So after 11 months, 20 countries, 3 continents, ...the trip of a lifetime is over, and it feels really bittersweet. I am really happy to be home, and to be honest I was a little bit travel weary by the end. Trying to sort out my life and to decide where I am going to school in September has all been a bit overwhelming while spending my days floating down rivers in Laos. But hey, I'm not complaining. This past year has been the most incredible experience of my life. I never imagined I would see all of the amazing things I got to see, yada yada. Sorry this is my final introspective thingy where I don't try to be funny, not that I was necessarily good at that before (come on, an Asian guy saying "erection" instead of "election"! That's gold!) and is more for my own purposes to look back on.

I suppose it is impossible to go away for a long time, see so many different things and so many different cultures, and come away unchanged. I was affected a lot by what I saw, and mostly by the people and the situations they were in. First and foremost, I come away very thankful that I come from Canada. I have no doubt in my mind that it is the greatest country in the world, with the most amazing people, the best looking girls (seriously have you seen the British? It's a leper colony down there) and that I will live the rest of my life here. I traveled to some of the poorest and some of the most oppressed nations in the world. It's incredible to realize just how lucky we are to not live in some Orwellian hell when we head to a place like Burma. Similarly, it's incredible to realize how lucky we are to be able to eat when we head to a place like Uganda. The cliches abound but the realities are visible all over South Asia and Africa.

I find myself almost ashamed at the end of my trip, as I was just so desensitized and hardened to all the poverty around me. When you spend so much time trying to not run out of money and to not get screwed over too badly by seemingly every single local, it's hard not to lose sight of the people who really do deserve your help. I often found myself wavering between very conflicting emotions inherent to travel: amazed elation and happiness versus confused, heart-wrenching guilt and attempted empathy. The feelings of joy, etc... are more frequent and lasting. It is easy to feel happy when you have no worries other than your next beer or bed, and get to spend each day exploring amazing places and meeting new people. However, it seems that the feelings of sadness are much more indelible, resonating. Is it fair that a person as unremarkable as me or you should be able to travel all over the world with a reason no better than wishing to experience things that are unique and different? Is it fair that when I take a picture of a local person, it is with a camera that is worth more than they will make in a year or two or three years? Is it justified because so many people do it? Is it unjustified because too few people do it? I suppose these are emotions and battles that most every traveler experiences along the way, but it is what they do with their experiences when they get home that matters. If we are going to travel to these beautiful but impoverished places, then I think that it is only fair that we do our best to help them out once we get home. Burma is the place I would like to get active about, just because it appalled me that a world like that can still exist today. But, I suppose lots of people talk like this when they get home from traveling; it's what you do with your experiences and new knowledge that will prove you were worthy of what you got to see....


There were some countries I went to this year that really stood out. So, my top 5 countries that you should go to, in no particular order....

1)Tanzania- this country has absolutely everything you could want to see in Africa: Zanzibar, the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Kilimanjaro, a bunch of snakes, etc... If you had to choose one country to go to for a short-ish trip in Africa, this would have to be it.

2)Uganda- absolutely destroyed by Forest Whitaker in the 1970s, this country is desperately poor and wrought with hungry people. However, it is also amazingly green and gorgeous, with beautiful scenery and extraordinarily kind people. The trek in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the mountain gorillas had to be one of the highlights of my entire life, just amazing.

3)Burma- it was a hard decision to travel here, because the last thing you want to do is give any money to one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. But, we did our best not to do so, and were rewarded with an experience that had us feeling as if we traveled back into time 50 years. We saw maybe 10 other white people in our 2 weeks there and experienced some of the most painful bus rides possible. Amazingly random, ridiculous place...as unique as you can find today in the world.

4)Thailand- it's so easy to want to avoid a place like the Thai islands, because you know that they are overcrowded, overtraveled and teeming with hippies. But, I came to realize that there is a reason everyone goes there...it's really, really fun. Diving on Koh Tao, partying on Ko Phi Phi and Ko Phangan and relaxing on Railay beach...it doesn't get much better.

5)Laos- if you meet a traveler in Asia who has been to Laos, there is a 99% chance that they will say it was the best country they've ever visited. The slow pace of life, the gorgeous scenery and the great people, not to mention the rivers with bars on them, make this a must-see place, especially before everyone else in the world (uh oh, the Israelis) find out about it.

honourable mentions for Malawi (with the kindest, funniest people in Africa) and Zambia (with Victoria Falls and a variety of ridiculous adrenaline activities) too, great places.

The highlights of September 2006-August 2007 in England, Greece, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.....

I hope that all four of you have gotten a few laughs out of this, as i know i will looking back on it. It's been one hell of a year, but it sure is nice to be home.

In the words of the immortal Martin P. Edwards, so long and thanks for the fish.

Hello, the writing is below, I really cant figure out how to work asian computers still....



One of the makeshift jumping towers at one of the makeshift bars on the river in Laos
Dave attracting a crowd on our biking trip

Our Laos guard with an AK-47 while our bus was very broken down

One of the rope swings along the river

floating...

kayaking in Laos...

biking in Laos

at the riverside bar in VV

typical scenery in Laos

the village we stayed in...I thought the sat dishes on the tin roof was pretty funny
The view over Luang Prabang from a temple on a hill

On the temple on the hill
the view over Luang Prabang
little girl in Luang Prabang
people tubing in Vang Vieng
ropeswing at Kouang Si waterfall in Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang

Asiatic black bears at a refuge in Luang Prabang

below Kouang Si WAterfall
Kouang Si

on the boat in Vietnam

sunrise in Vietnam in Halong Bay
Paradise Island in Halong BAy
the raft to the boat in Halong Bay, shocking we made it.

So it's just about time to go home for a well-deserved, ok not really, rest. but i am a little travel weary after 7 months, and 11 overall, away from home.

The last week of the trip lived up to the hype as we had an amazing time in the wonderfully unpredictable, random, beautiful country of Laos. May I stress how unexpected and random everything is in Laos. I mean, this is a country where you get woken up from a nap by pigs walking on top of you. If that doesn't make sense, it shouldn't, it's Laos. We first spent 5 days in the UNESCO-listed city of Luang Prabang, which has approximately 30000 people and delicious baguettes (the French finally did something right) and is situated in the kind of the middleish north of the country.

Upon our arrival we quickly organized a mountain biking/kayaking trip with a tour company run by a guy from London, Ontario who is living the opposite of the Duncan Finley dream by being awkwardly married to a local who barely speaks English and having a very, very thick mom-from-Bobby's-World Canadian accent. He is having real problems dealing with the local cultural differences. for example, apparently there was a dead body awaiting us on the river, which absolutely no local would consider removing for karmic reasons. Understandably, the Canadian wanted to remove it, but his wife wouldn't let him do it for a)karma b)angry, angry Laos policemen with AK-47s who don't want to go remove bodies in the north.

The actual trip up north though was absolutely incredible, a definite highlight. Our slightly creepy tourguide organizes trips to a really remote area not visited by any other tourists. So we found ourselves mountain biking on roads in the middle of nowhere, being stared at openly by people who were genuinely shocked to see us (see the picture of Dave being stared at). We stopped for a water break in one little village and the entire population turned out to watch us. The scenery was gorgeous; Laos is incredibly green and untouched with amazing mountainous terrain. The second day we went kayaking in relatively tame class 2 and 3 rapids, except that we were in open kayaks that may as well have been hollow trees. It was also very hot, so we didn't try to hard to not tip ourselves. Unfortunately, on one half-km stretch of rapids, we overturned directly into a rock. This led to one incredibly painful experience bouncing down rapids in 2 foot deep water, with no paddles and no kayak. We were especially uncomfortable because our Laotian guide, Syvong, had told us right before we tipped that the aforementioned dead body was " around here somewhere" and we were certain it was going to pop up somewhere as we were getting eviscerated by the rocks. Eventually, we were disentangled from the trees we were wedged against in the middle of the river and rescued by Syvong.

Syvong was an awesome guy by the way, but his command of Engrish wasn't too good. Dave asked him how the people in the village we stayed in choose their chief: "The people choose chief by erection." "Oh."

From Luang Prabang we got a night bus to the river town of Vang Vieng, legendary among travelers for its makeshift riverside bars and ubiquitous love of Friends. The busride was one hell of an experience itself. About an hour into the trip, we stopped in the middle of nowhere. Now, did you know that there is a civil war going on in Laos? And did you also know that Laos is among the most heavily bombed nations in the world? Thanks to the United States (this seems to be a common theme) Laos has an extraordinary amount of unexploded ordanance dotting its landscape as yet another legacy of the Vietnam War. So, we weren't allowed to walk off the road because of unexploded bombs and angry Laos guerrillas. We also had a couple of guys guarding the bus with AK-47s for the 3 hours we were stopped. There was a guy on our bus who used to fix tanks in the Israeli army, and he pronounced us "absolutely fucked" when he looked at what they were fixing with only a hammer and a screwdriver. However, they seemed to get it working, and we were off. Unfortunately, while we were waiting I had given my seat to a young mother who didn't have one, and she was even more unfortunately unforthcoming with an offer to give it back. So I spent that incredibly terrifying bus ride, on the semi-fixed rear axle, through the mountains sleeping in the aisle and watching the bus driver negotiate the 1.5 lane-wide road with, no joke, half a metre of visibility. I have never been so scared. And apparently, neither has the baby, because at that point it shit its pants. sigh.

Anyways, the bus ride was worth it to make it to Vang Vieng. VV is a town that isn't really noted for its cultural experiences, but more as a place where the Irish flock en masse to float down a river while drinking heavily and playing Irish volleyball, which, like coffee, is much better when exported from that fine nation. We spent 4 days floating down the river, stopping off at the 9 makeshift bars for a few beers and swinging off the hilarious ropeswings fashioned along the way. What an amazing place to finish off our trip. The town and river are surrounded by limestone cliffs, the river is gorgeous and did i mention that there are hundreds of extremely drunk Irish people swinging off of trees? I highly recommend it.

And so, we are now in Bangkok winding things down and doing some serious shopping for low-quality clothing and electronics. Flying home tomorrow and really looking forward to it. Talk soon...

whatsup, writing is below.....

sunrise in nha trang, a boy and his father doing tai chi
hoi an

halong bay
halong bay

excited in sombreros at the soccer game

the celebration after Qatar lost
the blasted Japanese

in halong bay

Whats happenin,

We are currently in the UNESCO-listed city of Luang Pranbang in Laos. Despite the fact that we have only been here for a day, I can't help but echo the sentiments of every single traveler we've met in SE Asia and say that this must be the greatest country in the world. But more on that later...

We made our way through the entire country of Vietnam in just 13 days and had a blast, despite feeling like we spent half that time on a bus. It really is an incredibly beautiful country, but a lot of things sort of make you forget that and force one to focus on the hectic nature of absolutely everything. First of all, despite the government's supposed dedication to communism, the vietnamese have taken to capitalism with some serious zest. I've never felt so violated/annoyed/impressed with sellers of useless shit before. It seems as if every single person is constantly in your face in an attempt to get you to buy chopsticks or ho chi minh paraphernelia or drugs or a motorbike ride to anywhere. Secondly, the traffic is unnnnreal. You could stand on a street corner in Hanoi for an entire day without being able to cross the street if you were waiting for a genuine opening. It is a true art to slowly melt your way past the speeding motorbikes, making eye contact, going slowly and dancing around the especially crazy ones. Thirdly, the people, especially in comparison to Laos or...most other countries, are not especially endearing.

We bought a hop-on hop-off bus ticket that would take us the 1700 kilometres from Saigon to Hanoi for the ridiculous price of 21 dollars. Most of these were excruciating overnight affairs, including a 19 hour journey from Hoi An to Hanoi. What made these trips especially frustrating was the lack of gray-area-arm-space-between-bus-seat etiquette shown by my Vietnamese bus seat partners. You try sleeping on a cramped overnight bus with a local taking your arm space, it's a travesty that not even a few sharp elbows to the ribs could fix.

We spent a few days relaxing in the relatively, for Vietnam, chilled-out beach town of Nha Trang. A few days on the beach were much appreciated but relatively unnewsworthy. I woke up for sunrise one morning and walked down to the beach on my way to a dive shop. On the way I found the entire population of the city swimming and doing tai chi on the beach, an incredible site, thousands of people. The diving in Nha Trang was pretty good, but nowhere near as good as in Thailand. We did 2 55 minute dives to about 16 metres only and the visibility wasn't too exceptional. However, we DID see a giant clam, no big deal. The highlight was the second dive when we did some cave diving (mom please skip to next paragraph). An unbelievable experience, swimming into walls of fish and scraping our way through little openings. Diving is addictive and I just can't seem to get enough of it. 2 guys I did my advanced licence with in Koh Tao are now living on the island and becoming instructors, that would beat law school wouldnt it?

We accidentally ended up in the old and charming city of Hoi An, home of cheap tailoring and a river. Got some shit made and it was relatively uneventful as well I suppose. Really cool little town with great architecture and...allright who am I kidding I don't care about architecture. But if you did, you would probably really like this town. It has real, imported bacon too.

Aaanyways, we headed to Hanoi aka the town Uncle Ho built with the intention of seeing an ASIAN cup soccer game. We scalped some tickets and made it to the Vietnam-Japan game as purely bangwagon-hopping honourary Japanese in red t-shirts with sombreros (which is kind of Vietnamese, i guess) and Vietnam flags. We proceeded to get wasted and be the loudest Vietnam fans at the game. We were also fortunate enough to be sitting in the section beside the Japanese cheering section and spent most of the game not watching the game but screaming at the lying, cheating tourists from that impressive island nation. Unfortunately, this backfired because Vietnam is kind of shitty at futbol and we got ruined 4-1. However, it was an absolute ball, and the atmosphere was indescribable. Furthermore, everyone was still really happy because Qatar lost and Vietnam still made it to the next round. We were really, really happy about this.

We decided to celebrate by catching a single motorcycle to drive us the 15 kilometres back to the city. The driver accepted this opportunity, despite not knowing anything about Hanoi evidently, or how to drive a motorbike. I would say that the high/lowlight of this odyssey was when we cut across two lanes of traffic while the driver held his hand up to make a left turn, except for that other thing that happened (not to mention he did this 3 times). That other thing occurred just a foot beside us soon after we left the stadium, when a young motorcyclist rear-ended a car, sending himself twirling over the car and onto the ground and his bike to a junkyard. He actually just missed landing on us, but he got up and seemed OK except for the look on his face. I was absolutely terrified myself and would have to say that this goes right in the top 5 of scared-to-death moments along with hot-air balloon crashes, charging elephants and demented african matatu drivers in the mountains of uganda.

We also made it to Halong Bay for a 3 day trip. If I could hazard a guess, I would have to say that Halong Bay is among the most overly touristed places in all of Asia. It is incredibly beautiful, with jagged green peaks everywhere, beautiful ocean, caves, etc... but it is packed with other people. Fortunately we chose to stay on Paradise Island (seriously) with its 5 beachside bungalows and other niceties. It was a little too romantic to spend with your friend Dave, but it was great all the same. We did some kayaking, played a lot of pool for beers with the employees and hung out with our German pals Johannes and Gunnar.

And yes, as I said we are now in Laos and enjoying it very much. We are going on a mountain biking/kayaking mission for a few days in the north starting tomorrow, and home in about 10 days!

FYI: Kentucky Fried Chicken is the only international fast food chain allowed in Vietnam, and only in Saigon, because Colonel Sanders has a stunning resemblance to Ho Chi Minh, no joke, look at them next to each other.

FYI: Alanis Morissette supposedly wrote "You Oughtta Know" based on her sexual experiences with Dave Coulier, who you may know better as Uncle Joey from Full House...I was floored by this as I'm sure you are.

Sorry for the long absence, it's so easy while on the road to succumb to apathy when all you really care about is your next meal, next bed or next near-death experience, which surprisingly and unfortunately comes all too often in Asia.

Scuba diving is my new favourite thing in the world, it's official. I never thought I would enjoy it so much and immediately be so infatuated with it. But seriously, the crazy crap you see down there is just so unlike anything I've ever seen before. Not to mention the fact that breathing underwater is fun as hell. So I did my 3 day open water diving in koh tao and then decided to stay and do my advanced licence as well, so i am now certified to dive to 30 metres/100 feet. We saw the craaaziest shit down there. Most notably, while we were sitting at 30 metres getting a nitrogen narcosis test (this is apparently when you begin to act extremely drunk and do such funny things as rip your regulator out of your mouth or forget to breathe) from our instructor, 2 3-metre gray reef sharks swam by about 5 metres away from us. We also saw a school of barracuda, angelfish, clownfish, cuttlefish, a teenage mutant hermit crab, etc... the list goes on and on.

Of all the 9 dives though, the unequivocal highlight was the night dive. Just as we arrived at the dive site, as the sun was setting, a ridiculous storm blew in and it started to thunder and lightning. This didn't seem to perturb our guide (named Ant, easily the most excitable person on earth, especially when speaking about either diving or the number of thai children he has fathered on the island) and we went down amidst the lightning. We were down about 18 metres and every few seconds the whole ocean would light up. We spent about half of the dive with our flashlights off, guided by the indescribable phosphorescence. Amazing experiences, I actually have a bunch of pictures we got with an underwater camera, will post those later....

After our 5 days on Koh Tao, we took a boat over to catch the infamous Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan. Every single traveler you meet in the preceding weeks is heading to this party, and this one was supposed to be especially notable as it was the 20th anniversary party and the King's birthday (the King of Thailand is a demigod in his country. He is a mix of a politician, a playboy and a rockstar. Everyone worships the ground he walks on, to the point that it is rumoured if you step on a Thai coin that has his face on it, you get arrested. One day a week everyone wears a yellow shirt to honour him. Every morning the national anthem plays in public places and everyone stops and happily sings along. Of course, nobody told the stupid white guys who were not wearing yellow shirts, not singing and after finally stopping for the song, noticed they were standing on coins and were probably going to get sent to jail. Sorry, I digress).

Anyways, the party was incredible, with somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 000 people on one small beach. However, it was like fuckin Flanders Field out there, with bodies strewn about every few feet. Dave and I had a great time running around for half the night with a stretcher, transporting nearly dead idiots to the "sleeping area" while I screamed that I used to be a lifeguard and that my dad is a doctor so shut up and listen to me. It was great fun. Thing such as the "sleeping area" are actually really needed to protect the partygoers from themselves, as apparently some of the dumbest people in the world attend this party. For example, several years ago, 3 guys were tired of the party and decided to go for a swim....to Ko Samui, which is very very far away. They didn't make it.

Anyways, while that all night party took 3 days to recover from, we made our way up to Bangkok via boat, bus and overnight train to meet up with the glorious kate taylor and co. to celebrate the shit out of Canada Day. While they were extremely proud of themselves for paying only 25 dollars for a bottle service, we one-upped them by buying an 8 dollar bottle from 7-11 and smuggling it into the restaurant. From there, most of the rest of the night was spent badly singing O Canada on Khaosan Road and forcing people to buy red t-shirts to honour our wonderful country, exactly what our forefathers intended.

After the next night, in which I distinguished myself with my impressive ability to deal with the daterape drug slipped into my drink by a thai waiter, we took a long and painful bus ride to Cambodia. The road from Bangkok to Siem Reap has never been fixed-or finished for that matter- because Bangkok Airways apparently pays the Cambodian government to keep it in disrepair. This is not a rumour, it was a really really shitty road. We arrived in Siem Reap, where I was to find that my unfortunate experience in Bangkok wasn't the end of unfortunate experiences for me. I got food poisoning on our first morning and attempted to battle through it to bicycle to Angkor Wat. This was a terrible idea. I spent the rest of the day lying on the bathroom floor in unbelievable pain. The lesson here...cambodian cheese is the worst thing in the world. The next day was much better as we went and explored all of the temples around the city. Unfortunately we got caught in a giant rainstorm. And unfortunately, that giant rainstorm caused half the roof in our room to collapse on my bed and onto all of my worldly possessions.

Aaanyways, we also made it to Angkor Wat for the sunrise. This was a very cool experience marred only by the weather and the island of Japan and half of its citizens. Angkor Wat itself is absolutely unbelievable, massive and impressive in every possible way. I highly recommend seeing it.

Cambodia overall was an extremely intense experience that I wasn't entirely prepared for. After we left Siem Reap we went to the capital city of Phnom Penh. Cambodia is of course famous for the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s, a lot of the major events of which occurred in this city. Thus, most of the tourist sites arise from this horrible period. While we both felt we needed to see some of the things, it really put us in a terrible mood. We went and saw the infamous Killing Fields as well as the Tuol Sleng prison, which was used to torture and interrogate suspects. Seeing shelves of skulls, before and after pictures of victims, the actual places where it all occurred, etc... was very difficult to deal with. On top of that, the poverty in Cambodia is like none I've experienced in that it is very in-your-face, even exploitative in a way. People are always around you, demanding money and making you feel like an asshole if you don't do something. It's hard to blame them for doing so, but I guess it's just the way it is there.

Overall, especially in Phnom Penh, I felt that you could really feel the continued resurgence and pride that the people have in their country (despite the fact that everyone is trying to sell you opium at all times). I enjoyed being there, but wouldn't really recommend it for your next feel-good vacation destination. Some pictures of Cambodia below....


From Phnom Penh we embarked on a longass boat ride down the Mekong River to get to Vietnam. After more boats and buses, and some incredible scenery, and some even more incredible rainstorms, we made it to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. As far as Asian cities go, this one might just be the prototype for crazy driving. Apparently the best method, or atleast the one all our cabbies and moto drivers use, is to speed up and honk your horn as you enter an intersection, without looking to see if anyone is coming. works like a charm. We spent our one day in Saigon walking around, touring the War Remnants museum (which has an entire room devoted to artifacts and posters which proved the rest of the world was pissed at the States for even coming to Vietnam, pretty funny), being accosted in markets and marveling at the large statue in the middle of the city immortalizing the first Vietnamese man to use carrier pigeons.

We have now been in Mui Ne for a day and are heading up to Nha Trang tonight, moving very quickly. Mui Ne has been great. We spent the day sandboarding in massive sand dunes, getting dominated by fishermen in arm wrestles, chilling on the beach and watching two old Vietnamese women try to kill each other with their pointy straw hats (i'm not even joking).

Thanks for emails, etc.... hard to believe only 3 weeks to go in this absurdly amazing year. Already looking forward to getting home though. Good luck Lev, keep biking baby. Hello to my new niece Amelia, talk soon everyone....

the monument at the killing fields, full of human skulls, didn't really feel like posting a closeup, you get the picture...
a torture room in tuol sleng prison
typical of many authoritarian regimes, the khmer rouge were extremely methodical with their killing...these photos of victims are found all over the tuol sleng museum.
tuol sleng
enough of the fun stuff....sunset on the lake in phnom penh

Angkor Wat

the top of Angkor Wat
Angkor What?
Dave firing an AK-47...30 dollars for 30 seconds of fun.



The Tomb Raider temple of Angkor.....
All of these are of other temples nearby Angkor Wat....








The long road between Bangkok and Siem Reap, so fucking painful

The gate...


VietnamSand dunes of Mui Ne in southern Vietnam
red canyon

sandboarding in Vietnam

getting dominated sandboarding in Vietnam



a typical scene in Saigon

Dave getting taken to school by a fisherman




Vietnam


The hilarious carrier pigeon statue...

A Tracy Chapman cd was playing on a boat ride the other day. I'm not a big fan, but there are worse things (ex. Burmese karaoke) that could be playing. "And I work in a market as a checkout girl..." Did anyone else not know that Tracy was a ....lady?

I am now the proud uncle of 8 pound, 4 ounce Amelia Taylor Grace Finley, she of lots of hair and huge hands. Congrats darc and becky!

hey all the slightly cynical writing is below the pics, i recommend reading first to understand some of the pictures, such as this first one of a guy sucking his friend's injured toe

btw, it was weird.
the beach from "The Beach" on Ko Phi Phi Ley
and me at the beach, it looks like im dancing but im trying not to fall off that large and jagged rock and die.
dave's bday in KL

further along, with the infamous Al Ottaway, pre-lost shoe.
the bat cave from hell.

a little kid fire twirling in railay beach.

his dad went after him and embarrassed him, it was unreal.
the amazing railay beach.

the other side of railay beach
our canadian friends.
railay beach
thailand, a photographer's paradise, just ask these 3
sunset on ko phi phi

poolside at our resort on ko phi phi



fishing boats have weird raver lights here

fishing boat in front phi phi ley
the view from our deck on phi phi
phi phi
phi phi
phi phi

darc, christian and beck you may recognize this eh

phi phi ley (the small one)
phi phi ley
phi phi ley (The Beach)



a village in taman negara, in malaysia

our boat ride to taman negara, so fun...for the first 3 hours
the view from our deck on ko phi phi
the view from our pool on phi phi


taman negara, 4300 sp. km, such an amazing forest

the canopy walkway, 45m above ground.
the canopy walkway, from the ground.
taman negara
KL

2 constants in Kuala Lumpur, Patronas Towers and Asian tourists in front of Patronas Towers.
boat ride in Taman Negara

Ko phi phi has to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. The island seemingly rises out of nowhere as you approach it by boat. Sheer limestone cliffs provide the backdrop to perfect turquoise water and amazing white sand. We found a great place up the hill that overlooks the whole bay with the positive that it was missed by the tsunami and the negative that it takes about 10 minutes of ridiculous climbing to reach it. It is really bizarre being here just a few short years after the tsunami killed so many here. There is still a lot of building going on around the island and unsightly piles of rubbish everywhere (although this may have nothing to do with the tsunami). To be able to compare just how high the wave was and see little memorials made by family members, it is chilling. Just a few kilometres off of ko phi phi is phi phi leh, which you may know as the beach from The Beach. Nobody is allowed to stay on that island, apparently because it hosts a much more lucrative business of producing special medicines, but you can visit it for a few hours. It is packed with tourists, which is often really frustrating to deal with. But, for some reason, when it comes to a place as beautiful as this, it is OK because it almost feels like everyone should come see it.

The other major draw of ko phi phi is the ridiculous partying, which, after the desolation of Myanmar, has been one hell of a shock. The characters you find here are numerous. For example, take the pair of British best mates, one about 6 foot 6 and the other about 5 foot 5. One night the big one stepped on some glass and was bleeding profusely, which forced the tiny one into a major rant about "how he had to help his best fuckin mate, baaaah." The next thing we knew, he was sucking on his friend's bloody toe to get the glass out, which was followed by him screaming about the taste of disgusting blood in his mouth aand the pain of glass in his mouth. He followed up this performance by running down the beach screaming and was not to be heard from again for the rest of the night. And, as it is in Thailand, Ko phi phi also has its fair share of ladyboys. Pretty much every night we would be walking home and come across a poor and alone young traveller with a white face who would warn us "DO NOT GO THAT WAY!" In fact, Dave was that poor and alone traveller one night.

Actually, I should catch you up on what we've been doing since we returned from the great frontier of Myanmar. We went straight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to meet up with the great humanitarian Allan Ottaway. We had a few crazy nights out on the town there with Al and had an amazing time watching his 6 foot 5 Malaysian, apparently terrible Muslim, friend Vijay who attempted and nearly succeeded in covering the city in vomit. We did a little bit of tourist stuff, including going up the KL Tower, around the city. In the viewing area on top of the tower they have a picture of the CN Tower, which is the tower is strives to be and fails. We also had Dave's birthday dinner in the revolving restaurant on top of KL tower, which was obviously amazing.

We left KL and headed to a massive national park called Taman Negara for a few days. It is approximately 4300 square kilometres and absolutely gorgeous. You step into the forest and it is deafening. It has the highest jungle canopy walkway in the world, at about 45 metres above ground and a bunch of great viewpoints, etc... The funnest thing we did was go on a great jungle hike through the...jungle, to find a bat cave. Unfortunately for us, we found the bat cave. There were ALOT of bats. In fact, there were so many bats that it was windy inside the cave. It was one of those moments when you find yourself crouching in a tiny cave kneeling on a whole lot of guado while bats add more guado to you and a large albino snake slithers past and a teenage mutant ninja toad walks by and you start to wonder why this was a good idea and why you arent on a beach somewhere instead. you know, one of those moments.

We also went down to Singapore, mostly I guess just to say we did but also to catch a flight into Phuket. As you may know, laws are a little strict in this small city-nation, with large fines and/or arrests for such offenses as spitting and littering. Now, with this knowledge in mind, imagine the look on Dave's face when customs caught him bringing in an undeclared hand-forged sword from Inle Lake in Myanmar. Haha, he went off with a warning to "not take his sword out in Singapore" and the best part was that they never found mine. We also went to the infamous Raffles Hotel to have an infamous 15 dollar Singapore Sling. The best part about this was that we got asked by a waiter to join a lonely 30 year old American Express executive for a drink. She paid for our drinks, but we refused to fill our part of the bargain by dancing with us, which upset her. We heard her talking to two Europeans at the bar, complaining to them that we would dance. They asked, "Are they gay?" "No, Canadian."

I was getting annoyed because I still hadn't run into anyone I knew anywhere, which I was expecting for some reason. On our first night in Ko Phi Phi, we were lost in the forest trying to find our way somewhere, so we barged into someones hostel room to ask them if they knew. It was four girls, who happened to be...Canadian...from London...graduated from Lucas highschool...in 2002...and yes, know blake anderson and dave levin. hilarious, it is kate and amina, in case you are wondering lev (how's the biking going big guy? for those of you who don't know, dave levin is biking across canada for charity and is possibly the most impressive/ridiculous humanbeing on earth). anyways, we then ran into a friend of ours from queens, sarah murray, who also happens to have been travelling with those girls. AND, humps and sioned, your housemate laura something was also with them, but i didnt put that together in time. small world.

One of the funniest things about travelling is that you get to see how so many national stereotypes are actually very justified. The Dutch are cheap; Asians really do do the peace sign in every single picture; the French are assholes; and the Irish drink themselves to the point of near-death every single night. It reminds me of a family guy flashback that shows Ireland in the Dark Ages, with a bunch of scientists in a hightech lab discussing quantum physics or something, when a guy walks up with this whiskey that's just been invented and and they get wasted, start fighting and everything goes to shit. It really is true. You talk to an Irish guy during the day and he is really bright and has a lot to say. You talk to him at 3am and he truly believes he owns the bar you are partying in and is kicking people out who he believes are acting inappropriately while he himself can barely speak and has a bloody nose.

We spent two days hanging out on the majestic Railay Beach in Krabi. It is right near where "The Man With The Golden Gun" was filmed and has some of the best rockclimbing in the world. The beach is flanked on either side with limestone cliffs, the locals are always playing soccer and the rastas dominate the scene. Unfortunately we had to move on quickly and spent the better part of the day on successive boats and buses to make are way to koh tao. Unfortunately the better part of this day was spent with a stage 5 clinger from england named adam who never shut up about bricklaying, ham and cheese sandwiches or the hooker he purchased for a week in phuket (on that note, if you ever wish to spend time with more degenerates and german pedophiles than you can shake a stick at, thailand is the place for you...not to say we dont really think this is a great country and there are lots of good people and we have enjoyed it alot, but what is it about this country that makes all the boys become ladyboys and all that other stuff). So, we have now left the diving mecca of Thailand and have arrived in the diving mecca. Koh Tao is yet another gorgeous island, and I'm a day into my scuba course and loving it so far.

Thanks for emails and such, hope everyones well, sorry for lack of updates. good luck beck and darcy! go with the name gunnbjorn, girl or boy, it's revolutionary.