Apr 17, 07
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Are you going to Pai? It's awsome there
Go to Laos!! Go to Laos! You'll love it!! Super safe, lots of tourists there. if you want Do it yourself instructions here goes. It's really easy Just head up by bus to a city called Chiang Kong. Spend the night The next morning go to the border, get your Visa on Arrival. (no need to book in advance) And get a boat to Luang Prabang. There's 2 options slow boat (2 x 8 hours) or fast boat 6 hours. Both are horrible. But it will be worth it. After a couple days bus to Vang Vieng for amazing mountain scenery, opium tea and inner tubing down the river past dozens of bamboo bars selling huge bottles of Beer lao for $1.00. It's a real crazy party scene happening here. Then bus to Vientinae. Cool little capital city than seems like a village. Then you could head back into Thailand and Bangkok by train. I'd do this towards the end of your trip 
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Apr 19, 07
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^^ ack!! i keep hearing about laos.. but we really dont have time for it this time around... we have the next weekish planned out as we have made it up to pai.. and yes it is fabulous!!!.. and we have a bunch of stops were planning on making slowly back on the way down to bangkok for the chatachuck weekend market then sneak off to ko samet for a couple of days before we fly out of bangkok on the 3rd... deffinatly next time though!! :)
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Apr 26, 07
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ok.. where do i even start?.... haha... so much with the keeping updated... i guess so much has happened since i last wrote though... i left off the day before we were headin up to phuket to do that seacanoeing tour which turned out to be totally worth it.... canoing with our own private tour guid thru crazy limestone caves thru to secluded lagoons... just unreal.. i cant really explain.. and i dont know if my pics will do it justice.. but it will have to suffice.... all in all it was totally worth waiting to go do... the drive back from the canoeing tour we did not expecct though.... we had come from krabi which was about a 2 hour drive from phuket cause it was cheaper and other than the seacanoing we really had no other intrest in phuket (its really touristy).. so we rented a car.. the drive there was nice and all...but wow... the drive back thru the monsoon rain with the defroster broken and getting semi lost on the "well marked" highway... hahaha....we did make it home back to krabi though... thank god... it was an epic adventure i guess you could say though....
the next day we woke up to sounds of "wooo hoooo .. wooooooo ... woooooo hoooooo!!!" ... ah yes.. as if the moonson rain was not enough the night before it was the first day of SONGKRAN(thai new years) in which the whole country is in a HUGE water fight.... so we spent the entire day getting soaked..and soaking other people driving by on their scooters and in the back of pick up trucks with 10 people in the back...oh and our favorite.. the "taxis!!" .. full of "fanrangs" (tourists) sitting in the back... muwahahaha.... haha... it was really fun... but weirdly tiring after a whole day..... the next day we left on a plane..(thank god... im starting to hate buses) to chang mai.. which we were told was the craziest place to be for songkran.. which was compltely accurate.... it was krabi times 1000 .. people all over the place throwing water at each other from a big moat that surrounds the old city..(yucky) along with hidden buckets of ice water from the back of their trucks... people partying all over the streets drinking and dancing... total chaos! fun... but again.. weirdly tiring at the end of the day.... the next day we decided if we wanted to try and get anything done we would have to try and get a little bit out of town away from all the action... so we went to the temple at the top of the mountain that overlooks the whole city... i guess songkran is a big religious time as well cause the temple was packed full of thai people.. which was cool cause we got to see something on the more cultural aspect of things.. a nice change from all the farangs everywhere... after that we headed to the chang mai zoo.. which was actually really nice considering... tons of animals in a huge zoo complex... the coolest of which was .....a baby tiger and 2 baby lions... which we GOT TO PET!!! seriously... where in the world would you get to do that??... it was crazy!!!!! the next day we took a thai cooking couse.. yes we are offically professional thai chefs!!! haha... the food was soooooo good and im excited that i know how to make it all from scratch now!! (thai food party anyone?) ... we spent the last day in chang mai walking around and checking out some of the cool temples .. we are now in pai.... 3 hours north of chang mai... i will write about the minibus of doom .. motion sickness and food poisioning later... this is getting long and i have a reggae party to go to!!! hahaha... i will continue in email #2 ......
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Apr 30, 07
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so last i left off we had just gotten into pai....great little town north of chang mai.. allthough the ROAD OF DOOM TO pai from chang mai... not so charming.... those of you that have been know what i am talking about.... its not too far but the fact that there are 600 winds and turns in the road is enough so make anyone feel a little queezy...but add that ontop of the wikked awesome food poisioning i got (yay samonella!!!) well u can imagine.. i pretty much felt like queeling over and just dying.. haha...life lesson #1 from thailand: no matter how much you crave it cause your getting sick of thai food... do not.. i repeat.. do not cave in and eat a "chicken cheeseburger" .. its not a good idea.. :( thank god the lady sitting next to me on the minibus was so nice and gave me a barf bag.. hahaha.. i never thought i would have to use one.. but well theres a first for everything!!
anyways... pai was awesome... so chilled and laid back.. in a valley between nice rolling mountains and amazing scenery... we rented a scooter and cruised around town and thru the country side .. life lesson #2.riding a scooter is not as easy as it looks.. especially with a 6'3 man on the back and having all the thai people laugh at you as you try to get the thing to balance and not crash!... #3.no matter how fun you may think it might be..riding an elephant is SCARY!!!!... we thought it would be a fun idea to go for an elephant ride down into the pai river...well after getting on the elephant and walking down the road in the middle of thr street we started getting a little nervous.... then it makes its way down to the river which sounded like a good idea because it was SO DAMN HOT... i seriously felt like i was melting...so the old thai guy who speaks no english gets the elephant in the river with us on the back and then says something to the elephant who then proceeds to start shaking us off like a wet dog and we go flying off into the river.... i am not a fan of river water... especially THIS river water.... ewwwwwww.... now were in the river with a gigantic elephant while the thai guy is laughing and takin pics for us... man oh man... i guess you should try everything once.. but that is the 1st and last time i will do that.. i was sooooo scared.. hahaha... so mabie think twice about it.. lol. We also thought it would nice to do some outback trekking since we were up in the moutains.... so we decided to go on this "trekking tour".. which well was completly different that what we thought..... life lesson #4. everything in thailand is not what you expect..again those that have been here know what i am talking about... lol. so anyways.. we go on this tour with this little old man named "mr.o" and we were stoaked cause it was only me mike and him... no other annoying tourists.... so we start trekking along the coutry side and hes pointing out all these different fruits and things growing and trees...pretty cool..and then he tells us were going to go to a waterfall.... so we trekking.. and trekking... mind you its probably about 40 degrees and were sweating like there no tomorow...and then finally after off roading and seeing a sign that says "danger king cobras" (apparently it was ok.. cause they only hang out in the trees...*sarcasm*) we get to this tiny little water fall where mr. o makes us these bamboo cups.. and gives us some fried rice in a bag. (all the togo food here is served in little plastic bags) and then proceeds to fall asleep for an hour.. after he woke up we continued up along the coutry side.... to make this short.. by the time we were done our trek.. i thought we were going to die.. it was so hot and we were out in the middle of nowhere... we were just in hysterics about the whole thing cause it really was not what we expected and i guess it was the kind of thing you needed to be there for... but man life lesson #5. trekking in 40 degree wetaher thru the countryside is not reccomended... which leads to #6. also... you know you are hot and dehydrated when you have drank 8 bottles of water and you have not gone pee yet!!! ...oh mr.O the next day we headed down to sukothai the old capital to see some cool ruins... we rented some pedal bikes.. mine was pretty sweet i might add it was purple and had a basket and just rode around all day and checked out the huge historical park...we did not sleep very well here because it was so friggen hot and the place we stayed in even though it had a fan was hotter in our room that it was outside!!!!i was very happy to leave... we rode the train down to lopburi...which is pretty much run by monkeys... no joke.. we get to the train station and go to the "monkey temple" and there are mokeys swinging from the trees and cannon balling into this little pool they had.. it was pretty entertaining and cute.. but dont be fooled!!! after we checked out the rest of the town which is pretty dull and has monkeys all over the buildings and sidewalks and powerlines....we went to this old ruin type temple with probably like a 100 monkeys... we go in and they give us a stick..i guess just in case.. we im glad we had it.. i was SOOO scared.. haha... monkeys are nuts.. and you never know what they are going to do... one monkey started hissing at mike and runing towards him... and about 5 other proceeded to jump on this french girl we had met and try to steal her sunglasses and purse.. some thai man came out with a sling shot and stick and started shooing them away.. haha... we saw one monkey with a lens from a sunglass that he was looking thru and then proceeded to eat it.... poor monkey!!!we hoped on the last train out of there to ayutthaya which is another old capital of thailand with some cool ruins and more temples... lesson #7. thai trains are AWESOME!! they have tons of ladys that get on the train at different stops and sells all kinds of yummy food and drinks... we were loving it.. and it only cost us 13 baht from lopburi to ayutthaya.. which is mabie 50 cents??.. just rediculous! if you ever get a chance to .. even though it looks ghetto... u should deffinatly take a train here.. so fun! we spent the last 2 days checking out the city of ayutthaya which has some really cool ruins and temples with some of the nicests buddha statues i have seen here so far...we just got into bangkok today and after a little mix up with the skytrain and subway (which i must say are really nice.. waaaay nicer than van) we found our guesthouse and are here just in time to check out the chatachuck weekend market for this weekend..were basically gonna buy a duffle bag and stuff it with as much stuff as we can afford and fit in the bag.. haha.. i wont need to go shopping at home for a while... anyways... this is a HUUUGE email sorry there has just been so much random stuff in the last couple of days i realy had to write about all of it.. we really just took it all with humour though cause there is nothing else really to do... its kind of like how the thais deal with things... if you cant really control it .. then dont worry about it.. i kind of wish people at home would be a little more chilled out like that sometimes......anyways... we have the weekend in bangkok then were sneaking off to ko samet for the last 3 days of our trip (brush up on our tan) and then back home on the 3rd!!!!
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May 04, 07
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*venu*
^^ pai was soooooo hot... all of the north was almost unbareable except chang mai... well im back home... ive been up since the day before we left bangkok... so i think ive been up for almost 3 days? with mabie a couple of 2 hour naps in between the 3 flights we had.... its a really strange feeling being home.... at first your so happy that your in a clean comfortable place.. but now i just feel almost awkward.... like i dont know what to do with myself and i dont know know what to do next.... ya its probably the jetlag.... but its a really bizzare feeling being home and not feeling at home....hopefully itll pass..... i cannot wait to eat some hearty healthy food!! thai food is good.. but for 5 weeks straight 3 times a day... not so much......
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