Another Sunny Christmas

Good dives, Bad boat. The little hooks in the fishing nets kept sticking into my feet.

Tsunami destruction along the Khao Lak beach.

Coming to grips with the fact that I really suck at putting sunscreen on my own back.

Jason and I watching the animated Robin Hood and listening to Christmas carols on Jodie's fancy iPod.

After leaving Chiang Mai, we bussed back to Bangkok and arrived to a sleeping Khao San road at about 4am. We caught up on sleep until 10, and then went about doing our different Bangkok chores. Because I'll eventually be heading north up through China and Russia, I've been dealing with the tasks of obtaining visas for these illustrious nations. Chinese one was simple and after picking my passport back up, I started in on the Russian visa. The Russian tourism system is a little silly in that it requires you to have an invitation from someone in the country in order to obtain a visa. After buying one on the internet from a shady Moscow travel agency, I set out to find the embassy. Following a good hour of arguing with my tuk-tuk driver about not wanting suits and gems on the way there, we finally pulled up to my first taste of Russia. As is usually the case, the first experiences of a country are often found in one of it's embassies or immigration buildings and after seeing the wonderful world that was the Russian embassy (including what I imagine are legitimate Cossack guardians), I'm quite looking forward to that part of the trip.

After that pleasantness was finished, we all headed over to the train station to catch a ride south to the town of....I don't remember, Champong? Could be, I have no map and I'm too lazy to google one. From there we caught an early morning ferry back over to Koh Tao, the island having remained the same from my last trip there several weeks ago.

Instead of drinking, the purpose of this trip was to do some diving and get the younger members of our group certified. We spent four days on the island for free (thanks to our dives), relaxed, played some volleyball, looked aimlessly for Spark, dove and ate from the giant BBQ that we neglected last time. The weather around the island was hideous and resulted in horrid visibility during our dives and a shortage of supplies reaching the island (leading to restaurants running out of the majority of their common ingredients). After our fourth night, we jumped back over to the mainland and bussed to Khao Lak, where we are now.

Jason, James, Trevor, Jodie and my Aunt Jill (everyone except for me) departed for a 3 day island cruise the next morning, leaving me to my own whims for the next few days (I declined an invitation to go due to financial restrictions). Yesterday I headed out on some dives of my own, and after loading my gear into a fishing boat, we puttered off to a wreck a few kms offshore where I did two of the best dives I've had. Because we were out in the middle of the blue, and not around any islands or the coast, we were pleasantly surprised to find the entire site run over by huge schools of some deeper water fish. The divemaster explained this happens once in a while and it should lead to some leopard sharks being nearby. Unfortunately there were leopard sharks around, but were scared off once a ship load of loud Germans dove in and startled them. Still it was an awesome dive, and I don't think I'll ever see that many fish again. At points I couldnt see anything around me because the massive schools of them would envelop each of us, and we would have to fight through the mobs in order to know that the other person was still beside you. Very cool. After the dive we drove out to a huge Thai navy gunboat that was washed up in the tsunami and now rests 2kms inland in the middle of a farmer's field (Khao Lak was the hardest hit area of Thailand).

Woke up this morning (Christmas eve!) and am now awaiting my companions to return from their boating trip. I'm glad that I have some family in Thailand to share Christmas with, but am starting to get quite eager to hit the road. As you can probably tell from the frequency of my blog updates, life has slowed down a bit here and I'm looking forward to seeing some more places and picking up the pace in the new year. In an effort to entertain myself during this somewhat lonely Christmas eve, I hosted the first annual "Go" for Charity event. Attendance was described by event organizers as being "lower than expected":




I've spent the rest of the afternoon drinking eggnog (water) and listening to some carols (Led Zeppelin & Wolfmother) while sitting around the tree (my bag). To those who I won't be contacting directly, Merry Christmas!

Bangkok & Chiang Mai

Trying to recreate a Greater Healing potion, I ended up with something that smelled like an Indian market.

A small sampling of my tremendous abilities in the food arena.

6 passengers, 1 tuk-tuk, mission accomplished.

Monsieur Blanchet takes a trip to retrieve some croissants.

James and I spend much of our time battling over intersections in the ancient Japanese game of Go. Kids these days.

Not a lot has happened since my last blog, but it's been over a week so I figured I should send one out. Our "bed-train" up to Bangkok was fantastic and brought back some of the more pleasant memories from India. We arrived into Bangkok and quickly made our way to Khao San road, where the vast majority of travelers congregate when staying in the city. We booked into an Israeli hostel which helped us save a little money, but immediately cancelled any opportunity to meet other travelers.

One day was spent at the hotel where Jason's mom and sister were staying (both having freshly arrived from North America), where we lounged around in a little more style and enjoyed the concept of a swimming pool for the first time since Zanzibar. Having finished my parasite medication (goodbye little fella, twas a pleasure to host you), we were able to have one night out in Bangkok and contrary to the song, it was quite a bit more tame than I imagined. Khao San road, although full of tourists, peddlers, bars and beggars, wasn't all that great a party scene from what I could see, although I'm willing to give it another shot on one of the return trips. After spending four nights there, much of it lost into the haziness of Nintendo DS games and an endless stream of Friends episodes, we grabbed a night bus and b-lined it up to Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand.

Upon arriving in Chiang Mai, Jason and I quickly enrolled into a Thai cooking class so that we have some chance of making a few of these fantastic dishes when we leave this country. Class was very well taught and organized and saw us creating a 6 dish Thai feast that I would have thought was well beyond my culinary abilities. I was quite pleased to learn the secrets of their curry pastes and sweet & sour dishes. The fish dish was quite a bit better than I imagined, leading me to believe that perhaps if I cook the fish, it becomes edible.

Chiang Mai was also the location of a rather somber moment in Journey history, being that it would play host to the last night where the three of us (Jason, Ryan, Myself) were all together. It seems odd given that none of us will be done traveling until sometime into the new year, but alas it is true due to our differing itineraries. Based on this, we decided to celebrate with a night out on Chiang Mai, first by storming the night market with our incredible bargaining skills and then aimlessly wandering around town until one of the seedy establishments let us in. After some arm wrestling, stage crashing and a massive feast at the end, it was declared a success. The following day, everyone but me went out on some elephant adventures, while I kept watch at our hotel making sure no one stole my bed.

Tonight we hop on a bus back to Bangkok, where we stay in town for an afternoon and then head back down to Koh Tao, I'm still not sure why I'm returning to that particular island paradise, but I can't think of a reason not to return as well.

The end of an era. It's been a blast gentlemen.

Malaysia!

Having reached the low point of his existence, an inebriated Jojo takes a "time-out" shower.

Railay Beach.

Behold, buildings!

Evidence of leech offensives stain the feet of myself and Jason.

The provision stores for our jungle jaunt.

For many of you who read upwards of 5 blogs now, this is probably all getting fairly repetitive, so I'll skim over the boring stuff. From Koh Lanta we had an awful little ride up to a place called Ao Nang, where after hanging out drearily on the sidewalk for a half hour, Mr. Jason Lush managed to secure a single, fancy, AC'd room for the 7 of us to lounge around in and plot my demise. That night, being the last of Adrian and Randy before they broke company, and being the eve of my birthing day, the fellows stitched together a plan to punish my body with copious amounts of alcohol. I don't remember a lot, and I'm not sure that I want to.
Our hangover the following day was spent watching all 3 Rambo movies without leaving the apartment, until the next afternoon saw us venturing to Railay beach on the far side of Ao Nang. Nice beach, but to be honest, I'm a little tired of beaches, never having been that big on them in the first place, but the scenery lying around on the beach was a different story...
The next day we grabbed a few buses and eventually found ourselves south of the Thai border, in the futuristic, Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. I must say that Malaysia in general has been a big hit with all of us, although we suspect it's because we've stopped drinking and have actually begun to "travel" again. We were able to find cheap food and accommodation in one of Southeast Asia's most reputably expensive cities, a victory for the pocket book.
After spending a few days seeing the sights of Kuala Kumpur, including their magnificent twin towers (I suspect they were behind the 9/11 plots in an effort to raise their stock...but that's all hearsay), the five of us ventured into the Malaysian jungle to find some peace, quiet and leeches. After a few buses, a boat ride and then an hour or so trek through the vines, we emerged to find our beautiful little Hyde, which we had booked for 3 nights. The park ranger looked strangely at us when we did so (very few people seem to just show up on their own and book a single hyde, without proper provisions or any plans outside of that), but reluctantly signed over our little abode for the allotted time.
We had done a little grocery shopping before and all came to the wonderful conclusion that we would have no trouble surviving our jungle seclusion if all we had to eat were a few apples, some cans of fruit and copious amounts of Peanut Butter, Jam, Honey, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Peanut Jam Butter and a dozen loaves of bread. Our few excursions out into the surrounding jungle, were beaten back by a barrage of leech soldiers, who would cling to any available skin or clothing and begin their dreaded draining of our precious lifeblood, which meant that for most of the 3 days, we sat, alone, in a hut in the middle of the jungle, eating sandwiches and complaining about our beds and Robert Jordan. It was an odd event and I'm still trying to figure out whether I'll look back on it with fondness or bewilderment.
Hiking out of the jungle early yesterday, we quickly secured transport back to Kuala Lumpur, where, after waiting in the train station for 3 hours (and each having a much needed shower in the washroom there), we caught a night train back up to the Thailand town of Hat Yai, where we now reside. I'm very happy to announce that I have found a fellow troubled sleeper in James, and after sleeping a meagre 3 hours between the two of us, we found ourselves huddled in the dining car at 2:50am, eating cups of noodles and rambling on about cowboys until 8am. In another 3 hours, we board yet another night train, finishing our trip back up to Bangkok to meet some more of the Lush clan, this time we made sure to book actual beds. I'm beginning to fall asleep on this keyboard, so I shall end it here!