as much as i had planned on writing the rest of the blog entries of the remaining days we were in thailand on a notepad on the plane, i didn’t. i hate writing, i like typing. so, for our readers, the coolest parts of the trip are over. we spent our last days in bangkok shopping for last minute things in the weekend market. saw some cool buildings while we were riding in the cab. went to the mall where dee got a really nice hair cut. i was scared for her. Continue reading »

thank you to all of you who wrote an email or called about us to make sure we made it back safely. even though it sounds scary about the military coup, it would have been an extended vacation for us. another really cool thing, if we had been there, is that the exchange rate rose and we can get 37 baht to the dollar.

oh well. i heard on the news that you can still travel in the country and everything is ok except around bangkok’s government buildings. i also heard of some tourists taking pictures of themselves with the tanks. thailand is a playground. in the midst of such unrest, the tourist can take pics with the soldiers!

anyways, we are back safe. i am in the middle of writing i think the last post for thailand.

i will continue to write about my travels since i travel for my work. as i am writing this, i am in california on a project. i returned from thailand on sunday, spent the day with dan on monday, and flew out first thing to san francisco on tuesday. i am here til friday.

thanks again for your concern and rest assured that our return was perfect timing.

What to do with the last day in chiang mai was the topic of discussion when we met up with marie and Sybille. We discussed several options and consulted the good book over some coffee and sandwiches. We thought about visiting the temple that overlooked the city, but due to the 300+ stairs (there is a gondola for the weary) and the windy road, we opted to stay in the city.

Chiang Mai has the best prices for all types of goods found in Thailand in part due to the factories around the city. They have a silk, jewelry, umbrella, and other factories that pump out most of the goods found in the street or in shops. The travel agent offered to take us around to the various factories where we would shop for, hopefully, cheap silk fabric. Little did we know that the jewelry factory was going to be the most fun.

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The last day of our three-day trekking consisted of a short hike down to a base camp where we ride elephants, experience white water rafting, and relax on a bamboo ride down the river. After that, lunch and then return to civilization.

UPDATE: WTF? When I copied this post from Word to the web, i thought everything had copied. It is missing a paragraph about waking up and johnny being really sick. I will add it later.

Ok, so here is what I had written earlier that for some reason wasn’t originally posted.

The sleeping pills were still in effect when we woke up to the sound of people moving about and getting ready. Breakfast was soon and that meant we had slept in. We grudgingly got up and went to brush teeth and go to the table for the usual feast of pineapple, toast, hard boiled eggs, coffee, and tea.

One look at Johnny, the guide, and you knew he was not feeling well. He had been up most of the night with stomach pains and nausea. Dee gave him some pills to take and told him to drink lots of water. he threw up the water. I was really concerned. not for him, but for me! he was the cook. was it just by dumb luck that he got the dirty dish? they don’t exactly use antibacterial soap to clean the pots and dishes. i think they dip it in the river and as long as it looks clean, it is clean.

Johnny requested for us to pack quickly so that we can make it down to base camp. as i watched him, i could feel his pain. he paced back and forth and you could tell he was fighting off the urge to release something or faint.

We hurry and pack. Johnny takes off down the trail. Usually he waits for us, but he wasn’t waiting for us this time. He didn’t have to anyways. The trail was an easy downhill but in the spirit of obstacles in the jungle, it had rained last night and the trail was muddy. Marie and Sybille said that earlier in the morning elephants had visited the camp. They had pics to prove it.

well, I dont know if it was dumbo who left the holes or something else, but we were hopping back and forth across the trail to avoid the water holes. * WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 4444 * In addition to the puddles, we had to negotiate a slippery metal pipe combined with a quick step on slick wood. * WPG2 CANNOT LOCATE GALLERY2 ITEM ID 4459 *It looked like an obstacle course. I stepped on some mud that quickly enveloped my shoe. I became the proud owner of a brown shoe. once out of the trail, er jungle, we walked a road to base camp. Our shoes were beyond repair.

we arrived at the camp to the sounds of elephants. Continue reading »

the second day of trekking wasn’t as hard as the first. it was mostly downhill to another “halfway” bamboo camp where we had lunch. the camp, more like the family’s residence, had a huge amazing waterfall next to it. when we arrived, the water was bright white. the power of the water was extreme. you could feel the wind from it while standing a good distance away. while we waited for lunch, it began to lightly rain and, after a while, the waterfall started turning a brown color and increasing in size. our guide informed us that we would be crossing the river by walking through the water. there wasn’t a bamboo bridge or rocks to hop. we kept watching the waterfall as it looked bigger and darker, which increased our anxiety of the hike as we imagined holding our bags above our heads as we crossed.

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by the end of the first day of trekking, i had the guns and roses song, welcome to the jungle, in my head. it made me smile for some reason.

6 germans, 2 belgians, 3 israelis, and 1 american. sounds like the start of a joke, but this was the collection of nationalities of the initial group of trekkers. we rode in an open air truck like the one that we rode in on phangan. they took us through a very potholy road to arrive at the beginning of our hike. the hike up was amazing. we started out on a road and soon ended up crossing rivers by hopping from rock to rock, hanging on to bamboo poles or the guide who stood in the water, and hiking up a steep incline to arrive at a bamboo village. Continue reading »

the golden triangle is where two rivers merge and separate three countries, laos, myanmar (burma), and thailand, but you can access china eight hours up the river. the location is steeped in history and served as a way to trade opium. the price for an ounce of opium was an ounce of gold, hence the name the golden triangle. due to the huge price in opium, the place was a battleground for mafia and drug lords attempting to control the flow of opium through the countries. we saw the intersection of the rivers where you can view burma, thailand and laos all at once. burma had a huge casino next to the river called paradise. thailand had a huge buddha and buildings, and laos had nothing except a jungle. dee has been to laos and said the country operates like it is in the stone age, hence the dramatic difference between the two sides of the river.

the first stop was the hot springs. Continue reading »

The first day in Chiang Mai after the whirlwind of activity was to sleep in and explore Chiang Mai. it was sweet sleeping until noon. After eating something, we walked around the area of the hotel, which is called Galare Guest House. We enjoyed staying there. they had an onsite travel agent, nice rooms with a/c and hot water, next to a river and super close to the night bazaar.

we found that the governor’s house was right next to the guest house and across the street was a small wat (temple). as we walked around, we found not much was going on in the afternoon. some lady had a pen with five puppies in it. you could buy some milk and feed the puppies, which dee immediately did. they were cute but they also reminded us of how overpopulated the dog population is in thailand. it is sad walking around seeing dogs suffering and looking like death. you do NOT touch any animals in thailand as they are covered in diseases, but the puppies were ok. we wash our hands with purell immediately afterward.

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we’ve returned from the bush unscathed by any bug or disease. can’t say the same for our guide. he got really sick the last day. freaked me out. he was the cook!! we feel fine though.

anyways, we met some really nice belgian women and we are going to go have a few beers (yea right, these are belgian women!) and then crash. we are exhausted and happy to be back taking warm showers and off the rice and noodles diet.

i will write about it tomorrow. it was amazing!! i took way too many pics which i will share as soon as i have time.

i have run out of time. i was hoping to upload pics too, but i can’t.

i will have to write about our adventures of yesterday of seeing the long neck tribe, the golden triangle, going to laos, haggling with the vendors at the various markets and other things we have seen so far. i am off to the jungle and we will return on thursday.