And so it begins

A friend told me I should start a blog to keep her and everyone else up to date during my travels. I at first thought “no way!”. The reason I am not doing the internship in Indonesia is because I didn’t really want to be on social media a bunch and stuck to my phone. But after thinking about it for a bit, I started to really like the idea of sharing my experiences, I journal when I’m abroad anyway, and now, everyone who is interested, can see it. It’ll also be a great way for me to make sure I am staying “in contact” and updating everyone on my life happenings (since I’m really bad at that).

So….here it is. No judgement.

For those of you who have heard any of my traveling stories thus far, you will know that they can be pretty interesting to say the least *cough cough China*. And this journey has started out quite the same. I am currently at the airport beginning my journey, and move, to Indonesia. What am I doing there you might ask? I have absolutely no idea. I made the decision to move across the world about a month ago, without a terrible amount of thought, and I’m really not mad about it. What I do know is that the diving is incredible there, so I will be doing a lot of that! I even went through the trouble of bubble wrapping my new 3 foot long free diving fins and taking them as my carry on. So far it hasn’t been an issue…but I am still in Oahu. As for the craziness of the trip already, I tried to be as proactive as possible -it’s hard when you only have a month- and I’m a really good procrastinator (So good that I got a 3 hour nap before heading off to my flight). I took a trip to California that had already been planned and decided to get my visa while I was in LA rather than having to go to Singapore or Malaysia once I got to Indonesia. My support letter had not come in time for me to get my visa then and there so I ended up having to mail it in and then they would mail it back to Maui. Now, Amazon Prime doesn’t even work like it should in Maui but I thought ‘hey I have two weeks and they say processing takes 4 days’. Silly me. It was Monday morning, my flight was 6 am Tuesday, and I still did not have a visa, and of course my passport was with it. I started thinking about all the different options I had. All of them included needing to buy a brand new flight with no refund for the other one. Luckily, 20 hours before I needed to leave, it showed up! For the rest of the day I ran around like crazy, because I was convinced I wasn’t leaving on time and of course, procrastination. 

So, at 4 am (thank you Joe for being an angel and taking me to the airport and sharing your room with my homeless, jobless, and car-less self) I began my journey across the world. My flight was $500. You’re probably thinking ‘Wow what a deal!’ and so was I, but there were a few catches. For starters, that cheap flight meant that it was going to take me 49 hours to get there. Luckily, 21 of those hours was a layover in Bangkok, where I am writing this now. The next catch was that I could not bring any checked bags and without the option to even pay for them. What? Have you ever heard of that? Me neither. Bet you haven’t heard of Scoot airlines either. So when I got to each airport, I had no option but to pay for my checked bag EVERY SINGLE LEG of my trip. I had 4 legs. So my really cheap flight turned into a normal priced flight without all the amenities of normal flights; like complimentary blankets, movie screens, and snacks. 

I arrived in Bangkok at 10 pm last night and headed to a hostel where a shower and bed was much needed. I totally slept all 15 hours on the plane too but it’s just not the same. I immediately got ripped off for the taxi but my brain didn’t want to fight it I guess so I just paid it to get to the hostel. I paid 600 baht for a taxi, which comes out to be about $20, which doesn’t seem so bad, except my hostel only cost me 300 baht. On this side of the world, everything is negotiable and I really need to work on my non-existent bartering skills and since I’m a white female, I’m sure it happens way more. From here on out, no more! I am dubbing you readers as my accountability partners, so thank you for being voluntold. 

After an okay nights sleep, I decided to roam around the streets and check things out. I am not in the heart of Bangkok so there isn’t a ton to see but I would rather not do touristy things anyway and check out the actual lives of the Thai people. Except, I am white and have blue hair…no blending in here. I left the hostel in shorts and only lasted 10 minutes before I decided I should go back and put pants on. I would get enough stares with pants as it was. I walked around for 6 miles, came across a beautiful temple, a nice little park, had some Thai tea (were you really in Thailand if you didn’t have Thai tea?), and a local outdoor market where I got some much needed fresh fruit. My tummy is already mad at me for eating starchy, carb-filled food. It is also incredibly humid here. I thought I would be used to it since Hawaii is humid but this is so much worse; 90 degrees with 90% humidity. I will either be showering a ton or just giving up and not showering at all because I’m just going to get sweaty again. To be determined. 

I am hanging out in the hostel until my flight where I will reach my final destination of Bali! Well final destination for now. That is not where I will be living but I will be around that area for a little while, checking things out.