Adventures in Paradise

The End is Nigh

2006-05-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

The beach in Southern Cambodia was really nice and a good end to our traveling. We went on a day trip to go snorkeling but found that the coral and water off the shores of Cambodia are not as spectacular as in Thailand. But the water was warm and it was great to float in the salty blue one last time before heading home. We basically relaxed most for our stay on Serendipity beach, it was definitely mellow.

Cloud Nine Guesthouse is where we stayed, we had a nice bungalow with a good view also.

The really nice beach where we spent our day trip

Nice clouds, ok I'm going to be really geeky now...Those are cumulus with some virtical development going on the bottom and you can spot the alto stratus on the top right

It was sad to see the small children who go from one end of the beach to the other hoping to sell bracelets and other things. They do this all day long, they don't go to school. It is also hard saying "no" to the countless beggars, some missing limbs. It is estimated that 600 people a month die or are wounded by land mines in Cambodia. After all that this country has gone through fairly recently it is sad that the killing just wont end. In Pol Pots Khmer Rouge regime starting in 1975 an estimated 1.5-2 million people were executed or died from starvation and forced labor. All because they may have worn glasses, were educated or professionals, affiliated with former governments or were of certain religions or ethnicities. These people threatened Pol Pots twisted ideas for a strictly agrarian society. These people died for no reason at all. And just now Cambodia is picking up the pieces, what a strong people.

I have done a lot of reflecting and have found that I can only look fondly on our travels and adventures, that I enjoyed every moment. I feel so fortunate to have been able to experience so much. I can't believe that wonderful time of my life traveling in SE Asia has reluctantly come to an end. But I do not resent coming home, I look forward to seeing all the wonderful people I love...

there is no telling how much I have learned but here are a few things that stand out in my mind:

Life is unfair

That $1 is 40 Thai Baht is 4 Malaysian Ringgit is 10,000 Lao Kip is 4000 Cambodian Riel

That I have grown to hate, Thai, Cambodian, Lao pop music!

Most people here work harder than I ever will

That one grain of rice is hours of hard labor

That the people who deserve the most credit are usually the ones who get the least of all

A smile really can get you far

That children can be robbed of their childhoods

That life can mean something very different than what I am used to

That even in terrible conditions, people can be content and laugh

That I don't like spicy Thai food, and yes I have tried and tried

That we need so very little and that we waste so very much

That four hours in an air-con bus is a very different experience than four hours in a non air-con bus packed to the brim

That my endurance can span to levels that I never thought possible

safety in places like this is something still to be learned

People don't have to agree to get along

That a good book can affect my mood, as well as a bad one

And those are just a few things, some I knew of before but to experience that they are true is completely different.

All in all its been great and I can't wait to get out traveling again. I can envision Indonesia and Africa, but also I want to spend a year or so in Mexico. Then Central and South America I definitely want to see. But then there is also Europe and India. Lets not forget that Dan wants to go to Greenland...burrr. There is just so much to see, but we have our lives to live out yet ...

Alright so here is one last sunset, ahhh so pretty.

Traveling Book Worm

2006-05-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Well as it stands I have read 25 and a half books whilst journeying.

In case you don't believe me or you just want to read a good book,I have compiled a list from "My Favorites" at the top to "Don't bother in my opinion" at the bottom.

My favorites:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coleho
This book is the epitome of a great novel in my opinion. Everyone should follow their dreams and find just exactly what it is that is their destiny.

Chocolate
I have forgotten most of the movie but the book is enchanting. I fell in love with these characters and the simplicity and underlying complexity of the plot.

Jitterbug Perfume by none other than Tom Robbins
There are few novelists that can successfully evoke so much joy of reading for me. This book is no exception. I loved it to bits.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Authur Golden
Ahh so beautifully written, and convincing too. Wonderful.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
This fantastic tale is brought to life with an incredible believability that I loved to read. It made me not just cry but bawl.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquise
It took me a long time to decide how much I liked this book so seeped in mystic unreality and the realistic tragedies that is life. I know that it is really good because even months later, I keep thinking about it.

Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime by Mark Haddon
What a beautifully written book, I was moved.

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Yossarian lives! What a great book! I loved the style and truth it encompasses.

Kafka on the Shore by Japanese author Haruki Murakami
This is one of the more weird books I have ever read, yeah maybe the most weird. From talking cats to an Oedipus complex, a parallel universe in a lost forest to a painting on the wall, you want a roller coaster? Pick up this book.

Lonely Planet... On the Edge : Adventurous Escapades from Around the World Edited by Cecil Kuhne
This book is a bunch of edited short stories about travelers and their adventures and it was amazing to read what some have got to experience (or endure) from locations all around the world.

Sex Slaves : The Trafficking of Women in Asia by Louise Brown
Non-Fiction. This book is heart wrenching and was very difficult to read. There are literally hundreds of thousands of women being forced into prostitution in Asia in a trade and society of never-ending double standards. It is hard to believe how some of these women have the strength and will to survive.

Victim of the Aurora by Thomas Keneally
A wonderful juxtaposition of being in such sun and heat and imagining the never-ending darkness and biting chill of Antarctic wintertime, really well written.

The Spartan by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
A very well-written book about life for the Spartans and the wars that they fought in, it had a bit of everything, I really liked it.

The Divinci Code by Dan Brown
We had to see what all the fuss was about and although I liked some of the theories brought forth, I am not fond of a thriller-suspense.

Caves, Coffins and Chaos by John Spies
The owner of Cave Lodge in Northern Thailand has some amazing stories

The Happy Prince And Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
This set of fairy tales is really nice to read, some though are rather dark but I liked them as a whole, he is such a good story-teller.

Incas: The Puma's Shadow by AB Daniel
Takes place in 16th Century Peru and it was an interesting book but the cliche main character falls in love with invading conqueror annoyed me. This is the first book of a three part series.

Ann Frank the Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition
This edition includes previously unpublished material and was heart wrenching. So personal. What an atrocity.

The Don't bother section starts here:

High Society by Ben Elton
Some interesting theories to the positives of legalization of drugs but the melodramatics of the story didn't do it for me.

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
This book disappointed me with its boring nature. A pretty complete story about a poor servant girl but not overly interesting.

Eleven Minutes By Paulo Coleho
Although I loved the Alchemist, this book failed for me. I think that the author was trying to be revolutionary about sex and it just didn't work.

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
What a great and sexy movie, what a bad and long book! The book and movie have little in common but the characters names, but this is probably good since the book sucked and dragged on.

Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan.
A good idea for a story gone totally and horrendously wrong.

The Dubliners by James Joyce (I read half and this only counts because it is a series of short stories)
From the likes of it Dubliners lived very boring lives.

Sisterhood: The untold story by Joash Moo
I wanted to gain some sort of understanding of what life is like for a Transvestite but got only jumbled and un-insightful stories here.

...

Right now I am half way through Dr Jeckel and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
and am liking it, I always thought that it was written in the perspective of Dr. Jeckel though.

I have loved being able to read whatever I have wanted and both Dan and I have always had a book with us. I think that it really added to our trip. Sometimes when I think of a specific area we have traveled, I think of what I was reading at the time.

Khmer Craziness

2006-04-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

Three days of temples, temples temples.
I am completely in awe with the magnificence and splendor of these massive works of ancient art, architecture and ingenuity.

Created from the 9th to the 13th Centuries the temples of Angkor and the surrounding area are nothing short of spectacular. The ancient Khmer people erected these temples to host various deities (Hindu and Buddhist)and did a grand job of it. No two temples are the same and all are in different states of ruin.

I will break it down to my favorites.

Angkor Wat is largest religious structure in the world and it hosts numerous sandstone carvings and statues and a grandeur surely worthy of the national symbol of Cambodia.

Sunrise

Sunset

The Temple of Bayon is a unique marvel of tight mazes and small corridors inside and more than 200 gigantic faces looking in the cardinal directions on more than 37 towers on the outside. The outer walls of the temple display a wonderful array of carvings depicting the history and daily life of the Khmer's who lived there.

Bas-relief carving on the outer wall

So many faces

The stone heads are said to resemble the king of the time, talk about keeping a close watch... almost creepy.

From an inner corridor

To add to the strange faces watching from every direction there was conveniently a fortune teller who told Dan and my fortunes for a whole $1. Apparently I have a 6 colour diamond (this is good and rare) and will be a "billionaire!" He exclaimed this strangely as some tourists were walking by and it conveniently peaked their attention. Co-incidence? So he says I will have a good marriage and a long life, at least that I could have some faith in. He also said I was lazy... sure lazy enough to go to the trouble of saving enough to travel for half a year half way around the world!

Think abandoned temple left to the wilds of the jungle for 700 hundred years... think piles of rubble with tree roots splitting huge walls apart... ok if that didn't work think Laura Croft in Tomb Raider because it was filmed here. Ta Prom is a jumble of blocks hardly standing together in places but an amazing feat of what happens when nature takes over. Many of the outer walls have been demolished by encroaching jungle and in the middle there is a huge tree absolutely dominating a whole section of the building. I absolutely loved it. This is what I was dreaming of when I thought of Angkor.

Wow is not enough...

So cool

Banteay Srei is the famed jewel of artistry for Angkor. The sandstone carvings are so intricate and well preserved that it is a marvel that they were not carved last year. The temple, quaintly and mysteriously small in comparison to it's neighbors is endlessly intricate in the display of gods and demons, dancing women and mystical creatures.

This very 3D carving was created some 700 years ago! What happens when the artisan slips and breaks a piece off?

The Tiny Temple with all the splendor

I would hate to run into one of these...

But it's great to run into the ever friendly Monks

The three very expensive days we spent here were amazing and the people though most were pushing goods; water, postcards, bracelets, scarves and all other tourist wear... the locals that we were able to talk to were very friendly and helpful. What struck me is that the small children who often push post cards and books in your face and follow you to get you to buy, who are severely persistent, know a surprising amount about Canada...

"Where you from?...Canada?...Ottawa is capital...Canada has ten provinces and three territories...In Canada they speak two languages French and English"
Maybe even more than some of our neighbors to the south?

Ok but now seriously, it would be a crime not to view the rest of my pictures I know that you will find favorites, it was hard enough just picking a few!

So now we are at the end, just four days of lazing at the beach in Sihanoukville on Cambodia's cost then the travel to Bangkok...

2 days later...(my post refused to publish the time I wrote the first part)

We are staying at Cloud Nine on Serendipity beach... sound wonderful? Well it is.
Last night after a day of traveling from Siem Reap to here there was a huge storm that woke us up. It was unreal.
Strobe light skies and peals of thunder... utterly mesmerizing. Sometimes you could see the bolt form in the sky, the ions reaching for one another, a long jagged streak. Then almost instantaneously a crackle that resounds and tingles through your skin followed by the BANG!...RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE! This always brings a mysterious smile across my face even though the volume of the crack makes me jump and curl my whole body inwards as if this will somehow protect me. We stared wide-eyed at the storm directly overhead for an hour or so, it was so amazing. The rain was so intense that it ate up the flashlight beam after only a couple of meters, the mist from the wind dampened everything. It was one thing to be in our bungalow and watch but I still remember my fear and vulnerability when we were caught in the storm on Ko Adang Island in Southern Thailand.

Boon Pii Mai Lao!

2006-04-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Lao New Year!

Well I'm a bit flustered because of my own stupidity, I wrote this whole post already but be it my luck or not, the power cut out just as I was spell checking and I lost 2 hours work. My fault for not saving, I was almost pulling my hair out, but at least I wasn't writing a paper or something like that... with a deadline haha deadlines I remember those!

So here we go again...

Si Phan Don (4000 islands) is a beautiful display of natures talents. The Mekong fans out to distribute thousands (apparently some think 4000 or so after which the place is named) of islands of various sizes. We stayed one such an island, Don Khon to admire its beauty and languid nature. The people here seem to have captured the same way of life that the Mekong displays, an unhurried pace of peaceful demeanor and beauty, laughing through the rapids and enjoying the reflective nature. Arriving here and staying for a week we were willingly forced to slow down. It's so hot during the day that we simply melt by just swinging in our hammocks and still that was doing too much.

This was our welcoming sunset as we arrived at dusk

Our week co-in sided with the Lao new year Pii Mai, where virtually everything shuts down and all the locals go out drinking Lao Lao whisky and singing Karaoke. Unfortunately during this time our toilet plugged, we ran out of water and the little electricity that we are supposed to have from 7-11pm was not working, we had a very hard time finding our guesthouse owner who had apparently gone incognito to enjoy the celebrations, but we managed. I'm not sure however how the very drunk villagers managed after swaying and singing down the street to all who will listen at any hour of day and for some, many days in a row.

Another stunning sunset, do you get the feeling of what I mean by the way the locals mimic the river in this picture?

This part of the Mekong is also home to freshwater Irrawaddy Dolphins, we took a boat tour to see them and although they keep their distance we were still able to see them splashing around and their very small dorsal fins. When it was quiet we could hear them blowing from their blow holes. It was a very cool experience.

(not my picture)
Unfortunately when there is something mystical, there is almost always something threatening to take it away,
there are an estimated 80-100 of these dolphins left in the Mekong but are threatened by drownings that happen when they get caught in gill nets left by fisherman and it is suspected that high pollution rates in the Mekong are poisoning the calves, further threatening the populations. They look a lot like a beluga whale, with a stubby face and tiny dorsal fin don't you think? Of course when we mentioned this to people here, most do not know what a beluga looks like.

We managed to grab a fantastic sunset on the boat ride back

There are two tumbling waterfalls in the area and my favorite was the Khon Phapheng Falls or the so called "Niagara of SE Asia" I would not go so far as to compare the two but it is the largest waterfall by flow in SE Asia and I did find it impressive.

Elaine and David, two Australians we met and spent the day with going to the falls

The other is the very pretty Somphamit Falls,

We were thinking that we could definitely make it down this one in a Kayak... even toying with the idea... hahaha!
The half hour walk to these falls was not so funny, it was so hot I could smell the earth baking, but maybe that was me, good thing I wasn't skewered on a spit, I would have been done for! So I know you are thinking that we should just go for a swim in the Mekong to cool off but as there is a particularly nasty parasite that lives in this particular part of the water, this was not advised, it affects your liver (can cause failure) and can hibernate for 10 years before symptoms start. I had to pretend that we were not showering in this water.

Well the only bad thing about nearing the end of our trip is that we are nearing the end of our trip! We are running out of time and unfortunately we mistook the exact dates for Pii Mai and didn't book the earlier flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia because everything was closed so we now are leaving on Friday and have a couple of days to burn (or bake from the heat) in Pakse where we fly out of.

Here is a pretty sunset from Pakse
Our hotel has a rooftop patio with great views.

So what am I doing right now? I just witnessed a small gecko devour a butterfly. The geckos are everywhere in SE Asia, they are so cute, I always want to catch one but get too scared at the last minute that they will bite me.

Well some of you have been wondering when exactly we get back, so we looked at our plane tickets and tried to figure it out because there is no arrival time for Vancouver printed.
We fly from Bangkok at 1:20am on the 5th and get to Incheon Seoul 5ish hours later, have a 12 hour layover leave for a 10 hour flight plus the time difference and minus the date that 27 hours later gets us to Vancouver on the same day had us very confused so we looked up our flight:

flight
6:25 pm Depart Seoul (ICN)
Arrive Vancouver (YVR) 12:20 pm Fri 5-May
Duration: 9hr 55mn
Korean Air Korean Air 71
Nonstop flight

So I would love to see all my wonderful friends and family at 12:20pm on the fifth who can make it to the airport! That is provided I do not skip out on the flight and stay in Thailand forever...nah I miss all of you too much, but it is tempting...

All right one more sunset pic, I love sunsets... not that you couldn't tell!
Ooo there are more pictures that you should check out

Sirens Call

2006-04-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Into the dark we travel by day
Small boat rides smooth the entire way
Nervous and clam but more than a bit scarred,
To the depths of the earth we all dared
Our back to the light we venture within
And soon a dark untold begins
Only by torchlight glow can we brave to see
The vast nature, impressive enveloping me
Shadows dance and I hear the slightest of cries
With the wind it is carried, the gentlest of sighs
Did you hear that? I ask to myself and the others
It is nothing, I'm told, my mind is just bothered
Uneasy I strain to hear it again,
Everything in this cave is strange and insane
What monsters lie in wait beneath the boats bow?
What creatures in the shadows can see what I don't know how?
Again the call I hear clear this time
Calling a name from a depth that can only be mine
How crazy I am! Ignore and it will go away,
But more and more the voice can not be held at bay
An unknown splash here and there, even a tap on the shoulder
Instead of fear now I am growing bolder
Never before have I been in cave so deep
I am simply dreaming things from lack of sleep
So soon as the voice came it fades away
When we see the virtues of the light of day
Relieved, I am but in the back of my mind
I am still haunted by that voice I can not define
We still must go back through that dark passage way,
But for the moment swift sun takes my mind away
Before I know back to the darkness I go
The wind turns cool inside as it lightly blows
With current this time, I trust the dull humm of the engine
To drown out those sounds that I must have imagined
To my dismay I hear the song in the distance
I can no longer ignore my mind that is hopelessly listless
The call is so sweet, a music so soft
I want to help her and touch her, she drowning, she's lost
I will find her, I can not simply put this off
I will give the siren my love it is all I can offer
I whisper in the air 'come here I want to save you!'
She says that is what she has wanted me to do
I will walk off this boat I will drown and sink
I will search every crevice and not even blink
So soothing is that voice to be without I could not bear
This is the deepness of the depths of my despair
The end of the cave and the light of the world will come soon
I reach out and call 'come or I will be doomed'
Her presence is felt through my body so I delight
I feel for here is someone that I should never fight
A deeper realization I come upon and it will always be
That she is my soul and intern she is me
I found her in a cave and will never let go
The soul of mine is a treasure that only I could know.

Did you like my poem?
I know it's a bit long and I haven't written in a long time

Well we made it to Kong Lor cave and it was(literally)a huge pain in the ass.
Hours of painfully hard seats, be it bus, songtao, boat or even tractor were endured to see the cave. And I am glad that we went. The cave was pretty neat, we choose to go by boat which was rewarded with really friendly villagers along the way and stunning scenery. It was the longest cave we have ever been through at 7.5km and the boatride on the river that goes through the cave was interesting. Often we had to disembark and walk because the river was so low and we ran aground or because there were small rapids that the boat was carried over. We went to a village on the other side of the cave and through the cave is the only way to get to the road for them so they are very cut off but very friendly and loving and curious of my digital camera. I absolutely loved the people here and the surrounding scenery was so spectacular to see with all the huge limestone mountains and the scenic clear river that the villagers bath in and do laundry and fish. Unfortunately it is also where the sewage goes and it smells bad at times where their is 'sludge' build-up EEEEWWWW! It doesn't help that many water buffalo lounge in the water and add to the problem.

Yesterday we had a hellish day of travel to Pakse where we are now. It started with a two hour boat ride (think canoe) then an hour ride on the back of a tractor because it had rained hard in the early morning and made the roads slick so the songtao that was supposed to pick us up didn't show. Then another hour to the junction of highways on a packed songtao (if you have forgotten a songtao is a pick-up with two bench seats in the back and a roof). Then we caught the local bus that goes to Pakse which was a huge mistake because first of all they over-charged us hugely and there was nothing that we could do about it and for the first few hours we didn't even have a seat but a plastic stool in the isle! When we got a seat finally we found them so cramped and uncomfortable I wanted to cry. And it was hot. The most frustrating part was that the bus would go for 20 minutes then stop for just as long. We endured close to 12 hours of this just to be dropped off at a guesthouse not of our choice at 1am that was a dump. I absolutely do not want to travel by bus more than I have to anymore!
But now we have to go only four hours to Si Phan Don or four thousand islands where we plan to relax for a while and see irrawaddi dolphins and the famed beauty of the area.

Friendly villagers

We saw lots of water buffalo up close it was really intimidating

Amazing scenery

Big cave

Yesterday morning at 7am

see more pictures

A Jarring Experience

2006-04-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

We took a minibus (instead of the local bus) to the plains of Jars in Phonsovon south of Luang Prabang to give ourselves some rest from the arduous travel in Laos, unfortunately this did little good. The eight hour ride was a real life roller coaster and by the end I was spent and more than a bit woozy. I kept telling myself 'but I don't get car sick' and I even got the best seat in the van, in the front with the driver, not crammed in the back like Dan and the other 6 people going to the Jars sites. However it proved too much and I got sick both at the first Jars sight and when we were checking into a guesthouse eeeew. To say the least I did not feel well and still have not regained my appetite. The deal was that the driver takes us to the first sight when we arrive to see the massive stone Jars made by an ancient Asian civilization and the remaining two sites on the following day.
Walking around the site was a surreal experience, there are hundreds of the huge jars and even a cave in the vicinity. The sanctity of the sites however were skewed by the warning of UXO or unexploded ordinance all over. We had to keep to a strict path marked by cement markers on either side.

MAG is the Mines Advisory Group that is working on clearing the area of explosive materials, a seemingly overwhelming task considering the vast areas involved.
Inside the white is ok and outside has only been searched for explosives by sight. The Jar areas are also marked by big and small craters that pock the land as far as you can see. I am troubled by the fact that while I can feel safe in that the skinny path where I walk has been cleared of bombs, only meters away farmers work with land that is not safe.

The Jars however were fascinating

and huge, I just can not imagine how an ancient civilization made them, then I think of things like the Pyramids and Stonehenge and I still don't think that modern civilization has matched these marvels.

Jars Jars everywhere!

By the second day and after a lot of sleep I was feeling much better while visiting the other two Jar sites.

Maybe they grew trees in their Jars... or apparently, according to legend, a giant race of ancient Lao made the jars to store their lao lao (rice whisky) or maybe they were used as really really big decorations ...? I know I would want a 4 ton Jar in my living room.

Possibly they are even from outer space, clearly this lid looks like a flying saucer and the alien race of Gumby people who sent it were carved on top.

Is there not an obvious resemblance?

Now we are heading to a dark and lonely place, cold and damp where little life dwells, or a cave that is 7 km long that we plan to take a canoe through. This Kong Lor cave by the small village of Khoun Kham is a bit off the beaten track which is fine except that it may prove to be a bit difficult to get to, we shall see. Authentic (non touristic) Laos here we come!

River Rage

2006-04-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

Going back you may remember our trek in northern Thailand, well our guide expressed concern over the possible building of a dam on the Salawin river and now it seems that those plans have been approved by the Thai and Myanmar governments. The Salawin river is one of the last free-flowing rivers in SE Asia and the area to be flooded will displace thousands of hill tribes people including those who we saw on our trek. It is extremely unlikely that these people will get any compensation from governments and they are helpless when it comes to the decision of their fate. The traditional way of life for these people who have resisted integration into greater 'civilization' will be altered and possibly even lost forever. It just seems so unfair that the people who are affected most are consulted least and given no power over their fates. To me although the river is officially Myanmar territory, the military government in Myanmar probably agrees with the deal of handing over the project to the Thais because it would reduce the very pesky problem of the Karen and Shan army strongholds in the area around the Salawin river as well as supply the country with hydro power. More info here. Also read what Dan has to say

Caves and Tigers and Waterfalls and Bears... OH MY!

2006-04-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

No I don't mean Dan, we saw bears and a Tiger today.
We also saw three villages, hundreds of Buddha statues (in a cave no less)and one of the most stunning sets of waterfalls I have ever seen all in one day! Early in the morning we sat upon a boat to observe the mystic Mekong on our way to see the famous Buddha cave in the area. The cave was nice but what I really liked was the stop at the Lao whisky village, apparently in Laos, whisky just isn't whisky unless you have a reptile fermenting in it. On the boat ride back we stopped at a paper making and weaving village. The village makes beautiful paper with leaves and flowers in it to make into lanterns and notebooks, they are so nice that I just had to buy two and I hope that they survive the trip home. The young girls in this village also make scarves and blankets on big looms some have very intricate patterns and take days to make they are so unique I decided that I would help support their community by buying one and it's gorgeous. After four hours in villages and the cave but mostly traveling on the river (on wooden sore bum seats) we came back to town to eat then go off to Kuang Si waterfall which is actually a series of waterfalls cascading over limestone into picturesque turquoise pools, it was idyllic. And if you add that there was a sanctuary for Asian sun bears and a six year old female tiger named Phet, my day was fantastic.
There is something numbingly humbling being in the presence of a Tiger. One of the caretakers was tossing a ball around outside the cage while a group of us watched and suddenly as the ball landed at my feet and Phet pounced from her spot several feet away to the edge of the chain-link fence to the awe of us all to land just three feet from my amazed frozen body. After she was fed, we were even able to pet Phet though this intimidated me a great deal I couldn't resist, tiger fur is very course.
The last village of the day was a Hmong village that sold handicrafts. This was hard though because the children here were under obvious neglect, dirty, some without clothes and encouraged to sell as much as possible to the hundreds of Ferang that stop there everyday en route to or from the waterfall. It pulled my heartstrings. However many of the children still laughed and played and I liked to see that. The end of our very full day was crammed with a stunning sunset that tipped the sea-saw into a day for my memory banks of forever.

Pac Ou cave, packed with Buddha statues, some hundreds of years old.

Lao whisky village, mmmmmmm gotta love that snake whisky! Oh yes, they are real.

Eye of the Tiger
Have you been THIS close to a tiger before? I am one of the fortunate who have (with the help of a zoom lens)

Impressive Kuang Si waterfall

Lower Falls, no I unfortunately I didn't have time to go swimming.

Hmong villager girl

Anything can be a toy

Lao night market full of textiles, fisherman's pants, silver jewelry and opium pipes.

A perfect end to an amazing day

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And Luang Prabang Recent photos

What is the secret of the Mekong?

2006-03-31T05:54:00.000-08:00

I don't know but I intend to find out.
In a weave of the Mekong river where the Khan river joins its waters sits Luang Prabang, a quaint small quiet city declared a UNSCO world heritage site.
Our first night let us see some of the creatures of the night:

We also met these two cool novice monks

Today we went to the Royal Palace Museum and Wat Xieng Thong:

The Museum was actually a bit boring. The rooms that the monarchy lived in were very plain.

What happened to the Monarchy you say?

This is a Royal funeral Pyre with giant earns with dead kings ashes in them.

Well in a not to complete history as I know it as the communist party took over and the Monarchy was abolished, sent to the hills never to return.

tomorrow we have an all day tour booked of a Buddha cave and Waterfall.

Vive Vientiane!

2006-03-27T21:12:00.000-08:00

First lets clear some misconceptions: Laos is not actually Laos but Lao. The French accidentally put an 's' at the end when naming the country officially but the lovely lackadaisical Lao or Laotian people have put up with this mistake. Lao(s) is a communist country but as of yet I have found little evidence of this-not that I really know what I could look for. The Laos have been invaded throughout history, and borders have been pushed around until this country which is relatively new in the eyes of ancient Southeast Asia was given its present territory just to be blanket bombed for nine years by the US military during the Vietnam war to control the perceived "domino effect" of spreading ('evil') communism. So there is French music in cafes with baguettes and Thai soap operas on television plus the evidence of the prominent-but not dominant Theravada Buddhism in the temples and religious shrines.
We arrived yesterday in Vientiane, the seemingly lazy capital lies in a bend of the Mekong River. Though we have only spent one day here we are looking for a quiet that the city can not provide so we are off to the north and thus deeper into Lao(s) by bus via Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang which is supposed to be spectacular. We also want to bide our time carefully in the places that interest us the most because time is of the essence in our final weeks of traveling. So last night we drank our first Beer Lao- famed for its superior quality but to me it just tasted like beer, maybe the draft will be better, they also have a 'dark' version. I am determined to like beer but maybe it's just not me and I will be condemned to girly drinks and gin and tonic with lime but because these are pricey, I usually just take a coconut or banana and pineapple shake instead.

To Laos... and beyond!

2006-03-24T04:29:00.000-08:00

Kuala Lumpur let us down with the inopertunity to travel longer, so we took the tracks to Bangkok. We wanted to take the train because the journey is long (14 hours just to Hat Yai on the border of Thailand) but the sleeper train we caught was not bad. We wanted to get there as soon as possible so we took the only available seats for the next available train to Bangkok. Sure they were third class but at least there was aircon we thought, in Malaysia we rode in third class aircon and it was not bad, reclining seats, semi-comfortable. Thailands standards however are a but different as we came to realize. 18 hours of rock-hard bench seats facing two strangers with the aircon blasting so hard that I practically got frostbite with a temperature of 40 degrees outside! Uncomfortable doesn't begin to describe it.
Ok but that's the name of the traveling game right?
So on to the positives, we are prospectively leaving tomorrow to Vientienne in Laos. Everyone we talk to has loved Laos and has recommended it completely, I hope that we have a similar experience. We plan to spend three weeks in Laos then two weeks in Cambodia, I am thrilled! If I get My way, we will spend our final week on a beach in Cambodia then come back to Bangkok to fly home. We are scheduled to arrive home on May 9th... Happy Birthday Mom!
So in the meantime we have been bumming around Bangkok in the livid wet heat waiting for our visas and to buy film and I get to do some shopping yay !

This is a bit of Khao San Road goodness.

Last night we met up with Bee and his friend Paul and we even bumped into Dan's friend Matt by chance earlier that day so we all went to the "Gas Station" (a bar) and had a good time. I don't know how it will be in Laos for internet, so you may not hear form me for a while, but it doesn't mean that I'm not thinking about you.

It's a trap!

2006-03-17T04:27:00.000-08:00

Kuala Lumpur was supposed to be just a few days, now a week later we have found that we have wasted valuable time. We were in contact with Korean Air to see about getting our tickets extended, four days of valuable time later we were told that yes we can extend our tickets but it will cost us a hefty $660.00 CAD. We now have very little time to make it worth it to go to Indonesia. This breaks my heart. I really wanted to see some volcano landscapes. The tickets to Indonesia are cheap but because of the long distances needed to travel when off the plane, we would only be doing what we would actually want to be doing ie: seeing Komodo Dragons and volcanic landscapes for only a few days making the costs outweigh the benefits. If we had a month however... (sigh) boo Korean air! So unless we come into a fair sum of money, no Indonesia for us.
Making matters worse is that the guest house we are staying in although nice and friendly, has bedbugs and I have bites all over my body (they are itchy like mosquito bites).

"Jungle Mighty Jungle"

2006-03-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

Trekking for three days... sounds great right? Well I shall tell you a story.

It started with the near sinking of our boat. The tiny river boats climb up the ravenous rapids of the roaring river. One wrong turn and the water starts pouring in. I was a bit nervous at first with all our luggage on the boat but our trekking group was positive and our guide sure. Just as I started to relax on our up-stream journey it happened. We took a wrong turn and the water started pouring in. We all started pulling at the life jackets we were sitting on thinking it was all over, no trekking for us. I was thinking about Dan's camera. But somehow the skilled outboard operator steered the boat full of water to the shore. Amazingly nothing important got wet. The driver didn't even seem fazed... we could have lost everything. After bailing, the boat driver left and it was just us and the tangled mass of jungle. Our young guide Eei, Richard and Shelley a heartful English couple, tiny Chinese Yu and us to brave the wilds of the jungle. What attracted us was the advertisement for 'real jungle trekking' adventure seemed synonymous.
The sun pierces through the jungle like red hot needles and combined with the moisture from the surrounding flora a thick sauna resonates. Stepping into the greenery the sweat pricks from every pour. No one speaks too much for the first bit of our journey, trying to stay tough going uphill balancing on gigantic roots, ignoring the trickles of sweat. Eei started to explain different plants and trees, explaining their significance to the Oraing Asli or 'original people' that still live in the forest as well as practical uses to anyone. He cut down a R palm and let us all sample some of its tasty stalk, something between a potato and a water chestnut. Somewhere along the way Eei pointed out with his sharp eyes a distinct print of a tigers paw. "This is baby tiger" he explained as the print was about the size of the palm of your hand. I am not afraid of tigers because I know that to even see one is extremely rare, but seeing the print convinced me that tigers really do live in the area. One of those 'you don't believe it until you see it' things.
In good spirits we continued to trek to the cave where we were to spend the night. First we stopped at a smaller cave that has bats. Dan and I have had our experience with bat caves in Thailand so we decided to go in, Richard led the way as Eei did not want to go in. I thought he does this all the time so he must get bored of the caves. A rope dangles over a smooth rock that you must pull yourself up, a precarious balance of strength and sure footing is needed not to fall. We made it up but I was thinking that I did not want to go back down. The cave was not spectacular but there were tones of bats. My olfactory cells were entirely thankful that the guano stench was not as piercing as in some other caves we have been.
The trick is to clap your hands and all the bats go silent, at least that's how it was in Thailand, but I guess Malay bats are a bit smarter. When it was dark I clapped my hands and instead of silence a roar of flapping wings and a thousand screeching bats filled the cave. I ducked down but they still swarmed all around, the roar deafening. Flapping delicate wings were all but touching every part of my body. Terrified I could not scream, I wanted to look to Dan but I was either closing my eyes or seeing a fluid wall of flying bats. It seemed to last forever, a black bat tornado whirring around me. The only thing I remember next is the thought 'live!' which doesn't make much sense seeing what I did next. I forced myself to stand up and ran toward the only light I saw, the entrance to the cave, I jumped. Five meters down I came to a rolling stop. Eei and Shelley came running toward me but I stood up right away in shock. Then we all hit the ground as the thousands of bats came streaming out of the cave. Like killer bees I could feel that they were seeking revenge for the disturbance of their peace. I couldn't believe it! I always thought that bats attacking humans was a myth but then what would you call it? We hid under a rock a waited until we could hear no more bats. I was worried about Richard and Dan in the cave. I finally came out and surveyed the damage. "You crazy!" Eei yelped. As it turns out Dan was fine in the cave and made his way down, Richard left the cave before I jumped and little Yu had stood unfazed and watched the whole event in amazement. Dan couldn't believe I was still walking but really I was fine.
Forward march in awe with the sun hanging low through the foliage, we carried on towards the cave we were to spend the night. I was not thrilled about this prospect anymore until Eei assured me that this cave was very large with no bats and easy to get into, so big is the opening that it is called the elephant cave because elephants go in sometimes for shelter. I relaxed a bit.
Just before nightfall we reached the cave, open and spacious I was comfortable enough with the surroundings. Eei showed us the prints from elephants that have come into the cave and where we were to sleep. We set out our sleeping bags on a tarp and famished, awaited dinner. Eei carried all the food, so compared to the trek we did in the north, where there was at least two people to carry the food, I think we were all nervous about the amounts of food we would be relaying on for a few days. Richard master cook extraordinaire and Eei with his local verve for the perfect amount of spice took on the task of preparing the tastiest camping meal ever sampled by the likes of yours truly.
Roasted duck, curried lamb with potatoes and veggies, steamed asparagus, and a bed of coconut rice. And that was just the main course! Cucumber and forest mushroom salad and eucalyptus broth soup with celery for starters. Mango pudding topped with condensed milk and crushed walnuts for desert followed by wild ginseng tea that we picked from the trail. Seeing that it was Dan's birthday the next day I presented him (candle included) with an extra desert that I brought of chocolate covered shortbread squares. The meal more than made up for the hardships of our hike and the excitement earlier that day. Caring Shelley kept asking if I was alright and if I broke anything or had any scrapes but I was completely unscathed.
Eei made a fire and we eventually retired. We knew that there were rats in the cave and Eei kept the fire going for most of the night to keep them away, I certainly didn't like the idea of rats crawling over me through the night but as it turns out we had much bigger pest problems.
The lulling symphony of the night jungle entered the cave from outside. The incessant whirr of cicadas and crickets as well as countless bird calls and coos was a unique score. It was the squeaking and scampering of the rats near by that kept me from deep sleep so I tossed and turned in a state of semi-conscientious. It was the dead of night when we were all startlingly awakened. A brutal trumpeting roar reverberated throughout the walls of the cave and shook us all simultaneously to sitting straight up. I thought earthquake? Terror was burned into the very sockets of my eyes. Then again the trumpetus blow echoing through the confines of our space followed by stamping on the ground. The rats then came scoring out of the deepest parts of the cave to the exit, scampering across our limbs. Eei
shouted "Elephant!" and scrambled out of his sleeping bag towards us.
So what do you do when a wild elephant tramples along your cave encampment? Hell if I know, I was so frozen in terror that I couldn't hear what Eei was saying and I could not even move. I would think I was dreaming but my heart was pounding so fiercely that my ears felt that they would explode with the pressure and I know that you can not feel pain in dreams. Terror, yes; Pain, no. I have never in my life been more awake. Tears formed in my eyes and I remember Dan holding me and the glimmer of the beasts eyes as flashlights were being shone upon it. Seeing that foreigners had rudely intruded upon its special spot, it eventually left the cave and us to our shock.
"Cool an elephant!" Dans words to break the silence resonated through my head but I could not bring myself to agree with the statement. In fact, I felt like hitting him at that very moment for not appreciating my terror. The truth was held though that everyone was OK, and after some adrenaline related discussion we uneasily went back to our cave floor beds.
After a delicious and simple breakfast we set out trekking on Dans birthday. I had little sleep but felt anew, grateful for the sunlight and daytime sounds. Right away we stopped by another cave and Eei convinced me to go in and see the bats. Not something I thought I would be doing ever again. We wove through the chambers of eroded limestone and took pictures of the bats on the walls. Gratefully we were not long and we returned outside. But Eei had more adventure in mind and climbed toward the jungle vines that hung from the top of the cliff that the cave dwells within. Testing a vine first he swung off a rock, like Tarzan and came back. We were all very impressed and Richard and Dan took turns giving it a go. Seeing their success I was also tempted to swing like Tarzan from a jungle vine but near disaster foiled my potential fun.
Richard, a bit bigger in bulk than Dan had to say some famous last words: As he was about to swing for the third or fourth time he said after testing the vine again "I'm pushing my luck now" and jumped off the rock.
We all looked on in horror as the vine dropped a meter or so under the beginning of the weight, jerked under the pressure at the most intense pressure point of the pendulum and snapped clean.
Eei, half the weight and size of Richard amazingly leapt up and stuck out his arms to catch him, Richard letting out the faintest of cries fell directly into Eei's arms and they both tumbled to the ground in a ball. Shelley, near tears hoarded over the two of them. Astonishingly, the worst that happened was that Richards fingers (all ten of them) were skinned by the vine as he held on so tight. We all looked to the jagged rocks that Richard could have fallen onto and at Eei for his fast thinking and bravado. No one was hurt. The luck that seemed to have befallen us however, would not prove to stand.
Richard taped his fingers and we all conversed about the crazy stories that we could tell. I was a bit upset that I could no longer swing like Tarzan, but was not willing to take the risk that I may fall. Trudging through we kept a steady and rhythmic pace. My muscles and feet were aching by now but I seem to have gotten more used to the Jungle sauna. We went through many muddy patches and Eei' s trained eye picked out another print of a tiger. This time he said "This one not a baby" and sure enough the print was almost twice the size of the first one that we saw. After a while I thought that I could not take it any more, not one more step for my aching legs and Eei said that we would be stopping for lunch. Our lunch spot was a small clear river that we could bathe in and cool off. We set up on a sandbar in the middle. As we all relaxed and cooled off, though I was the only one to go swimming, I admired the peaceful surroundings. No one herd them coming.
They came out of the Jungle simultaneously, we were caught completely off guard. At least ten of them had blow pipes in their hand, we were completely circled, there was at least one weapon pointed at each of our heads. This tribe of Oraing Asli wore no shoes, almost no clothes, and their skin was almost as black as the most black African I have ever seen. They donned face paint and a few carried spears.Looking like they were such a natural and inconspicuous part of their environment I was suddenly and awkwardly aware of how much I did not fit into this scene. My jaw dropped open, I think I was too amazed to be afraid. Eei started talking to them but it soon became clear that their languages were not mutually understood. Who I understood to be the leader, mostly because of an ornate headdress of beautiful feathers, was talking rapidly while the others, ten, twenty of them? Stood there completely still, poised and ready to react on command. As it became increasingly and frustratingly clear that no progress was being made, as the tension built to a point where I thought that time may stand still, something amazing happened.
First it was just one or two, then hundreds fluttered about us. Monarch sized black butterflies with a white pattern design surrounded us, sometimes landing lightly on our clothing or fingers. I have never been so surrounded by terror and beauty before, everyone was completely silent. It was the most unreal feeling that I have ever felt. It was Yu that saved us all.
Beholding the magnificent sight, I guess that it all proved too much for Yu, maybe she knew that it would save us all but she started to giggle. Quiet and little at first her little Chinese laugh caught on and we all started to laugh, our captors included. It could have been because they thought of the butterflies as a good omen, if they believe in omens or the combination of that and Yu's irresistible laughter, but the headman of the group said some things and all the others lowered their weapons and we shook their hands and smiled and laughed some more. I'm not sure why they had their weapons pointed at us in the first place, why we were considered a threat but Eei later told us that he had never met these Aborigines before and the main tribe that lives by the river that we were scheduled to see were a very different people because they at least knew a little Malay and Eei spoke a bit of their language. We had stumbled upon a completely unknown group of people, related to the Oraing Asli that lived by the river, but unlike in the context of contact with the world outside of their forest. They were amazed at the colour of our white skin and later had us all paint each others faces with a kind of ground up stone make-up. It was a strange and rare encounter and I wanted to take pictures of these amazing people but they refused having the strange devices pointed in their direction and I had to respect that considering that twenty minutes ago they were a serious threat to my life. We left grateful for the unique opportunity to meet these extraordinary people.
It was not long until we came upon the hide that Dan and I were to spend the night. Shelly and Richard and Yu had only arranged a two day trek while Dan and I had planned to spend an extra night at an observation hide that overlooks a natural salt lick where animals come at night time. We said our goodbyes and exchanged e-mails. Since the trail from the hide is not long and we did not need a guide to stay we also said goodbye to Eei who would arrange our boat ride back to the town for the next day. After they left, I noticed the smell. It was faint but pungent and heavy when the wafts went by. At the moment I couldn't decide what it was but it put me off. I was glad that the hide was several metres off the ground and that when inside the smell disappeared. When we got in we immediately saw some monkeys at the salt lick, but for some reason I didn't expect to see anything else that night.
Five other travelers showed up and we all watched intensely through the dark to see any moving shadows or bushes. All we saw was some fireflies off in the distance and bats flying by. By around ten we had pretty much given up and most of us settled down to sleep. I discovered the first rat. It had gotten into a persons plastic bag with food in it. The girls, myself included to a degree, were freaking out while Dan was attempting to free it. I'm still not sure why everyone laughed when I said "put it outside!". The evening was full of Dan chasing away the Rats from our food and us trying to pretend that we didn't care. Then Dan got fed up and threw one out the window.
"What was that?!" one of the girls exclaimed after the laughter died down at Dan's action. It was quite clear, a deep resounding purr followed by soft pacing directly below the hide. I got my LED headlamp and shone it out the window. At first I didn't see anything, but then there were the two gleaming eyes caught by the light. "You're not going to believe this" I said and everyone came padding over to the windows on the south side of the hide and started to shine their flashlights down. I have always felt a connection with cats and this tiger was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. It was playing with the half dead rat that was thrown out the window. I knew that I was extremely lucky to have been able to be one of the few who have witnessed this threatened species, but that did not stop my growing anxiety. Someone whispered "why doesn't it go away?" and just then the amazing creature dropped its gaze from us and started pacing around, again purring deeply, almost like a threat. Then I understood. I shone my light upon a pile on the ground that wasn't there before and got Dan to do the same. It was a partially torn apart corpse of an animal, my guess was a barking deer that live in the area. So that was the smell from earlier, It must have killed it sometime before and hid it in the bushes to finish it off tonight.
I knew that we were not in a good situation. From our experience with bears I know that the only times one will attack are when you are between it and it's cub, when it feels threatened or when it is guarding a kill. We are about ten meters off the ground which gives us some safety in distance but not a comfortable level. I didn't know what to do. Leave the hide? Try to scare it away? I knew that I would feel safer in the man made structure high above the ground than in the unfamiliar dark night jungle at ground level with Mr. Tiger. I also didn't want to scare it or make it feel threatened, that also would be bad. We were in awe but were also confused as to what action to take. We barricaded the door, as the simplest way to us would be the easily scalable cement steps. We kept a close watch, the sheen from its beautifully stripped coat and the blood on it's mouth conveyed a message of unbelievability and feeling of littleness. The beautiful creature paced around, looked at us, picked apart its kill a little and repeated this process. Sometimes it would let out a roar, not defining and bone shaking like in the movies but short and powerful. We watched for a long time and my adrenaline had been going so hard for so long that I felt I might collapse.
I sat on my bed for a bit then almost everyone let out a low scream and flew back from the window. It was over. It was going to climb up the hide, go through the window and tear us all apart one by one in a rage of feline fury. The whole hide shook. The wooden structure was creaking and I could hear its claws ripping out slivers of wood, I could all but see those same claws ripping through my intestines. I think I was screaming, though that could have been some of the other girls, but I could definitely feel the hot tears dripping down my numb face. There is no where to hide, the irony did not escape me. Then it stopped. "Oh God" I thought "Is it inside?" the fear itself was ripping me apart. Everyone was silent for what felt like the longest shortest period of time in my life.
It was some time before I convinced myself that there was definitely no tiger in the room. Apparently the beast gave us a great scare by using one of the support posts of the hide as a scratching post. That's when we shut the shutters to the windows, turned off our lights and pretended that we not scared for life. At sometime I fell asleep and awoke in the morning forgetting for a moment what had happened. One of the others said that sometime in the night the tiger had left and that even it's kill was no longer there. No trace was left in fact of our encounter except faint claw marks on the post below.
We packed our things and left, we had a boat to catch. The morning light cast a long shadow on the seemingly distant night before but I would not leave first in fear of an ambush. But the trail was clear and the only mammal sounds we herd were the gibbons in the distance. On the way back by boat we stopped by the Oraing Asli village by the river, and these people were very different from those that we met, a lot of western clothes and materials. However we did get to take pictures and practice using their blowpipes. We got back to the town only splashed a little from the rapids. Leaving the jungle I was heaver in experience and adventure but also enlightened by the unique encounters that I lived. The jungle proved without fail her fierce and amazing powers of raw nature.

So I know that you are probably saying 'no way!' to all the crazy things in our trek, and you know what? You're right. Maybe there was no near sinking, attacking bats, and nighttime cave elephants. Maybe we didn't actually meet an unknown jungle tribe and see hundreds of butterflies. So maybe we didn't actually have a scary encounter with a tiger. But to me, I thought that would make one hell of a good story and I hope that I have entertained you and not deceived you too much. While on our trek I let my imagination run as wild as the jungle itself and I thought I would share that with you. For a more 'realistic' version read Dans blog.

But I do have some pictures:

Shelley, Richard, Yu and Us

The river

Really big trees

And really big vines too

Cave camp

Swing like Tarzan

Go-Go Tarzan Dan!

Our faithful guide Eei and his jungle make-up

Awesome Yu

Me too

Spiky Rattan

Pretty butterflies

Jungle hide

Oraing Asli Village

These people live very simple nomadic lives

Blow pipe practice, the first shot I hit the target right on!

Really you should check out the other awesome pictures too!

Another really cool thing we did in Taman Negara was the canopy walk way, the highest in the world at 45m and longest at half a km.

The Walkway is just 10 inches wide and suspended by ropes, it sways and creeks as you walk through. Something definitely not for the faint of heart, or fearer of heights. My heart was racing at times.

But the view was brilliant

and the jungle lush

Our whole experience in one of the oldest jungles in the world was surreal and awe inspiring.
Now we are checking into flights to Bali to go to Komodo for the dragons and to climb volcanoes. The adventure never ends...

A Whole New World

2006-03-05T00:37:00.000-08:00

Well as it turns out we have decided to go to Malaysia after all which hosts Taman Negara National Park A piece of virgin tropical rainforest 130 million years old! The highlights that we intend to do include crossing creaky rope bridges 25m in the forest canopy, meeting some of the aborigines and possibly learning to use a blow pipe, also hiking and cave exploring. After the National Park we may go to Indonesia depending on flight prices from Kuala Lumpur and the time we need for Laos and Cambodia. So much to do... So little time! I guess that I have been so used to Thailand that coming to a different country has been a bit of a shock. Malaysia is predominately Muslim and dressing conservatively here I have found is important. Most women wear head shawls and cover almost every part of their body, so even if I wear short sleeves I stand out and some men call out rudely. But the people are friendly. We took the train to Jerantut (the town we are in now) all the way from Hat Yai in Thailand yesterday. It was a long day. We started at 5am and got here past midnight including the time crossing the border and waiting for trains.

In other news, my longtime friend Stacie Hailey is getting married and I have accepted her request to be one of her bridesmaids! The wedding is in August.

Tarutao Tango

2006-03-02T01:41:00.000-08:00

The Marine NP is really gorgeous and we enjoyed the week that we stayed there. Through all our efforts we went against the idea of camping alone on a deserted island. It wasn't an easy decision... Damn those poisonous sea snakes! The snakes come on shore at night to lay in the warm sand. If one of us was to be bit, we would not have a boat to take back to get help and basically we would not be in a good situation. But the park HQ was not so busy, with as many workers there as there was tourists. Also the camping area was spacious.
When it rains it pours!
The only bad thing was that we were caught unaware in a thunder storm in the middle of the night. I was enjoying sleeping without the rainflyand Dan woke me up when it started drizzling, we tried to quickly get all of our stuff from being wet but it was too late. Down came the cats and dogs. It was one of the most unreal experiences... pouring rain, soaking wet, and lightening cracks near buy that let off the most unreal bone vibrating thunder! I was both terrified and exhilarated. The whole thing lasted maybe 40 minutes.
Well how about some pictures?

We saw some nice sunsets

I loved to swim in such inviting water

I got my hair braided before in Karabi, I love it because it is so easy and I have always wanted it done(it took 4 hours), Dan hates it but that's his problem.

We hiked for an hour to see Pirate falls but because its the dry season, there was not much to them.

We even saw some nice sunrises (no joking we did get up that early!)

Same sunrise

This is on Lipe island which is not a part of the NP so is being developed and a lot of tourists stay here.

"Across"

The path to Lipe's nicest beach with talcum powder white sand... can't you just feel it between your toes?

One of tall ships maybe?

Probably one of the best I've seen

but really you should see them all

on the way to Pebble Island I found 3 little cute kittens in the bow of the longtail boat, I really didn't want to let them go

The coral around Pebble Island was some of the best that I have seen

Pebble Island

Legend has it that the stones are cursed, so that whosoever takes a stone will be riddled with bad luck until the stone is replaced. Their is a hefty fine and possible jail time if you are caught taking a stone, bad luck indeed.

See all the Ko Hin Ngam (Pebble Island) Pictures

So now we are not sure whether to stay a bit in Malaysia or not and just head up to Laos. Maybe a week in Malaysia? We will decide tonight.

"The Beach" no more

2006-02-22T03:12:00.000-08:00

You know the movie "The Beach"? With Leonardo Decaprio? Well I went to the island where the movie was filmed, just like everyone else who had the chance I guess, and it's not that I didn't expect 100,000 people there but... I didn't expect 100,000 people there. Ok maybe my number is a bit high but well it was just too crowded. I knew that it was going to be busy and I thought, well that's alright for a few days and its supposed to be gorgeous there right? And it is, its frickin' fantastic with the scenery except that there are so many damn people in the way! Don't get me wrong, I wasn't miserable or anything it really is very beautiful. It's just when you have a picture in your head about what something should look like its hard to shake the reality. So we only stayed three nights. The tour we went on was nice, we went to a lot of places but again too crowded and the garbage! That really disturbed me. What is sad is that there is no governmental intervention to restrict the overwhelming growth in Tourism. There is not even sufficient water to sustain the growth. The water in our overpriced guesthouse was brown with silt. Read Dan's thoughts

No one disputes the beauty

Ok no time for more pictures to post but you should still check them out

So now we are really looking for that island paradise, or at least a beach to ourselves. We plan on finding it on one of the islands in Ko Touratau Marine National Park. The park is really close to the Malaysian boarder and apparently not quite 'discovered' yet... We'll see. We are planning on camping on a beach somewhere in the park Rawi island is my bet but it depends upon what the park rangers recommend. If we can not find a fresh water source we have to carry all our water in. I really hope that it works out to conclude our islands visit as it is soon time for another visa run... Laos is in sight.

Tall Sights

2006-02-15T19:18:00.000-08:00

Pang Na is a great place to go if you want to see towering cliffs of limestone and sheer pinnacles jutting skyward for hundreds of meters out of the sea. Also featured are mangrove forests and a quaint Muslim stilt fishing village. The topography of this place is mind boggling. Pang Na the city is not actually coastal so one of the sights nearby was a cave Wat with monkeys! The cave was not that impressive and when we went in there were no monkeys to be seen. But when we got out, they were everywhere. We spent more than an hour watching, photographing and feeding the monkeys bananas and peanuts.

So cute!

more monkeys

Mmmmmm... monkey like banana

but monkey like peanuts more! I loved the little ones, though the older ones would usually try to steal or take from them, then beat them up if they didn't obey! Sounds like my childhood... lol

This is my favorite picture of the cave
For more monkey business go here

To see the bay we took an all day and overnight boat tour staying at the Muslim village for the night and it was neat to see up-close the limestone formations. First we went through mangrove forest to the sea then to several islands and we explored a few small caves. Some caves we were able to go through on the boat and other islands had turquoise lagoons in them. The most popular island by far was "James Bond Island" where the movie "Man with a golden gun" was partly shot. The famous 'pinnacle in the bay' picture is from here, which is very impressive but the popularity of the island has convinced many vendors to set up here, very aggressive vendors! 'havea look' 'special price for you' 'it very nice you buy' 'OK OK, discount'- all when I have not even said anything yet! They will even take Jewelry and try to put it on you to get you to buy it. These people make me nervous and I usually don't end up buying anything when they approach me this way. The village where we spent the night was quite impressive, about 2000 people live cramped together on stilt houses. Fishing and fish farms are the main income earners while the women inside try to sell goods to tourists. What was cool was that there was a storm last night and we were able to watch the lightening and hear the thunder close by. The stormy weather combined with the prayers coming from the mosque created a unique goose-bump atmosphere. The islands in Pang Na bay were amazing to see but our snorkeling gear is getting dry so today we are heading to Railey in Karabi province where rock-climbing, snorkeling and fabulous beaches await.

Boat tour pictures:

mangrove forest

Tham Lod or 'through cave'

Pretty cool eh?

Huge I know!

So many islands

So Beautiful

One of the lagoons from inside a cave

We saw some neat things

James Bond Island

And again
More great pictures

Muslim fishing village

Locals

Abandoned-for good reason

Fish farm

Pretty

Happy Valentine's day everyone! I got a rose fortunately for a fraction of the price any of you would have had to pay; a whole 10 baht or 25 cents each!

In other news, we are already half-way through our travels! Crazy right? But maybe time goes a bit more slowly when you are at home. I really don't think that I am homesick but there are a few things I miss:
Family and friend bonding time or having fun. I feel like I'm missing a lot in not seeing my nephews grow. I miss you soo much Cabe and Cale!

A big juicy medium-rare steak
Sushi!
Good Pizza
Cereal; frosted mini-wheats or honey nut cheerios
CHEESE! My god do I miss cheese, (anything but processed)
Butter chicken and nan bread from Himalaya sweets and restaurant
Watching movies at home on a comfy couch
A glass of skim milk and cookie dough
Driving my own car... although if it runs when I get back I will be surprised!
Knowing my surroundings
Eating a dinner with family that doesn't burn my mouth with chilies

All back in three months, I'm sure that will be all too soon.

Amazing Sea Life

2006-02-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

Camping on one of the Surin Islands was amazing. We went snorkeling almost every day and saw some spectacular underwater life. Among the highlights were HUGE developed and colourful corrals of all sorts, cool fish like schools of barracuda and tones of others I don't know the names of, also I really loved the clown fish hiding in the sea anemone. We also saw sea turtles, an eel and an octopus! The only bad thing was that sometimes there were tiny jellyfish that stung like crazy. We met a couple (Dan and Jose) that we spent a lot of our time with, and found that we have a lot in common. At night we would entertain ourselves with card games and a version of pictionary. All in all the island was very beautiful and a great place to be, but at the end of our week there it became very busy because of a Thai holiday so it was time to go.
By the way...did you know that it has been four years already? Unfortunately we spent our special day traveling but I'm sure we will find time to celebrate later on our restricted budget.
Now we are in Pang Na, further south and hotter. There is some incredible limestone topography here and we plan to do some caves and hiking.

Now for some visuals of the Surin Islands:

oooo, look at all that great water!

ok so basically run AWAY from the beach!

Just steps from our camping spot

camp

Dan Jose and Dan en route to a snorkeling spot

Its a race! Hermit crabs littered the beaches

This one is red hot

pretty nice, we had seven sunny days! I swam twice to the beach in the distance, not too many people go there.

This is my artsy picture do you like it?

Mmmmmmmm so inviting!

and here are the rest of our pictures

We also went to a Moken village.
The Moken are traditionally a tribe of gypsies that travel and live on boats that house a whole family. In the rainy season they set up houses on land to live, but this village has homes for all year. Unfortunately the Thai government doesn't recognize these people as citizens, so they are denied certain rights and land. Also they are influenced by the tones of tourists from the national park that they have to share. They sell carved wooden boats and baskets to the tourists and although they are able to make money this way, it seems all other interactions with foreign culture are degrading their cultural behaviors and health. However it was amazing to see how just one km away from the park HQ a tribe of people live such different lives...

Moken child

Hand carved boats for sale

Yes they are playing BINGO and more Moken photos

To clearer waters

2006-02-03T01:36:00.000-08:00

The three days and nights that we spent on Koh Chang were nice, charming really but it just didn't have the same spark as Koh Tao. The water is murky from river effluent and the beach had this mysterious black silt-like sand. This was fine because I basically spent two days reading, and I discovered my new favorite book for the moment. 'Memoirs of a Geisha' is a beautiful book with all the things I love reading about, creative imagery, enchanting story, a bit of history and of course it must be addictive and it was, I loved it. You should all read it. I loved sitting in hammock all day and just reading as the sun passes through the sky. Now I have started 'The Puma's Shadow' (fiction)about Inca culture in south America, and it looks promising. Tomorrow we are going to the Surin Islands and I am very excited about this, it is the number three top dive destination in the world! We wont be diving unfortunately but we have snorkeling gear. We will be camping on the beach for a week and swimming every day...ahhhh yeah! I hope to see the Malayan flying Lemur and sea turtles and maybe even a whale shark would be cool. If only I had an underwater camera. Ok so no contact for a week because there is hardly electricity on the island but I will talk to you all soon.

Da na... Da Na ...DA NA!

2006-01-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

Swimming with sharks? Yeah sure no problem....Wait did I just say that?

The sign read something along the lines of 'swim with black tip sharks...600 baht'
Dan said Cool! I said yeah...sure.
However with a bit of advice we were told that we could go for free...by ourselves. I was not too sure how thrilled I was. We rented a kayak and by the time we got to our destination it was late in the day, worse yet the visibility was very poor and we were battling huge 3m swells! So I not only was to get over of my fear of deep water, but also my fear of the scary ocean swells, and oh yeah...Sharks. I was too chicken shit to get in the water.
But alas I would have another try.
The thought of swimming with sharks scared and thrilled me. I thought 'wow that would be so cool' but also 'what are you crazy?'
Two days later we again rented a kayak and went to 'shark bay' to try and find the black tip creatures lurking somewhere deep down.
We were much more lucky on our second try, the water was calm and the visibility was amazing. We could easily see the bottom from where we were at least 5m deep. The hardest part for me was to actually get in the water. I just kept telling myself that I may never get this opportunity again...so in I went.
With a bit of advice from some other snorkelers we were able to see the sharks in about 30 minutes from when we first got in the water. It was amazing! We saw up to 6 at once and strangely enough I really wasn't scared, after I saw the first one, I wanted to see more, I was mesmerized and intrigued. They swim so cautious and slow through the water, majestic even. I think that I was not so afraid when we finally saw them because I was imagining the worst...huge boat sized, teeth baring giants coming towards me at a threatening pace. As soon as I saw that they are not so big and are actually scared of you...I relaxed a bit. But what a thrill! It was definitely a highlight of staying on Koh Tao, along with pretty much everything else. One of the great things about being on vacation is that you can read...any book you want! We have been reading a lot lately, one of my favorites that I finished was "the Time Travelers Wife"-very sweet and nicely written. I also read "The Divinci Code" to see what it was all about, a gripping tale but a bit fantastic for my taste. Next will be "Memoirs of a Geisha" and I'm trying to find Alex Garlands "The Tesseract".
Well now is the time to leave here and we are going to Ranong on the Andaman coast and I look forward to seeing the Surin islands where there is supposed to be amazing snorkeling. We will be heading straight to Koh Chang right from Ranong but there is not even electricity there so I will be out of contact for a while.

Beach life

2006-01-23T16:00:00.000-08:00

Presently on Koa Tao, a small (6km long 2km wide) island of clear turquoise waters, coral, plentiful sea life and white sand beaches.
Our guest house (of course with ocean views) is 10m from the shore and its even quiet we often have the whole cove to snorkel in by ourselves. How much? Oh 300 Baht a night ($7.50US).
I know I know too good to be true right?

WELL IT IS!!!
I can hardly believe it myself.
I am seriously loving this...Maybe too much...I could live here. Not particularity on this island but in this sort of environment for sure.

Well I am waiting for pictures to upload I will tell you about our last night in Bangkok with Bee.
Cathy met Bee in Japan and gave us his contact because he lives in Bangkok, so we were finally able to meet up with him on the last night we had in Bangkok before we came here. We went first to 'the gas station' and I though oh a pub called 'the gas station' but no, it was actually tables and chairs set up around the closed gas station. The mood was very nice, and Bee brought his friend Paul, a traveler from Ireland. All in all it was a great time of talking and happy drunkenness. Till about 5am or so. It was the best night in Bangkok that I have had, Bee is hilarious, along with his friend Paul too. More pics

Bee, amazingly this is before consumption

...No, no oflicer I haven't been drinking...

Ok now back to the beach

Beautiful sunsets anyone? Cause we have see a few...

Amazed yet? K how about some more

and now check out the view

Just out our bungalow window

From the shore

There is also jungle too

this is near the main pier.

Some interesting things:

Yeah, that's about how we understood it too

I love this! I always wanted to train my Dan, now this place offers both courses and training

Don't get me wrong, the island doesn't come with out its own paradox'. There is so much rapid growth here the island is hardly coping, garbage and fresh water are a problem. It is possible that in just a few years the seemingly pristine nature of this magnificent place could be jeopardized just by people visiting it and unrestricted growth. This has definitely been (and still is) a problem on some of the more popular and touristic islands. But right now I will revel in the greatness of it all.

When Adventure Calls

2006-01-16T05:44:00.000-08:00

A crazy sort of idea was put into our heads a few weeks back from the owner of Cave Lodge, John. He suggested that we get a few innertubes and float lazily down the river the goes through Um Pang and end up in a Karen village three days later. He said that the scenery is stunning and it would be an adventure.

Maybe its because John has been through so many adventures and life threatening experiences in his lifetime that we are reading about in his very interesting book, called Caves Coffins and Chaos (you can borrow when we get back) but the words "dangerous" or "rapids" did not really surface from his description.
We went into Um Pang with a mission, we wanted this trip if at all possible and determination proved an adventure for sure.

We met Tui on the five hour songthew ride into Um Pang that happens to include some 1200 stomach squeezing, head-spinning turns in 150km; that's an average of 8 curves per km! We ended up staying at a guesthouse that Tui helps run and this proved indispensable to us because of all the help he was in the days to come. The next day we caught a ride in to see Ti Lor Su waterfall and told of our plans to go down the river. Tui thought that we were crazy for wanting to go on the river alone, but was excited for us and helped us for an entire day to gather supplies.

Three innertubes were needed for the trip, one for gear, two for us but alas after visiting all the garages in town we could only find two tubes that were big enough. Tui convinced us to take a bamboo raft, ...how hard could it be really...right...
After talking to some guides we planned our rout. Many of them were convinced that we could not do the trip alone, and that a guide would be much better. WE think well of course because the guides really want to sell us a trip down the river. They said that it could be dangerous and that there were four sets of class two rapids that we would have to go through. From our trip down the Pai river on inflatable kayak we knew that class two rapids really are not so big, and we thought if we need to we will just go around... Somehow. We were not wanting to settle and go on an expensive rubber boat ride down the river. It was difficult to trust the word of someone who is trying to sell you something, we wanted to see for ourselves.

The nervousness really started to sink in when we saw our ready prepared bamboo raft. It had to have been 7 meters long, seemingly much longer than the ones that we took through Cave Lod weeks before (that 20 minute stint sitting on the raft was the extent of our bamboo rafting experience). As we tied down our gear, the Thai guides looked on in amazement at what we were proposing to do. They did insist that we take paddles (we were very thankful later) and not just use the Bamboo poles that were quickly found useless when the river just downstream merged into the Mae Klong and our 3 meter long poles could not reach the bottom.

Excitement and adventure in our minds we pushed from the shore somehow confident even though we had no clue really what we were doing. The scenery was immediately awing but we also soon learned the unyielding nature of the bamboo raft. Steering was basically impossible with our non-existent skills, the current constantly pushing and pulling the raft sideways. We were doing ok until the river started rounding corners into overhang limestone rock cliffs. The problem was that the raft was being pulled into the cliffs' undercut-bank (the fastest part of the river in a meander) but the rushing water kept going under disappearing to re-emerge who knows where. Adrenaline racing through our veins we paddled as hard as possible to escape a possible-but not probable situation where the river sucks us under the overhang. Panicked we managed with some difficulty to come ashore downstream and weigh our options. We spent well over an hour on shore before building the courage to go back on the river, our goal for the day was to get to a waterfall downstream. In irony we got stuck immediately between a rock and the cliff overhang with the raft completely perpendicular to the river and threatening to flip us over but we dislodged and kept going.

When we got to the waterfall we were amazed. The small spout of water cascades over a limestone cliff to a mist in the river. Water dropped from hundreds of stalactites hanging almost eerily from the cliff wall. Breath-taking, this is where we spent our first night. Even stranger was the creepy sounds that occasionally came from the cliff sounding like thunder inside. It is very possible that there are caves inside but we could not explain the noise, it seemed that the whole thing may just give up and fall into the river. But this was just another factor that made our trip unique and exciting. The second day we only went down the river maybe 1 hour to some hot springs, a very nice spot but inundated with hordes of Thai tourists. Many Thais (mostly from Bangkok) make the river trip by packing into a rubber raft. Waking up on a Saturday at the springs dozens of groups of tourists are all over. We figured that at least 50 boats went down the river most would shout 'hello!' 'where you from?' or just cheer us on. We noticed enviably how easy the rubber rafts would steer. We found out on the last day that our problem was that not only were we trying to steer the boat backwards, but that we were in the wrong position to steer from. This news delighted us at the new possibilities of rafting. We also gave in and had two guides take us through the set of rapids just down the river from the springs. I thought we might flip but we were fine and made the rest of the day alone with hard paddling at parts but no incident or danger. We made it to Ta Pa Leut, a drop off point for the Thai tourists where the boats are then taken back to Um Pang, our ticket back.

We only went about half of the distance we intended, but to go more would mean to brave more rapids-alone and spend another night that we didn't plan on. I feel confident that we could have completed the entire journey even if we were to go for a swim but the pride of getting to where we were was enough for me. Especially as the Thai guides congratulated us with big thumbs up.

Not exactly the relaxing trip that I had envisioned but an amazing experience in determination and adventure. I could never forget this and I would not change anything.

Now for the visual aspect:

Squishy Squishy...the ride to Um Pang, now thats one full pick-up! The people you can't see are on the roof

The famous Ti Lor Su waterfall, it is much more impressive in the rainy season with twice the flow of water but the surrounding jungle is some of the thickest in Thailand and it was really neat to walk around in

Awww so cute

A part of Ti Lor Su

Jungle around the waterfall -check out that buttress!

The water was a gorgeous turquoise it reminded me of Seaton Lake in Lillooet.

Tarzan Dan!

Now for our trip, I was not able to take so many pictures because of the risk of my camera getting wet it was quadruple bagged and sealed in one of the plastic buckets-not very accessible.

innertube repair

Waiting (I just like this picture of myself)

Planning our rout, that's Tui on the right

Day one, about to depart

Ti Lo Jow Waterfall

A closer look

Cool stalactites

All this just across the river from our campsite

Camp

This is where I slept, by the way I love our hammock tents!

We actually managed to cook rice over the fire-not burnt or soggy!

'the beast' as I like to call it

It wasn't until after our trip that another person at the guest house informed us that we were not actually allowed to go on the river by ourselves, and that a guide was mandatory. He also told us that because the area is a large national park, many tigers still live here and he said that they can be a threat. However I do not believe that tigers in Thailand are a lot more of a threat than say bears or cougars back home (basically you would be lucky just to see them). Our trip would not have had the same adventure and discovery factor if we did have a guide and I feel very fortunate that we were able to do what we did.

So now we are back in stuffy overwhelming Bangkok en route to the south and BEACHES!! (I'm just a little excited)

Another World

2006-01-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

Walking over the bridge to Myanmar was like some sort of warp in time and space. Although the two countries are simply separated by a river, the differences are striking. From paved roads and modern vehicles to dust and trucks that you might find in some junk yard 30 years ago. There were hardly any motorized vehicles, but mostly samlaaws (a push bike with a cart in front that you sit in). The street was wide and the stores were not organized. Aside from the people who want to be your guide and follow you around explaining anything they knew in bad English though you try and politely turn them down, and the countless samlaaw drivers that want to take you for a ride, the people and children were quite shy and all smiles.

It seems strange how different two countries can be even though they are so close. It almost made me feel uneasy, I guess that I have become accustomed to many of the Thai ways of life that to see and experience a culture so different was shocking.

The small slice of Myanmar was interesting, however the political situation there is far from favorable with its military government. Apparently the citizens are forbidden to talk about politics to any foreigner. One traveler told us that on his day trip in Myanmar, the guide he had when asked about politics, looked around and smiled nervously, speaking through his teeth said 'they will kill me'. It is also very difficult to ensure that your money is going to the people and not to support the government. With this information we have decided that we will not be traveling further into Myanmar.

Here are some pictures to show some of the differences.

Samlaaw

There are more interesting photos but I don't have time to post them now so here is the link

In the Ruins

2006-01-07T01:05:00.000-08:00

Sukhothai was pretty cool. Historically it was the first capital of Thailand and much of the city that is left over was built in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is in Sukhothai that King Ramkhamhaeng helped expand the kingdom to larger than the size of Thailand now in an era now known as the golden age of prosperity. He is also
credited-with some controversy for the creation of the first Thai alphabet. The early kings of Sukhothai adopted Theravada Buddhism and many of the buildings are centered around huge (some gigantic) statues of Buddha. More info is here.

We rented bicycles to ride around the old city (where most of the ruins are, as opposed to the new city where our guest house was they are about 15 km apart, but that is not very interesting). I haven't ridden a one speed bike in so long and I'm thankful for my 21 speed at home. There were tones of tourists because of the New Years holiday and riding on the roads and paths to the ruins with manicured lawns that surrounded the mammoth ancient stone structures, with so many other people, oddly enough it was the ruins that seemed out of place. Many of the structures have been restored to some degree and I came to prefer the ruins that were more out of the way and that have been overgrown and mostly ignored by other tourists. At these places I really got a feeling of 'old'.

There are so many Wats that we did not remember all the names but most had the large pillars which are the rumnants of the wihaan (a room used for meeting and prayer)and a chedi (a bell shaped structure that usually held relics from Buddha).

For a sense of scale

Seriously huge Buddha- What Chao Pra

Elephant Wat

Sunset

The ruins were definitely impressive, the almost overwhelming feeling of how massive they are when looking up the ancient stones that were so meticulously placed gives a real feeling of awe. I can hardly wait to see the ruins of Ankor Wat in Cambodia.

We also went to see a modern Wat near New Sukhothai. In our guesthouse there was an article that explains the history of the wat and some insight into some of the legends of Buddha and Sukhothai kings. The wat had several statues that depicted stories that were explained in the article as well as many other statues.

Wat Thewet

This is hell, the sculptor saw it in a dream. Alcoholics get scalding liquid down their throats, those who kill animals get their head turned into that animal, girls who have an abortion get a worm that eats them, and those who are violent get 'grotesquely' enlarged hands.

DAN SAW A SIGN

The other thing that we did in Sukhothai is go and see a bat cave. Dan saw a sign advertising this and he got all excited, so we inquired. The guide told us that he could take us (of course) and that we could maybe go by ourselves but he didn't know how to explain to us where it was. So we went with him and made it just before the bats started to come out of the cave. This was so cool! The bats came out of the cave in a long stream, moving in unison in a line across the sky swooping one way then another. You could hear the flapping of thousands of wings and the small squeals that they make. After the 'show' one of the rangers took us in the cave, and whoa did it ever stink! He led us inside to a replica of a Buddha statue that was placed there in the Sukhothai period. He was very impressed that we were so interested in the bats and that we were taking pictures. Our guide had never even been inside the cave. He explained that Thai tourists are very 'safe' and would never go do something like that. The ranger even succeeded in grossing me out by picking up a dead bat and squeezing it so that the maggots came out...ewww! Interestingly their were many saks of guano lining the cave, apparently it is sold as fertilizer.
The bat show was over quite quickly but was amazing to see, so amazing that Dan was able to convince me to go back and camp there the next night. I was very excited to be able to use our tents for the first time on our trip.
We left late and sped to get to see the show in time but 15 km away Dan's motorbike got a flat tire. I stayed and got the tire fixed because I knew that the bats meant more to Dan than me. -This was no show of heroics, it cost a lot to spend the night at the park with 400 Bhat on the motorcycles 200 Bhat on entrance to the park plus food and gas and time. I didn't want to spend a whole extra day just because we missed the show that night. The repair to the tire was only 100 Bhat though so that was good.

Here are some of the bat pics

Now that's a lot of bats

Unfortunately the only Batman there was Dan

Well those were our adventures in Sukhothai and now we are back in Mae Sot so that we can cross the border tomorrow and then make our way to Um Pang. Don't expect a post for a while because there is no internet in Um Pang. Hope You are all doing well, let me know what's going on in your lives...

Welcome to the New Year

2006-01-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

We found out that New Years is not such a big deal in Mae Sot but found the most foreigner-friendly pub and forced ourselves to stay up. The Thai cover band was awesome and the main singer was unlike any other Thai singer that we have encountered. He had a deep scrachy Tom Waits type voice and it was awesome. From 'Puff the Magic Dragon' to 'Hotel California' the covers were the best renditions that I had ever heard. I asked if he had a CD but blushed and said 'maybe in a few years'. All in all it was a good time even with the single firework that went off marking midnight. How was your New Years? Or do you remember?

Awesome Thai band

This is Black-Black, we found him in a candy box

Happy New Year!

our waitress was festive

Yesterday we got brave and rented a (yes one) motorbike to save some bhat. It was actually quite fine, hey if the Thais can so can we? I think that just not for long distances though. We went to see a stupa that is perched on top of a large rock that looks like a boulder. It was cool but the climb up the never-ending flight of stairs in the heat was brutal.

Stupa

View from the top

Buddha

Steep never-ending steps

There was also a very small cave where I took this cool picture.

For dinner Dan spoiled me and we went to this really cool romantic place. It was designed by a botanist and had all sorts of plants and trees. The restaurant is spread out by sort of man-made islands separated by streams that flow to a small man-made lake. Is is created so that it feels and looks natural, and the food was sooooooo delicious. The river fish and deep fried ice cream were the tastyist.

Restaurant

So beautiful

Waterfall in the restaurant!

I took some pretty cool macro shots:

This is my favorite

Also good

Even better

And so today we took a minibus to Sukhothai and tomorrow we will explore its ruins and right now we are going for dinner.

Sot life

2005-12-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

We are in Mae Sot which is much bigger than we thought that it would be. This was a nice surprise but a bit overwhelming because of having to deal with traffic again. Mae Sot is a boarder city with Maywndi on the Myanmar side. Yesterday we went to the border market, which was nice but exhausting. It is quite hot and here especially when we just came from 9 straight days of overcast and cool weather. We also went to the daily market, an overwhelming experience in itself. We have been to many markets but this one is crammed into a small narrow street. Here you can buy a new pair of running shoes and bloody meat for dinner in the same stall.
Smell is such a riveting sense. Coming here I realize how devoid of smell home is.
Pungent aromas constantly ying yang between assault and seduction. You could easily go from smelling what I like to call the "waft" , sickly sweet garbage sewer coming from the drains that line every street to citrus tangy-sweet tangerine that a vendor is offering you to try...'the best in the world' he says.
A confusing conjecture of prepared food, fruit, vegetables, meat, animals (dead and alive), household goods, flowers and clothing are crammed in tiny stalls. Plus you are constantly dodging the steady traffic of people, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, carts and dogs. Wow that is exhausting.
Here is the first place that we have gone to that children and mothers with babies openly come up to you and beg for money 'please, one bhat' and food. This is heart wrenching but I am stuck on what to do. I usually look down and walk past or say 'no sorry'. I don't know what is right, I can not possibly give to them all.

On a lighter note today was a very good day. We (Teresa also) took a songthew first to the Highland Farm gibbon sanctuary. This is a place where abandoned, unwanted and injured gibbons and other animals are given to take refuge. More than 40 of the apes live here and we were taken an a very interesting tour. Many of the gibbons have amputated legs or arms from previous abuse or neglect and it is amazing to see how well they can still get around. The sounds they make are also unbelievable. Whoop, whoop WHOOP WHOOP WHOOOP! Over and over then sometimes many of them cry all at once making the listener stare in amazement as the apes go nuts calling and moving about their cages. Listen and you can hear for yourself (strongly recommended)

Two of the gibbons were raised by hand because the mothers rejected them (sometimes when apes are raised in captivity they do not know what to do when they have a baby) and we were able to interact with them outside of their cage. Simone is two and a handful. He would climb about the house and literally bounce off the walls and swing from the trees it was very entertaining to watch him.

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He even loved to play with the dogs, teasing them then running away.

Simone out of his cage

Nok the main caretaker and Roger 8 months old

Roger

There is a program that allows volunteers to stay at the sanctuary and Dan and I thought that this would be a great idea but it costs $25 dollars US per person per day with a minimum stay of three days and, unfortunately this is well over our budget.

After the gibbons on the way back to Mae Sot we went to Phacharoen waterfall. I really liked this waterfall and look forward to seeing the more spectacular waterfalls that are in Um Pang.

You can easily climb up many of the waterfall steps

Dragonfly at the waterfall

Teresa

On the road back I was able to take some really cool pictures of a monk on the songtaew-more correct spelling-

and us

Well that should be all for now

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Its New Years Eve and we don't know what we are doing tonight, hopefully something will come up...

It still exists

2005-12-26T01:30:00.000-08:00

Trekking was one of those experiences that you may never encounter again.

There were many places where we could have gone on treks but we held out, trying to get away from the "mass" trekking experience, where the villages are prepared for you, where you may trek for hours just to arrive and find that there is a road or other groups going to the same places...
What we got was definitely far from this.

It started with a songthew ride (a songthew is a truck taxi with seats in the back and a roof-cover) To a village on the Saliwin river where we took a longtail boat for three hours first to see our guide Aduls Karen army friends, then to a Burmese village to eat lunch.

Long tail boat captain

The Saliwin river is actually Burmese and divides Thailand from Burma, the river is very old and the majority of native people in the north west are Karen tribespeople. The Karen army is in conflict with Burma, and wants its own independent state far from Burmese oppressive government.

Karen army guy

Burmese villagers
We hiked for three hours wading through a small river several times (think 60) to reach a Karen Hilltribe village.

There are no roads or electricity, truly "authentic" and the people wore mainly traditional dress and we were able to see them in their everyday environment.

and we thought our bags were heavy...

The crowd upon arrival
However, we were the main attraction as the children and young people consistently crowded around us and followed us around all the while maintaining their distance. It was very strange to be watched so intently. One of the highlights for me was the reactions of the people when I showed them their photo on my digital camera. Pointing and laughing they crowded in hoards to all get a glimpse of themselves.

We slept in a family's house on the floor and in the morning you could see eyes that had been watching us sleeping. Life here is simplistic, in the houses their is no furniture, and only bamboo mats to sleep on (no not even a little comfortable). There is a kitchen area, where food is prepared and cooked over a small wood fire. You eat on the floor and everything is kept very clean and tidy.

Dinner by candlelight

Groupies

Typical house

This woman was hilarious, getting Dan to speak Karen and everyone laughing at his pronunciation

Many of the villagers smoke

Blind woman thrashing rice

The children are so adorable

Chicken and pigs roam freely with some dogs and cats.

The primary crop seemed to be subsistence rice farming, which is harvested once a year. Although on our second night the family we stayed with had banana and sugar cane as well.

On our second day we had to wait for the elephants.

As there is no way to call ahead to these villages the elephants were brought in from close villages to accommodate us but first they had to be found from where they were in the jungle. Five elephants later, we nervously climbed aboard into the small wooden carriage. This is after a story the night before of a crazy elephant that had killed its mahout (owner/trainer) in a fit of rampage. Fortunately we arrived three and a half hours later to a lone house where a family stayed and tended crops.

Our guide Adul and Teresa, a very nice German traveler

The elephants were so neat, we went on paths that you might think no animal that large would fit, but did. The mahouts controlled their 'pets' by nudging them constantly with their toes on the floppy earlobes also with curt harsh words. Would you think that an animal so large would be afraid of a goat? Well this was one of the only times where they blew their horns so load, and made a deep pulsive purring-like sound, while also trying to run away! I thought I may be tossed from my small cage high above the ground, but the threat was short-lived. I loved putting my bare feet on the elephants back and feeling its warmth and the wrinkles that would gently pinch my toes as it moved in a certain way. I think I will miss the rhythmic swaying of traveling through jungle on the back of such a magnificent creature.

That night we had our christmas jungle cocktail of banana whisky. Our guide maybe had a bit too much and told us about Karen animism, black and white magic and his disgust for christian missionaries that have ravaged the culture in the area. To our shock as the house cat walked across the fireplace, he said "I hate cats" and picked it up by the head and threw it out the window. Yes, the culture and mentality are very different from home, that was a part of the experience.

Sugar cane harvesting

The next day we hiked to another Karen village for lunch and after to another for our last night.

Karen village where we had lunch

The people in the last village were so shy, Adul told us that here they had never before seen foreigners, and so they were even more wary than the first village, keeping their distance even more.

Last village

For christmas dinner, Adul bought a pig. I did not have to watch the slaughter but I thought if I eat it I should be able to watch the process. It was interesting, but I did have a hard time eating that night. The meat was so sweet, and this combined with the residing smells of the butcher made me nauseous.

Dinner
Dan insisted on taking several more extremely gruesome pictures, if you are the kind of weird person that likes to see those things this is the link:

pig dinner

The hike on the last day was one of the most difficult of my life. Five and a half hours of steep lung-squeezing ups and knee-crushing downs. We ran into a long line of villagers carrying PVC pipes for water back to their village. Some were 10 and 12 years old smoking pipes.

Advanced water system opportunists caravan

Apparently they were from the first village that we stayed in, and I just thought how strong they are, and how far they still have to go! When we got to our departing village with the songthew waiting for us, I knew I could take no more.
It started to rain. Many villagers packed into the truck with us and we were on our nervous bumpy way on the unkempt dirt road, we all knew we had three hours of this. We rounded a corner to find a Thai walking up the road who flagged us down. I did not know what he was saying but I understood him clearly. The wet slippery clay road had made several vehicles slip and slide on the corners downhill. So we got out and had to walk in the mud. Good for us though our truck had chains and would pick us up down the road. This was fine except later the clutch broke. Fortunately one of our guides, Alex, knew some mechanics and fixed it. All part of the experience.

Alex fixing the truck

So yes, villages where people have not seen foreigners before exist, the wild jungle has not all been penetrated by roads and unique trekking experiences in Thailand still exist. For this I am very grateful of our experiences, and the people we met. Though most elements like sleeping and eating on the wood floor, squishing in the back of trucks and hard hiking were uncomfortable, it was an amazing experience and I am glad for it. As soon as the soreness goes away, I am up for it again.
tomorrow we are going on our way to Mae Sot but will stop off at a village that has caves to split up the six and a half hour songthew trip. We are not sure of internet connectivity there or in Um Pang where we are heading to after so it may be awhile before another post.

Christmas in the Jungle?

2005-12-21T04:59:00.000-08:00

Well it looks that way...

tomorrow morning we leave on a trek for four days of jungle and village culture. We are going with Saliwin tours guide Adul and three other travelers. Tomorrow we take a boat and have lunch in Burma, then we continue our trek staying in villages along the fringes of the Burma border.

Today we rented motorbikes and went to Calcite cave 30km away. It was so beautiful! Of all the caves that we have seen this is my favorite, it had so many interesting formations and crystallization, and colours! Later today we also tried to go to a waterfall and hotsprings but the road to the waterfall was really bad and it looked like it might rain, then we could not find the right way to the hotsprings, but the scenery was very pretty and we got back just as it was getting dark.

Mae Hong Son'in it up

2005-12-18T02:49:00.000-08:00

Well we had originally only planned to stay here for a couple of days and here we are a week later...
We rented motorbikes for two days and saw some stuff out of the city. I am now much more careful on the motorbikes because our friend Ori e-mailed us that he got into a small accident and had to get stiches, nothing serious but at least he was wearing a helmet and had insurance. Almost no Thais wear helmets and the majority of traffic is motorbike. They also seem to play a game of "How many Thais can we fit on one motorbike?" We have seen a family of four.
Anyways, I am young and but not invincible, also inexperienced on motorbikes. So we go slow and take it easy, but there is really no other way of traveling to where we wanted to go, unless you want to pay up the ying-yang.

On the first day we drove far away first to this "fish cave" that was really a sham...It advertised 1 meter long fish...and a cave...but really it was hardly either, But the area was really pretty.

fish from Tham Pla

scenery from Tham Pla
After we went to this Chinese tea village minutes from the Myanmar border, which was really pretty

Mae Aw Chinese village

I like this picture

Villager. Its really hard to get pictures of people because you have to ask and they are usually hesitant, or they say no. And you don't want to make them feel awkward.

On the way back we went to a waterfall, but couldn't stay long because it was getting dark.

Waterfall

When we got back we encountered the beginning of a week long festival and there were hundreds of lanterns being let off, that was so unique to see, like a whole other sky with orange stars. Many that were let off had fireworks attached to them making it more exciting.

I know, Giant flaming flying condoms right?

That night we went to the festival, which was huge and saw I guess the equivalent of Thai Idol, weird.

dancer at Thai Idol

Traditional dance- all are actually men!

Festival night

The next day we decided to go even further to try and see a 12 km long cave threaded by a river, but when we got there the guide we found said that the river was too high and that we could see two other caves instead, and wow they were so neat. Our guide was a tiny Shan lady but wow was she ever fit, we had to walk uphill for a long time on the way back and while we were huffing and puffing, she hardly broke a sweat! We drove over 100kms that day.

Sales lady
I bought two bracelets to get this picture, en route to the caves.

steep bamboo ladder into Coral cave

Coral cave

cave spider, yes it was really big

Coral cave

Wierd formation in Coral cave

This is a video of Dan playing the 'cave drums' which is actually a huge broken stalactite on the cave floor-I hope this works for you.

Diamond cave

Diamond cave

More Diamond cave

Again with the Diamond cave

Beautiful sunset after a long day of caving...can you see the cows?

Other than that I finished reading the very long 'The Borne Identity', it was good but not till the last quarter. I also read 'The curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime' (thanks for the recommendation Cathy) in one day which was very touching and really well written, a book can be so simple and so still so good.

By the way these photos are a very limited selection and you are welcome to see all the ones that we have downloaded,
there is also a link at the bottom of this page
I would love to hear comments or questions about photos...

Now, err tomorrow we will be on our way to Mae Sariang, a smaller town but still has internet. We are hopping to be able to do a trek from there.
I hope that you are all doing well and oh yeah...
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Welcome to the Jungle

2005-12-13T01:03:00.000-08:00

Ten days of jungle, caves, white water and just plain relaxing. We are now in Mae Hong Son, the next main town from Soppong where we had our adventures at cave lodge (cavelodge.com). We were actually 8km out of Soppong right near the Myanmar border, there happened to be no phone or Internet there, explaining the lack of communication. Cave Lodge was actually recommended to us by Ori who knew through someone else. Ori had to leave two days later because his visa was running out but we stayed for over a week. There are over 200 caves in the area and we were able to explore a couple...that was really really cool especially because we went by ourselves mostly adding an extra jarring element. The first cave we went to see was on the "Knob" a large protruding thwack of limestone jutting out of the hillside. Not only was it a test to get to the top but to find the cave inside.

"The Knob"
In order to get to one of the caves in the area you must ask John, the cave lodge owner to explain the directions and draw you a map, sounds simple but when you are traversing through jungle with no readily available trails, it can take a while to get where you want to be. The view from the top was amazing, getting inside was a worrisome nightmare. The instructions included "find a hole in the ground that no sane person would go into and go in", problem be, we didn't know if it was the right hole or not, looking into the abyss we think exit? Dan and Ori lowered themselves in while I waited for them to try to find the way out.

Dan heading into the abyss
We were able to talk to one another when they were down there however, through a blight of miscommunication, they left the cave without me knowing. I waited for over an hour, wondering what the hell is going on, and when I should go get help. But the buggers showed up, to their own surmise they went the wrong way out and feared their lives whilst scaling a cliff. We were more organized and cautious after that. At Cave lodge the accommodation was cheap, people friendly and food really good. There is so much to do there it is ridiculous. We went to the X-mas cave and guided Lod cave, a huge cave that a river runs through, we watched the bird show from the exit twice (300, 000 fork-tailed swifts colliding and maneuvering into the cave at dusk-so cool!). We also went on a one day 45km white water kayaking trip which was AWESOME! I had never done anything like that before and didn't really know what I was in for but it was exhilarating fun. A group of 13 went down the Khong that empties into the Pai river.
I will never forget: Going down the Pai to a particularly ruff section to the caution of John and Steve the main guides saying "follow us"
They were the first to flip.
Going fast I dig in my paddle, only to go over a ridge and see a huge white wall of water. I think No and Shit simultaneously, knowing we could not make it through with out flipping. All boats but one flipped. I went for a swim but no harm done but a bruise, lung full of murky river water, and lots of adrenaline.

John from Cave Lodge

Dan was in the only single Kayak
Some days we stayed at the Lodge read and relaxed.

I know: Dan with a cat! Even he could not resist their cuteness

Rainy day

Hitching to Soppong on the back of a very full pick-up
We went to the winter fair with John, and other friends of the family from Cave Lodge

Live free Muay Thai at the winter fair
We went on the Farris wheel but they were so small that Dan and I could not fit in one together

Sam in Farris wheel cage designed for tiny Thais, not big Farangs
Here are some cave pics
Lod cave:

X-Mas cave:

Fish cave:

It was really cool to be at Cave Lodge and around, the people, and villages were so wonderful. Its amazing how simply people can live and be happy. I love that.

A Piece of Pai

2005-11-28T00:15:00.000-08:00

Pai is a mass of contradictions.
Remote village tribespeople right next to the 7/11. You can buy native handycrafts here as well as puffy-jackets. There is almost as many forign people here as Thais, so I naturally have mixed feelings about Pai. Yesterday we walked up to this mountain temple and the view was amazing. I love all the Jungle. Today was so great though...we rented motorcycles, and it was so much fun! I wasn't sure how I would like it but it's great. I love to go really really fast. It's not even automatic, so we learned how, all of us for the first time today. Dan's bike was having problems and Michelle was not so confident but Ori and I went really fast all the time. Tomarrow we will go to a canyon and to hotsprings.
A small note about the bus ride up, it really made me realize how spoiled we really are. The public bus to Pai was not only crowded but packed sardine-like, and oh yeah it was rediculous uncomfortable. At first I was very miserable, our assigned seats were taken and we were crammed into a much worse spot. Then i saw all the Thais around me, how this is the ONLY way for them, mabe everyday and realized that sometimes, life is suffering, and that is ok, my mood brightened and I was able to enjoy the rest of the ride in a better mood.

AMAZING day

2005-11-26T10:30:00.000-08:00

Two days ago we had an incredible adventure. We went to Doi Inthanon National Park and met some incredible thais. It all started when the guidebook said that it would cost 30 bhat to get to the top of the mountain but all the taxis and minibus' were charging 1000! We could not afford this and would not settle so we tried our hand at hitch-hiking. The first truck we saw we asked the driver ("Mr K") and his friend if we could all go in the back of his pick-up and for what price...And through broken English he not only let us ride with him but FOR FREE! As it ends up he was also a tourist to the park and all of us (Dan, Ori, his friend Michele and I) spent the day looking at incredible waterfalls, mountain-top temples and beautiful scenery. As if that were not enough, he also drove us back to Chaing Mai (over 60km away). To thank him and his friend we wanted to take him to dinner, but he drove us there and picked the restaurant, so we had authentic Thai food with Thais-it was great! They even wanted to pay the bill but we would not let them. That day was definitely the hi-light of the trip for me so far.

Yesterday we went to a forest monastery/Wat and that was very cool and peaceful. The temple was built in something like the 1300's. It is so interesting to see and touch something that is so old. We also went to check out a program that offers 10 day meditation courses. We read about this in our guide book and went to see if this would be a good thing to do. It is not religious but inward based, and in the Vipassana meditation style. This means no talking, contact, reading or writing for 10 whole days. You stay at the monastary and live very simply, meditating pretty much all day. It is supposed to be very difficult but also very rewarding. We are still not sure if we want to do this.

What do you think?
Is it a waste of our time or an experience that we should seek?

Yesterday we also went to a monk chat- that was very neat because we were able to ask the monks anything and they were able to practice their English.
Today we head for Pai with Ori and Michele, it is a very small city almost a village that is supposed to be very beautiful. The bus ride however is 4 hours of cramped winding roads. Well usually there is a trade-off.
We have pictures of all of our adventures but were not able to up-load all of them. Soon.

A Gentle Awakening

2005-11-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

The bus to Chaing Mai was not that comfortable (but about as good as it gets for riding a bus anyway) I couldn't sleep but read "Girl with a Pearl earring" -good but not great. I was 5 pages from the end and the bus driver turned off my light- that really sucked. However we decided to stay at the guesthouse that we were dropped off at-quiet and cheap and the big bonus is a comfortable bed. The last guesthouse bed was almost plywood. So it turned out that the gamble with the super cheap bus turned out.
I fell into a deep sleep and awakened to birds chirping and warm sunshine sunshine, gentle mulling about on the ground below. I felt that the suffocating nature of Bangkok was finally lifted. As if that wasn't enough we found a funky and serene "Roof Top Bar", also called "THC bar" to watch the sunset and drink beer and tea from. That was truly awesome.
We also met Ori, a young Israeli man and we have made plans to go to a national park with him tomorrow, it is on the tallest mountain in Thailand.
We have made a light itinerary of going on a sort of loop around the north western part of Thailand to the areas not too touristy and more authentic in nature -however this comes from the most published guidebook in the world so we will have to see.

The Mystery of the North

2005-11-21T17:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight in 45 minutes we depart via bus northward specifically Chaing Mai. There is so much relief that a change in pace and scenery and people is nigh. The trip is 12 hours and we got a great deal but it is definitely a gamble because we don't know if the bus is actually aircon, reclining seats and a bathroom but for the both of us it cost 400 bhat. Very cheap.
We finally met Bee-- he was working but at least he was able to spend his break with us. He is a very cool person and when we get back hopefully we can all go out but now he is a crazy busy working studying person like many of you.
We also went to Jim Thompson house which was very neat and informative about some Thai culture as well as having many artifacts. The zoo was a strange combination of good and bad. More sad than anything, many of the animals were in very cramped spaces and were bored, swinging their heads back and forth and begging for food. The bad part is that people would actually feed them just to amuse their children. But it was very neat to see tigers and different bears and even hippos. Well now we depart.

Bangkok fever

2005-11-18T04:44:00.000-08:00

Oh yes i have the fever, but the kind where you are hot and sticky, sick and your head hurts. For the first time since i've left i really miss people. Especially my nephews. today we went to the amulet market and another Wat or temple with a 46m long reclining buddah. We also ran errands--which take forever here because the city is so slow but busy all the time.

This is a cat (duh) at the amulet market

These are the amulets--you can get a good luck charm for pretty much anything--yes even that what you are thinking!

this is the huge buddah, you can't even get the whole thing in one picture.
So before i didn't post any pictures because we wern't sure if we could log onto the same site at once, however there are much more pictures on dans flickr website from my digital camera. if you were wondering I took 98% of the pictures. Some of them turned out quite nicely.

Well it would be really nice to hear from all of you to see how you are doing. I miss you all.

Grand Indeed

2005-11-17T19:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we went to the Grand Palace, what can I say really? Wow. Bangkok is such an old city with so much detail in all the temples and the history is so rich that it makes it all the more magnificent. No detail was spared in the making and up-keep of the Grand Palace, every tile of mosaic is perfectly placed. It is almost overwhelming trying to take in all the details, a cursory glance is not enough, then you realize that everything is in layers. One object means something and that to something else. The mystic and the real collide here and something magical happens, or at least something really beautiful. To follow this experience was another great insight into Thai culture. Yesterday was not only the full moon but Loi Gratong.

Loi Gratong by Chaokoh (The Islanders)

November, full moon night,the tide is
high on the river bank. Boys and girls
and the gang come on enjoy Loi Gratong

Loi-loi Gratong, Loi-loi Gratong,
LoiGratong Thailand, The Islanders band
comes LoiGratong.

Ram Wong- Loi Gratong, Ram Wong -
Loi Gratong, donc..da..di..donc we're all
enjoy, donc..da..di..donc, we're all happy

Winai Kwunyeun
Chaokoh

Loi Gratong is a day where the people of Thailand pray for forgiviness from the river god. They float beautiful arrangements of flowers and bread down the river with candles and incense. There is also a big festival with a ton of people, food and dancing. This was such a neat experience especially because there were not many foreigners there. We were given the translation of that song from the musicians who played it. I really loved to see the Thai girls dancing, it was so colourful and elegant.

Ping-pongs anyone?

2005-11-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

Two nights ago, after a two-hour Thai massage ( here is a correction because I guess it depends on where you go, that you get your breasts massaged or not, at this place you do. The lady giggled and said "so nice...I don't have") we decided to check out Patpong. This is the historic red-light district of Bangkok and everyone I have talked to has talked about the freaky sex-shows that they have there. One of those things that you go to experience and never do again.
Well that pretty much sum's it up. There is also an extensive night market selling fake and rip-off everything. As you walk down the market you are approached by men who shove a list in your face and say "sexy-show, banana-show, ping-pong show"
So after we had finished shopping and eating we dared the "show".
Our guide book warned us about the places claiming no-cover charge and are instead huge money-suckers.
We thought that we were going for a bar that avoided this but of course we were almost robbed. What we saw was some very bored dancing thai's and "shows" that were more awkward and bazaaro than a turn-on. I don't know, darts just don't do it for me. But it was an 'experience'.

A day on Thai-time

2005-11-14T22:15:00.000-08:00

Today we had planed to go to the Grand Palace and we choose to walk because it is not too far away. On the way we were had by our first scam. A woman and a guy came up to us and started talking then poured corn seed in our hands to feed the pigeons. it was so sly and we tried to walk away but no chance. As soon as we tried to leave and the pigeons were gone they demanded 150 bhat each for a few small bags of corn! That is like $3 american and far too expensive considering most small meals are 20-40 bhat. I went to dgive him 5 bhat and he got so mad when we walked away he threw it on the ground...i didn't look back to see him pick it up again. We were scamed but Dan reluctantly gave them 40 bhat---they were not happy but too bad. We made it too the Grand Palace but by the time that we got there it was almost closed so we decided to take the water Taxi to Chinatown. This is a very interesting, cheap and fast way to travel. Here I had my first experience with a crouching toilet---confusing but i figured it out. We then got shoddy directions to the oldest Chinese temple but never did make it there--or find it for that matter. We ended up at the Golden Buddha Wat but just as it closed. However an Indian man made me a delicious roti-type bread/crape thing with egg, sugar, banana and condensed milk mmmmmmm that was sooo good. So we wondered around trying to find the next water taxi port but instead got quite lost. The bad news was that it was getting dark in an unknown part of the city, the good news was that we were able to see the real Bangkok, where the people live and eat, it was a bit scary but very interesting. It was grungy but not dirty, crowded but not claustrophobic. and the people eventually guided us to the way we needed. On the river taxi home we saw these really cool lit up boat floats and now we had planned to go to Patpong ( the red-light district) to check out what that is all about but it's already quite late and we haven't eaten in a while so maybe we will not quite make it there either. This brings me to explain that today we were on Thai-time. Apparently the Thais have a very lax view of deadlines and appointments, so if they say they will meet you at 1:00 you can expect them after 2. So today we were on Thai-time and were too late for pretty much everything... oh well at least we have tomarrow. We did buy an alarm clock after all.

To the now

2005-11-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

(from the beginning start from the bottom)

So here i am in a very stuffy internet cafe writing to you. Street sounds, whurring fan, sticiky, wonderful. Yesterday we had our first adventure with the tok tok (small motercycle taxi) we went to three temples one of the very tall standing buddah and also the lucky buddah. before we went we got to see a parade for some sort of holiday , we have no idea for what but it was really cool to see and hear the different music and dances and performances. Very cool.
We were worned about the tok toks and how they can cheat you very easially. However for more than 2 hours we got free transport with the catch of two stops. The drivers get special gas vochers if they drop off tourists at stores that support the drivers. so basically you have to look around and pretend to be interested for 5-10 mineutes then leave and get the rest of your ride. Not bad but not for all the time to get around.

Today we went to the weekend market. That was really cool. It was a maze of tiny shops inside and outside. When it rained we went in and tried not to get too dripped on by the leaking roof. When it was sunny there was so much to eat and see outside. I bought a few things: silk scarf, bracelets, wallet, not that there was a lack of interesting things to buy, but quite the opposite. There lies the delema of Thai shopping. There is about 1000 of each thing and all in different colours and designs so for me i just get too overwhelmed and can't decide. Also there is the bargining factor, yes its pretty cheap already but how much should i settle for? Some vendors wouldn't even bargin with me, through not the lack of trying they would only give me a relitivly small discount. oh well i have 6 months to figure this out. After going to the market we went to MBK a huge 6 floor shopping mall and i didn't even buy anything, mostly because in comparison to the market the prices were much higher.
Soon we will be leaving for Chaing Mai but there is still lots to see in Bangkok yet. The full moon is on the 16th.
My next post will be soon. Oh i think that we are 15 hours ahead, its 10:10 pm here and 6:10 am for you guys.
miss you all!
lots of love....Breanne

P.S.
we havn't been able to figure out how to put the pictures right on my site but you acan view all the ones we have been able to upload on the flickr site that is connected to this page.

ok here we go

2005-11-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry that i havn't updated anyone yet but this is my first time on the internet even. Things have been so busy and crazy its insane ( in a very good way )

Well i did write in my travelers diary (thanks mom) so here are those posts.

Surreal: a day of first days indeed.

2005-11-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

Its incrediable how alive and colourful this place is. Its amazing that a place can be enthusistic and peaceful all at once. We slept in (not suprising) and by the time we were organized we went for lunch , then came the rain. And oh did it rain! When it rains here it doesn't screw around. Flashes of light so close and the thundersometimes even making me jump and definatley making me smile. Then there is the food, such amazing tasty food!

Today:
Noodle soup
BBQ banana
Young coconut
Thai Sweet Pancake
Fresh pinapple----( as i'm re-writing this i am craving one and i just might get one on
the way to bed :)
Veggies and pork on rice

I can't wait to try more. We met two really cool Austrailians, they were very nice. However what topped my day was the one hour Thai full body massage. --FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!---
and no cathy- they do not massage your breasts. Best $4 ever spent, for sure. I feel so good right now its ridiculous. I could try to tell you but i know that you wouldn't be able to understand.

Touchdown: The realization

2005-11-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

Slept almost the whole way from Seoul to Bangkok. Fortunately our bags showed up, unfortunately i want to kick myself in the ass for packing WAY too much. right away i know that i have to ship stuff back-- the cab driver actually fell-over when lifting the boehiemith. Walking out of the airport doors the humidity hits you like a slap ing the face, then it crawls in and latches onto your boneslike an infants grip on your finger.

"Weolcum to Khao San Ro' . Happy Thailand! Is this honeymoon?"

$16 for 2 nights at a clean guesthouse w/ a/c hot shower and a washroom. I fell asleep and woke up to the whurring climaxes of gears shifting.
I also woke up to the realization of my dream. Me and my man in the land of the free. Wow so this is what it feels like to get something that you really really want. Indescribable.

Day One: and so it begins...is this real?

2005-11-09T18:01:00.000-08:00

By ear: No one knows (Queens of the stone age)

Of course I didn't sleep last night. Even still my bags are a combined 60lbs----booooo! And now after a nap on the plane i fly over the pacific. I tried watching bewitched in Korean....something something "scrambled eggs"....Is all I got. My ass is very numb (5 hours sitting) and i gotta pee but i'm sandwitched in the middle row by sleepingbodies, i'm seriously sardinified. It's ok chocolate will get me through mmmmmmmmmm....

This is me

2005-11-05T00:58:00.000-08:00