samui - meeting a resort mogul, day 13

another early flight, but upon landing in samui, i realize it's worth it. the airport is luxurous and open air. when i arrive at cheweng resort, i'm greeted by a very nice staff and shown a room which in comparison to my chiang mai experience, i start laughing. mostly due to how incredibly decadent it is.

From vietnam / thailand trip

i could post more photos, but you can also look at my picasa page. i think they messed up and gave me the honeymoon suite. fortunately it was close to my 29th anniversary living with myself and a good reason to celebrate. the man behind all of this is p'somporn, who is a relative to a friend who jay introduced me to. on top of the awesome pad, which included a pool and a great restaurant, i also got the full tour of all his resorts including his new one. he has researched different styles of architecture from all over the world and it definitely shows. the new resort is going to be so swank, he will set the tone for the rest of the luxury resorts on the island.

From vietnam / thailand trip

after seeing p'somporn's new resort, i head back to the cheweng resort and go for a dip in the water. i meet some aussies and we decide to meet up at the rasta bar that night. i wonder more up and down the beach, grabbing dinner on the main drag at a restaurant called the aussie bbq or something. the service was abysmal, it took them almost an hour to make my meal, a seafood pad thai. the waiter keeps telling me 5 more minutes and my mango shake is decimated by the time my food comes. some aussie ladies sat down next to me, i commented that i hope they weren't hungry. they laughed, but in fairness it took 45 minutes for the salads they ordered. they are going on a trip to the wilderness reserve and i found out they purchased it from a man named peter just up the road. i ask for the check several times and send scathing looks in a vain attempt to speed up the billing process. island time. i buy the tour from peter, who is a burmese who fled and has lost a lot of his family; mostly due to illness, but still it's a grim situation. i thank him and skidattle to the rasta bar.

this whole trip has not been the most pleasant for a man traveling alone. the aussies had told me this bar is past a bunch of shady clubs and i would have to deal with women hassling me. it's not as bad as chiang mai though where one actually jumped on me like a monkey, i just kept walking and assuring her i wasn't going to buy her a drink. she finally got the point and let go. anyway, they assume the darkest of a man alone at night and it was a true pain to get to the rasta bar. there is a live band and the club is absolutely, utterly empty. so empty the band is playing songs directly to me and my clapping echoes solitary appreciation. i'm close to finishing this beer and the aussies are nowhere to be seen. all i can think is i'm truly sad for this band, who, minus the drummer is giving it a pretty good effort for a gigantic empty house and pondering exit strategies. could i look like i'm going to the bathroom and just leave? should i applaud and walk out? should i get up in the middle of the song and leave or would they announce my flight? fortunately, the aussies show up and i have a couple of drinks with them. they ordered some popcorn, which took the place of some salgados and i realized i was getting torn up by mosquitoes. those bastards are horrible over here. i bid the couple goodnight and walk past the redlight district home. tomorrow, the island tour awaits me.

chiang mai - water and elephants, day 12

the hangover is the worst so far on the trip. i ponder how much i could pay the guide to not take me to the mountains when a firm rap is upon my prison cell door. i made this bed, i'm going to lie in it. as i climb in the back of the pickup truck, i wonder how kind the roads will be.

i try not to pay attention to the swaying car and the bad road and meet my compadres. there are 2 from good ol' america, 2 brits, 1 girl from hong kong and 4 koreans. as everyone knows my nature, i still managed to talk my head off with a hangover. the hour and a half drive was pretty rough, but the payoff was coming. i was paired with the girl from hong kong for the elephant ride which was amazingly rough, we sat on a rice bag and had a rail that wasn't attached to hold onto as the elephant trod up and down a mountain mind you. i would say our elephant definitely had a personality though, he stopped whenever he pleased and i would pass him bananas that he would take and toss aside. ingrate. it was definitely a memorable experience though.

From vietnam / thailand trip

then it was on to the hike up to the waterfall. a windy road along the stream where most fear to tread. sometimes you would skip over stepping stones across the stream. other times there were a couple of bamboo logs tied to eachother, which i prayed wouldn't break under the strain of my weight. they didn't. another great payoff and excellent cool down, i went in and sat under the waterfall for a while, getting my own version of a swedish massage. on to whiter water: white water rafting.

From vietnam / thailand trip

i got placed in the whiter person raft although i was feeling bad i wasn't with the girl from hong kong, because she didn't know how to swim. but that wasn't going to happen, right? after an extremely brief and detailed speech in broken english about how to handle oars, rapids and commands they gave me a helmet too small for my big dome, stuck a paddle in my arms and plunked me onto the raft. it was intense and we took on quite a bit of water, but we weren't prepared for what happened to the other raft. as we came around a bend, we saw their raft flipped over and the poor hong kong girl clutching a rock for dear life. our guide pulled aside and deftly swam across the rapids to help the other guide recover the oars and help her out of the water. but where were the koreans? apparently when it flipped they didn't stick around to help the poor girl out and left her there. assholes.

we finished the rest of the trip on the raft and went on to bamboo floating which they also call bamboo submarines. quite an odd feeling sinking in the water on a swaying bamboo raft lazily going down the river. all i could think was, 'where is my beer?'. it was almost time to wrap up the trip and we had a visit to a tribes village in the mountain. it literally was 5 minutes so i didn't get much information at all. they did have a few pigs though.

i returned back to the hostel to meet ken, a old coworker of my father's and we had a great chat walking though the night market. he has quite a bit of insight into the banking woes, like dad, but also has firm experience within international banking, so i was quite interested in what he had to say. ken preached about thailand and how it's great to retire there, i can see his life is quite comfortable and he seems very happy. his wife gia was very nice too, although we didn't have much time to chat. obligatory photo:

From vietnam / thailand trip

after that, i went to bed as i flew out of chiang mai at 6 in the morning.
(the airport)

From vietnam / thailand trip

onward and southward to koh samui, where the full moon lurks and i learn to live like a king.

chiang mai - what wat is what, day 11

i woke early and took a tuk tuk to the first wat i planned on checking out. turns out it was under construction so i tried to walk to the famous wat chiang man. since i'm directionally challenged, i had no clue where i was going and got fantastically lost. i did however spy breakfast in a back alley, which was turned out the best pad thai i've had in my life.

From vietnam / thailand trip

i got a thai iced tea with it and i was energized even in the thai heat. then i moseyed my way over to wat chiang man, which was pretty damn impressive for my first wat. it's thought to be the oldest wat in the city and is massive. there is definitely a holy feeling walking in a wat, and i think it's enhanced by me taking off my shoes. here are a couple of photos:

From vietnam / thailand trip

From vietnam / thailand trip

the amount of detail in all of these thai wats is staggering. everything is handmade, obviously, and no small detail is spared. like most experiences/sights/sounds i've taken in, it's difficult to capture and demonstrate the ornate and spiritual feel of these temples. i'm pretty agnostic, but walking into a wat, i feel like i'm having a small out of body moment. religion has always been the struggle between the concept of self versus a greater force, the wat amplifies the chasm.

i follow the lonely planet's lead, and head to the women's prison for my first thai massage. all the masseuses are prisoners, but they are working to save for when they are released. it was an amazing massage and blew the massages i got in vietnam away. thai massages are more like deep tissue, but with more elements of aided stretches. i exited the 'spa' feeling as good as new and happy that i didn't witness a shanking or prison break.

on to the next wat, which is one of the most visited wats in chiang mai, wat phra singh. it is similar to wat chiang man, but has a 'lion buddha'. as i'm here, a man approaches and asks me about my trip offering advice for when i get to the south. he is the second man to recommend a certain thai travel agency and warns me i should book ahead. i don't linger because he mentions they close soon and as i'm stepping out of the wat, a lady stops me and says 'you know that's a scam, right?' turns out estela is on holiday from the states and is originally from brazil. she and her husband, yves, have witnessed many of these scams executed and have even thwarted a couple, although they were threatened. it starts raining and we look for a bar to grab a beer. we rendezvous with lars at the local watering hole, i play some uke and we meet some more americans, lauren and eddie. knocking back the rice whiskey, which somehow resembles cachasa to me, we start the evening out strong, munching on some falafal from a nearby stand. lauren, eddie and myself head off to the night market and the rest of the night is fuzzy.

wat phra singh:

From vietnam / thailand trip

premayhem:

From vietnam / thailand trip

bangkok - travel day to chiang mai, day 10

after the late night in hcmc, it was difficult to wake up early and leave.

i had a rough day of traveling ahead of me, mostly because of the insane 7 hour wait in bangkok airport. getting into thailand went well enough, but the customs line is so much longer than vietnam and took forever.
i then spent part of the day rearranging my plane tickets so i would be in koh samui for the full moon party and spend less time in phuket, which people have been badmouthing this whole trip.

all in all, it wasn't as miserable as it could have been and i got into chiang mai around 7 and situated in my hostel where i had a prison cell type room, (although it was $4 a night). tell me you disagree:

From vietnam / thailand trip

but it wasn't lights out for me right after checking in. i went to a internet cafe, met a really nice guy named lars and then headed out to the night market. i tuktuk'ed over to the night market and took a look around. i'm not really buying much at all on this trip, so i didn't buy anything but pillows i had promised to jay and fernanda. i had some regrettably bad thai food for my first night and met a lovely french couple. i then headed back after a failed attempt to find the blues club lars had spoke highly of. since i was running on no sleep, i didn't have a difficult time passing out on the mattress that apparently the incredible hulk smashed.

tomorrow, what wat?

ho chi min city - set to 'suffragette city', day 9

my body has kept up with my early morning routine over here. i wake and beat the call again.

it's off to the bus station where the cyclo tries to hustle me. those cheeky bastards. i meet marc, a frenchman, who gives me advice and we travel together to the airport. he is enroute to hcmc too. he speaks pretty decent english and we chat in broken strange sentences.

ho chi minh city, i really only have 1 day to see, so i figure i'm going to hit the road hard. marc is tagging along and it's good to have some insight, even if i understand every other word. we grab lunch, where i have a very lovely roast duck in a claypot. we then walk to the market, which is another thing sharing a very similar feel to brazil for me. once we get inside the market, the sound of a million hammers banging some mad rhythm sound above us. monsoon season; so much for taking in the city. we snag a taxi back to the hotel and it dawns on me, i may not even get to see reunification palace which was the one thing i wanted to take in. i dejectedly walk up to the room and take a nap.

here is a pot of live crabs from the market

From vietnam / thailand trip

after a powernap, i decide to peek outside. it's not raining at the moment, so i pounce on a taxi and we speed off to the palace.

reunification palace is monstrously huge. open corridors and entertainment rooms for receiving guests. everything is so meticulous and detailed. you walk up 3 floors, gorging yourself with pristine relics which don't look like they would be out of place today. although really, really expensive stuff doesn't seem to age to me. look at my bentley, for example. reunification palace was the last vestige we and the south vietnamese had, and ho chi minh handed the keys over decades ago. it is a colossus of military forte, outdated broadcasting gear, and war rooms on top of grandiose halls. i tried to capture it's feel in photos, but i'm not sure they will do justice.

From vietnam / thailand trip

From vietnam / thailand trip

i walk home purchasing my tropical fav, coconut water and see a familiar logo. i flash the 'hook 'em' sign and it's relayed. loyd, this guy really loves the horns, i got a photo for you.

From vietnam / thailand trip

back at the hotel, i run into to more english girls. i can never discern aussie/english accents, so i always start off on the wrong foot. they laugh it off and we grab dinner. i wasn't planning on going out, but they persuade me and we head off with an aussie to the ostentatious apocalypse now club. revered for it's diverse crowd and frequent fights, it was highly recommended in my lonely planet.

we grab drinks and head to the dance floor, which is planned worse then the big dig. diners sit at fixed tables in front of the dj and with how crowded it is, you are bumping against the diners. we back out and run into another group of travelers. not wanting to sound like the typical dumb american, i introduce myself in portugese to the group wherein i meet suzannah, a lovely english girl, who is on an extended holiday. we start chatting and grab a drink, then head to the dance floor where i floor her with my timberlake executed moves. in honesty, i am bringing sexy back. i swear, i'm even starting to like the new j lo song. this may necessitate a full hand slap to the face when i get stateside, but it's infectious on the dance floor.

we retreat from the dance floor back to the open air courtyard and continue talking. then i almost become part of the allure of apocalypse now. a loose lipped aussie approaches, apparently adopting (alliteration) the might over mind theory to woo the beautiful suzannah. he takes me for the obstacle. he lays his knuckles on my cheek and growls, 'you know, you're a real weasel.' i look him in the eye and reply ' i'm glad you are voicing your opinion,' removing his fist. he replaces it and reiterates his venomous words. i inform him it's the last time his fist touch me and suzannah tells him to get lost. he leaves shaking his head in frustration. who wouldn't want to talk to a d-bag like that? it's a near miss to a skirmish and what would have been an uncomfortable exit.

all in all, it's a fantastic night and wraps up my vietnam trip.
tomorrow i learn to talk thai.

nha trang - scuba steve and flight from the valkaries on mopeds, day 8

another early morning dive. sharon left for delat after an arguing session about animal rights. it's me, the swedes, ludo and my new diving instructor from slovenia, dimitar.

going over some of these drills for my license is absolutely terrifying at times. when in a drill, throwing my 2nd regulator from my mouth scares the crap out of me. i manage though, very well to be noted. another beautiful day for diving.

we see something resembling a lobster and dimitar screws with it until it glides away with an unforeseen grace. then, there's still the test. i'm nervous like i always am with tests. i crammed some the night before in between drinks. finally, i buck up and take it. the swedes passed w/ flying colors, so i should be fine. i think i missed 3 in total with one being wrongly graded in the manual. 9m in 60 seconds, fools. and i don't find it necessary to know what magnification you see things underwater. 88%. a passing grade. ludo dubs me scuba steve. smiles all around and then it's back into town.

grabbing lunch with the swedes brought up an america they have strange perceptions about. despite being barely older than how long i've been playing guitar, they have interesting perceptions about the health care system and give me more insight into the swedish system. everyone seems to have different thoughts, but all concur change is needed. we break to the beach, where i go for a dip.

it's a whopping $1 for a beach chair the entire day and i take a stroll to the water. walking along nhatrang beach during the day, you'd never guess it wasn't california. hordes of ghosts are laying out, getting sunsoaked and befuddling natives who prize white skin. surprisingly, there are many topless girls, which is interesting because lonely planet warned about locals who snap shots of women getting out of the water in bikinis.

i am stopped in the water as i swim down the water and semi harassed by an old dutchman with eerie blue eyes. he bounces from subject to subject bobbing in the water with mucus dripping down his face. he pointedly tells me i'm attractive and wholesome, making sure to point out he isn't gay, ("not that there is anything wrong with that," right.) after briefly touching the subject of muslim, ( who he deems evil), i finally verbally disengage and swim back.

i stroll down the beach snapping shots of the sunset and something strikes me. a large family is sitting and playing music. one guitar, one harmonica, and a chorus of booze laden voices carry the godfather's theme song. i'm grinning from ear to ear and upon noting my interest, i'm invited to sit on a heineken box and passed a beer. 'yo! yo! yo!' we exclaim, bump a cheers and drink. apparently, the direct translation is now or go! then they pass the guitar to me. there are requests for clapton and the eagles. i oblige my acoustic rendition of 'hotel california' and then play some of my own music with the beach harmonica and drunken free styling choir work by the family. we raise new beers to the sound of yo! apparently then we are kicked off the beach by the police, still smiling all around as we embrace and take a couple photos. this is the experience i've been seeking in vietnam, to break free of my touristy inhibitions and simply hang out with the vietnamese.

back to ghost world, i head back to the sailing club. while paying for my bucket of rum and coke, i realize my debit card is gone. i'm positive it wasn't the beach family and i try to retrace my steps. it may have been paying for something, but i can't recall. i contact verity and put the card on hold. it's all i can do, no use in spoiling a night in nha trang. back at the sailing club; i rendezvous with the swedes and do a bit of damage on the dance floor. there is another fight, one taken out of the club in a head lock and the other wiping blood from his nose; locals it seems. i fail to understand how this remains a common occurrence here, but they definitely have security in place for a reason.

as we close out the club of sails, the girls have befriended 2 new englishmen. we walk over to the aptly named why not? bar and the group persuades me to stay a little longer even though i am flying out the next morning at 6. i'm in the restroom when a fairly amiable looking gent asks where i'm

mr. dominic hall, i owe you a beer next time we meet. hall is from the uk and upon deciding i'm a cool cat, he imparts some wisdom on me. a friend of his had been robbed and the same trick had been attempted on st. hall himself, although he was too daft (endirekt). a woman approaches offering unsolicited acts, she distracts whilst a gang of women pull up on mopeds and grab you. it wasn't until they vanished rapidly that dom's friend realized he had parted with his possessions. i thank dom and tell him i will say goodbye on the way out.

back at the table of swedes and englishmen, i engage in another serious conversation with the knowing english. upon seeing the looks of severity on our faces, the swedes command me to change the topic. i take this as my exit music and bid them safe travels. i shake dom the great'si'm off.

well... off for a block before a woman grabs my arm. i keep saying no to the offers, but she won't have it. my hand is on my wallet and i hear the putter of mopeds, glancing over my shoulder to see 5 or 6 valkyriettes reinforcements hurdling down on me. thankfully, i know what to do. i tell the woman to shove her offers, physically remove her and extending my middle finger, dash away from the ominous scene. daft steve is too quick on his toes to get caught by hoes!

i walk with my head on high to the hotel, pack my things and fall asleep. it was an epic day.

tomorrow is hcmc in one day.

nha trang - in an octopus' garden, in the shade, day 7

i beat the wake up call and have a breakfast and walk to coco diving company. run by ludo, a funny man from luxembourg and very knowledgeable instructor. along with us are 2 swedish ladies, karin and linn, who are traveling an extensive trip after graduating high school. we are immediately off to the island of koh mun and i go through the basics with a frenchman named ben with sharon. they take care of most of the movement on this first dive and i like to think it came very naturally to me.

in short, diving is a completely different world. the colors are so visceral and iridescent, sometimes, i think my eyes are tricking me. diving beats the living daylights out of snorkling! sure, it's more expensive, but to witness the gift of depth and not hurrying yourself while you are down there, you really experience the ocean for what it is. to me snorkling has become similar to reading about the moon and diving is landing on the moon and picking up some moon dust and showering yourself in it. the clarity is absolutely amazing and despite the fact ben is literally pushing me everywhere, the first dive blew my eardrums and mind. we have a little baguette lunch and then talk about the upcoming dive on a different site. this dive, my handler was the vietnamese gentlemen, whose name i forget. on top of pushing me around underwater, he is in charge of the underwater photos, so he is really relaxed about letting me go on my own. it's astounding to me how peaceful and calm i am when i'm underwater. the amount of energy necessary to maneuver is extremely low. the other awesome thing about diving is the hand signals. obviously, my accent is difficult to understand underwater, so they have sign language to communicate universally. the 'ok' sign, which is completely derogatory in brazil, means ok with a question mark and can be used as the response to the question. thumbs up is go up, down is go down, wishy-washy is something isn't good and you point to your ears or goggles; my favorite is the madonna-esque 'like a virgin' pose which signifies you are cold. the water is like bathwater, but at times cold currents come through and they can actually be freezing! the body can go into hypothermia at 95 degrees and you dissipates heat 25 times faster than in the air.

after the dive, the salesman at the shop recommends we go get a massage with the blind. apparently they think vietnamese massages are better than ones in thailand. i politely disagree. i've got a high pain tolerance when it comes to deep tissue massage, but this was a different story. the masseuse put thumbs into the small of my back and if i could have swiveled my head 180, i'd bet i'd see a handstand. my 14th vertebrae thanks you heaps.

i've been pretty accommodating to sharon's vegetarianism. she isn't my girlfriend; she's just someone i ran into on the plane who was headed the same direction. i don't think you can get a good feel for the food in vietnam if you stick to vegetarian food either. she starts in about how we won't stop being cruel to other humans until we stop eating animals and i decide to play devil's advocate akin to my philosophy days in college. i tell her that something must die for us to live, (she could have given the example of fruit in hindsight, but that's not enough to live on), and she can't come back with an actual argument other than you can't see/hear plants suffer. i can tell i've struck a nerve though.

nha trang beach with the locals

sharon is pretty eager to travel to dalat, and although it's close, i want to have another dive so i am certified. she makes a couple of weak arguments and i don't relent. i guess that was that and she headed up to dalat and i stayed in nha trang. safe travels, that's all you can wish a fellow traveler when you part ways.

i then go back to the hotel, shower up and go out for dinner. this night, a guy at a electronics booth convinces me to eat at the indian restaurant adjacent to his shop. i ask if it's really that good or if he gets a cut. he concedes it's a bit of both, as when he gets a diner to go there, he gets a free meal. i try it out and wasn't disappointed. i had the tikki masalla (sp? jay?) and it had lovely smokey flavor. sadly the nan was bland and buttery. onward to the sailing club, a dance party on the beach. it's pretty wild out there. i did hear of a fight this night and saw a fight the next.

the club is situated directly on the beach with a huge bonfire and fire twirlers. they specialize with drinks in buckets and they are cheap and strong. the dance floor gets loaded even though the decibel level is similar to what i imagine the who's concert where most of the audience and pete townsend went deaf. i'm getting used to these beach dancing anthems and it's good fun. i met an aussie dad taking his son on a trip around vietnam. we laughed and watched his blitzed son try aggressive dancing to lure a partner. i went out to take in the bonfire more and got asked to sit at a table with some girls, within the first three questions a not-so-meek hint escapes, 'you have money?'. yeah sweety... but not for you. walking home as a single guy in nha trang is physically and mentally challenging. their blocks give vegas a run for the money and on the way home, a solo gentleman of my stature is propositioned for 'ladies', coke, x and marijuana at least a half dozen times. the best thing to do is ignore them and keep walking. they don't seem to understand the word 'no,' even if it's in vietnamese.

i still have to study for my test, so i stay up really late and watch the dvd ludo gave me. then i pass out reading the book.