Kho Phangan- welcome to Israel

So here I am now, in Kho Phangan, after finishing the course. On the last day we did 3 dives- two of them included sharks- which was extremely cool, and the third one was a night dive and a night mare- which included an incident with a sea urchin- my foot was not  content.
So 2 days ago, I left and now I am in Kho Phangan- which is pretty much like the Israeli colony- I hear Hebrew everywhere. Plenty of Hebrew signs, restaurants etc. Until today Anat and Shiran, the girls I did the course with were here and it was lots of fun- We went to the beach, got a massage, and basically just fooled around.Today they left for Kho Samui and I am staying here until tomorrow morning when I will be leaving back to Bangkok.
So this is it...I guess I won't be posting much since it's the end of my trip... I cannot believe I am going home in 2 days!!!!

Kho Tao- swin said the mama fishy

Once again, it's been a few days but here I am now in Kho Tao (Turtle Island). It's one of the three main Island of the southern west coast, it's about 26KM big. The main area is located down the coastline- not much on the actual Island.
Kho Tao is famous for the diving courses- I finished my open water today (equivalent to 1 star) and in two days will complete the advanced open water, the PADI (2 stars). The aquatic life are absolutely amazing. Reefs, fish, we even got a glimpse of sea horse- this time alive, and in it's natural habitat (rather than dead and on a stick. Refreshing). Beautiful.
My ears are slightly less fond of me  since I've started the course, but it really is nice. We are a group of Four (we were 5, one dropout), all Israelis with an Israeli instructor named Mattan, and the course itself is in Hebrew, which I found rather useful.
Other than that there isn't anything really outstanding in the Island- it's very pretty, expensive and well- that's about it.
On another note- I am proud to say I am am a proud owner of a Harry Potter copy (including an amazingly ugly mug I got with)- started reading it today. I also finished the first Jonathan Safran Foer book (Everything Is Illuminated)- Must say that either I really didn't get it or I didn't understand. Anyhow, I liked the second one better.
So this is it... Can't believe that next week on this time I will be just a few hours prior to my flight... I am excited, I must admit.

Where am I? Oh, yes, in Thailand

Yes, it's been a few days since I have last written. Well, after spending an extra day in Siem Reap I went back to Phenom Penh, where I randomly met a guy I have known from China which happened to be on the same flight the following day. So we hung out together, which was quite nice.
The following day we took a flight to Bangkok and and left Cambodia. I must admit, I wasn't that fond of it- especially after Amir (the guy) told me that the room he shared with his friends was broken into and their stuff were stolen. Now that sucks.
Anyway, I am back in Bangkok....weird how I REALLY hated it at first and now it's actually rather nice.
It's unbelievable how five minutes after I got here I already ran into people I met in China, Vietnam, Cambodia... yep, sure is a kibbutz galuyot.
Yesterday I ran errands....so nice to have clean clothes, I almost forgot what it felt like. yay! and I also went to China town with two girls named Dana (both)- I have to say that after being to the real thing, Chinatown is a disappointment.
so to make it up we went to the MBK- huge mall. how incredibly feminine of us.
Tonight I am heading to Kho Tao and tomorrow I will be starting the diving course and get my PADI. yay!
last thing- finally got some photos up!

Vien Tian &4,000 Islands

So first of all- Happy Shavout! In a bit of a delay.
Right now we are back in Vien Tian after being in 4,000 Islands.
Vien Tian is the capital of Laos- only it's smaller than Afula and does not resemble a city what so ever. There are many temples and it's right by the Mekong river.
On Tuesday we (Gil, David- a friend of Gil's from Germany and me) arrived here and Gil and I went to the Chinese embassy to deposit our passports and now that we're back our Chinese visas  should be ready.
In between we spent a day in a half in 4,000 Island- it's a 50K area by the Mekong river in which there are, sure enough- about 4,000 islands. Most of them are tiny, and in the winter are under water, but a few of them are settled- like the one we went to- Don Det (Don=island in Lao). It was awfully hot and humid, but beautiful- they only have electricity between the hours of 18:00-22:00- and with generators. Oy vay.
On our way back we went to Pakse (a town in the way) and went to visit the waterfalls- they are simply gorgeous.
So now we are back here, we are about to meet Nir (who is arriving from Thailand) and to pick up our visas and then we are moving on to Vang Vieng which is a small town about 3 hours away.
The weather is SO gross... it's kinda funny- out of 5 nights this week we spent 3 nights in a bus! For some reason they insisted on playing Lao Karaoke DVD for like 3 hours on they to the Islands and back. Well, what doesn't kill you make you stronger.

Just a Quicky...

Just letting you know that I switched to Picasa and the photos should be up now. Let me know if they don't, and I'll figure out who to kill.
I know mom, Violence is no solution. Right.

Kanchanburi

OK, for some reason computers hate me. I honestly don't know why, But I don't see any other reason I can't manage to put up some photos, or encode the default language in the blog to a NON-Asian one. I'm in Thailand, than why the hell it's in Japanese!?
Anyway, back to my topic- We spent the past two days in a resort named Kanchanburi. Beautiful place, literally a spit away from the Khay river. We took a speed boat (some kind of a water taxi) to a Buddha temple. we climbed up ( I swear the air was thicker than the water. breathing is challenging), and faced what appears to be the fattest Buddha sculpture I have ever seen. Apparently it's Chinese;The Thai Buddha must have dieted or something...
Anyway in the cave we saw what I refer to as the "Buddha modeling book"- many many Buddhas in different positions. We learned that one is to warship the Buddha of the day of the week he was born (each day of the week has a specific Buddha and one is to warship the one of his birthday, respectively).
After that we went to an Elephant farm, and we did some Elephant riding (PilPilon, here I come!) it's nice, yet not that exciting....but Elephants are way cuter than I expected. After that we went into the water with them and "helped scrubbing them" as they took a bath- meaning we scrubbed them like a rubber ducky for a few minutes and enjoyed their splashing with their trunks for the rest of the time. my Elephant, Mr. Pil, splashed quite a lot.

On the following day we went to 7 falls national park. It was beautiful, and our tour guide, Mimi was a very very cute Thai lady, who spoke to us both English and Hebrew.
Then we went to the Tiger temple, and took pictures with DRUGGED tigers. So mom, no need to freak out!

Today we were supposed to leave to Vien Tian, the capital of Laos, but we postponed it to tomorrow, since Nir is sick and I spent the entire morning in the Hospital with him. He is still there (dehydration) and he might have to spend a night or two there. Anyhow we are not leaving until we know for sure he is OK, but he might not continue with us to Vien Tian after all.
Anyway, if you survived my longest post yet, let me wish all a Happy Shavuot! It is my favorite holiday (well, it's MY holiday) so eat dairy and think of me;-)

Bang-Kok part 2

Well, It's kinda fast, posting day after day, but god knows when I'm going to get to a computer next...
today we did something very exciting- we made plans! We are leaving tomorrow for an over night in a place called Kachanubri or something unpronounceable like that... and on Sunday we are leaving to Laos.
Today we had a near death experience- we took a Tuk-Tuk to the MBK (a shopping mall). I do not want to hear another word about how bad Israeli drivers are. Jesus! The man drove in between lanes, speeding up so one could imagine the wings coming out of the Tuk-Tuk, and to complete the experience he almost crashed into like two buses and a taxi. Wow.
the shopping mall was beautiful and huge. 8 stories of what appears to be one of the biggest malls I have ever seen. So that's pretty much it for now.
After Laos we are heading towards China, then to Vietnam and we'll finish in Cambodia (we left it to the end so we can pull off an Angelina Jolie and adopt an orphan or something).
anyway, hope you're all well.. I put up like 4 photos, that's all I have for now. next time I'll have more...

Bangkok

Finally after what appeared to be the world's worst flight, I arrived in Bangkok. Geez.... once your out with your luggage, your like a freakin celebrity- people start chasing you around with taxi offers and god knows what. I took Gil's advice and pretended to be Hellen Keller- or the three monkies- and ignore them all.
Anyway I met Gil in the Israeli Connection and we are now waiting for Nir- a friend of a friend who is arriving later on today.
I still haven't got any news, but I'm very anxious to see if I'll actually post, seeing as I can't seem to make the damn computer change the language from Thai... and yes, I tried encoding. Doesn't work, so I sort of have to guess what I'm doing. And speaking of which, all those hours working in the supermarket with Thai people finally paid off- I managed to explain myself to the cab driver! my greatest achievement yet.
anyhow, I'll call it a day cause I'm jet lagged and I am sick of fighting and losing to the damn keyboard. No photos yet...