Dee is back! (and leaving)

I met Dee again today. Actually it was supposed to be Couch Surfers meeting but Peak thought I was out of town so she didn't tell anyone. So it's gonna be next week.

James is still in Vientiane (duh~!). Too bad he couldn't make it today. It would be cool if he was with us.

Maya came to pick up her towels..hehe.. They were on the way to Jatujak Market. And she has to do visa run soon (reminds me of James!) she's not sure where to go. Cambodia or Laos. But I think Laos will be easier since she's going up north anyway. She gave me a gift. When I unpacked it it was ashtray "I will quit tomorrow" inside :-D oh well! I just realized I never had any ashtray indeed.

Dee came back from India and got a bit sick from food there (nothing new) He met another girl in Samui and when I asked what about a girl in Chiang Mai? "Finished!" lol

We went to Tawaraya. A japanese resto in Sukhumvit Soi 26. Took some time to find it. Even when I called it was someone answered in Japanese! Anyway, nice place. Fun to eat there. (they cook in front of you) and we tried to make Takoyaki which turned out to be burnt..hehe but still good. Drank Asahi beer. The owner of resto is very polite and doesn't speak any English or Thai. Only Thai staff speak a little bit of Japanese. He talked to Dee for a while, ended up Dee got one free drink from him (strong stuff, made from sweet potato)




We talked a lot about people we met when we travel. Even about Buddhism. He said when he was in Japan he didn't care so much about it but after he traveled around here he became interested more and more in Buddhism since it's very peaceful and reasonable.





Burning Takoyaki ! lol

He asked about how Thai people think about Japanese. I don't know what to say! like what? crazy? amazingly polite? maybe too polite? But I think he meant that girl in Samui. (They met because of Poo-pad-phong-ga-ree / Crab meat fried with yellow curry powder. He asked in Thai and that girl was impressed. Wow, romantic ^^" ) If that case I really don't know. I don't know that girl. How can I tell? well, it's gonna hard though since that girl doesn't speak much English.

Came back to Khaosan road for few more beers. Nearly midnight I didn't wanna stay longer in Gulliver's. Too many "products" in there. Unpleasant atmosphere.

Dee is leaving for Taiwan tomorrow afternoon and will stay only a few days before going home. He'll start looking for contract work again in Japan. He said ..it might be Toyota. (Good to be Japanese!) and he's gonna come back some day :-)

I have to work seriously tomorrow. Got some stuff done today but not enough. Need some pushing!

Surfing week and crazy guest house staff

Maya has been surfing with me for a few days now. So far so good! We also met other Couchsurfers 2 days ago. One is Australian girl,Sam and another one is James from Barcelona. Both of them live in Thailand. Sam is going to marry her Thai bf in January! That's sweet :-) James is very funny
guy. We had our lunch at..some mall.. I don't even remember the name.One of those fancy malls that we'll never buy anything there, BUT they have good food court on the top floor.

Yesterday we went to Sitdhi guest house helping Ami (the owner) copy guest info from check-in books to excel file. I was so amazed how rude this staff are! It was something about money and they misunderstood him. One of them (behind counter) thought he accused her that she stole money (fucking 200 Baht..fuck that) but in fact, he didn't say anything like that at all (I was there, I heard everything) he just asked if he already returned 200 baht to her (she's cashier) because he couldn't remember. That's all. As simple as that. But she turned to be soooo angry and started to insult him in rudest Thai words (pussy face, mother fucker, asshole..and many more)

Finally one of staff had to talk to him about what exactly he meant. Then she translated to that crazy woman behind counter. She didn't say sorry to him or anything. Just kept complaining complaining.I wonder if they do this everyday. In my whole life I've never seen the owner of the guest house (and his cafe) is billed for the coffee from HIS OWN cafe before. But yesterday he got bills for 2 cups of coffee (our coffee) even he said that he invited us here and why the hell does he have to pay for HIS coffee that HE bought it for HIS cafe?

That 2 cups of coffee story never ended..I'm sure they went on complaining about it when we left that place. I wanna know where he found these women. They're the lowest of low. They're SO rude. Even cheap prostitutes talk nicer. And they just talked in front of us as if we weren't there. And I'm sure they know that I'm Thai so I understand everything they said (even their boss doesn't)

Damn, some people were just born to suck oxygen from this earth and totally waste every single breath they take to live on their fucking lives and do no good to the others. These women are one of them.

Got email from Peak. She's back from Iceland. She stayed with Couchsurfers for whole trip. Including Luzian (Swiss guy) we met in a meeting last time in Bangkok. That's really cool. Can you imagine how much it might have cost if there was no Couchsurfing project?

Monday night, James is back, hippie de bar

James showed up couple of days ago when he came back from Koh Chang. He looked terrible! (from bad stomach) and he came with one of most disgusting stories I've ever heard. Now I'm really convinced that farangs don't know how to flush toilet! I mean.. manually :-P

When I was in varanasi. Guest house where I stayed we had shared toilets. And every fucking time I went there. It's always someone had used it and never flushed. That's fucking disgusting.

James and BOTH of his passportS

But James's story is different. Seems like a lot of people used toilet on the bus and couldn't flush it. And finally water just turned brown and stinky. (yuck!) At least at the guest house you have a choice to walk away from stinky toilet but on the bus where the toilet is just right next to someone's seat. Oh my buddha.. can you imagine that..? couldn't flush, couldn't open windows either..And couldn't go anywhere but stuck on the bus. it's just gross! but it's hilarious just to hear a story (I'm so glad I wasn't there)

So James had real bad stomach. Spent 1500 B./night on resort in Koh Chang. Good way to spend money. At least I'm sure he used toilet a lot in the guess room :-P

James crashed here for a nigth and left next day to ..wait a minute.. where again?

He didn't even know until 4 AM on the same day he had to do visa run! very well planned! So it ended up he flew with Nok Air to Udonthani to catch the bus to NongKhai where the border is. I got a phone called from him around 2:30 PM that he just reached the border and finally crossed to Vientiane. Damn, James! i'm so proud of you! :-P

And finally arranged meeting with all 4 of us. It's been so lonnnnnnnnggggggggggggg.. ai Not is going to be married soon (well, legally) Natt is still in heart-broken period. Poon.. no action whatsoever..


All of us

That Hippie de Bar is really cool place, good food but waiters suck. They're always standing idle and talking to each other. We had to shout so loud! just to order a glass of drink! and he brought wrong food twice, and wrong cocktail once.




So instead of leaving nothing. We left 5 baht tip. They deserve it. (I wish I had 2 baht coin~!)

Turned off mobile phone today, so sick of some pushy clients.

Let's dive!

See the fish?
So we went diving today. I took DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) finally. That was 2500 B. for 2 dives. It was kinda fun! except that my ears couldn't be equalized so well (damn sinus) It was such as nasty pain!

One of diver masters told me this is one of best spots to dive and it's considered most beautiful coral reefs in the area. But I guess he meant in winter time! water wasn't so clear that day. But sure lot of fish.
"If you come again in October. You will see a lot of "pla-teen" fish" ("teen" in Thai means "foot") so Pla-Teen is the Mudskipper.
"You serious?"
"Yeah! LOT! lot of TEEN!"
"how come?"
"Teen of those divers! fins! You can hardly swim around that time. Too crowded! 5555"


My dive master feeding fishy

Ready?

Dive spot. Enjoy!

Is he crazy?

Last night we all got home so drunk. (as expected) I didn't even use mosq. net ..too drunk to hang it. Checked mobile phone.. SMS from James.. Couldn't remember the message though..just noticed "Oh! James!" Anders asked so what did he say? I just..completely forgot. (yeah..THAT drunk)

Next day I heard Anders was calling from outside. I was already awake though. And had been to toilet over 5 times just for that morning. Trying to puke but nothing really came out. I felt like my head was as big as giant water melon. Everytime I went back to bed I felt sick again. So what I had to do is sit down somewhere.

I got my painting set. Needed to eat something too. Even though I was pretty sure I would throw up everything later on. But I had to eat. So we ended up sitting in a cafe of our bungalows. I got hot coffee,watermelon shake.. some food..followed with pain killer pills from Anders. That really helped.

No idea what time it was. But sure it was afternoon..

Guess what, he's sewing flags again!
Anders spent his afternoon sewing flags on. I was surprised that he hadn't sewed all of them yet! (if u only see how he loves sewing them) So today he got another 2 of them on his backpack. He was about to sew France on
"Wait a minute.. is it like this?" (blue-white-red) and then he turned it upside down "or.. like this?" I went silent for a few seconds and all I could say was.. "I freaking don't remember!" (Apparently it's not very good idea to ask ppl when they got serious hangover)

I felt much better after those pain killers. But not enough energy to do anything else though. It was so hot and humid. So we spent whole afternoon in the cafe. I painted one coconut tree (woo!) and Anders was so relaxed on his sewing activity. He deserves going to Sewing Olympic.

Masterpiece
Since I'm not really into sewing. Anders tried my hobby instead. What about..starting from something simple like coconut tree?

Damn I'm good
And this is Anders' coconut tree.. and mine.. hehehe well, actually I like his better! :-D (Anyway, I gave my painting to Anders. Hope he won't use it to wipe his ass) :-) lol

me like it
Ambiance around White Sand beach.

Go Go Go!
Anders went running as usual. I had nothing else to do anyway and felt like being on the scooter to do some small sightseeing of the island too. So why not rent a scooter to wander around and let's hassle Anders while he's running a bit. Sounds like fun! I got a scooter from the same shop where we rented 2 scooters yesterday so she didn't even ask me to fill any more forms. Anders started to run from white sand beach..up to the north a bit and back.. then ran down south as far as Kai Bae beach. (That's quite far!) I'm really impressed!

I stopped my scooter once in a while to see how he's doing. Sometimes I went forward and stopped just to buy some water (thought that it would take him a while to get there anyway) but before I realized...this guy had run past where I was! damn!
"What are you doing?" That was a lady from noodle shop where I was standing and trying to snap Anders photos
"Ah..take...photos"
"What photos?" She looked on the road ..only a few scooters there and..coconut trees
"Photos of..err..er.. the road!"
"Hm" then Anders arrived.. took water from me and gone. Just like that crazy boy in The Incredibles.
"Now.. What was that??" same woman asked me again
"That was my friend"
"And why is he running?"
"Training..exercise..er..yeah something like that"
"But why?"
"Coz he likes it"
"Is he crazy?"
"hehe..maybe!"
"It's too hot for running! don't you think!?"
"yeah, that's why I'm here on scooter!hehe"
I left her noodle shop and saw her still watching Anders as if she had never seen anything like that before in her life. That was another weird evening for her I guess.

Not everyday that people on Koh Chang
see crazy farang running around the island
When we came back to white sand beach it was already dark. I really needed a good massage. So after shower we went to the place where they offered 50% discount for all courses (it was low season) But it was nearly 9 PM and they were fully booked. So we went to White Sand Massage instead and it turned out really really good. Anders got feet+legs massage and seemed to be very effective. I had 1 hour Thai massage it was sooooo good. I'm afraid that I'm already an addict!
We bumped into Maj and Mads at pizza place. They woke up around 2 PM today! So they missed their breakfast. Anyway, life is not fair. We all drank so much but it seemed to be only me who had major hangover that day!

Birthday Boy

We rent 2 scooters today. First i thought I would rent another one for myself. But Anders didn't mind if we shared. So I agreed. I don't mind either. Riding it or just sitting behind being lazy :-P. Scooter costs 130 B/ 24 Hours. Fuel 30 Baht/ Litre. Good fun. I wish I could ride it in Bangkok. But I still wanna live my life!

Scooter gang.

Lovely place!
Since today is Anders' birthday. So he's the boss! He took us to this really nice place on lonely beach. I really liked it there. Very chill and they serve good food. Apparently Anders loves Padthai there. So I ordered one too :-) it was really good. If I ever come back to Koh Chang again soon I think I'd love to stay here. Very very cool place. And staff are very friendly. We ended up at that place twice that day. Coz on the way back, tyre went flat again. Needed to replace it. So we left the scooter at "vegetable shop" (weird place to get scooter fixed) and left for snack. Went back to pick scooter an hour later.

Yum~

View point.
There's a family just sitting there on their pick-up. I thought they came for picnic but they were selling grilled squids. (They didn't really look like they were selling though. Coz they were also eating their own products..hehe)

Pretty cool helmet, isn't it :-D

Fixing tyre at Bang Bao village.
This guy owns very neat "MIQ" scooter. Very shiny. Brand new. I was so jealous! Got tyre fixed for 50 Baht. Anyway the second time it went flat again. Now it had to be replaced and that costed another 100. Hm, so after all it was more expensive than renting another scooter. (crazy)

On the way to find the place to replace tyre. Since it's quite a long way so I catched one of those SongThaews back to BangBao but it turned out that Anders went to different place. Thank Buddha. Anders brought my mobile phone so I could call and ask where he was. While I was waiting for Mads to pick me up. There was a Thai guy with long hair stopped by
"Haven't we met this morning?" Now I remember. He was a guy I asked for direction this morning when our tyre went flat first time.
"Yeah, I got lost!"
"Oh, where are you going?"
"Dunno..I'm waiting for my friend to come to pick me up"
"ahhhhh~! OKKK.. come! have a seat at my bar while you're waiting. It's just right over there!" he pointed to a small shelter, rasta-style hut about 100 m. away from where we were.
"OK" I hopped on his scooter and he invited me to sit down on the balcony..part of his mini bar. There were another 4 guys there. They looked like the whole reggae band.

Colorful :-) I like it.
"Come on, you can sit inside if you want. Sitting like that..looks like "Kreng Jai" way sit"
"I never KRENG JAI, don't worry..hehe"
"gooood good. Here! have some 40 Degree?" he handed me 40 degree Thai wine. Almost half a glass.
"Just a sip, No problem!"
I took the glass from him and drank the whole glass. He stood there blinking in silence for a few seconds. "oh..ho..ho..er.. well..looks like we need more Lao-Khao here"
Then he kept bringing food and local wine to me. Thank God. Mads arrived. Otherwise I would end up getting drunk with all these rastafarians.

I jumped on scooter, Thank them and said goodbye. I heard that guy screamed "Shit! I forgot my daughter at school!" (LOL!!) Then followed with his friend in Bob Marley Tshirt said "I dunno what's wrong with guys around here. You know what. They all have kids but no wives. They freaking ran away! haha! by the way have a safe trip!"


Waterfall near that crazy resort.
We went to this place a bit south of the island as heard that they have a resort built on the boats. But when we arrived it was a sign says something like"Exclusive resort. Only for resort guests" otherwise we must pay 150 Baht just to "see" their resort. Fuck that. And we were told that if we wanted to see the waterfall just next to resort. That will be 50 Baht each. I wonder.. since when that resort own the natural waterfall in the forest too? so we went in anyway without paying anything. Why should we anyway? bah!

After the waterfall we stopped by at Bang Bao village to see if there's any fishing activities go on around there. But not much.. though it was pretty relaxing place. Looks like good place to go to have some serious seafood :-) There's a dive shop just right next to 7-eleven. So all of them booked fun dives there. A lady who works there. She told me she's getting a bit bored of Koh Chang as she was born there and been living there until today. She's got a belgian boyfriend who came to visit couple of months ago, asked her if she wanted to go to Koh Tao.
"I'm from Koh and he's still asking me if I wanna go to Koh! can you believe that?" hehehe

When we walked back again passing dive shop. She was washing the little dog there. That dog was just standing still. Not sure if he enjoyed shower though. He's so small, has long hair.. and his name is RAMBO.

Guest Houses at Bang Bao Fishing Village
Tree House
We went back to to white sand beach to shower and take a nap. It was quite a long day. Anders had a plan to take all of us to "Tree House" which looks like sort of hippie place :-) but it's really lovely and food come so quickly! finally we had all the food in our table and couldn't finish all of them. It was hot and humid night. No wind AT ALL. We all had to lie down sweating. Trying not to move too much to save energy..hehe.. Anyway, that was really nice place to celebrate his birthday! :-) Really had a good time.

Lemon Bar ..and a guy with 17 years of hooking tourists
After Tree House. We hopped to "Lemon Bar" not so far from Tree House actually. The bar was full of Katoeys! Most just work there actually. Anders met old friend, one of Katoeys that he spent half an hour chatting with him..er...her last time he was there in Koh Chang. There's another one was dancing like crazy on the dance floor. I found out later that that one named "Queen"

We traded all those coupons for free drinks which we got them from that Magacian dude who's 41 year-old, but 18 year-old at heart, (that's what he claims) it's been 17 years of hooking with tourists for him.
"So many times I fall in love. Doesn't matter how big my love is! it always ends at the airport!" Then he kept whining about his international loves. Why he left Bangkok 17 years ago, And why he had to go to see doctor every year (according to..he's not sure how many tourists he's been with!)

You're racist!??
After all those free drinks, a few buckets of vodka, redbull, SaengSom..We went to another bar where that magician dude owns the place. Not so many people there. Actually it was even closed. But he opened up again when we arrived.

We had more beers there. Then there's a big English girl came to join. (but I guess she's staying at the bungalow nearby) She turned out to be a bit weird person. Started with conversations with Anders that she didn't get any jokes at all (or didn't try to..) for example..
"What's your name?" Anders gave some football players names (*yawn* you know it) and then she said something like that's weird name..or something like that. Anders said that player is actually a black guy.Then she said "You're racist!?" "What?? who's racist??" "You! You're racist!" er..well. OK. whatever.. looks like someone has no sense on humor here.

Those are biggest tits I've ever seen!
I didn't really listen to her since she accused that Anders was racist. I turned to talk to Maj instead. While Maj left for selecting some music CD. Anders turned to me and whispered (pretty loud) "This english girl..you see! those are biggest tits I've ever seen! sometimes I wonder how they even grow that big??" I hope she didn't hear that..lol

Are you drinking my beer?
That english girl Sarah. She asked if she could have one of my ciggies. Sure, No problem. Ler's share the cancer.
"Hey, are you.. drinking my beer?" Anders pointed at the bottle in Sarah's hand. I think I saw her face turned red then she said it quickly "Oh come on, I'll buy you beers too!"

It's true. Later she came back with 2 bottles of Singha.

Anders passed out. Falling a sleep and actually snoring. Sarah was amazed that he could just fall asleep like that. But nobody else seems to be surprised anymore. When Anders is drunk, he falls asleep. Yep.

Before we came to party we arranged with SongThaew guy to come to pick us up around 2 AM to take us back to bungalows as it was pretty clear that there wouldn't be any transports to come back to White Sand beach that late night. At that time it was nearly 4 AM. My mobile phone has no signal (Thanks! DTAC!) so I asked bar owner if I could borrow his. "No battery!!" shit.. ok I borrowed only sim card then. His got full signal.
"What's that phone? Samsung" That was Sarah. Here we go again.
"Yeah, but it's old!" bar owner said
"THIS IS SHIT!" I thought.. this bitch is crazy, beyond help
"I can buy this in England for like.. 1 pound!" she she kept going on like that for..I dunno for what reason. I just didn't wanna listen to her anymore. Considered noise pollution to me.

Songthaew driver picked up the phone, whining a bit that we called him 2 hours too late. But he agreed to come anyway if we pay 200 more. Deal, that was nice of him to stay up waiting for us anyway.

Just before we left the bar. I was stopped by bar owner
"Er.. you haven't paid for these Singha beers"
"No, we did. We paid for all the beers we got from your fridge"
"Yeah..only Chang though.. Not Singha" Who ordered Singha anyway..? then I knew it.. SARAH.. the moment that she came back with beers she promised to buy because she was caught drinking our beers. True..She came back with beers indeed. She just hadn't paid for them.

Very nice..girl! very nice!

Koh Chang Get Away

I know it's supposed to be "When i'm not traveling" But let's take this as another vacation :-P

It was Anders' birthday (July 7th) and I thought it would be great to get away to the beach for a few days. So..yeah.. Anders got tickets booked at United Travelers Connection around the corner of Khaosan road for 150 Baht (so cheap!) and organized everything, what time to meet, where, etc. You can count on this guy. As he said, his middle name is ORGANIZE. No doubt about it :-)

Quite a long ride. We arrived Koh Chang in the evening. We got a bungalow named "Apple"(damn cute name) for 200 Baht/night (got it down from 350 B.) which it was pretty OK. Fairly clean. And just right next to Koh Chang Kacha where Mads & Maj stayed.


Apple Bungalow 200 B/night. Mine is on the left (it's prettier than Anders' on the right, coz I got beautiful flower hanging in front of my balcony. He didn't) lol

Me bed! Only first night that I actually used mosq. net. Second night it happened to be shit load of party (all those buckets and biggest Pinacolada glass I've ever seen in my life) Since that night. I never used mosq. net again. Hello Malaria~ (kidding!)

White Sand Beach. Not so white at that time I must say. But beach massage is super!

Some guy is trying to catch something with his net. Just on the shore.

Anders is making a magic trick. Squeezing water out of his shirt. That could have flooded the island :-P Well, just another day after his long running. And I was smoking watching this scene again. Damn I miss Rob! lol

We went to small place just right opposite Baan Pu Resort for dinner. It was pretty cheap and so many choices. But most impressive dish must be Maj's sweet and sour fish. Look at its size! :-D

We will rent scooters tomorrow!