Scooters and Self Guided Treks

Where to begin... Well, I think my last two days in Chang Mai have been the best on the trip so far. I know I keep saying everything is amazing and incredible and everyone is probably thinking that I need to get a good thesaurus but at least allow me to explain before you jump down my throat. The last two days the pan-american trio, myself and Sam and Megan, rent 115cc scooters to travel around with. Megan actually opted out of the scooter today, but for the sake of simplicity in the previous sentence I'll leave it as is. I'm sure most people are thinking, Chris, do you even know how to ride a scooter, and don't they drive on the wrong side of the road there? Well, I've had limited previous experience with a scooter, and yes, they do. After being here this long though I've gotten pretty used to the other side of the road thing and as for the scooter bit, well I've done a ton of mountain biking so really it's just a matter of understanding the balance thing. Basically I figure after the first 20 minutes you are golden. Sadly the first 20 minutes are often in the city, but we were in a pretty quiet area of town so those we took it easy to start with. I had no problems whatsoever driving the scooter. Megan on the other hand managed to run into Sam right in front of the rent place with the first rev of her engine which did make the day seem a bit ominous at first. Let me back track a bit though, the main reason we actually decided to rent the scooters is because they came with insurance and even if you totaled the thing you only had to pay 1500 baht. As clearly I am currently writing this I did no damage whatsoever to it or myself and had a wonderful time that could not have been experienced otherwise.

Yesterday Sam had printed off a badly made google map of a round trip route up into the mountains, past an interesting cave, and then back to Chang Mai. I don't actually no how long it was or what it was called but we estimate it was about 250km in total. Setting off at about 10am we left the city and basically had the road to ourselves for the next 8 hours. The scenery was breathtaking and getting to rip around on what was basically a mountain bike that you didn't have to peddle through twisty mountain roads was a great. The cave that we came across was also really cool. It was probably around 2km of tunnels underground with lots of bats and other cool 'cavey' things. There was even some neat Buddha's carved out of the rocks. Sadly, for everyone else maybe, I didn't get to take many pictures as we were pretty much going full tilt the whole day to make sure we made it back before sunset: none of us really wanted to be riding at night. We did have to ride through a bit of a down pour which was interesting but surprisingly manageable.

Today Sam and I jumped back on the bikes and powered up to Doi Suthep and Doi Suthep-Pui National Park. These were some more twisty roads to head up and once again almost worth the ride on its own. Doi Suthep was a neat Wat up on top of the hill, but after having already seen so many it was nothing really special. Some people I've been told like the fact you can take a cable car up instead of the steps, but really its only about 500m so why bother. Had we taking a taxi up it probably would have been disappointing as the views were obscured by the fact we were in a cloud, but with the scooters we could stop wherever we felt like and managed to find some good pictures. It was nice to get some pictures of the country side today after not really getting a chance to yesterday. I've actually been a bit surprised by the typography of the area. It looks like Vietnam is supposed to in my mind. As for the national park, I found it far more interesting than the Wat. Aside from the fact that it cost a foreigner fee of 200 baht to get in and the trails were poorly marked, when you found where to go it was always worth the while. We basically followed waterfall after waterfall up the side of the mountain about 2km straight up. On the way down we also came across this neat and rather large spider. You'll have to excuse the slightly blurry picture as I didn't really want to get to close to it.

So maybe now you can believe why these have been the best couple of days thus far. Beaches are nice but I'd rather be trekking and both days (minus the trip to the Wat) we were basically the only people on the road or even in the general area. It was great to feel like we were getting to see the stuff that we wanted to at our own pace. Did we possibly miss out on some stuff, maybe, but somehow it feels more fulfilling not being on a tour.

One other amusing thing happened last night over some drinks. A self proclaimed hippy Buddhist American girl got into a heated argument with an Irish guy over the political state of Venezuela and Chavez. The Irish guy had actually lived there for a couple years and the girl had not. They of course were essentially arguing the same point but the American girl kept cutting the Irish guy off and telling him he was wrong because of what she had read.

Added amusement for me came from the fact that I'm pretty sure I've read everything the girl had read and I wouldn't go telling someone who had actually lived there they were wrong based on a book.
Tomorrow afternoon I'm off to Laos so I'm not entirely sure when I'll be blogging next. I expect it will still be in 2-3 days but one can't be entirely sure

Wats and wats of Wats and Wats

It feels like ages since I've last blogged as so much has happened! The reality of course is that it has only been a couple days but when you go from Kanchanaburi to Bangkok to Chang Mai all in the course of a day time sort of skews. That is the end of the story though so let me start at the beginning.

After a night with some new found friends, more 4 more Canadians of course, we all split up for another day of adventures. Cory and Anthony went on a tour that took them atop elephants, down bamboo rafts, into a village, up to some waterfalls, along hellfire pass, and then over the bridge. Morgan and Mike did more or less what I had the day before, and I decided to just do hellfire pass. The trek did seem interesting but I just didn't feel like it was going to give me enough time to wander around the pass which is what I really wanted to do. It also meant that I was going to have to get up 2 hours earlier which I wasn't so keen given my late night. Instead, after breakfast I set out to locate the public bus depot and then jumped on what I was hoping was a bus that would take me to hellfire pass. The disadvantage to not going on a tour is you are never exactly sure where you are going to get dropped off and then how far the walk is going to be afterwards, but really that's all part of the fun. I was also the only non-thai on the bus which was kind of neat. The bus ride took around 2 hours as it was 80km out of town. This left me with less time than I would have liked to explore but I still got a decent amount. Perhaps I should explain what hellfire pass is. Hellfire pass was part of the death-railway line along with the bridge over the River Kawi. The pass itself was a horrific section of track (the section in the museum / park is 4km long) where the POWs were forced to chisel the railway bed out of stone using tools akin to that of cavemen. Large amounts of them of course died. What is left is just the railway bed which you can walk down and to witness their work. At 4km the walk doesn't seem that daunting but given that it is not a circle you have to walk 4km back as well and there is the heat which was probably at least 34 degrees. All told I walked about 6km of the pass (there and back) and then made it back to the road with just enough time to jump on one of the last buses back to town with my shirt turned see through with sweat.

Later that night me and the boys then met up with our kindred countrymen and headed out to one of the night markets. I picked myself up another cell phone (this one used and cheaper) and we also made our first foray into eating insects. As the pictures will prove I tried some form of worm and then either a cricket or a grasshopper. I would have been up for the giant cockroach but I couldn't convince anyone else to try it with me as they thought it would be too juicy inside. I wasn't the biggest fan of the cricket as it didn't have that much taste but the worms or maggots were actually quite yummy. For those interested they tasted like roasted pumpkin seeds and I ate probably15-20 of them.

The next morning I awoke to find out that all of the guys had decided to take a thai cooking class. I didn't want to do this because I needed to be back in Bangkok earlier to catch a bus. The night before we had talked about it and I decided that I wanted to head north up to Chang Mai and then into Laos and the rest of the guys (minus Cory who is leaving in a day or two) wanted to do Cambodia first. The reason for the difference of opinion is that I really want to have time to spend in Laos and as such am willing to skip Vietnam. They don't want to miss Vietnam so we went our separate ways. It's a little sad as we had all grown used to traveling together but it did make the most sense. There is a chance we might meet up again at some point but at the moment I have my doubts. What this means for people reading my blog for updates on everyone is that I'll no longer be able to tell you of their adventures as well. You are of course more than welcome to keep reading, but you'll have to convince them to start writing e-mails :)

The result of this sadly was we didn't actually get to meet up in Bangkok to say goodbye and good luck. The boys had though they could be back in the city by 6pm but I needed to be out at the bus station by 7:30 so when they hadn't made it by 6:30 I had to take off. Also, Cory if you are reading this I'm sorry that I inadvertently stole your Lonely Planet. I had borrowed it a couple days ago and had always planned on returning it I just never really saw you again! I'll keep it though and give it back to you at a later date if you like. One amusing thing about missing the boys on Koh San Road in Bangkok was that I ran into pretty much everyone else I had met on the trip. The group of Canadians we had be partying with at the full moon were there (Grant, Katie, and Krista), the other Canadians from Kanchanaburi were there (although this was less of a fluke as we were supposed to meet at 5pm I just happened to run into them earlier), one of the German guys from our Villa stay was there, I got to see everyone except the people I'd been traveling with for almost four weeks. Figure that one out.

Anyway, I then jumped the night bus to Chang Mai and got into the city around 6am. This is a bit of a tricky time as nothing is actually open. The bus ride itself was pretty uneventful as I managed to sleep through most of it but I will offer one piece of advice for anyone riding air conditioned buses overnight. Bring warmer clothing! They gave me a blanket / towel to cover myself with as a sheet but as it was meant for thai people it was a little short. By the end of the night I was absolutely frozen solid. I suppose that might have been good after all of the sun but I won't be happy if I wind up with a cold.

As for Chang Mai itself what I did for 5 hours this afternoon was go on a walking tour of probably 15 Wats. After running into 2 Brits that we had met on Railay beach at the beginning of our trip I befriended yet another Canadian and we set out to explore the city on foot. After about 20 minutes we were joined by the 2nd American I've met on the trip and our trio explored the city for the rest of the afternoon. The Wats here were interesting because many of them were in a more dilapidated state which is the first of this kind I've seen. All and all it was another good day full of tons of walking and likely too much sun. I think I'm going to try and take it easy tonight and maybe see if I can find a movie theatre to watch the Indiana Jones movie.

Here is a little fun rap I've come up with. I can't take credit for the original idea, that was Mike and Anthony, but here's my version of it. Warning, some coarse language is used. Not suitable for anyone over 14.

The Bangkok Rap
Fuck you I won't ride in your tuk tuk,
Hassle me and you're out of luck luck,

I know you're just tryna make a buck buck,
But fuck you I won't get in that tuk tuk.
I don't want no suit please,
Don't care if you're on your knees,
Don't try and shoot the breeze,
I don't want you suit please.
Don't need no ping pong show,

Oiled up andlubed hell no,
objects flying, crowds, don't go,
Don't want no ping pong show.
So fuck you I won't ride in your tuk tuk,
Armi, Gucci, not my buck buck,

Ping pong shows are the suck suck,
Fuck you I won't get in a tuk tuk.
I think that's all I've got. As you can see it's been a busy last couple daze!

The vacation is over, it's time for the trip to start

I think that I don’t sleep well in transit because I don’t want to miss out on the any of the experience. So much of life’s importance for me comes out of the journey that often the destination is an afterthought. The natural result of this is a general lack of sleep when there is anything else that could be done, which more often than not is always.

As I currently write this I am sitting on a sleeper car on a train from Surat Thani to Bangkok. The current time is 2:41am and the temperature in my bunk is 28C. Our train left around 5pm and will arrive (assuming it’s on time) in Bangkok at 5:15am. My total sleep thus far has been maybe an hour. That’s enough with the stats.

This is the first time I will be writing a blog out by hand first. It is a somewhat different experience and one I think that I will try to do more often as I like the subtle difference in the way I think.

Being on a train now it almost feels like my trip has finally started. This may seem like an odd concept three weeks into the adventure but for some reason knowing that at the end of the day you are still staying on a beach changes the general feel of the trip. It makes you feel lazier, and although I’ll be the first person to admit it was needed, I can only be lazy for so long before I start to go crazy.

It’s interesting how your perspective of normal changes depending on where you are. Along with this of courses is what you consider ‘safe’. We had a rather amusing taxi ride the other day for example. I think because we were from a country that drives on the right side of the road he wanted to make us feel at home thus did the same. If something like that happened in Canada we would have all been scared witless. Riding on a dirt road in the back of a covered pickup truck? Yeah right! In Thailand though this is simply how you get around. There really isn’t another choice. There are of course people that take this idea to the extreme and ride around on scooters without a helmet while passing the taxi on blind corners. While I firmly believe that if you didn’t take any risks you’d never get out of bed in the morning, that’s a level of crazy that just seems suicidal.

One of the challenges of this trip thus far has been trying to negotiate the best trip for everyone. I for example didn’t mind sleeping on the saw dust mattress sans sheet in Ko Tao: the other boy’s objective with varying degrees of dislike. The debate of trains, planes, or automobiles also continues to come up, and I’m sure will continue to for the rest of the trip. It naturally leads to some tension but also has the advantage of forcing each of us to have a slightly different trip than we’d expected at the onset and I think that will make it better in the end. That doesn’t mean however that we aren’t going to split up for a while along the way.

Adding more to the story as I am now in Kanchanaburi I stayed at a different guest house last night. I’ve got no problem sleeping with just a fan (most of the time I find the air conditioning to cold actually) and 70 baht a night seemed like a way better deal than 300. We’ll see how far this goes but I’ve never been one who is afraid to go off on my own. Along the same lines, when we are traveling together on say a bus or ferry boat I like to sit with people I don’t know. My take on the situation is the people you meet along the way become the scope through which your trip is shaped so why not make it as broad as possible.

I’m going to finish off my pre-written section with what I had originally written on the train and then continue with where we are now so don’t mind the discontinuity of the next little bit. “I am actually starting to get sleepy now so I’ll finish. My final though will simple be to call attention to the fact that the boys are actually also reading the blogs as I write them. So, just for a fun little meta-mindfuck, ‘Hey guys, how’s the trip?”

For those of you wondering we opted to go up to Kanchanaburi before we head on to Angkor Wat. It just seemed like a place we would kick ourselves for not going to if we skipped it. It also allowed for us to hang out with Cory for a couple of more days.

After arriving in Bangkok we jumped in a taxi and took off to a different train station to catch another train up to Kanchanaburi. This time around we were on a 3rd class train which was, well quite 3rd class. They somewhat reminded me of cattle cars except with hard wooden seats. Oddly enough we all probably managed an hour nap on the train which is about what we had on the sleeper car so the trip wasn’t that bad. It was actually also really nice to see the country side.

Once we arrived in Kanchanaburi we decided to split up. The guys went to the tiger sanctuary to pet the beats but it just didn’t seem right to me. I’ve seen tigers before so it wasn’t something I had to do, and getting to pet a doped up tiger just so I can take a picture just seems wrong. I mean it’s cool, but I just couldn’t do it. Instead I checked out a couple of the museums in town. For those of you that don’t know Kanchanaburi is the home of the Bridge over the River Kawi. This is a famous train line that was made during the Second World War by Allied POWs to connect Burma to Thailand. If I remember correctly something like 100 000 POWs died during its construction. The museum about the bridge construction was quite well done and the actual war museum is skipable but it was still good to see. I of course also had to walk over the bridge but it was nothing special other than to say I’ve done it and seen the bridge. It’s more of the same today I think.

The last of the thai islands

If it is actually Friday like I’ve been told that means we are officially 3 weeks into the trip and it’s time to get our lazy butts of the islands and start actually traveling around. Tonight is the last night in our villa and then we are on a boat then train tomorrow as we quickly skip through Bangkok into before heading off to Cambodia. The islands have been a great experience but it does feel like it’s time to leave. I can only laze around on a beach for so long before I start to go a little crazy. We actually didn’t do all of that much lazing around, but you get the general idea.

I am happy to report that we all survived the full moon party. The old adage holds true, play hard, party smart, and aside from me having my cell phone pick pocketed the night went off without a hitch. It was one crazy experience though. As we approached the beach via longtail at night I could have sworn we had entered into Apocalypse Now when the guys were heading up the river. You could hear the music from way out in the water and the beach was just packed with people (and we were arriving at 8pm).

I’ve been told during the off season full moon parties attract around 10 000 people and that number seems about right. There was fire twirling, any kind of dance music you could ever want and drinks galore. The major drink at the party though is something called a bucket. This is basically a small children’s plastic pail that you buy that comes with ice, a Mickey of whatever alcohol you want, some red bull, and a can of pop. Needless to say it doesn’t take much of that mix to get you going for the night so on a whole the night actually was surprisingly cheap. I will say that there is a major downside to buckets though and that’s that they are difficult to dance with. Because of the amount of alcohol in them they aren’t exactly something you want to drink fast so you have this bucket in your hand for a long time which makes dancing difficult. Still, they are the way to experience the party. We got there at 8pm as I mentioned and I arrived back at our villa at 2pm the next day. I did have a bit of a side adventure that led me to the other side of the island with some friends which is where I wound up sleeping but I did still see the sun come up before a couple hours of sleep. All and all just a really fun night.

Another major highlight of this trip was the boat tour we went on today. After several points of hurry up and wait in the morning we finally boarded the speed boat and took off for Ao Phang Nga National Marine Park. Once there we got to go snorkeling, which wasn’t great, but the rest of the day more than made up for it. After lunch on a great beach we got to hike around an emerald salt water lake and then go kayaking to round out the day. Seeing all of the rock formations around the marine park was amazing and getting to get right up close in a kayak was pretty incredible. It also meant we got to race around in kayaks which is always just a fun time. I will say though I seemed to do more of the paddling than Mike who decided to be nature photographer on the trip. He even had my camera: I’m really not sure how that deal got worked out. I guess he did get some nice photos though, and managed to not drop my camera in the water which is always an added bonus.

There's a full moon on the rise

It’s official: we are now actually divers. Despite the best efforts of several fish to distract us we managed to complete all of the requirements for our open water dive course. Diving was an overall strange and surreal experience and although it was very cool to do until my 3rd dive I wasn’t sure how much I actually enjoyed it. It’s not that the experience wasn’t great, it was just something I wasn’t sure if I would ever do again. Some sports, like snowboarding for example, as soon as I jumped on the board I was hooked and had to do more of it. Diving, I think because it is so slow and laid back really didn’t grab me the same way. The our 3rd open water dive though we got to go down to 18m deep and the world was so different and majestic that it is something I am going to have to do again. Perhaps it was fueled by the fact that there was a whale shark in the area – not that we got to see it – but it was the first time I was actually a bit nervous to get in the water. As we descended down my fears went away and a new world opened up. We were swimming though lots of large colourful fish and at one point we were so close to a huge school of them you could have sworn it was raining fish. That was also the first time my mind and body really just slowed down and enjoyed just floating along at a super slow pace and just breathing. It was quite meditative. I am not sure how well I would fair in the cold waters back home, but I think I’ll at least give it a shot.

Sadly however we had to leave Ko Tao as we made our way over to Ko Phangan. I know the other boys were very happy to be out of the fan room that was probably 38 degrees at night with no sheets on the bed and mattresses that felt like they were made of sawdust but it actually didn’t bother me that much. Still, we all knew Ko Phangan would be the best accommodation we will have all trip as we booked a villa for 5 nights here and it did not disappoint. Our villa here is incredible. Not only did we get it at a steal of a price but it is spacious, the beds are huge and comfy, the entire place is air conditioned, and we have our own private pool. The one, possible downside is we aren’t right on the beach, you have to walk up a hill about 5 minutes to get to it, but it is almost more interesting to be almost in the middle of the jungle for a change. The only thing I’m not sure about now is how we are going to manage after this when we go back to the fan rooms with no AC for $2 a night. I think we’ll make out ok though. Or at least I will; Mike and Morgan might have something else to say.

I can also happily say we have had nothing but sun for the last 3 days and it’s been great. Aside from Morgan starting to resemble a bit of a cooked lobster the rest of us haven’t been burned too badly yet. Who ever invented sun screen was a brilliant person. Yesterday we pretty much just chilled on the beach all day and swam around in the water. Tonight is going to be quite a bit livelier and perhaps an eye opening experience as we head over to another beach for the full moon party. Let’s just say we couldn’t have come to Thailand without at least checking it out for if no other reason than car crash appeal but I think it’s going to be a ton of fun. I mean how can you go wrong dancing to cheesy trace till 6am on a beach with 10 000 other people. Actually it is pretty easy to go wrong but I don’t think any of us are looking for that sort of full moon experience.

Fish Food

So we are almost now fully certified PADI open water divers. We made it through our written test with flying colours and have done all of contained dives and the first two open water dives today. The overall experience has been a little surreal. I figured it would be scarier to get used to breathing underwater but, at least for me, it wasn’t actually that bad. The hardest thing of the scuba experience has been the fact that I have basically been fish bait the entire time. I have a couple of cuts on my legs and the fish have decided to be good global citizens making sure that the cuts are all good and clean of any dead skin. Although this may be healthy it does sting a little bit when they bite and it’s rather distracting. There really is nothing worse than trying to do emergency procedures underwater while getting nipped by fish. The upside, not necessarily for me but for everyone else, is we got to see a ton of fish as they ate away at me. I think by far my most memorable moment for the whole diving experience happened during the first dive about 5 minutes in. We were sitting on the bottom getting used to actually breathing underwater when a school of 10 brightly coloured orange fish swam right in front of my mask and scared the crap out of me. After that everything has just been gravy.

The one downside to all of this diving has been that although we are on this awesome island we haven’t really had any time to go around and explore it. We’ve started our last couple days at 8am (tomorrow starts at 7) and they’ve been finishing at 5pm leaving us very hungry and ready for early beds. I would love at least a day to actually go around and explore but sadly we need to catch the 3pm ferry out of here tomorrow. Oh well, this is one of the downsides of traveling I suppose sooner or later you just have to move on. It’s a tough life.

We are now officially two weeks into the trip and although it doesn’t feel like time has flown by it also doesn’t feel like it’s been that long; perhaps it has something to do with all of the rain. I will say though today was a full day of sun and it was absolutely wonderful. To actually be sitting on a bar at the beach during sunset was unforgettable.

The country breakdown of people we have run into thus far has been rather amusing. The largest group of people by far has been Canadians (easily over 200 thus far). We have actually even managed to run into 4 people we know from home on this journey. The second major group of people I would say is probably English. This is always interesting for Mike and me as we have determined that we watch more British TV than the Brits we’ve met. After that we’ve had a random smattering of Scandinavians, Irish, and Iranian. My biggest surprise thus far is that we have actually only run into one American and just yesterday. It has also been great because no one has automatically assumed we are American by our accents, they think Canadian first by far. The downside to all of the English though is that I’ve started to accidentally develop a bit of a bad accent from hanging out with so many of them.

That’s all I have for now, nothing really exciting as we have been diving for the last 2 days and haven’t had time for much else. That isn’t to say that diving hasn’t been exciting, today was crazy cool as we went down to 12m deep and swam around for 34 and then 40 minutes respectively, but it is just hard to find words for an experience this new. After a couple days of reflection I might be able to properly frame it.

Time for some diving, screw the weather!

Hello from almost sunny Koh Tao. Actually, just as I say that I can see the sun popping out from behind a cloud. Our travel from one side of the southern tip of Thailand to the other was actually remarkably easy. We caught a bus from Krabi to Surat Thani and then jumped a 1.5 hour ferry to Ko Samui where we spent a night. Then we took another ferry from Ko Samui to Ko Tao which is where we are now.

Ko Samui was probably the busiest town we’ve seen since Bangkok. The one main strip on Ko Samui, Haad Chaweng beach, puts Koh San Road to shame: it is way longer with more shops and people. Basically it is what I expected Ko San Road to be. Haad Chaweng also gave us our first dining on the beach experience. Sadly we got into town a bit late so we wound up hiking around with our full backpacks for well over an hour before we could find a place to say. In the end it was a little more than we wanted to pay but our spirits slightly broken after traveling all day and not having eaten made us acquiesce.

The bus ride from Krabi was about 3 and a half hours long, which isn’t that bad at all, except for the small detail that it didn’t have any toilet on it. I know some people are going to start accusing me of stooping purely to bathroom humour sooner or later, but these things are rather important while traveling. It seems that while on a normal bus ride 3 hours isn’t a horrible amount of time to hold your blatted, the bumpy roads jostle things around a bit more. It made the ending of the trip an interesting little dash.

As for the island of Ko Tao itself, it is one of the smaller islands in the area and it is amazing. We are all super stoked to be doing our diving courses here. The beach is great, the bars are right on the beach, it’s pretty quiet, the only downside is that being an island things are a little more expensive but we’ve been making do. Our accommodation on the other hand is defiantly the most spare we’ve had thus far. With the diving course we are taking it’s free so I suppose we can’t complain too much, but the mattresses feel like they are made of sand and lack of sheets on the beds. Still, we wanted to dive here because the instructors are meant to be good, and have English as a first language, so that clearly is the most important thing. We are all reeling a little bit of the moment though as we got in last night and they gave us a big text book and said have the first 3 chapters (178 pages) read by 2pm today. School work, on vacation? Boo! I suppose it does have the advantage of actually teaching you how to dive though.

Another little interesting thing that deserves mention (and I will try and show via pictures if the computer will behave properly) is that Anthony has an odd habit of picking up insects to show the rest of us. It started with a rather large cockroach in Bangkok, moved on to an even larger beetle in Krabi and has made it up to a huge snail in Ko Samui. I’m really not sure what to make of this, but mike slammed the door on Anthony the last time he tried to present one of his finds.

I think that’s all I’ve got for now. It’s time to get ready for our first class room sessions. Hopefully we’ll get some sun soon. Heck I’d take even two hours at this point. Really it’s what I get for wanting some rain in Bangkok.

Back in Krabi

If piracy is so rampant in Asia, and it does appear to be as you can pick up any movie you want off the street, then why doesn't everyone have MS Word on their computer? At the very least they could have Open Office. Oh well, I suppose everyone is just going to have to be subjected to my horrible spelling for another blog.

We are now back in the sleepy town of Krabi. We decided that since we weren't getting sun and the accommodation was cheaper and food far better that it really just made more sense to return here. This time around our boat ride was a little more interesting. As it had been raining earlier the sea swells were a quite large and the trip took almost twice as long. It never really felt like we were in trouble, but it was an interesting experience to be in swells bigger than our little boat.

Our driver though handled everything with ease and appear calm the entire time.

I don't have a ton of stuff to talk about as I just blogged yesterday and we really just traveled today so I'm going to add a couple observations about the trip so far. Before that though, Anthony, Mike and Morgan did have a neat experience this afternoon. I sadly had to skip out on it as I am still not fully recovered (which made the boat ride additionally interesting for me). The boys went out to the Tiger Temple today and apparently it was one of the craziest things they've seen on the trip. From what I gather there is this temple on top of this mountain that you have to climb up 1300 stairs to get to (600m in height). Once up top there is a cool golden Buddha and some amazing views of the area. I on the other hand took a nap and read some of my book. I am feeling considerable better this evening however, so hopefully I will be back up to speed by tomorrow when we are looking at doing a boat trip to the Phi Phi islands.

One thing in Thailand that none of us have gotten used to yet is the fact that many of the doorways are shorter. I can't even count how many times I have hit my head because I forget to duc k going through a door. What makes it worse is that I always tend to hit my head in the same spot which is just right at the top of my head. It almost feels like I am skinning myself every time I do it. I've been a little better today, but my head still very much smarts from all of its previous encounters with doors.

Another interesting thing, and something I kind of expected having been humid places before but had forgotten about is always feeling wet. It is very weird to never feel dry except if you happen to be i n your air conditioned hotel room. You come out of the water and you are wet, you walk out of the room and you are wet, you are in a hotel without AC (which is cheaper) and you are wet. It does keep your skin nice and soft but I'm not sure that I like the trade off of always feeling damp.

My last note is that one side effect of having to use the washroom as much as I have during the last two days is I'v

e gotten pretty good at using the 'butt-sprayers' that is the main cle aning device here. At first I wasn't sure that I liked this as this too contributes to the feeling of overall dampness but it does have a rather interesting upside. You use far less toilet paper, and as a result you cut down on possible chaffage. This has been a rather pleasant surprise and has made my bathroom experiences much more kind.

Finally some beach!

Hello from the sandy beaches of southern Thailand. At the moment I am writing you from Railay beach in the Krabi province and let me tell you it is pretty wonderful. The cliffs risings straight out of the sea and the super warm water for swimming makes for a very welcome break from the city. It hasn't been a sun and surf though as it has rained pretty much everyday we have been here. The trend has been sun in the morning till about lunch and then rain for the rest of the day. "Rain" is a bit of an interesting descriptor. There is the more drizzle rain that we are used to out on the west coast and then there are monsoon storms. These are just crazy downpours of water that with the wind has the rain going almost fully horizontal and makes it sting. We've had one or two of these a day. Still, playing in the rain when it's like this is kind of fun. I love swimming in the water in the rain, and of course here the water is actually warmer than the rain so you get the double bonus. Plus the rain storms clear everyone else off the beach which is kind of nice. I wouldn't say it has been super busy, but less people is always better.

Two days ago we were in Krabi town in Krabi. This was a great sleepy little town that had probably the best guest house we had stayed at for the cheapest price. It also had by far the best food. We ate at this one restaurant just by our hotel and it might have been some of the most flavorful food I've ever tasted. It would be a great town if there was more to do but as there isn't really we only stayed the night.

Last night was also interesting as we had our first experience with the drink buckets. You can get different kinds but we went with a whisky, coke and red bull mix. I must say I have never experienced the effects of this drink. There was so much caffeine (or perhaps something else?) in it we were all bouncing off the wall and giddy. Sadly despite lots of fun dancing and what was an overall excellent evening everything it did not end all that well for me. I'm not sure if it was the bucket or if it was the food, but I had my first really good stint of traveler’s diarrhea. I have never before experienced both ends of my body working at the same time for a couple hours. Let’s just say it is an experience that I hope I don't have to repeat later in the trip. I mean clearly I've built up immunity now right? Either way I'll take being sick on beach in Thailand over being sick at home any day. I do think tonight will be an easier night though.

I think that's about all I have to write today. It has been a lovely couple days here thus far but a full day of sun would be nice. Still, being from the wet coast I think we have a bit of an advantage. If it is raining we don't go and hide like most people, we just shrug and do whatever we want to do anyway.