No 40 winks for 40 hours

It's been a pretty busy month. I came home for Bs birthday at the end of March and as usual tried to do way too much in one week. I am back again (4 weeks later) and this week I am trying to keep things pretty relaxed. I find these weeks at home tiring - I still have masses of work to get through, often with evening calls to dial into, and yet I feel obliged to pack one month's worth of socialising into them. Some of my friends are dating new people (or even getting engaged!) and I haven't met them yet. Friends are having babies who are walking and talking when last I saw them they were crying and burping. My brothers and sister are growing up too fast and a couple of hours each month doesn't really let me stay connected to them.

I guess this comes down to the trade-off - I wanted the adventure of a new place, a new job, new people. For every new friend I have in Singapore, I am drifting quickly away from an existing friend in Sydney.

And then comes the decision - do I manically try to see everyone while I am home for 1 week a month? Or do I just appreciate the friends I do manage to see and the time I have with B? So this week I am going for the latter. No pressure, no obligation - let's just wait and see.

My main stressor is not the above social consideration, but the masses of work that I have to do combined with the little motivation that I have. More and more I think I am not suited to this project management stuff - I don't work well in chaos. Or is it just the chaos of this project and will a different environment make all the difference?

I had a shocker (Aussie slang) of a week last week - with a big meeting on Wednesday and some late running devlierables causing an all-nighter. I then had my team coming over for dinner to farewell some team mates heading back to India. At 11pm I calculated (albiet with difficulty) that I'd been awake for 40 hours.

To brighten up this post, here are some photos from a Sunday morning kayaking and walking with some guys from work.

Chuckies hit the spirits again

Chuckies jumped on a bus in march to compete in the UiTM Open - yes, another frisbee tournament. It was held in Shah Alam, just outside KL and the three teams from Singapore made quite a roadtrip out of it.
The games were fun, there was a lot of mud and Chuckies played pretty well. Most importantly, we took out the spirit prize yet again. I look forward to seeing Malaysian ultimate develop over the next few years, there are some talented young players up there!

Lucille and Drew's cultural awareness

You may not understand this, but if you do, I hope you find it as funny as I do.

[8:29:36 AM] Drew says: oh, so funny. the australian tourism board have launched a marketing campaign here in singapore
[8:29:58 AM] Drew says: there's posters on bus stands, ads in newspapers, a 10 day tourism fare at raffles city tower
[8:30:09 AM] Drew says: its the "where the bloody hell are you?" campaign
[8:30:37 AM] Drew says: except, due to singapores weird censorship etc, the tag line is now "so where are you?"
[8:30:50 AM] Drew says: laaaaaaame
[8:31:41 AM] Drew says: it was funny enough getting the honkies walking up to me and asking "so where the bloody hell are you" with their canto accents. hehe
[8:32:45 AM] Drew says: they should have done something like: can-garoo
[8:33:03 AM] Drew says: or a dude in stubbies/thongs asking: Fosters, can?
[8:35:22 AM] Drew: or have a pic of a really long beach with no-one on it with the tag line: "how long more?"

Drew and Lucille have both recently completed their stints in Singapore. I miss them!

Chapter 4: A week with me!

Seeing as it's taking me an eternity to finish my posting about Thailand, I'll be really brief with the last chapter.
After farewelling B in Bangkok, I had a week to myself. I flew to Chiang Mai and had one week to get myself back to the capital for my flight back to reality in Singapore.
I considered doing one of the infamous hill tribe treks while I was in the north, but so much of the tourism seemed to revolve around exhibiting the people in the tribes, I decided to leave it out of my itinerary. One particularly depressing article I read explained that without this 'ethno-tourism' many believe the painful tradition of the long necks would have died out.


I did decide to visit the highest mountain in Thailand, Don Inthanon. Although the mountain itself was a bit disappointing (it was 100m from a carpark!) the beautiful views and gardens at the Napamaytanidol Chedi were memorable.



My cooking classes at Kao Hom school were so relaxing I went back twice! I learnt a couple of new dishes and some basic thai cooking techniques - most importantly it was a lot of fun! The frustration is that my tiny kitchen in Singapore is not really equipped for any complicated dishes, so I'll have to wait for my move back to Sydney to really work on my skills. I have made some great black sticky rice, fish cases and a(n awful attempt at) green mango salad so far. If you are in Chiang Mai and like Thai food, please go and see Tim at Kao Hom.
Other than some sight seeing, shopping, eating and cooking, I spent the rest of my time in Chiang Mai reading and enjoying the solitude. It's the thing I find hardest about relationships - sometimes it is hard to find time on my own. My days in Chiang Mai rewarded me with silent contemplation - and I vow to make more time for this in my non-holiday life!
Unfortunately a number of my photos were deleted from my camera by an irresponsible guy burning them onto CD, so many of the beautiful images of this part of thailand I cannot share with you!

My next stop was Sukothai. I left Chiang Mai on a 6am train and enjoyed every minute of it (480 of them!). As many of you may know, I am a bit of a transport geek. I love travelling in new places using every available mode of transport. I enjoyed meeting people on the train, eating the food that was brought through at the various stops and seeing how long I could last without going to the toilet (I didn't last 8 hours...). I arrived in Sukkothai in the late afetrnoon (I had to get a regional bus as Sukkothai is not actually on the train line), so just settled into my lovely bungalow at Lotus Village and wandered around Sukkothai new city.



The main attaraction in Sukkothai is the old city, part of a UNESCO heritage area that is efficiently run and wonderful to explore. I cycled around the old city for a few hours and found some lovely peaceful places. My favourite places were the ones outside of the protected area, where cows wandered amoungst the ruins.



My bus trip back to Bangkok allowed me a couple more hours of Chatuchak shopping before a quick taxi to the airport. A little adventure was had at the northern bus terminal when I coudn't find which baggage office I had left my bag at... (Un?)fortunately, I made my flight and was back at work in Singapore the next day.

Thailand travel was easier than I expected. Generally the people are friendly and with a bit of common sense there is little chance of getting ripped off. The country, culture and food are beautiful. And it's big enough for places like Pattaya to meet their own markets without spoiling the rest of the country.

Chapter 3: Destination c/- Google Earth

Our trip to Thailand was conceived only about a month before we left. B and I planned a lot of it over the phone – us both browsing the internet for destination information and me with a few travel books on my lap.

Our second destination had to:

• have waterfalls


• have rainforest


• be off the tourist trail

What better way to search for this destiation than opening Google Earth and looking for a big green patch?
It worked. Our second destination showed me a different side of Thailand to what I had seen in modern Bangkok and tourist loving Krabi area. Our hotel was charming. The food was fantastic. The market was not in the guidebook and didn’t sell souvenirs. The history was interesting and the temples beautiful. The people were genuine and we were motivated to learn and use some more of our limited Thai vocabulary. It was non-touristy enough for one young Thai boy to ask for a photo with us!

The destination was Nakkon Si Thammarat.

We spent one day hiking to Krung Ching waterfall in the Khao Luang national park. The journey started with a haggling session with a group of Songthaew drivers. We negotiated a driver for the day and commenced our cow-spotting journey into the mountains surrounding NST.

Although I had my eyes peeled for one of the rarer local inhabitants (Tapirs, monkeys, snakes… anything) we instead saw a lot of butterflies and a few birds. The waterfall itself was beautiful, in a really powerful way. B scared me a bit when he took a dip, the spray from the waterfall was almost knocking me off the nearby rocks! I was too much of a chicken to go for a swim.

We did stumble across some old traps built by some communists who were hiding out in the jungle at some point, which consisted of a series of pits with wooden spikes in them. I can’t find any more information online about them or the communist operations in this area – I might have to buy another history book to satisfy my curiosity.

I fell in love with one city just over 3 years ago – that was Berlin. Berlin’s energy overpowered me and it was a difficult place to leave. On that trip I had the freedom to extend my stay to get to know the city (which didn’t make it any easier to leave!). I think both B and I had a similar feeling about NST, but a flight booked for us to return to Bangkok forced us to leave before we were really ready. We both think we’ll go back someday.

We returned to Bangkok so that I could drag B around my favourite market – Chatuchak (JJ). I am not sure he was enjoying himself watch me buy scarfs, jewellery and homewares, but a little happier once we discovered a street full of interesting t-shirt shops. B returned to Sydney on Sunday night – another airport farewell!

I flew up to Chiang Mai to experience hill life and solitude. That’s the next post!

Chapter 2: Southern Sun, Sand and Nemos

B and I left Bangkok early on Monday to travel to Ko Lanta. Ko Lanta is a fairly large island near Krabi, not that far from Ko Phi Phi and Phuket.
We chose it because we wanted to see some of southern Thailand’s beaches, but weren’t keen on the crowds, overdevelopment and general tackiness that we suspect exist in some of the better known resort areas.

Ko Lanta is somewhere in between a developed area like Phuket and the really remote islands. Some of the beaches like Klong Dao are overdeveloped. Long beach (Phra Ae) was really pretty and peaceful. I really liked the atmosphere created by the various hotels, bungalows, cafes and beach bars scattered along the beach.

My first encounter with the local wildlife was not the best, though. I got up early for a swim only to be stung by a jelly fish across both my feet and around my ankles. It stung for a couple of hours, but it was the allergic reaction I started having a week later that was really annoying. It necessitated a tiring search around Chiang Mai’s chemist shops for cortesone cream. From all my research (after the fact) on Thai jelly fish, it was highly unlikely for me to be stung given where I was and the time of year. Lucky me, I suppose!

Valentine’s day was spent with friendlier wildlife. We travelled by speedboat down to Ko Rok, a national park with some pretty good snorkelling. We had a random run in with Ernie Dingo (an Australian TV presenter and Actor) who was filming something on the island.
I’ve never really snorkelled anywhere too interesting and I have never dived. This might be the start of a new underwater hobby. I spent much of the afternoon chasing clown fish around the coral.

We found some great places to eat on the island. There are a number of places offering seafood BBQs (pick the fresh fish from their display, they cook it how you want it) and both places we tried were good. Thai Cuisine (creatively named) made some pretty authentic thai food as well.


We set off the next day for our next destination. As we had a couple of hours to kill in Krabi, I decided to see what the beaches on the mainland were like. We went to Railay via long boat, and it really wasn’t worth the trouble. The beaches were crowded and littered. The food was expensive. B and I both stepped on a sea urchin. The only positive was seeing the contrast to Lanta. Where Railay was covered with long boats touting for tourist dollars, Lanta was a peaceful shore inviting you to swim. I could certainly see the reason why the tourists originally came to Raily and Pranang, the limestone cliffs are stunning, but I don’t know why they are still coming.

If I go back to the Andaman region I would try to find an even more remote beach than Lanta. I will stay for more than 4 days. I will drink more cocktails, swim with more fish and avoid jellyfish and sea urchins!

Stay tuned: The charming city in the south and my favourite market