Phuket, Thailand

Sabadee! I’ve just hit cruising altitude on a flight from Vientiane, Laos to  Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and it is really my first chance to attempt a write up on my trip! The last two weeks were unbelievable, I don’t have any idea where to begin that would properly sum up the places that I have been and the people that I have seen. Laos was so so so amazing but I really should tell you about my week alone in Thailand first!

So after leaving the others last Monday, I took a cab from the Phuket airport hotel down to the Cape Panwa Hotel on the southeastern tip of Phuket. I had spent some time on the internet the week before I left looking for a place to stay while on my own. I narrowed it down to either staying at a decently nice place in Patong Beach on the west coast or splurge a bit and go to this resort that was a little ways away from all the action in Patong. After talking to my parents I decided I was worth it to stay in a nice place and soak up some sun on a semi-private beach. Now, when I look back after my experiences in Laos, I definitely should have opted for a cheaper option and did a little more adventuring.

So first off, my initial cab driver could not find the hotel and he ended up dropping me off at another hotel where I was greeted with a local sweet drink and friendly staff. After realizing that I was at the wrong hotel, the receptionist hooked me up with another cab to take me the rest of the way. Oh well, at least I got a free drink! My hotel was less welcoming when I arrived but I did get a free fruit basket and a coupon for a free drink at the Otters bar when I got to my room. The room was fantastic too. I had a huge king sized bed with a full bathroom, AC, a TV, a safe and mini bar. Not to mention a balcony overlooking the beach and the ocean with a small lounging bed complete with pillows.

That first afternoon I spent down by the beach, where I got some quality sun-tanning and reading in. The following 3 days were not very sunny so I’m glad that I took advantage of it the first day. I also rented some snorkel gear and putted around in the water for a while. Unfortunately the wind had churned up the water a lot and I really didn’t end up seeing very much.

The hotel was very nice though, with 4 different restaurants and 3 bars to choose from each day. I was entitled to a buffet breakfast each morning and I managed to sneak an extra one in the morning that I had arrived. The main problem that I had while staying there actually had nothing to do with the hotel but with the number of people staying there. There were so few! I was really hoping for a few days of meeting people and hanging out but it was super difficult. Not to mention that the majority of people staying there were couples and there were very few people my age. I talked to one of the guys working at the bar and he said that usually the hotel is pumped up to about 80% occupancy around this time but since all of the turmoil in Bangkok started, the hotel has been down to about 20%. I made pretty good friends with the bartender in the Otters bar as well as with P, the piano man who plays nightly there. I went there for drinks a few of the nights and mostly just chatted with the staff. I found that most of the people I had talked to had come from other parts of Thailand just to find good work in Phuket. I would assume that working in an upscale resort designed for westerns is one of the best jobs that they are going to find. In town there are an abundance of tuk-tuk drivers, tour agencies, internet café’s, massage parlours, tailors, and other ‘tourist traps’ that employ a lot of Thai’s but I find it difficult to understand how they are ALL profitable? P had said that for most workers at the hotel, they would get one day off a week and they would work 10-12 hours a day. I told them a little bit about Canadian work weeks and they seemed pretty astounded.

For the most part, I spent my 4 days waking up around 9, eating breakfast, laying by the pool and reading or listening to music, eating lunch at Café Andaman, going for a stroll around the resort, going for a workout in the gym, laying by the pool some more or relaxing on my patio and then having dinner and drinks. It was great because it was so relaxing, but the whole time I had wished I had some company. Seeing all these happy couples around made me feel pretty lonely haha. I sure had a lot of time with my thoughts.

On my last full day in Phuket I took a shuttle to Phuket Town and spent a few hours walking around and taking pictures. It was nice to see but I found it very similar to the majority of the other SEA’n towns that I had been to. I ended up buying a G key harmonica for 120baht (about $4CDN) so I could pass some time on my balcony later that night. I also stopped at a small little coffee shop and had a delicious snack and an iced coffee while waiting for my ride to come get me. While walking around town I was harassed by so many people asking if I wanted a suit made, or if I wanted a ride in a tuk-tuk, or if I wanted a massage. That was the one thing that I hated about Thailand and it made me appreciate Laos so much more while I was there. It has become so much of a tourist trap that it has lost a lot of its culture. I’m kind of happy that I didn’t spend my time in Patong beach since it is known as the party center of Phuket and it would only be worse there. I managed to avoid spending tons of money on things that I did not need.

I know that I am not painting the best picture of Phuket so far and don’t get me wrong it is still unbelievable, you just have to know where to look and what to avoid. The first day that I was at the hotel I spent some time talking to an Australian guy who was working at the guest services counter. He pulled out a bunch of the main brochures for tours and went through them with me. Out of them all, I decided that only one tour was really worth my money and that was John Gray’s kayaking tour through the Hong islands. This tour was easily the highlight of my Phuket trip and I so happy that I decided to do it.

The cost of the day trip was 3950baht, so about $130. It was expensive, yes, but totally worth it. I was picked up at my hotel by a guy who turned out to be the chef on our boat. He was very friendly and extremely chatty, asking all about Canada and wondered if we had crocodiles there. I told him no, but grizzly bears are pretty cool too. I was the first one to the boat, but I was told that there were 24 people taking part today. The next group there was a family from Australia who I spoke with until the rest showed up. They had two sons, one who would be about Kevin’s age and the other a bit younger, and they were very nice. I convinced the kids to do some flips with me off the side of the boat later on lol. I spoke with another (somewhat dysfunctional) family from Las Vegas, and found that the Asian mother was actually a professional poker player who was touring Asia for tournaments. Her family consisted of her old and largely overweight American husband, her 1 year old daughter, her brother and sister as well as who I assume was her elderly mother? Since I was on my own, I ended up being slotted with the grandmother as my canoeing partner haha. It was okay though, since we had a guide in the back and we didn’t actually do any paddling.

We boated for about an hour north of phuket into a large bay where tons and tons of  islands were. There, we threw in the anchor and jumped into our canoes. The guides pulled us towards a set of caves in the underbelly of the island where we had to squeeze through small openings that were exposed by the low tide. At high tide, the caves are completely submerged and the insides of the islands are inaccessible. At certain points we had to lay down completely flat in the canoe so that we could fit through the small spaces. It was awesome! I was in charge of the light for our boat since Amma pretty much laid flat at the front of the canoe and didn’t move lol. Once inside we found a quiet little ecosystem of mangrove trees and high cascading cliffs covered in foliage as well as a few animals such as water skimmers and a few monkeys. We were told beforehand to be as quiet as possible to encourage animals to come close, however our lovely Vegas family decided to spend most of the time clapping and making baby noises to the young girl. So much for that! I had brought my camera with me in a dry sack and I snapped a lot of pictures. Take a look. I was in absolute awe.

We paddled back to the boat where we were given banana muffins and hot tea or coffee while we headed to the next island. There we did a similar canoeing adventure through the ‘bat cave.’ There were a few bats, but there was nowhere near as many as in Taman Negara. The inside of the island was similar to the first but still extremely beautiful.

From there we headed to a calm cove where they parked the boat and we were given about an hour to go swimming and canoe around on our own. Pretty much immediately the young Australian boys jumped in off the top deck and I followed with a flippy into the water. After swimming around for a while I hopped into my own canoe and took off to a close beach. I think it was at this point that I decided I wanted to try kayaking when I get back home. Eric if you are reading this, hook me up J. I spent some time on the beach and then went exploring to another close island. There I snapped a few quick photos while doing my best to protect my camera.

After this we boated to another island and there we ate dinner while waiting for the sun to set. The dinner was amazing, fresh seafood and three different Thai dishes and veggies and tempura! It was awesome. The Australians were joking that you couldn’t find a nicer restaurant with better food or a better view.

After dinner we sat down and made our Kratong offerings to the sea gods.We were given different parts of a banana tree including the stalk, leaves and flowers and fashioned them all together with small nails (traditionally they use sticks from the tree). Each of the Kratong's were different since you are encouraged to be creative and I obliged with some crazy flowers that's came off the sides. On top we included candles and three incense sticks. Annie had told me it was tradition to burn three incense sticks at a time but I didn't know why. My guide told me that it was because in the Buddhist religion, they would burn one stick for the Monk, one stick for the Buddhist scripture, and one stick for Buddha him(/her?)self. 

We set sail into our canoes after it got dark and tucked ourselves into a small cove in one of the islands. There we lit the incense and candles and let the Kratongs float in the water. Unfortunately my camera battery had died JUST before we did that, so I don't have any pics :( . After the candles burned out we went away from the lights of the other canoes and our guide showed us something called Bioluminescence. When the water was calm enough, you can splash some around and the plankton in the water begin to reflect the light from the moon. Basically, since it was dark enough we would splash around the boat and it looked like we were surrounded by little fireflies. It was awesome!

From there we boated back to the mainland of Phuket which took a good hour and a half. It was a nice night, so I sat at the front of the boat with my legs dangling over the edge the whole time. Talk about beautiful. You could see the moon bouncing in and out of the clouds, plus the silhouettes of the islands around the boat and all the while the cool wind would fly past you. Lots of self reflection on that ride!

So there you have it. That was my Phuket experience. Saturday morning I paid my hotel a bunch of money and made my way to the Phuket airport where I took a plane to Bangkok, and from there I took another plane to Udon Thani in the northwest of Thailand. Both plane rides had terrible turbulence and really made me uneasy about certain SEA'n flights. I was extremely happy to travel by land the rest of the way to Laos. At Udon Thani I took a bus to the Friendship Bridge just outside of Nong Khai which is on the border of Thailand and Laos. There I went through Thai immigration, paid for a shuttle bus to the other side of the bridge, paid my $43USD for a Laosian Visa and jumped in a taxi headed to Vientiane. Unfortunately, my taxi driver didn't know where my hotel was so I spent half an hour asking other people to help him out. Eventually I made it to the hotel and saw Alisa, Jen and Ashley sitting on a patio by the river enjoying a Beerlao. But this gets into my next post. Read this and expect another sometime this week after I get caught up in my history class!

Thanks for reading! I know these are long.

Mattskis

Today's Spin: Zzyzx Rd. - Stone Sour

Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand

Sà wàt dii everybody. It’s 10pm (Thailand time) on Wednesday September 17, 2008 and I just got back from an unbelievable day on the ocean. I will get to that in my next update though. So... I was walking back to my room just now and walked right past a huge black snake (I think it was a cobra because it had a fat head?). I freaked out a little when I noticed it and then I just stood there and watched it slither away. God! The one time I let my guard down and I almost step on another snake. I decided to hide in my room and hopefully do a nice write up for you guys so I can avoid some snake wrestling! This post is about my trip with Dave, Alisa and Annie to Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand for the Full Moon Party! 

So Friday morning we flew out of Singapore and arrived in Phuket, Thailand around 11 in the morning. From there, we hired a taxi straight from the Airport to the Raja Pier, which was about 3 1/2 hours north. The cab was great actually, a nice little Corolla and a semi-friendly Thai driver. I asked him a few questions about basic Thai greetings and got a couple laughs at my attempt to pronounce them. We passed a lot of awesome rock formations that rose up out of the water and saw plenty of Buddhist temples. When we arrived at the pier, the cab driver pulled over and asked for a "Tip? Tip? Tip for long drive?.” We obliged with an extra 100Baht. The ride was expensive enough (A rough conversion from Baht to Canadian is to divide Baht by 30). After going inside to purchase a ticket to Koh Pha ngan, we found that we were actually at the wrong pier. We had to jump in another cab and drop 300Baht to travel about 5 minutes down the road to the other pier. God I hate being taken advantage of as a tourist. We eventually made it onto a huge ferry and parked ourselves on the top deck. 

 

The ferry ride was pretty typical, even though the ship was ancient and looked like it could fall apart at any time. But that’s just southeast Asia for you! I think I’m starting to get used to terribly inefficient travel. I will never take proper roads, infrastructure or capable vehicles for granted again. The weather was pretty overcast for most of the ride, though I still snapped a bunch of photos and convinced Dave to start our video documentary for the weekend. He did a great job, and as such I have a collection of absolutely hilarious videos to patch together for another post in the future.

4 hours later we almost rolled into the port at Koh Phangan, except that the ferry decided to stop and hang out just outside in the bay. Apparently a large wave from a storm had disrupted the boats before us, so we had to sit there for an extra 45 mins.

We exited into a horde of taxi drivers and somehow luckily found the one lady in the crowd who operated the shuttle straight to our hotel. The hotel was on a beach on the northwest corner of the island, which was actually quite a ways away from where the full moon party was, but it was unbelievable. That night we spent some time getting settled and grabbed some dinner at the restaurant there. I really liked it, mostly because of the cool cushions that we sat on, but I also liked the dinner that night. The free breakfast’s were pretty decent too, but since two of the mornings I was hungover, they never really sat well. I don’t think the others were very pleased with the food though. After dinner we took a quick dip in the pool and I relaxed with a beer. Dave and Alisa and I talked for a while about our possible trips in October and November and then headed to bed.

Saturday morning we got up and I checked out if the wireless worked. I ended up talking to my parents on Skype for a few minutes while sitting on our balcony which was cool! We got breakfast then headed down to the beach to check it out. It was beautiful, obviously. After that we headed out to find mopeds to rent and ride around the island. I had decided previously that the roads were empty enough for us all to be safe on the bikes. However, Annie’s enthusiasm wasn’t enough to help her feel comfortable on the actual machine when we found some. This was fine, since we could double up and that was Alisa’s plan from the start. But in the end, Dave didn’t feel comfortable driving with another person on the back, so we scrapped the idea. We walked down the road a ways and ended up finding a jeep/Suzuki to rent for 800Baht a day. But check this… It wasn’t exactly Westernized. It was old, rusted, power-nothing, no radio, manual AND the stick shift was on the left. Took me a few minutes to figure it out haha, but man that vehicle was fun.

We went into the town by the pier called Thong Sala and did some shopping for souvenirs and grabbed some food for lunch. Lunch was amazing, I am starting to love authentic Thai food even though my face gets on fire. Oh and the Pineapple milkshake was the greatest thing ever invented.

From there we headed to a traditional Thai massage spa/herbal steam sauna run by a monk. Yup. It wasn’t as fancy as it sounds though, haha. The spa was a small house with two mats in it on the ground. And the steam sauna was a tiny, old, moldy hole in the wall that was EXTREMELY hot and awkward. The girls started with a massage while Dave and I hit the sauna. I lasted about 5 minutes in the sauna before feeling like I might pass out from the heat, while Dave lasted even less. How were we going to wait 60 minutes for our turn on the mats? I went back and forth into the room a lot, alternating between cooling off by dunking water on my head or sitting on the steps outside. Oh, I should mention that the monks burn herbs and pump them in with the steam. That was beautiful. The thai massage was ridiculous too. I’ve never had a regular massage back home, but this had to have been totally different. The masseuse pushed into each of my muscles with her hands and stood on my back/legs and cracked my knuckles and my neck and back. Granted, I did feel really loosened up afterwards, except my spine was kind of sore. I might just go for a regular shoulder massage next time haha.

After our intense relaxation, we hopped into the matt-mobile and drove to the middle of the island to find some waterfalls that were on our map. After parking, we walked about 200m to the ‘falls’ only to find a lot of large rocks and a small stream trickling down. I guess there hasn’t been enough rain lately to warrant waterfalls. Anyways, it started to get dark super fast so I told the girls to head back to the car while I tried to snap some cool low-light photos. In only about 5 minutes it went from dusk to dark, and Dave and I had to tread our way through the rainforest back to the car.

After this we headed back home, grabbed some dinner and relaxed in our hammocks before deciding to have some drinks and catch the 11 o clock taxi from our hotel down to Haad Rin Beach for the Full Moon Party pre-party. The ride there was kind of weird. We got into a nice van with a bunch of other people and we asked if the driver had any music to put on. He handed me three cd’s and the remote control to the deck. I turned to the rest of the vanbus and mentioned that we only have ‘The best of The Eagles, and two other cd’s that I can’t understand.’ Eagles it was, and we all ended up almost passing out on the 40 minute ride since it was so relaxing haha.

Anyways, let me paint you a picture of the beach. First of all, it’s huge. There was quite a bit of room to move around on the first night and it was easy to find a spot on the beach to sit down and drink. There are bars lined up along the edge of the beach, each playing their own type of music that was, for the most part, a mix of electro-techno-trance-drum and bass and hip-hop. Although, at one point during the FMP, I caught some Grease tunes. In between each of the bars there were independently run bucket shops. That is, buckets of liquor. My favorite was one called “Peter and Jenny” because Peter was a really nice guy. He ended up giving me a free bucket and a lot of extra liquor because I kept coming back to him, which is exactly what they go for. Anyways, I think my favorite was a Pineapple juice/red bull/vodka mixture bucket. They were so deadly though, because they went down so easy. There were some other awesome names like “I love you long time” and “Good F**k Buckets.” Lets see, along the beach there was some good entertainment too. The first night we had some fire swingers and a limbo bar that was lit on fire. Second night there were guys with other fire instruments and also a huge jump rope that anyone could go and try to hop over. Oh, that was on fire as well. I don’t think anyone who tried got past one hop. Throughout the night you would see people hooking up all along the beach too, which was ridiculous. Oh and probably the weirdest thing I saw the whole night had to be this one sexy girl running around with her top off and carrying a huge whip. A crowd of guys had gathered around her and she decided to chase them around while smashing them with her whip. Like…what!?! We saw a couple iguanas and got our picture with them.

I guess I am jumping ahead a bit, since some of this happened at the actual FMP on Sun night, but it all kind of blurs together for me. Saturday night we didn’t leave the beach until about 6am, and by the time our taxi made it to our hotel the sun had come up and I had passed out hard. Annie had her purse stolen at the party and lost her money and cell phone, and my phone went missing at some point during the night as well. What a bunch of crap, but I guess we had been warned by plenty of people!

The next morning was pretty rough since we decided to get up early and make something of our day. We hopped into the jeep, told it’s owner we wanted it for another day, and then headed up north to a small island connected to Koh Pha Ngan by a sand bar. There we rented snorkels and did a little swimming and tanning and exploring. Dave, Annie and myself all injured our feet by accidentally stepping on some coral in the shallow areas. It was difficult to snorkel since it was so shallow and on more than one occasion you would be floating above a rock and a wave would recede causing you to scratch yourself on it. Alisa and I found a deeper spot a little further out that was 100x better than the sea cucumber infested shallows. Out there I saw so many different types of fish and a lot of colorful coral.

After that we drove back towards the hotel, but ended up taking a wrong turn and got a bit lost. We stopped for some lupper (lunch/supper) and then headed back to our place to get a nap in. The girls passed out right away, but Dave and I went down to the beach to get some pics of the setting sun. Afterwards I layed down in the hammock on our balcony and chilled while listening to some music. I woke up just in time to catch the sunset and thank goodness I did, it was unbelievable. After that I passed out till 9pm and upon awakening, we grabbed some dinner and made our way to the FMP!

Honestly, I think the night before the party was the best since it was a bit less crowded but it was still awesome! After convincing my stomach that it wanted to drink again we grabbed some buckets and chilled in the sand for a bit. Then we did some dancing and some exploring. I went to get my arm painted with some fluorescent paint and the girls ended up doing the same. We danced the rest of the night away until the sun came up. That was so cool, even though it was cloudy! A cab ride later and we passed out for a few hours before having to be up at 9am.

The rest of the day was pretty terrible and I don’t really want to talk about it haha. Basically, we took a truck from the hotel to the dock and barely made our ferry because the truck took its sweet time leaving. The ferry was packed so we paid a little extra to sit in the VIP area and sleep. It stopped at Koh Samui before continuing to the mainland. There we hopped on a huge bus and travelled to the company’s bus transfer station. There we hopped on a small truck/cab and travelled in the same direction we had just come from, only to be dropped off at a small café and be told that our bus to Phuket would be leaving in an hour. 2 hours later we departed in an extremely cramped 15 person van that was packed to capacity. The ride to Phuket was 4 hours and we stopped once in the middle. The plan was to go to Phuket town and get a place there, however an English dude was staying at the airport hotel and when we arrived there we all got out.

So from there, Dave and the girls flew home on Tuesday morning while I jumped a cab (which actually ended up being 2 cabs because the first driver didn’t know where my hotel was and dropped me off at the wrong place) and headed out on my own.

Okay. I’m gonna post this and then hopefully update it again after I meet up with the girls in Laos on Saturday to let you know what my individual travelling experience was like.

Miss you all and love you lots.

Matty

 Today's Spin: Lincoln Duncan - Paul Simon

y u so like that!

Hey guys. I'm sorry it took me SO long to update this thing. I've been busy! What can I say? 

I guess this whole 'school' thing that I have been avoiding finally caught up to me. Pretty good though, I managed to float through the first month! Haha, don't act so surprised... this is pretty typical. Some good news though, I do like my classes for the most part and they are not very hard. My history of Singapore class is awesome even though I am one of 3 exchange students in the class who had no prior knowledge of the country. Did you know that Singapore was instrumental in creating 'free trade' in ports, all thanks to one Brit; Thomas Stamford Raffles? Also, did you know that the morning after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941, they immediately set their sights on Singapore because of Singaporean Chinese nationalistic views and the boycotting of cheap Japanese products? Seems pretty trivial, and maybe I flew through those readings a bit too quick, but for such a young country there seems to be a very deep and rich history. I could go on for a while, but I'll save that for my final paper. 

My other classes are good too, just a bit more 'engineering' related. Process control is good, even though there is a lot of math involved. And my Environmental courses are good too. I can definitely see myself heading towards an environmentally conscious career in the future. Seems like a positive thing to put hard work and energy into... maybe? I guess step 1 would be to stop taking super long showers! I'm terrible at that!

So, here's a quick summary of the last 2 weeks since I've been neglecting my blogging. 

The weather has been pretty crappy to say the least. It's still extremely hot, but it has been rainy and overcast pretty much every day. We get the occasional ray of sunlight, but it's nothing compared to the first few weeks where we got spoiled!

Two weekends ago, I stayed in Singapore in order to get a bit more organized and save some money (hah). Ended up going down to the Esplanade in downtown Singapore because I had heard that there was a music festival of some sort. The plan for the night was to grab a few drinks and listen to some live music. Drew and Jenn took off to find some cheap drinks, and ended up finding a bar/club called DXO where we could get 26 dollar towers or 80 dollar bottles of Absolute (that's pretty darn cheap in Singapore). Ended up drinking 2 bottles and 2 towers between like 6 of us hahaha. When I got home at 4am, my roomate was still up so we had a nice little heart to heart for half an hour hahaha. Saturday I went to Suntec city for an electronics fair. Not a good cure for a hangover, let me tell you. Loudspeakers everywhere, about a hundred billion people on 5 floors and a crazy look in the eye of every gadget hungry Singaporean. However, there were a LOT of sexy girls around. Eaaaasy boy. Sunday was easy-breezy and the rest of the week was pretty much the same. Managed to say 'no' to everyone on Wed night, and stayed in to get some good sleep and save some money. That was a nice change! Not to mention I was extremely healthy and active this past week. Either a swim or a workout at the gym every single day. I finally caved in and ate Subway as well which was a GREAT idea. Fresh veggies have never tasted so good! And olives, ohhhh man. It's tough to deal with when everything that you eat here is either deep fried, cooked in oil or, well, white rice. I have had an insatiable craving for a nice steak, grade A Alberta beef complete with mom's mashed potatoes and a huge salad and a glass of MILK. Dammit! Mom! I'm placing a take-out order from the other side of the world, send it express please!

Hmm what else? Still rainy, however it makes it a little bit easier to sleep at night. This past Friday night I had some beers on top of the Arts and Design building (the fancy curved one with grass on top) and burned some incense that I bought in Little India on Thursday. Then had some wine at the staff club and went out to this cool little bar in Emerald Hill with Dakota, Max and Alisa. Good fun but expensive! Saturday I went to the mall and did a little shopping and took it easy that night. Oh and on Thursday we stopped through Clarke Quay and caught some Mid-Autumn Festival displays! Take a look!

Sunday was busy though, so it deserves its own paragraph! Myself, Dave, Evan, Chris and Alisa had breakfast at Canteen 2 and headed out to Pulau Ubin. Pulau Ubin is a small island off the North Eastern coast of Singapore which is known for its ability to remain virtually undeveloped while S'pore booms through the 21st century. In order to get there, we had to sit through a bus, a long MRT ride to the other side of the island, another bus ride and then a bumboat ride from Changi Ferry Terminal to the island. In total, about 2 hours via public transport. The bumboat ride was awesome though! Little tiny boats which can carry 10 passengers and will not leave until they are full. We didn't end up waiting longer than a few minutes, but at 2.50 a person it wouldn't be a huge deal to pay for the entire boat. The first captain took us cross-wind (?) into a couple huge waves and for a land-lover like myself, I was convinced the boat was going to flip! On the island, there were probably 5 different places to rent bikes and I opted for a more expensive bike ($20/day) while the others got $6-10 ones. Oh man, I missed biking!! For the most part, we stuck to the paved road that went around the island, but Dave and I got adventurous and did some of the mountain bike trails around an old quarry. They got pretty technical on some ups and downs, and there was also a small freeride track with a teeter-totter and some boardwalks. On our rented bikes, they weren't the easiest things to do haha! Oh and special mention to Evan for popping his back tire and then riding the 4km's back on just a frame, and also to Chris for getting stranded when his chain popped off :P

Lets see, we spent a couple hours in the morning biking and met up at a cafe in the village. Grabbed some local seafood (including some mussels with tails and eyes!?!) for lunch and re-fuelled with some water. Then headed to the east end of the island. There we found a boardwalk around the corner of the island where, when it is low tide, you can see all sorts of ecosystems mixing in the shallow pools of water. Unfortunately today, it was high tide and we really didn't see much. Not to mention we got stuck in a huge downpour! Luckily we had a shelter close by where we waited it out, but not before Dave and I danced around and cooled off in the rain. 

The colors on this picture kind of suck! The pink was unbelievable. I'll post a high quality in Flickr when I finally get my account set back up. :)

Overall the day was a huge success! We were all sweaty and hot and tired and gross and wet and covered in salty sea water but those are the days that I feel the most alive. What a great feeling. After we got within one bus ride from NTU, we stopped at Jurong Point Mall and grabbed some sushi for dinner. Great ending to a great day! 

Okay I am pretty much done, and in need of getting some work done prior to the start of my vacation on Friday! The trip is pretty much set. Friday I head to Koh Phangan, Thailand, for the full moon party which is Sunday night. Monday night we travel to Phuket for a night and then I will say goodbye to the others who fly out Tuesday morning. From there, I will travel alone to a super nice resort and spend 4 nights there. Saturday I fly out of Phuket to Bangkok and then from Bangkok to Udon Thani where I will catch a bus to Vientiane and meet up with the girls. A week in Laos and then its back to real life for a bit in October! 

Oh and a quick mention of last night. We headed down to a stadium to catch a local Singaporean 'football' game, which we got free tickets to from the International Student Center. It was pretty cool to see, but not all that exciting! Ahh well, one more thing down and off the list. 

Cheers all, have a great first week at school! :)

From SEA, 

Matty.

ps. Thanks to my Aunt and cousins/brothers/family back home for thinking of me!! This made my week!!

Todays Spin: Flashlight - Shwayze    (mad props shout out to my boy, Mr. Ryan Hiscott, for todays spin ;) )