Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of my life. Wilma and I when on a expedition to the Kao Sok national park. That consists of only jungle and rivers. On the way there we would also visit a cave temple where lots of monkeys live. So to feed the monkeys we went to buy peanuts and bananas on a local market. As some of you know I adore markets so I was awed with amazement of all the exoc fruits that were there and the way meat is stored in such a warm country like this. I bit disgusting but cool at the same time. We drove for an hour to the north and when we arrived at the temple we met the titties nun. Luckily I did not have to experience it but this nun seems to have a fetish for breasts. She is known to harass women by grabbing them by the tits. It was not our lucky day, unfortunately there were no monkeys at all!! So I took a look in the cave temple and saw a mummified monk and some nice buddha statues and we went on to a little restaurant where I ate banana pancakes. I got the tip that for western people it is not so good to eet three thai meals on a day. Ours stomachs could not bear it. Which I noticed my first day. After lunch I put on my shorty wetsuit and we walked down the road with inlated car tires. We arrived at a bridge descended to the river (this is really allready in the middle of the jungle!) and we floated down the river. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen, we floated between gigantic trees, beautiful flowers, fluits hanging ripe from the trees and liana hanging everywhere. It was magnificent. I have not the correct words to discribe this. In the middle of our trip we reached a little hole in the mountain where they hung a rope and you can swing yourself into the river, our guide anuwat was a real tarzan, he showed me how to best jump from that slippery slope. When the tour ended we were picked up by a pickup truck. (how typical :P) that drove us back to the town through palm oil-palms, and rubber-trees. After a change of clothes we went back to the monkey temple where luckily the monkeys were again. We fed them all a whole bag of peanuts and many bananas. Greedy little bastards... But they are very funny! There were allso three puppies that were the cutest ever, there was one that if I could, I would have taken him home immediately. Wilma fed then two bananas. It sky was getting a bit dim so we dicided to head back to Kao Lak. On our way back we saw two elephamts with riders on them. The elephants were working, but the men were so kind to come my way a bit and let the elephants do some tricks for me. A short but fun encounter. After we passed through the mountain it started to pour, well pour is an understatement, rain started to gush out of the skies. two steps outside would soke you through the bone. A thing that happened more often then I wanted.. We went for the most delicious meal in a little restaurant across the street from the Jerung Guest House where I am staying. Panang curry with ckicken and sweet banana in coconut milk.......... Prrr... wagging my tail. We truned in early because all the shopes closed because of the rain. So I worked a bit on my photos, tried to watch a movie but fell asleep instantly. This morning a woke up from someone banging at my door. It was Wilma, she was a bit out of sorts. Apparently the whole street was flooded for over a meter high this night. The car had been filled with water and floated 30 meters, to the other side of the guest house. I had to make pictures with my camera for the insurance office. All the houses had severe water damage and a lot of ground just washed away.. Oops... a bit more dangerous then I thought. Luckily the rain stopped and most of the water is gone allready. I just have to see how I will get to phuket to get my plane. I think all will be ok. But I'll keep you posted. I just experienced my own natural disaster. Cruel mother nature, the remains of the tsunami disaster are still visible and then this happens just when people invested a lot of money in their new businesses. I also just heard that the forecast says three more days of this kind of rain... Hope and pray for better days...
After an Airplane ride from hell of ten hours in the smallest airplane chairs I have ever seen I arrived at Bangkok Airport. My neighbour in the plane was a nice Austrian who helped me filling in the immigration form for my visa there. The Thai people are keen to see you leave so everything is wel if you have a ticket to leave the country. My first stamp in my passport! I was a bit proud of that, dopey huh. The weirdest thing was that before immigration we had to walk past a camera in a neat row slowly and look into the camera. When we past the camera I took a sneak peek on the screen and noticed it was a heat seeking camera. They were looking for people with a fever to quarentain them, they are spastically scared for the swine flu here. Everyone is walking around with mouthcaps and eyeballing all foreighners suspiciously. I took my ginourmous bag and my diving bag from the belt en stuffed my diving gear back into the bag. After I took some money from the ATM. Thai money is like monopoly money. It looks weird and is ridiculously big. You could wipe you *** twice with a 1000 bath bill. I took a cab in from op the departures terimal. My cousing John told me it was cheaper, and it is!! 300 bath I paid the guy that is approximately 6 euro's for 45 minutes of driving. We couldn't find the hotel at first so we had to stop and ask some people, which made the trip even longer. The hotel, called Villa ChaCha, was a very neat and beatiful hotel, full with buddah statues and there was a beautiful pool. I dumped my bags and went on the streets to find something to eat. I ate the best cocos soup with chicken ever in my life at a little stand on the street. I bet it would've tasted even better had I not cought a terrible cold. Imagine, sneezing, snotting and coughing in a humid city of 45 degrees centigrade... I thought I was melting away.
After my lunch I decided to hide in my air conditioned room. I turned in at three and came out at seven to take a dip in the pool filled with french people. After I tried a nice Thai dish, Flied Glass Noodles... Very Nice! And a Papaya juice, the best juice I have ever tasted. The Thai sure know what is good. A few moments later a Monsoon rain started to fall out of the sky. It was possible to swim in the streets, so my plans to go to the MBK mall litteraly fell in the water. Soon I had some companions at my table, since the rest of the tables floated in the rain. I met a guy and a girl from Austria (again). Roberto a guy who has been traveling for over 25 years with an incredible life story gave me some good ideas of places to visit that are not in the lonely planet. So Hopefully I will meet him in december when I'll be back in Thailand to make a few dives near the similan islands. The next morning I was up at 5:30 to catch my plane in Phuket where I was picked up by the Sister of my dive instructor to go to Kao Lak. A town that was gruesomely damaged by the tsunami in 2004. The signs are still clear though the village looks very good taken care of and is almost completely rebuilt now. The town is surrounded by a jungle and close to a great national park, that I hope to visit for some hiking in the following days here. I rented a scooter and got on the road with Wilma (the sister) and we went to the most wonderfull beach. Like on postcards. A real bounty beach where we ate squid fritter, green prawn curry, stirfried morningglory (no idea what vegetable it was) and sweet banana in cocos milk as desert in a cute bamboo furnished restaurant. The weird thing is that the sun goes down here at 7 PM. So we had to drive back in the dark, which was a bit tricky since there are no lights whatsoever on the road, it was hard to recognise the way back. Home again we went for a Thai massage. One and a half hour of bliss for less then 5 euro's. I allmost feel like I'm robbing them. Now, totally sitasfied, I'm sitting on my bed contemplating what to do tomorrow... I'm sure it will be great...
De hutkoffer is gepakt. Mijn advanced duikers brevet is in "the pocket" Ik heb mijn zenuwen overleefd. In een zen staat tel ik de uren totdat ik opstijg en mijn avontuur nu echt begint. Met speciale dank aan mijn duikinstructeur... Zonder alle support was het me niet gelukt... =] Nog 2 prikjes in mn bil en het is Auf wiedersehen!!! Gelukkig heb ik bergen foto's van iedereen met mooie en leuke herinneringen, een hoop skype adressen en email adressen. Dus echt alleen zal ik me niet gaan voelen Down Under. Mijn skype adres: linda_gomes Vind het super fijn als jullie ook wat van jezelf laten horen! Dan blijf ik toch een beetje in contact met het leven in Nederland.
Dikke Kus voor iedereen en de verhalen komen eraan.
Het is bijna zover. Volgende week dinsdag stap ik in Düsseldorf op het vliegtuig naar mijn eerste bestemming. Bankok Thailand, waar ik vijf dagen wat van de stad ga zien en een duik tochtje ga maken bij een van de eilanden van het land. Gisteren ben ik terug gekomen van mijn vakantie met mijn ouders naar mijn andere thuisland Portugal. Dus ik heb in totaal zeven dagen om alles op orde te krijgen voor mijn vertrek. Dit brengt een hoop stress met zich mee. Dat bovenop de gezonde "ik-ga-meer-dan-een-half-jaar-weg-spanning" Laat mijn hele systeem op tilt slaan. Gelukkig heb ik hier en daar helpende handjesdie me zo nu en dan tot een halt roepen en even pas op de plaats laten maken. Owh ja, ik hoef niet met windkracht 13 door de dag te blazen... Sorry. Omdat mijn laatste verblijf hier zo kort is heb ik helaas niet de tijd om iedereen te zien. Dus hoop ik dat jullie donderdag as. even de tijd hebben om met mij een drankje te komen doen in "cafe Groen" op de groen van prinstererstraat. Dan kan ik de meeste van jullie toch nog ff een knuffel geven.
This is my blog about my journey to Australia, my internship there at the Queenslands University's centre for marine studies and all my adventures in between. I hope you enjoy it!
I when on a expedition to the Kao Sok national park. That consists of only jungle and rivers. On the way there we would also visit a cave temple where lots of monkeys live. So to feed the monkeys we went to buy peanuts and bananas on a local market. As some of you know I adore markets so I was awed with amazement of all the exoc fruits that were there and the way meat is stored in such a warm country like this. I bit disgusting but cool at the same time. We drove for an hour to the north and when we arrived at the temple we met the titties 
nun. Luckily I did not have to experience it but this nun seems to have a fetish for breasts. She is known to harass women by grabbing them by the tits. It was not our lucky day, unfortunately there were no monkeys at all!! So I took a look in the cave temple and saw a mummified monk and some nice buddha statues and we went on to a little restaurant where I ate banana pancakes. I got the tip that for western people it is not so good to eet three thai meals on a day. Ours stomachs could not bear it. Which I noticed my first day. After lunch I put on my shorty wetsuit and we walked down the road with inlated car tires. We arrived at a bridge descended to the river (this is really allready in the middle of the jungle!) and we floated down the river. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen, we floated between gigantic trees, 
beautiful flowers, fluits hanging ripe from the trees and liana hanging everywhere. It was magnificent. I have not the correct words to discribe this. In the middle of our trip we reached a little hole in the mountain where they hung a rope and you can swing yourself into the river, our guide anuwat was a real tarzan, he showed me how to best jump from that slippery slope. When the tour ended we were picked up by a pickup truck. (how typical :P) that drove us back to the town through palm oil-palms, and rubber-trees. After a change of clothes we went ba
ck to the monkey temple where luckily the monkeys were again. We fed them all a whole bag of peanuts and many bananas. Greedy little bastards... But they are very funny! There were allso three puppies that were the cutest ever, there was one that if I could, I would 
have taken him home immediately. Wilma fed then two bananas. It sky was getting a bit dim so we dicided to head back to Kao Lak. On our way back we saw two elephamts with riders on them. The elephants were working, but the men were so kind to come my way a bit and let the elephants do some tricks for me. A short but fun encounter. After we passed through the mountain it started to pour, well pour is an understatement, rain started to gush out of the skies. two steps outside would soke you 
through the bone. A thing that happened more often then I wanted.. We went for the most delicious meal in a little restaurant across the street from the Jerung Guest House where I am staying. Panang curry with ckicken and sweet banana in coconut milk.......... Prrr... wagging my tail. We truned in early because all the shopes closed because of the rain. So I worked a bit on my photos, tried to watch a movie but fell asleep instantly. This morning a woke up from someone banging at my door. It was Wilma, she was a bit out of sorts. Apparently the whole street was flooded for over a meter high this night. The car had been filled with water and floated 30 meters, to the other side of the guest house. I had to make pictures with my camera for the insurance office. All the houses had severe water damage and a lot of ground just washed away.. Oops... a bit more dangerous then I thought. Luckily the rain stopped and most of the water is gone allready. I just have to see how I will get to phuket to get my plane. I think all will be ok. But I'll keep you posted. I just experienced my own natural disaster. Cruel mother nature, the remains of the tsunami disaster are still visible and then this happens just when people invested a lot of money in their new businesses. I also just heard that the forecast says three more days of this kind of rain... Hope and pray for better days... 
