So, some plans are finalizing and I’m getting very excited to have a break from life for a while. Interested in where I’m headed? Well, here you go!
Jan 22 – Fly to Singapore and have some good Schlomerville time with my cousin JoElyn and my cousin Robin and her family! I hope we play some pinochle…
Jan 25 – Take a BOAT to Indonesia with JoElyn and play around the islands for a while. (When I say “play” I use it like Chinese people use the word ‘play’. Do you have to be a child to ‘play?’ Why, no sirree! Anyone can play. It’s always funny to me when they use this word in English. For some reason it’s less funny in Chinese 🙂 I don’t know why…)
Here’s a map of Indonesia. I think it’s a political map from 1998. I don’t know if anything has changed since then…I assume it’s not like Africa where borders change daily. Singapore is the tip of Malaysia (peninsular Malaysia) and cousin Robin lives in the far eastern part of Indonesia. We won’t make it to her house. 🙁 We will try to make it to a lot of the other places! The westernmost island is Sumatra (lots of volcanic activity here…It “moves the world like no other place on earth”), the next island is Java (home to more volcanoes, temples, coffee plantations, then onto Bali, Lombok, and Nusa Tenggara (home to Komodo Island where the Komodo dragon lives! I hope to see this!)
Feb 3 – JoElyn leaves me for Malaysia. This is a sad day because I will lose one travel companion. It’s also happy because I will gain two more! My brother’s girlfriend (and my good friend) will meet me in Indonesia along with her sister. The three of us will play around the islands/volcanoes/coffee fields (I wonder if we take our name of “java” for coffee from the island of Java? Anyone know?) for a while and then leave Indonesia. I hope to be much darker when I return to China. I’ll try not to fry myself like I did on the shores of Thailand last February.
Feb 13 – Fly from Surabaya, Indonesia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Unfortunately, we won’t have time to leave the airport and explore the capital city of KL, but I did get to do that last year. Here’s a photo from that awesome adventure. I didn’t really write about my trip last year. If you want, I’ll intersperse information from Thailand as it compares to Indonesia… do you want? Hmm… I’m not really surprised that no one is really reading the blog anymore. I haven’t been a faithful writer this year.
I had one day in Malaysia last year! We spent our day at the towers and at Starbucks. 🙂 It was a pretty great day!
Feb 13 – Fly from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Kunming, China. If you recall from past travels, Kunming is one of my least favorite places in China. I don’t really have a good reason. Maybe it’s because I didn’t get to spend enough time there. It will be the same for this trip. Sorry, Kunming. I’m just not going to give you a chance. I could have learned to love you, but I’m just not that interested.
Feb 14 – Fly from Kunming, China to XiShuangBanNa, China. XSBN is a place that supposed to be like the Thailand of China. I’ll do some comparing and get back to you. One thing I really want to do there is sleep overnight in a canopy treehouse. In the Lonely Planet they call them “Swiss Family Robinson” style houses. 🙂 Apparently you can observe elephants bathing below in the early morning hours…I’ll let you know! I think we’ll do some ‘playing’ around XSBN for a few days!
Feb 17 – Fly from XSBN toLijiang, China. You might remember my trip here from two years ago. There was that song that just kept playing? The Tiger Leaping Gorge? Horseback riding? Well, I’m hiking the Gorge again, and I equally excited about it this time around. I think it’s true that there are places in China that I have been that I don’t need to go to again. Lijiang is NOT one of those places. Well, Lijiang, maybe, but definitely not the gorge. 🙂
Feb 22 – Fly from Lijiang to Beijing. While in Beijing with my guests, we will do some ‘playing’ around the city.
Looks like a pretty full itinerary. I’ll probably need a vacation from my vacation! Look for pictures in about a month or so…
