Hotel with 2 Ground floors??

Back in Copenhagen after 2 days in Malmo, Sweden. I checked into a different hotel (my fourth one in CPH) that was near the train station. I was given room #09. The elevator had a button labeled "S" which was the ground floor with the lobby. Just to the right of it was another button, also identically labeled "S". This was one floor up from the ground floor, and contained the "0" rooms (01 - 09) including my room. Above those were buttons 1 through 4 for the floors above that. This means that the floor labeled "1" was really floor 2 (Europeans start numbering floors with 0 for the ground floor), or floor 3 in American terms. Floor "S" was both floor 0 and floor 1 (floor 1 & 2 in American) I'm not sure what "S" stands for, but why have TWO "S" floors, especially when they are physically different floors. It's as if my floor, the zero rooms floor, was added later as an afterthought, and squeezed into a space between two existing floors. Something like the "floor 7½" in Being John Malkovich. Or maybe I just stepped into... the Twilight Zone??

First night in Copenhagen

I'm now in Denmark, the land of the Little Mermaid, Existentialism, and Bluetooth (An ancient King of Denmark was named "Bluetooth").
For me personally though, when I think of Copenhagen I think of Niels Bohr and his formulation of Quantum Mechanics. After a long nap, I went walking to explore the area near my hotel. Sure enough, I didn't walk more than 3 minutes before encountering a bust of Niels Bohr.

The weather is nice, warm enough to eat outdoors and most restaurants have outdoor seating. The restaurants are good, but expensive. A seafood linguini cost me 240 DKK (about $40).

After dinner I went to a Jazz festival; heard an amazing group called the "Portico Quartet". Not your typical jazz group, they were quite fresh and innovative. I might describe their style as "Jazzy Soundscapes", with extensive use of loopers and other special effects.

UK & Scandanavia Trip

At O'Hare, on my way to Copenhagen! That's where I start my trip to some parts of Scandanavia, and the UK.

End Of The Journey: Reflections And Summary

I'm back home now and I've had a chance to process and reflect upon my trip. I can now write this blog entry giving a summary of my trip and final thoughts. I wrote 55 blog entries for this trip (including this one), but those were only some of the highlights. It still doesn't cover the total range of experiences I've had.

This has been a truly epic journey for me, exactly four months long and the longest trip I've ever taken. It's definitely one of the best if not the best trip I've ever taken. In fact I run out of superlatives when trying to describe it to friends and find it difficult to convey just how great this trip really was. I saw so many new things, went to so many new places, met so many new people, made so many friends, and had so many great experiences that I will certainly never forget it, and I feel that my life has been so very much enriched because of it.

In some ways it was also a personal test, to see if I could handle being away from home for so long -- and I passed the test! Four months seemed like a long time to me, but then I met several others who were traveling for much longer periods of time: 6 months, 8 months, 1 year, even 2 years!

On any trip of this this length there are usually things that go wrong, such as losing important or valuable items, losing luggage, getting sick or injured, getting robbed or pick-pocketed, getting scammed, major delays in transportation, or having bad experiences with other people. But I was extremely lucky not to have any significant mishaps at all! I did have several close calls, but they all turned out OK in the end. I lost several items, but always recovered them. In Vietnam my camera fell out of my pocket in a jeep and I didn't notice it until I got back to the hotel and the jeep had left. Fortunately I was able to get a hold of them and get it back. In the same place my phone stopped working when I was caught in a heavy rain and it got wet. But the phone magically came back to life after a couple days. My camera broke in Thailand, but I found someone who was able to repair it (something unheard of in the US)! Twice I left my card in the ATM machine, but was able to recover it later each time. Parts of my suitcase broke a couple of times to the point of becoming unusable, but I was able get it repaired each time. Except for getting sick once near the beginning of my trip, I was in very good health for the remainder of the trip. In fact with all the activity I did, I was quite a bit more fit and in better physical shape than normal.

Here are some statistics regarding my trip:

• I traveled well over 25,000 miles (greater than the circumference of the Earth) in total.
  
• I touched 11 different countries, of which: 2 were merely in transit; 9 I spent a significant amount of time in; 7 were new countries I had never visited before.
  
• I took over 2400 photos and videos, including about 200 underwater.
  
• I made 38 hops (point-to-point transfers), of which: 20 were by plane; 9 by bus (including a sleeper bus); 6 by boat (of which 4 were ferry boats); 2 by train; and one by car
  
• Besides the above modes of transportation, I also rode:
  
  
  
  • tuk-tuks
    
  • elephants
    
  • motorbikes
    
  • jetskis
    
  • cable cars
    
  • mountain bikes
    
  • kayaks
    
  • inner tubes
    
  • ziplines
    
  • swings
    
  • bamboo rafts
    
  • a skywheel
    
  
  
• I ate the following: buffalo, crocodile, fried insects, ant larvae eggs, hundreds of hot Thai peppers
  
• Visited at least a dozen islands
  
• Met 3 friends from before: one in Chiang Mai, one in Langkawi, one in Fiji.
  

I started my journey with a quote from Science Fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin. I now end it with another quote, from architect Anthony Lawlor:

The pleasure of the soul appears to be found in the journey of discovery, the unfolding revelation of expanded insight and experience.

--Anthony Lawlor, "A Home for the Soul"

My Amazing Cambodian Sandals

I did not bring a pair of sandals with me on this trip so I decided to buy a pair at the first opportunity, which was in Cambodia. They had normal sandals for about $2-$3 (after bargaining). I saw another pair of the sport sandal type that looked to be more durable and better quality, but much more expensive: $8. I decided to splurge and bought that pair. Now I have worn those sandals every single day ever since (the one exception being during my Mt. Kinabalu climb, when I wore my walking shoes). I have easily walked over a hundred miles in them, over asphalt, cement, dirt, sand, rocks, hills, valleys, all sorts of rough terrain, through rivers, lakes, streams, beaches, grassy plains, meadows, rainforests, caves, climbed trees, towers, and thousands of stone steps. They have taken quite a lot of abuse. I almost lost them several times, but always got them back. My trusty sandals served me admirably and lasted my entire four-month trip! They are well-used, but still in wearable condition today! I have never had a pair of sandals withstand that kind of use and last this long. Hooray for my amazing Cambodian sandals!

Kingdom of Tonga - Where Time Begins

The marketing slogan for Tonga is "Where Time Begins". This refers to the fact that Tonga is the first country west of the International Date Line, so each day officially starts here ahead of the rest of the world.

For some reason I expected Tonga to be more primitive than Fiji, but it turned out to be the opposite. Tonga is more advanced and developed than Fiji. In fact the shower in my hotel room was the most technologically advanced shower I had ever seen! It was electronically operated, with a control panel to control the lighting, radio, jets, and water temperature. Tongan culture is also more distinct and advanced than Fiji culture.

I arrived in Tonga on a Saturday night. This turned out to be the worst possible day of the week to arrive. Because the plane was delayed by two hours, it was too late to do anything that evening. No problem, I thought, I can schedule some activities the next day. However it turns out that the entire island completely shuts down on Sundays, and I mean completely. Of course all shops and businesses are closed. But also all transportation - airline flights, buses, even taxis are unavailable. Even the hotel was shut down, closing the restaurant and front desk and all hotel staff left the hotel, leaving the guests in their rooms but with everything else closed. So an entire day was wasted. They even turned off the wireless routers before leaving, so I couldn't even pass the time on the internet.

[Update: After walking all through town I finally did find one place that was open -- a pretty good Chinese restaurant, and had dim sum there]

[Update: A nice guy took me on a tour of the island (you can drive around the whole island in about 2-3 hours), so the day wasn't wasted after all!]

Giant Manta Rays!

Swimming with a Whale Shark at Sail Rock was definitely one of the highlights of my trip. Another highlight occurred today, while swimming with giant Manta rays! I had seen Stingrays before while swimming and scuba diving, but never a Manta ray, and I had no idea that they could get that big. The biggest Stingray I had seen before was about 4 ft. wide. The Manta rays I saw today were up to about 13-15 ft! And they have been known to grow up to 25 ft! My friend Patrick took the picture on the left. I took a video of the Manta rays with my new underwater camera!

Fiji - Yet Another Tropical Paradise

When I started my trip I hadn't the remotest idea that I might end up in Fiji. The idea was planted in my head by my friend Pat, who was going to spend some time there after sailing from New Zealand. As I was winding down my tour of SE Asia, I decided it would be cool to meet up with him on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific. It also made logical sense, since it is sort of on the way home.

It was also harder than I thought to get to Fiji from where I was at the time (Borneo). But I'm really glad I decided to stop in Fiji.

Climbing Mt. Kinabalu

On May 29 (1953), Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary conquered the summit of the mighty Mt. Everest. On May 29 (2009), I conquered the summit of the mighty Mt. Kinabalu! It was one of the toughest hikes I've ever done. Now Mt. Kinabalu is only 13,435 ft, less than half the height of Mt. Everest (29,029 ft). But that's still a respectable height, and it's the tallest mountain in all of SE Asia. Since I was touring all over SE Asia, what better way to cap and already epic journey? So I set my sights on conquering this magnificent peak.

The trail is relentless, with no flat or rolling sections, just steps all the way up! Every hiker is required to go with a guide. It's about 6 km to the base Laban Rata lodge at about 10,000 ft. -- doesn't sound like much, but it takes about 5-6 hours to get there due to the steepness of the climb and the altitude. There you eat dinner and take a nap til 2 AM, when you wake up to hike another 3-4 hours of even steeper rocks in pure darkness (you absolutely need a flashlight) to reach the summit by dawn. The last 100 meters is even steeper and you have to use the cables to pull yourself up.

Above 10,000 ft you really start to feel the altitude and the difficulty of breathing due to the thin air. My heart rate went up high and I'd go anaerobic every 100 meters or so and had to stop frequently. I honestly thought of stopping and turning around several times during the climb, but I just kept driving myself forward and upward, step by step. It was also freezing cold, and I did not have suitable clothing. The best I could do is layer 2 t-shirts together.

But it was totally worth it!! The sense of accomplishment, the spectacular views from the top, and the feeling of being on top of the world, all make it worth the Herculean effort.

It was definitely one of the (many) great highlights of my trip.

Hanging With The Sultan of Brunei

Just kidding! I didn't really hang out with the Sultan, though I did want to meet him. I found out that I could meet him and shake his hand, but only at the end of Ramadan when he opens his house to the public and holds a buffet for everyone one day a year. The rest of the time you can't even get near the Palace. I found Brunei a somewhat strange place, a tiny country in the middle of Borneo, surrounded by Malaysia (in between Sarawak and Sabah). It's an Islamic country so there is no alcohol allowed, even in the hotels, and no nightlife.

But Brunei does have a beautiful rainforest, with a great rainforest canopy walk.