there must be a color named “malaysian blue” - if there isn’t, i think i’ll name it. it’s the color of the sea in malaysia, the impossible mixture of green and blue, unbelievably dreamy and beautiful.

the water was as warm and clear as promised. the sand was white and there were lots and lots of colorful fish swimming in amazing coral reefs. our week in redang island was short and sweet, but felt like a month away from shanghai.

malaysia caught me off guard in many aspects, but made such an impression on both of us that i can see us living in kuala lumpur in the future. what an exquisite mixture of people, architecture, colors, cultures, languages…

more on this soon. meanwhile, thank you to everybody who wrote or twittered me happy birthday! turning 26 on the beach and sharing the cake with impromptu friends pretty neat. :) and now, on to another brilliant year!

As viagens nunca são o que planeamos. As viagens nunca são viagens se as planearmos geometricamente e as cumprirmos como às ordens de um comandante de excursão. As viagens são olhares. E os olhares não se planeiam. As viagens são esquinas. Nunca sabemos o que está para lá. As viagens são dureza. E são leveza. A leveza mais leve do mundo.
As viagens não são longitude e latitude, meridianos e ângulos, perpendiculares e códigos postais. Isso é outra coisa. Isso são graus e traços a compasso e as fronteiras que o mundo tem.
As viagens são os pedaços de mundo, que se recolhem nos pontos inexactos e improváveis onde as pessoas se cruzam com as pessoas, deixando com elas qualquer coisa de nós, transportando nós qualquer coisa delas, em silêncios, em palavras, em gestos, em sorrisos, em coisas simples, indetermináveis, determinantes, parando em movimento, parando o movimento do comboio global e mecânico onde seguem os passageiros do quotidiano. As viagens são a alegria absoluta. E são desalento e desespero e imprevisibilidades e cansaço e força que se encontra. E saber que no dia seguinte não sabemos o caminho. E saber que há um recomeço de tudo, de tudo quanto está por ver, por saber, por experimentar, por conhecer. Viagem que é viagem só começa, nunca termina, entranha-se, adquire vida própria e, dentro, viaja. E, dentro, viaja muito depois de termos chegado.

As viagens somos nós. As viagens são sempre a nós, aos nossos confins, aos sítios de nós onde ainda não tínhamos estado. Quanto mais conhecemos do mundo, mais ele se torna maior. E nisso não existe maior grandeza.

da viagem pela américa do sul, na estação do calor. que venham muitas mais!

lately, p. and i have been talking a lot about bali, more exactly, about spending a week or so there, in the sunny beaches.

anything to take our thoughts away from this cold weather. i don’t know who told us shanghai would be cold and dry in the winter but so far, it hasn’t been true. there’s cold allright, but there’s also a sort of silly rain falling every now and then, just to keep the levels of humidity high enough. our stomach might have already adapted itself to the food but our body is still struggling to understand this permanently wet new weather, with little aches here and there…

anyway, i digress. what i wanted to say was that today i got this card, sent to me from a taiwanese girl living in malaysia who spent her new year in bali:

so bali again, gently sneaking into our lifes. sounds like a good omen. :)

“Ernesto Guevara: What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land.”
from diarios de motocicleta.

if i hadn’t already felt the urge to travel to south america, i would surely get the itch after watching diarios de motocicleta: the story of young che guevara on his south-american continental roadtrip on a bike named la poderosa (”the mighty one”). the film photography is simple and stunning, eye-catching in its rawness.

besides, roadtrips fascinate me, as i am sure they do to many other travelers out there. my only stint at a roadtrip was a 3 or 4 days drive through colorado, utah and wyoming, over a year ago.
it was beautiful and liberating, and we plan to go back to the states and repeat it someday, with a twist: we shall visit an itinerary of odd-named places. it will certainly include highlights like potomac, normal, breakneck, chicken, gringo, frostproof, ding dong and most definitely choconut. no kidding!

above, our detour to visit a place called cisco. :)