Bangkok and Chiang Mai

Twas a sad day to leave the fantabulous Isle of Tao. Of course it had to be done if I ever wanted to see the rest of Thailand, however, to this day I long for the beautiful waters and sands of the islands. After taking a ferry to Chumpon, I had a long, bumpy bus ride up to busy Bangkok. The only thing I was looking forward to there was to see my friend Leslie, whom I met in Bali. Strangely enough, my friend Tarun from SF was in Bangkok visiting his parents at the same time. Knowing that I wouldn't be spending but a day or two in town, I planned to met Tarun the next day for lunch. Unfortunately, out lunch reunion was foiled because, having absolutely no idea where I was in this crazy city, I wandered around for over an hour in Siam Sq. and never found the meeting place. Turns out, the very spot had been burned only a couple weeks before during the recent rioting. Nevertheless, I had plans to meet with Leslie for drinks later that night, so Tarun joined us. It all worked out and it was quite nice to see two familiar faces. It's been a long time.
Not having a lot of time in Bangkok, I did the normal touristy things like visiting the Royal Palace and of course my Where's Waldo in Siam Square. To me, Bangkok was just an overpopulated, overly polluted city. I think if I had a fair amount of time there, I would have been able to find the good things about this city. One thing I did enjoy was the trip to the floating market. I even though it is very touristy, it was quite interesting and I had some very good food.
After Bangkok, I was very much wanting to head up the western border town of Umpang for some trekking. I was thoroughly disappointed when I couldn't seem to find any way to get there. It's off the farang-beaten path so it was turning out to be way to difficult, incredibly lengthy and quite expensive to get there. But alas, you can get all the way up to Chiang Mai, anytime and virtually free at 250 Baht. Thailand tourism is really hurting because of the recent disputes and they were offering some crazy deals. However, not wanting to take another long bus ride, I hoped a flight instead on Nok Air to Chiang Mai. Yay. I tell you, if flights weren't as expensive, meaning on a backpackers budget, I'd fly between every city. It's fast, painless and much more desirable. So poof, there I was in Chiang Mai and hour later. And what a great city it is. So much to do, in and around the city, I had a fabulous time.
The first few days were about relaxing and seeing a couple things around the city. I really enjoyed the zoo and the beautiful temple at Doi Suthep. One night I met a nice couple, Irish guy and his Thai wife. They have a small farm about 30km outside of the city centre. They were kind enough to invite me out to see the place so the following day I rode out on the motorbike to check out what it might be like to farm in this region. Of course, it's the same to farm most everywhere you go. I loved it because they have a new baby goat, ducks, quail (which they sell their eggs at the local market), oxen, chickens, cat, dog and a couple of huge hogs. Very fun.
I'd signed up for 3 days of trekking. Thought it would be good to finally have some exercise. After all, one can't pretend that all of the delicious meals with no exercise leads to keeping trim. I am still waiting to achieve my 'Asia weight'.........still waiting......really. I'd heard how touristy these trekking tours could be, but since my dreams of doing it in Umpang were long gone, I'd have to settle for Chiang Mai. In the group were three, 22 year old Chilean guys and two, 19 year old Canadian girls. Wow, if you ever felt like the camp counselor. Overall it was OK. The trekking was enough to get my heart rate above any level it's seen in the past 3 months and the scenery was quite nice at times. Other than that, it wasn't much to write home about.
Back to Chiang Mai, I spent a few more days exploring the town and met another Canadian girl, Erin. She was a blast and we had a fun time. She had just spent a day at the Baan Chang Elephant Park and after hearing all about it, I decided I just had to do it. I must say, it has been one of the best parts of my entire trip thus far. I wish I could describe the feelings I had towards these animals. Their grandeur and regality plus childlike playfulness was over-powering. They are quite loved by their personal mahouts (care takers), and even through the power of the their massive bodies, there is a permeating gentleness as they are fed and bathed. I left at the end of the day unwillingly and watched out the rear window as we drove away. It was awe-inspiring. Truly.
Last but not least in my final city in Thailand, I took a Thai cooking class. Wow. I love food, especially Thai. We picked out 6 dishes to make and began with a visit to the market to buy our ingredients. Surprisingly, Thai food is so quick and easy to make. I think I left that afternoon so full that I could barely walk. I am very much looking forward to trying many new things back home. Yum
Realizing that my visa was soon to expire and that I just couldn't stay in Thailand forever, as much as I would have liked to, I headed thru Chiang Rai then the border town Chiang Kong, where I crossed, in about 5 minutes, over to Laos. Sadly.
Bye bye Thailand, I will miss you terribly.

I have many photos of all the adventures I had my last few weeks here. Currently I don't have the best internet connection, so uploading pics is not possible. If you'd like to see my pics, click on these picasa links to my albums! Enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/ThailandBangkokAndAround#
http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/ChiangMai#
http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/BaanChangElephantPark#
http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/ThaiCookingClass#

Thai-slands are a girl's best friend- Part du

After a longtail to Krabi, a shuttle (which really means bench seats in the bed of a pick-up) to the bus, the bus across to the other coast to Surat Thani, another bus to the pier, the ferry to Koh Samui and finally a taxi to a guesthouse, I was super stoked to be on beautiful Lamai Beach. Just lovely! Having really no idea about exactly what area onthe island was the best to go, I just headed in the direction of my friend Sinead's brother's bar in Lamai. Unfortunately, I never actually got to see Hugh since we kept missing each other each night. But I was in heaven on this stretch of beach. Uncrowded and serene, to date, this is the best beach I've been on. The water was clear and calm, the ocean floor was sand as far as I could reach, and the temperature was perfect. Nice. I think I could've stayed on that beach for at least another week.
I hired a motorbike here on Samui to explore the rest of the island, especially a bit more inland. Then I headed up north towards Big Budda and saw some of the Wats up there. I don't know why, but I'm absolutely fascinated by the monks. I love them. They're so adorable in their orange robes. I tried to get a good shot of their laundry hanging on the line. It's more difficult than you think, actually, to get photos of the monks themselves. I always feel 'bad' for trying but of course I still do. hehe
Big Budda on Samui was my first Wat in Thailand. Little did I know that there are gazillions of them and many, much more intriguing. Once inside the temple, certain praying areas are designated for the monks. Traditionally, every male is supposed to become a monk for a short period of his life. I was admiring the shutters on the windows of the Wat that were so ornately wood carved. I could swear that my dance teacher, Miss Nelda, had me do this move in some acro routine as a kid. Honest!
Wanting to explore a bit more inland, I hired a motorbike not realizing that you need a freaking monster truck to pass on some of these roads. It was actually quite humerous trying to attempt on a scooter. Once a strong burning smell began to eminate from the bike, I think it was best to abort the mission and get on my way. Fun though I'll admit.
After four glorious days on Koh Samui, it was time to move on to Ko Tao. Parting is such sweet sorrow from the beaches that you love. I was only hoping that Tao had equally mesmerizing shores. Once again ferried over to the island, stopping mid-way to drop all of the young, party kids off on Ko Phangan since the full moon party was only days away. Trying to keep hydrated and trying my best not to have umpteen number of plastic bottles. I chose the mega 6 liter bottles. People look at you quite funny when trying to drink out of one.
Arriving in Koh Tao was again, wonderful. There are a sleu of guesthouses along the Sairee beach. Much to my luck, there was a gorgeous black lab belonging to the neighboring beach bar, whom I named George. He seriously spent all day, everyday, playing in the water and befriending tourists on the beach. I LOVED him. He might be the only black lab I've seen in Asia. He was a super friendly dog. He also loved to play, stealing peoples flip-flops or snorklers fins. I don't know if they got a kick out of it, but I thought it was hilarious.
On Koh Tao, I rode a much more appropriate bike for the roads. I don't know what you call it, but not knowing anything about motorbikes, I'd liken it to an over-sized dirt bike with massively treaded tires. What do I know? Nada. But, it was the best choice for manuvering the roads. I drove the entire island and discovered some absolutely stunning beaches on the East side of the island. Water clearer than any swimming pool I've been in. Too bad I didn't have snorkle gear at the time.

On the island are nearly 45 different dive shops. Which is crazy for such a tiny island. Obviously this is why people come here, it's laden with great dive spots. Surprisingly, they are not very competitive in their prices. However, I did come across one shop that had ridiculous deals for fun dives since I'd already done my training in Bali. So the next couple of days I did 4 dives. Most of which were pretty great, and I was a bit nervous since it'd been a month since I'd last dived. I was not sure I'd remember everything. But, alas, it did all come back and I was much more at ease with it then I had been before. Only the last dive had bad visibility which is not so terrible I think.
I had some absolutely lovely shots of me in all of my gear. You'll have to look thru my web album to see them though. In rememberance of all my days in pointe shoes in my youth, I was blessed with two massive blisters on my big toes and another across my achilles. It's incredibly difficult to keep sand out of those areas and the salt water burned me for days. I almost forgot how much pain I used to put myself through.

The last, sad, sad day on the island I went the the postcard-perfect, neighboring island Koh Nangyuan. Surrounding this little cluster of 3 tiny, connected islands, are loads of dive sights and fabulous snorkling in the Japanese Gardens. This is where I suffered a stupidly accquired sunburn on the entire backside of my body from snorkling for too long and not reapplying my sunscreen. I'm an idiot. At least I got rid of those old tan lines on my bum.
It was now time to move on from the island paradise and head into mainland Thailand. Boo. I mean, I was very excited, but very, very sad to leave the sand, sun and water. I headed out the next day to get the ferry to Chumphon. While waiting I snapped a shot of the entry to a shop that tickled me.



Check out more pics at
http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/ThailandKohTao#
http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/ThailandKohSamui#

Thai-slands are a girl's best friend- Part 1

Welcome to Thailand. What a relief it was to finally arrive in beautiful Thailand. On May 18Th I flew to Krabi from Kuala Lumpur. Krabi is in the southwest, not too far from Phuket. From Krabi town, you can take a quick long tail boat ride to one of the fabulous beaches around the western bend. I set out towards Ao Nang but somehow ended up in East Railey, which was a blessing in the end. Already you could feel the calmness and relaxation of the place. All around this area are huge rock formations, making it the prime location for rock climbing. I actually never made it round to doing any climbing, but did some kayaking instead. It was quite a fun time even though it was blistering hot. I would've loved to have jumped in the water, only there were an ungodly number of jellyfish everywhere. I kid you not when I say there were 100's of them in the water. Now, I've never actually seen large jellies except at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California but I certainly felt them whilst diving, and even then they were so small you could barely see them. These monsters however, freaked the crap out of me. HUGE! There were some heavy storms a few days prior and apparently brought them all in towards land. I was even nervous to swim by the beach since they were there as well. Yikes. Needless to say, I didn't spend a lot of time in the water these 4 days.
One of things I love about the area of the world are the geckos. I absolutely love them. They are EVERYWHERE! Usually when I try to get photos up close, they are gone before I can push the zoom on my camera. For some reason, this old guy with his bum eye just sat and stared at me. I thought he was pretty cool.
So, for those of you who know anything about me, you know that I love to eat. And one, very important reason I came to Thailand was for the food. This pic is my first meal in the country, Som Tam, and I savored every bite. I must admit that my nose started running at first bite, but I didn't care; it was great. I ate nearly everyday at this place since it was dirt cheap and super tasty.
Railey (all of Thailand, it seems) is over-run with cats, which means there are many kittens. They are ridiculously adorable and I should probably take some worming pills with all of the animal coddling I've been doing. I can't help it, I am an animal freak. Apparently this kitten was happy just lounging around in the crook of my arm.
Ok, so I was staying on East Railey and there was a path leading over to the West side, which was a better beach and beautiful sunsets. So nearly every evening was spent watching the sun go down on this beach. The absolute best part though, about walking the path to the westside was this huge advertisement along the way. If I remember, it was an ad for one of the hotels there, which caters to weddings and such. Well, there were a few different photos posted on this board but only this one made me laugh out loud, each and every time I passed it. I don't think my photo does it justice, and some of you might think I'm nuts for getting such a kick out of it, but it's possibly one of the worst wedding pics I've seen AND it's posted, larger than life, on this billboard. Poor, poor people.
Well, after 4 days it was time to leave good ole Krabi and Railay Beach. Off to Koh Samui and Koh Tao. YAY

Check out more pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/ThailandKrabi#

Muy Mal-asia

On May 5Th, I sadly left fabulous Bali and headed through Singapore to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I had honestly been back and forth in my mind weather or not to travel in Malaysia. Towards the end of my stay in Indo I heard many good things about the country from other tra-velers, so I decided that it would be nice to spend a couple weeks seeing the mainland. I spent the first 3 nights in KL and just milled about the city checking out the attractions. I enjoyed the Batu Caves, impressing Petronas Towers, and the government buildings. Other than that, I could take or leave KL.



Next I headed down to Malacca, which is a couple of hours south of KL. It's a Portuguese settled city and has some lovely architecture and a nice vibe. Overall, I must admit that this city had the most charm than any other city I visited. All of the tuk tuks were ornately decorated with fake flowers and pretty much anything else they could get their hands on. It was so funny to watch. Each one was very individual and usually projected some random genre of music over loud speakers in the carriage. There may be some old Malay guy driving the bike while "Baby Got Back" blared from his carriage. Hilarious!

After 3 nights in Malacca, I decided to head all the way up the country to Langkawi Island and then work my way back down to KL. A friend I met in Indo said that it was very nice and worth checking out. I was sold since I LOVE the islands. So I took an overnight bus up to Kuala Perlis, a small coastal town that is mainly just a jump off point for the island, and then hopped on the ferry to Langkawi. My guide book had recommended a backpackers called Gecko Guesthouse. I know that at this point in my travels I've experienced weeks on end of hot, humid weather. Well, Langkawi took the cake. It was nearing 40 degrees C. with heavy humidity. Being exhausted from my trip up the country, I headed to a shady bit on the beach, laid out my sarong, and stretched out and napped. At least outside I'd get, hopefully, a breeze. That evening I had a terrible experience at this awful GECKO GUESTHOUSE and was not protected by its owners, staff or even the guest who witnessed what had happened. It truly saddened and frightened me that there are cultures in this world that have no regard or respect for women. That women in these cultures must endure the unfair treatment and inequality on a daily basis infuriates me. It's amazing how naive I am in assuming that all women feel this way. What is almost worse is that none of the men around when this incident happened stood up for me or did anything to help. It was, and still is, difficult for me to understand the lack of balls in every man there. So, needless to say, this solitary experience shattered my view of Malaysia and it's people. I had not felt totally comfortable at the any point in my journey thru this country and was having a tremendous time following my experience.

I still needed to continue back down to Kuala Lumpur and set out to pass through a few little towns as cautiously as I could.

I stopped for a day in Kuala Kangsar to see a few lovely sights, such as the Ubudiah Mosque and the Palace. After which, I made my way back to KL as quickly as possible to find my way out of Malaysia and into Thailand. Good Riddance!!!



http://picasaweb.google.com/candimichael/Malaysia