Hawaii

Hawaii was a convenient stopover on my way back to Canada that would seem wasteful not to take advantage of. I stayed at a Hostel for $25/night, which is a lot more than Thailand but still not too shabby for Hawaii. On my first day here, I did some swimming in the ocean, walking around, and sleeping to catch myself up to the time change. On my second day here, Jack Johnson & Ziggy Marley were playing a concert. Jack Johnson is actually from Hawaii, so tickets were sold out. However, there were a large collection of locals behind the fences having a grand old time. They had BBQ's, tents & one group even had a volleyball court. I quickly made it my mission to make friends with them and ended up playing volleyball from 4pm until dark, with some food & beverage breaks in between. The sound was excellent from where we were, we could hear the whole concert perfectly! One downside was that we couldn't actually see the performers, but the upsides of being free and playing volleyball definitely made up for it!

Besides volleyball, I had some good chats with people who live here. Most were Americans from other states who moved here to live the dream life. I got some good insight into this life, mostly involving working at restuarants and then surfing in their free time. They also gave me some great tips on places to go, in particular the non-touristy spots. The next day I slept in after a late night, then headed back to see another free show which was great because Ziggy played some different Bob Marley songs than the previous night. I took off part way through seing Jack Johnson for the second time, and I was happy I did because there was an interesting festival happening in the street called Spam Jam. It involved live music and lots of food vendors selling all different products with spam in them. I don't think I had ever tried spam before this, something seems not right about meat that doesn't need to be kept cool, but since I was at a Spam Jam I had Spam Nachos, which were pretty delicious.

The following day I got up early because I wanted to make the most of the day. A breakfast, I got talking to another Canadian who was headed on a hike to some waterfalls and lookout point. He asked if I wanted to join so I did and it turned into a very enjoyable and active day exploring Oahu. The next day I went on the bus to the North Shore of Oahu and took n some more beautiful sights. Great day of touring around the island; 4 hours total on the bus for only $4.50 in bus fare.

The next day I went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, a very popular spot to go in Oahu and rightfully so. I spent a good chunk of the day snorkeling in the beautiful water and saw some interesting fish. I also went for a short walk to a lookout point of the bay, which was beautiful. So beautiful in fact that I spent a good chunk of time just sitting and enjoying the view. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera on this jouney but I've got some great mental pictures of the place!

On my second last day I rented a surfboard and was happy to find I'm not quite as bad at surfing as I felt in Australia...the waves were much more reasonable in Wiakiki Beach, Hawaii than Byron Bay, Australia. It still took me probably 45 minutes to catch my first wave of the day, but when I finally did I surfed it for a good distance and then let out a huge "wooooo!!" because I was so happy to finally catch a wave for my first time since New Zealand, and I was reminded of how fun it was!! I spent about 5 hours surfing with an hour lunch break and was very happy with my day well spent. That night I was hit by the unfortunate feeling of a sunburn on the back of my knees, a normally well protected spot but because of lying of the surfboard paddling around for so long they were explosed for a while and WOW do I ever feel it now.

On my final day in Hawaii, I went to Pearl Harbour to have a look at the USS Arizona memorial, one of the ships sunk in the attack and remains visable on the bottom of the sea in Pearl Harbour. I also learned a bit about torpetos that were used in the war, and checked out a submarine. That night I caught my 8:30pm flight to Vancouver.

Surfers in Waikiki Beach

I think 5 weeks with Kim in N.Z. got me paying more attention to trees!

The background of the free area where we listened to Ziggy Marley & Jack Johnson

My hostel for the week

Waikiki Beach

Other free spectators on the second concert night

Spam Jam on the street

The hike

The North Shore

Pearl Harbour

Wreck of USS Arizona

Old Submarine

Ko Chang

After saying goodbye to my Thai family, I went for a short stay on Ko Chang before my departure from Thailand. I stayed at a place called Little Eden, where a few Snake Islanders have stayed before including Tara, Joss, Eric & I believe Leah. Interestingly enough, while I was at Little Eden I met a couple named Martin & Gina who were also there back when the islanders were there a couple years ago; and that seemed to instantly make us friends. They were a really cool couple & very well traveled. There were a few others there and in the short period of time that I was there it felt like we all got to know each other well by just sitting around on the deck in the mountains having a wide range of discussions. One thing going on at the time that yielded daily discussion was the volcano in Iceland and resulting dust cloud, particularly because most of the group was from England and had upcoming flights. Some other interesting topics of discussion included cars, flying, traveling and many more random trains of thought. A very relaxing and yet insightful way to spend some time.

I also did some touring around on a moped, both with the group and on my own. The first day on the moped a group of us went to Bangboa; a cool gathering of shops & restaurants sitting on docks above the water. After that we went for iced tea at a nearby restaurant followed by sunset at a nearby beach. Later on we checked out an entertaining Thai band playing a wide range of music including Bob Marley, The Beatles, Lynard Skynard and The Rolling Stones. The next day I went out on the moped and spent some time just driving around checking things out with no real destination in mind, besides booking my bus to the airport. That night the group of us went out for dinner and then to a nearby pub.

The following day was my last day in Thailand, so I got up in good time and took another moped ride to Bangboa because I really liked the place and still had a couple hours left on my 48-hour rental. After that I said my goodbyes and then caught a bus to Bangkok airport. I spent the night at the airport and caught an early morning flight to Hawaii the next day.

The owners of the place on the right and Martin & Gina on the left

Bang Boa

The fuel gauge on my moped exaggerated how low it actually was, but I should have known that it was time to fill up when I saw it at this level. Luckily after running out of fuel I was able to coast down the hill right into a gas station.

The view as I was running out of gas

The airport bus took about 15 mins to get off the ferry. If you click to zoom in you can see the front bumper got cracked and the back bumper is dragging along the ferry floor.

The chaos at the Bangkok airport because of delays from the volcano dust cloud

Thailand Water Festival (Songkran)

When I was getting ready to leave my Thai family, they told me about the upcoming Songkran festival and srongly encouraged me to stay. At this point I knew that some planning was required, and as a resault a bunch of significant decisions were made. These included coming home two weeks sooner, cutting out Cambodia & Vietnam, adding 5 days in B.C. to my itinerary, and staying in Thailand for the Songkran festival. I am very happy with the decisions & had a fantastic time at the Water Festival. It was basically 3 days of children's water fights, except everyone participated! Just driving down the street we'd get water thrown at us by people on the side and other vehicles passing by, and when we went to the main streets there were parties everywhere and everyone was soaking wet.

We headed to the main streets armed with 2 barrels of water in the back of the truck. It was soo much fun, and the fun lasted for hours and hours, 3 days in a row! The locals were incredibly nice to me, as a foreigner. There weren't too many of us foreigners around so when they saw me they'd run up to me, say some English they knew like, "Hello! What's you name?" And of course, "drink some of this!" Good times in deed. I couldn't stop laughing, everytime we engaged in a water fight with another group I found it halarious!

On the closing day of the festival, the Master Monk asked me a favour. I knew it had something to do with the float that his temple had put together, featuring Buddha. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I agreed because who can say no to a Monk asking them a favour? I was also intrigued by what was going on with the float. I soon learned that I agreed to be on the float with Buddha, along with just three others, one of whom was dressed like some kind of princess. I had to go to a place to get all dressed up in uniform before hoping on board. We then paraded the busy streets, led by a truck with a full instrumental band on board. I felt a bit concerned about what the locals would think of a white guy sitting on the Buddha float, but once again it was all positive reaction from the locals! Some people literally made me feel like a king by the excitement they showed when I shook their hands. And one part I found particularly funny was when I waved at a truck full of teenage girls and they all screamed with joy! I actually felt a bit like a rock star :)

The parade lasted 3 hours. At first I thought I might get bored and wondered how I'd bare the heat. And then one of the other people on the float started accepting drinks from locals in the crowd and encouraged me to do the same. I gladly joined in on the festivities, and shortly after I set aside the umbrella they provided me with and allowed some direct hits of water from other festival goers. What a fantastic end to the water festival and my time with the Thai family!

Phetchabun

When I said yes to the invitation to stay with the Thai family I met in Phitsanulok, I expected that it would last maybe 2 or 3 days and then I would move on. Once there, however, it seemed they didn`t want me to leave and were constantly finding new ways of keeping me entertained. Suddenly two weeks has passed and I feel like part of their family with strong ties to many of their friends. I found myself so often thinking, "Is this really happening? Look at where I am right now...what`s happening in front of my eyes right now. I am a part of this scene, not just watching it!" The Thailand that Mel & I experienced was completely different than the Thailand that I experienced when I headed off the beaten track. At first, I felt a whole new culture shock and couldn't possibly imagine living the lives I was witnessing. By the end of my two weeks, it all seemed so much more normal to me and I really believed that many of them were just as happy with their lives as people are in our part of the world. It`s all about making good use of what you got and enjoying the important things in life. I found the family & social atmosphere to be very strong in Thailand.

While I`ll never be able to completely describe or re-live exactly what happened over the past two weeks, here are some short stories & pictures from my time in Phetchabun & beyond.

Almost immediately after publishing my last blog post, Dolly called and was wondering why I wasn`t back yet. She was throwing a BBQ back at her home with a bunch of her friends & students who wanted to meet the foreigner. I definitely stuck out in the small town they lived in; locals were excited to meet me yet often shy to speak the English they`d been learning. Despite the language barrier, I got to know a fair bit of people that night by speaking the basic sentences they knew plus a few Thai phrases that I`d throw in, with the help of my language dictionary.

I also had the privilege of meeting Dolly`s brother-in-law; the Master Monk at the nearby temple. The first time we met we had an interesting conversation about the meaning of true happiness versus artificial happiness, i.e. the happiness that people try to buy with possessions. He also invited me to stay at the temple whenever I wanted. I met another monk who spoke very good English and he told me I could use their computer to go on the Internet whenever I wanted. I found this a bit funny but did take him up on it a few times.

One day the Master Monk invited me to spend the day with him. He took me on a road trip to check out nearby temples. What better way to explore temples then with a Master Monk!

The first temple we went to was on the water where we could feed weird fish swimming around.

There was also a mini zoo at the temple. This monkey especially liked the Master Monk.

We also went to a temple that was inside a cave - very cool. The stairs up to the cave temple & the old car we were driving around in.
Back at the Master Monk`s temple
On the street near Dolly`s house. There are pictures of the King everywhere.
Another day we took a trip to a nearby waterfall. We all went for a good dip to cool off. For some reason all of the guys had their t-shirt on so I went with the flow...but it felt so wrong swimming in a t-shirt.
Good fun, except the part where I smashed my elbow off a rock. ouch!Back at my favourite restaurant. The third time we went I decided it was time for me to insist on getting the bill. 350 baht (approx $12) for 5 people with drinks & dessert. I paid more for dinner by myself in Australia!

One of Dolly`s English students had been getting to know a British man on the Internet, named Howard. Howard was coming to Thailand to meet her, and Dolly asked me to come with them to the airport to pick him up. We had to leave at 3am, but I agreed because I thought I`d be keeping her company on the 1 1/2 hour drive. Turned out 9 of us were going...seems no crowd`s ever small here! This is the ladies getting breakfast together in the back of the truck at the airport.

See the animal? At first all I saw was a bush.
That`s a lot of Buddhas!
Buddha`s got a brand new ride!

We all went to Dolly`s friends place so Howard could meet her parents. People were quickly asking when they were going to get married. Aside from that, the elders were tying string bracelets to his arm for good luck. They did the same for me, but I made it sure it was clear that I wasn`t marrying any Thai ladies!

Out to dinner. In the middle is Dolly`s friend, Chinita, and her new acquaintance, Howard

I also got to know a student of Dolly`s who`s married to a German man. They`re both in their 30`s and lived in Germany together for 8 years before moving to their new home Thailand. One day they took me to another nearby waterfall for a swim. This was the waterfall I first saw and thought they were talking about...haha

That night they had a dinner party at their house. They are the couple on the far right.

That`s all for now, except a small comment about how unbelievably hot it is here! One day I decided to sit in the back box of the truck because I thought the wind would cool me off. Definitely not the case, it honestly felt like there was a giant hair dryer blowing hot air at my entire body!

Another time we got in Dolly`s sister-in-law`s car and she cooled off herself a bit with a hand fan, then waved it a bit to cool me off, then gave it to me. I politely said, "No, I`m okay thank you," and she quickly replied, "No, you fan me!" I thought she was just offering me the fan...but apparently while she was driving I was supposed to be the fan slave.