"The world is a book, and those who do not travel only read one page"

That is a quote from St Augustine that I have started to think of as my own little catch phrase. In my life I’ve been lucky to travel a lot and at the moment all I want is to keep reading those other pages and seeing the rest of the world when I can.

If you followed my ‘Marianne Goes East’ blog then you know that I’ve recently been traveling around Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Australia. Those blog posts have been imported to my new site now so feel free to have a look if you haven’t already!

I loved writing about what I was up to while traveling all over the world so I’ve decided to keep up with this whole online writing gig and set up a permanent blog – Filling the Pages.

This blog won’t always be about my travels. As much as I’d like to continue traveling non-stop my bank balance won’t allow it, so I’ll be somewhat stationary for a little bit until I can afford my next big jump which is probably going to be a year in Australia.

So here it goes. Let’s hope my life and thoughts are interesting enough to keep reading about!

I’ll write about what I’m up to (at the moment that would be visiting old school friends and my parents in the USA),traveling that I do myself, and any other news about the world and traveling that I decide to put here.

Since I can’t always do my own traveling, what I would LOVE is to get your travel stories! So if you have been abroad and had some crazy experience, tell me about it! Check out the ‘Contact Me’ tab for more information.

Thanks for reading, tell your friends, and keep checking back for more!

Australia cont'd

I've had some issues with Internet connectivity lately so here goes the very delayed last entry to my traveling blog. Since I left Australia I was back in London for two weeks, doing some work for a quick bank account boost, and I'm currently in the States visiting friends and family for a few weeks.

Here it goes:

So after leaving Sydney I headed up to Byron Bay with the Wills. We got off the bus after what ended up being a pretty sleepless night for me and arrived to several backpacker staff with their vans trying to draw us to their hostels. It worked; Will, Will and I were too tired to do any deciding ourselves, so we followed a blond Canadian named Eric to his van and he took us to Aquarius hostel. 

We checked in to the nicest dorm I've ever stayed in and picked beds on the top floor of our duplex style room where we met Katie, another Canadian who had also just arrived. 

Our first day in Byron was spent watching the rain POUR down like I've never seen before. We realized that this may go on, so we found out about bus trips to a place called Nimbin - a hippie town that hasn't moved on since about 1968. We took a very psychedelic bus tour to the town listening to Pink Floyd, The Doors and other 'free love' bands to arrive in a multi-coloured tie-dye town. Walking down the main street was an exercise in turning down one offer after another for weed, brownies, more weed, cookies...you get the idea. I took a tour of the Nimbin Museum whose design concept was something along the lines of 'here's some stuff I found on the street/at the flea market/in my cellar.' There was stuff EVERYWHERE, and none of it seemed to make any sort of sense. Hippie heaven. At the end, before exiting, we met a 50-something year old woman rushing off yelling "just wait 15 minutes guys, I'll be back with the cookies soon, I just have to pick them up from my house." This wasn't just a nice lady who baked things for visitors. She made her money making tourists feel like they were on a Grateful Dead tour, or a character in Ken Kesey's acid charged life. On the way home our bus driver pointed out all the 'beautiful shades of green' in the countryside and took us through the mud back to our Byron home. Where it was still raining. 

Unfortunately the rain continued so after meeting the backpacker staff and we spent our nights exploring Byron Bay nightlife with them and spending most of our days watching the rain come down with two days of sun that we spent on the beach and walking to the lighthouse - the Easternmost point of mainland Australia. 

After a few days I decided I needed to make a move up north if I wanted to see more of the country. One problem. All that rain? Causes problems. Like flooding. In both directions. 

Nobody, myself included, could get in or (more importantly) OUT of Byron for a few days. 

I embraced my fate and paid at the reception for more nights at Aquarius. At least I could hang out here with people I liked, and I got free dinner every night, even if it was the same stuff over and over again... free is free. Plus we entertained ourselves with pub quiz nights and poker tournaments.

For all the less-than-ideal weather, I had an amazing time in Byron Bay thanks to the Wills, Katie and the Aquarius staff. After deciding that it was time for me to leave I realized that my time was now quite short, so instead of heading up north I headed back to Sydney and the twins. Since the highway was still flooded I took a flight from the small airport inland that was still accessible down to Sydney airport where Joh met me to take me back to another few days of home comforts. Mike and Lisa were still around so I spent my last few days seeing them, taking a day trip to the Blue Mountains, and going to the Sydney Aquarium where I saw a platypus! They'd been hiding when we went to the Sydney Zoo in my first week, so I was glad to check off that last Australian animal from my list after kangaroo, wallaby and koala among others. 

I also cooked a meal for Nad, Sal, Joh and Lisa that went down well, I think? 

I loved Australia, a sentiment perhaps not expressed well enough in this shortened version of my time there, but I have decided to save up as quickly as possible for a return trip on a one year work-holiday visa. 

So that's it! I took a flight from Sydney back to Bangkok where I spent a day doing some last minute shopping and sharing my stories with new travelers experiencing their first nights abroad on Koh San Road. Then it was back to the airport to travel back to London and home. 

Seven and a half months later, a term of teaching and an amazing backpacker experience through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and finally Australia and I'm back where I started. Back in the Foster home in Crouch End, London. Dreaming of my next adventure. 

I've had a great time writing this blog and plan on setting up a more permanent URL to continue life as a blogger, so watch this space for a final update and a name URL address. 

Thanks for reading, commenting, and sending me all those great letters and packages. I write for you. :)

"The world is a book and those who do not travel only read one page." - St Augustine. 

This Strange Western World....

I arrived at Bangkok airport on May 12 to find out that my parents lovely next door neighbor, Betsy, had managed to get me upgraded on my British Airways flight to Sydney! So I went from being a poor backpacker living in dirty guesthouses to walking in to the Business Class lounge with all the other richer travelers. I felt slightly out of place with my clothes that I'd been wearing for the last week of partying and my bare feet, but hey, they still let me in!

After a long flight where I watched Milk, Happy Go Lucky, The Reader and Frost/Nixon in the World Traveler Plus section of my Bangkok to Sydney plane I arrived in this strange place, where people spoke English, and signs were in English, and people weren't bowing to greet each other....I didn't know what to do. I decided to put my sandals on since I was now the only barefoot person in the place, and it was FREEZING!!! Okay, not freezing maybe, but that's how it felt after months of wallowing around in oppressive heat. 

I got through immigration, found my backpack and went through the crazy strict Australian quarantine to wait to be met by a complete stranger, a friend of my godfather's who I knew very little about. After a few minutes I was met by two identical twins, Nad and Sal who took me in a real car! It wasn't a tuk tuk, or a songthaew, or a Bangkok taxi or anything. A REAL car! Weird. 

Then they drove me back to a real house! Where I met Joh, Nad's girlfriend, and India, they're lovable Golden Labrador. It was all very....normal. I haven't had normal since I left London back in mid-October, so it was all quite a shock. I napped in a double bed with a duvet and everything! Then when I got up, I watched TV on this HUGE widescreen and was reminded of the joys of cable. 

After that, Sal took me to a mall! Like the ones I go to in the States, with a food court and everything, where I was overwhelmed by choices of food and I found myself wanting ANYTHING but Thai food! There was a Thai stand, but I was surprised to find how little I wanted to go near it. However, to ease myself in to all this normal food, I did have an Indian curry. Baby steps. 

After my re-introduction to the Western way of life, Joh took me on a quick driving tour of Sydney where the sight of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House really made me realize where I was. Australia!! We met Nad for a drink and some dinner at the Opera House bar sitting outside under a heat lamp with the lights of the Harbour Bridge behind us. Not bad. 

I spent the next few days seeing some of the sights with Will and Will, my friends from Koh Pha Ngan, my good friend Lisa from my days as a Thai English teacher who now works as a nanny here in Oz, and Mike, an Irish guy who I ran in to several times on my travels through Laos and Cambodia, now living and working in Oz himself on a one year visa. 

I had lunch with Nad and Sal in Darling Harbour, where I also watched fireworks on jet skis with Mike and some friends. I went to The Rocks market with Lisa after an AMAZING buffet lunch with her in the revolving restaurant in the Sydney Tower where I was able to look over all of the city on a perfectly clear day. Oh yea, and I ate barbequed kangaroo. Never thought I'd say THAT sentence. I saw Manly Beach and the surrounding area with Nad and Joh, and went to the Taronga Zoo with the Wills. 

I also experienced nightlife being back in a city. My first night out was with the Wills. I hadn't quite adjusted to wearing shoes at that point, and I in fact didn't really own any except some unimpressive sandals. My friend Bella had given me her sandals that were slightly nicer, so I wore those but since they were the closest thing to shoes I'd worn in quite some time they immediately started to hurt. I carried them around, putting them on to get in the door of bars and then promptly taking them off again. I got some looks for walking around Sydney barefoot, but not much I was going to do about it. I bought a pair of nice warm suede boots the next day, don't worry. 

After about a week of this city life, I joined the Wills on an overnight bus up north to Byron Bay. I planned to go there for a few days then head up to try to see Frasier Island, the Whitsundays and whatever else I had time for. My plans changed slightly once we got there thanks to Mother Nature, but that's a story for my next entry!

Koh Pha Ngan - A Bermuda triangle of Fridays and Saturdays

I have survived another ten nights on Koh Pha Ngan. Somehow.

Claudia and I took a bus and an evening ferry over to the island where we met two other English girls, Claire and Laura, on their way to Koh Tao via Koh Pha Ngan for one night.

Since the full moon was on the same night as last month, Claudia and I assumed that the half moon party - basically the same as full moon except in the jungle.. would also be the same day, giving us one night to rest before starting the party. However once we got to the island we quickly found out that in fact the half moon party was that night, so there would be no rest for us. Skipping the half moon party was not an option since we had yet to make it to one.

So we booked into the same place we stayed last month - Rin Beach Resort and got a cheaper deal since we're getting further into low season now which was a nice surprise. After some dinner at the Lucky Crab where Claudia and I shared our favourite green curry we headed back to our balconies via the liquor store where we bought ingredients for our own buckets.

The only way to drink alcohol on Koh Pha Ngan is in bucket form. It's a rare sight to see a glass of gin & tonic, because why get a glass when you can get a whole bucket for about 4 pounds?! A bucket consists of one of those half size bottles of the alcohol of your choice (ours was vodka) and then whatever mixers you like (our choice was M-150 or Red Bull and a bottle of Sprite). If you're drinking these buckets on your own and you have a normal capacity for alcohol you can very easily get through two or three of these, or four or five if you're a man perhaps. If you're sharing, you can start to lose count, or if you're Claudia and you have an amazing capacity for vodka and M-150 you can go through six all by yourself. Claudia's a real trooper.

After sharing a bucket between the three of us we hopped on the back of some taxi motorbikes and headed off to the jungle where we came across a party almost exclusively lit by UV lights going strong. I'm not sure how long we lasted, but long enough anyway before we realized it was time for us to get home. On the way out I ran into Chris - the bartender of Outback bar who I met last month when I was here and whose job I considered taking at one point. The drive to and from half moon is pretty hair raising - Koh Pha Ngan hills are not something to be taken lightly, so I sat in the taxi and held on to Chris while he held on to the back bars, and Claudia found room on the roof since the inside was full. I have no idea how she survived, but I'm so glad she did.

After that night you'd think we'd have a night or two off, but the thing about Koh Pha Ngan is that it possesses this weird kind of energy that somehow makes going out every single night surprisingly easy. We often described it to people as this Bermuda Triangle, or Twilight Zone, where every night was a Friday night, and everyday was a Saturday spent recovering from the night before and getting ready for that nights festivities.

We spent most of our days in Lazyhouse watching films, or occasionally in Utopia watching Friends which they play all day long. Lazyhouse and Utopia are owned by the same guy who has great taste in good British food, so despite how expensive it was I had some delicious home comforts including a Sunday roast the day after full moon. It even had a Yorkshire pudding. Amazing.

Then each evening we headed down to Cactus Bar where Woody the Scot worked. We met Woody last month as well and since we quickly became his regulars again we got a nice discount on our vodka & Red Bull buckets. What a nice guy.

One day just to mix it up, Claudia and I rented a motorbike and drove to the other side of the island, up the coast and cutting across the middle over a mountain to visit Sara and Caroline. Sara is Claudia's friend from school and both of them joined us down at Rin Beach for the last few days around full moon. The ride was pretty terrifying but I'm pretty proud of myself for making it and for not completely having a break down since the paved hills average a 20% incline and the unpaved roads have huge ravines in them caused by the water running down. But we made it there and back, then headed straight to Woody's for a drink.

The good thing about being friends with the bartender (other than the cheap drinks) was that we could sit at the bar facing the beach for hours without being bothered and we got to watch all the Cactus fireboys do their thing each night. The Cactus fireboys are all young Thai guys who make a living by playing with fire, and doing it very well. After they started recognizing us they tried to get us involved and I once had to hold a stick of fire while another guy blew alcohol/kerosene at it to create an enormous fireball. I gave it back after one blow because I value my eyebrows and my unscarred skin.

A few days before full moon we were also joined by Will and Will, two English boys that Claudia had met in Chang Mai while I was in Koh Phi Phi with Emily. They were two guys traveling on their gap year before uni and were a great addition to the group. We also reunited with Bella and Lucy who we last saw on Koh Lanta, along with Lucy's sister and friend who were over on holiday.

By the time full moon finally rolled around we had a pretty big group, with a few additional characters that we met on the island along with a few more faces from the past, mostly from Koh Phi Phi.

The actual night was a great time as expected. My favourite part might have been when me and some of the girls climbed up to Drop In bar's balcony and entertained outselves by throwing ice cubes at unsuspecting people below. I know, I know, immature, but don't pretend that you're not laughing too.

The next day we had our Sunday roast at Lazyhouse and I went around to Woody, Chris. Ay (the bartender at Reggae bar who I talked to about being a teacher) and the Thai guy who ran the art gallery (I still feel bad for forgetting his name since he remembered my name after I'd been gone for a month...terrible) to say my goodbyes.

It was pretty difficult to leave this time, and I actually made one of the Wills walk back down to the beach with me to see it one more time because I couldn't get to bed at about 1am. This was my last big party in Thailand and I don't know when I'll be back.

I've been in SE Asia for almost exactly seven months now, six of which have been in Thailand and while I don't want to stay here forever, it still feels strange to leave and go back to a world I feel like I haven't lived in for so long.

But the big unexpected surprise is that about four hours after I've written this blog I'll be getting on a plane to....Sydney!!!

I'm a pretty lucky girl and I have some amazing people for godparents who have made it possible for me to go to Oz for about three weeks! It's not a huge amount of time and I won't get to see everything, but it'll be an amazing chance to see a new country and a place I've always wanted to go. I'll be arriving in Sydney on Wednesday morning and have no plans from there except to hopefully meet up with Will and Will again, plus Lisa, who you may remember from my teaching days. Lisa now works as an au pair in Sydney and is going to be a tourist with me this coming weekend. Thanks to all the people I've met traveling and to the connections I have through friends and family, I actually know quite a few people in Oz and I can't wait to see some of them while seeing as much of the country as I can.

So there it is! My final post about Thailand. For now. :)

Next time I write here I'll be in the Southern hemisphere for the first time, and will have landed on my fifth continent!

Th Thai mafia, illegal work and visa runs...

So I successfully completed three nights of being a promotions girl for Reggae bar. While it was nice to get the small income (can't complain when you're getting free alcohol all night plus 300Baht and you're only paying 200Baht for your bed...) I really enjoyed the chance to get to meet so many different people. Holding a pack of flyers in your hand is a great excuse to talk to complete strangers. The Tiger Bar and Reggae Bar promoters were a great group of people, almost exclusively Brits interestingly enough, and we definitely knew how to have fun. I got to watch the sunrise after my first night of work and then sit on the curbside commiserating with other over tired staff the next day. Then I got to see what influence the Thai mafia/police (same thing...) have around here on my second night, then on my last night I was reminded that my job was actually illegal. Technically.

On most/all of the Thai islands, the place is controlled by the Thai mafia. The only reason bars, especially on the beach, party until the sun comes up is because they pay off the police enough to keep them from shutting down the music. Unfortunately, sometimes things don't go to plan. Someone doesn't get their money, or someone elses causes a problem and people get angry. A few days before my first day of work a stabbing occurred at one of the beach bars. The story differs, some people say the guy survived, some insist he's dead, some say it was a fight between two white guys, others say a Thai bar staff member was involved. Either way, the police were not happy about it. After a few days of uncooperation, the police decided they were going to starve out the information that they apparently think is being kept by some barstaff. So on my second night, all the bars on the island got the call that they had to shut down at 1am or there woul be trouble. Most Thai people don't like trouble, in fact they really go out of their way to avoid it, so by 1am the island went dark despite the many many angry football fans who were waiting to watch the semi final game at 1:30am. It was a nil-nil game anyway; at least they didn't have to miss any epic history making match. After walking to the beach just to briefly observe the shocked tourists standing around still trying to order alcohol, I headed home for a proper nights sleep.

Our third night out, the same call went out - 1am shut down. We started work at 7pm - an hour earlier than usual, however Claudia and I showed up at 7:20, unaware of the time change, grabbed our flyers then ran off to sit down for dinner... Very good work ethic, I know. After a yummy green curry we set out to actually start promoting, only to be quickly shut down. A strange looking Thai man had come around taking photos of the white promotion staff, then shortly after that our manager came around taking away our flyers and saying "Immigration police, go go go, come back in one hour." So we walked off around the corner, found the Tiger Bar staff and joined them at their bar to wait it out and share travel stories.
After our hour waiting period I wandered back to find the immigration police had decided that Reggae Bar wasn't such a bad place and they would in fact be spending the whole night there. Hmm.. I walked up to the bar, was very generously still given my full wages, then told to hang around outside the bar and discreetly 'promote' Reggae Bar without the flyers for awhile. That didnt have to last very long since a curfew was already set. This time it seems the cops relented and allowed one of the beach bars to keep their big screens running without sound so as not to upset the football hooligans two nights in a row. After watching what seemed like the longest game ever with some fellow staff at the beach, I made it home in time to sleep for about three hours before an early wake up and a boat ride to the mainland.

Claudia and I made the ferry, then got into a minivan to drive down to Hat Yai where we hired a private taxi to drive us down aross the Malaysian border and back again. Got to love those visa runs. So now we have one night in Hat Yai before heading to Koh Pha Ngan once again for full moon number three. Hey why not, right?

Then, my very big news is that I may be headed Down Under after all! Will keep you updated...

Living in Paradise

The group split up again temporarily and Emily and I headed down to Koh Phi Phi while Claudia stayed behind to meet up one more time with our old travel buddy Calvin before he headed back to Canada and the real world again.





We spent four lovely nights on one of the nicest islands I've seen. Our guesthouse was situated on a beautiful beach in a protected bay with white sand and blue waters. Not bad.


The tides in the bay are amazing; I suppose because the level of the sand is so even the tides appear absolutely enormous. Around midday there is often only a few feet of beach, but by the middle of the night you can walk out almost 100 feet before you hit any water at all.





We spent most of the time being beach bums during the day and checking out the bars at night. We managed to run into Bella, a friend of Emily and Claudia's from home and her friend Lucy who were traveling around the world and celebrating Bella's 23rd birthday on the island which was a great reason to celebrate!


On our last day there the four of us went on a boat trip to explore the other beaches and the second island of Koh Phi Phi which has, among it's features, the beach used in the movie "The Beach." We headed out and although the tide was pretty strong, Lucy and I were determined to go check out the famous beach. It was a pretty tiring swim from the boat and then a rather dangerous climb up and over some rocks on a very wobbly bamboo ladder, but we made it nonetheless. It would probably have been the most beautiful beach I'd ever seen if it weren't for the hundred other people there thinking the same thing. The sand was soft and pure white and the water amazingly clear.


After that and some more snorkeling stops we hit Monkey Bay, a secluded beach inhabited by..monkeys! How did you know?? The four of us were the first ones to get on our kayaks and land on the beach. As we started to walk towards these monkeys I picked up a little plastic toy mobile phone thinking 'oh cute, the monkey's have toys.' Then these 'cute' monkeys starting approaching us...at a full on sprint...and growling... I RAN back into the water which turned out to be a good choice since they can't swim and therefore couldn't get near us. Unfortunately Emily ran the other way and so after I chucked the plastic phone at them to get them away from Bella and myself they turned on poor Emily and one of them managed to sink it's teeth into her knee before she could hit them away and run to safety. A little traumatic. She is now safe and sound back in England and halfway through a course of Rabies injections. Thanks Thailand. I skipped over this in my last post, but while we were in Pai, Emily also got her hand almost eaten off by a baby elephant. Thai animals and Emily Foot - maybe not such a good idea apparently.



After that we reunited with Claudia who had one night out with me in Phi Phi before we headed to Koh Lanta for some serious peace and quiet. Lanta is a beautiful island but thanks to low season it is really really quiet. Almost eerily so. I enjoyed my time with the girls but this place wasn't for me. After three nights Claudia and I are now back in Koh Phi Phi! Our bank accounts are feeling very pressured, so to give them a little rest we have become one of those annoying people who stop you in the street with a flyer and try to get you to come to their bar. Yup. I'm a bar flyer girl. Hey it pays and covers my accomodation and most of my food/extra costs each day while we do it, so it doesn't hurt. Last night was our first night and I actually enjoyed meeting all the other travellers like us who needed a bit of extra cash and an excuse to stay on this island just a bit longer.



After this our trip may be coming to an end sooner than I would like. Money being the main driving factor of course. I was thinking about the idea of going home today, and while it seems strange, I think I am getting close to achieving what I wanted out of this experience. There's still a small hope that Claudia and I will make it to Vietnam, but barring that happening, it looks like a couple of weeks to make some last memories on the islands before a flight back to London town. Hopefully I will then be making it Stateside to see mum and dad and my other American loves for a few weeks before getting back to London to try and ride out this recession!



Meanwhile, back to the beach for a few hours before it's time to hand out those flyers!

It was always you Thailand..

So after my tour of Laos and Cambodia I headed back into the familiar Land of Smiles. It was nice to be in a country where I didn't have to learn the language or customs as they were already old familiars to me.

The group split up a little due to various forms of travel. Matt and I took a very long bus from Sihanoukville to Bangkok. Actually I think it ended up being three buses? Four? Five? I lost count. But eventually we got to Khao San Road where we met up with Claudia and Calvin who had flown in from Phnom Penh.
There we also found Emily, Claudia's friend from home who came to join us for a few weeks and we had one night in the big city before we said a tearful goodbye to the boys and the girls headed to Koh Pha Ngan for a week to join the infamous Full Moon Party. This is the same party I went to for my New Years Eve, so my time on Koh Pha Ngan was "same same, but different" (don't ask, it's a Thai phrase, I don't know why they say it, but there you have it).

Our group became pretty huge after we met up with my friends from London, George, Sophie and Claudia, on top of meeting up with a couple - Graeme and Donna who we had briefly seen in Luang Prabang, and the five people they had also befriended on the island. On top of this Juliet had two friends from home meeting her, one of them brought a boyfriend and another friend in tow, AND Juliet's friend from Chang Rai plus a friend joined us too so it was quite the crowd.

We spent a week in Koh Pha Ngan and it was pretty interesting watching the island go from relatively quiet to completely overrun by the time the full moon hit. Unlike New Years, this time we all managed to stay on the beach until the sun had risen which was quite a sight to see, although not all of us remember it...

I enjoyed beign on the island for longer and getting to know some people. I befriended a group of Thai guys who work at an art gallery there and who welcomed me into their studio to hang out, listen to guitar and have a few drinks each night when I was walking home from whatever bar we had been in. Koh Pha Ngan is a strange island and I'm not sure I could stay there for too long, but I'm happy I got to know it a bit better this time.

The next day was reserved for being as lazy as possible before Emily, Claudia and I said goodbye and made our way up to Chang Mai for Songkran from April 13th - 15th. Songkran is the Thai New Year celebration; it's also celebrated in Cambodia and Laos I believe. It was essentially a three day long water fight on the streets. We reunited with Calvin who had been doing some volunteering work in the hilltribes outside of Chang Rai, and every day we went down to the streets armed with our super soakers ready for action. We parked ourselves near a backpacker corner of the city where the bars blasted music and people slowly drove down the streets in pick up trucks with enormous barrels of ICE water on the backs to soak unsuspecting pedestrians. The most fun was probably watching the Thai ladyboys strutting down the streets in their heels, hands in the air, getting drenched and loving it.

After three days of this we were exhausted. Emily, Claudia and I went to Pai, a village I visited in December (click here for the post) . My one day there was spent on rented motorbikes exploring around the various natural hotsprings and waterfalls. The village was significantly quieter than it had been in December, most likely because it was not a holiday weekend and it is summer now and Pai is a big tourist spot for Southern Thais to come in the winter so that they can feel the cold...I know, it's strange, we don't get it, but feeling cold is a novelty here. But it still had the feeling of a sleepy hippie town. After that I unfortunately had to leave to go to Myanmar...

The fun thing about visas is that they expire... A very long bus ride and a quick walk across the boarder and back again and I had a brand new visa, plus a new fun stamp on my passport, so everyone wins, especially the Burmese who are 500 Baht richer for every person like me. Rip off if you ask me....

After meeting the girls back in Chang Mai we headed down south for some more beachy goodness!

Tori Rubino

My senior year at BU was split between two continents. After finishing my junior year (third year) I went back to London where I worked and then stayed to study for one term.
When I returned for my last term before graduation I was lucky enough to find a room in Boston University's Student Village building with three girls still in their junior years. Leeor, Julie and Tori.

Leeor and Julie lived down one end of our hallway and Tori and I lived on the other. Our rooms were all the size of closets, and small closets at that, but Tori always managed to keep hers immaculately clean. I like to think I'm a tidy person, but Tori's room got a professional service every day; nothing was ever out of place.
Her dedication didn't end with her room. She was probably one of the most responsible students I knew, managing to actually NOT go out when she had to read or study instead... what a concept!? She was dedicated to her friends and never had a bad word to say about anyone. She was a peaceful, fun and happy girl who never gave me a reason to frown.

We shared an obsession with the show Lost, especially when ABC decided to put every single season up online for free; we would often sit in our rooms less than five feet apart with a thin wall between us for hours watching episode after episode and running into each other's rooms to talk about what had happened.

She studied in London when I was there working before heading to Asia, but we never managed to connect in my home city because of our difficult schedules.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in an Internet cafe not unlike the one I'm in now, in Vientiane, Laos surrounded by six of my friends and a few dozen strangers when I received an e-mail from Julie telling me that Tori had mysteriously passed away in her sleep on March 8, 2009 at 21 years old. I didn't know what to do or think then, and it's hard to know even now. I wanted to write something to let people know what a great girl she was, but finding the words that don't sound like every boring cliche you've ever heard is difficult.

Perhaps the strangest thing about it all now is occasionally surfing through Facebook and finding her profile still up and running. Her wall has turned into a place for friends to grieve and talk about the things they remember about their time with Tori. It's given everyone a chance to show their respect and share their stories instead of limiting it to those who were able to speak at the services. Anytime I think of Tori I can go to her profile to see her photos, see what friends have written lately, and maybe one day write something myself.

I know it was a little while ago now and the memorial services have already passed but since I couldn't be there, here's my contribution to the things that have been said about Tori Rubino since she left us. I miss her and the part she played in my last months of university. She didn't deserve to miss out on that herself.

Travelling family

I've talked a lot about where I've been going over the last few weeks but not that much about the people I've been sharing the experience with.

This is where I get all emotional about how great friends are...stop if you've heard this before, bottom line is - the friends I've had with me here are the bomb.

The places I've seen have been amazing but this experience would not have been nearly as fun if it weren't for the people I've been with.

Juliet - one of the first people I met when I arrived in Thailand so many months ago now who will always keep me entertained with her drama from getting her passport lost by the Laos immigration office to swimming half drunk down the Mekong river with a broken hand... :)

Calvin - The youngest of our 'family' yet still the 'dad' somehow, whose feet haven't touched a pair of shoes in months. (By the way Calvin you're rubbing off on me, I've been barefoot since arriving in Koh Phangan)

Matt - I don't think he knows why he stuck with us for six weeks, but we're so happy he did, even if he did get a bit grumpy sometimes. ;)

Claudia - In Claudia I've managed to find someone with almsot the exact same ideas as me about what traveling should be like. Thanks to her I've got someone to go see Vietnam with and to hopefully get a job with!

Zoe - She wasn't with us for nearly as long as I would have liked but my time in Van Vieng wouldn't have been the same without her, as well as the rest of Laos of course!

Chris - I think he was healthy for about two days of the five weeks I knew him... Moral of the story, M-150 is dangerous stuff....

Patrick - The 'talented bastard' whose guitar skills have kept me entertained many a night..

Sophie, Claudia and George - My lovely London friends who I have joined in the islands for a week or so who remind me of what I miss from home.

These are the people who are in all my photos that I will one day manage to post, and they are the people who have made this the best trip of my life. Can you taste the cheese yet?! Whatever, deal with it.

Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, briefly

Spent a few days in the capital, Phnom Penh. Mixed feelings about the city, it was really overwhelming, definitely the biggest city I've been in for awhile, Laos cities aren't so hectic.

We got used to it though and went to see the S 21 Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. Trying to explain how intense that experience was in words is very difficult. S 21 was a high school turned into a prison/torture camp by the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields is where the prisoners were killed and buried in mass graves.
Walking through the hallways and classrooms in S 21 is a strange experience. There are hundreds of photographs of past prisoners, including some photos of the dead bodies that were still found in the prison when it was liberated, photos of dead bodies placed in the rooms that they were found in. The floor still has what looks like drops of old blood everywhere, then makeshift cell walls constructed of brick and wood are still intact in one building where prisoners were kept separately instead of in large groups.

At the Killing Fields, the first thing you see is a huge tower built to preserve thousands of skulls that are stacked up as high as the eye can see. After that, walking around the mass graves that are now large holes in the ground would have been hard enough without the scraps of clothes and piles of bones that are still sticking half up from the ground.

Luckily after a day like that we had a nice guesthouse lounge that we went to every night at #11 Happy Guesthouse to meet new people and have a few drinks although it all seemed a little surreal after seeing what we saw. It was hard to look the bar tender in the face knowing what his family probably went through. With such a young history, there isn't a face on the street that isn't marked by what happened. While people in the west were celebrating peace, love and happiness and focusing on stopping the Vietnam war, it seems that almost nobody was really aware that right next door to Vietnam this huge genocide was going on. America's war wasn't even confined to Vietnam, US bombs were dropped in Cambodia too which gave the Khmer Rouge fuel to drive the paranoia and force everyone out of the cities into the country to essentially work as slaves. It's intense stuff that deserves a lot more publicity than it gets, so look it up and read about it if you have time.

After that we moved to Sihanoukville where I am now. It's a sleeping beach town and will be a nice place to relax. Then back into Thailand to see some of my favourite Londoners and party on the islands before we all head up to Chang Mai for Songkran!

And happy birthday to my dad who celebrated another year of life yesterday. It is really hard to keep track of dates out here, but at least I got that one right. :)

Siem Reap, Angkor What?!

Siem Reap was fun, Angkor Wat is of course amazing. It was exhausting though! Three days ago we went in the afternoon; we hired a tour guide who was great. He spoke very good English and was a history teacher before which meant he really knew his stuff. It was a lot of information to take in, but it was nice having someone tell you the significance of all the different temples instead of wondering around by ourselves aimlessly without having an idea of what these building really were/why they were built etc. We watched the sunset sitting on top of one of the temples which was pretty cool although unfortunately the sky was pretty cloudy so the sunset wasn't as dramatic as it could have been. Then next day we got up and went back again but this time we got there for sunrise, which again wasn't as good as it could have been because the sky wasn't clear, but it was still quite a cool experience to walk through some ancient temples when it was still pitch black outside and see them light up in the morning. We went around the main temples that we hadn't seen the day before plus a few smaller ones on our second day. One of the temples was used in the filming of Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie so that was the most touristy overdone of the temples although next to Angkor Wat (the big 'main' building) it was by far my favourite. These enormous trees have grown throughout the temple and taken over so it is a really cool site to see - these ancient sandstone walls then broken down by the huge dramatic trees with enormous root systems. A few hours after sunrise we had started to see lightening in the sky and eventually it did start to POUR with rain. We decided to press on though and our tour guide had an umbrella so he didn't mind. We got completely soaked but it was actually great fun because the rain cleared out a lot of the other tourists of course, and for some reason seeing these temples in the jungle with this big rainstorm going on gave it a really dramatic atmosphere that was pretty cool to see.
There was a large Japanese tour group at the Tomb Raider temple (or Tha Prom if you want to call it by it's actual name) at the same time as us with their umbrellas and everything. The open area by the entrance had turned into a shallow mud pool except for just along the sides so they were all waiting to go along single file to get in. After about 30 seconds of that we decided we were all soaked and dirty already so we just took of our sandals and walked straight through the mud to get in which worked out well because we were able to take some photos before all the Japanese filed in!
By noon we were already exhausted. We lasted for another hour or so before calling it a day and going back for some much needed sleep.

On our third day we took a tour of the floating villages which was pretty interesting. We hired a boat with a guide and we slowly made our way down the river to the Tonle Sap lake which is the biggest lake in Southeast Asia and is one of the major sources of income for Cambodia as well as a major source for their diet. The lake is full of a huge variety of fish that make up most of their diet around here. Unfortunately we're here during dry season we the river and the lake were both at their lowest levels, although the lake was still so big that I couldn't see the other side over the horizon. The villagers move their 'houses' every year, living on the lake during the dry season, and living further down the river during wet season because the lake water gets to rough with all the rain and storms.
It was very strange seeing things like a floating Catholic church (one day I'll manage to get all these photos up, but for now just picture a Cathedral on water...not because that's what it looked like, but because that's a funny image :) ) and a floating school. The first school building we passed had the enclosed playground on the roof, the second school had a second floating platform that was an enclosed basketball court/playground. Kids just ran around the boats and the younger ones splashed around in the river.
We also saw floating ducks (ok, ducks float everywhere, but they were farm animal ducks being kept in a floating cage), floating pigs and floating chickens.
We visited a floating restaurant for lunch that also had a crocodile farm, a fish farm and a snake cage. We also went and visited one of the floating schools although I have my doubts about how much of a school it really was. It was a Saturday after all, and the building seem to lack any obvious education material. We started to get the notion that these children just sat in this building all day for the tourists waiting to be given candy, money and things like notebooks that they can sell back for money all of which they got while we were there. It was an interesting thing to see though overall.

Tomorrow is Phnom Penh. Not sure exactly what the plan is although I think the main thing to see is the S-21 Museum and the killing fields which I'm sure will cheer me right up....

It is pretty strange being in a country with such a recent gruesome history. I was in a pharmacy yesterday being served by a woman who looked to be at least in her 60s or so which I noticed because there are very few old people here - probably a compounded effect of the Khmer Rouge history plus the simple fact that life expectancy is shorter here, but trying to imagine the things she had gone through was pretty hard. You can still feel the history around you; more than once I've walked past people, often beggars, with limbs missing; a few times we've seen street bands made up of land mine victims who are playing traditional Cambodian music to try to make money instead of just begging. Every night when we walk home from going out to dinner or a bar we're accosted by a dozen children who literally cling on to our clothes or arms trying to get us to buy them food.

Despite all that I've actually been really impressed with the Cambodian people in general. They speak great English - better than in Thailand and Laos, and they have a great sense of humour. All of our hostel staff, restaurant/bar servers, guides, etc have been so friendly and they really know how to have a good laugh.

From Van Vieng to the Four Thousand Islands

So after three total days of swimming from bar to bar in Van Vieng we decided it was time for a detox.
After a quick overnight stay in Ventiene, the capital, with a brief visit to a couple of beautiful temples, we headed on a very long journey down through Laos to the Four Thousand Islands.

After a sleeper bus whose beds were obviously not made to hold our overly tall Western frames a minibus the next morning and a boat ride, we found ourselves on Don Det island.

The Four Thousand Islands is right down in southern Laos just before the Cambodian border. I'm still unclear as to how many days I stayed there because time didn't seem to move. While the islands are getting a little more popular, we managed to hit them at a pretty good time. There are a few guesthouses, mostly bungalow style which means a wooden hut by the water with just enough room for a double bed and nothing else. No, not even toilets, those are in another building.
We spent however many days hanging out in hammocks a LOT and occasionally jumping into the river for a quick swim.
If you are ever on Don Det, find the bakery if it doesn't find you first. Darren, an Australian who has moved to the island runs a delicious bakery/resturant. On our first day there he rode to our guesthouse on his bike with his leftover pastries for the day. You HAVE to try a coconut slice or a caramel slice if you're there and he's making them. After he realized we were his goldmine we went there almost every day at noon when the fresh stuff came out of the oven, and then without fail he showed up on his bike after closing with leftovers.

There are no banks, ATMs, or anything on the islands which caused some entertainment. Two of our group made it to the mainland before finding out that it was a Sunday and therefore the one Western Union was closed. Then made it back the next day with some cash which was lucky because then we all started to run out...stupid Darren...

We finally decided to leave and bought a ticket to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We got a boat to the mainland, then a bus to the border. We got dropped off and went through the departure process (which costs $1) then Claudia and I (we were ahead of everyone else) realised that our bus wasn't there anymore....
The bus had driven across to the Cambodian side, dropped our bags on the side of the road and left. So Claudia (who was barefoot after losing her flip flops, well done...) and I walked the 200 metres of No Man's Land in between the boarders to our bags. I should mention that this was an unofficial border, so the border offices were literally just wooden huts on the side of the dirt road with a wooden police station in between to apply for the Cambodian visa. We were in the middle of NOWHERE. We get our visas, ($21) then enter Cambodia (another $1).
I managed to get through this whole process with exactly $0. Remember the whole problem with no cash machines on the island.... Anyway I'm lucky enough to have friends who do bring dollars with them and my tip for you is to do so as well!!

After a long hot bus journey we arrived in a small Cambodian town where we stayed the night and celebrated St Patrick's Day by drinking a bottle of Baileys after I had some wine!! My first wine and Baileys since leaving England, so it was a big deal. Then on to Siem Reap this morning.
Some tuk tuk driver tried to take advantage of us, but after getting out at a gas station and walking away we found another tuk tuk who took us to our hostel and here we are!

Cambodia, here we go.

Chang Khong, Huay Xai, Luang Prabang, Van Vieng in a nutshell

This is an e-mail I just sent to my friend Lisa covering my travel so far. Since I'm paying for internet and I'm lazy, I have copied it here. So read below to get the short version of what I've been up to! It has been edited a little, I tried to add more detail where I felt like it, but like I said, I'm lazy.



Hey dude,

Juliet said she just replied to you in the briefest form possible and would like me to explain that typing is a massive pain for her right now because she has a broken hand!

Let's rewind shall we? First we get across the Thai/Laos border, after meeting some awesome people in Chang Khong who we're still traveling with now. On the Laos side, we give our passports in to get stamped by a bunch of people and they give it back. Except Juliet never gets her back.

Long story short, they accidentally gave it to someone else, but Juliet and I are both blessed with dual citizenship so she used her US passport to get across, we get on the slow boat with the friends we'd met the night before plus a ton of other people obviously, then we started a small protest to force the slow boat guys to give us a second boat because there were FAR too many of us to fit on one boat. This ended up really well because we got the second boat and it was way better than the first boat. Comfy seats, plus an area in the back where we just laid down a mat, sat on the floor and did our thing. A Laos border guy calls Juliet, and at the first stop we make they deliver her passport. No idea what happened, but who cares, she is now a dual citizen again!

Two days on the slow boat - big party, it was awesome. We had a great group of people, we just drank a lot and played cards and hung out for two days. Not bad and totally worth it, whatever you do, do not take the speed boat or the bus. The speed boats look like suicide missions and apparently the buses are pretty horrific.

Our group currently consists of myself and Juliet, Calvin from Canada, Matt, Zoe, Claudia, Patrick and Andy from England (the Brits kind of dominate the group), and Chris from Australia.

Luang Prabang was cool, the one thing we really did there except just explore around was to go to this amazing waterfall. The night market is also amazing, I highly recommend it for some shopping although I did none because I cannot fit one more thing into my backack right now.

Most of us took a tuk tuk to the waterfall, but Juliet, this guy Patrick, and this couple Heather and Jason decided they wanted to rent motorbikes. I should say that about a week and a half before that, Juliet had her cards read and was told that while traveling to NEVER ride a motorbike. So a week later that's exactly what she did. The four of them arrive at the waterfall a little while after the tuk tuk group, Patrick's arm is covered in blood, and Juliet can't move her hand. The next morning when her hand is still incredibly swollen, she goes to the pharmacy to get pain killers and comes back a couple of hours later after being sent to the hospital to find out she has snapped a bone in her hand in half. So now she has a large club for a left hand. Luckily it hasn't stopped her from swimming down the river with the rest of us in Van Vieng, going from bar to bar and enjoying herself. The only thing she can't do are the HUGE rope swings that are at each bar which is a shame. Another tip - if you go 'tubing' in Van Vieng, don't bother getting a tube. They're expensive, it's very easy to swim from bar to bar, and it means you don't have to keep track of a massive rubber tube that people are constantly trying to steal.

So that's it so far! Another day of tubing ahead of us I think. We're currently a band of about nine travellers all doing this thing together and so far it looks like a lot of us will be together for a large amount of this trip, which should be a blast. Sorry there are no photos but I can't afford toi spend more time in on the internet than already have today! There are LOTS of photos and videos to upload though so I'll try to get to that sometime soon.

For now, bye bye!

Thai Royalty

So one of the princesses is coming to our school this Friday. Which means there have been no classes all week because they use their students as manual labour instead of hiring people for that. So we have new Zen gardens, white and purple sashes EVERYWHERE (I hope she likes purple...) ALL the building have been repainted including the water tower - all by students. Princess Margaret came to visit my school once when I was younger and I don't remember being allowed to miss a week of classes to clean up! Although I probably would not have volunteered to climb into the roof with a paint brush attached to a 20 foot pole to paint the wall....

Friday is also our last day of "school" obviously there will not actually BE school, details, details. I was given strict advice on what to wear. No jewelry allowed including rings in case it's a weapon. 

A lot of things are happening on Friday. Thai royalty, the end of my school days in Thaiand, and, as it happens, my good friend Amanda heads off to the Peace Corps in Africa to help save the world like I know she can. Not a bad day overall. 

Tha Wang Pha Part Two and a quick catch up

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the lack of postings lately, but hopefully this one will make up for that. 

My time in Tha Wang Pha is winding down now. I should be leaving this coming weekend to start a new adventure! On that note: THANK YOU for all the packages and cards I've received, they have meant so much to me. Since I'll be leaving in less than a week, please hold off on sending anymore since (unless you send them super Express) I won't receive them. 

On to the quick catch up:

A couple of weeks ago, a student, May, took me out for the evening. We went to the market first and she bought and showed me a bunch of fruit that I had never seen before (the season here is just changing, so all this new exotic stuff is showing up), then she took me out with some of her school friends and we went to the Nan River where we picked algae off the river bed to cook and eat. On our way back through the farm fields, we picked green chili peppers off the plants. May took me back to her house where her aunt taught me how to make naam prik (chili paste) which they eat all the time here with sticky rice (I think it's a northern Thailand thing). It was great fun, and I got to eat dinner on the floor of her home with May, her sister and brother, mother and father, aunt and grandmother. It was the first time I've really felt accepted and welcomed by a Thai family. Everyone here has been very friendly of course, but this family taught me about different food, how to pick the fresh stuff from the fields, how to cook it, and eat it. It was one of my favourite nights here. I've added some photos from that night to this album, so check it out.

Another recent weekend involved a Girl Scout camp and an English camp. The Girl Scout camp was fun - the teachers just made the girls go through a number of obstacle course type challenges. English camp was interesting. Me, the girls and Devon were each given a station and asked to come up with an activity. There was no clear direction, and although there was a schedule it included things like "Rehearse for talent show, perform talent show." What talent show?! The Thai teachers seemed to have slightly high expectations of what this event was going to be.... Luckily Shaleas' made her station acting. Each group had to write and perform little plays, and the best ones performed for the whole group at the end which saved the "talent show" idea. It was fun although extremely poorly organized, but I met a woman and her daughter at the camp who I now tutor after school, so something good came out of it! Photos from Girl Scout camp, English camp, and some random school photos are all in this album. 

A week ago, Kelly and I met up with Kim in Hang Chat, where Lisa and our other friend Nate teach. We stayed with them for two nights, did a lot of shopping and I took everyone's money in poker which felt good after losing my money to Shaleas and Devon twice since we've started playing...  Since we don't have poker chips, or enough 1 baht coins to play with, we have adapted to playing with grains of rice. The first ten minutes of every game is spent counting out 100 grains of rice each. It works surprisingly well. Photos of our first poker tournament when Shaleas' friend Stephanie (another teach) visited are in the previous album link. 

There are a few more memorable events that have occurred over the past week or so but I don't want this post to get too long. Keep checking the site for another update soon. BUT

Meanwhile....

Another video! I got really into playing around with iMovie, so here is another video, this time based on my school and my students, so I hope you enjoy it! Keep checking for a third installment about my village. 

Hi, my name is Marianne and..

I'm a podcast addict. 

I listen to them every morning when I wake up and every night before I go to bed. You might too if your only television channels were 24-hour news. Yes I like the news too, but sometimes I'd rather watch an episode of Rocketboom, or hear about why it is so hard to say "toy boat" three times fast from "Stuff You Should Know." I mention both of those podcasts because along with the "Best of Today" they're my favourite programmes and I am always anxiously awaiting the next ten minutes of Internet I'll get so that I can download new episodes. 

So here's what I'm listening to/watching, in case you ever wonder where I get all these random conversation topics:

ABC World News

Best of Today (The BBC Radio Today Show)

Best of YouTube

Cook's Illustrated Video Podcast

The Economist

The Feed Video Podcast

Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4

Front Page (NYTimes)

LearnItalianPod.com (ok, I haven't really started listening to this one yet, I'm trying to focus on my Thai at the moment, but I have all kinds of great plans to start learning Italian)

NBC Nightly News Video

The New Yorker Animated Cartoons

NPR: Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me

NPR: World Story of the Day

Onion News Network Video

Onion Radio News

President Obama's Weekly Address Video

Rocketboom

Stave V Videocast

Stephn Fry's PODGRAMS

Stuff You Should Know

ViroPOP - A Green Video Network

Wild Chronicles Digital Shorts

Yoga Today

Yogajournal.com

20 min. Yoga Sessions

There you have it. The 20-odd programmes that keep me connected and therefore sane. 

Second Tha Wang Pha video coming to a blog near you soon I promise.

Tha Wang Pha Part One

Last night I was sitting in my room getting bored of my own company. So I made a video! The sun was going down so most of the outdoor shots were too dark to include. But here's a quick tour of my home. I'll make a couple more about the school and about Tha Wang Pha. Here's Part One. Enjoy.

 

Novelist Given 3 Years for Insulting Thai King

An Australian writer was sentenced to three years in prison Monday for insulting the Thai monarchy in a self-published novel. Elaborating may land me in the same position, so I'll stop there.

read more | digg story

Take The Weather With You

The weather changes pretty often in a lot of the world. It's usually pretty unpredictable no matter what Al Roker or any other crazed weatherman/woman tells you. 

Have you ever travelled to visit friends or family on a day where their weather happens to change from warm to cold or vice versa? If yes, then have you found people saying things like "oh, you brought the sun with you," or "ohh, why did you bring the rain with you from England?" I am an innocent traveller. I do not 'bring' weather with me, it changes when it wants to change and pays no regard to my travel plans. If it did, I would never 'bring the rain from England' as I often seem to do. Despite how aware I am of how weird this phrase is, I've found myself thinking it, and I may even have said it at one point, not sure, to our new visitor Matthew, Kelly's boyfriend. 

Matthew lives in San Diego, where Kelly also resided until she decided to jump ship and come to Asia like the rest of us in the CIEE programme. Anyone in a relationship can understand how hard it is to be away from your partner for long stretches of time and the experience has been just as difficult for Kelly and Matthew as can be expected. Apparently one week ago Matthew finally decided that it was just too long since he'd seen his sweetheart. Last Monday night (or Monday morning for Matthew) he managed to get Kelly to give him all the information he could possibly need to get from Bangkok to Tha Wang Pha including the name of the bus station, the name of our town, everything, using some fake story about a bar tender who told him that trains were better than buses in Thailand (which is FALSE...refer to this post from a couple of moths ago for more details). 

So on Tuesday morning San Diego time, Matthew hopped in his car, drove to LAX, took a plane to Tokyo (several hours in layover), then another plane to Bangkok (several hours hanging out in the airport), got a taxi to the bus station (a couple of hours of waiting...), bus from Bangkok to Nan, BARELY caught the last local bus from Nan to Tha Wang Pha, then hitched a ride with two students who found him on the side of the road, and showed up at our front door completely unannounced on Thursday night, about 38 hours after he had left. Wow. Talk about a big gesture.

Meanwhile, I was happily cooking away in the kitchen (which is in Kelly's room) when these two students pulled up. I couldn't see them in the dark, only their headlights, and all I heard was "hello," and then "Marianne, I don't know..." So I went outside only to see Matthew walking towards my front door having assumed that the room I was in was actually mine, not Kelly's. I recognized him because....well I'm a Facebook stalker (there I said it), and in breathless hysterics tried to explain to Kelly who was outside. I don't think she understood what I was saying until Matthew had been in the room for a good 30 seconds. 

So here he is. White person #5 to temporarily reside at Thawangphapittayakhom school. Unfortunately he's only here until this Friday when he will return to sunny San Diego to take care of some things before going to Australia and then back to Thailand in March which is when he was supposed to show up in the first place. Speaking of sunny - back to how I started this post. I know I just recently wrote about how incredibly cold it has been around here, especially at night. Well since the night Matthew showed up with his bags on the back of a student's motorbike it has been surprisingly mild. I wouldn't call it warm, but I no longer have to sleep with every item of clothing I own. I still have two duvet covers, but Matthew has, as they say, 'brought the warmth' with him. So thanks Matthew, for bringing a little sunshine to Tha Wang Pha and for giving this village some new gossip to chatter about. 

In other news, my friend Kim just wrote a blog about life in Thailand that I think does a great job of describing all the little everyday things. The only thing that differs between her life here and mine is that I do not have a 7-11 on every corner. We do have one, it's a pretty cool hangout. But in general, she's right about the abundance of this 24/7 convenience store. Also, my school does not have buffalo, we have pigs. Kim's blog. 

That's it for now. We tutored all this past weekend which was just as fun as it sounds. This coming weekend we are more than likely going to be running an English camp for the students, so I'll let you know how that goes. 

Finally - I want your comments. Tell me a story (any big gestures committed/witnessed lately?), say hi, talk about what life is like where you are, I don't care, I just care that you share it with me and the rest of the blog-o-sphere. 

Bye for now

Obama becomes America's 8th left handed President

So Barack Obama is President. 

I just watched the inauguration sitting on my bed in Thailand with Kelly watching Aljazeera Network huddled up in my sweater and my blankets. 

I wish I could have been there in DC, but it was great to watch this event. 

Obama is still as always a great speaker, although to be honest I wish his speech had done more. It was good, but not so memorable. I can't really remember any full phrases from it already... except something about harnessing the wind, water and earth for power or something along those lines. Definitely no "ask not what your country can do for you..." moments.

The Aljazeera panel is basically ripping apart his speech right now. Should of kept it shorter buddy, then at least they'd have fewer quotes to criticize. 

There's not much else to say that hasn't been said before by hundreds of people, but it feels pretty amazing to be around in a time like this when so much is happening and so much change is trying to bust through the door. What will happen in the next few years? Watch this space I guess.

Meanwhile - just watched Obama sign those first executive orders. Who knew Obama was a leftie?? As a fellow leftie, I can't help but like him just a little bit more for that.  

Obama - you are officially hired. Let's see what you got. Don't let us down, that would be upsetting and just kind of awkward for you, sort of like the whole 'Mission Accomplished' thing. Lets learn from our predecessors there please...

Thai Tunes

I've added a fun little widget to the side of this blog called 'Thai Tunes.' 

The playlist includes My President is Black (see my post about Obama two below this one) and then songs that I hear here in Thailand. So this gives you an idea of what Western music gets played over here. All these songs are ones I either hear repeatedly at karaoke or at Thai bars/clubs (except So Long, Marianne....I just threw that one in there for myself...:-)  ). 

I'll update it with anymore songs that I find are favs over here, or just songs I feel like you should listen to...

We'll see how it goes

Photos of it all

I know these have been long awaited by some people and my internet finally wants to cooperate, so here it is. Photos from all these old stories I've been telling. I don't blame you if you don't have the energy to go through all of them at once, but here are all the links for those not on Facebook to peruse at your own pace. Enjoy.

The most recent album is from this last weekend. I went to Chang Mai and met up with the girls plus the lovely Sophie and Claudia from London! They are here in Thailand/Laos/Cambodia for the next few months and it was great to see some familiar faces for a couple of days. You can check out their blog about their travels here. 

Sophie and Claudia/Chang Mai/Rai

Tha Wang Pha

Tha Wang Pha Sports Day

Pai

Nakhon Sawan English Camp

Chang Mai 

Kanchanburi

Sukhothai

Bangkok (way old)

Obama and my generation

So Obama is about to become the new President of the USA. I know it's old news now, but I was just watching last Friday's ABC World News webcast and they had the 'exclusive premiere' of the music video from Young Jeezy called 'My President is Black.' 

Despite what you might think of the song and this rapper's eloquence, when's the last time you heard a popular song about how great the president is? I'm sure more than one rap/pop song feature digs on how much Bush let everyone down, but it's been a long time since the US ever had a president that was 'cool' to the young generation; one that has created anything but indifference. 

The video is here if you want to have a look. 

Apart from the fact that I think it's pretty amazing how much people my age are talking about politics, it got me thinking about the fact that this kind of thing could only happen with a political system like the one in the US.

For a few years now everyone's been complaining non-stop about George Bush and Tony Blair, and yes they're both (almost) out of the picture, but what did Blair get replaced with? Certainly not Britain's version of Obama. I know I'm part of the young generation, so I have a bias here. 

If you look at the voting records from last November in the US, the amount of young people that came out to vote is astonishing. This election year gave me a new found respect for the way the US government works. That is to say, no matter who is in the government - the members of the House and Senate, the American people still get to dictate (more or less...let's not bring up Gore's election here) who's going to be the number one in charge. The system's not perfect (again...Mr. Gore...) but no system ever is. I suppose my point is that even if the young generation in the UK did start to rise up and call for change, who can we follow? No matter what, we still have to hope and pray that the party members pick the right leader. Sure you can say that they're the ones who know what's going on and understand what's needed, but sometimes what's needed is someone to inspire change, not someone who has been intrenched in old politics for years and was probably part of the problem in the first place. 

We're in an economic downturn right now (in case you've been living in a cave for the past few months...just look at any news source - it's story number two after Gaza/Israel these days) and aside from some miracle plan to switch it into an upturn, what we really need is someone to provide some optimism and inspiration to get us off our lazy arses and doing something about it instead of sitting at home panicking. 

Throwing stupid amounts of money at the problem doesn't seem to have gotten anyone anywhere yet and at the end of the day everyone's going to have to tighten their belts and re-prioritize what's important in life, even if that means taking jobs you never thought you'd have - like all these new jobs Obama plans to create that certainly won't have fancy executive titles and cushy offices. Whether or not Obama turns out to be our man stateside, at the very least he's created an amazing amount of drive in a generation that previously wouldn't have dreamed of going to the polls in such numbers. 

I just hope that my US peers stay motivated to work through these inconvenient times, I hope Obama does turn out to be our man, and I hope that the government in the UK can find their own way to get the people moving. 

Putting clothes ON to go to bed

This week back has been pretty hard so far. I've been reminded of all the things I find so frustrating about the Thai education system - mainly that the kids have no discipline whatsoever and are impossible to control. Then there was a small dramatic episode with our visas and work permits. On Monday we went to extend our visas only to find out that they would expire on exactly the last day of school. That means that we would have to do a border run to Laos either the weekend before, or on the very last day of school which is time consuming and not free. We finally got that sorted out, and I can now stay in the country until March 31st with no obligation to leave which is a huge relief.

In case this all wasn't annoying enough, it is FREEZING here. When most people think of Thailand, they think about tropical weather, beautiful beaches, etc. Read my last two posts to see evidence that this does in fact exist. However, up here in the North, when the sun goes down it takes the heat with it. Yesterday I wore a huge pair of wooly socks, long pajama pants, a long sleeved T-shirt, a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over my head and a SCARF to bed. And I was still freezing underneath my two thick comforters. Our rooms have tiles floors and cement walls with no insulation and no heating/air conditioning, so if it's cold, we're cold, if it's hot, we're still kind of cold. If you've been thinking of sending that care package with the electric blanket, now would be a good time. 

Let's hope it only lasts a couple more weeks, then bring on the Thai summer!

Koh Samui and Koh Tao

After a great New Years 2009 Kelly, Kim and I made our way over to Koh Samui and settled in to our bungalow a few yards from the beach on Hat Lamai. 

That night we enjoyed our dinner on lounging platforms by the beach before Kim and I headed out to see what nightlife this place offered. The only bar we could find that wasn't full of dirty old men and Thai prostitutes was the Irish pub, so naturally we entered. A surprisingly excellent cover band from the Philippines was playing and we met three fantastic Brits who were having the time of their lives so it was a good night. 

After helping one of the Brits find his guesthouse in his very drunken state, we crashed.

The next day we were joined by Anthony and all four of us enjoyed a lazy day by the beach and explored around a bit. That night we went out for dinner, then Kim, Anthony and I went out to explore Hat Chaweng beach. The rest of the night is a big blur of moving around to a lot of different places. We found two bars, around the corner from where we had been (which closed down) that were open air and right next to each other. Both packed, both playing good music, but two open air bars playing competing music right next to each other gets a little confusing. I found myself trying to dance to two different beats. It just doesn't work. After these bars both closed we managed to find a 'Black Moon' party. Sort of like full moon, only there's wasn't a full moon, we were on a different island, and it was much smaller scale. It was fun in it's own way, but we didn't stay too long. The sun still beat us, hence the sunrise photos in my photo album...

On our next day out, we rented a 4x4 car which Anthony was capable of driving, luckily. We went exploring and found a great waterfall, after a small episode of almost getting stuck on a very very steep windy road that we had to partly reverse down. THAT was interesting....

To get to the waterfall, we were guided by a Thai man up what was basically a cliff for what felt like an hour. We pulled ourselves up over rocks, using tree roots and random ropes to stop ourselves falling to our deaths. Near the top was a little pool that we swam around for awhile, going into the little cave area behind the waterfall etc. The highlight was probably just watching our Thai guide strip down to his skivvies and jump off the cliff into the water. No big deal.

The way down got more interesting when we had to half jump over a part of the waterfall. I had one good foot at the time, and my bad foot was clearly lonely, so I smashed my head into a rock, fell back into the waterfall and did a nice job on my knee and my previously functioning foot. Then Kim, Kelly and I watched as the top of my foot turned from pink to a very dark purple. Hmmm... The way down was slightly more painful, but our guide was awesome, he rubbed some plant on my cuts to help stop the bleeding and guided us through what I assume was the 'easy' way down. Then when we got to a part that was paved he drove us the rest of the way for free which was huge. Really I just did it all for the free ride. 

That night we watched Taken. Very good movie, unless you happen to be a girl traveling for the first time with another girl...and you're in Paris. Watch out for those taxi rides. 

So after some fun in Koh Samui, we discovered that there were no boats back to the mainland....so we headed to Koh Tao! What's another couple of days?! We're all really glad we did this, Koh Tao was our favourite island and I really recommend it. A lot of people say it's only worthwhile if you plan on doing some scuba diving, and yes there are a TON of diving companies, but it's still a beautiful island, not quite as built up as Phangnan or Samui, with plenty to do. We were able to relax, watch movies at an Australian bar and listen to some good live music, as well as go on an amazing snorkeling day trip. I swam with sharks! SHARKS! I did my best with the underwater camera, but sharks aren't cooperative when it comes to holding still for a snapshot. Can't figure out why. 

On our trip we were taken to another island called Koh Nang Yuan which is actually three islands connected by sandbars. Really beautiful. 

For dinner we ate on the beach and I had a red snapper that was probably caught that day that I got to pick out, grilled for me right by the ocean. Not a bad time. The photos are here. 

After that, the honeymoon finally ended, we waved goodbye to Anthony who had one more day before a border run (gotta love having a long term visa) before heading to Bangkok to meet up with some of his Kiwi friends. The three of us arrived in Bangkok only to realise that it was too late for any of us to get a bus. Another night in Bangkok?! Yes please! We found an overpriced hotel and the next day after saying bye to Kim, Kelly and I met up with Waqas for lunch before heading to the CIEE office with him (where he works) to see our lovely coordinator, Phil! It was nice to have a place to hang out, and to see some familiar faces before getting on yet another overnight bus back to good old TWP. 

After arriving at about 5 am on Friday, Lisa showed up! She'd been home for a week already at that point, my how time flies. Luckily she wasn't too demanding and we basically spent two days doing nothing while I recovered from the long journey home. It was good to see her again, when you feel like spending two days in your pajamas it's nice to have company. 

So now it's back to 'reality' if that's what I can call it. Tomorrow I teach for the first time in.... well who's counting anyway. We'll see if I remember what to do. 

By the way, my left foot (the one that turned purple) is back to normal. My right foot is still healing, but I survived. And now I have fun war wounds with cool stories, so that's something right?

I hope you all had a great New Years, whatever country you were in.  

In case you missed the links check out photos for:

Koh Samui

Koh Tao

Now that the internet more or less cooperates I'll try to add more photos of previous events. 

Koh Phangan New Year. Full moon or no full moon.

I'm finally back after some much needed days by white sand beaches and turquoise ocean water. If you are going to get jealous after reading more about beach parties, beautiful waterfalls and snorkeling trips then stop reading now.

On Monday, January 29th, Kelly and I took our first of many overnight buses. We arrived in Bangkok at about 4:30 am on Tuesday morning, a time reserved for the morning market vendors and the drunks who have finally been kicked out of the clubs. We made our way to Khao San Road and rented a room in a guesthouse for 5 hours - enough time to nap and use the showers. Perfect. It wasn't exactly the Hilton, more like a 6x10 cell, but I slept great all the same. It's amazing what a 10 hour bus ride will do to your ability to sleep anywhere.

So after our rest, we spent the day doing a little shopping and wandering around Bangkok until Kim arrived on her bus that afternoon. Then the three of us took another overnight bus, this time to Chumporn. Then at about 5 or 6 am on New Years Eve, we got a boat from Chumporn to our first destination: Koh Phangan. Home of the world famous Full Moon Party. 

After meeting a great Thai girl named Joy who helped us with our taxi and waiting

 around for awhile, we gained access to our two little beach huts at Green Peace Bungalows and were met by Lisa and Jen who came over from a few days in Koh Samui. 

After more preparation, we were met by Anthony at our huts. Anthony was mentioned in a previous post about my trip to Pai, which is where I met him. He is a traveling soul who I kept in touch with after Pai, and it turned out we had the same New Year plans. Lucky him. 

When we were ready to go, we headed to Anthony's room on Haad Rin - the Full Moon Party beach, to meet his roommates Shanna and Jessie from Canada. On our way to the room we managed to run into Joy and her friend. Out of the thousands of people that were already on the beach, we found the one tiny little Thai girl we already knew. Fantastic. They joined us for a little while as we all got covered in glowing body paint - the only thing you really need to wear to a Full Moon Party. And before you get too confused or start to think I'm losing it, I know that New Years Eve was not a full moon, but on Haad Rin that doesn't matter. Full Moon parties happen every full moon, yes, but they also happen on Christmas Day, New Years Eve, and really just whenever they feel like it. 

The rest of the night was several amazing hours spent dancing and rocking to drum 'n bass, trance and house music played all down the beach while watching fire shows, fireworks, and neon light displays. It was all I wanted in a Full Moon Party.

I'm keeping this blog post light to appease readers of all ages, but I've already received criticism (thanks Lis..) but I like to leave things to the imagination. If you are familiar with/have been to a Full Moon party over here, then I don't need to say more. For everyone else, think massive rave parties that seem to always occur in random warehouses. Music with no words, a LOT of glow paint, a LOT of alcohol and a LOT of drugs. Anthony and the girls' place was next door to 'Mellow Mountain' which advertised their wares on large blackboards stuck up on the rocks. Yes it was a bar and you could stop off for a beer on your way down. You could also step in for a couple of little white pills, or a 'special' shake made with everyone's favourite fungus plant. Or you could just eat the mushrooms raw if you preferred to skip the blending process. That made for a lot of pretty hilarious people watching. Lisa's new found fascination with glow sticks will always be a highlight of that night. 

The only downside of the night was that I managed to step on a piece of broken glass slicing the bottom of my right foot open. Luckily this happened near the end of the night anyway, and Anthony happens to be a medic, so it got taken care of.

The next morning...okay it was definitely the afternoon...I discovered that I was one of hundreds of people sporting bandages of all shapes and sizes. So now I felt like part of the crowd; like me an all the other injured shared some special bond. That somehow we had enjoyed ourselves more than everyone else just because we had managed to spill blood while doing it. 

After my most memorable NYE yet, we had to say goodbye to Jen and Lisa who headed back up to their schools. Kelly, Kim and I headed to Koh Samui where we would be joined again by Anthony one night later to continue our island holiday. 

Facebook seems to finally be cooperating, so click here for the public link to see a few photos from our time on Koh Phangan

To read about Koh Samui and Koh Tao, click on my next postings!