TravelStream™ news feed for member cjgr on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/cjgr en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:46:30 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1254429498/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1254429498/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1254429498/tpod.html Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:46:30 -0400 Chris & Guy take a break

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Surin, Thailand

Are you in Thailand on the 19th October? Want to get off the beaten track experince real Thai life and make a difference to Elephants and their mahout communities.Then you have to go to Surin Province where Prah Ajran Han of the Forest Temple is inviting 100+ elephants home to free them from street begging in Bangkok where they suffer terrible stresses.Surin is on the border with Laos and Cambodia perfect if you are travelling onwards or from these beautiful countries.Don't know how to get to Surin? Easy just email Jeff Smith jeff@elephantnaturefoundation.org who is organising trips out of Bangkok and Chiang Mai.Just tell him Chris and Guy told you to!We had a truly amazing time there back in June and to think that there will be some many elephants back in their natural habitat in October...how I wish we could be there!
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Chiang Mai, Thailand

After a great week in Surin we head back to Chiang Mai for a final few days at the Elephant Nature Park where we shovel more shit plant trees and wrestle with Faa Mai the new baby or Princess as Lek affectionately knows her. Faa Mai will be the most spoiled elephant at the park it belongs to the park and unlike Aura ,cannot be taken away to be broken in only to come back sick and be a completely different elephant which was so sad to see.We will be back but we need to get jobs this time when we go home, so as we can come back next year when we have saved up some more money and each year after that until hopefully all the elephants in Thailand will be free to live in a more natural environment.
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Surin, Thailand

After a few weeks back in London we heard the elephants calling us back to Thailand!We were fortunate to be asked to help start a new project for the ENP. The start of a new elephant sanctuary in the poorest & least touristed part of Thailand, Surin.You will likely be the only western visitors here if you make it on your way to or from either Pakse in S Laos or Angkor Wat in Cambodia.If you really want to make a difference to a whole community and improve living conditions for domesticated elephants this is an unmissable opportunity. It was an amazing experience, hard work but hugely rewarding to see happy elephants released from their chains for the first time and seeing the mahouts, the elephant owners, & their families enjoying themselves at the same timeThis project needs your support & needs to attract visitors on a weekly basis so the elephant owners can make a living whilst freeing their elephants from the hell that is street begging & circus performing.http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/go/surinhttp://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=100555708093
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1239671340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1239671340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1239671340/tpod.html Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:12:26 -0400 Chris & Guy take a break

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London, England, United Kingdom

We arrived back home on April 13th - Heathrow is without doubt the most filthy, run down, depressing airport we have experienced & a total disgrace as a welcome to Britain.My sister, Suzanne & nephew Oscar met us at the airport - thank you, & it was great to see them again especially as they are off to Sydney shortly to live.Shirli & Mark have looked after our house perfectly - thank you.Now who makes our breakfast & does the laundry & where is the cleaning maid??????This hotel is lacking in basic services!!!!The End
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Bangkok, Thailand

Back to Thailand where the year is 2552. Comparing Laos to Bangkok you could really believe the year was 2552. Tall sky scraper buildings crowded streets and traffic jams with sky trains whizzing overhead. Its hotter and stickier than Laos too. The hotel feels like the owner has fallen out with his builder just as everything was being finished off. Massages at Wat Pho, shopping in the largest market in the world and eating thai food. A busy couple of days in a crazy city.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1238666280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1238666280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1238666280/tpod.html Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:10:15 -0400 Chris & Guy take a break

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Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Our chartered boat came with no privilages and adhered to no timetable as we stopped at various villages en route for the pilots wife to gossip with the locals and then for her her husband and son to have a bath in the river - they were obviously going to be having a night out in Luang Prabang. The deodarant came out when they were back on board and was liberally applied to the underarms of the jackets and shirts they were wearing rather than their skin! The journey was very pleasant as we motored down stream on the Nam Ou and Mekong rivers passing limstone cliffs & caves & villages. We were offered lunch of sticky rice and cucumber but there didn't seem much to share and we had bought sandwiches anyway.Luang Prabang has changed alot too. Many of the old crumbling buildings we saw six years ago have been restored - some like the Wat we visited yesterday have received funding for restoration but it doesn't appear to have been spent on the building...We hired bikes again and cycled around, We have caught the boat accross the river to explore villages where we didn't see another tourist. We have watched the monks receive their alms each morning, an Australian we met said she had got up early to feed the monks!! There are loads of temples in this old royal city and local believers sit outside their homes and fill the monks alms bowls with rice as they pass by.The city is still charming & the surrounding area is beautiful. Take time to cross the Mekong & discover the little villages still as they were a few years ago.Making the most of our last few days in Laos before we head off to Bangkok.Laos is definitely our favourite country - we will be back - again!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1239583020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1239583020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1239583020/tpod.html Tue, 14 Apr 2009 03:01:11 -0400 Chris & Guy take a break

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Tokyo, Kanto, Japan

Arrived inTokyo which feels completely different again from anywhere we have been on this trip.Perfect weather for the cherry blossom which are out everywhere & look stunning against the ugly concrete of the city and are a major attraction for the locals who picnic underneath the trees in the parks.Streets are jam packed with blacksuited salary men and the occassional Kimono wearing woman. In the evening there are fortune tellers on the streets beneath 20 storeys of neon signs, it is very strange to have to look up to see where shops are rather than just walking past them at street level.Food glorious food is everywhere we have never seen so many restaurants everywhere you go there is food we have been eating our way through tempura, noodles, sushi, sashimi. Got up early one morning to go the fish market and had sushi for breakfast whilst straing a giant tuna in the eye. The amount of fish at the market is unbelievable and it is on 6 days a week!Sharing scalding hot public baths with heavily tatooed mafia, avoiding yukky red bean paste 'sweets', nearly setting fire to restaurants - well they did give us a personal red hot charcol BBQ & a piece of potato rather than the salmon we thought we had ordered!!! Searching in vain for the smallest piece of litter & puzzling over the obsession that the locals have with noisy Pachinko parlours - we had a great week in Tokyo.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1238144940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1238144940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1238144940/tpod.html Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:36:27 -0400 Chris & Guy take a break

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Nong Khiaw, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

This was the slogan we saw on some elderly womans T Shirt at what has to be the most sad market we have ever come across on our travels. The locals here seem extremely unweathly but bizarrely at the same time it is the most expensive town for tourists we have come to in Laos.We eventually managed to hire some bikes - the first place we tried couldn't locate any padlock keys - only a problem as they were all individually chained up in the shed! We cycled off to the Pha Tok caves used by the army during the war where there was a bank and a finance office as well as an art room all inside the massive limestone cliffs surrounded by green rice paddies There was supposed to be a waterfall further down the road but the bikes were so heavy to pedal and the road all uphill we only ever got as far as what could be best described as a weir - but they may have been the waterfalls where the boys donning snorkel masks were trying to spear fish with homemade spearguns which we have seen all over Laos only very occasionally have we ever seen them with a fish!We had the freshest lime juice here too - though we nearly missed out as it was day our patience was being tested by the laid back Laos. After a restaurant advertising bikes for hire told us they didn't, they suugested we try next door where they failed to locate padlock keys we resigned ourselves to having to walk everywhere when we came across a cafe hiring bikes we decided a lime juice was in order - the cafe owner promptly left the cafe and disappeared after we placed our order. As we got up to leave we spotted him prodding a large bamboo pole at a tree - two limes fell to the ground.We spent our days walking around local villages and temples where the monks had recycled bombshells for gongs and eventually had to charter our own boat to take us to Luang Prabang...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1237801080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1237801080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1237801080/tpod.html Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:04:57 -0400 Chris & Guy take a break

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Luang Namtha, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

The bus station is 10km out of town - thank goodness a local wanted to be dropped off in the town centre right outside the place we wanted to stay.We walked along the river bank eating mulberries and admiring ornately decorated graveyards where everything you could possibly need in this life let alone the afterlife was thoughtfully provided. Clothing, food, beer, tables, chairs a miniature house! We sat taunting a soldier as we drank Beer Lao overlooking the river Namtha just outside of a military camp that was clearly off limits to foreigners and totally top secret despite there being a giant mural of smiling soldiers on an advertising hoarding outside it! Chris wanted the Beer Lao table cloths as a souvenir but depsite trading in our phrase book so the barman could improve his english it all proved fruitless.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1237293900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1237293900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/cjgr/1/1237293900/tpod.html Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:00:53 -0400 Chris & Guy take a break

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Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

What a change Vientiane was!The capital city has changed almost beyond recognition since we were here 6 years ago - then almost no cars at all. Now mercedes shoproom , traffic jams, traffic lights & cars everywhere!! However we were told by a bloke at a sauna at a temple in the forest that it was all chinese cars....However its still a very small capital city & the Mekong festival was just beginning, sponsored by the French.The lure of french cheese & red wine was too hard to resist after 3 months of NO cheese at all. Our cholesterol levels are now replenished!So Boules & fromage on the bank of the Mekong, with views over to Thailand & sureal French/Lao farce. The local kids loved the funky chicken & golden shoed policeman & oversized flip flop children sketch - unfortunately it meant nothing to us!!!The Buddha park seemed smaller than we remembered but was still as weird as ever & the Pataxuy, their Arc de Triomphe still as concrete as ever.We accidentally gatecrashed a buddhist funeral, thinking it was a fireworks display & got invited to the wake!Cycled around - still the best way to see the city, ate gorgeous baguettes, pomelos & local fish. Have we mentioned how good the food is in Laos??We found COPE at the Mekong festival and visited their premises one afternoon. COPE is the only organisation providing artificial limbs for victims of UXB and any other accidents. They also help physically disabled people as there a few resources available in Laos but it does mean everyone who needs their help has to get to Vientianne. Some people have been very creative when it has come to making their own artificial legs out of wood rags and sometimes bombshells! Every year 100's of people lose limbs to UXB's that still litter this country 40 years after the "Secret US War".
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