01Nov08 - Koa Samui, Thailand (Matlang Resort)

The most common thoughts I have when I travel are;

Why am I not doing more of this?
Why is traveling not more reveared/valued in 'Merica?
Why are my close friends not here to see this with me because they would love it just as much!?
Why do I work so much back home when I know my time on earth is getting used up so quickly?


I don't know why, but I love seeing new and crazy things. And I'm positive the most attractive thing about Heather is that she likes it too. I suppose John Stienbeck said it best when he wrote:

“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum, always a bum.”

As you can tell from the rhetorical questions up top, we are having a very good time. Our days are being used to read all of the books we've always wanted to read, ensuring we obtain the proper amount of vitamin D, sleeping until we are rested and maintaining a strict diet of as much Thai food as we can stomach!

After we spent an afternoon in Bangkok, we realized that it was way too crazy for our tastes and we jumped on the first bus out of town we could find. This was probably a good thing because somebody blew up 12 people with bomb at the parliment building a couple days ago. Meanwhile, we have been hanging out on a string of islands in the Bay of Thailand. The first of which was Koa Tao a.k.a. 'Turtle Island' and for the last two days, on Koa Samui.

Koa Tao is a place to go if you love to dive, prefer a slow pace and can manage to live off of a $10US per day budget (to inlcude three square thai meals, a roof over your head, an afternoon Thai massage and enough Beer Chang to be effective for the beach front fire dancer shows at midnight.)

Koa Samui is a place to go if you are just married, love the tropics, love crazy-loud-techno parties and/or are eastern European. It seems like the only difference between this island and Bangkok is a stretch of white beach front and overpriced taxis.

We do not know where we are going next. We were originally thinking about going north to upper Thailand and then to Cambodia but we have read that there is unrest in the parliment and soldiers between the two borders are shooting at eachother. So between this and our interest in learning how to surf, Indonesia is looking pretty good!!!



Sunset Beach Restuarant on Koh Tao.

Travel necessities: Ipod music player, libations, bug repellant, Tiger Balm for area on the skin where the previous item failed, glasses, sun screen, camera, fake wallet with minimal cash (just in case a 'luggage gangster' thinks he needs our wallet more than me), bottle opener, reading material, journal, waist pouch to keep sensitive items like passport and real wallet and extra toilet paper!

Typical bathroom;

There two ways to use:

Option A: Western Style

Step 1: discard your body's waste

Step 2: Place used tissue paper not in toilet, but in garabe can to the left (ANECDOTE/WARNING: typical Thailand sewage systems cannot take the waste load of tissue paper and will back up into your room. This is not advised!!!)

Step 3: Fill small blue bucket with water

Step 4: Dump water into toilet to allow gravity to push waste down the drain.

Option B: Bidet Style

Step 1: discard your body's waste

Step 2: Use the hand held spray faucet, like the one on your kitchen sink, to do as Wikipedia defines "wash and clean the genitalia, inner buttocks, and anus."

Needless to say, this operation takes some getting used to.

The tropics are awesome. We have made it a daily habit to get a fruit smoothy from a local fresh fruit dealer everyday like this one in Koh Tao. For about 75 cents, you can get a fresh thai coconut. You can see them on top of the cooler next to the guy in the black T. The guy who ran this stand got to know me so well that he started to give me free fresh banannas which are very differant from the ones I usually purchase from Fred Meyer.

Sunset.

The view from the first bungalo we stayed in Koh Tao.

Some bathrooms are scarier than others... For this particular model, use the squat/hover method, your own toilet paper (as none is provided)... and try not to touch anything.

This is the main street in Koh Tao. It is a string of cafes, local restaurants and mini-marts that parralell the beach front.

We figured since we were here, we had to see some live thai boxing. Jason, I thought of you when they came out for their warm up and worship routine to the tune of "eye of the tiger"! ..no joke! I was suprised that noboby seemed to be concerned with me filming, but I couldn't resist. These were the amatures of the night but definitely the best fight. The primary fight was between a lanky thai guy and a short, stalky white boy from switzerland... and as far as the outcome of this fight, Tyler Dirden was correct - lanky guys do fight to the death...