Action In Relaxation

Fri-amly,


I’m writing as I’m leaving Southern Thailand on the airplane to Macau; while the smile is fresh on my face and my heart still has that smirk of contentment. If I were still traveling with Ryan and Jason, they’d laugh at my repetitive self and quotable phrase of, “I could live HERE”.


Southern Thailand is incredibly beautiful, and has some of the best beaches in the world (without surf). Please go there sometime in your life if you like sun/beaches/food/relaxing/islands/scuba/fresh fruit/all other likeable things that exist in this world. I’ll let the photos do most of the talking. If I have a list for Southern Thailand it’s people:


1. Lee: Emily (from my chronologically previous Indonesia & KL post *that are yet to come) and I flew directly from KL to Krabi and happened to sit with a proper-nice English gent, Lee, who had spent the previous 9 months in Ao Nang. He had recently landed a job as an underwater plant life surveyor (1 part scuba, 1 part biology, 1 part note taking, 3 parts fun) and was now moving back for at least a year. Lee and I talked the whole flight (I’m not flight talker either); and this convo eventually lead to a connection and introduction to Ismail.


2. Ismail: is an overly hospitable Moroccan soccer player with the best crackup-cackle-giggle. He ended up in Ao Nang after bouts in France, San Francisco, and Hawaii and is now established with a local wife, 2 kids, and his bungalows/touring business. Ismail booked us on trips, treated us like family, and after Emily headed home to SD from Bangkok there was only one place to go: back to Ismail’s Anawin Bungalows. (


3. Longtail Boat Crew: Captain Snoop, Dan the Man, Cokai, and the nick-name-less rest of the crew. During a 4 island tour with another finicky/gabby/uptight guide, Emily and I were totally drawn to make friends with the boat crew because 1.Emily noticed Capt Snoop’s dashing good looks; 2.I noticed how dashingly amazing it was that Capt Snoop was handling a full-size straight 6 engine with little effort on his thin frame. So we did, we became great friends; and when I later returned to Ao Nang, we shared more laughs, meals, the Liverpool victory over Man U (where they were the only locals at the Irish Rover *classic), and plenty of coffee which he kept coming as a sign of his bright personality and hospitality.


4. Olivia and Aubren: are my friends that date back to the highschool days and are now flight attendants/stewardesses/stewardii/seatbelt buckling gesturers/silver cart pushers/avionic serving engineers/whatever the pc term is, who get to fly for next to nothing and make this travel thing a career and a breeze. I’m slightly jealous, although I don’t think I’d look too good in the uniform, or would I? The four of us toured Ko Phi Phi and caught an incredible sunset via boat. They continued to tour Thailand and had a wonderful time with tigers, elephants, tuk tuks and all the fascinations Thailand has to offer (except ping pong).


5. Pad Thai crew.: Cha, Ma, Nam, and more food carters who have names like Un, Ing, Um, and Am, seriously became my sole source of food for lunch and dinner. I rotated the street-cart offerings of: BBQ chicken & corn, chicken & rice, beef & noodles soup, fruit smoothies, pancakes, mangoes and rice, and of course Pad Thai. Gritty street price for these entrée’s is typically around 40-60 baht or $1.20-$2. My frequent visits, guitar seranades, and Emily’s charm quickly established a fun friendship that later lead to betting on Premier League games, assuring other tourists of their food’s cleanliness, learning how to cook, ice creams, and business proposals from Cha who wants to come to the US and run a Pad Thai cart.


6. The footy fellas: big-whiney Drogba, quick-feet-no-teeth, the two sissy twins, clumsy tank the fullback, 1 touch skinny, the technical center mid friends, and so many more. Ismail mentioned playing soccer every day at a local “stadium”, which was a field with goals nestled in the greenery of the limestone mountains. Motivated to play some good soccer I purchased a used pair of Adidas cleats and a soccer ball for less than $40 in Bangkok. I then joined the locally committed players for some of the most physical, challenging, and technical soccer I’ve played in a while; an entertaining challenge and great fun with these guys.


Time to fill out my immigration card and health declaration.


I’ll be back in the US of A in less than a month so I can genuinely say…


I’ll see you soon,


Tyler

K.


So I was going to keep the posts coming on a weekly or bi monthly basis and make sure they were all spic-n-span polished with well thought dialogue photo galleries and video, professional style. But. I still have quite a bit of catching up to do for the past month or so (Indo #2, Kuala Lumpur, and Southern Thailand).


I am currently scrapping the professionalism and posting videos, thoughts, and whatever else real time to keep you on your toes.


This is a formal and legally enforceable contract I {Tyler} owe U {The Reader} Three (3) posts on 1.Indonesia Round Two, 2.Kuala Lumpur, and 3.Southern Thailand. These defined “Posts” will be pictorial and narrative representations of my first hand experiences in previously stated locations; and such Posts will be postdated to their appropriate and most accurate happening times. I sincerely promise to notify you of their posting upon individual completion of each Post, concordantly, vis-a-vis, ergo…


Enjoy the videos, I couldn’t wait any longer to show you all.

Monkeying Around (Ao Nang, Thailand) from Tyler Elick on Vimeo.


Just playing with the monkeys on Ao Nang Beach, Southern Thailand. I say Ao Nang, Vietnam, but I’m wrong, that’s my song.

Streetcart Pad Thai (Ao Nang, Thailand) from Tyler Elick on Vimeo.


Making Pad Thai with Nam, Cha, and Ma.

Well-rested/Chipotle-eating friends,


We (Tyler, Jason, Ryan + Yuuki + Ben + Matt) are currently on a swaggering double-decker bus commuting between towns in Laos, I’ll tell you all about it later…I just wanted you to know that if there are any long pauses ____ and/or weird symbols #####, it was because I’m getting motion sickness and have to take a little time out _____ or am emptying the breakfast from my stomach #####. Lets hope for the _____ best.


So we now have a crew of 6 travelers with the addition of Yuuki (my elementary school friend from Japan who I haven’t seen in over a decade) joining us for 2 weeks, as well as Ben Watson (old friend from Littleton) and Matt Matteson (new friend from Colorado somewhere *I’ll ask him where later) who are joining us for 3 weeks. With new “wolf-pack” members comes new excitement, new energy, new jokes, and increased organized chaos in general; which is awesome!


Yuuki met us 3 “old wolfs” in Kuala Lumpur for a couple days where we relaxed, internetted, and wrote really really boring email blasts about boring Indonesia. We also ate amazing food in KL and had some great but seemingly uneventful (or at least not noteworthy) times. One thing to note: I bought a much much much needed new computer (a 10” dell minilaptop for $400) and after a long night of loading applications and fine tuning this beautiful new machine, I spilled a 2 liter jug of water straight on the keyboard and totally fried it, bummer, serious bummer. #####. It still makes me a little sick (obviously).


Our growing pack of 4 young strapping scruffly wolfs met Ben and Matt in the KL airport and we surprisingly had time to sample every snack in the airport candy story (6 times over) and hack the airport internet (Matt the Mac Guy). We arrived in Bangkok and sang with crazy annoying exitement on the hour bus ride from the airport to the city (don’t worry fellow Americans, anytime we do something annoying, we tell people we’re from Canada….seriously though, we actually do).


….enough intro junk, now to the good stuff. We’ve been pretty consistently on the fly/wheel/float/street beat since our friends have a limited time to see ALL of Asia. Because so much has happened, I’m going to refer to my favorite email blast format (no it’s not bullet points, that’s a close 2nd), PICTURES!


We arrived in Bangkok the evening of the 8th, took an evening bus to Kanchanaburi on the 9th, returned to Bangkok on a late afternoon bus on the 10th followed by a night train to Chang Mai (that we cut really close and almost missed) an hour later. This makes the 1st set of pictures.

We arrived in Chang Mai the morning of the 11th and had an executive committee meeting while riding in a Tuk Tuk to our potential hotel; we quickly decided to bus straight to Chang Rai because Chang Mai wasn’t quite the amenity-packed noisy Bangkok and also wasn’t quite the lush jungle-country Northern Thailand that we were expecting; this was a great choice and gave us more time to “settle down and relax” in Chang Rai for the 11th-13th. I had one of the top 5 days of my life here, thanks to Kwan and Mamaban.


I spilled the beans already and let you know we’re in Laos right now, but you’re going to have to be patient for the next email (always leave ‘em wanting more).


Much love from the howling wolf-pack,


Yuuki, Matt, Ben, Ryan, Jason, and Tyler


Ps. I know many of you (especially parents and family members) are plan oriented and wonder what’s next on our super-official, stone-inscribed itinerary. Well today is your lucky day/night. We’re spending the next week in Laos August 14th – August 21st, followed by Vietnam (traveling North to South). I hope that’s enough because it’s pretty much all we know right now…

Kanchanaburi Nap from Tyler Elick on Vimeo.


Not sleeping in your own bed for a while is one thing. Sleeping in a not bed is a whole different story. This moment is between Erawan Falls backflips and the Tiger Temple. Relaxation in Action.