Ko Tao

Rai Ley

Railey has the most amazing scenery that I have ever witness. The cliffs that surround the beaches give an incredibly feeling of seclusion. great rock climbing and sunset bars with happy hours. It was great to relax and sit on the beaching doing nothing but drinking....

Ko Phi Phi

Spent 3 days in Ko Phi Phi Leh and Don. Nothing short of its reputation after they filmed the movie of The Beach in these amazing islands. Every bay we visited was even more jaw dropping than the other. It is true paradise at very convenient price... Will be back for sure

Ko Samuy

Phuket

Chiang Mai

Arriving to Chang Mai from Cambodia was a very long and rough trip since not only for the distance, but also because Cambodia does not have paved roads from Si em Reap to Thailand....

In Chang Mai, I spent an approximate of 5 days. The first 2 days I relaxed around the city, and explored many of the hundred of temples that are standing on on the town. Later I went on a 3 day trip in the jungle were I had the chance to explore some great waterfalls, indigenous villages like the long neck tribe and the long ear, as well as doing some white water rafting and elephant trekking.

Here I ran into Julio, a friend from Venezuela who is here for 4 months on a University exchange program, so we decided to travel together.

Overall this was a relaxing and fun experience.

Angkor Wat

The temples of Angkor Wat are truly the most amazing archaeological site I have ever come across during all my travels in my life. Been one of the seven wonders of the world, this complex of more than 100 cities and temples are an imposing evidence of what the Kamer empire achieved over one thousand years ago. Not much to say about Si em Reap, the closest city where we spent our nights. However, about the temples, my pictures and memories will have to speak for it self.

I can now understand why even after the horrible atrocities commited by the Kamer Rouge, and the huge genocide of culture and population that occured only 8 years ago, they are still so proud to descent from the Kamer empire. It is clear that the Cambodian empire was the greatest civilization in all the South East Asia, and even possibly in all Asia.

Penom Peh

Spent 3 days in Cambodia's capital. Even coming from Vietnam, as soon as we entered into the country the change is notable. Cambodia is a land of contrast, and the nation's capital is the best place to witness this contrasts. I felt like a middle ground does not exist in this sad but incredibly beautiful place. One moment you see the Genocide monument which will sadden your heart just to even read the Kamer Rouge atrocities, next minute you find yourself at the royal palace, which is an incredible site. One moment you see a Ferrari and luxury cars roll by and next to it is an incredibly poor and unequal population rounding the street. People go from incredibly nice and beautiful to incredibly rude and ugly. It is just amazing to see what covering a country in mines will do to a population since you see in every corner a kid, mad or women missing a Body part.

This is what sums this city for me, a big contradiction, and an even bigger contrast in every experience. It was a great time, and a horrible time to spend some time here....

Saigon

Spent 3 days in Saigon with Tim and Nathan. Although a much bigger city than Hanoi, I found Saigon to be much more quiet and peaceful during the day. It was quite impressive during the rush hour to see and endless sea of motorbikes. It was also incredible to walk down the main shopping boulevard and see one side of the road the real Ferragamo or Gucci store and directly on the opposite side a Small shop selling their knock up products for high end brands. I think this is what sums to be Saigon, a city that although it is greatly organized and civil, it still cannot escape the economical history of Vietnam. On a side note we had some awesome times during the night partying in the sin capital of the nation.

Sapa

Sapa was a most needed break from the hot weather. It is a very small group of villages near the border with China in North Vietnam, were indigenous Vietnamese tribes live. Because the towns are located very remotely on the mountains, we got to enjoy a very different sight of the typical SE, and get a break from the continuous heat sweats. Getting there was a Darjeeling Limited experience as we took an overnight nine hour sleeper train. The train was very fun since the 4 of us that travelled together got a room for ourselves. On the train we got drink a lot and have a good laugh before the siesta. We arrived to Lao Cao at 5 am were we had to hire a 2 hour van up the mountains to Sapa.
In Sapa the "You buy from me" indigenous although very ugly physically, they seemed very similar to the Nepalese, were also very docile and friendly. We made a good laugh out of their harassment to tourist and got to smile and joke with them during the day. During our hikes around the villages and mountains we discovered some amazing places were we enjoyed some great swim and jumps in the freezing river.
On the second day we rented some motor bikes and along Nam our hired "tour guide" for the day got to explore many of the villages of the different indigenous and see some amazing sights. Overall we all loved the experience and were greatly happy we ventured to this remote place.

Halong Bay

Took a 3 day/2 night tour to Halong Bay. One of my favorite experiences so far in this trip, although I feel like I say this every time I go to a new place. Halong Bay was a like an extreme tour were party and sport activities took both of my day. From Halong City, about 25 people of my age travelled in a boat all with a party attitude. After taking a 3 hour trip around the infinite number of Islands in the bay, we did some kayak exploration of some caves, along with plenty of drinking. After the cave exploration and swimming with the annoying Jelly Fish we departed to a new location of a different group of Islands were we ducked for the night. It was a pretty rough night since we went to bed at 4 am and got woken up at 7 am. On the second day me along with a small group of people sign up for rock climbing so we took on a different boat to a separate Island were we did the first set of climbing for the day. During the second part of the day in a different island we got really challenged by some impossible climbs that non of us could accomplish although I got to make it pretty close to the top. The instructors all told us that the second part of the day would be very hard, but despite all I had the most amazing time trying to accomplish the climbs. By the end of the day we arrived to Cat Bah island were we spend the night drinking at a secluded beach.
On my arrival to Hanoi from Halong Bay, surprisingly I meet A Venezuelan girl who happened to be the step sister of a friend of mine, so she decided to tag alone and travel with me and the group of friends that have been together for the last week.

Hanoi, Vietnam

After things turning a bit bitter in Tailand due to a political crisis, I decided to change my route and head to Vietnam. Arriving to the capital was a very long trip since I had to travel from Langkawi to KL airport with out any stops. As I write this in my last evening in Hanoi there is so much I would like to tell, and still not cover anything about this city.
Vietnam has been most overwhelming and unexpected surprise. It is so difficult to describe such a complex culture and place that has struggled over the past 1000 years for independence. Hanoi is like a chaos submerged in an incredibly organized and "civilized" place. Still, what has impressed me the most in the past 3 days has been the people. As most westerns, I came with a negative imagine of the Vietnamese people due to the American movies about the war. They have shown me to be the most polite, warm and friendly people in the SE Asia.
As capitalism seems to devour the mind set of the people I have still encountered the expected residuals of such a brutal and strict communist system in some of their lifestyle. As an example, they have added many odd animals to their daily diets such as dog, cat and snake, even though they enjoy of the most rich exquisite cuisine in SE Asia.
Among the many interest cites here, my favorites have been the Hanoi "Hilton" were Senator John Mccain was tortured during the war, the War Museum and the Mausoleum of their adored "uncle Ho" Ho Chi Mighn were they actually have his body on display.

Pulau Langkawi & Pulau Payar

So far the most relaxed place I have ever been to. I spent a total of 4 days in this incredibly green archipelago that is conformed by 99 islands with some amazing geological formations and white sandy beaches. The place was so chilled that coming only with the intention of spending 2 days I decided instead to stay for 4 nights, and celebrate my birthday. I crashed in a bungalow that belong to this odd Iranian-Japanese couple who were incredibly hospitable.
For my birthday I decided to rent a motorbike and travel across Langkawi in search of some waterfalls, that are a popular site. It was an great time to drive through the island, and enjoy some great sites. Later when I got home, my hostess through a Fish BBQ with Beers and sang me happy B-DAY with a nice cake along with the other guests. 3 out of the 4 guests were also traveling alone and ended up going out with me to the local bars later that night.
The day before I got to see some great corals reefs in Pulau Payar and swim with sharks and huge Barracudas. In some of the other islands I saw a lot of eagles hunting for fish, and monkeys hunting crabs on the beach.

Pulau Penang & Georgetown

Pulau Penang is a beautiful Island that was most treasured by the English due to its strategic location for trading through SE Asia. With an eclectic mix of Chinese, Indian, Malay, and various other cultures it makes a great place to enjoy amazing food and surprisingly colorful colonial architecture in the city of Georgetown. There is also a great number of important shrine and temples in other parts of the island, but my favorite was its immense china town. Most of the Chinese still preserved very strong routes and a sense of their culture. You get to appreciate some amazing Chinese mansions and great food. On a side note I got to meet the last president from India as he visited some temples in the Island and enjoyed for the 3 days the company of Kyle, an american kid who with I shared a room after we meet on our arrival to the island.

Batu Caves

Batu Caves are one of the biggest Hindu shrines in Malaysia. This trip turned out to be quite a learning, and religious experience. On my way to the caves I meet a fellow traveller from London who was living in Malaysia for 5 months on a hospital internship in order to become a doctor back in England. His purpose of his trip to the caves was to pray since he is of Indian descent. On arrival to the temples in the caves he gave me full detailed explanation of every god and story in the Hindu religion. Because I was along with him while he was praying, I got blessed by the Hindu teachers and was given their sacred water and herbs to eat....

I guess this will help my chances to reincarnate as a better been in the next life...

Melaka

Although a very small town it has been one my favorite stops so far. Melaka is a small port city between KL and Singapore, and one of the main trading cities in Malaysia during the Colonial era. After belonging to Portuguese, Dutch, English and Japanese this beautiful colonial city has many sights and heritage to show. Because the city is incredibly preserved it has been named a UNESCO world heritage site.
Among my favorite sights were the old Portuguese fort on top of the hill, where the jesuit preist Francisco Xavier past away and buried before moved to Goi in India.

Here I also enjoyed some great hospitality from a couple of Malay brothers who owned the guesthouse where I spent both nights. I got to enjoy tome time with locals and have many conversations with them as well as playing with their very friendly rabbit Mr. Playboy

Kuala Lumpur

Arriving to KL was a great relief since I was starting to get saturated with Indonesia. I spent 3 days in Malaysias capital. Altough it is a modern, cosmopolitan city with a lot of green areas, in my opinion is definitely Singapore's younger, uglier sister.
Far from been the Utopia that makes Singapore a fascinating place, KL although it shares a very similar geographical population, and culture matter it is still much undeveloped than the great city of Singa.

KL was much dull than I thought and surprisingly after 2 days I started I ran out of sights to see, and things to do so I decided to get out. However, KL gives you a very clear vision of what Malaysia will become in the future. It looks a very bright one to this small nation, and yet it is very hard to imagine how Malaysia could be grouped together with Venezuela as an emerging market.

Bali

After Trawangan we had to pay a fisherman to take us to Bali because all the high speed boats and any available transport was sold out. This trip just as I anticipated to the group was going to be an adventure not easy to forget. The small fisherman boat took more than 5 hours to get across the Indic Ocean and for obvious distance reasons could only drop us in the north of Bali. Getting across Open Ocean in such a small trip was very choppy and although all the group was calm our friend Nadia did not stop crying and throwing up the entire time. It was a bit funny but most of us felt horrible for her. Arriving to north Bali was a pain because after such long boat trip we still had to take a 2 hour car ride so our villa in Seminyak.

Villa Mons was a great please we rented, and I will never forget all the magnificent times and fun. Spending 8 days with the Italian group was amazing but after moving with Juan Jose and his friends for my last 3 days was somewhat of a relief, since I got to rest from all the Italian and speak someSpanish once again.

In my 11 days in Bali I got to see many amazing temples, beaches, volcanoes and rice paddies. In my opinion, Bali certainly deserves to be called one of the best tourist destinations of the planet. Among my favorite things to do was the sacred monkey forest, watching the surfers in the famous Uluatu Beach, and surfing at impossible beach with your friends.

I certainly hope to be back to Bali again...

Gili Trawanganan, Gili Air, Gili Manor

Arriving to the Gilli Islands from Lombok was tiring. After arriving to the Lombok airport Leo and myself had to accommodate a transportation to a beach in the opposite side of the island to figure a way into the Gilli's. The transportation was slow due to several impediments such as we had to drive through an entire range of volcanoes, the rain and excess of monkeys that cause traffic in the roads of the mountains. After finally arriving to the beach 2 hours later we meet with Federico, Matteo and the rest of the group. Here we struggled to get a boat but finally a fisherman took us to Gilli Trawanganan were we had no accommodation. The island was no short of paradise. After an hour in the slowest fish boat possible we finally arrived to an amazing island packed with beautiful dutch girls. Although we struggle a little to find accommodation we got to stay in some really nice bungalows next to the beach.
Here we got to do some great diving and snorkeling around Gilli Air, Gilli Manor and Gilli Trawanganan. The turtles were a great sight and incredibly friendly.

The Gilli's are quite the surprise after traveling in Muslim Indonesia. Because the islands are so small and remote there is no police or laws, and the locals are quite crazy because of mushrooms. Without more details you can imagine how good the parties were....

Bandung

In order to get to Bandung I flew to Jakarta and meet with Leonardo first. At the airport Leonardo's cousin arrived with her driver to pick us up and drive to Bandung. After a 3 hour drive with finally arrived to our destination.
The city at moments remind me a little of Caracas because it is located in a valley within the mountains at exactly 1000m in altitude just like our demented capital.

From our house we got to enjoy a beautiful sight of the city and its volcanoes. Here I got to experience the comfort of the true Asian hospitality. Leonardo's family showed us wonderful time in the city and went out of their way to make sure every one of our needs were meet.

I also got to see a very different side of Indonesia. After witnessing the poverty in the East Java region, and a very rural cities, I got a chance to appreciate how wealthy families get to live in Indonesia and how globalization is closing cultural gaps and lifestyles. It is fascinating and sad at the same time, to see how the west has influenced the east. Leonardo's family owns a very prominent Oil distributing business and enjoys a very comfortable life in in the Island. Their house was very beautiful and tasteful. Although their culture is very different than ours, they enjoy many of the same advantages that we have by living in a third world country like having many employees to help around the house. I got to find out that labour is much cheaper than back home. Here I got to confirm a true Asian stereotype that Westerners have about Asians. Leonardo's uncle was a very funny man who is obsessed with electronics, so much that he built his own personal Cinema Theater in the house with nothing but the best technology I have ever seen, so we got to watch great movies every night. His friends go twice a week to the house to enjoy a swim in the pool and a bath in the sauna so we got to meet lots of Locals. Like Venezuela this country is also segregated by race and money. I got to learn that all the economic power is in the hands of the Indonesians that decent from China and therefore, look very different than the rest of Indonesians. Off course Leonardo's family is one of the Chinese descent...

Jessica also took us around to see the volcano and other sites in the city but our main activity was to eat and do some more eating. Leonardo's family did nothing but order every possible topical Indonesian dish so we could try everything available. Very hard 4 days.....

Borobudur

Waking up at 4 am to see the temples was not my idea of vacation, yet absolutely worth it. On the way to the sight we st oped at Mount Bromo, which currently is Indonesia most active volcano. After a hard trek up the mountain, we enjoyed the view and took a few pictures. Four hours later we finally arrived to Borobudur temple to catch the sun rise. This place is the largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia, and the place was built by the monks in the IX century but later abandoned with the declined of Buddhism in Indonesia. After visiting the temple and getting harassed by the local vendors to become a walking ATM, I got some time to sit in the top of the temple and meditate. On the top, I got my picture taken at least 30 times by local girls and boys who requested permission to take my picture. It is quite funny to see how they just want a picture of a complete stranger. I enjoyed some small talk with some of them through their giggles it is hard to understand them.

After Borobudur, we arrived in Mandut temple where I got to see my first Buddhist monastery. It was very peaceful and felt a balance that very few places before had made me feel.

Yogiakarta

Arriving to Indonesia was a cultural shock. Been the only white person on the national terminal was my first strange moment. Coming from Singapore witch is a Disney Land for tourist, made this the first encounter with the real South East Asia. After a bit of intimidation by some true chaos and many stares from the Indonesians I finally arrived to Yogiakarta.
On a side note I recommend to all my male friends the experience of at least one time, by flying in Lion Air. I will call it the Hooters of the sky. The airline enjoys of an incredible good looking crew of female flight attendants in all their flights who dress very provocative. Its the kind of hospitality that all should experience at least once. Should I suggest to the airline flights with happy endings? I just kid...

Yogia is a dirty and chaotic city. Been one the cultural epicenters of the Java Island is hard looking past the chaos at first. After starting to interact with the locals and to visit the city, it started to sink what an amazing place it really is. The locals are incredibly friendly and at most times very innocent people who always mean good.
On my first day I visited the batik shops, the Kraton palace where the Sultan lives with his family. My second day at Yogia was pretty fun. During my visit to the Prambanan temples, I asked my tour guide about Ramayana, only to find out it was the same night of my visit. He suggested for me to stay in the temple until dark and wait for Ramayana. Having no clue how I would get back to Yogia so late at night, I decided to take the risk and stay for Ramayana without having the chance to arrange any transportation back to the hotel.

As I walked through the night from the temples to the Theater scared I was in for a great time. Once I arrived to Ramayanan there was an incredible buffet of Indonesian food with live typical music set up in the fields next to an amazing sight of the temples. Off course such setting was mainly for tourist but I had the chance to share a table with an Indonesian/German family. The father from Indonesian origin was visiting his parents in Yogia along with his German wife and children who all spoke perfect English. After dinner with an incredible view of the temples by night we enjoyed the show until midnight.

Today I have been enjoying myself at the pool of the hotel and just strolling around the city doing some shopping. Later tonight I am heading to a Muppet show.

Singapore

Singapore was am amazing surprise. Not planning to come here at first I am very glad that did. It is a cosmopolitan city that with its tropical atmosphere and incredible culture clash makes a fascinating place to live in. It is mainly compound with Chinese, Malay and Indian origins but also many westerners live here since is an important banking city.

On my arrival I meet Daniel and Alejandro at the All Asian Bar on the 80Th floor of the Suisse hotel. Claiming to be the tallest hotel in the world, this bar was the perfect place for a reunion. There Alejandro and Daniel shared their memories of the trip as we enjoyed the great view of the Singaporean skyline. After the bar a friend of Alejandro from Harvard gave us a right to the Singapore zoo were we went for a night Safari. In the Safari we had a chance to see all kinds of animals feeding in their habitat, but my favorite was the hippos and the baby elephants. We later ventured to the traditional Singaporean hackers were I had my first dinner. Singaporeans clearly love food as the city is covered with these food courts where you can find all kinds of Asian food.

My next day with a Colombian friend that I meet at the hotel I ventured around the city including some temples of Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim religion. It is fascinating to see all the different cultures that live under one city. After we meet with Daniel for lunch and a quick stroll around the Orchard Street shopping stores. After I visited the Raffles English Hotel and wondered around the city with Mauricio. We finished the day by having a few drinks at the Hed Kandi bar in the quay.

Singapore was a great start to my trip and had a lot of fun. I strongly recommend my friends to visit the city and even considered as a place to live if you want to venture in the banking world.

Hasta luego Londres

As I leave London, I reflect on the great experience it was to live in this city and Europe. I made some lifelong friends who I will miss greatly and will always remember this incredible city. I now look for my next challenge and next step in my life.

Ciao to all my friends, I will see you soon!

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