Animal FunTime Party House got even better when Leigh came by and dropped off Edie off with us! Look how excited Meredith is to have two little lap-weasels!
This is one of my favorite photos - we're down about 45m (~150" feet) and the two divers are floating above the dropoff of the continental shelf and staring down into what looks like an endless blue abyss. Every time I swim over an edge and look down into the deep, I get vertigo for a couple of seconds. One of the craziest feelings in the world. Scuba diving moments like this are the closest you can come to feeling like you're in space without leaving the planet.
After our max depth, we slowly started making our ascent back up around the mountain. I was feeling peaceful and relaxed, slowly swimming next to the reef admiring all the colors and fishes and then when I looked down, I saw my first "real" shark. And by "real" I mean a shark that looks just like a shark that you see on a National Geographic special that's big enough to harm you in the unlikely event it decided to bite you. Trying to calm my shaking hands, I descended to get a little closer and busted out my camera to try to get a movie!
No matter how many times you tell your rational brain that a shark doesn't really pose all that much of a risk, there's no stopping your limbic system from reacting. I'm surprised you can't hear the sound of my heart pounding against my ribcage in this video. The shark is a gray reef shark. And he was probably about 5' or 6' feet long.
After we got back on the boat, our captain moved the boat around the island to another dive spot while we were waiting for our surface time to be over. We anchored next to another group of divers that I'm guessing were practicing their underwater navigation skills. They submerged...
Here's me doing my best David Brent desk pose while double-fisting delicious wine coolers. (Man, I don't care what anyone says. Those raspberry Bacardi Breezers are DELICIOUS! Do they even sell them here in the States or are they a UK thing? I totally need to check next time I'm out at a store here!)
After our beach stroll, we were walking back to our hotel and we can across one of the the funiest bizarro dopplegangers I've ever seen! Looks like Bizarro Midget Grant Stoddard's been Big Game Fishin' again!
We all piled into the back of the truck and everyone huddled together to try to stay warm. I just have to say, nobody has more fun than Thai people. For seriously. If these photos of a truckload full of wet and shivery happy smiley people who just got finished tubing down a country river for ninety minutes don't make you want to fly to Thailand right now...
After lunch, we arrived back at our fantastic hostel a little before 3pm. Kraisak, the man who runs the place, had a bunch of people over and when we asked what the occasion was, he told us that it was Thai Mother's Day
Then he told us that a bunch of his friends and relatives were going to go tubing down the riving in the rain and asked us if we'd like to join them! Of COURSE we did! So we ran and got tubes...
After we'd finished cooling off, we went back over to the riding platform and we got to play with the elephant a little bit. She was so friendly and curious. She kept sending her trunk up to grab at our hands and sniff around. Getting touched and groped by a sniffy elephant's trunk is genuinely one of the weirdest and wonderfulest things I've ever experienced!
Check out the totally jungley mountains in the background. Can you believe that this place actually exists in the world? Even though I was there, every time I see these pictures I'm like "What? That place can't be real!"
...we spotted a series of floating raft houses built along side the edge of the island (which pretty much looked like someone had dropped the top of a mountain into the middle of a lake).
Then we rounded a corner and what we thought was the other side of the lake turned out to be an island in the middle of the lake! We entered a cove of some sort and then a couple of minutes later...
The guy at our hostel highly recommended the tour of the lake and I took his word without asking him to go into too much detail about what we'd be doing on the tour. Around this time we'd be driving across the lake for almost an hour and we were starting to wonder if the whole tour was going to be spent on the boat.
The night was really funny. The girls also LOVED Meredith's big blue eyes and kept telling her that they didn't usually "go with" other ladies but that if she was interested in one of them "that was ok." Hahaha. We ended up getting really drunk and hanging out with the girls and answering a lot of questions about life in New York City.
...the infamous Nana Plaza for my birthday! Nana Plaza is one of Bangkok's really famous red light districts (and was featured prominently in John Burdett's book Bangkok 8 that I was reading at the time). The place is sort of a mind fuck. At the onset it seems like any other bikini go-go bar, except that the girls there are all prostitutes. They each have numbers on their bikinis so you can order them (!!!).
Most of the girls there are from small rural towns in the middle of nowhere and are sent to Bangkok to work in the sex trade so they can earn money for their families. They realized right away that our group wasn't there for sex, but thought it was really funny that we were just there to hang out and have fun. (And they all LOVED the fact that Jeremy spoke pidgin Thai).
After dinner, I had to go to an international calling center and call the founder of Yodle to talk about a potential job opportunity. (I ended up turning down the job a couple of days later, but six months later after the company had grown a bit, I ended up taking it and started there in April of 2008 as their Director of Product Management. Woot!).
Anyway, while I was away on this call, Jeremy took Meredith out for a couple of buckets (he doesn't drink) and when I met back up with them they'd decided that they were taking me to...
And then I set my camera all the way across the tent and used the timer to take this awesome Hustler Magazine inspired photo that I call "The West's Corruption of the East."
...a giant air conditioned (and carpeted!) tent. We went inside and Meredith took a bunch of photos of the two of us acting like we're working out some Old Testament business deals. Hahaha.
...Faisal decking me out! I had always figured the clothing had some sort of religious significance, but it turns out that it's just the traditional dress of the region and wearing it to work is pretty much akin to dressing up in a suit in the west.
...and we saw the Simpsons Movie! Here's Faisal and Mer with the rest of the fam, minus Bart who must've been stolen! Hahaha. (By the way, they had the same exact display in NYC and someone broke Homer's arm off. Nice to see that Simpsons-vandalism is so universal).
Check this noise out! After you get through the changing area, there's an escalator that takes you up to the base of the skiing and snowboarding section. Thumbs up (and crazy eyes!) from Faisal!
Brad was there taking photos and we hammed it up for him. 'Reserved' Sign + Crotch + Two Pretty Ladies Pointing at Crotch + David Brent Face = Comedy GOLD.
Then on Saturday night, there was a party for Leigh's birthday at MisShapes. (I heard she knows the people that throw that party so they hooked it up for her).
I don't remember if there was a reason behind all the tongue sticking out or if we just thought it was funny at the time. (And just for the record, I still think it's funny).
Halfway through his song, Vadim realized that everyone that was taking pictures was aiming their camera below his waist and realized what had happened and decided to try to combat the situation by...
Around 1am, Mike told us he had to go home which meant he had to pose for this photo of Court and I giving him the "I'm a huge pussy" double thumbs down! Hahaha.
Hahaha. Look at Jeff's face. That's a "kid on Christmas morning" expression if I've ever seen one. Getting giddy about some of the "mortar ball" fireworks that we launched after exhausting all the smaller rockets.
...and managed to capture this totally insane action shot of the rocket taking off! Check out the rocket's stick still in the frame! (Bonus points to Steve for managing to throw out a "thumbs up!")
After the line dancing was over, I went out to the bar to get a drink and managed to capture this amazing shot of Erika and her dad doing a shot of tequila together! Ha!
...he cut in with the quickness and proceeded to light a disco inferno on the floor. He even kicked it off with a genuine "finger pointing straight up in the air" Travolta move! Check it out! Unbelievable! I thought it was gonna be downhill from there...
...and they came out with their three kinds in a mini-procession! The best part about the whole bit? The fact that they chose Welcome to the Jungle as the song the DJ blasted when they came into the room. Amazing!
Then after the show, I went upstairs to sing karaoke and found that Guitar Hero had REPLACED karaoke for the night. WHOA! I also found that Shandi had dressed up (complete with face paint!!!) as Lars Ümlaüt, her favorite Guitar Hero character. Amazing.
Hahahaha! How amazing is this photo? "COLLEGE! WOOOOOO!" I pretty much spend the whole day sitting on the quad, enjoying the sunshine while Meredith caught up with old friends she hadn't seen in a while.
Meredith stuck her tongue out to do an impression of Piper and right when I snapped the picture, Piper (who is a notorious face-licker) saw Meredith's tongue sticking out and WENT FOR IT! Hahaha. I love this photo soooo much.
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