Phuket

As you surmised (impressive vocabulary heh?!) from my post about Penang, I wasn't planning on going to Phuket. But after seeing the pictures of the place I had to check it out. It is an extremely touristy place, and it's got that reputation where so many travellers like to slag it and say "oh it's terrible, it's way too touristy", forgetting that they are of course tourists themselves, even though they like to pretend that they are somehow above hanging out in places where there are other tourists. If you've travelled much at all, you know the type, and after meeting so many of them they start to get on my nerves. Anyways enough about them haha. Phuket was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Yes, it is extremely commericalized, with your standard go-go bars, prostitutes, and lady boys shouting and grabbing at you as you pass by them at night. But if you can get past that nuisance, the beach is absolutely amazing. And since it's facing west it has beautiful sunsets every night. I spent a couple days just lying on the beach like a beached whale, drinking Chang beers, and eating Pad Thai every few hours (Thai food is officially my favorite food on this trip so far).

Since it was low season, everything was much cheaper than usual, and I managed to find a big hotel room for $10/night with TV and fan. And to make it even better, I just happened to have 3 cool girls from England staying in the room next to mine. I quickly befriended them, and we partied hard that night, checking out some live music, and then hitting some other shady bar, where we had some intense games of Connect Four. I'm still amazed how easy it is to roll into a place by myself, and within a short time I am hanging out with new friends. Very cool.

We did a day trip to Ko Phi Phi, which is where they filmed "The Beach". Again, this place is insanely touristy, but the place is absolutely beautiful and I'm so glad I checked it out. We did some snorkelling and had a fantastic buffet lunch. We also stopped at some random island in the middle of the ocean, and that is where I stepped on a piece of coral that carved a sizeable gash into my foot. It still hurts to this day (one month later). But I had a beer and it was all good.

That night, I met up with another CSer, Christine, who had just gotten into Phuket and was looking to meet up with people. So we met up for drinks and dinner, and we then proceeded to walk all over Patong (main beach area of Phuket), stopping at every 7-11 for Chang Beers. We came across an arcade style fortune teller, that looked exactly like the one from the movie "Big" with Tom Hanks. I got my fortune and it was nothing but glowing things for my future..I guess we'll see on that one. Christine however did not fare so well with her fortune. She didn't let it get her down too much though. We met up with the English girls and had another crazy night on the town. Good times. My last day in Phuket was spent on the beach (where else) with Christine. Laying on a beach all day is a great thing to do when you're hungover. That evening, I saw the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Not sure what it was, but the sky was full of all kinds of crazy colours all at once like purple, orange, blue. Anyways, writing about it is fairly meaningless. But I've never stared so long at the sky. We don't get those in Winnipeg.

Penang

I wasn't planning on going to Penang, which is just along the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Afterall, I had spoken to other travellers who had been there, who spoke of its relative mediocrity. However, I needed to work my way towards Kuala Lumpur, since I had a flight out of there to Australia 10 days later, and I didn't want to be in KL for that long. And it just so happened that Air Asia was having a crazy sale on flights from Hong Kong to Penang, so I bought the ticket.

But I ended up staying at the house of a very interesting local guy named Ang, who was also from the Couchsurfing world. He picked me up on his motorbike as soon as I landed in Penang, and immediately began showing me the sights of Penang. It turns out Ang ran a tourism business in Penang so apparently I picked a good host to stay with. That night he took me to a Chinese Opera performance, where I was allowed backstage to watch all the actresses getting ready and where they spend hours putting on their elaborate make-up. Unfortunately they didn't speak a word of English, so I wasn't able to speak with them, other than the occasional hand gesture (like giving the thumbs up to a girl to approve of her make-up selection - yes I am that lame). The show itself was interesting yet confusing, as it was all in Chinese.

That night, as we had an invigorating discussion about our philosophies on life, and Ang telling me about the wonders of meditation. I spent the day checking out the sights of Penang, and making plans to leave for somewhere else. Luckily there were cheap bus fares to Phuket, Thailand. I booked my ticket for $20, and left the next morning.

Hong Kong

When I booked my ticket to Hong Kong for the beginning of September, the idea was that I would be starting an internship there. For various reasons, the internship did not work out. I was disappointed, but not overly upset about it. While in Hong Kong, I even sent off some applications for other work, and even had an interview for some finance roles. Evidently, however, seeking financial jobs in one of the financial capitals of the world during a global financial crises is not an easy undertaking. That's why at some point, I decided I had two options - I could head back home, disappointed about the way the work situation played out; Or I could lift my head up and keep travelling. Afterall, there was still so much I wanted to see, and once I got back home, it would cost thousands to fly to these places from Canada, rather than hundreds (more often less than a hundred actually). I still had money in the bank, and was in a good position to keep the travelling going.

So I enjoyed Hong Kong once I was able to accept the second option. Hong Kong is an amazing city that has that exotic feeling you get while being in a foreign country, but also has a distinctly western feel to it at the same time which makes it comfortable. When I arrived in Hong Kong, I took the ultra efficient high speed train to Hong Kong Island, wher I met up with my buddy Matt, who I'd met in Vietnam a few weeks earlier. He had recently started going to university there, and had just moved into his temporary apartment. He let me stay at his place for the first night while I got my bearings sorted out. We ended going out for a night on the town, even though it was a Wednesday night. We met up with a few other university kids and it was a solid night. The next day I was looking at apartments, and managed to find one for rent on a weekly basis. It was a small bachelor suite but it was perfectly located close to all the action. And it had a big screen TV with ice cold AC, so I was sold. I moved in that very day! Easy to do when everything you own is in a backpack. It was good to hang up all my clothes and get some kind of stability, even if it was only for a week. At this point, I even had 2 tailor made suits with me that I had bought in Bangkok just before coming to Hong Kong. These suits were mint!

Anyways, I did a lot of big city stuff that one would normally do while in a place like Hong Kong - shopping, late nights on the town in LKF (awesome area downtown where there are loads of pubs and bars full of expats), and trying the local Chinese food (which I didn't like - a little bland and too much seafood fishy type stuff). So I won't write about these too much.

After the week at my temporary apartment was up, I moved North up to the New Territories to stay with Clare, a fellow Couchsurfer. She had a beautiful little apartment with nice views of the surrounding mountains. I couldn't believe how nice and green everything was once you get out of the concrete jungle of the city centre. Clare also showed me around to some amazing restaurants that somewhat redeemed my opinion of the local food. Also, while Clare was away at work, she let me use her bike to explore the area. There was a beautiful trail that went all along the ocean (well, it was a river feeding into the ocean) that I rode, which took most of the day. It was great - cruising along the trail, listening to the entirety of David Cross's hilarious "Why I Drink" on my MP3 player, where he gives his observations on the ridiculousness of the behaviour of people and groups/cults/countries. That night, I even convinced Clare to play me in badminton since her complex had a court on site. Even though it was dark and even rainy at times, we still managed to get some pretty solid rallies in - she was damn good! It turns out she played regularly with friends, and had even taken lessons. I still managed to hold my own though. The last day spent with Clare involved a trip to Lamma Island, which is just a short ferry ride from Hong Kong Island. We grabbed some ice cream, lunch, and then did a treck in the sweltering heat of the day. Good thing I had a litre of water with me because I'm sure I sweat that much out. Clare however seemed completely unaffected by the heat. She referred to my skin as being like a fur which had been created through many winters of disgustingly cold winters in Winnipeg. It's probably true, and it's why I don't think I could ever live in a place that was consistently that hot.

Hong Kong is an awesome city, and I can't wait to go back. The time I go it will be in late November, and I'll be with my Dad and his wife Benna!

'Nam

Due to my extreme laziness, combined with a rather hectic and busy travelling itinerary, I have completely foresaken my blog over the last month or so. But I have come this far, so I might as well keep on truckin. Vietnam was one of my favorites for sure. As I flew into Saigon a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh City, I noticed 1,000's of scooters plowing along through the streets, with no apparent order whatsoever. And that's basically what it is. I think there might be rules and traffic lights and stuff, but nobody really takes them seriously. I saw this firsthand right away as I elected to go with the cheaper and much more dangerous option of taking a motorcycle taxi into town instead of a proper cab. After some hard negotiating, we were on our way, weaving in and out of the mess of scooters. I'm pretty sure we came close to violent collisions with other bikes or pedestrians numerous times, but the driver seemed oblivious or uncaring of this. My hotel was pretty decadent, complete with a full buffet breakfast and the coldest AC imaginable for a cool $15/night. This was one of the more expensive rooms I've had on my trip so far, but I figured I deserved it because....no wait, I didn't deserve it at all. But anyways, it was great! From there I did a couple tours. The first was the Mekong Delta, which was pretty cool, but nothing too incredible. The second was the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were much more fascinating. The tunnels were built during the war by the Viet Cong to escape the American air bombings. After being told that the tunnels had been doubled in size since the war to accomodate fat western tourists, I was shocked to see just how small they still were. I crawled through 100 metres of them, and there was one point where I had to lay completely horizontally and drag myself through using my elbows. This was not good at all for my claustrophobia, and it was a massive mental effort to not lose it completely down there. There is no way that a tour like this would fly in North America, that's for sure. I emerged from the tunnel sweating buckets, and ecstatic to see the light of day again. I can't believe the VC's actually lived down there! To make things more spicy, the tunnels and surrounding areas were littered with booby traps like collapsing floors that fell on to razor sharp bamboo spikes. Other than that, a great place to live, I'm told.

After Saigon, Mark (a buddy I met on the Mekong Delta tour) and I signed up for a bus pass that would take us all the way North up to Hanoi, stopping along the way at Na Trangh and Hoi An. Little did we know, these were overnight buses which must have been manufactured in the deepest realms of hell. They were the smallest, most uncomfortable beds I have ever seen. But even if they were queen sized pillow topped beds, they would have been no match for the insanely bumpy roads. Combine that with a driver who has an alarming penchant for honking (I guess he forgot his passengers were on the sleeper bus), and it means you are getting no sleep. Despite this, Na Trangh and Hoi An were beautiful places, and I wish we would have had more time to spend there. Luckily, I'll be going back there with my Dad next month!

Hanoi was decent but nothing spectacular. I did manage to find an Air Force Museum there, which had some really cool planes helicopters on display. They even had a mig that you could get into. And for $5, you could suit up in a VC pilot uniform, complete with helmet and gloves. I had to do it!

What makes North Vietnam so spectacular are the areas outside of Hanoi, like Sapa and Halong Bay. Halong Bay has some of the craziest looking cliffs/mountains I have ever seen, standing almost vertically out of the ocean. I did a 2 day, one night package where I got to sleep on the boat. I befriended some travellers from England, and at night we got involved in some heated card games, complete with a healthy supply of booze. This went on late into the night on the deck of the boat, under a star-filled sky. Nice.

In Sapa I did some hiking through some beautiful hills with rice paddies. I did a village homestay, where you stay overnight with a family from the village. Although it sounds like a very cultural experience, I'd be lying if I said it was. It was basically a barn with 20 or so mattresses spread across the floor on the second level. There was a family there, but we really had no interaction with them. It was still a blast though. We had some great local food, and they even had karaoke there. As it turns out, our guide was a little too fond of the drink. He got absolutely smashed and hogged the karaoke for most of the night. Quite a spectacle. It was pretty funny though.

Overall, I loved Vietnam, and especially the friendliness of its people. Can't wait to go back!

Bali & Lombok

After Thailand, I was off to beautiful Bali, Indonesia. I loved it before I even set foot on the island. Flying into Denpasar Airport, which is really in Kuta, the planes make their final approach low and slow over the ocean, and finally over Kuta Beach and onto the runway. Getting out of the airport was the usual unpleasant experience of ducking and dodging the numerous touts and scamsters trying to extract every last Indonesian Rupiah out of you in exchange for a very short ride into town. I managed to haggle one down to a reasonable level, and got into Kuta. As usual, I hadn't done a proper job researching the accomodation situation ahead of time, and spent 2 hours in the heat lugging around my backpack, which seemed to be gaining weight at a rather alarming rate. I ended up eventually lucking out and finding a sweet room with a queen sized bed, and huge balcony for only $8US/night.

The next day, it was time to try my hand at surfing on Kuta Beach. I've always wanted to try surfing, but living in Winnipeg, the opportunities to try have been a little hard to come by. We started out in the morning by getting dryland lessons, which involved our instructors showing us the basics on how to handle the board in the water, and the most important part - going from lying flat against the board to getting up and standing, doing your best to look ultra cool along the way. After this, we took to the waters. I was surprised when I successfully stood up on the very first wave that I challenged. I figured I must be a natural, and so it was to my dismay when I was embarassingly tossed aside by the next mini-wave that I took on. After some more waves and trial and error, I was getting up on every one and having a blast. I was taking on bigger and bigger waves, and even learning to steer. Very cool. My instructor said I did well, and even went on to say how much better a surfer I was than my brother Chris. I wasn't sure how he even knew Chris, but I didn't ask questions.

The next day I took a motorbike taxi down to the Southern coast of Bali, which is blessed with huge cliffs, where the ocean is crashing hard down below against their base. It was here that I took a 30 minute introduction to paragliding, with a local guy named Ketut. Ketut was all business, and within 20 minutes time - barely giving me enough time to take down my can of coke for courage - I was gearing up and waiting for just the right gust to get airborne. We didn't have to wait long, and soon we were in the air, floating over the ocean, just beyond the edge of the cliff. It took a few seconds for my senses to adapt to this new feeling of floating in the sky, without the noise of a motor to add some realism to it. But soon I was smiling and enjoying the experience thoroughly. It occurred to me that paragliding is not so much a thrill sport as much as it is an experience of serenity. The equipment is fairly minimal, and the wind is your fuel source, creating lift on the basic wing stretched out above you. I loved the experience, but I have to admit the slimpicity of the sport freaked me out a little. The simplicity also meant vulnerability to me, and I think I prefer the roar of a 4 stroke engine cooking up fuel in front of me, and having the familiar controls of an aircraft in my hands to make the plane do what I want it to in an instant. Maybe I'm just a control freak. But either way, it was a cool and unforgettable experience.

My nights in Kuta were spent drinking beer in various bars in Poppies Lane I and II, with random people I'd met either on tours or at my hotel. Kuta is basically to Australians what Cancun is to Canadians and Americans. So it was because of this that I enjoyed it for what it was, but after 3 days of seeing people sloppy drunk everywhere, and struggling to sleep at 3am while the music thumped on relentlessly, I was ready to move on and see a more genuine Bali.

I went up North to a town called Ubud. Ubud is the cultural heart of Bali, and it was much more tame than Kuta. I also enjoyed my stay there because I found a hotel where my room was absolutely amazing. The room was a good size, with a comfy bed. But the best part was the marble-floored private patio I had all to myself, along with an enormous balcony overlooking a river surrounded in jungle. Oh yeah, and they even hand delivered banana pancakes, a fruit bowl, and a thermos of Balinese coffee to my patio morning. All this for a cool $10/night. Not too bad at all! This place would have easily gone for $150/night in Canada, probably more. Ubud was basically a place to just chill out for me, and it served this role perfectly. The one highlight activity I did was taking a stroll through the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, where there are hundreds of monkeys everywhere, looking and behaving strangely similar to humans. I could have sworn one of them was my brother Corey.

While I was in Ubud, I was busy planning my next move. I was looking around on Couchsurfing.com when I came across an ad from a guy who owned a restaurant and guesthouses on the west coast of Bali (Sako Beach). The deal was that if people were willing to come and help his staff learn better English, that in return, they could stay at his hotel for free. I jumped at the opportunity, and within a couple of days I was being picked up by Arnan, the owner of the place. Arnan was originally from Java, and had moved to Sako Beach to manage the business, as his parents also owned other restaurants and hotels throughout Java and Bali. Unfortunately, I ended up not spending a lot of time teaching his staff English, but this was only because they were so busy almost all the time, and also because Arnan and I were busy hanging out. We had a lot in common, and we spent a lot of time having lengthy conversations over dinner or beers, about business and life in general. His restaurant had nightly entertainment, and one night I was convinced by the keyboardist to join him on stage to sing some songs for the guests. After some hesitation, I figured why the hell not, and was soon up there belting out various songs - pretty funny experience.

We were soon joined by another couchsurfer, Yongkie, also from Java, who was spending his long weekend in Bali. The 3 of us had an awesome time, cruising around the area in Arnan's truck, stopping for coffees and food along the way. I also managed to drag myself out of bed at 8am every morning for a vigorous jog along the beach. After Yongkie left, Arnan and I went to meet up with his sister and family, in Dreamland, which is an amazing beach resort area just south of Kuta (did I mention Bali is a very small island?) It was his sister's birthday, and we had some drinks and appetizers with them, followed up with some swimming in the pool overlooking the beach and sunset. At the end of the night, I said bye to Arnan, as I was off to Lombok the next day. Hanging out with Arnan was easily the highlight of my time in Bali.

I flew to and from the island of Lombok via airplane, on different airlines, but both of them were similar in that they used what must have been hand-me-downs from the bigger airlines. These birds had faded paint on the outside, and interiors that hadn't been updated in decades. So I wasn't really all that surprised when I found out that these airlines were on the "blacklist" of many aviation safety bodies. Just another adventure. The highlight of Lombok was the Gili Islands. Gili Trawangan is a tiny little island that has exploded with tourism, which is probably the reason it took 2 hours to find a place to stay, which was pretty pricey. Luckily, I had met another solo traveler - Emma from New Zealand - on the boat ride over, and we shared a place. My time on the Gilis was pretty chilled, but I loved it. Lots of beach time, and lounging around in seaside cafes and restaurants, sipping on ice cold beers.

Next stop - Malaysia!

Malaysia

I flew into Kuala Lumpur on July 25th. Luckily, this time I had done some planning earlier in the day, and had a hostel booked in advance. My first impression of Malaysia was how much more modern it was compared to all the other places I'd been in Asia, with the exception of Japan. The airport was spotless, and not one single person approached me trying to give me rides into town. I bought a bus ticket for 8 Ringets (about $3 Cdn) for the 1 hour ride into KL centre. After I got off the bus I took a quick subway ride to the stop nearest to my hostel, and was there in no time. Apparently I got extremely lucky, because the hostel that I chose completely randomly, turned out to be absolutely amazing, and had opened only 3 weeks before. Everything was brand new, from the soft beds, to the ice cold AC. The staff was super friendly too. Once I had checked in; and put my bags up in the room, I was asking the front desk about where a guy could get a good meal in the area, and two of them volunteered to come with me to show me a good place. I had some great chinese food and conversation with them, and at the end they even paid for my food! So far, I was loving KL. The next day was spent roaving around China Town with another traveler. At night, while roaming around trying to find the Petronas Towers (they can be quite elusive, despite being the tallest towers in the world), I came across a TGI Fridays, and was in heaven. After gorging myself on boneless buffalo wings, fish and chips, and some beer, I got some directions from the waiter and was off to the towers. My brothers Chris and Corey had been there just over a year ago, and I remembered their pictures of the towers, and couldn't believe how cool they looked. When I saw them in person, they were just as cool. In fact, some guy I ran in to said they were cooler looking than when Chris and Corey were there. Weird, but again, it was easier to not ask questions.

The next day, I was flying to the Perhentian Islands. Now, if you'd asked me about the Perhentian Islands 2 months ago, I would have wondered what the hell you were talking about - maybe even smacked you upside the head. But after traveling around for a month and a half, I'd met 3 separate groups of travelers who raved about these Perhentian Islands, and how it was the highlight of their trip. So I decided I must go see them. And it's true, they are spectacular. Beautiful white sand gives way to the clearest water I've ever seen. And the best part was that even though it had become more touristy over the years, it's still unspoiled for the most part, with just basic accommodation and a few restaurants on the beach to choose from. This was the definition of a true tropical paradise. I was planning on spending maybe 3 days there, but ended up settling in for a week. I signed up for the Advanced Scuba Diving course at the place I was staying. The visibility definitely could have been better, but overall, the diving and the lessons were really fun. The first one we did was underwater navigation, where you have to swim a square pattern following a set heading, count15 kicks, and then turn 90 degrees afterwards to start the next leg. After 4 of these legs, the idea is that if you've followed the headings properly, and done proper 90 degree turns, you should end up within 6 metres from your point of departure. It was a little sketchy on the 3rd and 4th legs, because you have no landmarks to tell you whether you are going in the right direction, but I was relieved when I returned exactly to the departure point. Compasses are cool! The best dive though was easily the night dive. We set out at around 8pm, and while we were on the boat on the way out to the dive site, you could see a weather system moving in, complete with thunder and lightning. To all of our surprise, the instructor decided to carry on, and we backrolled into the black water. Scuba diving at night is so much different than during the day. It must be similar to to being in space, as you just float around in complete darkness, without any sounds at all. You also see all kinds of weird things on the ocean bed you've never seen before. When we surfaced, it was an absolute torrential downpour, with lightning lighting up the sky every few seconds. I felt like I was in some kind of action movie and maybe we were some heroic types tasked with some super cool mission. To makes things even more spicy, the boat which dropped us off was nowhere to be seen! So there we were floating around in the middle of the ocean, rain pounding down on us, and lightning crashing around us against the otherwise black night. It seemed like a worse version of the story depicted in the movie "Open Water". But at the same time, I was loving it. I don't know why, but I found the whole ordeal to be just another adventure. And I felt so alive. I remember thinking that if I hadn't taken on this whole trip, at that exact moment where I was now going through this ordeal, I would have instead been adding and subtracting numbers on my adding machine, sitting in my office at work, staring at my computer all day (we're 12 hours ahead of Winnipeg time here). Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate my job that much, it just made me realize how lucky I was to be able to have such an adventure, and put things in perspective a little. Of course, it wouldn't have been quite as cool if we were left out there for good, never to be seen again. But there is definitely something to be said for living on the edge a little. After about 10 minutes, the boat spotted our torches, and we were saved.

OK that story went on a little longer than anticipated, so I'll leave it at that for the Perhentians. The last item of note however was that I met a couple more travel companions to accompany me on my next destination - Borneo. They were Chris, a fellow Canuck, and Jasmin, from Switzerland. Together, we made quite the team. We took the boat back to the mainland together in the morning, and then booked our first class train tickets (we are a big deal) for later that night. We were so organized. So we rewarded ourselves by spending the majority of our day in McDonald's, eating copious amounts of ice cream cones and Big Macs, and making full use of the free wifi access. Maybe it was all the grease and sugar affecting us, but we somehow lost track of time, and before we knew it, we were rushing around trying to find a taxi to take us to the train station, where our train was leaving in 30 mins. Our relief of finding a taxi driver was quickly replaced with angst as he told us about the traffic jam that awaited us. What we didn't realize was that we had chanced upon the Malaysian equivalent of Michael Schumacher. This guy could drive! For example, why wait in the lineup of cars, when you could simply exit the line and speed down the oncoming traffic lanes, and then desperately plunge back into the lineup when the only other alternative was a head-on collision? He seemed to take our desperate situation as a personal challenge, and at times I could swear he was more worked up than us. Our train left at 6:45pm, and we pulled up at 6:46pm, just as the train whistle was blowing to indicate its immediate departure. Our driver aggressively launched the taxi right up to the front entrance, as onlookers dashed for cover. We got out and started running and yelling like lunatics to indicate our intentions. One of the staff picked up his walkie talkie, and communicated the situation. We jumped onto the nearest car, and within 5 seconds, the train was off. After the adrenaline wore off, we all had a good laugh about it - lesson learned, hopefully.

After spending another day in KL, we were on a flight to Kota Kinabalu, in Malaysian Borneo. After a quick sleep, we were on yet another flight to Tawau, in the Southeast, in order to do some scuba diving while based in Semporna. We ended up diving at a place called Scuba Junkie. Sipidan is famous dive site in the area, but unfortunately we hadn't realized that everyone and their dog would also be there looking to dive Sipidan, and it was booked up Through September. So we ended up doing our diving at Mabul instead. We did 3 dives around the area, and saw lots of turtles, lion fish, moray eels, loads of colourful fish, and even did a wreck dive. It was a good time. And we finished the day off by staying in a chalet on Mabul Island, which was really a charming little island.

After that, I parted ways with Chris and Jasmin. They were going to continue scuba diving the next day, and I just felt that at that point, I was a little scuba dived out. So I caught the bus back up to Kota Kinabalu, where I was booked on a jungle river tour and a white water rafting trip. The jungle river tour highlight was the Proboscis Monkey. They are endemic to the area and are the funniest thing I have ever seen. Picture a monkey with a great big pot belly, and a nose like Pinocchio. White water rafting the next day was pure adrenaline at times, and at other times, pure relaxation as we hopped out of the boat and just floated down the river in the more mild rapids.

Next stop: Vietnam

Opportunities!!

Even though my current situation of being jobless and travelling without a set itinerary may seem quite crazy to a lot of people, I can still take comfort in knowing that there are some strong opportunities on the horizon for me.
The most immediate opportunity for me right now is a possible microfinance internship with the Grameen Foundation. They are an international organization founded by Muhammad Yunus, who first developed the idea of microfinance – lending small amounts of money to impoverished people who have tangible skills and crafts, but lack the capital to grow their business – and he won the Nobel Peace Prize for it. The idea of this really interests me, and I really want to give it a try and see what I can do in this area. It’s all in the works right now, and could change at any time, but right now they are talking about having me start off in their Hong Kong office September 1st. After some initial hands-on learning and training, they are exploring possibilities for sending me to Indonesia (Jakarta) and/or the Philippines (Manila) to continue the work. The internship will be 6 months long. I’m really hoping this works out.
My other opportunity is to be a pilot with the Canadian Air Force. I’d have to say that other than family and friends, my number one passion in life is flying, and my dream job would be flying Search and Rescue airplanes or helicopters on the west or east coast of Canada. As some of you may know (assuming people are actually reading this!), I started the application process for this back in August 2008. Before then, I never even had a chance for this, as you needed perfect vision – uncorrected – for them to even consider you. It was only in 2008 that they started to allow laser eye surgery. Maybe it was the fact that even NASA had approved laser eye surgery for their astronauts that they finally decided to allow it. I got the surgery in August, and within a month I had 20/10 vision (better than 20/20 – just call me hawk-eye). After going through interviews, cognitive testing, and fighting through some snafu’s in the preliminary medical testing, I was invited out to Trenton, Ontario in May 2009 for Aircrew Selection, where you have to fly their simulator for 4 one hour flights, over the course of 3 days, with each flight test getting more complex. Man that simulator had the most sensitive controls you could imagine! After battling through the tests with severely sweaty palms, I got the great news that I had passed the testing. There were 14 candidates in total, and only 5 of us passed. Needless to say the 5 of us had some beers after that at the Officer’s Mess. We had Air Force pilots coming up to us and congratulating us, and telling us all the cool stories they’ve built up over their careers to-date. The 5 of us were then shipped over to Toronto for a long day of the most intensive medical testing I’ve ever experienced – it was the same tests they put the astronauts through. We lost one more guy at this stage, which really sucked because we were really starting to become a team, and a good group of friends. After making it through all that, it was definitely time to celebrate. Unfortunately, the one sobering part of this was that the Air Force had recently put a freeze on their pilot intake, due to some big training backlogs in Moose Jaw on the Harvard. So although I’ve passed everything, my application is in limbo until they resume their pilot hiring, which they say will most likely not start again until April 2010 (the new fiscal year for the Canadian Forces). The one thing I’ve taken away from this is that Pilot is an extremely competitive trade – it’s probably still the “Top Gun Effect” that draws so many people to the job – but I’m willing to wait it out, especially now that I’ve made it through all those hurdles. Whenever I need some motivation, I watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI3JqFkXXSE
On the plus side, it gives me the opportunity to travel and try out the microfinance world…who knows maybe I’ll find myself in a position where I’ve found my new passion.