Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Please forward all future mail...

...to Koh Chang, Thailand. You'll find me in a hammock in a Thai hut-style gazebo restaurant/bar on Lonely Beach, drinking delish banana shakes and reading my book and watching the spectacular sunsets. Once in a while, when the heat gets unbearable, I take a dip in the ocean, which is pretty much like bath water, and hope that "my" hammock is still available when I get out of the sea. Of late, I haven't been spending much time on the beach because I got a bit of an all-over burn our second day on Koh Chang...although I was wearing SPF 30, it seems my malaria pills have in fact made me more sensitive to the sun. Just what an albino like me needs, hey? Actually, the burn is fading into quite the tan...my version of a tan, that is.

We've spent quite a bit of our time in the last days with a very, very well-travelled British girl named Laura. We met her when she was laying in a neighbouring hammock and had a fresh coconut with a straw delivered to her table. I asked about it, she offered me a try, and we've all been "mates" ever since...that's one thing I love about backpacking--how quickly friendships begin, often with little more basis than the fact that you are both backpacking and both speak English...anyway, at night we've all been hanging out and having drinks. Kaje and I have finally managed to stay up past 9 p.m., which has been a great accomplishment. Our first night in our bungalow in Lonely Beach, though, we had an incredibly rustic room with gaps between the roof and the walls. In the night, there was the most bizarre, loud honking-type sound that sounded like it was right in our room. I was going to turn on the light but Kaje was like, "Don't! I don't want to see it!" so we didn't. When it happened again later, I did turn on the light but there was nothing there. It was creepy. We switched to a more enclosed, air-conditioned room the next day.

Actually, cancel that about my mail because I lied. We're in Bangkok now. I wrote that first part in my head while laying in my hammock but never got around to actually posting it because it would have required me to actually leave my hammock. Although we were planning on staying on Koh Chang for a week, Kaje and I have reworked our plan and are heading to Laos early in order to ensure that we have enough time to do the country justice. Yesterday, we reluctantly left Koh Chang. We took a "taxi" (a pick up truck with benches in the back) to the ferry but our driver was dicking around trying to find some more tourists to pick up and it took forever to get to the pier and when we did, the ferry had already pulled away...we were all moaning and berating our taxi driver because we had missed the connecting bus to Bangkok when the ferry threw 'er in reverse and came back for us. It was awesome. Can you imagine BC Ferries doing that for half a dozen tourists? Right, no, they won't let you on board if you're only eight minutes early for a ferry...

The bus ride was VIP, which the Lonely Planet said was the closest thing we'll ever get to feeling like a rock star. The only thing rock star about this bus was the fact that it had gaudy vibrantly coloured window dressings and multi-coloured lights. The bus leaked tons and was the most rattly thing ever. Laura tells em that if I found that travel experience miserable, I'm in for quite the shock in Laos and Cambodia. Bring it on. At least puking out the window of a bus or train will make for some blog material.

At a road stop on the way in, Laura and Kaje went to use the bathroom. Laura went into the first stall and Kaje went into the second. In Kaje's, there was no toilet or hole but only a big pile of bowling-ball sized rocks. Kaje, having never used a squatter before, was perplexed and asked Laura if she was just supposed to pee on the pile of rocks. hahahahahahahaha. Love it.

Tonight at dinner, a cockroach ran up my leg and into my gauchos. It was traumatizing.

Is it just me or are my blogs more boring this time around? No shenanigans yet, is the problem...Things just go too damn smoothly in Thailand!

Signing off....

Sunday, October 19, 2008

And I'm back...

Day Two: I just came in from a swim in the Gulf of Thailand off the island of Koh Chang, and I finally remember why I came here. If you had asked me twenty-four hours ago, I would not have. It was a rough go the first thirty-six hours. I'd forgotten how hard jetlag can hit, how gloomy and miserable Kaje and I can get when jetlagged, and how culture shock can make you feel physically ill. This much I already knew. What I didn't know was how terrible Bangkok would be. Someone once told me that Bangkok is the a-hole of the Eastern World. I probably should reserve judgement until I return when I'm not jetlagged, but my first impression wasn't positive. My instinct was to get out of there as quickly as possible, and that's what we did.

I'm going to write again soon, because this blog is a little more impromptu than they usually are. We are probably going to stay on Koh Chang for a week, and I can't imagine that we'll be getting up to much in the way of shenanigans just yet because the jetlag and heat are still making me want to sleep more than anything else.

More exciting stuff to come, I promise!

Chels

P.S. It's hot here. Really, really bloody hot.