Bob

My last post left you hanging and where I met Bob. So here he is...Ladies and Gentlemen...Bob!
I heard about Bob before I met him. I was in Taman Negara and told some Swedish guy that I was headed to Krabi, Thailand. His immediate response was to go to the Reggae bar and tell Bob he said hello. Yes, Bob is a Thai Rastafarian with a reggae bar and quite possibly one of the kindest people I have ever met. The reggae bar happened to be across the street from my hostel, so I headed over and to relay the message and have a quick drink. That quick drink turned into a night of drinking with Bob, his sister and a few other locals. At the end of the night, I was asked what I was doing the next day, to which I responded 'Bob is taking me on a tour of Krabi, right Bob?'. Of course he had no plans of it and I was half joking but he agreed and told me to meet him there in the morning.
I did, even though I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn't and he was quite excited about it. I hopped on the back of his motorbike and off we went, to where I wasn't sure.
We first went to a beach North of Krabi where he had another bar, he only opens it during the high season and works on improving it during the slower times. He told me of his plans for a new rooftop area and a cozy cave like seating section inside. I insisted he install the hook game, if you don't know what it is, you are missing out.
The entire day was spent with Bob. He took me places I would have never seen on my own and taught me things no one else could. We had amazing conversations about life, Thai culture, food, Buddasim, being a monk, the Thai military, everything. He took me to a small waterfall where you could stick your feet in the pond below and the fish would nibble at your feet, eating the dead skin away. Nature's pedicure. We ate at some road side stand and I have no idea what I ate but I trusted Bob, and he was right it was delicious.
At the end of the day, I half thought he was going to ask for money. No one goes this much out of their way just out of the kindness of their heart, right. Wrong, Bob does. He was just happy to share his life and culture with me. I was equally as grateful. So instead of giving him money, I let him give me dreadlocks...with a crochet hook...3 of them. I also insisted on helping him in his bar that night, so we gave his sister the night off and I went to work with my new found love of Thailand, Bob, and dreadlocks.

A picture tells a thousand words...

The first question I hear when I return from a trip is 'How was it?' Well, it was good. That seems to be all I can say at times. It is hard to digest 2, 4, 6 months of travel into anything other than good or great. The next question/statement is usually 'tell me about it.' How could I possibly?? I have no idea where to start. Until now.
I finally got some of my favorite pictures printed and hung up on my wall. My good friend Meggie was looking at them one day and asked an open ended question about one, 20 minutes later I finished telling her a story around the photo. It became a game as she would point to a photo I would recall a story. And so it goes.
So whenever I get a chance I will post a photo and tell you the story around it, it may not be a thousand words but it will give you a good idea.

Jungle Train & travels

Leaving Taman Negara I was bound for Jerantut, one of the stops on the infamous jungle train. The train went straight through the heart of Malaysia and was suppose to be a wonderful view and ride through the jungle. So i decided why not, it wasn't the easiest way to get to Thailand or the safest but it seemed intriguing. My bus arrived at 11:30am to Jerantut, I panicked a bit because I thought the train left at noon and I still hadn't gotten a ticket. Lucky for me, trains in SE Asia are notorious for running late. This one wasn't leaving until 6:30pm that night so I had plenty of time. Unlucky for me this town was pretty dirty and boring and since it was Ramadan, a lot of places were closed. I ran into a guy. Lee, who I had met while hiking in the jungle the day before. We were both going to Krabi, Thailand and decided to go together bc the border crossing is pretty dangerous on the east side. It is heavily patrolled by the Thai military and shootings and bombings occur quite frequently due to Malay Muslims battling for autonomy from the Thai Buddhists. Anyhow, We were able to meet up and ended up spending the next 2 days together trying to get to Krabi. We departed the jungle train at 3:30am into a sea of taxi drivers all charging 5x the price it would normally charge. Its not a matter of the money ($4 vs $.50) but a matter of principle so we decided not to go and sleep at the train station until the sun came up and the border opened. That lasted for about 5 minutes before the mosquitos started eating us alive. Next paln of attack, hitch hike into town and try and find an open hostel. No dice. We did find a food stall that was open who gave us a ride into town so we decided to go with that, but the whole town was dead, not a light on and no where which looked open at 4am. So we went to the one place that was open to wait out the sun and the opening of the border, McDonald's. So after spending a sleepless night on the jungle train I found myself in McDonald's, a rather busy one at that too.

After waiting for a few hours we finally decide to take a taxi to the border and cross over. The sun was rising as we walked over the bridge into what seemed to be a ghost town. We finally made it to a hotel to try and ask how to get to Hat Yai but no luck, After wandering around aimlessly for about half an hour we found a minibus that was headed our way! 4 hours later we arrive in Hat Yai just in time to try and find another minibus to Krabi. We both did some price checking to make sure we wern't getting screwed and ended up in an air-conditioned mini bus all to ourselves. We kind of looked at each other and were really excited, but it was too good to be true. 15 min later we were moved to a different minibus packed full of people and lucky us, we got the back to ourselves. Thing is it was maybe one and a half seats and the luggage was hovering over us so it was going to make for a very long 6 hours. Oh and there was a DVD on playing some kind of Thai Justin Timberlake/Cheech & Chong/an  adolescent named Gumby and some drag queens. Apparently thew mini bus got the box set of the concert because we had uninterrupted 7 hours of pure Thai entertainment. It was horrible. Eventually we made it to Krabi and couldn't have been happier. That's where I met Bob.

Pinky Shakes & Petals

The day couldn't have started any better. I was having breakfast on one of Taman Negara's many floating restaurants and happen to strike up a conversation with 2 South African men who were working on a TV game show that was being filmed in the jungle. One of them stood up to introduce himself and gave me a pinky shake. Now this took me a little off guard considering the only pinky shakes I've ever done were in middle school as a bonding agreement rather than an introduction. Regardless it made me smile and there is no better way to start the day with a laugh and a pinky shake.

About the same time I finished eating a got up to pay a bus load of Japanese tourists began loading onto the floating restaurant. I'm guessing there were about 60 of them trying to squeeze onto this floating restaurant which couldn't have been bigger than 15ft x30ft. The South Africans must have seen the fear in my face as I realized that with every Japanese person crossing the plank onto the restaurant we were getting closer and closer to the water. They invited me to join them at their table, although I had to decline to catch the bus, pinky shake man sent me off with another smile. "All right Petal, lovely to meet you and safe travels."

Maybe it was the accent, although I'm not usually one for foreign accents, but this particular pinky shaking, petal calling South African made my heart sing that morning. Good thing too because the next 48 hours were spent in travel hell.

Squatting with the best of them

Apparently all Thai's and Nepalese are born squatting. You see so many people sitting comfortably squatting. Doesn't look that hard but try it once and i guarentee you will fall over. Erin and I have decided to make it our mission by the end of our trip to perfect the squat. We have had a few practice sessions and they mostly end up with us falling over. We met up with Erin's friend, ryan in Thailand. His wife is Thai and her parents were visiting from the north Although there was a immense language barrier we shared many laughs while this 60 yr old woman tried to teach us to squat. Pretty sure she is the best squatter in Thailand because i trip to tip her over a few times and she didn't budge.

If you want to try it just look at the pics, feet as close together as you can and butt almost touching the ground. Let me know how it goes.

Love/Hate Relationships

There are some things in life that people either love or hate. I don't like using the word hate but when it comes to India people I have spoken too either love it or hate it. My friend Kesse had someone tell her that India stood for I'll Never Do It Again. I'm off to India in about a week and headed there solo. Erin is going to stay behind and do a Yoga retreat in Nepal. Over the past week I have heard more good stories than bad about India but it makes me that much more excited to go and see for myself.
Speaking of love/hate relationship, I have one with kids. Sometimes I can't stand them and they annoy the crap out of me. But other times they can make me smile a smile that doesn't come around that often. One of those days was yesterday. Erin and I had gotten our permits for trekking Annapurna and both of us were not feeling well. We were walking down the street and had about 5 little kids run towards us and start waving and saying "Hello, Goodbye, Namaste!" It was maybe one of the cutest things I have ever experienced, they followed us for a block or so and just kept repeating "Hello, Goodbye, Namaste!" It's the little things (and people) in life that can really make you smile.

Malaysia/Thailand and beyond

I will write more when I have the chance. We are Currently in Bangkok and i need to pull together the highlights and thoughts of the last few weeks. We are off to Nepal tomorrow and then into NE India.