First blog entry from Tokyo
Well I said that would be my last blog entry from Thailand not my last one period! So yes first off I have to thank Yahoo for giving me this free internet service and secondly Air Canada for opening 3 hours after I arrived here, which allowed me to get some great bench sleeping in. So lets see, I think I left off yesterday right before I went to get my massage. The massage was pretty good except my back was really sore from the other day carrying my bags around looking for a room and she killed me. Then I killed another hour reading by the pool and then went out and spent all the money I had left on a few more gifts, for myself! I figure after carrying my bags for me for the last 3 months I deserve something nice. I also went and booked a minibus service to the airport for 8pm last night and went for dinner. I cannot even begin the pain in the ass that turned out to be, not to mention the fact that my bags are alot heavier now so anything the massage did was completely ruined by the time I got on the bus. The bus eventually left around 8:40 and it took just over and hour, one thing I will never miss is the Bangkok traffic. I`m also wondering how hard it is going to be to adjust to driving on the right side of the road, when first got here I`d always look the wrong way before crossing the road but luckily I was programmed well and look both ways! Anyways, got to the airport and got ride of my bags which was a huge relief and then went on a mission to spend all the baht I had left. It was harder then I thought because all the prices are marked up so much but I found a few things and left with only 50 baht. Then I went to my gate and waited around for 1 1/2 hours for my flight. The flight itself was pretty uneventful, we took off, they gave us some nasty cold chicken pastry thing and a drink, turned off lights, slept for two hours, turn on lights, have breakfast (omelet, sausages, yogurt, bun, fruit salad, tea), land. I arrived at 7am Japan time or 5am Thai time or 5pm Tuesday Toronto time and coming down the stairs from the plane I see a nice grey sky and rain. Then it hits me ... something I haven`t felt in ages ... cold! My nicely tanned skin got a goosebumpy and I COULD SEE MY OWN BREATH!! So the shuttle ride to the airport I curled into a ball and shivered uncontrollably. I decided to go shopping for something warm when I got into the airport but I got stuck in the arrivals area for 3.5 hours b/c I had to wait for the air Canada desk to open. I paced around trying to stay awake to begin adjusting my body back to the time at home but I was ready to fall over so I just crashed down on the bench infront of the air Canada desk. The at 10:30 I woke up just as the lady from air Canada was setting up and she told me to come over and was very friendly and helpful. She told me they have day rooms where I can get a bed and shower so I went to check it out but its full and expensive so I`ll stick to the benches for now. Then I came across the yahoo cafe which has free internet service so I`m sure I`ll be able to kill some time here. If anything else happens in the next 6 hours I get to spend here I`ll come back and update, otherwise I`ll have to tell you about it in person tomorrow.
Last blog entry .. From Thailand ;(
So this is it, I've gone to see the wizard and now I've got to slip on my ruby red shoes and click my heels. "Theres no place like home" ... For the first time on this trip I'm truly at a loss for words. Its been a great adventure and although physically I've been here alone I feel like I've had all of you here with me the whole time. It was always fun reading the comments to all the fun and weird things I've done. Well I'm not going to get any deeper here, I've only got 6 more hours before I'm off to the airport so I'm going to get a nice long massage, sit around the pool and have a beer and then maybe get another massage! When I was talking to my Uncle Steve a few weeks ago he mentioned it would be interesting to see how many hours I've traveled and I had been keeping track so I figured I'd post it here. I have it all written out in one of my books, with all the destinations and the time but I'll just post the totals and if you don't believe me you can see for yourself when I get back.
Train - 65hrs
Bus - 75 hrs
Plane - 40 hrs
Boat - 27 hrs
Total - 207 hrs or 8.6 days
And that is just the long journeys, it doesn't include all the hours on public transport (sawng thauw, tuk tuk, moto taxi, long tail boat, bike, elephant, etc.) or all the hours of walking. All together I'd guess that would add up to atleast another one or two hundred hours. So when I saw that half of my trip was traveling, I mean it literally but I had some of my best times while traveling and most of my worst!
So tonight I'm leaving here at 11:40 and I arrive in Tokyo at 7:30 am but then I have all day to sit around and wait for my flight at 5:15 pm. That alone should be an adventure wondering around the tokyo airport, sleeping on benches, fun fun! And then on the 8th I'll be pulling into Toronto at 3:30 pm after a nice 12 hour flight! See you then!
Best movie theater EVER!
So last night I decided to go to MBK to check out the stores and grab some dinner. I thought I might catch a flick if there were any playing later but when I got to the mall everything was closed, damn lying tuk tuk drivers! So I went right over to the theater and found out it was the super nice theater I heard rummors about. They only had 4 movies playing in the Gold Star area and I picked Elektra because it was the only one I had heard of. The price of the movie was more then my room but just a bit more then we pay back home for a movie. After buying the ticket you walk into this nice lounge with a full length bar and there are lots of people serving you. Someone escorted me to the theater and showed me to my seat. It was a huge comfy reclining leather lazy boy with a table on the side. There was also a bag with a pillow, blanket and socks. The blanket was not a cheap thin one like you get on the plane but a really nice soft one that smelt so good. Oh I almost forgot to mention they also had food service so I ordered some chicken wings and a coke and enjoyed the movie. It was the most amazing movie going experence ever, even thought the movie was pretty bad. Also the sound system was amazing, in one scene a tree crashes down and the whole theater shook. Well I could go on and on about this theater but I think you get the picture. This morning I went to the photo shop and took all my cds with my digital pictures to print some, I picked out around 250 of them to print. So now when I get back you wont have to huddle around my computer to see all my great pictures. This afternoon is dedicated to soaking up more sun and thats all.
Back in Bangkok only for 3 days thank got
Well I was hoping after the last trip from Batu Ferringhi upto Hua Hin that I wouldn't have anymore crappy traveling stories but today was just one big bad trip. So I got up and left this morning and took a mototaxi to the bus stop, which was very interesting. The driver had my new bag across his lap and I had my big pack on my back and my day pack on my chest. Then I had a 3 hours bus ride up to Bangkok, which wasn't too bad except for one part where the road was really bad I felt like I was on a rollarcoaster b/c my stomach kept on jumping up into my chest. But then when we get to, well I still don't know where I was they pull over to some random bus stop and yell something in Thai. Everyone gets off and I'm confused as hell but I get off to b/c I see that they threw my bags out into the middle of the sidewalk. Luckily there was a dirty European dude on there with his Thai 'girlfriend' so he knew what was going on and filled me in. The bus was having some difficulties and we were close enough to the main bus station that we could walk or just take a bus from there. Then there was this Thai guy who over heard our coversation and was able to tell which bus I needed to take to get to Khao Sarn road. I got on this public bus which was packed with my two big bags and had a very uncomfortable ride through lovely Bangkok traffic. Then the public bus dropped me off a few blocks away so it took me about 20 mins to find my way to the actual street. This was definatly not a pleasant stroll in the park with my two bags and the blistering 35 degrees. But I finally make it to the hotel I stayed at last time and sure enough they have no rooms. I proceed to the place I stayed at last time and of course they have one double room that is right above the street and well frankly just sucks! So I continue on to about 5 more places and finally I found one place that had a decent room altho it was still a double it had to do b/c it was just too hot out there. So I took a quick shower and then headed out to pick up my suit. When I got there I tried it on and the pants were too long so they had to shorten them so I had to come back there later. After that I came back and had some lunch and then relaxed with a book before trying to walk back to the suit place to pick it up. The guy told me it was only a 15 min walk and when I looked on my map it seemed fairly simple to get there. One left, two rights and one more left. Sounds simple enough, until you come to traffic circles with 3 streets on the left. Well I took advantage of the Thai friendly nature and had people try to direct me but for some reason that didn't help much either. One guy sent me in the right direction but I ended up at another traffic circle and didn't know which street to go down b/c none of the names on the street signs were on my map. So I asked someone else and he pointed to a street but it wasn't the right one, anyways that 15 min walk turned out to be 50 mins. I picked up my suit and then decided to take a tuk tuk back! Now I'm just killing some time and then I might go over to a mall and see if I can catch a movie, I just don't want to go get stuck in traffic again.
78 days down and 4 more to go ...
Well I'm sure everyone stopped checking because I haven't really been posting much lately and thats because there hasn'te been anything to write about since I got here. Until last night when I managed to get myself sick again! woo hoo So I got very little sleep last night and this morning they were doing some construction around my place so I couldn't sleep in. I went out for breakfast and then decided that I'm dark enough and don't really feel up to just sitting on the beach all day again so I should get out and do something. I took a mototaxi out of town to a hill 6 km away that is covered in monkeys. They were every where and crazy to, when I first got there these two ladies had just bought a bag of bananas to feed them and this one monkey came running up and stole the whole bag right out of her hands. Then a bunch came out of no where to grab some from him. I spent about 30 mins there trying to get some good shots but they were every where and pretty crazy. One of them didn't really like having his picture taken and started threatening and coming after me. But I got the best picture of him, I posted it on my pics page, you'll know which one it is right away! After that I had to walk 1 km to the sawng theaw stop and wait 30 mins for the next one. I wasn't feeling too great at that point so I went back to my room and slept the afternoon away. When I woke up I started organizing my stuff, I think I've doubled the amount of stuff I had before I got here. I finally let myself start buying stuff at the night market b/c I only have one more stop before coming home and I picked up another bag to carry all this crap in. I think its mainly just some tshirts so I dont' have to do my laundry but I also got a few little statues for my room. Now I'm going to go back to my room and hopefully get a good night sleep so I can get up nice and early for the bus to Bangkok tomorrow morning. This weekend should be pretty crazy in Bangkok b/c there is the elections on Sunday.
Momma I'm coming Homeeee
Well this hopefully will be my last whiny blog about traveling but when your done reading this you'll understand why I have to do it. First off I was wrong about the minibus leaving at 4:45am that one wasn't running yesterday so I left at 8am from Batu Ferringhi and it took 5 hours to get to Hat Yai in southern thailand. From there we took another bus up to Surat Thani that took 5 more hours but I had a fellow Canadian on board so we chatted for a few hours and it made the time pass a bit quicker. When we finally arrived in Surat Thani we had to catch a public bus to the train station and there we met up with one of her friends from Vancouver. We had 4 hours to kill before the train so we went and played some cards in a restuarant near the train station. They were going to Bangkok and I decided to come just to Hua Hin, 4 hours south of Bangkok to relax on some beaches before heading back home. The train left Surat Thani at 9:23pm and arrived at 4:40am in Hua Hin. Before buying my ticket I asked the guy working there if any hotels would be open when I arrived and he assured me that they all would be so when I arrived in Hua Hin I went and got on a moto taxi to go to the guest house I wanted to stay at. Sure enough it was closed and he took me to 5 or 6 other places all closed so I told him to just take me back to the train station and I'll wait there and come back in a few hours. When we got back to the train station he tried to get more money out of me for driving me back there but I just walked away b/c I was too tired to deal with that crap. I went and found a bench in the train station which was really just a log with the sides slightly shaved down and feel asleep for a few hours. When I woke up at 10 to 7 I had a swarm of mosquitos around my head, which is definatly the last thing I want to see in the morning. I quickly jumped up and started brushing them away and I bet I looking like a manic to everyone in the station. At that point I couldn't go back to sleep so I got another moto taxi to take me back to the guest house but it was still closed so I just decided to sit out front and wait for it to open. Then I saw a sign that pointed down this back alley for a 24 hr guest house so I went and checked it out. When I saw the bed I decided that it was stupid to wait any longer for the other place and I just got a room there and crashed for a few hours. I woke up after 4 hours of glorious sleep and started watching news of the Iraqi election and then decided I need a real meal b/c I didn't have one all day yesterday so I headed out. I ended up with one of the best Phad See ews I've had on this whole trip and now I'm sitting here relaxing. I have to go hunt for a new book and then its off to the beach to sit in the shade and read. Hopefully the next four days will be extremly uneventful and just nice and relaxing, I could really go for that now.
The bus will pick me up when?
Well today I spent the day relaxing on the beach right by my guest house. Its not one of the nicer beaches I've been to and the water was crappy so I couldn't go swimming but it was nice and hot out and not a cloud in the sky so I'll take it! Im just slowly recovering from yesterdays travels and preparing for tomorrows marathon starting at 4:45, yeh thats right 4:45am I'm being picked up so that means waking up at 4am to get my bag packed. Then its about 4 hours to Hat Yai from there I take another bus to Surat Thani, which is 4 or 5 hours depending on who you ask. Then from Surat Thani I have to take a bus to the docks and then a boat to Ko PhaNgan which is another 3 hours I beleive. So hopefully I'll be arriving in Ko Pha Ngan before the sun sets and then I'll be spending a few days relaxing there before heading back up to Bangkok (another 12 hrs by bus) to head home! I don't know how many more exciting adventures I'll be having I think the rest of the trip I'm going to try and sit on the beach as often as possible but I'll keep posting to let you know how nice the weather is here!
