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February 28, 2006

Snorkelling rocks!

Well, our Thailand beach time is officially over; now it's on to the Himilayan mountains...should be a bit of a shock to the system:o)

Our time on Krabi and Ko Phi Phi was awesome. We had great weather and got to fit in couple of snorkelling trips. Our first snorkelling trip was off Ton Sai; the trip started at 2pm and went until 8pm (most trips go from 9am-1:30pm). We went to seven different islands for snorkelling...we saw some amazing fish...indescribable color and combinations...such creativity! Highlights for me: I swam with a huge jellyfish (keeping my distance of course), feeding the fish bananas was really cool even though I couldn't stop screaming and laughing AND

I saw two black tip reef sharks...that was a bit freaky but apparently they're very shy and swim away when they see you. I was hoping to see a turtle but didn't unfortunately. Oh yah, and we saw a whole lot of Nemos(clownfish) and his friends.
We watched the sunset from the boat by an island, which was beautiful, and while the sun was setting,

hundreds and hundreds of huge fruit bats started coming out of a cave on the island and flying over top of us. These bats were seriously the size of small dogs, and I'm not talking about Chiwawas. We had dinner on the boat and then came the really cool part...they turned all the lights off on the boat and we went for a night swim to see all the phosphorescent plankton. Basically, the plankton absorb light from the sun all day and then at night, if they are moved at all , they light up. It was amazing! It was like having sparks coming off your whole body...I've never experienced anything like that before.

We met a really cool couple from Chile (Franz and Francisca) on the jungle train who we ended up travelling with to Ton Sai and then Ko Phi Phi. We had a lot of fun with them and even taught them how to country dance:o)

Ko Phi Phi was a great place to visit. It's a beautiful little island that was basically wiped out by the Tsunami. They have already done alot of rebuilding but you can still see the effects...barely any trees in the town, some of them snapped off. Pretty crazy. The town is built on a bridge between two islands with beaches on both sides so it was an easy target.
We decided to do another snorkelling trip from Phi Phi as we heard that is is one of the best places in the world to do so. I've seriously never seen such beautiful water, beaches and fish. We made about five stops (one of which was the place where the filmed "The Beach") when you could either snorkel, swim or take a sea kayak onto the beach. We snorkelled most of the time...at one spot it was really shallow and we were just hovering about 2 1/2-3 feet above the coral and all the sealife...so cool! We also saw another black tipped reef shark and got to chase him for a bit this time before he disappeared.

Phi Phi had a variety of great food from cheap food stalls to beachside seafood bbqs. One night we were able to partake of a Mexican feast complete with guacamole and sour cream...such a treat! But my favourite was this little singing lady who ran one of the food stalls where we liked to stop and get samosas. Here's how a typical converation with her would go...

Me: Excuse me
Her: Yes
Me: umm, what is in the...
her: 10 baht, 10baht, 10 baht, 10 baht (done in a very musical fashion...kind of like a hockey chant)
Me: Ok, but can you tell me...
Her: 10 baht, 10 baht, 10 baht , 10 baht
Me: Yes, that's good, but...
Her: 10 baht , 10 baht, 10 baht, 10 baht
Me: Ok, I'll take two:o)

We did not get to see any of the Olympics besides getting updates from the internet; so you can imagine that David was quite bitter when he found out that they actually showed the final hockey game between Finland and Sweden somewhere on the island...we only found out because later that night our Swedish neighbour was passed out on the stairs of our hotel with his friends trying to drag him up one slow step at a time. That's how we found out that Sweden won the game.

So now we're back in Bangkok again...we rode the bus all night (5pm-6am) to get here and get some business done (Indian visas, laundry, Mcdonalds and plane tickets) before we leave,in two more sleeps, for Nepal:o)...more to come from there.

Posted by Maureen at 12:51 PM

February 26, 2006

Enough of that!

Ok, now that I'm done feeling sorry for myself - a quick update. We're on Koh Phi Phi and will be back on the mainland on Monday, Feb 27. At that point we'll upload some pics and let you know what we've been doing. We fly off to Nepal March 2 to do some trekking in the Himalayas which will be quite a change from the beach lifestyle we've been living for the last few weeks, but we're really looking forward to the trip.

Posted by David at 1:13 AM | Comments (2)

Thoughts of Home

Sometimes I get really tired of being on the road. We're off to Nepal in one week and I'm thrilled to be going, sad to be leaving the beach, and desperately wishing for home all at the same time. It's 11:30pm at night and I'm sitting in an internet cafe (paying way too much becuase they rip you off like crazy when you're stuck on an island) because I can't quite stand the thought of climbing up the ladder/stairs to our white walled 8ft by 9 ft room and trying to go to bed as a sub-standard fan circulates the 35C air throughout. We watched a show tonight at a restaurant - "The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio" (if I ever see another movie with him it will be too soon - I think I'd rather watch a looped Sly Stallone and Danny Devito sitcom for 34 hours straight)...a lame movie, but we figured we ought to watch it anyway becuase we're going snorkelling tomorrow at the site where the movie was shot (we're on Koh Phi Phi in Thailand by the way) ............

anyway - I'm just feeling sorry for myself, so forgive me for my rant...but when the show ended I was just reminded once again that we were so far from home, and that we had no place to go relax, no friends we could call up to hang out with, no couch to go nap on, no fridge to go raid, no piano to play, no car to go for a drive in, no TV to watch hockey...I guess in a nutshell I just miss having a home that we can call our own and I miss it most in the evenings when we try to find something else to do then to sit in another bar.

Posted by David at 12:48 AM

February 20, 2006

Back to Thailand...

It's hard to believe that we're already back here, but we have covered a whole lot of ground in the last few days. We flew back into KL on the 16th and spent a bit less than a day running around trying to accomplish some stuff....decided that KL is a much funner (sorry mom, "more fun") place to be when you're not trying to accomplish anything. But in the end we have added an MP3 player to our posessions...it will be great to have on the long trips and to just have some music period. We are both quite excited about that.

From KL, we took a train to Gemas, where we spent a short night and hopped on the "Jungle Train" the next morning. It is a trip that was recommended to us, especially if we didn't have the time to stop and explore the jungle a bit, which we didn't. The trip started at 8am and ended at 10pm (pretty much ending at the Thai/Malaysian border). It was a long trip, but it was not the destination that we were concerned with anyways, and it was a beautiful trip...so green. It would have helped to have a little bit more air-circulation (there was no a/c and no fan) as it was a very hot day, but we survived:o)

Yesterday we travelled across the border and now we are back in Krabi...ready to hit the beach again...believe it or not, we actually lost our tans a bit in Bali because we just didn't go outside when it was so hot. I think this time we will go out to Ko Phi Phi (island) for a few days as well as spend a few more days on Ton Sai beach... and hopefully enjoy some snorkelling, before heading back up to Bangkok.

Posted by Maureen at 11:13 AM

COOKIES:o)

Basically, the story goes like this...Jisca and I were talking the other day about how much we missed baking. Then David and I went to Ubud (Bali), and we were having a drink at this cute little cafe (that happened to sell some cookies)...when the little light went on in my head that if they can bake cookies here, maybe I could too.

So I propositioned them that I would give them my "famous" recipe if they would let me help make them and then they could sell them. How can you refuse an offer like that?!?! So after a brief phone conversation with the owner (whom I'm pretty sure was Canadian or American), the date was set for me to come back and make cookies. It was so much fun...they didn't turn out exactly right, but I guess that's to be expected as we had to use palm sugar and white sugar instead of brown, a dutch oven and it was so hot that when I stirred the dough, most of the chocolate chips melted into the dough....but they still tasted quite good and it was great therapy for me:o)

Posted by Maureen at 10:59 AM

February 14, 2006

"Want Transport?"

Mo's a better surfer than me. It's not that I'm not trying though. She picked up in two hours what it took me over two days to learn...between drinking the Indian Ocean and dodging my surfboard as it flies through the air after me, I remind myself of a spastic kid with water wings in the swimming pool who everybody avoids becuase they know that if they come too close they're likely to get dragged underwater. Seriously. I struggle out there with my massive board (bigger than Mo's...it's 7'7" long...more stable that way) only to see the crowds part like the Red Sea to give me room. See Exhibit A below to see how Mo is standing on her board compared to how I'm standing on mine...

LOTS OF NEW PICTURES IN THE PHOTO GALLERY!!!

...surfing is actually a lot of fun though :-)

....other than that.........."Want Transport?" is a question that is starting to drive me crazy...

we left the beach in Kuta a few days ago to go up to Ubud, an artsy town in Bali where we managed to pick up some great artwork for our home (whenever we get us one of those). It was a great place, but the combination of the terrorist bombing in November and the fact that this is traditionally low-season means that we are offered rides incessently by anybody with either a car, minibus, or scooter. As a little experiment, we decided to see how many rides we were offered in the short walk between our hotel and whereMo was baking her cookies (check her upcoming entry for info on that). I had my backpack on (as we were heading to the bus station after the baking) so we were a prime target. .....In the 14 minute walk we were offered transport 24 times by everyone from hotel staff to guys playing checkers on the sidewalk to my personal favorite: a guy in a minivan who offered us a ride once, then again only 100 feet later after he let off his other passengers (we only counted him once)...good times :-)

Posted by David at 3:09 PM

February 8, 2006

Malaysia-Indonesia

Well, since we last wrote we have been through Kuala Lumpur and are now safe and sound in Bali, Indonesia.

Kuala Lumpur was a definite highlight for us...just a really cool city. I'm pretty sure it's world renowned for it's great shopping...cheap electronics, clothes, watches, Louis Vitton handbags (real or fake), shoes and anything else you might want (if only we didn't have to carry it all on our backs for the next 6 months....:o)) On the bus ride from Georgetown to KL we met a tour guide who offered to take us around the city on his day off (the following day), so we took him up on it. He took us to see everything we wanted to see and then some...and it was great to get some background explanations on stuff too. The Petronas towers were really cool, especially at night when they're all lit up...but they're just two of many beautiful and unique buildings in the city. At one point, I was afraid we might lose our tour guide as we spent most of the morning walking and he had never done that before. But at the end I think he was quite proud to say that he had done the "KL Walking Tour":o) All in all, I think we did a good job of seeing and experiencing the city's sights, sounds and tastes in the mere 48 hours that we were there...we might do a bit more on our way back through.

The flight to Bali...

well that was an adventure. We flew with the "West Jet" of Asia :Air Asia ( the official low-fare airline of Manchester United...David wanted me to add that). It was a good flight, but it made one a bit nervous to see that the arm rests were held together with duct tape and some of the drink trays would come flying down during take off and landing. But we made it just fine and if we had any nerves about coming through customs, they were alleviated when the customs officer started making fun of my passport picture and then asked Jisca to play him a song on her guitar:o)!?

We are now residing in the town of Kuta on the south west part of the island. We have not seen much of the rest of the island yet (it is quite big), but have plans to rent a bike for at least one day and go exploring a bit more. Mainly we're in Kuta because of the beach with waves that are perfect for beginner surfers...such as us. So for the last couple days we have been giving it a go. We have decided that surfing is very similar to golf in that most of the time we're pretty bad and get thrashed around a fare bit...and then we catch that one wave that just keeps us coming back for more. We have been improving though and will hopefully even be able to move up to an intermediate beach before we're done...we'll keep you posted:o)

Posted by Maureen at 1:43 PM