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

Traffoc in Bangkok

I wrote it like that so you say it like it rhymes, like "the rain in Spain", because really that is one of the defining characteristics of this city. If you've been to Rome recently you know that it is a death defying act trying to get around by foot, having to cross many lanes of traffic at a time against drivers that really don't want to stop. Bangkok is like that, except if all the drivers were blind and actually trying their hardest to run you down. They have a very different way of managing traffic here which involves very few lights. Instead of crossing only at lights, they instead have suggested areas to cross the street but these offer no protection to pedestrians. I've learned to just wait for other people who want to cross the street and let them stand closest to oncoming traffic in case of an accident. When you do finally get to a light, there aren't necessarily pedestrian crossings, you just have to figure out when the traffic is lightest because I don't think it ever stops in any direction. When driving around, it's also strange as the lights stay red for a few minutes at a time and have countdowns going so you know when it's going to turn green. I feel like that's only encouraging drivers to go through early, leaving even less time to cross the street.

On top of all this, they have tons of people out directing traffic. Why bother with any of the lights and stuff? Maybe this is the best they can do with the huge amount of cars out here.

The Siamese Cat

...is a ferocious breed. I'm not sure if they're all technically Siamese cats, but since they're cats in Siam that's what I'll assume they are. Anyways, every night I hear them doing what I can only imagine is clawing each other to death based on the screaming howls I hear all night long. Then you see them the next day and these cats have no tails, or if they're lucky, maybe half of one. And they are the scrawniest things I've ever seen, so I'm not sure how exactly they even manage their fights. I try to avoid them when I see them, they have a glint in their eyes that tells me they're unpredictable.

Some random pictures

Some Che art at the textile exhibit I saw

What my foot looks like every day.

They really love the king here and put pictures of him all over the place. This is in front of an office tower.

Bangkok at night

The sign telling you about the stores in the mall. I went to Ais Future World hoping for some insight into my life, but they just tried to sell me cameras and cell phones.

Monks walking past the fancy mall

Some pretty flowers at the Jim Thompson house in Bangkok

What it looks like when I sign into this blog. This is why I really don't know how to do anything. The pictures don't help. I just push the big orange arrow.

I had to get out of the way for them to clean the sidewalks. I don't really think it helped, it just left pools everywhere.

I am Aislyn...

And if you have cupcakes anywhere in your city...no, your country, I will find them and they will be mine. I found this place at a skytrain station and had to buy a cupcake so that one day I can write a book comparing cupcakes from around the world (since someone already wrote a book like that about ice cream, which is basically my life's dream...but cupcakes are real good too). I had a tiramisu one and it wasn't that great, but it may not have been the fault of the cupcake, but rather that it smelled like poo in the area of the foodcourt where I was sitting.

Some weird things I've seen

- A lady wearing a t-shirt that said: "I love you let me wear your clothes"

- On a restaurant menu: Coffee - 30 B
Real Coffee - 70 B

- People seem to drink out of bags. Like, they get a little clear bag with handles, full of a drink and tied up with a straw sticking out of it. I don't know how that's not messy

- On the subway they have signs telling you to give up certain seats to people more in need of them like they have everywhere, but they also have a sign by one seat telling you to give it up to monks. I guess they really like that seat on the train.

- And lots more that I forget now but hopefully remember

The other side of Bangkok

I didn't know what to do my first day here, after not having really slept the night before I wasn't up to going to the main attractions. I decided to go to the mall the girl at the hostel suggested, cause really it's so hot that you can't just wander for too long without having some indoor destination. There's a skytrain stop that takes you to the main mall area which has like I don't know, 8 malls or something. The newest is this one which you see first:

Inside is like, THE nicest place I've ever been. It's nicer than Harrod's even. The whole bottom lever was a food court which had so many tasty looking places I got a bit overwhelmed and bought more than I even wanted to eat. The one thing they have more of in Bangkok than steamy heat is ice cream places, so after my cupcake I had some ice cream. Then I kept walking and saw they have a pastry shop that is one of the nicest ones they have on the Champs Elysees in Paris, so I got something there too. It was so fancy they packaged up my pastry thing with dry ice in the bottom to keep it cool. How high tech is that?

On the main floor is every designer boutique you can think of plus about 5o more that probably only rich people know about. And then what better to have upstairs than luxury cars?

My first impression of Bangkok was that is was a city of scams and ripoffs

Before I even got here, I'd read things about scams people had fallen for in Bangkok. One of the most common ones happens when you go to visit one of the main tourist attractions - someone that seems like a helpful stranger will tell you that it is closed today, or whatever time you're there, but luckily for you they'll take you to some other place that just happens to be open today only, and for a really cheap price. You go with them and instead of taking you to any attraction, they'll take you to a jewellery shop or a tailor and say that they're having a special sale today only and you get really good deals, then they won't even take you the place they promised. I thought I could avoid that pretty easily, I generally just do my own thing and don't worry about what other people are saying, but when you're new to a city you really can't help but maybe trust what people from there tell you.

Another scam involves some friendly people finding out where you're from and saying they have a relative moving there, maybe you could come and talk to them. Then somehow the people that go along to be helpful get roped into playing some card game and owing lots of money. Finding out about this one made me feel lucky I guess because in KL some people sitting at an outdoor cafe stopped me to ask where I was from, and said their sister was going to work in Toronto, then they asked me about it a bit, and wanted me to come sit with them and wait for the sister or something. I didn't really want to, so I said I had to go somewhere and that was it. Now I don't know if they were trying to scam me, or really were just interested, because they seemed pretty nice at the time and weren't pushy about me staying.

So, upon arrival I knew what to look out for, including taxis that didn't use their metres. However, when you're dropped off in a city you've never been to before at 5:30 in the morning after an all night bus ride where you barely sleep, you don't really care what happens as long as you get where you're supposed to be. I got a taxi to my hostel, and put my bag in the trunk and got in, then asked him to turn on his metre. He said it was broken, which is just so old. I told him I wasn't stupid, that I really wanted him to turn it on, and he started getting mad and said to get another taxi. I wasn't up to getting out, so I just said I'd give him less than he'd wanted, and he was okay enough with that. He actually even took me to the right place.

Later that day when I was walking down the main street near me, some woman tried asking me where I wanted to go that day and stuff, and I was just like, I'm just walking around, I'm okay, and walked away from her.

The ripoffs include the "J. Crew" t-shirt I bought today for $5, all the fake Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts for sale, and this place (like TCBY, but not quite):

I didn't know people would even rip off stuff like A&F t-shirts...Chanel bags and stuff I'm used to, but this just surprised me.

So yeah, at first I wasn't so impressed, but that was just the first morning.

Lots of things to say...

and they don't really go together so I'm making a bunch of posts about things I've seen in the past few days

I really can't read Thai

The sunburn I got from forgetting to put sunscreen on just the top half of that one arm. I remember forgetting to do it too.












The guy I hoped was making my dinner. I waited a long time, but nothing happened so I left.











More view on the way home to Krabi













The view from the boat on the way home. I'm glad we didn't get stuck in a storm, the boat was tiny and would surely have capsized.











The view from where I sat all afternoon. I meant to take a better picture, but forgot.












How I spent my afternoon in Rai Lay. It's just a pineapple shake. And why not throw in an orchid for decoration? It did cost a whole $1.50
















A cliff beside the beach in Rai Lay


















Where the boat landed in Rai Lay













My boat on the way to Rai Lay













These guys were barking at me as I walked towards them, so I turned around and went the other way.











What $14 a night gets you in Thailand. Yes, that's my own bathroom












View from the bus ride from Hat Yai to Krabi













People partaking in the festivities of the Songkran (New Years) festival in Hat Yai, Thailand. This was a while after they sprayed me as I walked from the train station to the bus stop.









A restaurant near me in KL. Across the street was another restaurant called "Low budget inedible food". Actually it was called KFC.











The living room of the guesthouse I stayed at in KL












A view from the Skybridge of the Petronas Towers












The best tall building in the world



















The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (4th tallest buildings in the world)