A week at the Beach

Hello all.

Well it has been a busy two weeks since I talked to you last. I took the bus from Chang Mai down to Bangkok. I stayed in Bangkok for two days. It was 107 degrees when i was there. That place is like a concrete jungle with know place to hide. I took a river ferry up and down the river to cool off. I also hung out with a fellow South Dakotan that was over there doing an exchange program. Two days in Bangkok is more then enough. It is so big and everyone is hassling you to buy something. It is really neat to see though.

I then met up with a friend from my class and we took a 15 hour bus down to Puhket. The time share thing did not work out as planned. It was NOT a nice hotel. After two days of complaining he got his money back from the company. We still got a chance to spend two days on the beach. The beach is really beautiful there, but the rest of the town is very sleazy. (old men with young Thai women) We decided to jump the first boat to KO PI PI.

It is about a two ferry ride. When I said Pie was the coolest place I have been to, I guess i hadn't seen the rest of Thailand yet. This is the Island where the movie the Beach was filmed. This place is beautiful. The sunomi of 2004 leveled the town. But it is now back and better then ever. The beaches here are white sand, with clear water, and these granite cliffs hanging everywhere. We went strait to the beach after getting on the fairy. I can't say enough about this beach. Gorgeous Europeans everywhere and just a chill spot. Bob Marley music playing in that background. I met a guy from Columbia and we rented some Kayaks and went and Kayaked the cove. It was pretty cool. But I did not realize how far it was out there. It took some effort.

The following day I met up with some people with Great Britain that I met on the boat and we went sailing and snorkeling for the day. The guy who owned the sale boat actually sailed across the Pacific from Vancouver, CA. You garmin people will be happy to know that he was using one of your products with Blue Chart Data. He said it was great! The snorkeling was very cool. There are reefs that surround the island. So much color full fish and they travel in these big schools. They would be alot easier to spear then the ones in lake oahe because they come right up to ya and look at ya. The water is so clear. You can see as far as the sun lets ya. The sailing was also very relaxing. We sailed all around these two islands. The granite rocks have some much vegetation growing from them. He took us to a spot where we could go cliff diving. I jumped off once. It was pretty high. Not as high as the Stilling Basin bridge back at home. It would have been fun to jump off more. But it was a pain in the ass to climb up there. It was really slick and rocky. We then went to the spot where the movie the "Beach" was filmed. It was pretty cool. A gorgeous little cove.

O ya the sea food around here is really good. I don't know what kind of fish there feeding me. But it sure taste good.

In the evening there is many bars on the beach that have these fire shows. The Thais must train really hard for this because they are fling fire all around them and through the air. The shows are really neat and performed to all kinds of music. The next couple days we spent pretty much just chilling at the beach. I can't wait to get back there.

Well now i am in Nokhon Si Thammarat which is located on the Eastern side of Thailand. Next to the Golf of Thailand. I had a job interview here Monday. It went really well. They are going to let me know today or tomorrow if I got it. Anyways this city is one of the oldest city's in Thailand. They think it was founded around 1278. This is the real Thailand. I have only ran into one other westerner in my three days here. And only three people that can speak English as a conversation. Yet it is pretty cool. There are street stalls of all kinds of food everywhere and all these old colonial buildings. It is fun to just walk around and get a feel for the culture, people come up to me and ask where I'm from. Everyone is very welcoming. I will fill you in a little more once I figure out if I get the job or not.

Anyways, take care

Martin

I will have new pictures posted today or tonight. Again to go to the pictures website click on the picture of the pool on the top right and that will take you to the website. I will set up new folders.