The Highest Highlight of 2014

Diving was the best thing I did in Thailand. Definite highlight and diving Sail Rock is a ‘best day of my life’ moment for me. Diving was on my list of ‘must do’s’ even before we had left North America. Robin wasn’t as thrilled about the idea of doing it, it had never been something she wanted to do, but being the team player she is she went along with me in signing up to take it. Unlike everyone else who takes their PADI in Thailand we were doing it on Koh Phangan instead of Koh Tao.  As the date neared closer Robin was still really questioning doing it, but I was still set on it. We mentioned that we were taking it and what company it was through to our last hostel manager before we left for it. He proceeded to tell us about a mishap that had happened with that company within the last 5 years. People in danger , trying to cover it up etc. This story didn’t really help Robin’s reservations about taking it and was making me have some second thoughts as well. For a while we were even throwing around the idea of bailing on this dive company and heading over to Koh Tao like everyone else. At the end of the discussion we ended up checking in with our original dive company to take the course.

There was only three of us in our course, and our third was a hospitality employee of the company, and Robin and I. We went through all the class work the evening we arrived and the next morning. Spending all afternoon of our first full day in the pool practicing our skills. To become certified you need three dives. We did our first dive off the beach at Haad Salad. It was pretty poor. Poor visibility, we were practically swimming on top of each other to keep up the buddy system. We only went down 10m because of the bad clarity, did a few skills and called it a day. Despite it being poor it was pretty neat to do a beach dive – walking right into the water and then swimming out to your line. The next day we agreed to go to Sail Rock to do our last two skill dives and a fun dive.

This was the best decision ever!! Although we didn’t see a whale shark which are famous at Sail Rock, we did see some pretty cool things! Sail rock is a fair-sized rock in between Koh Tao and Koh Phangan. It used to be in the shape of a giant sail hence the name, but in the past was used as target practice and as time went on the rock broke down. Either way it is an amazing dive site, and is the location behind the ‘best day of my life’. There were about 12 dive students (including Robin and I) heading out to Sail Rock with their instructors. On the boat all us students went up to the top-level to sit/lay on mats in the sun and eat breakfast. The instructors stayed down the first level with all the gear. Getting out there was an adventure within itself. The swells were not obnoxious, but they definitely made sure we knew they were there. Everyone on the top-level was sick except Robin  and I. Which was a little surprising especially because she gets motion sickness easily and I made the rookie mistake of taking a malaria pill on an empty stomach. Neither of those things were going to slow us down, today we were diving.

The water was an unreal deep blue from above which means good visibility underneath. Excellent. Our first dive went fantastic even though it was only 20 minutes, it still felt like those 20 minutes flew by! There were barracuda everywhere! We went halfway around Sail Rock and landed on a sandy spot to do some skills. While situating ourselves on the ground I swung my hand back and cut it up on some coral. Not to worry it was so cool! My blood looked blue-green-brown! It didn’t even hurt that much though, even with the salt, maybe that was because I was so amped about everything though! With the pressure of the water it stopped bleeding a lot faster than it would have on the surface so we kept diving. I actually want it to scar so I can always remember diving! When we did surface our third girl spewed everywhere, even with us under the water she couldn’t shake the sea sickness, and missed out on our next two dives.

Our next dive was 40 minutes and we finished our skills and went down 19m. It felt like time didn’t move at all. We saw little crabs, our instructor played with sea urchins, we swam through the chimney of Sail Rock and saw a cleaning station! The cleaning station was fascinating! A clownfish was parked and little shrimp were cleaning it up! Then our instructor scared up a scorpion fish for us to see! SO FREAKING COOL! BEST DAY! We came up had a huge lunch, not many of the others were eating a lot, and some were getting sick again as they were heading back into the water for their next dives, Robin and I were feeling great still.

Our third dive was just as cool as all the others! We never went deeper than 18m and stayed at 15m for most of the dive because it was our third dive of the day. On this dive we got to hold a crab – it just clamps on to you and hangs out in its shell! And we were lucky enough to see a giant Moray Eel!! He was just chilling between the coral and poking his head out to check everyone out. His head was the size of my shoulder, and we think he was about 2.5m long!

Once we got back we finished filling out our PADI information to receive our cards in the mail. I was just glowing with awesomeness! What a GREAT DAY! There is nothing like it, definitely something to experience. That night we went out with everyone to a bar up the road with a tattoo parlor in the back of it. Just casual Thailand style. Pretty neat. It was a pretty fun time, just a fun night out with your mates kind of feel. Really good fun!

Even though we had our reservations at the start of our course nothing ever became a reality with this experience and it is one of my favorites in my life! I always go back to it and think about it. Such an unreal time! A few of our mates did try to convince us to stay an extra day and do some more hiking and diving, but we knew we couldn’t we were heading to Koh Samui next and then Vietnam. It’s crazy how fast three months actually goes by!

Afternoon Cooldown

Koh Samui was a really nice way to end off Thailand. We did a little souvenir shopping (more expensive than Bangkok, but it was a trade-off we weren’t keen on heading right back to Bangkok just to shop) and lazed around on the beach. On our last night in Samui we ran into Ken and Mona and two of their hostel mates just walking down the street!! Even though we were on our way back to bed we went out to the Green Mango. It wasn’t that impressive and we ended up at another bar instead – a very Russian dominated bar for buy one get one bucket free deals. What we though would be a few casual buckets turned into a bit more than a few and we finally called it quits at 2am with 7/11 toasties on the side of the road. One of my favorite nights in Thailand.

Almost Chirstmas

Fun with mates

On the way to 2 am toasties

The next day we left Koh Samui for Bangkok on a ferry to the mainland and then bus to Surat Thani and a night train to Bangkok. We were early to Surat Thani where our bus dropped us off. Wen then took a local bus around Surat Thani for 20B and were dropped off at the train station where we spent 3 hours waiting for our train in the afternoon sun. It was nice though, a 7/11 was close by and we just did puzzles and journalled while waiting. A stray dog attached itself to us for a while before moving off and we finally got on the night train. It was OK. I slept on the top, which was pretty tiny but still spacious enough for me. and Robin got the bottom with the window. The sleep was pretty cold though – I had this weird idea that it I opened the plastic bag my blanket was in I would have to pay for it. So instead I woke up periodically throughout the night and went into my bag layering up in my clothes. A little bit twisted, and I’m not sure where that thought came from, but I survived and we made it back to Bangkok and our hostel easy enough. Spending  the day walking around and dealing with housekeeping duties like mailing parcels home. The next morning we would be on our way to Vietnam!

Food Vendors by the Train Station

Train Day

Classic Thailand Right of Passage

After Khao Sok Robin and I were on our way to the Gulf of Thailand – Koh Phangan to take part in the backpackers right of passage – a full moon party, and to do our PADI Open Water Divers course certification. Like our other transport adventures this one was yet again not without its hiccups. We had bought our tickets the day before, and after saying goodbye to Evergreen Treehouse Resort’s owners and the amazing family we had met there, Gai took us to the bus station. A bus never came and picked us up though, instead we rode in a minibus with 7 other people heading to Koh Phangan as well. The Full Moon Party’s are pretty well a pilgrimage of sorts to party all night on Haad Rin.

The mini bus wasn’t the worst part of this journey, as usual it was easy for me to pass out off and on. We were dropped off in Surat Thani. Before we had even left Khao Sok our driver checked our tickets and then took them, piled us all in to the mini bus and we headed to Surat Thani. This was all fine and good until he dropped us off on the side of a road outside another bus stop where we were to wait for another bus, that would drop us off at the ferry, one problem though we had no tickets or anything to get on this next bus. He just dropped us and drove away. We went in to the station to get our tickets and were told that we couldn’t get them here, and that our driver should have given them to us. Nice. LUCKILY the mini bus driver had given one guy tickets for the next bus and he had tow extra (ours) and gave them to us. Mini crisis averted.

The bus to the ferry and the ferry itself to the island was packed. But that was expected, we are on a pilgrimage searching for intoxication under the full moon by the gift of the bucket gods. On the ferry we ended up sitting with two German’s who shared their two-six of Jack with us and we chattered away. Like us they had already booked their hostel for their stay.  We had booked our hostel about a week ago, because it was rated pretty good on Hostelworld, and we thought (and were sort of right) that it would be harder and harder to find accommodations as the full moon party neared).

Our hostel was not really what we expected from the reviews. It did had a decent bar/common are, but the sleeping arrangement was less than ideal. Our ‘room’ was at the top of one set of stairs before the entrance to another room, and our bunk beds were actually squished together, the only thing separating you from your mate was a pull across curtain, or if you were on the top bunk and lucky you had a railing. It;s also worth noting that there was no air conditioning and the fan situation itself was pretty poor. (Floor fans, that the first mates in would set rightist on their own bunks and two wall fans, but only one worked. Robin and I shared a bunk set, but it was in the middle of a three bunk sandwich.

We stayed here for 4 nights I think? But those 4 nights were more than enough! In the ‘room’ there was our three bunk sandwich and then another bunk going off in a tetris ‘L’ shape from our the sandwich. The guy on the bottom of the single bunk never had his curtain pulled – I get that – you don’t get any fan with your curtain pulled. HOWEVER he also preferred to sleep in the full nude….with no sheets. And his bunk is right near the railing of the staircase, you’d wake up and head to the toilet, and come back to if you were lucky only a full moon. This wasn’t even the worst part of our sleeping arrangement. Being on the bottom bunk in the middle of the sandwich and the way the fans were set up if I shut my one curtain the guy to my right would never get fan flow, so we had an unspoken silent agreement that the curtain could stay half-open, and that elbows and knees would probably be thrown throughout the night. This I had no problem with, but on my other side I had half of a couple, and they really weren’t that subtle about being a couple either. We muscled through the four nights here and headed down the road the next morning to more spacious accommodations.

Although our pilgrimage accommodations weren’t ideal, the pilgrimage itself and our time on the island was unreal! On the first day on the island we decided to walk about find a beach relax and just see what would happen with the day. While we were walking down the street we ran into one of our buddies from Phuket! And ended up with two more of his hostel mates in a football tournament. Which was absolutely stacked full of these Portuguese football machines who all worked at the hostel, but it was an awesome way to spend the day. We topped it off with sunset on the beach and  that night (this is the night before full moon) we went to Haad Rin (the full moon party beach). In all honesty this night was so much more fun than the full moon party itself! The beach wasn’t overly crowded yet still busy and full of fire shows. Fire jump rope! It was so cool to just watch, we got a package deal on buckets and just roamed the beach stopping a the fire shows and moving on. It did end up raining, later on and we hung out in a bar overlooking all of Haad Rin for that bit, then came back out and taught the boys how to two-step. Around 3 we decided it was time to head back and hit the hay. Tomorrow was our right of passage.

Engage full moon party

Body painted and ready to go

Overlooking Haad Rin

We spent the day of Full Moon Party on the beach for a bit of it, and looking for proper shoes to wear that evening and then back at the beach. Before we headed to Haad Rin we all met up again at the boys hostel and did the inaugural body painting and predrinking.  Our bungalow mates from Khao Sok were there and actually knew our other friend Chris from home and had just met up because they were just here at the same time! Once we were all painted up (ours was the best on the beach 😉 ) and at the beach we found our bucket guy for another deal. Jack’s brother was out helping him out tonight and he gave us the same deal on our buckets. We took a few photos with him and he ‘made’ me some giant whiskey shots while I was up behind his bar with him. I mean I didn’t have to take them, but I also didn’t want to be rude, and I was with a good crew so we toasted and downed the poison.

Buckets by Jack

Buckets of Laughter

At the beginning of the night we did pretty well staying together, but we soon lost everyone, a process of elimination picking off pairs at a time. Robin and I lost everyone for about and hour and a half, but also had some fantastic sandwiches during this time as well. Once united with half the crew again we kept going, but by 6 we couldn’t power through anymore and found a taxi home just as the sun was coming up.  Straight back to our sandwich beds until mid afternoon. I woke up with the hangover homsickies. For the first time I wondered if I could actually do this. THANKFULLY this feeling passed after a some green curry and a banana shake, and we met up for the last time with our full moon crew back at ‘our’ beach. Mono found 2000B in the ocean so we all had a Tiger and played some beach volleyball as an unreal sunset took place. We all went out for one last dinner and said our goodbyes, most were heading back to the mainland or to Koh Tao to dive. We were just moving down the beach to do our diving course.

Cheers to Tiger beers, a lack of sleep and overcoming a bucket hangover

Koh Phangan Sunset

Enjoying another end to a beautiful day

Southeast Asia, a catch up on the delays

My last post was about 2 months ago, and it was from a time that was about 3 months ago. I stopped posting blogs for a few reasons, which included accessibility to reliable internet and computers, and some classic fear of missing out. I wanted to feel and experience everything in the moment, and didn’t want to miss out on anything that was happening by spending time rephrasing my journal that I did consistently keep into this blog. I DO enjoy blogging, it’s a fantastic way for me to resort through my thoughts and share things. I love writing, I really do, I love how my voice comes through my writing so much so that its like I am just telling you this story and you’re not reading this through a screen. My style fits my speaking style and therefore makes it more enjoyable to read. More so I love rereading what I have written, and feeling the emotions that come with it, I laugh at my own jokes, smile at the good, and feel down at the poor times as well.

So I quit writing because I just wanted to enjoy the moment and was hand- journalling for the time being. I am picking it up again now because I want to relive it in some way and share it with all of you. 🙂

Loving Laos. Vang Vieng could have kept me for weeks, though my liver may not have agreed.

My longest companion of the trip.

Enjoying another amazing sunset on the Pacific of Vietnam.

1, 2, 5 and 10 year goals.

In the last few years I have become a big goal setter, well rather more of a refined one. I have always set goals, in middle school they were labeled as “dreams”. Evolving to goals has been a process. Last year I did 14 things for 2014. Those goals went really well, I am very impressed with how they turned out and what I was able to achieve. Some of the goals did change over the course of the year and become different things, however the majority of the goals I set out to do I was able to achieve, and I did try for the others and that was the point of the goals in the first place. So success. This year I am getting a bit more intense, which is also part of the reason why I am posting so late. I have thought about these goals and the paths required to attain them and have thrown a few of my ideas around with friends for feedback. (Thank you!)

Here we go.

2015 Goals:

Educational/Professional/Career Oriented

• AFLCA/TRX Certification – I LOVE TRX, why not share that passion, and when I look into the future, doing at least one class a week for fun is something I want to do. Might as well try to break into the industry now.
• Prepare for more education – Nursing, OT, Respiratory Therapy. It is going to happen, I need to sit down before the end of February and pump out the applications. In a perfect world I will be accepted into all of it and then will have to decide between them, in this world that isn’t likely, we will see what luck of the draw brings.
• Additional employment – OT/PT Assistant, aide in some sort of children oriented employment. I want to move into an industry that requires the use of some kind of secondary education.
• Read 12 engaging books – These books must be non-fiction. However they can be biographical, autobiographical, memoirs, historic, political, economical. They don’t need to fit into a specific category, but they need to open my mind up. They need to brew creativity, awareness and critical thinking.
• 6 documentaries – Same reasoning as above.
• Join a club or do a course where I can network – professionally or personally. Never know when the connections I will make will be used again. Sure it may be awkward to walk in to a room not knowing anyone, but everyone needs to start somewhere and knowing me outside of a professional situation may create some great opportunities in the future.

Financial

• If it makes sense financially/future employment/education/ future in general wise – move out. My parents are pretty cool people, but honestly I was ready to move out at least 3 years ago. They are a good base, but its time. My wings are getting cramped up here.
• Put $20 a day into savings account. If at end of each quarter it is financially possible add 5$ a day more. Need to think about those big future purchases that are inevitably coming up.
• Invest. Nothing big, just start small and see what happens. With my one investment just sitting around not doing anything too positive it may be more ideal to wait on this. But this year I need to get at the very least the groundwork and education on how to conservatively invest but yet see some positive returns.

Personal

• Take more risks – put myself out there more. This is a big one in general. Sometimes I walk right out there into the fire, and other times I am a big pansy and sit on the sidelines until ‘coach’ calls me in. Time to get out there take risks, and see what comes of them. Lose sight of the shore kid, you love the ocean anyways!
• Go on at least 12 dates, but ultimately aim for 15. How does one date today with Tinder and everything? Guess I am going to navigate those waters and find out. Probably with the use of Tinder sometimes, but I am also going to challenge myself to pick up an actual ‘few days later’ date from a social setting. Maybe that’s too much, in today’s age since they may not have ‘swiped yes’ to me before me met, but whatever I am giving this a go.
• Work on learning Spanish – Duolingo app, course, etc. Conveniently enough I was able to find a course through work that I can take to learn more Spanish. South America is on my list of places to see, so why not take some Spanish and prepare, also since everyone knows English it would be cool to learn a different language so I can say secrets in front of other unilinguals.
• Find an organization or event volunteer with. Find something I am passionate about and make a difference with it, whether it is a small commitment like helping out with a one time event, getting into an annual event or even doing something like a big commitment like big brother big sister. I want to donate my time to something.
• Continue to practice yoga 1x a week, add in mediation 2x a month min. Keeping a healthy mind, which will enable a healthy body.

Recreational – Crafty/Sport/Adventure

• Scrapbook 2014-2015 – Asia and Uni by June 30. So my memories are archived in a way that is special to me.
• Consider another travel journey, not necessarily another trip but read and be open to the next destinations – Patagonia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, Indonesia, and possibly a work visa to AUS or NZ. I didn’t make it to Pai in Thailand – pretty gutted about it still too, so naturally I must go back, and I loved Cambodia and could definitely see myself setting up shop and doing some work there for awhile. Myanmar just opened its borders to the world soooo naturally I would love to go and see what is there, Bhutan also recently became a destination much like Myanmar so I would love to go check it out. Nepal – trekking, that is all.
• Keep my diving updated – Calgary courses, or a quick jump out to the coast or down south.
• Participate in a team sport event this year. Softball team tourney/league, curling, something like that.
• Use my sewing machine more – maybe sign up for one of those online courses and make something form it.
• Commit to and learn some card games/party tricks. In a strike of boredom these can be whipped out. Palace (Shithead) is a good one to start with.
• Kayaking –  I tried this recently again in the pool and really enjoyed it. I would like to look in to a course that would take you from the pool to the river.
• If possible (probably on some air miles, or something from Kijiji) I would like to upgrade my bike situation, and if not just cycling purely for fitness and enjoyment, to try out some downhill biking and possibly the mountain biking everyone raves about.
• Outdoor Climbing – I really enjoy this sport. It is so mentally demanding, yet mentally simple and physically demanding. My mind shuts off and climbing a route is like solving a puzzle. I would really like to get into this more, maybe find a drop in climbing night and join, maybe meet other people in the community and see where it goes.
• Snow shoe – Just a recreationally fun thing to try, although probably not until the upcoming winter. It is a fun twist on hiking.
• Improve my relationship with my horse. Mel is out there, and last year I wasn’t able to get much riding in. This year even if I don’t ride as much as I would like, I need to at the very least make time to get the groundwork and essentials in.
• Learn a new life or survival skill. Never know when you might need it, always be ready to whip it out and save the day.
• New food dish/craft or creative thing. Same thing as above. Get something totally memorized and make it my own. Chick pea, red or massamun curry and pad thai are looking like great options at this point.
• Do some sort of athletic event – ½ Marathon? Tough Mudder? Spartan? Fitness figure competition? Not really sure what direction I want to take on this one. A half marathon would be amazing, and maybe I will just giv’er hell and do it, but I also love the idea of the strength challenges incorporated into Tough Mudder and Spartans. I am also throwing around the fitness figure thing a bit.

**the sports like climbing, biking, kayaking and snowshoeing may need to be chosen between. It is not likely I will be able to do them all, but these are options and I can pick and choose for this year.

Old 2014 goals – to be completed in the next 5 years

• Grand Teton National Park
• Overnight Hiking trip
• Learn more star constellations
• Canning
• Spartan
• Yoga 4x a month
• Keep up the journalling

By the end of 2016 I will have

• Began my education or found meaningful employment in an occupation that relates to my degree.
• I have at least one new certification, or taken at least one recreational course relating to sport (kayaking, climbing, etc.)
• I have all my photographs organized up to the last two months of 2016.
• The photos of me on Facebook have been cleaned up (goodbye questionable high school photographs)
• I know a new card game and a new survival skill
• I have volunteered for an event or organization I care about.

BY 2020 I will have

• Steady and meaningful employment
• Be financially stable and working my way out of debt
• No longer living in my parents basement
• Have visited at least 10 new countries
• Have a current dive master certification
• Be working with children in some capacity either career related or in my own personal time
• I have participated in some form of distance athletic event
• I am in a committed relationship
• I give some sort of fitness instruction – either a group fitness class or privately train.

BY 2025 I have

• Steady employment
• I am an active member of my community
• I have been on 6 of the 7 continents, with plans in the process of visiting the 7^th
• I am likely married, or in grey area of long term housemates
• We are considering if they have not arrived yet – children
• If they exist and are older than 3 we have travelled with them farther than the United States
• I have in some way inspired someone else to achieve a personal goal or dream of their own – either a professional goal, personal goal, or health related
• I am no longer in debt
• And have visited at least 15 states

These are it. I am excited to achieve these and work towards more. At the end of this year, like the end of last year I will review and change them accordingly as I have changed throughout the year.

Khao Sok

Our last day in Phuket started early as we caught to local bus out to Khao Sok at 8:30am. Well a little later than that because everything runs on Thai time. Regardless we were excited to hit up  Khao Sok National Park, a little more nature and probably a bit less beer. The bus there went well. We had seats and air conditioning. The little luxuries. The landscape changed quite a bit as we moved from the coastal area into the rain forest. It was pretty cool, like we were in Jumanji! Giant karsts appeared, and vegetation covered everything. seriously the jungle even takes over power poles and wires. Going down a hill we casually passed a man walking his elephant own the road, that was crazy, well for us anyway. The bus stopped on the side of the road (which is Khao Sok’s bus station) and we hopped off. The owner of our accommodation Gai (which also means chicken) picked us up. Once we settled in he invited us to see some monkeys at a local monastery and the Khao Sok viewpoint in a few hours once the rest of the guests arrived.

Accommodation this time around was much more family oriented and less alcohol infused, which I welcomed, no obvious opportunities for another half price wine night level or lost coin purses! There were two families staying there, One from Germany and the other from Israel. The family from Israel had two boys who were around 12 and 8 and we easily connected with the boys and the entire family in general. They were really great people, who invited us to the “monkey swimming hole” after going to see the monkeys. So we all piled into the back of Gai’s pickup – truck boxes either have two upholstered benches or slabs of wood, sometimes with an additional railing around the box and sometimes not. Gai’s pickup was pretty luxurious, cushioned benches and a railing.  He took us to the monastery to see the monkeys first. There were so many of them, all of various ages. Which I thought was crazy, I mean seeing monkeys isn’t something I’m used to, but I didn’t expect the age ranges to vary so much, especially because at home there is a ‘mating’ and ‘calving’ season so most things mature at the same pace. These monkeys weren’t aggressive but they definitely weren’t nervous to be around us, there was one alpha male running the show he was the guy I definitely didn’t want to get close to.

Mad Monkey

Plotting Something

Even though seeing a herd? crew? a lot of monkeys was cool the viewpoint over Khao Sok was the big highlight. It was so beautiful. The karsts, the vegetation, the sky, how far you could see – all of it incredible. Unfortunately my camera was dead at this point so it’s just a pretty unreal mental memory.

The monkey swimming hole was pretty cool too. It’s a pool in the river with a rope you swing off into the water.  We played on that with the family for a while – and then decided to head back right as it started to rain, and when it started to rain it poured. For a little bit us and the boys took cover under a banana leaf, but realized this was not only not working very well, but that the rain did not seem to be slowing down at all. So we braved her, and made it back soaked, but running in the rain here is enjoyable, not like Canada when you are ready to get into dry clothes as soon as you can.

The following morning we went on an excursion to Cheow Lan Lake. What used to be a river was now made into a dam with the purpose of creating electricity, flood control, irrigation, and fishing opportunities. The lake was unreal! Behind walls of karst’s appeared more water, and the water was a beautiful blue-green, reminiscent of the color of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. However much lie the dam project on the Yangtze river there was flooding, and “drowned” dead trees poking out of the water. This added to the scene, but by no means make it any less impressive. Our guide took us through what looked like solid karst walls, but he long-tailed between the karsts and we stopped at the “three karsts” . These are three formations made of molten rock, every other karst in the park is limestone, these were created by volcanic action.

Cheow Lan Lake

Karsts

We ate lunch on a floating dock, that was stuck in the middle of several floating huts where you could  sleep over in. The accommodations were simple, and power was only available from 6:30am to 11pm. Our meal included fish straight from the lake, however I’m still coming to terms with how fish is served over here, it’s a lot easier to eat an animal when its head isn’t looking up at you from the table. While lunch was being prepared we swam in a pool enclosure in front of the floating docks. The water – clear, and warm. Like a luke warm bath was fun, the water was also clear enough you could open your eyes and see some distance in front of you, though  not much.

Lake fun

Mystic

After lunch we long-tailed up a valley and parked. Hopping off and heading into the jungle. We were about to go caving!! (First time I’ve been underground that wasn’t in a mine! (I think)). The trek wasnt too strenuous, we saw some spiders and a millipede, both of which were big enough to gobble down for breakfast. Loosely following a creek we made it to the cave mouth. From mid December to June the cave is impassable because of the water level, so with our timing we lucked out pretty good! Flashlights were handed out and we headed in, other than a few spots the water level stayed pretty close to mid-thigh, a few spots you did have to swim though, which was pretty cool. The end point was a rock wall the water ran down, although the cave did go on farther back, it got much smaller and the water level was much higher.

All in all it was a pretty cool cave trek, and a really neat experience, swimming in a cave. We looked for bats but didn’t see any however there were a few spiders, but all you could see was their orange eyes. That night I went for the best chicken massamun I have ever had in my life! It was delicious! Because it was so good I convinced Robin to have it was well the next day after we did some of our own hiking through the park. Seriously Pawn’s Restraunt in Khao Sok makes the best chicken massamun known to man. We shared this meal with the Israeli family, and it was a really nice way to cap off Khao Sok before we left the next morning.

2014: 14 Things Recap

2015 came in hard and fast, but I was ready. New Year was brilliant, we were around wonderful people. I was able to be so present and so in the moment it was lovely. One of my favorite moments of 2014 yet.

But as 2014 is now over it is time to recap my past goals, and consider adding new ones for 2015. That being said, I am so proud of my achievements this year and the goals I did actively work on. This year was full of so much variety, and most importantly it was full of balance. I tried my best to roll with the bad and bask in the good.  So below in bold are achievements, and unbolded comments about where these goals lie in the future.

1. Grand Teton National Park – unfortunately I did not budget the time for this this past summer. I do still want to go in the future, and it would be completely cool if I can go in 2015 but I have a few other things running through my mind for 2015 as well. This one I think I will move into the 10 year goal folder.

2. Travel – YES. I did this, worked for it, budgeted for it and made it happen. I am currently “travelling” now as I am writing this in Hoi An. Which is beautiful by the way but not the south of Thailand’s oceans are still near and dear to my heart.

3. Overnight hiking trip – This did not happen, again time, buddy, and money crunched this one, and travelling was bigger on my list. Maybe we will try to do some trekking in Laos or Chang Mai when we come back through Thailand, but at this point this did not happen. There will be other opportunities for it though and I am putting it in the 5 year goal file.

4. Go to Waterton – DONE. It was only a day trip but I am so happy I did it. I had a great time with my friend Adam. It was a great day with great company. He also knew the trail well and kept us on time. I probably would have rushed through it or dawdled if it was not for him. And Crypt Lake is Beautiful!

5. Star Constellations. This is a half-assed I kind of did it. UI would like to use an app in the future or find the old star map I know is kicking around my parents place. However, I do know where Orion’s belt is now though and that was self-taught which is pretty cool. Also this goal has lots of time to grow in camping and outdoors situations and you see different things in different places so it’s a ‘always learn’ opportunity. Going to keep it in the immediate goals, but not as one of the 15 things for 2015. This is a just Talia expand your skill set goal.

6. Canning – Didn’t happen. I was really hoping on some saskatoons to can up but the hail in July took care of that goal, and yes I know you can buy them but half the fun is picking your produce before you manipulate it. Moving this into the 5 year goal folder.

7. Enter in another run – YES. This happened, I did challenged my self and pulled through, thoroughly enjoying myself. I would love to continue doing this sort of thing and look forward to continuing what is slowly becoming a tradition.

8. Yoga 4x a month. – Yes this happened, and some months it was a little sloppy but I can sit down go through a sequence and feel accomplished and refreshed afterwards. For me that is success and a habit I hope to keep up as time moves forwards.

9. LOTR or STAR WARS – YES I watched LOTR and it was pretty good actually. The were long and I fell asleep during them quite a bit, but movies have never really been my thing anyways. It would have been a great show to watch on the plane ride to Tokyo though.

10. New Sport – YES. I completed this in January with Ultimate, and am pretty stoked about it. Kid did good and as I improved in Ultimate I noticed significant gains in my beersbee skills! Win Win.

11. Girls trip – Again completed in January which is awesome that it happened while I was still amped about new years goals, but it was also the place where the groundwork for my travel partner and I was laid. If we hadn’t gone on that trip together I don’t know if we would be here today. It was just a personal goal of mine at the time, but Robin liked the idea and we just kept talking away on it until we committed to a November travel date. WOOOO!!!

12. Rap – YES. This happened in May. It was perfect timing to, during a game of Chardee MacDennis which conveniently had awesome rap gear as props and Maria and I just went for it. WE are poor excuses for rappers, but I was Macklemore for a minute and she was Ryan Lewis. “Woke up and got iced, Jesus Christ!”

13. T-shirt quilt. – This seemed like a cool idea at the time, but I grew out of it and wasn’t big on the idea as the year went on. I did acquire a sewing machine in May (thank you Mom and Dad) and have done loads of other sewing with it which I am amped about it. Making a big project like a quilt is something I will also be moving into the 5 year goal folder.

14. Journal. – YES. I have been quite consistent with this and it has taken on several forms. I have done the classic journal, 100 days of happiness challenge, video jounalling and even blogging a bit. It has been wonderful and definitely something I look forward to keeping up. I even video journal sometimes and after I write this I am going to video journal one of the best days of my life. Seriously every time I think of it I get giddy and grinn-y and my heart beats faster and my head rushes. It was so wonderful!! I commend Robin to listening to me talk about it over and over and over. HAPPY HAPPY DAYS.

Bonus – Graduating. – YES. I am so proud of this not only the degree itself, but the journey. I am so fortunate to be educated in something I am passionate about, something I find practical and almost always a way to bring it up in conversation. The institution I did it through allowed me to meet so many wonderful individuals and opened  many opportunities for me. Again convocation was another HAPPY DAY of 2014. Many smiles, laughter and no disasters.

Additional Achievements:

The most recent on and the one that right now I can’t stop talking about is completing the PADI Open Water Diver course. IT WAS WONDERFUL. No matter what I write it wont convey the excitement in my voice as I talk about it. It was so wonderful, exciting and full of learning. We were able to do open dive in poor visibility and 3 dives in pretty awesome vis. The best description I have of it is its like snowboarding down a fantastic run and killing it the whole time, or riding my horse with no concept of time. I mean our 2 dives were long (40min) but under there I had no concept of time, it was all so present and that’s all that mattered. LOVED IT.

I made it to Vegas in August with some beautiful people. It was a place I was sure I would go to when I was an old person, the whole drinking and gambling thing wasn’t me. But I went and chameleoned up to it I embarrassing myself on a penny slot, enjoyed the pool party’s. tjhe company I was with, and I was even ripped off on an 11 dollar water (yeah that happened), and I.D.’ed twice to play Blackjack. It was pretty cool experience. We also went to the Sip ‘n Dip in Great Falls prior to Vegas and that was pretty cool, with the best Mexican food I have ever had!

Working with Kids. – I’m still doing it at the moment and still adore it. They are hilarious, curious and so willing to connect with you. LOVE IT. One of my swim kids even made me a rainbow loom bracelet and a card expressing her appreciation of me as her swim teacher. Absolutely adorable. Loved it.

Biking – During the summer I got back into biking, nothing big and wild, but I did it a few nights a week in the night or the morning or both. My bike isn’t the most beautiful thing out there either, its circa the Bargain Finder from probably the late 80’s if not early 90’s. Pretty simple and it only shifts in 4 of its 18 gears, but that’s good enough. I still enjoyed it and benefited from it.

Scrapbooking – before I left on my latest adventure I had piles of scrapbookign to do, I usually get all the items except the pictures ready to go, and printing them is the biggest obstacle in my way. Right before I left I went through this little phase of tying up loose ends and cleaning up things in case anyone has to sort through my things and I managed to do a lot of scrapbooking. It wasn’t a ‘factory punch it out and go’ either it was ‘hey lets relive this memory and craft about it’. Cool.

I started my AFLCA certification process. I haven’t finished it because this trip took precedence over it, but it’s somthing I would like to complete in the next year, or do something in that area. TRX would be the ultimate thing. I LOVE that form of activity and cannot say enough good things about it.

I didn’t go back to school. Weird right, how is this an achievement? School is where you achieve right? BUt it’s not always the case. I ap[plied for Nursing and at the institutions I applied to I was accepted. But I wasn’t excited about it, I didn’t want to keep on going through school and that routine, I wanted to travel, I wanted to work and most importantly I wanted to test and learn about myself, so I declined, in the future it might be something I will go into. Healthcare is something I do care about, but I wanted out of the academics for a bit. Really I just wanted to ‘flip off’ the North American standard and do something for myself that wasn’t enter the workforce – save money – and etc.. It isn’t frowned upon per say, but it’s not super common or something parents brag to their friends about.  But I didn’t want to go straight to work and into a job I would end up being bitter about. I still don’t want it now. I want to find something I love outside of books instead of reading about something in books and hoping I will like it when the time comes. It has definitely been a decision I don’t regret. I have been exposed to so many different things because of it am I still have an education, and I am still open to getting more (I have applied for next September and January for several different programs and plan to apply to more in new year). Ultimately though my goal is to find or build something that is tailored to me and my passion that I can share with everyone else. That’s happiness and to me that’s a career. Sappy maybe but it is something I want to find. I want to enjoy the hours within work while still living for the ones outside of it. And no I am not being completely naïve I realize some days will be shit, but its all a balancing act in the end anyways. I want a challenge and I want to be able to approach it with a passion. Thats it.

So that’s the 14 things and a few bonus. Currently weighing the 15 things of next year and my 5 and 10 year goal folders as well. I am also getting pretty intense with it all and am putting them into different categories – Personal, Career/Educational, and  Recreational. So in the next couple posts of this genre I am sure they will eventually show up.

Happy Days, Happy days. 🙂

Climbed mountains this year!

🙂

Patong Beach, mishaps, adventures and feasts

Phi Phi to Phuket.

The ferry to Phuket went relatively smoothly, it was packed. We changed out of our swimwear and settled down in the bottom of the boat to get out of the sun. Downstairs was relatively empty probably because seating on deck was much better- better seats, TV’s etc the downside of it being that everyone was up there and all their luggage, and EVERYONE overpacks. We were pretty much alone in the bottom of the boat except for these two guys who in speedos sitting in two lawnchairs near the tv. I don’t really understand why it wasnt outrageously hot on the bottom and the only sun they were getting was from a tiny 8″ diameter window. Not really enough to sun the body. Regardless we went about our business and they went about theirs. By now changing under a sarong without being completely noticeable is pretty easy.

Getting off the ferry was quite a show. EVERYONE wanted off at the same time, of course. When the ferry hit port I went upstairs to the toilet, thinking now was a good time since everyone was concerned about getting off. Even that was a mistake nobody wanted to let us through because they thought we were rushing to get off first. No. Eventually everyone is going to get off the bus and you wont be stranded because it’s a port full of taxis and everyone wants to take you where you need to go and make some money of you. Besides that using the toilet on the ferry was smarter than using the facilities in the port, they cost 10B while the ferry toilet was free. However you do need to bring your own toilet paper if you aren’t familiar with the wand or bum gun as it is sometimes endearingly referred to.

We already had our transportation booked when we bought our ticket on the ferry which again was a lot more convenient than tryingto suss out a decent price from a taxi when you are there, especially since we were on the other side of the island, a package deal worked well here. Driving to Patong Beach was beautiful. We lucked out and got to sit up front which was awesome. We drove up and over the mountain, the views were incredible, Phuket is seriously beautiful. Afer winding through many one ways and tiny streets he drops us off, gives us our bags and says walk down this street and you will find your hostel. So we do, its like walking down a mini Vegas sans cars. There are people everywhere (mostly Aussies) and bars, and street shows and side alleys to more shows (including those other kinds of shows). We find our hostel, it’s in the basement of some other building and between walking to the stairs leading down to it and walking in the entrance there are two 7-elevens! Not even 100 steps between them!This hostel is pretty ritzy. We each have our own ‘capsule’ to sleep in and the showers are unreal!!! The showers I had here are up there with the top showers of my life. EVERY shower had the rain showerhead, and hot water if you wanted. But cold water rain shower – BEST. We showered up and went out to eat which turned into out for a drink.

Starting at a pretty tame at a streetside bar with cheap beer we floated to another bar and started playing pool. We didn’t even break before we were crowded with others asking to join in. Turns out this little bar was having a “white” party tonight for all its student bartenders. It was a bartending school. Robin and I were not dressed for this at all, she was wearing a dress much like the shape and pattern of Aladdin’s magic carpet and I was in workout gear. Dressing for the temperature not the bar scene. Once the place filled up with all things dressed in white and on a mission to prowl the night we hit the road. We ended up at this little club up off the alley with neon paint so we gave it a go. We hit the neon paint and grabbed a beer, and then people started coming up to us asking if we would paint them like us. “Paint me like one of your French girls.”  We don’t even work here, aren’t even dressed for the occasion but go with it, we pump out close to a dozen people in neon paint before they figure out they can do it themselves. At this realization we exit.

Walking back down the alley we see this hanging bar and this wiry guy hanging off it. “Hang for 3 minutes get a free shot of whiskey” seems easy enough, but this guy fails hard about 30 seconds in, another one gets up there and we watch him. He gets about 20 seconds in, and we are talking about it and his buddy turns to us, “You’re fucking Canadians aren’t you!?” That was the beginning of an evening friendship of galavanting Bangla Road with three Kiwis. Robin and I also give the hanging bar a go to and don’t make it past 30 seconds either. The bar isn’t set in the rack, it twists so its all finger work to keep stable on it, tricked by the Thai’s! We with our new crew head up some alleys in search of cheap beer and adventure. On the way up another alley to another bar, the one guy, Jude and I give deep fried chickens feet a go. They aren’t as bad as you may think. Yeah crunchy but the breading is good and so is the marrow. Once you eat up from the toes and into the leg bone it gets a bit hard, but its still not worse than beans, EVAN. We end up settling for some club named Seduction, it was alright, had 3 levels so we picked the second one had some beers and gave it a go. By the time we left it was close to 4 am. Making or way back to our hostel I leave my shoes outside the door, with the dozens of other shoes there and get ready for bed.

Honesty right here: At this point I was at about a half price wine night level on a scale of Casual beer to LCB. I also decided that I didn’t want to just pass out right now I wanted to listen to my ipod and go to sleep. I go into my locker grab my ipod, phone and still have my little day money coin purse with me, with all this and my toothbrush in hand I head to the toilet, use the facilities and brush my teeth. Getting into bed with my phone and ipod and I’m pretty sure my day coin purse. I don’t even use my ipod I just pass out, whole lot of work for nothing. At around 8 am I wake up and look at the things around me ipod, phone, coin purse…. coin purse…… Maybe its under my pillow….or my backpack…..or my foamie….or in my backpack. Nope not in any of these places. In the toilets? Nope not there either, my locker – nope. Seriously I just lost this a few days ago. I ask the front desk. Nope they haven’t seen anything either. I had just taken out money last night too!! And it has only been four hours!!! Still we eat breakfast and look again, no luck, deciding to settle with this reality I grab my spare debit card and we head to the ATM again. When we get to the door all the shoes are gone. ALL OF THEM. I had both pairs of my sandals out there. What is this!? Asking the front desk they tell me they put them all away in the shoe shelves on the male and female side, however neither pair are on the girls side. And in the first look neither pair is on the boys side either. Under another pair I find my hiker sandals, but no luck with the flip flops. Cutting my losses at this point we head out and check out the beach. Which is beautiful, busy, nice sand, nice slope, bathwater temperature, pretty top shelf.

Around 2 after a lunch we come back, resigned with the fact I lost alot of important things and a decent pair of reef thongs. We walk in the the guy at the front desk (who moves at the pace of a slug, no joke everything is slowly calculated and executed with him) waves me over (slowly remember) and shows me a note to see Abi. Having no idea who this Abi is we follow one of the girls who works there as she leads us through the hostel and finally to this bright eyed blonde lady sitting with some of her friends. She gives us a quizzical look at first sand then recognizes my face and jumps up to go and get my coin purse. HOW LUCKY IS THAT! She had found it in the toilet last night when she got in, which was within half an hour of me getting in. She had even left a note the night before on the front desk and at the breakfast counter, but the staff had taken it down and didnt say anything when I had asked more than once earlier in the day. Must be the language barrier. Abi was such a gem, after having her day bag stolen on a bus she was on to get here she found my coin purse and returned it to me! She had nothing not even her passport and she found my coin purse with a load of money in it and returned it all! I hope all the good things come back around to her.

She told us the story of trying to return it, they came in probably around half price wine night level too and found it, then spent the next half hour looking for me on facebook to tell me. I’m sure they must have seen my name disregarded it because Talia – they thought Italia and that I was from Italy! Haha, but it all worked out and we made some great new friends out of the whole incident. The people you meet and the places you will go!

That evening with our new adventurers we headed out for a seafood feast. This was such a cool experience. We went to a market about 2 blocks from the hostel inland. On the ground level we shopped for our seafood (it was all fresh and if not alive on ice), and then after purchasing it we took it upstairs to be cooked. So cool!  We had a FEAST crab, clams, lobster, squid, fish, pineapple rice. So many of the sea creatures! Not only was it a feast, but it was a feast with friends!

On the way back we passed by the outdoor food market, and one vendors selling bugs. Great big plates of bugs. Silk worms, cockroaches, crickets, grasshoppers and some other assorted bugs. The opportunity is there might as well try it. Between three of us we split a bag of grasshoppers. They were fried up in oil and then seasoned with a blend of spices. 10 B later we had a bag of fried up spiced up grasshoppers, they were Okay… The first couple chews of them were good, you get the spices and some juice and its alright, but once you get down to the exoskeleton part it gets a little tough, these parts are poking you as youre trying to swallow them, sometimes it can almost induce your gag relfex. Really the taste is alright, its the texture that will get you.

The only photo from a mad few days of mishaps.

The following morning we left mini Vegas, Phuket for Khao Sok National Park.

Photobombs and Fish Bites

The night bus to Krabi town

Monday night we went to the bus station where we bought our tickets from got into a little minibus with two other travellers and started on what we thought was a pretty ritzy overnight trip to Krabi. The mini bus didn’t last long… it drove us a few blocks and then dropped us and our bags off on another street and left, assuring us another bus was coming. We waited about 15 minutes and sure enough a double-decker bus came and picked us up.

On the bus we were escorted to certain seats, I think it was separated into destinations because the Portuguese couple we rode in the mini bus with were headed to Koh Tao. Anyways we were at the front of the bus top deck, right close to the TV which played some sweet manly Sylvester Stallone style videos all night long. Once our bags are loaded on the bus and we are seated like all buses it started moving. We pulled out on to the little side street and everything is fine, we get to the intersection of the expressway we are to be taking and wait. Traffic is nuts – bikes and cars on top of each other, and we start pulling out slowly and stall. And stall again. And stall again. And then the drivers (there were two) get out and we hear some banging around (we are halfway on the road and the traffic is diverting around us). While this is all happening this girl gets up as the men are coming back on to the bus and asks if she can go to the toilet. Now!? In the middle of an intersection this is an appropriate time to use the toilet? I recognize that I know nothing of this girls bathroom habits, or how long she has been on the bus, but just 5 minutes ago we were stopped loading us on the bus, which may have been a better time to bring that up. In broken English and I’m sure a lot of gestures she came back up to the top floor defeated. The men got back in stalled one more time and then started roaring down the expressway, only to stop 5 minutes later and that girl did get off to use the toilet then.

We stopped twice during the night at bus stops that had toilets and little food stalls throughout the night. The toilet amenities were pretty basic. By now we were growing accustomed to the wand concept, but still weren’t ready for the bucket and pour concept. At this point we still were very diligent about carrying toilet paper with us, and used it instead in this situation. Another thing about the bucket system that I have a hard time wrapping my head around is – it’s a communal bucket, cool, but everyone’s dirty hands touch the handle, and if that handle touches the water, which I am already assuming is pretty clean even though I have no idea what source it comes from, it just seems like an easy way to spread germs. So the bucket rinse is still something I am getting used to, but the concept of a squat toilet is really growing on me, my hip flexors are happy, and your glutes are getting use. Also the wand is a brilliant concept too especially since you do not flush toilet paper over here either, which I am slowly beginning to appreciate.

Anyways back to the night bus, the seats were leather lazy boy reclining style and we got a blanket which is brilliant, but leather, and sweat isn’t the most comfortable of situations to be in. Even though I did sleep every so often I would wake up pry my legs off the leather and readjust. Upholstery has its place.

Around 6am we pulled up to another bus stop and were shuttled off like cattle. Here they try to sell you more bus tickets, you’re going to Krabi and then Koh Lanta? How? You need to book a ferry now or you wont get it go now good deal cheap cheap. We did get our ferry ticket at this random bus station in the middle of nowhere, and hindsight it was a good idea. Those who waited until we got to Krabi town paid more for the ferry. It’s really a crap-shoot of saving on transport over here, sometimes you save by buying last-minute and sometimes you don’t. Ferry’s like the one from Phangan to Samui are better to buy last-minute at the terminal, but it really depends on your next destination and time constraints.

After we bought our tickets we just sat down – everyone was just sitting outside this bus stop waiting. For what we weren’t exactly sure. After about 20 minutes a few mini buses showed up and we were herded to our bags and into the mini buses. Quickly ours filled up….and filled up some more! 15 passenger limit, no problem lets stick another 5 in there easy. What was a three person middle bench I was sitting on quickly turned into a 5 person bench with backpacks piled on one side of the bench in front of us and another guy sitting with the backpacks, my backpack and day bag were between my legs while I and another small girl I was sitting beside had to hold the bags in front of us up so they wouldn’t topple on to us. Sweet ride.

I tried to sleep on my backpacks for most of the ride so I wouldn’t think of the uncomfortableness of it so much, this was great until we were herded out of the mini bus like cattle with our bags and were told to wait at yet another station once again. Groggy I got out with my backpack and went to sit down. The minibus drove away and then I realized… where is my day bag??? Shit where is my day bag? It had EVERYTHING in it. Phone, camera, ID, credit card, debit card all the chargers, journal. Pretty much everything but our passports. It has my lifelines in it! Cool. I immediately went up to the woman selling tickets asking about the van, is it coming back? when? he has my stuff! She coolly told me “Relax its my company, he will be back, 10 minutes”. Lets hope he comes back. I waited 10 minutes, pacing walking up and down the street. 10 minutes passed a van pulled up, not even the same van but one pulled up out of desperation I still looked inside it, you never know. The woman at the desk looked at me afterwards, “Relax 10 minutes” Thai time, 10 minutes never means 10 minutes. Fifteen minutes pass. Our next mini bus is scheduled to leave in 5  minutes, I’m slowly trying to settle into the realization that I might have just lost everything but my passport, but finally the mini bus pulls up!!

I reef open the door and there is my bag still there, untouched – everything is still inside! THANK YOU GOOD KARMA!!!!! I thanked the woman, once again and we were herded on to the next minibus. Thai time man, it really takes some time to get used to.

The minibus took us to the pier on Koh Lanta. From there we got into a bike taxi that took us to our next accommodation. It was simple but nice. Cold water shower (which I now love, especially in the heat), fan, and one cockroach that we saw anyways. On Koh Lanta, we chilled out, tried to get some tan on, and did an awesome snorkeling day of the 4 islands which included the emerald cave. The Andaman coast is unbelievable beautiful, the water is warm and so salty floating is so easy (or maybe that’s just something that us  landlocked people aren’t used to). Anyways it was like bath water, the clarity was pretty great on all the snorkels and the fish live was plentiful, however a lot of coral was dead.

On our first snorkel stop off Koh Maa, a fish bit me. There was this big school of fish and Robin wanted a picture of here swimming within them. Cool. So we are in this big school and right as I’m taking this sweet photo one fish swims right in front of her body covering everything but her legs, and this other fish bites my thigh! It wasn’t a big bloody mess, but there was a bite mark about the size of my pinky finger pad. On the next snorkel off of Koh Waen we saw a clown anemone fish (Nemo), it was sooo cool!!! Then we went to Koh Mook and swam through the tunnel to the Emerald Cave it was unreal. Even though we had to do a train and wear life jackets (which regarding safety and the waves hitting the walls of the tunnel made sense) it was awesome, just like travelling through a glow stick! Inside was beautiful, busy but beautiful. The water was so calm, there was vegetation and it was just purely awesome. We played in here for about half an hour before leaving and going to Koh Ngai where we had lunch, and swam and played for another hour to hour and a half. It was so great. The sand the water, everything about this day was great. The landscape. Everything. Awesome. From here we long-tailed it back to Oldtown and then taxied back to our accommodation.

Andaman Coast

These fish man, bite and bomb.

Koh Mook

From KohLanta we ferried to thePhi Phi islands where we were planning to just do the hike to the look out point, but ended up going on an awesome snorkeling day trip before we caught the ferry to Phuket. This was even better than the four islands experience. Wesnorkeled more, the clarity was so much better! And the coral life so much different! AND WE WENT TO “THE BEACH” (Maya Bay). Robin fan-girled hard, which was cool its one of her bucket list things. Then we saw some monkeys at monkey bay, and the viking cave. We did all this and made it back to catch our ferry to Phuket with 5 minutes to spare! It was such a great activity on a travel day. Such a great day, and we just kept busy into the evening when we did arrive in Phuket.

Bangkok: Rats, Scams and Ladyboys

I have been trying to write a post for quite a while. Not only has it been challenging to find time to sit down and write but it is also difficult to find reliable wi-fi, and to gather my thoughts and feelings about this whole experience into some sort of linear thought. This is an attempt.

December 12, 2014.

We have been in Thailand for 22 days. The flight to get here went as well as you can expect. 26 hours of travel, plane meals, movies, and sleeping upright or on the fold down table. The stop in Denver was exhilarating, the stop in Tokyo exciting, so close! In Tokyo we were delayed 2 hours which sounds bad, but it wasn’t at all. More time to sleep. We did have a little rookie scare in Tokyo though. We weren’t able to print off an official boarding pass for Tokyo and had to have one printed in the airport. Which is fine, easy peasy, and the airline staff assured us that there was plenty of time and not to rush it, the desk they would be printing them from would be right outside the gates we would be boarding at. So we went to that gate and settled in watching some sumo wrestling on TV. About half an hour in we wondered where everyone who was on our flight from Denver was we knew some of them would be going to Bangkok, but where were they? So we went and had our boarding passes printed and then looked at the gate number. We were not anywhere near our gate and we read the boarding time as in the next 5 minutes. Power walking taking care of business mode activated we raced to our gate to find out the boarding time wasn’t for another 2 hours. Premature freak out, and we really need practice reading 24 hour clocks.

After this little scare we did settle down again until our boarding time and did make it to Bangkok!

Bangkok:

Arriving at 2 am I have booked us an airport hotel for convenience. The next morning we woke up went back to the airport and rode the skytrain to our next hostel. By the time we got off the skytrain we were famished. Earlier that morning we had had our first 7-eleven breakfast, chicken rice porridge, sounds exotic compared to a western breakfast, but it was pretty tasty! Anyways we got of the skytrain with a crappy map and a few screen shots of the address of our next hostel, another rookie mistake. We decided to eat at this little restaurant underneath the rail. So we walk in, it’s a cement pad half covered with tin and the dish washing station is our under the sky. Not really something you would ever see in Canada, but it was cool. So we walk up to the counter to order something and out of the corner of my eye I see something scurry under the food cart. Was that a rat!? Robin negotiates a price for our meal and we go to sit down, as we turn around I see it again. Yeah, it’s a big rat butt. BIG RAT BUTT. This was the first rat I have ever seen aside for robot Halloween decorations and pet shop rats. Rat or no we are eating here, and we did, and it was still one of the best meals I have had here. It was a pad Thai with chicken, chili, peanuts and a spicy chili sauce. So saucy!

Jim Thompson House

Jim Thompson House

Our first hostel in Bangkok was luxurious by hostel standards and had an ideal location. Nearby Siam square, it was a small hostel with great amenities and a little kitchen, the people were friendly and the beds comfortable, the room was also air conditioned which was a huge bonus and help in acclimatizing. We spent 5 days in Bangkok, which is kind of a long time but we got a lay of Bangkok and that’s what w needed. We spent one day walking around on our own, a day at the floating market and Grand Palace, and another at a night market and just walking around Bangkok eating when we were hungry and checking things out at our leisure.

Street food

Bangkok walk around day

This day was full of all sorts of emotion, possible scams, information and a tuk tuk ride. We started the morning with a visit to the Jim Thompson house, which is really close to our hostel, followed by a walk along Rama I where we booked our night bus ticket down to Krabi for the night of the 24th. And then while timing our walk across Rama VI we were approached by a Thai guy. He asked us where we were going, and what our plan was for the day, where we were from and those small talk things. We answered all of those and started with “Be careful going down this road its a National Holiday (the Kings Birthday?) and there is a protest going on its dangerous especially for 2 young girls.” I am more than positive being a boy traveler, whether alone or with a companion is SUCH a different ball game than being a girl. Boys aren’t fed fear about being male in a turbulent environment – THIS is something I want to see change. Anyways he wrote down a few spots on our map to go to instead, a few temples, a TiT (Tourism Information Thailand) and waved us down a tuk tuk for 30B. It seemed like a good deal, that’s a reasonable price for a tuk tuk and hey he’s native here we aren’t. So we started with a temple. SO MANY CATS. These cats and litters of kittens were living in and around this Buddha statue in the temple. Stray animals are common here, dogs just roam the streets like people do, but there was a lot of cats here, all around this Buddha and it was ok. After the temple we got back in the same tuk tuk (this is still only 30B and we haven’t paid him yet) and go to the TiT.

This is where it gets interesting. We walk in and are beckoned to this desk where this brown guy with a GREAT haircut is sitting down and as he starts talking we both do a double take. What an American accent!? Yeah he was definitely from America. He introduced himself as Mark, and we just word vomited everything we were in Asia to do, and he started helping us formulate this plan. We spent 2 hours in the TiT doing this and by the end of it we were drinking vodka crans with him. WHAT?! Yeah what a weird TiT experience, we leave with our Thailand route planned out and feeling pretty good, we make plans to meet up later and he is going to show us Bangkok by night, again playing on the two females card. And during our time in his office Robin picks up on some subtle passes on me, like anytime someone shows interest in me I had NO idea, I was just looking at pamphlets regarding our plans.

So we go to our meeting place to see Mark and Bangkok that night, he’s 15 minutes late. Thai time. Something we are having a hard time getting used to. We walk through the red light district, see some beautiful ladyboys and end up playing some pool at a pub for a while, again cats everywhere! And on our way we did see a few cockroaches, they are big like 1/3 of my palm big! We end up having a pretty decent time, looking back now I think part of it was just the excitement of seeing Bangkok at night and it being our second full day in Thailand. We catch cab back to our hostel and hit the hay, early day the next day we are supposed to be off to the floating markets. But morning comes and the hangover hits hard, which is also coupled with taking anti malaria on an empty stomach (SO MUCH REGRET).The van to the markets never comes and we decide we are going to do it on our own and flag down a tu tuk for 50B we agree on the floating markets, he takes us around and then just dumps us at this market on the canal. It wasn’t the floating market we were duped. We ended up figuring the day out and Bangkok as we spent more time there. Monday evening we took a night bus to Krabi.

That’s a brief summary of Bangkok, it didnt swallow us up, but it definitely makes you appreciate the BEAUTIFUL south.

Welcome Balance, Embrace Change

16-11-14

Two days until departure! Almost the eve of adventure. My ‘mediocre at best’ backpack is packed, and thankfully right now everything fits! Figuring out my phone and camera still, pants are hemmed and feeling excited about it all. It sure is going to be one adventure!

18-11-14

Things to do? Probably. Are you ready? Is anyone really wholeheartedly ready for anything? I’m ready in the sense that I’m prepared for the good, the excitement, and the adventure, but am also fully aware that some days wont be so great. Instead they will be frustrating, long, and at times downright crappy. But the good and the bad create balance. So I’m ready in that sense. Welcoming balance, and embracing change.  And change is synonymous with adventure.