Thailand #5

My fifth trip to Thailand was in many ways the best. I had planned to meet up with some of the guys I met there the year before: Levi, Marcus and Gabe who had also planned to meet a bunch of their friends. So before I knew it we were a group of over 12 people from Canada, Australia, NZ and the UK which by itself made for an excellent set of adventures.

Levi admiring his handy work

One night we were all out for dinner all sitting around, a little tired from all the partying. Shortly after we placed our orders Levi decided he needed a pick-me-up and quite suddenly stood up to run across the street to a 7eleven to grab a red bull. He pushed back his chair and jogged across the street straight into the store. Literally. What Levi didn't realise was that it wasn't the entrance he was headed towards but a plate glass window. We heard a big crash and leaped up to see what had happened. After just a few hours, some stitches and bandaging he was already a few buckets in and ready to party again- with a hilarious story that half the island knew about (from having walked past the scene of the accident)

Mandatory "The Beach" photo at Maya Bay

On the bow of Dennis' boat. That's me in the middle with my O-face

One of the highlights of the trip was our boat trip with Captain Dennis. It was such a highlight in fact that we did it twice (I even went into discussions about working for the captain - he saw potential in my recruiting skills). We did a day trip out to Maya Bay (where The Beach was largely filmed) off the coast of Phi Phi island. The boat had this boom we would swing off the side of the boat with some netting hanging off it. Dennis called it the "Ocean Jacuzzi" we jumped off the side of the boat and landed on top of this net that would trail just under the surface of the water. Once you got a hold with your feet you could just relax there as the luke-warm water washed past you. The crew would throw down beers or pass along cocktails. We made a stop at monkey beach- where there were close to 100 monkeys on this beach, we tried to give them bananas and get close to take pcitures but they were very agressive. A few of us had some close calls, I even got cornered by a group of them and had to leap over a rock and a big angry male to get back to the water. A hard day to top.

The Ocean Jacuzzi

Getting a natural pump at the jungle gym, Koh Laanta

Koh Laanta was a very quiet and chilled out place. In fact a little too chilled out. We had some good times driving around the island on the little scooters we'd hired. We went to a driving range for an hour or so and had some very relaxed evenings in after a nice meal watching X-Men: First Class. On one of our rides we went part a fancier part of the island where the nice hotels were. We found this outdoor gym thing that looked amazing. It was a little bit like those cartoons where they blow up balloons to look like weights though- they didn't actually weight much at all.

The biker gang of Koh Laanta

The Return of the Joker

Perisher Staff Party 2011

Since I last wrote in here over a year and half has passed. 2 winters at Perisher, one in Sweden, yet another trip to Thailand (trip #5). In many ways a lot has changed while in most- a lot has stayed the same.

The Perisher season kicked off nicely and before we knew it the staff party was upon us. If I remember correctly the theme was heros and villans? Something along those lines. And what better opportunity to pull out old faithful: The Joker. Inspired by Peter Smistrup back in the day: this is an old favorite that I have pulled out on at least 3 separate occasions. Combined with several jokers pulled from some decks of cards, a nice suit and tie: this was one of my best attempts to date.


Meanwhile, off location (and back in 2010): There is something addictive about scaring the hell out of people. While make the most of the body paint tradition at the Full Moon Party: I had at least 10 different people want to take their picture with me. - No I am *not* an attention whore - ok maybe a little. On this particular occasion I got an extreme amount of joy out of running up to unsuspecting people and asking "WHY SO SERIOUS?!". It was only when some guy curled up into a ball at the bar where they sell "special" shakes that I decided it was time to put the joker to rest and wash my face. He sat there staring at nothing shaking his head and rocking back and fourth. It was very reminiscient of bart and his new crib. "Can't sleep, clown will eat me... can't sleep...."

My riding buddy, Adrienne Cort

Lake Jindy boating with Luke

Snow-wise while the season started out incredibly (something like 110cm in 3 days!) there was very little snow to speak of from there on in. I kept myself busy by going out on boat trips and meeting my share of new faces. I did take advantage of the fresh powder early on to try my first series of tame-dogs (front flips) which while they were preceeded by many failed attempts, including several head landings, and very ugly: had a couple of successful moments. Injury-wise it was a pretty good season. Just a torn AC joint in my shoulder and a bruised meniscus on my right knee. Nothing serious.

Go-Berg

Ever since I got to Sweden I had a feeling that something about Göteborg (Gothenburg) would draw me there. It´s a beautiful city, trams, excellent weather: almost too warm really. I set myself up in a nice hostel in the middle of town and chilled out for a day. Taking some walks around the streets, spending some time getting some more sun in the park and just relaxing while soaking in the atmosphere. This is definitely a city I can see myself spending some time and it has made its way on to my to-do list in the future. Still got that nasty visa issue to take care of but that´ll sort itself out eventually... Day two I met up with Peter and had a random little experience. We ran into one of his old friends who asked us down to a performance at a little organic tea-café in the city; with nothing exactly planned we said sure, we´ll check it out. It was about as alternative as alternative can get. To be honest the opening act was much more entertaining than the main event. The openers were a couple of dudes from Germany who played acoustic guitars and sang engaging songs. The main event were way too pretentious. Trumpet blasts interrupted by poetry readings by girls wearing hemp pants. These guys went all out. We could only sit through about 3 or 4 songs before it was time to shove our ways to the front and get the hell out of there.

The next day we´d planned to stay at Peter´s dad´s place on the other side of the harbour. We found POH (for those of you who haven´t been keeping up- that´s my car) a place for the night and went for a walk around the old harbour.

We did some civilised stuff around town, talking around and talking like normal people before headed back to Pete´s Dad´s for some dinner and drinks. Swedish people are hilarious. We had such a laugh with his parents: made even funnier by Pete´s low alcohol tolerance. Out night out was pretty average. Gothenburg isn´t the best party place in Sweden when you don´t know where to go and as far as I can remember it was a Wednesday. We found a half-decent place but it was a total dude-ranch so we ended up just talking shit with some random Scottish guys. Good times. Peter eagerly broke is high-fat low-carb on the way home with a heavily breaded kebab.

Playing catch-up again

I had all but forgotten about this blog when one of my new and close friends stumbled across it while stalking me. A wave of nostalgia and regret swept over me and I have decided to revisit it the best I can. I fear the enormity of this task may put me off but there is no harm in trying. Stay tuned for the concluding chapters of my European road trip. Next stop? Skåne.

Jeg snakke ikke Norsk

As I made my way towards the boarder I made my way to the last petrol station - Norway is notoriously expensive compared to Sweden and I wanted to make sure POH had a full belly before I ventured into the expensive unknown. Thus far I had been making my way around with the google maps/gps set-up on my phone and it had been working out fantastically- just punch in where you want to go and it takes care of the rest: right down to the best route.

Unfortunately my Swedish pre-paid plan doesn´t include international data so upon crossing the boarder my eyes on the road were cut off. The GPS was still working but the data to fuel the maps was gone. I was a blue arrow trying to follow a blue line in a sea of grey. Things looked grim. I can´t really explain how it happened but by some GPS magic I managed to find my way to Hilda´s place reasonably directly- albeit to my great surprise. Hilda shares a small one room apartment (and bed) with her friend. What a cosy set up we had! They work opposite hours so it wasn´t too bad - not too much overcrowding.

Oslo was pretty low-key, nice and chill, good weather but not much of note. I caught up with Hilda and Juan and was home and asleep by 1. The next day I fired up POH and eventually made my way to the Ski Museum. Pretty impressive place with the ski jump, museum and simulator.
Got myself a book and parked it, dozed off after a while and got some mild sunburn happening. Not exactly what you think and Australian will experience in Norway but hey, I am special.

Headed West

Naturally my time in Stockholm had to come to an end with some crazy partying and that´s exactly what I did. Joel and I hit a two day bender out in the city: we tried our best to get some segways rented for the day but we had no luck - "advanced bookings essential" - that doesn´t really suit my style of travel.. Instead we did a very Swedish thing with the excellent weather in mind and fired up the engångsgrill (disposable bbq) and hit the park in Hörnstull. It was a perfect day really. It didn´t feel like Sweden at all, especially not in May! The weather was up around 22degrees in the sun. Unfortunately drinking in the sun all day didn´t exactly give me loads of energy for pulling an all-nighter. But with a little help from my friends - particularly from Val, I actually made it out until after 3am! Without her smooth moves I wouldn´t have gotten in anywhere at 1am out in Stockholm - to be honest they really shouldn´t have let me in at Berns ;) I am very fortunate to have such good friends in Stockholm really. Joel and Catha always take good care of me, go out and have a great time and are generally there for me. Val is always so in touch with what´s going on in my life, often even more than I myself am! All the while looking out for my best interests. Last but not least (except in height of course) is Nataly: so generous in opening up her home to me and making me feel welcome (despite her heavy social calendar commitments). Time to cross my first border...

Stockholm Scare

The rest of my time in Stockholm is easily skipped over blogg-wise. I went out partying a total of three times in a week, I hit the gym, grilled in the park, got some colour, met up with some friends and did plenty of relaxing, communicating and planning. I have been to that city so many times now I can probably skip over the intricasies.. One moment of note was a little scare with the POH. One day I decided to head out and check out a local gym and get moving a little bit. Hours and hours of driving ahead made me a little concerned about my back etc. I got my stuff together and headed down to the car. I jumped in and buckled up, turned the key and... nothing. Not a peep.

Shit! No problem, no problem. It´s probably just a dead battery. Easily fixed. I could just go upstairs and get some help from Catha- roll start the car down the hill and drive her for a while to get the battery going once again. No Worries.

So we set out about our business - nothing - the end result was far worse. The car was stuck at the bottom of a hill and illegally parked. Awesome. The next two hours were spent trying to make calls and figure out what the Swedish equivalent of the RAC was. This proved much more difficult than expected... But eventually I got Assistancekåren out for much more than I expected but just as predicted- a quick jolt and the battery was fine again- time to invest in jumper cables for the rest of the trip I think?

Setting Out

Knowing that it would be a time-consuming process and that there would be plenty of partying going on in the final days of the season - I set about packing and cleaning early for once. A good five days before departure as opposed to my usual 5 hours. For the first time in as long as I can remember everything went smoothly. This is clearly a result of pure conincidence and I allow no connection to advance preparation.

Nalle Poh has been treating me well since I got him. A few misfires here and there and some strange behaviour at low-speeds, but nothing serious. My first real scare came the other week when I lent the little guy to a friend to drive to Östersund to go shopping. I got a phonecall just 30mins into the drive about the oil alarm going off. Shit shit shit, that´s it. All that money down the drain, the car, insurance, expensive petrol... all of it for nothing... After some time the light stopped blinking and checking that there was oil all seemed well. There was no way I could get the car in for a service as they were massively overbooked so I would just have to hope for the best and drive on. Besides, what´s the worst that can happen with a very old car driving 3,500km through various foreign countries while its oil light is beeping and flashing randomly. Well at least the battery is doing ok.

Emil was driving down at the same time and despite the fact that he left about a half hour after me he called from a few miles down the road as I was passing Gävle. We decided to meet up at a place called Dragon Gate an hour or so north of Stockholm. Emil stopped there for the Chinese buffé but the place it self was amazing. It´s like this giant Chinese temple in the middle of nowhere. A huge restaurant, a ginormous courtyard and a spectaular museum - complete with a complete replica of the terracotta army in China. A very surreal and bizarre place.

As I pulled in to Täby to meet up with Joel and Catha they had already fired up the barbeque for the Swedish day of Valborg (1st of May in Sweden, big outdoor party day here). It was good catching up and meeting some of their friends and just shooting the breeze. Eventually we headed inside to eat and have a few more beers and before we knew it the night had divulged into beerpong and music: always a good recipe for some laughs and a good time. For those of you who know me? (I swear this was Joel´s idea all the way.) After a couple of quiet rounds of beerpong we were getting on our way and starting to get in the mood for a Saturday night out. Suddenly we realised that we were low on beer and hadn´t nearly gotten the beerpong out of our system. And so Deathpong was born. A combination of all kinds of spirits, mixers, beer, wine: (essentially anything we could find in the cupboard) - complete with a penalty shot on the side - it was a dangerous combination that led to a very hazy night. Precisely why I can´t really tell very many details here. Yes, I was back in Stockholm and had finally set out on my roadtrip...

The Forecast Ahead

My first season here in Åre I had accepted the fact that I would need to do my time with kids ski groups even though I had already had a solid dose of them in Norway. A combination of babysitting and tricking kids into having better technique: it wasn´t exactly where my heart lay but I knew it had to be done. Now here I am 2 years later and through a series of misunderstandings and poor communication I have ended up back where I started. Awesome. It´s not so bad: but this isn´t exactly a job you drudge through just to get the fat paycheck at the end if you know my meaning. Neither should the work be drudging nor should one expect the paycheck to be fat.

I looked at my schedule 2 weeks in advance and in seeing snöbollar, snögubbar and still more snögubbar (the 2 youngest beginner groups) I decided to take a week off instead: I needed a break from the little ones and to finally get a chance to do some snowboarding myself.

The week started out less than ideally: rain, wind and poor visability made for a depressing choice of week that many people took it upon themselves to point out - ad nauseam. In the early days of the week I still managed to get in the park and make some progress in my riding. Out riding with Jimmy on Tuesday got me fired up and I made some nice progress all round: towards the end of the day I was nailing various kinds of boxes with confidence and with some egging on from Jimmy; finally had a crack at a C-Box. Lacking in rotation I slid out and landed on my hip and chest. The damage? At first I thought it was just a massive bruise on my thigh but eventually disovered that I had a cracked rib and a broken camera in my shiny new phone. The rib will heal in 3 - 4 weeks and the camera still works: everything is just a bit blurry.

By Wednesday a massive storm had hit and it was absolutely crapping down snow. Strong winds meant that much of the resort was closed but for those of us who knew; this was paradise. We sought out waist-deep powder in the trees and at times were hit with face shots with every turn. While I was in too much pain to hit any jumps or rails: my rib didn´t bother my freeriding so I was happy. The doctor said to just keep on going as usual as long as I avoided any direct impact.

That weekend 30 ski instructors from Åre hit the road for 7 hours to take us down to the Skidlärare SM (National Ski Instructors´ Masters) in Sälen. All the ski instructors in Sweden get to gether for the weekend to have various races and slopestyle competitions, I would like to say that I had to stay out of the comp because of my injury, and while that is true - I am just too crap to go up against the big dogs.

That night we hit it hard for one of the biggest parties of the year: The Skidlärare SM Banquet. The highlight of the evening was the upkeep of Åre´s arrogant image. As the biggest resort in the country: Åre is usually regarded as cocky, arrogant and all-too self aware in the grand scheme of things. In all honesty the reputation is deserved but we spared no expense in living up to that reputation and quite possibly surpassing it. We came up with the cockiest of provocative chants and rhymes: very commonplace at these things but our edge was in our numbers- every time another resort tried to pipe up we overpowered them with brute force. The next day everyone staggered down to the taco bar in a haze to load up for the long drive ahead. Our departure was a little delayed because one of our drivers was no where to be found... Sparing the details all was well a few hours later and we set out on our way.

Now the weather has turned and while it is nice to have over 10 degrees and brilliant sunshine through clear-blue skies while surfing through slush... It is sad to see the snow melt away at an alarming rate. Everyone is getting ridiculous tans and enjoying the sun while it lasts. Rain is predicted and with it the inevitable end of the season looms ahead.

Det Stora Äventuret

It´s been a big weekend. Åre is hosting the Alpine Skiing World Cup which means the town is buzzing. The ski school was roped into helping out on the course which means I had to vest up and get in there with the rest of them. Our job was to follow the racers down the course to clean the track by ploughing away the excess snow. You don´t really realise how steep and icy the race tracks are when you see it on tv but upon closer inspection I found that a few sections were pretty damn scary to be honest. It was quite the experience getting in there amongst it.

After we´d finished up for the afternoon and the last of the racers had done their thing we met up with some others from our place for a ´Restaurang Race´. Basically it´s a Swedish pub crawl on skis. Awesome fun. At one of the bars the manager came out and counted how many people we were and then walked away again. We were a little confused: he then came back with a briefcase and pushed a button on the side. A little nozzel popped out and before we knew it we had a round of whiskey shots put out in front of us. What a champion.

In other snow news: I got some bad news the other day. My level 3 course next month has been cancelled. I was the only one to sign up so they couldn´t justify running it. Damn.

The big news? I bought a car!! It´s a little orange VW Golf and it´s awesome. All the Swedes are jealous and think it´s a wicked car. Whereas there have been a lot of hater comments from the Aussies. What´s all that about? Just look at it. It´s awesome! I need to come up with a name for it- It´s going to be hard to top Baby 7 and I don´t really like the licence POH 123. I may as well call it Whinnie because of that and the colour but that´s just queer. So it´s time to seriously plan my trip around europe. Roadtrip Bitches. Time to bust out the maps and look forward to Det Stora Äventuret!