Last days in Thailand

From top to bottom: The Sunday Market in Chiang Mai, the center Chedi in Doi Suthep, a long neck Karen woman


I never thought you could ever cram so much into one day of traveling but dad and I managed to. Yesterday we spent the morning at an elephant camp where they had a show in which around 2 dozen elephants paraded around, dragging logs, did crazy tricks and for the finale they painted paintings on canvas with their tusks. crazy. Afterwords Bo (our tour guide for the day who we hired to take us around) took us to a small ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) center where we spent an hour shaking and speeding down the pot-hole-filled rodes of rural Chaing Mai. It was pretty fun, an adreniline rush and a bit terrifying but fun all the same.
In the early afternoon we visited Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai's largest, most famous and most beautiful attraction. It was an amazing vast complex filled with small temples housing Buddah images, incense burning, locals and travelers praying and meditating and monks wandering. Although the centerpiece of the temple, a massive gold Chedi, was under construction the whole place was still extremely beautiful. We traveled around the complex clockwise (to insipire good luck according to Bo) and visited each little nook and cranny on the hillside temple where I payed my respect by doing the traditional three bows while Bo recieved blessings from the old monks. I also managed to find a small book written by the head monk who started to retreat for foreigners I went on and paid a few dollars for the small primer on Buddhism.
After the temple Bo said his goodbyes and dropped us off at the Holiday Inn, a nice place East of the town center, near the Night Bazaar. We settled in and then left at around 8 for the Sunday Market, what must be Thailand's biggest market.
It was endless, with the scent of ever food imaginable, the sights of old and young alike walking down the long stretch of road huddled in one massive throng as if we were walking to go hear someone of great importance speak. The stalls were filled with everything from Tshirts to incense to dolls to small blue things that served no purpose at all, there was everything. I bought a little bag of deep fried squid to snack on and some Thai sweets as we parused down the street gawking at everything under the sun being sold for 1/10th the price it would be in America. After two long hours of walking and eating and shopping we sat down in some nice comfy chairs for a particularly brutal $2 foot massage by some old Thai women. The women must have been out to get me or perhaps just had strong fingers but for $2 I didn't really care.
We went back late and had a nice long nights sleep. Today is a day to catch up on work, unwind, pack and prepare for tomorrows flight to Hong Kong. So I guess this is goodbye to Thailand, it was great while it lasted. On to Hong Kong...

Hill Tribe Trek cont..

Day 2: We woke up in the early morning after a restless sleep on the hard bamboo floor and after a freezing shower and the usual sitting around staring with crazy hair that occurs early in the morning Dad and I walked around the village a bit more. We got fairly lost in the village of people who, despite their relative proximity to Thailand's second largest city didn't speak much Thai, let alone English enough to tell us where our group was. The village was kind of like those gated communities where every house looks the same, except here the houses were made out of bamboo and the roofs of straw.
The first day of hiking had killed the group, and I'm pretty sure Bo had a hangover from all the whiskey he drank the night before so we took it easy with the hiking that day. Before we started our hike along the river however, we visited the local school. It was closed because it is summer over there but because the bamboo isn't so tight, we could see a bit through the cracks. It had two normal sized rooms, one classroom and one office for the teacher. There was one teacher for the entire village and about 30 children in the school. Because there were not enough students of any one age to fill a separate grade, nor enough teachers for divisions, school was the same for everyone ages 5-18. The school was fairly bare save a small bulky TV in the classroom and cages filled with rabbits in the teachers office for the children to play with.
The hike wasn't strenuous, or at least not as bad as the preceding day, rather it was scenic and deep in the heart of the jungle. It felt as though we were transported into one of those great Vietnam was movies- Platoon or Apocolypse Now or something. It wasn't hard to imagine rifles slinged accross our backs, dirt smudged accross our cheek bones and the distant noises of the Vietcong driving our thirst for blood. However, the trek wasn't as violent as my Vietnam fantasies.
After an hour or two of hiking in the early afternoon we settled at a beautiful cascading waterfall with a sandy bottom from the immense force of the falls crushing the rocks below. We dropped our stuff off at the hut we'd be staying in that night, literally seconds away from the lanky falls and took a nice dip in the small but refreshing waters. The Argentinians climbed the slippery rocks to a nice pocket around 15 feet up into the falls as we looked on anxiously below. Bo seemed especially nervous because he was liable for any injuries yet we were all laughing and having a good time.
That night was mostly spent talking around the table outside our hut and playing with the little girl who lived with her family there. The family there was from the Lahu villiage and sold little things for the tourists in this pitstop along the trek route. Although not the most refreshing of foods after a long mountain hike they sold oreos and lays potato chips (including seaweed flavored ones) and of course lots of beer which is where they made most of their profits. The little girl was the best though, an adorable little 3 year old girl from the hills, she had made playmates out of the tourists as she had no one near her age to play with and 22 year old backpackers were good enough for her. We called her Suri, in part becasue we couldn't really ask her her name and in part becasue she had a mysterious likeness to Tom Cruise's daughter.
On Saturday we spent the early morning at the falls talking to some British girls coming through with a guide on a private tour. They were very friendly, two from Yorkshire and one from London. We had the conventional backpacker conversation we had had many times before (eg. where are you from? Where have you been? Where are you going?) but these girls were halarious with their accents and we got a chance to talk with some people besides the ones in our group. Later in the day when we went white water rafting for an hour we happened to be put in a raft with the Brits while the girls in our group took a raft together. We didn't really have a chance to talk over the rapids but when we were through with the white water we got a chance to take a nice leisurly ride down the river on bamboo rafts where I got a chance to talk with one of the girls more. She told me about this program in Northwest India where she taught preteens theatre for 8 weeks. She talked about the independence she was granted, the learning experience she recieved and how much she gave to the children there. It sounded so appealing I really want to do it now at some point but Dad didn't seem so hot on the idea. We'll see.
After a delicious Pad Thai lunch we hopped in the Song Thoew and went to our final stop of the trip, the long neck Karen villiage. We were not terribly excited to go to the villiage, a small set of bamboo stores managed by a small offshoot of one of the hill tribes famous for their extremely long necks. The area was supposed to be a bit too much like a human zoo and the circumstances around their long necks weren't exactly cheery. The men in the villiage wanted to protect their beautiful women from being stolen away, so in an effort to make them ugly the men place golden brass rings around their necks every year starting from around 5 years old and continue to increase the amount year by year, only cleaning the neck on the New Years. The long necks look painful and standing around all day while people take pictures of you does not seem very appealing at all. After talking withe Bo however we realized that the women made their money through the tourism and sitting around was a much better job then whatever they would be doing otherwise, farming or weaving all day. They were pretty facinating too, they had loads of jewlery strung about them and the golden rings on their long necks glistened in the sun. I felt very mixed but I'm helping to pay for their food and shelter by visiting so I guess I don't feel horrible.
This was our last stop and after a long ride back to the hotel we said goodbye to the girls, got their email addresses and left back to the Secret Garden in Bo Sang, the famous umbrella villigae. We stayed in that night but packed as we were leaving the next morning to a full day of adventure and we were going to be moving to the more central Holiday Inn much closer to the center of town than remote Bo Sang.

I'll update what we did yesterday later. Until then I have to go work on my SAT study, finish my book and savor the last bit of Thailand before we leave to Hong Kong tomorrow for 3 days before coming back home.

Sneak peek of the next entry: Elephants painting, ATVs, A giant temple on a hill and one of the world's biggest night markets.

More pictures!

Top to Bottom: stall selling creepy crawlies in a Chiang Mai market; a typical hill tribe villiage; an old Lahu woman (with typical horrific teeth)

Chiang Mai: Day 15

Updating after 3 long days of hill tribe trekking, temple hopping, and extreme sports I'm pretty wiped but I want to get this all down so I'll start from the beginning of the trek.

We hadn't really put much effort into research but Dad found a little hotel in some Chiang Mai side street that offered a 3 day intensive trek into the hill tribe villiages as part of a package deal. We knew from the guide book that a hill tribe trek would be the perfect thing to do for an adventure so we just kind of went for it. When we realized that nobody knew the name of the company (Top North) that we were trekking with back home and Top North didn't know anyone back home it made us a little nervous of any worst-case-cenarios but we through caution to the wind and kept going in the polluted little parking lot as we found the little pick up truck with the rest of our trekking group we'd be spending the next 3 days and 2 nights with.
We had a bit of a mixed reaction at first when we found five 22 year old girls sitting in the back chatting. The group was small and friendly but we soon realized they were all somewhat friends from diffrent places. After a few minutes of talking though we realized how lucky we were. The girls were extremely nice and over the course of the few days we became great friends. There were 2 Lauras, 2 Carolinas and one Augistina (Augy for short). The 2 Lauras were nice girls from Canada, one a tall bleach blond with dark ray bans and a big smile, the other a short and quiet brunnete but also friendly. The two Carolinas were outgoing girls from Buenos Aires in Argentina, both very pretty and like to laugh a lot. Augustina was well.... Augustina. She was very talkative and definitely the party animal type and even though that's not usually my crowd she was fun to talk to about all the crazy parties in the south and all of her crazy adventures. Perhaps the person we became closest to however was the tour guide, Teeratat (nickname Bo).
Bo was a little shorter than I, with long surfer hair, dark skin and sun glasses platered on his head. He was half Cambodian and half Thai working in the tourism industry since he was 17, son of a Cambodian government worker who worked on a project to get rid of the opium in the north. He worked as a model for some time and then settled into the role of tour guide, specializing in hill tribe trekking which he studied in the Chiang Mai University. He was easy to talk to with fair English and quick to laugh. Although he was a bit of a sad case with pretty bad alcoholism and a smoking habit he didn't even think of quitting he was the epitome of the fun loving Thai. He is 22 now and he's not supposed to get too involved with the female tourists he was laying it on a bit thick with the Argentians. That's Bo though.
After leaving off talking in the Song Thew with our new trek mates we rode to a nearby market to pick up stuff for the trek. It was pretty similar to the other markets, old women with few teeth swatting mosquitos left and right, the strong musk of red and yellow spices filling the nostrils, and the slapping noise of live fish in waterless buckets in their last throughs of life. The one thing that will stick in my head about that market though is the one table teaming with dead insects. I guess they were for eating but everything from beatles to crickets to spiders lay accross that table staring back at you. Ughhhh. No thanks. Quite a site though.
After the market and a short stop in the boring butterfly conservatory we arrived at the base of the chiang dao mountain, a formidable climb, where we got a chance to do the extremely touristy yet still fun elephant riding. It sounds a bit too British imperialist yet it was actually fairly cool. There was no track or advertisements or roller coasters nearby or anything, just jungle and rural Thailand. It was a bit intimadating sitting atop such a mammoth beast but the bumpy ride was a new way to see the area and just plain awesome (how many people get to ride elephants in the northern hills of Thailand?). After our little fun though came the hard part, the 3 hour- more like 5 hour hike up the mountain. And when I say up, I mean UP. It may as well have been rock climbing because by the end of that first hour and a half we were all dripping with sweat and dirt. We stopped at a nice waterfall which Dad dutifully jumped into when all of the other young backpackers were too timid to make the first move. With a primal howl Dad plunged his head under the beating falls, more like an aquatic Thai massage than anything and while embarrassing me, he managed to entertain the backpackers.
The rest of the days hike was just about as hard as the first part if not harder but by the time we got to the Lahu villiage at the end it was worth it. Greeting us were friendly old tribal women in a small bamboo hut about as authentic as a tourist is ever going to find. Taking advantage of the tourism through the area, there was a cooler filled with Coke, water and beer and women offering cheap massages for wary hikers. We settled into the extremely modest- more like impoverished accomidations and looked around the villiage a bit while dinner was being prepared.
While I assumed the tribes were fairly poor I didn't realize the state they were living in. Bo said the people are happy but without living on the streets, this is about as poor as you can get. No electricity, no running water, animals running around everwhere, kids playing jacks with sticks. It was pretty depressing yet this is how they've lived for hundreds of years (minus the tourism) so we just kind of had to take it as it was. One of the most interesting things we found though was that the villiage wasn't completely devoid of electricity, there were several solar pannels spread out accross the villiage. I guess it makes sense but it seems funny to see solar panels in one of the most remote corners of the world. I guess that's the 21st century.
That night we were treated to a nice modest meal by Bo who served up some nice yellow curry with rice, watery soup and some pinapple. We all got to know eachother better and talked about our respective countries, the diffrences between them, the similarities, and everything else from global politics to bargaining in the Chiang Mai markets. It was fun sitting next to a little fire lounging on the firm bamboo below us knowing that we were in some exotic remote villigae far away from anywhere. Sleeping on bamboo isn't exactly the most comfortable thing ever, but that night, between the amazing stars and talking with all the great people around was really something to remember. When you're traveling you realize that it's not the Eiffel Towers or the Colisseums you end up remembering, it's the people you meet. And between the Argentinians, the Canadians and Bo, it was a fun group.

It's late and I'm tired. I'll do day 2 and 3 tomorrow morning. Up ahead: Giant wateralls, bamboo rafting, proper British folks and more....

Retreat

Talk about a cultural experience. I just came back from a two day silent meditation retreat 30 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. The course was run entirely by local monks and I was the youngest one there by at least ten years. Most of the people there were of the 25-year old-backpacker variety, which was nice after having been with a 50 year old for two weeks. They were from all over the world too: one from Iceland, Mozambique, Argentina, France, The Netherlands, England, Canada, Saudi Arabia ect... Although it was a silent retreat and there was little time for socialising, the other participants were very friendly. That's one of the nice things about traveling, you get to talk to people from all over the world. I talked to one dutch guy about Socialism, I talked to the woman from Mozambique about Barack Obama and I talked to one of the young Thai monks about the abundance of 7-11s in Thailand. 7-11s in Thailand are as common as Mcdonalds combined with Starbucks, they're everywhere.
The monks were very friendly as well. I imageined them to be incredibly stoic and serious but I have never seen a group of people smile and laugh so much. They all wore their orange robes and walked with such purpose you'd wonder if you were walking wrong. They were not so strict either, the only rules on the retreat were to remain silent and to not show the bottoms of your feet to images of the Buddah (harder to do then you might think).
I arrived on the first day around 2, after Dad and I had toured around Wat Suan Dok (pronounced Wat swan doe, although Dad pronounces it Wat Swan Duck) which is a very nice temple in Chiang Mai. I said good bye to Dad as he left for his Thai cooking school, and I sat in a small room in the temple to listen to the introduction to the retreat given by the head Buddhism professor at the nearby university who also started the program. He was a very nice old monk, talking about the process he went through in starting a meditation retreat program for foreigners. The talk also covered the meaning of life, death and hapiness, and all within one hour (not bad huh?).
We arrived at the meditation center outisde of Chiang Mai in the back of a pick up truck and after meeting our roomates (mine was a particularly hairy 20-something argentian man) and unpacking we began our first meditation. Within the large meditation hall, plastered with massive paintings of the Buddah's face and several other Buddah statues, the senior monks taught us the proper way to practice sitting meditation and walking meditation. I was one of the only people there with any meditation experience but it was still odd for me as the technique they used was much diffrent than the one I had learned on my teen meditation retreat in California. We learned how to do the proper Pali (ancient Indian language) chanting and bowing. The bowing and chanting were particularly difficult as it required us to sit on our heels for around 20 minutes with stiff backs. Sitting on the heels is bad enough, but to do this for twenty minutes while chanting in an odd ancient language is nearly impossible, not to mention we're supposed to be focused and concentrated in a meditative state.
The retreat mostly consisted of this: chanting, meditation with a brief period of discussion. In our discussion we were lucky to have the head professor in our group. One of the cocky French guys asked the monk, what is the meaning of life? The monk laughed a big hearty laugh and then as quickly as his laughing had begun he became very focused and concentrated and said (in a voice between Jackie Chan and Yoda), "This is very good question. I think taht meaning of life come from helping other, when we do good for other we help other who need. We all born, live life then die, like flowar, and when we do good for other we use life for purpose and meaning. And when we are happy like tree we spread our hapiness branches and drop seeds on ground and spread our hapiness to others." He went on with other wise metaphors and Buddah quotes for quite a while but everything he said made so much sense. I'm really glad I did the retreat, it made me very interested in Buddhism. How could you lose with a philosophy all about hapiness, helping others, and peace?
The food was simple and plain, the beds were hard and the rooms were sparesely furnished but the retreat was worth the wisdom and friendliness of the monks. This morning we practiced a Thai tradition of giving alms to the monks in the form of giving them rice for their breakfast. The monks do not consider it begging, rather they are giving others the chance to gain merit by giving. Careful not to touch the women (this is not allowed for the monks) and walking very slowly in single file, they went along the line of our group all dressed in sterile white attire and collected their rice with stoic looks. Afterwards we sat on our heals with hands together and recieved a prayer of good fortune and merit from the monks. This was perhaps my favorite part of the retreat.
All and all it was a very good experience. I learned a lot about Buddhism and Thai culture as well as gained the opportunity to talk with the monks and other travelers from around the world. Hopefully I'll remember this for a long time and be able to tell my kids that I meditated with monks in rural Thailand. Pictures will come soon, I bought a little kodak disposable camera so we'll see how those turn out.

Tomorrow we leave for our 3 day hill tribe trek outside of Chiang Mai. We're going to hike from tribal villiage to tribal villiage, sleep in wooden huts, o bamboo rafting, maybe elephant riding and meet the local tribespeople who supposedly live the same way they did hundreds of years ago. It'll be a nice chance to get out of the smoggy city and into nature. Did I mention the smog here? All of the farmers burn their crops to spare time cutting them so the air here is like a smoky bar. It's pretty terrible. Everybody here has a sore throat and a cough. So this will be the perfect way to get out of the smoke and into the culture. I'll update after we come back.

PICTURES

from top to bottom: Tuk Tuks in Chiang Mai;The Chiang Mai night bazaar; some Thai monks; Angthong National Marine Park

Hello loyal readers, I'm posting from a little complex of bungalos outside of Chiang Mai (in the north of Thailand) http://www.secretgardenchiangmai.com/ and today I'm going to be entering a 2 day retreat in a Buddhist wat (temple) with other travelers and monks in the city. But let me backtrack a little.
Out last day in Koh Samui we planned an excellent day in the Angthong National Marine Park, a collection of around 42 islands in crystal clear blue waters. Unfortunately it was pouring when we awoke in the morning, but when has a little rain gotten in the way of us doing what we wanted? It was unfortunate but the marine park was still pretty incredible. The ocean waves had carved the rocky limestone islands into giant towering skyscrapers, interesting in thier almost man made shape and mammoth in size. We got the chance to kayak around the big island, which required a considerable amount of effort considering what good shape Dad and I are in. It was quite beautiful though and even though it wasn't so sunny we managed to have a good time. That is, until I went in the ocean with my camera in my pocket. But before this happened I climbed some very steep, knee braking steps to the lookout over the emerald lake. The emerald lake, like the name is a beautiful green color and surrounded by great walls of limestone rock, truly spectacular. After the long and ardous journey down I was so sweaty and overheated I jumped right in the ocean. Me being the idiot that I am, my nice, fairly new, digital camera was instantly water-logged and fried on the spot. But as they say here, mai pen rai, roughly the Thai equivlent to akuna matata (for those of you crazy people who have never seen the Lion King it means 'no worries').
It was unfortunate that our last day in Koh Samui was rained out but Chiang Mai seems like the real cultural heart of Thailand. Famous for it's beautiful temples and insane night bazaar, it's really a great place to be. Yesterday, after arriving by plane around 1pm, Peter (the owner of our 'hotel') took us outside the city to where Secret Gardens Bungalos. Peter is a nice German man in his 60s with a silver Mark Twain mustache and a soft German accent. We arrived at the hotel in a sung tao (two benched bus truck) and after unpacking and talking in the dining area we took a tuk tuk into the city. I love tuk tuks. They are these little three wheeled motor rickshaws whose drivers, as if they are attempting suicide, weave in and out of the clogged traffic at very high speeds. They're a great way to see the city and only around $1 for a ten minute drive. The sung taos are even cheaper at about 30 cents and will take you anywhere in the city so long as it's in their general direction. They're kind of like buses except on the back of pick up trucks and slightly more dangerous.
Yesterday in the city we did two things, the first was Monk Chat followed by a visit through the night market. Despite being incredibly sick yesterday, Monk Chat was incredibly interesting. At a small temple in Chiang Mai there is a place where foreigners can go to talk one on one with local monks about whatever they want, from cricket to reincarnation. The monk we talked to was named Boon (sp?), a smiley and friendly young man from Laos. He had been a monk for around 3 years after he joined against his parents wishes. His two older brothers had beocme monks but his parents needed their third son to work in the rice fields. Sneaking out to the temple daily he slowly realized that becoming a monk was the only thing he wanted to do. We talked about Buddhism, the daily rutine of a monk, psychology and numerous other topics, all of which spoken about so eloquently by the young monk. Every word that came out of his mouth was wise, as if he had memorized a book of Buddhis proverbs (I wouldn't be surprised if he had). I had to go earlier then I wanted to find a pharmacy for some medicine for my stomach but the overall experience was really facinating. Today I will be going on a two day retreat in the same temple, talking with the monks, doing quite a few hours of meditation, and interacting with the other, probably much older, travelers participating.
Yesterday we also went to the night market. We have to go into town now but I'll just say really quickly that it was giant. We probably covered about 1/4 of the place and we walked around for around 2 hours. They have everything from silk boxers to sea food and anything in between and the prices aren't bad either. Especially if you bargain (which I find very fun) you can get really great prices.
Well I'm off to my retreat now. I'll try and update soon after it is finished. Hopefully it will be an enriching and interesting experience. I'll let you all know how it goes.



P.S. Sorry for spelling/ grammer errors for all those nitpicky readers. I type these entries very fast and never have time to profreed, so I apologize. Hope you can enjoy anyway.

Good news/ bad news

Good news: You can now comment on my blog!  Click at the bottom of a post where it says the number of comments to leave a comment.  It can be insightful, hilarious, or deeply spiritual...

Bad News: Today at the Angthong National Marine Park off the coast of Koh Samui I dropped my camera in the ocean and now it's 

All pictures on my blog from now on will be from google images :(

Picutres

angthong national marine park (below left); Thai Boxing (below right)

Day 7: Koh Samui

Well I guess I've been doing a little false advertising.  This blog isn't really about our adventure, unless sitting on the beach for most of the day can be called an adventure.  But we are doing stuff besides lazing around!  I haven't written in a few days but I'll bring you few but loyal readers up to date on the highlights.  I've lost track of time here so I'm not sure of any specific timing but I'll do my best.

Some amount of time ago (?) we went to a Thai cooking class.  Let me just preface this with a note: Thai food is SPICY.  I mean REALLY SPICY.  The first thing they had us do in class was learn about the different peppers.  When the teacher asked who liked spicy everyone but Dad and I raised our hands.  "Silly Americans can no take spicy haha" laughed the teacher.  She started to pass around a pepper for us to try, one of those red hot chilly peppers.  How was I supposed to know that you're only supposed to eat the tip?  I was nervous to try it but even more nervous to refuse and be singled out so I ate it.  I ate about half of the pepper, bad idea.  My mouth was on fire the rest of the night.  O, and did you know that water doesn't help spicy?  Perfect...

We made three excellent dishes though, some curry, a fish dish and some alien looking noodle dish.  Previously the height of my cooking talent had been a mean Mac and Cheese from the box but I must say, I'm not half bad in the kitchen.  

Anyway, yesterday was a really cool day.  In the morning we sat by the pool eating our daily lunch of chicken satay and french fries with peanut sauce but in the afternoon we decided to do jet skis.  They go so fast!  I was cruising all along the long stretch of beach easily drifting past dad.  The ocean was a bit choppy but nothing was getting in my way of going light speed fast.  I think at one point my face started to stretch back like you see in those astronaut movies during take off.  

That night we went to see Thai boxing.  Let's just say it was an experience.  We got good seats ringside in the small dingy boxing center.  Speed boats rigged with speakers had been going up and down the beach announcing some big fight all day so we figured we'd check it out.  The boat would come by every few hours blasting "CHAWENG STADIUM. TONIGHT. TONIGHT.  BIGGEST FIGHT OF THE YEAR.  9 PM.  TONIGHT. TONIGHT."

Our bleacher seats could see everything, man those Thais can fight.  The first few matches were between kids, probably somewhere around my age, and they were pretty tame but some of the later guys really knew how to beat the crap out of each other.  Before the first everyone stood for an instrumental version of the Thai national anthem and then the first fighters came out to some German techno and strobe lights.  They got in the ring and started bowing and dancing.  Something we later learned happened before every fight.  It was odd to see big boxers bowing like monks but very interesting too.  After bowing they would commence to kick eachother for about 3 minutes, go back to their corners, and then commence to kick eachother again.  It was a very hypnotizing process.

Tomorrow is our busiest and last day here on Koh Samui.  We're going to Angthong National Marine Park about 30 minutes from the main island.  It's a series of tiny islands, all pretty close and all of them look like beach paradises only found in postcards.  We hope to go scuba diving there and maybe even kayaking in the caves.  I'll update in a few days.  On Monday we leave for Chiang Mai, the cultural center of Northern Thailand.

Day 3: Koh Samui

Looks like spontaneity paid off, leaving the big city of Bankok was the best thing we could have done. Koh Samui, a sizeable island in the south of Thailand, a place of sandy white beaches, turquoise waters and backpackers galore is beautiful beyond compare. The air is thick and the sky is clear and the common attitude around here is one of relaxation and no worries. Beach Boys music played upon our decent in a very small plane which we had to take a bus to from the airport terminal. We arrived at the Banana Fan resort, a jungley hotel filled with Westerners looking for a break from the daily grind and a nice spot by the beach. The beach by the way is white as paper, the sand as fine as silk and the water as warm as a bath tub, talk about heaven. Too bad Koh Samui isn't the undiscovered backpackers paradise it used to be. Now it's filled with old Australian couples and more then a few large German men wearing speedo thongs that are far too revealing.

At night we went around town, first just walking up and down Chaweng Road, the main road here, and then stopped for dinner on the beach. It would have been perfect, delicious duck curry under moonlight on the beach, however while I was enjoying this view Dad was turning purple. Apparently when he ordered the spicy curry he didn't realize it was SPICY curry. I got a kick out of it though as he tried to cool off with several glasses of ice water, grunting and squinting his eyes.

After dinner we sought out the well known Regge Pub, a massive emporium of all things Regge. Unfortunately it was pretty empty due to all of the people still back at the Full Moon Party on Koh Phan Ngan however the place was really awesome. It was about the size of my house three times over and filled with pool tables, concert stages and tons of pumping speakers blasting Marley and other Regge favorites. We decided to leave after a game of pool but promised ourselves to come back when the party was going on.

The way back was pretty bizzare, even by my standards. As we walked back to the hotel from the Regge Pub we went right throgh Koh Samui's red light district. Swarms of bored prostitutes virtually cut me off making fairly obscene gestures and wispering in my ear. I was flattered but kept trudging on, accidentally stepping on one of the prostitutes feet in the process.

Today we are taking a jeep around the island perhaps visiting the largest waterfall here on the island and maybe scouting out some other, more secluded beaches we can stay on. Renting a jeep is only 7 American dollars a day here so it should be really fun. I'll update in a few days. Hope all is well back home.

Day 1: Bangkok

Bangkok, AKA the city of a thousand temples AKA the worst pedestrian city in the world is quite a trip. We've only been here one day but already we've almost been killed riding in mini cabs, seen the revered Emerald Buddha and traveled up and down the big river. After an uneventful 20 something hours of traveling it was nice to move around a bit.

On the surface Bangkok seems like any other sprawling metropolis, but under the surface it has a unique and intriguing personality. Today we visited 3 or 4 big temples, all of which teaming with tall Thai style spires and filled to the brim with Buddhas. Reclining Buddhas, sitting Buddhas, Standing Buddhas, Kneeling Buddha... Buddha overload! The temples were pretty amazing though, however the obnoxiously loud tourists put a damper on the experience. No fear though, we are determined to have a good time and made a decision to leave Bangkok early and fly over to Koh Samui tomorrow morning. It's a bit spontaneous, but that seems to be the theme of the trip. Cities are cities and we're ready to ditch the endless sea of sky scrapers and get into the heart of Thailand (literally "Land of the Free"). Tonight we will go to the night markets after relaxing on the hotel's rooftop pool (beautiful) and try, but probably fail, to bargain our way through the shops. Our Thai sucks and we barely understand the money but we will press on. Let's hope we're fast learners...

Finally made it into Bangkok after 20 hours of traveling!