monkeys and tigers and snakes, oh my!

A couple days ago Dan and I went out to get lunch, and ended up on a tour of all the animal attractions they have in the Chiang Mai area. Unexpected, but very fun. First stop was a monkey circus where we saw a monkey weight-lifter, a monkey who could shoot free-throws better than Shaquille O'Neal (ok, I admit that that's not saying much), and an expert coconut-fetcher, among others.

Next stop was the snake show, where we saw some very crazy traainers who would get far closer than any sane individual would ever voluntarily get to a cobra. We even saw a 4-year-old traine work with a non-venomous (but still vicious) snake - very impressive (and crazy).

The highlight of the trip was definitely Tiger Village, where we got to play with baby tigers! We thought it was really cute when the cubs would nibble on us, but the trainers weren't so happy with that - guess that gets to be a bad habit when the tigers get bigger and "nibbling" would result in a trip to the Emergency Room. We also managed to set aside all common sense and get in a cage with some full grown tigers. It was amazing to be able to see them so close, and since I'm writing this with all limbs still attached I can say I'm very glad I did it.

Pictures below, enjoy!

me with a tiger. . . wait, a what? A TIGER!?!! What are you doing standing there!?! RUNNNN!!!!

awwww - me with a tiger cub. They're much less scary when they're pint-sized. . .

tiger chompin' away on some bamboo. I was quite glad it wasn't my leg. . .

I got to feed a baby monkey!

everyone knew we were posing for a photo except the snake - it thought it was being fed lunch and gave me a good squeeze

now who in the world would want to give a cobra a kiss?!?!Answer: this guy

It's divin' time! (again)

A week ago I left Koh Phagnan (where I'd been hanging out for 3 days) to return to Koh Tao, where I met up with my college roommate Dan for some scuba diving with Seashell Divers. Our first day on the island we did 4 dives, which was exhausting, but awesome, and then the next day we did two. Yesterday we took a break from diving while switching islands (back to Koh Pahngan), and then today we did two more dives in Koh Pahngan (we hit up Sail Rock, which is supposed to be the best scuba spot in the golf of Thailand - very nice site).

I have been having an absolute blast diving. It seems that every dive I see something new. And the more I go, the more comfortable I am underwater. I'm getting better with my buoyancy (so I can navigate more easily), my air consumption (so I can stay underwater longer), and at my fish-spotting skills (so I can see cool stuff underwater). This is definitely addicting! I think this is the last diving I'll do for a while, as my next stop is Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand), and then I'll be going up into Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. But after that I'll probably fly into Malaysia to work my way back to Bangkok (where my flight to Beijing is in 10 weeks), diving along the way. It's only been 5 hours from my last dive and I'm already in withdrawal!

Anyways, I rented an underwater camera for a couple of my dives in Koh Tao, and got some pretty sweet pictures. Check 'em out!!

whooooo scuba!

clown fish protecting their anemone

triggerfish. You might notice that this is not the clearest photo - that's 'cause it was taken from far away and then I cropped it. Now, why was it taken from far away? Well, because the triggerfish is infamous for being territorial - if it thinks you're too close it will attack! We actually got chased away from one of our dive areas by a triggerfish which thought that the shipwreck we were diving was its personal area. Definitely adds some excitement to the dive. Credit to Dan for taking this picture.

roommate reunion, 60 feet underwater!

wart slug. Very cool looking animal, not so cool name. . .

Dan and I ready to head back to the beach after a day of diving.

during our surface interval (we wait an hour in between dives to rest up, and to let some of the residual nitrogen escape our bloodstream), I do some diving of a dfferent sort. . .

squid!!! They look so cool swimming through the water, I could have chased after them for the rest of the dive. . . not the best picture 'cause they didn't really like me swimming after them, and they're a heck of a lot faster than I am. . .

moray eel!

a shy puffer fish. I would have tried to get an even better picture but I didn't want to stress out the fish and make it puff up - turns out that they can only push up 4 or 5 times in their life, so if I used up one of those times I would have felt really guilty!

Island life is the life for me!

quick note: I have received several worried emails from friends and family about the situation in Thailand, and just wanted to reassure you all that I'm totally safe. The protesting is localized to a very specific area in Bangkok, and most of Bangkok is totally safe (including the place where I stayed when I flew in). As you'll soon read below, I'm 500m south of Bangkok now, and there is absolutely no political tension here. Thanks for your concern, though!


As you may have deduced from the title of this post, I am no longer in Bangkok (seeing as it's not an island, it would be a misleading post if I was still there). Last Wednesday I said goodbye to Bangkok and its political tension, and took a night bus / ferry to Ko Tao, an island about 500 km south of Bangkok. Quick rant: while I greatly appreciate air conditioning, why do the buses always have to set it on "arctic ice storm"? Even with a fleece on over my shorts/tshirt I was so cold that I couldn't sleep until I got to my backpack under the bus during a rest stop and changed into jeans too. Ok, rant over.

So yeah, back to Ko Tao: it's pretty well known as a scuba diving mecca - seems that that's where everyone goes to do scuba training. I went for a couple dives, and while I was a bit spoiled by my dive trip in the Great barrier Reef, I still really enjoyed it - they've got tons of anemones (and their accompanying anemone fish), and I also saw a gigantic school of barracuda, which was really cool. At one point the school had us completely surrounded, which was so neat to see (these barracuda weren't very big - only a foot long or so, which is why I'm saying it was cool, rather than terrifying).

When not diving, I spent my time hanging out with friends I met on the ferry over: we'd explore new food places, watch the sunset on the beach, and all that good stuff.

Then, on Sunday I switched islands to Koh Panang. I'm staying at a large guesthouse which has its own restaurant and swimming pool, and it's right on the beach! Pretty awesome. Oh, and I'm paying 300 Baht / night which is about $10. Excellent deal. Yesterday I rented a moped and (carefully) zipped around the island, checking out the other beaches etc.

Tomorrow I'll head back to Ko Tao, where I'll be meeting up with my old college roommate Dan, and we'll travel together for a week and a half scuba diving Ko Tao, chilling on Koh Panang, and then heading up to Chiang Mai for some trekking, which should be a great time.

Alright, it's picture time - enjoy!

the Koh Tao beachscape right across from our guesthouse

me on our kayak trip to a nearby island for some snorkeling

more Christmas Tree worms! These guys are so cool. Unfortunately, you won't see too many more pictures like this from me 'cause my camera started acting funky after I took it snorkeling (even though I went no deeper than 5 feet, and it's good to 10), so I think its days in he water are numbered

our adopted cat "Sox" outside our bungalow. Well, to be accurate I guess I should say that Sox adopted us - she just showed up at the bungalow one day and made herself comfortable. She even managed to guilt-trip me into buying her some mackerel (she's so skinny)!

a pancake street vendor/artiste hard at work on his craft

enjoying the pancakes from the aforementioned (aforepictured?) pancake vendor

the bars in Koh Tao have cushions set up so you can sit right on the beach, drink a beer and watch the sunset. Awesome

they've got some interesting potato chip flavors in Thailand. Anyone care for soft shell crab pringle? Or maybe blueberry/hazelnut?

Leonardo DiCaprio, star of the movie The Beach about, you guessed it, a beach (in Thailand), was kind enough to leave me a note letting me know where the real beach was! Unfortunately I think he was a little confused - I followed the sign and there was no beach, just rocks going into the water. . .

the seashore on Haat Rin beach, in Koh Panang

the view from my bungalow's restaurant. Life is good

Exploring Bangkok: photos, photos, and more photos!

I've been in Southeast Asia (Bangkok specifically) for three days now, and am having a great time. Southeast Asia is so incredibly different culturally and architecturally from the US / New Zealand / Australia, and I've been having a blast just observing everything. I've mostly just been wandering around, visiting tons of temples, checking out the crowded streets and markets (and trying to avoid the temptation to buy tons of cheap stuff, especially my weakness, funny t-shirts), and enjoying the amazing and cheap street food! And of course I've been taking photos - here's a handful which help capture an Adrian's-eye-view of Bangkok:

this is the headline that greeted me as I go onto my connecting flight from Singapore to Bangkok. Weak! Luckily, as I'd heard from travel buddies already in Bangkok, Bangkok is actually perfectly safe right now, as long as you avoid the red zones. In all the places I went it was just business as normal and felt totally safe.

Thailand as viewed from the river taxi. Just look at all the temples and other cool structures you can see from here - Bangkok's full of 'em!

Buddhas everywhere! I have already seen thousands! (seriously, I am not exaggerating - besides the temples there are store which are devoted solely to Buddha statues and are chock full of 'em)

me with the view from the Golden Mountain. And yes, I'm sweating like crazy. It was over 40 degrees C, which is over 104F! It's even a sweat-inducing level of hot at 7AM or 11 PM. Grossss.

one of my favorite things - street food! This delicious seafood-over-rice dish cost me a whole 25 baht, which is roughly 80 cents. Just a bit cheaper than food in Australia/New Zealand. . .

spires everywhere! Me at Wat Pho.

a typical Bangkok street (vendors lined up along the street). Except that normally the street would also be filled with motorcycles, cars, and tuk-tuks. . .

me with the reclining Buddha. This statue is HUGE!

another giant Buddha towers over the surrounding buildings

my friendly tuk-tuk driver Nick. He ferried me all over the city for an hour and a half for just 60 baht (2 dollars). Of course, he also took me to a quick stop at a tailor where a super-high-pressure salesman tried to get me to spend $200 on a suit. My driver got paid 5 liters of gasoline for bringing me there, which is worth a lot more than the fare I paid. So I consider the whole thing a draw. . .

cool but creepy wall sculpture

neat ornately decorated doorway. There are TONS of these all over.

I don't have much to say about this, I just thought it looked really cool

the entrance to one of Bangkok's many temples

my last day in Australia - a photo essay

quick note - as yesterday evening I arrived at Bangkok, and settled into a hostel there. Despite the fact that Bangkok is making the news a lot recently, I talked to friends who where already there, and they assured me (and now I can confirm) that Bangkok is actually quite safe now, as long as you avoid the red zone. I'll post an update about my adventures in Bangkok soon - now I just need to stop writing and go have an adventure worth blogging about.

So, Sunday was my last day in Australia, and I intended to make the most of it. I'm happy to say I was successful in this mission. I'll be trying something different with this entry: rather than write all about my day and finish with some pictures, I'll just illustrate my day as a photo essay (with captions). Enjoy!

My day came out to an inauspicious (and very early) start when I was woken from a deep sleep by my alarm clock at about 1AM. Wait, I didn't set an alarm clock - someone's ringing a bell. Now why is someone ringing a bell? What is going on!?! After several minutes of sleep-addled confusion (ok, it was probably 10 seconds, but felt much longer), I finally figured out that my "alarm clock" was actually a fire alarm (apparently there was a small fire in the kitchen or something). Once I realized it was a fire alarm, I rushed outside, and then got to wait in the cold for 45 minutes, barefoot, while the fire department came. While I may have forgotten shoes in my haste, at least I remembered to put on pants before heading downstairs - otherwise things would have been a lot colder / more awkward.

MUCH later in the day, after a lot more sleep, some time online, and breakfast, I decided to head out and explore Sydney for the final time. I left at noon, and my only constraint was that I needed to meet my college friend Zach, who's doing a post-doc in Sydney, at his yacht club at 4. So, I started the world's slowest and least efficient walk (a la Billy from Family Circus) to the aforementioned yacht club. On my way down to the waterfront I wandered through one of Sydney's many parks where I snapped this photo of some roses with the city-scape in the background.

Just before reaching the harbor, I stopped in and checked out this castle-like building with the highly original name "the government house."

Once I made it to the waterfront I just wandered along the shore, enjoying the view of the opera house and harbor bridge. And as you should be able to tell from the photo, it was an absolutely gorgeous day.

Closeup of the harbor bridge and opera house, as viewed from the path right along the waterfront.

Along the way I encountered this cool lunch stand offering various meat pies. I ordered the chicken and cheese, and it came topped with mashed potatoes, mashed peas, and gravy. I'm not sure the picture does it justice, but let me assure you it was delicious. And it was a nice British/Australian meal - a good final meal in Australia before I spend the next 4 months eating Asian food (not that I'm complaining - can't wait for all the noodles, curries, etc).

Having made it to the yacht club in record time (a mere 3 hours), I actually had an hour to kill. So I plopped down in the park next to the yacht club, took out my kindle and read. BTW, I'm a big fan of the kindle - it's especially useful for a traveler since it's so much lighter than carrying around a bunch of books. Life is good.

Once I met up with Zach we caught up over beers and enjoyed watching the Sydney cityscape light up as night fell.

Just to add a random element to the day, on the walk home I passed both a Lamborghini and a Ferrari dealership. Too bad they weren't open or I would have taken 'em for a test drive. . .