Get Thai'ed

Woah.
Thailand is certainly something else.

I've been having an absolute blast here in Phuket and Bangkok. I'm finding it hard collecting the energy require to update the blog. I'll quickly whiz past my last 8 days or so.

There's been plenty of vegan places to eat about Thailand. As I mentioned in my last post, plenty of places hail the yellow Vegetarian Festival flag around their stall or the like. Unfortunately it's quickly dissappeared now that the festival is over (Finished on the 19th). Every place I've been to has been very accomodating however.

I've been eating all over the place in regards to venues. From nicer restaurants, to very Thai local places on the side of the road with friends. I was initially very worried about getting sick here from road side food, however as yet (touch wood) I've yet to get sick at all - And some of the places I've ate at look pretty dodgy, hahahha. But when a full meal and drink (coke etc) costs 40b ($1.25) how can you resist?

The prices here are so incredibly vast as well! You can have a fully fledged meal with soft drink for about a dollar, or go to one of the hundreds of places offering meals at Grange pricing. Alcohol is very cheap here if your not buying it from a bar. A beer is about 30-50b ($1.00 - $1.66) and mixed drink about 47b. In bars drinks are full priced at about 100-140b (Still not too bad considering in Australia you pay more still, and get no 'entertainment'...)

And speaking of entertainment here, it certainly is of a mind blowing degree. Unfortunately it requires alot more time that is currently unavailable to be able to even start to dip our feet into it. Not only that, but I'm using an utter piece of shit to write this, to which encounters a 3 second delay to see my own writing come up. Plus I'm justabout to head off to Soi Bangla (Patong, Phuket) for a drink and watch something pretty.

I was planning to go on a liveaboard to the Similan Islands on the 21st, but unfortunately 20 minutes out of dock, one of the motors blew and we had to wait until morning to be able to dock again and let the engineers have a alook at it. They came to the conclusion that the motor is indeed fucked and the trip was cancelled and put on hold to recommence tomorrow (the 25th). We have been put up at the Royal Phawadee Hotel in Patong, which is quite nice compared to what I've been staying in.

One final bit of bad news too is that unfortunately I've been in a solo motorbike accident. I was going around a corner too fast when wet (I was pissed as a skunk as well) and crashed. I got stitched back up in Patong Hostpital and grazing on my legs and left arm. I've got 2 internal and 8 external stitches for a hole just above my eyebrow. Because of both this and being forced to stay in Phuket I will more than probably extend my stay in Thailand by a week or 2. To be confirmed.

Anyway, I'm going to go as the delay is incredibly irritating. Will update more as I can (hoipefully a bit before I leave for the Similans tomorrow.

Cheers,
Wade

One Night In Bangkok

Bangkok.
Wish I didn't bring my jacket now.

I was planning to post about my SCUBA adventures previous to arrival, however time simply slipped past me. I will, at a later date, update about how my SCUBA study and instruction went. Needless to say it went swimmingly (hah!) and I'm now a certified Open Water SCUBA diver. Woo. I can dive without an instructor now, and just with a buddy down to a maximum recommended depth of 18m below.

Anyway, I arrived in Bangkok last night. My flight was delayed by a bit over 2 hours due to the emergency inflatable ramp blowing up or something causing them to install a replacement. Luckily enough, that was the last of the worries; The flight itself and the plane was pretty good. It was quite roomy for economy; They gave us free headsets which was advertised as being a cost of $5.00 for (even thought I used my B&O A8's); The toilet was nice and clean; Plenty of monitors to watch the movies if you wished as well (Of which the new Die Hard was the main feature).

So I arrived here at about 10 pm or so, and proceeded to immigration. I went to the line to declare my food just in case, and got it out for the people. They were incredibly nice, and pointed to it (noodles I made the night before) claiming (both of them) something something 'jey!' 'Jey' in Thai means vegan/vego, which was the only thing I understood. They seemed really impressed and were both smiling and asking if I was Buddist etc. The reason behind it is that the Vegetarian Festival is on at the moment. A time when Thai's give up the evils of meat, alcohol and sexual activity to cleanse the body and soul. (www.phuketvegetarian.com - I'd hot link, but everything is in Thai, so I'm lucky I can figure out the 'New Post' button)

Changed some cash into Thai Baht. The exchange rate in incomparibly better here. In Adelaide they were going to charge me $10.00 and 2.5% and only give me 24.80b to $AUD. As soon as I arrived, the price was 30.14b no fees at all. Amazing.
Change $500.00 for 15,070b. In Australia I would have got under 12,000b. I'm sort of getting 3 nights accomodation in BKK for free. Very nice.

I met my wonderful Thai friend Hnon at the airport as she offered. It's great to meet her in person finally. Luckily enough she checked the internet to see if my flight was delayed.

Unfortunately my suitcase had been cracked through the top; seemingly through a good sum of man-handling; so we went to report it. No JetStar or QANTAS office was manned, so after 20 minutes of wandering around we just left it.

So we caught a cab to town. Took about 30 minutes or so, and cost 230b I think. We went straight to my hotel (www.majesticsuites.com) and checked in. Very nice hotel for the money, and quite clean. Large bathtub too, which is great. Even got a complimentary cocktail of juice when we arrived :D

Went for a bit of a walk, with a subway (food) stop along it. I'm staying in the Nana area, which is well well known the world over for it's red light. Bars everywhere. Farang (foreigner in Thai) everywhere with nice Thai girl. O_o Sooo many pro's it's amazing. In a 5 minute walk up the street, I must have been asked, pulled to, followed by Thai girls at least 20 times.
"Take photo of me?" ; "I love you much, good time?" and every manner of the previous. The prettiest of the girls I think were actually guys, so if one were to dabble, look for Adams Apples.

So went back and slept after a short walk as I was pretty stuffed. Only 2 hours sleep the night before, and I didn't really sleep on the plane.

Woke up in the morning, had breakfast (Just a 'continental' breakast of juice, coffee and toast). And unpacked properly. But now it's lunchtime! So I'm off to find some vegan place to eat. Hopefully not too hard as it's the vegetarian festival now and many places advertise they have vegan food available by placing a yellow flag on their menu.

Will update soon :D

Wade

Musical Chess

Working casually (as opposed to full time) has it's benefits, however holidays is certainly not one of them. I've been working at Gametraders for nigh on 2 years now, and although only work 7 days a fortnight, I feel like I need a bit of a break. It's difficult taking a 'holiday' as such when only 2 people run the store; you feel that any time off would unduly burden the other with a 7 day week. I could write a lot about my feelings on many things in GT, but it will all end up saying I've decided to take a couple of weeks off anyway. But where might you ponder?

I was actually planning on going to Japan once more with Sachiko to attend her friend's weddings that she is heading off for. This would have been great, however the 'holiday' in Japan would have lasted a measly 6 or so days, with probably a day or two tied up with the formalities of the weddings and the like. The shortness of the trip when weighed against the cost of flight to Japan doesn't exactly sit well, not to mention the fact that Tokyo is not the cheapest of places to stay in. A few other reasons (family over there) make the situation particularly sour, and for that I'd rather keep my hard earned money and break out of Japan for the time being.

So I'm going to Thailand.

Thailand? Why Thailand? That's a pretty good question. Like decision like this, it's a few things that slowly compound themselves, until you realize it's something you really want to do. For me, this can include even the most trivial things like music. Murray Head's song 'One Night in Bangkok' has forever had me intrigued about this city of chess, bars being temples and gods in 'golden cloisters'. So much so that it lead to browsing information regarding the city, the country and such. From this point, the language started to pull me in with its hieroglyphic esque writing. How can these fascinating characters make up written words? How are they read and pronounced? It's a similar journey as when I started to become interested in the Japanese writing system.

Previous to all of this, I've also been internet friends with a Thai girl named May for just over 4 years now. I'm trying my hardest to remember where exactly (what chat room etc) we met, but I can't be sure. I think it was maybe MSN Messenger Chat rooms before they were taken down. As of now, I have 10 Thai chat buddies on my list :) Two of whom (including May) I really wish to meet. Very reminiscent of South Korea and going to meet Jiyeon and friends.

So Thailand wins. The major downside of course is the fact I will be going commando. Single; Alone. Sachiko still wishes to go to various weddings, and will be taking 2 trips to Japan in October and November, and as such going overseas again would be too much of a burden financially. So I've decided to brave this somewhat new frontier alone. I've been to South Korea 'alone', however my hand was held by Jiyeon and gang to an extent, so I had someone to fall back on if needed.

I'll be heading over from the 14th of October through 1st (evening), arriving back on the 2nd at this stage. I suppose the Thailand trip is one of the reasons I wish to 'revive' this blog, as to have a place to document travels and other activities. Before I decided to go to Thailand, I was researching various things I am able to do there to relax etc, as well as places to travel to. Some of the places that interest me are the exquisite looking beaches of southern Thailand (Phuket, Koh Samui, Krabi etc).

One of the activities that caught my eye, I actually had been researching for a little while myself - SCUBA diving. I often will spend a good whack of the evening browsing Wikipedia, and clicking various links within articles to learn more about something. I can often start looking up about a pretty standard sort of topic, like maybe a new game I'm interested in. Within an hour or so of following links, I'm researching about 19th century aesthetic philosophers.

My interest in diving started like that. For some reason I ended up researching about SCUBA, and have become quite interested in cave and cavern diving. So many other things diving related started to interest me as well so when I saw that Thailand included some of the best diving sites in the world, it surely can't be coincidence that has lead me here.. Obvious the first step to deep/cave diving is learning to dive..

Wade

Swindled!

"Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.

"We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles," Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

"Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

"The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain, Australia."

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.

©AAP 2007"
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=263297

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HAHAHAHAHA.
Hilarious. I know what I'll be selling in Japan when I go again!

Wade

VulgarGrad

The Adelaide Fringe brings about many new and exciting displays of incredibly talented people, not to mention many veterans.

I won't go too much into detail, but essentially it's a month long event where actors and artists from around the globe come and strut their stuff.

If one has to choose an epicentre of the festival, many will indeed point to the East End setup in Rundle Park. Anyway, as Sachiko and I were walking around the area, one 'bouncer' suddenly offered us free entry into an elaborate makeshift tent of steel. Seeing we really had nothing else to do apart from wander the sea of coloured lights, we entered the unknown.

It is here we discovered VulgarGrad. As we walked in and heard the husky, deep tone of the lead singer we were certainly hooked. It's like we were transported via some mysterious force to a gritty Russian club in an area you probably wouldn't want to be in at night.

We enjoyed each moment listening, and enjoying the music.
So much so we actually went back a few days later and paid $5 to get in.

Later research discovers VulgarGrad are a band who specialize in, and I quote, "Russian Criminal Sound". The lead singer is in fact Jacek Koman an actor/singer from Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rougue!

I'm in the process of editing some photo's I took on the night now, however here's one to get your blood pumping. And if that's not enough, here are some video's I took via mobile of the night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5T_mcqEXQs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF1G3Jcc8IQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0oMfenF58Y

Berlusconied!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9K6bs_fIWU

We all love Silvio Berlusconi, especially mixed with a hint of controversy. Although the flavouring added here may indeed be artificial, let that fact not deter from the hilarity that flows.

The redirection is complete!

Welcome to the newly redirected WadeBeger.com!

From this point forth, new and ever exciting content will be not too far away. You may never wish to leave your chair.

First on the list of things to post, is photo's from the 21st Party, on the 21st of last month. Expect these edited beauties within a few days.

I'm off to play with DNS and hosting. Happy time!

Wade