Phil and Julia Tackle the Globe

We're Fixin To Take This Hootinanny to Another Barn

2009-11-22T01:25:00.000-08:00

This is the last blog entry on our Asia trip. Please refrain from crying. After our awesome snorkeling boat trip through the Similan Islands, we spent one rainy day on the mainland and decided to head back out asap to another island chain north of the Similans called the Surin Islands. We don't have any pictures to add because of camera issues that forced us to buy a disposable underwater one. Hopefully we can get those on cd and treat you shortly. After all the people we met who have been really nice to email us some of their pictures along the way (mostly European/Asian/Australian save the Boulder group in Chiang Mai--hoo rah), we didn't meet anyone who took an abundance of digital pictures at the Surin Islands. Besides day travelers and a few campers, the "island hippies," or folks who somehow find a way to sustain themselves while living in arguably the most beautiful, primitive yet habitable set of islands this side of the Mississippi (which side is up to you), are the camera-less people we got to know. Alas, I can use my skilled, Tom Robbins-esque prose to paint you readers a picture of the paradise where we left our pale skin and work ethic for the reef sharks to feast.

The only way to reach the Surin Islands is by speed boat which normally takes an hour unless you're battling the two meter swells that claimed the excited smiles of half the snorkelers on board within twenty minutes. We took it surprisingly well considering my history with seasickness...nasty. Anyway, two bumpy hours later we arrived at our first snorkel spot filled with coral gardens that rolled and peaked and fanned with about every color possible, and under these corals were usually a grouper or two, a box fish, a puffer fish, a moray eel, giant clams, lobsters, or Nemo, or all of them together. I saw two reef sharks, one on each of the first two dives, from a distance further than at the Similan Islands where two meters between you and a shark is going to ruin your breath holding even if they don't have huge teeth. Our underwater digital couldn't hack it with the sharks, so you'll just have to believe me. They were HUGE adolescent sharks...

Everyone saw a banded sea snake except for me. I'm not terribly upset about that except that I have FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out, disorder (as quoted by the Boulder folk Vicky) when it comes to seeing things in the ocean. Banded sea snakes can kill you in about five minutes if you get bit between the fingers, toes, or ear lobe. The Thai guys said they would just start digging a hole for me if I encountered one. Speaking of snakes, we were having a birthday celebration with some British guys while playing Whist with a Twist and came about two feet from stepping on a 3.5 meter python. For those of you who don't speak metric system, that's 11.5 feet. Enough to take me down as an appetizer.

Julia and I did about 8 snorkel trips on the local longtail boats. We started out planning to stay at the Surins for three days and two nights, but after one day we knew it was too awesome to leave in under five days. That happens to some folks, the island hippies, who, ten years later, are still addicted to the islands and think there are still places to see and animals to find underwater. It ended up being cheaper to stay there in our tent on a peninsula waking up to clear water, a long white sand beach in the middle of a bay surrounded by monkey, snake, eagle-inhabiting jungles than it was to stay on the mainland of Khao Lak with a half decent beach and overpriced bungalows. However, if you are going to either the Similans or the Surin Islands, you leave for both places from Khao Lak and you should stay at the Happy Lagoon Bungalows.

After five days of snorkeling all day and eating too much curry and fish, we had to leave. But we befriended the local Thai guys who kept us entertained with an amateur fire show or two and constant jokes and smiles. I HIGHLY suggest going to the Surin Islands if you are looking for a slightly low-budget getaway and have any interest in snorkeling or diving.

We're back in loud Bangkok now getting ready for the flight tomorrow, which will officially end our Asia Adventure. This has been the greatest trip and most rewarding experience I've ever had, especially with such an incredibly responsible, fun, and adventurous traveling partner without whom I'd probably still be looking for half of my lost items. I'm looking forward to getting back to the States but it will most likely be like taking a jack hammer to my stomach trying to adjust back to American food during Thanksgiving. It will be worth it. I love cranberry sauce. I dream about it. And oysters....and turkey.....and stuffing.....and ham... and post Thanksgiving sammiches....

Goodbye Asia. You have taken my wallet, three cameras, my ipod, Julia's ipod, my driver's license (why did I have that anyway??), Harry Potter 7, an inflatable pillow, a dry bag, countless umbrellas, and a large quantity of blood via mosquitoes, but you gave us the best memories, introduced us to the coolest of cool people and spared us Dengue fever. Thank you and goodnight.

Paradise

2009-11-15T20:25:00.000-08:00

Just a quick blog post with some pictures from our latest adventure, a three day "liveaboard" trip to the Similan Islands- one of the top snorkeling/diving sites in the world. As the name suggests, we live on the boat and snorkeled pretty much all day every day and saw the most amazing corals/fish/sea creatures... Pictures below! (due to multiple camera issues on this trip, these pictures were taken by other trip members...)

sunset on a beach stop

crystal clear water
fishes
swam with sea turtles... a lifelong dream come true

Hope this doesn't make those of you in the cold northlands too jealous... we'll be back there in one short week. Until then!

When I Get Married I Want... A Moving Platform Stage.

2009-10-31T02:56:00.000-07:00

Being back in Viet Nam has been an absolute blast. For those of you who didn't know, I studied here four years ago in a city called Can Tho, which is the largest city in the Mekong Delta in southern Viet Nam. Out of our two short weeks visiting Viet Nam, one was spent in Can Tho visiting friends and my host family and we were fortunate enough to be invited to my host sister's wedding which was last weekend.

The week leading up to the wedding was spent doing what is best to do in Can Tho: Sitting by the river, eating delicious food, drinking coffee with friends, and going to karaoke at 10 in the morning (yes, complete with beer). This final activity was a little unexpected as we were helping out with my host mother's english class at 8 am and her students wanted to take us around. To karaoke. At 10 in the morning. When in Viet Nam?

Can Tho seems a lot bigger than it did four years ago, but many of my favorite places are still there, which is nice to know. Had my pho from my favorite restaurant, found my old apartment, ate com tam with my friend Thao, it was awesome.

Phil is taking over here and talk about the wedding...

I love weddings. I've only been to a few in my life but this one was something I've been waiting to see ever since I saw The Wedding Singer and experienced those '80s weddings on film. Start with the 1980's, throw in a fashion show, an Irish drinking team, and just a pinch of figure skating and you have yourself a Vietnamese wedding. It's amazing. The three to five days-long celebration starts with the real ceremony, which Julia's family did in their church because the bride is Catholic with mainly just family, so we didn't see that. We saw the bride in about six different dresses during the course of ceremonies. Hopefully some of them were rentals, but they were all very bright and original. The ao yai dresses are the traditional ones with a combination of dress and pants, each designed individually and accompanied with a circular hat. Very nice looking. Julia can explain more about these if she likes.

The rehearsal dinner at their house the night before the first "wedding party" was the bride's family and friends taking pictures, people talking on a microphone and making us drink. The bride has something like 8 uncles on her mother's side, 5 or 6 on her father's side and when I introduced myself as Phil they heard "Beer" so my name was Beer for the rest of the weekend. They took that to mean I liked beer and every one of them would fill my glass and say "100 percent", one of the few things I learned to say in Vietnamese. After a few glasses of culturally ceremonial drink, which I couldn't turn down without appearing culturally insensitive of course, we prepared ourselves for the next morning.

The following morning was surprisingly more of the same as the previous night. As the three hundred plus people herded inside we experienced the rushed and frenetic course of a wedding ceremony. I have no idea what happened in what order it all happened so quickly. Around 10 AM we were sitting then we were drinking beer and shouting "YO!" and then there was an MC on a bright stage leading the music to which six hotel dancers/servers dressed up in faux wedding dresses and tuxes cut like back up dancers to a Brittney Spears concert danced as an intro for the bride and groom. Here comes the fashion show side. The stage starts moving. Out of the stage comes a moving platform with a red carpet and it extends to the middle of the room and the parents of the bride and groom come through the giant, veiled heart adorned with flowers and confetti to the cheers of the crowd. Then the parents of the groom do the same. The bride's father says some words on the mic and people cheer more. The bride and groom come out after and everyone goes wild like they were at a Snoop Dogg show, except no one danced except for the hired dancers. The bride and groom stepped onto the moving platform and it carried them to the stage while The Final Countdown (American 80's song) played. Confetti guns were shooting over them. Pink and white balloon columns were rising into the ceiling and popping like fireworks. Smoke machines filled the stage with mist. The bride and groom poured some wine in a tower of glasses, said some more words, and cut their fake cake before moving around to the hundred different tables to receive the toasts of each table. Uproars of "Mo, hai, ba, YO!" (one, two, three, CHEERS!) were all I really heard the rest of the time over the music and piles of food cooking at the centerpiece hot pot. The uncles found me and Julia and shoved the glasses of Tiger beer in my face with "Beer, drink beer, one hundred percent.."

Julia and the bride, her host sister, Tu

After the wedding, Julia's host mom's English students, whom we taught once, took us out to Karaoke again. Another American showed up with opera-like skills singing a popular Vietnamese song that got the English class hootin and hollerin quite a bit. The students ordered fruit (pomellos, green mango eated with salt and pepper for the ying yang effect), french fries (served with chili sauce and sugar), noodles, and Heineken. They never once let us pay for something when we hung out with them. We ate more ban xeo that night, the pancake dish with minced pork and veggies inside, eaten with fish sauce and peppers. It's addictive.

All of Julia's host sistersKaraoke with the students

The following morning was the groom's ceremony. We were told to get to the bride's family's house at 5:30 AM to await the groom's family arrival, but they were late. So at 7:00 they came in the flowered bus and car and commenced the traditional giving of gifts to the bride's family in return for, well, their daughter. The picture shows the gift receiving by the bride's side (Julia was included in the receiving line), who eventually gave back half of them as a further way of thanking them - perhaps for driving to their house. Everyone jumped in the tour bus and we made our way an hour and a half outside the city to the groom's family's house in a rural area with a path far too narrow for a bus or car, only motorbikes. So the party jumped into two boats which took us down the serene creek to their house. One of my most memorable moments will be the groom's father, probably about sixty or so, standing on the bow of the boat in his nicest gray suit guiding the boat through trees and bushes and docking the long boat perfectly on the shore of their house without getting dirty or wet.

The gift giving by the groom's family to the bride's family

This party was much more laid back without moving stages and dancers. Just a quick Buddhist ceremony, a few pictures, and binge eating/drinking for an hour and a half. Everyone in the family made a certain dish for the party and it was all incredible, including fried venison, which I hadn't had since the US. The eating and frequent visits from the uncles with more 100% chants went by so fast I really didn't even touch the final course of the meal before being guided back into the boat, but not before another uncle jumped in the boat with more rice wine just to make the boat ride go more smoothly. The tour bus back was rowdy to say the least. I just wish I knew what the uncles were saying while they were rolling on the floor laughing (rofl in AIM lingo).

On the way to the grooms house. Notice the groom's father standing in the front. The grandmother behind me was my favorite by far. She downed a 100% like a college student.

The groom's aunt cooking venison over a hot pot. Not enough time to cook even half the plate of venison, which in my family is a sin.

Julia's host mother.

About Can Tho: Our guest house had a dog named Cool Beans, or at least it sounded like Cool Beans, and I came to like him a lot. He came into our room often and always played when we got home. We tried to go rollerskating once with one of Julia's friends and found ourselves in the middle of a punk rocker skater club where people just run into other people at full speed on purpose. The also didn't have bigger than a size 9 skate so I didn't last long. Walking around Can Tho and Soc Trang was interesting considering the lack of foreigners so we were often looked at frequently. Actually, it was just Julia who was gawked at constantly with her blond hair. I got the best hair cut I've ever had and a straight razor shave for the first time. I never knew how many places on my head I could grow hair that someone could see.. I went back for a second shave before the wedding and a different person shaved me against the grain. PAIN!

Cool Beans

I'm going to stop there and Julia will talk more about the rest of Vietnam from here on.

So, after Can Tho, we headed to Soc Trang to visit my friend Dao who has moved there with her husband and they showed us around this little, awesome city where we didn't see another foreigner. It was awesome. She took us to visit both her husbands family and her family and then took us to one of my most favorite restaurants that I remember from studying abroad. I couldn't remember where the restaurant was and given the difficulty in finding it, I thought that I would never see it again, but Dao remembered how much I liked it and led us back there again through the alleys and over little bridges. It was an awesome restaurant where you cook your own beef on a pot of coals at the table and then make mini spring rolls out of them. It was so awesome to be there again.

Dao and her husband in Soc Trang eating coal-pan-fried beef rolled into a spring role. HOT DANG it was good!

After Soc Trang, we headed to Vung Tao, which is a beach city about 60 km south of Ho Chi Minh City. There, we stayed with my friend Diu (pronounced 'you') who is also recently married and her and her husband have an awesome house on top of a hill. We only met the husband for a minute before he was off on a business trip, but Diu showed us the most wonderful time cooking us delicious meals, showing us the way to the beach, and lending us bicycles so we could have a look around town. It was a great intro beach vacation and a good way to work on our base tans before heading to the beaches of Thailand.

Vung Tao beach at sunset. You might be able to see a gigantic Jesus tower on the hill in the distance.

Julia's friend Diu was a great host, along with her aunt

Then from Vung Tao to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where we met up for an awesome buffet dinner with my old program director and the current abroad students from my old program. Then we -amazingly- met up with two of my really good friends from CC, Nancy and Maura, who were heading down Viet Nam and were in the same city for the same two days we were. Spent the day with them going to the war remnants museum and the market and some other sights. Also coinciding with our trip to HCM, the Asia Indoor Games were being hosted by Viet Nam so that night we were able to find out where a Futsal (essentially a mini version of indoor soccer) game was being played. Japan played Tajikistan and gave them a whoopin. We also ate some M&Ms, it being Halloween after all, and went out to enjoy some of the festivities. A great way to wrap up our fantastic time in Viet Nam.

Now, it's back to Chiang Mai for a week to enjoy Loi Krathong (the river/lantern festival) and visit friends before heading south. We hope to be able to post a few more times in the three short weeks left!

Mot, hai, ba, YO!

Vientiene -> 4,000 Islands -> Siem Reap -> Phnom Penh -> Can Tho

2009-10-20T01:40:00.000-07:00

Yikes this trip is going by fast! Not sure if it's all the travel or the amount of countries or how much we do every day but either way, time is flying and we have seen a ton. I will do my best to recap, but my end up putting in the picture highlights.

We spent a relaxing two days in Vientiane- there's not a lot to do in Vientiane besides visit some beautiful Wats and wander around and eat delicious French food, which we treated ourselves to and it was amazing. We couldn't get over eating with a knife! And cloth napkins! It was really fun.

Wat Sisaket in Vientiane where we lit some incense for my late step Grandma MelWat Mikai at sunset

Then, we hopped on a bus around 8 pm on our last day to head overnight to the islands. The sleeper bus was suprisingly comfortable, but then, we weren't paired up with the large, smelly, snoring man like a friend of ours was. As a nice break up to our trip we stopped for a day in 4,000 Islands, an area in the South of Laos where the Mekong gets very wide and is scattered with -you guessed it- about 4,000 Islands. We easily found a little bungalow along the river, complete with hammocks, for less than two dollars and spent the afternoon biking around the islands to a waterfall. The waterfall was nice, but my favorite part was the bike ride because these islands are seemingly not to corrupted by tourism and many people are going about their daily lives living along the river. It was really neat to see.

our not-too-shabby view from the bungalow in 4,000 Islands

From 4,000 Islands, we headed to the border with Cambodia and hopped on another all day bus to Siem Reap to spend time visiting the Temples of Angkor Wat. We bought a three-day pass to the temples. The first day we rented bikes and visited the main temple of Angkor Wat (which is the largest religious building in the world), and started to see Angkor Thom before a big storm rolled in and we had to head home, but not before we snapped these shots:

Angkor Wat at sunset

The second day, we hired a tuk tuk (a motorbike with a cart on the back) to take us to some of the temples that were further away. We had an amazing time visiting some of the more remote temples and took a hike up to Kbai Spean, where the ancients actually carved the bottom of one of the rivers to bless the waters heading into their cities. Unfortunately, the storms made the water a little too murky to see much, but it was a beautiful hike all the same. Then more temples.

Asparas, the goddess-nymphs decorating almost all of the temples at Angkor

The third day we were back on our bikes to visit some more of the famous ones. It was hot, but it was another great full day of temple-ing and being awed by these stone creations. Each temple was unique and absolutely beautiful. Our pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. Siem Reap is also a really great city to hang out in for a few days and we had a surprise meet-up with some of our friends from the spicy hostel. Good times all around. (We have a million amazing pics and there's just not enough web space for them all...)

a sample of the intricate carvings on the walls

say cheese

From Siem Reap we hopped on another bus to Phnom Penh. There, we had a sobering day visiting the Killing Fields and the S-21 genocide museum where people were tortured under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. We were exposed to the horrendous recent events in the countries history and did our best to pay respect to the victims.

That night, we had the famous Me Cha (no idea how to spell this one... but it's a delicious noodle dish with meat and egg and veggie made differently all over) and Phil invited a kid begging to eat with us. Given the voracity of his appetite, we hoped that was the best thing for him and were left feeling good about that small effort but daunted by how many kids in Cambodia need a good meal in them.

The day after Phenom Penh, we hopped on yet another bus which took us to a boat, which took us to another boat and we were in Viet Nam! We were dropped off in Chau Doc, got a little ripped off for the first time on a bus ticket, and made it to Can Tho, where I studied abroad four years ago. We've already been to my host families house where we had a delicious lunch and time with them. It's SO good to see them again, and it's such a good time to be here because they are all home for the wedding of my oldest host sister, which we will be attending on Saturday. It feels good to be back in Viet Nam and Can Tho, although it's taking a little while to figure out where everything is again, but it's really fun.

I want to give a quick props to Phil for his knack for languages, well, at least South East Asian languages. He knows Thai very well and because he knew a little of the northern Thai dialect, he was able to pick up the essential Laos phrases as well. Then, after two days in Cambodia he was able to compliment people on their cooking and say some other conversational phrases. (Now that we're in Viet Nam, I've realized how much of the language I've forgotten and I'm pretty sure Phil will be even with me in a few days.) It's been awesome traveling with him.

Ok, more after my host sister's wedding!

(check below for more pics from Laos!)

Laos Laos, rao rao!

2009-10-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

We just made it to Vientiane from Vangvieng! The past three days have seemed like an entire year, full of activities and being outdoors. In Luong Prabang, we stayed in a hostel called “Spicylaos”, which is currently managed by my friend from ISDSI (she was a Chiang Mai student working with ISDSI, same year). There is a Spicythai also in Chiang Mai, which I never saw but we may stay there when we go back to CM. Another CM graduate, who is an incredible guy, started the Spicy hostels. So I haven’t told you everything about Luong Phabang yet:

LP is supposed to be the ethnic center of Laos because it is situated right on the Mae Kong river, and it’s a smaller town. We were there for the end of Buddhist Lent, so there was a parade and ceremony of floating these boats and these little banana trunk flower floater things. The fireworks were out of control, literally. My friend, who was guiding everyone from the hostel around all night, got burned on her arm from one of those small exploding ones that people were just throwing into the street during the parade. My ears were ringing from a few going off near me. It was fun regardless. Good beer here. Beer Laos is the monopoly of brands in Laos, and it tastes much better than Thai beer. We all went to a waterfall outside of the city that was by far the prettiest waterfall I’ve ever been to. The limestone rocks make the normally muddy looking river water look crystal clear, and it formed some of the coolest shelves to explore, caves under the water fall, etc. Most tourists there went down to this jumping spot at the bottom, but three of us went to an upper waterfall jumping area where no one was because it’s hidden. I couldn’t take any pictures with Julia’s camera because you had to climb under a scarily gigantic waterfall to get there. So Luong Phabang was very nice and relaxing. Of the three whole days we spent there, one of them was spent walking around the city looking at these incredible temples built into rocks and caves and the National Museum, which is the old palace. We met a large group of English, Irish, and Australians who have been staying in the same hostels and when we went down to Vangvieng they were already at the hostel again.

J with her birthday Buddah (the one for the day she was born)

Banana trunk flower floater things. We attached sparklers and incense

Bravery from the one afraid of heights.

Spicylaos opened another hostel in Vangvieng the day before we got there, so their opening party was the night we arrived. A monk blessing ceremony for an hour and a half was followed by free food and drink. It’s weird how you somehow join these hostel communities, but it has been extremely entertaining so far. Yesterday everyone (about fifteen of us) went tubing down a river bordering Vangvieng, which is the main attraction for the town. I wasn’t such a big fan of the city just because there were more tourists than citizens it seemed, but the tubing was something out of a dream. The starting place is a bar that has a giant swing and you just go from one activity area to another activity area doing whatever activity they have if you want. These swings swung you by your hands thirty or forty yards out and you could drop whenever you wanted. There was mud volleyball at one place; mud up to your shins. That was the most painful thing of the day. Another place had a giant slide, the biggest swing, and an extremely long zipline. The slide may have been as painful because it launches you thirty or so feet into the water. The zipline was fast and dropped you about fifteen feet at fifteen miles per hour I’m guessing. The swing was amazing although we saw a girl hurt herself pretty bad because she didn’t know what she was doing and she dropped from the highest point possible instead of swinging two or three times to get lower.

This giant slide launches you too high, too far, and too fast, forcing perfect form. Though it appears so, I do not have said perfect form.

The first giant swing

So yesterday was a lot of fun but we are resting tonight. Today we traveled from Vangvieng to Vientiane by kayak half of the way through some rapids and calm parts of the river. We stopped for lunch of a baguette, fried rice, and chicken kabobs at a place with a “10” meter cliff jumping spot, although I think it was smaller than that.

Cliff jumping

Lunch spot kayaking from Vangvieng to Vientiane

Now we are thinking about what we’re going to do tomorrow in the city and whether we’ll stay for two nights or just one before heading South on the bus to Four Thousand Islands, which are islands on the MaeKong river on the border of Cambodia. We may or may not do this depending on how long it will take to get to Siem Riep for Ankor Wat.

Not too well written I know but we’re on a tight schedule! More to come, and more pictures to come too when we have faster internet!

2009-10-03T01:41:00.000-07:00

It's our last day in Chiang Mai, so I thought I'd throw one out there. If you like it, right on, if you don't, throw it right back at me.

Two weeks ago...(sorry)... we went down to a farming town called Mae Ta, which is about an hour and a half South of Chiang Mai by truck. On my study abroad two years ago we studied Agroecology there for two weeks and another week in a town called Phang. My host parents in Mae Ta were kind of like Cheese on Cheese crackers. That's how awesome they were (and all you Wisconsin folk know what I'm sayin). My Mae Ta host mom's name is Mae Boasai, and I just this time found out my pop's name was Poh Sorn, who recently showed up in a farming magazine for having top-of-the-line organic pumpkins or some vegetable. Their situation is pretty dreamy for anyone with a farming interest..

About 10 years ago, Mae Boasai and Poh Sorn were farming their three "rie" (about half an acre) of land Mae Boasai inherited from her father. They used the standard amount of chemicals in their farming practices, fertilizers, a few pesticides, herbicides, etc. One rie was devoted to vegetable farming, and two were rice paddy fields.. She was in debt up to her eye balls and decided to make the switch, knowing the first few years were going be as successful as the Lion's last two years. So she stopped using all chemicals, started making compost from her rice stalks, animal manure, and fruit juice, and avoided the bank for a while. The first year she produced "less than half" of her normal amount of produce, from what I understood, so she had to buy more food, further herself in debt. The second year she produced maybe three quarters of the normal amount of food because the soil was so reliant on the input of chemicals that it couldn't function well on its own, even with a little compost help. The good part about this year though was that she saved a lot of money not buying those chemicals so she wasn't really putting herself in debt more. The third year she produced about the same amount of veggies, fruit, and rice as she had previously with fertilizers and chemicals (and this is the two late forty-year olds working by themselves). She was able to start paying off her debt and looking into organic markets to sell her stuff. There are two markets in Chiang Mai to which she and a few of her town friends commute twice a week to sell their organic certified food. Now she has 7 rie of land and is in the process of buying more. Movin on up!

The ride to Mae Ta with Mae Boasai

We met Mae Boasai at one of the markets on a Wednesday morning because our volunteer schools got canceled for a few days, unfortunately, courtesy of the Bangkok police. Usually I help her sell if she's not already sold out, which happens a lot, eat some Northern Thai food ("nam preek nam boo" super spicy chili paste with crushed crab, bamboo shoots, sauteed veggies with pork...), and peace out. But since we didn't know how else to get back to Mae Ta from the market, we just hitched a ride with the group, all six of whom were riding back in a single truck. This truck was loaded completely with their empty crates, and the front cab was full of people, so Julia, Mae Boasai and I sat in the back on two very skinny wooden slates basically on the edge of the bed. However uncomfortable the hour and a half long ride along and through mountains was, it allowed us to experience yet another local means of traveling. Mae Boasai somehow fell asleep while bumping along with her head banging on crates in front of her.

Through the mountains.Naptime

Remember to honk when you turn the corner!

Last time I was in Mae Ta it was the rice harvesting season, so helping on the farm was the most back aching labor I've ever done. You spend the whole day hunched over cutting rice with your scythe, and, if you're lucky, you know someone in the village who brews homemade rice whiskey to relieve said aches. This time of year is just veggie harvesting and planting so Julia and I helped spread seeds and manure and compost, pick a few veggies just for dinner, and went fishing for cat fish and brim in one of their ponds. That was a new type of fishing for me too; you thrown the grain and food into the pond, and drop a hooked worm directly into the fish's mouth. We caught a bucket full and fried them for dinner. That night and all through the next day torrential rain flooded the town and the river going through it to triple the river's size causing multiple base levels of houses to be flooded and taking out tens of rie of rice. Luckily all of Mae Boasai's land was flood proof (of course, she's a genius). When we checked out the river in the morning, all the bugs and critters were climbing to the top of rice stalks for dear life, a few of which were scorpions. Most people were immersed in the flooding water with their nets catching crabs. Julia and I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon shoveling out sand that had flown from driveways into the gutter, clogging it. We helped the next door neighbor shuck their baby corn heap for another hour, but huge rain storms mean no work for most.

Supper, arroy
Mae Ta, bordered by rolling mountains. Looks like the Smoky Mountains of Appalachia, don't it?On this road to the farm, the river is straight ahead, but it shouldn't be.
Some of the flooding on the main roadFlies and insects flee the flash flood, this is a scorpion
Poh Sorn and IBaby Corn
Moving sand back into the driveway

Mae Boasai's recent developments since two years ago consist of a new large screen t-v, two new bathrooms with showers (big step considering last time I showered out of a bucket), and a methane biodigester. She and Poh Sorn put the poo into this hole, you see, and then they have free fuel. It's so easy. Later Julia and I went to the local school to check it out and a group of students were playing a game similar to bowling where they throw a ball into a stack of tops and if they knock it over, one team scatters and the other team tries to tag them with the ball before they can build the tops back up. I gotta say it looked really entertaining. We ate more grilled fish and Mae Boasai killed one of her chickens for us that night. I won't get into how she killed it but I've never seen it done like that before. We took a songtow (truck taxi) back through Lampun and into Chiang Mai for work on Friday. In all, Mae Ta is really awesome, and the town has developed somewhat since a higher percentage has turned organic. It's real proof that organic farming lessens your dependence on others and, when done correctly, can be extremely profitable.

School Kids playing

Methane biodigester: put the poo in the little blue part, the gas rises and they cook with it.

Now it's our last day in Chiang Mai, and, though it's supposed to be the exact day ending the rainy season, it's been pouring for two days and looks like the typhoon that hit the Philippines and the new one that is heading towards South East China is finally catching up with us. Could put in for a rainy next month to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. We're leaving tomorrow for Laos! We'll be there for a little while, then head to Ankor Wat in Cambodia, then towards Southern Vietnam for a few weeks. Should be interesting so we'll do our best to keep up the blog! Peace in the SE...

"Words want to be free"

2009-09-28T02:03:00.000-07:00

Well, this week was our last week teaching! I would say it was very bittersweet. It was fine leaving the Thai school where we worked part time, but it was very very hard to say goodbye to our students at the organizations where we were volunteering. We have both grown really attached to our students there and it was very hard to say goodbye to them, especially because their situation here in Thailand is precarious. But, we can't say too much more about that here... so I'll talk about English teaching in general:

My Saturday classes (at GEE, which Phil has talked about previously) were crazy- I had one class of 7-9 year olds and one class of 4-6 year olds. So, needless to say, it took a lot of energy. The 7-9 year old class was pretty good. We usually worked from the book and then played some games at the end of class, which they liked. They were always askin "Teacher, Teacher, play game!?!" and so I liked to indulge them once and a while. But the 4-6 year old class was pure chaos. I haven't learned nearly enough Thai to tell them to "sit down, sush your mouths, and listen for five minutes and then we can run around like crazy". Nope, never learned that. So, instead it was just running around like crazy time all the time. Which was fine, I just got a little worried when the running got a little out of hand and they started biting and kicking each other. That's when Teacher had to put on her mean face and, luckily, that is understood in all languages. I also teach a few other classes- one of which is a private class to a 6 year old girl who is off her rocker. Crazy and wild, but we have a pretty good time together.

the front of our GEE shirts say "words want to be free"
and that is exactly what we were doing-freeing words like 'over' and 'family'

This week I also finished up another class for GEE which was a class of 30 10-12 year olds. I would go there for two hours almost every afternoon for three weeks. It was pretty fun because they were relatively well behaved and we got to do a lot of silly games and drawing. Then, on the last day I was presented with a big fake orchid flower arrangement and gifts from the kids which included jelly sandwiches and my favorite- a huge piece of notebook paper which I unfolded and unfolded to reveal, in very small writing: "I Love teacher Julia". Oh it made my day.

Teacher Phil and Teacher Julia on a field trip with some of the hooligans from GEE

Aside from teaching for GEE, I also taught Interns and staff at a non-profit organization which is totally run by women. They are amazing and, if you would like to know more about the organization and the awesome work they do, shoot me an e-mail. But I loved teaching these classes. They are all very eager to learn and we have a lot of fun together. The classes are pretty intense, but when we take breaks we head outside and pick star fruit or sugar fruit right off the trees and munch and chat. Plus they invite me to lunch every day and a lot of times teach me to cook with them. It's really great, and I can't get over how wonderful they are. I wish that there was more I could do for them besides teaching and editing their reports and funding proposals.

adorable

I like teaching there the most because it is a very rewarding experience, but it also makes me think that teaching is something I would like to maybe do for real someday. I honestly never thought I'd be teaching English, but there are some things that I really like about it. Like how it's rewarding. And how, for the first time in my life, I am learning English grammar. And how the students can totally surprise you and make you laugh so hard. For example the other day I was reviewing body parts so we could start a health unit about illnesses and health care. When I pointed to my elbow one of the girls shouted out "bus station!" and then shook her head, probably thinking 'oh, no no no, that was wayyyy off'... Or another time I was playing hang man with my 7-9 year olds and most of them chose words like 'cat' or 'dog' and then one busted out the word 'dictionary'. I also really liked writing on the white boards. Especially with new markers...

So, that portion of our trip is now complete... we have a few more days in Chiang Mai, this wonderful city that has become our home, and then we are off onto more adventures! We will definitely keep you posted!

Elephantastic

2009-09-25T01:58:00.000-07:00

Having lived in Chiang Mai for about three months now, and given the fact that Chiang Mai is known for it's eco-tourism, we decided to spend our day off enjoying one of these attractions. We've had plenty of time to research and we decided on a slightly more expensive, but environmentally and animal friendly elephant park. And it was WELL worth the splurge.

This park houses elephants are rescued from either street begging, logging operations, or other bad situations and given the chance to lead a healthier life. Because the Park is trying to let them live as naturally as possible, we didn't get to ride them or see many tricks, but we did get to feed them and play with them and watch them all day.

Plus, we got to hear some amazing stories about these elephants. Here's one of the most heartbreaking about one of the sweetest elephants in the camp, Jokia. She was working in a logging operation, and was forced to work through everything, even while she was giving birth. Born on the trail, the baby fell down the hill and didn't survive. Jokia refused and refused to work because she was so sad and her owner beat her to keep her working. He beat her so hard that she became blind in both eyes. After working this way for a long time, she was finally rescued by this camp. When she was brought in, another of the elephants immediately recognized that she was blind and sort-of "adopted" Jokia. They are never apart and usually are close enough so that Jokia is always aware of what's going on and looked after by the other one.

Amazing huh? So dry your eyes and get ready for some pictures. We took LOADS. Here are some of the highlights:

a single elephant tooth

They eat a lot, a LOT of food. They have to eat 10 percent of their body weight every day, and given the fact that most of them weigh about a ton, this means they spend 18 hours a day chewing. But what's cool is the park uses all seasonal food grown in the surrounding communities, so they are also supporting the hill tribes and communities in the area. Right now (in case you couldn't tell...) it's banana and pumpkin season.

Learning to feed 'emBaby!

love me some elephants

Tong Dee with Mae Tong Dee, the elephant. Chillin.

giving Jokia a bath
Jokia the sweetheartTwo elephants coming back from sneaking across the river for a snack of long grass.
Like I said... always eating.

can't get enough of the babies

a dirt bath for "Elephant Smile" right after the real bath

The pictures can't even do justice to how cute and spunky this little guy was... here he's chewing on my leg.

Needless to say, we were pretty envious of the people spending the night or the week there, but it was an amazing, amazing day and it made us very appreciative.

The End.

Help Me, Ronda

2009-09-14T02:11:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about writing a blog about motorbiking for a while, but I have been too afraid that I'd scare the begeezus out of my mom. However, it has become part of my life, and it is largely the common majority's means of travel. So this has to do with Thai culture and life for us in Chiang Mai.

Ronda and I. Don't let the faded color fool you.

My motorbike's name is Ronda. Red Ronda is her full name. She's a Honda Dream. She has a sticker that says "exces" on her frame, which I find funny because there's nothing "excessive" about Ronda. And I think Honda forgot how to spell "excess". Ronda and I met back at the beginning of July at a motorbike rental shop, though not in front of the shop where all the expensive, shiny new bikes are parked to attract the eye of passersby. My good friend Pi Pae came with me and assisted me in negotiating with the shop owner to let us rent an older one for cheaper than normal (comes out to about $1.87 a day). Ronda was tucked in the back of the shop next to a completely rusted bicycle and half of another motorbike. It was her deep, slightly faded red, beautiful wheels and chipped, scraped, and cracked plastic frame that caught my eye. And no the speedometer didn't work. These trademarks only show her maturity in my eyes. I asked if the bike worked and got a shaky "chai...chai" (yes...yes) back from the owner. "Give me an hour" she said, so I left and came back. Sure enough she was purrin' like a kitten. A kitten with emphasema but, nevertheless, a kitten.

"Dream Exces". Notice underneath it says "..(something)..rter Honda". I like to think it used to say "Smarter Honda".

Ronda didn't hesitate to put me to the test at first acquaintance. Like breaking a young horse, Ronda bucked me off briefly, but only once. I had underestimated her first gear. I won't be fooled again. This reminds me of a spring break trip I took with a few friends to the Bahamas when JJ and I rented mopeds from a guy with a glock tattooed on his arm. JJ soared off his bike on the practice loop in front of a crowd of people waiting to rent them. Ronda didn't treat me that badly. We merely tipped over pretty much at a standstill, but the scratches went unnoticed when I brought her back in due to previous scars.

Ronda and I have been together now for three months. As long as I keep her filled with $3 - $5 worth of fuel a week she doesn't complain, though sometimes she cuts off at stop lights. She is strong enough to take me a solid 30-40 minute drive down the "super highway" to my Burmese school and a 15 minute drive to my Thai school. What's it like to drive down a super highway in Thailand on a motorbike you ask? Motorbikes drive on the left of the solid line of the shoulder. Cars don't usually abide by any speed limit, but there are people pulling out in front of you so often that 80% of cars and motorbikes don't go over 40 mph. Thus, there are about as many highway police cars and speed limit signs as there are teeth in West Virginia (badoom pshh). I've seen one so far. Yesterday I stopped to buy bananas while leaving work, which is in the back of a very quaint village. A tiny woman, probably 90 years old, asked where I was going, and I said home. She asked if I could give her a ride to the front of the village, so she hopped on side-saddle style - all 80 pounds of her. She grabbed my hands and hugged me when I let her off. I knew her for a total of about 4 minutes.

Driving in the city is a mixture of chaos and fluidity. The farong tourists who drive really slowly on the side of the road look as terrified as I did when I started driving because they don't realize that they are in the motorbike lane, not the slow lane. There isn't a slow lane. Once you understand the flow of traffic, things start to make sense. I am a very careful driver, but I have still been knocking on wood this entire entry.

View from the apartment during the afternoon rain today.

The other day at my school I was sitting on a hammock by the pond during a class break and saw a rat the size of a full grown dachshund. By far the biggest I've ever seen. One of my students killed it with a fishing spear. They were happy because it has been eating their veggies and rice.

The rat was under this chair.

Everybody's Workin for the Weekend

2009-09-11T00:59:00.000-07:00

Given the fact both Phil and I teach on Saturday and Sunday, we usually do our weekend things on Thursday and Friday. And this "weekend" was great.

On Thursday, I went with Phil (or Tong Dee) to the farm where he teaches to hang out and help out. In the morning it was too hot to do any real work, so I hung out while Phil taught some past tense and some tongue-twisters, which they loved. Then we had some lunch where I learned to eat with my hands Burmese-style, quite challenging with regular rice as opposed to sticky rice. I would say I was halfway successful whereas Phil is approaching professional status.

Their pet beetle munchin on some sugar cane. Please check out the leash on the horn.

The next tomato crop

After lunch, we were able to help on the farm by turning an old compost pile and making a new one! We did this by using machetes to chop piles of old rice stalks and some water plants into small pieces and alternating layers. It was a great way to put in some hard work, and the resulting blisters on my hands proved that this English teaching gig is turning me into a softie.

takin rice-straw to the house

Phil's students liked the "music" he made with his knife

layering and piling

After the compost was piled and the vegetables progress was inspected and the cows were pet, we went and spent the night with Phil's host family. I'm not sure what else to call them even though they are turning into my host family too. We brought some dinner and then spent the evening playing with Pop, who is becoming quite an accomplished walker as well as dancer.

the farm- so sabai

Phil, Pop, and Poh Thai

The next day, Phil and I went to the market and helped out with some chores before making Kao mon Gai, which translated literally is Chicken with Rice in Oil, and is SO delicious. It's boiled and chopped chicken served over rice that is specially prepared with ginger and garlic and then served with broth and a really spicy chili-ginger sauce. I think I've got the recipe down and will try and re-create it when I get back but it is truly delicious. The secret to the special delicious rice, as I discovered this time, is to mix the dried rice with garlic and ginger, and then stir fry it for about ten minutes before steaming it. It really makes it something special- a little tip for you all making Thai food at home...

Our hard work pays off: kao mon gai, complete with chicken blood (the dark meat in the bowl) and cucumbers sliced to perfection
Me and Pi Poi, after our hard work

Well, that's about it for our days off in the countryside. Now back to Chiang Mai for some more 'Ainglish teachin'- which will probably be the subject of the next entry. Hope all is well with you readers!

Where You Been At, Preposition?

2009-09-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

I took a long unwanted break from Blogger, mostly due to my increased workload at my two schools. As you know, I've been teaching at a Thai school, "Gain English Easily" it's called, part time. Now I teach a variety of folks. A pair of private lessons, one to a 14 year old who's already smart, learns fast, and one who's 23, learning English for the first time and plans to go to the US. I asked him what he'll do when he gets there in 6 months, and he has no idea. Gotta do some work with this one. I also teach a group of nurses who drive for 3 hours from a mountain village called Wiyah Hang to Chiang Mai for an hour and a half class Saturday night and another one Sunday morning. Chiang Mai is the closest place that teaches English. Still, it puts me on my A game so they get as much out of it as possible. They were half an hour late last class because of traffic but I felt so bad I stayed an extra 45 minutes.

My other school is a little different to teach because they don't speak Thai... It's a 30-40 minute commute outside the city on my motorbike to get to the school, which is on a model organic farm. We're covering prepositions right now, which makes me think of Mom flicking me with a towel every time I deliberately ended a sentence with "at" as a youngster. I just added math to my curriculum because currently I am their sole teacher for, well, everything. If I don't go to school they don't go to school. Although this is an unpaid volunteer position, their unfortunate situation helps me spend more time there than in the Thai school. I stay out there with them occasionally to give them some outside contact, as they are currently limited to themselves, their families, and the few laborers that also work at the organic farm. The last time I was able to stay there, we planted beans in the afternoon along this snaking fish "pond" system they have built, and the beans are now about two feet high. The farm is a small organic island in a sea of chemicals (to take a quote from the local sandwich shop here "A shady island in a sea of rice") that is establishing a small-scale fish farm winding through the property. It's incredible what they've built so far: one very large pond that houses a lot of large fish and a dozen ducks (they go into the rice fields in the day and eat the snails that migrate to eat the organic rice), three small stock ponds where they have either cat fish or snake-head fish, and two feet-wide streams coming off the stock ponds that wind back and forth throughout the vegetable plots. The theory is that the fish will be able to live in the smaller stock ponds while being able to travel about the farm eating bugs and vegetable seeds that fall into the streams, and the veggies/fruits planted on the edges of the streams don't need to be watered if they grow so close to the water. There's a thousand fish in there now, who knows if they'll survive when it gets hotter than Hades in those little streams.

I eat lunch every day at the non-Thai school. Today we had chicken curry, an awesome Burmese-style salad with duck eggs, banana flower soup, and some kind of water sprout veggie. Everything but the chicken was from the farm. My students can eat chicken bones, though. Their teeth definitely out-compete my teeth, one of which chipped on a dried kiwi. The last time I stayed at the school we made compost out of rice straw, manure, and freshly chopped water plants. I don't know what these particular plants are, they grow in the water and look similar to lili pads... they call it watergrass. A thick storm rolled in on us as we worked but it didn't matter, though they offered me a baseball hat as it started pouring. We made our pile and played takraw, which is a hybrid of hacky sack and soccer. You juggle a bamboo-woven ball barefoot in a circle until your feet start bleeding. No surprise mine went first. There's something about manual labor and playing takraw in the rain. That may have made my entire trip. After that we ate yet another incredible meal. I'm excited that they are finally serving their normal spice level after lowering it considerably for me at first expecting me not to eat the "Burmese spice". If you want to see their website, email me and I can give you the link, but I can't put it on the blog. Same goes with the pictures!

I have more to talk about since I've been away from the blog for so long. Sorry about that, but if you're still reading this, we're going to get back to regular posts! Peace

The Remainder of Johnny's Visit

2009-08-25T23:30:00.000-07:00

Well, as with the rest of this trip so far, John's visit flew by. After getting back from the jungle, we decided to spend the rest of his time in Chiang Mai, even though that meant a pretty horrendous flight schedule back for the poor boy. But, we hope that the last few days of his trip were enjoyable! Here are the highlights:

Went to the ZOO! Where the object is to feed as many of the animals as possible without getting your own hand added to their diet.

did you know hippos like bananas?

the elephants

giraffes too

and- possibly the most exciting- feeding a leopard with a piece of raw meat on a stickWe did our fair share of eating ourselves... I mean, we had to show John the variety of Thai delicacies- including the best pad thai in Chaing Mai followed by a waffle and coconut ice cream with Pi Pae, Jang, and Som:We paid a visit to Phil's host family where John was able to see the toy shop first hand, meet Pop (who he thinks is way cuter than our pictures can do justice to), ate mangoes right off the trees in front of the house (LOVE mango season here), and took a bike cruise of the country side..

forgetting sunscreen and going on a bike ride in the afternoon in Thailand means you get to wear a sweet hat of Paw Thai's

And we went to some Wats, of course, where John prayed to the sky gods to thank them for a fabulous Mongolia trip and safe passage home...

Which wound up coming true. He made it back in one piece with some serious jet-lag. Not sure if the sky gods got enough of an offering to cover that down-side of traveling over the Pacific. We had a blast showing him around from the jungle to the city, and were psyched he was able to squeeze us in before heading back to school.

Phil and I, meanwhile, are on our way to Myanmar (Burma) tomorrow to renew our visas and check out the border towns. You should be getting another post soon about this adventure!

Mother's Day

2009-08-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

Johnny happened to arrive in Thailand on Thailand's Mother's Day, decided as such because it is the Queen's Birthday. To celebrate, everyone dresses in light blue (the Queen's color), visits the temple to well-wish their mother, and watches the firework show.

We also spotted this statue at a temple (not the same one where we made very generous offerings of incense and flowers to our mothers) and, though it doesn't in any way represent our mother dearest, we thought it pretty funny all the same...

Happy (Thai) Mother's Day!

also... check the post below- finally able to upload more pictures!

Spiders and Tigers and Snakes- Oh My!

2009-08-16T18:39:00.000-07:00

Alright, folks, get ready for a long one. (Also, I am really having trouble with the formatting in Blogger right now... so I apologize for that and hopefully will fix it soon...)

Well, my brother Johnny has paid us a visit from the cold, northern steppe of Mongolia to the hot, humid tropical jungle of Thailand. *Insert culture shock here*. And to really give him the full jungle experience, we headed up to Mae Hong Son for a trek through that very jungle.

Mae Hong Son is nestled in the heart of the mountains- a fact we were made well aware of by the nausea-inducing-six-hour van ride through the windiest roads I’ve seen- and it was worth every twist and turn. We stayed at a guest house near the big lake in the center of town and found a great tour-guide operation which drew us in originally because the woman behind the desk had a pet lemur. While we fed the lemur fruit and it licked our fingers, we decided on a two day trek up a mountain and through the jungle.

Our buddy, the lemur

The next morning after breakfast we were picked up and taken to our guide Paw Di’s house in a village on the edge of the jungle where we outfitted for our trip. As John pointed out, it was the first camping trip we’ve been on where we packed solely fresh vegetables and raw meat to eat for the next two days. After safely stowing the bananas and cauliflower and pork, we shouldered our bags and set out from the house, through the village farm, right into the woods.

Packing the supplies 

While we hiked through the dense forest full of mud and slippery rocks, Paw Di (who was wearing rubber slip-on shoes) would whip out his machete and make us little souvenirs- like a leaf cap, or a bamboo pipe and spoon. Eventually our path along a stream bed took a sharp turn up a hill and that hill turned into a small mountain and we reached one of the most beautiful lunch spots in history. We had emerged from the humid, wet, muddy jungle onto a small dry ridge where we could see the rest of the surrounding hills and then off in the distance where the mountains of Thailand ended and the mountains of Burma began. It was breathtaking. And the breeze that we could feel on the top didn’t hurt our opinion about the location either. 


View from the top

While this was all happening Paw Di was telling us (through Phil's translation) that in the jungle there are a lot of wild boars. And we were like hmmmm, wild boars, I heard those could be a little dangerous. And then Paw Di mentioned that there were also tigers. And we were like tigers? And he was like yes, big tigers with the yellow and black stripes. And then went on to tell us that some of the cows and buffalo owned by the local people had been getting eaten. We hadn't realized that we were in a current-day tiger range, but following Paw Di and his machete, we trekked onwards and upwards. This onwards and upwards trekking took us to more spectacular views and better breezes. 

But, as it turns out, tigers weren’t our biggest concern. When we reached the top of the mountain and Paw Di told us a story about a cobra he had seen that was three meters long and as thick as his calf (cobras are the ones with the hoods and the fangs and the poison). We decided that we might have more success against a tiger with our strong bamboo walking sticks than we would against a spitting, striking cobra. Starting our decent to the village where we would stay that night, we didn’t –thank goodness- run into any cobras, but we did find some jungle millipedes, which are pretty benign but very large...
And then, finally, after hiking all day, we ran into a member of the village we were heading to showing us we were very close, which was reassuring, but he was holding a rifle almost as tall as himself, which was not so reassuring, remembering we were in tiger territory. But, they told us it was for wild boars and not for tigers and we went on our merry way with the jungle finally opening up into the village of six huts, one of which was for us. After showering and looking at the pigs and playing with some of the stray dogs, we went in to help prepare all the fresh vegetables and raw meat that we had brought. All the cooking is done over an open fire in the middle of the house and it makes for a very mesmerizing sight.


The village

Cooking dinner

The dinner was exceptionally delicious: lemongrass soup, sautéed veggies, and peas with pork. Our hungry selves gobbled it up while looking over the mountains (yes, we were on the other side of the ridge by now) and after dinner we joined back around the fire drinking tea and watching the men of the village smoke banana leaves. Being pretty tired from the day of hiking, we went to bed on the floor under the mosquito nets quite quickly reassured, as John pointed out, that there was a family of juicy pigs living under our front porch which would surely be more appealing to a tiger, should one come prowling. We slept well until about 4:30 in the morning when the roosters roosting under our heads woke up and were cock-a-doodle-doo-ing until we got up, ate breakfast, and prepared for day two.
Our "guard pigs" under the porch...

Before we set off, we had to protect ourselves against the leaches, which really just meant putting bug spray on our socks and boots and hoping for the best. Leaches were the main concern of the day because we were hiking down the muddy path to a river, which we would follow back to Mae Hong Son. Paw Di packed his rubber slip-ons with a certain kind of leaf which appeared to be more successful against the blood-suckers than the bug spray because he only came out with a couple while I had the record of twenty on my socks and boots, Johnny in second with nine, and Phil reeling in eight, but two had latched on making him bleed so he was the real winner.
Day two was beautiful and I will spare you more reading by inserting pictures below. I do want to talk about one more thing before this novel of a blog comes to a close, though, and that is about our lunch on the second day. While we were hiking Paw Di stopped to cut down a huge stalk of bamboo and whittled it while we were walking down to the river. He pointed out a nice swimming hole where we promptly jumped in and swam around. Coming back to the lunch spot (and it can’t have been more than fifteen minutes later) Paw Di had a fire going, a tea pot made of bamboo on the fire, cups and spoons carved for each of us out of bamboo as well as a serving tray filled with a pork-vegetable-dish. He then handed us little banana leaf bundles which we unwrapped to find rice. He made tea leaves out of a fern he found in the woods, and it was probably the best trail lunch I’ve ever had in my life.

 Paw Di making tea out of jungle leaves in a bamboo pot
 Phil enjoying the bamboo creations
From there, more walking down the river, more beautiful stands of bamboo forest, more Paw Di whittling things and pointing out tarantulas and telling about huge cobras, and then before we knew it we were down the mountain, and dropped off in Mae Hong Son. We quickly followed our showers with a Thai massage, a big dinner (where we toasted Paw Di for getting us off the mountain without so much as a cobra, tarantula, or tiger bite), and a great nights sleep. 
I sincerely hope I haven't bored you too much... more on the adventures with John soon!


Mountains of Burma in the distance

"You eat ants?"
"You better believe it..."Another of Paw Di's (flattering...) creations

Phil and Paw Di

Adventuring down the River
Tarantula!
Another fearsome jungle spider
Ah, the Sabai Life...

Po Pad Peung Kurrie

2009-08-05T23:30:00.000-07:00

Thai food. Is amazing. Curries that are out of this world, noodle soups, grilled meat with peanut sauce, sauteed veggies with chicken or pork, noodle soups, spicy minced meat, and copious amounts of rice.
I could elaborate on all of it (and I probably will in the future) but I wanted to show the play-by-play of the making one of my absolute favorite dishes here so far. Po Pad Peung Kurrie (that's probably not spelled right...), or crab in yellow curry. It can be made with other types of meat besides crab, but every Thai person agrees that crab is the best. After we'd eaten this dish for the first time, we had it about three times a week until Phil's host sister taught us how to make it. So here you go! Feel free to try this at home, but at your own risk... You'll find that the quantities aren't exactly precise.

Start out with about 2 kilos of crab. Wash 'em, clean 'em, gut 'em and chop them into pieces (a big machete works best for that part). You'll wind up with a nice bowl-o-crab like this:
Then, prepare:
2 yellow onions, sliced
4 mild chili peppers, sliced
green onions and parsley, chopped together
a lot of mushrooms, sliced
a couple tomatoes, quartered
You'll get a nice little pile like this:

Now start the cooking. Put oil in a pan (a wok works great). Saute the garlic. Then add the onions and saute for a bit. Then add the chili peppers. Then add the crab! At this point add a little water and about two packets of curry powder. This kind:

an example of a potentially difficult ingredient to find... Cooking with P'Poi. Their kitchen juts out from the second floor of their house and, like a lot of houses in the country, has only a roof and no walls or windows. It's a great place to cook, see what's going on with the neighbors, discover new species of bees, etc.

Cook it for a little while, stirring occasionally. Add sugar (maybe about 3 tablespoons), salt (maybe about 1 tablespoon), pork seasoning (about 1 tablespoon).

The pork seasoning that they put in just about everything for guaranteed deliciousness.

Cook for a little longer. Then add the mushrooms and tomatoes. Then a little soybean sauce (they call it Formula 1) then soy sauce. MSG is usually added at this point, but you can always add extra salt if you don't have any MSG lying around your house. Then, cook until the crab is done, should be cooked about 20 minutes total.

Phil demonstrating proper sautéing technique

Next, scramble 3 eggs in a bowl and pour over everything. Let set up for a minute before stirring into the crab. At this point, taste and add anything else you deem necessary for absolute deliciousness (fish sauce, oyster sauce, more Formula One, sugar, MSG).

Finally, add the green onion and parsley. Then, serve it up with steamed or sticky rice. Oh man. It is amazing. The fruit of our labors:

Lam day day!

Po Pad Peung Kurrie (restaurant style) near our apartment

Recent Happenings

2009-07-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

I apologize that I've been a little negligent on the blog-front... I'm going to try and do better! Here's an update of what's been going on lately:

Living in Chiang Mai has been sanuk mak! (really fun) We're set up in a little apartment close to downtown, where we have a great view and are pretty centrally located to everything we need. We don't have a kitchen, but considering that most of the food stalls nearby charge between 30 and 45 baht (about a $1 - $1.50) for a delicious meal, we probably wouldn't be doing that much cooking anyway. The food here is SO good, but I will elaborate on that more in a later post. And we're not far from the "old town" which is still enclosed in a moat and crumbling wall remains. There's a lot of Wats (temples) and restaurants and bookstores, etc etc within the walls, and it's a fun place to hang out once-in-a-while.

We've also acquired some means of transportation. Phil has rented a motorbike, now accompanied by a recently upgraded helmet. And I have purchased a bicycle. I love it, but doing all the U-turns around the moat is a little harrowing. Plus, Thailand doesn't seem to be as totally dependent on motorbikes, there are a lot of cars around so we take it slow and steady. It is nice to have some wheels, though.

And we are liking our jobs. We both are working sporadically at an English school called GEE English- stands for Gain English Easily and their slogan is "Learn English and Get a New Soul". I can't wait to get the T-Shirt... They're paying us to teach some classes and hang out with mostly their kids classes to work on pronunciation. It's pretty fun, but the hours aren't dependable.

Then, we're also doing a little volunteer work teaching to some more disadvantaged folks. Phil has been going out to an organic farm to help out there with English and writing proposals. And I'll be working with a women's organization downtown. It feels good to give back a little bit to the community that has been providing us with such a good time. But it's surprisingly hard to re-learn English grammar well enough to teach it. I don't envy anyone trying to learn this language.

A tractor doing work on some rice fields on the way to Phil's Farm

Then, in our free time, we'll take trips out to the country side to visit Phil's host family, or go to the gym, or bike around town exploring, or go to the market to pick up some delicious food and fruit, or hang out with some of our friends.

And most recently, this past week, Phil's friend and roommate from Colorado College, Brian Dito, paid us a visit. He's been teaching English in Korea and had a few days off. It was awesome to see him, and a good excuse to take a few days off and tour around the city. Phil's host family nicknamed him Chok Dee (which means Lucky), and Tong Dee, Nam, and Chok Dee did the typical tourist business: Zoo, Temples, night markets, beer towers, and ate a ton of delicious food. Phil and Dito getting their fortunes told at a Wat

The Zoo!
Phil and a Sting Ray

Chedi at Wat Suandok (also the name of our neighborhood)

Mae Sot and My 22nd Birthday

2009-07-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

We took a trip to Mae Sot from Sunday the 11th to Wednesday the 15th to get a change of scenery and learn some things about teaching. The six hour bus ride to Mae Sot was uneventful but beautiful. We met some really great people while we were there. I am officially a fan of Canada, or Canadians rather. Never been to Canada but the folks we met, lets say their names are Milly and Willy, were particularly rad. I would love to go sometime. To Canada that is. But back to Thailand. Mae Sot borders Burma so naturally there are many Burmese folks around town and lots of great Burmese food such as tea leaf salad, consisting of fermented tea leaves, soy beans, tomatoes, onions, spices and other crunchy beans and nuts. The temperature was a solid 10 degrees cooler than Chiang Mai as its located right on the other side of a seriously crag-y mountain range. An incredible climbing location it seemed to be, if you could make your way through the thick jungles.

A quick shot from the bus

Timing was on our side as we were fortunate enough to stumble into my birthday two days post arrival at an exciting trivia night with Milly and Willy amongst many new friends at a local gathering point. We heard a lot of shouts of frustration at the Question Master's choice of obscure Lord of the Rings questions ("lonely adolescence!" was the most choice phrase by one group). Milly, Willy, Julia and I, team Cheetah Electric Eel, ended up at 12th or 13th place out of maybe 15 (two teams left early), assuming our LOTR background was our downfall. Nevertheless, this had to be the most fair trivia night I've been a part of since the birth of Blackberries and iPhones. A great start to the birthday!

The Cheetah Electric Eels

The bus ride from Mae Sot to Chiang Mai was tougher than its opposite. Though we were on a first class bus, the Thai music blared for the first three hours and a Thai-dubbed Western flick blared for the next few hours, followed by Thai sitcoms. The bus broke down on a mountain with an hour and a half left, and though another came in about thirty minutes, there was only room for ten. Obviously we weren't quick enough to pick up on this. Welcome to Thailand. That didn't matter though, because a few minutes later a birthday wish came true and the most high class bus on which I've ever rode picked us up with fully reclining seats with leg props and everything. Plus, our bus attendant, an incredibly nice transvestite whose ability to run in stilettos rivals that of Beyonce, fed us delicious snacks and water the rest of the quiet ride.

Once back in Chiang Mai, I got a Thai massage, courtesy of Julia, at a place near our apartment. Anything that was uncomfortable in the bus disappeared. We met my host brother and sister as well as five Thai friends at the Lemon Tree and ate Boo Pad Poong Ca-ree (crab sauteed with yellow curry, onions and lot of other incredible things), steamed snake head fish, orange curry, fried veggies in oyster sauce, and something that resembled scrapple but in a salad. All this was topped off with a cake selection I've never seen on any birthday before. Julia got a bakery to put slices of differently flavored cakes together to make a perfectly round huge cake. A plethora of choices and a plethora of birthday miracles. I had chocolate and mocha and butterscotch. Hot dang it was too good!

Dinner with the folks. Julia's taking the pic

Twas a tasty diverse cake

After dinner we met up with some Coloradans at a place called the Monkey Club, which is cool for those of us who really were in monkey clubs in elementary/middle schools, right? Right?!? Pretty standard Thai late night place with two or three different rooms, all of which too loud to hear yourself think. However, the Coloradans were jolly with cheer, as expected, and it wrapped up a spectacularly unique birthday! A big shout out to my moms and pops for the birthday card and sending me my new bank card. Also to our dogs Dixie and Hunny for the humorous card they sent. The birthday cards are on my only table and the credit card is in a new wallet (it's only temporary till I can find a wallet with a rope on it).

This is way behind, so I'll leave it here to be caught up later in between teachin' Anglish!

Slippery wallets, crazed tuk tuks, mangos

2009-07-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

Pop's dramatic disco

After leaving little Pop and the rest of the host fam in the North Eastern district of Chiang Mai, we settled into our humble abode within the city. The start of the rainy season is officially here as of last week, and we saw the worst of it with a solid three day rain with no breaks. I'm not sure what this symbolized in the manner and aura of the city, but things turned to the worse for me on the last of the three rainy days. While I was heading to GEE English chipper as ever to teach my one student, my wallet slipped out of my pocket on the truck taxi ride there, only for me to notice it missing amongst the chaos and rain during my teaching lesson. It seems to be a 50/50 chance that the wallet slipped into the taxi (truck bed with bench seats) or fell out as I exited the taxi in the middle of a dead stopped intersection with rain dumping, leaving it to the grasp of any motorbiker or driver afterward. Not a great feeling, as many of you know, loosing a wallet right after visiting an ATM. That was my first lost wallet. Later on, while attempting to reach the tourist police to inform them of a wallet that could possibly show up in their office in the hands of an incredibly honest soul, I got hit by a tuk tuk. That way my first time being semi-run over by a tuk tuk. It beats me how the three-wheeled motorcycle carrying two farongs (foreigners) in the back hit and ran over my calf/ankle/heel without breaking it, but maybe the fates figured I had been screwed well enough that day to get a broken leg on top of it all. Following the police report (of the wallet, not the crazed tuk tuk driver), we got a late dinner, one of the many things since bought by Julia, at a special grilled chicken place that ran out of chicken when we ordered only to have more chicken magically appear on the grill as we left.

I figure I had to get all my bad luck out on one day. The rest of the trip should be as wonderful as winning the Quidditch Cup! Harry Potter is infiltrating my miiind, maaan. I have to read all the books and finish all the movies by the time the 6th movie one comes out here next week. Did I mention that I played with a monkey last week? That has been one of my dreams since I was about 7. It was like an extremely athletic baby with a fruit addiction and a fascination with motorbikes. On another note, it's mango season right now. I never knew how sweet they really were compared to the garbage they call mangoes in the states. See, I have some good things going for me to counter the lack of a wallet!

The monkey slappin me five at Keuong Mae Guong Reservoir. He was most likely someone's pet but seemed young to be away from his parents

I have been tutoring a medical student from the Southern most part of Thailand. She's already really smart so teaching had been a breeze. Julia has been stuck with more difficult...tasks. The computer age has reached Thailand in full force, though, if you were wondering. Most younger students related their newly learned English words and phrases to games like "Head Hunter".

For my last lesson with the med student today, Julia and I joined the med student and her boyfriend in a tour of Doi Suthep, the mountain in view out of our apartment window. The trip included an "Upper Elementary English II Conversation lesson" with which the GEE head complied. There are exactly 305 steps up to the Doi Suthep temple at the top of one mountain, offering a hazed but incredible view of Chiang Mai. The temple displayed a multitude of golden Buddahs, most with a personalized shape different from many we've seen so far. A monk said a blessing to me and tied a traditional white string on my wrist symbolizing...well a number of things. I've heard it means health and good fortune, but also the connection of the circle of life amongst other meanings. Far out. After the temple, we continued on to the "palace," or the king's old vacation home equipped with tens of acres of flower gardens, fern gardens, streams, and soothing music playing from hidden speakers within the trees. Even further in our touristy adventure we found ourselves in a Hmong mountain village completely devoted to the production of tourist merchandise. The did have some gardens here and there in the once-traditional hill step fashion, but every building had items outside it for sale. Hopefully they don't catch the shotty economy bug creapin out from the city.

A view of 200 of the 305 steps to the top of Doi Suthep
Chiang Mai from the top of the mountain. Haze is evident
Our friends/ my student
J and I from above the Hmong village

We're heading to the organic market, JJ Market, tomorrow to see another of my host moms. She drives two hours twice a week and sleeps maybe an hour that night preparing all her food to bring up with the other wives from their village Mae Ta. Sunday we will catch a 6 hour bus ride to Mae Sot for an orientation with a program in that area. Looking forward to a few days on the border of Burma!
(More pictures to come, it takes forever to load so they will be published later...)

A Rip Roi-ing Good Time

2009-07-04T00:34:00.000-07:00

Well, we just spent an amazing week and a half at Phil's host family (from studying abroad) in Doi Saket. The family was so welcoming and kind to us, and they fully incorporated us into their lives.

Two days after the dancing class we found out that a next-door neighbor had passed away. The community they live in is very close-knit and, as they do for weddings/births/houses being built/etc everyone came to help with the funeral. The night before the funeral we went with Pi Poi (the host sister) to pay our respects to the family, light incense by the coffin, and listen to the monks chant for the deceased.

The next day, we were asked if we wanted to help with the actual funeral and we said yes of course, having no idea what this would entail. We went over and we discovered we were to help with serving food for the 200+ people there. It seemed like all the women in the village were there cooking up huge pots of stews, making bags of sticky rice, frying chicken legs, and cutting up piles and piles of cucumbers. So, Phil and I jumped right in (again with all the ladies) to put all the different food into bowls, the bowls onto platters, and then run around handing out the platters to the different tables. After everyone had eaten, all the dishes had to be cleared and then washed and dried. It was a little hectic at times, but all in all, a very impressive operation.

Washing dishes after the funeral feast. (I'm the blond one- surprise, surprise)

Aside from the dance classes and helping out the village, the time at the house was spent playing with Pop, helping cook and clean, and spending time with the neighbors.

Another picture of Pop holding one of the wooden tigers they make in the shop. Tiger was one of the two English words she could say and it was always followed with a growling noise.

Mae Lee serving some of her amazing Pumpkin Soup. Her cooking has put every restaurant we've been to so far to shame.

We also spent almost every afternoon going on bike rides through the countryside. The scenery was spectacular:

We'd head into Chiang Mai most week-days. Depending on the traffic, it would be about an hour ride on a Song Tao. Song Taos are the main way to get around this city if you don't have any transportation of your own. They are essentially pick-up trucks that have been re-done with benches and a roof in the bed and they're pretty much bus/taxis. People get on and off like a bus, but they'll take you to a specific location like a taxi.

The first couple times into town were for an interview with an English school. We both got very part time jobs and have been working teaching students of varying ages and abilities and it has been interesting. The name of the school is GEE which stands for "Gain English Easily" and their motto is: "Learn English and get a new soul". That might give you some insight into the type of organization we're dealing with here.

On one of the trips into town we were able to visit another one of Phils host mothers who comes into Chiang Mai twice a week to sell her organic produce.

Eating breakfast with the ladies at JJ's Market

So with all that going on, we decided it was time to move back into town. It was sad to leave the quiet country life and the amazing family, but we found an awesome apartment in a great part of town that is dirt-cheap by American standards. We are centrally located, near some great restaurants, and have an amazing view of the "mountains" of Chiang Mai:
Well, sorry to be so long-winded! Going to celebrate the 4th tonight by going to a burger place in town and then hunt for some firecrackers... more soon!

Aaah, Gold Bond

2009-06-26T01:46:00.000-07:00

Up North towards the mountains...

We're now staying with my old host family about 45 minutes outside of the city. The family calls me Tong Dee and Julia was given the nickname Nam (like the lady from J's Liquor Store...) Still the same, except with a new member of the fam now, an extremely cute little 1 year old girl named Pop (pronounced Bop), which means popular, and that's pretty damn close to what she is around the Village Luang Nguah. Her feet never touch the real floor, and I saw her with shoes on for the first time today. Someone's always holding her. There's 13-15 people working for the wood shop now and her grandparents work/live at the house and her parents are there too. Basically she gets all the attention she wants. It's chill though.

Left, Paw Thai, Pop, Pi Pui, and next door neighbor Pi Nui. Pop's on the way to get her chicken pox shot

Oh, my family runs a wood shop that my host bro started a few years ago. They make small wooden animal toys, completely hand made. Picture "A Christmas Story" or whatever that animated movie was called, and instead of elves, insert SE Asians of all different ethnicities ages 20 - 75, and instead of Santa, there's my less chubby host brother with a half goatee. They churn out multiple sets of 50, three inch tall rabbits or 5 inch tall chickens in a week. We're fond of the hedge hogs. Also it's hotter than a Georgia hog auction, so I've gained a new respect for Gold Bond. I'd bathe in it if I could.

They built a room on the ground level for the baby, the only room on the ground. Everything else is on stilts. I used to stay in the side tree house part, but now I got my host brother's old room in the main house. We've been taking bike rides past the village to the mountains and helping do chores around the house. Gotta pay my dues this time since there isn't an American program paying the family to let me stay with them. Julia and I cleaned their bathrooms yesterday, including the worker bathrooms. I assume their immune systems are super badass because they still don't own rubber gloves. I cleared and leveled dirt this morning under a new roof for a separate North Pole-esque work place. I guess their company is doing well despite the economy!

Last night we learned a traditional Chinese-based dance called Yan I think. The village center was full of about 30 Thai women and girls, the male teacher from Chiang Mai University, and two white people. Being one of the two white people (Julia was the other), and the only male actually dancing, it was quite an experience. Hard to explain, but it involves a lot of raising your arms and flicking your hands different ways. I never did find out if I was even supposed to be doing that, being a dude and all.

We're in the city for the night because we are helping a school in the morning with a field trip to the Botanical gardens. It's kind of a practical interview to see how good we are at dealing with kids, but we're also kind of interviewing this school because their program looked pretty rinkydink. Could be cool though if we teach part time and volunteer part time, switch it up a little and get two things on the resume at the same time. More interviews next week! Sabai sabai...

Livin the Sabai Life

2009-06-22T03:06:00.000-07:00

My first entry!

We got to Chiang Mai fine yesterday despite some "accidents" along the railroad that delayed us two hours. Never found out what that meant, lost in translation. The train ride went quickly, didn't seem like 12 hours at all because we got on at 9 PM and slept through the night and got up for breakfast the next day. I slept on the top bunk of the train beds, so I woke up a lot getting tossed around fearing I would fall off the top bunk. We decided to stay at a guest house the first night so we could get acquainted with Chiang Mai again. The place we're staying in is 250 Baht a day total, 125 each. We figured it out and if we decided to stay there for a month that would be about $106 a person for the month or about $3.50 a day. Not bad. It feels great to be back in Chiang Mai.

Yesterday we met up with my old friend Som who worked with my abroad program two years ago. We quickly caught up and the three of us found ourselves on a red truck taxi to the Chiang Mai Zoo and Aquarium where her friend works. For some reason Thai people treat their guests incredibly well and she paid for everything despite our insisting. The aquarium was amazing, where her friend, Nan worked and got us in for free. We saw feeding shows and there is the lonest under water tunnel in SE Asia there. It really was unique how the most tropical fish in the world were right on top of us eating and Nan's boyfriend was in the water feeding the rays and sharks and gigantic groupers the whole time. Don't take this the wrong way but I kept thinking how good that huge grouper would taste. It was at least 80 to 120 pounds. We also went to the panda house where the first ever panda baby to be born in Thailand lives. Things got awkward when this baby was born because the parent pandas are on loan from China, but the baby was born here and the Thais have been nursing it here, so they are trying to figure out to whom it belongs. Of course my favorite part of the zoo was the non-caged gibbon area, where a bunch of gibbons just seem to play all day swinging and jumping on tree limbs 40+ feet in the air. Made me jealous. There is no cage or fence around them, but there is a 10-12 ft wide moat keeping them from crossing.. they have the most incredible strength but can't swim i guess.

Som and Julia at the panda nap show

During the feeding. The feeder threw up the peace sign through the glass in the tank.

Me, Som, Julia at CM Zoo

After the zoo, Som, Julia and I went to the Walking Street market. It's famous in Thailand for being just about 4 or 5 square blocks (very large blocks) of street vendors selling arts and crafts, food, shoes, jewelry, clothing, cloths that go on anything, old musicians, young musicians, blind musicians, instruments, pretty much anything. If it were possible to bring back a lot you could get something at every table. Another friend of mine, a really nice guy who recently spent three months in a temple meditating and not talking to anyone because of relationship issues, met up with us. We ate the best Pad Thai in Thailand, I'm convinced, had the best watermelon shakes, incredible spring rolls, and a fresh chocolate chip waffle topped with coconut ice cream on top for dessert. Just tryin to watch my figure. I usually try not to get Pad Thai very much as it's kind of the "foreigner food" and I thought Thai people also don't like it, but they all liked this one vendor, apparently the only one from which Som and friends eat. It was the same guy making the Pad Thai as two years ago in the same little corner of this gigantic market right next to the same fruit shake vendor as two years ago. Good to see nothing has changed besides the wireless internet connections and the bootleg dvds (I bought the entire Planet Earth series for $9, a $115 value in the states!!).

Julia and I went for a jalk this morning, big Flip style, convinced it was just a muscle and joint warm up for getting in shape later. Now we're trying to get jobs. Just applied for an English teaching position. We would really like to be in Chiang Mai for the majority of the time in Thailand. The temperature is bearable (I think saw a goose bump this morning...), the people are waaay more relaxed than Bangkok, it's cheaper, and there's a ton more to do than Ayutthaya, the entirety of which we saw from rented bikes in about 5 hours. That bike rental process was the most relaxed I've ever seen...no deposits, pay your 50 baht ($1.25) when you get back at night. Anyway, gotta start emailing everyone I know and looking up more volunteer/teaching positions. One of my friends from ISDSI is here as well; she's leading backpacking trips to Karen villages. Hopefully I can find something in the health field, but probably won't get paid that way. Housekeeping?

Dinner tonight at my favorite all you can eat Thai buffet (puts Golden Corral to shame) with the same friends from last night. They saw two Americans coming in and started making jokes on the comedy stage. That's the real reason I want to get fluent, so I can understand what they're saying right in front of us. Probably "Ooh, foreigners! Bring out more food!" We lit a couple traditional Loy Krathong hot air balloons equipped with green fireworks on top of a bridge and made a wish that we'd get a job. Tomorrow we'll head to my host family's house to meet the new baby and stay for a few days (but just got an email for an interview on Wednesday morning!)

Lighting the Loy Krathong balloon

View of balloon as it starts over the river Mae Ping and the city.

Good night! Ra dee sawat!

Adventures around Bangkok

2009-06-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

Well we've been touring around Bangkok for the last several days. Here are just some of the many highlights with (finally) pictures!

The view from Doug and Meredith's apartment.

Jaguar vs. Lion.

Their cages share a fence, and it appeared they weren't very good friends.

Grand Palace

Statue at the Grand Palace

HUGE reclining Buddah at Wat Po... they say it's 55 meters long and the smile itself is 5 meters long. The feet are inlaid with mother of pearl. It was stunning.

The four-foot long lizards at the Central Park in Bangkok.

Other than that we went to a lot of Wats (temples) and some of the shopping areas. The malls are some of the most amazing that I've ever seen. So clean and huge with surprisingly beautiful architecture and really fancy restaurants and movie theatres. We saw a movie one night and it was the most amazing theatre. Lounge recliners like lazy boys, and they provide blankets and refreshments...

Well, that's just a sampling... We're heading up north tomorrow. More to come!

Sawad dee ka!

2009-06-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

And we've finally landed in Bangkok. After a twenty-two-hour long day of travel, we landed in Bangkok late Thursday night. We stayed at a mediocre hotel close to the airport and fell promptly asleep. The next day there were amazingly no signs of jet lag and we jumped into a hot-pink cab (the cabs here are the most amazing colors...) to take us downtown to our next destination.

Some family friends of Phil's are working for the US State Department in Bangkok, and they were generous enough to offer us a place to stay while we figured out this enormous city. Their apartment is beautiful. It's on the 29th floor of a building downtown, and the views are amazing above the noise and dust of the city. It's especially awesome to watch the daily rain/thunderstorm come in over the city from this height.

So after being very comfortably accommodated, we've been touring around the city. We have gone to the nice shopping districts, the hectic Thai malls, the beautiful city park where there are three-four foot long water lizards (I kid you not), and then we went to get our first Thai massage. And, let me tell you, a Thai Massage is heaven on earth. Using their hands, elbows, feet and knees, we were massaged and stretched for an unbelievable two hours and -get this- the total cost was $14. But it felt like a million bahts. Other than that we've taken some spins around night markets, a quick walk through the red-light district (when in Bangkok...), and to the HUGE weekend market at Chatachuck.

Well, that's what's been going on so far. It seems like a lot! Over the next few days we'll be visiting the Grand Palace and some Wats and then it'll be off to the next yet-to-be-determined city! Pictures to come!

Departure!

2009-06-09T20:47:00.001-07:00

We are leaving the morning of June 10th for a 5 month long trip to Thailand, Laos, Viet Nam and Cambodia. We will do our best to keep this blog updated with stories of our travels. Enjoy!

Chok Dee and Hen Gap Lai!