Sunday, April 26, 2009
It's a Leechiful Life
The first afternoon in Khao Sok I just walked around a bit. I really liked the place. A few bungalows and restaurants, but all very quiet. A river running nearby my bungalow and a gorgeous view of some forest covered karst mountains just rising straight up. I ran into an american who I had been on the tour to anthong marine park with and she told me she thought there would be a band at this one restaurant, so I said I'd see her there. Later that night I stopped by, but it was a private company party for some thais from phuket who were celebrating the end of the high season. It must be how ragged I look or something, but I often tend to get invited into things by thais, and this was no different. It was quite the fun party. Lots of dancing to thai music and american hip hop (which I prefer to that eurobeat garbage). They fed me lots and lots of food and made me several cocktails. The party went on and on into the night b/c no one wanted to leave until the rain stopped.The next day I had booked a two day tour to cheow lake in Khao Sok NP. The lake is a huge lake, with thousands of islands and small channels because it was dammed in 1982, something I'm not all too pleased about as it destroyed thousands of acres of thailands oldest, largest, and most diverse rainforest (if anyone wants to know about my passion against building major dams like this just ask anyone from Dr. Varanka Martin's chemistry class where I had to write reports and argue my case against the 3 gorges dam in china as their alternative energy source). The lake also gave poachers easy access to the remaining forest that had been inpossible to get to b/c of the dense rainforest and cliffy topography. The dam also wiped out 49 species of river fish that could not possibly survive in the deep water low oxygen enrivonment of a huge lake. The government cited two reasons for building the dam, hydro power and flooding out studen communists who took refuge in the caves in the area. In the end, it was these hiding communists that we have to thank that the rainforest is intact b/c they successfully kept out all logging operations before the area became a park.Regardless, the area is incredibly gorgeous. In my group were there swiss students and two british backpackers. The hour journey on the lake to our floating hut camp was breathtaking. 1000foot tall limestone karst cliffs rising straight out of the water with jungle clinging where it can. The islands and mountains on the shore forming incredible shapes. So jagged and unbelievably steep. When you see a disney movie with mountains, this is one of the places, they must have gotten the idea from. Seriously stunning. We arrived at the floatingjungle lake camp and had a bit over an hour before lunch. There was a group of 13 dutch there already, and they told me it was about 45 minutes to kayak around the nearby island. Perfect I though, and set out to do it. I overestimated how fast they could go around the island and when I came to the first small inlet 1o minutes into the paddle that looked like a dead end, I figured no way could this be the way around the island, so I kept going. It turned out being the one, but I ended up paddling an hour more searching for the way around the island. Problem was, there were so many islands it was immposible to tell where one started and ended. I came to a huge bay and figured this must be it, so I paddled a couple of km's into it before realizing it was a dead end. At this point I figured I would get lost if I didn't turn around, so even though I figured at the time that the finish must be right around the corner, i turned around. Good thing I did, b/c that first small passageway was the one. B/c of this I missed lunch and the trip with my group to hike up the mountain to the view point, one of the highlights of the trip. I was bummed by this (especially since it was a beautiful sunny day) and had to settle with going with the older dutch crowd to tour a floating fishing village and swim into a cave that started in the lake. We got back to camp well before my group, so I spent the time swinging from this incredibly long and tall rope swing the locals had built from a big canopy tree. At the apex of the swing when you let go, you were at least 30-40 feet above the water. I also enjoyed just swimming and floating in the lake. The lake was so pleasant and warm. The dutch crowd, who was an older crowd spent most of their time just floating in innertubes or swimming in the lake. It was really just that warm. And the floating camp was so cool. These little huts just floating in the water, surrounded by the huge karst mountains and jungle everywhere. Very cool! There were some dead trees still standing from the flooding and I swam out to them and had fun climbing them b/c the consequence of falling from these tall trees was only flopping into the water. From that point on the dutch liked to call me tarzan from my escapades in the kayak, on the rope swing, and climbing the trees. When my group finally got back, Poo, our guide, said he thought I was in shape enough to jog up the mountain to the viewpoint so we could do it at 5am the next morning. This lifted my spirits quite a bit and made the delicious meal taste even better. Did a night safari where we didn't see much but a few tarantulas, some scorpions, and pit viper. We spent the rest of the night swimming around, and then floating and singing in the lake at Poo played the guitar from the deck area of the floating huts. Two steps from the door of each hut was the lake, so several times during the night to cool off (obviously no fan out there), I'd just lose the underwear and go skinny dipping in the moonlight. From splashes heard throughout the night, i could tell others did it as well. And the cool thing was it was quicker to get to meals from my cabin by swimming than by walking.The next day, I got up early and poo and I hustled up the mountain to the viewpoint. It was quite spectacular looking at the limestone cliff mountains and the lake below. We did it so fast that we still had to wait for breakfast when we got back. The day's adventure was to walk up through this cave. I've been through quite a lot of caves in my life, and i'd have to say this ranks pretty high up there. Not as good as carlsbad or the adventure of the caves in eagle or glenwood, but probably close behind. The cave was really long. It took a couple of hours to walk through it. The whole time we were walking up a creek, sometimes having to swim or wade, othertimes having to climb small waterfalls. The cool thing was that it was a cave where you didn't have to retrace your steps. We started where the river came out of the cave and ended where the river entered the cave. The water was freezing compared to the lake, though really not that cold. The cave had some narrow passages and then some huge rooms with nice cave formations. We saw lots and lots of bats and even a black cave toad. We had lunch at a different floating camp and then had time to canoe around again before the still spectacular boat ride back to the pier through the karst mountains. That night I just chilled at my bungalow in a hammock reading, listening to the rain pour down and watching all the frogs and toads hopping about.The next day I wanted to hike to two big waterfalls in the park. It was pouring in the morning, so I got a late start and didn't get hiking until around noon. This meant that I was only able to make it to one of the big falls. I was tempted to go for the other, but I feared darkness and even though I had my flashlight, the trail wasn't the best and rain was looming. Along the way, I saw 4 or 5 other "waterfalls." The thais religiously flock to waterfalls just like they do temples, so places will call anything waterfalls just to get thai tourism. In reality, these falls were just small little rapids. The way that thais classify waterfalls, the big thompon below lake estes and throughout the park would be one huge waterfall! They say you should take a guide on these hikes so you don't get lost and to see wildlife. Well, guides are quite expensive, especially for a single person, but I didn't get lost, and actually did quite well on the wildlife watching. Saw several species of lizards, a turtle sunning on a rock, and two species of monkeys (a black and a white one). And of course the leeches. I was up to about 63 leaches on my feet before I stopped counting and caring. They don't really hurt and it slows you down a lot to keep stopping to check for them, so I'd hike for a long time before removing my keanes to check for them. At one check, I had 14, big fat, blood drunk leeches on my feet. Quite gross. And when you pull them off, you bleed like crazy b/c they, unlike mosquitos which do the opposite, put an anticoagulant in your blood. So my feed had runny blood everywhere and were covered in leeches. Quite the site. The last few kilometers I walked in the rain before finally reaching my bungalow.This morning I talked with a british couple at breakfast who do lots and lots of travelling. They work for some insurance firm and have it worked out where they work hard for a year to a year and a half and then they get 6 months to a year off to travel. Anyways, they have been to lots of rainforest areas, but none in the wet season, so they just couldn't take all the leeches and decided to forego anymore hikes and just enjoy the area around the small town. There were just so many leeches!Today I made it to Phuket Island, thailands most popular tourist destination especially for package tourists.
Lunar Eclipse...and rabies strikes again
So Nicola and Ella and I as well as two germans from our same bungalow caught a saeungtheuw that night to head up to the half moon party. Unlike the fullmoon party which is on the beach and attracts up to 30,000 people, this one is in the jungle and gets only 5-10,000 people. We arrived in the jungle around 10:30pm. When we got to the entrance, there was a large sign that said due to the current political problems and state of emergency declared in thailand, the party would no longer go until 6am, but only until 2am, but they would be charging 300baht instead of 400. We paid to get in, bought some overly expensive beers and a bucket to share between ella, nicola and I and got ready to dance. The setting was amazing. In the middle of this jungle, with all sorts of cool lights and decorations up; multilevels of dance floors, several bars, etc. The music played was all kind of the same eurobeat stuff. I've never been to a rave, but I guess the same as what they play there. Pretty easy to dance to, you just do whatever you like. Some people running around with glowsticks or naked or whatever. Most people fairly drunk or on drugs. But at about midnight the music stopped, and it was announced the party was over due to the state of emergency thing. Pretty unbelievable if you ask me. Here we are on this tiny island way south of bangkok. 70% of the people on the island are tourists, and the thais here only care about tourism, not what's going on in bangkok. To me it is much more dangerous to shut down a crowd of 10,000 drunk and drugged ravers than to let a party in the middle of the jungle in a small island in the middle of the ocean go on. Luckily for the like 10 policemen on the island, the huge crowd only booed, griped, and searched for a refund (the ticket sellers were long gone). The large party mainly moved back to Haad Rin, the main beach, but as we were quite far from there and the taxis can get away with exhorbitant fares, we just headed in our small group to the 7-11 nearby to stock up on much cheaper beer and head for the beach. Ella, Nicola and I ran into another brit, a crazy israeli just prancing around in his briefs, and two swedish girls tripping on mushrooms. We all headed to the israelis bungalow on the beach. He had a nice outside set up so that we cold all sit there as he was living in this bungalow for 8 months...just partying everynight and painting or sleeping all day. We didn't do much, just chilled and talked and laughed at the swedish girls. Around 5:30am with the sun starting to rise, nicola and I decided it was time to go back to our bungalow, the moonflower. Ella had passed out in the hammock and she told us to leave her, so we set off for the fairly long walk back to the moonflower. At one point a dog came charging after us (the dogs on this island seemed to be particularly nasty) but I pushed nicola into the ocean and jumped in after her and the dog left us alone. We finally arrived at our bungalows. Nicola gave me a goodnight kiss on the cheek (I don't really think that is british tradition, but I was too drunk to think about it at that point, so I just returned it and went off to bed).I woke up around 7:30 (no alarm, just my internal clock as my watch is broken) as I had a fairy to catch that morning. As I was brushing my teeth out by the beach, Ella came running up with tears running down her face. She had been attacked and bitten by one of the dogs along the beach. The bites weren't so bad, but she was more upset about the thought of rabies and thai hospitals...something I could completely relate to and understand. Luckily, she had had the pre-rabies vaccine, unlike myself, so she didn't need to go to bangkok, but could just go to the clinics there.Took the ferry that morning to Ko Samui from Ko phangan. Found a nice bungalow close to a long gorgeous stretch of beach. I rented a motorbike and started exploring the island. Visited a couple temple complexes with huge buddhas overlooking the water. Then I drove to Haad Chaweng, the famous beach there. It's 6km long, and I walked the whole thing that afternoon and then waded out to a nearby island to watch the sunset. The water here is a beautiful light blue and the sand a bleached white. Unlike my bungalow's beach, which was empty, this beach was crowded with euros tanning, eating at seaside restaurants, and getting massages. Samui is quite upscale, modern, and very touristic. Asside from the spicy smell of curry, a few temples, and cars on the left side fo the road, you wouldn't know you weren't in maui or the like. I checked out a couple of the fancy resorts (a habit I must have picked up from my parents), and they were incredibly nice, but really not that expensive compared to what I'm sure Hawaii or the caribbean or even mexico is like. And the streets are lined with tourist vendors of all kinds. On the beach where people are tanning (or more usually burning) thais completely covered in clothes and sarong sell curios, food, beers, massages, and anything you can think of to the unmoving tourists. Ko tao was a dive mecca with the average age of people around 25-30. Phangan was party central with the average age of people 20-25, and here at samui it is luxury and hedonism with the average age of people approaching 40-50 (and mostly overweight). It seems to be not so much a place for travellers, but for package tourists and people on shorter holidays. I walked back along the beach that night, but the combination of rain and getting annoyed by so many people trying to sell me cocaine and weed that I went back to the main street of shopping areas to walk back to my motorcycle.The next day, I made it to church, my first successful attempt at church in Thailand and then went out to complete my circuit of the island. Saw the famous grandfather and grandmother rocks: two rocks next to each other that the ocean has carved to look like the male and femal reproductive organs. Checked out some nice beaches and ate mangos and went for swims at them. Checked out a muslim fishing village and a mummified monk who apparently predicted his death. Then took a hike up to some large falls. After getting back to my motorbike it started to downpour, so I had to wait that out. But it made the next waterfall I went to quite spectacular as it was flooding brown water everywhere. Saw a couple of smaller falls that were also flooding and then took a steep road up to near the top of the island to a sweet viewpoint. I thought I could get back to my side of the island by going cross island. I was on a crazy 4wd road for a long time and then it started to get dark. I wasn't sure if the road would ever go down, I feared getting lost in the dark, and I worried about running out of petrol, so I turned around. But it was a fun adventure nonetheless, and the fireflies up there were amazing for sure.On 4/20, a crazy day I'm sure in phangan, and the 10th anniversary of Columbine, I took a ferry and then bus to get to Khao Sok NP. I was greeted warmly by the rainforest with an incredible downpour...what more could you ask for.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Happy New Year and Happy Easter and Violence in Bangkok
After getting all my series of shots in bangkok around 10pm, I took a taxi back to the khao son road area. On the way to get there you drive by the democracy monument. Around this area there were huge protests by the red-shirts (unlike the huskers who go by blackshirts, these guys are actually appropriately named b/c of their red shirts) going on. Taxi drivers in bangkok are terrible with finding places and the only way this guy knew how to get to khao san was through the democracy monument promenade. It was barricaded off due to the protests, but the taxi driver exchanged some words with the policemen there, one of which was farang (thai for white tourist), so I assume he was saying he was carrying a tourist and needed to go through. Regardless, they opened up the barricade and let us through. Knowing how protests often turn out in countries, you can be certain I ducked and crouched on the floor of the taxi. The next day, as the protests were near the tourist ghettos, you could see the redshirts running around, especially from my favorite internet place. It all seemed very peaceful. But when I was in ko tao I saw on the tv that it turned quite violent with burning busses, police shooting, and petrol bombs. So it wasn't so overcautious of me ducking in the taxi in the end.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/13/thailand.protests/index.html
pictures:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7996312.stm
Finally made it down to ko tao after the whole rat bite experience. Took the overnight bus then ferry to get there. Found a nice bungalow to stay high up on the hill overlooking the ocean. It was a steep and 25 minute walk from the main town and beach, but it was quiet up there and had nice views. All along the walk there were mango trees of some mini variety of mangos where you could just pick or take from the ground as many as you liked. I ate so many mangos while in ko tao! I'd just sit on the deck of my bungalow, watch the sunset and feast on mangos. The first day in ko tao and checked out the two towns and the two main beaches and played some ball with a few thais (extremely unusual to have basketball and not soccer). Ko Tao is very beautiful b/c it has all these huge granite rocks everywhere up on the mountains and down by the shore. Something I haven't seen here before as it's usually karst and limestone.
The next day, Easter (not a Christian church to be had on the island), I did two dives. Saw some nice stuff: huge schools of fish, some of the biggest I'd seen, several stingrays, lots of barracudas, a sea snake, and some species of butterfly and angel fish I'd never seen before. The first dive site was really cool, chumphon pinnacle, as it was a huge rock just sticking up in the middle of nowhere. After the dives in the morning I walked the beach and did a couple of snorkels as well. The water here is so warm. The warmest ocean water I have ever felt. It literally feels like a bath or a hotsprings. In the shallows it's much too warm for me to swim in. People spend the whole day just sitting in the shallows reading, it's literally that warm. You would never get cold. Spent the evening in a hammock on the beach reading and watching the sunset. Ko Tao and all the islands over here are huge party places, but I didn't party on ko tao at all b/c it's pretty expensive here and everyone seems to be here with groups of friends, so it's kind of hard to meet people. That's ok though b/c I enjoyed just feeling the breeze and eating mangos up on my deck.
The next day was Songkran, the thai new year. In bangkok and other areas like chaing mai they have a huge waterfight for a whole week. On this island they only allow it for 1 day b/c of water shortages. But it's crazy. Everyone lines the street and throw buckets of water or use hoses or super soakers. They also throw flour and other white coconut paste stuff. I didn't really join in on the waterfight b/c most of the tourists rented a motorbike and 1 person drove and the others threw the water and by myself it would be a bit hard. But I definitely got plenty soaked from the water fight from other people. I rented a mountain bike that day, which was very hard to find b/c it appears all the euros here are very lazy and just rent scooter and motorbikes. I bike up over and across the middle of the island to a nice beach on the other side. I did some snorkelling there which was great. The whole coast on this side, minus a few tiny beaches are just these huge granite rocks. Basically like an ocean lined lumpy ridge (or for you idahoans maybe like the city of rocks, though I've never been there). It's quite beautiful and fun to climb and scramble around in. Bro, we would have really loved it back in the day as it has limitless fort possibilities and caves. The snorkelling was awesome too b/c it was like lumpy ridge underwater. Lots of nice cave and tunnel swimthroughs. There was also some great (and scary high) cliff jumping to do there, which was a lot of fun, especially with the nice bath water. After hanging out there for a while I made the brutally hot, steep, and sweath bike ride back to the otherside where the partiers had finally woken up and the waterfight was in full force. Of course I got drenched as I biked through the two towns on my way to the southern part of the island (thank goodness I had my pack rain cover with me!) Checked out a few more beautiful beaches on the southern part of the island and took a hike, scramble, and climb to a big rock on the coast that looks like a buddha and also climbed to a nice viewpoint of the bays and beaches of the southern portion of the island. Saw several giant moniter lizards along the way. After doing that, I biked back through the water fight and then to the otherside of the island via a more southerly road and then biked up and up and up to a very low reservoir and eventually to the top of the island to a viewpoint called two-view b/c you could see both sides of the island. I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the top as it was getting late, I was pretty dehydrated and dang, the roads here are just so steep and my bike didn't shift, didn't brale, and was obviously too small. There was a huge rock up here on the top and I just kind of camped up there and waited for the sunset. It was a beautiful sunset up there and very peaceful with the nice breeze and the faint noise of the partyies starting down at the town. The ride down was intense b/c I took a part singletrack/part washed out road, but all extremely steep back to town on my nearly brakeless bike.
The next day I did a snorkel boat tour that went to about 5 snorkel spots around the island while circumnavigating it, so you get a nice view of the whole island. The first snorkel place was pretty sweet b/c blacktip reef sharks come into the shallows to swim around and oxygenate there blood before going deep to hunt. The guide showed us (about 200-300m away), where they would be. It was one of those times it really pays off to be a good swimmer. We were the first boat there but eventually lots and lots of snorkel boats came in. I was able to swim pretty fast and get there much before everyone else, so I could just float there quietly and watch the sharks (some were quite big) swim in the shallows and come pretty close to me. Eventually the big splashing, noisy group of people got there and then the shark sitings became much more rare. Some of the other snorkel sites were pretty cool to with the huge granite boulders and all the swim throughs. The last place we visited was nang yuan island. Gorgeous! It is actually 3 islands connected by blinding white sandbars with turquoise water all around. I hiked up to a viewpoint that was quite spectacular before swimming and snorkelling in the bays formed by the sandbar. Again, the water here would be almost considered hot, not warm. That night I watched the sunset from my balcony and wrote some letters. And my light attracted all sorts of large bugs which attracted these two huge geckos, so I had some fun watching them hunt and attack the huge bugs.
I then took a boat to ko phangan where I am now. I'm staying in some nice beachside bungalows pretty far from the main town, so it's nice and quiet. Wasn't much to do the day I got there, so I just read in a swing by the beach and swam a bit. Then I took a bicycle to the main town of haad rin, which was a quite tiring ride b/c the road doesn't follow the coast but goes up and down and up and down. Haad rin is the site of the famous full moon parties. Unfortunately I'm not here for one. But the parties are apparently epic. I had told my mom that like 5000 people party on the beach, but I read in the guidebook today that during the low season there are 8000 people and in the high season about 30,000 people on this beach, just crazy drunk, on magic mushrooms, acid, you name it. They had to establish a phychiatric hospital here b/c apparently some of the drugs people take here can make people go off the wall and be crazy for 3 or 4 days after the party. The party starts at dark and apparently doesn't end until 11am the next morning with most people passed out on the beach (you can imagine drownings are not uncommon), having sex, vomitting, you name it.
Yesterday I took a boat tour to angthong marine national park. It's this group of 42 karst islands rising out of the sea in jagged fashion. Incredibly beautiful. The cliffs and jungle and nice water and just unusual shapes of the islands. The tour was very nice. Did some snorkelling in one spot, hiked up to a viewpoint and then down to a hidden saltwater, emerald lagoon in the middle of one of the islands. Got dropped off at a stunning beach and kayaked around to some other islands. Unfortunately my kayak partner was a chunky brit who no only caused the kayak to flip at one point, but wasn't much for exploring. Wished my brother had been my partner! But he grew weary soon enough so I got to go and check out some other islands by myself. Finished the day off at another nice beach and a hike up to a cool cave where we saw some monkeys on the way back. Last night I bought one of the infamous bucket drinks here (sand pales they fill with a huge thing of hard alcohol (i go for the cheap thai whiskey, which is kind of like rum too), a can of coke, and a thing of redbull to walk around the beach. Found out about a pool party and headed there where I met two americans, one , the girl, who went to colorado state and the other played linebacker at iowa. He remembers playing CU back in CU's hayday with Korkell, Rashan Salaam, and Dion Figures. They played at CU and he remembered the coach's halftime talk about how can these guys be beating you, they don't even care about football in this state, look the stadium is small and it's still not filled b/c everyone was out climbing and biking (one of those warm fall days in boulder for a game the crowd thinks will be an easy victory. One more bucket later and we were in the pool dancing away. I think we stayed out quite late, but I have no idea as my replacement, cheap asian watch, broke the other day. But it was a good time for sure.
Today I rented a motorbike and toured the island. Went across the island and looped back along the coast, and then came to check out the haad rin beach before going up into the jungle area on a more difficult road. Saw lots of nice beaches today. Some really gorgeous places to stay way off in the boonies if you were just looking to do nothing but swim, read in a hammock and relax. But I wanted to be a bit closer to the main action for booking tours, sampling some nightlife, and eating away from the resort restaurant, and I like to be more active than that. Lots of waterfalls here. Saw 7 today, though most were just trickles as it's the dry season, which I'm ok with b/c I'd rather have nice beautiful days than rushing falls. Also did a nice nature walk in the national park following a trickling stream in the jungle and some stream walking to get to a few of the falls. Met two british girls today at a free bbq (if you bought a beer for a buck fifty) and they happen to be staying at my moonflower bungalow, so we're going to head out to the halfmoon party tonight that is in the jungle. Apparently goes till 5 or 6 in the morning, but we'll see. I have a ferry booked tomorrow at 9am to go to ko samui.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/13/thailand.protests/index.html
pictures:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7996312.stm
Finally made it down to ko tao after the whole rat bite experience. Took the overnight bus then ferry to get there. Found a nice bungalow to stay high up on the hill overlooking the ocean. It was a steep and 25 minute walk from the main town and beach, but it was quiet up there and had nice views. All along the walk there were mango trees of some mini variety of mangos where you could just pick or take from the ground as many as you liked. I ate so many mangos while in ko tao! I'd just sit on the deck of my bungalow, watch the sunset and feast on mangos. The first day in ko tao and checked out the two towns and the two main beaches and played some ball with a few thais (extremely unusual to have basketball and not soccer). Ko Tao is very beautiful b/c it has all these huge granite rocks everywhere up on the mountains and down by the shore. Something I haven't seen here before as it's usually karst and limestone.
The next day, Easter (not a Christian church to be had on the island), I did two dives. Saw some nice stuff: huge schools of fish, some of the biggest I'd seen, several stingrays, lots of barracudas, a sea snake, and some species of butterfly and angel fish I'd never seen before. The first dive site was really cool, chumphon pinnacle, as it was a huge rock just sticking up in the middle of nowhere. After the dives in the morning I walked the beach and did a couple of snorkels as well. The water here is so warm. The warmest ocean water I have ever felt. It literally feels like a bath or a hotsprings. In the shallows it's much too warm for me to swim in. People spend the whole day just sitting in the shallows reading, it's literally that warm. You would never get cold. Spent the evening in a hammock on the beach reading and watching the sunset. Ko Tao and all the islands over here are huge party places, but I didn't party on ko tao at all b/c it's pretty expensive here and everyone seems to be here with groups of friends, so it's kind of hard to meet people. That's ok though b/c I enjoyed just feeling the breeze and eating mangos up on my deck.
The next day was Songkran, the thai new year. In bangkok and other areas like chaing mai they have a huge waterfight for a whole week. On this island they only allow it for 1 day b/c of water shortages. But it's crazy. Everyone lines the street and throw buckets of water or use hoses or super soakers. They also throw flour and other white coconut paste stuff. I didn't really join in on the waterfight b/c most of the tourists rented a motorbike and 1 person drove and the others threw the water and by myself it would be a bit hard. But I definitely got plenty soaked from the water fight from other people. I rented a mountain bike that day, which was very hard to find b/c it appears all the euros here are very lazy and just rent scooter and motorbikes. I bike up over and across the middle of the island to a nice beach on the other side. I did some snorkelling there which was great. The whole coast on this side, minus a few tiny beaches are just these huge granite rocks. Basically like an ocean lined lumpy ridge (or for you idahoans maybe like the city of rocks, though I've never been there). It's quite beautiful and fun to climb and scramble around in. Bro, we would have really loved it back in the day as it has limitless fort possibilities and caves. The snorkelling was awesome too b/c it was like lumpy ridge underwater. Lots of nice cave and tunnel swimthroughs. There was also some great (and scary high) cliff jumping to do there, which was a lot of fun, especially with the nice bath water. After hanging out there for a while I made the brutally hot, steep, and sweath bike ride back to the otherside where the partiers had finally woken up and the waterfight was in full force. Of course I got drenched as I biked through the two towns on my way to the southern part of the island (thank goodness I had my pack rain cover with me!) Checked out a few more beautiful beaches on the southern part of the island and took a hike, scramble, and climb to a big rock on the coast that looks like a buddha and also climbed to a nice viewpoint of the bays and beaches of the southern portion of the island. Saw several giant moniter lizards along the way. After doing that, I biked back through the water fight and then to the otherside of the island via a more southerly road and then biked up and up and up to a very low reservoir and eventually to the top of the island to a viewpoint called two-view b/c you could see both sides of the island. I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the top as it was getting late, I was pretty dehydrated and dang, the roads here are just so steep and my bike didn't shift, didn't brale, and was obviously too small. There was a huge rock up here on the top and I just kind of camped up there and waited for the sunset. It was a beautiful sunset up there and very peaceful with the nice breeze and the faint noise of the partyies starting down at the town. The ride down was intense b/c I took a part singletrack/part washed out road, but all extremely steep back to town on my nearly brakeless bike.
The next day I did a snorkel boat tour that went to about 5 snorkel spots around the island while circumnavigating it, so you get a nice view of the whole island. The first snorkel place was pretty sweet b/c blacktip reef sharks come into the shallows to swim around and oxygenate there blood before going deep to hunt. The guide showed us (about 200-300m away), where they would be. It was one of those times it really pays off to be a good swimmer. We were the first boat there but eventually lots and lots of snorkel boats came in. I was able to swim pretty fast and get there much before everyone else, so I could just float there quietly and watch the sharks (some were quite big) swim in the shallows and come pretty close to me. Eventually the big splashing, noisy group of people got there and then the shark sitings became much more rare. Some of the other snorkel sites were pretty cool to with the huge granite boulders and all the swim throughs. The last place we visited was nang yuan island. Gorgeous! It is actually 3 islands connected by blinding white sandbars with turquoise water all around. I hiked up to a viewpoint that was quite spectacular before swimming and snorkelling in the bays formed by the sandbar. Again, the water here would be almost considered hot, not warm. That night I watched the sunset from my balcony and wrote some letters. And my light attracted all sorts of large bugs which attracted these two huge geckos, so I had some fun watching them hunt and attack the huge bugs.
I then took a boat to ko phangan where I am now. I'm staying in some nice beachside bungalows pretty far from the main town, so it's nice and quiet. Wasn't much to do the day I got there, so I just read in a swing by the beach and swam a bit. Then I took a bicycle to the main town of haad rin, which was a quite tiring ride b/c the road doesn't follow the coast but goes up and down and up and down. Haad rin is the site of the famous full moon parties. Unfortunately I'm not here for one. But the parties are apparently epic. I had told my mom that like 5000 people party on the beach, but I read in the guidebook today that during the low season there are 8000 people and in the high season about 30,000 people on this beach, just crazy drunk, on magic mushrooms, acid, you name it. They had to establish a phychiatric hospital here b/c apparently some of the drugs people take here can make people go off the wall and be crazy for 3 or 4 days after the party. The party starts at dark and apparently doesn't end until 11am the next morning with most people passed out on the beach (you can imagine drownings are not uncommon), having sex, vomitting, you name it.
Yesterday I took a boat tour to angthong marine national park. It's this group of 42 karst islands rising out of the sea in jagged fashion. Incredibly beautiful. The cliffs and jungle and nice water and just unusual shapes of the islands. The tour was very nice. Did some snorkelling in one spot, hiked up to a viewpoint and then down to a hidden saltwater, emerald lagoon in the middle of one of the islands. Got dropped off at a stunning beach and kayaked around to some other islands. Unfortunately my kayak partner was a chunky brit who no only caused the kayak to flip at one point, but wasn't much for exploring. Wished my brother had been my partner! But he grew weary soon enough so I got to go and check out some other islands by myself. Finished the day off at another nice beach and a hike up to a cool cave where we saw some monkeys on the way back. Last night I bought one of the infamous bucket drinks here (sand pales they fill with a huge thing of hard alcohol (i go for the cheap thai whiskey, which is kind of like rum too), a can of coke, and a thing of redbull to walk around the beach. Found out about a pool party and headed there where I met two americans, one , the girl, who went to colorado state and the other played linebacker at iowa. He remembers playing CU back in CU's hayday with Korkell, Rashan Salaam, and Dion Figures. They played at CU and he remembered the coach's halftime talk about how can these guys be beating you, they don't even care about football in this state, look the stadium is small and it's still not filled b/c everyone was out climbing and biking (one of those warm fall days in boulder for a game the crowd thinks will be an easy victory. One more bucket later and we were in the pool dancing away. I think we stayed out quite late, but I have no idea as my replacement, cheap asian watch, broke the other day. But it was a good time for sure.
Today I rented a motorbike and toured the island. Went across the island and looped back along the coast, and then came to check out the haad rin beach before going up into the jungle area on a more difficult road. Saw lots of nice beaches today. Some really gorgeous places to stay way off in the boonies if you were just looking to do nothing but swim, read in a hammock and relax. But I wanted to be a bit closer to the main action for booking tours, sampling some nightlife, and eating away from the resort restaurant, and I like to be more active than that. Lots of waterfalls here. Saw 7 today, though most were just trickles as it's the dry season, which I'm ok with b/c I'd rather have nice beautiful days than rushing falls. Also did a nice nature walk in the national park following a trickling stream in the jungle and some stream walking to get to a few of the falls. Met two british girls today at a free bbq (if you bought a beer for a buck fifty) and they happen to be staying at my moonflower bungalow, so we're going to head out to the halfmoon party tonight that is in the jungle. Apparently goes till 5 or 6 in the morning, but we'll see. I have a ferry booked tomorrow at 9am to go to ko samui.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
rabid in thailand and first serious thoughts of coming home
Arrived in Bangkok on tuesday night and located my favorite guesthouse on the soi rambuttri area. The next day I had a few things to do in bangkok. Pick up some packages sent by my mom to the hualomphong area. Thanks mom!! You're the best. And then visit the cebu pacific office way off into sukhummvit to try and get my refund for a cancelled flight. I started early so that I could just walk there and avoid the taxis, but on the way back took the water taxi on the smelly side canals (which is much faster than cars as there is no traffic) and the subway.
Took an "overnight" bus from khao san that night to get to chumphon. Problem was it wasn't quite overnight. It left at 6pm and the bus dropped me off at 3am at soe bus stop in God knows where near chumphon. It dropped 4 other people off as well who were continuing on to ko tao. The bus driver in what little english he knew said there would be a bus coming by to pick us up. Around 4am a minivan stopped by and picked up the other 4: they had onward tickets to ko tao, but I couldn't get on that van. One of the guys looked at me sincerely and said "good luck" as he got on the van, little did I know I would need it. So at this point is was 4 and not too far from sunrise and when the public transportation starts (5:30), so I decided not to pay the motorcycle driver who was there and offering to take me the 8km to the town center for almost 1/2 the price it cost to go the 500km from bangkok...just the principle of the thing, plus if I just waited til 5 or so I wouldn't have to pay for a room for that night either. There was a little eatery with tables out there so I was just going to wait another hour or so until the public transport started. I got my book out to read and remember noticing a couple rats digging through the trash about 15m away, but didn't think much of it. I quickly got too tired to read and just laid my head on the table to sleep. I was awoken at some point by a sharp pain in my right little toe. I swatted down in my drowsiness pissed that I had been bit by another bee (would be 3rd on the trip), but as I woke up I quickly came to my senses and realized that bees weren't out at this time of night and mosquitos are not near that painful. I looked down at my toe and it was bleeding quite badly. I immediately figured I was bit by something bigger, perhaps a rat. I began to panic a bit. I showed it to the lady in the store. She didn't speak any english, but pointed to the sewer/ditch area where there was a rat, and I knew she figured it was a rat. Of course she had me wash the wound in some most likely not so clean water from some spicket behind the building. I was quite scared as I feared rabies. I paid the motorcyclist to take me into town. I woke up a woman at a guesthouse my book said knew english. She directed me to where a 7-11 was so that I could make an international call. I didn't really know what to do and I wanted to call my mom b/c I was very sketched to go to a rural thai hospital and get a shot (shared needle?) considering the hospital experience we had with lucas. On the way, I walked by the ferry office and they were open and had internet which would be loads cheaper and easier than an international call from a payphone. So I signed in, Sherman, (mr L3) was online so I got him to call my mom and tell her to go online. We decided it was best to go to the hospital there and try and trust them (rabies shots need to be administered rather quickly). The hospital seemed ok and rather clean and sterile, though they didn't speak a lick of english and they were obviously most concerned with the fact that my pulse was 40 (i did find that a tad unusual considering I was quite scared so I should have had an elevated hr and i'm not exactly in great cardio shape right now...I think i've read Lance Armstrongs resting hr is 37). But they did give me a shot and a little pamphlet (in thai) that showed I needed 5 more. I went back to the iternet place and my mom had conferred with my father and my uncle, a vet. And they believed I needed another shot with the human immunoglobins. So it was off to bangkok (in a rush) for me again in hopes of getting to an english speaking hospital. Left at 10:30am for bangkok, got in around 7:30 and after a nerve wracking 1 hour long taxi ride I made it to an american run hospital a bit after 9. The clinic was closed so I had to go to the ER. They seemed much more professional and at least the doctor and the orderlies spoke english. They said I need 11cc's of the vaccination fluid. They wanted to put 2mL in my little toe, 4 in each butt cheek and 1ml in the other arm that didn't have the shot. Well, I don't know if you've ever tried to put 2 mL's of fluid into your tiny little toe, but after about 10 minutes (probably shorter, but it seemed much longer), the doctor gave up on trying to squeeze any more liquid in there, so I just got 1mL in there. The shots in the butt and arm didn't really hurt at all luckily.
Perhaps the funniest thing was the tact (maybe not quite the right word, but it'll work) they used for having you pay the bill. The cashier guy walked up while I was lying on my stomach with my drawers down and a needle in my butt. He didn't have the best english but he put a piece of paper under my nose that showed the bill. Far from cheap. I cringed and the nurse giving the shot asked if it hurt...i shook my head, no the shot didn't hurt...but something else did.
I think the people there got a slight kick out of me. It was a very, very fancy hospital. From the outside it looked more like a ritz carlton or something. Most likely used mainly by rich business travelers or rich westerners living abroad. I hadn't changed my outfit I was wearing since, well before lucas left, so at least a month. Of course everynow and then I washed it in the shower or jumped in the river and I am often wearing a swimsuit. When you're with other backpackers or with everyday filipinos you don't notice a smell, but once in the sterile hospital I could tell I smelled quite badly. (my clothes are currently being washed in bangkok as we speak). And my feet are pretty badly cut up, scarred, etc b/c that's what you get when you are wearing sandals non-stop in areas far from grassy fields or nice sidewalks. Plus the humid weather and saltwater doesn't exactly help healing. The doctor looked at me when he first met me, "which one is the rat bite" I also felt sorry for the nurse cleaning my feet. I hadn't been able to shower in a couple days and if you walk for a whole day in bangkok like I had done the day before in sandals with very sweaty feet and all the pollution and dirt everywhere, your feet just don't look the same as when you wear sandals on the aci campus on their clean grass and swept sidewalks!
Today I'm waiting for the night bus again that leaves at 6pm. This time though I'm going straight to ko tao insteading of stopping in chumphon. I had wanted to stop in chumphon b/c the lonely planet said it had very budget accomadation (it did) and had some nice beaches nearby with good windsurfing (one of my favorite water sports). But I have decided I guess I'm not meant to go there and now of course I'm a bit behind schedule with my visa (you're only given 30 days before you have to leave thailand or at least do a border run) and I know I can always go with my brother to bellingham and windsurf all I want when i'm home.
So I've found myself in a bit of a rut and quite a fair amount of bad luck I think, recently. The day before I said goodbye to lucas and sari my camera broke and then the next day I had to say goodbye to them which was really tough, b/c I love lucas and the three of us were very compatible travellers and had the best times together. But I got over that and had 3 great weeks after that, then somethings started happening again, nothing big, but they can add up. My nice trusty alarmful watch broke (you wouldn't believe how important a watch with a good alarm here is important...i bought a replacement, but it's not too loud and I've heard watches out here often don't last more than a month), I left my john grisham book I was in the middle of at an airport ticket booth (I found the same book in bangkok), my headphones broke (2nd pair that's broken on the trip), my sandals have worn through again (and it's so hard to find sandals my size and quality ones that I don't feel will ruin my joints), I was unsuccessful at obtaining my 40 dollar refund from cebu pacific that they owe me and wasted a lot of time doing it, the ferry to manila left everyday but the day I needed to go, so I had to waste a lot of money on an airplane, and some other small things. But the two biggest most upsetting things were my external hard drive I'm carrying seems to have failed, which of course has all my pictures from the trip so far (luckily I still have quite a lot of the pictures on my memory card, but not all, including all the ones I had taken with an underwater camera that I rented for a pretty penny on my liveaboard), and then b/c I altered my schedule a bit to go see lucas early in the philippines (I don't regret it at all!!!) I am behind my planned climate driven schedule and so I may be running into rain and storms, which is not what you want to do when travelling through southern thailand which apparently has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world...but white sands, turquoise lagoons, and the ocean never looks good in monsoon rains. But I can't really come back later b/c the dry season doesn't start again until november (as does cambodia, vietnam, laos) all of which I still want to visit. So I'm a bit frustrated with this. It has been raining hard here the last 3 days. Then came the rat. It has been a lot to deal with, and during this last week I haven't exactly been enjoying myself and it's been stressful, at times lonely, and scary. And of course I greatly miss my family, my friends, my roommates at the house of sin, and some other things back home. So all told I gave serious consideration to leaving and coming home. But I'm partially stubborn, determined, don't give up easily, and do have hope things will get better, so I'm still going on. If it's nasty rain in thailand I'll guess I'll forget about it and just head to malaysia. We'll see.
Can't wait to eat rats when I get to vietnam though for a little payback!
Took an "overnight" bus from khao san that night to get to chumphon. Problem was it wasn't quite overnight. It left at 6pm and the bus dropped me off at 3am at soe bus stop in God knows where near chumphon. It dropped 4 other people off as well who were continuing on to ko tao. The bus driver in what little english he knew said there would be a bus coming by to pick us up. Around 4am a minivan stopped by and picked up the other 4: they had onward tickets to ko tao, but I couldn't get on that van. One of the guys looked at me sincerely and said "good luck" as he got on the van, little did I know I would need it. So at this point is was 4 and not too far from sunrise and when the public transportation starts (5:30), so I decided not to pay the motorcycle driver who was there and offering to take me the 8km to the town center for almost 1/2 the price it cost to go the 500km from bangkok...just the principle of the thing, plus if I just waited til 5 or so I wouldn't have to pay for a room for that night either. There was a little eatery with tables out there so I was just going to wait another hour or so until the public transport started. I got my book out to read and remember noticing a couple rats digging through the trash about 15m away, but didn't think much of it. I quickly got too tired to read and just laid my head on the table to sleep. I was awoken at some point by a sharp pain in my right little toe. I swatted down in my drowsiness pissed that I had been bit by another bee (would be 3rd on the trip), but as I woke up I quickly came to my senses and realized that bees weren't out at this time of night and mosquitos are not near that painful. I looked down at my toe and it was bleeding quite badly. I immediately figured I was bit by something bigger, perhaps a rat. I began to panic a bit. I showed it to the lady in the store. She didn't speak any english, but pointed to the sewer/ditch area where there was a rat, and I knew she figured it was a rat. Of course she had me wash the wound in some most likely not so clean water from some spicket behind the building. I was quite scared as I feared rabies. I paid the motorcyclist to take me into town. I woke up a woman at a guesthouse my book said knew english. She directed me to where a 7-11 was so that I could make an international call. I didn't really know what to do and I wanted to call my mom b/c I was very sketched to go to a rural thai hospital and get a shot (shared needle?) considering the hospital experience we had with lucas. On the way, I walked by the ferry office and they were open and had internet which would be loads cheaper and easier than an international call from a payphone. So I signed in, Sherman, (mr L3) was online so I got him to call my mom and tell her to go online. We decided it was best to go to the hospital there and try and trust them (rabies shots need to be administered rather quickly). The hospital seemed ok and rather clean and sterile, though they didn't speak a lick of english and they were obviously most concerned with the fact that my pulse was 40 (i did find that a tad unusual considering I was quite scared so I should have had an elevated hr and i'm not exactly in great cardio shape right now...I think i've read Lance Armstrongs resting hr is 37). But they did give me a shot and a little pamphlet (in thai) that showed I needed 5 more. I went back to the iternet place and my mom had conferred with my father and my uncle, a vet. And they believed I needed another shot with the human immunoglobins. So it was off to bangkok (in a rush) for me again in hopes of getting to an english speaking hospital. Left at 10:30am for bangkok, got in around 7:30 and after a nerve wracking 1 hour long taxi ride I made it to an american run hospital a bit after 9. The clinic was closed so I had to go to the ER. They seemed much more professional and at least the doctor and the orderlies spoke english. They said I need 11cc's of the vaccination fluid. They wanted to put 2mL in my little toe, 4 in each butt cheek and 1ml in the other arm that didn't have the shot. Well, I don't know if you've ever tried to put 2 mL's of fluid into your tiny little toe, but after about 10 minutes (probably shorter, but it seemed much longer), the doctor gave up on trying to squeeze any more liquid in there, so I just got 1mL in there. The shots in the butt and arm didn't really hurt at all luckily.
Perhaps the funniest thing was the tact (maybe not quite the right word, but it'll work) they used for having you pay the bill. The cashier guy walked up while I was lying on my stomach with my drawers down and a needle in my butt. He didn't have the best english but he put a piece of paper under my nose that showed the bill. Far from cheap. I cringed and the nurse giving the shot asked if it hurt...i shook my head, no the shot didn't hurt...but something else did.
I think the people there got a slight kick out of me. It was a very, very fancy hospital. From the outside it looked more like a ritz carlton or something. Most likely used mainly by rich business travelers or rich westerners living abroad. I hadn't changed my outfit I was wearing since, well before lucas left, so at least a month. Of course everynow and then I washed it in the shower or jumped in the river and I am often wearing a swimsuit. When you're with other backpackers or with everyday filipinos you don't notice a smell, but once in the sterile hospital I could tell I smelled quite badly. (my clothes are currently being washed in bangkok as we speak). And my feet are pretty badly cut up, scarred, etc b/c that's what you get when you are wearing sandals non-stop in areas far from grassy fields or nice sidewalks. Plus the humid weather and saltwater doesn't exactly help healing. The doctor looked at me when he first met me, "which one is the rat bite" I also felt sorry for the nurse cleaning my feet. I hadn't been able to shower in a couple days and if you walk for a whole day in bangkok like I had done the day before in sandals with very sweaty feet and all the pollution and dirt everywhere, your feet just don't look the same as when you wear sandals on the aci campus on their clean grass and swept sidewalks!
Today I'm waiting for the night bus again that leaves at 6pm. This time though I'm going straight to ko tao insteading of stopping in chumphon. I had wanted to stop in chumphon b/c the lonely planet said it had very budget accomadation (it did) and had some nice beaches nearby with good windsurfing (one of my favorite water sports). But I have decided I guess I'm not meant to go there and now of course I'm a bit behind schedule with my visa (you're only given 30 days before you have to leave thailand or at least do a border run) and I know I can always go with my brother to bellingham and windsurf all I want when i'm home.
So I've found myself in a bit of a rut and quite a fair amount of bad luck I think, recently. The day before I said goodbye to lucas and sari my camera broke and then the next day I had to say goodbye to them which was really tough, b/c I love lucas and the three of us were very compatible travellers and had the best times together. But I got over that and had 3 great weeks after that, then somethings started happening again, nothing big, but they can add up. My nice trusty alarmful watch broke (you wouldn't believe how important a watch with a good alarm here is important...i bought a replacement, but it's not too loud and I've heard watches out here often don't last more than a month), I left my john grisham book I was in the middle of at an airport ticket booth (I found the same book in bangkok), my headphones broke (2nd pair that's broken on the trip), my sandals have worn through again (and it's so hard to find sandals my size and quality ones that I don't feel will ruin my joints), I was unsuccessful at obtaining my 40 dollar refund from cebu pacific that they owe me and wasted a lot of time doing it, the ferry to manila left everyday but the day I needed to go, so I had to waste a lot of money on an airplane, and some other small things. But the two biggest most upsetting things were my external hard drive I'm carrying seems to have failed, which of course has all my pictures from the trip so far (luckily I still have quite a lot of the pictures on my memory card, but not all, including all the ones I had taken with an underwater camera that I rented for a pretty penny on my liveaboard), and then b/c I altered my schedule a bit to go see lucas early in the philippines (I don't regret it at all!!!) I am behind my planned climate driven schedule and so I may be running into rain and storms, which is not what you want to do when travelling through southern thailand which apparently has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world...but white sands, turquoise lagoons, and the ocean never looks good in monsoon rains. But I can't really come back later b/c the dry season doesn't start again until november (as does cambodia, vietnam, laos) all of which I still want to visit. So I'm a bit frustrated with this. It has been raining hard here the last 3 days. Then came the rat. It has been a lot to deal with, and during this last week I haven't exactly been enjoying myself and it's been stressful, at times lonely, and scary. And of course I greatly miss my family, my friends, my roommates at the house of sin, and some other things back home. So all told I gave serious consideration to leaving and coming home. But I'm partially stubborn, determined, don't give up easily, and do have hope things will get better, so I'm still going on. If it's nasty rain in thailand I'll guess I'll forget about it and just head to malaysia. We'll see.
Can't wait to eat rats when I get to vietnam though for a little payback!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The blah (and argh) days of travel
Spent the saturday that I arrived in cebu walking around looking for a place to stay, then walking everywhere, enquiring everywhere into finding a ferry that left on sunday so I could get to manila to catch my plane that left on the 7th (ferries to manila from cebu take 24 hours). Know one really knew. Apparently though ferries went everyday, sometimes twice a day, except Sunday. There used to be another company than did sundays, but it had a boat sink in a typhoon so it was shut down. It was a frustrating day b/c I went from place to place, large mall to large mall looking for travel agents, etc that knew. Everyone in Malpascua had said there would be a ferry everyday to manila from cebu and I believed them b/c they're too huge cities and my lonely planet book said ferries were daily. They had also given me a paper that listed a ship leaving everyday, but it was only later that I realized the paper was dated october 2008! I had gotten a paper in malapascua that did list one ship leaving sunday at 5am but it said in parentheses cargos only. I figured that shouldn't be a problem and they'd let me on. They're always willing to take money. Plus I was excited for it b/c it's always kind of a romantical dream of mine to do that kind of travelling...stow away more or less on a cargo ship, jump on an empty box car and see where the train takes me, hop in the back of a semi truck.
So I left my overpriced hotel at 3:00 am after getting in after midnight to make sure I was there the typically required hour early. The security guard wouldn't let me through b/c he said there was no ship going that day. I tried to show him the paper, but he said there was no ship. I knew he didn't really know. Then a guy drove up in a nice suv. He knew good english, and turns out he's the grandson on the people that own that shipping line. He took me inside the shipping yard and I told him my dilemma about making it to manila on time and not wanting to pay for an airplane. He said he'd ask his boss (this I didn't understand unless he was asking his grandfather) and let me know. His boss came in at 8am and the ship actually left at 1pm, so I just slept on a tilted bench in the shipping yard to all the noise of the yard and swatting mosquitos. Well, his boss said no as it was against coast guard policy (like they would even check!). I thought about trying to bribe him as bribing (especially of police officers, gov't officials is commonplace as they say that officials in the philippines can be as crooked as their coastline), but decided against it as he was obviously well off and the 700 pesos that it typically cost wouldn't mean much to him. If it had been the captain or a crew member or something I would have tried b/c they would have just been able to happily pocket that, and also b/c he was such a nice guy I would just feel bad doing that. He ended up calling airlines for me and helping me book a flight though and then driving me to the SM mall where I could pay for the ticket (had to wait over 2 hours just to pay for the ticket.) I spent entirely too much times in the humungo malls of cebu as it seems like everything was there...airline tickets, ferry tickets, food, info, etc. The mall was quite crazy as they have the biggest malls in the philippines and filipinos really know how to do malls. I think they like to cool off there. As it was the week leading up to holy week, they had huge sales and the mall was absolutely packed.
As my watch had broke and my sandals had broke, I spent a fair amount of the afternoon walking along the vendors in downtown (nasty, crowded, dirty, and polluted...in my opinion the 2nd worst cityin the philippines...though the "uptown" and "newtown" areas are quite nice) looking for a watch and sandals (the mall is much too expensive) and also a shoe repairman for my keens which were also falling apart.
It was palm sunday so everyone and their sister was walking around holding elaborately designed crosses made out of palms. The only highlight of my two wasted days in cebu city was going to palm sunday service at the Santo Nino Basilica. It was held outdoors in a huge plaza (think St. Peters Basilica in Rome, except not as big) with the bishop (I assume) in the front on a huge alter. There were several thousand people in attendance. A few chairs set up in the shade but mostly just people standing up in the hot sun, waving their palms. The best part was after the mass when the bishop took out the holy water to bless all the palm crosses. The people came running up, surrounding him, yelling, waving their crosses. It was quite the spectacle. But definitely cool to experience palm sunday in such a Catholic country. I hear holy week is something else there, but unfortunately I'm missing it. Flew that night from cebu and arrived into Manila around 10pm.
Didn't want to deal with the hassle of public transport (or even a cab) and finding a cheap hotel at that time of night and not wanting to spend money on accomadation at all considering the airplane ticket cost, so I just slept on a bench outside the airport. Unfortunately it's one of those airports (it was a side airport used by PAL only and not the big manila ninoy aquino intl airport) where you need to show a ticket to go inside and the baggage claim was not attached to the airport, so I didn't get to sleep on a bench in the airconditioning, but outside with all the smoking employees.
That morning I met up with Frank, a nice filipino guy from Batangas (who studies business masters in manila) I had met on the bus from manila to batangas earlier. We did a few errands in manila like picking up a book the stringbean had left for me and trying to mail a package (no such luck as it was a national holiday). We then took the bus for a couple hours up to Dau (near clark airforce base) where my plane would fly out of. Much cheaper to fly out of clark than manila. Clark was US AFB until 1991 when it was handed over to the philippines. We toured around a bit, and I actually kind of liked it. It was such a contrast to the insanely crowded and busy filipino cities, including Dau, I had just been in. You could tell it was designed by Americans: huge boulevards with large trees providing shade. Lots of open space around, grassy fields, a small football stadium, several parks, a golf course.
That night, my last night in the philipines, I had a very filipino night. Took a jeepneys to the big SM mall (not another mall) to eat the main meal, then had some nice fried 100% cholesterol food at some street stalls. Went to a videoke bar to sing my heart out, and of course ended my philippine karaoke career with an abba song. After that we went back to the mall to watch a flick: knowing with nicholas cage.
It was great having Frank along. Always nice to have company, especially someone that knows the area and he is a fun guy. Plus very, very generous. Treated me to several things and went out of his way to accompany me to clark where he used to work.
Flew out of clark today to bangkok. A funny little airport. Only 6 flights daily (to china, singapore, malaysia, hongkong, cebu, and bangkok and the rest used for the airforce. Took the bus into banglamphu, the budget area in bangkok and as soon as I got off the bus it starte to pour cats and dogs and lightning everywhere. Intense lightning...every second another flash, and for a while right over my head lasting for close to an hour. instantaneous flash and crack. I'd never been in a lightning storm in a city like that before and I didn't really know where to hide, I just hoped the lightning would strike one of the temples. I was just hiding under a little archway. It was probably one of the top 10 scariest lighting storms I've been in which says a lot considerings I've spent considerable time for my job and fun above tree-line in the rockies (where I've had the terrible privelage of smelling the ozone)...and played t-ball and peewees for greg farmer at the 1pm stanley field games. I'm very glad I know bangkok very well b/c the little arch I was in didn't shelter me much and I was getting soaked, and I didn't feel it was that safe, so I just grabbed my umbrella (ella, ella, ella, ella...that's for you lucas and that overplayed song in the philippines) and ran to where I knew there were guesthouses. The streets were flooded, so I took off my shoes and was running through shin deep water. Luckily the guesthouse I wanted and had stayed at before had rooms left.
I'm definitely going to miss the philippines, especially the ease of travel they provide. It was nice traveling in a place with the roman alphabet and a place where almost everyone knows english. Also, the filipinos as a whole are very happy, very nice, very friendly, and very helpful people. The thais in my opinion aren't near as friendly and try and scam you more, so you have to be on your toes more. But it was nice to have some spicy food for dinner tonight.
Have some stuff to do in bangkok tomorrow, but hopefully I can catch a night bus to the south tomorrow.
So I left my overpriced hotel at 3:00 am after getting in after midnight to make sure I was there the typically required hour early. The security guard wouldn't let me through b/c he said there was no ship going that day. I tried to show him the paper, but he said there was no ship. I knew he didn't really know. Then a guy drove up in a nice suv. He knew good english, and turns out he's the grandson on the people that own that shipping line. He took me inside the shipping yard and I told him my dilemma about making it to manila on time and not wanting to pay for an airplane. He said he'd ask his boss (this I didn't understand unless he was asking his grandfather) and let me know. His boss came in at 8am and the ship actually left at 1pm, so I just slept on a tilted bench in the shipping yard to all the noise of the yard and swatting mosquitos. Well, his boss said no as it was against coast guard policy (like they would even check!). I thought about trying to bribe him as bribing (especially of police officers, gov't officials is commonplace as they say that officials in the philippines can be as crooked as their coastline), but decided against it as he was obviously well off and the 700 pesos that it typically cost wouldn't mean much to him. If it had been the captain or a crew member or something I would have tried b/c they would have just been able to happily pocket that, and also b/c he was such a nice guy I would just feel bad doing that. He ended up calling airlines for me and helping me book a flight though and then driving me to the SM mall where I could pay for the ticket (had to wait over 2 hours just to pay for the ticket.) I spent entirely too much times in the humungo malls of cebu as it seems like everything was there...airline tickets, ferry tickets, food, info, etc. The mall was quite crazy as they have the biggest malls in the philippines and filipinos really know how to do malls. I think they like to cool off there. As it was the week leading up to holy week, they had huge sales and the mall was absolutely packed.
As my watch had broke and my sandals had broke, I spent a fair amount of the afternoon walking along the vendors in downtown (nasty, crowded, dirty, and polluted...in my opinion the 2nd worst cityin the philippines...though the "uptown" and "newtown" areas are quite nice) looking for a watch and sandals (the mall is much too expensive) and also a shoe repairman for my keens which were also falling apart.
It was palm sunday so everyone and their sister was walking around holding elaborately designed crosses made out of palms. The only highlight of my two wasted days in cebu city was going to palm sunday service at the Santo Nino Basilica. It was held outdoors in a huge plaza (think St. Peters Basilica in Rome, except not as big) with the bishop (I assume) in the front on a huge alter. There were several thousand people in attendance. A few chairs set up in the shade but mostly just people standing up in the hot sun, waving their palms. The best part was after the mass when the bishop took out the holy water to bless all the palm crosses. The people came running up, surrounding him, yelling, waving their crosses. It was quite the spectacle. But definitely cool to experience palm sunday in such a Catholic country. I hear holy week is something else there, but unfortunately I'm missing it. Flew that night from cebu and arrived into Manila around 10pm.
Didn't want to deal with the hassle of public transport (or even a cab) and finding a cheap hotel at that time of night and not wanting to spend money on accomadation at all considering the airplane ticket cost, so I just slept on a bench outside the airport. Unfortunately it's one of those airports (it was a side airport used by PAL only and not the big manila ninoy aquino intl airport) where you need to show a ticket to go inside and the baggage claim was not attached to the airport, so I didn't get to sleep on a bench in the airconditioning, but outside with all the smoking employees.
That morning I met up with Frank, a nice filipino guy from Batangas (who studies business masters in manila) I had met on the bus from manila to batangas earlier. We did a few errands in manila like picking up a book the stringbean had left for me and trying to mail a package (no such luck as it was a national holiday). We then took the bus for a couple hours up to Dau (near clark airforce base) where my plane would fly out of. Much cheaper to fly out of clark than manila. Clark was US AFB until 1991 when it was handed over to the philippines. We toured around a bit, and I actually kind of liked it. It was such a contrast to the insanely crowded and busy filipino cities, including Dau, I had just been in. You could tell it was designed by Americans: huge boulevards with large trees providing shade. Lots of open space around, grassy fields, a small football stadium, several parks, a golf course.
That night, my last night in the philipines, I had a very filipino night. Took a jeepneys to the big SM mall (not another mall) to eat the main meal, then had some nice fried 100% cholesterol food at some street stalls. Went to a videoke bar to sing my heart out, and of course ended my philippine karaoke career with an abba song. After that we went back to the mall to watch a flick: knowing with nicholas cage.
It was great having Frank along. Always nice to have company, especially someone that knows the area and he is a fun guy. Plus very, very generous. Treated me to several things and went out of his way to accompany me to clark where he used to work.
Flew out of clark today to bangkok. A funny little airport. Only 6 flights daily (to china, singapore, malaysia, hongkong, cebu, and bangkok and the rest used for the airforce. Took the bus into banglamphu, the budget area in bangkok and as soon as I got off the bus it starte to pour cats and dogs and lightning everywhere. Intense lightning...every second another flash, and for a while right over my head lasting for close to an hour. instantaneous flash and crack. I'd never been in a lightning storm in a city like that before and I didn't really know where to hide, I just hoped the lightning would strike one of the temples. I was just hiding under a little archway. It was probably one of the top 10 scariest lighting storms I've been in which says a lot considerings I've spent considerable time for my job and fun above tree-line in the rockies (where I've had the terrible privelage of smelling the ozone)...and played t-ball and peewees for greg farmer at the 1pm stanley field games. I'm very glad I know bangkok very well b/c the little arch I was in didn't shelter me much and I was getting soaked, and I didn't feel it was that safe, so I just grabbed my umbrella (ella, ella, ella, ella...that's for you lucas and that overplayed song in the philippines) and ran to where I knew there were guesthouses. The streets were flooded, so I took off my shoes and was running through shin deep water. Luckily the guesthouse I wanted and had stayed at before had rooms left.
I'm definitely going to miss the philippines, especially the ease of travel they provide. It was nice traveling in a place with the roman alphabet and a place where almost everyone knows english. Also, the filipinos as a whole are very happy, very nice, very friendly, and very helpful people. The thais in my opinion aren't near as friendly and try and scam you more, so you have to be on your toes more. But it was nice to have some spicy food for dinner tonight.
Have some stuff to do in bangkok tomorrow, but hopefully I can catch a night bus to the south tomorrow.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
of thresher sharks and sea horses
Had two completely awesome days of diving on Malapascua island just north of cebu. Took the bus up there from cebu. When I got to the northernmost town of cebu, Maya, the banca drivers wanted to charge me 400p while the rest of the filipinos would pay just 50p. I said no way and decided to wait it out. Well as good luck has it, I saw three westerners and asked them how they were getting there. They were actually interns and volunteers with the thresher shark research and conservation project and the research boat was coming to pick them up, so after I asked the head researcher if it was ok, I got a free ride (and free beer) over to the island. Bret was a hilarious australian who did envrionmental consulting until he lost his job with the economic crisis and Jessie and Matt were aquatic biology students from CU-boulder working on their required thesis they have to write to graduate. Interestingly Jessie had grown up in bellingham and knew baker well but now lives in aloalua when not in school and knows the windlers.
The first morning I got up at 4:30 to start the dive at 5 to look for the thresher sharks, but the other divers showed up really late, so we didn't get out until 6:30 and didn't see any sharks. I had originally planned to just do 2 dives here as per my budget, but I really wanted to see the thresher sharks as they're highly endangered and this is really the only place you can have a chance of seeing them, and this french guy dennis that I met was just raving about how this was the best diving around and convinced me to do some more dives. The 2nd dive of the day was out to Lapus Lapus island. It was a sweet dive, saw a lot of cool things and difficult to find things including 3 frogfish (2 different species) and a pygmy seahorse.
After the second dive I did a circumnavigation of the island on foot. There were some nice beaches and at the far end, the village kids were more than happy to show me to the lighthouse and then to a pretty high cliff to jump off of.
That night I did the sunset and night dive as well. What an amazing dive! Saw so many unique and interesting critters. Lots of lionfish and stonefish and loads and loads of the infamous Mandarin fish (beautifully colored fish) and even got to see several of them mate, which is one of the more sought after thing in diving. The male, which is about twice as large, takes the female under his pectoral fin and then they swim out above the coral together arm in arm. It's quite cute really. Also saw a large seahorse which I really wanted to see. I think seahorses are great, but I've never seen them in the wild except for the 2 pygmy seahorses on this trip, but they're so small they're tough to get a good look at. And saw some other cool things like 4 cuttlefish, flounders, fast walking sea stars, anenome and coral shelled crabs.
The next morning we got up early again to look for the thresher sharks. This time I put down the ultimatum that if people weren't there by 5am, we were leaving them. This time we were the first boat there and got to see two thresher sharks up close getting cleaned and we got to observe for quite some time. The sharks are pretty sweet b/c they have huge eyes and this incredibly long arched tailfin.
I took the rest of the morning easy and just read in a hammock by the beach before my 2nd dive. For the 2nd dive we went out to Gato island where we got within feet of sleeping white tipped sharks, saw a very rare harlequin ghost pipefish, and to my great excitement saw 4 sea snakes! The dive area itself was pretty cool. Lots of caves, giant boulders, canyons, the steep wall of the island and some of the best soft coral diversity I have seen. The area reminded me of something from a Dr. Seuss book.
I really liked the island. Beautiful white sand beaches with nice blue water. Some cool local fishing villages to explore and now cars or tricycles on the island. The power was only on from 6pm to 11pm and it was the hottest nights of sleeping so far as my place didn't have a/c or even a fan. I met a cool guy named jamie who grew up in the philippines but now lives in the finger lake area of ny. He and two of his filipino friends bought me lunch one day and the next day treated me to a huge breakfast of sausage, eggs, fish, and rice. The last night I treated myself to an eat all you can place on the beach on the tourist side (I always ate in the local village before that) complete with fresh grilled barracuda for only 4 bucks.
Today I read a bit on the beach and then took the ferry back to Maya. A couple korean guys invited me to share a taxi back to cebu city, but I said I'd take the bus b/c it was too expensive. A few minutes later they came and got me and said they had hired the taxi and I should just come along for the free ride. They wouldn't let me pay for even a little bit.
back in cebu city was a frustrating experience b/c on malapascua everyone had said there were ferries from cebu to manila everyday (my lonely planet said this as well), but when I got here it appeared there were ferries everyday but sunday, which is the day I need to leave in order to get to manila in time to catch my flight back to bangkok. So I spent all day walking around and walking around some more to different travel agents and ferry companies to find something. Doesn't look promising, so I might have to bite the big bullet and book a flight to get to manila on time. There's a potential cargo only ship that leaves at 5am that I might be able to get on. That means I need to leave here at 4am at the latest to be to the pier, but my watch broke on malapascua so I have no alarm, so I will likely have to stay up all night b/c if I fall asleep there is no way I'll wake up in time. argghh
The first morning I got up at 4:30 to start the dive at 5 to look for the thresher sharks, but the other divers showed up really late, so we didn't get out until 6:30 and didn't see any sharks. I had originally planned to just do 2 dives here as per my budget, but I really wanted to see the thresher sharks as they're highly endangered and this is really the only place you can have a chance of seeing them, and this french guy dennis that I met was just raving about how this was the best diving around and convinced me to do some more dives. The 2nd dive of the day was out to Lapus Lapus island. It was a sweet dive, saw a lot of cool things and difficult to find things including 3 frogfish (2 different species) and a pygmy seahorse.
After the second dive I did a circumnavigation of the island on foot. There were some nice beaches and at the far end, the village kids were more than happy to show me to the lighthouse and then to a pretty high cliff to jump off of.
That night I did the sunset and night dive as well. What an amazing dive! Saw so many unique and interesting critters. Lots of lionfish and stonefish and loads and loads of the infamous Mandarin fish (beautifully colored fish) and even got to see several of them mate, which is one of the more sought after thing in diving. The male, which is about twice as large, takes the female under his pectoral fin and then they swim out above the coral together arm in arm. It's quite cute really. Also saw a large seahorse which I really wanted to see. I think seahorses are great, but I've never seen them in the wild except for the 2 pygmy seahorses on this trip, but they're so small they're tough to get a good look at. And saw some other cool things like 4 cuttlefish, flounders, fast walking sea stars, anenome and coral shelled crabs.
The next morning we got up early again to look for the thresher sharks. This time I put down the ultimatum that if people weren't there by 5am, we were leaving them. This time we were the first boat there and got to see two thresher sharks up close getting cleaned and we got to observe for quite some time. The sharks are pretty sweet b/c they have huge eyes and this incredibly long arched tailfin.
I took the rest of the morning easy and just read in a hammock by the beach before my 2nd dive. For the 2nd dive we went out to Gato island where we got within feet of sleeping white tipped sharks, saw a very rare harlequin ghost pipefish, and to my great excitement saw 4 sea snakes! The dive area itself was pretty cool. Lots of caves, giant boulders, canyons, the steep wall of the island and some of the best soft coral diversity I have seen. The area reminded me of something from a Dr. Seuss book.
I really liked the island. Beautiful white sand beaches with nice blue water. Some cool local fishing villages to explore and now cars or tricycles on the island. The power was only on from 6pm to 11pm and it was the hottest nights of sleeping so far as my place didn't have a/c or even a fan. I met a cool guy named jamie who grew up in the philippines but now lives in the finger lake area of ny. He and two of his filipino friends bought me lunch one day and the next day treated me to a huge breakfast of sausage, eggs, fish, and rice. The last night I treated myself to an eat all you can place on the beach on the tourist side (I always ate in the local village before that) complete with fresh grilled barracuda for only 4 bucks.
Today I read a bit on the beach and then took the ferry back to Maya. A couple korean guys invited me to share a taxi back to cebu city, but I said I'd take the bus b/c it was too expensive. A few minutes later they came and got me and said they had hired the taxi and I should just come along for the free ride. They wouldn't let me pay for even a little bit.
back in cebu city was a frustrating experience b/c on malapascua everyone had said there were ferries from cebu to manila everyday (my lonely planet said this as well), but when I got here it appeared there were ferries everyday but sunday, which is the day I need to leave in order to get to manila in time to catch my flight back to bangkok. So I spent all day walking around and walking around some more to different travel agents and ferry companies to find something. Doesn't look promising, so I might have to bite the big bullet and book a flight to get to manila on time. There's a potential cargo only ship that leaves at 5am that I might be able to get on. That means I need to leave here at 4am at the latest to be to the pier, but my watch broke on malapascua so I have no alarm, so I will likely have to stay up all night b/c if I fall asleep there is no way I'll wake up in time. argghh
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