Everyone kept calling it “KL” when referring to it. As if it was Asia’s “LA” or something. I boarded a bus that sat 3 wide (very big seats that reclined almost all the way) and set off on a 12 plus hour trip. As soon as we crossed the boarder I realized that I didn’t speak a word of the land. I got out of the bus at on of the rest stops and realized that I didn’t know how to order food.

Immediately, 3 men that were in their thirties saw my stupification and jumped in to help me with the transition. In the same way a man might do a little hovering over a woman on a first date, these guys made sure I was fed before I got back on the bus. After sitting down with my plate of food I said “So how do you say things like Hello and thank you?” One of the men replied with “…..Hello …… Thank you ! ” With a chuckle. We all speak English here! It’s going to be easy to get along here, trust me.

What a relief. Here I was in my first Asian nation that I hadn’t already visited before in some other travels. Now if I can just find the computer repair store, I’ll be in good shape. It doesn’t matter if I was in San Diego trying to use a train system, I just can’t seem to figure it out. Here it’s very clean and the streets are lined with dark skinned fellows as well as lighter skinned ones too. It looks like half the people could be from India here.

I can tell the nation follows some Islamic traditions by the fact that all the women’s heads and necks are covered by a shawls. The weather here is much the same as a day in LA. It’s sunny and warm, but not obnoxiously humid. I really like it here so far

I went to a local hostel and was put in a 4 man dorm who had a crazy Canadian guy who claims he won the 1970 California state lottery. He claims that they owe him 20 million to this day and that he took it to the supreme court and won, but the bastards still haven’t paid up. Also his pension check has stopped coming (maybe because he is in KL?) and those guys are going to pay in blood.

! Room Switch !

Well that was fun but now I think I’ll bunk with people who aren’t going to try and sniff my dirty panties in the night (those are mine good sir)

The Next room had a guy who had my same previous room at one point. He said that the crazy man actually begs on the streets now and makes a good enough living to stay here every night. (Is the bum overpaid or am I in too cheep of accommodation?)

Either way, I was greeted with a new surprise knob affixed to the right hand side of the toilet seat. Which new gadget may this be? Will this shoot hot water up my but, or just a puff of floral smell? I couldn’t wait to find out what bathroom culture I was about to experience, but much like everything else in a foreign nation, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. Apparently Usability is not universal.

I’ve king of given up on the computer repair store for today. I think I’ll go watch a movie and see if they have lazy boy recliners like main land Mexico tends to have.

Hoh Phi Phi Leh’s beauty is objective.  It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.  Going to this island is alot like what happens when Michael Jordan used to play basket ball.  It’s the feeling a man gets when he sees his first born smiling up at him for the first time.  It’s a knee buckling, heart stopping emotion that most of us only get one or two chances at in a long life time.

This is the same island that “The Beach” was filmed at.  It isn’t photograph-able in the sense that it’s scale and contrast is much too bold to be anything but experienced in real life.  I’m calling it now.  This is the most beautiful place in the world.  It’s not just some lime stone freak of nature, draped in luscious tropical jungle.  It’s not and accidental amphitheatre made by billions of years of chance.

This place is deliberate.

I started my day rock climbing on the main island which is only a 20 minute boat ride from the island I speak of.  There was a considerable amount of rain in the morning so I didn’t bother to take my camera.  Of Course, the afternoon would turn out to be perfect weather.  It’s ok though.  This occasion is not meant to be filmed.  It was for me and if you want to really live, I suggest you get on a plane some time soon

My boat driver was a sweet and caring man who really took it all in like it was his first time every time.  This island is very crowded as you can imagine, but or boat driver took us to an arena like cove just before it was too late due to low tide.  We were the only boat in the place.  The next day, I grabbed a boat again in a second attempt to capture pictures of this place, but it rained the entire time.

The second day though the tide was much higher and I was able to swim in this natural amphitheater.  The second day it was crowded with tons of boats and giggling kids who didn’t seem to share my stoic reaction.  Fortunately I was able to cross my arms behind my back and lay back in the water (forming a natural ocean hammock) and lower my ears just low enough in the water to drowned out the sounds of the spring breakers.  I was still able to enjoy this place as if I were all alone.

Tomorrow I’m off to Malaysia in a 18 hour marathon bus ride

Hopefully someone might be able to fix my computer there!

Well its been a few days since my last post and that is because my computer is now broken

Thats right, now I have to risk the chance of herpes on this public computer keyboard.  It’s going to cost me at least 5 dollars per post until i get something back online with my computer

Yuck, I feel so impossibly poor on this thing.  Ewwww, I have to pay to type?  That’s like paying to cash a check.  I’m done venting about my beautiful paperweight of a computer, because I went diving with a Whale Shark and  a whole mess of Giant Manta Rays!!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095064&l=34c75e864d&id=24501923

The trip was a little on the expensive side because it is one of those remote places that you have to take a 400 HP power boat out to.  Off the island of Koh Phi Phi (one of the most Beautiful places in the world, there are two pinnacles that somehow command the attention of some of the most amazing underwater sea creatures.

It is Thailand’s low season with tourism and their high season for whale sharks so consequently all of the dive shops will pool their efforts together to hire one of these Speed boats.  I haven’t had a guide this good since the Guide in the Waitomo Caves of New Zealand.  He told me and the one other person diving from our shop that we were going to sneak into the water before the other 15 people from the other dive shops got in and scared these delicate creatures away.

Ian is a Thai Local who could easily fool you as someone who has never seen a whale shark himself.  His enthusiasm is astounding.  When he sees something under water he gets in your face and makes sure you are seeing what he does.  H is also the camera man (the perfect scenario).  No, I don’t want to rent a camera, I want to rent a photographer to take pics with me in them!

We were staring into the deep blue waiting for the first creature to appear and it was madness.  Any flicker, any glimer, or any change in color tone at all you will sware to be the first signs of a giant coming home from a hard day’s work.  And then it came straight at us!

A manta ray with a 10 foot wing span.  Of course only the three of us saw it while the other dive shops were looking the wrong way.  I swam up to it and it soared back ino oblivion.  At least I saw something, I didn’t get skunked.  But there was much more to come.

I kept on looking out into the blue and just as i began to see something, my guide Ian practically tugged my arm out of its socket.  There it was, coming right for us.  A whale shark seemed to materialize from the darkness and as it got closer and closer, it’s spots became more prevalent and vibrant.  It was one of those moments in life, A top ten for sure!  I wasn’t quite ready for the sharp lines.  This thing was pure muscle! Sculpted by the gods, it’s sharp lines must have been chiseled from rare marble.  It approached us boldly and turned in our face.  It made its way back towards the darkness just as quickly as it made its way towards us.  This thing was approximately 20-25 feet, a small bugger by whale shark standards.

I speed towards it following it into the dark and saw a vivid bite mark on the stock of it’s tail.  Only a great white had jaws that could possibly make this size of damage.  I saw it so Vividly.  I’ll never forget.  And then I checked my gauges.

I was at 36 meters, 6 meters past my furthest depth that I am allowed to go and 4 meters away from serious problems.  It was time to let this giant go.  It was at the end of my dive as well which is a dangerous way to dive.  One is supposed to go deep and make their way back shallow, but whale sharks call for desperate measures.

My dive buddy was already at 40 bars (a meausurement of air).  The PADI manual demands someone to begin the surface process when they reach 50 Bars (10 Bars ago), but whale sharks call for desperate measures.  We stayed down because there was another manta in the area.  My partner was telling our guide that she was down to 30 and that she would surface.  Officially, we are all supposed to surface, but whale sharks call for desperate measures.  Ian took his spare regulator (breathing aperatus) anf gave it to my dive buddy.  Now Ian had two people breathing from one tank.  Air goes quick this way, but whale sharks call for desperate measures.

Finally, when we were both at 30 bars, we began the surface process.  Ian was so dedicated to us seeing and interacting with the whale sharks that he easily would do more than just give us his shirt off his own back.  He would give us his air!

During the one hour surface intervul, we went to another spot that had 4 mantas swimming around in circles.  We snorkled with these predictable and playful beasts for 40 minutes until we were ready to dive again.  Once down diving, we were able to take some of the most amazing Pics that you will ever see.

Tonight Ian is going to give me the pics and I’ll try and get them uploaded.

You won’t believe your eyes!!!

The night before the full moon party I came down with a high fever. I stumbled home though the half hour walk and sweated thought the night taking small handfuls of IB Profin and large gulps of water. My roommate didn’t come home till the next morning. He walked in and I asked him to walk down to the lounge of the property to get some Tylenol and water because I had run out of both. He said “Ok” and walked out and didn’t return to the room in 2 hours. Finally I felt well enough to walk down myself. He was sitting there playing on the internet. I told him that we are no longer traveling together because he didn’t have the common sense to even do the bare minimum to look after his fellow traveler.

I’m better off all alone than this a selfish self centered ass. He responded to my common sense comment with “Well the lobby isn’t that far. Why is it such a big deal?” I told him “Exactly, its not a big deal for someone who isn’t sick. Why didn’t you do it?” He responded with “What do you want me to be your mommy and take you temperature?”

Ahhha! Just the statement that I would expect from a person like him, who can’t quite comprehend that we are a long way away from our mommies, and yes, that’s exactly what travelers do for each other. Only the night before a girl at our bungalow kicked a rock and was limping back. I rushed up to my room and grabbed the Purell and help her clean out the cut. As I ran off, Ronnie shouted “leave here.” Because he didn’t want to wait an extra 20 minutes to hit the town.

I got the sense that Ronnie was a douche bag from first day I met him, but when he crossed me directly, I cut him out like cancer.

I ended up hanging out the lounge for the next 8 hours and meeting an eclectic bunch of travelers. They were almost traveling alone and ranged from New Zealand to New England. Most of them were sporting “Thai tattoos” which are scars or scabs from injuries in Thailand. 3 of the people in the group had been quad biking a few days before and ended up tumbling down hills. They would have been really screwed if a few German guys hadn’t gone completely out of their way to get help.

And of course, this group understands the value and purpose in looking out for each other. They scrounged together and found me some various Aspirins and Tylenols form their bags.

So tonight I will be missing the full moon party. My eclectic group of loner travelers still painted me with body paint in honor of me missing it. This is the type of people that you go traveling to meet. Real quality, big hearts.

I have
simplified my ways. Now rendered down to
board shorts, sunglasses, 1000 baht, and a room key in my pocket, I am little
more that a walking purse. You see, I
have no need for sandals, those only get lost.
I have no need for a shirt, those will only get dirty. I have no need
for an ID, those can only get lost. I
have no need for a camera or a towel or anything else for that matter. I have my legs, money, and a bed to rest my
head on. The air is hot, the water warm,
and the fun bountiful.

Every night
is an epic party on a beach, dock, pool, or even in the ocean. I used to feel that a party is a party and
that there is no need to globe trot to sample each one, but the vibe is
different here. The happy go lucky Thai
people set the pace for their visitors.
The last two days in a row I have been Jet skiing in the main bay for a
half hour at $15. The guy who operates
the stand was walking by me at night at a pool party and he said “Alex!! See
you tomorrow!! We Jet Ski Again?”

I was only
passing by this guy and there were literally about 3,000 people at this
party. It’s that kind of personal
recognition that earns this place its legendary reputation.

A common
phrase in Mexican culture is “My Friend” and I used it on a few locals here in
Thailand and their eyes lit up. As if
they had finally met a foreigner who was as warm and helpful as they are. I haven’t ever seen so many flattened frogs
and lizards on the side of the road as I have here. Still, I chose to walk bare foot.

I am staying
in a bungalow that is a 25 minute walk from the center of the party. Our bungalow in particular is the very
furthest in the bunch. It is situated
atop a cliff and has many holes in the floor boards. I literally put a foot through one of them on
my deck and fell up to my kneecap one night.
I am sharing a twin bed with Ronnie to save money and it is definitely
testing my personal space requirements.
I just can’t bring myself to pay for an entire bungalow myself
though.

The food on
this island is more expensive and less flavorful than the stuff that you can
get off the streets in Bangkok. I am
beginning to think that Bangkok is the food capital of the world; quote me on
that.

Although I
bring 1000 baht with me every day, I usually only spend 500 per day ($15 USD). You do meet people here, but much less
abundantly than in New Zealand or even Australia due to the lack of hostels in
this country. Most of South East Asia is designed for a couple instead of a
single person traveling. The rooms often
start at sleeping two people and go up from there.

Interestingly
enough, this is a huge Israeli hot spot to vacation. So much so, that there is an Israeli food
section on all the menus and every sing in town is in both English and
Hebrew. If you wanted to get an idea of
how it feels here on the beach here in the day, just watch the first 10 minutes
of the movie “You don’t mess with the Zohan.”
They actually sound like that!!!

It is
amazing J

Mangos are one of my least favorite fruits (Apples are probably my least). I don’t like how tangy they are. I don’t like the tart. But I saw how good they looked when being sliced up on the streets of Thailand and decided to give them a try in a foreign land. I figured that there could be a different mango on the other side of the world that could be something amazing. I was right.

The mangos in South East Asia are completely different. Imagine something as buttery and rich as an avocado, only just sweet enough to be a mango. Believe it or not, mangos here are among my favorite foods. This is significant because it shows first hand that there is always a chance to make a new impression. I had decided that mangos we terrible, but for some reason, I gave it a chance and found something great.

On that same vein of wisdom, we decided to go snorkeling the next day after the bad scuba diving experience. We walked to the side of the island that had a great beach and good snorkeling. We asked the local resort how much it would cost to rent a mask and snorkel and they responded with 50 baht (about $1.5 USD). We swam around in the 88 degree water and watched fish and baby sharks playing around the bay.

There was a fisherman on the bolder dotted shore line that had is fishing line stuck inside of a clam. We dove down and tried to free the hook from the clam’s mouth, but it had clamped down too hard. The fisherman eventually cut his line and offered us a fish for our efforts. This whole event happened, of course, with neither of us speaking one word of either’s language.

Soon we will be going to the island of Koh Panang for the world famous full moon party. This is a party that is known by all backpackers as the party of all parties. It’s roughly 10,000 people on the beach during a full moon with a bunch of music, drinking, and Thai Drugs! It’s a must do event, along with such famous events such as Mardi Gras, October Fest, and 4^th of July.

But wait, I’m not done talking about food. There is something called a pancake here on Koh Tao. It’s basically a cross between a French crêpe and a crunch wrap supreme (from Taco Bell). Start with the batter and fill it with something (say slices of mango or a banana), wrap it up like a crunch wrap supreme, and top it with something sweet (say some peanut butter or Nutella) and chop it up into square pieces (maybe some condensed milk on top too). You have a pancake (Thailand style). How much is something like this? $1

Koa Toa is an overnight bus ride away from Bangkok. The same type of trip I swore I’d never do again after Australia. But this time is was a little better; the bus’s seats reclined quite a bit. The trade off was that the bus arrived ahead of schedule by one hour (at 5am). From there we had to wait at the docks for 2 hours for a high speed catamaran. This is the way you get to the tropical islands of Thailand. The 9 hour bus ride and 1.5 hour boat ride cost a total of $20 US. Once on the boat, there were many people trying to sell me dive and accommodation packages, but all I could do is think about how good my all day sleep session would be (since I only got 1 hour of sleep on the bus).

While exiting the boat I met a 21 year old guy from San Francisco named Ronnie. His dad was from Israel and his mom’s parents were both from Russia, but don’t let that background fool you into thinking he is some sort of ultra exotic traveler. He grew up in San Mateo (suburb of San Francisco) and went to the same High School as my cousins Laura and Sasha! It may as well have been written, this looks to be the beginning of my next stage of travel, single or few companion based travel.

On this island, and most others in Thailand, there aren’t any hostels. Because of this, you meet people at a bone chillingly slow pace. You see a lot of couples on islands like these. All of the accommodation is set up as 2 person bungalows etc. Even since we have been on this island, we have attempted to meet other groups of people and mostly all that we meet are beautiful pairs of Swedish girls who enjoy (in not so many words) telling us to take a hike J

We went on 2 dives that were very disappointing due to the murky water. This is funny because when looking at the water from the shore, the water looks crystal clear, but once we go to any depth, it seems impossibly murky. When descending my first time into the deep, it felt like someone had turned off my air. Could the guy who checks my tank before I jump in possibly have mistakenly turned my air the wrong way? Did he even have time to turn it all the way off? Either way, it was extremely hard to breath and the deeper I got the harder it got.

Luckily I was second in line going down, so when I was going up I happened to tell a few others that I didn’t have any air. When I got to the surface, I told the boat manager and he said it was probably because I was not used to diving. I told him that I dove two weeks ago and he told me to try the backup breathing regulator. That one worked and the dive instructor came back to the surface to get me again. I breathed fine from my alternate regulator for the rest of the dive. Upon getting back on the boat, the boat manager was venting about 5 feet away from me. “How dare he come onto my boat and blame my equipment. It’s his damn fault for not checking the equipment. I don’t care, get the insurance and sit in the chamber for all I care.” The chamber he was referring to is to counter act the bends, a condition one gets if they rush to the surface, say… if their air was turned off. The company’s name is “Easy Divers” on Koh Tao island Thailand. I would definitely say that this company should be avoided by everyone. It’s really too bad that boat manager (a 39 year old English piece of shit) was having a bad day and all, because when this internet marketer gets a chance to smear his place of work on the internet, he will have something real to complain about J

There are a thousand other dive companies on Koh Tao and a few have been seeing whale sharks recently. I the last one they saw was a little over 19 feet which is a little on the smaller side for a whale shark. Unfortunately, the shark is a very illusive creature and it took more than a little luck to swim with one, even if it is in the season.

I leave you with this video of me twirling fire. Why did I do it? Because Ronnie did it right before me and it didn’t look that hard. As I did it, I remembered how hard it is for me to twirl two things at the same time without hitting myself with at least one of them and I think you can see in the video that I nearly did hit myself with the left one. It was a spontaneous end to a breathless day.

We went back to the bungalow that we were paying $3 a night to stay at. It has a cold water shower which is actually a blessing since the days are about 100 degrees here and the nights are still easily 80 degrees.

And Yes, I’ve redden an elephant in Cambodia through a temple