Last night in Thailand

So, it totally sucks that we punked out on our blog for the whole last 2 weeks of our trip and we apologize for that to anyone who was keeping up with it. But the internet was very "dodgy" and expensive in the south islands in our defense. We did have a blast though during these last two weeks with Morgan and we're sad to say goodbye to Thailand. We spent our first week in the islands on Koh Phi Phi, which was pretty expensive but really fun all the same. We checked out the beach party scene and did some snorkeling excursions, including an overnight camping trip, where we slept under the stars, on Maya Beach. We also got to check out the place that Caleb recommended to us called "The Last Paradise", and that was incredible because it was our only bungalo ON the beach where we could hear the waves crashing all night long. We spent our last week in Koh Phangan with Chamisa, which was a beautiful island! Chamisa was a great host, as was Num. They took us around on a personal tour of the island by motorbike and Num showed us his favorite look-out spots and markets and restaurants. It was great. We also went to the halfmoon festival which was such a BLAST. We danced our asses off from midnight till dawn. The Thais sure know how to throw a party. We also spent a lot of time lounging on the beach, which is always nice. Then we came back to Bangkok for the last two days for shopping and visiting the Grand Palace. The Palace was amazing! So much intricate work on those Wats, it was incredible. Well, I guess that's the last two weeks in a nut-shell. Tomorrow we head back to reality I suppose. Thanks to everyone who left comments on our blog - honestly, it's the only reason we continuously kept trying in vain to put pictures on and continued to write our corny scenarios of our adventure. Catch you cats on the flip flop! Love, Sarah



Dude. as the other sara, i have to say this country had room for both of us. olues morgan. but she was like a bonus. like when you get to the bottom of the bag and there is one whole chip left, totally unbroken. ok, maybe a bit better than that even. depends how much you value your chips. anyways, it was freakin awesome. we finished it off last night with a thai lady-boy cabaret show that rocked our socks off (though we were the only ones in the audience cheering loudly and hooting. everyone else was old and not as amused i guess....odd...) now we are headed home and all we have to show for it is.....well, ok, we have a lot too show for it. including my new yet-to-be-named elephant, who resides on my right ankle. forever. im such a rebel. anyways, adios to the online journal, which basically fell a part in the end, but i hope all reading it were entertained at the least. see you suckas in cali yo!

Maya Beach (where they filmed "The Beach" for anyone who cares) - We camped there for the night with a small group. It was amazing!
Sunrise at Maya Beach
SNORKELING!!!!!
A beach on Phi Phi Don

the first beach we were all at!!

Kayaking in Laos vangvieng to vientiene....e.xcept we really drove most the way....

didnt mean to put this one but its the waterslide at a bar when we went tubing

tubing!

little boy getting ammo for his slingshot

we've made it to the beachy part!!! its like freakin paradise over here. its so bitchin i cant believe it. after a few nights going out in Phi Phi to the beach parties (which i had a lot of fun at and people compared to a much smaller party on koh phangan, wich fire dancing and music till late and all that jazz)we went camping on Maya beach where they filmed the island movie sarah mentioned. it was way too expensive but it was also worth it cause we have just been staying in hostels rather than like out in the fucking scenery, so we got to sleep under the stars on this amazing beach and the guys running it were really really funny and we stayed up late drinking buckets and laughing at nothing and everything. good times. the girls hiked up to watch the sunrise at the top of the hill, but you couldnt have pulled me out of that sleepingbag with a crowbar. i saw the sunrise just fine from the beach :D the little boats are way better than the big boats--like a morocycle vs a car--we took one around the south tip and stayed at Calebs reccommendation on Ao Poh. It was our fisrt bungalow on the beach and it was fucking awsome and they made us banana pancakes with nuttela at like 10:30. and we could hear the waves crashing. too bad the whole picture part of this is broken. whats up with that? S

Koh Phi Phi

We're in Koh Phi Phi now. Cool beach town. Phuket sucked (as we suspected it would and were warned it would, but then we got an email from a guy we had met in Chiang Mai and he told us that there was one really cool beach on Phuket that he'd been chillin' at for two weeks so we figured we'd check it out. But we really didn't like it. It was full of old Scandinavian couples and the whole city looked like Disneyland). So we hopped on the first boat over here at 7 AM and had scheduled a snorkeling/kayaking trip all day on the island where they filmed "the Beach" (with Leonardo DiCaprio) but there was a mix up and they told us to get off the ferry once we got to Koh Phi Phi and then when we realized that we were supposed to not have gotten off the ferry, the ferry had already left for the day's snorkeling. We were a little bummed, but we decided to just wait until the boat returned at 2 and ask if we could go tomorrow instead. So, since we were a little disappointed and burnt out, we decided to treat ourselves and got this really really awesome beautiful bungalow outside of town (most expensive place we've stayed since we got to Thailand - but still only 17 bucks per person). It's beautiful though with a private balcony overlooking the view and a pool and a big TV in the room and air con and a cool hotel bar outside and all that jazz. Not very "real Thailand" but this isn't really a "real Thailand" sort of place, so we might as well roll with it and have a good time rather than bitching about the lack of Thai authenticity of the place. Sara and I felt like we got quite a bit of "real Thailand" feelings in the north and then "real Laos" in the places we were in in Laos, so that was cool. It's sometimes fun to just do the beach thing even if it's touristy. However, tomorrow night I think that we're gonna try to seek out a place that Kaleb recommended that he said was "away from it all" and he said the guy who owned it was really cool. So now we just met the boat when it came in and worked it out so we get to snorkel all day tomorrow (which is fine cause we didn't know what we were gonna do tomorrow anyways). So I think we're just gonna go to a beach bar and hang out for a bit and maybe do a little shopping. Much love, Sarah

Morgan has arrived!!

Morgan got in last night at 6 PM! yay! Man, she was traveling for 27 hours - that's impressive by any standard, right? We're so happy to have all three of us here in Thailand! We went out for a really good celebratory dinner and then Sara went home to try to continue sleeping off her sickness and Morgan and I stayed up drinking beer and catching up. We eventually made our way to the beach at around midnight and took a midnight dip in the ocean with the phosphorescents. It was awesome. Now we're off to another beach that's been recommended to us in Phuket before we take off for Krabi and Koh Phi Phi. I hope the next beach has a bit more going on in town than this place, but hopefully the beach itself will be just as amazing!

Phuket

We're now in Phuket (which means that we've officially started the Thai Islands portion of our trip - YAY! Definitely ready for some beach action!) Morgan arrives today, which is very exciting! We are staying in Phuket just because of the one day delay between the time Sara and I got to the south and the day Morgan arrives, but we actually happen to have found a guesthouse that's 5 minutes from the airport and a 10 minute walk to a GORGEOUS beach! Yesterday Sara was starting to feel a bit under the weather, so she took a nap in our room after we got settled and I journeyed down to the beach to check it out. I didn't know what to expect because we had heard that Phuket is sort of a dump and not to waste time here. Well I dont know what the rest of Phuket is like, but this beach is amazing!!! White sand streatching in all directions and crystal clear turquoise water and it was practically deserted! I took a swim and then drank a Pina Colada under a big blue umbrella and felt like I was in some sort of commercial for vacations in Thailand. hehe. And it will be far better of course when Sara and Morgan are there. On our last day in Vang Vieng we decided to kayak from Vang Vieng to Vientien instead of taking a four hour bus. It was so beautiful! Sara and I shared a double kayak and we were the only ones to capsize during the one big rapid. It was good fun though and the guides were very good at helping us get all our stuff and gather ourselves onto shore. Then we spent the night in Vientien, which is the capitol of Laos, but not a very beautiful city. It was the day of Obama's inauguration (night our time) and so we were both so excited we went out for a fancy dinner and were cheersing each other giddily with each sip of our beer. There was a huge firework display that night over the capitol fountains and, after asking around and finding that nobody knew why there were fireworks, we are convinced it was in honor of Obama (perhaps a little self-centered American of us, but in this case, I think we might be right). Although the inauguration didn't actually start until after midnight our time and we had to leave for our flight to Phuket at 5 AM, I couldn't sleep and so stayed up watching the speech on our teeny tiny hotel TV until after 1 AM. It was great! We are so happy! OK, well that's all for now. Sara's trying to put some pictures up so hopefully that works. Love, Sarah

The view from our balcony in Vang Vieng
Sara riding her bicycle on a bridge
Sunset
The awesome night market in Luaugh Prabang
Posing in front of a tree that we liked in Luaugh Prabang

Veng Vieng!

We're now in our third day in Veng Vieng, Laos, and we love it. The limestone mountains that shoot up out of the landscape are breathtaking and the town is pretty cute (although they have this really weird thing where they show Friends episodes in all the bars 24/7. I love Friends, but I will go insain if I have to hear much more of Monica's voice floating through the hot Laos air). The first day here we went tubing down the river, which was a blast. There were all these outdoor bamboo bars that lined the river that would throw out fishing line and catch you as you tubed by and drag you in for a beer along your way. Ah good ol' fashioned fun. One of the bars had a zipline (which I braved) that swung you out from a tree and you dropped into the water. Fun stuff. Then there was mud wrestling at one and the last one had a giant waterslide that plunged you into the water. The whole thing had a bit of a "Spring Break" feel to it, and it's hard not to feel a little guilty about how cheesy it was and how it is sort of a slap in the face to Laos culture - but when in Rome....
Yesterday we rented little bikes (no gears and squeeky breaks. The ones in Pai were way better) and rode around the area. Not a lot to see, but it was fun all the same. We stopped at the river and took a nap in some hammoks that were strung up. Today we're doing more tubing and tomorrow we'll go explore some caves. Then off to Vientien where we'll catch a flight to meet Morgan in Phuket! Yay! Can't wait to have the 3rd blond on board. Ok, off to get some breakfast and hop on a tube! Love, Sarah

Letting a "good luck" bird go at the top of a little mountain in Louang Phrabang
The Laos lady who sold me my good luck bird - what a cutie!
An awesome Laos tuk-tuk
A Buddhist monk along the Maekong River
Sara singing a blues song with some local Thai musicians at the bar "Stone Free"

today we are going TUBING DOWN THE RIVER!! whoo hoo!! we are in a little town calld Vang Vieng and its really cute---set among these crazy limestone crags that just jet up into the sky out of no where. the terrain here is freakin amazing, we had a seven hour bus ride yesterday and i couldnt sleep a wink because we just kept passing the most amazing stuff. winding through these mountains we would come to a steep drop on both sides, and there set against the incline would be a little bamboo village, the kids all out in front of the houses playing or washing, the women beating these grass bundles im still not sure what they were for, but we saw a huge truck loading them up farther down the hill--maybe they are what they make brooms out of??). The people are so beautiful and I could just imagine them living their lives out on the mountains, among that amazing scenery, not realizing how rare it is. the geology was so extreme, i wonder what has been happening here? two tectonic plates coming together or what? someone look that up will ya (tito)? we spent our last night in luang prabong out with a bunch of people that we met on the boats and in pai and chiang mai--its great to have a group of friends that we keep traveling with--and went bowling until 3 or 4 am. funny how i am so competative and yet love bowling even when i suck. Josh, this 30-something amazing slide guitarist/blues singer from SF that performed at the place we stayed at in Pai even came, though he left his guitar in thailand--bummer! last night we ate at a place along the river with a bonfire. we had GREAT chicken curry soup with these two local laos girls and one annoying swedish dude that just talked about himself and his hippie beliefs. he was very excited about all of it, but me and sarah were all yeah, dude, we've known about that shit for years. get off it. aaaanyways some pics finally workd so i've cought you up with a few river photos. try again later. love!!!

Ok, over to me (before that was Sara). Of course now I only have 8 minutes left, so I have to be quick too. I tried to put pictures on about 4 times, but to no avail. Oh well,. You'll just have to be satisfied with our stories. So the river boat was really really cool, but at the same time, we were glad when it was over. It was a LONG 3 days. First we took an overnight bus trip (left at 8 PM got to the boarder of Chiang Khong at 3 AM). The bus was NOT comfortable. Totally nuts. Somehow Sara and I were put back with the luggage and we managed to wedge various parts of our limbs into the luggage to keep ourselfs from flying all over the back seat as the driver tore his way around windy corners. It was, shall we say, an experience. I got a little carsick, but it wasn't nearly as bad as for some of the people on the bus who had to keep having the driver pull over so they could throw up. I felt really bad for them. Then we got to the boarder at 3 AM and were shown to rooms were we slept until 7 AM. We were then back up and headed in the back of a truck to the river where we had to do all the visa and passport stuff before taking a little long skiff across the river to the Laos side. There we waited for MORE of the beuracratic stuff before we finally got taken to the long boat. It was kind of funny, and yet not, because there was a Thai man there who gathered all the tourists together and gave a 20 minute shpeal about how awful the slow boat was and how it was dangerous and that people would steal our stuff and the town we'd stop in overnight was awful and expensiv and he got a lot of people to change their minds and take a bus to Lua Prabang. We may have switched except we'd heard such great things about the slow boat from friends. In the end, it turned out the guy worked for the bus company and it was a total scam! Crazy huh? Anyways, the slow boat WAS awesome. There were so many amazing things to see from the water and I just stared out the whole day and listened to a books on tape. Very relaxing. That first night, we stayed in a little village that was up on a hill that shot out of the water. The town was so cool and the people so nice and not at all like the guy had warned us about. The following day, we had another boat ride that lasted about 7 hours until we got to Lua Prabang. So far we love it here and I will write more later, cause I'm out of time online. Love, Sarah

duuuuuuuuude! SO we are super annoyed with this blog--the pictures will only load half of the time! urgh. oh well, i will give a fast update. We are in Laos! it feels much mofr authentic than thailand in an interesting way--no where near as packed with tourists. We spent two days traveling down the river on these awesome long boats (there were tons of people the first day so it was relly crowed, but then the seocnd day we had our own seats and i got some great shots of the scenery--which i will try to put up another time), and stayed over ngith in thsi little town right on the side of the river. it was awesome to see such a rwater-based culture, and the kids scrambled along between the boats with amazing ease. the river is more like a great freeway for transport and travel. i spaced out a bag of souveniers before we got on the boat though--god dammit!! lost everything i bought so far, not much but still dissapointing. all for now, my times up!

in Pai last night
sarah and krista at dinner in Pai--she will be in laos with us as well, if we can find her!
Pai was great to bike around, and they were cool old fashioned bikes
Little girls that we gave our hats to on the trek
sunrise from the bamboo hut in the Lahu village on the trek

Pai

Hello! We are now staying in what the Lonely Planet refers to as "the sleepy town of Pai." It's great. Sort of a laid-back hippie feel and the town is surrounded by beautiful countryside that is easy to see by "push-bike". Even though Chaing Mai had a much more laid-back feel from Bangkok, Pai really tops it. We have found that the more effort you make to get away from the big cities, the better it is because you get more of a feel of Thailand. It took 4 hours to get here on a very windy road (sort of like heading to Fort Bragg) so that maybe why it's more deserted than other places we've visited. We are staying in a bungalo guesthouse called "Edible Jazz" (appropriate) where they have live music every night and then play jazz CDs the rest of the time. Love it! The entire city is only a few blocks in either direction, but is packed with little charmingly decorated Thai restaurants, boutiques and bars. Yesterday Sara, Kristine -a dutch girl we met during out trek who decided to come to Pai with us, and I rented bikes and spent a few hours riding around the countryside, which was BEAUTIFUL. There were lots of little houses spread along the outskirts of town and we passed many adorable little old Thai ladies sontering along the road who would slowly nod and smile at us,"soadikah" (which means "hello" - it's one of two words we've been able to learn, that and "thank you" - Thai is hard!) We stopped on the way back at a little outdoor restaurant for some of the best Pad Thai we've had yet and then we got oil massages that were amazing! What's not to love about Thailand - really?? Last night we shopped around a bit and listened to live music at our guesthouse. Today we're just taking it easy and tomorrow we head to Laos. We are on the search for a lonely planet guide to Laos cause we don't actually know too much about it except that it's been recommended to us on numerous occasions. Oh well, it's an adventure!

Our private bungalo at "Edible Jazz", the guesthouse where we are staying in Pai where they play jazz 24/7. It's awesome.

A group of boys performing traditional Thai music in the town square in Pai

I don't know how to flip the picture, but Sara, a wonderful Dutch girl we bet, rented "push-bikes" for the day and road around the Pai countryside - lovely

One of the many picturesque moments on our trip

In the village where we stayed on our trek, the locals and our guides got together for a late night jam session where they played a mix of Bob Marley, Clapton, and traditional Thai songs. Sweet.

I love elephants. the way they move, their weird tentacle-trunks, their leathery and HAIRY skin, all of it. The babies were so cute and i got some video of them playing in the water. their sheer size was amazing and demanded my respect. what a freakin hike! It felt so good to breathe hard, work up a legit sweat and have my heartbeat ringing in my ears. When we got to the village the first night, everyone was really interested in my leg, and they all pointed and gathered around to sit by me. I mimed my accident and showed them that i couldnt move it, after which they nodded and an old woman reached out to put her hand on my knee, smiling into my eyes. a little boy tried on my brace (it went up to his hip) and he walked around holding it on for abit before losing interest. in the end i was just another tourist :) my knee held up great, never causing me any pain (hurray for that last fix!) but my lower leg got pretty swollen a from the abuse and I had to fight back some tears of frustration throughout the second day--but it was well worth it! we went to the most secluded villages and waterfalls, surrounded by lush green hills, like heaven on earth. The guide made us each slingshots with is machete and we used these hard green berries as ammo for various targets along the way. the water was really cold but welcome after our strenuous trip. it was great to finally get in after walking alongside it all day. I cant believe that places like that exist alongside us all the time, and we just dont know about them! we got to stay in bamboo huts, where up to five families live at once ( i was disturbed to think that we were staying in someone's home while they were evicted--but i know that they also depended on the money). I imagine them all together in one room, living every aspect of daily life together--such a differente experience than ours, separated by doors, locks and 'privacy.' the food we got was great, and teh whole three days for only $45! definitely worth every penny. After Pai, and all we have heard from the people we have met, we are scratching the Vietnam idea and opting for Laos, where we have heard the people are amazingly nice, everything is cheap, and the culture still thriving (not yet blown up by tourists) . we will go with Krista, a dutch girl from the trek who has similar plans, sometime early next week. There is a route that is popular with young tourists, and we have heard tons of hints and insights from people we have met along our way. More soon, Sara

The bamboo hut where we slept the second night near the waterfall (it was really cool but sooo cold at night!)

A Thai lady with her 14 or so dogs at a tiny village where we stopped along the way to get more water. There are so many stay dogs and cats here, it's very sad.

Trekking along through the jungle the mighty jungle...

A view of the hilltribe village where we stayed the first night. We slept in one of these huts overlooking the vast landscape - beautiful!

Our ornery elephant that we loved even though it sneezed all over us

Oh My Buddha!!!!

Wow! So we got back from our 3 day trekk last night and when they said trekk - they meant it! We did elephant riding (Sara and my elephant kept sticking its trunk up and sneezing all over us and wouldn't move until we fed it our entire bunch of bananas - greedy bugger!), stayed with a hill tribe in a bamboo hut, and we did some "whitewater (pretty weak actually, though the scenery was stunning, Ian would have been dissapointed in the rapids) and bamboo rafting. Oh yeah... and we hiked strait up and down mountains for about 12 hours! Now I had thought that this trekk was geared towards tourists, so there would be a bit of walking, but mostly the activities would center around the other stuff - boy was I wrong. The first day we were picked up at our guesthouse and driven about 2 hours to the elephant camp. There we took an elephant ride down into the jungle for about an hour. The elephants were so cool, but much more ornery than they lead you to believe in "Dumbo". Ours didn't give a rats ass that we wanted him to follow the crowd and just did its own thing, practically taking us off the cliff a couple of times - I'm pretty sure intentionally. Then we took off hiking up up up and up the mountain. Our guides were really cool. We had this older, wise looking Thai man who had a mole with four long pieces of black hairs growing out of it. Then there were 2 21-year-old Thai guys, one who carried his guitar throughout the entire trekk on his back and played for us each night, mostly Beatles, Clapton, and traditional thai songs. The first night we stayed in a bamboo hut in this tiny hill tribe villiage (the Lahu tribe). Our guide told us that the Lahu people were not allowed to come down to Chiang Mai becuase there was too much competition for work and so the only way that they made any money was to sell some stuff to tourists who came on trekks all the way up to their hill villiage. Interesting. The next day we walked strait down (what goes up must come down, right?) the mountain to a waterfall and we slept near the waterfall in more bamboo huts. There was a big campfire and the guides busted out some Thai moonshine they had made out of sticky rice. It was very good - Sara thought it tasted just like sticky rice - I don't know if I"d go that far, it tasted like moonshine to me. hehe. We took shots out of bamboo shot glasses though which was cool. The third day, we walked for a bit and then did some rafting, first in regular plastic rafts and then on bamboo rafts (which were fairly underwhelming and we think it was just a gimic to get the tourists across the rocky part of the river that was too shallow to handle plastic rafts. hehe). I am pretty sure that our rafting guide didn't know what the hell he was doing. Oh well, it was fun though. All the people on our trekk were young and we had a blast with them. A fairly multi-national crowd: A german, a dutch girl, an austrain, four french people, an argentinian (from Mar Del Plata) and us. Good fun good fun. Now we are very sore and are heading to a smaller hippie villiage to recover for the next couple of days in a bungalo. Ok, go to the next entry to see pictures! Love, Sarah

Master chefs: Sara and Sarah (yeah that's right, we got certificates)
Making Chicken Cashew stir fry. I'm a professional (and I kept my eyebrows so we're all good)
Ah... gweethy eggwoll
Check out the eels - the lady kept trying to hand a flopping desperate eel to Sara.
Awesome fresh food market.

Sara before getting a massage at the Women's Prison.













Written outside our hostel, funny.


Ok so let's see, where did we leave off... Well we both love Chiang Mai. The day we got into Chiang Mai we just took it easy, walked around a bit and got a few beers with some people we met at our guesthouse. The next day we rented a scooter (Sara drove, don't worry everybody) and we took off to the hills outside of the city. We went to a waterfall, which was beautiful, and we went to a huge temple up on the hill called Doi Suthep (which was packed because these last five days have been a big Thai holiday). It was BEAUTIFUL! Sara and I got lucky strings put around our wrists by an old monk in one of the prayer rooms. Everything there was gold, glittery and covered in flowers. The traffic here is TERRIBLE! We were able to scoot around it, but everyone in cars were just not moving all day it seemed. We had one little spill on the motorbike - about 3 feet before we got back to our guesthouse, we were trying to do a U-turn basically stopped on a deserted street and just tipped over. It was a little funny actually, but we could tell we were tired and needed a rest. So we got some food and sara went and took a nap while I signed up for a really really fancy spa treatment at this luxery spa. Get this Paula - for $65 I was picked up from our guesthouse and driven about 15 minutes out of town to this luxery spa. I mean this place was incredible - you walked along these floating steps to the front desk and there were fountains streaming and steam rising up. Then you were greeted with hot tea and a warm lemon towel before you were taken to your own private bungalo. There was an outdoor washroom area where everything was gorgeous stone and bamboo with a huge shower and the whole place smelled like tropical flowers. After I showered, I got a 2 hour massage (on the most comfortable massage table I"ve ever laid on) - which included a traditional thai massage, an aromatherapy oil massage and thai rock treatments. Pure bliss. Then I was really tired after that but we had wanted to check out this Reggae rooftop bar downtown by the river so we went out with a bunch of people from our hostel. I felt all detoxed out so I didn't drink anything and only lasted about an hour before I had to go to bed and crash. Today we had an all day cooking class. It was really fun and sooo good! First we were taken to a thai market in this big sort of wearhouse where there was just row after row after row of vegitables, raw meat, live (soon to be raw) meat, and fruit. Some of it was a bit much (like the buckets of huge eels flapping around and the pigs heads chillin' on tables) but it was pretty cool. We each learned how to make 6 dishes - I made Pad Thai, Yellow Curry, Rice Noodle Rolls, Chicken Cashew, Chicken Coconut soup and Sticky rice with mango. Yum yum yum! We pretty much just sat around all day cooking, eating, resting and cooking again. The lady who was our teacher was really funny - she kept making sort of lude jokes and then going "ehhhhh" to laugh at herself. When we were chopping lemongrass, she says "You no like 1 inch, maybe you like bigger--ehhhhhh!" Well when Sara and I get home, we can do a demonstration. Ok that's all from me for now. Tomorrow we're off to our trekk! We need to get some serious shut eye tonight. ~Sarah

I get to drive!!

so we rented a motorbike for the day and im sure sarah is tickled pink that that she gets to put her life in my hands. this is gonna be great! i would never have considered it in bangkok but chaing mai's streets have me feeling pretty confident. ill make sure to write tomorrow so you can breath easy dad. we are heading up the hill to see this huge temple (im not even gonna try and figure out how to spell it) and some waterfalls on the way. last night i got my first set of earings (let the addiction begin) and a scarf at the night bazaar; each for $1. god i love thai prices. i also lost at pool (surprise surprise) while getting drunk on thai whiskey (surprise surprise) and hurling insults at my undeserving and good-natured german opponant. tonight we want to go to dinner and live music by the river, which is brown and gross but the restaraunts along it are pretty cute. we signed up for a cooking class tomorrow and then a three day trek into the mountains starting on monday. I am a bit concerned about the hike, my brace has been giving me trouble after that plane flight (my lower leg is finally not swollen today, its been a tight squeeze for the last few days and i think thats why it was hurting. of course it starts to be a hassle for the first time when i am in a foreign country nd can do nothing about it) but im layering the bandaids and soldiering on. its not bad enough to not do it. having so much fun!! what a wonderful world!! missing you all, Sara

Crew we spent New Years with in Bangkok. We now have some pictures - so we can tell people about our blog. Yesterday we took a ferry down the river and stopped at the flower market and China Town. When we got the flower market we were really dissapointed because it was just smelly allyways and we assumed that nobody was selling their flower since it was New Years day. We were just about to turn around and give up when we decided to do one more corner and suddenly there were rows and rows of fruits and flowers. What they do with all those flowers is beyond us, but there you have it. It was very colorful and beautiful. Then there was China Town. We had heard that China Town was a "not to be missed" sort of thing - but all we saw was block after block of plastic junk - it was really weird. And with all this plastic junk there were hords of people sizing up Hello Kitty stuffed animals and buying plastic jewelry. But we did have some yummy soup. We are in Chiang Mai now and we both like it far better than Bangkok because Bangkok was just plain overwhelming. Chiang Mai is more tropical and a lot smaller than we had expected. Today we got a massage from the Women's Prison by inmates and it was a bit bizzar. Not very relaxing. Oh well. Oh but we found a really good restaurant!

Sarah is obsessed with Yellow Curry and Sara is pretty hooked on the Pad Thai so far - we figure we've got time to branch out. The guest house we're in here reminds us of humboldt cause they're constantly playing Bob Marley and it's got a hippie atmostphere. Tonight we'll check out the night bizzar.

The cat is for Tito.
The Sara(h)s dancing on New Years

The foot massage was far better than the "traditional thai massage" but we'll give it another try

Flower market - blocks and blocks of fruits and flowers (Bangkok)