sarasia2004

china town is great fun!! it is crowded, busy, colorful and you get good bargains! i bought lots of "useless" stuff and man, if i lived here, i would create SO much! the "matieres premieres" you need are just so cheap here. i went to khao san and got myself a hammock - now all i need is a porch, two trees or a loft, easy!
in the evening jaray took me to silom soi 4, a gay area, it was fun, but very crowded. like you're always in somebody's way.
as i got out of the soi in search of a cab, a black basketball teacher started talking to me and wanted to get me into his car and the tuk tuk driver i was dealing with gave me the hell of a deal - 10 baht, so that i got away from him :) everywhere i go, people worry for me and want to protect me.
there seem to be many more farangs in bangkok now than six weeks ago. maybe people collecting back to this south-east-asian capital to fly back home... no lo se. but i do know that the boat and the underground prices have risen! anyway, i'm off.
O! my red pulli is on koh phi phi, an island i wanted to go to anyway, so all is good :)

on my last evening on koh phan-ngnan we ate fish that micki, the owner of our evening "stammlokal" had caught during the day. when he showed me the fish, i distinctly recognized the flat yellow couple i had seen swimming together the morning before. they had really stood in my mind and there they were. but they were GOOOOD!
in the morning i left our little beach hut and its happy inhabitants, a scorpion!!, the 15cm big spiders, the various ant-metropolae, the lizards and the cats & dogs and the guys drove me to thongsala. we had lunch in our breakfast "stammlokal", owned by a toothless man with a great smile, then drove to the pier. the boat to surrathani was full of look-at-me-i'm-o-so-cool-and-behave-like-i-own-the-world people, which was quite pathetic. caught the train to bkk, slept, which was no surprise, considering the arrey of short nights i had been gathering and got into bangkok at around six. i LOVE cities when they come alive - there is something magical about them. in thailand, you see the monks collecting their offerings, vendors arranging the goods on their stalls, people catching public transport, etc. today i have decided to walk around 'til my legs fall off, to soak up as much asia as i can! :) i am now in chinatown, a part of bkk the thais avoid, because it is so hectic and busy.
i am heart-broken because i have lost my little-red-riding-hood-sweater :'(

torches guided me as i rode through the jungle last night. i payed the entrance fee, walked up a small hill and stood there in wonderment! phosphorescent colourful constellations hovered in the sky like spaceships considering to land. it was amazing! there i was, on my first goa. i got to the location rather early and chilled on a mat, near a candle. the dancearea was a sanded floor, surrounded by palmtrees, a bar and the dj and was overlooked by a big several-storied hut. neon colours, fun music - psychodelic trance. i was second on the dancefloor and couldn't stop! i kept a look out for marcus, joerg, steve or andy, but did not see any of them. but man! perfect place to write a book about the worst pick-up lines ever! guys... i don't understand them. what on earth do they think? and can't they just leave a girl in peace? israelis are the worst ;) (ja doni)! at one point i returned to my bag and found it untied, as i drank my water i was surprised by some hard bits in it, like something that hadn't quite dissolved yet. i thought "o" and "too late" and continued dancing. all of a sudden, i got SO tired, i sat down, slept a little - this has NEVER happened to me before, and it was early man! then decided to ride home. i stopped for some food round four a.m. then continued my journey, only to find myself stumbeling to my island and hallucinating like mad. luckily, the guys were home and i could talk nonsense for a bit.
woke up with a terrible headache...
bought my ticket for bongkok. am leaving tomorrow.

i think i have not yet stated how beautiful this island is. it is BEAUTIFUL :)
as i mentioned above, there are only three roads and a couple of dirt tracks, so most of the island is jungle and many beaches can only be reached by boat or long walks. i have not seen a single crowded beach! i spent these past few days just driving around, stopping at various beaches, going for a swim, driving on... this morning i drove down to haad rin and got a boat to haad yuan, the beach were chris and Q are staying. these guys are off their rockers! they are doing a seven day cleansing fast which comprises lymph-flushing veg-juices and colonicals that get everything out that has been stagnating in your insides for decades! perfectly gross. but it was great to see them!! :) chris is one of the coolest people i know. and the beach they live on is strikingly paradisiacal-the nicest i've seen here!
the roller-coaster road enabled me to witness a gorgeous sunset, over hills and sea and through palm trees - mmm!
tonight there's the half-moon party somewhere in the jungle. i think i'll go.
am planning to stay a day longer here. would like to shop some sarongs and stuff and swim some more :)

what craziness!! :) the day yesterday was a total success! we biked down to haad rin, which are two beautiful beaches, one of which hosts the renowned full-moon parties. the beach was gorgeous, perfect for swimming and surprisingly not crowded at all! the road there was awful!! it's like a roller coaster, no kidding!! you know when you're right at the top of a roller coaster, just before the drop, well the road's just like that. the only difference being that you feel quite safe on a roller coaster... at one point, on a very steep hill a truck came down round a bend and forced me to a standstill. so i held my machine the best i could (damn heavy those things!) but as i pressed to keep it and me from sliding down, i turned the gas and the rear wheel skid away from me, machine 45 degrees between my legs, i was in a lock and a guy got out of a car and helped me get the bike uphill - pffew! i also did a wheelie - by mistake. i don't know whether i like motorbikes. i love-hate the thrill. we drove back through thongsala and up to haad yow, where steve is staying. i recognized the local looking guy ;) by his distinct hip move whilst throwing a frisbee! haha! great to see him again! his friend tory has come down and he has actually spent four entire days on koh phan-ngan without having seen the south, the waterfalls or anything! chillin' while we were having some food, a storm broke out... the island only has three roads, the others are dirt tracks. the drive home was terrifying. this morning joerg and i went snorkeling! it was incredible!! like a parallel world! you have your head out of the water and see (beautiful) coastline and mountains, then you glance underwater and wow! so many fish, so many colors, what wonderful coral reefs!! you wouldn't believe that stuff was there by the look of the sea. so, i saw lots of nemos! and yellow striped fish, swarms of zebra fish (they're really not afraid of you) and big long spotted fish, orange fish, thin fish, round fish, flat fish, small fish, long fish and even metallicblue fish!! and two "raies". the only negative thing was getting IN to the water. the level is very flat for a long time and you glide over fat ugly black worms, your belly nearly touching them! - we have no idea what they are, but they are GROSS. they are about ten centimeters thick and thirty long... but hey, nothing comes without a price!
after a shower, guess who comes along? steve! he'd got a kayak and came round :) so we lent him our snorkeling gear and that was the last i saw of him! (probably started a new life with a wife and family, under the sea - i heard there were a good bar and an octopus’s garden down there)
then joerg and i lay in parallel hammocks and listed to janice joplin and the doors, while marcus read. this was so nice. you barely open your eyes and see glimpses of the see, palm trees, blue sky - man, this is holiday!
we drove to thongsala for breakfast and realized it was already three!!! that really annoyed me, cause i had planned to drive down to haad rin and get a boat to visit Q. too late for that, so i joined marcus and joerg and we drove east, to a waterfall and a wonderfully remote beach. unfortunately, we couldn't profit from it, as the sky turned black and we decided to head back. joerg had a flat tire and got a pick up to give him a lift, so marcus and i drove on - apparently i drove like a female pig, and he had difficulties keeping up with me. man, these roads are bad. they are tracks, bearing lots of groves from erosion. the hills are steep, so you have to be fast to prevent your bike from stopping, but given the speed, you have to decide quickly what side of the grove you want to be on. i find it scary. and it's quite a dip into cold water, considering that my only motorized bike experience was trying to impress a guy in the park. i had borrowed the bike off a friend, drove a few meters, turned and slid. so much to that.
O!! i bumped into andy today!! or better, he called out to me as he tuktuked round a bend :) i drove behind him for a while and we had a little chat. i will try to find him on his beach. isn't it freaky that our don det group is nearly reunited on this island? we were six lonesome travelers, got together, separated and are now stranded on an island - and i never intended to go to koh phan-ngnan, and andy should be on a boat to australia, i don't know
anyway, that has been my day so far. i am still waiting for joerg to show up. steven said he would come by tonight.
the countdown is on... my holiday is running out...i'm leaving the island on the 8th...

something really strange happened. in thewet, bkk, i crossed the road and bumped into a small rasta kid i had already seen three times before! he recognized me too. we had met in laos, on a dark road on don khong, then at the angkor temples in cambodia and finally a third time in bkk. i think that's really freaky, considering that a) it was dark in laos and we both noticed each other, b) the angkor site is vAAst, c) so is bkk and d) the time-place coincidence is crazy!! what do you think?

hellowy!! :) i'm on koh pha-ngan, an island in the south of thailand. left cambodia for bkk. joerg and marcus tried - and failed - loosing me by jumping on another bus. i collected my bags in bkk, met jaray and hopped on an overnight train down south. we arrived at 8 in the morning in surrathani and got a boat to koh phan-ngan. we now have a bungalow on koh maa, a little island off the north of koh phan-ngan and have three hammocks and a VERY big spider.
i haven't been up to much yesterday, but today we got some motorbikes and have set out to explore the island. Q and chris are here as well, and i just read that steve is here too, so i'll try to find them all today :)
have realised with shock that we have begun the month of september!!! :/ only six more days left! :'(

as i have already told you, the angkor temples are amazing! today i saw my two favorites : don't ask me their names, but both were very old, tucked away, in the midst of the jungle, one just a labyrinth of passage ways and rooms, heavily ornamented with carvings the other totally overgrown by jungle. giant trees had plunged their roots through the stonework, nature sure had the upper part.
unfortunately we had a problem with the tuk tuk driver (he charged double the price we had discussed), so we drove home early and in a bad mood.
siem reap is full of beggars of all sorts; limbless landmine victims, starving kids, mothers with babies, ... it is extremely tough. i do not like to encourage begging, but give money to landmine victims (it's bloody not their fault they are the way they are, and there's not much they can do for a living) and food to kids, but am really looking forward to leaving cambodia. i do not know how to cope. i witnessed similar poverty in india, but as i was doing humanitarian work there at the time, i felt i was helping improve the situation. being a tourist feels awful. don't want to be in this situation again.
i am taking the bus to bangkok tomorrow morning and marcus and joerg are coming along! happy :)

o yea, i forgot to tell you, yesterday a golden snake wrapped itself around my ankle; i thought it was a branch and freaked out when i discovered it wasn't!