Down We Go

Down Under that is!

Probably the best news I've got in a while. A flight from here(Singapore) to Darwin is only 65euro... I leave tomorrow. :)

But let's go back a few days...

Leaving Koh Tao:

Dave wasn't the happiest to be leaving due to it being savage:

I was done diving:

To give you and idea of how cozy the night boat(which takes around 8-9 hours from 9pm to 5.30 - 6am)Here's the size of the beds:

Meanwhile, I had a 6'5" Dutch giant, his wife and kid sleeping in beside my 'bed', of course the giant lay in the one beside me, he had probably eaten his other two children for breakfast. Ah no, I felt for him, he wouldn't have fit in two beds even. I also walked some white paint half way around the boat, so looking back, I took nothing only pictures and left nothing only footprints like they always tell you to! :)

After the night boat, we were stuffed into a tuk-tuk and off to wait about an hour in Surat Thani for a minibus. Note the mid morning faces:




It came and took us 5 to 6 hours down to the almost border town of Hat Yai. One of a few cities according to Dave that are blacklisted for tourist due to terror alerts(worst case was 70 attacks in one day). A short wait here, but long enough for our bellies to long for some food. We needed something substantial, something very substantial, something that would sit in the stomach for days, something that wasn't rice or vegetables....

That's right...

Pizza Hut!

- after our shameful return to western food, we were ready for the next leg of the journey. A bus to take us the entire length of Malaysia and into Singapore. What a journey! Over all from Koh Tao it took us around 37 hours I think. Exhausting, but full of strange happenings that kept us going. Having said that, some things happened that were terrible. Poor Dave had the unfortunate experience of seeing several young people pulled from a wreckage as we passed.

Considering the journey we took, we don't look that bad:

A quick waddle down towards Singapore city centre to look for accommodation was on the cards.
See this hotel:


- well it's not ours. But the tiny white one to the left is our hostel!

Never in my life have I been so stared at. Well maybe in Vietnam....(Remember that Shane!)

We proceeded through the streets, very afraid to break the law. Death by hanging and the cane are still very much in use here. Which seems strange in a city so obviously trying to westernize itself.

Anywhoo, we decided to head onto the district of Little India. What a place. If you're ever here, you should definitely make the effort to go there. I've never been to India, but this is pretty damn close to what I imagine it's like:

I got more stares here than before. People would stop in their tracks, tug on their loved ones and point at us, or stop mid sentence when we got close. Twas gas!

A wander through a local market:


The crown jewel of Little India for both of us was Dave's call. The temple to the Goddess of Destruction: Kali. Popularised in Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, this was a very surreal experience. I got some great field recordings in the temple of chants and beats, and even managed to squeeze a few pictures of things:

Here's the very detailed roof, when the Japanese bombed back in the day, the surrounding people took shelter in the temple, believing the Goddess would protect them, and they were right! One of the only places in the area left untouched.

Next time you here from me, should hopefully be from Darwin! Well as you can tell, the internet is also super speed here, so I managed to shtick up a load of pics. I'll leave you with this slightly odd one:

Travel Plans, Not Planes

This is the standard small Buddhist alter/shrine you see outside a Thai home:

- they have them lit up at night with fake candles or chirstmas tree lights. But on this particular one, we noticed a few statues that were a bit odd...


The road about two minutes after it started when I had to log off yesterday:

We even had the luxury of pool last night!

Here's our other luxury on this wee island, pancakes smoothered in everything from our friend from Bangladesh:

- pretty sick looking, but pretty damn tasty! :) 60cent for one of these.

The real main drag on Koh Tao, that's Ass talking to me there, and the jungle starts at the top of the hill:

Koh Tao - Singapore.

That's the plan.

Looking at spending about 1,200Baht(25euro) to get to Koh Samui, and then a flight from there to Singapore would cost 17,000Baht(around 350euro) - no thank you!
I'd be home in a week at that rate.
As Koh Tao is pretty expensive, we have to leave fairly lively.

We wanted the train, but it's booked out for a few days.
We wanted a cheap boat/bus combo, but it's booked out for a few days.
So it's a slightly more expensive boat/minbus/bus/bus combo. Which works out at 4,500Baht(95euro) all in for both of us.
It takes 36 hours - which is alot better than the cheaper option(by 8 euro) coming in at a cool 56 hour journey.

Koh Tao is a tiny island at the top of this map:

View Larger Map

- you'll have to zoom in to see the name, it's straight out right from Ranong.

And if you click the map and drag down, you'll eventually see Singapore. It's an epic journey!

We're going to Singapore to see if we can live a very specific dream we share in common.

Stay tuned... :)

Chillin' In The Heat

I love these guys:



I forgot to mention, we've rented a wee manual moped for getting around the island. Tis gas craic. 3 euro to fill the tank from empty,which doesn't seem to b going down at all as I drive!

Your average street in the built up part of Koh Tao:

Kids having the craic:

- water temperature is like a warm bath here. Wetsuits aren't necessary for dives up to 20 metres. Madness!

Jammin' on the beach:

A couple of views from restaurants around the island:

Here's one of the dawn pics from the boat dock in Chumphon, back on the mainland:

The bar where Ass works: (Read on for that one...)

An arty farty pic by Soupy Dave (Formerly Dave Disprin)

Ahh yes, it's veerrry hot here now, so this time I don't think the mossies will eat me alive!

My first two dives went great, it had been two years since my last dive, so I was rusty. You usually perform a 'Buddy Check' before you dive, but as I'm a Rescue Diver(For all that that means! I can't even feckin' swim properly and have forgotten pretty much everything about CPR etc) my instructor, Des, obviously felt it wasn't necessary, as when I turned around to do it, he was already in the water!

Suffice to say, I was about to jump in, when I put the reg in my mouth... 'Sure we'll give one quick inhale to make sure...' - lucky I did, my air was off, and I had none in the BCD( the inflatable jacket a diver wears to keep buoyancy) so I would have sunk 20 metres like a stone, with four lead weights and heavy equipment. A bad dose of the bends at best I'd say...

Dave called it 'A bad day for Bean's skin' as I had cut my leg on dead reef, got bitten all over by mossies, burnt my forehead and shoulders, and ants were making little treks on me as well. But twas gas craic anyway.

Here's a few funny pics, note the hair:

We had a great night of encounters these last few nights. We befriended a few locals, one of which is a bit of an activist, Ass was his unfortunate name, and he explained a bit about what is going on politically. Riots in Bangkok broke out the day after we left, so that was good for us!

There was also a young fella, about 22 or so, working where we are staying. Goh was his name, we got to talking outside as he played guitar and had heard us playing. Later that night he came down to us in the restaurant, where we were busy making plans still.

It was then we found out the shocking truth of how he came to work there. He works 14 hour days outside in the sun, general garden maintenance etc. He is actually from Burma(Myanmar)

He learned to speak English on the sly in Burma, reading a dictionary over and over, as the government(which is a military regime) don't like their own people learning English as it generates money, so they're the only ones who are aloud to use it freely. Bastards.

He had no visa so he was put into a container with 70 people and snuck across the border into Thailand, of the 70 people in the container, only 40 survived the trip. With a smile on his face he told us he was one of the strong ones. His Uncle was also working somewhere else on the island, and I was afraid to ask had he any more family in the container, just in case they had been one of the ones who didn't make it. The Thai police regularly chase them down(When the tourist season is low, and bribes from tourists are hard to find) to get bribes for staying in the country. He works out on the island as the the police bribe here is cheaper. Doesn't it just boil the blood.

Here's a picture of Goh:

Today so far has been spent looking into our plans for getting further down south, and eventually across the equator into the southern hemisphere. Dave is busy on the other PC here, finding out about Indonesian Visa shtuff and flights in this neck of the woods. It sounds as if everything is going swimmingly. The plan is to boat south from here, to Surat Thani. Get a train down through southern Thailand, that will continue down through Malaysia, and end in Singapore. From there, we will head out to Borneo, and see East Malaysia, Kalimantan and Brunei.

- Whale bones.

Wow a serious storm as just hit the island in the last few minutes....the roads are already filling up with water. This is a satellite internet connection, so I better post this before the clouds cut me off.

Bye!

Boats, Buses & Bye Bye Bangkok

It feels great to get out of the city.

We took an 8 hour bus journey down the coast to a small town called Chumphon. There we waited two hours while the day dawned...

After a high speed catamaran out to the island, we finally arrived in Koh Tao.

It's been three years since I was first here, and the difference is huge. My favourite bar was gone, demolished to make way for a big dive resort. The beach hut I stayed in was gone, this was in it's stead:

- so we booked into that! 4 euro a night, not bad for Koh Tao.
The day was spent snorkeling for me, and relaxing for Dave. A few beers by the beach then -
We awoke to this guy making an awful racket:

I had booked in a few dives for myself last night, so after a morning snorkel, I went out on the dive boat. I was the only person with them today so it was just me and the dive instructor, pretty sweet! I got on of those poxy wee cameras to take underwater pics, so if I can get digital development on those I'll stick a few up.

Check out how clear the sea is:

Sorry folks, it's taken almost an hour to get those few pictures uploaded, the auld internet on the island here wouldn't be the fastest, so I'll have to leave the rest of the pics for another day. The mossies are making light work of me in here too!

The plan is to stay another few days, do a bit more diving and snorkeling for me, and some trekking and cave gawking with Dave.

Hope all are well, and thanks for the comments! :)

Temples, Tuk-Tuk & The Like

Ahh yes.


- a new spin on post-drinking litter. :)

With last night spent wandering around, perusing the stalls, enjoying a beer with food, and getting a feel for the place, we had a surprisingly good sleep; about nine hours or so.

Into a tuk-tuk:

- and straight out again, as the cop in the background of the picture stuck a clamp on it!

The first thing I wanted to take Dave to experience, was the centre for traditional Thai massage, which is in Wat Po.

-to give a scale of the Reclining Buddha, the smile is 16feet wide.

- this guy wasn't all ears, but he was all feet!

- Pagodas

I got a massage myself whilst Dave was busy achieving nirvana in the nearest temple. I joined him shortly afterwards...

Monk goes up!

Monk goes down!

It was a quick dash(As I hadn't put on sunshtuff) through the traffic back to the bags (And the internet!) and it's a short wait now for the first leg of the journey south.