Thailand

Thailand was great! The biggest thing I noticed was that everything was SO CLEAN! I was happy. We flew from Bangladesh to Chiang Mai and stayed there for a few days (this was a couple of weeks ago). While we were there John took me to see an elephant camp near Chiang Mai, which was quite entertaining. The only other time I had seen an elephant in real life was in a zoo. We got to feed them and pet them. They gave a little show for us where they played harmonicas, played soccor, and painted! I never knew elephants were so friendly, gentle and smart.

We went to church on Sunday and that night took a sleeper train down to Bangkok. After spending a day there, we took another night train to the city of Chumporn, and from there we took a boat to the island of Koh Tao. Koh Tao was amazing!! It was the first tropical island I have ever been to. It was beautiful and so peaceful and relaxing. Once we got there I noticed how funny it was that I went from being the most immodest woman in Bangladesh to the most modest woman in Koh Tao. We spent a couple of days there relaxing on the beach. I couldn’t believe how crystal clear the water was. The white sand and the bright blue water was so nice, I thought I was dreaming. The morning of our last day there John went scuba diving and I stayed back and got a Thai foot massage on the beach which was like, the best thing ever. When he came back we rode a boat over to a smaller island to go snorkeling. It was awesome to see choral and tropical fish so clearly in the water! I was a bit afraid of the fishes, especially after a few of them took a nibble at me, but I’m glad I did it! Next time I will hopefully be more adventurous and swim further away from the beach. We were only able to stay on Koh Tao for a few days, unfortunately. But it was good that we didn’t stay too long becuase the only thing to do there is relax and be lazy. I think it is quite an enchanting place.

Anyway, after leaving the island we went back to Chumporn, rode the night train (for the last time, thank heavens!) back to Bangkok, and hung out there for a few days before finally heading back to Hanoi. The predominant religion in Thailand is Buddhism, and I saw a lot of Buddhist temples there. Too many to talk about but you can see some pictures. They were all very ornate and beautiful!

Thailand was great. I’m glad I went there. I think I could live there and feel like I wasn’t too far away from home.

Here are the pictures from our Malaysia/Bangladesh/Thailand trip. Hope you like them!

Bangladesh

John has been really funny about telling me important information about a place after it is too late. For example, he told me while in Malaysia that it is often on the “do not travel to” list for the US. He also didn’t tell me that Dhaka is the most densly populated city in the World, and that tourists (let alone white tourists) never visit Bangladesh. He was right! There was not a single time in Bangladesh when I couldn’t see people. And I think we were the ONLY Americans in the entire country! (As a disclaimer to John, he supposedly told me all of these things before we left, but that I was too distressed with wedding and dissertation stuff listen!)

My feelings about Bangladesh are rather mixed! I am really glad that I went, but I don’t know if I would want to go back. We were only there for about 9 days, so maybe if we had stayed a little longer, I would like it more. I don’t know. The first two days we were in Dhaka and I was so miserable! There were so many people everywhere, and it took a long time to get anywhere whether we were walking or in a vehicle. Everything was dirty and unsanitary, and the streets were lined with trash! It seemed like the cleanest places were still dirtier than the dirtiest places I have seen in the US.

But I think the real shocker for me was all of the poverty that I saw! I have never seen poverty like I saw in Bangladesh. I saw so many young children walking the streets begging for money, malnourished babies and mothers, people with serious physical disabilities begging for money. I saw people going to the bathroom on the streets, and people sitting on the dirty streets selling food out of dirty baskets. I also saw chickens and fish being slaughtered right in front of me on the street. And mangey dogs roaming around everywhere. I saw children and babies running around naked with no shoes or with only a dirty pair of shorts on (even the girls). I didn’t see any babies wearing diapers, I have no idea how they are cleaned up! The smell was so bad and that combined with the food made me sick to my stomach. When we walked around on the muddy streets I couldn’t stop thinking about all the human and animal crap I was was probably stepping in! I saw rows and rows of houses made of loose bricks and tin roofs, and I saw lots of people sleeping under tarps on the street.

Dealing with the beggars was difficult for me. First of all, they were really annoying. But I felt so sorry for them! They would tap on the car window until we gave them something or drove away. If we ran into them on the street, they would follow us and tap us on the arm until we got inside a car or walked too far away. John did not want to give them money, because it would be supporting the system. I guess a lot of people make a living out of begging and force their children to do it also. Even some people deform themselves or their children to get more money! And if a child beggar doesn’t bring home enough money at the end of the day, he will get beat. But if you give him money, you are supporting the system. This was shocking to me! I felt like I was inside the movie Slumdog Millionaire. After we left the capitol city it was much nicer for me. Still crowded and dirty, but not as bad.

But even though it was tough I learned a few important things. It made me grateful for all of the luxuries I have back home, such as a house made of sturdy materials, clean air, clean food, clean water, clean bathroom (with a toilet included), air conditioning, internet, phone, education, days off, SPACE, and having options (my friend Sara pointed this one out to me). But by the end of the week (after I had slightly gotten over the shock of how bad it was there) I thought about all of the necessities in my life that aren’t really necessary. It made me wonder if I have been wasting my life because I have been absorbing all the benefits of living a wealthy life but not giving anything back to the world. Basically it just made me think about what I should really be doing with my life! So many things that are important to me shouldn’t be so important. There are only a few things that really matter and I should be doing my best to help those who don’t have them.

Here is an overview of what we did, incase you are interested.

We stayed with John’s friend Muhsin from Emory while in Dhaka. Before we got there John told me that Muhsin lives in a poor neighborhood but his house is nice. But when we arrived I realized that John’s standard of nice is MUCH different than mine! Muhsin is in his 40’s and never married. Seven of his brothers and sisters plus one of their spouses all live in his three bedroom aparment! Luckily they rearranged themselves so that John and I could have a bed. The electricity was out for much of the time and it was soooo hot! I wanted to sleep with no pj’s on, but these strange men kept walking through our bedroom to use the bathroom, which by the way was dirty and gross. Actually the whole house was not that clean. And there were cockroaches. But at least Muhsin’s sisters were nice to us and made us some food (a LOT of food actually, that I could barely stomach). Anyway, Muhsin didn’t arrive at his house until 10:30 that night, which meant that we were hanging out with his brothers and sisters who don’t speak English for like three hours (in the dark)!

The next day Muhsin had one of his friends take us around town. We rode around in a little green taxi thing called a CNG which stands for “converted natural gas”. It had no doors and no seat belts! But that wasn’t as bad as the Rickshaws, which were carts pulled by bicycles. Those were scary, because I constantly felt like I was about to fall out.

The next day we rode a nice bus (I think John would have taken the crappy cheap bus if it weren’t for me) to Chittigong. It was nice to drive through the rice fields on our way there. Lots of cows and goats and children wandering around. The next morning we took the same bus to Cox’s Bazar, which is kind of like Bear Lake, but on the ocean. Cox’s Bazar is the longest sea beach in the world. The funniest thing I saw in Bangladesh was all the people swimming in the ocean with their clothes on! The women even did not take off their scarves to swim! John said they do that because it is such a conservative country.

The next day after visiting Cox’s Bazar we hired a driver to come pick us up and drive us to Bonderbon. There were only crappy busses that went to Bonderbon, and it was cheap to hire a car. Bonderbon was a nice little town in the mountains. It was sooo beautiful! I couldn’t believe that I was still in Bangladesh. I was so happy to be there. We stayed at a lodge there and Muhsin and John’s other Bangali friend Mawa were already there to meet us. (Although they didn’t spend much time with us while we were there! We later concluded that they must have been on a secret romantic get-away.)

The next morning we found a guide to take us on a trek through the jungle mountain area to see some of the indiginous tribes. That was my favorite part of our visit to Bangladesh. It was really cool to see them, and the scenery was so beautiful! Most of the tribal people live in bamboo huts with dirt floors. I thought they had much better living conditions than the poor people in the City even though they had even less money. At least they got to live in the peace and quiet of the jungle mountains! Luckily our guide knew how to communicate with them and he translated for us. They were all really nice to us. Many of the tribal women still wear their traditional patterned dresses. On that hike he also took us to a neat water fall that had a swimming hole. We just got in with our clothes on, because we were so hot that it didn’t matter! On the way back to our camp the guide pointed out his house and John of course asked if we could go visit his family. He was a young guy and had a wife and baby who we met. They had one of the nicest houses we saw, with a tin roof instead of a thatched roof. I think his family was well off because he had a steady job at the lodge where we were staying. He told us that he works seven days a week and makes $50 a month.

After visiting his house, the guide told us that he knew a shortcut through the jungle back to our camp. We agreed, and ended up bushwacking our way through the JUNGLE to get back! We had to climb through and over bushes and trees and all sorts of scratchy plants! And I don’t think it was any faster, either. The clothes I was wearing that day are totally ruined! John and I also got a few leeches on our feet while doing that. I’d never had leeches before, and I didn’t know that you bleed when you take them off!

After leaving Bonderbon we went back to Chittigong where we met up with a guy we had met on the bus a few days earlier. He was also a foreigner, but he was half Bangali and half Japanese. His father’s village was near Chittigong and he offered to take us there. It was really really beautiful and green everywhere! People were working in the rice fields and kids and goats were running around. It was quite a nice trip. This guy was a better host to us than our Bangali friends, telling us all kinds of interesting things and showing us around, and getting us a cheap hotel deal. And he could hardly speak the language!

We eventually made it back to Dhaka the night before our flight out of there. We visited Muhsin’s family one last time, and one of his sisters gave me a cool henna tatoo on my hand. I experienced my only moment of sadness for leaving the country as we got in the taxi to go to our hotel that night. All the people out in the street gathered around our car just to stare at us, and we said good-bye and they said bood-bye back to us, and all the children were shouting and waiving. It was kind of sad!

Here are some additional interesting observations about Bangladesh:

It is also a Muslim country, but MUCH more conservative than Malaysia. Many of the women cover their heads, and many wear burqas. Some of the burqas are all black, and some ladies wear colorful ones. I heard that once a woman decides to start covering her head or wearing a burqa, she can never go back.

The women all wear the traditional Bangali dress (which is the same sari and salwar kameez they wear in India). The only women I saw wearing western clothes were the foreigners and there weren’t very many of them.

All of the Bengali people we met were insulted that we thought 9 days was a long enough visit to their country!

The men and older boys (especially in the rural areas) wear lungis, or cotton skirts that wrap around their wastes. Probably cheaper than buying pants.

I was the most immodest woman in the country!

Even though it was soooo crowded, there were not very many women outside, especially at night. I would say one person in every 50 was a woman.

Whenever Bengali men talked to eachother or to us, it sounded like they were yelling.

Whenever we ate at a restaurant at least one waitor would stand right next to our table watching us the entire time!

Whenever we stopped walking, a crowd of people gathered around us.

Everywhere we went people stared at us like they’d never seen a white person before in their life.

We received special treatment wherever we went, maybe because we are white? I don’t know. I felt like a celebrity. And now I know that I am SO glad that I'm not a celebrity!

Many of the Bengali girls had short hair just like the boys. I thought this might be to keep them from getting lice or something.

When we visited the tribal areas, many of the tribal women didn’t cover up on top, which was surprising to see in a Muslim country.

Despite their poverty, the naked and half-clothed kids running around seemed to be enjoying their lives.

When going through immigration, I had to state on my form my father or husband’s name, but John did not.

It seemed that Bengali women are very shy and timid compared to the men, who seem to be pretty outgoing and arrogant.

Sometimes men would stop us on the street to say, “What is your country?” They would seem pleased to hear that we were from the US, and some of them said, “Ah, yes. Obama! Good man!”

Malaysia

The city of Kuching in the state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo.

This was my first visit to a Muslim country! I did not know that before I arrived. In the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia I saw for the first time in my life women wearing burqas! Of course I knew about them, but I thought only women in Afghanistan and Pakistan wore them. I guess Muslim women outside those countries have the option of wearing burqas. Others choose to just cover their heads, and others choose to not cover their heads. I don’t know how much of it is actually the sole choice of the woman. But also in Malaysia there are Chinese people living there who are not Muslim (mostly Buddhists) and some native people who have their own religion. So not all of the women were covered up.

When we jumped into the taxi at the airport, a funny thing happened! The car started moving and there was no one in the drivers seat! After a few seconds of thinking, “is this some sort of robot car that drives itself?” I looked over and saw the driver and the steering wheel on the right side of the car.

Anyway, Malaysia is much more developed than Vietnam. It is also much more expensive to stay there, which is why we were only there for two nights.

Another first for me on this trip was being so close to the equator! It was really hot there. First thing on Tuesday morning we woke up and took a van-bus from our hostel to visit a nearby wildlife refuge where wild Orangutans go to eat in the mornings. It was my first time seeing Orangutans in real life! This was I think one of John’s most favorite parts of our trip.

Next we took a bus to Bako Park, another one of the many nature reserves in Sarawak. Bako was only accessible by boat so we rode out there on a little rackidy motor boat and decided to go on a shorter hike because we didn’t have much time. It was right around noon time when we were starting out, and couple of the park rangers we talked to told us that we probably wouldn’t want to go on that hike because most of it was in the sun and it was really really hot. They told us that if we did decide to go we would need to bring three of those big 1.5 liters of water with us. So we decided to do it, and they were so right! I almost died I was so hot! It was definitely the hottest I had ever been in my life. It was at least100 degrees, and (the park ranger said) 100% humidity. In the sun!!!! I still can’t believe I did it. Anyway, after an hour and a half we finally made it to the end of the trail I was so delighted to find a beautiful sandy beach!! I was so happy. Then we discovered that motor boat taxis were giving people rides from the main park entrance directly to the beach. I couldn’t believe it!!!!! Anyway, at least we got to ride a boat back instead of hiking all the way.

And the best part of this story is that we didn’t have sunscreen with us. We were both bright red by the time we got back to our hostel that night. But surprisingly the sunburns didn’t last too long. Maybe because we were at sea level, and further away from the sun? I don’t know! Normally my sunburn would have lasted for days. Hmm.

The driver of our boat taking us back toward Kuching was a villager who lived along the banks of the river we were riding through. He told us that recently one man and a 3-year-old child were eaten by a crocodile and the village had to get a permit from the government to kill the crocodile! Crocodiles are protected animals in Malaysia.

Also while at Bako we saw lots of monkeys of different sizes. Some of them were mean and tried to steal things from people.

I will post some more pictures soon! The people in Malaysia were really friendly and most of them spoke English at least a little. It was a nice stay!

Pictures

Here are some pictures of our first week in Asia. Tomorrow morning we are heading to Malaysia for a few days, and then to Bangladesh for one week and to Thailand for one week. I don't know when I will have the internet again so I will give you some pictures of what we've done so far! Thanks for reading!

Pictures here.