had to quote this from F's blog:

"found out that best friend back home is a big male slut :p predicted he would sleep with half the female population of kl, and he did. almost. debating whether i should congratulate him or smack him on the head for being promiscuous. decided to do neither. found out that i couldnt care less."

made me laugh my ass off .. despite your proclamations i know you care :p

anyway my calfs (or calves .. whatever, that fleshy bit at the bottom of my legs) .. are aching as hell, all thanks to stomping up and down 11 stories of dayabumi steps 6 times (all thanks to sb and her, yeah i'm doing one more .. JUST to spite me :p). don't know how i'm gonna climb up and down batu caves tomorrow morning .. at 7.30am????

anyway apparently i might have thalassemia, the blood tests came back (the ones i did to prep for kinabalu). something about my blood not being able to carry enough oxygen, low haemogoblin or something. its genetic/hereditary .. got it from my mom. kinda funny actually, my HR manager (who by the way i think is very attractive) called me into her office and sat me down and looked at me funny and said "have you seen your medical report". my first thought was "OH MI GOD i'm gonna DIEE!!!".

apparently i wasnt. well the implication is that i have to take a second test to be sure, and if its what it is, the medical recommendation may be to not climb Mt Kinabalu because the thin air at high altitudes may cause problems. Now knowing me i'd probably go anyway (what is it i always say .. die die lah) .. but knowing the company and corporate affairs they'd probably not take the risk (of being sued that is).

well we'll see.

i'd be really disappointed if i couldnt go. when else would i get a fully sponsored trip to climb the tallest mountain in south-east asia?

i heard on the radio this morning that a poll conducted around the world showed that most people would prefer John Kerry as president rather than Bush. Now of course i couldn't agree more (lesser of two evils?), but then my first reaction was that not being a US citizen, it doesnt really matter what I think or who I think should be president of the US, as I don't have the right to vote and its not my country anyway why should I have a say. and in that line of thought the same applies to all those "people around the world" in the poll, its great (as far as i'm concerned) the preference for Kerry, but if you're not a US citizen it doesnt really make a difference anymore than my opinion. and neither should it?

but then I was thinking, we live in a different world. back then there was a time when the world was a lot bigger and each country to a certain extent somewhat to its own. and the creation of democracy was with that intent, that its somthing internal to the nation and the stakeholders, are the people of the nation.

but then the election of a leader of a nation effects the nation's policies and actions, and of interest to me right now is its effects on a nation's foreign policies and actions, which in turn have an effect (good or bad) on foreign nations, sometimes to drastic effects (see Iraq?). and the stakeholders are then no longer merely the people of the nation but those outside who could and probably would be effected by it. be it by direct, explict military actions, or more subtle economic strategies and policies.

so in our new, smaller, interconnected, "butterfly-effect" world, how should the new democracy work then?

back in kl and back to reality ... not a good feeling.

as an afterthough of my travels and meeting all these random people doing the most random things with their lives, i suddenly feel my life is somewhat mundane. sure i have a decent, stable job in the tallest twin towers in the world with a company that is destined for great things. i have my own car, i have interesting and wacky friends. i live in a (albeit somewhat small) decent place in a decent location that's (albeit somewhat in the middle of nowhere) quiet and serene and not traffic-congested.

but that's just it, i'm rooted, bound. i almost crave the freedom that others have that i met, like the guy from australia who works on a boat and decided randomly to go to thailand for a few days. heck it took me 2-3 weeks to plan my 1 week trip.

or the guys from ireland who spent the last 6 months just wandering around. sure to an extent its a wonder how you could live without a certainty on where you're gonna be tomorrow, but there's a certain blissfullness to having the freedom to be in bangkok today and saigon 12 hours later, having everything you need in a backpack on your back.

and then i realize that my blissfulness in my travels is also partly due to the certainty of stability that i do have at home, as in i do have something to come back to in the end (or in event of problems). even if it is a temporal thing such as a dorm in the university.

on the other hand, if i were financially self sufficient, would i care about having roots i can come back to? when i had the means to grow temporary roots at wherever i happen to be if i feel like it or my feet are weary from walking from place to place.

and now i sit here in my office staring longingly out the window, feeling trapped behind a glass with a necktie as a dog chain. i look at the proposals on my desk and the slides and reports i'm supposed to do and suddenly, being a consultant doesnt seem to interesting anymore.

as a second afterthought, it sucks being in a country where your currency is only worth so much. considering that my beach-side bungalow in phangan was RM 35/nite, that would've been less that USD 10/nite if I were American. maybe thats why you don't see too many asian backpackers wandering around (not including asian-americans/europeans).

its also interesting travelling in a foreign south-east asian country, where, looking the way i do and yet being the foreigner to them that i am, i stand in between the statuses of being a local and being a foreigner. i don't get treated as a foreigner automatically (e.g. i get less offers from street touts in pat pong for "special shows" and "happy hours" and "chip chip luv u long time" than my fair-skinned caucasian conterparts, and yet being a foreigner i lack the ability to blend into the society as a local would, language barriers and all.

so i stand in between two worlds and get to observe the two disparities from an aloof distance. i get to observe the masses of old, white, balding caucasian men dragging behind them young, local call girls behind them and feel sorry for their torture of having to service wrinkly men for a living. and i get to view the masses of 7-Elevens and McDonalds and young thai teenagers in their attempts at westernization in definition of a self-identity that would be acceptably "cool". and the clash between the westernization of fast food chains and the modernization of a high-tech transportation system, and the remnants of a traditional life of small stalls of local delicacies (including a cart of what appeared to be deep-friend insects) and river-side huts.

standing in the middle, do i represent a bridge over the gap?

greetings again from the Land of Smiles

bangkok is interesting ... sorta looks like KL, but I have to say the Skytrain and MRTA (which are their elevated train and subway) are amazing, beats KL's LRT .. and their superhighway runs right through the city.

amazing ..

anyway, said goodbye to koh phangan with promises to be back and be kissed by the southern thai sun and grazed by the white sand sometime again, sorta nostalgic watching it fade away into the horizon with (for some reason) sappy music playing in my head.

the train was alright, i got the upper bunk in the a/c sleeper carriage, next time i'm taking the lower bunk, its bigger and more comfortable and you get a window .. and only RM10ish more. but it was still comfortable .. was disappointed to be told that the dining car was closed to just read a bit and munched on chocolates and then crashed until about 8am ..

oh and don't have the breakfast on the train .. its overpriced and not very good.

was trying to figure out how to get from the train station to the skytrain to my hostel but then i noticed the MRTA (subway) entrance .. must be pretty new because a lot of the maps i see have it listed as under construction .. but its definitely running and worth the ride. i just need to find a map .. .

so i'm gonna go wander the city, get a day pass and see where it takes me .. get something to eat... tomorrow i'll check out the river boat express and what sights lay that way. oh and chatuchak market, the largest marketplace in the world .. something like 10,000 to 15,000 sellers there, they say you can get anything for cheap.

oh and everyone thinks i'm thai, until they realize i sound like a farang. the only one who knew i wasnt thai was this dog at the blue lotus at phangan, who apparently doesnt like foreigners and didnt like me. the good news is that apparently for a thai, i'm pretty hot.

i also have to say that its nice to listen to thai girls speaking english, something about the way they talk, its almost like they're singing. nevermind that i don't understand a word they're saying ...

and yeah L, i know you're jealous, but i've earned my bragging rights :p

/ <-- that is a 45 degree angle going up.
\ <-- that's a 45 degree angle going down

thats how steep some of the hills are on the roads to haad rin, on which converted taxi pickup trucks fly up and down, overpacked with sometimes up to 10-12 people in the back.

imagine riding a roller coaster without a safety harness. imagine riding one that has to evade random other roller coaster cars flying in from the opposite direction on a track generally only wide enough for one.

now imagine doing that while hung over and fucked up after a whole night of partying on the beach


you think i'm exagerrating dont you :p

i'm officially in love .. with koh phangan sorta regret staying so far away from haad rin though, the people at the blue lotus are really nice, but its quite a walk (about an hour along the shore, nice walk though .. and thats probably cuz i spent half the time jumping around in the water). my favorite beach is srikantang (or is it leela .. whatever its called), 10 mins walk from haad rin, beautiful white sands and clear waters. and Coco Hut, which is right next to it, looks really nice, too bad they dont take reservations for full moon party (or something like that). but a definite recommendation.

the other is Sarikantang (or Bum bee Lodge), which looks pretty nice too, had dinner at their restaurant (with an extensive menu mind you), also right by the beach and just hung out and watched movies feeling the evening ocean breeze come in. i'm staying there next time. and being right in front of the beach means i can wander in and out without having to lug all my stuff with me (like I am now .. towels, sun block, water, my mammoth SLR) .. makes it tough if you wanna hang around town and go for a drink.

haad rin sunrise (east) is definitely beautiful, much better than the west side beaches ... but its also a little crowded and full of half nekkid, beautiful people, great to look at, but makes you wanna find a quiet little corner so you don't offend anyone with your body. but that was a day before and the day off full moon party, naturally more crowded. haad rin looks empty today (the day after), i expect the beach to be the same, although might still be dirrty from the night before. speaking of which, yes, yesterday was the FMP .. man what a wild nite.

started off sorta chill, got there around 9ish, people were still wandering in, there was partying in the clubs but on the beach everyone was just chilling and drinking and watching poi (fire twirling and spinning) .. there was this one thai girl who was just amazing and incredibly sexy when she went at it .. and then as the night progressed random ravers came up to try their hands at it, amazing with no incident .. except for this one guy who forgot to shake the excess burning kerosene off his thingies and ended up spewing burning globs of fire and setting at least one guy on fire without realizing it.

so yeah, just chilling, hanging out ... and then the buckets came .. and everything was justa blur after that .. the party rocked hard all night long, people were dancing, chilling, making out, or just passed out everywhere (beautiful scandly dressed people mind you), people were being ferried in by the dozens by speedboat and long tails from samui and other parts of phangan, right up to the beach, it was amazing. i think i made out with at least one random person, problem is i cant seem to remember who the hell she is or what she lookd like.. but the 8 or so odd hickeys on my neck and one on my chest tell me i wasnt hallucinating. dont think i slept with anyone...hmmm...

anyway i remember feeling extremely woozy and sat down on the sand .. and then laid down .. and then next thing i know it was 8am and i watched the sun rise over haad rin east (true to its name), while the music pumped on and the party rocked on in some parts .. while everywhere people were passed out or partying or just sitting (recuperating?) or wading in the water .. i gotta come back. next time i'm staying at sari kantang or coco hut.ok .. last day in phangan, gona get my train ticket, get a couple of things, and get my last tan at leela beach. if i can find it again....