From Asia to Europe

Here’s a second go at this blogging business – the what’s and where’s should be more obvious this time around. The first attempt on travelpod.com alienated at least a few family and friends who visited, expecting the process to be painless, and finding themselves guided through an array of windows and doors… it should be simple work now, and achieve what I’d hoped – to keep in touch.

Here I am, back in the cold of the late fall in Central Canada, ie. ‘home’ (now). I’ve been here now only two days, and so my eyes are still focused squarely on the past – as such, my attempts to chronicle that last few Thai moments are better written now than later.

Where did I leave off? ….Right, in the thick of the bit of ‘rest and relaxation’ that was Koh Samet. While we were spoiled with the sights and weather of Southern Thailand early in the trip, it was, in retrospect, a lovely ending to continuous bus hopping and guest house searching.

Shortly after the trip around the island, we installed ourselves in all the usual tourist places: by day, on the beach (avoiding the nasally calls of ‘massssssage’ aimed at each of us and ‘pedicuuuure’, especially at Chrissie) and by night, at the Naga Bar, followed by the Silver Sand bar. Which is to say: we drank by night with all the vigour of a uni student, and by day we nursed our hangovers as lazily as we could. The bars were full of mixed characters: singing Swedes, teary expats, Thai male gigalos, enterprising Iraelis, year long travelers taking a break – all evidently with one activity on their minds. (Note: Thai male gigalos).

Our departure left us with one and a half days in Bangkok to snatch up everything we’d had our eyes on during our few brief stays in the city: it was a frantic zigzag mission across Khao San Road, the weekend market and famed knock-off mall. In the process, travelers from the past two months of travel kept materializing: Swedes from Koh Samet, an expat from Pai, and 3 of our full-mooners from Coconut Beach on Koh Phangnan. It’s a wonder that anyone actually leaves the country – like the quicksand Chrissie stepped in near Pai, it sucks you in and keeps you there. After some time, you can’t even remember when the dreadlocks and tattoos appeared.

I left Chrissie to another day of pure consumerism and flew out to meet Matt and Del in Taipei while visiting the school and filing my taxes all the while (a pleasant surprise when the agent showed me what I can expect to receive back – another future holiday in store?) While Taipei felt strangely foreign, it was nice to return to the comfort of milk tea and dumplings. I met Matt’s new ‘man-friend’ – Matt is such a collector – but with good taste… I should have employed him with the task of finding me a boyfriend, preferably one who wants a ‘woman-friend’.

My layover in Vancouver saw a brunch with my former neighbour Scott, a sort of Robin Williams with a Melbournian accent. Conversation involved the usual bi-polar flipflop between joke, politics, health and well-being – he’s onto the next idea while I’m dragging along, laughing at the last. At one point our waitress graduated from perplexed to giggly when I peeled my luggage sticker off his face and Scott exclaimed, “I just got a brazilian on my forehead!”

One last memory to end this trip and overseas blog, on the beach near the Naga bar with bartender ‘Bong’ or ‘Bang’ or more likely ‘Dong’:

Barman: “You have beautiful hair.”
Chrissie: “Thank you.” (Uncomfortably.)
Barman: “You are so beautiful.”
Chrissie: “I bet you tell that to all the girls.”
Barman: “I don’t!”
Chrissie: “Fuck off! Yes you do.”
Barman: “Oooo, a strong one. I like you.”

Just, Laura.

Pfffffftttttt….. the sound of our deflation as we find ourselves once again on a beach, trying in vain to recover our tans so we can strut around with that ‘traveled’ (or sunbedded) look for a few days in Canada.

Koh Samet is an island a few hours’ journey from Bangkok – it doubles as both the local holiday spot and Sweden junior. There are two races here – Thais (who all look the same) and Swedes (who all look the same). Chrissie and I are likely to fit in to the left of the Swedish side – we camouflage well enough, but my barebones Swedish vocabulary, (“very good decision,” “cool” and “b****”) puts an ackward halt to conversation.

The weather’s been temperamental here, so there’s a mass exodus from the guesthouses and restaurants as the sun breaks through. Today though was warm enough for me to test out the ‘photosensitivity effects’ of my Doxycycline anti-malarial: my fingertips are peeling. It’s the strangest thing, very “Death Becomes Her”, and leaving me wondering what’s to fall off next.

We’ve decided that we were spoiled with our 3 weeks touring the best of the south before coming here. We just today took a snorkelling/deep sea fishing/fish farm visiting tour of the island – and while the American family next to us was all ooh’s, aah’s and camera flashes – we sat in the sun surveying the sights with our connoisseurial eyes and exhaling the odd ‘hmph’. Dancing Goon (Khun?), our tour guide tomboy was a good laugh though – the jester performing for us snooty queens. Hmph!

On the 14th, after we bake ourselves to a crispy perfection, we’ll head off to Bangkok for a day or two of shop-till-you-drop, 20 baht pad thai and prositute watching before boarding flights to Taipei.

Off we go for another (sigh!!) dinner by the beach and drinks. (Soaking it in before these pictures become screen savers.)

Aristocratically, Laura.

Is the name of where we sit here typing away – this multi-use computer, bar, restaurant and movie house depicts the hodge podge town of Pai quite well. Other words to build a picture of it include bohemian, new age, fanatically healthy, herbal, summon the spirits, tribal community base, bloody beautiful town at the heart of a stunning valley. We’re about a 4 hour local bus ride north west of Chiang Mai, near the Myanmar border, where tribes from the north have spilled over into Thailand and now rake in money from tourists ‘off the beaten track’ (but starting a few of their own).

We had a lovely last night with ‘English Stu’ in Siem Reap, who is nearing the end of his year long Asian journey – guitar strumming and pretendng to know the lyrics to a 5 song repertoire until the mid morning hours. Our flight to Bangkok’s new international airport was a frantic dash to all the wrong areas, as our connection to Chiang Mai drew nearer… with an (enviable!) 1 hour wait for bags, followed by a hunt for a gate that didn’t exist – compounded by our loopy, overtired disposition – we were a sad mess of rolling clothes and bags.

We stayed in Chiang Mai long enough nap, shop, get soaked and curse it before boardng the local bus to Pai. As the first to buy tickets, our VIP seats were reserved behind the driver and directly above the engine – our feet lightly toasted upon arrival. Even the monk behind exclaimed ‘hot! hot!’ while flapping his robe around for a breeze.

Pai is very much a one horse town, all dusty roads and teetering babies and hippies and roaming dogs and trekking and reiki at every turn. Finally! A whole town of empty heads, ambient noise abounds. I’ve found my own.

Our search for a trek brought us to BackTrax and guide “Toil’ (as is boil, boil, toil and trouble). For two days, our foursome of two Canucks and two Swiss girls followed this serious minded Indiana Jones up the slopes, through vines and over water – all the while, striving to follow his advice of becoming ‘one with nature’. (I, for my part, become one with the earth, keeled over in a wretched state, with all the potential of a dead log.)

The Lahoooooooos (Lahu tribe) heard our arrival at their village shortly before dinner – moans and groans the telltale signs of approaching ‘nature’. Stilted huts, barnyard animals, ‘earthy’ children, and blasting radio (how rustic!) surrounded our hut for the night, situated above the aromatic village stable. Interesting events abounded, including:

• children hanging in the trees above the toilet stalls
• a hut of drunken village men, offering food and drink among other less enticing favours
• 17 ladies who rolled out their wares to our modest group of 4 – the minute we stepped out of the hut, the circus began
• children who regarded us as jungle gyms and sparring partners with ‘bum targets’
• my curious massage, where the entire population of ladies descended on me, kneading every bit of my body like dough (with special attention to my left bum cheek by the village elder)
• change from this 200 baht surprise which was removed (soggily) from under the shirt and in the armpit of one of the tribal ladies
• a song and dance performance by the village children followed by our cheeky reciprocation: the Macarena
• Swiss Fabi trying to peel herself away from her drunk, dentally underpriviledged admirer
• the unidentifiable animal sounds that kept us up all night: sort of a snorty, horny cow call; also, choruses of confused roosters who began their songs 3am ish until dawn.

We did make it through the night and the following day, over leach-ridden trails, precariously on the back of an elephant (while watching with pie eyes as a cobra swam past us), and down the river by bamboo raft, where Swiss Elly came under the attack of a spiny caterpillar.

We are now two days later – and after copious amounts of lounging and reading, we decided to extend our stay ‘just a little longer’ (until the usual Pai eternity) to explore the countryside by motorcycle (yesterday) and by bike (argh! today). It’s paradise here from top to bottom – and ‘easy mountain living’ as told by the Lonely Planet writer. Save for a seemingly unusual brush with a robbery a drunk, gun-waving policeman last night (!!), it’s been smooth moving.

Efforts to upload pictures will be made in days to come – sure to stir even the dead into a fit of envy.

Patchouli-ly, Laura.

Here I am, back on the charts after a third world delay of a couple weeks. The last posting came from Koh Phi Phi on the west coast of Thailand – thereafter we moved onto Bangkok, where I succeeded in only uploading a portion of my photos before I crashed the computer (more to follow upon our return to Thailand), and the next day we were off in the direction of Cambodia for some ‘real’ traveling, or rather, something that would possibly feel less like a Euro sun holiday. (As a disclaimer, I must add that meeting so many Europeans in the south made the trip a riot and were our best remembered moments.)

Our travels en bref and up to date:

Bangkok > Koh Krong, Cambodia (oo, a coup behind us!)> Sihanoukville > Phnom Penh (or ‘P.P’, which in parts it smelled of) > Siem Reap.

At the Cambodia border, which turned out to be nothing more than an old wooden kiosk on a dusty dirt road, we had the good (and unusual) fortune to run into our sex tourist, self-appointed grandfather, Scottish ‘Mackenzie’. He led us to our first guesthouse in Koh Krong, gave us the general appearance of knowing what’s going on, and filled us in on the ‘chicken coup’ at Koh Krong – essentially, a collection of shacks where the poorest of poor prostitutes work. We worked hard at a smile, which presented itself more as a grimace, upon hearing the news of such tourist highlights.

The next morning Mackenzie turned up in tank top and silk boxers to lead us onto the southern city of Sihanoukville by 4 hour ferry ride. As the boat was, at one time, meant for use on the Mekong river, open seas boating felt very much like water skiing over the wake of a cruise boat. I volunteered my seat and my stomach to a mother and child, only to be stuffed in the back of the cabin on top of crates of insect ridden fruit, between rucksacks and vomiting children. As such, all experiences to follow have painted in rose.

Wet Sihanoukville prevented us from visiting the adjacent National Park (which is rumoured to contain at least one tiger – even so – guffaw!) and so we toured around by moto to nearby waterfalls, visited a Wat (a what? A temple.), were tailed by legions of street children, admired mating monkeys, and practiced our fragmented French with a lovely older, and extremely patient, couple.

On we went a few days later to Phnom Penh by bus on tarmac (a luxury!)and arrived to find, surprisingly, a more or less fully developed city, paved throughout. Staying in an interesting wooden, stilted guesthouse on the edge of Boeng Kak (unphallicly, ‘Green Lake’), we spent our relaxing meals watching patches of green water plants doing their round of the lake, and sampling the gamut of Khmer (Cambodian) curries. Nights were spent at a local expat party, ‘running into’ (stalking) a trio of London funnies, and politely declining offers for opium and pot at every corner.

Our heavy day comprised a visit to S-21, the converted schoolhouse which housed thousands of prisoners before their deaths during the Khmer Rouge genocide in the mid to late 70’s, and also took a very precarious moto ride (2 big ladies and the driver) to the Killing Fields, where they buried the prisoners en masse.

From an outsider’s perspective, Cambodians are just the loveliest group of people – we’ve had only honest, attentive and playful times with them. The genocide is however evident when considering the rarity of the elderly here and prominence of babies (replenishment?). Most people seem to have had family who have been killed, including our guest house manager in P.P, orphaned at a young age and living on his own ever since.

At this time, we find ourselves in Siem Reap, having just toured Angkor Wat and surrounding temples, which were at least, stunning in size. Angkor Wat itself is 1 km squared, and many of the temples took 40 years to build. Impressive to consider that these temples were built by human effort not long after ‘the invention of the wheel’… (plus or minus a little historical embellishment). It also seems as though the modern gradient for stairs has softened during the past thousands of years… they were truly ‘climbs’ up each temple, akin to bouldering up a cliff – and me nearly finding myself releasing turds squarely on the shoulders of the visitors below us.

On that same subject, we had a laugh yesterday in our tuk tuk as we passed a moto driver with a (dead?) pig strapped, tits to the sky, to the passenger seat, voiding itself at each successive bump in the road as passing vehicles swerved to and fro. What a shitty job.

Today will be the land mine museum and scouring the markets for silks and other gifts that will inevitably be destroyed, packed away in our bags during the next few weeks.

Khmerly, Laura.

We pulled up to Koh Phi Phi yesterday afternoon after a 1.5 hour sardine-packed speedboat ride across. Is it ever stunning, beautiful white beaches and dramatic limestone cliffs all around. Yet another (yawn!) paradise.

We set ourselves up on Hat Yao (Long Beach) overlooking the sister Koh Phi Phi Ley island, set of the movie ‘The Beach’. Everything seemed just right – sun, sand and surf – when a renegade cloud blew over the sister island from out of nowhere. I had just enough time to throw on my shorts and make a run for it before we were pounded with water… and so here we are, trying to cap our southern experience in style, admiring Phi Phi from tree to tree to awning to restaurant, walking gingerly and tripped over stray cats.

Truth be told, I’m getting a bit restless at heart and eager to move on and see other parts. Two weeks of sun has had its needed effect and now I’d like lose the holiday crowds (who are dressed far better than we are, as such, my ego is hurting) and see the essence of Thailand and Cambodia. If I have to have another ‘what islands have you been to and where are you going’ I’m going to have to add in outrageous details to amuse myself.

I’ve now named the ladyboy ‘shadyboy’ after catching another up to no good on the speedboat ride here… and so I’ll continue my sick fascination with them from a safe distance.

Chrissie and I are still doing a fabulous job at interpreting nearly everything spoken in opposite ways… we may come home with chunks of hair missing and gouges around the eyeballs, only to agree that it was the best experience ever and we have already a world trip in the works…

Saturatedly, Laura.

Unwittingly dancing with the devil may have spared us from an unluckier fate.

When Chrissie and I mounted the night boat last night on our way across to mainland Surrithani, we couldn’t have picked two more strategically positioned beds. In hindsight, when there’s a giant, shining space of an opportunity, be weary of regarding it as ‘good luck’.

Last night I slept only a couple of inches away from a campy trio of ladyboys – and until the lights went out, we (I!) considered them to be great entertainment. They chased away praying mantises that wandered through the window, puckered up to passing ‘farangs’ (foreigners), and joined in on our card game; the leader, ‘Bee’, proving to be quick to pick up on rules in spite of her broken, lispy English.

(Script: Bee points to a Queen and asks the name of it. Snarkily taking advantage of the communication gap, I announced “It’s a Queen – you should know that!)

Well, midway through the night I woke up to find them all barechested and whispering. Something in the air felt a bit strange, so I kept my eyes peeled for a moment before relaxing back into sleep – and a good thing I did, only to catch them walking up and down the aisles, plucking bags from unsuspecting sleepers.

What does one do when you’re the token person with that knowledge? Absolutely nothing. American movies might incinuate that busting the thief would be a heroic act – but after living in Asia, I’ve grown to understand that Asians work in packs – where there’s one, there’s many. Who’s to say that the driver and boat staff aren’t all part of it. And so after elbowing Chrissie in the ribs to tell her to keep her feet on our bags, we were left to spend the rest of the night in anxious paranoia and watch our other fellow travelers being separated from their money.

Morning couldn’t have come more slowly and we got off the boat wearily and sleepily – you can bet that I’ll be one eye on my loot, one eye on the road for the next month.

Heavy heartedly, Laura.

Ambient noise is about all that’s left of my brain after this last round. It’s hard to say whether it’s by diet or laziness – but I think it’s fair to say that the beach has ‘got me real good’.

Chrissie finished her dive course in one piece at Coral View Resort on Koh Tao and I managed to keep myself out of trouble in the interim. To compensate for being ‘certifiable’ – or uncertified – I put in the necessary amount of snorkels to at least talk the talk. Of note under water: reef sharks are a natural enema, never follow a trigger fish, always remember to put extra sunscreen on your back.

On the 6th we made our way to Koh Phangnan, rolling stones that gathered the moss of two English brothers Nick and Sam, as well as Ellen, our Aussie-speaking Belgian. She shed her roots and her Aussie boyfriend but kept the accent – much to everyone’s confusion! We arrived the day prior to the much-talked-about Full Moon Party on Hat Rin (beach). While now, during the low season, the party draws a crowd of about 8,000 to the beach, it’s known to swell to 20,000 in the high season. Hat Rin is peppered with bars, each with their own deafening sound system, and each competing with each other to out-decibel the next. Suffice to say that, as I remember it, the night was shocking, curious, emotional and a great laugh – with fire shows, buckets of Red Bull/Coke/Samsong rum, dancing, and moments that are best left in the history books of September 7th.

Also a sad goodbye to my beloved Birkenstocks that walked off without me.

Dear Ellen, if you’re reading this, I must again express that we have only the utmost respect and admiration for your signature dance, which will be fondly remembered. Ten out of ten with an eleven when performed in the ocean itself. All in all, thanks for the giggles and good company.

Dear John, thanks for bearing with my moments of ambient noise and regressing your English to a mutual level. To Ireland, jazz hands, and snakes in trees.

Dear Nick and Sam, patient snorkel instructors and storytellers, all the best with Malaysia and beyond – if the next Band of Brothers trip brings you towards Canada, please be in touch.

Onto Krabi and Koh Phi Phi –

Undignifiedly, ‘Titan Shithead’. (Chronic card game loser)

Tak tak tak madiga pulila… is the soundtrack in the computer room as the staff at Coral View resort enjoys conversation over lunch in the restaurant outside. We are in our third day here on a rather isolated but ‘picture perfect’ cove in the southeast of Koh Tao – caught squarely between the pull of the city life pace and ‘Thai time’, where punctuality seems to be regarded as a long-winded European word.

At this very moment I’m recovering from the (oh woe is me!) disappointment of being unable to do my open water diving certification – while Chrissie is likely now studying her third chapter of theory, the tiny hole in my heart is now a pain in my neck. I keep forgetting about this relatively insignificant thing until it comes up in questionnaire -and by the expression on the faces of both the instructor and Belgian doctor in the course, I’d be better off as a snorkelling voyeur. I always did feel like more of a land mammal, and today was the final nail in the coffin. (Bloody hole, I’ve got enough of them already – does one really need one more?)

I’ll just sit here for the next 3 days and perfect jealous looks to shoot over at Chrissie. Ah yes, a beautiful trip to rekindle our sisterhood after 6 years apart if beginning to take form.

I just received a polite yet hopeful glance from another traveler – we’re one computer here at the resort – and so I should be off in a moment. If we should be so lucky as to find a bed on the island, next stop is Koh Phang nan for the Full Moon Party. From the sounds of it, the party is bound to produce more than its fair share of tales.

Self-pityingly, Laura.