the vengeful cow blog

I made it!

Posted by lara Fri, 22 Apr 2005 12:22:46 GMT

The airplane from LAX to Taipei was huge! It had 10 seats across with 2 aisles! And each seat had its own TV, which had movies and video games and music on demand. So I learned a little Mandarin and Italian and played Chinese Checkers with the computer. But of course I slept first! It seemed like we would never get off of the plane! Those 14 hours are just a very long time to sit in one seat. I sat next to some Indonesian ladies. So once we woke up in the "morning" (in quotes, because when you go in that direction you're following the sun so it was dark for a good long time), they discovered where I was going and they were teaching me some Indonesian. It was much appreciated.

So I went from LAX to Taipei (Taiwan), then from Taipei to Penang (Malaysia), and then to Medan (Indonesia) and then up to Banda Aceh (final stop in Indonesia). Marshall met me in Penang, which was an awesome surprise! I wasn't expecting to see him until Medan. However, he'd had to go into Malaysia so that he could re-enter Indonesia and get a new 30-day visa that way. So we both now have 30-day visas, and we are ready to be in the Internet Cafe tomorrow. Also, it was great to have one of the guys from JAARS to travel with. He is on his way to work at the Internet Cafe in Meulaboh, and he ended up on the same flight as me. That way we were each able to have another person to speak English with. :-)

This is definitely the closest I've come to being in a place where I can't understand anyone else. At least in Ecuador I had taken Spanish lessons before I left. Here the language is totally unknown to me, although the pronunciation seems a lot like Spanish and they do use the latin alphabet. And I've been pleasantly surprised at the amount of English I've heard and seen around me. English was spoken as one of the languages on all of the flights, and all of the flight attendants spoke English with me. So I am thankful to say that I have not yet been in a place where no one could understand me. But it was frustrating to me that even "yes" and "no" are different.

Also, traffic was of course interesting. One thing is that it's disconcerting to drive on the left instead of on the right. And then you add the people piled onto motorcycles or into small vehicles, plus the random cows... and it gets pretty crazy. Kind of like Ecuadorian driving, except that you're driving on the other side of the road.

Okay, well, it's been a long day of traveling and I am going to go to bed! Signing off for now...