Ozzy Adventures part 1.

G'day mates!

First of all my sincere apologies for the terrible long delay in updating my blog. I know it must have been hard for you all, but hey! I make it up to you by writing an extra long blog (ooh noo :P) about the first 5 weeks or so (lost track of time again) of my adventures in the Land down Under.

Alright, let's go! At the moment I'm writing this blog from a camping at the Great Ocean Road in Australia. It's our last major stop before we reach the final destination - Melbourne - of our legendary roadtrip through Australia. And by 'we' I mean my brother and Tamara, my travelbuddy and one of the lead characters of so many stories from the beginning of my trip. Tamara decided to go traveling again for a month after spending some boring time back in Holland. So she joined me again in Oz. She's a smart girl!

But let's get back to the very beginning first. I left Malaysia 2 days after Jeffrey and after a flight of 6 hours I arrived in Perth. The capital of Western Australia and the most isolated city in the world. Why would I choose Perth over Sydney or Melbourne as the start of my trip in Oz? Well, I know quite some people from Perth. I met a couple of girls over the years back in The Hague who were working as an au-pair there. We became friends and when the girls left back to Perth they made sure I was welcome at their place if I ever decided to go there! Soooo, there you go... nice and cheap accomodation :P

I arrived at Perth airport damn early in the morning, where Amy was waiting for me to pick me up. The first thing you will notice in Oz is that EVERBODY seems to have a car the minute they turn 17 years old, and EVERYTHING is to far away to walk. Amy also had a car and we had to drive an hour to get to her place. She lives together with her cousin Kaitlin and from the very first minute they made me feel like home. Since the girls were busy with university and work most of the week, I basicly had to entertain myself for the first couple of days. But with the beach around the corner (ok, you could walk this one actually) I had no problem to chill for a few days with a book and some sun! (the locals actually envy me for my tan here - true story)

Fortunately for me, my best mate from Holland - Casper - was in Perth as well, since he was here with his ozzy girlfriend - Abby - for a holiday. Needless to say we decided to meet up and it was awesome to see one of my closest friends after a period of more than 5 months. To make it even better, Casper and Abby were 'house sitting' (looking after a house for a family on holiday) and they invited me to stay with them for a week. Also, I would be able to celebrate my upcoming B-day and invite some peepz. The house turned out to be a big villa with a private swimming pool in the back yard! Awesome! I didn't see any problems in staying there for a few days!

Together with Casper and other peepz, I went to an AFL (Australian Football) match which is extremely populair in Australia. AFL is like RUGBY only totally different, except that the players are still allowed to tackle eachother with brutal force! NICE ONE. A few teams were playing that afternoon and since I had no 'favorite' team, me and Casper cheered for the opposite team all the time, just to piss off all the ozzy people in our seat section! FREEMANTLE DOCKERS KICK SOME ASS WHOOOOOP!

Also we did a short trip up north a couple of days later. A 3 hour drive from Perth and we were in the outback already! We visisted a natual park which is located in the dessert. It's called 'the Pinnacle Dessert' and the place is filled with rocks (pinnacles) in all forms and (funny) shapes lol! Pretty cool to see (concidering it was my first 'dessert' experience after 5 months of jungle in Asia). The only annoying thing where the countless flies which are 'attacking' you the minute you leave the car. The crawl in your mouth, ears and eyes if you stop moving for a few seconds! Arghhhh!!!!

Besides that the rest of my first few weeks I was hopping from beach to BBQ-party and from BBQ-party to beach. I didn't do to many exciting things except for hanging out with the people I met and with Amy and Kaitlin ofcourse. The main reason for this was that my money started to run low, Australia is DAMN expensive and I needed my money for my upcoming roadtrip. I figured it couldn't hurt to try to get a simple job for a few weeks, to kill some time and to earn some money untill my bro and Tamara would arrive. To problem however was that it seemed fairly impossible to get a job for just 2 or 3 weeks without a working-holiday visa. But I dropped my 'Im looking for a job' line to everybody I met at every BBQ-party I came and just when I thought it was a lost case, I got a call from Adam (a cool dude I also met in Holland) who told me I was able to do some 'hole drilling' at the company he was working for. Eager as I was, I accepted without really realising to what I was saying 'yes' to.

That week I stayed at Grace's place. Another former 'ozzy au-pair' from The Hague and the sister of Adam. Gracie was kind enough for me to drop me off at the workplace every morning for a week at 6am! I felt so sorry for her to wake up that early, just for me! But so nice indeed :D (thanks again girl :-) ) And so I started 'operation hole drilling in Australia'. I thought I needed to drill some holes in walls or the floor with big ass machinery, equiped with a manly toolbelt and a helmet. Instead I found myself standing behind a small drilling machine, drilling 11.000!!!!!!! tiny holes in a plate of metal, which would turn out to be an 'air filter' in the end. It was impossible to got this job done by machine because.... they had no machine!! So instead, they used me, the ignorant stupid backpacker with nothing but time on his hands. I worked shifts of 11 hours a day and it took me 6 days to finish the job! But my boss paid my campervan for me, our rental verhicle for our AWESOME roadtrip through Oz. Although the job was - to put it gently - not the most 'exciting' work I've done in my life, I want to thank Adam again to hook me up with this. It helped me out a lot.

Being in Australia is pretty relaxing I can tell you! The first 4 weeks of my stay I haven't seen the temperature dropping below 30 degrees celcius so I figured it would be best to take it easy while I was here :P! People here are usually very polite (they actually stopped at a zebra crossing for me - after 5 months of Asia this was such a surprise again) and everybody says 'no worries'.

Ordering a coffee? 'yeah sure mate, no worries'. Want to take a piss in the restroom of a pub 'no worries champ, it's over there'. Wanna book a campervan?? In my case it was like this:

Me: Good afternoon, how are you?
CamperVan dude: G'day there mate, how are you today
Me: I'm fine thanks, I would like some information about rental campervans!
CamperVan dude: No worries champ, let's see what I have here
Me: Ok, I think I would like this one, I will come back tomorrow, I have to discuss it first with my friends!
CamperVan dude: No worries mate, see ya later... have a good one

It's all so chilled out here! I love it :D

The next day I booked my campervan indeed, and with that it was time for the roadtrip! My bro and Tamara arrived just a few days after my last day 'at work'. I had booked a nice 'Hi-Top' campervan which would be our home for the next 3 weeks. The trip has been legendary so far. We've driven more than 5000 km's already and we've seen mindblowing sceneries and lots of cool things! But I will update you on that topic very soon!

<< to be continued >>

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Marvelous Malaysia!

Followers, stalkers, friends and fans,

A fresh and exciting story you are about to read again. Composed and written in Perth, Western Australia. That's right, I have been living in the land Down Under for a good 3 weeks now, but oy, that's an whole other story which will be presented to you very soon!

What can I tell about Malaysia? Well, it is just an awesome, beautiful and amazing country, which lots and lots of interesting places. If I have to recommend an Asian country for people to visit on their 3 week holiday, it would be either Thailand for the partylovers or Malaysia for the culture- scenery- and nature lovers!I like both and, lucky as I am, I had the time to visit both countries :-D

So, that's why I flew from Bangkok in Thailand to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The capital of the country which is like any other city in Asia. Big, crowded, packed with traffic, and lots of noise. But it is a nice city as well, it's very well developed with of course - as the highlight of the city - The Petronas Twin Towers. Even when the WTC in New York was still the pride of the USA, the Petronas Twin Towers are with their 452 meters and 72 elevators the tallest TWIN skyscrapers in the world! Pretty impressive to see, whether you go there during daytime or nighttime.

I spent 2 weeks in Malaysia, together with Jeffrey. An awesome Dutch fellow whom I met in Cambodia 1,5 months ealier in Cambodia. We decided to meet up again here, since he had to get a flight back home and I needed to be in KL to get a flight to Australia. We met at the airport and it was like we only had seen eachother yesterday. It's so weird but cool how well you get along with people whom you've only met briefly months earlier in some stage of your travel. It's one of the beautiful things of traveling I guess.

Of course, when arrived at KL airport, neither me or Jef had a plan. As usual we were backpackers without a plan! We got dropped of at our hostel which turned out to be one of the best hostels in town  and even had 'award winning' certificates (not kidding) on the wall stating that it had been voted as the 'cleanest hostel in KL' with 'the cleanest mattresses'! And it sure was! Although the room Jef and me shared was freakin' small (prison cell) everything was extremely nice and clean! On top of that we had free wi-fi and hot coffee 24/7!! We liked KL already :D

The following day we decided to go for a little walk through the city. Since we still hadn't any idea of what to do we just wandered around the city in the direction of the twin towers. On our way there we passed a HERTZ car rental agency. I brought up the idea that it could be fun to rent a car. Jeffrey suggested to go inside for some information. And so we did. 30 minutes later we came outside with a free coffee in one hand and a rental lease of our very own "HYUNDAI something" in our other hand. Within 2 days we would be roadtripping for the next week. SWEEET. I love it when 'a plan comes together'. We spent the rest of the day at the Petronas Towers and made some nice pictures. In the evening we bought a ticket for the 'KL Tower' which is a massive radio tower opposite the twin towers which offers great scenic views from the observation deck at a height of 270 meters. The view was awesome. Have a look at the pics.

People back home know me as an 'very artistic, spiritual and cultural' person (hahaha) so Jef and me went to the National Museum in KL the following day. While pretending to be totally impressed by some stupid stones, rocks and trash, we eventually found something FAR more exciting at the exit of the museum. SEGWAY tours were offered around a nice and green park of KL. For anyone who don't know what a SEGWAY is, have a look at the pics. Having done the most awesome things during my trip, something simple as driving a SEGWAY (which was another 'first experience' for me) turned out to be absolute fun. They say it's fairly impossible to lose control on a SEGWAY.  But being stupid and clumsy as only I can be, I tried to do some tricks, which probably made me the only person ever to get a SEGWAY slipping, leaving a skidmark on the road and a wound on my leg! LOL!

And with the madness on the SEGWAY behind us we left KL the following morning in our rented car. Driving in the morning traffic. In one of the world's busiest cities. On the left side of the road. With the steering wheel at the right side of the car. With no knowledge of the road rules. And neither Jef or me had been driving a car for the past 5 months. And I (me, the clumsy one) drove us out of the city! Actually while I'm writing this I can't believe we're still alive! But I guess we knew we were destined to do this and within moments I was driving the city like I was a local and Jef was yelling 'WATCH OUT, GO LEFT, LEFT LEEEEEEEFT, BRAKEEEE!' like a professional rally co-pilot! What a rush and what a fun!

And off we went to discover Malaysia. Or at least a part of it. We went to old and scenic 'Georgetown' where we visited some old cultural VOC heritage sites, including Dutch war equipment and VOC canons. Very nice to see and we were happy we had our fair share of some 'cultural' sightseeing as well. After Georgetown we went to Langkawi. An island only accesable by ferry. The problem was that we were not able to bring our car on the ferry. So once arrived at the island, we rented a chopper to explore the island and do some nice things! While Jef was sitting on the back of our rented motorbike as my 'bitch' :P, we drove past a small harbour. The sight of the harbour brought us the crazy idea of renting a speedboat for some good old fashioned sea exploring. We parked our motorbike at a small bar and asked the very friendly (Canadian) owner if he knew a place where we could rent a boat. He told us it was impossible on Langkawi, but he offered his own private litte speedboat instead as long as we didn't made it sink and paid a small amount of money. We agreed ofcourse and after 10 minutes of meeting the good man, we were sitting in his little speedboat with nothing but a 2 minute walkthrough on how to operate that thing.

We had the greatest fun just navigating around on the open sea and not long after that we saw a big sail yaught which had dropped anchor some km's off shore. When we were in sight the owner of the boat yelled if we would like to come on board for a brief tour. And so we entered an massive woorden sail yaught, on the open sea and sat down on the deck with a bunch of strangers, for a beer and some good stories and amazing views of the Langkawi coastline. Another cool experience with has been brought to us by random luck.

Last but not least we traveled all the way to the Cameron Highlands. A 'must see' for everyone who will go to Malaysia. You can compare it to the idyllic sceneries of Switzerland or Austria, bu instead of having snow, it has big green tea plantations and rice terraces. Very beautiful to see, and after 5 months of Asia it was finally a landscape I hadn't seen before. (sorry if I sound spoiled here :P).

Malaysia turned out to be amazing and extremely fun and I couldn't think of a better way to end my 5 months touring South East Asia than this. I concider myself a lucky person and with that in mind I said goodbye to Jef as he left for Holland. Two days later I was at the airport, ready for my next adventure, in the Land Down Under.
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FollowBart.com Episode 2; Thailand Adventures

Live from the airport in Kuala Lumpur,

I hereby Proudly Present:

FollowBart.com Episode 2 - Thailand Adventures

ENJOY WATCHING!

Flying Gibbon's, Crazy elephants, and massive parties: Thailand part 2

Ola everybody

I hereby proudly present: part 2 of the three bandits beaming their awesomeness in Thailand.

Soooo, after Phi Phi Islands were we stayed for 5 sunny days, the guys wanted to see some nature and wilderness! The most popular place for that is Chiang Mai up in the North of Thailand. I’ve been here on my last visit in Thailand last year and I enjoyed it very much. But, being on the road for a while, with a budget, sooner or later you experience a 2 things.

1. You always spend more money than you want to
2. You get a little bit spoiled by all the things you have done before.

So with that in mind, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pay quite some bath (the Thai currency ;-) ) to get a plane (by bus would take forever) and spend another few thousand bath for a place I already have been. I’d rather save that money and spend it for something else, a new experience. But at the other hand, I neither wanted to split up with the guys already and besides I didn’t have a plan yet what to do if I would decide to stay behind.

Fortunately I knew Jeffrey, a cool Dutch dude who I met while I was in Cambodia. Because we have made plans to see each other in Malaysia, I speak to him regularly by phone and mail. He gave me the tip to go to Chiang Mai, but leave there as soon as possible by mini-van to a small town called Pai (say: ‘bye’). He told me it was one of the most beautiful places he has seen so far and that it’s very relaxed, laid-back and cheap. It is very tiny and the people who live there are all kind of ‘hippies’ and musicians etc. You might say it’s a rather artistic place to be.

After looking up some details in the Lonely Planet and discussed it with the guys we all agreed that Pai would be the place to be. And so we arrived in Pai. And Jeffrey was right. A few small streets, filled with street BBQ’s, small shops and little markets. Pai was tiny indeed, but it is literally located in the middle of a green valley, so you couldn’t be more in the nature (except when you do a jungle hike maybe). The people here were very chill and nice and made music, sang or played guitar on the street. Even the local police officer – and I’m not joking – was playing guitar on the streets after his duty, while still wearing his police officer uniform. Looked funny but also reminds you of ‘YMCA’.

There were no big disco’s or clubs. Instead of that you could just chill out a little mats on the floor of a small bar, while listening to some live-music or covers from Bob Marley. It was a very relaxing atmosphere to be in. The environment was very beautiful and we explored it on our rented 140cc scooters. After cruising around for some time, we drove past an elephant camp. The guys really wanted to ride an elephant, so we parked our scooters and asked the 'elephant lady' about the possibilities. She asked us if we wanted to go into the river with the elephant. Yeah, we wanted that, why not!! 'Ok' said the lady, 'you should wear some swimming pants than and leave all your valuables here in the safe deposit box'. I was not sure what she meant by 'wearing swimming pants', I did an elephant ride last year as well but we all stayed nice and warm and didn't get wet! But what the hell, just let's do this! Sooooo, after changed into our borrowed swimming pants a nice Thai guy, who just smiled and said some incomprehensible words, brought us to our elephant. We were told to climb on his back by the stairs next to the elephant. 'Where are the seats' I asked the guy (usually you have kind of 'elephant seats' where you can sit in for more comfort during the ride). 'No seats' the guy replied, while he watched us climbing on the elephant trying to hold on the bare back of the elephant with little success.

And so we took of for a little walk. On the regular road. Our elephant was quite lazy and the Thai man kept shouting commands to him what I think meant something like 'come on you stupid elephant, leave that tree for what it is and LISTEN to me and do for once what I WANT'. Very funny! After 10 minutes we arrived at the river and the elephant went in, with us still on his back of course. While the elephant stood in the middle of the river the Thai man shouted all kinds of commands from the shore while throwing little stones and branches at him to get his attention. The elephant didn't care at all and ignored the man completely, he was just standing there in the river, chilling his ass off, enjoying the sunshine... and yep, we were still on his back, enjoying the sun as well. Then, all of a sudden..... the elephant started to move around like a crazy bull! He literally rocked his body from left to right and stood on his back legs, lifting his back from the water! We all screamed like bitches and before I knew it I was thrown off in the river. I was a little bit in panic, 'cause I didn't know what happened and I sure didn't want to be in a river with a massive elephant next to me, going crazy! So I swam  like a crazy bastard to the shore. There I got my breath again and watched the scene displaying before my eyes. Ron and Michel were still on his back, but the elephant rocked his body several more times and they also flew off like little ignorant insects and landed in the water! I laughed my ass off. The Thai man laughed his ass off. It turned out the elephant didn't run wild, it was just all part of 'the deal'. Without knowing it, we apparently booked ourselves a real 'elephant rodeo'. When this became clear, we were more confident to climb back on the elephant's back and when we were all in place again, the Thai man screamed his commands again to the elephant. Prepared for what was coming this time, we hold tight to eachother and tried to stay as long as possible on the elephant's back. But again, we were launched and thrown into the water like we were nothing! It was sooooo freakin' hilarious, and it is so cool that after 4.5 months of traveling, I still haven't seen everything and still gets surprised! An elephant rodeo.... for about 30 minutes in a dirty river... IT WAS AWESOME! From now on there will be no more 'regular' elephant rides ever again! Compared to the rodeo, that will be too boring :P

On our last day in Pai we drove the scooter all the way back to Chiang Mai. We were able to drop off  the scooter in Chiang Mai so we thought we'd rather drive the magnificant route by ourselves on a scooter instead of sitting in a bus again for a couple of hours. While driving the scooter through the nature of Pai, I got the 'warm and fuzzy feelings' again which I had so many times while driving 'the Beast' in Vietnam. It was almost nostalgic. It was a memorable trip.

In Chiang Mai we booked an excursion called 'Flight of the Gibbon'. Yep, this concept is the same as 'the Gibbon Experience' which I did in Laos, only here you only do some ZIPPING for a couple of hours and that's it. Nevertheless it was great fun and we had some massive ziplines again, high above the ground and we reached speeds up to 80 km/hr. (according to the advertisment that is). But the highlight was not the zipping, but the fact that I saw actual GIBBONS this time. A little family with a male (who was minding his own business and being absolutely lazy) a female and her baby! It was so funny to see. The baby Gibbon was very curious and playing around, while the mother just watched him carefully. After a while she obviously thought it was time to go, so she grabbed the baby, put it around her belly and she swung off, from treetop to treetop! I was perfect in time to record this with my camera, so I've got some real good video's of it! It was beautiful to see.

And with Chiang Mai and the Gibbons as our last adventure, we took a flight back to Bangkok. Where the guys would stay 2 more nights and then fly back to Holland again. I, however, had still 1 week left before my flight would leave to Kuala Lumpur. Fortunately for me, Dave and Neil (my Vietnam Motorbike friends) were on Koh Phangan to experience the upcoming Full Moon Party. They invited me to come and I was able to crash in their bungalow for a few days! So, despite the fact that I already had seen Koh Phangan and already experienced the massive NewYears party there, I decided to go anyway! It was better than spending 6 long and boring days all by myself in Bangkok.

And so I said goodbye to Ron and Michel, and took off! For another legendary party, the mother of all beachparties, on Koh Phangan, with my other friends, Neil and Dave, who I hadn't seen for almost two months!

Damn... I hate my life!

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Followbart.com Episode 1: Cruising Vietnam 2010!

I know I know,
you were supposed to get an update of Part 2 of my adventures in Thailand. But I will update you on that subject soon! I fly out to Malaysia today after spending some long and boring 2 days in Bangkok all by myself, so I had plenty of time to compose this!

A movie called

Followbart.com Episode 1: Cruising Vietnam 2010!

Really, I think it turned out awesome!
Have fun watching it peepz!

Click here!

Paradise hopping in Thailand - part one!

Dear followers,

I’m over 4,5 months away right now. I'm still living the dream, I'm still doing wonderfull things and I still didn't run out of money. Soooo it's time for another update! Some major things have happened since the last update. Or perhaps I should say some major things have changed.

For starters, my dear travel buddy Hanneke left me on the 28th of December to fly back home to Holland. Back to reality, back to the hard life. But I am happy to inform you that (something nobody had expected, myself included, considering my attitude towards ‘a happy bachelor life’) Hanneke has become more than just a travel buddy. She has become much more. After 3 months of traveling we’ve fallen in love with eachother! It turned out that 3 months of traveling together is enough to get pretty close to one another and develop deeper feelings! Anyway, we’re together now and even though it’s sometimes a little difficult that she’s back home and I’m hopping from tropical island to tropical island, we are both confident that it will work out fine once I set foot again on Holland soil! In the meantime we just have to skype and e-mail a lot! Hanneke and me spent our last week on Koh Chang, in the south of Thailand. A tropical island which we figured would be the perfect setting for a 'sunny christmas on the beach'. And so it was. Hot temperatures, tropical enviroment, lots of beaches and very little snow :P! We had a cosy bungalow near the beach and we spent most of the time just chilling at the beach, watching the sunset and getting around the island on our awesome scooter we rented. Since we are veterans on anything with an engine and two wheels (we cruised Vietnam baby!!!!) it was no problem at all to drive on the left side of the road and overtake dozens of less experienced tourists on motorbikes! The scenery was absolutely stunning. Have a look at the pics.  

With Koh Chang as our last adventure together and seeing Hanneke leaving at the airport of Bangkok (one of the little sad moments I had during my trip) I was all alone again. Fortunately my good friends Ron and Michel – both guys I used to work with – came to visit me in Thailand two days after that.

I met the guys in Surat Thani, a shithole somewhere near the coast of the 'Gulf of Thailand'. There is very little to do in that place, but the only reason we met eachother here was to get a ferry from the mainland all the way to Koh Phangan somewhere in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand. Koh Phangan is another tropical paradise, but basicly the only reason people visit this island is because of the world famous Full Moon Parties. These parties are known as the BIGGEST beachparties in the world and I've experienced one of these parties on my last trip in Thailand, last year. Therefor, we thought it would be the ultimate destination to celebrate New Years Eve together. Because where a 'regular' Full Moon Party attracts around the 30.000 people in the high season, with a NYE party no less than 50.000 people head down to 'Haad Rin' (the Party beach on the island) to party all night long under the stars, untill sunrise and beyond!

During my trip I have experienced moments of  the 'spine tickling' feeling (in dutch called 'kippevel moment'), which you usualy get when doing something exciting or listen to a good song. I had this many times during my motorbike trip for example, or the first time I walked over the Chinese wall. Well, I can tell you, to be with 50.000 people on a beach, under the stars, counting down from 10 to 0 with all these peole in one voice and witness the most beautifull fireworks exploding in the air, combined with the sweet sounds of housemusic pumping out of the speakers all over the beach..... was just another legendary 'spine tickling' experience I will never, never forget! Being here with my two good friends and party all night long is something which will rank high in my 'best things I've done so far' list! I won't bother you with all the details of the party, let's just say it was a crazy but awesome night, with lots of beers and the occasional bucket of booze (sorry mum :-))! The main thing is we ended up home safe in our hotel somewhere the following morning and slept our hangovers away untill late afternoon!

After a few days of Koh Phangan, the guys and me took a ferry back to the mainland and from there the bus to Phuket. Although I'm used to traveling under uncomfortable circumstances pretty well by now, this trip was something else! First the 'estimated' 3,5 hour journey (as told by the travel agency lady) turned out to be more than 8 hours by bus!! After we finally arrived in Phuket Town, the hotel we were supposed to go was not in Phuket Town. It was in a district near the airport, another one hour cab drive back. Already exhausted by the bustrip, we took a taxi which a 'nice thai lady' arranged for us. After driving for one hour the taxi driver dropped of the other passengers whom we shared our taxi with. We thought we had to be pretty close to our hotel by now, but all of a sudden the driver made a u-turn and drove ALL THE WAY BACK to the pick-up point! ONE HOUR! The stupid bastard didn't got the directions right from our 'nice thai lady' and thought we needed to be somewhere in Phuket town! ARRRGGHHHH.... Ofcourse the driver spoke 0 words of english, and the louder we yelled at him the faster the crazy bastard drove us back over the highway. (hitting 120 km/hr in a mini-van with no seatbelts isn't that comfortable). At last we arrived back at the pick-up point where the 'nice thai lady' was still present. Me and Ronnie started to argue with her and cursed the stupid driver. The 'nice thai lady' came to the conclusion that one of us had mentioned the wrong destination to the driver and that's why he came all the way back here. Of course... now it was OUR fault. Anyway, she was happy to send us back - the right destination this time - as long as we paid some baths extra. Although I couldn't stand the fact she was blaming this on us instead of the ignorant driver, we had no choice but to pay extra and drove for a second time all the way up to the hotel. It was near midnight already (we were on the road for nearly 12 hours now), we were exhausted and there were no other taxi present anyway. Fortunately we ended up in our hotel the second time and although the trip wasn't with to little hassle, the hotel made everything worth while.

Chong, a collegue I used to work with, arranged free accomodation for 3 days in the 5 Star MARRIOT BEACH CLUB HOTEL'. His girlfriend is a Thai and apparently she has some goooood connections. Chong and his girlfriend were staying there as well and with the 5 of us we shared a 2 bedroom VILLA. This is easily the most luxurious resort I've ever stayed in and no doubt the best and biggest hotelroom I've seen during my trip. Check out the pics and you will see what I mean.

After 3 days of Phuket 'enjoying' overpriced beers and food from the Marriot, the guys and me took a ferry to 'Paradise on earth' - Phi Phi Islands. I've been here last year as well and I count it as one of the best places on earth. It is absolutely gorgeous and stunningly beautiful. At this place the guys and me enrolled in a 'PADI open water Scubadiving Course'. This course would last 3 or 4 days, including 5 hours of theory lessons, 1 skill dive and 4 open water dives. After this course we would be certified 'open water divers' and with that title you are allowed to dive anywhere in the world up to 18 meters deep! Although the thought of 'homework' (every day we had to some tests from the theory we studied) didn't sound too tempting, it turned out to be absolutely awesome. With our studybook in our hand, we walked to the beach. And with some of the world's finest nature as our view when looking up from the studybook, it didn't even feel like studying. We were learning to become ScubaDivers baby!

During our 'skill dives' we went only 3 meter deep in a small part of the sea, near the coast. During this dive we had to practice all kinds of skills. Like how to get water out of your mask without going back to the surface and how to handle when your buddy runs out of air. Especially all the 'out of air' skills were extremely important and to witness how it was to 'run out of air', our instructor turned of our oxygen tanks untill I couldn't breath anymore which forced me to breath through the emergency breather from my buddy. Although it was a little scary, it was all part of the course and all part of being a diver. Very cool ofcourse! During our 4 open water dives we went up to depths of 18 meters. We saw very cool things, like sea turtles, triggerfish, giant puffer pish and clownfish (nemo's). Michel was a lucky basterd and saw a BlackTip reef Shark of 1,5 meter! Ron and me missed that when we were chasing a turtle! Anyway, we all passed our final exams, so we're PADI DIVERS right now. And with my trip to Australia coming up, I can't wait to hit the oceans there as well!

Last but not least, before I end this blog I want to tell you one more exciting story. After a crazy night of partying on the beaches of PhiPhi, we walked back to our hotel. All of a sudden a big group of people was gathering around something. Curious as we were, we walked to the group and what we discovered there was unbelieveable. A giant wild snake of at least 2.5 meters was trapped on a stick with some wires. It was stuck. Within minutes a local Thai guy came to the scenery and 'resqued' the snake. Michel was brave enough to hold the big snake on his neck! Classic pictures! After that, the guy set the snake back into the bush! Damn.... I never saw a snake that big in the wild!

Okay peepz, it was a long piece of reading again, and I just covered the first 3 weeks of my trip here in Thailand. Part 2 is coming up pretty soon. I probably will write that from Malaysia. I will fly there from the 25th of Jan. to meet Jeffrey who I met during my trip in Cambodia.

It's a hard job, but someone's gotta do it!

Cheers, over and out! Bert.

click here for pics.