Archived: Aug 8th, 2009

Hello Hello!

I'm sitting at a surprisingly nice internet cafe beside the train station in a smallish town. Leaving in 4 hours on a sleeper train back to Bangkok (12 hours stuck on a train!) and then hopping on a bus across the Cambodia border (12 hours on a bus!) on our way to Ankor Wat. Since I last wrote I took a 12-hour train from Bangkok to Krabi (where I'm on my way back from now). Sleeper trains are pretty crazy. When we first got on we thought we'd been scammed as there were no beds in sight, just seats. Turns out the seats become the bottom bunk and the top bunk falls from the ceiling! It's surprisingly comfortable but noisy so I didn't sleep. We arrived in Sarut Thani (our train destination before catching a bus) at 3AM so I spent time wandering the train. Spent the majority of the time standing at an open door watching the countryside fly by. It was a very cool moment. When we arrived in Sarut Thani it was mass disorganization. We were told we had to wait until 7:30 for a bus that never came, and then had to take a local bus to catch our other bus. Finally we arrived at the beach in Krabi and had a fun few days. Day 1 we rode elephants which was absolutely amazing. I had reservations about the domestication of wild animals, but these seem to be pretty well taken care of. I am floored at how powerful these animals are. Our elephant managed to walk up and down VERY rough terrain with both Jason (my buddy from Taiwan) and I on it's back and our guide sitting on it's head, keeping it on task. We were walking along very rough rapids and small waterfalls through the jungle. There were a couple of times where the elephant would be walking on a very narrow overpass with 20 foot drops on either side. It was scary and exciting and quite amazing. After I was able to pet and feed the elephant (whose name was Pepsi) and I got some photos. After we had a snack and then I thought it would be a good idea to go over and pet this monkey they had nearby. It was very friendly and climbed up my arm but I'd never held a monkey before so I kept compensating for it's movements. I guess I spooked it because it turned on me and ended up biting me on the stomach. Pretty awesome. Fortunately it was through my shirt and only barely pierced the skin. I'm keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get infected. The next day we were supposed to go island hopping but the water was too rough so we went rock climbing instead. This day confirmed what terrible shape I'm in. Fortunately Jason got tired around the same time I did despite the fact that he's in the gym far more than I am (being never) so I didn't feel THAT bad. Even still I managed to summit once and take in a nice view. Then my arms were way too tired and I struggled on the rest of the climbs. After we climbed through this huge bat cave and repelled down the side of a mountain. All in a day's work. Day 3 we went island hopping. It was raining on and off all day so we didn't get to spend much time on the beach. We went snorkeling and I got to feed the fish bread out of my hand which again was quite amazing. I'm loving all the nature on this trip. Our nights have been mostly quiet. We ventured out to the bars a couple nights ago looking for the guys we'd gone rock climbing with. All we found were sketchy back alley bars filled with hookers grabbing my ass and bar staff yelling at us to come to their bar. We left pretty quickly. Other than that not much else to report. Thai boy sightings have been seldom but entertaining. Off to Angkor Wat next!