Siem Reap, Cambodia

After a great night out with our travel buddies we woke up to a beautiful sunrise and spent our last few hours on Koh Phi Phi laying out on our beach chairs and wading in the amazing water. The only thing about the ocean water is the tiny bites you randomly feel which we were told were sea lice, but they don't even leave a mark so compared to the massive mosquito bites we have, we didn't even care! Our last day on Koh Phi Phi we were laying in the sand and for the first time we really didn't want to leave for our next destination. We took the ferry back to Phuket and took a taxi to our hotel for the night in Naithon (it was right next to the airport in Phuket). It was so beautiful there we were glad that we had a chance to see a beautiful part of Phuket because our last stay really made us never want to go back! This hotel was nice, right across the street from a long stretch of a beautiful white-sand private beach that was only shared between three hotels. We had dinner on the beach with an English couple we met earlier that day, and spent three hours eating, talking, and enjoying the amazing view. At dinner we learned that people don't like being called "British" if they are "English" and vice versa. People from England are English, not British. But if they have family from multiple places within Great Kingdom, i.e. Wales and England, then they would be considered British. We never thought about it but now are always conscious about it when we are talking to English/British blokes ; )

This morning we flew from Phuket to Bangkok, with 2 hour layover before our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our flight was Bangkok airways and someone previously told us about a lounge they had at the airport so we set out to find it right when we landed. 45 minutes later we found the lounge; there was sandwiches, cookies, a gourmet coffee maker (we made mochas) and a popcorn maker. We ate, read newspapers, checked the internet for NFL news (the Jets suck.) and lounged around until our flight. The flight was the shortest either of us have ever had, about 35 minutes. After getting off the plane, everyone walked/(the French sprint/shove) to the main terminal to get Cambodian visas. We had to pay 20$ for them, then they took our passports, do some sort of assembly line with 9 different airport officials passing it down, then made us all stand in a large group at one end of the airport and would call out our names and toss our passports back to us. It was stressful to say the least.
Our hotel had someone pick us up from the airport, even waiting with drinks for us! We were very excited. Our hotel is in Treak village, right outside of downtown Siem Reap. On the way to our hotel we saw kids washing their cows in the rivers, pigs in handmade bamboo pens, little shacks surrounded by the rice paddies that they work at everyday. Our hotel is amazingly beautiful, they give a percentage of our payment to the village, as well as employ many of the local people. After a quick rest in the hotel we took a taxi into the downtown area of Siem Reap. We went through all the night markets, ate a great dinner on the street that was packed with foreigners and locals (entrees were 1$ each), and shopped like crazy. Unlike Thailand, Cambodia is very raw, there isn't 7/11's everywhere or any western stores, rather local shops, local markets and Cambodian items. It is all very cool but it is a bit difficult to digest at first due because of how much we loved every minute of Thailand and kind of become used to that way of living. We had to start taking our malaria medication because it is present here in Siem Reap. Weirdly enough the entire country, including the government uses US dollars. Kinda crazy to think about, a third world southeast Asian country using the US dollar (however, they do have the Cambodian Riel, but pretty much only locals use it). Although today was a hectic travel day we were able to wander around Siem Reap, pick up some amazing gifts and really enjoy Cambodia's city and rural countryside.
Thanks for keeping tabs on us while we're away, it's fun to know you guys enjoy reading as much as we enjoy writing!
Love and miss you all, D & K xoxox.

Boat trip around the Koh Phi Phi Islands

Today we headed our on our boat for the day, "Blue Skies." It was a 2 story white boat, with the perfect amount of people (some of the other boats were packed way past capacity!). We set out for Maya Beach, which is the shown in the movie "The Beach." It was very beautiful, but also very crowded. We snorkeled through many islands, monkey island, mosquito island, and bamboo island. I haven't really snorkeled that much, just once actually, and it was so amazing. Once I stuck my head under the water all I could hear was my breathing (similar to darth vader), and millions of bright neon fish were swimming right past my face, inches from my nose. We went over coral reefs that were straight out of Finding Nemo, with all the little fish swimming in and out of different holes, the sea slugs closing as we swam over, spiky black urchins, and fish in the sand that blended in perfectly. I even saw "Scar" (from Nemo) multiple times : ) When we were swimming back to the boat from Monkey Island David got stung by a little jellyfish on his hand. It stung and swelled up a little bit, but it went back down with some pink goo the boat captain had. At one island a group of us all swam to the caves under the massive sheer cliffs. We kind of paused outside one of them and David just charged right in to see what was in it. He popped up and said wow there's another cave under this one! We thought he was joking at first but we all went in and looked and deeper under the water was an opening to another cave. We were all hesitant to go into it but before we discussed it David had already swam under and popped up on the other side. It was so beautiful in there, with all the rocks and crystal blue water. All the guys jumped off the top of the boat throughout our journey. David even joined some of the local guys in their kayaks that were being pulled behind our boat. He even stood up in the kayak haha. Our last stop was at a reef where there were supposedly harmless sharks, we didn't see any sharks but it was a beautiful reef to swim through! It was a great day full of sun, great people, clean salty water, and lots of snorkeling!! Tonight we are going out to dinner on the beach with a group of people we met on the boat today, 3 other couples, one from Chicago, London, and Sweden : )
Love you all! xoxo D & K

Phuket/ Koh Phi Phi Island

After an amazing stay in Chiang Mai we taxied to the airport for our flight to Phuket. While waiting for our plane to board we bumped into Pat, the owner of the elephant farm we went to a few days ago. We were both excited to see each other and talked for ten minutes about how much we loved his elephants and what he was doing. He was super humble and thanked us for being so sweet and said now they were our elephants too not just his! Then we were standing in line to board the plane he walked up to us and handed me a bag from the airport bookstore. He said with a smile, I know you shouldn't take packages from others at an airport but please open it. I opened it and it was a beautiful book on Thailand that talked about Thai customs and beautiful places to go in Thailand. It was so kind of him! That is how sweet many Thai people are!

We flew into Phuket and as we got off the plane we were instantly bombarded by tons of workers offering taxis, buses, boats, tours, snorkeling, etc. That pretty much describes Patong Beach in Phuket haha. Though neither of us have been to Cancun we've decided thats exactly how Phuket is. It was very wild, dirty, loud, bright lights-- not exactly our type of town. We checked into our hotel, which I'm pretty sure was made in the peak of neon fashion in the 70's and decided to walk around for the rest of the night to spend as little time as possible in the hotel (2 people got stuck in the elevator within 5 minutes of us being there!). We were able to meet up with Grant and Susan (the Aussies we met in Bangkok) for a beautiful dinner at this modern restaurant on a cliff over the ocean, the White Box. Though it was veryy expensive, we had a blast catching up and eating amazing food. They have been island hopping and Suze had a tiny accident on a motor scooter : ( After dinner we walked around the crazy streets with everyone calling out, my friend where are you coming from, let me give you a silk shirt! One street was similar to a red light district, totally packed, with go-go bars, rock clubs, discos, prostitutes, etc. I sprinted down the street because guys were trying to put large iguanas on people walking by because they thought it was funny...We stopped by Molly Malone's, a pub David and some friends went to in Finland. It is very similar to the one in Finland, with a Thai band covering American hit songs. We had a good time there.

We bought the first ferry ticket we could out of Phuket to Ko Phi Phi island : ) The ferry ride was about an hour and a half, on a boat similar to the Catalina flyer. The ride was beautiful, we found chairs on the roof deck and just admired the beautiful ocean. When we arrived our bungalow hotel sent a luggage boy with a cart to meet us at the pier because there is no motor transportation on the island (only bicycles). He lead us through the tiny streets that lead up to our bungalow (our personal wooden hut with a bed on the ground, mosquito netting covering it, with a hammock on our porch). It is awesome, I've always wanted to stay in one! We spent some time walking down the beach and going into the warm and salty ocean. The beaches have tons of longtail boat anchored on the shore, the water is very shallow for a long walk out into the ocean, and its surrounded by tall rocky cliffs covered in dark green jungles. After another spot at the beach in a few minutes we are going to walk up to the viewpoint on the island, which is supposed to be a beautiful view of the entire place. Tomorrow we are doing a snorkeling boat tour of neighboring islands which should be a blast. We miss and love all of you! xoxo, D & K
P.S. Go Chargers!!!

Last day in Chiang Mai

Last night we met up with some Aussies and the first thing we did was go to a "fish spa." I did this in Taiwan, it is where you stick your feet inside a little tank of fish and they suck/nibble your dead skin (supposedly making your skin soft and curing skin conditions!). David thought it was the most uncomfortable/awkward thing he has ever done. I watched him doing it and couldn't stop laughing because his face expressions were constantly changing between smiles, grimaces, laughter, and pain. After the "spa" we all went out to a rooftop restaurant, "John's place" and played Uno until 1 in the morning.

This morning we had to wake up at 5:45 to go on our "Flight of the Gibbons" ziplining tour. We drove about an hour away, up through thin curvy mountain roads (our driver had to honk every time he turned a corner to warn people he was probably in their lane). We arrived at the tour and our guides took us out to the ziplines. Our 2 guides were hilarious. They would constantly crack jokes in English, would sing Hotel California every time they saw us, would push us off the platform to start our zipline and as we were beginning to pick up speed they would yell "WAIT, WAIT!!!" That one scared me every time! Our group consisted of 1 other american (worked for the US embassy in Micronesia), 1 Aussie, a Chinese/Japanese couple (who were hilarious and never stopped taking pictures with their huge Canon cameras, even when they were ziplining they had the camera to their eye), a Colorado native turned Chiang Mai resident and his Thai girlfriend, along with his 78 year old mom from Colorado. She was the most fit older woman we have ever seen! We were walking along this rickety wooden bridge and she exclaimed, "I feel like a drunken sailor!" We had such a blast zipping from tree to tree, with our guides singing the Mission Impossible theme song, while yelling "watch out for that tree!!" Our guide handed David a yellow flower from a coffee tree and he ate it (he couldn't taste it anyways : ). At the very end we were about to repel down a 7-story drop to the ground and I asked our guide if David and I could go down upside-down. He said ok! And showed us how to flip upside down on the ropes. It was so fun, but all the blood rushed to my head very quickly haha. After ziplining we hiked up to a nearby waterfall and then ate a good Thai lunch. David and I really enjoyed talking to everyone in our group. The jungle/ziplining reminded me so much of Costa Rica. The same bright green foliage, coffee and banana trees, all the noises; it was beautiful!

Tonight we walked to a nearby night bazaar and wandered for hours through the stalls. I found some beautiful jewelry from Tibet. David was super excited to find an amazing gift for his parents that we have to ship home. We can't wait until it will arrive in like 6-10 weeks : ) For dinner we had some great street food (we literally ate it on the side of the street), some pad Thai noodle and chicken fried rice. We ended our night with another round of Uno with the Aussies! Tomorrow we fly down to Phuket for some island hopping, we can't wait!

Miss you all! D & K

Elephant Day in Chiang Mai

Today we got to be "owners for a day" of some great elephants outside of Chiang Mai at Patara Elephant Farm. It was about 45 minutes south of Chiang Mai, next to a beautiful banana plantation. Patara elephant farm was the most expensive and most highly recommended activity that we both decided was a must, so coming in it was hard to not have high expectations. So, after now doing it, I can honestly say I have never done an activity with animals or any kind of thing like this before in my life (and might never do something so amazing with animals again) as wonderful as this. Right away you realize that this isn't some zoo, it isn't some organization out there to get your money but rather this is a small family owned farm that lives to help rebuild elephant numbers in their native land. Pat, the owner gave his little speech at the beginning that was the most believable and real speech about how the environment and how people need to live together and learn from one another that I have ever heard before. So all you green folks out there, you have someone to live up too, but nevertheless, I really understood what he meant by how much elephants in Thailand are in need of help in order to slow the death rate and increase the birth rate. He introduced us to his motto, "extinction is forever" and taught us many things about elephants. Soon after his speech we went right to the elephants; we had to gain their trust and approval, that was pretty easy with about 15 pounds of bananas and sugar cane and a lot of pats to the face and some "De-De's" which means (more or less) "good boy." My elephant was a 12 year old female whose name was Taptow. She was pretty big, maybe 10 feet tall. She was right next to Kristen's little hell-bent male named Gulla-sue. He was awesome. Totally going crazy and was after everything. Soon after feeding him we went to the river, we dove right in and washed the elephants for about 20 or 30 minutes. They totally let us brush and wash em without any hesitation. Except Kristens elephant was all over the place, and wouldn't sit down in the water like mine but would rather lie on its side and completely submerse itself and kick around and spray everyone--i thought it was the cutest and most awesome thing int he world. Kristen, maybe not so much. (Kristen's sidenote: They taught us how to tell the elephant's mood, (ears and tail flapping= happy, ears straight out not moving= not happy.) When we first approached our elephants we had to speak their name and then say jai to see if they responded. I said, "gulla-sue jai?" while holding out bananas, and he gave a small trumpet and ate everything out of my hand. I patted him next to his eyes and said "di-di." Our relationship was cemented with bananas and sugarcane. Gulla-sue is only six years old, one of the youngest ones, and he was non-stop-- much like David. When I was bathing him in the river (throwing water on him and brushing dirt/leaves off his back) he would spray me and everyone around us with water. Then when I was done washing he would immediately roll over into some more mud he found : )
Soon after washing we learned how to get on the elephant bare-back and I got up my elephant by her lifting her leg and using it as my stepping stool, I pushed myself up. We rode them through this AWESOME jungle trail that was out of somekind movie. The elephants ate anything they could find and we had to use our feet against the back of their ears as a way to guide them, and words to reinforce our feet movements. Some word included: "pai" which means go or move, "hao" which means stop (we rarely had to use that), and "yanna" which means don't ((which Kristen had to use all the time because her elephant loved to wander off the trail and rub up on trees and eat everything). We went up and down these steep dirt paths that were set forth by footprints from previous elephants that was very rough. That was maybe an hour or so before getting towards a small pond and stream that we would enjoy a small lunch. Lunch was served on huge leaves and they had all kinds of rice paddies that were served with, of all things, fried chicken. I ate some pretty great rice treats that were native to Thailand and cooked in the villages nearby. While we were eating, the elephants roamed around freely, played and went into the water. After lunch, we were invited to swim with them, only myself and an Aussie girl went in. I never have swam with an elephant before. They pretty much just completely submerge themselves and kick around. I stood on em, moved around on em, played with em and just totally enjoyed the time I had with em while they were in the water. I thought it was funny nobody else was like, sure, why wouldn't i get in. But I sure had a great time.
After lunch and a swim we rode back to camp, took another break, and then Kristen and I rode together down a stream and through the rice fields. It was beautiful. Our huge elephant (Dodo) took us through some amazing scenery as Kristen's feet were on his forehead and I was holding on to her (as her "seatbelt"). Talk about an awesome ride. We enjoyed it very much as our crazy little Thai guide moved us along. At the end of the ride, our elephant gave Kristen a "kiss." She held her arms out as the elephant made a sucking sound and basically blew saliva and dirt all over her arms, it was super funny. We finished up, and we were able to feed all the elephants one last time. I went through 15 elephants and about 50 bananas in about a minute. Trunk after trunk moved towards me as they each wanted their own trunkful of bananas. Like I said, one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Makes the wild animal park and all other zoos seem, well, kinda uneventful. But don't worry mom, we're still totally stoked for the passes you got us!!!

First days in Chiang Mai

Since our clothes are grossly dirty we found a little house across the street where a lady washes clothes, 30 baht for 1 kg. We have no idea how much this is but we're banking on the fact that it's cheap because all of our clothes are with her! Chiang Mai is very different from Bangkok, more green (but still dirty), smaller buildings, lots of Thai houses intermixed with hotels, with more vendors lining the streets. The main mode of transportation for Thais and foreigners are scooters and tuk-tuks. Last night we walked around to find a Thai massage place, we couldn't find the one we were looking for but ended up going to a great one nontheless. It was a two-story wooden house on the side of the main road (there are hundreds of massage places lining the streets). We changed into light cottony massage outfits and we were tugged and kneaded for the next hour. David had never gotten a massage and was very worn out after. David also had uncontrollable laughter for the first 15 minutes of the massage, because he was uncomfortable/awkward that he had a guy masseuse. This made me laugh even louder and we couldn't stop laughing and I think they thought we were crazy. Our masseuses would chat over us for the next hour in loud Thai, his guy would imitate girls voices half the time (no idea why) and we would start shaking while repressing our laughter. After massages we walked to the Sunday night market which lined every street in central Chiang Mai. We bought lots of gifts at the market, I had strawberries with salt on them (didn't know there was salt on it until after I ate it--not the biggest fan). At 6 pm every day they play the national anthem (like before the movies) and everyone walking stops in their tracks and stands still and doesn't talk until its over, then everyone resumes what they were doing. It was kind of fun to see because we hadn't seen it happen in a market before. We saw fried crickets, worms, grasshoppers, and cicadas; we didn't try any of it : ) Later that night we went back to take a nap and ending up sleeping all the way until this morning.

This morning we ate breakfast ate our guesthouse then walked to a motorcycle shop to rent a scooter to ride up a nearby mountain to a temple, Wat Doi Suthep. We rented a red Honda manual 125 cc, and started our journey up the main road and onto the curvy mountain roads. It was so beautiful. The air was at least 20 degrees cooler, and we were surrounded by a jungle. A side note, they drive on the other side of the road so every time we switched lanes or turned onto a different street we would ask each other if this was the right side to be on. We did very well in the midst of all the trucks, tuk-tuks, and scooters around us. When we reached the temple we climbed up the 306 steps that lead to Wat Doi Suthep on the top of Doi Suthep's summit. The temple was first established in 1383 when a visiting monk from Sukhothai instructed the king to take the twin of a miraculous relic to the mountain and establish a temple. The relic was mounted on the back of a white elephant, which was allowed to wander until it 'chose' a site on which a temple could be built. The elephant stopped and died at the spot on Doi Suthep where the temple would be built. We walked around the temple and admired the many buddhas and a giant gold chedi it has in the center of it (which is under construction). Then we rode our bike back down the mountain and found a sign for a waterfall. We debated the $3 a person charge but decided to go big or go home, and so we paid it and drove in. The waterfall was a lot bigger than either of us expected, it even turned into a jungle trek when we discovered a path through the trees up the side of the mountain. We hiked up the dirt/mud path, surrounded by insects and branches; it was very steep and a good workout in our long pants and shirts! We climbed until we found a second waterfall and briefly admired it. Then we decided to head back to the city to find a good place for lunch and rest. We made our way back to the city, then turned through many streets trying to find a good place for lunch. After about twenty minutes of being lost/adventuring on the scooter through all the traffic and locals we finally just picked a place. Lunch wasn't the best, but we found a small dessert bar next door where we enjoyed an Oreo shake that was really good and different than what we have back home. Speaking of our lunch, we have now found that the street food we try is typically better than the food at the local restaurant that we sit down to eat at. We are now gonna try and stay adventurous with the street food cause we have really enjoyed it! We are resting and trying to stay out of the heat until tonight when we are planning on going out to the night bazaar and enjoying Chiang Mai during the night. Tomorrow we have our big elephant day in which we both are super excited! Keep everyone posted soon!

PS: Chargers are gonna open up a can of whoop ass on the NY Jets!!!

Last day in Bangkok/ Ayutthaya

We started our day off by heading to one of the world's largest weekend markets, the Chatuchak Weekend Market. It covers 28 acres with over 200,000 visitors every day. Most vendors actually come from local factories, like antique wood carving and clay handicrafts. They sell anything and everything here including baby squirrels! David wouldn't let me buy one : ( We bargained for a few beautiful wood carved items for myself and some gifts. It was fun just getting lost wandering from stall to stall looking at the thousands of items being sold.

After the market it was time for us to get on a bus to Ayutthaya (Thailand's formal capital in ancient times). We found the bus station, asked where to buy tickets for the hour and a half bus ride, paid $1.50 each, hopped on a bus, and five minutes later we were on our way! When we reached the bus terminal (which was nothing more than a bus stop) we wandered aimlessly for about 15 seconds before being approached by a tuk-tuk driver offering to take us to our destination. He drove us to the train station and offered to show us around to all of the temples for the rest of the day. We said sure; so he walked us into the train station, showed us where to put our bags and where to buy tickets. The man at the ticket desk had no idea how to find our reserved tickets and had no interest in helping us. Our tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Winai, spoke to him in Thai for the next 20 minutes and we walked out very relieved with our tickets for the train that night, thanks to Mr. Winai!

Our first temple stop was Wat Yai Chai MongKol, there were 135 seated buddhas surrounding 4 small stupas, with a immense stupa in the center. It was built in 1360. It also contains a temple of the reclining buddha, which represents Buddha after his death. It was beautiful, all of the Buddha statues were draped in orange cloth, similar to the monks.

Our second temple stop was Wat Phra Mahathat (The Temple of the Great Relic). It contains the remains of a sandstone statue of the Buddha whose body has been lost to the ages but whose head rests in the climbing roots and vines of a tree. Around this famous figure are many other statues of the Ayutthaya period which have survived the ravages of time (there were many headless buddha statues that were falling apart). As we were leaving we both needed to use the restroom and we were both scarred for life. The women's bathroom had only squatter toilets, with a bucket to wash it out, and geckos on the wall. The men's bathroom had a stray dog in front of the urinal, so David had to maneuver around him. On the way out we bought amazing fresh pineapple from a cart.

Our third temple stop was Wat Phra Si Sanphet. It was built in the late 14th century and was the largest temple in Ayutthaya (and used by several kings). It once contained a 16m-high standing Buddha covered with 250 kg of gold but it was melted down by the Burmese conquerors. Along the outside of the temple are three dominant stupas which David recognized from the movie "Mortal Kombat." A bunch of Thai teenagers came up to us throughout our time at this temple asking to take pictures with us, they were all super cute and loved practicing their English.

Our fourth temple stop was Wat Phu Khao Thong, a stark white chedi in the flat plains of rice fields and fish ponds. It was built to celebrate the victory of King Naresuan over the Burmese.It was one of my favorites because it was outside of the main town and had an amazing view.

Our last temple stop was Wat Ratburana, which we saw at lit-up at night. It was David's favorite because it was massive and complex. We paid 100 baht to get in because it was already closed. We walked around for a little bit with bats and hundreds of insects flying around us. After this temple we ate at a little Thai restaurant directly across the street. We had amazing cashew chicken, deep fried spring rolls, and pad Thai noodle with shrimp. We sat at a traditional table, on mats on the floor with slippers on. It was very relaxing.

After dinner we waited for about 45 minutes at the train station for our overnight train to Chiang Mai. We got first-class sleeper trains which turned out to be a private room with two bunks, a sink, lots of A/C, and blankets. It was very nice, especially compared to the wooden benches some people had to sit on! We woke up refreshed and ready for Chiang Mai. Now we are at our guesthouse, Baan Hanibah, it is so beautiful. It is a Lanna teak house, and a husband and wife run it. She has been feeding us since we arrived! Can't wait to explore Chiang Mai!