Ko Tao & hooray for Coral

So many whiteys! Ko Tao was a slightly larger island than Pulau Perhentian, but significantly more touristy. I think that generally westerners see Thailand as the place to go in southeast asia, so as a result you get many more of them around. Although it wasnt really what I was hoping for, there were some definate upsides to having tourists around, namely not sticking out like a sore thumb for the first time in a while. Not sticking out as if you are martian is a huge psychological weight off of oneself, not to mention when the locals are surrounded by westerners they dont have the energy to attack each and every one, meaning you get hassled much less which is a definate bonus.

Aesthetically Ko Tao was definately inferior to Pulao Perhentian, although still gorgeous. It had a much more romantic feel; there was always a breeze coming from the west and the sun set over the open ocean. I didnt leave the main beach too much because my experience is that generally the nicest beach is the one most inhabited by tourists, and I was perfectly comfortable lounging in the sun, snorkeling, chatting with one of the dudes I met there, or watching the world cup.

So, as promised, I need to go a bit into the snorkeling these two spots in the South China Sea. I would say again Pulao Perhentian was superior in this aspect, but regardless they were both awesome. I was tipped off on Perhentian by Simon to simply pop my ears as one does on an airplane once I got deep enough for my ears to start feeling the pressure. Ive been swimming for fun my whole life and cant believe I never thought of that. Anyways it opened up a whole new world as I could now go 25 feet down no problem, and stay there for as long as my lungs would let me. 25 feet may not seem too far, but I cant think of a quicker transition into a more different world. The coral reefs were mindblowing. I think some time when I return to the northwest I might have to build myself an aquarium because I already miss my tropical colorful friends. I cant really explain how much fun I had swimming under, over, and to the side of these awesome structures was, but if any of you get the chance, I definately recommend it, and as soon as I get the chance and have the money to burn I plan on going back to get my open water certification, which gives you the ability to scuba dive wherever you want.

Anyways after a crazy trip via boat and bus I am now in bankok after arriving at 4am and walking for 2 and a half hours past monks and vendors setting up their stalls, and am settled down, and excited but a bit sad that I will be home so soon.

Hope everyone is well, and see some of you soon,
George

Kuala Lumpur & Pulau Perhentian

Close your eyes and picture in your head the perfect tropical island. The Perhentian Islands were more perfect. I just spent the longest time in one place and wish I could have stayed longer. I went with only the cash in my pocket and once there realized that it had virtually no development, and therefore no banks or ATMs. It worked out fine though, as the little bungalow was only about 4 bucks a night, so my money was able to stretch the full 8 days.

I suppose Ill start at the beginning though. I got to KL and impressively found my way back to the hostel I had stayed at a few months before. It was going well until I tried to find busses leaving for the northeast; they were all full for the next day. I ended up getting a bit of a stomach bug from the stall foods, but nothing too serious, just kept me inside a bit more than I would have been. I still got to go out and see the impressive malls, the cultural chinatown, and the awesome Petronas Towers. I was ready to get out of the city though, so getting on the train (with enough leg room!) was a blessing, even though it was a 13 hour ride. A taxi and boat ride later I was in paradise.

The perhentian islands are small islands, with very few permenant inhabitants, if any. I would guess while I was there there were a couple hundred other tourists on the island, but many would be out diving or out of sight, and it was easy to get away to a secluded spot if I wanted. I met a cool guy from the UK, Simon, and we got along well so started hanging out together. Hes spending 6 weeks there to get his Dive Master training, which is probably one of the coolest certifications to have in the world, as he can now go to any tropical place with diving spots and come out of it with more money than he started with. I thought about trying to get my open water certification, but decided I would wait until I had a real job so I could afford to use it.

Anyways, life was amazing, and consisted mostly of snorkeling, skin diving, eating, playing volleyball, and chatting with other travelers about their experiences in other places, which is a great way to learn. I recognized a girl who was in the same program as me at UBC, so we ended up with a cool group of 6 that was very chill.

I will write more about the amazing snorkelling and skin diving when I finish island life, but in one word it was unbelievable.

Eventually though my money bottomed out so I along with the funny dutch dude, Bram, headed off north via boat-taxi-train-taxi-boat, (though he went to Ko Pha Ngan), and now here I am exactly 24 hours later on another island in Thailand called Ko Tao. Pulau Perhentian will be a touch act to follow, but we will see how it goes.

Hope y'all are as well as I,
George

Singapore revisited

The past week has flown by, probably because I have been so pampered. I came back to Singapore and have been staying at the girlfriends place. Its been awesome. Singapore is like a little haven of niceness in southeast asia, especially if you are used to the finer things in life, like running water. I spent most of my time here stuffing my face, so out of pity for the scale I havent stepped on it. I love singaporean food, and hope to do some justice to it when I get home by trying to make some of it. The rest of the time I spent playing some video games with her little brother, visiting her at work where I would stuff my face some more, and also some time just wandering singapore and absorbing it for the last time, at least until I return someday.

Its pretty tough to leave actually, leaving behind a beautiful girl and a city that feels a bit like home , only to go back to strange lands. But theres still the little man in my head that wants to see new things and see awesome places, so I am off yet again, headed north to Kuala lumpur, where I will figure out where to go next.

I feel a bit skitzo actually, as so many parts of me want to be in so many places. A big part of me wants to be here, the loudest guy is the one who wants me to keep traveling, and the deepest part cant wait to get home and see family and friends. Oh well, I guess thats the nature of this type of trip.

A happy fat george wishes you all the best,
George

Alaminos & the Philipines in a nutshell.

Home sweet home... or at least one of my many. Im now back in Singapore with all of my body parts in tact, so pretty succesful first leg of adventure if you ask me. The last week in the Philipines was amazing. I was taken in by a sweet little family that owned the little hut I was renting. Waking up to a sunrise coming in my window over some "huts" (for lack of a better word) on stilts over the peaceful harbor was yet another sight that words fail to do justice, so I wont even try. I spent a good chunk of my time playing flipflop basketball with some of the local kids, which due to them being pretty darn good was really fun. My best buddy was a little 10 year old kid who was probably the funniest dude I have ever met. His name was Onyok but like everyone there he had some nicknames, the one that the other kids loved was habababa mo onyok, which means long chinned onyok. It was kind of difficult to communicate but he did know one english phrase: "nice one george" and a thumbs up, so we did pretty well.

Anyways at the risk of sounding like abroken record the family was great. They took me to a couple gorgeous beaches where I spend most of my time playing with onyok and the other kids. while trying to ignore the smell of my toasting flesh. It actually worked out pretty well because when I started getting burned there were these awsome rock/coral overhangs that protected you from the sun, so I could sit like a toddler in the shallow water playing with the little pieces of coral and shells and sand in my little natural fort. Pretty cool place if ya ask me. That beach was on one of the 100 islands which also are beyond words and unfortunately avoided my camera due to battery failure, so if you want to see them I guess you have to go, and bring me.

The food that I got in the philipines was pretttty mediocre to be honest. When I got back to Singapore I wept tears of joy while eating a big bowl of hor fan. It wasnt all that bad, but other than the fruit it just wasnt very pleasing to the buds of taste. Most of the meals with the family consisted of plain rice with a grilled fish, and perhaps another side dish to mix it up a bit. The barbeque was very good, except that the items available generally consisted of the following; Solidified chicken blood(not bad), pig intestine(probably one of the more foul things Ive ever eaten, it actually tasted like shit, which I think was due to the fact that the intestine was litterally ripped straight out of the pig, leaving the stuff inside which was just about ready to be shat out.), chicken intestines(see above, only less nausseating because smaller), and finally regular pork which was very good although a bit too much cartalige for my tasstes. There were also a couple of philipino dishes that looked like cake that I almost gagged on, but I still have no idea what was in them. The most exotic thing I tried was Balut, which was basicallly a hard boiled fertalized egg, so there is the beginning of a chick in it. It wasnt bad, although I didnt eat the white part, which had the most remnants of a chick.

The philipino people were really nice, but it makes it frustrating because it becomes much more difficult to tell who is being genuinley nice and who is just trying to get money from you. I found that the further you got away from big city the better your chances to meet genuine folk, like some of the farmers I met in Benaue and the family I stayed with outside of Alaminos. It also impressed me how poor the housing is everywhere you go. I saw perhaps one house that would be considered a middle class house in the US, the rest all looked poorly built, poorly maintained, or in most cases, both.

Overall I had an awesome time, and definately plan to go back someday, especially to Alaminos.

Now I will spend the next few days spoiling myself in beautiful singapore, until I hop onto a train to take me north.

Hope all is well in the western world,
George

Agoo, Dagupan, Alaminos, & 100 Islands

The last couple of days have been pretty mellow, as all the hiking in Banaue and Agoo after not wearing anything but flip flops in Singapore for 4 months put my feet in worse condition than I have ever seen them before, and they werent really willing to take me anywhere for a while.

I tried going to Agoo, because I heard there were beaches there but it wasnt a real touristy place. So after walking a few miles with my backpack I gathered a possy of kids following me asking the usual questions, like "where are you going" and "what is your name", but a couple of the younger kids were asking for money and one of them even grabbed my pockets to check for coins. So I was a little sketched out by the possy, as some of the guys were around my age, and its hard to tell what kind of people your dealing with when their english is broken. They were pretty nice though, and chatted with me on the beach, but kept trying to sell me stuff. Then a lady came out and asked if I wanted to "rent" the picnic table that we were sitting at. I thought she was joking, but was proved wrong when she asked me to leave. The beach wasnt really anything special, and I realized I couldnt swim cause I had nowhere to put my stuff, and people were staring at me even more than usual, so I just left and caught another bus to Dagupan, feeling discouraged.

So then I just hung out in Dagupan for a couple of days wandering the streets and relaxing in my room not really knowing where I was gonna go next. I found a waiter at lunch one day who spoke english really well, so I asked him where I should go next, and he told me to come here to 100 islands. 100 Islands is by a small town called Alaminos and from looking out into the ocean it looks like the name is pretty accurage, for all I can see are islands. I plan to head out on a boat early tomorrow to explore them, and try not to get lost in the process.

Hope y'all are ok,
George

Banaue

Ive just returned from one of the most beautiful places on the planet. But seriously, people call it the 8th wonder of the world and now I know why. Banaue is a small town, surrounded by rice terraces that were just in full bloom while I was there. I really cannot describe how amazing the place is, and I doubt even the many photos I took will come close to doing the place justice. When I got there it was early morning so I walked straight off the bus and out of town for a few miles until I saw a path leading off into the jungle, which obviously I had to take. Finding a campsite wasnt easy, because the mountains are all very steep, and most of the flat areas are turned into rice terraces, but I managed to find a perfect little spot next to a irrigation stream perched up on a ledge so that I had a breathtaking view. Every day for the 4 days that I was there I would hike the 3 or 4 miles into town and grab some mangoes and a pina(pineapple) and some breads and maybe an egg and then walk back to my little haven in the woods and eat mangoes and bread and dip my feet in the irrigation stream. Basically heaven is going to have a tough time beating my little spot on that mountain. I also took a couple of hikes around the area and found some small falls to play in, which were also amazing.

Because it was an irrigation stream a couple times of day some of the locals would wander by, and I got a chance to talk to those who spoke a little english, which was pretty cool. I wish I had taken a picture of them smiling because most of them had dark orange teeth from chewing on a small fruit-type thingy that I think is something like chewing tobacco to them. I cant remember the name of it but one of them referred to it as Filipino bubble gum. Anyways all of them were really nice, and even better even when I wasnt at my tent they didnt steal anything, which was fantastic after being in Manila.

Another amazing thing to witness there were the storms, which would come every afternoon and eveing, usually short and fierce. The first night it was pretty terrifying because I knew some of the locals knew I was up there, and my tent was being pushed around like a kite in a breeze, and Im pretty sure I was lying on the remains of a previous landslide, so heavy rain worried me also a bit. Also combine that with the fact that my 30 dollar tent couldnt quite keep the squall rain out and george was a scared little kid. The rain would die off later at night, and then came the creepy part. Every couple of minutes the entire tent would light up with a flash. Like lighting, but there was no thunder. After a bit of praying I poked my head outside and saw that the whole sky was flashing; needless to say it was quite a sight.

Anyways I'll seriously miss Benaue, but its time to go in search of white sand and warm seas whilest I still have the chance.

Hope everyone is well,
George

Baguio

Man is it a relief to escape the hole that is Manila. Im now in Baggio, which is still pretty shotty, but feels nicer than Manila, and there arent little kids begging for money everywhere. Anyways Ill start with what Manila was like and how Baggio is.

The second day in Manila was nice, I found that cafe, and wandered and found a cool catholic church that was having mothers day celebrations, and was packed full of people. I wandered around markets, and I get many many more people staring here than in Singapore, probably partially due to the fact that I havent seen another caucasian for the last couple of days. Anyways, I started chatting with a couple of locals at my hostel and they were very friendly and spoke english well enough. They said they wanted to show me around the area so I went with them. Unfortunately they expected me to pay for everything, and after talking to them for a bit they were really shady dudes, one of them had been in jail every year since he was 13, and had his leg shot off by a cop, and at 22 had two kids. I mentioned that I needed to get a watch and one of them went and got one from a friend and tried to sell it to me for like 20 dollars american. (1000 pesos). So basically I learned my lesson and am going to be a bit more weary of trusting the people. All the guide books say how nice everyone is here, but so far my experience is that they are only nice if trying to get money from you. Its a bit stressfull being a flashing beacon that says im a 6 foot 5 atm. The worst part of my time in Manila was the last night there, after coming back with the two guys (who both stayed at the hostel) I locked my door to lie down and a few minutes later people started banging on my door. Sometimes they would shout that they wanted money, and sometimes the banging got really loud. Wasnt very fun and sketched me out pretty good. As soon as I woke up I took off, and since I dont have a clock of any sort and there was no window it was kind of a gamble. It worked out well and I think it was around 5:30 when I took off. Got to the bus station and caught the 7 hour bus up to Baggio. Busses are similar to Singaporean busses in that the seats dont have enough leg room for a bean stalk like me, but it was a nice ride, and the countryside was gorgeous.

Baggio is a very cool mountian city, about 400, 000 strong. Has a couple of universities so lots of people my age which is nice, even though I havent made any friends, as its kind of difficult when they dont speak english very well and also just like to stare at you.

Looking forward to hitting the country tomorrow, had enough city to last a lifetime.

Hope all are well,
George