The traveling is going great! I am currently in Siem Reap, Cambodia taking a few hour respite from the sounds and smells of the city, from the ever hopeful calls from Tuk Tuk drivers, the dazed stumbling gait of pale and sun-burnt tourists, and the amazing energy and chaos that makes this place so incredible. As always, so many more stories worth mentioning and truly devoting single blog entries to have framed and filled my travels so far but damnit! i'm traveling in Cambodia and would rather be out there making a new memory and crazy experience than spending too long describing all the amazing things that have happened so far. Sooo... here again is a quick-ish update of photos and brief sentence stories.
Let's finish off New Zealand.
May not look like much, but this was actually my camp for 4-5 days while enjoying a wonderful folk festival in Dunedin called Whare Flat Folk Festival (pronounced 'Faredy Flat...' It's a Mauri word apparently). Thats my bivy sac and pack in between the trees. The fest was fantastic! The music was not always life changing, but more what I loved about it was the incredible sense of community and kindness everyone had towards one another. I met so many interesting people...
Some very interesting...
and really just enjoyed sitting around listening to people who loved to create music for 8-10 hours a day. There's something I think as professional musicians we sometimes loose or loose site of as we chug along in our musical lives that this festival helped me rediscover. That is the simple love of creating music. We can often get caught up in the game, in the hustle of finding the next gig, the stress of supporting yourself with music, of getting burnt out on music that pays but doesn't grow one's soul... that we forget why we do it. At this festival all i saw were people who loved the music they were making. It wasn't always the best music, of the highest quality, in tune, in time... but damn! you could see and hear and sense the joy with which so many performers performed!
I particularly enjoyed "Sessions at the Bar with Peter." During a two hour break from performances right before dinner, a handful of people would gather by the bar and sing folk songs beer in hand. It was incredible! I joined in not knowing a single song (usually humming harmonies) but so enjoyed all the amazing stories told in the numerous verses of the songs and just singing with other people, I went every day. Often laughter would outweigh the singing during particularly risque verses... well at least I was laughing loudly anyway. The people were so very kind and friendly during this session in particular and at the entire festival. I made many musical friends over a song and a beer.
Also met my beard... papa i guess. This is Peter. Great guy and has an encyclopedic memory of folk tunes!
These nice folks are from the band Oslo Brown, one of the awesome bands at the fest. Had a great time meeting them and discussing all sorts of things from seals to birds to life changes and touring as a band. Check em out!
Well, so after bringing in the New Year by Barn Dancing at the folk fest it was time to move on... to this ugly place. This was a coast line surrounding Dunedin. We went there to look for Albatross, blue penguins and seals. Saw all but the Albatross.
Also got to see a Sea Lion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this little guy was taking a nap... actually thought he was dead for a few moments... just a heavy sleeper.
After Dunedin I began heading north. NZ has so many goofy and curious little spots one needs to see, so along the way north I explored a few such spots. This weird rock formation of dinosaur egg-like looking boulders at Shag Point (just south of the more famous Moeraki Boulders beach) was one of them. Totally weird and awesome!
more famous Moeraki boulders at Moeraki beach... super weird and interesting but way more people. Shag Point was completely deserted and awesome!
Oh, and all this time, I've been traveling around NZ via hitchhiking. At the folk fest I met a fellow traveler who was also heading north so we decided to join forces. This is Sonia. This is also us after 4 hours of trying for a ride and so just being goofy. We were actually never picked up that night despite our ukulele concerts dancing and weird poses as shown above. Luckily Sonia had a phone that worked and we were able to call a campsite not too far away which thankfully had a spot and were able to pick us up... the joys of hitching... never really know what will happen.
One of my favorite memories and experiences from the folk fest was meeting these two people. This is Sibylla and Beth, sisters and the band The Little Stevies. They were simply awesome! Their music was fun and playful, serious and contemplative, creative and simple. Plus they're also great people. It also turned out that they were touring NZ for a week or two and that their itinerary nearly exactly matched mine, so for the first time in my life I followed a band! I honestly felt a bit weird about it, but man i enjoyed hearing their music so much it didn't matter. You know that feeling of joy and I don't know, a kind of excited relaxed sensation that happens when you listen to an album you just love? Well I got to experience that live for four shows! Damn fun time!
A return to a wonderful beach camp spot north of Kaikura. This was one of my favorite places I camped in all of NZ. The first time was with Eric and Katie (miss those guys. randomly ran into them over christmas in Hokitika on the west coast of the south island. they left for home on the 6th of jan. and sounded like they had all sorts of adventures along the way) and here I returned with Sonia for another relaxing night accompanied by the gentle sound of the ocean breaking on a rock beach only 100 ft away.
Morning at the beach... ugly i know.
The beach was a quick stop as we continued north towards wine country. As my time in NZ was quickly coming to an end I decided while hitchhiking is amazingly fun and has presented some unforgettable memories and experiences, it's also at times unreliable. So to speed things up and more importantly to allow for easier access to remote off the beaten path curiosities I rented a car. First back roads stop:The Sawcut Gorge slot canyon. Ton of fun and great cold swimming holes along the few mile hike up river to the canyon.
Ahhh.... wine country.
Six wineries... all free, all amazing, so many more to try one day.
After 'wine-in' it up in Marlborough country and enjoying another little stevies show at the Dharma Bums Shed, one of the coolest music venues I've ever been to, perhaps my favorite memory of NZ and a future story to tell for sure, Sonia and I headed to Nelson Lakes for a day of hiking and swimming and fighting sand flies. Man i hate those things. Way worse than mosquitoes.
Our last Little Stevies concert. It was at the Mussel Inn in Takaka. A cool and weird little town with unreal beaches and beautiful things everywhere!
Some of those beautiful beaches... well a tidal cave at Wharariki Beach (again another Mauri word pronounced Farariki) full of beautiful crustaceans and all sorts of sea life... sometimes a sleeping seal
Some caves were deep enough you actually needed a headlamp. Freakin awesome!
Said beach... notice the um... ZERO PEOPLE!!!! Unbelievable morning spent exploring tidal pools and caves and watching fur seals lazily scratch themselves.
Fur seal sign
This was a hike in the Able Tasman National Park. This day and the day before spent at Wharariki beach have absolutely converted me to a beach person... well, remote mountainous beaches...
Kickass beach and rocks!
And of course my mate, xavi and I enjoying the beach.
A few days after the beaches Sonia and I split ways as she was continuing her adventure north to the North island and I was headed south again to eventually fly out of Christchurch for Cambodia. Along the way I decided to enjoy a little bit of caving. This was perhaps the most fun thing I did in all of NZ. Never have I experienced absolute darkness like i did in this cave. A wonderfully cold river cut through the limestone turning and twisting underground for nearly a mile. There were amazing moments of serenity and peace, joy and laughter, extreme excitement and extreme panic and terror especially when I would hear rapids in the dark ahead of me. My imagination transformed these sounds into a raging torrent, a fatal flash flood moments away from swallowing me and bouncing me off the cave walls like a tiny pebble in fast moving stream. of course that didn't happen... those moments were usually followed by bouts of hearty nervous laughter.
Man I loved it!
Castle Rock area. apparently where parts of Narnia were filmed... This was my last day in NZ. I spent the eve. enjoying performances at the Buskers Festival in christchurhch and then the next day I jumped on a plane to a world I had yet to experience, Cambodia. NZ was such a fun and beautiful and easy place to travel. I will absolutely return one day.
Of course my first night in Cambodia I find a break dance school competition outside...
My photos are pretty sparse for Cambodia so far. It's just hard to sort through all the photos and stories that accompany them. I've also been trying to just experience what I'm seeing and not get too caught up with taking pictures of everything... One feeling I guess that I experienced when I arrived in Cambodia, one a photo can't show, was one of returning home. There is a strange and weird chaos that saturates life in South East Asia which for me was profoundly reminiscent of Nepal and India. The Tuk Tuk ride from the airport calmed me as my driver barely missed cars and motorcycles, dodged mopeds who decided to drive against traffic, people pushing giant carts in a busy crowded street, old and young walking through the street slowly and peacefully despite the waves of mechanized (albeit slow moving) chaos 'zipping' past them. Sitting in the back of that tuk tuk watching this all take place simply brought a smile to my lips and a sigh from my lungs. I can't wait to continue my exploration of this wonderful part of the world.
And this beautiful lady is Tiffany. I conned her into traveling with me for a month. We were trying to decide where to go when she mentioned she still has family in Cambodia and has never visited. Well, so that was all I needed and why we're now here in this beautiful country. It's been an awesome time so far with nearly four weeks still to go.
Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.
Main boulevard and National Monument in Phnom Penh
So I mentioned I'm a beach person now right. We spent three days in Sihnoukville on Otres Beach and one day on the island of Koh Rong being super lazy beachin, drinking, eating and swimming in literally bathtub-warm ocean water!
Boats... i... love... boats!
Tiffany was captured (despite what this photo shows) by this adorable little girl at our guesthouse in Otres Beach. The guesthouse by the way was was called "Everythang" to give you an idea of the place. Tiffany was pulled around by this cute little girl all night, the two of them playing goofy games and laughing constantly. Wish the pictures were better... when i have better means of accessing photos one day i'll put up the not so fuzzy ones.
A game of forced hide and seek.
Our bungalow... why not.
Out for a day of snorkeling, fishing, swimming, drinking, swimming, drinking, and diving with phosphorescent plankton! you know... thursday.
Sunset and our ride back to our bamboo shack. Only way to the boat... swim:)
While the beach was awesome, it also was just full of people who I felt didn't give a crap about being in Cambodia, they just wanted to be on a beach where the food and drinks were relatively cheap. Little kids and adults walked up and down the beach peddling bracelets and hair removal and sunglasses and boat rides... Really for the kids, this is a form of child 'slavery' is perhaps too strong a word, but buying into that system just perpetuates and makes more permanent the child's roll in a family's income. I watched many lazy westeners support this system. It was heart breaking. The kids were smart and funny and knew a ton of english. Tiffany and I spoke with many of them when they would try to get us to buy something. This was a beginning really of becoming more aware of the desperate poverty that is the foundation Cambodia rests on. ah, that's a topic for another day i think... We happily left the beach for what turned out to be a miserable day of travel. Our boat from the island was late, which almost made us miss our bus, and then our bus what should have been a ten hour ride (long already) became an exhausting 15 hour bus ride to Siem Reap. We eventually made it to our hostel at 3am. It was a hard push but worth it as Tiffany wanted to spend her birthday in Siem Reap among the temples. After a few hours of sleep we set off to explore the famed temples of Siem Reap and have continued to do that over the past few days. Nothin but temples, temples, temples.
This is the Ta Prom, the Tomb Raider Temple, well where some of Tomb Raider was filmed anyway... didn't see it. Excuse the turned photo... drag of working on a blog in internet cafes. We enjoyed sunrise at Angkor Wat yesterday and many other temples. These structures are otherworldy. More on temples to come.
Well, so I have way more photos, way more stories, but here's just a taste, a glimpse, an idea of whats been happening on the road. I loved my time in NZ and met some amazing people and saw indescribably beautiful things and places. Cambodia has been incredible so far. We're spending a few more days here in Siem Reap to enjoy as many temples as we can, perhaps a floating village or two and hopefully on thursday we will be flying to Myanmar to visit a friend of mine I met on a rooftop in a tiny camel town in the deserts of India last year and explore a relatively newly opened country to outsiders. After that, well, back to Cambodia for a few more adventures before Tiffany goes home, then I'll spend about a week in Vietnam before I bring this journey temporarily to a close and head back to PA. Lots going on, but loving it all... even the inevitable discomforts one always experiences in foreign places.
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