Phi Phi Don. Love.

Today I have done what it is great to do when you are on holiday, and that is pretty much nothing. Oh, I did pass my Open Water Certificate which is a sneaky bonus. Today It's raining on Phi Phi Don so I wondered around the market and went to lunch at Thankyou, a very nice restaurant on Phi Phi. Samee, the owner - or Mr. Soda as he is called on the island - was rescued from the Tsunami in 2004 from under a building. He thought he was going to die and now thanks to Buddha he is very thankful. He is thankful that he has his shop and as Chris said 'He has his Zen back'. I like. Yesterday afternoon I was wandering along the beach which is lined with bars that all come alive in the evening. During the day they are somewhat more subdued and one in particular caught my attention. You see, before coming to Thailand I had been listening quite regularly to a reggae mix tape Chris had made a while back. It is a bangin mix. I'm not ashamed to say, that I like to bop my head to the reggae beats mon! I had envisaged myself on a beach in Thailand listening to reggae. Back to the story though. Bamboo bar was playing some Bob (Marley) and so I sat down and chilled to the reggae beats for a few hours watching the boats and the people and the sea and the sun. Content indeed.

An island in the sun

After a somewhat intense first day in Thailand, packing a little too much action into one day I woke up yesterday with a different plan of attack. Do one thing a day. I have five weeks after all. So yesterday's mission was a ferry trip to Phi Phi Island, a popular tourist destination in Thailand and known for it's amazing marine life and scuba diving (and partying, but that is so 2010).

I arrived at the ferry and as I passed my pack to the man on the ferry who was storing the luggage by simply piling all the bags on top of each other I wondered "hmmm I wonder how this is going to work at the other end". Well, it didn't work at the other end. In fact, it was a shit fight. But rather amusing all the same.

The main reason for me including Phi Phi in my travel plans is that I have two lovely friends who live on the island. Chris and Charlotte welcomed me with open arms and today Chris has started training me in my open diving cert. He is a very skilled and patient teacher and I can't wait to get going on day two. They both speak Thai and are slowly teaching me to say a few phrases like Hello, Thank you, and please no MSG haha that's an important one.

The island itself is really cute and the people here are so friendly and chilled out. I will add some photos at a later date. All in all, I am having a lovely time on Phi Phi and look forward to day two of scuba diving. Bring on the sharks.

Buddha and co

I apologise for my somewhat random photo posts. You do what you can when in Thailand equipped with an iPhone.

This was in the biggest of the temples of Wat Chalong.

Ngor

Here is my yummy breakfast.

Dedicated to Natty the elephant

Yesterday was my first full day in Phuket and I was offered a tour around the island by Manit, my friendly guesthouse owner. After a breakfast of Ngor and coconut yoghurt we were on our way. FYI: Ngor is a fruit otherwise known as rambutan and kind of looks like an alien. It's spiky and you open it with your fingernails to reveal a sticky inner fruit with a seed inside. I would attach a photo here, only I can't seem to figure out how to do this from my iPhone. Watch this space. Where was I? Oh yeah, 'the tour'.

We drove south and looked at somebody the beaches and I soon picked up on Manit's love of fishing, an cars. He showed my his cute little - pink - fishing boat and I marvelled at the size of Phuket. It's a lot bigger than I was expecting. Mid morning we arrived at Wat Chalong, Phuket's largest monestary. It was breathtaking. Just to be in and around such beautiful sacred surroundings really was quite exceptional. After about half an hour of wondering I noticed that loud explosions seemed to be going off every ten minutes or so. This was coming from a man who was entering, what looked like, a large chimney and laying out rounds of gunpowder and then lighting it. I learned later from Manit that the loud noise was supposed to bring good luck. I sure don't think it's going to bring much good luck to the man who is lighting it, he's probably going to be deaf in a week.

At this point I will say that before going to Thailand I had vowed to myself that I wouldn't do anything that supported the use and abuse of animals. One such thing was riding an elephant. Well, Manit, he talked me into it. I need to learn to be more assertive dammit! It makes me sad to see such beautiful intelligent creatures being treated like shite. The minute I was on top of the elephant I knew it was wrong. It started pissing down with rain, I got a sinking feeling in my gut, and I looked over my right shoulder to see something I would rather not have. An 'elephant rider' was atop an elephant sitting on his head and the elephant was swaying from side to side - doing what elephants do - so he yelled something in Thai and got his bull hook and swing it and whaked the elephants head. There was a gleaming red stain in the middle of the elephants head and I felt like crying. Instead I had another 30 minutes to endure. I was reminded of a conversation I'd had with Mum about driving once upon a time. She had told me a story about being in the passenger seat while Pop was driving erratically and she'd asked him to stop the car so she could get out. Mum had said to me 'If you're ever in a car and don't feel safe, ask the driver to stop and just get out'. Well sitting high up there I wanted to scream 'abort! Abort!' Only I couldn't. I was locked in. So I promised myself, and my lovely 30 year old elephant by the name of Natalie that I would do my best to never do something of the sort again. If you have a gut feeling. Go with it.

Blogger begins journey. Well, almost.

It was about a year ago that I was sitting in my friend Chris' house pondering whether or not to book flights to Thailand. It seems like such a long time ago that we were "umming" and "ahhhing" about which flights to take and whether I should book one way or return. Well, in actual fact, Chris wasn't doing anything of the sort. He was chanting "do it" "Do It!" (pretty much) next to me, while I was being the indecisive one. Surprised? Anyway, I did book that ticket and after several postponements the time has finally arrived (as of next Friday) for me to jump on board that plane to Phuket.

An important note to consider when reading this here blog. I would never claim to be a "blogger". In fact, I have never written a blog in my life and have often wondered how it is one becomes a "professional blogger". Anyway, this is beside the point. I do have a desire to keep my family and friends in the loop about my happenings in Southeast Asia and if this fits the description of a blog, then so be it. I am indeed a blogger.