On the run

Hello All!

    Last i posted was from Songkran in Samui, which is the Thai new year and a huge water fight throughout the city. Following the festivities our resort's bar was having a beach party so we just did that all night and was a lot of fun.

    The following day we tried to get to the immigration office to extend our visa an extra 7 days for 1900 baht but didn't realize it was closed and ended up spending 750 baht on taxi fares for nothing. That put us, Brett and Brendan, in a bind as our visa was set to expire the following week, mine on the 18th and the other two on the 19th and we were set to leave to a smaller island, Koh Phangan, on the 15th and the island didn't have an immigration office. So it only really left me, the other two decided to join, with one option, a visa run!

    On the 15th we make the move to Koh Phangan ahead of the full moon party that is set to happen on the 18th the day my visa runs out, hence hurrying to get it taken care of before then so i don't miss the party. We got into the island and quickly found our resort that we're staying at, which happens to be way cool, and drop our bags off then went off to the information center to look into the visa run, there are a couple of different places you can go to and all are about the same price which is 2000 baht and it gives you an additional 15 days on your visa, if you enter Thailand by air you get 30 days and by land 15 days. We decided to do the run to Myanmar (Burma) as it was the fastest at a cool 24 hours :-( I wanted to do it right away so i opted to do it that same night we got to Koh Phangan and the other two decided to join me as well. So after getting all payed up we had enough time to get back to our hotel and shower upend grab some dinner, i charged up my ipod for the long trip. We set off at about 20:50 to the pier to catch the night ferry, which ended up being pretty nice actually. The ferry set off at 22:00 to Surat Thani where we arrived at 5am and had to wait till the taxi arrived around 6 to take us to the border town of Ranong in Thailand. The taxi finally showed up and we set off to Ranong which took us about 3hrs to get to. Once we got there we went to the immigration office and got our Thailand exit stamp, then were told to follow this little kid on to a boat, which looked way shady, and hopped on and across we went into Burma, we had to cross a fairly large bay and the little boat took about 30 minutes or so to get us to the Burma side, when we got off we were surrounded by about 5 or 6 kids and were asking us where we were from and if we wanted to go shopping, we told them no but they still followed us anyways. We made it to the Burma immigration office and handed over our passport, but there was a catch, they wanted $10 US dollars as the processing fee, so we said whatever and just wanted to get out of there so we pull out a couple of 20's and handed them over, they were quickly returned to us as they were not perfect, I then take out my stash of 20's i had and each and everyone got declined as well. They had to be in perfect condition and crisp or they wouldn't take them lol, i had about 3 that were crisp and neatly folded in half but due to a VERY minor ink spot on the top of the bill were declined as well. between all of us we had about $300 US dollars and all we needed to pay was $10 dollars for each passport but were unable to, so Brendan was taken to the supermarket where they exchange baht for Crips new US dollars and of course being a tourist trap we got a shitty exchange rate and ended up paying almost twice the fee of what $10 would have got you in baht. After Brendan returned with 6 crisp $5 dollar bills he we handed them over with the passports and finally got the stamp, basically to prove we had left Thailand so we could get an entry stamp and a new 15 days in the country. We made it back to the boat but all the kids that followed us around would not let us back on without giving them a tip so we grabbed a couple of 20's and gave it to them, in baht not dollars of course, and then they finally let us back on the boat. Once back on the boat we made the journey back to Thailand and were finally able to get a new 15 day visa. Once we got all of that taken care of the taxi was waiting for us and back to Surat Thani we went to catch a ferry back to Koh Phangan. I set the timer on my ipod as soon as they picked us up and stopped it as we were dropped off at our hotel, total was 22h08m40s from start to finish, which i only managed to sleep about 4 of those hours, the smart thing to do would have been to shower up and get some rest, but i'm not the smartest guy out there so of course got showered up and headed to the beach party and partied all night! Next up will be about the full moon party. So until next time, enjoy!

the night boat to mainland Thailand

boat ride to Burma

the little kid running the show

not supposed to take pics, sneaked this one

coming to Burma

headed back to Thailand ready for the new visa

Thailand countryside, pretty much all of Thailand looks like this

caught the sunset on the ferry back to Koh Phangan

Songkran!

Hello All!

    Last i posted i had made it to Koh Samui safely and was going to meet up with my two other friends (one went home early due to a bike wreck.) My first night in Koh Samui i spent on my own as i made it before the others, i didn't do much that night as i had a long travel day before, i managed to find some bungalows on the water for 300 baht and they were surprisingly really nice for the price. I just hung out on the beach till the sun went down, then grabbed some dinner and finished off the night hearing the waves come crashing in, not a bad night!

My seat on the Ferry to the island

Arriving to Koh Samui

    The next day i woke up early and walked about 30-40 min in 100 degree weather with a 30lb backpack on, not fun at all! I finally made it to our hotel that we had booked for the following 5 days 4 nights, due to the floods reception told me that about 70% of the people who had booked cancelled and it allowed me to check in 4hrs before check in time :-) I lounged around until Brett and Brendan finally showed up. We went out so i could get some flip flops and then grabbed some dinner then started throwing some Chang down. We got drunk then made it over to the next beach town called Chaweng and walked around and after awhile we came back to where we were staying at and finished drinking at the bar of our hotel.

The view from my bungalow

My bungalow

    The next day was the day before Songkran, which is Thai new year, we got up and went out for lunch not knowing what was about to happen. About halfway through our street i saw some kids standing there with water guns, i knew that it was a huge watertight but what i didn't know is that it was started a day before the actual new year. We got hit with water right from the get go so we went into a Club 7 and got a plastic bag to put our phones and wallets in to prepare for what was to come. After getting some food we got some water guns so we could partake in the festivities and what a great holiday/festival! All it is is a huge watertight throughout the city and everyone gets involved, kids, moms, dads, grandparents they're all out on the street throwing water on each other. We finished the day all soaking wet and managed to get other people soaking wet as well. This was just the beginning of the festival. The next day (13th of April) was the actual Thai new year, so we knew that all it was going to be was a water fight, we got ready for the day leaving the phones behind and only carrying our wallets in a plastic baggie, i braved it and decided to take my camera along as well and man was i glad i did. We got out to the main road and it was madness, and next to Oktoberbest in Munich i don't think i've had this much fun while traveling! Everyone was out and there were drums of water on every corner and what people did was put bricks of ice in the water making it that much more fun, so what we would do is walk up and down the street and whenever someone threw ice cold water on us we would stay there and return the favor and throw ice water on everyone else. This went on all day and by the evening things had calmed down, the bar at our hotel had a big party that night so that's where we ended our night. We are in Koh Samui for a couple more nights then off to Koh Phangan for the full moon party, so until next time. Enjoy!

getting ready for Songkran

this is Songkran

people getting wet everywhere!

Water Fight!!!!!

The Dirty South!!!

Hello All!

    Well last i posted i was still in Koh Chang, but i've since made the move to the south of Thailand where it was hit hard with rain about a week and a half ago. The travel lady lied to me and said there would be no access to Surat Thani, the city where it's easiest to get to the islands, but i decided to take off anyways and it worked out great!

    My last day in Koh Chang was a little different from the other days, I woke up to the sound of rain and sure enough, when i got out it had been raining for a couple of hours. Got up and made it to the Sunflower restaurant, where they show a movie every night. Due to the rain it was packed and they pretty much played movies all day, it was kind of nice as the rain didn't let you do otherwise. That night was the beach party, different place for the party overnight which is cool. My intentions were to have a Chang or two then head home to pack my bags as had booked my ticket back to Bangkok and it departed early the next morning, but we all know how my plans usually go, out the window. With the usual gang, Christian, Heta, Dennis and Isabel still around we managed to meet some more people who oddly enough turned out to be way cool. As stated my plan went out the window and i ended up having 3 Big Changs, 3 shots of tequila and a small Leo at the beach party, the good thing is i was smart enough to set the alarm while still sober for 7am the next day because i ended up going home at 3 in the morning :-( which did not make for a good morning/long travel day at all as i should have learned from my experience leaving Pai.

    The next day i manage to wake up still hurting from the night before and hurried to pack my bags, which were a mess as i had not changed locations the week before. Once i Packed i went to the spot where i was to meet Thomas and Sophie (german) as well as their friends to head off to Bangkok and ultimately the south.  We all made it on the same taxi and headed for the pier, once on mainland Thailand the bus was waiting for us headed towards Bangkok. We arrived in Bangkok not knowing if we could take the bus or train so with 5 minutes to spare, arrived at 17:55 and bus leaves at 18:00, we had one of Thomas' friends run to the travel agency and was able to book our tickets which didn't really matter as there was a 4 hour delay w/ the bus trying to fix the AC supposedly, so instead of leaving at 18:00 we didn't leave until 22:00. We made it to Surat Thani at 7am the next day and surprisingly i managed to sleep pretty well on the bus, which out of the previous two night buses i had done i managed very little sleep. I'm now on Koh Samui and will post again once i get some pics and the aftermath from Songkran, the Thai new year. Until next time, Enjoy!

On the move

Hello All!

    Last post i had made i left off in Pai where i was trying to reach the South of Thailand, specifically Koh Phangan so i could finally get out of the city life and start enjoying the beach bum lifestyle. The day we returned the scooters we figured we could book our ticket and leave that same day, but the leg from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was fully booked, so we had to stay one last night in Pai, which was ok with me. So later that night we went to Yellow Sun as usual and got our Sangsom set's (bottle of rum, bucket of ice, two cokes) then after Yellow Sun closed we made it over to Bamboo Bar for the rest of the night, overall Christian and I went through 3 Sangsom set's and a couple of large Chang's. The next day i barely made check out and when i got up everything was still spinning. I finished packing my bags and dropped it off at reception then went out for some breakfast with Christian, we then ran into Tal who was with James and Linda (irish.)  I was still feeling it from the night before, so i figured if i got something greasy it would make it all go away, so i ordered a burger with bacon, cheese and a fried egg on it and it was actually pretty good, but it wouldn't be there for long! After getting breakfast we made our way to the travel agency where we booked our tickets and they told us they had to give us a refund as the south had been hit with heavy rain and part of the road was out and the bus couldn't make it. I was ready to make a move and so was Christian so we booked to Pattaya instead, Tal decided to stay an extra couple of days.

    So we finally got the minibus to Chiang Mai where we would get a much larger bus and take it overnight to Bangkok. The road from Pai to Chiang Mai consists of about 771 curves up and downhill, so it was very windy and the driver was driving waaaay to fast, on top of that i was still very hungover and had some food in my stomach, no bueno! about halfway to the halfway point i started to feel like crap, the contents in my stomach were all over the place, i tried to fall asleep but was unable to, i came very close to telling the driver to pull over so i could puke my guts out, but thankfully we made it to the halfway point, so there i was able to puke my guts out. After that the ride was much better all the way to Chiang Mai, where we caught the night bus to Bangkok.

    The next morning we arrived to Bangkok and had to wait around for 4 hours for the minibus to Pattaya to show up, when that finally came we hopped on and off to Pattaya we went. When we got to Pattaya it seemed nice, but as soon as we hopped out of the minibus it was quite different. In bangkok the Thai guys would come up to you and bug you about a taxi, which is not the case in Pattaya. Every time we'd walk somewhere for sure you were going to get at least 20 guys asking if you wanted boom boom, marijuana, coke, suits and so on. One of the reasons i didn't like Bangkok was because of them coming up and asking if i wanted a taxi or a suit, but being in Pattaya made me want to be back in Bangkok. I absolutely hated Pattaya as it's not my scene at all, it's all touristy and has no backpacker feel at all, also it's very expensive. So Christian and I stayed for one night then booked it to Koh Chang, which is Thailand's second biggest island.

    The following day we made the move to Koh Chang, which consisted of a minibus to the Pier in Trat, then a ferry that took us to the island. Once on the island there was a grip of taxis waiting to take you wherever you wanted. The island consists of about 4 or 5 beaches and the center of the island is pretty much a jungle. It is a national park so in order to enter you'd have to pay a 200 baht fee. The first night we stayed in Bang Bao which is at the southern part of the island and is more of a laid back w/ nothing to do type feel to it, this is where you go to catch a ferry to one of the other Islands that make up  the Koh Chang Archipelago. The following day we made a move to Lonely beach, which is the next beach over from Bang Bao (north.) This is the place to be for the backpackers, it's cheap, has a good beach and is filled with bars haha. I've pretty much been here for a week and have done nothing..it's been great! That's one of the main reasons why i haven't updated the blog because I haven't really done anything interesting but i did rent a scooter for a day and tried to scoot all around the island but was only able to make it 3/4's of the way as both days i got rained on. This is my schedule the week that i've been here, wake up anywhere from 11-2, go out grab some breakfast then head to the beach, maybe take a nap, go to dinner and a movie as there is a restaurant who plays a movie every night then go out and drink for the rest of the night. Rinse and repeat! I am trying to finally meet up with the other 3 friends that I came here with but the weather is not allowing me to do so as the floods destroyed a couple of kilometers of road and the bus can't make it to the town where the ferry leaves from, i'm going to try my luck with the train. Until next time, enjoy!!

saw these little guys in the town next to mine

overlooking white sands beach, which is the largest town on the island

he's so little

white sands beach

got rained on during the ride so had to stop and kill time

picture of my whip

all these signs are along the road, i got to see a baby monkey by my bungalow

heading into lonely beach where i'm staying

look at this guy

i present to you the honda scooty

Pai Thai

Hello all!

    I've moved on to a new place since my last update in Chiang Mai, i'm now in Pai and getting ready to head south to go island hopping!!

    My last day/night in Chiang Mai was probably the most fun i had in Chiang Mai, even though i didn't do much at all during the day, i managed to find a used book store and found a book to read and just did that all day, and got frustrated with my Where's Waldo book that i gave up after the first page ha. When the night came we all went out for a walk and ended up at a park that was filled w/ locals. They were playing volleyball with their feet and others were playing this weird game, with the same ball, where you had to get it into a hoop that was about 25ft high and you had to use your feet or head, seeing some of the stuff these guys did was nuts! Specially when  they'd go to spike it in volleyball, the guys were doing these 360 degree back flips and were managing to spike the ball and still land on there feet, it was awesome and we just hung around and watched them play for about 45min. After that we went back a different way which ended up working out as we found a night market and a bunch of street food, which has been some of the best i've had in Thailand for the least amount of money ($0.75.) After dinner we went back to Julie's and met the rest of the crowd and then started to drink, after a couple of hours and just BS'n we finally managed to make the move to a raggae bar that played live music and preceded to get even more drunk. The next day we were on the move to Pai.

this little kid was running around hustling, he got me twice :-(

    After barely making check out, would have payed for another night if not, we got a mini bus to Pai which is a laid back hippy esque village close to the Myanmar border and about 3 hours from Chiang Mai. The ride up was good, the roads were very twisty through some very beautiful scenery. Once we got to Pai we walked around until finding some bungalows for 100 baht per night ($3.30.) It was nice having my own room and the bathroom facilities were ok as well. We dropped off our bags and headed into the small town, which we managed to cover most of it on that first walk around. There really isn't much to do in Pai other then just chill out and relax so that's exactly what i did. It would rain everyday in the evening like it were clockwork so we did most of the walking around during the day then would head back to the bungalow and chill out on the hammock and fall asleep to the sound of rain =) The first night out we made it to a nice little raggae bar that had a pool table so we lounged there with the intentions to make a move to a much larger bar but never really made it as we ordered 3 Samsong bottles (cheap Thai rum) and some coke and that's all she sang! The next day, Sunday, was a half moon party in the jungle so what Christian, Tal and I did was rent scooters for 24hrs and it ended up being a great move. It was more expensive to fill up the tank then it was for the scooter rental (110b for gas 100b for 24hrs.) We managed to check out some of the local attractions which consisted of a couple of waterfalls, a land crack, and the freedom bridge that the Japanese built back in WW2. On the way to the last waterfall Christian miscalculated his turn and accidentally ended up laying the scooter down and getting some minor scratches. After heading back and letting Christian calm down a bit we got ready to go out for the night. We started things at Yellow Sun, which is the raggae bar and after that closed at midnight we made our way up to the half moon party (jungle party) and that was intense. There was a free taxi out there and back but by the time we left around 4am the taxi was not running, so we had to walk back into town which took about 45 minutes. The next day was shitty because i was hung over on very little sleep and we had to check out at 11am. I woke up drunk still and had to check out as well as return the scooter. Although Pai is very cool and has a laid back feel to it it was time to move on. We had planned to leave that day but the buses were full so we decided to stay another night and booked the trip down to the south of Thailand the next day. Until next time. Enjoy!!

one of they many waterfalls around Pai

panoramic of the scenery outside of Pai

My first bucket!!!

Hello All!

    As i posted my latest update i was relaxing at the lounge of my last hostel in Bangkok and was supposed to go out and check out KSR to get my first bucket and the ping pong tournament but unfortunately that didn't quite happen :(. I went up to my room and took a quick shower then was going to take a quick nap to get rested up for the crazy night to come, but i didn't wake up in time (2am) and as it turns out i was scheduled to leave the next day to Chiang Mai. So i'm still to enjoy my first bucket!

    The following day i checked out with one day left in my reservation for the hostel, love it when plans change, as Tal and I had decided to go up north and check out Chiang Mai and get out of the super muggy, humid heat of Bangkok. The hostel was nice enough to give me some of my money back as i had told them i was leaving with less then 24hrs notice. We left our bags and went out for the day with Elise who is an American girl that had just gotten done teaching English in Myanmar for a year and was traveling around before heading back to the states. We went out for some breakfast and looked around for our bus ticket up north, we ended up finding a place and the ticket ended up being 350 baht which is not super horrible and the guy said we would be taking the super VIP bus, which was not VIP or super at all. After getting all that sorted we decided to get out of the heat and head back to the hostel and lounge around for a while, then it hit me. I had been fine for the past week eating the asian food with out feeling back or any stomach pains, then just a couple of hours before a 12hr bus ride i get this, the shits ha, i was thinking WTF did i do to deserve this as it would have made a already terrible trip even worse!! luckily i got all that shit out, literally, before the bus trip. We managed to take in one last sight in Bangkok by going to this cool temple, can't quite remember the name of it but it was pretty rad. The time had come to head back grab our bags and head to the bus. We said our goodbyes to Elise and went on our way.

Very cool temple

very steep steps!

    The bus ride up to Chiang Mai was kind of terrible, but what made it a little better was that the bus did not fill up all the way so i had my own row of seats to stretch out and make it as comfy as possible. After arriving in Chiang Mai the bus dropped us off outside of town and got a ride into town on the back of these Toyota Hilux's (tacoma) that took us to a hotel and wanted us to stay there, the whole thing was shady as fuck! After getting out of there we made our way to Julie guesthouse where we had some friends (Suzanne and Christina) staying but they were all booked. We managed to get a place right around the corner from there for 100 baht per night which isn't bad at all. Tal and I met another german guy on the bus who was looking for a place to stay at as well, so we managed to all get a room together and split the costs. Christian, Tal and I decided it would be best to take a nap before doing anything as none of us really slept at all. After our nap we woke up, went to Julie's to meet up with Suzanne and Christina and in the process ended up meeting Brad, (aussie) Luke and Jackie (brother and sister, US) and we went off to lunch/breakfast. After getting a bite to eat we all decided to get pissed and started drinking at around 13:00-14:00, luckily i had grabbed my UNO cards and had a couple of games of drinking UNO which made it way more fun. We ended up getting pissed way to early and i was passed out by 21:00, i eventually walked home barefoot leaving my sandals behind not knowing WTF was going on lol.

lounging around playing UNO before we got pissed

    Today we had planned to look around at prices to do some of the treks offered from Chiang Mai. I really want to do the Flight of the Gibbon experience as well as the Elephant reserve, but shits kind of expensive, (2500-3000 baht) and although i could afford it i didn't know how it would affect my finances two months from now so i had to hold up on that. Tal went off to learn thai massage so Christian and I just walked around Chiang Mai with nothing really planned. We found a really cool pyramid type thing in the center of town that was way cool, we then got some grub and he needed to hit up the bank to exchange 400€ that he had, how cheap Thailand is he may not need anymore money for the entire 4 weeks that he is here, he ended up getting over 16,000 baht back from those 400€ he had. After finally getting that taken care of we went back to Julie's to catch up with everyone else and see what was going on, everyone was just lounging around so we decided to do the same, then i got really tired and went back for a nap. The girls had planned on going to a temple up in the mountains to watch the sunset so i had set the alarm to wake up for that, after waking up and getting ready we were off back to Julie's to meet up with them. As we arrived to julie's everyone was running out to the streets with a frantic look on their faces, I had though maybe someone was hurt of something had happened, but as i asked around someone had told me they had just felt an earthquake, not knowing what was going on i just kinda hung out waiting for an aftershock, but it never came. After about 5 minutes of panicking everyone just went back to doing what they were doing before, i went to meet up w/ the rest of the crew and just proceeded to start drinking. We decided to go out to a laid back reggae bar and chill out. We did just that as I finally got to have my first bucket i handed my camera to everyone in the group and told them to take a picture, then pass it on. I'll have to check whats on there, but until then. Thanks for reading and until next time. Enjoy!

very cool dragon statue

very cool temple

my first bucket!!!! rum, coke, and redbull all for $6

chilling on the rooftop at freedom bar

life is rough...

Hello All!

    Just getting updated from my last couple of days, I didn't have internet at our hostel in Hong Kong so I was unable to post as much as i had liked.

    So my last day and night in Hong Kong wasn't as exciting as i had liked, but i did manage to see The Symphony of Light, which is a rad light show that goes on over on the Hong Kong island and involves a lot of the skyscrapers. Yesterday we managed to go for a walk and found it hard to decide on a place to eat, but eventually made it back to the place where Terry had taken us the day before, a food court at the mall that was moderately priced and had good food. After eating we walked across the street and decided to check out the Hong Kong museum of Art which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. After getting some grub and checking out the museum we made it back to our hotel and i finished packing my bags and said goodbye to my amigos, which i'm not gonna lie, it was going to be sad to leave them as this is a trip of a lifetime and it sucks when you're friends aren't there to share the memories with you.

    I made it to the airport (HKG) in time with Bangkok next on the list, after finally getting access to the internet and checking up on FB, the boarding time had came, looking at the giant beast that would take me to the next destination was amazing and scary at the same time, how could that giant get off the ground i thought to myself. I landed in Bangkok at 23:00 and by the time i made it through immigration and customs it was about 23:45ish leaving just the right amount of time to catch the Airport Express into town, which stops running at midnight. I finally made it to my destination around 00:30ish, Kaoh San Road, and by the time i made it to the hostel it was about 1:00am, but it seemed like it was mid day as the street was filled with people and shops open selling goods. I didn't do much that night after unpacking i was beat and managed to go to bed and get caught up on my texts, thanks google voice.

The ride over to Bangkok

    Today i woke up with nothing in mind and not knowing anyone or what to do, i got ready for the day, made it down stairs and before i sat down i had already met Tal, a backpacker from Israel. We chatted it up for a bit and decided to walk around and take in the sights as it was his first day as well. First stop on the agenda was the big temple, but it was a holiday today so that went out the window, we then decided to head to the Golden Mountain, which was a temple on top of a mountain which was way cool. In the process Tal and I  got hungry and decided to get some grub, we found what we thought at the time was a good and reasonable priced restaurant, and although they served good food and were reasonably priced, $4-5 for the meal and a couple of drinks, it turned out to be a scam as there are far cheaper places we can get food, $1-2 per meal, I need to stop comparing prices on the dollar as i'll run out quick thinking i'm getting a good deal if it's only $5-6. We met a british and half greek half spanish girl (Suzanne and Christina) who were on the same path, just find time to kill and sights to see. We agreed to head to the Thailand cultural and art exhibit, how we got there was a bit interesting. Suzanne had read in her lonely planet book that the most cost effective way, i'm on a budget, it's ok with me, was to take a boat down the river as it would drop us off at the stop we needed to be. After being stuck in a crazy rain storm we were off by boat to our next stop. We get to the exhibit and we find out it's closed on mondays, so across the street is a mall and we decide to go in there and Suzanne managed to buy some stickers and I was introduced to Miffy, Hello Kitty's rival. After a while we managed to take a taxi back to Kaoh San Road for 100 baht which is not horrible as we other taxis wanted 200+. We got back to Kaoh San Road and there was a fundraiser/charity event going on for the japanese victims. So here we are in the middle of the road with the Thai red cross around collecting money when out of the corner of my eye i see a huge elephant headed my way. It turns out this group had organized this group of elephants to help with the charity, and it worked as i donated some bahts towards the cause, not that i wouldn't have in the first place, but it influenced the amount that i gave for the cause. After checking out the elephants and a concert  Suzanne got the idea of getting a foot message, so we walk down another street and found a place that offered a foot and back message for 100 baht, a little over $3!! So after that was done, which was amazing, we went to grab a drink before Suzanne and Christina went off to catch their bus to Chang Mai. After exchanging info and saying our goodbyes Tal and I headed back to the hostel to chill out and relax before experiencing Bangkok by night, which i hear they put on good ping pong shows ;)



First day in Bangkok, total spent $12, Success!!!

Until next time, Enjoy

pretty important dude.

one of the many cool temples in Bangkok

on the way up Golden Mountain

boat ride to the art exhibit

thai boxing on the street.

Elephants!! the baby elephant took money from my hand with it's truck, way cool.

Elephant!

Kaoh San Road

getting a foot/back message on the street, not a bad way to spend $3

Hong Kong

Hello All,

    WOW. Hong Kong is amazing! Words can't describe how cool it is, it's like nothing i've ever seen before. Skyscrapers as far as the eye can see, and down by the harbor seeing them lit up at night is truly something everyone should see. It's cool how Hong Kong is setup, all the Skyscraper pictures you see of Hong Kong are of Hong Kong island, just across the harbor is Kowloon Island (where we're staying) and were most of the people live. All the business is done on Hong Kong island and although there are residential areas, it'll cost you upwards of $2,000 us for a studio!!

IFC 2 building. second biggest in Hong Kong

Bubble tea!!!

    Well, we got into Hong Kong at 10:35 thursday night and by the time we got through with getting our bags, customs, and immigration it was around 11:40 before we got the MTR (metro) into Hong Kong island which made it kind of scary because it's about a 25 minute ride into Hong Kong station, and from there we had to transfer to a different line to get to where our hotel was, but the MTR stops running at midnight. It forced us to have to pay for a taxi, which wasn't horrible at all actually. We made it to our Hostel at around 12:30, left our bags and went for a stroll down nathan road. You would think that it being midnight everyone would be at home sleeping, not in Hong Kong. It was like we were out at mid day, people everywhere, shops and food joints still open. We ended up heading back to the hostel around 2:30am and crashing as well as to rest for the next day.

    So it's our first full day and we woke up, got ready and headed out for the day. We walked down nathan road to the harbor, it was quite the walk and took about an hour or so to get down to the harbor. We were supposed to meet up with my friend who studied at BSU but now lived in Hong Kong, Terry Mak for those of you who know him from the car scene, but he ended up getting stuck in a meeting and didn't catch up with him until later. We walked up and down the harbor and took our pictures until i was finally able to get ahold of Terry. Once we got ahold of him we planned to meet up on Hong Kong island, it was great seeing him again after about 5-7 years or so since he had left Boise. He showed us around Hong Kong island and took us to Lan Kwai Fong which is a road lined with pubs and bars and of course where I'd spend my nights in Hong Kong!!! After we got done hanging out with Terry we went back to the Kowloon side and had planned on hanging around until 8pm, it was about 5:30pm, to watch the light show that the city does, which i've heard is way cool, but the weather got bad and we decided to leave it for another night. So what we did is went back to the hostel and took a nap, we ended up waking up at 11pm and decided to get ready to go out, ended up getting to Lan Wai Fon around midnight and it was insane. The street was full of people as they were getting drinks inside the pub then heading out to the street, we ended up getting a beer and it was $55 hong kong dollars which was ridiculous! I then got the bright idea to hit up club 7 (7-11) for some cheep drinks. So what we did is we'd go down the street to club 7 and we'd get two beers at a time then head back up the street to the pubs and hung out and it was anywhere from 30-40 hong kong dollars depending on the beer you got, victory!! It was pretty intense as drunk people were everywhere, we even saw a fight break out and this drunk guy knocked out a girl and then proceeded to get his ass beat by two brothas!! So after a long and drunken night out we had to figure out how to get across the harbor and back to our hotel, the taxi would have ran us about 80-90 hong kong dollars or we could wait for either the MTR or the ferry to open, so of course we decided to wait so we set off and walked around and eventually found a McDonalds and got some late night grub and in the process i tried to jump a fence and ate shit...hard, then went off to the ferry terminal to wait for it to open. It was about 5:30 and it opened at 7am, I remember sitting down at a table but don't remember passing out ha, my friends, being the good friends that they are, started finding shit and eventually had me fenced in, saw the pics, until they eventually decided to wake me up, at that point i was like fuck it, lets take a taxi so we cabbed it back as i was getting tired and didn't want to wait for the ferry any longer…hangs head in shame.

Passed the fuck out

Hooligans up to no good!

ugh wtf is this sign doing here

Lan Kwai Fong

in front of Club 7. don't mind the other sign

    After our drunken good times the first night, we decided to do something a little more productive today. We woke up and decided to head up to the Tian Tan Buddha  and go for a ride on the cable cars, we get ready and head out at around 11:30am. It was raining so we figured it would be a good day to go see as their can be up to a 4 hour wait to go up the cable cars. We get out there and were hungry, there just so happened to be a mall and we headed for the food court which was waaaay good, they had different foods from different countries, i decided on the vietnamese cuisine and it was delicious. We get done eating and head up to the cable car terminal, get our tickets sorted and hop on for the ride, it was foggy and overcast, but on a clear day i hear you can see Hong Kong island on the way up, which would have been amazing. We get up to the little village and walked around eventually making it to the Buddha, which happened to be about 8 flights of stairs up, and started the trek up. Got up to the top and go to see the Buddha up close, it's way cool and is the biggest Buddha statue in the world. After spending most of the day up there we headed back into town and are now just relaxing before another fun night out. Will post more from the night out and possibly Bangkok here soon, so until then. Enjoy!!

cable car ride

taken right as the fog cloud came in

pretty far from everything

Tian Tan Buddha

Hooligans