Surf Safari Siargao

We got to Siargao after 10 days of torrential rain, which resulted in all of the roads being covered in 3 feet of water. People were floating around on bamboo rafts because it was too deep for cars to make it through.

Our room was sweet, right on the walkway out to the judges platform on cloud nine and with a view of the break from the balcony, kind of a splurge, but it was the last time I was going to be able to split room cost so I wanted something a bit nicer since for the next two months I will be sleeping on the floor with the cockroaches etc.

Highlights of Siargao:

Basically Siargao is the shit and I'm planning on going back in the very near future / maybe for the month of march if I can tear myself away from Cebu and the reggae scene here.

Here are some pictures I took at stimpies, a break near cloud nine:

I surfed a few days but not really that much, Liam tried to teach me, but his idea of a good first day was to get me to stand up in the morning and then take me to stimpies, the wave in the above photos and say go! Needless to say, I got clobbered. One of the locals also tried to teach me too, but then he tried to kiss me so things got a bit awkward fast...

On the way home from stimpies one of the days the motor on our tiny boat died, in the gathering darkness, a 30 minute motor ride from shore with what looked like rain on he horizon. We ended up having to paddle for an hour back in the dark, but we were all still in one piece, which was fortunate, I think a few people were getting a bit worried.

We had two great nights out: the "benefit", and then a Karaoke night

The 'Benefit" was a weekly event held in covered area near cloud nine in the town. It was great - drinks flowing around, good music, etc. The funny thing was that every time a song ended everyone cleared the dance floor and sat down. Only about 10 seconds into the next song did people venture back out on the dance floor. We met so many people at the benefit that by the next day it seemed like everyone on the island knew our names, which was pretty cool, and I think it helped Liam out a lot since he got in with the surf locals and they showed him good spots.

The other night we went out we did KTV for a reeeally long time with a bunch of french peeps that we met at 101.  After we all just continued on to nine bar and got loose. 

More pics of Siargao:

Manila = Madness

Manila was one big shit-show of us having absolutely no idea where we were going, or what part of the city we were in, or if we were gonna get killed immanently, etc. I had been to cheap to buy a guidebook, so we literally had no idea where we were, I didn't even know that manila is several cities and not one city with a main downtown, which made things a little interesting for trying to figure out where to go.

We finally found somewhere to stay for the night after wandering aimlessly for 45 minutes, and went to the nearby ladybar to watch the inauguration / get a beer.. I was exhausted so I wanted to go to sleep stat, but Liam really really wanted a beer and didn't want to go to a ladybar by himself, as he had already been propositioned a few times, so he dragged me down for protection, I watched the inauguration, which I've never seen before, I'm a bad American, so I gues it was a good educational experience.

The next day we bought tickets to Cebu on the ferry, and then went on an oddessy through what I think must have been all of manila's malls to find Liam a surfboard. After what seemed like eons of wandering around in circles totally lost among the ice rinks and Jollibees, (I hate malls) we finally found a place with surfboards and ended the agony.


Taco!!

I found cheetos at 7-11 for the first time in 6 months!!! this picture is my idea of pure happiness

Ferry to Cebu
Pretty sunset
Typical of the philippines. They were also testing guns off the side of the boat for about three hours on the way down. Pretty ridic.

Fighting cocks are alowed on the boat. No other livestock. Or wellwishers.


Prettttttyyyy

Luang Prabang - Arctic Circle

Left Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang even though we only had a few day before we had to be back in BKK to fly to Manila, but I had really wanted to go to LP, so I kinda forced Liam to stop tubing and come with me. It unfortunately wasn't as cool as I was expecting; it was cool but there was a bit of over hype, and it was really cold, so I think my brain was too frozen to revel in the surroundings most of the time.

The main attractions are the temples scattered over town and the strong Buddhist culture and tradition that remains in the city as a result of the abundant monasteries. We checked out a few of the main temples, and then rented bikes one day and road 15 k to a waterfall, which was decently cool, but that was about all we did.



There was an amazing sign on the door of our hotel room, which made up for the under awing-ness of Luang Prabang. It read: "It is forbidden to for foreigners and non-foreign to bring prostitute in hotel room for purpose of making sex movie" or something like that.. yeah.. it made up for the cold and everything.

Pretty sunset

10 hour Bus rides are more fun when you're throwing up

Disclaimer: I have no camera anymore, so all of these pics were stolen from various people

After Koh Tao I headed back up to BKK, where my plan was to fly to myanmar, but my plans were thwarted my an imbecile in the Bainbridge post office who incorrectly mailed my credit and debit cards, resulting in their non-appearance in Bangkok the day before my flight, and lots of freaking out. So I missed the flight, waste of 100 dollars, and had to sit it out in Bangkok for a few days, which I was incapable of, so I got on a bus to Laos to meet up with all the peeps who had gone up the day before (friends from NYE). In retrospect I'm kinda glad my cards didn't come. I f they had come I would have go to Myanmar for three weeks, and probably not have gone to the Philippines at all, which would have been a travesty in my opinion.

I committed two grave mistakes en route to Laos: 1. I ate green curry, and 2. I went with only enough money to pay for the bus ticket, not enough to get me across the border and into Laos. My plan was to get off the bus in Thai at the border, get my money, cross the border myself, then meet up with the bus in Vientien and take it to Vang Vieng.

Within 30 minutes of the 10 hour bus ride I was throwing up all over the downstairs part of the bus, which luckily was vacant (I had gone down there once I could tell I was going to be sick so as to spare the feelings and olfactory senses of the rest of the passengers). I was incredibly fortunate that there were two girls from LA on the bus who took pity on me and took care of me, brought me water, bananas, etc. It became clear when we got to the border that there was no way I could get off the bus and make it there myself, I had a fever and could barely walk because I was so weak. These girls, who I had spoken 2 words too, paid my way across the border and into Laos ( I have since paid them back). Amazing what good people are capable of.

I ran into more problems when I got to Vang Vieng, but again I was saved again by benevolent (drunk) foreigners. I was so out of it, having been throwing up on buses for 15 hours at this point, that when I tried to read the room list to see which room to knock on, I read room 21 (age) instead of the actual number, so of course I couldn't find my friends. A drunk guy who was standing by playing with a puppy took pity on me, and his sister, who was with him, took me back to their room and put me to bed in one of their big comfy beds after giving me painkillers for my fever and water. So despite having the shittiest luck ever.. and getting food poisoning like three times in the past months, I had really good luck with people helping me.


Vang Vieng is beautiful, surrounded by huge limestone cliffs

Found Liam the next day and then proceded to lie in bed for four days with a fever while he tubed every day, coming back every nigh completely dead drunk and incoherently raving about how he had had the best time of his life, etc etc. Not fair. He also dislocated someones shoulder by falling on top of them off the water slide. haha, I guess thats not funny...buuut it kinda is.



Basically you just rent these tubes for five dollars and then float down the river and get wasted. The bars along the way throw ropes out to pull you in if you want to come, and then there are rope swings and zip lines, and all manner of things that you can get drunk and make bad decisions about. I never got to go, but I'm thinking about going back in march before I leave, just so I can tube, because I feel like I really missed out.

NYE on Koh Phagnan, or: the most ridiculous night of my life

I know I titled one previous post "the craziest night of my life", but NYE surpassed the November full moon party in sheer hours spent awake and partying by a full day.

Before I launch into the description, which will surely make my parents cringe, I just want to give a shout out to the amazing 40 bhat feta cheese sandwiches which I lived on for all 5 days while I was there, or at least at the times when I remembered that red bull is not a substitute for food. Across from chicken corner, amazing. Loves.

NYE Rampage:

7 PM: buy many tubs of body paint and paintbrushes, eat feta cheese sandwiches / spend a few hours pre-gaming and turning my arm into a masterpiece. (there are black lights everywhere, so the paint lights up like crazy)

9pm: Make beeline for kate moss fuck bucket and begin to consume massive amounts of alcohol.

I introduced everyone to jello shots

1 am: first trip to mellow mountain

2 am: second trip to mellow mountain, have lost everyone but V now

4 am: miraculously find Adam, go with him to laugh at all the people having sex on the beach in plain sight of everyone then go play dress up in the 'costumes' that he brought from home -seriously, he brought a sailor costume, some wigs, some other shit..ridiculous. Find an awesome platinum wig that I proceeded to wear for the rest of the night and became completely unrecognizable. Then I went and bounced off the walls in the hall for a bit until I woke kelly and mazz / rest of hotel up who din't even recognize me.

6 am: sunrise, huge storm blows in off the water and everyone is dancing in torrential downpour to hardcore techno... coolest thing ever. Our group is now only the survivors: Adam, Richard, V, two crazy singapore dudes and me.

7 am: 7-11 opens, begin drinking beers again

9 am: make new friends bc al the rest of my crew are passed out or too drunk to move, go on exohdus to find the afterparty but first find Rob and yell at him for five minutes about how all aussies are pussies because he won't come with me and keep drinking.

10 am: after party up in the jungle, best part of the night- goes till noon (called back yard). This is only the real party champions. Make friends with a bunch of guys who are 6 year NYE veterens here and who are all either tripping or rolling, go to a reggae bar with them when the party is over, visit mellow mountain a few more times and just chill. Finaly at -

6 pm realize that simo has been frantiacaly calling and texting me for the past 9 hours and I'm the only one with a key to the room.

Arrive home 7pm, realize that coops has gashed his foot open and is in the hospital with no money to pay for his stitches and I have the key and his wallet is in the room. Oops, I guess I wasn't the most responsible one like I thought.

11pm: go out for farewell beers at the beach.

12 am: pass out.


woke up keen to flee the island the next day, but no such luck.....

I'll include the ferry debacle in the Koh Tao post...

Epic Journey to Koh Tao

After NYE / Full Moon partties, the main concern of the majority of party goers is to get off of koh phagnan with all due haste and go into rehab for at least four days. We were no exception, so we headed to the dock on the 2nd along with the other hundreds of people fleeing the scene, hoping to get a boat to Koh Tao. We arrived at the dock at 12 for a 1 pm boat -the boat was late, very late, one day late.

They kept pushing back the departure time until finally at 9pm they told us to go home bc it wasn't coming. So hundreds of us had sat on the dock for nine hours, eating pancakes and being subjected to the this horrible tune from an ice cream truck and all for nothing. The tune of the ice cream truck still haunts me. Seriously. We heard it once in the Philippines and we both had flashbacks. Kelly and Maz decided to go to Koh Phi Phi instead, leaving me a bit stranded, but as always I made new friends to travel with pretty quickly. (actualy, other people befriended me, I guess it wasn't really my doing :)

We came back the next day at the same time, to just as much uncedrtainty as the day before: they had stopped selling tickets, people were saying the boats were still canceled etc. Luckily the boat showed, and on time too! The ride there was CRAZY, huge waves, people were crying and wearing life jackets. I was completely soaked by the time we got there from the waves splashing over the rail, but over all it was fuuuun.

Koh Tao was the same as usual, pretty chill, good food and good times at choppers and lotus. Deon (one of the aussies) managed to split his head open and luckily coops was there because simo wanted to put band aids on it since he though going to the hospital would be too expensive. Coops knew you don't fuck around with head wounds so he took Deon to the clinic and 20 stitches later he hadn't died and was able to party the next night. champion.

Only picture taken by anyone I think....

My bag got stolen at lotus one night so I lost my camera, cell phone and liam's cell phone, which I feel a bit bad about, but whatevs, put shit in my bag at your own risk.

Koh Samui, or: where NOT to spend your vacation in Thailand

Ugh I can't believe I'm actualy having to rewrite this post for the second time. I wrote all of these posts on a computer in Malapascua during the torrential downpours which have lasted the past two weeks, but then somehow it didn't translate onto my flash drive in a readable manner, so here I am rewriting...AGAIN. Also, I got no pics since my camera got stolen on Koh Tao. Rough life.

KOH SAMUI

Again here is the Thailand map so you can see where Koh Samui is. Pretty much in the same place I went before, just slightly more south. Its the biggest of the three islands, and also the most touristy.


Went to Koh Samui to see Coops and Simo, no other reason really, since I had only heard bad things about it, and I'm not going to lie, after spending 6 days there I was ready to move the fuck on to Koh Phagnan. The problem with Koh Samui is that its more upmarket, has too many prostitutes and lady boys, too many families, too many asian package tourists and basically has no redeeming qualities whatsoever other than that I discovered my talent for wii bowling. Being with 10 guys I spent a decent amount of time between strip clubs and bars, and then getting kicked out of the bars for being highly destructive.

Pretty sure this picture was taken while pooling money to buy Geebzy a stripper

Hookah was a novelty, apparently they don't have it in oz

The only funny incident I can remember (since this was now more than a month ago) was when this girl who was on E got up on our table at the beach and proceeded to take off all of their clothes. She was roughly pulled off 5 seconds later by her irate husband... haha.