Asia by Hammock

• Liters drank before dinner: 3
• Percentage of Khao Lak bars visited: 75
• Number of beers knocked off a foosball table: 1
• Number of Jens knocked off a bar stool: 1
• Number of people at Fisherman Bar who confused me for a drunk idiot who ran around Khao Lak last Saturday with a giant headlamp on: 2
• Number of people at Marlin Bar who confused me for a drunk idiot who ran around Khao Lak last Saturday with a giant headlamp on: 2
• Minutes that I don't remember spent as a drunk idiot running around Khao Lak last Saturday with a giant headlamp on: 35
• Incredibly nasty pool shots I had no business making but did: 3
• Incredibly nasty pool shots I had no business making but did to win a match: 1
• Really really easy pool shots that I missed to lose a match: 1
• Approximate time evicted from Marlin Bar: 6am
• Approximate time (in minutes) of sleep before work: 7
• Approximate amount (in minutes) of breakfast that I remember: 7

College isn't over till I say it is
GORE!

My office

My job

My basketball hoop

Some Tuesday Morning Football? Thats right kids, I was the sole customer in the Marlin at 8am on Tuesday morning to watch the Broncos humiliate the Chefs and to sigh wistfully at the shots of beautiful D-town. Oh and to hear the insightful Madden quotes "TO is so chiseled. He's an adonis" and "The worst christmas present I ever got was half a dozen chestnuts in my stocking".

Today I went boogie boarding in the same ocean that gave us The Tsunami. It was a tad rough. My board broke in no less than three places and I'm pretty sure my experience was less riding waves and more hanging out while waves crashed on me. Good fun. And I'm pretty sure I can fix my board with just a bit of rebar. I made a golf club today, I think it is somewhere around a 3 or 4 iron (literally, it is made out all iron) but my wire ball hooks terribly.

Here are some photos that are fit for everyone's consumption:

That would be Me, Pete, Boom, Frankie, Jeremy and Seth in the front


This is what I do when I am working. Note the protective footwear.


This is what Jeremy does when he is working. Note the protective footwear.

Mom and Dad, don't follow this link, but everyone else here's a lovely picture of yours truly. http://www.fishing-khaolak.com/gallery/marlin_bar/hall_of_shame/hall_of_shame_3.html.

Off to play beirut with my home made cups!

I have done a number of things in my life that some people may consider scary*: bungy jumping, sky diving and even spending a night at the Tulane Pike house during Mardi Gras. But none of those compare to driving a loaded, four ton, manual transmission Thai dump truck. On the left side of the road. Backwards. Onto a car ferry. Onto a car ferry that can't stop because it is high tide. Luckily, Pete offered me this really good advice: "don't hesitate on the ramp, don't drive off the back." Lovely.

Pop it and go, I survived

Gore

*: and others may consider awesome

After my freezing bus ride and subsequent confused/rambling internet session I picked my way through the passed out bums and got a few hours of much needed shut eye at a neighboring hostel. My initial impression of KL was dodgy at best. But after my rest I wandered around (read: got hopelessly lost) and really enjoyed the city. It has a really cool mix of everything: towering highrises with a million hawker stands at their base, a place selling indian food next to a KFC next to a western bar and all the people were really nice (or really bad con artists). I picked up a flight to Kathmandu (check it out below) and a pretty sweet little Konica Dimage Z5 camera. The Petronas Towers are quite tall but you can only go up to the bridge in the middle so hopped on up the KL communications tower and had quite a giggle when the chick doing the audio tour went "blah blah prime minister of malaysia blah blah".

The next day I continued my wanderings and stumbled upon the chineese latern festival / mid autumn festival. And if you don't think multicultural celebrations in a Muslim country are fun, boy have you got another thing coming. Especially when it is simultaneously MCed in English, Malay and sign language (is there only one sign language or is it different in different countries?). Traditional dancing! Traditional signing! Whopeeee! Unfortunately my enjoyment was interrupted when I ventured to the French expo next door and partook in more than my fair share of free wine and cheese then smoked a hookah at a little street cafe. KL was really cool!

Ok, so here is a list of things I brought with me for a nine day trip (compare to what I brought with me for the whole trip):

• 2 Pairs of Ex Officio Underwear
• 2 T-shirts
• 1 REI Wicking T-shirt
• 1 REI Wicking Collared shirt
• 1 Pair of shorts
• 1 Pair of swimmers
• Travel Hammock
• Sarong
• MP3 Player and Cell Phone (somebody call me damnit!)
• Toothbrush, toothpaste, deoderant, immodium, actifed, ear plugs, aloe vera
• Swiss army knife
• Flashlight with burned out batteries

And I bought a disposable razor, some sunscreen and some Norflaxin (a broad spectrum anti biotic... I hope). Think I overpacked in June? Just a little...

Cheers

Steve

PS> Today I made a spatula, a horseshoe pit and one horseshoe; they are really hard to make.

Yeah, thats a flight to Nepal (handwritten ticket and all). And yeah, that means I got a new camera. And yeah again, it means I spent over $750 in an eight hour period (new record for non RWC2003 spending).



How do you like them apples?

Sateeeve

An open letter to long distance coach drivers of South East Asia:

We are lucky to live at a time where many of us have both homes and automobiles. More than that, we have the ability to easily heat and, more to the point, cool them. Unforunately, I believe you are blantantly abusing this cooling power. I am not a meat popsicle, I am a human being. I do not need to be kept at a crisp 10 degrees, I will not spoil. While I appreciate the idea of a blanket, your swath of cloth would not cover one Gavin Cheung, let alone a person of normal size. I implore you, on the next eight hour bus journey, please, turn down the A/C!

Sincerely,
Steve Gore

PS> I am in Kuala Lumpor, it is 6:30am, I've been up for a really long time and am not exactly sure what to do with myself. My bus ride here was really cold. If these last couple of posts seem a bit odd, well now you know why

A lot of places I've been look better on postcards. Photographers can get shots with no people or bungalows or Photoshop the colors to make it more impressive. The Perhenthian Islands look about twenty times better in person than any postcard I have ever seen. This is the stuff of Corona ads. The beach is a long and wide swath filled with incredibly fine white sand that burns your feet in the middle of the day. The water is warm, starting out incredibly clear at the shore and gradually changing into turquoise then light blue then dark ocean blue. The palm trees fringing the beach shimmer in the tropical heat. There are three beach volleyball nets and not a single hawker pushing taxi rides, banana pancakes or body massages. There are snorkeling and biking tours, but all that would require leaving the beach, something I was not prepared to do. It is not unspoilt (there are barbeques, you can buy antibiotics and use the internet) but it certainly does not have the tacky touristy feel of the Thai islands. As Matt put it "I couldn't imagine being more chilled out, I think I'd be comatose"

Not bad,
Gore

PS> To be fair, the diving wasn't spectacular and there were a lot of couples, but I still looooooved the Perhenthains.

Especially when you are going from one gorgeous, popular (and safe) island to another through violent and separtist south east Thailand. The trip started out quite lovely, on an only slightly overcrowded ferry that was followed closely by frolicking (thats twice I've used that word in this blog) dolphins. The next leg to central Hatyai was also relatively uneventful minus the trunk door opening at 100km/h and dumping everybody's stuff on the road (yay for only taking a little pack). It was about 4pm and it seemed my dream of getting to Malaysia, to the port and catching the 5:30 ferry was a little overreaching. Still, not to admit defeat, I headed for the border town Sungai-Kolok. I hopped from one minibus to the next until I eventually ended up behind an old woman I'm convinced had SARS and between a Thai militiaman in full combat dress and what appeared to be a nice Thai woman. Unfortunately for me, the nice Thai woman thought she could speak English and while she did know the occasional word, she lacked the ability to put them together in any sort of coherent sense. She then proceded to write down and give me the phone numbers of every single person she had ever met (yes, yes, I'll call your friend when I get to uzbehkistan, I promise) and then offered me pecans. But of course, they were not pecans. They were fish snacks, which can best be described as taking the consistency of a cheeto and adding the flavor of spicy disgusting horrible fish. It was the vilest thing I've had in a while (which is funny cause the second vilest thing was this sweet chicken pastry I'd enjoyed not three hours earlier).

Then the police checkpoints started. At first they were unmanned barricades you had to swerve around, esentially glorified speed bumps. Then police and military people, with very large machine guns, began appearing at the checkpoints. Now we were stopping but usually getting waved through with a minimum of fuss. Then the police had surprise checkpoints: no barricades, just a flashing red light wand thingy - very sneaky. Finally, just on the outskirts of the town we were stopped and everyone had to produce ID. The aftermentioned Thai woman looked at me and said "every day, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb", I thanked her for this reassuring statement. Despite this Gaza like security (or maybe because of), we made it sucessfully into the city.

The driver dropped everybody else off then looked at me and said "you go to Malaysia now". He drove rapidly to the border, it was now 8:50pm. As I got out out of the car I tried to ask what I thought were reasonable questions: is there a place to sleep in Malaysia, should I stay the night in Kolok, is the border open, etc. I've never seen someone get back in their car and drive away so fast, it was as if his life was in danger. So in front of me I have Malaysia, a country I've never been to, can't speak the language, hold no currency and the border town doesn't even warrant an entry in my worthless lonely planet. And behind me I have Thailand's version of Quebec (only they are a bit more forceful / beheading-ish over here) with approximately a battalion worth of Thai storm troopers. This was one of those life shaping decisions. For reasons I'm sure will cost me plenty of psychotheraphy to find out (just kidding mom and dad), though I would bet it was mainly based on frugality, I decided to turn back into Kolok, passed by the guards that stop every vehicle going into downtown and locked myself in a rather shitty hotel room. Except for the fish snack and chicken pastry, I had not eaten since breakfast. The border opened at 5am. I was the first person across it.

Steve "uh uh uh uh stayin alive stayin alive" Gore

Koh Phi Phi is a stunning island off the west coast of Thailand just south of Phuket and is the first stop on my island hopping visa run (cause what other way is there to really do a visa run??). The main town is situated with beaches on two sides and big hills on the other two which is perfect for tourists and massive 15 meter waves alike. There has been a pretty massive reconstruction effort - focusing first on the 432 identical banana pancake/chicken sandwhich/pinapple shake stands, then pirate dvd stands then the dive shops and finally the travel agents (oh and some homes were built as well I am told), so the town is back in pretty decent shape.

The main part of the journey to Phi Phi (to all you pikes out there, don't worry, its pronounced pee-pee, nothing getting through this wicker door) was a long tail tour of Phi Phi Ley (golden shower?), a smaller uninhabited island to the south. This is where The Beach was filmed and in one of those lovely ironies, the spot where they filmed a movie about getting away from tourists is now crawling with Germans in speedos. One of the christian kids that came with me (hey, it made the trip cheaper) also decided it was appropriate to wear a speedo which solicted a socrnful "Jesus does not approve of that, son" from me. Anyhow, whats most impressive about the islands are these beautiful beaches with turquoise water in bays closed in by 100 meter limestone walls covered in palm trees. That and the banana pancakes, those are sooo good.

Off to the Perhenthians!

Gore

Thats right, it is the basketball hoop that I* created this past week. Its regulation size and roundish so all that is missing is the hoop, backboard and cement court. Those should be set in the next two weeks. I'll also start working on my BBQ made from a keg. I also may try to help build a house or two, not sure.

Sorry mom and dad, but I'm proud to say I have my first real bar tab. "Da", my favorite bartender at the Marlin bar (and the only one) has foolishly decided that plying me with copious amounts of alcohol and then allowing me to stumble home without paying is in her best interest. It is pretty fun though, kind of like your first credit card (but with a wicked fucking hangover). (To my folks: to make up for that one, here's a story you might enjoy more: I was talking to the Sri Lankanians about religion and more specifically that I don't believe in god and their response was "oh so your mother and father are lord". Don't let that go to your head).

Some more memorable quotes of the week:

• Jeremy: "Its really cool that these guys dug these holes, built the rebar, poured the concrete and have done everything for this house". Me: "Yeah, and we supervised"
• Me: "So I was talking to other Jeremy..." Jeremy: "Yeah, I realized it wasn't me knucklehead"
• Dean: "Couldn't have happened to a better group of people: my inlaws" (on the hurricane**)
• Stupid Christian 1: "Yeah, so I had to get all these shots in the army and they put this huge gun up to my arm and they shot them all in at once." Stupid Christian 2: "I thought they gave it to you in the butt." Stupid Me: "No, thats only in the navy." Confused silence.
• Stupid Christian 3: "Boy, theres a lot of construction out here" Yeah, there was a fucking tsunami
• Also, the great Rattan/Wicker debate which none of you will understand but one day I will find funny

Ok, thats all for now. Tomorrow I am off to Phi Phi then Krabi then Malaysia for like a week, so I'll have some fun travelling stories (I hope). Cheeeeeeeeerio

Zagorski

*: Actually, I just designed and supervised its creation, Samspot did all the bending/welling/making

**: Seriously, it sounds like what happened on the Gulf Coast is incredibly terrible and my thoughts are with everyone down there. Also, if anyone knows of groups looking for volunteers (or better, paid project managers with previous disaster recovery/drinking experience) lemme know. Finally, you crazy sons of bitches, what the fuck were you doing shooting at helicopters? Fucking hell (or in your best Welsh accent: Faaaaking Hullll).