Greetings from Kuala Lumpur

It’s a warm day in Kuala Lumpur. The skies are clear blue. It’s an excellent day for sight-seeing but, I’m not in the mood just now. I imagine I’ll be traveling for some months, and I don’t want it to feel like a job.

I didn’t expect to be in Malaysia. I thought I would be in Japan teaching English. I had always wanted to teach English in Japan, but when I got there, it wasn’t what I expected. I was unhappy with the job, the city and my colleagues. Luckily I have a bit of money in the bank from my year in Saudi, so I can afford to travel for a while...and “loaf” as Maughum’s Larry Darnell would put it.

I haven’t been travelling a week, and already, and sort of rough itinerary is starting to form—more because of chatting with people and learning about their experiences, than actually planning stuff out on my own.  

Horrifying realization—literally every guest in this hostel is staring a glowing screen, including myself, of course. Also, the TV is on, but nobody is watching it...which means someone must have turned in on sometime in the last forty-five minutes, while I was upstairs. (I had turned it off earlier).  Someone turned on the TV just to have it on. 

This is troubling. I decided to go on this journey to get away from the hi-fi. And yet, it’s all around me. Even worse, I’ve been quite immersed in video games!

So, why didn’t I get rid of my laptop, you might ask? I was indeed planning to, but I wasn’t able to book my flight before needing to vacate my accommodation in Niihama, so I thought twice about shipping it off for safe keeping with the rest of my superlative objects. Also, it will enable me to write this blog, and perhaps be an aid for any temporary employment I might take up to supplement my travels. None the less, on this quest of mine, it will have to remain in the bag for days at a time. God willing I will have the discipline. If not, I’ll have to find myself a heavy rock and a garbage bag. 

My purpose was to have a journey of spiritual discovery and I know I need to strip down life to its barest elements. In addition to my quest for wisdom, I have a secondary aim: to get fit and healthy. And, if time and circumstance allow, a tertiary one: to improve my foreign language skills. As I mentioned, an itinerary is starting to materialize, which seems to have very little to do with any active planning on my part. I’m booked up in KL for another two nights. From there I’ll most likely be going north to the highlands with a Danish lad, with whom I’m sharing my hostel room. From there, I’ll either spend some time on the island of Pinyang or Langkawi. If not, I’ll take a train across the Thai border and go to either Koh Lanta, or Koh Samui. Wherever I end up for this period, I plan on finding the most isolated beach bungalow I can and devoting the bulk of my days to yoga, exercise and meditation. I’m not sure how long I expect to follow this routine, but I expect I’ll know when it’s time to move on. 

I’m not sure what else I will do in Thailand, and I’ve been there before, so I may make a short run of it. If I can, I will take a train into Cambodia and head to Siem Reap, and take a week-long meditation and yoga retreat, recommended by another backpacker. From there, I may take a ferry to Phnom Penh via the Tonle Sap, which I have done before, but which boasts some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. From Phnom Penh, I hope to cross over into Vietnam and hang out in Saigon. I met a girl in a hostel in Osaka that lives there, and she offered to show me around. As per her recommendation, I may do some copy editing or other miscellaneous English-language related work. Or perhaps, I will do the same in Hanoi, which I plan on making my way to by driving a motorcycle up the coast.

From Hanoi, it’s decision making time—whether to go through Laos in to Burma, where I’ve been recommended a Buddhist monastery, or into China, where another of my current roommates has recommended I go, and take free room and board at hostel in Chengdu in exchange for English lessons. From there I could make my way into Tibet...

It starts to get hazy from there, but I have some ideas about what to do after that. For now this is enough. Who knows if I’ll get past Thailand? Maybe I’ll turn around and go to India, or somewhere else. Maybe I’ll take a job teaching ESL in Singapore—I have a friend who can get me a job there.

Anyway, I have options and feel an immense degree of freedom just now. Stay tuned for the next chapter, coming to you live from...