South East Asia Trip Part 3

As a way to start off the New Year on the right foot I have decided to finally send a very summarized conclusion to my Asia trip report (since it is now over 3 months late) and to update everyone on my life in New York.

So, for those of you that have been wondering; yes, I am still alive and have actually been back in the US since the end of September. In my previous trip report I had left off with my arrival to Laos. Unfortunately, I only stayed in Laos briefly because of the continuous torrential downpours (I guess they call it the rainy season for a reason). But I at least had a couple of days with reasonable weather in a really nice town up north called Luang Prabang as well as in the south at a series of islands in the Mekong river called Si Fan Don.

From Laos it was back to Thailand, this time to visit the south of the country and to get some sun and relaxation. I started on the East Coast of the country at Ko Pha Ngan island where I stayed in an incredible bungalow overlooking the sea. It's amazing what you can get for $5/night in some of these places. After a few nights at Ko Pha Ngan I headed over to the west coast to the island of Ko Phi Phi, an island that had been devastated during the tsunami. Coincidentally, this is the same island where The Beach was filmed. Anyways, my goal at Ko Phi Phi was to volunteer with the reef cleanup after the Tsunami, but unfortunately they stopped using SCUBA divers for that the week before I arrived so I ended up just enjoying some more sun and relaxation.

After Ko Phi Phi I spent a day in Krabi and then left for a 20 hour trip via 3 buses, two trains and a van ride to Northern Malaysia. This was one of the more exciting trips as there had been a surge in terrorist activity in Southern Thailand so there was a lot of armed military personnel everyone on the trains and other places. I also was the only non-Thai person on virtually all of the legs of the journey.

In Malaysia I went directly to the Perhentian islands to enjoy even more sun and most importantly SCUBA Diving. I also figured I'd be productive and in addition to just doing some fun dives I'd take a class so I signed up for a 3 day Rescue Diver course. The Perhentian's were great both above and below the water with a laid back atmosphere and some really fun people. Upon leaving the Perhentian's I went to the Cameron Highlands, the Taman Negara rainforest (the oldest in the world), and finally Kuala Lumpur.

From Malaysia I took a flight to Macau where I spent one day wandering around the former Portuguese colony. From there I took the Hydrofoil to Hong Kong which I also briefly explored for a few days. Finally from Hong-Kong it was off to Mainland China for the final part of my trip.

I arrived to Xi-an China and spent a few days in this city, although the main purpose of my visit there was to see the Terracotta Army, a group of more than 8,000 life size soldiers built out of clay that were buried with emperor Qin in 210 BC. The most amazing part of the army is that every single soldier is distinct with unique facial features and expressions.

After Xi-an it was off to Beijing where I spent several days exploring the ancient sites including the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Tiananman Square, and most impressive of all the Great Wall. The final stop on the trip was Shanghai where in addition to seeing the city I got to hang out with my friend Hillary who has been working there as a teacher for the past year.

Anyways, I hope this summary wasn't too boring but I have heard from a lot of people asking what happened to my trip updates so I figured I might as well conclude them. Also, if you are interested I picked some of the better photos from my trip and posted them on line so feel free to take a look at them at:

http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2118707181

After returning from Asia I had about a month to get readapted to the real world and moved into my new apartment in New York before starting my new job with a big management consulting company. So far everything is going great. I love my apartment as it's in the middle of Greenwich Village, one of the most happening parts of town, and the job is also good although sometimes it involves some fairly excessive hours.