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This is written as I made it from various 'net cafes. I didn't want to edit it, so here it is.

Hello all-
Its me, the travelling duck. At the moment I'm sitting in a 'net cafe in Signapore on a computer with a very sticky spacebar, so if I miss some spaces, its not my fault.

This thread will be my travel journal, updated whenever I can get on a computer. PLEASE keep in on the front page so that I can find it easily... that would be really helpful.

Anyway, yesterday... or maybe two days ago, my time-sense is crazy screwed up right now, I left California to fly 11 hours to Narita airport in Japan. Left the airport, then lingered around inside and ate some Chinese food and pocky before flying a further 7 hours to Signapore. Checked in to my 53rd floor hotel room in the Swissotel on something street and passed out at about 2:30 Signapore time (11:30 Cali. time, I think.) Woke up around 8:30, grabbed some breakfast and have spent the rest of the day traversing Chinatown and Little India districts in Signapore. 'Bout to grab some lunch after this.

Its devilishly hot... I don't have a temperature stat. but for a poor Alaskan boy like me its hell. I am utterly sticky... gotta be at least 90&#xhu;midity. There was a monsoon (quick little rainstorm thunder thing) for a short reprieve, but that is since dried up and its hot again.

I leave later on today for Sumatra in Indonesia, spend two nights there then leave in the morning for Bali. If I find a cafe, I'll update.

For now, I'm out. Stay cool and keep this on the front page for me.

--Duck_ man
Signapore
7/22/06
13:40 Signapore time

INDONESIA
Sumatra
I arrived in Sumatra and met up with a fascinating gentleman named Rick. He is Australian and a veritable wealth of knowledge... though some of it may have been false, I couldn't tell. He drove me to a lakeside bungalow (about three hours out of town) where I spent the night and the next morning.
The roads in Sumatra are hilarious. Its not so much that noone knows how to drive as much as that everyone is a really good driver. What ends up happening is traffic laws are thrown out of the window. People constantly veer in front of others, honking their horns while they do. Its a carefully organized chaos.
The bungalow was like something you'd expect to find in Mexico for upwards of 50 bucks a night... crappy toilet with a bed, but nice enough.
Cost me $10. This country is basically free. The currency is Rupiahs, the lowest of which is R1000, which is the U.S. equivalent of a dime. That'll get you a cup of damn good coffee.
Sumatra is very poor. You always hear about third world countries in the news and get a view of them in your head, but at least for me it wasn't correct. They have cars and food etc., but everyone is in almost abject poverty. Now I am by no means rich by U.S. standards, but I am filthily so here.
Anyway, after the bungalows, I spent the day around Sumatra, up a volcano or two etc. then went back to Rick's amazing house about 40 minutes out from town. Woke up the next morning and went to the airport to travel to Bali, through Jakarta on the island of Java.
Jakarta
Jakarta is one of the most crime-ridden cities in the world, especially for pickpocketing. It is dirty, dingy, sketchy and overall unpleasant. Luckily, I was only going to be there for around 30 minutes. The key word is "was".
Due to an idiotic error by the people at Air Asia, I missed my connection and had 6 hours to spend in Jakarta. After buying my ticket for 1.64 million rupiahs ($160), I took a taxi to the airport Sheraton hotel, walked in the front door and down to the pool, pulled my swimsuit out of my only bag-a backpack-and took a swim. Then I ate a very nice lunch and went back to the airport to catch my flight to Bali.
I have to say that from what I saw of Jakarta-an illegitamate jaunt into the Sheraton-its a very nice city.
Bali
Bali is where I am now. I leave in about 6 and a half hours for Malaysia, then Brunei.
Bali is far different from Sumatra. Everyone smiles very genuinely here, and tourism has turned Bali into a fairly nice island.
I arrived around 8:45PM, then spent the next hour and a half at a booth choosing a rental car and hotel. Turns out it was worth the time: I ended up with a $275 dollar a night villa with full waiting staff and the nicest facilities I've ever seen for $135. It was a serene paradise.
I spent the first day in Bali scuba diving. The fish were incredible... colors you never get in Juneau. I also felt the best I have diving in quite a while; totally in control of my bouyancy. The guy who took me, Made, was the most genuine dude I've ever met. Hearing about his family was just amazing. Also, he was a great diver, taking me over reefs with ease. I got back to my hotel at about 6:15 and went out for dinner at 8ish.
Heres an example of how cheap Indonesia is. I bought three full dinners and four drinks and spent 4 bucks. The same food in the states would've cost me at least 35 bucks. Its unreal.
Today, after this, I plan to do a little shopping and sightseeing... nothing much, just keepin' it mellow.

Thats it for now. Don't know when my next cafe will be.
KEEP THIS ON THE FRONT.
--Duck_man
Bali, Indonesia
7/26/06
13:53, Indonesia time.

MALAYSIA/BRUNEI
I flew to Malaysia and got in around 10PM-ish, then drove a fairly uneventful drive to an amusement park/hotel complex known as Genting Highlands. The roads were much more civilized (and consequently much less fun) than Indonesia, and I had to pass through 6 toll booths on the way. I arrived and collapsed, exhausted, into bed.
I woke up earlyish the next morning, ate one of the worst buffets ever (we're talking egginatube quality here... really bad s**t) and then warranted myself 2 hours for the amusment park. First thing off I noticed that every single one of the rides that was any good was closed, or opened later on in the day. Therefore, I completed an incredibly efficcient loop of the park, and drove back to the airport.

Then I went to Brunei, and arrived around 8:30. Brunei is very unusual... it is a Sultanate with 300K people and 42 billion dollars in oil money. The sultan once built an amusment park for his people, free of charge. This was about twelve years ago. In its prime, the park must've been phenomonal... all the grounds were marble, there was amazing archetecture everywhere... unbeleiveable. Unfourtunately, the park has been all-but neglected recently, and will very likely not exist three months from now.
There was almost noone there, but enough to have the most incredible bumpercar experience ever. The goal was not to run into eachother, but instead to avoid at all costs. What resulted was an amazing ballet of serenity and magic. After those, I saw the most fantastic fountain music show ever. I'm a huge fountain nut. Overall the complete lack of patrons in the park made it a bit creepy, and I was not sad to leave to go to my hotel, called The Empire.
Crazy nice hotel. Woke up in the morning and, after breakfast, went for a swim in the South China sea. Mistook a coconut for some dude's head. Then I went swimming in the Faux beach that the hotel had, and then in the real pool they had. In Brunei, alchohol is illegal, so I had a mocktail at the swim-up bar. Swim-up bars freaking RULE. Then I rented a jet-ski and went out jet-skiing for a while. I decided that jet-skis are Gods way of thanking men.
On the whole, Brunei was a bit weird for my tastes. The media is very censored and the people are just a touch off.
Remind me to tell you about Indomilk.


MALAYSIA AGAIN/THAILAND/VIETNAM/SIGNAPORE AGAIN
Gonna cover alot this time around... sorry for the infrequent/generally crappy updates.
After Brunei, I flew back to Malaysia (Kuala Lampur, the main city, has a hub airport.) I got a taxi driver (who, of course, didn't speak english,) and told him to take me to the Concorde Airport hotel. He replied what I thought was the same in a thick accent, but after about an hour of driving I realized we probably weren't going to the airport hotel. Turns out he thought I said Concorde KL, the same hotel in the city. After another hour of driving (and I effing hate driving) I finally got to my hotel. The next morning, I left for Thailand.
Thailand is a kingdom, for those of you interested in different forms of government. I spent a total of about 10 hours there, in which time I covered the major temple, some river thing and a whole ton of market/street culture. I also got a manicure, pedicure and foot massage from teh hot Azns. Honestly, though, does anyone actually care about cuticles? 'Cause I can't really tell the difference.
Anyway, later that night I boarded a plane to Vietnam, or Viet Nam, or VietNam or whatever. Noone is really totally clear on the name, nor what it means. Vietnam was my big culture stop: I spent most of the day walking around on the streets seeing how people live and being laughed at by the natives. I bought the three things on my list: a silk shirt, a fake rolex and some communist propoganda for my freind. After an all to short stay, I got back on the plane once again and headed back to Singapore, where I am currently. Its about 4:13AM, and sooner or later I'll get on the plane for my 6:00 flight to Tokyo Narita (7 hours) then back to the states (LAX(12 hours)). Then its off to Disneyland, CSNY concert and god knows what else. I'll cover all that as well as some Asia wrap-up stuff back when I'm in a saner place.

--Duck_man
Singapore
7/31
0415, Singapore time.

CALIFORNIA
Hey all-
I'm back in the states now. My July 31st took a total of 39 hours, and it was 60 hours from bed to bed. My eyeballs really hurt: my contacts were in the whole time. Anyway, last night I went to a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young anti-war concert last night. It was pretty killer. They played alot of stuff off Young's new album as well as a bunch of old classics (Four dead in Ohio, Chicago etc.) Best moments: Hearing Lets Impeach the President with news clips of Bush+the lyrics on TV screens and Hearing Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner while Nash tied a yellow ribbon (troops) around a big microphone.
I'll update the California bit for the Tool concert, and after that I'll probably let this thread die.

ASIA WRAP-UP STUFF
As I went to each country, I came up with "catchphrases" for most of them. They are as follows (in chronological order):
Indonesia-"I love this country"
Malaysia-"I hate this country"
Brunei-"I am fascinated by this Sultanate" (attributed to the fact that Brunei was really ******** weird.)
Thailand-"I enjoy this country"
Vietnam-"I am amused by this country"
None for Singapore or Japan, I'm afraid. I sort of forgot after Vietnam.

Total countries: 7
Total days: 11
Total flights: 13

ABOUT THE FLIGHTS
Most of my flights were on the budget airline Air Asia. Cheap tickets, maybe 30-40 bucks a piece. On Air Asia, they didn't really care about much... having your seat belt fastened, turning off electronics etc. It was great. However, there was some negative effects as well. On one flight, I sit down and realize that my armrest moves about 6 inches to either side. The first thing that jumps into my head is the wings breaking off/flapping around. On another flight, I board to the sight of white smoke pouring out of the overhead compartments-presumably from the air system/condensed water-but the first thing I thought of was a bomb in the compartment. The bad bit is that I was not allowed to make any jokes about the death of the airplane or bombs on airplanes. That is why, after getting out of the LAX airport, I spent twenty minutes in a beach parking lot making bomb on airplane jokes to my uncle.

MILO
For those of you who don't know, Milo is a delicious chocolate nutritious energy drink (nutritious means they spray stuff on it, and energy means they put sugar in it.) My uncle-who was on the trip-and I kept a Milo tally. In 11 days, we consumed a total of 26 Milos.

wink cool idea i will start writting these thing when im on holiday tooo twisted soory for stealling ur idea lool xp

Hooray for Milo.. have you had the milo bar?