Apr 2007

Written on April 23rd....

Arrgghhh! Here WAS the plan:
Check out of our hotel on Ko San road, go get our Cambodia visa (at the Embassy which was supposed to be near Lumpini park, a big park, in another part of town where travellers stay), stay in that area for a night or two - while we get our visa & bus tickets to Cambodia, then head off to the said country.
I stayed in this part of town on my first visit to BKK and really liked Lumpini park. I think I mentioned it in a very early entry; it's where people do aerobics at night throughout the park (music blasting and instructors everywhere - quite a sight - Aliya was quite curious about it). That area of town is also where they have "ping pong shows", in which very skilled women throw ping pongs across the room (clue: not with their arms, feet or head) hehehe, it would have been entertaining for sure! Finally, this part of town also has a big Muay Thai kickboxing stadium - going to a match in the 3rd class "cheap section" - with the hard core "into it" Thai people- is apparently quite fun.

Actual turn out of events:
Check out as planned.
Get dropped off by a taxi (91B ride) at the location of the Embassy.
To find out it's moved completely across town (not where we came from, another across - it's a big town!)
Take another taxi (83B ride, the guy drives off with my 100B bill - nice tip I guess!) to the new location of the Embassy. Happily find out it's near the Laos Embassy (where we plan on going after Cambodia -and we were only going ot get the visa in Phom Phen - so this is good).
Get both visas (only took 3 hours and 3000B - ouch on the $$)
Decide to go back to the Lumpini area for the night anyway.
Pay 141B taxi ride to get there.
Can't find the hotel we were planning on staying at, walk for over 3K ( with out full backpack - mine weights 34kilos - in the blasting heat, sun, pollution, noise of the city) to a YWCA, only to find out it's 1000B/night!!!!! NO WAY !!!! We haven't paid more than 400B/night so far!!
We are now in the middle of big town, only fancy hotels around, no travel agency in sight (to buy our bus ticket to Cambodia), so we decide to come back to the Ko San road area, for simplicity and budget value and just cause we're plain fed up.
It's now about 2:30 in the afternoon. We stop 4 taxis in a row and none will go 'on meter", they all want a flat rate (because of traffic they say). On the 4th, we negociate 150B to Ko San.
So we get back here, 150B later and almost 1 hour in the taxi. The guys is very nice at least and is able to carry somewhat of a conversation, so it's nice. He quotes us 1600B to drive to the Cambodia border!! hehehe, we imagine telling people we cabbed it from BKK to the border hehehe
We decide to check out a few places around (guest houses are one after the other around here), check out 5 places (still with our backpacks on, my shoulders are numb by that point, hehehe!) No place compares in quality/price to the place we stayed at for the past couple of nights, so we decide to go back there. The Thai ladies smile and laugh at us a little (we get laughed at a lot around here, but I actually enjoy it, I sometimes play it up a little - might as well!) and give us the key back to our original room! hehehe!!!
That's the day so far.
We still need to get to a travel agency and get our bus tickets.
To sum up, we blew a crazy $$ on taxi rides, did a big circle around town, and are back to square one (except: +2 visas and -..."I'm scared to add up" Bhats!)
agghhh.....
Cheers
P.S. Rectification: we are now in the year 2550, not 2551.

Moving on to the visit of the Big Buddha and it's 1237 steps. This temple had a shite load of monkeys. Here are a few pics:

This one passed us going down by sliding on the ramp. Clever little monkey!

This, in Thai, apparently says: "Congradualtions, you are a winner, you've climbed 1237 steps and are close to enlightment". The young monks climb it every day (can you cay cardio anyone!, specially considering the weather -approx 32-34 and humid- and the fact that approx half of these steps are equivalent to 2 regular steps (super high and steep!).
This pic was taken about halfway.

The top is very worth it through, with a superb 360 view, a Big Buddha and other Buddhist artifacts. Very nice. We were there to see the sunset as well, which was quite nice!

Moving on to the day kayaking and elephant trekking. Although it cost each of us the equivalent of 2.5 days of budget money, it was very much worth it! We saw a ton of monkeys (and they were so close!, often coming on the kayaks - for bananas). We saw old ones, mothers with their babies, and as usual for most species, the young ones were the cutest.

The scenery was also breathtaking, as we paddled through mangrove trees (grow in water), beside limestone cliffs and through canyons and lagoons.

Moving on to the afternoon part, we had a blast riding elephants.
Let's begin withthe following pics, titled "Elephant rumpous", aka the proof that a 1 ton butt can be cute!

Our guide sat directly on the elephant head, but he let each one of us sit there fore a while. I though it was sooo scary (being on the head of an animal who could crush me " by accident", but Aliya loved it.

Well, I'm rushed for time, so I'll go!
Cheers!

Written on April 22...

Well, Aliya and I have been back in Bangkok for a couple of days now, and are planning to stay a couple more to get our Cambodia visa. We could get it from a travel agency and/or at the border, but there are horror stories with both these options, so we decided to get it directly from the Embassy.
I quite enjoy Bangkok this second time around, and we are planning to visit quite a few places (as soon as I get off this computer, so I'm hurrying!)

Pics time:
Let's start with Songkran. These pics barely represent the pure chaos and great humour that reigned on that day, but it may give you an idea at least.

It's too bad that the extent of our "being painted and soaked" isn't clear on these pics....

This last one was taken on the bus, where, as mentioned in a previous entry, we were sitting right by the back door (which never closed). Throughout the 3.5h ride, the bus driver kept on stopping to let Songkran'ers on to douse us. We also got it from people aiming at the door as the bus was passing by...Ahhh fun times!

Songkran is officially THE BEST way to celebrate New Year!!!

However, I fully realize that it wouldn't exactly work in our weather (throwing water in Qc in January isn't eactly the idea of a lifetime, and you only need to step outside in Van to be drenched...not as much fun! hehehe)

We finally arrived at Khao Sok. here is a pic of our questhouse.

Not too shabby indeed! hehehe

Written on April 17....

I'm starting to understand the people who read Lonely Plant and go to any place NOT mentioned in there. We've been in Krabi for a bit over a day and are having a great time (there's apparently not much here, coording to LP..they're technically right, but it's part of what makes it nice : less farangs (derogatory word used for tourists by Thais) and more Thais. On that note, yesterday night, walking back from the night market (they all look pretty much the same, but are so fun to go to!, cheap food, new things to try, yay!), so anyway, we were walking back, eating fruit, when we crossed a couple and their approx 2 yrs old daughter. She pointed at me and said "farangs!!!...heeellllo!!" I started laughing and the parents looked embarassed but not much could be done. I mean, the only way she knew that word is if her parents use it! hehehe I think it's like Qc people calling english "blokes" or the Mexicans calling the Americans "gringos"...I think... hehehe, she was so cute and so candid! gotta love kids for that!

Our hotel (yes yes, hotel, not hostel or guesthouse!) had a TV!!! with Satellite!!!!! yay! It's good (and bad) to watch some TV. Indeed, we learned about the horrible killing at Virginia tech...soo horrible, but have also lost a lot of precious time in front of it instead of exploring the surroundings... oh well, we managed to go to a temple called Tiger Temple (it has a Thai name of course but I can't remember it). It's a VERY COOL place with tons of monkeys, a few temples, with, most notably, a big Buddha at the top of the mountain. 1237 steps up to be exact. It's quite the hike!!! What they failed ot mentioned is that some sections (many in fact) are soo steep the steps are actually double the height of a normal step, making it even harder. I took some good pics that I'll download soon. It took us approx 40 minutes to get up, all while sweating super heavily! hehehe All and all, it was very worth it, and our first encounter with monkeys (they're SOOOOOOO cute!!!!)

Well, I think I'll go cure my cold in front of the TV(the first so far on this trip. It's not very bad, but keeps me up at night, so I'm pretty tired!). On top of it, we booked a long day tomorrow of sea kayaking (through caves!!) and elephant trekking! YAY!!!
Cheers!

Written on April 15...
So much has happened over the past few days that I don't even know where to start....
First of all, it was my mom's BDay yesterday and I wasn't able to call or e-mail because everything was closed (because of Songkran). I hink she turned 38 or something...maybe 39...hehehe
Bonne Fete Ginette!!! :-)

Alright, so Songkran is the New Year for Thai people. We went from year 2550 to 2551 (it's actually the year they use on everything: tickets, boards,..I don't know about legal documents, but I wouldn't be surprised). My life insurance co said that I would retire by the year 2045, so I feel a bit robbed to be still working in 2551! hehehe, This holiday is celebrated by people throwing water at each other. IT'S SOOOO MUCH FUN!!! It actually officially lasts 3 days, but the "water throwing" lasts 1-2 days in most places, and up to 1-2 weeks in tourist areas. Aliya and I were in Suratthani on the first morning, and I took a few pictures (which I won't post right away because the internet is 2B/min here and posting pics takes me at least 1 hour). In a few days. I didn't take a super great number of pics because..well my camera isn't exactly waterproof but it'll slightly illustrate the events here. There were NO OTHER WHITE PEOPLE in Suratthani, so it was very very cool to see the actual Thais celebrating their tradition. Essentially, families would gather in front of their shop (which was closed obviously) and have a massive bucket of water (think a big wine barrel or something like that) and each have either water guns or plastic bowl and douse you/each other in water when you came near by.
It was all in good fun and it's sort of a blessing, so your've supposed to say thank you (khop khun khaaa). They also had thalk (coloured powder) mixed with water to become a kind of a paste which they would dab (or rub all over) on your face. We decided to see how many colours we could gather, we had pink, blue green white and orange. On top of these families on the sidewalks, other families were in pick-ups (i.e. the dad would drive and the kids would be standing (yes yes, standing, forget about safety here!) in the cargo area with a massive barrel of water and throw water at passerbys, people on moterbikes and the people with their own water on the sidewalks. The result: a massive traffic jam (at certain intersections) of people in pick-ups throwing water at each other! hehehe! soooo funny. Everybody quickly gets completly drenched, and it's all in good fun so the mood is very positive. Some families had big chunks of ice in their buckets, so their water would be freezing (they always thought it was very funny to hear us squeak at the coldness) hehehe. Everybody in the family was involved, from the youngest kid to the dad!!! (moms seemed to monitor everyhing rather than actually participate as much.)
So anyway, after walking around for 1 hour, we embarked on a local bus to our current location: Khao Sok National Park.
Aliya wanted to shower and change into dry clothes, but I talked her out of it (and it's a good thing as you'll see).There are different types of buses here: the minibus (exclusively for tourists), air con buses for locals and tourists and no-air-con for locals (and the rare tourist -like us).
We sat at the back on the bus, only to find out that the back door didn't close. It remained opened the entire trip. This is relevant because the bus driver kept on slowing down and sometimes (often) stopping to let Songkran"ers" in the bus to dab some of their colorful mix on us. Because we were so accessible, and tourists, we got repeatdly, as Aliya would say, "raped with colour".
Even when the bus didn't stop, people would throw water into the bus (the opened back door was always the target, and they were quite good at it sometimes!) SO the result was that we would start to dry off (with the wind from the opened windows and door), then get covered in colour, dry off again, then completely soaked (aka "washed"), then dry off some more, then more colour, and more water and so on for the 3 hours of this trip! hehehe I've got a couple of pics of that. It's too bad the full effect of the colours doesn't come through very well.
So we finally made it to Khao Sok, and walked for a while until we found this quite decent place to stay. We unpack and everything, only to get to the bar/restaurant and find out that ALMOST EVERYONE there is Canadian!!!! hehehe There are a couple of guys, brothers, with a travel/tour co called Free and Easy. They organize groups from Canada/US to vists a few places here in the south of Thailand. Sounds like a pretty nice concept... SO anyway, we've been hanging out with them for a couple of days now. Very cool. Since they come here often and give good business to the owners fo the place, they get all sort of special treatment, and us by ripple effect. Quite fun! (and the guys are quite good looking, tanned, and always walking topless, soooo eye candy ont op of it! yay! hehehe!)
I can't complain!

Final story for now. Yesterday Aliya and I went hiking in the National Park here (it's a proper jungle with..well, jungle animals! - we didn't see any except for 1 kind: leeches!!!, and may of them!)
we started the walk around 2:30pm. It's a 4k hike to a waterfall. All is well until at around km 1.5 I (felt the bite) of a leech on my ankle (small thing, but still gross!) weeeee! We keep on going. At km 2 we start wondering if we can make it on time until darkness, so we decide to pick up the pace significantly. We get to the waterfall after fighting many many leeches (Aliya got 6 on her ankles and I had one as high as my thigh (it bit me for a long time before I noticed and it bled for the rest of the trip. Result; my left pant was "blood coloured".) They weren't even in the water, they seemed to be on the ground of the trail, or maybe the trees, so it was quite impossible to escape them. We looked at the waterfall for about 3 minutes (it's a waterfall, whoopti doo!) and more bothered about having to fight more leeches on the return trip than anything else and get going again. It's now 4:30 and we're still concerned about darkness, so we "haul ass" for another 2 k. Result, we almost jogged (actually, it was more like a fast walk but still) 4 k in total (2 each way) of a 8 K trip. We were exhausted and pretty grossed out over the leeches.
Jungle hiking: check. Will not want to do this again!
So that's that for now!
Cheers