The trip that changed everything

The trip that changed everything.

A significant anniversary just passed without us realizing it until last week. It was 10 years ago in June that we ventured to Southeast Asia for the very first time. It was the first “big trip” we took together overseas, one that changed us forever.

To this day, our time in Malaysia remains as the most meaningful and impactful adventure we’ve ever had.

What made this trip so special was that it was not a typical vacation or holiday. It was the first time we spent a sizeable amount of time exploring a foreign region together, with no set plans or itinerary. It was a transformational experience and the first time we felt like true travelers.

We ended up in Southeast Asia because Nicole accepted a 4 month student exchange program at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, located on the island of Penang, just south of Georgetown. This meant finding room mates and an apartment in a very different environment.

Reflecting on that trip got me thinking about the power of travel and how it can positively impact the way we think, act and feel.

Everything about that trip to Malaysia felt larger than life. The smells, the sounds, the street level chaos… our senses were kicked into overdrive the moment we stepped out of the airport.

Before arriving in Penang, we had an image of SE Asia that was highly inaccurate.

Our ignorance was mostly driven by our inexperience with the world (we were in our early 20’s) and our fear of being so far away from home.

Remember, this was back in 2004, a time before Google Maps, smartphones and social media. Information was not as readily available as it is today (though I flip flop as to whether that’s good or bad). Back then, we relied almost exclusively on old Lonely Planet guide books, dated television programs and the advice of hungover backpackers.

Our first few days in Malaysia was a struggle.

The humidity was unbearable, our stomachs had trouble digesting the food, the streets were loud and obnoxious and the locals stared at us relentlessly.

This was also the first time we witnessed real poverty. Dilapidated old colonial buildings sat amongst piles of garbage and bubbling streams of black sewage water. It was complete culture shock.

We felt homesick and out of place. I vividly remember feeling like we had made a mistake and even considered changing my return flight home. 

But, as each day passed, we became more and more comfortable with our surroundings and we began to embrace the opportunity. In time, we grew to love those dusty, humid, chaotic streets.

Many of the exchange students lived in the same apartment building, so each night we would gather by the swimming pool to socialize over a few drinks (that’s the pool in the above picture).

Read more - Reflections: International Student Exchange Experience in Malaysia

Inevitably, a few drinks would turn into a few more and we’d often end up at the local hawker center late at night. Residents and shop owners would often join us to learn about our country and practice their English. They were just as curious about us as we were about them.

It was these simple moments, eating spicy noodles and drinking cold Tiger beer with a group of European exchange students, that left the biggest impression on us.

Now, the philosophical world traveler in me feels the need to describe these moments as rich cultural experiences, but, truth be told, we were more interested in partying and having crazy adventures than learning about Malaysia’s history, religion and social challenges. The cultural education was a convenient bonus.

After a few weeks of excessive “good times”, the reality of long-term travel began to set in. Typically we would be on a return flight home after a week or two away, so the thought of several months seemed like an eternity.

But we had a few months in Malaysia, so we started to develop a routine.

Nicole cleverly scheduled her classes from Tuesday to Thursday, which gave us 4 day weekends. When she was in class, I worked on her homework at the Internet cafe across the street from the university. This gave us the opportunity to leave Penang on the weekends to explore neighboring regions, without worry about project research or writing papers. Hopefully her professors aren’t reading this blog post.

One experience that stood out was the trip we took to the Perhentian Islands.

We heard about the tiny tropical islands from another student who had spent a week on Perhentian Besar getting her PADI open water dive certification. It didn’t take much convincing after we saw a few of her photos.

The Perhentian Islands are located 10 miles off the northeastern coast of the Malaysian Peninsula, just south of the Thai border. For perspective, see the map below – the red star on the left is Penang and the red pin on the right is the Perhentian Islands.

Geographically, they didn’t appear to be that far from each other, so we thought the journey would be fairly straightforward.

This was our first taste of “no itinerary” travel.

Feeling adventurous, we made our way to the bus station in Penang and spent the better part of an hour trying to find the right bus. The “bus terminal” was really just a series of retail stores on the side of a road.

The only option we had that day was an overnight bus that would take approximately 10 hours. It departed at 9:00 PM so we assumed it would arrive in Kuala Besut around 7:00 AM. This was also our first overnight bus experience in Asia, so we had no idea that drivers like to crank up the A/C to the point of freezing. We were unprepared and did not bring a sweater or blanket. Sleep did not happen that night.

At around 5:00 AM the bus driver stopped at a dark, dusty intersection in a sketchy town. There was only one street light, which made for a creepy vibe. He flicked on the lights and began shouting at the remaining passengers. The bus had dropped off many people along the way and the only passengers left were other backpackers, obviously headed to the same island destination.

We could not understand what he was saying but it was clear that he wanted us to get off the bus. He opened the storage compartment underneath the bus and began unloading several over-sized backpacks.

“Pulau Perhentian, yes?” he said with a devilish grin.

“Yes. But where do we catch the boat?” we replied, thoroughly confused and not impressed that our backpacks were thrown on the dusty road.

He smiled and nodded. He clearly did not understand.

Fortunately, one of the passengers could speak Malay, so he translated. Apparently we had to wait at this dusty intersection in Jerteh for 2 hours to catch a local bus to the ferry terminal. That was not a part of the plan. We made it very clear when we purchased our bus tickets that Kuala Besut was the final destination. There was no mention of a bus transfer.

Apparently it’s quite common for bus drivers to stop at Jerteh instead of driving all the way to Kuala Besut. We were confused and anxious. The streets did not look friendly at that hour and we were all very tired. We teamed up with the other backpackers and waved some money at the bus driver, “Can you take us to Kuala Besut?”

Not surprisingly, he quickly obliged and accepted the money. We got the feeling we were not the first tourists to pay more for ‘the extra distance’.

We finally arrived at the Kuala Besut ferry terminal around 6:30 AM. Tired and cranky, we went to the ticket window and learned that boat was not supposed to leave until 9:00 AM.

Still feeling confident from our recent negotiating success, we managed to convince the boat driver to depart early because our group now totaled 11 backpackers. It became clear that transportation availability is highly negotiable in Malaysia.

After 12 hours of sketchy bus and boat travel we finally arrived.

We were warned that beach front accommodations booked up fast so we made a reservation the week before. This was a smart play because there was very little available for the travel companions we met on the bus (they just arrived and hoped for the best).

 This private bungalow was our home for a week. No hot water but that patio was gold.

This was the view from the balcony of our private bungalow.

The beach view to the left of our bungalow…

… and this is the view to the right.

There were no crowds. We had much of the island to ourselves.

The Perhentian Islands are the perfect tropical island paradise.

Clear blue water, silky white coral sand, tall swaying palm trees, wooden bungalows directly on the beach. There was even a small reef right on the beach. Each evening, we would gather on the beach and eat freshly caught seafood with our toes in the sand.

It’s one of those special places that you never want to leave.

Tropical beach life aside, what made that trip to the Perhentian Islands so memorable was that we had to challenge ourselves to get there. We had to piece together the journey with limited or inaccurate information.

Things did not go according to plan and we had to find creative ways to overcome the unexpected obstacles. We had to accept being uncomfortable and vulnerable. We had to rely on the kindness of people and trust that everything was going to be okay.

It wasn’t always easy, but the most rewarding things in life rarely are.

It taught us that travel really is about the travel. It wasn’t the perfect beach that left the strongest impression. It was navigating the confusing bus terminal and finding the right bus ticket. It was that anxious moment on a dusty, deserted road at 5:00 AM in the middle of nowhere. It was connecting with other travelers faced with the same dilemma and finding a solution, together.

Looking back, it was that experience in Malaysia that laid the fountain for future backpacking trips to South America, India, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It introduced us to a ‘choose your own adventure’ style of travel that forever changed the way we approach our travels.

Your turn! Tell us about the trip that changed you forever.

 

The trip that changed everything is a post from: Traveling Canucks

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'Hi, I Have Three Breasts! Interested?'

Gentlemen, meet Jasmine Tridevil. She's a 21-year-old massage therapist from Tampa, Florida, who claims to have recently underwent surgery to have a third breast attached to her chest. 

You read that right. Here are the alleged results:

Post by Jasmine Tridevil.

You can see much more on her public Facebook page, where she's also posted several videos of her bonus boob: 

But the whole third breast thing (which, let's be clear, hasn't been verified) isn't really the crazy part--OK, the only crazy part. Here's her claimed reasoning for adding the accessory: She says she hopes it will make her . . . wait for it . . . LESS attractive to men.

As if.

Is she kidding? If sci-fi films are any indication, some guys love women with extra breasts! Apparently Tridevil has never seen Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, where Captain James T. Kirk romances a three-canned cat dancer. Or Total Recall, or The Warrior and the Sorcerer, or Return of the Jedi--all flicks that feature females with an extra breast (or five, or six). 

All of which is to say, if Tridevil's hope was to draw less attention from men, well, clearly she has spent very little time at Comic Con.

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Being the Strongest Guy in Your Gym Isn't Important; This Is

Greg Nuckols is just 22, and is already one of the top drug-free powerlifters on the planet. His best-ever lifts in competition include a world-record 750-pound squat at 242 pounds.

In a recent blog post, Nuckols told the truth about his lifting prowess: It's innate. He was born to be strong. The first time he picked up a barbell, he bench-pressed 150 pounds and deadlifted 250 "with ease." He could've deadlifted more, but it was Christmas morning, and that was all the weight Santa Claus had left for him.

He was 10 years old.

It's easy for Nuckols, a strength coach in Orange County, California, to figure out where his strength comes from. "My mom's side of the family is full of freaks who, honestly, I just don't talk about because no one would believe me if I did," he says. "I'm not one of the top five strongest people in that gene pool."

His freakish strength was apparent from an early age. At 5 he won wrestling matches against 7- and 8-year-olds. "By the time I was 10 or 11, I could lift and move things around the house that my dad couldn't," he remembers. When someone told him that pushups would improve his chances in football, "I got to where I could bust out 100 pushups before school, when I got home, and before I went to bed at night."

At 14, on his first day in his high school weight room, using an Olympic barbell for the first time, he benched 275 and deadlifted 425, which he estimates was 2.5 times his body weight. A year later, he broke state powerlifting records with virtually no formal training.

That led him directly to his current career as a personal trainer. "I was the strongest kid in the school, so people wanted to know what I did," he explains. "I'd write them training plans for $20. Low barriers to entry in this industry."

You can see the problem: a genetic outlier who had barely started his own training was already sharing information he didn't yet understand. "I liked to believe I was so strong because I was some sort of powerlifting savant and just understood training so well," he says. "It's a convenient thing for strong people to believe. I didn't fully understand yet that a lot of things only worked for me because I'm me. The American idea of being able to do anything if you tried harder was embedded deep in my young mind. Really, I just thought everyone else was lazy."

The mysteries of genetics

Thoughts like that are now a distant memory for Nuckols. He's a serious student of strength and conditioning, and his work with a full range of clients, from competitive powerlifters to people whose genetics might not even qualify as average, has given him a more generous perspective.

"If you like lifting weights, and you're not the strongest guy in the gym, that's fine," he says. "Keep lifting. You'll be healthier, happier, and longer-lived."

As a bonus, you might discover that you've underestimated your potential. You can't really know until you push yourself hard and see what happens. That's a twist Nuckols saw firsthand when he worked with a young guy he describes as "amazingly, astoundingly weak" his first day in the weight room. Within five years, without drugs, he's among the strongest and most jacked lifters in his gym, or any other.

Like Nuckols, he's an extreme outlier, but one whose potential, hiding behind apparently modest genetics, only came out when he trained.  

Which brings us back to the original point: Most training advice that filters down to average guys comes from the biggest, strongest, most-impressive specimens. Some, like Nuckols, started out strong and then worked hard to get even stronger. Others, like his friend, started weak and became strong just slightly slower than a comic-book superhero bitten by a radioactive spider.

Both types tend to believe, as most of us probably would, that everything they achieve is the result of pure effort. From there it's easy enough to believe that when the rest of us achieve unimpressive results, it's due to poor effort, rather than the stubborn averageness of our genes.

What we all have in common, no matter where we fall on the genetic spectrum, is the training process, Nuckols says, which almost always produces some measurable improvement. "As long as you love the process, and it's something you can stick with, the results are a distant second in terms of importance."

Lou Schuler, C.S.C.S., is an award-winning journalist and the coauthor (with Alwyn Cosgrove) of "The New Rules of Lifting Supercharged."

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Jessica Simpson feels ‘sexier’ as a wife and mum

Singer Jessica Simpson has two children with husband Eric Johnson and she says she feels sensuous post-marriage. The couple got married in July this year and is on cloud nine. ‘Being married, for me, it defines so much more than even having kids. We still feel like we’re on a honeymoon,’ eonline.com quoted her as saying. 

Her wardrobe has gone through a few changes, which now includes more short-shorts, wispy-thin skirts and waist-cinching dresses. ‘(Marriage) has actually changed my style. I’m really into slip-dresses and everything a little bit,’ she said. ‘I feel sexier as a wife and a mom,’ she added.  She has a 2-year-old daughter Maxwell and 14-month-old son Ace.

Source: IANS

Photo source: Getty images

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• Why working mums should practise guilt-free parenting


• 5 ways to deal with a fussy eater

For more articles on parenting, visit our parenting section. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest updates! For daily free health tips, sign up for our newsletter. And for health-related queries, visit our Questions and Answers section.

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Do your heart a favour, get some sleep!

Do you tend to spend late nights at the office, have a job that requires pulling all-nighters, work night shift or are a student who tends to cram one night before the exams? Well, it might be the worst habit you could have. Apart from depriving you of essential sleep, these practices also sap your body, causing great damage to your health. What’s  more, this habit could also damage your heart, putting you at greater risk of suffering from heart disease. In this post Dr Amar Singhal, HOD, Cardiology, Delhi based Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute tells you why sleep is so essential for heart health. 

Why you need at least seven to eight hours of sleep

We often tend to associate sleep with laziness, but did you know that when you sleep your body actually repairs all the damage done, allows your organs a little rest and helps release essential hormones setting your body’s function on track? Yes, to explain further, here are few health benefits sleep has:

• Adequate sleep improves memory. Your brain will pick up things such as a new language or activity easily after a good snooze.


• After a good night’s rest your brain also tends to be more creative, so if you have an important project to complete plan your activities such that you get enough rest before you start work. 


• It has been seen that athletes perform better after a good night’s sleep. This is associated with the fact that when one sleeps the body rests and repairs, thereby allowing a person to be more agile and athletically inclined when they wake up. 


• In case of children, it has been seen that adequate sleep helps improve their attention and learning abilities, helping them perform better at school. In contrast, children who have lesser hours of  sleep every night, tend to show ADHD-like symptoms, get more hyperactive, impulsive and inattentive.


• Want to lose weight? Get enough sleep. It is a proven fact that if you are dieting and are well-rested you will lose weight faster. When you stay up late, the body produces hormones that give rise to cravings for junk food, sending your diet completely off-track.  


• Lack of sleep contributes to depression and anxiety, therefore sleeping well will make you less irritable and ensure overall well-being. 

Why is sleep important for the heart?

Sleep has a number of benefits for the body, including the heart. Not only does sufficient sleep help lower levels of C-reactive protein, which is associated with heart risk (statistically C-reactive protein levels have been found to be higher in people who get less than six hours of sleep a night), but it also keeps stress at bay. Apart from that, a good eight hours of sleep helps keep your blood pressure and cholesterol levels in check and allows your heart rate to drop, so that the organ has a little time to recuperate. On the other hand, insufficient sleep can increase insulin resistance leading to a greater risk of type 2-diabetes and heart disease. Also, shortened phases of sleep messes up your appetite making you hungry and prone to binge on unhealthy foods. This is especially true for people with heart disease, who must sleep for at least six to eight hours in a day to prevent further heart related complications. 

You may also like to read: 

• 4 sure signs you need to quit your job!


• Workplace stress can raise your diabetes risk


•  People who work longer smoke more

For more articles on stress and heart disease, visit our stress and heart disease section. Follow us on Facebook andTwitter for all the latest updates! For daily free health tips, sign up for ournewsletter. And to join discussions on health topics of your choice, visit our Questions and Answers section.

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Maruti Suzuki asked to halt construction of new R&D unit

The Government of Haryana has asked Maruti Suzuki to halt the construction of an upcoming R&D facility at Rohtak. The new facility, which was a Rs. 3,500 crore project, was to be the first unit built by Suzuki Motor Corporation, Japan to develop and test cars for India and global markets. It was to be built over an area of 600 acres and expected to be operational by next year.

The state Government claims that the country's largest carmaker in terms of sales did not obtain the necessary environmental clearance before beginning the construction work on the facility. The previous Government of India had introduced a policy, which makes it mandatory for companies to seek environmental clearance for construction of any facility greater than 20,000 sq. ft. in size.

On August 9 at a meeting held by the PMO industry leaders present at the meeting had stressed that the requirement constitutes a misinterpretation of a clause from the environmental impact assessment (EIA) rules of 2006, which were aimed at keeping a check on residential building projects. Top government law officers have earlier opined that this clearance is not necessary in the case of industrial projects. The implication of the rule would mean that even a medium-size unit being built over six acres of land would need a prior environmental clearance before commencing construction. This introduces an additional delay of at least 18 months for investments. This had led to confusion in the understanding of the policy.

Maruti Suzuki has been obtaining the necessary clearances for air and water pollution and hazardous waste. It had forwarded an application for environmental clearance for the construction in February 2013 even though it was not convinced about the requirement of this clearance. The company went ahead with the construction of the new facility and in March 2014, the state government decided to initiate action against it under the Environment Protection Act of 1986 for commencing construction without obtaining clearance.

In May 2014, the Delhi High Court directed the Government of Haryana not to initiate any criminal action against Maruti Suzuki. The High Court also directed the company to obtain a post-facto environmental clearance for the construction of the project. The Haryana State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority has filed an appeal against this verdict and as a decision on the appeal is yet to be pronounced, Maruti has been asked to stop all construction or operational activity.

Source: Economic Times

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