Thailand Ho! My Travels in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam

So, it’s been a while since I wrote the Burma visa run entry. Wow, a long while. Sorry about that.

After Burma Bob and I had a lot on our plate. We’re starting a “travel consultancy” business here in Thailand, actually we started two businesses. If I was a little more ambitious with this site I might spend a good article or two talking about how to start a business in Thailand, but alas I’m feeling a little lazy. We visited the lawyer though, three times, set up two companies - each one owning 50% of the other with each of us controling 24.5% of the rest them. Nicely setup. Costed about 55,000 baht. Not a bad deal, however we didn’t need to do the whole working visa since I’ll be back at home and Bob’s already got another 9 months on his type O (for “other") visa. We each setup a personal bank account at the Siam Commercial in Chaweng here and, once we get the final papers from the lawyers, we setup a corporate bank account (or two rather) and we’re off to the races. Exciting!

With that mission accomplished we headed out to…

Alrighty boys and girls, I’m off to the full moon party on Koh Phangan of 5 November 2006!

Actually I need to shower and eat first, but this is me saying over and out. 

Leaving Big Buddha Beach on Koh Samui, here’s the ferry. Destination? Not the right town.

Correction from my last entry. I stated that Thongsala is the location of the famous Full Moon Party (indeed trying to make you all feel a bit jealous by the use of “famous”, and feeling rather special myself), but I was wrong. Thongsala is the main harbour of the island of Koh Phangan, but the full moon parties all take place down at Haan Rin… at least the main parties.

Me on the ferry to Haan Rin, Koh Phangan. Note the trimmed beard (finally). The ferry ride was kinda cool and I almost let myself get psyched up for the party upon seeing all the backpackers around me drinking beer and laying around on the roof of the ferry. The seas were, as Bob would say, “choppy”. No rain surprisingly.

This afternoon I made it to the ferry stop at Big Buddha Beach on Koh Samui by 1:03pm, the ferry’s departure time being 1pm. Thank god for Thai laziness and disorganisation because I made it…

Warning, the following story is not parent safe. If you’re over, say… 45 years old, please skip this entry.

On arrival to the “Silom Nightmarket” (as the concierge from your hotel will suggest describing it), neon signs and live sex show pimps won’t leave you alone till you’re sitting in/at a bar with a beer in your hands. That pink sign in the middle of this pic says “Super” and then something starting with a “P”. You figure it out.

Last night I met Ed at Patpong. It was my second time at Patpong, the entertainment district found on Silom Road there, my first time having been with Marc and his girlfriend Kelly. That first Patpong experience consisted of checking out the night market - which was cool and worthy of said checking out - followed by a few beer, a live Thai coverband and finally a discoteque where another band, this time American-ish black and white farangs rapping to both their own stuff and grooving-enough hip hop covers of the American rap-star genre of which I’m happy to be oblivious. Last night’s shenanigans also included said…

WOW. What a crazy place! Last night I met up with Ed the Canadian with the handle bar mustache (which he cut off yesterday to the chagrin of the multitudes of handle-bar-mustache-loving Canadians) at Shamrock, one of the big bars on Khao San Road.

Now I feel like I’ve been mislead. Whoever said Khao San Road wasn’t worth seeing? You’re WRONG, sorry. It’s quite the spectacle, but best reserved for the traveler who has been in Bangkok for a bit first I’d say. If I’d seen it upon first arrival my entire perspective on Bangkok might’ve been different, not that it was that great for a while, but meh.

My first moments on the road made infamous by The Beach. Khao San Road is a totally intense experience. I remember having to focus on not looking too overwhelmed for fear of being targeted.

Anyway, Khao San Road offers the backpacker, or partier in general, a nightlife like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The neon signs, the drunken Americans and Brits westerners stumbling around everywhere without a Thai girl on his arm (unlike Soi Cowboy or…

Hmmm, long story short (and saved for the privilaged few...), I checked out Lonely Beach to the south of Klong Prao Beach where my hotel is. I went down to meet up with Daniel who I met in Bang Bao a few days ago.

I found Daniel and met a couple friends he’d just met from Norway, Ru and KJ (both just huge masses of Scandinavian bulk). Having decided to stick around the beach and party it up with them, I got my own bungalow for the night for 300 baht (like $8) and we headed out in search of “Happy Shakes”.

Here’s Daniel at the Magic Garden getting a little Ganesh lovin’.

We went to a couple of amazing places, first the Treehouse and then the Magic Garden. I had no idea there was a mini Amsterdam on the island down here. We found our Happy Shakes and chilled out till…

The last three days have been pretty good for fun, poor for work! I have all these responsibilities to take care of (proposals to write, blogs to check, my other site to keep up) and have been rather stuck doing things like watching sunsets, going to full moon parties, playing pool with ugly Cambodian girls and lying by the pool. I’m so stressed.

Seriously though, Koh Chang is pretty cool. Cooler than the place though has been the people, and this is the biggest reason why I’ve been so incomunicado lately. On the bus from Bangkok I met a Canadian couple, Damien and Kelsey, both from Winnipeg, and Pertu and Kathi (no idea on the spelling) from Finland. Damien and Kelsey from Canada! Not the best picture, but here they are in their 200 baht/night room where they spent the first night. They moved into the hotel I was staying in the night following, and are currently there,…

I don’t know what you were expecting, but my night went pretty much as I’d figured it would, almost disappointing even. Maybe it’s because of Amsterdam; I mean, after everything one sees in Amsterdam… well you don’t exactly walk around with the gafas del sol of naivété anymore.

Look! It’s like a mini-smut-Vegas! ¡Qué guay!Indeed I hit Soi Cowboy (not until after wasting an hour or two in my hotel room watching Uncle Buck: such a classic!). It’s kind of an alleyway or lane where they suck up 90% of the electricity and 95% of the x chromosomes in a half-mile radius with bar after bar of debauchery and tomfoolery. Actually I don’t know what tomfoolery is exactly, but I’ve never used the word before and it seemed appropriate. I digress.

The bars themselves are rather tiny little things, not much more than 25 feet wide and maybe double that in length stretching from the street, kinda something like Port Olympico in Barcelona. I spent most of my time watching football (Man U cooked Newcastle 2-0) outside one of the bars on the street while I worked…

I’ll probably check out Soi Cowboy tonight. Last night I had round after round bought for me at a little pub on Sukhumvit Rd called the Black Swan (how British is that) which offers free wifi Internet access and finds itself quite close to the Soi Cowboy. I had a great time talking to a Jewish Arab (yep!) who’s escaped from the UAE and a British expat who does “Risk Management Consulting”. The Arab, Suleman, was pretty cool but his English made for some difficulty in any good conversation. He’d also been drinking for many hours (it was 6pm when we went into the pub) which must have catalyzed his massive explosions of laughter at the slightest notion of a joke. I felt bad for everyone around us, it was THAT appallingly loud.

Felix (or the man we’ll refer to as “Felix"), the risk manager, proved to be quite the interesting character. If one believes him, he was one of a few hundred secret British soldiers on special operations during the Vietnam war. His experience doing so led to his specialization in hot zones around the world where he provides risk assessments for businesses like,…