都蘭草堂筆記

-----Original Message-----

F rom : jensen [mailto:jensen@kerlee.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 2:49 PM

To: yukuo.fong@gmail.com

Subject: healthy and omw to malaysia

Tina and I are wrapping up our time here in boracay, land of beach and bars and crafts shops and not too crowded but still lots of vendors selling stuff and more pale tourists arriving all the time busy season is starting. Our stay at the hotel for 14 nights turns up to be 8880 pesos/200usd can't beat that and they did our laundry and fed us some breakfasts too. We've switched to eating pbj for breakfasts to cut down on some costs, living under our 40usd/day budget. Starting to look into plane tickets to mallorca for christmas and new years, heard f rom a spanish guy that it's way cheaper to fly to germany f rom bangkok and then to madrid, so we'll check that out, it'll be great to see you.

  We've decided to cut out indonesia because of our goal to get to know places instead of just pass through, so we'll have a month and a bit to see vietnam, thailand, cambodia, and laos before we head to spain and then we'll fly back to india probably, or maybe go up around the mideast and then south through china to nepal and india. We heard f rom a nice vancouveran/canadian that her stay in tibet recently was lame because those dern imperialist chinese are making it all officious and cultural undermining and militaristic and bad and stuff. People can get fines of thousands usd if they're caught giving a ride to a tourist without a permit that china now requires of them. So we've decided to stick to india, land of amazing food, and nepal, to get our buddhist fix, the lama is in some place in india that sounds like dhali lama, like darma lima or something anyway, and surrounded by a huge population of buddhists (oh, I miss my cat buddha mucho) so that'll be great. So India after spain and then when we get bored we'll head up to nepal and rent some winter clothes for the frigid weather, yak fur most likely :). Too bad we're missing the camel fair in northern india right now, heard it was great.

  Made a couple of canadian friends here in boracay that we'll no doubt go and visit, except for erika who's in seoul korea, have no current plans to go there, unless she comes back to vancouver then we'll head on up.

Her sister dawn and her are great. And Montrealan Sylvan was great too, takes a month or two off per year for travelling, can see myself being inspired to do that too. He's saving europe for his older years because he'll have more money then and be less physically able and europe is more expensive and easier to travel around, brilliant!

  Lots of other interesting and inspiring people too to meet, probably the best part, one of them, of travelling is meeting all the other travellers. Some aren't so good but we just don't spend time with them.

  Lots of fruit shakes here too yum. Philippine food isn't all that great to me, lots of seafood that smells and tastes like low tide, but the rice and eggs are good, no century eggs or salted duck eggs here :) Although they do eat fetusized chicken eggs, 18 days I hear is the best, not 22 like most people like, but I won't eat one. There's no tofu here either. Beer is cheap, fifty cents for a beer if you know where to get one, otherwise prices go as high as the states.

  Some days I think, why am I travelling? I'm the same wherever I go, and sometimes I walk around and look at stuff and see things and meet people and remember why. But life's life though and some days suck badly, told tina to remind me that someday I'm going to die and to stop wasting time being lame. I find death very motivating usually. Although when I'm depressed I don't care about much at all seems like. Mostly I'm great though, oh, send me your mailing address and I'll send you a postcard f rom someplace.

  Climbed a coconut tree, fresh milk tastes way better than canned stuff, wish I had a kitchen to cook in. Buying bottled water instead of using the UV ray steripen because the water tastes better when it's filtered, spoiling myself. Prolly use that steripen next summer when I want to walk the whole pacific crest trail, who's with me? Inspired by zak mermel f rom hawaii who did it this summer cowboy camping style. Finished reading ''a problem f rom hell: america and the age of genocide'' and want to save the world again sometimes, broke down all emotional one drunk night about all the hurt in the world in taiwan at guanziling muddy hot springs hotel place, that was fun :) (in retrospect)...went sailing with guys here in boracay and the canadians and tina and did some snorkling, about on par with hawaii, maybe a little less good than that beach...five mile?...in hilo yay hilo. Great indian food restaurant here on the strip that makes me salivate for india . Got a tour of some mango trees with a 50yo prostitute named queen anita who bought me peanuts and a ride on a motor scooter and tricked me into eating a pepper that burned my mouth so I had to have a beer to put out the fire.

Made a hammock out of a bed sheet and some nice rope stuff I bought f rom a shop that makes awesome fish-flops in the shapes of squids and spider man and geckos and stuff. Dance to live music on the beach, question life's motivations, had a beer with an elderly hugely bearded scottish mailman and an english seaweed farmer living on cebu. frisbee with people f rom all over the world of various skill levels with the haight&ashbury hypercolor disk Í brought that I bought when david and I drove to mexico . Tina got a good massage on the dime. Pretty much healed f rom my crazy staff infections on my legs. Multiple sunburns that are fading into a protective layer of darker skin. Found out big cities aren't where it's at for my travel tastes. More and more, wish you were all here, more to come.

love, jensen