Travelogue Eight: G'Day Mate
September 16th, 2003
Hello everyone! and a special congrats to Lisa who got married Friday at Burning Man and hellos to our many new friends from Haad Son (Bob the P.I., the Irish girls, the Melbourne crew, Pete & Justine, Hanna & Nick, Sally & Andrew) to the Full Moon crew, Kirsten, Simone, Giovanni, Asami and Felix, to Rich & Chin for leaving Haad Rin to come chill, to Allyn & Jodi who we can’t wait to actually meet and Ben, Mara & Phil, the Australians.
We’ve made it to the land down under, the hospitality is incredibly warm, but the temperatures are close to freezing! It’s not even a quarter of the temperature that we’ve become acclimatized to in Thailand and Malaysia. The result- we’re wearing all the clothes that we have, which basically means that we have one outfit each until we’re in warmer climes and can put on our shorts and tank tops again without four other layers. We’ve only been here two days but have plans to head to Danielle’s grandpa’s country house. A dinner at Quiet Earth for at least eight on Friday which should include an Australian friend Michael that I used to bartend with in Toronto three years ago, the Australian Burning Man rep, a crew of Melbourne boys and their girls who we met in Thailand, dj Phil who we met in Kuala Lumpur the other night and of course David and Danielle our wonderful hosts. Sunday we have plans to catch up with my family in the suburbs and Monday there is promise of a football party as it’s time for the Australian season finals. Then off to Sydney and up to Byron Bay where I’ll be trading in work time for room and board at some funky organic farms.
It’s been about two months since we sent out the last travelogue. Quite a few of you have emailed to ask what we’ve been up to, and the more worried type have emailed to make sure we were still okay. Well, the first month and a half after leaving Borneo we spent back on Koh Phan Gan at Haad Son resort- bringing our total time spent there up to almost 4 months! The wonderful staff are basically family now and we hope to see them again around xmas time. Since we were back in our old haunt we settled down to a slower pace again. Andrew started taking Thai script lessons (and has managed to learn the 44 consonants, 15 vowels and 4 tones but not much dialogue) and I learnt to not only ride a moped, but can also confidently double Andrew as well! I even managed to make it all the way to Haad Rin a few times on the crazy road that I wrote about in travelogue three- quite a feat if you know the road.
We also got out to socialize more this past time on KPG and even attended the Full Moon Party in August. We only lasted two hours at the party, as it was exactly as busy, dirty, noisy and chaotic as we expected and we weren’t as high or drunk as 90% of the people there. We did however have a fantastic pre party dinner at Kirsten and Simone’s jungle hut, ten minutes up into the bush, along with some other friends of theirs. This for sure was the highlight of the night, not the party. At the end of the month was our second anniversary. There were plans to have a Burning Man style party co-hosted with Gary from San Fran here on KPG. But after a local family framed Gary and paid off the cops to bust him, Gary was forced to leave the island the party kind of fell apart (email me if you’d like to full and very interesting story from Gary). But, Andrew to the rescue, he secretly organized a small burn on the beach we lived on when we first came to KPG. He gave our friend Gabby some money and some pictures of the Burning Man and surprised me with our own personal burn! Coconut Head felt very Thai in interpretation especially when we found out the budget money wasn’t spent on materials (which were foraged) but was spent on Chang beer and karaoke (or maybe that makes it more like Burning Man....)
The next day we left KPG to spend a few days on Koh Tao. We finally lucked out and managed to make it to one of the semi-infamous Venus Park parties. These parties are held three times a month, the 1st, 11th and 22nd. We’d tried twice before to attend, but rain and the police weren’t a problem this time. After meeting up with Sally and Andrew we paid 270Baht (about $6.50) for our tickets, which included roundtrip taxi, entrance and a drink. The taxi ride up there was crazy. Though only a couple of kms from the main town, the venue, converted from an old helipad site feels soooo much further away. After switching to a four-wheel drive truck about ten of us piled into the back and started the almost vertical climb to the park. If being almost vertical wasn’t enough add ruts and trenches carved by the recent monsoons and branches draped over the roads. I suppose that cheap alcohol prior to the taxi didn’t help anyone’s balance either. But we made it and the venue was rocking, the dance floors were terraced into the hill and accessed by winding through jungle and around boulders, even dj booths were interesting with one looking like a giant mouth. We stayed until all of us started to feel old and realized that we did not want to see or smell the sun hitting the party, so we left around 3:30 in the morning watching in disbelief as people in various states of sobriety and intelligence were still attempting to get up the hill on motorbikes weaving in and out of the one lane full of taxis.
After a couple of days on Koh Tao we headed south by ferry and bus to Krabi. We spent only one night in Krabi before heading by longboat (a Thai version of a wooden boat with a long unmuffled propeller that looks like a hand blender, that runs on a car engine and sounds like a war zone) to Rai Leh beach. The beaches in Rai Leh are incredible! (especially Hat Tham Phra Nang). Sand the texture and colour of brown sugar, crystal clear water, towering limestone cliffs, $10 a night accommodation and $3 BBQ meals straight off the grill make it fantastic. We will definitely be back to this little paradise, though I imagine that it becomes super packed when it’s not monsoon season. We could only stay a few nights since our Thai visas were expiring on the 9th of Sept. On the morning of the 8th we had a very wet one hour long longboat ride back to Krabi as somehow it hadn’t rained enough all night and after an hour break the rain continued again just as we got on the boat. I must admit despite getting soaked it was one of those genuine traveling moments that make life seem very real- we are certainly not on a packaged tour. We managed to dry over breakfast but got soaked again as it poured intensely the moment we had to get to our min-bus. It’s hard to comprehend the sheer volume of rain that can fall within a couple of minutes here and at some points there is just no way you can justify putting on dry clothes because you’ll be instantly soaked again.
After spending a night in Had Yai we headed over the Malaysian border and straight down to Kuala Lumpur. As you may recall the black hole of all shopping malls is located in KL under the Petronas towers. After only a few hours sleep we were compelled to rise from our bed and head to the mall. Ahhh! books, sushi, movie theatres, waffles, cleanliness! Lucky for us we knew the strength of the mall hole and were able to resist more strongly this time, spending only 3 out of 5 days there this time.
On the 12th Andrew wanted to continue working on some ideas he’s been developing lately so I headed out for a solo adventure. I decided to check out the city’s orchid and hibiscus gardens, and then the bird sanctuary. Both were incredible and I took tons of pictures, many of the hornbills a bizarre looking bird indigenous to Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo. They have amazing beaks containing ivory in the horn that was traditionally used by the indigenous tribes people in jewellery and weapons. The Great Hornbill that I saw flying around the sanctuary had a wing span the size of a pelican and was unbelievably graceful flying in between the trees near the gift shop. I was lucky enough to be standing on the deck when he landed there and the shop owner let me feed this monstrous bird some banana.
Saturday night saw us going out to a club that we discovered last time, Nouvo. Of all luck there was a dj from Melboune playing- Phil K. The club was still quiet at 12:30 when he was due to play, but within four tracks the dancefloor was packed and people (including us) got their groove on for the next three hours with Phil whipping them into a frenzy by the end of his set. Four a.m. saw us heading out for tandoori chicken and fresh naan bread. Yum! nothing like an Indian feast after several hours dancing.
So we’re up to date again now. Please drop us a line via email or if you’re so inclined via snail mail (it’s Andrew’s 40th on Nov. 1st) to
Stephanie SELIG-HESSEL or Andrew HESSEL
Post Restante
c/o General Post Office
Byron Bay, NSW
Australia 2481
Please let me know if you’ve sent anything snail mail so that I’ll know to go pick it up. We’ll be in Byron for the month of Oct and the first week of Nov. then back to Melbourne for a week from Nov 7-14th, and flying back to Kuala Lumpur after that.
Lastly, if any of you are seriously considering heading to Thailand for xmas/nye please email me and let me know so that we can start to make plans. Bungalows (especially the nicer ones) are already starting to book up and we’ll need to make reservations soon.
Missing you!
big love,
*steph and andrew*
