Back in Thailand

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Internet was so expensive in Koh Tao that I didn't really get a chance to update. Now we are in Trang, which is on the Andaman Coast. We are on our way to do a visa run in Malaysia since we found out that the Thai government stupidly changed the rules on us. When we came back in the country from Cambodia, we only got a 15 day stamp and we were confused but quickly found out that they only give you 30 days if you arrive via the airport and 15 days if you cross at a border crossing as we had. This really messed up our plans that we had made so carefully resulting in a few changes such as making our way all the way south to Malaysia when previously we were going to cross into Burma instead. I think it will work out ok as long as we figure out how to get down there. It has been a bit of a challenge so far as this town is not much of a tourist area. There is basically one restaurant for farang (foreigners) and it is jammed full right now. We ate there earlier and the food was awful but they helped us out a bit with our travel plans and we booked a snorkelling trip with them for tomorrow morning that takes us to the Emerald Caves. Craig is desperate to go there so hopefully it is nice. It cost a lot!! We are stressing about money quite a bit, at least I am. Our unplanned (and unfortunate) detour to Vietnam cost us a lot and probably will make the last two weeks suffer a bit. I don't really have enough money left to do the things we wanted such as rock climbing in Railay but we have made a few budgeting plans that will hopefully work out. We haven't exactly been rationing our money up until now I suppose. Anyway, I haven't written since we left Sihanoukville and much has happened since then.
Craig, Corey and I took a bus to Phnom Pehn so they could go to the firing range to throw grenades. We ended up leaving, them with tears in their eyes, having only shot a measly little machine gun. Apparently they were selling the grenades off too cheaply in the past and now have a limited supply. You can only get your paws on them if you are willing to spend $350 US to fire a rocket launcher and then it is another $60 US for a grenade. This also required another 45 km journey into the hills. The boys were devastated but spent the quickest $60 of their lives firing a gun into some sandbags. They were even offered a special deal of only $15 to shoot a live chicken. How lovely! I stood beside them with ear muffs on and took videos/photos while red ants crawled off the wall I was leaning on and started biting me. A nice experience. Then we went to the killing fields which was very sad. There is a big tower filled with human skulls, over 8,000 of them. Many children and women. There are deep pits in the grass that were graves to hundreds and a tree that they used to beat babies and children to death upon. Articles of clothing and bones from the massacre were still sitting under trees and in the grass. It was awful and sad and there were many Cambodian people begging around the area. We discovered that the real gruesome stuff is at the prison which is now a museum but we didn't have enough time to get there before it closed. We went back to our guesthouse and passed out after some food while Corey stayed out all night getting into trouble with bottle rockets that he bought in Sihanoukville. The guesthouse we stayed at has an honor system where each room has it's own book and you write down what you ate or drank and pay at the end. We all shared a room as we weren't sleeping there long anyway so the next morning we had a funny note left for us since Corey's bus had left very early in the morning. We were able to see just how many beers he ended up drinking and that he had paid for the entire bill because he couldn't be bothered to figure it out. Craig and I got on our bus after some breakfast and made our way to Siam Reap, home of the famous Angkor Wat. I'm glad we got to go since it wasn't on our plans and was amazing. The day of our temple tour, we left the guest house in our Tuk Tuk at 5am to get there for the sunrise, bagged lunch in hand. It was neat being in the dark, watching car headlights arriving in huge lines. You could see the outline of the temple as the sun started to wake up. Then we went thru the first building to the main temple where the fields were full of people and horses, waiting for the sun. We sat down and ate fruit & yogurt on some steps and made our way inside the amazing temple. We saw many amazing things that day. Our driver drove us from temple to temple and we explored them and climbed steps and marvelled at the grandness of it all. It's hard to wrap your head around how they built these huge stone buildings and also sad to see them in ruins with giant trees coming out of the rocks. We saw monkeys and elephants as well but not up close as we didn't have time to stop. We even lost our driver at one point since they stop and have naps while they wait for you and there were millions of them so we had no idea which was ours. It was a long day and we were very tired at the end of it but we still had enough energy to go to the night market where we put our feet in a pool of water full of fish and they 'massaged' our feet, which was basically eating the dead skin off them. It was so weird. I freaked out a bit at first since it tickled a lot. I'm still not sure if I enjoyed it or not but it was definately worth the experience. We bought T-shirts and a I got a really nice scarf or I think it is a baclava? Then we had dinner at this really neat place with multi levels and little dumb waiter type things to run drinks up to you since the stairs are treacherous. They have crocodiles in pits under the restaurant that you can see on your way to the bathroom and ducks wandering around. Very neat place despite the fact that my food arrived with bits of ham in it, having said nothing about ham on the menu, so I had to wait for a second meal to arrive. My milk for my tea was curdled as well but hey, that's SouthEast Asia for you!! We left the next day on a bus full of farang tourists and the road was awful. Apparently they won't fix it since they want people to fly back to Bangkok but it seemed they were doing a bit of work on it when we went through as there were many detours around the bridges.
So we got back to Bangkok finally and rented a cheap room. We ate at the first place we had eaten at when we arrived in Bangkok the first time. Our friends were arriving the next day so we wandered around not doing much of anything. Craig got his hair cut in an alley about 4 feet wide which was funny but she had the best price. We booked our ticket out of Bangkok as well, then we went to find our friends. We didn't know what time they were arriving so we just sat on the corner where the buses show up for awhile. We saw an extremely drunk english man stumbling around wearing only a pair of shorts. He decided to take a pee on a cop car while leaning on a cop van, luckily the cops weren't near their vehicles at the time. Then he climbed in a cab with a girl who had just gotten in and her boyfriend who was about to get in was not happy at all and threw the guy out and he stumbled over to the curb near us and fell in a little pond. I went over to make sure he was ok and he started saying rude things to me so I left him alone to fend for himself. Craig figured our friends weren't coming by then but it was only 7pm so I said not to give up yet. We were walking along Khao San Road when we heard our names yelled and there they were drinking a bucket on the side of the street! They had awesome new tattoos from Koh Chang to show us and we had a great night on the craziest street in Asia. Amanda and I had midnight falafels that were amazing after we searched for the corn man to no avail. We randomly ran into our friend Timmy that we traveled with all thru Laos. We knew he was in Bangkok but had said his flight was that night so we figured he was gone already but we found him in the most random place. Corey almost got arrested as well for smoking in a cab which we didn't know was a law and the cab driver said it was ok. Nobody wears helmets or seatbelts and you can smoke everywhere else. Who knew you couldn't smoke in a cab? It was silly but getting serious and Amanda managed to sweet talk the cops into letting him go without even a fine which is unheard of. We made plans to meet the next day, the girls going shopping at MBK and the boys going to a temple to get monk tattoos. Amanda had two of her girlfriends she met on her travels, Sarah from Holland and another girl whos name evades me right now from England. They are both really awesome and we had a great day shopping but not buying much. It was expensive there! The people were very rude as well. Not the best experience but it was still fun. Craig and I had to leave at 6pm that evening so we didn't have much time when we got back to Khao San. I randomly decided to get my lip re-pierced (sorry mom!!) and then I rushed back to the hotel on a huge adrenaline high to find Craig. Our whole crew of people followed me to say goodbye and we had one last group shot before saying goodbye.
We were picked up and walked on foot for quite awhile. I felt like we were rats following the piper as we kept collecting more and more backpackers along the way. Finally we got on our bus and headed off into the sunset. We stopped at this awful Thai place for food that was a huge rip off. Craig bought a tube of pringles for over $5 canadian which is more than at home and they are expensive at home! I had yogurt and an unripe banana. Then I was starving still so I bought a tiny little scoop of rice for 30 baht which usually you get way more for 15 baht at any other restaurant. These people were awful and just out to rip off tourists. We got back on the bus and then at 2:30 am we got off at this tourist bus station and had to sleep in this little room on the floor until 6am when our other bus arrived. We were so dirty and tired and hungry at this point. Not happy campers. Then we arrived at the pier and got on a boat to Koh Tao. The fast boat (1.5 hrs) was full so we had to take the slower one which took closer to 4 hours. The waves were really bad that day and I was not feeling good at all. I managed to pass out at a really awkward angle for a bit and of course the orange juice in my purse decided to start spilling all over me at that point so I woke up in a puddle of cold orange juice, feeling like throwing up/and or throwing myself overboard. We ended up booking our PADI diving course with a guy on the boat as we just wanted to get there and get a room. I made my way off the boat like a drunk person, swaying and weaving all over with a green face. I bolted off the pier and everyone was laughing at me which I wasn't very impressed by at that point. We got in a truck which took us to the dive resort called Big Bubble. They were all concerned about me and gave me tea. Then we had to walk quite a ways to get to the beach front bungalows but we were able to leave our bags. I blindly followed Craig and our guide and crashed as soon as I saw the bed. Craig went back to check in and they drove him over in a long tail boat with our bags. It took me quite awhile to recover from the sea sickness so we didn't do much that night but the island is beautiful. Apparently the weather was the coldest it's almost ever been though during our stay which was strange but it wasn't that bad. It was still like summer at home most days. The cold shower was not nice though. I don't think Craig showered the entire time! We went snorkeling in a bay the next day and I panicked at first but then I got better and manged to swim around by myself. Craig was impressed when he came back and found me out in the water instead of on the beach still. There wasn't much to see. El Nino ruined the shallow reefs in '98 but there were still some fish and sea slugs. Mostly it was practice. We decided to start our dive course in a couple days so we would have time to see the island. We rented a motorbike and drove up to Sairee beach to where my friend from school, Megan, lives. She is married to a bamboo tattoo artist (who we ended up getting amazing tattoos from but you will have to wait to see those!) and has a beautiful little 14 month old daughter named Naomi Fa. I didn't know Megan that much in school but we felt like old friends quickly and we spent a lot of time together during our visit on Koh Tao. The first day of our dive course was just a video and a quiz. The next day we went in a pool with all of the dive gear on. I was extremely claustrophobic and felt like I couldn't breathe but I calmed down after awhile. Then we jumped in and took our first underwater breath. It was awful! The dry air hurt my lungs and I just didn't like the feeling. I couldn't imagine going 12 meters under the sea and doing it for 45 minutes. I gave it my best and myself and another girl ended up pulling out of the course that day. I think I might have been able to do it if it weren't so fast but they entire course takes place over basically 3 days minus the first day which was just the video. I needed more time to get used to just the breathing part not to mention the hand signals, remembering to NEVER hold your breath and all of the other things which are crucial to survival. It was just too risky for me and I didn't want to risk Craig either who would be my buddy. If I had to surface, everyone would have had to surface and I knew I would ruin the trip. Craig went though and loved it of course. His group even had a really awesome promotional video made that day which doesn't happen for every group and it was really funny to watch. They were playing air guitar and doing somersaults underwater.
It was probably a good thing that I didn't decide to stick it out because the next day while Craig was diving, I took the motorbike and went to visit with Megan and Naomi. We ended up going into town to eat lunch and then her husband, Bu, took Naomi home and I figured out how to ride with a passenger on the back and we went all around the little towns shopping and stuff. It was a nice day and when we got back to her house I decided that I should go back to get Craig since I didn't know when he would be back and I had the room key. I had woken up with a headache which was gone by then but my legs started feeling really sore like when you have the flu. I drove back to our end of town and went back to the room. Craig wasn't there but I started feeling really awful and decided to lie down for awhile. All of a sudden I was freezing cold and shivering so I got up and put on all of my clothes and got under the covers. My head was burning hot but I felt horrible so I just stayed there. Craig finally came back and he knew something was wrong when I had the fan off and my hoodie on. He gave me some advil for my headache and went to get some dinner with his dive buddies and said he would see if he could get some medicine. He came racing back, dripping with sweat, not long after and shoved a thermometer in my armpit. He was really worried because he had been scared by his friends telling him things about Malaria and other Tropical diseases that cause fevers and then he went to the clinic and they told him not to give me medicine until I was tested. My fever had broke about a half hour before he came back though and I was feeling a bit better. Craig went to call Megan as I had said I would be back that night to see them but I couldn't make it. The next day I was dizzy all day so I stayed in bed until Craig came back at about 3pm. We went to get some food and went over to Megans house again but were told that she had to rush over to a neighbouring island to get her Visa. She has to leave every two months to renew it even though she is married to a Thai man. Very strange and annoying, not to mention expensive. I didn't know if I was going to see her again because the boats were being delayed so much from the huge waves and there was a small window where her boat came in and the one taking us away left. We tried to find her at the pier when the boat came in but didn't see her and we had to get back so our ride wouldn't leave us. I was sad that I didn't get to say goodbye but I know I will go back for sure. We got to the boat and we were waiting until the other people got off when Craig started yelling 'Megan, Megan!" so I looked over and there she was! I guess her boat was really late and she was just getting there now so we quickly said goodbye and then we got on the boat because she said to get a seat quick as it fills up and then you have to sit on the floor. The seats ended up being really uncomfortable as they were bench seats around tables. We shared with a couple from Quebec that were on our truck ride to the pier. As soon as the boat left I laid my head down on the table because the waves were so big and awful. It only took about 10 or 15 minutes before I realized I didn't even have enough time to get to the bathroom, wherever it might have been nor had I a chance of making it down the stairs with the boat rocking like that. I found the airline barf bag I had been carrying around in my purse and ripped it open just in time. I put it in another plastic bag thinking it would probably leak since it was from Vietnam Airlines and jammed my head in between the seat and craigs back. I spent the next 1.5 hours being more miserable than I've ever been, silently begging for someone to knock me out or throw me overboard. It was horrible. Finally the water evened out a bit and we were there. Then we had to get on a bus which took us to a small town where we spent the night in a horrible little room with 3 beds. I sat on the middle one and it smashed into the ground after a few seconds so I moved to the next one cautiously. I still felt awful so I just went to bed while Craig had some dinner. The next morning we stumbled out of bed at 5:30 and waited for our bus. They told us we might have to wait until the afternoon and I got mad and said NO WAY were we waiting after getting up at 5:30 am. We paid for our ticket and we were leaving at 6AM. We figured that they didn't have enough people to fill the bus so they tried to make us wait until more people signed up. They ended up trying to tell us that we hadn't reconfirmed our ticket which was complete bullshit but that we would still be able to get to Trang that day. We ended up going by mini bus to another cafe and then by truck to yet another one where we were confused at being surrounded by Thai people. I quickly realized after seeing our driver give money to the guy there that we were being dumped off on the local Thai transit which meant being jammed in too small mini buses full of rude Thai people coughing all over you with their exhaust filled lungs with horrible Thai music filling the bus. Luckily the music part didn't happen but everything else did, including having the largest Thai boy I've ever seen falling asleep on my shoulder after spraying me with the can of whatever he ws drinking. We had to transfer buses yet again and this one was even smaller and we had to jam into the backseat which was very claustrophobic. I have never encountered a PAVED road as bumpy as that one but I managed to fall asleep for part of the 3 hour journey. We found a guesthouse out of the lonely planet which is pretty awful but cheap-ish and had a big nap and now here we are. We fly home on the 4th of February now which may be too late for my funds but I guess we will have to see. I don't think we can change the flight date again. I am sorry to everyone I said I would call but the skype microphones never seem to work or it's always the middle of the night for you guys when I get a chance to call. I will be home soon though! I am ready for winter.

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