"Most can arrange an excursion into Ha Long's sibling [bay] on a sailboat, including one overnight on the boat and one on Quan Lan Island, in a bungalow on the gorgeous white-sand beach."
yes, i am going to do this. and yes, i love life.
Friday, February 27, 2009
future excitement
this is, quite possibly the best sentence i have ever read. out of my book on vietnam, on bai tu long bay in the north:
"Most can arrange an excursion into Ha Long's sibling [bay] on a sailboat, including one overnight on the boat and one on Quan Lan Island, in a bungalow on the gorgeous white-sand beach."
yes, i am going to do this. and yes, i love life.
"Most can arrange an excursion into Ha Long's sibling [bay] on a sailboat, including one overnight on the boat and one on Quan Lan Island, in a bungalow on the gorgeous white-sand beach."
yes, i am going to do this. and yes, i love life.
Friday, February 13, 2009
stories of visitors and points south
on the 5th luke and i began our mini trip by taking the sleeper train down to bangkok. although longer than the night bus, the ride was beautifully scenic and much more roomy and comfortable. the train is pretty old and has lovely shades of mint green and navy blue amidst the metal framework. when we arrived in bangkok, our taxi driver misunderstood us and dropped us off on the wrong soi, but we just got out and walked to our guesthouse. we arrived at about 7 am and ate breakfast while waiting for bill and charlotte. they had arrived around midnight. so we had three days to show them around the chaotic scene that is bangkok.
day 1: walking bonanza around the glitzy mall district, up to the top of the tallest building in thailand, the art and culture center had a new show up, and then we went to china town. china town is pretty cramped and interesting. we were definitely the only farang there. there was a really neat chinese temple - i had not been in one yet. then we headed back to our super cool guesthouse restaurant and drank a beer - only one though because luke had to wake up early to take the foreign service officer test at the embassy the next day! (which he thinks he did well on!) bangkok is a tiring place. charlotte and i got amazing foot massages after dinner.
day 2: luke left early to make his way to the embassy, and i got an early start with bill and charlotte to do a morning sightseeing whirlwind tour. we took the river taxi to the grand palace, wat pho with a huge huge giant reclining buddha, and the temple of the dawn. i think i sufficiently wore them out! after that we went over to lumpini park (the little haven within bangkok) and saw the giant dragon lizards. i love that park. we went back to our neighborhood and had some beers before dinner. then we went about the task of finding thai food in an international city...not the easiest thing to do. it seems that most of the thai food in bangkok is from street vendors and all the restaurants are international. we finally found a thai place in the back side of this hotel. no one was there but the lady was nice and was chatting to luke and i in thai a lot. i got green curry, which is usually not hot, but turned out to be the spiciest food i have eaten thus far! i needed an extra beer and i was crying and snotting uncontrollably after i accidentally ate a pepper! but hey, i did it!
day 3: bill and charlotte started the day checking out jim thompson's teak house while luke and i went to hang out in the hip university area (we had been to the house already last time). we ended up buying some really cool tshirts for ourselves and as presents. my shirt has a chandelier on it! we also went into this crazy mall/market indoor place to find an internet cafe. it was a crazy maze booby trap of consumerism and chaos. then we met them over by the giant chatuchak weekend market. we checked it out a little bit and i bought a straw hat that makes me feel like i should be at a pool party from the great gatsby.
the next paragraph will be an account of my downfall for the day - food poisoning! baa! so after the market we went back to the hostel and drank some cheap beer. my lunch was small and after i drank the beer i felt really bloated and tired. so i took a short nap. when i woke up we were going to meet our friend nick for dinner at this place nearby called cabbages and condoms. i woke up feeling nauseous and thought maybe i was just really hungry. i ate a couple crackers and we started walking. halfway there, i felt horrible, like i was going to puke. and then i did. i tried to make it over the garden wall but with no success. i got some on my dress too, so i need to go back and change. i felt better after the puke and thought maybe i just needed to get the beer out. so off to dinner round two. charlotte got me an apple juice box that i sipped on for the walk there. cabbages and condoms is actually really cool. they promote family planning and aids awareness and prevention. there were all these statues decorated with colored condoms. too bad i felt like shit. so i just ordered rice. and then before the food came, i ran to the bathroom and puked apple juice tasting food all over the toilet - that god for the sprayer! i ate half my rice and headed home early with charlotte. halfway there i had to go to the bathroom (now this is food poisoning, so obviously an emergency number 2) so we stopped at this italian restaurant. i asked for the bathroom and ran upstairs - three flights of them in fact. as i am sitting on the toilet i feel more puke coming on....and of course the garbage can has a lid that i cannot get off in time. so i puked rice all over the bathroom of some nice italian restaurant.....and there was no sprayer. but at that point i did not care about anything. so i made it home and proceeded to puke and poop about 10 times total that night. oh joy. let's just say my system completely emptied out and rebooted. the thing is though all i ate for lunch was rice and an omelet at a nice, crowded thai restaurant.
off to the beach (cha-am)
luckily i stopped puking at about 7 am. luke and i were not sure during the night if i was going to be able to get to the beach. i decided that we should take the train instead of the bus because then i will have a bathroom handy. luckily i did not need it on the train. i just sipped lots of gatorade and water and even managed to eat some watermelon! the train ride was beautiful once again, going through super green fields and rural neighborhoods and marshes. the train took a little longer than we thought, but we got to the beach in 4 hours.
charlotte and i sat in some comfy lounge chairs with all our bags on the beach while the boys went off to find a room. there was a big group of thai guys that said "hello" and giggled everytime we walked by. i had on my zebra tshirt and they also kept saying "zebra!" and giggling. once we got all settled i changed into my bathing suit and went in the water! it was so warm. hooray for not puking anymore! i still did not eat dinner, but at least i could swim.
the next day we had the whole day just to lounge on the beach in comfy chairs under beach umbrellas! ahhh, relaxation. i could have stayed a few more days. there were not many people there so it was pretty quiet. the beach is pretty long but not very wide because of the tide. there are lots of chairs and tables and umbrellas and you can sit in them all day for less than a dollar a piece. they also had big black inner tubes you can rent for the same price, which we did. there were people walking around selling you snacks, squid pressed in a squid press, sarongs, massages, and banana boat rides. this consisted of a really makeshift jet ski (with bmx bike handle bars and an outboard motor) with a long skinny raft tied to it. then the thai's climb on fully clothed - but amazingly with life jackets! - and get pulled around and scream until they get knocked off. all the thai's swim fully clothed. some boys take their shirts off, but most don't. it is quite the scene. there were a few other farang there, who were definitely not swimming in their clothes, but i wish they were. fat old ladies should not wear bikinis. or sunbathe topless in thailand - this is not europe people!
we saw a couple of huge huge barges in the distance. no sailboats though, but some fishing boats. lots of seashells. and we even saw jellyfish! there were a few tiny ones, and we captured on in a glass for a few minutes (the non-sick were drinking gin and tonics. i had one sip but was just glad to actually be swimming! anyway that is why we had glasses.) it was really cool and kind of looked like a mushroom.
we also saw a 7" brown mushroom jelly swimming around. that is the first time i ever saw a jellyfish and also the first time luke and i ever swam in salt water together! that night after dinner (yes, i actually ate food!), luke and i went for a walk. the moon was full and super bright! the tide had gone out really far and the beach was about 4 times the width that it had been in the afternoon. we saw all kinds of crazy sea creatures that had washed up on the sand when the tide went out, including a huge jellyfish! it must have been two feet wide! (see picture) and it was super dense - i kicked it with my shoe and it felt really heavy.
unfortunately bill did not eat dinner that night because he was sick too! he thinks he had a bad egg at lunch, but he had "katie light" and was able to get it out in 3 pukes instead of 12. luckily he felt ok for the trip up to bangkok (by minibus, 2 hours). we then took a taxi to the train station and hopped on the sleeper train to chiang mai. really scenic, but this time quite depressing because we went through all the slums outside of bangkok on our way out. the countryside was beautiful though, and we got to watch the sunset behind some small mountains as we approached the north.
bill and charlotte got to see all the cool things in chiang mai in there 5 days here, including riding elephants on valentine's day, an afternoon at the waterfall, beer towers, and the sunday walking street market. on valentine's day luke and i got massages and then ate dinner at a place we have never been to on the river. we got some new and interesting food - including a polynesian seafood dish that had "8 special ingredients" such as jellyfish! it was really good. we got some drinks with our friends after.
yesterday we went to the zoo with bill and charlotte for their last thailand sight! it was really fun because we got to see the pandas! the male was really active the whole time we were there and the female came out for a bit. i also got to see a peacock with its feathers out! i love peacocks. at lunch i felt something prickly on my had and looked over to see a praying mantis had landed on me! i grabbed the map and put him onto it and then onto the table. it was bright green. the thing was super mad though. it was walking around really fast and punching the air. when luke finished his food he put the little guy on his plate and transported him to the bushes. that was our wild animal sighting for the day.
after the zoo, bill and charlotte flew to bangkok. they are on their flight home as i type this. we are glad that they came out and i think they had a good time! it was a nice break from chiang mai for luke and i, and it was also good to see people we know. today is our 5 month mark. we are going to try and do all the cool stuff around town that we haven't seen yet in our last month and a half here and then it is off to vietnam, cambodia, and home! check shutterfly for new pictures.
day 1: walking bonanza around the glitzy mall district, up to the top of the tallest building in thailand, the art and culture center had a new show up, and then we went to china town. china town is pretty cramped and interesting. we were definitely the only farang there. there was a really neat chinese temple - i had not been in one yet. then we headed back to our super cool guesthouse restaurant and drank a beer - only one though because luke had to wake up early to take the foreign service officer test at the embassy the next day! (which he thinks he did well on!) bangkok is a tiring place. charlotte and i got amazing foot massages after dinner.
day 2: luke left early to make his way to the embassy, and i got an early start with bill and charlotte to do a morning sightseeing whirlwind tour. we took the river taxi to the grand palace, wat pho with a huge huge giant reclining buddha, and the temple of the dawn. i think i sufficiently wore them out! after that we went over to lumpini park (the little haven within bangkok) and saw the giant dragon lizards. i love that park. we went back to our neighborhood and had some beers before dinner. then we went about the task of finding thai food in an international city...not the easiest thing to do. it seems that most of the thai food in bangkok is from street vendors and all the restaurants are international. we finally found a thai place in the back side of this hotel. no one was there but the lady was nice and was chatting to luke and i in thai a lot. i got green curry, which is usually not hot, but turned out to be the spiciest food i have eaten thus far! i needed an extra beer and i was crying and snotting uncontrollably after i accidentally ate a pepper! but hey, i did it!
day 3: bill and charlotte started the day checking out jim thompson's teak house while luke and i went to hang out in the hip university area (we had been to the house already last time). we ended up buying some really cool tshirts for ourselves and as presents. my shirt has a chandelier on it! we also went into this crazy mall/market indoor place to find an internet cafe. it was a crazy maze booby trap of consumerism and chaos. then we met them over by the giant chatuchak weekend market. we checked it out a little bit and i bought a straw hat that makes me feel like i should be at a pool party from the great gatsby.
the next paragraph will be an account of my downfall for the day - food poisoning! baa! so after the market we went back to the hostel and drank some cheap beer. my lunch was small and after i drank the beer i felt really bloated and tired. so i took a short nap. when i woke up we were going to meet our friend nick for dinner at this place nearby called cabbages and condoms. i woke up feeling nauseous and thought maybe i was just really hungry. i ate a couple crackers and we started walking. halfway there, i felt horrible, like i was going to puke. and then i did. i tried to make it over the garden wall but with no success. i got some on my dress too, so i need to go back and change. i felt better after the puke and thought maybe i just needed to get the beer out. so off to dinner round two. charlotte got me an apple juice box that i sipped on for the walk there. cabbages and condoms is actually really cool. they promote family planning and aids awareness and prevention. there were all these statues decorated with colored condoms. too bad i felt like shit. so i just ordered rice. and then before the food came, i ran to the bathroom and puked apple juice tasting food all over the toilet - that god for the sprayer! i ate half my rice and headed home early with charlotte. halfway there i had to go to the bathroom (now this is food poisoning, so obviously an emergency number 2) so we stopped at this italian restaurant. i asked for the bathroom and ran upstairs - three flights of them in fact. as i am sitting on the toilet i feel more puke coming on....and of course the garbage can has a lid that i cannot get off in time. so i puked rice all over the bathroom of some nice italian restaurant.....and there was no sprayer. but at that point i did not care about anything. so i made it home and proceeded to puke and poop about 10 times total that night. oh joy. let's just say my system completely emptied out and rebooted. the thing is though all i ate for lunch was rice and an omelet at a nice, crowded thai restaurant.
off to the beach (cha-am)
luckily i stopped puking at about 7 am. luke and i were not sure during the night if i was going to be able to get to the beach. i decided that we should take the train instead of the bus because then i will have a bathroom handy. luckily i did not need it on the train. i just sipped lots of gatorade and water and even managed to eat some watermelon! the train ride was beautiful once again, going through super green fields and rural neighborhoods and marshes. the train took a little longer than we thought, but we got to the beach in 4 hours.
charlotte and i sat in some comfy lounge chairs with all our bags on the beach while the boys went off to find a room. there was a big group of thai guys that said "hello" and giggled everytime we walked by. i had on my zebra tshirt and they also kept saying "zebra!" and giggling. once we got all settled i changed into my bathing suit and went in the water! it was so warm. hooray for not puking anymore! i still did not eat dinner, but at least i could swim.
the next day we had the whole day just to lounge on the beach in comfy chairs under beach umbrellas! ahhh, relaxation. i could have stayed a few more days. there were not many people there so it was pretty quiet. the beach is pretty long but not very wide because of the tide. there are lots of chairs and tables and umbrellas and you can sit in them all day for less than a dollar a piece. they also had big black inner tubes you can rent for the same price, which we did. there were people walking around selling you snacks, squid pressed in a squid press, sarongs, massages, and banana boat rides. this consisted of a really makeshift jet ski (with bmx bike handle bars and an outboard motor) with a long skinny raft tied to it. then the thai's climb on fully clothed - but amazingly with life jackets! - and get pulled around and scream until they get knocked off. all the thai's swim fully clothed. some boys take their shirts off, but most don't. it is quite the scene. there were a few other farang there, who were definitely not swimming in their clothes, but i wish they were. fat old ladies should not wear bikinis. or sunbathe topless in thailand - this is not europe people!we saw a couple of huge huge barges in the distance. no sailboats though, but some fishing boats. lots of seashells. and we even saw jellyfish! there were a few tiny ones, and we captured on in a glass for a few minutes (the non-sick were drinking gin and tonics. i had one sip but was just glad to actually be swimming! anyway that is why we had glasses.) it was really cool and kind of looked like a mushroom.
we also saw a 7" brown mushroom jelly swimming around. that is the first time i ever saw a jellyfish and also the first time luke and i ever swam in salt water together! that night after dinner (yes, i actually ate food!), luke and i went for a walk. the moon was full and super bright! the tide had gone out really far and the beach was about 4 times the width that it had been in the afternoon. we saw all kinds of crazy sea creatures that had washed up on the sand when the tide went out, including a huge jellyfish! it must have been two feet wide! (see picture) and it was super dense - i kicked it with my shoe and it felt really heavy.
bill and charlotte got to see all the cool things in chiang mai in there 5 days here, including riding elephants on valentine's day, an afternoon at the waterfall, beer towers, and the sunday walking street market. on valentine's day luke and i got massages and then ate dinner at a place we have never been to on the river. we got some new and interesting food - including a polynesian seafood dish that had "8 special ingredients" such as jellyfish! it was really good. we got some drinks with our friends after.
yesterday we went to the zoo with bill and charlotte for their last thailand sight! it was really fun because we got to see the pandas! the male was really active the whole time we were there and the female came out for a bit. i also got to see a peacock with its feathers out! i love peacocks. at lunch i felt something prickly on my had and looked over to see a praying mantis had landed on me! i grabbed the map and put him onto it and then onto the table. it was bright green. the thing was super mad though. it was walking around really fast and punching the air. when luke finished his food he put the little guy on his plate and transported him to the bushes. that was our wild animal sighting for the day.
after the zoo, bill and charlotte flew to bangkok. they are on their flight home as i type this. we are glad that they came out and i think they had a good time! it was a nice break from chiang mai for luke and i, and it was also good to see people we know. today is our 5 month mark. we are going to try and do all the cool stuff around town that we haven't seen yet in our last month and a half here and then it is off to vietnam, cambodia, and home! check shutterfly for new pictures.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
visitors
as a vacation from our stressful life in chiang mai (haha, yea right), we will be going to bangkok tomorrow. the reason being we have visitors! bill (luke's roomate from college) and charlotte are flying from VT to visit for 10 days or so. we will be in bangkok, the beach 3 hours south of bangkok, and then up to chiang mai. i am so excited to make a sand castle and drink a fancy drink on the beach! hooray! pictures and blogs in a week or so.
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