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Locations: Singapore; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Stockholm, Sweden; New York

At 4:00 am on Monday morning, I got ready to go, said goodbye to Ben, and grabbed the cab to the airport. My flights home actually went back west rather than east over the Pacific Ocean. First, I flew to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Then I flew to Stockholm, and then took the same plane to Newark airport. All told, the entire trip took 24 hours, and I landed in New York at 7pm local time. However, the flights went by pretty fast, because Malaysia Airlines is a very good airline; plenty of leg room, comfortable seats, good entertainment options, and good service. During this time, I read the last Harry Potter book cover to cover, and watched Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 on the plane.

It's been a great 5 weeks. Ben and I both had a great time. In the end, I ended up visiting or passing through 22 cities and 12 countries, using 9 currencies, and hearing 12 languages. I'd have to say that my favorite place I stopped was Istanbul, Turkey (sorry Ben). I definitely want to return to Turkey one day, stopping in Istanbul again, and perhaps seeing the city of Ankara and the Cappadocia region.

I know it's a little cliche to say so, but I definitely gained a new perspective on the world from this trip. I feel a lot safer than I used to. For all the things you hear in the news about terrorism, and anti-American and western sentiment, most of the people you meet when you travel just want to live their lives and ensure prosperity for themselves and their families. Not once was I given a dirty look, poor service, or a hard time because I was American. Whenever we were asked "Where are you from?", and we responded with "New York", the local then told us what he liked about the city, or about the relative that he had living there (or tried to sell us something; a lot of salesmen ask that question to every tourist they come across).

I hope everyone reading this blog enjoyed the posts, the pictures and the videos. I enjoyed all your comments, and hope your summers were enjoyable. I'm going to be in New York for one week; next Sunday or Monday, I head out to Pittsburgh to start business school at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. I do not know if I will continue to blog or not; I guess I'll see if there's something interesting to write about. Bon Voyage!

Singapore

Location: Singapore

Sunday afternoon, we arrived in Singapore. We picked up our bags and took a cab to Ben's apartment. Ben's going to be living here for the next 6 months, attending INSEAD Business School. His apartment was very nice; a high rise building with pools and tennis courts, right across from the school.

We dropped off our bags there, and met his roommate. Then we decided to head into the downtown area for a little bit. We went to a mall that sold mostly electronics and technology, so Ben could start looking into cell phones. Both here and in Thailand, I saw malls that were organized by theme-an electronics mall, a home improvement, etc., where all the shops fit the theme. Interesting way of shopping.

After eating lunch here, we ventured out to the City Hall area. In this area are some of the famous buildings built during British ownership, including City Hall, the Supreme Court, and the Singapore Cricket Club, built in 1852. This area also had great views of the skyline along the Singapore River:

After this, we took a cab over to the DHL shipping center to pick up our suits that we had sent from Hong Kong. This place was by the port of Singapore, which is the largest port in the world. We got our packages in short order, and headed back to Ben's apartment. As it started to rain and thunder towards the evening, we decided to just order in a pizza. I went to sleep at around 11, having to catch a 4:30 cab to the airport the next morning...

Chiang Mai, conlcuded

Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand


Our final day in Chiang Mai was pretty low key. After resting at the hotel for a while, we decided we were bored. So we hired a Tuk Tuk to take us to the Bo Sang market. This is a market outside of Chiang Mai, dedicated to the manufacture and sale of Asian-style umbrellas. The place was smaller than I expected, but we did get to see various stages of the umbrella-making process:

Ben and I declined to buy one, being low on cash, and not wanting to stretch the weight limit on flights anymore. Still, it was neat to see these umbrellas being made. We then basically repeated the previous day, seeing The Bourne Ultimatum in the mall (once again standing for the video of the Thai royal family). By the time the movie was over, it was night, and we made our way to the Night Bazaar for dinner. We were able to get seats in front of a small theatre, hosting traditional Thai dances:

Here's a short video:

And some photos of the Night Bazaar:

Finally, we headed back, to get some sleep. The following morning, we caught our flight into Singapore...

Chiang Mai, continued

Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand

On Friday morning, we headed out to Doi Suthep. This is a Buddhist wat built high above the city. It took about one hour to get there; we had to first take a Tuk Tuk to the Chiang Mai Zoo, and then a Songthaew up the hill. A Songthaew is like a Tuk Tuk; instead of a cab mounted onto a moped, a cab is mounted onto a pickup truck. At the top, we reached the wat. This one was built with a large staircase leading up to the temple:

Like most of the staircases at these temples, the statues at the base of the steps were very cool looking. This one was of a large naga, a long snakelike river creature, swallowing several smaller nagas:

At the top, we walked around the temple grounds. This temple has an iconic pillar, which is actually the symbol of the city of Chiang Mai. All in all, this temple was very impressive, and had great views of the entire city of Chiang Mai:

There were a lot of young Buddhist monks at the temple as well:

I don't know much about Buddhist tradition, but I did see several monks and other Buddhists sound the numerous bells around the temple:

I'm sure this has an important significance, but I don't know what it is. I did take a short video of the bell ringing though:

We then walked back down to the foot of the stairs. There were small shops here, and Ben and I bought some paintings for good prices. I bought one for 250 baht, only to find another woman selling them a minute later for 100 baht. That bothered me a little, but I bought one of those as well, getting both for 350 baht, which is a little more than 11 dollars.

Also at the foot of the wat entrance was an elephant. Cucumbers were on sale for 20 baht. I decided I had to get in on this, and bought some cucumbers to feed the elephant. He seemed to enjoy this very much:

After this, we decided to have lunch at a mall, and then see The Simpsons Movie. One interesting thing about that experience: right before the feature presentation, there is a short video with images of the Thai royal family, and the anthem of Thailand playing in the background. It is customary to stand in respect during this video. We were definitely not expecting this, but I guess it's similar to singing the Star Spangled Banner at ball games in the U.S.

We then headed back to the hotel, and later went out to dinner at a local Indian restaurant. We walked around the Night Bazaar afterwards, and I was able to get a good deal on a nice Chinese style lamp. One more post on Chiang Mai coming up...

Northern Thailand and the Golden Triangle

Location: Northern Thailand, Laos

On Thursday morning, we woke up early to get on our tour bus into Northern Thailand. Our first stop on the tour was a natural hot spring. However, we were expecting something more grandiose. What we got was basically a pit stop at a shop along the road, which had a hot spring; however, this really just looked like a little fountain with some water shooting out the middle. I put my hand in it, and it wasn't even hot. I had to be told later by Ben that that was the hot spring we were supposed to visit. Pretty disappointing.

Our next stop was the city of Chiang Saen. On the way, we passed through Chiang Rai. Our tour guide had told us about a monument in the city, in honor of King Mengrai, who founded Chiang Rai in 1262. However, we did not stop here, and sped right past it. I'm not sure why the tour was designed in that way; it would have taken maybe 5 minutes to stop at the monument. I managed to get a photo of it as we passed by though:

Upon reaching Chiang Saen, we made a stop at another temple, Wat Chedi Luang. This one was built in 1291, and very little of it still stands. However, it has an impressive stone pillar, and is in the process of being restored today:

Next, we headed to the Golden Triangle. This place is along the Mekong River, and is where three countries meet: Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. It once was a very important location for the growing and trading of opium; very little of that remains today. It is known as the Golden Triangle, because gold was used as the currency for the opium trade in this area. Some views of the Mekong River:

In the first picture above, the three countries are visible. On my side of the Mekong is Thailand. Immediately ahead is Laos. In the distance is Myanmar.

We were escorted to a longtail boat, which took us around the river a little bit. We passed by some sights along the way:

The first photo is a monument built in Thailand with a large Buddha statue, marking the Golden Triangle. The second is of a casino in Myanmar, and the third is of a small Laotian island in the Mekong. People are allowed to enter this island from Thailand or Myanmar without needing a visa stamp; however, to enter the rest of Laos, a stamp is required. We disembarked at this island for a little while:

This is clearly a tourist stop, with little shops selling some of the same things we've seen elsewhere. However, there were some items for sale more specific to Laos and the Golden Triangle:

The two photos above show sets of opium pipes, made of various materials. They looked very nice, so I bought one for 200 baht (~7 dollars). I suspect that some might actually be made of ivory-I didn't try to get one of these, as I didn't want to risk a hassle at U.S. customs (perhaps more importantly, it's not really morally kosher in my mind). Ben had bought some pipes as well, on the Thai side of the river. He was a little bothered by the fact that he paid a lot more for them there than I did in Laos. Below are two more pictures of another local specialty.

This is Laotian whiskey. Those are real snakes and scorpions in the bottle! They soak them in the whiskey, giving it a distinct flavor. Needless to say, I declined to give it a try. I can imagine what the look on the custom officer's face would be if I presented that in Newark Airport.

After about 30 minutes, we took the longtail boat back to Thailand. This longtail boat itself was not covered like the ones in Bangkok and Phuket. Here's some video of the ride:

We then headed up to the monument on the Thai side. The Buddha and other statues here were very impressive:

We ate lunch by the Golden Triangle, and then proceeded to the city of Mai Sae. This is the most northern point in Thailand. The main attraction here is a border crossing with Myanmar:

Since we only had about a half an hour, and the border crossing visa cost 500 baht, we decided it wasn't worth it, and just hung out in the city for a little while. We then made our way to two different villages in rural Thailand. Here, people lived in huts with straw roofs in the hills. Of course, they also sold crafts to tourists passing through. Chickens ran across the narrow dirt roads, and kids played by the huts. Although not so exciting, we arrived to these around sunset, and the atmosphere was very beautiful and peaceful:

By this time, it was around 5pm, so we got back into the bus and headed back to Chiang Mai. Along the way, we passed by many farms growing rice. It was hard to get a good photo from the bus, but I managed to get one:

We were pretty tired when we got back to Chiang Mai, so we just took it easy for the rest of the night.