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.

Well, where to begin with Burma/Myanmar...

If I can, I would like to start with the sweeping statement that this has been one of the most random, exhilirating, unique, bizarre, fun experiences of my life. Let me emphasize RANDOM though. Seriously, I found myself shaking my head every few minutes, and am at least partially surprised we made it out of there alive.

For the skippers, pics at the bottom....

Anyways, any description of Burma would not be complete with a few stories about the unbelievable transport system. This would be because there is no coherent transport system. It takes no less than 21 hours to drive the 400 miles between the main two cities of Yangon and Mandalay. In a way a lot of it was kind of fun, but once those first 17 hours have forced you into a state of delirium, it's hard to really call it fun. Our first experience was our attempt to reach the ancient temple city of Bagan from the capital of Yangon, or as you may know it courtesy of Dr. Evil, Rangoon. We took a spin through Yangon to find the bus ticket office, which ended up being a 15 year old kid with stained red teeth sitting behind a 3 legged wooden desk in an alleyway. All the buses to Bagan were full so we were sent to a random town called Meiktila where we arrive at a wooden hut "bus station" at 5am after a comparatively amazingly luxurious 13 hour bus ride that was tarnished only by the movie "The Mummy" on repeat with no sound except for Brendan Fraser's soul-sucking commentary: "Haha oh i remember this scene, i hurt my leg." "haha oh excuse me for laughing, mummies are just so funny to me now". Little did we know that even the sound of Brendan Fraser's voice would be a godsend compared to the 15 hours of Burmese karaoke music videos that could be found on any other buses that surprisingly had televisions. Anyways, in Meiktila we paid 6 times as much as any local for the right to ride a local truck 5 hours to another town that wasn't even Bagan. I got the dubious honour of riding on the roof of the truck, which was a little bit bigger than a mini-van. It was pretty fun at first, about 6 of us men up there, checking out the beautiful scenery, while dave rode down below with the ladies. However, it became less and less fun as more and more people climbed on. We tried to keep the mood light and I was still quite happy as we coined slogans for the Myanmar transport system: "Myanmar: there's always room from one more" "Myanmar: nobody gets left behind" "Myanmar: bring your live chickens, dead fish and family of 8, we have room for you". Unfortunately, someone called our bluff on the last slogan and really did bring those things. I was wedged beside the chickens, who really developed a taste for me. At our peak, we counted 21 people on the roof, 7 people hanging off the sides and 24 people in the actual truck for an impressive, guiness book-worthy number of 52 people. and unbelievably, i'm not even exaggerating. After that, we had 2 horse and buggy rides and one more 2 hour truck ride which we spent sitting on the roof of the cab, above the driver. we were so delirious at this point that we were falling asleep and had to keep slapping eachother so we wouldnt tumble off the truck, but we made it. So that 21 hour journey was hard to top, but was followed by many a crazy crazy local bus.

The Burmese people are incredibly interesting and for the most part exceptionally kind. We only got robbed once, and that was when we think someone was able to climb into the luggage hold and get into my bag. However, even the thief was nice, as he only stole 30 000 kyat out of a stack of 100 000. Don't fret, 30 000 kyat is like 20 bucks. However, in a country where a 5 course meal costs 3 dollars, it was a bit of a budget breaker. Anyways, the people were really great. Everyone wears traditional longyis, which is basically a blanket wrapped around the waist. Many people also wear this yellow cosmetic on their faces for heat/beauty purposes, which was at first kind of bizarre but I really grew to like. All the men have stained red teeth from chewing betel constantly.

Yangon is the largest city in Burma, but is like a small town with 5 million people. There are no tall buildings and no international brand things anywhere because of the international boycott of the military government. Its main attraction is the Schwedagon Pagoda, which I would compare favourably to some form of a buddhist disneyland. While the Pagoda was amazing, the smells in Yangon were not. Open sewer meets dead animals meets tropical heat, good stuff.

The main highlight of Burma is the ancient temple city of Bagan. I had heard of it, but had no idea it would be as amazing as it was. I havent seen Angkor Wat yet, but as of now I dont know how it could be much better. There are 4400 temples in an area of 40 square kilometres. We spent 3 days biking around them and climbing to the tops to look around. Unbelievable, every which way you look a forest of temples rises out of the scrub-brush and jungle.

From Bagan we took the most uncomfortable 9 hour busride of my life to get to Mandalay, the second largest city in the country. Its major draw was a Dutch guy named Hein who was getting ready to take a 22-40 hour train ride to the north on a wooden bench. Other than that it had some ancient cities nearby yada yada yada 200 year old teak bridge at Amarapura yada yada some good if unhygienic milkshakes.

We then did an incredible 3 day trek from a small village called Kalaw to the majestic Inle Lake. We were accompanied by a Sikh guide named Rambo and a Burmese alcoholic cook named Tong U. The trek itself was incredible, through rice paddies, past angry yet stupid buffalo and through tiny little villages in the mountains. Our first night we slept in a small village that was holding a contest to see who could build the best rocket out of gunpowder and bamboo. There was something surreal about sitting in the middle of nowhere on a mountain watching Burmese people coming incredibly close to blowing themselves up. While we were there we played Chinlo, which is an amazingly fun game that basically amounts to volleyball with your feet and head. Our second night was spent in a monastery in the mountains. When we go there we played piggy-in-the-middle with all the young monks and immediately endeared ourselves to them when Dave smoked the piggy-in-the-middle-monk in the face with the ball. An incredible/painful experience to be woken up the next morning at 5am by the singing prayers of all the children, which may have also been retribution for piggy-in-the-middle.

Nightlife isn't really too noteworthy in Myanmar. In fact, there were 2 nightclubs in all of Yangon, but one of them got closed down when the General's son got in a fight (and we heard lost, the pussy) there. Our craziest nights were had on our trek, courtesy of Tong U, who has a real love for lemon moonshine. Our first night we taught the villagers we were hanging out with how to play Black Jack and Between the sheets, with the loser having to put his finger in a candle because we had no booze left as Tong U had drank it all. On the monastery night Tong U lead us to a hut in the middle of the woods where he proceeded to drink a 40 of moonshine and spend the rest of the night violently wretching in the bushes.

Inle Lake is just an unbelievably gorgeous place. It is a very shallow lake surrounded on all sides by mountains and where it's impossible to see where the water ends and the land begins. Everywhere you look there are small villages built on the lake on bamboo and stilts. The lake is littered with fishermen in flat-bottomed canoes, incredibly paddling with their legs. We spent a day riding around the lake, checking out the markets, the knife-making bamboo hut on water, the cloth-making place, etc... We also went to a Burmese cigar-making hut, where Dave supported child labour by buying some. However, Dave then got some form of "heat exhaustion" and we had to go back to our hostel and miss the prime attraction of the whole journey....the monastery where monks have taught cats to jump through hoops. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive him for this, but his acquisition of the greatest wifebeater sunburn i've ever seen softened the blow.

Whenever you travel, and find yourself quite happy and content with what you are doing, you are often brought crashing back to earth by something you see. Ours occurred during our hellish 19 hour bus ride back to Yangon. We were riding through a beautiful mountainy-foresty area when we saw a small grouping of people on the side of the road. A motorcycle was on the ground and a boy of no more than 12 wearing no helmet lay beside it. It was pretty clear that he was dead, and it was just really hard to see. We were probably 8 hours from any hospital and he wouldn't have had a chance either way. Just tough to see.

We are now in Kuala Lumpur where we have met up with the one and only Al Ottaway, who is working here saving the world one refugee at a time with the UN. When we arrived we immediately went out for the drunkest night of my life to celebrate dave's birthday. we attempted to pretend we were at queen's by starting a drink fight, but apparently this fun tradition has not yet made it to Malaysia. i got back to the hostel at some unknown time with 1 shoe and no dignity, but it was a solid night.

Anyways, going to Myanmar was like stepping back in time 50 years. Unfortunately, the main reason it's so unique and incredible to travel there is the same reason the Burmese people are among the poorest and most oppressed in the world. We did our best to avoid giving money to the government and to give money to local businesses, but it was tough to avoid. However, I feel like i get let in on a secret or something just by going there, such a unique experience. I would really recommend it if you want to have the most bizarre, awkward, amazingly random travel experience of your life.



One of the 4400 temples of Bagan...
This is about 200 dollars worth of kyats, those are stacks of 100k, no big deal.
Schwedagon Pagoda in Yangon aka buddhist disneyland
A village on Inle Lake
A fisherman on Inle Lake
Bagan....
Bagan....
and...bagan
ya bagan, sorry but fuck it was incredible
young girl at a temple
me with Tong U and Rambo
The 200 year old teak bridge at Amarapura
Sunset in Mandalay
The greatest wifebeater sunburn youve ever seen
piggy-in-the-middle-monk
Chinlo aka volleyball with feet
Inle Lake
The villagers and their gunpowder contest, this one just blew up and almost took at few kids with it.
fisherman paddling with his feet on inle lake


We will be in Malaysia for about a week, maybe shoot down to Singapore for a night or two and be in the Thai islands by next weekend. Talk soon.