home stretch

so time to wrap things up.

Nearly 11 months on the road.
4 countries visited and two more to go.
hundreds of hours on buses, trains, rickshaws etc.

all my clothes are ruined.my bag weighs about as much as a sumo wrestler and it takes all the strength left in my body to lift it on my back, at which point I look like a hunched over grandma with back pains.

I cannot tell if I am ready to face all the uncertainties that await me when I return home yet, but I will tell you one thing, I am very ready to be done with all this 'traveling.' It's one thing to live abroad, but being on the road constantly, being lost at all hours of the day, and consistently starting over and over with people, cities, food, languages...it gets exhausting.

Ask me again after two weeks of being home, and I guarantee I will tell you I'm ready to leave again, but I guess we'll just wait and see what happens.

So far this last leg of my adventure has been a bit of a failure, mostly on my part for being too broke and cheap to buy a real guidebook, and just being too drained to actually plan anything.

I spent the last week or so in Thailand, most of the time trying to figure out how to get out of Thailand. The country, vast green and luscious, I'm sure is wonderful and great if you have the right places to go, and the right people to go with. Its a beautiful place, don't get me wrong, all the Thai people I encountered were warm, friendly, and delectably hospitable. In comparison to the level of urban infrastructure in India and Nepal, well Thailand is a heaven, a paradise of smooth paved roads, and lacking the weaving traffic and meandering cows so precious in India.

Yet, for some reason, I think I also faced far greater culture shock going to Thailand after spending so long in the places I have been, than when I will go home. At least home is familiar and I know what to expect, but hitting up Thailand was like going from a slum to Disneyland, at full force, and facing hordes of teenage backpackers clad in revealing and skimpy clothing, and hitting the booze hard in the am. Not really my style. I still feel uncomfortable even wearing tank tops and anything above the knee, so seeing a bunch of adolescent ravers wearing hot pants and tube tops, a bit shocking to say the least.

The lady boys on the other hand, how beautiful the lady boys are! Strangely, that was the most homey feeling I had, seeing the lovely lady boys parading the street corners in Bankok and Koh Samui, felt a little bit like being back in San Francisco, oh how I miss that city!

So needless to say, now I am in Malaysia, on an island off the west coast called Penang...trying to figure out my next move, which seems to be the general feeling lately.

Im hitting the home stretch, and all I can think about is laying in a park somewhere, and not ever carrying a back pack again!

If anyone has a couch, or a job, or anything for me, well that would be great..seeing as I will soon be homeless, still unemployed, and not have the luxury of calling myself a student anymore, but just an unemployed 20 something ready to move back in with my parents. Sounds like I'm really moving up in the world.

anyway.

Counting down the days now, cannot wait to see all of you!!!!

xox