Archive - Student

And then this happened.

by Commodere @ 2008-09-23 – 02:35:52

"Historically, it was once the detention place for political prisoners similar to Ko Tarutao of Satun Province, but today it is a great place for divers or anybody who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of Ko Samui and want more than the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan. Ko Tao is a great place to learn how to dive." (Wikitravel)

I would agree. Koh Tao is unbelievably gorgeous. it has a huge mountain ridge which cuts the Island in two. It has almost unspoilt sea's and there is a reasonable amount of nightlife to relieve you after a day of doing nothing. I just didn't like our introduction.

We arrived on the Island two days after the full moon party. At this point it was like a mass exodus from Koh Phangan, everybody had decided to leave on the same day, the boat when we were trying to get on it looked as though it bore about four times as many people as it could safely carry, it was.

I ended up perched on a railing, about 35 foot off the sea with nothing holding me in place, to my left Andy and Raymond where in the same position. Paul Seymour, incredibly fresh from the night before lay underneath our feet in his Chicken hat. The thing was, there was loads of space, tonnes of the stuff but half a ton of this stuff was taken up by one single fat girl lying length ways across the back. She would not move.

So, as you do, Andy forgetting she was there jumped off the side of the boat and promptly landed on her head. He was only trying to get a pillow for Paul. Funnily enough she still didn't move.

Mae Had, this is basically the capital of the Island. It's still small but not too small. we pitched up camp and headed to a travel agent. From there, the two nicest Thai people I met for the whole trip phoned around the whole Island looking for accommodation. To no avail; "The thing is in Thailand people believe that traveling includes pre-booking all your movements on the internet, this is the true spirit of it. Plus it pissed me off"

For two hours we looked and eventually found enough berths for everyone to rest their heads. Myself, Andy and Kev ended up with air con, for only the second time in the trip. The rest had DVD players.

The first two days went smoothly enough. I met up with a very old friend, and recovered from an insane week on Koh Phangan. However, three days in it turned a bit ugly.

Quad bikes are not fun. They are not safe. Neither are the nice to fall off of.

I know. Upon getting on a quad bike one night and asking the driver to slow down coming round a corner it all went a bit tit's up. The bike lifted, the back left wheel to be exact and I got thrown off. Across the middle of the road and onto the other pavement. I thought I had got off lightly. No broken bones, no damage to my head, and no damage to my already screwed left knee -hospital in Australia- I had however managed to skin my right ankle joint, which has still not healed, got road rash up my right arm and received various superficial cuts here and there of which there were to many to name.

It fell to Kev to patch me up, thank-you Kev.

The next couple of days were spent in agony, showers hurt. Walking hurt. Everything hurt. Until we moved to a nice bungalow.

This place was perfect. TV, hot shower, nice beds, balcony, and to top it off, our own private beach -not that I could go into the sea due to abrasions suffered in the line of duty. It was serene and to top it off we had a hot neighbour, not only was she hot, she was also a medical student. And guess who caught her attention, not because of any other reason than wounds, yep you guessed it. Me. she had a boyfriend and I didn't dare do anything but the looks he gave me were classic, I should have taken a picture.

The next two nights, one including a leaving night passed without incident. Until the third. This night shall forever be vivid.

After a night of drinking, my first since the accident. I got awoken on the beach by a drunken stumble right into my sleeping side, as you can imagine I was delighted. But anyway, I was awake. I then began the hunt for my friends who I knew would still be out. I found them and as you do we danced, drank and had fun until the sun began to come up.

Enter Kevin and Peter, a couple of Irish guys we met randomly on Koh Tao whilst talking about flip flop thieves -more common than you may think.

They were there for the majority of the night and I was standing with Peter on the edge of the bar looking at the sea and involving him in a highly intellectual conversation, as you can imagine at 6am. It was at this point on the beach right in front of us did we see Kevin get bottled by a random South African. I reacted to this reasonably calmly. I walked, well maybe ran, towards the offender and tried to calm him down, he was standing with his back to me so I tapped him on the shoulder. At this moment I got punched, right on the end of the nose (May I add, I have been told that although I got punched I didn't move, I'm quite proud of this). I'm a little hazy from here on in because for the first time in a long time I really lost my temper, my little brother is one of the only people who knows what this looks like -Basically my eyes expand to about double their size and I lose all control- this happened.

The South African, who is a resident of Sairee, Koh Tao, I have recently found out carried on punching people. Anybody who went near him; girls, guys and Thais. Until Raymond Lee managed to harang said South African and sit on top of him. During which time a group of Thai's set on Ray. Much to Paul's disbelief he didn't return aggression and carried on sitting on the man.

Let me put this into perspective for you. The beach was about 8 meters wide. The sea on one side and a bar on the other. There was nobody else on the beach. Within this area there were about thirty or so people fighting, most of them were actually groups holding off guys trying to get at the South African, I was one of the guys getting held off.

At some point Ray had enough of being kicked and stood up freeing the Saffa, I spotted him.

At this point I will turn to Kevin Caffery's quoted description, he was holding me (Irish Accent if you will): "I was there, I'd been holding ye for about fifteen minutes and I was having enough. You wouldn't stop talking about yer man. So I said "Will you do anything" to which you replied "No". See I knew you were gonna do something so the minute I let go of ye you took off straight at yer man. Then you fly kicked him, if i'd known you were gonna do that I would've let you go ages before."

Yes you heard it I drop kicked a man. I have never done a drop kick, never had the desire to or ever thought about how you would do one. But, in my head when I was running at this guy it seemed to make sense. To make things better it worked and I caught him right between the shoulder blades. He fell. I returned to Kev with a smile on my face. Had a sip of beer at which point we looked to our left and caught sight of a flailing mess of arms and legs. A Thai guy doing Mauy Thai was coming at us, you don't know what to do when this happens. It literally is a mess of arms and legs. Thankfully for the confused pair of me and Kevin, Peter charged in a hit the guy with a Haymaker. We were saved.

At that point the police were coming so we scarpered. We left the Island two nights later after keeping our heads down for a while not when we wanted to because Paul missed the boat again, we waited although he had slept in the bar outside of which I was passed out, on a rock.

Koh Tao is a beautiful place just watch out for bottle wielding South Africans and dick-heads that don't know how to ride quad bikes.

Phnom Phen

by Commodere @ 2008-09-23 – 02:31:46

Boom!!! There she was 5'2 of pure unadulterated uninhibited fun, breasts unbefitting of someone so small and all yours for $5. Welcome to Cambodia:

Under the expert guidance of our very own chewbacca we navigated our way to the Lakeside area. With a back deck that spread across the lake, a pool table and a very cool little dude working there callled 'Chilly' we settled in.

Phnom Phen is hard to imagine. It is lawless, it is hectic, it is smoggy, it is full of people and it is not a place for the fainthearted. Everything you could ever want is there.

Day one saw us chilling out, we had just been scammed from Laos. Here is the Scam:

Don Dhet lies in the south of Laos, a little place called the four thousand Island where the Makong encapsulates the land and divides them. Upon arrival in this place we had noticed that we all had little money kleft and there was no ATM's for at least 200 miles. We, as a group of seven at this point, pooled our money. All of us had enough to get to Phnom Phen as long as we made it in one trip. Our day started with the driver claiming that he wasn't allowed to drive. He said he had a friend who would take us. This all seemed fine. We got to the bus station and managed to find a driver, and funnily enough a van.

Out from under a huge sheet of Tarpolin limped a blue mini-van. This was to be our chariot so we thought. The van had been sitting so long that a nest of mosquito's had formed in the AC resevoir. As soon as he turned it on we got flooded, our comfy space suddenly became a malaria mini-van. Ten miles down the road he ran out of fuel.

At this point we were still in the van, waiting from a replacement bus. Then behind us appeared a massive fat french girl attached to a scooter -enter 'le baguette'- she had to get on our bus, and rightfully so she had to pay for it. However, she happened to be the only girl travelling the country with only Australian dollars. This caused confusion as three taxi drivers all tried to figure out what it was, then they tried to use us as an exchange bank, we had no money, eventually the behemoth got in. And the oxygen got out.

"On the road again" was sung as we approached the border. Everything was going smoothly, we had avoided the 1$ surcharge that makes border police richer than the rest. Walking away it turns out that the baguette, not only had she hijacked our chariot, she had also overstayed on her Visa. Not wise. So another delay. As you can imagine by this point tempers were freying.

Through the border "On the road again" got sung, again. We had been going for about two hours in this sweat box when he turned off the road, onto a smaller road then a smaller one again and again and again, eventually we pulled into a guest house.

From here on in the driver miraculously forgot how to speak English. Lucky for him. He tried to get us out, 8 people, we where not moving. He tried again at which point the other guy, who was sitting awaiting our arrival decreed that we could not get to Phnom Phen, there was no ATM and we had to stay in his hotel.

By this point Ray was ready to kill someone, Paul was reading his book, Jo was smoking, and I had manouvered myself into the front seat. Randomly I started blowing the horn. Being a little idiot as you can imagine. This went on for an hour. We had a cavalcade of Cambodians ready for a fight, the tour operator from the Cambodian side and THIS FUCKING IDIOT who owned the hotel.

In the end we had to stay. Everybody paid one dollar, I took everything from the room in an act of divine retribution. Toothbrush, comb, TV if it had fitted in my bag.

We left at 7am on a local bus, for free. The guy got his mini-van back, and in the end we made it to an ATM.

Back to Phnom Phen.

The russian market is like Toys'R'us for big kids. You literally could buy a child here if you wanted. The food was great and I got some 'real' aviators. After the russian market we went to S21 and the killing fields.

Nothing can prepare you for this. Three huge blocks, think 1960's high school. Iron bars on all the windows, barbed wire over the edges to deter people from committing suicide, a gallows in the middle where people where tortured. Rooms upstairs for women and children. Pol Pot used this place to interrogate largely innocent people and torture them. I took one photo. That was it. Rooms full of photo's of women, children and men young and old who where killed within these walls. It gives you the shivers.

Then, to brighten up our day we went to the killing fields. This is where people were brought after S21. Here they where maimed, beaten, raped and humiliated before being clubbed over the backl of the head to die in a mass grave.

Signs around the place inform you that: "This tree was used to beat children" "Here the hung loud speakers to drown the noise of those who where dying" and my favourite: "Please do not walk through the mass grave". In the middle of this complex there is a huge monument full of skulls, skulls of those who died here. I didn't really enjoy that day, I found it hard to smile after. I had to go to KFC.

Phnom Phen was coming to an end. So we went out on a bender to a club: "The Heart of Darkness"

We walked in, a straight invisible line was drawn down the middle that seperated the foreigners and the locals, we went to the locals. I did not come travelling to play shit head all night with people from Brighton. I came for the experience and boy did we get one.

At some point during the night everybody apart from Gringo and Felix left. Somehow, Felix managed to bring a girl home, innocent enough. The bus left at 8am. Felix and Gringo got back in at around 6am. They missed the bus. They awoke to find a girl sleeping in their bed, a khmer girl. dashing around like arseholes, they ate breakfast in three minutes, packed and went back to the room to find this khmer girl asking for money. "We didn't do anything, if anything you should pay us for the room!" they exclaimed and left. Leaving the girl in the room with Chewie, who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

That is how I left Phnom Phen in a blaze of glory to the sound of Eric Claptons "I feel free". We certainly did for those five days feel unbelievably free.

The first accident

by Commodere @ 2008-09-23 – 02:28:52

First of all let me make a couple of things clear..

I don't like boats.
I don't like bridges.
I don't do mornings.

After spending far too much time in Changmai I left with a new group of people towards the Peoples Democratic Republic of Laos..This could be quite a long one so get a seat and get ready to read....

The slow boat from Houyxian (I think) leaves at around 10am every day. This requires one to be awake at 6am, don't really understand why but we did it..after eating a less than filling breakfast and having too much coffee the herding began...

A single truck pulled up, bear in mind there where around 50 people waiting for the truck. It took roughly twenty minutes to get on the bloody thing, this was 7am, I was ready for killing somone.

So in the truck and off to the border post . We then found out that you can only pay for your Visa into Loas in Dollars. I didn't have any so conveniently a man appeared to change the currency. This happens a lot in South East Asia. Not being too sure if I got ripped off I approached the departure cross point, you need to do this at every border, if you lose your departure card you get fined, again, this happens a lot in South East Asia.

After enough red tape to turn anybody insane we got to the river. The mighty Mekong, and boy was it mighty. Each person negotiated the boat with a fully laden backpack. The boat sits about 30cm's out of the water, it also lists from one side to another...I enjoyed this immensely. Across the river and through all kinds of bullshit in the drizzle at around 8.30am. Visa acquired bag on and up the hill, a big hill. Only to get to the top and find that there was another cue. Great. After arsing around for roughly half and hour we got to the boat. The first guy we saw approached: "Sir, you have ticket? Sir you have Kip (Laos money), Sir you want weed?" This struck me as an undercover police man, the fact his friend was talking to the police only a stones throw away also turned my stomach. Undercover police man.

Onto the boat, straight through it past the roaring, well sleeping engine and onto the floor. We had the best seats in the house. While the rest were crammed into little seats at a 90 degree angle we lounged around and got to mingle with the locals.

Six hours later we arrived in Pekbong. A small and irrelevant town full of guest houses and restaurants. We did what you would expect, got roaring drunk and played the guitar for the whole night. By this point our group had swollen from five to nine. We had Phil, an English guy that rivaled me for eccentricity, Nicky and Deets, Dutch guy's who will reappear in this yarn, Julie a Crazy Aussie, Natalie and Joanna Irish girls who just love taking pictures and Sean, the South African with the best laugh I have ever heard.

The next morning we walked down the wrong stairs just to have to walk back up them and managed to acquire a place on the boat on top of the bags....nice. The day passed with out hindrance. Apart from Phil and myself believing on numerous occasions that we were going to tip over. Great fun.

Louang Prabang was nice not great but nice. Bloody expensive. We went bowling almost every night. I threw a bowling ball across two lanes which cause a stir. We slept until twelve every day and got messy. T'was fun. After five days of Liver bashing we left to Vang Vieng.

I don't know how much you know about Laos. It is 90% jungle and has had more explosives dropped on it than the entire world during WWII. Most of this was during the Vietnam days. It was used to wage a Guerilla war against Vietnam and by the CIA to flood Europe with Heroin. It has a history.

One of these places was called Vang Vieng, where I am now. Due to the massive influx of American troops during the war it got bastardised from being a nice little Laos town to a place with more bars than a Scottish city.

We came here to tube. Tubing, for those of you who don't know it is basically jumping into the inner tube of a tractor tyre. Onto a fast flowing river which recently flood so there are tree tops to avoid. On your way down bars throw ropes out too you and drag you in. Sound fun? It is.

Drinks are cheap, the notorious bucket is about $1.50. Beers are about 90p. As you can imagine I ended up fucked. The first day my last real re-collection was hanging upside down from the roof of a bar on a bamboo cane. The second day was not so much fun...

In the last bar on the second day two people fell into the river after the bamboo they were leaning on snapped and they fell into the river. Paul Seymour ended up lost in the jungle for about half an hour and came back with a gashed little finger. Raymond was hanging upside down like a fruit bat from the rafters and the tubes all started to disappear. We left just as it started to get dark.

After making it through all the bars and down to the end of the river -by which point it is dark- you have to pray for someone to get in the river to pull you out. You would imagine this to be a very de-facto agreement but there are some hassles. It is dark and the water by now is cold. You are sobering up and you do not have a clue where you are.

Anyway. We got out and started to walk with the rest of the throng, we came to a bridge and as you do I started to cross it, tube in front of me walking straight. Unawares to me there was a small gap between two of the planks. My leg went straight through the hole and I for one moment thought that was it.

Imagine the scene; About thirty feet above the river. One foot hanging down through this gap and the rest of my leg jammed in the ruddy hole I'd fallen through. Roughly about sixty people were on this bridge at the time and half of them started to panic, apparently the bridge was about to collapse. Great. I'm stuck to said bridge with an arsehole lifting me up by the underarms because apparently my leg would fit through. If it would have been able to I would have removed it myself.

It took about fifteen minutes for people to listen to me and begin moving the planks, that's all it took. Meanwhile, behind me some ignorant bitch had decided to start screaming for me to hurry up, then she went through the same whole and the same guy reappeared to try and pull her out. It turned out to be her boyfriend, they are a perfect match.

My injuries are: A huge knee which has dropped in size, just. A deep gash in the thumb of my right hand which means opening bottles is a struggle. Cuts all down my left leg and, on the night, some acute form of shock. Thankfully my mother was in town so she looked after me, that is all you want when you hurt yourself, your mum.

Anyway, that was pretty long and if you're reading this at work you should probably be doing something else .

Welcome to Ladakh

by Commodere @ 2008-09-23 – 02:22:28

Ladakh. An ancient capital nestled in amongst the Himilaya's. Surrounded by a large military base and the friendliest people you will ever meet, this truly is one place that you feel adventurous..

Two days ago we went, on a whim, no less to one of the highest expanses of water in the world. It is called Pangong lake. It borders what used to be Tibet and India and surprisingly it was salt water.

We arrived and our driver, Hassan, assisted with the tents. A man came tearing out of nowhere demanding that we pay him 100 rupees for the two tents, at which point I lost my nerve -it has been getting easier and easier to lose recently- threw money at him and told him to piss off in no uncertain terms. The joys of being tired and higher than any mountain in Europe, trying to breath can be difficult around here. As can running, walking or doing anything that isn't lying down to get out of the heat.

We came back from said camping trip at a godforsaken time in the morning. We were in a rush to catch a polo match. Yes, I said it, Polo.

Leh, sits as the most remote town in India at 3500 meters. It doesn't have a lot and everything it does have is sold as (the highest in the world) such as the tennis court -they really do know their clientele.

So we arrrived on said polo pitch after our guts had been dragged over the third highest road in the world. Did I forget to mention I don't like horses? Well there it is. I don't like horses. They are to big and unpredictable, like Tyson on valium, could go either way.

Ultimately I ended up sitting on the pitch as seven plump men ran their miniature horses ragged into the ground. A polo enthusiast, don't ask, informed me that they were really good. I tried to reply as if I gave a fuck but not really to much avail. I do try you know, but those who know me also know that my mouth may lie but my face cannot.

The only time anything remotely interesting happened was when two riders, horses and all collided in the middle of the pitch. This is more like it I thought as the ball came hurtling towards me, and my compadres, followed by a dust storm and in the middle of that storm where ten riders, all seemingly chasing the same ball, coming right towards me. However, to my benefit some happy go lucky guy managed to scoop the ball away and I returned to my seat, four rows down after making somewhat of an arse of myself.

Now i'm sitting trying to book an internal flight to Delhi, I know, be careful but toss it up yourself. An hour and a half on a crappy plane or 36 hours with a death defying driver hurtling over the top of the himilayas. I think i'll fly.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Mahalo brothers and sisters,

Talk soon

First week in India.

by Commodere @ 2008-09-23 – 02:16:51

The day began with a knock at the door.

The manager of the hotel had enough. We spent the preceeding night drinking on the roof with an australian tosser who managed to offend the whole of Delhi, or so it felt.

During the night we had consumed one bottle of Indian Whisky (interesting stuff), half a bottle of rum, and twelve beers (at home this would seem like a normal night but in this hear it was anything but normal).

After our cultural calamity we got left with very little time to eat our breakfast. One of the guys who has joined us had a bad case of Delhi Belly. Street food for all when drunk! I was fine.

We got bundled into one of the smallest cars I have ever seen and sent on our way. Delhi is massive. After two hours of driving we were still in the city and the road was slowly turning into a river. A mini-monsoon hit the city. Cracks of lightning played in chorus with claps of thunder and the rain provided the snare drum.

The adventure had begun. Our driver, sheesh, decided against the main highway and so left off at an alarming rate down the side of the Ganges. One hundred Km per hour along a single track road. With on coming traffic. He did not care. Ray and I occupied the left hand side of the car and felt toe-curlingly close to landing in the sodding river on countless occassions; this is India after all.

We drove for what felt like forever. Then into view popped the himilayas.

Our driver took us to a communal area for foreigners, a nice break after living in the streets of Old Delhi.

High up on a mountain side our hotel providces views that would accomodate the higher classes in the alps. But these are the himilayas and the river we are looking at, although polluted, is still one of the most holy in the world.

The Ganges stinks. I know. I went white water rafting down the bloody thing and jumped in, aswell as pushing paul in at one point. He he he.

Anyway. This place rocks myself and Ray have already embraced the culture -going commando in baggy nepalese pants- and we are all chilling.

All we hjave to now is figure out how to get to our next port of call. Manali. Apparently this is like India's northern equivalent to Goa. I like the north. The people are more than friendly and they smile. You can breath the air without feeling as though you are constricted and it is fun.

Hope you are all well and I will speak to you all soon.