Apr 2007

You might want to start with "part 1" for this...

I only saw one of the following however:
pineapple tree

Not sure that kind of fruit this is, but it has a texture and tastes kinda like apricot...but it's not apricot...

On a "grocer" note, I went back to the night market I was talking about in my first blog of the day, and took a pic of the bug display! weeee, I don't know if you'll be able to read the words on this small pic, but they are loud and clear when you blow up the pic (so are the bugs!!)

On a nicer note, we tried all kinds of foods tonight, a lot of what is small and easy to just munch on. We pretty much munched our way through the market (going, "what's that?" hmm looks good, how much? ok, taste and go...hehehe). The prices were sooo great (like 5B for this, 20B for that...) and to conclude with a "real meal" we had both the best pad thai ever and one of the spiciest dish (although it didn't quite beat the shrimp curry I mentioned a while back!). hmmmm, food!

Moving on, here is a nice pic of a... I guess village....built on the water (literally ON the water), surrounded by sticks sticking out of the water looks like a fishing village of some sort, but I'm not 100% sure... anyway, nice pic!

Let's conclude with, yet again, a nice sunset

Cheers!

Written on April 12...
Alright, since the internet is only 30B/hour here, I decided to soldier on and get the pics thing going, so here we go....

Let's start with a pic of Rafale and Aliya

and Rafale blowing her BDay candles...

I had "promised" pic of fruit trees, which is something I quite enjoy here, so let's begin with a mango tree


To my great surprise, they normally don't let fruit ripen on the trees here. With mangos, they sometimes do a little, by wrapping each individual fruit (a few at a time per tree) in either a plastic bag or newspaper, but they mostly harvest the fruit greena nd let it ripen some other way... I think it might be because bugs get to it rightaway if the fruits are riper...

Banana tree

Papaya tree

These three types of trees are everywhere around Ko Paghan (where I took the pics)

Alright, as usual, this gets very slow with too many pics. Let's do a "part 2"

Written on April 10...
Yesterday was Rafale's birthday. I have some pics to post on this, but this PC is acting up, so it'll have to be another time...
So the plan is:
Today, Aliya and I are going to Haad Rin (the bucket place) for a couple of days, then I (maybe we) are heading off to a National park called Kao Sok, which is at the same height as this island, but inland, toward the west coast of Thailand. I read that it 160million years old and is considered to be older than the Amazone. There's obliviously a lot of plants and trees, but also elephants, tigers, monkeys and other crazy "jungle" animals. Hiking is a main attraction, along with elephant trekking and tubing on slow moving crystal clear rivers. I look forward to this very much!
Ultimately, we want to be in Bangkok for the 18th, as a friend of Alyia will meet us there and we'll all head up to Cambodia. I don't know if I'll spend all my time at this national park, or if I'll also visit a few surrounding towns (probably). So anyway, that's the plan!
Cheers

Written on April 12...
Alright, little bump in the road. Aliya and I stayed at Haad Rin for a couple of nights, it was, all and all, fairly boring to be honest. We are now officially in low tourist season, so Haad Rin was quite empty and..well...drinking is not always that much fun!
In any case, we're done with that. We made the decision to get away form what I call the "cattle herd", which is that almost every tourist buys "all inclusive" trip packages, which take them through the 2 or 3 transporation methods needed to get to a final destination (aka, taxi to boat, boat trip and bus to final destination). It really feel like a herd of animals being loaded and unloaded here and there. Not very pleasant, but certainly easy and convenient.
We kinda did the math and figured out that there was a bit of a premium for the convenience (of course), so, since we were not going very very far, why not just try it on our own. It all started pretty well, taxing a taxi and the boat (saving approx 100B in the process), but when we arrived at Surat Thani (town service almost exclusively as a transportation hub for tourists between Bangkok, and the islands on the East and West coasts), we were quoted 250B per person for a 100B trip to Kao Sok (our final destination). hmmm bummer. We ended up at 180B, bought out ticket, and were told at departure time that the bus was full, sorry to come back tomorrow (last bus departure for the day). At least we got our money back, which is not always a given here! We're not "stuck" in Surat Thani for a night...there is apparently nothing to do here according to Loney Planet! hehehe
We booked at a small hostel, management is very nice (an expat and his Thai wife) and they indicated where to get to a night market. IT IS AWSOME!! There are no other tourists here (no one ever stays for a night, unless "stranded" like us!) The market has all the food we normally see at other night markets (some unidentified meats on sticks, deep fried chicken pieces, yummy- and less yummy- sweets, fruits, corries, and..... fried insects!!! We had many choices there, such as water bugs (kinda like massive cockroaches), silk worms, crikets, and the likes! hmmmmm! I don't think I'll venture THAT far in my desire to learn about local customs and foods! hehehe
So anyway, we went for a 30 min walk and didn't see any other tourists so far! hehehe We got stared at more than anywhere so far on this trip (being both tall white girls is a very probable cause for this).

Tomorrow is Songkran, national holiday, which is marked by people throwing water at each other! hehehe. I'm glad to be out of touristtown for that, as I didn't really feel like having a waterwar with other tourists, but I'm totally in for taking part in a local custom! yay!
And on top of it all. we will be taking a local bus instead of a tourist minibus, payin 70B for the trip and enjoying a bit more of locality! double yay!
So that's that for now!
Cheers,
P.s. Having new problems with the PC and the camera memore card. Pics will have to wait a bit longer. arrgghh!

Written on April 8...
Happy Easter everyone! Glad you're enjoying a few days off (Easter is not even mentioned here at all, but you and other tourists here reminded me).
I'm still in Ko Paghan as my cousin Aliya (did I ever mention that you can't spit anywhere in this world without hitting a cousin of mine?), Rafale's sister, has come to Thailand from Australia. I was going to head up to Bangkok today, but it would have been kinda cold to leave right as she got here + it's Rafale's BDay tomorrow and Aliya might join me for the next few weeks up to Laos and Cambodia, so I decided to hang here for a couple more days and see what she wants to do.
Other than that, still enjoying the beach (we rented a bungalow on my favorite beach, Haad Yao) and it's quite nice. It's also quite nice to be able to split the cost of everything with someone! (did I ever mention I'm super cheap?..I must have! hehehe)
The tantra workshop ended on Friday and it was super very extra interesting! I'm just kinda sorry I didn't get to practice yet, but it'll come, and I'm prepared! hehehe
It was very refreshing to talk about sex and sexuality in a very "adoring, beautiful and sacred" way as opposed to the "shameful, dirty, secret" that Western society always present it. It's not like I was raised being told it was dirty or anything, but still, over the years, I seemed to hear more negativity and shame around sex than its positive aspects, so it was good to "get a refresher". hehehe
On a different topic, I'm working on a little expose for you on the fruit trees around here, so this is to come soon.
On that note...cheers!