I am very, very far from home

Greeting from the Krabi Town Bus Station!

It's Saturday afternoon, and I'm waiting for my bus to Bangkok.

When we last spoke it was Wednesday evening. After I got back from the internet cafe I had a wonderful meal. I had gone back to "Where Else" (the group of bungalows where I was staying), and it started raining again really hard, and it was late. Therefore, I couldn't really venture out to find dinner. I have always been weary of "hotel food". The food served at a lot of places like this isn't authentic. However, Ann, the guy who runs the place, makes excellent Thai food. It was very, very good. I had Tom Yum Soup and a lemongrass curry of chicken and vegetables, and rice. It was all really fresh, they buy the food from the market everyday (and with a lot of fishing going on around Ko Lanta, the shrimp was some of the freshest and best I've had). It was really nice to see a place doing this kind of quality. One other thing I came to realize by this point, the food in Southern Thailand is very, very spicy. It's great! I got talking to some of the who work there, they take a lot of pride in the place. I also met another traveller, Ahmed, from Egypt.

On Thursday I took my motorbike out for a ride around the island. It's quite hard to get around without a bike. There's not a ton of taxis, if you want one and you're not in the town centre, you have to have one called for by the hotel. I went north to Saladan, the main town, and had breakfast of rice and masaman (sp?) curry. Excellent. After, I went to the south (past the bungalows) of the island and rode around the old town a bit. It was a bit of a long ride. After puttering around, I had some tasty food of course, for lunch. Fried chicken is very popular here, it has a spicy, red coating. It's served with a thin, spicy and sweet sauce. Very flavoful, very juicy. I also had some good grilled chicken on a skewer. I tried my first papaya salad, which is very popular in Thailand. It was amazing. It's shredded long strips of green papaya with vegetables and chili. It's spicy and sweet (common flavor combination here) and very good. If you can't tell by now, I really like the food in S. Thailand.

I rode my bike around more and got great views. I totalled about 58 km for the day. I got back in the afternoon and spent time walking around the beach, taking in the scenery (once again, I can't load pictures, I have a lot and will load them when I can). Since it's the low season there's very few people here. A lot of the time there isn't another person in sight. The weather isn't too bad. The rain comes down hard, but only in bursts, not really lasting more than 2-3 hours at most. I had dinner at a roadside stand. It was vegetable soup, once again it was fantastic.

Yesterday, Friday, was spent relaxing for some of the day. I had a great breakfast of rice with stewed spicy chicken (very hot) and vegetables. I also went for another ride thinking I would go in another direction. I headed south and turned in a different direction from the day before. Along the wayI stopped at a market along the road. I had some of that great fried chicken that's everywhere, and a bag of sticky rice (not the healthiest lunch) I went and kept going and going, thinking I was getting farther away. I wound up in Saladan. I drove back to the bungalows. I spent a lot of time walking on the beach. There's islands off in the distance that rise high out of the water, forming rocky mountains. I really got to relax too.

That evening I hung out at the bungalows in the lounge/eating area with Ahmed, we were the only guests in the place (once again, it's low season, and the few other people had checked out that day). Nonethless, they had really fresh food they had bought that day, they knew we were going to want to eat dinner there. We had really good, and spicy, shrimp curry with chilis, and baby corn and green beans and more. We also had a great pan fried fish with a spicy-sweet sauce (go figure), it was so flavorful and fresh, I can't begin to tell you. And of course, I had to eat the head parts to. Ann liked the fact that I knew to dig out the eyes and cheeks and tongue. After sitting around I went back to the bungalow to fall asleep.

This morning I woke up early and walked along the beach, which was a bit difficult, it was high tide (very high). I then drove to the market to get breakfast. It was delicious. I got some chicken, some rice cooked with coconut and sugar in a leaf, and noodles with peanuts and fishballs ( served cold). Once again, all very good. I went back and packed up. I had gotten my tickets to leave today. I got the bus from Ko Lanta to Krabi Town, where I am now. Soon, I will board the overnight bus to Bangkok, which arives in the morning.

Before I go, I should tell you about a few things.

The bungalows I was at had a pack of dogs (mother with 5 kids split between 2 generations). They loved attention, almost as much as Barcleigh. It was funny to watch them doing the stupid stuff dogs do. In the morning, when I would open my bungalow door, they would run in and sniff around and play and jump on my bed. They also gaurded the place, barking at other dogs that wandered near and such. I think Barcleigh would really like it here.

Also, the elephant in the room, the Tsunami. Ko Lanta did pretty well. Unfortunately a few people did die, but not nearly as many as elswhere. The place I stayed at only sustained major damage to a few bungalows. The people were safe, they headed to the mountains on the island. You see tsunami evacuation route signs all over the island.

One other thing.

Wednesday night, as I was hanging out listening to the waves (we're right on the beach), I started thinking about the big picture of what I was doing. Andrew had told me I would get this feeling when I travel. I am very far away from home. Very. Its a strange feeling, not a bad one though. It's a little overwhelming and eerie, yet very exciting too. I really am starting to love it here in Southeast Asia. I can't wait to see more.

Well that does it for me, I hope everyone is well and has a great Labor Day,

Mike