Many thousands of miles, two Malarone and the group Super Junior Later We arrived in Bangkok tired and ready for rest. Our route to Bangkok took us through Beijing where the 2008 Olympics are in full swing. Though we saw only the airport we did run into the Chinese version of pop royalty. The group Super Junior was on our flight to Beijing and as we exited the plane the airport was full of tween Chinese girls with cameras and high pitched voices. Girls were crying, snapping pictures, screaming...it was as though I was at a Beatles concert. Our hostel in [View Full Entry]

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After the trekking trip I went with the italian guys for a thai massage (finally!). This was awsome and I want some more in the next weeks. The girl who did it managed to crack my back in about 10 diferent places and ways. After that the three of us were really relaxed, we all enjoyed it and it was also fun. So we headed back to meet the rest of the gang to exchange contacts and go for dinner. We ended up having dinner at one of the hippest bars in Chiang Mai with great live music. Wthen we moved [View Full Entry]

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Hi guys, the last 3 days have been absolutelly fantastic. Just had one of the best experiences in my life with some of the best people one can expect to find. I took the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai on thursday. It was a quite cool. The bed where very confortable and even so the journey takes 12 hours as I slept through most of it, it was quite a good trip. As I arrived I met my treking group which would turn out to be an absolutelly great one. We all got along straight away and went out [View Full Entry]

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Our Global Vets summer is almost to a close! For the past 3 weeks, we've been busy tackling elephant feedings, large animal surgeries and everything in between! First, we spent a week at the Kamphaengsaeng campus of Kasetsart University where we were lucky enough to shadow some large animal vets for a week. During that time we got to witness a surgery on a cow with an extreme abdominal hernia, piglets with an E. Coli infection, an orthopedic equine surgery, and two bovine dystochia cases - one ending in a caesarian and one with a fetotomy! First experiences for all of [View Full Entry]

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Pai "pronounced Bye" is a small town North of Chiang Mai. It is a wonderful leisurely journey through the hills by bus. Actually, it is a 90 mile drive there and back that takes 4 hours each way due to its 700+ hairpin curves. Not to mention the bus is ancient and the windows are all kept down feeding your lungs with exhaust the whole journey. The driver also slows down on every uphill slant to about a crawling 10 mph all the way beeping stray cattle off the road. The best part of the bus was the seats (more specifically, [View Full Entry]

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Well I arrived back from the jungle trek a few days ago and have since left Chiang Mai and hit Chiang Rai for a day before I break for the border. I don't have a lot to say about Chiang Rai itself except to say that it seems to be very quite around here. Mind you today is the (Thai) Queens birthday and so I think a lot of places may have closed for the day or something. The Royal family are held in very high respect in Thailand and it is an imprisonable office to slander the family in anyway [View Full Entry]

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Chiang Mai is a smaller city, with lots of smog (found everywhere even smaller cities because of the car/motorbike emissions) and tourists. It is much easier to get around and we will spend the next two days here. We spent the first day walking around the city, finding a guesthouse and exchanging money. The next morning we woke up and had some really great coffee (cost around a dollar for any fancy starbucks type drink, but their regular drip coffee is just as amazing on its own). and then headed to our thai cooking class. We started at the market learning [View Full Entry]

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I made it! Three days of trekking through remote jungle terrain, staying with a hill tribe village, all while carrying a 20 lb pack and I made it back to civilization in one piece!! I am a little sore today but it was well worth the experience of a lifetime. I don't want to get ahead of myself because I have done so many things during a short amount of time. I have joined a new group and we have started the "getting to know you" process. I think days of not showering and hiking through mud has helped expedite the [View Full Entry]

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We are leaving Thailand today and have had a fantastic time. Here is what we have been up to... Bangkok--Most of our time spent in Bangkok was spent sorting things out. We needed to do a little shopping as we had run out of a few things and we attempted to get our visa from China (did not have success). Our hotel was really nice and we got free breakfast and also managed to go to the gym to do weights (first time in 6 weeks!). Originally I was not too excited about Bangkok as you hear mixed reviews about it [View Full Entry]

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On wednesday 15 of us (out of a group of about 40) left the realgap group, fed up with the lack of activities and the remoteness of the eco houses, and headed to Chiang mai for a few days. After about an hour of trying to figure out buses, we finally got on a fully airconditioned, double decker bus to chang mai for the 8 hour journey. Arrived at around 2 am, found a hotel and crashed. the only problem was there werent enough rooms, so we had to do some rooms of three, and seeing as it was 2am there [View Full Entry]

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