Tag: vacation

Daniel Adler and the Malaysian Police

When you go to a police station in a foreign country chances are no good will come of it. Your case will get bungled in foreign bureaucracy, or they assume you’ll leave the country in a few days or by next week. They write up their report and apologize, having done their job. It started… Continue reading Daniel Adler and the Malaysian Police

The Good Gas Attendant

I went with one of the gas attendants on his bike into the jungle. I was slightly afraid– anything could happen and I was again being forced to blindly trust someone. We drove along the dirt path past a field of small potted palms watered by a sprinkler. We pulled out onto a road and… Continue reading The Good Gas Attendant

Daniel Adler Surveys Singapore

Singapore is a lot how I expected it to be. Big buildings, clean, new, safe, quiet, all very nice. Some say that Singapore doesn’t have any character, but I think its niceness and lack of grit is its character. It’s the ideal modern city, a lot like Brussels in its global importance, and just as… Continue reading Daniel Adler Surveys Singapore

Daniel Adler Comes to Terms With the End of His Trip (And His Whispering Schizophrenic Self)

I’m coming to terms with the end of my trip. I met a young man named Aaron last night at a Couchsurfing event a six-foot two German girl invited me to. It was the kind of thing I used to waffle over attending when I lived in New York: should I get on the subway… Continue reading Daniel Adler Comes to Terms With the End of His Trip (And His Whispering Schizophrenic Self)

Daniel Adler’s Malaysian Surprises

Daniel has a book called 101 Things to Do Before You Die. He used to pore over it when he was 12, thinking about how he could check off scuba diving and going up in a hot air balloon, paying less attention to the ones that would take a lifetime to complete, such as seeing… Continue reading Daniel Adler’s Malaysian Surprises

Daniel Adler Enjoys The Good Life In Sri Lanka

Being on the road has shown Daniel that he has trouble without the comforts of a good life– good food, well-brewed coffee, hot showers. These can be done without, if the tortoise is receding its limbs into its shell, but the ascetic, poor-man’s lifestyle isn’t really for Daniel. No, he’s used to nice things, and… Continue reading Daniel Adler Enjoys The Good Life In Sri Lanka

Contemplating Greatness in Hill Country

Sri Lanka is the greatest island of its size in the world– Marco Polo said that. He was a great man. I look out the windows of the bouncy train to see foliage crowning granite monoliths that rise a straight thousand feet into rich grey clouds. The orange-dust-lined tea plantations are spangled bright green. Out… Continue reading Contemplating Greatness in Hill Country

Where to Stay in Kandy, Sri Lanka

With my new Chinese friends, who it turns out are leaving today, lonely I am not. I met them over lunch at a small local joint. I was eating fish curry and dal and roti. When I was half through a Chinese couple joined me. They showed up in a group of six, but there… Continue reading Where to Stay in Kandy, Sri Lanka

Why Sri Lanka is Not “India Lite”

Max told Daniel he’d feel ready to return home as soon as he landed in Sri Lanka, that he’d get there and think, more of the same, and that would be that, the adventure would be gone. Same dark-skinned people, same hectic bazars, same age-old churches none as impressive as the great cathedrals of Europe,… Continue reading Why Sri Lanka is Not “India Lite”