We left Koh PhaNgan and crossed southern Thailand, heading for Koh Lanta. When we arrived, we were happy to find a laid back and environmentally conscious atmosphere.  The locals have gone to great lengths to preserve the natural beauty of the island and their efforts have not been in vain.  All along the west coast of the island were little bays and beaches, many of which were completely empty, except for a few fishing boats moored in the waters.

 We arrived at our bungalow in the back of a pickup truck that had just bounced us along a dirt road through lush jungle. The bungalows were set about 100 meters back from the beach, which had a fresh water mountain stream in the middle that flowed into the bay. The bay only had two other bungalow resorts along the sand.

Since Koh Lanta is near Malaysia, the island was about half Muslim. Being American this challenged me to overcome misperceptions that were pushed on me through the American media. Our hosts were exceedingly kind and friendly. The mystique of the surrounds were enhanced by the daily Muslim call to prayer that would ring out through a speaker system and echo through the mountain sides that surrounded us.

The day after we arrived on the island, Meg and I set out on a motorbike to explore the island. We first rode along the bumpy dirt road to the southern most tip, where our map showed an unnamed tiny beach. We arrived to find a beautiful national park that had an empty beach and alot of monkeys!

 

We discovered the presence of the monkeys as one cheekily galavanted up to my bag and began to dig around in it to find out what treats I had for him. I managed to discourage this behavour with some hand waving and shooing. He got the message and looked for entertainment elsewhere. I grabed my camera and followed him. Moments later he discovered a crab in the grass and proceeded to take a seat and begin to devour it. ( he politely allowed me to photograph him at this point.)

When I walked back to find Meg, I became aware of how pristine and empty the beach was.

 The beach was also home to hundreds of sand and hermit crabs.

 

Some of the colors where striking.

 

As we were walking back to our motorbike, we noticed some more monkeys on the rocks, probably looking for more crabs.

 

We spent that evening in a cool little cliff side bar that overlooked a beautiful empty beach.

 

The next day we explored some of the bays nearby our bungalow. One in particular was hidden from the road by about 100 meters of forest. We felt quite special discovering this gem.

As we left, we got caught in an afternoon rain storm. We took shelter under the thick canopy of trees.

 

Our bungalow was set among lush tropical plants with a view of the our bay peaking through the greenery.

 

That evening, as we watched the sun setting on our bay, we began to realize how little time we had left in SE Asia.

That night, we sat under the stars and were treated to an amazing shower of shooting stars that seemed to never end. The next day, we simply enjoyed the beach near our bungalow. That evening, as the sun set, it felt like Thailand was saying goodbye to us.

 

Sitting under that sky, we vowed to return to Thailand and that this was only the beginning of our adventures.

The next day we took a ferry to the main land and boarded an overnight bus to Bangkok. On our last day in Bangkok, we took the river ferry to the center of the city.

We did some shopping, saw the big buddha, and had some great thai food.

 

As we sat at a cafe watching the boats go by on the river, we felt like we finally had gotten a handle on this crazy city that had seemed so overwhelming when we first arrived.

The next morning we boarded our plane to Australia to begin the next chapter.

(p.s. We will be posting about our time here in southern Australia in a few days when we get back from our beach hopping and boogie boarding trip along the Great Ocean Road.)

As we prepare to depart from one island paradise for another, it seems proper that we fill you all in on our time in Haad Khom,  Koh Pha Ngan. There’s been a lot of hammock swinging, reef snorkeling, sunbathing, chess playing, storm watching and fruit shake drinking going on. This is where we spent most of our time:

Yesterday, we decided to break the blissful monotony of our island life and go for a trek over a small mountain to Bottle Beach, just a couple of bays over.  We’d been warned that it was quite a tough jaunt through the jungle but we were confident that our able, young bodies could make the 5 hour round trip no problem.

The walk was beautiful. The path took us into the belly of the jungle, along mountain ridges, across streams and out on to rock faces being battered by the ocean.

We saw all sorts of wildlife: a monkey, a snake, a monitor lizard and to my dismay, a multitude of insects. These are just a few of the thousands of red ants that made the walk a little more “interesting”. Needless to say, I didn’t take these pictures.

The only problem was that the path itself seemed to dead end and although we could see the beach that we were trying to get to about half a kilometer away, we couldn’t get at it due to thick jungle on one side and a cliff on the other. So, after three hours of hard slogging and the beach in sight, we had to turn around a go back, never reaching Bottle Beach. That didn’t really matter… it’s the journey not the destination right? We made the return trip back to Haad Khom in record time (that might have had something to do with the impending darkness) and made it home just in time to catch the sun set.

Tomorrow, if we can finally tear ourselves away from here, we are heading west and will hopefully make it to Krabi, a town that is a jump off point to some of the west coast islands. The next day, we will head on to Koh Lanta.

Meg and I are well. We enjoyed Koh Chang and some of its hidden spots.

We also visited a nearby island called Koh Maak. Its was quite nice, we splurged for a bungalow that overhung the ocean and had a nice hot shower.

We returned to Koh Chang to start heading West, but unfotuntely, i got sick for two days so was out of comission. We have a rule, that if one person gets sick, we upgrade to a/c, hot shower, and TV until we are better. I was soon recovered and we started on our next leg of island hopping.

We did a 24 hour straight travel from Koh Chang to Koh Pangan. It was as follows: taxi to the pier, then ferry to mainland, then bus to bangkok, then bus to subway, then subway to train station, the train to south west thailand overnight, then bus to pier, then ferry to island, then motorbike to the town near our bungalow.

It was worth it .

We are now staying in a bungalow on a beautiful undeveloped bay with a great beach and two other bungalow resorts nearby who have good restraunts. Our bungalow is on the beach and has a hammock out front, with a great restraunt nearby run by the wife of the owner of the bungalows. Everyone staying there has been there atleast half a dozen times. Some have been there for a couple months. We can see that it can be hard a place to leave. Whats great is there is a family/old friends atmosphere and every one is really welcoming. Its pretty much exactly what ive been looking as far as an island retreat goes.

More pictures and stories will be coming soon…

Meg and I are currently in Ko Chang, Thailand. Its an island near the Cambodian border. We had origianlly planned on flying to Bangkok and taking a hard slog into Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. But after considering the time required, the dusty and bumpy road, and the costs involved, Meg and I decided to leave Cambodia for our next Asia tour. That list now includes, Southern Laos,  China, India, and Cambodia.

Instead we decided to start our Island hoping a week earlier than planned. Our friend Rudi had given us a card for a bungalow on Ko Chang. He was friends with owners and said it was great place to spend some time. We couldnt agree more. Its chill, relaxing, beauiful, and ever night they haev a beach front barbeque feature the catch of the day, and they mean it literally. On the ferry over to the island this was the welcome the ocean gave us. (mind you we had not seen the ocean since we where flying over it from the US).

The next day we spent exploring the island and doing some swiming. We returned to our bungalow, showered (in cold water) and went to the restraunt for the barbeque and the sunset.

Today we spent kayaking around the archepelagio, then we returned earlier to our bugalow. The tide begun to go out, and Meg and I spent the afternoon/evening in waist deep water (shallow waters that extends a kilometer out ) watching the sunset, as minnows leaped by the thousands around us.

Tomorrow we are going to explore the inner island. The island, the largest of a huge archipelagio, is actually several mountains that rise out of the ocean. Insland there is supposedly several beautiful waterfalls that we have been told are not to be missed. We hope everyone is doing well on the other side of the Earth. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and we are missing all of you. Wish you were here.

I’ve always said, if there was only one place that I was able to return to in Vietnam, Sapa would be it. This is why:

Sapa is set in a Northern Vietnamese mountain range almost to the Chinese border.The tiered rice paddy fields cut into the mountainside,the bamboo forests and the ever present shrouds of mist leave you in constant awe.

We took an overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai and then went the last 35km to Sapa by minibus. We arrived in Sapa early in the morning amidst the chaos of the weekly Sunday market. It wasn’t quite the serene place that I had been describing to JB.

After navigating our way through that, we set off to the place that we would spend the next couple of days. We splurged for one night and stayed at the Topas Ecolodge, an environmentally conscious lodge on the top of a mountain, 20km outside of the town of Sapa. Each bungalow was powered by solar panels, the water was supplied by a nearby mountain spring and all of the materials and labor were local.

 

Not only that, but their restaurant was supplied by their own organic farm that was located on the grounds.  

The next day we awoke to mist rolling over the mountains that surrounded our bungalow.

After spending the previous day just soaking up the beauty, I convinced JB to hop back onto a mountain bike and ride the 20km back into town. It proved to be yet another one of our epic rides. About a half hour in, it started to sprinkle and then about 15 minutes later, it just plain poured. Yet, somehow, that didn’t really matter given our surroundings.

By the time we got to town, our shoes squelched and our clothes created puddles below us. When we went to a restaurant for lunch, we were “asked” if we might like to sit outside to eat.

We made the very cold ride back to our lodge just in time to have a hot shower and get the minibus to the train station for our overnight ride back to Hanoi. JB, just as I had last time I visited Sapa, vowed to return.

After spending the last couple of weeks in remote countryside, we were thrust into this:

I didn’t mention renting a motorbike once.

Needless to say, Hanoi was a little bit of an adjustment for the both of us, but Meg was excited to be back on somewhat familiar territory. As some of you have commented on, we picked an interesting week to be in the city. Hanoi was hosting APEC and so there was much hype around so many world leaders being in town at once. No Dubya sightings to speak of.

Meg played tour guide for the first couple of days, taking me to all of her favorite spots around the city. Our hotel was in the Old Quarter, a section of town that has markets that have been selling the same things for 500 years and so the streets are named accordingly.

Many side streets and alleys hold things that speak to the ancient charm of the city.

 

From one of our hotels, we could see over the rooftops of Hanoi.

 

At night the streets would glow with activity.

The food in hanoi is amazing, and we certainly enjoyed it. From Vietnamese Pho noodles on the side of the street to funky expat sanctuaries to French restraunts with balconies overlooking the bustling streets.

Hanoi is at crossroads between it communist past and its economic future.  Meg sees the city as having changed since she was here last, and no doubt it will be different when we return in a few years. 

Meg on the bridge to the temple in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake, the heart of the city.

The bus from Nong Kiaow to Xam Neua was packed. Not just with people, but with people transporting god knows what from one end of the country to the other. We had to climb over crates and burlap sacks just to get to our seats. I spent most of the 13hr journey leaning against a sack of oranges. This turned out to be luxurious compared to girl who had a sack of watermelons for a seat and to JB who could barely breathe due to odour that was wafting from the guy beside him. Luckily, the person next to me moved and JB was able to sit next to me so we could be uncomfortable together. Needless to say, not much sleep was to be had and we arrived in Xam Neua, a little Lao town about 3 hours from the Vietnam border, a little on the dishevelled side. We spent the rest of that day trying to wash off the bus ride and gearing up for our next leg of travel at 6am the next morning.

Up until this point, we had a good idea of how and where we were going; this leg was a little bit different. We were in one of the most remote areas of Laos, crossing the border at a point that had only recently been opened to foreign travellers. As a result, there was little information to be had in the guidebooks on how to make the journey to Hanoi. So we woke the next morning a little nervous as to how we were going to get to Hanoi once we’d crossed the border into Vietnam. We took a three hour ride in a converted pick up to the border through some of the most beautiful countryside either of us had ever seen. Laos had been one jaw dropping experience after another and our last morning was quintessential Laos.

Once at the border, we crossed with relative ease into Vietnam. On the other side, fortune smiled upon us. Just as we’d past through customs (a bamboo shack on the side of a river), a minibus from Hanoi pulled up with a group of French tourists that were heading into Laos. We were able to finagle a ride on the bus for it’s return trip to Hanoi, saving ourselves a lot of time, money and headache. We arrived eight hours later in Hanoi with our last 20 dollars in our pocket. Phew! (Did we mention that Laos only has one ATM in the entire country???)

We’ve covered a lot of ground since we last posted. After floating down a river in innertubes for two days, we switched gears and hit the road - hard.

From Vang Vieng, we took a 7 hour bus ride back to Luang Prabang where we stayed overnight. The next morning, we got up early and took a very bumpy ride in the back of pick up truck to the gorgeous town of Nong Kiaow. We probably would have hit the road the very next morning if the place wasn’t so damn beautiful.

Instead, we arranged for late check out and we spent that night drinking Beer Lao’s as the sun went down and befriended a Dutch couple, Linda and John.

We spent the next day exploring caves that were used by the Pathet Lao as a hiding place during the time the US was secretly bombing them back to the Stone Age. That evening, we packed up our bags and crossed the bridge to a restaurant where we sat playing cards awaiting the night bus.

We left Nong Kiaow by public bus (not as simple as it sounds). We were given a window between 7pm and midnight for its arrival. There was no real bus stop; you just had to hope that you could flag it down as it flew through the town. The bus ended up arriving at around 11pm. The ensuing bus ride was “unforgettable” and one of our most trying experiences to date. 

(This was the view from our riverside bungalow.)

We arrived in Vang Vieng, ready to move on from Vientiane. We booked a nice guesthouse near the river. The town has a strange air about it, there are many young westerners and many open air lounge restaurants with double tv’s blaring recent dvds. Luckily we are away from the noise. On two island in the middle of the river are bar/lounge places with open bungalows to sit and relax. The main activity is being driven up river a few kilometers and then tubing slowly down the river for a couple hours

 

 stopping occasionally at the thatched hut bars that have popped up along the route. Each offers beer lao, mixers, food, and occasionally a zipline or giant swing  that propels you above and into the river. 

 

This one was our favorite spots

It was alot fun just swinging out and splashing into the water. we actually caught some swings on video for yall to see. We will share when we get a chance to upload it.

 In the evenings the sun puts on a spectacular show as it sets behind giant limestone cliffs just across the river.

 

We enjoyed this leisure activity for the past two days,a little indulgent but it was a nice break from long hours of traveling and we are now ready to hit the road again. Tommorrow we head North past luang prabang, to Nong Kiaow. We will post again the next time we have internet, in a couple of days.

the Stache is back

We have done numerous posts in chronilogical order, by location. They cover the time since we where last able to properly post. Please scroll down to the post titled “Mae Salong Redux” to start where we last left off.

We took an 8 hour vip bus from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. We came here to see the city, get our visas for vietnam from the vietnamese embassy, and use the one international ATM in all of Laos. We spent yesterday bicycling around the city.

It was interesting, with the huge stupas, propagandic one sided museums, and the psuedo Arc de Triumph shown above; but the whole city is a little dusty and faded. I think Meg and I are ready to move on after two days here. Now that we are restocked with cash, have made use of the fast internet connections, we will pick up our visas in about an hour and head to the bus station. From here we go to Vang Vieng, a sleepy little mountain town about three hours North of Vientiane. There we are staying in a nice wood bungalow that overlooks a river and the mountains. Our plan for tomorrow is the popular activity for the Vang Vieng: Renting a giant tractor inner tube and floating down a nearby river for three hours, occasionaly stopping at the make shift beer stands on the side of the river for a cool Beer Lao and a snack. Thanks to everyone who has been checking in on us we really do appreciate it. We should have internet access for atleast the next 3 or 4 days, then we may be disconnected for 3 days as we cross the mountains of Laos on our way into Vietnam. Once we arrive in Hanoi, internet will again be plentiful and fast.

After a two day journey, we arrived in Luang Prabang just as the sun was starting to set. We climbed off the boat, loaded on our packs and made finding a guesthouse our first priority. Unfortunately, that proved to be a harder task than we’d anticipated. Every decent guesthouse we went to was full and so our first night in Luang Prabang was spent in a shoebox.

The water flowed from the limestone rocks of the waterfall to pool after pool that formed like huge steps below it. The water was a beatiful shade of blue and it was in these pools that you could swim.

The following day, we decided to rent bikes and ride to another waterfall that was about 20km out of town.

On the way, we saw a sign for another waterfall so we decided to stop off for a look. It was quaint compared to the one the day before but beautiful all the same.

We continued on from there to the next waterfall. When we arrived we had to cross a river by little boats to get toTad Sae waterfall. Although not as tall as Kwang Si, Tad Sae was a sprawling limestone formation set amongst the trees and with turquoise cascades everywhere you looked. The limestone was not slippery so you could go exploring throughout and then take a dip in the deeper parts.

One night, we crossed the Mekong and climbed to an old, disused temple on the other side of the river for a view of Luang Prabang at sunset.

This is us before the sunset with our friend Ruedy:

On our last morning in the city before our 9 hour bus ride to Vientiane, we got up and climbed Mount Phousi, which is really more like a hill smack bang in the midddle of the town that has a beautiful temple on the very top. We were there for sunrise and as you can see, the view was breathtaking.

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After our experience in Huey Xai, we were ready to start our boat trip and see what else Laos had to offer. We weren’t disappointed. The slow boat trip was one of those experiences where when you to try to describe it, words just plain fail. Even the pictures can’t really capture it, but here are a few for you all to try to recreate the experience in your mind.

Since our last post Meg and I have done quite a bit. We will post full details of uor past couple days with pictures and all when we arrive in Luang Prabang in three days. There we will have access to high speed internet and decent computers. Currently Meg and I are sharing dailup connection split between two old computers. My phone is actually faster than these computers; no joke.

We ended up only doing a one night trip out of Chiang Rai, to a small village called Mae Salong. It resulted in some interesting experiences that I will let Meg give the full details of. She has been pondering the right words for days since she found our experience to be quite funny. After Mae Salong we returned to Chiang Rai and caught a bus to the border town Chiang Kong. From Chiang Kong we rented a bike and rode on a beautiful journey to a nearby mountain peak called Pha Che Phee. From this point you can see 360 degrees, viewing the Mekong, Thailand and Laos all together.

This morning we crossed the border into Laos; we are now in the town Huay Xai. This entailed getting on a small boat and crossing the Mekong river. The change is startling. On the Thailand side are nicely paved roads and modern conveniences. On the Lao side are dusty roads and less than modern guesthouses. The first place we checked out to stay the night resulted in us being wide eyed; its hard to explain. The second place we check was much more to our standards and likeing; strangely it has a brand new 35inch tv in the room with bbc international. Laos seems to be out fo the old west; except there are bicycles and motorbikes instead of horses.

Tomorrow we board a slow boat headed for Luang Prabang. It over nights in a small village call Pak Beng. At the stop over, there is only eletricity between 6pm and 10pm, so i think internet will not be even a thought. Luang Prabang is supposedly almost like a cross between an ancient kingdom and Paris. We look forward to splurging when we get there on a room in a colonial villa with a nice veranda over looking the river. I can smell the lattes already.

We just wanted to post a quick update, no pictures though. Today we left Chiang Mai and caught a posh bus to Chiang Rai. We are crashing at a small guesthouse here, renting a bike, storing our big bags, and heading out in the morning. We have decided to do a motorbike tour of the surrounding area. We got the idea from this travelfish story. We will only be doing the first half of the itinerary listed on that page; so four days. We should be back in Chiang Rai on Sunday to catch our bus to Chiang Kong where we will cross into Laos. Pictures and stories to come.

Our plans of driving a motorbike from Pai to Chiang Mai fell through and we ended up taking a minibus. I think 4 hours on a motorbike would have been a little more than we bargained for. We arrived back in Chiang Mai on Sunday for the big weekly night market. It was packed from all the Thai southerners on thier way back to Bangkok. Meg finally bought a day bag from a local craftswoman, and we also bought a really great painting from a local artist. We became overwhelmed by the crowds and decided to get foot massages from one of the many available massage stalls (Chiang Mai is the location of the main Thai massage school so there are countless students and professional offering a variety of inexpensive massages) .

Monday was a bit of a lazy day, we spent it researching our next week or so of travel. We will be heading North tomorrow, crossing into northern Laos on Monday, and taking a two day slow boat down the Mekong river to Luang Phabang. In the afternoon we rented a motorbike and took it to the top of the nearby Doi Suthep mountain to visit the famous temple that is perched overlooking the city. From there we watched the sunset as we gazed down at the Chiang Mai area. Unfortunately I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera before we left our guesthouse, so we couldn’t take pictures.

Today (Tuesday), Meg and I took a day trip 70 kilometers North to an area called Chiang Dao. A small town sits in the shadow of a beautiful mountain called Chiang Dao Mountain. There is a famous cave, the largest in Thailand I think that spreads beneath a portion of the mountain. That was our destination and it we are very glad we made the effort to seek it out. The cave has been used for centuries by monks as a meditation site, inside there are shrines and a few carved statues deep inside the cave. We entered the cave brazenly thinking we would explore it on our own. Within 30 steps off the lit path, upon seeing hundreds of bats clingly to the ceiling, lit only by my meager headlamp, we wisely decided to return to the entrance and pay the extra 3 dollars for a guide and a gas lantern. For twenty minutes we navigated the dark cave of limestone growths, sometimes crawling through openings only 2 meters wide.

After we left the cave we explored the nearby area for a bit and captured some of the impressive views of the mountain.

On our way back to Chiang Mai we barely got under cover before the afternoon rain passed by. We had lunch and then continued on. About 20 minutes outside of Chiang Mai the setting sun, combined with the rain clouds moving away in the distance treated us to a heavenly display.

We both had a really great time today and are both very tired. We are excited to to be heading out of this area, going North, and crossing into Laos. We will post again when we get to our next destination: Chiang Rai.

So we had to cut the strings sometime…so we’re doing it, we’re finally moving on from Pai today. In the past couple of days since you last heard from us, we left Pai, stayed one night in Soppong and then took a bus to a town even further north called Mae Hong Son. When we arrived in Mae Hong Son, something just didn’t feel quite right. It was as though the town had been worn out by package tours and monstrous buses; it was past it’s prime and the tour operators just hadn’t quite brought themselves to admit it yet. Anyway, we spent about two hours there and then jumped on a “bus” back to Pai. I’d never been so happy to return to a place in my life (this was mainly due to the fact that the ‘bus’ we were on was really a converted pick-up truck and so the seats were facing eachother, parallel with the road. This, combined with a cowboy for a driver and steep, windy roads, did wonders for my motion sickness). We spent the last couple of days here in Pai revisiting our favorite waterfalls and restaurants around the town. However, last night we were given another new and lasting memory and one more reason to always look back fondly on the time we spent in this homey little town. Before we sat down for dinner that night, we got a glimpse of a little procession that was winding its way through the streets. It was made up of mostly young children and teenagers carrying paper lanterns and beating drums and clashing cymbals. Midway through dinner, this same little procession had accumulated so many followers that it was now almost a whole street long. After dinner, we went for our obligatory post-dinner cruise and happened upon the town fair ground that had swelled with thousands of people; many of whom had travelled from Bangkok because of the country wide holiday this weekend. The festival was an annual celebration of the changing of the season; the rains have ended and the cooler dry period is coming. The paper lanterns carried by the locals had been placed behind the local wat and set a flame. We walked through the crowds to go watch the lanterns burn, and we came upon a group of people pounding things into the ground. JB, taking on all characteristics of the male species, turns to me and says “Oh, they are giving offerings in hopes of good fortune. Those things they are pounding into the ground have money in them”. Weeeelllll, not exactly. It seems we were the only who didn’t know that what we were actually stading amidst was the firing site for the local firework display. All of a sudden, a guy tugs on JB’s arm and tells him to move as the whole crowd begins to scatter and run for cover. As we flock with them, we hear a loud bang and are showered with golden sparks. This was the beginning of the show that lasted about half an hour while everyone set off their “offerings” one by one. It was a beautiful spectacle and we both came away with only minimal burns from the seemily neverending rain of sparks. While that was clearly JB’s favorite part of the night (reminiscent of his pyromaniac past), I found the local talent show to be the upmost entertaining spectacle of the night. Local teens crooned unabashedly on stage as drunken on-lookers rewarded them with cheers and paper necklaces (akin to leis) that they clumsily put around the performer’s necks mid song. It was a great night and a perfect way to say goodbye to Pai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

As we wait for our ride to Chang Mai, JB snapped this one last photo of the town we have called home for the past 10 days. We look forward to the day we return.

 

JB warned me to stay away from puns but, with a town name such as this, who can really blame me? Yes, we are still in Pai and have had some full and eventful days since we last caught you all up. Where to start…

After we last posted, we heade out to what was advertised as an “art lovers free party”. We didn’t really know what to expect from that description but it seemed to fit our budget so we went. When we arrived, we felt like we had travelled back in time forty years. It seems the Pai farang community has taken it upon themselves to make sure hippies don’t become a thing of the past. Despite feeling a little out of place (mainly because it seemed we were the only ones who had remembered to brush our hair and weren’t smelling of patchouli), we both could appreciate the vibe. There were artists displaying their work, campfires, good food and drinks, people playing music and singing; but it wasn’t kumbaya type stuff, it was good! (Mum, I think you’d have been quite at home).

The next day, I convinced JB to return the motorbike and trade it in for two bicycles. We decided would ride to another “nearby” waterfall about 17km away. Piece of cake, right? I’m not sure if it was my enthusiasm for mountainbiking, or my stubborness to make it to the waterfall -no-matter-what, or if I was distracted by the beautiful countryside we were riding through, but I really didn’t notice that the entire bike ride to the falls was uphill. I knew I was pedalling hard and that I didn’t seem to be going very fast but I had concluded there was a gear problem with my bike. JB, on the otherhand, realized full well that we were riding up one neverending hill and wasn’t too happy about it but he didn’t let on because he didn’t want a girl beating him to the top. However, when we passed a sign that said “waterfall–3km” and the next 3kms seemed to be almost vertical, I think that’s when I heard JB mutter “this is the hardest bike ride of my life” and ” you know I’m only doing this because I love you. right?”. Anyway, we did make it to the end and what a reward the waterfall was. The Ma Paeng waterfalls had seven tiers and was perfect for soothing our rather worn out, sweaty bodies.

We may not have seen eye to eye about the ride to the falls but we both agreed that ride back was spectacular. That which took us about 2 hours on the way there, took us 15 minutes on the way back; we barely had to pedal once. The trail winded through the countryside, in and out of tiny villages with views similar to the ones we’d seem while taking joyrides on the motorbike. The difference was there wasnt the rumbling of the engine to mute the sounds that went with the scenery and we didn’t feel so obtrusive.

Yesterday, we hopped back on the motorbike and took a long, scenic ride to a town called Soppong. (A little aside about the motorbike: Yes, when JB was first keen to rent a motorbike, my mind did wander back to some vague recollection of a family story involving JB and a moped. I think a key element from the story that stuck in my mind was the word “crash”. Believe me, I did have my reservations. However, knowing that I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of a motorbike, he has been very cautious (it’s only when he starts analogizing driving one to playing a simulated video game that I start to get a little worried). And to quell fears further, this is probably the only region we will be renting motorbikes as there is little to no traffic in the north.) As you can see, the drive there was gorgeous.

When we got to Soppong we ate lunch at a little local place by the road. JB thought his first plate of pork and rice was so good that he went and bought a second plateful (an important little detail for later).

The trip back from Soppong to Pai was not such easy riding. We got caught in a torrential downpour that soaked us to the skin.

And then we got caught again, but this time found shelter on the side of the road.

When the rain stopped we got back on the road, and headed back to Pai. Again we were rewarded with breathtaking views.

So the pork that JB had two platefuls of put a little dent in our plans today. Originally we had planned to leave Pai in the morning and head back to Soppong, but instead Jb spent the entire day in bed and on the toilet. After being nursed backed to health with water and fruit juices, Jb is now doing much better, and we plan on continuing on to Soppong tomorrow.

So we’ve decided to move to a little town called Pai. JB is going to open up a little web design business and I’m going to sell my cards by the side of the road like a local. It will be quite the life. Well, maybe someday….Don’t worry, we’ve not thrown away our US passports just yet, but we’ve fallen for this little Northern Thai village –hard. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet, last you heard of us we were still in Chang Mai.

On Thurday morning a minivan pulled up outside of our guesthouse. As we throw our backpacks in the back of the van we hear the thundrous Thai pop music that is to fill our ears for the next five hours as we make the journey from Chang Mai to Pai. We pile into the minivan and reach for our seatbelts to find…hmmm, there are none. The rest is history, not one that we want to relive to soon. The road from Chang Mai to Pai was winding and mountainous and had spectacular views. When we stepped of the bus into Pai, we felt like we had finally arrived in Thailand. Pai is a small sleepy town which has only recently been discovered by farangs (foreigners, like us). In fact, today we learned that the road that we took to Pai was only paved about 10 years ago and before that, the journey from Chang Mai to Pai took about a week!

We had been given a recommendation by some friends that we met in Chang Mai to go and stay at a place called Ban Pai Village. We couldn’t be happier there. We are staying in a cute little bungalow with a hot shower and fan, for about 10 bucks a night. Unreal! On our first night in Pai we got a real taste of Northern Thai living when the power went out around 6:30 and then didn’t go back on til sometime in the middle of the night when our fan magically started working. But no matter, there was a groan that echoed around the town when the lights went out but then candles were lit and people just went back to doing whatever they were doing. Besides, no power made the stars pop out of the sky like I haven’t seen since being in the outback. We walked the few little streets of Pai in the candlelight and ate delicious food from the streets. Today we got up early and decided that we would hike to a waterfalls that was supposedly 7km away. Well…we didn’t quite make it to the falls but we had a peaceful walk through the rice paddies. When we got back to our bungalow, we hopped on the motorbike that has become the replacement for JB’s obsession with computers. We drove to the nearby Pai canyon and left the motorbike at the base and explored it on foot. After the canyon, we got lost (again) searching for a nearby waterfall. After giving up, a friendly British couple who just moved to Pai gave us proper directions and we were finally able to find it. Thank goodness we met them otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to have had such a special experience. When we got back to town we climbed up to the temple on the hill for the sunset. And this was just our first day.

 

First sunset in Pai:

 

Baan Pai Village, our bungalow in Pai:

 

Our morning walk through the paddies:

 

On our morning walk:

 

The Pai canyon:

 

Trying not to fall:

 

On the motorbike, in search of a waterfall; not lost, well, sorta lost:

 

Up to Pam Bok waterfall:

 

Across an old bridge near Pam Bok waterfall:

 

Pam Bok waterfall:

 

Up to the Temple on the Hill:

 

Sunset from the Temple on the Hill near Pai:

Meg and I have been enjoying Chang Mai alot, its a great mix of up country thailand and modern traveler services. Over the past couple days we have visited a few wats (temples), we had thai massages on Sunday and regular massages on wednesday. The food here has been incredible. We have had northern thai food, vegetarian Chinese-Thai food, Spanish-Thai tapas, Greek food, American style breakfasts, and some really interesting food from street stalls. All of it was exceedingly tasty and very inexpensive (except for one upscale splurge).

We rented a scooter one day from a thai guy named Jimmy at our guest house. Within minutes we got lost trying to find the map store. The picture below was taken shortly after we figured out where we were; we thought it wouldn’t be to hard to adjust to the Thai driving style (which we learned is basically do whatever you want). Notice the “I’m glad im still alive” look on my face.

We took the bike up the mountain which looms over Chang Mai.

There is a temple perched on the top of the mountain, which we visited briefly. When we return to Chang Mai, we are going to take a taxi up to the temple for the sun set, which is supposed to be amazing. ( we decided riding a scooter down a mountain in the dark was a bad idea, so we didnt stay very long).

Meg and I are departing Chang Mai in about an 30 minutes. We are heading to a tiny town called Pai, whcih is about 4 hours north of Chang Mai. It is supposed to be very relaxed, quiet, and beautiful. We will be returning to Chang Mai on Sunday; Since Pai will most likely not have any internet, we will post more pictures and stories on Sunday when we get back.
Thanks to everyone for the comments, we read them regularly, and they make us laugh. We love you all.

Also, Congratulation Brian and Sarah! They have welcomed their son into the world.

Some where in the upper right of the sea of people is meg, sitting on the floor as we wait for the over night train to Chang Mai. We experienced the national anthem for the first time; every night at six oclock all over the country every one stops, stands up with their arms at their side while the anthem is played. When it finishes every just continues on as if someone hit the un pause button.
We boarded our train at 7:30 pm with second class sleeper tickets; the berths were not to bad, the car was almost all backpackers. As dawn broke, we awoke to misty mountains and green jungle wizzing by the window. With bangkok far behind us, we arrived in Chang mai, which was truly a breath of fresh air. The differnce is night and day. Below is our guesthouse, run by a friendly couple from Hawaii.

We truly feel at home here, and envision ourselves staying here for longer than we planned. Our room is comfortable, has a hot shower and western toilet. Although it has a fridge and satellite TV, we downgraded from ac to a fan, as we slowly become accustomed to living without creature comforts. Our room is 4.50 US per person. After washing bangkok off our feet and bodies, we head out in to town, had some decent greek food, then splurged (4 dollars) on traditional thai massages. The antibiotics finally came in handy as we made a mad dash back to our rooms so Meg could say hello to the travellers big D. Luckily the Cypro worked and we soon headed back out to explore the Sunday evening market: a night when the whole town seems to be out.

Crafts, art, clothing, and food crowd the two main streets that intersect the center of the town. In the center intersection was a jade buddha that locals where pouring water over as is the tradition. Meg and I braved the street food for the first time and came away with full happy bellies. We can’t wait to be here for the festival next week. We will post more as our adventure continues.

Our time in Bangkok has come to an end and I can’t say we will be shedding too many tears over it. Over the past three days we’ve been on quite a wild ride through the chaos that is Bangkok and are looking forward to heading North tomorrow to the calm of Chang Mai. This is not to say that we’ve not enjoyed our time here; we’ve learned a LOT about how to get around the city, picked up a few more Thai words (e.g “no” and ” too expensive”), seen some incredible sights and have gained the confidence needed to survive all that is so unknown. Today we ventured out of the Khoa San Rd. area and went and explored downtown Bangkok; it was like visiting a totally different city. In the backpacker areas you become accustomed to being constantly hastled by tuk tuk drivers and wary of anyone who is too “unusually friendly”, but downtown we were able to walk freely around without any worries and ask questions of strangers without being paranoid of being led astray. One of the most enjoyable things we did today was to take the river boat ferry downtown. The boats were crowded and the river itself was murky Mississippi brown, but it was the most opportune place to people watch and see the whole city pass by. From the boat, we hopped on the skytrain which seemed all the more futuristic after the boat ride experience. The skytrain offered an awesome birdseye view of the city that, if we had not already experienced the grittiness of the streets of Bangkok, might have led us to believe Bangkok to be something totally different. From the skytrain we went on an epic two hour walk zig zagging through the streets (JB all the while declaring that “the map is wrong”) to find the U.S embassy to register. When we finally arrived we found out that you can now conveniently register online and that it is no longer done in person. D’oh! Oh well, no matter…I think we both kind of enjoyed being lost in this crazy city. On our way back home we winded our way through markets brimming with stunning flowers, fruits, trinkets and, to my “surprise”, baskets of live, slithering snakes. You don’t see that everyday. We arrived home exhausted and in desperate need of a shower but with the feeling that we might be getting used to all of this.

Tomorrow we are taking an overnight train that leaves Bangkok at 7:30pm and arrives in Chang Mai at 9:20am the next morning. We’ll post again when we get there.

-Meg

After 32 hours of traveling Meg and I have made it to Bangkok and to our guest house. We are both exhausted and jet lagged but very excited. Its 3:20 AM here and we have checked into our room at a place called the Thai Cozy House. In the lobby there are six fairly new computes with flat screens and coin slots; internet use is 10 baht for 20 minutes ( 1 dollar is 37 baht).Our research has already served us well as we managed to get from the airport to our guest house for 35 baht. When we walked out of the airport there are alot of “taxi services” who offer you a car, but accoriding to what we read they over charge grealy are un regulated and unmetered. A backpacker next to us was quoted 800 baht for a taxi service to khoasan road; thats more than meg and I are paying for our room. We took a shuttle to the bus depot and then a bus to the Khoa San area. The bus driver pointed, said “there”, and we got off. We looked at each other laughed then walked in the direction where we thought our guesthouse was; and we found it. Our guesthouse is about two blocks away from th infamous Khoasan Road, which is basically backpacker central. Our room has A/C, a private bathroom with a hot shower.
Anyway, the bed is calling (thanks for the ambien Lisa). We will post again over the next days. We are staying in this guest house for atleast 3 days. Oh, unfortunately my cellphone doesn’t seem to want to work, even though Cingular guarunteed it would. Oh well. Thanks again to all who helped us get here.

JN

It is 2:50 am and Meg and I are in my brothers place in Boston. We are leaving for the airport in about two hours. Our flight leaves Boston at 6:50 am and heads to Los Angeles. We depart Los Angeles at 10:00 am pacifc. 14 hours and 40 minutes later we land in Hong Kong. 3 Hours in Hong Kong then on to Bangkok. We land at Bangkok’s new airport which has been open for about a month. We get in at 11:50 pm on Wednesday oct. 4. We will be traveling for 30 hours straight. This will be an adventur unlike anything I have done before. For 3 months Meg and I will travel through Thailand , Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, before heading to Australia. We have been prepareing for months, we are tired, excited, wonderous, scared, sad, happy, and hopeful. I don’t think we really know what to expect in the days, weeks, and months ahead. I hope everyone is checks in on us from time to time. Please email us when you can. We will miss all of you.

FYI our first night in bangkok will be at a liitle place near Khoasan Road. Its called The Thai Cozy House, I think they have internet in the lobby and that will be the place from which we will post again.

My grandpa always said one of two things, and they come to mind now:

“May the road rise to meet you, may the wind always be at your backs, the sun shine warm upon your face, and the rain fall soft upon your feilds. Until we meet again…. ”

and

“If you can’t be good, be careful.”

The next time you hear from us we will be on the road.