Chillin in Krabi

Guest blogger Karen here. I'll start off the post and then hand it over to Chloe to finish.

Chloe and I are now in Krabi having the full beach experience. Each day a different beach, with some of the most spectacular scenery ever. Huge cliffs and rock formations that spring straight up from the ocean. And it's crazy hot. We were wondering if it was over 100F but CNN assures us that it's only in the 90s (mid 30s C). And it seems like it just keeps getting hotter all afternoon until about 4pm when it mellows out a bit. I might even come back to the US looking like I went on vacation which I haven't done in a long time.

Today as we laid out on Phra Nang beach, and vendors came buy to deliver us cold diet coke and fresh roasted corn on a stick, Chloe and I looked at each other and said "this is the life!" Chloe claims that I already look much more relaxed. :) Last night we heard the local "talent" sing covers of classic rock from the 70s - lots of Pink Floyd. Not hard to believe that when you don't understand the words, you don't sing with a whole lot of emotion.

Ok Chloe, you can have your blog back now...

First - Karen gets extra party points for managing to battle jetlag on day 3 of her trip and stay up past midnight at that rockin bar. The band was so much better than she lets on, they not only played Pink Floyd, but we got the full gambit from the Rolling Stones, to Brian Adams to Nirvana ! Prior to that fun part of the evening, we were at O'Malley's Irish pub where (to help lure in customers) they had a flame tossing dancer out front, performing to Shakira set on double (or maybe triple time). We also met a Dutch guy at the bar, who was putting the hard sell on Karen to give up the corporate life and just let life take her where it would. I told her I would have given anything to have had a blackberry at that moment so I could email MC and give him a little scare. Just kidding Michael :)




We have also had a great education so far while here. We ate at a Swiss-Thai restaurant where we had to read a double translation of Thai dishes listed in Swiss, then re-translated to English. Food was good though and a language lesson to boot! We also took a morning cooking class where we not only learned some really great recipes (yes yes I know, after two cooking classes I'm probably on the hook for a Thai dinner party) but also were schooled about the lady-boys of Thailand; "Sweeter than real women" apparently and able to hook men because they aren't as shy.



Tomorrow we're off on a kayaking trip where we are assured we will be greeted by monkeys upon our arrival. Life is hard here :) (The photo here is of our foot massage after our first hard day of beach hopping)

Cambodia

Even in the short time I've been here in Siem Reap, I have found it really challenging me to think about what it means to travel in a developing country. Cambodia in general is a very poor country, and Siem Reap province is one of the poorest in the country. I think most thoughtful travellers to developing countries realize that western tourism can be both a blessing and a curse, but we re-assure ourselves that spending our $$ here in the end is a good thing. There aren't that many other opportunities for the people here to make money.

I try to be a 'good' traveller. I buy things at the local shops and restaurants and take a tuk tuk ride or two that I don't really need to make sure that some of my money is going into local hands and not into the hands of the big western hotel chain owner's hands. I try to get out and actually see the city and the people and not stay hidden in the safe grounds of a luxury hotel (and there are ridiculous number of them here in this very small city) And I try to know at least a bit about the history of the place I'm visiting.

Here's the catch... is the other end of the bargain that I should be able to enjoy visiting the city and sights while I'm here ? Oh how guilty I feel for saying that, and for feeling resentful of the constant (and I mean constant) requests to buy something. These people are very poor, and how can I hold it against them for trying to make some money. The $1 they want for whatever it is they are selling means nothing to me and so much to them and yet.. I would really like just 5 minutes of quiet to enjoy sitting and admiring the view of the temples.

Other questions bothering my conscience ...

• should I buy the postcards from the children to help them out, or does that just encourage their parents to keep them out of school because this selling tactic works ?
• is it OK to be totally rude and not even smile back at the constant yells of 'hello' and 'where you from' because I know to even smile is to invite a long sales pitch for one thing or another ?
• is it OK to skip visiting the land mine museum while I'm here ? This is an important reminder of Cambodian history and yet.. I just don't feel up for that kind of museum tour
• how bad is it that by the end of a very hot day of temple visiting yesterday I thought I might actually yell at a child if another one approached me.

Below is a sample conversation with a child which will be repeated over and over and over again all day long. They will also trail along beside you for a very long time continuing this conversation until you find some way to escape.

Child (holding postcards, water, bracelets or whatever): Hello !
Me: Hello
Child: Where you from ?
Me: I'm from Canada
Child: Capital of Canada is Ottawa. Prime Minister is Steven Harper. Canada speak both French and English. Population 33 million minus one.
Me: Wow - that is very good
Child: You know why 'minus one' ? Because you here.
Me: Ha Ha
Child: Buy my postcard ? Only 3 dollars (Everything here is quoted in USD)
Me: No thanks (Trying not to let her actually put them into my hands)
Child: Why not ?
Me: I don't want any
Child: You can send to your boyfriend.. Do you have a boyfriend ?
Me: No
Child: You know why you don't have a boyfriend ?
Me: No - why ?
Child: Because you don't buy my card. How about you buy my water ?
Me: (holding up the water bottle she can clearly see I already have) I don't need any water, I already have some
Child: But I have cold water, yours isn't cold.
Me: No thanks - I don't need any
Child: How about for your driver
Me: I don't have a driver

Ok - you get the point, the conversation will go on like this for ever and ever. One girl called me a "Number 1 lier" because I made the mistake of saying that maybe I would buy some water after I visited a temple and when I didn't buy any she was not happy.

Oh yes and Angkor Wat (what everyone comes here to see) is a spectacular monument to a people's devotion to their religion. It is something like the biggest religious structure in the world and very impressive. It is also an engineering marvel. It is a series structures radiating out from the central Wat and the doorways in each are perfectly aligned so you can look through one and see all the way through to the other end.

Chiang Mai

I spent the last 5 days in Chiang Mai and it was the highlight of my trip so far. The city is fun, lots of markets and shopping but there are also a lot of things to do in the surrounding country side. Because it is farther north, everyone was complaining how very cold it is there at night. I thought it was perfect - it was cool enough in the evening to need a long sleeved shirt on, but that was about it, perfect for sleeping !

The hotel I stayed at was what really made my visit here amazing. The best part about it are the owners. I'm not going to go into all the details here, but they were the most fantastic hosts AND I ate the best Thai food there I have had while in Thailand (well actually the best Thai food ever). The photo to the right is of my breakfast every day. I did not eat all of that food but they just bring it out to you.

I'm trying to keep this post shorter since my others were maybe a bit long for easy reading so... While in Chiang Mai I:


Took a cooking class from the woman who runs the hotel I stayed at (Pepe) I also went to visit an orphanage with Pepe and helped her feed them a special dinner of Tom Yum (Seafood soup). That was a really wonderful thing to get to take part in.


Visited the many day & night markets in the city (Those are crickets in the photo)



Went to the "Royal Flora" horticultural show



Went to an elephant sanctuary. I think this was probably one of the most amazing experiences of my life. You got to feed the elephants and walk down to the river with them and give them a bath !! (I'm a bit guilty about my earlier elephant ride now though) Of course my camera batteries died about an hour into the day so I didn't get any photos of the elephants having their bath !

I took the overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok last night and I have a flight later today to Siem Reap so I'm just killing time here in Bangkok. Because my time in Chiang Mai was so great, it was bound to take down turn and it did so pretty much as soon as the bus got out of Chiang Mai. Very challenging trip which included being forced to watch a Jackie Chan movie in Thai (The lights were turned out and it was 9PM so I didn't have much choice but to watch. The bright spot is that I didn't really need to understand the dialogue to pretty much follow along with the movie) and being woken up regularly throughout the night by Thai music videos for one pitstop or another. Then while settled in having some coffee after arriving in Bangkok this morning, I realized my sunscreen had come open in my pack and got on pretty much everything. Not much I can do about it till I get to my hotel in Cambodia though so I just moped up as best I could without unpacking and am ignoring the problem for now :)

Ayuthaya & Sukothai

First a bit of random interesting information about Thailand: In Thailand, Mondays are the day for everyone to wear a yellow shirt to show their love for the king. I was in Phitsanulok this Monday - and at least 40% of the people were wearing the exact same yellow polo shirt. It's actually almost a bit creepy to see. And while Monday is the official day for wearing the shirt, you see lots of people wearing them any day of the week. There are also a lot of giant posters of the King up everywhere you go. Apparently on Fridays you wear a blue shirt for the Queen, but I haven't noticed this so clearly she is not as popular.





I've spent the last couple days visiting Ayuthaya and Sukothai. Both of these are locations of old capitals of Thailand from the 13th & 14th centuries. In both places, there are many ruins of the temples from those times. In Ayuthaya - the present day city and the ancient city are in the same spot - so the ruins are scattered in among the current city shops and temples. In Sukothai, the current day city is about 20 mins away from the ruins of the old city, and so the ruins are situated in a very well maintained and beautifully serene park. From an overall perspective, Sukothai was more enjoyable but my two favorite Buddah statues are from Ayuthaya (in the photos with this post) I'm sure some people are a bit bored by seeing the old temples, as you are just looking at a pile of rocks in some cases. However, I found it great to imagine what the site would have looked like hundreds of years ago and imagine that people would have been walking down the same paths that I was on. I think in Canada in particular we lack in sites that are really 'old' and so I found that sense of being in a place with so much history really wonderful. In Aythaya in particular, there were many families coming to old Buddah statues among the ruins, and saying prayers and leaving offerings of flowers and incense. I imagine it must be really powerful to feel that sense of connection to your culture and your past, knowing your ancestors were coming to the same locations, saying the same prayers and making the same kinds of offerings. Or perhaps I'm just romantasizing .... :)

In both cities, I rented a bicycle to get around. I was a bit nervous about this in Ayuthaya since you have to ride on streets with cars, scooters and tuk tuks everywhere. However - it was actually better than riding at home in many ways. They actually are fully expecting all kinds of vehicles to be on the road and will happily just drive around you. You just have to learn not to try to be polite and yield to anyone (pedestrians included !) as it will be unexpected behaviour.

Thailand is definitely a very cheap place to travel. Yesterday I had a pretty expensive day since I had a bunch of buses & taxis to pay for and I spent a total of about $30CDN (Not including my hotel). Now, some of the hardcore backpackers take this to the extreme. One group I had met up with a couple times was heading to Chiang Mai a day ahead of me. They decided to call ahead of time to reserve a place because they were arriving late at night. In general if you are going to stay in these budget places, you should wait to actually see the place before booking because the quality can vary greatly. So - if it was me - to hedge my odds in favor of hoping to get a decent place, I would have gone for a slightly more expensive option. These guys proudly told me they found a place for 100 Baht a night including breakfast. 100 Baht is about $3.50 CDN !! Maybe it turned out OK for them, but I wouldn't have wanted to find out - my $250 Baht a night place in Ayuthaya was about as budget as I could handle - and I've opted for the much much pricer option here in Chiang Mai ($40 CDN/night) as just can't deal with not having my own shower with hot water (I'm supposed to be having fun !).

OK, I could write about a lot - but one last thing.. My stomach is more used to the food now and so I'm enjoying the food better. I had the most delicous BBQ chicken of my life from the vendor on the train the other day ! Two nights ago I ate at the night market in Phitsanulok. I saw people walking around eating little cups of corn kernels and finally came upon the stand selling it. There was a giant bowl of freshly steamed corn kernels - Yum !! I asked for some, and expected the woman was just going to put a scoopful into a cup for me. But first she put the corn in a bowl and added salt, something from a can that I think was condensed milk, butter and 3 teaspoons of sugar. She mixed it all up and then put it in a cup for me. There were some other optional toppings people were adding but I couldn't tell what any of them were so I passed. The corn was delicious - although a bit sweet from the sugar. I also had a hot dog wrapped in a waffle (very much like a corn dog) ! Not very Thai - but the Thai people were eating it up so I thought I'd try one. It tasted pretty much like you would expect :)

That's all for now !

Photos:
Photo 1 is of the park at Sukothai
Photo 2 is my favorite, very peaceful looking Buddah sitting outdoors
Photo 3 is a funny statue of an elephant giving an offering to Buddah. There is also a monkey giving a bannana, but you can only see his back in this photo

Kanchanaburi

I've spent the last 2 days in Kanchanburi. Like tourist destination spots anywhere I suppose, it has some elements that draw people here in the first place that are beautiful, but alot of the stuff that grows up around it to support the tourism is not so appealing. I took the train here, which was a fun but dusty experience. When I first settled into my seat I was taken with how quaint the wooden seat and floors in the train were. But those wooden seats quickly become a bum-numbing experience ! Vendors get on and off at various stops and so you can have your fill of drinks and snacks along the way.



There are a couple main attractions in Kanchanaburi. First, this is the location of the 'death railway', where the Japanese forced allied POWs (and Asian labourers) to build a railroad across Thailand to supply troops in Burma (WWII). You can see the infamous 'bridge on the river Kwai' here among other things. There is a great little museum near 'Hellfire Pass' that gives you alot of detail on the railway building effort. The views from the museum are spectacular, and belie the fact that 10 of thousands died building this section of the railway under hellish conditions.

One of the other attractions is just the natural beauty. There are great parks with waterfalls, caves, etc. One of the "things to do" here is to take one of the very cheap day tours. I chose to do this on my first day here. These tours are sort of a mix & match habitrail for tourists. There are 10 or so main things you might want to see or do here, and a day's tour will take you to your choice of 4-5 of them. A mini-bus picks you up at your hotel and you and the 9 others signed up for the same tour get put through the sight-seeing paces for the day.
- Cave. Check.
- Waterfall. Check
- Elephant Riding. Check

Along the way you cross paths with other tour groups doing variations on the same tour. All tours seem to include catching the train at 4:00 across a very scenic portion of the railway. There were probably 100 or so tourists dropped off at one of the stations just before a bridge. We then all piled on, rode for 2 or 3 stops, and then piled off and into our respective tour vans to the next stop on the itinerary.

This is sounding like a very negative summary of the tour now :) Indeed it was spectacularly touristy .. but I did get to see more sights than I would have on my own, and I got to ride an elephant which was pretty darn cool. The photo is of my view from the top of my elephant

Today I took the public bus to Erawan park - which is where the absolutely stunning Erawan waterfall is. This is a 7 tier waterfall. You can explore the park a bit and take your time climbing up to each tier. You can also take a dip in the falls in many places along the way (Which I did - and it was great, but lots of fish are in the water and they nibble your toes a bit while you are in there ) I spent the whole day there, got back and had a little cat nap for an hour and now I'm heading out to the night market for a bite to eat.

The town of Kanchanburi itself has a kind of kitchy appeal I guess. If you stand out on the main road and throw a rock, I guarantee you will hit either 1) A restaurant or food stall, 2) a 7-11 or 3) a shop selling or renting scooters. (They love love love their scooters here and whole families will pile on.) To be fair, I've been quite sick with a cold while here, so I think that has put me off enjoying my evenings in the town. Thailand is not the place to be if are having any trouble breathing. Walking down the streets you are constantly bombarded with the smells of food stalls, incense, garbage, exhaust fumes and fires (for some reason there seem to be alot of brush fires burning around here)

Well that's about it for now - I'm off to Ayuthaya tomorrow.

Other random thoughts

• there are alot of dogs roaming the streets in Thailand
• it is possible to have to much Thai food
• there are alot of men on vacation with their Thai wives/girlfriends (I know I know, I'm not that naive - but they really seem to be on vacation - sightseeing and stuff)
• it's a good idea to pack your own toilet paper with you wherever you go

I only uploaded a couple new pics as this computer is painfully slow !

Bangkok not good today

I've arrived and just finished up a great first day in Thailand. I wasn't planning on posting so soon - but thought the family might like an update so they don't worry too much.

I arrived last night (Jan 31) at about 10:00 PM. I didn't sleep at all on the plane and so I was feeling exhausted and so happy to plop into my cab and finally be here. My cab driver gave me a very friendly "Good Night !". I replied eagerly "Good Night !" - happy to be on my way. As we pull away from the curb he said "Bangkok not good today" (pause) "Have bomb. Now it's all dusty" and he waved his hands at the air a bit to indicate the dust (I guess). His English wasn't great, and so I assumed I must have misheard. Perhaps he meant there was a storm and it had rained. When I arrived at the hotel I thought about asking the receptionist (Um.. I think my taxi driver said something about a bomb ?) but I thought I'd look like a paranoid westerner and there was no sign of anything unusual at the hotel so I didn't ask. I mostly forgot about it today - and was out sightseeing all day. No one mentioned anything that I heard all day. When I got back to the hotel this evening I thought I'd come up to the Internet kiosk and check the CBC website just in case... and indeed, there were some bombs set off yesterday. A couple sites said to avoid crowds while in Bangkok - but that doesn't really seem possible, it's a pretty crowded city. I'll only be here for another day, and then head to Kanchanaburi.

Now for my day. It was fabulous, I can't believe I've only been here for one day. I'm staying at the Sheraton, which is on the river, so I was able to take the river ferries up and down to visit a bunch of the temples today. I'm not sure if it was a special day today or not, but all of them were packed with Thai people. The amount of ceremony and ritual going on in the temples is fascinating to my non-religious eyes. I'll focus on writing about that as there is a line up for the computers so I can't stay on here too long.

The first place I went to were the Royal Grounds which house the "Grand Palace" and "Wat Phra Kaew". (Wat means means temple in Thai). These grounds are surrounded by a wall. One of the gates was open and I saw people flooding in, so I followed along but soon found that there was a very efficient guard at the gate who quickly picked out any non-Thai and diverted them to walk around to different entrance. At that entrance, you could purchase long pants and shirts with sleeves if you hadn't come prepared. I noticed that just inside the entrance, the Thai visitors were lining up to buy a package that included a candle, two sticks of incense and a flower with a closed blossom. Further inside, they would light the candle and their incense and pray in front of one of the buildings. They would then toss their flowers onto a huge pile with others. Some people were first pulling open the leaves of their flower and folding them into pretty designs. I would have loved to take more photos of this, but mostly this would have required me shooting pictures directly into the face of people praying and I didn't feel that would be appropriate so I only got a few where I could take a shot discreetly. (Most of the other tourists didn't seem to share my concern - and were shooting photos madly)


In other locations, people were dipping the blossom of their flowers into a big silver bowl of (holy ?) water and then tapping the blossom on their head so that the water would end up on their heads. In this temple area and in others I visited, there would be monks sitting here and there with groups of people sitting around them. The monks would be playing music and speaking, often with the aid of a microphone.




At Wat Arun, inside one of the buildings, people would get into a line with others down on their knees and crawl past monks who would sprinkle water on them and give them a saffron string that they would later tie around their wrist. At this same temple, there was a long long string tied to the top of the temple, that was gradually being filled with money that people would staple onto it. There was also a long table filled with black bowls. The process seemed to be that you would give the 'teller' some paper money and he would change into small coins and put it into a small silver bowl for you. Then you walk around and distribute your coins into the black bowls as you like. I noticed signs up on the table labelled with the days of the week (in English !). I supposed the idea was that you would get blessings for that day of the week if you put money in the corresponding bowls.

OK - I think that's enough for now - except to say that I ended my day with a 1 hour, extremely vigorous, foot massage. (Actually more of a foot/leg massage that included a quick head/shoulder massage at the end). I may have bruises on my calves tomorrow to show for it - but it was great !

Oh- and I manged to upload a couple photos, see the link on the right.