Friday afternoon I knocked off earlier to join a road trip (or convoy? there was 4 car loads, with another 3 either ahead or behind us) to Rainbow Beach. Rainbow Beach is a quiet little town about 2.5 – 3 hours drive north of Brisbane, near Gympie. We had hired out 4 cabin in it Caravan Park for the weekend.

Check out the 250+ photos to see:

• Body boarding down sand dunes (aka mountains),
• Carlo Sand Blow (16 hectares of sand mountains),
• Inskip Point (with skiing behind a 4WD! Haha..),
• Back streets back to Brisbane (aka forest 4WD tracks, along the beach),
• Fresh Water Lake (which was DRY!!)
• Red Canyon!

I’ll upload more photos from the trip later…

Okay so its now been over 4 Months since I’ve returned from Thailand, which coincidently is just long enough for me to finally put all of the photos online… Beware though I was a little camera happy, hence the 1100+ photos…

http://www.grantusmaximus.com/gallery/v/thailand-2005/

If you’re reading this expecting hear some fantasic and epic story about some indigenious groups approaching on this town ocassionally tagged as BrisVegas, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Or more to the point if you were expecting this.. Where the funk have been!?

Two Tribes is only one of the most EPIC events to happen ever! Well this coming weekend anyway… ;) With artists synonymous with the words Phat House/Electro such as:

• Erick Morillo, who’s been unable to out run the track I Like To Move It
• Steve Angello, his younger accomplice with the recent hit BUY NOW
• Armin Van Burren
• Markus Schulz
• David Guetta
• …and many more

If you don’t have a ticket stop reading this blog… For those of you currently overseas, written apologies will be reviewed and accepted on a case by case basis.

See you this Friday at the RNA Show Grounds!

Just in case you haven’t noticed I’ve uploaded alot of photos from the first week or so of my trip.

While over there we noticed a lot a little things that were subtly differences to back home. These are just some of the many wild and wondrous items…

• Diet coke is call “Coke Lite”
• Red bull is dangerous stuff!! It is sold over there in little medicine bottles maybe 150ml and is a concentrated version, with about the consistency of cough syrup. It isn’t quite as bad as it sounds, but it was a bit scary for me cause I usually only drink RedBull Vokda’s.. I wasn’t game to have to many in the one night!!
• The Patong beach in Puhket had a line of deck beds, coffee tables and umbrellas for as far as the eye could see. They cost about 100B ($3 AU) to hire were dusted down for you before use and include a couple of coat hangers for your cloths… Now that’s service!
• You don’t find taxi’s either, they find you.. every time we stepped out of our hotel we’d get “Taxi?”, “Where you go?”, “Tuk Tuk 20 baht, 1 hour?”.. The vultures congregate outside hotels and pounce on every exiting foreigner. Happens at shopping centres too..

  There are fewer metered Taxi’s than there are others… and haggling for a price to get somewhere rarely worked out cheaper than it would have going by the meter. Although we never paid more than about $10, averaging $3… The most was when we hire one driver for 3 hours to tour samui that was about $26.. Haha suckers.

  Funny thing is the tour started a 2:00pm finished before 5:00pm.. and at the end he want more money because it was longer than agreed… failing to see his logical until we realise his method of counting hours was 2:00pm (1), 3:00pm (2), 4:00pm (3),  5:00pm (4)… After failed attempts to teach him the basics of math he conceded although I still don’t think he understood.

  A well edumacated man obviously, or just had a scam going at his own expense.

• Airports had “smoking rooms” small rooms with rows of chairs against the walls and big ash trays in the middle.. With no increased ventilation to suit their purpose, when they were full it was like entering some teenagers bathroom after a heroic session with the bong.
• Thailand is a public liability nightmare! Uncovered man holes, half tiled foot paths, wires hanging from telephone poles (hopefully not live!)… taxi’s without functioning seat belts… motorbike taxis without spare helmets…

  Sitting on the back of a little scooter being taxied through Bangkok’s busiest roads with numerous close encounters, with nothing more than a mini mohawk with A LOT of hair spray to protect me noggin, some might deem the most adventurous thing I did on my holiday!

• Changing lanes is basically a game of chicken.. the car changing will keep nudging into the next lane until one passing car isn’t game to pass it. This is often done without indicating. Although being half in another lane is probably indication enough…

  Ohh and driving on the opposite side of the road is common… Actually, it seems to be their god given right, and if its only a motor bike coming the opposite way, a car being bigger obviously has the right to use the lane despite the direction of travel, bikes are simply expected to sit close to the kerb and hope for the best.

• Sometimes retarded english is more easily understood… “Ice coffee” isn’t easily understood by the locals… best to say like you just bit your tongue, they understand you straight up.  “eyeth koffaye”… I was drinking it a lot over there with the exhausting days and hot weather a cold source of caffeine was a must ;)
• Don’t cross at zebra crossing! Cars are bigger than you and apparently still have right of way here…
• Laws are generally bent and broken for foreigners. This doesn’t mean you can get away with drugs or murder… for any of you homicidal maniacs just waiting to come out of the closet…
• Initial prices quoted for any given item by ‘most’ stall holders are generally 4x high than what they’ll settle for… They’ve caught on to the advice every tourist typically gives “When bargaining, halve their initial offer” Hehe
• Beggars use more dramatic methods… Lying in the middle of a crowded market face down as though dead or sleeping, with a cup near by…  Kind of like those people in the Mall pretending to be statues, but not.. Don’t like that analogy? Get your own blog!
• Of the few police I saw all were on old 1980-90′s motorbikes most of the time doubling… I think I only saw one police car the entire trip… Well funded obviously.
• Strippers dance as well kids at their first school social… some might call it swaying. Ohh and ping pong shows do exist but are hardly as riveting or as erotic as TV makes out… Another case where TV has let me down, next I’ll find out Santa isn’t real.. Pfft.. as if!
• Toilets flushed in the opposite direction… hours of entertainment.

The list goes on so I’ll save the other stories for later… Ohh I’m back in Brisbane safely now too, thanks for asking.

See you all soon.

Saturday afternoon we decided to hire scooters for the weekend. They cost 220 Baht a day which is about $AU7.50.. Cause they were so cheap we hired them until Monday.. Upon leaving the rental place when went to the hotel which was pretty much across the road. I got in First.. Then Jane.. Then we couldn’t see Philipa anywhere! We waited there for a few mintues, then Jane started doing laps of the street on foot while I rode up and down on my new harley*cough*..

Anyways and hour later we still hadn’t heard or seen anything! We were just about to head back to the rental place to see if they were more informed.. But we walked in to the Villas… Apparently she hand kept riding up the street not able to turn. Didn’t want to ride it back, could a cab back and paid at local 300B to ride it to the Villas…

So neither of girls used their scooters again… meanwhile I was doing laps pullin all the chicks.. my ride was soo hawt! LOL

Friday we flew from Phuket to Koh Samui which is thailands 2nd largest island. Phuket being its first but its connected to the mainland with a bridge.. Koh Samui is way out in the gulf of thailand.. it had an open air airport, the luggage we picked up from under a grass hunt then walked straight in to the car park.

Koh Samui is as very nice but not as commercialised at Phuket but supprising just as many if not more tourists… probably because people are still concerned about Phukets redevelopment since the Tsunami.

We are staying in a small bungalow amist some green gardens less than 20m either to the beach of main road where its a busy shop street.. Our villa has a bar on the beach which turns in to a restaurant in the sand by night (where we ate our first night). Next to the bar it a pool also over looking the beach!

There are a lot of funny signs all over the place, but they’re not as funny any more.  Some are:

• Cigarette on sell
• No Photo & V.D.O (quite common!)
• Porn Gems (to my dismay it was only a jeweler)

I’ll try to keep updating this as I remember or see more… As the tailors over here… Ohh My Gawd.. Every 4th shop is one, and they all have someone of the indian persuasing standing out the front trying to get you to go in side!

In Patong they’re particular bad putting out their hand to shake hand as you walk past.. A lot even putting on a bad over emphasised Aussie accents with phrases like “G’Day Mate, Howz it goin’ “… Other use compliments “Hey sexy boy you want a suit?”.. off putting to say the least.. they girls have had a couple of funny ones too.. One thats stuck with us is “You have beautiful eye” (yes only one… apparent the other appearred a bit mutated?)

Elsewhere they just strike up conversation with how long you here, where you from, where you stay… blah blah…

Wednesday we woke up early for a buffet breakfast at the hotel, and then we were off on an all day tour around the Phi Phi islands, made famous by the movie the Beach. You know the one, the beach you wished you were on holidays at… well guess what? hahaha

It was about a 2 hour boat trip east from Phuket we went to one of the smaller islands first the cove/beach was AMAZING (caps intentional) soo many tourists though! We did some snorkling here for an hours of two then went for a leisurely cruise around the outside of a couple of the islands arriving at the larger island which has a few hotels and shops (and a lot of rubble from the tsunami).. It was a really beautiful spot as well…

I was taking photos of one of the beaches and cove when so chick decided to yell, stop taking photos of us you prevert.. the beach was fairly crowded so dunno where it came from nor if it was even directed at me.. but I had the perfect retort anyway.. “I’m just here on a quick tour, as if I would waist my time or film on the likes of you!”.. Of course I didn’t say it, didn’t want to draw any unwanted attentioned to myself since I did have a camera in hand and was pointing in the general direction of some tourists ;)

Before leaving bangkok, at the airport we organised 2 tours for phuket when we got there the first was that night! We decided to do a ‘dinner and a show’ but this was pretty impressively setup for  It was called Fanta-Sea  and was setup as a a mini theme park, nothing compared to back home.

The dinner was a buffet served in a dinning hall that seats 3000.. The show had about 16 elephants on stage.. a herd of goats (that moved without hearding!)  a flock of white doves that flew from one side of the room to the other..  and lots more things from the Noahs ark.

The show was all around you too, stages to the right and left were used at times, elephants entered between the audience.. trapeze above you which was a bit off putting when they all fell just to find out they were suspended with bungey cord.. Hehe

The story was poorly told but the impact and sets where all very impressive! Sorry no photos of the show camera not allowed. But check out their site: http://www.phuket-fantasea.com/kingdom.html