Asian Adventure!

what ive been up to for the last three years!~

2010-05-01T14:31:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqgmYp8Ftr8

this link is a youtube video that i put together which sums up three years of travelling... please take a look and let me know what you think!!

Hands On Disaster Response.

2010-03-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

This is a video of part of what i was doing in Sumatra. We pulled down houses, whilst removing any salvageable materials and then once the house was on the ground we would then remove any other reusable materials and give them to the family. With a clear foundation to build on, a temporary house was constructed to give the family a residence until they have saved up enough money to rebuild their lives.

A house like this only costs $1000 and can be used for several years by the family. In the event of an Earthquake, the house is designed to be very stable and any damages can be very easily rectified rather than having to rebuild the whole structure.

If you would like to help out this organization, either by volunteering and doing similar work or by donating money please visit www.hodr.org There is a lot of information on their regarding all of their past projects, defiantly worth a look!

They are doing a lot of good work in Haiti and need as much support as they can get.

two picture links for you all!

2010-03-09T23:55:00.000-08:00

this one is a photo of me in papua...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2412878&l=e9b12d7bac&id=277701121

and this one is an album from my travels in thailand....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=63008&id=277701121&l=1aa71f3daf

New years in sumatra!

2010-01-14T20:41:00.000-08:00

I cannot describe enough the idilic scene that lay before me on new years eve.... not even pictures can show the full extent of bliss i experienced.

after working at this earthquake project for a while it was the perfect change of scenery. We had done some work with another organisation called the IBU Foundation and they had taken some of us on a fishing trip to this small island off the coast of Pariaman. I hadnt been able to go and was keen to get on the next trip. i suggested that we looked at going there for new years and everyone was instantly on board. we talked to some local fisherman and chartered their boat for about 200,000RPI each which is about 12/14 pounds.... penuts! they were going to take us to one of the four deserted islands off the coast, then they were going to sleep on the boat for the night and take us wherever we wanted on new years day.

the events unfolded gently as the sun began to set on new years eve! i was so excited! there are four of these pristine islands located off the coast of pariaman, they are visible from the shore yet are totally uninhabited. there is nothing but trees, sand and surf. behind each island is a semi circular reef facing out into the middle of the ocean. this creates the perfect opportunity to snorkle and do a bit of body boarding.

we arrived about half an hour after sunset and set up a big tent for people to sleep in and i pitched my hammock a little down the beach in a more secluded spot. we lit a nice big bomfire and took out the beers. everything was perfect, the fisherman came over with some freshly caught fish, i preceeded to everyones disgust to pry out their eyes and eat them (once the fish had been cooked on the open fire obviously!!!)

then we grabbed the beers and waded out into the sea. obviously as it was new years this had to be done nude. the beers were resting on the bottom and we just sat and watched the fireworks on the mainland from our secluded spot.

eventually, the festivities got the better of most people and we all drifted off to sleep. waking as the sun slowly came up over the sumatran mountains, one of the best sleeps ive ever had, i was ready to explore.

we jumped back on the boat and headed off to the smallest of the islands which was about 20mins on the boat. three of us opted to be towed behind in a dug out canoe. the thing was beautiful. carved from one solid tree by hand! we were doing a fair bit of speed behind the main boat and it got a bit choppy in places but this just added to the fun to be honest.

as we approached the island, the boat stopped short because of the beach. i climbed up onto the main fishing boat and jumped head first off the front and made a swim for it. i was quickly followed by the rest and it was gorgeous. the sea was pristine in colour and the sand was even better than it looked. even as i entered the water i could see fish. we immediately set off round the island to explore. it took no more than ten minutes and there was not a soul to be seen.

i grabbed my snorkling gear and ploughed on into the water. when i was floating, the reef was no more than 10cm from my body, quite nerve racking as it got pretty close when the waves went out!!! we tried round the opposite side of the island and it was perfect. the water was about 1.5mtrs deep and the coral was glorious. notable sights included a few neon purple starfish that were the size of hubcaps, a sea turtle and more fish than you can shake a stick at!!! it was heaven under the waves!!!

the rest of the day was spent relaxing and taking some rather dubious nude photos involving coconuts.... then we headed back to the mainland late afternoon, safe in the knowledge that it was one of the best things ive ever done in my life and most certainly the best new years ever.

sumatra is the most underated place i have ever visited, if you havent been then go!!! you can live on less than 7 pounds per day, including accomodation and food and the scenary is gorgeous!!! and, most importantly, the tourist trail is practically non existant!!! what more could you ask for....

Hands On Disaster Response!

2010-01-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

I did it! i finally made it all the way down to Pariaman in Indonesia. It took me a good seven days to actually make it all the way down via bus and ferry. lot longer than if i had flown and it actually ended up costing about the same. however, it meant that along the way i met a variety of interesting people and got to see a lot of things that i would have otherwise missed out on.

For example, one of the first places that i stopped was George Town in Malaysia, its an ex British colonay and obviously named after the king of the period. it is an endless maze of colonial arquiteqture with signs in cantonese, hindi and english. the population seems to be generally made up of hong kong chinese that were brought over there during the colonial era. This means that you can have english food for breakfast, chinese food for lunch and indian food for dinner. and most of the time you arent going to be paying a lot more than 5 ringit for your food and drinjk which equates to about 1 pound british.

Ferry time. I took the ferry over to Medan (belawan) in North Sumatra. It was a good option in the end as the price is fixed at 200 ringit for a three month open return, which is about 40 quid. flights fluctuate regularly and can obviously mean sometimes that you are going to be paying a lot more.

I arrived at Padang Panjan which really has nothing going for it to be honest. the hotels were far more than i was willing to pay so i decided to go and sleep outside in a bus shelter. after a bit one of the owners came out and insisted that i wasnt allowed to sleep there and that he would give me the room for free. i reluctantly accepted as i dont like to impose on people. I had a good nights sleep and woke up nice and early to head off on my journey to the volunteer site. The owener again insisted that he took me on all the buses and actually paid for all of them as well as he was so grateful that someone had come out to his country to help out people less fortunate than us.

On arrival i was greeted by an australian called dave who was really friendly. Then i got plunged in at the deep end, i set my hammock up in the garden, as i didnt really want to sleep inside with everyone else; then headed off to work.

The devistation was something that is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. We went past houses that were totally flattened and some that were just meerly damaged. but it didnt matter, i was overcome with emotion at the plight of these people. yet they were still smiling... waving... and retorting the usual "HELLO MR!!!!!"

The work was very tiring and the conditions were exceptionaly hot. i thought my blood was boiling at some points and of course on the first day, being so close to the equator i got pretty red on my arms, neck and face.

The work mainly involves two important stages. Deconstructing the damaged properties whilst trying to keep the majority of materials intact for reuse. the second stage is seperating all these materials out into useable and not reusables. i.e salvage.

salvage involved a lot of motar removal from brickwork and also moving around cement and riverrocks. Deconstruction involved making the house stable and then gently encouraging it to fall over in the dircetion and place that we wanted it whilst ensuring a minimum amount of damage.

over the months i was at this project i learnt a fair bit of general indonesian and also menung which is the local language spoken in west sumatra. i became friends with many of the local people and even went on a home stay with a fabulous woman called eti which i will go into at a later stage.

the local people were fantastically happy for us to be there and be helping them out with something that they didnt have the money or skills to accomplish. we were saving on average about 20-25% of the brickwork from a house and then also the majority of the tin and wooden structure from the roof. if you look at that in terms of a house in the uk that costs 400,000 quid, thats 100,000 we are saving them on the cost of rebuilding their homes. in terms of rupiah, we were saving them a few years wages.

the work that hands on disaster relief accomplishes is of the like that i have never seen before. the people there were relentless. the energy was fantastic and its definately something that i will never forget. please go and visit their website at http://hodr.org/

i am going to have to write a proper article about my experiences but for the time being i am going to post a video from their website so that you can all have a look at the work thats put into doing disaster relief and hopefully decide for yourselves that its something you will endevour to do at some point in your life.

http://hodr.org/2009/11/24/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-volunteer-project-sungai-geringging/

please watch it and enjoy!!! more to follow as soon as i get a bit more time and im not feeling quite so lazy!!!

jacking it in.....

2009-11-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

i have always thought of thailand as a meca for travellers looking for something different.. i watched the beach on my ipod the other day and he sums it up perfectly! everyone goes to thailand searching for something different but end up doing the same shit as everyone else.....

i havent really been feeling thailand to be honest and its time to jack it in....

i know some people who are helping clear up after the earthquake in indonesia. so i have set off.

pai - chang mai. 4 hours in a bus

chang mai, 8 hour stop over

chang mai - bangkok, 8 hour bus.

bangkok 7 hour stop over.

bangkok - malaysia 22 hours in train! (thats where i am now, waiting for the train)

then finally i am going to fly from KL to medan in sumatra, then another 22 hour bus down to pedang where i shall find out exactly where i am supposed to be going!

so will post you all again when i finally arrive sometime at the weekend! laters!

Mtorcyle Diaries

2009-11-16T18:55:00.000-08:00

My original intention was to walk from Pai to Mae Hong Son. its only about 108km, so easily a feasable trek. however the heat during the day was just too much for me to bear and it soon became apparent that i would have to carry more water than was reaslistically possible to complete something like that.

quick change of heart and a look at some maps. i discovered that there was a route over the mountains that wasnt by road. it was dirt tracks and it passed all of the major hill tribe groups apart from the long necks. someone suggested it sounded like a good offroad adventure. i sourced a honda 250xr and discussed rental. worked out about a tenner a day. so i took them up on it!

yet theyd already rented it out... and despite me asking them, and them agreeing to reserve it, on a daily basis, they did this to me for three days straight! if you go to pai/chang mai, DO NOT use AYA motorcycles, they screwed me over on a few things and ended up costing me time and money! not impressed!

anyways, i finally got the bike and set off around 6/6.30am for the village of Wat Chan. This is a supposedly tarmacd road, however, most of it had been washed away by the rain and the bridges were all out. so it proved quite a challenge but nothing compared to what i was to come accross later on in the journey.

the roads were simply exhausting, i am fairly confident at riding motorbikes but this was a real challenge. one 5M/8KM stretch took me over an hour alone!!!!

during the trip i saw many tranditional villages and a lot of women in bright colours, very reminiscent of the andean colour schemes that im so used to. most of the woman seemed to be smoking pipes and were much darker than the thai population in pai. pictures to follow of course!!!

the paddy fields were sometimes endless, with store houses on stilts in the middle. these also housed workers when the midday heat became unbearable. when i left pai it was totally freezing but as always, between about 10am and 4pm, the heat shoots from 10 degrees up to about 36! ARG!!!

anyways, i completed the 200km+ round trip in a little over 6 hours and 40 mins! i was told by everyone i met that it was either going to take all day or was impossible to acheieve in 24hours. i admit there were times when i was driving a little fast... but it was necessary to skip over the enormous bumps and troughs in the ground!

it was def one of the most exciting things i have done in thailand and it showed me that tourists havent yet managed to penetrate all of the hill tribes, there are def some real ones left. they barely spoke thai, there were no stupid shops selling wooden statues and there was no tourist infrastructure whatsoever! something i will remember for a long time to come!

life of pai continued

2009-11-16T18:47:00.001-08:00

Pai is a small(ish) town nestled in amongst some hills in north west thailand. hippies arrive en mass to observe a drunken chilled lifestyle. there are some very decent clubs with live music and a couple of late night places that break the curfew and remain open until about 6am!

all in all, its fairly peacefull and hasnt been ruined just yet. the hill tribes still come down to sell produce at the market and its easily possible to eat a good sized meal from between 20-30 bath (45p)

i moved into a guest house named Pai River Lodge. fantastic is the only way to describe it. with vistas over the river, an amazing decking and a fridge full of serve your self beer, nothing could be better! its the best mattress ive slept on since leaving the uk, brilliantly soft and they had real pillows. i paid 180 a night for a bamboo bungalow on stilts. there is no need for airconditioning as pai actually gets pretty cold during the night (blanket provided, nice one too) you also get free entry to a farang run swimming pool called Fluid which is about a five min walk. there is nothing better than chilling out in the sun with a beer and sitting in an ice cold pool. FACT!

the rest of pai can be explored on foot, however its possible to rent a motorbike for about 80-100bt a day, plus petrol. there are several waterfalls dotted around the town which are worth a visit.

seven off us set off in a little hells angel (on scooters) styled group for one of the waterfalls and spent the afternoon relaxing in the cool waters. an ozy guy jumped in, despite it only being waist deep and ripped a big hole in his foot, a good 6/8ths of an inch across and pretty deep, his vein was cut in half and stuck out like two pieces of tube pasta.....sigh.... i acted as ambulance and drove like a bat out of hell to the hospital. we all went to the pub later (including the idiot australian) and had a few beers and a laugh about it.

i def reccomend pai to anyone who is travelling. there is accomodation, music and food to suit all tastes and its somewhere i even considered staying for a few months....

i met up with the ex pat. he has a fantastic house outside of town, hidden away in a bamboo forest. no electricity and three cats. he leads an idilic existance, slipping into town to munch and grab his daily coffee. very jealous. we talked for hours about music and the various uses of bamboo that i knew. both taught each other a thing or two. glad ive got a mouth on me and not scared of talking to strangers.

bike adventure coming up!

The life of Pai

2009-11-05T21:28:00.000-08:00

I had rented another 100cc manual bike from a company called Aya down by the train station. as they have another office in Pai i could drop it off without having to pay extortionate amounts to have it returned!

i set off out of chang mai on some very shady directions. they had agreed to send my passport (deposit)and enormous ruck suck on their shuttle bus to save my strength.

the journey was about 130km but up and down some ridiculous mountain switch back roads and was scheduled to take about 3-4 hours depending on stops. in the end it was prob closer to five!

i set off along the super highway out of town towards some unpronounceable place and was told to follow the signs to Pai from there. Just as i turned onto the road to Pai i saw another westerner struggling to get his bike started by the side of the road. turns out he'd been taking a picture of an elephant standing casually in a pick up truck doing about 100km an hour. his name was J and he was from germany and he was also going to Pai! bonus! some company! we drove to the nearest place that looked like it served food and of course grabbed a big plate of Phad Thai Gai! what else after all....

chatted got to know each other. his plan was to drive to pai, then to mai hong son, then loop back to chang mai! same ish route but with different transport i guess...

anyways, we set off in good spirits, boy racer style, maxing out the non working rev and non working speedo counter whenever possible! i taught him how to corner properly and when to brake and he got much much faster as the afternoon went on. we passed twisting mountain roads, rice/paddy fields and some fantastic scenary! oh! and lots of jealous tourists looking out of the back of their super slow pick up trucks and pointing at us as we whizzed by! we were having great fun racing everything that we came across.

we stopped once again for some chah (tea) and a pit of a bum rest..... very uncomfortable after a while...

we got to within 30-40km of Pai and disaster struck, my fuel gage had been showing full the whole way (suspicious but meh) and it suddenly swung round into the red and my bike started to make the classic put put noise of running on fumes. luckily it was downhill switch backs so i put it in fourth and let it coast a lot of the way! we thankfully saw a thatched shack selling petrol by the liter through a hand pump! WOO!!! the day was saved and the racing commenced once again! we shot off and finally arrived in Pai!

Pai is the hippie capital of thailand, there are prob more temp white residents than permanent thai people, everyone dressed in their grandmothers curtains and with obscure tattoos blazing out from awkward places....

we found a hostel that does thatched shacks for 80bht per night called the ice house. slap bang in the middle of the tiny wee town! i did opt for the 150bht room with ensuit and double bed! sigh... need a bit of luxury before my enormous walk that i have coming up!!!!!

thats the life of Pai so far!

off to this ex pat bills house to see what its like living out in the middle of nowhere! i shall report back soon!!!!

Chang Mai Surrounds

2009-11-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

The two boys from Kerry and I rented two scooters and shot off into the mountains around Chang Mai to see what we could find.

We entered the national park and found there was a route to a 9 tier waterfall. however the path wasnt very well marked and we came to a tripple fork. after take the left hand route and doing a 1km circle we took the right hand route, the path was very very disused but we pushed on for another couple of clicks anyways. after a while we decided that this clearly wasnt the route and we turned around to head back. we saw two tiers of the waterfall but gave up going the extra 3k on top of what we had already done to see the 9th tier.

sigh. never mind!!! lesson learned!!

on the way back we stopped for some Phad Thai Gai, which is chicken with noodles, spring onions and some gorgeous flavours. at less than 70p a huge plate full of the stuff you cant really complain! its practically all i have eaten since i got here to be honest! cant say i am the biggest fan of thai food after all.

we also stopped at a big white buddha in a typical Wat that was overlooking the city. A woman told us to follow a track down for a bit and we would find a much better temple. so we set off and it only took about 30 seconds on the bike. what a gem!!! it was clearly hundreds of years old. there was a lot of khmer style architecture. the temple was cut in half by a waterfall and there were buddahs and towers EVERYWHERE! pictures to follow naturally! there were about 5 monks attending to the garden but apart from that it was just us. the masonry was breathtaking and some statures were clearly a cross between the original khmer style and thai buddhism! no idea what the name of this place was but it was fantastic.

we also passed a view point on the way down which showed us how much of the city we had really missed whilst confined to the old walled district.

we had left at about 1pm and got back around 6pm so it had been a fairly hectic day. i got a nice oil massage and relaxed for a bit whilst the boys passed out in some hammocks in the roof top garden of julies.

later on we had a spur of the moment idea to go and watch a Muai Thai fight down at the stadium, however we had missed the free tuk tuk! time to crack out the old motorbikes again! like a bat out of hell we shot across town, getting lost several times in chang mais complicated but necessary one way system! when we eventually arrived it was only about 8 quid to get in for reasonable seats. it was clearly a tourist night as there were barely any locals. the fight turned out to be for people prob under the age of about 20. the youngest fight was two 8-10 year olds who were so exhausted after the first round that they could barely stand!!!

there were several knock outs, some blood and some cracking bouts! one guy was really cheeky and clearly played the audience but lost on points for his cheekness! he was clearly the better fighter.....

checkedout now and off to Pai!

Chang Mai

2009-11-03T19:34:00.000-08:00

On the way to chang mai in a very uncomfortable "vip" bus, i met an ex pat american called Bill and explained to him that i was thinking of walking from chang mai to mae hong son. He said the scenary was very bland between chang mai and pai and that i should rent a motorbike and drive to pai, which is about half way. drop it off and then continue my journey from there. he also said i could crash at his bamboo house in the jungle when i got to pai and relax. he was a wealth of invaluable information and pointed out many things to see along the route. including a jungle retreat where they teach meditation in english!! very excited about that!

i got to chang mai very early and the bus company took us to some dump of a hostel, prob hoping that we were so tired we would just drop where we stopped. i was having none of it and set off in the direction of a hostel called Julies, also reccommended by lonely planet. its got a fantastic common room area with a full size snooker table, a garden with hammocks and a roof top chill out area. this is more like the back packer style hostels of south america and autralasia that we all love!!! they only had a double bed room avaliable with en suit bathroom, but it was only 200bht per night so i jumped at the chance. if you get a dorm its only 70bht, which is about 1 pound 20 pence!

they serve reasonably priced food and the staff take people out during the evening. i do advice booking in advance though as they turn away heards of people in the morning due to being totally full at all times.

for the last two days its been the festival of Loi Kratong. this festival is celebrated by lighting lanterns and floating them into the night sky and by creating mini rafts out of leaves and lighting a candel and some inscense and setting them afloat along the river. with all the lanterns in the sky it looked like some magic setting from disneys mulan. there were literally tens of thousands of lanterns floating up across the sky. was like watching all the stars moving together! the hostel helped me make a raft in the garden (pics to follow) and we all trooped down to the river and set it off on its journey to god knows where!

we then went to a roof top bar which was nice, no chairs or tables, just sit on the floor and lounge around. and then after that we went to a regae bar that had live music which was great fun! i had a bit too much to drink again and stayed in bed the day after! need to go on a non alcoholic trek pretty soon!!!

going to head off in the direction of pai tomorrow and try and meet up with bill the ex pat! until then!

Bangkok

2009-11-03T19:24:00.000-08:00

I arrived and took a cheap bus into central bangkok from the airport. I met a lovely german girl who has been here many times before and she reccommended me to stay in the same place as her. Its called KC guest house, turns out to be on the lonely planet website as well. very cheap, only 220bht per night. considering how spotless it was and how friendly the staff were it was an absolute bargin. it was just down the road from Khoa San road as well. perfect.

On the first night, i went out with a german guy whos name escapes me. I think saying i had far too much to drink is a bit of an understatement. i spent the next day resgined firmly to bed feeling sorry for myself. chang beer is stronger than it looks.

khoa san road really did confirm for me that thailand has been raped into western culture. i was constantly bombarded with popping noises, made by men advertising ping pong shows and or comments like, you want boomb boom?? the street was awash with neon and cheap drink signs with barly clad girls offering discounts on drinks of all types. there was also jacuizzis full of fish that ate the dead skin off your feet! mad!

I couldnt sleep one night, so i got up at dawn and walked a good twenty minutes barefoot to Wat Pho. They have a 46mtr, 3 story high reclining gold buddah. i sat in awe next to a monk meditating and gawped at the fantastic murals and various buddahs. the temple is the home of thai massage and the original inscriptions are kept in magnificent cabinets.

After this monumental experience i decided i had to head off to pastures new..... bangkok doesnt represnt the real thailand..... it represents a sick thailand, striving for things it doesnt need.....

off to chang mai!

kit list...

2009-11-01T01:56:00.000-07:00

The idea.....

2009-11-01T01:44:00.000-07:00

In 2007-2008, i trekked round South America on a budget of 4k. I spent a lot of time in a tent half way up a mountain but i did also spend some time working in places as well. It was such fun that once i had saved up enough money, i decided to do it again.

However, i do speak Spanish.... this time its going to be a little more complicated.... i don't speak any Asian language to any notable level... hello and thank you is about as far as i can get...

I flew into Thailand on the 28th of October and am flying out of India at the end of august next year. Once again the budget is around 4k.

Ive got a specialised hammock, tent, snow gear, jungle gear and cooking equipment. The whole shabang.... in a 90ltr ruck sack and a 25ltr day sack which is going to have to hang off my chest. Im also taking a canon dlsr 350d.

the plan: fly into Thailand, then go up north and visit the hill tribes. down south, into Malaysia, over to Borneo and do some extreme trekking in the middle of the rain forest. visit Brunei. see some orang utans.

then head back over to Malaysia, up into Thailand and then into Cambodia.

then head through Burma and onto Nepal. spend a few months in Nepal and then fly ou of mubai when i reach the end.

im sorry that sounds very long winded but i can guarantee it will be a trip to remember!!!!! i will be hitch hiking as much as possible and spending most of my time seeing the real people and the real country. sleeping on some random locals floor is a must, as well as finding some abandoned temple and cracking out the hammock!!!

i will be posting pics when i have a reasonable amount to upload and updating twitter and my blog wherever possible!!!! twitter name is trekkingnut as well, so makes it easier to keep a tab!!

im off to catch a bus to chang mai and start exploring these hill tribes!!!! WOOO!!!

speak soon!