I just remembered that I forget to spell check my post about Cambodia. I say this because I wrote it in the taxi on the way from Siem Reap back to the Thai border. Since the road was completely unpaved, I made numerous spelling errors because of my fingers accidentally hitting the keys on bumps. I was going to go back and edit it when I got to Thailand, but that didn’t happen. So that is why there are lots of bad spelling errors. Anyway…
Singapore is by far the cleanest city I’ve ever been to. This was a complete change from the places I’ve been for the past 6 weeks…the dirt streets of Cambodia and the aged urban metropolis of Bangkok. It felt like I was back in America, it could have easily been some city in California or Florida. Besides the cleanliness, there was a huge mix of cultures, every sign was posted in at least 4 languages: Chinese, English, Malay, and Philipino. The population seemed to be mostly half Chinese and half Indian. I wasn’t really sure what to expect going there and was surprised to see so many Indians living in Singapore.
We first arrived on Saturday afternoon and took the metro from the airport to our hostel. We stayed at the Welcome Inn. It was $25/night for an AC dorm room, bathroom with sinks, toilets and showers. It also had free internet access and WiFi as well as a lounge area with a nice big flat screen tv and couches and bean bags. Breakfast was included….but it was actually just free bread with jam and coffee…Not much of a breakfast so I ended up eating 10 pieces of bread for breakfast, to get my money’s worth. Also to fill me up for 5 minutes.
Walking around the city at night was really nice. It was a clean, futuristic, modern, urban sprawl with nice buildings everywhere. I really felt safe, compared to when we were walking around at night in Bangkok or Cambodia. Not that I felt that I might get jumped at any moment in those places, but Singapore has this really safe feeling to it, which might be due to the penalties of all of the crimes. As we walk into immigration at the airport there is a big sign that says “Death penalty for all drug trafficers.” Then when you ride on the metro, there are postings that prohibit drinking and eating on the trains and station premises. If you eat or drink on the train it is a $500 fine. Carrying explosive materials or liquids on the train is $5000 fine. Smoking at the station or in the train is $1000 fine. There was also a “No Durians” posting which we thought was hilarious. As you can get the idea, people don’t really want to break the rules, especially when there are security cameras EVERYWHERE so big brother can watch. This is why I felt safe in Singapore, there was a big incentive to not break any rules and it seems to be encouraged from a very young age. There was a sign I saw a few times that says “Low crime doesn’t mean no crime,” which made me assume Singapore has a pretty low crime rate.
Overall I had mixed feelings about Singapore. It was really expensive compared to my standards of the past 6 weeks of living in Thailand and going to Cambodia where I can get a meal for $1 and a room for one night for $4. The food is all about $4-$8 and same portions as Thailand. Plus, there wasn’t a lot to do…on a backpacker’s budget. Nor was there much cultural stuff to see, like there was in Thailand/Cambodia. We saw the Merlion…a big half lion half fish statue…we saw Fort Siloso (which was kind of corny, not as call as I thought it would be for a famous WWII spot)…We walked around the city some, Chinatown, Little India…but overall it wasn’t that great. There is a bustling night life here, which would be fun to partake in if you traveled there with a bunch of friends. There is this club area called Central C in Clarke Quay district. There was this cool bar called C Clinic where they served the drinks in hospital bags and they had an IV hose coming down and you would drink out of it through the IV hose while sitting in a wheelchair. I’m sure it was expensive, but it was a really unique idea and pretty cool.
So that is about it, not a lot in Singapore to report on. We only stayed Saturday afternoon thru Monday Afternoon. It was enough for me, paying $50 for a room for 2 days. Blah. I’m on the plane flying to Bangalore, India right now, so when I manage to update this, I will be in India, the last leg of my adventure.
**Update: I’m actually in Bombay now. Took a while to get internet access. Bangalore was boring and not very scenic. We spent most of our day at the Air India office booking our return tickets. I am flying from Calcutta back to Bangkok on the 21st for only $112. The funniest stuff we saw in Bangalore were cows pulling flatbeds in the middle of traffic and people peeing on the sidewalk out in the open in the middle of the day. That pretty much sums up our time in Bangalore. We took a 24hr train ride from Bangalore to Bombay and arrived last night. The train was fun and sleeping on it was cool as well. Not something you get to do in America, especially for the price. Sleeper class ticket is only about $10 for a 24hr ride. Now we are staying at our friend’s house from Denison, Shikha. I am finally getting to eat lots of good food. Since we have both been budgeting, our food consumption has been pretty low but Shikha’s mom loves to cook and feed guests so I am no longer supressing my appetite to say the least!
Hindu shrine in Little India.
Sidewalk in Singapore…So clean…
Ultra modern building. These are everywhere in Singapore.
Clarke Quay/Raffles Place district. Really nice place. Next to the canal (pictured) and ocean.
Some tall buildings in the same place.
Nice looking hotel.
The staple of Singapore: the Merlion…
One of many things to get fined an extraordinary amount of money for.
Our hostel in Singapore, the Welcome Inn.
Subway posting. There was another sign, the same as this, except it had an extra sign that said “No durians.”
Nice panorama of Singapore from the Clarke Quay area.
Our adventure to Cambodia was to start with a train ride from the central Bangkok train station, Hualumphong. The train leaves from there to Aranyaprathet at 5:55am. Well…that didn’t happen. Too early and we woke up at like 4:30 but decided it would take a good 45 minutes to reach the train station by taxi so we went back to sleep. There was another train at 1:05pm that we decided to take. Eve drove us to the subway station where we caught the train to the central station. Our ticket from Bangkok to the border town of Aranyaprathet was a whopping 48 baht, about $0.50. It was a commuter train though, so it made lots of stops and took roughly 5-6 hours to reach our destination. I really don’t mind long train rides though, the windows go down and you can lean out the window to see the beautiful landscapes passing by as well as let the air hit your face and smell the land (watch me take that back after I go on a 24-hour plus train ride in India). Plus you can get up and walk around, or stand between cars on the platform.
So we finally got to our destination at around 6:30-6:45. The lady at the train station said the border closes at 5pm, our books said 6pm, when, in fact, it closes at 8pm. We took a tuk-tuk from the station to the border for 30 baht, they will ask for 60-70. They may also take you to the Cambodian consulate’s house to get a visa, tell them to just take you to the border. We overpaid a little when we got there, they charged 1000 baht for the visa and 100 baht fee for not having a passport photo to give to them. So we paid $33. You can get it at the border for 20-25$ depending if you can haggleyour way down to 20, despite the sign saying “Tourist visa: $20.” We got across the border at about 7:30ish and shared a cab with a guy we met on the train from Sweden and another American, who was a TV reporter in Miami and North Carolina but quit to spend 6 months traveling around the world. They were both really cool and funny, which made for an enjoyable 3-hour taxi ride from Poipet to Siem Reap on the Road from Hell.
Highway No. 6 is essentially a 30-40ft unpaved dirt road that is a free-for-all closely resembling Super Mario Kart. Instead of dodging goombas and koopa shells, the driver dodges bikers and motorcyclists while passing monster dump trucks. There are several interesting vehicles on this road, scooters pulling 20fft long flatbed trailers, multiple 2×4’s bound together by a metal frame with a naked engine bolted to the front to turn the front tractor tires while the driver steers with reigns as he would a horse and buggy.
We made the drive at night and it was pitch black. Even leaving Poipet the only lights were those of cars and scooters with the occasional fire on the side of the road. This is what I expected Cambodia to be like. The drive on the highway at night reveal the clearest night sky I had ever seen. You could honestly see EVERY single star in the sky, even star dust or nebulas (I know nebulas are colorful but I am talking about the cloudy star like stuff that fills the void between stars sporadically). At about the halfway point the driver stopped the car and got out and this was the middle of nowhere. We were like “Ok….?” And asked where he was going and he said, “pees,” and proceeded to go the bathroom in front of the car. The Swede then asked, “Is it alright if we get out of the car? We’re not going to get shot or anything right?” Which it did feel eery being in the middle of nowhere, at night, in a country that had been the place of genocide. But it was fine, we all took a bathroom break and continued to Siem Reap.
The only term I can really use to describe driving into Siem Reap, at night, is shock & awe. I never would have guess to see 5-star hotels one after the other on a dirt road. These hotels could have been any 5-star hotel seen in America…yet they were in Cambodia? Obviously the biggest and only draw to Siem Reap is Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world. And let me tell you, it is magnificent.
We got up at 5am to get to Angkor to see the sunrise. Everyone gets there at 5am to see the sunrise, it is a spectacular scene. Usually the night before you can set up a tuk-tuk to pick you up the following morning. We got a tuk-tuk to drive us around for the whole day for $10. Not bad, split between 3 people, the Swede wanted to find a cheaper deal..,which we were doubtful he wouuld. $3 i spretty cheap for a while day of being driven around to the nummerous temples at Angkor. So the tuk=tuk picked us up at 5am and we set off after getting only 4 hours of sleep. It was actually surprising that as we went through town on our tuk-tuk people were already up and setting up shop at 5am.
It was $20 for a day pass to Angkor, they take your picture and print off an ID card for you (a cool souvnieer) and you have to show it before entering all of the temples. It is like $40 for a 3-day pass, which I would like to do in the future. We saw a good majority of the temples and spent a lot of time at all of them but in retrospect I wish I could go back through another day to get an even closer look. In the second half of the day I had to ration out pictures, only taking photos of something really great or important. I ended up running out of space on my memory card after taking 187 picturesjust at Angkor in 1 day. The 3 best and most popular temples at Angkor are Angkor Wat (the largest religious structure in the world), Ta Prohm, and Bayon. Ta Prohm is the temple where the jungle is ‘eating’ it. There are huge trees growing outof the temple and growing down the sides of its walls. Bayon is famous for all of the faces on the towers and walls. We got to Bayon last and it was raining and only got to spend about 30 minutes there between it closed at 5:30pm. It was my favorite in terms of being a kid and exploring it. There aren’t really any guards walking around or signs that say keep out so you can go through all of the small hallways and corridors. This was the most intricate temple that we went to. Halfway through the day we went to this temple far away, north of most of Angkor because we had so much time to kill before sunset. It was only an extra $3/person for him to drive us about 45 minutes to this other cool temple and then on the way back we stopped at the Landmine Museum. It was very powerful and told a great story of the guy who started the museum. He was a child soldier for the Khmer Rouge (genocidal regime) and doesn’t even know what year he was born. As he got older he became a mine layer, spending years laying thousandns and thousandsof mines. When the Vietnamese invaded he was able to defect and fight the Khmer Rouge. After the Vietnamese pulled out he continued to fight with rebels. Once the Khmer Rouge was overthrown he started defusing land mines by himself, going to villages that had found mines near their homes. He then got trained by the UN in England to defuse land mines and was given protective gear (before, he had just been digging them up and defusing them with no protection or anything). He has spent the last 10 years or so defusing mines and running an orphanage for landmine victims with his wife.
After that we ate lunch and continued going to various temples. We left at 5:30pm back to town, got some food to eat for $1. There is a really cool street in Seim Reap callled Pub Street. There are a lot of nice places to eat here, ranging from $3-8 for food. But since we are on a budget we just eat at the Cambodia restaurants on the street where each dish is $1. Then we got back to our hotel and we had no room. Right, we didn’t check out yet they gave our room away. We still had a room key. We said we were coming back tonight. They said the kid was new and had only been working for a week. He was confused because I left my baggage at the front desk while we were at Angkor all day. I did so because I didn’t necessarily trust it sitting alone in my room. So they set us up with a room down the street. If you go to the guest houses (which there are a lot of), you can get a room with 2 twin beds, full bathroom and hot water and cable tv for only $8, which turrns into $4/person/night. That is a pretty sweet deal, and the place is real nice and clean as well.
The next day we slept in a little since we got 4 hours of sleep the night before and were up for about 15 hours the day before. I went next door to the place we had stayed the night before and had breakfast and used their WiFi internet for a few hours. We then set off to walk around the town. We went to the day market for a while and then walked along the river in town. At night we went to see this free Apsara dance. This is traditional Cambodian dancing. It was really cool, videos of it when I get back to the USA.
Then this morning we woke up and got on a taxi back to Poipet to get the 1:55pm train back to Bangkok!
If you want an adventure, go to Cambodia. The people are nice, the scenery is beautiful, and everything is cheap. You can stay in a 5-star hotel suite for around $70/night. But how much time are you going to spend in your hotel room? We were at Angkor for 12 hours. It is definitely a place I would like to come back to and travel down to Phenom Phen and then down to Sihanoukville, where there are incredible beaches, which aren’t crowded with tourists.
Pictures
A view from the train on the way to the Thailand/Cambodian border.
Our train at sunset.
All of the next pictures are Angkor Wat.
Monkeys at Angkor Wat.
This is the Bayon. Very intricate.
Our tuk-tuk for the day.
National Land Mine Museum
Fake mine field at the museum
The streets of Siem Reap.
5-Star Hotel
Two plates of Lok Lak Chicken, $1 each.
The happenin’ place in Siem Reap: Pub Street.
Cockroach welcoming us to our room for the night.
The Cambodian Apsara dancers and I.
Diagram of a booby-trapped cigarette at the Land Mine Museum.
This past week has been really busy, running around everyday. Last Friday morning I got picked up at 5:30 to go up to Ranong to get my new visa. Took about 4 hours to go from Phuket to Ranong, then we boarded a ferry, got off the ferry, sat in the immigration booth on the resort island owned by Myanmar, then got back on the ferry 10 minutes later to go back to Thailand. Then we got some lunch and I got dropped off at the bus station at about 1pm. The overnight bus to Bangkok didn’t leave until 9pm so I dropped off my huge 50+ pound army bag in the police box at the bus station and walked around Ranong for about 2 hours. The bus station lies across the river from the actual city, so I walked over the bridge and into the ‘city’. There isn’t anything to see, so if you have to wait like I did, I guess you can get some exercise in the hot weather but there isn’t anything to see. So after my trekking I went back towards the bus station and went to this place called Kiwi Orchid. It is in the Lonely Planet guide book. It was right in front of the bus station, it is yellow, can’t miss it. It was nice to have a place to relax, eat some food, banana shake, or watch tv if a movie is on. Better than sitting at the bus station.
Eventually it was time to catch the bus and I got on the VIP bus. It wasn’t anything special, just seats that recline pretty far, but since I usually sleep on my stomach I didn’t get much more than 10 minutes of sleep at a time.
I arrived in Bangkok at like 5am…I was going to call my mom’s ex-student, Eve, but seeing as how it was 5am on a Saturday…didn’t want to wake her up. So I sat on my luggage for a while and ended up talking with this guy from Liverpool. Once I got ahold of Eve around 7am we both shared a cab from the Southern bus station to the main train station, Hualumphong. There are pretty much 2 train lines, one to the North that stops at Chiang Mai and one that goes East to Ayudayaphet (or something like that). There is one that goes South but I don’t think it leaves from Bangkok. Don’t hold me on that. So anyway, I got my ticket to Lak Si station, close to Eve’s house, and she was like “Hurry, it leaves in 1 minute.” So I picked up my 50+ pound army bag and did a 100m sprint down the terminal with a fireman’s carry. I threw my bag on the train and jumped on as it started to pull off. That was a great start and introduction to the fast paced lifestyle of Bangkok.
Saturday, Eve took me to this outdoor/indoor (if you count metal roofing as indoor) market where people just sell trinkets, bags, silks, cottons, ect. There are only 100 of the same types of shops. I got a big North Face backpacking bag for 1200 baht, about 36 dollars. It was something at the top of my list to get since I am backpacking around now, instead of staying in one spot. The bag is usually $150-200, granted my bag is 90% likely a knock-off, but I looked at the stitching and felt the durability of the bag and I’m sure it’ll be fine. Can’t wait to eat those words in an upcoming entry!
The next day, Eve’s dad took us to a muay thai fight that was being filmed for tv. We got VIP seats next to the ring, normally 1500 baht ($45), for free!! Her dad used to fight and used to be a trainer and knew the people at the place really well so they just let us in. Sweet. It was a fun time and good fights. I picked the winner for the first 3 fights so decided to bet on the 4th fight. I bet 200 baht ($6) and thought my guy was going to win, but the other guy started coming back…Luckily it was a split decision and so it was a tie, I got my money back. It’s pretty funny, people have all of these hand signals to bet and their odds. There is no betting counter to get a receipt or anything, people just bet each other and one person or a 3rd party holds their money.
After the fight, Eve and I went to Siam Paragon shopping mall, the most expensive mall I’ve ever seen. The first stores I saw when I walked in: Valentino, D&G, Armani (suits, not just AE t-shirts), and pretty much any high-end designer brand you can think of. Those were like the only stores in the mall, other than Starbucks and McDonalds. Actually there were like 6 floors but it was expensive so we didn’t stay. We went to eat at A&W Rootbeer. I know right? I’ve seen at least 5 in Bangkok so far, I haven’t seen more than 3 in America ever. So it was nice to get a huge draft A&W root beer, my most favorite drink ever. Then we went to MBK mall. This was a 6-floor mall as well, except it just had about 5 million small boutiques of people selling cell phones, cameras, electronics, t-shirts, trinkets, ect. Pretty much anything. It was cool to look for unique stuff and get deals. Which brings me to a short segment:
How to Haggle in Thailand
Thai people are extremely sensitive to haggling and take everything personal. They don’t like to lose face in front of other people. This is how you get the price down: “How much is this?” “250 baht” “Do you have a discount?” Say this gently and soft to avoid catching attention of other customers. “OK…220 baht.” “Hmm..that’s still a little high, can you give me more discount?” “No no 220 baht” Then look at it like you want to buy it, hold it, examine, feel the material, then reluctantly say, “Well…that’s ok” And when you walk out, if they can really give you more of a discount they will stop you and say “Ok ok, for you 200 baht.” If they don’t say anything, there are 100 other stores with the same thing. It seems strange to just straight up ask for a discount…as I am pretty sure this won’t be the case when I am in India. I will have to be much more aggressive then.
So then later, my friend Zack came from Nepal. He is teaching English in China and was visiting friends from Denison in Nepal for 2 weeks. Now he is here in Thailand with me traveling around. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we walked around Bangkok looking at temples. I highly recommend Wat Pho and the Grand Palace (which includes Wat Phrakaew). Other than that, just walk around. We saved money by walking about 2-3 miles back to the BTS Skytrain instead of taking a Tuk-Tuk from Khao San Road. Khao San Road is the backpacking HQ of Bangkok. If you are desperate, you can probably find a room there. There are a lot of good shops there as well. MRT Subway and BTS Skytrain are the best ways to get around the city. It is only like a dollar at most to get from one end of the line to the other. I don’t mind walking, so we just walked to places that the trains didn’t reach. Bangkok isn’t dangerous. I haven’t been out walking at night so I can’t really comment about that but it isn’t like thugs are following tourists around with baseball bats and brass knuckles. It reminds me of any major city in Japan.
One thing I also learned is never take things from people on the street handing stuff out. Like they might say “Here, release this bird for good luck!” Then you do it and they are like “100 baht.” Another one is “Here, feed this corn to the birds.” I took it and then he was like “50 baht” “No, here” I tried to give it back to him and he wouldn’t take it back so I dropped it on the ground and walked away. He was appalled, his face was actually in shock. An example of people being overly sensitive. To avoid getting into the situation, just don’t take things from people.
Wednesday night we got on the train at 9pm to go to Chiang Mai. Unfortunately, there were no sleeper cars available so we got to take seats all the way there for 10 hours…It was like the VIP bus all over again. We watched a movie then tried to sleep but it was to no avail. I just drank a Red Bull when we arrived though. While Zack had to go to the bathroom I started talking to this lady who had a place to stay. She had pictures and spoke pretty good english and it was only 100 baht ($3) per night. So she took us to her place and there was a guy who worked there during the summer from Cleveland, Ohio. The place ended up being really good and we got a room there. I highly recommend the place as it is cheap, clean and the people who run it are all really nice and helpful. It is called Ticket-2-Asia. It is on the northeast corner of the inner city. Let me explain. The core of the city is surrounded by a moat. So things are either inside or outside the moat. It isn’t a big city at all, no public transportation (just cabs, pick-up truck cabs and tuk-tuks). I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going here actually. It wasn’t all that great. Just temples to see and after walking around Bangkok for a few days you kind of get ‘templed-out’. We took a whole day to just walk around the city and saw more than enough. We did go to Doi Sutheph, which is a temple up on the mountain, about 16km from the actual city and I think it is at the tallest point in Thailand. It had a neat view of the city, which would have been better in the high season I think since our day was just overcast. To get here people will ask 500 baht to take you there, stay for an hour and return to the city. RIP-OFF. If you go with a group or just walk to the north edge of the moat, right in the middle there is a big gate and just sit there until you have about 4 or 5 people and a pick-up truck will take you there for 50 baht one way. Then, when we were done we just walked out of the temple and a guy offered 50 baht to take us back down, just the two of us.
The second day in Chiang Mai we took an adventure trip that was 800 baht. This is how it was described, “Takes about an hour by minivan to get to the jungle. Then we go through the jungle for half an hour to reach the hill tribe. Then you walk to a waterfall where you can swim around and relax for a little. Then you walk to the elephants and ride them for an hour and then get on bamboo rafts and ride down the river for an hour.” As with most things, it didn’t live up to all that it could have been. It did take an hour to get up to the place where we walk to get to the hill tribe. It did take 30 minutes to walk up the mountain and then it took an irreversible turn for the worse. To put it in terms Americans might understand, it was like visiting a small group of menenites when you are supposed to go see an amish community. It was just a tourist trap with like 5 people selling scarves and pillow cases. There was a shed with some ‘historical’ artifacts, such as tools to extract and purify opium and ‘tobacco’ pipes, which where actually marijuana pipes made out of bamboo, according to our guide. The hill tribe thing was pretty lame. Then we climbed back down, got into the van and went to another village where some ladies were making scarves. Who ever knew scarves would be so popular in a place that doesn’t ever get cold or snow. Another tourist trap and guilt trip. “You buy scarves and help dah peepool of da villahge. They poor, have no mahney. 3 days to make one scarf.” Then we drove to the waterfall. No, you couldn’t swim and it wasn’t a classic ‘waterfall’. It was something I could have, and have, seen at Hocking Hills. Then we got on the bamboo raft, which only lasted 30 minutes. It was really cool and fun though. 5 minutes down the river I was goofing around and pretended to smack my face on a big tree branch which resulted in losing my balance and falling into the water…which happened to be like 1 foot deep and I thought it was at least waist high. I managed to crawl back on the raft and enjoyed the rest of the short journey down the river. It would be something fun to do with friends, like canoeing but on a long skinny bamboo raft. Then we got on the elephants. That was fun but I was hoping for something more scenic than just spending the whole 45-50 minutes going up and down hills in the jungle. I wanted to see some open countryside in the valley as well. The last leg of the journey was fun though, we got to walk through the river on the elephants. I was hoping one elephant would spray someone with water but they didn’t. And, since we went on the bamboo rafting right before the elephant ride I couldn’t bring my camera or video camera for fear of them getting wet and ruined so I couldn’t get any video or pictures of riding on the elephant, which I was reallllly bummed about. I didn’t even get to get my picture taken ON the elephant because this Dutch couple wouldn’t get off the elephant to let other people take pictures, and then the elephant riders were anxious to get the elephants back. I did get to feed the elephant bananas though, I stuck them right in its mouth. The elephant’s tongue was really slimy and cool. Then we got to ride back in the van for about 1 hour. If I would go there again it would be to rock climb. Outdoor stuff is about the only thing they have there, hill tribes (sucked…), rock climbing, ATV off-roading, kayaking, white water rafting, ect.
We walked from the moat all the way to the train station which took about an hour. It wasn’t bad and we didn’t have anything else to do at 8pm.
So, to recap:
Bangkok: 4 or 5 out of 5.
Things to see: Wat Pho, Grand Palace (which includes Wat Phraekaew), Khao San road (all of these places are in the same general area and within walking distance to each other). Siam and MBK malls for shopping. Walk from Siam to Khao San area. It is fun and interesting to just walk through normal streets of Bangkok where there aren’t any tourists, just Thai people going about their daily lives.
As far as eating, I’m sure a lot of people say this but I would recommend somewhere where Thai people are eating. Not some restaurant in Siam shopping mall, but someplace on the way to Khao San from Siam on a side street or something. I have learned to eat food, not just macaroni and cheese and pizza. I like the spiciness of Thai food.
Also, you’ll see lots of food venders everywhere and the fruit is always soooo fresh and juicy, more so than America. I’ve never eaten so much pineapple as I have here. it just tastes so fresh and has lots of juice. It is like 10-20 baht for a big bag of pineapple, watermelon, whatever fruit you want. I also like to buy the fried chicken that street venders are selling, it tastes really good and I haven’t gotten the runs from it.
Chiang Mai: 2 or 3 out of 5.
Things to see: Doi Sutheph Temple, walk around the city? Isn’t much to see…Just walk around and go to some temples. There is actually this one temple that is really worth going to. It is behind a new temple but the temple I am talking about is in ruins.
Don’t go see the hill tribe, it isn’t as great as you make it out to be in your imagination. It’s no National Geographic.
Tonight I went clubbing in Bangkok with Z-bag, Eve and her friend. We took a cab to Route 66. It was a SWEET club. Had four sections: north, south, east and west. Each one was a different style of music. There was house music, one room was playing some swing music? The place we were was just usual club music: rap and hiphop. It was interesting because there wasn’t a dance floor. What would be a dance floor in America was filled with standing tables where ‘waiters’ would come and you would order a bottle of whiskey (most common and cheapest). Then they also supply water, tonic, soda, ice, pepsi. It was interesting and had a lot of fun! Way better than Sugar or any bar in downtown Columbus.
Here are some selected pictures from the past week.
Phuket was a lot of fun, but would be more fun for people who like to go to the bar or party, as there are many bars and clubs for people to go to. Loads of Europeans come here and are always at the bars. Even a lot of the people training here are from the UK and Ireland and are always going to the bars. I stayed in Rawai, on the southern end of the island, which is quieter but does have some decent bars. My biggest recommendation is Freedom Bar on Rawai Beach. They have a live band always and they sing classic American songs. Usually people will go to Freedom Bar and then take a taxi to Patong for a couple hours. Taxi from Rawai to Patong should be 700 baht.
There isn’t much to do around Rawai, most ‘attractions’ are up around Phuket Town or Patong, both take about 25 minutes to get to by scooter. Naiharn Beach is the closest beach to Rawai and is my favorite beach in Phuket. It is quiet and usually not crowded. The downside is that trash tends to flow in after a storm which makes the beach look trashy…a plastic bag can also scare the crap out of you when you are just standing the water and you feel it brush up against you. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought a jelly fish was right up on me…Worst beach, though, has to go to Thalassa Beach. How do you get to this beach? That was the hardest part. My friend and I went off-roading on our scooters on this unpaved “road” which was basically just dirt with huge crevasses caused by rain. First we got lost in the jungle on the unpaved road then we went another direction and started going downhill but I don’t really trust my scooter going down loose dirt while having to navigate around huge rocks and crevasses. So we parked our scooters and walked for about 20 minutes down the mountain to this abandoned party place. It looked like it was from a movie where there is a huge beach party and the day after no one is to be seen. I mean, there were even huge speakers just sitting on the beach…along with tons of beer bottles and plastic water bottles and just trash in general. Then, it wasn’t even sandy, it was like a pebble beach, just a bunch of small stones. It was horrible. Then we walked all the way back up for about 20 minutes. This is in about 90 degrees Fahrenheit but combined with about 80% humidity….well it was no easy venture.
Scooters are definitely a necessity to get out and go anywhere in Phuket, or just to see the island. You should only pay about 2500 baht for a month for a scooter. They are cheap to fill up as well. Don’t go to the places with individual bottles of red petrol. Go to a small fill-up station, they are cheaper. You can pay like 100 baht (about 3 dollars) for a full tank (about 2 liters) and you can go about 100 kilometers on just 2 liters. One thing I will suggest though, is that when you are on a curvy mountain road (which there are a lot of) is to ride in the middle of the lane to prevent cars and vans from passing you. Two times a van passed me with only about 4 inches between us. If you ride the middle they will have to pass you in the right lane (which will happen probably) but you will be safer. At least it won’t side swipe you and cause you to fall into a ditch and total the bike. Another important thing about scooters: Wear Your Helmet. Only a handful of Thai’s wear their helmets but police target tourists for tickets. A famous place people always get pulled over is the big round-about that is between Chalong and Rawai, I think it is called Chalong Circle. It is 300 baht for no helmet (about 9$) and another 300 baht if you don’t have your driver’s license with you. All you need is your US drivers license, you don’t need an international drivers license or anything. Besides getting a ticket, it is much safer with a helmet of course, especially with Thai driving. So, unless you are just going down the road a quarter mile to get breakfast, wear your helmet.
The northwest side of the island, past Patong, Kamala, and Surin beaches, is a great place to just ride around and explore. It is really rural with lots of roads through the mountains and jungle. It lets you see more of the countryside of Phuket. Also, another cool thing to see around there is all of the development being done by Laguna. They have a ton of housing developments finished and underway. Resorts, suburbs and private beaches and a golf course. They are all really well kept and are really pretty. A hidden treasure to find up on that side of the island is Naithon Beach. It is a fairly small beach but there aren’t any big developments around and therefore the beach is empty.
Another fun place to go to is Central Festival. This is about 15-20km from Rawai and takes about 25 minutes to get there by scooter. If you want to take a taxi, it should be about 500 baht (about $15). It is a huge 3-floor shopping mall. They have lots of stores like Lacoste and other upper end clothing lines. It is an expensive place except….for the movie theater!! It is only 120 baht (about 4 dollars) to see movies! An they are new movies, I’m going to see Batman tonight. The seats are like lazyboys that don’t recline. Really comfy. Before the movie starts there is always this tribute to the king…apparently you are supposed to stand up. We didn’t know this until after seeing Hellboy 2 last time. We thought it was just something that they show before the movie, though I’m still not sure why they show it before the movie. But a song sings and it is like a montage of the king. People stand up but last time we didn’t know people were standing up until we heard everyone sitting back down. We were sitting farther forward than anyone else so we didn’t know we were supposed to stand…
Anyway, if you keep heading north past Central Festival, you will come to Big C, which is kind of like a Walmart. This is where I buy all my food since food is pricey in Phuket. I mean a good meal can be anywhere from 3-8 dollars but spending that 3 times a day adds up. Past that there is a Tesco, which I guess is from England? It is like Walmart as well. It is a little bigger than Big C, though I’ve only seen it from the outside.
A couple of cultural things to see in Phuket include Wat Chalong and the Big Buddah. Whenever you see “Wat ….” it just means that it is a temple. Wat = Temple. Chalong Temple is only about 10km from Rawai and is pretty cool. The big buddah is cool as well and takes forever to get to because it is on like the highest mountain in Phuket, or so it seems. But once you are at the top you can see all of Phuket Town and Chalong.
So, that is Phuket in a nutshell. Tomorrow at 5:15am I am leaving and headed to Ranong, where I will take a ferry to an island resort owned by Burma and eat lunch, then come back on the ferry to Thailand so that I can renew my visa. It is very common and called the “visa run.” If you are in Phuket, I would say pay for one that is about 1500 baht because it includes your meal, drinks, ferry fee, and burmese visa fee. Then I am off to Bangkok, where the tough guys tumble.
Here is a map of some key interest points in Phuket.
Thalassa Beach Road. This brave fisherman carried his tackle gear with one arm and braved the road on his scooter with the other hand. This is what it was like all the way down.
Wat Chalong
Big Buddah (not open yet, but it will be cool when it is open)
Big C!
And as always, some panoramics. I actually found out how to automate these with Photoshop CS3, it is a lot easier than taking about 1 hour to put 15 pictures together. File>Automate>Photomerge>Select the photos you want to use.
My bathroom for the past month (I had to manually do this and you’ll get the idea, it was a small space to take a picture, so it’s pretty distorted)
This is my room and my roommate, Mich from Germany.
Thalassa Beach: Wins the award for trashiest and worst beach in Phuket.
Red Mountain Golf Course. If I had money and knew how to play golf, I would like to play this course.
View of Phuket Town and Chalong from the Big Buddah.
I thought I would talk about Rawai Muay Thai Training Gym since I have been here for 3 weeks so far. I would definitely recommend training here, even though it can be a little pricey, but then again this is Phuket. I have found, and heard from others here, that Phuket is generally more expensive than Bangkok, which makes sense because it is such a tourist hot spot.
In case you come across this page, here is what you can expect from Rawai Muay Thai:
Group Training:
1 month group training = 5000 baht or about 160 dollars. Not bad, the group training is really good.
Not bad, the training is really good. Everyone starts out with shadow boxing for a few rounds with push-ups in between during breaks. This is the same for morning and afternoon sessions. In the morning session you get with a trainer after warming up with shadow boxing to practice sparring. They come at you slow and show you different things to counter or defend. After that you do 100 front push kicks and 100 knees and then 200 crunches on your own. It is pretty short.
For afternoon session, after shadow boxing, depending on how many people there are, everyone is split into groups. Half do 5 rounds of bags while a trainer walks around to check technique while the other half of the group does 5 rounds of Thai pads with a trainer. There are 4 boxing rings, #1 with pre-fight training and progressively going down in skill all the way to #4. There are usually 3 trainers in each ring with 3 trainees (except for the first ring, which has 4 people/trainers because it is bigger/regulation size). This is my favorite and most valued part of training. Most of the trainers are really good and watch to give good pointers. You usually are put with the same trainer for 2-3 days so that the first day they can check your weaknesses and then the next day or two they work on you. They train technique really well as well as give you a good cardio workout.
Then after doing both pads and bags, you get back into a group and depending on what day it is they train something different. Mondays/Tuesdays: Clinch work, Wednesday: Kicks, Thursday: Wai Kru (Pre-fight dance), Friday: Boxing, Satuday: Morning training at the beach.
After doing this for about 30-45 minutes, everyone does 100 or 200 front push kicks on the bags and then 100 knees on the bags, followed by 200 crunches. The crunches are on your own, you don’t have to do them, but you’re just cheating yourself. Then everyone is done.
I would definitely recommend coming here in the low season (April-October-ish). A friend of mine came during the high season and said that it was reallllly crowded and hard to get personal attention from trainers. Since it isn’t too crowded right now during the low season I know about 75% of the trainers pretty well.
This is the description on the Rawai Muay Thai website:
“Training 6 hours a day is not as hard as it sounds.
You start your day @ 7 AM with a morning run (30 - 60 minutes).
You then do an hour of techneque training in the gym with your personal trainer & finish your morning
training session with 30 - 40 minutes of weight training and /or stretching.
@ 4 PM you are back in the gym for another 2 - 3 hours of training.”
I’d say training is only about 3-4 hours a day, not 6.
Training starts at 7am with shadow boxing followed by what I said above. If you want to run, wake up earlier and do it yourself or with a friend, it isn’t part of the actual “training.”
I would say 30, maybe 45 minutes of training with a trainer in the morning, and it is sparring training. Not too many people do weights. You see people off and on during the day doing them but it is a small area. They have one rack of dumbbells, one oooold bench to do bench press, 2 mats on the floor, 2 treadmills, 4 sit-up benches. They also have this reallly realllly old cable machine that has lat pull downs and a roman chair. I haven’t seen anyone use it and it looks about 30 years old.
Then, at 4pm training runs until about 5:30, maybe 6pm.
VIP Training:
RIPOFF. Well, they just raised prices, and then no one did VIP training for a week and so they dropped the price I heard, I can’t confirm the price reduction but I can confirm that they did raise the price while I was here. It says so on the website.
The VIP training price was 500 B/day or 2500 B for the week (6 days; $15 and $75 respectively). Apparently they raised it to 1000 B/day (30 dollars!) and $5500 B/week (~$165).
I think that I get enough personal attention during group training that I don’t need the VIP, though the trainers will bug you to do VIP with them, which is kind of annoying. “You do VIP with me, right?” All the time, I just tell them I don’t have the money or it is too expensive (both of which are true actually…).
Some people liked to do the VIP by day so that they could train like 2 days with one trainer and 2 days with another trainer, ect. Each trainer will give you a little different advice based on their own technique. Overall, it is all good advice, which I get enough of at group training, I don’t need to pay twice what I already do per month for one week of individual training 1 hour a day. I’d say skip it.
Trainers:
The trainers here are almost all pretty great. Really encouraging, informative, helpful, and make sure you get the right technique. A lot of the trainers I know and highly recommend: Ot (highest recommendation, everyone wants to do VIP with him, while VIP was cheaper), Deng (Second highest recommended), Joy, Petsila, Chok, Fhad, and Wat. I may be missing a few. Bangman is nice but I’ve never trained with him. Theng comes off as a jerk at first but tends to come around after about a week or two. Yid is a jerk and I don’t really recommend him. He was the only one I had a bad experience with. Bang runs training with his whistle. He isn’t actually a real trainer, he has never had a muay thai fight. He knows some muay thai but I think he is a brother of one of the head trainers? He actually runs track and is nationally ranked or something.
Gym Facilities:
I think it is good expect for the smell. They need to bleach the rings or something, everyone sweats so much and it just soaks in. I never see them actually cleaning the ring canvas. The worst is the carpet flooring. It gives a lot of people blisters from pivoting their feet on it and just seriously soaks in the sweat. They vacuum it but man it stinks. They have 12 punching bags with different weight and solidity. All are in good condition.
Shared Bungalow:
ANTS EVERYWHERE!!! The most annoying part of living in Thailand are the ants. Apparently they are in the Delux Bungalows as well. They are like millimeter sized ants crawling everywhere, no matter how many times you spray insecticide they are always around. There are also larger ants that do sting. I haven’t had the pleasure of being stung but my roommate has. What they do is bite your skin, pull it up and stick their stinger under the skin. I caused him to have a boil with puss but it didn’t pop. It went down after a couple days.
If you are on a budget, though, the shared bungalows are fine. You just have to get used to not having all of the luxuries at home. The shower is alright, similar to a Japanese shower, with the idea of having the sink, toilet and shower in the same room. It IS energy efficient though, the water heater is an electric powered one on the wall. The water goes up through and, it gets heated and comes out the shower hose warm. Though most time I take an ice cold shower because it is so hot and humid outside, especially after training. I don’t know why America hasn’t implemented tankless water heaters yet. Japan and Thailand both have them, though I think Japan’s are gas (Renai Tankless water heaters).
Oh yea, I forgot to mention that Thai TV is worse than Japense TV. Apparently everything is a stage show at the state fair, at least that’s what it looks like on nearly every channel except for the news and the dubbed Chinese dramas about old dynasties.
Camp Office:
Don’t buy what you don’t have to from the gym, it will be a ripoff. I got ripped off on the price for my scooter for a month. I paid B4500 for a month (B1000 deposit) while my roommate got his scooter down the street from a bar for B2500 for the month (B1000 deposit). Plus, if I don’t ride my scooter for an entire day it takes me about 5 minutes to start it up. The other places seem to have more dependable scooters. The number one thing I can recommend about Thailand is to not be too hasty in buying/renting something. You can get it cheaper right down the street. I got my scooter the first day I was here before I started talking to people.
So there you have it, if you want to train at Rawai Muay Thai, this is definitely the low-down on the place. If you have questions, leave a comment.
Here are some pictures of the gym. Since they are panoramic composites, they are too wide to show on this page so click on the links to see the pictures.
This is the side of the gym standing on my porch at the shared bungalows next to the gym: Gym Side
These are the shared bungalows Shared Bungalows
These two pictures are of the inside of the gym, itself. Front of the Gym Rear of the Gym
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!
