We woke up to the sun beating down through our windows.  Thailand seems to get hotter everyday.  After lathering our bodies in sunscreen (and bug spray) Sarah and I gathered together the Mae Kok kids and started to teach them bits and pieces of the English Language.  We taught them various phrases and answers from "what is your name" to "how is the weather" and basic directions.  It was mostly a makeshift lesson plan, since the dvd we were going to teach off of was for the most part a waste of time.  The dvd suggested the kids needed to learn phrases like "have you seen the news lately? No why? A young student committed suicide because of a broken heart."  Sentences, such as this one, didn't seem like the most pertinent information to supply to ... read more

The Mae Kok Foundation sits on several acres of land about 27km north of Chiang Rai, essentially its in the middle of no where. Its an incredible peaceful place, surrounded on one side by the Mae Kok river (across the river is the Mae Kok Elephant Camp). Despite the twenty-five children running around, its somehow extremely quiet as well. We spent the morning walking around the grounds, seeing everything from the soccer field to the girls' and boys' dormitories. At breakfast, the children introduced themselves to Sarah and I, in English. The childrens' English is limited, however its years ahead of my Thai (which is coming along) and helps us to communicate. In the spirit of the Songkran festival, we brought hoses and buckets of water up to the road (which was surprisingly busy today) and ... read more

Today was a hot day in contrast to yesterday's rainy and cold weather. The Songkran festival and the water fights last through the entire week, so we took the truck out to Chiang Mai again to join in the festivities. No one shivered today as the ice cold water was thrown haphazardly around, hitting everything from motorcycles and new borns to food vendors and the elderly. It was a hell of a day. There were so many people out, it took us 5 hours to get close to the main street lining the canal. We couldn't even see the amount of people, however what we could see was people hanging off temples and entire families on motorbikes as well as more than 15 people stacked on the back of pickup trucks filled with water. After the ... read more

Songkran (the water festival) also known as the Thai New Year, is the craziest of Thai holidays.  However, the first part of our day started our tame.  By paying a visit to our host's aunt, we fulfilled the first part of Songkran, honoring your elders.  Afterwards, an almost in an act of god, it started raining.  The downpour (coincidently during the water festival) hopefully offset the amount of water that people then  wasted on each other later in the day.  After the rain ceased, we jumped on the back of a pickup truck with buckets of water and super soakers.  On the 20min drive to the main city (3hr in heavy traffic) we were met with hoses, buckets of water and ice cold super soakers.  On a normal day in Thailand, the ice water would have ... read more

Among the top of the mountain, one hour northeast of Chiang Mai, sits Jungle Flight.  Here, we embarked on a 4 hour trip ziplining through 34 platforms and rapelling (or abseiling) down four different platforms with drops ranging from 20m to 40m (70ft-130ish).  The ziplines were fast, fun, and some were pretty long (about 180m or close to 600ft). Also included were canopy walks, which were a little over a half mile and about a hundred feet above ground.  The bridges were pretty rickety and the engineering looked unsafe at best, however we survived without the bridge breaking.  The end of the trip included an advertised 'happy ending' which ended up being the 40m abseiling down to the base camp.  Abseiling down was probably the most fun part as the 40m drop takes about 2 seconds ... read more

Well, the Songkran festival celebrations are certainly picking up.  Water fights frequent the main downtown area, mainly between tourists and local teenagers.  We definitely got attacked several times, fortunately the previous day I bought a new backpack with a waterproof covering to protect our computers and passports (not that mine is in good condition anyways...damn ocean).  After walking around the city this morning, visiting random shops, we decided to spend the majority of the day at the spa.  For 1200 baht, or about $40 we spend 3 hrs getting various thai massages.  Outside along the streets you can get massages for even less, about 120 baht for an hour (or $4).  We spent the rest of the day wondering around day 2 of the Walking Market.  Typically the market is only once a week, however, because ... read more

After a late night flight from Singapore, we're finally in thailand. We're staying with a friend of Sarah's brother (Robert) who runs a foundation for homeless/family-less children. The foundation itself is up in Chiang Rai (at the northern border of Thailand and Myanmar. For the next four or five days we are staying in Chiang Mai, the old capital of Thailand for the upcoming Songkran Festival (water festival), which in the words of a tour book is a mixture of Ibiza and a waterfall or Mardi Gras in a hurricane. A day ahead of the US, on sunday, we got a ride to the main city of Chiang Mai (we're staying in a suburb) and found ourselves in the largest local market ever. Held once a week (on sundays) from 5pm til midnight, the Walking Market ... read more

It was 3am when we stepped off the plane and after four when we cleared customs in the world's number one ranked airport (Changi, Singapore; pronounced Chang-hi).  With little to do at 4am (5am by the time we tried to sleep), Sarah and I took up a position on a couch in Terminal 2, only to be woken up shortly after by the Airport's reception opening.  Exhausted, but somehow awake, we managed to waste enough time to allow the rest of Singapore to open.  After taking the exceptionally clean (and cheap) subway system to downtown Singapore, we hitched a ride on one of the three 'hop on hop off' busses operating out of the rather small town.  To envision the entire country of Singapore, think of a tropical and clean Los Angeles county.  The tour bus ... read more

At 9:30am, the jet boat operator told us to strap ourselves tightly into our seat belts to ensure we don't go overboard.  The boat was small and at the front was the primary site of the coming action.  Late to arrive, Sarah and I were nestled in the second row, warmed by our waterproof parkas provided to us by the Rottnest Mega Blast ferry company.  Only lasting for about 20 minutes of roller coaster-like action, the jet boat provided us with transportation from Western Australia's Fremantle harbor to Rottnest Island.  Rottnest Island is considered by many to be the best part of Western Australia and after spending the entire day on amazingly beautiful beaches surrounded by no more than 2 seagulls and the occasional german tourist, I had a good idea why.  As part of the ... read more

Waking up in Bunburn and after visiting a couple of its many beaches, we headed north to Rockingham.  An island a couple km off the coast, Penguin Island was named for having over 2000 penguins living on the island.  However, you will see none of them walking around the island (it should have been called seagull shit island instead).  On the bright side, a conservation organization set up a viewing area for 10 penguins (called fairy penguins because they are so small).  We watched the penguins swim and feed for about a half hour in a small intimate setting that really allowed us to be within feet of the penguins (too bad we couldn't touch them).  After hanging around the beaches and hiking around seagull shit island, we headed back to Rockingham to enjoy one of ... read more