There are worse 'job' ;-) (Day 122 + 123 of the world tour)

04th + 05th January 2020

As expected, the last two days were (already) 'lazy' days^^

In the night from the day before yesterday to yesterday, one of the Asian roommates lit incense sticks in the middle of the night, causing the whole room to smell like this incense or whatever it is.

For someone who likes to stay in temples or shrines, that may sound nice, but we found it semi-cool :p I find the smell too intense and I don't like it at all. What he was thinking when he lit these things here, no idea :D :D

At around 7:30 am, we got up and spent the whole day at the pool. In the morning, we mainly did research on our next destination - Malaysia.

We wanted to check again if and how long we would like to stay in the respective cities there and mainly booked our accommodation for Kuala Lumpur, where we will be flying to tomorrow! :O

Since I have a cold, we didn't spend that much time in the pool, but every now and then we had to cool off ;-)

At noon, we talked to a few other travelers while having a snack. There was a guy who is probably Dutch (he mentioned the word 'Dutch' a few times), and we philosophized about the English and German language^^

He thinks that the German word 'Schmetterling' (butterfly) doesn't sound cute at all, but rather almost evil, and in all other languages we know it, it is a small gentle word. He also made fun of the compound nouns that do not exist in English^^

When we started talking about Angkor Wat, the conversation shifted to traveling in general, and when the keyword 'India' came up, another man joined the conversation. He is British and probably 60+. He always stays in one place for about a month and enjoys his vacations :)

He himself has also been to India and we chatted a bit about the strange experiences we had there :D It became apparent that India is probably one of the countries we can tell the most stories about. There was just a lot of curious and interesting things there ;-)

In the afternoon, Jonas and I played a few rounds of billiards. Another guest watched us and when we finished, he asked Jonas if he wanted to play a round.

The man, who is about our age, is Pakistani and a digital nomad. So he works online and can work from anywhere in the world, but because of his origin, it is not so easy for him to enter any country of his choice...

He and Jonas talked a bit about the topic of visas, etc., and played their game on the side. I sat next to them and watched, but when Jonas suggested after the match that the Pakistani could play against me as well, he waved it off, apologized, and then left :p

Maybe he had a 'problem' with me sitting there in a bikini (with a towel around me^^), no idea, but Jonas was a bit disappointed. He didn't want to scare him away with the suggestion ;-)

In the evening, we went to a Mexican restaurant for a special dinner, where we ate something other than Asian or pizza for the first time since Varkala :O :D :D

I'm not really a fan of Mexican food, I think, but maybe Mexico itself can still convince me^^ Jonas definitely celebrated it, and then we went back to the hostel.

Since I felt quite feverish, I vegetated for a while and then finally went to sleep^^

Today was actually a repetition of yesterday, except that our planning and booking phase lasted for three hours :O

Until now, we have been doing quite well by always booking everything spontaneously. This way, you are flexible and can travel to places for shorter or longer periods as desired. Already in India, where we had booked a fixed domestic flight in the middle of our stay, we stumbled over the fact that it is 'annoying' to have this fixed date in the back of your mind^^

Since Thailand, we have only traveled overland, and spontaneity has really made sense there ;-)

Malaysia will be different though. Tomorrow we will be flying to Kuala Lumpur, then traveling to the north and to the island of Borneo. We also need a domestic flight for that, and since we felt that it was worth booking the flights a few days in advance, it ended up with Malaysia being completely planned now^^

So it is the first time that we have already booked our fixed transport and accommodation upon arrival and CANNOT/WILL NOT extend flexibly, but somehow that's okay too. After all, we have already completed 1/3 of the journey (time is running out!!! :O) and have only been 'in' Asia so far, even though there are still other destinations to come^^

Well. First of all, we are looking forward to the flight (even with all its ecological concerns, flying always has that vibe of being something 'special' :p) and hope that we can easily get from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to our accommodation tomorrow evening (we will land around 6:00 pm) using public transportation :)

The little 'low' we had during the Christmas season because you do miss your family and friends is overshadowed by the 'adventure spirit' of discovering a new country again.

Oh yeah - and already now we can say that we are glad that we didn't cancel Cambodia. It is definitely a country worth exploring, and with more time (which we didn't take because we have already spent so long in Southeast Asia), you could certainly have seen even more special places, but yeah. We're glad we were here ;-)