Todd and Lisa’s RTW trip

We feel terrible because we insisted to all of you that this is not a year long vacation, but instead a year of traveling intensely around the world to experience the cultures, etc. Well the truth is Thailand so far had been a wonderful vacation!!!!

We finished our dive certification in Koh Tao and decided to go over to the otherside of the pennisula (to the Andaman Sea). We took our first overnight ferry off Koh Tao. It was…….Interesting!!! It was just the whole boat with mattresses on the floor, actually pretty comfortable. Then a couple of hellish buses and another ferry, we ended up on the island of Koh Lanta. We read about a place to stay at the very south end of the island, away from everything (baanphulae.net). We drove way through the wonderful smelly jungle, over some serious dirt roads, through some major mud puddles and we arrived in PARADISE!!!! We were on a totally secluded beach. We moved into our bamboo hut, that was set up a little in the jungle , with a beautiful view. We had these plants with huge leaves that shaded our window, a mosquito net that cocooned us and a cozy hammock overlooking the sea.
Our intention was to stay only a few days….but as you can see from our lack of blogging Paradise sucked us in a few days longer. We don’t know how to explain all the details of the awesome place without sounding like we are rubbing it in, but we’ll try. We were totally trapped in seclusion, no phone, no t.v. no internet, no store… no nothing. The place had this cool loungey area that had simple decks that went over the sand where you sat on pillows and then also a low table area. The food was delicious (which was important because it was our only choice) and above all that the Thai guys that worked there where so nice. We had so much fun with them and also a German couple we befriended. A couple nights we had a little too much fun… they were very appreciative of our duty free scotch ( we are appreciative that we no longer have to carry it). During the day we strolled the beach for shells (you can’t believe what we found… the kind of shells you buy!!), rode perfect waves (big enough for todd, but not to big for wimpy Lisa), played beach volleyball and read in the hammok. A few nights they had parties. They had thai bbq with tons of seafood and fire dancing!!! It was very difficult to peel ourselves away from that place, but we knew we had to!! I think we have said to before.. but WE LOVE THAILAND!! Everyone needs to visit this counrty!!!
We made our way to Khao Sok National Park. Tomorrow we will do some trekking through limestone caves and rainforest. The following day, we leave on a 4 day liveaboard scuba trip to the simalian and surin islands. We are very excited!!!!
Miss you all lots….. pictures will come sometime.. but like we said- we dont wanna rub it in!!!

Khao Sok was really fun. We were going to do an organized hike tour but decided to do it on our own instead. We did some good jungle trekking and ended up with leeches… but only on our feet, not like in “Stand By Me”. Then we found a great river pool and swam around until a bunch of vicious monkeys came and chased us out!!

We are sitting around Khao Lak waiting to leave on the boat. It is very eirry around here Because it got hit very hard by the tsunami. The road here had half built houses everywhere with thank you signs to different foundations. And in town there are new buildings, but the road is still being rebuilt and the buildings are still vacant. Its Just very strange because you can really feel the devistation here….we’re hopping on a boat outta here ASAP!!!!

Here are a few pics

These first few are on Koh Lanta

Momma J- This is the reason we called a day late for your birthday!!

These ones are from the National Park.. If you click on the pic with the vines, you can see all the monkeys hanging around!!

It has been a while huh?? That is the benefit of staying in places that don’t have internet ( although its putting a hurting on todds fantasy football). Really we are have also been distracted!

The dive trip was amazing. We lived aboard a boat for four days and sailed around the Andaman sea diving at all different islands. We did 4 dives a day…. and yes we also night dived. There were only 12 people (paying people) on the boat so it was a nice small group. We saw tons of cool stuff including a trigger fish that attacked todd (he’s ok). Seriously, these fish can take bites out of people!!! the deepest we dove was 30 meters. VERY COOL.

From Khao lak, we got the suggestion to stop at an island called koh phayam.This is where we have been hiding out the last few days. Koh phayam is a very sleepy little fishing island. We stayed in a bungalow on the beach surrounded by cashew trees. It was very natural and peaceful. It did not have the feel of all of the other places we have been, it was still relatively untouched. Koh Samui of th ’70’s (as advertised). The island does not even have a real road. Everyone just rides motorbikes on sandy paths. We of course rented one too!!. The tides go way out there, so at sunset you can ride your motorbike down the beach… paradise!!!

But unfortunately the thai emabassy was calling us!! Our 30 day visa was about to run out so we had to cross a border to get restamped (really a pointless visa law.. it doesn’t make much sense). The closest border to us is Burma…. so we went to Burma!! We were expecting a real difficult scenario. We were hoping for a really sucky story that would be a great read on the blog, but really it was quite simple…. We rented a longtail boat and sailed across!! It did feel a little strange to be splashing across the sea in a wooden boat powered by, what looks like, a lawnmower! The catch here was the actual immagration offices (wait till we attach pics). They were huts on stilts in the middle of the water that you pull the boat up till AND in burma you have to give a crisp $5 usd bill to get stamped in. Not thai baht, not euros… $$$$. Tell us thats not sketchy!!! We got into burma, walked around, got offered a lot of drugs and alcohol and left. Then we stopped at the thai floating hut, and got our brand new 30 day visa!!! Cross Burma off the list of places we never thought we would go to… but ended up!! That was yesterday….

Today is Todd big 3-0-!!!! We are in a city called Ranong. After waking up feeling old, todd ate a snickers bar for breakfast, rented a motorbike, and headed to the hot springs. It was a real surpirse to have these hot springs right outside the city, and after India we never have our hopes to high, they ended up to be beautiful. We got massages (with lionel richie, Kool and the Gang and Dion Warwick in the background) and picniced on pad thai next to a lake. And no birthday would be complete when traveling without finishing it off on a 10 hour night bus to bangkok tonight!!!!

As we move further and further away from the paradise of southern thailand i’m sure our blog entries will be more frequent and more entertaining!!

Wish you all a wonderful thanksgiving… eat some turkey for US!!!

Sorry we cant post pics from this computer..we will soon.

It was so nice to talk to all the family on thanksgiving. We miss you all tons… but not as much as we miss turkey and stuffing!!! mmmmmm

for those of you who we didn’t speak to, we have managed to pull ourselves away from southern thailand and have started heading north. We loved the south for so many reasons, the main ones being the beautiful beaches and the delicious SPICY coconut curries (they actually use fresh coconuts). It was also really interesting to hear some first hand stories of the tsunami. Our dive instructor on the boat was actually out on the same trip when the tsunami hit. She was very open in telling us her story. Being able to talk to local people about their experience was very moving and deep. We also got a great story from a thai guy at ban phu lae. We have to attached a picture of this guy, Pop (aka Poppie) for you to understand the dramatic story we got. He is somewhat of a lady-boy (thai expression), not a serious fem, just kind of flamboyant. His story went along the lines of this (please read in high pitched voice) “i see big wave. I see boat then boat fall on sand.. all the water gone from underneath. i think is maa-gic. then i say run run run because wave came and take all the boats” It was nice to hear a story from someone who has such a good sense of humor. It is strange how peoples stories can help take away some of the errie feelings and bring you closer to the event.

On a completely different note…..After our birthday night bus we ended up in Bangkok at 5 am. We have never been on such a nice night bus before… There was a stewardess on the bus who gave us snacks and juice, and a warm cloth in the a.m. (have we mentioned that we love thailand!!) We arrived at the south bus station and needed to get to the north bus station to catch a bus to Sukhothai. Nobody in thailand speaks english and we were pronouncing Sukhothai totally wrong.. but we eventually managed our way to the station. We have learned how to say nevermind in thai, so that when we ask a question in english and start getting a long thai answer, we can tell them “Mai Prue.” Today we are hanging around here. It is known for its huge historic park with lots of Buddha ruins. There is a whole story from the 13 century, but the translation in the pamphlet we got is so bad we don’t really know why all these buddhas are here… but we still think they’re cool. Tomorrow, off to Chiang Mai cooking school!!!

Here are a whole mess of pics….

This is the infamous POP!!!

This is a beach we stopped at while on the dive boat.

Todd got some water in his ear.. and this witch doctor trick of smoking it out with a cig. actually worked. We told Warren, the canadian ice cream man who is performing the ceremony, that if todd gets ear cancer we are coming to find him!!!

Here is the view out our bungalow on Koh Phayam. We forgot to mention the snakes we shared it with!!! Also the gas station we went to on the motorbike. we drove by it a few times before we could believe that it is really the station.

This is the Thailand Immigration…. we would hate to see it on a crowded day!!

And the Burma border…

This is us cruising around on Todd’s Birthday. We found a beautiful canyon and lake to have a pad thai and chang beer picnic!!
(lisa likes the helmet because it covers up the ever-growing mullet)

And… these are the buddhas….

Like we said we really love the food here….. (click to enlarge)

These should keep us covered on pictures for a while.

Todd says thanks for all the birthday wishes……

We have been in Chiang Mai for a few days now and think it’s great. We were a little skeptical because we met some people who had nothing good to say about this place. We can’t figure out why!! The city had a wall and moat built around it in the 1800’s to protect it from….. Burmese?? (maybe). All around the moat is lined with flowers and it is very clean. We also noticed that no one honks here.. a welcomed change from India!!! For a city is it very relaxed and has a good balance of westernization ( we won’t lie.. we went to Starbucks and got their Christmas lattes). The thing that is wierd here is all the working women. It’s not at all sleazy… but its all over the place. Our first night here, we went out for a drink. Lisa dragged Todd all over the place because she refused to go into a bar with a bunch of pretty thai women in minimal clothing standing outside (which was practically every bar in our neighborhood).

Our last few days we have been taking cooking classes all day. We have learned all sorts of yummy dishes. Lisa’s favorite was pounding all the ingredients in a granite mortar to make fresh red curry paste. Todds favorite was a chicken and cashew nut dish. Overall the classes were really good fun… we ate a TON of food. Lisa decided to only to 2 days of class, while Todd took 3. So belive it or not… we spent our FIRST day since we started this adventure apart.

In the evenings we have been going to the night bazaar. It is a wild event. You can buy everything and anything under the sun, and in between shopping you can get 60 baht ($1.50) foot massages. Fun, but a little overwhelming!! Nobody get there hopes up though, we are on a minimal shopping trip and unless you come to carry stuff home for us, chances are you will not be receiving a gift!!!

Tomorrow we leave on a 3 day/ 2 night trek. We are really looking forward to it. After a lot of leg work, we think that we found an agency that will take us off the beaten path. At least thats what they told (sold) us. We’ll let you know when we return. Just in case we get kidnapped by opium drug dealers, the agency is www.thaipandatour.com

we hope to have great photos from the trek!!!

…. so we could change it!!!! we have extended our time in thailand so that we can go into Laos.

Our trek was awesome, but it didn’t start out that way.

The tour company told us that they would come get us at 8:30, which they did, but for some reason they told everyone else 9:30. Once everyone was together, we realized that they had put the 2 day trekkers and the 3 day trekkers together. Doesn’t sound like such a big deal…. except… there is a big difference between the type of people who enjoy hiking and the type of people who want to take an elephant ride and say they saw (not swam) in a waterfall in thailand! Needless to say, our first day of trekking was filled with comments like “they told me i would have to walk for 4 hours but they didn’t say uphill,” “they said there would be a car that we could take breaks in” (she was not kidding) and “we looked into the 3 day trek but it didn”t look like you did anymore.. except only hiking.” It was a a mix between irritating and humorous. Like mango is to sticky rice, we were to the other 3 day’ers, without even knowing. There were 2 others and we automatically connected.

Our first day we drove a few hours north of chiang mai to the don ch??? national park. We hiked for about 3 hours through the jungle. It looked very much like hawaii. It was pretty good hiking but way too many poeple in the group. We kept thinking to ourselves, this is exactly what we didn’t want!! We arrived at about 6 to a Lahu hilltribe village. That was cool way up in the mountains, a little village. We spent the night around the campfire eating curry. It was really great and even better when the guides told us that the next day the groups would split back up and we would get to be just the 4 of us. Once we found that out we chilled out a little, got some thai whiskey and learned a little bit more about the people who go trekking with white pants on (for real!!).

On day 2 we woke up hung around the village with the children and then headed off, just the 5 of us. We immediately hit it off with both Gina, accupuncturist from CA, and Ivo, guy from Holland with a contageous laugh. Our guide was not joking when he told us that the beggining of the hike was straight uphill, but we made it to the top and we had an amazing panaramic view if the third highest peak in thailand. Up there the mountains were more pine forest than jungle…very beautiful. We cruised around on top for a while and then headed down the otherside of the mountain into the mae taeng area. It was really good hiking. The trail was pretty narrow and not well worn. We felt very rugged!! Just when we were all starting to get tired, we got down into the valley. It had tall purple flowers and yellow butterflies all around. Within a few minutes we arrived at our village for the night. It was specatacular. They had a risky built bamboo bungalow for us. It took us quite a while to trust that the floor would not cave in beacause it was not really a floor, just some pieces of woven bamboo. They view overlooked the small hilltribe and the huge mountains….. Perfect.

Our guide’s wife lived in the village, so in the morning he was in no rush to leave. That suited us all fine. We hung around absorbing the peacefulness of this little village until it was time to head down the mountain. All the toughness from the day before was making us feel not so tough anymore. We rummaged our way through bamboo forests until we got down to an elephant and white water rafting camp. Simply put, the elephant riding SUCKED. But, the white water rafting was a hoot. The 4 of us got to know each other so well, it made it even more fun. We were all hysterical as we wiped out down the rapids. When the water calmed, our guide switched us to a bamboo raft. Now, we are not sure if he was joking with us or not, but the raft barely floated. Again, we were dying of laughter as we flaoted 8 inched underwater down the river. If anyone shifted their butt weight the raft would go over (and you know we were flipping all over). It was a great end to the trip. We said it a thousand times, the first day with all the people was worth the next 2 days being just 4 people. Overall the trek was awesome!!

We arrived back in chiang mai in the evening and decided we would leave the following day to go further out into the mountains (up near china and burma). We were exhausted in the morning so of course we decided to take a later bus…. oops there is no later bus. We figured we would just go half way and spend the night. We caught the bus to Pai. When we arrived in pai (5ish) we could not find a place to stay. We were just kinda roaming the streets when a lady on a moterbike came up and offered us a place to stay. We’re not exactly sure how it happened, but we ended up staying in a tent at a thai BBQ party for the King’s birthday. It was one of those times we just look at each other and say “go with the flow”. We got up and out and are now in a town called Maehongson, after a bus ride that made us think we were back in india!!

These are some of the Wats (temples) in Chiang Mai

This monk blessed us for good luck. We kneeled in front of him and he shook water on us, chanted something and then tied a string around our wrists. We sat for a while and watched the thai people before we got the courage to go up to him.

Here is the sunday market. It is really tiny compared to the real night bazaar.

These are some pics from the trek.

We have had some really fun times the last few days.

We rented a motorbike in Maehongson to cruise around to the different villages. Northern Thailand is so beautiful and the area we are in is really interesting. It is filled with different hilltribes. They all come into town to sell stuff, or buy stuff, dressed in the … hilltribe outfits. Unlike in places like Chiang Mai, they are wearing it because that is what they wear, not for tourist sake. So our first day in Maehongson we rode about 20 km to a Karen village that is known for following the tradition of wearing heavy brass necklaces that smush down thier collarbones and elongate thier necks. It was really cool to see. The women were quite beautiful in a deformed way. They were also very kind. They invited to sit with them, ask questions and take pictures. They told us that they usually start wearing the necklaces at about 5 years old and stop when they have 15-20 rings (4-6 kg’s). We walked to the end of the village and got to the school. It was just a few bamboo huts with kids running around everywhere. The boys were incredibly rambunctious. We think that it was because the girls always get so much more attention from foriegners. The overall experience was very cool, probably once in a lifetime!! Todds favorite part of visiting the village was the ride up and down the steep dirt road to get there. The road was dug more for trucks or mountain bikes… not our Honda dream!! Todd barrelled down it like David Bailey. Lisa did a good job at keeping her cool because she is sick of being told that she is turning into her mother (sorry mama j).

Yesterday we woke up eary but of course didn’t end up leaving town until 11. We can’t figure out why this always happens to us but we think it involves eating. We also decided to make our first visit to the thailand postal office. You wouldn’t think this was a difficult feat, but in a country with so many regulations and so little english, it proved to be quite time consuming. We definately had to eat after that!!!

We eventually headed out of town and back up through the mountians to go to a town called Mae Aw. The drive through the mountains is always much better than the destination. The land in Northern Thailand is Gorgeous!!!! It is so lush and green. They seem to be able to grow everything here mangoes, bananas, papaya, opium, rice, tea, coffee, cabbage etc. etc. We winded up and down the mountains taking in all of the awesome scenery. Along the way we passed old men in chinese hats farming their field taking tea breaks in the bamboo huts that we love so much. As we got high up the hills turned a much brighter green. Green tea was growing everywhere. We eventually made it up to Mae Aw. Mae Aw is a tiny village that is all chinese KMT. It is pretty much on the Burma border.
It was so quiet there and peaceful and everyone just kept offering us green tea. We accepted because it was freezing, and we hadn’t proper prior planned with our clothing. We hung around taking in the scerenity and decided to head back just in time to get dumped on!!!!

Todd plowed threw the rain. He was freezing so Lisa wrapped her floral sarong around him. Then he was plowing through the rain with a cape on, to the soundtrack of ‘leader of the pack’ and ‘maniac’ supplied by Lisa. It was the perfect example of Real Good Fun!!!

Today we headed back to Pai so that we can start heading towards Laos. We are taking a mini bus to the border, which is against Lisa’s principle of ‘NO minibuses’, but it is the easiest way to get there fast. We have a thing about the minibuses because the cost 5-10 times more then public transportation and they are really only for farang (foriegners). Everywhere makes it really hard for white people to get around like thai people, they always try to push us on the ” a/c minibuses”. Usually the conversation is something like this:

Us– What time is the bus to Pai
Them– ohhhhh… bus to pai only in morning… BUT we have a/c minibus
or
Them- ohhh bus to pai no good, bumpy road, dirty bus…. BUT we have a/c minbus.

Anyways tomorrow…………… we take the a/c minibus!!!!!

Isn’t this ice cream truck funny…. Its all about the motorbike in thailand!

These are the rules for our motorbike rental agreement. We especially like #2 and 3.

This was in chiang mai but it really made us miss Carson and David.

Really that just means ‘thank you very much’ in laos but we like the way its sounds!!

Where do we start with the entry in the beginning or most recent???? Its all been wonderful… maybe we’ll start with the mini-bus…. It sucked, but we got to the Chiang Khong (border in thailand) at a decent time to figure out what the story was for crossing into Laos. Just like everything else in Thailand, there were tons of agencies to ‘help’ us get our visas, ‘help’ us cross the border, etc. but Lisa was still so irritated that we went in the minivan… she refused any assistance. Turns out crossing the border is so simple. We hired a longtail boat got to the other side and waited for our visas on arrival.
Once on the other side and visas in hand, we found some slow, greasy food and bought tickets for the boat to Luang Prabang, appropriately named ‘the slow boat’. We got the feeling everything is sllllooowww in Laos. The s.b was a 2 day trip down the Mekong river. It was quite a trip!!! We all crammed on the big river boat and set sail down the river, it looked like the chocolate river in willy wonka (mmmm- chocolate!). We stopped for the night in a small town called pak beng. In the a.m. we reported back a 9 am and left by around 11 (the slooow boat). The ride down the river was spectacular. Laos is a gorgeous country. The mountains are huge with awesome limestone cliffs… any climbers best dream! That evening we arrived in Louang Probang.
L.P. is the second largest town in Laos… which isn’t saying much. It was occupied by the french until 195??. Because of this, the town is a beautiful mix of asian and french. Yes it is run down in places, but when you stop to look at the architecture, its totally french village. There are also a lot of french tourist… which means GOOD FOOD!!! We decided it would be a good place to late celebrate Lisa’s birthday at a french restuarant with Bordeux wine!! We headed north 2 days later, on a 4 hour bus ride and then another 1 hour boat ride, to a small village named Moung Nyoi. When we arrived in M. N. all we could talk about was how lucky we were to be in this tiny village on the river with no cars, no electricity, not so many people….. only in laos!! We chilled in the village, playing with kids and hiking to caves and other villages. We met some other people there who we got along very well with. When it was time to head back south, instead of cramming onto the daily riverboat, us 6 decided to ‘charter’ our own. We paid 1million kip for it (really)…. we never thought of ourselves as millionaires. The boat ride down was 6 hours of fun and beauty. These mountains are AMAZING!!
When we got back down to L.P. we decided that we now had to celebrate Todds late Birthday…mmm french food!! We spent the night and took the 12:30 bus to Vang Vieng. In laos, the 12:30 bus leaves at 3!! But we got here safe, sound and sick. Again, stuningly beautiful ride.
Vang Vieng is a cool little town on the Nam Xong river. It’s kind of hard to explain this place, but we’ll try. Its a poor little Laos village in an awesome location. Dollars are flowing quickly into the place, but its totally not developing… but it is. Guest houses and bars are being built, but still no real road. “If we build it, they will come” So hard to explain…… at first we were a little turned off, but then we started having fun!! Yesterday we rented rubber inner tubes (hehehe) and floated down the fresh water river (about 5kms). There were little bamboo platforms that you could pull up to and chill out and drink Beer laos on. Some of the bigger ones even had make shift rope swings. I know this could sound nauseating, but it was so much fun… and again the scenery is like no other. We had every intention of hating these pull up farang infested, culture ruining, fish killing bars but found ourselves jumping from the rope swings! We are so hypocritical.. but we blame it on the Beer Laos!!
Further down the river, you pass farms, women wading in the water collecting moss, men fishing, children bathing naked etc. really cool to see this all before we ruin it!! The culture in these little villages are still so intact and it is really special to see it. It is almost unbelievable to us. We had such a good time yesterday that today we decided to do it agian… this time on a kayak (the tube was a little slow and cold). We first went to a water cave. We strapped on head gear and floated through this huge cave.. very cool. Then we glided down the river taking in all the mountains. Even though we went down yesterday, it was still awesome today. So far Laos is treating us well. We had no idea what to expect, but are very glad that we detoured here!!!

These pics are totally out of order….
These are all from Moung Nyoi

How cute are Laos babies!

Apparently the whole village comes together to build their bamboo houses

This is our million kip boat

Our bungalow was the last one on the right…

The rest are vang vieng (just a little note about our headlamps–they actually had big battery packs attached, with spliced wiring. A bit sketchy when you are wading in water!!)

We forgot to mention the NASTIEST food we saw at the night market in Lauang Probang. Unfortunately we didnt get a photo so we will have to paint the visual for you…. it was a small deep fried animal. We looked and look to figure out what it could be, a ferret or squirrel perhaps?? It was about 15 inches curled in fetal position with its legs tucked up and an enormous head compared to the rest of its body. It was a fried pig fetus!!! You could its little baby snout, skull and feet. GRODDY!!!!! The lady was so matter of fact about it ” yes, pig baby”. We tried to keep it together, but it is the first thing that we have seen that truly made us lose our appetite.

On another note, the coffee in Laos made up for the fact that they eat fetus (where are the pro-lifers when you need them). It was strong and thick and soooo rich it almost tasted like chocolate. We can’t figure out why a country that makes such good coffee only has canned milk!

On another note, we both left our good travel pillows in laos. (boo hoo) How come we still have stupid stuff like the original ziplocks we used and bungee cords but lost such a prized possesion?

On our last note… we left Laos and took the night train back to bangkok. When we arrived here we went straight to take care of our ‘errands’. First, to the vietnam embassy to get our visas.. Success!! Next to the Apple store to once again fix our motherf-in piece of crap i-f’in pod!!! It officially stopped working (again) a few weeks ago. We made the decision to get it fixed (we have about 1 month left in our warranty) and send it home. Easier said than done!! The people at the apple store were about as helpful as a bus driver in India. We just wanted to figure out how to send it to the U.S. to get fixed (we would pay shipping) so that it could be sent to one of you guys when it was done. It seems that it is impossible to get the shipping address from anywhere, unless we call the US help number (with our own calling card). It was the principal of being in the apple store in Bangkok and having them tell us we had to go on the street and call the apple store in the US. Is it not a HUGE global corporation?? Once we got the Thailand regional head service manager involved things started happening, but no one could figure out how to fix it and get it back to us quickly (the guy looked into vietnam, singapore etc.) Long story short… we found a lady from singapore who will take it to the apple support center there, and we will pick it up in a month when we arrive. What a pain in the ass!!!!

On a good note… we think we will take this last week and go back down to Baan Phu Lae, on Koh Lanta. We had such a good time why not spend christmas there!! If we do end up there, there is no phone or email…so Happy Holidays to all of you in advance.. we love (most of) you all!! You can deposit our gifts at “citizens and farmers bank, west point branch” (hehehe)

You know.. we should have known better than to book a bus ticket from Khao San road, an area notorious for tourist scams!!! On our bus ride down to Koh Lanta… WE GOT ROBBED!!! You guys will never believe this scam… it’s good, really good. While on the night bus, some assholes from the bus company stole all of our cash ( and we mean ALL of our u.s. dollars) from our bag. What bag? Our bag that was locked and put underneath the bus. We had no idea until we unpacked a few hour later. We beat ourselves up with could have, should have, would have but these thai criminals are smart!! Anyways we did a good job at trying to get over it, until we sat on the beach and read in our Vietnam guidebook ” make sure you bring a stack of U.S. $$ cash”. Anyways…another lesson learned the hard way!!

Besides the bus ride being awful, Koh Lanta was just as awesome as we remembered it. We ended up staying at a different place than last time but still on Mai Phai bay. We were a little worried about going back and being disappointed… but we were not. For christmas our hotel through a beach party. We celebrated with green curry and fire dancing. It definatly did not feel like any other christmas. We think the guys at our hotel had a close relationship with maryjane because the big fire sign said “merry christmas 2006″, we reminded them it was only 2005.

When we got back up to Bangkok, Todd went to the police station to file a police report. Apparently, the thai police are somewhat amused by farang (foriegners) being robbed. Todd ended up crumpling up the piece of paper and throwing it on the floor, strongly declaring ” well, i’ll just have to go break their legs myself.” Lisa didn’t think this was a good idea because she didn’t have any dollars to bribe him out of jail!! After that we checked our email and discovered that our friend Todd B. was in Bangkok for business. We ended up meeting him for dinner and drinks on our last night in bangkok. It was soooooo nice to hang out with someone we know (hint, hint, guilt, guilt). In the morning we woke up at 5 am and went to the airport. By 8 am we were back in Bangkok at Todd’s 5 star hotel. We changed our ticket until after new years so that we could stay and celebrate (and also to lounge around in a nice hotel.. what a vacation!!). We went for the weekend with todd and 2 of his thai friends to an area outside of bangkok called kanchanaburi. It was Beautiful!! On New Years we stayed in a floating guest house. It was SUCH a pleasure to be with friends!!!

Today we woke up at 5 am again, but this time we actually flew to Hanoi. We spent the day walking around the old quarter doing what we do best… eating and shopping. We are so glad that we never felt like shopping in thailand beacause there is TONS of crap here!! We were in thailand so long, its hard to get used to being in a new country. We don’t know how to say anything yet… and the money is so confusing, we are multi millionaires here (15800 dong to 1 dollar). We are planning to do some trekking way up north next to the chinese border. We hope it will not be too cold.

These pictures are from the temples around Bangkok.

Christmas celebration….

Kanchanaburi

Happy New Year!