Getting back on the horse.

After my slightly discouraging introduction to the sea and three days of beach relaxation, it's time to get back on the water. Koh Nangyuan was great, but was really straining my budget at $35 a night for a beach bungalow. It's funny how quickly one's concept of what's expensive acclimates to a new environment. The pricing of items in Thailand is somewhat odd, I can get a great room for $12.50 a night in Bangkok, eat for less than $5.00 a day from street vendors (and they serve great food...mostly), but if I want a Coke, it's $1.50. Beer, even Thai beer, is also relatively expensive at about $2.00 a bottle.

Anyway, with fresh motivation to get back on the water, I'm currently at Ban's Dive Resort (http://www.amazingkohtao.com) on Koh Tao and will begin my PADI Open Water SCUBA course tomorrow. I'll probably be here for five days, after which I'll return to Bangkok (with a possible side trip to Burma to renew my visa) and again be at Suk 11; being away from that place feels like being away from home already.

At this point, it looks like I may cut this trip to about four months, for various reasons. Seven months was ambitious from the start, and it's not something I think I was prepared for. It's not so much being away from the states, but the constant moving around; it's a pain. Of course, I could find a place that I really like and stay for a month or more, and in that event, I may be gone until May. However, if I'm just moving from place to place every few days, I don't think it's what I want to be doing for the next six months. I'd much rather return home with some of my finances intact, allowing me to travel again to another destination (probably Eastern Europe) in the spring.

I have a much more defined itinerary now, and it will at most take me three months to complete. After that, I have a few specific day trips I want to take around Bangkok and then, who knows. As I've already seen, plans can change rather quickly, although I don't know that I'll put myself in what I'm calling the Perfect Storm of really rough seas, smelly travel companions, and an abysmal French movie. Two out of
three are tolerable, but all together, who wouldn't have vomited?

Rough Seas + High-Speed Catamaran = Gross

Well, it was my intention to make it to Koh Samui, but that's not happening. I'm currently in Koh Tao, the first place I could get off said catamaran, after spending the first fifteen minutes of the journey inside watching a crappy French movie (oxymoron?) and then spending the remainder of the journey throwing up off the stern of the boat. I got off at the first place I could. I'm not sure how long I'm going to be on Koh Tao, but I have no desire to return to the sea anytime soon; unfortunately it's the only way off the island...sweet.

UPDATE: I'll be staying at the Koh Nang Yuan Island Dive Resort (http://www.nangyuan.com/) for the next few days. It's a little bit out of my original budget, but it's too perfect:



I figured I'd treat myself to something nice, after enduring the journey described above and trying to nurse myself back to health with a steady diet of Gatorade and fruit flavored Mentos.

Heading down south.

Well, after five days in Bangkok, I'm ready to move on. It's amazing how the heat and relaxed nature of this place saps all motivation, which explains the lack of an updated in the past few days. I was planning on leaving Bangkok on Friday, but decided to stay through the weekend. It's a minor extension, as I've met some people who have been staying at the guest house for almost two months; I figure I should move on before I do the same.

I'm going to be taking an overnight bus to Chumphon, and from there a catamaran out to Koh Samui. I'm planning on staying in Koh Samui for a few days and then traveling up to Koh Phangan for the October Full Moon Party. While not really my scene, I've been told that, like Carnival in Rio or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it's one of those things you should see at least once in your life. I'll probably only spend four or five days in Samui, after that I'll head back up to Bangkok and then out to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat; I should be back in Bangkok on 7 November.

What do we get for ten dollars? Everyting you want. Everything? Everyting.

Ok, two days down. Most of the first day was spent wandering around the neighborhood in a jet-lagged daze, the rest was spent sleeping. I did have one interesting encounter however. I was walking across a parking lot, trying to find a place to grab some food when I was approached by a tout. He was about the tenth that had approached me that day, so I was more or less prepared to decline the taxi ride, tuk-tuk ride, or invitation to his cousin's silk shop. Sure enough his first offer was: "Taxi?" I declined and was presented with his counter-offer: "Girl?". Sorry to disappoint some of you, I declined that as well. You've got to love a country where the natural progression of things is from transport to sex.

Today I took the water taxi to the Royal Palace. I wish I could post some pictures, as the place is rather spectacular. I'm trying to find a way to at least get a few up on the web. It's 5:30 PM and it's nap time, nasty effects of jet-lag.

Sawadee!

Well, after 24 hours in the air, I'm here. It's 4 AM and it's as hot and humid as DC ever was. I'll be chilling at the airport for five more hours, picking up some traveler's checks, and then heading out to the guest house. So far, things are going well, just not much to report except for some mild turbulence over the Pacific and a woman in LA who tried to convince me to carry her bags on the plane; no Broke Down Palace moments for me, thank you. Oh, and my NEW iPod decided to crap out somewhere over the Rockies so I passed some of the time on the plane watching Dodge Ball in Taiwanese. That movie doesn't loose much in the translation, a dodge ball to the groin is funny in any language.

Take only what you need to survive. - Lone Starr

What can I say, Bill Pullman is a prohet. Now I just need to figure out why I'm not following the man's advice. With fewer than 24 hours before I'm airborne over the Pacific, it was time to assemble what will be the sum of my possessions for the next seven months. I also wanted to catalog everything I'm taking, hoping it will make the insurance claim process a bit smoother, should one of my fellow travelers decide his need for my stuff exceeds my own. Until now, I hadn't actually put everything in one spot and I was rather shocked to see exactly how much crap I'm going to be portering around while I'm abroad.



I'm assuming that some of this stuff will be in a Bangkok trash can by the end of the first week. I've gotten conflicting stories on sneakers, some say they never wear them, others say they won't leave home with out them; since I wear them pretty frequently at home, I'm taking an old ratty pair that I won't mind tossing. You're probably asking yourself why the hell I have an airport giftshop's worth of paperback fiction before I even leave home. I'm wondering the same thing. Initially I had three novels, in addition to the guide books. A well-traveled friend suggested those would last me a week. On his advice I ventured once again to Borders and picked up a few more titles.

What I'll be reading on the road:

John le Carre. The Little Drummer Girl
John le Carre. The Tailor of Panama
John le Carre. Single & Single
John le Carre. The Constant Gardener
Robert Ludlum. The Matarese Circle
Robert Ludlum. The Matarese Countdown

Also, what I'll be listening to on the road: iPod Library

Now comes the task of packing the bag, I'm estimating the load at about 35 lbs., less weight than one usually takes for a 3+ day camping trip, so I think the load will be completely manageable. That said, I know I'm bringing too much stuff and I'll probably use fewer than half of the things I see as necessaties right now; luckily storage in Bankok is dirt cheap, and trash cans are free.

My next post will very likely be from the other side of the world. I leave Albany at 7 AM EST tomorrow and I land in Bangkok 31 hours later. I'm planning on crashing in the airport the first night (see http://www.sleepinginairports.com for a rather amusing look at the world's airports), as I have no desire to attempt to navigate Bangkok at 3 AM. I can check into the guesthouse (http://www.suk11.com) at 8 AM and after some food, I'm hoping to have enough energy to get out and see the city, rather than sleeping. Having never traveled through this many times zones before, I'm not sure how the jet lag is going to effect me, so this is all very tentative.

T-minus one week and counting.

Sitting here fixating on the Costco-sized bottle of Doxycycline before me, the enormity of this trip is starting to sink in. For well-seasoned travelers, this journal should provide a good laugh as you watch me prepare, rather blindly I might add, for seven months away from everything I've known for the past twenty-seven years. For the rest of you, I hope that my experiences and associated commentary are at least mildly entertaining, as they should provide a guide for what not to do when quitting your job and making a pell-mell decision to wander the Orient.

That said, I hope I'm at least starting off on the right foot. Attenuated Salmonella typhi has been ingested, Hepatitis A injected, and Cipro and the aforementioned Doxy obtained; if nothing more, I should be protected should I run into the 'thrax on the road. On a side note, I chose not to get a rabies vaccine, but as one friend put it, "it is one of the cooler terminal illnesses", so no worries there. I've also spent the better part of two months researching, purchasing, changing my mind about, and returning what I'll loosely call "travel gear"; that term defining everything from an iPod to The North Face pants.

Now, most experienced travelers will tell you to not go out and buy all new stuff as it's going to get crudded up or stolen, and that almost everything you can buy at home can be purchased cheaper at your destination; I say screw them, what do they know? Personally, I'd rather regret spending $20 on a t-shirt at home than be forced to wear a $2 Hello Kitty t-shirt because it's all I could find at the moment I need to change out of my elephant dung stained shirt in Phenom Phen. There is, of course, a certain irony to the $20 t-shirt:

That's about it for now. Since there's only a week left before I leave the East Coast, I'm going to start updating this journal regularly and hope to do so with the same frequency while traveling.