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Tranquility Videos

February 5, 2017 by Jon Brown 1 Comment

Since the beginning of the year I’ve been trying to take more moments to relax to be present.  Sometimes meditate, but not daily like the goal I set for myself. In conjunction I’ve been shooting these little 10, 30 or 60 second videos of the places I choose to do this and sharing them live to Instagram and Facebook.

Yesterday, I took a little trip south on Ko Lanta to find somewhere out of the way to do some blog writing. It was so out of the way that there was no wifi or cellular data which meant I didn’t get to share this “live” like normal, but figured it was still worth sharing here.

https://wanderingjon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Ko-Lanta-Bamboo-Beach.mp4

 

Filed Under: Journal, Travel

My Favorite Place on Earth

December 19, 2016 by Jon Brown 3 Comments

One question I get asked all the time when talking about my travels is “What’s your favorite place?”

There honestly a lot of favorites, but there is one place I hold above all others. I found it on my very first trip to Asia thanks to my circus/fire friends I met along the way of that first trip. In fact for me, that favorite place is a place within a place, it’s a very specific few square feet at a restaurant on the rocks perched between three idyllic bays.

I’ve returned to that very spot many times over the last 10 years and it’s slowly changed.

No Roads (2007)

On my first visit there in January of 2007 there were two ways to make it to these beaches. One, the one everyone takes, is a 15 minute ride in a long tail boat. When the ocean was calm, this was no problem, but regularly the ocean is not-calm and occasionally it was far too rough for the boats from Haad Rin to even try. The alternative route was a 2 hour hike in the jungle on a un-maintained trail. Very few took the later, unless left no other option and there was no road.

Thailand Long Tail Boat with decorative painting
One of the many long tail boats the ply between Haad Rin and Haad Yuan
Waves picking up and spraying the walkway. In major storms this walkway has been damaged and rebuilt.
After hours of waiting for a lull they went for it… all-hands survived, but everyone was pretty soaked as well. Hope you didn’t have any electronics in those bags…
Walking between the bays on a beautiful day
Typical Thailand Long Tail boat. Some of the bungalow’s have slightly wider boats, but this is usually it.
The third, and smallest bay, Haad Why-nam.
The view towards The Sanctuary Resort on Haad Tian from the ridge between Haad Tian and Haad Why-nam
The view towards Haad Yuan from the ridge between Haad Tian and Haad Why-nam
The mythical road (2013)

Years later a “4×4 only” road started getting cut through the jungle. Motorcycles at first could make it and then very adventurous Jeeps. It wasn’t used regularly though and certainly wasn’t open to the public. Only those that owned the bungalow operations along the beach used it, and even then it was regularly too muddy for any vehicle to make it though. The boats were still how everyone got in and out, and how nearly everything THING from food to building materials got in and out. At this point the road was still half myth and many people hoped it would never become commonly usable.

Bamboo Hut Restaurant on the rocks above Haad Yuan, viewed from the water
The gazebo in front of Bamboo Hut on the rocks above Haad Yuan
Sunrise from my room at Barcelona, Haad Yuan, Ko Pha-Ngan Thailand
The view out my front door. Barcelona, Haad Yuan, Ko Pha-Ngan Thailand
Everything comes in by boat, from cushions to concrete.
Beam Bungalows on Haad Thian, up the hill a bit means they get cellphone signals (the beach doesn’t)
Sunrise from my room at Barcelona, Haad Yuan, Ko Pha-Ngan Thailand
The view towards The Sanctuary Resort on Haad Tian from the ridge between Haad Tian and Haad Why-nam
The Road (2014)

Today the steepest and worst parts of the road have been paved, although it’s still only passable by high clearance 4×4 vehicles and not open to the public. There is a 4×4 pickup truck taxi service that operates making daily trips in and out. Perhaps the only good thing is there is at least now competition with the boats which had more than tripled in price over the years.  Now it’s 200-300THB for either the boat or the truck, which is a bit lower than the last days of the boats being the only option. The bad is more people, more all-night parties, more trash…

The times they are a-changin…

The location iss on Haad Yuan, Haad Tian and Haad Why-Nam beaches on Ko Pha-Ngan, Thailand. I said there was a specific place there though, and it’s a table (two really) at Bamboo Hut restaurant. It’s a place where I can sit while eat the most delicious pumpkin curry, drinking mocha or mango shakes, work or gaze out onto the beautiful sra for hours. 10 years ago this spot even had “wi-fi”. Wi-fi is in quotes because back then it was a connection grabbed by a 64 Kbps connection grabbed by a dish antenna (find it in the photo). That connection was shared by everyone that could get on, imagine 10 people sharing a single 1980’s dial-up connection that frequently just stopped working for hours at a time. Fun! Now, you can get a decent 3G cellphone signal and tether to your own connection. Some providers I think now even hit the spot with 4G/LTE although that’s spotty. Still my favorite place… but I’m looking for a new place, one like this one was 10 years ago 😀

Sitting here, drinking smoothies, eating curry… couldn’t be happier.
Laptop, Mocha Shake, Pumpkin Curry… Billion Dollar View… this is it, this is my happy place

My favorite part about people asking me this question of my favorite place though is finding out about where their favorite place is and why… So!

Where is your favorite place? Why is it special to you?

Filed Under: Journal, Photography, Travel, Travel Photography Tagged With: Haad Tian, Haad Yuan, Koh Phangan, Thailand

Two reasons not to be afraid of traveling outside the English speaking world.

August 29, 2016 by Jon Brown 9 Comments

I’ve heard from a lot of people that are afraid, or let’s so shy, of trying to travel outside the English speaking world. Here are two reasons not to be.

First English is the world’s second language

I remember the first time I traveled to a country where English wasn’t the official language. It was 20 years ago and after visiting London where they speak something occasionally close to English (j/k) I took the Eurostar to Paris.  I remember studying intensely how to say “I’m sorry, I don’t speak French”, along with a few other phrases I thought I needed.  I also remember the first time I walked into a shop and tried using said phrase being laughed at and told “no you certainly don’t” in near perfect English.

At the time I took that encounter as something unexpected, not the rudeness of it that was expected in Paris, but the English fluency of the person I needed to speak to. I thought, “how fortunate this person speaks English!”  20 years later I can say that’s it’s actually pretty hard to get more than 10 meters from a non-English speaker while traveling.

Let me be extremely clear, I’m not saying you can’t find non-English speakers, nor that you can’t actually get away from them, just that it takes some serious effort and is unlikely to happen accidently. An example…

Taking a pedicab to a coffee shop in Malang, Indonesia

This morning I decided it was about time I find a coffee shop in Malang. I found a well regarded one a 15 minute walk away. I actually didn’t plan on walking though because it’s hot, and as I needed to check out of my hotel first I’d be carrying all my stuff. Instead I planned on making use of the pedicab that I had seen parked along the road right where the hotel driveway meets the road every time I’ve left the hotel.

Now I’ve seen a lot of traditional human powered pedicabs and rickshaws around the world and I can assure you, not one of the drivers speaks any English. If they did they wouldn’t be pushing a pedicab around for 5,000 IDR ($0.40) a trip. Surprisingly however the pedicab I expected to find however was not there at the hotel exit. Thankfully, I recalled that two nights prior when I walked to the nearby Indra Mart (like 7-11) I noticed a pedicab rank next to the street food vendors right around the corner.

I marched that direction and as turned the corner sure enough a pedicab driver noticed me “coming right at him“. He stood excitedly and I nodded to him that yes indeed this white skinned foreigner was about to ask to hop on his pedicab.

I knew there was no chance the driver would speak english so I prepared a little. When I looked up the coffee shop on Google Maps I also took note of the nearest local landmark. In this case a traffic circle with a small monument in the middle of it. I knew that if that didn’t work I could still point where I needed to go easily enough, but I didn’t need to do either. No sooner had I said “Alun-alun Tugu” to the pedicab driver as did a younger man standing nearby jumped up to help translate and confirm for the pedicab driver that yes indeed Alun-alun tugu was where I was asking to go.

It was a lovely ride.

https://wanderingjon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_3050.mp4

As you can see I the locals make heavy use of pedicabs for short distances too:

https://wanderingjon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_3049.mp4

And there were are circling the traffic circle, with Alun-alun Tugu monument in the middle.

https://wanderingjon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IMG_3051.mp4

Operation pedicab to coffee shop complete.

Getting a taxi to make multiple stops in Malang, Indonesia

My friend in Malang is having a baby in a few weeks so I decided it’d be a nice gesture to buy them a small baby gift. I thought baby clothes of some kind would be an easy to buy gift for a soon to be new born boy. I located a nearby store which seemed to sell “things for babies”m but it was rather unclear from their Facebook page (of course they don’t have an actual website) if they only sold things like strollers and bottle sanitizers or if they actually sold other things like baby clothes. I’d find out soon enough.

I asked the front desk of the hotel to call a taxi for me. Once upon a time it was necessary to learn left, right, go straight in the local language so you could give a Taxi driver directions when needed. These days Taxi’s the world over are accustomed to having smart phones with Google Maps brought up shoved in their faces. I remember not long ago when handed a smart phone taxi drivers stumbled and have no idea how swiping and zooming worked, but now, they’re all pros. However, I didn’t even need to do that here.

The taxi arrived and I asked the doorman, who spoke perfect English, to explain to the taxi driver that I needed to first go to this baby store and then needed to be driven to the fancy restaurant at the far end of town where I was treating my friend and his wife for dinner.

Taxi drivers here don’t speak a lot of English because frankly there are not a lot of tourists. However when pressed all 5 taxis I took this weekend including this one, spoke at least a little they were just very shy about making use of it. Which is to say all the drivers new more than enough that I could have communicated these “two stop” instructions to them myself without a word of Indonesian if I needed to, but sometimes it’s just a lot more expedient to let the locals translate.

A few minutes later we successfully arrived at the Hompila Baby Store in Malang about 1.5km from my hotel. I told him in awful Indonesian “Saya segera” (“I’ll be quick”) and he said something that sounded like gibberish but I clearly understood to me “I understand, I’ll wait right here”.

Baby shopping in Malang, Indonesia

I walked into the baby store, exactly like I have at hundereds of other times around the world. I looked around briefly hoping to spot exactl what I wanted, but in hurry I didn’t waste much time before I found a sales clerk (which is easy since stores have about 10x the staff that American stores do and they’re all eager to help).

In extremely clumsy fashion the first thing out said to the clerk “Anda bisa bicara bahasa inggris”. As you can guess, that’s “Do you speak English” in Bahasa Indonesian. I try to _assume_ the people I’m speak with don’t speak English. I don’t know why, but I feel a bit weird just assuming they do. Now, I tried but it probably sounded totally wrong because she cocked her head, winced a but and looked at me. Never a good sign, but she was trying to understand me. I simplified things by simple saying “English?”, with a raised eyebrow and a smile. At which point she clearly understood as she giggled, then guided me hastily over to a young male clerk at the cash register who asked “Yes sir, please how can I help you?”.

The clerk helped me quickly find the baby socks I wanted. They were upstairs among sea of pink things. I didn’t even realize it had an upstairs when I first started looking. I found some cute brown ones with monkeys and some yellow ones with little giraffes on them. The same clerk guided me back down stairs and helped me checkout and then helped me get it wrapped up in a gift bag. Outside the taxi was waiting outside ready to get me to dinner on-time. Mission accomplished.

Is Malang off the tourist trail?

Malang is a big-ish city with a University, so it’s far from rural, but it’s not really a foreign tourist destination. As I sit right now in the Abdul Rachman (MLG) airport looking around at the 300 people in the gate area and I’m pretty sure I’m the only caucasian person here. I’m sure there are a few other foreigners but I can’t spot them.

Malang is not a metropolis, however it is a proper city with a university and a large regional hospital. It’s unsurprising that there are people here that speak English. However it’s my belief that it’s really not that, because I see this everywhere. It’s my belief that the main reason that it is nearly impossible to find anyone under 30 that doesn’t speak passable English anymore is simply this: internet.  

English is the predominant language on the Internet

Even if the internet uses all languages, and legions of people work tirelessly to translate it into the many languages of the world, much of the internet starts in and remains only in English.

Yes, many people around the world actively learn English because it’s the lingua franca of tourists everywhere (someday I’ll write about the fact all tourists everywhere from France to China speak to staff in hotels and restaurants in English, as well as to each other in English). Hospitality staff learning English though isn’t why it’s so hard to find yourself somewhere without an english speaker at hand. That’s one thing, but what doesn’t get talked about is that kids today learning English to play video games and to chat with other friends that don’t speaker their language.

Ok, sum up the two reasons:

  1. It is really hard when traveling anymore to come across someone that doesn’t speak English and at the same time to have no one near-by ready and willing to help translate that does.
  2. If you do manage to find that mythical place without English speakers, a few hand gestures and maybe a smart phone are likely all you need to get anywhere or anything you desire.

If you’re really adventurous…  go ahead and wait at the curb for a local bus to come by, carefully make sure there are no school aged kids on the bus…  then hop and and ride it a long long way…  When it stops, maybe, on only maybe, you’ll be in that magical place without an english speaker within earshot. However, don’t be surprised if you’re still not there.

Filed Under: Journal, Travel, Uncategorized

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