Day 1 (Wednesday) - Par for the course, I slept most of the first half of the bus ride. Along the way we got some stunning views of the countryside. Thailand is a beautiful country with rolling prairies, sharp hills and dense forest. And what is amazing is how fast they all transition from one setting to the next and then back again. There were breathtaking views but perhaps most breathtaking was the thunderstorm that came up in the last 30 minutes of the trip. Light danced all around the windows as the bus jitterbugged with the wind as we climbed [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Tuesday) - We got to the airport 3 hours early only to find that our flight had been delayed an hour. Given the fact that Nathan, Clay (who would be meeting us at the airport) and I only had 1 night there, it wasn’t the news I was longing to hear but oh well. I checked my large bag in the airport storage, which felt nice to get rid of for a few days, and then checked in. After all 3 present had checked in, we went downstairs to get some food. The food was good but not large [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Sunday) - I was exhausted and slept most of the way to Koh Mak sitting next to Rich. I woke up just for eating and at the occasional stop along the way. 5 and a half hours later we were at Laem Ngop, our first destination. Once there we exited the bus at the place to buy tickets to the boat that would take us to the island of Koh Mak. While there we also bought return tickets for our return boat two mornings earlier. Each boat ride was to be an hour long. Though the return bus we [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Thursday) - I got into the Bangkok airport around noon. I was out the front door 30 minutes later and headed to the bus station where I had told the guys I was meeting that I would buy the tickets for a trip we were to take a couple of days later. Thailand can be somewhat hard to navigate as English is all written phonetically and there is not 1 generally accepted word. Trying to get the bus to the town we needed to go went nowhere till I was able to point it out on the map, at [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Wednesday) - I decided to take the train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur because it seemed more romantic for some reason than the cheaper, slightly faster bus trip. It turns out that I am not this generation’s Ernest Hemingway. I started off the trip buying a large bottle of water at the Singapore station. As the train was pulling off, I realized that the cap on the water was already open, meaning the vendor had reused the bottle with tap water. No big deal, just 6 hours without water for someone fighting to combat dehydration. Sometimes the fates do [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Friday) - My bag was the last one to come out of the claim, which had me slightly worried. Finally it came out then I was randomly selected to have my bag searched. They found the knife that I had in my large bag since Brazil and never even thought about. Singapore is known for its strict laws so I was shaking a little in my boots even though I researched the night before and found that knives were ok if they could fold closed, which mine did. I was quaking for nothing, as they gave me back my [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Tuesday) - The flight to Jakarta would have been pretty unmemorable as I slept most of the first half. But then someone opened the overhead compartment above me and a bottle of gin rolled out and fell, breaking on my head and covering me with the alcoholic liquid. I used to be an aisle man but now call me ‘Mr. Window’. Showing up at the airport, I had one thing in mind, “I am showing up in an Islamic country smelling of booze. Call me anything, just not Indonesian prison inmate” other than how beautiful the airport was. They [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Perth) - Vanessa was waiting for me as I exited the secure area bound for the baggage claim. It was the first time in a long time that I can remember anyone waiting for me like that. It was certainly a first for the trip and quite nice. We walked to the baggage claim and then waited for the bags as we caught up. The bags came and we hopped in her new car. We were going to a dress up (costume) party that evening, therefore we had to pick up a kimono from her mom to serve my [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Tuesday) - We got off a pretty uneventful 3 hour flight in Alice Springs. Everything was set up from there for the next four days, which felt pretty dang good. We were picked up by our hostel inside the airport. The outback is incredibly hot but doesn’t feel that hot because of how dry it is. When we got to the hostel, we immediately went into town to grab some food and supplies for the trip, including 2 x 1.5 liter bottles and some snacks for the trip. Upon arriving back at the hostel, we went to lay out [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 (Saturday) - Arrived at the station and was confused by the signs of what to do. They seemed to say the same thing but point in different directions. I asked a local for help who told me that there were city trains and there were suburb trains, so I had to go to a city train. I thought it was weird that the station didn’t say that but oh well. I found my train with a little bit much more ado and was riding into town. I arrived at the Tourak station at around 8am. The hotel that Nigel [View Full Entry]

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