21 January 2007 at 4:08 pm (Uncategorized)
Allo kiddies!
We were in Koh Sumui for 3 days – lazing about in the sun having a real holiday which was nice. Nothing much to report on that though – ate, drank, sunbathed and swam mostly.
We did go and do the touristy elephant riding thing though, which i have mixed feelings about. Bit worried about the whole animals as a tourist attraction thing. But i went anyway,even though i wasnt sure. We of course got the fruitloop elephant with the fruitloop handler who had trained it to stray purposfully off the path, through river beds and large bushes and trees… and down cliff ledges etc. Yeah. thought i was going to fall off the elephant and i figure that would be a pretty SAM thing to do. SO at times it was all a bit scarey, but i suppose it was good.
So Bangkok is awesome. But it smells really bad. Never mind, getting used to it. Getting used to alot of things actually. Im eating chilli and curry and my little burning lips are making me smile. Peter is walking out in front of traffic without looking knowing that they will just swerve around… *sigh* you gotta love asia.
We havent taken many photos of Bangkok really yet because we are here for 5 days so plently of time for that. We are staying at supposbly a nice hotel (so not) but its kinda in the hub bub of all the Bangkok craziness so thats cool. Basically we dont fit in here at all – for once not because we are white tourists – but this time because we are not ferals. Bangkok (well where we are anyway) is FULL to the brim with white dreadlocked feral backbackers. Yesterday – im assuming because i had brushed both my hair and teeth we got bagged out on the street by a bunch of – oh we are so cool because we havent washed ferals. Bangkok is where all the hippie backpackers come when they run out of money it seems. Its really cheap and no body sleeps.
We rocked into Bangkok at 5am after a fairly ok 13 -or something like that- hour train trip.
Us on the train:
Bangkok 5am – the streets were buzzing. It was cool. And at one am this morning (almost 24hrs later)- still awake and feeling preety crappy mind you – the streets were still buzzing.
Its dirty and it smells but it makes you smile.
The markets near our place a cool. Heaps of bargains and the hawkers dont hassle you like the way they did in Kuala Lumpa. In KL they kept grabbing at Pete – handsome boy! handsome boy ! Something for you!!!! They loved him. But here its cool. Most of them leave you alone. The taxi drivers are classic. Yesterday the same guy come up to me 4 times – Australia! Australia! 10 Baht! Good Price!!!!! So classic. But im getting really good at the smiling and the no thankyou!!!
Yesterday we also went on a tour to the Wat Poh (big temple with the famous reclining budha).
It was good but we were exhausted from the train and our group was useless. I felt sorry for the guide. We also went on a river boat (which didnt sink thank goodness) and saw all the river houses. Again would have been an excellent tour if we all hadnt been zombies. Was a shame really.
The riverboat – you can see me in pink up the back contemplating my swimming skills:
1 Comment
21 January 2007 at 3:29 pm (Uncategorized)
Just a boring quick one to say we have FINALLLLLLLLLLY found internet connections that werent estasbilished in 1994 and have managed to upload a heap of photos onto all those non-photo’ed blogs below. Im sure you cannot be bothered to re-read them you all have much to much excitement going on for that kinda nonsense but maybe a scroll down to check out the photos now referenced throughout??
Ta!
– Sam
Leave a Comment
13 January 2007 at 7:14 pm (Penang, sam)
The Homestay
So we just spent 2 days on an island that APPARENTLY doesnt exisit. It was a homestay with locals on an island in the middle of the lake that is near Kuala Kangsar if you look on a map. But you wont find our island. Its not there. Its all a little bit nutts. Apparently when they filled the lake in (with water) that the island (which we stayed on) is in – they miscalculated and didnt flood it enough – hence the creation of the island that doesnt exisit on any map. pretty cool. Homestay was excellent. We ate and drank and hiked and chilled and all that. OH meanwhile the jungles are completely infested with leechs – and they are so gross. But i didnt get leeched… but i did have to flick them off my shoes alot. But i was so brave. After the first one I stopped whimmpering “Petey Petey Save Me Save Me” and just started flicking off the bastards myelf. 
Here is an icky leech:
And here is what it and its many many icky friends did to our friend Winnie:
We hiked up through jungle to a waterfall thingy and then people had a swim and i flicked leeches off my shoes. Its one thing to flick – i wasnt gunna swim with them!!! But Pete did of course.
There were no tracks in the rainforesty jungle and we were being led by a local – who, in his flipflops (thongs) was moving about 3 times as fast as we were in proper hiking boots. He lost us a few times and apparently malaysians dont know about “Kooeee’s” cause that made no difference. But he always came back and found us. I fell in the river like 4 times… so now my sneakers are muddy feral dirty wet and smelly. But so are everyone elses cause pretty much they all fell in…. except pete.
The island was beautiful – not traditional beachy beautiful – just peaceful lakey beautiful and neither of us was ready to leave this morning. 
Our hosts Aziz and Asiah were soooo lovely.
But we had to go so we chucked our packs back onto the speed boat and a boat, mini bus, another mini bus, a big bus, a ferry and a taxi ride later we were in Penang. That was an EASY travel day
We havent had a chance to explore Penang – just got here a couple of hours ago – but the internet is pretty cheap so chances are we will post again soon.
Petey and i have both picked up English accents and have started using Norweign sentence structure with Asian grammer (members on our tour mixed with market place haggling) …. OOOHHH yeah. Teaching English this year is going to be FUN….. <– please note the “dot dot dot”
Hope all is well in Oz land. Post again soon.
– Sam
1 Comment
6 January 2007 at 2:30 pm (Uncategorized)
Ok – so probably some of you are wondering what we are planning on doing with this whole Bangkok situation. Our tour finishes in Bangkok and that is two days spent there with them. We had planned and booked to spend another 4 days there by ourselves.
We havent completly concluded as to what we are going to do – we are still thinking. But at the moment it looks like we think that we will do the tour (starts tommorow – there are some small errors in that itinaray that I posted earlier) and go to Bangkok for those 2 days. We are, at the moment, thinking that we will cancel our extra days there and fly home early. Will keep you posted.
- sam and pete
1 Comment
1 January 2007 at 10:30 am (Uncategorized)
Hey so yeah we are in singapore – it smells bad and the cab drivers are pyscopaths…. i dont know why they bother painting lines on the road…. cause no one uses them … but apart from that singapore is preety cool.
So we did ok with the train from the airport and this local dude tried to give us directions but we are lame at listening apparently cause we went in the wrong direction and then got lost and then had to catch a cab. which was mental.
We met up with my best friend Janey and her friend Sandy and the four of us wandered around for a bit scoping out the hot spots for tonight…nye. (WE FOUND The Minstry of Sound Club BRIE – mum i know she doesnt use computers but she is gunna wanna know that.)
so we did the dinner thing – awesome food – and then went in search of somewhere we could dance
but in the end nye wasnt as awesome as i had hoped because by the time it got to party time here in singapore it was like 3-4am sydney time and we had been awake since 4.30am that morning with flights and that… so the extended awake hours hit us reallllll sudden and we headed back to the hotel earlier than is acceptable….to get up at 5am again to hit the airport.
Now we are flyng out to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah which is part of Malaysia… google it 
- sam
3 Comments
