An excursion to Thailand

Some photos and stories... (do not read if you're expecting a fairy tale without acknowlegdment of reality)

Hi guys. Apologies for the long silence. I was in a place far, far away from many, many things. But on the other hand, not so far away from many things I’d rather be far away from. I will explain.

Thailand must have some of the most natural and abundant beauty that I have ever laid my eyes on. I went on this trip because, for now, I can lay my eyes on things. Flying is permitted without being subjected to medical testing, and injections are not required. For now. Carpe diem has never been so relevant a phrase. I give the abundant beauty of Thailand a 10/10. It is astonishing. Truly.

But (there’s always a but), of all the beautiful places I have seen in the past few years including Croatia, Sweden, Romania, Bulgaria, Canada, Israel, the UK, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Portugal and Spain, Thailand has, by far, the most new small cell towers I have seen to date. They were literally every few hundred meters. Jungle, no matter. Mountains, no matter. There was seriously nowhere to go to escape them and dare I say, their effects - which are still unknown.

For anyone who knows me, I am not a party girl. Pointless partying to tell ‘the byes’ about doesn’t interest me. What does interest me is knowledge seeking, food, movement and sleep. I love sleeping. I have left many a fun, rowdy time to go to sleep. I simply prefer the fun of dreaming and resting. Something about DNA repair and solitude.

Regardless of not knowing the effects of these 5G ugly monstrosities (5-GUM, from here on out) on us or other living things, I’ll tell you this: I slept only 3 good sleeps whilst in Thailand for 10 days - despite the tangible jungly beauty and the lulling wonderful symphony of frogs and bugs at night. I was exhausted every night when I lay my head down to sleep. I was hiked out. Traveled out. Planed out. Planned out. Exhausted. And I am a very good sleeper. But no good sleep was being had for most of this trip.

The place where I slept 3 good sleeps was in a ‘lodge’ in the middle of a rain forest in Phuket named Nyang Park Resort. Weirdly, it was within walking distance to the Phuket airport, but man alive, was it tucked into a forest. It was a wooden, green treasure. And the rooms were super nice and clean.

Here are some photos from the Nyang Park Resort in Phuket. Highly recommended.

We saw a few sights whilst I was recovering from losing a large portion of skin from my left gluteus maximus the day before we flew (don’t ask - something about backing into a pointy chair). We rented a car since it was the rainy season; it seemed like the smartest thing to do considering the rain, the suitcases and mobility. It was super cheap too! Like 100 bucks for a week. You have to drive on the left side of the road though. Like the Brits and Aussies. We went to see some birds in cages (sad for me) and the Big Buddha.

And some more…

The best part were the elephants. Oh how wonderfully slow and majestic these creatures are! We migrated to the other side of the peninsula after 3 days to a place near Krabi town in Krabi province. It looked like this on the way. Like I said, pure majesty.

See what I mean about the beauty? We reached Krabi in about 3 hours stopping a few places to stretch and pee along the way. Finally we arrived in a very strange and somewhat deserted place near Klong Muang Beach. I picked this area because I had ‘a feeling’. Something about that tiny little island.

We ended up running halfway across it but got freaked out because of mosquitoes and cobras. At least I did. The original place we had booked looked ok from the outside and it was right on the beach and unfortunately, we paid in cash for the two nights we had booked before we had checked the room. I chalk that up to being tired.

I always check the sheets and the bathroom before I decide to stay somewhere. If those two things are not clean, I first ask for it to be done (cleaned) and if not done right, I leave and explain why. You have ONE JOB. The linens on the pillows had some blood stain on them and the bathroom was gross so it was an easy ‘no’ but the problem was, the woman refused to give back our money for both nights. She kept the equivalent of 60 US dollars which is a lot of money to the hotel keeper, but also to us as travelers. I was very annoyed, but it was our mistake for giving her anything. We didn’t stay. Instead, we found a crazy-ass ritzy resort across the street (you would never see it and it’s not on any map) where they had 4 pools, a spa - complete with steam room and sauna and massage parlor - and lovely clean rooms. Their employees were exceedingly attentive to the point of being annoying. I don’t like being waited on and I like to carry my own bag. But, when in Thailand…

This, unfortunately, was the place where I did not sleep at all. Just across the way (about a few hundred feet), this lovely efficient resort had the misfortune of being imposed upon by not one, but two 5-GUMs. We happened to bring our EMF reader (we’re pretty geeky about biophysics stuff), and while the reading was nil at the lodge in Phuket, it was quite high inside our room at the 5G, I mean, the 5-star hotel. The reading was higher than what would be considered non-interfering levels. I know this is speculative, but I trust my mind and body and they told me, ‘your mind is being excessively stimulated at night’. Since no one knows the effects of the radiation emitted by 5-GUMs, especially on sleep patterns, it is conceivable to me that they were preventing my peaceful sleeps. What else could it have been? The circumstances in our room - the sheer comfort level - should have warranted some of the best restful sleeps I have ever had.

Without sleep, and without rapid eye movement (REM) sleep more specifically - the kind associated with brain activity akin to being awake - we are not optimal. In fact, without REM sleep, which has been proposed to be biologically necessary, we experience anxiety, hallucinations, irritability, appetite changes and aggressive behaviour.¹² Did you know that it takes about a month to kill a rat deprived of REM sleep?³ What if those nasty, unnecessary and unwanted 5-GUMs are causing sleep disturbances in human beings? Has this been tested? Does anyone know of any study done to determine the effects of this 5G tech on sleep patterns in humans?⁴

Please do watch Ilana Rachel Daniel’s latest episode of the Jerusalem Report. She covers this subject matter very well.

You can see the two small cell towers in the near distance in the photo below taken from our balcony. Make no mistake, this hotel was posh and absolutely wonderful. And needed. But, perhaps they should ‘renovate’ the proximal landscape a little. With a bulldozer.

Could you imagine the effects on our species if all these 5-GUMs interfere with our sleep patterns? They are literally everywhere now; installed without our knowledge during the ‘lockdowns’. Think about it. How would that manifest? What would that look like? I think it would look like people were going nuts. People would be on edge and quick to react with aggression because, well, they would be tired. Tired on top of the fact that everyone is both sick and tired of constantly being told what they can and cannot do by rich assholes who wouldn’t know their own asshole from a hole in the ground.

I can’t seem to write an article without hardcore truths thrown in, so forgive me for the reality bombs, but the lack of sleep is really an important part of the story of my trip there. It was so prevalent. To answer your question: yes, I was overly aggressive and on edge.

Despite sleep deprivation, we were enveloped by off-season rain-filled beauty in this area and I was right about my feeling. The Chinese geomancy, aka Feng shui, was off the charts.

Someone's got to explain to me how crabs know how to roll tiny sand spheres into mitosis (like open orthomitosis).

Seriously, all you have to ever do is look at these structures created by these tiny crabs to know that we know nothing about the way the universe works. Sweet Jebus.

We drove to Ao Nang and walked in the rain to Tonsai Beach via the Monkey Trail. We didn’t see any monkeys there. But it was devastatingly beautiful. And rainy. On the way back to the car, we were absolutely drenched, and we were running by local shop and bar keepers and one shouted out: ‘Are you hungry?’ and I shouted back: ‘No we are angry’ and he shouted back: ‘I have tequila’ and I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. He made my night. All the shop keepers from then on kept asking: ‘Why are you so happy?’ It was a moment of happiness - joy, no less - created by that quick man with tequila.

Onward.

There was a hike that a reviewer had named ‘the Jesus Christ’ hike and it was too rainy and muddy for us to attempt it this trip, but one day, I want to be challenged by the Jesus Christ hike. So we traversed the Monkey trail to Tonsai beach.

The next day, we decided to do our own version of the Jesus Christ hike. It was called the Dragon's Crest (Ngon Nak Nature Trail) เขาหงอนนาค. It was a 45 degree uphill, rough terrain hike through the jungle for 4 km. And back. So 8, all told. I have never sweated as much in my life and it was awesome. It was hard.

The hike was meant to take 4 hours and we did it - with pit stops and camera breaks - in 3 hours and 12 minutes flat.

Next day, we did Krabi town and landed there on the first day of the Krabi food festival. What luck! But, the rain fell like a torrent almost the entire time. It was great anyway. I ate a chicken broth soup in the rain. Twice. And yes, those are mudskippers!

The next amazing place we visited was the Klingon Cave. Actually it’s called the Khlang Cave ถ้ำคลัง. Now, my friends, this place… man alive.

So I seek out caves. This cave… man alive. I wrote that twice. We only got about 250 feet in and I almost panicked because we only had 1 light and apparently, it’s really easy to get lost in there. Foreverrrrrrrr. It was incredible. It was its own ecosystem. I never felt so insignificant and small in my entire life. I was in the presence of a place that housed millions that cared not for me. I was simply, there. As an observer. Of this amazing place. It was absolutely unreal. The primary walkway to enter was almost completely cut-off by the stalactites forming after what I would assume was not a very long time.

Unreal eh? Ilana Rachel Daniel’s gonna love these ones! We still need to go on our hike girl! I know just the place.

On the way back from the Klingon Cave, we went to Thapom Klong Song Nam ท่าปอมคลองสอง น้ำ จ.กระบี่: a beautiful place with a mangrove and a walking trail.

To maximize the day, we made one last stop at a the Krabi elephant shelter where we met this little guy.

That night, and the night after, we ate at a place across from our hotel that gave me the runs. But hell, did they have the best seat and view ever. That’s why I ate there twice. I guess I am a glutton for punishment. It had a breeze that I will never forget, not even if I tried to.

Finally, on the last free day in Krabi province, we sought out the saline thermal pools a little farther east - one of two in the entire world. They were hot. And under construction. And full of offensive signs boasting propaganda.

We drove back (it actually took a long time - about 2 hours) and enjoyed one last roam on the beach across from our 5G hotel. We found a crab with a weird antenna eye and a ‘sweet’ monitor looking for an island retreat!

And that was it. We caught a flight from Krabi to Bangkok and rested a couple days in another hotel. We ate some incredible street food and honestly, stomach-wise, it was the best I had felt the whole trip. It was hot and rainy. We worked out. Swam. Ate. And rested. Not well, mind you. Bangkok, is rife with 5-GUMs.

All in all, malaria and dengue aside, 5-GUMs aside, rainy season aside, and wounds aside, Thailand was an unforgettable experience. I recommend going. Once. Bring charcoal pills. And torches.

1. Endo T, Roth C, Landolt HP, Werth E, Aeschbach D, Achermann P, Borbély AA (1998). "Selective REM sleep deprivation in humans: Effects on sleep and sleep EEG". The American Journal of Physiology. 274 (4 Pt 2): R1186–R1194. doi:10.1152/ajpregu.1998.274.4.R1186.

2. Steven J. Ellman, Arthur J. Spielman, Dana Luck, Solomon S. Steiner, & Ronnie Halperin (1991), "REM Deprivation: A Review", in The Mind in Sleep, ed. Ellman & Antrobus.

3. Nishidh Barot & Clete Kushida, "Significance of deprivation studies"; in Mallick et al. (2011).

4. Hutter HP, Moshammer H, Wallner P, Kundi M. Subjective Symptoms, Sleeping Problems, and Cognitive Performance in Subjects Living Near Mobile Phone Base Stations.Occup Environ Med 2006;63:307-13.