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From Railay, we boarded a longtail, which then transferred us to a ferry, headed for Ko Phi Phi. Woohoo.. Boat to Boat transfers are fun.. It was short ride to Phi Phi, slightly choppy, perhaps due to the many storms that were swirling around the region. We get to Phi Phi, and almost immediately we start to wonder if we should have stayed on Railay.. Phi Phi is a lot more crowded than Railay, and a whole lot more backpacker-y.. Instead of a pristine beach that we had all to ourselves, we were greeted by hordes of touts, each promising “cheap cheap” prices to stay at their bungalows.. And, it didn’t help that a storm blew in, right as we were landing.. So, after wandering Phi Phi from hotel to hotel to hotel for awhile, we decided to send out a scouting party to try and find a nice place to stay.

It wasn’t that places on Phi Phi weren’t nice, but after our super swank digs on Railay, we were a bit spoiled. Hmm.. Anyway, after a bit, we were able to find a nice place to stay in the middle of town, and then we headed for the pier for some fun.

Phi Phi actually consists of two islands, Phi Phi Don, the larger island, where most of the stuff is, and Phi Phi Le, the smaller island, which is relatively uninhabited. So, we decided to take a “sunset cruise” that would take us around the islands and visit various beaches and stuff.. Except… because of the storm that had blown in, there was going to be no sunset that day, and therefore, no sunset cruise… Grr. Oh well.. We were about to leave the pier, and then this dude pops up and is like, “I take you guys, ok?” Hmm.. sure! That sounds great!

We happily hop into the longtail as he practices what I’m sure are unsafe fueling procedures… But, I guess he knows what he’s doing, cuz we didn’t blow up or anything. That said, it sure was a harrowing ride across the channel to Phi Phi Le… Considering the “big boat” had canceled its trip for the evening should have been an indication that a smaller, more rickety longtail would have been a more harrowing ride, but I don’t think we gave it much thought until we were riding up and over like 12 foot swells. We were drenched to the bone from the rain and the crashing surf, and I was really glad that I had bought a dry bag to give some level of protection to my camera gear. The orange life jackets sat mockingly in the bow of the boat; it was too harrowing to even leave our seats during most of the ride to even think about putting them on… Weeeee. Kind of like a roller coaster, except this ride had not been engineered with a recognized factor of safety. Our intrepid cigarette-toting boatman was able to shuttle us safely to Phi Phi Le without incident.. When we got there, we pulled first into a gorgeous private turquoise cove where we did some swimming. The water is like warm bathwater, and swimming in it is a dream. And we felt like we were the only people on that whole island, which, for the most part, was true..

We get back into the boat and head for another cove, where our guide points to a small hole in a bank of sharp, craggly rocks.

“Beach, in there,” he says. “In there?” we ask. He nods. We nod. Confident that we have all the information that we need, we happily hop out of the boat and swim for shore.

The rocks are uneven, the surf is a bit rough, and I get banged around a bit on the rocks. I try not to keep visions of my newly minted ankle getting crushed between some cruel vise formed by rocks and surf. Korby screams out as he cuts his knee on some sharp bits, but soon enough, we all are able to scramble onto the rocks. Our progress through the hole in the rocks is aided by a bunch of ropes that form sort of a handhold over your head. The ADA would definitely not approve of this.

On the other side of the hole, is a small beach, and a path.. there’s a small sign that says, “Maya Beach –>”

Our feeling of being isolated on a tropical island is interrupted by a dude walking by, chattering on his cell phone. (Aside: during our entire time in Thailand, I must say that I had better cell phone coverage than I do in my own home in San Francisco. Um, good job, Thailand.)

We head down the path, and then emerge in a gorgeous white sand beach, shaped like a crescent moon, surrounded by huge sheer cliffs of limestone. We are the only ones here. Apparently, this is the beach from “The Beach” (the movie). It’s spectacular. And it’s still raining, but Korby, Jenny and I still run all around the beach, frolicking in its magnificence. It’s awesome. I mean, we only stay like 20 minutes, but it’s pretty damn cool.

It was a shame that we couldn’t stay there longer, but at least we got to hang out there for a little while. But, it was getting late, and it was starting to get dark. We headed back to the rocky hole, climbed back through, and were happy to see our longtail waiting patiently in the bay for us. Our guide handed us some snorkeling gear, and we spent like 30 minutes frolicking in the reef, swimming with all of the colorful parrot fish, clown fish, and other assorted cute little reef critters. I got pretty good at free diving, I think.. Dammit, a few months ago, I had the opportunity to buy a Suunto D3 for $35.. it was on sale, but I didn’t get it cuz I was like.. “hmm.. do I really need a freediving watch?” Grr. Freediving is hella fun. I mean, scuba is fun too, but when freediving, you’re unburdened with all of that gear, and it feels awesome, swimming underwater with just one breath of air..

We climb back into the boat, ready to continue our tour, when our guide points to a huge dark storm cloud and says, “Maybe we do island tour another day. Go back now.” We trust his judgment. For the return trip back, we don the life jackets, which seems like a good idea considering the growing size of the waves.. But, the trip back seems relatively less harrowing and we putter quickly back into Tonsai harbor on Phi Phi Don..

We get back to the hotel and learn that there was an 8.2 earthquake in Indonesia — similar to the one that caused the disastrous Tsunami in 2004. Yah, the one that destroyed Ko Phi Phi. Exactly where we were. Um. The first we heard of the “tsunami warning” was that they had canceled it. Um, that’s nice. Eep.

After an evening of drinks and fire dancing on Phi Phi at the Apache Bar, we board a ferry from Phi Phi to Phuket. The weather finally clears up a bit, and the sun greeted us for our departure from Phi Phi.. We boarded the ferry, taking a nice spot on the top sun deck. Everyone on the sun deck is spread out in full suntanning mode. A calm breeze blows from the southwest, all is good.

One of the ship crew motions to Paul, who has his SLR camera out in all of its picture-taking glory, “Put camera away. Get wet.” Paul looks at him with a puzzled look, I returned a knowing glance to him, both confident that our 30 foot perch above the water would surely keep us dry.

Um, we were wrong. As soon as the ferry leaves the calm safety of Tonsai harbor, things get real dicey, real fast. The swells we had seen yesterday in the longtail had grown bigger, and now, the huge ferry was being tossed about in the ocean like a bath toy. Waves started crashing violently into the bow of the ferry, sending sea spraying 50 feet into the air. We got drenched. The boat was rocking like crazy from side to side, and all of the plastic deck chairs were sliding all around the sun deck. Luckily, I had secured myself a nice spot in the corner of the deck, so my chair was firmly situated. After I decided I had enough, I retreated to the relative safety of the lower decks and took a nice nap for the remaining ride to Phuket. Paul, unfortunately, did not fare as well. Apparently, one of the drawbacks of being a 6’4″ polish man (in addition to his famously small bladder) is an increased sensitivity to motion sickness. Poor guy. Yah, I don’t think that he enjoyed that ferry ride at all. But hey Paul.. look what I found — next time we hit up the Andaman coast, we can take a seaplane instead. Ooo. Fun. The silver lining of Paul’s unfortunate ferry ride was that none of us took pictures of the aftermath. But don’t worry, we have plenty of other embarrassing pictures. (Now would be an appropriate time to link to paulandjablow.com.)

We departed the train in Surat Thani and hopped a 2 hour bus to Krabi, where we were dropped off at the bus station. The bus station was seemingly in the middle of nowhere, so we were at the mercy of the services there at the station to get us where we needed to go.. To get to the Krabi pier, we got a ride in the back of a pickup truck, turned bus, where we boarded a longtail for Railay.. It started raining as soon as we got near the beach (I guess that’s why there’s less people during the monsoon season)..

The rain was refreshing after the overnight train/bus/pickup truck/longtail journey, and finally, we were at our destination. Railay was recommended by Pius, and so far, it did not disappoint. Although Railay is technically attached to the Krabi peninsula, it is cutoff by sheer limestone cliffs to the north, and as such, is only accessible via boat. We waited out the storm for a bit, and then headed out to explore the area a bit and find a hotel..

We headed to West Railay, which has a nicer beach than East Railay, and also some of the nicer resorts.. We stayed at the Railay Village Resort, which was recently renovated, and reopened in September 2007. As in.. it reopened the month that we got to Railay — we were the first ones to stay in the newly renovated rooms, so that was pretty frikkin’ awesome. There were a few quirks with the rooms, as to be expected in any brand new place.. like.. our original room smelled like swamp gas or something, so we moved to another room… and little design details hadn’t been thought about.. like the fact that the bathroom had *clear* windows which afforded everyone in the main room a nice view of you on the pooper. I mean, they were relatively small quirks — overall, the rooms were large, clean, and comfortable.. some details were great, like the heated bathroom floors, and the nice darkwood decor.. Good stuff, overall.

The second day, Korby and I decided to go on a dive trip. We headed out on a longtail to Koh Si. It was monsoon season though, so visibility wasn’t going to be great — these were my 10th and 11th dives ever, so I’m still fascinated by the sheer prospect of being able to breathe underwater, so honestly, as long I’m there, I’m happy. Half of our first dive was spent doing some refresher exercises, clearing the mask, removing regulator, etc.. and then we swam around for a bit. We saw some cool wildlife, including a black tipped reef shark. Sweet. The second dive, we went around the back of Koh Si, and for the first 10 meters, visibility was awful. We descended and lost Korby somewhere along the way, so we had to resurface to find him again. After that, Korby decided to go back to the boat, so Koa and I finished up the dive… we didn’t see anything much different than the first dive, but it was still damn fun. Besides us, there was only the two other people in our longtail diving at this spot, so it was pretty nice to have this dive site all to ourselves…

Railay is well known as a climbing destination, so I had hoped to get some climbing in during my time there — but, we got back a little late from the dive, and I frankly was a bit tired, so I opted for a massage overlooking the beach instead. So nice, and you can’t beat the $6 price.

The next day, we planned to hop on the ferry to Phi Phi, so I decided to take an early morning hike to Phra Nang, the beach on the southern tip of the peninsula. Access is somewhat limited since the ultra-luxury resort, Rayavadee basically blocks access from West Railay. I figured that at 6am, the guards wouldn’t be there.. I was wrong. I tried to sweet talk my way into Rayavadee, but he would have no part of it. So, I had to walk all the way back to East Railay and then walk south down the beach until I found the little path to Phra Nang..

I can see why Rayavadee wants to have Phra Nang all to itself — it’s pretty fecking nice.. White sands welcome you to a lovely south-facing beach, guarded by several huge karst (limestone) formations.. Aside from the security guard policing the southern side of Rayavadee, I was the only person on the beach. And then, a rainbow appeared as if I didn’t know that this beach was something special…

Yah — Railay is awesome. I’ll be back, soon, hopefully.

Thailand Tip #5: Go to Railay.

Thanks Pius, for your recommendation, you have staved off your punch in the gut for a little while longer.

Our final day in Bangkok, we hit up the Grand Palace, spectacular… So colorful and amazing. And we had to wear pants and closed toed shoes. When you get off the ferry and walk towards the temple, there are dozens of tuktuk drivers that claim that the Grand Palace is closed. If you believe them, then they will offer to take you on a big tour of Bangkok instead. So, don’t believe them. It’s open.

After the Grand Palace, we toured Khao San road for a bit, which, according to another world-traveler, Dana, is the epicenter of the Asian backpacker world. Well, it sure was backpacker-y, filled with tons of young travelers all looking to get their hair braided, buy redbull tshirts or find a hostel to crash at for awhile.

A really weird thing that we saw all over Bangkok — abandoned half finished buildings. I never really gave it much thought that you hardly ever see back here.. Paul mentioned that here in the States you have to secure a bond that would basically guarantee that the project won’t run out of money, but I guess that is obviously not the case in Thailand. Hmm.. apparently that building is the “Sathorn Unique,” whose development halted in 1997 after the Asian financial crisis… Yikes.

Anyway, after a full day in Bangkok, we boarded the overnight train headed for Surat Thani, on the southern peninsula of Thailand.

Our accommodations aboard the train were decently nice. We got “first class” tickets which meant that we had an actual cabin, as opposed to just having a berth in the main cabin. I mean, it wasn’t super swank or anything — little cockroaches occasionally were seen scurrying around, it was fun. We had two adjoining cabins that we could open up into each other, and a friendly steward named Aud that kept bringing us buckets of Singha.

Thailand Tip #4: Singha makes the train ride fun.

Our flight from SFO left at 1am on Saturday, September 8th.. Every time I told people when my flight was, they would respond with “Oh.. Friday night.” Hmmm. Is 1am on Saturday technically part of “Friday Night?” I mean — to me, 1am Saturday is part of Saturday morning, but apparently to many people, it’s part of “Friday Night.” Weird. But I digress.

Jenny and I were on the same flight, which went from SFO to Taipei, and then we switched planes for Bangkok. The 15 hours of flying went by surprisingly easily, and after a lot of sleeping, a few movies, and two tasty meals (I like airplane food, yum), Jenny and I arrived in BKK.

Thailand Tip #1: When taking a cab from the airport, make sure you get a TAXI METER cab, and ask to use the meter — if they quote you a price, it’s probably too high.

We hopped a cab to the hotel where Paul was staying, and got ourselves settled.. it was like 11am, so we had some time before Korby arrived at like 5pm, so we headed to check out the famous Bangkok malls that both world-travelers Pius and Chad had told me about. Yay! We traveled halfway around the world to go to a mall!

We went to Central World, which is a huge mall in the middle of Bangkok… it was like 90 degrees with like 90 percent humidity outside, so my SF-acclimatized self was happy to get into the aircon for a bit. Since it was a Sunday, there was a huge market going on in the downstairs part of the mall, so that was fascinating to see all of the people milling about, doing their grocery shopping at an open-air style market, in a mall. Most of the other stuff in the mall would have looked pretty at home in the states — designer boutiques, clothing stores, electronics, etc… And the prices of the fancy stuff were just about the same as back home too. They were selling down jackets at the Hugo Boss store that we went into. Yah, um, that’s nice.

We did some of the touristy stuff, saw the Grand Palace, and took a longtail to see the canals in Thonburi..

Check out this cool cat that was just hanging out in some shrine in the flower market:

I checked out a Muay Thai Boxing match.. I had front row seats which seemed only to be filled with other tourists, since it was like 2,000 Baht, which is kind of a lot of money, but whatever, I was able to get the tickets for 1,800 — maybe that was a deal, maybe not.. who knows.

Thailand Tip #2: You will be ilked out of some money by some wily people. Oh well.

Thailand Tip #3: Tuktuks will take you for a fun ride. You may not end up where you tell them to go, but it will be fun.

Well… I safely made it back from my vacation to Thailand.. I posted 387 pictures of the trip for your viewing pleasure, but I’ve actually had a few people comment on the sheer number of pictures that I’ve posted (too many for anyone that wasn’t on the trip to go through), I figured that I’d just write up a blog post with a few stories and a highlight the best pictures…

And so…. here we go…

Paul, Korby, Jenny and I decided to get out of the country for a little vacation — none of us have ever been to Thailand before, and since flights were looking pretty reasonable, we decided that it would be a good idea. My friend Ali also joined us for a portion of the trip..

We only had a plane ticket in and out of Bangkok — everything else was pretty much unplanned. My main goals were to just see some cool sights, maybe get some diving in, and spend some quality time chilling at the beaches.

So… I haven’t taken a proper, unplugged from the Internet vacation in quite some time now… So, I decided to hope over to Thailand for a few days with a few friends, Paul, Korby and Jenny. My friend Ali is gonna meet up at some point too; she’s recovering from burningman and needed more than a week off.. I leave Saturday morning at 1am. Woohoo.

I’ve never been to Thailand, but after talking with some seasoned travelers, I think our tentative itinerary is:

• Arrive in Bangkok on 9/9, wander the city. Go to the malls.
• Hop over to Angkor Wat for a day or two. See stuff.
• Make our way down to the Beaches and Islands.. Maybe Railay beach, near Krabi..

September is supposedly “Monsoon Season,” so it shouldn’t be as crowded. Hmmmm.. Monsoons, eh? Lemme check the weather….

Uh.. great. According to Pius, it only thunderstorms for a little bit every day, and then it’s clear. Well.. That’s cool with me. We didn’t really have a rainy season at all this year, so it might actually be nice to see some rain. And Thunderstorms even.. That would be cool.

Alas, that is all we have really planned now (which is not very much). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

So, I’m headed to NYC for my semi-annual east coast trip… It’ll be awesome to see my NY friends again, and I’m also going to my 10 year college reunion next weekend up in Ithaca. Wow. 10 years. I’m OLD. But yah.. we’re gonna stay in the dorms and stuff and frolic around campus and stuff. Maybe Jablow will keep his shirt on this time.

But yah, I’m going to be taking a few days off of work to run around NYC doing NYC things, so here’s a partial list that I’ve come up with… If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know. I like fun. For some odd reason, my last two trips to NYC included going out to Brighton Beach (including once to pick up a nightstand with Korby), which is pretty far out there, so maybe I won’t do that again. Then again, if anyone needs help moving furniture from some remote stop on the MTA, you know I’m always up for it.

• Buy some new sneakers. I’ve been looking for a good pair forever, and NYC better have some.
• Go to B&H on a day that they’re actually open.
• Rock out on records at Turntable Lab.
• Stock up on Superhero Supplies.
• Ooo. Yum. Fried Twinkies. Park Slope Chip Shop.
• Play poker with Joe.
• Damn.. so many good shows are playing while I’m in town.. Feist, Lily Allen, Interpol, Bloc Party, Madeleine Peyroux. And, The Fucking Champs are playing the night that I get in.. but.. Hmmm.
• Freemans looks cool.
• Museum Mile Festival — Woohoo! Nine Museums FREE on June 12th from 6-9pm
• go to the MoMa. Check out the orb. And the 50 Years of Helvetica exhibit…
• Go to a Yankees game. Yankees vs. Diamondbacks, 1:05pm June 14th
• I like art. The Affordable Art Fair – June 14th
• Dance Indie at Mondo: an Indie Rock Dance Party Woo! – June 15th

Oh yah.. I’ll also be telecommuting a few days from NYC — anyone have good suggestions for good cafes where I can work? I’ll be in the Columbus Circle area…

Headed to Tahoe for the weekend with Shooey and a bunch of her friends… it’s Mountain Mardi Gras time, and the kids from the Space Cowboys are throwing down at Squaw. And, with the epic snowfall that they’ve been getting these past few weeks, it should be an awesome time. So if you’re gonna be up there too, drop me a line.

Oh yah — don’t forget, there’s a Lunar Eclipse tomorrow. Europe and Africa will get a fantastic look, East Coast folks should get a good look right at sunset, but here on the Left Coast, we might not see it at all. Poop.

Rock.

I’ve been here in Vegas since Friday, and omg, it’s been one of the most insane Vegas trips ever. I mean, yes, Vegas trips are always crazy and insane, but this one, in particular, has been absolutely insane. I’m here with my cousins Stephanie and Chris, their parents, and their family friends. When we got into town Friday night, it took us 2 hours to get from the airport to our hotel — a trip that should usually only take about 10 minutes. Why? Well.. this weekend is the combination of three huge events: NBA All Star Weekend, Chinese New Year, and President’s Day weekend. The result? Crowds like I’ve never seen before… All weekend, it’s been a chore to get anywhere at all, getting a cab takes a few hours, and once you’re in there, driving on the strip is at a standstill. Walking is only slightly better, with huge crowds clogging the sidewalks..

But, the annoyance of the crowds aside, it’s been a really, really fun weekend. I came in 2nd place in a poker tournament at the Aladdin. Tons of celebrity sightings. Stephanie played blackjack with Zach Braff yesterday. While we played a round of golf at Shadow Creek yesterday, we saw Tiger warming up at the driving range. Michael Jordan was also there, but we only saw his Ferrari and one of his customized golf carts.

Time really doesn’t exist in Vegas. Nor does sleep, apparently.

Saturday night, we were hooked up with a table at Tryst, the club at the Wynn (we didn’t have to wait in any lines.. woohoo! i hate lines).. The club was packed, LeBron was there, and there were dudes just throwing wads of $1 bills onto the dance floor. Yah, a little crazy.

Sunday, we got tickets to the NBA All Star game.. I was really dumb and didn’t bring my dSLR. (dumb, dumb, dumb) I thought for some reason that they wouldn’t let me bring it — but I missed the opportunity to get some great pictures at the game. Then again, I didn’t see anyone with a dSLR at the game, so maybe they didn’t let them in… So, I only had my compact digicam, so that’ll have to do. The game itself was kind of anti-climactic to the weekend. Unlike the MLB All Star game, the NBA All Star doesn’t really play for anything — the players were clearly showboating, so it felt more like an exhibition of dunking and alley-oop skills than anything else. Which made for an entertaining game though. Probably the biggest cheer of the night came when Shaq actually started dribbling the ball and then tried for a jumper, which he missed.

Watching the celebrities interact during the game was amusing too.. Prince and David Chappelle were sitting next to each other, but it was funny cuz they were clearly trying not to sit too close to each other (even though the seats were super tightly packed together). And then, after halftime, Prince left, replaced by Ludacris, which I thought was an interesting swap. Eva Longoria was looking quite lovely, and every time Tony Parker hit a shot, she’d cheer excitedly. Wayne Newton did some of the pregame show. I’ve never seen that dude perform before, but he kind of looks like a Madame Tussad wax museum specimen.

This weekend has been truly a test of Vegas’ ability to handle a huge, unpredictable crowd. In one of the long cab rides home, our cab driver reported to us that he had heard about 22 shootings this weekend and a pedestrian hit-and-run accident.. But, in searching through the local news, I didn’t see anything about the shootings, but the hit-and-run was covered by one of the local outlets.

Anyway — I’m actually still here in Vegas until tomorrow night, maybe the crowds will thin out after today. I’m working from my room here at the Bellagio, so it’s kind of fun ordering room service whilst I do my work. Woo. Vegas, baby.

Happy New Year, everyone.. got back today from my roadtrip to LA with the gang, and it was a blast.. pics & stories, tk.

I did this last year, so I thought it would be fun to do this again… here’s my list of cities that I’ve spent one a night in (*’s indicate multiple visits) in.. in rough chronological order:

New York, NY *
Hoboken, NJ
San Francisco, CA *
South Lake Tahoe, CA
Truckee, CA
Philadelphia, PA
Las Vegas, NV
Los Angeles, CA
Chicago, IL
Chelmsford, MA
Chatham, MA
San Diego, CA
Avon, CO
West Hollywood, CA

Hmm… not as many as I would have hoped.. This year’s travel was severely limited by my broken ankle, which basically meant that I really didn’t leave 94102 for like 5 months.. Perhaps 2007 will have travel in the cards…