Hello all, been another jam packed however many days it has been since I last posted. The scuba diving ended well, I almost had my advanced open water scuba certification when I foolishly decided to not listen to the little voice in the back of my head (not the schizophrenic one, he just tells me to burn things) and eat the luke warm shrimp that came with my pad thai. After a long night of mastering how to both sit on a toilet and empty the contents of my stomach into the adjacent bathtub I did not feel up to diving 30m and tripping on nitrogen. I was able to do the solo navigation dive with Hack and Jeff and the night dive. I'm pretty proud of ourselves because we were able to do our dive and pop up within 20m of the boat! The night dive was incredible though, so many creatures you don't see in the day. Also there was phosphoresence in the water so if we turned of our flash lights and moved around a shimmering neon green glow would appear around us. For some reason it is far less frightening to be under water when it is completely dark rather than floating on the surface. When the flashlights were turned off and you were staring off into the abyss one wasn't afraid, more in awe of the apparent void that you were part of. I think it would be similar to what an astronaut must feel, yet less significant seeing how I wasn't staring at the Earth! Anyways it was cool to flash your light at a bait fish, and watching barracuda try and eat it. Saw a bunch of those cleaning shrimp from Finding Nemo and all I could think of was Wes's imitation of it.
We left Koh Toh after that and went back to Samui. Had a great day on a quieter beach. Just relaxed and played cards for most the day. The Koh Samui airport was incredible though and I wish I could have just stayed there. Free food, drink and WiFi, what more could a traveler want? That night we flew to Bangkok Airport, arriving at midnight with our connection to Hanoi being at 6am. We opted to sleep on the floor of the departures section. Not much sleep was had and as we got up to check in a rat went running by close to where we had been laying. Wish he could have come earlier because I really needed a pillow.
And just like that we are in Hanoi! Very different than the places we had been in Thailand. Fast paced and very crowded and muggy! A lot of smog was in the air too but you got used that after a while. Huge differences in the populace as well. Half being very well off and half being poor, our cabby compared it to the States, the irony was not lost on me. Very modern here though, seems like if you had money and wanted to do some clothes shopping this is the place for you. We went on the HaLong Bay trip with Hanoi Packpackers Hostel which was incredible! Went kayaking through the towering islands, threw caves that led you to secluded bays that were bordered by 500ft sheer walls of stone. As well we kayaked through some floating towns that even had banks! Unfortunately a monsoon had rolled in so it wasn't the nicest whether and we weren't able to go to the castaway island but the touring company recovered and booked us into a beautiful resort on Cat Baih Island where to start of the day we went for a "hike" to a viewing point at the top of a mountain. There must have been a translation error because this hike was more of a climb through wet clay and steep rockfaces. Many times I was pretty worried that I would not be coming down the mountain but we made it to the ancient rusted viewing tower at the top of the mountain and had a view that is pretty incomparable to anything I've ever seen. Very happy I did the hike. The trip ended with a party back at the resort and a return boat trip back to HaLong City and then bus to Hanoi. Also we met a group of girls that were Handsworth Alum 2005 and Argyle Alum 2007! Talk about small world, you travel half way around the world just to hang out with people you probably would have never even met back home. Anyways I hadn't gotten any sleep for the past 4 days due to snoring hostel mates, airport floors, and late nights in Halong followed by early mornings so when we got back to Hanoi we found a nice Hotel and slept for 12 hours. Cost 30 bucks for the room but we didn't care, I just wanted somewhere with a shower, nice bed, and cable and damn I was happy. We have a couple more days in Hanoi and then Cambodia so I shall have more stories on my next update.
Graeme
Saturday 2 July 2011
Wednesday 22 June 2011
SCUBA STEVE
Hello all, been a crazy couple of days since my last post. Been a lot of travel but have finally found time to write. From Phi Phi we went to Krabi which wasn't all that entertaining. Purely just a transit stop. But the next stop was Koh Samui which was a very beautiful island and we stayed at a beach side resort which was a little grimey. Luckily for us there neighbors were a brand new resort and bar with all of the necessities. The part of the beach we stayed at seemed like Cancun. Very packed with food and gift shops with some excellent night clubs thrown in. Pretty casual next day, just hung out on the beach the weather had been crummy for the last couple of days, so a little sun was a welcome sight. I unfortunatly forgot to put sunscreen on my legs which I regretted that evening. My lobster legs had me bed ridden for the night, but just relaxing did my body wonders and I was ready for our next adventure, Koh Toh.
Koh Toh has been incredible. It is a island paradise surrounded by white, palm tree beaches where one can come watch the sunset with a Chang after a long day of scuba. By the way, I am getting scuba certified here! One of the most incredible experiences of my life was being 12m under water today swimming around a huge coral reef. So many colourfull fish that names have all passed me were dodging in and out of the rocks and coming to eat Derek's burned shoulder skin which was hilarious for us, but not so much for him. Tomorrow is our last day of scuba where we are going for a 630am 18m dive. I can't wait! I am seriously considering doing the advanced course which would allow me to scuba without an instructor up to 30m. The jury is still out on that one. Also last night Kara finally succeeded in "dragging" us to a lady boy show (what a pun!). We were hesitant but happy we went in the end. It was hilarious non nude burlesque (sp?) show to classic songs like abba and Tina Turner. Everyone had a great time and some unfortunate Aussie guys got dragged up on stage for the "lady boy" experience. I finally figured out why there were so many lady boys here. Apparantly the women here control all of the buisnesses, and own all the property. The men have all the physical labour, or labour intensive jobs. Many of them don't enjoy this aspect of being male so for the low low price of 10000 baht ($300) they can have a sex change and apparantly get into the burlesque/prostitution industry. Don't know how that is better than what they were doing...who knows. We have 5 more days untill Vietnam, and the way things are going I think we are going to spend them on Koh Toh. Now I must return to my sand bag chair on the beach. Untill next time.
Graeme
Koh Toh has been incredible. It is a island paradise surrounded by white, palm tree beaches where one can come watch the sunset with a Chang after a long day of scuba. By the way, I am getting scuba certified here! One of the most incredible experiences of my life was being 12m under water today swimming around a huge coral reef. So many colourfull fish that names have all passed me were dodging in and out of the rocks and coming to eat Derek's burned shoulder skin which was hilarious for us, but not so much for him. Tomorrow is our last day of scuba where we are going for a 630am 18m dive. I can't wait! I am seriously considering doing the advanced course which would allow me to scuba without an instructor up to 30m. The jury is still out on that one. Also last night Kara finally succeeded in "dragging" us to a lady boy show (what a pun!). We were hesitant but happy we went in the end. It was hilarious non nude burlesque (sp?) show to classic songs like abba and Tina Turner. Everyone had a great time and some unfortunate Aussie guys got dragged up on stage for the "lady boy" experience. I finally figured out why there were so many lady boys here. Apparantly the women here control all of the buisnesses, and own all the property. The men have all the physical labour, or labour intensive jobs. Many of them don't enjoy this aspect of being male so for the low low price of 10000 baht ($300) they can have a sex change and apparantly get into the burlesque/prostitution industry. Don't know how that is better than what they were doing...who knows. We have 5 more days untill Vietnam, and the way things are going I think we are going to spend them on Koh Toh. Now I must return to my sand bag chair on the beach. Untill next time.
Graeme
Thursday 16 June 2011
No Big deal I rode and Elephant!
Hello All, been a couple of days without internet so havn't had a chance to update. So far my time in Thailand has been complete madness (in a good way). We arrived in Korran late on the 11th and got settled in our room. Me and some of the lads decided to go check out the beach and departed for what we thought would be a short trip. All the travel shows I've watched on Thailand were correct about the nightlife. We seemed to get harrassed by prostitutes at every store front, at some points the words "I love you long time" could be heard from multiple directions. We finally made it to the beach which was beautiful stayed for a bit and then tried to find a shortcut back to the hotel which avoided the brothels. This was a poor decision because 10km later, cutting through the Hilton and getting chased down by a pack of wild dogs the longer route decidedly looked like a wiser decision. The hotel would have been on a 4.5 star rating in Canada, yet it only cost us 11 dollars a night.
The city was a much nicer place during the day we found, the water was bathtub warm with huge waves which we spent hours body surfing ine found a restaurant that served almost every dish imaginable but since we were in Thailand I decided to have pad thai, at ever meal! The day ended as per usual, with bungee jumping. We found a New Zealand run bungee jump that was super safe I'm sure. 160 feet and I'm happy to say I did it. The next day consisted of us finding somewhere that played the hockey game. After watching the Canucks get destroyed we went for a elephant ride. Me and Brad rode a 17 year old elephant thru the jungle. At times it seemed we were going a 100 degree incline but the elephant was able to keep its cool and get us back safely. Pictures will be supplied on my return! That afternoon we left for Koh Phi Phi, and Island just of the coast where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. Found a nice hotel to stay in and decided to take in the towns night life. Lets just say I had my full moon party of the trip and am quite fine with just relaxing for the next 5 weeks haha. It was a beach side bar that had fire dancers and glowing skip rope challenges. Was an enjoyable evening had by all.
Today we wanted to go see Monkey Island and some of the other beaches found on the local island. We were told that it was too wavey to take a long tail to these beaches and that we should pay the extra to have power boat. But we would have none of that! We are backpackers dammit and we will always find the cheapest deal. After our little wooden boat came over the second 10 foot swell I again regretted our decision. So with Kara succumbing to sea sickness and the rest of us uneasily laughing at our predicement we finally landed at our first snorkeling destination. It was a cove with 100 foot high cliffs rising straight from the water all around us. Pretty incredible landscape that my engineering brain has difficulty putting into words. On the return voyage both Kara and Brad again gave into seasickness and we were all happy to reach shore where the locals who had been telling us it was a death trip were there to greet us with pointing and laughter at our terrified faces. All in all Thailand has so far been one hell of a time, and we are looking forward to leaving to the scuba school on the eastern side of Thailand tomorrow.
Next update I will be a certified scuba diver!
Graeme
The city was a much nicer place during the day we found, the water was bathtub warm with huge waves which we spent hours body surfing ine found a restaurant that served almost every dish imaginable but since we were in Thailand I decided to have pad thai, at ever meal! The day ended as per usual, with bungee jumping. We found a New Zealand run bungee jump that was super safe I'm sure. 160 feet and I'm happy to say I did it. The next day consisted of us finding somewhere that played the hockey game. After watching the Canucks get destroyed we went for a elephant ride. Me and Brad rode a 17 year old elephant thru the jungle. At times it seemed we were going a 100 degree incline but the elephant was able to keep its cool and get us back safely. Pictures will be supplied on my return! That afternoon we left for Koh Phi Phi, and Island just of the coast where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. Found a nice hotel to stay in and decided to take in the towns night life. Lets just say I had my full moon party of the trip and am quite fine with just relaxing for the next 5 weeks haha. It was a beach side bar that had fire dancers and glowing skip rope challenges. Was an enjoyable evening had by all.
Today we wanted to go see Monkey Island and some of the other beaches found on the local island. We were told that it was too wavey to take a long tail to these beaches and that we should pay the extra to have power boat. But we would have none of that! We are backpackers dammit and we will always find the cheapest deal. After our little wooden boat came over the second 10 foot swell I again regretted our decision. So with Kara succumbing to sea sickness and the rest of us uneasily laughing at our predicement we finally landed at our first snorkeling destination. It was a cove with 100 foot high cliffs rising straight from the water all around us. Pretty incredible landscape that my engineering brain has difficulty putting into words. On the return voyage both Kara and Brad again gave into seasickness and we were all happy to reach shore where the locals who had been telling us it was a death trip were there to greet us with pointing and laughter at our terrified faces. All in all Thailand has so far been one hell of a time, and we are looking forward to leaving to the scuba school on the eastern side of Thailand tomorrow.
Next update I will be a certified scuba diver!
Graeme
Saturday 11 June 2011
Singapore law #312, dancing in a public place, $5000 fine
Hello again. Been in a Singapore for 2 days now and have been having an awesome time. The 22 hour was a bit interesting, especially the 13 hour Van - Hong Kong flight without a tv, didn't know I was capable of reading that much... But got to Singapore just before midnight, checked into the hostel and found out that Mackenzie Spur and Mike Wong were staying at the same hostel. The smallest of worlds. Fist day involved a lot of walking, and I mean a lot. Singapore is intensely diverse culturally, which finds you walking in ChinaTown at one moment, and in a Little India the next. Found myself having a chopped pork and noodle dish for breakfast, butter chicken for lunch, and a pad thai style dish for dinner.
Public transit here is also incredibly efficient, and reliable. Unfortunately everything here is more expensive then it would be in Canada which kinda sucks, but when it comes to beer I'll pay a little more for the finest Tiger Beer Singapore has to offer.
Decided to go swimming at an amusement park they have here, unfortunately the "pristine" beach is just past 100's of tankers and oil platforms. Defiantly didnt stay in the water long and stepped on some weird which Brad Ross assured me only had 2 eyes. Today we went to the zoo which, well that was neat! You can get super close to all the animals which seem to be held back by a couple of wires and a low fence with moat accessorie. Animals were all up and walking so was interesting to watch them do their thang. The zoo is located in the middle of the rainforst situated on a slow meandering river. A thunderstorm rolled in which led to a scene straight out of Deer Hunter, minus the torcher and Vietkong. Was a very relaxing visit. Hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight, jet lag has been killing me, but I feel I have adjusted. Luckily I quickly adapted to the heat. Leaving Singapore tomorrow for Thailand, has been tons of fun here but looking forward to get to a country that's easier on my wallet.
Cya later,
Graeme
Public transit here is also incredibly efficient, and reliable. Unfortunately everything here is more expensive then it would be in Canada which kinda sucks, but when it comes to beer I'll pay a little more for the finest Tiger Beer Singapore has to offer.
Decided to go swimming at an amusement park they have here, unfortunately the "pristine" beach is just past 100's of tankers and oil platforms. Defiantly didnt stay in the water long and stepped on some weird which Brad Ross assured me only had 2 eyes. Today we went to the zoo which, well that was neat! You can get super close to all the animals which seem to be held back by a couple of wires and a low fence with moat accessorie. Animals were all up and walking so was interesting to watch them do their thang. The zoo is located in the middle of the rainforst situated on a slow meandering river. A thunderstorm rolled in which led to a scene straight out of Deer Hunter, minus the torcher and Vietkong. Was a very relaxing visit. Hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight, jet lag has been killing me, but I feel I have adjusted. Luckily I quickly adapted to the heat. Leaving Singapore tomorrow for Thailand, has been tons of fun here but looking forward to get to a country that's easier on my wallet.
Cya later,
Graeme
Tuesday 7 June 2011
Pre plan settlers
To open this blog I would like to write the following disclaimer. I will be writing as if the verbal diehrea were flowing out of my mouth so if you are expecting this to be a polite annotation of my romp around Asia you either don't know me or hope that I have matured since graduating. Well guess what, I havn't.
Our nights activities consisted of settlers of catan, which consists of putting together 4 once close friends and tearing them into vessels of pure euphoria or unquenchable rage all based upon the caste of two die. Once friendships were re established the night carried on as we except it will for the next 6 weeks, trying to make sure Jeff is on the same flight as us. Not much else has happened, last couple of days have been very relaxing at Hotel Leslie, located in the Sy district of Brampton, where stabbings are kept to a minimum of three per day. I shall keep this thing posted on a regular basis which is yet to be determined.
Goodbye and farewell.
Graeme
Our nights activities consisted of settlers of catan, which consists of putting together 4 once close friends and tearing them into vessels of pure euphoria or unquenchable rage all based upon the caste of two die. Once friendships were re established the night carried on as we except it will for the next 6 weeks, trying to make sure Jeff is on the same flight as us. Not much else has happened, last couple of days have been very relaxing at Hotel Leslie, located in the Sy district of Brampton, where stabbings are kept to a minimum of three per day. I shall keep this thing posted on a regular basis which is yet to be determined.
Goodbye and farewell.
Graeme
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