Cambodia

We have been having so much fun in Thailand that we have been doing a horrible job of updating the blog. That being said, I will do my best to recap the highlights of the last three weeks.

After riding rickety one speed chinese-made bicycles around the Sukothai ruins, we got back on the train for a 7 hour journey to Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand. I was surprised to realize how commercialized the tourist industry in the city was, as seemingly every store front offered some sort of tour. We came prepared to do some sort of trek and eventually signed up for one. It turned out to be a bit of a disappointment as we were shuttled to a river valley that was teeming with elephant riders, brown water rafters, and several different groups of trekkers. After a pleasant 4 hour walk through the country side we arrived in "a hill tribe village", which was really 6 or 7 bamboo huts on stilts next to the river in which each group of 8 to 12 tourists slept, and adjacent to each was another small hut where a local family lived and cooked food for all the tourists. The "hill tribe village" was actually a tourist ghetto. The next day our guide and a few other locals built a bamboo raft for us to take down the river, back to our starting point. When Lauren and I, two Italians, and three Aussies got on with all of our luggage hanging from a bamboo triangle in the middle, the whole thing sank about two feet under water. Thus ensued a long process of then adding more bamboo and us getting back onto the raft only to watch it submerge again. We eventually headed down the swollen, rainy season sized river, with me on the back with a 10ft long piece of bamboo helping, along with two other guys, push us away from the rocks. It was really fun except for the knowledge that our expensive camera was about a foot from the water the whole time. When we reached the end of the rafting, we climbed onto some elephants and walked on a dirt road for about 30 minutes, and fed them bananas.

Back in Chiang Mai, we signed up for a thai cooking class that was fantastic. They took us to a local market to show us what everything was and then drove us out to the school/farm where we saw most of the ingredients of the dishes growing. We spent the day making 6 dishes each and stuffing ourselves full. To all of our Seattle friends, get ready for some thai food when we return. If you think it is good we may open the 9th Thai restaurant in Fremont.
We had a long travel day from Chiang Mai by airplane to Bangkok and immediately out to Trat, in the Southeast, by bus. Then we got a ferry out to Ko Chang to start some serious beaching. We met a Swedish couple (Fredrik and Anna) on the ferry ride and spent the next week with them. We stayed in a great place on the west side of Ko Chang that had beautiful, nice rooms, and a pool overlooking the ocean, plus free use of a motorbike. We spend most of our time on the island cruising around on the motorbike, exploring the beaches, hiking to waterfalls (the interior of the island steep with thick jungle), and visiting small fishing villages. We were planning on staying on Ko Chang, but the Swedes really wanted to find a boat to take us to one of the islands to the south (in the National Park). Fredick did the leg work of finding a fishing boat to Ko Mak and we made the 2.5 hour journey through an archipelago that reminded me a lot of the San Juans, except way hotter. Ko Mak was an island paradise except for one major thing, they only clean up the beaches during the high season, and we were definitely not in the high season. So unfortunately the beaches were littered with garbage, but on the up side the whole place was deserted and every resort that was open was offering discounts in excess of 50 percent. So we spent 3 days in a beautiful little bungalow on the beach (which thankfully, the resort cleaned up). Every night while we were on the island we experienced the most violent thunderstorms I have ever seen. It was as though we were in a hurricane, and then 10 minutes later it would be over. We wanted to stay on Ko mak forever, but our schedule and Cambodia were beckoning. We bid farewell to our new Swedish friends and boarded the speedboat back to the mainland.

On the bus ride to the Cambodian border I got to share the front seat with a buddhist monk who spent 2 hours practicing his English with me. It is somehow peaceful sharing a ride with a monk, even if you can't understand 90 percent of what he is saying.
At the border I threatened to call the immigration in Phenom Phen if the visa guys wouldn't give us visas for the official 20 dollars instead of there requested 1200 Baht (about 35 dollars). this was met with an appearance by the head agent and a lot of yelling. We eventually settled on 25 dollars under threats of them returning us to Thailand. After issuing the visas, the head man came outside and said he lived in Chicago for a time and said I should call him if I am ever there. Strange.

Then the taxi mafia engulfed us, explaining that there was no way to Phenom Phen (3 hours) without paying 100 dollars for a taxi. We noticed that two other foreigners had crossed the border and ended up sharing a cab with two guys from South Africa that live in Cambodia on a mining project. We had a great ride to the capital as the LPG system on the car froze up a couple times and heavy rains and a hell bent driver made death seem only entertainingly possible, not actually possible.

So we have been in Phenom Phen for a couple days, learning about Cambodia's tragic recent past by day, and drinking it off with the South Africans at night. We really like Phenom Phen, as large parts of it are beautiful, the people are super friendly, and it is all a manageable size with limited smog. Being shown around by a couple semi locals doesn't hurt either.
We leave for Siam Reap and the famous temples of Angkor Wat tomorrow, then back into Thailand for one last visit to the beach.

We have been trying to upload photos, but have been experiences technical difficulties, stay tuned though. Here are 5 pics we managed to get uploaded
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/keith8denton/ThailandAndCambodia1?authkey=2URR0urIDys

Safe Arrival in Thailand

Well, we arrived safely in Thailand after a long, but surprisingly easy journey. In fact, I think we slept for almost 10 hours of our 13 hour flight to Taipei and the 4 hour flight to Bangkok was a breeze. So far we spent a day exploring Bangkok and visiting the famous Wat Phra Kaew that houses the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace. It was incredibly spiritual and a great introduction to Thai Wats (temples). The highlight of the day was taking a tuk tuk (motorized rickshaw) to the Wat. We negotiated a price of only 20 baht ( about 70 cents) if we stopped by a tourist agency and let them try to talk us into a package deal. We had to spend about 10 minutes chatting with a tour guide, but in the end we bought nothing and got a cheap fair to our destination. Our tuk tuk driver seemed a bit dismayed since he did not get a commission, but we kept our end of the bargain so we felt okay about it.

We are now in Pitsanulok (half way to Chiang Mai). We visited the Sukahothai Old City ruins yesterday. Sukahothai is the former capital of Siam and the 800 year-old ruins were amazing. We rented bikes for the day which was a great way to see the sites. This afternoon we are headed to Chiang Mai for 5 days or so and then on to the beach. We hope to post pictures after our trek in Chiang Mai.

Back in Seattle

So we have been in Canada for the last couple weeks and haven't been able to update our blog since they don't have computers up there yet, ha ha.




After hiking and fishing on Slough creek in the Northeast corner of Yellowstone national park with Seattle friends, Joe, Eric, and Kristin, we hightailed to Canada, crossing the border just west of Glacier National Park. Interestingly, the Canadian border guard didn't even ask to see our passports.




We then drove straight into Kootenay National Park, about 200 miles north of the border. We were a bit shocked by the exorbitant access fees to enter the parks and get backcountry permits, but in retrospect, it was worth it.




We pulled into a campground at about 7pm that had 300 sites but only about 4 campers. We soon found out that the campground was slated to be closed the next morning and there was no water or bathrooms. Seemed a small price to pay for having an entire section to ourselves, a much better situation than car camping in US parks. We awoke early the next morning to get to Banff and plan our stay in the surrounding parks of Kootenay, Banff, Jasper, and Yoho, which combine to make an incredibly huge wilderness area. We were happy to discover that backcountry permits for our chosen hikes, some of the most popular ones, were available.




We cruised out of town with clean laundry, permits for a five day and a three day hike, reservations for a B&B in Banff in between the two, and reservations for two nights in a cabin outside of Jasper after all the hiking, plus a night in Vancouver on the way back to Seattle. I have never done so much vacation planning in my life, but it definitely made everything more relaxing.




As we headed for a campground for the night to get our gear ready for our big hike the next day, storm clouds gathered and a few claps of thunder went over. I then won the award for best husband by negotiating the price of a 220 dollar cabin down to 100 bucks. (The parks campgrounds and lodges were surprisingly vacant everywhere we went). The place had a real fireplace and a claw foot tub, serious bonus points were earned for bug infested hikes to come.




After hitchhiking the car to the hikes endpoint we got on the trail (the Rock Wall Circuit in Kootenay) at about 1pm the next day and it was sleeting by about 1:20. It didn't last long and it was a beautiful 9 mile hike to the first nights campground through forest that reminded us of the Cascades back home in Seattle, virtually all the same plant species were there. I could go on for more than most people care to read about the rest of the hike, but suffice it to say, it was one of the best we have ever done. Over four passes, along a thirty mile, 2000 foot sheer rock wall, passed 1000 ft waterfalls, and underneath hanging glaciers, and around partially frozen lakes. It was also bug free until the last night which always keeps people happy. We even saw a little black bear.

After a tiring hike out through a huge burn from a 2005 forest fire, we hurried back to Banff and a waiting shower. We then went out for a dinner and movie date, very civilized. The next day we headed north up through Lake Louise, where I fished the Bow River to no avail in a 50 degree downpour (very Alaskaish, except less fish), and Lauren visited the famous lodge at the lake. From Lake Louise, we headed up the Icefields parkway, which soon made our hanging glacier from the Rock Wall hike look not so impressive. There are pretty much huge glaciers constantly in view in all directions, and then you come upon the Columbia Icefield which is a huge chunk of ice taking up the entire west site of the highway for a distance of ten miles or so.

The next day, while driving to the trail head of our next hike, which involved a 16 mile day, we decided that we had spent a lot of time in the woods and traded in one day of our hike for another day in the cabin outside of Jasper. The hike was beautiful, but not as impressive as the Rock Wall circuit. We hiked 8 miles in over a pass and spent the night and then retraced our steps the next day. Unfortunately, the cabin we hoped to spend an extra night in was not available, so we drove out of Jasper National Park and into Robson Provincial Park and found a campsite. It seems as though once you get out of the National Parks, most campgrounds in Canada are sandwiched between a highway and train tracks. It wasn't very peaceful.

The next day we went into Valemount and met Claude and Alke, the owners of the cabin. They had about 40 acres of land right outside of Valemount (an old mill town, new (sort of) tourist town), they have horses, a llama, ducks, chickens, and two very friendly dogs wandering their property. Our cabin was tucked away in a corner with views of the surrounding mountains. We spent two wonderfully lazy days barely leaving the property spending lots of quality time with the dogs. All too soon it was time to head back south, towards Vancouver and Seattle. The day we left we drove down through Kamloops and decided to take the scenic route down the Thompson river and through the Fraser canyon. That night we ended up at perhaps the worst campsite ever, as the highway 100 feet away had heavy truck traffic all night and just on the other side of that was an equally busy railroad track. We got up at 6AM and headed for Vancouver.

We had never really explored Vancouver and thoroughly enjoyed it, similar to Seattle but a bit different. The highlight was walking around checking out the dozens of cheap sushi places and picking one for dinner.

Then after a quick stop at duty free to pick up some scotch we were back in Seattle. And here we are until our flight to Bangkok leaves at 2:30 this morning.

We sent an album from snapfish with the full Canada pics this afternoon (from felizrica@aol.com)and you can also try this link: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=232645097/a=39097533_39097533/t_=39097533 We hope everyone is enjoying their summer, talk to you next from Thailand.