Doing her Divemaster

It’s been an exhausting 12 hour day with 4 scuba dives, but I am still full of endorphins. I am living in Tulamben which is a small scuba diving oriented down in the volcanic countryside of Bali. I have been living at a dive shop doing my Rescue Diver certification and now I am starting my Divemaster. Today I moved into a new place – it’s wonderful. I went from having a toilet with no toilet seat, a shower with no faucet, water that never worked and sleeping on smelly sheets in a dorm room for 6 people to my new place. Aside from the contrast, it’s quite stunning. I have a large patio, a closet, a giant bed the bathroom is above Indonesian standards – all for $3 more a day than the dorm. It really feels like home. There is an Indonesian family that lives there and they are smiling and friendly, just like the restaurant down the street – where I write my emails.

The dive shop I am doing my Divemaster at is lovely too. It is kind of like a small family there, I quite like everyone. I will be here for a month, then back to Canada and back to work.

When I am done my Divemaster I will be certified to take people on their “Discover Scuba” dives, so their first uncertified dive into the ocean and to guide groups through dive sites. I don’t know if I will actually ever do this, but it is a nice escape route out of a regular life and the skills that I am learning are quite important.

I like this quaint little life in a town where the road only road takes 5 minutes to walk down – this is good because I am relocating somewhere small in October and I hope that I like it enough to stay a while :-)

I am in Paradise

I haven’t wrote in a while, mostly because it is for my own entertainment and I have been having more fun with my quote website: www.theinspiredegotist.com

Where the hell have I been? I all the way to Alaska and now I am back in Asia waiting for my final flight connection to Denpasar Indonesia to meet Kaitlin who I haven’t seen in 8 months! It was a tiring 2 flights to Bangkok and I had a 10 hour layover and I decided to get a hotel at the last minute which was the best idea I think I have ever had.

Vancouver to Hong Kong I drank with a Chinese guy who taught me something that 4.5 months in Bangkok didn’t teach me – how to bargain. I got my room at half the price they quoted! He was funny, we had 3 seats to ourselves and an open bar. I had 2 airplane bottles of wine and took half a sleeping pill then I woke up a few minutes later and he was putting a third bottle of wine in my hand. Who was I to say no? I did pick Air Canada because of their open bar policy.

Hong Kong to Bangkok was an absolute party – except I was exhausted and sleeping. There was a field hockey team of school teachers from England on the plane and I swear each one of them was like Lucy from I Love Lucy (like the scene on Rat Race). They were mesmerizing and if they hadn’t looked so hilarious with their gin and tonics I would have been very annoyed.

Now for Bangkok to Denpasar and my expectations are so high it is nerve wrecking.

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I am in Bali now with little time on the internet. I am currently on the Gili islands which is equivalent to my paradise. I had the most fantastic day. We woke up and rode bikes around the island then I signed up for scuba diving on a whim – saw sharks, turtles, barracuda, a monster sized lobster and corals I had never seen before. It was a really deep dive and it was spectacular. Then with some people I met here we took our bikes and rented scuba equipment. It was low tide and after half a kilometer walking backwards in flippers we snorkelled in a gorgeous area where I spotted 2 more sea turtles (I am never the one to spot anything). Finally, we had a fish bbq dinner on the beach with some perfect live music. There is a course on free diving (diving quite deep without a scuba tank) that I am interested in, but it is quite expensive so we will see. On that note, I have been very healthy! Early nights, early mornings and minimal drinking!

Breaking Bad

My life is less interesting - it's exam time and I am addicted to Breaking Bad. So, between pool parties and procrastinating I study and watch Breaking Bad....which I am addicted to.....

Pee Straight: The Sequel

I was just at the bar with the squatter toilet where I was initially scared of peeing on my foot earlier in the semester and instead of worrying about if I could pee straight, I was thinking of all that had changed from the first time I had been there. Last time I was at that bar I met a friend who re-inspired me towards film.

Then I went to Singapore and spent the weekend watching film screenings and student shorts. My step-mom, Sheila, mentioned how that even in Asia I was being pulled towards the film industry, which has always been a passion of mine. A day after I read her email, I put my film ticket stub into my pocket because I have been collecting them from 1997 and realized that she might have had some insight on what inspires me.

They Say It's an Island

I went to Singapore expecting it to be a bit like Vancouver. Liquor was certainly priced as though it were Vancouver, but I didn’t get the cityscape/ocean combo I was hoping for. The island is oddly secluded from the open ocean and the architecture is rather extravagant, but I think I appreciate Vancouver more than I did before.

Singapore is lovely, but I got the impression that I was walking around in someone’s pristinely made Sim City. I heard it described as “artificial” by people living there and apparently eating and shopping are the two hobbies of Singaporians, maybe out of boredom?

Fortunately for me, film was the hobby of my gracious hosts in Singapore. They spoiled me with a private screening of a Cannes Film Festival Film and then student screenings from the New York University Tische School of the Arts Film School, Singapore location (aka Pretty Big Deal). It was really inspiring to spend time with graduate students studying film. A lot of them come from business/econ/poli-sci backgrounds which I found shocking because at UBC I was the one commerce student allowed to take a film production class and the art driven kids looked at me as a capitalist anti-christ.

Anyways, I have been re-inspired towards film with some very ambitious and expensive goals. I have been dreaming about the New York University MBA/MFA Film Production Graduate Program. It requires being fantastic enough to get accepted independently into the NYU MBA and MFA programs then you enter their unique and first of its kind, film production program. Fortunately, one thing I realized in Thailand is that I am ambitious. I am over the culture absorbing aspect of Thailand where I can appreciate the uniqueness of the whole world stopping at lunch time and people coming to class an hour late – I need to get to New York, a place where people don’t stop walking on escalators and lunch is multitasked.

Happy New Year, Again

I just had the most uplifting conversation. I was feeling very melancholy about Songkran, Thailand’s New Year which is a 3 day water fight. I went out to “play” yesterday and it was fun at first, splashing water on each other and there is a clay paint that people put on other people’s faces. As the streets got more crowded and the men a little drunker, they started being really aggressive putting the paint on my face. My earring almost got ripped out and someone grabbed my face with 2 hands from behind me and wouldn’t let go, meanwhile they were pelting you with water. That’s when I retired my gun and decided my New Year was over. I spent day 2 of the 3 day event watching movies in my room with no food and no restaurants open. Finally I just left the house to go to 7 Eleven and I met a New Zealander who passionately hates Songkran for stagnating the economy and killing 2,000 people each year. To put that in perspective, 26 people died in the military coup last year.

At 3pm yesterday we had to find a taxi driver who wasn’t drunk. I am not regretful to be going to Singapore tomorrow.

Thai-German Night

We went to a Thai-German restaurant & brewery yesterday and I am still smiling about how much fun I had. I don’t have a kitchen so dining out has lost sort of lost its appeal. To have to wait half an hour to get into a nice restaurant with real beer was very exciting for me. There was a very elaborate live show with enough performers that it could have been an awards show. Before we emptied our beer tower people were dancing at their dinner tables and the restaurant slowly evolved into a night club. It was a place where cliché dorky dance moves came to life but no one acknowledged that they were dorky – it was just a hell of a good time. It felt like a very ethnic version of America’s Bandstand.

Myanmar (Burma)

Ten days in Myanmar was the most unique travel experience I have had.

Getting off the plane, the men are wearing sarong skirts with collared shirts and the women are covered in Thanaka face paint and everyone speaks impeccable English. It felt like a National Geographic twilight zone to be hit with so much culture and to be able to communicate flawlessly. English being everyone’s second language is impeding on my ability to be funny and it is starting to get me – I miss that quick witted mother of mine and over a glass of wine. Myanmar is a British colony so they speak a lot of English here and everyone is incredibly educated if that is not too condescending for me to say.

Yangon was our first stop – I won’t bother describing the Shwedagon Pagoda, it was too unbelievable. A girl there painted Thanaka on my face while we spoke with a monk who had an astonishing amount of ear hair. I would have thought that ear hair would fall under the category of shaving your head every day. Anyways, Thanaka is a light muddy-chalk think
that girls put on their face and arms as makeup and to protect themselves from the sun. Daily face and body paint makeup, day one and I was already enthralled with Myanmar.

Next we headed to Bagan where we were greeted by a horse-drawn carriage and continued to visit some of the 2,500 temples in the area. It was better than Angkor Wat in Cambodia because there are few tourists and each temple is managed by a family who are essentially giving you a tour of their 11th century home. Just as we were thinking that temple #1,276 was looking similar to temple #973 we
revelled in the attention of a busload of Myanmar villagers who had come to Bagan and had never seen a foreigner. Two dozen photos with strangers and my attention span held strong – “you want me to hold your child? No problem. Smile!” I was entirely charmed by the tea shops and slow pace of life in Bagan. At night there were people in the streets singing and playing instruments, making me wonder if their government had the right idea in blocking YouTube.

Alas, we were off to Mandalay where I got moody because I didn’t want to be in a city of 6 million people, but it was my transfer point to go trekking. Chella left back to Bangkok from here and I went to see a performance by the Moustache Trio who are a famous example of human rights abuse in Myanmar. One of the comedians went to prison for making jokes the government didn’t like – then he was mentioned on the film About a Boy and he was released.

After a performance by the Moustache Trio, my highlight of Mandalay was my bicycle taxi driver with whom I had tea and chapatti with. In most countries conversations with the locals result in awkward (and fake, very fake) laughter as we struggle to understand each other. It was a treat to be able to communicate with a local. Only in Myanmar, the people are so kind that a taxi driver with 6 children would absolutely refuse to let me pay for the tea. Our horse carriage driver in Bagan also took us to the bus station free of charge because we were “friends now.” It really makes Thailand look like a commercial crockpot.

Then I headed to Hsipaw, a small city in some very steep hills. Hills that doubled back and forth enough to make many people on the bus vomit. I went on a 2 day trek to a village of 1,000. I was not too pleased with our first day of trekking. It involved a 4 hour hill climb in the desert sun with a guide who I am certain was racing us to the top. Everyone was too sweaty and beat down to talk to each other during the hike but at least my sarcastic thoughts are usually at my best when I am tediously frustrated.

We ate some incredible food and slept in a village of 1000 people. At first I was disappointed that the village wasn’t more primitive but it was great to see a self-sustaining and content village in contrast to nearby ones we walked through the following day. Day 2 of trekking involved a village wedding and a lot of rice whisky. It was an incredible experience not just to see the wedding, but we were invited to participate in eating, drinking and watching the vows.

The final town I went to was Pyin U Lwin where I saw giant caves and military bases. Their Defense Academy sign boasts “The Triumphant Elite of the Future.” The caves were more humble with Buddha statues and monks inside. One of the monk’s bought me lunch and I am fairly certain he was flirting with me because he touched my arm when he laughed at my jokes that I know he didn’t understand.

I endured over 40 hours of bus travel on this trip and only officially slept in a bed 6 out of the 9 nights I was here. Myanmar is breathtaking and I will certainly be back.

Myanmar Trip is On

Yesterday there was a 7.0 earthquake in Northern Thailand and Myanmar and I just wanted to let everyone know that I am okay and haven’t been impacted at all. Today I am flying to Myanmar, but I have talked to my friend with family in the Myanmar and apparently the quake wasn’t even felt in the city I am flying to, so worst case scenario, I will spend 10 days in Yangon. I would rather deal with post-earthquake than the Thai authorities when my visa expires tomorrow. I will be safe – don’t worry.

Jungle Camping

Wanting the true jungle authenticity, we decided to sleep 4 people in a very small tent in Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park. The camping site didn’t seem quite “jungle” enough for us - the prepared families with proper camping supplies were cramping our style so we decided to drag our tent into the forest with the dirt and the monkeys. Then some lady boys invited us to sit with them for drinks and snacks which were constantly interrupted by deer, moose, land leeches and giant porcupines running through the camp site. Our jungle located tent lost its charm when the sun went down and we had to find it by candle & moonlight. Sleeping on the dirt ground was the least of our worries, during the night Issac got bitten 3 times by land leeches and a worm crawled into Kenny’s mouth.

While on a short waterfall hike the next morning some monkeys ransacked our tent. We panicked to see clothes thrown all over but soon realized all that was missing was a bag of peanuts. Confused by the fact that our tent door had been zipped back up, we thankfully gathered our valuables from the mess.

Then we went on an extreme jungle hike.

After 3-4 hours of fantastic and challenging hiking, the path had too many unmarked routes with questionable markers until finally we were lost. I was with 3 boys and once I deemed their “path” decisions as reckless bushwhacking, I honestly started to get scared.

It was interesting to watch my mind deteriorate towards panic. It didn’t happen automatically - I was obviously uncomfortable and saying little things and luckily Trevor nicely said that “we should stay calm” which shifted my gears from “shit, we are seriously lost in the jungle” to a really interesting inner struggle to stay calm. I was picturing a time we got lost on our snowmobiles at dusk, what would happen if we got hurt, having to spend a night in the jungle and being scolded for clawing our way into the jungle without at least leaving a trail of bread crumbs. But alas, those things were not helpful so I quietly endured being frightened and over an hour later we found our way back onto a path.

When we crawled out of the canopied jungle into the sunlight we were praying for the side of the road but instead we got a beautiful observation tower to ourselves. The setting was a wild jungle that could have been Africa and it was surrounded with fresh elephant poop. Each of us were at intermittent stages of bleeding, muddy and bug bitten as we climbed the tower that gave the satisfaction of Mount Everest.

Finally we hitchhiked home and ended up tagging along on some Thai family’s holiday. They took us shopping and bought us ice cream.

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Nicole is Going to the Jungle

I am sleeping in a tent in the national Park Khao Yai. If I haven't blogged by Tuesday it will be too late for a search party but please be kind in not saying "she had it coming." I've packed whisky, Oreos, candles and good friends, the rest will work itself out.