Homeward Bound

I'm writing what looks to be my last post from a restaurant a few doors down from the guesthouse I stayed at when I arrived here. It's funny to think about how disoriented and semi-freaked out I was the first time I turned onto this street. Now it's probably my favorite place in the city to hang out. At least it will be until tomorrow morning when I get a cab to the airport, fly to Bangkok for an 8 hour layover, then hop a plane to LAX and a redeye to Dulles. Then the insanity of a summer in Southeast Asia ends, and the insanity of my second year of grad school begins.

The rest of my trip with Stephanie went quite well. It killed us to leave Hat Rai Leh, but we did it nonetheless and got on our plane to Kuala Lumpur. We got set up in a totally decent hotel in Chinatown and spent two days seeing the city. It was an insane clash of cultures like nothing else I've seen all summer. Malaysia is a Muslim country with massive Indian and Chinese populations. I sat in a Malay cab listening to Starland Vocal Band, I watched women in full burquas shopping in malls with Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks, and I had a conversation about Obama with an Indian Muslim passing out coupons for a massage parlor. Kind of makes DC feel like vanilla ice cream.

One thing that really bowled me over was how insanely nice everyone in KL was. Don't get me wrong, I've met great people in every single country I've been in this summer. But this was out of your way, big-smile-with-no-hidden-motive friendliness. A big part of that could be the low language barrier; everyone spoke fantastic English. Or maybe their level of development (Malaysia has been VERY successful), helps them to relate to us in a way that your typical rural Laotian/Cambodian can't. Either way, we had a great time and ate some fantastic food. It was a blast.

At least until the flight home. After checking our bags and waiting at the gate, Stephanie asked if I had the keys to my apartment (which also has the keys to the locked closet in the apartment holding our valuables) in my checked bag or in my carry-on. I admitted that I left it in the checked bag, and realized it was a dumb move of me. But I haven't lost a single bag yet over here, what are the odds of it happening NOW?

An introduction is in order. Meet my friend Murphy, he's well known for a law he invented.

I stood at the baggage pickup until I realized that my bag was not there. This was bad, not so much because I was flying out in two days, but because Stephanie was flying out the next morning and had to have the things in my locked closet that was in my locked apartment. Thus led to what, so far, has been my worst night in Phnom Penh. Luckily we were able to track down my landlord and he had an extra key so that we could get inside. But that didn't solve the closet problem. After many unsuccessful attempts to pick what turned out to be an impressively thief-proof lock, we gave up. I decided I'd try to find a locksmith the next day; if I couldn't then I'd break into it and watch my security deposit evaporate before my eyes.

It turns out there are loads of locksmiths in this town. I got a guy right outside my place; he walked right up and in 30 seconds had the door open. So Steph got packed, we ate breakfast, and headed to the airport to drop her off. After seeing her off, I swung by the lost luggage desk hoping against hope that I'd get good news. I got better; my luggage was sitting there waiting for me. When I realized my luggage wasn't showing up the day before, I noticed that there was a bag leftover that looked a bit like mine. My suspicions were correct; some extremely extremely idiotic excuse for a human being grabbed my bag thinking it was theirs and walked off with it. To top it off, they apparently didn't notice this mistake until the next day (or they didn't do anything about it until then, which is even worse). The similarities between the two bags were not nearly enough for this to be even close to an honest mistake; and after the grief this mouth-breather put me through I was glad they weren't there when I arrived at the airport because I probably would have screamed at them. Anyway, it all worked out. I got my stuff, got moved out of my apartment, and I'm settled in for my last night.

I was expecting I'd have some sort of cool final post prepared, but this recent insanity really threw me a curveball. I'm just going to list a ton of stuff I'd like to say:

1) Thanks for reading. Seriously. It was a lot of fun, and often very cathartic, to rave about what I'm seeing and doing and know that my family/friends were actually reading this.

2) Asia and home have one thing in common; there's no place like them. I can't wait to get back to the states.

3) This site will hopefully continue to be updated some time in the future. I hope to do a lot of travel for my career, and I hope that I'll take the time to update this for anyone interested in what else I get myself into.

4) And in the places you go, you'll see the place where you're from
And in the faces you meet, you'll see the place where you'll die
And on the day that you die you'll see the people you met
And in the faces you see, you'll see just who you've been
-Modest Mouse

5) I'm going to post pictures of the last leg of my summer at some point, hopefully soon. Stay posted.

6) This world is cruel and ugly

7) This world is beautiful and amazing

8) There's a sign on the way to the airport that says "Bon Voyage, see you next time." I really hope they're right.



-Jarrett