Island Life

I tell you, it's the island life that's making us all very lazy. Hope everyone had a great Christmas, ours was very same same but different!

Ko Tao, Thailand
So we bailed from Kanchanaburi straight through Bangkok (1/2 hour stopover, just long enough to grab necessary supplies from the ubiquitous 7-11) and down to Chumphon, a small town on the coast that pretty much has nothing going for it except ferries that go to the islands.

The next morning we were up early, instant coffee keeping us alive, and we jumped on the ferry to Ko Tao. I've got a long tale about how awesome the boat ride was (for me at least), since the waves were huge, the wind was up, and the choppy seas served to transform our once pleasant catamaran into a floating charnal house of puke and vomit. I can proudly say that I found my sea legs early and survived the trip...though I did get drenched a bit. We decided to sit right at the bow, so we copped the spray every time the boat took a dip. Which was often! Amazing though, really enjoyed it.

Arriving at Ko Tao, everyone off the boat wobbling side to side and pale as sheets. We found our bungalows down the other end of the island, away from the overhyped and generally crappy tourist half. The bungalows were simple, but they were perched upon a rocky promintory overlooking turquoise blue bays, palms and coconut trees swaying in the breeze, hammock out on the balcony...five days of blissful relaxation! We went into 'town' every now and then for ... um ... "essential supplies" (you just can't keep beer cold around here), but generally just loafed.

Had Christmas Day lazing around in hammocks, listening to music and drinking beer. Lunch was a low-key affair at the local restaurant, and dinner was a big "buffet" (what kind of buffet doesn't let you go up for seconds? A buffet that serves you a plate of food as big as your head!) of roast meat, veges, all the trimmings.

Boxing Day saw us settle into the Safety Stop Pub at Mae Haad Pier to watch the game that was beamed from Australia to South Africa to Ko Tao. Don't ask. Warnie got his 700th, us and the Aussie/Kiwi contingent watching (bout 10 of us) were extremely chuffed for him. Couldn't have asked for a better ball either!
It was awesome. Beer in hand, lounging around on couches, the cricket in front, a random island street to our right, and to our left, the Gulf of Thailand.

Ko Phang Ngan, Thailand
We watched the second day of the test on the 27th, killing time before our catamaran to Ko Phang Ngan at 3pm. Rocked up, escaped the clutches of the taxi touts on the pier, and lo and behold! ... couldn't find a taxi. A tourist island, with no taxis. Eventually found one and got to our accomodation: Mac Bay. We picked it cos it sounds like MCBAIN! ...it was funnier at the time.

Hat Rin (the big party beach) is 15 minutes away by Songkaew, or local bus/taxi. We checked out the night life, and discovered that all the restaurants on the little strip of touristed road turn into mini-cinemas at around 5pm to attract a crowd.

We're back in today trying to find some accommodation closer to the beach for New Years, without success. Admittedly, we didn't have high hopes in the first place. We'll be staying at MAC BAY!! and travelling in on the night.

We discovered a beach tucked away behind the main strip of Hat Rin about an hour ago. The beach was draped with beautiful, tanned women in various states of undress. Unfortunately I forgot my swimming pants, but I'm gonna go swim in what I'm in anyway. The whole beach looked STUNNING...oh, and the water was good too.

Found those buckets of booze too that I was so looking forward to! It was like what the women always deny...size DOES matter. The buckets I've seen are TINY! Where are my MEGABUCKETS?! I ask you that. And your reply is silence.
My challenge is now to not only find and eat fried grasshoppers, but to find and drink a megabucket. I will not be thwarted so easily!

D and J are chilling in the pub, so I'm off to keep them company. Hopefully be posting again before New Years to wish you all well!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We hope Santa doesn't bring you coal like he's doing for us.

Love Jono, Drew, and Adam

Big Changes Afoot!

Kanchanaburi, Thailand
9.30pm

So the biggest news is that we've had a change of travel plans. Originally, we were going to go from Ko Phang Ngan on Jan 2nd and fly to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) in Vietnam, where we'd pissfart around until Jono left us on Jan 11. Then the partying would BEGIN!

But after realising that every single possible route known to humans, plants, and animals back to Bangkok (so we could actually leave the country) was taken up by none-other than the Thais themselves (apparently they get holidays. Who woulda thunk it!), we had to think up an alternative strategy.

So the newer and much more awesome plan is that we're not going north anymore; we're going SOUTH. From Ko Phang Ngan we're island hopping across the country all the way down to the south of Thailand. Here, we're going to crashtackle some Muslim insurgents at the border and then dash off into Malaysia. We'll cruise around Malaysia until we end up in Singapore around the 9th of January, where Jono will fly to Bangkok and then to home and Melinda, and Drew and I will fly to Ho Chi Minh and the Love You Long Time Club.

So while Jono chills with the ladies at home, D and I will go up through Vietnam and Laos, back into the top of Thailand, and Bob's your hermaphrodite uncle! Genius plan! While everyone else in the country goes NORTH, we go SOUTH! We're so smart it hurts sometimes.

Asstastic (18/12/06)

So after arriving in Kanchanaburi on our first day, I suffered from a mild case of Bali Belly. I'll spare you the details, but I will say one word: squishy.

On our second actual day in town (yesterday) we woke up late and organised some travel stuff and sorted out our new travel plan, bought some second hand books for the long days lounging on the beach, then went to the Tiger Temple on the outskirts of town. A group of monks run a wildlife sanctuary there, including 11 tigers all rescued from the wild as cubs as raised by hand. Drew and J loved the shit out of the place and got some photos with tigers. I had some issues with both the tourists around the place and the way it was all presented, so after working myself into a state I suffered what I like to call a GIGANTOR headache.

Ate a place called Apple's Guesthouse that night, highly recommended if you're ever in this part of the world.

Twilight on The River Kwai (19/12/06)
Yeah, I'm lazy and putting three posts into one. So sue me!
We didn't quite make it back in time today to catch sunset at the Bridge on the River Kwai (actually called the Death Railway Bridge, but who cares about semantics). So we got twilight instead.
We've taken to catching local buses betweens towns and to places we want to go. Its cheaper, and its also a lot more of an experience than air-conditioned insulation from the world provided by tour buses and expensive 'tourist' buses.
So we caught the local up to Hellfire Pass for 45 baht. That's $1.50 for you maths geniuses. Had a big nap on the bus cos I was feeling like ass (I'm much better now, thanks for asking!). Checked out the small museum there. Hellfire Pass and the Burma-Thailand Death Railway is, to be honest, an area of our history that I don't know much about, so it was as much a leaning experience as a cultural one.
I can't say the typical phrase of "it was a sobering experience" applies, but the whole deal did make me think. They're better men back in the day than us 'modern' guys who would crack in the first week, let alone 3 months of what they went through. No history lesson here, hit up wikipedia if you're interested.

We walked the entire 4km and back of the track that is open for walking. Hot and hard going at some points, but nothing we couldn't handle. It was hell to imagine how the POWs and local labourers managed though, considering they BUILT the damn thing out of a freakin' mountain.

Back at the museum, we chatted with the manager of the whole area, Bill. He's an Aussie ex-SAS guy working for the Australian Government in Thailand and is associated with the Aussie Federal Police. He's currently the honourary consul of the region, running the museum and looking after Hellfire Pass, training parts of the army (the Pass is reached by going through a military 'farm'), looking after the Governor's security, teaching schoolkids about the history of the railway, and coming down and bailing out drunken Aussies from Kanchanaburi. Busy man! Great bloke to talk to as well. Jono commented later that there's two kinds of Army guys: the ones that talk like there's no tomorrow and are great guys, and the guys that are just complete tossers.

Tomorrow we're off on buses to Bangkok and then down to Chumphon on the coast, there to stay the night before heading to Ko Tao for Christmas. This may be our last missive before the holiday season, cos Ko Tao is quite rustic. Not sure there'll be working internet connections on the island. They turn off the power at 6am for like 4 hours every day, so my hopes for some form of modern technology may be dashed on the rocks of despair. Your Christmas post is above!

One Night In Ayutthaya

Kanchanaburi, Thailand
5pm

That was quite possibly the most randomly awesome night we've ever had. After our swim at the Grand Hotel, we got Glen and his mate Jason to drop us off back at Malakor to meet Pui. We had some more dindins and drinks, then chuffled off to find some dessert at a night market. We tried the thai dessert of coconut ice cream, I mixed mine with sweet pineapple, delicious! But the best bit was what I like to call the Babar moment. I'm scoffing down my second bowl and a goddamn ELEPHANT walks up to us! A random night market, eating ice cream, and an ELEPHANT shows up beside the table! So awesome. We paid 20baht for some sugar cane to feed the cute little critter (it was a baby). Soooo cute! I'll chuck a photo up here of it the next time I'm on.

After the Babar moment, we went off to a bar outside of the touristy areas that Pui likes. It was called Song-Mai. Drew and I had a WTF moment while we were there. We tried to get our heads around how random chance it was: sitting in a random bar off the highway in Ayutthaya in Thailand, with a local guy we met yesterday, drinking Johnnie Walker Red whiskey, listening to a random Thai cover band, sitting there in thongs and boardies while all around us Thai people are dressed up and partying. The only farang in the place! We very uber-fortunate. Plus, we were back drinking whiskey...which in hindsight I resolve to never do again.

There were a lot of beautiful women there; it was like a normal night club, except instead of a dance floor there were tables and chairs like a restaurant. People sat/drank/danced at their tables. It was a new club, and had table service. The music alternated between a live band (1hr+ set) at one end of the room and a DJ at the other end. Towards the end of the night there were some dancers/thrusters/grinders/whathaveyou up on the stage, and they were GORGEOUS. Like the tourists we are, we got up there with them and took photos.

After the club we went to another roadside stall where Pui bought more beer. Even though we insisted that after two bottles of hooch, we were ready to pass out, nothing could hold the big dugong down. Drew's line of the night at 3am.
"Congratulations Pui, you've managed to outdrink three Australians. Well done. Can I sleep now?"

Crashed back at Pui's house, nice little place. Karma has been awfully nice to us on this trip; at the bus stop, instead of a crappy bus to Saphanburi (the stopover before Kanchanaburi) we scored a new comfy one. That's the latest in a series of fortunate events for us, so we must have pleased somebody somewhere by doing something.

We said our goodbyes to Pui and tracked down Mr. Yod to say bye as well. Its really weird how comfortable and welcome we feel over here; its almost like every town starts to feel a little bit like home. And it's the people that make us feel so welcome! An excellent country.

Currently in Kanchanaburi after 4 hours of quite possibly the two most boring bus trips ever. We're about to go have dindins and scope out the nightlife, but we have to wait til 5.30 for the restaurant we want to eat at to open. Touristy stuff tomorrow (Hellfire pass, Bridge over the River Kwai, all that). The River Kwai, by the way, looks exactly like every other river in the world. I was expecting something more befitting it's reputation!

A Change of Scenery

Ayutthaya, Thailand
1pm

First, happy birthday to my cousin. They grow up so fast!
Second, we're starting to meet random people and it's turning out for the best!
Third, we've covered a bit of ground. So here's the rundown.

We caught the sleeper train to Lop Buri on Wednesday, got in at 4.15am. It was stupid how comfortable I feel on trains and sorting out train tickets after Europe! The train was supposed to arrive at 3.30, so we were up at 3. If I'd known that the train was running late, I would have had 44 more minutes sleep!

Cantered into town, packs akimbo, and found the nearest open hotel. We had to wake the reception staff, but ended up getting a double and a single for 300baht a night. Passed out, woke up later, and went for breakfast in Thailand's equivalent of the Fawlty Towers restaurant. While we were there, they ran out of tomatoes, mushrooms, yoghurt, jam, sugar, and eggs. The two dudes dashed out twice to buy more stock...funny stuff! :D Couldn't hold it against the German owner though, he was too nice.

The monkeys in Lop Buri weren't all that exciting, but we did get to watch two of them go at it doggy style. He was a lion in bed...over in three seconds. We found our way to the bus station, and some random pointed us at "the bus" to Ayutthaya. I checked the name board, and the name in Thai matched up with the Thai name for Ayutthaya, so we jumped on and prayed. Turns out that, although the bus only cost us 40baht for a 2 hour trip, it was a) a local bus and b) PACKED with people. It was an interesting experience, being the only farang on a local bus driving between the sticks and the "big city".

We rocked up in Ayutthaya and checked into PU's Guesthouse. Again, another double and single. Drew and J are getting really good at spooning with each other. For those interested, Drew is the little spoon.

Yesterday we hired bicycles and rode around town, checking out ruins and historical study centres. This town was the duck's nuts back in 1672, and the 400 years before it...then the Burmese invaded and wrecked the joint. Economically strong, politically stable, good life for the people. Tops place!

Before we went riding, we went to the bus station to check out how to get to Kanchanaburi. An old man on the side of the road says "Hello! How are you?" I stopped, answered, and ended up talking to him for 15 minutes or so. Our new friend Mr. Yod informed us that there is no bus station, we just jump on a bus. He even told us which bus to take, and when it left. What a champ! He used to ride a rickshaw around for 30 years taking tourists on tours of the city, but then he fell over and bunged his leg. Now he just talks to random folk like us and was extremely proud to show all the notes and business cards people had written on over the years to say thank you. Goes to show that there are still nice people in the world who aren't out to scam you!

We went on a river tour of the Wats, took some wicked photos of them at sunset, then went out for dindins at a place called MALAKOR! Cool name. Sadly it means 'papaya' in Thai.
It was here that our plans changed: we met a bloke called Pui, who is a mechanical engineer working for Panasonic. Speaks Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and English, all fluently. He's just moved back home (his parents live in town) 6 months ago from Singapore, and we decided to get thoroughly sauced with him. We went to a night market after dinner for some more eats and drinks, and we spent most of the night chatting with Pui, learning things in Thai, and asking questions.
We're meeting up with him again tonight at Malakor, and he's gonna show us the sights and sounds of Ayutthaya, then we're crashing the night at his parent's place. Get this: back in the day when Pui and his sisters were still in school, the family hosted exchange students. Their first exchange student was called Helen, and she was from a little town called Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. Bloody small world!

Breakfast this morning saw us chatting to Chris, a British ex-pat English teacher who works at the high school Monday to Friday, then runs a bar he owns (where we had breakky) Saturday Sunday. He married a Thai chick, been here for 2 years. Also met Glen, another Brit ex-pat English teacher who gave us the advice to go swimming at the Grand Royal Hotel pool if we were looking for something to do to kill the day. I think we might just do that!

Image Dump

Okay we spent ages resizing images and uploading them to photobucket, so we're far to lazy to copy and paste them here. If you want to check out some of the visual highlights of the trip so far hit up www.photobucket.com

The log in details are: username: wanglor, password: 1wanglor2.

Enjoy. And please don't delete anything.

Leavin' On A Sleeper Train

Please, enjoy a courtesy photo of Jonathan playing with the cute kid in the village.

The last two days have been summarily uneventful; we've really been waiting around for some transport to open up so we can bail on Chiang Mai. Not that we haven't loved it here; the trek was amazing, the cooking class was fantastic, and the staff at Gap's House have been amusing and friendly the entire time we've been here. I'll miss Pim (the lady who can organise anything), and the cooking class teacher Jo's haunting, murderous "I'm gonna getcha!" laugh. Aaaaaaaaaahh!

...Drew and Jono know what I'm talking about. sheesh.

Drew's had a touch of the Bali Belly, so we've pumped him full o' drugs and he should be right today. I really want to get my greedy capitalist pigdog hands on some portable IPod speakers before we catch the last horse outta this one horse town. Its just not the same chilling out with the three of us and some beer without some communal moosik to groove to.

Our train leaves at 430pm, and arrives in Lop Buri at the astoundalicious time of 330am. We're looking forward to watching the sun rise over the capital of the monkey nation before we pass out and are eaten by rabid primates.

Chances are we won't get some internets in monkeytown or Ayutthaya (the ruins of the old capital), so the next post will come from Kanchanaburi in a few days time. For those of you playing at home, that's the location of the famous tiger temple where we three kings will get to play with some tigers and their monk handlers.
We're looking forward to playing with the tigers more than the monks though.
There's also something called "The River Kwai", "Hellfire Pass" and "Erawan Falls" in the area too, though being the uncultured savage that I am, I'm not sure what they are.
Jokes! It'll be an interesting cultural experience. Jono is particularly keen on it, history buff that he is.

Hope you're all enjoying gearing up for Christmas. Eat some stone fruits and seafood for us; we're gorging out on 5baht bunches of bananas for all of you, never fear!

Jungle Trekking And A Summary

I kept the written journal going on the trek (and the trek was AWESOME!) but I really couldnt think how to sum it up. So I just stole Jonos email to a few of our friends, with his kindly permission. What a champ. Hes also quite good at going and buying me beer!
The photo to the right is the three of us plus our guide Sonny and the lady who was driving the ute. Prior to contrary belief, Sonny really does know how to smile.

++

We're in Chiang Mai at the moment, which is in the north of Thailand. It's the second biggest city but it's a lot different to Bangkok, not so business-y and with a lot nicer atmosphere. We went on a three day trek the last couple of days, which was really fun. It was nice to get out of the cities and see some of the real country. The trek consisted of us hiking between villages through the jungles, along small country roads, and through rice paddies. It was just the three of us and our guide.
The villages are amazing, just as you'd imagine a village to be, with small rickety bamboo huts, pigs and chickens running around, and little kids who are amazed by pens and paper, etc, etc... We made lots of friends, especially with the kids, even though we couldn't speak any of their language. They each had their own little dialects so each time we got to a village we would ask our guide how to say 'hello' and 'thankyou', haha. On our last night there was a cow that fell into a gully and died in a nearby village and so our guide went on a night time trip to bring back some of the meat, coz it's apparently quite an event. So he brought back the meat and we had a bbq, sitting around with the village adults drinking their homemade rice whiskey (they drink it straight from a cup made from the cut of top of a plastic bottle, they just pass it around the circle), and eating the meat and rice with our fingers, sitting on a mat. They sure don't waste any part of the animal either: as well as the meat we ate the ear, the lung, and the oesophagus. The lung tastes frikkin' aweful but the other parts are alright.

We also rode an elephant and just before we went back to Chiang Mai we did the touristy thing and had a bamboo raft ride. The day before the trek we did a thai cooking course, which was very fun and educational, and Drew and I went and did a 'monk chat' at a temple in town. This was listed in Lonely Planet and we thought it would be interesting. Basically, you just go in and have a chat to a monk. It's good coz we got to learn a bit about Buddhism and monastic life and the monks get to practise their english. The monk we spoke to spoke really good english and was very smiley! We asked him the tough questions too, like the belief system of Buddhism, the Buddhist viewpoint on science, whether monks eat pizza, etc. We only spent two days in Bangkok before coming up here. The city was really big and busy and quite difficult to get around and there are a million touts everywhere you go trying to rip you off. It was interesting though, but two days was enough. From Chiang Mai, we are heading to Lop Buri (south) to go to a place called 'Monkey Town' and we will then spend a bit of time in that general area checking out some old war stuff like the River Kwai and the Death Railway, and a Tiger Temple where you can pat tigers and have them put their heads in your lap etc. After that, we'll head south towards Phuket and the beaches and Islands around there. We leave Chiang Mai by sleeper train in 2 days.
Notes about Thailand:

• The cities stink!! There is either this rancid smell of sewerage and rubbish in the air, or else there are the fumes from all of their dodgy old cars.
• Everything is so cheap! A meal will cost you anywhere between about 80 cents and 3 bucks depending on where you go. Our accommodation costs us on average about 10 to 15 bucks a night, often including breakfast. Tuk-tuks are probably the most common way of getting around, and they are really cheap also. A 30 minute ride will probably cost about 2 bucks, which is not much split between 3. This net cafe is costing me 15 baht for an hour, or about 50 cents.
• Drivers are crazy. No one obeys the traffic lights or stop signs etc. The other amazing thing is that no one gets angry, no matter how crazy the other drivers get. I wonder if it's something to do with their Buddhist outlook or something.
• Elephants are cool. You don't so much ride them as sit on top of them while they eat coz they have to eat all day, which makes progress very slow. When they walk you can't even hear them because they step so softly. They are really gentle and you can walk right up to them and play with their trunks etc.
• Thais love plastic bags. They put everything in them, which includes the juices that they sell on the street (you stick a straw in the bag and drink straight from it), sauces, take away soups, etc.
• Street food is everywhere. It is really cheap and very good. It is also very clean.
• Thai people love their King!! It was his birthday on the 5th and we were in Bangkok. EVERYONE wore shirts that say 'I love the King' or just had the royal symbol on them. The shirts are bright yellow. Heaps of people also keep wearing them for the whole month if you can believe it. Can you imagine people doing that for the Queen's birthday in Australia?! Everywhere in the country there are massive photos of the King, and shrines with flowers, etc. A few more things about the King: it is a crime to insult the King, if you drop a coin it is a crime to stand on it because it bears the image of the King (and the feet are considered the dirtiest part of the body, so it's a double insult), and if you are posting a letter you cannot lick the stamp to stick it to the envelope because stamps bear the image of the King (and Thais believe that only animals lick things, hence you're also not supposed to lick fingers after a meal either, etc).

So anyway that's about all I can remember to say at the moment. We haven't gotten sick so that has been a relief. It's a bit of a surprise actually considering we've been swimming in local creeks and running around barefoot in pig-shit covered villages playing soccer with village kids (Drew and I had cuts on our feet as well :-S).

+++

Thats Jonos labour of love. He mentioned bamboo rafting on a river, but what he didnt mention was its name. It was karmic love at first sight, we saw the name on a sign and rejoiced.

!! The Wang River !!

The mystical river that we knew existed but didnt know where came and found US. We were so happy we could have cried. I think Drew did. We stopped for a bit to jump from an unhealthy height into the river, and as we leapt we each wanged the Wang. Our guide Sonny videoed us on Jonos camera, and here is the end result.

I hope everyone appreciates the sheer random fluke that us rafting on the Wang River was, as much as we appreciate finding the damn thing out of sheer dumb luck.

I cant believe we finally managed to wang the Wang. Our happiness is complete.

Toilet Is That Way, Follow Your Feelings!

Chiang Mai, Thailand
7pm

We've settled into a place called Gap's Guesthouse here in Chiang Mai, and it's an awesome little place. Its like a tranquil hideaway in the sea of crazyness that is Chiang Mai. And it's only 750baht a night for a palatial room!

We visited a temple called Wot U Mong (hahah...geddit? So did we, thats why we went!), which was great. Nice and peaceful, the kinda place you could set up camp happily for a day just to read a book and chillout. Monks chanting and everything. We spent most of the afternoon trying to find a nonexistent place called Bike N Bite. Lonely Planet lied to us! We had the grand idea of renting pushbikes and riding out to Wot U Mong, but since we couldn't find the bike rental we bribed a tuktuk driver to take us there instead. Superlative idea, since we would have died a quarter of the way into the ride. 3kms out of town my ass! Lonely Planet failed us TWICE in the same afternoon! For those interested, Wot U Mong literally means Temple Tunnel (U Mong is tunnel). That's cos there's lots of tunnels there. And yeah, we walked through em. Shoes off, religious style.

Had a 1 hour full body oil massage too, which was ok. I had an inexperienced chick who didn't understand the meaning of consistency. Jono had a full body oil massage too, but he had an awesome chick. Drew got a Thai massage. When we walked by he still had his clothes on, so we assume he wasn't allowed to wear his birthday suit like us. (that shouldn't have stopped him though, pretend you're a nudist!)

Today we had free breakfasts at Gap's Guesthouse (awesome room, free food, friendly people...highly recommended!), then shuffled off with two other travellers to do Gap's Culinary School, or as I like to call it, cooking class. We are now officially qualified to burn people's insides. Cooked like 8 different dishes, ate them, savoured them, learned to love it. Picked up a kickass recipe book as part of the course too. Thai food uses a base of 5 different 'tastes': sweet (sugar), salty (fish/oyster/mushroom sauce), sour (tamarind paste/lemon/lime), spicy (chilli et al), and crunchy (fresh veges, peanuts). It's mainly a balance between sweet and salty in a large portion of the dishes. So easy to cook too! One pot cooking? Screw that, one WOK cooking!

Gonna be out of contact for the weekend; we're off doing a three day trek around the mountains up north. Riding elephants, bamboo rafting, jumping off waterfalls, treking up hills, snuggling with hot backpackers on cold nights, visiting 'hidden' villages...its gonna be awesome. Can't wait!

A Post From The Edge

Chiang Mai, Thailand
11am

Maybe I should call my journal "The Edge"? Note to self: contemplate name.

So here's an edited down version of what I wrote about Bangkok and our first day.

"We landed in Bangkok at their shiny new International airport. The airport was very long, and very big. We tasked Jono with finding us a transport method into Khao San Road; he settled on the 500baht taxi option." (incidentally, when we went back to the airport for our flight to Chiang Mai, it only cost us 360baht.)

"Tomorrow is the king's birthday, and it seems as if the city itself is celebrating. Strings of lights are hanging up and down the streets and in a big park near Khao San the locals were having a bit of a knees up. The park was ringed by market stalls selling everything from t-shirts and trinkets to food, shoes, posters, and the odd harmonica. I paid 10baht for a container of what I thought would be pineapple juice, but turned out to be corn juice. Don't ask me how they make it. Still no sign of my fried grasshoppers, tho I do still live in hope." (I found my fried grasshoppers on Khao San our last night there; sadly, I was off to dinner a the time and made a mental note to go back and have them. By the time I made it back, my saviour had vanished like a fart in the wind. I still live in hope.)

And from the second day:
"The day started off with a shower in our combo-shower-toilet-bidet-sink room." Yes, it's all in the one room. Seperation? What's seperation?

I kinda took my journal with me when we hit the piss the other night. Here's how it went down, written style.
(neat writing) "We've got a 3 bed room in the Khao San Palace Inn, 950baht a night. We're about to head out for beer, hookers, and food. Not necessarily in that order."
(shambolic writing) "Anyway, we went out. Had a 3L jug of Tiger beer at the singh bar. Either way, we have against time with each other 2nite. After the Singh bar we went to the Center Khao San. At this point we had a bottle of Sang Sam whiskey mixed with redbull and coke and with ice."
(insert huge smiley and a Love Jono sign)
(even more shambolic) "Got maggot, its tops. Every trip needs to get drunk together and see who they really are. Only then can people spend 3 months together. Drew says: Sang Som whiskey sucks but I'm f*cking wasted
Jono says the same, minus the f*cking wasted"
(insert cartoon drawn by Drew)
(in huge messy writing covering an entire page) "And Adam says f*cking hell, this is the best way to start the trip EVER"

As you can see, "shambolic" was the word of the day.

We caught the plane up to Chiang Mai, and it wasn't a scam. Took us about an hour, it was great.

Today we're pottering around Chiang Mai, sorting out some accommodation, having some breakfast, going to some temples, and whatever else tickles our fancy. Tomorrow we're gonna be doing the thai cooking course that I'm keen on, and then we're looking at doing a trek over the weekend. As always, we'll keep you posted. As Ed Murrow would say, "Good night, and good luck."

PS: Drew can post here too! Yay! I don't have to be the only one trying to remember stuff! :D

Yo

Okay at the moment I'm in Chaing Mai in an internet cafe that is actually a dudes living room. I'm partially watching some horror film on TV with his kids on the couch next to me. It's a surreal experience.

So much has happened and it has only been 2-3 days so I'll try and super summarize.

-Flight good, boring though.
-King festival pretty cool, heaps of lights and everyone wears yellow. The love the shit out've this guy.
-Khao San was a dump but kind've fun. Its such a tourist ghetto.
-Bangkok as a whole is just...a city. I mean yeah theres heaps of Thais but it's exactly like being in the valley but with LESS asian signs.
-Tuk-tuks, three wheels or ridiculous coolness. I love them.
-The taxis have no seat belts and do 120 on the freeway.
- I was really suspicious we mite be getting scammed at this travel place, cause a dude approached us and recommended it. Turns out he and it was legit, so thanks to them we flew to Chaing Mai today and are staying at a pretty sweet hotel for cheap.
- I cannot for the life of me say goodbye in Thai properly. It's Cop Coon Crop but everytime I try it I fudge it and look like a tool. Jonos pretty fluent tho the bastard.
-The Kings birthday bash was awesome, we had a really good time. I am now hideously sick from it but hey its always about balance.

I've probably forgotten a heap but I'm tired and buggered so meh. We're doing cooking courses and temples and treks the next coupla days, so stay tuned to here about it.

Journal-tastic!

Greetings all from sunny Thailand! I've been keeping a written journal rather than an online one, so I'm doing my best to summarise the events of the last few days in about 18 minutes, cos Jono and Drew wanna get a shuffle on. Plus my internets time runs out, although at $1 for an hour, I'm pretty certain I couldn't give a shit.

So, where do we start? We took off, we got bored, we landed. Although I highly recommend Thai Airways; their entertainment system is FANTASTIC. When I have more time I'll type out some of the journal, and you can get some more gory details to gossip about.

We found ourselves on Khao San Road our first night, and as luck would have it we arrived the day before the Kings Birthday. The King over here is like...the ultimate shiny Drew respect point. Every loves him, so they were having a big festival/party thing in a park about 5 minutes walk from the Road. So us being us, we tagged along and checked it out. We heard the bass from the stages before we even saw the crowds. We saw a shitload of people, watched a bit of muay thai boxing, shopped around some markets, and generally got looked at as if we'd grown a third head. There were practically no foreigners (farang! I learnt a new Thai word!) around, which we thought was odd. Come the next night, there were backpackers everywhere. But we had that little festival night all to ourselves.

We've sorted out Jono's flight home and we're heading up to Chiang Mai tonight. Flying in a plane, would you believe. The trains are all booked out until the 11th, and there's no way in hell we're sitting in a bus for 15 hours. Not after that plane flight over here. So we're taking el-planeo, for about AUD$90 and 1 1/4 hours flying time. Easy!

We haven't done much touristy stuff yet, and to be honest we didn't have our first beer in Thailand until last night. For those of you that are time savvy, you'll realise we spent 3/4 of a day in Thailand without touching hooch. Don't ask me how it happened, I haven't figured it out yet.

So when I get a bit more time, I'll let you know more. Suffice to say we've investigated Bangkok and we're ready to move on. Tho I gotta make mention of the fact that everything is SO DAMN CHEAP! Beer is about $2 for a tallie, and we discovered that they sell 3 LITRES of beer in a tower/mini keg thing that sits on your table. Costs about 15 bucks, which is the cost of 1125mL of beer at home. I think we win. I had breakfast this morning (bacon, eggs, toast, 2 boiled eggs, plate of fresh fruit, OJ) for $6. Tuktuk fares from the skytrain station to this tourist place we had to go to about 25 minutes walk away cost us (drum roll please)...30 baht. That's $1. I love this place.

It's time to fly. Time is up and we've got some things to do. Thai massages, visiting cheap electronics places, finding some more beer...gosh it's a hard life.