Koh Mak

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We just arrived in Kohh Mak Thailand.
It feels like a deserted island, only 30 hotels on it and almost no houses. It is surrounded by a coral reef so were excited to do some kayaking/snorkeling tommorow.

we just settled into our own "baboon hut"
for $10 a night we get a hammok, mosquito net and a bed, we have to share a bathroom with the other baboons, but its very clean and was built only a few years ago.

Today is officially the end of their high season here, and things are starting to slow down, many of the hotels after this weekend will have barely any people in them. we walked the entire distance of the main beach, aprox. 1 mile, and never saw another soul.

Vietnam and Cambodia

SAPA

Sapa is a beautiful small town set in the mountains in northwestern Vietnam 4800ft above sea level. It’s a place consisting mostly of hill tribe people (H’Mong) who make their living cultivating rice field terraced into the near vertical landscape. We boarded the night train in our journey there from Hanoi and found our sleeper car bunkmates unsociable. We spent most of the night in the snack car playing cards and enjoying some Hanoi beer. The next day we were whisked into the mountains by a van, passing some of the most dramatic countryside I have ever seen. We were quickly put into groups and led down into the valley by Chu, a very talkative 18 year old hill tribe guide. Our group consisted of Liz and I as well as five other people from all over the globe, each of us was followed by our own “guide” who at the end of the excursion guilt tripped us into buying their subpar scarves and bracelets. The trek was amazing, winding through villages and ending with a spectacular waterfall, which was diverted for use as a primitive irrigation system. The next day the real trek began, an 18km breathtaking journey that led us through three villages and along side of a very steep ridge overlooking terraced fields. Again all of us were accompanied by our own “guides.” We had a few injuries in our group as well as a few people who opted out of the steeper grades, but in the end it was worth every stunning moment.

HALONG BAY

Next on the itinerary was Halong Bay, which is being pushed as the 8^th wonder of the natural world. We booked a trip through the same agency as the Sapa trip and boarded a boat for a 3 day 2 night journey through Halong Bay. Our boat was brand new with sleeping for 12 people, as well as a crew of 5 including one guide. The food was almost as good as the views, including soft shell crab and some very tasty squid. We spent the night in the middle of the bay with 8 other people, again from all over the world. The next day we boarded a 24 seat dining boat for the 3 hour journey to Cat-Ba Island. We quickly realized that we were the only people that booked the 2 night package, so we had the entire boat to our selves with 4 crew members and another delicious meal. On the way we stopped for some kayaking and some biking to a small village. Cat-ba Island was the next stop, and after checking into our hotel, we rented a motorbike and began exploring the island. The main attraction is a cave which during the Vietnam War a hospital was constructed inside, it included 3 stories, 30 rooms and even a large chamber for watching films. The next day we boarded the boat again and enjoyed the scenery passing only a fraction of the bay’s 2000 islands

HOI-AN

Hoi An is a beautiful traditional town full of great examples of Chinese and Japanese architecture. It is also home to some of the best chefs in all of Vietnam, serving up specialties such as fried wonton and cau lao. We spent our days here on the beach and in the town getting lured into the countless tailor shops and eventually getting sold on a suit for me and a dress for Liz, Our nights were spent with our friend Dong, a motorbike rental guy who brought us around town to the cheapest bars, brought us wine, and showed us where to get the best food in town.

SAIGON

Saigon is an insanely busy place, and not very welcoming after a 24 hour bus ride from Hoi-an, (we were told it was 16 hours). We booked a trip to the cu chi tunnels right away, and visited the war remnants museum. The tunnels were amazing, we learned that at one time they were over 500km in length and stretched from Saigon to the Laos boarder. And at during their peak almost 16,000 people lived in these cramped dank environments, only coming out after nightfall. There was a 250m section which you could duck walk through (our guide claimed the original tunnels were much smaller), as well as an area displaying the various traps used for American troops. The war museum was very shocking, focusing mostly on the use of Agent Orange, with countless pictures of deformed children; and the brutalization of the Vietnamese people by American soldiers, citing examples of troops killing children, etc. The museum also includes a very large collection of American made weapons as well as tanks, planes, and helicopters. Our last night we met up with friends from Canada, Jenny and Johnny, who we have run into 3 or 4 times in our journeys.

PHNOM PENH

Our first stop in Cambodia was Phnom Penh, the capital city we settled into the Happy guesthouse, recommended by Anna and Lucas, and booked a Tuk Tuk ($10 for the day with a driver) to take us around to the various sites of genocide during the Khmer Rouge reign; Which, after the Vietnam War, set out to cleanse Cambodia of all creativity and thought by brainwashing the peasants, and killing or enslaving the city dwellers. It is estimated that over 2,000,000 people were executed during the reign of Pol-Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Our first stop was S-21, a former high-school turned prison which was used to not only house, but brutally torture skeptics of the Khmer Rouge campaign, as well as any moderately educated individual. The site is very moving, and includes most of the original cells as well as picture of many of the 20,000 inmates, some of which were small children. Of the 20,000 inmates, only 12 made it out alive from the prison. Our next stop was the killing fields a site 14km from the city which was used to execute prisoners. Walking around the site we passed many of the now excavated pits, where mass graves containing hundreds of bodies were exhumed. As the environment takes its toll on the land, more and more bones and clothing continue to come up from the ground. Piles of bones are everywhere, and scraps of cloth litter the ground almost everywhere you step. Here it is estimated that 17,000 people were killed and digs have uncovered 8,500 of the bodies. In the center of the site is a massive 60ft high glass stupa which contains about 5000 skulls at different levels according to age. These sites were very moving and really gave us a first hand look at a period in history that many Cambodian people wish to forget.

Below are a few pictures from these different places

Angkor Wat

Marble Mountain Hoi An cave

The killing Fields Phnom Pen Cambodia

Cu Chi Tunnels, Saigon

Japanese Bridge Hoi An

Cat-Ba Island, Halong Bay

Halong Bay from the front of the boat

Hmong Villager, My "guide"

Liz in Sapa

Three of our "Guides"

Liz's "guide"

Beautiful Sapa Country

Orange seller, Hanoi, Vietnam

Last few weeks in a nutshell

its been a while and we apologize but there has been limited internet access.

We last left off in Chiang mai where we had a good time with my mom, we saw a few temples, snuggled some tigers and enjoyed some very good food. After Chiang Mai we grabbed an overnight bus to Bangkok, which was very nice, even though my mom woke up to her with her head resting on an unsuspecting young Thai woman. We got the first bus to Kanchanaburi which is about three hours from Bangkok, and quickly settled into a decent hotel on the banks of the river Kwai. Kanchanaburi is a great town with some very interesting sites, but it is a large, spread out town so we found ourselves wanting some form of transportation. After admiring the sidecar tuk tuks in town we decided to ask about renting one. The driver was happy to let us use his wheels for the day because it meant he could sit back and relax. We visited all the major POW cemetaries, were thousands of allied soldiers were buried after being worked to death on the river. We also visited a temple in a cave and the bridge over the river Kwai. The next day we went to a 7 tiered waterfall which was home to fish that clean your feet, and beautiful blue/green water.
After Kanchanaburi it was off to Bangkok to celebrate st patricks day on Khao San rd, Meet up with Liz Kellyt. It was then time for my mother to head home, and we were headed for the beach. we decided that Ko samet would be the right choice and spent 4 great days relaxing and swimming.
Then it was off to Laos We spent one whole day and one night traveling from Ko Samet to Vientienne, taking smelly local buses, and sleeping on a 2nd class bus. after crossing the border and settling into our hotel, and bowling, we settled in and headed to Vang Vieng the next day. Vang Vieng was fun as always, spending a few days on the river tubing, mountain biking, caving and eating baguettes we were on the winding death road to Beautiful Luang Prabang.
This city served as the capital during the french colinization and remnants of the french architectural influence are all over the city. We visited a beautiful waterfall and went kayaking in some "whitewater." after a great two weeks with Liz, it was time to say goodbye, and she headed to phuket to begin her teaching, and we were off to Hanoi Vietnam.
Hanoi is a beautiful city, very busy, but very clean, we have spent the last few days here visiting a prison built by the french and reused during the vietnam war for POW's and seeing a water puppet show. We love vietnam so far but I must admit, its difficult leaving a place where we could easily communicate to a place with a completely different language. tonight we have booked a night train to beautiful Sapa, we are very excited to see some of the vietnam countryside.
Theres the cliffnotes for the last month...

Some recent Pictures

Bridge over the River Kwai

Rented a Tuk Tuk for a day in Kanchanaburi

Cooking Class

Kanchanaburi

Its been a while...

We finished up teaching at the end of February and after saying goodbye to our home in Chaiyaphum we headed for Chiang Mai on an overnight bus to meet my parents. We spent almost a week between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai (both in Northern Thailand). Chiang Mai is an incredibly beautiful and relaxed city. We spent our time there wondering around the city, eating so much food, and seeing some of the beautiful surrounding areas. Chiang Mai has a beautiful mountain, Doi Suthep, about a half an hour outside of the city. We spent one day seeing the Wat Pharthat, which is a beautiful wat set into the side of the mountain and overlooks Chiang Mai. This month happens to be the biggest month for hill tribes to set fire to their crops so it was a pretty smokey view but it was still a very beautiful wat, it had more gold than any other wats I've seen. We then went to the Bhuping Palace, which is where the Queen spends part of the winter season. The gardens were absolutely amazing. I know very little about gardening but could easily tell that these gardens were some of the most exquisite. The next day we went to an elephant show where the elephants were not only impressively well behaved but actually played harmonicas, danced, played soccer and darts and even painted pictures. After we got to ride the elephants. In both Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai we went into small hill tribe villages and in Chiang Rai we actually went far out of the city into the rural hills where the whole tribe lives. It was great to be able to show my mom and dad what we've learned about the culture and try to teach them a little Thai but also explore a new part of Thailand with them.

The weekend in between parents Dylan convinced me to try mountain biking and contrary to what Leah and Mike think (because I don't have a bike in the picture) I actually biked down pretty much the whole mountain, had a couple falls but with all the pads they gave us came out barely scratched.

P.S. Check out the photo Album, we put new pictures up a few weeks ago.

5 Month old Tiger

5 Month old Tiger at the Tiger Kingdom Named Faman

Pictures from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai

48 hours in Bangkok

Busy Street Bangkok

Khao San Rd.

Liz and Brienne Getting interviewed at the Grand Palace by some students.

This past weekend we grabbed a 4pm bus for Bangkok and set our modern dial ahead 20 years. The trip was long as always and we arrived around 9:30 to eat a meal with our friends Felix and Brienne at the spicy Asian restaurant, a favorite on Rambuttri St. We then went hotel hunting which proved to be quite hard, because we found that hotels raise their prices the later you arrive. We finally settled into the 10$ a night gem that is the New Siam. The beds were soft, and the rooms were clean, we had a problem with a fan that was wired backwards, so we spent the first night thinking that the high setting was the low setting. We went out for a few drinks on Khao san Rd. and settled in for the night. Saturday we headed towards the grand palace, or Wat Pragow, thinking we could swing a waived entry fee with our official Thai work permits. We were wrong of course so we postponed the palace tour to a later date. Undiscouraged we headed to Dusit Zoo, seeing everything from elephants to snakes to giraffes. We then grabbed a cab for the Siam Paragon, Bangkok's mega mall/ movie theater. The paragon has every kind of western food you can imagine, from Mexican to steakhouses. We grabbed a plate of nachos, which was our first taste of cheese since Christmas, and I topped it off with a real burger, my first since August. We reserved tickets for the 9pm showing of Avatar IMAX 3d and walked around this mega mall, which has an entire floor devoted to cars, including Ferrari, Porsche Lotus, and Lamborghini. After the movie we headed back to Khao San and to bed. Sunday was spent at the Chatachak Market, which covers 35 acres in Bangkok, we walked around and purchased a few 2$ t-shirts, at 4pm we grabbed the bus back to Chaiyaphum.

Khao Yai.

This past weekend we headed out on a camping trip to Khao Yai National Park. There were 18 “pharang” teachers and 2 guides. We arrived in khao Yai on Friday at about 7:00 after a 2-hour bus ride, and settled into bobby’s guesthouse, which would be our launching point for the weekend. We had a nice big hot meal, and settled in for a 6am wakeup call. On Saturday, we all climbed in the sogthaew truck, put on our leach socks, and started the journey to the campsite. When we got there, Chip, our guide, quickly put us to work, setting up tents and unpacking the trucks. Some wild deer wandered through the middle of the campsite fearlessly as we covered the tents with tarps because, according to Chip, they “weren’t waterproof.” We headed out to our first destination, which was a 1km hike past the waterfall made famous by the movie “the Beach” and towards a more private waterfall where we could go swimming. The water was very cold, but refreshing, and there was a small space behind the waterfall where you could sit, or even climb as the water ran down your back. We then headed towards the infamous bat cave, which is about 30 minutes outside the park, sitting in the middle of some cornfields. Chip pointed to the sky and told us in about 15 minutes they would come out and feed. 15 minutes later, a swarm of bats exploded out of the mouth of the cave and flew in a constant stream above our heads. It was mesmerizing to see this river of bats flying out of a mountain and off into the distance disappearing over the horizon line, all the while sending out high pitched squeaks, and forming patterns in the sky. This flood of bats lasted over an hour, and we were told that there are an estimated 3 million bats, and that the cave in over 1 mile deep. Chip said that the last time he ventured into the cave he found himself waist deep in bat guano.
We then headed back towards the campsite, where we spotted a wild elephant many different monkeys and a black bear. We retired for the night, after eating some delicious sweet and sour chicken and barbequed corn. The next day we packed up camp, as monkeys and deer played all around us, and headed to the highest point in Khao Yai. We hiked to various viewpoints, one that featured a 200m vertical drop, and then walked to a small-secluded waterfall. After that the sky opened up and we headed back to bobby’s to catch a bus home.

Ants Nest in a Tree
"What do you think your looking at?"
Chip, Liz and Monkeys
Endless Wave of Bats

More Bats

Thai Jungle
Liz and Lucas
Chip and Waterfall

Some of the Phuket Crew, (Alex, Heather, Kat, Julia, Mia, Felix, Brienne, Lucas, Anna, Guy Andrew, Rich, Patrick.)

Ja Poa Festival

Last Tuesday there was a big festival for the founder of Chaiyaphum, Ja Poa Phayalae. We woke up before 5am to make it to the center of town, where the Ja Poa statue is. When we got there we didn’t really know what was going on so joined in with everyone who was walking around the statue (we found out later we were supposed to walk around the statue three times and make a wish). As we walked around we stopped and watched the many elephants dressed in Thai silk dancing to the music. They came up to us and would put their trunks around our arms and one baby was sucking on my foot. Later in the day we went to an elephant performance with about 20 elephants. When we arrived the biggest of the elephants were sitting cross-legged on the field. We watched while people volunteered to lie down on the field while the elephants would pretend to stomp on the people three times, a couple times they actually touched the person, good thing it was a baby elephant. We saw an elephant throwing darts at balloons but missed the elephants playing soccer. The festival lasts 10 days but other than the first day it’s pretty much just a huge county fair. There are a bunch of fair rides and games, lots of food, and some Thai crafts. When I asked my students what they did at Ja Poa they told me ca bum which I just assumed was Thai, later to find out it was car bump. Of course we had to check out the bumper cars so Friday night we went. Turns out bumper cars in Thailand, well at least in Chaiyaphum, is the teenage hang out. Everyone was dancing on the ledge of the bumper cars or on the bumper car floor.