TravelStream™ news feed for member drichardson on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/drichardson en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 30 May 2008 12:42:55 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1212165480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1212165480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1212165480/tpod.html Fri, 30 May 2008 12:42:55 -0400 Steph & Derek's Little Adventure

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San Jose, California, United States

Many people have been asking for an update on the beard, so I figured, I would make another post with a final photo.

Here you go!
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Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand

(written by Steph)

I don't know about you guys, but I certainly can't believe that this trip is nearing the end.

We are now back in Bangkok, after spending 10 extremely relaxing days on the beach in Koh Samui. We slept, we played in the pool, we read a bizillion books (some of them were even good!), we watched movies, we played chinese chess (our new favourite game) - we totally relaxed. The hotel was great, and it was kinda nice to stay in a place with a comfy bed and with a shower that wasn't just a shower head in the middle of the bathroom. :)

We arrived in Bangkok yesterday morning and rushed to our tailor for our first fitting for the clothes we ordered last time we were here. So far so good!!! We are so excited to go pick up our stuff up later today. The Indian family that owns the tailors wanted to take us out for dinner (Derek's theory is it's because we paid too much for our stuff!!), so we ended up going for a huge indian dinner (which happened to include the full run down of the rules of cricket). It was a great night!

Today is our last full day in Bangkok. We have a very long "to buy" list, so we'll be spending most of our time in the various markets across the city! After all, we need to buy a new suitcase for all our new suits..... we might as well see what else we can fit in there! :)

Our 17 hour flight begins at 6 am tomorrow - so it's going to be a long day. But we're looking forward to seeing the California kids tomorrow night at our place for a few burgers and beers.

So I guess this is officially our last blog. Call me a sap, but I'm kinda getting teary eyed just writing it. This has been an absolutely unbelievable trip. We have seen so many amazing things - from the glaciers in Patagonia, to Machu Picchu, to rhinos in Africa, to Angkor Wat. We have met so many interesting people - the great swedish couple and fun group of french kids in Bariloche, the 'interesting' guy from Montreal in Torres Del Paine National Park, the awesome girls and kids at the project in Vilanculos, and the list goes on. We have learnt about so many cool cultures and politics, and have a list a mile long of books we want to read about these new subjects when we go home. We have truly had the most amazing time. And believe it or not, writing these blogs has been a really fun part of it. So thank you for joining us on our little trip. We love you guys!

Steph and Derek
xxxx
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209552660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209552660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209552660/tpod.html Wed, 07 May 2008 10:23:13 -0400 Steph & Derek's Little Adventure

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Hoi An, Hoi An, Vietnam

(Written by Steph)

Hello All!

We left Hue in one piece, and although our 3 hour bus ride to Hoi An was just as sketchy, 3 hours was much more tolerable!

When we arrived, we instantly liked this little town. It's quaint old quarter has some amazing little buildings, great little streets, and a very cool market. But, apparently Hoi An has been receiving tourists for some time now! The adorable little streets are packed with tailor after tailor after tailor, with a spattering of guest houses and restaurants. We figured "when in Rome" and set out to find someone to make Derek a jacket (cause the 2 he has waiting for him in Bangkok clearly isn't enough!!!). These little tailor's are pretty unbelievable. They have thousands of different fabrics, and will pretty much make you anything you want. Derek finally found his style and fabric, had his measurements taken, and they told him to come back tomorrow to pick it up. So much easier than hunting through the mall for hours on end!

We sauntered around town for awhile, taking it all in, when we bumped into an Aussie couple we had met in Halong Bay. For the remainder of our stay in Hoi An, they became our 6pm drink and dinner buddies!

On Day 2 in Hoi An, we had to escape the shops a bit, so somehow (I'm still not sure how it happened), Derek convinced me that we should rent a motorbike and head up to China Beach, which is about 30km up the road. I was PETRIFIED for the first 15 clicks or so, but finally settled in and tried to enjoy the amazing views of these great beaches which lined the coast.

At first, we actually passed China Beach, since there is absolutely no reference to it as"China Beach" anywhere. It's actually 3 separate beaches that go by completely different Vietnamese names. We thought it would be a little touristy - since, for those of you who know your war history (or for those of you who watched that GREAT tv show in the late '80s with Dana Delaney) China Beach was the recreational beach for the US troops during the war. Anyway, it certainly wasn't touristy at all, which was nice (although I'm still bummed about not getting my China Beach T Shirt!). We settled into our beach chairs for a few hours - at first the beach was deserted, with only a few local ladies selling their unidentifiable food along the beach (they actually never approached us, since they probably knew we had NO IDEA what they were selling). But by 3pm, this place was packed with locals! It was an amazing people watching experience, even if I didn't get my t-shirt.

Our last day in Hoi-An, Derek was in bed all day with a fever, but eventually made it up for his final fitting for his jacket. :)

Fever's gone, we have all the clothes we need (our bags have officially reached their limit), and we are off to Cambodia first thing tomorrow to visit Angkor Wat.

We are getting pretty excited about our veg-out time on the beach since the heat is really tough to battle through while being a tourist, but we are all too aware that the beach means the end of our trip is approaching..... Is that possible? Has 3 months seriously almost gone by? .....

talk soon
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1210160820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1210160820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1210160820/tpod.html Wed, 07 May 2008 10:18:51 -0400 Steph & Derek's Little Adventure

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Koh Samui, Thailand

(Written by Steph)

So, here we are, on the very last leg of our trip. We made it out to our little island of Koh Samui, which is in southern Thailand. Our hotel is great, very quiet and relaxing with a beautiful beach, and great food. Both of us are already on book #2 since arriving here, so I think the next 10 days will prove to be very relaxing!

We won't be online much while we are here at the Centara Villas Samui Hotel, but we will give you news again when we arrive in Bangkok on May 15th.

For those of you who are worried about the cyclone in Burma, we haven't seen anything here at all. (terrible to admit but we just heard about the cyclone yesterday!) So we are safe and sound and being as lazy as humanly possible.

Take care folks, and we'll talk to you soon!

xxoo
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Siem Reap, Siem Reap, Cambodia

(Written by Steph)

I know I've over used this word in my blogs, but I can't help it! I have to say it!! Angkor Wat was AMAZING!!!!

It's located about 7km outside of a cute ltitle town called Siem Reap. Like many of the towns close to a wonder of the world, it's mega touristy and caters to all the foreigners here for a few days to visit Angkor Wat. So the streets are filled with bars and restaurants, which results in them battling it out for your business, which is ok by me if that leads to 75 cent beers from 4-8pm every night! :)

We decided to get a private guide for our day at Angkor Wat so we could get all the dirty details, and it's worked out well for us in the past. Our guide (Vanny) was good, but not great, but it was ok. The temples in the area kinda speak for themselves...

First we visited the main Angkor Wat. Vanny was great at giving us the background on the king who had it built, and the fact that it was built as a temple for Vishnu - a Hindu God. One interesting thing is that the kings during that time period kept changing the religion from Hindu to Buddhism and back. So some of the temples are decorated with Hindu Gods, others with Buddha, and many of them were actually built with many sculptures of Buddha that were literally scratched out when the religion was switched back to Hinduism.

Anyway, after spending over 2 hours in Angkor Wat, we went to Ta Prohm temple. This temple has being overgrown by these massive Silk Cotton trees, and the tree roots are tearing this little temple apart. But the result is this amazing, haunting temple that seems to be have become part of the jungle around it. Once again, it's amazing (sorry, I clearly need a new adjective). For those who have seen the movie Tomb Raider, this is the temple that appears in the movie (and no, we didn't see Angelina).

Our guide, in my humble opinion, saved the best for last - which was Bayon. This temple is huge, and every tower has 4 stone faces, facing in every direction. It's so beautiful...

On day 2 in Siem Reap, we took a tuk tuk to the floating villages out on Tonle Sap lake, the biggest lake in the center of Cambodia. We visited 2 main villages - one with Cambodians and the other with Vietnamese - that were pretty cool! They have floating schools, police stations, gas stations, and believe it or not, a floating basketball court. Derek convinced the team to let him take a few shots!

That night we hit the night market in Siem Reap which was great and quiet! After the markets in Vietnam, any market where the people aren't yelling at you is kinda nice! Derek saw a guy doing portraits, and decided that his now very long and bushy beard needed to be conserved in water colors, so he had his portrait done. It's not too bad either! We ended the day with a 6$ foot massage. Ahhhhh..... Me likiei Cambodia!

Tomorrow we head to Koh Samui in Thailand where we will veg out for the remainder of our trip..... Gotta say, Angkor Wat was a pretty amazing way to wrap up the touristy part of our trip.... amazing, amazing amazing. (there, I said it).

Talk soon. And SEE you soon too!!
xoxoxo
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209462780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209462780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209462780/tpod.html Fri, 02 May 2008 06:08:15 -0400 Steph & Derek's Little Adventure

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Hue, Hue, Vietnam

(Written by Steph)

Remember yesterday when Derek said apparently the night bus was a thing of beauty and comfort??? Welllllll...... not even close.

The bus picked us up in Ninh Binh at around 9pm, and was absolutely horrible (I'm trying to refrain from saying a piece of sh*t). It was an old, run down bus that was at least 30 years old, it didn't have air con, or a bathroom, and the seats were teeny tiny. AND it was jam packed. This lovely piece of machinery - chauffered by possibly the craziest driver in all of Vietnam - would be our home for the next 12 hours. I won't go into the details of this brutal trip, but the only tid bit I will give is that about 5 hours in, I turned around to speak to Derek (were couldn't sit together), only to find him curled up on the floor of the bus, in the aisle, with his head at some guys feet and at Derek's feet was a woman in a hamac. Quite a comical little site. But he did say he got a few hours of sleep in!

Needless to say, when we got to Hue at about 9 am, we were completely beat. We found a little hotel and crashed for a little bit, then we went out exploring. We walked to the main site, which is the Citadel and the Forbidden city within. This was the main area for the pervious dynasty (all kings resided there before the last one handed over the reigns to Ho Chi Min and that was the end of the dynasty). It was gorgeous! (Hue was actually the capital of Vietnam until the mid 40s).

We then hit a couple of other sites - a few very cool pagodas and temples, before walking back to our little neighourhood for some dinner and a beer at the DMZ Bar. (On that - Hue is in the DMZ area right in the middle of the country, which used to mark the line between north and south vietnam. But, strangely enough, you can't get a lot of history on the "American War" here. We hardly saw any mention of it except for a few street vendors selling old war artifacts).

Hue is a quick stop for us, as we head to Hoi An tomorrow. We've heard good things about it, so we are looking forward to checking it out! (and, it's supposed to be the place in Vietnam to get clothes made, so the two of us are carefully planning the additions to our wardrobe!!!)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209296820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209296820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209296820/tpod.html Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:00:02 -0400 Steph & Derek's Little Adventure

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Ninh Binh, Vietnam

(written by Derek)

Okay, Ninh Binh. We earlier decided to stop in this ancient capital city to see some of the water caves, and a few of the temples and experience a city less travelled by tourists. We were pleasantly surprised, but mostly by our amazing guide. After our negotiating hassles for bus and taxi, we enjoyed a nice night in Ninh Binh. We walked up and down the streets for a few hours then had Chicken Pho (a Vietnamese soup/noodle dish with Chicken). Dinner for 2 for $2. And it was a great dinner! The next day we got picked up early by our driver Khanh (last name unknown, and un-pronouncible to us). We decided to rent a car driver all day, to save our butts on the motorbikes (and keep Stephy's parents sleeping soundly). He took us to several of the local tourist attractions and a few that aren't known yet (but were great). We hit the Tam Coc caves, a 2 hour river ride through the mountains (literally - the water used for rice fields has eroded away caves through 3 of the mountains). This was a tourist trap, but, a Vietnamese tourist trap. There were a handfull of westerners among the tourists. We were basically celebrities on the boat.

I was shocked when we sat in the boat and the driver gave me an extra paddle and motioned to me to get to work. None of the other local tourists were rowing. I took it all in stride, and after a few hundred meters, we were a novalty! Stephanie was relaxing at the front of the boat, and I was paddling away with my two other workers. The young lady (about 44 years of age) beside me was rowing very fast with our 2 foot long paddle made of bamboo and a roped on piece of metal. Her older sister had the main oars and rowed half the time with her feet!!! Shortly into the trip, we discovered that she spoke French pretty well, and that was the beginning of our Vietnamese lessons. 2 hours of non-stop learning about everything, almost nothing sunk in, but it was fun shouting across the lake "Hello", "Where are you from?" and "How old are you?" to the Vietnamese tourists. They absolutely loved it, as we constantly were getting people trying to row next to us. But because of our 3 man rowboat (actually there was a sun-bathing beauty in the front that made our 4th) we had more power than any of them. We did lose some time, when they asked me to take the main oars, and we circled a few times before I rove us into a rice field. They seemed to think it was funny that I couldn't row because my legs were in the way. They were both under 5 feet tall and didn't have my obvious drawback for captain of the vessel.

We really enjoy it when we can get language training from the locals. They all really enjoy hearing the funny sounds we make trying to replicate them, and are very proud of their languages, and their students. It was great to work on our Vietnamese with the lady in the boat. Our driver also was very accomplished at English and seemed to think it was his duty to convince us to learn Vietnamese so we could come back and travel the North West of Vietnam with him. Like the locals, not like Westerner travellers. He took us to a great 500 step hike up to the top of a mountain overlooking the Tam Coc river boats. We stumbled on a young groom and bride (19 years each) and they demanded we pose for photos with them. Each of the photographers had to have a single photo with us too. We seemed to be quite the hit in Ninh Binh........I guess our few words of Vietnamese didn't hurt either! But they absolutely love my beard over here (so do many of the other tourists). It is getting pretty out of control now, but the Vietnamese men envy such growth. Their 20th century leader Ho Chi Minh had a nice goatee and several of the Emperors of previous empires had long goatee's, but the average man has nothing. Although they blow Tyson Lunsford's scruff away!!!

Our guide was so much fun. He took us all way along back roads and showed us the "real Ninh-binh". He took us to a Vietnamese restaurant that not even the Hanoi Toursists knew about. Lunch for 3 for $4. Another great deal.

He really seemed to like us, and our efforts to learn Vietnamese. On the way back to our hotel he insisted that we come by his house to meet his mother and father and join him for tea, bananas and orange slices. The businessman in me made me always ask him why he was working as a guide for a hotel, when he could have a booming business himself, with his personality and excellent language skills. (He also knew some Russian, French and a bit of German). He said he had a truck, and 3 motor cycles but only books through the hotels which really take most of the money. I tried to convince him to setup a website and "go direct" but I don't think he really grasped the possibilities, or how to do it. We asked for his name and email address, which he reluctantly finally gave up (the hotels demand that he doesn't give it away), and promised to recommend him to anyone we ever talk to who travels to North Vietnam. We were regretting the fact that we had already booked our bus tickets and plane ride to Cambodia, as we would gladly hijack our trip to spend another 7 days with him up in the northern parts of Vietnam. His favorite tourist guide work. He told us about his close relationships with several locals and how they take in his guests for home stays, cooking, playing with their families and showing them all around town. This is really what we wanted to get out of Vietnam. Next time for sure.

Anyone who reads this, if you want his info, I'll send it out. Just email me!! (or if you don't know me, post a comment in our blog). His solo tours are absolutely lucridously cheap. (perhaps he doesn't have the makings of a great businessman afterall).


Well, we are heading down to Hue tonight on an overnight "Tourist bus" - air conditioning and lots of legroom.........apparantly.....we'll see.

Anyways, we miss everyone and are looking forward to seeing everyone back in California. But with just under 3 weeks left we are still loving the road!!!




]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209225600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209225600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1209225600/tpod.html Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:19:19 -0400 Steph & Derek's Little Adventure

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Halong Bay, Vietnam

(written by Derek)

A reminder too all travelling to Vietnam. This was a heads up by a friend of ours we used to work with at RIM (Geoff Evason) about travelling in Vietnam. You always feel like you are being taken. After only a few days this really hit home with us. Atleast in Thailand and Laos you felt like when you were negotiating they were expensive, but reasonable to foreigners, not so in Vietnam. Not everybody, but our first experiences in Hanoi and Halong Bay for sure.

After a few days, I became convinced that there was some device connecting the horn to the taxi meter charge. These guys hit the horn every second you are on the road and that meter climbs! Hanoi driving is absolutely crazy. I've been to Rome, Paris, London, New York, Shanghai but nothing is like Hanoi........(although I heard Ho Chi Minh City (ex-Saigon) is worse). Hard to imagine. The motor bikes drive like water falling through cubes of ice in a glass (that's for you Eric). They fill in every available space. Our taxi drivers regularily would pull into on-coming traffic while waiting at a red light, and move to the head of traffic. Then quickly accellerate ahead. Several times we got caught going the wrong way when the light turned green and we couldn't get back on our side of the road. No problem, they would just hit the horn a couple hundred times, then gradually move into traffic. People would get out of the way.

Hanoi did have it's charms though, we spent the morning planning the rest of our Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand beach travel, and headed into the "old town" after noon. At the center of Hanoi is a beautiful lake, that has a cool ancient bridge, the Huc Bridge and some sort of temple structure in the middle of Hoan Kiem lake. We enjoyed getting back to better Asian food, and sampled several great dishes and restaurants around the lake. We hooked up with a traveller friend we met in Bangkok, Will (from Colorado). We had a few more tiger beer, and chilled just north of the shoe market. Stephanie was dying all day to visit the shoe stores, but we just weren't ready to fill up our back packs.

We spent a few too many days in Bangkok and Chaing Mai, and were tired of the big cities, so we decided to stay in Hanoi only 1 full day, then head down to Halong Bay. An incredible limestone rock formation rising up from the ocean. We booked a 3 day tour that included kayaking around the Bay, a half day trek up Cat Ba Island, a 20 KM moutain bike ride and 2 nights on a private island in our own hut. Halong Bay is really cool, but the weather this time of year wasn't optimal for pictures. It was pretty overcast, although didn't rain. The trip though, is solely for Westerners. I didn't see a single local taking the tour, and there were thousands of Westerners on the small Vietnamese tour boats. We had a great guide with us, and met several really cool Canadians and an Australian couple that worked on Survivor Season 1-4. (Sorry E - I tried to get you on the show but they didn't have any connections anymore). This was the first time we really spent with Canadians. And we were surrounded!! Our whole boat was full of them! They were all pretty cool, and we had a great time..........but it is more fun, meeting foreigners.

The most shocking thing though, was that the bay was absolutely filthy. Every day during low tide, tonnes of garbage floats into the bay. And then just stays there. It was pretty gross being in the water, and it kindof spoiled the experience. You do see a lot of irresponsible behavior towards the environment in SE Asia. I liked a quote from our Lonely Planet guide about Vietnam....."As the saying goes, "Do as the Romans do........except when they are throwing garbage on the ground or in a river, and then show a good example". It all made for some quite unpleasant smells at dinner and night time. I'm sure it is un-related, but we got our first bout of sickness on the island. We weren't destroyed, but it really slowed us down for a half day. I guess we are lucky, as many people have lost 3 or 4 days of their vacation to the porcelean gods!

The next day the trek was cancelled because it rained in the morning, and it was simply too dangerous to climb up and down. Although we tried, and quickly turned around agreeing. We had a great time with our guide though, walking around Cat Ba island and speaking with the locals. After a better evening on the island, and meeting a few more Canadians; the next day we had a fun but challenging mountain bike ride home. The views along the ride were great, and we stopped at an old "American War" (i.e. what we call the Vietnam War) hospital that was constructed in the caves on Cat Ba island. All pretty cool stuff.

I have been able to talk to some of our guides about what they think of America and the War. The opinions were surprising! More offline, communist sensorship you know.

After the 3/day trip, they dropped us off at a street corner in a town 2 hours short of Hanoi, as we weren't heading back north next. We are planning on busing down the coast to Nimh Bing, Hue, Hoi An and China Beach (hopefully for some more surfing!)

Now, back to getting ripped off in Vietnam. I'm sure the taxi meters are missing their timing circuits as every cab has a different rate per milisecond. We took some rides to and from the museum (along the same route), and there was as much as a 5X increase. Walking on the street, people would ask you to take their picture saying "no money required", but then would demand payment after the picture. One lady followed us for several blocks until I bought an extortionists price for bananas, twice. The people can get very aggressive with tourists and it can be quite off putting.

Like all local busses, (similar to ones we took in Argentina, Peru, and Mozambique), you jump on the bus and they pull away immediately, then collect the money from you shortly after you're enroute. Not really knowing where we were (so we couldn't get off), they were able to extort a ride 10X the cost for a local. I gave him a pretty hard time for several miles, but couldn't risk getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere at dusk, and paid the man. He seemed to feel bad, and tried to make friends later on, but we gave him the cold sholder and wouldn't let him take our picture, and I wouldn't take any of his cheap cigarrettes either.

Now, not all the Vietnamese are bad. The people outside the tourist trade seem very pleasant, and even some in the trade are okay. We were helped by a local doctor on the bus who spoke French to Stephanie (with me nodding my head). He helped us negotiate a taxi ride to our hotel (eventually, the taxi drivers scams is to take you to a different hotel that they get commission from) for 1/5th of what the bus driver was asking.

It has been frustrating, because the countryside is quite beautiful, and you always hate to classify a whole country by your first 9 or 10 experiences!!! Which, we would soon find out would be a bad thing to do. See the next blog entry!!!


Eventhough it has been frustrating here and there when negotiating for services, we have learned alot about negotiating from these people and are slowly getting better. We are having a great time and are seeing some amazing things!!!! (End of complaining).

The next blog comments on our best day in Vietnam so far (which really has been fun).


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Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

(written by Derek)

A quick reminder, we won't be putting in any photos anymore until we return, then we will update the blog with the photos. We have destroyed a couple of memory cards, and are playing it safe. I'll try to grab some photos off of the web to help with the narration.


After, Chiang Mai, Thailand, we caught a short 1hr flight to Luang Prabang Laos. Nothing too memorable, except we ran into some funny guys from the UK. We ended up sharing a taxi with them to their hotel, and ended up spending that night and the next day seeing the sites and laughing our butts off with them.

We woke up a little late, after too many "Beer Lao" the national, and only beer there (which was pretty good actually), and shared a mini-bus taxi to the Kuang Si Waterfall. A really cool multi-level waterfall, with the most amazing tiel blue water. One of the smaller waterfalls, had a rope hanging off a tree. We spent almost an hour entertaining other tourists with our swinging and belly flops. Connected to the waterfall was a really cool Bear sanctuary and Tiger sanctuary, but we missed the Tiger "Phat", she must have been away for her routine teeth cleaning or on a diet given her name:-)

We tried enjoying several different Laos cuisines, but never really found any great food. Alot of the restaurants in this quaint little town served a standard 30 page menu including alot of American food. None of it very good. Nothing like the Thai food.

Luang Prabang used to be this amazing little village virtually untouched by Westerners. Now, it is still really quaint, but everything is geared to the backpacker. There were really cool street markets, waterfalls, and a huge cave on the Mekong river which stored thousands of Buddah's. Every morning we strolled two doors down and enjoyed breakfast at "The Morning Glory" restaurant, which was owned and operated by a nice American guy, who has lived in SE Asia for the last 10 years. He says he will never return to live in the US, the pace and the people are just too amazing in Thailand and Laos. Although, he said he was moving from Luang Prabang shortly as it has become too tourist oriented. We enjoyed ourselves alot, but didn't really feel like we got to know the people very well.

After we said good-bye to our crazy UK friends (The soon to be Engaged Scotsman Steven, The quiet and friendly Chris, and the Actor/Gangster Matt) we spent a day chilling around Luang Prabang's markets and streets. The next day we took a 3 hour return trip up the Mekong to see the Pak Ou caves. Which, was more than enough for the Mekong (many people suggested a 2or3 day slow boat - I think this was the way to see it).

Unfortunately, we kindof got stuck by our lack luster planning for this leg of our trip. We needed a visa to get into Vietnam, and couldn't initiate the paperwork on the weekend. So we ended up there for 4 days. 2 days too long, but we still enjoyed ourselves, and a list rest from the frequent road/air travel.

We are excited to head to Vietnam, flying into Hanoi and then figuring out a plan from there!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1208504640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1208504640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/drichardson/1/1208504640/tpod.html Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:04:51 -0400 Steph & Derek's Little Adventure

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

(written by steph)

Well we've had an action packed few days in Chiang Mai. After stuffing our faces at our cooking course, we hit the hills for a 2 day trek. We met up with our group first thing and then jumped in an open back truck and drove about 2 hours outside of town.

A few notes to make on the drive up there 1) Our group was nasty. It consisted of a very sweet french couple (good), and then 9 Brits (8 girls and 1 guy) who were all between the age of 19 and 24. During the entire 2 days one of them was complaining about something - their hangover, how hot it was, their sore knees, the bugs - you name it, they bitched about it. It was brutal!!! We ignored them as best we could, but it wasn't easy!!!
2) although Songkran is tecnically over, apparently the folks living outside of the city still want to celebrate. So during our entire 2 hour drive, every 15 min or so, we would get pummeled with a bucket of water. Imagine the sound and force of a bucket of freezing cold water hitting you while you are driving 50 miles an hour. it was crazy!!!

Anyway, after the interesting drive, we got to the first part of our trek, which was an elephant ride! It was awesome! We rode up hill on this little guy for about 1 hour, and the last 15 minutes I climbed out of the seat and sat directly on his neck. it was so much fun!

When we left our elephant behind, we had a 3.5 hour hike up the hillside. It was really steep but a really fun hike. It was already pretty hot, but it didn't help that this is "burning season"where the hillside tribes have fires going in the woods so they can clean it up and get the mushrooms to grow. well, this meant us hiking up beside a mini forest fires for a lot of the trek. a little scary I gotta say!

Once at the top, we settled into a little shelter that the hill tribe had created for us. We had a great thai dinner, and our guide picked up the guitar and sang a lot of american songs but then moved onto thai songs which was fun. A good night all in all!

On day 2, we had a little trek down to a waterfall, and then a little further again we got on some white water rafts. Unfortunately, the water level is really low, so there wasn't a lot of white water! oh well. One great thing about the rafting was that, once again, the local thai people refuse to admit that Songkran is over, so there are hundreds of people picnicing along the river, going down the river in tubes, etc, and everytime we go by, it's a massive splash fest. It was awesome! After about 45 min in the raft, we got on traditional bamboo rafts for the last 15 min or so which was really cool! That wrapped up our 2 day trek, and we headed back to the city.

That night, we were able to find tickets to the Thai Boxing matches that were happening in town. We grabbed a quick bite, then hit the ring! There were about 8 matches in all, ranging from little guys (66 lbs) to the larger guys (maxed out at 132lbs). It was amazing! It's not at all like our boxing - here, anything goes! It was crazy, but fascinating. You really got into it!!! One of the best parts was around the middle of the evening, they put 4 teenagers in the ring (not pro boxers for sure), and they blindfold ed them all. Then they throw in the ref, blow the whistle, and off they go - hitting anything they can get their hands on. They are kicking the ref, the ref is kicking back, they are swinging in mid air, it was absolutely hilarious!!!

Anyway, we are off to Luang Prabang in Laos tomorrow. It's supposed to be gorgeous, so we can't wait!!!

miss you all!
xxx


p.s. - No, I didn't forget to post pictures.... We've been having some serious problems with these internet cafes corrupting our SD cards, so we've opted against putting the cards anywhere near these computers... Sorry about that, I know a blog without pictures is a little dull, but we will show them all to you when we get home!!!
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