Thialand, finally!!

We are currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is about 5 hours north of Bangkok by car or a nice 1 hour flight. We left Siem Reap, Cambodia on "planes, trains and automobiles" kind of itinerary. Brem, our guide, picked us up from our hotel around 0630 and dropped us off at the airport. We had a 2 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, a 3 hour layover and a one hour flight to Phuket, Thialand. There was a flight from KL to Krabi, which is where we are staying, but it left KL before we arrived there so we had to fly to Phuket. From airport in Phuket it was a 45 minute taxi ride to the bus terminal; the bus to Krabi left at 1800. We bought our "ticket" for the taxi/minibus and piled in. Then we sat. We didnt realizet that the driver was waiting to fill the van. so we waited and waited. finally around 455 we pulled out and took off. Its a 45 minute ride to Phuket town and the bus terminal. Then we pulled off the road and into their main office and were asked to get out and go inside. we went inside an were questioned where we were headed. we told the guy asking and he told us to get back in the van. apparently this whole sequence of events was to determine all the stops required of the people in the van. i was starting to worry that we were not going to make it to the bus terminal. we left the taxi office around 515. Who knows what kind of schedule the bus would be on. Needless to say, we were the first people dropped off and we walked over to the terminal with about 10 minutes to spare. we purchased our tickets for 150 baht (about 5 bucks) for the 3 hour ride and realized that the bus didnt actually leave until 1830.

i hadnt been feeling all that well since we left Cambodia; thinking the greasy, spicey asian food was finally starting to get to me, so i hit the restroom. First off, just like most other countries, you have to pay to use public rest rooms. But what i didnt expect was an authentic eastern toilet. Imagine walking into a stall and seeing essentially a large toilet bowl embedded in the floor with places for your feet on either side. To "flush" this thing, there is a constantly flowing basin in the corner with a small tupperware container that you dunk into the basin and pour into the toilet. And you have to pay for something like this. Oh, i dont know if i would shake anyone's hand out here becuase lets just say it pays to carry wipes with you. It was probably one of the most foul experiences i have ever had in my life and i had to pay money for it!! Welcome to Thialand!

Our bus was relatively comfortable; it was a modern double decker with TVs blasting Asian teeniebopper kareokee music videos. They were on for the entire 3 hour ride...this is the one time i valued carrying my ipod. We were dropped in Krabi town and jumped in a tuk tuk for the 25 minute ride to the boat dock. It was 930 pm.

We got to the dock and found 5 local boys hanging out under a large roofed structure. they were the crew. We asked if we could buy a pair of tickets, "Sure, you need to wait for 6 more so we can fill the boat". sounds familiar. its like 1015 (a little later because the taxi driver needed to sop for gas) and all we could think of is...Who the heck else is going to be showing up? We were fairly tired from travelling and waiting all day and just wanted to head to bed. "relax man" is what we were told. Then the rain came, and not just rain, but like a friggen typhoon or something. our backpacks were almost swept away, well not really, but it was the hardest rain i have seen since i left the Arizona monsoons behind. So we waited for it to subside and then told him we would pay for the whole boat so we could just get on our way. 24 dollars later we were on the boat and being sprayed with ocean mist on the way to our hotel.

We arrived to a totally dark beach landing. no dock. We were met by the security guard for the hotel, since the staff had all left the area and were all most likely sleeping soundly in their beds. We were finally in our room around 1145pm. It was a long day to say the least.

While in Raliay Beach we took a speedboat out to the Phi Phi islands for some snorkeling. A lot of the reef was still trying to regenerate after the psunami; there were patches of new corals popping up but there definitely was a lot damaged. there were fish around, but i doubt as much as you would expect within a healthy coral reef ecosystem. We also rented a kayak and paddled around and over to an area named Tonsai Beach. It is a big climbing area and is festooned with backpacker type accomodations. the smell of marijuana was baked into all of the buildings and it was being smoke pretty freely by tourists and staff. We were pretty suprised at how busy the entire area was being the low/wet season. the Phi Phi ilsands reminded was like Disneyland; there were people everywhere. It is a beautiful setting so i understand, but i couldnt imagine it in high season. We left wanting more time in the islands, but really wanted to get away from the tourists. Its wierd saying that, but i guess everyone wants their own private Asia. We add a population increase of 2 to everywhere we go, so we shouldnt really complain.

We arrived in Chiang Mai pretty easily from Phuket. Short 1 hour flight to Bangkok and a 1 hour flight north to Chiang Mai. There was a great Sunday outdoor market that we were able to paruse when we arrived. Lots of neat crafts and this cute little Hilltribe dancer showing her stuff. "Old CM" is a walled city with 1-2 gates on each side. most everywhere you would like to go is accessible by tuk tuk for 40-50 baht (33 baht/dollar), so its cheap to get around if you dont want to walk. We visited an elephant conservation camp. There were demonstrations of elephants playing football (soccer in the US), painting with paint brushes, and demonstrating their traditional labor usage. We hopped aboard one for a 1 hour romp through the jungle. Man they are huge once you get so close!! We visited the nursery which held a 1 month old and her mother. she was the size of a horse and had the energy, curiosity and rambunctiosness of a puppy. Afterwards, Jan wanted to check out some of the local crafts, so she did a little shopping. Yesterday we walked around an area rich in silver shops. it was interesting to see many of the pendants and beads that she uses in her jewelry designs. The silver is about 1/3 of the price. Last night we checked out a Mauy Thai (kick boxing) event. It was pretty entertaining. They are fierce! Today we visited one of the most visited temples in Norther Thialand, Doi Suthep. After climbing some 306 steps to the top we were rewarded with some amazing views of the city and of course of the beautiful buddhist temple. it was built in the 1300s and doesnt look a day over 700 years old. there was acutally scaffolding up around the entire temple; renovations. Tonight we wathched a cultural show which highlighted many traditional Thai and Thai Hilltribe dancing. Wouldnt you know, that same little girl from the market was in once of the dances and was selling little wooden frogs afterwards. We had to buy one from her after.

Cant believe we will be home in about 5 days. It will be nice to hit our soft bed and play with Dublin. We miss him! Our friends and neighbors are priceless for watching over him while we were away. Thanks Gina, John, Rob and Jeff!!

Crickets in Cambodia

Today was the last day with our guide in Siem Reap. We started the day out on Ton Lesap Lake to see the floating village. These people are some of the poorest Cambodians; the live in floating shantys. Their only source of income is bartering and selling fish to locals who boat in. Next, Jan wanted to hit up the local art school, Artisans Angkor. It was pretty neat to see how the students worked in each of the crafts; wood carving, stone carving, silk painting, oil painting and silk weaving. Then we went to the silk farm and factory…to my surprise it was actually very interesting. We were able to view people working on each part of the process from harvesting the silk worms, to unraveling their cocoons, to dying the silk and then finally weaving the silk into various items.

Afterwards I grabbed a few appetizers with our Brem, our guide. We stopped at a roadside BBQ for frog satay. Actually pretty good, mainly because they fill the body cavity with spiced rice. Next we drove around looking for stir fried crickets and other bettles and bugs. I popped a few small crickets but just couldn’t muster the guts to down the big juicy looking ones. They were like chewing on several sunflower shells; kind of stringy and absolutely no juice squirting anywhere like I expected.

We parted with our guide…spent the rest of the early evening cruising around the area near our hotel…I found a bottle of wine and Leffe Bruin!! Not sure how the beer will taste since its “freshness date” is 11.07. But hey…why not?

Catch-up

We haven’t really had too much down time to spend keeping this blog up to date. We are currently on our 3rd day in Cambodia and will be here until Wednesday…we had to change our itinerary a bit. Ill get into that later.

We arrived into Singapore after 27 hours of door-to-door travel. Our flight was amazing; at least once we left the US. We had a domestic flight from Denver to LAX on United and we sat at the gate on the plane while they fixed one of the two toilets. Good times. Our main leg of the trip was from LA to Seoul, Korea. The Asiana airplane was quite amazing. Our seats were huge and pretty much reclined flat (I think it was 16 degrees or something) and they gave us slippers and eye covers. We had two excellent 3-course meals and all the top-shelf alcohol you could order…we kept it to a single drink with each meal. We had a 2 hour layover in Seoul and spent it up in the Star Alliance Lounge. It was pretty swanky. We were able to shower, sit in massage chairs, eat, watch TV and just relax. Our last leg to Singapore was a 7 hour flight and we were again amazed with 2 fantastic meals. By this time I think we had eaten 5 meals in 24 hours. I could feel the pounds already.

Our driver met us at the airport and dropped us off at our hotel. Its actually a 3-bedroom apartment on the 25th floor turned into bed and breakfast. The girl working there was moderately helpful and our room was nothing to brag about. Fairly basic and quite frankly, overpriced. Reminded us of our $100 hostel room in London.

While there we checked out the Jarung Bird Park, which was pretty cool. It was a tip from a friend and we felt like we were in an Animal Planet show or something. Most of the birds were local to SE Asia. It was a neat to see some of the birds of paradise found in Papua New Guinea. It was nostalgic to once again see the toucans and macaws that we had seen in Costa Rica. We also rode around on the Singapore river, ate with our hands off of a banana leaf at the Banana Leaf Apollo in Little India, endured a torrential rain storm that completely flooded the roads, ate at numerous “hawker stalls” and tried to enjoy a plate of Chili Crab, but just couldn’t (mainly because of the inflated price). Also, I am in still dumbfounded that only one restaurant/stall had napkins for you…

We left for Kuala Lumpur via a 7 hour train ride. It was nice to see some of the Malaysian country side. At the same time it was very sad; miles and miles of palm tree plantations. They clear cut the forest and plant these trees for palm oil. It was also a reality check to see how people live outside the cities…shanty after shanty.

Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur on a Sunday afternoon is not the place to be backpacking through while looking for your hotel. The sidewalks are barely wide enough to walk on and there were hordes of people everywhere. We eventually found our place. Again for the price, we were pretty surprised at what we were getting (or maybe what we weren’t getting). Our first room was maybe 10x10, so we upgraded to the 12x12. It had a chair in addition to the bed and the bathroom was a 3x3 box with the shower spigot over the toilet. KL has some pretty spectacular sights, namely the KL Tower and the twin Petronas Towers. The KL Tower is the 4th largest comm. Tower in the world and it has amazing views from the observation deck 272 meters up. The Petronas Towers have a glass enclosed skybridge at the 42nd storey that you are allowed 10mins for viewing. We visited the Batu Caves, which are an important Buddhist site, and Merdeka Square; Merdeka means independence and this is where the Malaysian flag was raised for the 1st time after the Union Jack.

We had a 7am flight to Cambodia, which we missed boarding by about 15 minutes. If I had known how much money, time and energy that was going to cost, I would have arrived at the airport at 4 am. First, we didn’t realize that the mass transit didn’t start until 530 am. Second, we didn’t know that there are actually 2 airports in KL separated by about a 15 minute drive. Third, we didn’t realize that there is a scheduled mass transit that goes to the airport, not every few minutes like the rest of the rails. Fourth, we didn’t know that our air carrier only flies to Siem Reap every couple of days, so we couldn’t just get bumped to a flight later that day. Fifth, we didn’t know that was pretty much the same for all carriers going into and out of Cambodia. And so on. Lets just say that we spent the next 7 hours going back and forth between the two airports trying to figure out what to do and how to do it in the most efficient and economical way. Meanwhile our guide was waiting for us at the Siem Reap airport and wasn’t able to answer our calls. We ended booking a flight for the next day and an additional night of hotel near the airport. It wasn’t a fun day, but we held it together and kept our composure. We have plenty of experience with issues like this while traveling; aka Jan’s pickpocket experience in Rome.

We arrived in Siem Reap with no problems on Friday. It already is a special place for us. The people are extremely friendly. Our guide, Brem, is a great guy and very knowledgeable. His father was murdered and his two sisters starved to death during the Khmer Rouge invasions in the early 70s. He was placed in a labor camp working the rice fields for many years. But now he has 3 kids, has a “good” job and can feed his family…and he’s only 37. He has taken us around Angkor city, which comprises of a majority of the ancient temples that were discovered in the late 1800s. The most famous is Angkor Wat. They are majestic buildings which were built anywhere from 900-1100 A.D. I think we've taken 250 pictures over the last 3 days. We really enjoy Brem’s commentary and learning the history, but it is a lot to take in. Everywhere you go in Angkor City, as soon as you step foot out of the car you are swarmed with cute little girls and boys who are trying to sell you everything from guide books to tee shirts and handicrafts. It’s extremely difficult to say “no” to “Lady, you buy from me, I use the money to go to school; I make good price for you. You remember me when you come back from temple, okay lady?” Their broken English makes them even more cute!