Today I have mostly been...

...trying to organise my life, trying to phone Qantas in Bangkok to try and cahnge my flights (no one wanted to answer the phone), trying to invent some more money before I run out and have to sell my soul/house/family, trying to advertise my house so someone will rent it before I run out of money & have to sell it, trying to organise my time here on the island (so much to do, so little time), and where I want to go next and what to do there, and wondering how Im going to text people (who dont do email) now that Ive not been reunited with my (lost) phone. And its taken me most of hte day, and I still havent finished it all! But I did finally buy some lovely bluey-silvery poi, and I have a lesson booked for tomorrow - thats the highlight of my day so far.

Currently I cant quite decided between whether I should go to NZ for 1month and Aus for 1month (Ive got some work-for-free-accomodation/food kinda lined up) and then come back to KO PhiPhi for Xmas, or whether I should just stay here for the next 2months and volunteer as much as I can...I kinda want to do both but dont have enough resources. Answers on a postcard please!

However, yesterday I did finally manage to get the Hi Phi Phi website online about 6pm, check it out here www.hiphiphi.org, so at least my time here has been productive and helpful to the locals (both Thai & farangs ie foreigners who live here). The design/graphics were done by the previous island techie, Ive mostly done the cobbling together & editing of pics/text etc and a bit of rearranging of the pages. If anyone has oddles of spare cash lying around, feel free to donate it to a worthy cause ie hiphiphi, because we are run entirely on donations :)

Ko Phi Phi

Ok Its been a busy couple of days, sunday & monday I volunteered to help out HiPhiPhi - thats the foreign (ie non-local) volunteer organisation on this island thats helping the local Thais with rebuilding the island after the tsunami - Ive uploading loads of pics here, so you can check it out. So far Ive been digging sloping paths for the Memorial Garden thats being build, and done beach cleaning with loads of other people. Ive also been helping to finish off a website that was started by other volunteers (who have now left the island) to replace the current website www.hiphiphi.com.

On Monday evening, I went to a place called The Rock for food, and got invited to the Thai owners birthday party later on that evening, and also got invited to learn Muay Thai Boxing by his friend. I turned up a bit later than planned (at midnight) for the party, met loads of random people and went to Hippies bar at 2am with the hardcore ones who didnt wanna go home yet...we met even more random local & foreign people in Hippies and we somehow managed to stay out drinking til it sunrise (sometime after 6am), when some of the lads decided to go for a swim in the pool and a swim/fight in the sea. I got to bed at 9am, which meant that Tuesday was mostly a day of recovery.

So today, Im back working on the website (despite the fact we have an intermittent internet connection) to make up for yesterday, and trying to organise my future travel plans - might go to NZ for 2months, instead of doing 1month x NZ, 1month x Australia, but depends how easy it is to change my flights....

Ive also uploaded loads of pics here: www.flickr.com/photos/patriciah/sets/1032684

Im in Ko Phi Phi

Its taken the best part fo 12hours to get here, but I finally arrived around 5pm, after starting off at 6am, and taking 2xferry, 1xbus, and 3xminibus to get here. To use the word 'overcrowding' for the bus would not be doing it justice; luggage & people were piled up in all available space, and I spent 1.5hours (half of the total bus journey) standing in teh aisle, along with numerous other people, some of whom were sitting in the aisle or on luggage. I hate to think what the outcome of any human-driving-errors (or otherwise) would have been, but we did all arrive safe & sound, so I can now say that it added to the 'adventure' of travelling in a foreign land.

Ko Phi Phi was one of the many places/islands affected by the Tsunami, and although the main village of TonSai is looking well (proper building, landscaping etc), further up the hill (where Im staying) you can still see buildings under construction, huge empty areas of rubble & rubbish & general destruction. There are also people with limbs missing, so far Ive only seen a couple of people with arms missing who I imagine are lucky to be alive at any rate. Theres also a number of memorials around the village, will add some pics of them later on. Ive just been for dinner at a nice beachfront restaurant called Carpe Diem ('seize the day') and met a local Thai chap who was telling me about his girlfriend who was badly cut up after the tsunami (ribs smashed, huge cuts to her lower back/upper thighs), and has had about 7 operations but in still in pain, and it turns out shes one of the main people behind the local initiative to get PhiPhi back on its feet, using both local & foreign volunteers; so quite an inspirational woman then. When I was walking thru the village earlier, I saw an advert for a webdesigner, so will go down tomorrow ot the meeting place and see if I can help out.

Zipwire @ Ko Samui

Check it out, finally got round to uploading some pics, took forever todo tho:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/patriciah/sets/1001955/
This is the canopy zipwire thing I went on this afternoon, it was completely fabulous, your basically suspended off a wire about 300m up, whizzing thru the treetrops, its great! The only thing is the course isnt very long, so the funs over almost before its started, lol, but still well worth doing.

Tomorrow (Saturday), Im off to Ko PhiPhi, an island off the west coast of Thailand, to see what its like after the events of the Dec26 Tsunami, and see if theres any stuff we can do to help out. So gotta get up at 5.30am for that, cos its a ferry-bus-ferry kind of deal (cos Im currently on Ko Samui, thats 'Ko' meaning island, off the east coast of Thailand - really must find an interactive map).

Kayaking

Today we went kayaking, to this spot where part of The Beach (film) was filmed, and it was way kool - Emerald Lake is its official name, its the lake surrounded by huge rocks just off the north-east coast of Ko Samui, I have loads of pics I need to upload so u can all see. Apparantly theres another location for The Beach (the beach scene) that was filmed at Ko Phi Phi, so will chekc that out too whne I go there later on this wk. Today has been quite a long day, esp with the 7am start, but to summarise: we took this boat out to an island thats part of this marine park nature reserve, went for a short trek up/down to this lake, then went swimming in the sea to chill out. Then we went sea-kayaking round these rocky outcrops of land/minature islands, thru lots of gaps made by overhanging rocks etc & some low-ceilinged tunnels with stunning scenery. Then after lunching there was a general session of swimming/snorkelling/jumping off the boat before more kayaking down narrow tunnels/gaps around different rocky islands, but it was all really cool, esp as I hadnt been kayaking before. Note to self - must upload pics!
Also, I spent the best part of 2hours on the beach trying to master poi, and Ive very nearly done it, Ive got this quite complicated manoever sorted, just needs more practise, its gonna be impossible to describe in words so might see if i can sort out a small video clip laters on.

Im in Ko Samui

Just arrived a couple hours ago, from Ko Phangan. Found out theres lotsa cool things to do here - cable rides/zipwires thru the jungle canopy, kitesurfing, elephant trekking - lets just hope its not well expensive! We've just been for a walk along the main street, parallel to Chaweng Bay, and seen my first MacDonalds, BurgerKing & Boots in Thailand; apparantly theres also a Tesco's here, and an island 'package tour' that actually takes you there to shop!! Theres also a rather cool place by the beach that sells all kinds of Poi (coloured tennis balls on string, that your whirl around your body, see http://www.poiforyou.com/xaranshop_62_2.htm), and I might just have to buy some as I learnt how to use them last night. {more laters, need fooood}

The Thai Language...

...is impossible to understand, let alone learn. For a start, it really didnt help that I didnt realise it was a script-language, so when I first got here, I couldnt understand a single sign/advert/roadsign etc, nowt at all. Now on Ko Phangan, Ive found a Thai language book that I like, and discovered why the language is so hard to learn: there are 5 different 'tones', so 1 word can have 5 different meanings, depending on how u pronounce the word; there are 44 constontants in the scripts 'alphabet' and 32 vowels - how can u have so many letters in an alphabet, its just not right! Plus the order in which you pronunce words when reading, is different to the order in which the words are written, and every different script symbol has a different sound and can have a different tone! So far I can only recongise a few symbols, but speaking is a whole different (difficult) ball game. Enough said at this point, I think.

The Full Moon Party...

...was mental, to say the least. There was just shed loads of people up for it, slighly smaller shedloads of coppers out & about for it, and a lot of totally mental people, esp the ones trying to do fire-poi & not quite pulling it off! The past week here has been a veritable mix of sun, sea, sand & Samsung (thats the local whisky brand over here), late nights & even later mornings, and the habitual 'instant friends (just add alcohol)'. What more can I say. Probably not a lot, as its one of those experience type things; you had to be here to believe it, but at some stage Im sure Ill get round to uploading some pics. The only downer for me, was the surprising lack of good DJs/mixing, so not quite on a par with Ibiza in that respect, but miles cheaper and great beach setting.

It seems so soon already, but we're off tomorrow, although still not sure where to! Ko Phi Phi sounds like a plan to me, but need to confer with Keef laters on and arrange some transportation off the island, so anythings possible, lol.

Ko Phangan + Keef

That pretty much sums it up...Im here, in Ko Phangan (arrived this morning at the way too early hour of 6am) with Keef. We've been dossing so far, just killing time waiting to check into our ultra lush chalet on the beachfront. We had a quick wander round Haad Rin town (so few streets, so much time) and wandered along the beach where all the action will be happening in 5 days time - thats the action of the Full Moon Party, in case its not blindingly obvious why Im here.

This is Keef btw, well his blog anyway: http://www.keefowen.blogspot.com/

We hooked up in Surat Thani yesterday, down the pub of course (thats the _only_ pub in S/Thani btw), and regaled each other with our adventures so far, before mosying on down to the ferry port, where we had a sleeper/overnight ferry direct to Ko Phangan. Having said earlier that I disliked ferries, Ive now changed my mind, but only cos this ferry was miles better than the Langkawi one. The bus ride from Hat Yai (where my train arrived at 11:15am yesterday), took about 5hours, by the time the driver had dropped off everyone else in S/Thani before me, but it was over 300km distance wise, and I did get it for the bargain-basement price of 300Baht; I haggled for a while, cos I didnt have anything better to do, getting teh price down from 400 > 350 baht, then proceeded to give them some money, but not being used to the local notes, I gave her 150 instead of 350, and she (the bus depot admin girl) thought I was trying to haggle even more, so finally said 'ok ok, 300 for you', so I promptly paid before she could change her mind/realise my ineptitude with paper money!

Im off to Thailand...

...tomorrow. Well tonight actually, seeing as the last ferry (to the train station) is at midnight, but my train doesnt leave til 6am. The first ferry is also at 6am, so no chance of catching that one, so it seems like Ill be spending hte night at the train station, what fun. Well at least it wont be cold like in England, lol. Althought I have already paid for my dorm room for tonight, but any useage of said dorm after 6pm is considered as 'staying the night' and hence needs to be paid for, doh. Such is the joys of transportation in a foreign country.

I guess it would help if I mentioned that Im currently in Georgetown, Penang, ought to find some nice maps to link to aswell actually, as Im sure most of you havent a clue where this is...I certainly didnt know til I turned up here, lol.

I arrived here late last night, from Langkawi Island (duty-free haven, home of mad parasailing locals, and devoid of public buses). Im staying in the cheapest hostel to date (RM7 for a shared dorm, thats like 1GBP), and have just discovered that CD/DVD shopping is equally cheap - more later. This morning I spent >1hr transfering more digicam pics to CD, so I now have 2 CDs worth of pics I need to upload, so might spend excessive amounts of time online this eve doing that, once food cravings have been satisfied.

Considering I was never one for shopping in England, I seem to be doing rather well at spending money....theres hu-uge shopping malls here (and generally everywhere in Malaysia) selling all kinds of stuff under one roof, the one I went to was mostly clothes, and I actualy managed to find summat I liked (which is never easy for me, as Im kinda fussy, hence the dislike of shopping). In addition, when I discovered how cheap DVDs were - prior to today I have purposely avoided the multimedia stores, thinking I didnt travel half way round the world to buy/watch dvds - and the fact that they had some Buffy/Angel, well, lets just say I couldnt help myself. I am now the proud owner of the entire Angel Season 5 (half of which I started watching before I left the UK), but I have nothing to play it on......think I may need to find an internet cafe with dvd player + headphones....mmmm. Thats the proud owner of Angel Season 5 for the princely sum of RM42! I kid you not, in fact I was so chuffed I had to buy some music too - Kaiser Chiefs & The Killers, for the princely sum of RM7 each! :)

Langkawi

The highlight of my 1.5days at Langkawi was most definitely the 5mins or so I spent flying thru the air with the most spectacular view of the island and hte sea and the nearby islands. Yes, I have just been parasailing and it was bloody marvellous. Thats parasailing with a huge parachute tied to the back of a speed boat with a very long piece of rope. [more later, run out of net time, need food....]

Ferries

Ive decided I dont like ferries. I hadnt tried them before today, but Ive decided I dont like them. Theres no view (once you leave the land). You dont know where you are along the way, or how far it is to the destination. You cant really sleep, or read, or chat over the noise, not can you hear the movie, or see it with all the people in the way. If you go outside, its very windy, and humid and hot, and you could get wet. And all this goes on for over 3hours. [more later, run out of net time!]

Taman Negara > KL > Penang/Langkawi

I really need some sort of annotated map to show where Ive been, in what order, & by what means of transport. Maybe something for me to work on, on a cold, rainy day...hang on, dont think we're gonna be getting many of those round here, lol. Anyhoo, will try n sort summat out. In the meantime, I guess I could use a few words to explain wot Ive been doing, so...

I spent 2 days at Taman Negara (Tues & Weds), then went back to KL, by public bus (Kuala Tahan > Jerantut > Tremeloh >KL), having noted the timetables, fares & durations for future reference...its seems to be really quite impossible to get hold of reliable information sometimes, different people tell u buses for place X leaves at time Y, but someone else will tell you a different story, then the first person may well revise their story, if they didnt understand what u meant...but u generally have no way of knowing this until u turn up at the bus-depot to find that either the bus has already left, or u have to wait 3hours for the next bus! So Im thinking that maybe I'll collect this sort of usefull info when I find it, and either post it on hostel noticeboards for fellow travellers, or put it online...except what to do when the info gets out of date, or the transportation people decide to change the bus schedule without telling anyone!

From KL, it was a mad rush on the monorail to the KL Sentral train station, which was rahter huge and confusing, so it was kinda hard for me to find the platform I needed for my train, so I got on the train with like 1minute to spare. It was one of those overnight trains, with sleeping quarters, which were decent enought, but not v well thougth out, I thought. And if I was in first class, Id hate to think what 3rd class was like! Nah, overall it was ok, but there was nowhere to store luggage, so that just went in the aisle, and you couldnt really sleep, cos people decided to chat to each other, or call other people on their mobiles, or snore loudly, plus the train itself was kinda bumpy when going along the tracks & noisy. So not exactly a good nights sleep!

The train arrived at Butterworth (who invented that name, I wonder??), Penang at 5.30am, conveniently stopped 1 carraige short of the platform. Despite the fact that the train staff said my carriage was going to be moved so it was level with the platform, this never happened, so I just jumped off (with my increasingly heavy rucksack) and walked to the platform. As it turned out, the train track came to a dead end at the station, and so there wasnt enought room for all the carraiges to be level with the platform; I guess the train had to reverse to leave the station.

So, its 6am, its dark, warm, slightly humid, your in a new town you dont know, without a plan, what do u do?? Nothing. I find the best thing to do is nothing, just sit, have a drink, take in the view, read the noticeboards (if any), just chill until u have some sort of a plan. The noticeboards/signs showed there was a ferry port not far away, so I walked in that direction. I found a ferry, paid some money, got on & had my first ever ferry crossing over to Georgetown, Penang. Ok so far. Got off the other side, now what? Had another sit-down. Could have murdered a cup of tea, but no such luck. Decided to walk away from the ferry port to where my map indicated tehre might be a Tourist Info place....in my experience so far, maps are only vaguely correct, and thus only vaguely usefull - maybe Ill become a cartographer to sort them out. Instead I found lots of places advertising ferry crossings to Langkawi Island, which some people Id met really wanted to go visit (wonder if that had anything to do with its duty-free status, lol), so on the spur-of-the-moment, I bought a return ferry ticket. Just had to wait til 8.30 for the ferry, while being heckled by every teksi (taxi) owner to take a teksi somewhere. Ok so I imagine they always pick on the foreign backpackers, and we do kinda stand out a bit, but surely they can take 'tidak' ('no') for an answer ??

Im in Taman Negara...

...thats National Park to you who dont speak Bahasa Malaysia...jsut coming to the end of me 2 days here, off back to KL tomorow then off up north towards Thailand via train.

Yesterday I went treking, climbed Bukit Teresk, went on a canopy walkway thing, then went trekking to a hide/sheltere where we stayed overnight (v basic accom) in order to try and spot some animals at nite...que lots of rain, like a torential downpour, and no animals (I dont think large moths, preying mantis n mouse really count, altho they were cool). But then this morning, on the way to [band] camp, well back to ParkHQ, I saw some macaques in the trees, and then came across a mini here of bearded pigs who were foraging for food - got lots (semi-blurred) pics of them to upload later, and a lil video (if i can get it online somehow) - so that was all cool & worthwhile in the end.

So then today, ive been caving this morning, got kinda muddy, but then got completely drenched when I wnet for a 'shooting the raipds' boat ride, but it was all kinda cool. I also learned a bit more Malaysian off our park guide Eddie (pokok=tree) and learned about some fo the plants/trees in the jungle and what they're used for.

I did want to go on a night jeep safari tonigh, but its raining, so got canceled. Off back to KL in the morning, by bus, in order to catch a train up to Thailand later on this week...erm think Ive already said that lol...must be gettting late! Selamat malam (good night)!

This weeks plan...

...is to go to Tamen Negara early tomorrow (thats National Park btw), for a couple of days, do some more trekking, water rafting, animal spotting etc, then I ve just booked a train ticket for Thurs 8 Sept to go from KL to a place called Butterworth in Penang, so I can visit Georgetown area for a couple of days. Might even have time to go to Langkawi island. Then Im off on the train again on Mon 12Sept, crossing the border at Pander Besar/Hat Yai, into Thailand to meet Keef at Surat Thani (assuming we can both get train tickets once in Thailand). Then we're off to the Full Moon Party at Ko Phanang :)

Ive written this here, as I actually have a plan! Ive spent several days longer in KL than I originally planned, but Ive been helping random ppl which is actually really quite cool - more later, need to get some food now.

Merdeka

Ok, some factual stuff now, I arrived in KL yesterday (tue 30 aug), checked into my hostel, which is ok but has an incredily slow pc with win98 (hence need for alt net cafe). I decided to come here now to check out hte National Day celebrations - this is when Malaysia gained Independence (Merdeka) from British rule on 31st Aug 1957. There are like tons of national flags around town, I think each town has their own mini celebration type thing, but the main stuff is in KL. I went into town (on the monorail) to the Dataran Merdeka (town square) where all the stuff was happening, and there was just tons & tons of Malaysian absolutely everywhere, and all the hawkers on the sides of the streets selling their wares to the crowds, half the food stuff I wasnt even sure what it was.

The square was beautifully decked out, with lights all round the historic building, and a fancy flagpole where they first hoised the Malaysian Flag, and a grassy area with a concert stage and vip section. There was a free concert, which was cool, but everything (all the announcements/songs/commentry) was in Bahasa Malaysia, so I only had a vague idea of what was going on/being spoken about, but it was evidently very funny in parts, as everyone else was laughing & cheering. The female performers seemed to go down especially well with the men in the crowd - theres a surprise - with everyone singing aong to the words of the pop songs. It was a really great atmpshere, with everyone waving these little Malaysian flags and shouting 'Merdeka! Merdeka!' at oportune moments, and waving at the tv? cameras as they swooped past.

There was also lots of cultural style dances, as well as more modern pop songs (albeit all sung in malaysian), little plays that (i imagine) depicted memorable moments in history, and a little boy & girl reciting a poem/story about somthing that got a lot of cheering & clapping from the crowd. There was over 4hours of this, I got there at 8pm and it had already started, and nearer to midnight there was an english annoucement introducing/welcoming all the local & foreign dignitaries who were at the event. There was a huge countdown just before midnight, loads & loads of fireworks (and a mini blow up zepplin thing floating about in the air) and everyone started singing what I can only imgine was the national anthemn over & over again!

I kinda wish I had a better camera with wide-angle lens etc to capture the mood better, but this is what I did manage to get:

General Update

Ok so its been about a week since my last real update, its kinda like this...in the towns, its sometimes hard to find an internet cafe thats not full or expensive, harder still to find one with w2k/xp _and_ fast broadband, and if u find all that u usually find its full of teenage chinese guys playing loud online games or louder music...whcihc is kinda distracting when ur trying to think & type somthing relatively interesting, and certainly not the place where ud want to check ur finances online!.
Plus uploading pics takes ages even with uploading tools from Flickr.com, which decide to reorder ur pics for u so theyre not in chronographic order! Then theres all the organising into online sets/groups and all that labelling. Then theres the keyboards, which i find rather annoying over here - for a start most pc rooms are dark, so u cant see the keys, the backspace key is always small, so is the enter key, and all the @# symbols are all in the wrong place and theres no pound (money) symbol. Ok so im generally having a winge today cos im in a bad mood cos things have gone wrong today...soz but wot u gonna do about it...

:(

Im extremely extremely pissed off!!! Ive just lost over 200 pictures at an internet cafe place when the pc decided to reboot itself...I tried to talk to the (malaysian speaking) staff and it turns out that all their pcs reboot just before 3hours of usage because they get too hot!! They coudl have told me that before i downloaded & deleted _all_ my pics from my digicam to the desktop and lost them all! Im so incredily pissed off right now its unreal :(( So theres no pictures of Bako National Park anymore (with its nice beaches, gorgeous sunsets, generally stunning scenery, jungle trails, bearded pigs, macaque monkeys, monitor lizards, nor carniverous pitcher plants) no piccies of cute 'lil oranutans swinging thru the trees at Semaggoh Wildlife Center, no pictures of Kuching waterfront with ppl practising their regatta rowing, more nice sunsets and the random food I ate. Im just so f'ing pissed off!!!!
Ive found another internet spot round the corner, so am currently listing to radio 1 online, to try n feel better. What sorta way of running an internet cafe is it, if ur pcs reboot every 3hours, but u dont tell ur customers??? There were loads of other ppl in there (mostly young ppl playing noisy online computer games), didnt see them getting rebooted, unless they all used to it.