London Baby!

Hey Folks.

Still in London, but heading back to TO this Thursday. Going to be there until Wednesday sorting some things out, and then will be heading back to NB to see the family. Not to worry though, as I will be passing back through TO for a while later this summer, so I'm hoping to catch up with everybody then. Focusing on doing a boarding season somewhere out west this year and will find some employment when I get there. Still working out the details. Don't really have any answers to the 'What are you doing next question", so I'm hoping that this will due. Ha!

Also wanted to help cheer on all you hardcore Sens fans. I actually managed to watch the game on the internet the other night. Heard that it is quite the party in Ottawa right now. Wish I could be there.

On a side note, I will probably keep the blog going for a bit until I get settled somewhere. It sounds crazy, but it actually surpassed the 10,000 hit mark a couple of days ago ('hits' are everytime somebody brings up the page....the counter is at the very bottom of the blog). Have to get a new camera and a new pic site though, but besides that, I'm rolling.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Tubing in Laos

Spent a few days in Vang Vieng, Laos. Vang Veing is a cool little town known for its river tubing. You can rent a tube for $4 and then they take you to the top of the river and drop you off with your tube. Within 3 minutes, there are people along the side of the river trying to entice you to come for a drink in their bars along the side of the river. They all have these big long sticks that they hold out for you to grab so that they can pull you in. It's brillaint. The best part is that all these bars have these crazy zip lines and swing ropes that go out into the water. The local BeerLao costs you about 50 cents a beer and most of them throw in free shots of the local Lao Lao liquour. Mix them in with the swing ropes and zip lines, and it makes for a good afternoon. As with most of these countries, there's not much for safety standards here, but I guess that makes for all the more fun. I have tons of pics, but my pic site is no longer working (camera broke, day pack tore, pic site doesn't work.....think its time to pack it in on the trip!). I've posted a couple below though, and also have some videos.










We had so much fun that we stayed at the last bar too long, and ended up tubing down the river in the dark at the end. It turned out to be so much fun, that we did it again a couple of days later. Day 2 ended early though due to a little incident that my buddy Greg had. Thanks to the liquid courage, we had been doing backflips off the swing ropes. I challenged him to try doing a double backflip, which he did.....almost. When he came up out of the water, his nose was bleeding and I realized that it was no longer as straight as it once was. Turns out his knee hit his face and broke his nose. The best part was taking him to the hospital. I was in the 'emergency' room with him, and I still had a beer in my hand. Greg was a good sport though and let me video tape him getting his nose reset.



The first pic of me with all they kids was me playing my Laos song that I made. 'Sabadee' means hello in Laos. I went around singing a song, 'Sabadee, Sabadaa, SabaDingDong'. The locals ate it up. I don't know what the hell it meant, but it was a big hit. The kids in the pics look a little frightened though.



Anyway, I'm in London now, hanging out at Abi's place. Went for beers with my buddy Yann last night as well. Going to be back in Canada in a week! Talk to you all soon.

Tubing Videos

Hopefully these work.

Coming Home!!!

Yes, I have now officially booked my trip home. Leaving Asia in about 10 days or so, heading to London for just over a week, and then will be back in the homeland. Hard to believe that it has actually been a whole year. Must say though, I'm pretty excited about getting home. No more crazy menus, no more shitty washrooms, no more border crossings, and no more buses. Sign me up! Ha.

Have been relaxing and winding down on and island called Ko Tao. Weather has been awesome, with crazy short little rain storms that come late in the afternoon. Did some snorkeling, but didn't bother to do any diving.

Decided that I do have one last bit of adventure left in me though so I am now in Laos, travelling with my buddy Greg that I met in Australia. Only here for about a week, but had to get out of Thailand as my Visa had expired. Laos is supposed to be pretty beautiful, so looking forward to seeing a little of it.

Anyway, here are a few pics from Ko Tao (not much). I will have Greg's camera to use in Loas though, so there should be tons more pics to follow!

Talk to you all soon, and more importantly, I'm looking forward to seeing you all soon!!!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=8ab2nqp.8034h5ux&x=1&y=-yw7dzb

The Islands in Thailand

After leaving Phuket, I headed across to the Gulf of Thailand and stayed on Ko Pha Nang island. As some of you may recall, I was in Thailand just a couple of years ago and I came here for the Full Moon Party (held once per month, between 5 to 10 thousand people partying on the beach). I decided that I was going to pass on the party and instead, just find a nice hut on a beach to relax. I ended up on the west side staying at Sun View lodges by Hat Yao. Definitely what I was looking for. After I realized that everybody from my hostel was going to the Moon party though, I couldn't say no. This time I didn't quite make it to the morning, but I did OK.

Also went and checked out some Mui Thai boxing. Pretty crazy bastards they are. I don't know if any of you have watched it before, but it is pretty violent. Lots of kicking and knees. Twas pretty fun night. The money is flowing everywhere. You just run over to the side of the ring and there's lots of guys taking bets. I think that unfortunately some times the flow of money affects who wins the fight, but either way, it was pretty damn fun.

I am now on Koh Tao island on Sairee beach (Koh Tao is just north of Ko Pha Nang). I have attached a picture of the beach that I got off the net. I came over with a big group that I met at the last guesthouse (Craig from UK, Andrew from Can, Emilia, Anna, Tina from Sweden, Lisa from Holland, and Brenden from NZ). It has been raining for the past few days, but the sun is out full force now, so the beach it will be.

Talk to you soon.

Thailand

Hey Folks!

Once again, sorry for the lack of communicato. I guess I should have let you know that I actually did finally get better! Yes, I can now say that I survived being sick in a Bangkok guestroom for a week. Not an experience that I'd recommend, but hey, I'm feeling like a new man now. Not much exciting to write about from Bangkok except that now when I check a room, the 3 things I look for are a) a fan, b) the softness of the bed, or lack thereof, and c) what kind of toilet they have. Yes, team MacIntyre is all done with the hole in the floor toilets (aptly named 'The Bomber').

After I got better, I jumped on a bus and headed for the beaches down south. First place I landed was Kata Beach in the province of Phuket, which is just down from Patong Beach. Yes, this is where the tsunami hit, but no Mom, there won't be any more. When cruising around the towns, there aren't really any signs of it that you can see in the areas that I went to. To say that Thailand takes their tourism seriously would be somewhat of an understatement. Phuket was pretty much the exact opposite of what I was looking for though. Crazy touristy, overpriced shit being sold everywhere, and every single bar was a creepy hooker bar. Yes.....every single one. The 'bar girls' all sit on the patios and yell at bypassing tourists. Not exactly places where you go to meet people. I rented a motor scooter one day though and headed up the coast to check out a bunch of the other beaches and smaller towns, so that was cool. I actually found an authentic local market where I was the only tourist there. The beaches here are spectacular, which is why so many tourists flock to this country. Here's some quick pics from the net.

THE WIPE-OUT

As a funny story, when I was walking through a shortcut to get back to my bike one night, I pulled off one of the most dramatic sober wipe outs that I've had in a while (don't have drunken ones....I'm too smooth). I decided that I had had enough of walking around the hell known as Patong Beach, and that I wanted to get out of there. Instead of walking around through all the shit again though, I figured that I would take a short cut through one of the massive resorts that line the road along the beach here (see pic from above). When I got into the complex I realized that it was all gated and there were no doors out to the other side of the block where my bike was. After walking around inside the building for 5 minutes, I went out the nearest exit so that I could look up to find the big tower that I had initially oriented myself with when I entered the complex. Just outside the door, there was a small ledge that I had to step up onto so that I could get out from under the overhang to see the tower.

When I took my next step I realized that it didn't feel like my first step, and knew that I was in trouble. It turns out that this fancy resort had put a 2 foot deep muddy watered pond in their courtyard, complete with lilly pads and thorny plants. Given that I had just spent a month in Indonesia, it had been a while since I've encountered landscaping of this magnitude.

My brain registered the fall in 3 very separate and distinct stages:

1. Shit, I just stepped into water, and its f*#king deep.

2. Oh no, I think that my other leg is coming in to.

And then the most important stage:

3. I'm getting wet.

Yes, I literally fell full force into this pond, kicking and splashing the whole way down. Mom, I now finally know what it felt like that day at Rainbow Valley when you had that near death drowning experience in that foot and a half deep pool at the bottom of the water slide.

I popped up quite quickly and was back outside the pond in a flash, but the damage was already done. My shirt and shorts were completely drenched and covered in rancid smelling grey mud. Surprisingly, I immediately broke into a laughing fit. Thankfully nobody saw the fall, but afterwards a woman walked by when I was standing by the pond, hunched over laughing, all by myself......and soaking wet. She never said anything, but the look that she gave me was enough.

One of my sandals fell victim to the shitty smelling mud at the bottom of the pond, so I tossed the other one in for good riddance. I had to go back out around and make the walk through downtown Patong Beach with no sandals......soaking wet.....covered in mud. The hookers actually left me alone this time. I think that they could tell by the look on my face that 'happy ending' was no longer an option for me.

It was a cold drive home, but I managed to survive the fall with only a few cuts to my hands and feet.

Anyway, that is about as exciting as it gets for me these days. I am now on Ko Pha Nang island in the Gulf of Thailand, staying in a little hut on the beach with my hammock on the front. My days consist of snoozing, eating, reading and playing guitar. Yes, things are winding down for me on this trip. These tired old bones are starting to crave a nice couch, a pizza, and a good hockey game on the tube.

Bye for now. I just realized that an army of ants have infiltrated my juice box.