This morning I learn a helpful fact that 75 Travelers lodge has it's own laundry service. Instead of washing my clothes in the shower last night with a bar of soap, I could have gotten it done for under 5 RM ($1 USD). Good to know....(probably would be less mold spores following me back to Hong Kong).
I've been following the news in southern Thailand recently, and though I haven't quite changed any plans because of it, it's definitely creeping up into my consciousness. In the three southern most provinces of Thailand there are some truely serious and dangerous places that you do not want to go. Yesterday, reports of another murder, this time a 60 year old monk merely doing his dayly door to door alms requests. Day before that, a pregnant woman gunned down by AK 47's. Of recent and markedly represented by the mosque killings, these areas are going through a spike in their turmoiled history.
Bordering these three districts is the Songkhla to the North, supposed here there has been a much smaller degree of incidents. The district being where my the bus for Malaysia would drop me and where I would have to wait and get another bus to conitinue northward. Being not thrilled about the prospects of staying in this cross over point of Hat Yai any longer than I have to, it thus added to my lack of zeal to peal out of Pedang at the crack of dawn today.
All this being said, there is a contigincy of tourists that I've met through out south east asia who are quite surely traveling through these routes oblivious to these developments.
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Yesterday, most of the day simply revolving around The Bus: trying to find the bus, waiting forthe bus, riding the bus, walking from/to bus stops - probably a good 7 hours.
Went to Snake Temple in the morning ( after a good deal of time in and around buses).
Snake temple is something to the effect of a simple Chinese temple that is home to a bunck of 'wild' snakes, mostly a very poisinous pit viper 
that is mostly flourescent green with a unmistakable arrow shaped skull. Snake temple being their home, they come and go as they please. 
Got a couple pictures of one on my head,
that had somehow been de-venomized, and marked to distinquish it from all the others with a smudge of red on its head 
(what a not funny joke it would be to switch this mark up). Most of these pit vipers were chilling out on picture frames and thickets of branches placed in various pots around the joint. I'm not sure exactly how it works but my impression is that all these pit vipers ( I saw about 10) do consider this there home and do come and go as they please but probably the snake guy or someone else who works there picks them off the floor in the morning and puts them certain places for the day.To the side of the temple is a 5 RM entrance fee for the Snake Garden, filled with some 30 odd species of some of the most deadly snakes in the world and to my surprise most of the snake are local to south east asia and many native to malaysia itself. Various types of boas, vipers, cobras, pytons,
rat snakes, etc. The snakes are arranged sunked into the exterior wall in ten gallon fish tanks, with the roofless interior about maybe 15 square meters. Packed in the center: chained monkeys, caged monkeys, one cage filled with a 23 ft python, 
the next with three maybe 12 ft pythons in a heap half submerged in a small puddle in the corner, cages filled with bunnies and guinea pigs, turtles roaming... 
Slightly off to one side is the rather small snake stage for the 'shows'. The snake guy, pulls out about a 16 ft King Cobra and proceeds to try to piss it off, so that the small crowd of 6 of so with be sufficiently freaked out. The King Cob stands up about 4 ft and hissed and lunges a couple of times. 
A few times when it got a couple of feet off the stage, everybody would be tripping over the 2 x 4 benches and each other receeding into the monkeys den where he waits to snatch any loose article. He eventually kisses the King Cob on the forehead, and then leads it back to its box on the side of the platform.Later the snake guy pulled out a mangroove cat snake, jet black with yellow stripes.
The English guy Chris who I traveled with to the snake temple, accepted the snake guy's offering to hold it so I thought I'd do the same, all the while slightly curious that the snake guy continued to hold the snakes head to his side.Snake guy puts the Mangroove cat snake on top of a crate
and proceeds to smack it to get it riled up. 
The snake recoils ready to strike and the snake guy tries to sneak his hand to its back to smack it from behind. Just after he makes contact the snake turns and strikes. He jumps back to find the side of his hand with about 4 puncture wounds and small needle like teeth still lodged in his skin. He quickly remarks that its 'ok' - not poisinous, well, except for the 'back' fangs which are indeed quite poisinous. But he tells us that he was only bitin by the front fangs, 'they grow back very quicktly'. No sooner than he can put the Mangroove snake back than the caged monkeys start freaking out and hooting that they had stole a girls bracelet off her wrist. By the time we left, one of the monkeys had escaped and was toying with it's owner, but the braclet though chewed and broken was recovered.
More bus - eventually back to the bus depot, and with time to spare I splite from Chris and Natalie, the English couple I had met at the same spot hours earlier, and head to get a bite before having to make it down the road for the fishing trip. Mustafa had said it was a half hour ride, so to make it there at 5 pm and right on time I still had about an hour. I ate some really horrible tasting Thai food, and went back to the depot.
Apparently, I had been somewhat oblivious to the actual time it took to get to the national park yesterday. 'Maybe Mustafa said and hour and half', I think to my myself. None the less, I'm definitely almost an hour late, but luckily an Indonesian girl lets me use her phone to alert him of my lateness. Turns out however that Mustafa ends up being more than an hour late himself and no fishing guy in sight when I get there.
Mustafa eventually shows up and then the fishing guy on a bike a couple of minutes later. Mustafa translates over if I need a pole. Thinking that I thought we had gone through all this yesterday, the fishing guy comes back in a couple minutes with an open face plastic spinner rod with the line all tangle around the reel. As Mustafa and I head to dock we meet an another older guy who takes us out in his 20 ft skift, never to see the 'fishing guy' again. I start to realize that, 'yep, got slightly hosed on this one'. Only one 'pole', and Mustafa hand lines it; with little to no tackle, at least there's a little bit of bait.
We head out a short distance, I set up the rod and get to work. Mustafa and the boat guy, keep a steady stream of Malay talk going and I resign myself to do a little fishing. The sun setting just behind the back of the Island looks quite stunning from what I can see, and to the opposite side over the expanse of water lies the mountain range that runs up the Malaysian mainland on up through Thailand and beyond. The heavy test line, no doubt a much higher rating then the reel and pole suggest, and with all its thick spiral twistes, never stops bobbing with bites. Apparently though the innards of drag crank had to have been completely removed or seperated from anything, just solid tension to pull up any type of fish... and pull up fish I surely did! Blowfish after blowfish after blowfish. Some quite large and once coming up to the boat they'd quickly and in thrusting breaths proceed to quadruple in size and hold, slowly releasing.
Gave the blowfish a break, had a smoke, and talked with Mustafa a little bit on the finer points of the Muslim religion, his family, and Malaysian in general. Boat guy relays something through Mustafa that we will have to go back before eight because the local fishermen are starting to set up their nets without the proper markers, and thus 'supposedly' makeing it very difficult if not near impossible to meander our way back to the pier. Feeling slightly sea sick, and pretty much done on the day, I aggree with no complaints, you can only catch so may blowfish before initial excited inflats and slowly releases.
Catch a quick drink with Mustafa at a local Muslim Indian (referred to as moema's) joint, and head to the bus stop to wait for the 101. Supposedly coming every 20 minutes I wonder what my luck will be to how soon it will come. An hour later I'm just glad that it eventually came at all. Another hour and a half to get back to the home base area, tired of doing anything, I eat Enchiladas at a 'mexican' joint and watch a Indian, and Malay band jam out some classic rock.
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This morning I find out that I can take a minibus from here all the way to Krabi, supposedly not having to stop in Hat Yai - 55 RM. Not bad considering they'll pick me up from my hostel at 5 a.m. I've more or less decided to go to Krabi and then ferry over to Ko Phi Phi. Ko Phi Phi is hailed as one of the 'most beautiful places in the world' (although touristy), so yeah, I should probably check it out. It doesn't seem right to just zip right through the whole of south and central thailand only to get to the congestion of Bangkok.
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In other news:
-Three men caught back in November - 32, 36, 36 - where sentence by the high court for their possession of some 100 pounds of marijuana. The defense that they thought the merchandise they were selling was contraband cigarettes, was not bought - mandatory sentence - death.
I was talking to Chan my tour driver two days ago about the penalities for crimes, unregisterd guns, and illegal drugs, mandatory sentence - death by hanging.
-A poor Malay woman caught in China with possession of Meth. Her parents say that she is easily gullible, and not to smart, and that they is no way she had money to fund these trips on her own. Some source says that these types of easy tagets for drup running are all too suceptible. We'll have to see what the high court decides here.
- Thailands H1N1 cases just about doubled yesterday, something like 23 to 46.
- about 36 degree Celcius - 96.8 F
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If whoever reads from the homeland could comment back, I'm curious to know how many cases of H1N1 are in the Buffalo area compared to these areas. It seems like everywhere I've been to there is H1N1 close by, and this being in places that completely dwarfed by US's statistics.
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