Blogs from South-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 895

we landed in ko samui by boat and went to our hotel. then we went to the beach to chill out. (lots of topless women) odly enough.we chilled for a few days and moved to a new hotel. the same day we went to a shooting club, which was unbelievably expensive. i shot a revolver (.38 special) and a pump combat shotgun of some sort. so far all is well. oh, jesse next time you write put some detail in on "bf modern combat" and "DF:BHD" i have never gone this long without vidya games... read more

Alas, a break from all that diving. After a week of pure intensive diving, my ears ache slightly as they try to get use to the huge pressures underwater. During one of my dive trips, I befriended a German guy who has a dry sense of humour and a ready laugh. He revealed that his grandfather was a tank officer under Field Marshal Rommel in N.Africa during WW2 and he himself was an ex- infantry Unterofficer (Sergeant) in the german army. We decided that we would rent a 1.3L 4x4 Suzuki jeep and do a Tour de Koh Samui, exploring off roads and if possible, going up the mountains. We did lunch at Tescos and soon were hitting the dirt tracks around Lamai area. We whetted our appetites with paved tracks around Diparavan climbing steep slopes ... read more

Today I sit here at my laptop in beautiful Palo Alto, California. Just blocks away is Stanford University and criss-crossing in front of me are the visions of wealth and pretentiousness. In a few weeks I'll be boarding yet another airliner to hover across this vast globe to a little known area of Thailand named Khao Lak (ka-oh lack). I am returning to this tsunami-torn region not to engage in the multitude of adventures available to the average tourist, but to begin another round of rebuilding the communities lost in the wave. This time, however, I have come with a specific mission in mind: Playgrounds. After returning from my last trip in January, just weeks after the tsunami, I founded Operation Playground and have been able to raise money through private funding to build playgrounds for ... read more

To those who are faithful followers of my travel blogs, I wish to apologise for the lack of any new entries in the past 1.5 weeks, all I can say is that I had a real busy time and was really hard pressed to find the time to take written notes of what had happened. To those who are interested, this was what happened…… I had been boxing for almost 3 weeks and am glad to have seen progress in my fitness and techniques, however there is burning feeling to do something more, do expand my experience in Samui and not just limit it to boxing, no matter how much I love it. I’ve always been curious to try diving and while talking to a fellow boxer from Sweden, the way he described diving was just ... read more

Left Phi Phi on Sunday (sunday? i think so... what day is it now? is this a weekday?) ...anyway, I'm now on Ko Pha Ngan, which is about 300k's or so north east and on the other side of Thailand- above Ko Samui. It's very much the party island (just in case I didn't already get my fill on Phi Phi!! AGH!) but I've been having a bit of a chill for a couple of days. I'm staying in a small bamboo bungalow ON the beach, with a hammock and... coconuts... and... not much else. oh, it has a light. luxury! it is BRILLIANT! I may just rent it for the rest of my life, as it only costs 50B a night- which is equivalent to about $1.60 or something... I'm trying to get my old ... read more