Elephant Sores, Diseased Chickens, and Cave Snakes, CHIANG MAI!

.................................................Chiang Mai, the jewel of the north. Our train was about 4 hours late, maybe because we sat at the Bangkok Train Station for 2 hours, going forward 20 meters, then back 10 meters, then forward 20 meters, then back 20 meters. It was a comfy 2nd class car with seats that folded down to beds. Luke and I played cards and drank the Singha Liters to pass the time. When we arrived at our hotel, the Golden Fern, which just so happens to have stolen MY tattoo as their logo, we met up with our friend from the Hat tourney, Lin, and her college roommate Tuyet. The next day we took a sak doa truck to Chiang Dao Nest, a nice resort of bungalows up in the mountains near the Golden Triangle, the convergence of Thailand, Burma, and Laos. That is where a good many hill tribes up there, and we met about five of them. On the way up there we picked up two US Air force that were to be our escort, or at least that is what I called them. Our "protection" was a girl from Ohio that fly's a C130 cargo plane out of Seoul, and her friend, Mike from Michigan, who is an eye doctor out there. They were pretty damn cool to hang out with, and the six of us made a good group of trekkers. We had a nice breakfast then hopped into the back of a pickup truck to get up into the mountains. And what mountains they were, I felt like I was in the middle of a Kung Fu adventure, the rocky out croppings and dry bamboo forests were straight out of a Chinese scroll. We were let out at a bamboo bus stop, and hiked down into a valley to a almost deserted village with two guides. We looked around for a bit, then took about an hour hike out to a real cool cave system. We explored in there for about an hour, having to crawl on our bellies every once in a while. There were great mounds of sparkling white rock and great folds of rock that our trusty guides showed us how to play like bongo's. We turns our lights off at one moment and experienced total darkness. Of course there was the joke, "hey don't touch me there." On the way back our guides started up a ruckus and we noticed that they had found a snake crawling around in the cracks of the rock. At that point I pretty much wanted to get the hell out of there. We then hiked up to a pretty cool waterfall, then back up the hill and to our first camp, that was a great little village perched on the side of the cliff, over looking the picturesque mountain range. We had a great dinner and then hung out and played cards, drank beers, and watched the stars. We finished out the night discussing politics of the war and religion. The next day our "military escort" left early because they were only doing the two day trek, and me, Luke, Lin, and Tuyet took off about 9am on a long hike through the hills and valleys. The path was almost always covered with huge purple and gold leaves from the fall, and it was very slipper going down the slopes. We stopped at another cave that was much more expansive once you got inside, with great cavernous halls about 70 feet tall and 200 feet in diameter. No snakes in this one however. Supposedly there is a crazy old guy who has a lot of cats that lives there but he wasn't home. Then we crossed a river and had lunch in a bamboo grove. Our guides took out there machetes and cut us half tubes of bamboo for our plates and carved us fresh chop sticks to eat our rice and onion/tofu and fish jerky. We then hiked to a more rural village next to a river. It was very quiet and full of livestock. We explored the town and took a dip in the river, then played some more card games and had dinner. It was much more colder that night, and I was glad I had my sleeping bag. The last day it was about a 1-1/2 hour hard hike straight up out of the valley, then a truck ride back down to the nest before going to the elephant riding spot and then hiking through more touristy villages with crazy ladies who would push their merchandise on me in particular, it was comical. We saw a monkey there however, so it was cool in my book. We then took a ride down a river on bamboo rafts held together with strips of car tires, and then took the long ride back to Chiang Mai. http://picasaweb.google.com/ethan.ahlberg/ChiangMai

Ultimate Bangkok

........................................Arrived in Bangkok and what do I decide to do first? You guessed it, compete in 7th annual Bangkok Ultimate Frisbee hat tournament with a bunch of people from Seattle! Now for those so un-groovy as to not be down with what a hat tourney is, it means you rank yourself from 1-3, myself being a 1, and then they draw teams from a hat. I was chosen to be on the green team, or as we called ourselves, obscene green, or green machine, or the green monster. It was kind of strange to arrive in a place so crazy, experience a culture shock, and then for the first time in 3 months find myself surrounded by Americans, 6 of whom come from Seattle. The green party was undefeated the first day, we really kicked ass, and I really didn't contribute all that much, but I tried hard. We played on the Thai Army base in Bangkok, so we had a backdrop of marching solders in camo, had to walk by a real scary soldier standing at attention in front of the restrooms, and listen to the firing range all day, really felt like we were at war. Oh, and we had all the bar-b-q and great Thai food we could eat, and all the beer we could drink. The second day, the green team was maybe a little over confident, and we lost to, I hate to admit it, the pink team, or Mr. Pink. Why did WE have to lose to Mr. Pink? It's not easy being green! They went on to win the tournament however, and we got to start getting our drink on earlier. Other than that, my buddy Luke and I explored the Grand Palace and Wat Pho, and ate dinner at a place called Condoms and Cabbages, and almost walked right into an elephant in a strip of bars. Got to know the public transit system, and had some Tex Mex. Then we took the night train to Chiang Mai, but I will be back to Bangkok to fly out to Tokyo at the end of March.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ethan.ahlberg/Bangkok

Party in Perth - Last Day in Oz

.........................................................................I spent my very last day in Australia walking around the city of Perth. It's a large city of about 1 and a half million, but very different then the east coast cities, more laid back and, well, just different. It has a outback kind of feel. I ran into a girl at the hostel that evening as we both were cranking out post cards in the lounge. She was from Switzerland and her name was Leha. She had a pierced eyebrow, nose, tongue, and something I had never seen before, a pierced upper gums. This hoop held a little green jewel that hung right at the top of her two front teeth. I had a hard time not looking at it, just had a way of catching your eye. I told her how it was my last night and she invited me out with a couple of here friends she had met there, Sonya, from Alice Springs, and Michael, a local guy. I had a great time hanging with these three crazy people. We met up around 9pm and went for some sheesha (huka smoking) at a kebab place. Then we went to a couple bars and I had my first taste of snake bite, a kind of fruity drink that really packs a punch. We had a great time drinking, telling stories, and by the end of the night, just plain laughing at each other as we stumbled back to the hostel. Michael was the second coming of Mel Gibson, extremely funny and charismatic, with a million stories and a very interesting view of the world. He had done a radio show for a number of years, but now worked for a tobacco wholesale company. He had dreams of starting a Australian version of the Daily Show, which I think he could possible pull off. Sonya was just one of those people who is always smiling and laughing and enjoying the moment. She was out on holiday on the west coast, and was extremely sweet but with a dry sense of humor. It was just one of those lucky nights where you meet people who are really cool and get along easily. We all made plans to meet in Perth on ten years, or in Switzerland in August, then said goodnight around 4am. Got up at 7am to catch my flight, but no worries, I made it to Thailand and was glad to cap of the blur of my travels in Oz on a high note.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ethan.ahlberg/Perth

Alice Springs

........................................................Barely caught my flight out of Brisbane, but made it. Had to connect through Cairns where it was pouring down so hard the roof of the airport was leaking all over the place. I dodged waterfalls for an hour then hoped on the flight to the desert. It was interesting watched the landscape change from tropical rain forest to the red dirt of the central bush over the course of 2 hours. Landing in Alice was like landing on the face of the sun. And I immediately realized that I would be spending the next two days swatting away flies. I was exhausted by the time I got to the hostel, and it was so hot I just layed in bed in kind of a delirium till dusk. I jumped in the pool to cool down then set out to town about 10 min. down the street. There wasn't much activity other that the aboriginals hanging out in the park or riding their bikes through the pedestrian mall, and a few restaurant goers. I had some spaghetti at a sports bar and then went back to bed to prepare for the early (5am) bus pick up for the Kings Canyon / Uluru tour. The tour consisted of our guide, Yvette, and 13 other brave souls from around the world. Besides me there was a couple from Korea, two older gentlemen from Denmark, a girl from China, girl from Japan, girl from Holland, a Swiss guy, girl from Canada, and 3 lasses from Birmingham, England. Diverse and interesting crew to say the least. It was a five hour drive down to Kings Canyon and I slept for much of it, or read my book. We stopped for a Bar-B-Q on the way and got to meet each other a bit in the scorching heat. I cooked up the breaded chicken paddies, but I'm guessing I didn't even have to turn on the heat, the stainless steel pan was probably hot enough anyway. We took about a 2 hour hike around Kings Canyon, which was pretty interesting and the rock formations we great, but it was not as big as I had imagined. Yvette was very funny and had a lot of good info, plus we started to establish a kind of sarcastic relationship where she would quiz me about something and when I got it wrong she would say something like, "well, you did pretty good for a Yank." I retaliated by asking her a million infuriating questions. Anyway, we were all nearly fried by the time we got back to the bus. I sat up in the shotgun position on the 2 hour drive to Uluru. I had a good time talking to Yvette about life in Alice Springs, what it was like to be a tour guide, and then we started giving the rest of the gang riddles to solve. Then I plugged in my ipod and we had a rousing game of name that song, boys against the girls. The boys were dominating to start, but after I had thrown the girls some mercy songs they came storming back to win by one. We just made it to Uluru to see the sunset, which was awe inspiring. The silhouette of that great rock conjures up ideas of alien landings or meteors crashing to earth. Its such a unique land form it really is one of the natural wonders of the earth. We camped out that night in the heat, watching the stars and full moon. The next we got up before dawn to get to a good spot to watch Ayers Rock "turn on" from dark grey to glowing red. Even in the down season, it was kind of a circus over there, probably 500 people all lining up with cameras ready. Even so, it was well worth it, the sudden burst of sun over the horizon set the huge mass in from of us afire and all the wrinkles, dimples, and bulges of the rock were set off my the shear shadow lines in one second, the shape changes and colors transition from deep red to almost pink. We drove around to the shady side and about half of us set out to climb the beast. It was VERY steep, and you needed the bolted in chain that ran up about 200 meters to balance and help drag yourself off. I've been on rocks like that before, but this is one big rock essentially, and if you did happen to fall, you would just keep rolling all the way down. About 5 people die per year attempting this climb. At the top it was a great 360 degree view. It was a lot of work, and we missed the hike around the base, but it was well worth it and nice to really connect with the rock and realize how big it really is. After we got down, we all met up and headed over to Kata Tjuta, another huge rock form, even taller than Uluru, and even more sacred to the aboriginal people. It consists of great cones of rock, closely spaced creating narrow canyon like spaces between. They are like great honey combs or something, very bazaar. We were all so beat down by the heat and fly's at that point I think we all would have agreed to skip it, but we forced ourselves to do a 1 hour hike up one of the canyons. After that I slept on the 5 hour drive back. I had seen some incredible sights, met some really cool people, and maybe got a new perspective on life seeing the massive scale and cruel harshness of the climate of central Australia.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ethan.ahlberg/AliceSprings

Brisbane and Byron Bay

.......................................................................Flew to Brisbane from Sydney Jan. 31st. I met Nicholas up there and we stayed the night at possibly the nicest hostel so far, huge rooms with only four beds, a big bar down stairs with a swimming pool, very nice. We met Patricia from Austria and this guy Kim from Holland in our room. I walked around town with Patricia in the afternoon and then met back up with Nick for some drinks at the bar. We had a good time hanging out with a guy and a girl from Melbourne who were up taking a course for their jobs, airline engineers. The next day I just took it easy and took care of some chores. Then Nicholas and I caught the 3 hour bus down to Byron Bay, only to find there were no vacancies in any hostels, not one. So we ended up finding a place across the railroad tracks that was kind of like a trailer park out of the American south. We booked a "cabin" that consisted of a tin buildings with two beds, a kitchenette, bathroom, and concrete porch with a couple chairs for about $50 each. We sucked it up and payed because we had no other option. We grabbed some steaks and beers from town and made ourselves some Philly cheese steak sandwiches and hung out on the porch for a while. It was actually a very nice break from the hostel circuit. Later that night we headed into town and went bar hopping, first to the Train Station Bar that had a large outdoor area, then to a bar down by the beach that also had a lot of outdoor tables to hang out at. It was a perfect temperature and there were TONS of people out. To our chagrin we passed a hippie dude just standing there on the sidewalk with his pants down, praying, for what, I don't know, but he had gathered quite the crowd of girls giggling and pointing. To end the night we went into the Back Room Club and danced for a while with the ladies. We had a great time that night. Next day we were able to scrape ourselves out of bed and check in at a hostel by the beach. It was a 16 person dorm and you had to side step the 2 foot long dragon lizard that liked to hang out by our door, but it was cool at least. We hung out at the beach all day and then had a few beers but called it a night early. Next day we took a walk to the light house and then a hike through this trial in the woods before I had to say goodbye to my hombre and catch the bus back the Brisbane. I met up with Patricia again in Brisbane, and went out for Thai food with her and her roommate from Montreal. Then I hit the sack because I had to catch a early flight to Alice Springs in the morning. I really enjoyed Brisbane and Byron Bay, and wish I could have stayed for about a week longer. Byron definitely was the best beach I have been too so far, counting Hawaii. The water was just so pristine and clear and the views were spectacular. I would like to come back one day, and get up the coast to do some diving, so I left myself and excuse to come back one day!

http://picasaweb.google.com/ethan.ahlberg/BrisbaneByronBay