They say "Never have regrets.."

After leaving Pai we took a bumpy 3 hour journey to a larger city Chiang Mai...we had some time to kill so we went to the famous, or infamous, Tiger Kingdom to play with tigers. This is where I make a huge mistake. I REGRET MY ACTIONS AT TIGER KINGDOM. There I said it. Here is the story...

We get to the Kingdom and there are a few options for you to choose...you can "play" / lay down and take pictures, with small, medium and large tigers...all at different prices. I choose small, I assume I will be cuddling atleast 4 baby tigers and they will crawl all over me and I will have the "coolest" pictures. My friend Stewart chooses smallest as well, I think he did this for safety reasons, but I could be wrong! Jill, Condon and Wayne chose medium tigers, at a cheaper price, I am curious why smaller tigers are worth more, I assume its because they are better, IT MUST BE BECAUSE THEY ARE BETTER! (I was wrong).

After we pay up, we walk through the kingdom and can see all the tigers in their cages. The medium tiger was ready for its "photo shoot" so Jill, Condon and Wayne went in and their 15 minutes of tiger fun started. I watched with envy as this huge tiger is being forced to lay down and then Jill gets to lay down on its back and take pictures. It wasn't all fun and games either, there was the danger aspect. The Thai men handling the tigers were constantly hitting them with sticks, clucking at it, having you move back from the tiger. Its like they casually knew it was thinking about attacking...I COULD BE WAY WRONG about all this danger talk...But I think it was a risky move to play with tigers. Soon I was ready for my turn...

Stewart and I walk toward the baby tigers. We get to their cage and it is empty. I am thinking...yes, thats right! More tigers for ME. We get in the cage with them and i'm a little confused because there are only 2 baby tigers in the damn cage. The first one I see just stares at me and runs away...the other one is worthless, sleeping in the corner. I think to myself, time to wake it up! But the minute it opens its baby eyes all it does is run away from me and Stewart and play with the other tiger. The front desk told me I would have 15 minutes to play and take pictures with the tigers...but all I am getting is 15 min. worth of chasing two uninterested tigers around a cage that is WAY TO BIG for ONLY 2 tigers....The tigers would not even sit still long enough to let me hold them and get a decent picture.

I dont know how long we got to hang out in the cage, but it was too long. I was bored out of my mind. I think Stewart enjoyed it...or he is lying because he knows we made a mistake. Looking back, it was tragic. I should have gone for the gold, and layed down with a king size tiger. Much cooler than some baby tigers wrestling eachother. So do you know what I have to do? I have to go back to Tiger Kingdom and get what I deserve...a picture of me laying down on a humongous tiger. And it will be cheaper this time....always a plus.

Updates

What have I been up to? I haven't posted since September...WOOPS

I'll tell ya what I have been doing.

In October I was enjoying being back in Melbourne. The weather was slowly getting better...the sun was coming out! I was working at the Stroke Foundation as well as occasionaly doing hospitality work. I celebrated Halloween in major style as a Captain Jack esque type pirate. We had a big halloween house party which was also a farewell party to everyone living in it...the sharehouse was going to be demolished and we all had to move! Our bizzare landlord just magically had a new house for us all to move into. It was a big house...and he is very 'crafty" and knows how to turn a 2 bedroom room into a 4 bedroom room. You get the deal...he crams people in and demands lots of $$$. Oh the new house had a pool as well...his major selling point. WHAT A CREEP...time to bail!

But now I am in November. Do you know what I do now??????????? I decide to store most of my stuff at friend's houses and go to South East Asia. I tell the National Stroke Foundation that I am leaving for a bit and they say I can have my job back when I return. Perfect. So all of a sudden I am on a 9 hour flight to Bangkok with Jill and another friend, Stewart. We arrive in Bangkok and spend 3 days buying CHEAP CRAP, but I loved the cheap crap. We also met up with Condon and Wayne, a friend from Darwin. One day we decided to get out of the busy city and go to Ayutthaya...the old Thai Capital. We spent the day bike riding around looking at ruins and old temples.

Our next move was to go north to Pai. A little hippy town with lots of places to explore. I loved Pai! There was a night market everynight with food stands, jewelry, clothes, etc. Everything! One night I bought a bracelet from a guy named Boy. He was big into stones..my bracelet has a labrodite stone and I guess it is supposed to help and heal headaches...or something. That Boy...he really sold me! The major highlight was our scooter/motor bike rentals that we kept the entire time as our own personal vehicles. 100 baht a day...that is like 3 or 4$ a day! So we drove all around Pai, out of the little city and up the mountains to waterfalls and tiny villages. We rode along a back road where there were a lot of elephant camps as well as hot springs.

We pulled our scooters over at an elephant camp and decided to not only ride the elephant but also swim with them as well. The lady said it was really fun...and pointed to pictures of other people who were in the water with these huge elephants. She was right...it did look fun. SO WHY NOT? Stewart and I got on one elephant, Condon and Wayne were on another elephant. Each elephant was led by an old Thai guy. We think these men were high on drugs, we know one of them snorted something on our walk. But hey, too late now, we are all on these big elephants walking down a road being passed by cars. So we walk on, for a long time it seems...then we are walking down a hill and I see water. It looks pretty dirty, but like I said, its too late. So our elephant creeps towards the water and we are on the edge, about to go in. But I can tell he really doesnt want to get in! Condon's elephant practically jumps in and then just lays down in the water. This causes Wayne and Condon to fall off and the water is rushing pretty hard so they are struggling to get abck on the elephant. After our thai guy changes into his bathing suit...he pulls our elephants ear for a solid minute and we are in the water and our elephant looks suicidal as it just falls to its side into the water. Stewart and I fall off and struggle getting back on the thing. The thai guys continue making the elephants lay down in the water, we continue "swimming with them" aka falling off and having to climb back on. I literally laughed the entire time. If you want to know exactly how it happened I can literally show you because the whole time we were being taped and we have a DVD of this adventure.

Pai was a great 4 days! Our last night we went to a half moon party in the jungle. A real jungle you ask??? Im not 100% sure...But it was really far away from town, really dark, lots of trees, etc. so how was I to judge whether it was a true jungle. But having a party in the jungle was a great way to leave Pai.

More SE Asia stories to come....

Cha Chingg

Got a job. It was practically effortless. Which is RARE... Prime Example:

In Darwin, I thought I was going to have to live in the gutter. I was searching for jobs and willing to take anything. I caught wind of a bar needing a "dish bitch" and I sprinted to claim the role,only to realize a French guy had just got the job. I then gave them my resume to keep on file and said to write "dish bitch" on it, just in case the Frenchie didn't work out. Now that was a low point.

All of a sudden my job luck has changed being back in Melboure. I met with a recruiter and I am now the Receptionist / Administrative Assistant at the National Stroke Foundation. The foundation builds awareness and provides support to the community, people who have suffered from stroke, and families who have lost someone due to stroke. I am sure I will become more knowledgable with time. But I smell resume builder. I mean it builds up my resume better than "Waitress, Ducks Nuts Restauraunt, July - August 2010, Darwin, NT" Note : I felt I needed to clarify on my resume that Ducks Nuts was a restaurant, that is a sign I should remove it immediatley.

So now I can actually pay for that gym membership...However, I am now ignoring my personal trainer's texts. I'll contact "smash it" Dan when I'm good and ready. So that is the latest, yay me

Back in Melbourne!

Back in Melbourne! It feels great to be out of a van and back in a city! So much going on, so many things to do! Just the other day I joined a fancy gym. I'm a member! The trainers are such salesmen...it all worked on me. How dare they swindle me out of my small amount of money. Hello... I am a backpacker and I do not even have a job yet in Melbourne.

I think it was all the time in the van that made me feel really lazy and inactive. Time to get back to an active lifestyle. The plan is to get fit and make it worth my money. Summer is around the corner in Australia so I have motivation. Plus I bought a package where I get three sessions with a personal trainer to figure out my bioage (scary!) and then to go over goals and how to meet those goals. Should get good and interesting. I get my money back if i workout atleast once a week for 12 weeks...i told you, such salesmen.

A funny thing is I will have to figure out all of the conversion rates for pounds to kilos, miles to kilometers, etc. Otherwise my goals will be all out of whack. Ill keep you updated on my progress. So far I have worked out once since joining... I need to start "smashing it"
according to my future personal trainer, Dan.

Like I said, this will get good.

West Coast Trip in Review...The Basics

We left Darwin, the very northern part of Australia, and traveled around 5,000 kms all the way down the west coast to Perth. Guess how many maps we needed...none! We literally used the basic australia map in the back of our Lonely Planet Australia guide book. That was it! Mind you I cannot get 200 miles from Salem to Miami of Ohio without printing out a map quest...but I made it around half of Australia just fine!

The first few days of traveling we were still in Northern Territory in an area they call the Kimberleys. It was too bad we did not have 4WD because the Kimberleys consist of high mountain ranges, deep gorges, etc. So it was very treacherous driving that we were not willing to risk in our van. Speaking of our van, It was decorated with an aboriginal painting down the sides. I think it was a painting of a lizard. On the back of our van it read, "If you can't race it or take it to bed, it's not worth having". The van company insists on writing these dumb sayings on the back of all the vans, but based on comparisons with other vans, we were lucky to have that saying! We had lots of stares from people on the road, probably because they were so envious... My favorite thing would be when we were hanging out in our van, and someone outside would start taking pictures of our van, not knowing we were in their watching them. Note: the van had very tinted windows. Overall I loved the van! But back to the basics, we had to pass by the Kimberleys (only 4wd accessible) so we drove straight for the first few days to get to Western Australia, WA!

Oh yes, on our second day driving we ran out of gas on the highway! Woops! We were still getting used to the Australian highways and figured they were similar to America where there is gas, excuse me petrol, every 100 miles atleast. But here in Australia everytime you see a petrol station you pretty much need to fill up. Especially if you are at half a tank or less! Well again did not get the memo so we do end up running out of gas. It was so painLESS! We flagged a car down who said we should look for caravans, or people towing boats or mobile homes because they usually travel with extra petrol. Oh he also said "you have to fill up in this country"... Oh gee thanks, sir, for that hot tip. But he was right because after flagging down about 6 more people, who all pulled over so easily because everyone in Australia loves helping out, they also like getting all the details..."Where are you headed? Where are you from? How long you here?" Etc. But a man pulled over, he was towing a dirt bike, and he had just enough petrol to allow us to cross into WA and find a petrol station. Success!

Throughout the 3/4 weeks we slept mostly in our car and sometimes in our tent. By the end of the trip we were pros in setting up our tent and making our car bed...we got into quite a routine. Where did we sleep? Where did we park our van overnight? The answer is so vast and various! It depended on whether or not we were still on the highway, in a town, close to our destination, etc. But sometimes we slept in designated Parking/Camping areas which were along the highway. Other times in caravan parks, residential areas, or even in a few front yards of people we met along the way. Traveling is so common in Australia, not only among foreigners/ backpackers (like us) but with retired couples. The Aistralians call them "grey nomads". These grey nomads trade in their house for a mobile home/caravan which comes with a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, tv room, etc. I only ever peeked inside these homes, but they were set up! So due to all the travelers, along the highway as well in towns, people cater to our needs. They even offer free coffee for the driver in many gas stations!

We were on a strict eating and sleeping schedule as well. Basically sun goes down, we go to bed, sun comes up, we are awake. When driving we would have to pull over and find our sleeping spot at around 4:30/5 because we would need to make dinner while the sun was still up! Sometimes that plan didn't always work but luckily we each had a head lamp that we all could use to get dinner prepared.

Note: When I say dinner, I mean a mix of dry food options because we did not have a refrigerator in our van. Just a cooler, or as they say here, an esky. So food consisted of noodles, canned soup, tuna, canned chicken (surprisingly good!), fruit, peanut butter and jelly, and granola bars! Yeah I know, I was roughing it!

So there are the basic details of my trip. However the best details are the sights we saw and the people we met as we traveled the 5,000 ks. We saw beautiful beaches, endless red dirt, remote national parks, tiny one street towns, and again lots of red dirt. We met travelers as well as locals, and everyone had great tips on places to go and things to do. My stories won't do these places justice so I will be posting pictures soon to share! Stay tuned! Love and miss you all!