Thailand Day 8

Today we just took it easy. We slept in, had a very authentic Thai lunch which I actually didn't really like and which didn't seem to like me either. It was a day of getting manicures and pedicures, smoking a hookah at a Lebanese restaurant, walking around the city for hours and getting a Foot Massage. I have to say that the foot massage is WAAAAAYYY better than a regular Thai massage. I don't know why they are not popular in the US. It's just so relaxing I want to get one every day. Another great feature of the foot massage is that an hour costs about 7 dollars.
I finished the day with some last minute shopping :) and had a delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant. Here is a little side note on Thai food:

1. It super greasy - I have no idea how everyone is not 600 lbs.
2. They put egg in everything
3. It's not nearly as spicy as the Thai food in the US (This maybe because they mild it down for the tourists, I can't be sure)

I have just 20 more minutes to kill before I go to the airport. It's a very bittersweet feeling. I will miss Thailand and I really had a great time here. It was adventurous and very fun. Oh well... There will be other travels and other super long emails to keep everyone in the loop.
See you in the states

Thailand Day 7

We got up super duper early and got picked up for our day at the beach. The drive took 3 hours (again). I have to say that a lot of day trips take about a 3 hour commute from Bangkok which I think is a bit much (6 hours spent on the road a day)
We got pretty lucky and the trip consisted of us, another couple and the tour guide. Our first stop was Kudi Island. The whole island is basically a Thai national park. Maria and I walked around and took lots of pictures. We went to the cliff, the cave and the cove. All were beautiful, and all were a little hard to get to. We should have brought shoes other than flip flops but that’s what made it an adventure. Maria was also being eaten alive by mosquitoes, but she fought them off and lived to see another day. Once we were done with our hike we were both very hot and sweaty and were ready for the next activity... SNORKELING!!
The boat took us a little away from the island and we got in the water. First of all there were a lot of really beautiful yellow and blue fish by the water so I took a couple of minutes to just swim around with them. Everything was lovely until I realized that the little bastards were biting me! No worries, I swam away and joined Maria who did not take the time to play with the fish. The coral reefs we were swimming by were absolutely beautiful. I kept trying to figure out what to compare this snorkeling trip to and I finally came up with a good description. It felt like we were swimming around a Salvador Dali painting. It was just unreal. Maria and I both decided that the black spiky things on the reefs with iridescent blue beads were our favorite. Maria thinks that the black spiky things were "morskie yeji" but I am not so sure.
Having gotten our fill of the beauty we were transported to the island of Samed to lounge around on the beach and eat an absolutely delicious meal. Throughout my whole stay in Thailand I have not finished a single meal that I was served, except this one. It was all sorts of seafood and a fish that was grilled over an open flame. We had crab, mussels, shrimp, just the works. Yummy. Over lunch we started talking to the other couple from the van. The man is from the UK and his wife is Thai. They met while the man was still married but the marriage was "on the rocks". He promptly came back from Thailand, divorced his first wife and was married again within the year.
This seems to be a common thing here. In fact, on the beach there were either gross Russian couples where the man is fat, ugly and old and the woman is gorgeous and could be his daughter or there was a Thai woman with a white guy. Apparently there are two groups of the Thai/white couple. If the woman is young, then she is the vacation girlfriend, however if the woman is a little older then she is the second wife. That’s just how it goes. We spent our time on the beach reading, people watching, and periodically taking a dip in the ocean. Lovely - and I didn't get sunburned at all!!
Our trip back was uneventful until we got back to the hotel. There were flowers there for Maria from her boyfriend (they met in India where he lives). Maria was in heaven and I left her gazing at the flowers and smiling and went to take a shower. Through the course of the shower I heard her scream and then the door slammed. When I came out of the shower there was no one in the room. Maria came back a couple of minutes later and told me that Asef, her boyfriend flew in for a day to see her because he missed her so much already. Very very sweet.
We all went out to dinner to a high end restaurant that served Japanese, Indian and Thai food and was absolutely delicious. We had a mix of food and some alcohol and went to a high end club. The cover was almost 20 dollars which is pretty steep by Thai standards even if it does include 2 drinks. In the club we again ran in to the old man with hot Thai woman combo. In fact, we counted 10 couples that were of that variety. The club had a trance room and a rap room and wasn't bad at all. We left when I could no longer feel my feet.

Thailand Day 6

This morning we did have a slight mix-up with the tour and ended up waiting an hour and a half to be picked up from our hotel, but we finally got everything straightened out and were on our way. Our tour guide was a lady named Boo, and she was by far the best tour guide we have had in Thailand. Our first stop was the Tiger Temple. This is basically a wild life preserve and sanctuary. While at the temple we walked with the tigers while touching their backs and took lots of pictures with both adult and baby tigers. We also took pictures of water buffalos, wild boars and peacocks. It was glorious! I have to say I was a little nervous at first, but it was a great experience. Just amazing!
After the Tiger Temple we stopped on the road for an absolutely spectacular lunch and continued on to the rafting and elephant riding. The weather was beautiful and the rafting was very pleasant. After cooling off on the river we got to ride our very own elephant. I especially loved the elephant's stubbly head and neck and his big floppy ears. Masha sang the “Do your ears hang low” as a tribute. What I didn't love: the elephant driver beating the elephant with a wooden stick and hooking him behind the ears with a big metal hook. Maria and the elephant made fast friends and she ended up riding on his neck for a 3rd of our total time there. Very cute. When we were done we went to the baby elephant and got a couple of kisses (trunk to head/face) and also got our butts "massaged" (lightly stomped on) by said elephant child. We took so many pictures that the camera is completely dead.
Our final destination was the bridge on the river Kwai that was built by prisoners of war. We got there as the sun was setting and walked the bridge for a little while. We said goodbye to our guide here and drove home. The trip took about 3 hours so we were hungry again by the time we got back and decided to do a non Thai dinner.
Walking down the street we saw a Japanese place and a Middle Eastern place right next to each other. We decided to check out the Japanese place first but were told that there was no sushi or tempura to be had, so we went across the street (slight diagonal) and had amazing Lebanese food. While eating, we noticed that directly adjacent to the Japanese restaurant was a Japanese club with a bunch of women all dressed in red dresses sitting outside. It didn't take us long to figure out that something shady was going on and there was a reason that the restaurant didn't serve us sushi. Maria and I were trying to figure out what the system is but we never did. The best part was that the patrons of the Lebanese restaurant were mostly couples or families with the women dressed in burquas or at least with their hair completely hidden from view and long flowy robes, whereas right across the street there were basically sex workers waiting for their next client. I guess this is how they roll in Thailand.
Now it's a little after 10pm and we are both exhausted. The plan is to go to sleep early so that we are feeling alive for our day of snorkeling at some of the islands. There will be more to come. Did I mention that I LOVE THIS VACATION?

Thailand Day 5

This morning has been uneventful so far. We took a flight back to Bangkok and checked into our hotel. We have a free day so after I finish wring this email, I will look for something cool to do. We will probably go to a bar/lounge at night. Stay tuned for our next segment where we go to the tiger temple, ride elephants, raft and play with monkeys

***

I just want to start by saying that today was a super duper fun day!!!
Ok, let’s go back to where I left you last time:
Masha and I had a very easy going day yesterday. I took a nap and she read by the pool. At night we decided to check out a backpacker neighborhood that was recommended by a friend of hers. We took a cab over there and just walked around for a little while getting situated. We were constantly accosted by people trying to get us into a tuk-tuk or a ping pong show. We were dying to know what the hell the ping pong show was. It's not like we had no idea, we knew that it was something sexual in nature, but why ping pong?
We found a bar that served food and had tables outside, sat down and had some very delicious Thai food and a couple of drinks. While there, we met three SCOTTISH FARMERS. Apparently, if you happen to be a Scottish farmer you can go on a 4.5 month vacation all around the world during the low season. I now want to be a farmer. They also enlightened us on why a ping pong show is called that. Apparently the patrons are given ping pong rackets and then girls shoot ping pongs out of their orifices!!! AND open beer bottles with them!!! AND smoke with them as well!!! How does one discover that they have such a talent??? No matter, the question was answered and our curiosity was satisfied. After the bar we went out and clubbed for a bit, but because we had a long day ahead of us, we were home by 2 and asleep probably by 2:06am

Thailand Day 4

The Golden Triangle Tour.
We got picked up a little late and ended up leaving about 2 hours after we were slotted to. Our tour was with a very varied group of tourists. There was only one other American on the bus, a couple of French girls, some Canadians, a Dutch couple and two Israeli men in their 50s. I ended up sitting up front so I wouldn't get car sick and chatted with the Israelis for a while. That’s right! I broke the “anti-social no making small talk” rule. I thought it would be good for me to be outside my comfort zone for a while. The Israelis met in the army when they were 18. One lives in Haifa and the other lives in a kibbutz by Beersheba. They are vacationing in Thailand for 3 weeks. Surprisingly, the one that lives in Haifa knows almost no English. It was cool to chat it up with them for a bit.
Our first stop was at the "White temple" I have to say that this was probably my favorite part of the tour. The temple is beautiful and extremely understated by Thai measures. There are fountains around it and the mural inside is very modern. Also, there was a monk sitting in the middle of the temple meditating. Masha thought that he was real and argued with me for a little while that he was just deep in meditation, but he is actually made of wax :). We took a bunch of pictures here. In the pictures we took it kind of looks like we're in because of the white of the temple and the white of the clouds against the background of the deep blue sky.
On the way out I stopped to use the rest room and it was a little strange. You stand in line. Take off your shoes and put on other designated bathroom shoes. Once properly attired you go, do your thing, and then come back through the exit only to change back into your original shoes again. I think this has way too many steps. As a side note I noticed that Thai people love to have one-way traffic everywhere. There is always an entrance and an exit. In a lot of temples you have to follow only one way. The same is true for baggage storage at the airport and apparently some public bathrooms.
Our next stop was the golden triangle itself. I have to say that the location is not beautiful, and I am surprised that it's such a big tourist destination. We took pictures with Laos and Myanmar in the background, but were pretty bored since there was not much else to do there. The lunch we had there was not bad at all, but other than that “The Golden Triangle” wasn’t anything ultra exciting.
After lunch we were driven to the northernmost point of Thailand. There was a big market there and we bought ourselves some "jade bracelets" We are not convinced, but they look cute so who cares? Again, OK experience but nothing out of this world.
I will take a moment here to tell you about our guide. He makes very low brow jokes, is extremely hard to understand, and usually walks facing forward so he is also hard to hear a lot of the time. Neither Masha nor I liked him very much.
After the Northernmost point we were taken to a couple of Thai villages. We both really liked this part of the tour. Some of the older women were wearing the traditional costumes so it was nice. I thought that it was funny that some homes were built in an old school way but had satellite dishes. Everyone can see this in more detail in pictures when they are ready.
The ride back was horrible for me. We were driving fast through the mountains and I got extremely car sick. I couldn't wait to get out of that car. We were the second to get dropped off. After the Dutch couple left, the driver made a rude comment about their tip ("40 baht, that’s almost a euro, how generous" the tour guide exclaimed.) God I hated that guy.
We finished our night at the night market and bought all the presents that we needed. Both of us were completely shopped out by the end of that night. As we were walking to get a cab, both of us realized that we didn't know the address of our hotel. We never needed to remember it before since tours just picked us up and dropped us off there. We talked to some tuk-tuk drivers and thought we figured it out. However, when we got to our destination it became clear that it was not our hotel and we were totally lost. We told the driver to just circle and look for an internet cafe so that we could pull up the website but as we drove around we saw that everything was closed. Suddenly I saw our hotel sign and the crisis was averted. All is well.

Thailand Day 3

Doi Suthep Temple:
When we got to our hotel in Chiang Mai it was still too early for us to check in so we checked our bags and went to get something to eat. We ended up having Spanish Omelets nearby the hotel. I am surprised that there doesn't seem to be any breakfasty Thai food available. We will either have to buy American snacks or full American since curry is a little too heavy first thing in the morning.
We ended up having to haul ass at our hotel since we only had about 20 minutes for both of us to shower and clean up. Our tour driver was a very pleasant friendly woman named Minnie (like Minnie Mouse she said). My only complaint was that she was a little overwhelming with the amount of facts that she showered us with. Over all I found the temple tour very enjoyable. Minnie showed us a book that tells you what day of the week you were born on. I was apparently born on a Thursday and Masha was born on a Wednesday. Every day of the week has a particular Buddha position assigned to it. Mine was the meditating Buddha which means (according to Minnie) that I am very smart and my profession should be teacher, lawyer, or governor. (I guess I am in the wrong line of work). Masha's, Wednesday, Buddha position was Buddha giving alms and Minnie said that Masha must be very good at eating :). We watched Minnie pray and do the whole candles (Buddha), incense (Buddha’s teaching), and the lotus flower (monk) prayer bit. It's kind of interesting. She also taught us the proper prayer form and had a monk bless us with holy water.
We found out a little about the imagery in the temple. There are beasts in the front which are a mix of crocodile, snake and dragon and they protect the temple from evil. The dragons at Doi Suthep temple had seven heads. The more heads the beast has the more powerful he is in fighting off evil.
The story goes, that the beast in question wanted to become a monk really badly but only humans were allowed to be monks so he made himself look like a human and went to the Buddha to become ordained. The Buddha, being a pretty sharp guy, saw through the beast's disguise and decided to teach him a lesson. "Go down the (306 according to Minnie) steps and wait for me. When I am done meditating I will come get you.” The beast waited for hours and hours and still the Buddha didn't come. Finally he went to sleep and changed back to his original form. Now he stands guard at the foot of the stairs to the temple.
There are also lions at the top of the staircase as a second tier of protection. The lions are not commonly used in the south because they were brought in as part of Burmese influence. We also saw another protector beast which was a combination of elephant, pig, fish, salamander, and dragon. Apparently the Thai like to create mutants J
On our way out of the temple we checked out the Jade factory. Apparently jade doesn’t only come in green but goes through the whole spectrum of colors (I still like green best). We were also taught how to spot “jade” that’s really plastic or glass. The museum was interesting but really overpriced…. Oh well.
Random facts about Thailand that we know because of Minnie:

1. The royal palace was built out of teakwood. Every new king would level the old palace and build a new one. The wood from the old palace is usually donated to build a temple.
2. Thai people don't like to live in old houses because they are haunted. They constantly rebuild so that their house doesn't have a bad history. I tried to ask if this was for wooden houses only or for concrete as well :) but I don't think I was understood
3. Temples are used as places of worship, places of meditation, tourist attractions, and hospitals. The monks have an herb garden and create different combinations to make people better. A blessing can also be performed when all else fails.
4. There are 2 different types of medical plans:
• Insurance - 50% of the cost is from taxes, 25% from your job, 25% from you
• No insurance - "yellow card" get charged 30 baht (1 dollar) every time you go to the hospital no matter what you go for
5. Most tour guides are women because they are more gentle and pleasant, although now the lady boys are starting to crop up more in those positions.

Current Plans:
Go get Thai massage with Masha and then go to a dinner show. More to come later. Stay tuned.

***

Masha and I ended up getting a very lovely hour long massage for about 5 dollars each. The Thai massage is different. They have you put on these weird pajamas and massage you through the pjs. No oil or lotion used. Thinking back on it, the massage might have been a bit rougher than I wanted. After the massage we just had enough time to get ready for our dinner and a show. I have to say that the food wasn't great at all, show was pretty cool. We saw the peacock dance, the sword dance and a bunch of other village dances for weaving and building. Not too bad overall and we took a bunch of cool pictures. By the time we got back to our hotel we were both pretty tired and went to bed early.

Thailand Day 2

Yesterday was really good. Masha and I went and checked out the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha. It's not my kind of beautiful, but I definitely appreciate the style and the amount of work that went into it. We also walked around the non-touristy part of the city and stumbled upon a temple with 300 Buddhas positioned all around the perimeter and a huge one inside the temple. It had a nice calm vibe to it which was a welcome change after the overcrowded Grand Palace. We had no problems getting to the train station on time which was nice.

We had tickets in 1st class which apparently meant that we each had a bed and didn't have to share the room with anyone. As we learned the hard way, 1st class does not mean a clean cockroach free room :). I just started eating when I saw it and completely lost my appetite. The bathroom was disgusting with pee all over the floor and the smell that made me a little nauseous. I dealt with it and just rolled up my PJs to the knees so that they wouldn't be soaked in some random urine. Also the lady that was serving food was super annoying and no one knocked before coming into our berth so we just locked the door.

Our train was 3 hours late but it was cool because I left the morning free. Right now we are going to get some food, shower and go on tours. Chiang Mai has a really nice calm vibe and I am excited.

Thailand Day 1

I landed about 14 hours ago but everything was crazy and it was late so I didn't get a chance to use the internet (o\plus 20 hour flight takes a lot of mental capacity out of you)

I got lucky enough to sit behind a screeching 2 year old on the 12 hour leg of my trip and her dad kept almost hitting me in the face with his seat since he was moving it back and forth every half an hour. Other than that the flight was very smooth and the transfers were pretty painless. After I got in and SHOWERED, we went out to the night market to walk around and then had drinks at the beer garden. I got a local SIM card so I have a cell phone number here: 08-7706-1947.

There was the whole ordeal of getting the phone unlocked which basically involved going to the biggest mall that I have ever seen in my entire life. I don’t know how anyone finds anything there. We were directed by three different people to three different stores and finally one of the guys from the store just walked us to a stand where they unlocked my phone for $9 dollars. Pretty sweet deal if I do say so myself. They apparently unlock all phones including the iPhone. Now we will go to the Grand Palace and see the Emerald Buddha and then catch our 6pm train to Chiang Mai.

I got to hear a lot about India from Masha. We should totally go at some point. She loved it. Also, the food here is incredible (although I haven't had all that much of it yet).

September 11th and Lake Atitlan

We were told that the New Year's Day procession was something to see, so we went over to a little town called Santa Maria de Jesus. I have to say that this was probably the least exciting day we had spent in Guatemala. When we got to the down, no one really knew when the procession was, so we had a couple of hours to kill and walked around a bit. There was a market where all sorts of food was being sold, and the flies were buzzing around like crazy. The weirdest food I saw sold, is a tie between fried gators and fried iguanas. Yummers!

As we waited on the main square we noticed that there was a guy who set up backgrounds and was taking pictures. Imagine my surprise and amazement when I saw that one of the backdrops was a picture of the twin towers, where one tower has smoke billowing out of it and a plane is flying towards the other one. In front of this display is a plastic donkey that you can sit on. I am not an emotional person, but seeing that picture in that way made me sick. I can not fathom why this is a fun holiday background for a photo.

The procession finally started and it was very colorful. It started in a church and went to all of the corners of the square. Incense smoke was everywhere. I would describe it as a mix of a Catholic Mass and a small town parade. The whole parade consists of the one float that you can see in the picture. On the float are: Mary, Jesus, and a wise man.  The whole procession is accompanied by an extremely sad, off tune sounding band and the locals explode incredibly loud confetti bombs. The parade also has a queen, la Reina de Santa Maria de Jesus. We were stuck in the town for a little bit, since transportation is pretty unreliable, but eventually made our way back to Antigua and did a little more walking around the town and sight seeing. I was amazed to see some synagogues there. Apparently our people are everywhere.

On our last full day in Guatemala we went on a day trip to Lake Atitlan. Atitlan is considered to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world and when you are there, you never want to leave. The lake is surrounded by three volcanoes and the nature there is absolutely gorgeous. Mike and I had some time there, and since we didn't want to hang out at the beach and shop in Panajachel, we took a boat to the village of Santa Lucia de Atitlan, across the lake. If I ever win the lottery, I will build a house on this lake and will drink coffee on my deck gazing at the volcanoes. We had a very pleasant walk around Santa Lucia and even got a little lost. True to ourselves we ended up almost missing our bus back to Antigua, but to tell you the truth, I wouldn't have minded being stranded there. Our pictures don't do it justice, but I highly recommend that everyone go there at least once in their life. What a wonderful day to finish off our Guatemalan adventures. I found some pictures online that might come close to showing what it looks like. We came back to Antigua, and had our last Guatemalan dinner, in a restaurant with an inside courtyard of course. I will miss this place, Adios!

Happy New Years from Antigua, we lava you!!!

I arrived to our hotel in Antigua a little greener than usual. The streets are cobblestone, and I don't do well with the shaking. Our hotel here, Posada la Merced, looks much nicer than our Flores accommodations. We have a rooftop garden and the building is old and beautiful. Here's me on the roof of our hotel.

Our first day we just walked around and got acquainted with Antigua. What a beautiful city. I was surprised by how small it was. Our hotel is pretty centrally located so it's easy to get to everything. What I really love about the restaurants here is a setup where the courtyard is in the middle of the building. Every place we have gone to eat so far has a private, quaint and quiet outdoor area completely closed off from everything. My Spanish is getting quite a workout here, as very few people speak English.

Our plan included climbing a volcano on the day of new years eve. We booked the tour, and were told that we would both need flashlights on the trip. Nothing could be easier than buying a flashlight right? WRONG. I didn't know the word for flashlight, and fuego/luz were just not cutting it for me. It took us over an hour, several stores, and all of the crappy Spanish/charades skills I possessed to buy flashlights. Totally worth it in the long run, and I will never forget the word linterna as long as I live.

We got to the base of the Pacaya volcano and I saw that the climb was ridiculously steep. Right at the base there were locals asking if anyone in the group would like to ride the donkeys up (for a fee of course) and some in our group gave in right away. I was very tempted to give up, but Mike was all for doing it in our own. About 50 feet in, the hike got a lot easier. I suspect that the locals made it super difficult at the base in order to make some extra cash.

Another strange thing happened on our way up. As we were walking we heard weird screams. Eventually we passed a boy, probably around twelve years old, who was slowly hiking up and periodically screaming. He seemed OK in all other respects. A while later, after we have stopped hearing the screams we came upon a man and a little girl - looking very similar to the boy. They were hiking up, and the dad's face seemed set and upset. I suspect that the boy was whining, and the dad decided to leave him behind and teach him a lesson. (all pure conjecture, but it's the only sense that I can make out of this story)


After a little while longer we got out of the woods and to a place where there was lose lava rock everywhere. The climb got a lot harder then, like climbing up a hill of sand. We could see the smoke billowing a little ways up, so we got our strength together and made it up to the lava! The feeling of standing next to molten rock is incredible, there was a cold breeze blowing at the top and if you stood just right, you would get a mixture of the cold wind, and the hot hot air from the lava hitting you at the same time. We were close enough to the lava, to be able to touch it with a stick. AWESOME. We stood at the top and watched the sun start to set.

As the sun was setting our guides got very nervous and started taking us back. The way down was hard and the darkness wasn't helping. I was having a difficult time going down in all of the lava rock and since Mike was taking his time looking around, another guy took my hand and started helping me down. That got Mike to come over and help :). We were rushed down as a pretty insane speed, my understanding is that there are people that prey on tourists that separate from the group after dark, so our guides were hurrying us out. We stumbled down and finally made it on to the bus and back to Antigua.

By this time, Mike and I were absolutely starving. All of the restaurants were completely packed because it was New Years Eve, and we never thought that we would be back so late and didn't make any reservations. We waited for an hour to be seated at a restaurant. In fact, we were the last people that were accepted in, the rest were turned away. It took FOREVER to get our food. We managed to sneak a peak into the kitchen and were absolutely shocked to see a normal house stove with four burners. This is why the cooking was taking so long. I don't even know what the food tasted like, because we inhaled it as soon as it came out. We were done with dinner a little after 11 which just gave us enough time to get back to the hotel, and shower before New Year's

The New Year's celebration in Antigua blew me away. Mike and I went up to the roof garden to see all of the fireworks and it was spectacular. There were fireworks exploding everywhere. People on the streets had backpacks and shot fireworks straight from those (don't try this at home). The fireworks lasted for a long time, I think half of Guatemala's budget probably gets spent on New Years. We just stood and watched and felt like we were on top of the world. We could even see the fireworks display from the next towns over. Happy 2009!!!!!