Day 68- Best Part Of Travelling In Non-English Speaking Countries; Getting A Haircut.

After two straight nights of heavy drinking, I was starting to feel the effects and was not overly limber.  Due to my lack of mobility, I decided to spend the morning researching where Colleen and I would start our scuba diving course the following day, as we were scheduled to ferry over to the island of Koh Tao.  Once all that business was taken care of, we promptly headed over to the Sham Rock's (aka the scene of the previous night's awesome cover band experience) and grabbed some lunch.  Seeing as how this was a vacation, I decided to follow that up with a lengthy nap.  Tough life; I know.

Having now been gone from Canada over a month, I at last had to cave and get a haircut.  Getting a haircut in a foreign country is one of those things you never think about until you actually have to do it.  I have had some of my most memorable experiences travelling in the chair's at various hairdressers around the world.  I did some quick research and discovered that there was a place around the corner from my hotel.  Feeling a little nervous,  I made my way over and was put into a seat without a word muttered between myself and the gentleman who was going to be responsible for trimming my luscious locks.  He just instantly went to work while I sat there, afraid of what might become of my hair.  If it wasn't for the fact that I was being constantly harassed by giant mosquitoes the whole time I might have decided to close my eyes and just await the outcome, but alas I could not let those blood suckers destroy me!  In the end, the haircut was not that bad, all things considered, although I must say I was not overly fond of the use of a straight razor with no lubricant and/or shaving cream.  I got sensitive skin brother!     

While I was getting my hair butchered, Colleen was out getting a mani-pedi.  Seems fair.

With my newly coiffed hair, we hit up the street vendors for the third time in the four nights we had spent on Koh Samui.  I must say, it is pretty awesome when you can get a decent meal for under $3 and you get the added bonus of being parked right next door to the girly bars which means free entertainment is thrown in!  Dinner was naturally followed by some "street drinks" (see: roadside lemonade stand-style vendors hawking booze) before we hopped in one of the "roaming" cabs to take us to the biggest town on the island, Chaweng.  The roaming cabs, for those not in the know, are pick-up trucks with their beds converted into two rows of benches that just circle the island picking up people and dropping them off wherever they need to go. Genius I say!

 

Upon being dropped off at Chaweng, we headed over to some joint called Ark Bar, that was a massive beach bar complete with a fire show, more bars than I could count, a legitimately half-way decent DJ and drunk skanks everywhere.  It's okay, I'm allowed to say that, I'm basically married.  After procuring my own personal sand bucket filled with strawberry daiquiri, Colleen and I attempted to find some prime real estate to sit down.  Upon finding a table where it appeared the gentlemen seated there would be leaving we were thrown a curveball when it was discovered that one guy could barely move and was passed out cold on the table.  In fact, I ended up helping  his buddies scrape him up and they eventually marched off with him a la "Weekend AtBernie's".  Sometime after that first glass bucket of daiquiri, Colleen convinced me to get up off my ass and join the masses on the beach for a sexy dance party.  During my pathetic attempt to be groovy, a little Thai girl peddling glow sticks to drunk gringos took it upon herself to steal my hat and refused (rather cutely) to return it to me unless I bought one of her sets of glow stick glasses.  I promptly handed over the cash and then made my way over to the laughing gas bar to huff on some balloons with my brand new spectacles.  Please don't tell my dentist I was abusing nitrous oxide. Thanks.

BEST. GLASSES. EVER. Not sure if they're covered under our insurance plan.

Once we were danced out, it was time to head back to the hotel, but not before we hit up the local Burger King to keep our "Koh Samui fast food every night before bed" streak alive.  I would also like to say that I was very proud of Colleen as she managed to barter the cabbie down by 50% on our ride back to the hotel thanks to some liquid courage! 

Unfortunately, our good luck quickly ran out at the hotel as our room key that also provided us with power, lights, etc had stopped working.  Upon telling the guy at the front desk, he basically told us to fuck ourselved and that we should go sleep with no power and it wasn't his problem.  Yeah, it is dude, you're  the only one working.  After some bickering (Colleen was getting quite agitated), the dude at the desk eventually gave us another key but told us that we were going to have to pay for it when we checked out even though it was not our fault.  Okay, fuck face, okay.  Throw in the fact that we were greeted by a giant cockroach just chilling in the middle of our room and well my friends you have a recipe for some good old fashioned Thai hospitality!



Just what I love to come home to!



~Brentski~

Day 67- So You Can Sing, Play An Instrument, Do The Splits AND Balance A Bottle On Your Head At The Same Time?! I Feel So Worthless Now.

My engagement story is officially over. Thank you to everyone for making those blog postings my most viewed of all-time!  For the next couple of months I will do my best to finish wrapping up the trip log-blog-story from Colleen and I's visit to Asia last year. Thanks again for reading everyone and just remember...when picking up hookers in Thailand, be sure to inspect their genital region for gender identification purposes.

Due to my previous misfortunes  shame inducing wipeouts from operating mopeds in Thailand, I was still too gun shy to drive anything and thus Colleen and I were forced to walk and cab everywhere.  With that in mind, I came up with the brilliant idea that the two of us should take a hike out to some rocks I had read about that were apparently shaped like genitals and were somewhat of a local landmark.  Yes, this is what passes for entertainment in my life.  Never ones to plan anything, Colleen and I set off and were quickly regretting our decision.  After nearly an hour of walking in what felt like the most suffocating heat in the history of mankind (with many pit stops along the way for various liquid breaks), we finally arrived at our destination.  Sadly, the rocks were extremely underwhelming and I was starting to wish that I had just stayed in our hotel room and watched Thai soap operas all day.  Seeing as how we had walked all this way though, we decided to explore a little path through the forest that we saw other people coming and going from.  Not really being sure of what to expect, I must say it was an odd surprise when after a few minutes we stumbled upon a couple of rickety houses shacks and a large group of both Thai and foreign potheads smoking up on some gigantic boulders overlooking the ocean.  Didn't see that coming.  Just a note to all non-black people: DREADSLOOK TERRIBLE AND DIRTY ON YOU. JUST SAYING.  Sadly, the genitalia rocks did not live up to the hype and I was thus forced to stop for beers on the way back to the hotel to drown my sorrows.  Oh, and then stop for pizza.  And this is why I was up over fifteen pounds since leaving Inuvik.



Our fake "hiking is fun" smiles.



My real "drinking beer is way more awesome than hiking" pose.



 

With our feet sore and our bodies worn out from a lot (at least to us!) of walking that day, Colleen again convinced me to go for a massage.  Unlike the previous day's visit, I made sure that I had underwear on this time.  While everything went peachy for me, Colleen unfortunately fell victim to a breakdown in communications.  Earlier in the afternoon she had twisted her ankle and she thought the massage would help.  Instead, the ladies with magic hands proceeded to destroy Colleen's ankle a little more and turn her into a full on gimp!

 

Just say no to crack kids.

You know what fixes up my busted ankle? Not getting it torqued and ripped around by a masseuse.

With Colleen's ankle in a severely gimpy state, the two of us decided to spend our evening once again touring the many street side "bars" in Lamai Beach.   Eventually, we headed to the more refined and slightly louder confines of the Sham Rock Bar.  Sham Rock's is probably the busiest bar on that part of the island, with an Irish-Island theme and a Thai cover band playing the greatest rock songs ever.  Not only was the band awesome, but they were also like magicians, balancing bottles on their head while playing instruments, doing the splits with said bottles on head, solving world hunger, etc.  I must say, I have seen some great cover bands in my time (shout out to The Practically Hip and Wanted Dead Or Alive), but these guys definitely ranked right up there.  In keeping with our tradition, Colleen insisted on hitting up the local Subway after the bar for the third night running and it is safe to say Jared ain't got shit on Colleen!

 

Note the heads....



Are you kidding me right now?! Bieber's got nothing on this!

~Brentski~

The Engagement Story: Part 7- I Finally Propose! (The Final Chapter)

This small series will be a break from my normal travel writing and blogging.  It will attempt to document to the best of my memory and limited writing skills the run-up to Colleen and I's recent engagement.  I apologize in advance if I get a little sappy at times.  Brent.

I apologize for the delay in getting the final chapter of this "saga" on paper.  Due to work commitments and some other happenings I have not had any time in the last three weeks to write.  On that note, enjoy and thank you everyone for reading and providing me with positive feedback.  It's what keeps me writing!

Monday, October 28, 2013.  5pm.  The time was finally here.  As I sat in my hotel room waiting for my girlfriend and her best friend to arrive, there were a  million thoughts racing through my head.  I wondered how many people get engaged on a Monday night? I imagine it has to be under 5% of all engagements.  I mean really, a Monday night!?  There was no way she would be expecting this.  Colleen had last seen me the day before dropping her off at an airport on the other side of the country and she knew I had to be back in Inuvik in a couple of days.  I was hoping Stephanie had done a good job of selling her on the fake prize package she had won.  Only time would tell...

While nonchalantly texting Colleen that afternoon and asking some vague questions as to her whereabouts, I started to gather the impression that she was getting slightly ticked off with Stephanie for taking so long to get her ass in gear and get on the road to the resort.  Colleen is the type of person who likes to be everywhere early or at the very worst on time, so if she has a 3pm check-in time, you damn well better believe she wants to be standing at that counter at 2:59pm.  Stephanie on the other hand is more like myself and well, quite frankly could give two-shits about such things.  Fearing that my girlfriend was growing agitated only added to my growing pre-proposal anxiety.  The last thing I wanted to do was ask someone to marry me while they were pissed off that they missed checking into their hotel at the earliest moment possible!

I just realized what the hell I am about to do!

Figuring I had a couple hours to spare (due to Stephanie's tardiness), I went about doing what every heterosexual man does with his free time: pluck my unibrow, trim my nose hairs, and clip my nails.  After all, I didn't want her to turn me down on the grounds of my singular eyebrow!  With my manscaping complete and my sweater vest looking fresh to death, I sat and watched Monday Night Football.  And waited. And waited a little more.  And waited some more.  I was beyond nervous at this point and all I can remember is thinking that I had no idea what I was going to say when I actually proposed.  I did find this ironic, as someone like myself who writes a ton should theoretically have prepared a lengthy speech for such a situation.  Nope.  I was going to wing it. 

Sometime during all this "thinking" pant-shitting, I received a text from Stephanie indicating that they were almost at the resort.  I grabbed the ring and prepared myself.  The plan was for me to hide out on the balcony and surprise Colleen as soon as they walked into the room.  I had told Stephanie to start filming (discreetly!) with her IPhone as soon as they walked in the room.  I also told her to text me from the hotel lobby so that I would have time to gather myself, get out onto the balcony, and compose my thoughts.  Somewhere along the text message train, we had a translation breakdown and with me still sitting in the room I could hear what sounded like two women approaching!  Shit!  I quickly ran out onto the balcony and prepared for the most nerve-wracking moment of my life!

Upon entering the darkened candlelit room (complete with a large assortment of flowers) I could hear Colleen remark to Stephanie that she believed the hotel staff must have had the wrong idea about their relationship and/or purpose of the trip.  She said something to the effect of, "I think they think we are lesbians".  Not how I envisioned taking my cue, but hey, whatever works.  Before Colleen got too weirded out (or thought her friend was going to attack her with a dildo) I popped open the sliding glass door and dropped to one knee!!!  She screamed, she cried, I fumbled my words badly as I attempted to gather my thoughts.  You get the idea.  There is full video evidence below (Sorry for poor quality. Also, the end of the video got cut off and I am not tech saavy enough to fix this.  Enlarge video to see it a little better)...

My favorite part of the whole thing was when I told her that she makes me cry.  I would like to state that this is not true and I have no reason why I said this!  Movies make cry.  Sports (the Leafs and Bills) make me cry.  That is all. Another one of the highlights of the video has to be Stephanie's running commentary in the background.  Comedic gold. 

The three of us are getting married (and taking awkward selfies)...



Who am I kidding, one woman is more than enough.

I will spare everyone the mushy details, but must say we had a fantastic dinner that evening, drank mucho champagne, and we still have not broken off the engagement...four months later (wedding is planned for May of 2015)!  It was truly the happiest moment of my life!

Lovely dessert they made for us at the restaurant at Quaaout Lodge.  Staff here were awesome!

On a semi-serious note, I must say that my fiancée, Colleen makes me feel like the luckiest man alive.  I love her for her, I think hope she loves me for me, and she even lets me fart at will in the house 24/7.  This is how I know it's real.  I am honestly beyond words excited to marry her and look forward to having babies that have crazy flatulence and inherit my deft gift for growing a moustache at an early age.  She is truly one of the most generous, kind, caring, and beautiful people I have ever known and she even gives me permission to write about her online.  Must be a keeper.  Love you babe! xoxo

I also would like to thank everyone that helped bring this plan to fruition. My Mom, Dawn Moreau, thank you for everything.  Your help with the flight passes and just being an awesome Mom in general. My sister, Natalie Moreau, thanks for helping me with the ring shopping and for making sure I always stay in line.  A BIG BIGBIG  thanks to Stephanie Brandsma for helping me execute this plan.  We almost dropped the ball a couple of times, but in the end it all worked out and I know how much it means to Colleen that you were a part of this process.  Thanks to everyone who helped in some way or another and for the people who were made aware of the plans in the weeks prior to the actual engagement, thank you for keeping your mouths shut!  Lastly, I want to thank everyone who reads my blogs.  This series has proven to be my most popular by far over the last seven years and seeing such viewership numbers and positive responses is what makes it all worthwhile. 

Until next time,

~Brentski/Fiancéski~

 

Sure didn't take long for her to grow those "devil horns" I'm always hearing guys talk about!