Adventures with Hayfa

Wow it has been a while so here we go i am alive and doing fantastically well!!!!
I left India on the 10th of December and met up with Hayfa in Bangkok after 3 full days of travel a little sleep. We did a quick tour of Thailand while i was there with hayfa and went and saw loads of volunteer placements and Canadian volunteers in Thailand right now. The small taste i got this time has made me so pumped to go back when i meet up with meg again for new years. Thailand is so different from India I had culture shock just going there. I didnt know what clothes to wear i was staring at all the huchy girls(Thai and white) walking around, not to mention i was on Koa san Road so that does not help hahahah Koa San road compared to India is incomparable haha. Marnee you will know what i am talking about. So yeah we headed off to the east of Thailand to rayong and spent the day enjoying the sun visiting with some volunteers, meeting loads of kids at the Thai schools and exploring the many night markets this is where we saw frogs you could buy with there insides hangin out.. ewwww. we spent the nigh there at this sweet hotel that the director of one of the schools we visited hooked us up with, big ass pool and all. Very different from the India scene i have been used too. Then we headed to Chaing rai. It is in the very north of Thailand. we spent two days there at another wicked place. we had our own bungalow on the property. there were only 9 huts in the whole place so that was cool very chilled and relaxed. from the pool area you looked out towards Burma, but we were not that close to Burma haha so no danger!! We visited a organization called miror art group which is doing loads of amazing things for the Thai hills tribes. Many Thai who are born in the hills are not granted citizenship because there is no way of knowing where there parents are from as many refugees enter Thailand through the hills and because they are far from the cities the parents dont apply for their citizenship. This creates a serious problem because then all those people have no rights, no access to health care or education. the mirror project is working to get these people citizenship as well as many other things such as teaching IT skills,educating about the red light district and not accepting jobs to go to the city for work because 9 out of 20 times the women are sold in to the sex market. This is hard because when these women are offered a job paying well for their standards it is hard for them to turn it down because they are not making any money in the hills and they just want to provide for their children. And many children are coned into going to the cities to work and end up working in factories making paper cups and shit like that. This mirror group is so cool i loved hanging out there all day. Great people working there. It was really cool to meet some of the hills people who we could talk to and ask questions too. After Chaing Rai we headed to Chaing Mai which is south of Chaing Rai. we spent the day there visiting more schools in the morning and then rented a bike and scootered around. Hayf got over her fear of other people driving her and she let me take control of the wheel for a while, which i say is for the best because other wise we would have never made it back as i seemed to be the only one who paid attention to directions when we left hahaha. They had a crazy wicked night market where i got a new pair of berks for 6 bucks so i am happy about that. Just breaking them in now. had a couple days of sore feet haha. We flew back to Bangkok that night got in late then were off early the next morning for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We spent the day exploring went to china town(exactly like china town in new york.. freaky how similar it was) then explored little India as well(really funny how it actually felt like i was back in india. The smells the garbage on the streets everything). We found ourselves at a benefit conference for the survivors of the cyclone in Bangladesh so that was neat to hear Malaysian music. we searched the whole city for Internet and couldn't find anything which was weird for such a large city, but then i realized that if a traveler asked me where they could find a internet cafe in vancouver i wouldn't have the slightest idea. KL is really cool i liked it allot. We stayed at the Renaissance Marriott.. WOW!!! Loving hayfas work budget for accommodation haha.Oh man so funny in the hotel rooms in Malaysia and Indonesia there is an arrow on all the roofs so you know what direction is north so that you can pray to Allah or mecca, not sure which one or if its both. The taxi driver we had that was taking us told us all about the conflict between the Malays and the Indians and Chinese who live there and how the country is very segregated and how the Malays only work in government and the chine4se own all the land and the Indians are just really hard workers and do everything else. we flew to Medan Indonesia where we sweated our butts off. 37 degrees and humidity like i have never felt before, with our long pants and shirts cause it is a very Muslim country. just a quick stop over but crazy adventures. we needed to buy our ticket to Banda Aceh but we had no indonesia money and of course there was no ATM machines so Hayf ended up jumping in the car with a indonesan woman who took her to take out money but non of the ATM's were working so she ended up taking her to her shop to get money for us. mean while i am sitting at the ticket office going she will be back in just a few minutes she just had to walk to the other end of the terminal. And then i am freaking out cause they said they would selll us the tickets up to 20 minute before the flight left and it is getting closer and closer to the tie. Then hayf gets back and we continue the ticket process and i am asking the woman working are we going to make the plan cause at this point it is 10 mins till take off and she is so relaxed not a care in the world. Finally we get in sit down and the plane doesn't leave for another hour. Turns out Indonesia is 1 hour behind Malyasia, we had loads of time the entire time we were panicking hahaha. So yeah we arrived in Banda Aceh which is the northern most tip of Indonesia (sumatra). This is the only place in Indonesia under sharia Law (this means all Muslim women must have their heads, arms and legs covered, and cant smoke) we as foreigners dont need to but we need to respect the laws so we were long pants that at least cover are knees and t-shirts. and it is very very hot here. This place is really cool, we are some of the only white travelers, we only saw 1 other guy last night. No one hear speaks English which is cool because it makes everything a bit more exciting. we have contacts here from a grad student at UBC who has been here for months at a time for a few years working on his thesis. We met up with his buddy Risna this crazy radical feminist who started an organization (Achenesse women for democracy) we went for dinner with her and she talked to us all bout women here and there struggles and what she is trying to do for gender equality and getting women some rights. Crazy but a good person. eating dinner was always interesting as we couldn't read anything which made trying to order something without meat, a bit difficult. we managed kinda after digging around the meat balls haha.And the famous popular drinks here is a avocado chocolate smoothie, i was a bit revolted at first but wow it is soooo good, and it is nice because the food is so hot that the drink coats your thought so you dont die from the spice. there are some amazing mosques here huge, unbelivably huge. we made friends with one of the tuk tuk drivers who we took us around to get an idea of our surroundings, it was so crazy they have mass un marked graves of all the people who died in the 2004 Tsunami who were un claimed, a bit eiry thats for sure. But It is really interesting to see the damage that is still here 3 years later, lots of construction happening here and loads of NGO's(non governmental organizations) just driving in we saw the head quarters for UNICEF, OXFAM , RED CROSS and many other ones i have never heard of. I am really liking it here. having a great time with hayfa, lots of fun seeing her and traveling with her. It is always so interesting to see the different ways people travel, and those who have done lots of traveling before. We went and visited a school in Sare a town and hour and a half south east of Banda Aceh which is being used to teach democracy- focusing on human rights and peace. really cool people who are involved with this school. After hayfa finished up work we headed to pulau whe a little island on the north most point of sumatra. on this island we stayed at a bach called Iboh. It was unreal, so beautiful. On the way to Iboh we met Jo and Rowan 2 wicked kiwis who were spending the weekend there as well. When we arrived at the ferry terminal they were the only other white people in sight so they informed us about buying tickets and everything. When we got in the boat we chatted with them the whole way, we ended up staying at the same guest house with them and became good friends. on our way back to banda before flying out we stayed at there house with them that they have been at for 3 weeks. At Iboh we did some unbelievable snorkaling. colors of fish i never thought were possible. It was like my own finding nemo movie right in front of my eyes. There was this flouresent green, purple, blue and orange, right from the 80's hayfa says. it was by far my fav. It was really neat you could listen and hear it chewing on the coral. On our second day we swam across the channel(300m with current) to a little Island called Rubih with Jo and Rowan to a sea garden which was on the other side. When we got to the other side is slipped and got a gnarley cut on my foot, so that sucked but i just toughed it out. the sea garden was really neat loads and loads of fish. we even saw a eel, very very ugly. We tried to get a boat ride back cause my foot was really sore and i couldn't wear my flipper but they were going to charge us way too much so i swam back across the channel with one flipper, didnt know if i would make it but luckily the current was on our side this time. Rubih was so peaceful and relaxing, hayf, myself,rowan, and jo were 4 of maybe 6 foreigners on that side of the island, it was so nice to just chat with the locals. and have the ocean pretty much to our selves. Apparently this island has some of the best snorkeling and diving in all of south east asia. Pretty happy we randomly came across it as we were just winging it when we went to the island. We spent our last night with jo and rowan and they introduced us to a bunch of locals they had met while in Aceh which was cool. Sad to leave Aceh we headed back to Malaysia for Christmas. We found ourselves on pulau pangkor a small island off the south west coast in the straight of Malaka. We have spent the past week here enjoying the sun and relaxing at our "resort" not actually just what it is called. I am loving how much i am reading i cant seem to put down my books. On the 6th harry potter already and just finished up in to the wild in between harrys. Hayfa and i enjoyed Christmas just hangin out and getting serious sugar highs from all the candy my dad, carrol and marnee sent. it was all gone in almost a day haha. We enjoyed our Christmas dinner(hand picked prawns the size of our hands fully stretched and sting ray) with a bottle of wine the price of 3 nights accommodation and a box of toffifes on the beach. It was weird having Christmas with no snow or cold but i am definetly not complaining. The only real thing that i have had to get used t to is the constant sweat mustache on my face. I think it is very becoming on everyone here. Now we are heading back to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with meg where we are celebrating New years. I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and i wish everyone the best in 2008.

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