My flight landed in Krabi in the evening so Brandon and I had planned to meet up at a hotel in the center of town. I split the taxi ride into Krabi city with some fellow travelers and joined up with Brandon who had already booked a double room for us after a short day-trip to another island. We went out for dinner at the row of food carts by the water and enjoyed some mystery-snacks and noodle soup. A few drinks later we walked around a bit and decided the only thing going on was a live band playing to a handful of people in a small bar. A good choice as the band allowed people to go up and sing songs with them, so Brandon rocked the mic for a bit. We chatted with some other travelers and hung out with the band as they were closing up. They bestowed upon each of us our new thai names: Som Chai (myself) and Som Suk (Brandon). We had bought a boat ticket for Koh Phi Phi earlier so we woke up the next morning to catch it…

Bangkok is wild! I arrived at Don Huang yesterday evening and caught a bus to Khao San road with the horde of fellow backpackers. Brandon had already spent a night here, so I found him at the hotel (Sawasdee Bangkok Inn) and booked a room for myself. We went out for a meal and then wandered the surrounding Khao San area, stopping for drinks here and there along the way.

Being the main backpacker drag in Bangkok, Khao San road is bright, crowded and noisy. You can’t make eye contact with any one of the army of tuk-tuk drivers without being asked “where you going?”; the streets are full of food carts, minibus bars and loads of tourists. We ended up walking into a bar with a good live band playing thai cover songs and had some goofy fun with a bunch of really nice thai kids. In the morning Brandon flew to Krabi, and I had a walk around town for a couple hours before I got on a plane to Krabi as well.

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I finally took the ferry to Macau and spent a day exploring over there yesterday. Macau is a former Portuguese colony now under control of China as a S.A.R. (Special Administrative Region) like Hong Kong. Today, its home to a booming gambling industry - casinos are going up by the handful and are constantly busy. Getting there from Hong Kong is very easy: just a quick $20 ferry ride.

I was surprised to hear (and get the chance to speak) a fair bit of Portguese around town. Of course, the main language is still Cantonese but many busineses and shops display signs in Portuguese. Parts of the city feel very different from what I’ve been used to in Hong Kong. There are plaster facades, stone-paved streets and sidewalks and beautiful Portuguese-style buildings mixed in with the familiar Chinese metropolitan sprawl. I had a nice day walking all over (all over) and the weather stayed dry for the most part. It was cool to see several Catholic churches and Chinese temples right next to eachother throughout the day.

I’ve now got my ticket to Bangkok for tomorrow. I’ll be arriving there tomorrow evening to meet up with Brandon and the next day we’ll fly to Krabi (southern Thailand) to do some island-hopping for a few days. Sarah arrives in Bangkok on the 14th so I’ll be flying back up there to meet her.

After spending several days indoors resting up and recuperating, I went back to Big Wave Bay with Pete and Simon to surf on Sunday. Instead of nice small friendly waves, though, the sea was angry. There was no way I was going in, and Pete and Simon decided against it as well. The three of us ended up sitting out for a few hours to just watch. Afterwards Pete and I met up with Sue and Steve at a bar and formed a plan to meet in Shanghai in April…

It was bound to happen sooner or later. For the past few days I was feeling something in my throat - just a little tingling. Yesterday morning I woke up with a fever and continued to get worse and ended up not sleeping last night. Today, though, I’m feeling much better and can actually think straight. I’m guessing it was triggered by a combination of a few things:

• Cigarette smoke (2nd hand) and alcohol (1st hand)
• The disgusting air-quality here in HK
• The lack of fruit and vegetables in most food here
• Swallowing a couple gulps of ocean water while trying to surf on Sunday

One more day at rest and I should be right as rain! I can only waste so much more time with TV and MySpace anyway…

Thanks to Joe for this great link: Weird Meat.

I just returned from a failed geocaching mission that took me out to Sai Kung in the new territories of the Hong Kong S.A.R. It ended up being a good adventure regardless, as part of the mission was a little walking tour through the town.

I took the MTR out to Choi Hung and then a minibus to the prescribed GPS coordinates in Sai Kung. From there, I followed the first 3 steps of the mission, obtaining the coordinates for each one from clues based on landmarks along the way. When I got the final point, however, I couldn’t locate the cache! It did put me right next to a really cool fish market along the waterfront, though. I watched a bunch of fishermen who had docked their dinghies alongside the pier sell their fresh fish to the crowd on shore. Someone would shout down an order and the fish were killed, scaled, clean and filleted on the spot. Then it was bagged up and handed up in a net pole to the customer.

I hung out around town all afternoon and then rode home to central…

I’ve been in Hong Kong now for several days. I arrived on the 15th after two great nights in Taipei and went straight to the HPG office from the airport to say hi to Sue and Pete. They showed me around the office - I can’t believe how fast they’ve expanded and how busy everyone is over there! They are working on a hotel and casino project being built in Macau, the scale of which is mind-blowing. I’ll be visiting it sometime in the next few days.

Soon after I showed up they offered to let me stay in one of the empty company apartments - several employees are out of town at the moment. Now I’m staying by myself in a beautiful apartment in central! I can’t believe it! Too long here and I’ll be completely spoiled…

I’ve been having a great time exploring Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Today I took the ferry to Lantau Island and saw the giant buddha. Interestingly enough, I read one of the plaques inside the visitors center and learned that the statue was inspired in part by the Daibutsu in Kamakura, which I had just visited while in Japan. The statue is relatively new, having just been built in 1989. I hung out around the island for the whole day, but still missed a huge art installation that I want to go back and see.

I’ve finally gone back and filled in a few journal entries and uploaded some photos from the past month! The travelogue map is now up to date as well.

From Rarotonga I flew back to Auckland and spent a quiet night there (in Conor’s Top Floor hostel, the same place I stayed the first time around). In the morning I caught a flight to Taipei, Taiwan.

I didn’t realize that it was going to be an 11 hour flight. Something I should have looked up, I know, but I just remembered New Zealand and Taiwan being closer on the map. So since I left Auckland in the late afternoon, I arrived in Taipei around midnight with no reservations, no bookings, no accomodation, no idea whats going on, etc.

I took a bus from the airport to Taipei Main Station with the hopes that someone at the hostel I knew was close by could give me a bed. When I got to the station, though, I realized that the hostel is not very close to it at all. After just a couple minutes of being obviously lost, a really nice Taiwanese lady came to my aid and walked with me for about 30 minutes to the hostel. On the way she even offered me a spare room in her apartment, but I turned her down. We finally found the place, so I buzzed the doorbell. Two american guys were still up in the common room and let me in so I stayed up drinking with them for a few hours until Raul, the owner of the hostel, showed up at around 2am stinking drunk. Raul ended up giving me a single room for $9 / night because he couldn’t remember if there were dorm beds available.

I got up early the next day and headed out to explore the streets. My friend Yutai had recommended some places to see / things to eat and at the top of the list was xiao long bao from Din Tai Fung. Xiao long bao are delicious little steamed dumplings filled with soup and a bite of pork. Din Tai Fung is famous for these, so I went there and ordered some and a bowl of beef noodle. Delicious.

I spent the rest of the day walking around more, and met up with Jon, Seth (the two american guys) and Christine (a Taiwanese friend of theirs) later on to go out drinking. We ended up not being able to find a decent bar open (it was wednesday night) so we bought beers and hung out in front of 7-11 all night, which ended up being tons of fun anyway.

I had to fly out in the morning, but still managed to wake up early enough to go get a nice breakfast and visit the Memorial Hall. Just barely made my flight to Hong Kong…