Written on March 15th:

I am writing from a bus on its way from Lumut, Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur.  The sky is shades of yellow and gray.  It rained just thirty minutes ago, at six PM, covering the jungle landscape through which we have been driving in a thick, wet fog.  At one point during the seven-hour drive, we saw a monkey crossing the road.

Since I last wrote, I have crashed a motorcycle, gotten into graduate school, rock climbed, parasailed at sunset, driven a jet ski, partied with Malaysians, and – many times more – felt profound gratitude for the opportunities I have received in life.

Briefly: By some miracle, I have been accepted to all of the graduate schools to which I applied.  Now it’s a question of pragmatics.  UNC-Chapel Hill offered me a full ride, Northwestern offered half-tuition, NYU offered a small scholarship, Stanford offered nothing.  Columbia is still playing coy with financial aid.  Ideally, I will end up in New York City.  Both Columbia and NYU offer programs that would enable me to receive master’s degrees in both journalism and international affairs.  Plus, how cool is the Big Apple?

Sara and I arrived in Ao Nang after a mini-van ride from Phuket that almost saw the death of my backpack.  This was the scene when we got off of the van.  We could only laugh hysterically.

Ao Nang is a small town near Railay Beach, where world-famous rock climbers flock to experience the pristine limestone rock walls that line the coast.  After another spectacular sunset, only a fifteen minute walk from our guesthouse (the “VIP Hostel”), we booked a half-day rock climbing adventure from a woman named Tam.

I was nervous about climbing.  My dear friend Ryan in Miami is a tremendously talented rock climber; the sound advice that he gave me was to trust the rope and enjoy the view.  After a wet boat ride with a small group of young tourists, we arrived at stunning Railay Beach.

I tackled four separate ropes, and with the help of our Thai rock-climbing gurus, felt like a champion.  So much so, in fact, that when we got back to our hostel, my arms still shaking from the morning workout, I decided that it was the day to learn how to ride a motorbike.  I know so little about motorbikes that I actually thought I would be riding a motorcycle, and not the scooter that I ended up abusing.  A young guy, larger in stature, showed up at our hostel with a blue scooter, and – showing me through gestures, as he spoke no English – attempted to teach me how to drive the thing.  We went to a small street nearby on which I drove the motorbike myself, with complete confidence.  At the end of the street, he looked at me, grinning, and – with limited objection from me – hopped on the back.  I should have realized how difficult it would be for me to balance with the additional weight.  As we were turning onto a main street, driving on the left-hand side of the road, I completely lost control.  We went barreling toward the curb, eventually crashing into it after sliding on the bike’s left side for a few meters.

These are some of my bruises from over a week later.  Still around.  I’ll spare you the bloody toe shot.  The guy on the back of the bike suffered some cuts on his arm; the bike ended the day with a strange leak from somewhere over the front tire.  Somehow, I only had to pay the cost of renting the bike.  I was very lucky, for all sorts of reasons.

That night, Sara wasn’t feeling well.  I went out to dinner alone, with my book, and ate fried morning glory and tofu pad thai.  I felt better.  The next day, it was off to Ko Lanta, another island off of the west coast of Thailand that is known to possess less of an obscene party culture than its neighbor to the north, Ko Phi Phi.  It was paradise.  Our hostel was directly over an inlet off of the ocean.  We could hear the ocean waves while we slept; unfortunately, I could also feel a thin layer of sewage sink over everything in our room during the nighttime.  Sara and I spent our time together discovering empty beaches and watching purple sunsets.

I scuba-dived some neighboring islands with a Hawaiian guy named Michael, and swam with a sea turtle for the first time.  At some point, we found an underwater cave.  We dove through it, swam to the surface of the water, took off our masks, and laughed.  We were inside of a perfect cave, sunlight shining up through the water, laying on our backs on emerald green water, giggling at the beauty of it all.

Our next adventure took us to the Malaysian island of Langkawi.  After a day’s journey on mini-vans and ferries, we arrived at another island paradise.  This one welcomed us with Muslim prayers being played on loudspeakers throughout the town.  About 70% of Malaysia’s population is Muslim.  We saw women in full burkas swimming at the beach, carrying the weight of their sopping garments as they trudged out of the water.  Sara and I spent three incredible days befriending the Malaysian men who run a watersports company on the random beach we selected on a map.  Day one was spent searching for cheap beer, which is nothing short of an epic journey in a Muslim country.  Toward the end of the day, after a strange interaction with a group of Iraqi men who begged Sara and me to take pictures with them, the Malaysian beach boys started inviting us out to ride on their speedboats while they dragged gleeful tourists around on banana boats.  This is Sham, one of our friends.

I spent the next day on the beach with Sham and Mansur, who let me drive a jetski, took me eagle watching (amazing!), and encouraged me to solo parasail at sunset.  We talked about religion, women, and family; they bought me lunch and proposed marriage.   I went out to a local bar with my Malaysian friends at night, where we laughed at drunk tourists and I learned how to say the numbers one through ten in Malay.

This is the Kiblat compass.  It is a mandatory sign in every hotel room in Malaysia that informs Muslims which direction to pray.

Langkawi provided me a unique opportunity to understand Malaysian culture, learn about Islam, and recognize (yet again) how welcoming and loving people can be.  Our next island,  Pulau Pangkor, was much more secluded.  Our first night in town, we ate seafood at a plastic table on the beach, while monkeys climbed in the trees above.  This was our pre-jentacular greeting on the island the next morning.

Sara and I spent a lazy day avoiding the heat, and decided to kayak around the islands at sunset.  I am continually amazed by Sara’s depth and her willingness to learn about me while sharing the beauty in her.

The graffiti above says “I fix everything.”  I wasn’t sure whether to attribute that to the Malaysian flag or the broom.  After two days on the island, on which there were only about four shops and restaurants open at a time, Sara and I were ready for a change of pace and jumped on the bus to Kuala Lumpur.  Adventure awaits!