Yes, it's true. We were forced to purchase, and wear, balaclavas here in Thailand. The nights can get quite chilly in the mountains (about 5 degrees Celcius), and during our trek we were sleeping on plastic mats on bamboo with pretty much the thinnest sleeping bags I've ever seen for warmth. Luckily, they provided a few extra warm blankets for each of us at our "hotels" (bamboo huts with dried leaves covering the roofs). With balaclavas, extra blankets, sleeping bag, fleece coat, long underwear (MAN I'm glad I brought that!), pants, and two pairs of socks, I managed to have a [View Full Entry]

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Ugh, I hate it when I got for long periods of time without good blog updates, because then it makes it incredibly difficult to get up to speed when I finally get around to it! I just had a cappaccino, though (a totally unnecassary expense--I thought I'd cut those out?) so I'm caffinated and ready to go! Let's see... when I last wrote properly (before the slightly intoxicated Bangkok entry) we were still in Krabi, about to head to another island. Ko Phi Phi was a glorioius place--definitely my favourite island we've visited in Thailand. The main concentration of shops and [View Full Entry]

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I realize that it's been ages since I've last written and I have much to say about Ko Phi Phi (the internet, and everything else, was insanely expensive there and prevented updates until now) but I must tell you about our latest Bangkok adventures, first. Let me tell you, I hate Day Bangkok. It is most definitely the worst place on earth I have ever been. Now, granted, I have lived a very priviliged life and been to many amazing places so it isn't hard to rank at the bottom of my list, but there is no doubt that Day Bangkok [View Full Entry]

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Today was possibly my favourite day in Thailand, thus far. It was a great day where we saw great sights and met great people, and got some great pictures! All this greatness occurred at the monestary of Wat Tham Seua (also known as Tiger Cave Temple). We all slept in until 10am today, which is unusual for us. It WAS our latest night out in Thailand yesterday, but we never go out so that doesn't really mean much. After we finished sending e-mails last night we went to an Italian style place which had live music and tasty, tasty thin crust [View Full Entry]

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AGGGHHHH!!! I'd just been writing a GREAT blog entry for the past half hour, when the power went out here and I lost everything. Nooooo! I'm usually really good about saving my entries as I go, but for some reason I hadn't been tonight. Oh well, another life lesson learned. =) Speaking of life lessons, I forgot to hit "publish" after I finished last night's entry. Sorry about that. It was a terrible entry anyways so it doesn't matter that it's a day late. Today's was going to be way better, but now I've kind of lost my enthusiasm... Well, as [View Full Entry]

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Today was a wet, wet, stormy day. In fact, today's showers were probably the most extended time of rainfall we've seen on our trip. The rain didn't leave many activity options for us since beaches were out, but Derek and I did have our eye on a monastary which advertised a herbal sauna, so we decided that would be how we would spend our last day on this island. We've become fed up with paying so much everyday for transportation, so we decided to walk to Wat Po instead of take a songthaew. It took about an hour, but I was [View Full Entry]

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Happy Remembrance Day! Well, it was actually yesterday, for us. Derek, Mark and I held a moment of silence at 11:11am (OK, it was actually 11:12 because we lost track of time) while we were on the ferry to Ko Phangan. It was the first time in at least 6 years that I haven't been downtown at the cenotaph on the grounds of the legislature to lay the wreath on behalf of Scouts Canada, hand out programs of the event, or just mingle with veterans. I must say it was a lot harder to think of the suffering of the soldiers [View Full Entry]

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First, I went to Australia where the weather could change in an instant and you could see the huge storm clouds coming on the horizon and watch them sweep over you. I immediately thought the old expression "if you don't like the weather on the west coast, wait five minutes and it will change," no longer rang very true. THEN I came to the Gulf Islands here in Thailand, and I realized I hadn't seen anything! We can go from completely calm weather with no wind whatsoever to a huge gale with massive downpour (like, MASSIVE) complete with thunder and lightening, [View Full Entry]

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Well, now that I've got all you your attention... haha! OK, Derek doesn't actually have a new Thai girlfriend, but he got quite an offer for a good one night relationship =) We were just walking down this strip of outdoor bars at party central, Chaweng Beach, when this Thai prostitute started singing along (very VERY badly) to whatever song was coming out of the nearest bar. We tried to ignore her (or him??? you can never quite be sure here) and keep walking, but she grabbed on to Derek's arm and wouldn't let go, moaning in a whiny voice things [View Full Entry]

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Despite "Reet's" recent warning that I just got hardcore scammed (who are you, Reet? Do I know you?) things seem to be going well. Maybe we did get scammed into going to the particular agent that we did, but I'm glad that we did because everything is going really well. The bus we took was not a government bus, it was private, which did slightly concern me because I have heard lots of warnings about people going through the baggage and stealing from it during long bus rides (just as Reet said). However we kept all valuables on us as a [View Full Entry]

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