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Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
The adventure continues! After 9 months spent roaming around solo in South East Asia and Australia and a two month travel sabbatical back home in Canada, I now find myself hitting the backpacking trails once again. This time around, however I'm travelling along side the incredibly wonderful new soul in my life named Jay. Jay and I are starting our adventure together in India before heading back to SE Asia to explore some of my old favourites as well as some of the areas that I didn't get a chance to see the first time around. The 'old life' remains gathering dust in a storage unit in Canada and I am now on my third consecutive semester off from completing my Masters of Social Work, however none of that seems to matter at the moment. Excited doesn't even begin to cover how I feel about this next phase of my journey and I can't wait to see what new adventures, experiences, people and places await!Raelan
Travel Blog Posts
April 23rd 2012
Planning this trip to India felt a little bit like planning a trip to Mars. I didn’t think that any of my travels to date had prepared me for what was to come in this seemingly mystic and chaotic country. I had absolutely no idea what to expect as I tried to imagine what almost a billion and a half people in one place looked like. As far as I knew, I didn’t like Indian food and I was allergic to one of India’s main staple foods of rice. I was told repeatedly that the infamous ‘Delhi Belly’ would without a doubt take down my normally pleasant digestive system for days or maybe even weeks upon arriving. This intestinal distress would apparently only be amplified by the sole availability of ‘water bucket’ systems for toilets. The ... read more
February 4th 2012
I think I might just have gotten off of the craziest ferry ride ever. I also think that I have a good frame of reference to judge this by seeing as how I’ve been on precisely 15 ferries in the last 9 months. Actually, while I’m counting, I can report that in the last 9 months I’ve been to 26 different destinations in 6 different countries, on 23 flights, 29 buses, 15 boats, 1 train, stayed at 41 separate accommodations (meaning I repacked my backpack 41 times), adjusted to 6 different kinds of currencies, got 33 new stamps/visas on my passport (making a total of 43 on this one), wrote and posted 50 travel blog entries and made 107 fabulous and worldly new Facebook friends. The reason I’m tallying all of these travel statistics at the ... read more
January 13th 2012
Singapore, the Malaysian city of Kuala Lumpur and the island of Langawi, and the Thai islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Samui were where I spent 3 wonderful weeks travelling over the holidays this year. These five destinations proved to be an interesting mix of places to visit, with each having their own flare and unique quality of experiences to offer. These beautiful spots included everything from conservative Muslim life, party-hard and rebellious tropical island scenes and posh living amidst big city glitz and glam. I left the serene Thai island of Koh Tao and went to Malaysia for this three week sabbatical from my Dive Master Training duties to meet with a wonderful guy from Canada named Jay. My first stop was Kuala Lumpur, where I showed up a couple of days prior to Jay’s ... read more
The Ultimate Vice
Published: December 21st 2011Asia » Malaysia » Wilayah Persekutuan » Kuala Lumpur » Bukit Bintang
December 19th 2011
After almost 6 amazing weeks in Thailand, I find myself on the move once again and at the moment en route from Koh Tao via Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This journey so far has involved one taxi ride, one incredibly turbulent ferry ride containing many sea sick and vomiting tourists, one 7-hour bus ride to Bangkok, one night in a hotel by Khao San Road, one shuttle to the airport and finally the 2 hour flight I currently find myself on heading to KL. Fortunately I made a friend along the way (a fellow Canadian gal) that I ended up sharing most of my journey with, including a shared room in Bangkok to save a little cash. We discovered that it was healthy for both of us that we found one another, not only for ... read more
December 4th 2011
I have landed myself for a month (at least) on the tropical paradise of an island in Thailand called Koh Tao. I came to do some diving and as one thing quickly led to another I ended up doing my Advanced Open Water course, Emergency First Responder, became a certified Rescue Diver and am now in the middle of the Dive Master training (DMT) course. So it looks like I will be an actual certified Dive Master sometime in the near future! Crazy. A year ago I would have said that I would never even consider the idea of going scuba diving because the thought of being that far away from the surface air was just far too freaky for me. Now I will be a certified Dive Master...who would've thought. The weeks since I arrived ... read more
November 14th 2011
A lot has transpired for me in the last few days. After packing and cleaning out my apartment, I sadly left the wonderful NGO I had been happily volunteering at for the last two months. As my moto driver waited outside with my backpack, I said my goodbyes at Aziza’s Place while being bombarded with hugs from the children and heartbreaking pleas not to forget them. As I rode away, the kids stood on the street waving and yelling goodbye. I was grateful that the motorbike I was riding on had no rear view mirrors so that the driver could not see the steady stream of tears pouring down my face. Honestly, in that moment I felt like a complete jerk. I contemplated whether the forming and them severing of the relationships that I had with ... read more
November 8th 2011
The glitz and glam over the last few days that accompanied Phnom Penh’s first ever Fashion Week has definitely been in stark contrast to my recent Cambodian events covering topics such as sexually exploited women and children and working with the formerly severely impoverished kids at my current NGO gig. Here’s the basic rundown: • Was invited by a new expat friend that I’d made here in Phnom Penh to a Fashion Week event at ‘Raffles Hotel Le Royale,’ the city’s absolute most expensive and luxurious hotel that exists. • Had to have my name on an actual guest list in order for me to get in and had to do a little ‘name dropping’ to get my other friend in who was not on the list. • Marvelled at the ridiculous fact that I had ... read more
October 26th 2011
I had my entire next blog entry pretty much written a couple of days ago, however after a quick reread I decided to delete the entire thing. My writing was full of ramblings about feeling displaced, alone and unsure of what I was doing or where I was going. Basically, it was full of complaining and self-pity. Not that these aren’t genuine feelings that I have periodically, it’s just that I seemed to have unfortunately lost touch momentarily with how fortunate I am to be doing what I’m doing and living the life that I’m living. Thankfully, I am happy to report that for the most part I am back on a more productive and positive track that’s filled mostly with gratitude and a drive to soak up all that I can while making my way ... read more
October 9th 2011
Fun times, good friends and great memories- I think that about best sums up this past week’s activities and Birthday celebrations. As of October 4th I officially became another year older and I suppose that I should have some sort of feelings about that. However, I find that I am surprisingly unphased this year by the tacking on of another year to my age. This is one area however, in which I am grateful that I am not Khmer, because at least some Cambodian people actually start counting their age from their date of conception which would make me another year older than I already am. I’m all right with getting older, however there’s no need to tack on more years than necessary in my opinion! Actually, what I do find is that I seem to ... read more
October 3rd 2011
The mass exodus to Phnom Penh from the outlying areas of Cambodia after the Pchum Ben holiday was over was definitely a sight to see. My own journey back to the city began with an hour-long ride from Kep to Kampot on the back of a motorbike, all the while being pelted and soaked with thunderous pouring rain. And as was right on par for this crazy Cambodian course, not more than 5 minutes into my trip the bike sputtered to a complete stop as it frustratingly yet amusingly ran out of gas. With an exasperated smile on my face I stood staring at the cow on the road next to me and silently said ‘Seriously?’ Seriously. The livestock appeared unaffected by my wearisome yet typical predicament, although politely listened anyway to my silent frustrations while ... read more
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