Saturday, May 29, 2010

visit to the archipelago



















































❉ wow, i really abandoned the blog for a while there didnt i!! .....well, im back on the yellow brick road!
thailand was amazing! we went snorkeling in koh tao, ate delicious food, watched amazing sunsets and just chilled out, which was the plan....then we did 2 days of hardcore shopping in bangkok, which seems to be back to normal after the recent red shirt rebellion, although the streets are full of burnt out buildings and barbed wire...
...and the best thing about the holiday was that we found a spot for the wedding next year! after full days of driving motorbikes around koh samui, checking out various villas and resorts, we found a lovely health resort on the beach which is perfect! they're also really happy to host the wedding (surprisingly a lot of resorts didnt seem interested at all!!) and they offered us a great package deal so we're in the process of setting the date!!!

as soon as i got back to stockholm, i headed off to the archipelago island 'grinda' where my friend elin works, to catch up with her on her two days off. we had a picnic dinner on the rocks by the water, watched the sun set and drank a whole cask of rose wine between us. elin lives in a shared log cabin in the middle of the woods behind the big hotel where she works, and i had to sneakily crash one of the bunk beds, and eat the staff breakfast the next day without her boss finding out. it seems like such a cool place to work, although i don't know if i could handle living in a one room log cabin with 6 people and no bathroom (we had to piss in the woods!) ...
but it was so beautiful and peaceful out there and so nice to see elin, who always puts me in a cheery mood.

so now we're back in stockholm, staying with friends until we leave for london on tuesday and a whole new adventure begins.. we're staying on the couch at our friends måsen and sandra's one-room apartment and on the first night i was woken by jerry at 4am, all shaky and wild eyed, saying 'im gonna kill him, i cant stay here, ive gotta get out of here!'... måsen was snoring so loudly that he sounded like a pig at the slaughterhouse! i eventually calmed jerry down, assuring him that måsen wasn't intentionally keeping him awake!

tonight im meeting my friend karin for dinner at a japanese restaurant. it's cold and raining outside (come on!- its supposed to be summer!!)... i guess i should get used to the rain since we're moving to london...

:o)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Koh Phangan






































































* I'm sitting on the porch of our beach bungalow in Koh Phangan with the tropical garden surrounding us and the rain pouring down. Jerry's reading his book but i just love sitting here watching the rain.

Koh Samui was wonderful as always. Our room in Chaweng Garden Beach Resort was basic but close to the beach and the resort had a lovely deck with a delicious buffet breakfast. We spent five days lying on the beach, swimming in the sea, getting massages and exploring the island on a search for the perfect wedding location. We rented a motorbike one day and drove around the coast of the whole island, stopping in at any little resorts that looked pretty. We found a couple that would be great and now we're waiting for quotes from them. It's such a great feeling of freedom, jumping on the back of a scooter, wearing a beach dress and flip flops and just taking off with the wind in your hair, cruising through little villages, past beaches and forests and over hilltops with the thousand smells of Thailand mixed in to the thick heat.
We visited the big golden Buddha on the island hilltop and found our way on beaten tracks to the waterfalls, stopping along the way for mango shakes and spicy papaya salads.

One night we got dragged in to the katoy cabaret show and it ended up being our favourite event of the whole trip! We hadn't been expecting the fabulous costumes and makeup, the professional dance choreography, the emotion that they put into the performances! We were so impressed that Jerry went on stage and gave them 1000 baht as a tip and they were so ridiculously grateful that each and every performer bowed and did the thankyou prayer gesture to us on their way off stage. Then after the show they all wanted to be in a photo with us and while posing, had their hands all over Jerry!

For dinner each night we sat at outdoor tables on the beach with lamplight and the waves lapping at our feet as we ate. After 7 days of our holiday we still aren't sick of Thai food yet and I've had some awesome curries and spicy salads while Jerry mostly orders the same thing every time: chicken pad Thai or some shrimp dish. From the romantic beach restaurants we got some really nice decorating ideas for the wedding too!

Yesterday we caught the ferry across to Koh Phangan and found a nice resort on the beach in Haad Rin with a fresh and modern bungalow in the garden with white linen, an LCD TV and a clean bathroom so we're enjoying a bit of luxury. When the rain stops were gonna rent motorbikes and tour the island...

Friday, May 14, 2010

Sawadee Ka!!





 
 
 
 





































❆ 'What is your country of residence?' the immigration official asked me at Stockholm Arlanda airport. 'Well, I've been living in Sweden the last year'. 'Yes but your visa is now expired so where is your country of residence?'....
'Well.. I'm from Australia, but after Thailand I'm moving to London, so.. well.. I don't really have a residence.' With a skeptical look, he waved me ahead through customs.

On the plane Jerry popped a few sleeping pills but woke up after 2 hours, raving like a lunatic. 'I want to go to the toilet but I dont fit in with these people.'

It took longer to get to the resort in Surat Thani than we expected...after two flights, the 4 hour layover and a 1.5 hour taxi ride, we were nearly dead from exhaustion but it was 9am local time so we hit the beach. The resort was pretty cool in a rough bohemian way and there were no other tourists there at all which was nice, but none of the staff, including the manager, spoke a single word of English. The only thing the waitress could say in English was ' i no speak english'. She brought jerry a delicious lemon chili chicken dish and me a plate of sliced cucumber and a plate of peanuts. I had a quiet food rage tantrum and started feeling like this place really wasn't clicking with me.

We met our friend Toto after breakfast and he took us on a fishing boat to visit his beach close by. The beach is super nice and totally untouched except for a half finished toilet hut and a small clearance where he wants to build bungalows one day. By 7pm Jerry and I just couldn't keep our eyes open any more and had to hit the sack.

In the middle of the night I was woken by Jerry screaming as he jumped naked from his bed to mine. A 10 cm cockroach had crawled onto his chest and soon
afterwards I saw it crawling towards my pillow. Like two little sissies we jumped outside onto our porch and wondered what we were gonna do! Jerry was so freaked out he wanted to leave directly but what he couldn't understand was why i was freaked out too. 'You're Australian- arent you used to killing bugs? ' 'No, I always got my dad to deal with them...'

Luckily, some young Thai guys randomly walked past our bungalow at 1.30am and we dragged one inside to get rid of it. In the space of 3 seconds he found the horrid thing, picked it up with his bare fingers, threw it outside and
walked off.. Jerry tried to give him 100 baht for his kindness but he wouldn't accept it.

The next day toto took us to his families house out in the forest, to meet his uncles, aunts and cousins. The group of houses were surrounded by coconut palms, with a plastic recycling plant at the back, a hairdressers at the front, and an outdoor massage parlour at the side, with chickens, dogs, cats, and kids running wild! I entrusted my hair to Toto's aunt who's a hairresser and was very impressed, especially at the price- $4 for a cut and blow wave! Jerry and I both got awesome massages from Totos uncle and we spent the rest of the day
on the beach drinking beer with Toto. He wanted us to stay the night and go to Chang Mai with him, but after living in Åre so long we were both really craving to be around lots of people, so we moved on to Koh Samui...

I was excited about visiting 'Charlie's Huts' again, where I stayed last time I came to Koh Samui, but sadly they're gone and like most of Chaweng beach, have been replaced by big concrete resorts.This place does have a certain magic to it though. After a delicious Thai dinner we just walked along the main street, filled with all the stalls, the people hassling us to buy things, the motorbikes whizzing past, the katoys in their sexy costumes, the smells of Thailand mixed with exhaust and occasionally sewridge, and of course the heat surrounding us and all of a sudden we felt happy, like we were truly on vacation!

Monday, May 10, 2010

gypsy nomads





















❖ back in civilisation!!!!
we were so happy to arrive in stockholm at our good friend rasmus's house, load in all our luggage and take over his lounge room once again. jerry and i laughed at what gypsy nomads we are, living out of suitcases, moving from place to place every season... i was feeling bad about our stuff totally filling up rasmus's living area, but he assured us that he wouldn't have it any other way. he also thought it was quite impressive that we have our whole lives packed into a few suitcases. i don't know if that's impressive or the opposite, but it's true!

jerry and i were in such good moods today, walking through downtown stockholm, enjoying the feeling of being in the real world again! we filled the day with errands in the city and i managed to squeeze in a bit of 'holiday attire' shopping and then we met our friends måsen, karin and matthias for a good catch up over coffees which turned into beers...and then dinner at the fabulous kungsholmen...

tomorrow we fly to thailand!!! yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!!!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

farewell åre!!!





















✯ since posting my job search ad on gumtree, ive had a steady flow of replies, mainly job offers and requests for interviews but also a request for a date from stewart, who wrote me a long email (with picture attached!!) detailing his hobbies, where he lives and what type of guy he is, trying to convince me that we would be perfect for each other.
in retrospect i should have felt sorry for the guy, ignored him and left it at that, but at the time i must have been in a bad mood because i decided to report him for using the website as a dating site. it just annoyed me that i couldn't even post an innocent job search ad without sleaze-bag desperados harassing me... gumtree got back to me with a sincere apology, assuring me that they're on the case..

i can't believe todays' my last day in åre! although i'm so hanging for a change, theres always a bit of sadness attached to leaving a place you've lived in....even if only for a season. as i closed up beefalo this evening, locked the door and walked away, i had a pang of sentimental sadness.... we packed our bedroom up, and surprisingly filled 3 suitcases and 5 travel bags (how the hell are we gonna take all that to london!?)... tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for the 8 hour road-trip to stockholm...

farewell åre!!!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

London





















❖ London is creeping closer and closer so that it feels less like a dream and more like reality! We're so pumped that we've dedicated the last 4 days to job and house hunting, which rather than being a bore, has added to the excitement!

I designed and posted profiles for both Jerry and I on the Gumtree website and Jerry even recorded his own little youtube cocktail making demonstration to show off.
Within ten minutes of posting my profile, I had 5 responses from potential employees, offering me bartender jobs in cocktail bars in Soho, waitressing at the Hilton Hotel and even a lap-dancing job at Venus Strip Club! Oh, the endless possibilities! ;o)

We also found the dream apartment (probably too good to be true): in the heart of the city, newly renovated with wall to wall windows and a panorama view of the city from the 10th floor, swimming pool and gym in the building....

Of course we'll have to wait til we get there to see the flats before we sign contracts so it looks like we'll be couchsurfing upon arrival!
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