Last night.. amongst beer chang, fresh king mackrel and celebrations for having spent a week under the sea.. we got tatoos….
Bamboo Tatoos… no stainless steel for me.. one long, thin, sharp peice of bamboo and some ink .. ability to harness the power of 1000 suns in my right leg and release the dragon of excellence… success!
And as I once said standing on top of my teachers desk in college during class… success is spelt M A T T!
Tonnes of other pics of islands and stuff.. but these are the most exciting pics i’ve ever taken.. and expensive :/
…
On the boat getting ready with some english lads..
My descent into excellence… notice the light of glory surrounding me.
Required underwater Metal tossing..
Beautiful but dangerous i think..
Why swim face down , when you can lie back and relax…
The big blue..
eeeeellllllllllll!
Nature doing its thing..
Are you for scuba Rubin?
“Look to me in my eye ball, I am ‘appy like da hippo!”
Its Chang o’clock! (That means beer Chang time.. )
20 meters below the surface… air is for humans. Ninja skill ‘turn water into air’ complete!
Fishy..his name is Peter. He likes cricket.
Return to planet surface..
In the islands…
Kho Phangan to be exact…
Its beautiful…
Thought i broke my camera… but didnt
Went to 20,000 person beach party …
Watched friend puke all night long.. weak.
Dancing on beach with 20,000 people… not weak.
Swimming in the aquamarine ocean…
Lots of Thai boat rides…
Off to Kho Tao for scuba diving license tommorow..
Lots of cuts on my feet from coral..
Tropical island life is sweet..
Watermelon shakes are excellent..
After 2 months of teaching, and having obligations I am free to do what I want. I’m not going to bother being reflective about it.. too much happened and it was all to new. I’ll have a better idea of how it all fits into my life after a few months, or when i’m back in Canada.
The first thing I did when I was done; drink a beer and go see a movie. I went and saw ‘Tum Yum Goong” or “Shrimp Soup” haha.. the new Tony Ja movie that just came out. It was really good.. lots of Muai Thai and I could understand about 50% of it. No subtitles … probably come to Canada .. at christmas??
Right now i’m just getting ready to travel, washing all my clothes by hand.. washing machines are for the slightly more rich and powerful.. and trying to book a place to stay on Kao Pha-Ngan for the full moon party, hopefully i get a place to stay because it gets pretty busy. If not i’ll just go to Kao Samui and take a speed boat from one island to the other. After that I want to go to Kao Tao and get my diving license. That’s my mini plan… stay tuned and all that …
Here’s some pics.. i have more but asia n stuff..
These first 2 are of Phimai achient ruins.. very touristy of me.
Primary kids..
Chaiyaphum
Fishing huts on a lake.
Students at Tamafaiwan school. These girls are rare cause they could actually ask me more than “What food you like Thailand?”
One of the punk bands on Kao San Road, and the only Thai i’ve seen with an affro.
Outdoor school I taught at for a weekend in Phiboon about 30 min from the boarder of Laos.
Nong Pen, organizer of Volunthai who helps me speak Lao and Thai when i’m completely lost, and her super cute niece Nong Ming who I taught to do front flips and who taught me some of the Thai alphabet.
Camel mascot.. something every other school in existence is lacking.
Orcid. These flowers aparently can grow anywhere and tend to be planted on the sides of trees.. ala photo.
In the past 2 weeks I have done 2 full loops of Northeast Thailand doing everything from teaching primary school kids at outdoor schools on weekends, to english camps, to teaching Thai english teachers how to teach local tour guides how to speak english.
It’s about 2am right now and I just got off the bus/motorcycle taxi and had to climb the fence at the house to get back in. Which, by the way, is quite impressive and required some sweet ninja skills because the tops of all the fences in Thailand have broken glass cemented into them. Nothing says welcome to my home like a row of old broken beer bottles full of dead bugs and leaves. But superion like skill prevailed, I am inside infection free.
Tommorow I’m off to teach another english camp for teachers in a nice hotel. YES! Hot shower… no mosquito’s.. free food… After that i’m done with the teaching thing for a month or so and i’m going to see the rest of the country starting with tropical islands.
I have some pics to post of the last few weeks of travels.. will do soon.
For fun .. here is a short list of all the wierd stuff i have eaten in the past 2 months.
- Snake
- Ducks blood
- Silk worm (roasted of course)
- Chickens feet
- Giant shrimp heads
- Raw shimp covered in chillie sauce (the sauce is the more difficult to eat, it tastes like hurting)
- snails
I think thats it, I may have forgot one or two.
This past week has been pretty good. My weekend in Bangkok was wild. I found a battle of the bands with Thai punk rock and metal, which was sweet. They were everything from really good to really funny. My favorite song was the one where in the middle of the guy stops and starts doing an english lesson to music ‘What is your name?, Where do you come from?, I love you!” haha. I ended up partying with a fellow Canadain from Saskatoon and some girls from Leeds. It was a fun night.
The rest of this week I spent traveling to Lao and back to get a new visa. I stopped in Piboon near the boarder to teach a class at an outside school. It was fun and all the little kids stood up at the beggining of the class a gave me a rose. They were so cute!
Getting my visa was hillarious, I confused the boarder guard by speaking english really fast and reaping the word FREE! FREE! over and over. The coversation went soemthing like this…
“Why you come to Thailand?” – I like Thailand.
“Where you stay?” – uhhh Chaing Mai, Puket (this is like saying ill stay in Toronto and Vancouver when entereing Canada)
.. I get a wierd look … – Free extension! Free visa, free visa! (using jedi mind trick)
He stamps some of my passport looks at me … – Free ! Free! (bending my will upon his mind)
.. more stamps and hands it to me.
In the end I got 2 months free in Thailand which should have cost me about $80. I was only supposed to get 1 month but my ninja skills were too powerful!
Now im just chillin out in Korat again waiting for english camp this weekend, and possibly hooking up work for next week.
Thats right! They have.
I’m back in Bangkok after narrowly escaping unending back pain and muscle ache due to sleeping on two halfs of two doors. But it was nice that on the way out the person that was supposed to be caring for me asked me for money… ouch. I gave him some bhat.. I didn’t mind.
The first time I was in Bangkok I was awed and continually impressed by tuk tuk’s. Now I pass through the crowd with not so much as a side ways glance unless I see a clothing item with a dragon on it. I see all the other travelers and it’s nice to be around so many white people, but at the same time its really weird. I’m actually not used to it anymore. After a month and half of being the only english speaker you tend to be the centre of attention. People go out of their way for you constantly.. now i’m back in Bangkok and i’m not so famous anymore. I guess i’ll just have to get used to the fact that I’M NOT FAMOUS! le sigh.. Thai people in Bangkok are not interested in my signature, my picture, or my name. They are interested in where i’m going.. constantly I get the ol’ “hey you, where you go!?” or “you want ping pong show”.. hehe.. no. They only want to use me for my money.. and I can’t only live that down if it ends up being a really hot girl thats way younger than me.
SO .. now i’m off for a shower and some beer/food.. and maybe I will grab a fellow english speaker and chat them up..
Dig it.