I'm off to see the wizard

My camera takes videos with sound and I have a belly button

Well I'm finally back in Thailand, I can't tell you how nice it felt to cross that border. Let me tell you about my day yesterday, woke up nice and early at 5:45 to pack and catch the minibus at 7. When I checked out the lady who I thought didn't speak english the whole time I was there became so nice and friendly and could speak fine. She gave me a traditional Cambodian scarf as a souvenir, which was a huge surprise b/c I really didn't like the place at all, they weren't friendly the whole time I was there. I guess they were happy to have my money and see me off. So when he minibus came there were only two other people in it and I asked to sit in the front b/c I knew it would be a long uncomfortable ride. It took us an hour to pick everyone up and then we were on the road, and it was nice and paved. I had a nice nap for the first 30 mins until we made a sharp turn off the paved road onto a unpaved side road. At first I was wondering what was going on and then I realized that this was the way it was going to be all the way to the Thai border. It was like a vibrating massage chair on crack, stuck on the highest setting for 7 hours straight. Oh and the best part was the river crossings, the um 'ferries' were just three long tail boats with a deck built across them. It was amazing that they held 4 minivans plus all the people, they even had a small shop on them selling snacks. When we finally got to the border we had two last tastes of Cambodia to leave that sour taste in my mouth. First this guy was nice enough to come collect all our bags in a cart and push them across the border so we don't have to carry them. The whole time we were worried where he was with them and everything but someone watched or stayed with him the whole time. Then when we were going to get our buses to leave the border he tries to get us to pay him for his service. This is the second time someone has tried to pull this crap with me, the first time I gave the guy 1000 riel (25 cents) even though he was asking for 6000 just so he'd piss off and I could eat my breakfast (It was on the boat from SR to PP). They don't get that you have to ask before for someone to pay for the service, or they know that we will just say no if they ask so they hope they can trick us into paying afterwards b/c they already performed the service. If the guy wasn't such an ass about it and didn't get into everyones faces over it I would have given him something but he was just a huge pain and didn't leave us alone until I shut the bus door in his face. After saying no 5 times you think they'd stop but nope. The second thing was walking from the Cambodian check point to the Thai you have 10 street children crying to you for money and one or two land mine victims who are missing limbs. I always give to the land mine victims but the children don't get the money so I only gave them food when I had it. The day before on the beach when I was done my meals they would come over and ask for the left overs. Its really something else there. Anyways back into Thailand and I really felt like a weight had lifted off my shoulders, even though I still 6 hours more on the buses I was so happy, plus the roads were paved! I got into Bangkok around 9 and shared a taxi with a few people I met on the buses during the day. I also met two guys from Orillia and wanted to write a nice long blog about how proud I am to be Canadian but I'll have to save that for another time. You can just take the time to reflect about why your proud to be Canadian. When I got to Khao San road I decided that money shouldn't be an issue for the rest of the trip and to just enjoy it so I went to a nice place that has a pool and air con. This morning I woke up early with a mission, the reason I came back to Bangkok instead of going to Ko Chang (an island I was planning on spending my last 2 weeks on) is b/c I'm trying to get to Kuala Lumpur for the 25th. 2 Nights ago I was laying in bed trying to decided if I should stay at Ko Chang for the whole 2 weeks or maybe spend one week there and a week somewhere else and then I decided that as nice as it would be to sit around and bake for two weeks I would probably get bored and go crazy. I looked at the other countries around and for some reason Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia seemed interesting and I decided that that was my next stop. Then I found out that there is holiday called Thaipusam that takes place on the 25th so I need to fly there on the 24th to see it. I'm sure you've all seen video from Thaipusam on Ripley's or one of those tv shows. Its the hindu holiday where they stab themselves with all kinds of weird things and dance around with Kevadis and hanging oranges from hooks. Don't worry I'm not planning on participating but I think it will be amazing to see in person. So thats why I had to rush back to Bangkok to see if I could get a flight out tomorrow morning and I did! So tomorrow morning I'm flying out there and then I'll spend a few days in the capitol and make my way back up to Thailand along the west coast, I know of one place to stop but I just got a Malaysia guidebook so I'm going to see if I can find some other things to see and do while I'm there. I'm thinking of going over to Borneo or down to Singapore for 3 or 4 days but I don't think thats enough time to do Borneo and I don't know if I want to see Singapore. So thats my update for now, about my title, I finally got to watch the videos that I made with sound and they are too cool, I'm going to try to post some more pictures now while I look for a place to stay in Kuala Lumpur. Oh yeh and if you've never heard of Thaipusam check it out on google, there are some very interesting pictures!

posted by Brandon Share @ 2:17 PM