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Archive for January, 2010

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Game Over

Monday, January 18th, 2010

It’s with mixed feelings that I write this post.  I knew this day was coming for a long time, but it’s different when it’s actually here.  We are en route back to the USA.  It’s been 15 months on the road, but I can’t believe how fast it has gone by.  I don’t think we’ve really had time to absorb and process everything that we’ve seen and done.  While I’m looking forward to getting some good old American food (tell In-n-Out Burger that we’re on the way), I think it will also be good to have some time to reflect.

We had one final surprise on the first leg of the long trip back.  JAL might be going bankrupt, but they get good marks from me.  They upgraded our tickets and I got Seat Number 1.  Sweet…. 

We’ll keep blogging for a while even after we get home, so please keep reading.

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One (or Two) Night in Bangkok

Monday, January 18th, 2010

We finished up our time lounging on the beaches in Krabi and flew back to Bangkok for 2 final nights.  Everyone has an opinion about Bangkok, but it’s hard to describe and it can be whatever you want to make it.  Yes, it has a seedy side, but there are also peaceful temples, high-end malls, and crazy markets.  You don’t have to search very hard to find whatever it is you are looking for.  We spent our time picking up those last minute buys at the night bazaar and negotiating with unscrupulous taxi drivers.  Next stop: USA!

Here’s the menu for the “restaurant” on one of the islands near Krabi.  Meals on wheels it’s not, but maybe Thai by tide?

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Sunset on our travels

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

We left the north and its hot, spicy Khao Soi noodles behind to head for the just plain hot weather in Krabi.  We’re spending our last days of travel hanging out by pool, snorkeling, and just being tourists . It’s a little weird after more than a year to be in “vacation” mode.  Since I don’t have to worry about dragging around a huge, heavy bag much longer I can actually shop and pick up a few souvenirs.  Things here are pretty inexpensive so it’s nice to be able to “splurge” on organized tours occasionally, or go out for sunset drinks.  Here’s the view of the long tails moored up for the night:

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Tastes like chicken

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

The week in Chiang Mai is flying by, but in between afternoon massages, happy hour drinks, and great curry dinners, we’ve come up with our list of most memorable days from the last year.  Here’s our list of the experiences that made us say “wow” and kept us talking about them.Top 10 Most Memorable Moments– Pyramids in Giza and/or Temples in Luxor, Egypt – hard to pick one over the other, so we’ll cheat and say both

– Tongariro Crossing, New Zealand

– Cable car to Aguile du Midi to see Mt. Blanc and then hike back down to Chamonix, France

– Ride from Delhi to Agra, India – it took 7 hours to go 180 km and it was truly something that can’t be duplicated

– NYE Fireworks in Sydney, Australia

– Kayaking to a hotel and then hiking back the next day in Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand

– Walk along the cliffs from Firostefani to Oia on Santorini, Greece

– Cycling through the vineyards in Beaune (Burgundy), France

– Gaudi sightseeing and then watching the Tour de France pass through Barcelona, Spain

– Cruising the backwaters of Kerala on a houseboat, India

– Climbing to the top of Skellig Michael, Ireland

You can never tell what will make a day special or how something will turn out, so we’ve found it’s best not to have any expectations and just be surprised when it happens.

We’re still hoping for a few more good moments before we end our trip.  In the meantime, we got to try something new yesterday.  We took another cooking class and during the market visit someone was buying a durian fruit and offered us a taste.  Many hotels in the area have a “no durian” sign – a picture of the fruit with a line through it.  The reason for the ban is the smell it gives off, which is hard to describe – something sour, stagnant, or rotting.  It’s pretty awful, but we held our breath and gave it a try.  The taste is very strange, but not what I expected and not bad.  Here’s the foul fruit at the market:

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I wonder…

Monday, January 4th, 2010

We are spending this week chilling out in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.  We have some time on our hands to reminisce over the last 15 months and thought we’d continue with our theme of lists.  For this one, we tried to come up with the seven wonders, but it proved too difficult to narrow down.  It made for some good discussions over a few Singhas, but we finally cheated and came up with the following 2 lists. 

 

The places we picked are sometimes not the best or biggest, but they are the ones that captured us.  They are places that for whatever reason – the weather, our mood, or something intangible – surprised us or made us just want to stay for a while. There are other famous places, like the Taj or the Rhine Valley, that were great, but missing something that set these apart.  Note that these aren’t in any particular order – that would have taken us weeks to rank.

 

Seven Man Made Wonders

 

– Sydney Opera House

– Grand Palace, Bangkok

– Burj Dubai

– Giza Pyramids

– Coliseum, Rome

– Gugenheim, Bilbao

– Mezquita, Cordoba

 

Seven Natural Wonders

 

– Tongariro NP, New Zealand

– Rotorua, New Zealand

– Mt. Blanc/Alps around Chamonix

– Canyons in Utah – the Arches and Bryce in particular, but Canyonlands and Zion too.

– The Olgas, Australia (Uluru should be on the list, but the thousands of tourists snapping photos took away some of the charm.)

– Santorini, Greece

– Cliffs in Ireland – The Cliffs of Moher are the most famous, but the ones at Horn Head and Slieve League are just as dramatic.

 

Here’s an informative sign we saw today that was definitely not one of our “wonders”… 

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