Geoff
New Zealand
Hi everyone from sunny Thailand! From 4 degrees in Osaka straight to 34 degrees in Singapore- lovely! Thanks again to everyone over there in Japan who helped me out- Yoshi, Atsiko, Naoko and of course all the crew I went up the mountain with- Cuzzy (your a champion), Uichiro, Nagisa and the rest. I've got some photos from Japan at http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/trapperdobbs/my_photos

Well after a couple of days acclimitising and seeing the sights of Singapore (the Zoo is great!) it was straight up to through Malaysia where I spent a day in Kuala Lumpur stored my snow board- gotta admit I felt pretty stupid carrying a snowboard across the Singapore/Malaysia border, but is much cheaper to store in KL. That done and with alot less luggage I got non-stop through the night (and most of the next day) up to Phuket. When I asked around about if volunteers were still needed most people sent me straight to the bars and island tours to help kick the local economy, which I had no hesitation doing for the next four days. Tired of being lazy I found out where they still desperately require tsunami volunteers in the more rural areas 100km North of Phuket, around the town of Kholak.

I made a friend waiting for the Kholak bus, this guy Anglin who told me his story with a perfectly straight face of how his mom, dad, brother, sister, wife and 2 year old daughter were all killed in the tsunami. His other sister that was in Phuket for the day is his only immediate family left. He got washed about a km or so and had some pretty nasty scars and a mangled nose, but 260 stitches and a month in hospital later and he was one of the most helpful guys i've meet, telling me about the place and getting the bus to stop at the volunteer center near his old home. I've now signed up as a volunteer, there's about a 100 people from all round the world working on a dozen or so projects like cleaning, construction and education.

They've got me on a construction project building a boat shed. The first day we spent cutting greta big poles by hand and concreting them in around the outside of the slab- all done by hand and having to be perfectly square as well. Hard work in the hot sun, pretty rewarding stuff though to sit back at sunset with a beer admiring the days work. There's a strange mix of stunningly beautiful beaches, coconut trees and blue ocean in one direction complete with complete and utter destruction in the other.
I'll try to get some photos through of the place soon, geoff
2005/ March 11th