Travels

Dear Blog,

I didn't think I had done all that much travelling in my life, until I got a comment from a friend recently:

"Wow, you sure have done alot and travelled alot."

I've only been to ten of the total 195 countries in the world, but I think quality definitely trumps quantity in my books.

Some of my most memorable travels have been had in the most unexpected, non-budget-blowing places.

If I had to choose my top three travel experiences:

1) Snorkelling at Sipadan Island, Sabah.

Staying on one of those over-water villas, waking up in the morning to hear and smell the sea, and snorkelling on the infamous Sipadan Island.

Corals of all the colours of the rainbow, the most exotic fishes, a wild turtle and a wild 3m shark (although I must admit I screamed max through my snorkel at the sight of this creature that evoked a serious JENGJENGJENG Jaws moment) just swimming happily around you as you paddle like a retard holding onto a lame polystyrene life-saver.

It has been a good 4 years since that trip, and I have not experienced anything that even comes CLOSE to that since.

2) White-water rafting for 3 hours in the middle of the Balinese jungle.

This covered a long drive through the inner crevices of Bali, navigating through narrow residential laneways, giving way to an elaborate Balinese funeral procession and religious ceremonies, before ending up in a very dubious-looking clearing in a field.

This was followed by a 300-feet trek down the most annoyingly inconsistent steps with absolutely no railings. My poor knees were already screaming out for mercy at the bottom of this majestic cliff, unbeknowst of the terror that awaits.

The next 3 hours was probably the most entertaining and magical rafting experience through what appeared like it was straight out of a Jurassic Park set. We roughed and tumbled, screamed and laughed, and observed the beauty in speechless awe. The whole experience was then topped off by a 'shower' at a waterfall. Loved all 100 gallons per second of it.

I should've seen the horrific end coming, but it didn't dawn on me until the excitement of rafting wore off. I was confronted by ANOTHER 300-foot cliff and this time we had to climb UP.

I was pretty convinced I was going to just keel over and die on these steps, in the middle of the Balinese jungle. I told my friends to just leave me and save themselves. My knees were physically exhausted and were giving way. The kind rafting instructor even offered to carry me up, but I was having NONE of that (if he lost his footing on the handrail-less steps, we'd both have a very tragic ending, so I decided if it was just me who died there, it wasn't sucha big loss).

We were all walking sideways like unfortunate crabs for the rest of the trip, but I look back to the afternoon and loved every single painful moment of it.

3) Clubbing at the most happening club in South Korea, M2.

There's just something about clubbing in a room of complete strangers and knowing there is no chance of bumping into someone you know while you're out being the biggest retard in the world.

On top of that, Koreans are possibly the worst dancers I've had the misfortune of setting my eyes on. So I fit right in.


I love my holidays.