Back in Oz

Praise the Lord, I'm back in Oz, it was a close call though. The month I spent in Thailand was great fun, but it was important I left. Partying every night for an extended period can take it out of you, both financially and mentally. Brad compared Ko Phangan to the island from the tv show Lost, in that you can never leave it. It eats you up and doesn't even give you the satisfaction of spitting you out. It's safe to say, that after 3 visits there over the past 10 months and a total of 11 weeks spent there along with its neighbouring island of Ko Samui, that I won't be returning.

Yes, you meet cool people, yes you have a great time, yes resort managers offer you a room for your trainers, yes you can wake up on a beach at midday sunburnt without any clue where you are, but there's only so much craziness you can take before you begin to go crazy yourself. I saw a Canadian guy drink beer from a dog bowl which still had old bits of dog food in it and I hardly batted an eyelid. I saw a woman crash her moped and complain of having a broken back and it barely came up in conversation that night. A woman was murdered on the beach less then a mile from my resort while I was there too, but according to the locals, murder is a common thing, being as the island is ran by the mafia. The night I left I saw a girl crying her eyes out rolling around in the sand with a hapless boyfriend asking me what to do to help her through what he called 'a bad trip'. Too much craziness, I'd recommend the full moon party, maybe a max 1 week stay, but then get out of there. Don't make the mistake of making friends there and settling, the island is just too insane. I delayed leaving by 1 day, which meant I had a 1 day overstay on my visa, which results in a 500 baht (10 pound) fine. Luckily for me, the immigration guy either missed it, or let me off.

I'm now happy to be back in my house in Brisbane. It took 2 flights to get here, from Phuket to KL and then to Brissy. I've had a week to acclimatise, and am now beginning searching for a casual job to keep the money ticking over.

Me and Brad have a few plans, one is to go to the coast every other weekend. Last time I was here we were unaware of how useful our location was, it's pretty much halfway between the coast and the city. The gold coast will be a great place to top up my tan, and maybe do some bodyboarding in one of the most shark infested parts of the world. Yes, the Brisbane coast is home to Great White Sharks, I'm told there are nets in place though, which is comforting.

We also aim to go to a festival next month and possibly Melbourne for the F1 grand prix. We aim to do a road trip once we've saved some money, possibly to Perth on the West coast. In the meantime it's a matter of playing snooker and going out every friday and saturday night and recovering on sundays. We aim to get a  5-a-side football team going to help us keep in shape too.

Since I got here it's basically been raining every day, which is crazy as the one place that could actually do with rain, Victoria, isn't getting any. The fires there have now claimed their 200th life. This is the worst natural disaster in Australian history, the whole country is doing everything they can to support the cause, with many collections being made to help the victims. Hard to believe the fire has been raging for over a week now.

Anyway, come June I'll have to leave as my visa will expire, it'll be onto New Zealand then I reckon, Brad's mentioned a trip back to the UK much in the same vein as mine, we'll have to see what happens there, either way, he gets 4 months longer here then I do, due to entering the country 4 months after I did.

I'll update again with how my job search is going, but I think I'll sign out for now. Cheers!