How many movies can you watch during a 28 hour travel day? Jodi writing......... Dan and I arrived home late Saturday night. We arrived at Pearson airport, much to our embarassment, sporting flips flops and shorts (well only Dan was foolish enough to wear shorts). The truth is you are not really keen to pack warm November wear in mid July...so there we were. It was really cold. Our first stop inside the domestic terminal was Tim Hortons. Dan was actually able to stomach two large coffees while waiting for our flight to Ottawa. It did help with the cold. Thankfully [View Full Entry]

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Laos, slow boat and sore bums! dan writing....so we have just returned into Thailand. Laos was a great experience, and an eye opener for sure. If anyone ever asks you to take a slow boat down the Mekong River, just say....I'm taking the bus! We endured our 16 hour boat ride, over two days, and decided boat trips with wooden benches are not for us. Call us picky or whatever, but you have to draw some lines in the sand! Jodi became the boat Police, as one traveller named her. This, due to Jodi scalding her over taking two of the [View Full Entry]

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Our hospital tour of Northern Thailand continues.... October 10: We have been in Chiang Rai for several days now and I am ashamed to say that I dont have many pictures to show for them. We seem to have caught some strange bug - perhaps while crossing swollen rivers filled with runoff (read: waste) waist deep? Today, we finally got ourselves to the hospital for some blood testing. We are really getting into the groove of visiting hospitals in Northern Thailand! Our blood tests confirmed that we did not have any dengue (there has been an outbreak) and the doctor told [View Full Entry]

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Pai and Treking to see Karen and Lahu villages Dan's entry......So we boarded our minivan packed to the hilts (11 in total) for our 3 hour drive to Pai. This drive is different from any other in that it encompasses half of the 1,800 turns from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son. Our total distance was only 140 kms, but our ribs and necks felt like 300! all the jossling really gets to you after a while. I wanted to take a video, but Jodi put the ixnay on that. Pai, is a tourist museum of sorts. It is a very [View Full Entry]

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So nice to have the trains running again After an eventful flight from Singapore to Bangkok on September 26 (I always classify having to adjust your flight path due to lightning as eventful - lightning is not beautiful at 30,000 ft!), we arrived in Bangkok. After spending the night, Dan and I made our way to the train station to buy 2nd class sleeper tickets for the 13 hour ride to Chiang Mai. We love Chiang Mai! We were feeling quite disappointed at having to rush back to Thailand after realizing we could not even afford one more night in Singapore [View Full Entry]

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Malaysia and Singapore....the two most built up countries in Southeast Asia Well, we arrived in Malacca, not quite too sure of our plans from then on. This was the beginning of something special (and expensive, relative to our budget). Jodi and I arrived wondering where we were going to stay, as usual, but ended up staying at the nicest place to date. We decided to treat ourselves to the Hotel Puri, which has been restored and was built in the 1800's. This place was great! We had a real bed, king size, and a shower that didn't wet the heck out [View Full Entry]

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After taking a night bus from Kuala Lumpur and a "fast boat" from Kuala Besut, we arrived in the Perhentian Islands on September 15. We spent 3 nights on the Perhentian island of Kecil. The Perhentian islands are a national park off the eastern coast of Malaysia - the beaches were beautiful, the sun was relentless, and the water was crystal clear. Dan and I went snorkelling and saw amazing sea turtles, barracudas, puffer fish, and many other colourful tropical fish. Dan also saw a shark at, aptly named, shark point. I also snorkelled here but avoided the shark - I [View Full Entry]

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The Lonely Planet describes Taman Negara National Park as "a buzzing, leech infested mass of primary forest" and though we avoided leeches due to the dry weather, the forest is definitely buzzing! The park is virgin primary rainforest which is over 130 million years old and in the more remote parts of the park are Malay tigers, Asian elephants, and Sun bears. We stayed in a nice hostel here called "The Yellow House" which had dorm beds in an AIR CONDITIONED room for only 10RM (just over $3). We were pleased to find resident geckos in our room as this always [View Full Entry]

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Kuala Lumpur....I needed this! So, now that we have arrived in Kuala Lumpur, I can definitely tell you that this is the cleanest city thus far. The people in Malaysia are very friendly, apparently forthcoming, and helpful. Jodi and I have needed a little rest and relaxation in a nice room so we have stayed the last couple of nights in a place called the Swiss Inn. It has a comfy bed, our own bathroom with cable TV, air con, the works. Needless to say we have watched three movies in our room, slept in till 9 (which is late when [View Full Entry]

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We did manage to arrive in Penang, Malaysia in one day from Koh Samui - but the journey had us in absolute stitches 20 hours after venturing out. We left our hotel at 6:10 in the morning and managed to flag down a minivan to the bus station on Koh Samui. We were able to quickly buy a bus ticket on a government bus to Hat Yai (in the very south of Thailand) which included our ferry ticket to Donsak. As we boarded the bus, we were feeling quite smug that we had avoided the trap of the tourist bus once [View Full Entry]

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