It feels like its been AGES since I left Vancouver....and for that matter, updated you all on my adventures. But actually, I think I'm doing pretty good if I get an update in every couple of weeks.
Chiang Mai was awesome. It's a really laid back city (a tad overtouristed perhaps). In general the people were SO friendly. Among the highlights was a day spent playing with elephants! We went to an elephant farm and learned how ride and bathe the elephants and then we went swimming with them!!!!!! Craziness I tell you! Apres Chiang Mai we made our way up to Chiang Khong. This is a small town on the Laos-Vietnam border. There wasn't really much there but we did luck out arriving on market day. We wandered a bit and were trying various street foods (as one does in S.E. Asia) and ended up talking to two local ladies with a baby. So cute! At one point, May asked if she could take a picture of us -Mom literally threw her baby into my arms. Catch! Haha. ANYWAY, the ladies ended up buying us a sample of some traditional Thai street food. It was delicious. No idea what it was. (So go many of our culinary experiences)
From Chiang Khong we took a slow boat up the Mekong river to Luang Prabang (Laos). It took two days, but we all think it was better than being cramped on a bus for 18 hrs. We stopped overnight in a little village called Pak Beng, which I'm pretty sure depends completely on tourists taking the slow boat.
Moving on...We arrived in Luang Prabang last Monday. Its an AMAZING little city -a UNESCO world heritage site, dotted with temples and full of monks.
We met some fellow travellers and ended up touring the sites with them. (Two Brits and a Vancouverite!)
We're now in Luang Nam Tha which is in the North West of Laos (closeish to the Chinese border) and we just returned from a two day trek through the Laotian jungle. Maybe a little crazy...but good fun all in all. We stayed in a village at the top of a mountain and our trek was only the 4th time the people there had seen foreigners. Needless to say, I think we were there just as much for them to see us as for us to see them....
Sunday 19 September 2010
Tuesday 7 September 2010
THAILAND!
The adventure begins.....
A side note: currently sitting in a hostel common area in Chiang Mai eating a delicious deepfried banana-y chocolatey thing that cost $1 -just thought you should know.
And back to the important stuff:
I arrived in Bangkok on Saturday night (Sept 4) at around 11:00pm. Unfortunately, my bag did not. I don't know why -actually I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened to me more often considering some of the convoluted flight paths I've chosen. ANYWAY, my beloved backpack was left in Vancouver. Not so useful. As a result, I had to spend close to an hour attempting to find someone to report to and then navigating some interesting language barriers to recieve some meager assurance that my bag would find me at my hotel. And it did!!!!!
...2 days later.
Luckily, Andrew is still my friend. 2 days with no fresh clothes, and honestly, I'd probably questioning the value of being my friend too.
Right, Bangkok. We were actually only there for a day (we're going back on our way to Singapore). Long story short, we saw a giant buddha made of SOLID GOLD = 5.5 tonnes. It was pretty impressive. 60 million $ of impressive.
After the buddha, we braved a night train to Chiang Mai. It was actually very comfortable with the exception of the bathroom/shower. Think 2-in-1 combo consisting of a hole in the floor, bars on the wall to hang on to, and a spray handle for water. On a moving train, this can be challenging.
We've now been in Chiang Mai for 2 days. Its a lot more laid back than Bangkok -pretty amazing from what we've seen so far. Day 1 was mostly wandering. Many markets with many pretty things - and NO, I have not bought any pretty things yet. (don't worry it will happen, its inevitable.) Andrew bought a pretty suit. Haha, ok maybe pretty isn't the right word.
Today, we went to an all-day Thai cooking class. We cooked 7 DELICIOUS courses and ate them all. It was a lot of food. Too much even. But good fun nonetheless.
We will be in Chiang Mai for another 4 nights. May comes tomorrow!!!! We will either be setting up a separate communal blog, or communally blogging on this one :) Stay tuned.
A side note: currently sitting in a hostel common area in Chiang Mai eating a delicious deepfried banana-y chocolatey thing that cost $1 -just thought you should know.
And back to the important stuff:
I arrived in Bangkok on Saturday night (Sept 4) at around 11:00pm. Unfortunately, my bag did not. I don't know why -actually I'm a little surprised this hasn't happened to me more often considering some of the convoluted flight paths I've chosen. ANYWAY, my beloved backpack was left in Vancouver. Not so useful. As a result, I had to spend close to an hour attempting to find someone to report to and then navigating some interesting language barriers to recieve some meager assurance that my bag would find me at my hotel. And it did!!!!!
...2 days later.
Luckily, Andrew is still my friend. 2 days with no fresh clothes, and honestly, I'd probably questioning the value of being my friend too.
Right, Bangkok. We were actually only there for a day (we're going back on our way to Singapore). Long story short, we saw a giant buddha made of SOLID GOLD = 5.5 tonnes. It was pretty impressive. 60 million $ of impressive.
After the buddha, we braved a night train to Chiang Mai. It was actually very comfortable with the exception of the bathroom/shower. Think 2-in-1 combo consisting of a hole in the floor, bars on the wall to hang on to, and a spray handle for water. On a moving train, this can be challenging.
We've now been in Chiang Mai for 2 days. Its a lot more laid back than Bangkok -pretty amazing from what we've seen so far. Day 1 was mostly wandering. Many markets with many pretty things - and NO, I have not bought any pretty things yet. (don't worry it will happen, its inevitable.) Andrew bought a pretty suit. Haha, ok maybe pretty isn't the right word.
Today, we went to an all-day Thai cooking class. We cooked 7 DELICIOUS courses and ate them all. It was a lot of food. Too much even. But good fun nonetheless.
We will be in Chiang Mai for another 4 nights. May comes tomorrow!!!! We will either be setting up a separate communal blog, or communally blogging on this one :) Stay tuned.
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