[4-29-06] - Again
Fuck it. I was going to get a list of things I needed to bring this time, but fuck it. I'm going with a few pair of underwear, some t shirts and my bathing suit. this shit is real!
Posted by travel at 1:39 pm PDT
[56]
Posted by Anthony at
[11-10-03] - Pictures
if anyone is interested, i started scanning some pictures of south east asia. i've been back for 2 weeks and its hard getting adjusted back to american life, unemployment, etc. but check it out here
Posted by travel at 5:54 pm PST
[10-4-03] - Back alone... again
Back in Saigon. Kev left a while ago. but since I'm doing this alone now, i'll redirect you back to the other journal i've been keeping.
here
Posted by travel at 12:54 am PDT
[9-24-03] - What war?
As I sit now in Bngkok and look over the last month, I realise that it would be impossible to try and convey the ins and outs of my trip to vietnam with anthony. We did and saw so much, that to write it all down would be exhausting and pricey. So I'll just try to say a few things.
I can't imagine going there without someone who speaks the language, because I must admit to not getting the greatest vibe from many of the strangers and shop owners I met.
This is why I am truly grateful to have met his relatives, their generousity and vitality was truly astounding.
I was lucky enough to experience Saigon not as a tourist, but as a local. We ate at places that were tucked away in back alleys, far from the eyes of wandering backpackers. When I walked into these packed restaurants with anthony's relatives, I was accepted. It took awhile for people to stop staring, but I was accepted. I never looked at a menu in saigon, and was thus privilaged to some of the greatest food I have ever tasted. We feasted 3 times a day for an entire week. I so enjoyed our meals. I enjoyed teaching the girls english slang, just as they all loved my attemps at vietnamse.
One of my favorite things to do was to express a fairly complex idea out loud and very animated to everyone at the table. They would look on attentively waitng for me to finish and then turn to anthony for a translation. He would give me a look and struggle to explain what the american capitalist ethic is and how it seems to have permiated in saigonese culture.
When we went down to vistit his aunt on the delta, we also had the insiders deal and ate, dare I say, even better sea food. Big elaborate meals with soups and squid and crab and lobster. Fish that just melts in your mouth, my god it was good. The free range chicken was excellent although difficult to digest. We stayed at his aunts convent in can tho.
A pair of flamboyently gay doctors who worked for his aunt were our guides around the delta region. Siegfried and roy carted us around on their motorbikes. We explored the out of the way villages that the convent helped out. We took boat rides up the mekhong. We woke at the crack of dawn and visited a real, untouristed, floating market. The sun rise that morning was probably the most awe inspiring sight I saw all trip.
The south was so incredible because It didn't feel like traveling. We had home cooked meals. We went to parties. It gave me a chance to stop judging a place based on its architecture or its 'charm', but on the everyday lives of the people that live there.
Leaving saigon was very sad. I hated to see all their sad faces. Len started crying, and li gave me a hug and we were off to the north.
Gioan accompanied us. Gioan is Anthonys cousin. Hes in his mid twenties, currently unemployed and a hell of a pool player. 5 years ago when tony visited last, he pretended not to speak english, even though, in reality, he had studied for 6 years. He was a fantastic travel campanion and a good friend.
He got us the insiders deal at all of our hotels, bought my gifts for me to get the local price, and saved me the trouble of having to talk to waiters. Until of course we got to hanoi, at which point, he understood about as much as I did of there twisted vietnamese.
Its hard to believe that its been less than thirty years since the war ended. Yet, to go there, the war is long gone. I assumed that I set foot in nam, I would feel the heavy cloud of the war lingering in the air, but no. In fact, no one ever spoke of the war at all. We went to see the tunnels, but that was about the extent of my contact with the war. It's not surprising at all really. No one has time to think about the war, and besides, who would want to even if they did. Its a country with an amazing resolve and a fighting spirit. Just look at its history. They beat the USA, they beat China, they beat the mongols. Now, for the first time in a long time, they have a chance to fight for the well being of themselves and their country. And they are winning that war in spades. The cities are beautiful, full of upscale hotels and museums. At a glance, Hanoi and saigon could be any city in europe if you took away the sweltering humidity and the motorbikes. The Vietnamese seem to have a knack for looking forward rather than backward (except someone should tell the government to take down all the propaganda signs that have the vietnamese flag and the soviet flag flying triumphantly side by side) and are thereby almost assured to prosper.
The fact that I, an american, can waltz around this country snapping photos, when 25 years ago we were at war, is remarkable. The I wonder if my kid will be backpacking in Iraq in 25 years... somehow I doubt it.
Posted by at 3:19 am PDT
[8-29-03] - Country Roads
The roads are abysmal. Just unbelievably bad. Not a single paved highway in the whole country. But the scenery is beautiful. Driving through northwest cambodia is like driving across the midwest. It is the rice bowl. Flat as a pancake and rice as far as the eye can see. Green. Lush. Kelly green. The emerald asia.
Entering cambodia from thailand is quite an experience. Crossing the border at poipet, the streets were lined with half naked children begging for money. Countless despondent old men, missing legs, held out their caps, desperately seeking my pity. A crowd followed us down the street pulling on our clothing, grabbing my arm, riding on my legs. I wanted to take everyone out for milk and cookies,a hot shower perhaps, but alas, I realized that my money can't solve their problems. These are troubled people, victims of a country torn apart by a bloody, 20 year, civil war. A war rife with such unspeakable horror, that a smile seems to be their only recourse.
The friendliest people on earth -- the Khmers. But they take some getting used to. Picture a nation full of close talkers. They stand right up against you and are facinated by everything your say. Everyone wants to know where you are from, how to say something in english, just hang out. We didn't just stay at our guest house, we joined the family.
At siem reap, to get to ankor wat, one needs a hitch a ride on a motorbike. The drivers all slept at the guesthouse on hammocks. As such, their were always at least 5 or 6 dudes milling about, wanting to play cards or just shoot the breeze. The patriarch of this guest house was a guy named sayha big (because one of the driver was also named sayha. He was known as sayha small). He was the boss. He was very intimidating -- the kind of guy who would kill if you looked at him funny. Sayha was very proud of his position as the resident alpha male and asserted his authority whenever possible. All of the drivers followed his orders without hesitation. He was the kind of guy who whore his pot belly as a badge of prosperity.
We came to call him suge knight, because of how incredibly badass he was. But we made friends with him and he invited us out to play snooker with him. This was the first occasion that Chu feared for his life during our stay. He was on suge's team. And lets just say that suge didn't appreciate the effort chu put forth. Sayha small and I were winning handedly and suge was not happy about it. Anthony said later that it was like "playing russian roulette with billard balls." I hate to say it but under the intese pressure, Chu folded like a little girl. At times missing the cue ball altogether. He asked me to take a dive a few times, but snooker is so difficult that even my best effort was pretty pitiful. Not bad enough, however, and we widened the gap. Suge told Anthony to get a beer, maybe that would help. He was a man who didn't like to lose.
The second such occasion in which he feared for his life was when we went to sing karaoke. We drove out into the middle of nowhere to the 'place'. I stopped for gas, so chu arrived before me. We both expected that we were going to a bar of some sort. So when he arrived at a shack at some deserted river, with me nowhere to be seen, he just assume that he was a dead man. Classic mafia style hit. I showed up eventually and we sat in a shack, we drank warm beer, and we sang. The only two english songs they had were 'seasons in the sun' and 'hotel california'.
Ankor What?
An series of magnificent buildings, walls and temples. The largest is Angkor Wat. It is as high as notre dame cathedral. It is enclosed by walls 2 miles long.
Ankor Where?
Central cambodia, 20 km north of Siem reap.
Angkor Who?
The Khymer Dynasty at Angkor. They dominated seasia during the middle ages
Ankor When?
From 800 AD to 1300 AD. The city of Angkor was the largest city in the world at the time. Estimated at 1 million people.
Ankor How?
Thousands of laborers working tirelessly to pay homage to their god-kings. They were adept stone carvers, left no stone undecorated.
Angkor Why?
King Jaravayam II declared himself a god- king and quickly relaized that to talk like a god one must walk like a god. Their religion was a hindu/buddhist hybrid. In hindu the gods live on five sacred mountains, surrouded by a cosmic ocean, with mount meru in the center. The king made his own version. Five huge towers sore above the whole structure and is surounded by a mote 200 yards wide and 2 miles long.
The question most commonly asked is, how could this civilzation flourish in such a seemingly remote location? The answer lies in one of the most curious natural phenomenons in nature. Every spring, when the snow melts in the hymalayans, the mekhong rises and flows to the ocean. The water volume is so great that not all of it can espcape to the ocean. The delta is too shallow. Instead, the water backtracks, and the tonle sap river flows north filling the tonle sap lake. (In Phnom Pen we watched some kids jump of a dock into the river. Anthony comented on how strong the current was, noticing that the kids could not make it to shore until a 100 yards down river. Then I realized that the current was flowing north. This mighty current was actually going up hill!) For 4 months a year the lake quadruples in size and becomes the largest freshwater fishery in the world. It was on this banks of the tonle sap that the angkor made their mark.
The structures are a testament to a glorious civiization. The most amazing place I have ever been.
Our ride to Phnom Pen was a mierable one. We had been out drinking the previous night with our newly acquired brothers, and the 8 hour trip was almost unbearable. Departed at 6:30, no A/C, hungover, packed like sardines in tiny seats, on diabolical roads, it was rough. But to make matters worse we had a crazy guy dressed as a monk sitting at the front of the bus. He was chanting at the top of his lungs. At first everyone just thought that he was ecentric, but we slowly realized something was off. He must have been schizophenic because he was talking to himself. He kept getting up and threatening people with his stick. He was making everyone on the bus very uncomfortable.
He didn't seem like a monk. First of all he had a ton of tatoos. Secondly, he had something like 5 bags with him (hardly an acetic packing job). I finnally got comformation that he was a fake when he ordered his second free meal of the day when we stopped at 2:30 PM. (Therava monks can not eat after 12:00) Eventually it came to the point that if he threatened anyone else I was gonna get up and scream at him. I was ready to fight the guy if I had to. I was in that kinda mood. That would made a great news story -- American beats up monk in cambodia.
When we steped of the bus I was mobed, immeadiately, by at least 15 guest house workers. They were screaming, trying to grab my attention, hoping for my bussiness. After such an awful trip I was in no condition to handle such an onslaught. They had me up against a wall and I was yelling at them, chu was yelling at me, they were mimicing our swears, it was a mess. Eventually I just shut down. It must be what celebrities go through everytime they get out of a car.
Eventually I notice that one of the screaming assailants had a sign that said "Kevin Hirten". We ended up going with him (Sayha phoned ahead. His cousin owns a guesthouse in Phnom Pen).
Phnom Pen is the most authentic city we've seen. Virtually no white people. Not a single McDonalds. Anthony gasped, when he thought he saw a pizza hut in the distance. But upon closer inspection, it was a knock off, like everything else here -- pizza house, similar logo. In the various markets, I was always the whitest and the talest person.
Phnom Pen was once know as the jewel of indochine. I can see why, the architechture grand and decidedly french. Baggettes, cafes, wide boulevards -- it feels like paris. Unfortunately, it's charm is diminished by unbelievable poverty. All but the main boulevards are dirt roads. Stray dogs and giant chickens compete with bicyles and motos for control of the crowded streets. We rented bikes. Chaos. Utter Chaos. (I'd love to go to an asian drivers ed class. Written on the black board 'The rules are, there ain't no rules'. Pick up your licences on your way out, class.) People cut you off, hit you, blast there horn in your ear. Its horrible, but facinating. Somehow everyone seems to get where they are going. The system works. It is an experiment in anarchy. Anarchy only works if everyone subscribes to it.
It is amazing to see that it is a culture completely devoid of road rage. They pull things that would never fly anywhere else. The drive slowly down the middle of the road, honking incesently, the wrong way up a one way; they pass, going up hill, at night, with cars coming; they automatically merge into crowded traffic; but amazingly no one even bats an eyelash. Drivers pull things on the road here that would seriously get you killed in new york city, not by getting in an accident, but from the other driver getting out of his car and beating the shit out of you. But no one cares. You can do what ever you want here and once you get used to it, it can be quite liberating. Still terrifying, but liberating.
The genocide museum was chilling. There were still blood stains all over the floors in the prisons. The Khymer rouge documented everything. The museum was full of gory photos of bleeding bodies and pummeled faces. The torture techniques were grotesque. They pulled out fingernails with plyers and dunked the hands in alchohol. They cut holes in flesh and force millpedes to burrow in the gaping wounds. So much suffering. So much life yet to breath back into this wonderful country.
Posted by at 4:40 am PDT
[8-23-03] - 100 Baht ticket to America
We crossed over into Cambodia last night. An exhausting 14 hour minibus trip. The company kept track of us by placing little pieces of green duct tape on our shoulders, they run a tight ship here. But it was only 100 baht!?! We made it out alive
Yes, that was a cow in the middle of the road your minibus slowed down for
Yes, we just did pull over and get gas from a shack that had gas in pepsi bottles, we want premium!
Yes, the driver is using his cell phone ringtones as a radio
Yes, that pot hole was about the size of another car.
Dammit, I forgot to withdraw enough US dollars in Bangkok to fire a rocket launcher.
Welcome to Cambodia.
Despite traveling 105 KM on one of the 10 worst roads in the world (from Poipet to Siam Reap), 1) I'd do it again as its going to be fixed in the next year or so and it truely is an experience and 2) Its an amazing contrast of crap roads and beautiful lush vegitation, something I believe only the third world can provide. Bringing us back to the fact that being in Thailand for the last almost 2 and a half weeks, I almost forgot I'm in the third world.
We pulled over last night, a girl kept asking me for money so that she should go to school. I gave her my Cross Ion pen and told her to use that insted.
Its hard to turn down these faces.
Another young boy rode 1 KM on his bicycle just to practice his english on foreigners. He spoke to Kev and I as the other towns people we infactuated with the Finnish girls we have been traveling with.
Kev tried to tell the locals that Angkor Wat was the eight wonder of the world.
"What are the other seven?"
He had no idea.
I told him that my family is from Vietnam
'Does your heart bleed?'
(Because I am away from my home country...)
I'm not sure how to answer that.
'Why do you wear glasses?'
(Because I can't see anything without them.)
Remember, this is the same country that Pol Pot ruled with an iron fist, wearing glasses in those days warranted you being dragged off in some field, tourtured, and shot.
Cambodia.
-Anthony
Posted by travel at 7:23 pm PDT
[8-22-03] - Why is it obvious that a seal is not a fish?
On the night train from surat thani, we sat next to a pair americans. I asked them where they were from. They said Boston massachusetts. It occured to me that, as a traveling pair, we don't come across as american. Chu has been mistaken for everything from shanghainese to thai. A lot of people, for some reason, think that he is is singaporean. And me? Well I reckon that I look more british or icelandic, or whatever, because even my accent doesn't give me away sometimes. If it weren't for our chacos no would be able to tell.
Bangkok is shrewd place. Everyone wants to take your money. Every one is selling something or selling it for someone else. Coming from southern Thailand, the land of the smiles, it took us a while to figure out how to deal with this. The are guys known as 'touts', they roam the streets looking for bangkok first timers and send them around the city on a very cheap tuk tuk rides. Along the way, they drop you at various bussiness that pay the touts commision.
Despite our best efforts to look like we knew what we were doing, we got suckered by a fast talking tout. He knew we were new to Bangkok because we lacked that cold 'don't hassle me' steely eyed stare that we now posess. I don't know how it happened really. I was looking at the palace and the guy asked me what I thought of it. I said it was beautiful. He told us that it was a buddist holiday and that there were special 20 baht tuk tuk rides around the city. ( A tuk tuk is a three wheeled motorcycle, like an open air taxi) He said he would take us to free Muay Thai Kickboxing and temples. He took us to 'Top 10 collection tailors'. And we looked at suits. If we were girls it would have been gems. But as Great White says 'Once bitten, twice shy.' Now if a tout stops me on the street I recomend a great tailor and try to sell him a suit.
The national museum was great. Thailand has a rich history, punctuated with constant fights with burma. 'The Surathai empire ruled for 400 yrs, until it was destroyed by the burmese' 'Ayathaya was the capital of siam for 600 yrs until it was sacked and destroyed by the burmese' Actually, what we came away with, more than anything, from the Thai national museum, was a heightened respect for and facination with Burma.
A word on Koa San road. It is like a multiethnic version of church street on speed.
Anytime you can travel 1000 kilometers for 100 Baht (Roughtly $2) it pays to be skeptical. When we, after a fair amount of agonizing, decided to take the 100 baht, 12 hour 'vip night bus' to Chaing Mai we weren't just hoping not to get jacked, but we were almost expecting it. We made sure our film and our essentials were with us and threw our caution to the northern thailand wind. Chu's plan was to sleep in shifts so we could keep an eye on our bags down below. But we soon realized how ridiculous that was, if they were going to steal our bags, they were going to steal our bags. So we just sat back and enjoyed the absurdity the bus itself. Chu said it was a converted glam rock bus, poison's perhaps. The plush purple interior was offset nicely by the burgandy ( with gold trim) curtains. Downstairs there were wrap around couches and a minibar. The worst part of the journey were the loud, and remarkably stupid, british girls behind us who played word association games the whole way and provided the title for post.
We found out that, to opperate so cheaply, these buses are financed by guesthouses. That we were to be dropped off, groggy and miserable, and welcomed by the smiling faces of Johnny's Guesthouse. Offered a bed, in broken english, at a slightly inflated price.
We had none of this. I was almost tempted by the free coffee and tea, but thank god chu's resolve was strong enought o rip me away. We got off the coach and walked as fast as we could ignoring every smiling face until we reached the safety of the predawn streets.
A lot of hippies in Chiang Mai. Many who havn't left since my parents were there in the 70's. One of the most interesting things that I noticed was that hippies have aged just as badly in Thailand as they have in the states. One would think that, amongst the local flavor and clothes, the hippies would still look like hippies. But even in Chiang mai they all seem to wear high waisted jeans with denim shirts and bright white sneakers.
The wat in the middle of town was cool. The top was missing, destroyed by, you guess it, the burmese. They have something called monk chat. A bunch of monks sit around in an outdoor square and encourage travelers to come and chat about buddhism, thailand, whatever. I went. I chatted with a monk called gui lon. I asked him how a country full of practising buddhists, and not just buddhist but theravada buddhist ( buddhisms equivolent to christian orodoxy), can have such a belligerent history? How can a buddhist go to war? He said, 'the same way a christian or a muslim goes to war.' He said that sometimes we have to take step off of the 8 fold path for a while to defend those we love on this earth. It was a way of reconciling the, somewhat self centered, nature of the religion with the demands of the reality. Very interesting fellow.
Chiang Mai was another place were everyone wants your money. Only it is less dressed up than bangkok. People will just come up to you and ask you for money. I can understand beggars or desitute children, but sometimes they were just dudes. 'Can I have some money?' No you can't have some money, at least sell bracelets or flowers like everyone else.
But I believe that there is a greater significance to this phenomenon. It is regarding the tourist culture in general. I take offense that a guy comes up to me and asks me for money, but it really isn't his fault. At least he's being honest -- cutting through the bull shit of selling me something that I don't need. The fact is, I represent money to most of the people I see on the street. Why? Because all travellers do is shell out money in some shape or the other. So I wish that I could meet up with that dude again and toss him 20 baht just for being honest. Id rather that than overcharging me at dinner just because I am white.
We went up towards Chiang Rai to the golden triangle. Gorgeous country up there. Looks like vermont. We were up at the top of thailand and it occured to us that we had gone the entire length of the country, from the southern most point to the northern most point. The mekhong was even more impressive than I imagined it. More mississippi than hudson. A raging river in every sense. It carries water from the Chinese highlands and speeds it along to the southern tip of Vietnam. It is brown and swift and has enormous fish it. They have pictures of 600 lb catfish that have been pulled out (mighty good eatin). The most famous fish is a 130 foot long seaserpant looking fish. The marines caught it in the 70's and the picture is everywhere. It took 27 marines to hold it up. It was a sacred fish. The locals will tell you that all 27 marines died. Believe it or not.
We took a speedy, low riding boat to an island that belong to laos and spent some time there. They sold bottles of whiskey with dead cobras preseved inside. We sampled it. Strong stuff.
From the shores of the mekhong we could see burma. We could hear it calling us and the lure was too strong. Peterman alone was enough to sell us on the place, but after the museum we had to go. We got a day visa for 250 baht and spent the afternoon in the Union of Myanmar.
The difference was immeadiate. even though we had only crossed a bridge, Burma was a completely different place. For one, it is a repressive military state, and machine guns don't say welcome. The presence of the state was tangible. We tried to take a picture of a state building and a man yelled at us. We crossed the border with an impish, cokney kid who was joining the royal navy. At one point he remarked, 'Two yanks and a brit, I'm sure they love us here.'
Burma was much scarier. The poverty there is greater than anywhere else in the region and acording to lonely planet, it is 100 yrs behind the rest of se asia. We were followed everywehere we went by men trying to sell us everything from cigarettes to hookers. Lots of shifty looks and hairy eyeballs. It was nice to get back to thailand.
Took a bus back to bangkok last night and tommorow Cambodia.
Posted by travel at 3:58 am PDT
[8-17-03] - Made It
anthony-
Kev took a personal day today, much like the one i took in Penang that involves nothing but sitting on your butt all day and doing nothing.
So the sleeper bus worked out. I am surprised it did as when we pulled over numerous times last night I swore I saw someone run over to the side of the bus and jack all our stuff. Here in Chang Mai, probally no trekking, no human zoos.
I took a step back while in Krabi. To notice that everyone in the room (all tourists) were doing some sort of work, being math problems, reading etc. and just kind of noticed the ridulousness of the situation of how people travel 30,000 miles for the privledge of reading a book away from home. Much like SSR in middle school when I used to sneak in magazines insted of reading library books, the same factor applies now, only I don't have to hide the magazine.
Things I forgot to mention:
1. A bat shit on my arm in Khoa Sok while eating dinner.
2. Iver saying that he'd have to reconsider a Thai massage after the tubing incident where both the brits were struggling to get by, falling behind in prickly bushes and almost hitting rocks, coming out quite sore. To quote "Its like sitting in a pool, then getting beat by bats. If a Thai massage is like this, I don't want it, I'll leave with bruised ribs".
3. According to Kev, my life is now divided into 2 eras, Pre-long sleeve all over bruce lee shirt and Post-long sleeve all over bruce lee shirt .
Have a fantastic day.
Posted by travel at 10:42 pm PDT
[8-16-03] - Koa San Road
Kev--
Well here I am in Bangkok, after a week at the beach and in the mountains, with a momentous task ahead of me. How do I possibly try and convey through digital words what we have seen and done? Well I guess I should just start in penang.
It seems like a year ago that we were in malaysia and eating a special type of cuisine know as 'nyonya'. Essentially it is a malay take on chinese food. The dishes tend to be seafood based soups busrting forth with sour curry and chilles. The Laksa annan is a sour fish soup and the prawn mee (arguably the best I had in malaysia) was a red stew full of chunks of fish and giant prawns (The size of small cats). I went up penang hill with an english chap named andy. It was full of dense rainforest, monkeys and huge colonial houses. Apperantly, the colonial establishment lived up there in the summers to escape the heat and the frequent outbreaks of malaria and typhoid. Boy, what a life those guys had. Penang has become more facinating to me the further away from it we get. The reality of the city, esspecially the chintown and little india sections inwhich we statyed, is a frenzied, moped laden battle ground with open sewers and blistering heat. But at night the city, sans the sun, reinvents itself into much more quaint former british coast town. The sea side espanade by the fort has food all night long and outstanding fresh fruit juice. We went to the open air bars and drank tiger beer. At one such place, we made the mistake of inviting a drunken old man named wilkenson to our table. He was a retired rubber plantation manager who has worked all over the world, his last place of residence was liberia. He told us all about his life: how he escaped his sihk wife from singapore 10 days before she was to be married, about the sexual techniques that he used in his nightly threesomes with the liberia women of the plantation, about narrowly escaping manilla alive after sleeping with prime ministers son's wife (the most beautiful women in the phillipines). We cast most, if not all, of his musings aside as garbled drunk talk, untill he showed us his liberian ID and a picture of his sihk wife and kids back home in britain. Anyway enough about wilkenson.
We left penang for Krabi. It is a coastal town that acts as a hub for day trips to various famous places in southwest thailand. The most famous of which being the islands of Ko Phi Phi, where they shot the man with the golden gun. We avoided that island, too touristy. I was up to Chu to find a suitable island to satisfy our beach needs. He choose Ko Lanta and he choose wisely. This is an island that is just begging to see the tourist boom that is striking may of the islands (esspecially Ko Samui and Ko Phan Ngan on the east coast). We stayed a place called waterfall bay, the second to last beach on the island. It took 30 miutes in the back of a pickup on bad roads to get there but it was worth every spinal injury. It was everything we could have hoped for, short of the grapes thing that anthony mentioned. The beach never had more than 2 or 3 people on it. The water was so warm that we would swim for hours on end and no even realize it. The beach was bisected by a crystal clear mountain stream that led up to a water fall about 3 kilometers up the trail. I can't do justice to the place here, so I won't perhaps the pictures will help but I doubt it. The food was great, we went snorkeling, it was in every sense of the word paradise. We went to party with the son of the bungalo operation. His name was Ferris and he is best described as the Thai John Belushi. From what we can gather, Thai people love to dance, love to drink and love Bob Marley. Most of all we lounged around a lot, read and swam. Chu gave up on his Alex Garland book after 20 exhilerating pages, but is actually making progress on the 'Life of Pi'. Although it is looking more and more likely that I will finish The Fountainhead (which by the way kicks ass) before he finishes his book. After Ko Lanta we went back to Krabi for a night and stayed once again at the K guest house. It is friendliest place we have stayed at. Chu attempted to fix their computer, but failed. Even so, they appreciated the effort and gave us the vip treatment. Last weekend was the queens birthday. That is a huge deal and the country shut down for a 4 day weekend that culminated in a huge parde and festival day on monday. We wathced old school at a bar that night and were served our beeers in coffee mugs because no one is allowed to drink or serve drinks on the queens birthday. But judging from the amount of people having coffee that night I don't think that it is too strictly enforced.
We left Krabi, with it forever resting in our hearts, for Koa Sok National Park. Man Alive, what a place. The landscape was so impressive. Everywhere you look there are these magnificent limestone formations. The jut out of the earth and soar 2000 feet strait up. The jungle clings to them for dear life. Because it was the rainiy season, the clouds hung low over the mountains and cast over the park an eery calm that was punctuated with sudden spurt of intense rain. We Stayed in a big bungalow overlooking a river valley. We had a great veranda and an even greater hammock. Despite the food being sub par at best, we met some outstanding people. Two Londoners. A irishman anmed murphy and a world traveller named Iver. He filled my head with adventure storiesfrom his 8 months spent in India. He alviated my few remaining doubts about planning a serious trip to the subcontinent sometime soon. We also befriended a newly wed couple from sweden. Mathew was british and Victoria was swedish but had an english mother so she sounded british. But they we both card carring swedes (actually I should say number carring swedes, because apparently you can't buy or do much of anything in Sweden with our you number). Any way they were a great couple, one of the ones that you root for. Jimmy, the owner was always willing to sit an talk with us late into the night about every thing from scandinavian socialism to superman leaf.
The highlight for me was tubing. The river was really high due to a weeks straight of rain rigfht before we got there and we traveled 7 amazing unsupervised miles down this raging river. Chu, Murphy and Iver stuggled with their control to say the least. While Mat, Vitoria and I, gracefully navigated through rapids and low overhanging branches, the rest were like pinballs boucing off prickers, the soaring and jagged limesone walls of the canyons and anything else that was possible to hit. Afterwards while we were being enterained by a local man's domesticated gibbon (A large monkey with a whiteface) Iver said rather than go tubing again, next time he might just 'hop in a pool and have some one beat him with sticks for an hour and a half' The next day we went trough the park on elephants. Fun stuff, and there is plenty more to tell but I can write no longer. We are only in Bangkok for one night and tommorow we head up to Chaing Mai. Gonna go check out the temple.
Posted by travel at 1:00 am PDT