Blue Sun

Southern Africa Email 2 - Part III

After Chobe, we flew to another part of Botswana for more safari-ing.  Where Chobe is at the northern tip of Botswana, we headed to the Tuli Block in Southeastern Botswana, along the Limpopo River, to a privately-owned reserve that borders South Africa and Zimbabwe.  Because the Mashatu Game Lodge is privately-owned, our guides could drive anywhere they wanted to on the property, which made locating hard to find game much easier.  While the herds weren’t as large, we were able to get very close to groups of elephants, lions (including a lion kill) and spotted hyenas.  And Mashatu offered specialized safaris, which added to reserve’s allure.  One morning, my mom and I went on a “Cycling Safari,” biking with two guides across the vast stretches of savannah, which provided a much welcomed workout and a more realistic perspective of the size of several animals (zebras are much smaller than I expected – about the size of a large pony or small horse, while eland, which is Africa’s largest antelope, is enormous).  The other specialized safari I went on was a “Predator Drive” with a guide who studies predators for governments and environmental groups and runs these tours to fund his research.  On our Predator Drive, we visited the den of spotted hyenas (hyena look like dogs, but more closely resemble cats and have the strongest jaw of any animal on earth), watched honey badgers (which are small and incredibly feisty – often scare off predators much larger than them, like leopards and cheetahs) and observed 3 territorial leopards square off against each other.  Fascinating stuff.

But there were 2 incidents that made Mashatu the perfect ending to our trip.

The first was during our first night drive.  As we cruised around the 75,000 acre property in our open-topped Land Cruiser with our 2 guides, one of them spotted a female leopard about 30 yards from us.  Then out of nowhere came a male.  And before we knew it, we had full-on RLP – Real Live Porn; though in this case, I guess it should be RLLP – Real Live Leopard Porn.  It was all Bloodhound Gang from there – “you and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”  The 6 of us in the car became instantly entranced voyeurs.  For the next 45 minutes we were hypnotized as these two leopards continued to mate.  Female leopards are apparently in heat for about 4 days, during which she’ll identify and seduce a male partner.  And once she does her little dance to attract him, they’ll stay together for those 4 days or so – having sex up to 120 times in that period.  Yes, 120 times – with the frequency increasing as the days do.  The sexual encounter involves the male mounting the female, going at it for about 15 seconds, roaring, climaxing and then having the female scratch him (I guess literally leaving her mark).  The roars were incredibly loud and forceful, leaving us to speculate what the male was exclaiming – “Oh God!”, “Who’s your daddy?”, ”What’s my name, bitch?!,” or “Do it!”  Our guides thought we caught them in the 2nd day of this hedonism as during the less than 1 hour we watched, they went at it 6 times!  Yes, 6 times!  I had only heard of a feat like this once before, and that was my college roommate during the first 2 weeks of his relationship with a girl he started dating when we studying abroad in Australia.  Well, he did something right, because “6-Times-A-Day-Jeff” as he was thereafter known has now been married to the girl for 7 years. 

Of course, watching two animals go at it with my parents was a little unsettling, especially when I hear comments from my mother like (after the leopard’s third time) “Wow, Matthew, what stamina he has,” or my dad joking about coitus interruptus we’d cause if we moved too close.  Unfortunately, the lighting wasn’t what I was accustomed to in filming these encounters. 

The second highlight truly belongs to my dad.  When he was in South Africa 4 years ago, the only animal he didn’t see that he wanted to was a cheetah.  Cheetahs are fascinating in that they are the fastest land mammals on earth, as they can run at up to 60 mph for stretches of time.  They are incredibly graceful animals.  So his primary goal for the entire trip was to see a cheetah (or cheeter as he was pronouncing it).  And he didn’t stop telling us this.  Unfortunately, he didn’t see any in Kruger National Park this time around.  And even though there are no cheetahs in Chobe, he incessantly joked around with our guides “when am I going to see my cheetah.”  I grew to hate the word and the animal after just 3 days, or 300 mentions by my dad, which ever came first.  And then we arrived in Mashatu, which supposedly had a family of cheetahs somewhere across its 75,000 acres.  Upon our arrival, my dad had the same giddy excitement as a middle-aged man watching Britney’s “Baby One More Time” for the 2nd time.  And in three days of searching, we had no luck.  So while my mom and I were on our Cycling Safari on the last morning of our time at Mashatu, my dad went off with a guide on his final drive of the trip.  Over the radio, our guide heard that there were cheetahs spotted, to which my mom and I immediately thought my dad got his wish – to see his beloved cheetah.  We thought of my dad and were overjoyed.  And then 15 minutes later, we heard another voice over the radio about a visitor who was at the cheetah site but had lost his camera, so his jeep had to turn back to find it – and we immediately knew it had to be my dad.  Like I said, African Vacation with the Clark Griswald played by Matthew Wallis.

As a side note, my dad found the camera and claimed he saw the cheetah, but we have no absolute confirmation – just the words of him and his guide.

Two days and a 16 hour flight after the Muchenje Lodge, we were back in the States, where the only animals I’ll be seeing are those in the urban jungle as on the highways

Southern Africa Email 2 - Part II

Appropriately enough, the Chobe Reserve rests on the Chobe river, with Namibia just on the other side of the river.  Every afternoon, the river would host herds of various animals – zebras, giraffes, impala, gnus, hippos and most notably, elephants.  Truly an amazing site to see all these animals interact together.  The image that sticks out most in my mind were the elephants though – massive in size, they were incredibly playful with one another.  They’d splash water on each other, roll around in the mud and generally act like a redneck’s vision of what two girls next door washing a car in a driveway.   The other highlight of the park had to be the lion sightings.  Starting out with a female protecting and resting around her wildebeest (gnu) kill, we saw a pack of 5 female lions, then 2 males with massive manes, and finally, 3 adorable cubs.  In just one day, Chobe surpassed the 5 we spent in Kruger for animal life.

So much of what made our time at Chobe great was our lodge – the Muchenje Game Reserve.  The lodge’s managers – Peter and Sandy – focused on creating an intimate, warm, extended family environment.  Relatively small with accommodations of 20 people per night, all the guests ate all meals together with our guides and the managers included.  Peter and Sandy, both white and in their 60s, showed us part of the difficult side of Africa and racism.  They were from Zimbabwe and had worked as lodge managers for decades, but came to Botswana when the writing was on the wall in Zimbabwe about the direction the government was heading – they saw the decline in tourism as the government did not crack down on crime.  And because of this decline, Zimbabwe’s economy crashed, and with it, Peter and Sandy’s pension.  After investing and building up a pension over several decades of $2.5 million, Peter’s pension was worth just $600 when he was able to first cash it in last year… or another way to think about it, for every dollar they had saved for retirement, they received less than 1/10th of a penny.  But to Peter and Sandy’s credit, they love managing lodges and their love of it comes shining through in the satisfaction of their guests at the Muchenje Lodge.

And the Muchenje Lodge was where Africa Vacation truly started.  Most of the guests at the lodge were British; they were probably expecting a modicum of civility on their trip to Africa and, specifically in their former colony, Botswana.  What they got were the American Griswalds, played in all its glory by the Wallis Family.  We shared a table for our meals with one British family celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary; the father was a Cambridge-educated barrister, the mother very formal and two teenage daughters, well, very-teenage and very British (Oh I love Robbie Williams!).  True to form, my family was not exactly the model of civility – we must have appeared loud, mannerless and voracious eaters – probably a site to see for foreigners, but very comfortably American.  But what probably shocked the Brits the most was our find command of the English language.  Somewhere over the Atlantic, Mom and Dad lost the letter ‘R’ in pronouncing words (probably because they are from Brooklyn and the Bronx, respectively) at least words in words where it appeared after the 2nd letter – so we heard such find pronunciations Krugah (as in Kruger National Park), wautah (water), and leppid (leopard).  And I guess they stored these Rs somewhere, because every now and then, Rs appeared where they shouldn’t have been – cheetah became cheetar (which sounds like the guy at your table you want to know while playing poker) and Cubar (Cuba).  To some finely educated Brits, it must have sounded like us Yanks were scratching a chalkboard with our nails every time we opened our mouths. 

But our dining highlight had to be the Aussie family at our table.  I know that people often imitate the fashions of celebrities, occasionally even their hair styles – we all knew “the Rachel” helmet and the Clooney cut were all the rage in the mid-1990s.  But never in my life did I ever expect to see someone with the same gray-coloring style as Paulie Walnuts (http://www.hbo.com/sopranos/cast/character/paulie_walnuts.shtml) from the Sopranos – much less a 50 year old, 200 lbs woman!  The matriarch of the Aussie family had stylized gray streaks across the front and one side of her hair with the remainder colored chestnut.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both.  Of course, she barely one-upped her husband who, about 4 inches shorter than her, pulled off the shaved-head, ZZ Top full beard to a tee… and he was mute. 

We finished our Chobe trip with a tour of a local village where our game drive guide was from.  Botswana is a relatively wealthy country for Africa (diamonds are its biggest export) and has so much land with just 1.5 million people that its citizens just have to ask the government for a piece of property and they get it free of charge.  The village we visited had 20 people, 100% literacy, high cell phone penetration but no running water or electricity.  Bizarre, but indicative of much of Botswana – many villages try to remain true to traditional tribal practices and a subsistence farming lifestyle.

Southern Africa Email 2 - Part I

August 18, 2004

Ok, I’m back in the States… this is my first chance to email about the last 10 days of my trip since email access was rare or too expensive.  Read on… I promise it’s good.

When I last wrote, I was in Johannesburg, having just returned from Kruger National Park in South Africa.  Our next adventure was to head to Livingstone, Zambia to see Victoria Falls (named after they guy in Lord Stanley’s famous phrase, “Dr. Livingstone I presume”).  Victoria Falls… in addition to being a perfect porn actress name, Victoria Falls is one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World.  A 100 meter high water fall on the Zambese River, Victoria Falls is the border between Zambia from Zimbabwe, can be heard several miles away and is literally a mile wide (and more than an inch deep).  The charming 100 year old town of Livingstone (about 8 kilometers from Vic Falls) has grown in recent years to accommodate the additional tourism after the fall in Zimbabwe’s tourism industry due to the country’s increasing lawlessness.  Zambia and Zimbabwe have a long connected history, as together they comprised Rhodesia, the British colony named after the one-time world’s richest man, Cecil Rhodes (the dude who created the scholarship that now bares his name).  He is also the same guy that only hired men, kept the youngest ones closest to him, and would fire those that married women.  Things that make you go hmmm…

We spent 2 days in Livingstone having fun negotiating at the markets, talking with locals (the people of Zambia are amongst the friendliest I have ever come across – those inside and outside the tourist industry) and visiting the Falls itself.  To give you an idea of how massive Victoria Falls actually is, approximately 900 million liters flow through it every minute; there are a little less than 4 liters per gallon, so that’s about 250 million gallons flowing through Vic Falls.  Flushing a toilet uses 1 gallon of water, so put another way, in 1 minute the same amount of water flows through Victoria Falls as if everyone in the US went to the bathroom and flushed at the same time!  It’s like Super Bowl commercials 24/7. 

The massive amount of water drops 100 meters to create a vast mist which at times feels like rain.  This white mist is so pervasive that Victoria Falls is known to the local people as ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ - Smoke Which Thunders.  But the mist and massive size make for some great pictures, especially for rainbows.  Our time in Livingstone ended with a sunset cruise on the Zambese River.  We skipped the African Queen (no Bogart or Katie Hepburn, no dice!) in favor of a smaller, open bar boat with just 2 British girls and an Aussie guy (of course, there are more Aussies outside of Australia than actually on that big island) joining us. 

Early the next morning we made our way to northern Botswana, crossing over a body of water in 5 minutes that is the intersecting border of Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia.  Botswana is roughly the size of Texas and bigger than France.  We were headed for a small lodge right outside of Botswana’s Chobe National Reserve, home to some of the largest herds of elephants, lions and other prize game.  There are supposedly 45,000 elephants in Chobe – or put another way, if you had $1 for every elephant in Chobe, you still couldn’t pay for a year of b-school. 

Southern Africa Email 1 - Part II

If racism were an Olympic sport, the Afrikaners would be like the old Soviet Union; somehow in every event, you knew they were in medal contention, even not outright favorites for the gold medal. Afrikaners could make David Duke and Daniel Carver appear open-minded. It's still astonishing to hear some of the things they have said to my family. For instance, one Afrikaner commented, "We like the US. Your black people are not savages." That's a direct quote. Another said that the South African blacks are killing thousands of whites a day in South Africa, but the media doesn't report it because it is controlled by the blacks. So now you have conspiracy theorists too. We have a place for people like this in the US -- it's called rural Idaho.

Anyway, with that in mind, it makes traveling in South Africa as white person very bizarre -- almost uncomfortable. On one hand, you have Afrikaners who feel at home making comments that abhor you, but you really can't do anything about it; on the other, you are a distinct minority walking around town, and don't know if the people around you view you as a racist too -- because many of them only know of whites who hate them. It's not like you can walk around with a t-shirt that says I'm not a racist to quell the tension.

Back to our time in Joburg. First day -- Friday -- we signed up for a half day tour with Max's Maximum tours of Joburg and Soweto. Max is black, in his late 30s, jovial and incredibly up to date on world affairs. He had a lot of questions for us about George W., to which we could only respond by saying, "I'm sorry." As I mentioned before, Joburg is the financial capital and has a popluation of 3.5 million, though that's probably low. It and its surrounding areas account for 65% of South Africa's and 25% of all of Africa's GDP. It's also the gold capital of Africa -- and has been since gold was discovered there in 1886. They still mine in the suburbs. Since 1994, when the new (read: one person, one vote) government was elected, there has been serious "white flight" as they call it out of the city and into the suburbs -- specifically to gated, fenced and barbed-wired homes. Joburg resembles a newer US city as very few people actually live near downtown. Crime has gone up downtown and many illegal African immigrants have moved into the neighborhoods that were formerly predominantly white. It's all pretty sad, as the city feels somewhat hollow. We stopped and walked around a few markets, but didn't buy anything. It was somewhat depressing.

The second half of our trip was to the township of Soweto, which is about 10 miles outside of Joburg. Interestingly, Soweto gets its name from the acronym SOuth WEstern TOwnship (ok, I'm a dork and thought that was interesting). Townships were based on the Afrikaner idea needing cheap (black) labor, without having to live near them -- it's easier if they are all clustered and forced to live in specific villages. I expected Soweto to be a bunch of shacks. I was gravely mistaken. Soweto has a population of 4.5 million (so it's actually bigger than Joburg) and stretches across the horizon if viewed from a distance. It has one of the largest hospitals in the world with 10,000 beds. There are numerous neighborhoods in Soweto, that range across economic classes, from deeply impoverished homes of tin shacks (very few now, maybe 10%) to full-on middle class, ranch-style housing that resembles middle class homes in Australia, New Zealand or parts of the US (they kind of look like the house on the Brady Bunch). Of couse, they too have high walls and gates. The big government initiative with the townships is to make sure every citizen in South Africa has running water and electricity. Baby steps.

Southern Africa Email 1 - Part I

August 5, 2004

This email will be a long one, as I try to create an image of South Africa as we've experienced it. I'll do my best Bill Bryson impersonation as I describe the country and a little of its history to give you some context and then go into our travels.

The first leg of the Wallis family's Africa Vacation. We've already re-enacted Vacation (summer 1991 around the US in a Ford Taurus), European Vacation (summer 1997) and Vegas Vacation (December 1998, my brother Brandon's 21st birthday), and now we're one up on the Griswalds.

First stop: South Africa, or as the locals here pronounce it, Sowt Eff-ree-ka

We left 7/28 from JFK and flew 8 hours to Dakar, Senegal, which apparently has nothing to do with the cologne every 16 year old from Brooklyn wore in the early 90s (I know, that was Drakkar, but still, it's awful close). After an hour layover, we had another 8 hours of flight into Johannesburg (or as the locals say, Joburg), with the pleasure of screaming babies in stereo -- one the row in front of us, the other behind. There must have been 20 children on the flight under 3 years old, which has me wondering why airlines don't create a section specifically for young children and their parents. I'm sure they could charge more to other passengers not to sit near children. I know it's worth another $50 to me for an 8 hour flight -- probably more.

Ok, so my initial thoughts on South Africa. This is one complex country. Case in point: there are 11 official languages (English, Afrikaans and 9 tribal ones) and 3 different capitals. Joburg ain't one of them. The 3 capitals and their functions are Pretoria (administrative), Bloemfontein (judicial) and Cape Town (Legislative). Joburg is the financial capital though, so almost foreigner goes through it at one point in their trip. South Africa's cultural complexity trumps even its capitals and languages. They've categorized people into 4 race groups -- white (which is actually split between British and Afrikaner, but I'll go into that shortly), black, Indian (there's a large Indian population) and Colored. The affectionate term Colored refers to those of mixed races -- any combination of black, white, muslim, malaysian or javan -- and is an official term, not a racial slur. Changing directions a bit -- what the hell is an Afrikaner? I wondered the same thing before the summer. Understanding Afrikaners is essential to understanding South Africa; they are the descendants of the original European settlers in South Africa. They are primarily of Dutch descent, though they've thrown some German and French Huguenot into the mix. Initially they were very Calvinist, which meant they believed that people were pre-determined to go to heaven (this is incredibly important to know) -- and they're totally Old Testament. Specifically, as the lone whites on a continent of people darker than them, they believed that they were the modern version of the Israelites who left Egypt, trekked across the desert into the land of Canaan and are god's chosen people. They also believe that the Canaanites were inferior and thus there shouldn't be any real interaction with them (other than for work reasons); here's where you read native Africans for Canaanites. So over the last 3 centuries, the Afrikaners have built a life (mostly as farmers across the country) with a biblical justification for their racism. It was the Afrikaners who voted out the British descendants from South Africa's government in 1948 and introduced the policy of apartheid (by the way, the Afrikaner party was the Nationalist Party, based on the German National Socialist Party, known to all of us as the Nazi party).

Days 33 - 35 - July 19 - 21

Monday - Wednesday.

Bangkok.

"Time flies - doesn't seem a minute" Head Murray's one-hit wonder "One Night in Bangkok" perfectly summed up my feelings as the end of my trip approached.

I had three days to kill in the city that so many travelers find to be the antithesis of what they like about Southeast Asia. Whereas my travels had me visiting some serene, less developed or historic and endearing locations, Bangkok is anything but. No pretty beaches. Overly trafficked roads. Urban chaos. At least to the outsiders.

But like an onion, if you peel back some of the layers, Bangkok has many charms. One such are the countless Buddhist Temples (Wats) -- easily some of the most memorable I came across in my travels. There's the Reclining Buddha, a 46 meter long buddha laying on its side. And there's also the Golden Buddha, a 15 meter, 5 ton statue made of pure gold. No doubt, my favorite story about a Buddha. Some years ago, fearing an invasion, the owners of the Golden Buddha covered the statue in cement so that the invaders would have no interest in it. Then in the 1950s, the statue was accidentally dropped and a chunk of cement fell off, revealing the statue's true golden nature. Everyone was stunned and overjoyed. And it was great, until people decided to smash all of the concrete Buddhas in hopes of finding more golden statues. Unfortunately, this Golden Buddha had no siblings... and in its unlucky wake were the remains of countless concrete Buddhas.

Bangkok, as the capital of Thailand (nee Siam) for 200+ years, is home to the royal family, which of course means, that there are palaces. And with Thailand's relative wealth, there were ample funds for damn nice palaces, of which the city's Grand Palace is the most, well, grand. A sprawling campus of royal, government and religious structures, the Grand Palace is impressive in its architecture and layout. Definitely worth the 1.5 hours to take the tour and walk around.

Bangkok is also home

Days 27 - 32 - July 13 - July 18

Tuesday through Sunday.

The other side of paradise.

I left PP on Tuesday to ferry and fly to Ko Samui, another Thai island, this time off the east coast. Ko Samui is a larger tourist destination than PP - more developed, as in cars are actually allowed on the island. It's also a lot bigger with many villages, often a 25 - 40 minute drive between them. I was headed to Samui for 2 reasons: 1) to get my advanced open water scuba diver certification and 2) to meet up with yet more Wharton classmates. And, well, you can add a little fun in the sun to that too.

All told, there must have been 15 Whartonites who floated through. Three of them had rented a house for the week and invited everyone to stay, but logistically that didn't work... clearly the house wouldn't quite make it Real World-able. So we all stayed in bungalos on the beach in Chaweng, the main tourist area. I know, I know, I've had a very tough life recently.

What was great about the Wharton/Samui rendez-vous was the mixture of those who were at the end of their journeys with those just starting. Fantastic way to share information, enjoy travel war stories and feel the excitement of those just beginning. At the same time, the days in Samui were a wonderful way to catch up with close friends -- Mitzi, Rose, Nancy, Turner -- as well as form stronger relationships with people that I wish I'd spent more time with or got to know better while at school (the list is too long to name, but Allison, Kate, Craig & Derek, Neel Bhatia and Kobi (again, from my Hong Kong days) would definitely be on there). We had some phenomenal dinners, most notably at Eat Sense, right along the beach and so much fun at night.

As true Wharton students -- read: always competitive -- we went bowling the first night, where I unequivocally disgraced the Wallis family name for generations to come with my worst game of bowling since I was probably 6 years old. Clearly, there must be something different about the lanes on this side of the world, cause it could neither have been my fault nor the influence of several drinks and shots of vodka I had consumed. Mini-golf the following night was a different story. I was much better; I think it was the affect of feeling the start of the British Open or the bond with the success at the Masters of the other notable lefty, Phil Mickelson. Well, at least I had a hole-in-1. I'm still reliving that moment of glory in my head... since they really don't come around all that often.

And then there was the party scene -- also very good. Definitely some fun clubs to go drinking and dancing in. I ended up out late several nights including a few with Neel & Kobi, and then with Rose/Mitzi/Kate/Allison. But the highlight had to be when around 15 of us went out together and just danced everywhere. Good times... or as my dive instructor would say, Happy Days.

And diving. Yes, this was my crowning glory, my icing on the cake of the trip -- my 5 dive course for my Advanced Open Water Dive certification. The Advanced course requires 2 days and 5 dives, 2 of which are compulsory (Deep dive, Navigation). In addition to those two, I did a multi-level dive, peak-performance buoyancy dive and underwater naturalist dive. Diving from Samui actually involves 2 long boat rides. The first day we headed to Ko Tao (Thai for Turtle Island, but unfortunately no turtles were to be seen), an island about 3+ hours away that's known for its diving. In fact, that's the island's sole reason for existence, or at least tourism (which I'm starting to believe is Thailand's sole reason for, or means of, existence).

The diving was nice -- better than what I experienced in PP, but that just may have been the temporary conditions. The marine life very similar to what I'd seen before. I had 3 dives at Ko Tao's Shark Island site -- my 1) multi-level which involved planning and spending significant time at three different levels underwater (23 meters, 18 meters, 10 meters), 2) navigation which required dropping a weight on the sea floor and then using a compass and counting fin cycles to find the weight again, and 3) peak performance buoyancy which was comprised of several tasks underwater to make sure I can control my body, such as limbo-ing under a stick, touching my nose to a stick as well as the ground without any other part of my body touching the ground (think: body inverted), and doing a series of flips underwater.

The second day of diving we headed to Sail Rock, the aptly named structure about 2 hours north of Ko Samui that is a rock and resembles a sail emerging from underwater. Fascinating where they come up with naming these places. Sail Rock is considered one of the deeper dive locations and that's where I had to go some 30 meters deep for my Deep Dive requirement. After 25 meters, nitrogen narcosis may set in; nitrogen narcosis may have sever affects including, cause people to go delirious, acting like they are tripping or just slowing down the ability to comprehend information. I didn't experience any of those, much to the disappointment of my dive instructor Ben, who was hoping for some high-quality comedy. But diving to 30 meters was incredibly cool because of the different aquatic life at those levels -- visibility is lower, water colder, more places to hide out for animals. I had a great time on the deep dive. As for my last dive, all I had to do was identify 3 types of coral and 3 fish that we saw once I got back on the boat afterwards. Not that difficult, but fun nonetheless. As for Sail Rock, it's a great dive site. Mostly wall diving with coral, there are several bends and turns that create different habitats for various fish. It also has several cool structures in it, namely the Chimney, which divers can enter the Rock at 18 meters and shoot up to 12 while still inside and then pop-out again. It's like a cave with a couple of openings. Simply fun stuff.

From Samui, I am headed to Bangkok for 3 days to finish up the Asian portion of my trip.

And as dive-instructor Ben would always say, these are Happy Days. They are indeed.

Days 26 - 33 - July 5 - July 12

Monday to Monday. Yes a full week.

Ko Phi Phi ('Ph' in Thai is pronounced with a hard 'P', so it's sounds like Ko Pee Pee)

I planned on staying in Ko Phi Phi for 3 days and ended up there for 8. With Angkor Wat, it's been the highlight of my trip. So what's so great about Ko Phi Phi?

A brief description -- Ko Phi Phi is a set of 2 islands off the western coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. One of the islands, Ko Phi Phi Do is inhabited, except no cars are allowed on it. Most of the places to stay and restaurants are located along a few walking streets, with a few resorts only accessible by boat. Everywhere is a 5 minute walk to the beach, max. And while there's development going on, it's still much less than other Thai island destinations such as Ko Samui or Phuket. The second island, Ko Phi Phi Ley, is uninhabited, but frequented by day-trips for snorkeling and scuba diving.

I arrived in PP (you can't expect me to write Ko Phi Phi Do all the time, can you?) late afternoon on July 5 after a few flights and a ferry ride from Chiang Mai, and did what comes natural -- get marginally acquainted with the town before speaking with several dive shops about what they had to offer. I decided to go diving early the next morning choosing Visa Divers for 2 dives - one off Bida Noi, the other Phi Phi Ley - with an experienced group. I was told that there was a very good chance of seeing either Leopard sharks or turtles, and potentially a whale shark (that's usually 20 feet long), which had me very excited. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of those. The Bida Noi (an island just south of PP Ley) site had tough conditions, with the worst current I've ever experienced. Remember that old Maxell tape commercial with the guy wearing sunglasses, sitting in his chair, facing sound being blasting from a stereo and his hair blowing backward... yeah, that was me in the current. I simply couldn't move forward at Bida Noi. PP Ley resembled many of the reefs that I've dove on before, so unfortunately, these weren't great dives. And unluckily, 2 of the people in my group struggled (they misrepresented their actual level of experience), so the 2 dives were very frustrating. But there was nothing I could do about it and I did enjoy being back underwater. Ironically, less than a week later, at the same spots, some of my friends diving saw the leopard sharks, turtles and most impressively, a 20 foot whale shark. That's an animal with the height of three Shaq's stacked head to toe. My lord.

And for the next few days, all I did was go to the beautiful beach (a 1 minute walk from my guesthouse), cruise around town, and get Thai massages ($5/hour). Just relaxed. And partied. This was really the first time on my trip I went out late on several consecutive nights. PP has three fun bars... so there's always a good chance that I would see familiar faces, which made going out by myself easy. And you gotta love a place that had seemingly more women backpackers than men.

PP has several restaurants that show movies (helps when it costs just $2 for a DVD) so over the week I watched Shrek 2, Starsky & Hutch, Love Actually and Farenheit 9/11. Amazing how you can get that here before it's debuted in parts of the States... and with that, I'll be taking orders from my readers out there for anything they want picked up in Bangkok.

So besides your run of the mill sitting in paradise sorts of pleasures, part of what made PP great was that I ran into many familiar faces. The first were 2 people from my trek in Chiang Mai, and it was nice to meet up for them for a drink. Also hung out with Tom, an American who teaches English in Korea, who I met in Nha Trang, Vietnam. And then there was the Wharton contingent, which ended up numbering 7 (for those who care about this stuff, they were Laura (from Angkor Wat trip), Chandra (Hanoi dinner), Julie, Madge & Ryan, Alvaro, PJ (boyfriend of Whartonite whom I had dinner with in Saigon))... I spent 3 evenings with them (3 Ds -- dinner, drinks and dancing). We also rented a speed boat for 3 hours to cruise around the islands - specifically to go see some of the amazing beaches on on PP Ley, including the location of the appropriately-named movie, The Beach, was filmed. And then we cruised into a quiet lagoon and had our lunch on a beach that must have been 20 feet long and 5 feet deep in total seclusion. Heaven.

After 8 glorious days of just relaxing good times, I packed up my bags, waved goodbye to paradise, and headed over to the east coast island of Ko Samui, where I'd be taking my advanced diving certification course.

Days 23 - 25 - July 2 - 4

Friday through Sunday.

Have I got a deal for you! You give me $40 and I'll make sure that you hike up steep hills for 3 days, sweat, get poured on, sweat some more, be bit by mosquitos, sweat even more, walk through caves with thousands of bats and spiders, get shit on by bats, sleep on dirty mats, fall into the mud, be accosted by tribal villagers, and did I mention sweat? Sounds enticing, huh? Well, that's exactly what tourists do when they are in Chiang Mai and sign up for one of the hill tribe treks. And amazingly, we all find a way to love the experience. I had a great time because of the 9 other people on my trek -- 7 Americans, an Aussie and a Norwegian. We ranged from ages 19 to 32 and we comprised of students, teachers, web designers and the joyfully unemployed.

The trek was 3-days, 2-nights, mostly spent hiking the hills of northern Thailand near its border with Burma/Myanmar. The hikes are on hills that feel like they have 45 degree inclines and declines, so you are always wishing that you were walking downhill when you are marching up, and vice versa. Usually you would hike for about 2 hours at a time, and then stop for another activity. For instance, on our 2nd day we hiked and then went down a river on 2 bamboo rafts gondola-style (of course my team won, and that had nothing to do with the fact that we had a 6'4" well-built former basketball player leading our efforts). We also rode elephants which was fun though surprisingly uneventful with the exception of watching one go to the bathroom... I was waiting for one of them to do something drastic and see one of my co-trekkers plummet off the animal.

The villages themselves were poor, but not as poor as I expected... mainly because trekkers come through every day and the villagers hawk all of their hand made goods. The goods are cheap, both in price and quality as one neckless I bought broke the next morning (after we'd left the village -- talk about good timing!). These villages have running water, but still use and outhouse, which was downright scary, especially when I had to pee in the middle of the night. The entire time I was in the outhouse I kept thinking of the final scene of the Blair Witch Project; which on the positive side is slightly more comforting than The Shining.

The most bizarre part of the the trip had to be the 2nd village we stayed in (I think it was the Lahu tribe). The entire experience there could have been 2 episodes of the Jerry Springer show combined with an episode of Cops. Apparently we came around when 2 brothers were fighting over some girl. And the brothers would do anything to get at one another. They were stopped by the numerous tribes women who came between them... only to pull one of those "I'm walking away this second but in another 10 I'm going to charge the other guy" routines, a la Dr. Evil in Austin Powers. And apparently, chivalry never made it to this part of Thailand as one of the guys flat-out slapped one of the women in the face who was trying to stop him from fighting. Then there was screaming cursing across the village at each other... though I'm sure if there were subtitles I would have gotten a lot more out what they were saying. Add to the adventure that our Thai tour guide was getting drunk on some form to Thai moonshine. Combined, this all created a scene of bizarre, highly unintentional comedy. The icing on the cake was our tour guide's rousing rendition on the guitar of a song he wrote entitled "I'm Drunk" which appropriately is comprised exclusively of those two words. Unforgettable night.

My highlights on the trek were:
1) Breaking a bamboo stalk while crossing a small stream and gracefully falling on my ass in the water (as bamboo is what they use to make scaffolding in this part of the world, maybe I should stop eating?)

2) Alf -- a 22 year old Asian-American recent college graduate who chose to call himself the name of a puppet alien instead of something else short for Alfred -- walking headfirst into a piece of hanging stone in a cave and falling straight to the floor, seemingly out cold, and then popping up 10 seconds later proclaiming "I'm fine, let's keep going." Alf would play our Herbie (from the book The Goal -- the only thing I got out of our 3 Operations core classes at Wharton; Herbie is the slow, fat kid on a hike who is so slow that people have to keep waiting for him, screwing up the organization of the walk), slowing us down with his personal tragicomedy... like losing his camera while falling in the mud, only to discover it 15 minutes later as the heavens decided to give us a shower -- so he and the guide had to hike back up a hill and mud in the driving rain.

3) Our guide Noi absolutely hammered singing "I'm drunk" and then trying to hit on the two college girls who were sisters... when one said no and decided to go to sleep, Noi literally slid a foot over on a bench and started working on the other sister

4) Brad, one of the Americans on the trip, impersonating the lady-boy at our hostel who signed us all up for the trip. The lady-boy, Rooney, overtly hit on the men, with very lewd sexual innuendos. At first they were funny, but one can only take so much "you leave room key with me and I give you 50 baht discount" types of jokes. Brad had Rooney's distinctive voice and speech pattern down to a T.

5) Our discovery that one of the few things to disguise the overwhelming scent of 10 sweaty, unwashed hikers who haven't been near a shower for 3 days is a cave of bat shit. Bat shit sitting in a cave fermenting can overcome just about anything. It's that potent. The US should have bottled that stuff up and used it in Vietnam instead of Agent Orange and Napalm to get the otherside to come out of their holes. From my hike, I'm completely surprised Alfred the Butler was able to go into the Bat Cave at all. Simply brutal.

My hike was the last part of the active portion of my trip. Early July 5, I headed down to the Thai islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Samui for diving and some beach time.

Day 22 - July 1

Thursday.

I woke up in Chiang Mai without any additional clothes, but at least I had my toiletries. I learned long ago never to check those essentials. Airlines screw up waaaay to often to risk smelling like the men in Hong Kong did. Thursday morning, I was surely thankful for having learned that lesson.

My big activity Thursday was taking a 1-day Thai cooking course at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School (www.thaicookeryschool.com). The school was founded by a Thai chef (Sonpon) and his British wife (Elizabeth) 11 years ago, and has been a hit with tourists ever since because of the personality of the staff and the fun environment they create. Sompon, could easily represent Thailand if there were an international version of the Iron Chefs.

The course started with a trip to the local market where we were walked through various thai spices, fruits, vegetables, herbs, noodles and rices. Very educational, though I think I retained only 1 or 2 things, which is a lot for me. After hearing some of the questions a few of the other tourists were asking, I quickly knew my place in this group would be a familiar one... at the back of the class.

Over the course of the day, we learned to and prepared six meals -- 2 appetizers, 3 main courses and 1 dessert. After watching Sompon prepare the meal, we would go to our own cooking stations and repeat what he had shown us. And of course, we literally had to eat our own cooking once we were done.

So what did I learn to make (and eat):
Appetizers
Chicken in Coconut Milk Soup
Papaya Salad and Sticky Rice
Entrees
Red Curry with Fish
Fried Mixed Mushrooms with Baby Corn
Fried Big Noodles with Thick Sauce
Dessert
Steamed Banana Cake

The course was truly a great experience -- I had a lot of fun with several other travelers, though most were a good 10 years older than me... which I guess means that I'm over the hill and ready for a domesticated life. I highly recommend the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School if you ever just happen to be lost and ending up in northern Thailand. Several friends have gone and our opinions are a consensus.

For the remaninder of the day, I just relaxed and had a quiet night, as early the next morning I'd start my 3-day, 2-night hill tribe trek.