We love Singapore, but Singapore doesn't love us back

We have finally found some time on the internet AND a computer that uploads our pictures! So here we go....I guess first we should update you on our itnerary for the past week or so. Koh Phi Phi was super nice but too rich for our taste. We did find The Apache Bar though as you will see below. We left after two nights because of the high prices and too many rich Euro tourists. We headed to Koh Lanta which is a pretty island very much like Koh Tao in some ways but SO boring! We did find some Thai bartenders to play some intense games of Connect Four with though....yeah that was the highlight of our nights in Koh Lanta. Because we had to get new visas we had to decide which country to go to and for how long. We could have just done a visa run which takes you on a bus to the closest border (Malaysia) and then back in the same day or we could have gone to Kuala Lumpur but instead we got the sudden urge to go to SINGAPORE! Although we love this city - its beautiful, clean, modern, and a lot like home - it is SO expensive (we will NEVER complain about anywhere in Thailand again) and didnt leave us many options for eating, drinking, or entertainment. We did get to see the Night Safari though (baisically going to the zoo at night) where we met two other travellers and found ourselves a conspiracy about a missing rhino.....and then day tripped to Santosa island with them the next day. Here are pictures of our journey.....

Ta Da: Our first ladyboy show EVER!! this is still from ko phi phi, but we thought it was definately blog worthy. a cabaret show completely consisting of lady boys!!! Ko phi phi didn't have much going for it other than this bar and their nightly shows. The next night wasa fire show where we watched 10-12 year old kids, fling flaming sticks around synched to music. Note to parents: why didn't you ever get me started in fire twirling, there are limitless possibilities for employment here.

This is a picture of Natalie's gorgeous leg after ONE NIGHT of not using bug spray. We now have full belief that bug spray in fact does work. there were a total of 81 bug bites (just on her legs), and counting.... we'll keep you updated, don't worry.

Fact: Singapore was the first country in Asia to gain McDonald's delivery. As a result of hearing about this phenomenon, we immediately (i mean before our bags made it to the hotel room) ordered an obscene amount of fast food. This is us with the delivery man, they have a uniform and everything!!! In case your curious, the fries were a little off but the cheeseburgers were still good.

Singapore's widely reveered Merlion. In fact it's just a wierd looking statue facing no direction in particular that you can pay upwards of ten dollars to get to the top of. we stayed at the bottom. Sentosa island (the location of this beautiful creature) was dissapointing on the whole. the cable car ride over there was meh...like an elevator ride, but sideways, and not as cool. the highlight of the day was a fountain which was cool enough to stick our feet in for a substantial amount of time. great 30 minutes of the day. some other chinese tourists took our example and got right in there with us. See below.

This picture is depicting our extreme distaste for such bullshit tourist attractions being hyped up. #1: the southern most point of continental asia, is located on an ISLAND off of another ISLAND. #2: you can't even see water from the viewpoint, its all big ocean liners and crap blocking the view. #3 we had to start lowering our expectations of what Singapore terms "view points" any ways. most often they were just glorified benches with trees surrounding them.

The animal show on sentosa island was definately ripped off from the night safari, however flash scares the animals of the night (possibly causing at one point a rhino attack resulting int he rhinos death...if we're not mistaken the rhino is now burried in the "animal cemetary", but how would you bury a giraffe? would you need to fold it in half? who knows...) anyways the point is that we got to get up close and personal with the animals after...nat chose the snake, i got the husky!!! his namke was striker, i loved him.

After a long day of mostly dissapointing sentosa island stuff...we got over to another hostel in Little India and met up to play a completely non-sober game of Kings. When you're playing with a bunch of british people the "everyone needs to speak with an accent at all times" rule get a little shady. the pirate accent was the alltime best though. It was an english guy trying to be an american pirate, ayy matie!

Today we leave to go back home - Thailand. We are making our way to Koh Pha Ngan on the gulf coast to go to the Full Moon Party on the 2nd. We have convinced the two fellows in the back of this picture that its not to be missed and so now we will have a group to party with there which makes us feel a bit safer since our previous plan involved tying ourselves together with a leash so as to avoid losing each other in the crowd.

Updates of our full mooning to come, get excited!

A Quickie, "We Havent Forgotten You All, We Are Still Alive" Post

Yes, yes we know we have been away for awhile and we apologize! We were in the very secluded island of Koh Lanta and didn't really have much to report. Well in retrospect I suppose we do have a lot to update, but we can't do that right now! We had to get out of the country to get a new 30 day visa for Thailand and we randomly decided to go to Singapore. Super expensive, talk later!

A Quickie, "We Havent Forgotten You All, We Are Still Alive" Post

Yes, yes we know we have been away for awhile and we apologize! We were in the very secluded island of Koh Lanta and didn't really have much to report. Well in retrospect I suppose we do have a lot to update, but we can't do that right now! We had to get out of the country to get a new 30 day visa for Thailand and we randomly decided to go to Singapore. Super expensive, talk later!

In Phi Phi with Pictures!

ALRIGHT! success with some pictures!!! Unfortunatly we are currently on a very expensive island (Koh Phi Phi) so I cannot upload too many pics as they each take about 20mins to load and I dont have enough money for all this internet time but I'll do what I can...

This is our diving group in Koh Tao on the roof deck of our boat, coming back from our last dive of the course. It was so nice to warm up, get some sun and enjoy the view after spending 40mins deep in the water! I always got soooo cold down there!

In case any of you are still skeptical about our love for the island, this was our home there. It doesnt get much better than that! Especially when its only costing you 5$ a night!

This picture below is pretty much what you see from any point in Koh Tao. Its just so beautiful it almost seems fake! It reminded me of Typhoon Lagoon in Disney World except it was all for real.



This picture was taken from the strip of beaches where there are all the resteraunts and bars are located. Luckily Koh Tao is protected by lots of laws and environmental standards so it will never get developed past pretty much what is there today which is JUST enough!



So Krabi was very quiet and pretty boring although we enjoyed the very yummy and very cheap night market and took a day trip to James Bond Island and a floating village. The village is home to 200 families, has a school, a mosque and a hospital all floating in a tiny little area next to a huge cliff and surrounded by water! BUt day trips cost lots of money so we decided to move to Koh Phi Phi instead of just visiting for the day and although its super expensive for the worst accomidation to date (lets just say our non flushing toilet was an upgrade compared to what we've got now), we got to spend the day on Koh Phi Phi Ley, where the Beach was filmed. And although at one point in the day thousands of tourists clutter the tiny little beach area, we got to enjoy it without the masses once they all departed after their 40min or so stop. All I've heard about this particular place is that its ruined by the many tourists so it was nice to be there without them for a good few hours. Heres a picture of our surroundings for the day:

Okay i seriously just cut my dinner money in half! Hopefully we can get pictures on from now on, but as tomorrow we head to Koh Lanta for a few nights, I have no idea what we will be in store for us!

See you in Koh Lanta!

On the Road Again...

First off, yes we know it sucks that we dont have pictures. However, if one more person sends us an email, a comment, any facebook contact or any communication in any way that we should post pictures, we will come home just to hurt you slightly. Well no maybe not. But it is extremly impossible currently to post any pictures of any kind, believe me, we have tried. The most successful we have been so far is waiting patiently 25mins in total to get not one, but two, error messages. When we can, we will post so many pictures you all wont know what to do with yourselves! For now please take the lead of my suddenly brilliantly computer literate mother and go to the Koh Tao website and then cry with jealousy! Thank you!

Unfortunatly, yesterday we left our home on Koh Tao. We felt it was time since our diving group had left and our room was no longer welcome to us unless we did more diving (which we do plan to do in a few weeks so that we will not only be certified scuba divers but ADVANCED certified scuba divers!). We were extremly sad about this, the island had really become our home and we felt so settled there. Its suprisingly easy to get used to the lifestyle we had - waking up to spend the day 18meters in the water, meeting for dinner and beer at the Irish Pub with our group, walking to Karma for some relaxing then heading for 25mins walking to Sairee Beach (mostly with a banana nutella crepe either on the way there or home or both) and spending the rest of the night (often into the wee hours since time doesnt seem to exist or affect anyone on Koh Tao) at a place called Lotus bar. Sairee beach is really a strip of clubs, resteraunts and bars with Lotus being the most lively and central. They set out mats and Thai cushons and there is always one to three fire performers, lots of cute, well behaved dogs and really great music that enivatibly leads to dancing in the ankel deep water. Then once the night was over we'd trek back to our beach front bungalow, immidiately fall asleep and start the whole routine over again a few hours later. It was heavenly.

But alas, we felt if we didnt get out yesterday, we might never leave. Especially since most of the people we spent time with on the island where people just like us who went there one day and never came home. It seems waaayyy to easy so as a precaution we made a plan to return and booked ourselves on a journey to Phuket. 12 hours of travelling yesterday (two ferries, a tuk tuk, a wait for an hour in the middle of nowhere, and a minivan ride for 4hours) we arrived and hated it immidiately. It was vastly different then our idylic island life, a busy city with 5 cockroach sightings in 10mintues. In an effort to not hate anything related to Thailand, lets blame the dirtyness on the Tsunami...although truthfully you could not tell such a destrcutive event ever occured there, except for the many Tsunami evacuation route signs posted along the coastal area. Perhaps we didnt give it enough of a shot but today we woke up and got the hell out of there! We are now in Krabi where we plan to do a lot of day trips to neighbouring sites (like Koh Phi Phi where the Beach was filmed). So far so good, nice hostel with HBO in the resteraunt which is a nice destraction and time killer.

Sorry I've been slacking on the emails but its been a lot of travelling time and such. Promise to get better as I miss you all very much. Hope everyone is managing the cold as much as possible. We promise to pretend to care and be sympathetic if youd like to talk about it. We'd perfer however, that you all just quit the whining (and your jobs) and meet us here. Sound good?

Underwater Life

It seems Nat and I have become quite accustomed to our life here on Koh Tao. Waking up to a clear blue ocean may be the greatest thing in the world. Though i think we both miss warm showers a little bit. our scuba course is nearly over and its working out pretty well...rocky start though...who would've thought breathing underwater would be so difficult. There aren't any real updates since we're living the island life whereall you need is shelter, food, and drink but we have managed to be around the island from a boat and see it from that view which was beautiful. We have embraced the fact that picture uploading may take a bit more concentration and patience then we have allowed ourselves so we still have to wait on that...sorry... love you, miss you all

Puking in Paradise

So the night of our fabulous beach day in Hua Hin, we boarded an overnight bus which dropped us off at 530am to the port where we were to catch a High Speed Catmeran to the island of Koh Tao. At 7am of my birthday, we finally boarded. Due to some strong winds from China, the water in these parts were very choppy and rough and it only took us about 15minutes to realize this meant something very, very bad for all of us on board. 90% of the people on board, including us, utilized their complementary barf bag. For about two hours neither of us could so much as lift our head. It actually felt like torture, slow, slow, horrible torture.

Lukily we got to Koh Tao to find it amazingly beautiful. I dont know that we've seen anything quite like it before. Clear, bright blue water, everything along the beach front and mountains in the distance wherever you look. We had some lunch and decided to take a nap on the beach of our resort type living area (note: not resort in that the toilet doesnt actually flush but its still a bungalow and we like it!). Unfortunatly hearing the water was too much for me (natalie) and somehow i continuted to be sea sick for the rest of the day and night. Steph and I went to sleep at around 9pm as a result. Not much birthday celebrating at all. Thus we have moved my brithday to today and will celebrate tonight! There are lots of livelyplaces to go to so we are looking forward to a night out partying!

We also signed up for a four day scuba diving course. We start our first lesson tomorrow and then get to dive the day after that. WE shall keep you updated.

sorry for the lack of pictures but turns out these parts of thailand's computers dont seem to want us to upload our pics grrr. we'll keep trying though. If anyone one computer literate (ahem, lubna, we mean you) have any advice for how to post imges on this stupid website, please let us know! we always get to the "your picture is uploading" screen but then it doesnt. Boo.

Thank you all so much for your birthday comments, emails and wall postings, they were so wonderful. And keep posting comments to us, we love them so much and we miss you all so much that it makes us feel all warm and happy inside! hahaha. No, really though, keep posting!

Our only day in bangkok brought us the famed khao san road (after a mcdonalds breakfast that turned into just cheeseburgers at 10 am). there were shops lining the street seelling just about anything you couldpossibly want or need while travelling or in life. the bars were fairly full even though it was 1130 am, it was exactly what we expected, only shorter in length.

We left Bangkok fairly early because we wanted to start our travels down the coast of Thailand and to ease the minds of our worried families. We decided to go to Hua Hin about a 4hour bus ride away. Although its not what we were really looking for (mostly rich European tourists staying in fancy hotels on the beach and Thai vacationers), we found the loooong stretch of beach and had an excellent day of being beach bums.

Unfortunatly we had to start living the travellers life and checked ourselves into a guest house here. We shared a romantic double bed in a very thin walled room and showered over the toilet in the shared bathrooms. We missed the hotel life very, very much....but i suppose this is our lives for the next 3 months!

Although our rooming situation is gonna suck, the beach was beautiful. We bought cute jewlery, enjoyed a cold beer and, finaly, ATE THAI FOOD. it was yuuuummmmyyy and we are looking forward to more.

Tonight we are off to Ko Tao, a snorkeling and suba diving island that is supposed to be quite "zen". We are leaving on an overnight bus and catermeran tonight at 12am and should get there at 830am tomorrow morning (NATALIE'S BIRTHDAY! better not forget!). Not sure if there will be internet there or how long we'll stay but we'll do our best to keep in touch.

**Our impatience has returned and we have decided getting something to eat is more important that posting Hua Hin pictures so you will just have to wait!

xo

pics from beijing

Well, we had no idea our problems with posting pics was just due to lack of patience. here we go...

this bowl of noodles was our dinner, check out the fancy red wine next to it...yummm

Heres the picture we were supposed to put in last post -

Team photo before getting on our Thai airways flight (fellow Torontonian Will, there were about 30 of us Canadians stuck in the airport). Note: it is not a good idea to consume chinese beer at however many thousand feet in the air. If followed by cognac which is served by thai airways during ur meal you will go through several phases very quickly - giggly, tipsy, tired, fast asleep, groggy and thirsty, completly sober. This all occurs in the span of an hour.

Thia airways is not only the greatest, they also have purple/fushia boarding passes!!!

Stuck in Beijing!

Off to a bit of a rocky start seeing as two hours into our 14 hr flight we turned back to toronto because of a medical emergency. therefore, we missed our connection in beijing and were told that aircanada could do nothing for us. The next flight to Bangkok wasnt until 6pm the following evening...problem since we didn't have visas! After a lot of confusion, waiting, tierdness, etc we were issued 24hr visas and found an airport hotel. We didnt do much in China and didnt enjoy the country much at all. I know you cant really tell much about a country from their airpot and surrounding area but we were hoping Thailand would be a great deal different.

FINALLY, at 10pm last night we landed in Bangkok. Beautiful airport, first good sign! We checked into a very nice hotel since we thought we deserved it and finally had a god nghts sleep. Today we woke up, explored Kho San Road and fell in love with Bangkok. Now we are rushing this post to head towards our first beach town of Hua Hin! Gotta run but we'll update better soon! For now, heres a picture of us in our random Beijing hotel. Pics of THialnd to come when we dont have to check out of our hotel in 10mins!!!!