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Yep. Arrived at Bangok. I arrived here at night time, still quite tipsy from the parties in Krabi. We said goodbye with my brother at the airport where he continued his journeys back to home and I’m still gonna be here couple of days. I was in very high spirits and have to say that this has been the best New Year Celebration ever. We had so much fun! When it gets down to it, Thai people really know how to celebrate and have a party! I was very knackered when I arrived back to Cozy Bangkok Guest house last nigh, but now, after sleeping 12 hours in an A/C room I’m ready to thinking about my next plans again…at least to some extend.
I have to be careful where to go tho’. There have been big political riots in Bangkok lately so some areas of the city should not be entered at all. Apparently at least two people have died (if we believe what the government is saying) and 110 injured. Well, I saw nothing when I arrived here last night, but even though the good night sleep I might just skip everything that involves lots of walking and sun and tourists. I might as well take a taxi (30BAHT) to the biggest shopping center called MBK and walk around in there.
MBK Center, Bangkok
I was there once already but the whole complex was SO huge that I was able to just browse through the first two floors and there was still 3 left! I thought that I might as well pamper myself a bit and decided to find a good hair salon and do something to this sun damaged pile of hemp that I have as a hair currently.
There are two contradicting things in my head. On the other hand I’m very keen on going home, but on the other hand it would be sooo cool to continue traveling. I was actually very surprised how much I enjoyed arriving back to Bangkok. The whole city felt completely different after seeing some of the other Thailand first.
I got to know so many amazing Thai people and understood more about their culture so after that Bangkok didn’t seem such a bad place anymore. Even tho’ arriving at night I was whistling the famous Thai reggae song (Too Ter Tam from Job2Do, check below!) out loud and greeting people in Thai and saying Happy New Year to everyone.
I was completely stress free, since I knew what kinda guest house I’m entering, where to find food, how is the city like and so on. The sense of familiarity with the city and the culture did the whole situation very very enjoyable. So all that made me wanna keep traveling. See more place, get the same familiar feeling with a new cultures. Enjoy the new people and share the experience with friends…and whistle some new songs.
But also, I think, it’s good to miss home. I even miss work. I miss my company and my own computer and laptop. I miss Photoshop, and the whole CS4 family:D I miss my work mates and my bosses. I even miss our clients:D I miss my family and can’t wait to see my brothers son again and how he has grown up. I miss clean water, a good showers, a clean bed without any bugs. So actually, the familiar feeling what I had about Bangkok is actually the very same thing I miss about home.
And of course I miss J terribly. The whole trip has been such a challenge to our relationship and I think we are gonna see how has it been just after I arrive and we can talk face-to-face again. Share, relate, talk, compare, kiss, be close….to feel intimacy again. For now I do feel that we have survived very well. But like a good friend to me wrote “All good stories evolve after the journey” I think it is the same with relationships. All we have had to do is take it one day at a time. And all we can do now, when we finally meet again, is to take it a one day at a time.
When you are apart it is much more easier to keep an idealized picture of the other person in your mind. It feels good to miss him, it reminds me of how many things I love about him. But also, on the other hand, the even stronger love will emerge just after we have seen each other again. When we are able to re-forge the bond to be even stronger with not just words, but with each others presence. It reminds me of a natural cycle of breathing. There is inhale (taking in, experiencing, growing and absorbing) and exhaling (letting go, releasing, giving up and being thankful). This trip has been that to our relationship as well. First, for me, it has been an huge inhale. Taking everything in, feeling my independence, seeing the world, memorizing him. And now I feel like that exhale is already started. Where I’m letting go of the ideals, where I’m being thankful about everything that I’ve had, where I see all the things I’ve inhaled and release them back to their own places. Where I’m gonna be able to meet J again, and with the last oxygen pressure leaving me I can feel at peace with everything, see him as he is, be still. And start my new inhale again with him.
Both sides, inhale and exhale, even tho’ the other one is usually receiving and the other giving, are essential. Neither of them being bad – just natural cycles of everything. So it has been with my travels. Being apart, and being together again have not been either good or bad, just the natural flow of everything. The only thing what we can do, is to realize that every inhale and every exhale is different. So will our next inhale together be as well.
I think I am, and we are, gonna be just fine. <3
Alright. I am writing this quite drunk:DDThai new year is about to begin and we had a share of that already with my brother. I am just going to bed….and by buddha i had a great time! More later! Yay!!!
I must say that I had the BEST birthday ever with my bro over Koh Lanta on the 8th of April. He made my day perfect! To my great surprise I had the whole guesthouse staff singing Happy Birthday to me and had some cake with candles as well! Some freakishly good food and beer and amazing company! The fever had also started passing by at that time so I was enjoying my life so much! It\’s GOOD to be 27! I love it!
We were supposed to stay in this guest house in Koh Lanta for just one day, but the place was sooo amazing that we ended up being there for three days. I must say, they served the BEST thai food I’ve ever had and the staff were amazing. It was run by 3 ladyboys who were more than happy to play cards with us. Ah…I can’t tell you how amazing I felt there the whole time!
After hearing that our good friend and roommate was in Thailand and heading to Krabi as well we decided to come back here as well. And now we are all reunited! It was sooooo good to see our roommate again and he was well tanned and too skinny after 3 food poisonings:D
So this is just a quick post to tell you that I am still very happy here and am really really enjoying my time. After my bro arrived the days just keep getting better and better and now with our roommate being here as well, I bet it is gonna get even more better:D Today just gonna eat some good food, see the Rastafarian’s again and visit the night market….to eat some crickets and bugs! YUM!
PS. Oh…an very very scary thing happened last night in the bungalow. Apparently it was some mating night for these moths that night and I had accidentally left the veranda light on and the window open to our bungalow. When we finally headed back to our bungalow (quite drunk and tired I may add) and crashed to the bed, I started to play a game with my mobile phone and my bro started to listen music and getting ready to sleep. After playing I started to notice this little flicker on the widow opposite of us. I was so concentrated with my game that I just decided to ignore it. After a while it started to get a bit annoying tho so I looked up from my game to the window and was in for a surprise.
There were literally…and I am NOT joking!….literally over 4000 moths behind the window in our veranda trying to hit the night light that I had forgot to turn off AND maybe 1000 of those bugs were INSIDE of our bungalow window trying to hit the light from there. Needless to say that I kinda freaked out. As it was, it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out that the window was actually open and the bugs were INSIDE and not outside:DD A good thing we were inside of a mosquito net or else we would have been covered with the bugs! They were harmless to people, but then again, it\’s not nice to have hundreds of flying things around you and crawling on your skin…..ewwww. So I woke up my brother and he was man enough to start arguing with me what would be the best tactic to get rid atleast some of them. So we decided to open up the curtains completely, open up the window for a while and wait some of the bugs get out and close the window again….AND make sure that our mosquito net was surely covered so the creatures couldn’t\’t get in to our bed. Hrrrr…I just have shivers thinking about it! I got some very cool video footage to have a proof at least:DD But man…I\’ve NEVER seen that many bugs in my life! And I’m glad that my bro was there since I was too edgy to fall a sleep. At the morning they were all dead …luckily…. and they had shed their wings or all the frogs that appeared to eat them had gorged down their bodies and left their wings (they didn’t do anything but open their mouths at the night and the bugs were just flying in!:D a feast!). So we had to sweep all the bodies away to get to our luggage:D haha…or not:D
Alright, I’m heading for some food now:) A quickie! And now off! I’ll send you the video of the bugs later!
We started to have an itch to move forwards from Krabi, finally. So we jumped to a local bus and headed towards Aon Nang where we were supposed to switch to a long tail boat and head to Railay – a beach very famous of it’s rock climbing possibilities. And I must say the whole trip there WAS fun, and the scenery IS sooooo beautiful but as soon as we got to the actual beach we were in for a shock. The amount of Swedish tourists that were present was over whelming. The food was overly expensive and mostly just french fries and hamburgers to keep these people “so far away from home” feeling safe. It was my first touch to a proper tourist hell that we weren’t at all ready for. Thank god we heard about this path way around the sea, through a rocky shore where you could get to Ton Sai beach which was supposed to be more “hippie-ish”…and that was said in a despising grin on their faces. The day before I had started to have some fever and stomach ache so we just decided to head there and look for a place at least somewhat comfortable that I could rest and we could have some kind of food.
The trip to the Ton Sai beach was so fun:) And it was quite cool to see people rock climbing on some pretty advanced tracks. As soon as we got closer some familiar reggae sounds were greeting us and we immediately felt more at ease. The beach was indeed more “hippie-ish” but still quite touristy. It was just quite sad to see only farangs and no locals at all. We didn’t have a choice tho’ because of my fever so we just located the nearest bungalows which were the cheapest (some 300 BHT), saw that it was in a pretty ok condition (mosquito net, floor was supporting our weight and there was a little outside area for a shower and a toilet) and crashed in.
After making ourselves home, I popped some more paracetamols to my system and we headed back to the beach. Basically the rest of the evening went just watching the horizon and listening to good music, while sipping beer. I got very tired very early because of the fever and stomach cramps so I headed to bed while my brother stayed up for some music and beer.
The whole night was pretty horrible for me. The fever got very high and the cramps started to be pretty bad. First time that I felt really, really, home sick. There wasn’t that much to do than to head towards the main land again first thing at the morning and look for a doctor.
All things in a nut shell: We got back to the mainland, were badly scared about all the people speaking swedish, found a doctor which was the best one ever, SO funny and SO good with his job! I got some pills and we took pretty much the first guesthouse we found and what sounded reasonable by price and took naps. The positive things of the day were the boat trip to Ao Nang, the doctor, the huge ice cream desserts we had, amazing art shop we found, the naps and finally the plan to get the hell out of here as fast as possible. We were so depressed by the tourists that we took the first boat away from here that we found…what probably was a big mistake since we’re quite certain that it will also be a tourist hell. But hey…this all finally got me thinking all the nice little positive things I’ve learned here and what I’m gonna make sure to remember on my next travelings:
1. Take with you the damn antibiotics strip that the doctors offer you in your home land before leaving. Just in case.
You might feel against the “unnecessary” antibiotics at first, but believe me, when the shit hits the fan (literally) you would like nothing better than at least SOMETHING that might kill some of the pain that you are experiencing. And don’t in your right mind ever think that not taking paracetamol for the fever would be good for the body, since “it will boost up your natural immune system” or some other crap. You’re full of bacteria that your system is not liking at all, easing the pain as much as possible is the least you can do for yourself.
2. Take little travel speakers with you that match your mp3 player.
Don’t take me wrong, silence is good. Listening the night crickets and the ocean is good. But when you feel like shit, or shit bored there is nothing more soothing than sharing some music with you travel mates and build up some atmosphere in your guest houses room. They don’t have to be at all big or powerful, but take something at least better than the beeper that you have in your phone.
Travel Speakers
3, Be brave and head somewhere no man has headed before.
Skip the dirt. Take a risky detour. Go to the mainland for a chance and not to the beaches. Find a beautiful lake instead of an ocean. This is probably the most important lesson for me. And I’m never gonna take it for granted anymore. From this day on, I will make my best to be more brave. And I’m pretty sure that by time it will get easier. Hell, to some people it’s probably easy right away, but for me it will take some kicking my own ass, and by Allah I will kick it – hard.
So, don't follow the herd.
4. Don’t take so much shit with you.
The shit will wait for you when you get home. It’s not gonna disappear while you are away. I can’t believe home much crap people are dragging with them. I mean I have been traveling almost 1,5 months now and my little back weights around 4-5 kg. I’ve seen some little Chinese girls with backpacks the size of their selves! Hearing that J took only 4kg bag with him to India makes me so friggin’ proud of having a practical boyfriend like that! And even my brother just took the same silly school bag he’s been draggin’ with him the last 5 years. And I haven’t missed ANYTHING. Actually, to the contrary, I even have some things that I know I’m gonna skip on my next travelings. And my small bag has abled me to be more quick and agile on some situations. For example I get to and from a boat just like that, since I my bag is considered hand luggage and I don’t have to storage it to the same pile with every other bacpack. I get the best seats in a bus with the exact same reason. We were able to hike the jungle trail to Ton Sai beach with our light equipment with no trouble at all.
Yes, it's good if you have to move from a one country to another permanately, but hey two months in Thailand is not gonna cut it.
These are the five first that popped in to my head today. There’s plenty of other nice little tricks in my pockets already also. But I could’t also say that hanging out in the internet too much when you’re traveling isn’t such a good idea either. Yeah, sure do it, when you have the time and when you really feel like there’s nothing better to do. But usually, it’s just best to forget it:)
PS: Sorry about my shitty english again, but my patience isn’t really high with the slow internet and crappy keyboards so I just don’t care:D
Im here
Well. First hours in Krabi turned out to be swell. I was quite knackered from the trip here (3 hours in a boat first and then 3 hours in a bus) and unfortunately the guesthouse I wanted to stay in was completely booked even though the low season has already started here. So I booked the cheapest dumb that I could find which looked at least somewhat decent. 200BHT a night is not that much and I would’ve even had one even cheaper but it was so small that if there wouldn’t have be any wall, I could’ve touched the people passing by from my bed.
Now finally I can take my mini burglary alarm in use! I’m gonna tape it to my door with the mini duct tape that I also brought and using the first time! Yay, it feels SOOOo dangerous (not). And I feel that I’m REALLY doing some traveling now (hah!). For tomorrow I’m pretty sure to have a room from a better place and book one extra night in the same place in a double room so my bro will have a good place to crash when he finally arrives.
After dumping my crap to the room I headed towards the town center to find a bar that I could have a beer in. I was in a desperate need of a one, some food and then some sleep. I passed by this Rastafarian place which had some pretty nice reggae playing and popped in. In no time I was drinking my Heineken and playing cards with the owner, which was this chubby, happy man with huge dreadlocks. After some games I headed to the nearest restaurant, promising the owner to pop back in tomorrow and day after with my bro. Ordered some chicken with cashew nuts and a pineapple Lassi which turned out to be a very watery smoothie with chunks of ice in it…but the chicken was good atleast:)
Now just chilling in my guesthouses internet corned, digesting my chicken and wondering how many times I have to de-activate my burglar alarm at the night:D A little bit nervous, but I’m sure it’s gonna be fine. See, this is the reason I’m waiting my bro to get here – then I don’t have to worry about my safety that much anymore. When you are a (hot) girl -ahem- traveling alone, you always have to be just a little bit more aware what’s happening around you. The trick is to feel relaxed, chill out, hang out and mess out, but still keep a brain in your head.
Tomorrow, I’ll just walk around the city and check out what’s happening. Like I said before that low-season has already started and the rain-season will be soon upon us as well. I’ll just hope we’ll have enough sunny days before it really starts to pour down. But you never know about the wheater, with the global warming going on, it’s freakishly hard to predict is the rain-season on the schedule or not. It might be very early, or it might be very very late.
Just a little glimpse
One thing I can say already though. The nature here is breathtakingly beautiful – atleast the little that I saw already. I bet it was just a little glimpse what is in stored for me and my bro.
Alright! Back online again and I must warn you, this post is probably gonna be filled with typos since the keyboard that I’m writing is this ancient block of small bricks, attached together with a tape and the connection is too slow to have the patienceto hang in the place too long. Plus, if I would have balls I would be sweating them off, since there is no air to breathe. Luckily I don’t, and the only unpleasentry in this moment is my trousers which are glued to my thighs with my bodily extracts. Mmmmm….<3 I leave you with that image for a while:D
Where have I been you ask? And swell that is a good question! For the last week or so I’ve been hermitting in the most loveliest place on this earth called Monte Vista Resort, in Koh Phangan. I sign up last Sunday for a 7 Day Body Cleansing – program which literally meant, lots of rest, lots of strange herbs, lots of colonies (Yes, I am talking about the tube-up-the-ass-and-shit-water-for-30minutes-procedure) and lots of thinking. Eating was based on fruit in the morning, a thing called Kitcheri (not sure how to spell it, but basically it’s just rise and lentils boiled together for a looooong time to produce this white porridge stuff, and apparently it was a complete protein after the boiling) for lunch and the same stuff for supper. And then…yeah…water.
My bungalow in Monte Vista
And ooooooh the visions and what came! Ofourse they came among the oil massages for head, toes and body which I got almost every day. Accompanying the Thail Massages, Reiki, meditation, yoga, facials and such. Like I told you, lots of thinking there!:D
No but in all seriousness, the place has truly been a blessing. It is a safe harbour where I’ve been able to talk the things inside of my head and get counsel for them. It is run by this lovely couple called Norman & Mohini and the daily housework is made done with couple of volunteers and Shanti, a lovely girl who has been living there for three years now.
My day consisted of waking up, doing meditation for an hour, eating fruits and tea for breakfast, lying in the hammock, staring the breathtakingly beautifulhorizon (the resort is build on top of a very steep hill and you see the whole ocean and neighbour island from there), eat lunch, talk with other lovely people there, have a treatment (massage or such), rest, stare at the horizon again, stare the sealing, stare the sky, rest, eat supper, drink tea, look the amazing sunset or thunderstorms at the horizon, do more meditation and sleep like a baby. And repeat that for 7 days and for 3 extra day what I finally booked on my second day staying there.
One of the many many amazing sunsets that you see there.
I still have until Thursday before I have to check-out and start traveling towards someplace where I’ll be meeting my lovely brother who’ll be arriving to the country on the 4thof April. I have no idea where is that yet, but I should know at the end of this day. I absolutely can’t WAIT to see him again!! I’m sooooglad that he is coming here with me:))) It’ll be very good to spend my brithay at 8thof April with him in some lovely beach bar getting wasted:D A good action after cleaning all the earthly sins from your body for a week before:D
I’m already waiting to get back to Monte Vista again and hopefully with the company of my boyfriend J. I do miss him very much dispite having a good time over Thailand. And luckily with each day passing by, I feel that I love him even more. He’ll be traveling to India for a week with his sister and we’ll be back couple of days before I arrive back home again…and I’ll be seeing him at the airport….I can’t wait! Heee! Love you J! <33
So regarding my friends and family: I’m doing very well and I’m being very happy. I’ve done some pretty deep soul searching with the help of Mohini and Norman and I’ve gotten lots of answers to many questions I’ve had. I believe that something quite fundamental has shifted direction in side of me and I’m very excited to continue my journeys. I’ll be forever grateful for the experience I’ve had in Monte Vista. Sacred Breath being one of the most important and ground breaking from all of them.
Oh, I wish I would but some photos onlinefor you to see, but unfortunately you’ll get them only when I come back home. I’ll probably be more online from now on so you should get better news from me:) But I won’t stress about it, so shouldn’t you, I’m doing just fine:)
A fever to get out that is. Alright, I still have some minor fever left, but I bet just getting out of Bangkok will cure every ailment I’ve ever had in my entire life. I would’t be surprised if it would cure even the ones I had in my past lifes.
So it won’t come to you as a surprise that this isn’t really my city. I’ve roamed around the city streets and the more I see, the less I wanna see. The one thing of the few things that I like here is the hostel that I’ve been living in called Cozy Bangkok. And it is definitely everything the name suggests. It is a little peace of heaven in the midst of this crazy city. And all I can say that if you’re looking for a good, cheap, clean, safe, near the center and cozy place to stay in Bangkok – this is the place. I payed 350 BHT from a A/C room with a window and very quite stay. And 300 BHT for a room with a fan for the last night since I extended my stay a bit longer.
My train will leave towards Koh Phangan in the night at 10pm. Because there is gonna be a Full Moon party in the 25th of this month all the 1st Class Sleepers where over booked already so I had to do with 2nd class A/C sitter. 6 hours in that. and 1,5hours x 2 to get to Koh Phangan through Koh Tao. If there sea is rough…..I’ll die. So let’s hope it’s just calm as Buddhas mind.
Until that, I’ll just chill out in Cozy Bangkok and ponder when my head ache is gonna pass.
This is not gonna be a long poist, since I don’t have that much time to write to begin with. And yeah, you probably noticed that the Blue Mountains Day 2 is missing…. and it will be missing in the future:) Just was too busy to write it in Sydney and I bet that in Thailand, I’ll have even less time.
To Bangkok. Finally arrived and yes as you can see from the topic, I’m having some nasty fever. The 9 hour flight was pretty crappy and I was dead tired after I finally found the hostel that I had booked. Oh gawd I thank Thor that there were these two German girls wide awake in the lobby offering me noodels and some coke whisky. Thank you girls!
The hostel is very very nice and I feel very comfortable here. It’s fucking hot. And i swear a bit since my white finnish ass is sweating like The Niagra Falls. The air conditioned dormitory is a heaven on earth.
So I just woke up for an hour to get some food to my system and probably just hang around in the hostel the rest of the day, trying to get the fever down and plan my next actions.
I found a great meditation resort in Koh Phangan where I’m gonna head over the weekend with an over night train and a ferry. So atleast I have something in mind. What comes to Bangkok…..nothing:D But the first impression is one that I am suspicious that I would like it here in the first place. But I’ll defintaly visit the Khao San Road to check out the traffick and the backpackers:)
Oh…uh….now, fever rising. Have to head towards the shop.
‘Breakfaaaaaast!’ Screamed the hungry hungry hippo and roamed towards the shop!
I started to feel a bit lonely at some point over Sydney. Tim was working full days and even tho’ at first I was just fine being alone and walking around Manly and Sydney at some point it really started to bore me. I’m pretty sure that once I get to Thailand I’ll get loads of more traveling mates since I’m staying at hostels etc, but here I’ve felt a bit lonely time to time.
I really wanted to visit the Blue Mountains but Tim had been there so many times and was afraid of heights so he couldn’t really accompany me. I decided to post an ad to Australia Gumtree and CouchSurfing to find someone to go there with and do some hiking + random stuff. First I thought that I would have no luck at all since all the replies were just some lonely men trying to find someone to date with, but finally, after couple of days trying I got lucky.
The first to catch my interest were two french guys Paul and Yannick, who were planning to rent a car and stay the night over Blue Mountains hostel. They were looking people to share the expenses and share the experience. So I called them and found out that there would be a French girl named Lucie to join us, since she was traveling alone around Australia for a year and was interested to join our company.
First I thought that going to the Blue Mountains alone with three French people wouldn’t be such a good idea since I knew how anal French people can be about speaking English. But apparently the rule doesn’t apply to French people who are abroad. The traveling ones commonly try to avoid contact with other frenchies and are a lot looser with the English so after Paul and Yannick convinced me that they would speak English and not French together I was all ready to go.
We met up in a car rental place near King’s Cross at 10 am where we rented a car together and set up on our way towards Blue Mountains.
Heading towards Blue Mountains! Paul on the left reading the map and Yannick on the right trying to get used to the left side traffic.
I must say that I had the most amazing time. FINALLY I had found some mates to travel with and whom I got along with perfectly. We hit it off right from the start and I really enjoyed Lucie’s sarcastic sense of humor and Paul’s and Yannick’s honest and relaxed attitude. During our trip I learned to appreciate them dearly.
Well, finally we arrived Katoonga and booked our room from a hostel near the center. Right after settling in we started to plan our first plan of action and which hike to do first. I was trusting their opinion totally so mostly I just chilled and watched them to have an discussion about the possibilities. Generally I very rarely have an opinion about plans, since I usually just like everything. I had come there to do hiking and see the mountains and that was already in everyones mind so the rest was just details which I didn’t think about that much. I trusted that whatever we ended up doing it would be the best.
Lucie, Yannick, Paul and me trying to decide what hike to take.
We decided to head to the Three Sister’s first and then start a hike from there on whatever path we would be able to finish before night fall. This is the view from where we started on.
The views, the views, the views. You would think to get used to them, but every time we climbed somewhere to take a better look where we were, we were always gasping for air from the awe.
We descended a very steep path downwards by the cliffs and it didn’t take me long to have my ears pop from the pressure between the mountains. While descending I remember thinking that “wow, this is really far down. I hope the climb isn’t this bad” but as soon as we hit the bottom I kinda forgot my worries.
Me at the bottom of the mountains. A deep jungle and no other people in sight.
It took us about one hour to walk by the path on the bottom and we were taking hundreds of pictures like all proper tourists do! :D After around 30minutes of wandering we came to this clearing with tables and benches to sit. There was a lonely Japanese guy who we politely asked to take a picture of all of us. It didn’t really go that well, since the sun was setting and it was just in between when flash would make the pictures too dark and without it, it would be blurry. This is the best one we got:
The hike was just amazing. We didn’t see that much animals and I was so surprised how little I saw any spiders or bugs. I think I’ve had more bugs flying in my face in Finnish summers than i had in the jungle. So it wasn’t at all bad.
Finally we started ascending and I had a real surprise. Let me explain:
Before I left Finland I started to have some breathing problems. I had trouble getting full breaths. So i headed to the doctors before the trip and they gave me some asthma medicine even tho’ they didn’t really know what was wrong with me. I was in such a hurry before I left that I forgot the medicine to home. I suffered some air shortage over the flights but just after spending two days in the Sydney’s moist climate my breathing was considerably better. If I didn’t do anything hard I was able to breathe fine and after some days I forgot the breathing problems I used to have al together.
Well. Over Blue Mountains, on my first hike, while climbing back from the bottom of the mountains I remembered every little detail with my breathing.
Finally after spending an hour at the bottom we started to climb back. And boy-oh-boy I saw how foolish I was to gotten myself to that situation. My chest hurt so bad! My breathing was wheezing and I was gasping for air with every step. After 15 minutes I was super worried how on earth I would ever be able to get back to the top. I was disappointed, worried and ashamed about myself at the same time. Disappointed because I thought that after all the training I had been doing you would imagine that I would never have any breathing/lung problems, and there I was feeling like a fish on dry land. And worried because at that point there was quite a lot of climbing still to do. And ashamed because I didn’t want to let my traveling mates down. They were really looking for the hiking and I didn’t want to be the weakest link.
Luckily Alice raised to the occasion. She was cheering me on and waited for me after every corner. She reassured me that I had nothing to worry or be embarrassed about. I made journey little by little in my own time. I had a slight worry that the sun would set before we would reach the top. But with the help of Alice I continued with good spirits.
Not much of an hello from Alice since she was busy texting for help with her mobile phone:D heheh.. .Naah, just kidding:D Yannick and Paul had had just a little rest the previous night so Yannick was having some head aches, but other than that I was already starting to feel quite positive about making to the top.
It took us about 15 minutes more to finally reach the end stop. And on arriving we forgot all about the tiring trip and just fell silent with awe from the nature and the view.
We sat there a good 20 minutes admiring the view and settling our breaths. It didn’t take long until we all started to feel quite hungry and finally settled towards the super market to get some supplies for the evening barbecue. We bought some cider and beer and headed back to the hostel to do our magic! We stayed up well over 1 am talking, drinking and eating. Just when we were ready to head bed we ran in to American guy called Joel and stayed up finishing the wine he offered and it didn’t take long before one of us asked him a ride back to Sydney with our car and welcomed him to join our little adventurer team for the next hike.
We went to bed happy, drunk and full. I could not have asked for better friends to share the adventure with than Paul, Yannick and Lucie (and Joel later on). I was so happy about the whole day and surviving from the hike that I slept hard and deep and dreamed about all the amazing things we would encounter the next day.
Me at the Sydney Aquarium enjoying the salt water tank views.
I bet the Sydney Aquarium is not even near the biggest Aquarium there is, but it certainly blew my mind. Straight up at entering there were some huge fresh water fishes greeting us. Already that was giving me the creeps.
I thought that the visit there would make me face my fears straight up and I would finally be able to create some peaceful relationship with the sharks so we could be in good terms from there on, but yeah…well…It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that it didn’t really go like that at all. They looked mean as ever! Just gliding their way back and forth in the tank and glaring my sweet Finnish meat with their dead eyes. I decided, right that minute, that our friendship would get as far as a chicken’s flight – so not far at all. *shivers*
I took pretty much video footage from the whole trip just so I could remind myself later on that I should be realistic how much work I still have to get over my phobias:D But I am determined to do so! I’m dreaming that some day I’ll find a good diver instructor who would be specialized on working with phobia people and who would be happy to get me over mine:) But this was a good start to face my fears….. IK!
And the Mantas! OMFG!!! So beautiful and so horrifying at the same time! It was so unbelievable how they just flew over me when we entered this underwater salt water tank. You could spend hours and hours and hours to just watching them and being flabbergasted on how amazing things you can find on this earth. So here is my second IK!
Isn’t it huge!
Btw, there isn’t any real chronological story with this blog since there has been so much happening that my brain is all scrambled with all things to tell. Over all I just wanted you to see these videos so you could get a feeling how was it:) There will be more videos in my youtube profile, so click on there and check out all the rest I’ve seen:)
One thing I definitely learned from these videos is that I really need to practice my story telling skills and steady camera hand:D
I just arrived back at Tim’s place from 2 days trip in the Blue Mountains. It-was-AMAZING! My face is hurting from all the smiling, my upper body is hurting from all the climbing, my lower body is hurting from all the walking/jumping/strolling/hiking. Erm…. actually my whole body is hurting… And btw, my feet were SO stinky! O____O
I just came quickly online to tell you that I’ll have some amazing pictures and videos from the Aquarium and Blue Mountains and I’ll be updating them here soon. So stay online! They’ll be here tomorrow since I’ll be in the whole day. I promised myself that if I’ll survive from the (surprisingly) hardest hike I would spend the whole Saturday in the sofa watching something brainless, flat-line, vegetable-state, mental-masturbation program drink Pepsi Maxi and munch on avocados, peas, salmon and ice cream – my favorites. So, tomorrow will be the day of pleasure and internet:)
Stay tuned:)
PS: I fixed those 55 typos i wrote in this f***ng post.
When Friday finally came I headed to the City to meet Sarah and Tim over the Rocks. I was quite late and when I finally joined them Tim was already quite hammered:D (this all happened a night before the unfortunate evening at the Superficiality-club which was in Saturday). We had such a nice evening even though it ended quite early since to my absolute horror all the bars over here close at 12am! Now do they really think that a proper Scandinavian could ever, ever, EVER get it started in such a short time? That might be the reason why Tim and Sarah started to drink already at 2pm :D
Got to the city late with a ferry. The view from the ferry is always amazing tho'
Can you guess what is this buildings name? ;))
We ended up in the oldest bar (and building?) in Sydney – Waterloo where I did some funny Irish dancing with the crowd.
It was so much fun! Below some video footage of the band…and…erm…us.
It is SUCH a shame that I accidentally deleted my other videos of the night! Since Tim had some pretty good arguments why he bought his flat on top of this silly hill which i hated to walk since my legs were all jelly from the drinking:D But I won’t do that mistake again. I mean deleting my videos – not complaining to Tim :D
Here are some photos of the Taronga Zoo I visited with Tim the following day:)
Golden Orbs are the most common spideys in here. And they can get pretty freaking big! You can see them on most trees in quite big groups and apparently their web is so strong that bundled together they could stop a speeding bullet. First when you see them you go like "Eeew! Hrrr! Eek!!" but they are actually totally harmless to people! And after a while you tend to get use to them. And I've never seen them move at all.
The first sight over Taronga Zoo - Majorly zonked out koalas :D Just looking at them made me sleepy:DD
an Angry Emu! Eeek!
And even angrier baby turkey:D What's with the attitude!
And one very cheeky giraffe!
It was so surreal to see the people staring the animals and on the background you see this amazing view over Sydney. It just makes you feel that there is something at wrong in the picture!
We had a very good day at the Zoo. Friggin’ hot, but good. I saw everything I was wishing to see, which were the koalas and the giraffe, I must say though that I was well impressed by the huge lion they had over the Zoo. He was way bigger than the one we have over Finland Zoo! A proper Aslan. After seeing him we spent the rest of our trip discussing what would happen if you put Aslan and a full grown bear against each other which one would win? Any bets? Forget Alien vs. Predator, that would be the battle of the century!
So for the past couple of days I’ve had this weird undertone in the back of my mental laa laa-song. I wasn’t really sure what it was and couldn’t really put it to words until today when I had a long chat about it with one of Tim’s friends Tara.
The thing is, Sydney is turning to show it’s ugly side, which is quite ironically the “beauty” what everyone is so keen on worshiping. It was really weird how slowly it started to creep upon me and I could notice it in small little things. For example, on my earlier travelings I’ve always found a friendly face who would be immediately interested on hearing more about my Mysterious Nordic country and I would easily get new friends and even stay in touch with them for the longest time. The thought of them or I being anyway superior hasn’t ever entered my mind – I’ve always been in the same starting point with them. Two strangers connecting and finding some common ground and shared experiences.
But in Sydney I’ve come across to a very wide spread disinterest which has even been blankly rude couple of times.
First things that struck me very odd when I came here was my visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens, where everywhere I looked people were jogging! I mean 90% of the people over the park were just jogging. Not walking, not strolling or enjoying or just being, but hard core running in the middle of the days hottest hours. The other weird thing was that in many places quite many people looked the same. When I visited Tim over the bar in the center which was surrounded by office sky scrapers I couldn’t even find him at first! All the men in the area were dark haired, tall, with a suit case, a beer class, wearing a well ironed beige collar shirt and suite pants. And all the ladies were in black heels, in a jacket suite and everything in them looked very refined to the point that no hair strand was out of place. I joked to J in a email I wrote him that maybe the teenage girls that we see in our capital, who all dress the same, put their hair the same and talked the same way grew up to be the same I saw in the Sydney corporate bar – copy cats. A real Attack of the Clones.
Finally it all crushed upon me this evening when we headed to the Manly’s most popular bar to celebrate Tim’s friends birthday party. We had enjoyed our time at the beach the whole day playing volleyball and getting burned and at the evenig headed home to change our clothes and get refreshed. Because I’m only carrying my little back bag I don’t have that much to wear so I take my hobbit shoes everywhere I go and don’t wear any make up. So for the evening at the bar the best that I could do was a hand made dress, white blouse and my FiveFingers. The tone in my head kept going lower and lower the further we headed towards the bar. Everyone over the streets were so….well…uppity. I thought that I’m the wrong person to judge anyone ever, so I just put it up to tiredness. But when we got the bar I finally couldn’t ignore it. I was SO out of place there! There wasn’t a single girl over there who wouldn’t have high heels, very dark eye makeup, straightened hair, lots of jewelry and a short skirt! Most of them had a champagne glass on the other hand and a little glittering purse on the other – tittering politely and casually brushing their hair with their hands. They were all very skinny. There wasn’t a single healthy framed girl in sight. All the guys were the same as well. Gel haired, sun glassed, jean wearing, muscular, flat heads. They all looked SO perfect for each other! A perfect match made in heaven, so perfect that it almost hurts my eyes.
As to underline the experience I even had one drunk guy come up to me and say “Hey, you have tattoos and I’m skinny enough so we would be a good couple!”.
Sigh.
Thank lord I had that chat with Tara. When I was unable to hold that undertone inside of my head I opened my mouth and puked the question out that I had been thinking the whole time: “Do you find Sydney to be superficial? Or am I just being paranoid”. And she explained. She explained that she had the same experience moving here from the States. That she loved Manly by the day but always forgot how shit it is by nights. That Manly is just a bit more superficial than the other parts of Sydney – so it’s more in your face. That the people here are not always disinterest because of your looks, but also because they don’t see a point in getting to know to a foreigner because they have such a tight friendship circle already and there’s too many foreigners. Foreigner come and go but their home town is forever and has been forever since people don’t move away from the cities the grew up in. And that you have to gather around a group of people who accept you as you are and then just shut out everyone else. Nice mental energy wasted there.
Another sigh.
Please, hit me, if I ever, ever, EVER end up in a relationship – romantic or other – were I wouldn’t be loved with my cellulite, varicose veins, stretch marks, roundness of my hids and thighs and sun spots. They all tell a story about me. What kinda genes I have, what kinda conditions I’ve conquered, how much I’ve seen and smiled. How brave I’ve been, how much I’ve grown. How big my heart is, how deeply and loyally I love and I take the best care of myself all the time. How I’ve been one with life.
The day that I believe that there isn’t uncodnitional love left for me in this world I will remind myself that I just have to look deeper inside.
“The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why He made so many of them.” -Abraham Lincoln
“Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body’s deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body’s superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity.” -Henri Nouwen
PS: This all struct me so hard that I even was fantasizing about leaving Sydney and look for a smaller town/beach nearby. But I’ll stay and challenge myself to find peace with it. It is only for a week.
Finally arrived! Manly beach!
Two days ago, for the very first time in my entire life, I dipped my feet to the ocean with big waves on it. It was…breathtakingly amazing. To some it might not be a big thing, but I’ve always dreamed to play in the waves see how it feels. It was as cool as I always thought it would be.
Here I dipped my feet to the ocean. Manly Beach.
Yesterday I totally smashed my feet by walking all over Sydney for 9 hours straight and after that I went to a drink with Tims friends. We had a amazing time and I just felt so happy on meeting new people and seeing that side of Sydney as well.
Today I’m massaging my feet. They are not overly sore since my FiveFingers really proved themselves to be the best shoes in the entire world! After 7 hours of walking my feet started to beg mercy but only with 30 minutes of rest they were all fine to go again. That’s pretty amazing if you ask me!
I’m really really REALLY loving Sydney. Every morning I walk out of Tim’s apartment i think “w0000t, I was HERE?!” :P I’m so enjoying my time to the fullest. I was expecting great things from the trip before I left, and I can’t imagine being ever disappointed with this. My jet lag has gone away as well. My vision is still a bit wobbly at times, but after each night slept it passes more and more. And yesterday, i found out that with alcohol my English gets alot better. So maybe I should start writing my blog drunk:D
I’m off to the beach now. Shouldn’t be sitting inside blogging at all! More later on!
That was a looooooong trip. 9,5 hours in a plane from Finland to Bangkok. Around 6 hours of waiting at the airport there and then 9 hours of flying from Bangkok to Sydney. I was feeling quite positive about the flights and I was sure that my body would handle it just fine. I was partly wrong, the trip WAS ok and I was able to be positive the whole time, but upon arrival I started to have the most crappiest jet lag ever. My vision came late and my brain felt like an smashed tomato. Sticky, gooey and slightly rotten. Thank Zeuz that Tim bought a taxi for me from the airport and I was able to just be a vegetable the whole drive to his home. And thank Thor that Tim apparently had thought about everything before my arrival. A friendly face is always the best cure for jet lags! There was food, shower, an air cooler, plenty of water and a safe haven to just crash into and be alone since he was just leaving for work. I wanted nothing else than to take a loong shower and sleep couple of hours. We chit chatted a bit, me blurting out some vowels and nouns that the 10 000 monkeys in my head were able to but together and he as wittily and vibrantly as you can after a good night sleep.
Maybe the Manly Beach Next? After all it's 5min walk from here.
My “couple of hours of sleep” turned out to be a 6 hour all-consciousness-stopping-hardcore-sleep. The only reason i woke up after 6 hours was that I needed to pee, without that I would probably still be sleeping since I felt quite groggy after waking up. I forced myself to eat first but after a couple of bites I was gorging down two big sandwiches and some peanut bars. And felt worlds better!
Now I’m just sitting here on Tims computer and chilling out. Listening the birds and cars outside and thinking those million and one possibilities I could do next. So, what’s next?
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