Brief summary of my time in South East Asia

At the time I started this blog, I’ve been in South East Asia for over 20 months continuously. Although I may write about my further pilgrimages as they happen I don’t think I’ll go back to writing what has happened during that time, apart from some anecdotes like the ones I already added. So I want to give a summary of what I’ve been doing and where I’ve been all this time.

I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand on November 14, 2006. After a few days of enjoying this great city which reminded me of Istanbul, I traveled to Kho Chang, which was perhaps a too touristic spot to start this trip but it was nice nevertheless. It was just to show how small the world is that on the remotest beach of that island I bumped into friends from Turkey. After a week I went back to Bangkok and with many friends went to the Rainbow World Gathering.

The site of the World Gathering was a secluded little beach on the West coast quite near the border of Myanmar. I made myself a camp house out of bamboo and camped with many old friends for the next 2 months. It was truly a very special experience to be free with friends on a tropical beach. I enjoyed a lot, learned a lot and most importantly sang a lot. First time in my life I started to compose little songs and made melodic announcements everyday. I was nourished by all the smiles and laughter I motivated on other people.

On the morning of the first day of the year I hurt my slipped disc on my back pretty badly and couldn’t stand up for 3 days. I decided to see it as a lesson and did my best to receive the learning it brought me. And it brought lot of things into my sight. I was surrounded with all sorts of healers from reiki masters to homeopaths, from acupuncturists to massagists. I’m so thankful to all of them and especially Herman who with his magic needles and great experience in acupuncture helped me stand up and walk around after a relatively short time.

During the gathering I crossed to Myanmar by boat a couple of times to extend my visa but didn’t stay longer than 10 minutes. At the end of the gathering I left with Ayşegül to a nearby monastery, Suan Mokkh, for a 10 day silent meditation retreat and a little longer stay in the monastery itself. Then we made it back to Bangkok for a visit to the embassy. For some reason they couldn’t extend her passport quickly and we decided to go to Malaysia which gives everyone 3-months free visas at the border. We went to Kuala Lumpur to the Turkish embassy and learned that they ne

eded two months to send her application to Turkey by normal mail and receive the reply also by normal mail. So we decided to stay and feel Malaysia. On March full moon we joined Tim and Nina to go to the oldest jungles on earth, Taman Negara. It was truly amazing to see such big trees and big everything in such an untouched environment where we could camp.

After a few days we went back to our first stop in Penang, got a nice old style room in a fisherman’s village and got acclimatized. From the first moment I felt very welcome in Malaysia and I thought

of it as a great base to be in South East Asia. Because of the multiculturality of the country people didn’t treat foreigners as if they are Martians, like they do in most other countries in Asia. Our friend Rene started to teach me CFQ, which is a kind of qigong developed by a master from Pen

ang. I was immediately captured by it and started to practice 3-4 hours a day. I also received healing from Master Yap who helped me to touch my toes standing up after more than 10 years. My slipped disc problem have been more or less history ever since.

Then Ayşegül decided that she wanted to go back to Turkey and I thought I’d rather not go to Indonesia alone and instead went to China. I went overland to Bangkok, spent some time by the river Kwai watching the famous bridge and took a boat on the river Mae Kong from Thailand to China passing between Myanmar and Laos.

China was a whole different world. It came as a big surprise because I expected it to be less developed and m

ore historic. On the other hand I had never been to a place where it was so hard to find someone who knew some English or would try to communicate in any other way. I quickly went to Dali in

the mountainous Yunnan Province and found my friends. After only a few days of acclimatizing to the cool mountain air we went up to over 2.000 meters to start the seed camp for the coming local rainbow gathering. The plateau overlooking the Erhai Lake was heavenly. And we had great relations with the local villagers as well as the monks of the mountain. However the book-minded officials couldn’t fit our presence there into anything they could report to

their higher officers in Beijing and asked us to go down only after a couple of weeks. It was sad but all things happen with a reason anyway.

Then I met Maya. Dali was a perfect little romantic old city to spend days walking on the streets, climbing its ancient walls, going for forest walks. After a few weeks we went to see how close we can get to Tib

et and visited the famous Shangri-La (Zong Dian) where most inhabitants and the culture are Tibeta

n. We had some butter tea, visited the local Potala and stocked some cool weather for the times we’d go down to the lowlands.

Then we quickly went back to Dali and Kunming and booked two beds on the 2-day sleeper bus to Luang Pra

bang in Laos. I was selfishly hoping to find a less developed country but at least the old and very beautiful town by the Mae Kong was too touristy to be undeveloped. There we had a room overlooking the river and went long walks, cycled around, swam in the local waterfalls, all of which were very nice, except for getting all our spare cash stolen from our room while we were in the shower.

Well…

We passed by Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which seemed to be a boring flat town with nothing to do other than take a bus to Thailand, which we did after we met shortly with Renate there.

In Turkish we say “fox goes around and around but always ends up in the fur shop” and for me Bangkok seemed to be that fur shop. About a year from today, on Maya’s birthday we were there with Evrim and Bene and that was the last time I spoke Turkish with someone face to face. On our way back to Penang we stopped by the island Kho Phangan which is so famous with its full moon parties but we

found a peaceful romatic spot on a tiny connected island and chilled out. Than we went back to Penang and I took a course on CFQ.

In September 2007 we went to Sumatra Indonesia for two months. Indonesia reminded me of India which I lov

e and miss so much. The people seemed alive and real, the nature and culture were very rich. There were lots to explore. But we had not made a very good timing by arriving during Ramadan which made it hard to find food and travel. Our first stop, Lake Toba, a mega-volcanic crater lake which is also the world’s biggest lake on an island, made us stop immediately. By th

e tranquil lake days passed slowly. I had heard a lot about this place but still it’s affect on me was like nothing I expected. We were not camping or anything but we always felt the grandeur of Mother Nature.

After hardly leaving the land of the Christian Bataks we went to Bukittinggi, the land of the Minangkabau c

ulture. For the Ramadan festival (Muslim equivalent of Christmas) we went to hide by Lake Maninjau which was another volcanic lake but smaller. We had a tree house and it rained almost all the time we were there. Back to Bukittinggi we had very hard tome to find tickets back up North

and we had to wait there for another week, which was not that bad because on the full moon night the rains started to give a break and we went up to Mount Merapi under a beautiful sky. It was my first volcano and when we arrived at the peak by sunrise the feeling was completely out worldly. In the distance we could see tens of big an small volcanoes dotting the landscape dwarfing the human townships.

Then we went to Aceh, the name of which I knew by the boxing day ’05 tsunami and earthquake disaster. Banda Ac

eh was still a big construction site and it was hard to look at all the rubble and ruins by the seaside and imagine there were so many houses where there was the sea now. Weh Island was my first

truly coral island. We had a bungalow with its porch right over the sea and any time of the day we’d look down and could see all sorts of very bright colored fish and other sea creatures. So we swam, we snorkeled and I couldn’t hold myself and took a PADI open-water diving course. The stuff I saw during my first ever dives would make my future dives look pale in comparison and it was great to step on this whole new world. Just before we left Sumatra we went to Bukit Lawan

g to say hello to the native orang utans and almost died tubing on river Bohorok.

Oh my God, I said I’d summarize it, didn’t I? Well, I guess that’s the best I can do.

Next on our list was Bali but we thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to go there on such high season and instead went to Thailand, sat another 10-day meditation retreat, and entered Cambodia just before Christmas, which was still not such a good idea. Sihanoukville Beaches were pretty packed but around Kampot and Phnom Penh were quite nice. We had a week in Siem Reap practically

studying the Angkor ruins and left Cambodia in less than a month after having done the typical tourist circle around the country.

We passed throug

h Thailand and Malaysia quickly and flew to Java, Indonesia. Near Solo we discovered some really interesting pyramids that looked truly out of place. We had a pilgrimage to the biggest Buddhist temple on earth Borobodur and the nearby Hindu temples of Prambanan. I also personally enjoyed the old capital Yogyakarta as a small city. Then we had a stopover on the breath-taking

great caldera of the Bromo volcano and went to Bali.

We had prepared ourselves to find Bali fully spoilt by tourism but the reality was better. Bali is one of the f

ew places I’ve been to which has a such a uniquely alive old culture. It’s nothing like the Hinduism i

n India but it is at least equally alive and inside the daily lives of people. In a short time we got saturated with festivals and rituals. Then discovered the nature with it’s nice volcanoes, rice ter

races, hot springs and of course beaches. We saw the dolphins, dived and snorkeled, had a completely silent new year day and just before we left we tried wave surfing.

We wan

ted to go to Borneo but Adam Air went bankrupt the hour we were supposed to fly and missing our connecting flight we ended up in Kuala Lumpur instead. We decided to see it as a sign and decided to have a month of sabbatical until the World Rainbow Gathering in China. Right after Maya flew to the Philippines I bought this little Asus EeePC I call Susu, went back to Penang and started to write. Just the day we were booking our flights to Macau, China announced their new visa policy which made it practically impossible for me to get a visa anywhere

in SE Asia. So after a little more time in Penang I came to Philippines and the last 55 days I’m here. At the moment I’m surviving my 4th typhoon.

Wow, I really rushed this and it’s still….. 2.004 words. Oh, I forgot all the numbers. I love numbers, here they are.

I’m in South East Asia the last 628 days. Of the 8 countries I’ve been to, I’ve spent most time in Malaysia (221), Thailand (151) and Indonesia (116). I’ve camped for 75 days, stayed in monastery/retreats for 33 days and slept on busses or trains for 20 nights. I was in 2 rainbow gatherings, 2 meditation retreats, dived 10 times and got almost 2 years older. That’s all.