Bye bye Thai, Hello Filipino...s

Jul 18, 2006 01:37

Heeellloooo all,

Well, what a wild time we've had since my last update. Highlights include: Keller crashing his bike (AHA! I'm not the only one!), Me being drugged and having my camera stolen, staying overnight in the slums of Manila, and ending up here, in a 5 star private resort. Wild.

Explanations:

Well, as you may have noticed from my previous entry, riding those motorbikes isn't as easy as one may assume..and keller proved it when he skidded out on some loose dirt and took a good piece of meat off of his back. No worries everbody, he's ok, he's got a solid scrape on his back that will heal and probably not scar. This nasty little crash happened on our 2nd last day in Koh Phingan..it was slight foreshadowing for the pain (physical and mental) that would follow later that night at the world famous Full Moon Party on Haad Rin Beach on Koh Phingan.

Soooo the story goes that Keller and I started the night enjoying some beverages beachside with our favourite Thai staff when we had to make the decision: Video Camera AND digital camera? Video Camera OR digital camera? OR neither? Seeing as it was probably going to be the largest party in the entire world on that fateful July 12th, 2006 (And I figure that's actually literal as there were AT LEAST 10,000 people there) we felt it was necessary to document it...so my camera was brought as it was smaller, more inconspicuous and thus less likely to get stolen....right. We got dropped on the party beach rarin' to go, ancy to get our party on so I headed over to one of the hundreds of drink stands and ordered myself one of the bucket drinks...basically a mickey of whatever you want with any mixer you want..in a small bucket. Classy...but seemingly very legit.

With bucket in hand, Keller and I strolled off, ended up meeting up with a few English girls with whom we sat on the beach...Well, next thing I knew I woke up about 2 hours later, threw up a couple times, and passed back out for about 30 minutes...then I woke up tried to take a picture and oops! gone! Keller and the girls were with me for all but about 5 minutes when they went to look for one of the girls' friends which is when, we assume, this group of Thai guys who were standing nearby grabbed the camera out of my pocket...bum deal man, bum deal. That means no more pics up here on livejournal or photobucket..my apologies, really.

A couple days later we made the 11 hour trek back to Bangkok to catch our flight to Manila. The highlights of this trek included a 3 hour boat trip back to the mainland through incredibly rough seas which left two people puking IN the sealed boat..mmm mmm..just what you like to smell at 9am when you too are feeling queezy. After that it was a smooth 7.5 hour bus ride back to Bangkok and a 40 minute cab ride back to our beloved Asha Guesthouse. We also hit up an awesome market back later that night in Bangkok and got some uber-cheap shopping done...crappy thai gifts for mom and dad! YAY! however...the cheers shouldn't have lasted too long as we would soon leave the comfort and safety of Thailand and arrive in Manila. (duhn duhn duhn) <- (music of impending doom)

We checked into the "safe", "clean" and "comfortable" (as advertised) townhouse hotel. Well, it was basically in, quite literally, the sketchiest part of Manila, by far the dirtiest city I've ever seen. We got our own room in an empty, delapitated, filthy townhouse. I can't put into words the neighbourhood...It was like if you took the worst ghetto in Ottawa, had a week-long war there, flooded the streets with raw sewage, drained it again, let chickens and dogs run loose for a little while, then sold the "houses" to whoever could frighten tourists most. We later found out from some Danish guys we met here at the resort that they were a block from us and we're offered the "services" of a 12 year old girl from some older man...I seriously wish I was joking...this is not a place I would recommend to anyone.

So we vowed to get the hell out of there and get the help we needed on our walk down the street when we found a travel agency, booked a 6 day trip to the Coco Beach Island Resort near Puerto Galara on Mindoro Island (it was an hour and a half van trip and about an hour boat trip to the island). Despite the 6am departure, 5am wakeup and drastic increase in price, we took less than 10 minutes to decide that this was a good idea.

So here I sit after our second day here at Coco Beach...and it is flippin' gorgeous. Keller and I both feel slightly out of water as it's an upscale place and everyone is either 50 or 12...except for 3 new girls who got here today..rrrooowwwrrr! (no, they're not 12)...but trust me when I saw we're not struggling too much.

We spent yesterday chillin' on the beach and snorkelling the coral and fish-rich waters just 20 metres off our private beach. Today we went on a hike through the hills surrounding the resort, spent some time in the major town nearby, and on thursday we're renting a Hummer and driver to take us around to a bunch of different places in the locale....it's like $20CDN each for the day.

We will be returning to Manila on Friday morning where we will be checking into a much nicer hotel downtown as to avoid the superhero of bad neighbourhoods.

Summary:
Despite a couple of rough patches via injuries, theft, and sketchy surroundings, Life remains good. Very good. With Jack Johnson pumping from the speakers of the bar to which this internet room overlooks, people chuckling in the background, and the warm air blowing in my face...Its easy to enjoy oneself...touche?

I will hopefully do one more update from Manila before I make the big trek back to O-dot on Sunday. It's been so long, but I'm feeling like it may be time to come home.

Hope everyone is doing really well,
Looking forward to seeing you all soon!!

Graeme "the real deal" Millen
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