European Chelsea is dead.

Don't be alarmed! No one has really died...I've just outgrown 'European Chelsea' and this particular blog. 

My new blog is called "To Laugh Often and Much" and it's over at Wordpress.

Check it out if you are so inclined: http://tolaughoftenandmuchblog.wordpress.com

Excellent (Melbourne-based) people wanted. Apply within.

 A few years ago, I read that “happiness researchers” had found through extensive survey research that the happiest people in the USA are Republicans, bigots, and social butterflies (disturbing on two counts).

Although I find “social butterfly” to evoke troubling imagery of vapid socialites snorting cocaine in the bathrooms of clubs, I am one. Without the vapidity, the cocaine, and definitely without the clubs. My parents have called me a social butterfly for years, and I always found that slightly peculiar. I have always considered myself somewhat shy (I generally get laughed at when I say that aloud to people); I need my alone time and am perfectly content watching hours and hours of 30 Rock alone in my bed. Anyone who has spent a weekend away with me knows that I can get quite withdrawn (okay, grouchy) by the end and need some alone time. Plus, I’ve long considered myself to be very independent (particularly since Europe '03) and I resisted the notion that my happiness could be dependent on other people.

A couple of years ago, I did the Myers Briggs index and was revealed to be an extreme extravert on every scale. Apparently I needed an empirically validated personality index to realize that about myself, which is probably troubling, but there you have it. I am a social butterfly, and it seems foolish now not to have realized it on my own. I love and need to be around people, and if I’m not social for a while, I get pretty blue and listless.

Which is why moving to the other side of the world by myself has been hard. Moving somewhere on your own is different from travelling by yourself, because you’re not constantly around other travellers who are also invested in meeting new people. You meet people, but they already have social circles and busy lives. And they aren’t necessarily the kinds of people who make you laugh until your abdominals hurt. I really miss laughing until I cry. These days I generally skip straight to the crying. Ha! (Don’t worry, I’m 82% joking about that.)

I finish uni for the year in 10 days, and my first order of business will be finding some great, funny, smart people to have fun with until it’s time to return to My People in Victoria.

I have a plan.

More soon…

...and then there was one.

I was looking for a document on my computer today and came across this, an article I wrote for a magazine writing class during my undergrad. It has a lot to do to with something I plan on blogging about soon, so I decided to post it. So here it is. From the archives...

For many, solo travel is the only way to go. I was not one of those people, until my travel companion left me terrified and alone in Paris. Why I am now a solo travel convert--and why you should think seriously about going it alone too. 

 "I'm leaving." 
I don't know why I was stunned. I knew by the time we entered French airspace that something wasn't right--that Alyson wasn't going to stay. We had been planning our grand voyage through Europe for two years, but by the time we landed in Paris, Alyson didn't want to be there. Her baggage was delayed in Chicago, giving her the perfect excuse. Plus, she said, the food was bad (?!?), there were too many birds, everybody smoked, and no one spoke English. In short, it was just too different.
Wasn't that the point?

On our second day in Paris, we returned to Charles de Gaulle airport to pick up Alyson's bag. I thought that as soon as she had her bag, our trip could begin.
Instead, she went back to Canada.

She wrote and sent some postcards (not mentioning that she was on her way home; she would have arrived in Kelowna before they did), hugged me, and whispered in my ear, "Just think. Now we can use the line 'We'll always have Paris.'"
Somehow, this provided no comfort. I was nineteen years old, on my first trip outside North America, facing six weeks in Europe--alone. 

***
The Travel Industry Association reports that solo travellers account for 21.8% of all American travellers. 

"I was shocked at how many people--while I was away and here in Canada--were shocked that I travelled by myself," says Keri Froese, 22, who travelled alone in Greece and Turkey. "Some of them said they'd never want to travel by themselves, but most of them said that they didn't think they ever could."
I was one of those people.

I managed to find my way back to Paris on the metro--no small feat for a girl who had never taken public transit by herself--and returned to my hotel, where I checked out. 
"Et votre amie?" the hotelier asked curiously.

"Elle est partie," I replied, in what I thought was impeccable French.
He looked confused.

I tried again. "Elle est retournee au Canada." And then I began to weep.
The man gave me a look of disdain that no one has mastered quite like the Parisians. 

I sat on the curb outside the hotel and cried for over an hour, the reality of the situation setting in. I knew that I couldn't go back to Canada--I had invested too much to be here--but I knew that I could not find my way around Europe by myself. Or even if I could, I didn't want to. I would be lonely, bored, sad. And, I was convinced, my life would be in danger.
I was more or less right. Over the next six weeks, I experienced loneliness, boredom, sadness, and fear, sometimes to the point of desperately wanting to go home. Often when I got on a train, plane or ferry bound for a new city, I experienced nearly crippling anxiety. On two occasions, I got myself into compromising situations that, in retrospect, I recognize  as truly stupid and potentially very dangerous. One night, as I walked down a dark street in Athens, I had the chilling realization that if I were attacked, no one would even know that I had disappeared.
Why, then, would I write an article recommending that others subject themselves to the perils of solo travel? Because the perils are not as bad as many believe they are. And more than that, because I--who thought she would never travel alone--had one of the best experiences of my life.

Lea Lane, author of Solo Traveler: Tales and Tips for Great Trips, says, "Travelling alone isn't only a different travel experience. It can be the ultimate travel experience."
"Most negatives about solo travel are misperceptions," Lane says.

The biggest misperception she names is that solo travellers are lonely, which is rarely the case. 
"What people don't understand is that travelling alone is not really travelling alone--you never have to be by yourself unless you want to be," says Froese.

I was rarely alone. I met fantastic people in nearly every city I went, some whom I spent several days with. I'm certain that I would not have met many of them if I had been with Alyson because she was unenthusiastic about meeting new people--a point of contention between us. At one of the lowest points in my trip, in the Greek islands, I met two American men who turned a cold rainy spell in a deserted island village into one of the highlights of my trip. My memories of the Greek islands are not of Mediterranean swims but of card games in hotel rooms and Greek-dubbed American movies with two hilarious guys from the Midwest, and I would not have had it any other way.
"Some of the most interesting people I have ever met were when I was backpacking," says Laura Marshall, 22. 

Solo travellers seem to agree that the biggest benefit to travelling alone is the option of being entirely selfish, guilt-free--never having to compromise and risk missing something you want to see or do. Lane says that solo travellers also often have more culturally immersed experiences, since locals are more likely to approach singles than pairs or groups. When I was in Rome, the Italian owner of my hostel took me out for an authentic four-course Italian meal--an experience that I know I wouldn't have had had I not been alone. I found the best thing about solo travel was the option to choose when to be by myself and when to be with others. I spent a week and a half with two girls from St. Louis; on the third day, when they wanted to go shopping (again) and I wanted to check out the Uffizi Gallery, I took off on my own. Of course, people travelling with friends have the same option, but are less likely to use it.
Of course, there are safety concerns for solo travellers, particularly women, to keep in mind. However, these concerns are essentially the same as they are in Canada. I have felt more genuinely threatened on a late-night Vancouver street than I felt in any city in Europe.

Lane advises that the singular most important safety advice for solo travellers is to use your instinct. "Yes, I once traipsed alone to the Syrian border, just to see some incredible Roman-era mosaic floors in Antioch, Turkey--but my choices are calculated. I do what feels right," Lane writes. 
Many travel websites and guidebooks warn against choosing a travel companion by default--going with with anyone who is ready and willing, out of fear of going alone. Alyson was one of those travel companions--she was unstable on a good day, but she had the money, time and inclination to go when and where I wanted to. Look how that turned out. But far worse than her leaving would have been her staying and being miserable for the duration of the trip, ruining my experience as well as her own. Even if you genuinely enjoy your potential travel mate's company, keep in mind that travel can kill even close friendships. If you find a long weekend with your friend can be taxing, there is potential for a turbulent travel relationship. 
Marshall says that she discovered how trying an incompatible travel companion could be on her 2005 trip to Southeast Asia with her friend Kyle. "I just found my patience was short with him--we would bicker about stupid things. He would get jealous if I made 'friends' with other guys. I got sick of hearing the same stories over and over. Some of his comments would make me want to scream. Everything he did just annoyed the hell out of me."
After a particularly heated argument, Marshall decided to leave Kyle in Vietnam and continued travelling by herself--a decision she says changed her life. "I absolutely loved it," she says.
"One of the things I discovered about travelling alone is that you are your true self--there's no one from home to impose their expectations of who you usually are. I felt like I was more truly myself than I've ever been."
"If you can find the perfect travel mate, I think travelling with someone else may be overall a better time," says Marshall, who has also travelled extensively with her brother and friends. "But how many times in your life are you going to happen to have the perfect travel mate, who has the time and the money at the same time as you?"
The risk in waiting for such a companion is that you may end up waiting forever--trips that are continually put off tend not to happen. The opportunity to travel will not last forever; there is truly no time like the present.
"If I had waited for someone to go with me, I would have waited forever," says Froese. "When I think about the experience I would have missed out on, there's no question that I made the right decision. It took some getting used to, being by myself, but I would not want it any other way."
Unfortunately, solo travel may not be for everyone; the only way to know one way or the other is to try. 
Lauren McNeilly, 28, thought that solo travel would be the perfect option for her, since she was proudly independent. On a backpacking trip in Central America, she discovered that she was wrong.
"I absolutely hated it," says McNeilly, who cut her three-month trip short and returned to Canada after three weeks. "I was lonely and depressed. I got really sick and there was no one to look after me. It was one of the most miserable experiences of my life."
So for those who still aren't convinced: why should you go travelling by yourself?
Because, as Marshall says, "you can't travel alone without it changing you in a fundamental way. It's not always fun, but you come home with this sense of personal competence and independence that changes your life at home too."
When I returned to Canada after six emotionally turbulent weeks, I was a different person. I had a sense of confidence and accomplishment that I had never felt before. I--the public transit neophyte--had navigated the transit systems in nine cities in three different languages; had found my way from France to Italy to Greece and back again; had conquered shyness and made new friends that saw the best version of myself I've ever been. No, Alyson, we won't always have Paris, but I always will. Paris is and will always be the place where I decided to carry on--a decision that changed my life. If anything, I should thank her for leaving.
In September, I head back to Europe for a 14-week backpacking adventure. Yes, I'm going alone--this time, by choice.***



***Okay, those of you who have read about my 2006 Europe trip know that I went with a friend. But I was looking for a good conclusion that made my point. (And to be fair, I did spend 3-4 weeks of that trip on my own!)

So that's it. It's interesting to look back at this article five years, three trips, and one international relocation later. More on that next time...

Forgive me, I'm boring.

First of all, thank you thank you thank you for your lovely messages about my blog. It feels great to be writing publicly again (because I find that when I write something that I know only I will read, I don't try very hard to write well, and then I can barely stand to go back and read it. Journals and diaries are over for me). I appreciate your requests to write more often and to post more pictures, and I will do soon, but for now...I'm way too boring to blog any more often than I have been. If I were to post more pictures, they would look something like this:

...only dressed way more scrubby, in jeans that I've worn about three times too many because 1) I didn't bring enough clothes to Australia and can't afford to buy more, and 2) we (like many Australians) don't have a dryer, so doing laundry is kind of a pain.

The truth of the matter is, my days pretty much all look the same right now, which is to say: get up, get dressed, walk to Two on Rathdowne, the cafe where I am known and expected on a daily basis. Work on schoolwork or work work for several hours (with frequent Facebook breaks, unless I'm on one of my Facebook fasts, which usually last about one eighth as long as they're supposed to), go home, eat, and work some more. Eventually crawl into bed much earlier than I should because I have been staring at a computer screen for 14 hours and my eyes just need a tiny break. Fall asleep listening to podcasts from the This American Life archive.

I've bored you already, right? Which is why my blogs have been and will continue to be sparse. But only for the next couple of weeks. And then? Summer holidays. Adventure!   Until then, bear with me...

"I want to go to there" - Liz Lemon

Earlier this year, thanks to Pret a Voyager , I discovered a series of EF Language School videos entitled "Live the Language". They were great videos to find given that I was preparing to study abroad myself (albeit in a country that speaks my native tongue...sort of), and I fell in love with the Paris version.

EF - Live The Language - Paris from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.


Naturally, I started thinking that I should probably study in Paris rather than Melbourne, but given that my grad school offer was accepted and my ticket was purchased, I reminded myself that Australia has its redeeming qualities too, even if there wasn't a lovely little video showing me what they were...but now there is! Anne made my day yet again today by posting this:


EF - Live The Language - Sydney from Gustav Johansson on Vimeo.


Okay, it's true that I live in Melbourne and my life looks nothing like this at the moment. I have yet to set bare foot on a beach and my time is generally spent on a computer writing papers and marketing plans. I think it's funny that when I pictured my life in Australia, it never involved actually doing school work. Luckily summer break is coming (4 assignments/3.5 weeks!) and with any luck I'll be experiencing Australia like the girls in this video are. 


P.S. For my Canadian friends who won't be moving overseas any time soon but who want to feel really good about being British Columbian, check out this one:

EF - Live The Language - Vancouver from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

If it weren't difficult, it wouldn't be brave.

So here we are again. It took me a lot longer to start blogging than I had intended. I was excited to have a ‘blogworthy’ life again and thought that I would begin as soon as I arrived in Australia—or before, even. But I couldn’t bring myself to write about what’s been going on my head—not publicly, at least. Truthfully, I didn’t anticipate how difficult it was going to be to move to (Australian) Victoria—or more specifically, how difficult it was going to be to separate myself from my life in (Canadian) Victoria.

Of course I had some idea—I spent June doing the rounds, saying good-bye and throwing around words like “the end of an era”. I knew enough to cry on the ferry immediately after saying good-bye to Kristin, trying to do so discretely behind sunglasses and failing, apparently, because an old Scottish woman named Aileen joined me and asked me what was wrong. After I told her, she (a mother of three grown daughters) offered me some pearls of wisdom: Of course it’s difficult. If it weren’t difficult, it wouldn’t be brave.

Her words comforted me then and have on many occasions since. The truth is, I left Canada and My People behind 11 weeks ago today, and I still have tough days. This is largely why I haven’t written until now—because until recently I couldn’t seem to summon up anything positive enough for anyone to want to read. No one wants to hear the girl who talked everyone’s ears off about moving to Australia wax sentimental about how much she misses Canada.

In the last few weeks, I’ve turned a corner and for the first time have been able to tell myself that I am really, really happy to be here (and actually believe it). Melbourne is fantastic, and I have a lot to look forward to in the next year.

So, I’m back. This is going to be a very different blog than it was in my backpacking days, because there are not likely to be any crazy late nights resulting in mad dashes to catch (cancelled) flights, any strange detours through the Former Yugoslavia, or any similarly debauched adventures. I am not travelling. I live here now. So this blog is going to be about what it’s like for a girl who loves and values her people to move 11,000+ kilometres away from them to create a new life.

And for those of you who have been reading since the beginning and are noticing a distinct shift in tone, I promise I won’t be so heavy-hearted from here on in.

It’s good to be back!

c.

Goooooooooooood morning Vietnam!!!!!!!!

So what do I think about Vietnam? Good question. What can you say about a place where:
a) you have to say "no thank-you" to about three thousand people within a walking distance of 1km?
b) people generally like to stare at you, laugh at you (plunking your big Amazon self onto one of the little itty-bitty makeshift restaurant chairs) and grope your freakishly white arms/face/thights?
c) people are always looking for a way to extract more money out of you and generally rip you off?
d) your tour guides whom you paid a substantial amount of money steal two iPods from the group and turn particularly venomous when the victims of the theft demand them back?
e) drivers of buses, cars and motorbikes lay on their horns all the time?
f) you get robbed walking down the street?

Let me be honest. If I had written this blog about two hours ago, it would have been a pretty negative one. I should mention that I was fresh off yet another overnight bus of which the driver honked his horn consistently and stopped for four "dinner" breaks between the hours of 11:00pm and 4:00am. This is not the first bus I've been on like this. Then at 6:00am when we were pulling into what was supposed to be Saigon, for those who hadn't been awoken by the horns blaring, he blasted Vietnamese love ballads. Like loud. Anyway, I was told that I would arrive in Saigon this morning, but it was Nha Trang. The tour guide said, "No, no, Saigon another 10 hours away." So I've been bumming around Nha Trang all day waiting for another overnighter tonight (cause I paid for a sleeper bus...may as well save myself a night's accommodation, yeah?), exhausted and with no place to go but the beach. The beach would be nice if Vietnamese dudes didn't come and plunk down next to me and start touching this alabaster skin (and by the way, I have a tan right now....by my standards...) that they can't get enough of. And asking me questions. And asking me to buy stuff. And when I say no, asking me for kisses. If any of this rings familiar, it's because this is just like Italy/Greece/Turkey. Only this time I'm really trying not to get defensive right off the bat, and there's a lot more touching. Anyway, it felt like there was no escape, so up until about a couple hours ago, I was fed up with Vietnam and feeling so ready to be home that I was working myself up quite the Pity Party.

And then I went back to the beach, for lack of anything better to do. And I was harassed by another Vietnamese dude who squeezed my thigh muscles and said, "Yes, athlete" and wanted to give me a massage that worked its way from 100,000 dong to FREE. Of course, I still declined, and he eventually left. And then someone else dropped herself into the sand next to me, and saved this blog from being a particularly negative one (OK, I admit that this blog hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows...). I won't even try to spell her name here, but she was a 21-year-old Vietnamese girl and after about 20 minutes I realized that she legitimately didn't want to sell me anything. She was just (from what I gather) a marine biology (???) student who is also studying English and goes to the beach each evening to find a "foreign girl" to practice her English with. So we chatted for over an hour, and she was such a sweetheart, asking me about Canada, telling me about Vietnam, etc. And she reminded me that aside from the ones with dollar signs in their eyes (and there are billions of them), Vietnamese people are by and large quite lovely. I've given a few impromptu English lessons while I've been here, including with the girl who runs the shop in Hoi An where I had my boots made. She was one of the people who loves to grope me, and it wasn't quite as irritating with her, because I really don't believe she was hitting on me or trying to pickpocket me. I was wearing short shorts and a tank top and I think she legitimately was fascinated by the length of my legs and the paleness of my skin. Kate, my partner in crime for much of Vietnam, thought it was pretty hilarious cause this girl literally couldn't keep her hands off me. She sat in my lap, rubbed my thighs, hugged me, held my hand, the whole nine...It was a little strange at times (the hands on my bare thighs felt a little wrong) but she was a sweetheart. And there have generally been a lot of really friendly (well, not so friendly) people around. Unfortunately, it's just those few bad seeds...

Par example, on our Halong Bay tour...I don't think I can really get into the whole story except to say first and foremost that I was on a boat with a baker's dozen Irishmen, a few Brits, and a couple of Aussies, all of whom history has shown even the most venerable of Canadian livers has difficulty keeping up with. And this group was definitely no exception. I don't know where they get the energy or the tolerance, but they put me to shame. Anyway, our first night on the boat, three iPods were left on the deck next to the crew's iPod speakers. The music (randomly, Whitney Houston...) was shut off at 4:00am, and everything was fine. Then the next morning, the rather sour barmaid accused the crew of breaking the speakers and demanded a rather outlandish sum to replace them. The people who'd left their iPods were instantly suspicious and demanded their iPods back. The barmaid kept insisting that she had no iPods, she had no iPods until things got increasingly heated and she miraculously produced one iPod from her pocket. Everything escalated until everyone was shouting (actually, I wasn't. I was nursing a hangover and staying out of it...but it definitely killed the mood for everyone). One iPod was found, but the other never was and it all resulted in all our bags getting searched and then the personal baggage and private cabins of the entire crew getting searched when the boat reached the shore. The tour guide, who'd previously been really funny and likeable, at first was trying to mediate between the crew and the passengers, but got pretty nasty in the end when the accusations started flying. It just left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, you know? I'm not going to get into the details of the rest of the weekend, but it was a really fun group and good times and after three nights with them, I am still recovering...I met up with some of them, in particular Kate, again in Hoi An, which was great. It was back to that Lao feeling of knowing people everywhere you go...

So after what one of the Irish dudes labelled iPodGate '08, I already had a bad taste in my mouth...and then I got my bag stolen. I will give details of that later on, but will say that my passport and wallet were thankfully not in the bag in question. It's funny, cause since that happened, my stamina has just been gone. I don't feel that upset, but since it happened, I've just been positively exhausted and feel really vulnerable to all the touts and their entreaties to give me their money in one way shape or form. I'm a bit done, is all.

Which is good, I suppose, since I have only a few days to go. Every time I start feeling okay with leaving, I remind myself that in one week's time, I will be in the dead of winter on the Prairies. And the fact that I'm still somewhat cool with that makes me think that I really am spent.

One more blog to come!

On Top of the World and Away From It All

So I've finally found the one place in Southeast Asia that has no 7-11s, travel agencies, internet cafes, or tuk tuk drivers. All you have to do is get yourself to Huey Xai, Laos, take a very bumpy 2.5-hour off-road ride into Bokeo Nature Reserve, hike for ~1-2 hours, and zipline into peace and solitude. Honestly, our treehouse (Treehouse #1) was exactly what I had hoped my treehouse in Turkey was going to look like, only better. It was three split levels (a girl from Tahoe, Sarah, and I got the "penthouse") built around a many-pronged big old tree. I can't say how high we were, but I believe our guide something like 80 metres? We weren't in the highest one, but the views were unreal (wait for the pictures...they're coming shortly), particularly in the morning, when mist filled the dips and valleys and a guide would zipline in with our hot breakfast. You showered in one corner with a full view out two sides of it all (and, I guess, a full view in for anyone happening to be zipping by...not likely, since there are only 12 people and a few guides out there and any one time). My powers of description are failing me here, and I'm going to have to let the pictures and video tell the story.

The ziplining was incredibly scary at first--some of the cables were as high as 150 metres and as long as 380 metres--but it didn't take long to put our faith in our equipment and just go for it. By the third day, we were zipping around without guides and without fear (well, with some fear. I still checked my equipment about four times before I let go each time). Our guides were awesome, but a little lax and a little lazy. You'd ask them to check if something was okay, and they would say without looking, "Yeah, is okay, is okay." The Gibbon Experience founder, who's French, apparently started to project (the only one of its kind in Laos, it saves the land on which it is built from being cleared and/or developed) with the intention of turning it over to the Lao people. It's been 14 years and he hasn't done so yet, and it's not difficult to see why. Still, our guides were a lot of fun, and our equipment never did let us down.

I'll admit that I wasn't completely recovered from my illness while I was up there. I threw up the morning we left and the hiking did not help. I was gasping for air at times, dizzy pretty much constantly (I imagine the elevation didn't help), and nauseous for much of the three days. Let's just say that if survival of the fittest were at play and someone were going to get attacked and dragged off by tigers, bears or cannibalistic hilltribes, it would have most definitely have been me. But honestly, I don't think I could have enjoyed it more if I had been well. Adrenaline is a powerful, powerful drug, and as sick as I felt on certain of the big climbs, the minute my caribiner and safety cord were attached and I was flying high above the trees, I felt like a million bucks.

Unfortunately, the adrenaline couldn't help with the one small issue that was the rat infestation in our treehouse. At night, we were in beds under canvas tent-like structures hangnig suspended above our beds, but the tent was chewed through in places and we had all heard stories of rats chewing their way into beds and bags (it happened to the people in one of the other treehouses in our group). It was full-on creepy at night because you could hear them all around your bed, and I was full-on paranoid by the second night. I listened to my iPod so I didn't have to hear them, but then I got paranoid about what I wasn't hearing. In the end, as far as I know no rats so far as attempted to get in my tent, and Kristin, your bag is intact.

So sadly I'm back on solid ground now. We didn't end up seeing any gibbons, but we heard them "singing" in the morning. I kind of respect how shy the gibbons are, compared to the attention-whore monkeys of Thailand. They're not there to perform for us and we're not there to feed them or tease them. It felt like the most natural animal-related experience that I've had in Asia. All in all, the whole thing was magic. I burnt my right cheekbone and left ear (two separate, somewhat foolish incidents) on the cable when I was attempting to zip and take pictures at the same time. I think the cheek burn looks kind of badass (and you know how hard I strive to look badass). There was some suggestion among the girls in my treehouse that it might scar, but so what if it does? I'll have a permanent souvenir of one of the coolest three days of my life...

Not that I'm homesick, but...***

...I would give my left arm right about now for the following things:
1) a scorchingly hot shower. With pressure. In which I don't feel compelled to wear flip flops. That has walls and is not in the immediate vicinity of the toilet.
2) A bed. With some give. With little to no chance of a bed bug infestation. With sheets with no questionable spots, stains, etc. In a room outside of which there are no:
a) roosters (you think that our little farmyard friends cockle-doodle-doo just once at sunrise? Wrong. They start at about 4:00 am and keep going for hours.
b) monks beating drums, chanting, or singing. You know I love the monks--I really do, probably more than is appropriate--but for the love of god (Buddha, I guess), can't you collect your food at 9:00am???
3) Some clothes that are not the clothes in my (Kristin's) pack at present. A whole new wardrobe, actually, would be nice. I would buy some stuff, but this whole Asian "one size fits all" thing doesn't really work for "Amazons" like me.
4) Some nachos (our nachos), some red wine (Cab Sauv or Cab Franc would be awesome, but beggars can't be choosers right?), some tuna tataki and a yam roll, some beef tenderloin with sauteed mushrooms and garlic mashed potatos. The food I'm not quite so desperate for, cause the food here is fantastic. I'm just a little bit over rice at the moment and if I'm giving my left arm for this stuff, I think I deserve some great food.

I am truly having an awesome time and I don't want to wish my trip away--the end is coming so quickly already!!--but it's been a bit tougher since separating from Kaje and it doesn't help that I've been terribly, violently ill for the last couple days. I switched over to Thai malaria pills (at my doctor's suggestion) and the first one I took made me really sick. So naturally a good bed and a better shower would be much appreciated. I am beginning to feel much better, which is good, because I'm about to go trekking deep into the jungle for the Gibbon Experience. More on that in a few days. If you don't hear from me in a while, I've fallen from a 150 metre-high zipline and impaled myself on a tree. On that note...until next time...

***okay, so this post was actually written a few days ago, but the internet cut out right as I was publishing...so that's the autosave, a few days late. Don't quite achieve the ominous ending I was going for there, now that you know I'm back safely, but ah well, you're getting two blogs for the price of one.

The Leader of the Pack (Vroom, Vroom)

I think it's seriously, seriously funny how when you first arrive in Asia, you're so overly cautious about everything. You worry about weather the fruit at breakfast is safe, you scrutinize every water bottle (sure, it's bottled, but is it the right kind of bottled?), you avoid touching potentially-rabid stray dogs and ordering any drinks with ice cubes in them. And that all lasts about 3.7 days and the next thing you know you're provoking likely-rabid monkeys, climbing treacherous cliffs and jumping off them, and popping wheelies on uninsured mopeds. OK, that's a lie, I never popped any wheelies, but Blair, Ange and I did rent mopeds with no collision or third-party insurance (and that's why I don't tell you about these things until after I do them, Doug and Lucy) and drove them around Phuket for several hours over two days. Patong Beach on Phuket is exactly the kind of place you want to leave pretty much the moment you arrive, and on Phuket, apparently $6.00 Canadian buys freedom.

It was a pretty terrific day, heading up North to try to find a beach where sea turtles are supposed to lay their eggs at this time of year. We may or may not have found the beach and we never found the turtles, but it was a fantastic day nonetheless, cruising along the coast and through little Thai towns where there were no tourists in sight (and if you have seen Patong, you know why that was incredibly refreshing). We did find a beach where there was no one in sight for kilometers, save lots and lots of hermit crabs.

There were definitely some incidents of confusion over which side of the road to drive on and of being in situations where strange Thai traffic rules were a complete mystery to us. At one point, I found myself in the middle of an intersection with cars waiting to turn in all directions, and I had no idea who had the "right of way", which is a bit of a foreign concept to Thai people...so I once again set women back 30 years and pulled out that winsome facial expression combining helplessness and sheepishness that always gets me out of speeding tickets--knock on wood--and the Thai motorists all laughed and waved me through. There were definitely a couple incidents where my life flashed before my eyes a bit, and in retrospect the idea of driving a vehicle with no protection for yourself or others is a little dodgy, but I'm glad we did it.

What's the worst that can happen, right?

So...do you think Leo DiCaprio will be there?

I don't know about you all, but I find that every summer you get at least one day that stands above the rest in its summerness (summerishness?). For me, it almost always involves being on a body of water in a speedboat, on waterskis (yes, Kristin and Jen, people DO still waterski in the 21st century), or on some kind of flotation device. This trip has had some summery days for sure, but today was pure summer.

Shoot, does it sound like I'm rubbing it in that I'm in a place that feels and looks like summer and you're probably all wearing your winter jackets already? I'm not trying to, but if you were put off by the number of times I used "summer" and its fake derivatives in that first paragraph, you should probably stop reading right now. And you definitely shouldn't look at my latest photo album on Facebook...

So today, The Crew (me, Kaje, Andrew, Blair, Ange, Andrew's cousins Ian and George, and their friend Karen) chartered a long boat from a guy named Kitty (pronouned Ki-Tee with emphasis on the second syllable, but I'm gonna spell it Kitty) and spent the day out on the water, going wherever struck our fancy. We started the day with the obligatory trip to Maya Bay, the beautiful little cove made famous by The Beach. Unfortunately, with Leonardo DiCaprio movies comes notoriety and with notoriety comes crowds and with crowds comes rubbish. Honestly, the beach was lovely, the water was gorgeous, and the limestone rockfaces surrounding it were majestic. But we went snorkelling and it takes away from the experience a little when you see reef sharks (a little creepy, but cool!) and immediately thereafter see an Orange Fanta can on the ocean floor. Hmmm...does it sound like I'm complaining? Cause it really was paradise. But it was not the best stop of the day.

When we'd had enough of The Beach, we gave Kitty a holler and he and all his Thai buddies emerged from out of nowhere, all wearing just their skivvies. For some reason, we left in a different boat than we arrived in and our boat was full of empty beer cans. Kitty's friends gave the guys on our boat free beers and kept yelling "Al-oooooooooooh-ha!" to us as we departed. It wasn't aloha for long though cause they followed us for the rest of the day, pulling up next to our boat and hanging out. They were a pretty funny crew.

Our second stop was a cliff jump on a nearby island to Ko Phi Phi Don (where we were staying). George and Ian went to the very top and did flips and dives off it, but it was a treacherous climb (a nearly vertical rockface with spikey limestone formations that could have done some major damage if you took a big fall) and I was proud of myself for jumping at all. Karen, Blair, Ange, Andrew and I all did the little jump, but it did not feel little at about 25 to 30 feet. When I hit the water, it did a number on my ears (they still hurt), so I figure it must have been big enough...

Stop #3 was Monkey Beach, which was pretty cool but a little scary. Unlike the monkeys on Railay, most of the monkeys here were male and super aggressive. When our boat approached the beach, dozens and dozens of monkeys came running and were waiting expectantly for us--or more accurately, for the food they clearly knew we had with us. Kaje had a bag of bananas and one of the males started coming towards her and she got freaked out and dropped the whole bag, which naturally got ransacked in moments. She was disappointed to have missed out handing out the bananas piecemeal, but I don't blame her for dropping the bag. Those monkeys are small, but they are so intimidating. Anyway, things soon were crazy on the beach, as the Thai boys in our brother boat arrived and provoked the monkeys and gave them cans of Leo Beer, which they drank before tearing open the cans and licking out every last drop. I was a bit horrified about them drinking beer (can monkeys metabolize beer?) but I couldn't help but laugh at their holding these cans that were 1/4 the size of their bodies with their little hands. I went further onto the beach to try to get a picture (again) and got attacked by one (again), this time getting monkey arms wrapped around my leg. I had to kick and shriek "What are you doing?!?" to get this one off me, and I stayed in the water from that point on. Blair and Andrew got attacked too, and Blair ended up getting one wrapped arouind his leg too. Unfortunately for him, he got a big cut on the back of his ankle in the process, which may or may not be a bite. A little freaky, but assuming that he doesn't die of rabies, it'll be a great story when he gets home.

For our final stop, we just anchored out in the water to watch the sunset. Didn't take long for our Thai friends to pull up and tie their boat to ours and start the party. If water and booze don't mix, no one has told the Thai people that. I kept diving into the water cause it was just soo nice, but I started to psych myself out, feeling like a shark was going to appear out of nowhere and rid me of one of my legs. The others wouldn't lower the ladder for me though and I started getting more and more freaked out. Didn't help taht one of the Thais dove under and swam up under me and grabbed my leg. I guess I was asking for that one...

We are back on solid ground now, and there's really nothing left to do but eat, have a beer, and go to bed. The bars are all closed on Phi Phi because Thailand is in mourning. We know it's someone important related to their beloved king, but because of the language barrier we keep getting different stories. What we know is that the King's sister/brother died three days/one hundred days/a year ago. Regardless, there's no music and the island is quiet. Time for bed...

Chels

Oh, so THAT's what they mean by "Rainy Season"

OK, OK, I get it, BlogFans. You want another blog. What's the cause for the delay, after I promised more frequent blogs? Well I'll tell you. If I had written five days ago, it would have been the most depressing pity party of a blog I would ever have written. There was some misery, my friends. I'm not asking you to feel sorry for me, given that I'm back in Paradise, but things were bleak there for a while.

So we met up with Blair and Ange in Bangkok a few days ago, and helped them through jetlag and culture shock by wasting days trying to find stuff to do and getting driven around and screwed over by tuk tuk drivers who ultimately got us nowhere. Thankfully, we met an awesome, wonderful, kind-of crazy waiter who was about one snip away from becoming a LadyBoy who steered us back in the right direction....just not in time to see anything before it all closed. Frustrating, frustrating city!!! So we went on a tour our last day in bangkok, or rather near Bangkok because I was starting to get hostile. The tour involved going to the famous Floating Market (made famous on America's Next Top Model Cycle 7), which honestly was a massive disappointment. I thought it was a legit market that locals frequent, but it was just another tourist trap peddling the same old junk, only at this market you're trapped in a boat driven by someone else, so you can't walk away when you're not interested and are subjected to their harassment against your will. I was at the back of our boat, and even our boat driver kept harassing me to buy bracelets from her, and I obviously couldn't escape. So I didn't buy anything or even look at anything just on principle, and the end of our little tour, for which we'd already spent the equivalent of $5 each (yes, a small sum of money, but a lot over here!! Our pettiness over small sums of money over here makes me feel kind of guilty...) our boat driver rowed us into the centre of a dirty canal and demanded that we tip her. Obviously, we were in a bit of a vulnerable situation, and she clearly knew it. We had Ange and her very effective 'tude with us though, and she got us back to shore without our having to produce our wallets. All in all: not cool.

Stop two was the Tiger Temple, which I liked a lot but also felt a bit uneasy about. The story is supposed to be that monks saved orphaned tigers and then took on more and more tigers until tigers were being born and raised at this place. We were told that the tigers were drugged to make them docile, which the organization claims is not true, and I am inclined to believe them. I've read about how "vicious" animals raised by humans lose their basic reasons for being aggressive, and it wasn't like you were just allowed to go in and hop on a tiger's back. You had to be careful and not wear anything dangly, etc. But the tigers were just laying there, most of them drowsy, and you got herded around by volunteers who took your picture with each tiger. It was just a bit photo op. The tiger cubs were better because you could approach them without being pressured to move on, etc. I'm glad I got to see the tigers--especially the cubs--up close and personal, but there was something a little sad about it all. Next we went to see the famous Bridge Over the River Kwai, which was cool to see but does not make for very interesting blogging. After Laos, the massive tourism of Thailand is turning me off a little. Not that I'm not loving Thailand.

That night, Blair and Ange and I boarded a bus and got the heck out of Bangkok while Kaje stayed alone for aday cause she wanted to meet Andrew at the airport. So Blair and Ange and I took an overnighter and a ferry to Koh Tao, an island in the Southern Gulf of Thailand. Exotic and tropical, yes? NO. The island is beautiful but looked nothing like the photos because it poured rain the entire two days that we wre there. And when I say poured I mean POURED, like you go out for a second and you're drenched. The kinds of showers that we've seen already but last only for twenty minutes to an hour. These showers lasted for two solid days and let up only on the second night for a short while. Naturally, there's not a lot to report about Koh Tao, except that I went out sans Blair and Ange the second night and had a blast dancing at a beach bar with a bunch of guys from Australia, Canada, Israel, Denmark, and Sweden, and ended up administering impromptu First Aid to drinking injuries at 4:00am. It's strange, because I have all this fun with people and I have barely been exchanging information with anyone. It just seems silly to become Facebook friends with them all when you've spent one night hanging out, but then it almost seems unreal.

With no sunshine in sight, we left beautiful Koh Tao for beautiful Koh Phangnan, home of the famous Full Moon Party, and got more of the same. Kaje and Andrew joined us there, and we sat in misery in more torrential downpour, even worse than on Koh Tao. We stayed in some bungalows down the beach from Coral Bungalows, where there's a great set up, so we would go there for meals and to hang out. There were times though that it would be raining so hard that I had to wear my bathing suit and make a run for it, carrying my clothes in a ziploc bag and losing another pair of flip flops (third this trip) in the process. It was a little exhilerating for about three hours, and then it got to the point that it seemed the only point of getting out of bed was to eat and watch movies at Coral. Our second day there, I watched five movies. I also shared a bungalow with a 6'9'', 20-year-old boy from Hawaii who we met getting off the ferry and who seemed normal enough but who tried more than once to crawl in my bed with me despite my very clear signals (like telling him I was not in the least interested in him--he asked) that he shouldn't. Anyway, all of this together made me very supportive of the group decision to jump ship on the Full Moon Party. I don't care if it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We were five of the very few people actually leaving the island, but we were rewarded when we came here, to Railay, in the Andaman Sea. It is not an island but an isthmus (??) and is absolutely gorgeous. And although we have a bit of daily rain, we have seen sunshine for the first time in over a week. And I have a sunburn to prove it. Apparently, Angela, you DO need to rub in spray-on sunscreen. Haha. We've been spending our time here celebrating Ange's 25th birthday, which was meant to be spent at the Full Moon Party, but which we've been celebrating in the sun instead. The first night we got here, we had a lovely but very expensive dinner and then went to a Thai boxing match in the middle of the jungle. It was kind of cool, but having worked for a head injury specialist, I really think that boxing is among the stupidest endeavours a human being can partake in...but that's just me. Last night was Ange's actual birthday, which we spent on the beach and then Kaje and I gave her birthday present--corn row braids, Bo Derek style!!!! She was thrilled, and has been shakin' her beads and singing Bob Marley and getting our money's worth. We had another superb meal and drinks with a couple of couples that we met here and then I FIREDANCED!!! I'm not even going to try to describe it to you because there's video that says it all. Except to say that it was probably not a good idea after 3 litres of Beer Chang. But I got by without serious injury and only made a little bit of an ass of myself.

Today, the couples went kayaking and I went to the beach. It is gorgeous here. GORGEOUS!! There's huge limestone cliffs and towers sticking out of the water. Today I was laying under a tree (nursing my sunburn) when all of a sudden the tree above me was FILLED with monkeys. There were probably two to three dozen of them, including a mother with a brand new baby clinging to its belly. They weren't skiddish at all and we could approach them and feed them bananas (what else??). SOOO cool! I got a little too close to the mama/baby though, taking a picture, and the big guy (I'm guessing the Alpha Male of the group, fromthe way he was acting...) came racing towards me and took a swipe at me. It terrified me a lot. Seriously, though, very unexpected and cool (but HOT!!!) day at the beach.

George, Andrew's cousin, is supposed to arrive tonight, and not a moment too soon. Although it's fun travelling with a group (and staying five of us in one big communal bed meant for four) and although doing so gives me extra independence to take off on my own sometimes, which I do enjoy doing, I am beginning to feel like I'm tagging along on the world's longest double date. Not that we're not enjoying ourselves, cause we really, really are. After the monsoon, any time that we're dry is a good time.

I feel as though I'm missing heaps, but it's been too long and I'm doing this freestyle, sans notes.

Hope everyone is well!!! Miss y'all!!!

Cancel that.

Yeah, I've changed my mind about Lao/Thai massage. L-O-V-E them. Our last night in Laos, Kaje and I were mangled from our tubing debacle. I felt like I was in a bad motor vehicle and/or waterskiing accident. So at Kaje's encouragement, I decided to give Lao massage another shot. And W-O-W was it ever fantastic. For $5.00 each, maybe the best massage I've ever had (really, really hope my RMT isn't reading this...). The guy on the other side of the curtain from Kaje and I was making noises that suggested that he was receiving a whole other kind of massage altogether...

Kaje and I are back in Bangkok now, where we've met up with Ange and Blair. Time's up, will blog again tomorrow!

xoxo

If there are no photos, did it actually happen?

What's this? Another blog so soon? Yes, that's exactly what it is. I need to write about tubing in Vang Vieng before the euphoria subsides and the memory of the day fades away. We took no camera, so besides the scrapes and bruises and the mud still in our ears and belly buttons, there are no mementos to remember the day by. Best write about it while it's still fresh.

We knew the day would be either terrific or terrifying when we arrived in Vang Vieng and we were sitting in one of the town's many, many covered but open-air restaurants (all of which play Friends DVDs on repeat) and our slow boat friends who had beat us to Vang Vieng would walk past and tell us of near-death experiences, lost possessions, and sore muscles. One person said it was one of the best days of his life, and I was a little skeptical.

But wow. Seriously, one of the funnest days ever. You rent a tube and get driven to a launch spot, where you drop your tube in the Mekong. You're not on the river for very long though, cause within probably 100 ft. you come to the first bar. At each bar, you're helped by Lao people in the water or thrown a rope with a waterbottle on the end of it. Each bar has either a zipline, a trapeze, or a slide that results in you dropping or falling into the river, and the first trapeze is supposed to be the scariest. I decided that I needed to try them all, and the first one (with only one mojito and half a beer in me to dull my nerves) was terrifying. I can't even really guess how high the first one was, but it was high. It was so difficult to make myself jump off the platform, because everyone at the bar (maybe 200 people) is watching each person go and either cheering for a good go or laughing at the belly-flops and mishaps. I did not want to be a mishap. I had finally prepared myself and had the trapeze solidly in my hands, but there were several tubes leaving the bar at that point and I had to wait for ages until the passed. I was shaking by the time I had to go and was afraid that I lacked the upper-body strength to hold on long enough to swing all the way out, swing back, and then swing back out and drop. Thankfully, my turn was successful and I instantly wanted to do it again. Some of the others weren't as exhilarating, but I did them all.

The atmosphere was so fun, and we drank and laughed and floated and met new people and people we'd met earlier in our travels. So much fun. The fourth bar was the mud bar, which was the most fun. It was pouring rain and there was a big mud volleyball pit with waist-deep water and mud where we played (yup, ballers, I played volleyball) and tackled each other and splashed around. I kept jumping out of there and going off the zipline at that bar to clean off, but by that point I was getting pretty inebriated and the current was pretty strong. Thankfully, I had a little Lao helped who kept throwing me a ring and pulling me in and every time he gave me the "I love you" signal and told me he loved me. He was so cute. And he saved my life probably three times that day, so I guess I love him too.

So if you're thinking that perhaps people tubing down rivers drunk and swinging off very high apparatuses into a fast-moving river (while drunk) is recipe for disaster, and I had pretty much come to that conclusion myself by the sixth bar, at which I fell off the trapeze prematurely cause I could no longer hold on. Thankfully, I paced myself a lot better than some of the other people, some of whom passed out in their tubes, etc. Kaje ended up puking on my leg, but I was so muddy and wet by that point that I really didn't care. Then, suddenly it got really really dark very suddenly and thinks got a little scary. We all grabbed our tubes and were ready to head out but they wouldn't let us cross this bridge, so they had free boats (kind of just a wooden raft) that we were supposed to use to cross. Upon the arrival of the first boat, about ten of us crowded onto it and the boat sank and Kaje and this British guy, Edward, started floating away into the dark. I was freaking a bit and yelling her name, but then I got pinned under the boat a bit against the rocks and by the time I got unpinned, I couldn't see Kaje any more. So I got across the river and was screaming after Kaje and she eventually casually came strolling up, all smiles, saying that Edward saved her life. We were both a bit too drunk to fully grasp the gravity of the sitaution, and we headed home for maybe the most hilarious shower I've ever had, Kaje and I spraying each other with the nozzle and trying to get the mud off of us. We didn't have a late night, cause nine hours of drinking was enough for us, and I really wanted to do it all again (with a camera) the next day. The next morning, though, we woke up hungover and mangled and it was pouring rain, and we weren't entirely sure that we could match or top our first Vang Vieng tubing experience, so we headed out.

I just wish we had taken a camera!!! It's really best that we didn't, because if we had, we doubtless would have lost it. In the course of our tubing day, we lost: both our shirts, both our pairs of flip flops, a few thousand kip, Kaje's tube, a couple layers of skin, a little bit of dignity, and nearly Kaje.

Perhaps it's for the best that there are no pictures...

How many years in Laos prison for kidnapping?

Thank Buddha for ginger gravol. Kaje and I just got off a bone-rattling journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, our current location. For six hours, we drove at a death-defying speed in a "VIP" van packed like a sardine can along switchbacks, with goats, cows, pigs, chickens and children all over the roads and often narrowly missed. There are kids playing everywhere in Laos, including right on the roads, and they are one of my favorite things about this country. They run out to the road and wave and yell "Sabaidee!!" and have the brightest smiles. You'll drive by them when they're riding their bikes and they wave so enthusiastically that they get distracted from riding. I love them. Actually, I feel like a bit of a creep cause I can't stop staring at them, especially the little girls, and taking their pictures. And the monks too. I almost re-sprained my ankle the other day cause a bunch of young monks walked past and I fell off a curb trying to get their picture. I haven't considered at length what kind of trouble I would get into for kidnapping one, but alas I have no room in my backpack. If I were male and about thirty years older, I think this behaviour might be considered a problem...

Last time I blogged seems like ages and ages ago. From Bangkok we took an overnight bus to Chiang Mai, where I woke up to find that I had developed a serious, serious set of cankles. Kaje did a bit too, but I looked like I had elephantitis of the lower legs. Thankfully, they subsided after a couple days and I was saved the humiliation or torture of wearing long pants in this g.d. humidity. From Chiang Mai, we took a slow boat to Luang Prabang. The slow boat is a two-day journey on a big boat down the Mekong. It was a terrific way to see Laos, and was a lot of fun. We met lots of backpackers before and on the boat, and by the time we got to Luang Prabang it felt like we knew every backpacker we passed. Things got pretty rowdy on the boat though, to the point that people avoided staying at the same guesthouses as people from our crew. They kepy us entertained for two long days, though, so I appreciated their company. I always marvel at the drinking stamina/tolerance of Brits, Aussies, and the Irish...We did our best to keep up the first couple nights, hanging out in Luang Prabang's bars until they closed at 11:30 and then going to one of the few places allowed to sell booze after closing time--the bowling alley. That's what happens when you tear down Victoria's only bowling alley, people. I have to go to Laos to get my bowling fix. We bowled the first night among Thai locals and Lady Boys (soooo sweet...there was some disbelief among the men that this girl was really a boy, but it's all the knobby knees and the hands and feet...anyway, this ladyboy came up to me and grabbed my hair and compared it to a blonde streak in his/her hair. So sweet). That night, I only made it until 2am though. Kaje continued partying while I went home and nursed a fever. Obviously, when you get a fever somewhere like this, it's cause for concern. I laid there assuming the worst--malaria, dengue, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis--and wondering if cankles is a symptom of any of the above. Turned out it was just a run-of-the-mill cold, which is less dramatic but better, I think, for the outcome of this trip. The second night bowling, we weren't allowed to bowl because Bronwyn, a girl we'd been travelling with until today, got in an altercation with a bowling guy and called a girl who wanted to bowl with us a hooker, resulting in the people who ran the bowling alley stating that they hate white people (awwwwk-wwaaaaard....). Kaje was also going around smashing "cheers" with her beer bottle (Beer Lao...good stuff...and that's coming from a non-beer lover) and others' to the point that she smashed it and was banned from using bottles. Suffice it to say...no more bowling for us in Laos...


While in Luang Prabang, we took refuge from a torrential downpour and had our first traditional Lao massages. Mine was a touch disappointing, to be honest, cause the guy was waaaaaay too gentle. I kept wanting to say, "Come on, dude. Massage me like you mean it!" but he didn't really speak English so I just lay there doing mathematical calculations and figuring that it didn't matter if it was super gentle cause I could get ten of his massage's for the price of one of my RMT's massages at home, so what the hell? I kind of think doing math (and financial math no less) kind of defeats the purpose of a relaxation massage, but it was somehwat enjoyable none the less.



The day after our second night at the bowling alley, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and get ourselves a tuk tuk (NOT a good idea when hungover) to a nearby waterfall, which was gorgeous. We hiked to the top, which was nothing short of challenging after a 4a.m. night, but it was well worth it.



My affinity for monk stalking got an excellent outlet this morning, when we got up and participated in the monks' collecting alms. At 6:00am (took the night off from bowling in order to make it up for it), there were hundreds of orange-clad monks walking in a procession down the streets, collecting their food for the day. We bought and gave them some bundles of rice in leaves and then just watched. Some of the monks here look not a day over 8, but apparently they have to be at least 14. I'm not sure if I believe it. Anyway, they're adorable and I'd probably kidnap one of them too if I could.



I adore Laos. The people are lovely, the food is terrific, the scenery is lush and green and beautiful. I wish we could stay much, much longer!!



I've decided to try and start writing shorter blogs more often because I've been trying to write this blog for days and get it all down and every time I sit down at the computer I feel overwhelmed and my mind goes blank. So from now on you can expect more regular, shorter blog posts...If anyone is reading...



Tomorrow we're doing the famous Vang Vieng tubing experience, which many a backpacker has raved about, some saying it was one of the best days of their life...we'll see...



Chels



RETRACTION: Please note that my blog of Sunday, October 19th contained an inaccuracy. Kaje would like me to clarify that she was neither gloomy nor miserable upon arriving in Thailand. The part about my gloom and misery, however, was entirely accurate.

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....

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.

Thank-you, St. Christopher

So it's all over. I'm home. Four days late and with tonsillitis, but I made it in one ragged piece. Our last night in London, we met up with 88 from Portugal and his friends and slept in, almost missing our flight...except that our flight turned out not to exist. Zoom cancelled it and our travel agency neglected to tell us, so we spent two nights in Gatwick airport (three for Kaje) and two extra nights wasting time in London, very dejected and disappointed. I had finally made peace with going home, and missing my time in Victoria and spending extra time in a cripplingly expensive city was a pretty rotten end...to a fantastic trip.

So here it is:

In 102 days, I visited 29 cities/towns in 16 countries.

I slept in 42 beds; on 4 buses, 2 ferries, and 3 trains; in 2 airports and 1 train station; in a treehouse and in a cave.

I got stung by a wasp, bitten by many bedbugs, got food poisoning, and had an eye infection.

I had to beg for money on two separate occasions.

I lit my hair on fire, broke my glasses, lost my bank card, and dropped my camera off a one-storey balcony.

My travel companion got robbed and we were forced to separate for a month.

I got yelled at by a Portugeuse Surf Nazi, a Finnish albino, and an old Portugeuse woman.

I went to prison.

I am now home, unemployed, ill, and massively in debt.

IT WAS SO WORTH IT.


Until next time (i.e. until I can drag myself out of debt and go on my next adventure)...

European Chelsea

One More for the Road

OMG. I am writing my last on-the-road blog. This is it, folks. Except for the emotional jetlagged email I will no doubt write when I get home. I am in disbelief.

Last I wrote we were in Prague. Trying to like beer. Never did succeed in that regard, but I did drink a total of I believe 7 beer on this trip. Pretty good, I think. Kaje liked to pour some of mine into hers when I was turned away though, and I would turn back and be pleased to discover that I had yet to choke down less than I had thought...So how much beer I actually consumed, I couldn´t really say. Anyway, Prague was good. We met a couple young American student photographers in our hostel and went out with them. We started at Banditos, the Mexican bar across the street where we ate like seventy-four meals and had many cocktails, one of which had a bunch of absinthe in it. Crazy and very potent stuff. Then we went to an underground bar called Kenny´s Music Island, owned by an illegal Nigerian immigrant named Kenny who sold weed over the counter. Yeah, you read that right, and no, weed is not legal in Prague. I think I have said all that I wanted to say about Prague. To sum up: I loved it. Almost as much as Paris. It is a close second.

After Prague, we went to Berlin, although only for a day, which was not enough for a city with that much going on. We did a free walking tour with a yelling kiwi guy with a spitting problem...not so pleasant in places like Parisser Platz. He was a really good guide though, and took us to all the highlights. Berlin has so much history, obviously, with Hitler and all that, and the Berlin partition during the Cold War. The Holocaust Memorial was really cool to see--it just opened after 7 years of construction and red tape. I´ll post a picture of that and everything else in my last emotional jetlagged post...All in all, Berlin: cool city.

OK, where to next? Seriously, it feels like we have been everywhere in the last month. Right, Amsterdam. On our way to Amsterdam, we made the mistake of not paying attention to which train car we were getting onto. Unfortunately, our train split somewhere along the way and we were on the wrong half of it. But German people are really nice, and three different incredibly helpful German people helped us make our train, wihch we had to run for...like, fast, with our packs on. First time we have had to do that, surprisingly, since we come close to missing every single train we take.

So Amsterdam was great. Yada yada yada. Crazy. I nearly got hit by a tram...like, really really close. I had to leap out of the way because it was ringing its bell. Kaje was on the other side and thought I was a goner.

Does this blog feel as scattered and random to you as it does to me? That´s what happens when you do a mad dash through a whole bunch of big cities. It is hard to keep straight and very hard to write a cohesive and coherent blog about. So this is what you are getting instead.

Next was Paris. Kaje almost peed her pants when she saw the Eiffel Tower. We met up with Aaron from Vienna and went to the Eiffel-Tower-Picture-Taking-Spot and took 7,509 pictures. I am not kidding. I am fairly sure that we have an entire GB of photos of the Eiffel Tower by itself. With and without lights. Day at night. Kaje in front of it. Me in front of it. Me and Kaje in front of it. Standing, squatting, sitting, lying down, standing on our heads. It was ridiculous. In fact, there was a couple parked at this spot (this place had Park ´n Pash written all over it) and they were laughing at us. We spent three and a half days in Paris, and I reckon about two of those were at the Eiffel Tower. We did manage to do some other things in Paris. Kaje went off and did some Paris things that I had done before and I just wandered around and enjoyed Paris. This place means a lot to me, I think because it is where I had my (shamelessly quoting Oprah) AHA moment on my last trip--where Alyson left me and I decided to stay, etc. Love this place. We went to a photo exhibit of Robert Doisneau´s photos (the guy who took the famous photo of the couple kissing...not the war one, but the one where the guy is dipping the girl) and it was great. Anyway, to sum up, Paris: fantastic. Still my favorite city.

Our next stop was unplanned before the trip. We wanted to see the German Christmas Markets and by the time we got to Berlin, they weren´t open yet. So we decided to stop by Cologne on our way to Frankfurt, to fly out. Cologne is where our friend Tobs lives. In order to explain why we decided to go to Cologne over every other place in Germany, you have to understand why we love Tobs so much. In order to explain that, we have to have our first...blog...REWIND...back to Rome...

OK, one of our final nights in Rome, we got moved to our third room in that hostel and met our new roommates, including Tobias from Germany and Emily from Australia. There were two other guys too but they were never around when we were, so we hadn´t met them. So one night, after several nights out until 3, 4, and 5am, we decided to spend a night in and catch up on our sleep. We went to be at 11 and passed out...then, in the middle of the night, I wake up (bottom bunk) to see a big, big man standing next to our bed, and Kaje (top bunk) having a little hissy. Turns out, Kaje woke up to find this big Frankenstein-sized man with his hand in her bed, sliding it towards her. So she (naturally) says really loudly, ¨Who are you? WHO ARE YOU?¨I thought this was a really funny thing to say to a guy who may or may not be trying to accost you, like ¨Who passes there? Identify thyself!¨ kind of thing, so I started to laugh. The Frankenstein´s Monster man disappears into the bathroom for a bit, then comes back into the room and is asleep in seconds. So Kaje is freaking out and she has woken up Em and Tobs and we all laugh and then Frankenstein starts snoring. Like, you have never heard snoring like this before in your life. Like, this guy needs an entire respiratory tract replacement because his is failing miserably. It was disgusting and loud and it kept the four of us up all night, from four until they left at eight. It was one of the worst but one of the funniest nights in a hostel on this trip, because we spent the whole night laughing. Kaje at one point called us ¨roomies¨and Tobs just loved this and used the word like every fifth word--imagine Arnold Schwartenegger saying ¨Roooooooomies¨ in his accent and you will appreciate how funny this is. So this night bonded us and we spent the next day with our little brother Tobs (he´s 19) and he uses the most awkward English phrases but is so happy and enthusiastic all the time, he is great. He sounds like he uses his German-English dictionary/thesaurus for everything and just picks the wrong words sometimes. He is good times, probably the most endearing person we have met on this trip.

So, naturally, we had to go see him. He and his younger brother Christian (Kiki to us), who is 18 but acts like he is about 43, came and met us at the train station in Cologne and took us around. We went to the Christmas markets, drank some gluvine (hot red wine...delicious) and ate traditional German food (enormous sausages) and drank beer (yuck) and laughed at our ¨Running gags¨(what Tobs calls our inside jokes). Then we went to Dortmund, a nearby city, where the boys live, and stayed at their house, which was so nice. Their parents were incredibly sweet and his mom drove us to the train station early in the morning to catch our train to the airport in Frankfurt. We stayed in a real house with a real family and rode in a real car. It was so nice, and made me realize that I might be OK with going home at this point.

Actually, this is how I feel about it...Hopefully those of you who are readers understand this feeling...

It is like when you are reading a really really great book and you get near the end and you don´t want it to end because then it will be over and you might not find another book this good for a long while. But then, you are near the end and you want to finish it, just to be done and see how it all turns out.

That is how I feel about the trip ending. We are on the home stretch. Less than a week to go, in the Canary Islands on what is meant to be a sunny beach rest period , except that it is cloudy and chilly (we had one great day...hopefully there will be more). We are both pretty burnt out, but trying to enjoy every last minute until our flight on Saturday...

Unbelievable.

Can´t wait to see you all!

Love,
Chels