dylemma

After some much-needed recharge in Chiang Mai, Kent and I set off to the Chiang Mai TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand.. every bigish town has one) and explore our surround while we're at it. The old town of Chiang Mai, where we were staying, is a grid of wats and outdoor markets, and surrounded by a moat. The TAT office was dissapointingly unhelpful, but we did get bus scheduals to the Northern/Laos border towns, essential for the next leg of my travels. We walked back through town, and then Kent went off to do some computering and I wandered the streets around our guesthouse. Finally I stopped at the "Same Same Cafe" to read and chill out. Sidenote: I have realized up until this point, I haven't exactly been pointing out some of the normal phenomena ... read more

So as I left you all last time, Amy and Erin were leaving me. I thought it was to be the dawn of my adventure by myself. Ah, how wrong I was. Before they departed, we met up with Rebecca and Laura, and I decided to bunk with them in a tiny guesthouse off of Khao San. Rebecca, too, was set to leave the next morning, so my plan was to hang with Laura and make arrangements to begin my trek northward. I went with Laura to her and Becca's trusted travel agent. I was very wary after the whole Lidia catastrophe, but I decided to keep an open mind. I got the sense immediately that Serine, their agent, as a lady to be trust- she was down to earth, hip, and didn't once try to ... read more

LAST TIME, ON EMMA'S TRAVEL BLOG... We were leaving Krabi for the Islands... The bus ride didn't feel as bad as usual. At Surat Thani we took a ferry to Koh Samui. Samui is the biggest of the islands in this sweet little archipelago on the Pacific coast of Thailand. We arrived mostly without a hitch to bunglaows 10 steps from the beach. After a quiet evening of exploring the nearby town of Lamai (which makes me think of the "lanai" every time I think aboot it), we booked a sea kayaking tour for the next day. Sea Kayaking was awesome. The kayaks are quite different from what we're used to in Canada- you sit on them rather than in them. But, just being on the water and paddling got me totally nostalgic for rowing. I ... read more

After meeting up with Amy in Bangkok, the three of us boarded an overnight bus to Phuket, a small island on the SouthWest coast of Thailand. After a bus transfer and some waiting around, the entire took about 15 hours- most of which was spent napping or watching Pirates of the Carribbean. Out of Bangkok I was seated next to an Irish guy named Delwyn, who made good conversation and excellent eyecandy. "You know you're going to be in the North during monsoon season, right?" he asked. "Of course!" (which was true.) But that got me thinking about what "monsoon season" really meant, perhaps a telling omen of the days to come. The bus ride to Phuket from Surat Thani was absolutely breathtaking: imagine tiny, oddly shaped mountains covered in a carpet of moss and mist, ... read more