Ho Chi Minh City

As I write this we are currently on the ghetto train from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang. We spent three nights in HCMC, and we had a great time.

Day 1: we travelled from Phnom Penh to HCHC by our new favourite bus company, Giant Ibis. The first thing the bus attendant asked was to see everyone's passports and Vietnam Visa's. You have to pre-apply for a visa before going to Vietnam so that you have it when you get there. We were fine because we had received ours in the mail before we left Canada. There was a little bit of a kerfuffle at the front of the bus, and two people ended up having to leave. They had flown into Vietnam and then went to Cambodia. Not realizing that the visa was only good for one entry, they had not gotten a new visa to reenter. Poor guys. The journey there was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that on these journeys they keep saying they need your passport and don't tell you why! As you can imagine, this is extremely irritating and nerve-wracking. The first time they took them, they filled out stuff on the exit slips for Cambodia. This was very helpful, but when you're just told, "Passport please, don't worry!" when you ask why they are taking it, it doesn't help. The second time they took it, they put our passports through passport control for us so we didn't have to wait at the border. This was also extremely helpful! Regardless, we were still stressed because they didn't tell us what the hell they were doing with our passports. Whatever.

The night we arrived in HCMC, we went to see the Central Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral. The architecture in Vietnam is very interesting because it was colonized by the French for 100 or so years, so these two buildings are in French Colonial style.

We then wandered and found the backpackers' district to have a few beer before going to bed.

Day 2:
We went to the War Remnants Museum first thing in the morning since it was dumping buckets outside (it's rainy season here, so about once a day it pours for an hour or two. We just call it beer-o-clock most of the time). This museum talks about the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese perspective. What we essentially derived from our readings is that essentially the war was started because the Americans wanted some of the resources in Vietnam. There was an Accord signed in Geneva (Geneva is where the United Nations' conferences are held if you're a little n00b) in the mid-1900s that basically said what the French are doing colonizing the nation of Vietnam when they want to be independent is unacceptable. An independence document was signed, and the French left. At this point, Northern Vietnam was communist and Southern Vietnam was capitalist. Since the French left (who were aided by the Americans), the Americans were worried about losing control of the tungsten and other metal resources that reside in Vietnam. They paid a leader to take over Southern Vietnam, and control the people there. He passed a law that said if anyone goes against the government, they die. Northern Vietnam did not take this lightly, and the war began. It was a pretty nasty war, and we learnt about the effects of Agent Orange and other now-banned substances. You couldn't help but feel as though the Americans started a war that could have been prevented entirely. There was even a list of American university professors that stated this war was a bad idea when it began.

Eventually, north Vietnam stormed through the now Reunification Palace (used to be SV's government house) and won the war. The US had too many casualties and they left. This unified the country, and now the whole place is Communist. Very interesting.

We then toured the Reunification Palace, which was way more impressive than Brad and I could have hoped for. It was clearly a building frozen in the 1970's. It was such a neat walk through. We got to explore all parts of the building, including the bunker where everyone would hide when there was a threat. We even got to go on the roof, where the two bombs' placements were marked that were dropped by NV.

At this point we wandered the streets, ate dinner, and walked to many pubs for beverages. Great day!

Day 3:

Phew. Hopefully by the time I'm done this blog we'll be in Nha Trang (haha.... Doubtful! I don't even know if we'll be able to tell when we're there because we can't understand anything in Vietnamese).

Yesterday was probably one of the coolest days we have had so far on our trip. The day before we booked a private tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Mekong Delta. Don't know what these are? Well, get ready.

Our private guide and driver came and picked us up at 7:30am, and we drove for about an hour and a half until we reached the city of Cu Chi. During the Vietnam war, the Vietnamese dug tunnels in the jungle underground. These tunnels were in 3 levels, and very small. Only a small Asian person could get through, purposely done so that American men could not go through. They used these tunnels to hide when in war. There were kitchens, sewing rooms, hospitals, and weaponry rooms. There are 250km worth of these tunnels in Cu Chi. The have enlarged a 60m section of the tunnels for tourists. By "enlarged" I mean you still have to crouch down and shuffle in a ball the entire way. It was very hot and stuffy down in the tunnels, and I couldn't imagine spending more than 3 minutes in them. That was enough for me!

We also got to see all the booby traps that the Vietnamese set for the soldiers. I'm not going to list them all, but they all involve a hidden hole covered by jungle plants with very long iron nails. Pretty nasty shit, but then again there were huge bomb craters everywhere from the Americans. War is ugly.

After we finished at Cu Chi, we drove another hour or so until we reached the Mekong Delta.

We stopped for a pre-arranged meal by our guide, which ended up being an 8-course meal. It was delicious, but enormous!!! It was the amount of food for 4-5 people!

Now, the Mekong River begins in China and reaches the ocean in Vietnam. It's a massive river, about 3km wide (makes the South Saskatchewan look like a creek). Right before it reaches the ocean, it splits into 9 main mini-rivers, and the land formed around these is the Mekong Delta. These areas are extremely lush and plentiful with foods like fish and fruit. We took a boat across the main river to the delta. We first got to visit a honey farm, where we stuck our fingers in the honeycombs of a beehive (with bees everywhere!!!) to taste the honey right off our fingers. We then sat down, had honey tea, and got to try royal jelly. Royal jelly is the nutrient-rich substance the queen bee eats. To be honest, it tasted almost gross. It was bitter and had a really weird texture. No thanks. **bonus: there was a 6-8ft python there, so Brad and I took turns holding it. Holy crap are they ever heavy and entirely made of muscle. We could both feel the impressive strength of the animal as it writhed around our shoulders.

We went to a little cafe where we got to try a bunch of weird tropical fruits we had never seen or tasted before. Some ladies sang some traditional songs for us. It was a pretty cool experience.

Last but not least, we hopped into a little wooden canoe paddled by an ancient couple through the Mekong Delta. About 10m across, it was a peaceful and serene moment completely engulfed by nature. We passed many locals paddling through as they carried on with their daily lives. Amazing.

We then drove two hours back to HCMC, and ended our night with dinner and drinks.

Nha Trang is our next destination, a beach city by the ocean. We are both quite excited, both to be there and to get off this train. It has been extremely noisy, with much of the ride consisting of blaring Asian pop music and screaming children!

****protip: our pharmacist gave us azithromycin for traveller's diarrhea. Since we were still ill, I suggested we take it. That day it was gone. We are feeling back to normal and it's great not

Phnom Pehn Day 2

Today was our last day in Phnom Pehn. I woke up fairly hungover as we played Bidwist with some Dutch friends we met the night before, and drank too much beer. We had a slow start to our morning because I needed to nap.

I was pretty grumpy most of the day, partially because I was hungover and partly because I was missing the comforts of home. Phnom Pehn is not like Canada in any way... It's dusty, dirty, and there's lots of people trying to sell you stuff on the street amongst piles of garbage. We are pretty blessed to have such good sanitation practices in Canada.

We went to Wat Phnom, and we have been wat-ed out and were too cheap to pay the entrance fee of $1. We then went to the central market. This was super cool. Imagine anything you wanted... Underneath tents and all negotiable prices. I bought two pairs of earrings for $5. Brad said I needed to work on my bartering skills. The lady started at $14 and I stayed firm at 5. They mark everything up about 80% here. It's crazy.

Then we went and chilled with some mojitoes at a pub.

We took a sunset cruise on the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. It was quit beautiful. Brad made more Dutch friends.

We then had dinner and went to a cool rooftop bar called FCC. It was a beautiful French colonial historic building. The prices were expensive (5-10 US!) so we left and went back to our hotel.

We had a rooftop pool, and we were warm. We went upstairs to cool off and check out the view. Some Australian guy was up there in the pool with what we suspected to be two hookers. Brad and I were enjoying the view, and unfortunately for me I saw the man whip out his Willis and swing it around for the ladies. Thanks a lot glass reflection.

Then one of the man's ladies put my housecoat on and tried to take my hotel key. Brad saw it before I did. He told her to take it off, and then she grabbed his jacket. Brad saw right through her scheme. The Australian got ticked off and completely overreacted, telling Brad he'd throw him off the balcony if that happened again.

Both of us were tired of his nonsense and went back to our hotel room.
We leave for Vietnam in the morning!!!

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Phenom Penh

We arrived in Phenom Penh yesterday and a friendly tuk tuk driver took us to hotel he recommended. We were pleased so I bartered with him to come back today and be our driver. We agreed on $15 for the day.

Sam picked us up from our hotel and drove us to the killing fields. This is a place where Cambodians killed Cambodians. Similar to the Nazis, a crazy dictator decided that Cambodia should only be a farming utopia. This meant that he blew up the central bank, shut down all institutions, and began systematically killing anyone who posed a threat to this plan. This includes anyone with education, who wore glasses (this means they're smart), and anyone who was not a rural farmer.

The prisoners were held and then taken to a field which used to be a Chinese cemetery. There, they were almost immediately killed by being bludgeoned since bullets were too expensive.

The most striking part of our visit was seeing bones and clothes from the mass graves coming to the surface...

From there, we visited the prison where people were held before being killed. It was an old high school. At this place we saw the cells, and all the mug shots of the victims. We found this to be a difficult experience. I was overcome with emotion after learning and touring these places; I was overwhelmed when we met a survivor.

Pol Pot was the name of the dictator, he killed over 3 million of his own people, and this only happened about 40 years ago...

After all that we needed a change of pace so we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us somewhere for lunch. We ate some delicious Khmer food (Khmer is the type of people who live in Cambodia) and had a few beers.

We toured the museum where we solidified our understanding of lingas and yonnis, aka God's (Shiva's) penis and vagina...

From there we toured the central market where I was propositioned several times to have a shave and a haircut. I found this hilarious.

We walked down a street that our Lonely Planet book recommended and found a nice place for dinner. As we were waiting for our food we spotted some Dutch friends we met the day before.

We are dinner together then drank beer and played cards until we were asked to leave. Oh ya, I also ordered a drink that was supposed to come in a bucket. Instead it came in the exact same bucket that is found next to every toilet in the country that is used to manually flush.... Shit! 

Our on our own...

The Siem Reaper really took a toll on us; even this morning our raisins were continuously puckered. We decided to make a break for it and booked bus tickets from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.

This is a very scary move. Everything we've done for the last 36 hours had revolved around toilets and bum guns. So we loaded up on Imodium and boarded the bus.

This is one of the nicest buses I've been on... There is a steward who serves you snacks and water, there are plug-ins at every seat, lots of leg room, and Wi-Fi! The onot thing it doesn't have, of course, is a toilet.........

Pray for us.

The Siem Reaper

I awoke at 6:00am to loud noises only associated with emptying one's bowels. Brad wasn't feeling well, I easily assumed. We slept in until 8:30 so we could catch breakfast. We didn't get to breakfast until 9 as we took turns running to the bathroom. We then spent all afternoon in our hotel room (more like in the bathroom). Then, we went out for a pizza lunch since clearly the Cambodian shrimp pasta we had last night was not agreeing with us. I then bought toilet paper from the store. If you ever visit Se Asia, you need to always carry this with you. Sometimes all you get is a squatting potty with a bucket of water. We then went to this awesome little cafe called New Leaf Book Cafe, in which proceeds to to helping local children in orphanages, with school, who are affected by land mines, etc. I bought a cool scarf for about 10X more than I could have got it at the market, but I figured it was for a good cause.

I was exhausted after this outing (which was also full of bathroom breaks), so we went back to the hotel for the evening.

We went out and got donairs as quick as possible, and then shimmied back to the hotel where the bathroom is near.

We want to take the bus to Phnom Pehn tomorrow, but we are going to wait until we see how we feel tomorrow. We don't want to shit the bus, and there's no bathrooms on them.

Food poisoning sucks. Brad has named it the Siem Reaper.

Temples of Angkor Day 2

Sometimes things are touristy for a reason. We decided to wake up at 4:30 this morning so we could leave by 5am to make it to Angkor Wat in time for sunrise. Before we were out the door, Koy, our remorque driver was waiting for us outside.

We took a dark and quiet trip the 5 or so kilometers to the temple and waited for the sun to come up.  The picture above shows what we saw!

Needless to say, we had a fantastic morning. We ate a North American breakfast in a shed full of hungover tourists then continued temple spotting.

The Bayon temple, famous for all the faces carved on to everything, was our favorite temple of the whole experience.

The temple that Tomb Raider was filmed in is special because they have left all the trees to grow instead of removing them. Very cool.

After 8 hours of temple-touring it was still only about 2 o'clock, however, we were extremely hot, sweaty, and tired and our hotel pool was calling us.

We made a quick stop for water, beer and snacks then got to the pool.

Josie's swimming lessons continued. Today she had great success in getting used to submerging her head, and was even starting to grasp the basics of diving. We were both very proud of her achievements!

We headed out for dinner and had some fairly decent grub in a French style building (left here from the colonial days). Beer is cheap at ¢50 a glass so I always make sure I fill my tank downtown before drinking our grocery store beers which are about ¢60 a can.

We headed directly back to our foot massage place from the night before and enjoyed hour-long rub downs (beer in hand, of course). Tomorrow the plan is for a fish spa... Just use your imagination...

We called it a night early because of our packed full day. We shared our last hotel beer and slept.

Angkor Wat Day 1

Today we woke up and ate breakfast on the top floor of our hotel. It has a pretty spectacular view. We were getting excited to go to Angkor Wat! We went downstairs and the tuktuk driver Koy was waiting for us there. Brad bargained with him and we ended up hiring him for two days.

We drove into Angkor park and the first thing we saw was the massive Angkor Wat temple. Seriously, it probably tops the most impressive thing I had ever seen. We planned to visit that later today, so a driveby is all that we got.

We went to our first temple, and were seriously blown away. It was corridor after corridor of amazing old bricks, sculptures and carvings in the stone. I can't even begin to describe how impressive it is. These temples are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and there are tons in the park. They are one of the only things the Khmer Rouge left behind when they were in power. They range from 800-1000 years old, and it's incredible they are still standing with their carvings so ornate still visible in many of the temples. We climbed in them and explored, completely mindblown.

I think we must have went to six or so temples that day, ending with Angkor Wat. This was assisted, of course, by many shade and water breaks. We had some good friends go to SE Asia over Easter, and they said you avoid the sun at all costs. We totally understood this as we hopped from shades area to shaded area!

When we got to Angkor, my camera died. Luckily, Brad had his so we were still able to collect many images. This building has been in constant use since the time it was built. It is still a very sacred place, and you had to make sure you wore long pants and shirts with sleeves. All the Buddha heads are cut off the statues in Angkor. This is due to the Khmer Rouge.

We ended our day with dinner and a half hour foot massage each at the night market. Guess how much it cost us? $5 for both of us, including two beer. So crazy. The girl who did mine was named Gim, a 16 year old who works harder than any teenager I have ever know. She told me she goes to English School from 8:30-12, has Khmer school until 5:30, then works at the massage place until midnight. She is off Sundays, but still works. It is crazy. We have it so good in canada it's unbelievable. High school friends, need not complain. You've got it damn good.

Traveling here has made me appreciate so much what I have and how privileged I am to be able to travel the world. These people here are also so incredibly friendly and happy. They appreciate you doing business with them and are so polite. They don't have nearly as much as we do and yet they complain so much less than we do. It's sort of a reality check. I need to stop complaining about all the stupid crap... The are not issues.

I've become a better person these past few weeks.

Our Journey to Cambodia

July 21 marked our journey to Cambodia! We woke up at 5:30am since our cab was meeting is at 6am to drive us to the Mochit bus station in Bangkok. We sleepily got to the bus station after 45minutes of heavy traffic... We were only 4km away at our hotel!

We ate delicate noodle soup for breakfast before getting on the bus. We had gone to bed late the night before, so we buckled up our seatbelts (we were at the front of the bus and a short stop would have launched us through the windshield) and slept. We were both rudely awakened by the smell of cigarette smoke. I originally thought someone must have tried smoking in the bathroom, but then realized our bus driver was smoking while he was driving. He was leaning out the window, unsuccessful at keeping the smoke outside of the bus. We dozed off again, stopping to pee at a rest stop before we neared the Cambodian border. We stopped a few kilometres away from the border were lunch was delivered to us. A man hopped on the bus as our bus drivers hopped out with Cambodia Visa applications. We filled them out, and the man asked for our passports just to verify them. We paid him about $50 each, and then he hopped off the bus saying he'd return them in about ten minutes. This is when Brad starting freaking out, as there are many horror stories with fake borders and stuff in Cambodia. Then our bus started driving away, our passports still not in hand. This is when Brad started really creaking out because he has researched you get your visa at the border for $30. I started looking up numbers for the Canadian Embassy, convinced we were screwed and our passports were gone forever. While we were driving closer and closer to the border, a man honked his motorbike, giving our passports back (with Visas inside) to our bus driver. Brad was so mad at himself for getting scammed he couldn't talk for an hour. I was just happy I wasn't stuck in Thailand forever.

We finally reached the border where we had to walk through and the bus would meet us on the other side. We first had to exit Thailand. We each waited for the person at the desk to call us up. We had to grab our exit slips we received when we entered Thailand. I found mine no problem... Judging by the lady yelling at Brad, I knew he did not have his. I waited inbetween Cambodia and Thailand for quite awhile, wondering if Brad was allowed to leave. Finally, he came through the doors and muttered something like, "Get your shit together Brad."

We exited into dust, oxen, wheelbarrows, casinos and chaos for about 500m until we reached Passport control. We got stamped and approved to enter Cambodia, then walked out. We hopped back on the bus and without anyone checking our passports, drove into Cambodia. We seriously could have exited Thailand and walked into Cambodia without anyone questioning us! So bizarre.

People drive on the left side of the road in Thailand and the right side in Cambodia. Our driver hurtled through single-lane highways for hours, with such dexterity that it made us shit our pants on more than one occasion. We reached the city of Siem Reap, our first destination, and then got off the bus. We were immediately attacked by tuktuk drivers saying they would give us a free ride to a hotel. We took one with a man named Koy, who actually found us a nice place for $25 a night. Saweetttt.
He wanted to take us to the temples in the morning. We said we'd see. He said he'd show up at 9:30.

Weirdly enough, even though the official currency is the riel... Everything is in American dollars. Everything. We went to a bank machine and it dispensed us American dollars. Nothing is in anything but American money!! I have no idea how this is possible, but it is happening!

We wandered through the old market, watching people hustle raw meat and various fruits around. We ate delicious Cambodian food, had a beer at Angkor What? on Pub Street, and then wandered through a night market.

Tomorrow: the Temples of Angkor!

Chiang Man confusion?

We decided to sleep in today and deal with things as they came. We soon realized that we had checked out of our hotel and had made no other plans. We quickly decided to book a flight to Bangkok so we could continue our adventure onward to Cambodia.

Our flight didn't leave until 7:40pm so we took the advice of fellow travellers and headed to the top of a mountain to get some views and to climb 306 Dragon-lined steps to a very special temple.

We enjoyed the climb and the temple. Most of it was covered in gold leaf and was very impressive. Since our shoes smelled like swamp, I chose to wear my sandals. It turns out that my sandals don't work so well on Asian-red tile so I spent the majority of the afternoon in bare feet. Not a problem, however, since most temples require you to show respect by dressing appropriately and removing your footwear.

We took our converted red pick-up truck box with seats back to town where we had delicious bowls of cheap BBQ pork and crispy pork soup (I knew they were delicious because I had already had one for breakfast). From there I haggled a cab driver down from the quoted price to take us to the airport.

Disappointingly, the airport did not serve beer anywhere. So we opted for coffee and trip planning instead. Our Nok Air flight was easy breezy and yellow. We arrived in Bangkok where we had a cheap but sufficient place booked.

The only thing we needed to accomplish with our evening was to secure bus tickets to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We found the appropriate website, but third party websites warned us that completing the booking with a smart phone is a daring, tiresome, and frustrating task.

Josie started working on her iPhone and gave up for the more sufficient Samsung model. As this was happening, we ran out of Baht (Thai money) because we spent too much on food and beer.  She continued to brave the ticket website while I hiked to the nearest atm. Of course, atms are neat stores, and stores sell beer, sooo...

I drank while Josie secured us two highly sought after direct bus tickets to Siem Reap.

We had sex and went to bed.

Chiang Mai

Today began with one hell of a delicious breakfast from out hotel. False. Disgusting breakfast that was 250 baht a person (like 10 bucks Canadian... Keep in mind we can get good food for 50 baht), but since it was the only place open we had no choice.

We were supposed to get picked up for a trek up in the mountains between 9 and 9:30... We didn't get picked up until 10. He had the hotel number wrong and was unresponsive while he continued to babble on the phone in Thai and walk further and further away from us with our receipt. Finally we got on the bus.

We drove to the trek place where we realized that perhaps this was not the tour we hoped for as it was 99% Chinese tourists and no backpackers in sight. The Chinese on our tour bus were the slowest tourists ever, spending ridiculously long times in the bathroom constantly changing their clothes because of the rain. It was extremely irritating.

The first thing we did was ride an elephant. This would have been really fun... Until our "driver" whacked the elephant in the head with a bullhook when it hesitated for a brief moment. This ruined the ride for me.

We then did a little hike to visit some Long Neck villagers. It was neat to see and it felt like we were in national geographic.

Second thing we did was go zip lining. This was very fun, and the instructors were awesome . We zipped through 19 platforms in heavy rain, as Brad put it, stronger than Brad's parents' shower. I have never experienced being completely drenched and soaked to the bone from rain before, but I was completely dripping wet afterwards!!

We then went on a bamboo raft and floated down the Mae Tang River for about 30minutes in the pouring rain. It was quite beautiful and relaxing!

We then went on some crazy ass ride in the back of a pickup truck to see a waterfall. It was quite beautiful, though the journey there was uncomfortable. Brad was VIP and got to sit in the cab because his big butt took up enough space to two Chinese women, and we couldn't all fit in the back. I got jostled around pretty good.

We then went white water rafting. This was super fun and our guides were fantastic. I had never been before and it was amazing fun!

We were the last tour to leave the area (thanks to the high maintenance women we were with) and began our drive back to Chaing Mai. On the way back, one of the ladies began to make ridiculous demands, treating our guide like a taxi driver. She wanted him to drive her to the dinner party she was supposed to go to instead of back to her hotel. Brad told her to calm down after she complained she didn't want to be wet and cold on a tuktuk.

Finally we reached our hotel destination. We took our soggy selves swimming at our kickass hotel pool. Brad was teaching me how to dive (and I was actually experiencing some success!) when I got stung by a wasp on my back. Brad then went from my diving instructor to my first aid giver.

We then went for a lovely dinner at LemonTree, then I sang some karaoke in a ladyboy bar.

We bought beer, drank in our hotel room, and then went to sleep.

Weird day with many highs and lows.



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Chiang Mai Pictures

Chiang Mai

We got out of bed around noon since we had a wild night with our new Norwegian friends. Josie needed food to shower but wouldn't go get food without showering so I ventured out to secure our first meal of the day.

I found a great little food court that even displayed the words 'Take away' in English. I bought two soupy meals that came in sandwich bags tied with elaatics. There were no chopsticks, cutlery, or anything else to help us eat so we poured our food into the hotel glasses and sipped our lunch.

We finally got out of our hotel room and started our day with aome strong tea and coffee. We walked to the old town of Chiang Mai and checked out the old city wall and moat. Then we toured multiple temples, of course. At one, some friendly young monks asked us to sit down and chat with them. We accepted this offer. So, under a tree in the courtyard of a temple we chatted about life with some monks for abiut 20 minutes.

We had some delicious papaya salad, pad thai, and fried pork for dinner then went to check out the old city tower. This temple/shrine sits about in the middle of town and is very impressive, even for being many hundreds of years old. It was humbling to be looking up at such an impressive abd intimidating structure. 

A friendly Thai man suggested we check out the Saturday Walking Street.  Every Saturday an enormous stretch of road ia closed to traffic and vendors galore sell everything from food to trinkets to underwear.

To escape the downpour, we hired a tuk tuk to take ua back to our hotel. I bought a beer fron 7/11 that turned out not to be a beer so I pouted, watched Thai/American tv and we went to bed.

Whaaaaaaat

Okay. First night in Chiang Mai. We met Danish friends on the bus from Sukhothai to Chaing Mai that the owner at J&J Guest House booked for us. We are lucky we got seats. The bus was packed and lots of people were standing.

It took us 6.5 hours to get to Chiang Mai instead of 5 because of too many stops and a very overloaded bus going slowly up mountains.

Upon arrival, the normal confusion ensued. We filled out some survey for some English-learning students, broke up our 1000 baht bill with water, and found a tuktuk driver after the first one tried to rip us off.

We then went for a lovely dinner with some new friends from Denmark.
Then some drinks.
Then we decided to go on a little pub crawl. Brad and I were singing along to some music, when our Danish friends decided they would like us to sing and we should go to karaoke.

We went to karaoke. I couldn't figure out what was so odd until our Danish friend told us we were getting scammed and needed to leave. Turns out karaoke means something very different in Thailand........... There's probably some pictures of me smiling with a Thai hooker somewhere on the interwebs before I had any idea we had accidentally hired one!!!

Wtf. On that note... Goodnight crazy place.

Josie

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Sukhothai

We had an amazing day in Sukhothai! We stayed at these amazing little bungalows at J & J Guest house (for $20 a night!!) and woke up to go to the Sukhothai Ruins. These are temple remains/the center of government of original Thailand. They are 800-900 years old. We rented a motorbike from our guesthouse to drive through the ruins. We also drove through the town here; it was pretty crazy. There are really no road rules here; you squeeze where you need to squeeze and go where you need to go! It's a bit chaotic, but really fun. I rode on the back of the bike and held on. We ended our day with a delicious meal at the Dream Cafe and beers at The Chopper Bar. We had the best Thai food we've had yet. The star was a minced pork and ginger "yam," meaning salad. If You ever visit Sukhothai, I recommend doing the same itinerary we did... We had a fantastic day and there are cutie patootie kittens meowing at breakfast. Love me some breakfast meows. :-)

Oh! Almost forgot. I posted a picture of the butt hose that's in every bathroom. This is something Canada is doing wrong and Thailand is doing right. Stephan, you should get one. Tell Dad to install one for you.

Pitstop

Food swing prevention, beer stop, avoid the downpour.

Bangkok and Away

. We woke up late with the only goal to catch a bus to journey to our next destination of Sukothai to see some ruins. We took the sky train as close to the bus station as we could, and then tried to hail a cab to the bus. For some reason the cab would not take us there. This was the beginning of a forty five minute walk. Now, I keep experiencing the hottest temperature I've ever been, and once again I exceeded my last experience.

Finally we got to the bus station, bought some tickets for $10 each (500 baht total), and headed to Sukothai. We enjoyed watching the Thai countryside go by.

We landed in Sukothai where we had no plans of where to stay at 9pm. As soon as we got in, a tuktuk driver approached us and said he knew of a place to stay. Now we are staying in our own little cabin, and enjoying a beautiful breakfast!

Bangkok Pics

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Bangkok Day 3

Hello Koop fans! Today we had a nice late start and decided to walk to the hug mall MKB for breakfast/lunch. Regardless of what the meal was called, it was the first of the day, and this means that Joise was hungry.  This means that Josie was unable to make desicions, and by the time I had finished my 'mixed meat beef noodle soup', Josie was still aimlessly wandering about the 30+ food stalls. She finally settled on a $2 pad thai.

We did some quick shopping; Josie replaced the glasses case that was accidentally left on the plane and finished her breakfast with a Thai crepe.

Soon after, we were in another tuk tuk after some fierce bargaining and convincing the driver that we did not want to stop at his special gem store en route. Our destination was Wat Pho. What for? To see an enormous reclining Buddha covered in gold. It was very impressive! The only issue was the size of the building surrounding it barely fit the buudha thus making seeing the entire Buddha nearly impossible.

From here we had a delicate bowl of won ton soup by the river and some fruit from the side of the road. Another tuk tuk and we were at the Golden Mountain. This temple gave us panoramic views of the city. It also gave us the chance to ring some bells and hit some gongs. Considering this, we ended the gong show of sweat by taking a quick and effiecient water bus down the canal back to our hotel to freshen up.

Finally, we headed out to one of Bangkok's night markets. We toured the stalls and ate some fantastic Japanese ramen at a cute little restaurant. This is when we experienced our first SE Asia downpour. We ran for cover only to find out that the pub we chose was right in the middle of a strip of gay bars. We enjoyed people watching, experiencing the street flooding, and some Chang beers.

Fianlly, we took the sky train back to our hotel where we are showering the sweat off and drinking some more Changs we bought on the way home from 7/11. Goodnight!

Bangkok Day Three

Hello Koop fans! Today we had a nice late start and decided to walk to the hug mall MKB for breakfast/lunch. Regardless of what the meal was called, it was the first of the day, and this means that Joise was hungry.  This means that Josie was unable to make desicions, and by the time I had finished my 'mixed meat beef noodle soup', Josie was still aimlessly wandering about the 30+ food stalls. She finally settled on a $2 pad thai.

We did some quick shopping; Josie replaced the glasses case that was accidentally left on the plane and finished her breakfast with a Thai crepe.

Soon after, we were in another tuk tuk after some fierce bargaining and convincing the driver that we did not want to stop at his special gem store en route. Our destination was Wat Pho. What for? To see an enormous reclining Buddha covered in gold. It was very impressive! The only issue was the size of the building surrounding it barely fit the buudha thus making seeing the entire Buddha nearly impossible.

From here we had a delicate bowl of won ton soup by the river and some fruit from the side of the road. Another tuk tuk and we were at the Golden Mountain. This temple gave us panoramic views of the city. It also gave us the chance to ring some bells and hit some gongs. Considering this, we ended the gong show of sweat by taking a quick and effiecient water bus down the canal back to our hotel to freshen up.

Finally, we headed out to one of Bangkok's night markets. We toured the stalls and ate some fantastic Japanese ramen at a cute little restaurant. This is when we experienced our first SE Asia downpour. We ran for cover only to find out that the pub we chose was right in the middle of a strip of gay bars. We enjoyed people watching, experiencing the street flooding, and some Chang beers.

Fianlly, we took the sky train back to our hotel where we are showering the sweat off and drinking some more Changs we bought on the way home from 7/11. Goodnight!