Foolproof

Check out my travel tips. You won't be disappointed!

   

Tip #1:Walk 

I’m a big fan of the long and leisurely full-day walk. Some of the best moments I've had traveling are those I've spent wandering in the streets. Walking long distances allows for an entirely different and thoroughly enjoyable kind of sight-seeing. Walking allows you to view things from a more local, street level perspective and it is less hectic, expensive and tourist-and-vendor-ridden than taking a vehicle from landmark to landmark or paying for a tour.  When you only have a few days in a place it doesn’t get much better than that. Forget tours, pull on your walking shoes and hit the pavement!

Note: Bikes and scooters also offer lots of fun exploring opportunities.

Tip #2: Don’t Trust People
Sorry, but we really can’t trust people while travelling. I learned this the hard way.  Not 10 minutes out of our hostel in Bangkok and we were approached by a seemingly kind and friendly man. He noticed that we were trying to find our way to the city's Grand Palace with a map (maps = stupid tourist). He quickly explained to us that it was a Buddhist holiday and the Grand Palace wouldn’t be open to the public until 3:00 that afternoon. He circled and marked a bunch of places on our map to visit in the meantime. He hailed a Tuk Tuk for us and bargained with the driver for a good rate.  We were wary at first but figured we could trust him as he didn’t ask us for money and was seemingly unrelated to this Tuk Tuk driver. Well, needless to say, we were duped. While we did have fun on the very cheap Tuk Tuk tour of the city we were taken to very expensive tailors, jewelers and travel agencies that we didn't necessarily want to visit. As it turns out, these places pay some sort of kickback to the people who funnel tourists to them. If the tourist buys something the Tuk Tuk driver and the kind gentleman who lied about the Buddhist holiday get paid. Granted, there are nice people out there and getting in with the locals is the best way to experience a new place but these people usually want nothing to do with tourists. Be warned: if you do decide to trust someone don't be disappointed when you discover they have ulterior, money-making motives.

Note: You can usually trust other tourists!

Tip #3: Be Ridiculous While Bargaining 

I love to bargain. I bargain just for the hell of it, even if I don’t really want what I’m bargaining for. It's such fun when you purchase an item at the price you want to pay!  My advice, offer no more than a quarter of the seller’s asking price and stay firm. They will drop their price a little. When you refuse the new price they will act like you are crazy and insist the item you want is worth a lot more than what they are offering. When you refuse again they may try to guilt trip you. They will tell you how badly they need the money to live and feed their children. Remember, you are not responsible for their lot in life, you are not crazy and the item you want probably isn’t valuable. Make sure to ask yourself how important the item you are bargaining for is to you. Is it really worth paying more than your offering price to have it? Probably not. If the vendor is really hard nosed try the “walk away” tactic. Just say, “I’m sorry, I can’t. Thank you for your time,” and start to walk away. Many vendors will give in at this point and sell you the item at the price you first suggested. At this point you’ve won the game and get to walk away with a hilariously random hammock. Congratulations!

I don't really want a hat that bad.

*Note: If you badly want or need the item in question be lenient with your price. Sometimes, it really is worth it.

Define "Explore"

My enthusiasm for this blog dwindled over the last year for several reasons. Mostly, I was busy with work. I wasn't traveling, which meant I wasn't exploring. Since I wasn't "exploring" I felt I had nothing to write about.

I quit the job that was eating up all my time and took up teaching, a line of work that allows me to travel more and, in turn, blog more. I went to Thailand and blogged about it. I was excited to be traveling and writing again, but soon after traveling to and blogging about Thailand I realized I once again had nothing to write about.

Then I phoned home and spoke with my Dad.

...

Dad wanted to know what I've been up to these days and if I'm enjoying teaching. I explained to him that I am enjoying but am not sure if teaching is something I want to do forever. He responded, "That's fine! It's important you explore these things now so you can figure out what you like and what you don't like."

"That's it!" I thought.

It suddenly dawned on me that exploring is more than traveling, sight seeing and making an honest (albeit naive) attempt at cultural immersion. Exploring, I grasped, has many meanings. Namely, figuring shit out about and for myself! Making decisions, taking risks and trying new things...

At that moment I realized I have loads to write about.

...

And so, the Amateur Explorer marches on. From here I plan to write about what I do, think and come to terms with on a day-to-day basis in addition to writing about my sporadic travel adventures. Perhaps this means my blog will serve as more of a personal diary than an informative blog, perhaps not. Whatever the case may be, I hope my blog continues to hold your attention, my dear reader, and inspires you to tune into your own personal explorations.

new, New, NEw, NEW!

Well hello there! How have you been? We haven't been in touch for a while. I know, I know, it's all my fault. I do hope you can accept my sincerest apologies and look forward to picking up where we left off. 2012 is still young and I hope to do all I can this year to revive my dying, if not already dead, travel blog.

To begin with, I left my job at the chocolate company and took up a teaching position. I now teach English oral to primary school students (1st-6th graders or 6 to 11-year-old children). I'm loving the new gig and the time it frees up for me to travel, explore and breath life back into The Amateur Explorer.

I started my 2012 explorations in Thailand, a country I have been dying to visit since I arrived in Asia nearly a year-and-a-half ago.

I hate to sound cliche, but the Thailand trip was amazing. Amazing in the sense that I have never seen or visited a place like it. As the only country in South-East Asia that was never conquered,  Thailand has retained a certain sense of self that its neighbors don't possess. Its identity is clearly its own.  Thailand's people, language and alphabet, infrastructure, food and drink, Muay Thai (AWESOME) and countless other aspects that make up the country's culture all exude a distinctly Thai attitude.

Now, that's not to say that other cultures haven't influenced Thailand. They have. China's presence is strongly felt there as is the West's. But still, there is something in the air that distinguishes it from other places. I guess I cannot quite explain it. I don't mean to sound like I experienced the country on a deeply profound level because in truth I only skimmed Thailand's surface in the 10 short days I was there. Nevertheless, I felt that shit! It's real and when you go you will understand.

Visiting Thailand was also an eye-opening experience. Eye-opening in the sense that traveling to Thailand for the first time as a Western white chick wasn't as...organic as I'd expected. I fell victim to the ol' tourist traps more than once. Everything from seemingly friendly civilians leading me to expensive custom-suit makers and jewelers to "tourist friendly" travel agencies that convinced me to take the pricey "air-conditioned" bus to the Gulf. Needless to say, everyone was trying to squeeze money out of my seemingly fat tourist's wallet. Unfortunately for them (and me), my wallet is rather skinny and all to often toes that precarious line between starvation and healthy weight loss.

I was angry about all this when my naivete first came to light (oh, so you didn't give me those pointers and directions out of the goodness of your heart?) but it's all pretty funny now. I guess I have to accept the fact that I will be the stupid Griswoldesque tourist from time to time during my travels.

There is so much more to tell but you will get bored with my rambling if you haven't already skipped over the text. Take a look at these photos from Bangkok and Koh Mak. I think they came out very well!

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

Pictures from Last Week

As promised.

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

By Justin

Day Trip

Justin and I just returned from a day trip to the island Cheung Chau (May 10 marks Buddah's birthday, which means I had the day off). What a lovely and tiring day it was for us! We left this afternoon on the ferry from pier 4 at Central Piers and arrived to find a very busy and celebratory Cheung Chau. The main street, which faces the harbor (see pictures) was PACKED with people. We could barley move anywhere. Music from the not-too-far-off festival and various dragon dance drums (I don't know the offical name for this dance, which they seem to perform at every Chinese festival. A man--or in many cases boys--steps into a giant dragon puppet and dances to the beat of a little percussion band around him. Pictures below) filled the hot, humid, kind-of stinky/fishy air.


I don't feel like going through all the details of our trouble navigating through the crowd, so just imagine a people packed shoulder to should in 90 degree weather with 70% humidity and everyone pushing and poking you in the eye with their open umbrellas. That's what we had to get through. After managing to find our way out of the mess we rounded the designated festival area and came to find quite streets, and low rise apartments decorated with laundry lines filled wrinkly t-shits and baggy, shapeless pants that all elderly people seem to wear.

From here, we found our way to the beaches. The first once we found was covered in filth. I popped a squat on this one and then we continued along. Further down the coast we found our way to the "Mini Great Wall," which we walked. This winding uphill path paved in stones and delineated by a fun little wall took us to clear air and good island views. Unfortunately, it didn't take us to this "Italian Beach" Justin told me he read about and wanted to visit. The wall dead-ended much to Justin's dismay. We turned around to go back and came to a split, I suggested we go up but Justin didn't want to risk another dead-end so we returned the way we came.

We walked and walked and walked all day around the entire perimeter of the Island determined to find this Italian beach. We walked up and down and over and under and finally came to a sign that blocked the path said, "DANGER," path under construction. We could not continue any more and Justin admitted defeat only to find out two minutes later, thanks to his iPhone, that the beach was indeed up that little path off the Wall.

A scrappy little boat captained by a  scary Chinese lady who only seemed to know how to communicate by yelling very loudly ferried us back to our starting spot. We (rather, I) ate a quick meal and wandered back to the ferry. The line for the ferry was literally the longest line I have ever been in. It had to be a half mile long. It moved along quickly though and we headed back to Hong Kong tired and happy and ordered pizza and are now watching tv.

Pictures on the next post. My comp is way to slow right now!

Roaches

We have a small cockroach problem. Its quite scary. They creep around in the dark and are seriously large bugs. Justin did some research and discovered that they also tend to carry salmonella and other nasty stuff around. Our apartment is a tidy little place (so the problem really isn't our fault!) but we live one the first floor above a vacant space that was a restaurant just months ago. An exterminator came today and sprayed the place before things got ::BAD::

In other news, I am learning more cantonese! My vocabulary is pretty hilarious/random. It includes the words for garbage, garbage can, "thank you," "excuse me," troublesome, stupid, good morning, "you are", enough, toilet...I think that's it. Working on my numbers...and pronunciation. Everyone laughs at me when I try to say anything in Cantonese. I'm sure I sound ridiculous.

Hong Kong Rugby 7's

Debauchery of all debauchery.

Litre beers and (yes!) bloody maries. No rules really. Hilarious.

Some chants included:
"Stand up if you hate the French."
"Who's the wanker on the phone?!" (Haha, Alicia, you are!)
Something else on the subway about why Jesus can't play rugby that I'm not going to write in the fear that I might offend one of you.

Beyond that, I will let the pictures (what little I have :( )speak for themselves.