the day after the half-moon party!

OK so i am not hung-over like the name implies but Emily and Dionne are haha. Last night was a half-moon party, which is essentially what the island of Koh Phanagn exists for (half, full, and non-moon parties). We started the night at a backpackers painting each other in fluro paint and dancing which was fun. We taxi'd to the party which had several thousand people and tons of fluro paint and black lights!! Was lots of fun and i even lasted till 3am. there were plenty of thai girls to be had too which was interesting to watch! they were wearing about 1/3 of what Lonely Planet says not to wear in Thailand!! I didnt get any thai girls hitting on me but i did have one grumpy canadian guy who walked off in a huff when i told him i wouldnt have sex with him while waiting for the taxi to leave... that was fun!
Earlier that day had been really good too. we decided to take our mopeds over to the main tourist part of the island, but on the way discovered the steepest roads i have ever seen. It was scary doing it later in the taxi (which is a ute with seats in the back) so it was even scarier doing it on a moped. At one point emily stopped to try and take a photo and she couldnt park her bike as it justkept rolling down the hill! At least it didnt rain while we were doing it...

at the moment i am at Koh Samui (the island next to Koh Phanagn) waiting for our 10pm flight. We spent a few hours at the beach and while the girls got massages i talked to this thai guy who used fire poi's!! They were much longer than the ones in NZ and he used them quite differently but it was funny to see. He tried to teach me a little bit but i was terrible at it... I tried to teach him the letter R which apparently is really hard for thai people - which makes saying my name almost impossible... Im starting to think i should just make up a new name because everybody has trouble with it haha.

one really good thing is that i am loving this thai heat. Even when it is really hot i feel fine with it, and as soon as its not hot i start to think i am cold because i am so used to it already! i didnt even go for a swim at the beach earlier because i was just enjoying reading my book and being hot. great! Tomorrow will be interesting though.. apparently i have an 8 hour bus trip to the orphanage where i am volunteering, along windy roads.. the bus might have air con but otherwise it will be a fun trip!

Anyway I should really head off now trying to save money as have been spending way too much the past few days!

catch you all,
Ingrid

p.s. I love recieving emails and replies to my blog to hear what you are up to. I am thinking of you all through the thunderstorms in my shorts and t-shirt..

Still alive

So the past few days the girls and i have been learning to ride mopeds! They apparently dont require a drivers license here. in fact they didnt even ask if we knew how to drive or ride a bike they just gave us one and said good luck have fun. Emily crashed hers driving out of the place and the woman didnt even care haha. We drove around for ages on our driveway before we got the courage to brave it on the roads. I onyl fell off once trying to turn around our sandy roundabout at the accomodation but we have since given up on the sand and have taken it to pushing it along there. I have slightly grazed knees but not nearly as bad as emily and dionne!. still we are good when we are on the road and we drive really slow. They have been so handy we have been biking all around the island. Yesterday we saw Koh Phanagns biggest tree (which turned out to be not vey big) and the biggest waterfall, which was a trickle haha. We eventaully found a little swimming spot to cool off on. and then we trekked up to see the view from the top which was awesome. we could see half the island and out onto the islands beyond. very pretty! We then headed to the north of the island and found a really nice beach for swimming and there we bumped into Mark this Canadian guy we met in Bangkok who we had tried to catch up with earlier. his tour was taking them out snorkling and they managed to get us on for 80 baht (NZ$3)!! Of course as soon as we got out ont he water the looming black clouds came and bucketed down but teh water was so nice and warm it didnt matter. There wasnt heaps of fish but there was some quite nice coral and we swum around for ages. It fined up for the boat ride back but once we headed back on our mopeds it teamed down! I had a semi-waterresistant jacket with me but the girls had nothing so they got saturated. We had to drive really slow on the way back cuz of the rain so it took us about an hour. We were so cold and dripping wet when we got back. Never imagined we would get this cold only a few hours after we were sweating in the heat!!

Its really cool sitting round here in Koh Phanagn and just watching the people. You have little kids who can barely walk holding onto the moped handles while the parents drive, and a man who has a cast on one leg, steers and accelerates/brakes with one hand and holds his crutches with the other!

Anyway i should get going its a really nice day today (for the moment anyway) and we are heading off to another beach to hang out there. We have yet to actually swim off the beach here!

If you wanna email me my address is ingrid_jones@hotmail.com

cheers,
Ingrid

hot is great

Well i'm here in the south of Thailand in Koh Phanagn, a tourist area where they do big full moon and half moon parties. it took us 20.5 hours of travelling to get here from Bangkok! in the last 48 hours i have officially been on a plane, bus, tuk tuk, car, train and boat. We took the overnight train to get here,which was actually quite comfy but we had to get off at 4am so not a lot of sleep had yet. Bangkok was pretty cool, we got a tuk tuk driver to take us round the all the sights and of course we stopped at the tailors and stuf who paid him to take us there. that was all good until we went to book our train tickets (after one of the places he took us to recommended it) and then realised we had to catch an earlier train and asked him to only take us to one more tailor, then the palace then home. but after his tailor we said no more of his stops and he got raelly shitty so took us back to the hostel haha. still was only 5 baht for about 2 hours, which is about 20 cents NZ. The place we are in now is pretty quiet, our accomoation promised food and a place on the beach. there arent enough people there for them to warrant cooking for us and the beach is not really swimmable haha oh well we will find somewhere. the food here is reallygood.. i've only actaully had 2 thai meals as last night on the train we just ate train station food which was pastries etc. but looking forward to eating more. Havent had an upset tummy at all yet either which is great. The girls im travelling with are also really cool and funny which helps. havent had to resort to playing cards or reading books yet cuz we just nap (to make up for no sleep) and chat and look around. Anyway internet time is running out must fly. Catch you all sometime :)

Ingrid

I made it!!

Well I made it to Bangkok, alive and well. My flight was actually really good - i had really good vegetarian food and watched The Other Boleyn Girl and The Kite Runner, and managed a few hours broken sleep. Emily and Dionne were hanging out at the backpackers drinking the worlds strongest cocktails waiting for me so that was really good. They ditched this backpackers in leiu of a nicer place but thier place was full so i've stayed where i booked. It's actually not too bad - got my own room with a window and a door that i can lock. They took me out on the main tourist drag last night which was pretty cool. I had a group of scottish guys buy me a rose while sitting at an illegal street bar which marketed itself by saying 'we don't check ID'. They also had really cheap drinks but i decided not to drink as i knew i'd have the worst jet lag ever if i did. We suddenly had to leave the bar at one point because the cops were coming haha. It's pretty hot here which i quite like too.. and my bag looks much more full now that all the clothes i had on the plane are in it!

Well not much else to report. Off to meet the girls for breakfast and then we are gonna spend the day exploring Bangkok before spending the night on the bus down to Koh Phanagn. I don't think you can message me on this blog but if you wanna write something my email addy is ingrid_jones@hotmail.com.

Much love,
Ingrid

13 days till i leave!

So i just thought i would set up this blogspot and see what its all about. 13 days till i leave tripping around South-East Asia for 4.5 months. very excited!