Here are two videos from the Valentines Day Love Festival
held 14 Feb 2010 near Ban Apa.
Please right click the links and save the videos as they are HUGE, 242 MB and 161 MB respectively!!
I will update it as often as possible
but if I'm having too good a time to do it, well, Phuket! 
The rough trip outline is:
22 May 09 -Finally fly Sydney to Phuket (how
the hell do you pronounce Phuket?)
22 May to 28 May - Stay in Patong
28 May to 19 Jun - See the rest of Phuket and
its islands, train it to
train
it to Chiang Mai, then by road to Chiang Rai
20 Jun to 4 Jul - Volunteer Community
Development tour (this should be the most confronting and satisfying part of
the whole trip)
5 Jul for a bit - See the Golden Triangle and
sail down the
End Jul/Early Aug - Train it up the east cost
of
Aug sometime - Get to Hanoi, have a peak around then head
offshore to
Aug/Sep sometime - Fly from Hanoi to Denpasar, see Bali for a day or two then head next door to
TOP
Here
we go:
|
Well, I'm here in Patong Beach Phuket, the start of the journey. The
plane was an hour late leaving
|
No picture, you know what a plane looks like. |
Here are a few photos from
Patong and it's nearby beaches north and south. The scenery is amazing, just as
good as the postcards show. I reckon beaches back in Oz are generally nicer but
I haven't seen this sort of scenery outside of
Anyway that's enough for
now, enjoy the pics and await the next thrilling instalment:
The locals
are friendly.
The scenery gets better
around every corner.
The good
things you see at the Aussie Bar.
The Tavern
I stayed in for 3 weeks at Patong. Mai is the barmaid at the
Tavern.
Just south
of Patong
Beach. This is a restaurant that looks back to Patong.
North of
Patong Beach.
See what I
mean about building on
hillsides? A friendly
local.
This
group of pictures are all from the Big Buddha. It is 45m tall, sits on
top
of a hill and can be seen from most of the southern part of
These
pictures were taken when I went for a ride on a scooter north of Patong.
These
pictures are all of Wot Charon,
a famous temple on the south eastern side of the
I happened to capture a ceremony where this young kid was being
inducted to be a Monk. It was a great thing to be a part of. There must have
been 100 family and friends who took part in the ceremony. The whole temple
compound is full of beautiful buildings and you can see that the views from the
top of one particular temple are terrific.
You can
see the Big Buddha in the middle top of this picture.
I had a
ball riding this Honda CB400 for the day instead of the gutless scooter.
These
pictures are from Doi Suthep
temple in the hills west of Chiang Mai.
These
steps are so steep but the picture can't capture it correctly. There is a cable
car that you can take up to the temple instead. I took the cable car up!
A
beautiful waterfall on the way to Doi Suthep.
Well
we finally start the volunteer project. I met the group leader, Jessie, at her
guest house in Chiang Mai. Jessie and her boyfriend Mek
are really friendly and open people and so much fun to hang with. They run the
Happy Hippy Guest House. I met up with Jessie and the rest of the group in Chiang
Rai on Sunday 21st June then we packed ourselves into a ute
for the 45 min trip to Ban Apa, a small Akha hilltribe about 20 km north of Chiang Rai.
The main
part of our project is to work on this community meeting house. Drains
have to be dug, concreting the lower floor has to be finished, roofing has to
be done and 1m high walls of besser block have to be
built on both levels.
Ban Apa village. The Akha are a
tribe who were relocated from higher up in the hills about 15 years ago. They have
their own language and really don't consider themselves to be Thai.
This is the
gang. Yes they are all lovely women and yes I am the luckiest bloke in
This is Jessie
our group leader. It's just as well that she is fluent in Thai because between
our group we only know about 10 words of it.
This is
the local timber hauling contractor.
Besides
the construction work we also go to 2 local schools to teach the kids. They are
so young that we just usually end up playing games, singing, colouring in and face painting. We still aren't sure who
gets more out of it: the kids or us!
The
stairway to heaven, my penthouse.
My
penthouse.
We all bathe this way every day!!
Try doing this yourselves. No trick photography, just patience.
The gang and some locals having a quiet drink after a hard days work.
The gang kicking up its heels back at the Happy Hippy House for the weekend.
Me and Mek enjoying the best drink in the world; Jack Daniel's.
There are
some weird sights in Chiang Mai.
Kicking up our heels in a reggae club.
After a
fantastic BBQ dinner last night we had our own private fire dancing show for
hours. It was terrific and the local boys were only too happy to show us how
good they are.
I'll be back with more after the second week of the volunteer project.
La gorn.
