It just took a little time

Hey kids!

  Sorry it's been so long since my last blog, but I've actually been quite busy!  I can't go into too many details at the moment, but I just wanted to say that things are so much better since my last update.  

I finally got my computer up and running, so I'll be posting pics and sending out photo albums as soon as I have time to actually sit at the computer all day.  

I have a job interview at 2 today...wish me luck!

Just to get your mouths watering...here is a shot from sunset at Koh Tao.  

Sydney: Day 1

Well...I survived it.

Woke up this morning around 9 and headed to the bank with Josh to open up my account. Josh had an event to go to all day, so immediately afterward he was gone. I have this really nice map of the city, so I began to explore. It was windy, overcast, and combined with the cold (around 60), a cup of coffee was in order. Thank goodness for my iPod and that cup of joe, or I would've been pretty miserable. I eventually came up to Hyde Park (yes, they have one in England too) and noticed a beautiful Cathedral to the right of it. I ventured on inside and was blown away by the beauty...definitely one of the most incredible churches that I have ever seen.

I walked in, sat down in a pew and tears began to well up in my eyes. This was the first time that I've been truly alone since my incident in the Vancouver Airport. Images of my family and friends began to overtake me. It was right then at there that I realized how much I truly love them. In all honesty, I didn't think I would have a single problem moving across the world on my own...boy was I wrong. After sitting there in prayer for a few minutes, I noticed that confession was going on. I got in line and had a wonderful confession and conversation with the Priest. He told me about the young adult program that they hold after Mass on Sunday evenings, so I'll be sure to attend that this week.

I left the church and within a few minutes saw a Public Library and took a look inside. I immediately though of my mom and Heidi because one of the library rooms looks like it could have come straight out of a Harry Potter movie! It was really neat, full of old books covering the walls, circular stairs, etc. I also found an art gallery within the library which was pretty interesting.

It was 1:30 when I left the library, so I went and found a small cafe for a sandwhich. The woman at the counter was extremely friendly and talked to me the entire time I ate. I needed that.

I then headed up toward Circular Quay (pronounced "key") to visit the famous Sydney Opera House. The views of the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Bay are picture perfect...so I snapped a few. Nicole (one of my best friends) called me on my new cell phone while I was there and we were able to have a great conversation. Not one of those average conversations...but a good, heart to heart talk. I hung up with her, walked around the Opera House some more, and opted to take the hour tour of the building. The tour was good, but not worth the $20...considering the budget that I'm on. It was almost 5 by the time the tour was over, so I walked around the rest of the Quay before heading back toward the inner city. Josh still hadn't called, so I kinda walked around aimlessly watching everyone in their business suits scurrying from their offices to their homes.

It took me at least half an hour to get back to Surry Hills (where Josh lives) and I was getting a bit hungry. I stopped in one of these middle eastern shops and ordered a falafel pita. It wasn't the best, but it filled me up and was the cheapest thing I could find. I noticed a backpacker hostel across the street and went in to see if they knew of any jobs available. The woman at the front desk was really nice and gave me some websites to look at, as well as a few employment agencies to check out. She told me that since I'm an American, I will have no problem at all finding work. I've been told that a few times, so this is hopeful. Josh said he'd help me find a job too, so that's another option as well. Originally I had planned on working as a waiter or a bartender, but I'm beginning to consider working in Finance. The economy here is booming and I'd be able to make REALLY good money if I put my degree to good use. It's a toss up...good money or being able to really enjoy myself in the city. I need to figure these things out.

Josh finally called and I met up with him and some of his co-workers at a little pub down the road. I didn't feel like being too social, so I asked Josh for his keys and came home to get ready for bed (and blog.)

This is going to be a great opportunity for me...I just need to get over all this homesick business :)

It's cold here.

Finally made it to Sydney around 3 pm yesterday. It's much colder than I expected. All I have are my backpacking clothes at the moment, most of my stuff is still in transit. I did airmail one package, but it's at Josh's friends house who is out of town until Saturday.

I'm not sure what I think about the city yet. It's really beautiful, but much more "city like" than I had imagined. That's not necessarily a bad thing...just not what I had in mind. I'm going to spend the day out exploring to try and get a feel of the city and where I'd like to live. Sydney is basically comprised of several small neighborhoods within one large city, similar to NYC.

I'm staying with Josh until I get on my feet, which is really nice of him. He lives with 4 other people (he doesn't even really know their names), and the place is cold, dark, and not all that clean. It'll do for now...at least it has hot water. Rent in Sydney is sky high (along with everything else here), so it looks like I'll be roughing it for a few more months. Once I get a job (gotta work on finding one of those too), I'll try to find something better.

All in all, I'm just a little dazed about the whole situation. Arriving in Sydney has made me more homesick than ever. I miss my family, I miss my family, I miss my room, I miss my car...you get the idea.

It'll take me a few weeks, but I know I'll grow to love it.

Sydney, here I come!

Just a quick note to give you all a little update. I'm leaving Bangkok around 9 pm (9 am your time) and flying to Melbourne tonight. The flight is atound 10 hours, but I'll sleep most of the flight, which is great. I have a bit of a layover in Melbourne before taking an hour-ish flight to Sydney. I'm really excited about finally getting there, although I will really miss Asia.

I'll be staying with Josh for a few weeks while I get settled, but will be getting my own place fairly soon. That's all for now. The next post will come from SYDNEY!

Bankok thus far

As you know, I have been in Bangkok for 2 days now. It has yet to impress me.

While eating dinner on the stopover from Koh Tao to Bangkok (the busses always let you stop at least once to get food, stretch your legs, etc.) I met a really cool couple from Chicago. We immediately hit it off, as we both had America in common. You know, it's so funny how you can gravitate to someone for the most subtle things when you're in an unfamiliar territory. Meeting people this way reminds me of freshman year in the dorms: I became pretty good friends with some people from my high school that I had never spoken to before...all because they were familiar, but I digress. As we arrive in Bangkok and gather our packs from the bus, we part ways and wish one another good luck. After finding a guest house and putting up a blog, I decide to take a stroll down the road to see what the street vendors have to offer.

Before long, I bump into the two of them and again we strike up conversation. Marquee and David are their names and after having a beer while sitting on small plastic chairs on the sidewalk, we decide to meet up the following morning to go and explore the city. We decide to meet at 11 and get breakfast together. I was up at 9:30, so I read a little of my current book and then headed to the internet cafe where I got to Skype with my dad. I show up at their hotel at 11 where David is waiting for me. He tells me that Marquee needs another hour, so we venture out on the street to see what we could find. After walking around for a bit, we decide on McDonalds, haha. Neither of us have had Mickey D's in months, so it was justifiable. They had stopped serving breakfast, so a cheeseburger and fries were in order for the two of us.

We head back to the hotel, pick up Marquee, and head out on the town. We take a look at our Lonely Planet books and decide that the Grand Palce and Jim Thompson's house sound like sights worth while. We decide to walk instead of taking a tuk-tuk of taxi (although we are begged by a driver every 8 feet or so...extremely annoying!) It wasn't five minutes into our walk when we are told by several people that the Grand Palace is closed for the day due to a Buddhist holiday/the King's sister dying. We are then told about all these other great temples that we should see and that they would drive us to them for a minimal fee. Good thing I've read my travel book well...this is a classic Bangkok scam.

From what I gather, the driver will take you to a few temples, but before you know it you're stuck at a market and he is demanding for more money to take you back. All the other drivers are in on it and won't give you a ride back either. This scam has been around for quite some time, but it still seems to get people more often than you'd think. Anyway, we dodged the scam and carried on our merry way to Jim Thompson's house...deciding to forego the Palace.

On our way to the house (located in Siam Square), we passed several Wats (temples) along the way. At one of the temples there were hundreds of pigeons loitering around...gross. In my option, pigeons are the rats of the avian world. As we walk through them, this lady rushes towards me and forces a bag of corn kernels in my hand. Being quite alarmed, I drop them on the ground as I don't want them. Her face looked completely disgusted by my rude behavior, so I pick up the bag and hand it to her while apologizing. She then takes my hand, opens the bag, and pours the kernels in my hand. Before I can react, I have pigeons ALL OVER ME! She does this SIX more times before I finally snap out of my coma-like state and ask her to stop. I begin walking away as fast as possible. She begins chasing me and demanding that I pay her for the very bags that she poured in my hand! Is she really serious? I tell her that I'm not going to pay her for something that I did not ask for, and she begins to HIT ME! I couldn't believe it! She wanted me to pay her 150 baht (almost $5 usd) for the seed...so I eventually give her 90 bath (3 usd) to keep her away from me. I wasn't the only one who got suckered into the Pigeon Scam, Marquee and David fell victim to it too. Argh! These people are ruthless!

We shake ourselves off, put some hand sanitizer on our hands and continue on. Thank goodness David is a good navigator, or else Marquee and I would've been pretty lost. I'm not sure who came up with the road system here in Bangkok, but I'm pretty sure they were on opiates at the time of implementation. It took us FOUR hours to walk the 4-5 kilometer walk to the house, and by the time we were in the area it began to rain pretty hard. MBK (a huge shopping center) was right in front of us at the time, so we decided to go check it out. This place is MASSIVE! It is seven floors FULL of vendors...you can get anything that your heart desires over here (as long as it's fake). I immediately thought of Heidi when I saw all the knock off Gucci, Prada, Coach, etc. purses cluttering the walls.

We strolled around the mall for a few hours, checking out all the junk that they have there. David and I both bought these cool shirts for a "good price" as the locals love to say. After a while, we got pretty hungry and found a nice Japanese restaurant. We had great conversation, per usual. Marquee works on movies as an art designer (something like that...can't remember exactly.) Let's put it this way, she helped design the laser (among many other things) in the new Batman movie! She told me that she worked on that movie for 9 months...pretty cool, eh? David is a driver for the entertainment industry, which is also much cooler than it sounds. I could listen to the two of them all day; they've got some really cool stories to tell.

After dinner we decided to head back to Kho San Road (i.e. the "backpackers paradise"...gag me) and get some sleep. Wanting to save a bit of money and dive more into the culture, we opt to wait for a public bus. After waiting for 15 minutes or so, our bus arrives and we hop on. According to the book, the fare is around 12 baht. We get prepared to pay as soon as we hop on, but it's so crowded that we can't reach the lady in uniform. The bus is beyond backed...it's exactly like you imagine, people on top of people. My guess is that we pay once we get off, since nobody else is paying either. I immediately notice that the bus is completely SILENT...something you'd never find in America. I guess these people all respect one another enough to give each other peace and quiet on their commute; something I wish would happen more back home. I quietly ask the man next to me when is our exit and he's able to convey to me that he is getting off at the same one and to follow him. Then I ask him when do we pay, in which he replies that we don't have to due to the bus being too crowded. WHAT!?! You mean to tell me that I get ripped off by the pigeon lady but not by the public bus? Some things never cease to amaze me. I felt pretty weird getting off that bus without paying...but hey, when in Rome...

I walked around for a little while before retiring to my room fairly early. I sat in bed and watched "Happy Gilmore" on my iPod before crashing for the night. The breeze was cool, so I opened my windows and let the sounds of rain put me to sleep.

Woke up this morning around 8, had a nice breakfast, and read more of my book while people watching. There are times when backpacking alone isn't much fun...but then there are times when it's really perfect. This was one of those times. I'm able to do what I want, when I want...something that doesn't happen as often as it should.

I found a new place to stay (this one has a rooftop pool!), walked around some, and ran into one of my diving buddies randomly on the street! I went up to the pool after while and layed out, although it's quite overcast here. Josh arrives within in the next hour (6 pm), and then we'll figure something out I'm sure. I really want to get a massage (around $9 for 1.5 hrs) and everyone raves about them.

Just checked the weather and I don't like what I see. Looks like Ike is going to be a real nightmare and my immediate thought is for all my family and friends in the Houston area. I talked to my dad today and he told me that my grandparents have evacuated which I am grateful for. I don't know about the rest of the family...but if you are reading this and haven't evacuated, I urge you to grab some clothes and get in the car! Please send me an e-mail and let me know once all of you are safe. I'll be worrying until then.

In Bangkok

Finally got here around 9 pm. This city is totally disgusting from what I've seen thus far. I found a fairly decent guesthouse for $10 a night, but I'm going to look for something else tomorrow morning.

I haven't seen any riots and from what I've been told, I'm pretty far away from where all the protesting is going on. I think I'll be safe from all of that...it's the dark alleyways that scare me more. It took me eleven hours to get here, so I'm pretty beat. I'll try and report back with more tomorrow when I have more energy.

In a sticky situation...

So here is my delimma.

Turns out there is a huge storm headed toward Ko Tao at the moment. I should've known by the extremely strong current and high seas, lol. Anyway, the storm is supposed to hit on Friday (Sept. 12th), but in order to get off the island safely, I need to leave TOMORROW at the latest to ensure safety. From what I hear, they've had some sunken ferry boats over the past few years...no thanks.

That's all fine and dandy, but that puts me in Bangkok sometime tomorrow late evening...which is bad. From what I hear, there have been many riots in the street over some political unrest with their current "president".

If I decide to stay on the island and wait out the storm, I'll miss my flight to Sydney, which isn't an option. I'm not really sure what to do here, either way I'm in a bad situation.

Most likely I'll head to Bangkok tomorrow and just keep a really low profile. I'll keep you posted. Send your prayers.

Life on Ko Tao

This place couldn't be more perfect. Seriously. From the moment that I arrived on this island, I knew I was going to stay here for a while. Finally, a place to RELAX!

I'm not going to go into too much detail on each day, but I'll give you a rundown of a typical day here on the island.

I did my PADI Open Water Diver Course as soon as I arrived here, beginning that same afternoon. The first two days was primarily videos and lecture, with the last two days involving some diving. Now, I'm getitng my Advanced Open Water certification, which means I can dive as deep as 30m (100 ft), along with some other cool stuff.

Anyway, I usually get up around 9, and get ready for the day. By 9:30 I'm down at one of the 7-11's (the asians LOVE their 7-11's) where I pick up some yogurt, a pack of frosted flakes, a big bottle of water, and a small loaf of sweet bread for 82 baht (around $2.75.) After picking that up, I head down to Big Blue Diving School, where I'm getting all of my training.

Depending on the day, we either head out for an afternoon dive which leaves at 12:45, 0r we have class...it all just depends. If I don't have a class, I usually just sit around and hang out with the people that I've met since being here. I usually get in from my afternoon dives (2 a day) between 5-6. After cleaning all my gear and having a quick meeting with my instructor, I head up to my hotel room and get ready for dinner. A big group of new friends and I all pick a place to eat and meet up around 7:30. After dinner, we'll either hang out back at Big Blue or go to a bar...it all depends on the night.

This island is extremely westernized, to the point that I almost forget that I'm in Thailand. Everything is written in english, all the locals speak english, etc. You can get any type of cuisine that you'd like, from Thai to Scandanavian!

I haven't met many Americans the entire time that I've been traveling, and to be honest with you...I'm thankful for that. I know that if there were many Americans around, I wouldn't be as inclined to talk to people from other countries due to accents and cultural differences. Being the only american has been tough though, as most of the world looks at us with a very negative stereotype. It's been a challenge for me to prove to them that not all Americans are arrogant jerks who only care about themselves and their country. Furthermore, I have now made friends from all over the world and know that whenever I'd like to backpack Europe, I have at least 15 different people that I can stay with while I'm there :)

Alright, it's late and I have to be on the boat by 7 AM!

Hope all is well down there...tell Ike to take a hike (hah, I'm so clever)

Getting to Ko Tao

Quite a bit has happened since my last post, to say the least.

Around 7 pm on August 31st, Josh and I were planning the next leg of our trip. The plan was for the two of us to go back to Phnom Penh, stay the night and then leave the next day for Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) to begin our tour of the country. I had been really wrestling with the idea of trying to cram in such a huge country with so many sights in such a short period of time for a few days by that point, and I finally decided I couldn't do it. Right then and there, I chose to split up with Josh until the 12th when we would meet back up in Bangkok.

No worries, there aren't any hard feelings with this decision; it's just that both of us have paid a ton of money to get ourselves down here and we shouldn't "waste" our trip with things that we don't want to do.

Before I came on this trip, I had visions of myself sitting on an isolated beach somewhere off the coast of Thailand...so that's what I decided to do. Sorta. I met some travelers a few days before who told me about this really beautiful island named Ko Tao and said I should check it out. They also told me that they had really good scuba diving, something I've been wanting to try for a while. So, as simple as that...I decided I'd head to Ko Tao alone.

I was picked up at 7:30 am the following morning by a cab from my hostel to take me to PoiPet (a Cambodian/Thai border). He shows up in his Toyota Camry and off we go. I had heard rumors that they road was rough getting there...but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to embark on. I'm not lying when I tell you that there were pot holes 3 feet wide and a over a foot deep EVERYWHERE! To make matters worse, this is a completely dirt (and dust) road. On top of that, the drivers in southeast asia have got to be some of the worst in the world. It's not uncommon at all to be driving head on with a huge truck or with motorcycles and tuk-tuks coming at you from every direction. He too, blared his favorite cambodian musician aas high as his stero would play it the entire ride, thanks pal. I had to sit there and bear it for three painstaking hours. I almost vomited on the floorboards twice.

We finally arrive at the border. The driver yanks my stuff out of the car, points to the immigration office, and jets out of there as fast as he can. I nervously walk up to the border and quickly notice that there are NO other westerners around. Throughout my entire time in asia, I have always been able to spot at least one other backpacker whereever I have been so this comes as a bit of an alarm. I continue on through the checkpoints and finally after 30 minutes or so, I spot a group of other backpackers. Turns out these guys were some really cool Germans and we all proceeded through in a group.

When we got to the other side, we hired two tuk-tuks to take us over to the bus station at Aranyprathet. We managed to get tickets on the LAST bus out of there by the skin of our teeth (we got to the bus station at 11:40 and they left at noon)...phew! The bus takes 4ish hours, putting us in Bangkok at 4:30 or so. As soon as I got off the bus, I got another taxi to take me across Bangkok (rush hour traffic in a city where people don't know how to drive is a blast) and drop me off at the other bus station which will take me to Ko Tao.

I arrive at the other bus station at 5:30 and after walking around for a good 30 minutes, finally manage to find the correct ticket office. The lady at the counter doesn't speak hardly any english...but she is eventually able to convey to me that I need to buy the 9:00 ticket but I couldn't really understand why at the time... I end up finding this pretty nice coffee shop in the station and camp out there for a while, which gave me a chance to read my new book "First They Killed My Father", a first hand story about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

So I board the bus at 8:45, take a dramamine and pass out. I'm awakend at 3 am and told that I have arrived at my destination. I'm not really awake, but it doesn't take me long for me to realize that I am the only one getting off at this stop which is nothing more than a shed with a few chairs under it. Lovely. I plop myself in one of the chairs and try my best to get back to sleep, but I'm entirely too freaked out. I have no idea where I am and no clue as to what I'm supposed to do next. Finally, 2 hours later, some other people begin to show up and sit down near me. When a group of Swiss get there, they manage to tell me that we're waiting for a truck to come pick us up and take us to the ferry station and from there we'll go to Ko Tao. At 7 am, the truck arrives and FINALLY at 10:45 am...I arrive on Ko Tao Island. Not to bad of a trek there, eh?

Ok, I have so much more to tell all of you, but internet ain't cheap on the island and I'm exhausted from scuba diving all day. I'll just leave you with this: the island is a complete paradise and scuba diving is an experience unparalleled with any other.

Until next time.