TravelStream™ news feed for member dspoko on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/dspoko en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:03:31 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1147386780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1147386780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1147386780/tpod.html Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:03:31 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Internet in Lao sucks. Our trek was incredible. We are all safe. We're in Luang Prabang now. Lao is such an incredible country. I'm hand writing the latest blog, nearly finished. We've been busy. Expect long updates soon. You'll have to wait until we're back in Thailand for pictures though. Off to a waterfall, and I think my breakfast is ready. See ya.
dsp
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151620800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151620800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151620800/tpod.html Sun, 16 Jul 2006 16:52:59 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

**This post picks up when we arrived back in Bangkok from Cambodia.

And excuse my typo's, I think someone spilled some coke in this keyboard.

Upon arriving in Bangkok, we tried to check back in to our beloved guesthouse, Lamphu, but it was full. We ended up on the other side of Koh San Road (the main westerners travel hub street), in a place our swiss friend Sebastian had used (we met him on the bus to Cambodia and traveled with him for a week, you'll hear more about him from Shein). We threw our stuff down, took a nap, and headed out for the night. We of course bumped in to our Canadian friends we met the first night in Thailand, Britney and Britney and one of their brothers who had joined them, Drew, and we all went out and caught up. All of the traveling and no sleeping caught up with me with avengence, and forcing down breakfast the next morning, I crashed in bed and didn't wake up all day and night. I didn't go out that night to say goodbye to Seb before he flew home to Switzerland. We missed our planned exit that night to Chiang Mai because it filled up before we paid for our ticket. The next morning we again discussed how to get to Chiang Mai, either bus, train or plane, but they all filled up as well as we decided to finally book them. We were frustered, and made a spot decision to go to Chiang Mai via a round-about route.... Through the country of Lao. (If you look at a map) You can take a bus in through Thailand more eastward of Chiang Mai toward the Laotian capitol of Viennetienne, then loop through the major cities of Lao, Vang Vienne, Luang Prabang, and pop out in Chiang Mai. We excercised the Thai-buddhist principle of "Jai Yan," "let it flow, have a cool heart" and took the hint from the Gods, and booked a ticket to Lao. About 20 minutes before we left, the 2 British Kates we met in Cambodia (again, more from Shein), walked in to the guesthouse we reccommended to us. Asia is incredibly small sometimes! We argued for 20 minutes about changing plans to hang out w/ one another, as they tried to convince us to change our tickets, wait a night and go to Chiang Mai, and we tried to convince them to head instead to Lao first. Nothing was decided as we jumped on the bus, but it was great to see them. We could get our Visas at the border, and figure out what exactly there was to do and see in Lao on the way there frmo our guide books.
We reached the capitol city of Vientienne by bus after a 12 hour journey, including a stop at the border for immigration. A quick survey of the town left us with the impression that there wasn't much to see or do. Being the capitolof the communist country, rules were strickly enforced, including a nationwide 10pm curfue. We were advised by fellow travelers that Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang wer the best cities to see. We took their advice and hopped a bus to Vang Vieng after 2 hours in the Capitol.
If we had no clue what to expect of Lao, the bus ride to Vang Vieng gave us a pretty good idea. Our bus pulled through tiny little villages set beneath rolling mountains in every direction. Farm land and rice paddies covered much of the landscape, including up steep mountainsides. The occasional limestone cliff would interrupt the skyline, placed at seemingly random across the country side. Our guidebooks short descriptions of Vang Vieng calls it an "adventurers paradise." World class kayaking, rafting, treking and rock climbing could all be arranged within range of the small town. If you're looking for a change of pace, one can spend the day in a tube gently floating down the Nam Som river. Arriving in Vanbg Vieng after 18 hours of travel, we were tuckered out. I split a room with a Swiss guy we met on the bus- "Mike" and Shein grabbed a single instead of sharing a big bed with me (we couldn't find triple beds). We unpacked only long enough to grab our swimsuits, cameras and set off for the river. You rent an innertube and a dry bag, and a tuk tuk ferries you up the river for about 30,000 Kip (the money is basically worthless in Lao. 10,000 kip = $1 USD. We took cash from an ATM in Vientienne- the only ATM in the country- and all had wads of cash like gangsters in a drug movie. Incidentally, a ploive officer with an AK47 watched me withdraw my stack of cash taller than it was wide.) We got the lowdown from another guy on the way to the tubing push-in point. For every 5 minutes of floating, you actually spend 15 minutes stationed at one of the riverside "bars", really just bamboo platforms on the shore barely sturdy enough to hold a group of westerners, the operator and a cooler full of Beer Lao (the only beer made in the country is excellent and cheap; the communists got something right). Oh yea, and each of the nearly dozen litle platform bars on the river comes equipped with a rope swing, zip line, or other vertigo inducing device. Our relaxing day on the river turned in to a wild display of courage, acrobatics, and general stupidity. 40 feet above the river, standing on a bamboo platform supported by little other than a tree branch and a rope, you grab the handle and decide how you are going to impress the crowd with a death defying stunt. Backwards? One handed? Hanging updsidedown? Do a flip on the release? We did it all, and have the bellyflop bruises to show for it. We ran in to a guy at one of the stops that we had seen a couple times before that looked EXACTLY like one of our best mutual friends from home (Justin Trauben). It was scary how alike they looked, they even act similar, minus this guy's british accent. Well, his name was Dan, and he was traveling with his best mate, Dan. No joke- 4 Dans! We spent the rest of the afternoon with the Dans, which basically means we shouldn't be alive right now to tell of it. At one point, they convinced me to jump off the top of the highest tower in to the river below w/o any swinging device at all. Next, they rallied a large group of guys to pull back and spring load another swing that Shein and I both jumped on, and sent the two of us catapolting in to the river. All in all, it was a very relaxing day, obviously. That night, we received emails that the 2 Kates had decided to join us, as well as a 3rd girl we met in Cambodia, Vicky (an American, but Vietnamese roots). We met up with them and they all got rooms in our guest house. Now Shein and I were trailing a group of 4; Kate, Kate, Vicky and Mike. We HAD to take them all tubing and show them the "ropes." The girls were all very tough and didn't shy away from the swings. Vicky did one of the first rope swings with our incessive "encouragement." We didn't really believe her when she said she couldn't swin, and Shein actually had to rescue her from drowning in the river. Hah! It got dark while we were on the river and we watched an incredbile storm rage over the mountains as we lollygagged back toward the city.
We all feasted over dinner, and planned a more active day for tomorrow. The Kates bailed on us, and opted for a relaxing day of massages and lounging around. I had a chat with the owner of the guide company we used. He had offices in Vientienne, Vang Vieng, and Luang Prabang. He spent 5 years in teh states as a backpacking and vier rafting guide in Colorado. Very cool guy- Mr. Toh. We booked a guide with him that morning for the afternoon. Our guide's name was Lay, a 27 year old Lao guy who was a former body builder. He showed us his muscles on the way to the cave. The first cave, elephant cave, was a smallish cave with a big shrine inside to Buddha. Vicky put her foot on one of the Shrines and the guide nearly had a heart attack and had to stop and say a prayer for forgiveness. One of the features in the vace was a stalagmite that looked strikingly like an elephant complete with tusks. The cave was about 10x20x20 meters, and we weren't incredibly impressed, but it was interesting. We had 3 more caves on our tour to see. I figured it would be more of the same, and we'd be home early for dinner. We reached the second cave and stoped at a local village to pick up headlamps. The headlamps were a giant battery with an exposed wire leading up to a small bulb you could attach to your forehead using the elastic. Very high tech. The wire got pulled out every 10 minutes, or the bulb would burn out. Anyway, we wandered in to the next cave and started feeling our way along in the dark. We keep going and going and going through the tunnels of the cave, following Lay. Our meager bulbs, if covered, revealed the utter and absolute darkness of the cave. The inside of the cave was generally about 10 feet high and maybe 20 feet wide. Every so often it would open up to a large cavern, or close down so tight we had to crawl one by one on our bellies through the muck. Crawling through a tiny litle passage like that is a particularly unnerving experience, but the 5 of us pressed onward. We encountered 1 other group the whole time in the cave, and hid along the wall covering our lamps to scare them. Jumping out and roaring, they yelled over their backs "Having fun, are we lads?!" as we giggled away in the opposite direction. We walked for almost an hour in one direction through the cave before turning back. Even the locals could not say exactly how long the cave was, but it was obviously VERY deep, at least a couple miles. Quite amazing to explore. The next cave was much smaller, but had incredible stalagmite and stalagtite formations. At the end of the cave, there was an enourmous ampitheathre type room that we bounced around in for a while. We were all a bit caved out, but the final cave had a new twist for us. This cave held a long underground river. We were provided innertubes from a local stationed at the mouth, threw our cameras in a dry bag, and set off in a human chain in to the waterry darkness. Shein nearly caused the whole chain to flip when he thought a bat was flying directly at him for the kill. The chilly water was a nice treat after a long day of sweating through the other caves. We had such a good experience caving with Ley, we made a spot decision and booked the same company again for a 2 day trek leaving in the morning. The owner of "Green Discovery", Mr. Toh, totally sold us on the trip. They only mapped it out a few weeks earlier, and had taken only 1 other group on it. No other tourists had ever seen the area we were going to. We were pumped.
We made it back to our guesthouse and met up with the group just as it began to rain. Here I must interject an editorial comment and break the flow of my narration. I've heard the word "Monsoon" before and thought "ok, so that's like Asian for storm, right?" Wrong. We watched the storm approach from the 3rd floor of our 4 story guest house (the only one in town that tall). It began as a drizzle of rain drops the size of walnuts, and rapidly turned to an all our downpour. I've seen some serious storms in my life, but nothing compared to this. Picture the ocean.... upsidedown. Kind of like that. In S.E. Asia, most places aren't built close in but open so the wind can flow through the complex and down hallways. Everything is open to the elements. We were standing in the hallway and there was a WALL opf water coming down in front of us. The steady roll of lighting and thunder left the skies bright and the walls shaking. And then the wind picked up... To say it was raining horizontally woul dbe innacurrate. It was in fact raining UP. As in the ceiling was getting wet. We felt like those silly weather reporters reporting live from the eye of a hurricane, standing diagonally against the wind, struggling to maintain balance. The tile was flooded with a couple inches of water on the hallway and became very slippery. You couldn't stand in one place without holding on to something or the wind would slide you down the hallway. The wind may have been around 100mph. And then it began to hail- and it was still probably 90 degrees outside! Chucks of ice came rolling like dice down the hallway at high speeds, stinging your feet and legs. The rain was so intense that water was pouring like a river down the hallway and stairs. The guesthouse workers were madly scrambling about with towels and brooms trying to control the river. I grabbed one, pointed outside and yelled over the roar of the storm "monsoon?!" "Yes!" "Big or small monsoon?! (and I motioned with my hands)" "Not big" he yelled back at me. If this was a "not big" one, I can't imagine a large one.
Mike and the 2 Takes were moving on to Luang Prabang in the morning, so when the storm settled after about an hour, the 6 of us all went out for dinner for the last time as a full group.
The next morning as we prepared for our trek, Mr. Toh showed up at our guesthouse with some bad news. He informed me that he had canceld the trek because the previous nights monsoon would make the already difficult trail even more treacherous. He didn't want us to take the risk. He refunded our money and apologized profusely. The three of us were upset, and decided right then to purchase tickets on the mornings bus to Luang Prabang. We sulked over breakfast about what could have been. An idea suddenly swept over the group... We ran back to Mr. Toh's office and sat him back down. "We understand the danger, but we want to do the trek anyway." With a bit of convincing, we sold him on the idea and he scrambled to make all the arrangements for us last minute. We would be leaving in 45 minutes. Yes!
We again switched our bus ticket, said a rapid goodbye to the other 3, and set off. It was an hour ride by tractor to our starting point. Our first cool story was us having to jump out of the tractor out of waist deep water to push the tractor when we got stuck in the middle of a river crossing. Vicky, Shein and I were accompanied by 3 guides; Ley, our guide from caving, Phan, who spoke better english and was a very cool, very knowledgeable guy, and Low, a Lao local they hired to come along who spoke no english but was the most comfortable with the land. Low was only 18 years old and was an absolute riot to trek with. He was all smiles and expressions, you would turn your head for 10 seconds and he would be halfway up a rock wall that took the rest of us 10 minutes to tackle with help. He would just bounce of the most difficult terrain, singing Lao songs the whole way. Speaking of difficult terrain, we spent most of the first day hiking up a river bed. The river would run during rainy season, but was dry and rocky during the dry season. We were just on the front of the rainy season, and it was now steep, rocky, slippery and occasionally small pools would form that we had to wade through. The river was flanked by dense jungle on both sides. Often the trail would be blocked by fallen trees, massive boulders, or steep rock walls. We spent much of the day helping each other scale the various obstances so we could continue onward. The rain slicked the rocks and often made hiking extremely challenging and generally downright dangerous. Each of us took a couple spills, slips and tumbles, including the guides (except Low). The river shoes Shein and I purchased were inadequate for the demands of the rocky sections, but were perfect for the wet sections, where the guides would sometimes walk barefoot through the rocky pools. Small blisters encouraged me to go barefoot for a few hours, and I still have the cuts and bruises on my feet to prove it, but it felt cool bounding through the jungle barefoot, so I didn't mind.
When we eventually sat down for lunch, our leaders produced a large bag of fresh vegetables, fruit and raw meat. Within minutes they had skewered a beatiful set of kabobs over a small fire. We dined like kings. The sun was hotter than you can imagine, and the humid mountain air had us all sweating like pigs. We dried out our sopping clothes in the sun and pushed onward after a short rest. After lunch, we came to the foot of a large cave that the river would cut thyrough during the wet season, when the tunnel would be impassible. The rain had left the cave dripping wet, with moderate size pools of murky water hidden in the darkness, some maybe a couple meters deep. We did our best not to fall in, and were able to navigate through with the use of our trusty headlamps (the LED bulbs were nicer than the previous day's lamps). The dank smell and grimy, sticky walls and floors of the cave we assumed to be dirt, mud and mold. Shein fell in to a pool of water up to his waist, and halfway through I lost footing and fell flat on my back. Emerging from the other side, we discovered that we were not in fact muddy, but rather covered in Guano. I had bat shit covering my whole body. Noticing the landscpae on the otherside of the cave, I qauickly forgot about my olefactory condition, however. We had emerged nestled in to a massive hollow of the mountain. Limestone wall towered 100 feet over our heads, with dense vegatation covering the wall and dangling over our heads and to 3 sides. The track of the river bed led the only way up and out of the hollow, through dense vegetation. A gentle mist settled in around the hollow, and light beamed in through the trees and leaves in sharp lines through the mist, adding to the peaceful ambiance. The long, stark fissure of the cave opening ran up the wall behind, while cliffs framed the cave on both sides. It is a difficult scene to describe, and the 360 degree view is even more difficult to capture with a lens (I tried some video, that might help). Basically, we had discovered the most pristine, perfectly peaceful settings imaginable. It was utterly gorgeous. Shein and I were absolutly sure an ancient, lost temple lay just out of sight behind the vines, but to find it surely meant getting nabbed by poison darts and squashed by massive rolling boulders. We took a few minutes to wash ourselves in a pool, and pushed on with good pace throughout the late afternoon, moving ever upward through the mountains. We didn't see anohter soul all day long. We reached our campsite just before dusk at the base of 2 intersecting riverbeds. 100 meters away, a 3rd stream bubbled quietly through the woods, and formed pools just large enough to lay down in and bathe in the frigid mountain water. We took turns washing off the days filth; a toxic blend of mosquito spray, sweat, bat poop, dirt and smushed bugs. We put up 3 small two-man tents and began working on a fire just as the rain began. Low sprang in to action, racing off in to the jungle with a machette. In 2 minutes flat he had returned with an armful of supplies, and another 5 minutes he had thrown up a canopy of bamboo, with a banana leave roof (a single banana leaf can be as tall and as wide as a person, and are quite useful for a variety of chores if you brush off all of the ants, including as plates, wrappings, roofing, and a host of other things). Freshly cut vine rope held the structure together. The structure was tall and wide enough for the 6 of us to stand up straight under, and sturdy enough to stand up against hte strong winds to keep us and (more importantly) the fire dry. We had instant coffee, bread with tuna and cheese, and noodle soup for dinner. After dinner, Phan brandished 2 bottles of Lao whiskey he had hidden in our packs, and tought us how to drink Lao style. One person mans the bottle and pours a shot for every other member of the group, one at a time. Each time you drink, everyone yells "Sok Dee!" When you have poured one shot for each person, you take one yourself and pass the bottle to the next person. You repeat this process until all the whiskey is gone. We washed our dinner down in this fashion with the Whiskey- which tastes like a blend of gasoline and battery acid- and then went to sleep early. I shared a tent with Phan and taought him how to sing "Hail to the victors" until we all fell asleep. And by "fall asleep," I should more accurately say "spent the next 8 hours trying to get comfortable sleeping on rocks. I found a nice big one to cuddle with, and fell asleep. I woke up a daybreak and actually wrote this entry while the guides prepared breakfast. The enourmous pineapple and watermelon we dined on for breakfast was extra sweet because I had lugged them up a mountain myself. We broke down the tents and set off early toward the peak of the mountain. After another hour trekking along the riverbed, we took a turn and headed directly up the mountainside toward the peak. We were to hack a path through the jungle vertically up the mountain. We spent the next few hours climbing with our feet and hands in the mud up through the jungle, following the path machetted by Lay in front. The rain had softened the soil, and for each 2 feet upwards, you slid 1 foot backwards. It was slow, dificult climbing, but we had the feeling it was going to be worth it.
Arriving at the top, we had to turn down the other side for a few minutes before we found a clearing in the trees. The view was stunning. We were standing on the rim of a large valley, framed by steep mountains on all sides. Directly in front of us, two mountains met at groundlevel and formed an enourmous, perfectly symmetric V. In the point of the V was a small village, maybe 5 huts total, owned by a single farmer and his family called Mr. Cowboy. The mountain side was carved up in to impossible seteep rice fields. Tinmy bamboo stands peppered the mountainscape for farmers to nap under and get out of the scorching afternoon sun. I have long since run out of superlatives to describe all that I have seen, but the view was breathtaking. Our goal would be to reach the village miles in the disance by afternoon. We descended quickly dwon a trail alternating between jungle path, rice field and naturally growing bamboo forest. At one point, we ran in to a local hunter in the woods who had stopped to rest. He spoke no english and carried a rifle one might have used in the civil war. He would stuff the gunpowder and round bullet in the top with a ramrod, and fire with a flint trigger. We eventually all stopped for lunch in one of the bamboo huts and devoured our remaining food.
We pounded our knees and backs for hours down to the bottom of the mountain, enjoying the scenery all the while. We rested in the village at the bottom under the late afternoon sun and cooled off in some water from a nearbye stream. The last leg of our trek would be all flat as we meandered through dry rice paddies back toward a main road to get back to the city. On the way back, we stopped at 1 more cave. The cave was the most cavernous we had been in, and it only took 20 minutes to hike easily through. There were thousands of enourmous butterflies fluttering about the entrance to the cave, which was very cool, but we were all a bit "caved out" from our previous couple of days' exlporations.
Another hour of hiking deposited us at our final obstacle. In a [another] scene taken right from Indiana Jones, a long bridge spanned 100 meters long over a river and between two steep rock walls. The bridge was 3 bamboo rods tick, maybe 1.5 feet wide. There were metal guide wires on both sides to hold on to, but the bridge was extremely shaky and did little to inspire confidence in the sturdiness of its construction. 100 meters below, bloodthirsty crocodiles snapped and thrashed, waiting for one false step to send them their next meal. OK, it was only 20 meters high and there weren't crocodiles, but little Lao children swimming in the river, but it was scary nonetheless. We managed to all cross safely, and our tuk tuk awaited us on the other side to take us home. Back in Vang Vieng proper, we took quick showers, changed our clothes, and made a B-Line to a local Lao massage parlor. A one hour Lao massage ran $3.50 a person. Our soar muscles were treated to a smearing of tiger balm (Icy hot on steroids) and deep tissue massage. Lao massage is all about forcefull pulling, kneading, yanking, and popping your bones and muscles in to proper alignment for relaxation. The high point of the massage for me was the masseuse anchoring his foot on my hip, stretching out the length of my leg while massaging the muscles in my feet and legs with his elbow. The low point is when he flipped me on to my stomach, stood on my legs and tried to make my head touch my legs by snapping my spine in half. The whole thing felt amazing, but we were undecided as to whether it left us more or less soar. That night, we took our guides out for Beer Lao at a local restaurant and had an awesome time teaching each other drinking games.
Long story short, we had maybe the 2 best days of our trip. The trek was incredibly challenging and rewarding for all of us. We left Vang Vieng the next morning on a bus toward Luang Prabang.

*I'm taking a break and will post the rest of my handwritten entry, picking up in Luang Prabang, tonight or tomorrow. The internet is good here, so expect pictures soon as well. Hope you're enjoying all the writing. Enjoy!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1146868080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1146868080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1146868080/tpod.html Sun, 16 Jul 2006 16:19:18 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Vientienne, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

We have arrived in Lao! (pronounced lao, spelled Lao or Laos.). We pulled another Koh Samui... When we arrived across the border from Thailand to Lao, we were supposed to stop in the Capitol, Vientiene. According to the people on the bus, our guide book, and our senses upon arriving in Vientiene, we decided to hop on the next bus to Vang Vieng, one town up. We'll be here for a few days, it seems VERY cool here. We just had a nice dinner and drinks with another Swiss dude we met for a total cost of about 50,000 Kipp! That's $5 American. We're carrying around bricks of cash because the currency is next to worthless. Silly communists.

Anyway, send emails to Shein encouraging him to post the backdated blogs about Angkor Wat and Cambodia. I'm brewin up a good one for Lao. This place is fascinating and stunningly beautiful.

Marxistly yours from Vang Vieng,
The D's
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1146623220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1146623220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1146623220/tpod.html Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:09:03 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Siam Riep, Cambodia

This is a placeholder for an upcoming entry on our travels to Cambodia.

Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples were absolutely incredible. It was the coolest place I have ever seen. Even though it was really hot.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151587560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151587560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151587560/tpod.html Fri, 14 Jul 2006 22:13:23 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Bangkok, Thailand

Hello all of you wonderful faithfuls out there!

Yes, take a sigh of relief - we're still alive. It's so hot here in Bangkok right now (91 F/33 C but feels like 111 F/44 C). I took 3 cold showers this morning, each within 2 minutes of the next because I started to sweat during the 10 meter walks back to our room. You could probably fry an egg on my back right now but please don't.

Kindly grab yourselves some popcorn, peanuts, biltong, and ice cream because this is going to be a long one. I'll understand if you need to stand up and stretch, or walk around to prevent DVT, at any time. As I write this, Spoko and I are uploading oodles of mind blowing pictures to our yahoo website. I'll include the link at the bottom of this post...by then the pictures should be finished uploading.

Shortly after we arrived back from Krabi (I'd give you a date, but I've lost all concept of calendar time) Spokes and I met up with Lee Miller, the Editor-at Large for Bloomberg News and Branch Manager of Bloomberg L.P. in Thailand. He was among the original staff members of Bloomberg News in Asia, hired in 1991. Spoko's father knew Lee through a grapevine of connections and organized that we meet up with him for drinks and dinner. So we did. We had to travel to a distant part of downtown Bangkok, a feat that required utilizing various forms of public transportation. In going to the train station, it took us 45 minutes to travel less than 10 kilometers via taxi. If you thought rush hour traffic around New York & Detroit was rough, count your stars...this was painful. Somehow we negotiated the public Sky Train, a pristine monorail that runs on a platform high above the city (wonderful views). After dancing our way through a red light district, we rocked up at Lee's bachelor pad. A security guard escorted us up to Mr. Miller's flat which occupied one of the top floors of a high rise. The door was open and the ever gracious Lee was waiting inside with 2 cold Heinekins. After wowing us with a grand tour of his chic, modern abode (our jaws were on the floor seeing this after spending a month in hostels) we set out for some dinner at a spectacular Italian restaurant. We thought we'd seen it all, as we perused along the streets of the city. Then we were passed by 2 elephants. A trainer was riding each one and a man carrying several plastic bags filled with sugar cane accompanied them. Lee got a kick out of our shock - in case I haven't emphasized this enough, THERE WERE 2 ELEPHANTS STOMPING THROUGH DOWNTOWN BANGKOK - and bought us each a couple of bags of sugar cane. The elephants' faces lit up, their lips pulled in a grin from ear to ear and their eyes wide in anticipation of the tasty treats. And there, in the middle of the city, we fed elephants sugar cane. Once or twice one would take a piece of cane (always with its trunk) and pass it on to its friend. When the cane was finished, the elephants curled their trunks up to their foreheads and bowed in appreciation. Spokes and I slapped each other a couple of times to shake off the disbelief with what had transpired. We ended up having a wonderful evening with Lee. Dinner was delicious and Dan and I received some great advice in planning the rest of our trip. By the way, we spent that afternoon at the National Museum brushing up on history that now escapes us.

The next day, I accompanied Spokes as he fulfilled one of his wildest fantasies. Masters of the Bangkok public transportation system, we found a cheap ferry that took us to a northern district of the city. The ride took just under an hour and we got off at the end of the line. Without a single English speaking or non-Thai person in sight, we somehow caught bus #32 for another hour-long ride even further north. As luck would have it, the skies grew black and the instant we hopped off the bus it began to pour (for the first time on our trip). The streets flooded and, since we needed to walk for another 20 minutes to catch the next ferry, we browsed the barely covered pavement markets. Whether it be designer jeans or books or toys or cellular telephones, you could find anything and everything being sold by street venders. We weaved our way through a gigantic fresh produce market where Jeffrey Dahmer would have been in his absolute element. Apart from cauliflower, lettuce, and other assorted veggies, one could buy raw liver, brains, eyeballs, and the kind of meats you'll only find in an anatomy lab. The smell was invigorating...we both nearly vomited. After an hour or so, the rain ceased and we marched off to the river to catch our next ferry to Koh Kred, less than 100 meters away. We arrived on the island and were greeted by a host of the most filthy, diseased, flea-infested dogs you could ever dream of. I named each one of them Fleazy (a name I gave to such a dog back in Koh Tao). We walked through a small temple complex and found the main road that ran along the perimeter of this 10 square kilometer island. The reason for our visit was that Koh Kred, set in the middle of the filthy Chao Praya River in a chaotic district of northern Bangkok, is known amongst fanatics for its production of pottery. Spokes had taken an advanced pottery class during high school and fell in deeply in love with the craft. It was his secret dream to find such a place in Thailand. According to varios resources, Koh Kred is known for its amazing clay. Flanking both sides of the path that circled the island, we found store after store of pots and crafts being sold. Phenomenal craftsmanship - there should be a couple of photos in the upcoming album. After browsing around for 15 minutes we walked straight through one of the houses producing pottery, passing shelf after shelf of hand-crafted delight, into the back area where the pottery wheels and beds were located. Giddy with schoolgirl delight, Daniel Spokojny somehow obtained permission to climb upon the wheel and then proceeded to throw clay. Although he insisted he hadn't done it in over 6 years, I was highly impressed with his level of skill. I was completely absorbed in watching him shape the clay and have now developed my own deep interest in the avocation. An hour later, Dan washed washed off his hands and generously paid the shopkeepers - who weren't expecting any money from him. Walking in to their home had not even startled the residents. Thai people are just so incredibly friendly and welcoming to everyone. I snapped a few photos which, as you can guess, can be found in the new album. Over the moon with glee, Spokes was skipping all the way back to the ferry platform. We made our way back to the bus stop, where we once more caught bus #32 in hopes of taking it to the major ferry port. No one spoke any English and we had a wonderful time trying to interact with some school children. They just giggled at us. Exhausted from our travels, Spokes dozed off on the bus. I was watching where we were going, but nothing seemed familiar. After over an hour I woke up sleeping beauty and declared the obvious - we were lost. After a hopeless attempt to get directions from the bus driver and the ticketing agent we jumped out in the middle of who-knows-where in Bangkok. Everyone on the bus was amused by us, partly because the bus driver was screaming directions at us in a wild onslaught of Thai. He was either swearing his brains out at us, laughing at our apparant incompetence, or he had a serious case of Tourette Syndrome. We hopped off into a packed part of the city and again, no tourists or westerners in sight. We were the viewing pleasure of everyone who passed by. Imagine two 6 foot 2 inch white boys lost in a sea of 5 foot 5 inch Asians. It had the makings of Monty Python written all over it. Somehow we organized a Tuk-Tuk driver to take us to our intended port. I knew the name of the river and Spokes eloquently shaped a boat with his hands our of air and made the rumbling noises of an engine. With our powers combined, and an amazing imagination on our driver's part, we got across to him where we needed to go. The sun was setting as we hopped back onto the ferry and cruised for an hour down the river back to our backpacker neighborhood. Incidentally, the whole trip cost us about 25 baht each. The ferry to Ko Kred was 2 baht a person- a few pennies each. That night we ran into 2 Canadian girls (the Britney's)- who we met within 2 hours of stepping off the plane and arriving in Bangkok several weeks ago - and ended up enjoying the Bangkok nightlife with them and some other people we knew.

We organized bus tickets to Cambodia for the following day, but that's the start of a whole new story...and definitely one of our favorites so far.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151587080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151587080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1151587080/tpod.html Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:27:03 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Krabi, Thailand

Our overnight boat from Koh Tao to Krabi was ridiculous. We each got "beds," which in reality were about 50 matresses laid side to side on the floor of the cabin, divided up in to 1/3rds. Shein, Will (our Brit friend again who was in Koh Tao with us. He said goodbye to us after the boat and headed to Malaysia) and I shared one matress. Our shoulders were too broad to even lay side by side on our backs. Very tight quarters. The three of us soon got used to it though and feel asleep spooning. I woke up a few times during the night and saw Shein hugging the Korean kid in the bed next to him. I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It was in the engine room w/ steam shooting out and pistons pumping all over the place. The sound of the engine screaming in my ear made for the fastest pee I've ever taken. We arrived safely and were shuffled on to a series of boats, buses and taxis to finally arrive at Krabi beach.
The Krabi beaches are on the mainland but are ONLY accesible by boat because of the steep cliffs surrounding the small village. We arrived at East Rilay beach and found a nice place to crash at ya ya resort. A 50 year old woman tried to pick up Shein. East Rilay is a mud pit, but West Rilay, just a couple minute walk through the jungle to the other side of the village, is perhaps the most stunning beach you could ever imagine. Thick jungle converges on the pure white sand from all sides. The 1km long beach is framed on 34 sides by massive, breathtaking cliff faces, maybe 1000 feet of vertical rock. Caves, stalagmites, and brave trees pock the face of the ancient limestone walls. The cliffs don't drop off after slowly rising from hills either.... but rather the massive spires spring vertically from the jungle floor and are sheer rock on all sides, with small jungle terraces on top. The spires are generally taller than they are wide. Picture sky scrapers of rock flipped over and stuck in to the ground all over the island and ocean. That's basically Krabi.
The best way to enjoy the landscape is from the water. We packed our gear with a lunch, and rented a 2 man kayak to go exploring with. We paddled for about an hour through the Krabi archipelego. We passed the occasional uninhabited beach, framed on all sides by the sheer rock cliffs strectching as far up as the eye can see. Our camera lenses could not possibly capture the scale and grandeur of the scenery, but we should tried. The rocks- I could you could call them islands- that spring from the ocean are just as tall as the ones on land, but millions of years of waves crashing at the limestone walls has carved deep trenches under the rock. We paddled right "under" the islands where the waves had carved out 20 feet of pure rock from the wall. Looking up at the ceiling from inside/under the islands carved out walls, you see massive staglagmites, caves and caverns carved in the limestone.
We eventually parked on one of the aforementioned uninhabitable beaches to rest, eat and explore. We scaled the rock face to reach a vave about 15 feet over the water. The vace wound through the rock face and opened on to the other side. Shein made me take a picture of him in the cave doing the He-Man pose. We were nearly attacked by a swarm of hornets the size of my index finger and quickly fled the island.
Having vehemently assured Shein that there was no way we were going to flip the Kayak, I had decided to forgo usage of the free drybag. On the way back, of course, we did in fact flip the kayak. We rescued our gear from floating away or sinking, swam after Shein's shoes, and hopped back in for the paddle home. Shein complimented me on my ability to admit when I was wrong. For all of you who don't know my father, here he would inevitably add "schmuck."
PS- one of the nearbye islands is called "Bond Island" and is where they filmed one of the Bond movies if anyone remembers that. The island looks like a massive baby bottle turned upside down and planted in the ocean by its tip.
Anyway, we made it back safely, had dinner and laid down for an hour nap. Waking up 5 hours later at about midnight, we set out for a bar that Will had told us we had to check out. We got lost in the pitch black jungle trying to find the place. Assuming one of us was moments away from being snatched up by a panther or a giant python, we scurried back to safety. We shared Chang Beer at a little hut-bar on the beach, decided upon the meaning of life, and went to sleep with sore shoulders. Our bus to Bangkok leaves at 4pm.

I'm writing this (and the previous Koh Tao post) from a computer in Bangkok. We were just on an overnight bus all the way from Krabi. We spent 2 days and a night in Krabi on the west coast of Thailand before heading back to Bangkok. We're going to probably take some short trips from Bangkok and prepare to head in to Cambodia and maybe Laos. You can only stay in Thailand for 30 days on a travel visa, which we are approaching. We need to take a "visa run" soon, so heading to Cambodia now makes sense. Its 8am and neither of us slept all night on that awful "VIP" bus. Good night everyone.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1145884560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1145884560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1145884560/tpod.html Mon, 10 Jul 2006 23:58:55 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Koh Tao, Thailand

Koh Tao is one of the most beautiful, peaceful places you can ever magine. Besides the Thai locals, the island is inhabited with farangs who "came for 2 weeks" about 3 years ago and have never left. I don't know if I can blame them.... in fact, Shein and I were thinking about becoming them. More importantly, Shein and I fell in love... with a girl name scuba. After 15 minutes discussion, we plopped down the cash for the advanced open water certification course with the same instructor we had before, Neil. After a days rest, we were to have 5 more dives in 2 days, a grueling schedule. We were pumped.
We spent our day off napping, relaxing in my new hammock, and hanging out with our British friend, Will. We had said goodbye to Will's travel mate, Sarah, the night before. She headed off to Koh Phi Phi to see where they filmed the beach, then was flying home. Will ended up crashing with us for a couple of nights on our floor or hammock, and he left Koh Tao with us, only he headed toward Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia (to claim his destiny as king). That night, we met some other dudes from England, and the group of us went to.... a Muay Thai boxing match! The small stadium held probably a few hundred people, max. We showed up early and watched as the stadium slowly filled to capacity to watch the first of 7 bouts. The purse for winning each bout ranged from 2000 to 20,000 baht. Koh Tao is a small, out of the way island, and doesn't attract the top talent, of course. It seemed that young people would test their skills here, and probably move on to bigger fights if they did well on the local circuit. Anyway, the oldest person we saw fight was probably 23 years old. Most were between 16-20 years old. One of the bouts was between two girls aged 11 and 15!!! That particular match ended when the 11 year old flying jump kicked the other girl to the face and knocked her down for the count in the 3rd round. We felt a bit bad about watching that fight, but the other ones were very exciting. The boxers were all incredible athletes- lean, strong, flexible, quick and tough as nails. The screaming, chanting crowd, and the mind numbing thai orchestra music that gets louder as the fight picks up made for an incredible atmosphere. Shein may want to add more later about Muay Thai. I'm going to move on to telling of our adventures in scuba.
We woke up the next morning at 8am for our morning academics and left for our first dive around 11am. Our first dive was advanced byoyancy control. In diving, an advanced diver uses only his lungs to control depth. If you acheive a neutral buoyancy at a depth, a deep breath of air will make you slowly rise, and breathing your air out makes you sink. Its a bit more complicated in practice, but thats the general idea. At 12 meters under (40 feet below) we used our lungs to swim through hoops and do some tricks, we practiced our golf swings (I think Shein was coming a bit over the top, but we'll get that ironed out in later dives), we picked up heavy weights without skidding on the bottom, and other various fun skills. After an hour on the surface to allow the nitrogen in our bodies to decompress and escape, we descended again for our second dive- navigation and compass practice. As most of you know, I'm worthless for navigation on the surface, so I was doomed at 40 feet under. Shein led us straight and true however, and we passed both dives with flying colors. Our first two dives were really training dives so that we would be properly prepared for our next 3 dives. We had a night dive, a deep dive, and an underwater photography dive coming up!
On land we had a quick dinner and were back in the boat at sunset heading to our 3rd dive location. The sunset over the ocean was of course spectacular. We were at our dive site by nightfall. All the sudden, it kind of hit Shein and I that we were about to go diving in the DARK. We shook our nerves, prepared our gear, and dove in with nothing extra except our torches (translated in American, that means "Flashlight"). At night, visibility is lower, but bigger, cooler fish and plants can be seen, and the coral blooms bigger and brighter at night. Also, because you're using a torch instead of the sunlight, the colors are brighter and more true. It was absolutely stunning under the water, and we totally felt like a couple of James Bond's on a secret mission to defuse the bomb. Or maybe that guy from The Abyss. Anyway, we saw 2 big puffer fish and 2 big blue spotted sting rays. We also saw a grouper about the size of my torso decked out in neon rainbow glow. It was unnerving sometimes being under the water at night. If you would spin around to look for your buddy, or check out what was above you at the surface you would lose track of your body in space, and your brain would kick in a quick shot of vertigo. We made it through alright. Our night dive was spectacular.
We were asleep by 10pm for our 6am wakeup call. Our deep dive had arrived- 30 meters!! 30 meters is about 100 feet. Picture a 10 story building- that's how deep under the ocean we were going to go- crazy! The pressure at that depth is 4 times the pressure at the surface, and air is used at 4x the rate. The incredible pressure makes nitrogen build up to dangerous levels in your body, and on the way up a mandatory "decompression stop" is required to allow your body to recover, or you can get the "bends" (decompression sickness). There is little room for error on a deep dive, but we were well trained and confident.
We slowly descended down towards our depth. At about 26 meters, we hit the thermocline (a rapid change in water temp) and the visibility went to hell. We stayed VERY close to each other and our dive instructor. My nose was right on Neils flippers as we finned along the bottom, and I couldn't even see to his head the vis was so poor. We swam around for a while and found a sandy spot on the ocean floor to check each other for the effects of Nitrogen Narcosis. At about 30 meters, many people will get a bit of a "high" from nitrogen in the brain and it will cause them to get giggly and sometimes irresponsible. We did a timed little brainteaser to check for the effects- we were all fine. We soon ascend to 25 meters to get above the thermocline and the water turns back in to the crystal clear turquoise we were used to, plus we use much less air at that depth. Our dive site was around a pinnicle in the ocean- a huge rock rising like a fortress of life from the sea floor. We slowly circled the rock and took in the sights. As we circle, we slowly ascend to our decompression stop level. We wait for 5 minutes at 5 meters to decompress, and surface back to the boat. Another successful, beautiful dive!
Our deep dive site was about a 45 minute boat ride from the island, whereas the shallower dives are just offshore. We're heading back to shore for our final dive when the boat captain and his family (the all live on the boat) start SCREAMING and waving their hands at us, pointing. None of them speak a lick of english. We slowly decifer that the captain wants us to see something. The 8 divers and instructors agree that checking this thing out might sacrifice our next dive, but everyone is for it. We spin the boat to a new heading and race off.
Off in the distance, we see over a dozen people lined up on a boat railing yelling like mad and waving their arms. All of the sudden, the 2 Thai children on our boat start screaming and pointing as well- it sounds like an alarm going off on deck- and about 150 meters away, between the two boats, a WHALE breaks the surface, spouts, and dives back in the water. WOW!!
The other boat and our boat search the waters for a quarter of an hour but can't find the whale again. The other boat gives up and heads home. Our captain wants to stay longer. Sure enough, the alarm goes off again on our boat (children screaming bloody murder). We follow their pointing fingers and wild gestures to see the whale break the surface again in the distance. We chase after it again and our captain this time skillfully begins tracking it. Our boat leader, Martin- a crazy british guy who works for the shop- screams for us to get on our snorkel gear and fins. We see the whale break again not 50 meters from the boat, and Martin and Neil LEAP off the boat with their gear and sprint towards where the whale was. We follow suit and everyone thrashes towards the whale. Nobody gets a look at it from underwater, and we sprint back to the boat. We get back on the boat and everyone is gasping for air and choking up water... but you can smell the adrenilin in the air.. we're ready for another shot. The whale surfaces again maybe 20 feet from the boat!!! Everyone kamikaze's right back in to the water. I can't speak for Shein, but I dove under and caught a glimpse of the whale's massive tail fin. It gives one graceful kick in the water, and it vanishes. We reboard the boat, half choked, but everyone is screaming about what the saw. Some got an even better look than I did. "Absolutely stunning!" Even the seasoned island diver instructors are giddy with excitement.
Another couple of minutes pass, and from the balcony of the boat, I see the shimmering figure of the whale next to the boat. Its not more than 5 meters away! I take a wild leap in to the water from the balcony to try and get a glimpse of the creature under water.
I'm getting nearly choked up just writing about this. I will remember that next moment for the rest of my life. Everyone is screaming and yelling on the surface, and the engine is humming loudly. I hit the water and all I can see around me is bubbles. The bubbles clear and I'm in total silence... in front of me, not 5 meters away, is an enormous whale, maybe 50 feet long. I'm directly next to its side and I can see it from head to toe- the perfect view. I look right in to its enormous eye, see its mouth that could swallow a car slowly open and close, and watch its long body flex in to a powerful yet indescribeably graceful kick of his tail. 2 kicks and it was gone. I don't know if I will ever see anything so magnificient in my life. Words just can't do it justice. Breathtaking. Speaking of breathtaking, I'm not sure I've taken a breath in a few minutes. I surface and flop back on the boat to the sound of the captain screaming again. In a stupor, we glance to the other side of the boat and discover a SECOND whale has joined the first. For the next 2 hours, we're moroting along and there are 2 whales staying right next to the boat, sometimes close enough seemingly to touch! There were about a dozen people on the boat including the 4 thai's. WE must have jumped in after the whales about 10-15 times. We saw them from every angel you could wish. A couple of us were climbing on to the roof of the boat, maybe 15 feet high, w/ our flippers and masks and snorkels on. You could see the whales simming along next to the boat and could dive in towards them from above when they looked like they were about to surface. We all dove and climbed back in to the boat so many times we could barely stand, but the thrill of seeing the whales each time was as great as the first glimpse. For the last 30 minutes, we all stayed on the boat and just watched the pair swimming along, surfacing, breathing, and diving back under. I have tons of pictures, and even a couple of movies of the whales. Our boat leader, Martin, had risked his job to keep the boat out an extra 2 hours, but he didn't care at all. The Thai family gets paid on a per tank used basis. We didn't take our second dive because we were chasing the whales, and they didn't even think twice about it (we of course tipped well at the end anyway). In all, we spent 2.5 hours with the whales, and we were so far out, no other boats joined us, which is extremely rare. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Absolutely incredible. Incidentally, Shein, Neil and I were allowed to slip off the back of the boat in the harbor to finish our last dive in order to complete our certification. We ditched the underwater camera I nearly broke diving in after the whale the first time, and decided instead to do a "naturalist" dive. We identified a few dozen species of flora and fauna. We finished our dive by swimming towards shore instead of back to the boat like normal. The boat had dropped us off and left quickly in order to pick up the next round of divers we had neglected for over 2 hours while chasing whales. We made it to shore and had to walk our gear all the way to the shop. We packed our gear up for the last time, received our advanced certification cards, and said goodbye to our beloved dive shop. Shein and I walked back to our bungalow and never had to say outloud what we were both thinking.
What a day.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1145020200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1145020200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1145020200/tpod.html Mon, 10 Jul 2006 23:40:44 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand

That means happy new year in Thai. It's been a crazy couple of days. Yesterday was the Thai new year; Songkran. Instead of a silly dropping ball, they basically have a country wide water fight. We realized this at about midnight 2 nights ago, walking to the beach. We knew the new year was coming, and we were told what to expect, but it doesn't quite register until a truck with about 10 Thai people stuffed in the back with squirt guns and buckets of water coming flying down the street and wail you with a pale of water, then throw talcum powder on your wet body.

The beach at night is normally about 500-1000 people spread down a mile stretch of the beach, sitting on mats in the sand in front of the beachside bars, or dancing around in the sand. That night was different, however. At first, smaller groups of people were engaged in a water fight. People with squirt guns would run around squirting each other, with the occasional bystander getting wet. As we arrived, more and more people started getting in the gig and buying squirt guns and buckets so they could defend themselves. It soon broke out in to all out chaos. People were running in every direction, dumping buckets of water on one person, only to be counterattacked by 6 of their friends. We somehow got mixed up in a band of about a dozen people from who knows where that would rally at the ocean, fill their buckets, and "follow the leader" to a dry person in the crowd. We hooted and hollared, twisting through the thick crowd, and would all attack the same person. Often times, the people would be inside the bars themselves. Waterlogged and exhausted, Shein and I turned in early.... at maybe 4 am.

By the time we woke up, the water fight (celebration?) had escalated in to an all out war on the sunny streets. People were running in every direction with buckets of water, water ballons, massive squirt guns, colored face paint and talcum powder. We quickly ran back to the room, ditched everything but our swim trunks, and set off in to the crowd armed to the teeth. Walking to the beach, people from 2 and 3 stories above in hostels are dumping buckloads of water and dropping water balloons on to people below. Walking out through an intersection is a sure way to get ambushed from all directions with water guns. Walking around with a dry shirt makes you an tasty target, as we saw other travelers and Thai locals go from dry to sopping wet in the blink of an eye. Nobody is safe. An old man with a dry shirt cuts through the traffic on a motor bike and is blindsided by a bucket of water and is closed on by people from all directions with squirt guns. A taxi truck full of newly arrived tourists pulls through an intersection, and a dozen people converge and give them a proper welcome. A man and a woman sit inside a restaurant overlooking the street are eating lunch, and a child with a bucket runs up to the rail and pours a bucket of water down the woman's shirt.

The same celebration happened all across Thailand yesterday, and we were told Koh Pha Ngan (the island we're still on) is one of the tamer places to celebrate. We're said it numerous times already, but life is just different here and the people

We decide to take a relaxing day on the beach and work on our tans. I had the smart idea of only putting sunscreen on my shoulders and face. We layed out for a while and read, then I joined in a beach volleyball game with some locals and the soccer playing Swedes I befriended the other day. Around the beach, people sun tanning or napping were still occasionally getting a bucket of cold water dumped on them by the more mischievious celebrators. After a few games of vball, my skin was feelin a bit baked so I retired to the sun. I think Shein and I spent about 2, maybe 2.5 hours in the sun. Long story short, "Lobster red" might be the color our bodies began to turn. We both got fried and complained and squirmed our way to sleep last night... but that's jumping ahead...

In addition to Songkran, last night was the full moon festival on the Island. The Thai's use any excuse to have a party, and the monthly full moon is obviously cause for celebration. The full moon party on Koh Pha Ngan has become well known throughout the western world and we were told we had to see at least one. Thousands of people come in from all over the world for the massive celebration. Guesses throughout the night of the amount of people on the beach was anywhere from 5,000-30,000 people. The long strech of beach was covered with people, shoulder to shoulder dancing, drinking, socializing, and yes... still dousing each other with water. Men performed with whirling fireballs on chains, or a spinning long staffs with both ends lit. From the wall of the city to the ocean, there was barely a place to sit down. Early in the night, we hear someone yelling "America Sucks!" We look around in the crowd and see Hanzig, our Dutch friend, smiling at us. We actually had plans to meet elsewhere later in the night, and somehow bumped in to him in the mass of people. We hung out with him and two Swedish girls all night, and wandered the beach until the sun came up over the water. Hanzig left for another island this morning, but we added his email address, as well as the Swedish girls', to our growing list of people to keep in contact with.

This morning we had breakfast with our British friends and talked about books and watched the Simpsons in a local restaurant/bar. Shein lent Tuesdays with Morrie to one of the girls, Tory, and she already shed a few tears at breakfast. We're trying to stay out of the sun today (hence another long entry), and are trying to plan where we're going to go tomorrow morning when we leave this island. Maybe Koh Tao, we hear its the best and cheapest place to get certified in Scuba. Who knows though.

Hope everything is well back home. Keep in touch.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1144501500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1144501500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1144501500/tpod.html Mon, 10 Jul 2006 23:31:25 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Bangkok, Thailand

I think its day 3 but I've completely lost all track of time... and of reality for that matter. This country is absolutely crazy. Its very difficult to get your bearings, in a good way. So our first full day in Bangkok was quite adventurous (picking up from our last post...) After checking out of the room we were at, we walked around with our packs all day just taking in the sites. We stayed on Khoa San road for a while, which had turned in to a full scale open market, difficult to even walk down. They sell everything for dirt cheap. We wandered aimlessly for a little while, then decided we'd rather be on a beach.... soooo we booked a ticket for that day to Koh Samui on a train, with a connecting bus and ferry to the island (koh means island). The train alone is about a 13 hour trip we were told. We had about 5 hours to kill in Bangkok before setting off, but had to take a bus to the train station. This is no easy task, as figuring out the bus system is absolutely ridiculous, so we wanted to make sure to get there on time. We started walking in the direction of what we eventually decided would be the proper bus stop to the train station and walked for about an hour and got totally lost. We couldn't even find the bus STOP, let alone the proper route. A lot of people were come up to you constantly trying to sell things or whatever, and we brushed them all off. A Thai man grabbed Shein while we were wandering and made fun of his pale skin. We were aprehensive at first, but ended up talking to the guy for about 15 minutes. He was as friendly a person as you could ever meet, he just wanted to talk to us and share information about his city and help us out. He mostly understood what we were saying, but there was a little bit of a language barrier. We were trying to ask him about the bus system, but couldn't figure it out. He finally just grabbed a tuk tuk driver, spoke to him rapidly in Thai, said goodbye to us and threw us in to the tuk tuk. We didn't know this until he exlpained it, but if you pay the tuk tuk driver 10 baht a peice, he is yours for as long as you want him. So our driver is this crazy man who barely understands a word of what we're saying and starts RACING through traffic. The tuk tuk is basically a cart attached to a motorcycle, and we are whipping through traffic, flying on to the wrong side of the street, passing on the left, right, and screeching through corners. Shein and I were white knuckled the whole time. You pass so close to other drivers you couldn't even let your elbow out of the cart or it would be clipped. On the drivers suggestion, de decide to explore the city a little bit before going directly to the train station. We didn't exactly make any decisions, because our driver would just kind of chatter something then race off, which was fine because we had no idea where we would even want to go anyway. At every stop, the driver, as friendly as can be, tells us to go take our time, have fun, and he watches our bags. He just sits and waits for us to return and watches our stuff and claps excitedly when we return! Its hard explain or even comprehend how different people are here. We first go to a Buddhist ceremony, at least thats what we were told. A young Thai man grabs us again, and says we got there to late. He ends up engaging us again for about 15 minutes and we chat about everything and he gives us some more advice. As nice a person as one could possibly imagine again. We race off again and go see "leaning Buddha," which is this enormous gold Buddha laying down smiling in a temple hidden from the street. Another man grabs us and tells us to sit down in the small temple with him and he ends up engaging us for another 15 minutes in conversation. He brings us back to our tuk tuk driver, talks to him rapidly again in Thai, and we're off again, whipping through the strange city. Everyone we had spoken to tells us we HAVE to go to a place called "Voglee." Something about cashmere is all we really figure out. It ends up being a high end suit making store. For one week a year they open to the general public, at all other times its closed and exports only. I guess its somehow famous. They say the make all the suits for Armani and other big names. They cut a peice of cashmere off the rack and light it on fire for us to prove its real, 100% cashmere. They offer to make us custom suits, we pick the fabric. $300 American dollars per suit, buy 2 get 1 free. We strongly consider it but don't end up buying anything. Our driver asks us to do HIM a favor and go to the TAT. This is the Thai travel agency I think. He gets a free gas coupon for bringing him. We race off again, and end up booking a 3 night stay on Koh Phan Gnan for the full moon festival, we've heard from everyone that it gets totally booked if you arrive the week of the festival, and 3 nights total was about 1600 bat, which is basically nothing. We finally get to the train station, figure out which train is ours, and it pulls off without us before we get to our car. After a brief scare, we figure out it comes back shortly. We leave on time. We're in an all farang (foreigner) section with people from Canada, Holland, England and more. We make some friends, especially with the waiter who is an absolutely hilarious Thai guy named Tee. He gives us his phone number to call him when we get back to Thailand. Everyone is drinking Thai beer together, playing cards, and we all to sleep on pull out beds at around 11pm. We wake up at around 8 and we're unloading the train. We pack up, get whisked on to a bus and before we even sit down we're flying down another road in Surathani towards the boat for Koh Samui (at least we hoped). We get to the pier, but the boat left without us and the next one isn't for 5 hours. We sit around on the river and read and chat with our travel mates some more. There's a clap of thunder, it purs for about 30 seconds, then its sunny again. The boat finally arrives and we jump on the top deck to lay out and catch some sun. We're topside for maybe an hour and a half, talking and sunning with other travelers, and someone asks us if we're wearing sun screen. "no, we've only been out here for about an hour, just trying to catch a tan." They tell us about a friend, who was equally stupid, and we quickly go below deck and inspect our soon-to-be-burnt shoulders. Not even 2 hours in the sun, and we're both tomatoes already. The boat ride was absolutely gorgeous through islands and mountains over the water. We decide about 30 minutes away from our stop in Samui that Samui is too commercialized, hide our stickers showing our destination, and stay on the boat for its next stop in Koh Pha Ngan. We're very good at planning ahead.

We finally arrive in Pha Ngan about 24 hours after leaving Bangkok, take a taxi with other travelers to the place where the full moon party is, and walk what we eventually discover as the the "main strip" until we find a bungaloe to stay in. We're about half a kilo from a beach to the east, and half a kilo to a beach on the west of the peninsula we're staying on. The place is unreal. Tiny shops line a maze like town selling everythign imaginable. After throwing down our gear and catching a quick shower, we have dinner then move along to the main beach. There are hundreds of people sitting on the beach on mats with tables packed close together. There is loud music coming from everywhere, and locals and travelers performing with spinning fireballs on chains, or spinning sticks with flaming ends. Everyone is drinking mysterious alcoholic concoctions called "buckets," which are sold for about 100 baht and are basically buckets you would make sand castles with on the beach filled to the top with about 20 straws dropped in for everyone to share. We mingle with other travelers until god-knows what time, and manage to find our way back to our bungalow after getting lost about 6 times. Nobody here could properly be refered to as "vacationing." Our planned month long stay is the shortest time of anyone we meet. We're already discussing extending our trip (sorry coworkers... don't tell Stoney or SJL- if you need a last minute suspension statement speech written on a Thailand though, drop me a line and I'll punch one out for you). We've only met one other American, and everyone is social, beautiful, friendly, well travelled and did I mention beautiful? Dan and I walk around in a constant state of shock, wide eyed and slack jawed. Everything about this country is amazing so far.
Our latest plan is to stay here until the full moon festival which runs from the 13th to the 15th and move along to perhaps Koh Tao, which is a nearby, peaceful, less developed island. Even speculating that far ahead is probably futile, as our plans change minute by minute.

Hope everything is well in the states. Love from both of us. Send us emails, we love reading them.

Sorry for the speling and gramer mistakes Dad, you can yell at me when I get home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1147905720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1147905720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dspoko/2dans-asia/1147905720/tpod.html Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:42:29 -0400 2 Dans in Asia

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Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

The bus to Luang Prabang climbed quickly to the ridge of the valley, and most of the 7 hour bus ride was spent at great height overlooking long, steep drops to velley's below. Small towns of no more than a dozen huts would occasionally line the windy road through the mountains. The scenic drive was only slightly offset by a nagging fear of a busdriver whipping through turns, seemingly reading to careen off the hillside at any moment.
Arriving in Luang Prabang, we were immediatley struck by the towns distinctive atmosphere. It was named a UNESCO world Heritage Town over a decade ago. It is said to be one of the most authentic colonial asian towns, having resisted modern influence for many years. A mix of French Colonial houses, Chinese style pagoda temples, and more primitive bamboo huts for a cluster of a city on a peninsula carved by a gentle stretch of the Mekong River. From afar, all you can see of the town is the famous stupa (holy spire) on top of Mount Phosi in the center of town. The town is otherwise quietly encircled by peaks and hidden by dense tropical foliage. The cultural atmosphere adds to the aura of the town. The traditional Lao city prides itself on remaining quiet and slow moving. No major roads run through Luang Prabang proper, and no large buses or trucks are allowed to enter the city limits. The people are early to rise and almost everyone goes to bed when the sun goes down. They are friendly and always smiling. Known for its splendid food, Luang Prabang has more restaurants than another other city in Lao. You can enjoy a bowl of curry w/ traditional sticky rice and a Lao coffee overlooking the Mekong for around $2 USD.
We met up with the British Kate's, who had scouted out a nice guest house just off the river for us. We spent the rest of the night exploring the town as the people settled down for bed. We found the lone bar open in town at that time of night, shared a few Beer Lao, and were in bed by midnight, when the bar closed for the night.
In the morning, we hired a tuk tuk to take us to a waterfall40k outside of town. A small entracnce fee to the park also gave us an unexpected viewing of a pack of orphaned bear cubs who were cared for by the park in a caged in area, and a displaced bengal tiger who paced the fence not 2 feet from the visitors. STarted from the bottom of the trail and heading to the main falls, small poosl of water of brilliant turquoise collected under the shade of the jungle foliage. Lao and Farang alike were splashing about in the refreshing water after the dusty tuk tuk ride there. Five or six pols of increasing size lead to the main falls. Towering over 50 meters high, the multilevel falls roared powerfully from a mountain stream at the top. Trails through the woods afforded beautiful views from different angles on the way up the path. We spent a lazy, relaxing afternoon soaking in sun and water before heading back for an enourmous dinner with the group.
The Kates were leaving back toward Bangkok in the morning (they were teaching English in a nearybye city), and the group of us stayed up late telling stories and joking around for the last time. Shein and I woke up late the next morning, had brekfast, and rented bicycles for the day. We cruised along the Mekong and headed back toward the heart of town. An afternoon shower left us stranged at what turned out to be a very cool bookstore. Shein napped in the upstairs reading room while I sipped some Lao tea and flipped through varous picture books of Luang Prabang (pictures books because they were all in Lao). With the help of the store employee, I matched up some pictures to places on my map. Shein awkoe feeling a bit under the weather, but we ended up going to check out a nearbye temple, the most holy temple in Lao. The pretty temple's buildings were all covered in gold and other beautiful ornament, and the complex overlooked the river on 2 sides. It featured Lao's most revered Buddha statue, a small bronze statue maybe 2 feet high. I read that it had been stolen numerous times since its creation by the Siamese (the Thai's) but bad luck would beset the kingdom- they thought it was bad Karma to have stolen it- and it was returned safely each time.
After spending some time in the temple complex, Shein headed home and I cycled down toward the Mekong to find a boatsman to take me to a tiny village on the opposite side of the Mekong. Few tourists ever travel across, and I convinced a local to take me across and wait a couple hours for me to explore for a couple of bucks. He left my bike inside his home with his family and shuttled me across in a small wooden longtail boat. From the city side of the river, you could see the small village of Xieng Men and 3 nearbye temples. I was dropped off most of the way across the muddy river and ended up discovering I was actually stranded on what turned out to be a waterlocked area of land formed by a delta in the river. A local eventually showed up out of nowhere and rescured me. Laughing at my obviously being lost, he motioned for me to follow him precariously hopping from submerged stone to submered stone. I never would have discovered the underwater path without his help. I made it to the other side and hiked up to the first temple. The temple turned out to be abandoned- probably unused, but I couldn't tell. There was one small building with a Buddha statue, a sleeping hut, and a roofed but open walled meeting area- all empty. The next temple ground was larger, but not much bigger. I arrived to the sound of a young monk chanting on the rail of a small monastery. He didn't notice me right away. The small clearing helded 4 sleeping huts, a common area, nad the small temple. He finally noticed me, and I approached him to ask if he spoke english, and if he might show me around. He spoke English surprisingly well, but painfully slow. He took his time conjuring up the correct grammar, and asked for clarification of what I said often, or for help with a word or concept. We ended up sitting and talking for almost an hour as the sun set over the city. He ended up up being only 19 years old, a novice, not a fully ordained monk, who have to be at least 20. He had been a monk for 8 years, however, and was very knowledgable. Every morning he walked to the local village to collect alms- the food and supplies he would eat and use for the day. If he slept in, or missed an alms session, he would have no food. Monks are not allowed dinner, not allowed to run, speak loudly, play games, stand to pee, earn money, and a long list of other "prefects" or laws to live by. Only 4 people presided at that temple complex, 3 novices and one master. The master was only 20 years old, and was currently off blessing someones househould in Xiang Men with another novice. Other than the aforementioned, the young novice told me that all they did all day was study and read and pray. He had spoken English only a few times in his life, and had learned all of it from an english textbook. That is why he spoke so slow. He really wanted an English teacher, but there were none on this side of the river. He thanked me for speaking with him when I said goodbye, and I nearlyed agreed to stay and teach english. I hurried off to the last temple, nestled high in the hills, before the sun set. I had read that it affords a great view of Luang Prabang across the Mekong at sunset. I had to climb a few hundred steps to the top. The only building was a diapidated, insect filled temlpe with the usual Buddha statue inside, but nothing else. It was kind of creepy with the waning light. I walked outside and found a perch from which I could watch the sun set. I snapped a few photos of the ball of fire disappear behind the mountains. If all I had seen was the sunset, it would have been a worthwhile afternoon.
The small city of Luang Prabang looked even more peaceful from afar. The streets and people disappeared among the trees, and all I could see were the roofs of houses and golden stupas of the various temples in town. The stupa atop Mount Phosi, the highest point in Luang Prabang (which afforded us a beautiful sunset view the PREVIOUS night, after a 306 stair hike.), shown like a jewel atop the crown of the city. The city seemed harmonious with the surrounding nature and river, as opposed erected in opposition of nature. I made my way back to my boat by the fast fading light and nearly tripped on a snail the size of my hand before finding the hidden route back to my boat driver.
I dined alone that night overlooking the mekong, and was asleep by 9pm. We left early the next morning on a 2 day journey by wooden boat back to the Thai border. I'm handwriting this entry on that boat, slowly motoring down the Mekong river. Mountains frame both sides of the rocky shores for seemingly endless miles. There is a group of about 10 people on the boat we have become very good friends with and will surely stay with the ones who are heading to Chiang Mai as well. It is a wonderfully eclectic and diverse group.
In summary, Lao has been absolutely the most peaceful, wonderful and beautiful country. We are all sad to leave. One can't help but become entrhalled by the peaceful, simple way of life and I have spent many hours daydreaming what it would be like to spend some serious time here. By the time I post this entry, we will be in Chiang Mai [and I am, in fact, in Chiang Mai, typing this entry], the ancient capitol of Thailand.

**Still waiting for Shein's Cambodia.... but this entry brings us up to 3 days ago, so we're almost caught up. Chiang Mai has been great, expect a new post shortly. Today marks exactly 1 week until we get on a return flight for the United States. The thought of returning home to the daily grind has been keeping me awake at night, but it will be nice to see everyone. Take it easy at home. Oh, and could someone please tell me what the deal is with the Pistons? If I don't get to see at least one playoff game of theirs, I'll run out of reasons to live.
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