After reading more and more accounts of Sierra Leone’s history – both distant and recent – I began to learn far more about the working of the current state of the country through my job. I have spent the past six months reading, writing and discussing Sierra Leone while thinking about how it can leap forward as a nation. I have studied the country from almost every angle possible and, going into the trip, I felt myself a bona fide expert on the country.

When Mark and I decided to go to Southeast Asia last summer, we did so with the intention of going to a place in the world that we would be least likely to return to in our lives. We sat in my apartment in St. Louis last winter and picked the place in the world that we knew the least about so that we could truly have an adventure into the unknown. I left for Asia with almost no knowledge of Asian history, culture and customs. I was blank canvas eager to be painted. With that as a backdrop, my trip to Sierra Leone could not be a more polar opposite experience for me. As a direct contrast to my self-glorified ignorance about Asia, it would be hard for me to know more about Sierra Leone before venturing there. I had so many expectations about what I would find that I often found it difficult to treat things as completely new. Each new experience felt familiar; each vista reminded me of a photograph that I had seen; each new business or building that we visited carried with it the background research that I had done.

Despite this uncanny familiarity with a place I had never been, I found myself continually surprised by Sierra Leone. All of the research in the world could not have prepared me for the feeling of utter chaos and disorganization that defines Freetown. No amount of reading could have prepared me for the overwhelming feeling of helplessness and sorrow that surrounds you when looking at a child with a missing limb or a family forced to sleep under a sheet of corrugated steel. The civil war of the 1990s that I have read so much about has left Sierra Leone in a state of devastation that I could never have fully appreciated from an office in London or a lecture hall in St. Louis. It felt every bit the least developed nation in the world.

While the complete lack of infrastructure and the visible desperation of those living in such dire circumstances overpowered the senses; that is not the impression that I am left with. Two weeks after my trip, I am reminded instead of the positive energy that seemed to radiate from the country. It was a tangible force that swept across the country. It seemed a nation whose ascent was not in question but was rather a matter of time. Aware of the horrors of last decade’s civil war and of the difficulties that people face there every day, I was again struck by the people’s collective optimism. It seems that Ishmael Beah’s relentlessly positive outlook is not a unique personality trait – it is a reflection of the country’s spirit. While this journey did remind me how far a country like Sierra Leone has to go in order to improve the lives of those living within its boarders, I have also emerged from this trip with a renewed sense of Afro-optimism. I will be excited to watch its next step forward and hope that 2011 will not only mark Sierra Leone’s 50th anniversary of independence but will also mark the beginning of the nation’s ascent. It seems inevitable.

At first thought, the idea of turning the generator off at night seemed like a completely reasonable proposition and one that would have little affect on us. We wouldn’t need the lights or any of the other electronics that normally entertain us. If anything, it was an exciting idea to be completely shut off from electricity for the night; it felt very rustic. About 5 minutes later, however, I remembered the one absolutely essential electrical appliance in Sierra Leone: air conditioning. The room that Rory and I slept in had an AC unit and was consequently the coolest room in the house (at about 95 degrees Fahrenheit – no exaggeration) but, when the power went off, that became irrelevant.

Lying in a just pair of soccer shorts, on top of the sheets and under the mosquito net, I devoted all of my energy to staying still. It was a losing battle. Every time that I rolled over, moved or even formed a coherent thought though, I would break out a fresh layer of sweat. Hot, sticky and living in fear of catching malaria (which I had no medication for and which two people that I met down there have recently come down with) it was a relatively sleepless night for me.

A few months ago, Mark and I made the fateful decision to stay in a guesthouse directly next to a rooster farm while in the town of Pai in northwest Thailand. About two hours into that stay, I decided that if I never heard a rooster again I would die a happy man. As the sun crawled its way into the West African sky, however, I was once again awakened by nature’s most reliable (and annoying) alarm clock. There was only one thing that could reinvigorate me… Bureh Beach.

Two hours later, I was back to my newfound happy place; barefoot and kicking a soccer ball. The previous day, we had arranged a day trip with a particularly friendly guy named Tony to a place just off the coast called Banana Island. Those of you who know me might see two problems with this situation. First of all, bananas are my arch-nemeses. I cannot think of any food I would rather not eat than the slimy and foul smelling fruit that shall not be named. I’d rather eat a fried bug than a banana (that choice actually happened in Bangkok, and Mark can vouch for the fact that I opted for the mealworm/cricket/frog combination).

The second problem with this situation involves the second part of the phrase “Banana Island.” The fact that this destination was an island and, by definition, surrounded on all sides by water meant that there was a boat in my future. While I love the ocean and everything that revolves around it, my stomach does not agree with that love. I have been known to get seasick on cruise ships with stabilizers built into them. Taking a deep breath, I took out my trusty bottle of Dramamine, took a double dose and waded out into the sea to get on board the boat.

The “boat” was a barely seaworthy oversized canoe with a motor on the back of it. To put it simply: the boat had a full-time crew member whose sole job was to shovel water out of the bottom of the boat as we made the crossing. I wore my life jacket with pride. Despite the condition of the boat, I could see that things were improving because of its paintjob. The boat was literally named “Man Utd” (Tony was an avid supporter) and even had AIG (ironically enough, Manchester United’s chief sponsor) written across the hull. The rest of the boat was painted to match the flag of Sierra Leone. I felt that was a good omen. (While not the “Man Utd”, this patriotic boat commemorating Sierra Leone’s 50th year of Independence next year is the same type of boat as ours)

Banana Island (which is technically known as the Banana Islands, since it is comprised of two islands joined together by a sand-bar that is submerged at high tide) is one of the most historically rich parts of Sierra Leone. First used in the 17th century by the Portuguese as a staging ground for their bustling slave trade, they were later settled in the late 18th and 19th centuries by freed slaves from the UK, US and the Caribbean. The people currently living on the island – fewer than a thousand in all – are mostly descendants of those freed slaves and mostly live in the town of Dublin. Here’s a shot of a few buildings in Dublin and one of the fantastic cotton trees on the island (this one we affectionately named the “tree of life” given it’s resemblance to the tree of Avatar fame).

Upon our arrival we were taken around a few relics from the island’s history including this cannon from 1813 and the well-preserved St. Luke’s Church (also from the 19th century). Spoiled by well-presented historical sites in Europe and the States, I was amazed to see an island of such historical significance overgrown by the natural processes of vegetation and weathering. Apart from St. Luke’s Church, the other monuments seemed to be gradually becoming part of the landscape. It would be easy to see these relics buried under a fresh layer of forest in just a few generations.

We had planned on going snorkeling off of the Banana Islands to see a wrecked Portuguese ship, but we simply ran out of time. While not the most impressive of islands, it was hard to deny the power of the place’s history. The fact that there had not been a massive “touristification” of the island further added to the feeling of authenticity. The most exciting part of the day for me, however, was not only the fact that my stomach conquered the sea journey but also that I didn’t see a single banana on the entire island!

The first of these warnings – one involving the atrocious quality of the roads that we would have to take to get there – immediately came to reality. Before I go any further, I must say that I am using a very liberal definition of the word “road”. The road – known as Regent’s Pass for those keeping score at home – was unbelievable. What began as just another pothole-ridden paved road quickly evolved into the worst dirt road that I have ever seen. It was almost as if someone deliberately dug holes in the road every few feet just to make life unpleasant for everyone else. This particular stretch would do better as a moguls ski-hill than a road. Thankfully, our old Mitsubishi Pajero came equipped with handles for me to grip onto or else I might have been tossed out of the open window.

Our destination was the tiny village of Rogbery where my boss’s brother, Ben, has been living and working for the past few months. Ben and the charity that he works for have been running a microfinance operation in Rogbery that makes hydro-form bricks and are also in the process of building a school and an orphanage. Elmer and Joanne, the couple that are in charge over there, graciously allowed us to stay with them for the weekend in their on-site home. Built almost entirely of hydro-form bricks made on site, the home was extremely well built and looked like it would be a much more comfortable night sleep than the “weekend in the bush” that I had anticipated. We even had beds (complete with mosquito nets)!

After taking a walking tour of the site, Ben, Andrew, Rory – a Zimbabwean/Brazilian/Brit who also lived and worked at Rogbery – and I decided to take the afternoon and head off to the beach. Without any mode of transportation, however, we had to call up some locals and hitch a ride with them in order to get there. Expecting to see a beat-up, barely functioning car roll up to pick us up, I was thrilled to see two Sierra Leoneans on motorbikes come around the corner. My love of motorbikes was rekindled!

Three to a bike, sans helmet and armed with sunglasses, an iPod and an ear-to-ear grin, I was ready to roll. There are few things in the world that I enjoy more than cruising through tropical scenery on the back of a motorbike (even if I only had half of a seat to play with on the back of the bike). With two wheels instead of four, we were able to weave through the mountainous potholes that plagued our hour and a half journey from Freetown and fly down the dirt roads. With my farang suit (Thai slang for white skin) on, we were instant celebrities in every village that we drove through. Everyone, from year-old naked babies to weathered old men, smiled and waved at us at we sped through village after village, often shouting “Boto, boto!” (Krio for “white man” – not sure of the spelling though). UNICEF and Manchester United seem to have teamed up in Sierra Leone to launch a campaign against stigmatizing those with HIV/AIDS and, on the way to the beach while we were negotiating our passage with members of the military, I managed to snap this picture of an advertisement featuring Ryan Giggs. Well done United!

While in Freetown, I had spent a short amount of time at the famous Lumley Beach. To me, it was spectacular and a model of serenity (except for the trash that had accumulated on it from the Easter celebrations). Arriving at Bureh Beach, however, I realized just how spectacular a beach could really be. As if out of a postcard, the white-sand beach was lined on one side with gently swaying palm trees and on the other with bathtub ocean water. We proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon eating mangoes off of the trees, swimming in the ocean and playing beach soccer with some local kids. Pictures from the beach: a boat named after President Obama and a fisherman at dusk.

Having seen how often “undiscovered beaches” lose their secrecy and become “overcrowded beaches”, it was amazing to find an unspoiled beach – truly undiscovered by the wider world. Virtually empty and lined with palm trees instead of gaudy apartment complexes it was a perfectly cathartic release from the sweaty hustle and bustle of Freetown.

We set off in the morning to take a look at a site on the very beautiful Lumley Beach but, after two hours of walking around in the scorching heat with little shade and no water, I was rapidly losing what little energy I had built up at the beginning of the day. From the site visit, we had tentatively scheduled a meeting with a contact of ours just around the corner. On our way to the meeting, however, he gave us a call and told us to meet him at his “friend’s house” on the other side of town. After a few minutes, it surfaced that this “friend” of his was actually the Vice President of Sierra Leone. It took a few minutes for this information to register (mostly because of the heat exhaustion) but after it did, I realized how unprepared I was for this moment. Not only was I mentally unprepared to meet the Vice President (I didn’t even know his name!) but I was also horribly under-dressed. I looked down at my Quiksilver shorts, Nike polo shirt (which I had obviously already sweat through), and flip-flops and thought: “oh no.” Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on your perspective – we were all equally under-dressed, so at least we were would be equally disrespectful.

Hiding behind my sunglasses, I flip-flopped my way past a dozen armed security guards camped in front of the Vice President’s barbed wire encrusted gate and towards the house. As you might expect, we were promptly greeted by a group of very large and authoritative gentlemen who kindly asked me to remove my phone, camera, keys and anything else that might look suspicious before entering the house.

A wise woman once advised me (that’s you, Mom) to never act more confidently than when I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. With absolutely no idea of what to expect or how I was supposed to act, I took that advice to heart and confidently strode into the Vice President’s living room. After surveying the hot, stuffy and dark room, I was told to take a seat on the couch in between two people who each easily weighed twice as much as I do. Let’s just say the couch didn’t notice when I sat down.

While we waited to see the VP, I scanned the room and continually repeated the phrase “holy crap, I am sitting in the living room of the Vice President of Sierra Leone” in my head (and hopefully not aloud) for about ten minutes. After getting over my initial excitement, I began to relax and get comfortable. That’s when the trouble started… The combination of a lack of sleep, heat exhaustion, dehydration and a very warm, dark room began to add up to the inevitable sum of heavy eyelids. I just graduated from college and, as you might guess, I am no stranger to drooping eyelids – but this was way worse than anything I’ve experienced. I desperately needed something to drink and was literally on the verge of passing out at any second. All of the tricks that have worked for me in the past failed and I was dangerously close to passing out on the man next to me’s shoulder (actually, given how much bigger he was than me, it was more like his elbow than his shoulder).

A minute later, a man walked in and all of the Sierra Leoneans in the room (presumably members of the VP’s staff) stood up to greet him before moving out of the way so that he could sit in the most prominent chair. He had the build of a classic African “Big Man” and carried himself very confidently, everyone in the room seemed to notice his arrival, and he completely ignored us when he walked in (and continued to do so for a while afterwards). I had no idea what the VP looked like – remember that we hadn’t planned on having this meeting – but my powers of observation told me that this man had to be the Vice President.

Then it happened again. Uncontrollable exhaustion, heavy eyelids, probable VP in the room, boss who would probably fire me on the spot if I feel asleep… it was crisis time. In college, while trying to study for an exam (notice my use of the word “study” instead of the word “cram” since I would never do that) I would often go for a walk, have some caffeine or listen to loud music in order to stay awake. In a snap assessment, I realized that these three options were neither appropriate nor possible. Out of options I had to think fast. In a moment of utter panic and desperation, I did the only thing I could think of at the time: I stabbed myself in the leg with my pen.

Before you call me crazy – probably too late – there is precedent to this sort of rash behavior. In the “Worst Case Scenario Handbook: Office Edition”, which I bought for my mom as a gag-gift last Christmas, this very idea was not only proposed but also diagrammed in the “How to Stay Awake during a Meeting” section. The fact that this book is mostly a joke is beside the point – I was desperate. There was no time for reflection or reassessment: I needed to stay awake. Logic had nothing to do with it.

Five carefully and surreptitiously delivered stabs to my right knee later we were finally called into the VP’s office. The man in the living room wasn’t even him! While the adrenaline of actually talking to the Vice President thankfully kept me awake during the meeting itself, I have to say that my first high-profile meeting did not go as smoothly as possible – though it could have been much worse.

Whatever you have to say about my barbaric tactics, there is one undeniable truth to this story: it worked. I stayed awake the whole time.

While the view was truly breathtaking, I immediately noticed two unfortunate features of the cityscape. First, as a result of a sandstorm coming all the way from the Sahara, the remarkably hazy air made it appear as if I were viewing the scene through a pair of sunglasses. Everything seemed a little grayer and duller than it should have been – including the sun. Unfortunately, the haze did absolutely nothing to cool the air temperature and humidity down as it regularly reached the upper 30s-Celsius (that’s over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you keeping score in the States) with a St. Louis in August level of humidity. The second striking feature of the cityscape was the massive deforestation on the hills to the south and east. Without a reliable source of electricity, some 90% of Sierra Leoneans use charcoal and firewood for all of their cooking and ironing needs. The result: deforestation. I was told that this hill – just southeast of the city – was completely covered by trees just a few years ago.

Just as with the transition from the tarmac at the airport to the terminal, the original feeling of serenity that I enjoyed by viewing Freetown from above disappeared as soon as we entered the city. Hot, dirty and overcrowded, Freetown is truly a dysfunctional African city. Alongside its shortage of electricity, the city suffers from a host of other basic problems that inevitably culminate in the simple of question: how does this city function?

For a nation with the third highest rainfall in the world, Sierra Leoneans have a shockingly difficult time securing access to water. The main water grid reaches only a tiny fraction of the capital’s population – so many businesses and hotels are forced to truck in water from upcountry (where the water is taken from the Guma Dam). Massive water trucks make the journey to the top of Signal Hill – where our hotel was located – four times per day in order to satiate the needs of its guests. As in much of the developing world, water is and will likely continue to be a problem for Sierra Leone until massive changes are made.

The most persistent and frustrating aspect of Freetown, however, was not the lack of basic services but instead the incredible difficulty of traveling around. The roads are in such a shocking state that one needs a 4×4 just to make a run to the grocery store. Relentless potholes litter even the most prominent of streets and make every journey feel like an off-road adventure. To make matters worse, the road system does not have the capacity to deal with the million people that inhabit the city. At a few key places, the traffic bottlenecks to such a degree that it can take over two hours to travel a few miles. You’d often be off better walking! Without air-conditioning in most of the cars, it was a constant problem to not overheat while sitting in traffic jams.

With that as a backdrop, we ventured out of the relative tranquility of Country Lodge to the bustling beating heart of central Freetown on Monday morning expecting a relatively calm day of meetings. I should have known better.

In his excellent African memoirs, entitled The Shadow of the Sun, journalist Rryszard Kapuscinski describes how strange he has found it to fly from his native Poland to Africa. With very little time for transition, he would leave the snowy and organized European metropolis of his homeland and suddenly arrive in a chaotic tropical African city with nothing in between. He lamented this lack of transition and instead preferred to travel by sea and witness the slow progression of scenery. While I understand his sentiment, I have always loved the sharp contrasts that airline journeys provide. I love the feeling of walking off a plane and straight onto the tarmac – rather than using a jet way – because it makes me so immediately aware of my new surroundings. Airports have a way of diluting first impressions and disguising where you actually are, but standing in the plane’s doorway and immediately breathing in the air of a new place gives me an instant feel for a place. Or maybe it’s just because I get seasick.

Upon arriving at “Fre t wn Intern ti nal Airp rt” (as it was written in large semi-illuminated letters across the terminal) and stepping onto the tarmac, I was immediately greeted by the familiar hot and humid air that defines any foray into the tropics. Rather more unfortunately, I was also greeted by the accompanying trickle of sweat down my back (too much detail?) that would loyally stay with me for the next 10 days. As the only plane to land in Freetown that day, the runway was almost completely empty and the gentle breeze flowing through the surrounding palm trees gave it a feeling of peaceful tranquility. As soon as I reached the airport, however, that feeling vanished.

Hot, stuffy, crowed and chaotic, Freetown’s airport was an absolute nightmare. The arrivals terminal (if you can even call it a terminal) was about a quarter of the size that it needed to be to accommodate the incoming passengers. To add to the crowding, there were dozens of people standing in the hall awaiting our arrival in order to force upon us their services (as taxi drivers, guides, porters or whatever else we would be willing to pay for). There was no organization in immigration and I inadvertently walked through without showing my passport. Instead, we gave our passports to a woman who disappeared into the din. Twenty sweaty minutes later, she emerged with the necessary documentation. After squeezing through the impenetrable forest of passengers that surrounded the baggage claim conveyor belt, I managed to retrieve our bags and get out of airport. Needless to say, it was an exhausting debacle.

The city of Freetown is located on a narrow peninsula on the coast that does not have enough space for an airport. As such, the airport is located just across a narrow inlet next to a small town called Lungi (on this map look northeast from Freetown and you will see where the airport is). As the crow flies (or in this case, the helicopter), Lungi is not far away from Freetown but, as I quickly learned , travel is never measured by distance in Sierra Leone. There is no adequate road or bridge linking the airport to the city so the only way to get into town is to cross the channel by ferry or by helicopter. Before coming to Sierra Leone I did a bit of research on these two transfer links… bad idea. It turns out that in the past few years, one of the ferries managed to sink while the helicopter (a throwback from the good ole USSR) crashed. Armed with assurances that those older models had been improved upon (and a healthy dose of Dramamine for the choppy seas) we boarded the 12-person ferry towards Freetown.

Freetown is very much a coastal city and, as such, I had been looking forward to seeing the lights of the city upon our approach. Rather eerily, however, this city of over a million people is almost invisible at night. With just 70 MW of electricity available for the entire country, Freetown is run almost entirely by generator. Since generators are very expensive to buy and to operate, however, the majority of people get by with little or no power at night. There were no streetlights, no illuminated office buildings and no neon billboards – only the occasional partially lit home or hotel. Unable to see anything more than 15 feet in front of me, I didn’t get a real taste of the city until the following morning when the sun came up.

I have always tried to enter each new experience and each new place that I travel to with an open mind – without a preconceived notion of how I think it should look and feel. Despite this lofty ideal, after spending the past five months researching Sierra Leone, it would have been impossible for me to avoid forming an image (however ill-conceived) in my head before leaving.

Once described as the “Athens of Africa” for its strong education system (spearheaded by the prestigious Fourah Bay College – the first in sub-Saharan Africa) Sierra Leone took a massive step backwards in the 1990s due to a particularly nasty civil war. From 1990 to 2001, the nation suffered through a brutal struggle for power that not only claimed the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people (as portrayed in Edward Zwick’s film Blood Diamond) but also destroyed nearly all existing infrastructure in the country. As a result, Sierra Leone now sits third from bottom on the United Nations’ ranking of the most developed countries in the world (occupying an undesirable spot between the Central African Republic and Afghanistan). Since the end of the civil war, however, Sierra Leone has undergone a remarkable transformation. There have been two free and fair elections, the violence has come to a complete halt (Sierra Leone now has a lower homicide rate than Canada!), and each day the nation seems to recover and develop a bit more.

Armed with this information, I had created two separate images in my head that could not possibly coexist. On the one hand, I expected to see a nation in decline – a once prosperous and exemplary nation that is now a crumbled shadow of its former self. On the other hand, I conjured up visions of a nation poised to leap forward and lead the continent towards an “African miracle”. Unable to remedy these inherent contradictory images, I simply left with open eyes and an open mind. Rather than spoiling the ending before even beginning, I will save my conclusions for a later post. Needless to say, I was blown away.

Going into this trip I had a conversation with a family friend that focused on this simple question: which is the region of the world that is least touched by Western society? We accepted cases such as those of the people of the Papua Highlands or some of the peoples camped deep inside the Amazonian rain forest as the most extreme examples, and instead sought to find the region that best fit this description.

As many of you know, I spent a semester when I was in college in studying in South Africa and traveled a fair bit around the region. While parts of South Africa and the neighboring countries were very different and did feel profoundly “African” the influence of Western culture was never very far away. It was not the polar opposite world that I had expected before leaving.

With that said and with no concrete reasons save for a gut feeling, I hypothesized that Southeast Asia would be vastly different. Admittedly naive about the region, I knew precious little about the region’s recent, much less ancient, history and had assumed that it had existed in relative isolation from the Western world until the past century or two. This romanticized idea of mine of Southeast Asia’s isolation could not be further from reality.

While parts of Southeast Asia – typically the more isolated rural areas – typified the common stereotypes of a dense jungle broken only by terraced rice paddies and and straw huts, most did not. As we traveled deeper into the region and slowly educated ourselves about its history, we learned just how long Southeast Asia has been interconnected with the wider world. These countries not only interacted with each other but also traded with, fought against and married people from as far away as China, India and Europe long before Christopher Columbus ever stumbled upon Hispañola.

In the first stop of our journey – Hong Kong – we saw firsthand a city with a foot in two worlds: one clinging steadfastly to its Chinese heritage while the other embracing an increasingly globalized and Western world. Far from the Chinese metropolis I had envisioned, we came across an utterly complicated city.

Once we finally adjusted to Hong Kong we moved on to Bangkok just to be overwhelmed once again. The difference between San Francisco and Hong Kong was just as great – if not greater – than the difference between Hong Kong and Bangkok. As this trend continued, so too continued our constant battle with culture shock. Slowly and methodically, Asia broke down all of our preconceived notions. We soon learned that we could not adequately prepare for any place that we visited and decided just to take things as they came.

Armed with this mentality, we calmly witnessed nations, cities and individual people expertly balance the many separate cultures converging around them and create something completely unique. What resulted was a beautiful dance of peoples, ideas and cultures that never manifested in the same way twice. Each place as unique as the previous, the trip both thrilled and surprised us on a daily basis.

Truly a land of contrasts, in just six weeks time we saw some of the largest and most sophisticated cities in the world as well as some of the poorest and least developed villages. We saw sparkling sandy beaches and smoldering volcanoes. We rode twenty-five-year-old motorcycles without mirrors and brand new airplanes with personal TV screens. We saw sunrises over Buddhist Temples and sunsets over Mosques. We saw people riding in Bentleys and others walking on crutches because their legs had been amputated. We ate fried mealworms and we ate broiled lobsters. We saw monks and sex tourists walking on the same streets. Most importantly, we experienced the complexity of a region often misunderstood by most of the world.

I take with me both a newfound appreciation for an absolutely stunning part of the world and a reinforced belief in the idea that the only way to truly understand a place is to travel through it. I am so thankful for the opportunity to have gained this invaluable perspective at such a young age and hope that all who are able can take the opportunity to experience a new place for themselves.

It has been an absolute pleasure maintaining this blog over the past few months. I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I will be writing again as soon as I can find a way to embark on another adventure (and, consequently have something worth writing about)! I would love to read any comments that you might have or suggestions on how I can improve this in the future (I know I need more pictures…). Feel free to leave comments on this blog or to send me an email at: kmbrege@gmail.com

I think I more or less avoided the clichés so I hope you will permit me to close with a Mark Twain quote (the epitome of clichéness).

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts… nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people…”

-Mark Twain

Thank you for reading.

Unlike many urban centers of the region, Singapore is not chaotic. In fact, it is the very definition of orderly. Cars drive neatly in the lanes assigned to them. People do not just walk across the street headfirst into traffic whenever they feel like it. There is literally no trash on the ground. No gum stains, no cigarette butts, no drugs and no graffiti. Thanks to such lovely policies as caning (that’s the right of police officers to literally beat you on the street with a cane for violations as minor as littering and jaywalking) and execution (for those under the influence or in possession of any illicit drugs) the people of Singapore take the rules somewhat seriously – and so did we. We didn’t import any drugs, chew any gum (which isn’t even legally sold in the country) or throw any trash on the ground. As a result of our careful behavior, we emerged un-caned and un-executed. Mission accomplished.

The first evening, we spent two gluttonous hours at an all-you-can-eat BBQ restaurant before heading out on the town. As we were in a cosmopolitan city, we felt it necessary to check out one of the most chic bars in the city: Equinox. Equinox is a bar that sits in the 70th floor of the Swissotel, right in the middle of downtown Singapore. In t-shirts, shorts and sandals, the five of us sauntered into this bar expecting it to be a major tourist trap. Instead, we were greeted with fifteen dollar drinks and some of the best dressed people we had seen this side of the International Dateline. Grotesquely under-dressed and out of place but un-fazed, we ordered some drinks and grabbed a table by the window. From the bar we could not only see the entirety of Singapore island, but we could also see Malaysia in the distance. It was an unbelievable perspective and a wonderful conclusion to our trip.

On our final night, we rendezvoused with SL – an old friend of my Mom – and his wife. Apart from its orderliness, Singapore is perhaps best known as the region’s culinary capital and, in order to demonstrate this fact, SL took all of us to a dinner at the famed Jumbo Seafood Restaurant. Eating family style, we all got the chance to sample a wide variety of Singapore’s best seafood – finishing with the house specialties of pepper crab and chili crab. It was the best meal that we had on the trip. By far. Each course was something to be savored and, after a wonderful three hour dinner and an even more stimulating conversation, the six of us barely had room for the Ben and Jerry’s across the street. We managed to fight through our bursting stomachs and had our first taste of Western food since before we left six and a half weeks ago. What a delicious evening.

Singapore itself, as one could expect, was an incredibly efficient and well-organized city. The infrastructure was immaculate, the metro system worked flawlessly and we felt perfectly safe the entire time. Alongside Hong Kong, we considered Singapore the most livable city that we have visited thus far and had a great time there.

With heavy hearts (and eyelids) we reluctantly arose at 6:00 to catch the first flight of our long journey home. As one could probably guess, Singapore’s airport is among the best in the world. Clean, efficient and – most importantly – complete with a swimming pool and butterfly garden (that’s right, I said, “butterfly garden”), Changi Airport was a thing of beauty.

18 hours, 4 movies, 100 pages of Three Cups of Tea and 1 horrifically unsuccessful layover in South Korea (the one that isn’t governed by Kim Jong Il) later we rolled into sunny San Francisco. After collecting our bags, Mark and I were selected to undergo the most extensive security check I have ever had (which included taking every single item out of our meticulously packed bags and cutting open all of the items that had been wrapped in newspaper for protection ). I guess “Cambodia” and “Laos” are not normal countries listed under the “Countries Visited” section of the Customs Form.

I had fully intended on writing a reflection on the trip as a whole and including all of the pictures I have promised, but jet-lag has got the best of me. So, once again, I will have to ask you to trust me: pictures are coming!

When picking our hotel for the two nights we had planned on staying in Ubud, Brian found a place that was right next door to the Four Seasons, reasoning, rather cleverly, that we would have the same view as those staying at the Four Seasons, but for a fraction of the price. His plan worked out perfectly. Not only did our hotel have a stunning view of rice paddies, palm trees, a river and a dormant volcano, but it also had a swimming pool, very spacious rooms and (most importantly) a resident Golden Retriever named Bon Bon that we proceeded to adopt. Arguably the most spoiled dog I have ever met, Bon Bon demanded to be pet at all times (which we didn’t mind) and wanted to run around and play with us all day and all night. A certified dog lover, I was pretty happy with the situation.

After arriving in late in Ubud (and consequently having dinner at the very Mediterranean hour of 10:00), we went upstairs and crashed. We were pretty exhausted from the day’s motorcycle riding, the travel from Seminyak to Ubud and Bon Bon’s relentless energy while we ate dinner outside.

The hotel’s architect decided that the rooms should embrace the fact that we were in Bali (where it never gets cold) and built our room to have an open-air bathroom and also placed one of the two beds outside. Mark and I loved the idea of sleeping outside and immediately claimed the outdoor bed, not realizing that it did not have a mosquito net: big mistake. I have always been incredibly popular with mosquitoes and often will get dozens of mosquito bites when my friends and family members inexplicably don’t get bitten. That night was no exception. What otherwise would have been a wonderful night’s sleep was interrupted mulitple times by the sound of mosquitoes buzzing in my ear. At one point, I woke myself up by slapping myself in the ear as my subconscious self tried to protect my sleeping body from the steady attack of mosquitoes. Unfortunately, I missed the mosquito and instead ended up with a bite on top of my ear and a self-inflicted headache. Mark, on the other hand, didn’t get a single bite. Needless to say, I switched for the indoor bed the following night.

At 8:00 the next morning (in order to beat the heat and the other tourists), we woke up to meet one of the hotel employees for a short trek through the surrounding area. For the next three hours or so, we walked through the rice fields along the river and learned about how the people of Ubud live. It was an absolutely gorgeous hike complete with water snakes and giant spiders. At one point, we even had to take our shoes and socks off in order to ford the river (and for those of you who remember the Oregon Trail: none of our oxen drowned). Not a bad start to the day.

After our hike, we headed into town for an incredible lunch and the best market that we have seen so far on our trip. Although not as large as the Weekend Market in Bangkok, the market in Ubud offered a wide selection of goods very different from the things we have seen so far along the way. In order to keep our backpacks as light as possible, Mark and I have generally refrained from buying too many things at markets. In Ubud, however, we finally broke out our Rupiah (the Indonesian currency) and bought some souveneirs.

Our final day in Ubud (and Bali too, for that matter) was as busy as the previous day. After packing up our stuff and checking out, we headed north into the center of the island to see a coffee plantation. At the plantation, we learned all about the process of growing coffee beans (which are actually small red fruits to begin with) and turning these red fruits into the drink that people love oh so much. After walking around the grounds for a bit, we sat down to enjoy a free tasting of the plantation’s coffee, hot chocolate, and tea. An inexperienced coffee drinker, I absolutely hated the black coffee that I drank (although Brian tells me that it was very high quality) but the other drinks they served were delicious. To top it all off, they had a fruit stand set up where we tried a host of tropical fruits, most of which I had never heard of, much less tasted before. We left the plantation well satisfied.

After such a taxing and exhausting day of drinking hot chocolate and eating tropical fruit, we went back to the hotel and got one last massage (which was appropriately the best massage that any of us has ever had) before we headed back to Kuta for a really fun night on the town. A little too early the next morning, we got up and caught a plane over to our final stop on this whirlwind adventure: Singapore. Since there are not too many flights from Bali to San Francisco, we booked our ticket home out of Singapore and are really using it as a staging ground for the journey home. With two full days here though, we thought we might as well see what the city has to offer. I will tell all about Singapore the next time I have internet (which crazily might be back in the States). Time for one final day of adventure.