Sep 2006

Wow, what can I say.. It's been a while since our last blog update. To be more precise, it's been around 1month.. he he.. In other words, no need to waste precious Internet time with excuses, so here we go.

We left Laos after three weeks of intense travelling and three days of jungle. To be honest, we were both pretty glad to get back to civilization, stores and set prices. YEAH. Travelling in third world countries is lots and lots of fun, but it does get really tiresome to always get ripped off and stuff.

Our first big city in Thailand was a place called Chang Mai. The city, which used to be the capital of the country back in the day, is far north and is mostly known for its "amazing" trekking. It is really beautiful as well though. The old part of town is enclosed by an artificial river which runs in a square around the city and the whole city is lined with small streets and lots of vendors. As mentioned, the major reason why people come to the city is to do some kind of outdoor activity, whether it be trekking, elephant riding, rafting or anything of that sort and as a result hundreds of so called unique trekking experience shops have popped up everywhere. Every single one promises untouched wilderness and the opportunity to see local hill tribes. All sounds pretty cool eh??? Well, it really isn't. We spoke to some people who said it was all kinda gay, as the local hill tribes will walk around in their jeans and as soon as they see you coming will run and change into their local costumes, for so to try and sell you authentic Quicksilver t-shirts while they proclaim you are the first white person to ever see their village. I guess that's kinda exaggerated, but you get the picture. Due our craving for some sun, beach and ocean, we chose to skip it all and booked a ticket to Bangkok instead.

The bus for Bangkok left at 8 PM and drove through the night until we arrived in the capitol at 6 in the morning. The plan was to stay in Bangkok that day for so to jump on another overnight bus to Phuket that evening. It was going to be hell. The first thing we did after arrival at 6 AM, was to head straight for McDonalds.. Big Mistake.. For some reason, the Big Mac does not taste good at the wee hours of the morning. It is not to be recommended unless you are A. Still drunk from the night before B. On a diet and want to make sure you won't crave McDonalds for the next 3 months C. Are involved in some secret S&M eating club D. World War 3 has started and the only thing that survived the nuclear attack was McDonald's and yourself.

Anyways, just as the day started with shitty McDonalds, the next 24 hours would prove to be even worse. We spent the day walking around Kao San Road (the backpacker street) lugging around our backpacks.. It was horrible. After some searching however, we found a cheap ticket to Phuket and was allowed to leave our bags at the office. Was it ever nice to shed 20 pounds.. mmm ... ok back to the story.. we jumped on our second overnight bus at 7.30 and headed for Phuket. As usual, the air conditioning made it feel like we were sitting in a fridge on wheels and the seats where highly uncomfortable, but we finally made it to Phuket early next morning. Seeing that we were dropped off in the middle of Phuket town (not by the water) we were forced to find a local bus that would take us to the beach. See where this is going.. it's never ending.. N'ways, we arrived the beach area around 10 in the morning and by 12, we had found a nice little place run by a Belgian guy. We could finally put our bags down and rest.. aaaahhhh. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, looking around and eating, i.e. nothing too exciting.. After two really long bus rides and a really boring day in Bangkok, both of us were ready to spent some quality time in the sun over the next few day... Guess what guys? remember when I said the next 24 hours would be hell, well, extend that to the next 3 days would be hell... We did not get any sun, and shit really hit the fan... not fun!!!

When we awoke next morning, we figured it was about time to do some traveller's cheque accounting and opened our bags to get receipts and cheques out.. That's when we found out.. Our bags had been during the bus trip. ALL OF OUR TRAVELLER'S CHEQUES WERE GONE...!!!!! That's right 10,000 USD of traveller's cheques and 100 USD in cash had been stolen.. .. WTF MATE...!!! What the hell... We went from being rich to dirt poor in a matter of one night.... shit.. That's how the saga begins. We had to go to the police, call American Express, fax our receipts and various other non-cool stuff. The scary part was that AMEX told us that they had to review the case... Oh No.. what do we do if they don't refund us the money.. damn...

Luckily, none of our credit cards had been stolen, so we were in the clear for that. And check this out.. the thieves must have had some pride, because they left the one dollar bills and the $50 traveller cheques.. The scary thing is that all of it was in a locked section of our backpack.. That means they opened the pack (don't know how they got the key) went through our stuff for so to replace it all so carefully that it took us 24 hours to notice.. What bastards.. Oh well, not much we could do about it at that stage, so we figured, what better way to pick up where we left than getting drunk.

Thus, Haakon heads to the nearest 7 Eleven, picks up 2 large beers and comes back to the hotel lobby ready to drink. Since the hotel guy (the Belgian owner) had been such a nice and helpful guy, we donated one of the beer and started chatting. Needless to say, this wouldn't be the first beer of the night. One quickly became two, and two turned into 4-5. By 11PM, we are all pretty wasted, and when the Belgian dude invites us to come with him to a party, we are all ears. His Japanese friend was having a B-day party down the street and we had been formally invited.. Kick ass. We stumble over to the bar to find 15-25 Japanese males and 3 Japanese girls. hmmm there's something a little bit off here, I remember thinking. Oh well, we get ourselves some beers and start chatting... that when we realize. they are all gay, and we are at a Japanese gay party... Ha ha. This rocks. Three minutes later, they all start dancing and shirts go flying. The party's picking up!!! Of course Haakon had to follow suit and bar now consisted of 15-20 shirtless Japanese dudes, One shirtless Belgian guy, one shirtless Norwegian and 4 girls.. It was awesome. We had a great time. We were drinking and dancing the whole night and eventually made it home some time in the morning. The day had turned from really, really shitty to a memorable experience.. kinda cool how stuff like that happens.

The rest of the night was, as far as Haakon was concerned and uneventful affair. However, Mahta may have a different version. Apparently during the course of the night, Haakon had woken up and crawled out of bed and over to one of the corners right beside the toilet and the garbage can. The object of this unnatural walk was to rid himself of some of the obscene amounts of alcohol he had consumed that evening.. But why Haakon?? Why do you have to do it 2 metres away from the toilet and 30 cm next to the garbage can in the far corner of the room?? The answer to that my friends is: I have no idea, and it'll probably not be the last time...

After a long night, we awake next morning eager to go to the beach to get a little bit of a tan. Guess what.. As discussed earlier, the Gods were not on our side this week. It was raining... The day was really boring and due to this, I refuse to write anything about it as it will only remind about how bored I was.. makes sense.. Oh, hold on.. we had some nice shisha in an Arabic place... kinda cool..

It was sometime in the evening that the next evil thing happened. Haakon had consumed some sort of bad food and had been food poisoned. The next 2 days would not be fun. I spent half my time sleeping, 40% watching TV and the rest on the shitter.. Not fun. I had fever and everything, and felt really sorry for myself.. I'm sure you guys are all looking for some more details, but I don't think this is the appropriate forum for that kinda talk... I'll tell you all about it on the next secret S&M Eating Club meeting.

When we finally left Phuket after 4 days, we did so having achieved zero of our objectives.. We were no more tanned, we hadn't seen the beach and we had not used our swimwear at all.. C'est la vie...

Our next destination was Krabi and Railey beach. The plan was to spend one night relaxing for so to rent a motorbike and go to the airport to meet Grant and Krystal. For those of you who don't know these characters, they are two good friends of our from Toronto. I used to work with Grant and Krystal is his lovely girlfriend.

After meeting up with G & K the next morning, we were all ready for some serious beach time. We had found a really cool place on Railey beach and spent the next few days rock climbing and laying on the beach. It was awesome. We spent the evening chatting with the local bartenders and eating really good food. I don't know how much there is to write, but it was all really cool. The rock climbing was awesome, and we found what must be the galaxy's prettiest beach. Well, maybe not that pretty, but it was pretty awesome anyways..

After 4 days of doing as little as possible, we left for Kho Phi Phi and some intense diving. The island is only 2 hours away by boat and is really easy to get too. Seeing that it was low season, the hotels were empty and after a little bit of searching, we ended up finding a really nice place. (We even had a pool!!!)

After our relaxing days in Krabi, the next 5 days would prove to be kinda stressful. Mahta and Haakon signed up for their Advanced Diving Course, while Grant and Krystal signed up for the Beginners Course. They both consist of early morning and many dives, so the next few days were mostly spent in the diving world. It was awesome though. Mahta and myself went wreck diving (was kinda cool, but the visibility wasn't perfect), night diving (which was really cool. We were followed by two big Barracudas the whole way) as well as three other regular dives. I think the coolest thing we saw were two 3 metre long Leopard Sharks sleeping on the bottom, one giant sea turtle and tons of Nemos. Diving really rocks..

While we were on the island, Grant also got a huge tatoo on his shoulder. It was really cool!!! Some local guy did it all freehand with a bamboo stick and ink.. Super cool. And I got a huge picture of a shark tattooed on my back. It's wicked. I got the guy to give it red eyes and all.. It looks awesome... Naaaahhh just kidding ma... Didn't get anything, but I bet I got your pulse racing by now...

The last night of the dive course we were forced to sample the local bar scene in order to celebrate our diving graduation which was really cool. We were joined by a few of the dive instructors and spent the night drinking buckets (vodka, ice and Redbull in a bucket). The place we went to even had a Muay Thai rink in the middle.. You could sign up and fight your friends.. After a few buckets Grant and I were ready, but by this time it was all over and we were gently asked to go back and drink more instead.. OK... It was a really cool night with lots of laughs and many drinks.. And the best part guys, Haakon managed to keep all the drinks down.

We left next morning for Thailand's southern most island called Ko Lanta. After randomly picking between 20 different hotels, we ended up at this really nice bungalow / chill out place.. It was really nice and relaxing. G & K spent 2 days with us before they had to head home, while M & H spent 5 days before leaving for Malaysia. We have quite a few pictures from Ko Lanta, so here they come.. Most are pretty self explanatory.

This is the bar/restaurant at the place we stayed. It was really nice with a wicked view.

Guess who??? Yours truly Mahta and Haakon

The first one is just a view from the bar, while the second one is taken from a 5 star hotel that was close by.

After some relaxing days in Ko Lanta and our Thai visa nearing expiration (how did we spend so long in Thailand?) we decided to head to Malaysia. After two days of traveling, we finally arrived at the "paradise" of the Perhentian islands, right off the east coast on Peninsular Malaysia. By now, it is drawing close to monsoon season and thus, many places are closing up for the season. We spent 4 relaxing days doing absolutely nothing but lay on the beach.. It was really nice Oh wait, we had one dive, which was great. Our dive master was attacked by a big trigger fish (which bit her on her forehead) but besides that it was a normal dive. Having said that, this "normal dive" was fantastic. There are fish everywhere of all sizes and colours (especially small Nemos) and tons of beautiful coral. We saw sting rays and bamboo sharks! Well worth the money.

Our plan was to leave the Perhentian Island for so to get an Indonesian Visa in Kuala Lumpur, so we jumped on an overnight bus to the capital after 4 days. We were actually really lucky, cuz we got the last 2 seats on the bus.. Everyone else had been smart enough to reserve beforehand!!! Note to self.. stop being so stupid.. he he..

We are now currently in Kuala Lumpur and the blog is finally up to date. Our plans have changed slightly due to some minor complications with Ramadan.. It's the Muslim's holy month right now, which involves fasting from sunrise to sunset. Because of this, most restaurants are closed and many shops close early.. i.e. Sub-optimal travel conditions. We thus decided to go to Philippines first, and will fly out of here to Manila tomorrow morning. We are both really looking forward the the Philippines and will tell you guys all about it.

Hope you are all doing good and that life is treating you well.

Lots of hugs from Southeast Asia.

After our hazardeous travel to Huay Xai we were all very excited to start the Gibbon Experience. The Gibbon experience ( www.gibbonx.org) is a conservation project started by a French guy named Jeff. The goal of the project is to stop the so-called slash and burn techniques used by farmers in Laos as well as protect wildlife from poachers. In order to do this, Jeff built 5 tree houses in the jungle, which are "rented out" to tourist. The houses are connected through zip lines through the jungle. Since the staff, food and a lot of other services are hired from local villagers, the farmers and villagers not only get educated in conservation, but they are also given financial aid in terms of increased tourism. It's actually a really well thought-out project.

However, we had all signed up for this Gibbon Experience and were all really excited when we finally got to leave. All in all, there were 10 of us going out into the jungle. One couple from Germany, one girl from New Zealand, a dude from Toronto, a British couple and the four of us. The first part of the journey was to get to the jungle through the use of an old pickup truck with benches in the back. The drive was supposed to take about 3 hours or just over 80 km. That is, the road we were taking was not an autobahn by any means. We drove on a super muddy road with half a metre of mud at times. Man was it ever fun. That is, it was fun until the first truck got stuck.. he he. The truck got stuck in about 75 metres of mud and would not move.

Eventually, after much laughter and poking fun, we managed to pull him out using the other truck. Side note: A group of about 6 cars were camping right were we got stuck as they couldn't go any further. They had been waiting for 3 days for the road to get better!!! For the next 30 mintues, we were thrown around by huge ruts, but we eventually got to our destination. Once there, we had to walk for 20 minutes in order to get to the second leg of the transport. Due to heavy rain the past 5 days, the typical bridge had been washed away, and we got our first encounter with the difficulties this trip was to bring. We had to walk accross a river (reaching up to Mahta's waist) with the bags on our heads in order to get to the other side. Fun stuff. We finally make it to the next "road" and sit down to wait for our next ride. After about 45 minutes, it finally appears. This time it was a proper off-road car. A Toyota Land Cruiser with chimney and winch. And were we ever going to need it. The road was in horrible condition. I don't even know if I would call it a road; it was more like a dirt path.

For the next 2 hours, we spun, winched, dug and walked our way to the jungle village. It was by far the most extreme thing we've ever seen someone do with a vehicle. With 10 people in the back, this off-road machine powered its way through 40 cm deep ruts and 30 degree inclines. Amazing!!!

Once at the local village, we knew that we had a 90 minute walk ahead of us, so we set off right away. One guy made friends with the local monkey, so he decided to bring it along. It was really cute and spent the next hour or so sitting on this guys head. he he. The walk took us on a steep and windy jungle path into deeper and deeper into the forest. It was really cool to actually get to spend some time in a proper tropical jungle. We walked for about an hour and a half before we reached a small hut. This was the kitchen for the treehouses and also the place where we were given our harnesses. The people living there also had a live bear and baby gibbon roaming around. They were so cute!!! The bear was about 5 months old and was really friendly. She'd come up to you and wanting to play, she would wrap her paws around your legs. Unfortunately she was also really strong, so we couldn't really roll around on the ground with her.

After putting our harnesses on, the real thrill of the trip began. We strapped onto a zip line and jumped of the edge of the plateau. WOW. We basically flew from the hill side to the nearest tree house (about 80 metres away) at a height of 40 metres above ground. Our blood was pumping, adrenaline flowing and we were really pumped when we finally got to put our bags down. Let me decribe to you how impressive this treehouse was. First of all, as mentioned above, the whole house was built in a massive jungle tree 40 metres above ground. It had three floors, running water, a shower and of course a toilet (the toilet was a porcelain squater that had no plumming, meaning your poo dropped 40 metres down.... he he.. they had a bunch of pigs on the ground ready to eat anything, so it was nice and clean). It was unreal. It was more like a open hotel than anything. Also, leading away from the tree was a number of zip lines. Once there, we were served fresh nuts, fruits and drinks, while the few of us that had gotten bitten by leechs was picking them off. Yes, Haakon was bitten, while Mahta tasted too bad and got away unharmed.

This is where the fun really started. For the next 2 hours we were shown around the zip line system and got to try all the good lines. The longest one is almost half a kilometre long and you are flying VERY high off the ground. It was awesome. We were zipping back and forth on these lines in the middle of the jungle. It was like the childhood dream of being able to fly finally came true.

After a few hours of flying, we finally came back to the first treehouse to have dniner. Our group of ten had split up, and six of us were to spend the night in this treehouse, while the other four had already left for a second treehouse. We were given an odd mix of vegetables, rice, omelette and potatoes for dinner, which really didn't have much taste, but due to the incredible atmosphere, we all enjoyed it. After the guides all left and we had the whole tree house to ourselves, everyone's childhood dreams were coming true. Soon, the moonshine was brought out (which Haakon and Paul had cleverly acquired the day before) and we spent the evening talking crap, having shots of lao lao, and playing Uno.

We were woken at 6:30 the next morning to the sound of rain and our breakfast being zipped in. Surprise surprise, we got rice, vegetables and some meat. Wait a minute... we get a vegetarian meal for dinner with an omelette and then no omlette and pork for breakfast? It just didn't make sense and we only ate what we could force down. It didn't matter though, we were going to trek to a waterfall and spend the night there. We sat around for 2 hours waiting for a guide to take us and were disappointed when they finally arrived. Apparently heavy rains made it extremely dangerous to go to the waterfall as the river we were to zip across was flooded. This meant that we would have to zip right through a strong current and it was not recommended. No problem though! We had the opportunity to zip back and forth all day long! Weeeeeeeeeee.

We spent the rest of the day doing just that. We zipped, we ate, we swapped treehouses and had a bug-killing competition at night (Haakon was the big winner with over 30 kills!).

We were scheduled to leave the next morning and head back to Huay Xai. Heavy rain made for both an adventurous (and leech-infested) walk into the village and drive into the city. Our driver made it to the half way point gracefully, we give him props for his imaculate driving which is quite a novelty in Laos (as our second driver proved true). He brought us to our lunch destination where everyone was overjoyed to have their first Beer Lao in 3 days! What a feeling, a cold refreshing beer after being thrown around in the back of a truck for 2 hours... well deserved! Our second driver didn't seem to be quite as talented in his driving, but we still made it back alive (muddy, but alive!)