First, a confession: my blog posts have recently become less focused on writing and more focused on photos, for the simple reason that it’s easier for me to edit and post photos than it is to write, which takes a lot of mental energy. In short, I’m tired. As you might have guessed from the title of this post, my travels in Asia are coming to an end and I will be heading back to America soon. After nearly two years on the road, the burdens and hassles of constantly moving have finally gotten to me and I don’t have the energy to be a tourist anymore. As a result, I don’t have many photos for this post and not much willpower to write a lot either. Expect some abridged stories from here on out.
Thailand
Ayu and I flew from Hanoi to Bangkok, picked up the blue duffel bag of souvenirs and gifts we had left in the airport, killed time for the rest of the day, and flew to Chiang Mai in the evening. We had really wanted to take the bus or train for the experience, but everything was sold out since Songkran was just around the corner. We spent two fun weeks in Chiang Mai, enjoying the four days of water fights of Songkran and lots of cheap Thai food and massages. As with last year, I didn’t dare take my camera out for fear of it getting water-damaged, but if you search YouTube, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what we were up to.
During our stay in Chiang Mai, we also went to Pai, a “chill, counter-culture, hippie mountain town”, to paraphrase the common sentiment echoed among Southeast Asia backpackers. My advice: don’t go to Pai. It’s overrun with the same types of people you’d find on Khao San Road in Bangkok, the tourist sites aren’t that great, and it’s a long, quasi-nauseous minivan ride to get there from Chiang Mai. Our 48-hour trip was, at best, completely forgettable; at worst, we wasted two days of our lives.
After Chiang Mai, we flew to Phuket, met up with another friend from America, and took a boat to Koh Phi-Phi, where we had four days of cloudy, but still awesome, beach and island time. I came down with tummy issues for the first time in about fifteen months, so I gave myself a small pat on the back for that. For about a day, I stayed within sprinting distance of the toilet and popped Pepto pills, activated charcoal, and antibiotics like candy.
We took a boat back to Phuket and spent three days on Surin Beach, a quiet beach far from the rowdiness of Patong, to savor our last few days in Thailand. There was lots of Thai food, sunsets, and bittersweet nostalgia (especially for me) before moving on to Indonesia.
Bali
We flew from Phuket to Bali by way of Singapore and once we landed, I left for Ubud for a few days while the girls went to Canggu. I thought Ubud would be a great place for me to be productive with a number of laptop tasks I had, but it turned out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ll explain.
It wasn’t anything in particular, but rather the classic “death by a thousand cuts”. I had to walk around town in the heat for an hour to find a new power adapter because mine didn’t fit in those stupid circular outlets. Every WiFi connection I tried was unreliable. My guesthouse room had one of those stupid one-handed showers and daily power outages. The local coworking space was full at 10:00 in the morning and charging $20 a day, as if this was San Francisco. The streets were a constant stream of motorbikes and noise, as usual, and the road construction in front of my guesthouse caused more congestion and air pollution than normal. The sidewalks were full of slow-moving, day-tripping tourists. About once a minute, a tout somewhere asked me if I needed a ride. And those little fucking ants that you find everywhere in Bali got into my Toblerone bar.
Seriously, I lost my shit after that. Those little fuckers.
I suddenly felt homesick and tired. Very tired. Really, really tired of everything and everyone around me. Tired of dealing with third-world bullshit. Tired of constantly dealing with logistics. Tired of packing and unpacking my stuff. Dare I say it, but I became very tired of traveling.
Before arriving in Ubud, I was hoping that it would be a familiar home away from home, like Chiang Mai. And while it did feel familiar, it also felt weird and distant, like I was in a place that I should have left in my past and not returned to. On my first full day there, I called Ayu after I ordered lunch and all I could tell her on the phone was: “I’m tired and I want to go home. I’m thinking of leaving tomorrow.” We talked for a bit and after we hung up, I sat by myself in the restaurant, ate my food, and cried.
I remember talking to a friend last summer about his Southeast Asia backpacking adventure and he told me about how and when and where he hit his breaking point. For him, it was Cambodia; he had a bad day, flipped a (metaphorical) table, and bought a plane ticket home. For me, it was Ubud that broke my spirit. I realize that it isn’t fair to Ubud or Indonesia to say that since it could have happened anywhere, but that’s where it happened to me. I’m convinced every long-term traveler will reach his or her breaking point eventually and that happened to me after 638 days on the road.
After a lazy, unproductive day (to minimize the chances of something else annoying me) and another night of sleep, I was able to shake off most of my freak-out. No, I didn’t go home the next day as I threatened, but I did feel very checked out. I started to let others make most of the travel arrangements and my camera rarely left its home in my daypack. The only photo I took during my time in Ubud was of my (admittedly phenomenal) view of the neighboring rice paddy. Sadly, that view was the only thing keeping me sane; I especially enjoyed it when a thunderstorm rolled through and I could watch the rain and lightning from the comfort of my patio.
I left Ubud a few days later and met up with the girls on Nusa Lembongan, a small island to the east of Bali, appropriately described by some as how Bali was decades ago. We had six really lovely, relaxed days on the island: two snorkeling trips, lots of swimming in our hotel’s excellent pool, multiple movie nights at the open-air cinema/restaurant down the road, multiple meals of the biggest and best nasi campur I’ve ever had in my life, and lots of sunsets and sundowners.
Nusa Lembongan single-handedly restored my faith in Bali, especially considering my disillusionment with the popular parts of Bali that are overcrowded and overdeveloped. I owe Ayu a million thanks for taking us there.
And speaking of said overdeveloped parts, I spent my last few days on the island in Seminyak, enjoying Indonesian food, some shopping, and a three-hour treatment at a local spa. For better or worse, that’s how I wrapped up my time in Southeast Asia. (For now.)
Hopefully I’ll feel refreshed and energized enough in the coming weeks to write a separate blog post that summarizes the last year of my travels. This post feels too informative (and a bit too depressing) to serve as the final chapter, so I’ll make an effort to write that chapter separately in the near future.