Saturday, July 09, 2005

I couldn't sleep, so I wrote down what my mind was racing about

After having a restless night on the mountain by the temple. I remember sitting in the burgundy chairs that were rescued from down the street. We were sitting infront of the guesthouse/store with the owner, positioned so we could see the road, to see what was going on, to keep an eye out for looters and of course to have perfect access to the road so we can bolt down it again incase there was another scare. We were also still close enough to the ocean so we could here every wave break. I analysed each wave to make sure that things sounded normal. They never did..in my mind...
In the midst of this intense athmosphere I heard the most desperate, horrifying scream from a woman that I had ever heard. She must have just found out about deaths or losses or both in her family. I seemed to be the only one who heard it though. No one said anything, they didn't even raise their heads to the noise. It was odd.
The mosquitos and the flies for some reason were worse than they had ever been. It was so aggrivating. Then out of nowhere I look over my shoulder and see the coolest looking lizard. I had never seen him before. He was about a foot long, his tail taking up 75% of his length with the most beautiful colors.
" He looks thirsty." I thought. so we poured him some of our rationed coke. He came up right next to us to drink it. I thought it was the coolest thing at the time.
As he drank it, I couldn't help but to wonder " How did he survive the tsunami??"
"How come i've never seen a lizard like that before. I've seen millions of lizards, but never that guy. Hmmm maybe he had also lost his entire life, and after doign such a good job from hiding from us for such a long time, he was so desperate, and lonely that he came to chill with us and drink our coke."
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Sunday, May 15, 2005

does she ever stop?

aperantly not!
So I descided to go a little crazy and post all my pictures up on yahoo just for organizational purposes (is that even a word, hmm). I know most people couldn't care less about pictures, i knwo i usually don't want to see 895724087452 pictures of other peoples trips, but i descided to post them all up just incase someone was bored enough to look.
to make it easier I'll put links here to the different albums:



My home in Nanning china 2003:

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/zigalbum/album?.dir=1273&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos


Vacation from teaching in variouse chinese cities:

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/zigalbum/album?.dir=2722&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Laos September 2003:

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/zigalbum/album?.dir=fdcb&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Thailand october 2003:

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/zigalbum/album?.dir=7a1c&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Japan, december 2003:

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/zigalbum/album?.dir=9680&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Mexico, September 2002

http://ca.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/zigalbum/album?.dir=c2ef&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//ca.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos



And that's most of the pictures i have of my travels up to date.
So what am I up to now?
Hmm I'll write a summary of the past 10 weeks that I've been back in montreal.
I got home, started lookign for a job immediatly, got sick for 3 weeks, it sucked so everythign was put on hold. then got back to looking for a job, working on my courses online. I made some pretty good progress, until the bastards descided to not get back to me when i sent in my assignments, I'm STIL waiting for a response.

I started working last week. I'm painting again like last year, it's good fun really. i work with two of my good friends so time flies by.
that's the super short version of my time in montreal. though i can't say too much, extremely exciting has happened. Which i'm kind of happy about.

I must admit, even though I was very unhappy coming back home, I now know it was definetly the right descision. I would have gone crazy in thailand, hell i was already half way there. I had to come back home to get my head together, amongst other things.

Eventhough I have the WORST luck when I'm travelling, I'm plannign to travel again. NOT Asia though, i definetely need an Asian break for a little while.
I'm looking in to central/south america. this time I'll go alone, most likely, I mean you meet enough people along the way so it's no big deal and by now i know what i'm doing.
I'm EXTREMELY happy that it's no longer cold and that the snow is gone!!!!
thats that for now!

Thursday, April 07, 2005

The pole that saved my life


This is a picture out the front of the place I stayed in, in Mirisa Sri Lanka, a month after the tsunami. I was swept across this street, form inside the house, to where that electric pole is, I held on to that for dear life. hehe, good times

Bus ride from Mirisa to Colombo with 400 other people on the same bus at 5 am


This was the worst 5 hour bus ride of my life. See how packed it is now, it got MUCH worse. It was hot ,and i had to stand the entire way while being pushed up every which way. not cool, not a flattering picture either, but i still like it

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Friday, March 11, 2005

Sunday, February 27, 2005

plansplansplans

here's a the site of where i was staying all the way up north in case anyone wants to check it out
www.cavelodge.com. Would have been nice if i hadn't hurt my ankle

Well now I'm back in Bangkok. derek's sister went back home to ireland. And due to many many different reasons i feel the best thing for me to do is go home also. I have lost all motivation here and it just keeps getting worse. I've been dicked around for the past 3 months, and lead on about what is going on, plans were changed on me last minute and now it's just too late to change anything. Plus at this point I'm almost broke. I'm pretty miserable to tell you the truth. I'm not sure if I'll be better off at home in the freezing cold, but at leats I'll have my friends and family around for support and entertainment :D.
So I'm not really saying I regret going to asia. But I pretty much wasted my time here, when really I should have been doing something productive with myself. I guess i can look at this trip as a 4 month vacation.

So I'll be leaving thailand Feb. 27 at 10:55pm, and arriving home feb 28 2 pm. that's a 27 hour trip (there's a 12 hour time difference) , good freaking god!!!!! it won'[t be fun.

first thing i plan to do, is take a nice long hot bath, It's rare for me to have hot water here, let alone a bathtub. And from there who knows.

So if you feel like calling me some time after the 28th, feel free, my numbers still the same it's been in 15 years. I pretty m,uch lost everyones numbers so don't expect me to call ;)

OHHH and i just got my pictures developed today and put on disk, so I'll put those online sometime so you guys can have a look..
see you canadians soon!

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

it's been a while

Well it's been over a month since I last posted. Why would that be you ask? Pretty much just haven't been motivated to write, and nothing too excitign has happened. but I'm going to rant for a bit to keep u up dated with everythign that's been going on with me within the past month.

I spent a week alone in Kandy which was really good times, everynight i would meet new people and we'd usually go to a pub, (actually my favourite place was "The PUB" hahahah go figure) I was also stalked a lot by the local boys to the point where i had people waiting for me infront of my door when i woke up in the morning. but it was nice to have made other friends to hang out with. The stalkers would pretty much leave me alone when i was with soemone else.

So being the loyal friend that I am, I hopped on a 10 hour bus ride south, up some crazy twisty mountain roads to meet back up with derek. The town was called Haputale. It was really a gorgeouse place. quite cold at night, but so peaceful and almost untouched by tourism. We went on a lot fo walks while we were there through tea plantations, where women would spend all day plucking leaves for mr. lipton (lipton tea, we all drink it). I got addicted to tea while i was there. god it's good.

After a little over a week in haputale I went back to the scene of the tsunami, mirisa. That was interesting to say the least. I'm not too sure what to say. We didn't do much there. The owner of the guest house, derek's good friend was pretty depressed, and we met up with some other friends from the area and heard their stories. It was all pretty sad. I won't go into details of soem of the stories I've heard, I've met people who were part of recovering bodies, people who lost their whole business, house, and family. I mean I remember when the water went back to the ocean thinking "SHIT! I lost all my money and passport again" ( i did that last year while travelling in thailand)
My thoughts were on my most valuable thigns, which was my passports and my money of course and i was pretty horrified.
but imagine havign to think of your baby who was sleeping in the room next door. Or the business you spent most your life trying to build up?
I can't even imagine.
I actually rememebr after people running around franticly searching for family etc. Mean while other people were looting. God everyone was looted afetr the tsunami. I can't imagine what sick people would loot someone who was out looking for their lost family, sicksick people!!!!

So far the government has done nothign for them. Which is odd, because it was over a month since it happened. At this point the sri lankan governement is probably the richest in asia. They have been given billions of dollars. but the victims have seen none of the money. there were a lot of NGOs around like red cross and "goal" who were helping out though.

So after mirisa i headed back to thailand. Once I got to thailand I headed my own way again for awhile. then Derek's sister came to visit from ireland so I met up with them again, and now we're doing a 3 week tour of thailand.
A few days ago we were up north near the "golden triangle" where all the opium comes from. i stayed in a really cool grass hut type place. There is some amazing trecking to do there cuz you're in the middle of a jungle, but because of my great luck i managed to twist my ankle within the first few hours of beign there so i really didn't do much.
2 nights there and now I'm in chiang Mai. derek and his sister went to meet their uncle and cousin about an hour away from here. so I decided for valentine's day I would treat myself to my favourote restaurant here in chiang mai called "El Toro" It's a mexican restaurant that i discoverend here last year. I've been wondering around aimelessly most the day. and tomorrow morning bright and earl;y i'm meeting up with the irish 2 at the bus stop and heading back to bangkok on a 10 hour bus ride, then back down to some beaches.

In thailand, the tsunami affected A LOt more tourists than in sri lanka
cuz well sri lanka just doens't have as much tourism. So it's pretty sad they have hundreds and hundreds of posters up of missing people. Some of the pictures being of an entire family which is missing. Others are photos taken of tatoos from dead bodies trying to get someone to identify them. The people the tsunami killed and how it effected people is much more obviouse here as oposed to sri lanak. the media was pretty quiet about it in sri lanka, and u just didn't see these type of photos. It's really sad to see. there were photos of people of every age every country all missing. so sad.

Anyway at this point, I'm still looking for a job, so I'll either have a pretty good idea where i'm teaching by the time derek's sister goes back to ireland, or I'll be coming home very soon, even though it was strongly suggested i shouldn't. I think i'd be happier being broke and looking for a job in a familiar place whith friends and family as opposed to wondering around the streets broke on my own in thailand, tryign to find a job.
well if you have any words of encouragement or suggestions, or hey a job!
hook me up1
HA
take care, and stay warm, at least i'm doing that much

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Alone in Kandy

Well let's see, the past 2 ish weeks haven't been all that exciting, but i guess I'll write abotu them anyway. For new years I climbed 2200 m up that stupid Adam's Peak mountain. It took me about 3 aND a half hours, it was pissing rain, and the wind was insane. I was also leeched a few times. We had a dog follow us all the way up, and the dogs tiny little puppy followed also.

In the morning there was no sunrise cuz it was two windy. And the dog abandonned it's puppy, and the puppy was half frozen to death. so we rapped it up in blankets and dragged the thing all the way down the mountain. Esti!!

Well all that cold got me sick, and I've been trying to get over this cold for the past 10 days. from adams' peak we went to a place about 20 km away, called maskeliya, which had a gorgeouse view of the mountain, and it was by some man made lake, yadda yadda yadda, it was cold, we stayed a few days.
Now due to some "issues" I am back in Kandy for the 3rd time but now I am alone.
Being in Kandy alone is like being in a completely different world. I can't go anywhere without some Sri Lankan boy leeching on. either to try to get me to see his shop, or practis his english, or god knows what. It get's pretty frustrating. Then again, straight of the bus when i got to Kandy i was disoriented, so some guy descided to take my bags and bring me to my guest house. All for the exchange of my home address (which by the way is 123 mainstreet Queerbec, canada,right?)

Anyway my brain is a spinnin' and i really have no clue what I am doing from here on. I'm thinking of options, and meeting lots of people and seeing what they're up too, maybe I'll steel someone elses plan. I dunno.
I'm considering goign home, just cuz I'm so lost right now, but that would probably be the worst thing to do.
I'llprobably go to thailand in a week or so, and try to find a job. BAH! who knwos, but I'll let u know.

Thanks again by the way for all of your concerns