High as a kite and soaked to the bone

Check out the fireshow this nine-year-old kid puts on.

Hua Hin is a smallish beach town renowned because the king himself resides here. As a matter of fact I even caught a glimpse of the monarch’s beige Rolls Royce today, but as far as I could tell through the darkened windows, my wave was not returned. Although the city has a nice beach, I wouldn’t really recommend this place to anyone unless you want to kite-board. The prices for everything are high due to the proximity to Bangkok, and the city has the worst Scandinavian infestation I’ve seen yet, with some tailors even advertising in Finnish! Is that supposed to lull me into some sense of security regarding their tailoring skills or what?

The kite-boarding itself was surprisingly easy to get a hang of and I’m really looking forward to the last day of the course tomorrow. I always thought you would only have limited control over the kite, but actually with just a few hours practise you become near- surgically precise with it. For the course, I was paired up with a bloke from Azerbaijan, whom I disliked immediately. Within five minutes of introducing himself, he was wondering out loud where he could find the best prostitutes in town. Now, I’m actually not very athletic by nature, so whenever I learn a new sport, I have to work pretty hard at it. But honestly, compared to this guy, I was like the love-child of Carl Lewis and Michael Jordan. The sleaze-ball had the concentration of a drunken four-year old, the athleticism of a tub of lard and the sense of balance of a one-legged possum. I swear sometimes his ineptitude even contradicted the laws of physics, and even though the wind was pushing the kite up, he managed to bring it crashing down. Still, seeing him get smacked face-first into wet sand by his out-of-control kite was pretty amusing, so it wasn’t like he was a complete waste of space. Also, to be honest he wasn’t getting all that much support from our teacher, an ice-cold Israeli guy whose teaching method was pretty much: “Grab on to this, I’ll be back in an hour”. I would’ve been angry about this, but in my case it worked like a charm, so kudos to him! I guess sometimes too much hand-holding just makes things seem harder than they are.

The festivities for Songkran, i.e. Thai New Year are picking up here, meaning that it is absolutely impossible to venture anywhere outside without being soaked to the bone. Kids and adults alike use hoses, buckets and water pistols to drench everyone walking by, and foreigners are of course especially attractive targets. It’s a real warzone out there, and on the way back from the beach I was ambushed several times by what seemed like pretty sophisticatedly planned attacks! Some people even load up water tanks on their pick-up trucks and get the whole family on board to man the guns, turning the vehicle into an effective drive-by-soaking-mobile! If this sounds like fun, that’s because it is, and the showers are a welcome relief from the stifling heat. Nevertheless, at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, the whole being soaked thing does get... well... a little old. In my case, it’s just the clothes getting wet, but I’ve also heard of heaps of people losing their cameras and mobile phones because of overzealous water dumping. My advice would be to keep everything in plastic bags and wear clothes that can be smeared in the white powder that often accompanies the soakings.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to buy a Super Soaker from the 7-11 and get some ice cold payback for earlier! Death before dishonour :)

P. S. Hadn’t heard this in ages till a little old lady played it in her CD shack in Bangkok. Great, great song.

Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBRdet5Ehyo

Driving in Thailand - Not for the weak of heart

Blue steel

First things first: the night dive was absolutely superb! I didn’t get bitten or stung by anything, and being immersed in pitch black water was actually pretty relaxing, not gloomy like one might imagine. I’m now back in Bangkok sorting out my visa-stuff for Myanmar, and I’m ashamed to say that on arrival I headed straight to Burger King :) Then to MacDonald’s. Then back to Burger King :D The reason for this junk food binge is that I’ve reached a saturation point in Thai cuisine. The past six weeks, I have basically lived only on noodle and rice dishes with very few exceptions, and although they are tasty, they're coming out of my ears. Now, I’m taking full advantage of the fast-food selection here and am totally pigging out! Maybe on this diet I can eventually stop using a safety pin to hold up my shorts too! Speaking of clothing, like an idiot, I went out today in a red t-shirt and was wondering why some of the Thais were looking at me kind of funny. When I got back to the guesthouse, the Japanese owner (who looks a hell of a lot like Mr. Myagi btw) asked me if I had been at the Democracy Monument demonstrating with the other redshirts for the reinstatement of the ex-prime minister Thaksin. Duh.

 

One thing I neglected to mention earlier is that I had my first experiences driving in Thailand a few days ago on Koh Phangan, when I rented a moped with a friend. The blue Honda we got was a truly amazing machine, going from zero to eighty in something like two minutes and coming to a halt again in almost the same time if the breaks were squeezed like our lives depended on them (which they did). I had never driven one before, but luckily both the controls and the local traffic rules are pretty intuitive. In fact, the main rule seems to be “If it’s bigger than you, it has right of way”, and honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever sworn as much while driving as here. There’s just something about seeing an SUV occupying three-quarters of your lane and hurtling toward you at a hundred kilometres an hour that forces profanities out of your mouth. Also, the hills around Hat Rin on Koh Phangan are just mental, as they wind up like corkscrews at angles that slowed our moped to a crawl. The real fun bit, of course, was not going up, but coming down. In fact the first time we came down one particularly nasty hill known locally as “The Hill of Tears”, it honestly felt like coming down a steep bit on a roller coaster, with both of us open-mouthed in a silent scream.  Still, as a whole, the mopeds are an insanely easy way to get around, and if you stay sharp and drive safe, I can definitely recommend them as a mode of transport. Also, they are a hell of a lot of fun.

 

Next, I’m heading a few hundred kilometres south to a beach town called Hua Hin. I will spend the Thai New Year there and do a kite-surfing course at the same time. To be honest, I don’t really know what to expect from the course, but I keep imagining a US Marine Corps style sergeant screaming at me at the top of his lungs: “THAT IS THE WORST GODDAMN KITE-FLYING I HAVE EVER SEEN SON!!!” We will see.

 

Mr. T had his own bike of course

P. S. Thai reggae. I hadn’t heard of it earlier either, but it is just impossible to go anywhere here without hearing this catchy tune. Seriously, it is EVERYWHERE.

Job2do – Doo doo doo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAdZzr0ysxg

Taxonomy of tossers

 

Why so glum, chum?

I realized today that in my previous post I may have created unrealistically positive expectations of travellers here. Let me say for the record that there are tons of unsavoury characters around too, and although stereotyping is simplifying, some main types have already emerged. Here are some of the most common ones encountered.

 

Chavs: Tend to move around in big drunken groups and are usually twenty-somethings on their first trip ever. Obnoxious and arrogant wankers, they treat locals with a mixture of disdain and distrust, and expect all the comforts of home at a tenth of the price. They are annoying as fuck and have the worse manners you can imagine. Certain nationalities are more prevalent than others in this group, but it would seem every country has at least some kind of representation.

 

Goddamn hippies: Some are smart and friendly, others pretentious, holier-than-thou douche-bags. Usually they look vaguely like Jesus and are dressed in a shawl or a sarong. They might speak a few words of the local language and think they’re Gods because of it. Thanks to copious amounts of ganja, most are total space-cadets, and can hardly put two sentences together without pausing to stare off at the distance. I swear to Christ, if I have to listen to any more herbal tea-soaked diatribes about “the corporate machine maaaan”, I am going to lose it.

 

Dial-tones: These are the people whose idea of taking a risk is peeing in the shower, and whose only major motive to travel is to build up a collection of Hard Rock Café t-shirts. Not really annoying unless you get stuck talking to them with all escape routes blocked, which actually happened to me on the boat to Phi Phi. Honestly speaking though, these guys are pretty harmless, and their only sin is that they’re boring as fuck, but insist on droning on about their lives in excruciating detail. I mean come on, that’s what blogs are for, right?

 

These are just off the top of my head, I'm sure I'll think of some more later on. Anyway, on to cheerier topics. As speculated, the diving has indeed improved my impression of Koh Tao. The trip today was cheap, easy to organize and we got to see heaps of stuff too. Also, my dive buddy had an underwater camera with him, so I can even post some pics, thanks Marco! On a more concerning note, the entire spectrum of marine life in Thailand seems united in their stand for me to stay out of the water. The aggression has escalated, as sea urchins and small fish have given way to bigger creatures. Today, a trigger fish about the size of an old school laptop was biting my flippers, and likewise harassing everyone in the group.  Seriously, this was a big fish, and could easily bite off a toe or finger if it felt like it! I had heard somewhere you could scare them off by spraying them with air, so the entire encounter I was clutching my spare regulator like a can of Mace at the ready. The ever expanding size of my attackers bodes ill for my night dive tonight, but I’m still pretty stoked about it, as it’s my first ever! Fingers crossed. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go and try to find a Koh Tao Planet Hollywood t-shirt.

Friendly marine life 

P. S.  There were those who said one man could not successfully play a star ship captain AND record a great spoken word version of “Common people” by Pulp. Obviously, they had never heard the name “Shatner”.

 

William Shatner – Common People

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRPa0GhxGUs&feature=related 

O sole mio

Helsinki, like any city of even moderate proportions, is filled with people who don’t need any more friends. The lack of influx of new people into your life kind of twists you into thinking that you canonly become truly good friends with a very specific niche group. On the road, however, you come face to face with people from all walks of life, and realize that actually there is a wealth of fascinating friends out there if you just take ten minutes to get to know them. Still, a lot of people used to taking trips in groups or pairs seem to abhor the idea of solo-travelling. Even though most of the time they acknowledge the fact that “it’s so easy to meet people here”, they seem to picture solo-trips pretty much as months spent in complete solitude. The truth is, if anything, you end up spending so much time with other people that you find yourself longing for a few moments of quality ”me”- time. Seriously, if you want to be lonely here, it takes a lot of effort! 

Travelling alone does take a bit of getting used to though, and the first week or so becomes a sort of weird transitional phase. You slowly distance yourself from the feeling of constantly being in a hurry somewhere, and one by one begin to drop your defences against casual conversation. Before you know it, something clicks and you feel right at home in the ever shifting social environment that comes from being constantly on the move. Mark my words: once that happens, to travel alone will become at least an intermittent desire for the rest of your life.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, after spending almost a week on Koh Phangan, I finally made the move to Koh Tao today. This puts me back in solo-travelling mode, as the British lads I was hanging around with stayed behind for the full-moon fest. At first glance, Koh Tao seems pretty shitty: prices are high, touts hassle you to no end and there are Westerners (especiallyFinns) everywhere. It’s as bad as Phi Phi, but without the redeeming qualities of sublime beauty or a good St. Patrick’s Day party. Also, maybe swaying my opinion slightly is the fact that the resort I’m staying at is a complete shithole, with all the charm of the Bates motel and the decor of a concentration camp gas-chamber. Seriously, I have been to some rat and cockroach infested sties before, but this takes the cake. I mean, look at the picture I took of the bathroom!  If it weren’t so cheap, I would be out in a second. Also, the electricity on the island has been on and off all day thanks to some recent storms, so at the moment it’s pitch black here and absolutely mind-bogglingly hot because the fans don’t work.

Oh well, they say Koh Tao is all about the diving, so maybe my views will change after I get a few fun-dives in tomorrow.

The floor is just diarrhoea-coloured, not actually covered in diarrhoea

P. S. This song rocks, although domestic violence as a lyrical theme could be seen as a bit iffy by some. 

Florence and the Machine – Kiss with a fist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpsDegqioVA

Over the moon

It's good to be king


Koh Phangan has become an inextricable part of backpacking folklore thanks to the massive full moon parties thrown here. They are so popular in fact that half-moon and new moon parties are now also organized, meaning that some kind of big fest is on every week and lesser ones every day. This is probably the reason why so many travellers here seem to be really into recreational drug-use, and at the parties you’ll find most people pilled out of their minds. If you ask them what they’re on, they usually rattle off a list of drugs most of which you’ve never even heard of.

Speaking of drugs, I gained some more insight into the wonderful world of weed in California from a bloke who had studied there earlier and was really into it. Apparently there’s a thriving subculture there that breeds different strains of marijuana, each with its own qualities. The best strains compete in something called “The Cannabis Cup” and because the plants are so easy to clone, the winners spread rapidly throughout the States. The strains all have distinctive names like “Super Silver Haze”, “Northern Lights” and “Alaskan Thunderfuck”, and the guy I was talking to really liked one called “Purple Irkle”. He was truly worried that it might die out because it was so hard to grow, and hence he was constantly on the look-out for a Purple Irkle plant so that he could keep the breed alive. Also, I thought it was pretty funny when he described evenings similar to wine-tastings, where him and his friends would smoke dozens of different strains and try to identify them. Like a wine, they would then rate the weed on several dimensions, and apparently Purple Irkle has “great flavour and a really nice high too.” Despite his mild obsession with the herb, this guy was sharp as a tack, not like most of the puffy-eyed space-cadets you see around here.

Going back to parties, I was at the half-moon rave last night and fell victim to the insidious buckets again. Needless to say I won’t be curing cancer or learning Mandarin Chinese today, as nursing this hangover is enough to keep me occupied. The party itself was terrific though! While the full moon raves are held at the beach, the half-moon ones take place in the middle of the jungle, where they have built a massive round arena complete with a tripping light show and heaps of bars. You can see pictures of it here: http://halfmoonfestival.com/photo.htm
Thousands of people turned up, and the atmosphere was a combination of Apocalypse Now and the cave-rave scene in Matrix Revolutions. At some point rain started pouring down, but since everyone was wearing beach clothes already, it didn’t matter and the party went on till dawn! I really wish I could be here for the full-moon one as well, but I have to get to Bangkok to drop off a visa application for Myanmar. Also, I’ve already heard about five people saying they’ve gotten pick-pocketed at the full moon party, so maybe it’s for the best.

























Thais don't fuck about when they come with brand slogans, for example this energy drink promises a lot


P. S. Definitely my favourite Sufjan Stevens song, and I like the ambiance in the video as well.

Sufjan Stevens – For the widows in Paradise, for the fatherless in Ypsilante.

Fading lights and revelations

Mr. T poolside

Have I raved enough about how absolutely fucking spectacular this island is? Yes? Good. Then let me just quickly plug the bungalows I’m staying at as well. The Sawasdee Resort is absolutely fantastic. The couple who run it, Fon and Nui, are just the sweetest people you can imagine, and Nui is a goddamn culinary genius to boot. I am systematically going through the entire menu here just because everything is so tasty. And this is not just the munchies talking either ;) The couple had a bit of shitty start for the business, as it had only been open for two weeks when the tsunami hit in 2004, but they seem to have recovered, and now the resort is definitely the nicest on the island. That’s why it really pains me to leave this place, but I’m determined to see the Gulf of Siam islands as well, and I want to do some diving on Koh Tao. Heavy weighs the heart of a traveller, as for every joyful “sawasdee”, a sombre goodbye he must endure.

I had a bit of a jungle-adventure a few nights ago when I was heading back home from the other side of the island. It was a dark, moonless night and the tide had come in thus cutting off my usual route home via the beach. This meant I had to go through the jungle, which, I have come to find, is always a shitty option. The real challenge came when I found that the batteries in my flashlight were as good as dead, and what had previously been a blinding shaft of light was now more like a feeble glow. It was absolutely pitch black and the so-called jungle “path” was basically just regular jungle with about 5% less stuff growing on it, and as such difficult to follow even in daylight. After about ten minutes I was already hopelessly lost and disoriented, with no idea if I was on the pathetic excuse for a path anymore or not. That’s real-life path dependency for you. So there I was, alone, bumbling around in the bloody jungle, not being able to see more than two feet ahead of me and surrounded by all kinds of weird noises (the kind that sound like they will eat you). I have to say, it was pretty surreal for a country-boy far away from home. What really made me jump was when I pointed the pathetic beam of light at a nearby bush and saw... a pair of eyes glowing in the dark! I shit you not. It occurred to me that I was either a teen separated from the pack in a B-rated horror film or a wildebeest on the Discovery Channel, but either way, things weren’t looking too good.. My time had not yet come, however, and after a few tense seconds I heard a reassuring “Miau” from the darkness :) In the end, through trial and error I did find the right way, and after having a stiff drink back at the resort I swore I would not make the same mistake of trying to navigate the jungle in the dark again. Of course I did the very following night with equally disastrous results but anyway, I bet there’s a lesson in there somewhere. Actually the whole escapade reminded me little bit of Monkey Island 2, where you’re lost in the jungle and seemingly every path just takes you back to where you’ve already been. Anybody get that reference?

Ko Chang - Picture perfect

P. S. This is one of the most powerful mood-altering songs known to man. Effects are intensified ten-fold if the sun is shining outside and it’s spring-time.

The Eels – Fresh Feeling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjVpkEGAgiw

My little slice of paradise (hey that rhymes)

Longtail boat in the sunset

Friends, I’ve found what I’ve been looking for :) Ko Chang has got to be the chillest place I have ever been, and I’d like to think I’ve been to a few already during the course of my travels. The island sits in the Andaman Sea wedged between Thailand and Myanmar, and is not to be confused with the Ko Chang on the on the other side of Thailand, which, nice though it may be, is targeted by just about every tourist in the hemisphere. The couple of bungalows that can be found here are mostly empty, and if you so wished, you could probably spend the whole day at the beach without bumping into a single soul. The few people you do meet invariably tell the same story: “Came here once ten years ago and have been coming back every year since then.” It's not hard to see why. I actually met a travel agent who has been coming here for seventeen years, but strictly refuses to send any of his customers over for fear of crowding up the place. Good man. Electricity is only available for a few hours at night, and many of the long running visitors pray the island never gets constant power, as this would be the beginning of the end here. Once twenty-four hour electricity is available, swankier bungalows are built, after which come swarms of European holidaymakers and the serene island Shangri-La is ruined forever.

I don’ know why, but this place gives me an unusual feeling of inner peace. For once, I’m perfectly content just laying in a hammock all day navel-gazing, listening to the waves lap and the wind-chimes jingle. No goals, no stress, no schedules, no sense of time passing. Surrounded and consumed by this tranquillity, I realize I bear almost no ill will toward Mr. T anymore. I’m just happy to be here. This makes the whole vendetta seem a bit pointless now, but nevertheless, a promise is a promise, and even crazy plans need to be followed through, right? 

Oh, by the way, I made a slight change to my travel plans and will be heading to Myanmar in a few weeks to get a bit more adventurous on the trip. I’m guessing that after Thailand, travelling there going to be a bit more frustrating, but I just cannot believe it can possibly be any worse than India or Nepal. No way.

P. S. This song and video somehow capture a bit of the beachy ambiance here.

Joe Purdy – Wash away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq4Dsv7EdyQ

P. P. S. I hope the link opens, cause for some reason all video sharing sites are down here. Maybe to stop people uploading video of the protests in the capital? Oh wait, I'm not in Myanmar yet.