Whale

here are pictures of the minke whale i saw on the Great Barrier Reef, as mentioned in the post below

Trip Home 1: Goodbye Freo, Hello Cairns

dockers vs. north melbourne kangaroos

swan valley wine tour

Well here i am at 849 Britton Ave and its time to wrap up this bloggage. On my way home i traveled for a little over a week, going to the great barrier reef and sydney. but first here is a summary of my fun and busy yet bittersweet last week in freo:
-at some point my friend chris and i were interviewed for an article on our exploits with the yankaroos footy program we were in, since we took the most active roles in coordinating practices and such. if you havent read it yet here it is: http://www.nd.edu.au/news/fremantle/yankeroos_learn_aussie_rules.shtml
--friday we went out in freo one last time, hitting all of our favorite spots; bar orient for reggae night and shannon's birthday, Newport for the hard rock girls band, and then Metros for one last time at a typical aussie dance club.
--saturday chris and i got free tickets to another Dockers game from Tony the head of the Yankaroos program in thanks for putting in all the work we did throughout the semester. it was my 4th AFL game and we finally got to see a Dockers victory, only their 2nd on the year. that night we went to northbridge (perth's bar district) one last time, actually went to Mustang Bar, an American themed bar, that we had never been to before but it was still a good time and full of aussies. i walked back to the train by myself and took some pics of all our favorite night spots.
--sunday got up early and went on a wine tour of the swan valley with eddie, trish, and kate. it was rainy and chilly but we were in a bus so it was a really good time and we all learned a lot about wine, which we knew nothing about although we had been drinking lots of it since being in australia. if you were unaware, australia is very well known for its wines, being on par with california and italy; the swan river is the one that goes through perth and freo so not surprisingly the swan valley wine region is only about 20 minutes outside of the city. we went to 5 wineries i think and got to sample about 6-9 wines at each place. the first place, sandalford, was founded in 1840! the coolest thing there was that they had a $90 bottle of port and we went in a store room full of barrels of this port. there was $40,000 worth of the port in each barrel so all together the room was worth over $3 million! all the vineyards had really old grape vines, some being over 60 yrs old. we also got to go to a brewery and a chocolate factory.
-throughout the week the goodbyes had to begin; people began leaving wednesday i think. also i had to knock out my final 3 exams (2 the previous week), one each tuesday, wednesday, and friday.
-wednesday i went into Perth to have one last lunch with sara by her work, it was weird knowing we would probably never see each other again. later on everyone went to Orient for one last karaoke night (which happened every wed). it was great as usual, and us four guys from Port Lodge got to sing the last song. We belted out Piano man and all the 50 or so other study abroad kids put their arms around each other and sang along. it was a good way to go out.

so finally we can get to the bit about traveling, i realize i've written a lot already so i will try and leave out the useless details that i usually include in these blogs. anyways after my last exam friday afternoon i packed up, had a great spaghetti dinner cooked by my friend ashley in the P&O (other dorm), said bye to all the kids over there, then grabbed my bags to leave Port Lodge. a few of us were all taking the shuttle together and as they had been doing throughout the week, everyone gathered at the door to see us off. it was sad to go but it was cool to know that i had made so many new friends over the semester. tears were even shed but haha they were not by me or for me. flew out of Perth that night, watching the Perth-area lights fade away, replaced by the blackness of the outback was a moment full of meloncholy. arrived in Cairns 5am or so, Julie, Mandy and I got to the hostel around 8:30 after waiting for a shuttle (ok so maybe i will include useless details). walked around Cairns. its pronounced Cannes, same as the town in france. it is on the east coast and in far north of the state of Queensland. it was pretty small but it really just used as a staging ground for tours of the great barrier. great warm weather even though it was winter (close to the equator) after being in the more southern Perth on the west coast. we walked under trees full of hundreds of big fruit bats, which was neat cuz they were awake and climing around the tops of the trees.went to info center for a map and advice, rented a car, and headed up to the Daintree Rainforest around 12pm. The Daintree Rainforest is a World Heritage-listed natural site, is home to the highest concentration of ancient plant species in the world, and is the oldest rainforest on earth at over 135 million years old. the drive up into the rainforest took us along a beautiful road; alternating between steep rainforest and sheer cliffs on our left and the ocean on our right, it was just awesome. it reminded me of a prettier/more exotic drive along the california coast even though i had never been to california at that point. we had a few mix CDs of the Australian music that we liked and listened to them, together the drive and the music made the three of us really happy and excited for our travels, as opposed to sad about leaving WA. we stopped off at a lookout to enjoy the view further and saw people hang gliding pushing off the cliff.. looked crazy dangerous. we finally got up into the actual rainforest and took a short hike to Mossman Gorge. we saw brush turkeys and a neon blue butterfly along the way. the gorge was cool, there was a river with a lot of huge rocks, it kind of reminded me of big rivers in the Smokey Mountains. so harkening back to vacations down there i got the girls to join me in some creek-hopping. we got in at this wide, still part where it was about 8-10 feet deep. the water was freezing cold just like the smokeys but you got used to it. i swam upstream to some rapids, climbed over some rocks and got to a part that was kind of like a slide. it looked kinda dangerous and the girls were to scared but i jumped in and was wooshed downstream. it was great i did a few more times after battling my way back upstream and got mandy to do it too. we drove further north and soon the canopy enveloped the road. we crossed the Daintree River on a ferry, apparently there are two 10 foot crocs that live in that area but we didnt see them. got to another lookout, this time looking out across the whole rainforest to the ocean. our last stop was at a fruit ice cream stand that made its own ice cream from its own home grown fruit, it was really good we got 4 flavors in 1 cup: coconut, black sapote, yellow sapote, and wattleseed, all tropical fruits. i drove back to the hostel in Cairns after that, about a 2 hour drive as the sun set, after dinner i went to bed early.

the next phase of the Cairns trip, our 3 day snorkeling cruise of the Great Barrier Reef, began with a 6:10 pick up from our hostel. there were 30 people on the cruise and surprisingly they were all scuba divers. there were also about 6 crew members so the boat was at capacity. we 3 were the only snorkelers but it didnt matter as we ended up seeing all the same stuff as them. it took 3 hours for the boat to get out to the reef, a VERY rough ride but we slept since we were exhausted. we did three dives a day, and were also fed 3 delicious meals by a chef. the first day we didnt see any of the big cool animals but i realized how huge the reef was.. the great barrier is the world's largets coral reef system, comprised of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands over an area of 133,000 sq miles. at the Ningaloo Reef we hit up over easter break back in march you could always see the bottom and you would just snorkel around coral formations no bigger than the size of a room. Here the coral stretched in every direction as far as you could see, and often as we crossed the chasm of open ocean between the boat and the reef the floor was too deep to see and the coral formations would rise out of the depths, who knows how many stories tall. the fish and coral were incredible but like i said we didnt see any of the big animals everyone comes to see. it was interesting to note that the biggest fish congregated underneath the boat, probably waiting for food scraps.

the second day our wakeup call came at 7:30am and we got into the water at a new dive site soon after, on our 3 dives that day we saw 2 sea turtles (got to swim with and all around one) and a stingray. we also got to lay out a bit that day, as it finally got a bit sunny. most of the rest of the time it was cloudy and really windy and a bit chilly. that night the girls taught me how to play rummy which was fun.

our third and final day on the reef started super early in order to fit 3 dives in before the journey back. we were in the water by 6:30 with the sun low on the horizon. our first dive of that day we saw a small white tipped reef shark, no more that 3 feet long. we had just gotten back on the boat and dried off and warmed up when we were informed that a whale had been spotted. so we jumped right back in and got to see a minke whale up close and personal, which was definitely the highlight of the cruise. all 30 of us were in the water holding on to a rope with just masks and snorkels on, and it would swim past us, back out into the depths, then back. it kept circling around us for a long time investigating, only about 30 feet away or so. it even swam right underneath us once. it looked exactly like a humpback whale but was only about 12 feet long--minkes are a smaller whale species. still it was awesome to be able to swim with a whale; one of the guys back at the dive shop said he has been working at Pro Dives for 8 years and diving his whole life and has never seen a whale. our last dive was a good one too.. the coral at that site was the most colorful and varied yet. we also saw another shark, which was surprisingly being chased by a larger fish, and saw the biggest fish we had seen yet, this 4 ft long parrot fish with a large boney protrusion on its head. it looked really old and moved really slow, so it looked like it was from the dinosaur times. on our way back in to the boat we also saw a line of 7 squid, i chased them and they changed all sorts of colors but never broke their perfect linear formation. after that it was another bumby 3 hour boat ride back into Cairns and they took us in a van over to the airport for free after we picked up our luggage from the dive shop.

---first lookout, right off the road -river in the Daintree close to where we got in
-mossman gorge
-great barrier reef, notice the wave break three miles out from land
-sunset on the great barrier

Thailand Part 2: Phuket

Continuing on with my week-long trip to Thailand, this post will be about our time on the island of Phuket (pronounced poo-ket). So after leaving Bangkok and the Prince Palace at around 5:30 am, we got into Phuket at about 7. There were three of us on that flight, so we had to wait about half an hour for the next flight, and the rest of our friends to arrive. Dan and i had signed up for the free ride to our hotel, and we were met with a man holding a sign for us, which was pretty baller. The island turned out to be really big, it took about 40 minutes to drive from the airport to our hotel, the Sunset Beach Resort. Located just to the north of Patong Beach and the town of Patong, we were literally right across the street from a beach on a large bay. Our place was really amazing, it was centered around an awesome little pool. There were palm trees all around it, an upper level pool that had a waterfall, and two pool-side bars. Placed in such a beautiful resort, with really hot weather and an inviting pool, we decided to lounge all day and enjoy our surroundings. After such an early morning the pool felt so good and everyone took advantage of the pool side bar service, drinking a few Changs each. I was starving so I had some delicious Thai chicken noodle egg dish delivered and ate it in the pool, which was amazing. Later that afternoon I watched some TV, which was exciting in and of itself. They had about 20 channels so i watched rugby and Euro soccer, as well as a bunch of American movies; there wasnt anything like that in Bangkok and even in Australia we only have 3 channels so it was a treat to veg out while watching the tube. I eventually ended up falling asleep and got a good little nap. That evening Greg and I decided to go down to Patong and scope out the scene for later, instead of being cooped up in the hotel even longer. We caught a ride into the city and it was CRAZY. There was a few main strips, and they were all like Khao San road on crack. The venders heckled even more and the promoter girls were even more in your face... we walked all around, we would go down a main road with tons of shops and big touristy bars but then there would be little dark alleys branching off that would be completely lined with tiny little open bars. It was clear that most tourists stayed away from these places, since the Thai girls promoting these bars went crazy over us, grabbing our arms and stuff. Ha one even grabbed my nipple, which was interesting. Having our full, we rode back to the hotel and had dinner with everyone. I got some ginger beef with oyster sauce, it tasted exactly like that ginger beef dish that dad makes sometimes.. we ended up eating at the hotel A LOT, since the food was good and cheap, they had lots of nice table areas, and we could put all the food on a tab to be paid later (handy for me as i never had any cash). We hung out in our rooms for awhile before going back downtown, this time with the whole group and looking to hit the bars. Who knows why we picked the one place we did out of the hundreds of bars, but it had 20 stripper poles, all with fully clothed girls dancing on them. Some of our girls jumped up on stage to try their hand and then murph and steve decided to put on a show as well which was hilarious. For those of us not stage/pole dancing inclined, there were some jenga sets laying around so we played jenga. It was pretty weird to be playing jenga in a thai bar with neon lights and pole dancing going on. we stayed out late and went to a few other places before eventually calling it a night.

The next day, wednesday, we had a elephant rides lined up through the hotel concierge but it was not until 4pm so we had another day of poolside relaxing. I ordered my first room service in my lifetime (hamburger and fries... also the first western style food i had ordered in thailand up to that point), and watched some more TV. However I was getting antsy and wanted to see more of the sights instead of laying around all day so i got i took the free hotel ride into the city and checked out the city beach. I had to go by myself but i like adventuring so it was ok.. the beach was more of the same, with vendors walking up and down the lines of chairs trying to sell stuff and so many jet-ski rental operators heckling. It was difficult to find a place to just sit by myself but i did. It was extremely hot tho so i didnt stay for long, and walked down the beach back to our hotel, which took about 40 minutes. There were a bunch of tiny crabs that were burying themselves into the sand so that entertained me on my walk. So finally it was time for our elephant ride, and we were driven out into the jungle to the company.. but on the drive out we got to see a wild elephant off in the distance and water buffalo roaming about which was sweet. we got to pet and pose with a baby elephant, who was also able to do a few tricks like doing a handstand and playing a harmonica through its trunk before we got to ride the big ones. We rode two people per elephant, sitting on a bench strapped to their backs. every elephant also had a driver, who just sat on its head. It was an hour ride through the jungle and was so cool, we crossed rivers, rode through rubber tapped-trees and actually got to drive the beasts ourselves; the drivers jumped off and we took turns sitting on its head. By the time we got back it was getting on in the evening so we ate at the hotel again before going out back downtown, where again we sang on a stage.. I dont know what it was but the Thai bands LOVED for us americans to sing and dance on stage with them.

Thursday, my last full day in Thailand, was my favorite by far. We got up early and were driven to a marina where we were to go on a cruise of the islands surrounding Phuket. I almost missed the tour again but i was able to barely get up in time. luckily on board they had snacks and drinks for us. we got on a big speed boat (probably 25-30) people in all and sped off. The scenery we saw that day was absolutely amazing, even though it was anywhere from an hour to 30 minutes between stops, it didnt matter because we marvelled at beautiful scenery the whole time. There are thousands of islands in the area, ranging from tiny tree-covered rocks to ones large enough for habitation in the area, and the water was such an awesome green-turquoise color and the clouds were so huge and magnificent. Most of the islands seemed to just straight up out of the water with sheer rock cliffs and no beach. Our first stop was Maya Bay, where the film The Beach with Leo Dicaprio was filmed. our boat squeezed through a narrow passage and we were in this awesome lagoon where we got to go swimming and walked back through the forest a bit. Then they took us around to the other side of the island where we snorkeled for a bit. At this stop and all the others there were schools and school of these green fish with blue strips that we could feed bits of bananas to, they would swarm around you and even eat it from your hand. Then we went to Monkey Island, and although the tide was up completely covering the beach, they were able to take the boat in right under a tree where a lot of monkeys were and we tossed them nuts. After all this it was lunchtime and they took us to an island (Ko Phi Phi, pronounced ko pee-pee) where probably the only thing on it was this really fancy resort, where we got to eat a delicious thai buffet lunch. So yummy and so scenic. Our last stop was at Ko Khai (ko means island), where we were given a few hours of leisure time to relax and explore before heading back in to Phuket. We got back around dinner time and that night i went to bed early as our flight back left early in the morning.

After a short flight from Phuket to singapore, a long layover in Singapore, and then another flight south, we were finally back in Perth. Our time in Thailand was great, we go to see incredible sights and do crazy things that we couldn't do at any other place in the world; it was definitely the trip of our lifetimes. However, at the same time it was such a nice feeling to be back in Australia, and back amongst a culture that we knew and understood. Back home in Fremantle we breathed in the fresh clean air and relished being able to walk down the streets back to our dorms unaccosted. The next few days we all suffered from varying levels of sickness as our systems detoxed from Thailand, and a sense of melancholy set in as we buckled down for exams and realized we had a scant two weeks left together in this wonderful land down under.

click the pics

View down from my balcony at Sunset Beach Resort

kate and i on our elephant
bros at Maya Bay
Walking back to Maya Bay

snorkeling
yes, the water was actually that color
Ko Phi Phi, where we ate lunch
niceee
some of us at Khai island

Thailand Part 1: Bangkok

It has been a long time since i last blogged, but this post and the next will surely make up for the wait. The reason i haven't written in so long is because the month of may was extremely busy school-wise. Here in australia they pile on all the essays and assignments in the last month of school, meaning i had anywhere from 1 to 3 papers due every friday in may. obviously we all did not have time for any trips and just hung around the freo/perth area the entire time. going to another footy game (dockers-bulldogs) and also a rugby match (the local western force vs some NZ team). however the first week of june finally rolled around, meaning the end of classes and a whole week off before exams so we all took off for a week long vaca in thailand. there were about 20 people total in our group, about half from port lodge and half from P&O, the other dorm. our port lodge group was comprised of notre dame, iona, and sacred heart students and the P&O group are all from st johns/st ben's in minnesota. but we have all been hanging out all semester so there weren't any divisions.
we flew from perth at nighton friday may 30th, at 9:30 i think, with a long stopover in singapore until around 5 or 6am. but before we left perth i realized i didnt have my wallet with me. luckily i phoned our shuttle service and they had it; apparently it had fallen out of my lap while i was collecting everyone's money. they dropped it off back at the dorm but it was too late for me so i had to borrow money from everyone all week.
singapore was pretty uneventful. we ate, realized we were minorities, and were surprised that english is the country's first language. we had to go through customs tho, even though we weren't leaving the airport, which was a bummer. our next short flight got us into bangkok around 7am. the bangkok airport was absolutely massive, the biggest many of us had ever seen. makes sense tho, as the city has about 9 million people in it. after collecting out bags and going through immigration we got our introduction to thai heckling, as we entered a lobby and about 5 cab companies accosted us. we got two big vans and were soon on our way. driving on the highway was crazy, there were big billboards saying "long live the king" and the city seemed to never end. boline and i listened to thai radio on my zune. it was my first experience being in a country that didnt speak english.
we arrived at the Prince Palace Hotel around 9:30am and checked in. the place was absolutely massive, with four big towers and what seemed like miles of richly furnished lobby space in between them. i forget the exact number but there is between 650 and 700 rooms in all. murph and i were in a double and thus in a separate tower from the rest of the group who were in suites so we dropped our bags off and explored the hotel. it had 2 pools, several restaurants, a spa, gym, you name it they had it. seriously the hugest hotel ever. and the cool part was that there were such awesome views from every location. every room, every elevator lobby, and especially the pool areas looked straight out at the city, since it surrounded us.
once everyone was settled in we went out to find brunch. we ended up in a mall type thing next door to the prince palace going up to the food court, but a few of us were eager to go experience the real bangkok so eddie, trish, and myself split off from the group and set off exploring. we got our first tuk tuk ride (three wheeled motorcycle taxi) and did our first bargaining, paying a mere 20 baht for the ride, which is about 60 cents (30 bahts in 1 US$). we went to the Golden Mount (labeled elsewhere as the golden mountain, mount was probably an english typo, there was incorrect english everywhere even in official pamphlets and signs), also known as Wat Saket. Wat is the thai word for temple, and this one was a big pure gold temple on top of a big hill. after a long climb we got to the top and were offered breath taking views of the city. you could walk 360 degrees around the top of the mount and it really made us realize just how massive bangkok is. there were big buildings as far as the eye could see in every direction. it was a great view. it was also cool to see people worshipping in it, there were numerous shrines or something where people would kneel and pray. oh yeah, and it bears mentioning that all of these wats were buddhist. next we walked to the next closest wat on the map. we walked over one of bangkok's numerous sewage filled, disgusting smelling canals before arriving at (wat?) Loha Prasat. it had both the typical golden oriental looking decorated temple and also a big black and white one. we took a spiral staircase in the center of the building all the way to the top for more great views. this one was cool because all 5 or 6 floors had walls that were arranged in a sort of a thatch-work or crosshatch pattern so that at each intersection you could see the outside in 4 directions and a the end of each 4 directions was one of the many buddhas that lined the outside of the complex. its difficult to explain...
on the way to our next stop we walked past a leafy alley where there were a few food carts set up. It looked good and fresh and not iffy like a lot of the other food stands so i insisted we get it. the lady didnt speak any english so we pointed at what we wanted and were served some absolutely amazing stuff. it was chicken stir fried with diced chilis and some leafy thing maybe basil? along side a fried egg and on top of steamed rice. it was so good and really spicy. i was glad bottled water was only 10 baht (30 cents). probably the best food i had on my entire trip.
we then walked further and passed by the big democracy monument, four prongs sticking up into the air in the middle of a traffic circle. interesting to note since i believe the king seized power within the last few years for a certain amount of time before handing power back over. currently they have a constitutional monarchy, and everyone loves the king. i guess he has given a lot of money to the burma disaster but we also wondered if everyone was just saying that they love him because i think it is illegal to speak ill of him.
next we walked to Wat Suthat and the giant swing which was used for ceremonies in past times. there was some sort of organized prayer going on, with a bunch of people inside and prayers being broadcast on speakers outside. Buddhism is very strange, from watching people at all of the temples i still can't figure it out. it involves burning incense, laying flowers at shrines, putting money in donation boxes, kneeling on prayer rugs in front of statues, shaking the incense sticks inside of their case, pouring water on one's head and possibly in tubs of lotus pads. also there were crazy amounts of buddha statues of all sizes at every temple. it was strange also that they let us walk around and do whatever as they worshiped.
our next stop (wow we did so much in this one day) was Khao Son road, where a lot of westerners and other tourists congregate due to the shopping, eating, and nightlife. here we got our introduction to the thai vendor, every stall you walk past has someone come up to you and try to shake your hand and talk to you and basically suck you into looking at their shop. same goes with tuk-tuks, if they see a white person walking down the street no matter where you are about 3 will run over to you and see if you need a ride. also, many try to trick you by saying the place you want to go is closed and that they know of a place that is open or a place that is better. or while you are on your way they try and take you to a suit shop or something. this is because they have connections to certain shops where they can get commissions. but anyways back to khao son road, there was all the knock-off and illegal merchandise that you could imagine, from brand name clothes, bags, and shoes to dvds and music. all for dirt cheap if you bargain right. i didnt buy anything though, and on a whole did not get much throughout the week as it was just too much of a hassle to keep asking people for money.
that night (keep in mind, still the first day, saturday), after some serious nappage a few of us went to a muay thai boxing arena. originally all 9 or so of the guys were going to go but it ended up just being murph and steve and i. for 2,000 baht (60 bucks) we got transportation there and back and 9 fights. we got a bite for dinner in a little hole in the wall restaurant by the arena. it was the kind of dirty little place that absolutely no one would eat at in the US or australia, but hey when in thailand. the boxing was awesome, for those who don't know muay thai boxing is thailand's national sport and an absolute brutal mix of kick boxing. we had ringside seats and there were 55 baht (approx $1.20) beers, which was dirt cheap compared to what we are used to in australia. the fighters were kind of young, clearly not professional but still the fighters got older as the fights advance and thus more disciplined. we made friends with our beer server, named Kunk, and she actually gave us a free ride home when the night was over. the three of us went to one of the pool decks and enjoyed the views of part of bangkok's skyline lit up at night.
FINALLY we got a good nights sleep, although on sunday we did have to wake up early. we got an amazing continental buffet breakfast and then 14 of us piled into the vans and were driven out into the country to the famous floating markets. after an hour drive we arrived and were given two 7 person boats with drivers. it was really cool we drove through palm forests and past people's shacks on the canal until we go the market which we stalls that we could barter and buy from right from our boat without getting up. all i bought was a little thing called a thai pancake which was like melted marshmallows with citrusy pepper inside a taco shell. only 5 baht (15 cents?). we got to a larger central part and it appeared that people had arrived on land at restaurants where the cooks had paddled up from their houses and were making food on the water. after the long drive back during which most of us fell asleep, i and some other relaxed at the pool.
for dinner dan, steph, jess v and myself were hooked up by our hotel concierge with a ride to a nice clean restaurant where we enjoyed good thai food and some thai dancing. after wards we came back and hung out with everyone in the big group before grabbing tuk-tuks up to Khao Son road to see what the night life was like. we went to a place called Lava bar, where lots of crazy things happened, included one guy (jeff), being handed a thai baby by its parents to hold outside the bar at 3am as we were leaving.
on our last day, monday, we were supposed to go on a huge scenic tour set up by the concierge of the grand palace and some other places but 7 of us slept in too late and missed both breakfast and the tour time. but we decided to make the most of our day and go to the grand palace on our own. one stayed behind so the 6 of us went next door to the mall food court for brunch. it was my first time there and it was actually pretty good and of course, really cheap. and i got those candy chocolate and strawberry sticks that we used to buy at the hong's food store, which was fun. we took a couple tuk tuks to the grand palace, first stopping off at a suit store since our driver gave us a free ride if we looked inside for 10 minutes (he got free gas out of it). we decided to get a guided tour of the grand palace complex and i'm very glad we did since it was such a massive place with more temples and royal buildings that we really had time to see. i really cannot describe everything we saw, everyone there had their breath taken away and we all agreed that words and pictures just could not do it justice... luckily i took some video... there were a bunch of temples, some holding sacred buddhist scriptures, some holding relics, some holding ashes of former kings, one holding a dolid block of jade carved into a buddha, also there was the coronation building, the royal reception hall, the royal guest house, and others. oh and we also got to see the royal collection of weapons. it was a bunch of old weapons, no firearms, but it was still cool. i mean, what guy doesnt like weapons? of course i thought of rj this entire time, i feel like the royal collection of weapons is something you would excitedly blog about too.
after about an hour and a half, maybe two hours, our tour was over. the st johns guys headed back to prince palace and myself and eddie, trish, and jesse o decided to go on a boat tour of bangkok's main river. it was kind of uneventful, esp since i had already been on a boat in the floating markets but this was still cool because the river was so big and there were big ships around us and big buildings. it took us to bangkok's most famous temple, Wat Arun (temple of the dawn... feel free to wikipedia any of these names), and also to the reclining buddah, which was a golden statue of budda lying on his side. the thing was about 30 yards long, just unnecessarily big but cool just for its novelty.
after the hour boat tour it was late afternoon and the 4 of us again went to khao son road. they got massages but i was out of cash for the moment so i wondered around my myself, getting pad thai from a street vendor for 20 baht (60 cents!) sat on the curb and people watched. i realize i keep mentioning prices but i still cant get over how cheap everything was. i got a tuk tuk home by myself and pooled it for awhile with the people back from the tour i missed in the morning. i dont remember what everyone else was doing that night for dinner but whatever it was steph, jess v and i wanted to walk around a little more so we tuk-ed it back to khao son road. we ran into some other from our group who were eating at an italian place but i thought that was a cop out so steph and i went across the street to and indian restaurant (a lot of indians have immigrated to thailand, along with chinese). it was soo good, i have been wanting to get indian food for awhile and this was the real deal. i got some sort of dish with mutton it was very good and spicy, i also took a tiny bite of this mini pepper on steph's salad and a few minutes later my mouth was on fire. i had to order some naan (indian bread) to save my life. after that we shopped for a little while and i finally bought something, a Polo brand polo shirt for only 6 dollars after some haggling. steph got all 4 seasons of entourage and 3 movies, 16 disks in all, for the equivalent of just over 3 dollars each. on the way back we stopped at mcdonalds and i got a cup of iced milo which was absolutely fantastic. Milo is a hot chocolate type drink made in australia and it was amazing served cold on ince, which you dont ever find in australia. that monday night i packed. 11 of us were going on to phuket for the rest of the week and the rest of them were staying in bangkok. it was at this point that i realized my 30gb zune was missing and the front desk wasnt too helpful in assisting me ing finding it. it was most likely stolen out of my room, since i didnt use it elsewhere. i guess there actually was a reason for having a safe in every room afterall.
anyways i had a late night looking for it and then we had to get up at i think 4:30 am to check out. check out was also an adventure as the front desk tried to scam a bunch of us, saying we took things out of the mini bar that we didnt, and broke things that were never used such as a coffee maker. it took over 45 minutes and we were still arguing with them but we had to catch our flight so we just said screw it and left. i guess we were not safe from the bangkok spirit of haggling even inside our supposed 4 star hotel. we were pretty steamed about that but in all the trip was really eye-opening and probably the craziest i will ever go on. to be in an asian country, where there is little english spoken and i was in a vast minority of people was so different and great.
well this post covers only friday night thru the wee hours of tuesday morning, and i still have to cover tuesday thru friday in the resort island of Phuket. For the sake of your eyes, my fingers, and also my grades since i have a final tmr, the phuket blog will be worked on at a later date in time. enjoy the pictures... remember click to expand:


bargaining with tuk-tuk driver

view of the prince palace hotel (big compound middle of picture) from the Golden Mount

democracy monument
inside of wat suthat
wat suthat

about to shove off at floating markets

floating market canal
grand palace complex
one of our pools
view from our elevator lobby

Kojonup: Small Town Australia

So a few weeks ago in April (maybe 2 weeks after the Broome trip) I got to spend a weekend in rural Australia. My friend Sara took me home with her to the town of Kojonup. I was excited to see this side of Australia, as so far I've only been in the city and outlying suburbs like Fremantle; after all, only 4 australian cities have 1 million people or more so most aussies live in non city-settings. It is common for young australians to move to the city after graduating from their country high school to go to uni or work, which is what she did. So Friday late afternoon i caught a bus out to her apartment in Como (a suburb between Freo and Perth) and we loaded up her car and set off. Unfortunately we were leaving during rush hour so we got stuck in the Perth traffic and then we had to put gas in the tires (or "tyres" as they're spelled here). So after the 4 hour or so drive we didnt get to her old house until 9 or 10. Her mom made us some fried steak and salad and we watched footy on tv for a little while until bedtime. We also had Milo (like hot chocolate) and Tim-tams (quintessential aussie chocolate wafer cookies). The first difference i noticed between the Perth area and Kojonup was the temperature. Koj is in the southwest of WA, which means its further away from the equator and thus closer to antarctic, so it made sense that it was colder. Also, as its going into Fall in australia now so that factors in. There were big blankets on the beds and they had an old-fashioned wood fired stove that pumped heat into all the rooms through vents like central heating.
Anyways we got up fairly early saturday morning to get our day started. It was pretty chilly compared to even the night before, i had to wear jeans and a hoodie for the first time this whole trip... haha terrible, right?... my buddies who were in europe can relate to that... After breakfast of eggs and aussie bacon (its much thicker and wider than US bacon, but also less crispy) I finally got to see where the heck i was since we had driven there in the dark. The house was on a bunch of farmland (called a paddock) and we looked around at everything for a little bit. There was a red-backed spider in her garage, which is one of the most poisonous spiders in all of australia which is really saying something cuz they have some dangerous things over here. So that was neat to see, bc i had read about them before i came. Then Sara drove me around the little town center, I got to see what Kojonup was all about; definitely a farming town, there were sheep everywhere. Wool is one of Australia's biggest "crops", and has a lot of historical significance in the forging of Australia's national identity and economy. For those readers that have read In a Sunburned Country, you might recall the part about all the big tacky statue things, and appropriately, Kojonup has a massive wool-wagon. We also checked out the fresh water spring that originally drew white settlers to the region. So then we came back to the house and set off with her mom and her mom's boyfriend on our big adventure of the day. We drove further into the southwest, stopping at a bunch of little towns along the way such as Bridgetown (where we saw the old "gaol" the old time spelling of "jail"), Pemberton, Denmark, and Manjimup. There was a bunch of driving between each place, 1 to sometimes 2 hours with nothing but farmland in between. It made me realize how big australia is... our 1-2 hour drives to columbus and cincinnati would be no sweat to an aussie. Along the way we got to see lots of natural wonders too. From town to town when not in farmland we were traveling through several national parks and our first such attraction was the Diamond Tree. A huge karri eucalyptus tree, you can climb up rungs driven into the trunk of the tree in a spiral all the way to a tree-house type lookout at the very top. It was awesome to climb all the way up... it was like a bigger version of the fire lookouts in the Smokey Mountains, except on top of a tree! And that's exactly what it was used for too in the past, a fire lookout. The top was chilly and windy and it was cloudy and sprinkling a bit but the view was amazing. We later went to the Gloucester Tree, which was the same deal in a different location but it was too crowded with annoying little kids and I didnt want to hold us up so we didn't climb that one. I did get to see a bunch of bright green parakeet-type birds there, they looked like something from a pet store in the US but apparently are a nuisance to the locals and Sara and her mom laughed at me for taking pictures. I guess it would be like watching someone take pictures of sparrows... weird. We next went to the Giant Tingle Tree. Tingle trees are another type of giant eucalyptus trees, and the one in question was hollow at the bottom and large enough to drive a car through. It is closed off to cars now, so we hiked down a short trail to it. Along the way i got to see a fantastic forest.. granted it was only in the upper 50s but it had just rained so it was all wet and there were lush ferns and huge trees everywhere, it was probably the closest to a rainforest that i'll ever be. I was reminded of the temperate rainforest in the US's pacific northwest (or at least pictures of it). Silly as it may seem, that walk was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Our last stop was the famous Tree-Top walk but unfortunately it was closed by the time we got there. Silly, it was only 4:45 too... everything closes soo early here. But it was ok, b/c the Diamond Tree was good enough for me, and cooler too from what i've heard. It was a pretty long drive back to Kojonup, prolly another 2 hours, as we had driven fairly far south. I got to see lots of kangaroos, though, which is always fun. It seems like they are very similar to deer in that aspect, coming out of the forest into the fields at dusk.
It was night by the time we got back to the house, and after dinner we again watched australian rules footbal on tv. Can i just say now that i love footy! both games we watched were really exciting, coming down to the final minute and all teams scored over 100 points. it also helped that the Rowe's had an HD tv... ok dad, now it's your turn. after that Sara and I watched Transformers (also superb in HD) before turning in fairly early; we were pretty exhausted from all the driving.
Sunday we headed out to Sara's aunt and uncle's farm. Formerly run by her Grandpa and Grandma, her aunt and uncle took it over when they retired. They are a wool farm with what seemed like hundreds of acres. we had a real aussie barbeque with lamb chops, sausages, and onions on the barby. while everything was cooking sara and i poked around the farm and checked out the shearing shed and the "chooks" (chickens) among other things. after lunch her uncle took Sara, her mom, myself, and the two little cousins out to the dams to check for koonack. Now i'm sure you all are wondering what the heck i'm talking about so let me explain. Every single aussie paddock (pasture) we passed while driving had a "dam", which is are square man-made ponds. whether used as a watering hole for animals or just water reservoirs i'm not sure but they all had them. Many farmers stock them with koonacks, which are big crawdads. We checked all the traps and got a big haul to take back so everyone could eat them later. that was pretty much the end of our trip to the farm, but Sara drove me out to a big lake they used to go camping and boating on, lake towerrinning. it was interesting to see such a large body of water in such a dry place. but it was still pretty chilly so we couldn't get in. That was pretty much it for our trip, we had to leave sunday afternoon to get back to the city since I had early class monday and she had to go to work. All in all it was a really nice trip, relaxing and nice to get out of the city and see a part of Australia that I had not experienced yet.

pics--click to maximize
real aussie verandah
deadly red backed spider
the paddock and house
wool wagon
diamond tree
view from top
on way back down, looking up
tingle tree
koonacks
lake towerrinning

Aboriginal for a Week: Broome and the Kimberly

For this post I'm going waay back to the beginning of april; we had a mid semester break (i would call it spring break but its fall here!) during which our whole dorm (about 35 people) went on a field trip for our Australian History Course. On this trip we flew way up north to Broome and then drove out into the bush to stay on Aboriginal land for four nights.
Our flight out of Perth was delayed so it was dark once we arrived in Broome. It bears mentioning that as Australia is moving into fall, daylight savings time has ended so now it gets dark around 6... bummer. Anyways since it was dark we couldnt go tour around Broome, which is a former pearling center and currently popular tourist destination. we spent the night at the NDAU Broome campus and got to see an australian possum while we sat outside and watched tv. completely unlike the american opossum. brown with a hairy tail, it looked exactly like something we would see at the nocturnal house at the cincy zoo, which was awesome because i love the nocturnal house. i suggest googling it. at the crack of dawn we woke up to meet our trip guides, the aboriginal Morgan family. They run a tour group called Wundargoodie Aboriginal Safaris and have been working with NDAU leading these field trips for ten years. We piled into their 4 wheel drives and set off for the Kimberly. The Kimberly region is a large area stretching across the top of Western Australia and is roughly the size of California. It is one of the few parts of Australia that is still mostly inhabited by indigenous people, and the point of this trip was for us to be immersed in and learn about their culture. The roads were all dirt which made for a bumpy 3 or 4 hour drive. They said that in the rainy season the road gets so bad that the drive can take 10 hours. We stopped off for lunch at a friend of Morgan family's house, which truely seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. She talked to us about all the mining going on in the area, as much the massive mining that is fueling Western Australia's economic boom goes on right in the Kimberly. It was our first experience hearing about the modern legal battles for land between natives and government. It is a sad fact that these and other indigenous people do not legally own the land where they have been living for over 50,000 years. In order to attain status as Traditional Land Owners they have to go to court and prove their continuous habitation and indigenous culture. Unfortunately many of the Aboriginals were sent to missions and driven off their land in other ways, only returning within the last 50 years. Also, their culture and language were suppressed in such a way that most can now only speak English and their children have to rely on special cultural days in school to learn about their heritage. All of this makes it extremely difficult to win legal rights to their land in court, opening the way to easy exploitation by mining companies and other whites. Fortunately, the Bardi-Jawi mob (tribe) which inhabit the Dampier peninsula we were driving to had won their case in the last and were finally legal owners of their land. Anyways after a lunch of sandwiches and damper, simple bread made of yeast and water cooked in the fire, we were back on our way. We stopped at the old Beagle Bay mission to see the old church. It was built entirely out of native materials and the inside was decorated beautifully with oyster shells, natural paints, and pearls. At some point during the drive we saw a frilled neck lizard run across the road, which was really cool. It runs on its hind legs and stood about a foot and a half tall with a big frill around its neck like the dinosaur that kills newman in jurassic park. Also, i forgot to mention that on our easter break trip to Exmouth a huge goanna crossed the road in front of our car. Goannas are the largest lizards in australia, kind of like a smaller komodo dragon. Anyways, after a little while longer we arrived at our camp site at Mudnunn, which was a small home site owned by friends of the Morgan Family who run small tours of their own. The rest of that night we set up our tents and went to bed after a dinner of beef stew. Its worth mentioning that the weather in the Kimberly was stifling. It was super hot during the day and never cooler than the 7os at night and very humid. It was difficult sleeping that first night in a cramped sweaty tent with 2 other guys and dawn could not come soon enough. we soon found out that what little relief the night brought in terms of heat was erased as soon as the sun rose, with it jumping back up into the 80s by 6:30 in the morning. The next three days-Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday-would start with us listening our main guide, Colin, talk about Aboriginal culture and his experiences being a native Australia. Unfortunately much of white australia is very racist still which is something we American students sometimes struggle with (something i'm sure Carrie can relate to). For instance it was only in February when we arrived when the central government formally apologized for the Stolen Generations (the decades when it was official policy to relieve native families of their children and attempt to "westernize" the kids. indeed it was a common belief that the whites could breed the aboriginal genes right out of the children by ... master race darwinism b.s.), and this simple apology is hugely controversial. It was refreshing to hear Colin's unbiased opinion on treating everyone equally. Later that sunday morning they took us to see something truly amazing. Out on some coastal rocks there are 11,000 year old human footprints. They are from men running out to hunt sea turtles and are followed by women's footprints which were visibly deeper due to the children they carried on their backs. It was so cool to see these prints, especially when you realize the pyramids are only 5,000 years old. These footprints are so much older than the pyramids and we saw boys walking along the same beach, hunting turtles with spears just as they used to. Granted the kids were wearing jean shorts and basketball jerseys, but still... It was interesting to learn that these footprints were vital pieces of evidence in the native title case, helping to prove the continuous habitation criterion. After lunch we went swimming while the aboriginals stayed on the beach to watch for salties, huge man eating crocodiles that live in the Kimberly. An interesting fact about aboriginal culture is how respectful they are; every speaks very quietly and have unassuming personalities. We were not allowed to swim until the local boss, Uncle Bundy, had officially welcomed us and given us his permission. The same went for pictures, we had to be officially welcomed to an area before we could take anything. In some instances we would be standing right by sacred ground and those were especially off limits for pictures.
After our swim we were driven to One Arm Point where we listened to an old lady named Auntie Irene talk to us about her experiences at the Sunday Island mission on an island across the bay. I never realized how many islands there were off the coast of Australia... there are thousands just in the north west where we were. She told all sorts of yarns, which is Aussie slang for stories, including many about her and other old timers' efforts to re-teach their culture to the younger generations who were deprived of it. It was also here that we first learned about the tides in the area... the area is home to the second highest tide in the world and as we stood there the water was rushing past-back out to sea-like a river which was amazing. We learned that the area is also a huge producer of trocha shells which along with tourism form the main money makers for the locals. We also heard about the problems with poaching, as Indonesians boat down and illegally take trochas, shark fins and sea cucumbers. Apparently it is a big, big problem... I didnt realize how close Indonesia is to Australia.
Every night after dinner we would all sit around the fire and play word games, which were fun. On monday after our usual talk with Colin we got to learn how to make a boomerang. A local aboriginal named Brian with the cool long white hair and beard started making a boomerang with hand tools and we all got to have a try at forming it with the hatchet. After we all had a whack he used power tools to save time and finish it off. After that Uncle Bundy showed us how to make spears out of long 8 foot sticks. You have to heat them in a fire to be able to peel off the bark and make it easy to bend and therefore straighten. After that we all got to try throwing the boomerang and our spears at a target. The boomerang was pretty hard to get right, and no they don't come back that's just a myth. They do, however curve through the air. They are traditionally used not for hunting but for settling disputes. When two men had a dispute they would go out into the outback and throw boomerangs until one was hit, then it would be over and they would drink tea together (albeit one with a broken leg or arm!)... The curving path of the boomerang made it tricky to dodge. it was in this way that conflicts were settled and there was no war between tribes. The spears were more fun to throw. The four guys had a big spear throwing distance contest and I ended up getting second. Later I speared the target from about twenty yards away on my first try which was awesome. That afternoon we went swimming again. That night one of Colin's sons, Robert, put on a didgeredoo demonstration. While people in the West Kimberly didnt traditionally play it, he had picked it up and of course we were eager to learn. After some brief instructions he passed around 2 of them so we could try our luck at it. After a lot of experimentation i was able to get it... Dan was really good and able to even do the dingo and other animal calls on it like Robert whereas all i could get was the base standard sound but still we were the only two that got it down. Then Colin told us creepy ghost stories around the camp fire, which would have been corny but it was about about the spirits he has seen and other creepy things experiences students have had with spirits on prior trips. Again, like the surfing trip the stars were amazing with the milky way in full sight. My favorite thing about this night besides the didg playing was when he showed us a massive emu in the sky. Not a constellation, it was rather a massive dark spot in the sky that formed an emu with one star as its eye that stretched across almost half the sky. Later after everyone had gone to bed, myself, Greg (guy from Iona) and Dan stayed out by the fire letting ourselves be transfixed by the stars which led to a great conversation about the meaning of life and other such deep topics.
Our last full day, Tuesday, started with a 6am wakeup to go crabbing. We drove out to a massive coastal plane, mud as far as the eye could see. We divided up into groups with one Aboriginal per group as a guide and went hunting for crabs. It was really neat to be walking on the ocean floor as with the massive tides, the area we were walking in would be under 30 feet of water in a few hours. We got to see depressions where stingrays had sat and even got to see croc tracks where it had walked along the ocean floor. The many rock outcroppings were where the crabs hit when the tide went out. We used long metal hooks to pull them out and wooden spears with metal rod tips to spear them once we got 'em out. We walked for hours in mud sometimes sinking up to our calves or knees but it was so worth it; i got to battle with and finally hook a crab and got to spear another one. As you can see in the picture these were the real deal: mud crabs sometimes two feet across. We also learned about a plant that the natives use to catch fish. Called fish poison, they mash it up into a paste and drop it into tidal pools where it deoxidizes the water, knocking out fish so they can just grab them with their hands.
After crabbing we went for our standard afternoon swim, our saltwater showers as greg, dan, and myself called it. Haha we chose not to shower the whole trip, 6 days! Needless to say everyone stayed away from our tent...
Tuesday afternoon we went to the Lombardina-Djarindjin community to visit the school. originally one settlement, it is now a divided community with a Catholic side and a secular side. The school was surreal, it reminded me of my friend Christina's pictures of African schools... there's really no other way to describe it. The the little kids were so cute, i wish i could have taken pictures but its frowned upon as the scars of the Stolen Generation and kidnapped kids still run deep. It was kind of sad to see the class sized dwindle as we visited older kids; we were told it gets difficult to keep older kids in school as they start to see no point in education... suicide and alcoholism are a huge problems in aboriginal communities. On a lighter note we gave gifts of sporting equipment, games, and coloring books to the kids and they sang us a song which was so cute. That night, our last night in the bush, all the local men who had been our guides throughout the week brought their kids to the campfire and we had a big thank you barbecue. I was able to sit down with Colin and talk with him and his family one on one for awhile that night. We talked about funny stuff like sleepwalking, yes Carrie i told them all about your adventures, but then switched to the more serious issues i was wondering about. It was really nice to talk to them and see what their thoughts were on all the aussie race-relation problems after hearing only white opinions for months. That night i was awakened by dingos howling which was terrifying at first but then cool when i realized what i was hearing... we saw their tracks on the road the next morning.
Wednesday i put on a clean shirt (haha) and we drove back to the Broome airport and flew home to perth.

PICS (click to maximize)
...somewhat out of order...


dirt road, made for fun 4 hour drive

beagle bay church
beagle bay
our ride
colin and i

djarin catholic school

playing the didg
huge mud crab
ancient 11,000 yr old footprint
one arm point, rushing tide
gum trees
homemade boomerang
spear i made, target i nailed
coastal plane where we crabbed