Jake's Latest News
We All Live In A Yellow Submarine - Monday 30th April 2001
… or at least me and Corrina are at the moment anyway - the Yellow Submarine hostel, here in Brisbane. Been here for about a week now and the plan is to get a job here and live here for a couple of months. The only snag is trying to find a job though!
What I have done though is gone out and bought myself some roller blades which are cool. Can’t use them very well yet though! The thing is, I’ve got the hang of accelerating and just going along smooth level paths, but when it comes to stopping the damn things I’m terrible! I’m getting there… although on several occasions I’ve whoooshed down hills and then just stacked it in trying to stop!
Oh, and I’m becoming an endorphin addict again as well - my current routine is to go swimming and play squash early in the morning - rollerblading there of course - and then walking around everywhere. It’s about time as well because I hadn’t really done any proper exercise at all in the last three months!
Perhenthian Islands Photos Up - Tuesday 24th April 2001
Big up my dad and bro for putting my latest photos up. Fantastic photos as well! View them here and after that, here - the second batch having been taken with an underwater camera.
Aussie Life - Friday 20th April 2001
Last time I updated this journal I was in Bangkok miles from my current destination in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia. Since then I’ve also changed my plans about a billion times. At the moment I’m thinking of spending about four months in Oz and then maybe going to Japan or South America or pretty much anywhere actually - but probably not New Zealand and then America as I’d originally planned. I’m trying to cancel my trip in America because I don’t really care that much about the US any more. Before I began travelling I was really looking forward to the states, but now I’m quite impartial to them. In fact, I’ve changed quite a lot over the past three months - and I’m seriously considering a life of travel over a life of a simple 40 hour week in a city. Sure, I’ll work somewhere, but I don’t want to get into a job where I can’t take long half-year vacations every now and then. Best of all would be to just make my millions quickly of course, and then not have to worry about money, but it’s so cheap travelling anyway that you can just work your way round the world and live off a small backpack.
Anyway, back to Australia and what I’m currently up to. Spent a few days in Sydney first and the first thing I noted was how cold it was compared to the tropics that I’ve been in for over two months. Put my jumper on for the first time since Kashmir!
Didn’t really do much in Sydney, just spent a few days relaxing and getting a few things sorted like CV, tax file number and medical stuff. Oh, and I met up with my sister Corrina as well of course, and we bought a bus ticket to take us up the east coast to Cairns.
Our first stop was Port Macquire, a few hours north of Sydney. We stayed in a great hostel there and was tempted by ridiculously cheap pizza! Didn’t really do anything for easter, but we did watch a duck race down a river. I didn’t really know what to expect but it was quite amusing to see a few hundred yellow plastic ducks going the wrong way up the river! Also did a bit of body boaring and tan-getting during the day.
Next stop was Coffs Harbour where there was a sweet pool that I spent most my time in. Also did a bit of canoeing. Nothing much else though.
Arrived in Byron Bay yesterday. Corrina got all excited about how she’s really a hippy (even though she blatantly isn’t) and yoga classes and stuff like that. Don’t see the big attraction myself though - I’m fine just relaxing by the pool all day, bopping in and out every now and then and getting more and more tanned.
Not sure how long to stay in Byron Bay yet - maybe about four days, although Corrina may stay a few days longer. After that it’s off to Surfers Paradise and then probably working in Brisbane for about a month. Then, now here’s the fun part, I’ll probably do a dive master course for about a month somewhere around the Great Barrier Reef. That’ll be sweet - it’ll mean I can start making a little money from diving in the future. I’ll have to fit skydiving, handgliding, surfing, jet-skiing and bungee-jumping in somewhere as well!
Mumma In Thailand - Sunday 8th April 2001
More of my photos are now up, including some extremely wicked ones in Kuala Lumpar and in the jungle, and also some in Kashmir - see the Malaysian ones here and the Indian ones here.
Met my mum here in Thailand yesterday which was nice! Arrived at her hotel at 11am and then spent the day with her and her group from school. I’m extremely glad I’m not doing a similar ‘package tour’ though because it sounded like hell - no time to stop and do what you want to do. It’s so much more exciting travelling by yourself or with a couple of friends.
Got a real fetish for music today and figured the stuff I was picking up with the radio I bought just wasn’t good enough. So, went and got $100 changed up and went on a bargain hunting rampage down the market here. Got a Sony CD Player, speakers and 13 CDs for about US$90 which isn’t bad. That should keep me going for a while.
Walking past a restaurant earlier and noticed there was a boxing match on so I had a look. It was like a bloody WWF wrestling match though the way it was hyped up - Prince Naseem Hamed against Anotnio Ferrandez (or something like that). Hamed was a cocky bastard like always - what with him being the undefeated champion and all, but I saw history in the making as he was beater. Eat that you egotistical leprechaun!
Thai Boxing and Lady Boys - Friday 6th April 2001
Saw some Thai Boxing yesterday which was quite exciting. The stadium was like a big round room with step-seats all around it, and we were sitting up near the top, away from all the betting and atmosphere down below. Unfortunately though we though it would be better to go at about 9pm rather than 6pm and I think we missed most of the good matches - but we still got to see some great fighting and for the first two matches at least the atmosphere was quite alive. I think I’ll have to do Thai Boxing or something similar at uni now.
After the boxing it was time for the lady boys hunt. Damn it - it’s bloody hard to tell. I couldn’t spot them at all, but my friends were pointing them all out to me and there a lot of them out there. None of them attractive at all in my mind, but I didn’t find it easy to see that they were blokes.
Go Go Bars - Thursday 5th April 2001
Met up with two girls who I met on the Perhentian Islands (Abbie and Chrissy) yesterday when I arrived in Bangkok, and then two other English blokes my age - Simon and Jonny. We decided it would be quite an experience to see what Bangkok is famous for (apart from the chick boys) - the go-go sex bars!
At around 8 last night the five of us squashed into a tuk-tuk and asked him to take us to PatPong (the red-light district here). Well, he kept asking us what we were going for so we said ’sex stuff’ and then he tried to get commission by taking us to a sex show. We had none of that, and just got him to drop us off down the main road, outside some lovely establishment called Super Pussy. Well, after half an hour of walking around and not knowingly seeing any lady boys we sat down and had a couple of beers and some food before going into the raunchy joints.
We were expecting to be horrified by hard-core action in the sex shows, with girls who were far too young and rampant sex on stage. We thought we’d go in and just leave almost immediately because it would just be too demeaning. Instead, we went into one of the places advertising ‘pussy ping-pong’ and ‘pussy banana’ and went up to the place with the poles and the perverts and the naked ladies. Well, it was pretty pants (without the panties) - we saw some big old naked Thai woman walking clumsily around on the stage and that was about it. Wasn’t quite what we were expecting, so we left straight away to find something a bit more ‘entertaining’.
Three sex shows later and we figured they were all exactly the same - we saw some amazingly talented women peashoot balloons out of their naughty bits and play a bit of ping pong and fire off bangers between their legs but it wasn’t what we were expecting! The most amusing thing was just seeing the big white fat pervy old men with the Thai girls all over them, obviously because of their raunchy attractiveness, I’m sure they weren’t paying for sex.
More India Photos Up - I’m In Bangkok - Wednesday 4th April 2001
My second batch of India photos are now up - I’ve only seen a few so far, but they seem to be of Puri in Orissa state on the east coast of India (also a couple of Singapore). See them here. In particular see this photo of me in a sunset, another superb sunset and a beautiful toilet on an Indian train.
Arrived in Bangkok this morning, and staying at something like ‘Guest House 99′ which is alright. Bus journey was hell but I managed to get some sleep on it. I’m thinking I may just stay in Bangkok now for six nights though, because I don’t really have time to go to Chiang Mai, and it would involve another two torturous bus journeys as well!
Well, I’m in Bangkok and as an Alan Partridge fan would know, there’s only one thing which Bangkok is famous for - the lady boys. Fascinating creatures. Haven’t seen one (knowingly) yet though…
Back In The Womb - Monday 2nd April 2001
Just got back from a night dive - absolutely amazing! If you’ve seen The Beach before you’ll remember the scene when they’re underwater and wiggle their hands around and see shiny stuff - that’s phosphorescence, something to do with the algae stuff down there, and I saw that tonight. Amazing! Someone said it was like being back in the womb - all relaxed and clam in the middle of nowhere seeing only a few metres in front when I shone the torch there. Wow! Saw many greeny-blue sting ray which swam past and hid under rocks, and some massive crabs as well. Saw sleeping fish - prodded one and it whooshed off. Fantastic stuff.
I’m now a qualified Advanced Open Water diver - this means I can go down to 40m and dive at night and cool stuff like that.
I’m off to Bangkok or Chiang Mai tomorrow - I can’t really decide! It’s Joe’s birthday today (email him here to wish him happy birthday) - happy birthday! On the 7th or so I’ll be meeting my mum in Bangokok, and then on the 10th I plan to be in Sydney, meeting Corrina. But for the next six or so days I don’t know what I’ll be doing.
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