just a quickie...

hey there!

i made it safely to ko chang, but i'll have to make it quick as internet is hard to find here, and is twelve times more expensive than in bangkok -- yikes!

i really can't describe how beautiful the island is! ko chang is actually a national park comprising fifty-seven islands on the southeast of thailand. the greatest thing is that the whole beach i'm on faces west, so you can only guess as to the quality of the sunset.

i'm staying at a place called "the treehouse" -- it's full of hippies, dreadlocks, and jack johnson music, but it's gorgeous. it's fairly secluded, on a place called lonely beach. i'm staying in a small, single bamboo hut on the beach. when i say on the beach, i mean i could jump from my deck onto the beach. i get a hammock and everything, for the exorbitant price of two canadian dollars per night. each meal i eat here is more expensive than my accomodation! the treehouse also has a big huge deck at which most of the community convenes in the evenings to dance and be generally merry. i'll be heading back to the mainland by ferry tomorrow, and after that it's basically just a sequence of connecting flights and sleeps until i'm in australia! i'll try to get some of my pictures from ko chang up, but in general i haven't taken too many. the weather during the day has been generally overcast, but not rainy. it's nice because the crowds are so tiny in the so-called "rainy season", and there's never more than about five people swimming on this huge beach.

i celebrated canada day here, in case any of you were wondering. i met another canadian guy from vancouver, and a group of us had a nice night out on the deck. nothing like the festivities you kids are enjoying in ottawa, but nice nonetheless.

hope everything is going well with all of you!

bye for now,

> ian