Old Age and Jailbait

Hello Everybody!!

so here I am still chillin in Nairobi, was supposed to go to see my friend Naomi in Kakamega last week, but my body had other plans, and gave me a good eye infection to keep me in bed for most of the week, feeling better now though...

Highlights of the last week have been a surprise bday party my dad gave me on Thursday, god I feel old... the big 28. Woke up feeling lethargic, and achy... :( :( we went to this really cool new hotel/shopping centre called Panari Sky Centre / Hotel, the place is awesome, not like anything you would expect to see in East Africa, the place is beautiful, nice furniture, wicked decor, looks like something you would expect to see in a European country. We ate at a new brazilian restaurant where it's all you can eat salad bar and meats served to you at the table.. tres cool, they give you this little red/green circular card that's about the size of a coaster, and if it's on the green side up, they will come by with all sorts of fresh meat and put it on your plate, if the card is red side up, then they won't bother you.

They got me this heavenly chocolate cake, and I drank meself a cappucino, and then it was off to a place a few floors up called Pasha. This is one heck of a coffee/sheesha lounge. Chilled there, overdosed on Apple and Strawberry Sheesha, the old people went home early, and few of us chilled and chatted before getting a partial tour of the hotel lobby (WOWEE KAZOWEE) and then back home it was. Good times no doubt.

Next highlight so far was going to Carnivore (yes I do have a problem). but we went for the Miss Indo-Kenya Beauty Pageant. umm, this was way too much fun, thanks to the obnoxious brits behind us, my smart ass comments, and the glaring and apparent lack of training and brains that these poor girls have.... I do have to say though, that it was a very organized presentation for the most part (if you have ever been to a function put on by brown people, you'll know how well they can 'organize' an event)

There was an excellent local dance troupe that did one heck of a job, good music, good moves, and great outfits, definately a class act... now that the good part is done... lol.. the girls were for the most part fairly attractive, pretty young in some cases, but not bad, 5 out of the 6 that I picked made it to the finalz, so I'd say I'm a good judge of talent no less... ;) but my god, some of these girls did not know how to walk, how to hold a microphone (honey, you're not gonna be sucking on it, so don't hold it like that) and were just plain...lets be PC and say...umm.. slow... first of all, some of the answers given were pathetic to the intelligence portion of the event... and even more pathetic given the fact that the girls knew all of the questions ahead of time... there was a few that gave very intelligent and well spoken answers, and others that answered some very tough questions with some excellent and witty responses (of course remembering them is difficult for me), oh I remember one... "Your hair is really long, how long have you been growing it?"... "Since I was little".. ummm no shit sherlock... of course throughout the whole thing, I was giving my lovely jackass answers... par example "What do you think about the sharp increase in Plastic Surgery?" .. my answer would have been "Some people are just born ugly" or "Do you feel that a Single mom can do just as good a job as a family with both parents?" .. my answer .. "Umm yeah, she only has ONE child to take care of if she's single"
anyhow, overall, not a bad show, a little too much advertising.. but that's the way things go here... oh and at the end, one of the promoters or important people was on stage, and the brits behind me said... "shut up and get off the stage, youre fat and you have a shit speaking voice" to which I laughed, and the rest of the Indian crowd gave a dirty look (hey, it was true) and this woman kept rambling and rambling.... bleh...

as for the dancing afterwards, it was amazing, good music, good times... I spotted a fairly attractive girl dancing, looked at my cousin and got the comment "She's in Alisha's (my younger cousin...14 years old) school..." at which point I realized, that I'm going to hell, on a one way ticket, and that I truly am old... when you can no longer tell the difference between 15 and 18 or 20, you are an old man, a dirty old man, and should not be going to nightclubs anymore...
ya right... like that's gonna happen.... I'm not that old (the other day I pulled a muscle in my back... wanna know how? yawning first thing in the morning) shit I mean, I think my warranty is almost up... starting to break down piece by piece... I'm pretty sure I'm not a Ford...but now to get into the car, I have to sit sideways and then turn b/c I can't bend my neck enough to clear the roof of the car.... :(

In any event, so far so good. Learnt a few new things in the last few weeks... if a mouse is bugging you, and the wheel is dirty, flip the mousepad over and use the rubber side... or .. that men have a form of PMS as well... it's called SRH ... Sperm Retention Headache...

Too Cold....

It's too cold in Nairobi.... gets down to about 7-10C at night...brrr... but it is getting hotter as we speak (YAY)..

The Raghav concert was aiight, ran into lots of people and surprised the hell out of my cousins... it was pretty awesome... danced until about 5am I think... sweet!

The week was not too bad, did some running around, got some stuff done, copied heaps of music onto the office computer... :) gotta update the Elio so I have shizzy to listen to... it's good music too, picked up a Ministry of Sound box set called The Annual 2005... wicked anthems on that one!

I'm off to the forest (Kakamega) to visit Naomi on Monday, freakin 8 hour bus ride there, then I'm only there for a day and an 8 hour bus ride back, so that I'm in Nairobi on the 21st for my Birthday...!!!! Can't beleive I'm gonna be 28... eeewww... Almost 30, been getting the regular lecture from my dad that it's time to get married and have kids... ... give me a break... not now... please...
anybody up for a paper marriage and a token child?

anyways, got to do some fun hacking on a Motorola V3 the other day, managed to get the tools together and hack it to store messages on the phone instead of the sim card, it's amazing the genius of people that come up with these tools and figure out where all these settings are and what they do, for a geek like me, it's fun to use them and get them working and do shit like hacking into phones... :) plus I get paid in Food to do this work.. can it get much better? maybe I can become a street urchin and have a sign "will fix computers for food" I think that would work, I'd never be hungry...

anyways, I'm outty, time for breakfast (It's almost noon) but I didn't wake up until 10:30am lol... I love vacation... everyday is a sunday!!

In Nairobi!

I'm in Nairobi, will post more soon, surprised the hell out of my dad and friends out here... oh and went to the Raghav concert last nite, got home at 6am!!!

Small World

Forgot to mention that checking into the hotel, I ran into the Gigli the Israeli guy that was in my dorm room in Byron bay... his flight was delayed to Athens... small small world....

plane is here, about to board... finally

f

Stuck at the Amari Bangkok Airport....

So here I am... rush my ass from khane and some really good food to the airport, only to find out Kenya Airways couldn't deliver the fucking plane on time... it's stuck in Hong Kong with a "mechanical problem" so it looks like I'm spending the night in class.... :) I guess I can't complain, I just hope I make it to Nairobi at a decent time tomorrow.

Today was a very busy busy day, from waking up early, catching my flight from Samui to Bangkok, passing out on the plane... cold... checking my bag through to Nairobi (hope it's safe, they cut the lock the last time around)

Got to Bangkok safe and sound, jumped on the airport bus to get my plane tickets sorted out...then the driver forgot to tell me my stop, so I ended up wandering the streets, found a place to get my glasses fixed, they'll order new lenses for me and replace them when I get back to Bangkok... :) ended up finding some crazy taxi driver that offered to drive me to where I needed to go for 20baht... ya right.. but anyways, took the ride, went to some cheesy tailor shop so that the guy could get free gas, then went to the STA Travel office.. and the taxi dude bailed on me... figured he wasn't getting any commision off of me...

changed all my tickets...got a refund on one of them to pay for the other which wasn't a bad deal.

Anyways, wandered the streets aimlessly, went and dropped my bags off at the suit place after trying them on... damn I look hot... got a comment about my green hair, so I attempted to find a place that had blue.. not bloody likely, they wanted 1200 - 1500 baht for it... fuck that noise.. ended up in the local markets with people looking at me funny, one lady even just looked at me in her store, said "NO" and shooed me out... WTF?

Decided to take a taxi to the same hair place I went to the first time, after eating great sushi and Udon at a japanese place in the Mall... nice mall mind you, but bloody expensive...

got my hair done, and bought a tube of the color so that I can get it redone when it goes green again...lol... BTW: Anybody want a Student Card? email me and lemme know, they are realy cheap in Thailand... along with drivers licenses and press cards...

now at this point I was in a mad rush to get to the Tailors to pick up my shit, traffic was hell, so I jumped on the back of a motorcycle taxi as he booked in inbetween traffic, along the lines, across oncoming traffic.. it was madness... but he got me there in really good time... :) gave him a bit of a tip... a whole 20 baht... love this country...

Then it was a mad rush to make it to Khane, but managed to get there, thanks to the guys at the Tailor Shop, if you're ever in Bangkok, check them out, great service, very personal, and they do a good job, tell them Feisal from Canada referred you

Peter Nang Factory
Bangkok Thailand
2380996-7
6330801-6
peternangfactory@yahoo.com

made it to Khane aiight, nice place, very hospitable people, but I had to leave after a quick dinner to make my flight... should have checked ahead, would have realized that the damn thing is delayed!

oh well, here's where I get to stay ;)

http://www.amari.com/airport/

Stop the violence....

Just heard about the bomb blasts in London, fuck, when is this shit gonna end, as a human race we really have to stop killing each other, there's so much more to life.

To all who are affected, my prayers are with you, I hope that you are all ok.

mmm....bike....

Ok. now I know I said I wouldn't but I couldn't resist... rented a Kawasaki ZX9R 900cc Ninja today... hee hee... took it for a rip around the island.. loads of fun it was... went to the shooting range, shot a 9mm, .38 Super, and an AK-twenty something machine gun... I'm not that bad out of practice.. hit the targets fairly well. Saw some kewl views on the bike, went and visited the grandfather and grandmother rock, you may have seen them in an email forward somewhere... not bad, they are a lot smaller that I thought... well actually I just saw the grandfather rock, couldn't be bothered to figure out which one was the grandmother... plus once you've seen one, you've seen 'em all... rocks that is.. ;)





ripped back into town, ate at this impeccable restaurant called Prego, it was quite good italian food, the Chef, Marco has been here for 10 years and just opened the place up 2 years ago, amazing decor and the atmosphere is very kewl, with flowing water, and great lighting accents... the flavor in the food is excellent and the sundried tomatoes..mmm...and fresh parmesan..mmm..mmm... and very very cheap... 300baht... which is expensive for Thailand, but cheap for what you get.

anywayz, I'm out, it'll be a bit before you get another post from me... until then.. ta

Updates...

Made a ton of updates for you guys and gals, the last week is up, enjoy...!
Start with the Great Train Adventure on the right....


Watching the Muay Thai fight last night was pretty cool, although, not as exciting as one would think... did see one knockout and I think the rest of the 8 fights were all decisions after 5 rounds... but entertaining nonetheless... the highlight was what they call Super-Boys... little kids, probably no older than 12 or so, kicking the shit out of each other in the ring... pretty strong little guys...

Made it to the Black Moon party.. WOW... if you get a chance, make sure you check out one of the moon parties if ever in Thailand... it's like this big beach, heaps of people, black lights... loud music, what an atmosphere.... I got sugar highed on like 3 pepsi's and basically danced the night away... got a glow tattoo of a lizard on my neck, and went nutz.. a great feeling of euphoria comes over you as you realize that nobody knows you, and you can dance like the idiot you are... woohooo!!!! plus the sand makes a very interesting dance floor, along with the lights, fatigue, a sugar high, and the really loud and good dance techno euro music that they play.... at about 3:30 am it started to get scary... heaps of Thai people (mostly 'girls') came to the party and it was pretty jammed on the dance floor, but I had to try so hard to repel them... it was like being at Calypso Hut 3 in Missisauga about a decade ago (sob, I'm old) if you made eye contact, they would come over and try and dance with you... after the ladyboy incident at the cabaret, I ran like hell, no eye contact, and basically just do your own thing... saw lots of tourists making out, gringing with, and full on going home with these girls... I just hope for their sake, that they are girls... eeeww... forget coyote ugly in the morning... this would be 10 times worse... I did have one offer to do anything I wanted... but I told her she'd have to pay for me... 3000baht for one night...she laughted and offerred me 10... I had to decline.. I mean, I am easy... but I ain't that cheap...

got back home around 5am, passed the fuck out, and woke up at about 11, off to play with some guns and look at phallic rocks.... ta!

Fucking Nemo....

Free Indian food last night wasn't too too bad... I hit the sack by about 11:30 or so... passed the hell out until it was time to get up bright and early for more diving...!!!! I'm still feeling myself go back and forth like I do when I'm on a dive boat... great feeling though...

Breakfast was at about 7:00 and then we jumped on the truck to get to the pier.. it's a great feeling riding on messed up roads on the back of a pickup truck... at least they give us benches and something to hold on to... gotta love these places... anything goes...

It was another leap off the pier onto the boat... they parallel park the things against the pier, so we only had to go through 2 boats to get to ours... not a bad deal... did our Dive Debrief and headed to an area called Chumphon Pinnacle and did our 30 Metre or 100 Foot dive... :D basically it was straight down, saw a Shark leaving the area as we got there, and the visibility was awesome... it's a weird feeling being that deep down under water, but way cool, it helped that the conditions were good, we saw lots of fish, schools of Barracuda's, Coral Marine life... wow... probably one of my best dives so far, comes close to Luncheon Bay in the Whitsundays...maybe even better... the dive took us quite a while, which was excellent, saw heaps of stuff and really enjoyed it. Back on the boat, and briefed for the next dive. This dive was only gonna be our buddy teams... I was buddied up with Frenchie... we descended (I had my camera this time) and started swimming out towards a rock (found out after, we should have descended while looking at the rock), so basically we got lost off the start. but, at the bottom, in a wide open area, we saw Nemo... cute little bugger, and he proceeded to swim at Frenchie, and then bite him... I got a few shots, and then Nemo attacked me while I was holding the camera pointed at him, and bit my finger, now either he's really sick of the papparazzi, or this was one freaked out fish...there were no other fish around, and I swear this thing had fangs... will have to see how the pics turn out... but damn that little thing can bite.... the other part of the dive sucked, we got lost.. which was ass and we had to swim a ways back to the boat... why can't I have a gps down there, what the hell is this compass thing... umm can you say abacus?

we got back to the pier and had to jump through 6 boats parallel parked to get back to the pier, and then it was back on the truck I was right on the edge of the bed, so I had to hold on for dear life, lest I slip and fall off... as funny as that would be.. all of you who are laughing...shut up!. clean our gear, and I had homework to do, did about 4 of my knowledge reviews in about 45 minutes, shocked the piss out of the instructor who didn't think that it was possible... ha ha.. sucker.. that's what we call a good old Ontario education... copy the answers out of the book... there's no need to learn anything... that just takes time that I don't have... lol

got my Adventure certification, need one more dive to get my Advanced Open Water, will have to get that at some point.... I'll have to find a place....

checked out, finished all the paperwork, and then it was back on the damn truck to the Catamaram back to Koh Samui.... just ate some real Thai food, and am off to the black moon party in Chewang, and maybe catch a Muay Thai fight...

Diving!

wandered the streets of town last nite... it's a very quaint, very quiet place, lots of little watering holes and resorts... and strays... lots of stray dogs and cats... no wonder the Thai food tastes so good... all their meat is 'free range' ha ha

I ended up buying a new pair of glasses, tried them on, got my prescription done, picked the frames... couldn't get the ones I wanted, I guess my prescription is too high to get the photogray glasses, oh well, c'est la vie, settled on a pair with the clip on sunnies...

Found a place to eat that had decent music on, watched a bit of a VH1 Show called motormouth, as well as a show on the lifestyles of the Friends cast... my god, I never realized how much money they made, and how much they will make off of syndication... perhaps I should move to LA and become and Actor... or possibly India.. hmm...body double for Abi?

Anyways, it was off to bed for me after watching a bit of HBO, slept fairly ok, had to be up early...mmm...breakfast, the fruit here tastes really good, especially when you are eating it beachside looking at the water :) met my dive instructor and the rest of the team and then our adventure began, aside from the choppy seas, the dive boat that was in excellent condition (yes I'm imbelishing) but it was cool to jump on it from the pier as there was no ramp or anything, just reach with your hands and hope you don't fall inbetween the boat and the concrete pier, or else.....I'd become a Chai Squishy... lol...

Our first dive got called off, we were supposed to dive to 30m, but the current was way too strong, so our instructor brought us back to the surface... we chilled for a bit and then did our next dive in an area called Mango bay.. got to learn Navigation skills... the vis was pretty alright, about 7m or so, but it had some nice coral and sandy floors... saw a giant Sea Cucumber looking thing, but it was hanging off some underwater flowers... interesting looking thing... I enjoyed the dive aside from the damn currents... booo... we headed back into town, grabbed a quick bite to eat (and a cappucino) and then no less than 30 minutes later we were back out there for our Night Dive... vis was poor, and boy was it choppy, but we accomplished a great dive, we even ended up turning off our torches for a good 10 minutes at least while we were down there... it's a very very dark dark world in the water, but its amazing the kind of shapes that you can make out.. and the vis is not as bad as you would think.. it was actually clearer with the lights off... on our way out of the water, the boat was going up and down so much, that you had to be super careful of the ladder to the dive deck, it was going all the way up, and all the way down, if it hit you, that would be the end of ya... thankfully, everyone made it out in one piece and we got back to the resort with no issue...

I took a COLD shower.. I guess the cheap rooms don't have hot water... :( listened to some muzzak and now I'm off for some free indian food at a new restaurant that's opening up... I'm amazed at the # of Indian food restaurants there are in this part of the world... I think it might have something to do with it's proximity to India.. ya figure?

Lady Boy

Wandering around the streets of Lamai was very interesting, lots of little dance bars and dance shacks around... basically a little hut where loads of screamin Thai girls get you to come sit and watch them dance while you drink overprices soda pop and alcohol, and there's lots of these places, It's almost like a sleazy version of the Mujjrah's in Dubai... and a hell of a lot more entertaining...

I found myself at a Cabaret show. A very interesting show I must say, some kewl dancing nice outfits, very entertaining showgirls... there was one "guy" that had really scary white and black makeup on, pregnant and pulled a toy baby out of it's yoohoo area.... (s)he came up to me and got me to give her a kiss on the cheek, which I obliged, only to have her turn her head at the last moment... I'm glad I knew it was coming so I wasn't close enough to ... well.. eeww... but overall the show was incredible... there was an old man flirting and "handling" a few of the "girls"... I think either he was too drunk to realize they were really men... or... well ... eeewww... Word of Caution.. DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF THE THAI GIRLS OUT HERE... unless of course you're like MJ and like the little boys...

Found one of the girls on stage trying to flirt with me, smiling and winking and touching me as she walked by... found out later ALL of the people in the show are Ladyboys... that's scary.. I thought you would at least be able to somewhat tell the difference.. ummm. nope... the one that looked like Tina Turner took a bit of a fancy to Terry, the American chap that I ran into, again... amazing how small these touristy places are, he walked right into the cabaret place as the show was going on... we had some good laughs with the locals....

Chilled out at one of the huts for a while watching the Thai girls dance, quite entertaining until one of the foreigner chics got up on the pole and started working it... I think she was a little too drunk for her own good... after that it was a night... had breakfast in the morning, and had to rush to get on the Catamaran to Koh Tao... am here now and checked into my dive resort... Advanced course, here I come....

Trekking

Woke up bright and early for trekking... started on brekky and the tour guide came early, so I had to takeaway ma food... grr... but I did get to sit in the front seat. and was introduced as the Tour Guide...lol...

The countryside here is very beautiful, we made it to our first destination and went Elephant riding.. por things.. the one guy had a metal hook thing that he used to guide the elephant, somehow I don't think that it's very pleasant. On of the the mother phantz would not let the baby eat... so we tried to strategically toss bananas so that the little one got some foody... I tried some of the local "Happy Tobacco" but it wasn't happy at all, probably just plain tobacco..

We trekked to a waterfall, I was one of the only ones who went swimming... it was so nice... strong current though, I tried to swim up to the fall itself, but couldn't make it... Helped a lady on our tour from China walk across the little pond to a set of rocks that she wanted to get to... shw couldn't swim, so I had to guide her across the rocks in the water. Ran into some dudes from LA and Montreal, saw a few cute girls, we left and went to a village of Karen people as they are called, they live in these really nice huts in the hills... we ate, then went bamboo rafting, which was heaps of fun, I got to steer the back of the raft for a while.. hee hee..... Made friend with 2 of the Thai girls that were on our trip, and decided to meet them in the evening for a night of partying...

I took a bit of a nap, and then ended up at geek heaven, basically 3 little malls, all filled with computer stores... even managed to find a place that still sold 4mb Simms and old P1 processors and motherboards...madness I tell ya... I ate Mcdonalds(again) and met the girls... we went over to a Thai pub/restaurant place called The Good View... really nice place, great atmosphere, kinda like Schanks in Calgary. We then hit up a club called Bubbles, ran into one of the guys from the other tour, Terry from LA, crazy small place it is... danced a bit, the girls took off early... I stayed for a bit, only to get massively rejected on the dance floor.... man, I'd say I got one hell of a death glare... :( headed back to the hotel after buying toilet paper...

Woke up late this morning, did the five more minutes thing and before I know it I was late for my taxi to the airport... Arrgh.! got there, checked in, got my window seats... yeh... the plane was a nifty little twin prop mini jet thingy with palm trees and beaches painted on the side... very touristy... it was kewl to be on a plane with just tourists... people backpacking, people on vacation, nice crowd... the flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok was uneventful, the views were great though! Bangkok to Samui again was fairly good, nothing overly exciting, good views, met some Canadians and an Aussie.. if you thought I was mad, this guys is doing 4.5 months to Central and South America... as his first backpacking trip... crazy...

made it to the Samui Beach resort, my lock on my bag had vanished after I checked it in for the flights, as well as one of my pouches that attaches to my bag had been taken off and put back on, my guess was Bangkok security, nothing seems to be missing, so it's all good I figga.... The resort is not much to look at, first glance was lots of construction, but I get to my room, it's right by the pool, which overlooks the OCEAN and BEACH... it doesn't get much better than this ladies and gentlemen... I'm at a beach resort on a frickin tropical Island! WOW! took a swim and a walk by the beach, and then decided to eat and treat myself to a one hour Thai massage... which was very relaxing until about halfway through, the mosquito's decided to eat me alive... had to go get my bug spray and cover myself... damn mosquitos what purpose do they serve again?

I'm in a town called Lamai, finally rolled my sorry ass out of bed ate some really good Italian food. The town is very nice, quaint, little shops everywhere, people on scooters and moped type things, little 125cc bikes, and a few sportbikes and harleys.. I think you can rent them, must take a look if there is time and see if I can run one for half a day or so... should be fun... :) I'll try not to repeat the last time I got on a bike...hehe rubber side down.. I know..

Chiang Mai

Crazy place, nice guest house that I'm at, took a nap, much needed that one ya.. and then it was time for a really cheap ass breakfast and ... yup, I got to learn how to cook Thai food, we went to the local market, it was very clean, quiet, and organized, I was quite amazed...if only the guys in Nairobi did markets this way.... we learned how to pick the veggies, saw diff kinds of fruit, lots of fish, fresh and slithering all over the place in their little bins...I felt a little sad for them tho....

Then if was off to the cooking school, about 5 minutes outside of the city... now this place was pretty cool, a nice little kitchen with 2 gas burners (it was only me an another girl) and so it was a very personalized session with the instructor.... we learned to cut, cook and prep all the food, then we got to eat it... mmmm.mmmm. good... I also got a recipe book so I don't forget what to put in it ;)

My favorite dish was the Chicken with Cashew nuts... mmm.. so good, and so amazingly simple, we made 2 dishes in about 30 minutes, which is pretty quick when you look at it.

Took a nap back at the hotel, and then wandered around the night markets of Chiang Mai... I swear I wanna buy everything here, it's so nice and pretty. Really cool shirts, lamps, watches, bags, jeans, you name it, they got it, and the prices are fairly reasonable as well... maybe one day I'll make a trip down here and buy loads of shit to furnish my place... it's really a sight to see, I was told that it was cool, but you gotta check it out one day!

off to eat McDonalds, I've eaten too much Thai food for one day ;)