Travel Letters

Dear lovely reader, Ever since Vietnam, I’ve been making it a ritual to wake up to see the sun rise every first day we dock into a new port. It symbolizes for me a new beginning. Every sunrise is different and beautiful in its own way, just how every country is. Please enjoy these pictures, I know I do.                                                                   Vietnam Singapore Burma India Mauritius South Africa All love and hope, Kimmy Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.     –...

Dear lovely reader, Welcome to Mauritius! I remember reading this country on the voyage’s itinerary and being like ‘How do I pronounce this country’s name?’ The MV Explorer docked for only a day in Mauritius. I think I spent about six hours in total in port. We had an intervention pre-port that reprimanded us to not get wasted in this port or face severe consequences (triple the dock time). That’s not that hard to do if you use your head. Something that you kind of need when you’re travelling. But I’ll stop being cynical towards to these drunk, rich bitches… :D You know what Port Louis reminds me of? This country reminds me of a mix between Africa and Hawaii. You be walking in the market places and they’d just be jammin’ with great music. It was groovy. There’s some French influence whenever you hear the language being exchanged in a shop. If you look close at the architecture of the buildings, it looks like New Orleans. I’ve never been to New Orleans but I imagine Port Louis ...

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.       –Samuel Johnson

Everything you do in life will be insignificant...but it's very important that you do it.           –Gandhi

Dear lovely reader, Welcome to India! I have been waiting to blog about this port since the minute I left it. That was probably about a month ago… yikes. But I’m ready to share all the wonder that you can find in India. My brother, James bought a five-day trip as a gift for me to see the best sights of India. He had done the same trip when he travelled Semester at Sea Spring ’05. This five-day trip would journey through Agra to see  the  Taj Mahal as well as  the  holy city of Varanasi. The entire duration of the trip was incredibly long. Unfortunately with time constraints, I am determined to finish my blog series of India. And the only way to do that would be to talk in moments and not in sequence . I’m also attaching some of my favorite pictures I took on this trip. Please enjoy! The Taj Mahal is one of the 7 wonders of the world. It is incredible, I promise you. The white marble mausoleum was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jadan in memory of his third wife...

Dear lovely reader, I didn’t realize how much I wrote about my last blog about Burma, but I’m just really happy everything is put out into words. Well mostly everything haha, we’re about to wrap up in Burma! So we last left off meeting Atun and booking a taxi ride back to Yangon the night before. Our last day in Bogalay would surely be our most memorable. Atun meets with us at 11am at our hotel, not a minute late. This guy is the shit mang. Our day pretty much begins. He leads us to a temple, not a far walk from the hotel. In fact, everything in Bogalay is very much walking distance. And I’m immediately in love with that fact. There’s a certain power within walking that gives you the ability to see the space around you so much clearly. We take off our shoes, and walk up the white steps to see the temple. Atun mentions how his grandfather built those steps. And we’re just like ‘Yep, we’d definitely buy that.’ When we finally reach the top, there’s this gorgeous view of Bog...

Dear lovely reader, Welcome! So we last left off on that overnight passenger ship to Bogalay right? It was pretty thrilling and perfect until the sun set. And it was freezing cold. Mike, Geoff, Ang, and I were sleeping or trying to sleep on these chairs that were made out of duct tape and wood haha. I wasn’t expecting any chilly weather in Burma, that’s for sure. So we all wrapped ourselves in our spare clothes that we packed in our backpacks. I was tossing and turning to get some shut eye. Mike on my left would drift in and out of sleeping. Ang was passed out. Geoff was mingling, having drinks and a smoke with the locals. After a few Myanmars, I really needed to go to the restroom. So I go downstairs, do my business in a squat potty (by this port, it’s easy to say we’re used to them). And by the time I go upstairs, I run into a mini get-together with Geoff and his new friends. And it’s so damn chill when we’re sitting in the dark with one white light shining on us. These loc...