We met some other guys, who said there was a cool cave around the other side of the beach, so we ventured over there and found a huge cave which we couldn’t really wonder into cause it was too dark.  We met back up with Team Euro and went back to our side for lunch; it was about 4pm.  We got the torch and the four of us went back to explore the cave.  I acted as tour guide while Miles was the scout.  He climbed ahead in the dark with no problem, kudos to him, while I escorted the Euros with the light.  Seriously, this Swedish guy Sebastian is the biggest pansy I’ve ever seen.  We was afraid of everything.  He didn’t like to eat squid cause he was scared of it, he didn’t like heights, he didn’t like the dark, he was complaining the whole time in the cave.  Oh, and he believes the moon landing was a hoax because he saw a commercial for the documentary that said it was a hoax.  He didn’t even see the whole documentary!!  Anyway, we had a conversation about that.  But once we got through the bat filled cave, up to the other side, we were fifty feet from the ground in a small cave opening and could see the other beach which was north.  it was beautiful and well worth the trek.  In the cave, there were these series of ladders built from rope and bamboo.  They didn’t seem all that sturdy but they held up pretty well.

By the time we got back down from the cave, it was dark and we went to this tiny secluded beach area.  And of course the equation of secluded beach + darkness + me = skinny dipping so I did.    The coolest thing was they have bioluminescent water here.  It’s little bacteria that when you hit them, they move and in moving the extrete waste in the form of light, so the glow.  So as you move around, the water sparkles around you, it’s really cool.

Now we’re going to the Last Bar for some food and to see some thai boxing and snake show.

Left Penang the next day to go to KL and fly out of there to Siem Reap.  We were only there one night, but we went out to dinner with Melinda (Elena’s cousin) and her bf Kris.  Then we met Maddie (Elena’s college friend) and Gerald who were both going with us to Siem Reap, Cambodia.  We stayed at Gerald’s place that night.  He lives on the 8th floor of a really nice condo complex.  So nice in fact, I couldn’t figure out how to work the remote control AirCon and froze most of the night.

The next morning, we flew to Siem Reap and the process to go through to get a tourist visa involved long lines and a lot of waiting.  You’re supposed to bring a photo for your tourist visa but I had forgotten to bring one, but that didn’t matter, just pay two dollars more and your identity was secure. 

Cambodia has it’s own currency (real), but it uses US dollars everywhere cause the exchange is better for them.  4100 real is one us dollar.  That being said, it was actually more on the expensive side.  Probably just because we were in the tourist area, but Thailand is much cheaper.  So at this point in our travels, I got pretty frustrated.  Not only did the addition of one extra person (Gerald) mean that I had to find accomodations elswhere, but I had confirmed a guide for the three days we were going to be there and no one else wanted to pay the money, well I don’t think Gerald minded.  But anyhow, I felt really bad and had to call and cancel Ing (the guide) after confirming with him online.  Then we hire a driver and get to the first temple (Bayorn) and within ten minutes, everyone’s like “man, we need a guide.”  I almost lost it, I wanted to say, “Yeah you think?  Look at all these great ruins, wouldn’t it be nice to know what the hell they mean?”  Anyway, I called Ing right after that and said we were back on for tomorrow.  I climbed around the temple a bit more cause you can basically climb anywhere you want and then said I don’t want to see any other temples today without a guide.  So we went back to Siem Reap and they all got massages while I burned some pictures and got on the internet.  I felt bad about the Ing thing but I gave him a substantial tip on the last day which made me feel better.

That night, I met this guy Wes, who happened to be from Austin, and we went to this bar to get some drinks and met this German guy named Frank from Berlin.  We had a grand ole time at Islands watching the bartender do tricks and spin bottles.  Then we asked where a good club was and ended up going to this club called Pyramid for more drinks and dancing until about 5am.  Then I had to get up at 8am, to meet up with Ing and everyone else.  I was tired most of that day, but the temples were cool.  We went to Angkor Wat, which was huge, but also to many of the surrounding temples which were often more interesting because the carvings were better preserved and intricate details could be seen.  We went to Phom pen I believe it’s called, the huge over grown forest temple where the second tomb raider was filmed.  That was a neat looking place.  Took so many pictures.

That night, they went to get a message again and I slept.  We all met up for dinner and then bed time.  The next morning, we went down to lake Tonle Sap to see the floating villages.  This is different from those in Uros Peru which are made from grass reeds.  These are built on bamboo logs and since the village is less touristy then Uros, the poverty there is much more apparent.  We did go to a floating market which had a crocodile pit.  They keep crocodiles in inclosed water traps to sell their skin when their old enough.  There’s a dry level in it made of wooden planks the crocs can sunbathe on.  And of all places to do this, a guy dropped his camera into the crocodile pit.  Talk about the worst possible place.  It landed in a crack between planks.  All the cambodian guides started trying to get it.  They put the fence down over one side of the pit and climbed onto it.  Another guy pushed the crocs away with a stick while one reached in with his bare hand to grab the camera.  It took about 10 minutes to get, so as commotion rose, more people came to see what was happening, thusly pushing the pit further into the water and half submerged the camera.  Ah, that was pretty funny, for everyone except that guy that is.

In the afternoon, we went back to Bayorn so Ing could tell us all the things we missed and he showed us some very interesting wall galleries that told a long story which I otherwise would’ve missed.  He was a good guide and I’d reccommend him to anyone.  That night, they all finally convinced me to get a massage which was fun, then Gerald, Mike, and I went out for drinks at Islands while the girls shopped.  The bartender showed me how to do some stupid bar tricks which I will surely use to “impress” my friends when I get home.

Phew, well that wasn’t too bad.  The next morning, we flew back to Kuala Lumpur and I had contracted the disease which Gerald and Maddie had been fighting, so I felt pretty crappy all of yesterday.  I slept at Gerald’s for most of the day while Maddie, Mike, and Elena went to get yet another massage (4 days in a row!).  That night, Gerald and Maddie and I went out to a place called Delicious cause I had a hankering for pasta and it was true to its name, quite good.  Then we joined the rest of the crew plus melinda and Kris at a coffee bar sort of place for dessert and drinks.  Gerald had offered for me to stay at his place that night, but since New Years Eve is today, I wanted to get to the hostel to see if I could meet people to hang with on New Years.  Gerald and Maddie are going to dinner with friends and Elena and Mike will be back in Penang. 

That turned out to be a bad decision.  This Hostel Cosmopolitan isn’t everything it was cracjked up to be. It was soooo hot in the room I was in, so I switched to one with aircon (which costs more) and there was a huge dude snoring the whole time, so I moved to just some empty room I found and slept there.  Ugh, really wish I’d stayed at Gerald’s.  I still feel kind of crappy so I think I’m just gonna go down to KL twin towers and watch the fireworks and then call it a night.  A low key New Years abroad this year.

I’m kind of frustrated right now cause things have been up in the air for so many days now.  It seems when you add other people to your travel arrangements, things get complicated.  There’s a girl I’m trying to meet up with before I leave, but I’m not sure if that’s foinf to happen, so I don’t know what I’m going to do.  My rule for a long time has been never do something just because of a girl, it ALWAYS gets me into trouble or some place I don’t want to be, so perhaps I should stick with that rule…

I forgot to mention before I left Singapore, a group of girls, with whom I bonded over Friends episodes in the hostel, had just come from Malaysia and were nice enough to give me all their change. It was like USD 5 bucks in all. Very nice of them.

Penang has been great. Elena’s family is very nice and let us stay in their home. My memory is already on the fritz, so I’m gonna try to piece together the last few days. When I arrived, I was supposed to be waiting for Mike’s plane for about an hour or so, but Elena and Mike were already outside waiting for me. Apparently, Mike had given me the wrong info date and he had arrived the day before, so that was quite convenient for me. That night, we went to a food court for dinner. Their food courts are made up of a series of stalls. Each stall specializes in its own thing, so you can’t order everything from one place, like you have to get your drink elsewhere. You just order from there and then point to the general location of where you’re sitting and they bring your food to you. I gorged myself on things I don’t even know the names of. All i know is there was alot of fish and squid.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, was pretty nice. We drove over to the western side of Penang, and hiked for about an hour and a half through some jungle to a really nice beach. I unfortunately forgot to apply sunscreen and got a little burned but I’m alright today. The water was really nice except there are no waves and supposed to be a bunch of jelly fish. We saw some, but no one got stung. We waited a while on a nearby dock until a boat arrived so we could see the coastline on the way back. We were starving by this point, but Elena wasn’t feeling well so she dropped Mike and I near the house and we found another food court for lunch where I discovered char quay teow, which is fried noodles, chicken, egg, and a bunch of other stuff that’s really good.

After that, we hung out at the house until it was time to go for dinner. Elena has two brothers, Elvin, who lives with his wife in Singapore but is visiting for Christmas, and Eric, who lives with their parents and has a girlfriend named Denise. Her parents own a restaurant called Crab Village Restaurant, and that’s where we had dinner. Elena, Mike and I paid for everyone as a thanks for staying at their place. There was soooo much food and it was soo good. There was crab, fish, prawns, rice, noodles, clams- ooooh the clams. There was this sauce on the clams that tasted almost like a honey base sauce, it was so sweet, but had no honey in it. Denise said it was a family recipe and didn’t have a name, just “clam sauce” and I would have to come back to taste it again. Many, I mixed that sauce with everything. The last few days has been a lot of eating.

That night, Elena’s family was going to church for midnight mass. They said I didn’t have to go but I said I would because my mom would like it if I did. And good things are rewarded it seems, cause afterwards, we all went out to a coffee shop and they gave us party bags with poppers to pop at midnight when it was Christmas. It was a lot of fun. After that, we all went home, the adults went to bed, (I’m not including anyone under 35 in the adult category) and Mike, Elena, Eric, Denise, and I staying up till 2am playing cards, learned some new games, one is Malaysian poker, the other is called Hockey.

Woke up late on Christmas morning and we went to see some Hindu and Buddhist temples. At one of them, there was this circling fountain which was half monument statue/story of buddha and half blessing gameshow. You throw your coin into the fountain and try to get it into one of the rotating blessing cups, each cup has a different blessing be it “happiness”, “happy marriage”, “prosperity”, “higher education”, whatever. I thought it was pretty funny. Even better, there was an electronic blessing machine. You stick 50 cents in, a light spins on what was literally called the “wheel of fortune” until it lands on a number. Next to the machine is a box with little cards associated with the number on the wheel. Mike did it first and his wasn’t so great. He’s got some hard times ahead and can’t depend on his family to help him, but there will be a special someone who’ll get him through. Mine however was quite good. I landed on 28 and I hope I’m not jinxing it by telling you, but here it is, and I quote

Sweetness.

After that, we went to Little India to look in the shops and had lunch. We had rice on banana leaf which comes with a myriad of sauces and we got mutton and chicken and fish. There was this mint sauce that was quite good as well. I am stuffed. I also bought some nice slip on sandals. They could double for barbarian shoes at the renaissance (multi-function = good purchase

Now I think we’re going to rest up the rest of the day and go out tonight.

I took the bus back through Orchard to Raffles Hotel.  In the process, I left my hat on the bus, the one I got in Germany with all the buttons on it.  Travesty.  Need a new hat now.  Raffles Hotel was very colonial.  I walked down to Chinatown to a place where there were four different religious structures in a row.  There was a Muslim Mosque, a Buddhist Wat, a Hindu Temple, and a Chinese temple on consecutive blocks down the same street.  Not far off was a catholic church.  And I thought America was a melting pot.  In Singapore, all the different cultures seem to retain more of their identity and still coexist.  The downside of that is you never know how to address anyone, there will be two asians speaking english to each other with an asian accent, plus all the museums have four translations: Malay, English, Chinese, and Hindie.  We thought translating to Spanish was bad.

I returned to the hostel after getting some Indian food, been eating all the Indian food I can cause it’s delicious and cheap here.  Shortly after that, I went back down to Sentosa for the Song of the Sea show at night.  It was kind of a kid thing but was really cool.  They combined water with fire and laser effects.  They did a lot of projecting images onto water sprays and made some really cool laser effects in the myst.  At the beginning of the show, they sung songs in like 5 different languages.  Worth the $8 I’d say.

This morning, I boarded a plane and am now in Penang visiting Elena and her family.  Elena’s bf Mike is here too.  I’ll be staying here for Christmas and then off to Angkor Watt.

So I of course didn’t have time the day before with Mr. Noi to book my 3 day trip so I woke up early to try to get on the trip leaving on Friday in the morning and was successful.  The hooded pick up truck they call santee came to pick me up and I met my group, consisting of Mike (USA), Micha (Belgium), Tim (Bulgaria), Uli (Germany), Toby (Germany), Grayson (Canada), and a french couple whose names I never really got correct.   We started out at the elephant camp where we rode elephants for about an hour.  That was pretty fun.  First, I started out on the carriage on its back and after asking the head rider, he let me ride on the head of the elephant and that was crazy.  Those huge shoulders move all over the place and I almost fell over, but i got it by the end.  THankfully the rule of “i have to fall once first” did not apply this time.  I also got snotted all over with elephant mucous, mmmm.  We had some bananas and it would stick its trunk up in my face every once in a while wanting more bananas.

After that, we walked for about 3 hours, seeing some interesting flora along the way.  Like there was this plant our guide, Puzaa, called a sensetive plant.  When you touch it, the fern fronds close up.  It was pretty cool.  Puzaa by the way was a 22 year old guide and was a lot of fun.  If you ever go to Thailand, I have his email, and you should go with him.  We walked passed a small waterfall where some Belgians were swimming.  We decided to wait until the falls we’d see tomorrow and instead Grayson and I climbed up the rocks on top of it.  We’re both pretty high energy people and spent the entire trip playing and climbing on things.  He’s a paramedic, perhaps that’s a medical thing with the high energy.

FInally, we reached high camp.  This was Lahu Village which sat atop a mountain looking down over the valley.  When we started, we could see a wat pagoda in the distance and from this vantage, we could see that, the elephant camp, and miles more waaay down there.  The village was amazine: houses on stilts to compensate for the hilly base, all made of bamboo and grass roofs.  I cannot describe to you the beauty of it; far better then the Amazon.  The people were really nice and Grayson and I took a walk around the village.  We followed the sound of commotion and found a soccer game going on so we joined in.

After that, we had dinner in out hut which was right on the edge of the mountain and had a spectacular view of the moon and in the morning, the sun rise.  Dinner was thai rice and veges with pineapples.  We played cards, I taught them Stress and Puzaa taught me how to play Thai rummy.  (you play for money).  THen he brought out the guitar and we sang songs around candle light until bed time.

My sleep was iffy at best, not only was it really cold (shoud’ve brought my sleeping bag), but the freakin roosters were going off all morning long.  Needless to say I was up early and it was then that I accomplished something I have been attempting for years now.  Some of you know.  THat’s right, I pooped while squatting.  Never before have I been able to accomplish this task.  THere were no western style toilets, just holes in the ground to pumbling in which you poured water after you were done to flush it down.  So yes, the impossible has been accomplished.  Now all that remains is to poop in the wild and I will be a true outdoorsman.

After breakfast, we began walking up the path and Puzaa showed us some other interesting types of plants, like one which you could rip a stalk off, split it near the leaf and blow bubbles from it.  THere’s also a way to strip a peice of long grass so you can pull it really fast and launch the stem out at someone.  And of course there’s the whistling grass.  Good times.  On the way out of the village there was what looked like a badmiton net and a bamboo weaved ball which was surprisingly strong.  This was a Takraw set or Thai volleyball in which you can use any part of your body except your hands.  We played for like a half hour and I still didn’t get enough.

From there, we walked on to the bamboo forest.  We stopped for lunch which took a while cause Puzaa card us plates out of the bamboo and made a fire.  We played around in the forest and Grayson climbed up in the trees.  Looking back, it seems like Puzaa was always having to run after Grayson yelling, “Please no, save my job, save my job.”  It was quite funny.  I took the shards from Puzaa’s carvings and braided a pretty nice rope with which I used to make a bamboo bench between two trees, roping together a third bamboo stalk for stability.  Then I started weaving, what I did not know at the time, but finally I figured out that it was a banana hamock.  THat’s right, I weaved a banana hammock.  You could stick the banana in the net between two sticks and hold it over a fire to roast it.  MMMMmmmm.

Grayson also took this time to wrap Ulli’s foot cause she’d gotten pretty bad blisters on one, and later one it happened to the other and she had to switch from sandles to shoes.  She finally had to grab two bamboo stalks to help her walk, but she made it.

Oh, Puzaa also showed us this water resistant plant which I know doesn’t make much sense, but if you pour water on it, it wouldn’t soak in, it would just pool and slide on the top like mercury; a very oily plant I guess, but it looked cool.

Finally, we got to the waterfall which came down quite hard actually and it was fun to stand underneath and try to resist it.  I think I lost a third of my hair doing that.  The water was pretty cold but you get used to it, I just hope I’m leech free.    We stayed there swimming and jumping off stuff for about 45 minutes and then walked on to another waterfall which was just to look at but still beautiful.  We followed the river down along a path that was hardly a path in many places, until we got to the low jungle camp.  Our housing was very similar, just this time no walls at the top, they just weren’t needed.  We had dinner and played music and cards and drank beer until we went to bed.  In the morning, after breakfast, we shot some slingshots around (of which i was pretty damn good if i do say so myself), and walked only about 30 minutes to where we’d shove off for rafting.

I’ve done a lot of kayaking and double rafting but never team rafting so this was an interesting experience.  We had to follow the commands of the captain and keep in time.  it wasn’t perilous cause the water was pretty low, but it was a lot of fun.  Then we went on to traditional slow bamboo rafts along calm water.  Puzaa called it the bamboo submarine cause when you get 6 or 7 people on it, it’s pretty much under water and your goods are the size of peas.  I don’t remember who started it, but someone started rocking the boat back and forth and then I stood up and started shifting it even more and pretty soon everyone had stood up to avoid falling out which only made the raft sink even more pretty much to the bottom until we all sat down again.  It was hilarious.  We had lunch after docking just off the river and laid out on a wooden suspension bridge until it was time to head back to civilization.

We planned to meet up later on for dinner and to go out.  A first had to get fitted for my suit that I bought.  It was like first class service, this place, called Thai-Inter Fabrics, is really nice and this suit is going to be fantastic.  I ended up getting two more tailored shirts as a result (AAAHHHH, too much money!).

I met up with the Jungle Gang, which I shall now be calling them, and we went to a local Thai place Toby and Ulli recommended.  It was definitely different, but the fish was very good.  Then we met up with Puzaa at a club in real Chiang Mai called the Warm Up Cafe.  Now hearing this name and knowing that it is a place where local Thais go and not a tourist spot, I guess I was expecting more of a dive, but damn it was nice!  THe place had a huge covered outdoor section and an ACed inside section for dancing.  There were two live bands and all the cheap cocktails you could handle.  It was a lot of fun and Grayson and I ended up staying to play some pool after everyone else left.  A good weekend friends, nay a great weekend.

Now I’m sitting in the internet cafe trying to upload all my pics to make space on my mem card.  Wish yall were here.  Tomorrow I should be off to Singapore.