Tha Shiznit

Hey guys,

First I would like to apologise for the delay in updating this stuff. Internet in the places we went to in Thailand was bitchin' expensive, so we opted out of the updating. :-)
Sorry guys

Anyways, seeing that it's been a while, we better get started. In other words, find yourself a beer, kick your friend/colleague/brother/mum off the comfy chair and enjoy.

As I told you in the last blog entry, we left Bangkok that evening at around 6 o'clock to catch a night bus to Chumpon. We had a nice big airconditioned bus and everything was going great until the bus stops at 3 in the morning. "Probably just a bathroom break" we told eachother and went back to sleep. 30 seconds later some little Thai dude comes up to us and says "this is where you get off".. Ok, fun stuff. It appeared as if we were at some dinky little bus station in the middle of nowhere and we were shown a room with floor mats and a bunch of "thai style" pillows. Needless to say, the night ended up being rather uncomfortable, but by 6.30 we had finally boarded a van with 7 other people and ended up somehow by the pier. The next 2 hours were spent relaxing on a boat with 40 other backpackers on our way to Ko Tao. Amazing feeling!!!!

Once at Ko Tao we were greeted by 40 Thai people trying to sell us diving courses. The island is 7 km long and 3 km wide and acts as the home to more than 35 dive schools. Competition was in other words kinda rough. At this time, we didn't really know what to do. None of us knew much about diving and everyone we talked to offered us "the best diving experience on the island".. hmm Lucky for us however, Mahta had met Chris, an American guy, on the boat who had been to the island 3 years earlier and was going back to the same school to do more dives. Kickass!!! We finally had an independent dude we could trust. We jumped onto the back of the pickup truck with these guys and drove 3 minutes to the dive shop to talk to the owner. She ended up being a super cool chick and we got what would prove to be an absolutely killer deal. Also, as a complimentary service, all the dive schools gave free accomodation for 4 nights, so we were now off to pick our place. We ended up with a pretty shitty bungalow, but for the price we paid, we didn't really care. Kickass.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of our diving, but it was some of the coolest stuff we've ever done. Everyday worked out pretty much the same. For the morning part, we'd meet up at the dive shop (we being: Mike, our super cool dive instructor, Bill, Chris's American friend, and the two of us) and learn about diving for a few hours. The afternoons were spent on a boat diving, relaxing and talking shit. All in all, we had 4 dives and saw some super cool fish, including the real Nemo. We had an unreal time and I really wish I could go back and do it all again.

As mentioned above, we did our course with Bill and Chris, two American guys from Colorado, which we got to know real well over the course of the next week and a half. We spent our last night at Ko Tao celebrating the opening of the World Cup and our graduation into the PADI system. It was a great night except that we slept in and almost missed our 9:30 ferry the next morning! Should've invested in a better alarm clock, we're working on it...

So, we left Ko Tao and headed for Ko Phangan for a full moon party. The ferry ride was pretty rough considering the aching hangovers, but we managed. We arrived to an overwhelming amount of taxi drivers yelling "Haad Rin, Haad Rin!" (where the full moon party takes place) but we took Chris' advice and stayed at Haad Yuan, a beautiful and peaceful beach. Our bungalow here was definitely a major upgrade and it treated us well. Well, except the ginormous spider (10 cm wide) haakon found. Turns out what is ginormous to us is only normal to the locals who laughed hysterically at our reactions.

Time flew by at Haad Yuan.. the full moon party was alright, it was more like a commercial festival than the party we were hoping for. Quite the site though! We spent a few days tanning, and Haakon managed to turn himself into a tomato regardless of the 30 SPF sunscreen! It's okay though, he's recovered.

On June 14th, Mahta decided to have her birthday.. What a day.. We spent the afternoon doing a 2 hour long jungle hike and the evening drinking vodka buckets (complements of the owner of our hotel). Also, earlier that day, we had met a super cool Israeli couple who provided us with music all night. The guy was a progressive trance DJ and spun some really crazy stuff. We drank and talked trash pretty much the whole night. By this time, the 4'5 (150cm) tall, 45 kg heavy Thai owner was drunk as shit, but nevertheless had a great time. (P.S. Haakon managed to get his hands on a chain of 250 firecrackers which we fired off that evening... Fun stuff) Also, just to make the night that much better, one of the people working at the resort had baked a cake for us all to enjoy. WOW, how's that for service....

We spent 6 day on this fantasy beach of ours, but had to eventually leave for Malaysia. It was a sad departure as we had become really close to Chris and Bill. The Israeli couple and the resort people had also made a huge impact on our stay. Definately a place we would like to come back to..

We jumped on a bus early morning on Thursday to get to a place called Butterworth in Malaysia. The bus ride was really shitty (15 hours on a small mini bus...), but we managed to get the anyways. That is, we ended up at an island instead, called Penang, but close enough. This is where I will have to bring out the nasty words... Coming from beautiful Ko Phangan to this place was like going from heaven into the anus of the world. The place was dirty as shit, the rain went through the roof and into the "hotel" rooms and it stunk like ass.. What a place!!!

We spent the evening trying to find a decent place to eat dinner, before settling for some shitty pub food. NOT HAPPY!!!
The next morning, we checked out of our "high" class $10 a night hotel and ended up at a much shittier place for $5 a night... wooohooo... We're moving deeper into anus. It's like I've always said, if you're going to try something shitty, make sure it's done right..

The day we spent at Penang island turned out to be really good though. We rented a motorbike and with Haakon driving and Mahta hanging on for dear life, we managed to make our way around the island.

The next morning we left for Kuala Lumpur, which is where the fairtale trip goes on pause. We're spending a few days here in KL before we head down to see Henken in Singapore. We're super stoked about getting to bug him for a few days and will update the blog as soon as we get some more good stories.

P.S Iran's lost two games and Mahta is being laughed at by the locals...

Hey all,

Believe it or not, but Haakon and Mahta have now officially managed to start their own blog. The address is pretty simple. http:\\kickingit.travellerspoint.com. Don't know how often we'll update, but we're hoping to manage at least once a week. Feel free to check back at ay time if you're A.) Bored B.) Wondering what the hell Mahta and Haakon are up to C.) Wanna spend some quality office time daydreaming D.) Wanna give us some good travel advice E.) Want a reason to "kick it" in Asia with us or F.) You're wondering if Haakon's been thrown in jail or not and if so, how much you should contribute to "Haakon's Jail fund".

In other words, I feel that there are quite a few good reasons to lean back and enjoy some travel stories once in a while. We'll try to the best of our abilities to keep it funny and light :-)

Anyways, enough with the promotion of the blog, let's get down to business.

As most of you know, I quit my job in Toronto about 3 months ago, and have since been super busy planning this trip and packing my stuff.

Eventhough it has been a hassle to leave Canada, I feel that overall it worked out fairly well. Mahta and I spent a few days in Boston, with the beautiful and ever hospital Karen, as well as a few great days in Houston visting mum and dad. Both trips were very successful and we enjoyed every minute of them.

After the trip to Houston, packing and selling stuff was the primary task at hand. As mentioned above, the whole process was fairly painless and on May 31, 2006, Mahta and Haakon had gone from having a Ford Mustang and a fully furnished one bedroom apartment to two backpacks weighing 5 and 7 kg respectively. How's that for packing!!!

We jumped on the plane to London at 6.00 PM on Wednesday but was delayed due to thundershowers for two hours. The plane ride was fairly uneventful, besides Haakon spilling a glass of wine on our new found friend in the seat beside us. DAMN!!! Gotta get that under control one of these days.

We landed in London early morning on Thursday, where we spent a day sleeping/sightseeing with Martin. (No, we did not sleep with Martin for those curious minds). Eventhough it was a brief visit, we had a great time and we got to say hi to Big Ben, the Queen, Martin, and various other important people.

After a day in London, we caught the 10.00 PM flight to Bangkok. This time I managed to keep my limbs under control, except the "tripping over headphones, kicking the sleeping girl" incident. I hate flying!!!

We landed in Bangkok at 3.00 PM the next day and headed straight for Khao San Road. For those of you who haven't been to Bangkok, it's the Mecca for backpackers. Basically, it's a 200m long street lined with bars, hostels, junk food and street vendors trying to sell you all kinds of crap. Kind of a neat place.

Not much has happened during our time here in Bangkok. For the most part, we have been out and about buying the rest of our necessities. We have however had time to see both the 5.5 ton golden Buddha and the 15,000 stall weekend market. Both were kinda cool. We also bought 8.5 metres of Thai silk and a handheld sewing machine, which we intend to create the world's two first and greatest Thai Silk sleep sacs out of. Think we can do it??

Seeing that we have 12 minutes left, this first chapter will now come to a close, but please keep checking for updates in the near future.

We will leave Bangkok tonight and arrive by bus in Chumphon tomorrow morning at 4 where we'll catch a boat to Ko Tao, off the east coast. Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, we'll have our diving licences in a few days. Wish us good luck.

Cheers,