Hua Hin Beach

Hua hin beach has been called a favorite for the thai people, though I feel that it may have changed from what it was over the last few years. The beach is nice, and in mid july it was practicaly deserted other than a handfull of locals looking for shelled creatures and looking after their small wooden fishing boats. I think i saw only one other tourist the entire time i was there. The place i was staying in was slightly to the north of the main town though. I'm sure the beach near the main town is also nice and comparitevly empty, but the town itself was underwhelming and In my opinion detracted from the quality of the beach. It was bussy with small shopping centers and touristy market stalls just like everywhere else but with no unique redeeming features. Overall I guess there is nothing wrong with the town, but it just felt soulless.

...though with the one exeption of a small buddist monistary on a rock in the south that i nearly forgot about. That was quite nice to look at.

Service station toilet

This toilet demonstrates a state of the art manual flushing system involving a green tub and a pool of water.

Dried squid (in Rayong)

The morning after ariving in Rayong we had an english breakfast with eggs, bacon, beans and toast. But that didnt stop dried squid being put infront of me pulled straight from a passing street food cart. Its kinda like Beef jerky, but a very salty fish flavoured beef jerkey. I can understand the appeal of the texture as it is something good to chew on, but the flavour is far to strong and salty for my liking. Apparently it is usualy eaten while drinking whisky, which seems to explain alot.

Buddist Drinking Ban

For one weekend there was a nationwide ban on alcohol sales for a buddist celebration, a sort of buddist lent. But this ban affects buddists and non buddists alike, If your not religious and need a beer to go with your pad thai you just have to deal with it. So this evening when we were out for a meal we were drinking a type of Ice tea. It was called Hin-ken or Hin-i-Ken or something, (I dont remember exactly) but it seemed like every other person in the resteraunt was drinking it too. Strange.

Ladyboys (part 1?)

In the same day as the Pattaya zoo the next stop was a ladyboy show in the middle of Pattaya( the ticket stub says Alcazar on it). 100% genuine ladyboys or something like that, good all round family entertainment! while this may be very surreal for westeners it is accepted as normal (to an extent) in thailand. Whole families go to these shows with what look like 10 year old kids dancing along to the show infront of their parents. I'm sure this stuff would be X rated in the US even though it is all fully clothed.

The show consisted of dancing in the traditional style of many different countries (japan/india/china/etc) but then changed into random set pices. One was a "night in the museum" type setting where statues came to life when the guards left, then there was space setting with lots of smoke and strobe lights. There was even one set where the performer was half male and half female split verticaly down the middle, it was a duet by one person.

Pattaya Tiger Zoo

Pattaya tiger zoo was one of the first things i was taken to see by my dads friend and his wife. The sculptures on entry were anything but subtle (giant 20ft tall tigers and text). This place seemed to be aimed mostly at the locals and was a few decades behind what a western audience might want (seeing the animals behaving as naturaly as possible in a space that attempts to recreate their natural habitat). It was presented well enough, but the main attraction of the zoo seemed to be the shows that involved tigers, elephants, pigs and crocodiles performing tricks . The tigers were hardly enthusiastic, you got the impresion that they were just hit with sticks repeatedly untill they performed the actions the trainers wanted. If you have ever owend or known a house cat you know how reluctant they are to follow any command you give them. The eliphants performed better, but this was probably because they more social animals and are better at learning. The crocodiles were having none of it, they were just being moved about by the zoo staff by grabbing their tails and draging them across wet tiles, they had no intention of performing any sort of trick wether they were beaten with sticks or not.
However the pigs were solving maths problems and were rewarded with food for a correct answer. I'm sure they were as happy as an animal in a zoo can be.

planes, n room, n ting

Planes suck. was awake for the entire time. I saw sucker punch though, It had some interesting scenes but it was kinda all over the place, the main concept was a little loose, but meh.., had nothing better to watch.

first evening, I met my dad, his friend and his friends partner. we went to a german brewery themed resteraunt with a cheesy stage show, it was rammed full of people because it was the last day before a buddist event where you must not consume alchohol. The first full day involved a tour round bangkok to show the transport system (bus/skytrain/boat/tuk tuk), I nearly lost my brand new camera on the first day. My Kodak fell out of my pocket on the tuk tuk and i just managed to grab it from the seat as the tuk tuk was pulling off. I looked at the seat to check if I had lost anything out off impulse, I didnt even know I had dropped it. Tried some thai street food (noodles and fish balls or something), went to to eat at a resteraunt and tried some real thai food, I'm normaly ok with trying different foods, but the strange textures of most of the dishes were unlike anything i have eaten before. Ginger and fish soup was also strange, the green curry had an aniseed taste to it. the rice and pork ribs were were farmilliar though.

the room:

Stuff I'm taking

This is the list of stuff that I plan to take with me. This is all stuff I think I will need but I will probably end up using about half of it. I will also be taking two boxes of wine and some chocolates as a good will gesture for my dads friend chi because he is letting me borrow a room in his apartment block for a couple of weeks.

The camera equipment I am taking is probably not much to some people, but it is more than I would like to carry. The only problem is that I don’t want to leave any of it at home and wish I’d brought it when I get there. The lens I am most exited about using is the 50mm because I still haven’t had a good opportunity to use it. So far I have got no further than shooting cups and beer bottles in my bedroom. I would have taken it out and about in stoke more but I only got it towards the end of the academic year as I was starting to blank out all but my coursework. I hope I will have good opportunities to get some good portraits. At the moment I feel its a little patronising to just go up and photograph people on street food stalls and such, but they must have to cope with that sort of thing all the time in touristy areas. But I guess I can always withdraw into the chaos of people and traffic to never see them again. The other two are just for safety I guess, the 18-55 will be better for landscapes due to the wider view, the 70-300 will be better for animals and wildlife (well, when its at a safe distance anyway, I expect the 50mm will be better when the animals are trying to attack me) but other than that I guess it depends on the locations.

A minor annoyance I have is that the 58mm filter adapter ring I got sent to go with my filter holder is a fake and not the official Cokin one (I think they sent me a maxim one). I'm not that bothered about the name, but its slightly the wrong size. The outer ring is too small and this causes the filter holder to wobble, unlike the 52mm adapter that Is defiantly an official Cokin product. I would have sent the 58mm adapter back to the supplier but I cant find another anywhere on the internet. So I either take the faulty one or take nothing and send it back to get a ten pound refund (yeah they’re fucking expensive for a bit of metal). I will probably just take it and try and get a refund in three months.

Hmm... I got a digital shutter release timer specially for this trip in an attempt to get some awesome time lapses! Hopefully I should be able to mix the time lapses with some cool HD video, thanks to a little waterproof HD video camera (Kodak Playsport Zx3) that does photos too! Though the main reason I bought it was because It makes me happier about swimming and exploring beaches and It means I don’t need to worry about missing a great opportunity for a photo due to potential water damage. I should also be able to film some awesome fish. To be honest I'm slightly scared I will never take my 1000D out with me!

The malaria prevention tablets I will be taking are called Mefloquine. This medicine is known to have some negative side effects in some people but I have taken a two week trial (to make sure my body was ok with it) and had no side affects. The advantage of this tablet is that it only needs to be taken once a week, taking a tablet every day may not be an issue for most people but I find it very inconvenient to take a tablet every day. And as I said before, I had no negative side effects in the trial so I am happy.

Most of the other stuff in the list is fairly self explanatory I think, a leather belt is used round the waist to stop your trousers or shorts falling down etc....

There is some other stuff that I wont be bringing like shampoo and crap (crap as in stuff, not literal crap ….well I hope not anyway) that will just take up room in my bag. My dad will be lending me his notebook computer when I see him and I will need to buy anything else I have missed.

Eurohike Pathfinder 65ltr rucksackAdidas Tennis shoes

Various clothes (shorts/t-shirts/underwear/etc)
Element Baseball cap
Sun shades
Jeep rucksack
Pyramid Mosquito net (my mum wanted me to take it)
Gelert 13.5ltr waterproof bag
Leather belt
Money belt
wallet
Millets Combination Padlocks x 2
Lonelyplanet guide book
Thailand map
International driving licence (under passport)
Driving licence (not in photo)
passport
40,000 Thai Bhat (so I don’t need to worry about cash the second I land)
Credit card (not in photo)
Malaria Pills (Mefloquine)
paracetamol tablets x 2
Plasters
Inhaler
Gorilla duct Tape
sun cream x 2
50% DEET Mosquito repellent x 3 (2 aerosol, 1 liquid spray)
30GB iPod (for Podcasts and my new music)
60GB ipod (used as a backup, and it contains most of my old music)
Earphones
Kodak Playsport Zx3 (underwater HD video camera)
Old Mobile phone
4GB USB stick
Durasell batteries x 8
phone charger plug
ipod charger plug
Insurance documents (not shown in photo)
photocopies of passport (not shown in photo)
flight dates and check in details (not shown in photo)

Camera stuff:
canon 1000D (used to take photo)
Canon 18-55mm IS kit lens (used to take photo)
Manfrotto ball head tripod
electronic shutter release timer
Cokin Filter holder/adapter rings/filters
Tamron 70-300mm
Canon 50mm f1.8
Zeikos fish eye adapter
lens cloth
telephoto lens case (free from Amateur photographer magazine lol)
large over the shoulder camera bag (its not practical, but it has compartments and padding)
small camera bag (for when I don’t want to carry all my camera stuff in Thailand)

Gifts:
Thorntons continental
3ltr of Red wine x 2

...errrmm, Yeah I think that's about it.