motorbike taxis and elephants on streets

Random is what Bangkok is. It's really a lovely city. HUGE!
i stayed in a very peaceful area last night and today i moved to a more upscale district.
it's so strange how suddenly the enviroment changes. there are so many things to take in all at once.

in one day i took a river taxi, rode a bicycle taxi, i'm never doing that again since i almost peed myself going 60mph on the back of someone's bike. they are completely leagal here. total spazmastic.

yesterday i wandered into a mall looking for absolutly nothing, and what do i see, AN AQUARIUM right on the bottom of the mall. so i went in and it was really really nice, much better than the one in camden. it was huge too. so many sharks and strange fish. i just think it's really strange to put an aquarium on the bottom of a mall, but these thai's they come up with everything.

the koph san area is really really sad. it's litterly spring break gone bad. there are people walking around half naked and think people should be nice to them. ooof they are sooo incredibly disgusting. i feel ashamed to be a forigner, so now i just tell people i'm from india and i practiced a lot to get my english good..shhhh i get good deals. i just have to master the head shaking thing so many indians seem to do.

i'm heading up to chang mai in 3 days for a meditation retreat. hopefully i can stop this mind from working and cool off for a bit. we'll see what happens..
i'll write more soon. pictures i promise, i just moved a bunch to cd.

ooo and sticky rice and mango is devine!

Beach Life!

I'm sitting on a massive strech of sand in thailand. I'm on an island on the east coast called KO-Phanang. IT IS AMAZING.

i'm afraid to show pictures since all of you in work world will be uber jelous of me.
this is my day:

wake up at 8:30
go for a run along the beach
have a nap on my hammok
get some fresh made yummy thai food
hang out with my friend from new zealand
then go in to the water, maybe for a hike in the woods
and then go to some party

last night Marieme ( i think thats the spelling) and i went to the german party on the beach next door. it was the funniest thing ever. so we did stupid things like ask them if they Sprecken sie duetch? they were all freaking germans. sorry preeti but germans are the most lame people ever. they are so not funny. well one was.

so mariame and i began our other game of trying to find a stephan from berlin. we did not suceed although there was a man named Haickle? is that even a real name?

tonight we are attending the local school party which i'm really excited about. all the proceeds go to the school. we are all drinking for the school. it's right next door to us so super easy to get back home for a sleep.

my bungalow is litterly 4 steps from the beach, i wake up every morning with the sounds of hte ocean. it's soooooo nice and relaxing. the water is also crystal clear. amazing. but there is something in the water, i heard they were called sea lice but they give you little stings, so thats not good at all.


yesteday durning the day we also went to this great herbal sauna in the village. it was wonderful. the steam was infused with lemongrass, cloves, cumin and some other herbs.. but it was very refreshng and i will go again definetly.

otherthan that i have a very chilled out life right now, so much better than the cities i've been to. I am planning to stay here 2 more weeks. there are people here who stay for 9 months! and the guy before me was staying there for 6 months.. you definetly get sucked in to the laid backness of this place. so magical.

i will take pictures tommorow, and hopefully you all will not be sad and depressed:)

oh i took these pics so far
you can take a look, i hope this works

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=levmtr1.bfdqvl9t&Uy=-16fous&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1

In whitey LAND

Yes i did try the both the mangosteen and the durian. I have to post the pictures of me eating a durian, it smelled and tasted like soft onions. It's crazy how people love that stuff, but it's also crazy people with wierd taste buds, the same people that eat brains and thing.. ha ha

For all those that were concerned with my whearabouts, thank you so much. I am fine. I took a 5:00AM mini bus this morning to Thailand. I'm on the island of Koh Sumai. it's pretty stinky. I'm leaving in the morning to go to Koh Phanang.
the fruit farm was fun, i went during the early season, so i couldn't really try all 300. maybe next time. the guys that all worked there were the niceest people i have ever met. really took good care of me. they never let me pay for my food., which i got upset with.

i will write more tommorow. i'm doing fine. i am getting the hell out of here.
i will write about the farm as well.

Fruit farm, language barrier

KL was allright, I went to the petronas tower which is amazing, and i watched the movie about it before i went so i really enjoyed the structure, it's an amazing building.
KL on it's own is just another city with a lot of people and lots of mall. The KLCC mall is ridiculous all the stores in there (4 stories) are designer stores, i mean everything, COACH, GUCCI, even the english designer Chloe, these people like shopping i guess!

i stayed at a really nice hostel, the people were really nice and amazing. i loved it there. if you ever go to KL then stay at the Red Palm hostel. I had a long talk about islam, food, fruits, and the universe. I met a really interesting man who runs the place, and was very interesting.

So now i'm in this remote village after taking the bus. it's north of Penang Island.I think it's called Teluk Bahang, which is really remote. But i'm at the internet place in Batu Feringghi which is a tourist haven, its like a mini las veags, sooo many lights and whities.. ha ha.

I got picked up at the bus station by someone at the tropical fruit farm, http://www.tropicalfruits.com.my/ it's a nice place. So i took a look at the jobs i can do, and i think i'm gonna go for fruit cutting, cause it's easy and i get to stay in the shade! It's hot as a mother in there.

Here comes the funny part, i'm staying with an indonesian women who does not understand anything i say, so i have to keep looking in my malay language book to try to speak to her. It's so funny, she laughs and i laugh and all i say is "TIDAK FHAMA"! which means i don't understand. she keeps speaking and i keep trying to speak to her.

i've also met some nepalese guys that also work there, he promised me he would give me all the mangosteens i can possibly consume. I also had an amazing dinner today, it seems that malay's love to put chili on everything even there salads, i had a cucumber, chili, pinneaple salad.. OYVE, it was soooo hot!

it was from a food stand in front of the house and it cost 2 rinngets, not bad at all.
so my breakfast and lunch will be all fruit and dinner from the stalls...

oh this is a mangosteen the queen of fruit








and this is a durian the king of fruit

Tripiocal Fruit Farm

I'm so excited. i will tell you guys about Kuala Lumpur later, but get this:

I am taking a bus to Penang tommorow and on the island there is a huge tropical Fruit farm where they grow around 300 different types of fruit. I emailed them to ask if i work could i stay on the farm for free? I got a response and i CAN! i'm so excited. Not only do i get to live for free for a week i get to give guided tours and eat as much fruit as i can...well that is set yet, but i'm hoping workers get to sample.. hee hee.

I'm so uber happy about this. i can't wait to get off that bus. The place i'm going to is a small island in northwest Malsya. It's supposed to be beautiful, can't wait maybe i will be invited to go to a real Malasyan Longhouse.. weeee

Truth about Durans

The truth about Durians:

At first i was like, um yeah they smelly allright. Then i walked past a whole load of them, and i couldn't stand it anymore. I don't think it's the smell per-say, but that its just sooo overpowering. It was like a massive stench bomb i kid you not i could smell those suckers from 2 streets away. It was erradicating all smells n it's 40Ft diameter.

To make things even more funnny, there was this place in a corner of the market where people were munching away and sucking off hte flesh and discarding everything else in these little plastic crates. It was so funny cause they were all in this funny posture like they were like little monkeys and everyone was watching them eat. nibble nibble, look up, nibble nibble look up. It was so amusing, i tries to take a picture but i got a funny look from one of the ladies and i seriously will tell you her eyebrow was so arched it could have speared me in the heart....only if when she turned around to look at me there was a werd wha-tash sound like she whipped me... oooo scary durian eaters...

stay away from them they are evil stinkies!

comfy trains and free food

It's funny how when you are always surrounded by people, and sharing there space, you realize that being alone sometimes is perfect. After spending all day with newies, i decided to be alone today. I did although have breakfast of red bean paste pancakes and these weird green waffles oh and a melon. I went out just back of the hostel with a new Swiss girl that came to the hostel in the morning. It was sooo incredibly hot hte day before that i ended up takin 3 showers that day. It's so refreshing to have nice cold showers to get some blood flowing.

I then was on my journey to the Art Museum. It was incredible, there are so many talented artist in the southeast asia area. Most of the work is profundly the best thing i've ever seen. there were lots of paintings depicting struggle and freedom mostly from the philapenese. The contemporary art section is immaculate, there was an entire gallery called "under the pavement" about what makes up the people in Singapore, really really great stuff.

I think more artitst around this region need to be recognized in the west. I then proceeded to waltk to the Art House, but was sadly dissapointed since the only open gallery was comprised of several sets of photographs, but let me tell you a little something about that.
it was called In your Face, ass or elbow.

a bunch of young photographers took some pictures of random things, and you seriously could not tell the difference if it was an ass or elbow. very amusing, steph you would have loved it!

i walked down to chinatown (feet KILLED AT THIS POINT) and had some nice vegetarian food, it was made with bean curd(similar to tofu but so much better), cucumber, apples and pineapples. It was so tasty. I asked the man what was in it and he gave me the rest for free and it made my day, cause a lot of the chinese in chinatown are not as nice.

I kept going and did some internet stuff and then later went out to get a book for my journey up north.

TRAINS IN MALASYA!
are incredibly wonderful.


They are just like little beds, it's all about perfection, they even tuck the blanket in, and for US$20 i went sleeper class from singapore to Kuala Lumpur. It was a smooth ride. The only crappy thing was the toilets, which were crummy and cramped and that they didn't turn the lights off, but you get to screen the whole bed with the curtains. overall nice ride.

The funny thing was havning to get off at an only Customs Train station. It's so wierd, trains only stop so people can go through customs when leaving or arriving singapore. So you board in singapore and then everyone gets off the train to go through regular customs like in an airport, and then everyone boards back on the train.... very very strange.

Things seem to move very efficiently here, i wonder why that is? Maybe philly needs to learn alot from singapore?? since the buses never come on time and the bus driver know no other route than their own! OIP

In Kuala Lumpur now.. off to see the petronas towers

good day in the neighborhood

Today was a really nice day in Singapore. I met this girl in the hostel and had a really nice time. So my alone blues are over for now. It's such a difference when your out with other people, it makes such a huge difference. We started off with a walk to the Boat Quay (pronouced key). The we took a cable car to the island Sentosa. It was not as nice as i thought it would be. the cable car ride was allright cept for the fact that the view was aweful. After the cable car ride we went on the sky tower, but they was disappointing aswell, the view was not so special. the water was incredible and blue green, there are some artificial beaches, maybe tommorow? Then we went to chinatown had some laksa soup that made me sick. I had to come back to the hostel and take a nap, cause my stomach was hurting and it was really so hot outside that i could not do it anymore, i needed a break. To let you know, it was around 104 with 100% humidity, hot as balls! on my down there i had starfruit juice to wash my dehydration away. i had fun with my new german friend and this irish guy from the same hostel. after my nap we went to the Esplanade, which was amazing. the thing is like a huge durian cut in half, you have to google durian. I then had a this strange ice cream thing that i saw a little kid eat. He was eating a huge slice of ice cream sandwiched in between a slice of bread, like tosting bread. To make things wierded i was feeling adventourous and had myself some Durian flavoured ice cream in front of the Durian building. It tasted kind of gross but then i got used to it, but i read that it's supposed to taste like onion flavored ice cream..hmmm interesting....?? we then went on to the colonial district, which was pretty nice. I think inorder to appreciate Singapore you need to realzize that there are lots of wonders under the huge skyscrapers and the busy bulildings, one of those wonders if the Raffles hotel. it's such a tourist trap, with it's expensive Singapore Sling, but it's worth it, cause it's soooo beautiful in there. It's also surrounded by louis Vittan, Tiffany's, coach, and Molton Brown. So it's probably a ritz place to stay. the funny thing about singapore is that it's a giagantic MALL. there are malls everywhere and they are always full, i went in one yesterday night and it was full. the other wierd thing is i wonder if the kids have off now, cause there seems to be a whole lot of kiddies.. it's a wierd mix of Malasyans, Chinese, and indians, so its' a wierd lot of mixtures. the food is predominatly chinese. That means seeing people at 8:30in the morning on a hot humid day eating a huge bowl of steaming soup. i was sweating so bad that i was making more soup seeing my sweat off my forhead go into the soup. we later went close to my hotel and a some beers, there is a chinese beer that is really good and only 1.50 american dollars thats not bad. Alchol is really expensive in bars here, like 8 US dollars for a beer, so i'm staying clear from that. so a good day overall, and i met some interesting people. Okay so i can get used to this now. Art musem and maybe some beach life tommorow.. i'll post some photos when i get a chance..

RANDOM PICTURE....READ IT TOGETHER

Singapore....um i guess it's allright

DOH, i wrote this really funnything and it's in my bag at the hostel and since i'm writing at an internet place i can't get it. But i'll try my best to re-inact...

So last time i was at the kolkata airport i was browsing the duty free, other than the fact that about 95.99% of it's inventory is alchohol, they only sell it in US$... Now tell me this, you economic majors, wouldn't it be better if they sold it in US amount but in Ruppees? would not more people buy it since more people IN INDIA have rupees?? I'm so confused. The last time i went there they would not for no reason accept ruppees, considering i was in india and it's currency is rupees....hmmmm. So this time i went back in there and asked if they took rupees, he lowerd his voice and said they took it unofficially. what was that supposed to mean, and when i asked what rate they accepted ruppees since they were in $, he said it depeneds on what i get... wierrrrd!

Jet Star Airways, is a fine airplane, it's probably the most comfortable no frills airline i've ever taken. They are all these huge leather seats, but the only problem is that they arrive at 4:45AM and thats not so good for someone trying to get some sleep. So i brushed my teath in the airport, changed my dirty clothes, and tried to waste some time since my baggage came out quick, and the metro didn't start till 5:30 didn't really matter since my check-in time was at 9:30.

TRAVEL TIP:
When you arrive to an airport really early you should really think about booking into a 24 hour check in hostel, and not one that checks in at 9:30. i although got lucky since some places check in at 12:00

Sadly to say i'm already bored with singapore and it's been only say 12 hours. It's a really nice clean city, but it has really no charachter, i'm going to try to change that. I'm going to be an eccentric indian/american and talk in a german accent.. whoa ha ha ha ha. No but really. I walked to the arab street, and little india, and chinatown, and funny enough it's the same as india and chinatown back home, but with more chinese people and lots of dirty noodle places. i met this man who sold me some sticky rice desert thingies that were nice.

Nice Rice thing made of bamboo leaves pressed to get green juice out.<------ not to be judgemental or anything, i think the chinatown people are pretty rude, they rudly talk to you and when you ask a question they really dont' care to answer you. I'm going to the night zoo tonight and i'm going try to go to go to the alligator farm. This is a pretty small city and i can walk through it in a flash, so hopefully taking the metro to more distant places will make me like it more. Other than that, it's really clean and easy to get around, all the streets have really big signs so you can't miss what they are, and they're public transportation system is really well done.

cute girl i met... who "want to take photo!"----->



i've also started to take pictures of everything thing i eat. it's my food blog now..this is the picture of my massive DOSA in Little india, sorry dadia i could't even finish it!



man i wish i listend to colin and only stayed here for 2 days.. oh well i guess i'll just spend a whole day going island hopping on a bum boat.
blah.
more on my night zoo experiance, later...

anti-diarrhea medication, lots of undies and a SODUKU

i am hooked. i can honestly say i thought i wouldn't be like one of those nerds with there little pencil and erasers, but i am i am. i'm so sad

Anyway. I'm planing to buy a book thats how sad i am. I am starting my Singapore-Malasya-Thailand journey today. My flight is at 10:00pm tonight. I wrote this great blog and somehow yahoo mannaged to change pages and i lost it. DAMN YOU YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

anyway, i stocked up on all the meds i would possibly need except maybe tick and lice removal, hopefuly i won't have to deal with that. One great thing about india is how inexpensive the medication is. I bought the ever so needing anti-poop pills, a vicks inhaler and some allergery pills, cause dust in my enemy.

I'm really excited to go on this, i've been waiting for a while, and do make your reading/viewing more eventful i've even enclosed a map..yahhhhh., so you can follow me around.

this is where i copy everything i wrote so if yahoo comes back i am prepared, i'll show them.......
okay so the thailand map is not sooo big so you will have to just manage.

DAILY NEWS; Monkey behavior

I could not possibly have a journal about india without including a ridiculous monkey story.

So this is no ordinary monkey. This is special stuff. I happened to come across this page in the paper and it quite amused me, but then I heard what it said and now I'm amazed.

News story translated by my auntie:
This monkey hops on a bus everyday at the same time to the same place and just hangs out with the locals asking for food and relaxing. He somehow manages to get the bus that goes to the same location. He just hops off and gets on his day. Almost as if he is going to work..Interesting. He asks for food and the people give it to him. When the day is nearing night he then hops on another bus heading back to his "home" at the same time everyday. He has done this for who knows how long. One day someone tried to tease him and he made silly faces at the man to make him stop. Another day 2 people were harassing him so he bit them. The bitten had to get some stitches and bandages, and the monkey felt bad so he waited in front of the clinic to almost apologies. I am not making this up, if you find someone who can read Bengali then they will prove it. So there, OII is good for something, and it's smart begging monkeys, love it.

Dehli is prime, wedding blues

Delhi is a hot spot, nice clothes, great subway system, loads and loads of nice export quality clothes and the fact that no one can drive.

i thought the metro system was amazing. it was cheap, easy to get around and not to mention takes you straight into the city, and hit the far away suburbs i was staying in.
delhi has really changed a lot and it made me kind of sad since india as a whole is chaning, but somehow communist west bengal is stuck in a time warp. Not only do the young kids think this but also my grandfather, and he's no stranger to time.

My days in delhi were nice and calm, shopping here, some eating there. Until i was asked if i wanted to go to a wedding. I was like "WAY COOL A WEDDING"! So i woke up early got all my stuff together and went on an excursion. we took an autoriskshaw (my aunti and i ) and then a bus, and then a bicycle. We came to the house we were going to stay at and also my aunti's cousins house. I met this cute 10 year old who was really good at dancing, so she entertained up with her bollywood style dancing, with the whole butt shaking and thang. i was sort of kind of embarresed, jsut cause she was so young and the dance moves were comming out of something on a rap video... but she was good. She was acutally an all delhi dance winner, and her teacher is a famous bollywood choreographer.

after some time we went out to try some gol-gapas, they are these dilisious puffy little balls that re fried and are hollow and you fill them with potato mixture and then gets dunked in some liquids of varying flavor. so tasty.

DELHI DETAIL:
delhi is becoming filled with what are known as sectors in the suburbs, they are alsmost sqaures of land that are filed with these huge condos all in a row. Each sector can contain numerous pockets, that are the indivisual condo buildings themselves. So a sector can have some 18 pockets. each sector has a different look and style. So the place in was in was actually in Noida, which is part of UP(Uttar Pradesh) but delhi is similar. This is the new trend in indian residential living. It's very mystical and extremly scary. It reminded me of a futuristic movie where you like in blocks and you no longer have a name but a number, is India becoming a Borg ship?

anyway so we got ready and i was sporting a brite green sari and some dangly earings, and we were on our way. I was so excited to attend my first indian(bengali) wedding. Only to come to dissapointment. Like most americans the only wedding i sadly have seen is in monsoon wedding and bend it like beckham. So i was expecting all this danceing and fun and brite colors. nope. nothing. the bride and groom just sit there and people come and say stuff. the food was allright and nothing spectacular. They did have an assortment of choices like a fruit place, and tandoori grill. Maybe it was because we arrived too late, or maybe bengali weddings are boring thing. no one was dancing at all, there was music but it was more like just a backround music. i wanted some chair lifiting, sweaty saris, crazy dancing, people falling and getting back up. maybe atleast one hand in the air ponting at the sky thing, nothing........so dissaapointed. i've got another wedding to go to in april, my cousin's so maybe that will be more entertaining, i'm keeping an open mind.

traveling to kolkata on sunday.

Another day another hell

So i'm back on the writing thing. Sorry for my supporters i was away for so long. While i was away i went to Denmark, (nice, cold and EXPENSIVE), and South africa (wonderful).

We (coolin and i ) traveled around south africa from johanusburg to the kruger park for some safari-ing, i really did come face to face with a lion this time. i spectacular. then we hopped over to cape town, enjoyed the beach, swam with penguins and went to the wine district and drank ourselves silly. not to mention me having to learn how to drive stick and on the other side of the ROAD, cause someone wanted to enjoy the labor of trying over 72 wines in a day.

now i'm back from a small adventure in asterdam and back to Delhi.

I don't want to say anything bad about india, but i can't help it, they are sooooooo not intune with customer service. not at all.

my flight was nice. i watched some nice movies and was sitting in the middle row in the front, so lots of leg space. i was all hyped to get out of the plane.. when the OII striked back again.

3 747 boeing jets landed at the same time, so loads of people were at customs, which was the size of a gap store. so to accomidate all the restless passangers, they did absolutly nothing. so i waited in line for an hour exactly, when OH WHAT DO YOU KOW ANOTHER PLANE LANDS, then they think, wait a minute we should open up some more passport checkers.. okay so they called a bunch of people of there tea break and tada. so all the people in line and the other 300 people who were comming down the strairs made a mad sprint, knocking old ladies and fat people down, and got to the open checkers. i was stuck in the end again and fumed quietly.

TRAVEL TIP #56
when there are 600 people trying to get there passports checked please do not make small talk with the checkers , it slows everything down. That goes for he guy that likes so smile and tell everyone how funny he is.. ha ha ha, how bout i skin you and stamp the arrival date all over your bloody body? is that mean is it i mean really is it?

moving on. OII will they have one lane to exit 1 parking lot in a major, um no, capital city. yes one freaking lane.. so it took us about 2 hours to go 100 yards. arg. the agony begins.

nicer stuff i promise next time.