Chaing Mai - The North of Thailand

J It was early in the evening when we touched down in the small airport just outside of Chiang Mai. After collecting our bags we took a local Taxi service to our guest house. It was fairly painless, and only cost a few dollars, thanks to the booth setup at the airport. We had found a decent place that was close to both the night market and the old town, plus it had a pool! Once again our friends at HostelWorld.com the famed "Sonny", who ran the show, he had a strange sense of humor, but was always smiling and always there, waiting, poor guy worked at least 12 hrs a day. We had come a day early then our booking, and when we informed him we had booked for 6 days he told us there was a weekly rate. Upon first glance this was a good thing, unfortunately all it did was end up in causing me frustration, more on this later.

Sonny said we would have to pay for the one night, and that he would ask the owner if we could pay the weekly rate, but we would have to wait until the next day. So we paid $800 Baht for the one night, and left it at that. The room was big and included a fridge, T.V., A/C, a decent size bathroom, and to top it off there were computers with internet for free. After getting settled we decided to go for a walk and find the night market.

The tuk-tuk drivers were once again plentiful like in Bangkok, but we decided after all the flying we had done that day a walk was in-order. After staring at our map a few times and the occasional stop at 7-11, we finally found the night market, it was a good 15 minute walk, but of course we didn't take the most direct route that first night. The night market was booth after-booth of stalls selling everything from t-shirts to wooden frogs to new suitcases to store all the crap you might end-up buying. Not that it was all crap, just most of it. Then again to each his/her own. Admittedly we ended up buying quite a few souvenirs while in Chiang Mai, and on the last day, a new bag to put it all in. lol

We walked from one end of the market to the other, stopping along the way to see what sort of goodies might catch our fancy. Michelle was quite worried as I played the barter game a few times, but I knew it was to my advantage to get prices then wait until we were ready to purchase. We bought a few small things here and there, but after an hour of dodging hellos and avoiding eye contact we found ourselves at the epi-centre of the night market. On one side of the street McDonald's, on the other, Hagan Dazs and Starbucks. We had worked up an appetite over the last hour and decided to stop at a restaurant called Dukes.

It was quite obviously (like it's neighbors) owned by foreigners, but we found the prices fair and the food choices tantalizing. I had the rib sampler and a bowl of Chili. Michelle had a warm spinach salad. We throughly enjoyed the meal, both because of the attentive and numerous staff, and because the food came out quickly and tasted delicious. I proclaimed right then and there that we would return.

After our meal we walked through some more of the night market before taking a tuk-tuk back to our guest house. I got my fix of BBC news and Michelle had a shower. One of the little known facts about showers in this part of the world is that they usually aren't defined by a little glass/ceramic enclosure like us Westerners are used to, they usually are just affixed to the wall, the bathroom being fully tiled, and you get water all over the toilet, sink, etc. So make sure you TP is high and dry when your taking a shower in S.E. Asia! lol

The next morning we started our day talking with Sonny, the guy who always seemed to be at reception. He had spoke with his Manager, and they decided to give me two options. I could sign up for the weekly rate, and loose my deposit, or I could keep my deposit and pay the regular fee, even if I stayed a week. Both options seemed pretty unfair. Upon deciding on loosing the deposit I asked him if the weekly rate would include the one night we had already stayed, and he explained it did not and we would have to stay 7 more nights. I was quite frustrated by this point, but we weren't about to leave the guest house in search of another, although looking back maybe we should have.

I decided to walk off my frustration and so Michelle and I did a bit of exploring of the city. Our guest house was smack-dab in the middle of the old town, which was surrounded by a moat! After passing two 7-11's we found a fresh fruit vendor and enjoyed some Pineapple and Cantelope as we walked parallel to the moat for a bit, little remains of the brick wall that also used to surround the old city. It was soon closing on noon and the heat of the day was upon us.

Interestingly tuk-tuks were not our only choice for transportation in Chiang Mai. Bigger and subsequently more safe (because of the extra wheel) songteaws were soon to be our new favorite ride. They basically look like little pickup trucks with two sets of benchs in the back. More people mean lower fares, and generally they were more willing to negotiate prices then the tuk-tuk drivers. So we took a songteaw to the newer part of Chiang Mai and then got out to walk around and see the sights. Our first stop, yep, an internet cafe. We had walked a few blocks but the heat was too much so we needed to chill for a bit. After two hours online, we crossed the street and ate at Mike's, a burger joint. It wasn't stellar, but it was certainly Western food. We continued on our way and walked past the local university, knowing full well we wouldn't fit in we didn't enter onto the premises. We eventually got bored with walking and took another songteaw home, right in time to enjoy rush-hour in Chiang Mai. lol

Back at the guesthouse, we thought we would look into the various tours that M.D. house had to offer. We decided upon an elephant ride and bamboo rafting excursion we would go on the next day. We also signed up for a full 7 more nights in Chaing Mai, and made plans for doing a Thai cooking course with Pad Thai Cookery school, which had been recommended by our friend Marcia. We chose to go to a restaurant called The Riverside Restaraunt and do their river cruise/dinner. However when we got there we found it had been fully booked. We decided we would go another night, but we stayed and had a nice meal on the bank of the ping river.

After dinner we declined a tuk-tuk that wouldn't negotiate price, and decided to start to walk home, after all we couldn't threaten to walk away if we weren't willing to prove it. We found another restaurant that had a wicked live band playing all sorts of Western covers. We stopped and had drinks and listened to them for about an hour, although after the first two songs they switched to Thai music, which was quite refreshing. The place had the cool name "The Good View", although with the band playing no one was interested in the view. It was late by this point and a quick tuk-tuk ride later we were home and in bed for the night.

M The next morning we started the day with a quick run to 7-11 for breakfast which consisted of strawberry yogurt and a bag of peanuts. A short wait later we were picked up by a mini bus along with other tourists, and we headed out for our first adventure trek in Thailand. Our first stop was to ride the elephants. We were posing for a picture with a baby elephant when the elephant put his trunk up Jesse's shirt. A little startled he pushed the trunk away. The baby unhappy with this and the fact that we were not giving him food decided to head bunt Jes right in the chest. lol

Jes was not hurt, but it definitely took him by surprise. We climbed onto a little platform, then sat down on the hard seat on top of the elephants back. The elephants walked in a row down a well beaten path. There were 3 places along the way where we could buy bananas to feed the elephants. It was pretty humorous as the elephant would lift his trunk over his head to where we were sitting and we would put a banana or sugar cane onto the end and he would grab it and devour it in seconds, then after two or three steps he would stop and request more. It was a neat experience as we swayed back and forth with his walking. After hitting the last banana stand we noticed that we were the only people who bought any. We had not only our elephants trunk staring us in the face, but two other elephants joined in as well! In all the commotion of trying to feed 3 elephants while not getting slobbered on by their trunks Jes dropped a whole bag of food!

With in seconds our elephant had eaten it, plastic bag included! An British couple on our tour joked that now we've gone and killed our elephant, although our guide didn't seem worried. After getting down and washing our hands, we were presented with a picture taken of us on the elephant, and the frame we learned was made of old elephant dung. As it was a good picture and didn't' smell, we bought it. Then we were back in the mini bus heading to our next stop. When we arrived we stopped at a hill-tribe village and watched as a woman made clothing from hand. Then we passed around some tobacco that they grow locally, which was wrapped in a leaf. I passed but Jesse took a puff, which was followed by coughing and laughing from the group. It was neat to see their houses made of bamboo and straw and to get a feel for what their life was like, even though we could tell that the village was primarily setup for the bus loads of tourists that visited it weekly.

After the tour of the village we went on a trek for about 1 hour, arriving at a beautiful waterfall. We got changed into our swimsuits and jumped into the pool under the falls. It was awesome. We tried to swim to the base of the falls but the water was so powerful we couldn't make it all the way, we would struggle to get close, then just lift our feet and go flying back with the current. We could have stayed there for hours. It was also a very welcomed way to cool down as it was beginning to get very hot outside. After a short walk we arrived at another village, this time we went inside a ladies home, and learned a bit about what daily life was like, at one point someone in our group pointed out the T.V. which was hidden in a corner. Our tour guide had to laugh and explained that the village has certainly changed over the years, T.V. and electricity being quite commonplace now.

It was now lunch time, and they served us a very tasty meal. Rice with stir fried veggies, a curry dish, and a meat dish. Prepared mild of course, for us wimpy westerners. After our food had settled we were off to do some bamboo rafting. Our bamboo raft had only us and one other guy on it, unlike the bigger rafts that had 4+1 people on them. Our raft driver was a teenager named "Jay" who loved smacking the water with his long bamboo pole and yelling "crocodile"! lol

So being that our raft was small, we had one person sit in the middle on a seat made of bamboo going the opposite direction as the other boards, whoever was sitting got their legs and butt wet as the raft was not watertight. Jay stood at the front of the raft while Jes and I took turns steering the back with a bamboo pole of our own. Jes started while I took a seat. After 10 minutes Jes wanted to sit so it was my turn holding the pole. I found it quite difficult to keep my balance and spent most of the time just trying to remain standing and not falling out of the raft.

Even though Jes and I both took a long time to feel comfortable standing, Jay was the first person to fall into the river! lol The scenery was beautiful, as the river wound through lush mountains, we even passed a few groups of tamed elephants who were playing in the water and getting baths. When the ride was done the guides took the rafts apart and loaded the bamboo logs up onto the back of trucks to be taken away and made into rafts for the next group. Also, at the staging area we hung around after the rafting there were people selling handicrafts and food.
Some of the ladies carry small boxes with bracelets, little wooden frogs, and other junk. Each one has the same type of items, and once you've seen one you've seen them all. As these ladies usually hold the wood frogs and run a wooden stick over them making a frog like noise, we like to affectionately call them frog ladies.

So Jes thought it would be funny to encourage a few of these frog ladies by looking at their bracelets, insisting I buy one of them. Once they saw we were interested they swarmed me, I had 6 of them all showing me bracelets from their boxes at the same time. Not only were they showing me they were actually putting these bracelets on my arms and repeating "very nice, you buy, you buy, very nice". It was unbelievable, Jes even got a picture of them. Oh and yes, in the end I bought 2 bracelets. lol Back on our mini bus we headed back to town. What a great day. We took it easy that night. Went up the street to get Thai food from a vender that was delicious and then back at the guest house we used the internet before heading to bed.

The next day was a day of cooking. We were picked up first thing in the morning, and after picking up others headed to the local market. Our teacher showed us many different types of spices and ingredients we would be cooking with and taught us a bit about them. Then we were left to wonder while he picked up some things according to what we had chosen to make. In total we made 6 dishes which were breakfast, soup/salad, appetizer, a curry, main dish, and dessert. We were both unsure if we would really enjoy a cooking class as it is not really something we are into, but it had come so highly recommended from friends Marcia and Jason, we had to give it a try. In the end, we were really glad we did. We learned many new dishes, the instructors were very funny, we ate a lot of very tasty food, and made some friends with other travelers. At one point we even had 5 foot flames coming out of the wok, which was probably the highlight of the day.

That night we arrived home feeling so stuffed the only thing I wanted to do was nap. So I did! Meanwhile the unthinkable happened, Jes joined Facebook. He instantly became an addict, I was quite excited as he explained he figured it would help deter him from playing WoW if he had other things to do online.

That evening we went out to a restaurant called The Salsa Kitchen for some Mexican snacks and listened to live music playing at the restaurant next door. It was 11:30 by the time we had settled into bed when the phone in our guest house room rang. A little shocked and worried we answered it and it was Sonny from the front desk. He asked us if we were sleeping. I replied no then he said he had someone who wanted to talk to me. The guy on the other end told me he wanted to book a trek. After some confusion we figured out that the guy was going on the same trek we had been on yesterday and Sonny had called us to tell the guy how it was. Needless to say Jes was a little upset. But he refrained from going downstairs in his angry state and went to sleep.

Our fifth day in Chiang Mai. After a slow start in morning we decided that we would both go for a massage. This would be Jesse's first Thai massage. They gave us clothes to change into that were suppose to be more comfortable. They were for me, but they did not have any that were big enough for Jes. He kept his own shirt on and wore a snug pair of their pants. The ladies were so nice talking to us and giving us tea before we started. The massage was ok, but not the best I had had. We ended the massage a bit prematurely as we had spent too much time before starting the massage talking and we were going to be late for a boat ride we had booked. We hurried back and caught a van that took us to the pier for a Long Boat ride down the Ping river.

We were surprised to find it was just us and a lady from China on the boat, we soon learned she spoke very good English. The driver talked about the city as we floated by and we asked him many questions as we felt we had the boat to ourselves. At the far end of the river ride we got off at a farm with a beautiful herb garden. Our driver showed us many unique plants and afterward we had fresh fruit and herbal drinks in the garden.

Then as we returned to the beginning of the boat ride we continued to converse with the lady from China, unfortunately we didn't see her again after that.

Once off the boat we looked at a few temples from the outside. Beside one temple we found a huge skeleton of an elephant, which was on display. It looked like a dinosaur skeleton. After much talking about where to go next we ended up back at Dukes. Jes had said he would return and we did. The food was again fantastic and the service equally great, although we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Then we walked around the night market some more and before heading back to our beds.

J The next day we were off again on another trek. This trek had no elephants and no bamboo rafts, but what it did have was a butterfly farm, a cave, a stop at a long-neck tribe and way too much time in the mini bus/van. We met a fellow Canadian from B.C. named Lisa who we enjoyed talking with the entire day. She had experience as career counselor, and convinced me it would be beneficial to speak with one myself once I got home. Our first stop was just 30 minutes outside Chiang Mai, a lovely Orchid and butterfly farm. Michelle did quite well couping with the flying insects (as she has quite a phobia of them, moths being the worse). After stopping to smell the flowers and grabbing a badly needed coffee we were back on the road.

We arrived at Chiangdao cave, which had some interesting Buddha statues inside of it, it was extensively lit, and we stayed in it about half an hour. The cave split off at one point but our guide joked if we went down that path we probably wouldn't return. I would have enjoyed further caving, and perhaps going through some of the cave that wasn't lit by florescent bulbs, but no one else in our group minded sticking to the schedule so I bit my tounge. Outside the cave we drank from a roasted coconut which was very sweet and the meat easily peeled off the husk.

Before leaving for the next leg of our adventure we shopped at a few stalls selling herbal medications and home remedies. Michelle and I weren't interested in any but Lisa bought a few items including an anti-nausea capsule which we were grateful for as the roads from this point on were winding back and forth, and many were under construction. It was a long hour or so before we arrived at our lunch stop. We weren't sure we would be able to keep food down after the ride we had just experienced.

Luckily the road onward wasn't so bad, and we arrived shortly at the long neck hill tribe.

If we thought that the previous tribal villages had been over-touristed and turned into a circus show, we were surprised to find it got worse. The actual “village” was hidden from sight because of the dozens of booths had been set up, each one selling scarfs and other handicrafts. We wanted to buy some items, to give money to these poor people, but it seemed that some of these scarfs they were selling were just not possibly hand-made. Upon conversing with one of the young long neck women who was making a scarf she seemed to say that they did not make the silk-like scarfs with intricate design, but the more basic ones that seemed to be woven with yarn. We decided to buy a few of the scarfs that we could see they were making, to encourage the skill and tradition. As we walked up and rounded the hill we were shocked at the number of stalls, perhaps close to 30, and more-so at the age of the sellers. Most were young girls, and most of the girls we saw were either from the long neck tribe, or at least decided to wear the rings around their neck anyway, as it was such an interest point to the tourists.

On a person note I thought what we saw that afternoon was quite sad, at one point a five year old girl was putting on makeup, she already had rings around her neck, and as she smacked the white powder to her face she turned to see if it garnered attention. Michelle had a hard time as we were constantly being asked to buy things, and we felt bad for these people as we learned many of them were refuges from either China or Myanmar. Our guide even told us that in the future Thailand may choose to deport them, although I had a hard time believing that statement, being that the camp was such a tourist attraction.

We discussed many of these things as we made the long journey home. We had thoroughly enjoyed talking and getting to know Lisa, unfortunately we didn’t see her again while in Chiang Mai. Perhaps we’ll run into her in Canada though, or during our next adventure overseas.

M Jes had stayed up late playing on internet and thus he did not want to get up the next morning. I decided what better to do than go for a massage, and it ended up being the best massage I had while in Thailand. When I returned Jes was up and we went for some breakfast. We didn't have many plans for the day other than to see a museum, so when a tuk-tuk driver told us he would take us to the museum then drive us around to a few places for shopping for only a little more than a dollar we decided to take it. We had heard that the tuk-tuk drivers will get gas coupons if they take tourists to certain stores, and had highly avoided this, but since we had nothing else to do we went for it. We went to the national museum and enjoyed learning some Thai history for about an hour while our driver waited outside. While inside we learned of another market close by and asked to go see it. Our driver took us there and waited while we looked around and bought a few things. Then it was off to the 3 places he wanted to take us.

The first was selling crafts and hand painted items made of bamboo. Although there were some really nice things, it was way over priced, so we left without buying anything other than the fruit shake from the stand out front. Next was the high pressure sales of a jewelry store. Jes was very close to buying me a blue pearl ring. I had to really put my foot down on that one. The sales guy put all his attention on Jes.. but we escaped without buying anything. Next we went to the high pressure sales of a store selling rugs. We met a guy who was extremely passionate about carpets. We learned how his family hand makes them and how long it takes to make them and how durable they are etc. Really though, we did not buy a carpet in Turkey so were not going to buy one here. It was pretty intense though.

We felt drained after leaving there and told the tuk-tuk driver no more stores. He then took us to sign up for a dinner show, and dropped us off at the guest house. When we went to pay him we realized that he expected 50 baht per hour and not 50 baht for the whole day. We believed it was a honest mistake, and settled for a lesser price. We figured 2 dollars for a driver for the day was too good to be true, and it was.

We then got ready and went to the dinner show. We sat at tables on the floor, but could hang our feet down, obviously made for tourists. We then watched a show of traditional Thai dancing. It was very nice and the food was good, although the service was not great. They seemed to forget our table. When the dancing was done we joined everyone outside to watch them release fire kites into the air. It was beautiful, they would hold it down until the hot air from the flame filled up the kite like a hot air balloon, then let them go over the water. We then took a very squished minivan back and the driver dropped us off a 5 min walk from our hotel. He had dropped other people off right at their hotels. We were obviously upset and decided not tip him, we also planned to phone and complain, but never got around to it. The walk in the dark consisted of stepping past many cockroaches, and I was not happy.

The next day we enjoyed sleeping in, then did some much needed planning and booking for the next leg of our trip. We "discussed" when we should come home while eating breakfast. We did laundry, then walked around in the heat of the day looking for the famous Sunday market. We found a small market, and again bought a few things. Then we headed off to an English church we had found. It was set up by missionaries in the area who wanted a place to worship in English and support each other after doing their Sunday morning services. It was quite big and we enjoyed most of the singing, although it was very long, and there was no AC so it was very hot. After church we sat on a bench over looking the river and "discussed" some more when we should head home. Feeling frustrated as we felt differently about it, we decided to head back to Dukes to relax and have some dinner. Yep our third trip to Dukes. Jes thought he'd get a Dukes shirt to remember the place by. As it was a cheap souvenir I agreed.

On our way home from Dukes we ran into the real Sunday market which was exactly where we had looked earlier but must have not opened until evening. We bought a few items that were quite big. This market was much better than the regular night market. There were buskers playing music all along the way. It was really nice. We headed to bed late that night.

Our last day in Chaing Mai started with a trip to the post office to mail a card home. We found it was very cheap, and then thought why not just mail the heavy items we had purchased home. First though we needed some breakfast.

After we ate we decided to head up to Doi Sutep temple as we were close to the pick up point. The tuk-tuk driver took us up a mountain with many switch backs, I felt so sick. I just hate motion sickness. Once we finally made it to the top we paid for a tram ride to the temple village at the very top, as I felt too sick to do the stairs. We found out later that their really wasn't many stairs at all. Oh well, as Jes likes to say, we don't mind going down, its just the up we're not fond of. We saw some very beautiful golden buildings and statues. After wandering around we headed down the stairs and looked at a few handicrafts that people were selling. Then back in the tuk-tuk it was time to head down the hill. There was an elderly lady who got into the tuk-tuk beside our driver. I think it may have been his mother! Whoever it was I am pretty sure it was because of her that our driver went super slow down the hill. People were passing us left right and center, but I didn't care, at least I did not get sick.

We then stopped by our hotel and got the items to be sent home. Unfortunately it was much too expensive, so we went with "plan B". We headed to the night market and bought another bag! lol
Back to the hotel we packed up and used the internet some more. We would be on a bus at 9pm that evening, heading to Laos.

Goodbye Thailand, it was a ton of fun.

A vacation from our vacation - Koh Phangan

M After being on the road for four and a half months, staying mainly in dorms and fighting sicknesses, we decided to treat ourselves to 10 days at a resort on the island of Koh Phangan, Thailand. After finding our first choice was full we decided to stay at Sunset Cove resort. We found a cheap flight through AirAsia from Bangkok to Surat Tani which is on the mainland. When we got off at the small airport just after 4pm, we started looking at our transport options. We knew we would have to get to the pier then take a ferry across to the island. We asked at information and they said we missed the last bus to the pier, and would have to take a taxi, not a problem. But outside the airport the taxi drivers wanted to charge us $50 just to get to the pier! For the same distance in Bangkok from our hostel to the airport we paid only $10.

We found another couple also going to the same island and decided to split the cost of the taxi. But no, we could not do that. The taxi drivers said if there were more people they would charge us per person $25 each, on top of this Jes attempted to barter but soon we realized we were being scammed, so we walked away. We decided to take the bus into Surat Tani town, which cost about $3 a head, we figured once there we would find a way to get to the island before nightfall.

The other couple we had met, who were from Israel, joined us. One of the men who worked at the airport was on the bus and was very upset at us because we did not take a taxi, saying that we were unreasonable, then muttering under his breath a word that luckily the Israeli knew that meant we were stubborn/messy. It is quite an insult I guess.

J Our new Israeli friend attempted to talk some reason into this guy, telling him we were on budgets, and more-so that we felt we were being ripped off. Sadly this Thai guy had decided long ago that all Tourists were rich, and that we were being stupid not paying what the Taxi wanted. He kept repeating that we were now left with only one option for getting to the island which was to take the 11pm overnight boat, arriving at 6am. Once at the pier (Ban Don) we saw the boat, which was a cargo vessel, and immediately started looking for another option. We had heard of speed boats which left at several times during the day, but it became apparent that the pier we had been let off at was only used by this big, slow, overnight barge.

M When we noticed no other boats, and no tourists offices, we started worrying we would have to take the cargo boat. It had beds on it, so we would have somewhere to sleep, but I worried about how rough a ride it was going to be. Some of the other tourists immediately signed up to take the slow boat for 300 Baht ($10) a person.

With our packs on we went looking for an internet cafe to contact our hotel. We informed them we would not be able to make it that night. The guy there told us not to take the cargo boat as it was not comfy, but worse the weather called for a storm and it would be a very rough ride. So we went off in search of a hotel, our Israeli friends had stayed with us for some time but eventually got sick of waiting and left to sign-up for the cargo boat.

One of the locals pointed us in the direction of a nice looking hotel. As we approached we decided we would pay between $20-$30 CDN but no more. We were extremely happy when they told us we could get a room with AC and TV for $13. Not only that, but there was a bus that could pick us up in the morning and take us to the pier. A combo bus and ferry ticket would cost us $10 each. We were quite happy with the way everything worked out. We went to the street market for dinner and hung out with our Israeli friends, a guy from Turkey, and a local Thai named Chai. We headed back to our hotel at about midnight to get some sleep after what felt like a very long day.

The next morning we were up bright and early to catch the bus that left at 7:30am. It was about an hour drive to the port. Then on the boat we splurged and paid $1 each to sit in the VIP area which had AC, comfortable chairs, and movies playing for the 2 1/2 hour ferry ride. When we arrived at Koh Phangan we were greeted/bombarded with people asking us where we were staying and trying to get us to come to their bungalows. We were shocked as we had found on-line that many places were full. Obviously not all, even though it was a week away from the famous full moon party. We called our resort and they came to the pier and picked us up. The resort was small, quiet, and beautiful. The pool was situated in a way that it looked like you were swimming in the ocean when inside it. We relaxed that day, unpacked, and swam in the pool. We had dinner at the resorts restaurant and lay by the beach reading books from their library. Once the sun went down there was an amazing symphony of bugs, birds and geckos that rose up all around us! We marveled at this every night at dusk, after starting up the sound would slowly quiet and turn into background noise.

The resort had quite an extensive DVD library as well as books, and our rooms have DVD players, so we decided to relax in our room and take in a movie. Returning to our bungalow, I opened the door, turned on the light, and then I saw it: he biggest SPIDER I had ever seen crawling rapidly across the floor. I screamed and ran out of the cabin telling Jes to kill it. Unfortunately the creature was fast and ran under the floor board before Jes could get it, he did have two swings with a sandal first though. I spent quite a long time sitting on the bed staring at where Jes said it went, but eventually realized that I could not sit there all night. We never saw it again, but I really started to question if I could take being in a place with such awful bugs.

Most people on the island, like most of Thailand, ride scooters, and nobody wears helmets. It is not uncommon to see 3 or 4 people on one scooter, particularly an adult with a few kids. They are fairly cheap to rent, so we got one for the week. Jes loved driving it. I, on the other hand, clung onto him for dear life. Many of the roads have sand on them, and many curves. Jes had started to come down with a cold again, so that afternoon he sat in the shade reading, while I went for a swim. Then after lunch he said he was feeling so weak that he had to lay down. I took advantage of this time to get myself a 1hour Thai massage for 200 Baht ($6.5) and a pedicure for 150 Baht ($5). When I got back Jes still did not look good. We rested on the beach for a while, but he was burning up. I walked down to the pharmacy and bought a thermometer.

The pharmacist said if he was over 37°C to give him Tylenol. If he is 38°C or more though, he should see a doctor. When I got back I checked him and he was 39°C! As much as he did not want to go to the hospital, we decided we should as there are parts of Thailand that have Malaria, although we had not entered them yet it's a disease you don't want to mess with. We took the scooter to the hospital and was greeted by 2 nurses in traditional uniforms. They spoke almost no English, but got the point across that there was no doctor available, and that we could come back in 2 days. We explained we wanted Jes tested for Malaria, and if he has it then he could be dead in 2 days. She then pointed to another place on our map and said we could see a doctor there. We drove into Thong Sala and found a sign that said English speaking doctor.

When we entered and explained the situation the nurse took his temperature which was now at 39.7°C. The doctor thought Jes may have dengue fever, and tested him for that, Malaria and a few other things. The one doctor's office included the receptionists, who were also the pharmacists, and nurses, which took blood samples to do tests on. After 15 min of waiting we were given results. All the tests came back negative. The doctor figured he just had a bad cold, with a bit of sun-stroke perhaps. So the next day we took it easy.

After a good sleep in, we used the internet for a bit. We read the book we had borrowed and relaxed in the shade. Later Jes decided he was feeling up for going exploring some of the island on our scooter. We saw a sign for a waterfall and followed it. Once at the hiking train we decided to try it out and if it was too hard we would wait until Jes was feeling better. The trail took about 5 min and we were at a pathetic waterfall in no time. Pretty disappointed, we took a different trail back, hoping to see another waterfall, and ended up at the beginning of the hike. Oh well, more hiking another day perhaps. We then drove around a little more and headed home. After dinner it was another movie and an early night to bed.

Day three on the island. We got up at 8am to claim the best beach chairs by leaving a few things on them. Then after breakfast we went off in search of adventure.

J We had noticed a sign beside our beach advertising for Haad Yao divers, one of the many scuba diving companies on the island. We had been snorkeling before, in Mexico, and saw scuba divers below us having fun, breathing underwater, the nerve. We had also tried scuba equipment on in the pool at our hotel, almost 5 years ago. We decided to look into it, as everything else was quite a deal in Thailand. After an early morning breakfast, we went off to the nearby office beside our beach, and grabbed a brochure. We decided it would be fun to try the 'Discover Scuba' program, which offered one beach dive and two open water dives from a boat. So we headed over to Haad Yao beach to sign up.

The gentlemen we spoke with said we could start the next day, and encouraged us to take a look at the PADI Open Water Diver certification as it educated us much more and allowed us to dive anywhere in the world. We were hesitant but he said that we could take the day 1 course, which included a beach dive, and if we wanted to continue we could put the cost toward our full certification, which would be another 3 days. Michelle was very worried, as the thought of breathing underwater was a bit overwhelming for her. Plus, we realized we would be committing the next 4 days to classroom instruction and dives, and not relaxing at our highly coveted beach chairs. After a small discussion we decided we would just try day 1, and decided later.

Little did we realize at that point in time, we were an hour away from a near death experience.

M Back at our hotel, after vegging for an hour at the pool, we decided to take out a two person kayak before it got too hot outside. We saw a small island not too far out and thought why not attempt to get to it. As we got closer the waves became much bigger, and even started to white cap. We were going into the waves though so I did not worry, thinking it would be smooth sailing on the way back. The island we discovered was just a bunch of rocks sticking out that looked extremely dangerous to go too close to. We first thought about going around them, but then decided we better just turn around and head home. That's when it started. As we tried to turn the kayak around we flipped it! We managed to both get back on after a few minutes, but it wasn't long before we had flipped again. Not only could we not keep from tipping, but the waves were pushing us closer and closer to the rocks.

The waves were much bigger then when we had started off, probably because we were so far out by this point. The situation was quickly getting dire as we didn't have life jackets on, and no emergency whistle to signal for help. I got back in, but when Jes tried to get in we flipped again. We decided that I would get in and row, and Jes would hang onto the back and kick. I rowed with all my strength, but we made little to no progress and the rocks were coming closer. There was a fishing boat not too far away, so we yelled for help while waving, but they either didn't see, or didn't care. So we decided that I would jump in the water as Jes was a stronger rower, and I would not cause quite as much drag as he did. This new plan worked although we were going incredibly slow and being tossed around by the waves. Once away from the rocks I decided to get in. Jes laid down to steady the kayak and I managed to get up without flipping. The problem was if Jes tried to sit up we would almost flip again. So he rowed the best he could while laying on his back, and slowly we made it close to shore where the water was calm. By the time we made it back we were both exhausted, and sun burnt as we had stayed out almost an hour longer than planned. Needless to say we took it easy the rest of the day.

J I had lost a pair of sunglasses in our little kayak adventure, so after a dip in the pool we dried off and took the scooter to a local convenience store. I found a pair that suited me quite well, and I realized it was my forth pair of sunglasses so far on the trip. I had broke one pair, and lost two, hopefully these new ones would last. I celebrated not drowning earlier by buying a bottle of Thai rum, and having learnt a lesson in Germany, got the smallest one. We headed into town on our little scooter (with had an elephant sticker on the back) to find a place to eat lunch. Then we played around at an internet cafe for almost three hours, uploading pictures, writing about our time in Jordan, and comparing Scuba companies. I decided that Haad Yao had fair prices, although it certainly wasn't cheap anywhere to take the Open Water course. I did read on several sites that the diving at Koh Phangan and Koh Tao was incredible, so perhaps it was a good time to take scuba. I knew Michelle was still nervous though so we put off any decision until the end of day 1 of the course. After doing some window shopping and touring the town we headed back to our hotel to relax and ensure we hit the sack early.

Day four on the island, day one of Scuba, everything went well. After an introductory video and a short lesson in our beach front classroom, we got suited up for our first attempt at playing fish. Despite poor visibility during our beach dive we enjoyed the corals we saw, and the feeling of breathing while underwater. Our instructor Woody was funny, and explained things slowly, making sure we understood concepts, as well that we were comfortable with what we would be doing. Our class was only four people, and even though it was that small Woody had a side-kick named Colin, we assisted and made sure we didn't get too lost (as I said, poor vis that first day).

Once we were back on land we had to make the decision about continuing or ending there. We took a short walk, and after much discussion (read arguing), we decided to go for it and signed up for the full Open Water Diver PADI course. We liked our instructors, we liked the two ladies who were taking the course as well, and despite the cost we figured where else in the world better to learn.

Day two of Scuba. Did you know that SCUBA stands for? It's Self-Contained-Underwater-Breathing-Apparatus.

The theory portion of the class was quite interesting, a little bit of physics, a little bit of scare tactics, and we learned the golden rule (actually we learned that on day one) which is; 'Never Stop Breathing'. This being important whether you are descending, ascending, or just staying neutrally buoyant in the water (hovering). Staying neutral was something we didn't have much ability to do even after day two.

We didn't see any coral or fishes on day two but we did work on skills, such as getting water out of our masks (while underwater), taking off our masks and then swimming without a mask. The most exciting moment was having our instructor kill our air supply and once we ran out of air making the hand signals and using his alternative air source. It was a little scary for some of our group, but it was necessary. Talking with some people who were just taking the Scuba Diver course, they were shocked we would practise such a manoeuvre, but when asked how they would respond underwater if it happened to them, they realized the important of practising for such situations.

Day three of scuba, our first open water dives. We took a boat out to the famed Sail Rock, which is between Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. The ride out was rocky and we barely made it with our breakfasts intact, apparently Thai boats are infamous for being rocky on the sea. One at Sail Rock, we geared up and jumped in. Strangely we felt a little less sea-sick once in the water. lol

We descended with the help of a rope line connected to a float and once down things were good, but getting down was slow and painful for me. I had gotten over a cold that I had about a month earlier, but still felt like my sinuses were not back to 100%, and as I descended I had a lot of trouble attempting to equalize my sinus cavities. I ended up with a bruised nose from all the squeezing, and (as I later found out) even bled a bit from my nose. Our instructor didn't bother letting me know until after the dive, and apparently it happens now and then, no biggie.
His advice was simply "don't squeeze your nose so damn hard". lol

We were both a little scared of being down so far, we were at 12 meters, which meant no sticking our heads out of the water like we could on the beach dives. We had the buddy system going, and Mich and I were together. So for ease of finding our buddy (and assurance) we held hands.

On our second dive, and right near the end as we approached the rope line, I found myself rapidly ascending. I thought it had something to do with bubbles from below (other scuba divers breathing too much) but looking back I may have been holding my breath for some reason. I was only down 4-5 metres, and the air trickled out of my sinuses as I surfaced, so unlike the decsent it was painless. The sudden unplanned ascent really worried me however as I knew subsequent dives would be deeper and I had to be able to control the rate of ascent. Part of the problem was finding our how many weights I needed on my BCD to keep me down, something we changed for the next day.

Despite Mich feeling sick going out and coming back from Sail Rock, I was the first of our little group to blow chunks, (you try drinking a litre of sea water and keeping it down). The waves on the surface were terrible, but it didn't have much impact on visibility, which was good at 5-8 m. So despite nerves, a little lack of buoyancy control, and drinking salt water, we really enjoyed ourselves. We saw some interesting fish as well as corals. The girls of our group were so excited at the fish we saw and discussed them for most of the ride home, but I (being a man) was more concerned with my air consumption, dive performance, and techniques. Looking back, I should have just chilled and realized it was only my first day of open water diving, I would get better with practise.

Our last day of diving, day four of Scuba, started like the day before. Early start, jump on a boat, and head to our dive destination. We went to two nice spots right off Koh Tao island. Both our dives were done without the assistance of a rope line. We had much better conditions on the surface so we did some skills before descending; we removed most of our gear (BCD with tank), and then the weight belt, and of course put them back on.

Descending once again was a problem, it took me 2-3 minutes to get down, but Michelle performed like a champ. Once down (at 18m) I was very comfortable with positioning in the water, and practised using breathing to control movement. I was having a great time but unfortunately I had a leaky mask problem which ended up bugging me all day.

As I used air faster then our instructor and the three ladies, they planned to let me breath from their alt air-source once I used up most of mine. So after 30 minutes or so I was given Colin's a.a.s. to breath from. I held onto him as we started to return to the boats area, we were just a minute from the boat when we found a sea turtle! I had just swam into view of the thing when it happened, I started ascending without realizing it, again!

I guess I was just excited and thus started breathing heavily, the next thing I knew Colin was instructing me to empty the air from my BCD, I did but it had little effect. He tried to keep me down but after a few seconds gave up and together we ascended. The rest of the group followed-suite a minute later and we headed back to the boat for lunch. Despite there being two other Scuba groups and a large group of snorkelers nearby, noone else (other then our group) saw the Turtle that day!

On the boat we relaxed, I attempted to fix my mask, and we got fresh tanks ready for our second dive. The boat took us to another bay which was more shallow but had plenty of beautiful coral. Colin who was working toward his Dive Master certification had to exchange everything while underwater (luckily he kept his wet suite on), and then on the surface perform a rescue (staged). It was fun entertainment to watch as we ate lunch. We waited an hour for digesting before we got back in the water for our last dive.

The last dive was great, I had little problems descending and we saw all sorts of fish and coral, as well as a blue spotted sting-ray that stayed along the bottom. I discovered a porcupine fish hiding amid a bunch of coral, and Woody had brought an underwater camera to take pics. It was by far our best dive, our confidence level was high, and we were moving through the water like pros. Again after about 30 minutes I was at 1/4 tank of air and this time Woody gave me his alt air source.

Michelle did great following along without holding hands, she really started to get the hang of using breathing to control where she was in the water. As I swam along beside Woody I saw a big shell just under a piece of reef. I switched to my own regulator and swam down to grab it. I found out later that I had discovered a huge (bigger then my fist) Tiger Cowrie! I wanted to be sure that there was noone at home in the shell so I immediately swam over to Woody. He made it clear I should put the thing back, and later on the boat explained that the animal inside could sting me, and that it might have been fatal (eep).

We returned home, chatting with our dive buddies all the way, the boat ride was much smoother and noone got sick. Our discoveries that day (the turtle and sting-ray) meant we were legend on the boat (for the day). Later that night back on Haad Yao beach we celebrated graduating the course. We got free t-shirts for doing so well on our tests and for not critically injuring Woody after five dives. We had some drinks and went for dinner with the Haad Yao crew. What an awesome bunch, we would surely miss them.

M Our last full day on the island we went off exploring. On the scooter we took our time and 15 minutes later we drove through Thong Sala, then after stopping at a 7-11 to give our butts a break we were off to see the biggest Yang tree on the island. Yep, it was a huge tree. Then as we were in the south of the island we thought we would go to Haad Rin, the place where the full moon party was held and apparently the most touristy part of the island. As we were just a minute away we came upon a large hill, infamous we later learned. We saw it coming and sped up, but our little scooter ground to a halt. No luck, the weight of both of us on our little pathetic bike was just too much. So we decided that I would get off and walk and Jes would drive to the top. Jes pulled over and I started walking.

Unfortunately as he turned the bike around on the hill the bike skidded on sand, and it took a nose dive. Jes managed to get away with some road rash on just the bottom of one leg, but the bike now had a good scratch on the one side of it. We were very worried of what the rental place would do, but there was nothing we could do but wait and find out. Jes attempted to drive up the steep hill again without me, but this silly hill had a curve in the road too, and after slowing down for the curve he couldn't get the bike up the hill. So I jumped on and we headed back toward Thong Sala. We decided to give up on the trip to Haad Rin and headed back to town to use the internet, we had a flight out of Surat Thani but hadn't made plans for how to go North from there.

Another issue we hadn't mentioned to this point, was that we had been contemplating staying on the island for a month before leaving to meet my sister in Japan. There were houses to rent for as little as $130/ month, and many people who come for a visit end up staying for awhile, including our diving friend Sue. At this point we had not yet decided if we wanted to stay or keep touring. After running into Sue in town (one of our dive buddies) and chatting with her for a bit we decided to get some lunch. We found a little Saturday market and enjoyed some curry (well Jes did as it was way too spicy for me), fresh fruit drinks and some meat on a stick. We discussed our choices of staying or going, and decided in the end after lengthy discussions to go ahead with our flight on Monday. One of the big factors was that we had already grabbed Chinese visa's, and wanted to use them. We also decided that Koh Phangan was not going anywhere and we could always return later if we choose to.

It was mid afternoon at this point and we had to head back to Haad Yao to meet with Woody as he made us a CD with underwater pictures of coral and fish, so cool! First though, we had to get Jes a hair cut, we found a shop only two minutes away from our hotel, and what happened to be beside the hair cut place, another a massage studio. As Jes got his hair cut (which ended up way too short, I don't think the lady understood any English or hand gestures) I got a back massage.

After we went back to Haad Yao and met up with our dive buddies, Sue, Nicki, Colin and Woody. We hung out there chatting for a couple hours then decided to head out, we had stayed late the previous two nights and wanted some time to ourselves. We went to a restaurant that we wished we had found earlier as it was cheap and tasty, then went to the hotel to relax in our air conditioned room and enjoy yet another movie.

The next morning, our last one on Koh Phangan. We woke early to return the bike. We were nervous as we pulled up, but hoped that the lady would not notice the scratch as there were many on it before, certainly the bike had seen its share of falls. No such luck. As she walked over she immediately pointed to the new scratch on the one side. Then without even looking at her paper pointed out other scratches on the mirror and back. She told us the charges for damages, which was double the price of renting the bike for a whole week. We were not happy, but there really was nothing we could do. Jes tried to reason with her, as the damaged fender was scratched on the opposite side, and Jes showed her that it was all one piece, so the new scratch was trivial. She decided to charge us a little less, which was still way too much.

Discouraged and a little poorer we returned to our hotel for the free breakfast one last time and to pack up our things. We went to check out and were pleased when the manager/owner agreed to give us an 80% refund on our first night which we missed while staying in Surat Thani. He then found out when the boat left and drove us to the pier. When we got there we saw that the speed boat was packed so he recommended the vehicle ferry as it was leaving shortly and had a covered area. It was quite cloudy and ended up raining so we were so happy for his help.

Before we knew it we were off on the ferry heading back to Surat Thani. Once at the dock we boarded a bus that took us into town. On the bus a guy told us that his guest house was across from the bus station and that we could get a bus from there to the airport the next day, and it was slightly cheaper than the other hotel we stayed at before and planned to go to. It was raining and it sounded good, so we went with it. We soon found why it was cheaper, but it did the trick for one night. Firstly, there was no hot water. Secondly, there was no flush on the toilet, you had to pour water into the toilet to flush it. Thirdly, the water from the sink ran down a two foot long hose and onto the floor. There were no top sheets, just a fitted one, and the blanket was pretty much a big towel, but it did have a TV. Like I said, fine for one night.

We went out in the rain in search of dinner, and landed at a pizza place. After sharing a small pizza we hit the night market. Why in the world did we eat pizza? There were so many good things at the market from meats on a stick, to curry, to little desserts and fruit drinks. We left stuffed and made it back to our hotel.

Bye Bye Koh Phangan, hopefully we'll be back one day.

Bangkok

M As the airplane touched down in Bangkok we held hands and said a prayer. We were a little worried we might have problems getting into the country, as we had read that you should have proof of your flight out of Thailand to be allowed in, that or show a detailed itinerary. We had made up an itinerary that we would tell them, but we did not have names of hotels or anything. We saw the sign for visas upon entry and walked up. They asked us where we were from, and when we responded "Canada", they said we didn't need a visa! A little shocked at our luck, we approached the customs and passport control lineup. When we finally made it to the officer, we handed her our custom's paperwork and passports, and she didn't ask us a thing! We did have to stand on a little area and look at the digital web-cam as they took our picture, but moments later we were handed our passports and we walked into the baggage area. Easy as that. Prayer really works!

As soon as we walked outside it hit us, the heat. It was very humid and very hot, but after the cold days in Istanbul it really felt nice to be warm. Jes saw some other tourists with bottles of water in hand and sent me back into the airport while he waited with our bags. The Thai Baht was 30:1 to our dollar, so it felt a little strange paying 7 Baht a bottle for water. When I came back to the bus stop Jes asked how much it had cost for the water, and when he did the math we were shocked that we paid 50 cents for two bottles of ice cold water! It was the first glimpse we got about our time in Thailand, everything was cheap!

We hopped on the airport bus and after getting off a stop too early and walking a bit we finally found our hostel. By this time Jes was sweating so much I thought he was going to melt. lol Of course he was carrying his pack and we had socks and shoes on as we had just came from 5°C weather into 35°C. We were exhausted, so after a cool shower we had a nap.

J Later that evening we went out in search of dinner, just outside of our hostel was a street lined with food vendors. We walked quickly past them afraid if we showed much interest they would start with the "hello my friend" routine like in Istanbul, or worse they would not speak English at all and start talking to us in Thai. We hadn't learned any of our Thai words yet, and felt really foolish as we realized we would have to point and use English.

We weren't about to stoop down the pathetic McDonald's path just yet, not that we knew where one was. So after climbing the nearby stairs to the sky train platform we looked down at our little street with all the hustle and bustle below trying to make sense of it all. After a few minutes of people watching, we gathered our courage (prompted by hunger of course), and made our way down with a game plan.

We were happy to find that the locals didn't haggle us as we walked past, the most we heard was "Sawadee" which meant hello in Thai. Finally we decided upon some food, and with a little pointing we managed to get some fresh fruit shakes along with noodle soup for dinner. The food was great, albeit a little spicy, but between the two of us we spent about 4 dollars on dinner! We thoroughly enjoyed eating on little plastic tables and chairs, and despite it being 10 o'clock at night the place was alive with people hunting down their dinner. The food choices were amazing too, as there were probably over a dozen small stands all with several different options. We knew after that night we wouldn't go hungry while in Thailand.

M Back at our hostel we looked up some of our transportation options, used the internet, and most importantly listened to our World Nomads Thai Language Guide on the I-pod. By the end of the night we knew Thank you, Hello, how to be polite (kind of like saying please), our numbers from 1-10, sorry, and a hand full of other words that may come in handy like today, tomorrow, ticket etc. which we wrote down in our small note pad that I leave in my purse. We felt much more prepared to hit the streets the next day. By this time it was 1am and time for bed.

Setting the alarm was a bit of a joke as we had gone to bed so late and our bodies were still adjusting to the 5 hours time difference. After turning off the alarm and sleeping until 9:30 we dragged ourselves out of bed and downstairs for the free breakfast of coffee/tea and toast with jam from jars that were covered in bugs trying to get in. Then we were off to see the Grand Palace. We felt a little ripped off after getting a sky-train pass, as we found out after buying an expensive 20 journey pass, that we couldn't share the card like we had done in many places in Europe. Not only that but we soon found out the the sky-train pass was only good on the sky train lines, and not for the metro, which we needed to use to get to the Chinese embassy eventually.

The sky-train trips were quite nice however, as the cars were air conditioned. So after figuring out on a map where we were and where we were going, we took the sky train to the main pier where we jumped on an boat that took us to the heart of the old town, for 20 Baht a person. Having read our travel book we walked past many private companies wanting to sell us a faster boat ride, on a long tail boat, for 10x the price of course.

Once we disembarked at our pier we followed the signs for the Grand Palace, there was a huge wall which surrounded the Palace, and as we walked up to what seemed to be an entrance we were approached by a professional looking man who was standing on the road leading in. The guy was quite friendly, and informed us that unfortunately it was a Buddhist holiday, and that only Thai people were allowed into the Palace, it seemed to make sense as Thai people were entering past the armed guards, and there wasn't a white person in sight. He pointed to the writing on a small white sign in the middle of the roadway leading into the palace, of course the writing was only in Thai. What luck we thought, first the Arch Bishop of the Orthodox church dies and messes up our plans in Greece, and now the Grand Palace is closed the day we arrive in Thailand!

As our new friend holds an umbrella over us to shade us from the heat of the sun he asks what we've seen and what we would like to see. He suggests a few places that are still open despite the holiday, and shows us on our map where they are. The most important landmark being the "famous" Lucky Buddha. He suggests that we simply take a tuk-tuk to all the places we want to go, and that we shouldn't pay more then 100 baht, at this he hails one for us.

By the way, in case you don't know. A tuk-tuk is a taxi that is basically a motorbike with a box on the back for a couple of people to sit in. They also carry food like this one.

We're all smiles as we walk toward the tuk-tuk driver, when all of a sudden Jesse stops and pulls me aside. He had read just that morning in our hostel an article warning tourists of con artists who will claim the place they're going to see is closed, and the next thing you know they are ushering you into a tuk-tuk. From that point they take you to places encouraging you to buy things, and the drivers get money for bringing tourist to these expensive stores. It was hard to believe but this sounded just like the scam we had read about, with a slight modification. After Jes explained this I totally agreed that we were moments from being scammed, so we thanked the guy who had been scamming us and told him we wanted to simply walk. He complained, as did the tuk-tuk driver, but they let us go as we hurried off to walk to the other side of the building.

After turning a corner we approached what was obviously the real entrance to the Grand Palace. We were being scammed! Luckily we saw through the deception. This entrance was much larger and had many people coming and going, including many tourists. As we entered we saw a sign that said in English "do not take rides from people claiming they will take you to the Lucky Buddha", we had to laugh.

Inside the Palace women must wear long skirts (which I had worn) and men must wear pants. Clothing is free to rent so Jes got some pants. He came out with his shorts over top of his pants. I laughed and said he looked ridiculous, but he said the lockers do not have locks and he did not want to leave his shorts with his wallet etc. out for someone to steal. Plus he didn't care how goofy he looked. So we walked up to the entrance where the 'fashion police', as I like to call them, are making sure you are dressed appropriately. One lady started laughing and said something in Thai to the other two people taking tickets, soon they were all laughing and looking at Jes with his shorts over the pants. Finally the first lady told him that he couldn't wear his shorts over the pants, he protested but headed back to the hut to change. Jes left behind his shorts but took his wallet and other valuables out of his pockets.

Once inside the Palace we were in awe! The beautiful gold-leaf covered buildings sparkled, and the size of the place, it was huge. Just as we started taking pictures, it happened.. our camera battery died and we had left the other one back at the hostel. We managed to get a couple more pictures after turning the camera off and back on and quickly taking the shot before it realized it was completely dead. Oh well, we'll enjoy the Palace with our eyes only I told Jes.

We went into our first Buddhist temple, and were surprised at the number of tourist's who did not know/care about the very offensive act of having your feet pointed towards the Buddha. When entering a temple everyone must leave their shoes outside and sit on the floor. There were many cool statues and shrubbery trimmed into different shapes on the grounds, as well as murals showing various Buddhas.

We found out that a large portion of the palace was indeed off-limits to the public, which was probably what the white sign outside had said. Apparently some princess had died a week or two earlier and was 'laying in state' for at least eight months. Military guys made sure that non-Thai's didn't enter the off-limits area of the palace.

We had enjoyed our time at the Palace, although we had paid for a joint ticket for some teakwood house, that was apparently 5km away, strange we thought, but we decided to see it another day as the ticket was valid for 5 days. After leaving the Palace we went walking in search of a drink, which we found easily. As we walked around several tuk-tuk drivers stopped and asked us if we needed a ride. We decided it might not be a bad way to get around, so we talked to one that agreed to show us to as many sites as we wanted, all for only 10 baht a head (about $0.60). It was an awesome deal.

Riding in the back of our first tuk-tuk was quite a rush as we weaved in and out of traffic. There are lines on the road, but tuk-tuks and motor bikes go anywhere they want. We arrived at the 'big Buddha" which is just a really really large outdoor Buddha. He was probably 90 -100 feet tall, it was pretty neat but after a few seconds we walked off.

Once again we were surrounded by street vendors selling freshly prepared food, so as our driver waited we grabbed some spicy soup and a rice/veggie dish. Back in the tuk-tuk we were on our way to the next location when our driver started to have engine problems. He pulled over after awhile and was inspecting the bike, Jes figured he wasn't making much progress so we told him we would run into the 7-11 to get a drink while he worked on the problem.

By the way there are 7-11's literally everywhere in Bangkok (in most of Thailand actually). You can walk 2-5 min in any direction and you will come across a 7-11. They are beautifully air conditioned and we often found ourselves just walking from one to the next cooling ourselves down as we browsed the store, usually buying at least a bottle of water before leaving.

So after loitering for a good 5 minutes we went back to check on our tuk-tuk driver. He was gone, nowhere to be seen. Oh well, I asked Jes to grab our map and we would ask someone where we were on the map and try to make our way to the next place. That's when we realized it. We had left the map in the back of the tuk-tuk! So there we were, lost in Bangkok without a map and to make matters worse, nature was calling. As we walked up the streets it became a disparate situation. We saw a massage place which had a picture of a western style toilet on the door as part of their advertising.

We knocked on the door of the place, but after a moment attempting to communicate with a very limited English vocabulary they got the point across that I would need to buy a massage if I wanted to use their toilet. So off we went. Despite the fact I still had to pee were were glad we had stopped as the brochure they had handed me had a little map on the back, and once again we had an idea of where we were! Minutes later we found our way to the Democracy Memorial, but by this time I thought I was going to wet my pants, so I was praying for any kind of toilet when, as has happened so many times on this trip, we saw the golden arches of a McDonald's.

Inside we found the toilets were not only free, but they were western style toilets. As I used the bathroom Jes soaked in the AC and bought us ice-cream's for 8 baht a piece. As much as we loathed McDonald's, we sure appreciated finding this one today.

From there we walked over to the famous KhaoSan road for some shopping. It was full of tourists and street vendors as well as shops. We wandered around, ate some dinner and after much bartering on Jesse's part I got 3 sarongs. To be honest, I hate bartering, but Jes seems to enjoy it, like it's a game. It was dark, and we had heard of night markets in Bangkok and wanted to go to one. After turning down many tuk-tuk drivers as they would only take us to the night market if we went to other places first or we paid them much too much we found one guy who agreed to takes us for 150 baht ($5). He said he could get us there in 15 min, we mentioned that the other guy said 30 min, he smiled and assured us it was not 30 minutes away.

He got us to the market in 15 minutes exactly, so we didn't feel like we paid too much as it was quite the ride in the tuk-tuk. To say the guy drove pretty fast was an understatement.
Picture Jes in the tuk-tuk with a hug smile on his face as we fly past people and me holding on to him as tight as possible. Once at the market we saw that there were three main isles, the middle one was fine and Jes bought 3 magic tricks from a guy after doing some more bartering. However as we moved along the market, mostly on the outside isles, we were constantly bombarded by people asking us if we wanted to see a sex show/ping-pong show. The shows lined the outside of the market. It didn't matter that I was holding Jesse's hand they still asked him over and over again. It was so annoying. We found that responding with a decisive "MAA" which meant "NO" often did the trick, but not always.

So after half an hour we left the market, attempting to find the closest sky train entrance. After asking a few locals they sent us off in the right direction, we quickly found that asking tuk-tuk and taxi drivers was a waste of time. Once on the sky train platform we were on our way home. Again we used the internet for a bit, called home, and ended up not going to bed until 3am. Oh dear we really needed to get into Thailand time!

J The next morning, after sleeping in and missing our breakfast of toast and ant-invaded jam, we grabbed some waffles and an O.J. from vendors on the sky-train platform, and headed off toward the Vimanmek Palace. Our entrance to the site was a sold as a joint ticket with the Grand Palace, which was smart on their part because neither the sky train or metro lines went near Vimanmek, which meant taking a taxi, tuk-tuk, or using city transportation.

We were given instructions from our hostel about taking a city bus after the sky train and were well on our way to our destination, when it happened. According to the map we had, the entrance as just after the Dusit zoo, and I'm pretty sure I noticed us passing a zoo, (big tree's, a picture of a monkey, etc.) plus traffic was barely moving, so I thought it would be prudent if we got off and simply walked. Bad idea.

It was hot out (high 30's), it must have been close to 1:00 in the afternoon, and even the gardeners on the outside of the palace (or at least we thought it was the palace) were cooling themselves in the shade and having an extended lunch. We walked down the road for two minutes before coming to an entrance, which was of course to the zoo. If only we could have walked through the Zoo, but alas we weren't buying tickets to the zoo if we weren't going to stay to see the animals. So we ended up having to walk around the large complex to find the entrance to the Vimanmek Palace (and Teakwood Mansion).

About 15-20 minutes later we made found ourselves at the entrance. My shirt was soaked from sweat and water. We had bought two bottles of water at one of the many entrances to the Zoo, so after drinking half the water I simply poured the rest on myself to try and cool down. We enjoyed our time at the various buildings in Vimanmek, the Teakwood Mansion was extremely beautiful, and was furnished with exquisite furniture and rare items (that were left behind, so obviously not rare enough to keep in the current Palace). One neat item I remembered was an umbrella holder, made out of an elephants foot. Unfortunately there were no pictures permitted, and worse the house (being as old as it was) had never been outfitted with air conditioning or ventilation systems, so it was almost as hot inside as it was outside. Luckily the information pamphlet served as a nice manual fan.

Our biggest regret was getting to the site as late as we did (no thanks to my directions). We stopped for a quick lunch on-site after the Teakwood Mansion and found ourselves hurring through the other exhibits before having to leave at 4 o'clock as they were closing.

The other exhibits (all in their own buildings) were very diverse. One housed various Buddha statues and rare antiquities that belonged to the King, another had various clocks belonging to one of the Princesses. One of the most memorable was a two story building housing pictures taken by the King over the years, and below each one a caption that explained the significance of the picture. Quite obviously beyond explaining what the picture was of, each did a decent bit of propaganda for his Kingship. It was a bit over-the-top if you ask me. Alas, no photos of the photos. The last exhibit we visited was a large garage type area displaying the many types of carriages and portable thrones used over the years.

After heading back to the hostel we each had a refreshing shower before chilling out in the room (lying under the A/C unit) discussing where we would go after Bangkok. We spent a large amount of time that evening (and during the past two days) looking at different resorts on Koh Phangan island, but had yet to book accommodations. We finally decided upon a resort, but as we were planning on staying around the time of the famous (monthly) full-moon-party we found that our first choice had no vacancy. We decided after two days/nights eating at street stalls, it would be nice to go to a restaurant to eat. We went to one that was recommended by the hostel, a Korean BBQ place. We were a little taken aback by the prices, which seemed to be on par with restaurant prices at home (300-400 Baht for an entree). We were so used to getting a plate of amazing Thai food from street vendors for 50-100 Baht. The food was good, but we were sad to realize that the funny looking metal cover on our table concealed a burner, and that had we ordered any of the 'raw meat' options we would be able to cook the food in front of ourselves! Hence the 'BBQ' in the name of the restaurant and the higher prices, as it was a specialty restaurant. Our mistake.

M The next day we had plans to get to the Chinese embassy for 8am. The alarm was set for 7:15am, and after the 3rd snooze-hit as I call them, I simply turned off the alarm setting. We had stayed up late again, planning our holiday from our holiday, on the island of Koh Phangan. So after peeling Jes out of bed at about 9am, we headed out toward the embassy.

J Once at the Chinese consulate/embassy things started off well. We found we would be paying much less for a visa then our American neighbours, then discovered we had forgotten our photos for the application back at the hostel, luckily for a fee they took pictures and developed them within 10 minutes right there on-site. No problems. After filling in our applications we walked into the large waiting room, with little booths and the take-a-number system in place. So we grabbed a number, 087. Looking up at the numbers above the booths, 742,739,743,741 we realized we were going to be sitting there a long, long time. Part of the issue we soon realized was that approximately half of the people in the room were working for various tour companies, and many had boxes just full of peoples passports, and were obviously processing dozens of Visa applications.

After sitting for 10 minutes and getting a sense that we would be sitting there for hours, we decided to leave. Later we realized that the reason the office was so full, was that the consulate office had been closed the previous two working days because of the Chinese New Year. We were half way out of the building when I started wondering what time the office closed, as we figured we might return in 3 hours. The door had the working hours listed, 08:00 - 12:00. Noon!? It was 11:30 by this point, and I thought how could the place honestly close at 12:00 noon? So I asked one of the security officers if the hours were correct being that the room was full of people. He had seen us in the lobby and getting photos done, and knew we weren't done our with our application, so he pointed us to a lady standing beside the number machine. She asked to see my number, I showed her my slip with 087 on it and she looked at it with a smile, then she handed me a slip with the number 832! The woman was obviously working for the consulate office, so it seemed they knew what was happening with the number system and reserved a handful for individual applicants. The wait from that point was only half an hour and went by quickly.

We had hoped that when handing over our passports we would be given some sort of paper to say that we didn't have them, something we would be able to show at the airport when we went to fly to Southern Thailand the next day. Unfortunately my drivers license went missing at some point in the trip and I had failed to find it, so other then the passport I had no other I.D. We were surprised to find out that no such papers were to be given to us, so the option to wait a week for our passports to be returned was out of the question. The same day application ended up costing us twice the original price, but we decided to just forge ahead as we didn't have much of an option. On the plus side, it meant we didn't have to return to Bangkok after our vacation in Koh Phangan.

We spent the next few hours heading back to the old town of Bangkok, we took another express boat river ride on the Chao Phraya River, after getting off the metro and walking for 20-30 minutes (getting lost). We decided as it was our last day in Bangkok that we absoluately had to see the famed Wat Pho. Inside was the enormous Reclining Buddha statue, which, out of the 3 or 4 Buddhas we had seen, was definitely the most impressive. The Reclining Buddha is 150' or 56 m long, and 15 m tall. He also had the coolest looking feet, with a bunch of funky Buddhist symbols on the bottom. Apparently they represent the 108 auspicious characteristics of the true Buddha.. and I thought you just had to find the right tree to meditate under, hmm. On over the grounds of the Wat are these tall structures known as Chedis, we saw our first at the Grand Palace two days earlier. As soon as I read it, the silly Star Wars quotes started (poor Michelle).

At Wat Pho we witnessed something rare, a Thai working at the entrance lost his cool when some Indian (East) tourists attempted to go against the flow of traffic. In any other part of the world it would have seemed very normal for someone to react the way he did, however our guide book warned us in detail that we should never show visible signs of anger or raise our voice in public, as this goes against the 'Saving Face' principle of Thai culture. So far I've found it hard to get angry myself, I attribute it to the 36°C weather though, as it takes too much energy to think hard in this heat, let alone get mad.

After the temple/Wat we grabbed a Taxi back to the Metro, and even though we ran (Mich had to be sent ahead at the last minute) to attempt to get to the Consulate before 4:00pm sharp, it didn't matter. At about 4:15 we walked away with our passports, visa's inside them. The office, like most things in Thailand, was pretty lax about it's operating times. Phew.

The rest of the day was spent lounging at the nearby mall, enjoying the A/C and T.V. aboard the Sky-Train once last time. Then back at the hostel doing laundry on the roof-top laundromat/lounge area (we wish we had discovered it sooner), and grabbing a meal of Pad Thai and Noodle Soup at one of the nearby street vendors. Maybe some interneting too.

The next day we would be leaving Bangkok, a flight with AirAsia was booked. All we had to do was sell our half used Sky-Train passes, find someone to share a taxi to the airport with, and pack up our room before checkout. No problem.

The next stop in our excellent adventure.. tropical paraidse? or some run down hotel in Surat Thani?

Stay tuned to this URL to find out.

The Middle East

M When we were looking for flights to Asia, the best two we found were with either Royal Jordinian or Qatar Airways. We were a little hesitant at first, as either option meant we stopped for a lay-over in the Middle East! We ended up choosing Royal Jordanian. We had decided months before leaving that a general rule on the trip would be that we don't go to any countries ending in 'stan'. So technically Jordan was ok. We intentionally did not tell our family how we were getting to Bangkok as we thought stopping in Jordan might worry them, but then again we would just be sitting in an airport for 8 hours, bored, reading our guide book, safe and sound. But we did not anticipate what would happen during the few hours after we left Turkey.

The RJ airplane was mostly full of buisness men, the seats were quite roomy, and we were delighted when a gentlemen with little English gracefully switched seats with us so Jes and I could sit together. We soon found out that Royal Jordianian really treats you like Royalty. After warm cloths were handed out for wiping our hands and face, we were served a large tasty dinner, complete with real cutlery, including a knives! It was only a 2 hour flight and before we knew it we were in Jordon.

As we got off the plane and walked into the terminal building, we were confronted with lines for Imigration, Customs, and In-Transit. We fiqured we were "in transit" so we approached the guy at the desk. He informed us that there was a bus just outside the doors that would take us to a hotel if we wanted. Being savvy travellers at this pointed we asked how much the hotel stay would cost us. The guy said "500 dollars", we stood there in silence and shock for a moment and then he started to laugh, "I'm kidding, it costs nothing, of course". Still a little shocked we followed directions, went through immigration with our "In Transit" vouchers, and minutes later found ourselves on the "In Transit" bus outside with another couple from Thialand. We could not believe it, we were in the Middle East and leaving the airport!

As we drove out of the airport we saw extensive millitary check points that we drove through. The landscape was desert like, mostly dirt and dead grass, but the road was lined with palm trees and flag ploes. It wasn't long before we drove through a large gate with armed men on either side, and stopped in front of a swank looking hotel. We got off the bus and followed the Thai couple to the front desk. We assumed we would be waiting in a lounge area or something, but were pleasently surprised to find out that not only were we no longer stuck in the airport for 8 hours, but we got our own hotel room (with tv and ensuite bathroom). We were also shocked when we found out about the buffet dinner, which again, was free. I felt like I as in some kind of a movie as we saw many men in the traditional arabic dress with the white sheets over thier head. The few women we saw also had their heads covered although we did see many men and women in regular western style clothes too. I choose to cover my head with a bandana I had. We spent our time watching t.v. , making plans for Bangkok and lounging. What really surprised me was that even in Jordon there was American tv shows, with Arabic subtitles of course. It was a shame we didn't get to stay longer, the hotel was very nice, a 5 star actually, although perhaps a 3 by North America standards.

Once on our next flight with RJ, heading towards Bangkok (8 hour flight), what is the first thing they did when we got on the plane? Warm towels of course, then another large meal, which we decided to turn down as we were still full from the buffet, and it was 1am for us. Six hours later we had a small but delicious breakfast before we arrived in Thailand.

P.S. The best part about our stop over in Jordan, is now I can check it off on my facebook 'where I've been' map. lol