i'm gonna make this quick cuz i'm hot and tired and i need a shower lol
Day 49 - flew to cambodia
it was a chinese propeller plane and the most turbulent flight i've ever been on. kinda scary but not too bad lol we landed safely obviously. we had a stop in one town to drop people off and then we flew to siem reap which was interesting. i'd never had a stopover like that before.
we're staying at popular guesthouse. we like it.
cambodia is REALLY hot! quite a shock after the cool weather of luang prabang in laos!
another shock in cambodia are all the beggars. they're everywhere, of all ages and they don't let up til you buy something or give them money. we now have a book, a scarf and 12 bracelets we weren't planning on buying. it was all really cheap though so that's ok. i certainly don't mind helping the people out but they're just so in your face. it makes it hard to think straight. it's overwhelming. especially when it's 2-3 little bitty kids 4-6 years old and they're reaching up with their wares and saying ÿou buy this lady, lady, one dollaaarrr, no buy from me ladyyy, 5 for one dollaarrr"and you're like ah what do i do!? so i just bought something from each kid.
the temples are awesome though! the first time i heard of angkor wat was in the dallas museum of art. they were having an archaeological presentation and i could get extra credit for my anthropology class by going. i went with jens and we drank wine and it was all very sophisticated lol so to finally see the place makes me feel like i've come full circle!
angkor wat is actually just one of the many, many temple ruins that are in a huge area near siem reap. yesterday we saw one location before the park closed at 5pm.
we had cambodia for dinner. something called amok which is basically a curry with lots of scrambled egg in it and it's not as soupy. pretty good!
after dinner jens and i got full body massages for only $7 each!
then we got kaffir lime and passionfruit gelato, then some samosas (cuz we got hungry again) and then went back to the hotel for shower and sleep.
Day 50 - tons o' temples!
we had a western style breakfast at blue pumpkin and then our tuk-tuk driver picked us up and took us along the "grand circuit" to see a bunch of temples. we probably went 15km outside of siem reap by the end of the day. we saw 4-5 different temples and each one was slightly different. we saw the huge trees growing on top of temples with their roots "melting"down over the stones into the ground. we saw huge faces carved into stone gates. we saw big lions and elephants carved out of stone. and we also saw live cows running about, water buffalo grazing, chickens and roosters pecking, dogs lolling about and loooots of people selling stuff.
we had chicken and veg. noodle soup for lunch and that was good.
by about 3pm we were totally melting and exhausted so we saw one more temple and went back to the hotel.
on the ride home a spanish guy on a bike rode up and hung on to our tuk-tuk to get a ride into town. he said he had family in texas! imagine that!
now we've just got one more official day of vacation before we start heading back. we'll see angkor wat and the huge angkor tham tomorrow. then the day after we'll fly from cambodia to kl, malaysia. our flight to korea doesn't leave til 10 hours later so we'll have plenty of time to get to know the kuala lumpur airport. we fly back to korea at 12am! arrive at about 6am and then we'll take a bus to the train station. from there we'll train to mokpo. then it's just one more form of transportation between us and HOME! a taxi to line apartuh! where our little bitty wuffle pups will be waiting! can't wait to see them!!!!! sigh...we'll have two months with them in korea but then we'll be leaving them for another 2 months more or less when we go on our road trip in the states. i dunno if i can do it! :o( at least they'll be in good hands with my mom. she loves dogs as much as we do! :o)
i can't believe our looooong vacation is finally coming to an end! it'll be so weird to go back to korea. first of all it'll be much much colder and we'll only have about 2-3 days til we have to go back to work and start teaching again! blah! i have and idea of what i'm gonna teach but i just don't wanna do it lol i wanna go back to texas like asap. but oh well, we've got so much stuff we wanna do and have to do before we leave i'm sure the time will fly. i'm ready for some galbi!!! lol
anyway i may not update again til the airport day after tomorrow. dunno what we'll end up doing tomorrow. until next time! bye!
i'm reading a book called ant egg soup by natacha du pont de bie. she's a british woman who calls herself a food tourist, which i could call myself! sometimes i decide where to go and where to stay just based on the food! she heard there was only one book written in english about laotian food so she set out to write the second. she traveled all over laos meeting native people all along the way and having them show her how to make laotian food. i love the book so far! it's great to read a book about a country while you're traveling around it! gives you more info and more perspective.
anyway, after breakfast we got bikes and rode around town stopping at any temples we saw. there are 34 in luang prabang! i think we only saw 3 but that's ok. we've seen tons of temples in s.e. asia in general we will be seeing more lol
it was really nice to be able to slowly bike around. this town is really quiet and beautiful! i love the architecture!
we went up phousy hill and saw the temple and buddha statues there including "buddha's footprint", obviously fake seeing as how my whole body could fit into it lol the view from the top of the hill was great though! you could see the whole town and both rivers that run through it- the mekong and the nam son (i think...we've never been able to confirm the name of the other river).
we rode around the town some more admiring the pretty little cafes, monks in bright orange robes and kids playing in the streets.
in the afternoon we got a late light lunch of iced bale fruit tea and a tuna potato salad that was really good at l'etranger - a book lending/selling tea room/cafe. what i loved about it most were all the national geographics you could look at for free upstairs while lounging on big cushions on the floor. i looked at one from 1973 and enjoyed the olds ads as much as the articles. i read one article about centanarians and how they live as long as they do. it sounds like the key to longevity is hard physical labor everyday of your life, a low calorie diet and a good bit of alcohol lol i need to work on the first one lol
we biked some more until dusk and then turned out bikes in.
we decided to go to dinner at hive bar because they have a hilltribe clothing fashion show every night. we ordered a house salad and a tomato pesto pizza, the fashion show began and it started to rain...the problem was all the tables and the stage were outside! no one wanted to risk sitting in a downpour so after it had been sprinkling for 5 mins. everyone ran to get tables indoors and they stopped the fashion show. we got to see 4-5 different kinds of hilltribe clothing though. there are over a hundred different ethnicities who live in the hills and each has their own distinct style of clothing. it's really cool!
we ate dinner inside but it never did rain very hard. the food was good and afterwards we want back to the hotel for an early night because we were getting up early in the morning.
Day 47 - change of weather and change of plans!
we had planned to take a biking and kayaking tour to a hilltribe village and a waterfall where you can swim but the weather had drastically changed overnight! we woke up to the coldest weather we've experienced in s.e. asia and we were NOT prepared! i didn't even have pants or enclosed shoes. we immediately went to the tour office and asked if we could reschedule our tour for sunday because we saw online that it was supposed to warm and sunny that day. thankfully they switched our tour with no problem and no charge.
it was so chilly all we wanted to do was stay inside all day lol we went to joma and had a long breakfast, hot tea and read quite a while. then we went out and checked out some places to schedule a cooking class either for that evening or the next day. it took us forever to find a place and it was too expensive so we went and found another place for which we had seen flyers. it's called tamnak (3 elephants) and it's a combined restaurant, cooking school and book exchange. it seems to be owned by an ozzy woman (and maybe her husband?...she said "we" a couple times but i never saw anyone else...) she lives in the building in which the book exchange is run and she has a funny-looking medium-sized shaggy gray mut with an underbite who will apparently bite anyone who tries to pet her lol the lady had signs up everywhere warning people not to pet her. the dog didn't seem phased by jens and i and as we were leaving she even came up to me and sniffed my leg. i like to think that she could sense jens and i were good dog people :o) the ozzy lady was gregarious and funny and i really liked her.
it took us so long to find a cooking school that it was time for lunch and we had seen that joma had a really yummy looking rueben sandwich so we just gave in to our love of the place and returned for lunch lol we got the delicious rueben sandwich and a wonderfully comforting bowl of creamy tomato soup which really hit the spot on such a cold day. you're probably thinking it was like 30F or something but it might have only been 60F. it was just such a drastic change that our bodies weren't used to it at all and like i said i didn't have proper clothing. if we walked briskly down the street it wasn't too bad but i certainly didn't wanna meander around in it!
so after lunch we decided to go see the national museum which used to be the royal palace when there was a king. when the communists took over they put the king, queen and prince in a cave prison. the prince complained about the food so they said ok cook it yourself. he soon got dysentery and brain fever and died. they moved the king and queen to another cave prison and they died shortly after...of what i don't know. when laos became extremely poor the govt decided to open the palace up as a museum to bring in some money from tourists. so it's a bit weird. the author of the book i'm reading likened it to killing the pope and then opening up the vatican as a museum...i guess you could also compare it to killing the president and then opening the white house as a museum.
nonetheless the palace was pretty cool! the throne room had intricate japanese glass pictoral mosaics on all the walls which really amazed me. picture a little man on a horse made entirely of tiny pieces of colored glass - there were hundreds of these pictures on the walls. amazing! there was also the king's bedroom, queen's bedroom, dining room, a couple other rooms, buddhas (i've really seen enough of buddha and i'm sure he would be appalled at how many statues there are of him all over the world seeing as how he had no intention of people worshipping him at all!), and a room filled with gifts from other countries (given to the king during his reign). most of the gifts were amazing. china had given this intricately carved sphere made of ivory that had other spheres carved inside it! it was amazing and i have no idea how one would do that! it blew my mind! on the other hand the u.s. had only given a little crappy model of the craft they landed on the moon lol now granted they also gave a few moon pebbles but still it didn't really compare to the amazing craftmanship of the chinese ivory sphere.
we discovered the royal ballet theater is right next to the museum so we bought tickets to a traditional dance for that night. it start at 6pm so we needed to eat an early dinner. we decided to go back to l'etranger because i had seen that they had chai. unfortunately when we got there they said they were out of chai so i got hot bale fruit tea, jens got coffee and we went upstairs to read and look at more national geographic. i looked at two old ones from the 70s that had articles about texas! it was really interesting to see how they wrote back then and to see what they said about texas. they wrote about it pretty stereotypically and if that was people's main info about texas i can see why every time i meet someone from somewhere else they think texas is just a desert with cows, cowboys and hicks lol the thing that shocked me the most was that they used both the terms "wetback" and "coolies" as if that was totally ok lol we've come a long way since then!
after hanging out a while we ordered pappadam with 3 dips (smokey eggplant dip, salsa and pesto) and that tuna potato salad again that was so good.
then we went to the dance show. they performed a story from the ramayana and the dance was similar to ones i had seen in bali. pretty cool but a bit slow going. i was glad i saw it but i was also glad it was only an hour lol
it was still early and jens had really been craving apple pie so we went back to joma for the 3rd time that day because we knew they had it. unfortunately they had run out lol (not our lucky day!) so we got cheesecake with mango and a brownie.
Day 48 - cooking class!
we had a light breakfast of raisin bread, fruit and tea and then we headed over to tamnak cooking school. there were about 9 of us students all together.
first we took a tuk-tuk to the market and one of our teachers showed us around. it was great! i've always loved asian markets but i had never had someone guide me through one and tell me what things were! i loved it! we saw fish in buckets, pig feet, pig snouts, blood jello, buffalo meat, buffalo skin, tons of herbs, veggies and fruit, bamboo, cornstarch snacks covered in palm sugar, and lots of non-food items like clothes, toiletries, etc. but we of course focuses on the food! jens and i weren't too phased by anything after living in korea so it was fun to see some of the other students freaking out about the gross things lol
after that we went back to the school for morning tea and some of that cornstarch/palm sugar snack. then we got to learnin'!
there were two teachers and they took turns teaching us how to make various dishes. first they would demonstrate the dishes and then we would go to our stations and make the dishes ourselves following the cookbook (which we got to keep). it was so much fun!!!!! jens and i wished we had been doing cooking classes in every country! not only because it was fun but simply because we like to cook and we were tired of eating out all the time. jens said he was surprised at how great he felt as soon as he started cooking lol there's just something about making your own food that's really satisfying.
first we made a luang prabang salad which was really easy. just lettuce, cucumber, tomato, boiled egg, peanuts and laos mayonaisse which we made from scratch- it was just oil, vinegar, hard boiled egg yolk, salt, pepper and sugar. very yummy! then we made a fried noodle dish with chicken, veggies and herbs. it was delicious! after we made our food we went outside on the porch and all ate together at a big table.
then we went back in to learn how to make 6 other dishes. this time we could choose which ones we wanted to make ourselves. the first half of the afternoon we were shown how to make laap (the national dish), a stir fried vermicelli noodle dish with veggies and pork and a pork and egg stew. then we could choose two to make. we chose the first two. the laap was made with chicken and was also super easy! all you had to do was cook the chicken and mix it with a bunch of garlic, onion and herbs! sooo fresh tasting and so good! next we made the noodle dish and that was a bit more work but really yummy and had a totally different taste. it was made with "ear mushrooms" which gave it a woody peanutty flavor.
then we were shown how to make 3 other things - a stir-fried eggplant and pork dish, an eggplant and chicken red curry and a red chili paste. we could choose one of the first two dishes to make but they didn't let us make the chili paste because we didn't need that much of it. in the demonstration they made enough for everyone. laotian people use it as a condiment like korean people do. so jens and i decided to make the eggplant curry (and we left out the chicken because we already had meat in every other dish that day lol ). it was a little more difficult to get right. it tasted fine we just didn't have much liquid left in it at the end and i'm not sure why. turns out everyone else chose to cook that same dish and none of them had enough liquid at the end either lol dunno if we were supposed to turn the heat down halfway through or what but like i said, it still tasted good. if i made it again though i'd use less red curry paste as it was too spicy for me.
after making our 3 dishes of the afternoon we all sat down to way too much food for such an early dinner lol we ate dinner at 4:30! they have an evening class that starts at 5pm. but the food was really really good! i liked all the dishes equally for different reasons and i'll definitely try to make them when i go back to the states!
we had a lot of food left over so a couple of us boxed ours up to give to people..we weren't sure who but we didn't wanna just throw it all out. jens and i ended up giving ours to the workers at our guesthouse and they said it was good! lol dunno if they were lying but i'll go with it!
we watched the sunset over the river and then we went for dessert at a nearby cafe. got chai, coffee and a cookie, read and then came back here to get on the internet.
tomorrow is our last day and we're doing our biking kayaking tour! hope it's warm!
then we'll be on our last leg of our trip- angkor wat, cambodia!!!!! wooooooo!
so after our late lunch i think we just chilled in the hotel til dinner...then we had dinner at this japanese place because jens had a craving for ramen lol i got veggie and shrimp tempura with rice and it was really good!
day 42 - last day in vientiane, chinese lunar new year, valentine's day!
we had a short bout of digestive bacteria so jens just went out and got some food to go at le banneton and brought it back to the hotel for us to eat in bed. after taking some medicine and eating we felt a bit better. i must say i'm surprised how little i've gotten sick. only twice and the first time wasn't bad at all and the second time wasn't as bad as i've had before. so that's nice! :o) maybe my stomach is finally getting used to s.e. asian bacteria! lol
we went out after breakfast and hoped to see some kind of chinese new year celebration but we saw none whatsoever! i was so bummed! i've lived in asia over 3 years and have NEVER seen a chinese new year celebration! how lame is that? the first two years i happened to be in texas at that time and then this year when i'm actually in asia for it i happen to go to like the only asian country that doesn't celebrate it! i dunno why they don't! it's the buddhist calendar new year and buddhism is huge in laos! so frustrating!
so we just roamed around, had lunch at joma, read, interneted and then went to see a temple. it was pretty cool! older than other temples we've seen.
we roamed some more, hung out at the big fountain in the square and reminisced about our relationship since it was valentine's day :o) <3>
so after updating the journal and interneting it was time for lunch! so we went to joma and got eggplant spinach lasagna, greek salad and a mint lime freeze. it was all wonderful!
then we looked for a scooter but they were all manuals so we gave up on that idea :o/
we got a tuk-tuk driver to take us to two sites. first we went to "that luang", a huge golden stupa with lots of other golden stupas around it. it was pretty impressive! then we looked at the temples buildings near it. the main one was under construction so we couldn't go inside but we got a good look of the outside. then we saw this huge open air gathering hall that was covered in colorful paintings- it was awesome!
after that we tuk-tuked over to patuxay- a replica of l'arc de triomphe in france, except loas-ified lol it has buddhist figures on it and shops insides selling the usual souvenirs you find in laos (silk scarves, figurines, purses, weird pipes, jewelry, etc.) we went to the top to see the view. there's one nice boulevard leading out from it to the presidential palace. on the opposite side there's a nice park and fountain that wasn't flowing at the time. overall pretty cool but when i heard the story of it i was kind of depressed lol turns out the u.s. gave laos money in 1960something to build a new airport and instead of doing that they built patuxay...useful! laotians call it the world's tallest runway lol meanwhile, laos doesn't release the safety information of it's airline...which worries me. we're flying with them to cambodia!!
after seeing those sites we went back to joma to eat amazing mulberry pie and apple crumble! yum!
i think we just hung out in the hotel after that til dinner which was at a loatian place. we got another set meal because we still weren't that familiar with loatian food. it was fresh veggie spring rolls, the famous green papaya spicy salad, a sour fish soup (lemongrass makes it sour), and ground chicken with tons of herbs (which i think is called laap). it was all really fresh tasting and delicious! after having those two set meals i think what quantifies laotian food is spicy salads, sour soups and herbed meats.
i bought this book called ant egg soup, travels of a food tourist in laos. i'm currently reading the satanic verses by salman rushdie but since we're in laos now i wanted to read a bit of the laos book, which i did last night and i really like it so far. before the book was written there was only ONE book written about laotian food in english! when the author of ant egg soup found that out she knew she had to go to laos and write about its food because she loves traveling and trying new foods (just like me! ;o) anyway, she said laap is the national dish of laos and they do, in fact, love their herbs and spicy salads. i haven't read much but i'm eager to read more.
aaaaaaaanyway
Day 41 - randomness
breakfast at joma - i got a mulberry scone (pretty good) and plain yogurt (weirdest yogurt i've ever had and it wasn't that good :oP) and then i shared a fruit bowl and cinnamon roll with jens. the cinnamon roll was really good and i wanna eat another one tomorrow!
after breakfast we headed to the post office to send a bunch of stuff to the texas that we bought yesterday. we found a store that sold laos honey so we bought 3 jars of it! that stuff is amazing! we also got some coffee, green tea, 5 paintings (bought from the side of the road really cheap!) and some handmade house shoes that are really cute!
i just want to take a moment to announce that laotian postal workers are THE BEST packers in all of s.e. asia! (or at least the s.e. asian countries that i have been to and from which i have sent packages lol) every other time i've sent something from s.e. asia they've just thrown the stuff in a box with no padding whatsoever and something has always gotten broken. laotion postal workers though- omg! they're so thorough! they spent like 30 mins,. meticulously wrapping and taping each item and fitting them perfectly into the box with lots of air puffy things. awesome! thank you guys!!!
unfortunately the whole thing cost $60 to send! but we sure as heck weren't telling them nevermind lol after all that packing!!! plus it's either send it now or send it from korea later. and it's stuff we really wanted and will enjoy and plus it was all super cheap! so it's worth it!
jens went to an atm to get more money and i waited in the post office...FOR AN HOUR! i got SO worried! i thought for sure he had gotten hit by a scooter or a car or bus or something and had been air-flighted to bangkok or something! i didn't know what to do. i had no money or anything on me. he had taken the entire bag and all i could do was sit there and wait in the post office lol FINALLY he returned (5 mins. after the post office had closed for the day) and said he had to try 8 different atms before one would work lol
we finally paid and got the heck outta there. it was lunch time but jens wasn't hungry enough yet and i wasn't THAT hungry so i got a fruit shake to tide me over til jens was hungry. i got a mango, papaya, sapadilla shake. what's a sapadilla you ask? well here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapadilla
then we went to the national museum where we learned a lot about the tumultuous history of laos, including that fact that it is the most bombed country in the world!!! good going u.s.a.! >:o(
then we went to a late lunch at le bannetone and got a salad and a quiche. it was weird but good.
this internet place is closed so i have to go! until next time!
wooo! long time no write! we were really busy in bangkok and ayuthaya and then the internet in laos has been reeeeallly slow so i haven't had a chance to update until now. since i have so many things to write about i'm not going to be very detailed. sorry :o/ when i finally upload all our pictures hopefully they'll fill in the blanks :o)
Day 33 - journey to bangkok
we took a taxi to the boat, a boat to the mainland, a taxi to the train station. then we hung out and ate dinner at a little thai place.
then we took the night train aaallll the way up to bangkok. we left at like 9 or 10 pm. arrived at 8 or 9 am. we didn't sleep very well because it was a fan only car. should have gotten an a.c. one.
bangkok was pretty crazy! LOTS of traffic! HOT! noisy, tons of people, shops, food, lots of weird smells, etc., etc. we stayed at rambutri villa and it was probably the most conventional, nice clean hotel we've stayed in. they had a pool!
we stayed near the famous khao sahn road that's touristy and filled with food carts, shopping stalls, some restaurants and bars....and lots of people! the most interesting thing we saw there was insects for sale for the purpose of eating! they had scorpions, giant roaches, grubs, etc. no we didn't eat any but i got a picture of them! ;o)
first order of business was to get me a new camera! we went to this huge electronics market called pantip plaza and went straight to a camera store and bought my canon powershot d10! i love it! it's waterproof up to 33 feet, shatterproof up to 4 feet and freeze proof down to 14 degrees. also it takes great pictures!
next we played around in this mall in the arcade, used a massage chair, did karaoke, got coffee and then we went to this international world music and bbq festival for dinner which was AWESOME! we saw a cuban band, a zydeco band from lousiana/texas (jens talked to the singer and told him we were from texas too!) and a japanese band. they had ALL kinds of food and bbq for sale but we settled on lousiana bbq baby back ribs, cole slaw and potatoes au gratin! yeah we were in thailand and could have gotten satay or something but we just couldn't resist that homestyle taste! Po: at least we can blame the fact that we haven't lived in texas for over a year so we craved a taste of home ;o) we ate, we danced, we drank cheap beer and then we went to the movies. we saw avatar and it was AMAZING!!! the things they can do with cgi these days blows my mind. i loved the forest!
Day 34 - seeing sites in bangkok!
we took a river taxi to see the grand palace which was incredible! i had never seen a palace so ornate! it was covered in gold and mirrors and all things that shine and sparkle! amazing! then we saw wat pho (temple) and the temple of the emerald buddha. they were also awesome!
after site seeing in the heat all day we went back to the hotel and swam in the rooftop pool. more topless french women were to be seen- i swear they take their tops off every chance they get lol and we tried out the camera in the pool- it worked great! it was a little difficult to take underwater pics when we didn't have goggles but we still got a few good ones. can't wait to try it with goggles on though (we shipped ours to the states because we won't be doing any more snorkeling this trip).
Day 35 - took train to Ayuthaya
the train to ayuthaya was preeeetty crappy but at least it didn't take long. maybe 1.5 hours. we liked ayuthaya because it was much quieter and less touristy than bangkok. that being said you only need about two days there at the most. it was probably the hottest place we've been to so far. it's so hot you don't really feel like doing much during the day but there's not much to do at night at all. because it's not touristy there aren't many restaurants or bars. in fact i don't think i saw any bars lol i think most people just take a day trip to ayuthaya from bangkok so there's not much need for a nightlife there.
we stayed two nights and 3 days in this AWESOME old teak house. i think it's my favorite place we've stayed so far. i loved our bungalow right on the beach on ko pha ngan but this teak house in ayuthaya had so much character i think it wins out. it was made entirely of teak wood that had been smoothed down over years and years of use. i think jens said it was at least 100 years old. our room was small but really cute. we had an iron bed with white mosquito netting all around, antique night stand and dressing table and a lamp. there were some old sepia photographs on the walls of thai people and some pith helmets hanging on one wall. it felt like it took me back to another time.
downstairs was the front desk and restaurants, lots of tables and chairs and a big porch facing the river with more tables and chairs. the guest rooms are upstairs all around a central "lobby". there was just a bench and an old iron and board in the lobby and a big expanse of that smooth teak wood. i loved walking on it! there was also a really nice balcony upstairs overlooking the river where you could sit and read and contemplate. across the river from us was a gorgeous temple.
the bathrooms were shared and they were down a few stairs in another building adjacent to the main building. i usually don't like shared bathrooms but i didn't mind these at all because they were basically 4 private bathrooms. each one had a toilet, shower and sink so that was nice. no hot water but like i said the town was so unbearably hot we welcomed a cold shower at the end of the day.
anyway! moving on! lol i'm getting so wrapped up in the details i'm not going to have time to finish this post lol
in ayuthaya the main attractions are the ruins of the ancient capital city of thailand. they have tons of ruins all over the city similar to angkor wat (but not as extensive). the first ones we saw were pretty impressive. i took TONS of pictures and we stayed quite a long time. it was really peaceful because there are lots of grassy fields and trees all around and not many people so you feel like you're all alone walking in a nice park with these awesome ruins all around.
that night we wanted to eat in the night market but we found out that because it was sunday not many of the stalls were open. so we spend quite a while walking through this spooky seemingly abandoned night market lol we came across a butcher chopping up a pig and jens wanted his picture with him. so i took it and then right after this other butcher came barreling through with a cart-load of dead pig parts and hit jens in the leg! lol he got pig blood all over his pants but hey it makes a great story :o)
we finally found a little place to eat and got pad thai- it was good and only about 75cents!!!
Day 36 - more ruins in ayuthaya
we got up, had breakfast and went out to see more ruins. by the way we rented bikes to get around the city. it was pretty stressful trying to ride bikes on the roads with all these buses, cars and scooters going every which-way, especially in the round-a-bouts! ugh those were scary! i only had one minor accident though and it was really stupid, i was trying to ride the bike between these two concrete curbs and i hit the side of it which made me ram my arm into the handle bar and stub another toe! i still have the bruise on my arm on day 40 lol
anyway we saw more ruins but the heat was so dang strong! we saw about two sites and decided to go back to the hotel, take a cold shower and chill out the rest of the day lol
that night we ate at a restaurant that floats on the river and it was really cool!
Day 37 - last day in ayuthaya
we weren't too keen on seeing more ruins by bike so we just took a tuk-tuk straight to this site over the river on the mainland (the main part of ayuthaya is actually on an island that lies where 3 rivers converge). these ruins weren't quite as ruined as the ones we had seen previously and there were tons of buddha statues everywhere. next we went to the japanese settlement hoping they'd have a restaurant with ramen but it turned out to be a teeny tiny museum with no food. so we ate on a road side place and then went on to see the largest sitting buddha in all of thailand and some recently discovered solid gold buddhas, as well as a chinese temple that was really colorful and ornate.
then we headed back to the hotel to shower, hang out, eat dinner and catch a tuk-tuk to the train station where we hopped on yet another night train (the 4th of the trip) to go up to laos. we got an a.c. car this time and it was a bit nicer. we slept well!
Day 38 - laos
we arrived at the border to laos, went through immigration and the guy said- OVERSTAY!!! we were like what? he said you overstayed your visa! it ended feb. 1 and today is feb. 9! we were like what??? we thought they were 30 days! this visa is only for two weeks! he said you overstayed you have to go to this other office to pay the fine.
so we did and it was $270!!!!! $15 for each day overstayed for each of us! needless to say we were baffled and pissed. no one could tell us why we had a 2 week visa and not a 30 day visa. we looked in the lonely planet later and it distinctly said thailand gives 30 day visas! i have a feeling thailand just does that to screw people over and get money out of them. so there's a lesson for us- always double check the length of our visas! laos's is 3 months!
so we got to our hotel in vientiane and unpacked. we're staying at the riverside hotel- conventional with a soft bed, a tv (with cnn, bbc, french tv5, and an australian channel! pretty awesome! lol), a fridge, a.c., hot water, the works! no pool though.
we walked around the town a bit and it's really nice and quiet. lots of cute little restaurants, cafes and coffee shops and LOTS of french food which we're loving :o) you know, laos used to be a french colony so their influence is still seen today. we had dinner at la terrace and it was wonderful! we got a big salad with bacon, veggies, and apples, tender duck with an apple sauce, potatoes au gratin, wine, espresso and creme brulee! heaven!
Day 39 - laid back roaming around vientiane
breakfast at scandinavian bakery, roamed around, found a market selling all kind of things: roots, bark, etc. for tonics, loads of fabric for traditional dress, laos t-shirts, and bottles of scorpion snake wine! we bought a few souvenirs and had lunch and a laotian restaurant housed in a huge old colonial building. we felt under-dressed but no one gave us any looks lol we got a laotian set meal and it was huge! most likely meant for 4 people but we didn't know that when we ordered lol it was a good way to sample a lot of different laotian foods all at once though!
we had purple sticky rice, lemongrass fish and veg. soup, smokey eggplant and veg. stew, spicy eggplant veg. mix of some sort, chicken pieces cooked in banana leaves, salty pork, a fish cake, ground pork cooked in fish sauce and herbs, spring rolls, steamed veggies, and fruit. the ruit plate included a fruit we couldn't identify but it tasted really good so we asked what it was. the guy didn't know the name in english so he brought us a whole fruit. it was the size and shape of a kiwi but not hairy and more of a grey color. the fruit inside is a dull peach and it's really sweet. it almost taste like rum. the guy said it's called laomoot in laotian.
after lunch we were stuffed so we just did some internet and went back to the hotel to relax, watch tv, read and nap.
we got up around 5pm and had a big beer lao by the river and watched the sun set.
then we had dinner at la terrace again because it was so good but this time we got pizza. it was delicious! after dinner we watched a funny french movie in our room and then went and saw a band play at a nearby bar. they were pretty good but not very energetic.
Day 40 - TODAY!
we had breakfast at a french place that had wonderful pastries and the best honey i have ever put in my mouth. i asked a guy where they got their honey and i have no idea what he said so i'll have to search it out myself lol we saw some honey for sale at this little market yesterday so we may try there. we wanna get some and send it back to texas. i swear it was the most nuanced honey i've ever had! they harvest it in laos and i'm sure it's most likely organic and comes from bees that pollinate gorgeous tropical flowers or something lol. hope we can find some!
today we're going to rent a scooter and see some sites!
whew! there you have it - a whirlwind week of traveling in s.e. asia! are you tired yet? lol
hey just wanted to let my readers know i will try to update about bangkok and ayuthaya soon. i just haven't had time yet! we've been goinggoinggoing non-stop.
tomorrow is our last day in ayuthaya. we'll probably look at some more ruins of ancient temples and then we're taking a night train aaaallll the way up to vientiane, laos. we'll be there 5 days so i may get to update in detail then.
went to dinner next door and watched sherlock holmes which they were showing on their old, discolored big-screen tv lol jens was super skeptical but said the movie was better than he thought it would be. i thought it was pretty good too, but not great.
had drinks at heaven (outdoor bar) and my mint julip was more like lime juice with some mint in it lol waaaay too sour to drink! but they played nice music and we saw the best fire dancer that we had ever seen before. he was amazing! it just blows my mind when i see people performing for free and they have all this talent and most people in the world will never know, ya know? i felt lucky to see it.
Day 30
didn't feel well in the morning but pushed through and scootered to koh ma with jens anyway. it's a little island off of ko pha ngan. we actually just scootered to the beach that's across from koh ma and there's a little sandbar you can walk along to get to koh ma. there were quite a few topless woman sunbathing there. it's always a shock when i first see someone doing that but then i get over it immediately when i think- oh yeah, boobs, i have those too, no big deal lol so i laid out while jens snorkeled some and i think i just need to give up on this whole tanning business. it takes forever and now i'm the color most americans would consider "the whitest they've ever been" lol plus it's really hard to tan evenly. my arms and upper back are darker than the rest of me for obvious reasons and i just don't feel like lying around in the sun for hours each day. so i give up. if i tan, i tan. if i don't, i don't. whatever. i don't care lol
moving on...i snorkeled with jens some but there wasn't much to see. the water wasn't that clear. it was really clear in the shallow areas but once it got deep it was really foggy. we saw some fish that we had already seen before but not many and barely any coral at all. it makes me really sad that the world's coral is dying so rapidly. we actually haven't seen any of that colorful coral you see in movies/tv/photographs because what makes coral colorful is the algae that grows on it. with global-warming the temperature of the oceans have risen and when coral gets hot it expels all the algae and slowly dies. so all we've seen is dying or dead coral :o( it really wakes you up to see something like that. i wish everyone could see so they'd take global-warming seriously!!!
had lunch at the local restaurant and it took FOREVER! slowest service we've ever had. i completely finished my drink before the food arrived, ordered another drink when the food arrived and then finished my entire meal before the 2nd drink came lol
from there we went to see a waterfall. the main roads here are fine but all the side roads are just dirt and they've been rutted by rain water and have all kinds of random rocks and holes in them. it's crazy. we drove up one road to get to the waterfall and there was another road we needed to go down but i refused lol it was too dangerous. so we parked and walked the rest of the way. we got to the beginning of the waterfall area and saw some people coming down and asked them if there was much water and they said no and that it was really difficult to climb up. so we decided not to go. there was just a bit of water trickling down, nowhere to swim and i was starting to not feel well again. so we left.
went back to the bungalow, swam there, showered and went to dinner at dolce vita. i had major heartburn so i had to get all bland non-acidic foods. we got milk tea, steamed tilapia and a baked potato and it was all good but i still had really bad heartburn afterward. that's exactly what happened to me the last time we traveled for a month. it was last august when we went to japan for two weeks and then traveled all over korea with ben and vivienne for two weeks. the last couple days i had bad heartburn and couldn't get rid of it. it really sucked! what saved me was it was the end of our trip and we were going home. i researched home remedies and found out aloe juice helps. but there's no aloe juice here in thailand. so we went to a pharmacy and i got some conventional medicine. it was so disgusting! like drinking soupy toothpaste- UGH! :oP hope i don't have to take it again!
i think my body just gets really tired of eating out after a month. it's like ok that's enough! time to go home! lol thing is i have a month left of vacation! so i think i just have to lay off the fried foods which is hard in thailand when the main dishes they serve are fried spring rolls, fried rice, fried noodles, etc. i have to be careful about what i eat. hopefully i can make it another month without having too much if any heartburn!
Day 31
breakfast, hammock, read, slept, lunch (coconut milk and veg. soup) didn't feel great but didn't wanna lounge around all day so we went out.
we scootered to another waterfall hoping it would be better and it was somewhat. the waterfall was another trickle but there was a big pool of water at the bottom of this one that we could swim in :o) there was also a rope you could use to swing into the pool which was pretty fun! the most surprising thing was the little fish that come up and bite the deadskin off your feet! i knew about them because in korea they have places called "dr. fish" where they put a bunch of these fish in a tub and you stick your feet in for a fish "pedicure" lol i was never interested in that so i never went but i got a free session in this pool! only one fish came up to me right when i got in and it totally freaked me out because i wasn't watching. i just felt this fish bite me all of the sudden! lol now it doesn't actually feel like a bite. it kinda feels like a teeny tiny little suction for one second but it still freaks you out if you're not expecting it. later i stood there and watched (the water was really clear) until a fish came up. but he wasn't as interested this time. he bit my ankle a couple times and swam away lol it didn't scare me as much if i could see him though.
we swam a while, had lots of fun and then scootered down to an archery range where you can shoot arrows. i had never done it before and it's actually really difficult! lol you have to have really strong arms! i shot 10-12 arrows and hit the target about 3 times. i never hit the center of the target. all my arrows hit the outer edge of the target or the ground or the building behind the targets lol it was fun though and jens did much better than me.
next we drove around and happened upon a cute little cafe that sold coffee and baked goods. we got a coffee that was more like a medium sized espresso, a REALLY good croissant and a yummy raspberry cream tart. it was quite the treat after eating almost all our meals in one of 3 restaurants on our beach!
after that we went "home", showered, watched the sunset over the ocean which was gorgeous! and then we went to dinner next door so we could watch the movie, american gangster while we ate.
we got tea, burger and baked potato and the movie was really good! based on a true story involving the drug trade in the 60s/70s.
the end!
Day 32
breakfast of whole wheat bread we bought at that bakery yesterday, toasted with peanut butter - yum!
went into thongsala (bigger town on the island). we wanted to mail our snorkeling gear, books we've read, hammocks, etc. to the states so we wouldn't have to carry them all over for the next month when we don't need them. we wanted to do the 3 month surface mail because usually that's really cheap but the snorkeling gear alone was $30! we said nevermind, unpacked the gear and went back out to the scooter but then we realized we definitely didn't wanna carry snorkeling flippers all over the rest of thailand, laos, cambodia, malaysia and then back to korea only to be packed somewhere and THEN taken back to the states AND we didn't wanna ditch the stuff and buy more later because it'd probably be at least $40 to replace- so we decided it was worth it to spend the $30 to send the stuff home now. so we went back in and did so.
we decided against sending anything else until bangkok. it might be cheaper there.
we dropped off the 3 disposable cameras i had used to get the pics developed. 2 were waterproof and had snorkeling pics on them and the other was a reg. disposable camera with pics from the full moon party, etc. after our digital camera went kaput. they said we'd have to pick them up tomorrow but we're leaving tomorrow so after much negotiation they said they could be ready by 6pm.
so we went to lunch at ando loco- a tex mex place! awesome huh? it always amazes me the kinds of foods you can get all over the world (except korea lol). it was open air and we got a margarita (for jens), iced jasmine green tea with honey (for me- it was amazing!), nachos and two veggie tacos. it was all delicious but i felt sick immediately after! :o( thank goodness they had a hammock for me to lie down in. i felt better after about 30-45mins. it was really discouraging though. made me feel like i just couldn't eat anything without feeling sick now that we've been on vacation a month. i felt like that was my body's limit. after one month it says- nope! you need to go home and eat your own home-cooked food now. no more traveling! lol but i don't have much choice! plus i WANT to see laos and angkor wat! so i willed myself to feel better and then we went to the hammock store.
it was AWESOME! this guy sells handmade hammocks in two styles and two different kinds of thread. he has regular hammocks for lying down and sitting hammocks that make you sit up more. he has them in a superfine thread that's really soft and really comfy but it's also really expensive! a large hammock made of that thread was about $90! the cheaper thread is less expensive but still comfortable enough for us so we bought a sitting hammock in the cheaper thread. i love it and can't wait to use it but we're not gonna string it up here cuz it's our last day. we'll probably ship it home in bangkok because we don't know whether or not we'll be able to string it up anywhere else we're going and we wanna ship as much stuff home as possible before the 2nd half of our trip.
we realized that we then had a lying down hammock (which we bought on koh samui) and then this new sitting down hammock and that would really work for something we were planning on doing on our u.s. road trip- sleeping in our hammocks whenever possible. so we bought one more cheapy lying down hammock like the one we bought on koh samui at another store.
so we now have two really cheap but useful lying down hammocks and one really nice sitting down hammock :o)
after that we just roamed around town either driving or walking, going into shops and book stores, etc. we tried to go pick up the pictures at 6pm but the lady said - tomorrow. and we were like what? we told you we need them tonight lol so she was like ok come back at 7pm. so we decided to go have a pint at this english pub we had seen advertised all over the island- the masons arms. we found it and it was awesome! the building is really nice and looks super out of place on this island lol it's a proper english pub! white with dark brown wood, inside there are nice tables and booths with a big bar, pool table, fuse ball table, upstairs there are darts, pingpong and a nice balcony! we were amazed! we got a pint of cider and a pint of guinness and had a seat. we chatted a while and then played a game of pool. we were both horrible so we went upstairs and played darts and that was more fun :o) jens won and then we played pingpong and let's just say we failed miserably lol
around 7:15pm we went to pick up the pictures and they were finally done! but let me tell you- disposable camera pictures SUCK!!! big time! the color's all off, some are grainy and many are out of focus. on top of that only 15 out of 39 pictures from one of the cameras even showed up! the rest were solid black! i have no idea why but i was really disappointed. there were quite a few from the full moon party i remember taking that didn't show up at all :o( the pics from snorkeling were ok though. i mean even though my digicam was working at the time i still couldn't use it for snorkeling since it wasn't waterproof so whatever. they're better than nothing. i can't wait to get my new digital camera though!
while we were at the shop i stubbed my toe really bad and it still hurts hours later. i'm hoping i didn't fracture it or something! :o(
after getting the pictures, and stubbing my toe, we went back to the mason's arms for dinner because they had steak and ale pies (like pot pie). we got one and it was wonderful! it had this flaky pastry crust on top and it came with mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, peas, broccoli and cauliflowers. OMG! IT AS GREAT!!!! they also had this adorable dog there and kept looking at us with sad little eyes lol she wanted some steak and ale pie but the owner said she had eaten so we didn't give her any lol
after that we came back here.
tomorrow begins the long journey to BANGKOK! ahoy!
