Benjamin Trotter – Page 71 – Globetrotter Journeys

MusÃ©e d’Orsay

The next day, we made our way over to the MusÃ©e d’Orsay. This was my favorite museum, not only for its great works of art and sculpture, but the way it had high ceilings and didn’t overwhelm us like the Louvre. The inside of this museum looked like a train station to me. We spent the rest of the day just walking around. Paris is great to just explore on foot.

I also wanted to get a drawing of myself by one of the artists that are always around the street. So, I found one, sat down and posed for the artist. Traci kept laughing and such, and he had great ‘previous’ works he had done before, so I thought he’d be ok.. plus he offered for me not to pay if I was dissatisfied. After a while, I looked at the drawing and I was so disappointed–I didn’t know what to do. I felt horrible not paying, but I couldn’t believe what a crappy job it was. Anyhow, it was funny and we got a good laugh.

We went by Notre Dame, the Opera Bastille, and that evening, we went to the Arc de Triomphe on our way home. Believe it or not, but it’s practically at our doorstep!

We stopped at Hippo on our way home for dinner and had a nice meal while enjoying the people watching.

Off to Paris!

Today, we departed Atlanta on a long flight to Stuttgart, Germany. Yes, we flew right over Paris on our way, but that was the route for the ticket we bought. At least when we were in Germany, I was able to get Milka*!

After arriving in Paris, we took a bus to the Arc de Triomphe to find our hotel. Luckily, with Traci’s connections, we were able to get a great deal on a hotel on the Champs-ElysÃ©es. This 4-star hotel was a great way to see Paris’ luxurious offerings.

Once we settled in our room, exhausted, we took a nap, then a walk down the beautiful promenade of Champs-ElysÃ©es. We had a dinner at a restaurant and proceeded to make plans for our week in Paris.

Beautiful pristine waters and black beachs of Amed

Amed was our best stop. This isolated place has no electricity after 11pm, and has no restaurants, shops or anything. It’s an area where farmers live, and there are only about 3 places you can stay>> Good Karma being one of them. The beaches were black, and the water absolutely gorgeous. We bargained for a hut on the beach. This humongous bungalow was made completely from woven material (like banana leaves I believe) and bamboo. The back porch was perched above the land and we had a little back yard that led to the ocean. There were two beds on the back porch, so you could listen to the ocean as you sleep. This was the most amazing place I could ever imagine. Paradise. Absolute paradise. We stayed there for a large amount of time. Then after our stay, made our way to the center of the island to see the volcano. That night we stayed in a hostel near the volcano to be ready to fly home the next day. We made our way tiredly back to Japan the next day.

Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali

We then made our way to the middle area of the Island, Ubud, and stayed in a hostel right in the middle of rice fields. We had to walk about 20 minutes through rice fields to get to any type of street. From here, we did lots of traveling throughout the area looking at all the cultural events, dances and such. Again visiting temples, and learning more about the Balinese culture. We also went to a cock fight, and bet on some of the “fighters”. Maya and I bet on the white chicken and Taka and Yoshi bet on the black one. We doubled our money (which was only about $1). It was a good experience though, to see this type of thing still going on today. We then moved to another are on the island more north again to Padangbai. Here, we had another cool hostel, but thought we had lost Maya when she went away with some random person on a motorcycle to find us a place to stay! Eventually we found her, and went to the area of different homestays on the beach. Ours was really cool, which had a shower and toilet outside. So nice. Here we swam in the ocean, watched dances too. This was the last place we’d stay before moving to Amed.

Accident on the jetski

We got up the next morning to look at some nearby shops and beaches. We moved to another area from Kuta, to Sanur Beach a little bit more north. Here, we found an awesome homestay with amazing little rooms for a mere $3 a night. (again we were surprised at the cost). We became spoiled at the cost of living and forgot how much money we were actually talking about.

That afternoon we went to the beach and all rented some jetskis. This is the one even that changed our entire stay. During our fun in the sun in the ocean on our jetskis, one of our friends Keiko made a wrong turn and flipped off the jetski into the water. I was nearby, and didn’t know whether to laugh or be worried. She looked very hurt and couldn’t move well. So we brought her back to the beach, and sat her down to see if she could just get back to normal. But, as time went by, the whiter and whiter she got, and more discomfort she felt. We took her to the hospital nearby in an ambulance, which was scaring all of us to death, and the boys had to meet the girls at the hospital. Once we arrived at the hospital, my most feared sights was right in front of me. This was a 3rd world country I was in, and their hospital facilities were definitely not what I was used to. Stepping over puddles of blood into a huge room accommodating too many sick, injured people, we found Keiko. Xrays were done to try to find out what happened.

That evening, we went back to our homestay to get some of her stuff. Not only was this a scary event for Keiko, but it was for us too. A man at a nearby restaurant we ate at offered to drive us on his motorcycle and help us get back and forth to the hospital everyday. Best experiences come when you least expect them, and I now realize how amazing riding that motorcycle was. Riding in a crowd of a good 50 other cyclists, I felt like I was really free and living another life. With all of my travels, I feel that I am living. During Keiko’s stay in the hospital, we found that it was just that she couldn’t move due to a fractured pelvis. So, we toured during the day, and stayed with her at night for a while telling what we did and bringing her stuff>> mainly food–the food there was definitely not what you’d want to eat if you were sick to begin with! We toured the site of the world’s most beautiful sunset, and I lost my camera dropping it into the sea. This was my second camera, and I was totally bummed losing those pictures that were already on the film, PLUS having no camera for the rest of the trip.

Visiting temples and monkey forests, eating at small mom and pop restaurants, we began a small life evolution I believe. This was my first “raw” experience in life. Not having hot water, not depending on my car, living day by day, and not planning. This proved to be a great growing experience for me that I still take with me today in my life now.

Arrival in Guam, then Bali

At the airport in Guam, there was a huge line for immigration. We wanted to leave the airport and at least touch a nearby beach, just to say we had seen it and been there, but also, because Guam is a US territory, we can send stuff “domestically” and not be charged so much! So, luckily for us, the US immigration line had NO ONE in line, so Maya and I went right through and left for a couple of hours. We went to a nearby beach and it was really nice. It’s funny to see such American stuff in Asia. Anyway, it was fun, and we made our way back to the airport to get on our flight to Bali.

That evening, we arrived in the airport in Denpasar, the main city on Bali. It was amazing to see this airport, due to it being like grass huts where we went through customs! Really, it was a tropical paradise, but little did we know what we had in store for us during this experience… We spent our first night in a place in Kuta Beach, where all surfers from around the world come to enjoy the cheap accommodations and awesome surf. Our room was about $2 per person, which was kind of expensive to us, (for the fact that we were expecting around $.50 or so.) Anyway, we went to bed that evening for high hopes of our adventures the next day.

Plane to Guam

Bali, Indonesia. The land of the world’s most beautiful sunset. This was also my last trip before returning back to the US. It was definitely sad to see all my friends for one last time. We decided to all go to a club in Kichijoji to watch one of the other exchange students perform (he does rap). Maya and I stayed there the entire night and put our backpacks in a locker at the train station. Then, the next morning (yes, we stayed until morning) we went to the airport in Narita, and took a shower (yes, they have showers there for rent) and got ready to board out plane to Guam. So, needless to say, we were beat, and ready to get on the plane to sleep. On our way to Guam, the plane had a lot of turbulence due to the typhoon that had been in the ocean. This was most definitely the scariest ride in a plane I have ever had. Anyway, we arrived in Guam for our connection.

Flight to Langkawi

We flew from KL to Langkawi the next day, and arrived in a TINY little airport. We took a taxi home with some other foreigners from Austrailia? and they told us about some good beaches to go to. We found our hotel, and went to the beach for a nice tropical dinner on the sand. The next day we went around where our hotel was looking at the shops and such. I always wonder why a hotel would bother having a pool when you could walk just 2 minutes and lie on the beach… oh well. Keiko decided to take a parasail ride over the beach, while I waded in the water. It was soooo relaxing! Not many tourists were there, and it was nice just to rest. We went to the different stalls around for great cheap food>> meals for as cheap as $.75 for a lot of good stomach filling food. Unfortunately, this vacation came to an end, and we had to fly back to Singapore to get our flight the next morning for Japan.

On the flight back to Japan however, I got to see a great view of Mt. Fuji from the air. Coming back to Japan was fun, because I was meeting Traci to go tour the rest of Japan. Boy, that day was really tiring for both of us. We went to Tokyo to get back to my apartment.

All around Kuala Lumpur

We spent touring the different sights around KL all today. The financial district and religious areas were really interesting to see. The architecture of the buildings were really interesting and had been designed to reflect the religion of the area. This was a much bigger city than I thought, but it was fairly easy and cheap to get around. The best place we went was definitely to see the Twin Towers. Unfortunately the top is not open to the public for viewing, but just standing next to the monstrous structure was reward enough. On the inside bottom floors were great restaurants, and out back was a nice park. It was so hot, that getting in the water was a great relief! That night we saw a traditional Malaysian show at a restaurant. On our way home, we stopped in front of Hard Rock CafÃ© Kuala Lumpur for a picture.

Even though we stayed in KL just for 2 days, it was enough to see the major landmarks around the city. Plus, after this big trip, we were really excited to just go to Langkawi for a nice relaxing few days on the beaches.

Train to Kuala Lumpur

Because of the convenient location of Singapore at the bottom of Malaysia, we decided to take a train across into Malaysia. This trip was not only going to be interesting, but relaxing too, as we opted for a side trip from Kuala Lumpur, to a little desolate island located at the border of Thailand an Malaysia called Langkawi. We left our hotel in the morning to go to the train station. Unfortunately, I got there, and realized I had left my passport in the safe at the hotel. So, I had to travel a lone all the way back to the hotel located in the Muslim section of Singapore. I got back fine, but ran the entire way to and from the train stations to save as much time as possible, because we didn’t want to miss our train. Our train went straight for Kuala Lumpur. Well, to say straight is a little misnomer, because of how many stops it took for us to get there.

After a good eight hours of riding the train through jungle terrain, we arrived in KL. We arrived at night, and had a nice dinner at Pizza Hut, where we saw the fattest man I had ever seen in my entire life. Anyhow, after dinner we went to find our hotel which I had booked from the internet. We had an awesome view of KL at night, given that the Petronas Twin Towers were towering and sparkling at night. It was truly a magnificent sight.