It is my birthday, as well as Jeff Mickey’s birthday. As a birthday gift to me, please click on my google ads!! Every click helps. If everyone clicks 10 times, it would be a huge help!
This morning I woke up and ran a 4k to the beach for training at 7am. we did some warm-up stretches then some shadow boxing. then we did boxing with the trainers holding focus mitts but I didn’t bring my gloves so I swam out to the buoy in the water, about 100 yards out. Then we did some sprinting games and got to relax in the water for a little. Then I went back in the pick-up truck and ate breakfast and spent the morning/afternoon at the beach. The water here is PERFECT. Not cold at all and not warm.
If you are going to go to a beach in Phuket, I highly recommend Nai Harn beach on the south end of the island. It is calm, not very crowded and nice scenery. There is where I go nearly every day.
One of my favorite holidays I don’t get to celebrate this year. Hot dogs, sparklers, fireworks, and just being outside are great things about July 4th.
So last weekend I went to Phi Phi Island!! If you want to see some of the nicest beaches in the world…go there and enjoy. It was also where the movie The Beach was filmed, with Leonardo DiCaprio. Well actually, there are 2 islands. Phi Phi Don, which is the larger one, has all of the hotels. Phi Phi Lay is the smaller island, which is actually a national park.
The small bus (minivan) picked us up at about 7:15 and took us to Chalong Pier where we caught a big ferry. It was about 1.5 hours to get to the island. Once we got there we jumped off the back and were able to snorkel in a small area for about 45 minutes. Then we got back on the boat and they took us to a small beach for a lunch buffet. They told us that we could walk to our hotel or take the boat to the main pier. Apparently everything on Phi Phi is only a 5 minute walk ‘that way’. They said it would only take about 5 minutes to walk to the hotel from where we were. We had to walk over a bunch of big rocks, pass 2 beaches, endure about 85 degree weather and we finally got there after about 25 minutes. It was actually only about 5 minutes from the pier as we found out the next day. We should have just taken the boat but I enjoy an adventure and an adventure it was.
When we finally arrived at the hotel we were supposed to pay a 1000 baht deposit on our room (about $30). One guy with us thought he lost his wallet so we didn’t end up having to pay the deposit. So we got the room key and went to our bungalow. That, too, was interesting. Especially the bathroom. The lock on the bathroom was backwards. You had to lock it on the outside and if it was locked you couldn’t get out of the bathroom….brilliant engineering.
Then we went around looking for a long-tail boat to take us to Phi Phi Lay to see THE BEACH that was so famous. We haggled our way down from 1400 baht (~$42) to 900 baht (~$27) for the guy to take us there, stay for 3 hours and come back. So it was only like ~$9/person–pretty good. So we went there, it was really nice looking but once you got into the water there were lots of like old coral rocks. Nothing sharp, but annoying to walk on. It wasn’t just plain sand. There was the only complaint I had. Oh, and we jumped off the long-tail boat and this ‘park ranger’ guy told us we had to pay 200 baht to go to the beach because it was a national park…so if you are planning on going there, keep that in mind.
After spending 3+ hours outside and allowing my shoulders and back to get a nice maroon color, we went walking around town. There were about 100 of the same shops, selling all the same things: sandals, bracelets, necklaces, and junk. Nothing cultural, just junk mostly. We went to a couple of bars but no one was there. There was an ‘Irish’ bar that was handing out coupons or something and I asked the girls (who weren’t Thai) if they had Guinness. Nope. Well, I don’t think they can really call themselves an Irish bar! The only beer here in Thailand is, domestic: Chang, Sing Ha, Tiger; imports: mostly Heineken, a few places had Corona. The places weren’t getting crowded until about 11pm.
We decided on going to the Reggae Bar. They had a boxing ring in the middle. While we sat there they had people fighting Muay Thai…but it was fake, like WWF fake. It was fun to watch though. Then, if you volunteered to fight in the ring, you would get a free Thai Bucket! It is basically a small plastic pail filled with some sort of mixed drink. Pretty cool idea. SOOOOOOOO…..I decided to fight in the ring! During the break between rounds of the fake kickboxing, the ref walked me around holding up one of my hands and trying to get someone to challenge me. Finally, this Italian guy agreed to fight me. He was about 5 inches taller than me and about 15 pounds heavier than me. I didn’t really mind that so much but I was soooo nervous!!!! I’ve never had a fight before and I was providing entertainment for the whole bar.
They gave me some boxing shorts to wear and we had to wear head gear, boxing gloves and shin guards. There were 3 2-minute rounds. They introduced us in each corner and then the bell ring. My stomach felt like it had dropped through the floor. I started off well, had a few good jabs right in his face, a double and a could of kicks to the leg. We weren’t allowed to use elbows or knees. He didn’t have any fighting experience so he couldn’t really kick me but kept coming at me with wild punches. He had a couple good hits on my, a really good one at the beginning of the second round that knocked my head back and gave me a small bloody nose. He did better than me the second round I felt like but I came back the third round. After the third round I felt like he was going to win. I couldn’t really judge who had more points during the fight and it felt like the finale of American Idol: Ryan Seacrest holding both our hands waiting to announce the winner. And then, my hand was pulled up!!! I won! Holy crap! It was a great feeling. Can’t say the same about my nose though…It is Monday night and it is still sore from Saturday. Anyway, I won a free Thai Bucket, which I was wayyyyy too tired to drink. I just had some water and watched some more fights before we left to go back to the bungalow.
In the morning we hiked up to the viewpoint on top of the island. Only about 5 minutes away from our hotel my sandal broke so…I spent the ENTIRE DAY walking around like a native: no shoes. I walked all the way up, about 200 meters, to the top of the viewpoint with no shoes, and then back down. I stopped at this bag store that I had stopped at the night before. I asked how much the bag was and she said “I told you yesterday, 1500 baht.” And at every store you are supposed to haggle, I mean especially this store with knock off North Face bags. They had this brand: Lowe Alpine. They had The North Face bags but I’m pretty sure they are fake, I mean it is Thailand. So I go on to say “1500? That is a little expensive—” and before I could say anything else she picked up the bag out of my hands, placed it back on the shelf between the other bags and just walked back to the back of her shop and sat down. The three of us just kind of looked at each other dumbfounded…That was the worst haggle in history. She just left back into her store. It was pretty comical but rude and ridiculous. How many people are going to buy big backpacking bags on Phi Phi island, plus the fact that they are most likely fake. Then we went to go check out of our hotel. We turned in the key and they gave us our 1000 baht deposit back. Oh wait…we never paid the deposit! Ha, we looked at each other and then went on to enjoy our free lunch. Anyway, we went to the beach for about 2 hours and sat in some chairs under an umbrella…I wasn’t in the mood to get even more sunburnt than I already was. My skin felt like it was constantly being torn from my muscles by my backpack straps. It was about time to get back on the ferry that takes us back to Phuket. We were almost at the pier when 3 ladies from the hotel were waiting for us. “Oh we accidentally gave you 1000 baht!!” So we paid it back and got on the boat.
Phi Phi was fun and I would recommend anyone go there if they have the chance. I would however, recommend people spend money to get a nice bungalow to live in if they are staying for more than 1 night. Also, there were a ton of dive shops. I really wanted to go diving but didn’t have the money unfortunately. There is a lot of really good diving there. The beaches on the main island looked really pretty but were marred by all the boats parked in the bay and along the sand, as well as all the coral and rocks in the sand. The water was incredible in color though and if you don’t mind watching where you walk then the beach will be fine.
Now, here are some pictures to enjoy!!!
I thought this was hilarious.
Front of our ferry
Reggae Bar
Cool sign
The guy that owned the restaurant that we ate at for dinner would let his cat into the refrigerator to cool off.
Long-tail boat cruising past Phi Phi Lay
Fishing boat off the coast of Phi Phi Don
Our long-tail boat driver
Me at Maya Bay
Cool place to go snorkeling just opposite Maya Bay
All the fake DVDs for sale. I got Iron Man, Get Smart, and Don’t Mess with the Zohan.
This was only 70 baht. So much food and it was so good. If you go to Phi Phi, go eat at the restaurant Pappaya. It was really good and the owner is awesome.
Awesome grasshopper I found on just off Maya Bay. It was about 3 inches long. I wanted it so bad…
Maya Bay
Maya Bay official sign
Looking fat on the long boat on the way to Maya Bay
Phi Phi Lay Island
Phi Phi Lay Island again
and again
A road on Phi Phi Don
Thai Bucket!!!
Twin Bays of Phi Phi Don
Here are some panoramic shots I made of some of the beaches.
Yesterday morning I got a Thai foot massage after training. Words cannot describe how incredible it felt. It calmed my whole body and I just felt sedated. I was sitting in a really nice lazyboy recliner and had my feet on an ottoman where she was working on them. Like first she warmed up both my feet and then put some Icy Hot type of cream on my shin, calf, and foot on certain spots and then rubbed it in with some oil then wrapped my foot up while she worked on my other foot. My wrapped foot felt like it wasn’t even there it was so relaxed. I almost passed out during it. And! It was only $8 and it lasted an hour…so worth it.
Yesterday was the first day that I was bad weather here. The monsoon was really hitting hard (as you’ll see in the video below). It was pouring for about the whole day. Because of this, we had some visitors coming inside our room yesterday and today: Here and Here. Haha!! These millipedes are only slightly poisonous, according to a tour guide that saw me poking one at Proem Thep Cape the other day. My biology teacher at Denison said that they are cyanogenic, meaning they produce some sort of cyanide compound, thus they are poisonous. They are only crawling around on the floor though, so I don’t think I have to worry about it going in my bed. Plus I don’t think it would bit me just out of curiosity? Let’s hope not. They are pretty heavy as well, so that limits their ability to climb.
Here is what the monsoon was like yesterday, lots of water:
Saturday night I went out to the bar with a bunch of Irish lads! Man, it was hard to understand them. Their accents combined with loud music caused me to ask them to repeat themselves 2-3 times.
Sunday I woke up and went to get some breakfast, fried eggs, hash browns with bacon and cheddar melted on them and then went to Patong Beach to go surfing. Got my board and went out into the water. After about an hour or so I was feeling reallllly dehydrated and thirsty from the salt water. I went back in to return my board was so thirsty I started coughing. The cough soon turned into eggs and hash browns spilling out onto the sand while the Thai surfers behind me are laughing their heads off. Then I got a water and was ok…but yea, pretty embarassing throwing up in front of them plus an American couple returning their boards as well. Then I came back to my room, watched the Battlestar Galactica movie Razor and went to get a hamburger for dinner. Still don’t know really anywhere to eat yet except for one place. It’s a good place though, owned by this American guy who used to work for NASA. He worked on a bunch of rockets in the 60s and 70s and patented a bunch of technological inventions. Now he has his own wholesale food distribution company based in Bangkok to supply American style food in Thailand.
After I got back from dinner I watched Down Periscope with my roommates and went to bed at 10pm. This morning my luggage was finally here so I started my first day of training! About 30 minutes into it, I went and threw up. Just water, and once all the water was out in the sand, I just dry heaved. It is sooo hot here. Well not so much hot as much as humid. It’s like 90% humidity. I haven’t felt clean since i’ve been here. Even after a shower I feel sticky. Oh well, I didn’t come here to enjoy all the comforts of home!
So after my night sleeping on the ring, I got a scooter and a shared bungalow. My two roommates are awesome. One is from Germany and one is from Scotland. I then went to the ATM and to eat breakfast at this American place. Then I went riding along the West coast at about 7:30 or 8am. I went and checked out one beach and started to ride back up over the mountain. Halfway up the mountain I ran out of gas, so…I coasted back down. Toward the bottom I saw a gasoline sign. Everywhere you will see a Gasoline sign along the road. It isn’t like going to BP or Shell. For scooters, you get red diesel that is usually in 1 liter rum bottles. So I got some gas and was on my way back to my bungalow. I talked to my roommates a bit since they were awake and then checked my email and got online for a little. Later I got back on my scooter and rode back to one of the beaches and, since I didn’t have a swimsuit because it is in my luggage, just took my shirt off and walked throught the water knee-high. Then I ended up coming back to my place to take an hour nap. This hour nap turned into sleeping from 3:30pm until 4am. At least I am trained in the art of sleeping more than 12 hours, thats what a college degree will do for you once you graduate and have no job.
At 4am I watched Lars and the Real Girl followed by In Bruges, which were both excellent movies that I highly recommend you watch. Then I watched the first episode of John Adams, an HBO miniseries. By that time breakfast was finally open at 9am (which seems pretty late for a breakfast place to open…). I was undoubtedly starving and got two orders of the American Breakfast: two fried eggs, 4 pieces of bacon, 2 pieces of wheat toast, and home fries (x2 since I got two orders). Then I went back to my bungalow, dropped my computer off and set off on my big adventure.
Today I went on my own tour of the island. This ended up being about a 5-hour loop around the island. I started on the Southern tip and went up along the West coast, got lost up on the Northwestern area, got on the ‘highway’ to go back South but actually ended up going so far North that I saw the mainland. I then did a U-turn and headed back South. I then ended up getting lost somewhere in the Northeast of the island and then finally managed to head South again toward Phuket Town. I was trying to get back to my place in Rawai in the South however I ended up going to the Easter edge of the island at which point it started pouring for 15 minutes. Riding my scooter in the rain felt like I was getting shot with a machine gun. Once the rain stopped it was beautiful again. Finally I got back down to my place, changed into the swim shorts I bought earlier in the day and went to the nearby beach for a bit.
Getting around in Thailand is so much fun. Mostly because you are riding a scooter. The part that is most enjoyable to me though, is that because the traffic laws are more like blurry guidelines, driving is so much more dynamic than in the States. Everyone gets so bored driving in America. You just stay in your lane, single file. Here, I feel much safer on a scooter than I would in a car. If I were in a car I would have to constantly be watching for scooters zooming around me as well as taking care of narrow spots. Having a scooter gives you so much freedom weaving in and out of lanes, riding down the middle of lanes, riding up through the rows of cars to get at the front of the line at a stop light. I don’t know how I will get back to riding a car in America. Riding a scooter with nearly no traffic laws or speed limits is the life! Oh, and after riding around for about 5 hours today I still haven’t seen one police car roaming the streets or using their radar gun to catch people speeding. People seem to be getting along just fine without the police telling them how fast to drive.
Well, enough rambling, here are some pictures I took yesterday.
Kata Beach
Oh yea, there are wild dogs everywhere. I almost ran one over today on my scooter because I just stood in the middle of the street. Then I saw one that looked hungry walking toward me while I was at a stop sign in the middle of the country so I threw it some of my lunch (some spicy fried chicken). It gobbled it up and then 2 other dogs appeared out of nowhere so I threw some more and then the first dog seriously attached the other dog and it fell on its side and rolled off the edge of the road into a ditch! Thats when I skedaddled
This is me sitting on the steps of the front of the camp looking out across the front of the street. Rawai Muay Thai!
This blog is the tale of my adventure in Thailand. In just 24 hours, it has already been quite and adventure. So I went to the airport and flew from Columbus to Chicago. I was only in Chicago for about 1 hour and proceeded to board the 12.5-hour trans-Pacific flight from Chicago to Seoul via Korean Air. I was fortunate enough to sit in the emergency exit area and had a nice 6×6 area in front of me to stretch my legs and walk around. Furthermore, I had a folding out touch-screen TV! This is the best flight I’ve ever been on (except for the 12.5 hours). It had about 30 new Hollywood movies, 8 classic Hollywood movies, like 1 Japanese movie, 2 Korean movies and a Chinese movie. I ended up watching like…Fool’s Gold, Charlie Bartlett, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and Vantage Point. They also had short programs that were like 30-60 minutes, included an episode of House and Prison Break. In between movies, I even was able to play Tetris with other people on the plane via LAN. The next thing about the flight that was pretty sweet is the food. It was the most fancy airplane meal I’ve ever had. We actually got actual silverware, not plastic sporks. Also, there was free wine and beer with my meal! I got to drink an entire can of beer after my meal for free. Finally though, the flight was over and I was more than happy to get out of the plane only to have to get on another 5-hour flight 2 hours later…
This was the last flight, Seoul to Phuket. When we were starting to fly over Vietnam, I saw this flash of light in the distance that caught my eye. I then looked out the window, waiting to see if it would happen again and I saw this huge deep orange-yellow glow that flashed for about half a second. Well…what would you think it was??? I looked like a bomb went off. I kept seeing this and was flipping because it looked like footage from Iraq. After about 25 minutes, I finally saw an orange line and confirmed my suspicion that it was just lightening. But come on, I’ve never seen lightening that was orange-yellow, isn’t it usually white-blue? Anyway, we finally arrived in Phuket at like 12:30am local time on Friday (1pm Thursday EST). I was waiting in line to get through customs for about 25 minutes and was looking at the baggage claim in the distance and didn’t really see my bag, as it is a pretty obvious bag (green burlap military bag) and figured “well…my bag probably didn’t make it.” And after I got through customs a lady has a sign with my name on it like a limo is waiting for me, except to tell me that my bag didn’t make it. It is going to get here Sunday night supposedly. Sucks because my swim suit, towel, and obviously clothes are in it.
Anyway, everything in the airport is closed and this kid tells me he can get me a taxi so I agree despite the fare being a little more than it should be, but there weren’t any other taxis around. A couple minutes later this pimped out Honda Civic rolls up and I get a ride with a Speed Racer and his sidekick. It took about 30 minutes to drive from one end of the island, where the airport is at, to the other end, where the camp is. After the ride I realized that traffic laws were essentially non-existant here. There is an invisible middle lane that runs down the middle of the road. Every intersection is more like a yield than stop. I also haven’t seen one police car patrolling. They drop me off and it is like 2:30am, of course no one is at the camp and lights are out, but there aren’t any doors, it is all open. I wasn’t ready to sleep, so I walked down the street to a bar I saw before I got dropped off. It was a big grass hut bar. I got a beer and solicited by a call girl. “So wah beer you lai?” “You wan to go to disco?” She sat next to me the whole time I had my beer, but I knew her game! I left and then was walking down the street almost to the camp when a pack of wild dogs starts to surround me raptor style…I shooed them away but it was still kind of strange. Oh and there are like 5 bulls across the street that just eat grass. And because of the wind blowing towards the camp, plus the bulls across the street…well you can probably figure it out. It doesn’t smell great. I then laid out my blanket from the airplane on the boxing ring and slept there for about 2 hours. I woke up at like 5:30 and read some Harry Potter and waited for people to show up.
Since this is a really long entry, I’ll post about my first day later…
Please check out my new painting video I did. I drew a Cylon Centrion from the awesome show Battlestar Galactica. Took about 6.5 hours and i watched about 2 whole seasons of The Office while I was drawing it. If you go to the Videos section you can see more paintings under the Painting section (duh). I like to think they get better as I progress seeing as how they keep taking more and more time…and since I can’t save it and come back to it later I’m about at my peak as far as using Facebook Graffiti to draw. Maybe I should start using Photoshop to paint…but then I can’t post sweet videos of it being made!
PS. Please, if you stop by this page click on an ad for google ads on the right side. Just one click helps a lot! thanks.
Finally finished my site to make it look real. I used a Dreamweaver template but oh well. I don’t feel like programming from scratch. Plus, this template kind of goes along with tropical feelings — i.e. Phuket, Thailand. So, I have one month until I head to Phuket, training starts Monday. I’m going to be doing P90X workouts. They are pretty insane and I look forward to them.
