From Thailand to Indonesia

So, I've just spent the last week and bit in Thailand and have since flown to Indonesia.

The last week in Thailand I spent about 5 days on the island of Ko Tao doing some Scuba diving. Now, I figured "oh yeah, sure I'll go try scuba diving, that will be all right I guess." Well it was more than all right, it was unreal! I did the four day open water certification, which was super fun. Spent the first afternoon doing some lectures, followed by more lectures the next morning. Then in the afternoon we went into the pool to practice some skills. Being in the pool was enough for me to get a kick out of. Taking your first breath underwater is a bit of a surreal experience. At first everything in your body is telling you not to breath. But you trust your regulator and take that first deep breath, followed by an exhale which is almost weirder as the bubbles seem at first a bit violent when they rush past your face mask streaking for the bleary surface. Once you get over the initial weirdness of it it becomes more natural and relaxing. The next morning was more lectures (who knew there was so much theory in SCUBA diving?) followed by our first open water dives in the afternoon. We hopped onto the boat half not knowing what to expect and headed for Mango Bay. We checked and rechecked our equipment and made sure we were all good to go and then took our first Giant Leap off the boat into the water. The diving was amazing, we had about 15m of visibility, which isn't as good as it gets there, but was still really clear. We did two more dives the next morning going down to a depth of 18m. On all the dives I saw the most amazing things. From brightly coloured anemones to sea snakes, to clown fish, barracudas, eels, manta rays, and a million other neon fish. Not to mention the Coral. Scuba diving really introduces you to an entirely new world. So much of the planet is covered by ocean and it's amazing to think about the seemingly unknowable diversity in life which inhabits the big deep blue.

After Ko Tao I headed for Bangkok for a day. Didn't get around too much as I had only really heard bad things about the place. Mainly just stuck to the touristy district I was staying in and took a "tuk tuk" around to a few different temples. I also managed to see a Muay Thai kickboxing fight that night which was really cool too see.

But, my unplanned 12 day excursion to Thailand came to an end on 20th as I flew out to Hong Kong and then onto Bali, Indonesia, where I currently am. I essentially came here for the surfing as it is world renowned. I'm in a really big tourist city called Kuta. The surf here is pretty sweet. A nice mellow beach break, perfect to hone my skills on my newly acquired board. The city of Kuta itself is a poorly planned, overly crowded and confusingly layed out trap set up for people to suck money out of you via osmosis. But I found myself a bungalow somewhat near the beach for 8 dollars a night (including banana pancakes for breakfast)and met some cool people. So that's sweet. I plan on being here for a couple of days, and then I'm going to head out to a quiter island called Lombok. We'll see what happens as far as that goes.

Either way, I can't really complain too much. After all, the water's warm, the surfs up and bikinis are still in style.

Railay, Thailand

Look closely, near the top.


Ok, So I just spent the last 3 nights at Railay, a collection of beaches on a cool peninsula on the Adaman coast of Thailand. It was super nice and extremely beautiful. The water here is unbelieveably warm. I spent most of the time enjoying hanging out on the beach and exploring the peninsula. I also managed to do a day of rock climbing. I wish I would have brought my own climbing gear, because I would have stayed there forever climbing everyday if I did. Unfortunealty it costs too much money to rent gear to justify staying there for longer to climb more. It's really interesting climbing there though, all the rock is limestone which is much different than the granite I'm used to. Lots of cool stalactites to climb!

So now that my arms are sufficiently sore and my hands torn up enough, I've moved on from Railay. Currently I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Ao Nang, waiting for my bus to take me to Surat Thani, from there I am going to catch a night ferry to the tiny island of Ko Tao. I'll arrive in Ko Tao tomorrow morning at 5 am. Ko Tao is located off the eastern coast of southern Thailand in the Gulf of the South China Sea. Ko Tao is famous for amazing scuba diving, which is why I am going there. I plan on doing the four day Open Water diving certifciation course. Here is the explanation of what we do given to me from the Scuba Planet Website.

"PADI programs are performance based. You proceed as you demonstrate mastery of the course skills. This allows you to work at a pace that is comfortable for you. We generally conduct our courses over a relaxed 4 days schedule, with the first day spent learning the basic knowledge required for safe diving, the second morning you complete your quizes and knowledge development and then in the afternoon it is time for your first dives practicing in a shallow bay , with the last day and a half conducting your Open Water Training Dives."

http://www.planet-scuba.net/kohtao/


So, hopefully that all goes well. Im super excited about trying something totally new. After I am done diving on Ko Tao I plan on heading to Bangkok for a day or two before I fly out to Indo. Thats all for now. Hope everyone has an awesome Thanksgiving! Eat lots of Turkey and Pumpkin Pie for me. Take Care.

Brett

Flying out

So here is the update. Since the last time I posted I have done a couple different things.

I spent a day renting a motorcycle and riding all around the Pohkara Valley. That was heaps of fun as it really allowed me to get out on my own and experience Pohkara away from the touristy areas. I drove out to Bengas Tal, a lake a ways away from the city of Pohkara where they engage in fish farming. So it was interesting to see that. The same day was the biggest Festival in Nepal called Dashain. It's like their Christmas apparently. At least relative to the importance of the event and not the materialism. So for lunch I came back to the hostel where I was staying and received a traditional blessing from the hostel owner. Rice died bright red was pressed between my eyes above the bridge of my nose and grass placed in my ear. This is supposed to give you good luck from once of the Hindu gods.
After that I rode my motorcycle to the International Mountain Museum and browsed around at the collection of information regarding the worlds highest mountains, a lot of very interesting information. Lasty, I spent the latter part of the day riding around on some really nice roads that bordered the beautiful lake and zig zaged its way up a mountain side over looking the lake.

Unfortunately you will have to use your imagination about what this looked like as I have managed to delete every photo I have taken up to this point off of my camera, gone forever. A little while ago I was trying to upload some of these pictures when the computer I was using malfunctioned and had to be restarted, when I disconnected my camera from the computer, all the photos were subsequently deleted. And no I didn't have them backed up...Every photo I've taken since I left home is gone.

The day after I rented the motorcycle I went on a three day kayaking trip on the seti river. It was super fun, lots of big rapids, great friends and great guides. We slept on the sandy river bank for two nights. It was a relaxing time, when we weren't on the river at least. The three days certainly allowed me to work on my paddling skills and I definitely felt tested by the class 3+ rapids.

After the Kayaking trip, I arrived back in Pohkara on the second. I still had some time till I fly out tonight so went to Sadhana Yoga retreat. I only ended up spending one full day there as I found it to be a bit hokey and I had serious cabin fever and needed to get back on the move. So at around 9 pm on the 3rd I booked a two night three day trip to Chitwan National Park which left the next morning at 7 am.

Chitwan National Park is essentially a jungle located in the southern "Terai" region of Nepal, bordering India. It was a Jungle Safari tour package I bought so all my activities were laid out for me. When I arrive that afternoon, I was taken on a Jungle walk where I saw many different birds. We then went to the elephant stables and saw some massive elephants. That was definitely really cool to see them for the first time. After that we headed to the museum where I read about the policy and initiatives of the National Park which I found to be quite interesting. That night ended with hanging out along the rivers edge watching an amazing sunset over the Terai and attending a Tharu(Native People of the Terai region) cultural dance show. The next day I went to the elephant breeding centre where I got to see and touch baby elephants! That was really cool. I want one for keeps. I also got to go check out a traditional Tharu village where the people live very simply in mud and grass huts. Later on I went to see the elephants being washed by their masters in the river. This was really cool. People were riding the elephants into the water and getting soaked. Quite entertaining to watch. Then it was time for an elephant safari where I rode an elephant into the Jungle looking for the elusive Rhinoceros. We tromped around atop a 30 year old adult elephant named Junga for an hour and a half. We saw a fair few deer but were unable to find any Rhinos. Since I was unable to see any Rhino's the Hotel owner let me go on a Jeep Safari with another group later that night. We spent about 3 hours driving around in the Jungle, which was really cool. We saw peacocks, deer, crocodiles and many birds but no Rhinos! Oh well. The next morning I headed out for Kathmandu.

Seven hour bus ride later and I'm back in Kathmandu. I arrived last night in advance for my flight to Hong Kong tonight and subsequently to Bangkok tomorrow night. I fly out of Kathmandu to HK tonight at 2315 and arrive in HK 0750 local time. Then I have till 2135 till I fly to Bangkok. So I think I am going to try to go into Hong Kong for the day to see the city at least. Ill be in Thailand until the 20th of Oct, when I fly back to Hong Kong to catch my connecting flight to Indonesia on the 21st. Haven't had much time to research what to do in Thailand, but I bought a guide book last night and I think Im going to take a cheap domestic flight to the Krabi province where there is excellent rock climbing and amazing beaches. So I will spend a few days there and then head over to South East Thailand where there is supposed to be excellent dive sites. After that I will probably head back to Bangkok and hope to catch a Muay Thai Kickboxing fight that are such a part of thai culture and maybe participate in a Muay Thai Camp for a day or two (where you take classes and learn about Muay Thai). Thats all for now! Hope everyone is doing well at home, please feel free to comment below and let me know what your up to.

Brett

Update and More Pics

Pics

On the Trail from Jomsom to Mutkinath. This part of the country is obviously very dry. You can see three tiny specs on the trail who are the three Americans we have been travelling with. We got stuck in an intense dust storm walking through this river plain which felt like it took forever.

Our stuck bus

Crazy people who ride on top of the bus

Pokhara

In Pokhara, Finished Trek

So were in Pokhara now. Spent the last two days taking jeeps and buses. Roads here were intense. At one point we decided to get off the bus and walk after it got stuck in the mud. And just before that we went over the sketchiest part of the road where were way too close to tipping off the edge of the road off a cliff into a raging river. Luckily we made it here after spending a night in Tatopani and enjoying the hotsprings. We decided not to hike up to Ghorepani yesterday as it was raining all night and all morning. Instead we opted for the harrowing bus and jeep ride. Either way I made it to here. The city is much nicer than Kathmandu and I feel the need to go explore this city. For some reason my photos wont upload right now. Will try again later.

Brett

Over the Thorong La

So we made it over the Thorong La pass yesterday. Was a pretty intense day, after so much lead up and time spent acclimatizing, we started in the dark at 5 am to make sure we were up and over the pass before the typical noon storms roll in. We had a perfect day of it, only took 6 hours to get up and down to the next town (mutkinath)
We hiked through the most amazing sunrise over the gargantuan himalayan peaks. Was a very surreal experience. we reached the pass at 8 am before most others, spent 15 or 20 minutes up there and headed down. The elevation made the hiking very demanding at an elevation of 5000m there is 50% of the oxygen that is at sea level. Needless to say, breathing was very difficult and every step uphill was a great effort. Hiking at a snails pace was neccessary. Luckily we managed to surpass most other hikers and reach the pass with few others around.

So now that we have reached the other side of this mountain range, things are much different. The landscape is very dry and reminds me of Kamloops. Things are also much more developed here. While on the other side we were hiking where there were no roads through tiny undevloped villages, today we hiked on roads with trucks and tractors and motorcycles flying past us kicking up a dust storm. Turns out, as we suspected, this area has been more developed over the last 5 years and a road now goes all the way from Pokhara to Mutkinath. Today we walked through a dust storm in an area that felt like it could be Egypt of Afghanistan to arrive in a fairly large town called Jomson. We are planning to skip over a few days of the trek by takin a jeep to Tatopani tommorow. This is mostly because the best part of the trek is behind us and the trek is a bit tainted now that there are vehicles and people trying to sell us stuff again. So in Tatopani are hot springs and the worlds deepest valley. The Kali Gandaki river is at an elevation of 2200m with the peaks on either side of the river at 8000m. Qualifying it as the worlds deepest valley. From there we hike one more day to Ghorepani and spend a night. The next morning we plan on hiking 1.5 hours up to an area known as Poon hill where there is an amzing view of the mountains. After that we plan to hike to Nayapul and then take a bus back to Pokhara, Nepals second biggest city. Though, apparently it is much cleaner, quiter and has less traffic than Kathmandu. The city is beside a large lake with amazing views of the himalayas around. So we get there on the 27th then I spend 10 days there doing a yoga retreat and checking out the surrounding area, and then I have to decide what to do until the 22nd when I fly to indonesia. I might try to change my flight to spend 2 weeks in Thailand to do some rock climbing, just an idea for now but I will look into the details once in Pokhara. Thats all for now though. Will update again when in Pokhara, when I hope to put up some picutres and whatnot. Take care hope everyone is doing well. Ciao for now.