Laos - Adventures in Bakeries, Biking, and Bed Bugs 3/21/10 - 4/3/10

The boys were back in the United States and it was just me and Steff again. First order of business - sleep. We had to keep a fast pace since the boys were only in Thailand for the week , so we took a day in Bangkok to recover. Especially poor Steff who had caught a cold and lost her voice.

We took a sleeper train to Nong Khai, Thailand with a connecting shuttle across the Friendship Bridge into Vientiane, Laos. We saw that Laos tends to have a slightly different way of doing things as soon as we arrived. We didn't check into the country by standing in an orderly line, receiving our visa, then being stamped in. No no, their system is to gather up a train load of people, huddle them in a large group, have everyone hand over their passports at the same time, then leave them their confused as they shut the check-in window.

"She's coming back....right?"

One by one they would call out our names to come pick up our passports, then slam the window shut again. Everyone had that slight look of relief when they had their passports back from the mystery office.

Once we got our visas we split a van ride into town with a group of middle-aged Europeans. They were all super nice, and told us tales of some of their previous adventures. It's always so inspiring to meet life long travelers, and see that we don't have to stop seeing the world when we're no longer twenty-somethings.

We tried to get into a couple of guest houses that the Lonely Planet recommended, but were all full. We searched for cheap accommodations until we were officially too hot and tired to care anymore. We checked into the first place we found that was in our price range. We realized after checking in that the sheets had tiny little spots on them. Most likely blood stains. Most likely bed bugs. I will let you know right now that this was the only guest house in Vientiane that we were worried about getting bed bugs, and was the only guest house that we did not have bed bugs.

Vientiane is actually a really interesting city. Due to previous French colonization, it has lovely old French styled buildings and theaters. We liked this. Vientiane also has a plethora of spectacular French inspired bakeries on every corner. We loved this. Our favorite bakery being Joma Cafe, for four reasons:

1. It had very..very.. tasty baked goods.
2. It was close to the guest house.
3. It had free WiFi.
4. We kept reading it as "Jo Mama!" when we walked by, and that's just funny.

We became very close friends with Joma.


Vientiane is not only unique for its French architecture, but also the crowd of travelers it attracts. On most of our trip, we have mostly encountered other travelers in their 20's. However, while walking around we started noticing a slightly more mature crowd. No one seemed to be under the age of 45. We also noticed that this countries capital city felt more like a sleepy town than a center of activity. Food was the main attractions. Plenty of quiet upscale hotels. Bars close at 11:00. In fact, the only place open in town past 11:00 PM was... the bowling ally. Then we realized - we were in a middle aged paradise. It suddenly all made sense!

Our main destination while in Vientiane was the Buddha Park. This is a bizarre sculpture garden built by an artist that mainly combines Buddhism and Hinduism, but the park displayed images from those religions and everything in between. I think we even saw the three wise men making a cameo appearance. The cement sculptures were huge and fantastic and crazy and and and... I don't even know what! One building could be entered through a door way shaped like a mouth. Once inside you could walk around in a circle, down ladders to a dungeon, up ladders to a few other floors, and finally out to the roof. From the room we had a fantastic aerial view of the chaos below. Giant laying Buddhas, a merry-go-round like head and arms giving small creatures a ride, human sized animals, a very serious hamster, and a great warrior...battling with a enormous grasshopper. On the way out with met a young monk and helped him with his English pronunciation, as he read from his work book. It was really funny to hear him picking up a mix of our Midwestern/Southern American accents. We had the best time taking the most ridiculous pictures we could. You can look forward to Laying Buddha Megan and Steffany vs. Alligator.

We only stayed in Vientiane for two days before heading to the famous Vang Vieng. We heard it was a party town, but we had no idea we were going from a 60-year-old's paradise to a college freshman's paradise. This tiny town is filled with dirt cheap guest houses (ours was about $4 a night), bars, and restaurants. Most restaurants have tables where you lay back on pillows to watch TV playing endless loops of either The Simpsons, Family Guy, or Friends.. Cultural? Sophisticated? No. Enjoyable? Yes.

I don't want to paint a picture that this is just a wild party town. Vang Vieng also has a ton of out door activities. It's also one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Gigantic green limestone cliffs jutting out into the sky surround the whole area. Farms line the roads, river, and tiny streams. The locals are some of the most quiet laid back people you will ever meet. Cats wonder in and out of the restaurants and shops. You're more likely to see a traffic jam of cows than cars. A lot of people say there's nothing to do in Vang Vieng but drink, which is compete nonsense. You're in a rich green paradise, go experience it.

Once Steff recovered from her cold a bit, we did what the town is famous for - tubing. On the way to the river we made friends with Alex and Dewi. Ex-businessmen, current world travelers, super nice guys. The goal of tubing is to make it all the way down the three mile stretch of river. I say "goal" because the first half is lined with river side bars calling out to you to come have a drink as you float past. This proves to be very distracting. The bar's charismatic hosts (Laos boys, that I would guess are no older than 10) throw out a rope and reel you in. Most of the bars offer free shots of Laos whiskey (bad idea), sell the famous buckets of alcohol (worse idea), then have some form of entertainment such as a swing, zip line, or water slide into the river (horrible idea). It makes me so happy that Laos has low enough safety standards to allow these kinds of activities to happen, because it was a lovely afternoon! While Steff was more a fan of the zip lines, I fell in love with the swings. For either, you needed to climb high up on a rickety ladder to a platform anchored in a tree, grab a hold of the handle, and either free fall down and woosh back and forth on the swing, or glide into the water on the zip line. If this isn't enough, body spray painting and mud wrestling/volleyball/tug-of-war are also popular activities on the river.

Is there anything better than watching the whitest white group of drunk, heart/star-nipple-painted, guys not understand when to let go of the zip line, and then be flung into the river like rag dolls?

No...No there isn't.

We played a game of volleyball with a group of drunk Norweigan boys.. One of whom was throwing up beside the court before we started playing. Normally, neither of us are big volleyball fans - but the alcohol really slows the game down, and takes away everyone's crazy competitive streak. If only I had known before, I could have spiked the gatorade and made my high school gym class much more enjoyable.

Once we got a bit passed the bars, we saw what tubing was more intended to be like. It was so peaceful and quiet. We were completely surrounded little meadows and the mountains towered above us. It felt like the color green was giving us a hug.

Do you even need to ask if two physically fit young backpackers were able to make it down an itty bitty little river by 6:00 PM? Please don't... because we didn't... We wimped out and took a tuk-tuk back. In our defense... It's the dry season so the current is pretty much nonexistent. We paddled with our flip flops down the river for over a mile. When we had both already exited the "this is fun" zone and were just cold, wet, tired, and realized we still had a long way to go... it was time to raise the white flag.

When we got back to town, we bumped into Alex, Dewi, and a British couple we met after getting separated from them in the river. I award Alex and Dewi gold stars for making it all the way down the river with out cheating. We all made plans to meet up later that night to hang out, rather than continue to stand soaking wet and freezing in the middle of the street.

Hot shower and a dress? It must be Christmas. I went down to meet up with the tubing gang while Steff decided to stay in, and have some quality Skype time with her boyfriend. I received my free bucket at The Bucket Bar (yes, that's really the name) and found my new friends - buckets in hand as well. The nice British couple had to leave early, so I spent most of the night with Alex and Dewi. We all shared our travel stories, love for running and biking, great things to do in New York and London (gay bingo with a drag queen announcer - awesome), and tales of marketing. After losing my voice from yelling over the music, I decided to take the hint and hit the dance floor.. I ended up meeting a guy from London and his friend who lives in New York and is from Pittsburgh! I would have never expected to be in the middle of Laos discussing the Steelers. It's a small world and all that good stuff.

Another great activity in Vang Vieng is kayaking. We signed up for a tour which started higher up on the river than tubing, and makes stops to see a few caves in the area. On the tuk-tuk ride there:

Me: "So do you know how to kayak?"
Steff: ::cheerfully:: "Of course, I grew up in Florida! I even have my kayaking girl scout badge."
Me: "..."
Steff: "Do you know how to kayak?"
Me: "Um... well.. I went once.. in high school... and kept crashing into the mangrove trees... I should have probably mentioned this before..."

(Shout out to Codie)

Steffany gave me a crash course on kayaking before we got in the river, with a slightly nervous look on her face.

As we are getting in the kayaks our guide asked us if we know how to swim. Right before walking up a hillside he asked if we had a problem with leeches. A bit late to be asking these types of questions, don't you think?

With Steff's excellent directions I wasn't the total kayak failure I thought I was! We made an excellent team, with out a harsh word between us. Steff had warned me that kayaking is known to spark fights and end relationships. We did a spectacular job the whole afternoon. Ok, so we crashed once... But one time isn't so bad, right?

Using paddles to push ourselves down the river was much preferable to flip flops. It was very quiet and relaxing with the only sound being the splash of our paddles. We made three stops on our kayak tour: a small trek up to a cave in the hills, the organic farm, and another cave just off of the river.

You should have seen Steff's nervous face reappear when our guide said we would be taking a short trek to the first cave. It turned out to be just fine though. We went at a nice easy pace, it wasn't a long walk, our guide made sure we were ok, we stopped to take several breaks, and he pointed things out along the way.

Steff: "It was like he reached into my mind for everything I hated about the Chiang Mai trek... and fixed it!"

I don't know what it is, but being inside of a cave is just really cool.

We took a break for a fantastic bamboo grilled skewer lunch on the riverside while watching the bright pink and green butterflies.

Steff: "I'm going to go frolic among the butterflies. I'll be right back."

The organic farm was really neat. We fed the goats, explored the farms, had tea, and sampled what Laos is known for - mulberries! For all you Farmville kids, we even saw a durian tree.

The last cave was the only down side about the afternoon. Yes, the walk was scenic and lovely. Yes, the cave was really cool and interesting. The problem? Swarms of mosquitoes... Mosquitoes that only attacked me and Steff. I'm not joking or exaggerating. The other tow girls we were with and our guide did not get one bite, and Steff and I were covered! We first encountered them right outside the cave. This turned into a scene from a sitcom. Steff and I were flailing around swatting at bugs, scratching, twitching, and frantically looking for the tiny attackers. This is all happening while our guide... is calmly talking about the history of the cave, pointing out an interesting leaf, etc. Not one bite on him. Not seeming noticing the act of physical comedy Steff and I are performing before him. I really wanted to hear the fun facts about the cave but my thought was only:

"Shut up! For the love of god, shut up and let us in the cave!!!"

We went inside - ahh, relief!

We were attacked again near the kayaks while the guide talked to the other two girls.!


"Sorry we can't take it any more, we'll meet you on the river!"

Steff and I ran to the kayaks, and into the river, while I dumped river water on the huge welts to ease the itching.

We ended the day on a high note. Spinning the kayaks in circles for fun, and taking pictures on the riverside. We took a group picture with one of the other river guides.

Guide: "Now let's take one American style!"
Me and Steff: "American style?"

This meant posed with our arm around the next person. I had no idea this was an "American" thing! He explained that in Laos you would really only put your arm around a very close friend, as strong displays of affection are discouraged.

Possibly my favorite activity in Laos is biking. I paid the 10,000 Kip ($1) rental fee, and went to explore the area a few times. On our last day Steff joined me, and we set out to find one of the other caves in town. We stopped when we saw a sign for the cave pointing to the right.

"But that can't be correct. It's pointing into that farm."

Then we saw other bike tire tracks going in...

This lead us on the most bumpy ride of our lives on a dirt path, through a farm, dodging cows, zig zagging around crops, uphills, downhills, over bamboo bridges, rocks, sand, dirt, gravel, river..... Made it!

It was so worth it! This cave was way better than the ones we saw on the kayaking tour. We got to climb over huge rocks and crawl through tiny passage ways into different sections of the cave. Large glittering stalactites clung to the ceiling. Freakiest thing: one stalactite in the back of the cave looked exactly like Jesus, or random bearded man. Not a little bit - a lot a bit. Not just from faraway, but even more when you get up close. Scary.

The best part about this cave was the small lagoon inside. We got into the tubes they had down there and floated around in what felt like the center of the earth. Center of the earth shadow puppets = good times.

The rest of the bike ride was fantastic. I would recommend going to Laos, if for no other reason, to go biking in the late afternoon/evening to see the warm light casting a million little shadows on the mountains and country side. It's the kind of beautiful you stop and try so hard to burn into your memory forever.

After a week of outdoor adventures, terribly bad-for-you but terribly good street food, huge amounts of night time coma TV watching, and a few new friends made - it was time to pack up our belongings that had exploded all over the room, and head out.

We needed to go to Bangkok to catch our flight to Japan via: tuk-tuk, bus, another bus, shuttle car, tuk-tuk, and train.

Between the "bus" and "another bus", we had a stop over for the night in Vientiane. This proved to be one of the worst nights ever. We found out some things were stolen out of Steff's bag (curse you king VIP bus!), and remember that I mentioned how we tried to get into the highly recommended guesthouses? Our top choice was, Mixok, described as"clean and tidy." Yeah... We thought we had a victory when we were able to get a room there. Until we climbed up the staircase of death and turned into a bed bug snack that night. Actually bed bug "all you can eat buffet" would be more accurate. I didn't sleep well, and Steff barely slept at all. At one point she said I must have been having a nightmare, kicked my feet like a puppy, whimpered, then turned over. That's a bad night.

Our floor had two bathrooms. We had our choice of broken cracked mirror, no mirror. Unidentifiable-stained toilet or (unfortunately) identifiable-stained toilet. Both came with one giant step to get inside, that you are guaranteed to forget about as you plummet into the hallway and death stairs. The icing on he cake being a sign that read:

"Do not throw the soap. Or make the dirty in sink"

...What?

We have stayed at some pretty grungy bug infested places - you kind of need to be ready for that on a back packing trip. We had no problem with that. However, this was our only big encounter with bed bugs (the only other time was at another hostel in Vientiane, but I only got a few bites). Big encounter meaning our hands and feet were completely covered in bites, with scattered clusters on he rest of our body. Tragic? No. But quite annoying. Um, at least I'm used to being covered in mosquito bites to prepare me for this? Bright side?

The next day we fled from Mixok and left for Nong Khai. We saw the other Buddha Park that was larger, and quite possibly more surreal, than the first one we saw in Laos. Great day. Bad night. A combination of mind destroying itching, heat, and a squeaky fan kept us up most of the night on the sleeper train. No sooner did we fall asleep we were awakened by a way to chipper train employee, and shoved off the train into Bangkok.

I almost feel bad for the mean, evil, murderous profanity laced thoughts I had toward the protesters who blocked the streets making it impossible for our cab driver to take us all the way to Rambuttri Road.. We walked past the Democracy Monument the Red Shirt Protesters had taken over and covered in red fabric. This would would have been a great photo opportunity, if I had had the energy to get out my camera - Google it. We realized we were going the wrong way. Walked past the protest and armed riot police reading the paper and drinking coffee again... Finally, we arrived at our former Bangkok home - the My House guest house.

We set up camp in their restaurant downstairs. Sorted out our bug infested laundry - in the restaurant. We covered our blistered, seeping, bug bites in tiger balm... in the restaurant. Then stayed there until our laundry was done, and we could go to the airport.

Me: "Should we be doing all this in here?"

Steff: ::points to the one other person there: a guy passed out, from the night before, on a pile of pillows:: "I don't think we're bothering anyone."

Me: "Touché"

We. were. complete. train wrecks.


We've heard all of the bed bug horror stories, about how hard hey are to get rid of, and how they can stay in your belongings for a long time. I'm very happy to say we were lucky, and after just washing our clothes we managed to get rid of them - it could have been much worse.

After getting tiger balm, doing laundry, and resting at My House, we felt a bit better. We said a final goodbye to Thailand. Because of he protests, we were stopped several times on he way to the airport so the Thai riot control, police, and army could say their goodbyes too! How sweet of them.

Next adventure: Japan!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod

The Day Apart - Chiang Mai to Bangkok From the Ground and Sky

Megan's day with Bryan:

After separating from Eric and Steff, Bryan and I took turns taking over the bathroom attempting to wash two days of trekking off of ourselves and our clothes. After a long shower I had made a full recovery, but I don't think my socks will ever be the same.

Our big decision was if we wanted to fly to Bangkok the next morning to save time, or take the bus to save money. After scanning our guidebooks, we realized we had seen pretty much everything we wanted to see in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, so there was really nothing to save time for. After the trek, a day of hanging out and watching laptop movies sounded wonderful.

We enjoyed one last dinner by the moat in Chiang Mai. Thai food, fruit shakes, wonderful. We made one big mistake though - no bug spray. By the end of dinner Bryan had five mosquito bites. I had seventeen. When you get seventeen mosquito bites in 30 minutes, it's time to call it a night. We went back to the guest house and tried to watch The Meaning of Life, but both of us kept falling asleep. If you fall asleep before the opening credits are over, it's time to just say goodnight.

The next morning the alarm rang at 6:00 AM. We had the best of intentions to catch the 7:00 AM bus... but... One can only move so fast at 6:00 AM. We wanted to catch the 8:00 AM bus, really! But we had to get a tasty pancake breakfast, right? Actually, I just had pancakes. We both ordered them but after they brought mine out, they told Bryan that the stove was "done" and he needed to order something else. How is that even possible? The stove had just enough life in it for one pancake and that was it's official end?

We were running late to catch the 9:00 AM bus, but were on a mission to make this one. Success! Good thing too - the next bus didn't leave for hours. Meaning Bryan would have missed his flight to the United States on account of pancakes.

The bus was spectacular. It was nicer than our guest house! We propped our feet up and laid back in the comfy seats with our pillow and blankets. As soon as we departed we were served juice and pastries by the bus crew. It seemed like they came around every 10 minutes serving us something to eat or drink! We also discovered this bus was more geared towards locals, unlike the other buses we've traveled on. No being surrounded by other confused white tourists, no announcements in English, no movies in English. We ended up watching, and really enjoying, the first movie (a crazy Thai romantic comedy) that came on. It wasn't too hard to follow the plot except for a few moments of:

"Who is she?"
"Why is she mad?"
"Ohhh I think that's... No, I have no idea"

Suddenly, the bus stopped. A long announcement came on, and then it turned around!

Me and Bryan: "Oh no! There must be something wrong with the bus and we're either stranded out here or were going all the way back to Chiang Mai!"

Me: "I'll go scout it out!"

I timidly followed others off the bus.. Then peeked around the door at the bus employee with my usual "confused and frighted tourist" face on. He laughed at me and made an eating motion. We had stopped for lunch. Not certain doom. Lunch.

I followed everyone into the building to check it out, then went back to get Bryan.

Me: ::In one breath:: "Ok... The bus is fine, we're stopping for lunch. I think if we follow these people in and show the food people our bus pass we get lunch of I don't know what. I think it's different options of ,what I think is, some kind of meat in orangish sauce or greenish sauce."

I made Bryan order first.

We ate lunch. We still have no idea what it was. Some kind of spicy... something.

The second half of the bus ride was equally nice. We decided against watching the random Thai game show? Sketch comedy? Soap opera? That was playing, to try again at watching The Meaning of Life. So great! I don't think I'd seen it since high school and it's my favorite of the Python movies. We were the doofy kids in the back of the bus cracking up laughing. Next, we watched Little Shop of Horrors, more laughing. Then we got way too into iPod games. Less laughing - more yelling at cartoon sheep.

We were told he bus ride would take between 10-12 hours. We assumed his meant 20-52 hours. Imagine our shock and amazement when we arrived in Bangkok at 7:00 PM after 10 hours! I've never arrived anywhere on time in Thailand.

Bryan: "How is this possible, we're on Thai time!"

It looks like we had more time in Bangkok after all. We headed back to Rambutri Road, so I could check into a new hostel called "My House." this lead to a bad Abbott and Costello like routine when we met up with Eric and Steff.

"What's the new hotel?"
"My house"
"Yes what's the name?"
"My house"
"What's the name of your house?"

You get the idea...

Bryan and I enjoyed one last great Thai dinner and walk around the area to take in the fun people watching and nice night. We reunited with Eric and Steff at the futuristic Bangkok airport.. Seriously, the airport is a sight to see. It even had up and down hill travelators (they call "people movers" travelators!)

Many hugs all around, and the boys were on their way back to the US. Goodbye Eric and Bryan! Thank you for your lovely company, bringing us supplies from home, toting all of our stuff back home, and most of all... Thank you for the cereal.

Steffany's Day with Eric: 
eric and i were ready for a little indulgence after two dirty, bug-filled days.  we booked ourselves a 5-star hotel (at a discount price! <3 thailand) and took a tuk-tuk across town.  we must have looked ridiculous as we wandered into this HUGE reception hall, complete with marble pillars and dangling chandeliers, in our dirty trekking clothes and muddy hiking shoes.  the guy checking in next to us was regaling the concierge with stories about the multiple businesses he owned.  we were so out of place. 


when we got upstairs, our jaws dropped.  our room was huge, and gorgeous, and clean.  giant bed, plush couch, flatscreen tv, and the biggest bathroom i have seen.  a separate shower room (with the option of using the showerhead on the ceiling thats like rainfall), huge jacuzzi tub, and a separate room for the toilet.  luxury.  in keeping with our theme of indulgence, we cleaned up (there was conditioner!! conditioner!), ordered room service -with dessert- and drew up a bubble bath.  i ate pizza and a gorgeous confection of cassir lime and candied ginger cheesecake and drank cocktails in the bubblebath.  indulgence overload.  it was heaven. 

again, keeping with our theme (im a stickler for keeping with themes!) we headed out fresh and all dressed up and got massages.  eric opted for a 2 hour head and shoulder massage while i had a pedicure and foot massage.  glorious, simply glorious.  then we had a second dinner at a beautiful restaurant with a tree growing right in the middle of it. no lie. exhausted by our overindulgence, we quickly fell asleep nestled in giant down comforters and more feather pillows than i could count.

the next day we packed up, i gleefully created a giant pile of items that i wanted eric to take home with him (thank you!!) and my pack was ridiculously lighter.  then it was off to the airport for a breezy 1 hour flight to bangkok. 

once in bangkok (that airport is crazy, the travelators have HILLS!!) we dropped off our bags at the left luggage counter and headed into the city.  we started at khao san road, wandered around a bit, and finally decided that it was way too hot to be wandering around aimlessly.  so we headed over to the little backstreet where we found the vegetarian restaurants, and tried a new one.  unfortunately, the heat, exhaustion, dehydration -whatever- was catching up to me, and i felt like i had been run over by a truck.  i couldnt stomach the idea of walking around in the heat again, so we headed across town to siam center, and decided to wander around the aquarium.  it was lovely, cool, and had amazing displays.  we loved the underwater tunnel with all the rays and sharks floating by.  i took a million pictures, but most of them did not turn out (one advantage of the old camera - it had a museum setting! grrr...) but it was still an amazing afternoon. but soon, even the slow meanderings through rainforests and oceans was wearing me out, and we headed back to the crazy food court for dinner.  i wasnt feeling too hungry, but we stopped by the pizza in a cone (conizza!) and e had to try it.  it was ridiculously crazy, like pizza soup in a cone.  he couldnt figure out how to eat it without spilling it everywhere - careful bites with a fork still made a mess.  we observed another couple who came in after us - the cute little couple daintily nibbled at it just like an ice cream cone.  i guess we just need more practice? 

last stop was back to the airport to meet up with bryan and megan.  we arrived early since i just wanted to sit and rest some, but it may have not been the best idea, as the airport was freezing and i was shivering the whole time. after a slightly (ok, ill admit it) tearful goodbye, the boys were in the air and i was carted off to our ...budget... hotel.  sigh.  it only took one night, and i was spoiled rotten.  oh well, time to get back into the backpacker mentality!

Chiang Mai Part II - The Trek

Time for the four New York kids to take off our sissy city gloves, get down with our nature adventure selves, and go Trekking! After moseying around cities for the past few days I was ready to frolic about in the forest.

We packed into the little safari transport van with seven other people:
Sweet natured doofy British guy, cheerful Canadian couple, Brazilian scientist girls, and hippie plant American couple.

We had to check in at a Thailand police security point before we left. The police officer, very pleasantly, said to us:

"You will be offered drugs up North... Do it up there, have your fun, don't bring it back down here."


After driving away we all said:

"Did that police officer just tell us to do drugs?"

 Yes, yes he did.

We stopped at a really cool large food market on the way. As always, it was so fun looking at all the weird food. We had no idea what many of the food items were, others we knew... but wished we didn't.

Plant guy: "Do you want to see why Thailand is the shit?"
Me and Steff: "Sure"
Plant guy: "Quail eggs and oyster mushrooms! This would be [some large amount of money] back in the states, but here it's [some small amount of money] !!!"
Me and Steff: "Ahh.. neat."

I guess Thailand has something for everyone. I was more impressed by the stunning beaches, but I'm glad plant guy found his happy place.

We all compared what we saw and bought back in the van. Although we had gathered a very unique collection of food, I think the bag of steamed crickets Bryan bought took the cake. He also had the option of grasshoppers or some other kind of slug grub thing - but crickets looked the best out of the bunch. Most of us agreed to try one, even me. Call me a picky eater (because I am) but I'll try anything once. Steff politely declined claiming it went against her vegetarian principles. I think it went against her "not eating really gross things" principles. It was best not to look at the perfectly intact cricket before popping it in your mouth. Despite a slight "bug" after taste and feeling a leg slide down my throat, it really wasn't bad at all. Little salty, slightly crispy.

The next stop was an elephant ride through a bamboo forest. None of us were super duper excited about the elephant ride. We didn't really care if we rode one or not, it just happened to be part of the tour. Plus we didn't know about how they were treated blah blah blah. However, we were there, the elephants seemed ok, so we went. Sadly, the landscape was scorched due to the dry season, and elephants are not the most comfortable to ride on after about 15 minutes. But hey, now we can say we rode elephants through a bamboo forest in Thailand. Cool.

To reach the hill tribe we would be staying at, we had to go on foot for about a 30 minute trek. Along the way, plant guy pointed out and explained to us AND the guide what every plant was. If it was edible he was sure to taste it and describe the flavor.

"Hmm this is good. You should all try this."

We, of course, ate the random wild plants, in the middle of no where, that this total stranger told us to eat, because he seemed to know what he was talking about. It was like he was hosting his own little nature show and we were his audience.

We arrived in the small hill tribe and the eleven of us got settled into our one room bamboo shelter. Each side of the room were lined with sleeping mats with pillows and blankets. Hill tribe trekker slumber party - nifty!

The rest of the villiages buildings were also small, simply made, bamboo houses that had about two rooms. We all explored a bit, watched the cute farm animals, played with some of the children, and watch as they prepared our green curry and vegetable dinner in a huge wok.

The rest of the evening was lovely. We all sat on the floor, and enjoyed a great dinner by candle light while a thunderstorm poured down outside. The women in the village dressed in traditional costumes and sang a few songs for us. While they were singing one of the little boys came over and laid back on Bryan's legs. I guess we were part of the family? After taking quite an interest, Bryan showed him how to use his camera. The boy really got he hang of it too! Color me impressed. Steff gave our camera the boy's friend to take pictures too. Every time this boy would take a picture, he would laugh with glee when the image showed up on the screen, and then give us a thumbs up. We had maaaaaany pictures of peoples feet and half of their heads.

After the performance, we discovered we were lucky enough to have three singer/guitar players in the group. Cheerful Canadian guy, blond haired Brazilian scientist girl, and Eric all took turns playing the guitar and singing some crowd pleasers. The Hey Jude sing along led by cheerful Canadian guy was probably my favorite, Brazilian scientist girl had a wonderful voice and performed a lovely version of Stand By Me, and Eric was our rock star playing some great more recent tunes and hilarious indie songs.

Another form of entertainment was simply listening to our host, who was quite a character. He had a kind of laid back, surfer, hippie dude, tone to how he talked. His catch phrase was "all the time" which he, at first, used in context to something, but then would say it when ever he wanted. Of course, We all stared saying "all the tiiiime" too - which didn't help. His other catch phrase "oh my Buddha!" was also a gem.

The next morning we were split up between the two day trek group (us and the Brazilian scientist girls) and the three day trek group. We were woken up first for breakfast - yay toast, boo scrambled eggs with onions.

After breakfast was our big two hour, up and down the hill sides trek! Our new guide was not quite what I would describe as bubbly and chatty. We learned he had been up all night, so amusing a group of tourists was not high on his list of priorities. We also discovered that this trek was more a means of transportation across the hills, than a leisurely stroll through the woods, as we went at a rather quick pace.

The first 20 minutes were pretty much entirely up hill. Then it was a lot of steep ups and downs. We were once again reminded that going down hill is quite challenging too. We stopped to take a swim by a waterfall which really helped cool us off, and prepare our legs for the second half of he trek.

The second half was mainly flat (easier!), but we had to keep zig zagging across a small stream by jumping on tiny rocks (harder...). After defeating this challenge we collapsed at the end point for lunch. Trekking makes a plate of noodles taste like the greatest meal... ever.

Now that I have described the basic outline of the trek, I would like to point out that I did not expand on anything with our opinions. This was probably the only time on the trip that Steff and I have had veeery different opinions on our experience, so I couldn't type in my usual "we thought this and that."

My opinion: I loved it!. I was happy to see that the scenery was more green and less scorthced. It was fun that the land changed very dramatically throughout the hike: steep up and down hills, flat, water, bamboo forests, great views high and low on the mountain, farm land, fields, green forest enclosures, and so on. The views and the scenery were so amazing. I felt like an adventurer crossing the shallow streams by hopping from one stone to the other. It was wonderful to be out hiking and getting a work out, with out getting overly tired since we had he nice waterfall cool down. The weather was perfect: Cool and sunny after the rain storm. We even saw some cows!

Steffs opinion: she hated it! Steff wanted more of a calm paced nature walk, where the guide actually talked, made sure the group was all together, pointed things out along the way, and helped make it a positive experience. Unfortunately, our guide didn't do any of those things. Our group kept getting split up, we had very few breaks, and there was really no time to stop and enjoy the scenery while making sure we weren't tripping over anything on the ground in order to keep up with he quick pace.

As for the boys, I didn't get their official thoughts, but I would say Bryan's opinion was good and Eric's was not so good.

So, I suppose you could take this 50/50 opinion split as this: depending on what you like this has the potential to be fun, but it had some issues to work out.

Our adventure was concluded with a nice, easy, relaxing activity: bamboo rafting. Simply made rectangle rafts made of bamboo. Long bamboo pole to steer down the river. No need to paddle, just use the pole to push off of the stream's floor or bank in the direction you want to go. Then wade down the river until you need another push. Steff, Eric, and Bryan were on a raft in front of me and the Brazilian scientist girls. Steff turned around and called over to me:

"I feel like Poaontas!"

Just Around the River Bend was stuck in my head for the rest of the afternoon. I should note she laughed at me when I said I felt like Ariel from The Little Mermaid while scuba diving. Ha! Looks like I'm not the only Disney nerd on the trip.

Once the Brazilian scientist girls and I got into a good rhythm, we had a bamboo raft dance party and bamboo pole weight lifting competition. I think we confused the guide.

That concluded the great northern adventure. Upon our return to Chiang Mai, we decided to spit up for the day so Eric and Steff could have some cute-couple-snuggley-"no I love YOU more"- time. It was actually strange splitting up after spending almost two months straight with Steff.

::confused uneasy voice:: "I guess I'll see you... tomorrow?

"Yeah...I guess I'll see you then."

"I think I'm having separation anxiety."


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Chiang Mai Part I - The City

We arrived in Chiang Mai and checked into the "Nice Place" guest house. We read in our guide books that Chiang Mai's guest houses offer such low prices because they make most of their money booking trekking tours up north, rather than on the rooms. This was proved quite true when we were knee deep in brochures, pamphlets, and pictures before we could set our packs down. After gathering a head spinning amount of tour options from our wired front desk manager, we decided to discuss it over lunch before he ended up selling us a time share in the middle of the jungle.

Luckily for our dear Eric and Steffany, Chiang Mai has a wide variety of vegetarian restaurants. We all had really great tofu burgers with a side of (my favorite Asian spelling of french fries yet) "ships" (I believe they were going for "chips"). Try to place an order for a side of "ships" and not smile - can't be done.

While going over our thoughts on if and what trek we wanted to do, an expat at the next table suggested we rent a car and see the sights ourselves. He also pointed at my and　Steff's shirt:

Man: "That's great!"
Me & Steff: "What?"
Man: "You're both wearing green."
Me & Steff: ::dazed confused looks::
Man: "Um.. It's st.patricks day..."
Me & Steff: "Ooooh! Neat! Happy st. Patricks Day!"

We haven't had any concept of what day it was for over a month, so we had no idea it was St. Patrick's Day. We didn't tell the man we end up wearing matching green tank tops all the time because we only have 3 shirts.

The next few hours were　spent bumbling around town in the heat, looking at maps, going in and out of travel agencies and car rental places, weighing pros and cons, gathering more information, before going back to the guest house... and booking the first tour we looked at that morning.

That night we made it out to see Thai boxing! Steff and I have been trying to go see it for weeks, an we finally go in the cultural northern part of the country. ::shakes head::

Once you get past the whole "these are two human beings inflicting needless pain on each other for my entertainment" thing - Thai boxing is awesome!

The ring was in the center of the room, surrounded by cheering fans, confused　tourists, and themed bars. There was even a "lady boy" bar. Every so often the lovely drag queens would come out to perform the YMCA. This provided a nice contrast to the bloody battles.

The fights would begin with the two opponentｓ entering the ring wearing a stiff headband that looked like a halo, saying a prayer, and doing a little warm up to a rhythmic tune. Their trainers would take the halo headbands off, hang it in their corner of the ring, and the fight would begin. What's neat about Thai boxing　is it's done to a rhythmic beat. Their version of a "boxer shuffle" is really more of a dance. A dance followed by a lot of kicking, kneeing, and punching.

These are not big guys either. The heaviest weight class we say was 130 lbs. The smallest was 105 lbs. 105 lbs!? They weigh less than I do! We were later informed this was still "heavy" and the boxers in Bangkok were 90 lbs.　Don't be fooled though, theｙ are hard core. It wad impossible to tell who would win. One person could be ahead the whole fight and be taken down with a single blow! I turned around for one second, and the fight was over!

Me: "What happened??"
Steff: "That guy just kicked him in the FACE and he went down!"
Me: "Whoa.."

Yeah. Crazy.

We all made our highly educated guesses on who would win (I like his shorts - winner!). Eric and I ended up picking all the same boxers against Bryan and Steff. We didn't stay for the last fight, but I'm sure we won.

In case any of you are wondering: yes, we've seen Thai prostitutes every where. What's really odd is a lot of times they're with men for the day. Look around and you'll see an old white man with a scantily clad young Thai girl...playing checkers, going for a walk, having lunch, etc. On the way back to the guest house we walked past a few bars that, like most others, had Thai prostitutes outside. Is it bad that Steff and I found it really funny to watch Bryan get whistled at, called to, grabbed, and nipple pinched? Probably.. but we laughed anyway.


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Ayutthaya - Buddha in a Tree and Elephants in a River

The bus dropped us off at some random location in Ayutthaya, so it took us about 20 minutes of map viewing, with locals laughing at us, before we figured out our route to the guest house - note that this is starting to become an unfortunate theme. Our guest house had a charming garden, a scary enthusiastic poodle, and the most awesome high tech fan ever. The fan had a remote control, and you could make it start and stop where ever you wanted! We had AC, but didn't need it with Super Fan around.

Eric was still fighting jet lag, so he and Steff turned in early. Bryan and I went out to explore this wild new town. We discovered that everything closes by 7:00, except for the crazy online gaming centers. We passed one that I believe had every teenager in town inside. The only other creatures out past 8:00 PM were the hundreds of street dogs. Bryan insisted that they were ignoring us, I think they were plotting their attack. We successfully navigated our way to the local night market (by "we" I mean "Bryan") to find dinner. The market was really neat. It was located right by the river, and it seemed to be more for the locals. This was one of the few times on the trip that most menus and signs were mainly in Thai characters only, with little or no English translation. We stood by a fruit shake/coffee stand for about 15 minutes trying to figure out what the vendor was making and what we could order. He finally made us come over, and pointed to the fruit and wide variety of flavored somethings in jars. We ended up ordering he largest, cheapest, and most delicious fruit shakes I've had on this trip. This magical fruit shake was followed by life cereal and sleep. Good day.

The next morning Bryan and I went for a run - although I may have made us run too far and fast due to the street dogs scaring me to death. Oops!

We met up with Eric and Steff as they moved into one of the cute cottage-like garden bungalows. Bryan and I decided to stay in the main building because it was cheaper and we had Super Fan. We weren't staying in the main back packer area of Ayutthaya, so we went to one of the more authentic local places for breakfast. The restaurant served some sort of random pork spice noodle soup? Steff and I had rice. The boys insisted the soup was good. We didn't believe them.

Ayutthaya is known for it's wats (temples) and ruins on pretty much every corner. The older temples were preserved as ruins after a Burmese attack on the city long ago. Our favorite wat of the morning was one that featured a face of Buddha within the twisted trunk of the same type of tree that Buddha sat under.

A couple of the other sites we wanted to visit were a bit further out, so Eric suggested we rent motor bikes for the day. Bryan and I had never ridden motor bikes before. Bryan was speeding about and did great. I, however, was nick named "little put put" by Steffany. Although I give her no room to judge because she refused to drive the bike, and rode on the back or Eric's. Although that did work out because she became out navigator and photographer. Somehow, we all managed to meet up every where we were going after being separated due to: going too fast, too slow, and fighting 4 lanes of rush hour traffic. I give us all gold stars for the day.

After a day of temple exploration we had a lovely dinner and discussed our next place of adventure. We decided that two people should return the bikes, and two should go to the travel agency to book the agreed upon transportation to the near by national park. I was a little over the motor bikes, so that task was left to Eric and Bryan. Steff and I headed over to the travel agency and were informed that all of our discussed plans for the next day were impossible due to various reasons and time conflicts. This prompted Steffany and I to babble like idiots to the very nice travel agent about how hard it is to make plans, we hate making decisions, and we needed to find "the boys." She must have thought we were insane.

She called a tuk-tuk for us to go back to the hotel, get he boys, run the new choices by them and come back before the travel agency closed. Perfect plan! We ran through the garden, into the guest house, only to find that Eric and Bryan weren't there.

"Where are they?!"
"They should be where they're supposed to be!"
"They must have returned the bikes by now right??"

I sprinted past the tuk-tuk driver (who is laughing at us) down he street to the motor bike rental place.

Me: ::gasp:: "Did our friends return the bikes???"
Motor bike guy: ::points to the bikes I'm standing right beside::
Me: "Ooh ok... Did you see which way they went??"
Motor bike guy: "My friend" ::points up the street toward the guest house::
Me: "They went back to the guest house? Drat! Where did they go? We were just there!" ::runs away::"

Steff and I jumped back in the tuk-tuk, and asked the driver to drive slowly so we could keep an eye out for the boys. We were still ranting and raving in the back when we saw the boys walking up the street from 7 Eleven!

Me & Steff: "THERE THEY ARE!!! Stop!!" "Both of you get in here!!"

At first they ignored us thinking we were tuk-tuk drivers hassling them for a ride.

Eric: "Where are we going?"
Me & Steff: "Just get in!!!"
Tuk-Tuk driver to he boys: "haha, you're in big trouble!"

We explained all of the transportation and activity options and issues in one frantic breath. Of course, they were very confused, had no idea what we were talking about, and were offering us banana candy in the middle of our train schedule speech.

We arrived at the travel agency, Steff and I slowed down and calmly explained our options. We sadly didn't have time for the national park, so we decided to spend the next day in Ayutthaya and take a sleeper train to Chiang Mai at night.

We all went back to the guest house to play rummy in he garden. We learned that Steff is a very aggressive rummy player...

The next morning we went to the backpacker area for breakfast, dropped off our packs at the travel agency. Realizing we didn't really have any plans for the day, we booked a boat ride around the island for he late afternoon. While we were in the office we also over heard the girl who worked there talking to her friend about how so many guys had come in yesterday asking to go to the "special" massage parlor. We thought this was hilarious because 1. Who goes to the tourist information center asking about this?! 2. She actually takes you there!

Unfortunately, as soon as we left the tourist office, we still had nothing to do until 4:00. Ayutthaya's attraction is mainly the temples, and we were a bit templed out after yesterday. We ended up doing the hip thing in town - going on the Internet. We each paid 10 b (about $0.30) for an hour of Internet time.

Then, we took a tuk-tuk over to see the elephants in the center of town. They give rides around the park, but we just watched the ones in the coral.

Highlights:

• One of the elephants punched Eric with his trunk.
• Another elephant pulled Bryan by the arm toward the pen, but lost interest when he saw Bryan didn't have any food.
• Two elephants started having sex. This prompted about 40 digital cameras to instantly be pulled out to capture the tender moment.

We headed back for our afternoon tour. The four of us boarded a long tail boat, that we had to ourselves. The first, and only, stop was at the town's elephant rehabilitation center. This is a small elephant sanctuary that buys and rehabilitated elephants that would otherwise be killed or remain in poor conditions.

One of the volunteer workers from England showed us around.

Volunteer guy:"These are the two new baby elephants, this is where we feed them.. Oh, and that elephant right there killed four people" ::calmly points to huge elephant with giant curved tusks, standing 10 feet away.::

We learned there were a few wild "killer elephants" that the center had purchased to train, rather than have them put down. Wonderful, but I did keep a close eye on those tusks while walking by...

It was a bit bitter sweet seeing the elephants. On one hand, many were happy and healthy. The two babies were born there were adorable. They ran around chasing each other and playing. So cute. On the other, many had come from poor conditions and were still suffering from "zoo syndrome" (rocking back and forth). This is caused by being in captivity away from other elephants for too long. It's so sad to see the negative effects close up, and wonder about treatment of the many elephant-featured activities Thailand.

The time flew by, I don't think any of us were ready to leave. It was so interesting to see how closely everyone interacted with the elephants, and learning a bit about them. They accept volunteers and let you completely take care of "your" elephant for the duration of your stay. Steff and I are determined to come back. We really wanted to do a lot of volunteer work on this trip but discovered that most programs charge a donation fee for the volunteer experience. A generally rather large fee that we simply could not afford.

We managed to not get sprayed by the elephants bathing in he river while getting back in our boat. The rest of the ride around the island was very relaxing. We got to see some if the river side wats while the sun set. All the locals waved at us as we went by, especially the very enthusiastic children.

We treated ourselves to a cheese plate and cocktails. Steff and I were waaaaay more excited about this than the boys. Cheese is one of our main staples back at home, and there's just not enough in Asia. The only problem was our cheese plate was being prepared by a very slow, very grumpy, old British man. I think I could have flown to Wisconsin, learned how to make cheese, invented and created a new type of cheese that gives you super powers, use these powers to flap my arms and fly, flown myself back to Thailand, and given my friends this new perfectly cubed cheese before this guy was able to cut two pieces of cheddar. To conclude: mad-crazy-fancy cheese-in-a-zip-lock-bag-dash to the train station .

We forgot that everything runs on Thai time = the train was an hour late.

We all had our own bunk beds on the train. I really had to resist saying:

"Neat! It's just like in the movies!"

I am told the train came to a few screeching halts, was bumpy, and stopped about 200 during the night. I slept the whole time, so I'll have to take everyone's word for it.

We awoke to a waaaay too chipper man selling "fresh" orange juice at 6:00 AM. It did have a cute anime princess character on the lid, so I wasn't too angry with him. The train was running about two hours late, no surprise. It was a really lovely morning though. The countryside was beautiful, breakfast was good, we all shared headphones and iPods, and relaxed before arriving in Chiang Mai.

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Bangkok and The Boys

We were about to double our numbers for a week! Two gentlemen decided that going to Thailand to join our misadventures would be way better than watching TV. Let me introduce our fellow travel mates for the week: Eric, Steffany's boyfriend, and Bryan, our dear pal!

After a mad dash out of Ko Tao, we arrived in Bangkok at 1:00 AM. Nothing is better than arriving in a new large city, in the middle of the night, with all of our belongings strapped to our back, having no idea where we were, or how to get to where we were going. Fun.

The next morning, we started our desperate housewives day. We checked into the fancy hotel the boys were treating us to. Dropped off our laundry that we haven't washed since Indonesia. We both had to wear our sarongs as dresses since we had no other clothes. Steff took a nap back at the hotel, and I went shopping at the street market. After I got back Steff and I watched really horrible TV for awhile - The Biggest Loser Asia, a random Thai soap opera (that we made up the plot for), and low budget 15 minute short films on the Hallmark channel. We left to go get our laundry and get facials. If getting Pizza Hut for dinner is wrong, then I don't want to be right. We continued to spoil ourselves with a hot water shower. Prettied up, for once, and waited for the boys to arrive while falling asleep. I told you this was our housewife day.

Eric and Bryan called us from the lobby when they arrived. I desperately tried to keep up with Steff as she sprinted down the hall so she could tackle Eric with the biggest hug ever (she was very happy to see him). The boys hadn't slept for 24 hours, so we decided to all catch up in the morning, and went to our seperate rooms. Bryan and I chit chatted for a bit, and he gave me the best present in the world. Life cereal. What's better than one bag of life cereal? TWO bags of life cereal!!! Joy.

The next day Bryan and I went for a morning run, and Eric some how was able to get Steff out of bed before 9:00 AM. We all met up for breakfast at the hotel. I knew that the room came with breakfast, which usually means a piece of toast, but I didn't expect to eat like a queen every morning. Pancake, eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, juice, and fruit. Normally I don't like such a large breakfast, but they put free food in front of me so not eating it wasn't an option.

We had a nice walk past the fort and the river on our way to a market. Sadly, the market was closed that day, so we actually had a nice walk to an empty parking lot, with confusing signs that had something to do with pigeons. We still don't know if we weren't supposed to touch them, feed them, look at them, or befriend them. What's with Bangkok hating it's pigeon population? Take a cue from New York, embrace your grunginess.

The pigeon hating parking lot was right next to he palace, so we thought we could go there next. Before we were even three blocks within the palace area, tuk-tuk drivers started yelling that we were wearing the wrong clothes. The palace takes it's dress code of closed toed shoes, long pants, and sleeved shirts very... very... seriously. It turned out the palace wasn't even open at the time, but it's a weird feeling to have tuk-tuk drivers judging your outfit all the way down the street.

Since we couldn't go into the palace, we took pictures of the wall outside of the palace on our way to Wat Pho. Wat Pho was not only beautiful, but also one of our favorite temples that we had visited. How can you not love a gigantic reclining bronze Buddha with sparkley feet? The temple also gave Steff and I a chance to tap into our OCD nature. Hang a left by the Buddha feet, and you can pick up a cup of small coins. Place a coin in every one of the 100 metal containers (I don't know if there were 100, but it was a lot) that lined the inside of the temple and you would be granted good luck, or happiness, or something of a positive nature. It was so neat putting the coins in their little homes and hearing the jingle of coins dropping in all around. Steff and I thought this was fantastic, the boys seemed more amused by us finding this activity "fun" and "exciting."

We sat under a tree while Bryan and Eric enjoyed their new favorite drink - coconut juice still in the coconut. It was a hard choice to go some where indoors to get out of he blazing heat (no it wasn't), but we took a taxi up to Siam Center, Bangkok's large mall. We were convinced the mall only had over priced sit-down restaurants, until we stumbled upon the Mecca of all food courts. Siam Center arranges each floor by type of store, so all the food in the mall was on this floor. I think all the food on Earth might have been on this floor. We spent 30 minutes wandering around looking at all the crazy food (example: pizza in a cup... I'm serious) until we met up in the center.

"What are you going to get?"

All of us: "I have no idea..."

So we all got a little bit of everything. Super fun lunch of sharing food and being far too entertained by the fish in the giant fish tanks. We were convinced they were mocking us and plotting their escape!

We walked around, until we saw a sign for the "Hall of Mirrors." Being the mature grown-ups that we are, we thought this was a fun house mirror maze... in the middle of a mall... on the designer jewelry floor...It was actually the title of an art show. It wasn't a wacky maze, but it was a really cool show. The artist had a series of oil paintings with humans interacting with animals, mythical creatures, and skeletons in different fantasy landscapes.

Me and Steff: "Um.. Can we live in her world?"

You wouldn't expect this from four New Yorkers, but next we took the sky train and subway - for fun. We arrived in China Town, and made our way through a sea of stalls, selling everything you can imagine, on our way to Little India. You could spend a week exploring all the small ally ways packed with people, carts, and a few brave (stupid) people on motor bikes. Only complaint... huge selections of fabric and beads. It's a complaint because we're on a budget with limited space in our packs. Seeing all the craft supplies was just a tease.

We decided to go back to the hotel for a swim in the pool. This turned into Eric and Steff swimming for 2 minutes, and me and Bryan falling asleep. I fell asleep next to my life cereal - couldn't have been happier.

We had dinner at a tasty Thai vegetarian buffet. They even had Thai dancers to perform during dinner. The performers invited us up to learn the dance, Steff jumped up, and this time I was the scaredy cat. I'll risk my life climbing over sharp rocks, but there was no way I was going to get up and dance. Steff was great though - she's one of those people with grace and rhythm - amazing!

The second day of our Bangkok adventure started much the same, with a team Megan and Bryan run, then making up for the lost calories with a gigantic breakfast. We strolled through the amulet market on our way to the palace (take two). We were totally prepared for the palace's strict dress code - Pants, closed shoes, shoulders covered! Eric, Steff, and Bryan walked through and I was... denied. Apparently, having a scarf covering my shoulders wasn't good enough. They sent me back to the gate to borrow a free shirt to wear. I followed a line of irritated girls wearing tank tops with scarves, to get my gigantic tan button up shirt. I was now safari Megan!

The palace was incredible. Luckily, Bryan is a great photographer, with a great camera. We plan on stealing all of the pictures he took to make up for our less than stellar photography skills. The buildings that towered around us looked like they were made of glittery gold. Yes 6-year-old girls, there are palaces made of gold in summer time paradises - dream big. Every detail was beautiful and a photo opportunity. You can all look forward to 200 pictures of close ups of a pretty sparkely corners of various buildings.

While we were in Bangkok the "red shirt" protests were going on. We were warned not to wear red shirts, so we wouldn't get accidentally swept up in all the madness. The madness turned out to be hundreds of people wearing red t-shirts, serving street food, and calmly talking about democracy. It was pretty much a festive democracy carnival. We walked through the protest eating Eric's coconut ice cream, on our way to the democracy monument, which was very neat. Yay freedom, democracy, and all that.

Bangkok, you were a dear, but we had enough of this city business. We walked through the democracy carnival, and hopped the next bus to Ayutthaya.

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Ko Tao - The Great Scuba Adventure

Day One:

We arrived in Ko Tao! Yay!

But now we don't know where to go. Boo...

As we waited to see if the Scuba Junction taxi was going to pick us up, we were approached by a Canadian man who currently works in Thailand. He asked if we needed help or directions. Lucky for us, not only did he know his way around Ko Tao, he also knew alllllll about how evil the US and Canadian government is. We were looking forward to scuba diving, but I don't know what could beat listening to how "the man" is out to get us, first thing in the morning. We also learned that using hair spray makes our hair receptors for the micro processors the government has implanted in us. Fun fact.

We thanked our new BFF for his help and decided to walk to Scuba Junction to get away from him, I mean... to enjoy a nice morning walk.

The walk actually was very nice. Ko Tao (turtle island) is a small and beautiful place. It had more to do than Ko Lanta but had a more laid back feeling than Ko Phi Phi. We were greeted at scuba junction by our instructor, the incredibly awesome Natalie. She was one of the many people that came to Ko Tao on vacation for three days... about five years ago. An incredible scuba master, hilarious, and very nice - we thought she was the coolest person ever. Cooler than Fonzie.

After a less than spectacular lunch at a Thai interpretation of a Mexican restaurant (onions and spices in scrambled eggs? I wanted to cry), we went for orientation back at Scuba J. I forgot that low budget videos from the 1980's are a very important part to any educational system.

We finished our first day with ice cream and going back to the bungalow to do our scuba homework before going to bed early. We are such nerds.

Day Two:

The Scuba J taxi (a pick up truck with benches in the back) picked us up for our high speed roller coaster like ride into town. Reviewing homework isn't so bad when you can do it sitting outside by the ocean eating delicious baked goods. This is how we started out our mornings, followed by videos, then lunch.

Lunch was super great everyday. The wife of one of the scuba masters makes really good Thai food we could buy everyday. Scuba Junction had a great small staff of people who were all friends so it had that "we're one big happy family" thing going. After lunch arrived everyone sat outside to chat and eat together.

After lunch: time to climb aboard the boat and sail off to the dive sites. Steff and I did our equipment checks for about 15 minutes, assuming we had attached something wrong, and our oxygen tank would go floating out to sea. All that was left was to take a big Monty Python step off the boat into the water.

The first part of the afternoon is spent in shallow water doing skills. Steff and I were getting more anxious as we were descending down for the first time. She was nervous about something going wrong and not being able to breath, I was nervous I would do the skills wrong and be "that kid" in class again. Thankfully, our worries were all for not. Steff didn't die, and I did my skills just fine. Natalie and Ferron (our assistant instructor from Oregon) watched us very carefully the whole time to make sure we were ok. Natalie was also an excellent instructor, who went through all of our skills slowly and clearly.

The first time breathing underwater is very strange. We expected it to feel like it does when you're snorkeling. Not quite. It takes a few minutes to adjust to keeping your breathing slow and steady. Also not being distracted by hundreds of bubbles surrounding your face every time you exhale.

After we finished our skills we went for our first short free dive (swimming around). We were surprised to learn that you control your position in the water by how deeply you breath in an out. This takes a little practice... Breath out too fast - crash to the ground! Breath in too fast - fly upward toward the surface. We looked like little scuba yo-yos at first.

Got back to the boat, cleaned off the equipment, wrote about all the little fishies we saw in our PADI log books.

Walking back to the bungalow:

"That... was amazing..."

Day Three:

We had the Scuba J taxi driver drop us off at the bakery down the street (New Heaven - mmmm), so we could pick up breakfast on the way. When we arrived at Scuba J, Natalie greeted us.

Natalie: "We had a bit of a situation this morning."
Us: "Oh? What happened?"
Natalie: "When the taxi driver (who is Thai, and doesn't speak much English) returned with out you we asked:
'Where are the girls?'
he responded 'at the burglary down the street.'
'What?!'
We figured out he meant 'bakery' not 'burglary' but we were so confused for a moment wondering why the driver dropped you off in the middle of a burglary and calmly drove away!"

This was probably our favorite communication fail of the trip. Of course, we have continued to refer to "bakeries" as "burglaries." I'm sure this will amuse us until we are arrested for plotting a robbery.

We kept to the same schedule as Day Two: homework review, videos (we entertained ourselves by making origami cranes from a torn out page of our PADI manuals during video time), lunch break, diving time.

Natalie told us that the skills today would be easier than yesterday. We thought that may have been a huge lie when we found out some of our skills included taking off all of our equipment underwater, and putting it back on again. I'm still amazed we were able to do it. That success led to much under water high fiveing and dancing.

It felt much more easy and natural to control our position in the water today during the free dive. We felt comfortable enough to actually look around with out thinking of what we needed to be doing at every second.

That night we were invited to a BBQ at Scuba J. It was also celebrating one of the students, Sam, finishing his classes and becoming a "dive master." We had a lovely time eating amazing grilled food, and watching the other dive masters torment Sam with as series of initiation games such as: pretend you're a fish and make others guess what type, run down the street in scuba fins, and chug a large alcoholic drink that is being poured down a snorkel into your scuba mask. Those crazy scuba kids! We also got a chance to talk more to Ferron and some of the other dive masters in training. All super nice and a lot of fun. It makes it all the more tempting to stay in Thailand to become a scuba instructor.

Although Steff and I were beat, we wouldn't let ourselves leave the party and go to bed before the 5-year-olds that were there. We're lame, but we have to stay up later than children to keep some portion of our pride intact. When they finally left we ran home and crashed in bed.

Day Four:

Change of routine for our last day. Last day? How can that be? No videos because we were done with all of this "learning" stuff. Baked goods and our final exam by the ocean. Not as relaxing as the other days, but we both passed. I thank the tasty muffins for the success.

We had an extra long break, so we walked back to the bungalow to get money for our bus ride to Bangkok in two days. When we got back, we enjoyed one last wonderful Scuba J lunch, before heading out for our afternoon dives.

We had the paper final exam, now we had our scuba skills final. A few fin pivots, an emergency assent and... Ta-da! We were officially open water certified! Much underwater dancing. Fortunately (and unfortunately) our last dive and all this dancing was video taped. Yeah.


Following our final skill test, we had one of the best days... ever. We increased our depth and our dive times, from 30 minutes to an hour per dive. It felt like we were flying, in the little mermaid, and surrounded at all times by 5,000 amazing/adorable creatures. We saw an itty bitty baby box fish. It looked like a drawing of a little square fish come to life. Make sure you have the right mental picture in your head: four adults in scuba gear, giggling and staring at a 1x1 inch fish for about 15 minutes. Turn another corner, and there are hundreds of silver fish, swimming all around perfectly in sync. I see no reason those fish should exist other than to decorate the ocean with sparkley silver flashes. Amazing amazing amazing. Don't EVER bring up scuba diving around me and Steff, because we will never shut up.

Writing about scuba diving just made me feel a little bad, because nothing I say can do it justice. It's the same feeling I get when I take a picture of yet another beautiful nature scene here. Please stop reading this blog. Stop. Book your flight to Ko Tao, Thailand. Check into Scuba Junction. Go scuba diving. Do it.

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A Letter to Malaysia

Dear Malaysia,

How are you? We hope all is well. As you know Steff and I had plans to be in your lovely country around nowish. No, don't wory - we haven't gotten lost. That's actually why we're writing...

I don know how to say this, Malaysia, so Im just going to come right out with it: We're not coming. Now don't be upset! It's not you, it's us. We still think you sound really great, we just don't have time!

Indonesia thought us the valuable lesson that travel in Southeast Asia can be very time consuming and costly. You're simply too hard to get around, especially with us already being behind schedule.

We promise we'll come to visit you, as a second trip to Asia has already been discussed. Stay strong for us Malaysia, we'll be together one day.

Love,

Megan and Steffany

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2/24/10 - 3/6/10 Phuket to Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta

Welcome to our third country in one month: Thailand. I'll let you know right now it lives up to the hype.

We landed in Phuket (pronounced poo-ket, you cheeky devils), and checked into the On On Hotel. This was Phukets first hotel, built in 1929. What a crazy maze of a building! I wanted to play hide-and-go-seek soooo bad. It was also the hotel they filmed at for The Beach. Fun fact.

We spread out our maps, books, and notes to make our Thailand game plan. First choice: one day in Phuket was enough. We booked a ferry to Ko Phi Phi for the next morning. The highlight of our time in Phuket was using the Internet in an online gaming cafe. Ten preteens in one room playing online games with each other amid fits of sceams and wild laughter - intense but kind of hilarious.

Megan: "Thank god they didn't have any places like that when I was 12. My friends and I WOULD have been those kids."

Steffany: "Oh yeah. No good would have come of that."

The next day we were welcomed to Ko Phi Phi. Interesting place... Picture a college town on a beautiful island, with no college classes to get in the way of partying. That's what ko phi phi is. Yes, it's touristy, and steff and I are not party girl types, but it is really beautful there. No cars. Small enough to walk across the whole island. Very nifty.

We were here for 6 days. Much of our time was either spent lounging on the beach, eating, or walking around enjoying some truly great people watching.

The first day we walked up several hundred steps to reach "the view point." this is a high peek on the island where everyone gathers to watch the sun set. Everytime the breeze came, it blew the scent of all the floral trees around us. The view overlooking the island and surrounding ocean was spectacular by itself. It all grew more and more stunning as the sun set. Watching the sun set with a large group of people, in silence, whose top priority is just enjoying the beauty, was also really cool. I hiked back up to the top on a few other mornings. Steff, for some reason, doesn't agree that rolling out of bed and climbing up a mountain five minutes later is fun. Strange.

We decided to take a boat trip around to see some of the other places surrounding Ko Phi Phi. We now love boats. Everything is cooler and food always tastes better on a boat.

We were taken around to see: shark point (didn't see any sharks), bamboo island for a tasty fried rice lunch, monkey island (we didn't see any monkeys), and Maya Beach (where they filmed The Beach.)

Snorkeling was great in all of these places. We were surrounded by neon colored fish every where we were! They were the most insane rich colors that I never would have believed ocured in nature.

Although Monkey Beach had a disappointing lack of monkeys, it did have sand that felt like baking flour. We said they should rename it "Pastry Beach" and sell cupcakes. Maybe we just wanted to eat cake...

When we arrived at a rocky bay, the crew informed us that we had arrived at Maya beach. We had to walk across the island to the beach part. Simply jump off the boat and scuttle over those large slippery rocks... Oh yeah... Don't forget your flip flops so you can walk across the island.
"um.. How can we bring our shoes and swim to shore?"
::crew member puts flip flop on his hand and makes paddling motion::
Ah, I see.
The sight of 15 people doggy paddling to shore with flip flops on their hands, was harious. That in combination of all of us stumbling over the rocks was too much. Steff and I were cracking up. Many of the others were not. Next we had to hike across the island. Can you feel more ridiculous hiking while wearing a bathing suit and a snorkel mask on your head? No.. You can't... If only we had our snorkel fins on our feet, I would have felt like a character out of Monty pyhthon. Maya Beach, though a little touristy, was stunning. Huge lime stone cliffs surrounded us. The late afternoon sun cast a million shadows on the cliffs. We could have sat there for hours.

Good news: we used our camera to take underwater picutres all day, and it's still in perfect working order!
Bad news: we felt a little sad/ashamed to take every photo because, as always, the pictures don't do any of the scenery justice.
Bad news: our camera battery died RIGHT before the sunset on the boat.
Good news: we don't need any more sunset pictures and, again, it wouldn't have done it justice. This was the most perfect beautiful sunset. The sky and the ocean turned about 40 different colors every minute. All we could think or say was "this is so beautiful." Needless to say, we very much enjoyed the day.

Let me tell you something about the food on Ko Phi Phi: it's pretty spectacular. They're big on Nutella. We liked that. We liked that a lot.
Nutella banana pancake - even if the rest of the trip is awful, this will have made it worth it. So good we wanted to cry.
Nutella/butter French bread
The biggest portions ever at Papya
Pizza... That actually tasted like pizza.
Cheese pringels
Fruit shakes of every flavor everyday

The big Full Moon Party with a few thousand people is in Ko Phangan every month. However, due to our travel schedule there was no way we could make it over there in time, so we opted for the smaller full moon party in little ko phi phi. We had a huge meal at the famous back packer resturant, papya, to coat our stomachs for our first night out on the town since we left NYC. We attempted to pretty up. Then, fliers in hand (that are given out daily for drink specials), we made our way down to the beach. In our sober state it was stunningly hilarious. The whitest white boys dancing with glee inthe ocean, dirt cheap drink specials, and fire.

Fire: fire limbo, fire jump rope, fire shows, fire hoops. Fire. Everything there was SUCH a bad idea - but so fun.

We got the famous buckets (these are small buckets filled with soda and a small bottle of rum, vodka, or gin, and 4 straws), walked to the 4 different bar areas, danced, met a few really great people. I offered everyone I met a cheesy pringle. The night was so hilarious and fun. I didn't even hurt myself jumping through the fire hoop.

Needless to say, we took one more day in ko phi phi to sleep in/lounge on the beach eating mangos. I bought a cheap set of water colors, sissors, needle and thread in the hopes to sew something soon. Traveling in paradise is great and all, but we miss knitting.

After five days we hopped a ferry and said a warm hello to Ko Lanta. MUCH less touristy and quiet. We did make the terrible mistake of pulling out our guide books on the ferry to find a place to stay. Little did we know that bunglow/hotel owners walk up and down the ailses of ferry boats, binders of photos, pamphlets, and very long energetic sales pitches ready to go. With in ten minutes of leaving the dock our laps were covered in pamplets and our heads were spinning from 20 differtent sales pitches. I thought two people were going to battle it out to see who would get our business. Scary stuff. We decided on a bungalow that sat right on the beach for 300 baht a night (about $9).

The section of the beach we stayed at had some bungalows, 4 resaraunts decked out in huge lanterns, and that's about it. It was every picture of your own beautiful tropical beach that you paint in your head. Every spot along the ocean was gorgius. We drank a lot of fruit shakes, read, went for walks, I went for a morning run everyday.

Then we suddenly came out of our beach bum fog and realized we needed to book transportaitiin to Ko Tao to start our scuba certification. We took a horrifying tuk-tuk ride into town. Horrifying, because the woman driving let her 2-year-old kid wander around in the back of the cart and climb around on to the seats. We were convinced she was going to fall out onto the road the entire time. The little girl is also crying and climbing on me. Steff and I aren't really fans of being around children as it is - that ride didn't help.

We arrived into town, booked our transportation for the next day (a truck, to a van, to a bus, to an overnight ferry), and set out to find lunch. The misadventures of Megan and Steffany strike again. We walked along a dusty road for a long while until we spotted the ocean on our left.... And then saw it was on our right too. After looking at the map we had no idea (and still don't) know how this was possible or where we were. We picked the beach to the left of us and discovered civilization once again.

We spotted a tiny island while walking along the beach.

Megan: "Neat! I just want to swim out there an befriend a talking monkey!"
Steffany: "I bet there are giant rocks..."

This pretty much summed up the differences in our travel styles.

Pizza and milkshakes for lunch = happy Megan and Steffany.

Steffany: "I suddenly had a terrible vision of us walking back on that hot dusty road: 'Milk was a bad choice... UgGgghH!'"

We took a tuk-tuk back.

But not until we went for a wonderful long swim. We were so excited to see waves again, as most of the shore lines are very calm.

It was a sad goodbye to Ko Lanta. We would have loved to have spent more time there, but more adventures awaited us.

Next stop: Ko Tao, to get our scuba on.


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2/22/10 - 2/23/10 - Hello Singapore! Goodbye Singapore!

Doughnuts and packs in hand, we caught our China Air flight to Singapore. We checked into our first dorm style hostel of the trip, at 98sg. Bunk beds with bright coordinated bed sets. I felt like a freshman checking into the college dorms all over again - it was fun.

We woke up the next morning with a clear game plan:

Quickly stop by the cheap electronics mall, buy a cheap camera, take a train to the zoo, spend the day, and maybe even make it back for dinner in little India.

Singapore - land of great deals on electronics = lie. The cameras were just as, if not more, expensive than they were back in the US. We drowned our sorrows in a fancy sit-down Pizza Hut. It was very comforting, it felt like the cheese was giving us a hug. A review of the Amazon.com return policy, and a call to Canon later, we decided to bite a big expensive bullet, and buy the Olympus Tough underwater camera to replace the broken Canon. We didn't want to do it, but we didn't want to not take photos on our amazing once in a lifetime Asia quest even less. We danced through the streets with our new camera, taking pictures of everything.

(editors note: we originally weren't going to get a refund from amazon for the old camera. After a pleading email explaining the situation, they agreed to refund the money - go Amazon!)

Our glee was slightly decreased once we realized it took so long to get a new camera that we weren't going to have time for the Singapore humane zoo. Sad faces. However, Singapore is one of the only zoos that also offer a night safari to see all the nocturnal animals. Happy faces!

The one good thing about wandering about Singapore all afternoon was it gave us a chance to see the city. I must say, we were super impressed. We would have loved to have spent more time there if we had more time, and more money (it's quite expensive in comparison to the rest of our trip.) Singapore is like a futuristic city plan come to life. It was extremely efficient and clean. The subway station (which,again, was extremely clean and well organized) had a sign that said "No Durians." it's a common fruit in Asia, but apparently smells bad. There is no spitting, gum chewing, or jay walking.

Megan: Wow look at the construction workers! They're wearing shoes!
Steffany: and hats! And they're using metal!
Megan: rather than all bamboo? Weird.

We were sure to be like ms. molly manners during our stay. I was afraid we might get jail time for not showering enough.

Side note: speaking of showering, we had the first hot water shower since we left the US. Singapore could have been awful, and that shower would have been worth the trip.

Apple slurpees in hand, we waited for our bus to take us to the Night Safari.

And waited...

And waited some more.

We double checked the bus schedule. The bus we needed didn't run during week days.

"Is it a weekday?"
"I have no idea."

It was.

"That's ok, we can walk it!"

No we couldn't.

"I think it's this way!"

No it wasn't.

We ended up walking by a highway with the backup plan to hail a cab if we couldn't find the zoo. ::ahem::: hail a cab. On a highway. Going 50 miles per hour... Once it sunk in that this plan was impossible, fate smiled upon us and we were able to get a taxi BEFORE it got in the highway.

We made it to the night safari! We had some time to kill before the main park officially opened, so we went one on one with man eating fish! It was actually a tank of "doctor fish." these are bottom feeder fish that eat the dead skin off your feet. It tickled really... Really...Badly. There was no saving our pride as we squealed and giggled like little girls the entire 10 minutes. There are pictures and videos. Not good.

After a celebratory "yay we have a camera" drink (a Singapore Slinger), we hopped on the tram car for a tour around the park. It was so weird being in a modern city after three weeks in Indonesia. We kept saying it was like a day at Disney, and the tram car clinched it.

The night show proved to be an overload of precious. I don't think we stopped smiling. Animals climbed on ropes over our heads, a white wolf called to the moon, and miniature otters recycled bottles. One little otter just kept spinning the bottle round and round for fun, rather than dropping it in the bucket. Steff and my response to this "Eeeee! Hehehehe! ::claps hands::"

After the show we went on foot to see all the night critters. It was the first time either of us had seen some of these animals so active. It was so cool and fun. I could spend the next hour describing in great detail just how much we loved each animal we saw, but for the sake of time, your attention span, and my little typing fingers, I'll hit a few of our favorites:

Flying squirrel room: we passed through three air-lock style doors and entered a room with flying squirrels swooshing past us from high above.

Indian Wolves: walking down a dark path all alone... Suddenly, we are stopped in our tracks by the chilling sounds of a pack of wolves baying at the moon. Inch forward and we see that they are all gathered in a cute puppy pile atop a giant rock, howling at the moon, catching their breath, and continuing to howl. It was a scene straight out of the mysterious wolf t-shirts.

Bat room: similar to the flying squirrel room, but this time bats of all sizes were flying and hanging around (get it, hanging around? Ha!). We thought the bats were cute, other people in the room did not.

Big cats (lions, tigers, leopards): the crazy cat ladies within took over as we watched and cooed at these giant animals. They're always so much larger and more powerful than I remember. If a lion bumped into us, we would be crushed. We stood back and tried to be quiet so the leopards would come by the glass. It was a little magical when they did. The male was huge and seemed very protective of the pregnant female. Such beautiful animals. We watched them until we realized we were running out of time.

Yay amazing elephants and silly giraffes!

"That was so cool."
"SO cool!"

We had a very pleasant taxi ride home. Our driver chatted with us the whole way. He also informed us that out hostel was in a red light district. Of course it was.

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2/20/10 - Getting Our Craft On

We felt like kids waking up on field trip day. Crafting class day! And what a lovely day it turned out to be. A month with no craft time is way too long.

We didn't have to wake up super early. Had time for breakfast, which was once again... Pancakes. I accepted their offer to put chocolate on mine. It came with chocolate sprinkles, not chocolate sauce. It's never quite what you expect.

Our batik class was held in a gallery/studio/back yard/racing pigeon coop area. After we picked out our designs, we headed out to the yard to practice with the wax pens.

Fantasy: We took to it instantly, like were born to batik!
Reality: It took us 20 minutes to draw a straight line. I spilled hot wax on my hand... Twice.

We really did get the hang of it though, and the very patient man was able to fix... most... of our mistakes.

While waiting for the wax to dry, we talked to one of the boys who worked there. He was wearing the most awesome abstractly batik painted pants ever. It was a work of art. He showed us around the back yard area. Chickens and an adorably fat kitty cat scurried around us. Professional batik paintings were hanging on clothes lines to dry. An older artist worked on a "dry technique" batik painting. He casually splashed the paint around and created a beautiful flower painting before our eyes. He was like an Indonesian Bob Ross. The boy mentioned the racing pigeons... Then realized we had no idea what he was talking about. He then went on to explain that people buy very expensive pigeons, and train them to race. It's a big deal. He showed us all of the pigeons they had, which were quite large and really pretty.

One of the people that run the studio, Suzie, came over to introduce herself and chat with us. We were still waiting for the paint to dry, so she took us to her friend's restaurant down the street. For about $1 US, we were served the best gado gado (rice, veggies, egg, crisps, in a peanut sauce) we've had, and a large glass of sweetened lemon juice. It was one of the best meals we've had, and we thanked the lady who made it about 40 times.

Our batiks were dry when we got back. Next we applied a layer of wax over what we painted. This took a looong time. I think we might need a tiny bit more practice. After we finished (and our mistakes fixed), our instructor dyed the background, melted off the wax in boiling well water, and poof! Done! Amazing.

Batiking was really REALLY cool. They gave us a free wax pen, so we plan on doing a lot more of this when we get back to the States. Look out Green Elevator fans. Now all we need is a boiling vat of wax. Hmm...

Before our silver smith class, we decided it was time to try kopi luwak. This is the really fancy expensive coffee they mentioned in the movie The Bucket List. Made from the pooed out coffee beans eaten by the luwak (hence the name), it sells for $500 a pound or cup (we're not sure which) in the US. A specialty of Indonesia (and much cheaper here) we had to try it. I don't like coffee, so I just tried Steff's and got ice cream instead. It tasted like coffee to me, but Steff tells me it was very good. Yay poo coffee.

We also ordered cheese fries. Fries covered with cold shredded mozzarella cheese, and served with hot sauce. Never quite what you expect... But good.

When someone in Yogyakarta tells you something is close and will take 10 minutes to get there, tack on about 30 minutes to that time and assume it's hard to get to. We were a little late for our silversmithing class. Oops..

I'm going to start right out by saying: this class was fantastic.

It was fun, interesting, really super cool, we recommend it, and give it thumbs up/smiles/other gestures of a positive nature.

Our instructor, Agus, went over the basic steps of working with silver, how to not hurt ourselves with the blow torch, and different samples of what can be made. Yogyakarta is not only famous for its batiks, but also for their incredibly detailed silver works. We now have a new found respect for all those little twists and turns in the metal... Not easy...

We were given small strips of silver to work with. Measuring, cutting, and sanding it down to the shape we wanted. Agus gave us smaller bits of silver wire to show us some basic decorating techniques. Next... The blow torch. It's way too easy to become power-mad with that thing once you realize how cool it is welding metal together. Very queen of the universe, elements will bow to my supreme power - you know? Sanding, buffing, ACID drop, more buffing - makes silver look perfect. I think we said "Wooow!! Look at THIS!!!" about 200 times.

During the class, Steff did great. Her pieces looked professionally done, and had the queen of the universe thing down from the start. I, on the other hand, was THAT kid in class. The one who doesn't quiiite get it, needs a little hand holding, and work looks a bit... Abstract.

[Steffany's note: no she was not. and no i did not.  it was hard. and i spent a good hour working on one tiny technique, while Megan mastered like 5 of them. plus, i think the instructor had a crush on her!]

After I finished curling a wire, Agus said: "You did that well... Much better than I expected."

Yep. I was that kid.

I did get better though! We both had silversmithing down by the end and wanted to make a million things. It was just so cool!

Awesome day. Success!



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2/19/10 - Budda and Blueberry

The bus left for the Borobudur and Prambanan temples at 5:00 AM. We've been getting to know 5:00 AM far too well on this trip. I preferred when that time was a distant stranger.

Once we arrived at Borobudur, Steff and I joined another group so we could all split the cost of a temple guide haHA! We met a boy named Li in the group from LA. He took pity on us and offered to take pictures for us after seeing we were using a disposable camera, and hearing our sob story about the broken one.

The temple was gigantic (the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere), which made the intricate details all the more impressive once we were closer. Each level was lined with stone relief panels, narrating different Buddhist stories. Our guide tried to explain some of these stories, but apart from several cheesy jokes, he was a bit hard to understand... and it was 6:00 AM. Once you reach the top ("heaven"), you are surrounded by stone pods with Buddha statues inside. With the fog all around, it felt like we were in some other world. We all touched the lucky Buddha foot. I was able to reach the luckiest part: the heal. Thank you long skinny puppet arms. Steff was able to reach the arch. We now have much better luck than those lame-o's who just touched the toes.

Our guide left and we chatted with Li until we were approached by a group of Indonesian students. We were now practice for their final exam in English. They were all super nice, so after our very official conversation, we all took pictures and promised to Facebook them.

Next stop: Prambanan, the largest Hindu complex in Java. Sadly, a lot of the temples had been damaged by the 2006 earthquake, so we couldn't go into a few. They seem to be doing an amazing job at the restoration though. The site was still beautiful and the outside of the temples held up well.

While entering the complex, Steff and I were approached by a boy explaining he was doing on-the-job training, and asked to show us around. Unfortunately, he didn't really speak English so he couldn't actually tell us about the different temples. I also wouldn't really describe him as "spunky" or "peppy." We went back through again ourselves.

The temples really were incredible to see. Again, intricate relief panels lined the outside, with fantastic stair cases leading inside. If we had our camera, I think we would have been there another two hours taking pictures of EVERYTHING. In true Steffany and Megan fashion, we were semi-lost getting out of the complex, caught in the rain, couldn't find the rest of our group, and were late getting to the bus.

After being culturally enlightened, we tried blueberry Fanta. Which is the SAME flavor as blue raspberry. And it turns your tongue bright blue.  So many enriching discoveries in one morning!

The van driver dropped us off at the wrong part of the palace, so we had to walk allllll the way around. Just as we reached a point where we were unsure where to go, who happens to be riding by? Our guardian angel direction-giver, Gus! He chatted with us, gave helpful directions, confirmed that there was a good vegetarian place in town, and told us he was going back to help paint the shadow puppets! Who IS this guy??

With the help of Gus, we made it back to Via Via to sign up for our classes (batik and silversmithing). Since we had so much time to kill before dinner and the shadow puppet show we said:

"Let's pop by the Internet cafe really quick, to book our flight to Singapore."

Three hours later...

"I hate booking transportation in Asia..."

Flights from Yogyakarta to Jakarta to Singapore - booked.

"Um... At least it's time for dinner."

"According to this map Milas (the vegetarian place) is right around the corner. It shouldn't be too hard to find."

One hour, and numerous queries for directions, later...

"THERE IT IS!!!" ::joy::

At least Milas was well worth the quest to get there. Away from the main road, it was a quiet outdoor restaurant in a little garden. All the tables are in little open bungalows, some with chairs, and some with pillows to sit. We order a fried cheese tart type thing. Cheese made us so.. so happy.

Food coma.

"um.. Do you want to see the puppet show another night?"

We decided to just take a becak home. Becaks are one of the main modes of transportation in Yogyakarta. They're bicycles with a seat in the front large enough for two. The side fenders are all painted with different colors and different pictures, adding to the fun art vibe of the city. Other than that slight pathetic feeling of having someone tote me around, I've really enjoyed the becaks. It's a slow relaxing ride that lets you take in the sights. Steff, not so much a fan of the becaks. She is convinced the driver is straining to bike us around (like Kirk in one episode of the Gilmore Girls). Unfortunately, our ride home did not help her impression of this because it was completely uphill...

We get out at our hotel, and paid the driver with three beads of sweat on his forehead.

Steff: "See! We almost KILLED him!"

[Steff's note: seriously, he was going to have a heart attack - he was drenched in sweat!  One becak driver had to get off and push us up a hill - if that doesn't make you feel like a fat lump of lard, I don't know what will.  I quickly learned the term "jalan jalan" which means "walk" and is usually sufficient to let the becaks know we are set on walking.]

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