Man should you guys see my beard, it’s about an inch long all around, shaved my neck though a while back and mustache but it’s since grown back. It’s awesome and going to be more so. Tina doesn’t like it but tough for her. I think I’ll get her to braid it when it gets a bit longer perhaps.
While in malaysian borneo we went to Uncle Tan’s wildlife refuge and stayed two nights. Played guitar with the guides, learned and have since forgot the beautiful girl song that perhaps everyone’s heard. Saw animals like, bearded pig, monitor lizard, orangutan, nose monkeys (proboscis), king fishers, the eyes of crocodiles, long and short tail macaques that would sneak and steal breakfast biscuits until they were shooed off by the guides, the tourists just stood around and watched them haha. One of them stole a can of sweetened condensed milk. It’s fun to have monkeys steal stuff, where most places they’d be watched and loved, here they were pests to be scolded and throw stuff at hahahaha. Boat trips on the Kinabalu river, jungle treks through mosquito swarms to see tarantulas as big around as my head, frogs, crazy looking bugs, scorpions (had one on my hand for fun but it wasn’t), millipedes that smelled like marzipan if you rubbed their backs, more frogs, vines and plants and stuff that were cool and tropical, ants big around as my pinky finger, horn bill birds, eagles of some kind and some owls. Probably more too but that’s most of them. Naps in hammocks, butterflies swarming where some german guy peed the night before (I think they like salt?) and a pick up soccer game. The water level while we were there was static but they told us that it rises and sinks like 15 feet over the year, good stuff.
So we’re in Chian Mai now, northern thailand. From KK we went over to kuala lumpur, the penninsular side of malaysia. They had great indian food and there was a protest for fair elections going on when we were there. Lots of police and their trucks and even a helicopter, but no action the crowd was just taking pictures in front of the mass of po pos, so that was good if not as exciting as it could have been. We stayed a couple of days, oh and the indian food makes me hungry for india, gonna be so awesome!!!! Then we were up to the cameron highlands about halfway between KL and thailand, to check out the tea fields and strawberry farms, the tea fields were very picturesque and we got some accordingly and drank some tea and ate some crumpets. Walked around the jungle a bit and saw a waterfall, lots of garbage in it though, and not one to jump off of…more like cascading. Hawaii’s got everyone beat so far for falling water to jump off.
There are some travellers that we’ve run into in various countries just by accident, small world, probably because the tourist/backpacker areas are the places where everyone goes. We’ve been lucky with weather so far…Hmm…Oh then after KL we went north to george town on the island of penang? and stayed one night before heading off on the sleeper train to hat yai where we stayed a night and booked a taxi, bus, boat trip to koh pangnan for relaxing on the beach again.
Koh pagnan six am we arrived on the sleeper boat, great this, matresses laid out on the deck to sleep on while the boat took ten hours or so to get to koh pagnan. We skipped the taxis at first to walk a bit and caught a great double, almost triple rainbow on the beach. Funny that the ferry took us to thongsala, the south western tip of the island when everyone was going to hat rin on the south eastern tip, probably get kick backs from the taxi guys. That’s really the way it works everywhere, everyone all set up to take advantage of the unconnected and unknowing backpackers, c’est la vie 🙂 One joy of travelling comes from all the different names of hostels and shops and restaurants and places, so much fun. Right now we’re across the street from the crusty loaf bakery in a coffee internet shop that would fit in seattle wonderfully with its wood and om buddhist art and progressive what have yous.
So we spent a week and a half or two on haad yuan per Josh Brewster’s recommendation and it was great. Stayed in haad yuan bungalow with gunther and his wife sarah p as innkeepers in a great bungalow overlooking the beach and ocean. As picturesque as you could make it. Oh and I had TONS of fun climbing over the huge granite boulders on the beach jumping around on them. They were washed clean and very grippy…perfect for scrambling exercise. I think this is my favorite form of exercise, climbing around on huge boulders, up them between them under and around. Like a giant adult jungle gym, I think if a person could hook up some kind of gym in the city like this, giant adult jungle gym, it would be a big hit with at least one seattle resident. It includes all kinds of movements and works the whole body. I could set this up if anyone wants to invest in something that’ll be bigger than tae bo!
And we went to the haad rin full moon party which was like a huge frat party on the beach minus the machismo. Not as organized as a seattle festival, could have had more cohesion, each bar had their own thing going on, all of them played electronic music. One had a guy kind of rapping along with the music which would make beat poetry in that style, with the beat behind the poet, very powerful, maybe write something and try it out when I get back perhaps…now have to think of something to say….
After relaxing on the beach we booked passage to bangkok where we stayed, not on koh san road, but close to it on a better street I think that wasn’t as washed out touristy but still catering to backpackers. Bought a bunch of stuff like hammocks and teeshirts and little sculptures and some paintings and stuff then shipped back a ten kilo box to seattle with the goodies. Oh, bought some thai pants too which are great and I’ve been going commando for days now. We took the sleeper train to bangkok and it was nice. Watched some movies, stayed at the gecko guesthouse and had our laundry done for 25 baht/kilo.
The dollar is doing so poorly worldwide, if anyone knows why or how this works then please explain it to me. Also, please explain how a depression happens. There’s all these people out of work, wanting to work, why don’t they just work for each other? I don’t get depressions in the economy either.
After bangkok we took the sleeper train to chiang mai where we arrived today and will go on a jungle trek tour for three days starting tomorrow, where we’ll do some elephant riding and bamboo raft floating and wat looking, that sort of thing. Okay okay, more later, I hope I didn’t forget anything. Wish you were here 🙂