ChristineSjG

After 3 relatively uneventful flights, we're home at last. :-) I say relatively uneventful because I did learn some things - never transfer flights in Vietnam. Its really an odd experience. They had us sit in a corner and wait until the staff could come to us rather than go to them. Nobody would tell us what was going on and no one smiled other than one of the China Airlines officials. I also learned that flying with Athena requires medication - both for her (she gets so horribly anxious its amazing) and for me to deal with it! :-) I've posted some pictures with the former blogs that I copied from Athena. After I have my camera fixed, I'll see if I can get mine posted too. :-) Its wonderful to be home back with ... read more

The overnight traing from Chaing Mai to Bangkok last night was reallky quite luxurious - we didn't have to provide our own toilet paper or anything! We did drink all of the Thai wine that we had purchased, several beers, a liter of vodka and some rum.....And all of that before the night club (Yes - the train had a night club car!) opened at 9:00 p.m. We then went and danced - and Athena made new French friends. :-) We all slept relatively well - it was a much nicer train really. :-) Although squat toilets on a moving train make life very interesting. We got to Bangkok about 7:00 a.m. this morning to find our rooms weren't ready yet. No surprise there. So several of us went out to the weekend market and to ... read more

We've taken a public bus back to Chaing Mai where we were reunited with the rest of our luggage. :-) Ah, clean clothes! We've got a few hours before we board the over night train to Bangkok so I thought I'd drop a quick note before heading off on my own into town. Its tiring being with people contantly - I need some alone time. (the sign of a true introvert! - see and you were all fooled!) I'm weary of traveling from place to place and having to carry everything I need for a couple days at a time with me. It will be nice to get home and know I get to sleep in the same place for more than 2 nights in a row. However, if I hadn't been so sick before I ... read more

Okay....where did I leave off? Oh, yes. We'd arrived in Chaing Rai, done the home stay and boarded the farm tractors.... The tractors took us up into the hills as far as they could - then we got out and started walking. The first day was almost all up hill for about 14 km. We went up about 1300 feet to the first village. I was totally exhausted and reaffirmed my belief that I'm not really an outdoors person. I was so glad I hired a porter to carry my bag, I probably would have kissed him at the end. :-) We arrived at a sort of guest house at the first village. It had definitely been built for tourists and over looked the village rather than was inside it. it was almost luxurious - by ... read more

Okay...since last writing, I've been in Chaing mai. Took a nice long, hot shower - yeah!!! Put on the clean clothes that I bought and met the group at the trekking store where we rented sleeping bags, mats, etc. for the hike. I'm renting a porter too to carry my bags. Is renting the right word? Anyway...then we headed to the night market which was a teaming mass of people. Did some shopping for a few gifts, had fresh pad thai and wandered. Athena did all my negotiating for me so I was able to spend a little and get a lot. If my phrasiology is weird - blame the australians. We're starting to pick up things from each other... :-) We went back to the guest house and had a beer. Athena and Rachel ate ... read more

Well, in the last 36 hours, we've been very busy. We took a 3 hour truck ride in our lovely convertedpick up to Ayuthaya yesterday morning. We had lunch at Sherwood house - a guest house run by a British ex-pat. Its a combined guesthouse,restaurant and swimmingpool. Odd. Then we boarded a converted rice barge where we cruised down the river. We stopped along the way and went to an elephant conservatory. We got to feed the elephants - which was cool but messy. They seem to have very runny noses. I skipped the bike rideandlounged on the boat. We ate dinner on the boat and thenplayed board games. I went to bed early - am almost feeling human again. This morning, we got up early and made food offerings to the monks. We then took ... read more

Yesterday, we travelled by long boat, by rickshaw, public bus and did a fair amount of walking and landed at this quaint guest house called Apple's. But I'll get to that in a munite. We took the long tail boat from one side of Bangkok to the other stopping to see Wat Po and the largest reclining Buddha in thailand. If I can post pictures, i will.... :-) Then we took the boat throught his really interesting place - no idea what it was called - but it was all houses along these canals. The differetnce betweent eh shacks along the water in some places and the large western houses was fascinting - but unexplained. :-) Stopped for lunch (i'm already looking forward to pizza and a hamburger) and got on a bus and headed west ... read more