ashlee
ashlee Joined: October 21st 2004
Logged in: January 17th 2005
Logged in: January 17th 2005
Travel Blog Posts
Sunset in Pai
well jessie and i are back from our adventure in pai, where we rented motorbikes, sat in hot springs, went to some coffin caves and became certified in thai massage. it was nice to get away and pai is the perfect place to relax for a few days. there was some definite characters in pai, most of them being foreigners would been there for awhile running their own shops or yoga classes or whatever; mainly the town has a lot of foreign influence, but it's nice and easy to extend your stay there; which i did by three days. Thankfully only three days as many people apparently extend their stay by a few weeks! Damn school! The hot springs we went to were great, really hot, so hot that at the top i couldn't even put ... read more
Trish in Vietnam
Here i am back from vietnam with some pictures, hope you enjoy and that you all had great holidays! ... read more
Trish and I
SO Trish and I have arrived in vietnam - the country which only opened its doors to tourism in the late 80s - with a little cultural shock, a little overwhelmed by the abundance of motorsays and having to head into the mob of the them just to cross the street. but other than a few minor details here and there about us having relatively little clue about vietnam compared to what we know about thailand, things are going well. We headed out monday morning to halong bay, spent the afternoon and early evening on a boat around the islands and eventually made it to Cat Ba island where we spent the night in a pretty nice hotel. It was chilly and foggy but generally enjoyable. The islands were enough to make me relax and we ... read more
My Loy Krotong
so we just finished up loy krathong festival last weekend and there were many a time i felt my life could have been in potential danger and that was only on thrusday. it got really crazy on saturday but i decided to stay in for that. on thrusday alone in the area where we were there probably about a firework going off every second; some right at your feet, some beside you, some in the air. it was pretty crazy and i just kept saying how crazy it was. i eventually got to light off some fireworks of my own though and after a little to drink i accidently lit on off on my hand. it only hurt for a second and then i forgot about it. on saturday from my placem i could hear about ... read more
My Motosay
well, i've been back now from chiang rai for a couple of days now and i have to say there are some key differences between chiang rai and chiang mai. First, there is less traffic and pollution in chiang rai and thus i felt compelled to rent a motorbike at jess's encouragement. i only fell off it once but it doesn't really count because we were stopped. she just happened to get off when i wasn't prepared and the bike came toppling down on me and i came toppling down onto a nearby garbage can! and then as i tried to lift the bike off me with it still on i accidently revved the gas and was running down the street holding onto it! quite embarrasing and a lot of people were staring but after lunch ... read more
The village
i just got back from an Akha village in Chiang Rai and here are some pictures. Maybe i should fill in some details a bit. Similar to the situation in Canada , hill tribe people have somewhat of a minority standing here in Canada for several reasons. Most are not traditionally from Thailand and immigrated here as early as 30 years ago, due to such things are world war 2 , the vietnam war etc. They came from Burma, Laos, China and Vietnam. And as many came so recently to Thailand they do not have thai citizenship which makes them illegal squatters on land and affords them no rights when the government does such things as making a national park out of their village. So some common misconceptions of these people are that they are opium ... read more
The King
ok so far i've been here in chiang mai for about a month and three weeks.i'm starting to feel less and less like a stranger to this place and am somewhat fitting in. some of the food vendors on my street are starting to recognize me and it seems as though less people are staring. although that could be just me imagining and hoping that less people are staring. so here are some things i've picked up along the way. Thailand is a newly industrialized country due to an economic boom that happened in recent decades. There are many implications of this boom, mainly a huge level of deforestation (while the government has tried to keep at least 37% of the country forest in 1988 that number has been impossible to maintain) Thailand also has a ... read more
