Mountain biking and white water kayaking adventure

There are a few standard things that backpackers do while they visit Luang Prabang and one of them is the waterfalls. On our third night in Luang Prabang we were heading to dinner and got sidetracked by a waterfall tour so we figured why not, we might as well see what the rage is all about, right? When we got to dinner all of the tables were full at the restaurant but there was a couple sitting in the corner at a table for four and they asked us to join them. We ended up talking, eating, laughing, and drinking with them all night! They had signed up for a two-day mountain bike and white water kayak excursion that was leaving first thing the next morning… So in order to go we would have to bail on the waterfall trip – we decided it was worth it and checked out of our guest house the next morning to meet Calum and Abi for breakfast and head out for the next adventure!

This trek was a bit more of a challenge than our last one! The first day we cycled 45 kilometers out into the jungle along a river that led us to the village that we would be spending the night at. The mountain bike ride was by far the most challenging bike ride of our lives! We would have to stop in the shady spots along the way so we could grab a drink of water and take a breather – some of these hills were the steepest hills I have ever seen! At one point along the way we pulled over and tried to help some native hill tribe villagers attempt to repair a flat scooter tire – but we failed… When we finally made it to the village it was one of those feelings that was similar to finishing the slow boat ride - relief, pleasure and achievement.

That evening, after a long swim/shower in the river we all gathered around on the floor mats with the host family and enjoyed some quality home-cooked Thai food. We have a very interesting/hilarious story at this point but I am not sure I can do justice without telling it in person but I will give it a try. So we were all sitting around in a circle with about 3-4 buffet style dishes in the middle and then we each had our own bowl of vegetable soup and when they started passing the sticky rice around to Abi grabbed the bucket and scooped a handful out… before taking the time to see what the host family was doing with the rice we each threw our handful into our bowl of vegetable soup… well apparently that wasn’t right – the mom started giggling and slowly it turned into an all out laugh among the whole family because in Asia you are supposed to hold your sticky rice in your hand while you eat dinner! Haha… So while our rice is floating in our soup they are taking the time to make little balls with theirs and then use their fingers to grab pieces of fish or chicken out of the buffet dishes in the center of the circle. We were EXTREMELY embarrassed at this point and tried to explain to them that we just didn’t know what we were supposed to do.

The next morning we got into some kayaks down on the river and paddled our way through a series of good size rapids! It was a blast - Lindsay and I fell out at one point and Calum and Abi fell out just a little further down river but it wasn’t the fiercest river I had ever seen and we were wearing helmets so everybody survived without a bruise!

We were extremely busy and wet with sweat or water the entire trip so we never had a camera available and therefore don’t really have any many photos to share – sorry!

Hair cut

I’ll keep this post short but I thought it was worth mentioning… I don’t know if Lindsay told you in her last post about Luang Prabang but when she got into her bicycle accident we were actually heading out to find a barbershop. My hair wasn’t terribly long but out here in this weather it is just too much to handle. We obviously didn’t get the haircut after the accident but we went out the next morning and found one for $4! The barbershop reminded me exactly of the movie Zohan – just a bunch of out-dated Paul Mitchell posters hanging all over the walls. At this point I didn’t really care if the cut was shitty, I just needed to get it out of my eyes because I would literally be sweating within seconds of getting out of the shower…

The lady was really cool and understood everything pretty well, she also made it very clear that I would not look good with super short hair… so I sat down and let her get started. She had some pretty budget tools and also some very different techniques – for example when we asked to have her shave the hair on the back of my neck she busted out a brand new all-purpose razor blade, unwrapped it, and literally shaved the hair off my neck…

The haircut was solid and it is still treating me well – I might get another before we head home!

Luang Prabang

After sitting on a slow boat for two days, we were ready to get out and explore Luang Prabang! We settled into our guesthouse and went out to search for some bikes to “hire”. We found a rental place just down the street that charged 20,000 kip ($2) per bike for the day, pretty good deal! Oh and we had to give them one of our passports to hold hostage.

We biked all over the beautiful, French style town, which isn’t very big. All along the river were tons of bars and restaurants that all looked AMAZING! Each place had a very unique and special atmosphere and the menus made our mouths water at first sight. There was no way we could settle on just one place, so we decided to do a mini pub-crawl. We choose to go to three or four different restaurants and got one drink and one appetizer to share - SO DELICIOUS!

After we were nice and full, it was about time to return our bikes so we headed back to the shop. About three blocks away from the bike rental place a girl came ripping around the corner on her motorbike. We both saw each other and did the awkward left right left thing, only getting closer and closer. The problem was…. I might have been on the wrong side of the road…? But we had just left Thailand and I was FINALLY used to people driving on the left side. Sooo we ended up running into each other, which in the end was my fault, I guess. Once I realized we were definitely going to crash I gracefully hopped off my bike as it went down. I was fine, but my bike, not so much. The wheel was now in the shape of a squiggly oval. Apparently I have horrible luck with renting bikes. Oh, did I mention the roads in Luang Prabang are very quiet and not busy at all, Cory and I saw maybe 2 tuk-tuk’s on our whole bike ride. Of course I hit the only moving object one the entire rode…hmmm. Cory carried my mangled bike to a tuk-tuk and threw it in the back so they could drive it the last three blocks we had to go. I knew I would have to pay for the damage, I just wasn’t sure how much it was going to cost. We got to the bike rental and a man who spoke very VERY little English told us the owner would be there in about 15 minutes and we had to wait for him. 15 minutes later – still not there, 30 minutes later – still not there, 2 hours later – FINALLY! At this point I didn’t care how much it was going to cost, we just wanted to get Cory’s passport back. We explained to the owner what happened, expecting him to act like he didn’t understand and rip us off. However he was very nice and more concerned that I was OK. He charged me $200,000 kip, which is about $25, not too bad, but my $2 bike rental had just turned into a $27 bike rental. OH WELL, at least I didn’t end up in the hospital, right? Most people who get in accidents with motorbikes don’t come out of it as well. Hopefully next time we rent bikes I can give it back flawless… third times a charm right?

Slow Boat

Some people said that we wouldn’t stick to our original plan – they were right. We had always planned on making a journey through Laos but not by way of a 2-day boat ride! Thailand is an awesome place for spontaneous last minute changes of plans because there are literally hundreds of travel agencies in every city competing with each other for our business so they are all very helpful and willing to answer any questions. I figured out our route from Chiang Mai and we set out the next morning. Our first stop was Chiang Rai about four hours north. Chiang Rai was an awesome, quieter version of Chiang Mai with cheap lodging, awesome bars, and a nice Night Bazaar! The next morning we set out for Chiang Khong, which is where we had to cross the Mekong River into Laos. The visa thing was all pretty easy leaving Thailand and we hopped on a taxi boat for Heuy Xai to get our Laos visa squared away and sign up for the slow boat in the morning.

After we got all settled into our place we set out for some dinner with some friends that we had met on the bus – we found out real quick that Heuy Xai sucked. The little village town was way overpriced and filthy! I was starting to wonder if maybe we had made the wrong decision committing to this much time in Laos…

The next morning we walked down to board the boat at the pier and we were really early so we got some nice comfortable seats towards the back of the boat. About THREE hours later we hadn’t left and there was about 150 people on this rickety old wooden boat… Thanks to Lonely Planet I knew that at a certain point you could actually demand that they charter two boats if the first one gets too packed and it was definitely too packed. At this point we had made some new friends at the back of boat and we all started scheming a way to stand up to the “Laos slow boat officials”! Our plan backfired much worse than we could have expected – before we knew it they had border control on the boat, English translators, and some pissed off dudes that we couldn’t understand. After some translation we figured out that they were trying to charge us more for the good seats now and that if we didn’t pay the extra 100 Baht the boat wouldn’t be leaving… It has now been almost four hours since the boat was supposed to leave and we were facing the chance of getting kicked off. This was hands-down one of the most nerve-racking experiences of the trip! Lindsay was ready to get off and buy a ticket for the next flight out of town… I didn’t want to stand down unless we were all ready to accept failure – we were asking them to charter another boat and they were telling us that we had to pay more for our seats – the negotiation was ugly! The only way we were making any headway was through a really nice Thai guy that new enough of both languages to help translate… I was starting to worry that things could seriously get ugly quick when they FINALLY gave up on the extra money thing and sent half of the backpackers to another boat! We won the battle and DAMN it felt good!

We spent the next six hours floating down Mekong River, which was an amazing experience. The scenery was beautiful and I just like being on the water so I was content for the whole ride just listening to some music, reading my book, chatting with other travelers and enjoying the riverside villages and locals along the way. Just after sunset the boat pulls into a hillside village known as Pak Beng. This place was primitive! Just as we unloaded the boat and started hiking up the hills to find our lodging for the evening they fired up the generators and the town lit up - one guesthouse at a time as we walked down the roads. This place was much nicer than our first town in Laos and actually had some good restaurants and lodging options – if they could keep the generators running!

Lindsay and I were running seriously low on cash at this point and just figured that they would have an ATM but when we pulled into this village we realized that wasn’t going to be the case so we had to get extremely efficient with our Kip and make sure that we had enough for lodging, dinner, breakfast and snacks for the boat the next day. Somehow we managed to get all of that for 150,000 kip or $17! When we loaded the boat the next morning it was packed with locals and all of their goods! The slow boat is their main form of transportation and they also use it for shipping goods to and from other parts of Laos so the second day wasn’t nearly as comfortable but the scenery was still amazing and I was on a boat so I was content.

By the time we finally pulled into Luang Prabang it was a huge feeling of relief, pleasure and achievement because we had just traveled through a large portion of the country via the Mekong, which is one of the most impressive rivers in the world! After having some sub-par experiences in the first two towns I really didn’t expect much from Luang Prabang but I was caught off guard when we walked up from the pier to find one of the coolest little cities I have ever been to in my life!

In the end, the slow boat was an awesome experience and I enjoyed every minute of it and I would recommend anybody traveling in that portion of SE Asia to take the adventure, but it’s probably not something I would do again…

Dilemma

Our Thai Visa is about to expire and we are having a blast in Chiang Mai and paying $6 per night to stay in our hotel so we are hesitant to leave but we have to find a way out. Bangkok is currently experiencing serious riots and red shirt demonstrations so we don’t want to use that area as a hub to exit the country but the options are very limited from up here in the north… The Chiang Mai airport doesn’t offer international flights to Hanoi like we had originally planned – so at this point we have basically crossed Vietnam off the list of options. We can either drive by bus to the east about 12 hours to a town by the name of Udon Thani and then be at the border of Laos, just south of the capitol Vientiane or we can head north by bus about 6 hours and take a “slow boat” for 2 days on the river through Laos and end up driving another 12 hours or so to get down to the capitol. The plus side of the slow boat route is getting to experience the famous “tubing” in Vang Vieng and also check out the old capitol Luang Prabang. See our dilemma? What would you do?

Monkeys and fish spa

Back in our cooking class we met a couple of Canadian girls that had mentioned going out to see some tigers at the “Tiger Kingdom” so we figured we would go check it out one day instead of partaking in all of the Songkran action. We hired a Tuk-Tuk from our guesthouse and cruised about an hour out of town to the tiger zoo. The place was beautiful and very clean; it looked to us like they did a good job of reinvesting into the infrastructure in order to keep the tigers happy… But after a closer look it seemed as though the tigers didn’t love to be in captivity and it looked like some of the “trainers” people beat them up a little in order to get a little rise out of them once in a while. So we decided that we would save our $40 (way overpriced) and maybe just let some fish suck on our feet instead! Haha

Seriously –These Fish Spas are all over the place in SE Asia but this one was exceptionally clean compared to the rest. And reasonably priced as well. For about $4 each we had hundreds of little leeching fish eat the dead skin off of our feet for about a half hour (took about 10-15 mins just to get comfortable with it). It felt like little shocks of electricity as soon as you dipped in but after some time it was a pleasant massaging sensation and there was a whole list hypothetical benefits that I can’t recall but we did enjoy it and I think I would do it again for sure!

On the way home our driver asked if we wanted to stop of and see a monkey show – I think it was about $6 each… We agreed that 6 bucks would be a small price to pay for the opportunity to play with a little baby monkeys so we went for it! These things are some smart animals and it is incredible how much they resemble humans!

SongKran

Songkran is the Thai New Year and it falls on the 13-15 of April every year but will usually begin a lot earlier and last a lot longer especially in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Often times the festival is known to last more than six days! Originally, the celebration marked their actual New Year but since 1940 Thailand has considered January 1^st the New Year and Songkran has become a huge festival of non-stop water fights!

In the ancient days Songkran was an opportunity to pay respect to elders and monks – Thai people would go to the temples and use holy water to show their respect…

Things have changed…

Now people just spray the shit out of each other with high power Super Soakers and buckets of water! Literally hundreds of thousands of people fill the streets of Chiang Mai using water from the moat that surrounds the city to drench anybody and everybody that happens to be in the streets. For lots of people it is actually a goal to hit motorists in the eyes while they try and navigate their way through the gridlocked traffic!

When we went out to purchase our weapons I had to have the best gun… I actually bought the same gun that I had when I was a little kid the Super Soaker CPS 2000, which brought back some memories. However, this one just didn’t seem to have the same kick that they had when I was young… Not sure if it’s just because I have gotten older or if they actually don’t make them the same anymore – probably a little of both.

Although we went to Chiang Mai to celebrate this wild week of water, we lost interest after just a few days. It got to the point where it was obnoxious to step out of our guesthouse on our way to dinner and just get drenched with a bucket of brown water that had been soaking in ice in the back of a pick up all afternoon. I am not saying we didn’t enjoy every minute of it but it literally became a chore to take strategic back roads and alleys to get to certain areas of the town without getting soaked on your way.

Cooking School

Chiang Mai is supposed to be the cooking class capitol of SE Asia so we thought we would give it a try one day. There was also some interest from some of the people in our trekking crew so we shopped around one-day and figured out all of our options.
We wanted the opportunity to shop for our ingredients fresh at the market in the morning and also be able to each build our own custom menus instead of having set list of dishes for the day. Some cooking schools offered multi-day classes and some offered morning or afternoon speed sessions. After shopping around, we found what we were looking for, BaanThai Cookery School. They offered a 6-course full day of cooking and within each course you had 3 different options to choose from. This school also offered the market experience, so when we showed up in the morning we all chose what dishes we wanted to cook and then made way to local market to shop for our ingredients. When we got back it was cooking time – we spent the next 6-7 hours cooking and eating some of the freshest Thai food we have ever had!

What we cooked:

Lindsay-
1) Stir fried prawn with curry powder
2) Chicken in coconut milk
3) Papaya salad
4) Green curry paste
5) Green curry with chicken
6) Mangos with sticky rice

Cory-
1) Fried cashew nut with chicken
2) hot and sour prawn soup
3) Fried fish cakes
4) Red curry paste
5) Panaeng curry with paste
6) Water chestnut in coconut milk
It was a good time! We had a blast getting creative with some of the ingredients and trying each other’s dishes!

Jungle Trek

After a shitty night sleep, due to the booming club behind our guesthouse, we woke up at 5am to get ready for the mysterious trek we signed up for. Not really knowing what to pack, we threw our backpacks together and headed downstairs for our big “American” breakfast (Just about every menu has a breakfast item called “American breakfast", kinda funny). After that we jumped in the back of a pick up, mexi style and headed out! After about 45 minutes of a bumpy ride we stopped at a market to pick up some food, headlamps, TP, and whatever else seemed necessary. Hopped back in our luxury vehicle and drove another hour on some pretty windy roads. The first interesting part of the drive was when the driver came to a screeching halt, jumped out of the truck, grabbed the nearest stick of bamboo and started smacking a poor little snake (actually a poor GIANT snake) that was just trying to cross the road- apparently the driver LOVES snake and saw his dinner darting across the street, obviously he has to pray on it.

We finally made it to our first destination, a whiskey e finally made it to our first destination, a whiskey distillery. It may sound like we had just arrived at some nice, indoor, air conditioned spot, but that is not how they make whiskey here in Thailand, just out in the open air, brewed in plastic garbage cans, free for all bugs and animals to come get a drink whenever they feel like it. But that sure didn’t stop us from trying a few shots of it (at 9am). Just how we like it, nice and warm! After the tasting they offered some bottles for sale at 60 baht, $2 per bottle. The samples we tried were oh so delicious - we all had to buy a bottle for the trek.

From the distillery we continued 4-wheel style off into the jungle. Now it's time to start trekking. Mr. Ton, our tour guide, handed all of us a belt with a machete and sling shot, it was up to us to hunt for some ammo aka little rocks or pebbles, so badass. For the next hour we trekked through jungle sling shot in one hand and machete in the other launching our ammo at every moving leaf, bird, branch, rock, or lizard that caught our attention. Don't worry none of us had any success... Not even close! Next thing we know there is randomly some huge piles of fresh “elephant dung” in the trail and BAM! Two huge elephants right there in the middle of the jungle that would be giving us a ride through the next couple hours of trekking. Half the people jumped on the two elephants and the other half kept walking behind. After about an hour it was our turn to jump on. There was a little bench tied on the elephant’s back (sad) that Cory and I sat on. It felt a little unstable and was quite a bit higher up than we were expecting it to be! I decided right away that this was not going to be the ride of my life, especially since we were on little, narrow, steep trails that seemed extremely unrealistic for an elephant to be tromping on. Each time the elephant would take a step Cory and I would lean from one extreme to the next. About 5 minutes in my hands were dripping in sweat, one clenching the side of the bench and the other gripping a hand full of Cory’s shorts. All I could think about was how screwed I would be if I fell off. Oh, and it didn’t help that right before we rode the elephants we watched one of them crush a whole coconut with it’s foot like it was a plastic easter egg. GREAT, imagine what it would do to someones head! At this point, Cory is laughing so hard he could barely speak. In my mind - this was no laughing matter! My plan was to leap on to the next tree the elephant squeezed past and shimmy my way down to safety. However, I didn’t want to live the next two days of trekking as the chicken so I toughed it out. The elephants took multiple breaks to either make a new river, or throw in another obstacle for our trekking experience. The elephant we were on chose to give everyone walking a little breeze…. It let out the biggest and longest toot I have ever, EVER, heard in my life. It took me a few seconds to realize what the little cutie pie was doing before I started laughing hysterically! We could not hold in our laughter if we had tried to. After that I decided the elephant ride was worth it.

The sun was setting and the crew was getting tired. I think we were all starting to wonder if we were ever going to get to the village. Our guide had been working on these bamboo croquet looking tools for quite some time and he then explained that they were our rat traps and that we would set them along the river and come back out at night to gather our rats. So at this point we knew we had to be getting close – we set the traps and kept on trekking… Next thing we knew Mr. Ton flips a log over – looked like the kind of log that they may have used back in the day as a bridge during rainy season but Mr. Ton wanted us to get it back to camp to use it as a bench! So sure enough the five dudes in the crew all manned up and carried the damn thing the rest of the way out of the jungle. When we made it out we set the log down and used our machetes to remove all of the bark – this is where Lindsay did her part (she loves picking at things). Once we made it back we installed what turned out to be a crucial part of the campfire benches considering we had 10 people on the trek. It was time to crack of a bottle of the that homemade Thai Whiskey and share some campfire stories. Turns out we got really lucky with the crew and everyone had great traveling stories and awesome adventures to add to the conversation while we passed the bottle around.

After a fare amount of whiskey and an amazing dinner we mounted up the headlamps and went back out into the jungle to see if we had caught any rats for dessert. One of the villagers came with us this time and between him and Mr. Ton they had an amazing ability to spot some crazy wildlife out there! We didn’t end up getting any rats but we had a hell of a time tromping through the wilderness in the middle of the night.

The next day was another full day of trekking through the woods only this time we were hiking along a really cool little creek with waterfalls and swimming holes all along. We stopped and had lunch at one of the swimming spots during the hottest part of the day and we all carved up some bamboo drinking cups to help pass the time. After the sun had calmed down a bit we set back out and this time it was a long haul up and over the second highest peak in all of Thailand – incredible views! The village the second night was crazy, I am not sure who had control of the place the villagers or the animals – literally hundreds (if not thousands) of chickens, pigs, dogs, cows, buffalo, roosters and cats roamed free at this place pissing and shitting all over the entire area… Not the most sanitary area we have seen while traveling - but hey, it's free fertilizer. It was kind of a rough night sleep because the roosters must have been confused and started crowing around 3AM…

Day 3: We woke up to another amazing meal and set out. Today we were heading to the river and we were going to hop on a few bamboo river rafts and float our way back to civilization. I am not sure if mentioned this earlier but when we said “non-tourist” trek we meant it – when we first signed up we figured that was probably bullshit but they were right. We did not see a single person that was not a native hill tribe villager for the entire duration of the trek! It was a short trek into the rafting village on the river followed by an awesome few hours of rafting down the river!

That pretty much wraps up the trekking experience – we both would recommend trekking to anybody that comes out to Thailand and we would do it again in a heartbeat. There were a lot of difficult and uncomfortable moments but it was one of those experiences you can look back on and really appreciate!

Chiang Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai around 7:30AM from the night train, leaving us a whole day to explore the city. We had met a dude from Portland on the train named Dustin and he speaks a fair amount of Thai and said that he would be willing to show us around the city for the day. He took us to one of the guesthouses that he was familiar with which has been taking a toll on the wallet at $6 per night! Haha. After we dropped our bags we walked over to the bike shop to rent some bikes and mob around the city.

Lindsay had a blowout about 15 mins into the ride and we had to find a repair shop – turns out there are about 3-4 on every block. They threw in a new tube and even replaced the worn out tire for about $2.50 in less than 20 mins! We were back on the road now and exploring the different temples of the city as well as some of the bars. This place is filled with bars, cafés, travel agents and shopping – it blows my mind that these places can all operate without putting each other out of business.

When we got back from bike riding our guest house was trying to sell us a jungle trek that was leaving at 6AM the next morning and if we wanted to go we had to decide within 15 mins because the orientation meeting was going to start at 7o-clock. So we listened to their presentation and went upstairs to decide as a group and figured since they had already sold the trip to 5 others at 6500baht we probably had some room to negotiate… We agreed that if the 4 of us (Lindsay, Cory, Debbie & Edwin) went downstairs with 4000baht in-hand they would be foolish to turn it down. When we sat down at the table Lindsay must have been fired up with some negotiation motivation because she cut loose! She told the man that we would either all buy-in as a group or none of us were going and that we had 16,000baht right now - take it or leave it. He came back with a counter offer of 18,000! Which was down from 26,000! At this point I knew that they were soft and definitely willing to budge so we let Lindsay continue. She told him that it was definitely more than we had all budgeted for trekking so we were firm at 16,000, he left the table and came back with a smile and said it's a deal! Trekking post is coming soon…

Night Train

We had decided that we had seen enough of Bangkok and that we were ready to head north to Chiang Mai to get ready for Songkrahn, the HUGE water festival that happens every year during their new year. We had three options to get north, we could either fly for about $150 each or take a bus $15 each or take a thing the night train $26. We chose the night train and loved it!

At this point the protests and demonstrations by the red shirts have started to get pretty hectic and it was near impossible to get out of the city to the train station but after about 2 hours we arrived. We walked in and the place was packed, everyone was sitting at cafeteria-style chairs facing the king that was painted on the wall. We awkwardly made our way to the snack shack trying our best not to turn our backs to the king, but probably looking very special. In Thailand it is OFFICIALLY illegal to make jokes or threats about the king, and yes, you will go to jail. So, we grabbed some snacks and hopped on the train. The 2nd class sleeper was badass it had two seats facing each other that fold into bunk beds when you’re ready – takes the man about 30 seconds to make one of the most comfortable beds that we have slept in since we left the US. Oh and by the way it had AC.

We started chatting with a couple next to us named Edwin and Debbie from Holland – quite nice people (in a Dutch accent). Then a small lady came through asking if we wanted beers – yep. Around 9:00pm our car turns into quiet time so we walk up a few cars to the “bar-car”! The thing had TV, music, cocktails, beers, locals, foreigners, and a friendly staff. We drank until they kicked us out at 11:00pm and then stumbled our way back through the different cars to find our beds and get some rest.

Happy ending?

We have been dying to get a massage since we arrived to this crazy country. Especially when they are advertising 120Baht for 60 minutes ($4) on every street corner. At first we were a little unsure how to go about it because there was a bit of a communication barrier but they told us to leave our clothes on which we thought was weird.

They slowly started to massage our feet, which felt amazing, and then worked their way up to our legs, back, and arms. They literally use their whole body in a Thai massage, hands, elbows, forearms, feet and knees to stretch and pull every muscle in the body! They will be massaging your inner thigh with their foot at one point and giving you a head massage with their hands at the same time! It was the best massage we have ever had, oh and it was $4, which made it even better! They know where all the pressure points are and use them all to relieve stress and pain. Everyone should probably just come to Thailand right now and get a massage… Our next mission is a 2-hour massage with oil- $6.

Sorry for the delay...

Backpacking is all about staying busy and having fun right? Well that is why we haven’t been able to keep you guys up to date… Our bad but we are having a good time – it won’t happen again… actually it probably will.

Oh and we haven't really had any places with reliable internet connections so that is another reason - but we are back at it and going to get a bunch of posts up that we have been working on in a word doc during long bus and train rides.

Khao San Road

We had originally planned on cruising out to the Vietnam Embassy today to get the process rolling with our Visas but found out at breakfast that it is closed on Saturday. So we set off the explore Khao San Road instead - started on foot but we got lost... So we met a kid named Alex from England and shared a Tuk-Tuk (three-wheeled, sketch ass scooter/carriage/car) with him to find Khao San Road. Turns out we weren't too far off track and the ride was pretty short - $1 total.

At first things were a little overwhelming and it was difficult to fend off the suit tailors and the Tuk-Tuk drivers but we eventually found our way to some buckets (literally a bucket that you would use to play in the sand filled with ice, Red Bull and Thai whiskey) and the shopping began. We bought some sunglasses, a dress, finger nail clippers, a pen, and had 5 meals in about 6 hours, the food is amazing!

However, we are staying away from the meat, considering most of the stands have full on chickens (minus feathers) hanging by their necks in 90 degree weather, no thank you. But it is cool because they cook most of it right in front of you and it all tastes like little bites of heaven. It is hard to not go crazy and buy everything you see because it is so cheap AND you can bargain with them to knock off a good chunk of baht.

Not only is Khao San Road packed with people, there are also many homeless, starving, and sometimes cute dogs roaming around - that have RABBIES. Normally we see dogs and run over to pet them, but that's not the case with these puppies, we jet past them as fast as possible and hope they don't decide to tag along... There was definitely a lot to take in today, but overall it was great day!

By the way - we decided to trek home on foot and explore some of the less touristy spots like the local supermarkets etc.

P.S. I just looked at the ceiling and there is a little gecko crawling around- possibly a new pet?

Bangkok

WE MADE IT! After TWO DAYS of flying, we finally made it. The flights actually weren't to shabby, except the last one which had so much turbulence it felt like we were driving down an alley with massive amounts of pot holes in it. We left on Thursday and we arrived on Saturday.... we are still a little confused on what day is it and what time is it.... but really, what does it matter!

When we first got to the Shanti Lodge we went across the street and bought some Thai beers. They aren't as cheap as we had hoped about $1.50 for 22's. We sat at our hostel lounge and chugged beers in 82 degree weather at 3 o'clock in the AM with extreme humidity. The Shanti Lodge also provides mosquito swatting electric tennis rackets - so we stayed pretty amused while watching the locals go about their business in the middle of the night.

Until next time!

We are off

We are heading to Bangkok today. SF>Tokyo>Bangkok - 24hrs

Talk to you soon!