Before i start another long boring blog (and to those who read the whole lot of the last one, god bless ya, i'm never reading that much again), i should explain some changes in the plan, in case yer interested. First off: No japan. Basically, the only jobs there are in teaching english, which i'm not too hot on, and secondly, one of the "big three" english teaching companies, Nova, just went bust leaving something in the region of 25000 people with no jobs. I find it hard to get a job at the best of times, but with those odds, i think i'll skip thanks very much. Instead, and i should point out this is a very tentative plan, i'll be heading to Australia in about late March, to work until the end of july, to save money for a gigantic 10 week USA road trip me and a friend from the UK are putting together. Details are sketchy but much fun is expected. After that, i've no idea, maybe head back to OZ, maybe New Zealand, maybe canada, i've no idea. It's a long way off.
So there it is, saves me explaining in emails and phone calls, and if anyone needs a japanese work visa with the name "Brian Kelleher" and a picture of a bearded would be sumo wrestler on it, hit me up.
So where was i, ah yes. Thursday last i pack up my belongings, leave my hostel and make my way to Pai. Amazingly, the four hour bus ride costs just under two euro, and i spend it chatting with a girl from kenmare named Denise who, just a few months previously, had phoned her parents to ask if she could become a nun in thailand. Nice girl, mad stories. The bus goes up pretty far into the mountains, at one stage a quick look out either window and you could see about fifteen miles of mountains either ways. This of course being a public bus, it goes up the hills at about 4 miles an hour, but it was still a great ride. Somewhere along the way we meet up with a Canadian named Tim, and Australian named Fiona, and a Swede named Eric, and together we follow Denise down the road and across a bamboo bridge to some cheap huts she had reccomended called Family Huts. For three euro a night i get a very nice little hut with warm blankets, a fan and a light, just off the river that runs through Pai. To say pai was what i was hoping thailand would be like is putting it mildly - a small village with a handfull of traveller's needs (internet, bikes, bars), set in the hills with a beautiful river running through. The first night in, we walk up the street to find it covered in night stalls selling clothes, food, jewlery and beers. We get some really great food, find a huge bar with fire dancer guys and basketball (bizarre combination), then walk back up town (meeting a frazzled american named Aaron along the way), find a roadside booze stall, and settl in. At one point i look around and see this canadian couple that i'd already run into three or four times in thailand, bizarre yet fairly common. They come to hang out and invite me to a big party on a private island down south for christmas day. Result! After a while, Aaron shows up again and we find we had a mutual taste for cheap booze and cheaper laughs. The two of us somehow end up in some rathole bar called Bebop where terrible thai bands play terrible coverversions of recent rock hits while desperate travellers do some sort of desperate mating dance. We spend the night drinking cheap beers and laughing heartily at their expense.
The next morning i wake up not remembering much, and spend the day walking around with people coming up going "hey brian, how did you get on last night", and me smiling and nodding as if i had any clue who they were. A very common occurence in Pai it seems. Tim and i rent some scooters and head off to drive around and see what we could see. After getting fairly lost a few times, we head back to the huts in time for sundown, and meet a fairly sizeable and rowdy gang of ozzies. At some point aaron shows up and we all headed up town to see what was going on. I stop for more noodles at a street stall, and as i wait, Tim suggests i try the next stall up for 20c chicken on a stick. Never one to say no to eating some dead stuff, i buy one and walk up the street with it. Ten minutes later i walk back down and buy two more. I gather up the ozzies for a third trip to the chicken on stick stall and quickly a legend is born. The sign says they're made with garlic and peppers, i maintain it's whatever oil they're using, but either way those things are some of the best food i've ever had, and everyone agrees. One of the ozzies pledged to eat 25 in one night, and i offer him 2000 baht (about e40) if he actually does it. He would spend the rest of the weekend working up to the challenge.
For some reason, we go back to the bar which had the fire and basketball. The whole venue is actually huge, to the point where i think if you put everyone in Pai in there, it'd still be empty, so with us being the only patrons, it was cavernous and incredibly boring. Me and Aaron get pretty bored pretty quick, so we head back to that Bebop place and sit ouside a bonfire at the front door, making sign-language conversation with passing thais. One group stops for about 45 minutes, and eventually (somehow) invite us to come in with them. They sit around a short table on the top floor of the bar, pounding whiskey and taking it in turns to dance on the table. Never being one to shy away from a cultural exchange that revolves alcohol, i soon found myself full of whiskey, doing the funkey chicken (on a stick), on a table, on a balcony, with five thai guys shouting mad thai at me, and one american looking at me like "ah balls, now i have to do it". In short, we have an awesome time. When the bar closes, the thais motion something about another bar, and i run into some brits who offer to bring me up on their bike. Aaron heads off with the thais, i jump on the bike, and off we go... For about four feet until the bike falls over and i go ass over heels into the dirt. Luckily we were going 0 miles per hour at the time, and once back on the bike, we're soon at a bar called "Don't Cry" that's full of brits, americans and thais. I run into one guy from Wolverhampton who comes out with the legend "i fookin hate the brits me" and we became fast friends. More fire dancing ensus and after meeting a load of people, i head for home.
Saturday was another day for the bikes, me and tim heading off early and going a two hour drive west, which goes through some great valleys and gives me some great photos. I sleep for a few hours in the day and in the evening we all headed to the offie and stocked up on booze, got fairly lairy at the restaraunt out the front of the huts, and go to a party we'd heard about in a nightclub up on a hill somewhere. There i sit around a campfire and talk for ages with this mad US guy who's parents gave him acid when he was 16. He was still pretty normal though (for an american), and we have an interesting conversation about the New World Order, the Elite, and all that kinda mad conspiracy crap that i don't really buy, but find pretty entertaining, especially when someone tries to convince you the world is run by lizards. Some other american guy asks me what the deal was with the irish and the english, and after clueing him in on 400 years of oppression, i feel it might be time to get out of there. After chatting with some more brits for a while, and listening to aaron try to convince me to come to Laos with him the next day for all of, oh, fifteen seconds, a gang of us hop in the back of a pickup truck and find ourselves in the Seven Eleven trying to figure out what meat was what in the deli.
Sunday was another mammoth bike ride, as me and tim head off into the hills and do a 120km loop of villiages and valley views. I was getting pretty confident on my little scooter at this stage and somewhere along the way decided to get up monday morning and drive through the mountains to Chiang Mai (130 miles). After another afternoon nap, i meet up again with our Family Huts gang, which has now swelled to about ten people, and we have some farewell drinks for Aaron, Fiona and an English girl named Anna, all of whom are getting a late bus to Laos. At ten we walk them up to the bus, say our goodbyes, fill up on stick chicken, and hit a street bar for some coctails. One of the ozzies hits it off with the stalls owner, and manages to convince her to let them drink for free if they'll act as greeters and pull in people off the street. She agrees and they arrange to show up monday evening and get the party going, at least on that five feet of road. We all head off down the road to some raggae bar and have a few more drinks before some of us call it a night.
Monday morning i get up, eat, say goodbye to some people who're headed south that morning, and hit the road. My bike's only got a 100cc engine, so traversing the mountains is a bit like taking a punto up everest, but eventually i make it to the top, and enjoy about an hour's worth of views. My bike's odomoter (the thing what tells you the distance you've travelled) is knackered (as is the speedometer now that i mention it), so the drive is pretty frustrating as whenever i think i'm almost there, a sign pops up that says "Chiang Mai, 75 Miles". At one stage i'm very low on fuel, so i stop at a restaraunt that points me down a road to a ghetto petrol station where an old man with three five gallon jars of petrol and some tubes fills up my tank for half nothing. After about five hours, i hit chiang mai, check into a cheap guesthouse, and sleep for a few hours.
In the evening i do some internet and decide to hit up the night market to see if i can get some chicken on a stick. While walking around i spot a familiar head of blonde dreads, and it turns out to be Mick and Anna, the kiwis i was hanging around with the first few weeks in the south. Thailand's funny like that, even in a city of a million people, you tend to bump into people. We head to a cheap bar the guys have found and have some drinks, play some terrible pool, feed some elephants, and eventually part ways after a 2am Burger King feast.
For some reason i sleep really badly and wake from a strong night tremor at around 6:30am. i have a quick shower, drop my key to reception, and hit the road at 7am. This time the drive is much easier as i kind of know where i am most of the time, and the morning mist on the hills is just amazing. I'd filled the petrol on the bike when i arrived to chiang mai the night before, but at about 8:30am i finally putter to the side of the road, completely out of petrol and about 25 miles from anywhere. When i stop and old old woman hobbles over and gives me a kind of "what in christ's name are you doing here" type motion, so i shake my water bottle, point at the petrol tank, and make a "no" motion. She give me a quick "eureka!" type finger in the air motion, scurries back into her house, and emerges a minute later with two whiskey bottles full of dark red petrol. Result! I fill up, offer her some money (which she refuses), and head off.
Now most of you are probably thinking "yeah bollocks, some old lady just happened to have two bottles of petrol in her gaff", but if you'd been to thailand you wouldn't even be surprised. Basically they have three types of petrol station over here, western stations, ghetto stations, and whiskey stations. A western station is the same as home, you rock in with the bike, give the attendant the keys, say something asinine like "fill 'er up" and go into the (US owned) forecourt station to stock up on Doritos, Wrigley's chewing gum, and some water that's inevitably been bottled by Coke somewhere. A ghetto station is basically a little stall with three upturned five gallon drums, containing (respectively) diesel, octane 91 and octane 95. The bottom of the drum has a tap with a hose, which you stick in your tank, ask for x liters, and the guy eases the correct amount of fuel into your tank. A whiskey station is generally a little counter at the side of a restaraunt where you find three piles of empty one liter whiskey bottles, containing, again, diesel, octane 91 or octane 95. Most people here drive around with a whiskey bottle full of petrol for when they run out, and possibly for when they feel like getting very drunk, very quickly.
Inanyways, i make the drive back to Pai in three hours this time, and it's much more enjoyable. After a quick breakfast at the restaraunt with the remaining ozzies (who are still insanely drunk from what i'm assured was an amazing night running their own bar), i hit my hut and sleep for about eight hours. When i emerge, everyone's crashed out on the deck of the restaraunt, watching family guy season six. We head back up town around eight for the lad's second night of work (and about ten chicken on a stick each) but seemingly everyone's left pai that day and it's quiet night. After hitting a few bars, we call it a night.
So there it is, the update. Today is the king's birthday so there's no drinking. Tomorrow morning i'm getting on my bike with a little backpack and heading off on a 700 kilometer loop from pai to mae hong song to chiang mai to pai. I think it should take about a week and i promise to post with pictures next time. Until then...
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Back with the fitness...
Well i promised after the last boring boring blog i'd try for something a little more entertaining. After posting the last one, things got immediately more entertaining, for a spell, and then incredibly less entertaining. Now where was i...
Well, after posting saturday from Samui, i meet up with the rest of the gang (alex, mick and sally) and we head off in search of a cheap day tour. Everyone was into elephant riding and all that jazz, but it held no interest for me so i reasoned that instead of each spending 1500 baht (approx e30) on a day's elephant riding and sight seeing, they spend 500 baht each (e5) an elephant ride and we rent another four wheel drive for 800 baht (e16) and drive around sight seeing and such, thus saving money (best part of fifteen euro each) and having the freedom to go see what we want, when we want. We find a place that sells elephant rides, the lads buy one each, and we all go get a few hours sleep.
Around eight we decide to prowl the beach for some cheap food. Around nine we realise nowhere on the beach is cheap, so head for the main street. Around ten we realise nowhere on the main street is cheap either (compared to the two euro curries we were getting where we had stayed previously on samui) so we settle on a german restaraunt and get some food. After dinner we do a little light window shopping, and alex and mick decide to get a massage. Myself and sally decline and head off to have a look at more shops. One of the painful things about shopping in thailand is nothing has a price on it, and an enquiry lands you straight into a bargaining frenzy. Being that i had no plans on spending cash on ANYTHING (a night in a hotel that costs more than your entire daily budget will do that) it was a fairly frustrating night, but i did get to see some sweet (and cheap) clothes, chat with an amazing artist dude, and generally see some sweet thai crafts stuff.
Anyways, while walking around earlier, we passed this, how do i put this, ladyboy cabaret. Being all fine heterosexual males, alex mick and i all walked past and stared while pretending to a stroll down the street taking no notice, in the process walking into everything from lamp posts to people. Sally, not giving a shit, stared while walking into nothing, and suggested we go in. Later, she suggests this again and i, having not had a drink yet that day, agree. We rock up and get a seat by the door (so i can bolt if things get too fruity) and order two drinks (which turn out to be 150 baht (three euro), an absolte rip off by thai standards). On stage are a coterie of what are almost ladies - one dudette in particular would pass for a playboy model were s/he not surrounded by badly made up tina turner lookalikes (sally keeps on about him/her all the way through the set to the point where i think she might have been turned to the dark side, but don't tell mick). The crowd is thin but surprising - behind us is an english family with two boys of about ten or twelve, obviously having the time of their lives. After one song, the tallest, scariest of the, eh, performers, announces it's time for audience participation and asks for volunteers from the crowd to come join them for a dance. As tina turner walks towards me, i get a feeling as if someone is grabbing my shoulder and, turning to find nobody there, realise i'm having my first ever heart attack! How exiting!! Luckly, she walks past me and grabs one of the ten year old english kids and coaxes him to the stage (the word coaxing as i understand it meaning "to pull kicking and screaming"). They spend another few minutes collecting various dudes from the crowd and stuffing them in behind the curtain. After a minute or so, "I will survive" starts up, and each participant comes out in sub-Monthy-Python drag and is made shuffle/shimmy/traipse the length of the dance floor to another podium at the opposite end of the club. Up last: the english preteen, a face like he's about to have us all killed, throwing daggers at his parents (both of whom are just about on the floor with laughter) and ignoring his brother, who you can tell is already looking forward to getting back to school. After a little "what's your name, where are you from", the cabaret finishes up, the DJ starts, and the ladies make around the room for photos. Sally and i take pictures with a few before realising (a) they want money for each picture and (b) we have no money left. A quick exit is made stage left.
We meet up with the lads again, head for home and crash. The next morning we move our stuff to a far cheaper resort, collect our jeep and head for the elephant trekking center. While there's no water this time (and thus no engine cutting out), there's also no suspension in the jeep, and thus the ride is, to put it mildly, uncomfortable. The thing is so sensitive to bumps in the road it could be used to locate ancient fossils hundreds of meters under the road. Add to this the state of samui's roads and drivers, and within minutes i have my head out the window shouting obscenities (the horn in this van doesn't work, though that doesn't stop me beating the shit out of the spot where the (usless bastarding) thing should be). We get to the elephant trekking center and the lads head off for their 30 minute trek. It's a nice peaceful place, and they have two junior monkies tied to a tree (plenty of room to get about mind you, not as inhumane as it sounds) so i sit on a bench and watch them for a while. Time drags and i soon realise everyone's been gone for about an hour. I head back to the van to try get a little shut eye but no hope. When i get back to the monkies, someone (presumably a keeper) has given them each a live frog. I think this is odd, but not as odd as what i'm about to witness.
Now, knowing monkies only from fota wildlife park and episodes of Friends, i assume they are friendly little fellers, all about playing games, swinging from trees, and trying to steal your sandwitches. Not so. The monkey nearest me first bashes his frog's head off the tree stump, then tries to bite a chunk out of what can only be the frog's man parts. He chews this for a while, the frog's legs going ninety, then scrapes it's head off a rock for a few minutes. Frog still alive, he bites one of it's eyes off. This goes on for another ten minutes or so until i leave (why i watched for ten minutes, i have no idea). I walk around for a while until the lads show up, having topped off their 30 minute elephant ride with an hour at the foot of the waterfall and a long leisurly stroll back to the van. I play nice and suggest i didn't mind waiting, but inside i'm picturuing me as a monkey and them as frogs (bet you didn't know that fuckers!!! hahaha). We drive around for a while and find somewhere to eat. We set off for Big Buddah (as mentioned in an earlier blog, a huge buddah (see my flickr pics)). This involves a few scenic detours and a few near instances of brain damage when the van goes over small holes and we're all sent flying around the cabin. Big buddah is, again, cool as fuck. The statue is up a long set of stairs, and from there you can see for miles. It's a square shaped covered platform, with around 25 hanging bells, and we each take sticks to ring them. It's incredibly soothing and we soon set off in a rather very good mood. We stop at a market to buy a few odds and ends, and then head for home.
Being our last night in the south, we all get dressed up fancy (meaning: I wear jeans and a tshirt with not one single profanity on it) and head for a very very nice italian restaraunt up the road. While not even remotely pricey by western standards (the meal for four comes to about e30), it's a big splash, and we are made feel like kings. We head for the beach for one last drink, and crash.
4:55am we meet outside the resort to make our way to the airport to fly to Bangkok. Our taxi is booked for 5am (our flight is at 6:30) but the cheeky fucker arrives around 5:45 and we skid into departures just as they're about to stop taking people for the flight. The flight is uneventful, with the exception of the guitarist from Pearl Jam sitting about two rows in front of me. We get into bangkok early and make for our hotel, which mick and sally assure is top class. While the foyer is pretty swank, and the price of the room suggests it's nice, the rooms are unfortunately the size of a shoebox, and my telly has four thai channels, two french channels, and the news in japanese. Balls. We sleep for a while then hit MBK, Bangkok's biggest shopping center. I was promised a floor full of electronics so i, being a sensible mature twenty six year old male, get very giddy and practically run up the escilators to the forth floor (stopping only once for a strawberry milkshake, natch). Unfortunately, electronics translates to mobile phones, and i walk around fruitlessly looking for earphones for an hour (mine having been inexplicably stolen from my hotel room in Koh Tao, inexplicably because they were an e18 pair of headphones plugged into a e300 MP3 player, which the theif left behind). Eventually, after arguing with two sales clerks and spending ten minutes having an 81 year old american tell me her family history (when will americans get the hint: we don't give a toss about your great great great great great grand aunt who once met someone who may have had a neighbour who had some stupid irish sounding (but in no way irish) surname like "ireland" or "shamrock" or "O' Hitler") i find a shop that does a fine line in sony ripoffs and get a nice pair of headphones for half nothing.
This being Alex's last night in Thailand, we decide to go fancy for dinner and then get thrashed. Unfortunately it's pissing out of the heavens when we leave the hotel, so we settle for the nearest place with a cover and get some fairly dodgy food (but still have a good time). We stop off at a few bars before heading to this one superpub on the corner with pool tables. Unfortunately, it's also chock full of thai girls (of the "for rent" variety) who are absolutely amazing at pool so we watch Alex get thoroughly thrashed at pool by one (poor bastard) and head back to a street bar for more drinks. Mick and sally are both a little sick so they head home, and myself an alex head back to the pool bar. What follows is a little sketchy, like watching a DVD on 20x fast forward. Basically: drinks, pool, some wanker from wicklow, dancing, cocktails, american girls, vodka and red bull, english dudes, beer, very dodgy tuc tuc ride, nightclub in the middle of nowhere at 4am, "i'm not paying six euro into nowhere", another dodgy tuc tuc ride, dutch girls, whiskey, some random german guy, mc donalds, some mad tribeswoman offering me a jumper, waking up in my hotel room with ABSOLUTELY no idea where i am for a good five minutes. Good night then.
Tuesday not much happens. The hangover's pretty bad but i don't complain much, for some reason it's the first hangover i've gotten here, so i don't want to jinx it. We run into Mike and Anna (who we left on ko tao) and it turns out they got in at 2am and booked into the same place. I book back into the same place i stayed before (cheap and cheeful) and pass the day walking around, eathing, and sleeping. At night we go out for alex's last meal in thailand, play more pool, have the craic with the street sellers and around midnight, see alex off in a taxi. Tis sad to see him go and he's pretty upset about it, but we're all sure we'll see him again, legend that he is. After a quick McDonalds, we all crash.
Wednesday i check out of my hotel and drop my stuff to the lads' hotel room. My train to Chiang Mai (about fourteen hours north) isn't until 10pm so i have a lot of time to kill. I eat a few times, do some shopping, and at some point settle into a bar on the street to read my book. I pass about an hour and a half eating a little, drinking a bit, and getting through a shitload of my book while occasionally watching people on the street. The bar isn't all that busy, yet for some reason, when a very obviously worse for wear english dude with some very dodgy prison tattoos falls into the place, they put him at the other side of my table. I try to avoid him as much as possible, until he starts talking to me. The conversation goes something like this.
Random British Nutter: Good book is it?
Me: Yeah not bad.
RBM: Crazy place this.
Me: Mad enough alright.
RBM: I have to get out of here, it's driving me fuckin mental.
Me: Yeah, bangkok's a bit nuts alright. How long are you here?
RBM: Not sure mate, it's either (counts on fingers for a while), it's either two days, or a week and a half. It's driving me fuckin mental.
Me: Eh.... Right.
RBM: Are yeh graftin coke at all?
Me: Eh, no. (to a passing waiter) could i get my bill please?
RBM: This place is driving me fuckin mental. I want to go down south but i spent a month in prison there last time and they told us if i ever came back they'd bang me up again.
Me: Not a nice place to be locked up i'd say.
RBM: No likes. You're irish aye? I've done time in the joy, and i've done time in britain, but these prisons here (making a fist) i fookin tells ya.
Me: ....
RBM: I'm a violent cunt at the best of times but the shit you have to do down there.
Me: ....
RBM: Are ya sellin coke at all?
Me: Eh... No. (to passing waiter) any sign of my bill?
RBM: The women here are savage, but you've to watch out for the ladyboys, ken? I'd to beat the shite out of one there a few weeks ago.
Me: ... Sure you'll have that i suppose. Anyways, if the waiter comes back, give him this (throwing 300 baht on the table). Cheerio!
RBM: Cheers. (to my back) Here, do you know where i can get any coke?
I walk around for a while, meet the lads, and we go for dinner in this rather nice indian place. We head for the pool bar for a while, and at around nine i flag a tuc tuc, say my goodbeyes and head for the train station. Or at least the direction of the train station. I think. Remember what i said about tuc tuc drivers being nuts? This one stops to renegociate a few times, in the middle of a few dodgy neighbourhoods. Then he stops a few times and disappears into houses leaving me expecting to be mugged at any moment. I eventually get to the train station and get on my train. Peace at last i think, until this thin nervoous/exuberant english guy comes up and introduces himself. He's on a month off work and trying to pack in as much of thailand as he can. I'm fairly tired at this point but i chat with him for a while, sipping on some cheap beers i got at the station. He's about two years out of college and a complete prat, the type to tell you tonnes about himself and his past and the things he's achieved in his job (including names of superiors and stuff that nobody other than his mum cold ever give a toss about), but as soon as someone else starts talking, he's bored out of his brains and making no attempt to hide it (and yes i recogise the irony in complaining about someone telling you boring details of their life in a huge boring blog, shut up). I try to stonewall him a few times into leaving me alone but his bunk isn't ready yet (it's a sleeper train) so he starts into another story about his walking around bangkok or the things he's going to do in the north or the computers he got his bosses at work to use. I have no problem with someone being a bit lonely and enjoying company, but when i tell him about my own experiences, he's staring bored around the carriage, patently not listening and obviously wishing his bunk was ready. Mercifully, after an eternity (probably about fifteen minutes), his bunk is ready and he cuts me off mid sentence with "see you later" and bolts. Thank christ!!! I drain my beer and fall asleep.
We arrive into Chiang Mai around 1pm. I pass the time beforehand reading my book, taking photos out the window, and listening to music. When i get off the train, i head for a songthaw (shared taxi - a hiace with seats in the back) and ask to go to Libra House, a guesthouse i hear is nice and cheap. After a minute, the driver arrives with another lady who tells me there's actually a free songthaw to libra house. I gather up my stuff and arrive to the free transport, and who's in the back? The english prat. Ah shite. He bores me for a while on the way to the guesthouse, we get there and it turns out to be just as cheap and cheerful as promised. I get a room and head back to the restaraunt for food. As i finish, english dude comes back and asks if i'm interested in heading off around town. It's tempting (or rather, as tempting as eating my own testicles) but i pass saying i'm going to go get a few hours sleep first and head back to my room. I give it 30 mins for safety's sake, and head out.
Chiang Mai's a nice spot. One of the guide books says it's like a small town grown bigger and i'd have to agree. I walk around checking out the shops and some temples and things, eat some food, drink some beers, check out the night market and eventually crash around 11pm.
At about 1am i wake and throw up. Same again at 3am, 4.30am, 6am and 8am. Balls.
This is where things get pretty boring. I spend a few days in my room sick, reading about three books a day and eating about once a day. Nice for saving money, but a shit thing to do on your own in a foreign country. At this point i'm still a bit sick but also sick of being indoors so i'm around town a bit more, but taking it very easy. I haven't had a drink in almost a week. Imagine!
Anyways, i do make it out for a few hours on sunday for the Loi Krathong festival. This is an annual festival held on the 12th full moon (or some such pagan bollocks) and is to celebrate the end of the monsoon. Everyone in town makes a little raft out of bamboo leaves, loads it with flowers and candles, and sends it off down the river. Add to that thousands of thai candles being let off (a large paper cylinder, open at one end, with some sort of candle thing underneath - basically it fills with smoke and after a few minutes takes off and floats into the sky until it's the size of a star) and millions of fireworks, and you have a rather large but beautiful brouhaha. Thousands of people come out and line the streets, there's fire breathing, dancing, sparklers, singing - all kinds of madness. I head out for about four hours of it, walk about ten miles with the parade, take some pics, and head back to my cave.
So now it's.... Wednesday. Tomorrow i'll be in Chiang Mai for a week, which is a pretty sorry situation seeing as all i've done is see some fireworks, read most of John Grisham's novels, and throw up a lot. Tomorrow i'm heading for pai where i hope to go see some tribes, check out some countryside, and catch up on my drinking. Until then....
Well, after posting saturday from Samui, i meet up with the rest of the gang (alex, mick and sally) and we head off in search of a cheap day tour. Everyone was into elephant riding and all that jazz, but it held no interest for me so i reasoned that instead of each spending 1500 baht (approx e30) on a day's elephant riding and sight seeing, they spend 500 baht each (e5) an elephant ride and we rent another four wheel drive for 800 baht (e16) and drive around sight seeing and such, thus saving money (best part of fifteen euro each) and having the freedom to go see what we want, when we want. We find a place that sells elephant rides, the lads buy one each, and we all go get a few hours sleep.
Around eight we decide to prowl the beach for some cheap food. Around nine we realise nowhere on the beach is cheap, so head for the main street. Around ten we realise nowhere on the main street is cheap either (compared to the two euro curries we were getting where we had stayed previously on samui) so we settle on a german restaraunt and get some food. After dinner we do a little light window shopping, and alex and mick decide to get a massage. Myself and sally decline and head off to have a look at more shops. One of the painful things about shopping in thailand is nothing has a price on it, and an enquiry lands you straight into a bargaining frenzy. Being that i had no plans on spending cash on ANYTHING (a night in a hotel that costs more than your entire daily budget will do that) it was a fairly frustrating night, but i did get to see some sweet (and cheap) clothes, chat with an amazing artist dude, and generally see some sweet thai crafts stuff.
Anyways, while walking around earlier, we passed this, how do i put this, ladyboy cabaret. Being all fine heterosexual males, alex mick and i all walked past and stared while pretending to a stroll down the street taking no notice, in the process walking into everything from lamp posts to people. Sally, not giving a shit, stared while walking into nothing, and suggested we go in. Later, she suggests this again and i, having not had a drink yet that day, agree. We rock up and get a seat by the door (so i can bolt if things get too fruity) and order two drinks (which turn out to be 150 baht (three euro), an absolte rip off by thai standards). On stage are a coterie of what are almost ladies - one dudette in particular would pass for a playboy model were s/he not surrounded by badly made up tina turner lookalikes (sally keeps on about him/her all the way through the set to the point where i think she might have been turned to the dark side, but don't tell mick). The crowd is thin but surprising - behind us is an english family with two boys of about ten or twelve, obviously having the time of their lives. After one song, the tallest, scariest of the, eh, performers, announces it's time for audience participation and asks for volunteers from the crowd to come join them for a dance. As tina turner walks towards me, i get a feeling as if someone is grabbing my shoulder and, turning to find nobody there, realise i'm having my first ever heart attack! How exiting!! Luckly, she walks past me and grabs one of the ten year old english kids and coaxes him to the stage (the word coaxing as i understand it meaning "to pull kicking and screaming"). They spend another few minutes collecting various dudes from the crowd and stuffing them in behind the curtain. After a minute or so, "I will survive" starts up, and each participant comes out in sub-Monthy-Python drag and is made shuffle/shimmy/traipse the length of the dance floor to another podium at the opposite end of the club. Up last: the english preteen, a face like he's about to have us all killed, throwing daggers at his parents (both of whom are just about on the floor with laughter) and ignoring his brother, who you can tell is already looking forward to getting back to school. After a little "what's your name, where are you from", the cabaret finishes up, the DJ starts, and the ladies make around the room for photos. Sally and i take pictures with a few before realising (a) they want money for each picture and (b) we have no money left. A quick exit is made stage left.
We meet up with the lads again, head for home and crash. The next morning we move our stuff to a far cheaper resort, collect our jeep and head for the elephant trekking center. While there's no water this time (and thus no engine cutting out), there's also no suspension in the jeep, and thus the ride is, to put it mildly, uncomfortable. The thing is so sensitive to bumps in the road it could be used to locate ancient fossils hundreds of meters under the road. Add to this the state of samui's roads and drivers, and within minutes i have my head out the window shouting obscenities (the horn in this van doesn't work, though that doesn't stop me beating the shit out of the spot where the (usless bastarding) thing should be). We get to the elephant trekking center and the lads head off for their 30 minute trek. It's a nice peaceful place, and they have two junior monkies tied to a tree (plenty of room to get about mind you, not as inhumane as it sounds) so i sit on a bench and watch them for a while. Time drags and i soon realise everyone's been gone for about an hour. I head back to the van to try get a little shut eye but no hope. When i get back to the monkies, someone (presumably a keeper) has given them each a live frog. I think this is odd, but not as odd as what i'm about to witness.
Now, knowing monkies only from fota wildlife park and episodes of Friends, i assume they are friendly little fellers, all about playing games, swinging from trees, and trying to steal your sandwitches. Not so. The monkey nearest me first bashes his frog's head off the tree stump, then tries to bite a chunk out of what can only be the frog's man parts. He chews this for a while, the frog's legs going ninety, then scrapes it's head off a rock for a few minutes. Frog still alive, he bites one of it's eyes off. This goes on for another ten minutes or so until i leave (why i watched for ten minutes, i have no idea). I walk around for a while until the lads show up, having topped off their 30 minute elephant ride with an hour at the foot of the waterfall and a long leisurly stroll back to the van. I play nice and suggest i didn't mind waiting, but inside i'm picturuing me as a monkey and them as frogs (bet you didn't know that fuckers!!! hahaha). We drive around for a while and find somewhere to eat. We set off for Big Buddah (as mentioned in an earlier blog, a huge buddah (see my flickr pics)). This involves a few scenic detours and a few near instances of brain damage when the van goes over small holes and we're all sent flying around the cabin. Big buddah is, again, cool as fuck. The statue is up a long set of stairs, and from there you can see for miles. It's a square shaped covered platform, with around 25 hanging bells, and we each take sticks to ring them. It's incredibly soothing and we soon set off in a rather very good mood. We stop at a market to buy a few odds and ends, and then head for home.
Being our last night in the south, we all get dressed up fancy (meaning: I wear jeans and a tshirt with not one single profanity on it) and head for a very very nice italian restaraunt up the road. While not even remotely pricey by western standards (the meal for four comes to about e30), it's a big splash, and we are made feel like kings. We head for the beach for one last drink, and crash.
4:55am we meet outside the resort to make our way to the airport to fly to Bangkok. Our taxi is booked for 5am (our flight is at 6:30) but the cheeky fucker arrives around 5:45 and we skid into departures just as they're about to stop taking people for the flight. The flight is uneventful, with the exception of the guitarist from Pearl Jam sitting about two rows in front of me. We get into bangkok early and make for our hotel, which mick and sally assure is top class. While the foyer is pretty swank, and the price of the room suggests it's nice, the rooms are unfortunately the size of a shoebox, and my telly has four thai channels, two french channels, and the news in japanese. Balls. We sleep for a while then hit MBK, Bangkok's biggest shopping center. I was promised a floor full of electronics so i, being a sensible mature twenty six year old male, get very giddy and practically run up the escilators to the forth floor (stopping only once for a strawberry milkshake, natch). Unfortunately, electronics translates to mobile phones, and i walk around fruitlessly looking for earphones for an hour (mine having been inexplicably stolen from my hotel room in Koh Tao, inexplicably because they were an e18 pair of headphones plugged into a e300 MP3 player, which the theif left behind). Eventually, after arguing with two sales clerks and spending ten minutes having an 81 year old american tell me her family history (when will americans get the hint: we don't give a toss about your great great great great great grand aunt who once met someone who may have had a neighbour who had some stupid irish sounding (but in no way irish) surname like "ireland" or "shamrock" or "O' Hitler") i find a shop that does a fine line in sony ripoffs and get a nice pair of headphones for half nothing.
This being Alex's last night in Thailand, we decide to go fancy for dinner and then get thrashed. Unfortunately it's pissing out of the heavens when we leave the hotel, so we settle for the nearest place with a cover and get some fairly dodgy food (but still have a good time). We stop off at a few bars before heading to this one superpub on the corner with pool tables. Unfortunately, it's also chock full of thai girls (of the "for rent" variety) who are absolutely amazing at pool so we watch Alex get thoroughly thrashed at pool by one (poor bastard) and head back to a street bar for more drinks. Mick and sally are both a little sick so they head home, and myself an alex head back to the pool bar. What follows is a little sketchy, like watching a DVD on 20x fast forward. Basically: drinks, pool, some wanker from wicklow, dancing, cocktails, american girls, vodka and red bull, english dudes, beer, very dodgy tuc tuc ride, nightclub in the middle of nowhere at 4am, "i'm not paying six euro into nowhere", another dodgy tuc tuc ride, dutch girls, whiskey, some random german guy, mc donalds, some mad tribeswoman offering me a jumper, waking up in my hotel room with ABSOLUTELY no idea where i am for a good five minutes. Good night then.
Tuesday not much happens. The hangover's pretty bad but i don't complain much, for some reason it's the first hangover i've gotten here, so i don't want to jinx it. We run into Mike and Anna (who we left on ko tao) and it turns out they got in at 2am and booked into the same place. I book back into the same place i stayed before (cheap and cheeful) and pass the day walking around, eathing, and sleeping. At night we go out for alex's last meal in thailand, play more pool, have the craic with the street sellers and around midnight, see alex off in a taxi. Tis sad to see him go and he's pretty upset about it, but we're all sure we'll see him again, legend that he is. After a quick McDonalds, we all crash.
Wednesday i check out of my hotel and drop my stuff to the lads' hotel room. My train to Chiang Mai (about fourteen hours north) isn't until 10pm so i have a lot of time to kill. I eat a few times, do some shopping, and at some point settle into a bar on the street to read my book. I pass about an hour and a half eating a little, drinking a bit, and getting through a shitload of my book while occasionally watching people on the street. The bar isn't all that busy, yet for some reason, when a very obviously worse for wear english dude with some very dodgy prison tattoos falls into the place, they put him at the other side of my table. I try to avoid him as much as possible, until he starts talking to me. The conversation goes something like this.
Random British Nutter: Good book is it?
Me: Yeah not bad.
RBM: Crazy place this.
Me: Mad enough alright.
RBM: I have to get out of here, it's driving me fuckin mental.
Me: Yeah, bangkok's a bit nuts alright. How long are you here?
RBM: Not sure mate, it's either (counts on fingers for a while), it's either two days, or a week and a half. It's driving me fuckin mental.
Me: Eh.... Right.
RBM: Are yeh graftin coke at all?
Me: Eh, no. (to a passing waiter) could i get my bill please?
RBM: This place is driving me fuckin mental. I want to go down south but i spent a month in prison there last time and they told us if i ever came back they'd bang me up again.
Me: Not a nice place to be locked up i'd say.
RBM: No likes. You're irish aye? I've done time in the joy, and i've done time in britain, but these prisons here (making a fist) i fookin tells ya.
Me: ....
RBM: I'm a violent cunt at the best of times but the shit you have to do down there.
Me: ....
RBM: Are ya sellin coke at all?
Me: Eh... No. (to passing waiter) any sign of my bill?
RBM: The women here are savage, but you've to watch out for the ladyboys, ken? I'd to beat the shite out of one there a few weeks ago.
Me: ... Sure you'll have that i suppose. Anyways, if the waiter comes back, give him this (throwing 300 baht on the table). Cheerio!
RBM: Cheers. (to my back) Here, do you know where i can get any coke?
I walk around for a while, meet the lads, and we go for dinner in this rather nice indian place. We head for the pool bar for a while, and at around nine i flag a tuc tuc, say my goodbeyes and head for the train station. Or at least the direction of the train station. I think. Remember what i said about tuc tuc drivers being nuts? This one stops to renegociate a few times, in the middle of a few dodgy neighbourhoods. Then he stops a few times and disappears into houses leaving me expecting to be mugged at any moment. I eventually get to the train station and get on my train. Peace at last i think, until this thin nervoous/exuberant english guy comes up and introduces himself. He's on a month off work and trying to pack in as much of thailand as he can. I'm fairly tired at this point but i chat with him for a while, sipping on some cheap beers i got at the station. He's about two years out of college and a complete prat, the type to tell you tonnes about himself and his past and the things he's achieved in his job (including names of superiors and stuff that nobody other than his mum cold ever give a toss about), but as soon as someone else starts talking, he's bored out of his brains and making no attempt to hide it (and yes i recogise the irony in complaining about someone telling you boring details of their life in a huge boring blog, shut up). I try to stonewall him a few times into leaving me alone but his bunk isn't ready yet (it's a sleeper train) so he starts into another story about his walking around bangkok or the things he's going to do in the north or the computers he got his bosses at work to use. I have no problem with someone being a bit lonely and enjoying company, but when i tell him about my own experiences, he's staring bored around the carriage, patently not listening and obviously wishing his bunk was ready. Mercifully, after an eternity (probably about fifteen minutes), his bunk is ready and he cuts me off mid sentence with "see you later" and bolts. Thank christ!!! I drain my beer and fall asleep.
We arrive into Chiang Mai around 1pm. I pass the time beforehand reading my book, taking photos out the window, and listening to music. When i get off the train, i head for a songthaw (shared taxi - a hiace with seats in the back) and ask to go to Libra House, a guesthouse i hear is nice and cheap. After a minute, the driver arrives with another lady who tells me there's actually a free songthaw to libra house. I gather up my stuff and arrive to the free transport, and who's in the back? The english prat. Ah shite. He bores me for a while on the way to the guesthouse, we get there and it turns out to be just as cheap and cheerful as promised. I get a room and head back to the restaraunt for food. As i finish, english dude comes back and asks if i'm interested in heading off around town. It's tempting (or rather, as tempting as eating my own testicles) but i pass saying i'm going to go get a few hours sleep first and head back to my room. I give it 30 mins for safety's sake, and head out.
Chiang Mai's a nice spot. One of the guide books says it's like a small town grown bigger and i'd have to agree. I walk around checking out the shops and some temples and things, eat some food, drink some beers, check out the night market and eventually crash around 11pm.
At about 1am i wake and throw up. Same again at 3am, 4.30am, 6am and 8am. Balls.
This is where things get pretty boring. I spend a few days in my room sick, reading about three books a day and eating about once a day. Nice for saving money, but a shit thing to do on your own in a foreign country. At this point i'm still a bit sick but also sick of being indoors so i'm around town a bit more, but taking it very easy. I haven't had a drink in almost a week. Imagine!
Anyways, i do make it out for a few hours on sunday for the Loi Krathong festival. This is an annual festival held on the 12th full moon (or some such pagan bollocks) and is to celebrate the end of the monsoon. Everyone in town makes a little raft out of bamboo leaves, loads it with flowers and candles, and sends it off down the river. Add to that thousands of thai candles being let off (a large paper cylinder, open at one end, with some sort of candle thing underneath - basically it fills with smoke and after a few minutes takes off and floats into the sky until it's the size of a star) and millions of fireworks, and you have a rather large but beautiful brouhaha. Thousands of people come out and line the streets, there's fire breathing, dancing, sparklers, singing - all kinds of madness. I head out for about four hours of it, walk about ten miles with the parade, take some pics, and head back to my cave.
So now it's.... Wednesday. Tomorrow i'll be in Chiang Mai for a week, which is a pretty sorry situation seeing as all i've done is see some fireworks, read most of John Grisham's novels, and throw up a lot. Tomorrow i'm heading for pai where i hope to go see some tribes, check out some countryside, and catch up on my drinking. Until then....
Friday, November 16, 2007
Long week of nothing
Well, i was reading back over the end of the last blog there to see where i pick up, and it says sunday, but it could have been any day. Nothing particularly noteworthy happened the few days in Pha Ngan, basically, get up, breakfast, walk around, lunch, sleep a bit, walk around more, dinner, pints, handsome burgers, pool/pints, more handsome burgers, sleep. If anyone ever makes it to Thong Nai Pan, places to visit are Star Huts for the sleeping (nice spot and cheap as all hell), Handsome Sandwiches for eating (thinking of having my Christmas dinner there, the burgers are amazing) and Rasta Baby Bar for the drinking (most laid back/relaxing pub ever, and the food is deadly).
Anyways, at some point (not sure which day) we headed for Koh Tao, the third island here on the south east coast. The ladies from Handsome Sandwiches drove us into town in the back of their jeep (scary stuff, those ladies drive like fuckin maniacs) and after walking around Thong Sala for a while (shithole) we went to our ferry... And waited. Had a few beers (50c a can from the vendors, and ice cold too - job), talked to this canadian punk guy and this english pete doherty lookalike and occasionally walked into the sun to remind myself why i was sitting in the shade. After about an hour and a half, we got on the boat to find out there were huge flatscreen TVs everywhere and a fully bitchin sound system... Playing a live acoustic DVD of The Scorpions (them who done Wind of Change) (the one with the whistling). Hellish. I pulled out my MP3 player and listened to some D4 while the ozzies and kiwis slept and alex played with a parrot. The crossing was kind of cool as we passed loads of insanely large fishing boats, or to be exact, small boats with huge cages on them. How they stayed afloat i'll never know. We got into Ko Tao around sunset, and after walking the beach for a while, found a resort that had cold water fan rooms (with TV - score!) for about e12. Grand out, found a nice restaurant that did great curries, cheap beer and free pool, and then headed to another beach front bar with cheap cocktails, beers and buckets (literally, a tin bucket filled with booze with about five straws hanging out of it for a fiver) where you sat outside on beanbags. Sweet.
The next day, everyone got up and rented a longtail (sort of a taxi boat) to go on a trip around the island and do some snorkeling, but being as i can't swim and seven hours of direct sun is my idea of hell, i opted out. I was pretty wrecked at this stage from the travelling the day before and the drinking all night, so i camped in my room for the day, watching free movies and enjoying not being boiling hot all day. Score. When they guys got back that night, we got some dinner, played a tonne of free pool, and headed back to the beanbag spot. Thursday (i think) we rented a load of scooters for about e3 each. I'd never driven a bike before, so i was a little nervous, but it was a piece of piss. We drove around for about five or six hours to see the island, which was cool except that most of the island is inaccessible by bike so most of the day was spent driving up busted roads only to find them too busted before turning back. Still, i really loved the scooters and can see why all the ozzies at home have them. Definitely getting one when i get home. In the evening it rained, so we found another bar with free pool, had a few drinks, got some eats, and relaxed.
Friday i was good and ready to leave the islands. Being that i can't swim and i hate direct sun, island life has feck all to offer me except napping all day and drinking all night, which is all well and good except that the islands are about 35-40% more expensive than the mainland. Alex, the ozzies and i hatched a plan to head north saturday (today) which evolved into a plan to head back to samui (land of flooded jeeps), ride some elephants, and fly out monday. Job. Saturday evening we went to an ozzie bar with cheap beers (two chang for e1.60), paid for pool (booooooo), and half price thai food (sound). After a few hours there we headed to a beach bar and had the craic with some english girls we ran into.
So this morning we got up early and got a boat to saumi, checked into the swankiest hotel i've ever stayed in (e30, which is way over my budget, but the place would cost upwards of e300 anywhere else so for one night, why not), and came across the road to check flights and write this.
So sorry this one is so boring, i'm exhausted and not much happened that makes a good yarn. That's not to say it's not been fun, just beach life is quiet and relaxing, and Dan Brown don't write no quiet relaxing thrillers. In the next week i expect to be back to bangkok with alex for a few days before he goes home, which, his being a madser, means a bunch of insano nights out (and seeing as so many people have hinted in emails and such i'll remind y'all neither myself or alex is gay, he's just a cool dude). After that i'm off to chiang mai for the Loi Krathung festival (where they send thousands of candles down the river every night for a week - sweet) and then possibly up to pai to volunteer on an elephant farm for a few days. No shit.
Laters...
Anyways, at some point (not sure which day) we headed for Koh Tao, the third island here on the south east coast. The ladies from Handsome Sandwiches drove us into town in the back of their jeep (scary stuff, those ladies drive like fuckin maniacs) and after walking around Thong Sala for a while (shithole) we went to our ferry... And waited. Had a few beers (50c a can from the vendors, and ice cold too - job), talked to this canadian punk guy and this english pete doherty lookalike and occasionally walked into the sun to remind myself why i was sitting in the shade. After about an hour and a half, we got on the boat to find out there were huge flatscreen TVs everywhere and a fully bitchin sound system... Playing a live acoustic DVD of The Scorpions (them who done Wind of Change) (the one with the whistling). Hellish. I pulled out my MP3 player and listened to some D4 while the ozzies and kiwis slept and alex played with a parrot. The crossing was kind of cool as we passed loads of insanely large fishing boats, or to be exact, small boats with huge cages on them. How they stayed afloat i'll never know. We got into Ko Tao around sunset, and after walking the beach for a while, found a resort that had cold water fan rooms (with TV - score!) for about e12. Grand out, found a nice restaurant that did great curries, cheap beer and free pool, and then headed to another beach front bar with cheap cocktails, beers and buckets (literally, a tin bucket filled with booze with about five straws hanging out of it for a fiver) where you sat outside on beanbags. Sweet.
The next day, everyone got up and rented a longtail (sort of a taxi boat) to go on a trip around the island and do some snorkeling, but being as i can't swim and seven hours of direct sun is my idea of hell, i opted out. I was pretty wrecked at this stage from the travelling the day before and the drinking all night, so i camped in my room for the day, watching free movies and enjoying not being boiling hot all day. Score. When they guys got back that night, we got some dinner, played a tonne of free pool, and headed back to the beanbag spot. Thursday (i think) we rented a load of scooters for about e3 each. I'd never driven a bike before, so i was a little nervous, but it was a piece of piss. We drove around for about five or six hours to see the island, which was cool except that most of the island is inaccessible by bike so most of the day was spent driving up busted roads only to find them too busted before turning back. Still, i really loved the scooters and can see why all the ozzies at home have them. Definitely getting one when i get home. In the evening it rained, so we found another bar with free pool, had a few drinks, got some eats, and relaxed.
Friday i was good and ready to leave the islands. Being that i can't swim and i hate direct sun, island life has feck all to offer me except napping all day and drinking all night, which is all well and good except that the islands are about 35-40% more expensive than the mainland. Alex, the ozzies and i hatched a plan to head north saturday (today) which evolved into a plan to head back to samui (land of flooded jeeps), ride some elephants, and fly out monday. Job. Saturday evening we went to an ozzie bar with cheap beers (two chang for e1.60), paid for pool (booooooo), and half price thai food (sound). After a few hours there we headed to a beach bar and had the craic with some english girls we ran into.
So this morning we got up early and got a boat to saumi, checked into the swankiest hotel i've ever stayed in (e30, which is way over my budget, but the place would cost upwards of e300 anywhere else so for one night, why not), and came across the road to check flights and write this.
So sorry this one is so boring, i'm exhausted and not much happened that makes a good yarn. That's not to say it's not been fun, just beach life is quiet and relaxing, and Dan Brown don't write no quiet relaxing thrillers. In the next week i expect to be back to bangkok with alex for a few days before he goes home, which, his being a madser, means a bunch of insano nights out (and seeing as so many people have hinted in emails and such i'll remind y'all neither myself or alex is gay, he's just a cool dude). After that i'm off to chiang mai for the Loi Krathung festival (where they send thousands of candles down the river every night for a week - sweet) and then possibly up to pai to volunteer on an elephant farm for a few days. No shit.
Laters...
Saturday, November 10, 2007
It's raining sun - Hallelujah!!
After posting Wednesday i go up to see some of the town but it's all sandbags and long faces, so i get out some cash, hit up a 7-11 for some beers and taytos (or the equivalent, lays, which are actually pretty nice) and head back to my porch to listen to music and read my book. After a while this slightly dodgy looking trio check into the corner room, so i head over to say hello. They turn out to be Swiss, and within about a minute and a half are asking where they can get some drugs. I make my excuses and head back to my porch. This big tattooed dude walks past a few times and i make a little conversation with him. Eventually he joins me and we sink some beers. His name is Alex, turns out he's German, in Thailand for a month, been over on the south western islands for two weeks and only seen two days of sun. We get fairly hammered and head for some dinner around five, where we meet up with two couples, one from New Zealand (Anna and Mike) and one from Australia (Sally and Mick). We invite them to join us and we all sit on one of the porches drinking for the night. Around eight the rain gets silly and the place starts to flood. After wading through the water at one point, i get a pain in my toe, but think nothing of it. I head back to my room to find it under two inches of water, so i move all my stuff to another bungalow. At some stage we go to the nearby shop to get more beers, where it turns out a can of heinekin is about fifty euro cent. Score!! At some stage, i crash.
The next morning we all meet up for breakfast. At some point during the night, my toe has turned 100% purple, which is a bit worrying, but being the good sensible chap i am, i decide to let it be and see if it spreads to the rest of my food. I check into my room for one more night (ten euro - score) and the kiwis tell me that the girl from the swiss apartment came up to them three times that morning asking to borrow money (first e400, then 4000 thai baht (around e80), then 100 baht (about e2)I get talking to some english girls who say she did the same to them. It becomes pretty clear soon enough that she's a bit of a junkie, as she's pale and, eh, looks like a junkie. Sure enough, about a half an hour after asking the lads for money, she's sauntering around drinking a bottle of tiger beer. We get back to the kiwis porch to find the leftover bottles of tiger are gone. Hmmm....
Anyways, for e16 we rent a jeep, split it four ways between me, alex and the two kiwis, and head off to drive round the island. Sure enough, we get out of the resort and onto the road, and find the crossing under about four feet or water. We elect to drive through it nice and slow, but sure enough as it's starting to get shallower, some prick in a large SUV comes barreling towards us, hits us with a huge wave which floods the engine, and the jeeps cuts out. Prick. The two lads push the jeep out of the water (joined by about five thais - sound!) and we head off to figure out what to do. Luckily we meet the guy who rented the jeep to us and he gets it going. We head off for a while, see the airport (awesome) and get some food in this little market (i get these delicious fried chicken/veg/herb balls on a stick for twenty euro cent. Nice). We go see the big buddah, from where you can see Ko Pha Ngan, and island about ten kilometers to the north of us, and then head for the waterfalls in the south of the island, which are amazing but necessitate driving through huge floods of four foot water again - all one way traffic, luckily, but we do get stuck in a few traffic jams, while in water, which freaks me out no end. When it gets dark, we head back for our resort. It's still raining so i try to avoid the floods, only getting into deep water on the last stretch before our resort (where we cut out earlier). And guess what. Some fucker does the exact same thing, ploughing through in some bastard SUV flooding the engine again. While i maintain my composure (see: punching the roof while shouting "PRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK") the lads push us home, just in time for dinner and drinks (in the bar we spot the three swiss, sitting at a table full of food, eyes rolling back in their heads). Later me, alex and mike head to this nightclub as reccomended by alex, where me and mike play some of the worst pool of all time, before heading for home.
Friday my toe is a mixture of red and purple, but it's not spreading, so i decide to leave it. It's a little sore but not sore enough to be broken. Job. We decide, if we're going to be in the rain anyways, why not be in the rain on another island? So we pack up our stuff and make for Ko Pha Ngan. Mercifully, it's not raining yet, so we get a dry and smooth crossing on the ferry. We land into an area called Haad Rin where the famous Full Moon Parties are, to be told there's a Black Moon party the next day. What this is i have no idea, but it sounds fun. We get food, hawk with a rake of taxi dudes, and eventually settle on one taxi to take us to this beach that Alex is mad to visit, Thong Nai Pan. The beach is on the north east of the island, and is fairly inaccessable at the best of times as the road isn't paved and goes over mountains, so with the rain, it's a bit.... Eehhh... We set off with this mad samoan looking dude in some mad party van covered in lights and speakers. What follows is about the scariest 45 minutes of my life as we go up and down sixty degree slopes with abrupt four hundred foot drops on either side into blank jungle. Did i mention there's no barriers at the side of thai roads? Dad would have loved it. When things go offroad i start staring at the ground (highlight: sliding backwards down a hill of about 80 degrees while the driver tries to get some traction going). We eventually get to our destination and i just about hug the driver.
One of the happiest moments of my life quickly turns sour when it becomes evident we're the only tourists for about ten miles. Grand and all, except that there's no damn guesthouses open. We check out a few places on the deserted north beach before getting a taxi to the south beach where we check into this place called Star Huts, and i get a bungalow on the beach for about eight euro. Dinner and drinks ensue, before we head for an auld schroll down the beach, over some rocks, and onto a neighboring private beach, where an super swanky resort is built into the rocks, with four levels of infinity pools, and all mad swanky decking and marble walkways. Someone shows up and we start to leg it before he points out the way to the main restaurant area and we head for a schonz (aka, a look around). To say this place is plush is an understatement. Some serious richie rich shit, each chalet with it's own outside jacuzzi, staff everywhere bowing despite our obviously being out of place, we leave before we're kicked out and i crash.
Despite it not raining at all on saturday, it's still a huge surprise when sunday is actually a nice day. Feeling good beacuse my toes about 50% back to normal, I negotiate three nights for my bungalow for e20. Score! We get breakfast and have a walk around town, hang out on the beach, eat some more, walk to this awesome bar on stilts called Rasta Bby Bar (pumping raggae, cushons instead of seats, bob marley posters everywhere) where i get the best food i've had in thailand, "Rasta Bruschetta" (italian flat bread, tomato, garlic, basil, cheese and olive oil. Amazing and only about e1.20). We head back to the huts and hang out for a while drinking on the porch before heading back to that rasta bar for more food and drinks. They have a load of new kittens so we play with them, take some pictures, and i show everyone how to bust out a gang sign with their hands for their respective hometowns (i've been rocking WC (west cork) in photos all weekend so when someone asks, everyone wants their own). As we pour out at around 1am, me and mick start busting some mad snoop dog pimp talk (basically taking the first one or two letters of a word and replacing the rest with either "izzy" or "izzle" - "this weather is very hot" becoming "this wizzle is mad hizzy". Yeah, i know, pretty stupid eh?) which confuses our german buddy Alex so much he decides he's had enough and crashes, poor bastard. We head to a bar on the beach to play some pool and crash around two after some amazing burgers at "Mr Handsome's".
So today is Sunday and the sun is absolutely splitting the stones. As anyone who's ever seen my skin will know, me and the sun are mortal enemies, so i've been keeping to the shade live the Lestat i am. I did make one attempt at walking down the beach with my tshirt off, but when the coastgards helicoptered in only to shout "that's not a whale, that's an irish dude. Hey fatty, get off the fuckin beach, you're scaring the tourists" i put back on my shirt and hit the bar. Good move methinks!
The next morning we all meet up for breakfast. At some point during the night, my toe has turned 100% purple, which is a bit worrying, but being the good sensible chap i am, i decide to let it be and see if it spreads to the rest of my food. I check into my room for one more night (ten euro - score) and the kiwis tell me that the girl from the swiss apartment came up to them three times that morning asking to borrow money (first e400, then 4000 thai baht (around e80), then 100 baht (about e2)I get talking to some english girls who say she did the same to them. It becomes pretty clear soon enough that she's a bit of a junkie, as she's pale and, eh, looks like a junkie. Sure enough, about a half an hour after asking the lads for money, she's sauntering around drinking a bottle of tiger beer. We get back to the kiwis porch to find the leftover bottles of tiger are gone. Hmmm....
Anyways, for e16 we rent a jeep, split it four ways between me, alex and the two kiwis, and head off to drive round the island. Sure enough, we get out of the resort and onto the road, and find the crossing under about four feet or water. We elect to drive through it nice and slow, but sure enough as it's starting to get shallower, some prick in a large SUV comes barreling towards us, hits us with a huge wave which floods the engine, and the jeeps cuts out. Prick. The two lads push the jeep out of the water (joined by about five thais - sound!) and we head off to figure out what to do. Luckily we meet the guy who rented the jeep to us and he gets it going. We head off for a while, see the airport (awesome) and get some food in this little market (i get these delicious fried chicken/veg/herb balls on a stick for twenty euro cent. Nice). We go see the big buddah, from where you can see Ko Pha Ngan, and island about ten kilometers to the north of us, and then head for the waterfalls in the south of the island, which are amazing but necessitate driving through huge floods of four foot water again - all one way traffic, luckily, but we do get stuck in a few traffic jams, while in water, which freaks me out no end. When it gets dark, we head back for our resort. It's still raining so i try to avoid the floods, only getting into deep water on the last stretch before our resort (where we cut out earlier). And guess what. Some fucker does the exact same thing, ploughing through in some bastard SUV flooding the engine again. While i maintain my composure (see: punching the roof while shouting "PRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK") the lads push us home, just in time for dinner and drinks (in the bar we spot the three swiss, sitting at a table full of food, eyes rolling back in their heads). Later me, alex and mike head to this nightclub as reccomended by alex, where me and mike play some of the worst pool of all time, before heading for home.
Friday my toe is a mixture of red and purple, but it's not spreading, so i decide to leave it. It's a little sore but not sore enough to be broken. Job. We decide, if we're going to be in the rain anyways, why not be in the rain on another island? So we pack up our stuff and make for Ko Pha Ngan. Mercifully, it's not raining yet, so we get a dry and smooth crossing on the ferry. We land into an area called Haad Rin where the famous Full Moon Parties are, to be told there's a Black Moon party the next day. What this is i have no idea, but it sounds fun. We get food, hawk with a rake of taxi dudes, and eventually settle on one taxi to take us to this beach that Alex is mad to visit, Thong Nai Pan. The beach is on the north east of the island, and is fairly inaccessable at the best of times as the road isn't paved and goes over mountains, so with the rain, it's a bit.... Eehhh... We set off with this mad samoan looking dude in some mad party van covered in lights and speakers. What follows is about the scariest 45 minutes of my life as we go up and down sixty degree slopes with abrupt four hundred foot drops on either side into blank jungle. Did i mention there's no barriers at the side of thai roads? Dad would have loved it. When things go offroad i start staring at the ground (highlight: sliding backwards down a hill of about 80 degrees while the driver tries to get some traction going). We eventually get to our destination and i just about hug the driver.
One of the happiest moments of my life quickly turns sour when it becomes evident we're the only tourists for about ten miles. Grand and all, except that there's no damn guesthouses open. We check out a few places on the deserted north beach before getting a taxi to the south beach where we check into this place called Star Huts, and i get a bungalow on the beach for about eight euro. Dinner and drinks ensue, before we head for an auld schroll down the beach, over some rocks, and onto a neighboring private beach, where an super swanky resort is built into the rocks, with four levels of infinity pools, and all mad swanky decking and marble walkways. Someone shows up and we start to leg it before he points out the way to the main restaurant area and we head for a schonz (aka, a look around). To say this place is plush is an understatement. Some serious richie rich shit, each chalet with it's own outside jacuzzi, staff everywhere bowing despite our obviously being out of place, we leave before we're kicked out and i crash.
Despite it not raining at all on saturday, it's still a huge surprise when sunday is actually a nice day. Feeling good beacuse my toes about 50% back to normal, I negotiate three nights for my bungalow for e20. Score! We get breakfast and have a walk around town, hang out on the beach, eat some more, walk to this awesome bar on stilts called Rasta Bby Bar (pumping raggae, cushons instead of seats, bob marley posters everywhere) where i get the best food i've had in thailand, "Rasta Bruschetta" (italian flat bread, tomato, garlic, basil, cheese and olive oil. Amazing and only about e1.20). We head back to the huts and hang out for a while drinking on the porch before heading back to that rasta bar for more food and drinks. They have a load of new kittens so we play with them, take some pictures, and i show everyone how to bust out a gang sign with their hands for their respective hometowns (i've been rocking WC (west cork) in photos all weekend so when someone asks, everyone wants their own). As we pour out at around 1am, me and mick start busting some mad snoop dog pimp talk (basically taking the first one or two letters of a word and replacing the rest with either "izzy" or "izzle" - "this weather is very hot" becoming "this wizzle is mad hizzy". Yeah, i know, pretty stupid eh?) which confuses our german buddy Alex so much he decides he's had enough and crashes, poor bastard. We head to a bar on the beach to play some pool and crash around two after some amazing burgers at "Mr Handsome's".
So today is Sunday and the sun is absolutely splitting the stones. As anyone who's ever seen my skin will know, me and the sun are mortal enemies, so i've been keeping to the shade live the Lestat i am. I did make one attempt at walking down the beach with my tshirt off, but when the coastgards helicoptered in only to shout "that's not a whale, that's an irish dude. Hey fatty, get off the fuckin beach, you're scaring the tourists" i put back on my shirt and hit the bar. Good move methinks!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Weather With You
So saturday ended up a quiet day. The jaunt between time zones over the previous week had caught up on me so i was pretty tired to begin with. I passed the day doing some shopping for books, shorts and sandals, getting train/bus/boat tickets for Ko Samui (sweet island in the south), eathing cheap food, drinking cheap beers, generally being a lazy bastard. Around four i headed back to the hostel to deposit my swag and have a look at my books. Woke up around ten, realising i'd fallen asleep checking out John Grisham's "The Partner" and slept for about six hours. Remembered i was supposed to ring the folks (hadn't talked to them since NYC where i'd promised i'd ring as soon as i got to thailand) so headed off down the road trying to figure out the phone buzz. Half asleep, i found a 7-11 and bought a phone card with most of my money, before realising it wasn't the type that worked on any of the phones. Tried to collect call off a few payphones but the reception was terrible. Shite!! Found this internet/travel agent/international call place where you write down the number on a piece of paper and they diall for you. Tried the house phone, got the answering machine, tried both parents mobiles but both were switched off. Double shite! With about 50 baht (around e1) left i tried barry's mobile and got through to be told the folks were actually on holiday. Balls. Barry asked how bangkok was and how my adventures with the ladyboys had been, but the call center lady was sitting there looking at me so i couldn't say "bangkok's a shithole and they ladyboys are everywhere, in particular on the arms of 35-50 year old germans, oh and one dude i saw in a bar earlier who looked all of 17 but had five "ladies" of (i guessed) mixed gender sitting with him, he looking very excited with himself" so i opted for a steeped in sarcasm but in retrospect sleepily dozy "great" before hurrying off the phone with about half a second to spare before my cash ran out. Thank god i got that out of the way, eh!
So i slept for another three or four hours, then woke up at about three or four and read a few hundred pages of that book. Went out around eight for some breakfast, was walking around a bit when this random american girl came up to me and said "where you going". Half asleep and rather confused as to what was going on i said "no idea". She said "wanna go together?" and dragged me around a shitload of temples and wats and crap for a couple of hours. Was an odd pairing seeing as I am (much to my da's chagrin) a liberal of "douchebag" proportions, whereas her da, brothers and fiance are all military dudes, she voted for Bush, and made a number of dodgy statements about "towel heads" and white power. Still, we'd good craic and i got to split the transport costs of seeing most of the city's attractions by taxi. Oh and a guy in a tuc-tuc said "fuck you" to me a number of times because i didn't want to pay him an inordinate amount of money to go in a direction i wasn't headed. Funny that. So anyways, around five i headed back to my hostel (a sweet double room with A/C for about eight euro) and pass out, sleeping right through my alarm at eight and waking at 2am. Balls. I finish off my book and fix up all my crap into my bag, check out just before 12 and leave my bag at reception. Having four hours to kill, i do the only sensible thing and head to a pub and get a wee bit drunk on my own. At half four i go back and get my bag, spend half an hour trying to flag a taxi on road that doesn't allow taxis to stop, before eventually finding a tuc tuck that'll take me to the train station for 80 baht (about e1.60). To say i'd been avoiding getting a tuc tuc at this point is putting it mildy. For those who, like me until about a week ago, have no idea what a tuc tuc is, it's basically rodney from only fools and horses' three wheeler with a motorbike engine and a small canopy type section at the back for carrying about two people. Oh and the drivers are all, in my opinion, absolutely out of their minds on speed. So we're racing through traffic, running through red lights and bumping gently off lorries when i realise - tuc tuc's are fuckin cool. It's like some sort of extreme sport to these guys, and when you're a little bit drunk, it's a big bit fun. I get to the train station, buy a few more beers from a vendor and hop on my train, making friends with the guy across from me by giving him a beer cosy (i got tonnes of them free at fest) and trying to keep up with the speed at which he's demolishing his beers. We make some conversations via mime before the train departs, whereafter i stare out the window for about half an hour as we pull out of bangkok. Eventually someone comes along and sets up all the beds (it's a sleeper train where the seats become one bed and then another is lowered from the ceiling), so i hop into mine and promptly pass out.
I've woken up not sure how i got there in some strange places but 4am on a sleeper train in thailand packed full of men women and children who speak no english has to be at least top ten. After i get my barings i figure out i've another three hours to go so i pull out my mp3 and rock some Small Brown Bike, who i've been listening to almost repeatedly since they slayed at fest. Eventually our train pulls into, eh, some town, everyone gets off, i get on a bus, and end up at this ferry, and then on this rather small boat. We pull out for our two and a half hour trip to Ko Samui, which at first is awesome. Green seas, loads of small boats, islands in the distance, palm trees everywhere, the full picture postcard deal. Oh except that it's pissing rain. Yes, in my hurry to get tickets booked i neglect to check the weather, and it turns out i've arrived at the height of the one month when it pisses from the heavens 24/7. After a while the seas get very choppy but the drivers giving it socks and i just about hold my stomach together as we arrive into ko samui. I get a taxi to one of the resorts reccomended in the book and get a room (well, chalet sort of) for e10 a night. I crash for a while before heading to the restaraunt for some food (spagetti bolognaise and a tiger beer for e3, awesome) and then take a long walk along the beach. This stretch is about 6km long, dotted with restaraunts, bars and guesthouses. It stops raining long enough for me to walk about 3km down it, before the thunder and lightning kicks in and i make for home, arriving just in time for it to start pissing down again. My room/chalet/whatever is basically a two room affair with two single beds, and ensuite (no hot water though), and a little porch with a table and two chiars. I sit for an hour listening to Smashing Pumpkins and, bizarelly, Sonic Youth, reading the new Kevin Smith book and polishing off some beers i had left from the train. Eventually i head inside and crash.
So now it's.... Wednesday? Anyways, it rained like hell all night (i woke around four) but stopped around 10 so i got some breakfast and wrote this. Gonna probably head back up north tomorrow and come back here in late december. It seems a lovely place but the weather renders it a bit pointless.
Think my internet credit's about to run out so....
So i slept for another three or four hours, then woke up at about three or four and read a few hundred pages of that book. Went out around eight for some breakfast, was walking around a bit when this random american girl came up to me and said "where you going". Half asleep and rather confused as to what was going on i said "no idea". She said "wanna go together?" and dragged me around a shitload of temples and wats and crap for a couple of hours. Was an odd pairing seeing as I am (much to my da's chagrin) a liberal of "douchebag" proportions, whereas her da, brothers and fiance are all military dudes, she voted for Bush, and made a number of dodgy statements about "towel heads" and white power. Still, we'd good craic and i got to split the transport costs of seeing most of the city's attractions by taxi. Oh and a guy in a tuc-tuc said "fuck you" to me a number of times because i didn't want to pay him an inordinate amount of money to go in a direction i wasn't headed. Funny that. So anyways, around five i headed back to my hostel (a sweet double room with A/C for about eight euro) and pass out, sleeping right through my alarm at eight and waking at 2am. Balls. I finish off my book and fix up all my crap into my bag, check out just before 12 and leave my bag at reception. Having four hours to kill, i do the only sensible thing and head to a pub and get a wee bit drunk on my own. At half four i go back and get my bag, spend half an hour trying to flag a taxi on road that doesn't allow taxis to stop, before eventually finding a tuc tuck that'll take me to the train station for 80 baht (about e1.60). To say i'd been avoiding getting a tuc tuc at this point is putting it mildy. For those who, like me until about a week ago, have no idea what a tuc tuc is, it's basically rodney from only fools and horses' three wheeler with a motorbike engine and a small canopy type section at the back for carrying about two people. Oh and the drivers are all, in my opinion, absolutely out of their minds on speed. So we're racing through traffic, running through red lights and bumping gently off lorries when i realise - tuc tuc's are fuckin cool. It's like some sort of extreme sport to these guys, and when you're a little bit drunk, it's a big bit fun. I get to the train station, buy a few more beers from a vendor and hop on my train, making friends with the guy across from me by giving him a beer cosy (i got tonnes of them free at fest) and trying to keep up with the speed at which he's demolishing his beers. We make some conversations via mime before the train departs, whereafter i stare out the window for about half an hour as we pull out of bangkok. Eventually someone comes along and sets up all the beds (it's a sleeper train where the seats become one bed and then another is lowered from the ceiling), so i hop into mine and promptly pass out.
I've woken up not sure how i got there in some strange places but 4am on a sleeper train in thailand packed full of men women and children who speak no english has to be at least top ten. After i get my barings i figure out i've another three hours to go so i pull out my mp3 and rock some Small Brown Bike, who i've been listening to almost repeatedly since they slayed at fest. Eventually our train pulls into, eh, some town, everyone gets off, i get on a bus, and end up at this ferry, and then on this rather small boat. We pull out for our two and a half hour trip to Ko Samui, which at first is awesome. Green seas, loads of small boats, islands in the distance, palm trees everywhere, the full picture postcard deal. Oh except that it's pissing rain. Yes, in my hurry to get tickets booked i neglect to check the weather, and it turns out i've arrived at the height of the one month when it pisses from the heavens 24/7. After a while the seas get very choppy but the drivers giving it socks and i just about hold my stomach together as we arrive into ko samui. I get a taxi to one of the resorts reccomended in the book and get a room (well, chalet sort of) for e10 a night. I crash for a while before heading to the restaraunt for some food (spagetti bolognaise and a tiger beer for e3, awesome) and then take a long walk along the beach. This stretch is about 6km long, dotted with restaraunts, bars and guesthouses. It stops raining long enough for me to walk about 3km down it, before the thunder and lightning kicks in and i make for home, arriving just in time for it to start pissing down again. My room/chalet/whatever is basically a two room affair with two single beds, and ensuite (no hot water though), and a little porch with a table and two chiars. I sit for an hour listening to Smashing Pumpkins and, bizarelly, Sonic Youth, reading the new Kevin Smith book and polishing off some beers i had left from the train. Eventually i head inside and crash.
So now it's.... Wednesday? Anyways, it rained like hell all night (i woke around four) but stopped around 10 so i got some breakfast and wrote this. Gonna probably head back up north tomorrow and come back here in late december. It seems a lovely place but the weather renders it a bit pointless.
Think my internet credit's about to run out so....
Friday, November 2, 2007
Right so where was i...
So to wrap up the fest thing (because i'm sure nobody really cares), saturday night we saw avail (amazing, guy jumped off the speaker stack into the crowd) and Dillinger Four (awesome as always), got food, saw Municipal Waste (they had a trampoline on stage for people to get higher stage dives off. Awesome) and headed back to the hotel where someone had forgotten to lock the pool area so there was about 1500 people milling around drinking and going nuts. Met a load of people and had the craic, people started letting off fireworks, then there was an impromptu break dancing competition (on concrete - ouch!), then people started firing the fireworks at a cop car, then the cops came up and arrested someone, then they started beating on some other kid, then a cop told me "if you don't like it we got airports all over this great nation where you can fuck off back to your own country". Yipes!! More hotel madness involving people pulling stuff off walls at which point i decided to crash. Sunday was horrible, my fest aids kicked in with a bang (not real aids, just the disease everyone gets every year after fest, your basic chest cough/worn out/headache stuff you get from drinking for three days living on pizza and not sleeping) so no drinking that day for me. Can't remember all the bands i saw but Armalite, North Lincoln and New Mexican Disaster Squad were all deadly, and Small Brown Bike were absolutely amazing. Oh and i picked up the SUV thing i was driving back to orlando in the next day. After the bands me, seamie, brian and angela headed back to the hotel and hung out until we crashed. Got up in the morning, loaded everyone into the SUV, drove to the No Idea house to say goodbye to everyone, and headed for orlando. Have to say it really sucked saying goodbye to everyone from Michigan (brian, angela, john, kevin). Only get to see them once a year and it really isn't enough. If i ever manage a US visa i'll be straight there. Anyways, driving was much easier this time for any number of reasons, so we got back into orlando, dropped off the car, and headed for our hotel. Had decided not to drink that day either but one thing led to another and we ended up taking on this guy from texas and this old mexican guy at this punching machine in a bar. I came a close third, chris our buddy from the desert came first by a country mile, despite being a 130 pound 18 year old against a 250 pound (of muscle) 35 year old.
Anyways, tuesday we made for the airport (hungover to hell) and i said goodbye to seamie and made back for New York. Got the bus into town, booked into the same hostel and headed for the gig i was in town for, a canadian band called The Weakerthans. Arrived waaaay to early so had to suffer through the amazingly boring support bands. Had planned on a few drinks but when the first one cost $9 (about e6.50) i decided to stick to coke. When that cost $5 (about e3.50) i decided to stay thirsty. Weakerthans were deadly, played everything i wanted and stayed on for almost two hours. Got this strange sensation that the floor was moving a good few times with freaked me out as i didn't have travel insurance for the US so if i passed out it'd cost me bigtime, but fortunately i stayed vertical. Went straight back to the hostel after the gig and crashed.
Got up wednesday and headed for the airport on the subway. Went the wrong way once, and managed to get the subway version of the country bus, so arrived at the airport just in time. Still, it only cost $7 (as opposed to $60 for a taxi) and i managed to get off in time so no bother. Flight was 19 hours but flew as each seat had it's own TV console thing where you could pick your own movies, TV shows, games etc. Watched three or four films (blades of glory was good), some TV shows (great history channel thing on Magellan actually), played loads of super mario brothers, watched the sun come up over the clouds (one of my favourite things), stared out the window at Uzbekistan (desert with hills and a random marsh that went on for ages), Afghanistan (desert with hills, could't believe how tiny and depressing looking kabul was, no wonder they're so pissed off), Pakistan (more desert with hills), slept for an hour or two and landed in Bangkok. Getting through immigration took an age but was soon in a taxi on the way to koh san road, the main backpacker stretch. The drive was depressing, bangkok is, to put it kindly, a shithole. Everything i hated about new york times a thousand - concrete, smog, homeless people. Depressing. Koh san road was like the shops section of some dodgy english festival, thousands of makeshift stalls, dredded hippies with bad tattoos everywhere (and you know i hate hippies...). Booked into my hostel, dropped on the bed and fell fast asleep.
So friday i woke up about six am thinking "ah shite, i have two more days here". Got up around nine having (i thought) figured out how to get to the royal palace. As i arrived to the palace two sweaty hours later i realised i'd taken the first turn wrong, turning a five minute stroll into a two hour battle with the sun and the smell (oh dear god the smell). Didn't even go into the palace as was absolutely drenched in sweat and suffering under the noon sun. Walked (the right way) back to the hostel (took about ten minutes). The walk was depressing, homeless people absolutely everywhere, one spot a bunch of people were kinda living on a jetty, kid of about four taking a shit off one side while (presumably) his father fished off the other. Madness. Changed into shorts in the hostel and went looking for a barbers. Two euro got my head shaved, beard trimmed, and neck massaged. Sound. Got some food (e3 for a plate of noodles and chicken, and a large Tiger beer. Sound) and headed back to crash again in the hostel. Got up again at around nine, ate again and walked around for a while. Saw two dudes who looked either english or irish so walked up and asked if they minded if i joined them. Turned out to be nordie (so both english and irish then), spent the night drinking with them, went to an irish bar at the end of the road, good craic but the ratio of guys to, eh, "ladies of the night" was about 1:8 so i headed off and found a bar with a band doing AC/DC covers and had a few more drinks and crashed.
So it's saurday now and i'm drinking coke for breakfast and trying to figure out if there's any point in going into such detail in this. I presume nobody really cares but at the same time, i love reading these things in other people's travel blogs so why not.
Talktcha!!
Anyways, tuesday we made for the airport (hungover to hell) and i said goodbye to seamie and made back for New York. Got the bus into town, booked into the same hostel and headed for the gig i was in town for, a canadian band called The Weakerthans. Arrived waaaay to early so had to suffer through the amazingly boring support bands. Had planned on a few drinks but when the first one cost $9 (about e6.50) i decided to stick to coke. When that cost $5 (about e3.50) i decided to stay thirsty. Weakerthans were deadly, played everything i wanted and stayed on for almost two hours. Got this strange sensation that the floor was moving a good few times with freaked me out as i didn't have travel insurance for the US so if i passed out it'd cost me bigtime, but fortunately i stayed vertical. Went straight back to the hostel after the gig and crashed.
Got up wednesday and headed for the airport on the subway. Went the wrong way once, and managed to get the subway version of the country bus, so arrived at the airport just in time. Still, it only cost $7 (as opposed to $60 for a taxi) and i managed to get off in time so no bother. Flight was 19 hours but flew as each seat had it's own TV console thing where you could pick your own movies, TV shows, games etc. Watched three or four films (blades of glory was good), some TV shows (great history channel thing on Magellan actually), played loads of super mario brothers, watched the sun come up over the clouds (one of my favourite things), stared out the window at Uzbekistan (desert with hills and a random marsh that went on for ages), Afghanistan (desert with hills, could't believe how tiny and depressing looking kabul was, no wonder they're so pissed off), Pakistan (more desert with hills), slept for an hour or two and landed in Bangkok. Getting through immigration took an age but was soon in a taxi on the way to koh san road, the main backpacker stretch. The drive was depressing, bangkok is, to put it kindly, a shithole. Everything i hated about new york times a thousand - concrete, smog, homeless people. Depressing. Koh san road was like the shops section of some dodgy english festival, thousands of makeshift stalls, dredded hippies with bad tattoos everywhere (and you know i hate hippies...). Booked into my hostel, dropped on the bed and fell fast asleep.
So friday i woke up about six am thinking "ah shite, i have two more days here". Got up around nine having (i thought) figured out how to get to the royal palace. As i arrived to the palace two sweaty hours later i realised i'd taken the first turn wrong, turning a five minute stroll into a two hour battle with the sun and the smell (oh dear god the smell). Didn't even go into the palace as was absolutely drenched in sweat and suffering under the noon sun. Walked (the right way) back to the hostel (took about ten minutes). The walk was depressing, homeless people absolutely everywhere, one spot a bunch of people were kinda living on a jetty, kid of about four taking a shit off one side while (presumably) his father fished off the other. Madness. Changed into shorts in the hostel and went looking for a barbers. Two euro got my head shaved, beard trimmed, and neck massaged. Sound. Got some food (e3 for a plate of noodles and chicken, and a large Tiger beer. Sound) and headed back to crash again in the hostel. Got up again at around nine, ate again and walked around for a while. Saw two dudes who looked either english or irish so walked up and asked if they minded if i joined them. Turned out to be nordie (so both english and irish then), spent the night drinking with them, went to an irish bar at the end of the road, good craic but the ratio of guys to, eh, "ladies of the night" was about 1:8 so i headed off and found a bar with a band doing AC/DC covers and had a few more drinks and crashed.
So it's saurday now and i'm drinking coke for breakfast and trying to figure out if there's any point in going into such detail in this. I presume nobody really cares but at the same time, i love reading these things in other people's travel blogs so why not.
Talktcha!!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Gainesville Rock City
So we're in Gainesville now, which is in northern Florida. Leaving new york was quite a relief, to be honest i was ready to leave by about Tuesday so when Thursday finally rolled around it was a huge relief. We got into Orlando at about six on Thursday evening, picked up our twelve seater passenger van, loaded up with ten Americans and, after a brief learning session for me on how to drive automactic, where the lights are, and why you shouldn't drive with the brakes on, we were off. One hundred miles later, we were in Gainesville to check into our hotel, the holiday inn. Dumped our stuff and headed over to Bar 1982 where a few friends bands were playing. Amazing night, ran into so many people I've not seen in a year. Got out of there about two and went back to the hotel, we'd rented a room for four people (two double beds) but managed to cram in eleven people, which was fun. Having spent the previous few days in new york being woken early either by the heat (they took away our A/C on Sunday - boiling hot it was) or the noise (roadworks directly outside), it was great to finally get a bit of sleep.
Friday was the first day of The Fest. For those who don't know, the fest is a punk festival I've been attending in Florida each October for the last few years. This year there's around 1800 people staying in the one hotel (total fest capacity is about 3000) so it's been insane - dirty looking feckers walking around covered in tattoos and invariably drunk as all hell. They even had a stand giving tattoos at the registration, where i picked up my wristband and all-access/vip/skip-the-line pass. This is the second year i've been working as a photographer here so i get the pass so i don't miss any bands because the line outside is too long. And thank god, in my own opinion they oversold the fest this year (doubled the capacity but only added one venue) so the lines for some of the gigs were ridiculous. But i just walked on by...
Spent most of the day with seamie, masshole, beckwith and angela, drinking in an irish bar before getting food at this awesome punk run restaurant called "The Top". Damn them punks can cook. Met up with some of the english boys and went to see some bands (ADD/C, Watson, Nervous Dogs) before me and masshole met up with the boys in Glass And Ashes, who know the owner of one of the bigger venues, who got us past the 45 minute line outside and gave us special wristbands so we could drink for free. Sweet. Hung out with Against Nick's girlfriend for a while, met the Planes Mistaken For Stars guys, which was cool, saw a bit of Planes's set before running to The Atlantic to meet up with seamie and see an (as always) amazing show by Young Livers and an absolutely insano show by Glass And Ashes which culminated with most of the crowd either spilling all over the stage or jumping off it.
After that i spent some time chatting with some friends outside that i'd not seen yet, met the dude in charge of the photography, asked him for a schedule to be told i was being given no schedule as i'd turned in so much good work last year, they decided to let me shoot whatever i wanted to shoot, which ruled. Went to catch some Naked Raygun in the newest venue, cleverly titled "The Venue". Took some photos that turned out pretty good. Went to one more gig, met up with Masshole again and got some food and crashed at about 3am (only eight people in the room this time, relaxing ;)
So today we got up late, went to a house show the lads (north lincoln) were playing, basically someone with a living room big enough to accommodate a band and about fifty people. There was probably between 100 and 150 people at the gig so it was good fun, $1 beers, $2 burgers. After the gig we legged it across town to see Bridge And Tunnel (pat from latterman's new band), who were amazing, and Ringers who were class. Headed back to the hotel to meet up with this graphic design guy who did a really cool poster for the D4 gig with one of my pics on (you can see it by clicking here), gave him my address in Macroom and asked him to post a few copies back there for me. Got some food and now i'm here, in the lobby of the hotel, transferring photos off my camera onto my MP3 player (which i've just found out won't let me view Nikon Raw images, grrrrrr) and write this boring blog that i'm sure nobody cares about anyways.
AWESOME!!!! In conclusion (if you skipped the above): having a great time, meeting loads of people, seeing loads of bands, getting very little sleep. Orlando Monday, NYC Tuesday, Thailand Wednesday. Job.
Friday was the first day of The Fest. For those who don't know, the fest is a punk festival I've been attending in Florida each October for the last few years. This year there's around 1800 people staying in the one hotel (total fest capacity is about 3000) so it's been insane - dirty looking feckers walking around covered in tattoos and invariably drunk as all hell. They even had a stand giving tattoos at the registration, where i picked up my wristband and all-access/vip/skip-the-line pass. This is the second year i've been working as a photographer here so i get the pass so i don't miss any bands because the line outside is too long. And thank god, in my own opinion they oversold the fest this year (doubled the capacity but only added one venue) so the lines for some of the gigs were ridiculous. But i just walked on by...
Spent most of the day with seamie, masshole, beckwith and angela, drinking in an irish bar before getting food at this awesome punk run restaurant called "The Top". Damn them punks can cook. Met up with some of the english boys and went to see some bands (ADD/C, Watson, Nervous Dogs) before me and masshole met up with the boys in Glass And Ashes, who know the owner of one of the bigger venues, who got us past the 45 minute line outside and gave us special wristbands so we could drink for free. Sweet. Hung out with Against Nick's girlfriend for a while, met the Planes Mistaken For Stars guys, which was cool, saw a bit of Planes's set before running to The Atlantic to meet up with seamie and see an (as always) amazing show by Young Livers and an absolutely insano show by Glass And Ashes which culminated with most of the crowd either spilling all over the stage or jumping off it.
After that i spent some time chatting with some friends outside that i'd not seen yet, met the dude in charge of the photography, asked him for a schedule to be told i was being given no schedule as i'd turned in so much good work last year, they decided to let me shoot whatever i wanted to shoot, which ruled. Went to catch some Naked Raygun in the newest venue, cleverly titled "The Venue". Took some photos that turned out pretty good. Went to one more gig, met up with Masshole again and got some food and crashed at about 3am (only eight people in the room this time, relaxing ;)
So today we got up late, went to a house show the lads (north lincoln) were playing, basically someone with a living room big enough to accommodate a band and about fifty people. There was probably between 100 and 150 people at the gig so it was good fun, $1 beers, $2 burgers. After the gig we legged it across town to see Bridge And Tunnel (pat from latterman's new band), who were amazing, and Ringers who were class. Headed back to the hotel to meet up with this graphic design guy who did a really cool poster for the D4 gig with one of my pics on (you can see it by clicking here), gave him my address in Macroom and asked him to post a few copies back there for me. Got some food and now i'm here, in the lobby of the hotel, transferring photos off my camera onto my MP3 player (which i've just found out won't let me view Nikon Raw images, grrrrrr) and write this boring blog that i'm sure nobody cares about anyways.
AWESOME!!!! In conclusion (if you skipped the above): having a great time, meeting loads of people, seeing loads of bands, getting very little sleep. Orlando Monday, NYC Tuesday, Thailand Wednesday. Job.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
New York's Alright If You Like Saxaphones
So myself and seamie are in NYC. We got in around six friday, got ripped off for steaks, found out NYC taxi drivers don't know where anywhere is (we'd been invited to a gig in a house in brooklyn but taxi dudes didn't know the address), went to see a band with saxaphones in (not as bad as it sounds) and crashed around 2am, tired and a little drunk. Saturday we walked manhattan from about midtown (20th street) all the way to the world trade center, which was just a hole in the ground. Then we walked the brooklyn bridge (which was cool) and climbed the empire state building (with was scary). After some food we went to a gig in brooklyn (smoke or fire and lawrence arms) and met up with two english guys i met at fest last year, chris and timmy. After that gig we went to another one up the street (arrivals, four letter word, some other random bands) where you get a free hotdog with every drink. After that we went back to an irish bar in manhattan and played pool until we fell out of there at 4am. Sunday we met the lads again and did some shopping. We stopped for food in the east village at around 4pm in some bar with seats outside. As we were settling into our first beers when, random as you like, i see Ronan Healy come out of the bar. Seamie and i stared at him until he noticed some people staring at him, and then freaked out when he recognised us. Turns out he works around the corner. We end up drinkig with him all day (no mean feat, the boy can drink with the best of them) and going to see Fred (macroom band) who were playing that night in manhattan. Random as all anything. The night was long and messy, so yesterday we took it pretty handy, i bought a lens for my camera, we walked around for a while, then brought the limeys to see brooklyn bridge and have some food at this amazing pizza place in brooklyn. Early night after that as the lads were heading to gainesville today and we were pretty wrecked from all the drinking. Today we went on a museum tour. Took in the museum of natural history (not as cool as the one ruth and i went to in prague in jan) and the guggenheim (bit pretentious for me but seamie loved it). Got a train downtown to see wall street, got some food, and now we're back in the hostel.
So all going well, sorry this is long and boring, my money's about to go so i've to run. Hope all is well with all.....
So all going well, sorry this is long and boring, my money's about to go so i've to run. Hope all is well with all.....
Friday, October 19, 2007
I'm off.
There's food in the fridge and €50 in the drawer. Don't have any parties while i'm gone. I'll see you when i get back.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Eight days to go
This time eight days i'll be in the air over the atlantic. Still hasn't sunk in that i'm going away, too busy i suppose.
Anyways, i figured i should update for the few people who're reading this thing. There will be travel stuff here soon, i promise.
Anyways, i figured i should update for the few people who're reading this thing. There will be travel stuff here soon, i promise.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
In the beginning....
First post. Here's the itinerary. Fingers crossed it works out.
October - USA (NYC + Florida)
November/December - Thailand
January - Laos
February - Cambodia
March - Vietnam
April - China
May - Japan.
Once i get to Japan i'll be working for a year or so. Hard to think that, as of later today, i won't be working again for about eight months. Good times...
October - USA (NYC + Florida)
November/December - Thailand
January - Laos
February - Cambodia
March - Vietnam
April - China
May - Japan.
Once i get to Japan i'll be working for a year or so. Hard to think that, as of later today, i won't be working again for about eight months. Good times...
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