TravelStream™ news feed for member appabob on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/appabob en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:02:13 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/appabob/1/1233690540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/appabob/1/1233690540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/appabob/1/1233690540/tpod.html Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:02:13 -0500 14 countries, 105 days, around the world

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Los Angeles, California, United States

Man, its tough to come back!  14 countries, 105 days, and now we're back, facing 105 chores.  This was an amazing trip and we were very fortunate in our experiences and also our good luck.  During the trip we only had stomach problems from water once (in Egypt) and were only sick one other time (in Israel).  We had no lost luggage, no bad customs or visa experiences, and amazingly great weather for three months.  We just missed political problems in several countries (Greece riots, Mumbai bombings, Thailand airport demonstrations), but only had to change our plans once, skipping Fiji and staying in New Zealand longer, which actually ended up working out for us anyway.For all of you who followed along and commented on the way, thank you.  It was good to have a small connection to home throughout our trip.  Sorry we got a little lax near the end with posting pictures.  Stay tuned for coming soon full photo albums of our whole trip.  It'll take a while to sort through but within a month we should have them up on smugmug at: http://epetti.smugmug.comUntil then, it was fun, and we will be dreaming of future trips and adventures, and look forward to hearing about yours.Ernie and Aidess
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/appabob/1/1233364080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/appabob/1/1233364080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/appabob/1/1233364080/tpod.html Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:00:09 -0500 14 countries, 105 days, around the world

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Auckland, North Island, New Zealand

We have loads of stories to tell about the rest of our trip...So Fiji was cancelled due to the recent floods. We quickly rearranged our plans to now include the south island and what a trip it has been!? We are so glad we got to add this into our trip.Wellington, home of Weta: Ernie and I basically just did walking tours of the city and thoroughly enjoyed our stay at our awesome B&B (we had great luck in the B&Bs we stayed at here; all were superb). We made Wellington one of our food destinations and it did not disappoint. Great fresh food. From Wellington we hopped on to the ferry to cross over to the South Island onto Picton. We quickly checked into our motel and were promptly picked up by our wine tasting tour guide. Winetasting: New Zealand is an up and coming international wine producer, they are especially known for thier pinot noirs and whites. Ernie and I will attest to the very nice wines to be had. Our tour ended up only having the 2 of us so it was really nice. The owner of the tour company ended up being our guide and she was great. We tasted various wines from a broad range of wineries, from small boutique wines to larger companies. One of our suprises was that I actually enjoyed the dessert wines. It was great. Needless to say, Ernie and I took a short (2 hour) nap after our intense wine tasting tour; only to wake up to go to a great dinner.Kayaking: Next day we drove through more beautiful country to reach our next destination, Abel Tasman National Park, for our kayaking adventure. We took a water taxi to a secluded beach where we met up with our guide and 4 other kayakers. We had a short picnic and paddled onto beautiful blue waters, saw a seal, penguin, and loads of pretty sites. After about 2  1/2 hours of paddling I was so tired! But we got to "sail in" on our kayaks and that was pretty awesome. We arranged the kayaks all in a row (5 kayaks; not an easy task while done on choppy water); the middle people held the kayaks together and the end people held on to a large sail. The wind was behind us and we were able to sail all the way to the beach without paddling. It was so exciting! Fun...After that tiring kayak, Ernie and I ate at this roadside shack. I had a mussel burger, Ern had the lamb burger, we shared a deep fried pineapple ring with cinammon, and properly cooked fries. Yummy!From the beach to Franz Josef Glacier:After checking in to a very nice B&B (Holly Homestead) in Franz Josef, Ernie and I explored this very little town. It was hard to believe that we were at the beach in the morning and now we were  looking at snow capped mountains. The weather was great the next day for our helihike. Basically we took a helicopter up onto the glacier, it dropped up off and we hiked on the glacier. We used crampons and it was great! The two large mountains on either side of the beautiful blue glacier provided great pictures. I loved the trek as the crampon provided great grip on the ice and the ice provided that satisfying crunch underfoot at every step. We explored an ice cave (very blue) and I drank clean cold water from a glacier spout. This was one of my most favorite activities we have done on this whole trip. At the end of our trip, the helicopter came back to pick us up. Each day has been a road trip for us. We decided that NZ is perfect road trip country. - The roads are very well maintained (as evidenced by the many road maintances we have seen), -The scenery is ALWAYS interesting and beautiful, - The roads are rarely straight-aways- There are all these great little places to stop, to have a hot/cold drink, a short hike/walk or to just take in the views- Drivers are super considerate; they are aware of other people on the road and allow you to pass (as most roads are only 2 lanes) by pulling over, slowing down, or actually helping you pass by signaling for you. We make sure to wave our thanks (I know, we are dorky tourists)In Wanaka, we were not able to do the hike we were going to do (another beautiful rain forest, glacier, swing bridge hike) as it was too late in the day and it was drizzling so we occupied our time by going to Puzzling World and Cinema Paradiso.  Puzzling World is just a combination of lots of different optical illusions, holograms, puzzles, a "mystery spot" that totally disorients you, and a 3D maze.  Lots of fun if you're into all those things.  They also have a $100,000 hidden in two pieces as an open challenge: if you're a psychic and you can find the two pieces using your mental powers, you walk away with the money.  So calling all psychics, there's some free money in Wanaka!  Cinema Paradiso is just a single-screen movie theater with a very quirky, small-town feel.  All the seats are donated couches, recliners, and even an old VW Beetle that you can sit in.  You can order dinner and eat during an intermission to the movie. They also have home made ice cream as well as these freshly baked humongous cookies. And since there's only one screen, the movie you see is based on the time and day you go.  They've got about a dozen movies playing, but each one plays only at one time on one day.  It was a fun glimpse into the town.Our time in Christchurch was very limited,but we, at least, were able to complete the walking tour of the city and grab a proper dinner. Christchurch is very quaint, very English, and quite large, by NZ standards. The gardens are beautiful and a very nice tree lined stream runs throughout the city.It is with a mixture of excitement and sadness that we prepare for our trip back home. We have so thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We have seen much and done much. Onward and forward...
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National Park Village, North Island, New Zealand

New Zealand is Middle Earth.  And for the inner-Lord of the Rings-nerd it is paradise.  I restrained myself from doing a full-on Lord of the Rings tour of New Zealand, but when it combined with my love of hiking, the opportunity to see the "best day hike in New Zealand" and "Mt. Doom and Mordor", it could not be passed up.The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a 12 mile hike past three volcanoes, one of which was used for all of the filming of Mt. Doom (volcanic eruption added in post, although we saw a wimpy little wisp of steam coming from the top).  It had a steep uphill followed by a longer downhill, passing through grassland, volcanic terrain, sulphur lakes, crater lakes, and rainforest.  The day before our hike everything was overcast, and a French couple who did the hike went through all the stress and saw nothing the whole way.  For our day, the weather cleared and we had a crystal-clear blue sky, warm weather, and perfect day.The only downside with this hike is that it is very popular.  I don't think there was any point where we were all alone on the trail.  In the beginning there were many people tramping along.  Eventually they spread out, but you were always reminded that yes, this is a tourist destination as well as a beautiful hike.  But don't get me wrong, for such a popular hike it was not easy.  The beginning was a very, very steep uphill, before leveling off and then getting even steeper.  Then once you got to the top (and saw a spectacular view of a deep red canyon that looked like you could be in hell) you started down a gravelly steep downhill sliding more than you were walking, to reach a good lunch spot next to a gorgeous emerald lake.  That is, if the emerald lake didn't smell like rotten eggs.  The sulphur vents did not make the smells live up to the sights.  You think when you reach the top and start down you're halfway done.  No such luck.  The downhill was much longer then the uphill, and after what seemed like forever we thought we were done going down the mountain, only to enter a lush green rainforest.  The path levelled, the views were pretty, but those last kilometers lasted forever as the view was indistinguishably green and thick enough to not give any sense of where the end was.  Finally we passed a pretty flowing stream, and broke through the forest to reach the end just in time to not be left behind.  It was a full eight hour day, packed with nature at its most beautiful.We had a great package through our hotel.  They provided breakfast, a packed lunch, van to the starting point, pickup at the end point, a jacuzzi while you waited for dinner, and a good cooked dinner to finish off the evening, and then a t-shirt to say "we done it!"  Couldn't ask for more than that.  With a hike like this, pictures speak much more than words, so I'll post a few (along with catching up on Beijing and Hong Kong) to give a sense of all that we saw.Off to South Island now.  We've had to cancel our final country, Fiji, due to the storms and flooding they've been having in that country.  Instead, we are extending our stay in New Zealand, and exploring the South Island, where originally we were going to stay just on the North Island.  Next up, kayaking, glacier hikes, and more....Ernie
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Waitomo Caves, North Island, New Zealand

 New Zealand is awesome, its beyond awesome; its be-awesome (Rhino-speak)We are basically doing a road trip throughout NZ and the drive to each destination is so green, hilly, and just plain pretty. There are loads of sheep and cows; sheep outnumber the NZ population.Our first stop after Auckland was Waitomo for the caves, glow worms, stalactites, and stalagmites. We decided to explore the caves by abseiling (rapelling) down 37 meters into the cave, then blind zip lining (yes, as in zip lining in pitch black), and then black water rafting in freezing cold water in innertubes. After black water rafting, we ditch the floaties and take a nice hike through and in the freezing cold running water. This all happens under ground, nice.We take short breaks for hot chocolate and some snacks which was very nice because if we didn't consume the calories, we might go into shock (not kidding).  Overall, I'll have to say that this trip through Waitomo was a bit more adventerous than all our other trips.Food: I do like lamb/mutton. Actually, I'll admit that it is probably my favorite type of meat and boy do they have it in abundance here. My first try at lamb was in Auckland and it was quite poor. It sounded great on the menu "Medium rare lamb shank". It wasn't medium rare, it was chewy and gross. Not happy. But in Waitomo, I had the best lamb EVER. Yes, it was probably the best lamb I have ever had, including the ones I make at home. It was so good!! It was at Huhu Cafe. It was called "King Country rack of lamb with creamy potato stack, beetroot, relish, and crispy parsnip" but when it came it came with potato citrus pesto and roasted veggies, there was no crispy parsnip. Any case, the lamb was done right, not just right, but perfectly done. There was a simple parmesan crust on the lamb; medium rare. The lamb was succulent, and very very fresh tasting. It was so good that I lost all decorum and actually ate off the bone. I actually considered ordering a second one (oinker).The produce here is so fresh and everything is mostly organic which is really nice. Also in Waitomo we got to see angora bunnies being sheared. This experience was probably one of our most hilarious experiences on this trip. First off, the bunny is huge, like Jackalope huge. The bunny looked like it weighed a good 20-25 lbs and its hair was so long! They are German bred and they need to be sheared 4 times a year. If they do not get sheared they die from the heat. The fur was so soft and light. If I had one of these rabbits, I would probably squeeze it to death. The way they sheer it is pretty funny too. The bunny is so calm and doesn't thrash about as it is put in this rack device and is shaved. Its pretty interesting, cute, and weird all at the same time.After Waitomo we headed for National Park for Mt Doom and Mordor...
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Hong Kong, China

By now you've read Aidess' post on Beijing and all the amazing things we saw there, including all of the shopping.  At one point in Beijing Aidess said to me "I've never seen this many malls and high-end shops anywhere in my life."  Then we came to Hong Kong.  Hong Kong puts Beijing to shame when it comes to shopping.  There's no Great Wall here, no Forbidden City or Summer Palace.  True, there's a massive sitting Buddha and Hong Kong Disneyland, and I think a Nature Preserve hidden somewhere, but truly, you could think of Hong Kong as one giant mall.  There are outdoor shopping streets, indoor mall conglomerations (Harbor City is a connection of three different malls: Ocean Centre, Ocean Terminal, and Gateway Arcade, merged into one super-uber-mall), every high-end name brand you could imagine.  There are restaurants galore.  Just in one mall there were six Michelin-rated restaurants.  Oddly enough with all these shops it took us a good hour to find an Internet cafe.  They seem to have forgotten to put those in.  But you can buy just about anything and everything here.  One catch -- it may be duty-free, but it sure ain't cheap.  I guess there are hundreds of outlets here, too, but we haven't found those yet.Our guesthouse is unfortunately very small.  We were spoiled with a nicer hotel in Beijing.  Now our room looks like a bathroom with tiled walls, and our bathroom is so small that the sink is in the shower... (Aidess continues) --No, really, we laughed so hard when we saw our bathroom stall. It's not even a "bathroom" its more of a stall in the corner of the room. In the very least our room is clean, quiet, and it doesn't smell. Its amazing what we now consider acceptable accomodations since we started our travels; the same goes for "clean". Really, "clean" is a very very relative concept.As Ernie said, the abundance of restaraunts here is mind blowing...so ask us where we ate last night? Pizza Hut; Ernie's idea. To be fair, it was a very very fancy Pizza Hut. Imagine PF Chang decor (dark furniture, wood, dim lighting, etc). It took us a full 10 minutes to order as there was so much to choose from. Blue mussels, Norwegian smoked salmon, Parma ham, were just a few of our many choices. We ended up ordering a sampler appetizer (samosa, baked crab sesame toast, fish nuggets, potato wedges), I had a Norwegian smoked salmon with fruit salad, and Ernie had a Parma ham pizza. It was okay, but we did it just for the sheer novelty of it.That was dinner, but for lunch, we had an equally interesting meal. Ernie had cold pigeon in plum wine sauce and I had a more tame fare of dumplings and bao. Ernie is quite the pigeon eater! His fare was very yummy and he like it a lot. Today we are off to 2 Michlin restaraunts, one for lunch and one for dinner. Hope its yummy!
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Beijing, China

Okay, who's bright idea was it to travel to this cold cold cold city anyway?? Beijing was cold, very cold. But surprisingly, Ern and I had enough clothing to keep warm, not bad considering we only have one large backpacker's pack each. I only had to buy a hat, but other than that, we got by on 3-6 layers of clothes; suffice to say we had loads of laundry to do after.First impressions of Beijing:-very modern, -loads of interesting modern architecture, -very wide streets-saturation of very high end name brand stores (not limited to clothing or accessories)-very cold in the winterThe story:We stayed in the Wangfujing area, very close to all the main shopping areas. Our hotel was behind the Regent hotel and in that building housed a Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Masarati, and Ferrari dealership...so in case any guests had the impulse to purchase these things,  it was easily available. The malls were EVERYWHERE; not even little dinky malls, but large sprawling affairs with multiple levels. The one we frequented had an Audi and BMW store in it, not just for cars, but in case you wanted to be branded, accessories and clothing were available for purchase. I may be naive, sheltered or just plain unaware, but nowhere in my travels have I ever seen such high concentrations of very high end stores as prolific as Starbucks (until I reached HK, but that blog is coming later). There were several, as in more than 3, Rolex stores (exclusively selling only Rolex), Hermes, LV, Cartier (Cartier actually had stores kattycorner to each other), etc. I must sound like a hillbilly, but I did not expect this here. China is still a communist country right? I mean, industrialism, workers, all equal, all that right? So in that vein, does all this shopping mean that ALL the workers of China are buying up Cartier and Tiffany cufflinks? Did the meaning of communism change while we were traveling? or is China picking and choosing from a smorgsboard of "western capitalism"  I'm confused...Food:Food in Beijing is yummy and diverse. We had Japanese ramen and rice our first night. That was great, esp. since I have been craving good ramen since Africa. Peking Duck--Ernie and I chose to go to the oldest peking duck restaraunt called Dadong. They have been serving peking duck since 1864 and apparently they have been counting how many ducks they have served since because we got duck #374387 (thats what it says on the greeting card they gave us when we ordered our duck, really!). A guy in chef gear rolls a cart to your table and expertly slices your duck for you in such a way that EVERY piece has the crispy skin on it, PLUS he especially slices off just the fatty crispy skin for you to gnosh on, so good....So on either a corn or flour thin round "pancake" (more of a tortilla, really) you put the duck pieces, plum sauce, scallions, watercress, bib lettuce, chili. Wrap it, bring to mouth, bite, chew, repeat, and enjoy. It was excellent. Turns out Ernie is a way better wrapper than I am. He had an expert hand that ensured that every bite had each element in it (though it was unintentional, knowing Ernie). The meal was great, but since duck and duck skin is so rich, we were beginning to feel our arteries contract. It was a memorable meal.Sichuan Food--Ernie loved our Sichuan meal. In ordering our meal, we kind of went a bit overboard. EVERYTHING we ordered had the spicy chili paste oil in it. We had spinach leaves in chili, lamb baked in the chili, and prawns in garlic chili oil. It was a little spicy...Ernie love it. He ate most of the lamb (lamb being his favorite) and the spinach. It was funny.Street food--We didn't try the sticks of strange meat as it was really cold outside (although we have pictures of scorpions, sea horses, and other unidentifiable creatures on sticks), but we managed to procure those delicious looking sugar covered crabapples on a stick. Ours had orange wedges as well. It was teeth-rottingly good!The Great Wall:The main reason we decided to go to Beijing was to go to the Great Wall.We booked an all day hike on the wall, but didn't really think through the whole -0 C weather. So on the day of our hike, we wore:- 3 pairs of socks (we only had running shoes on, and those are airy!)- 3 pairs of pants - 5-6 layers on top- scarves (1 for Ernie; 2 for me)- hat and glovesAfter a 3 hr drive to the wall, we started our hike from Jinshanling to Simatai (@ 10 mi) Surprisingly though, we were not as cold as we thought we would be. Once we got hiking, it wasn't too bad. We had a great hiking guide who gave us loads of information. The wall is amazing! Since we were there in the off season, and we were on a private hike, we were really able to enjoy the wall in peace and quiet. It was awe-inspiring and reamarkable. It deserves to be a Great Wonder.  We went through 32 towers and at some parts, we had to get off the wall and walk along side it as the wall was too damaged. Some parts we walked through were actually very narrow and others very steep. The wall follows the mountain ridge so our hike was very up and down. At the end we crossed a river on a suspension bridge. Ernie wouldn't take a picture of me on the bridge, even though it was a cool picture! (I think it had to do with me running, stomping back and forth on the bridge, which made him nervous) (E: I took a picture of her on the bridge.  I refused to take the picture she wanted of her hanging half off the bridge.)  It was amazing (did I say that already?)E: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and Summer Palace:Beautiful, but probably better seen in the summer.  We could imagine how amazing they would be with the gardens in bloom, the lake sparkling, the trees covering everything.  But it was winter and the gardens were bare, the lake frozen, and we were freezing.  We rushed through these sites faster because they were mostly outdoors.  Even with the freezing weather there were tons of people there.  What is most impressive about these places is their size.  They're huge!  It's easy to get lost trying to see everything.We definitely want to come back and spend more time here, esp in better weather.E: Definitely need to come back.  With only three days there we saw as much as we could, but we were rushed and we missed a couple major sites (the Temple of Heaven and Lama Temple) as well as just not having time to get a comfortable feel of the city in general, and that's just Beijing.  There are so many other amazing places in China that this definitely is one of the places we feel would be well worth coming back in warmer weather to spend much more time.  Hopefully we'll get some Great Wall pictures and stuff posted once we get to New Zealand.Till our next blog!!
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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I wanted Ernie to write this blog. This country is too personal for me. Ernie, rightly or not, stated that this country is about me and it is. So forgive me this blog as it may get sappy, feel free to skip those parts.Ho Chi Minh is busy, as busy as any we have seen. Motorcycles, mopeds,scooters weave through cars and trucks on the crowded streets.Pedestrians bravely cross the streets and both Ernie and I adeptly jointhem (we are quite proud of our street crossing ability as we traversethe world).Ernie has joked that this whole world trip has been nothing more than a countdown for me get to Vietnam to meet up with my mom and in a small way, it has been. A brief personal background: My mom is Chinese, but was born and raised in Vietnam. Her family was one of many Chinese that immigrated to Vietnam. So you see, this is a sort of ancestral trip. Both my brother and are so excited that this trip happened for us. We have grown up on her stories of her childhood, of her family and most importantly, of our grandmother, Popo, who long ago passed away.We came here with no itinerary save one; visit my Popo's grave.After a quite happy meeting with my parents and brother, we riotously tramp around the city, along with my aunties. A description of my two aunties and their hilarious interactions including my mom, deserves a whole seperate entry!  Our first day, we simply "sit and talk". "Sit and talk" really is just code for stuffing our faces as we make fun of each other, laugh, eat more, and laugh more. We sat in my aunties' hotel room and as we talked, yelled, and laughed, more food would magically keep appearing as my Sai-Yi (my middle aunt) simply asked people to go out and get more food, mostly tropical fruits. As we all reside in the States, we were all starving for the tropical fruits we grew up with in our respective home countries. Of note is that, my aunties don't really speak English and as neither my dad, Ernie, my brother, and I don't speak Cantonese or Vietnamese, a lot of our conversation is in pantomime, short English phrases, and mostly having my mom translate for us. In a chaotic way, it all works out because my aunties understand us and we understand them, minus the small details of prepositions, proper grammar, and such. At this first meeting our Tai-Yi ("big" oldest aunt) is also present. She still lives here. Her children had long ago petitioned for her to go to America to join them. She stayed for 4 months and decided that she didn't like it and promptly moved back here. She is quieter than her rambunctious sisters, preferring to listen and quietly offer food to us. That whole first day was dedicated to eating and that we did, until late into the night.The second day, we walked around a little, to the market, the mall, some shops, but we all got together again for a late lunch. Our third day, 15 of us piled into a van and drove to the province to visit my mom's ancestral home. It was a loud ride as the aunties (including my mom) joked and reminsced. We arrived to a town (not the "province" I had envisioned). We stopped on a shop lined street. The narrow buildings attached to each other and not exceeding 2 stories. The first floor of each building was open, open as in no door; instead the front wall where a door and/or window would be opened as a store front. We stopped at one and as we emptied the clown car, my mom introduced us to her cousins and her aunt. After our pleasantries, we loaded up the clown car once again and drove to the family cementary. It was somber, happy, sad, and humbling.A sumptious lunch awaited us back at my great-aunt's home. After our feast (thats really what it was) we hung about and chatted. We even were able to see the home where my mom was born!At my mom's cousin's salon across the street, Ernie  and my mom recieved great haircuts from my mom's cousin as everyone else were recipients of relaxing and vigorous shampooing and head massages (I declined as I was busy lazily lounging about), others got manicures and other "pretty-ing" procedures.This trip has been slendid. Its a rare and precious snapshot in my life. It's interesting that the snapshot encompasses past, present and future all in one. A seperate food blog will follow. Till then, thanks for reading!!We are off to freezing Beijing tomorrow!! Barring my fingers freezing off, we'll keep you posted!!
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Siem Reap, Cambodia

It was difficult to wrench ourselves from Ko Samui and into traveling once again, but Cambodia has proved to be worth while. We landed in a small airport in Siem Reap into balmy, breezy weather. I was both hesitant and excited about this new place; images of the Khmer Rouge and the bloody civil war, not too long into history, slid into my consciousness. Our first night was so pleasant. Staff at our quaint hotel was very friendly and helpful. Out tuk-tuk driver equally helpful. We had our first Khmer cuisine. Since we were tourists, they did not put the chili in with our Amok (curry with choice of meats) and my squash/coconut soup was a bit bland. We asked for fresh chili and all was well. Siem Reap is definitely developing. There is construction of new buildings awaiting the influx of tourists.Very large hotels line the road into town. Also, thier ATMs here dispense dollars, for the convenience of the tourists, but that also means that prices are in dollars as well. There are good bargains to be had (food is cheap), but  other items can be pricey, but all beautiful. The Angkor temples are as magical and mystical as portrayed in the media. Angkor Wat is the largest, but we found that we actually preferred many of the smaller temple ruins; with the very, very steep steps that are fun to climb, but quite scary to scale down. Ernie and I had our fill as we took 2 full days to explore the various temples. Our driver was kind enough to direct us to a very good Khmer lunch place and we thoroughly enjoyed our meals. By the way, people here refer to themselves as "Khmer" not "Cambodian"; we were told that that is a Western given name.Driving through the country side we see a part of the natural beauty of this country. It is peaceful, green, clean and the people are very nice. Many of tourist opt to bike from each temples and it is pretty easy to navigate the whole town on a bike. We like the tuk-tuks as they are very convenient and fun to ride here. We are off to Vietnam tomorrow. Till then,Aidess and Ernie
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Ko Samui, Thailand

Silence.  Sun.  Sand.  Surf.  Sea.  Swimming pool.  Spa.  Service.  Samui.  The beautiful island of Ko Samui in southern Thailand.  I suppose it's like any beautiful tropical island, which is not at all a bad thing.  But after two years working on "Bolt" and then two months traveling around the world from one place to another, having four days to lay around and do absolutely nothing (which I am sticking to very seriously) is just heaven.  I'm not normally one to enjoy just sitting at the beach.  But I'm willing to make an exception now and then.  What helps is the wonderful service we have at Zazen Resort.  They think of your needs before you do.  The rooms are very comfortable, the food is delicious, the atmosphere and view are perfect.  Really, there's no reason to leave even to explore the rest of the island, and we haven't. :-)We spend New Year's Eve here.  Judging by how everything else has been, I'm sure it will be amazing.  Great food, Thai dancing, fireworks, balloons, everything.  Not a bad way to ring in 2009.  Then on to Cambodia and the rest of our stops.  Only one month to go after this much needed break.Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.  See you in 2009!
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Ko Samui, Thailand

After escaping from India Christmas morning (12:05AM to be precise), we tiredly stumbled into our Bangkok airport at 5:30AM, not knowing what to expect next.  Little did we know that our trip was about to give us a much needed rest.  "Incredible India" was followed by "Amazing Thailand", and this time I could not agree more.  It started out with a wonderful hotel complete with swimming pool, jacuzzi, juice bar, spa on the top floor, and a delicious breakfast below.  For the first time in I don't remember how long we had fruit!  Lots of interesting fruit.  One we couldn't identify looked maybe like a giant white kiwi inside.  That was dragonfruit, and was very yummy.  On our various street walks we found several others that I couldn't even name but Aidess was very familiar with and purchased at every opportunity.  I'll let her give the food and fruit details.  Suffice it to say that we were in an exotic fruit paradise.--A: Bangkok was amazing. I'll have to use the names of the fruits as I know them, in Tagalog. We had atis (small brown fruit, white translucent flesh, small brown seed, tastes a little like lychee, but not really), mangosteens (YUMMY), and we had rambotan. It was a good thing that when we saw the mangosteens, we were short on cash and had to buy only half a kilo. I would have had a tummy ache from all the fruit gorging I did. I also had my much sought after green mango. THAT was good!  In addition to these fruits we also had pineapples, dragon fruit, and all else. Man it was good! We did not get to have fresh jack fruit, but hopefully we'll get to it in our next countries. In addition to the fruits, I also had my street food. Bangkok has these great street food vendors and contrary to what one may think, they are relatively clean and good to eat, the street "minerals" just adds to the flavor. Trust me, "clean" becomes relative after travelling and seeing what we have seen. I ordered squid with flat noodles and it was very tasty, much like what you would order in a Thai restaurant back home. I had to eat it standing up on the street as I ordered it as take away. Nice.Mango Tree was our Christmas dinner place. Ernie had Thai curry served in a pineapple boat and I had kangong (SE Asian spinach of sorts), soft shell crabs with green mango salad. Ernie loved his food and helped himself to my greens as well as the green mango salad (with fish-sauce dressing). It was a very pleasant dinner complete with entertainment and fruit drinks.We also ate at a very popular seafood restaurant. They are known for their fried crab curry. Ernie had garlic prawns. I have to say that though the flavor of the curry sauce that the quartered crab came in, was tasty, I still prefer a simply steamed crab or my mom's wok fried garlic/hebi crabs. But it was still tasty.  --E: Our first day we just rested and walked around the local area.  Our hotel was located on a very walkable street with lots of restaurants, shops, and massage parlors.  Literally every other store offered massage.  I'm not sure how they all stay in business.  Christmas lunch was at "Tasty Thai" fast food, the rest of the afternoon was spent planning what the rest of our time in Bangkok would be like, and we ended with a Thai massage and dinner in a local restaurant called the "Mango Tree" complete with traditional Thai dancing show.Our next day (we only had three in Bangkok) we tried to fit all of the touristy stuff into one packed day.  We took a boat ride up river and through some canals, met a woman selling things from a boat (we didn't have time to visit the famous floating market, but saw a brief glimmer of what it would be like), and then stopped at the Grand Palace.  Now, by this time we had seen many palaces and temples and castles and mosques and churches, so I thought I had a pretty good idea that this would be like any other.  We were blown away by the Grand Palace.  Who knew the Thai kings had so much gold and glittery stuff!  Literally if the day was too sunny you might get blinded by all the colored glass and good reflecting everywhere.  Plus the number of Buddhas between the Grand Palace, Wat Arun, and Wat Pho was impressive, including the massive reclining gold buddha in Wat Pho.Finally, we walked back through the Flower (and fruit) Market, and took the Metro the rest of the way.  That was the next very pleasant surprise.  The Metro in Thailand is very easy to use, very clean, and gets you just about everywhere you would want to go.  It worked so well for us that the next day we decided to take the Metro everywhere, going on a run of several different shopping areas to see what all there was to buy in Thailand.  And believe me, there is just about everything to buy in Thailand (see separate post for some thoughts on this).--A: By the way, in addition to what Ernie said about the massages, we gotmassages on the first day as well as our last day there. The spa washaving a half off deal so we got to get 2 massages each. Nice.--E: Our time in Bangkok was very short, but it left us with a very good impression.  This is the first place we've been that we found ourselves wishing for just one more day before we left.  That is, if it weren't for where we were going next -- the beautiful island of Ko Samui....
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