Achy Breaky Heart, Balinese Style

There are no white people in Indonesia. Actually, that's a lie. I saw 3. In a week. I can understand that North Sumatra isn't a huge tourist destination, but I expected to at least see a few white people in Jakarta. Walking around the big mall next to the hotel, people stared the whole time, and some guy outside even waved at me. Sometimes I just stare back because frankly I get a little tired of being stared at all day, but then the person will say something friendly to me so I feel bad. In Bali however there are plenty of tourists, as expected. There is also a Starbucks and a Krispy Kreme so I'm happy. Yesterday night at an Irish pub there was a Balinese cover band taking requests from their song list they handed out. I requested Achy Breaky Heart, since how often do you get to hear bad country music in an Irish pub in Indonesia?

I am now on Vietnam's No Fly list

I flew from Hanoi to Kuala Lumpur the other day, my first flight since getting into Singapore and I've acquired a lot of stuff since then. I had to repack things at the airport so that I only checked 15 kg even though everything else still went with me on the plane, I just had to take it as carry-on. I remembered to take the nail scissors I had in my purse out and put them into my checked bag, something I've forgotten to do many times before. After everything was rearranged (I think I had about 15 kilos in my carry-on bag) I went through security. They made me open my backpack and take out the knives. I had no idea what they were talking about at first, but then I rememberd I'd put a little bag of heavy things from my big backpack into my carry-on backpack which included a padlock, playing cards, batteries, and 2 sharp knives. I felt really dumb when the girl tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to have those on the plane, I tried to explain that it was an accident but either she didn't understand or just didn't believe me. I threw the knives out, then she said I had to give her the fork too. Luckily I was allowed to keep my spoon. Then she took my passport and wrote down the number in a book. Good thing I don't really want to go back to Vietnam, because probably I wouldn't be allowed in. A while later I got on the plane which was full of Vietnamese people going to Malaysia for jobs and who I'm sure had never been on a plane before. They kept trying to get up and go to the bathroom while the plane was taking off, and when the plane was landing they all covered their ears with their hands and leaned forward as if the plane was crashing. The flight attendants kept yelling at them, so it was at least an entertaining flight.

Additionally, Vietnam is weird because...

13. I went to the same bakery two days in a row. The first day, I bought a croissant for 6000 dong. The second day the croissants were miniature sized but still the same price. I said they were twice as big the day before so they should be half price today, but their response was, "They're made by children."

Vietnam is also weird because...

9. I ordered chocolate ice cream yesterday at a restaurant and what I got was clearly a broken up ice cream bar in a drinking glass. At least it was still ice cream.

10. You can get your ears cleaned at the hairdresser. Isn't this something that you'd rather just do yourself?

11. People wear surgical masks everywhere. Mostly on motorbikes, which I guess I understand, but then they don't take them off later and will walk around everywhere with them on.

12. I went on a boat trip for the day that included swimming and going to a beach, and most of the Vietnamese women that came wore long pants and high heels.

Vietnam is weird because...

1. Walking down the street one evening I heard loud music, which turned out to be from two old men sitting in their underwear in front of their tv singing karaoke

2. They think that "You buy something.(?)" is an appropriate sales pitch

3. I was accosted by an old woman and forced to speak English

4. They put things on the menu but don't know what they are if you try to order them

5. I just electrocuted myself trying to turn on the light in my hotel room

6. They think after you say no to buying something from them, if they ask where you're from you might just change your mind. No, it doesn't matter where I'm from, I still don't want to buy your Mentos

7. They look at you funny if you actually pat the dogs

8. Some of the women wear outfits that look like pyjamas

Rules of Driving in Cambodia and Vietnam

1. The most important part of your car/motorbike to maintain is the horn. It must always be functioning properly.

2. While driving, keep one hand free for the horn at all times.

3. If you have not used the horn in the previous minute or so, honk just to make sure it is still working.

4. When approaching one of the very infrequent stoplights, if red, consider stopping.

5. Driving on the right hand side is suggested. If you aren't driving far, or don't feel inclined for any reason to stay on the right, use the left.

6. When approaching an intersection with no stop sign or stoplight (almost all intersections), consider slowing to make sure there is no one coming from the other direction, or just keep your hand on the horn and drive on through.

7. Consider upgrading your horn to a louder model that will better alert all people within 4 blocks that you are currently driving and possess a horn.

Fish that bite and tigers that don't

Before leaving Thailand I spent a few days in Kanchanaburi (which I still cannot pronounce correctly - they put the emphasis on different syllables than we would in English, so I would say Kan - CHAN - a - bu - ri, but I think they say Kan - chan - A - bu - ri, and they don't understand if you say it with the wrong emphasis either). This is the place where the bridge over the river Kwai, also known as the death railway is, but there are other nice things to see there too. I went to the bridge and a museum about the construction of it, and another day I took a trip to a waterfall and a place called the Tiger Temple. Thailand has many waterfalls so saying as it was the last day I was going to be in the country I figured I had to visit one. It had 7 tiers and you were allowed to swim in the pools between some of them. There was another girl on the tour that I'd met a few weeks back diving on Ko Tao, and we just hung out in one of the pools because it was nice and cool in there and very hot outside. The only problem was there were fish that bit in the water. Upon first getting in, it was very weird and I wasn't sure I could stay in. They were pretty small and the bites didn't hurt, it was just startling, and they'd come one after the other and keep biting. I found that if I kept moving they didn't bother me as much so I got in for a swim. The tiger temple just used to be a regular Buddhist temple but some villagers found an injured baby tiger and didn't know what to do with it so they gave it to the monks who took care of it. Other people started bringing tigers there too and then they had babies and now there are lots of tigers, making it the tiger temple. The monks say they've trained the tigers to be very gentle, but I think they might just be drugged since they hardly noticed when people came up to them. It was a pretty weird place, for part of the day they take most of the tigers to one area and you can get your picture taken with them. I thought they'd just take your picture with one tiger, but they brought you around to about 5 of them to get a picture with each.

The bridge over the river Kwai

The waterfall where we swam

Swimming in the waterfall

With one tiger

With another tiger

Pictures from the trip from Bangkok to Cambodia

Walking into Cambodia




At the visa office in Cambodia. I believe this is a box for comments, however I would like to blame them for making what should have taken maybe 20 minutes into a 3 hour ordeal.




Chaos of motorcycles, buses and people walking on the "road" once in Cambodia





My Cambodian boyfriend. Actually just one of the many guys that followed us for half an hour trying to get us to take their taxi.





Once at my guesthouse in Siem Reap: the dog was expecting puppies in the next few days (sadly I never saw them) and was getting ready I guess.

Angkor Wat Pictures

The first day I spent in Siem Reap, the city near Angkor Wat (which is just one of the many temples in the area), I didn't do much because I was tired out from spending the whole previous day traveling. In the evening I went for dinner and sat next to some people that I started talking to. They had just arrived and had a tour guide and driver booked for the next 3 days and said I was welcome to come along with them, so I took them up on the offer instead of having to do any work to find my own tour guide or just visiting the temples on my own without knowing what I was looking at. The next morning we went and saw a few of the not so interesting temples, but in the evening we went back and went to a really cool one that had been taken over by the jungle and was used in the movie Tomb Raider. The next morning I got up at 4:45 so we could go to Angkor Wat itself to see the sunrise, but it was raining pretty heavily and there was no sun to see rise. It started pouring so we left and came back later and saw a few more not so interesting temples, then went to one that had a nice view of the sunset. It was pretty sunny in the afternoon, but there were low clouds and therefore no sunset to see either. After 2 days I was totally templed out so I left the next day for Phnom Penh. I took tons of pictures and right now don't know which place is which, but here is a selection of some of the nicer pictures:

Robin, Mike and I in front of the gate around the first temple we visited

Buddha inside the temple

Part of the same temple

At the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed inside a giant tree growing around the temple

A tree growing over another tree on top of the temple

The first monkeys I saw were around the temples. This one was inside and is holding a frog.

Day 2 at Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat

"Sunset" at the last temple of day 2

More Cambodia

Another difference in Cambodia from everywhere else I've been so far is the complete absence of any Western chains. There are no McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Huts, Zaras, or the ubiquitous 7-11s (which I believe there are more of in Bangkok alone than in the entire North American continent - there is seriously a 7-11 on every corner, halfway along the block, on both sides of the road, and down the side streets). This must be one of the few places left in the world where you can't go to any of those places even in the big cities and tourist destinations, and it's really nice because of it. You can still get most of the same stuff as at home, you just have to go to a local shop or restaurant.

I've decided that in a way, the insane amount of tuktuk and motorcycle drivers is sort of good since you have to go to no effort at all to find one, unlike in Toronto. Walking around yesterday, it seemed easiest to just keep shaking my head the entire time since someone tried to give me a ride about every 10 seconds. Today some guy even ran after me and chased me down trying to get me to let him take me somewhere today, or plan to have him pick me up tomorrow.

Today I accidentally went to a museum (I wouldn't do that on purpose) when I was trying to go to the Royal Palace. They're next door to each other and both are pretty buildings, and I just followed a tour group that was buying tickets and ended up at the museum. It wasn't very big, they mostly just had a bunch of old Buddha statues but it was pretty cool. The only negative was that in every room there were people that would walk up to you and hand you some flowers that you're supposed to place in front of one of the Buddhas and then leave some money. After the first one though, I said no to the rest. I am now about to head to the genocide museum which should be sad but interesting.

No, my name is Lady

Cambodia is a pretty big change from Thailand. Thailand has tons of tourists and it seems like it is trying to get rid of all the things that Western people don't like in order to be a place that people want to come to, which makes it seem less realistic. Cambodia is not like this. All day long, anytime I go outside I am bombarded by people wanting something. There are the millions of tuktuk drivers and motorcycle drivers hanging around that want to give me a ride somewhere - "Hey lady, you want tuktuk?" - the people hanging around the fronts of restaurants trying to get me to eat there, and of course the kids. Around Angkor Wat it was the worst of anywhere. As soon as you get out of your car, they surround you and try to sell you postcards or bracelets. They start out at $1 each but pretty soon are 10 for $1. They're actually really smart kids too. If you say no to them, they ask where you're from. If you say Canada, they say, "Canada, capital Ottawa", and I think they know the capital of anywhere tourists come from. They can also count to 10 in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, Japanese, and Khmer. That's way more than I know. If you keep saying no, they say "I need money to go to school!" so you feel really bad. The problem is if you say yes to any of them, there's always other kids around with them that'll see and want you to buy from them too. Also, it just promotes kids staying on the streets if you give them money. To us, $1 isn't much, but the people that work in real jobs here don't make much more than that in a day, and when they see that kind of money just being given to people on the street begging, it doesn't make much sense to keep working.

Sometimes the people call me madam when they want me to buy something, and even though that sounds really formal and makes me feel old, it sounds so much better than "hey lady".

The Long Road to Cambodia

Yesterday I left Bangkok in the morning to come to Cambodia, partly because it was where I'd planned to head, but also because my Thailand visa expired that day so I had to leave the country. If it hadn't I might have been lazy and stayed longer because I'd heard some bad stories about getting to Cambodia. One way to get here is to buy a bus ticket all the way here for about $7 from one of the hundreds of travel agencies on Khao San Road, the backpacker ghetto in Bangkok, but these buses are very slow and take as long as possible so that you arrive late at night and they can just drop you off at a guesthouse where they get commission and you're too tired to go anywhere else. Otherwise you can get here on your own by taking a public bus to the border for $7, then taking a cab once in Cambodia for $40. I was leaning towards the tourist bus just because it was cheap and at least I'd be with a bunch of other people in the same situation, but I only got to Bangkok late at night and had to leave the next morning so I had no chance to buy a ticket.

In Bangkok there are 4 bus terminals that send out buses in different directions, so you have to know where you're going to go to the right station. Also, there are tons of different bus companies, all with different standards, so you have a bunch of choices but don't really know what you're going to get. I went to the right bus terminal where I just bought the first ticket I saw to the border. It was just after 8, and the bus was leaving at 9:30. Right after I got my ticket, I looked at another ticket booth and saw they had a bus leaving at 8:30 and it was cheaper, so I was waiting around for no reason. I got on the bus which was supposed to take about 3.5 - 4 hours, but because of the rain and the fact we stopped every 20 minutes it took about 5 hours. It drops you off at the bus station in the town at the border, so you have to take a tuk tuk to the actual border. There were 2 other travelers on my bus, so we shared a tuk tuk and planned to find our way to Siem Reap, Cambodia together.

The border here isn't like anywhere I've been before - there's one where you exit Thailand, then you walk a little ways to get to the next one which is to enter Cambodia. We got to the Thai border with no problem, but then had to wait for a while because the girl I was with was Armenian and had to wait for some Thai visa stuff to be done. To get a Cambodian visa you have to pay $20 and bring a passport-sized picture, which neither I nor the guy I was with had. We asked the Thai border people if there was somewhere to get a picture taken, and they said it was past the Thai border, so we went through. We walked along the part between Thailand and Cambodia which is filled with casinos and kids asking for money, looking for a place to get a picture done but didn't find anything before we got to the Cambodian border. We asked the officials there, and they said it was okay if we just paid them $37. I'd heard about the officials asking for more money than was necessary, so I said no. We walked back towards Thailand, asking people around where to go. Not many people understood, and there were hardly any other foreigners crossing the border, so we really didn't know what to do. We ended up walking back and forth (with my heavy backpack on) for probably 2 hours until we realized there just was no place for a picture and the Thai officials must have meant we could just pay the border people more. In the end I was somehow able to get my visa for the $20 it was supposed to be plus $3 for not having a photo, like the Thai people had said it would cost. When I paid and gave in my passport for the visa, the official said it would take 3 hours, but if I gave him $5 more it would only be 3 minutes. Again I said no because I'd heard this is what they tell people, but it doesn't take 3 hours ever. I only waited about 10 minutes, so I was glad I didn't give him extra. In the end, my visa doesn't even have my picture on it, I think the Cambodians just have a collection of photos of people that have crossed the border.

After getting your visa you have to walk to the Cambodian border and fill out another paper and get your passport stamped. Here we met 2 other travellers, some German guys that were really upset about getting ripped off by the border officials. We decided to try to get a cab with them. They were very cheap though and refused to listen to any of the people offering us rides because they didn't trust any of them, and they wanted to take a bus to another town away from the border where you can get a taxi without getting ripped off. There was a free shuttle bus to the bus station, but they thought that was a scam too so we didn't take it and instead walked along the muddy road for 20 minutes. It was almost 6:00 by this point, and the other 3 of us weren't so upset about just getting a cab all the way to Siem Reap even if it cost a little more. There was a guy offering us a taxi for $40, which was cheaper than the reliable taxi that the guesthouse I was going to could have arranged to pick me up. There was one other guy waiting at the bus station we were at, so the 4 of us took the cab.

The ride can take 3 hours in good conditions, but since it's now the rainy season the road is deteriorating and it took us 4 hours. When I say road, I mean that in the loosest way possible - it varied between mud that felt like we were driving on ice because we kept fishtailing, and dirt with such huge potholes that we often scraped the bottom of the car. It was even more fun because I got the middle seat in the back. I was really tired after traveling all day, but there was no possible way to sleep on that ride. Once it got dark out there was almost nothing to see since there are no lights along the road and there were very few houses or anything around. That all changed as we got into Siem Reap; one minute we were driving through the middle of nowhere along a terrible dirt road, and the next we were on pavement driving by the most expensive, beautiful hotels I've seen in a while. I was the only one in the car with reservations, so we were all just going to go where I was staying. Our driver however decided to take us to the guesthouse that would pay him commission. The owner came out and told us to stay there, but we said no, and tried to explain that we had reservations elsewhere. He asked where and I told him, and asked if he knew where it was. He did, but wouldn't tell us. I asked if he would tell the driver how to get there. He kept walking away, but finally he said to take 2 lefts. We did that, but it wasn't there. I told the driver to pull over while I called to find out the location, but as he pulled onto another street we saw it!

I finally arrived at 10:30, after 15 hours of traveling, just to get a couple hundred kilometres away. I had my own room and bathroom though so I was happy. I was also able to get something to eat for the first time since breakfast that morning at 6:30, and have a shower to clean off the mud all over me from walking on the muddy road at the border. Today I was going to get started seeing Angkor Wat, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_wat, the major tourist attraction around here, but really just needed to sleep in. I've been walking around town here and it is really crazy, there are kids following me all around for blocks at a time trying to sell things, and there are really run down places. Cambodia didn't even have any ATMs 2 years ago. This is contrasted with the fancy hotels with rooms for $2000 per night, and the beautiful coffee shop with an art exhibit where I stopped for some water.

does this work today?

I am a master Thai chef

I was in Chiang Mai, Thailand's second largest city which is located in the Northwest of the country for 5 days. Some of the attractions are treks through the wilderness with visits to hilltribe people, elephant rides, bamboo rafting down the river, and pretty much anything outdoors. I was feeling too lazy for this sort of thing, but luckily one of the other highly recommended attractions is to take a Thai cooking course, so I signed up for one of those. I don't cook much at home so I wasn't sure how capable I'd be of all of a sudden making Thai food no less, but I figured a day full of food sounded like I should try anyways.

My class turned out to be just me and 2 girls from my dorm, so we had lots of attention from our 2 teachers. We started the day by going to the market where we were each responsible for picking up a few ingredients. I had to get mint, spring onions, and pea eggplant (which I'd never heard of, but is eggplant that looks like big peas). Then we had some free time to look around the market. There were some stinky areas with meat just sitting around in the heat, lots of vegetables, flowers, and bowls full of live fish which I got splashed by as one was being taken out to be cut up for a buyer.

We went back to the school and watched the instructor prepare the first meal of the day, fried noodles with pork. It took very little time to make, then we got to try some. It was really tasty and I wanted more than just one bite, but it was time for us to make it ourselves. I was a bit slow in doing everything and my stove didn't turn on very well, but I managed everything okay. We then got to try out what we'd just made, and mine was just as good as the instructor's but a lot less spicy. I ate the whole thing and wanted more, but it was time for the next dish. The next 3 dishes we'd prepare and set aside, then stop for a lunch break and eat them all. First we made steamed fish in banana leaves with lots of different spices, then yellow curry with chicken and potatoes, then chicken with cashew nuts (my favourite Thai dish). I wasn't really into the fish because I didn't like the spices, but the chicken and the curry were fantastic and I hardly had room to eat both of them. I was very surprised by my ability to cook something so tasty, and I even like what I'd made better than any food I'd eaten at a restaurant here so far. After lunch we still had 2 more dishes to cook which I really couldn't even imagine because I was so full and lazy already after 4 courses. The next thing we made, a spicy prawn salad, I wasn't interested in because I don't like prawns and it involved lots of cilantro, so I don't know how I did with that one. For dessert we made bananas in coconut milk and that was good.

Some things I was surprised about were what went into the sauces. Just about everything had oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sugar in it. Even the non-dessert dishes all had lots of sugar, both palm sugar and white sugar. That must be how everything was so extra tasty. One of the dishes even had a sauce base made by boiling vinegar and dissolving lots of sugar into it. I'd like to try to make this stuff at home because it was really tasty and it was actually me that made it, but I'm not sure I'd be able to find all the ingredients (do they sell palm sugar in Canada?).

Elephant Pictures

Mommy and baby together.






This dog ran and grabbed a chicken and killed it, but let it die really slowly. He looked pretty proud of himself though.





2 elephants play fighting with each other.










Baby elephant playing in the mud right after being washed in the river.









Baby elephants playing in the river.









Some of the elephants just follow each other around like this. There was one really sad one that was blind in both eyes from being mistreated. She had delivered a stillborn baby one day and was made to go back to work the next day (elephants mourn the dead though), and when she refused to work, the handlers poked her and shot things at her, and blinded her in one eye. That made her very angry and she acted even worse, so the man in charge decided to teach her a lesson by shooting an arrow in the other eye. Anyways, when she got to the reserve, another elephant took her under her wing and the blind one just follows her everywhere.









Lots of the elephants got tired of us feeding them too slowly, so they just tried to pull their bin of food over.











Me feeding an elephant. I was really bad at first and she kept trying to get her neighbour's food instead. Her mahout (the guy that takes care of her and works with her everyday) showed me how to feed her properly - I was trying to give her 1 cucumber at a time, but she needed at least 3. The elephants also ate entire bunches of bananas all at once.

Elephant Nature Park

One of the things I'd planned to do when I came to Southeast Asia was to ride an elephant. I'm now in the area where there's lots of elephants so I thought I'd get my chance here, but most of the elephant riding is part of a day long trek which I didn't really feel like doing especially with all the rain and only having flip flops. A girl in my room at my hostel was planning to go to an elephant sanctuary that she'd heard was somewhere you definitely had to go, so I decided to go with her for the day. It turned out to be a really good day, but it crushed my dream of riding an elephant after seeing and hearing about what they go through. The Elephant Nature Park is a reserve started by a Thai woman (Lek) who was against the mistreatment of elephants, Thailand's national symbol and an important part of their religion. She takes in elephants that have been injured from the work they're made to do, either logging or performing for tourists, and babies that have lost their mothers. Some of the elephants had really sad stories: there was one with only part of a foot because the rest was lost when she stepped on a land mine, one male with only half of one tusk because people had chainsawed off the other one, one that could hardly walk because she was made to pull logs down hills with nothing protecting her legs from the logs bashing into them, and many more for a total of 32 elephants. In the morning we heard about the elephants and then got to feed them, then we had lunch ourselves. After, we followed them to the river where we could help wash them off and watch the babies play. Then we watched a National Geographic documentary about the elephant reserve that showed how elephants are trained in Thailand, which involves putting them in a cage just big enough for them and beating them for days straight, mostly with wooden poles but also with sharp tools. The documentary was supposed to be released overseas first to get international attention before Thais could disapprove of how their country was portrayed, but some group was shown it beforehand and was so upset that they had a huge protest in Bangkok with international media present and called for a boycott of tourism in Thailand. This made a lot of people here upset, and someone was hired to kill Lek, but she was told ahead of time and is okay. Since they were unable to get her, they resorted to poisoning one of the baby elephants featured in the documentary instead. So it was really a sad day in some ways, and now I don't feel like it would be right to ride an elephant somewhere they might have beaten the elephant to train it to carry people. But it's good that at least one person here cares about how they're treated.

Bus rides

I have slept the last 2 nights on a bus. That makes 4 nights in the last month on busses. Some were bad, some were mildly better, and none yet has been very good. I never know what kind of bus I'll be on, whether there will be lots of leg room or none, or double decker or one. Last night I was excited when I got on my bus as I had a seat in the front row and could put my legs up in front of me and my seat way back. However, as soon as the man next to me fell asleep I realized things were not as good as I thought. He had the worst breath I have ever smelled so anytime he breathed in my direction I almost gagged. He fell asleep right away and kept snoring, so anytime he faced my way I would elbow him until he woke up and moved. I think he probably hated me. Luckily a bunch of people got off the bus after about an hour and no one else got on so I switched seats to have 2 to myself away from him. I then slept straight through to Chiang Mai and even though we stopped for dinner somewhere I didn't notice. I think I was tired from the last bus ride the night before, where there wasn't much room and the girl next to me kept taking up my seat. I'm just glad to sleep in a bed tonight.

Thanks for Comments!

It's really nice to see comments, it makes me feel sort of like I get to talk to people I know. Which is especially nice on days where the best live conversation I have is with the taxi driver for 20 minutes trying to explain where I want him to take me.

Leaving Ko Tao

Yesterday the receptionist at the resort I stayed at told me I had to leave my room the next day because it was booked. She said she could help me find somewhere else to stay nearby if I wanted to do another diving class. I was sort of planning on taking the next class, so this morning I packed up my stuff and went to see her. She said the place next door and the one next to that had free rooms, so I walked over and checked the prices. One was the same price as where I'd been staying, so I got that room. I put my stuff in it, then left and had breakfast and hung around for a while. I came back to the room later and started looking around for a plug so that I could charge my cell phone. I couldn't see any, so I went to look behind the bed. I moved the pillow out of the way, but instead of finding an outlet, I found a mouse. I screamed and dropped the pillow back and left the room. I was really not impressed, I can live with some ants, and lizards are cool, but I didn't like the thought of that mouse in my bed. I decided to take a picture of it though, so I went to check if it was still behind the pillow. It was, but me trying to take a picture scared it, so it jumped in the air and ran around the room before heading into the bathroom. I screamed again, but this time didn't try to go look for the mouse. I'm not sure if there was a way out from the bathroom, or if it's still there. In any case, the evidence behind the pillow suggests I invaded the mouse's house, and I didn't like the thought that it had been there for a while and no one at the hotel had noticed, so I decided to move on. I got all my stuff, and went to a travel place and booked a catamaran ride to Ko Phangan and here I am now. It was pretty rainy today, so the catamaran ride over here was pretty exciting if you like being hurled in the air and slamming back down on the water. They handed out barf bags, and I either heard people using them or coughing, I don't really want to know which. Stupidly just before leaving I took my anit-malaria pill thinking I had eaten recently but hadn't, so I was queasy before even getting on the catamaran. Fortunately I felt better on the water and didn't need my own barf bag.

Pictures

Muskoka or Thailand? Some very cottagey-looking places I saw from the boat.







Sunset again, but looking the other way on the beach.







There were a lot of stray dogs around Ko Tao. This one just sat down with me on the beach even though I didn't have any food to share.










Part of the huge parade of ants I created several times on my balcony. First there was the granola bar wrapper I'd forgotten about, then I spilled some popsicle on the balcony, then some ice cream the next day. That's probably why that night I dreamed about ice cream, then about lots of ants.









Sunset in Ko Tao










The view from the classroom where I learned to scuba dive










Ronald thanking me for having a Big Mac the other day. It wasn't any good though, I think they used some gross cheese sauce instead of real processed cheese.

Diving in Ko Tao

I spent 6 days on Ko Tao, 4 of which were mostly taken up by scuba lessons. It turned out my class consisted only of me and one other student and we had an instructor as well as a student instructor, so pretty much one on one learning. We started in the classroom which was air conditioned and made me eager to learn. After getting the basics including what not to do, we went to the pool in the afternoon. We had to do a bunch of exercises getting us comfortable with breathing underwater and dealing with situations that might arise like your mask falling off, or the regulator (breathing apparatus) coming out of your mouth. My mask didn't fit well, so I spent much of my time clearing it of water. At least I got really good at that. That was it for the first day, and the next day we headed to the ocean. We went to a bay where there was some really shallow water, and did mostly the same stuff as we had in the pool. Everything worked fine, and we got to see a few fish. The next day we went out with a bunch of other classes on a larger boat. We had to climb across and through 3 other boats while carrying all our scuba gear to get to our boat, which was not really fun but this time I didn't fall down on the boat at least. We went down to a depth of 12 metres this time, and I had some trouble equalizing the pressure in my ears on the way down, but once there I felt good. There were some fantastic fish around. We saw angelfish,





batfish,






parrotfish,






some barracudas,







a moray eel, a hermit crab, and lots of other fish that I can't remember and wouldn't even know what they're called.

The next day we went out to another dive spot and this time went to 18 metres. It's actually hard to tell how deep you are anyways, so it didn't feel much different from the day before. We only had to do a couple more exercises to finish all the things needed for certification, and one was taking your mask off and putting it back on at the bottom. This was really not my favourite thing to do because you have to make sure you don't breathe through your nose when the mask is off, which isn't so easy. Before we went in the water though, our instructor told us he had a surprise for us underwater that would make us take our mask off. When it was time to do it, he pulled a gun out of his pocket and waved it at us, so we really did have to take the mask off. He was a really funny guy and good to have as a teacher. Afterwards we got to swim around some more and see some fish and coral. There's this cool type of coral that looks like colourful blossoms on a rock, and it you wave your hand in front of it they all close up, then reopen a minute later. Underwater life is cool.

Leaving Bangkok

It took me a while to decide where exactly to go after Bangkok, but I ended up deciding on Ko Tao, an island known for good diving on the east coast of Thailand. I went to the train station that day to buy a ticket for an overnight train, but apparently they were sold out. I found a bus ticket instead which I figured would be just fine. I was sort of wrong. I got on the bus almost last and took one of the few remaining seats which was next to the bathroom. That was okay until someone had to use it and opened the door, releasing the worst smell ever. That was bad enough, but it was also apparently confusing trying to figure out where the light switch was, so people would open the door, stand around for a while and make it extra stinky in the bus, so finally I just started telling everyone where the light switch was. Then there was the fact that the door didn't close very well, so every time someone left, I'd have to get up a few minutes later to slam the door. Pretty much I didn't get any sleep on that bus which got into the pier at 4 am. We had to wait there for 3 hours until the ferry left, and luckily they had a room to lie down in so I slept a little there. Before we left, some woman came around asking if people needed somewhere to stay and learn to dive, which I did. She booked me at a place that I had heard was pretty good, so I felt better knowing I had somewhere to go when I arrived. Then we got on the ferry and I walked down into the seating area wearing some flip flops with bad traction and tried really hard not to fall down, but did anyways :(

I got a seat behind 2 fine examples of interracial couples, Thai style. This involves Thai girls that are usually fairly pretty with white guys who are either old, fat, ugly, smelly, nerdy, or all of those together. I'm not sure if I should feel sorry for them, or which one either - the girl who is with some guy she probably doesn't especially like but who will buy her things and hopefully take her out of Thailand, or the guy who clearly can't find love at home and thinks he has with one of these girls. I don't really mind seeing these couples, it's just funny mostly, but the guy I was sitting behind on the boat smelled like a mixture of stale sweat and cigarettes which was fitting since I was on the stinky trip to Ko Tao.

We got in and there was someone waiting to take me to the "resort" in a "taxi". Ko Tao is a very tiny island with not very good roads - really just one main road that is only wide enough for one car at a time. This is okay because most people ride motorbikes even though the roads are dirt with huge potholes in some spots. Anyways, my "taxi" was a pickup truck with benches in the back to sit on. I was a little nervous about falling out or something, but it proved to be nice actually, there's very little wind around here so it was nice to have a breeze as we drove. We got to my resort and I got my room which was only $7 a night and was pretty decent, though with no view unfortunately. I wanted to sleep after not really sleeping all night, but it was so hot and I only had a fan so I just lay around until I had to go watch a movie to prepare for diving lessons the next day.

My past few days (really long and boring)

I've managed to see most of the sights in Bangkok considering I only have a window of a few hours that I'm not too exhausted to walk around. After my first day of going to the mall I wanted to see some real sights. I planned to get to 2 or 3 temples that are in the same area the first day and then maybe the museum, and set out around 7 to try to beat the heat. I went first to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha) which are on the same grounds.

To get there I had to take the Skytrain to the river, then get on a ferry boat the rest of the way, which all took about an hour and a half (took me a while to figure out how to get on the right boat). I got to the Grand Palace and was so hot that I just started taking a bunch of pictures so I could get around as fast as possible. I couldn't even take the time to read the brochure I got so I never really knew what I was looking at except that it was really pretty. Then I went in to look at the Emerald Buddha which is apparently Thailand's most sacred Buddha figure. It was fine, but really small and at the top of a podium. I looked around the palace a bit more, but was so done with the heat that I just left and got in a cab and went to the first place I could think of that was cool. That was the mall, where I ate some ice cream.

After cooling off for a couple hours, I remembered there was something nearby I wanted to see so I walked over to the Jim Thompson house. He was a guy that came to Thailand in the early 1900's and revitalized the Thai silk industry which was apparently pretty much nonexistent at the time. He built a huge teak home that was beautiful and filled with lots of really nice antiques. He lived there until he disappeared in Malaysia in 1967 (I will try not to disappear there as well). That was enough for the day, so I went back to the hostel and hung out with some guy that taught english in Korea.

The next day I went back to the same area as the grand palace to see the other major sight near it, Wat Pho (the temple of the reclining Buddha).

This Buddha was waaay more impressive, it's gold and apparently 150 feet long and fills up the entire building it's housed in. It didn't take too long to see it, so I walked over to the National Museum. After visiting, I thought it was pretty small to be SE Asia's largest museum, but it turns out it consists of several buildings and I only went in one. Oh well, I don't like museums thaaat much anyways. I came back to my hostel area to have some lunch/dinner and continued my non-eating of Thai food by having quiche. I really keep trying to eat Thai because it's delicious, but mostly they just sell it on the street and I really like sitting down in AC.

Today I started out at Vimanmek Palace which is the largest teak mansion in the world and used to be used by the royal family in the early 1900's. On my way in I saw this guy crossing the street (any idea what he is?):

You weren't allowed to take pictures inside but they had some crazy things, like a room full of elephant tusks and 2 umbrella holders made of actual elephant's feet (kind of gross).

Afterwards, I tried to get a taxi to the Royal Barge Museum which wasn't so far, but the dude wanted 200 Baht which was like 4 times more than what it would be with the metre. I finally found a driver that took a lot of coaxing into using the metre. He kept saying there was a traffic jam, he needed more money, but the trip took like 8 minutes. They just all want my money. You also couldn't take pictures of the barges, but they were pretty neat. They were built for different Thai kings and had very ornate carvings on the front, like this:

There were only 8 barges to see so that didn't take long, and allowed me to start my fun getting home adventure. The museum was on the river, but not a pier where ferries come, only boats to hire personally. I tried walking to the next pier but got lost so got a taxi. I really tried explaining where I was going, which was the main train station so I didn't think it was too hard, and even showed the driver a map and pointed where I wanted to go. It should have been a 2 minute drive. He drove across the river away from it, so I asked where he was going. He didn't know. He kept looking at the map even when the light was green and everyone honked at him. He kept acting like he knew where he was going, but I was getting exasperated. He tried to take me to a police station, but I said I didn't need the police, I just wanted to get out, but he kept driving. Finally he stopped so I got out and paid him some, but less than he wanted and more than I should have considering he went in circles. I then found the pier, and waited for a boat. I got on, and sat down. Some guy from San Francisco sat down and started talking to me, saying he lived there and to be careful, everyone here smiles a lot but they're not always kind. Then he asked where I was going and I told him, and he said I was going the wrong way and we'd already gone for like 20 minutes. So, I got off and waited for the next boat going the other way, which was a fun hour long ride back. Every so often some water would spray up and it felt nice and refreshing, but it's pretty brown looking. So in all it took me 3 hours to get back from the barge museum, but I'm trying to consider it a fun taxi tour and river boat cruise of Bangkok that only cost like $2.

More various pictures

It is so sunny here that I'm never sure what exactly I'm taking a picture of because my camera only has a screen, no hole to look through to take pictures. Most of them come out with bits cut off or off centre, so there's my excuse for some of them being pretty bad.

In the parking lot you see from the window of my hostel. I guess it's as good as any hang out spot in Bangkok, and out of the sun no less.

What a lot of streets look like here: very busy, and this one had lots of monks on it. They were all shopping for random junk which I found weird, as did I find the monk talking on his cell phone.

I understand not selling it early in the morning, but between 2 and 5?

It's Fido Dido. Wasn't he in Canada like 15 years ago? Either I got some really old 7UP or it took him a long time to cross the ocean. Also, keeping this empty can in my room overnight before taking a picture of it meant that I had ants in the morning :(

A really un-Bangkok looking building on the grounds of the Vimanmek Palace

Monks just wanna have fun