Thailand

10 May 2008
Sutan/Phuket, Thailand
                As we disembarked the boat we were assaulted by a bunch of tour operators offering trips to Bangkok, Krabi, Phuket, Ko Samui and anywhere else you could think of.  We spoke with a guy about a bus to Phuket.  He took us in the office and we bought our tickets.  We only had enough Malaysian money to get us about 200 Baht (around $7USD).  We gave that to the guy as a deposit.  We were loaded up truck with some benches in the back (in Central and South America they were called “collectivo’s”).  As we sat there we started thinking about how much we negotiated for…1300 Baht.  As we sat in the back of the truck and thought about this we realized we were over paying. 
                The truck stopped at an ATM and we got some cash out and tried to tell our driver that we were not going to use the ticket we negotiated for.  Of course he doesn’t speak English and we definitely don’t speak Thai.  He nods and smiles and eventually another guy shows up and does the translating for us.  The driver begins to drive us to the bus station but pulls over and hands Doug his cell phone.  On the phone is the guy that we negotiated the ticket with.  Doug can barely understand him but Doug tells him that the ticket cost too much and we were going to get a ticket on our own.  The guy says some stuff but all Doug can understand is the end when he said he wanted to speak with the driver.  Doug imagining the worst (which is the guy telling the driver to take us anywhere but the bus station) says that the driver is driving and I’ll give the phone to him in a minute.  The guy eventually hangs up and calls back.  Doug hits the End button.  The guy calls again just as we are pulling up the bus station.  Doug now hands him the phone.  Anna decided that this poor driver has been dragged into a mess and deserved a little something, so she slipped him 100 Baht (about $3USD).
                At the ticket counter we purchased tickets that were half the price of the ones that the guy tried to sell us.  The bus ride was about 7 hours long.  Along the way we were amazed to see huge limestone rocks sticking straight up in the air.  The landscape was completely flat and then there was a 300 foot rock going straight up covered in vegetation.  We found out later that this area was world renowned for rock climbing.
                We arrived in Phuket around 7:30 at night.  We decided to walk to our hostel and pushed through all the taxi drivers and found our way there.  About halfway it began to dump rain on us and we tried our best to take cover under awnings along the way but we still ended up getting drenched.  Of course by the time we get to the hostel it had stopped raining.
                The room we checked into was nice enough.  We had an attached bathroom again which is always nice.  Not having eaten anything of any real substance we headed out in town for dinner.  The first place that we wandered into was an Italian place.  We were wet, tired and hungry, so our fist meal in Thailand was Italian.  We split a pizza and one of the specials, lobster raviolis.  The pizza was quite good, but there were only THREE raviolis in the special.  (Not five or ten, but THREE)
                On the way back to the room we tried to buy beer at the 7-11 but they said we couldn’t buy any for some reason.  In the hostel we rented a movie and went to sleep. 

11 May 2008
Phuket, Thailand
                The day began around 7:30 or so.  The time in Thailand is an hour different from Malaysia.  Thankfully this will be our last time zone crossing for a couple months.  We gathered ourselves together and went outside to catch a colectivo to one of the nearby beaches.  The book said Hat Karon and Hat Kata were both good relaxed beaches to check out.  We both got into the back of the truck and waited to leave.  The truck took off about 15 minutes later, taking us to the western side of the peninsula. (Phuket town is located on the eastern side) 
                About 25 minutes later the truck arrived at Hat Karon.  We decided to pay our fare of 30 baht and get off.  The western side of the peninsula was really windy.  The beaches all had the red flags, alerting people there is no swimming due to the weather conditions.  We just walked along the beach until we reached a small café.  It was now mid-morning and we were hungry.  Doug ordered a banana pancake and Anna ordered a pineapple pancake.  The food took unexpectedly long to arrive, but it tasted quite good.
                After breakfast we began walking towards the other beach, Hat Kata.  There were shops everywhere offering different massages, and spa treatments.  Doug was hassled quite frequently by different guys trying to sell hand-sewn suits.  His response was, “I don’t need a suit”.  Despite only having about 5 changes of clotes, one thing most men don’t need while hanging out in the tropics is a suit. 
                Hat Kata beach was very similar to Karon beach.  There were loads of shops and resorts.  After exploring for another hour or so we caught the truck back to where we were staying on the other side of the peninsula. 
                We arrived at our hostel around 4:30.  It was now time to take showers and relax for a while.  Around 7:00 we headed out for dinner.  Right as we stepped out on to the side walk there were taxi drivers waiting to pounce on us.  We then walked the opposite way.  A couple blocks down we walked past an outside café.  The café smelled really good, but we couldn’t read the menu.  There was NO ENGLISH, anywhere.  We walked up to the cook and said “do you have chicken?”  The women nodded and said do you like noodle, or rice.  We said one with noodle, and one with rice.  She then pointed for us to sit down.  
                After sitting down Doug went to the cooler to get a liter of beer to share.  The food arrived 15 minutes later.  It was really good.  Once our dishes were finished, Doug ordered another rice dish and got another liter of beer from the cooler.  The bill came to 205 baht ($7).  This was the cheapest and one of the best meals we had had since Mexico.
                It was time to go back to the room for the night.

12 May 2008
Phuket, Thailand
                Today we first thing we needed to do was buy tickets to Koh Phangan.  Luckily the front desk handled different transportation options.  The lady said it would cost of 800 baht each to get to the island.  This included pick up from the hostel, a bus to Surat Thani, and a ferry ride to the island.  All this and we were supposed to arrive at the island around 5:00pm.  This sounded great.  We bought the tickets. 
                Another inquiry was about the different beaches around Phuket.  The reception lady recommended the beaches we had been to the day before.  So we decided to go back to the same beaches, but this time be “swim suit” prepared.
                We caught the truck to the beaches.  It started to rain right as we approached the beach.  The driver stopped the truck to help us put down all the windows.  Once we got off the truck we decided to get something to eat, hoping that after we ate the rain would stop.  There was a restaurant off of the main street that looked good.  Doug, feeling adventurous, ordered a grilled ham and cheese, Anna ordered pad thai.  The food wasn’t exceptionally the best.  Doug’s sandwich was barely grilled with unmelted cheese.  Anna’s pad thai was really fishy tasting. 
                After eating, we began walking.  The clouds were still above us, it still was not laying out on the beach weather yet.  We ended up walking back to Hat Karon beach.  The weather still didn’t let up, so we caught the truck back to our hostel.
                Arriving at the hostel we decided to unload a few things and explore Phuket town.  The map we had showed a small walking tour of the town.  We headed for the first item to see, a museum.  Well the museum was closed, being it was Monday.  We walked on and came to a beautiful Buddhist temple.  There were monks hanging out underneath a nearby tree.  Because of our experience with the fake monks in KL, we tried to stay clear of them.  However, they began to gesture we could go further inside and they were very nice.  They said it would be fine for us to take a look inside one of the buildings.  Anna even asked if she could enter due to the dress code the guide book talks about.  The book says people shouldn’t enter Buddhist temples unless their clothing covers their top down to their elbows, and their legs past the knees.  Doug offered to give them a little money, but the monk said to take it inside. 
                Once we had taken all the photos inside the building we began walking towards the entrance and the rain began.  We waited a few minutes and the worst passed, so we decided to just go out in it.  It only rained for another 5 minutes or so.  There wasn’t too much else to see in the city, so we headed back to the hostel for a shower. 
                We relaxed for a couple hours and headed out for dinner.  There was a restaurant we found earlier named Anna’s.  The menu looked good, but expensive for what we were used to paying.  Anna ordered a green chicken curry and Doug ordered a peppered prawn dish.  Anna’s curry was ok and Doug’s dish came with 4 prawns.  We were hoping for a really good meal, but were disappointed.  After dinner we went to 7-11 to get ice cream bars and headed back to the hostel for the evening.

13 May 2008
Phuket/Koh Phangan, Thailand
                The shuttle was scheduled to arrive at 8:30 to pick us up for the journey to Koh Phangan.  We had our stuff package, and checked out of the room around 8:00.  Anna went to 7-11 to get some snacks, and a coffee for the ride.
                The shuttle arrived promptly at 8:30.   The shuttle was a large van full of people.  But everyone had different destinations.  The guy began driving around town dropping people off at different places.  It seems the tourist companies/hostels work together.  Different people were dropped off and got into another shuttle with others who were going to the same destination.  We ended up staying in the same shuttle, while others joined us.  Finally at 9:30 or so, we left Phuket for Surat Thani.  At Surat Thani we were to then take a ferry over to Koh Phangan.
                After driving about an hour the driver pulled over at a convenience store/out-door restaurant for a 20 minute stop.  Anna ordered a chicken and noodle dish to share.   The food was surprisingly good.  Once the break was over we all piled into the van.  Another 2 hours in the van, and the driver dropped us all off where a bunch of other people were waiting.  Everyone who was waiting was either going to Koh Samui, or Koh Phangan.  We waited another hour until a large bus pulled up.  Everyone piled into the bus.
                An hour later the bus pulled up to the ferry dock.  When we purchased our tickets, the lady told us we would arrive at the island around 5:00pm.  It was now 3:00pm, with still a 2+ hour ferry to take.   We soon found the ferry time table.  There were ferries leaving on the hour to Koh Samui, but there were only 2 daily ferries to Koh Phangan.  The next ferry for us was to leave at 4:30pm.  It has already been a long day.  While we waited for the ferry a woman approached us selling transfer tickets from the ferry on the island to the different hotels.   The price was decent, and since we would arrive at the island after dark.  It would be nice to have transportation arranged.  So we purchased the transfer tickets for 200 baht (almost $7 USD).
                While we were waiting we met a Swedish couple that was having a very bad beginning to their vacation.  They flew into Bangkok and then to Phuket.  The girl had come down with something on the flight over and was sick.  Then they spent this entire day traveling in vans and buses.  While we were talking with them they discovered that her bag wasn’t her bag.  Somehow they had grabbed somebody else’s.  Even worse the girl said that in her bag is medication that she has to take daily (what kind we didn’t ask, it wasn’t our business).   They were pretty sure the person that grabbed their bag was on the boat to Koh Samui.  In the end they switched their ferry from going to Koh Phangan to Koh Samui so she could get her stuff.  Hopefully it worked out ok.
                Everyone was allowed to board our ferry around 4:15, and the ferry left around 4:45.  Thankfully it wasn’t raining, and the ferry ride was pleasant enough.  The ferry arrived at Koh Phangan around 7:30pm.  We walked off the ferry hoping to find our transfer ride.  There was one guy with a sign saying TRANFER.  But when we walked up to him with our tickets, saying we had already paid for them.  He asked us for 4 people we said we were only two.  Then he said he wasn’t the guy, and walked off.  Everyone we showed our tickets to said they were not valid and we should have gotten a name or more information.  After about 5 minutes went by we came to the conclusion we had been taken.  There were some other guys looking for their transport as well, but couldn’t find it.  We all walked past all the taxi drivers to the main street.  There was an information store ahead.  We walked up, and asked about our transfer tickets.  The guy said he wasn’t sure what we had.  He also said the My Phangan resort where we had a reservation was about 5km away.  It was dark and started to sprinkle.  This was not a distance we wanted to walk.  The other guys we followed from the ferry found a woman who called a taxi for them.  She said the taxi could also take us for a 100 baht each.  This was reasonable, so we agreed.
                The other guys were impatient, and began asking other taxi drivers prices for the ride.  The lady didn’t like the other guys inquiring about a different taxi.  Our taxi finally arrived after about 20 minutes.  The lady said the guys that were shopping around for another taxi couldn’t get on because she had asked them to wait.  There were a few harsh words exchanged and then our taxi left without them.  We arrived at our resort about 10 minutes later, and checked in.  The only thing we had eaten all day was the noodle dish in the morning and a bunch of cookies.  We were starving.  So we walked back out to the main road for dinner.  There were many outdoor cafes.  We selected a café selling Thai food, and sat down.  Anna ordered chicken Pad Thai, and Doug ordered a chicken pepper dish with rice.  In addition to our dishes we got beers.  The beer tasted really good.
                After dinner we headed back to the room for the night.

14 May 2008
Koh Phangan, Thailand
                The both of us woke up relatively early.  The place were staying at “My Phangan Resort” was right on the beach.  The bungalow we had was almost beach-side.  Anna walked out to the beach, and tested the water.  It was 7:30am, the water was still a little cold.  There was not any complementary toilet paper in the bathroom.  So we walked to 7-11.  7-11 seemed to be the convenience store of choice.  There seemed to always be one nearby and it was cheaper than the local convenience stores (plus we have to help support the US economy somehow).  After going to 7-11 we wanted to see if our laundry could be done that day.  The price at the resort we were staying at was 50 baht a kilo.  There was a small out-door restaurant/convenience store nearby with a sign saying 30 baht a kilo.  We walked our clothes to this store.  The lady told us the laundry would be returned to us the afternoon of the following day.  This was too late.  We declined and figured we would get it done in Koh Tao. 
                After taking the laundry back to the room.  We set off to explore a little bit.  The area we were staying at was in the middle of the west side of the island.  The “popular” place everyone seemed to be at was at the southern portion of the island, Hat Rin.  We decided to walk there.  The walk ended up taking much longer and was much farther than we expected.  It ended up being about a 5km walk, with hills (a couple signs showed a 20% grade hill which is pretty steep for a road).  Over an hour later we arrived in Hat Rin. 
                It was a nice little area.  We found a reasonably priced outdoor restaurant to have brunch at.  Dour ordered a banana pancake; Anna ordered muesli with yogurt and fruit.  This along with fruit shakes.  After breakfast we just walked down the main street looking at the different stores.  Soon we came across a shop for The Crystal Dive Resort.  This was one of the places Doug checked out on the internet and was interesting in diving with this company.  Anna suggested checking it out.  Possibly this would save us the trouble of finding it on Koh Tao.  The English guy running the place was very informative with everything.  It turned out if Doug booked his advanced course with him, he would get 3 free nights of accommodation and a free ferry ticket over to Koh Tao.  The deal was too good to pass up.  This wasn’t as cheap as Utila, Honduras, but pretty close.  (This also made us feel much better about the 200 baht we lost on the taxi transfer)
                We walked around the area for another 30 minutes, and then headed back to the resort.  It was another long hot walk back.  Arriving back at the room we got our swim suits on and headed for the water.  The temperature was perfect.  We hung out in the water looking at things for a while.  Next we set our things out to lie out on the sand.  Anna got bored after about 30 minutes.  Doug laid out a while longer until it began sprinkling.    We hung out in the room for a while taking showers and relaxing.
                It was about early evening and we were getting hungry so we headed out for dinner.  Walking past an outdoor restaurant a guy hollered at us to come and try his food.  We decided to check it out.  It turned out to be owned by the guy who yelled out to us, a Dutch man.  Anna ordered a chicken rice dish and Doug ordered a spicy chicken noodle dish, and a large beer to share.  The owner ended up talking to us about different things.  He used to co-own another resort, but let them buy him out.  Then he started the restaurant we were in, and also offered massages.  He mentioned that his place offered massages at least 5 times, or more.  He was quite an interesting character. 
                After dinner we were still not full.  The dishes were smaller than expected.  But we also hadn’t eaten since that morning.  We headed towards the 7-11 to buy beers, and then back to the room.  The beer at 7-11 was the cheapest we had found. 

15 May 2008
Koh Phangan/Koh Tao, Thailand
                We got ourselves put together pretty early and checked out.  On our way up to the ferry terminal we tried some negotiating with taxi drivers and finally settled with a guy for 200 baht.
                The boat ride to Koh Tao was less than pleasant.  After awhile a guy got on the intercom and said that the seas were so rough that they were going to have to pull into a different pier and have us switch boats to one that could pull into the pier that we needed to go to.
                At the pier they pulled our boat up next to another boat and stepped from one boat onto the other.  This was a neat trick because sometimes the boat would be going different directions and the step would go from being a couple inches down to a couple feet.  We sat in the other boat and got tossed around for awhile before they finally set off for the main pier.
                On shore there was a guy from Crystal Dive Resort waiting for us.  He didn’t speak any English, he just signaled for us follow him.  He walked us a hundred yards or so down the beach to the dive resort.  A guy named Ryan checked us in and took care of the paperwork.  We arranged it so Doug could start his “Advanced Open Water” diver course starting the next day.
                Our room was alright, the bed had some springs trying to escape from the mattress but we had our own bathroom.  The toilet was one where you had a bucket of water next to the bowl and you had to scoop water from the bucket and pour it into the toilet to flush away the “stuff.”
                We walked into town looking for a place to eat.  We found an internet café/restaurant.  Doug ordered pad thai and Anna had green curry.  About 45 minutes later it they finally arrived.  It turns out this place is more “internet” than “cafe.”
                It was time to go explore a bit so we headed up the road to the north part of the island.  The road got pretty empty pretty quick so we turned around and went back.  We decided to head back to the resort and check our email.  We grabbed the computer and went to the bar area where there was a Wi-Fi hotspot for the people staying there. 
                While we were trying to sort out the internet Doug noticed a guy reading a book by the guy that wrote “Fight Club.”  Doug asked if the book was the same author and if it was good…and this is how we met John from England.  He was in Koh Tao to get his Dive Master certification.  After chatting with him awhile we went over to the resorts restaurant and had dinner with him.  After dinner we said farewell and went to bed.

16 May 2008
Koh Tao, Thailand
                Doug’s advanced course began at 9 am.  He met his instructor “Ingo” and began talking about the course.   The advanced course involves 5 dives.  Two of them are compulsory, a deep dive (dive down to 30 meters, 100 feet) and the other is a navigation dive (using a compass underwater for some basic direction finding).  The other three dives are up the individual and there are a bunch of options.  The three Doug really wanted to do were a wreck dive (exploring sunken ships), a photography dive and a night dive.  Ingo said the local wreck wasn’t worth going to (Doug had heard that from others too).  In the end we decided to replace the wreck dive with a Fish Identification dive.  Ingo said Doug should read the chapters for the dives and then be ready to dive at noon.  The first dive would be the fish ID and the second would be the navigation dive.
                Back at the room Doug got Anna and we headed out for some lunch.  Doug studied while we waited for the food.  After eating Doug finished up his reading we both headed out to the bar area.  Anna lay out while Doug met up with Ingo for the pre dive preparation.
                Ingo got Doug his wet suit, BCD (buoyancy control device) and fins (everything else is already on the boat).  On the boat Doug was teamed up with girl that was a Dive Master in training.  She actually needed to lead a student on a dive so Doug presented a good opportunity.  She and Doug buddied up for the dive.
                The dive went well, the visibility here lately has been poor due to the bad weather, but we could still see ok, maybe 10 – 15 meters.  The reef looked good, pretty healthy and we saw a lot but nothing really rare.
                For the next dive Doug was buddied up with a girl that was just finishing her “Advanced” course.  Ingo told us that we were going to be measuring our kick cycle (distance we travel while kicking) and then navigating a square.  We would do it as a team, one would navigate while the other counted off the kicks to determine the distance, then we would switch and do it again.  Our first square was dead on.  The second square was a bit off most likely due to northward current.  Then we started to explore.  The big find on this dive was a Ray (Manta Ray possibly) underneath a shelf of coral.  We only had a slim view of its side but the tail was very easy to see.
                Back on shore Doug met up with Anna and headed off for dinner.  There was a place nearby that had short tables and cushions on the floor so you could sit comfortably.  The dinner was very good and at a decent price too.
                When we got back to the room Doug had to go full speed on his studying for the next three dives.

17 May 2008
Koh Tao, Thailand
                Doug was out the door at 7 am for the morning dives.  The first dive today was the deep dive.  We talked about equipment, descending/ascending, oxygen use, narcosis (an intoxicating effect produced by breathing nitrogen under pressure) and a few other things.  There was also a test to see if Doug was showing any effects of narcosis.  First Doug was shown a slate with the numbers 1 through 15 all mixed up.  Doug had to point to numbers 1 through 15 in order.  Doug finished in 9 seconds.   We would do this again at 30 meters.
                Ingo and Doug swam over to the descent line and saw it was absolutely crowded with people.  We put ourselves off to the side so we wouldn’t get mixed up with them and we began our descent.  As we started to go down the visibility went down too.  The only thing Doug could see was Ingo, there was nothing else, no fish, no reef, no ocean floor, no other divers…it was like floating in nothingness.  We kept going down and down and finally after a couple minutes a big school of trevally fish swam by and then we saw the edge of the reef.  We worked our way down to 30 meters and found a sandy patch to stand on.  Ingo had Doug do the number test again and Doug completed it in the same amount of time (which means there was no or little effect of narcosis).  We went up a bit to preserve our oxygen and did some exploring.  We saw three scorpion fish a couple trigger fish and many others.
                The next dive was Doug’s photography dive.  The resort rents out a small Canon “point and shoot” that has a waterproof case.  We talked mostly about being conscientious of your position while taking photos because it is easy to drift when you are focused on the camera.  During this dive we saw a huge trigger fish, a moray eel and a porcupine fish.  Also while we were looking at an endangered clown fish a wrasse went crazy over Doug.  A wrasse will clean other fish by picking dead skin or other things off of it.  It kept nipping at Doug.  If you look at the photos, “Crystal Dive-41” shows it about 1 second before it took a big nip at Doug’s ear.
                Back on the surface Doug finished up his homework and met up with Ingo to finish up the advance course paperwork so we could turn it in when we got back from the night dive (instead of doing it in the middle of the night). 
                Doug relaxed in the room until it was time for the night dive.  Before going to the boat Doug saw John and he was with another guy named Tristen from the States.  It turned out that he was also going for his Dive Master certification.  Anna came over and we talked for awhile before we had to head off for our dive.
                On the boat Ingo briefed us on concerns for night dives.  Also, Doug would have to do a simple navigation exercise while underwater.  He and another girl needed to simply swim out in one direction and then return on a reciprocal heading.
                Jumping into the ocean at night to go scuba diving is a little intimidation at first.  You’d think that there isn’t a whole lot to see but we saw surprisingly well (with the help of a flashlight).  We also all joined up and covered up our flashlights and moved our hands in front of our faces to watch the iridescent algae light up in front of us.  While under we saw a small ray a barracuda, but the highlight was a big sea turtle that was sleeping in a cave.  Doug was the last one to get a look in the cave and as he was backing out the turtle followed and swam right by him and Tristen up to the surface.
                When we got back Doug made a plan to meet Ingo (to fill out Doug’s log book) at the good restaurant that was right near our place.  Doug met up with Anna and headed over.  At the restaurant we met up with John who also needed to meet with Ingo and we grabbed a table.  When Ingo showed up we invited him to join us for dinner and the four of us ate and talked for awhile (mostly about movies) before going back to our rooms.

18 May 2008
Koh Tao, Thailand
                Doug crawled out of bed at 7am for his morning fun dives.  On the boat he was teamed up with an Italian Dive Master, Luca.  For the first dive the visibility was anywhere from “ok” to bad.  The next dive was about the same.  Today we saw all of the same but the big disappointment was hearing that there was a whale shark in the area and we didn’t get to see it.
                Back on shore, Doug finished up his paperwork and met up with Anna for lunch.  We found an Italian place and had a decent lunch.  Next we headed off to buy our tickets up to Bangkok.  Then the next big item was to rent a motor scooter and look around the island a bit.  The place that sold us the ferry/bus tickets to Bangkok also rented the scooters.  For 150 Baht (about $5 USD) we had our scooter for 24 hours.  When the shop worker showed us how it worked it, we noticed one thing that might be a problem…it wasn’t an automatic.  The lady must of saw the look on Doug’s face and she asked, “You can drive it right?” 
                “Oh yea.”  Doug replied.  He lied.  Doug had a short ride to quickly figure out how to shift the gears.  When he came back to pick up Anna things were under control.
                We went south towards a beach some of the local divers said had good snorkeling.  After over shooting the correct access point for the beach we found a spot to drop our gear and we headed out for some snorkeling.  On the way Anna had the biggest find seeing an octopus.  We were also lucky enough to see a two porcupine fish right next to each other and also a number of clams with bright blue “lips.”
                Back on shore we set off on the bike again.  We hit a steep downhill and Doug quickly found out that the brakes on the bike were mostly ineffective for hard braking.  At on big downhill Doug actually had Anna get off and he walked the bike down the hill to make sure nobody got hurt.
                We stopped for a fruit shake and did some window shopping.  Doug found a nice necklace he thought his sister might like.  We asked the price and the guy that owned/managed the shop.  Doug countered he said no and didn’t counter offer.  We decided to leave and tried to start the bike up.  No luck.  Doug tried screwing with the choke but nothing worked.  The manager guy came over and tried to start it up too.  No luck.  After pushing the bike around a bit and giving it another try he got it running.  We thanked him and Anna bought the necklace.
                With the bike not being able to brake properly and the starter being on the fritz, we headed back to return it.  On our way to the room we ran into John.  He said he was going to meet Tristen later and invited us to join them.  We made plans to meet up with them the evening for dinner and drinks.
                While checking our emails at the bar Doug met up with Tristen and let him know the plan and shortly later we joined John, Tristen and his friend for dinner at roof top restaurant that had a great sunset view.
                After dinner and a bunch of beers we set off for another place.  We came across a billiard place and rented a table.  Doug was standing near the bar with a beer and a lady came and said that there was to be no drinks on or near the pool table.  Then shortly later the owner came over and told Tristen the same thing.  Then while Tristen was standing about two feet away from the table or so with a beer, the owner came over again to warn us about having drinks anywhere near the table.  He basically spelled out that we needed to be sitting in the seats against the wall while we drank.  We finished our game and left as quickly as possible.  The owner held open a door for us, but the door next to it was already open and everybody went through that one.  Nobody liked being treated like a third grader while we were trying to have fun.
                We walked by the Irish bar which we had two free shots for so we pulled into there.  They also had a pool table, but no beer proximity rules.  Anna came back from a quick trip back to the room with the free shot coupon.  While Doug was trying to find some tequila or other good shot the lady quickly mixed to red drinks up for us.  Apparently we don’t get to pick the shots.  When we asked what they were she said “Sex on the beach.” 
                We played one more game of pool and moved over to a booth and spent a long time talking drinking and laughing.  After a long fun night we headed back to the room.

19 May 2008
Koh Tao/Bangkok, Thailand
                The plan for the day was to take the ferry at 10:00am over to mainland.  From there a bus would then take us up to Bangkok.  Doug was up earlier then Anna.  He had some hangover medicine left over from Argentina and took it.  Anna lay in bed still spinning from the night before.  Soon Doug left the room to go to the bar to check email.  We need to buy our invitations for Russia and we didn’t know how long they would take to process.  Anna finally made it out of bed and out to meet up with Doug.  She soon left the bar to go back to the room.  Shortly after entering the room, her stomach churned, and straight to the bathroom she went.  Then it was back to the bed to lay for a bit.  Doug came back to the room to check up on things and to see if Anna wanted to join him and John for breakfast.  There was no food to be had by Anna at this point. 
                Doug came back after about 30 minutes or so.  Anna in the mean time managed to get her bag packed, making sure at least her things were in order.  Then she went back to the bed so her head would stop spinning.  Finally around 9:15 we went to check out.  Doug luckily felt fine, but Anna still was queasy.  We then headed for the ferry dock to wait.
                The ferry arrived late, around 11:00am.  Well this would certainly delay the arrival time of 8:30pm into Bangkok.  We quickly found seats on the ferry.  Anna managed to find two seats together to lie down and she fell asleep.  Doug found an outlet and was able to work on journal entries.  The ferry arrived on the mainland around 1:20pm.  There was a bus waiting for all the passengers going to Bangkok.  This was really efficient.  We weren’t sure how the day was going to follow through.  We just knew we had paid for some sort of transportation to Bangkok and were hoping not to take 10 different types of transportation.  Luckily we only had to take 2.
                The bus ride was pretty standard.  It stopped twice for breaks.  The bus arrived in Bangkok around 9:30pm.  We still were not sure if they place we wanted to stay at was available.  All the pay phones we found only took phone cards.  There was a 7-11 around the corner.  Anna bought a 50 baht card and phoned the guest house.  Luckily the guest house had vacancy.  Anna also asked about a bus to take us to the area.  The lady said the best transportation was to take a taxi and it shouldn’t cost more than 100 baht.  This was a reasonable price.  We soon found a taxi who would only charge us 80 baht (about $2.50 USD).
                We arrived at the Wendy Guest House around 10:00pm and checked in.  After checking in we ventured out to a pizza restaurant.  Pizza is always the best way to cure a hangover.  The pizza was thin and very greasy.  After dinner back to the room for the night.

20 May 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
                The both of us slept very well the night before.  It was really nice to have air conditioning, hot water, free drinking water, towels, toilet paper, and no mosquitoes buzzing around in the dark while we slept.  We gathered ourselves together and went downstairs for the complementary breakfast.  The menu consisted of eggs (fixed any way you liked), toast (with butter and jam), tea or coffee, and a small plate of fruit. 
                After breakfast we headed out to check out the city a bit.  The plan was to take the sky train to the river.  Then take a river taxi down to the more touristy part of town.  The sky train was very efficient.  We soon found the river taxi location and waited for our taxi.  The river taxis go up and down the river, stopping on both sides of the river.  The “orange flag” river taxi soon arrived.  We paid the 15 baht each and boarded.  During our river taxi ride, we were surprisingly able to see a lot of the city.
                Soon after about 15 minutes we got off the taxi and began walking.  We walked and walked.  During the walking journey we were approached by many different people trying to get us to follow them.  There were also many tuk tuk (3-wheeled taxi drivers) drivers stopping to try to assist us.  The guide book specifically said not to use the tuk tuk drivers.  The tuk tuk drivers will offer a cheap ride, but never take you where you ask.  They will take you on a wild goose chase around the city.  A main source of income for them is commission from different stores/people.
                We walked around the city about 4 hours and then headed back to the room for a rest.  The weather was not quite as hot as on Koh Tao, but still warm, and humid.
                Around 8:00 we ventured out to get a bite to eat.  Because it was raining we headed to a nearby mall.  In the mall we sat down at a Japanese restaurant, ordered a couple sushi rolls, and a crab/cheese thing.  The sushi wasn’t too bad, but the crab/cheese thing was terrible.  Because it was still raining out we headed back to the room for the night.

21 May 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
                Today’s biggest objective was to go to the Russian Embassy to apply for our Russian Visas.  We would have applied for our Visa before leaving but were told that we couldn’t apply for the visa until we were within 90 days of visiting the country.  Thankfully there is an embassy in Bangkok.  Over the last couple weeks we had been contacting hostels in Russia trying to get reservations (a requisite when applying for a tourist visa) and finding a place to issue us an “invitation” (another requisite for a visa).
                After getting all of the necessary required information collected done we had a cover letter (detailing everything we were doing in Russia), our invitations, our applications, copies of our hotel reservations and one passport sized photo graph for each of us.  In addition we also brought our travel insurance identification cards and our International Immunization cards (just in case).  We were ready.
                We arrived at the embassy and found the door for “visa support,” but sure enough, they are closed on Wednesday (today).  We did see that they would be open at 9 am tomorrow though.
                On the way to the embassy we saw a sign for the “snake farm.”  Anna’s brother Jurgen said it was a “must see.”  We paid the admission and headed in.  They had some exhibits with various snakes from around Thailand and the world.  About 30 minutes after we arrived they had a “milking show.”
                There was an enclosed room with glass walls so the crowd could watch the action.  They pulled out a King Cobra snake by its tail and it started whipping all over the place.  They spent about 5 minutes trying to get a hold of its head.  At one point the snake head whipped around and was hissing about 2 inches from one of the handler’s legs and the guy didn’t even budge.  We learned later that the King Cobra senses movement, so for him not moving was the safest thing he could have done.
                They finally got his head and had the snake bite on to the edge of a beaker that had a heavy duty plastic wrap on the top.  The venom from the snake dripped down the inside of the beaker.  They put the cobra away and brought out another snake that was much more cooperative (or maybe just more under control).  They had it also bite down and “milked” its venom.  They use this venom for creating anti-venom medicine.  They then mentioned that at 2:30 they were having another snake demonstration.
                We decided to go wander around until 2:30.  There was a nearby park we decided to go check out.  While we were going through the park we spotted a couple tourists looking at something in the water that ran throughout the park.  As we got closer we saw it was a huge lizard.  We thought maybe it was a Komodo Dragon but now we think it is actually a “monitor.”  As we went through the park we found there were lots of these guys all around.  A huge one came out and was hanging out near us for a long time.  It was licking the grass and a tree for insects.  Finally it went back into the water.
                On the way back to the snake farm we found a cat that had caught a small lizard.  The lizard didn’t look hurt, just annoyed.  The cat kept kicking its head, but the lizard seemed indifferent about it.
                Back at the snake farm we took our seats and waited for the show.  The seats here were about four feet off the ground and NOT protected by glass.  The only warning they gave was “people in the front row, do not move because the snakes are attracted to movement and they might strike” (we were in the second row).
                They brought out the first box and threw open the lid and a giant King Cobra popped its hissing head out.  Eventually they removed the box and let the snake move around on its own.  The handler would move a foot or a leg to get its attention and the snake would strike at them.  The narrator said that all of the handlers had been bitten at least twice and it wasn’t hard to imagine that this was true when watching this show.
                They continued to bring out snake after snake.  One handler had the move of the day though.  They had a smaller snake that was very fast and he shot out for one of the handlers.  The handler shot his hand out right in front and caught the snake mid strike right by his neck. 
                After all of our reptile excitement we went back to the room to clean up and rest.

22 May 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
                Yesterday the Russian embassy was closed, so today we made sure to be there 15 minutes before they opened to get our visa applications in.  When they let us in there was a little confusion as to who we needed to speak with.  Unlike our visit to the US Embassy, things weren’t quite as orderly.  Our visit in Singapore had through security checks and then a separate room for US citizens.  And in that room you took a number and waited.  This Russian embassy was a free for all.  First one to the window wins.  If somebody gave anybody else any privacy at the window, somebody would try and sneak in.  Consequently everybody got to hear what everybody else was doing.
                While we were waiting for our turn there were a couple Canadians that were working on getting work visas.  They started to reassure us that getting our tourist visas was actually pretty painless.  One of them said, “They just want your money is all.”
                When we got up to the window the lady handed us back our cover letter and hotel reservations (guess all that work was for nothing).  The lady told us it would be $300 USD for same day processing, $200 for next day, or $150 for three day processing.  We decided to go for the three day processing and pick up our visas on Monday morning.  When it came time to pay they didn’t want USD (even though the prices were quoted in USD), nor did they want rubles, they wanted Thai Baht.  Well we didn’t have $300 dollars worth of Thai baht on us so Anna decided now was a good chance to go get some exercise.  While she was gone the two Canadians were nice enough to loan us 5500 Baht until Anna came back. 
                Next we headed off to see the Reclining Buddha.  The reclining Buddha is inside a temple that is part of a larger network of other temples surrounded by a wall.  It is about the size of a large city block.  The Buddha is massive.  There is only one place inside that allows a view of the whole Buddha and that is all the way by its feet.  The rest of the grounds were quite amazing with intricately designed shrines and other buildings all through the grounds.
                We headed off for the Royal Palace next.  Unfortunately the shorts Doug had on were not appropriate to wear to enter the Palace; he had to borrow some pants.  I guess they deal with this quite a bit because they had a whole room set up for lending out pants and skirts for tourists.  They simply wanted a 100 baht returnable deposit. 
                Inside we found more of the same of what we saw in the Reclining Buddha temple.  The place really is quite amazing and very beautiful.
                Our next stop was the infamous Khao San road.  The place was covered with different vendors and restaurants all trying to get a piece of the thousands of tourists that go through there daily.  We stopped for some lunch and did some shopping before feeling a bit overwhelmed. 
                We hung out in the room for a little while, and then headed over to the mall with the Imax theatre to catch the new Indiana Jones movie.  The next showing was at 5:30pm, in 20 minutes.  We paid the 160 baht, got some popcorn, a soda and waited.
                The movie was not what we had expected.  Actually it was terrible comparing it to the other Indiana Jones movies.  (Indy?  What happened?) 
                We were hungry.  There was a large food court on the bottom floor.  Doug settled on some tacos (that weren’t half bad), and Anna found some terrible chicken kabobs. 
                After Doug finished his meal, and tasting Anna’s we headed back to the room.  At the guest house there was a small restaurant.  Anna ordered some noodles with chicken.  This was also terrible; she just couldn’t win this one.  She ate her noodles, while Doug had a liter of beer before retiring for the night.

23 May 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
                The day began reasonably early.  We had breakfast and then we set out.  Today was going to be a zoo.  The sky train would take us most of the way to the zoo, then we would walk about a mile. 
                We made it to the zoo around 11:00.  The entrance fee was only 200 baht.  While entering the zoo there was thunder.  It was already overcast in the sky, but the clouds continued to get darker.  After looking at the monkeys and looking at the crocodiles, it began to rain.  It rained and rained.  This was not a very good day for the zoo.  This zoo wasn’t nearly as nice as the Singapore zoo, or even the San Diego zoo.  We hung out underneath a cement awning for a while until the rain mellowed out a little. 
                There was a pretty good size snake exhibit, and bear exhibit.  While looking at the bears, the rains came again.  We hung out underneath another awning for another 30 minutes before deciding to leave.  We headed out of the zoo and caught a bus.  Just as we got onto the bus, the rain stopped.  The bus took us as close as the sky train stop when traffic came to a halt.  We got off the bus, not wanting to sit in traffic and walked back to our room.
                We hung out in the room for a couple hours.  Tonight we were going to try to act like a young couple and go out.  Around 7:00 we headed out to a market near the park we were visiting a couple days earlier.  There was supposed to be a decent bar with live bands (little did we know, this was way too early to go out). 
                The description of the area the bar was in the book said was a bit “seedy.”  We didn’t know how seedy it was until we arrived.  We soon found the night market.  It was full of touristy vendors selling different knock offs and souvenirs.  Everywhere we walked guys were approaching us asking if we wanted to attend different shows.  The most popular show was the “Ping Pong Show”.  Doug had already heard about the show from his buddies that had had port calls in Thailand, but a show like this held little interest for us.  We ended up walking around until around 9:30, and soon got bored.  The bar was open but no one was in it, and it could be another hour until it livened up.  We soon headed back to the sky train, to take us back to the room for the night.

24 May 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
                The day began as it had the last 4 mornings with the free breakfast.  According to the book there is a huge popular weekend market.  After breakfast we set off for the market, it was right off one of the sky train stops.
                The book was telling the truth, this was a huge market.  The market was visible as we exited the sky train.  We proceeded to follow everyone who got off the train.  This market contained everything and anything one could think of.  It contained everything from clothing, souvenirs, dogs, snakes, food, and furniture.  You name it and the market provided it.  We wandered and wandered.  Anna soon got a coffee and we wandered some more.  After a couple hours we sat down to lunch.  There wasn’t much to choose from so we had some friend chicken pieces, sticky rice, soda, and water.
                After lunch we wandered for another couple hours and finally had enough.  We made our way back to the sky train and headed back to the room for a while.  Once our feet were rested, we headed out to the nearby mall.  It was cheap and close.  At the mall we ended up buying some movies (Lost Season 4, Narnia (the new one), and Balls of Fury).  They ended up being very “affordable.”  After the shopping spree we went back to the room for the night.
 
25 May 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
                After breakfast we met up with Lawan, a friend of Anna’s brother Jurgen.  She showed up at our guest house around 10:30.  The three of us sat down, and began chatting.  An hour later, Anna sent Doug up to the room for a nap.  He hadn’t slept well the night before, and he was beginning to nod off.
                Anna and Lawan chatted for another 20 minutes and then left to walk around at the nearby mall.  Walking outside Lawan noticed there was a government run market across the street right next to the mall we were going to.  She suggested we visit the market.  There were blue flags all over the market indicating it was government run.  This also tells the shopper there are discounted items in the market.    We hung out in the market for about 30 minutes.  Lawan got a cold drink at one point and had Anna taste a couple of the local fruits she had never had before.  The different fruits were defiantly different.
                Once we were tired of the market we headed over to the mall.  Lawan was getting hungry, so we decided to get lunch.  She wanted to go to a Japanese restaurant called Fuji’s.  After we were seated, Lawan suggested she order for the both of us.  She ended up ordering a cold crab salad dish, a bacon wrap of some sort, yakisoba noodles, and a sushi role.  All of the food was really good.  Half way into the meal Anna ordered a couple of items to take back to Doug for lunch (a sushi roll and the yakisoba noodles).  After the ticket was paid Lawan said she needed to go.  Anna walked her to the sky train and went back to the room to meet up with Doug.
                After eating we set out to get some post office supplies for a couple packages we had to send.  Back to the room again we finished doing website errands and uploaded our latest update.
                For dinner we went to a place by our hotel that looked nice.  Anna had a green curry and Doug had a spicy chicken dish.  Then it was back to the room for the evening.

26 May 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
                In the middle of night both of us came down with food poisoning.  Needless to say, neither of us had much sleep and we began to consider not traveling to Cambodia in the morning.
                Around 8am we made the decision to go and run our errands (trip to the post office and pick up our passports from the Russian embassy) and if we felt up to it, travel to Cambodia.
                When we got to the post office it was almost 9 am (when the Russian embassy opened).  Because of our experience at the embassy before we decided it would be best to split up.  Anna stayed at the post office, Doug headed to the embassy.
                Anna was done at the post office about 15 minutes later and went off to meet Doug at the embassy.  Doug made it to the embassy and despite the office being full, nobody was in line.  Doug picked up the passports and thankfully our visas had been approved.  Doug headed back to the hotel (our previously arranged meeting point).
                Doug made it back to the hotel around 10am.  Anna arrived about 15 minutes later after running around trying to catch up with Doug.
                We packed up and headed off for the bus station.  We took the sky train to its final stop and then tried to locate the bus station.  Nobody we asked knew right where it was.  A few even gave us some misdirection.  Eventually we found the place and bought our tickets. 
                As soon as we arrived at the boarder guys were all over us trying to “help us” with our Cambodian visas.  Thankfully Cambodia has an electronic visa you can apply for over the internet (which we did).  This saved us having to deal with these scam artists that charged some people twice what we paid.
                The immigration officials stamped us out of Thailand and we walked across the bridge into Cambodia.

Cambodia Journal

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