Im a bad bad blogger

I know it's been forever... I keep meaning to write up a huge story of my adventures but there havent really been any since i've been back from Malaysia. My mother forced me to go with her to a Sisters on Samui luncheon (some women's club thing) which was held at an British Pub. Nice powdered soup and roast pork with 47 kinds of boiled veg on the side. Yuck. Anyway, I did meet the manager of "Poppies", one of the best established restaurants on the island. She managed to arrange for me to go in and do an observation in the kitchen. It turned out to be quite an experience. The Chef is an American guy who has worked all over Asia for the last 17 years. The kitchen had at least 12 thai staff and it wasn't all that big. The kitchen was divided into two sides, the European and the Thai. The Thai food only takes about two minutes to plate since its all done in a wok or deep fryer... it's quite an art to time it with the Western food. It was by far the quietest kitchen ever... no talking at all. The temperature was un believable. It must have been at least 40 degrees. I dont' know how they can do it. They have a separate little air conditioned room for plating the salads and desserts, but the Thai's find it too cold in there and prefer to stand in the hot kitchen when they aren't plating. Thai garnishes are quite fancy... crazy intricate carvings out of vegetables. It was great to watch but I can't imagaine having to work in a kitchen that hot. I will never complain about the Culinary kitchen again, ha ha.
In other news... I've been spending a lot of time at the beach (duh) drinking coconuts and swimming. We go to quiz night at the pub every week (and we so-nearly win). Our house is very nearly finished. I have been using the kitchen up there for quite some time now. We should be moving in in a week or so. My sister had a nasty motorcycle accident in Vietnam... she had to get stitches in her head and stuff so she's cutting her journey short and coming home on Friday. It will be nice to have someone my age to hang out with. As much as I love my parents I could use a little break from them every now and then. I have decided to spend a few days in Hong Kong on my way home... I want to meet up with my Nanny from when we were kids and revisit some old places. Should be fun if I can avoid spending too much money. Anyway... I've got to go assemble beds up at the house. Things should get more exciting once my sis gets here...

The journey home

Well, my busride back home was... interesting to say the least. I caught a mini-van to Hat Yai (near the Thai border) within half an hour of recieving my visa. The ride was long and soooo hot. When we got to the border the immigration officers were on a mission to make life difficult. They kept making us give them bribes to let us in... so annoying. We eventually had to leave some guy at the border coz they wouldnt let him through. So I arrived in Hat Yai quite late and checked into the ghettoist hotel in all of Thailand. It was soooo crusty with a squat toilet. But they booked me onto a big bus back to Samui so I could be back in time to meet my friend Vern at the airport. The busride was almost disastrous. I very nearly missed it because my motor-taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong bus company. Then I had my own two seats and some woman chose to sat next to me, in spite of the fact that the entire back half of the bus was empty. Then she took her baby from her husband and spend half the journey pointing at me and calling me "farang" which made the baby cry.. awesome. Then she left and I put my feet up on the seat next to me so I could sleep, only to have some new guy actually sit on my feet. I made a dramatic act of looking at the empty back of the bus and flailing my arms about to show my distaste but to no avail. To make matters worse the woman behind me started throwing up in a plastic bag and her baby was sticking its head between the two seats and coughing violently on the side of me face. Sick. Then I noticed that the dude next to me was acting very suspicious with the plastic bottle he was holding... he kept looking inside it and kept it in a horizontal position the whole time... then I noticed that it had been cut in half and sewn back together... what the hell?It was some time before I figured out that he was smuggling a bird in a water bottle. The poor thing was tweaking out. He eventually went to go sit behind me but then had a violent phlemy coughing fit all the way to samui. Yuck. Caught the ferry on time and managed to make it back to the Island with plenty of time to spare.

Penang, Malaysia

Well.. here I am in Malaysia, on the island of Penang. It took a long time to decide where to do my visa run but I finally conluded that it was better to come here to do to the Thai Embassy to get a 60 day visa, rather than just hop the border and get only 30 days. Now I don't have to worry about leaving the country until it's time to go home. Its pouring rain outside, which is an absolute relief considering how hot it is here. It doesn't seem to dip below 30 degrees, even at night. It's honestly killing me. Malaysia itself is not really a suprise. It definately has a "blending" of cultures here... Chinese, Indian and Malay.. not unlike Vancouver, ha ha. It reminds me of Cambodia in that all the buildings here in Georgetown have seen better days. They are colonial style but haven't seen renovations since. The shops dont have doors.. or air con.. or much of anything in them for that matter. It smells like Hong Kong.. sewer and smog. My busride from Koh Samui yesterday was hell... not coz the bus was bad but because it took 15 hours to get here, much of which was wasted sitting around in stupid restaurants in the middle of nowhere or shitty little travel agent's offices, waiting for the connecting bus to come get you. I left at 6:45am and got here after 10pm. I was so tired, all I wanted was a bed so I took pretty much the first one I could find. Big mistake. I spent extra money for an aircon room because it was soooo humid, but the stupid thing was broken so that was a total waste. I spent the night soaked in sweat, plastered to a nasty stained matress, listening to the worst bar band in the world and the rats scurrying around in my bathroom. Yuck. So first thing after I hit the visa office this morning, I found a new room without rats and air con that works ( and an incredibly cute front desk guy, heh heh). And it costs less than the room last night, go figure. So after wandering around for a few hours (couldn't check in until noon) I decided that there really wasn't anything to see or to do. Nothing. It was too hot to be outside and I didn't want to pay money to go on a tour. I decided where I would be having dinner tonight, checked into my new hotel and slept for the rest of the afternoon in my blissfully cold room. I'm really excited to go to sleep tonight.. how lame is that? Malaysia is very Muslim so I feel kinda weird walking around in shorts and a tank top. The mosques broadcast their prayers at sunset... it's actually quite cool to listen to. Foodwise, things are good. I've been enjoying the Malaysian version of fried noodles.. skinny little ones that are quite dry by comparison to phad thai. Good all the same though. Tonight I headed to this open air food forum that had everything you can imagine.. Chinese, Indian, Malay, Philipino, Thai, Japanese... I decided to try the classic Malay dish Laksa. Its a sour soup made with tamarind, deep fried fish, shallots, pineapple, onion, shredded lettuce and fat white udon-like noodles. It's quite strong but really tasty.. especially when accompanied by Tiger Beer. So my visa will be ready tomorrow... then I catch the 3:00 bus to Hat Yai. Hat Yai is a Thai town 50km from the Malaysia border that is famous for duty free shopping and prostitution. Yay.. my favourite. You can pick your woman from a group of about a hundred who are seated behind a glass window. Why am I going there? To start the wretched journey home. I can shave off four hours of my trip to Samui on Saturday if I can get to Hat Yai by tomorrow night. 7 hours by bus is way better than 15. So that is my plan.. can you tell that Im bored. I think I will go drink more beer.. then go to bed. Peace out.

more Koh Pha Ngan

Well.. back in Samui now, after several days of drunkeness and debochery. No really, it was fun. We had a great little room with a blacony and we were just seconds from the beach. We spent every day sleeping in late, sunbathing, drinking beer and buckets and partying all night long. The beach at Haad Rin is absolutely gorgeous. Turquoise water and white sand. It's suprising considering that it all gets trashed nightly by the people partying on the beach. They do a good job of cleaning it up each day though. It has changed so much since i was there last. Prices are on the rise... there are tonnes of modern shops. The clubs are still the same though, right on the beach, which mats and chairs for people to lounge around and drink on. You dance in the sand and when it gets to hot you can run straight into the ocean (which is warmer than anything). I've become obsessed with fire throwing.. I really want to learn how to do it. The only disappointment is the lack of good food. The island has totally given into catering to western tourists.. .the food is CRAP. Even the Thai food is seriously lacking in quality. I will probably try and get to the next full moon party, if I can find someone to go with. For some reason my parents don't want to join me, ha ha. Back in Samui I have moved into the house on the hill, which is still under contstruction. My room is done, so I've got water and electricity but the rest of the building is still in shambles.. and I get to listen to the musical sound of hammers and drills in the early morning. Yuck. So I'm heading to Malaysia on Wednesday. I have to do a quick visa run so if all goes well I will be back on Saturday (I've got a friend flying in to Samui that day). I've posted some more pics on my photosite so check em out.

Koh Pha Ngan

Well.. the really fantastic news is that I finally managed to get some decent photos posted. If you wanna see what I've got so far go to http://melinasia.photosite.com . I will put more up when I have time.. it takes forever to upload. In other news... I went to a Ladyboy Cabaret in Koh Samui. So much fun. They really go all out.. definately the best drag show I've ever been to. I felt right at home.. like being back at Celebs, ha ha. I will definately be going to it again since each show is so different. Amy and I arrived at Koh Pha Ngan yesterday. It has quietened down immensly since the Full Moon Party. Seeing it in daylight is a completely different scene though. I can't belive how much it has changed in the last two years. It's so developed now... so modern. Not nearly as grungy as it used to be either. Amy and I found a cheap little room with a nice balcony with a view of the hills and a little glimpse of the sea. U can hear the ocean while u lie in bed (unless the base of the music from the clubs drowns it out, ha ha). U need to stay up late and sleep in late here... everything is open until at least 2am or later and nothing opens till about noon. The food is pretty awful everywhere u go. We pick our restaurants by which pirated movies are playing. The beach is still gorgeous. White sand, turquoise water and huge waves. Nat arrives tomorrow for two nights.. then she's off to Bangkok. Amy leaves on the 12th and I will head back to Samui then. Still have to figure out where Im going to make my visa run. Anyway, I'm sure I will have more drunken tales to tell after tonight... stay tuned.

Full moons and parties

The last few days have been a blur.. lots of drinking, dancing and good times. Full moon party was last night.. what a riot. Not a lot has changed in two years but I don't remember my last boat trip over to Koh Pha Ngan being quite so wet. The seas were crazy so we got asolutely drenched. We were freezing cold by the time we arrived and desperately needed to fix our makeup and hair (yes I am a girlie girl). Anyway.. we got to drinking buckets of Samsung Whiskey and coke as soon as we could and spent a large portion of our evening sitting in the sand watch the fire dancers. Check out the photos... I was a bit camera crazy the whole night.. lots of playing with time exposures etc so I have lots of wicked shots. Anyway.. we had this plan to meet at a certain spot should any of us get separated from the group. Good thing too because we lost Amy within about ten minutes. We climbed up to the bars on the cliffs where they sell magic mushroom shakes (no joke). We opted not to ingest illicit drugs and went on a hunt for some good dancing music. Easier said than done. It's all trancy-ravish stuff.. not really our scene. We ate deliciously cold fried chicken.. and sheet pans of pizza... and chocolate banana pancakes. So much good munchie food. The "Shark" company had set up an official sleeping area for drunk people to recover in. There were little mats laid out on the beach and there were security guards watching over them. Glad I didn't end up in there since everyone on the beach was taking photos of the poor bastards. By the time we were ready to head home it was 4am.. we had to catch another speed boat back to the island. Yes another rough and wet ride. People were passed out all over the boat and sleeping on eachother. It was really amusing to watch stangers resting their heads in one anothers laps. I will post more pics soon... almost have internet at home so stay tuned.

Koh Samui

Yesterday we went for a trek with my dad to try and find a secluded beach. We eventually did and were enjoying the privacy when along came a dozen or so Thais who were out for a sunday picnic. After awhile we decided to bail but stopped to watch them climbing up palm trees and tossing down some coconuts. The began hacking into them with machetes and offered us some when they saw us watching them. We eagerly accepted and drank up the contents of about four coconuts (they kept handing them to us). Then they cut them open for us and pulled out all the meat. So good. We were absolutely stuffed by the time we left.

Phuket etc

So... the Phuket thing didn't last too long. We arrived at the airport without a room booked and ended up having to pay a whopping $60 for a place that didn't even have a pool and wasn't on the beach. We moved to another place the next night and found an ok place up on a hill that was still really expensive. We made plans to stay for another three nights, since the beach near by was really nice and we figured it would be worth it... Then Natalie decided at 11pm that she was going to take off and go to Koh Phi Phi with a friend of hers...Amy and I decided we were tired of paying to much for stuff and we just wanted to be able to chill somewhere for awhile so we booked a bus to Koh Samui (to stay with my parents). We paid a decent amount for a direct bus-ferry ticket... the bus showed up on time but he spent and hour and a half driving around in circles trying to find other passengers (he was hopelessly lost). We drove for several hours while he continuously jammed people in.. we had to change buses and one point but of course they had overbooked the bus so there were more passengers than seats. Amy and I shared one seat with all our bags under us.. madness. We finally got to Surat Thani where we were supposed to catch the ferry but the last ferry had already left so we were stranded. The travel agent there was a total biatch. They said we could sleep above their office (so nasty) but we refused. After yelling at them for a long time, we gave up and booked ourselves into a pimp hotel with a gorgeous lagoon pool. It cost us $15 for the night and we treated ourselves to treats from Tesco. Had to get up at 6am to catch the first ferry. Finally got to Samui... mum picked us up from the Fisherman's Village. Currently I am sharing a bed with Boolie (a family friend) and Amy is crammed in the space on the floor between the bed and the wall. The house my parents are building isn't finished yet (we are very excited about it.. .it's incredible). I will post pics when its a bit more "done". There's a colony of people living on the property. It's quite strange actually. The workers have built themselves a little village with chickens and everything. Amy and I are moving into our own little house today and we're loving the scooters. We went to Chaweng Beach last night for some party action. It did not end well... Im embarassed actually. I spent the night with my head in the toilet of a nasty bar. Obviously couldn't drive the scooter home. Ha ha. Stupid redbull and vodka buckets. Ewww.

Food Photos

Hey.. if you wanna check out some pics of my food experiences go to my flickr site. Im not sure the exact addy.. just go to www.flickr.com and then search my user name (mlangdon_wilkins) and my photos should come up. Yum yum yum.

Adventures in the north

I know I've been really bad... I should have been blogging a lot more often than I have but it's been hard to get enough time to actually sit and spend time doing it. I finally have one hour to get it all together. Anway, we left Bangkok about five days ago, on the night train to Chiang Mai. What a blast that was. It was super comfortable with totally pimp bunks and table service. They kept us plastered with beer the entire time (the actually stored their mobile bar-a bucket full of beer and ice- right next to us). Dinner was Thai food, served to us in our little booth, and then we moved to the "bar car" when it was "bedtime". Drank way too much beer, but slept soundly all the way to Chiang Mai (12 hours). Arrived horribly hungover and had to hop on a 4 1/2 hour ghetto bus ride to Pai. It was exhausting, and hot... the seats were so small we couldn't sit with our legs forward and had to sit sideways. Not good. Found a great little tree house style bungalow in Pai. We were all set for a three day stay before we realised that we messed up our train tickets and could only stay for two nights. So we spent our one day zipping around on rental scooters.. so much fun. We drove by the elephant camps, saw the hot springs and walked through the Pai Canyon. It was gorgeous up there... also very cold. It was about 25 during the day and dropped down to zero at night. All three of us were huddled in one bed together trying to keep warm. It was quite a shock. We opted for the suicidal mini-van to take us back to Chiang Mai (I honestly thought we were going to die). We managed to squeeze in an hour of late lunch and market shopping before hopping back on the train to Bangkok. As usual Amy was sharing her seat with someone drunk.. this time an ex-policeman who was so old he could hardly walk. He kept trying to take her for dinner in the other car... he polished of a mickey when he got up in the morning. Ha ha.. poor Amy. When we got back to Bangkok we headed to the dreaded Kao San rd. Yuck... what a sess pit. Anyway, we found a semi-decent over-priced room and spent the afternoon getting foot massages and eating lots of street food. When nighttime rolled around we decided to save some money.. we went to 7-11, bought a twixer of vodka and some fresh squeezed tangerine juice. We mixed our own bevvies and wandered the streets until midnight, eating yummy food and getting up to all kinds of mischief... more details on the outcome of that night at a later date. Anyway, we are flying to Phuket this afternoon for some well-deserved beach time. Im sure there will be more adventures to follow.

The Adventures of Amy

Yes... the adventures of Amy, not me. Mostly because all the funny shit seems to happen to her so I think she deserves her own post. We will start with day 1 in Thailand when Nat and I decided to endulge in a foot massage. Amy wanted a full body massage so off she went into her little private booth to get rubbed down. She came away feeling quite pleased with herself, that was until she told us that it was weird when she got her boobs massaged. I burst out laughing because, yes, it is weird to have your boobs massaged... in all my oil massages I have never had anyone touch my breasts. Later that day she decided to get her legs waxed... After several botched attempts to wax her, the ladies attempted to thread her legs...to no avail. When they realised that they couldn't, the pulled out a razer and started dry shaving her legs. At this point Amy flipped out and pointed out that she could shave her own legs at home and it wouldn't cost her 400 baht. They continued to do it until Amy jumped up and tried to leave... they of course demanded that she pay 200 baht for her one dry-shaven leg. Her further fiasco occured when, on the bus home from Pattaya, she was seated next to a deleriously drunk hooker. The woman slammed a beer, opened another one, and passed out, spilling the freshly open beer all over Amy's foot. Amy took the beer away and tried to ignore her... not possible. The woman started ranting and flailing in her sleep... grabbing Amy's leg and talking in Thai. At one point it appeared as though she was having a very, um, erotic dream and was moaning like a dog in heat. Just when Nat and I couldn't supress our laughter any more the woman jumped up, apparently sleep walking, and ran into the toilet. She was in there about half an hour before she came back and started propositioning Amy. First it appeared that she wanted to "sleep" with Amy in the toilet.. then she changed her tune and wanted to come home with us because she had nowhere to stay. Needless to say, were all very relieved when she finally got off the bus. Amy is slightly traumatised but at least she's laughing about it.

Thailand... finally

So we finally made it to Bangkok. I haven't been writing daily since I've been waiting for things to happen. Much of what we've been doing, I did the last time I was here so I'm not going to go into the tedious details. Our guest house is fabulous. It's really just an old apartment building which has been lined with wood-panelling throughout the inside so you feel like you are in a little Thai hut. The price is right too. On our frist day we headed straight for MBK shopping center where we treated ourselves to some shopping, hair cuts and foot massages. For most of our meals we have been going for Thai... street food...yummy. The other night we hit up about six stalls in one go. We started with meat on a stick, grilled fresh in front of us. Then we went to a little soup stall and just pointed at random ingredients until they threw something together for us. It was very beefy... noodley (is that a word).. and oh so good. To that we added a green papaya salad (hotter than hell) and had to eat it with a mountain of sticky rice because it was so spicey. The next stall offered more soup so we opted for one with fish balls in it. Mmm fish balls. Next we went for the Thai version of KFC... deep fried chicken drumsticks. Sooo yummy. Total, we spent about $6 Candadian (divided by three of course, ha ha). This, accompanied by some $2 beer from Cheap Charlies, made for a fantastic meal. Yesterday we took a day trip to Pattaya, a beach about 2hrs away. What a mistake. I was worried I was going to catch Syphillis from the sand. It's like one giant brothel with nasty fat tourist men picking up young Thai prostitutes. Not fun for us. The beach was flithy and we had to endure nasty men filming us with a video camera and an onslaught of vendors trying to sell us everything from bed throws, to ice cream, to hair elastics. After a long busride home we hit the streets for some Phad Thai. Yum yum. By the way, Im going to set up a separate photo blog of all the food i see and eat here. I will put it on my flickr account...details of that later. Today we relaxed on the rooftop of some fancy hotel, taking in some sun and spent some time at the gym. We are booked on the 6pm overnight train to Chiang Mai were we will catch a bus to Pai, a small town in northern Thailand. Peace out for now.

Macau Continued

So lunch at Fernandos turned out to be quite a treat. We had to wait quite some time for a table but not to worry...there was a bar nearby. Fernando's is a quaint little Portuguese restaurant with red and white checked tablecloths and is usually packed to the roof with hungry customers. We decided to go for the whole spectrum of food so we ordered the suckling pig, fried crab, garlic prawns, grilled fish and portuguese fried rice. This was acommpanied by several pitchers of Sangria (a great idea at the time, but regretted later on when the hangover kicked in as soon as the plane was in the air). We stupidly assumed that the restaurant would take Visa so after racking up a fairly hefty bill we were shocked to learn that it is a cash-only establishment. Of course there were no bank machines on the island so we were looking at taking a long busride toi fetch some cash. Fernando's son actually offered to take our names and email adresses and said he would send us the bill, ha ha. He really did mean it to. Eventually we were able to write a personal cheque. We stumbled into the airport, literally and set off for Thailand.

Macau

After yet another ferry ride we got to Macau... we were hugely looking forward to getting away from the HK smog. No such luck. I was looking out the window on the boat thinking "wow, there sure is a lot of salt spray on these windows". Ha! Welcome to SMOG CITY. I have never experienced pollution like this. You can hardly breathe. Its unbearable. It's even worse for Nat with her asthma. Anyway, our guesthouse is a cute little hole in the wall with puppy dog and alphabet wallpaper. Nice sweaky little bunkbeds. The old Square is gorgeous... full of old colonial buildings (complete with starbucks and McDonalds incorporated into them). It was hard finding a place to eat that was affordable so we ended up splurging on Italian. We spent a whopping $25 each on an appies, pasta and two bottles of wine, ha ha. Sometimes its best to stop being stingey and think in terms of Canadian dollars. Anyway, todays walking tour around the old town was... less than thrilling. This afternoon we are heading to Hac Se Beach which is made up of black volcanic sand. Lunch will be at the famous Fernandos restaurant... gastronomique stories to follow Im sure. We fly to Bangkok this evening.

Food

Above:

Street Waffles

These are by far the best dessert Hong Kong has to offer.

Below:

Lunch... this was the "side" to my noodle soup.

Best BBQ pork ever.

HK Pics

Hong Kong

Well.. after an extremely tedious and sleepless flight (with a seat in front of the toilet so we were the victims of the Chinese obsession to pee every ten minutes and do Tai Chi moves in the only open space on the plane) we finally arrived in Hong Kong. Needless to say, a few things have changed since we were here last. The crazy high-speed train to the island was a bonus. Stepping out of the subway was ovewhelming. The lights... so much light. Everything is flourecsant... it burns. The streets are packed with people.. you can hardly move. The smells are the same though.. very familiar. It took us forever to find our hostel (Im not very good with maps at all) but we eventually got there, dumped our bags and took off down memory lane. Nat was quick to remember all the little streets and shops... it took longer for me to get my bearings. We treated ourselves to some delicions street waffles with condensed milk... mmmmmm.
Day two (after Nat and Amy had their Starbucks fix) we headed up to the Peak (the highest point in HK) via the famous peak tram.. it was freaky. The angle is so sharp it actually makes your neck hurt. When we got to the top it was so windy it felt like our faces we going to blow off. We almost got hit by a garbage can that blew over and started rolling down the hill. In the afternoon we headed to Kowloon side (the mainland) and ate some lunch. I had some FANTASTIC noodle soup with chicken and BBQ pork. So good. We tried shopping but were way too tired so we headed home for a "nap". That turned into sleeping our entire afternoon away. We woke up in a panic and had to run.. literally.. to make it to a bar before Happy Hour ended.
Day 3 we caught a ferry to Lamma Island. It seems to have turned into a Hippy Haven in recent years. We dined in a Vegetarian Cafe and then set off for a trek across the island. The smog was so thick you could hardly see three feet in front of you. In the evening we headed to Wan Chai for Happy Hour. Our bartender was a Canadian named Phil... he invented a fantastic blue cocktail for us that we proceeded to name "Blue Balls". We met a really nice guy who ended up footing our bill for the entire night.. and then he left in a hurry for a business emergency... score for us. That certainly helped the budget.
Today we are headed for Macau... not sure when yet but soon enough. We are off to Bangkok tomorrow evening. I will post more as things happen.

Waiting to leave

Okay... so originally I was being fairly patient and wasn't in a huge rush for Tuesday to come... then it snowed. I cannot believe how disgustingly cold and wet Vancouver has become and I really can't take it anymore. I think Nat and Amy feel the same way. My room is mostly packed up.. my bag is almost there. I'm tying up all the loose ends and I am ready to leave... NOW! So far the plan is flexible... we arrive in Hong Kong on Wednesday evening (we lose a day during travel). This will be my first trip back to Hong Kong in 10 years (since the 1997 handover). We've only got three nights there before ferrying to Macau (an ex-Portuguese colony on the China coast). After one night there we will be flying to Bangkok and the rest of the journey is an open road (sorry for the bad pun). We will probably head North to do some trekking. The flight to HK is going to be brutal... 14 hours. Yuck. At least we are all on the same flight. I've got my MP3 loaded to the max with tunes for the journey. I'm stoked.