Friday, September 30, 2005

Back in Chiang Mai

Well, after a fairly big piss up last night, we have made it to chiang Mai. As it was Francesca's farwell as well last night Ting Tong house will be all sleepy any quite. I'm back to that feeling I had during the first few weeks in Thailand... is this food poisoning, or a hangover... or both. But all in all fairly good health.
Our visa runs out on Sunday, so today I'll book a flight to Laos for the weekend.
All is well, speak soon.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

blergh

Hmmm,
I'm still up in Pai. Pai's is by far my favourite place, nice chilled and friendly. A few nights ago we celebrated Roh's birthday party. ( for those of you who know Roh, you'd know his birthday was a fair while ago ) it was pretty cool, ( for those of you who were there, we do feel sorta bad for being liers, but it was a great night wasn't it ) , Losta free drinks and stuff.

I don't have my camera with me but I'll stick some photos online very soon. Me and Chessy from Ting Tong House made a big colladged poster saying Happy Birthday Roy out of crepe paper on a huge sheet of cardboard. We decorated the Fifty Sitong bar ( aka The Whiskey Bar ) with balloons, very very funny

I'm thinking about having my birthday in a few weeks in Laos somewhere... should be good.

I've spent the last few days fairly bed ridden, Woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago with an urge to vomit, and spent the next few hours vomiting, drinking a little bit of a water, and then spewing it back up again. ( some of them having to be while sitting on the dunny due to a sever case of the shits ) Chessy was very helpful, buying me poweraide ( i think it made me spew 4 times trying to drink that bottle ) I lost 4 kilos in 24 hours ( down to 73.8 kg ) so yesterday i ate a little, and today a few bits of bread in the arvo. This evening i managed about 1/4 a serve of spaghetti.If i still feel like crap tomorrow I spose i'll drop in at teh hospital.

umm, Nicky, keep on trucking the crap stuff just makes you enjoy the good stuff even more, you should see what dramas curt and Celias are up to and they are only a week in.... Curt and Cecil, congrats and have a wicked time, Chessy, Sorry for lieing about Roy's birthday, but I'm sure you forgive us (( i hope I leave town before she reads this )) Jackie, let me know how your continuing travels are, I'll see in London, and Finn, was wicked meeting you I know youve only got this website for contact so leave a comment and I'll come for a beer when I head to germany.

cheers every one...

Will C

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Chewawa’s Adventure

Well yesterday was fucking wicked. Chuiwawa ( got to find out how to spell that properly ) is Tutu ( the owner of the Ting Tong ) brother, he lives at the guest house and works at the bar. This morning after breakfast ( vegemite on toast and scrambled eggs ) he asks me and Francesca if we want to go on an adventure, no more info…. So I jump on my bike and follow them out of town ( a quick double back when he runs out of petrol ) a few little turns off the main road and its onto a fairly tight little dirt/gravel road. As with standard tradition the further off the beaten track you get the thinner the road becomes, the longer the grass in between the tracks and the bigger the puddles. It all starts off fairly smoothly Chuiwawa and Francesca on a very clapped out rusty old dirt bike and me on my little 125cc Honda scooter. After about 15 minutes the puddles start to stretch out and join one another they become pits of mud with huge trenches carved through them from who ever was game enough to take a 4wd up there. At stages a foot deep puddle stretches to 20 meters. I fell like the description really should be some what poetic and action packed. Sweat dripping from sun burnt skin, the sting of grass whipping against my feet, the burn of hitting a pool of hot muddy water, that sorta thing but I’m not poetic so I won’t try. But it was fucking exhilaratingly exciting, I managed 3 fucking river crossings and slipping and sliding though monster mud pits on the scooter. Chuiwawa and Francesca both manage to loose Thongs ( Flip-Flops) in the mud, and in the “ I’ve narrowed it down to a metre square patch where they have to be but still cant find them its so deep” sorta way. We ride for about a hour up this crazy track, until it peters out over a river then into about a foot wide path through a rice paddy, Chuiwawa’s response is, “We stop now, looking for waterfall, but now lost, you want shower in river then we go home” Seriously these guys are just like big kids, play all day then work and drink at their bar at night. The have such a wicked lifestyle. So any way we chill out in this river, I collect a few nice looking rocks and we make a mission back down the path.

All in all a very fun morning, the night before I had asked Tutu what cooking school he would recommend, he looks at me all stern for asking a stupid question, but excitingly says “whaaat, you don’t need cooking school, you see, the house has kitchen and look you look at me, I’m Thai I can cook Thai food I will teach you to cook great Thai food, tomorrow we go to the market and then we cook in our kitchen, what do you want to eat” it was a very cool moment. So in the evening, Tuk comes round to the guest house we make a mission down to the market and buy ingredients, I was pretty firm with the “ I’ll buy you teach” but he kept chipping in for bits and pieces, we cooked up a Green Curry with chicken, fried veggies with tofu and a big omelet. It was fucking great.

Jackie ( an Aussie ) and Finn ( a German ) who we had met last night at the bar rocked up as organized. We jumped back on our bikes and headed to a little nearby village for a Chinese full morn celebration, it was like a little school fete with kids doing badly choreographed dances and old dudes doing traditional stuff. It was nicely entertaining, in a lame sorta way. Followed by a drunken bar hopping night, Ting Tong, Bebop, Bamboo and then finished off at The Crazy Chicken. Fun and games my friends, fun and games.

Will Cowan

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Well Ive left Chiang Mai

Well, I've left Chiang Mai, and had a really good few days on a Hill Tribe Trek. I'm now spending a bit of time in Pai while Roy does his Mui Thai stuff in Chiang Mai. The Trek was really quite surprising fun.

Hey, I'm gonna be really super super lazy on this one..... if you wanna quick read about the trek ( and you should cos it was cool ) check Laura's Travel Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/laurainasia/ she was the other aussie on the trip and gives it a pretty nice run down......

Photos are online at http://photos.willcowan.com/tags/hilltribe

cheerio

ps. this is what happens when you spend a week in Pai, you have a blast but manage to let a few things slip..... its very very relaxing

Monday, September 12, 2005

A Few New Photos Online


Panoramic Kho Phi Phi 4
Originally uploaded by Will Cowan.
Hey guys,

Just a quick note that I stitched together some of my Panoramic images I've been taking over here. For those who want to see what Kho Phi Phi was like about a month ago, there is a few from there.

To check them out just follow the link below.... Once you click on an image click the little "All Sizes" magnifying glass to see it at a decent size.

http://photos.willcowan.com/tags/panoramic

enjoy.

--
Http://www.WillCowan.com

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Kanchanabury to Chiang Mai

Hey,
Well we made it to Chiang Mai, a mini bus to Bangkok then an overnight bus up here, not to bad a trip. The mini bus was sorta funny, running on Thai time, it was a bit over a hour late and filled with 8 Thais with the little telly going with dodgy Thai pop karaoke. The night bus was OK, it leaked a little but we got to it night and early and got the front seats on the top level with loads of leg room. Comfort factor was reasonable and a few of Roy's sleeping pills made a fairly nice nights sleep.
There are a few photos online from Kanchanabury here
It was really worth going to, the hellfire pass memorial was set up by the Veterans affairs dept of Australia so it was probably the cleanest building I've been in for a good few weeks. There was a nicely done audio tour with commentary and accounts by survivors.
We also went to a fairly impressive set of waterfalls, forgotten their name but there was about 7 seperate areas along the river, the coolest thing was the fish. There are some photos of them on the site, heaps and heaps of fish swimming around near the edge of the pools. When ever you stayed still in the pool they swim up towards you and nibble the dead skin off you, its super creepy.
Next week I'm heading to Pi for a mountain tour trek, should be interesting and i think I'll stay up there for a few extra days.

Cheerio

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Goodbye Bangkok, again.

We just arrived in Kanchangabury, its very well known for its Bridge over the River kwae, It's part of the Burma Railway, where tens of thousands of prisoners of war ( and about 100 000 civilians ) were worked to death to build the railway. So it will be a few museums and cemeteries this arvo and tomorrow. We're still a little hungover from last night in Bangkok, I'm sitting on a nice big grassy patch of the place we are staying. Just finished a nice little spicey chicken on rice stirfry ( clocked in at just under a dollar ) Our place is right on the river and very close to the bridge there is this little boat towing a massive big barge. The barge is sorta decked out to look like a steam train, and its packed full of Thais singing bad asian music on a big loud speaker. It's quite a sight.

Last night we were drinking with Paddy and Celeste ( Paddy accidentally ordered deep fried chicken knees for dinner, weird grissley and crunchy ) and tried to go see a Ping Pong show, and this crazy fucking tuk tuk driver zigged and zagged the back streets like a fucking mad man, propper rally driving style, us pissed yahooing in the back. That went on for a fair while until he blew up something in his tuk tuk and with a decent sized cloud of smoke and some bad noises we had to leave him and jump in another tuk tuk. We were to late to see eh ping pong shows, the only place open was like 400 bhat to get into ( about $12 ) so we headed home, this time the tuk tuk driver was a bit slower, but had perfected the art of doing monoes, so at the lights we'ld take of with a screech a little cloud of smoke and with 4 of us in this little 3 wheeled van, up on its back wheels on a 45 degree angle.



Lotsa fun,-- Http://www.WillCowan.com

Saturday, September 03, 2005

One Month

Well fuck, it’s been a month, and we are back at our starting pint of Bangkok. We finished up our diving course a few days ago, and made the ferry and then bus ride back up north, another fairly monstrous day of relatively comfortable travel only spoilt by the movies provided of Miss Congeniality 2 and Racing Stripes.

Well I had a quick chat with Nicky this morning, she was at the Sydney airport, a little scared and scattered, and she’s a little trooper and will have no issues having a good time over there. So many of the people we have met over here have been traveling alone, they’ve said it's been great. Only a few of them have had issues, but that was mainly the quite ones so there’s not much chance of Nicky fitting that category. So understand the fear of the unknown, but through SE Asia at least there are a heap of lone travelers all having a blast.

**UPDATE** Just got off the phone again with Nicky, her flights been delayed so she has been put up in a hotel in New Zealand for the night....... **UPDATE**

I was really hoping to do some great big round up of all the exciting and entertaining things we’ve been up to, but I’m on holiday and can’t be bothered. It is funny some of the things I miss from back home, love and/or hate over here. It’s been hot and sticky I haven’t worn a single jumper or pair of pants since I got here, I really wish I didn’t bring so much shit, I’m at the point of starting to dump things. I had a pretty damn full bag when I left and now with the shit I‘ve been buying space need to be made. Today was by far the biggest purchase, and I‘m now sitting in my room typing up this email from my shiny new laptop. I managed not to go too far over budget but was pretty tempted by some very fancy equipment. It is nice though. I’m in the process of organizing my music and photos ( and I can nab music off other peoples iPods now ) I was considering holding out till I got to china but it will be nice having this around for the next few months. Today I’m gonna try and get one of the annoying Bangkok suit makers to whip me up a little case for it to stop all the dirt and shit from my bag fucking it up.

We’ve been staying at some pretty touristy places, so being able to order western food hasn’t been hard, its just once you get it in front of you, you realize it’s a pretty strange bastardization of what you would expect, Weird little hot dogs with your bacon and eggs. No bacon, just weird ham stuff with your bacon and eggs. To this date either Outback bar in Kho Pha Ngan or Choppers of Kho Tao have been the only ones to do something you would consider real bacon eggs, and did them friggen well.

I love the beer over here, well at least I dig the prices and love the wide availability of it. Every street vender, bar, restaurant, convenience store and even chemists sell beer. Chang ( a bit cheap and nasty ) you can often pick up for about $1.50 a long neck. Singa ( quite a good drop ) you would get a stubby in a convenience store for $1.50 or a bar for a smidge over $2.

I think it was in Phuket where I first saw beer in a chemist, only bettered by the fact that Roy had bought his pack of ciggies that day from a chemist, oh yeah that’s another thing a pack of ciggies is only $1.20 - $2, so while I’m considering making a bit of an effort to cut down a bit it is had not to smoke when its so cheap.

I don’t quite know if I’ve said it enough, but scuba was wicked. Really really wanna get into it a bit more

I miss doing nice regular firm poos in nice clean toilets, I also miss trough lollies, all we over here is moth balls, not even a hint of lemony freshness. I’ve only spent a bit of time feeling crook. I had a pretty decent case of gravy bum for the first and last full days I spent in Kho Tao, but apart from that I’ve been OK.

Some of my favorite foods I’ve eaten were the weird little taco things when we first got to Bangkok, still no idea what were in them but it was good and some pork skewers that in a drunken stupor were absolutely fantastic. I’ve had some great Thai soups and curries from lots of different places. Surprisingly good Pizzas, the Italian place in Kho Phi Phi was great. I think some of the only foods that I haven’t liked are the ones that made me sick, and at the time they weren’t too bad.

I’m really looking forwards to Laos, every one who’s been there has said its great off the beaten track adventures its cheap dirty and fun. It’s off to Kan Chan A Bury ( no idea how to spell it yet ) then up to Chang Mai.

Well I hope your all doing well, send me an email, tell me what you’re up to……


“Go Nicky woohooo”

Will Cowan.