Farewell to Southeast Asia

Happy (early) new year to everyone! It's been an amazing couple of months here in Southeast Asia, but now it's time for us to head off to the next adventure- Africa! Steve and I are spending our last official day in Bangkok, getting a few last-minute errands run (e.g. sitting by the pool at the Sheraton catching up with some of the staff we've gotten to know since this is the 6th time we've stayed here), satisfying our craving one last time for watermelon fruit freezers, SkyTrain waffles (as in you buy them at a stand at the metro, and we just found out today they have a new flavor- cream- and they're awesome), and doing a little internet since we're not sure the next time we'll have a good connection will be.

We just arrived back into Bangkok this afternoon, after spending a week in southern Thailand on an island called Koh Libong. We stayed at the same place as Tom & Christina did in November, except our experience was a little different since it's the high season and overflowing with Swedes. Literally, at least 1 out of 2, probably 2 out of 3, tourists you meet in that area is from Sweden. We met a girl from Finland who now lives in Sweden, so I'm counting her, too.

We had an amazing time on Koh Libong- it was everything you could want out of a beach spot- cute little bungalows for very cheap considering the season (only $30/night for a bungalow that's only steps from the beach), delicious food at awesome prices, and perfect little hammocks to relax/read/nap in. They call themselves a resort, but that's a bit of a stretch considering it's so small.... but they did have $6 thai massages on the beach. If we had to be away from our families for the holidays, this was definitely a good place to do it!

It was definitely an adventure getting there- we declined the resort's offer to arrange transportation for us, considering it would've cost more than a night's stay, so we decided to try to figure it out on our own. What we didn't count on was the lack of information (and ATM's) at the tiny airport we flew into, or the fact that almost everyone on our flight had pre-arranged transportation. After much debate, we decided to skip the tuk-tuk to town to hunt down the right minibus and went for a shared private car with another couple going in our direction. Turns out the guy was American, living in Thailand for the last 4 years as a teacher, spoke OK Thai and was very helpful in helping us get to an ATM and the correct pier where we were to catch a boat to our island. His Thai girlfriend was completely unhelpful- maybe she's acted as translator for too many tourists, but our opinion of her was a little less glowing. So we got on the boat heading to our island (complete with a few locals and even a motorbike) and landed and our adventure wasn't quite over yet. We loaded ourselves and our huge backpacks onto two motorbike taxis, and drove over very bumpy dirt road for about 20 minutes. It might have been scary, except I was about a head taller than my driver so i could see where we were going and anticipate serious bumps ahead of time, and we were going pretty slow. By the time we arrived, we had ended up saving about $2 over what the resort quoted us. Ironic, I think yes...

So we spent Christmas on Koh Libong, and on Christmas Eve had a special buffet dinner at our restaurant (there was only one other resort near us, and their restaurant was tiny, so we ate almost every meal at our place.) The buffet included some amazing Thai curries- and one of my favorites papaya salad that was made fresh before your eyes, also nice because you could request the very unspicy version :-). After dinner, the Christmas carols playing in the background were turned down and Santa made an appearance (he was a very skinny Santa, and had a striking resemblance to one of the staff members) and he brought gifts for the children and bottles of Chang Beer for the adults. Steve and i spent Christmas day reading in the hammocks, swimming in the ocean, and generally laying around.

We passed the rest of the time on the island snorkelling, canoeing around another island and some other beaches, eating delicious food, Steve got a LOT of Lonely Planet Southern and East AFrica read, and I got some reading / napping of my own done. We also met some really nice folks (Swedes) at our resort and passed the time having dinner / chatting with them. On our way back to the mainland town of Trang we took the local minivan which we intended to take on the way out there. it was significantly cheaper, but took a LOT longer to get there and at one point in time we had 15 people crammed into a small minivan designed to comfortably hold about 7. At least we can say we travelled like the locals at one point.

I'm not sure when the next blog entry will be, but it will be from somewhere in Southern Africa. Now STeve and I have a marathon flight schedule to look forward to (connections in Moscow, Paris, and Amsterdam) to get to Cape town. Ah the joys of flying using points :-)

Happy 2008!!!!!!

Anna & Steve

Exploring more of Thailand, finally!

After coming and going from Bangkok many many times, we finally have accomplished our goal of seeing more of Thailand. Over the last week we met up with Rob and Yee to crash part of their honeymoon :-); explored more of Bangkok from a local's perspective (we met up with a friend of Yee's that's Thai); took an overnight train to Chiang Mai (northwest Thailand) where we learned to cook some awesome Thai food, visited an elephant conservation center and rode on the backs of elephants, and explored some amazing temples. Here's a bit more detail on what we've been up to:



After having a day to get over our jet lag, Rob and Yee flew into Bangkok and joined us at our schwanky hotel in Bangkok. The next day we met up with Yee's friend Joe, who helped us negotiate some great prices at the weekend market (including a pair of binoculars for the safaris we'll be doing in Africa and more of the splatty tomato toys that Steve is obsessed with.... if they weren't so heavy, everyone reading this blog would probably be receiving one for Christmas!) Joe also introduced us to some awesome Thai food- most of which was super spicy for our western palate- as well as different candies and desserts, not so much emphasis on chocolate as I would have liked but still good with creamy coconut milk. One of the most impressive things is their ability to use banana leaves to create all sorts of packages for the food- and the shape of the leaf wrapper (a little pyramid, a flat square packet, etc) tells you what's inside without having to unwrap it. Genius.


We then took an overnight train, about 14 hours total, to Chiang Mai in the northwestern part of Thailand. Chiang Mai is known for having some amazing cooking schools, and we definitely took advantage while there. The 4 of us took a full-day cooking class that included a trip to the local market, which featured some very funky ingredients that fortunately our teacher didn't make us sample (there was some kind of moth or other winged bug that you could purchase as a snack, we didn't get that adventurous.) The class was taught out on an organic farm- how perfect- and the 10 of us students learned how to cook all sorts of awesome dishes that used a lot of ingredients grown on the farm. One of the dishes we made was green curry with chicken, and the photo below shows what the curry looks like before it gets smashed into a paste. We also made Tom Yum Soup, Chicken & Basil Stirfry, Chicken & Cashew Stirfry, Spring Rolls, a Banana and Coconut Cream dessert, and even learned the art of making awesome sticky rice. We also learned a lot about Thai dinner culture and how to eat like the locals (it's all family style so you get to try lots of different dishes at one sitting.) One other outcome is that we are WAY bigger snobs about Thai food now- everything's been delicious at the restaurants we've eaten at but really pales in comparison to what we cooked. Now the trick is recreating that at home.






After cooking school, we spent the days exploring the city of Chiang Mai and some of the sites outside of the city. This included the temple below, which had a huge staircase featuring a beautiful glass mosaic snake railing. At the top of the temple was a great view of the city, although the pollution was so bad that it was impossible to take a picture because of the haze (this is a pretty common problem we're finding in this part of the world, lots of aautomobile pollution.)



We also explored a national park and saw some beautiful waterfalls- another highlight was using our Lonely Planet guide book to interpret a sign written in Thai that said "Danger Ahead" and helped us to find the correct (safer) path. The language chapter had proven completely useless up until that point, so glad it finally justified us carrying around the extra pages. :-) Here's a photo in front of one of those waterfalls (it's actually really tall, just the perspective in the photo makes it look a lot smaller- it's really impressive, i promise!)





Here's another waterfall- Steve is having fun exploring the many different settings on our digital camera:




One other adventure was going to the elephant conservation center outside of Chiang Mai. The photos will come later once we can get them loaded onto a computer. For about $2, our admission into the park included an elephant show featuring very smart elephants that could do some amazing things- paint pictures (apparently each elephant that knows how to paint has their own style, one paints elephants, another does flowers, another is more abstract), play the xylophone, walk across a log and turn around on the log (like a gymnast, except much much bigger.) The coolest part probably was that the elephants looked so happy- they seemed to be very well taken care of and enjoyed all the attention they got from their mahouts (trainers) and the hundreds of school kids that take field trips here every day. For just 30 cents, you could buy a stack of sugar cane or bananas and feed the elephants- we have LOTS of photos of this, too.

We also got to ride on an elephant and at one point the mahout got off our elephant and let us move from the basket on the elephant's back to its neck to steer it. Rob and Yee's elephant was bigger and a bit more sassy- he was more interested in the various vegetation in the jungle and the baby elephants roaming around- so their mahout didn't quite think it was a good idea to let them drive. Riding on an elephant is a lot like being on a horse, but you're a lot higher up obviously, and their skin is covered in really prickly hair. The day at the elephant conservation center was amazing, one of the highlights of our trip so far which is saying a lot!


We're now back in Bangkok, getting ready to head south tomorrow to Koh Libong, an island off the south west coast of Thailand (south of Phuket if you're familiar with Thai geography.) We'll be there for a week and will celebrate Christmas there. Although by celebrating Christmas I mean we'll probably sit on the beach, go snorkelling, and eat some Pad Thai, because Christmas isn't really a big holiday around here considering the country is 95% Buddhist. We do have a wonderful drawing of a Christmas tree from my niece Caitlin that we'll be hanging in our bungalow (thank you Caitlin!)

We hope you all have very wonderful holidays where ever you spend them, and look forward to seeing you in 2008!

Cheers,
Anna

A few photos of Asia

Just walking down the street outside of our hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, and yep- that's an elephant next to that phone booth!









Kayaking into the 200 meter long (and pitch black) tunnel in Halong Bay. The tunnel let out into an amazing secluded area of water where we saw brightly colored coral and giant sea urchins.







A view of the many limestone karsts (rock formations) and Chinese Junks (one of which we spent the night on) in Halong Bay, Vietnam










Just the daily rush hour in Hanoi, Vietnam (note that there are no traffic lights or crosswalks to assist in crossing the street, it's a bit like playing Frogger)










We'll just call this the "banana lady incident" in the old quarter Hanoi, Vietnam














Steve with a Thai boxer in Bangkok, Thailand

One of the Angkor Wat temples (this is where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed.)


















Watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

We're ba-aack!

In Thailand that is. Once we're done in Southeast Asia, it'll be 8 times that we've gone back and forth from the Bangkok airport. It's amazing the number of times we keep coming and going from their country, and they keep letting us back in! If you ever need tips on the comfy benches or best places to eat in the airport, just let me know- I've got loads of advice.

So we're back on the road after a truly wonderful three week break back in the States. During that time, we enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving in Atlanta, shared with many friends the unfortunate defeat of Tech by that other school from Georgia (and the subsequent hopefully good news that Tech is getting a new head coach), celebrated the marriage of Steve's brother Rob and his fiance Yee in Steve's home town of Stuart, Florida, and in general just had a great time catching up with people, relaxing, and getting some quality time at home. A special sidenote- many thanks to both our mom's for taking such great care of us, it felt like we were freshmen coming home from college for the first time, complete with laundry service, the works :-)

After leaving Atlanta on Saturday, we had a brief stopover to see Danny and Julie White in San Francisco. Highlights included the requisite trip to in-n-out burger- it's a strong competitor but I would still rank it second behind Chick-fil-a; going hiking in Muir Woods (the redwood forest where they filmed the Ewok scenes from Starwars)... and only finding out later that mountain lions are "a bit of a nuisance" there; and the biggest highlight probably when we went to a Christmas tree farm where we hand-selected the perfect tree and Danny demonstrated his inner lumberjack by cutting it down in a few swift moves then taking it back and decorating it- the true American Christmas experience.

After about 30 hours of travel and crossing 15 hours worth of time zones/the international dateline, we're now in Bangkok. We survived our midnight - 8am shift on the Bangkok airport benches this morning (we don't really deserve sympathy for that, it was simply so we didn't have to waste an extra night's worth of hotel points to get to sleep in a place for 5 hours.) See note above referencing the comfiest benches in the airport- we've tested out many of them.

Our plan now is to get over jet lag in the next couple of days, then meet up with the newlyweds Rob and Yee and then head north to Chiang Mai this weekend. While there hopefully we'll get to pick up some excellent Thai cooking skills, elephant riding skills (or just get to ride on an elephant), and see more of Thailand than what we've seen in our brief time in Bangkok and its airport!