Alex Nice Travel Blog

Glorious Orphanage: Africa

2011-02-13T04:09:00.000-08:00

East African Volunteer Position:

I have been teaching at an orphanage in east Africa all this month. Every day, I wake up at 6am in my rat infested volunteer house, take a cold bucket shower, and catch 2 Dalla-Dalla's (minibus's packed to the absolute limits with people and animals for about 50 cents a ride)to an area of Arusha called Sakina.

There, under the trees in a quiet area is a place called Glorious Orphanage, a beautiful half finished set of classrooms on about an acre of land, where children who have HIV, or whose parents have died of AIDS can learn the education basics from volunteers from around the world.

When I first arrived, I was placed in a class of about 40 kids shouting "good morning teacher!!!!" and I was handed a piece of chalk and told to teach. ...uh...ok? Teach what? I was basically thrown in the water to learn to swim so I walked to the front of the class and started an English lesson of spelling accompanied with drawings - THe kids loved it. They were so enthusiastic and it was a blast.

I ended up doing this every day as I got into the swing of things - teaching math, art, English. I would make exercises for kids to do on the chalk board, and calling them up. Working with the ones that had trouble writing, and reading and just getting to know the kids. Its Impossible not to be moved emotionally by this experience. Aside from having a traumatic live, their smiles and attitudes were amazing.

...Its really hard to put into words the experience here. The children, they're lives, the people who put in everything in to help these kids. You end up questioning everything back home. Your priorities. What you think matters. I could write for ever about what Ive seen here and its so difficult to explain whats happened to me personally and emotionally. An example is that theres two twin brothers here. One have HIV and is sick all the time barely able to see and smile - and the other twin is playing and enjoying everything..that alone is heartbreaking..and then to see how the one twin helps the other on the swingset at playtime...

Everything...every second is moving and speaks volumes about the human condition here. Already I realize that I cant just leave like this - I need to come back with plans to do more.

Rwanda -

2011-01-14T00:54:00.000-08:00

In Januanuary 2011, I made my way to Rwanda after climbing Kilimanjaro. Rwanda is beautiful, The countryside is beautiful, and Rwandan women are beautiful. Rwanda is nothing I expected. Im slowely learning that the media we receive about african life and current events is a total misconception of what is really out there. ..But ill leave it at that. I just need to say, that East africa is an amazing place and east africans are some of the coolest and kindest people ive met when traveling.

So with that out of the way, Ill quickley describe a trek I did in the Jungle on the border of the DRC and Rwanda. When we took off at six in the morning, you meet in a single spot to receive your gorilla tracking permits. There, you group up with other travelers in your fitness range and you take off in search of the some of the few remaining mountain Gorilla of Volcanes National Park. A place made famous my Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist -

We started out hiking up the volcano walking through what seemed like an endless collection of african farm houses and Farmers tending to their fields. The children would chase after us laughing and calling me an "ageezy" meaning white man - ha

Then after a fewe hours, we came to the last farm, and there we faced the wall of a bamboo forrest. I also need to take a minute to say how much I hate bamboo. The only way to describe it, is that its like walking through a forrest where people are constantly punching you in the face and all over your body as you try to push through, and crawl under or around the stems of that horendous plant. Death to Bamboo.

So after the bamboo forrest, the Jungle became more abd more dense - Giant bushes of stinging nettel - the thickness of natural jungle made it so the only way to move forward was to chop with the machete - Two hours in, the jungle plantlife was so thick, that we stopped even touching the soil, and we were just walking on a raised layer of plantlife. All the while was hot and damp and uphill. I was exhausted and still quite sore from Kilimanjaro 4 days before, and this jungle was trying its hardest to push me back and spit me out -

Eventually we reached amazingly peaceful bowl shaped valley with calm wind and quiet with only the random bird making a noise - As we stopped to rest for a minute, I saw two black medium sized gorilla climbing the lush green walls of the valley. My jaw dropped. I was expecting to see a gorilla or two, but part of me, the cinic in me thought Id only get to see a gorilla for a split second as it ran away - not for a minute would I expect to see what I was about so witness.

As we climbed up after the two gorilla; up the almost vertical wall of plants, while the guide was haking away with his machete, I was in front - and at the top he stopped and pointed towards a bush that was to my left - There in a shadowy little hole, a giant Silverback Gorillas Ivory Black face was sniffing and staring right at me from about three feet away. My heart stopped and we just stared at eachother. Absolutly crazy.

We then walkked around the bush and saw that we were in a clearing, and there, layijng down and relaxing like lazy tired humans, were about 20 gorilla; the biggest, the silverback, the size of one of those smart cars. The smallest, a 1 year old baby. I froze. My heart stopped. They didnt do anything other than raise an eyebrow to check us out - The feeling of being there with these creatures in their own domain was nothing words can describe.

Suddenly, a huge female gorille that was sleeping a few feet away from me, sat up, rested her head on her arms in the most human way imaginable, and looked at me, right at me into my eyes and stared and I put my camera down and stared back - It was like she was touching my soul and I was speechless. That was the best moment -

Then, suddenly, another got up and ran super fast right at me and sat down next to me - THe guide said softly in a calm way "please slowley backup up sir" as if to say - "you are in danger sir, please move away calmly before you get your face ripped off." My heart was beating crazy fast and I slowley moved and started taking pictures of the baby that was jumping around and playing with the elders -

I ended up spending a little over an hour with the Susa Gorilla family, and it ended up being one of the most moving experiences of my life.

Rwanda

Kilimanjaro

2011-01-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

Im in Africa! Its amazing here. There's a energy that Ive never experienced. A feeling of excitement and vitality that's pumping some much needed life back into me after a years hard work. After I arrived in Niarobi, I chartered a bus to take me into Tanzania to a small town called Moshi. Moshi is a small city surrounded by farming villages that has been pretty built up in the center thanks to the thriving trekking trade. There, I got a hotel, and the next day, after a meeting with my guide, began the task of climbing Kilimanjaro.

Kilimanjaro is an incredibly symmetrical and picturesque mountain that towers above Moshi. It barely looks difficult and I cant say that I really thought the trek would be a challenge. Now that I am off the mountain, exhausted and spent, I feel like i need to say that I completely underestimated Kilimanjaro. Its looks are deceiving.

Where from the ground it looks to be just a steady, smooth uphill climb that eventually reaches a slightly bulbous peak....I now know that Kilimanjaro is not a smooth gradual dayhike, but rather, an endless climb of up and down (mostly up)covered with its own mountains and valleys on its craggy surface. Daily, I found myself walking baby step after baby step making my way towards each camp.

With my walking stick, we climbed each day higher and higher. The Views were amazing. No matter what day- looking down, you see miles upon miles of east African plains, looking up was the beckoning peak. Sometimes bathed in red evening light - sometimes covered in mountain mist that seemed to move in with incredible speed. It was beautiful, peacefull, and freezing cold.

The Toilets. The Toilets were disgusting. holes in the ground full of waste, and you were lucky to have a door.

Also the other thing I need to mention is the porters. No matter how much I write how hard it was to climb Kilimanjaro, I really have no place to complain, because as I walked up slowley with my daypack, I was always accompanied by a group of porters that carried tents, food, and general supplies in backpacks three times the size of muy own, and often with low quality gear that makes us westerners look like pathetic whiney children. The porters of Kilimanjaro are amazing to watch, and talk to. They deserve real respect.

Summit Day:

Summet day wet down like this. When we arrived to camp, we were on the side of a windy rocky outcropping. There were tons of camp groups, and just as we arrived, two porters were carrying a young woman down who was suffering mounting sickness. People coming down from the mountain looked destroyed. There were blasts of wind blowing away tents and porters were chasing after them. I ate lunch and went to my tent to sleep at about 3pm. I didnt sleep a wink -

At about 1130pm, I got the wake up call. It was freezing and put on about 8 layers of clothing - I stepped out of the tent to see millions apon millions of stars. The combination of being so high, with pretty much no light polution from the surrounding african villages at the bottom of the mountain made it the most star filled sk I had ever seen. I drank a cup of tea, grabbed my walking stick, turned on my headlamp, and we started climbing.

The climb was rediculous. Up...and up for hours upon hours. in complete frozen darkness, we climbed up the loose volcanic gravel zigzaging under the stars and in freezing temperatures. I was shaking.. the more I sweat, the more I froze. I was in this wierd state of wanting to sit and rest, but if I stopped, I would start getting chilled to the bone, and so we walked. Slowely and at pace. People were being carried down the mountain from altitude sickness..and you would see sicky faces lit by thrir own headlamps and it was a scene of some wierd scifi war space scene -

When I looked back from time to time, there was the craziest view of an extreemly long trail of hundreds of headlamps of other groups in a line behind us making their way up. It was such a strange sight because you could almost make out the entire path you had made and that was all you could really make out of howe much progress you had made because it was so black, that you feltt like you were on some sort of terrible headlight lit, uphill, mountain treadmill. You really had no concept of pregress except for the light trail. It was completly sureal.

So the end is pretty much how youd expect. I reached the top at 6am. Ten minutes after i got there, the sun rose up slowley and gave view to an amazing panoramic vista that was so breathtaking, you almost forgot the paint and cold you felt. The view was flooded with pinks and purples and I swear you could almost make out the curvature of the earth from up there. The Glacier at the top, though much smaller these days apparently, was cracking and crumbling as the temperature rose and it echoed across the beautiful crater and down to the valley that was slowley waking up for another day in east Africa.

This was the highest I had ever been, and Im glad to of been lucky enough to of had this experience.

Everest Base Camp -

2011-01-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

Well..Ive been meaning to write about my trek to Everest Base Camp, but I just never got around to It. But to Summarize, In 2009 I flew to Nepal, and met up with the same guides I had in Annapurna, and we climbed to Everest. It was. of course, an amazing experience in beautiful Nepal, and Ill try to come back to this post and really put in some detail -

Alex

Lao2

2009-10-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Laos Summary- Cross the border into Laos. Hop on a two day slow boat down the Mekong River. Make friends join up with a group of about 17 awesome travelers. The next two weeks consist of drinking, hammocks, buckets, innertubes, ropeswings, lao whiskey, caves, a homestay in a village, kayaking, and playing guitar in 4000 islands. ..with a lot of uncomfortable bus rides in between.

I love Laos

Pai

2009-10-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

After I made it to Chang Mai, I rented a motorbike and road for the whole day over the mountains and into the town of Pai; one of my favorite places in Thailand. Its a little sleepy hippy town in north eastern Thailand. and its famous for being so layed back, that travelers usually get stuck there for much longer than they had originally planned- There, instead of staying in the tourist area, me and the German girl I met up with stayed with some one from couchsurfing.com. A worldwide community website where people allow you to stay at their house for free. Here, I stayed with girl who lived in her bamboo hut on a plot of land in a Burmese refugee village at the end of a dirt road. I got the chance to talk and drink with a few refugees and one who had actually been shot in combat against the Burmese army. Just meeting these people made the visit to this town amazing. Days were spent at the waterfalls, pubs, and just hanging around painting in the bamboo hut listening to blues records powered off the solar panel setup. It was the second time I had stayed in Pai, and the experience was completely different, and completely amazing. Here I remembered why I was traveling.

Return to Asia

2009-09-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, Im back on the move! It had already been a year since I finished the round the world trip, And it was time to go back out! After spending countless hours for months behind a computer working on Roland Emmerich's new movie 2012, I hopped on a plane and landed in Bangkok on september 1st. My second time in southeast Asia- this time I wasn't looking for an adventure, I was looking for relaxation and fun.

I spent the first two days in bangkok. I didnt really do anything too terribly exciting. I basically just explored places that were off the tourist track that looked interesting. dark alleyways; community parks. It was a weird feeling to return to a place that last year, was new, exciting,and culturally mysterious. This time I felt less like a tourist and less in wonder of everything around me. The humidity was exhausting.

On the third day, I hired a taxi to the station to catch my train. I had planned to be there a half hour before, but the Bangkok traffic was so bad that I arrived to the train station 5 minutes too late. As I stood there with my backpak figuring out my next move, a guy said "you miss your train? Come with me, and we catch it at the next station!" I said ok and we ran out of the station. Then I watched the guy climb onto the moterbike ( I originally assumed was to be a taxi) and taken up in the excitement of the situation, hopped behind this 4 foot tall Thai with my 50 bag and my 6'4 body.

Before I knew It I was zooming through the bangkok streets inbetween the gridlock traffic at full speed. As the bike narrowly missed each vehicle, I let out a little wimper that sounded much like a puppy being smothered, and as I started praying to the god I dont believe in, a loud crash of lightning struck across the sky, and torrential rain started falling...assuring me that this was the day I was going to die. Inches away from trucks and buses, ignoring the red lights and we zoomed past. t hen the driver decided to take a shortcut and drove into a pedestrian singletrack pathway that crissed and crossed over the train track. ..20 minutes later I eventually I made it to the next train station. I missed the train by five minutes for the second time.

I payed for a secon train ticket and headed to chang Mai and on to Pai for the second time -

New Zealand

2008-03-30T01:05:00.000-07:00

Im in New Zealand! I arrived in Auckland and under suggestion of a friend, I take a plane from North Island to Christchurch in South Island. From there I take a local bus across island through the "Lord of the Rings" territory to beautiful Queenstown in an eight hour drive. The snowy mountains are everywhere as far as the eye can see and just begging me to be climbed. I concede and climb one the next day, overlooking the lake, under the hot sun, I walk the epic landscape.

Queenstown is famous for its "extreem" sporting activities. From this beautifly scenic location, you can choose between bunjee jumping, paragliding, trekking, Kayaking, Frisby Golfing, mountain biking...pretty much everything Extreme Sporty people do. Yes, I consider frolfing an extreem sport.

New Zealand has a feeling of epic scale even though its such a small country. It sports glacial mountains and lakes of incredible beauty in the south island, jungle tropical weather in the north. Days spent hiking and exploring, nights spent drinking and playing Ausies at pool. This was a pretty good time. This is a place I can see myself moving to.

For the second time, I run out of time before I can correctly experience the county Im in. I pack my bags and hop on the plane to California. New Zealand marks the end of my trip and Im completely in denial about going home. I had so many plans and so much I wanted to do once I got home, but last week I hesitantly agreed to a movie job that begins next week in LA, so that's it. No big last hurrah. No day to relax. Nope. Just fall right back into work ..lame..Six more months, and Im ready for the next trip. I got the fever

India

2008-03-23T03:06:00.000-07:00

As I arrived in New Delhi, India, I was immediatly blown away by the oranized madness in front of me. The sheer number of people in this country is so overwhelming. With the Streets alive with Riksaws, cows, and Indians shouting and scurrying every which way, It felt like i was walking around in the middle of an antfarm. Without a destination, I walked the crowded streets, took the local bus, and just tried to adjust to this new place- so different from everywhere else I've been. After a day of maddnes spent in New Delhi, I hopped the train to Agra.

As the train crossed the indian country side, one thing that struck me was the conditions that Indias poor endure. Seeing children, so young, sifting through mountains of trash. Seeing shells of homes made of just two or three walls. Starving families. Everywhere along the country side, was an view of someones life that put my own in a new perspective. We in America have it so easy ...hell, the homeless in America have it so easy! This trip, Ive been witnessing the poor in countries all over the world - so far India is the worst Ive seen, and from what Ive read, the gap between the the rich and poor growing without an end in sight.

After arriving in Agra, I followed the line of tourists to see the fammed Taj Mahal. At dawn, it was was an awesome sight. I took photos. I went inside. Walked the perimeter. After a few hours, I got sick of looking at it, and took off. Fiending some America, I ate lunch at a round Table, then Hopped the night train to Varanasi.

As one of the countrys holiest cities, Varanasi had an amazing vibe. Sitting on the steps of the Famed Ganges River, the place where families travel for hundreds of miles to burn their dead and wash themselves in the holy waters. In the mornings, I could hear the chants from the ghats and an errie fog covered the city.

The following day was the Festival known as Holi. A festival where everyone akes to the streets and douses eachother with colored water and powdered pigment. Within fiteen minutes of waking up, My face, hair, and clothing was yellow, pink, green and blue. Kids from rooftops pooring buckets of pink water on the people below. Dogs and cows dyed orane and blue. It was a big huge color fight. The other travelers I was with, as well as myself, looked like little rainbow children of the sixties laughing and hanging out on the roof of our hotel. It was an awesome day.

The next two days were spent terribly sick and just laying in my hotel bed reading. Some food or water I ingested was to blame no doubt, and it was completly expected. After dozens of warnings of unaviodable poisoning from other travelers, It was my time.

Unfortunatly, I had to cut out darjeeling, bollywood, and Goa because of time. Depressingly, India was but a stopover. And to really get a good taste of this gigantic culturally rich (as well as mentally exhausting) country, one would need to spend a month- minimum.

Peace out India, I'll be back soon-

The Nepali Himalaya

2008-03-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

From the day I booked my round the world trip, there was one place that I was lookiong forward to most. That place was Nepal. The life long dream to trek in the Himalayas in the foothills of Everest. In the past two weeks, I made that dream come true, and it was the best two weeks of my trip without a doubt.

I began in Katmandu, and took the local bus to Pokahara. It was from this small town, that I begain the trek. Mountain after mountain, day after day, I climbed through the Himalayan range with my sherpa porters and guide. In the evenings, I slept in little tea hut farming villages hanging on the mountain cliff edges with beautiful farmed terraced mountain sides. Showers meant a bucket of boiled water, and toilets were simply holes in the ground. For dinner, I ate dal Baht- the traditional Himalayan meal of lentels, vegies, potatoes and rice - sometimes with a spoon, sometimes scooping the bowl with my bare hands like the sherpas. For two weeks, the 6am wake up rutine meant putting on my hiking boots and gators, coffee, brushing the teath, and then a full day of upward mountain momentum. Old rickity wooden bridges with holes of missing wooden planks, locals with huge man sized baskets of transported goods on their backs, and stairs- Thousands and thousands of rock carved stairs. About a week in I finally left the tree line and hit the snow.

As I walked up and through the glacier carved valleys, the views were so stunning that at times it didn't seem real. Straight out of Lord of the Rings. Waterfalls. Iceflows. Avelanches. On one day, in a matter of minutes, the mist moved in but left a framed little window of blue sky and mountain. It was one of the must amazing things Ive ever seen. Another day, I woke up early, and climbed a nearby mountain to watch the sunrise over the entire Anapurna Range. The peaks of the mountains lit up with an amazing redish-orange glow that slowly moved down the mountain as the sun rose up into the crisp clear morning air.

The Final destination of the trek was a place called Anapurna Base Camp, 15 thousand foot elevation, and fifty miles deep into the range. Surrounded by snowy capped mountains, and a huge glacier flow to the north at the bottom a a 2000 foot cliff, it was here, that we celebrated our accomplishment with a snowball fight- Sherpas vs Americans - Laughing and fallng over in the snow, It was an awesom day. Nepal is dope.

Cambodia

2008-02-20T02:56:00.000-08:00

In the morning I woke up, ate breakfast, and hopped on a tuk tuk to go see the eighth wonder of the world - Ankor Wat. Absolutly breathtaking. Photos of this place dont do it a bit of justice. We spent the whole day crawling around the 6th century ruins; inhabited by huge familys of bats, and slowly loosing the battle of existance to the will of the jungle, I felt a sense of awe in the shadows of the ancient towers of Anchor Wat.

The next day, I took a tukTuk out of SiemReap to a military compoud at the end of a dirt road. Passing cambodian solders training under the hot sun, the TukTuk dropped us off at a little building behind a wall. As we got out and walked in, my jaw dropped to the floor as I saw the collection of automatic weapons and bazookas.

20 dollars to shoot a rifle. Thirty dollars to shoot an Ak47. Fifty dollars to shoot a M60 sub machinegun. And a few hundred to shoot a Bazooka. They ran out of rockets for the bazooka, so I grab my Ak47. A Cambodian boy tied a cow to the end of the alley style shooting Range 60 feet away. It made a wimper as I aimed my gun.....

...Just kidding. There was no cow. Im not that cold. In fact, personally Im against guns of any kind. Having never shot one, and never even held or wanted to hold one, this was the last place on earth I expected to be. But standing here, in the middle of the Cambodian dessert, with an opportunity that Ill most likely never have again, I made the decision to do it just this once. Curiosity outweighed opinion. Excitement outweighed fear. I aimed. Pulled the trigger. A mess of bullets and fire shot out of the barrel - Ba-ba-ba-ba-bop!!!

I didn't hit my target of course, and feel slightly wierd about the whole experience. Nevertheless, It was another crazy couple of days. Im off to india next.

Alex

Random Photos

2008-02-15T05:52:00.000-08:00

Konglor -

2008-02-12T22:29:00.000-08:00

Its my birfday. The group of us wake up early in the shared room of the guest house, hop on a TukTuk to the bus station, and purchase a ticket on the most crowded bus Ive ever been on. A 45 year old Laos man sits on my lap while i sit on a plastic porch chair in the isle for the three hour journey. At our stop, we climb over the passengers by walking on the bus seats, and fall out of the bus.

We then hire a pickup truck filled with locals for another two hour trip to take us over the moutains. Halfway up the road, villagers pin these little plastic flowers ornaments to our shirts and we continue on. The truck drops us off at this little village with a Laos farmers market in the center. Bowls of blood, corn, rice, bowls of blood, fruit, chickens, more bowls of blood ....whats up with all these bowls of blood? We hop on another pickup filled with Laos women laughing hysterically at me for some reason, and we travel the last leg of our bumpy dusty journey -

On the drive we drive, the pass through these tiny little mountain farming villages filled with the cutest little kids Ive ever seen. Each of the bamboo huts on stilts we pass, an adorable dirty little little kid popping out the window, waving and yelling "Sa-Wa-dee! Sa-Wa-dee!" We scream the same back to her laughing and smiling. The teenage village boy blow kisses at the blond girl with us. A little further up, we see a little 6 year old girl with a machete as tall as her waving but Im too slow with the camera. Damn, so close. Then as we pass the school, a group of little smiling kids in the school yard chase after our truck behind us waving and screaming "Sa-Wa-dee! Sa-Wa-dee! Sa-Wa-dee! " ....just going crazy! We wave back surprised to get such a warm welcome in such a remote place - felt so good.

We stop in a village near the river, pay the truck fee, and walk right through a tobacco field until we arrive at an amazing guest house called Sala Konglor at the base of a cliff and river shaded by huge trees. At night the group of us sit around a camp fire drinking wine and joking till about 2 in the morning. We fall asleep.

In the morning, we wake up and eat breakfast cooked by a crazy backwoods ladyboy in the guesthouse kitchen and at about noon, we walk out of the village and across the dry farmland valley for about an hour until we reach the rivers edge near the entrance to Konglor cave. We negotiate a price for the boats.

As we follow our guide, he leads us to the entrance of the gigantic river cave with little wooden boats at the edge. Konglor cave. A three mile river cave that flows all the way through the center of a masive mountain is listed in the "1000 natural wonders to see before you die"

Nervous, we climb into the tiny little two person boats and take off into the darkness with only the boat guides headlamp leading the way. As our eyes adjust, I realize that we are the only people in this massive cave about a football fields width and a cave ceiling that switches from about two stories high-to places that look as though it can fit the Staue of liberty. - Straight lord of the rings. A few times, the boat runs aground, and we climb out, and walk in cold clear water in the blackness until it gets deep again. Then halfway through the mountain, they take us to a little slope with a trail that leads up to a crazy natural room of Stalactites, stalagmites. and pillar columns untouched, undeveloped, and more impressive than anything Ive ever seen in caves at home. Hope back in the boat and continue on navigating around boulders and little waterfalls. Finally we reach the end of the cave, and the boat guide takes us to a hut at the edge of the riverbank, and we drink beerlaos with our guides.

Super high on life, we head way back to the village we started at the previous day. the Pickup dropps us off at a guest house with an empty disco tek where we have a few beers and relax in the laserlights. Later in the night, 6 beers later and sick of the techno beat, we walk back to our rooms and notice pickups with stacks of mattresses twelve high. We scale the mattresses and lie down on the cushiest bed ever under the stars. That was the end of one of the most amazing days of my life.

Happy Birthday Me.

Another Great Day

2008-02-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up, rented an innertube, and floated down the Mekong river in Laos for the entire day. Every few hundred yards was a bar with a rope swing playing bob marley. I floated down the river talking & sharing beers with other travelers from all over the world telling jokes and gazing at the fantastic limestone kraggy mountains that surrounded us all under the hot sun. Then when i made it back to town, I layed down on some cushins in an open air bar, watching family guy epesodes with a bunch of folks for four hours. Laos Rocks.

Koh Tao

2008-01-27T02:12:00.000-08:00

View from my bungalow on Koh Tao

Away from the tourist madness of Phuket and Krabi, I head to the pier and I hop on a boat litterally overflowing with party goers headed for the famous full moon party on Koh Phangan.So crowded was this boat, that it likely could have tipped over from the weight of us all sitting onone side of the boat with our legs hanging over the side and talking. The deck hands had to run up screaming that the crowd equalize the weight to both sides of the boat. We sat with a couple girls from holland and a canadian, and joked around for the two hour trip, as we sailed east under a spectacular souteast asian sunset. Within two hours of arriving, I secured my hut on the beach and I sat in my hammok for the next two days swimming and drinking until the party. I got my sunburn the first afternoon.

The night of the party, or rave I should say, was an increadible sight. Thousands apon thousands of drunken twacked out ravers, on a beach, under the brightest moon Ive ever seen, danced to the techno, while crazy light shows and fire dancers tripped out everyone on mushrooms. It was an Mtv spring brake party if it was anything though, and I forgot my glowstick. Damn. It was fun ... its just that these kind of parties are for that dudebro party type college guy-

..Im not dudebro party guy. I wish I was, but im not. Ive never been dudebro party guy. I walked along the beach with my beer and enjoyed the maddness.

After Koh Phangan, it was some time for some relaxation so I got on another ferry headed to Koh Tao- A small island to the north. When I arrived, we hiked all over the island searching for the perfect spot, and after three hours of searching we found it. A place called Tanote Bay. A place that ade my jaw drop. On this little beach, I got another bungalow for 5 bucks a night. This place was straight paradise - A tiny little bay with crystal clear blue waters and thousands of fish swimming around a huge majestic rock in the center.

The place I stayed was called Posidon bungalows and it was run by a nice little Thai family- there were about twenty bungalows on the beach surrounding a kitchen diner with a bar on the second floor that had hammoks and floor cushons to lay down on under the stars while overlooking the moon lit rock in the bay.

Every day went down like this. Wake up and head to the kitchen to order some beans, eggs and toast. Then after my iced coffee, go snorkle with some fish. At about 1pm, Id head to my hammok and take a little nap on my porch. After I wake, I would then head down and play some blues guitar with that guy from switzerland that played this amazing harmonica. Then I'd Draw in my sketchbook until it was time to climb up to the rooftop bar to lay down on some cushons and listen to Bob Marley as I drank long Islands and watched the moon rise out of the ocean while talking to some awesome friends we met also staying there. Next day repeat.

After the full week staying here, I realized I hadn't left a radius of about 1000 feet and I couldn't be more content. No tv, no internet, no nothing. I see myself coming back here every few years.

Tomorow I head to Laos.

South Thailand

2008-01-19T07:05:00.000-08:00

Night Bus to Bangkok. Pick up Vietnamese visas. Overnight Passport back to the states for agency to get my Indian visa. Hop on flight to Phuket. Arrive in Phuket. Taxi to Karan Beach.

Jaw drops.

How many overweight, old, and white retirees can congregate in one spot. How many Cheesy souvenir huts can you cram into one place. How many spoiled suburban mall rats can fly to one single location on the planet. Im so glad this place is called Phuket, because thats exactly what I say as I rent another scooter and head out on the road. Maybe Krabi will be better. .....nope.

Somehow I flew to southern Thailand, but arrived in Miami. Lame. Im out of here.

A Scooter Isn't a Motorcycle -

2008-01-18T06:24:00.000-08:00

Sitting in Pai for four days. I was supposed to be there for two. This place was a vortex. Everyday was spent sitting in hammoks with other travelers talking about how heard it was to leave. The nights were spent at a bonfire with our new friends Thai Davit, and Irish dave as well as other nameless travelers. When The bon fire burnt out, we'd head to the thai bars across the river. Drink. Joke. Fall over. Dropping people off at their huts as we ride my wobbly scooter into the night. How did I get home? Theres writing all over my arm? What?

Four Days, but finally I made it out. We hopped on the scotters and began our four hour journey through the mountains back through the twisted road to chang Mai. I climbed the hills with terraced farms within jungle plantlife all around me. A huge bull eats grass at the side of the road. With the sumer wind and the guitar on my back, I felt so awesome and In control. Zipping around huge trucks and taxis, and barely missing oncoming traffic. Then I began my descent.

The road down the mountain winded back and forth at a steep grade that made me slightly nervous. I held my cramping hand on the brake at every turn and hit the throttle as I pulled out of it. Cars were passing me as I slowly made my way down. I started to feel safer and in control again. I sped up a little bit.

Then about halfway down the mountain I took a turn down another set of switchbacks. A bus was passing by in the other direction and a truck was directly behind me. Carelessly, I took the turn a little too sharp as I hit a patch of dirt. I lost control. My bike went sideways as I hit the road. I slid across the pavement on my side, and dragged my arm across the asfault until I hit the guardrail. The guitar was ripped away from my back and I came to a stop.

All the vehicles stopped and watched as I got up and sat on my bike. With roadrash on my arm, and a bloddy knee, I brushed the dirt off, told everyone I was alright, and took back off towards the town. This was the day I learned that a scooter wasn't a Motorcycle and I shouldn't ride it like one.

From Bangkok to Chang Mai

2008-01-08T06:16:00.000-08:00

Sitting in the taxi as we weave in and out of traffic. Against all odds, we arrive at the station with a whole three minutes to spare - Never early; I am Alex. I am a lagger. We hop on our night train from Bangkok to ChangMai. We meet two friendly old ladies, and after about two hours of speaking broken Thai to their Broken English, we go to bed in our train beds. Watching the moon lit jungle landscape as it passes by. 7 am we arrive in ChangMai.

I ask the hostel how much it is to rent scooters for the day. She replys 200bot. Quick calculation... Thats about 5 bucks a day! I agree. I hop on my aqua blue hog. Pink and yellow decals tell the locals Im not here to play. The basket on the front tells everyone else Im deadly. I put on my navy blue helmut, and buckle the chin strap. I rev it once. vrmm! I rev it twice. VRMM! A lady from across the street looks at me, gulps, and a shiver runs down her spine. I wink, spit and take off like a hells angle fresh off the pipe - the road is my woman.

I take off down the ally way and stop at the entrance to the first main road. hold my breath, and enter into the madness. People on scooters and TukTuks are everywhere zooming around me. I weave in and out of the chaos, avoiding cars with only inches. If I dont die in the first hour, I tell myself, Ill be fine.

I make for the mountain. After a while of wrong turns and dead ends, I find a road that looks like it leads to the Temple on the top. I climb the winding mountain jungle road with the summer wind in my hair and I start laughing to myself for no reason. Pure Fun. I saw about four mountain temples, 5 waterfalls, a beautiful park where local thais relax by a creek, and one of the most spectacular sunsets Ive ever seen. I extended the scooter rental two more days. Im as free as a bird on my hog, and the road is woman.

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Tomorow, were going to try to make a day long scooter trip into rural thailand, and find a mountain town called Pai. We've been told the road is steep and trecherous.... Wish me luck.

First Days In Thailand

2008-01-04T10:12:00.001-08:00

New Years in Singapore and now Im in Bangkok! A sigh of relief. It feels so good to be here. A trip to europe feels too close to home. Sick of western culture, im now finally somewhere where I feel like Im experiencing somthing new and exciting. Somthing to write home about. Its crazy here. A good crazy.Ive been here for a couple days, and seen so much. Just visually, this place is so awesome and intriguing. Every corner is different.

Im walking down the street in the middle of the night, street salesmen offering "hot sexy girls", Offering TukTuk rides, Offering "the pingpong show".Two Transvestites walk by, I turn to the left, and I see a guy riding an elephant out of an alley and into traffic as cars zip past him. Walk into another bar, the Thai Elvis impersonator sings heartbreak hotel as old 45 year old, white male tourists bob their heads to the music with their 22 yearold thai girlfriends at their sides.

A boatride up the river. A giant Golden Buddah. A beautiful sunset. An annoying amercan girl that wont shut up. A two dollar dinner. An 85 degree day and A muay thai boxing match.... awesome. And I still have three more weeks in Thailand. Now to find that hut on the beach that I can play guitar in all day.

Switzerland

2008-01-04T10:00:00.001-08:00

I have no words for the beauty of this country. If there was ever a place in Europe I could live, it would be here. Standing below the real Matterhorn. Surrounded by snowy mountains and cliffs. I stayed in Interlochen. Then Zermatt.

And then Gimelwald. The most beautiful place on earth. I Went there with Three Aussi girls. None of us new what to expect. From our hostel, we took the train, then the bus, then a cable car up to the top of the snowtopped cliff. With the Eiger across the valey, we walked through this rustic empty town like we owned it. With powder snow and iscles everywhere, goats yelling to be fed, and the sun shinning down on us, we threw snowballs and laughed like little kids, so happy to be in such an amazing place. One of the best days.

The swiss girl said our stay our stay in switzerland would not be complete without Swiss Fondu. I said I wasn't much of a cheese lover -She Insisted. We left the hostel. Slightly Drunk, the swiss and the german hopped on a luggage rack we found on the side of the road, and the rest of us pushed them down the snowy street yelling and screaming as the other tourists jumped out of the way. We found the last fondu restaurant open at midnight.

Poland

2007-12-11T10:43:00.001-08:00

Where the hell am I? North poland. No one speaks english. No internet cafes in the whole town. We find a student near a dorm. He lets us use the internet. We try to find the address of our friend that lives here. We find it. THe student takes us there. A dad answers the door, says our friend is an our away south. Shit. We went to the wrong town. We were supposed to meet John in schrieneck. THe Student offeres to drive us there with his girlfriend. What a guy. Luck is with us.

We drive 90 miles an hour dodging trucks on a one lane road in the rain. Arrive at a farm. Five people live in this town. Sheep dog, ponys. THeres a party???? What?

We go in. The rest of the night is playing guitar, singing,accordian, drums, drinking, joking, ...polish vodka. Were there for two days, Try to catch a train out on the last day. Shit, the last train is canceled.

A lovely girl takes us in for the night and feeds us her home made wine. Train in the morning. Now Im in prague

Germany

2007-12-11T10:18:00.000-08:00

Arrive into Germany late at night from Amsterdam - Two trains and one plane missed. Its cold. Find Hostel. Off to the Pubs and a crazy hip hop show at a skatepark. Best band Ive seen in months from finland plays at a punkrawk venue in east berlin. We meet an austrailian girl that knows about an underground alternative tour of berlin. Be at the tv tower in front of starbucks at 11 am. I get up, walk across the city-

A dude in camoflauge tells us its going to be a crazy day. Five other travelers meet up. We hop on a train. We hit some murals across town. He leads us into a art commune with crazy art thugs sitting on the stairs, spray paint covering evern inch of the five stories. I peak into rooms where guys are painting with oil on gigantic canvases. We get on another train. Climb a dried up waterfall to look at the city in a perfect sunny view.

Another train. Now were at the berlin wall. The guide breaks away the fence into a restricted area. We walk along the berlin wall until we find fence pieces that can be used as ladders. We prop them up, and climb the berlin wall. As we sit on the top, we say hi to locals walking buy who look at us in confusion. He asks if we want to see the abandonded prison. I say Yes.

We hop a bus and get off at a shady area of berlin at dusk. We climb through a hole in the fence hidden by a bush. We find a hole in a borded up door. The first floor is colapsed, so we walk along the edge. graffiti everywhere. We walk up the flights uf stairs. Looks and smells like a homeless camp. Pitch black and using my keychain lighter, I arrive at a ladder in the fifth floor. I climb. Two other in our group say that this is out of their comfort level, and turn back. I climb. Im on the roof and watch the sunset with my new friends. All of our faces are dirty and look both scared and excited. We visit a few more grafiti walls. I head back to the hostel for another night of partying.

Wake up early, hop on a train to poland.

LondonScotlandIreland

2007-12-11T10:17:00.000-08:00

I sit at a crowded pub in northern belfast. When i order my drink with my obvious American accent, a group of tough ass looking 40 yearold irish glare at me in disgust. I smile back. I drink my guinness. I open the "whats going on" news paper, and notice the original drummer from guns and roses will be here next week with his band Adlers Appatite- playing GNR cover songs on his drumset from the glory days. I mark my calender. I make plans to visit the peace wall erected in response of the bloodshed that took place here over the past years. I hear music playing in the room next door. I walk in to see a huge crowd gathering around a three piece irish band. I order another guiness as I listen to the incredible music. I feel like it might as well be a hundred years ago as I stand next to the fire in the musty old pub. I start shooting the shit with these two funny lookin dudes. Ones about 4 feet tall, round and wearing a hipster white long sleeve buttonup shirt. The other is about six five, buzz cut, and crosseyed. I can barely understand them with their strong northern irish accent. I tell them about the states. They recomend irish destinations. They buy me a drink. We talk about george bush - They call him a wanker. I make my way over to the bar stool for a minute. I say whats up to this tough dude with an earing. I tell him I just got into ireland a few hours ago. He leans into my ear and whispers somthing about the Irish Republican Army and their strength -I stay clear of that one as I shake his hand. A tall slim atractive brunette girl takes my hand and asks me to dance. I leave my jacket and bag on the floor and attempt an irish dance, spinning this girl over and over. Were the only ones on the dance floor in front of probably 150 people. I realize im drunk because I would never do this at home. I know I look a fool as I step on this girls feet and loose her every other spin. The song ends. We go back to the bar as she tells me to head to some island in the west for real irish culture. From behind her I see the wierd IRA earing guy motioning to me with his eyes that I should make a move on this girl. This wierds me out . He keeps watching me. I check my watch. Its 1am and Im an hours walk from my hostel. I tell the group that i gotta go. Girl kisses me. I shake eveyone elses hand and stumble out. I take a taxi. Taxi drops me off. I realize that I left my sketchbook in the taxi. Fuck! I walk in the dark all the way back to the bar hoping the taxi driver went back to the bar. This part is much of a blur - I finally get there. The taxi is there! Thank god. He's at the front of the taxi line. I got there just in time. I find my sketchbook sitting in the back seat. Hes drives me back to my hostel for a second time. Its about 230. I stumble into my dorm room. Take off my shoes.... My feet have never smelt like this in my entire life. I need to wash my socks badly. The other six in this dorm room must hate me. The room smells like feet. I climb into my bunk bed. I go to sleep. I head to the town of Cork in a couple days. -

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Hang out with Kay and Simon in London. Go to awesome clubs and bars. Go to a halloween party. Get lost in the city at 4 am. Get on the double Decker. Take the underground. Mind the Gap.