Moonin' Round Asia: New Friends, Piles of Puke and Matthew McConaughey Lulling Me to Sleep

The past 2 days have been relatively busy, having done and seen quite a few new things. We started Saturday with the usual brunch and decided to follow it up with some good ol' fashioned pool time. After a few hours under the broiler we were pretty well done and decided that we'd venture out to Khao San which is known as the "backpacker's paradise." This area is almost entirely filled with filthy hippies and younger people who are backpacking. The food is cheap, the market is expansive and there's LOTS of territorial feral cats.

We sat down at what appeared to be a hole-in-the-wall restaurant to feed. We had 4 liters of beer and 2 entrees for 600 baht, or about $18. Dinner entertainment was provided by a group of cats who lived in the area. There seemed to be organized gangs of cats which I referred to as the Sharks and the Jets. While smaller in stature, the Jets were very organized and effective in fending off the sharks. I was significantly more amused by this than was Molly.

After dinner we headed out to an upstairs, open air bar. They had a decent drink selection and a couple of different acoustic guitarists. The funniest thing about the live acts was that both of them had very good voices, but a very tenuous grasp on the English language. It was almost like they had learned the melodies for the songs, but didn't understand the words well enough to comprehend the original message the artist was trying to relay. "Welcome to the Hotel California. What a lovely place, where you can eat your plates!" The bar was absolutely packed with foreigners from all over the globe. We quickly realized that with a little initiative and no shame whatsoever, it's VERY easy to meet and talk to people. We met a few really cool people including Aaron from Brazil, a very tall guy from Israel, a scientist from Sweden who works with bugs (don't worry, I put him on the task of eradicating the stink bugs), a group of mixed Americans from Boston, San Fransisco and DC and their friend from France who is spending a year working with disabled kids in Cambodia. It's a really eye opening experience seeing people from all over the globe who know absolutely nothing of one another, drinking, learning others' perspective and making new friends. I'd have to say it was a highlight of the trip so far.

We decided, while at the pool yesterday, that we were going to be heading to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha today - the Grand Palace. Years ago, this is where the King resided but it's now just used for special ceremonies and tourism. We decided that it'd be best to get there as early as possible because the weather here can be very unpredictable and extremely hot. We agreed on a wake-up time of 8am with a departure of absolutely no later than 9. That didn't really work out due to the damn bartenders at the bar the previous night over-serving us (because it's certainly not OUR responsibility to monitor our drinking). We ended up grabbing a cab to go up there around 10:15am and it was amongst the hottest days I've ever experienced. We took a quick pit stop at the train station to buy our tickets to go down the gulf coast and to Ko Tao, regarded as one of the best diving places in the world. Afterwards we had the cab driver drop us off at the bicycle rental place and we got 2 free rental bicycles with baskets on the front to carry our 2 liter water bottles. After about 4 minutes on the bikes, the heat (and booze) got to Miss Molly and she had to share a nice pile of vomit with the back side of the palace district. After a healthy puke session we were back on the bikes to continue touring the area. This lasted all of about 3 more blocks as I had completely sweat through every single article of clothing I was wearing and was panting like a chihuahua pulling an 18 wheeler. We returned the bikes, having only traveled a total of 5 blocks and gathered ourselves under the trees to head into the palace.

The palace was amongst the most amazing man made structures I'd ever seen. Incredibly ornate and very well maintained with an overwhelming feeling of peace and tranquility. This was after the heat stroke began to wear off and I realized where I was. Molly took some pretty cool pictures, which you'll see below. We moved quickly through the palace and went back out to begin the battle with the scumbag cab drivers. Dissimilar to the US, unless hailing a cab from a hotel front desk, cab drivers animately refuse to use the meter and instead demand a flat rate that's roughly 3-4 times the price it should cost. We got in and out of about 6 different cabs before I was finally so hot and frustrated I talked a guy into charging us ONLY double what it should have been! Whatever, we got home and got to sit in AC.

We got home and booked our next hotel on Ko Tao for 5 days, a place called Sensi Paradise Beach Resort. We leave here tomorrow night (Monday night) at 7:30pm and arrive in Chumphon (nearest mainland city) to catch the high speed catamaran to Ko Tao at 6:30am. After completing this booking we were still exhausted and decided to just take it easy and go see the new movie, "The Lincoln Lawyer." While Molly seemed to really enjoy it (and I heard McConaughy only took his shirt off ONCE!), I only saw about 1/3 of it and was woken up by Molly for snoring loudly in the theater. One cool thing about the theaters here is that you can buy "VIP" tickets that give you a very large, very comfortable hybrid between a couch and a movie chair. They're also excellent for napping (blanket included).

On the way home, we finally took what's known as a Tuk Tuk. This is basically a large scooter/small motorcycle engine strapped to a go cart/bicycle/small trailer body. It's extremely frightening but makes you feel alive - and smell like gas.

All in all it's been a good couple of days and we'll likely be offline until we arrive in Ko Tao, get settled and figure out the internet situation. Until then, take care...