The Adventures of Bean and Beeps

The Old Ballgame

2007-05-13T14:00:00.000+09:00

Koreans love their baseball. We went to a game at Olympic Stadium, and it was complete mahem. This was just an ordinary regular season game, but the fans made it feel like game 7 of the World Series. It was a blast. Enjoy the pics.

Not too long a wait...

2007-03-25T16:46:00.000+09:00

Hello all,

Everything in Seoul is pretty much the same. Our new classes are working out just fine, and I have actually enjoyed the change of scenery. My new classes are quite a bit less experienced so I find most of my time going over things like "Tom and Ann sat on a hat". With my old preschool classes I could have discussions and debates about the hidden meanings of more complex stories...now my stories don't have any words over three letters. Oh well, the new kids are cute, and are much better behaved than my last class.

My second new preschool class is a bit of a challenge. There are a couple of kids in the class that are complete train wrecks. One student named Steve (I taught his older sister in my old class) puts everything you give him in his mouth, another student named Helen cries at the drop of a hat, and the other named Phillip, doesn't listen to a word I say, and when he does want to answer, he doesn't raise his hand...instead he shouts at the top of his lungs..."PHILLIP...PHILLIP!" This boy will drive me to drink.

Correne kept one of her classes that she had last semester, and her new Homeroom class is pretty good. They were at SLP before, and now they are the smartest class in school. She is having some of the same problems that I had with my old class. They always talk over each other, and get really upset when they lose. So far they have responded to her really well, but sometimes the curriculum they have is too tough.

Her other class is only 5 students, but it is more like 10 if you count the demanding mothers. These kids are nowhere near the level they are being taught...but because the mothers wanted their kids to be doing the same books as the smart kids...the school had no choice. So Correne spends most of her day reading a book that is too hard, asking questions that are too hard, and writing in a Practice Book that the kids can't understand. Obviously she is frustrated.

On a more leisurely note...Correne and I have discovered the addictive time waster World of Warcraft. For those of you who d not know of what I speak. World of Warcraft or WoW as we will now call it, is an online video game set the land of fantasy (no how can you resist). It is so indepth and so much fun that we have to share the computer or it may lead to a divorce. So sometimes work isn't all bad if you have something to look forward to when you get home (uhh, other than the pleasurable company of my wife). You know what I mean.

Well, I'm afraid that's it for now. Drop us a line and let us know what is up with all of you who read this. Cheers.

Paul

PS. Here's a look out of our apartment window (the air looks cleaner than it really is)

Preschool Graduation

2007-03-05T23:32:00.000+09:00

Well this is probably the biggest news (and headache) we've had in the past few months. Last week our kids graduated from preschool. Unfortunately all the prep work required for this fiasco was not nearly as easy as writing the previous sentence.

For the past two months we have been practicing the graduation plays with our classes. This includes songs, choreography, hand actions, gently reminding the kids that their parents don't want to stare at their bums when they talk etc. etc. I'm assuming you get my drift. On top of all that we needed to first write the plays, in some cases write the songs, teach them all of this, make props and still cover all of the curriculum. In addition to this worry we still needed to prepare for the new preschool classes that were coming TWO DAYS after grad!! Oie Oie Oie.

If I ever hear the words "Teacher have you made my bow and arrow?" again from James I might just lose it!! The kids did not understand the concept of "Teacher doesn't have time sweety!!"

Luckily for us graduation went without a hitch... well mostly.

First the youngsters went. Even though Quality class (one of my classes) was not graduating they still had to put on a play. They performed the Ant and the Cricket. They were extremely cute, but it was a disaster. Richard forgot all of his lines (he's the one on the far left) which didn't suprise me because he usually has a vacant expression on his face during class so I don't think anything ever sinks in. Doyoung had some technical difficulties with his microphone (he's the one sitting down), plus he couldn't keep a straight face when he was supposed to be dead! By the end they cut the music short because it went so long.! Totally embarrassing! I think Becca and I were more upset than the kids. They were very "whatever" about the whole thing!

Paul had two graduating classes (Diligence and Belief) and I had one (Hope). All three of their plays went great!!

Hope class went first and I was so proud of them. They performed If a Tree Could Talk What Would It Say? (Is anyone reading this suprised that I picked that play??) Everyone remembered their lines, they were smiling, moving their hands, their songs were great (especially Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... it was a big hit) and they didn't talk with their backside to their parents. A teacher could not have asked for a better performance!

Next went Diligence class (Paul's homeroom). They also did a fantastic job. Paul's play was The Ugly Woodpecker, a spin on The Ugly Duckling. Everyone in the class has a great time doing the play, especially when they performed Hit the Road Jack! A couple of the kids forgot that their mics were on the whole time and decided to hold side conversations... but luckily it got a good laugh from the audience. Unfortunately we don't have a picture of them on stage because my kids went right before Paul's and I was occupied changing my kids into their graduation gowns.

The last play out of our kids was from Belief class (Paul's second class). They did The Nightingale and the Rose. They also did a great job! Their songs were fantastic and all the girls were excited about their big beautiful dresses. Sabrina caused some laughter because she kept speaking everyone else's lines under her breath not realising her microphone was on! Charlie (the guy in the shiney purple pants!) was supposed to be "the handsome young man", but he looked more like a matador. It was awesome!

To be honest most of the costumes were not suited to the roles they were playing but the kids were content to be wearing something fun that didn't belong to them!

Well that's graduation in a nutshell. It was a long, tiring, fun day, but we got through it and we're glad that we were apart of it.

No... We're not dead...

2007-03-05T23:27:00.000+09:00

Okay, okay, okay... I know its been a while, but to be honest we weren't even sure anyone still read this. After some gentle nudges via email from our friends we have realised that we really are neglecting our blog! In other words... WE SUCK!

We'll do better in the future... i.e. Paul will stop writing blogs (just kidding honey I still love you).

Its safe to say that we aren't going to write anything more about our China trip. That boat has clearly sailed. If you want to know more details just drop us an email and we can gladly fill you in. Also, we did post all the pictures on our photo album so please check those out.

So what's new with us you ask? Well... not much. We do the same thing pretty much everyday, hence the lack of blog entries. The most exciting news would be preschool graduation which will be covered in its own post (which will be done right after this!)

Thank you to everyone who still reads this. We appreciate that you are still interested in our mundane quasi-Korean lives.

Christmas in China

2007-01-03T20:48:00.000+09:00

Hey Hey to all of our friends and family,

Well, last year for Christmas we were in Thailand, and we were more than happy to continue the trend this year in China. Granted we missed friends and family, but it was pretty cool to see Beijing. China has been pretty high on my list of places to see, so I was thrilled when we got the opportunity. It is not often that it is only a two hour plane ride.

We left for the airport on Saturday (Dec. 23rd) morning at a ridiculous hour after only about three hours of sleep. Our school had its Christmas party the night before, and we made the very wise decision of going to the Casino after the party. That being said I almost wished for a longer flight so I could have slept longer on the plane.

As we were flying into Beijing, you couldn't help but notice the multicultural skyline. And by multicultural, I mean blue sky followed closely by a thick brown haze of pollution. I never thought Seoul air would smell so fresh.

We arrived in Beijing and did not do much the rest of the day. We met up with some other teachers that were flying in a little later, and then we arranged a trip to the Great Wall, and three shows...an acrobatic show, a Kung-Fu show, and an Opera. That night we took it easy because we knew every day after that was going to be an up at dawn all day adventure.

We did not expect to be so cold in China. We were watching the weather network, but we did not expect that the major source of heat for most places would be coal bricks. These bricks do not exactly heat up a big room, so most of the time at the guesthouse was spend in our jackets and gloves. Because the guesthouse was taking us to most of our trips, we often ate at the guesthouse restaurant. Good food, but man it was cold!

Day One

Our first day we took the public bus to the Forbidden City and Tienimen Square. These two landmarks are seconds away from each other, so it was very easy to spend an entire day here. Tienimen Square was a little moving. So much violence happened there and so much history that sometimes you have to stop and think of what you are walking on. The Chinese government goes to such lengths to ignore what happened there that there are no memorials, no plaques, no nothing. Even the Internet is censored...if you type Tienimen Square in Google, you will not get any results that offer any history. The Forbidden City was really nice...huge, but nice. The buildings were really nice and the architecture is amazing. I love being in a place with such history. You really feel special when you can touch something as simple as a brick that was layed down by another person so long ago. This was a good day, and we still has an acrobatic show after dinner.

The acrobatic show was really cool. I cannot believe how these guys can flip around and land on something as small has a piece of bamboo. We saw a fantastic display of strength and agility. Of course the theatre was being heated by coal bricks so I apologize if some of the pictures are blurry...I has my gloves on.

Check out some pictures in the album. We will write about day two a little later...stay tuned.

Paul

Seoul Tower

2006-12-11T16:53:00.000+09:00

A little while ago, Correne and I visited Seoul Tower. It is a fairly large attraction in Seoul, so we figured we should check it out. It is very high above the ground because it is built on top of a mountain. There is a very large walking trail around the tower that we had the pleasure of walking because we got lost. Our plan was to take the tram up to the top of the mountain, but instead we walked for over an hour just looking for the stupid thing. After a while, we finally agreed that we were not going in the right direction. We headed back down the hill, and found the tram. We went into the park at the wrong point. If we had just walked for another two minutes we would have found the tram right away. Oh well, I could use the exercise. It all worked out. Because of our delay, we got to the top of the tower in time to see the sun set. It was reallt beautiful. The city is so huge, and so polluted. You can see everything from this vantage point, and unfortnately, that also means you are eye level with the brown haze that floats over the city.

Despite the detour, and the smog, the view was actually very nice. I have made a Seoul Tower folder in the photo album, so be sure to check it out.

I will be adding some more photos of the school from our recent field trip to the Children's museum. Stay tuned.

Cheers,
Paul

It's about time

2006-12-02T10:26:00.000+09:00

I know, I know... that's what all of you are thinking. Well the hell have these two been? Well not much has changed. We're still in Korea and still working really really hard. As usual, I have started writing a blog with no time available, but Paul will do an entry about our trip to Seoul Tower (which was a couple of weekends ago). Until then... here is a new picture of us... we took it this morning so its nice and recent!

We will also update our photos with the Seoul Tower pics. We're already started ordering Holiday gifts so if you get a package please don't open it!

We love you all and we'll write more soon!

Trick or Treat

2006-11-01T21:18:00.000+09:00

Well, although Korea as a whole doesn't celebrate Halloween, because we are an English school...we do. Correne and I went out on the weekend to try and find something resembling a costume. We went to the popular foreigners area known as Itaewon hoping to find something. We came upon this little shop where Correne was able to find a witches hat. She had some clothing that she brought that is a little medieval like, so the witches hat simply completed the outfit. As for me, I wore my Vietnam soccer jersy, shorts, hiked up socks, and a big red afro wig I bought from the shop. We will try and post some pictures if we can get are hands on some.

We spent the first period with our homeroom carving a pumpkin, and walking through a haunted house. It was a classic haunted house with grapes for eyeballs, spaghetti for worms, etc. The kids thought it was neat, and that's all that matters. During second period, we all got on a bus and went to COEX (the main mall in our area). There we were met by mothers and grandparents who handed out candy to the kids. These kids got so much candy in about a ten minute span, it made our night long trick or treating look pathetic. That's Korean efficiency at its best.

Some of the costumes were really cute, and the kids seemed to have a good time. Jenny, our supervisor came around to the classes during lunch and told the kids that they were not allowed to eat any candy until they got home. So here we are sitting in a class with a bunch of seven year olds with bags of candy telling them they can't eat any. Talk about cruel. All it took was me threatening to take everyone's candy away if one person had any for my class to understand.

I am a moron and forgot to bring the camera, so if I can get my hands on some of the pictures taken by other teachers, I will be sure to post them. We hope everyone else had a nice Halloween. We all know you bought enough candy for 100 kids knowing full well you would only have about 20...it's ok we all do it.

Later,

Paul

Goodbye Ho Chi Minh City!

2006-10-08T00:25:00.000+09:00

** I started writing this while in Vietnam and finished in Korea **

I can't believe that this week is almost over. In less then ten minutes we will be in a cab heading for the airport. Our time here was short, but good. I wish that I could have seen more and had more time to really experience the country and the city we were in. I felt rushed - get as much done in four days as you can. I would have liked a chance to sit down and relax, but when you only have four days you have to make them count.

I think both Paul and I thought that Vietnam would be like Thailand and we were definitely wrong in that opinion. I guess that's why so many people think Canadians and Americans are the same. One word - ignorance. Although the outward appearance of this country is similar to Thailand, the people, the history and the food are completely different. Although the people spoke more English, they weren't as friendly. Not to say they were mean - not at all, just detached.

The history - well we all know the history. But for the first time in my life I saw it from the perspective of the people of Vietnam. It tells a very different story then the one I remember from history class. The Vietnamese people are extremely proud of their life, their choices and their army. The war was devastating to this country and to see how well they survived it and moved past it is inspiring. The war museum was one of the best places we visited. Although the images were graphic and horrible, I think they were necessary to understand the scope of the war. Seeing people who survived Agent Orange, or looking at the face of a dead man who had just been murdered by an American Soldier are not images I will soon forget. I am glad that I went there. It made me appreciate life and the country I was visiting so much more.

DAY ONE

One our first day we did a recommended walking tour of the city. Walking around the city was INSANE! They have the worst drivers in the entire world (and they admit it). At any given time it is estimated that there are over 3 million motorbikes on the streets of HCMC every day. Red lights mean nothing and people just drive all over the place. Pedestrians do not have any rights what so ever and they simply fling themselves into traffic hoping to come out alive on the other end. It was extremely stressful. Other then the walking part, the tour itself was great.

Our first stop was the war museum (described above), where we experienced our first Vietnam rain. The sky just opened up and poured for about thirty minutes. Then it stopped completely. It was so strange, but it broke the humidity so I didn't mind too much. Our next stop of Notre Dame Cathedral which was beautiful. The architecture was amazing. It was so interesting to see a church like this smack dab in the middle of a Buddhist country. Right across the street was the post office which was constructed during the French occupation. This shows through the design and architecture of the building as well. Both building were well worth the visit.

After more walking we stumbled upon a zoo/botanical gardens. Outside of the gates there was a political protest going one. We're not sure what they were protesting, but a local stopped Eva from taking pictures so we decided not to risk it. They are very guarded when it comes to politics (for good reason!) We decided to visit the zoo and it was great. The gardens were beautiful and well maintained. I have always had mixed feelings about zoos and this one was not as nice as the ones in North America. Although their variety of wildlife was impressive, I got the distinct feeling they weren't treated as well as they should have been.

The last stop was the impossible to find Jade Emperor Pagoda. After almost seven hours of walking we were almost going to give up, when we finally stumbled upon it. The energy in the building was very cool, but it wasn't as impressive as we were lead to believe.

DAY TWO

On our second day we went on a one day tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels and a Cao Dai Temple. In the morning we visited the temple which in the worlds of religions is a very new one. It is a combination of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. We were able to witness a ceremony, which was very beautiful.

Our next stop was the Cu Chi Tunnels. They were dug out of the VC army during the war and used to travel undetected through the jungle to attack American soldiers. The energy here was so intense. In all my life I have never felt so much hostility and death. So many people died on the grounds we were walking on that it was overwhelming to think about it. The tunnels were a perfect military tactic. Unless you knew where the entrances were you would never know they existed. The VC could hide or ambush at any time. They were also able to set traps or bombs as well. Although these people were not nearly as well equiped (they fought in rubber sandals!!) they still won. Part way through the tour there was a shooting range where for $1 a bullet you could shoot a wide selection of guns - from AK47's to M16's. I've never heard a gun shot before in my life and I didn't realise how loud it was. It was disturbing how many people were eager to shoot these guns after witnessing the tunnels and the traps. Paul had no interest and neither did I. Ivan on the other hand was so excited I would have thought him a kid in a candy store. There was a family there who let their children try these guns. Strange, strange, strange. Our guide let us go through the tunnels, but they were so small and narrow that Paul and I opted out. It was a one way trip. The tunnel we 50 meters long and it was way too narrow to turn around so if you wanted to go, you had to go all the way. I would have totally freaked out, so even though I would have liked to say I went through the Cu Chi tunnels I am glad I didn't.

DAY THREE

We decided to sign up for another one day tour. This one took us in the opposite direction (south) and allowed us to experience the Mekong Delta. The tour was very touristy, but for $12 I certainly won't complain. Once arriving in the small village of Ben Tre we took a boat to one of its many islands - Unicorn Island. There we got to taste honey tea made from honey farmed right there on the island. We also got to sample local fruits (which was fantastic). While we were there Paul tried Snake Wine (basically a bottle of alcohol with a big cobra in it). I still can't believe he did it!!

Next we took a row boat ride down the Mekong River, which was by far the best part of the tour. The scenery was beautiful and it was so completely relaxing. I could have stayed there all day. Next we were back on the boat and on our way to a Coconut Candy factory... yummy. We got to see how locals make the candy and of course we got to sample them. It's probably the only time in my life I will ever get to see candy made and packaged by hand. We stopped for lunch and a bike ride around the village and then we were on our way home. Instead of taking a bus back we actually took a three hour boat ride back to HCMC. Not my favorite (or Paul's favorite) part of the tour. By the end of the ride Paul was not feeling well and as it turns out this would only be the beginning.

DAY FOUR

I spent much of this day by myself. Paul stayed in the room because he was too ill. We took it easy mostly. We started the day by visiting an Old Propaganda Poster shop, which was really cool. I walked away with three posters myself. We then went back to the guesthouse to pick up Paul and go shopping at a market that was close by. Similar to Thailand this market had everything from food to luggage. The selection wasn't as nice, but we still managed to come away with a few good deals. Paul went back to the guesthouse and Ivan, Eva and I went out for Pho, a local favorite. It's basically noodle soup, but it’s what the country is known for so we had to try it. Other then being a tad oily, it was really good :)

Our last stop of the trip was Reunification Palace. It is preserved almost as it was on that day in April 1975 when the Republic of Vietnam ceased to exist (the very thing that thousands of Vietnamese and Americans died for). This building has a lot of important history so I would recommend googling it. After that we went back to the guesthouse, showered, ate, packed and that's when I started writing this entry.

I know this is probably the longest entry you have ever seen, but I did have to pack four days of information in it. I hope you enjoyed it. We will be updating the photo album eventually. Love to you all and I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Peace Out.

Good Evening Vietnam!

2006-10-05T21:39:00.000+09:00

Hello, hello. I can't write anything long because we are waiting for Eva and Ivan so we can hunt down some dinner for the evening. I wanted to be able to say that we have updated our blog from Vietnam and now we have.

They just arrived, so I've got to go. Will write more later.

We're off

2006-10-03T12:22:00.000+09:00

Well today is day one of our Chusok vacation. Our friends Eva and Ivan should be here soon and in less then 8 hours we will be on a plane to Vietnam. We are both really excited about this trip. Paul and I were disappointed when, due to financial reasons, we couldn't visit Vietnam and Cambodia when we were in Thailand last year. We will only be in Ho Chi Min City for four days, but we're excited none the less!

We will do our best to do a blog entry from Vietnam, but as I just mentioned we will not have a lot of time there. We will take lots of photos and we will update our photo album with a Vietnam folder.

We hope every back home has a great Thanksgiving and we will talk to you all soon.

Love

Bean and Beeps!!

Ring Ring Ring Ring....

2006-09-28T08:40:00.000+09:00

BANANA PHONE!!!

If he wasn't such an inspiration for children I would be cursing Raffi right now!

Paul and I have had kid's songs stuck our heads for the past two days. I'm currently doing reaserach for my open classes next month (the classes when the mom's sit in and watch). Jenny has requested that I do a "skit" for quality class (the one with Gilbert in it)... yeah right. But what the boss says goes, so I will try. I think I'm going to do a "down by the bay" thing... I'll keep you posted.

I also had to find a song for the birthday party. One of my kids has a birthday in October which means my class has to perform a song at the birthday party. After listening to many kid's songs I went with "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story. It's not easy finding a song that hasn't been done in the last year or so.

Things are pretty good with us. I'm still sick, so I'm going to head to the doctor's today for more drugs. I just can't seem to kick this cough and since we're leaving for Vietnam in less then five days I really want to get rid of it.

That's about it from us. We will try and write before we leave for Vietnam! And if you've never listened to Raffi's Banana Phone song, you've got to... it's fantastic!! (insert sarcasim here)

....

Click here to listen to Banana Phone (scroll down...)
http://www.amazon.com/Bananaphone-Raffi/dp/B0000003HW

One Day Weekend

2006-09-17T13:16:00.000+09:00

Well, we went to work on Saturday to be judges for the SLP Speech Contest. This contest is a huge deal for the kids, the parents, and most of all the school. It is essentially a showcase of talent, and a representation of how well the students are being taught at SLP. The winners of this contest go to the big contest competeting against other schools. The auditorium was full of parents watching their kids perform. Overall, I would say that it went very well.

It was fun being a judge. We got to ask each student a question to see how their conversation skills have developed...you know like "what is your favourite season?" or "what was the socialist movement that defined realism in the late 18th century?" You know easy stuff like that.

It is a lot of pressure for a seven year old to get up on stage, speak into the microphone, and then answer four questions from judges. It seemed to go really well, and the school was pleased. We did get paid to judge...which was nice, but I probably would have gone anyway to see some of my students perform.

After a while it did get pretty exhausting. If I hear the story of the Little Red Hen one more time, I am going to snap.

Other than that, everything is pretty much status quo around here. Hockey for me is a real nice treat. Next week we have a BBQ and a tournement. Should be fun. I am getting back into much better shape, and I can already feel a difference on the ice.

We are having a good time. Everything here is pretty good. Sometimes the language barrier can be frustrating, but it is part of the experience. I was explaining to John that the barrier is different from when you are on vacation. When you are on vacation, you have trouble explaining where you want to go to the taxi driver, here you have trouble everywhere...the bank, the post office, the phone company, the gas company...whole new ballgame. But once you manage to commuincate and solve your problem...there is a bit of a rush, and a sense of accomplishment. It's funny, in a country so concerned with learning English, it sometimes seems hard to find.

Two more weeks until we are off to Vietnam. It will be nice to travel again. We are going with Ivan (from Ireland) and Eva (from America), and we should have a great time. We will be sure to set up a Vietnam folder on our photo album so you can see what we saw.

Let us know how you guys are doing too.

Paul

SLP Speech Contest

2006-09-16T09:24:00.000+09:00

This is a prelude to what will be a longer and more detailed blog. Our apologies for not writing sooner. Sometimes its hard to think of things to write when you do the same thing everyday :) Not much is new. We leave for Vietnam in about two weeks and we are both very excited. It should be a great trip - if it stops raining there!

As for the title of the blog. Today is the 6th Annual SLP Speech Contest. A VERY big deal for the student and an even BIGGER DEAL for the parents. We've been preparing the kids for the speeches for the last month and today is the big day. There has already been a prelimiary round to narrow it down to today's contestants. Today we will be picking five students from each age category to go to SLP headquarters to compete. Paul and I have signed up for judges. It is a longer day then we expected (10:40am-5pm), but apparently they are paying us for it (since it is Saturday). We will write more about the outcome later.

Talk to you soon.

P.S. Please drop us an email if you want to set up a voice/video chat on MSN.

Crikey

2006-09-05T00:28:00.000+09:00

The world of environmentalism and animal rights has suffered a great loss today. Paul and I were in the teacher's room today when we found out about the death of Steve Irwin (more commonly known as The Crocodile Hunter).

I always thought it was ironic that he was nicknamed the Crocodile Hunter, since what he chose to do with his life was so very opposite of that title. Although most people knew about him through his television show and his risk-taking type lifestyle, both Paul and I were always more interested in his efforts to save the planet... in his own way.

I'm sure that those efforts will continue to live on in his memory. His wife is also extremely active in the environmentalism front.

Times like this always make me think of one of my favourite quotes.

"You can't change the world, but you can make a dent."

I imagine he made quite a dent.

I'm no Picasso

2006-08-30T22:13:00.000+09:00

This is the latest in my long line of school art projects. My kids needed new "Captain" name tags so here they are. What do you think?

Everyday one of the students in every preschool class gets to be "Captain" for the day. Basically that means they do whatever you want them to and for some reason they LOVE this. I need water in the class, the Captain gets it. I need help bringing the lunch dishes back to the kitchen, the Captain helps. There are some perks to the position. The Captain is always first in line for the bathroom and for receiving lunch. Plus they get to wear a nifty name tag and who wouldn't want that.

Wouldn't it be nice if adults were so easy to please?

End of Month Shuffle

2006-08-24T14:59:00.000+09:00

My title does not lie. We have been told that we write too much in our blog. All I have to say to that is... too bad :) I figure it's better to write often then to be accused of not keeping in touch. I will do my best to make this entry "skimable". (I know I probably made up that word, but now that I'm a "teacher" I feel I have earned the right!!)

As I may have already mentioned, the end of the month at SLP is a time for report cards, class syllabi, class schedule changes and phone teaching. Needless to say it has been a very busy week. Paul and I are ahead of the game and have completed everything already, but many of the teachers are scrambling to finish everything in time (or late as it were). I have never seen so many teachers stay late or hang out in the teacher's room. Computers are rare and now they are actually being used for work! Since I am finished everything I have the pleasure of sitting back and watching the mad rush. It's highly amusing. I'm trying not to laugh, because I imagine one month I will find myself in the same situation.

Today was my last "art" activity class with Glory class. Next month I have been reassigned different activity classes. I am very happy about this. Although I am an artistic person and love to draw, convincing a bunch of seven year olds to draw giraffes is not my idea of fun. Especially when four of them are boys and would much rather be drawing things exploding.

One of the teachers today said "this job is making me reconsider my love for children." I think that is sad. Before she took this job she believed she loved kids and now that she is with them 6-8 hours a day she has changed her mind. For me this experience has done the opposite. Before teaching at SLP I had no idea what to do with children. Everytime one came up to me I had no idea what to do or say. Now, after being thrown into a classroom (almost literally), I can say that I have developed a new found appreciation and love for kids (well Korean kids). So far this has been a great move for Paul and I. I am excited to see what the next 11 months will hold.

Until next time...

Another Weekend in Seoul

2006-08-19T10:39:00.000+09:00

Tempus fugit.

I can't believe it. We've now officially been employees of SLP for one month. The August session is almost finished (one more week) and then we start the September session. Each session is four weeks long and all of the curriculum is centred around that four week period. The actual months and the sessions never quite line up so it can get confusing, but we're getting a handle on it.

Not too much is new. Work is going fairly smoothly. Paul and I are now trying to learn how to do report cards and phone teaching so we can finish up the session. I did my first batch of report cards yesterday and it was pretty easy. I love computers!! The whole system is computerized for the afternoon classes so basically you have to find you class, enter their marks, write a few comments, hit save and then you're done :)

Phone teaching is a whole new world of fun (do you sense my sarcasm??) Each month you are required to call you students at home and ask them five questions related to the topics you are discussing in class. Once you get them on the phone things go fairly smoothly, but the trick can be getting them on the phone. Nine times out of ten it is someone else who picks up the phone. And about 99% of the time that someone does not speak English. These two facts can sometimes make it difficult to get the kid on the phone, but heck, its fun trying!!

Oh I forgot to mention. As of yesterday we were no longer the newest teachers at the school. Lisa arrived from Nova Scotia Thursday night and her first day of work was Friday. I'm not sure when she will actually start teaching, but its nice not being the newest kid on the block anymore.

And one last note before I go. We finally got a webcam :) So we can now upgrade our voice chats on MSN to video chats! Woo Hoo.

Paul's Class

2006-08-17T17:05:00.000+09:00

Not much really to say. As much as the work can be frustrating, and the hours can be long...the kids are worth it. (from left to right) Meet Mindy, Bill, Cindy, Brian, David, Dan, and Paula. This is my homeroom class. They are very smart, and can be a little tough to handle sometimes. It is hard for me to be stern with them, but it does make it easier to control the class when they know who is boss. There are times, however, to have some fun.

Correne's Class

2006-08-11T19:24:00.000+09:00

Hello, hello! This is my homeroom class. I see them everyday from 9:40am until 11am for class and I also serve them lunch at 12:40pm.

I will introduce from the top row, left to right!

Julie, Leo, Donald, Rob, Sabina, Alice YR, Ellen and Grace.

We were missing one student today. Her name is Alice JE. I think she went camping for the weekend so she was absent today.

They are a great class and from what I hear fom other preschool teachers, I am pretty lucky. Donald is a little trouble maker and I bet you can tell that from looking at him! Julie is very sweet, but she has a lot of trouble reading. Ellen is quiet, but brilliant. Sabina is very very shy, but I'm working on it. Leo is extremely introverted and he never smiles (you can even see that in the picture). He looks miserable all the time, but whenever I ask him "how are you today?" he says that he is super happy, so I don't really know what to do. Grace is a sweet girl and her writing is great! Alice YR works hard and her printing skills are all very good.

I have a lot of fun with them. It's amazing how smart they are. They know more of two languages then I do, so for that I admire them. They are all 6 years old (Korean age... which makes them 5 in Canadian age). They are at school five days a week from 9:40 am until 2:20 pm. They spend the whole time learning English and they are not allowed to speak Korean at school at any time!

Lunch time with them is both trying and a blast. Korean table manners leave much to be desired so I spend a lot of time reminding them to chew with their mouths closed (which is not a common practice among ANY Koreans). I also work on their pleases and thank yous. But its fun to have a stress free hour in which I just enjoy my lunch with some great kids.

That's it for that class. Paul will be doing a blog sometime soon about his classes as well. I hope to update with my 11:20 am class because you will all know why I've come back home with premature grey hairs!!!

I hope this blog finds everyone well. Please email us and let us know how you are doing.

Peace and Love!

Back to Work

2006-08-09T21:02:00.000+09:00

Well, after only one week of actual work (not training), we enjoyed the sights, sounds, and smells of Seoul. All other teachers with the exception of a few went in other directions for the vacation, so we were on our own for the most part.

We took the weekend to relax and try and let all the information we have been receiving soak in. We spent Saturday night with four other teachers, and went out for a traditional Korean dinner. Correne was of course, served rice and vegetables, while the rest of us ate spicy chicken. "Paul likes spicy chicken." We also explored an artsy area of Seoul. This area is called Incedon, and has tons of galleries, shops, and places to eat. Three of those teachers were on their way to Singapore on Sunday, so we called it an early night.

The weather here is so hot, that most days were just way too hot to walk around. Not that it stopped us, but it did make it a little tough. We saw one temple, two palaces, and some tombs. Check the photo album for pictures. It is pretty cool to be able to see this stuff on your days off. We explored the temple and tombs with Andrea (from Halifax), and the palaces with Ivan (from Dublin). We had a good time, but in a way missed the school. I guess we haven't been there long enough to be dreading the first day back after vacation.

That's it for now, check out the photo album, and let us know how you are all doing.

Lates

Paul.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N-!-!

2006-07-30T12:00:00.000+09:00

Hello, hello! This is officially our second weekend in our new apartment. The big difference is now its clean :)

We have one week of work under our belt and two things have struck us. One... how quickly the time is going by here. It's hard to believe that we've been in Seoul for over three weeks now. And two... how much work it is. The kids are great, some of the teachers are great, but the workload and the learning curve is definately taking its toll. I know that with time we will become more efficient, which will make our lives much easier, but the time being... its hard work. Luckily both Paul and I are used to working hard, so we are able to stay pretty positive while we are at school.

Strangely enough we are having our first week of vacation this week. SLP (our school) closes its doors for two full weeks in the year. Once in the summer (starting July 31st) and once in December for Christmas. So even though we don't really need a vacation right now, its nice that we are able to spend it together. We have yet to receive our first paycheque so our one week's holidays will be pretty low key and cheap. Not to mention, if you want a flight out of Korea you have to book months in advance because they only have three or so airlines that fly out of Korea so flights book up really quickly. So for this weeek we are thinking of touring around Seoul with the other new teacher Andrea (she's from Halifax). She arrived one week after we did and she won't have anything to do for a whole week, so we thought we would spend some time together.

For the winter vacation we are thinking about Cambodia, so I guess we better get booking. There is also a period of 6 or 7 days in October in which the school is closed (some sort of national holiday I think), so we might book something for that week as well. It's hard to think about that kind of stuff when you are still trying to figure out simple things like where do I put my garbage bags? or where is the nearest grocery store? etc. etc.

Well that's about it for now. We will write more about our adventures in Seoul this week. Take care everyone and hopefully we'll see you on MSN!

Woo Ha

2006-07-25T19:29:00.000+09:00

Hello all. I apologize for the delay in our post. We finally moved into our new apartment and we did not have internet until this evening. So what to write about????

THE MOVE

Although we are both extremely happy to be in a place of our own - no roommates or living out of suitcase - the move was anything but smooth. We moved into an apartment that was previously housed by two teachers at SLP - Mark and Scott. We had heard rumours that they were not the cleanest of people, but both Gene and Jenny reminded them on Friday to clean so we were keeping our fingers crossed. We didn't have access to our apartment until past 2pm ( I guess the boys like to party!) At first glance things did not look so bad, but upon further inspection we were both disgusted at the state of the apartment. Our first instinct was the call Gene, but we soon found out that it was useless. All he said was "sorry, there is nothing I can do." How wonderful!

We will post before and after photos on our Yahoo photo album!

Every surface that could be cleaned needed to be cleaned and badly. Inside cupboards, outside cupboards, the fridge (inside and out), sweeping and washing floors, bathroom floor, tiles, toilet, all the dishes etc. It was horrible. To make matters worse the kitchen sink was clogged so we had to wash everything in the bathroom! To clean, rearrange the furniture and unpack took over 12 hours. We finally hit the sack at 3 am on Saturday morning. We were both glad that we had worked so hard the day before so we could semi-relax on Sunday. We spent the last day of our weekend relaxing and grocery shopping.

FIRST DAY OF WORK

We arrived nice and early on Monday morning with butterflies in our stomachs. The room where the mother's can watch their kids was so full that there were people standing outside the room. We knew that we had a audience and that made the case of the nerves much worse! Once I entered the classroom I completely forgot about the fact that people were watching. When I spoke to Paul later he told me that he felt the same way. The hardest part of the classes was monitoring time. Instead of the typical "running out of the time", I actually found that the class went too quickly and I had extra time on my hands. I am already adjusting my syllabus to remedy this situation.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Unlike what most people think, I believe that this job is going to be a lot of work. We are already pulling 9-10 hour days. Part of this is because we are new and we have yet to discover a more efficient way to complete the work, but part is that there is simply a lot of prep work to do for each class. Here is what a typical preschool morning schedule looks like for Monday-Friday....

9:40 - 11:00 am PRESCHOOL HOMEROOM

11:00 - 11:20 am SNACK BREAK (Teachers get a break as well)

11:20 - 12:40 am SECOND PRESCHOOL CLASS

12:40 - 1:20 am LUNCH (Preschool teachers serve lunch to their homeroom class - not included in our 21 classes a week)

1:20 - 2:20 pm ACTIVITY CLASSES (We teach an average of 3 classes per week - not included in our 21 classes a week)

We are required to teach 21 classes per week at 80 minutes each. As you can see we only cover 10 hours with our preschool schedule. We are VERY BUSY people. But once you get a routine down and become more efficient, it seems that most teachers are only working their 40 hours a week. Time will tell.

Well that's it for now. I will post those photos right after this. Drop us a line and let us know how you are doing!

Lost in Translation

2006-07-17T13:36:00.000+09:00

I didn't realize how much the weekend would help us to relax and absorb all of the information we've been receiving over the last week. It's actually a long weekend as well, so we got three whole days of "do nothingness". Just how I like it.

We did go into work on Saturday for a couple of hours. We managed to get more work accomplished and more questions answered in those two hours then we normally do in one day during the week. I think as long as we maintain a go with the flow attitude we will be just fine. The schedule (or lack there of) is frustrating, but I can understand it at the same time. The 24th (our first official day) is the start of a new session at the school and also the start of something called Intensives (I'm still not 100% what they are). But what it means for us is that everyone in the school is getting a new schedule, not just us, so it makes sense that things are always changing. Plus another new teacher just arrived on Thursday so they have to find classes for her as well. Hectic is an understatement when you have 900 students and 20 odd teachers. CRAZY!

I think us Westerners are used to most things being in a orderly fashion and Korean people just don't do it that way. I imagine if a Korean native was being trained in Toronto they would have trouble understanding our way of things. Plus, I think we all know that things never quite go as planned.

Next week we get to teach one of our classes with Jenny and the old teacher watching. Although we will both we nervous, I think it is a great opportunity to learn as well. I will welcome any suggestions they have since I have never taught children before.

Enough work chat...

We finally experienced our first Lost in Translation moment...

This weekend we decided to go and see a movie. Saturday night six of us went to the big mall, COEX to see Pirates of the Caribbean. We arrived at 5:30 pm and the only tickets available were at 9pm. Movies sell out rather quickly here because most people prepurchase them online (but you need a Korean credit card to do that). Two people were unable to stay that late, so after much debate four of us decided to stay for the later show. Bryan (who has purchased movie tickets before) took our money and braved the cash only line for the tickets. He came back and said they only had a 9:25 show available, but he purchased them anyway. We had three hours to kill before the movie.

SIDE NOTE: The movie theatres here have assigned seating. When you purchase your tickets you actually get to look at a seating chart and pick out where you want to sit! It's great because if you buy your tickets a few days in advance you can show up five minutes before the movie and be guaranteed a good seat!

We walked into theatre 10 minutes before the movie and got comfortable. We watched two Korean previews and what looked like an advertisement for the army. Then the movie started. Only it wasn't Pirates of the Caribbean. It took about 10 minutes, but we finally realised that we were in the wrong movie (the first hint was that it was all in Korean!!) We all snuck out of the theatre while the locals giggled at us. Turns out that there is a Korean movie out right now with the word Caribbean in the title so the employee got confused and gave us the wrong tickets. The manager was very nice and gave us tickets for the Sunday night 6pm show and we were on our way.

Last night we were finally able to see the movie and we had a great time. It was so nice to do something that we would normally do on a weekend. It felt like we were back home.

Today we are just going to bum around and do nothing. We've already been grocery shopping so we literally have nothing to do. It feels nice. I'll write more once there is more to write. I hope everyone back home is doing well and please drop us an email anytime. Also, don't forget, if you want to chat over MSN please let us know and we will add you to our list.

Rain rain go away

2006-07-13T08:50:00.000+09:00

I will do a quick and dirty post because I know we've been slacking a little. Both Paul and I are exhausted from mind overload so plese forgive any sentences that don't make any sense.

First of all , it has been raining in some way, shape or form everyday since we got here. The last three days it has been raining hard all day long. I don't even remember what the sun looks like. Our training has been intense, but that is because we are both working hard now to avoid future confusion. The problem is that we don't know who's schedules we are taking over so we can't focus on those particular classes. Everything is rather disorganized and we're doing our best to take it with stride.

Korean people work extremely hard. It is still a traditional society in that men go to work and women stay home with the children. Although that is changing with the younger generation (most of our Korean teachers are women - unmarried women, but women nonetheless). They work 10-12 hour days six or seven days a week. The Korean teachers work harder then the foreign and get paid a whole lot less. I imagine it must be hard for them to hear foreign teachers complain about their jobs. Most of the foreign teachers at this school are young, fresh out of university and have never held down a "real" job before. They complain a lot about having to work hard probably because they don't realise its the same way at home, but you actually run the risk of getting paid less and they certainly don't pay for your housing.

Right now that is the hardest part of the job. Overcoming all of the negative energy that is around the school. A lot of the teachers are unhappy, either because of hours, money or some other stupid reason. They walk around like the world owes them something and unfortunately it is a spreading. Anytime a new teacher comes to the school they seem to be infected with the "piss on this" virus. I've spoken with my roommate at length about the situation (Rachel) and she agrees that the trend has to stop. She is glad to have people like Paul and I there who are willing to work hard and have fun at the same time.

As for the actual training, so far everything has been done through observation. Can we say BORING! There is no training manual and no set system of how to learn things. It has been our responsibility to find out what we need to know and then ask the right questions.

I guess we won't really know if our hard work has paid off until we step foot into a classroom. Fingers crossed.

I'll write more later, but right now breakfast is served. And just as a side note. I may have made everything sound negative right now, but there are good people at the school (they are just in smaller number). We are both remaining positive and that is a good first step!

Peace Out!

Let's try this again...

2006-07-09T19:17:00.000+09:00

This will be my second attempt at writing our first blog from Seoul. I had written a detailed and beautiful entry and it was lost in the expanse that is cyberspace. So instead you get this which will be much shorter and probably not nearly as beautiful.

Our flight was fairly uneventful, which as far as airplane trips go, is good news. We arrived at the airpot in Seoul at 7:00 p.m. It took us 45 minutes to get through customs and pick up our bags. When we got out of the airport there was someone there to meet us, but not who we expected. Sammy, our representative from our placement agency, had a family emergency and has taken a leave so we didn't meet him. Instead we had a very nice cab driver who didn't speak a word of English :)

The traffic from the airport to Seoul was horrible and we weren't at SLP (the school) until past 9 p.m. There we met the Vice Director - Hailey - and she took us to our respective apartments. Paul's roommates are Kevin and Bryan. Kevin is a native Korean who works at the school. He has the job luckly job as translator between teachers and parents. I must say that I don't envy his position. Bryan, who is from Sarnia, has been here for over a year. He will be leaving in December, which makes 16 months total. He has been a great resource so far and we're luckly to have him to help answer our questions.

My roommates are named Ivan and Rachel. Rachel, who is from Owen Sound, has been teaching for five months now. She seems like a lot of fun, and is really stylish and funky. Ivan is from Ireland and has only been here from 3 months.

So far all the information we've been given about training is scaring both Paul and I. From what we can understand it will be very overwhelming and the school will explain next to nothing, but will expect you to know everything. They believe that you should be able to pick everything up through observation, so the next two weeks of work will be strickly observing other teacher's classes. We've received some good advice on how to make training go more smoothly. Basically, ask lots of questions of the teachers, but not the supervisors. If you ask the supervisors they will see that as a sign of weakness and an inability to learn. Welcome to KOREA! They do things quite differently here, but that's why we're here. To experience another culture.

We've also been told that the work load will be really heavy for the first few months because of the learning curve. So if we don't update as often as you hope you know why :)

We spent the weekend grocery shopping, setting up our temporary rooms and getting to know the area of Gangnam. Just from a glance I can see already that food here will be difficult for me. This is a meat based diet and almost everything has meat in it. But with a lot of creativity and paitence I should be fine. The worst that will happen is that I will get bored of eating the same thing over and over again.

Tonight we will spend the night relaxing before our first day of school. We should have more information about the training process in the next few days. Until then we will both have our fingers crossed!

Back to Asia

2006-07-06T06:39:00.000+09:00

A Seoul with Soul

Wow it has been FAR too long. To be honest there hasn't been too much happening in Ajax (go figure) which means there hasn't been too much to write. All of you who are reading this will have received the email letting you know about our next grand adventure. We fly out of Pearson International tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m. and land in LAX 5 hours later. From there we get to hang out at the airport for 4 hours (I'm crossing my fingers to see someone famous) and hop on another plane directly to Incheon International Airport which is 52 km west of Seoul. We will be landing at 6:30 p.m. South Korean time (which is 13 hours ahead of us folks in Ontario - everyone else will have to do the math... sorry!)

Our representative from our placement agency will be picking us up. His name is Sammy and he has been a fantastic help. He has made the process so much easier for us. We may sacrifice some salary, but for the peace of mind that he brought to us it has been worth it a hundred times over.

We start our first day of a two week training period on Monday. Our first official day of work is on the 24th of July. We will be in temporary housing until we finish training, but we get to move into our apartment on the 22nd of July. It will be very nice to have a place of our own again.

Tonight we hope to spend some time relaxing because the last two weeks have been hectic. Once we get situated in Seoul we will write again. Peace out!

Canadian eh?

2006-01-17T21:01:00.000+09:00

I can't believe we're back. It feels so foreign. Both of us are experiencing a bit of culture shock, but I think I'm feeling it more then Paul. The worst Paul has had was remembering to drive on the right side of the road yesterday! I'm having trouble adjusting to the weather, the food, the people... everything it seems.

We arrived at 2pm in the afternoon on Friday after a very smooth, but very long group of flights. As we landed in Toronto I started to cry. It was a good cry, the kind you laugh with. It was in that moment that our trip came to its official end. It was such an amazing experience - like nothing either of us has done before - that it's end was harder then I expected.

We visited with both families on Sunday. The Findlays and my grandparents came over to my parents house and we finally satisfied our craving for pizza (although both of us could only eat 2 slices). It was great to see everyone and even more fun to give everyone the gifts we got in Thailand. It looks like everyone was really happy with what they got. Sweet!

Paul and I have decided that our next adventure will be teaching English overseas. We are thinking Korea, but we are not ruling out Japan at this point. We still have research to do and money to save before we can apply. Luckily a friend of ours (that's you John) knows someone who is teaching in Korea right now and we have been able to pick his brain via e-mail. The next big decision is whether or not we should both take our TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) certificate. It is not a requirement, but an asset so we'll let you know.

So as for work, all we really need is to find some work that will help with the bills and a bit of savings before we leave. I applied to my first job yesterday - an admin position with an optical company in Ajax. He must be desperate to find someone because I also had my first interview yesterday. Although I must admit it wasn't really much of an interview. He wasn't very prepared and he didn't have too many questions for me really. He said that he really just wanted to meet me. We'll see how it turns out. I should know by the end of the week, but I'm not holding my breath. It was my first resume and my first interview :)

Paul and I are just about to hit the job search now. We're going to keep updating our blog to let you all know what we're up to. Later.

Same Same But Different

2006-01-12T13:42:00.000+09:00

Well this is our last blog from Thailand. Even writing those words makes me sad. Neither of us are ready to leave yet. We seem to have recieved our second wind so to speak. I know when we talked to some of you at Christmas we were tired but it appears we have gotten a burst of energy just in time for the flight home. Even without our new found energy it still wouldn't feel right leaving. We're both sad today - you should see us moping around beautiful Thailand - quite pathetic really. We're planning on doing one last touristy thing before we leave and having a nice dinner at Shanti. Twelve hours and counting.

So final words on our trip. After meeting lots of people, both local and fellow travelers, you come to realise that Thailand isn't so different from home. I guess that's why the people here always say "same same but different". They all work and play just like we do, they have familes and friends, and problems just like us... but it's different. I don't know how else to explain it.

I just have one thing to say before we say bye bye from this end of the world...

If you get a chance to go... go.

Peace Out

Correne and Paul

Monkey Business

2006-01-10T14:41:00.000+09:00

Hua Hin

We spent our last days in Hua Hin doing nothing (which seems to be the theme of the tail end of our trip). We went to Sports Villa and had a great time. We sat in the sun and when we got too hot we went for a dip in the cool, refreshing pool. We got a bit too much sun that day so we spent our last day in Hua Hin wandering around the city and trying to stay out of the sun. We hit the night market one last time and said bye bye to Hua Hin.

Phetchaburi

We wanted to take the 11:30 a.m. train on Sunday to make our way to Phetchaburi. It was late an hour and what was supposed to take one hour ended up being closer to 1-1/2. We have become used to this since arriving in Thailand (nothing is ever on time) so we just shrugged it off.

Once arriving in town we walked to our first choice of guesthouse, which doesn't mean much because Phetchaburi doesn't have a lot of options. We settled for one in town and decided to stay two nights. The place wasn't the greatest but we decided to suck it up!! :)

We spent most of that night trying to find a phone (with no luck) and continued our search the next morning. Let's just say our search ended with us using some random guy's cellphone and a phone card (long story so I'll tell you later). It appears our phone call was not in vain because we now have plans for Sunday!! Woo Hoo.

Our only planned destination in Phetchaburi was Khao Wang - a series of buildings spread out over three mountain tops. The walk there proved to be a bit scary (well for me at least). We were chased by dogs (dogs here love to bark at farang), braved monkeys and highway traffic. After arriving at the bottom of Khao Wang safe and sound we decided to take the cablecar up to the top of the first hill because we had heard many stories of the crazy monkeys who call this hill their home. I'm glad we did because we saw many signs warning us about the "wild nature" of these monkeys. The palace on the first hill, which is now a museum, was built by King Rama IV. The museum wasn't the greatest, but the views from the tops of the mountains were really something. See for yourself by checking out the photo album :) We wandered around and between the hills for about three hours (until the heat got the best of us) checking out the wide array of buildings and temples the King had built while he lived there. We took the cablecar back down and made our way back to the guesthouse.

That night we met a gentleman from Vancouver named Paul (go figure). He was a great guy and we ended up having dinner with him as well. He was on his first vacation in three years and Phetchaburi was one of his last stops before heading home on the 15th.

Side Note: Paul told us that when he was on Khao Wang he saw a woman from Korea who was attacked by one of the CRAZY monkeys. I guess the cable car was a good choice!

Back to Bangkok (for the last time)

This morning we took our last bus ride of this trip and found our way back to Bangkok. We got a room for the next three days at Shanti Lodge (the first place we stayed when we got here). We're planning on going to Khaosan Road to do some last minute shopping before we board a plane on Thursday night. Hopefully we'll write one more blog before we leave. Until then...

ta ta for now

The Land of Westerners

2006-01-05T15:11:00.000+09:00

Hua Hin

Day One

We arrived in Hua Hin after the worst train ride imaginable. Since Paul and I are both cheap we decided to take the 3rd class train from Bangkok to Hua Hin. It was supposed to take four hours and it ended up taking almost five. Most of the time the fans weren't work and even when they were on they didn't help. The train was crammed full of people and it was as hot as heck. The seats were made to fit Thai people who are significantly smaller then us Westerners. Most of the time I was practically in Paul's lap so we could make room for the small Thai person who sat beside us. It was the most uncomfortable experience of this trip so far. We vowed to never be cheap when it comes to transportation again.

We found our way to our guesthouse of choice and checked in. For the first time on this trip we decided to pay for a little luxury and we got ourselves a air-con room. It is a welcome addition in the south's steamy heat. We decided to walk down to the beach and explore a little. As soon as we saw the beach you could see the disappointment in our faces. It was crowded and dirty, the water wasn't clear at all and it was crawling with people from Europe who have decided that walking around topless was the "thing" to do. We went back to our guesthouse to discuss our options. We talked about going back to Ko Samet or maybe Kanchanaburi. In the end we decided to give the beach one more try the next day.

That night we explored Hua Hin's night market which was more impressive then the beach. The entire city itself is overpriced and very Westernized because it caters to resort travelers and not backpackers. Thanks to our two months of experience we were still able to sniff out a good bargain! We bought some DVD's and ate pad thai with the locals.

Day Two

We dragged ourselves out of our air-con room and headed down to the beach. It costs 100 baht to rent two beach chairs so we decided to buy breakfast from the 7-eleven to save some money. Once we walked about a kilometer down from the crowded section of the beach we found a fairly decent place to spend the day. It didn't nearly have as many people, I guess because you had to walk to get there. We spent the day on our chairs reading and not much time in the water. Two factors contributed to this - one: the water wasn't clear and you couldn't see anything and two: the number of jellyfish washed up on shore. Based on the jellyfish and the fact that you couldn't see any coming your way we stayed out of the water. I didn't mind because I hate swimming in the ocean - give me a pool anyday! - but Paul was a little upset.

Day Three

I could pretty much cut and paste the description from the day before. We sat in the same beach chairs, had the same topless people around us (a little redder then the day before) and read the same books!! We both got a bit too much sun though and decided to spend today (day 4) just wandering around the city and doing Internet. Tomorrow we're planning on heading to Sport Villa which is just outside town. For 50 baht per person you can swim and lounge around by a pool for the day. We will probably hit the beach on Saturday since it will be our last day in Hua Hin before we head to Phetchaburi.

Third Time is the Charm

2006-01-05T15:06:00.000+09:00

I would like to start this post by saying that this is now the 3rd attempt to write it and needless to say I am losing my paitence. But I must remember to be calm - woo saa.

Okay I'm better now. I will do my best to write this verbatium, but if I'm not as funny as usual I'm sorry (since we all know you cry from laughter every time you read this).

Kanchanaburi

I know all of you have been waiting on the edge of your seats in anticpation of the outcome, so here it is...

I got a one hour massage :)

We spent our last days in Kanchanburi sitting on our veranda reading. Paul finished up his 6th book of the trip and I finished eight. We both have really gotten into reading murder mysteries. We don't even hold conversations anymore, we just say "who done it?" (this is where you laugh... why aren't you laughing??)

Bangkok Again (I'm getting really tired of writing that)

Our sole purpose in this trip to Bangkok was to visit the famed weekend market to do the last of our shopping - Chatuchak Market. We stayed at a guesthouse right by the subway to make transporation there easier and more cost efficient (there is no other reason to stay in Chinatown otherwise). We dropped off our bags and headed to the train/subway station to take our first trip to the market (this was on Dec. 31). Much to our delight it turned out they were having special fares in honour of New Year's - 10 baht each one way instead of 38. Speaking of that...

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

I totally forgot about that. My apologies. Where was I??

A common phrase out of our mouths since arriving here is "how in the world do they cram so many people in such a small space?" Every time these words leave our mouth we expect it to be the last time. Let's just say that this market did not disappoint. It was CROWDED with locals and farang all looking for a bargain. We spent about three hours shopping and went back to the guesthouse exhausted.

As I mentioned earlier there isn't much in Chinatown so we spent New Year's in our room drinking beer/wine coolers, playing cards and listening to very bad karaoke. We had a blast. We actually managed to stay up until midnight (which is unheard of for us since arriving here) and promptly went to bed at 12:01 a.m despite the singers outside. We got up early the next morning and went back to the market to finish up all of our shopping - a mission we accomplished. Yay us. We left Bangkok heading to the beach city of Hua Hin.

The Bridge Over the River Kwai

2005-12-29T14:38:00.000+09:00

Kanchanaburi

Day One

We arrived fairly early in the day after our extremely inexpensive ride on Thailand's public bus system (did we mention that already?) Our first guesthouse of choice was Apple's Guesthouse, but unfortunately they were full. We made our way to Jollyfrogger's and they had lots of rooms. It isn't the nicest place that we've stayed but it was cheap so we decided to call it home for the next few days. Our first day was uneventful, just the way we like it. I got myself a new book, we walked around the town a bit and that's about it. It was nice to sit back and relax after almost two months of traveling. Our room has its own little patio area so we spent most of the day sitting and reading by the river Kwai - not bad.

Day Two

We decided to actually accomplish something on our second day in Kanchanaburi so we visited the Burma-Thailand museum and the cemetery that is right across the street from it. It is the final resting place to over 7000 POW's from the second world war who died building the railway that connected Thailand and Burma (it would eventually be named "The Death Railway") - in total approx. 20,000 POW's died and over 90,000 Asian workers. The museum was built in 2003 so the exhibits were in great condition and the information was plentiful. We spent over an hour wandering around the exhibits and learning about how the railway was constructed, how the workers were recruited/treated and of course the living conditions of the POW camps in the area. It was sad to see that so many people died for a railway that was only in operation for less then a year. But just like all the sad stories in the world, I think it was necessarily to learn about them. After leaving the museum we headed back to our guesthouse to sit by the river and read (again!!) We had one of the best meals we've ever had at Apple's Guesthouse that night. Our book recommended having the Massuman curry and oh my gosh was it amazing. We also ran into a Norwegian couple we had met over Christmas in Ayutthaya. We chatted for a bit and agreed to meet up for dinner the next night.

Day Three - Tour Day

We booked ourselves on a full day tour that would take us to Erawan waterfall, Hellfire Pass, a train ride on the death railway and to the river Kwai bridge. We were picked up at 8am and to our surprise the Norwegian couple (Maria and Nels) were on the mini-bus. Our first stop of the day was Hellfire Pass. This portion of the railway was dug out of solid rock over 10 meters deep. They made the POW's and Asian workers work right into the night. Light was provided by bamboo torches and the area was quickly nicknamed Hellfire pass by the workers because of the red flames and erie shadows of the workers' skeleton like bodies it cast on the rock wall - it looked just like hell. The only tools the workers had were hammers and picks. One man would hold the pick and the other would strike it with a hammer - once the hole was deep enough they would drop dynamite down the hole and blow it up. They would then have to move the pieces of rock and start all over again. The average work day was 18 hours not including the hike from the camp to the work area. Most of the workers died of malnutrition or disease (malaria or cholera), but many died while working (beaten by guards, falling debris etc.). The museum at Hellfire Pass was also very well done - it had tons of information and made use of videos to help elaborate on details.

After the sobering visit at Hellfire Pass we went to Erawan National Park, home to a beautiful 7-tier waterfall. The hike up to the top is about 2.2 km and takes over an hour. We didn't have enough time to hike to the top and swim so we opted with swimming. Once we reached the fourth tier we jumped in. The water was cold, but refreshing. It didn't take long to find out that the fish in the water were hungry and our toes made for a good buffet. Paul and I both slide down a rock that was just like a slide and got out of the fishes' home. We took lots of pictures of the first four tiers. We spent two hours at the park and we were off to our next destination.

After a 20 minute drive we ended up at a little train station 56 km outside of Kanchanaburi. This is where we boarded the train for our 30 minute trip along the death railway. We didn't take the train all the way to Kanchanaburi because it takes over 2 hours and after 30 minutes we were ready to get off. Our guide then drove us to the River Kwai Bridge so we could take our pictures and dropped us off at home.

We met up with Maria and Nels for dinner at Apple's Guesthouse (where we had the curry again - yummy). They were heading to Bangkok the next day so we said our goodbyes and headed to bed.

Day Four

We have decided to do nothing today - well except Internet. We both have new books and are itching for some sitting by the river time. The biggest decision I have to make today is to get a one hour massage or a two. Not bad eh? We will be staying in Kanchanaburi today and tomorrow and head back to Bangkok for the weekend. We hope to hit the famous weekend market to do the last of our shopping. On Monday we head for the beaches of Hua Hin. We already have a reservation at All Nations guesthouse, which happens to be owned by a Canadian couple. We have no plans for our time after that. I guess it depends on how much we are enjoying the beach. We will probably write again from Bangkok.

Until then....

Christmas in Thailand

2005-12-28T21:02:00.000+09:00

Hello all! My goodness we have neglected our blog. I hope to catch it up in one entry - wish me luck :)

Ayutthaya for the Holidays

Day One

We got ourselves a room at U.P. Guesthouse (which is where we stayed the first time). The place was just as we remembered it - clean, cheap and with hot water (woo hoo). We did nothing at all except walk around the town in search of deodorant (we finally stumbled on a shopping centre) and hang around playing cards. For dinner we went back to Kwan's Cafe and had a kick-ass night. There was nobody around so Paul and I pretty much had the place to ourselves. Kwan remembered us from a month ago especially when Paul reminded her of the killer Mai Thai that she made me last time - they were just as killer this time. We ended up spending the night with Kwan and her family eating, drinking and listening the music of our choice. We had staring contests with her daughter and tried to brush up on our Thai (unfortunately the Chang and Mai Thais had kicked in at this point). We headed to bed after shutting the place down (sounds better then it was - we were asleep by midnight).

Day Two

We got ourselves up bright and early to call my family and wish them a Merry Christmas. They were all at my Oma's house so we managed to talk to everyone with one phone call. It was so nice to hear everyone's voices. Once again we spent the day doing NOTHING - it was brilliant. We booked a river cruise for the early evening and had the boat all to ourselves. We stopped at three temples and spent the rest of the two hours cruising around the river. It was really nice and peaceful. One of the temples we had visited during our first trip to Ayutthaya a month ago but the other two were new to us which was nice. One had the largest bronze Buddha we have seen yet (and that is saying a lot) and the other had a reclining Buddha which was cool.

We had dinner at our guesthouse. They put on a Christmas buffet for the guests and ate tons of curry, egg rolls and Paul had chicken wings (he was in heaven). Afterwards we called Paul's family and had a great chat with them (we're still sorry for waking you up). We also made a surprise call to Adam in Ottawa who was half way through his stocking. We called it an early night to prepare for our travels to Kanchanaburi.

Side Note:

We have to met some people for dinner so we will write about the past few days in Kanchanaburi tomorrow - keep you all in suspense!

Pee My

2005-12-22T21:00:00.000+09:00

I had to spell Phimai like Peemai so I could remember how it was pronounced - I decided to share that little bit of scary insight into my brain through today's title.

Phimai

Day One

We went from one city with no tourists right into another. This one I really enjoyed though. You didn't get the same "outsider" feeling that you got in Udon Thani and there were a lot less people who decided to spend their free time staring at you. It was a nice, much needed, break. Our first day was pretty much spent on a number of buses. You cannot take a bus directly from Udon Thani to Phimai - instead you have to hit Khorat (also known as Nakhon Ratchasima) and take a bus from there to Phimai. All in all we spent over 7 hours in transit. Once we arrived in Phimai it was too late to really do anything (not to mention we didn't have any money and the banks were all closed).

Interesting side note...

This was the first city we've encountered where our handy Let's Go guide was not completely accurate in its descriptions. We decided that it must be because they haven't sent someone to Phimai in a while and things have changed. The first guesthouse we went to, which got a thumbs up in our book, was not that impressive. We decided to up our daily spending budget and get as nice room at Boonsiri Guesthouse. The owners were really nice and were actually willing to barter the price down 100 baht (probably because we were their only clients!).

We had exactly 140 baht in our pocket which was to buy us dinner and water. We found one of the only restaurants in town and spent exactly 135 baht - we had 5 baht to our name :) After dinner we called it an early night - we were pretty tired after a day of long traveling.

Day Two

We got up fairly early (for us) to find it raining outside. Since one of our sites was outdoors we were pretty bummed, but by the time we were showered and ready to go it had stopped. Although we stayed dry we were quite cold during the day. This seems to be a trend since leaving Laos - we haven't had a warm day in what seems like weeks. Our first stop was Phimai Historical Park which is made up of a bunch of Khmer style (same style as Ankor Wat in Cambodia) ruins. The park was beautiful and reminded us a lot of the ruins we saw in Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. Our favourite part was the large prang in the middle of the park which is now overrun with pidgeons (they were insane!!).

After the park we headed to Phimai National Museum which houses many of the original artifacts taken from the national park as well as a detailed history on the Issan people. Many of the carving and statues contained images of Hindu Gods (such as Ganesh, Vishnu and Shiva) and from as early as the 9th century. It was amazing to see the combination of Hindu and Buddhist religions - most of the time within the same temple. Unfortunately, as with most museums, we could not take any photos so you will have to take our word for it. :)

Our last stop of the day was to see Thailand's largest Banyan tree named Sai Ngam. We were not sure at all what to expect because neither of us knew what banyan tree was. Needless to say we were not disappointed. The book described the tree as "entering a J.R.R. Tolkien inspired netherworld" and they were not far off. We haven't been able to get our photos uploaded yet so here is a great website so you can see what we saw: http://www.bangkoksite.com/NakhonRatchasima/SaiNgam.htmThat night after a great dinner at this little place that was down an alley, we happened upon a soccer game. The night before we were kept up until fairly late by Thai pop music, an enthusiastic announcer and the occasional roar from an audience - we now knew where it was coming from. We stayed for about an hour and only left because we were both way too cold. They played on concrete and the ball was quite a bit harder then a traditional soccer ball and the nets were half the size of a hockey net There were six players on each side and from what Paul could tell the rules seemed to be the same as the soccer we are used to. It was a lot of fun to watch these guys and their fancy footwork (and don't forget - on concrete!).

Back to Bangkok

Today we were up at 4:30 a.m. and started what proved to be a very very long day of traveling. Again, there was no direct transportation from Phimai (which might be why no one goes there - a shame really because the historical park was great) so we had to bus our buts back to Khorat. The bus ride was freezing and for the first time we wished that we had brought warmer clothing. Once arriving there we made our way to the train station. We had hoped on saving a few baht on the train and in that regard we were pleasantly surprised. It took us five hours in a third class train but we almost made it to Bangkok. I say almost because it didn't actually go all the way to the train station in the city. If we wanted a direct train we would have had to wait over two hours and pay five times more (it was a second class train with "air con" and trust me we didn't need it).

Once arriving at the Bang Sue station we thought it would be nice and simple - just buy a ticket to Bangkok. Only one catch - the train didn't leave for another hour and it was already 2pm. We knew if we waited around we risked not being able to find a guesthouse to stay for the night. The nice lady at the ticket booth told us to try the subway. Now a month ago we would have been terrified at the prospect of wandering around a city we didn't have a map for to try and find a subway station, nevermind actually use the subway system. Paul actually said "I don't even like the subway in Toronto" but we decided to brave it anyway. I must say, I am so glad that we did. The subway system was cheap, simple to use and extremely modern. It got us to Bangkok in under 30 minutes.

We found ourselves a decent place to stay for the next two nights. We are staying right in the heart of Khosan road this time. Our first place (Shanti Lodge) was a bit removed from the hustle and bustle of this backpacking scene so we thought we'd mix up our experiences a bit. Now I can honestly say I've never seen so many white people in Thailand then we are experiencing right now. There seems to be about 5 farang to every Thai person - talk about opposite experience from Eastern Thailand. We are planning to leave on the 24th and make our way back up to Ayutthaya again to spend Christmas. We thought it would be nice to chill there for a few days and maybe take a river cruise on Christmas eve. That's it for now. We will probably write again when we reach Ayutthaya. Until then...

MERRY CHRISTMAS (and Yule) and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Miss Udorn Sunshine

2005-12-22T20:07:00.000+09:00

Udon Thani

Day One

Well our time in Udon Thani came and went. We arrived early in the afternoon and decided to take it easy. We spent the afternoon wandering around the city. We didn't realize how much we took for granted seeing other tourists because we saw NO ONE in this city. The eastern side of Thailand doesn't really get much in the way of tourism and Udon Thani gets pretty much none of it. One thing we did see a lot of was expats (thanks Dara for my new word) - these would be ex-patriots (people who are citizens of another country - usually the U.S. and live in a foreign country, in this case Thailand). The way to tell an expat from a tourist was pretty simple - they were usually married or "with" a Thai woman (and not in the prostitute sense). Due to the lack of tourism there were no guesthouses either. We stayed in our second hotel of this trip and for the price we were pretty impressed (300 baht for airconditioning and hot water). Our walk around the city lasted about an hour because there wasn't much to see. We went back to the guesthouse to get changed for dinner (it gets cold at night).

Our book recommended this restaurant and it caught my eye with the words "seven scoop sundae" - WOO HOO. So far neither Paul or I have been too impressed with the food in this region of Thailand (known as Issan food). There were no vegetarian options which made matters difficult for me and the taste just wasn't what we were used to from the rest of our trip. This meal was luckily probably the best we have had since arriving back in Thailand and the desert certainly helped.

Day Two

Our plan for the day was to visit Udorn Sunshine Orchid Farm - which was our only reason for coming to Udon Thani. The walk was long and didn't have much in the way of scenery, but it helped to work off that ice cream. We finally found the farm (which wasn't easy because none of the signs were in English) and were immediately impressed by how beautiful the plants were. We realized right away that this was in no way and "all day" affair and that we probably could have done it on day one and only stayed one night, but that's why they say hindsight is 20/20. There were over 15 different breeds of orchid and that's just what we could identify with our very limited knowledge of orchids (let's be honest - no knowledge). The owner of the farm is famous for breeding his own special flower which he calls Miss Udorn Sunshine (apparently the flower is even registered - who knew you could register flowers??) He is also known for the healing properties of his plants and the energy was apparent the moment you were near them. After a frustrating walk to the farm all of our troubles seemed to melt away once we were surrounded by his orchids. He has also taught plants to respond to the human voice or music. There was this one section of plants that moved when you talked - it was amazing. His wife called them the dancing plants.

On the way out of the farm there was a section where you could purchase perfume (which he has cleverly named Miss Udorn Sunshine) and tea made from the dancing plants. I picked up some tea for myself and a bag for a friend of mine (that's you Christy) and we were on our way. On the walk back we decided to take some time to enjoy the city's reservoir which was quite beautiful. Calm water surrounded by park benches and trees almost made you forget that you were the only tourists in the city :) And that was all she wrote on Udon Thani.

Hello Nong Khai

2005-12-17T20:44:00.000+09:00

Day One

First and foremost, I was greatly impressed by the ease of which we crossed the Friendship Bridge and passed the border into Thailand. For 30 baht each (less than two dollars) we had an air conditioned bus take us from Vientiane to the bridge - with a stop at the Laos departure area to get our stamp - across the bridge, to Thailand immigration and right into the heart of Nong Khai. The whole journey took about 2 hours and was completely flawless. We tuk-tuked it to Mut Mee guesthouse (which got a glowing review in our Let's Go guide) only to discover it was closed. The owner, who is very nice and gave us a free map of Nong Khai, recommended another guesthouse that was close by (which also happened to be in our book). Less then 10 minutes later we were set up with a very nice (and clean room) at Ruan Thai Guesthouse. We spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Nong Khai. We had our very first taste of mangos and sticky rice (so good), visited the Village Weaver Handicrafts store (www.villageweaver.net) and looked through the Indochina Market. This market reminded me of chinatown in Victoria. The same plastic toys, paper fans and strange looking candies which I thought I left behind in B.C. were right in front of me again. Although it was nice to laugh about the similarities, it didn't make for the best shopping :)

For dinner we had planned to go back to Mut Mee guesthouse - their restaurant was supposed to be amazing. When we got there we were surrounded by mosquitoes - the guesthouse is right on the Mekong. The bugs were so bad that we had to leave and find dinner in town away from the bugs. We had good eats none the less.

Day Two

Today we rented bicycles and made the 5 km ride out to Salakeawkoo, an amazing sculpture park just south of the city. It was completely worth the ride out and the sore butts afterwards! It was made in 1976 by a shaman named Luang Poo Boun Leua Sourirat. He created one near Vientiane as well, but in '74 he fled to Thailand where he built his second wonder. I have never seen anything like it in my entire life - probably one of my favourite places so far on this trip. It was a strange mixture of Indian and Buddhist mythology and imagery. Check out this website for tons of information on it and some great pictures (just in case Paul didn't get our even better pictures uploaded in time :) http://www.mutmee.net/030010_sculpture_park.htm

We went inside the temple which was covered in pictures of this one person. At the time we didn't know who it was and became especially curious when we reached the third floor. At the back there was what appeared to be a dead body in a bubble like object. We now know this to be Sourirat who died in 1996 - they have housed his mummified body there since then.

In my opinion, his best work was The Wheel of Life which was at the back of the sculpture park. It was Sourirat's view of the cycles and influences that enter into ones life from the moment of conception to death. It was absolutely stunning in its honesty and beauty. I could have stayed there all day.

We finally left the park and rode our bikes to Wat Po Chai which is considered to be Nong Khai's "main temple" which says a lot because there are A LOT of wats in this city. The temple itself looked pretty new, but it was the Buddha inside that has an interesting story. While it was being transported from Laos to Nong Khai, lightening struck the raft it was being carried on and it sunk to the bottom of the Mekong. Twenty five years later the Buddha miraculously resurfaced. It was considered to be a miracle and who am I to argue??

We've decided to leave Nong Khai tomorrow and travel to Udon Thani. We should have more to report from there.

Goodbye Vientiane

2005-12-17T20:07:00.000+09:00

After spending only one full day in Vientiane we decided to cross the border back into Thailand and make our way to Nong Khai. But before I get to far ahead of myself I will tell you about our time in Laos' nation capital.

Vientiane

While we were in Vang Vieng we heard rumours that Vientiane could be traveled and enjoyed in a day, two max. We decided to reserve judgment for the city until we actually saw it ourselves. Turns out that the rumours were pretty much true. Although we could have stayed longer we were both itching to get back to Thailand.

Day One

After settling into our guesthouse we decided to walk around the city and familiarize ourselves with the good places to eat, bookstores, Internet cafes etc. The city itself is much larger than either place we had been to in Laos so far (Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng were both pretty small), but thankfully was nothing like Bangkok (Thailand's capital city). After spending a few hours walking around we took a bit of a rest to plan our next day. We decided that we would not leave Vientiane until we had both seen everything that was on our "must do" lists. With our action plan completed we headed out for dinner.

Although we ran into Dara (our Florida friend) on our way to the bus station in Vang Vieng we were separated once we arrived there. We had purchased tickets to Vientiane the day prior and supposed to be on the 10:00 am bus. When Dara showed up at the bus station she was told that the 10:00 was sold out and not wanting to risk being stranded to Vang Vieng for another day she hopped on a mini bus (which left a full hour before our bus did).

Side note: Turns out, of course, that our bus was not sold out and actually left half an hour late because the bus driver sat around waiting (and hoping) that they would sell more tickets for the bus.

We had been in Vientiane most of the day and hadn't run into Dara yet. As we were waiting for our dinner order, none other than Dara (who had our friends from Ottawa - Nashib and Maria in tow) walked by us. Nashib and Maria could stay long - they were headed out on the overnight bus to Paxae (sp??) - but Dara joined us for the evening. Dara was also debating about staying one more day or two. After an ice cream cone (woo hoo for me) we parted ways and agreed to meet up for dinner the next day.

Day Two

We woke up nice and early (for us) and started our wat walking tour. Our Lonely Planet guide book suggested a 2 hour walking tour of the city which stopped at most of the best temples - with a few of our own choices added.

By 11:30 am we had finished up most of our tour and were wandering around city wondering how to spend the next few hours (the other two temples we wanted to see were closed between the hours of 11 am and 1 pm so we had some time to kill). As we were wandering we ran into (none other) than Dara. After chatting we decided to meet up at 2:30 to visit the cities most sacred stupa - That Luang.

We spent the next few hours wandering through Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Sisaket. Both sites were beautiful and both had been converted into museums. Wat Sisaket was lined with alcoved walls - in each alcove was two small Buddha figurines. There must have thousands of them. Wat Phra Kaew used to house the Emerald Buddha (now in Bangkok), but in 1788 the Thais took the Buddha for themselves. We met up with Dara at 2:30 and started the long walk to That Luang. Although the road we also had the pleasure of passing by the Anousavari Monument - Laos own triumphal arch - built in the 1960's for the people of Laos who died in wars defending the country. It was pretty cool to see. We finally made it up to That Luang and it was an impressive site. It was unlike any stupa we have ever seen for two reasons - it was shaped differently and it was completely gold. Most of the temples we have visited used gold leaf - the maintenance must have been horrible because the stuff was always peeling off. They must have used gold paint on this one because it was perfect. We walked back to our guesthouse (after stopping for some margaritas) and had some much needed time off our feet and a shower. We met up with Dara for one last dinner (for sure this time because after she's not going back to Thailand) and had some great red curry and fried tofu (yum yum). We headed out for drinks by the Mekong River after dinner and said our goodbyes.

Tubular

2005-12-14T17:56:00.000+09:00

Hello all!

Day Four

I know it's been a few days but there really wasn't much to report. We spent Monday floating down a river in Vang Vieng in big inner tubes. We woke up bright and early (for us), smothered ourselves in sunscreen, had a bite to eat and headed down to Vang Vieng Tubing Group where we met up with Dara and Meghan (a woman from California that Dara met on the bus to Vang Vieng). These tubing guys have a pretty lucrative business going. They provide tubes and transportation up the river for $3.50 USD (each). The river provides the rest of the entertainment. The journey down the river is covered in beautiful scenery (lush green mountains) and the occasional bar (where you can get off the tube and partake in a Beer Lao if that is your cup of tea.... well beer). It was a great day. You had no choice but to sit back and be at peace with nature - my kind of fun. Turns out we also went at the perfect time of day as well because all the drunk people hadn't gotten out of bed yet (ha ha). The river still had enough people on it to socialize, but you could float all by yourself if you wanted to. By the time we finished it was still nice and warm out, but you could see people with poles stationed all along the river, who, for a modest fee, will fish you out and bring you back to town if you get too cold (or drunk).

We finished the day with a late lunch, some laundry and book reading (Paul finished The Da Vinici Code - woo hoo!). That night we found ourselves a quiet little restaurant that played movies and watched The Incredibles (for the 2nd time since arriving in Southeast Asia). Good fun.

Day Five

On Tuesday we decided that we would once again brave cave exploring. On our map (very generously provided by our guesthouse) there was a cave a mere 2 km from town called Lusi Cave. We crossed the river (after paying the toll for the rickity bridge) and started to walk. At first the trek was through fields that someone had mowed a path through. As we got further along the mowed path turned to a forest. We walked for what seemed like forever and we didn't see a single person along the way (except what I will assume was a Lao farmer who had a rather large knife with him). I started to get a bit nervous - we all know how paranoid I get. After about 45 minutes of walking we arrived at the cave. The other two caves we visited had ticket booths and employees. This cave had four drunk (and I think a little high too) Lao men who wrote on a piece of wood...

Trip to Cave - 5000 kip

Trip to Lagoon - 10 000 kip

MUST HAVE GUIDE

Once again entering the cave involved climbing up a steep cliff. I didn't exactly have too much confidence in the men that were to be our "guides". I looked over at Paul I could see that he felt the same way. We turned our butts around and made the 45 minute walk back without ever seeing Lusi Cave. But heck, we're alive to tell the tale :) We got back to the room, showered and headed out for an afternoon/evening of Friends watching.

Vientiane

We have now arrived in Vientiane and I must proclaim that I DID NOT get sick on this bus. Thank you to the makers of Gravol. We did have some entertainment on the bus though (thankfully not provided by me). About 2 hours into the 3.5 hour trip we blew a tire. I thought for sure this would take forever to get fixed, but this very handy man changed the tire in record time and we were back on the road again.

Our guesthouse is quite nice - off the main road, clean and relatively cheap for Vientiane (which is an expensive place compared to Vang Vieng). We have a shared bath this time, but it's nice and clean. We have prepaid for two nights and at this point we're not sure if we will stay longer. Our Visa expires on Sunday, but I think we will probably head to Nong Khai on Saturday. We'll keep you all posted.

Just a Note About Christmas:

For those family members who are expecting phone calls on Christmas - rest assured that we will do our very best to call on the actual day. We expect that the phones will be quite busy that day and there are only so many international phones to go around. If you do not hear from us it is not because we fell off the Earth :) - we will try and call the next day. We look forward to talking to you.

Love Correne

Just a spoon full of sugar...

2005-12-11T15:40:00.000+09:00

We have discovered Laos' version of Pai! Vang Vieng is a very hard city to leave as well. We don't have to be out of Laos until the 18th of December (when our Visa runs out) so we thought we'd spend some extra time doing nothing here. It is nice to feel settled in a city for a few days without having to worry which bus I'm going to be sick on next :)

Day Three

We decided to rent bicycles yesterday and take the 7 km journey to Poukham Cave. It is the most popular cave to visit among us farang so we decided to give it a try. We really enjoyed our visit to Chang Cave (which was the one we saw the day before) and were excited to see what people were describing as a "beautiful site." Most of the bicycle places rented old-school styled bikes (like the one you'd picture Mary Poppins riding). We rented two of those and at the time didn't really think anything of it. About 5 minutes into our trip we realized we should have had mountain bikes.

The road (if you could call it that) was mostly dirt and rocks (big ones). We were having a tough time just trying not to fall off the bikes! Every time we reached a hill we had to get off the bikes and walk them up. Along the 7 km route were these rickety old wooden bridges built by the villagers in the area. In order to use the bridge you had to pay a toll (or if you were cheap like one guy we saw you could take off your shoes and attempt to walk the river!). By the time we reached the cave we were hot, sweaty, very very dirty and tired (it was 32 degrees yesterday). We chained up our bikes and paid the entrance fee to the cave. We couldn't really see a clear entrance way so we asked one of the employees where the stairs were. He pointed to what looked like a wall and then pointed straight up. We walked toward the wall and saw that there were no stairs and that you had to climb this mountain wall to get to the cave. Now all of you who know Paul and I well know that we aren't exactly in peak physical condition (ha ha) and we were already exhausted from the bike ride. But this trip has brought out the adventurous side in us both so we decided to scale the mountain to reach the cave. Not once during the 20 minutes that it took to get to the top did I feel safe. The whole time I kept thinking "how the hell am I going to get down this thing!!" There were a few times where we both almost slipped, but by some miracle we reached the top and found the cave.

Although the cave was nice (as far as caves go) it was not worth the Mary Poppins bikes, the crazy road, the rickety bridges and the mountain climbing to get there. We spent lots of time exploring the cave and taking pictures (we actually got quite a few nice ones) - we did try to make the best of a very tiring situation. Once we gathered our courage and energy we started the climb down.

Paul took a picture of our route. He joked that we needed photographic evidence of our cause of death. I can laugh now, but at the time I thought the picture may come in handy!! We took it nice and slow and made it down safe and sound in about half an hour. We were glad to be out of the cave and heading back the 7km we came. A nice cold shower sounded fantastic.

Now we all know that things don't always work out as we plan. About 1km into our ride back to the guesthouse Paul's tire went flat. We both just about lost it. We didn't say much on our 6km walk back - I think we were both afraid that we might snap and kill each other (even though we knew the situation was not the fault of either of us). We returned our bikes and thankfully they didn't try and make us pay for a new tire. We made it back to our guesthouse and we both took the longest showers in history.

That night met up with a couple from Ottawa for dinner and had a great time. We had Indian food and talked until they shut the place down. We're planning on meeting them again tonight. Today we've spent lots of time doing nothing. Paul is reading the Da Vinci Code (which I just finished) and he can't put it down. I've never seen him read so much in my entire life! It's great. We might take a walk down to the market and look into buying a bus ticket to our next stop (Vientiane). We'll probably leave tomorrow unless we decide to go tubing down the river. We'll keep you posted.

Rain Rain Go Away

2005-12-09T18:29:00.000+09:00

Luang Prabang

We only ended up staying in Luang Prabang for two full days as the rain would not let up. The town is pretty cool though, as each street is lined with places to eat, visit, and drink some Beer Lao. It is said to be the best beer in all of South East Asia, and I would have to agree. At 10,000 kip (roughly 50 cents) for a large bottle, it is hard to go wrong. There were some waterfalls to see outside of the city, but to be honest, it was just too damn cold. Now I know all of you at home are in the dead of Winter, but when you have been in the hot sun for 31 days, a rainy cool day can feel like Winter (especially when you didn't pack any warm clothes). However, we did see some nice things in Luang Prabang, and it was nice to not take any day trips for once.

Day One

We saw a really neat temple with an amazing Tree of Life mosaic. It seems that temples in Lao are much different then the temples in Thailand. That being said, when you walk into one, they also have a different type of feel and energy. Temples in Thailand are much more grandiose, whereas temples in Laos are simple and less ornate. Correne felt that the temples in Laos were much more spiritual because they are less distracting.

That night we had an authentic Laos dinner, and I must say, it was probably one of the best meals I have had so far. Mmmm...spicy. Correne says her lips are still burning.

Day Two

We went to the museum in the Grand Palace, and this museum was really neat. It contained a lot of Laos history including a tablet with the first Laos scripture. This was also the home of the King and Queen up until 1975. The building itself had a strange feel. The structure was quite old, but with each new King came renovations. It was a mixture of very old and very new in one building. It's too bad that we couldn't get pictures because some of the mosaic walls were breathtaking (they didn't allow photography in the palace).

After that we went up the over 300 steps to a temple on the hill. The temple itself was nothing spectacular, but the view was worth the climb. It wasn't until that moment that we realized just how big Luang Prabang really is. We tended to stick to the tourist areas, so it was really cool to see the residential side of the city.

Later that night we hit the night market and had a great dinner. The market proved to be quite different than any Thai market we've seen so far. The art was different, the selection was different, and the bartering was different. Since we saw some stuff we haven't seen before, we decided to pick up a few things for Xmas. It was later that night we decided that this would be our last night in Luang Prabang. In the morning we would get up early, and board the overpriced bus to Vang Vieng. Good thing, because that morning it was still raining, and still freezing cold.

Vang Vieng

I know that Correne wrote before about her, shall we say, upset stomach on the bus from Pai to Chiang Mai. Well, this bus ride made that trip look like a walk in the park. On this six hour ride, you could not drive for more than five seconds without taking a hairpin turn in either direction. To put it in perspective. Vang Vieng is only 160 Km's from Luang Prabang, but it still takes six hours. We were only an hour in to the ride when things got ugly...I promised Correne I wouldn't go into too many details, but lets just say it was not pretty.

Day One

We arrived around two in the afternoon, and found ourselves a really clean guesthouse at the cheapest price yet. Correne took a three hour (much needed) nap, while I explored the city. For some reason every restaurant has a T.V., and they all seem to be playing back to back Friends episodes all day and night. We have heard that theme song about 50 times already. We took the rest of the night easy, and waited to do anything adventurous the next day.

Day Two

There are several caves on the outskirts of town, and one was only one km away, so we walked there thu really nice countryside. The caves were amazing, and the view inside and out was really something. For some reason, we were the only people in the cave, and the silence when we both were quiet was erie. It seemed the cave began to pulse in your ear it was so quiet. Tomorrow we will rent bikes, and check out the caves that were a little farther out of town.

That's it for now. We are going to get a couple of fruit shakes, and watch some Friends episodes...hey, why not?

Lates

Paul

Rolling on the River

2005-12-06T13:34:00.000+09:00

Pardon my typing this morning - I as still suffering from insulin shock from my breakfast! We had crepes with bananas and chocolate (and not cheap chocolate either - high quality stuff) this morning and man was it good. Probably our best breakfast yet :)

Chiang Khong

We woke up bright and early on Sunday morning, got ourselves a packed lunch from one of the guesthouses and headed to Thailand immigration. We got our exit stamp and piled onto a ferry to cross the Mekong River (which took all of 5 minutes). Once on the other side we were officially in Houie Xay in Laos. We took care of the Visa stuff (ended up costing 3100 baht instead of 3000 because it was a Sunday) and got into a truck and headed to the boat pier.

The Boat

I must admit, when we saw the boat I wasn't surprised. The seat were hard wooden benches. What I was surprised about was how many people the crammed into the thing. When all the benches were full they started to pull out plastic chairs. When all the chairs were full they sat people in the floor. Finally, after cramming about 150 people onto this boat, we set sail along the Mekong. The ride was beautiful, but you became distracted by the discomfort pretty early on. After about two hours your ass was officially numb and although you would think that being numb was a good thing - for some reason it still hurt. After a seven hour day we stayed in Pak Beng for the night. Here is where the story gets good.

Pak Beng

All I can say about this city is that I'm glad that I will never have to see it again. We decided to book our accommodations prior to getting on the boat so we could avoid the headache of trying to find a place to stay at 6pm along with the other 148 people on our boat. This proved to be a big mistake. We paid 300 baht for a double room with bath which would normally be a fairly reasonable price. When we saw the room I almost cried. We didn't even take a picture because frankly I don't want the memory of it. The bed was dirty, the hot water shower didn't work and there was writing on the wall from previous travelers. It went something like this...

"Over priced, vermin infested..."

"Don't stay, run with your lives..."

And this folks, was our first impression. We dropped off our bags and went and had dinner. As we were leaving the room Paul was offered various types of illegal narcotics. We thought this was odd until it happened every five minutes. I guess the people of Pak Beng are bored.

We called it an early night and hit the sack. We of course pulled out of sleep sacks and pillow cases for the evening. Around 11pm they turned the generators off which meant the fan went off as well. The room got very uncomfortable very quickly. I hadn't slept a wink of sleep and Paul maybe got an hour. I started to have a panic attack (I mean... why not??) which caused me to stay up for most of the night (and consequently Paul as well). Just as we were about to fall asleep the roosters started. Silly me, I thought roosters did their thing at dawn and not 3 in the morning. But man am I glad they woke us up because if we had been asleep we would have missed the best part of all... the rats. That's right... you heard me... RATS. At first Paul thought I was being paranoid. He said the noises that I heard were outside the room, but I of course knew better. At this point both of us were wide awake and knew that sleep was not in our future for that night. Paul decided that he would try to find the lighter (which was our only source of light - why we don't have a flashlight is beyond me) to see if he could see anything under the bed. He is such a brave man. Anyway, he finds the lighter and checks under the bed to find nothing. I felt a little better so we decided to try and fall asleep. This next part I didn't hear about until the morning...

I fell asleep almost right away but Paul had some more trouble. As he was just about to pass out he heard something crawl up his backpack and approach his head. As he lifted his head he heard something drop and hit the ground with a thud. This was all the proof he needed - we did indeed have rats. Being the nice guy he is, he decided not to wake me and tell me this. In total, we probably got about 2-3 hours sleep.

On the boat again

Yesterday we got up bright and early in hopes of getting a bench seat on the boat. We got down there about 8am and luckily there were still lots of spots. And the best part - these benches had cushions!! This made day two on the slow boat much more comfortable. I spent most of the day reading - I actually finished a whole book (Dead Even I think it was called) and Paul relaxed and took tons of pictures (which is just finished uploading so take a look). After 8 hours of boat riding we landed in Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang

We arrived in Luang Prabang around 6 o'clock last night. Finding a guesthouse proved to be a little difficult, but we expected that. We paid way more then we wanted to spend for the night, but at least it was clean and the hot shower worked. We had a great dinner, toured around the fantastic night market and once again retired for an early evening. Bright and early this morning we went hunting for a new place to stay. We found a room just like the one we stayed in last night, but half the price. SCORE!

That's it for now. We should be in Luang Prabang for a few more days and then we're heading south.

One Pai and Three Chiangs in Two Days!

2005-12-03T17:39:00.000+09:00

Well hello, hello everyone!

My oh my do I have a tale to weave for you all, so hold onto your butts :)

Pai (still)

This is a very very hard place to leave. We actually ended up staying five nights in total in Pai. The last two days were spent doing absolutely nothing (which is just what the doctor ordered). I finally got my first Thai massage and it was pretty cool. To be honest I also got my second Thai massage in Pai as well and it was much better then the first. During the day we explored the town a bit, but mostly we say by the river at our guesthouse and read (or slept). I bought and have already completed the DaVinci Code and Paul finished the 5th Harry Potter. We're on the hunt for new books at some point today. Side Note: There are tons of used book stores in Thailand where you can exchange books by selling your old and picking up a new one - makes traveling light a lot easier.

While in Pai Dara (in all of her brilliance) suggested an alternative route into Laos. You see we were planning on backtracking down to take the train up to Nong Khai and crossing the border there. We would then travel north to Luang Prabang and travel back down the south to leave Laos. That's right - we were going to be backtracking twice. Now that I think about it to didn't really make a lot of sense for us because we still have quite a bit of time before our Thailand visa expires (it expires Dec. 8th). So here is what we decided to do instead. Take the bus from Pai to Chiang Mai, from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai (stay the night there) and then travel to Chiang Khong where we will cross the border into Laos. From Houie Xay (which is in Laos) we take a slow boat (which takes two days) along the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. We can then travel south to Viang Vieng (sp??) and Vientiane.

I will continue with my tale now...

Yesterday (Dec. 2nd) we hopped back on the bus from Pai to Chiang Mai. This ended up being the worst day on this trip so far (for me). I haven't been feeling the greatest (a bit of a cold/flu thing) so I decided to start taking the general antibiotics that were prescribed to me a few days ago. I don't know if that is what caused my demise, but the very nauseating ride to Chiang Mai didn't help. Let's just say I now get to add "threw up in a plastic bag on a old bus in Thailand" to my resume. So I arrived in our first Chiang feeling like crap.

Chiang Mai

We didn't stay long in Chiang Mai. Just long enough to get some food (and gravol) and hop onto a bus heading to Chiang Rai. At the bus station we met this very nice woman named Ann from Belgium. She heard of our plan to continue onto Chiang Rai and decided to join us. So just as a reminder - we now have Correne, Paul, Dara (from Florida) and Ann on this adventure! Fortunately for me this ride was much better and got me to our destination feeling right as rain (I've always wanted to say that!)

Chiang Rai

We arrived in Chiang Rai to get into the second guesthouse of our choice. It wasn't perfect, but since we were only spending one night we decided it was just fine. The four of us heading out into town and have a look around and eventually hunt down some dinner. Chiang Rai also boasts a night market worth checking out. We made our way there and had a GREAT dinner at the food stalls. For practically no money (100 baht) we had fried rice, pad Thai, spring rolls and fruit shakes for desert. We spent the night looking around the night market. There were quite a few things that we hadn't seen anywhere else before. It was also nice that the market was only open to pedestrian traffic so we didn't have to worry about crazy drivers running us over while we shopped! We called it an early evening and headed to bed.

In the morning we exchanged money, had breakfast and caught the bus to Chiang Khong.

Chiang Khong

This makes up our third Chiang in the past two days! We arrived at 1pm this afternoon and found ourselves a place to spend the night. The bamboo bungalows are quite nice and apparently our guesthouse has great Mexican food (although we've been warned that it takes so long that you might actually believe it's coming straight from Mexico!) Chiang Khong is a typical border town. Lots of places to buy slow boat tickets, a few places to eat and that's about it. Just by chance they hold a night market every Saturday night so it looks like we have plans for the evening. We have already purchased our slow boat tickets for tomorrow. At 9am we head to Thailand immigration for an exit stamp. We then take the ferry across the Mekong River to Houie Xay where we will obtain our 15 day Laos visa and get on the slow boat to Luang Prabang.

Well that's it. Since we will be traveling by boat for the next two days we won't be updating, but we hope to write in our blog once we arrive in Luang Prabang. Keep reading and check out the photos - Paul got a really fast internet connection and has uploaded almost every photo we have.

Until then...

Zoom Zoom

2005-11-29T12:38:00.000+09:00

Hello from Pai!

Day One

We are just loving it here. Pai has about 3000 people in it and I swear about half of those are farang (foreigners). When we got off the bus we ran into this very nice woman named Dara (she's from Florida) and it turns out that we were all going to the same guesthouse (Baan Tawan). She's been traveling for the last five months and plans on spending a year away from home. She's got some great stories from her adventures in Europe, India and South Africa. We spent our first day here (the 27th) just relaxing and exploring the town. The three of us had a nice dinner and called it an early night.

Day Two

Our second day in Pai was SOOO MUCH FUN! Dara, Paul and I rented motorbikes (don't worry we had helmets) and toured around the countryside. We spent the whole day exploring. Our first stop was Mor Paeng Waterfall. The ride out there was beautiful and made the not so spectacular waterfall worth the visit. There were some people swimming in it, but we didn't bring our suits. Our next stop was Wat Mae Yen (known in Pai as the "Temple on the Hill"). Paul and I had some problems getting up the hill. We ended up renting a standard bike because they were all out of automatic. Although they showed Paul how to operate the thing, let's just say it was easier said then done. With the two of us on it the bike was too heavy to make it up the hill so I ended up walking. Side Note: We did eventually figure out the whole down shifting thing so I didn't have to walk too much more after that. The Temple was pretty cool, but I think the view was what drew us there. We got a perfect picture of Pai from above. If we ever get the photos uploaded look for one of a painting inside the Temple. It was actually quite violent and depicted people being tortured and killed while Buddha watched over. It was not what I was expecting out of a Buddhist Temple at all.

Our third stop Tha Pai Hot Springs - again without our suits we had to settle for a nice foot soak. At the top of the springs the water was way too hot (80 degrees Celsius), but as you reached the bottom of the springs it cooled down to a nice hot tub temperature. Our third and final stop was one last waterfall called Pam Bok. It was quite out of the way and we ended up doing what Paul called "off roading". The dirt road was full of potholes and we almost fell of the bike once. Once we got used to the driving conditions it was great fun. We reached the waterfall (at least what we thought was the falls) and I wasn't too happy. I got off the bike and walked a bit up the hill and we realized that we could climb 150 metres to what the sign said was the "high falls". We figured since we made the perilous journey out there that we should at least check it out. The 150 m. Consisted of muddy trials, one rickety wooden bridge and lots of slippery rocks. At least the high falls was better then the bottom of it :) I still can't believe I made it across the bridge twice. I guess this trip is bringing out the adventurous side of me!!

That night after dinner we stopped for a drink at one of the local restaurants. As we were sitting there Dara recognized some people she had befriended earlier in her travels through Thailand. They joined us for a drink and we ended up hanging out for a few hours - it was great fun. Duncan and Susan have been traveling for two weeks and aren't planning on leaving until March. We're meeting them for dinner tonight.

Day Three

We got up early and took the bikes for one last spin before we had to bring them back. I tried my hand at driving and I must say I did alright. Never in my life did I think I would be driving a motorbike! Once we reached a big hill I handed the reins back over the Paul :) We got lots of great photos of the countryside. I'm going to spend the rest of the day reading and at some point Dara and I are going to go get Thai massages. We'll probably spend at least one more day here - it's a hard place to leave - and then head back down to Chiang Mai and start our journey to the Laos border. That's it for now. We might not update for a few days. Take care of yourselves. Peace.

We Came we Saw we Trekked

2005-11-28T08:39:00.000+09:00

We have finally left Chiang Mai, and headed for beautiful Pai...but before we get into that, lets update you all on our last couple of days in Chiang Mai.

The day after the cooking course was a day just for ourselves. Our Dutch friends went out on a one day trek, so Correne and I had the whole day to do nothing. Correne was feeling a little under the weather so we used that morning for sleeping, and I of course, had no objection. In the afternoon, we scouted out a popular vegetarian restaurant called AUM, that was recommended to us by Christy and John. Thanks guys, it was really good. Correne had some really spicy red curry that had to of killed some of her flu bugs. Later that night we met up with Milan and Arenda and decided to do a 2 day 1 night trek the next day.

The Trek

We were picked up in the morning by our tour guide, and met the other two travelers that would be sharing the experience with us, two guys from California. Our first stop was a local market were we could buy water or any other supplies we would want for the trip. After this we went to a national park and saw an amazing waterfall that was over 20 meters tall. It was really beautiful. The two guys from California went swimming in it, but the rest of us did not want to be wet for the rest of the day.

After the waterfall, we were taken to a food stall and were made really good fried rice, and served fresh pineapple for desert. After that we hiked to a hot springs, and then trekked for about an hour and a half thru the jungle to a local hilltribe settlement. It was really neat to see how these people have been living for centuries with minimal resources(except the solar panels supplies by the government). About another two hour hike later we arrived at another settlement were we would be spending the night on the floor of a hut. Thankfully there were lots of blankets and mosquito nets. It was by far the worst night sleep anyone had ever had, but it was a pretty neat place to spend the night.

The next morning involved another hike to a nearby elephant camp, where we rode on the back of an elephant, and made our way down the river. Correne and I had mixed feelings about the elephant ride. In a way, it seemed cruel to ride these beautiful creatures purely for our enjoyment. Down the river were two bamboo rafts waiting for us. This was the best part of the whole trek.

We got on the rafts, four per raft, and made our way down the river for two hours. We went thru rapids and a couple a miniature waterfalls, and we got soaked. It was so much fun. The only thing keeping us on the raft was our balance, but we didn't fall off. There were a couple of water snakes, but other than that the scenery was unbelievable. Down the river we were served dinner, and then drove back to the city. What a great trip! The night market one more time, and then in bed early. Next day...Pai.

Pai

Since we have only been here for a couple of hours, there is not much to tell. When we have some news, we will surely keep you all posted.

Paul

NOTE ABOUT PICTURES

2005-11-24T11:15:00.000+09:00

Hello again everyone. I know I just wrote an entry, but we might have to stop uploading pictures. "High Speed" is a relative term in Thailand we just spent the last hour trying to upload 10 pictures unsuccessfully. If we manage to find an Internet Cafe with a faster connection down the road we will do our best to get more pictures on the net, but until then we may have to stop the process for a while. Again, I am so sorry to everyone who has been following our photo album.

The Chiang Mai Report

2005-11-24T11:09:00.000+09:00

Well I'm excited to say that we actually stayed in one city for longer then two days... it feels nice. Although we haven't moved from city to city, we certainly have been keeping busy. The bus ride here with Arenda and Milan (the Dutch couple) was a little uncomfortable. The lady at the bus station told us it was 5 hours and it actually 6-1/2. The air conditioning wasn't working either, but since it was supposed to be an air-con bus the windows didn't open. All and all it wasn't the greatest ride, but we got here none the less.

Day One

Our guesthouse is quite nice. We're staying right across the hall from Arenda and Milan, who we have spent the last three days with. We arrived fairly late in the afternoon so we spent the time reading about trekking trips, exchanging money and later on in the evening we visited Chiang Mai's famous Night Bazaar. The shopping there was amazing. It was nice to see some actual Thai items instead of the western stuff we saw in some of the other cities. We didn't do any buying on the first night, but we ended up with lots of great gifts ideas for family and friends.

Day Two

Our second day was just as busy as the first. It started with a early morning and a walk to the mini-bus station that was to take us to Doi Suthep (you will all have to pardon my spelling on this entry - I don't have the Let's Go guide with me this time). This famous Wat is 16km up a very very windy road. Arenda and I were not feeling very well by the time we got to the top :P One we arrived at the summit we noticed an elephant off in the distance so we thought we'd take a look. Turns out that a Thai gentleman has tied the elephant up for the last 13 years and watched as people paid for baskets of cucumbers to feed to him. It was actually quite sad to see the way he was being treated. It made us think that tourism in this part of the world can sometimes bring about negative results for the people and their animals (another example later on). At this point I was no longer feeling nauseous and we decided to start the 306 step journey to the where the Wat is. I bet you are all wondering what makes this temple so special... well I'll tell you! An elephant actually chose the place where this temple was to be built. The Thai people decided to let this elephant decide the location and he started to walk. He walked and walked and eventually made his was up this mountain. Once he got near the top he dropped dead. The Thai people thought that it couldn't be a more clear sign of where to build the Wat, so they started to build. There were statues and monuments of elephants all over the temple grounds.

The climb up the stairs wasn't nearly as exhausting as we expected it to be. Especially since it was quite cool that high up. At one point I was wishing for my sweater. The temple was quite nice. Milan and Paul both wore shorts that day and they wouldn't let them in with them so they had to borrow a pair of fisherman's pants. It was quite the site since they were both dressed so nicely in pink :) After viewing the temple we went out to the lookout where you had a great view of Chiang Mai - we have lots of pictures.

Note: We are a bit behind in uploading pictures - it's taking longer than we expected - we apologize to everywhere who is patiently waiting.

After we all were feeling better from the ride up the mountain we decided to take our chances with the way down. It was a bit better than the way up, but I still vowed not to step foot in one of those for at least a few days.

We spent the rest of the afternoon Wat-hopping around "the old city" in Chiang Mai. The highlight was one of the only two teak wooden temples in the city. It was quite beautiful and impressive to see what great condition it was in (since it was over 160 years old). We spent the evening shopping for Christmas gifts and did quite well. We are going to save quite a bit of shopping for Bangkok (on our way out of the country) because we don't want to carry all the gifts around with us for the next 1-1/2 months. I will say this though - Paul was on fire!! His bartering skills had the three of us (Milan, Arenda and I) in awe. We managed to get most items for close to half off.

Day Three

Just as a note - day three was today which is November 23rd. Today the four of us took a one day cooking course with a company called Baan Thai. They picked us up at our guesthouse around 9:30 this morning. Our first stop was a local market where we learned loads in Thai vegetables, rice and fruit. It is really nice to be able to identify what you're eating which before today we weren't always able to do. We also shopped for all the ingredients we would be needing that day. It was a really cool experience. We walked back to Baan Thai and our host (whose name is pronounced "Wow") started us off with a Thai Welcome snack. You took this leaf that looked like spinach only bigger and made it into a cone shape. You then filled it with peanuts, lime, ginger, hot chili pepper and this fantastic sauce and put the whole thing in your mouth. Every bite was a different flavour. It was pretty neat. Our next dish was Thai fried rice and I must say I have NEVER had fried rice that tasted so good. We then made egg rolls (from scratch) and papaya salad. At this point we took a bit of a break and got to know some of the other people in our group. The other three people happened to be Canadian as well. After swapping travel stories we started on our next set of meals. We made yellow curry (which was amazing) and fried bananas. At the end of the day we got a huge recipe book filled not only with what we made and ate today, but with at least 10 other Thai recipes to try. We both can't wait to start cooking!

Well that's it for now. Our guesthouse offered CD burning for 50 baht, so we burned almost 400 photos (yes I said 400) so we could delete them off the memory card. If we didn't do that we would most certainly run out of room. Tonight we will probably skip dinner and do some more shopping :) Tomorrow should be a little more relaxing. Arenda and Milan are doing a one day trek tomorrow that we decided not to do, so Paul and I will probably lounge around and maybe visit the Tribal Museum. On Friday the four of us are going to go on a two day, one night trek. It involves hiking to a hill tribe, an elephant ride, a raft trip down the river etc. It should be great fun. We get to spend the night in the tribe's village. We will write all about it when we get back. Love to you all. Thanks for putting up with the lengthy entry :)

So Long Sukothai

2005-11-22T10:18:00.000+09:00

For a change, Paul is at the helm on the blog...so listen up!

It seems as soon as we were in Sukothai we were leaving Sukothai. Although we only ended up staying for two days, we really enjoyed ourselves at this quiet little town. We took an extremely early bus out of Ayutthaya (40 minutes late on Thai time) and headed for Sukothai. We arrived at our guesthouse which was a set of charming bungalows set in and around a beautiful garden. The staff were extremely friendly, and we had some of the best food yet. Our favourite by far was sweet and sour Tofu mixed with mango and pineapple, tomatoes, and onions on rice...excuse me while I drool on the keyboard.

Sukothai, much like Ayutthaya is a city full of old ruins and temples. The "Old City" boasts the main attractions, and we were able to see all the sights in one day thanks to a handy little bicycle rental shop just outside the park. One bike, 20 baht (about 66 cents). These Marry Poppins style bikes were quite enjoyable as we cruised in and out of ancient ruins.

Along the way we met a nice Dutch couple that we staying at the same guest house as us. We had dinner with them, and decided to do some traveling together aswell. The next morning the four of us hopped a bus to Chiang Mai, which is where I am writing from right now.

Stay tuned for more tales from Chiang Mai. We are looking into some 2-3 day treks that take us into the villages of the Hill Tribes, and include Elephant rides, and bamboo river rafting.

Gotta go...expensive internet.

Paul

Say Cheese!

2005-11-20T08:41:00.000+09:00

Today (which is November 19th) we arrived in Sukothai after a 6 hour bus ride. We haven't been here very long but we both have already decided that we like it here. We're staying at Ban Thai Guesthouse. We have this little bungalow with bath. We're expecting the worst when it comes to mosquitoes because I've already been bitten three times and it's only 3 in the afternoon. Anywho, I will delight you all with stories of the past few days.

Ayutthaya

Wow did we ever like it here. I think this is when we really started to enjoy ourselves here. Bangkok is a very hard city to land in. It's HUGE and crammed full of people and when you're suffering from culture shock (which we were) that was a tough thing to handle. Ko Samet was about getting over culture shock and trying to relax, but once we arrived in Ayutthaya we both breathed a sigh of relief that all cities weren't like Bangkok. The children in this city were funny. They would wave and say hello and once they passed us they would break out into giggle fits. It was actually kinda cute. There were a lot of a stray dogs here as well. Mostly males who didn't seem to have owners of any kind. They look hungry and in some cases down right miserable - it gets hard to see actually because on the same street you'll see people bring home puppies. You just have to hope they don't end up like most dogs we saw.

Day One

We had a very busy first day. We took the train from Bangkok at 8:20 a.m. (on the 16th) and arrived in Ayutthaya just after 9:30. We dropped our stuff off at the guesthouse - which was fantastic - and decided to do a walking tour of some of the ruins. We started at the local tourist information office where they gave us a great map (for free!!) and proceeded to our first wat. Our first stop was Wat Phraram and did not fail to impress. After seeing so many temples in near perfect condition it was amazing to see what hundreds of years of neglect and decay can do to them. We tried to imagine what they would have looked like when they were first built (in this Wat's case - 1369). You should check out the pictures - just be warned, we have lots. The larger cylindrical buildings are called prangs and the smaller someone pointy looking ones are called stupas. Our next stop was Wihaan Phra Mongkon Brophit which is home to the Thailand's largest bronze Buddha. The statue actually suffered lots of damage over the years due to natural disasters - it's head was struck by lightening etc. - so they constructed the wat around it to protect it. The Buddha itself has since been repaired - twice.

After that we walked to Wat Phra Si Sanphet and the Ancient Palace. This one was one of the largest ruins sites we went to and was packed with people but spectacular none the less. A strange thing happened just as we were leaving though. A group of Thai people started to flag us down. At first we thought they wanted us to move because we were in the way and they wanted to take a picture. Quite the contrary - they wanted us to pose in a picture with one of their friends. I guess pictures of white people are good dinner conversation :)

I think our favourite was Wat Ratchaburna - not because the site was any more impressive than the others but because of the feeling of the place. You could actually walk down these very very steep stairs to the bottom of the prang. I had a bit of anxiety about the whole thing and ended up walking down the stairs backwards (they were actually very narrow). At the bottom were remains of paintings that had been there since it was built. At the bottom of the stairs we were overwhelmed by a very powerful and somewhat disturbing feeling. The energy in there was amazing, but I could only handle being down there for a few minutes before I had to make my way back up - followed very closely by Paul. I later read that in 1957 the crypt inside was looted and all 10 thieves died mysteriously. After that rumours spread around the country that the king himself had placed a curse on the wat.

Our last stop of the day was Wat Mahathat. By the end of the day we were tired and kinda cranky (we had gotten lost on more than one occasion), but we were glad that we made our way there anyway. We finally made our way back to our guesthouse, cleaned up and had an awesome dinner at Kwan's Cafe. We probably had some of the best food that we've had so far. The green curry was to die for (and cheap!) and Kwan was a riot to watch. The guy seemed to have the energy of three people.

Day Two

Our second day in Ayutthaya was not a exciting. Our Let's Go guide suggested we check our Wat Chaiwatthanaram which is on the other side of the city. We debated whether we should go or not, but in the end we went with the saying "you're only here once". We paid the hefty 80 baht (which was actually a deal because our guesthouse has special rates with tuk-tuk drivers) to get us there and to be honest, it was pretty much the same as the rest of the ruins. The only difference was that it was bigger. Our new problem was that once we were finished at the wat we had to walk quite a distance before we could find a tuk-tuk driver to take us back (there weren't any waiting outside the ruins). We tried to barter with the driver but he knew we were in a bit of a pickle with no way to get out except through him so we ended up paying 100 baht to get back. Our evening ended up much better. We had our first food stall experience for dinner. We weren't brave enough to try anything other than pad Thai, but my word was it good. We followed that up with a walk down to the night market which was slightly disappointing. It was full of cheap plastic toys and western style clothing - but we were glad that we made the trip anyway.

Well that's it for Ayutthaya. We're going to head to Old Sukothai historical park tomorrow (and probably the next day - it's pretty big). We'll have more stories for you then.

Hello from Ayutthaya

2005-11-18T16:55:00.000+09:00

Hi Everyone. I apologize for not writing from Ko Samet but the Internet prices were way to high and we were way to cheap to pay them :) I'll do my best the sum up the last few days.

Ko Samet

We left Shanti Lodge (in Bangkok) bright and early on Sunday the 13th. The taxi ride was crazy. The guy's car said in big letter "I Love Farang - I speak English". The guy didn't speak a word of English except the word taxi. With the help of our handy phrase book we were able to tell him that we needed to get to the Eastern Bus Terminal. From there we took a bus to Ban Phe. We must have gotten on a private company bus because it was cheaper than we expected and only took 2 hours instead of 3-1/2. When we arrived at Ban Phe we had to take a ferry across to Ko Samet. The ferry was nice and relaxing. Man do they ever cram as many people as they can though. The thing was about to burst. Forty minutes and 50 baht later we arrive at Nuan Tip Pier. We made our way to Naga Bungalows. Let's just say that "rustic" came to mind when we saw our room. In hindsight we should have said no and tried elsewhere but we arrived fairly late in the day and we were worried they would all be full (not to mention we didn't really think of it until after). The bungalow consisted of what we think was a mattress (but as hard as the floor), two pillows and a mosquito net. The net should have been our first indication that the next few days were going to be interesting, but we didn't really clue in. This was our first experience with shared bathrooms and they were... well very gross. I don't think they cleaned them often enough and they smelled horrible!! We were too late to hit the beach that day so we relaxed, watched one of the movies that showed and had dinner. Right around 5pm is when the mosquitoes came out. Paul and I were eaten alive! Apparently Thai mosquitoes are immune to Deet because our bug stray didn't do squat. I got 14 bites in one night. It made the evenings very unpleasant. We usually went to bed pretty early and feel asleep right away. We must have been tired because Naga's bar was crowded and loud until the wee hours of the morning, but it didn't bother us at all.

The next day we hit the beach. We got up early and rented two chairs right by the ocean. We spent the whole day down there, mostly reading and sleeping. It was nice and relaxing. Just what we needed to help get over our culture shock. We had some pineapple in a bag - yummy!!Although we were plastered in sunscreen we both spent a bit too much time in the sun and got burnt. It wasn't bad, but bad enough to keep us away from the beach the second day. Instead we spent the morning of day two trekking to a 14m Buddha and the afternoon lounging in the guesthouse common area reading and playing cards. I also got to catch up on some much needed journal writing time.

And now I will write about THE SNAKE!! I figured that this needed a whole paragraph to itself. While we were in the common room minding our own business reading Paul saw a huge snake slither through the lobby and out onto the stairs that led down to the road. He TOTALLY freaked out. I saw the tail end of it and by the looks of it, it must have been at least 5 feet long. It was probably harmless, but none the less Paul looked up from his book every 2 minutes or so to check to see if the coast was clear.

Bangkok (again)

We left Ko Samet (covered in bites but semi-relaxed) on the 16th in hopes of reaching Ayutthaya by the evening. When we arrived at the bus station in Bangkok we couldn't find a taxi that was willing to drive us to the train station and use the meter! They all insisted on a flat rate. Once again, knowing we were probably being ripped off we climbed in a taxi and drove off. Luckily the taxi driver dropped us off at the TAT. We spoke to a guy there and he hold us that there was a full moon candle festival that night in Ayutthaya and that it would be impossible to find a place to stay. Paul and I were pretty upset - the last thing we wanted to do was spend another night in Bangkok. Unfortunately it didn't really seem like we had an option. The guy recommended a hotel down the street - a 10 minute walk from the train station. The cost was a little more than we were willing to spend (600 baht a night), but it included breakfast (a nice big buffet) and didn't involve another taxi ride. We did the math in our head and decided that this was the most economical decision since were weren't really close to any guesthouses that we knew of. So we spent last night in Bangkok's Chinatown in a room with air conditioning and hot water. We took advantage of our free time to do a ton of laundry which had been piling up over the past few days.

Today we got up at six in the morning, showered, packed, had a very nice western style breakfast and walked to the train station. The train ride was pretty cool. It was neat to see the countryside as we made our way to Ayutthaya. The train was full of Thai people. We've already started to get used to people staring at us. I can't blame them - it's not like there are lots of white people in Thailand.

Anyway, we arrived here safe and sound. We are staying at the U.P Inn (formerly known as the P.U. Guesthouse - I guess we know why they changed their name). The room is beautiful - better than the one at Shanti and it's inexpensive. We're not sure how we're going to spend the day today. We already had to go out and buy batteries because our battery charger is broken. We will write about our experience here in a few days. We're staying tonight and tomorrow and then heading up north after that. Peace and love to you all.

Bangkok - second installment

2005-11-13T04:51:00.000+09:00

Day Two

Holy cow is time flying already. We actually made it out of the guesthouse yesterday and managed to visit Dusit Zoo and the Marble Temple (Wat Benchamabophit). Both places were pretty neat. If we actually manage to get yahoo working (we're having technical difficulties) we will upload the pictures. The Temple was amazing. I know this will sound stupid, but part of me expected the Temples to be tourist sites - but Thai people actually use them. We saw so many of them come and go. They were praying and lighting incense.

The zoo was nice as well - Paul really enjoyed it. Dusit Zoo is Thailand's largest Zoo. Lots of mother's with their children :) We were surprised to see how close you could get to the animals. Some of them only had a little wooden fence separating the animals from us. It was the closest I have ever been to an crocodile in my life. If I wanted to I could have touched him - but I of course refrained. The weather was sooo hot. I actually had a headache most of the day yesterday and today. I'm hoping that I adapt to this or it's going to be a very long trip!

Day Three

We spent a better part of this day visiting Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace) and Wat Pho (reclining Buddha). We decided that the fastest way to get there would be to take a water taxi. We got lost just trying to find the pier and turned down this fish market. The smell was tough to handle and there were buckets and buckets of live fish just flopping around. I just happened to look over when a woman was cutting the head of one of the fish. I promptly lost my appetite!! :) We finally found the pier and managed with some luck to get on a taxi. The ride was pretty fun - a little stressful trying to figure out which stop to get off at but we made it. Wat Phra Kaew was amazing (and packed full of people) - we have tons of pictures. The place is huge and the detail in the buildings is extraordinary. I have never seen anything like it in my life. The Emerald Buddha was really neat. You weren't allowed taking any pictures inside the wat, but Paul tried to get one from the outside - hopefully you can see it. Before you go into any of the temples you have to take off your shoes and hats. I haven't seen this many shoes before in one place (well other than a shoe outlet factory or something). I was really happy to see that everyone respected the customs (well most people) and took off their shoes. There were some people in the temple that were taking pictures - that bothered me a little bit. They had signs posted everywhere so it's not like you can plead ignorance.

After we finished up at Wat Phra Kaew we headed to Wat Pho, which is the temple of the reclining Buddha. On the way there we had three different Thai men tell us three different ways to get there. Our Let's Go guide warned us of this. I still don't understand why they want to lead you astray, but it worked the first time. By the time we hit the building of National Defense we knew we were way off. We knew that you aren't supposed to pull your map out when you're on the street but we had no choice. We checked to make sure the coast was clear and pulled out the map. I swear, out of NO WHERE, this tuk tuk driver came up beside us and started bugging us. He followed us for a bit and finally gave up, but geez - now I know why you aren't supposed to pull out the map. We finally got there and I must say, it was very cool. I didn't expect it to be so big, but its really huge. We overheard a woman telling someone that it was 15 meters high and 49 meters long! We have lots of pictures. On the back side of the Buddha there are these metal pots - there must have been over 50 of them. At the beginning of the line of pots there was a donation box and a little bowl full of coins. We saw a Thai woman donate some baht and take a bowl of coins. She then proceeded down the line of pots and dropped one coin in each pot. As we watched this Paul remembered an episode of The Amazing Race that took place in Wat Pho. He remembered that the bowl of coins had exactly the right number of coins per bowls and if you did it right and didn't miss any metal pots, that your bowl of coins would be empty by the end. We watched the woman for a while, but it took a really long time for her to finish up her bowl so we left :)

While we were taking the water taxi back to our guest house it started to rain - and I mean rain. I have never seen rain like that in my life. We got back to Thewet pier (which is close to our guest house) and we were stuck there for over an hour. Once it let up a bit we decided to brave the 10 minute walk back. We were SOAKED by the time we reached our room. Most of the roads were flooded so we had no choice but to walk through shin deep water. Kinda gross. :P A special thanks goes out to my mom - she convinced me to bring garbage bags and man are we glad that she did. It kept our back packs from getting soaked. Thanks mom!!!

After we dried off we had a nice dinner of stir fry and pad Thai and called it a night. Paul tried some local beer and I had a fairly girly drink (except it must have had three kinds of alcohol in it because I wasn't feeling to great after that).

Day Four

Well here I am to today. We were supposed to take the bus to Ko Samet today , but we weren't quite ready to brave the bus system yet. We also didn't feel like traveling yet. We decided that we were going to take it easy today. We had a lazy morning and right now I'm sitting in an Internet cafe on Khaosan Road (there are lots of guesthouses and tourists here). It actually made us both feel better to see more white people. Where we are staying there aren't very many. Neither of us expected it to be so hard to be a minority as it is. Each and every day we are getting used to being here though. We are hoping to get some shopping done today. My sandals suck! I need to pick up some shoes and some cotton pants (my quick dry pants are too big for me... go figure). Paul is going to try and find a couple of shirts too. I hope our bartering skills are up to par!

Tomorrow we will be leaving Bangkok - for sure this time and heading down south to Ko Samet for a few days. We will write again in a few days from there. Love to you all.

Correne

Hello from Bangkok

2005-11-11T04:43:00.000+09:00

Well we made it. After a very very long plane ride - four airports, three take-offs and three landings later - we are finally in Bangkok. We took a risk and had the taxi driver (who ripped us off by the way) drop us off at Shanti Lodge even though we didn't have a reservation. Turned out they had a room. We're stayed there last night and probably for the next two nights. After that we will head to Ko Samet (south on your map) to lay around on the beach.

We started walking to the Dusit Zoo today and got all turned around. We also noticed that there weren't many people walking and NOOO foreigners walking so we decided to turn around and go back to our guesthouse. I think we might take a tuk tuk if we decide to venture out again today. The heat is a little hard to adjust to so we might just take it easy and lounge around our guesthouse today. That's it for now - we're out of time for the Internet, but we will write again later. We will probably add some pictures to the album at some point today too. Peace out.

Crisis Averted!

2005-11-08T12:44:00.000+09:00

So... many of you know that I like to be prepared (maybe a little too prepared). I wanted to check with Pearson's website to make sure that our flight was on schedule. When I checked the website they had not posted the flights for tomorrow yet. They directed me to contact the airline. So I went to United Airline's website and searched for our flight number. Search = No Results Available. I start to panic. So I called United's toll free number and spoke to a very useless man who told me that our flight DID NOT EXIST. Now I'm really panicking. I promptly called Pearson and spoke to a much more helpful man who unfortunately told me the same thing - our flight does not exist. If shit flew it would be hitting a fan RIGHT ABOUT NOW. He suggested that I call Flight Centre to find out what the problem is. He told me that I should get on this right away because I am leaving very soon and if Flight Centre closes I'm pretty much up you know what creek without a paddle. So I called Flight Centre in Victoria and told them my happy story. I would like all of you to keep in mind that 25 minutes have passed and I am having a major heart attack at this point. I spoke with a very nice (and useful man) named Mike and he told me....

The flight number has been changed!!!!

He then said "didn't anyone tell you about this?" I of course laughed because if they had I wouldn't be having kittens on the phone with him at that very moment. So long and short - crisis averted. New flight number, slightly new time, but all is good. Our next entry, which probably won't be nearly as exciting, will be from Thailand. How very cool.

30 Hours and Counting

2005-11-07T17:03:00.000+09:00

We are back in Ajax after spending the weekend at Adam and Gillian's (Paul's brother and his wife). Pippin went home with Paul's parent's last night. I'm glad that our pets have good homes to go to while we travel. It still doesn't quite feel real to either of us that we are leaving in a little more than 24 hours from now. We're going to stay up as late as we can tonight, sleep in tomorrow and stay up until our flight on Tuesday. We fly out at 6am. Our first stop is Washington D.C. where we change airlines. We then fly from there to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Bangkok. I haven't had much luck sleeping on planes in the past, but I have never been on a 23 hour flight - my fingers are crossed! We still haven't heard back from the Shanti Lodge so we are going to try and call them a little later tonight. Thailand is 11 hours ahead of us here in Ontario (just as mental note for all you readers out there).

I also added a few more links to this site (found to your right). The maps should help you follow Paul and I and give you a good idea of where we are. I'm also hoping to add a link for weather forecasts in Thailand.

I think that's it for now. Crocheting calls :)

The beginning of the goodbyes

2005-11-05T13:46:00.000+09:00

Today we went to Wilmot Creek for my grandmother's birthday ( I think she said she was turning 76). It was also the last time we will see them before we leave for Thailand on Tuesday. Uncle Bruno is still convinced that we're going to Taiwan! I'm not sure if it's bad memory or if he's just messing with us - knowing Bruno it is probably the latter. Oma is still a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. Thailand isn't exactly on her list of places she wants to visit so she doesn't understand why we want to go. I guess I can't blame her, but I love that she cares so much.

The Great Baht Hunt

2005-11-04T06:07:00.000+09:00

Today we went to the bank to pick up the Baht (Thai currency) that we ordered three days ago. We took a picture of some of the bills - we thought they were pretty. We got enough to cover the cab ride from the airport to Bangkok and the expenses for our first day there. After that we will cash some of our travelers cheques.

We sent an email to the guesthouse that we want to stay at in Bangkok to see if they have any openings for the 9th and 10th of November (fingers crossed). It's called the Shanti Lodge - here is the website : http://www.shantilodge.com/ Once you get to the website click on "Shanti Bangkok" and take a look around. Our friends (hi Christy and John!) stayed there when they went to Thailand and said it was great. Everything we've read about seems really cool. I just hope they have a vacancy for when we arrive. If not we will be in Bangkok again, we'll just reserve ahead of time.

We also added a few more pictures to our photo album, mostly of my family. If you like my sister's hat e-mail me - I can make you one for a modest price :) Peace and Love to you all!

First Post

2005-11-03T08:51:00.000+09:00

Well this is the first post on our brand new blog. Paul and I thought that this might be a better way to keep in touch with all of you while we are traveling around Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. We are hoping to update every three to four days, but we really won't know what is feasible until we actually get there - which is very soon I might add. We leave in six days!

Today we took a nice long walk by the lake to test out our new packs - my mom insisted :) We walked from my parents house to the graveyard up past Rotary Park. (For those of you who don't live in Ajax - it took about 30 minutes). I try to visit the graveyard at least once when I'm in town. Something about the energy there... its a little creepy to be honest. I think I keep going back just to make sure that it still feels strange. There are 23 people buried there - most of the are the first settlers to this area. When the leaves aren't on the ground you can actually see where everyone is buried because the ground is raised.

We're pretty much finished looking through our Let's Go guide to Thailand. We have a rough idea of where we want to visit. We don't want to be too rigid in our plans, but it's nice to have a general idea of where things are and where we'd like to visit.

That's it for now. We're settling down for the night. After my sister finishes her homework I'm going to try and hook her into a game of Nerts. We'll write soon.

Lots of Love

Correne :)