As I mentioned, the rainy season has been slowly approaching. This doesn't mean torrential rains all the time, but it does mean we get some change from the tedious monotony of plain old bright sunlight all the time. For most vacationers here, that's probably a bad thing, but we love the cool temps and the evenings walking in the heavy downpour with the sky flashing overhead and booming thunder shaking the whole world all around. The water can be a little problematic for some though, I shot this just after helping a Thai man push his car out of this lake after it stalled while he was driving through.
Life here has been rather tedious, just trying to find some work online and waiting for tax returns to be deposited back home so we can get the money to keep moving onward. Kamala Beach isn't very fun for us, with its one crowded beach, bars, and night life providing the sole attractions, but that's life at times, and we're just trying to keep busy. I've been writing up stories of life's adventures to stick on my website and submit to magazines (Viewable HERE) and we're making the best of it.
A couple days ago we got some cooler temperatures and took the opportunity to follow a trail pointed out to us by an Ex-Pat from Finland who has befriended us and been quite generous. It wandered off the end of a small road and followed a single track of concrete up the hills above town and deep into the jungle.
We were soon to discover though that the "jungle" at this location has long since been converted into a rubber tree plantation, and offers little of its original authenticity for explorers to discover. That didn't bother us though, it was still beautiful, and quite an enjoyable experience. Here's some bananas reaching for the sky from their stem alongside the trail.
The rubber trees are planted in rows along the hillside, giving evidence to probably decades of harvesting of the latex flowing through their bark. The trees are cut diagonally to access the veins of latex, which drips into a container of some sort that workers attach to the tree. I think the season must be some other time of year, because we didn't see any activity around the plantation and the containers were simply full of rainwater.
We did pass a number of secluded dwellings well off the beaten track and far from town. We decided if we were going to live in Phuket, we'd probably get back into the jungle too. No electricity, but plenty of running water and lots of relaxation to be found.
Here's a vine clinging to a rubber tree:
I took a moment at one point to stitch a 360 panorama including some of the plantation's outbuildings, which evidently house equipment and some sort of machinery for processing the sap. I took some close-ups too, but I find that I'm just not as good at capturing the magic of vacant buildings as some people here are!
As we got higher into the hills, the thinned out undergrowth of the plantation passed behind us and we found thick brush filling the jungle like it ought to. Included in the shrubbery was this bush sprouting peppers, free for the picking.
At our high point, where the trail disappeared and we were following a thread of a path from rubber tree to rubber tree, we discovered a friendly millipede in the leafy carpet of decomposing plant matter. Of course what do you do with giant bugs with hundreds of legs besides put them on your face for pictures?
These really cool bugs are biteless and stingerless, and very much slow, weak, and vulnerable (NOT to be confused, however, with their cousins the centipedes, which have a poisonous sting and move fast!). They certainly are fun to play with though, and this one thoroughly explored my hand, searching for some way to get back to earth again.
Unfortunately you'd need a video to really get an idea of the mesmerizing movement of the legs on these guys, but if you can take this picture and imagine every leg constantly moving in a dazzling line of incomprehensible cooperation, you might get a bit of an idea.
Leaving our friend in the leaves where we found him, we wandered our way back toward town as the dark clouds moved in overhead in preparation for the evening's rain. The water didn't fall for some time though, so we stayed dry. Moving back through the rubber trees, we were given a good view of this hillside, showing that it's been quite a while since the natural jungle thrived on these hillsides.
Another of the plantation huts would present a very comfortable atmosphere if it weren't for the typical piles of litter adorning the floor. Asians don't seem to mind the garbage everywhere though, so I guess it's just fine for them.
We don't know what this is, and we're quite curious. Any of you botanists find this familiar? It's a giant plant about six feet across perched in the branches of a tree, with a huge bowl of leaves on top and a dangling ribbon-like system of roots below. We can only assume it must be the bed of some fairy princess, sleeping cozily in a mossy mattress wrapped in bundles of soft leaves. We could be wrong though...
And a gooshy self-portrait of two raggedy travelers enjoying some peace and quiet deep in the jungle of Thailand, with a babbling brook drifting by to add some texture. We're trying to get a big enough collection of these sorts of photos to make an entire album for showing off someday down the road.
Lastly, just before reaching town again, we spotted one thing I had hoped to find out here. This is a golden orb-web spider building a web which is stretching significantly under the weight of the massive beast. The thing is nearly as big around in body as a human finger, and very intimidating looking. Evidently they're harmless to humans, but we didn't try putting one on our face this time.
So there's a hike in the Thai jungle for you. Hopefully we'll get more of those in the future. For now, enjoy!
Even though they're totally harmless, the photo of the giant millipede on Tracy's face made me jump. I feel like a boring fuddy-duddy after I read one of your posts!
Even though they're totally harmless, the photo of the giant millipede on Tracy's face made me jump. I feel like a boring fuddy-duddy after I read one of your posts!
Haha I wouldn't worry too much, I notice you've left the country at LEAST twice since we have! That's pretty good!
Here's an important update for our trip, after much deliberation and prayer we've decided to head back home for the summer at least. There's a whole bunch of reasons of course, which all boil down to doors being open there and closed here. It's disappointing in a way because we had hoped to reach so many more countries, but it's exciting in a bunch of other ways, not the least of which is the awesomeness of Alaska in the summertime. So our (current) trip will probably end soon, but of course that also depends on us finding tickets home from Thailand that match the budget of our tax returns. Whatever happens over the next few weeks though, we'll try to keep posting pictures!
Hi John! Gorgeous stuff as always... love the gushy photo... what was your shutter speed on that one?? Oh, and just so you don't feel too bad about coming back... the snow is aaaalmost gone. And I saw a bug.
what kind of bug? Also, speaking of snow.. we've been having nice weather in Wisconsin, 50's-70's, but today it dropped to 30 and snowed! WHY??? so stupid.
Hopefully you get more than me for a tax return... I got $5 from state... $0 from fed.... that definitely wouldn't buy me a plane ticket from Thailand...
Hi John! Gorgeous stuff as always... love the gushy photo... what was your shutter speed on that one?? Oh, and just so you don't feel too bad about coming back... the snow is aaaalmost gone. And I saw a bug.
1.6 seconds for that one. We're stoked to not have to miss summer in Hatchers!
Well it's been a little while, so of course lots of things have happened. First off, Thai New Year celebrations happened last week. This is a little more significant an event than our New Year back home. There's fireworks of course, and the usual stuff worldwide, but the unique thing here is that for one day the entire country of Thailand just plain shuts down and has a waterfight.
And it's not just a little waterfight either. I mean of course there's little kids with small squirtguns hiding in the bushes along the roads, and they get you when you wander past, but it escalates to a much, MUCH larger scale. Here's one team of wetteners, and their mighty charger equipped for war.
Streets sprouted swimming pools; businesses closed down and filled trash cans with water and buckets; everybody venturing outdoors was armed with something (except us - we neglected to budget for squirtguns ) and there was general all-around mayhem. Watching the traffic in the streets was hilarious, as everyone stopped for a light, geysers of water would shoot in all directions.
And it's not just for locals either! An event this size draws in everybody around. We speculated that it might have been pretty bad if you just showed up in Thailand and didn't know this was going down! This guy's deluge was definitely having an effect on its targets.
Every truck on the island was of course equipped with a drum of water and a team of soakers, drenching the sidewalks with drive-bys.
Drivers will slow and approach the sidewalk battalions, engaging in a few moments of intense combat before they move on and reload for the next fight.
Some brave souls, it turns out, are perhaps just too brave for their own good. you can imagine how this story ended.
And of course, nobody who goes outside during the day is going to stay dry.
And so ends the old year in Thailand, and begins a new one, with the hot season in full swing and spirits as high as the mercury. Some crews even drop bags of ice in their water, which makes for a really nice dousing when they get you good. Very refreshing in these temps.
And now we're moving on, and with our decision to head home things have happened quickly. We left our cozy room Monday morning, saying goodbye to the cats that had adopted us, and were quickly on our way to Bangkok to catch our flight back to Alaska. I'm writing this from Seattle now, but still have another batch of photos to get online from the trip. It's a big event to end the trip of course, but then it's just another adventure. We're not sad to cut it short of our plans either, five months traveling in Asia is certainly nothing to treat lightly! And we left plenty of stuff undone, too, so we'll just have to come back.
This has been a VERY interesting thread. Thanks for taking us along.
I am glad that I was not caught unaware in one of the waterfights! I wear a hearing aid and most of them are NOT waterproof or even resistant!! I do have one that is but don't always wear it as it is not as powerful as one of my others. It sure looks like fun though, if prepared.
This has been a VERY interesting thread. Thanks for taking us along.
I am glad that I was not caught unaware in one of the waterfights! I wear a hearing aid and most of them are NOT waterproof or even resistant!! I do have one that is but don't always wear it as it is not as powerful as one of my others. It sure looks like fun though, if prepared.
Thanks again
Jane B.
Thanks! Yeah we figured if you just showed up in town and weren't told, you'd be awful angry when your phone and camera got drenched as you stepped out on the street in the morning!
Well alright, here it is, the last post of photos from our one-way adventure! We're back home in Alaska now, where the cold is just fleeing, the geese are returning, and a few residual snowflakes are still making their way out of the sky to coat the ground in white. Our trip started on Monday, Thai time, when we jumped on an overnight bus from Phuket to Bangkok. Arriving very early in the morning, we managed to make our way into downtown without being ripped off TOO badly, and with our remaining cash totaling somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 baht (about 13 dollars) we set out to purchase our last Thai souvenirs, see the town, and get to the airport.
Thai temples are quite impressive, and Bangkok has its share!
Since the ethic in Thailand is simply to throw trash anywhere and everywhere that gets it off your hands, most of the waterways are rather filthy and polluted. This one is no exception, but it at least looks good in the picture, which is more than I can say for others.
Did I mention the temple architecture? My favorite part was the rooftops.
Adding to an amazing string of coincidences that I can only call blessings, the local tuk-tuk drivers were subsidized by the government for a few days to take tourists around to local sights at no charge, while thousands of Europeans are stuck in town waiting for the air to clear of volcanic ash over their home countries. We were picked up by a very friendly fellow, and absolutely contrary to typical tuk-tuk ripoffs, were treated very well, driven around for some time, and dropped off where we wanted to go! This was an amazing thing, since our packs are quite heavy!
One of Bangkok's attractions is a massive golden Buddha.
One item of interest in the media lately has been the unrest and riots in Bangkok between the red-shirts and the yellow-shirts and the police. While we didn't experience any run-ins with these, we did see many evidences of a town ready for riot control, and we encountered two equally spirited parties in a debate which led to bloodshed, angry glares, and vocal discontent! We were almost too close for comfort, but I snapped a few blurry shots of the action, and this one of the after-battle calm.
And of course in any Asian country, free anything is just too good to be true. In addition to the tourist attractions, our driver brought us to a number of local shops selling jewelry and tailored clothing, and to oblige we dutifully admired pieces and suits, some of which cost several times what we have spent for the entire trip! We of course were wearing clothes which displayed a rather less-than-wealthy position in society that should not be considering such shopping venues: one of us in a shirt we found in a trash can, and the other with a palm-sized hole in the shoulder and smaller ones dotting the front. One store was particularly interesting though, with a showroom filling over an acre of ground, and a small display of craftsmen working skillfully at creating the jewelry right there, from the fresh cut stones to the finished products. These are rough stones at the beginning of the cutting and polishing stage, attached to sticks for proper alignment on the grinding equipment.
The speed these workers have shows how long they've been doing this, and the skills they've acquired in that time. A quick glance at the stone, and it would be attached to a guide in a fraction of a second and touched to the wheel briefly, then examined again and cut at a different angle in the next instant. I was impressed!
Next in line, another worker was forming the settings for stones and pearls in rings using - of all tools - a simple hammer and a stick. He worked fast, and produced some fine results in no time.
At another seat a small block of wood formed the backing for some action with a very thin hacksaw, shaping the details and finer parts of the jewelry.
And lastly, the setting of the stones themselves, all done by hand and resulting in a very nice product, truly crafted by hands that have formed many thousands before. It was a very interesting tour, and we were quite happy to have stopped by.
And that's it! We caught a local bus to the airport, boarded a plane in Bangkok, flew to Tokyo, then to Seattle, and even managed to catch an earlier flight to Anchorage, arriving in time to inconvenience Kelsey as he expected to pick us up later in the day.
Our cash is down to only 120 baht, which is about four dollars, but that's just fine; it's still in baht, and we can't exchange it locally anyway!
Within a day of getting home, we're jumping back into things, attending some ice rescue training and working on getting caught up with everything that has left us behind in our absence. Straight from water at 30 degrees Celsius to water at 30 degrees Fahrenheit!
Just incredible! I'm almost sorry to hear that you guys are home "already" because I look forward to reading about your journeys so much. You are so inspiring and I'm sure both your families are thrilled to have you home.
I've never seen baht before and I bet most of us haven't.
Glad you're are home, and I'm already looking forward to your next adventure, no matter where it is!
Like a good book, you hate when it ends. Thank you sooooo much for sharing with us your adventures. I thoroughly enjoyed your monologue as well as your pictures.
Comments
As I mentioned, the rainy season has been slowly approaching. This doesn't mean torrential rains all the time, but it does mean we get some change from the tedious monotony of plain old bright sunlight all the time.
Life here has been rather tedious, just trying to find some work online and waiting for tax returns to be deposited back home so we can get the money to keep moving onward. Kamala Beach isn't very fun for us, with its one crowded beach, bars, and night life providing the sole attractions, but that's life at times, and we're just trying to keep busy. I've been writing up stories of life's adventures to stick on my website and submit to magazines (Viewable HERE) and we're making the best of it.
A couple days ago we got some cooler temperatures and took the opportunity to follow a trail pointed out to us by an Ex-Pat from Finland who has befriended us and been quite generous. It wandered off the end of a small road and followed a single track of concrete up the hills above town and deep into the jungle.
We were soon to discover though that the "jungle" at this location has long since been converted into a rubber tree plantation, and offers little of its original authenticity for explorers to discover. That didn't bother us though, it was still beautiful, and quite an enjoyable experience. Here's some bananas reaching for the sky from their stem alongside the trail.
The rubber trees are planted in rows along the hillside, giving evidence to probably decades of harvesting of the latex flowing through their bark. The trees are cut diagonally to access the veins of latex, which drips into a container of some sort that workers attach to the tree. I think the season must be some other time of year, because we didn't see any activity around the plantation and the containers were simply full of rainwater.
We did pass a number of secluded dwellings well off the beaten track and far from town. We decided if we were going to live in Phuket, we'd probably get back into the jungle too. No electricity, but plenty of running water and lots of relaxation to be found.
Here's a vine clinging to a rubber tree:
I took a moment at one point to stitch a 360 panorama including some of the plantation's outbuildings, which evidently house equipment and some sort of machinery for processing the sap. I took some close-ups too, but I find that I'm just not as good at capturing the magic of vacant buildings as some people here are!
As we got higher into the hills, the thinned out undergrowth of the plantation passed behind us and we found thick brush filling the jungle like it ought to. Included in the shrubbery was this bush sprouting peppers, free for the picking.
At our high point, where the trail disappeared and we were following a thread of a path from rubber tree to rubber tree, we discovered a friendly millipede in the leafy carpet of decomposing plant matter. Of course what do you do with giant bugs with hundreds of legs besides put them on your face for pictures?
These really cool bugs are biteless and stingerless, and very much slow, weak, and vulnerable (NOT to be confused, however, with their cousins the centipedes, which have a poisonous sting and move fast!). They certainly are fun to play with though, and this one thoroughly explored my hand, searching for some way to get back to earth again.
Unfortunately you'd need a video to really get an idea of the mesmerizing movement of the legs on these guys, but if you can take this picture and imagine every leg constantly moving in a dazzling line of incomprehensible cooperation, you might get a bit of an idea.
Leaving our friend in the leaves where we found him, we wandered our way back toward town as the dark clouds moved in overhead in preparation for the evening's rain. The water didn't fall for some time though, so we stayed dry. Moving back through the rubber trees, we were given a good view of this hillside, showing that it's been quite a while since the natural jungle thrived on these hillsides.
Another of the plantation huts would present a very comfortable atmosphere if it weren't for the typical piles of litter adorning the floor. Asians don't seem to mind the garbage everywhere though, so I guess it's just fine for them.
We don't know what this is, and we're quite curious.
And a gooshy self-portrait of two raggedy travelers enjoying some peace and quiet deep in the jungle of Thailand, with a babbling brook drifting by to add some texture. We're trying to get a big enough collection of these sorts of photos to make an entire album for showing off someday down the road.
Lastly, just before reaching town again, we spotted one thing I had hoped to find out here. This is a golden orb-web spider building a web which is stretching significantly under the weight of the massive beast. The thing is nearly as big around in body as a human finger, and very intimidating looking. Evidently they're harmless to humans, but we didn't try putting one on our face this time.
So there's a hike in the Thai jungle for you. Hopefully we'll get more of those in the future. For now, enjoy!
www.morffed.com
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
Haha I wouldn't worry too much, I notice you've left the country at LEAST twice since we have! That's pretty good!
Here's an important update for our trip, after much deliberation and prayer we've decided to head back home for the summer at least. There's a whole bunch of reasons of course, which all boil down to doors being open there and closed here. It's disappointing in a way because we had hoped to reach so many more countries, but it's exciting in a bunch of other ways, not the least of which is the awesomeness of Alaska in the summertime. So our (current) trip will probably end soon, but of course that also depends on us finding tickets home from Thailand that match the budget of our tax returns.
www.morffed.com
Hopefully you get more than me for a tax return... I got $5 from state... $0 from fed.... that definitely wouldn't buy me a plane ticket from Thailand...
1.6 seconds for that one. We're stoked to not have to miss summer in Hatchers!
www.morffed.com
And it's not just a little waterfight either. I mean of course there's little kids with small squirtguns hiding in the bushes along the roads, and they get you when you wander past, but it escalates to a much, MUCH larger scale. Here's one team of wetteners, and their mighty charger equipped for war.
Streets sprouted swimming pools; businesses closed down and filled trash cans with water and buckets; everybody venturing outdoors was armed with something (except us - we neglected to budget for squirtguns
And it's not just for locals either! An event this size draws in everybody around. We speculated that it might have been pretty bad if you just showed up in Thailand and didn't know this was going down!
Every truck on the island was of course equipped with a drum of water and a team of soakers, drenching the sidewalks with drive-bys.
Drivers will slow and approach the sidewalk battalions, engaging in a few moments of intense combat before they move on and reload for the next fight.
Some brave souls, it turns out, are perhaps just too brave for their own good. you can imagine how this story ended.
And of course, nobody who goes outside during the day is going to stay dry.
And so ends the old year in Thailand, and begins a new one, with the hot season in full swing and spirits as high as the mercury.
There's more in the gallery here, I just figured the highlights would be plenty for this thread: http://www.morffed.com/2010/Back-in-Phuket-Thailand/11403178_X3ZSH#837423449_oUxFS
And now we're moving on, and with our decision to head home things have happened quickly. We left our cozy room Monday morning, saying goodbye to the cats that had adopted us, and were quickly on our way to Bangkok to catch our flight back to Alaska. I'm writing this from Seattle now, but still have another batch of photos to get online from the trip. It's a big event to end the trip of course, but then it's just another adventure. We're not sad to cut it short of our plans either, five months traveling in Asia is certainly nothing to treat lightly! And we left plenty of stuff undone, too, so we'll just have to come back.
At least one more post to come!
www.morffed.com
I am glad that I was not caught unaware in one of the waterfights! I wear a hearing aid and most of them are NOT waterproof or even resistant!! I do have one that is but don't always wear it as it is not as powerful as one of my others. It sure looks like fun though, if prepared.
Thanks again
Jane B.
Thanks! Yeah we figured if you just showed up in town and weren't told, you'd be awful angry when your phone and camera got drenched as you stepped out on the street in the morning!
www.morffed.com
Thai temples are quite impressive, and Bangkok has its share!
Since the ethic in Thailand is simply to throw trash anywhere and everywhere that gets it off your hands, most of the waterways are rather filthy and polluted. This one is no exception, but it at least looks good in the picture, which is more than I can say for others.
Did I mention the temple architecture? My favorite part was the rooftops.
Adding to an amazing string of coincidences that I can only call blessings, the local tuk-tuk drivers were subsidized by the government for a few days to take tourists around to local sights at no charge, while thousands of Europeans are stuck in town waiting for the air to clear of volcanic ash over their home countries. We were picked up by a very friendly fellow, and absolutely contrary to typical tuk-tuk ripoffs, were treated very well, driven around for some time, and dropped off where we wanted to go! This was an amazing thing, since our packs are quite heavy!
One of Bangkok's attractions is a massive golden Buddha.
One item of interest in the media lately has been the unrest and riots in Bangkok between the red-shirts and the yellow-shirts and the police. While we didn't experience any run-ins with these, we did see many evidences of a town ready for riot control, and we encountered two equally spirited parties in a debate which led to bloodshed, angry glares, and vocal discontent! We were almost too close for comfort, but I snapped a few blurry shots of the action, and this one of the after-battle calm.
And of course in any Asian country, free anything is just too good to be true. In addition to the tourist attractions, our driver brought us to a number of local shops selling jewelry and tailored clothing, and to oblige we dutifully admired pieces and suits, some of which cost several times what we have spent for the entire trip! We of course were wearing clothes which displayed a rather less-than-wealthy position in society that should not be considering such shopping venues: one of us in a shirt we found in a trash can, and the other with a palm-sized hole in the shoulder and smaller ones dotting the front.
The speed these workers have shows how long they've been doing this, and the skills they've acquired in that time. A quick glance at the stone, and it would be attached to a guide in a fraction of a second and touched to the wheel briefly, then examined again and cut at a different angle in the next instant. I was impressed!
Next in line, another worker was forming the settings for stones and pearls in rings using - of all tools - a simple hammer and a stick. He worked fast, and produced some fine results in no time.
At another seat a small block of wood formed the backing for some action with a very thin hacksaw, shaping the details and finer parts of the jewelry.
And lastly, the setting of the stones themselves, all done by hand and resulting in a very nice product, truly crafted by hands that have formed many thousands before. It was a very interesting tour, and we were quite happy to have stopped by.
And that's it! We caught a local bus to the airport, boarded a plane in Bangkok, flew to Tokyo, then to Seattle, and even managed to catch an earlier flight to Anchorage, arriving in time to inconvenience Kelsey as he expected to pick us up later in the day.
Our cash is down to only 120 baht, which is about four dollars, but that's just fine; it's still in baht, and we can't exchange it locally anyway!
Within a day of getting home, we're jumping back into things, attending some ice rescue training and working on getting caught up with everything that has left us behind in our absence. Straight from water at 30 degrees Celsius to water at 30 degrees Fahrenheit!
Once again, I hoped you've all enjoyed the trip!
www.morffed.com
Thank YOU BOTH
Thank you so much for sharing your journey.
I've never seen baht before and I bet most of us haven't.
Glad you're are home, and I'm already looking forward to your next adventure, no matter where it is!
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
I hope you enjoy being home and I look forward to your future travels.
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