Luang Prabang

So i left Chiang Mai and arrived in Luang Prabang. I met some friends in the airport in Chiang Mai named Jeanette and Malcolm who are 50 somethings who volunteer teach abroad. That is awesome. They were so much more in touch with local dealings than i could have ever imagined i would have learned being a solo traveler. I got on our puddle jumping jet, full of 19 rows of 4) and we basically Top Gun flew through northern Lao mountains to land the plane! Amazing scenery! By the way, it is Lao and not Laos, just learned that in asia. Laos frowned upon here. Lao is smiled upon. So i got a personal tuk tuck with Jeannette and Malcolm who had set it up previously wiht Mr. Pong. I just got a little lucky meetin ghooked up people in town. They introduced me to ColdRiver Guesthouse and i started off. I actaully met my friend David, from the Hillt tribe trek, while getting out of the tuk tuk! He was with Aroe, a Finnish guy, we caught up a bit about his riverboat ride and all. Checked out the night mkt and i ate the hell out of an 8000 kip buffet, one dollar american. We made friends with a Malaysian couple from Kuala Lumpur named Weia and Eugene, and headed to Lao Lao Garden for drinks. Just saying lao is cheap...3 US dollars bought me 12 shots of Lao Lao. Was a fun night, but not too crazy because there is a curfew in Luang Prabang of midnight. So i hustled back to my guesthouse and barely got in before midnight.

Next day i met Aroe and David at lunch and we met up with Henry, a friend of Josephine and Whitfield, and a fellow fucking American! Caught up about his travels for a bit and then we all set up our trip to Vang Vieng. Henry grabbed a tiger snooze while we all rented(hired if you are british, haha) for a ride up the Mekong. Talk about a big huge monster river, this is it. Breathtaking scenery wiht mountains, river, trees, people wrking in fields, living off of nothing, selling fruit for nothing. I was blown away by how much we live on compared to here. I mean they say that a Lao native lives on a dollar a day and sleeps in a hut wiht no running water or electricity, and no meat. NO MEAT! i couldnt be Lao for just taht reason, il spend money to eat some damn steak. Very nice people all the time and extremely country.

Met back up with Henry at Cold River Guesthouse adn headed to dinner wiht a british couple we had met. OK, get ready to be jealous, we ate dinner during sunset with a group of six people comprised of 2 americans, 3 brits, a Finlander(FIn?) overlooking the Mekong River at sunset. My green curry with rice was delicious and my two Lao beers put up a fight for best meal on the table. Then we showed Henry the night mkt and headed to Hive bar for a bit. We were all dead and had an early mornign so sleep won out.

Woke up at 7:30 caught our minivan full of 12 people for a 5 hour trip to Vang Vieng. Oh wait, did i say 5 hours, haha. That was a lie they told us at the bus station because it definitly took 8 hours to actuyally get through all the mountain switchbacks and windy roads. ALl in all i cant complain because the whole time i felt like i was in Jurassic Park or even more recent...Avatar mountains in the sky...Pandora! It was some of the most beautiful views ive ever had in my life. Our bus had a French couple, a Norwegian girl, a couple from New Zealand, two German/Swiss girls. Cool trip and Henry even busted out the ipod to rock some tunes to make the trip more enjoyable, nice move. Got to Vang Vieng a couple of hours ago and got our hostel, oh wait, i meant bungalow overlooking the river under the gorgeous mountainside. It is amazing here. Henry, David, Aroe, and I dropped our stuff and grabbed a bucket of whiskey and dinner and now i am about to hit napland before we rock the hell out of Vang Vieng. Crazy how many groups of friends i have already met here who i saw somewhere else. Gonna be a good night

Side note: no pictures because we thought me would be able to tube the river today so im on ly in a swimsuit and no camera wire. More to come, hope everyone back home is having fun and I wish you all were doing this with me.

Suits

Power blue suit

i tied the tie way too quickly, dont judge me

Summer drug dealer style pimp suit

Black formal suit for business time with business socks

ok, here is my only american express commercial, i promise

Three custom tailored suits with Name embroidery on inside pocket...

Two custom tailored shirts with initials on sleeves...
Three ties thrown on top...

Delivery to my doorstep in Texas...

15,000 baht...$500...yep, priceless is not paying full price while getting a massage between fittings.

my tailor/designer was awesome too

TIGERS! Holy Shit...TIGERS!

So here is a picture of my hostel room at Julie Guesthouse and my pack and all my stuff just so you can get an idea of where I am sleeping. Last night we were all gonna go out but while walking to the bars we found this foot massage place literally on the sidewalk for 30 baht for 30 minutes. That is a dollar for a little Thai lady to rub your feet and calves until you are about to fall asleep. Well, that is exactly what happened, we just went back and zonked out after that.

So today is a day ive been looking forward to for awhile...TIGERS and driving on the left side of the road. The driving was definitely much more dangerous. My buddy Simon from Sweden met me at 10:30am at the lobby where we had the scooters dropped off at the hostel, bikes delivered , sweet. We drove the 40 minutes through the city of Chiang Mai and on the highway going fast for a scooter. I got her up to around 100 klicks per hour which is a little over 60 miles an hour wearing shorts and a short sleeved shirt. Did i mention that the thai highways have suggestions and not really rules persay? so you are supposed to stay on your side of the highway but if it is bothersome you can just roll on over to the other side for a while. And you kinda just weave in and out of traffic a lot. The driving on the left really was no big deal except at the very start when i turned right instead of left, idiot.

So we raced up to Mae Rim where the TIGER KINGDOM is.

Ok, talking about playing with tigers is really cool, but when you actually get there it is kind of like, hmmmm, these are really big cats. Like really big. Our little guide took us to see the cubs which was cute because they were only 10 days old. Then she showed us the medium sized tigers who were around 7 months old, tong sip and tong joon. I probably could have taken one of them...with a rifle that is.

So with these guys we basically got our teeth cut on how to deal with the tigers. You cant do any of the following or you might get attacked

1. No touching of the face

2. No touching of the head

3. No touching of the front paws

4. No approaching from the front

I hate rules but I was ok with following these. We got to lay and play a little with them. Then we were ready for the big boys.

Now I am swimming deep waters. I walk in the big tiger area where three 500 lb male tigers are just laying around and playing with coconuts and im ready to see how to do this. First off, the first tiger, "sticky rice", looked me straight in the eye and i was scared shitless like Mowgli from the Jungle Book! Then the dude told me to go around and play with his stomach really forcefully...WTF? So i slapped the shit out of this tigers belly and layed on him and spooned him. A couple times he looked back and scared the ever living shit out of me but I kept it cool and slapped his belly again, haha.

Shhhhhhhh.....only emotions......

Took the tiger by the tail

That my friend is called taking a Tiger Snooze!

RAWR!

Hello huge headed killing machine

Attack this

Well, the internet place is closing so i gotta go. All in all it was an amazing day. Had lunch with Jorgen and Sandra and Simon. Went around the saturday walking street and of course i got another massage. Time for reading and sleep

Today is Today, Tomorow is tomorow: Hill Tribe Trekking through the Jungle!

Whew! So I am back in civilization after a cultural shower of Hill Tribes and Jungle Elephants and waterfalls. This will be a long one but here goes...

So I left Chiang Rai headed for Chiang Mai and already the bus ride through the mountains was breathtaking. I got to see an orange and pink sunset over misty mountains full of lush trees without sweating at all, haha. Got to Chiang Mai and got dropped off for half of the price of a tuk tuk because I made friends with a thai family that ran a car service, sweet. While walking around trying to find a hostel, who did I run into but my friends Byrd and Mary from my flight. I dropped my bag, grabbed a big chang beer and we exchanged stories of our trips thus far. They had gone to Sukhothai and Ayutheia(spelling?) and had a great time checking out wats(temples) and a bunch of other cool stuff. They had already booked a hilltribe trek for three days for 1800 baht, 60 bucks, while I had been haggling from 5000 -3500 back in Chiang Rai. They invited me to join their trek and i did. I went to Graces guesthouse and dropped my bags off. We all got showered and went to...yep, MUAY THAI FIGHTING! In Bangkok it was at least 1500 baht(50 bucks) but here it was only 400! We saw kids fight, women fight, and men knock the crap out of each other. It was a cultural phenomenon to see them cheer their kids on. After the fights, and my lost bets of 3 dollars total, I squared off against Byrd. Fun times.

Got up early the next morning and caught our group consisting of Byrd, Mary, Me, David(british dude heading off to college soon), Jorgen and Sandra(Dutch Newlyweds on their honeymoon), Adam and Durren(british backpackers, and our guides Po and Ni(who i called Bill Nye the Science Guy). We rode out to a local mkt where I grabbed pad thai for 10 baht(30cents). Then we rode up to ride elephants. Initially we were waiting so i went to play with the elephants on break and tried to wrestle a 2 week old baby. Uhhh, i lost, haha. THey are playful little beasts! Me and David were on the papa elephant. You could tell by his insanely large, well you get the picture.

And no, that wont be posted, but yes i did get a shot of it. We rode them around and I actually sat on his neck and drove a freakin elephant! It was amazing. Definitely one for the memories. After elephanting, yep just said that, we went and had lunch whcih was pad thai, rice and stuff and lots of pineapple. Awesome. Then we trekked to this nice waterfall where we played around a while and cooled off. then we trecked into the hills for around 2 hours to the Karon Hill tribe where Po grew up. It was gorgeous there. Had a huge dinner, drank a bunch of Chang beers, played guitar by the campfire, made up a Hill Tribe song including water buffalo of course, etc. I even got to muay thai fight an 8 yr old, haha. His dad told me to whip his ass and if i didnt have like 130 pounds on him it might have been a different story, tough kid. saw some huge spiders and we slept in a bungalow with mosquito nets.

Woke up the next day and trekked a long way with a new sweet walking stick to another amazing waterfall where we actually slept that night. we ate dinner, played in the water, told ghost stories, laughed a lot, went for a midnight fishing exploring expedition and all the necessities of the hill tribe life. By the way, our guide Po was the coolest guy ever. He is actually a member of the Karon Hill tribe and runs his own business at the age of 24. He can do anything and he taught us that Today is Today, Tomorow is Tomorow. Always smiliing and laughing and making a great time. We zonked out and got some good sleep and went on a good long trek to meet up and go bamboo rafting. The guys raft definitely dominated the girls raft if you were wondering. We even got to rope swing and jump of a 25 ft rock jump into a huge pool of drunken thais, haha, they were still celebrating songkran. an old man yelled "Phalang" which means westerner, and shook my hand after jumping. Then we hopped in the truck and went back to Chiang Mai. Me and David switched hostels to TK's where we had a view over the whole city and a holiday inn style suite for, yep you guessed it, 300 baht total. I payed 5 bucks for a room, I love Thailand!

We all showered up and met up with the whole group and went for a massage. My thai massage was an hour and cost me 5 bucks, yep, and I felt awesome. did I mention this place is cheap? That would have cost 60 bucks in Texas. We all bounced around and met up with Adam and Durren at a rooftop bar then rolled over to Reggae bar where no other than Mister Po and Mister Ni were awaiting our arrival! We partied like rockstars and danced the night away like the drunken western tourists we are. Had a blast with the group. We got late night food and even managed to ride a motorbike for part of the ride home. Asleep at 5:30am, great night.

Woke up, switched hostels to Julie Guesthouse which is famous. Met and had a drink with the girls, then I went to sort out this suit thing in Thailand. I had been referred by David, my retired CPA friend in Chiang Rai, to a place which Julie also recomended. I went and bought three custom made high quality suits, two custom shirts, and three ties for the grand price of...$500. yep, i love Thailand. Now im gonna go nap and meet up with Jorgen, Sandra, Mary, and Byrd for our all last night together.

Wow what a trip it has already been and I cant even begin to imagine what the rest has in store because to be frankly honest, I didnt even really know that much about this part of the trip till I got here and it has been awe inspiring.

Catch up from Bangkok to Chiang Rai

ok, so that is a picture of the group from the hostel. The computer here is really slow so I will put up a lot more pictures when it doesnt take forever.

So my last meal in Bangkok was this really good and really spicy soup by some street vendor lady who has a cult following of locals so I figured it would be good. I was sweating like crazy after i put a second spoonful of spices into my blazing hot soup. It was really good and a proper sendoff. Caught my plane at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok. Actually a really cool airport. Thai air was really clean, played nice music and fed me food for only an hour long flight. Take notes continental etc. I arrived in Chiang Rai and began the hostel search. I love the way i do this because there is some planning but not near enough to be civilized about it. I always tell the driver to take me to somewhere the lonely planet suggests and then i look around and say i am gonna check some other places out. so i did that at the "easy guest house" here and bounced across the street where Joe, owner of Krazy Joes, bought me a beer. We talked for a while and he is an expat from New York who has 2 wives here in Thailand! Met an Aussie who advised me on hostels and i started walking down the street here. Checked out like 5 or 6 and finally decided to go with Buun Bun Dun or whatever itis called. I actually have a whole room, shower, restroom, queen sized bed, and my own cleaning lady for the tall sum of...yep, you guessed it, 200 baht. That is 6 bucks and change bitches! so i dropped my stuff off and grabbed a beer at coconuts bar. Decided to go check out the hill tribe museum.

On the way there i asked a white guy how to get there and he quickly told me it was a crock of shit, haha. His name was David and i started asking questions. David is a retired CPA from Hawaii who has lived in Northern Thailand for 7 years. I think i learned more from talking to him last night about Thailand than i have about anything this whole trip. He told me about a couple places and actually gave me a ride to a place that was actually open(songkran and sunday makes for no places open) and we grabbed dinner. I dominated my yellow curry with pork. The food was great and I just kept asking questions and asking questions. David taught me a lot about the corruption in Thailand and all the not so cool stuff. He now owns a fish, rice, and a bunch of other stuff farm in a village not far from here. He married a Thai gal years back and is a happy dude. We had a couple of beers and i basically just dragged information out of him about all of Thailand and whatever else came up. He ended up buying the dinner and advised me to marry anyone but a Thai girl, haha. He pointed me in the right direction of bars and i dropped my daypack off at the hostel and grabbed a beer with Krazy Joe and David and a couple French people at Joes bar. then I popped over to a Jamaican style place and met some folks from California and we exchanged stories.

As soon as my laundry is done here i am going to figure a way to get to Chiang Mai. It is cooler up here in the NOrth.

Oh, and Stuart, by the way, i changed it so you can comment without actually being a member of google or whatever.

that is me rockin some pad thai with chicken and egg for 30 baht, yep 1 dollar! heading back after Songkran

now here are some pics from crazy Songkran Festival on Khao San Rd!

first party night with hostel friends

so after that thai massage i swore to myself i wouldnt take a nap so I could go out that night. I got back to the hostel and met my british friends Dave and Ben who stay in the same dorm room as me. I bought them a big chang beer apiece and we started talking about their 3 month trip through asia. i have learned more from just talking to people than any book could ever provide. I learned that Lao is the coolest place on earth(too bad ive only scheduled 2 days there) and ive learned loads about all the different places I am going because most of these people have been there. So we were discussing all their trip when the rest of our dorm met us at our table outside. Our dorm is ten beds, all bunk beds, me, two british dudes(dave and ben), a german guy, one german girl named Milly who tells everyone she is swedish, and 5 british girls who just got in from India. We all started playing Kings, which i feel ive now spread some american culture now, and then they asked me about american football. I obviously replied that i could throw a pigskin a quarter mile. so they challenged me to throw a beer bottle really far. After explaining passing routes to people who didnt know any other position name than quarterback I accepted the challenge. I chucked this big beer bottle really far over the hostel wall! Really funny then, huh? well later the Thai police came to investigate a bottle throwing incident! the owner of the hostel covered for me, I love Danish people, and the cop sat down at the table and asked if we had been drinking...he had been tipped off that it was me and I didnt want to go to a Thai prison, which the owner told me was at stake, so told the cop that my friends had been but i hadnt started yet but intended to later. The cop was actually really cool and shook my hand and said there was no problem and to enjoy my time in Thailand! WHAT THE HELL! I could have gone to a thai prison last night! Whew, i am a lucky guy. Well after that I decided it was going to be an amazing night! The girls went to go buy drinks, we got some beers and we finished our drinking game like studs. then we all showered up and hopped on a tuk tuk. By all i mean 4 people jumped in a cab, 5 girls jumped in the tuk tuk and i jumped on the back of the tuk tuk, safety first right mom? We blazed down the streets of bangkok to Khao San Rd where all the other drunk tourists go. I am actually amazed this driver didnt flip the tuk tuk. We met up with some other friends and I bought everyone energy drinks. we went to Gullivers, then to an outside bar where we all had whisky buckets and met up with some other English dudes and a guy from Ohio, America Fuck Ya! We took the whole damn crew to a club called..."The Club." We all danced and had the cliche glow sticks as you would expect. The brits got hammered, imagine that, we all had a blast and I even had a Thai girl, all of 4'11" try to grind on me, hahaha, she hit my knee, hahahahaah. By around 2am i was dead tired so dave, ben and I grabbed some amazing pad thai off of a street vendor and hopped in a cab home. What a great night! I had a blast with all these new friends.

Woke up at 8:30 and realized again that our whole crew literally lived in the same room! I love traveling. Ben and Dave wanted to go to this huge market outside of town so Milly, the german swedish girl, jumped in too. they all ate mcdonalds for breakfast which i vetoed like a legitimate traveler, and I grabbed apples and grapes for breakfast and we hopped on the sky train. we went to this insanely enormous market called the Chatachuk weekend market. you can buy anything from puppies to jeans to food to souvenirs or whatever your heart desires here! I have too much crap already and just had fun trying to bargain the vendors down.

Grabbed lunch with some other new friends and now it is about nap time. I feel now like my body has gotten on Thai time and i am good to go. I also have seen that purifying your water is very important and malaria medication is useless. All the travelers Ive talked to havent even heard of taking it in any of the malaria ridden countries. At least i know now. I feel like some of the best parts of traveling honestly are just the information exchange with other people from other parts of the world. they have been to places that i havent and places i am going and I really like hearing what they have to say. And I dont mind bragging that everyone Ive hung out with has told me that I have given them a better opinion of Texas and Americans than what they previously had. That makes me feel good for sure. If you didnt know, everyone across the world hates George W. Bush! While everyone across the world loved Clinton and thinks people from Texas have horses( sometimes i play along and say that Trigger is my horse until i start laughing).

This trip is amazing so far. I leave tomorow for Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

Random day from awesomeland!

Today was the luckiest travel day i may have ever had.

First off i got up really early, got a taxi over to the temple area and grabbed some pineapple and some stuff i cant describe(good though), all for 1 buck total. I walked around and checked out the river and then started rolling toward the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Definitely bought some badass blue pants with golden elephants on them because you cant just roll into the temples in cargo shorts. I sat and checked out the little buddha which is probably about the size of mini me from austin powers except really important. There are amazing paintings all around the gold and silver shrine inside the temple. Later I found out that the temple is supposed to represent all the worldly needs you could ever want. all i could think about was Rudolph the red nosed reindeer...silver and gold song. haha. It was gorgeous inside and out. All the buddhists come here to pay tribute to Buddha by pouring oil on statues, giving flowers and candles, and some of them even made handmade concoctions to pay hommage. And by the way, if i havent mentioned it earlier, i was dripping sweat and it was like 9am. Hades like nobodies business. after the emerald buddha, i walked to grab some coconut milk and stroll down some streets around the palace.

I actually found this little neighborhood of huts/shacks right on the river where everyone offered me food. Im amazed that they live in an area the size of my closet with mom, dad, and children! Be thankful for what you have. Kept walking, checked out a bunch of little shops, and went back to the main road after buzzing through the Royal Gardens. Ok, here is where the randomness starts. I was just walking around like a silly tourist and taking pictures when this soldier, yes i said soldier, yelled at me to get out of the road. I was like sorry, sorry, dont shoot me with your huge rifle. I was pushed to the side and then it started...a brigade of bmw's rolled down the road with a cavalcade of motorcycles. Then i saw the cream colored bentley/rolls royce, either way it was really cool, coming my way. I asked the lady next to me, "king?" and she said "NO, prince." I luckily walked upon the Princes Procession on the Thai New Year celebration of Songkran, hell ya! Talk about lucky, ive never even seen our president in person. No complaint there by the way, ha.

Then i started trying to find this place to eat called Poj spa Kar. It was closed just like everywhere else, damnit. I was sweating like a pig, tired, hungry, didnt really know where i was so i did the only logical thing any american male would do. I bought a huge beer and a huge water and sat down on the curb! Much to my surprise these three Thai men were sitting around a plate of food eating lunch. One of them waved at me to come over, and "Sawatdee Krup" i yelled. Here i go. He gave me his seat and i saw they had the same idea i had. We sat there like old buddies bullshitting for about an hour. I grabbed them a beer, they grabbed me a beer. It was great. We communicated through broken english and shitty Thai and a common love of food and beer. They told me where to look out for protesting red shirts. I learned that my new friends owned four cocks for cock fighting and they were all extremely into muay thai boxing. mark my words, make friends with Thais, because after hanging out with these guys for a while, the one who could speak english told me he would finish my days journey with me, but on his Tuk tuk....for free! so i got a ride to the reclining buddha, the Golden mount(basically tallest point in Bangkok), and to a couple other cool stops, all without paying a dime.

Then my friend took me to close to his home where I got some free pad thai from a hot thai lady i told him he should marry, i assume she was his girlfriend, once again, i dont speak this language. He took me to figure out how to charge my camera and showed me a couple spots that tourists dont know about. I was just blown away that this guy was driving me around for free for around an hour and a half on his dime. He told me that Thai people are happy because happy is just easier to be, nice words brah.

So he just dropped me off at my hostel. I just took a shower because ive been soaked by little kids with buckets of water, damn Songkran, and i had also sweat a ton too. Now it is 4:30pm and i am gonna go grab a thai massage. Life is good.

Rest of Day 1

So I decided to move hostels to a place called New Road Guest House. This is like the Danish hotbed of travelers. I got my first Thai massage too. I never thought a tiny woman under 5 feet tall could twist me around in so many awkward but cool positions. I definitely see how you could do that every day because I paid 7 dollars for an hour massage and it was amazing. You walk in, bow and throw a sawatdee their way and they will do anything for you. I jumped the line just because i bowed and greeted correctly, boom winner! You get water and little shoes(little because my feet popped out about and inch and a half, silly americans) and you get your feet scrubbed before you start because feet are a big disgust factor in Thailand. Then you go into your room, sectioned off by curtains, and change into light clothing they provide and wait for her to knock. Then an hour of comfortable to awkward to what the hell am I doing goes down! It was relaxing and I felt absolutely refreshed afterwards, and they gave me tea when I left.

I got a Lonely Planet from a friend I met at an internet cafe, score, and after moving all my stuff just listened to the Bangkok tourguide for a bit in my hostel. Grabbed street food on my trip back with "Eric" my cabbie. Basically the street food here is out of this world. Very little communication is available so I just point and smile and whatever they put on a plate is amazing. Not to mention i paid 50 cents for my lunch, hahahaha.

Here is where it gets interesting. Like i said earlier, Songkran, the Thai New Year, is going on and there is a waterfight taking place all over the city. So naturally I went to the mecca of the watershed...Khoa san Rd. I got soaked, bought a gun, soaked some thais, got tons of puddy softly rubbed on my face by a thousand thais. that is the traditional way. ALl this happens on a packed street with tons of cheap beer and whisky buckets and food and dancing and singing and(screw commas) and smiles and all sorts of fun! It was a blast. I decided that America should adopt this.

After that I was beat, went home to take a power nap, 6 oclock, and woke up at 10:30, haha. Jetlag has affects. Then I decided to get up early and tour all the temples the next day. So i grabbed some sleep and woke up at 5am this morning for the first time in a long time. Today is tour day with the Grand Temple and Reclining Buddha and all of it.

another Bangkok day starts, it is 6:09am.

Bangkok Day 1

Damn its hot!

Yesterday was a hell of a travel day. Got up at 7:30 and went to the San Francisco Airport. My 11hr flight was pretty cool because I actually had the whole row to myself. I met some friends who were doing a 2 month trip through SE Asia named Derrick and Rich, med students doing a trip before their residency.

When I arrived in Tokyo we ended up getting a free meal because the turbulence was too crazy for the stewardesses to serve the last meal. So my new friends and I ate some awesome sushi in, yep, Japan. Was great to be that far away from home finally because I am a giant over here. Everybody in the Tokyo airport was exceptionally nice and bowed like it was their job, haha. Really courteous people.

After drinking 0ur first beer in Asia, we all boarded the plane for Bangkok. Sat next to two cool girls named Mary and Bird who were doing a 6 week trip. Might meet up with them for the Chiang Mai part of the trip.

Arrived in Bangkok at midnight, got bags, got a taxi to Tuptim's, my hotel, and was immediately greeted by a storm of watergun fire on the streets of Bangkok! This is all part of the Thai new year celebration called, Songkran. Everybody had a water gun, everyone was soaked, not to mention hammered...except for me, haha. I finally found my place after hitting an internet cafe to figure out where the hell i was.

Today I am going to get stuff organized and get a phone and books and stuff like that.

Did I mention its sweltering here? but it is gorgeous.

Bangkok travel day

Plane rides are long. Elaboration tomorow. In Bangkok at 2am and there is a water gun fight going on in the streets. sleep

First Post. Trip Itenerary

Ok, so here is my trip itenerary.

April 12: San Francisco to Bangkok. (In the air for over 17 hours, damn)

April 18: Bangkok to Chiang Rai
Heading over to Chiang Mai.

April 25: Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang, Lao

April 28: Luang Prabang to Siem Reap, Cambodia
This is where Angkor Wat is located.

May 1: Siem Reap to Phuket
The whole month of May I will be in the islands of Thailand not just Phuket. I will be going to the Full Moon Party on May 29th. It is the biggest beach party in the world held on Koh Pha Nagn. Just imagine literally 30,000 people partying from dusk till dawn on one of the most amazing beaches. I will be surfing around all the islands and this the area where the movie "The Beach" was filmed, Koh Phi Phi.

May 31: Phuket to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

June 2: Kuala Lumpur to Bali, Indonesia

June 12: Bali to Cairnes, Australia
For the rest of the trip i will be on this hop on hop off bus tour for the whole Queensland surf coast. I will be sailing around the Whitsunday Islands, spend a week on Fraser Island camping, and of course surfing and scuba diving. The Great Barrier Reef is all along the Queensland coast so get out the flippers because im gonna scuba. Basically i will just be hopping from surf town to surf town all along the coast. Im excited to hang out with all the Australians because they are the people i met most when I traveled Europe with Ryan.

August 8: Sydney to Austin

Now I also have thought seriously about throwing a trip to New Zealand in there for a week or two. That will be off the cuff though. All the planning is done and now it is time to get out there and do it all.

I fly out of San Francisco tomorow morning at 11am. I will definitely try to make other blog entries cooler than just names and dates, but now anybody who wants to come visit has it in front of them.