I woke up feeling much better but was soon a bit disappointed once I realized the jungle had claimed my blackberry. It didn't get wet, I didn't drop it, but it's dead. Maybe it has had enough of my traveling. Three hours on a minibus put us in Aonang Beach, Krabi. So far, this beats the jungle. Alba and I signed up for a Thai cooking class. Ryan, this one was for you. We prepared six dishes each. I even learned how to make curry paste. I chose to make red curry, chicken coconut soup, pad Thai, fresh spring rolls, papaya salad, and bananas in coconut milk for dessert. They should have called it eating school because we had to eat all six of our dishes. Needless to say I didn't finish everything. Our instructors name ... read more

Our little group split today. We all chose the same destination, Angthong National Marine Park, just different ways of getting there. The rest of our group chose the slow boat. For $12 more, Alba and I opted for the speed boat. I think we made a wise decision. Angthong is literally 42 small islands all together out in the ocean off the coast of Koh Samui. Not really what you imagine when you think 'marine park'. The first stop for the day didn't actually take us to an island but rather right next to it. We hopped off the boat and snorkeled seeing all sorts of colorful fish and coral. From there we passed by monkey island which is supposed to be inhabited by monkeys, but they didn't let us stop there so I question if ... read more

Today was our big tour day around Bangkok. We left our hotel at 8 am and walked to the boat stop. We boarded a long tail boat and hopped off at the Grand Palace stop, the palace for the royal family. Within the Grand Palace was the Emerald Buddha, literally made of emerald found in the 1400s. From there we walked to the temple with the reclining buddha -- a massive buddha that filled the entire temple. A great day but not too exciting of a blog post. On to the south of Thailand!... read more

On the 19 hour flight here I had a lot of time to kill, thankfully I brought a lot of movies along including Bridge over the River Kwai. For a war movie from the 1950s I rather enjoyed it. Today I set out to visit the real Bridge over the River Kwai - or at least the one rebuilt after World War II in the same destination. For those of you not up on your WWII history, the Japanese wanted to build a bridge between Thailand and Burma during the war to transport petrol from Burma and gain access to India. In order to do so they used hundreds of thousands of POWs and Asian slaves. And because of the harsh conditions, over 100,000 POWs and slaves died in the process of building the bridge and ... read more

Though I'm staying in Bangkok these first few days, I decided to start my exploration outside the city. I read about the floating markets and decided to visit the largest one. From the guide book I understood it was more for tourists than locals but thought I would check it out anyway. Not my best idea --WAY TOO touristy for me. The concept is great though. You get in a motorized canoe-style boat and travel down small canals while shopping from other canoes right from the comfort of your boat. The items they had for purchase were things I had no interest in buying -- fake Louis Vuitton purses, ugly sun hats, cheap wooden elephants, a Heineken beer shirt? No thanks. But the food was well worth the trip. Little old Thai ladies in big straw ... read more

My final day. I’m sort of sad about it. I really loved Egypt. The elections were amazing to witness and I was able to experience so much all over the country. But my day has come. The last thing on my ‘to do’ travel list was to explore more of Islamic Cairo. Regis Philbin and I (see Alex post if you don’t get it) set off again. Our first stop is the Mohammed Ali Mosque (no, not the boxer). The mosque itself is in the Citadel which was built in 1176 to protect the city from Crusaders. So basically, think of the Citadel as a big fort. Back to the mosque – it has alabaster on the outside which is unique and contains Mohammed Ali’s tomb on the inside. And it’s field with beautiful lights, as ... read more