Thailand part II

So, once again I have discovered how hard it is to get around to finish blogging from a travel after I get home. For some reason I just never get around to do it... Untill now! And as I promised, there's quite a few pictures as well. yay!

When I wrote my last post, I had just gotten to Koh Tao. I ended up spending a week there, and it was awesome. I went diving every day, and it was great! Not as good as on Utila, but still amazing. The best diving was in the mornings, and it was actually worth it to get up at 5:30, even though it was quite hard. We saw all kinds of fish, for example groupers, barracudas, blue spotted sting-rays and even Nemo, haha. One time we swam through a big shoal of chevron barracudas, which was kind of scary. It was kinda like this, just a bit more fish... ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCvOlrb0Zk0 (same fish, same island, different dive).

The nightlife on Koh Tao is also quite good, and one night I went on the infamous pub crawl - Five bars and one visit to the Queens Cabaret, the local ladyboyshow. It was a bit weird, but great fun, haha. On this night I also met up with Kyle, my canadian friend whom I first met on Utila last year. It was totally random that I met him again on Koh Tao, which made it even more awesome. The world is quite small....

After a week at Koh Tao, I took the overnight ferry to Surathani. The boat was quite an experience in itself, with loads of people stowed away and two people per mattress. Nice and intimate... From Surathani, I took a bus to Khao Sok National Park where I went on a two day tour.. We stayed in huts on bamboo rafts, which was amazing, and spent the time hiking in the forests and caves, boating and just chilling. One of the most beautiful places I've been! And the people I went with and the guide were very nice as well.

After Khao Sok, I spent the last couple of days in Patong Beach. One of the days, I went on a tour to James Bond island, the place where "The Man With the Golden Gun" was set in 19 something something. I'm a huge Bond-fan so it was very cool to be there, and just to make it better, two English brothers had brought speakers and played both the theme song from the movie and the Bond-theme. Awesome indeed.

And speaking of awesome, the trip to Thailand was awesome, and I had such a blast! It was nice and warm (30c every day), beautiful nature, plenty of things to see, and nice people. The food was also amazing, and it was great to be able to walk from stall to stall and get a little bit of everything. But nothing lasts forever, and after two short weeks, I had to get back to the airport. The flight took off at 06:00 in the morning, so I didn't get much sleep my last night. And just to make it worse, I ended up right next to the same creepy guy as on the flight down. What are the odds? And yes, he was just as talkative and weird. For 13 hours. sigh.... And speaking of, when we landed in Oslo and the captain said "welcome to Oslo airport. We have a light rain and 3 degrees", all of the 248 passengers let out a collective sigh and immidiately went into a small depression - which lasted until we saw the duty free. Norwegians just love duty free...

Anyways, I had a good time, managed to stay out of trouble, and I didn't get tricked by any ladyboys = great success. Now I just have to pay my mastercard bills....

'till next time,
-Magnus :)


Pictures in random order - as usual. But amongst them are; ladyboy show, me and Kyle, a monkey, a lizard of some sort, the big buddha in Phuket, me in a fish-spa, Sandy the DM and me, and a bunch of nature pics. And then some other stuff :)

Last post about Central America 2013 + Thailand 2014

Soo, it turned out that I didn’t write about the ending of my last trip. Woops. After I left Costa Rica, I flew to New York City, where I spent my last week. I stayed with some friends of us, Michael and Eric, and spent the days walking around town, shopping and meeting up with old friends. I also stopped by my old high school, which was fun. When I got home, I had been travelling for five months. It was an amazing experience, and I haven’t regretted it for a single moment. I visited so many cool places, met wonderful people and learned a lot. Probably the best period of my life (so far).

The summer went past far too quickly, and in September, I started on my year in the navy. After two months of boot camp, I started the armed forces’ medic course, which I finished this Friday. Seven very long and very hard, but also very fun weeks. My next posting is on a coast guard ship, but that isn’t until the end of February, which is why I’m here, in beautiful Thailand. After I learned about my time off between postings, I thought about traveling. On Monday, I got an email from a travel company with various offers, amongst these a two week trip to Thailand. I booked the tickets on Tuesday, and left on Saturday morning. By myself. YOLO

Anyways. This is nowhere as ’’big’’ as my last trip, but I figured I’d write a couple of posts anyways, as a diary for myself, if nothing else.

The journey from door to door was quite eventful. Hightlights are the following:

- I forgot to charge my phone (and alarm) - nearly missed my train (and flight)
- ended up between a very large guy who occupied a third of my seat and a very creepy guy, talkative guy (the flight was 12 hrs)
- Got shanghaied by the infamous taxi mafia at the airport, driver had no idea where we were going. I had to talk on the phone to his boss, trip ended up talking twice as long as it should have, and I still had to pay the overcharged fee
-Lobby was closed when I got there (5:30 in the morning), had to wait at a nearby cafe for two hours

But when I finally managed to check in, the place was great. A bit out of town, but very nice. Big, comfy room, pool on the top floor ** all for a good price. The next two days I spent around Phuket town. I went to the Big Buddha, which is Phukets version of Cristo Redentor (the big jesus overlooking Rio de Janeiro) It’s 45 meters tall and it sits on a hill with a 360degree view of the surrounding area. Very nice! Construction is still in progress, and you are able to help by buying stuff, such as a bag of cement, cast-iron rods , sand for foundations etc.. You can also buy a marble tile and write a greeting on it, which then will become a part of the monument. All of these things were relatively cheap, so this was a very cool way of doing it, instead of just saying ’’please give’’. While I was there, I also got blessed by a monk. Good shit.

My next stop was Wat Chalong, a nearby temple complex. Golden roofs and statues, ornate doors, everything was very well made and very detailed. On my way back to town I stopped at a shooting range and tried shooting a few rounds with a .45. It was very fun, and it felt a lot more powerful than the HKs we use in the navy, but I still sucked though. To my parents great relief, I’m not going to become a mercenary any time soon...

The last stop of the day was at a massage parlor. As I laid there getting stretched, I discovered that I had way more joints that I thought I had. That lady pulled me in some weird positions... I also discovered that I was sore in muscles I didn’t know I had as well. It was nice though, and I felt good afterwards. And it was cheap (250bath~40NOK). Less than one tenth of what it would have been back home. Awesome.

The next morning I set off for Koh Tao, and island a bit further north. This island is pretty much all about diving, and its kinda like Utila (where I spent a month last year), only bigger. Kinda lika a big, asian cousin. Same vibe. I havent been able to do any diving here yet, but the place is beautiful. White beaches, blue ocean, palms, nice people, good food, good parties. I think Im going to like it here. Hopefully I will be able to get off the island in time for my flight...

Thats all for now. (pics to come)

See ya!

Last post from Central-America!

A couple of days after my last post was may 17th, the Norwegian national day. In Norway this is a big thing, so the Norwegians in San Juan (Kjersti, Maren, Kaja, Tommy and myself) decided to celebrate as well. Despite being a bit “tired” from the pub crawl the night before, we started the day with champagne breakfast, fruit and the Norwegian flag. After breakfast we went up to Naked Tiger, a beautiful hostel in the hills overlooking the city. Word soon got out that we were celebrating, and soon everybody joined the celebration of “Norway day” as it soon got called. We had more champagne and strawberries by the pool, and to do a local twist, we had the piñatas. Three of them we got, a spiderman (for Mike), a creepy rabbit and a huge Winnie the Pooh. These were filled with candy, and later bashed to pieces with a bat. Happy Norway day indeed! The rest of the day was spent relaxing by the pool, and in the evening we went out and had a lobster dinner. All in all, a different, but very successful May 17th!



At this point I had stayed in San Juan longer than planned, so the next morning I went towards the Costa Rican border. On my way I caught up with Eloise, Andy and Mattie, and we all joined forces. The first part of the journey went without problems, but when we made it to the border, it turned out that there were some technical difficulties. Thus we had to wait in the sun for three hours. When we finally left, we discovered that we were too late to get our connecting bus, so we had to stay a night on our way to Monteverde. When we finally got there, it was well worth it though. It is high up in the mountains, the nature is beautiful, and it is nice and cool. It started raining the second we got there, but we all agreed that it was nice to be wet from rain instead of sweat, for once. Groce, but true.

Next morning I got up early to do zip-lining / canopying. 21 different lines back and forth across the canyon, including swings and a 1km supermanline. This was very fun, but it was only a warm-up for my next activity: bungee jumping. I was a little bit scared when the cable car started moving, but it was nothing compared to the feeling I had when I jumped off it. The first half of a second is awesome, because you are jumping off. Then you start to fall, and you look down to the river 143mts below you. That’s when the fear starts for real. Going down and up changes from being terrifying to awesome and back again, but when you stop and you are just hanging there, and its quite nice to chill in the middle of the air. All in all, bungee jumping was an awesome thrill, but I don’t know if Ill get the urge to do it again anytime soon.

After this, I left Monteverde, and a couple of days later, I made it to Bocas del Toro, an island outside Panama. Here I have been the last few days, and I haven’t done that much. I have had a couple of dives (very nice dives, but not as good as Utilla), and relaxed in a hammock. Now I'm at he airport in San JJose, Costa Rica, waiting for y flight to NYC. It will be awesome to see all my friends from NYC again, but it is so sad to leave, because it has been an amazing trip! I won’t do a summary (yet), but I must say I have really enjoyed being here, and I have seen and done so many incredible things!

Adios!

Nicaragua

Hello!

After my previous post I stayed a few more days at DD where I went for a couple of walks, got a massage in the garden and read a couple of books. Pretty much nothing, which is awesome.

Anyways, when I finally left, it was May 1st, workers day. I didn´t think about this, so when I came to the Hondurian/Nicaraguan border, I got stuck. No buses. Luckily I had met a nice Nicaraguan girl on the bus, and she had a friend who picked her up in a truck. She also happened to have a mother who runs a hostel in Ocotal, close to the border, where I could stay. Furthermore, this girl worked in tourism, so she gave me all the tips I needed for travelling in Nicaragua. Every cloud has a silver lining.

The next day I left for Estellí where I spent a couple of hours touring a cigar factory. I tried to make my own cigar, but that didn´t go too well... After the tour I headed down to León, a city close to the Pacific coast. Main activity: Vulcano boarding.

Nicaragua has a lot of vulcanoes, and a few years ago an Aussie decided to slide down one of them. After trying car doors, fridges, snowboards and a few other things, he realized that a simple board/sled was the best thing. Thus, vulcano boarding was born. Today León is famous for the this activity, partly because its the only place in the world where its possible, and partly because its fun - a lot of fun! I got a top speed of 59km/hrs (40mph), and was fastest of the boys. This got me a free night at surf turtle lodge, a nearby hostel. Here I went the next day, and it is one of those places from paradise. The lodge is at the beach on a small island off the coast. The hostel was simple, but it was surrounded by palms, and it had an awesome view of the ocean. Furthermore, the sun was shining, the hammocks were comfy, and the drinks were cold. One of the better places I have stayed on this trip!

Next stop out was Granada, a nice colonial city a bit further south. I stayed here for a few days, but my cough returned, so I didn´t do much. I went to a nice marked, got another nice massage, relaxed by the pool and went out for cofees and pub trivias. I also had a job interview, so now I just have to keep my fingers crossed.

When my cough had gotten better, I took the ferry to Isla de Ometepe. The island lies in Central Americas biggest freshwater lake, and is dominated by two massive vulcanoes, Concepcion and Maderas (approx 1600 and 1400mts). A couple of hours after I got there, I decided to climb Maderas the following day. With me was an Irish couple, Desmond and Liz. I had heard that it was the thing to do on the island, so I didn´t get scared by the prospect of an 8hour trip. The thing that sucked was that we had to get up at 4am... Anyways, we got up at four and took the bus towards the vulcano. The bus broke down twice, so we had to walk a bit further than planned. After a breakfast stop at a local finca, we started climbing. The first thing I noticed was the difference from the vulcanoes in Antigua and Leon. Unlike those dusty and barren places, this was super green and lush and there were plants everywhere. The second thing I noticed was that the guide was in a terrible shape. We walked super super slow, and he stopped every 10 or 15 minutes to explain about some plants "to teach us about the stuff". It would have been a bit more convincing if he didn´t need to catch his breath before explaining... We made it to the top, and inside the crater, there was a big forest, and an open plain with a small lake. It was exactly like the vulcano in the the movie "You only live twice", except that this lake was real, and there were no bad guys hidden inside the vulcano (that we know of...) After lunch, we went back down. And it was a looooong way. When we finally made it to the bus stop, we heard that the bus, the last bus of the day, had passed early. Two minutes later it started raining. Rotten luck. But when we sat there, sad, tired and thinking about what to do, a tourist truck passed by and gave us a ride back. The luck of the irish finally came! When we finally got back it was 6pm, so the our 8hour hike had turned into a 14hour expedition. Awesome.

Despite the hike being a bit longer than planned, we rented bikes the next morning and went to Ojo de Agua, a small lagoon. The day after we all had to leave, and after a grand pizza-lunch, we went back to the mainland. Here we had yet another encounter with sneaky taxi drivers. "No more buses, last one left. No buses, only taxi. Special price for you, only 15 dollars. Very cheap, buen priceo. No buses, only taxi". After telling them to sod of for the umpteenth time, they finally left. And 30 minutes later, the bus came. Price: 1 dollar. Fancy that.

Now I´m in San Juan Del Sur, right on the pacific coast. I had my first surfing lessons on monday, and it was great fun!
Our teacher made a film of us, and you can check that out here; http://vimeo.com/66267631‏

Apart from surfing, San Juan is basically beach, pool and pubs, so thats nice. There are a few Norwegians at my hostel, so tomorrow we´ll celebrate May 17th, the norwegian national day. Wuhuuu! After a couple of months of going back and forth, I´ve finally managed to meet up with Mike whom I first met back in Antigua, and thats awesome as well. Hi Mike!

Ciaoo!

I'm alive!

Hello everybody!

Before I left, I said that if it went more than one week without any signs of life, you could assume that one of three things had happened. It's now been five weeks since my last post, by I have not been kidnapped, nor have I've been killed. It has been a combination of the other two, being too busy having fun and having bad internet. I'm sorry it took so long, but now I'm back! (with a very long post)

After I came back from Cuba, I spent a few days travelling down to Utila, an island off Honduras' carribbean coast. The first leg of the journey, from Cancun down to Chetumal and through Belize to Flores (Guatemala), went fine. The second, not so much. I spent 26 hours and seven different buses to get to La Ceiba. And finding these buses wasn't too easy either. People told me all kinds of different things, and I spent a LOT of time walking back and forth, waiting for buses that never came. And when I finally got a bus, the bus brought me to a different border crossing than I had planned, and I just wanted to pack up and go home. Travelling is awesome most of the time, but sometimes it sucks. And when it sucks, it really sucks, 'cause you're stranded in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the world with the closest friend a thousand miles away - if not more. But then you find a place to sleep , and the next day it's so much better. And I'm very glad I stayed, because the next afternoon, I made it to lovely Utila.
Utila is a tiny island at the edge of the Caribbean ocean. For tourists and short time visitors the town basically consists of one street. I had planned on staying there for one, maybe two weeks. I ended up staying there for five.

The reason I came to Utila was the same as everyone else - diving. Ever since I was a kid, I've spent more time under water than on the surface, and I have always wanted to learn how to dive properly. My plan was to take the PADI Open Water, the basic diving course. This is a four or five day course consisting of theory, classromteaching, videos, quizzes, shallow water practice, and then some proper dives. When you complete this course, you can dive anywhere in the world, and you are licensed to go down to 18meters /60feet. This wasn't quite enough, so I decided to to advanced as well, to be able to descend to 30meters. After this, I got infected, so I ended up doing wreck-, deep- and nitrox specialties, as well as rescue diver. Wreck enables you to enter wrecks (very, very cool), deep enables you to go down to 40meters, the deepest that's allowed for recreational diving, and nitrox allows you to use a special gas blend so you can stay underwater for longer. Rescue diver is basically an underwater lifeguard/first aid-course. You learn how to recognize and treat diving-related illnesses (which is quite a few) , how to surface with and treat unconscious divers and what to do if various situations occur, such as if your buddy runs out of air. The whole course ends in "the dive from hell" where everything goes wrong. Your instructors panics and tries to remove your regulator (mouthpiece) or other gear, acts crazy as if in narcosis and every other possible thing. The course is very fun, but also quite challenging and tiring, so I was glad when it was over.

Diving itself is awesome, and I love it. It's so fun to swim around, go up and down and float around. You see all kids of cool things, pretty corals, beautiful fish, turtles, dolphins, eagle rays, squids - the list is endless. And when you don't see anything but sand, it's enough just to swim around in the calm, silent sea. If this bores you, you can just fool around - do gymnastics, go for a moon run, skate or whatever. It's simply amazing !

When I wasn't diving, I spent the time relaxing, eating and hanging out. As I said, Utila is a small place - the guy you meet at the beach at noon is the same guy who will bring you dinner at Foo King at six and drinks in Tranquila at midnight. There's so many amazing people there, and you get to know them so well, especially when you're there for over a month. The staff and divemasters at Parrots, my diveshop, were especially friendly, and after a while, I got included in some of the staff activities, such as dinner at Alfred and Tatianas place (the owners) and staff dive at Honeycomb. For this I'm very grateful, and I miss Parrots and Utila already....

But even though I loved Utila, I wanted to get back on the road. So Thursday morning I left , exactly five weeks after I first came. I joined forces with four friendly Irish guys, Mark, Gary, Ken and Jack, and made my way down to Lake Yajao. Here I'm staying at a local brewery for a few days. The beer is so-so, but the location and surrounding area is beautiful. The hostel is in the middle of the forest, and all around are lovely tracks and paths, and of course, the lake. They also have hot water here, and today I had my first hot shower in six weeks - it was awesome!

Another thing, I have now booked tickets home. I will leave central-America on may 26th. From there I will go to New York where I will stay until June 3rd when I finally will go home to Norway. So, my friends in NYC and you back home, it's just to mark the dates in your calendars! It's going to be sad to leave, but it will also be very nice to come home.

As out can see, I've uploaded a bunch of pictures. For some reason, I can't add text to the pictures, but they are all from Utila. The order is messed up, but amongst them is a turtle, squids, a parrot fish, two normal parrots, a spotted eagle-ray, dolphins and a bunch of people. Enjoy!