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December 29, 2005

pictures up

Christmas pictures from Luang Prabang are now in the photo gallery...

Posted by David at 11:54 AM

December 26, 2005

My View of the World

....email is cool - I'm writing back and forth with a couple good friends in Montreal as I'm working on this entry - pretty neat stuff.

bear with me - this blog entry is just a bunch of journal type things that are on my mind - keep reading by clicking below...if you dare...

-Boy, am I missing the World Juniors today.

-So we rented bikes, and all there is here are these 1 speed granny bikes with baskets in the front and big handlbars...they even say "Fairy" on them. Talk about feeling like Heath Ledger. I do feel like a little kid again though when I have to stand up and pedal hard to make it up a hill.

-Check out our Christmas accomodation at Thong Bay and our room

-Laos is awesome - but dirt poor. I did a bit of checking and the Gross Domestic Product per capita (PPP...or all things being equal) is $1,900 US per year in Lao as compared to $8,100 US in Thailand and $31,500 in Canada...there is no railroad system in the country and I have yet to drive on a road here on which you can go above 50km/hr for more than 100m.

-I would almost kill for a Sunday afternoon Italian meal.

-We visited an awesome hill tribe school while on our trek in Thailand and I've been thinking about it alot lately. It's just neat to see the whole community come together - there are 5 villages who have their kids in the school. For those that are a distance away, the kids (age 7-12) live in dorms with their teachers. The dorms were built by Red Bull...the school funded by the Princess and the Lions Club, and the students eat food grown in the school garden tended by the parents - all the parents have to contribute a set amount of time to the school in order for their children to qualify.

-Speaking of the Thai people - I love how much respect and pride they have in their country and in their king. The national anthem is played over loudspeakers in the streets everyday at 8am and 6pm, and everybody stops and stands still in the street in respect while it plays. Before every show in the theatre, everyone stands up while a video tribute is played to the king. Pretty cool........can you imagine having a respect like that for our PM?

-While I'm on the topic of theatres (I am, aren't I?) - you can buy some prime tickets to the shows in Thailand - recliner lazy-boy seats in the top row that come with a small bottle of wine

-What is up with all the karaoke in Thailand? At one mall there were over 40 private karaoke cubicles where you can pay your $, pick your songs, then go sing in your own soundproof room with couch, microphone, and music video/karaoke.

-There is also an obsession with weight in Thailand that I don't quite understand - the people eat all the time, yet are slender, but have coin operated scales to weigh themselves all over the place. With all the sweetened condensed milk I've been having lately...

-How 'bout them Memphis Grizzlies?!?

-I hate roosters...more than any other animal alive - I've been woken up before 7am by a rooster crowing at least 12 times since we've been here. There was one in Chiang Mai that had a vocal chord issue so started even earlier in the morning to try and compensate - try 3am - sounding like my old cat "Blackie" (for those of you that remember what he sounded like)

-Ok Vancouver...trade for Roberto Luongo already. Please. I'm begging you.

Posted by David at 9:50 PM

December 25, 2005

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I hope that you are all having a wonderful holiday with your families and friends and "may all your Christmases be white"...I know that's not the case for those of you up in Clayhurst-FSJ area.

This Christmas has been a very memorable one for David and I. We are in Luang Prabang, Laos. It's a beautiful little city on a peninsula between where the Mekong River and another river meet (can't remember the name), with some mountains all around. We have been having an awesome time here and the Lord has been providing for us tremendously. We really wanted to stay in a nicer place for Christmas and were expecting to find one once we got here. Well, it turned out to be a lot harder than we expected, and it looked like we might end up staying at our $5/night guest house...all the places we were interested in were either full or way too expensive. At one of the last places we checked, we saw a map on the wall of the surrounding area. So we were scanning it and saw a place that we hadn't seen advertised anywhere else...but it was right on the river so we decided to check it out. We managed to find it online and it looked great, so we called them right away and they had 1 room left! The reason that it was so crazy was because we found out later that they are basically booked right up until the end of June!
We got a really cute little bungalo overlooking a river with a balcony, a four poster bed and an amazing huge stone bathroom. So we are feeling pretty blessed.

Christmas in Laos...

well, it's a little hard to get into the spirit of things when there is absolutely no evidence of it around you (except for the Christmas Eve ragers that they put on for all the backpackers...but that's just not Christmas for me), but we set out to make it a special day anyways, and it was for sure.

We were served a wonderful breakfast on our balcony while we worked on the yearly Thiessen Christmas crossword...always good for hours of fun and frustration. Then we took our bikes out in the afternoon and took a ferry across the Mekong River to go biking on some "trails" that were recommended to us. It turned out to be a very interesting afternoon. We got lost twice and ended up way out in the middle of nowhere in a village where thankfully one guy (Mr. Dorn) spoke a little English and told us we had gone 6km too far!!! Oops!! I guess us Canadians are just too used to seeing signs and stuff. This was no ordinary road either...it was hardcore up and down with huge ruts and wash outs... and we were just on little 1-speed granny bikes that say "fairy" on the side...but we did pretty good all things considered I'd say. But at that point we were feeling a little discouraged at the prospect of going all the way back, just to get on the right trail...but then Mr. Dorn mentioned that he was going back that way on a "tractor"(we'll post a picture when we get the chance cause I have never seen anything like this in my life)...so we hitched a ride out of there with him. It was definitely not what we were expecting out of our afternoon but it was a great experience. We were quite happy to get back to our hotel and clean all the dust off...but I don't think our butts will be the same for a long time from the beating they took on those bikes.

We ended off the day with a very nice dinner with some live local music and dancers and then a 2 hour spa treatment (oil massage, herbal steam treatment and a seaweed wrap)...good but a little interesting at times.

So it's been a Christmas like I have never experienced and maybe will never experience again. There were definitely times during the day when I longed to be with my family and smell a spruce tree and just have some good Christmas treats...but when we were reading the Christmas story, I was really just struck with the fact that God is everywhere! And it is so cool to celebrate His birth in such a different setting; with the food and temperature and everything so different...and yet the purpose and meaning for the celebration remains the same...so I guess in a way, it was easier for me this year to really appreciate the true meaning of Christmas because it was the only part that we were able to bring with us.

Again, a great big Merry Christmas to all of you and make sure you eat plenty of turkey and chocolate and drink lots of eggnog for me ok.

Posted by Maureen at 9:17 PM

December 24, 2005

Never far from Friends in Vang Vieng

just a little oddity. In Vang Vieng, Laos, there are several places along the main street (if it can be called that...people make their own cooking campfires on the side of the road) that all have TVs and show reruns of Friends from sun-up to sun-down. ?!?

Posted by David at 7:33 PM

....the bus ride...

Phew...well, we're up in Luang Prabang, Laos. For those of you with the maps - Monday we went on from Chiang Mai to Phitsanulok. It was a 5 hour bus trip that became 7 once they shuffled us over to a city bus for the last 57km leg after ours "broke down"...which means that there were only 6 of us on the bus so they didn't want to run it any further. Anwyay, I got well doped up on Gravol for the next day's trip - we left at 9am and got in to Nong Khai on the Laos border at around 8:30pm. Wednesday we did the short hop over the border - somehow we had failed to notice that Laos was a Communist country...oh well.....click below to keep reading

The capital city of Vientiane is around 24km from the border and we realized right away how much poorer Laos is than Thailand - our taxi was a late 1970s Toyota - when I sat in the front seat it tipped forward so that my knees were keeping the glove box closed. The road into town was "paved" most of the way but full of massive potholes - the side streets were all dirt and once we were in the capital city it wasn't much different there. The sewers run along the side of the streets in trenches and you have to step over them to reach the stores. Anyway, we stayed in a great guesthouse and left on Thursday for Vang Vieng. Woah. 3 hours to go 140km becuase the road is windy and rough. However, Vang Vieng was spectacular! Huge limestone cliffs rising up over the village and a brilliant blue river. We rented a small bungalow for the night there and will be heading back that way for a few days of cave exploring, tube riding, and snorkeling once we're done in Luang Prabang. Paul and Jisca decided at that point that they wanted to stay in Vang Vieng for Christmas, so Mo and I came up to Luang Prabang on our own Friday. That was easily the toughest bus trip ever for us. 7 hours to go 200km. There was no straight stretch of road until we were 2km from Luang Prabang. The whole trip was over, up and around huge mountains...I was again popping Gravol like candy so I was pretty groggy throughout the trip but it was impossible to sleep becuase you had to hang on for dear life around every corner so that you wouldn't get thrown from your seat. It was also a little unnerving at times, with there being no barriers between the narrow road and a steep plunge down the mountainside. The other thing that was a bit scary was twice when we came around a corner and face to face with a teenager with an AK-47 rifle. As there were some hijackings on that road back in 2003 it made us jump a bit, but we just drove on past without any trouble. So now here we are in Luang Prabang, United Nations World Heritage Sight. It's a beautiful town and we're loving it here. It was a pretty major scramble to find a place to stay, but we found a room last night and for tonight (Christmas Eve) we're staying in a great bungalow overlooking a river. Tomorrow...who knows, but hey, that's part of the journey :-) Merry Christmas!

Posted by David at 6:50 PM

December 18, 2005

Change of Plans

Hey all - our 2 weeks in Chiang Mai are coming to a close and we're heading off again tomorrow. The original plan had been to move on to an orphanage further North but that fell through........so....tomorrow we're heading off to Laos. It will take a few days to get there, but our hope is to make it through the capital (Vientiane) and up to Luang Prabang for Christmas. UNESCO has designated Luang Prabang as a World Heritage Site and Lonely Planet describes it as the "most enchanting city in Southeast Asia" so we're looking forward to checking it out. After 10-14 days in Laos we'll come back through Thailand and head east to Cambodia for a bit. We'll keep you posted :-)

Posted by David at 1:47 PM

Goodbye Chiang Mai

Well, today is our last day in Chiang Mai. Mixed feelings about that. We have enjoyed it here so much and have actually gotten a bit comfy...but we're ready to move on.
This last week has been great. We went on a 3-day trek up into the mountains on Tuesday. It was definitely a worthwhile experience.

(We just added a bunch of pictures to the gallery)

We started out with nine of us crammed into the back of a pick-up and we drove out to an elephant farm. We went for an elephant ride...which was pretty cool except for every time we went down a hill it felt like we were going to fall out of the seat. We were holding on for dear life. I'm pretty sure our elephant was the tallest too.
From there we drove out to a village where we started our trek. There were nine of us plus two guides. We were with a great group of people: a retired couple from Japan (they were so tough...we were so impressed with them), a couple from AUS, and a guy from Tasmania...and the four of us obviously. Our guides were alot of fun too...Rong and Jim (whose favourite phrase was "Oh my Buddha":o).
We saw some amazing scenery and....

got to swim in a different waterfall everyday. Both nights were spent in different villages of the Karen people. It was so interesting to see their way of living. They go to bed at about 7:30 or 8pm and then they get up when the roosters start crowing at 3:30-4:00am...and the roosters basically don't stop crowing after that. Roosters have officially become one of my least favourite animals. Even here in the city they start that early...thank goodness for earplugs! Anyways, it was really cool to see the different villages and we even got to visit a village school which was also a boarding school for the children whose villages were too far away. One neat thing was that as a parent of a child that attends that school, you are required to help out in some way as a volunteer (whether it's maintenance, cooking, gardening etc. It seemed like a really neat set up (except for the part where they had their chicken coop set up over the fish pond so that they could raise their fish on the chicken poo.) It's kind of sad because you are only required by the government to go to school until you are 12 years old in Thailand and the only way you can go further than that is if you have a lot of money (not the case for any of the village children), or if you're really smart and you can go on scholarship.
The place where we spent the last night was absolutely incredible! We were on the top of a mountain and could see really far and a whole bunch of more mountains (terrible description, but I'm not sure how else to put it at the moment). You must check out the photos from there in our gallery . Right now, I think it ranks as my favourite corner of the world so far (maybe by the end of this trip I'll have a top ten or something).
Thanks to our guide we were able to try some fresh tropical fruits from the tree: tamarind (very sour), gooseberries, passionfruit, starfruit and bananas.
We ended off the trek with rafting down a river on a bamboo raft. That was a lot of fun. By the end we were all soaked due to waterfights and going over a waterfall (very small one mind you but it still flooded the whole raft).
David and Jisca were both quite carsick by the time we got back to Chiang Mai, but all in all, the trek was an awesome time.

Since we've been back in the city, we've moved to a different guest house...cheaper and it has a pool. We've spent most of our mornings relaxing by the pool and bombing around on our mopeds. We went to the local theatre on Friday and saw King Kong. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, it's definitely worthwhile. Peter Jackson has done it again in my mind...although some parts are extremely terrifying and I had to close my eyes.

Last night, we went out for dinner with the Japanese couple (Tadashi and Kazuko) that we met on the trek and another Japanese guy we met out there, Moto. They took us to a place (actually right next to the place where we took Win and Buoy) where we had "Thai Suki". That was an interesting experience. Basically, it's kind of like a fondue but you cook everything in a broth. So you go and pick your meats (everything from chicken and beef to squid and prawns), veggies, noodles and seasonings and you throw in everything at once (well noodles the last cause they cook the quickest). The point is not only to cook your stuff but also to flavour the broth and make a soup that you eat while you eat the meat, etc. Such a combination of flavours creates a very interesting soup. And you're not finished yet, when you've eaten everything out of your broth, you make a rice porridge with it. It was such a cool experience, we were totally stuffed! We also just felt so blessed by the friends we made, even though we couldn't always understand eachother. It's such a neat thing to cross paths with someone you would have never known otherwise and make a connection with them, even if it's just for a short time.

Tonight we're going again to the Sunday night market (a huge market, cheaper than most others, that only appears on Sunday nights) to stock up on a few more Chiang Mai products before we take off. It's a great place to try all sorts of different foods fromt he different street vendors too.

I guess that pretty much catches you up to where we're at right now. God has definitely been taking very good care of us. I don't know how much access to internet we'll have as we're travelling to our next destination (see entry called "Change of Plans") but we'll keep up to date as much as possible.

Posted by Maureen at 12:27 AM | Comments (1)

December 10, 2005

The last couple days...

Well, we're still surviving here in Chiang Mai - we've just had a great time exploring the city and surrounding area on our mopeds. Yesterday we went about 12km out of the city to a reservoir where the locals go to hang out on the weekend - as it was a Thursday, the place was deserted so we had our own private section of waterfront...it was awesome (except that I got my butt royaly kicked in cards).

(We just added 21 more pictures to the Chiang Mai 1 gallery)

In the evening we met up with Winn (the Thai McGill grad we ran into earlier in the week) and his friend Buoy who took us out to a pretty classy restaurant called "The Resort"...

they had never been there becuase it was too pricey for them - and we were sure sweating the bill for a little while, especially once they ordered the house whiskey and cigarettes (we brought cash assuming we were going to a regular resto) but it all worked out in the end. They ordered traditional Thai dishes for us all to share...somehow I even ate a fish eye. There was a live house band that was phenomenal! They played a bunch of Jazz standards, some newer Jazz stuff, Thai music, and 80s cover tunes. Jisca even got to go up and sing a couple songs with them.

Today, Mo and Jisca went to a Thai cooking school for the day. They had a great time: had a tour of a local market and learned to make all kinds of stuff (green curry, spring rolls, papaya salad, chicken cashew stir-fry, spicy coconut soup) with another 3 girls - - two from California and one from Belgium.

Now we're off TO EAT A HAMBURGER. I NEED A HAMBURGER. DO NOT GET IN MY WAY.

Posted by David at 7:47 PM | Comments (2)

December 8, 2005

The Aftermath...

So...he wasn't so old...and I didn't cry - only the odd wimper here and there ;-) If you would like to try Thai massage at home, here is how: Lie on your left side. Draw your right knee up towards your stomach, exposing the tender inside of your left thigh. Have your significant other crouch and put their knee right on your exposed thigh, lifting their feet off the ground so their entire body weight is resting on that one knee that is on the inside of your thigh. Hold position until you are within seconds of killing your significant other...than have them move to a new, vulnerable location on the exposed thigh and repeat..........

.................hey, we rented a Honda moped yesterday for 5 days - no license needed. Nobody's been hurt yet but it sure is a crazy experience driving out here in the crowds of other bikes, tuk-tuks, pedestrians, and cars. Paul and Jisca rented a bike too and we cruised out to the local theater last night to check it out. We were stuck with either Aeon Flux or Chicken little...so the girls went to see Chicken Little and us guys went to see the action flick. As far as movies go, it was somewhere along the cinematic equivalent of sticking your tongue in a cigarette lighter, but the experience was still pretty cool. We'll have to go back next week to check out King Kong.

Posted by David at 1:37 PM | Comments (1)

December 6, 2005

am I a sissy?

....I'm terrified of an old, small, blind Thai masseur who, for the small fee of $3.5, will inflict indescribable pain on me for an entire hour in the interest of relaxation......hmmm....I'll let you know how it goes. But I did feel quite tough and adventurous after the train ride...the "facilities" on the train amounted to a stainless steel bowl flush to the ground with foot grips on either side - the bowl emptied out right onto the tracks below and the entire room was about 2 feet square...so by the time I squatted down I had to lean forward a bit and use my head for balance against the wall as the train rattled down the tracks (not very quickly though...we covered 750km in 16 hours). So, feeling pretty good about myself then.

Some thoughts about the last few days...

1. Bangkok is huge. period. In some areas it is incredibly filthy...yet its parks, skytrain, malls, and metro system are way nicer and cleaner than anything we have at home. Montreal's metro is so hot in the summer but here all the trains (sky and metro) are air conditioned with nice seats and I have yet to see a single indication of grafitti.

2. There is a huge disparity between those with money and those without. Depending on where you go you can find shoes from over $150C to less than $4 and hotel accomodation from $500+ per night to $3...Starbucks coffee is the same price here as at home and there are even the occasional Haagen Daaz stores that sell ice cream at $4 per scoop

3. having no schedule whatsoever is pretty nice. it doesn't really make sense in my head yet what that actually means...but I don't have anything planned for 15 minutes from now when I'm done on the net, or later today, or tomorrow, or the day after....

4. The Thai people are incredibly kind - especially up north in Chiang Mai. Just walking around the city yesterday with Paul and Jisca we were stopped a couple of times by a couple people who just wanted to know where we were from and to sing the praises of their city and country. One young man who stopped us is a McGill grad - so we're going to take him and his family for supper later this week and he'll drive us around outside the city.

5. Typing takes a long time - I'm done. miss you all

Posted by David at 2:11 PM

Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Well, our initial time in Bangkok has come to an end. We enjoyed the last couple days exploring a few more markets and raiding numerous 7-11's for MORE WATER!!! I would have never have guessed that the sev's would be such a staple, but it has just been so hot (high 30's and humid!). On our last day, we got a day pass on the sky train so we could see the city from a little better vantage point. It turned out to be a great decision...if we saw somewhere that looked worth checking out, we'd just hop off, check it out and then hop back on. We found an amazing market that we've all agreed to go back to right before we leave for AUS to stock up on all sorts of home decor and clothing items:o) I'm coming home with at least 5 pairs of shoes:o) We ended at a really beautiful park where we chilled and threw the disc around for a bit.
Our train to Chiang Mai left Sunday night (7:40)...

and was to arrive at 8:55 the following morning. It's a 750km ride so we decided to do it over-night so we could sleep most of it. We rode second class in a sleeper car where our seats folded down into beds. It was quite an experience...my first time on a train. You could see the tracks going by though the toilet hole:o) It was not one of the best sleeps I have ever had but, what can you do? The hostess warned us that there could be "delays" on the way there, but we didn't actually arrive until 12:30pm (5 hours late). Oh well, we occupied ourselves with lots of card games and checking out the scenic jungle and villages that we were passing by. If only we could have come a little more prepared with breakfast or something...instead we made breakfast out of last night's snacks...chips and oreos:o) But, now that we're here, I hardly remember the painful train ride up here....it was so worth it. Chiang Mai rocks!!! It's a bit cooler which is so nice and it's got a very small town feel to it. It is quite geared towards tourists..I think it might be the main industry...so it makes it easier to get around (alot of signs and menus items in english) and some little comforts too (this morning we had eggs and bacon and pancakes for breakfast:o) ). We have found a great place to stay here for 250 baht/night ($7.50 CAN)...and I think we'll stay here for at least a week...maybe longer. We are also able to rent scooters from our guest house for 100 baht/day ($3) so our transportation is taken care of also. All the more money to spend on Thai massages, milkshakes and elephant treks....I love Chiang Mai!!

Posted by Maureen at 1:06 PM | Comments (1)

December 3, 2005

I lied...

Pickled mango is the one bad experience I have had so far with Thai food....uugh, especially when you're not expecting it!! Don't get any ideas Jody and Janita!!

Posted by Maureen at 10:44 PM

December 2, 2005

Mo's take on things...

Wow. That's all I keep saying to myself over and over and over and over...well, you get the picture. I'll start from the beginning. We stayed at my cousin Geoff's place in Vancouver the night before the big flight. It was great to hang out with him and stuff ourselves with good old Canadian pizza and Vancouver sushi...mmmm...a pretty good send off meal I'd say.
I have to admit, the 14 hour flight to Hong Kong had me a bit nervous as I have never flown over 5 hours before... but it actually went surprisingly fast as they had a continual stream of movies/tv shows, meals, we played some cards and mad periodic trips to the back of the plane to catch glimpses out the window of Alaska, Siberia and China (so cool!!) We had a couple hour lay over in Hong Kong (just enough to stretch some kinks out) before we took the last two hour flight to Bangkok. At this point we are going on 24 hours without sleep and could care less what movies are playing.

Things couldn't have gone smoother once we arrived. We all breezed through customs (although I'm still not sure they understood where we were going and what we are doing here..shrug) and all our luggage arrived in fine shape:o) We took a cab to our hotel...which by the way is not the easiest place to find and was quite intimidating at 1:00am (bangkok time)...but we made it just fine and crashed into bed.

Our first day here... well, all I can say that the difference between Northern BC and Bangkok is absolutely astounding!

There are all sorts of smells depending on where you are, but you can be sure that at any given time, you will be smelling something. The people, there are lots of them and they are beautiful!! 12 million people in this city...yikes!!! The traffic is crazy and there are little motorbikes and scooters making their way between vehicles everywhere (oh, and they drive on the right side of the vehicle). I have yet to have a bad experience with Thai food...it is very lively and so cheap! I have to admit, there's always been at least one thing in my food that I have no idea what it is but...what the heck, "when in Rome"...right? The hotel that we've been staying at is great...very clean and we feel quite safe here which is such a blessing...with everything else being so different, it's nice to have a good place to stay.

Since we've been here we have been to a huge mall (7 stories with very fast escalators), the Dusit zoo, the pariliament/royal palace (where they were very busy making preparations for the King's birthday on Monday, on a water taxi on the river, China-town (I've never experienced anything like that...so thankful for David or I would still be lost in there), and have purchased our train tickets out of here to Chiang Mai on Sunday night. It's been great to be here and experience Bangkok a bit...it seems like you could keep yourself entertained here endlessly, but I think we'll do it in little doses. We're feeling the need for a little fresh air, but we'll definitely be back on our way through to other places to take advantage of the great shopping!!

Just a quick story...yesterday afternoon we were all feeling pretty sleepy as we are not yet over the whole jet-lag thing, so we decided to take a nap before dinner. So we went to sleep at about 4pm and the next thing I knew...it was midnight and we were wide awake...oops. I did set an alarm but it obviously didn't do much good. So here we are at midnight not really knowing what to do...so we read a bit and watched some really great Thai music videos but I actually had to take a gravol at 3am in order to get back to sleep for a few more hours. The same thing happened with Paul and Jisca, so we've decided that we are not allowed to have anymore afternoon naps until we've adjusted to the time over here. But regardless of the weird night/afternoon of sleep, we were able to get through the day without feeling too tired (not counting our legs and feet from all the walking...but we'll get used to that too:o)

Posted by Maureen at 8:31 PM

Sensory overload

The sights, smells, and sounds of Bangkok are at once exciting and enticing and revolting. I have never seen traffic like this - cars jammed up with buses, tuk-tuks (glorified 3-wheeler Taxis), and the ever present motorbikes/scooters which weave their way in and out of the mess - somehow always seeming to miss collisions by a fraction of an inch. I've seen people riding bikes in skirts (seated sideways), others with piles of supplies stacked high on the back, and with babies or whole families clinging to the front bench. All of that, with the knowledge that no matter where you are in the city, there always seems to be a 7-11 within a block or two - complete with teriyaki salmon Frito-Lay chips.

Today we........................

.................had a bit of a rough start. Yesterday was our first day here and we went down for a short power nap at 4pm, only to wake up at midnight. At that point it was almost impossible to get back to sleep, so we were up until after 4am before sleeping for a couple more hours. Anyway, we caught the subway and then a taxi up to the zoo this morning. By the way, the subway system here puts Montreal, Toronto, and New York to shame. It's meticulously clean and full of stainless steel, glass, and stone. The zoo was alot of fun - there was such a huge collection of monkeys, lemurs, macaques to go along with your usual staples. We got up close and personal with a couple of big elephents (out loose in the public area with their trainer to bathe in the paddle-boat pond!) for some good pics and also had some fun with some Thai school children on a water game.

After the zoo, we hiked past the parliament buildings and the King's Palace to get to a docking station for the river-taxi. Basically, we paid 13 baht (about 40cents) each to get herded onto this boat full of people that made stops along the river at different points throughout Bangkok. We disembarked at China Town (yes, they have them here too) and made our way through the busy market streets. It was unbelievable...pedestrian sidestreets that were about 7 feet across lined with tables, foot traffic going both ways, and the occasional delivery motor bike forcing its way through the mess. There was so much stuff there...from boiled pork skins to bags to sandals to trinkets to solid gold jewelry sold by the gram...........................so now our feet ache, my back hurts, and we're going to bed...as soon as I check the hockey scores back home ;-)

Posted by David at 8:17 PM