cabs all over SEA for basically nothing. Well Japan is not SEA, its Japan, and cabs are f%#king expensive here. I was livid at myself and starving when I arrived at my hotel. That night I had vending machine peanuts and a sweet waffle for dinner, probably my cheapest meal ill have here in Japan.

  

  

  

  

  The next morning I awoke with a bunch of hours to kill, while i was waiting for Hannah to arrive from Canada. Oh I forgot to mention, I booked the wrong airport hotel. Instead of being at Haneda Int, where I landed, it was at Narita Int. where Hannah was landing today. Hence the 1 hour $365 cab ride. All I could say about that f%#kup, was “IDIOT”. Any who, I had some time to kill and wanted Hannah’s entry into the city to go smoothly, so I figured out the train passes and caught a train into Narita city to go have a walk about and some lunch. On the train I met a sweet elderly Japanese man who spoke flawless English, he suggested that I go visit a nearby temple and try a local specialty dish of BBQ eel. Well the temple was incredible and every restaurant I passed had BBQ eel on the menu. After the temple I found myself in a city park that was incredibly manicured and gorgeous, even in the dead of winter. It was a serene place to sit and enjoy nature, the park was in a hollow and basically all city sounds were completely drowned out. It was almost silent. After walking back from the park, I found a restaurant that was full but didn’t have a 50 person line down the street. There is a reason Narita is famous for this dish, It was stellar. Much better than any eel I’ve eaten before.

  

  

  After killing a bunch of hours in town I went and picked up Hannah from the airport. What a reunion that was, you would think we had been apart for a year. We loaded up and jumped on the skyliner train to Tokyo. The train systems here are incredible. After a smooth 1.5 hour ride with a single train change, and a small kafuffle with maps. We landed at our absolutely sick penthouse suite in a small hotel, just a block from the famous Shibuya scramble intersection. What a spot! after a quick unpack we headed to a local sushi bar to try Japanese sushi. Well we were a little surprised, to say the least. It is not like back home, in the slightest. It was fool hardy to think so. Some of the dishes we thought we knew, were so vastly different in flavor that we didn’t like them. It was really good but kind of weird. And sushi is very expensive in Japan. Like way more than back home, but you know that’s all part of the fun of traveling. We were both bagged from travel and it was sorta late, so after dinner we basically just hit the hay.

  

  

  

  This morning, Hannah was up at the crack of dawn. To be expected when your brain and body don’t understand why they are sleeping in the middle of the day, but it is actually 5 am. So we got up and went for an early morning walk around Shibuya before the vast crowds of Japanese locals flooded the streets. The intersection does not look very daunting when there is nobody in it. We have yet to see it in all its glory. On our walk we stopped at a 7eleven and got a pork katsu sandwich to share with a warmed bottle of green tea. 7eleven is shockingly good here in Japan.

  

  

  

  after a brief planning session at the hotel, we traveled a stop down the YR line to Harajuku station. What a cluster f%3k that area is, especially when today was a national holiday and there was parades and protests. The area is known for all kinds of clothes shopping, restaurants, and of course Harajuku girls. The shopping was really cool but nothing in Japan will ever be my size, so I was mostly just exploring. Hannah on the other hand, was like a squirrel in a nut factory. She showed some pretty damn good willpower on a few very expensive items. After an hour of exploring we found a very popular ramen place, with an oddly fast moving line to get in. Well Ichiran Ramen is a ramen bar where they serve 2 dishes (regular & deluxe) and you order and pay from a vending type machine at the entrance. That place was efficient, no servers, just a line of bars with a little door at the back of each bar spot. After you sat down a person behind the doors takes your card, and a few minutes later. A delicious bowl of ramen arrives, Hannah and I were blown away. For $30 Cad we were both stuffed and satisfied.

  

  From lunch we continued out wander and accidently came face to face with a large protest, and an even larger contingent of Tokyo police. Nothing violent happened but there was some obvious unrest in the crown of people around the intersection, as the protest marched past. It was wild. Hannah was a little shook. From there we wandered into the tourist trap potion of Harajuku, now at this point it was like 2 pm and people we out. It was mayhem trying to get down the little alleys stuffed with people. It was very overstimulating. When we escaped that craziness we walked to the Shin shrine just on the other side of the train line from the crazy alley area. It was busy but very peaceful. So at this point we had walked like 18km and we were both beat so we hopped on the train to have a chill at the hotel for a bit.

  

  

  A few hours later, fully rested we set off on a train ride across the city to go up the Tokyo Tower. Now me being the most thoughtful boyfriend in the world, completely blanked that Hannah is terrified of heights. The tower is a replica of the Eiffel tower or just very familiar. Its bloody tall. Well she did great and we went up the tower to gaze over Tokyo. It was not her favorite thing. On our way down to find a restaurant for dinner, our noses directed us to a crepe stand at the base of the tower. We had some delicious savory crepes for dinner, the Japanese have crepes dialed. I had a chicken, curry and cream cheese crepe. Hannah had a chicken teriyaki crepe with mayo. Both were stellar, its not were we intended to eat but it was delicious.

  

  

  

  All in, it was a busy day. I cant wait for tomorrow. We are going to Team labs.

  Till Tomorrow.

  February 11, 2025

  asia, japan, shibuya, tokyo, travel

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• Day 29 – Last Day In Bali

  Today started with another terrific breakfast at the Kawi resort in Ubud. After getting all or stuff organized, Brian and I loaded up our scooters and went to go check out the Ceking rice terraces. It was a cool little hike, and we got to see a Kivet. Which if you didn’t now is the little forest ferret cat thing that eats the coffee beans and shits them out. Which creates an incredibly expensive coffee called Luwak.

  

  

  From the rice terraces we drove the rest of the way to Ubud, and returned our scooters. I had a bit of an unfortunate incident with a bungie cord, when I was untying my bag from my scooter. I had mistakenly let go of it, and it came around the bag at about 200kph and hit me square in the face. God I felt like such an idiot, and the Balinese guy from the scooter place wouldn’t give me any room to breathe standing and staring at me like I was made of glass.

  

  

  Leaving that embarrassment we called a Gojek and headed the 2 hours from Ubud to Seminyek, to me Brian’s friend Bryan. Who has lived in Bali for several years. After checking out his incredible apartment, we went to a beach club called Mana for a bite to eat. I had a pulled beef sandwich on fresh focaccia, with the best damn fries I’ve had in my memory. Two times now in Bali I’ve had French fries that were just unreal.

  

  

  I said goodbye to Brian and Bryan after we ate and grabbed a car to take me to my airport hotel. When I arrived, I was a little disappointed with the shabbiness of the front of the hotel, as it did not look like the photos. After checking in, my disappointment deepened as I was led to a room with no windows, a faucet that never stopped running in the sink, a stink of mildew, and absolutely filthy bedding. Now never in my solo travels have I actually walked on a room, so I went to the front and asked for another room. This one had windows, but is about all it had going for it. There was the same mildew smell, the bedding was filthy and stained, and the walls were covered in dirty fingerprints. It was the most disgusting hotel I’ve ever stepped in. With my bags still on my shoulders I got online and found a room at the Hilton down the street. Now when I say I ran out of there I mean it. I kind of tossed my key card on the desk as I left, saying I couldn’t stay there.

  

  It was was so F*#king gross. Anyways I was able to get a room at the Hilton for next to nothing thanks to Agoda. And after a decent meal of lamb Nasi Goreng with lamb chops and some fresh fruit, I quickly was able to push the shitty hotel from my mind. It was a pretty weird energy day for me, after being solo for a month, I found spending every minute with a friend for a few days kind of taxing. I napped pretty hard in the Gojek and have felt sorta out of wack all day. It may have been the fact I had ice cream with my breakfast, but I doubt it.

  Till Tomorrow

  February 8, 2025

  asia, bali, indonesia, travel, ubud

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• Day 24 – The Art Of Doing Nothing

  Today unlike the last few days, I woke feeling pretty allright. Which was a relief, as the last few days have been pretty rough.

  

  As I have done very little exploring since landing in Bali, I decided to go check out Uluwatu Temple first thing, before the sun got too high. Normally I just self tour as tour guides can be kind of shit and annoying, But today I was approached by an elder guide and I agreed to pay his ludacris guide price of 150k rupiah. His name was Wayan, which if you didn’t know is one of 4 names of every Balinese person. They stand for 1 through 4, Wayan is 4th born. Because of this most Balinese have nicknames.

  

  Wayan gave me a great tour, and I enjoyed the time spent with him. Especially when he pulled out his slingshot to ward off the thieving monkeys at the temple that prey on tourists. That was cool. His company was worth the fee. I truly do love the Balinese locals. They are a great people.

  

  After my tour I headed to Ketut Massage, Ketut being another of the 4 names. I believe it is 1st or 2nd. To get my ears candled, I know that sounds weird but I’ve been having some weird hearing issues in my left ear and thought it would help. Well sure as shit, now I can hear good out of both ears again. I wanted to go do a paragliding adventure today, but after consoling my partner. Decided it was not worth it. I mean seriously $110 cad for a 15 min flight is an absolute ripoff.

  

  I decided to grab a bite at a spot called GT warung, and had yet another completely different Nasi Goreng. Which was toatlly delicious.

  

  From lunch I decided to grab my climbing shoes and hit a bouldering gym, for a workout. It was a great little gym. I was the only customer there, so I got to hang out with the 2 bored to tears staffers who showed me a bunch of the routes. It was a great hour session.

  

  When I sufficiently tired myself out on the wall, I headed to the beach. Nyang Nyang beach was truly a spectacle, with an expanse of rocky coast and beautiful waves smashing the beach. I was there at high tide so there wasn’t much beach, but there was free lounge chairs. I settled myself in, and read the afternoon away. It was glorious, this is the only time this whole trip I just purposely did nothing.

  

  On the way back to my hotel, I stopped at a restaurant call Warung Aunty. Where I had a traditional Indonesian dish called Rendang. Which was a sorta curried sorta not spicy beef dish served with rice and a side of the tastiest garlicy vegetables I’ve had in forever. This was truly a runner for best meal of the trip. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm, I could eat 3 portions of it.

  

  To finish off my night I read some of my book and did a little preparation for tomorrow. Its gonna be a big day, that’s all ill say.

  

  Till tomorrow

  P.s as I finished writing this, I looked out my window to see a massive streak of lighting cross the horizon. I guess there is going to be a storm tonight. I think i saw 15 flashes in about 2 minutes so its a doozy.

  February 3, 2025

  asia, bali, indonesia, travel, ubud

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• Day 22 & 23 – Write Offs

  When you travel, especially when you are hopping from country to country, There are expected days that you write off. Big travel days, etc. Then there are the days you don’t expect to write off.

  

  I didn’t write yesterday because I was exhausted and annoyed with how my journey from Cambodia to Bali ended up. Plus I’m dealing with some kind of jungle flu and a gastric issue all at once.

  

  Yesterday was supposed to be my first full day here, AirAsia certainly made a mess of that. On my last post I wrote about how one delayed flight made me miss a connection, and I had to stay in Malaysia. Well my new flight was yesterday morning at 9:15 am. We boarded on time, taxied on time, and then we sat on the tarmac at the runway for 2 hours with no information given to us. After the two hours it was announced we had to return to the gate to refuel. Which seemed weird to me, but whatever. As soon as we were back at the gate, airport security rushed onboard and quietly removed two passengers that were seated near me. When I say quiet I mean completely silently. There was nothing spoken between the passengers, security, or flight crew that I could hear. I was only 10 feet away. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on a flight. We waited another 30 minutes at the gate, the passengers did not return. Finally we did refuel then waited another 30 minutes on the tarmac. in total 3.5 hours of standby. Making a 3 hour flight a 6.5 hour flight.

  

  Well there goes the day. I ended up getting to my hotel at 6pm last night. Even though I was feeling less than 100, I quickly ran a few new country errands. From there I grabbed a burger. Since I had very little time to figure out the exchange rate I paid for my meal, without paying much attention to the price of what I ordered. When I sat down, I did the conversion and realized I just paid $28 Cad for a burger and fries. Now that’s more than id normally pay back home, and coming from Thailand and Cambodia, that’s 3 or more meals worth of money. I was a little shocked. Then I made the realization of where this particular joint was located and the businesses surrounding it, I was in tourist central. With all that being said it ended up being a stellar burger with incredible fries and a nice thick flavorful milkshake. So I left happy, Asian food has not looked particularly appetizing the last few days, after this gastro issue set in.

  

  That was pretty much the end of my night last night. Not feeling well enough to continue to explore the windy, busy, dangerous roads of Bingin, Uluwatu. I settled in my bed and read more of the second harry potter book. I read the whole first book, while transiting from Cambodia to Bali. Let that be a marker for how long it took.

  

  Thankfully I was able to get a really good sleep last night, thanks to some sleep meds and some Neo Citron. Pro tip, travel with Neo Citron. Its an absolute life saver when you need it.

  

  This morning I awoke feeling pretty darn good, which came to a surprise as I expected to be much more sick than I felt. I stretched for 2 hours and then puttered off to town to get a massage, go see the beach and grab some food. The massage was excellent, the beach was pretty crazy with big waves, and my lunch of Nasi Goreng was decent. Then near the end of my meal, it hit me. Like somebody hooked up an air compressor to my nostrils and filled my head to bursting. Thankfully I was only a short drive from my hotel because the dizziness was not far behind the congestion. I hate being sick on vacation. Even as I am writing this I can barely focus. I’m sitting in my hotel with the blinds shut as the sunlight is making my head split. Total complete write off. Tomorrow will be better. I hope.

  

  Since reading Marcus Aurelius’ book, I have been practicing a type of stoicism. It has helped me curate a particular mindset that I am applying to everything in my life, and how I process the world around me. I used to get so internally upset about some things and in turn ruin my time doing that thing. Staying calm when things go astray, not victimizing myself internally when it feels like the world is blatantly out to get me or ruin my day. I must say it has helped me be a much happier human. Even when I cant be more than 15 minutes from a toilet and my head feels like its gonna pop. Especially finding a silver lining in an otherwise dreadful or incredibly inconvenient situation.

  For example, I now have the time to write down the shit show of the last two days. If i wasn’t feeling so dreadful I probably wouldn’t’ve even bothered. Ill take that as a victory.

  

  

  So apparently I could not sit cooped up in my room all day regardless of how sick I felt, after I wrote up to this point I decided I was going to Padang Padang beach. I heard tell of some cool bouldering routes there, and since I have never bouldered on actual boulders before I was pretty pumped to giver er a go. Remember me saying how sick I was, no matter my drive to do something I truly had no strength to boulder. I did 2 attempts on a route and called it quits and went for a swim.

  

  

  Somehow today, even though I was in my room for 90 percent of the day. Managed to get a brutal sunburn on my shoulders. Yay for me. After the beach I went to a restaurant called Menza, The food was expensive. But neither dish I had was that great.

  

  Big ole side bar. Did you know that Nasi Goreng, literally means fried rice? My family has been eating Nasi Goreng since the dawn of my time. Now I’ve had it 3 times here and it has been completely different every time, whilst being nothing like what I grew up on.

  I guess today was a half write off.

  Till tomorrow

  February 2, 2025

  asia, bali, bouldering, food, indonesia, travel

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• Day 21 – Malaysia

  Its 10:26 pm And I am in Malaysia. I am not supposed to be in Malaysia. I am supposed to be flying to Bali right now.

  

  

  What a stupid travel day its been. It started off great with an incredibly long Tuk Tuk ride, to the Siem Reap Airport. Which was very beautiful and showed the drastic differences between wet and dry seasons in Cambodia. It is definitely dry season right now. From this point Everything slipped towards stupidity.

  

  When I arrived at the airport, I checked my bag no problem, got my boarding pass and headed to security. Now did you know that a 60m 9.8mm climbing rope is a dangerous weapon that most definitely could be used to hijack an aircraft? You didn’t know that? me neither. Maybe that’s because it F#@king isn’t. But according to Cambodian airport security it is, even though they could not provide any supporting information about it being listed as a dangerous item. And I read the list and checked online before ever bringing it in my carry-on, also I have gone through 6 airports with it on my backpack without it ever being an issue. So I argued my way up the Cambodian security ladder asking for more and more supervisors until I was just flat out told no. So I tried to get it put in my checked bag which I was then told was not possible anymore. Then I asked if I could check the rope as another bag, to which I was told I would be charged $30 American per Kg. A 60 meter rope weighs around 7kg, so translate that to Cad and your somewhere in the ballpark of $350. Double what the rope is worth. So I left my rope behind. Absolute sad days, as it is the most integral piece of gear I had with me.

  

  

  Determined to not let it be thrown in the trash, I called my new friend James the climbing guide in Siem Reap, and asked him how long it would take him to get to the airport. He literally said he’d be there within the hour. Now even though it is a loss for me, I am not really that upset about losing the rope. I can buy another one, what really made it sting less is being able to get it to someone who would cherish it and put it to good use. In Cambodia, climbing gear is incredibly hard to bring into the country as everything you import gets hit with a 40% import tax. So for James this happening, its like striking gold. And knowing how pumped he was to get it made me feel good.

  

  Now after coming to terms with the rope debacle, I entered the waiting area and read my book. 10 minutes before the flight was supposed to board Air Asia announced a 1.5 hour delay on my flight. I had enough time to get the rope into my checked bag in the end. Heavy heavy sigh. So I wait out the delay knowing that my 2 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, is not now not enough time to get to my next flight. Fast forward a few hours and I’m sitting here at my computer in an airport hotel, burning a very expensive night in a Uluwatu hotel. Yet another Heavy sigh. Tomorrow will be better. It has to be, doesn’t it?.

  

  

  Till tomorrow.

  January 31, 2025

  angkor-wat, asia, cambodia, siem-reap, travel

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• Day 20 – Close Doesn’t Count

  Today I woke up at 5am to go meet James the tour guide, to ride motos, climb mountains, and check out cool temples. I’m not gonna write too much today as I have so many awesome photos and I am feeling a little under the weather. So today is gonna be a little different format than usual.

  

  Me and James traveled from Siem Reap, to Kulen mountain today. We stopped at I think about 6 culturally significant sites on the way. The route to Kulen is about 1.5 hours long but because we were touring and James decided we should off road our Shitty motos through sandy farm roads. we Arrived at Kulen mountain 6.5 hour after we left.

  

  When we actually got to the mountain we were greeted by some new Mine fields that weren’t there a year ago as James explained, they just keep finding new ordinance in the area. As this was a Khmer Rouge stronghold during the war.

  

  So the big highlight of the day was Rappelling off of kulen mountain to the base of the sandstone cliffs lining the mountain. After rappelling though, we had to climb back up. Now as a side note here, there is no bolts or routes at all in this area. So when I say we made our own route up, we literally picked a spot and James free solo’d the the first 25 feet. from there we had anchor spots and we traversed across some sand stone ledges to a bat cave that James had found on a previous trip up to this area. It was a super cool experience.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  On the way back to Siem Reap from Kulen, I had a very very near miss with a pickup truck with only one headlight. Here in Cambodia bikes and Motos are the most populous thing on the road, so one headlight means its a moto. It was dusk, it is always smoky at dusk here, and I was over taking a semi truck in the oncoming lane. When I realized the situation I was in, I slammed on my breaks. Now when your on a Moto going 90kph and you lock your breaks, the bike wants to slide out from under you. I planted both my feet to right the bike, and smashed on the throttle, still doing about 80 and swung in behind the semi truck. The pickup passed me as I was swerving into safety. It missed me by about 0.1 seconds, the drivers here don’t stop. It is the wild wild east. This is by far the closest I’ve ever come to a life ending crash ever on a bike or in a vehicle. It scared me to my core. Its the only time I’ve ever had my life flash before my eyes. After a brief minute to catch my breath on the side of the road and to check and see if there was indeed any shit in my pants. We continued the drive back to Siem Reap with no further incident.

  

  

  Now I haven’t spoken too much about the food today or showed pictures as the food we ate today was literally nothing to write home about. I didn’t have a single meal that was notable.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I am actually writing this in the morning of my 21st day as when I got back last night I immediately passed out. 13 hours of hard riding and constant sun will do that too you. Today I leave Cambodia and the shitty Khmer food behind to head to Bali. Who ever told me the food was better here than Thailand was full of shit.

  

  

  

  Even After that close call this was one of my favorite days of this trip, Big shout out to James at Kingdom Climbers for showing me around on a private tour of his favorite spots.

  January 30, 2025

  adventure, angkor-wat, asia, cambodia, climbing, rappelling, siem-reap, travel

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• Day 19 – The Great Silt Road

  Today I woke up with a pinched nerve in my left shoulder. Yay for me, it seems murphy’s law has really got me on this trip. Many different little annoying things have happened. Alas its still a mile ahead of working in a Canadian winter. I delayed my morning trip to Angkor archaeological park and booked a massage.

  

  Before my message I drove around the streets near my hotel looking for an shabby looking restaurant full of Khmer people. That is a sure fire way to get incredible local cuisine. I didn’t have to go far, I found what I would say looked like the front of a mechanic shop back home with a little sign in Khmer. This place was packed with locals. I ordered duck leg in clear soup with noodles. It was shockingly simple, just a few ingredients. It was absolutely delicious with tender duck meat, perfect noodles, and a surprise wonton. There is two main options for Khmer breakfast, fried meat and rice, or noodle soup. Both have been fantastic so far.

  

  My masseuse was waiting for me when I arrived back at my hotel. I’ve never had a massage in my hotel room on the bed before, when the concierge said the masseuse would meet me in my room my first response was, Huh? Anyway the massage was just fine, it didn’t fix my shoulder but made me functional enough that I could indeed ride my scooter.

  

  

  

  Armed with some information from James the friendly climbing guide, I rode out of town to go find some hidden temples. On the way I did a speed run of 4 temples I hadn’t seen the day before, Temples are incredible and the history is rich, but I have adhd. After a while they kind of all look the same to me. What really intrigued me is the hydraulic system that the angkorian’s designed to feed water to their cities, and protect them from droughts and floods. Funny enough because of the increased demand of tourism on Siem Reap’s water systems, The 1000 year old hydraulic system of reservoirs and canals also provides water to Siem Reap. After mass restorations of the system from 2004-2008 all of the reservoirs stay full all year round, and they protect the city and surrounding flatlands from flooding.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  When I arrived at the pin provided from James of a secret buried temple all I found was farmland and extremely poor rural Khmer people. I did what every tourist does and confidently marched onto a random persons property speaking a language they absolutely didn’t understand asking for directions. Thankfully technology gave us translating apps and after a short google translate session. I now had a Khmer woman leading me through half a dozen fields towards a stand of trees I couldn’t see from the road. Now because I had just inconvenienced this woman, I gave her 8000 riel as a finders fee. Which I’m pretty sure made her day. Btw the road I drove the last kilometer to this temple on was fully silted, I’m talking like 4 inches of silt. It was like surfing on a scooter.

  

  After finding the temple, and checking it out I hopped back on my bike and headed back into town. This temple was wicked cool. truly ancient and decrepit.

  

  From the temples I went and got some dinner at a local street vendor. I ordered a local Khmer dish that I could not pronounce, that I from this point forward will always call this dish “swamp soup”. My god this soup was green and full of unrecognizable vegetables stained green. This is to this day the single most un appetizing looking dish I have ever eaten. Now it was really good but it was also really weird, I liked it, but I have no idea what I ate other than the chicken on top and the noodles. It was a very earthy flavor and I somewhat suspect it was algae soup as the color very closely resembled the algae infested river I was sitting beside. I’m glad I tried it but I think ill pass next time.

  

  

  From the dinner stall I drove about 300 meters to another stall serving Siem Reap giant coconuts and diced fruit. For 10000 riel ($2.50) I got a coconut and a huge bowl of delicious fruit. I had my book with me and sat for a few hours in the bustling streets and read, which I don’t think I have ever done before. I try very hard to participate in my environment, and to completely zone out reading as the world buzzed around me was a new feeling.

  

  I met up with James the guide at 8pm so we could pick up a moto for me to take on tomorrows adventure. I’ve never driven a semi auto before, but its a step up from the put puts towards a real motorcycle. Did you see how I called it a Moto, its not a motorcycle, its not a scooter, its a moto. That’s what the locals call them too, I just find it funny.

  

  I’m off to bed now, in the morning I’m going to Kulen province with James on a full day Moto excursion. Till tomorrow.

  January 29, 2025

  angkor-wat, asia, cambodia, siem-reap, travel

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