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September 25th 2007

Published: September 26th 2007

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Clay Ang

Th Khao San road

the one and only......

Our arrival in Thailand was of course a little shocking. But we found our guesthouse just off of the crazy tourist haven Kho San Road. We took it easy for our first visit to Bangkok as we were a little under the weather, but that didn't stop us from indulging in some great thai food.

We found out pretty quick that tuk-tuks take you to where they can get free gas coupons..and that resulted in Clay buying a really nice suit. But we also got to see the impressive reclining Buddha and some beautiful chedis decorated in tiny colourful tiles where the ashes of four of the previous kings are entombed.

From Bangkok we flew to Phuket which is where it really gets touristy. There's people at every corner trying to get you buy one thing or the other, and here is where the lady boys come out at night! We did attend our first Muay Thai Boxing event which was fun, we even got to see a few international fighters and one hell of a knockout.

From the crazy atmosphere in Phuket we headed for some R&R on
Ko Pan Ngang where we lounged on the beach

Maya Beach

aka "the beach" from the movie

and enjoyed our first thai massage on the beach...glorious! We ended up having a good night out enjoying our first buckets of thai whiskey watching fire shows on the beach and eating the best banana crepes ever! It's a great party island, unfortunatley we missed out on the famous full moon party...bad timing.

Now we're up in Chiang Mai where we did a jungle trek which included the elephant riding, sleeping in the village where the kids came and sang for us, and trekking to some waterfalls and through some rice fields. It was quite beautiful, and at the end of it we went rafting down a river on bamboo rafts, that you struggle to stand on and are not safe at all. But the water wasn't very deep so I figured, no worries. One group we were with actually hit a rock in the river and their whole raft fell apart and people were scrambling. Adventures galore!

We took a Thai Cooking course yesterday where we learned the essentials to thai cooking, it was heaps of fun, especially the adventure cooking where the possibility of losing your eyebrows is likely...lol. We'll have to show off our skills

Maya Beach II

when we get home. We also got to enjoy speaking with some cambodian monks yesterday at one of the temples. They tried to teach us a little bit about Buddhism and we talked to them about Canada and what it's like there compared to Thailand.

Up north is nicer I'd say, not as crazy busy as Bangkok, and Chiang Mai's inner old part of the city is surrounded by a moat which is quite different. You have to walk to certain gates which allow you to pass over the moat.

So from here we head to Laos for some more jungle scenery. I think it will be a little less touristy than Thailand, but we'll see. There's literally nothing you can't get in Thailand, it's actually way more westernized than we thought it would be.

Well that's all for now, I think it's time for a fruit smoothy....

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