Action In Relaxation

Patient friends and family (who aren’t friends? why the distinction? who is being demoted? the unfriendly family or the non-blood friends?),


I am alive! and writing this post over a month late.  I have really good excuses though…like Bali…Thailand…and this blog you’re reading right now.  I hope it was worth the wait and sleepless nights worrying about my well-being.


Thinking back to Cambodia


Jason was there, Ryan was there, and I was there.  It was a blast.  We cruised through fast.


Ok I got it, I remember.  (Slow start to this one, been a while, I’m a little email blast rusty)


After Vietnam the 3 of us were plenty full of “interesting” (p.c.) food and ready to no longer be soaked with rain or sweat, so we bussed on over to Phnom Penh, Cambodia from Saigon.  Upon arrival we hit the usual ATM, only to find that not only do they drive on the right side of the road in Cambodia, they use dollars!  So with our pockets loaded with stacks and stacks of Washingtons we did what you do in PP, shoot high powered weapons, grenades, and a rocket launcher.  I experienced one of the most twilight-zone dichotomous days here (I’ll elaborate in a bit).


From Phnom Penh we bussed to Siem Reap where our incredible Tuk Tuk driver, Mr. Smalls, plugged us in with his buddy, Mr. Biggs (maybe), who toured us through some of Angkor Wat temples where we were filled with awe, energy, photo-ops, rule breaking antics (as usual), and connected with some really hilarious local people (which all started when we checked into our hotel and instantly hopped on their walky talkie system, which we utilized to negotiate an international cell phone purchase).  We shopped it up at the night market in Siem Reap and said our goodbyes to Jason after his little big night.


Jason – it was sad to see you go.  I couldn’t say it through all the tears but, I’ll miss you my friend.  I’m sending you the paperwork to finalize our travel divorce legally.  It’s just the process, no personal offense, ok?  Ryan and I will miss your guitar skills, circus skills, campervan driving skills, stag-do knee ruby skills, surfing/learning skills, paddling not-skills, bird-feeding skills, spidering skills, elephant bathing skills, bowling skills, bike-crashing skills, karaoke skills, grenading not skills, charm and general outlook on life.  I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, again, so I’m done.


Getting serious and sensitive about Cambodia.


Cambodia is the most unique place in Asia and is full of mystery, dichotomy, and a history I wish I was taught in my 8th grade world history class (I would’ve paid attention, maybe).  It’s history includes:


• Angkor Wat: built a long time ago (12th century), this place is a collection of temples that spans almost 6km and makes it very apparent what a superpower the Khmer people were in SE Asia.  They ran the show and it’s obvious and impressive.


• Developing: Phnom Penh has a national Olympic stadium that was built in 1964, show’s that they were ready and primed to enter the world stage. And then….boom!


• The Khmer Rouge: organized by a vaguely noteable history book name Pol Pot, the Khmer rouge were a communist party that imposed “social engineering” which lead to the auto-genocide (made up word: killing of one’s own people) of an estimated 2 million people *about 25% of their entire population.


Think about that. 1 in 4 people. Heavy.


Cambodia is now rebuilding itself and is full of opportunity that has been targeted by both humanitarian/missions oriented groups, and exploiting opportunist looking to make a quick buck.  If you’re wondering now, we bought the guns and shot them at a local Cambodian military base, not from an exploiting opportunist.


This leads me back to the twilight zone.  We three adventurers knew that shooting rocket launchers is the thing to do in PP.  So we set it up through our awesome tuk tuk driver, looked at the menu, and made it happen; with the remainder of our afternoon, still high on life and gunpowder, we planned and visited the Choeung Ek “Killing Fields”, a memorial grounds of the Khmer Rouge, where we got the full-on story with skulls, pictures, and preserved garment shards (think Guggenheim Holocaust Museum).  Bad idea.  Not because it bummed us out, it was just the biggest emotional irony swing I’ve ever experienced; from being over-awed at the awesome power that military grade weapons possess, to seeing the absolute destruction and result of their misuse.  Weirdest set of consecutive events in my life, no question.


I’m hoping this doesn’t taint the lighthearted fun and excitement in our pictures and video; but it’s the whole story and it’s the realness we experienced in Cambodia.


Long post, lots to say, love you all,


Tyler

I’m saving all my words for Vietnam so no greeting this time. It’s going to be very hard to describe all 3 weeks we spent in Vietnam in one short email, but I’m giving it a shot (if anyone values brief communication, it’s me). Although we stayed at seven very unique places (Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa, Hue, Hoi An, Na Trang, Saigon) I definitely see general themes and characteristics that ring true for Vietnam as an entire country. These include 1.Insane/Incredible Traffic; 2.Karaoke; 3.Interesting Food; 4.Unique Transport; 5.Football (soccer); 6.Contrast.


1.Traffic – I know why they don’t shoot car chase scenes in Hanoi, because it would be pretty uneventful when the hero crosses to the wrong side of the road weaving through cars going the wrong direction and pulls up on a family of 3 on a scooter doing the same exact thing while transporting their chickens to the day market. Traffic in Vietnam mirrors the ocean where the whales (buses) and big fish (cars) cruise along without a worry while all the minnows (motorbikes) jock for every square inch of space and dip a dodge their way to their destination.


2.Karaoke – Vietnamese love karaoke and will always invite you to enjoy these private rooms of bad singing, fruit plates (sometimes flying), and endless snacks and drinks.


3.Food – If it is alive, it can be eaten in Vietnam (with one exception, human), and the more obscure the more of a delicacy it is. I’m very proud of our American stomachs (and tongues!) through everyone of these cultural delights/fear factor challenges.


4.Transport – woven boats the shape of a rice bowl, bicycle and human rickshaws, tuk tuks, 3 person bicycles. They’re all fun


5.Football – this sport is everywhere (except America), especially Vietnam.


6.Contrast – contrast is seen in Vietnam on so many levels. The people have a huge contrast in personality between their tough-negotiating, thick-skinned business owner/vendor vs. their warm, welcoming, friends as family hospitality shown to outsiders who are willing to connect. The country is a great contrast between old world tradition, craftsmanship, and practice vs. new generation modernization, tourism, and technology. If I give more examples, I’ll have to make a sublist in this list which would just be confusing so on to the pictures:


North Vietnam with our crew of 5.

South Vietnam with the remaining 3 munchskateers.





Cambodia will be coming soon! Until then, eat something crazy…


Love and Wahoo’s fish sandwiches,


Tyler

Rickety Motorbike (Sapa, Vietnam) from Tyler Elick on Vimeo.


Self documented day w/ an amazing and rickety old 125cc (guess) MINSK (guess #2). It was fun, it broke down, it was still fun, it took forever to fix, it was still still fun.

Well-rested/Chipotle-eating friends,


We (Tyler, Jason, Ryan + Yuuki + Ben + Matt) are currently on a swaggering double-decker bus commuting between towns in Laos, I’ll tell you all about it later…I just wanted you to know that if there are any long pauses ____ and/or weird symbols #####, it was because I’m getting motion sickness and have to take a little time out _____ or am emptying the breakfast from my stomach #####. Lets hope for the _____ best.


So we now have a crew of 6 travelers with the addition of Yuuki (my elementary school friend from Japan who I haven’t seen in over a decade) joining us for 2 weeks, as well as Ben Watson (old friend from Littleton) and Matt Matteson (new friend from Colorado somewhere *I’ll ask him where later) who are joining us for 3 weeks. With new “wolf-pack” members comes new excitement, new energy, new jokes, and increased organized chaos in general; which is awesome!


Yuuki met us 3 “old wolfs” in Kuala Lumpur for a couple days where we relaxed, internetted, and wrote really really boring email blasts about boring Indonesia. We also ate amazing food in KL and had some great but seemingly uneventful (or at least not noteworthy) times. One thing to note: I bought a much much much needed new computer (a 10” dell minilaptop for $400) and after a long night of loading applications and fine tuning this beautiful new machine, I spilled a 2 liter jug of water straight on the keyboard and totally fried it, bummer, serious bummer. #####. It still makes me a little sick (obviously).


Our growing pack of 4 young strapping scruffly wolfs met Ben and Matt in the KL airport and we surprisingly had time to sample every snack in the airport candy story (6 times over) and hack the airport internet (Matt the Mac Guy). We arrived in Bangkok and sang with crazy annoying exitement on the hour bus ride from the airport to the city (don’t worry fellow Americans, anytime we do something annoying, we tell people we’re from Canada….seriously though, we actually do).


….enough intro junk, now to the good stuff. We’ve been pretty consistently on the fly/wheel/float/street beat since our friends have a limited time to see ALL of Asia. Because so much has happened, I’m going to refer to my favorite email blast format (no it’s not bullet points, that’s a close 2nd), PICTURES!


We arrived in Bangkok the evening of the 8th, took an evening bus to Kanchanaburi on the 9th, returned to Bangkok on a late afternoon bus on the 10th followed by a night train to Chang Mai (that we cut really close and almost missed) an hour later. This makes the 1st set of pictures.

We arrived in Chang Mai the morning of the 11th and had an executive committee meeting while riding in a Tuk Tuk to our potential hotel; we quickly decided to bus straight to Chang Rai because Chang Mai wasn’t quite the amenity-packed noisy Bangkok and also wasn’t quite the lush jungle-country Northern Thailand that we were expecting; this was a great choice and gave us more time to “settle down and relax” in Chang Rai for the 11th-13th. I had one of the top 5 days of my life here, thanks to Kwan and Mamaban.


I spilled the beans already and let you know we’re in Laos right now, but you’re going to have to be patient for the next email (always leave ‘em wanting more).


Much love from the howling wolf-pack,


Yuuki, Matt, Ben, Ryan, Jason, and Tyler


Ps. I know many of you (especially parents and family members) are plan oriented and wonder what’s next on our super-official, stone-inscribed itinerary. Well today is your lucky day/night. We’re spending the next week in Laos August 14th – August 21st, followed by Vietnam (traveling North to South). I hope that’s enough because it’s pretty much all we know right now…

Text-based Travel Mates,


Indonesia part 2, so much to write about…All I can write to (re)introduce this place is…wow, this country really has a place in my heart/mind/future.


After the boat trip, us “Colorado Boyz” returned with the rest of the STN crew to Kuta Beach, Bali. Kuta is the biggest tourist town in Bali and amidst the chaos of scooters, surfers, tourists, and American restaurant chains (Pizza Hut, Hard Rock Café, McDonalds), Kuta felt like home. This homeliness was largely based on the relationships with local people that were built through consistent interaction including: morning fruit purchases of Mangosteen and Passionfruit (Pudu and Pudri), surf hoots and hollers followed by soccer kickaround sessions, bizaar/fun/loving/smartass comments to local vendors, and chickenfighting/airplane/jungle gym/wrestle sessions with local rascalmonkey kids. Kuta highlights include:


* Circus on The Beach night that included a 5 level human pyramid that consequently inspired a $5, 1.5 hour, full body massage


* STN banquet with local cuisine, friendly guests, and Balinese dancers how loved to pose for 2+ hours of photos with kooky surfer tourists


* Day trip to Ubud monkey temple, where Kevin “young hercules” Sweeny got his bag of 30 Bananas snatched by a 2.5 foot tall 35 pound toothy snarly gremlin (a mere 2 minutes after purchasing them outside the temple) to which he responded in pure fear and prancing excitement


* Incredible 5 star, $8 dinners at TJ’s Mexican food and The Balcony where favorite dishes were sampled, loved, shared, and repeated following nights…Chili’s eat your heart out (and then charge me $15).


* Scooter chaos: picture thousands of people playing a game of transportation charades, who have just pulled the action card of “fish swimming through a tunnel”


You have now earned the right to look at our pictures from Kuta, thanks for reading!

From Kuta, 8 of us stragglers stayed in Bali while our friends returned to Hawaii, Sweden, Bangladesh, California, and Florida. We decided to take our show on the road and head to Uluwatu (30 minutes south of Kuta), soon to be known as Paradise or Shangri-La or El Dorado or Nirvana or Heaven (depending on your religion/ethinic background/cultural upbringing/sensitivity level). All of you who weren’t completely offended and are actually still reading, Uluwatu is indescribable, it is __________.


We stayed at a homestay called Thomas’ that fed us meals of our choosing and gave us a temporary palace (without a/c, or warm water) overlooking completely transparent water, 3 world-class surf breaks (Uluwatu, Pedang Pedang, and Bingin), and a local laidback vibe where worries (and Blackberries) have never existed. At night, this view lost nothing with an unadultured night sky mirrored by hundreds of gleaming fishing boats, and our lovely addition of night-time festivites that included: a guitar and water jug jam session, freestyle battle, freestyle game of “Sit Down!”, and of course the game of Farkle.


That should be enough to introduce these photos, please enjoy (if you don’t you should probably go to the doctor)


Colorado Island Boyz,
Tyler, Ryan, and Jason

Dear Friends/Family,


As some of you may know I am only a few days into my “trip of a lifetime” touring the South Pacific.  To give a brief introduction… my good friend Jason McNeil and I are embarking on a 4+ month adventure where we are dreaming big and looking to travel to: The Cook Islands (current location), New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China, and Japan with the option and possibility (depending on the condition of our wallets and our stomachs) Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Brunei, and whatever else is in the area (this side of the globe).  Our trip is very flexible and open ended, so the adventure is as uncertain and open to us as it is to you who are currently reading this email.


My plan is to keep the reading material brief in these emails and tell most of our story through pictures which I will post as click-able thumbnails below.


If you somehow become jealous and bitter because of our current adventures and magnanimous expectations, then feel free to shoot me an email reply stating: “Tyler I hate you and Jason and no longer want to hear anything about your life, current health, or safety”


Enough intro…  Rarotonga is mind-blowingly (maybe an adverb??) amazing!!!  I’d say it’s how Hawaii was 20 years ago.  The people (and animals) are very friendly and hospitable, the flora is unique and lush, and the water is clear and warm.  You’ll have to get the rest of the story (so far) through the pics.


I also have to plug Air New Zealand.  Our almost 10 hour flight from 11:15pm (LAX)  to 6:00am (RAR) was a breeze and included what I’d consider a mini computer in the headrest in front of me loaded with movies, music, TV shows, iPod inputs, and of course games (of which we played “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and “Sudoku” for most of the journey).  They also served us a wonderful dinner, and breakfast for free with complementary wine and champagne.  When we arrived, Jason and I looked at each other and said, “That’s it? Can we stay on the airplane for another 4 hours?”


The next destination is both the North and South Islands of New Zealand, which we leave for on Friday June 19^th at 2:00am.  We will be flying into Aukland in the North and making our way South to finally catch a flight out of Christchurch…I’ll be in touch.


We are specifically praying and hoping for health, safety, and divine appointments throughout our whole journey so please keep us in your hearts and minds while we’re on the other side of the globe.


Tyler