Nepal

After 4 months in Thailand, I traveled with Dave to Nepal. We arrived in Kthmandu on the 17th of October giving us about three weeks to look around before we headed up to Kopan Monestary for the famous one month course.

In order to save time and see the most we could (using Thai time/ traveling lesurly) before the corse, we dicided to hit a few of the tourist spots. Baktapure, a beutiful medevil city about half an hour to the est of Kathmandu. Nargakot, a hilltop village known for it's amazing veiws of the mountains (including Everest, very tiny though) at sunset and sunrise. Back to Kathmandu and then to the west for Polkara, at the foot of the Annapurna range. We did a bit of hiking, some paragliding, I took a weekend Thanka painting class (traditional Tibetain Buddist painting), and overall watched a lot of sunrises. We met a few friends along the way, locals who would invite us into their homes and share stories and meals with us. We had such a great time, I highly recomend a visit to Nepal to everyone.

Back in Thailand

After the challenging trip to India and a beauty pampering session Bangkok, I made my way back to Khao Lak, Thailand to meet back up with Dave and a bit of relaxation.

The Dive center where I had originally done my open water was being rebuilt, so I offered to do a few signs for them in exchange for some boat trips.

Although it's a fairly straight forward design, the two signs ended up taking quite a bit of time. I had to haggle pretty hard with one of the dive center execs to get a good deal in exchange ( I think all the time barganing in India paid off). In the end, I got a pretty sweet deal and it's quite satifiing to see my work up on the building. I also spent some time with the Tunami relief center here volunteering with some of there after school programs. There is some controvery here as to wether the need for volunteers is still present or not. I found that the volunteer center seemed to be trying to create reasons to justify there continued existence here, but that these reasons were rather feeble. The education programs have potential, but not a lot was really happening with them and seeing as they had more than enough hands to help I decided to spend more time on the painting and have agreed to do 6 more signs for Sea Dragon.

Here's a few photos of where I've been staying and a bit of snorkel fun.

India

I thought I had lost all my pictures from India, but turns out I had a few pictures at the biginning of a role, just developed. Here are a few from Rishikish and Kolkata.

Playing with Elephants

While waiting for my Visa for India to come in I headed to Kanchaniburi to relax by the river for a bit. On my travels I met a guy who had just come from an elephant camp. So with his advise, I decided to finally do the elephant riding I had first set out to do. Here we are at bath time.

Diving

Diving at the Surin and Similan Islands on a 4 day, 4night boat trip. In 13 dives total I saw more than I could have ever imagined. A shark, a manta ray, sting rays, sea turtles, and so much more. Some of my favorite dives were at night where you could see biolumenecence in the water. Like swiming in the stars! Unfortunatly I did get an infection in both my ears from this trip, but it was well worth it.
Weightless in the sea!


Here's a photo of the lovely captain of the Adaman (our ship for the journey). Captain Pi-toon.

And on the right is Divemaster/Captain Dave, my wonderful companion for this journey, we met in cambodia and will hopefuly meet up again for more diving someday.

Patanni

Welcome to Alp and Pe-Ton's place near Patanni. I stayed here from the 13th of January to the 6th of Febuary. It was an overall laidback lifestyle in the middle of a government compound (you can see the "fence" below). Their first home burnt down about a year ago, but since Pe- ton works for a government school thay were able to start over in this home.



Pe-ton cleaning his gun at breakfast. It wasn't that he was always doing this, in fact it was the only time I saw him "play" with it in the time I stayed there.


Alp with Jack and Sam (both females) and Alp and I playing in a waterfall about 7km from their house.

Angkor

Hello Tomb Raider! The temples of Ankor provided
me with quite a bit of
creative inspiration. I found the mornings the most relaxing where I could find quiet nooks to hide away from the hords of tourists and draw a few of the many carvings covering the temples. Riding a bike around these ancient rouines provided not only some great exercise, but by far the best way to take in the massive scale of this ancient empire.