Thursday, January 29, 2004

Missionaries to Elephants


Our first stop after Chiang Mai was Tha Ton, a quiet little village on the Mae Kok river -- another place hard to pronounce with a straight face;). Anyway, we met a nice Australian couple who told us about the work they were doing at a local orphanage for Burmese Shan refugees, and we were invited to check it out. Well, the only time we had before leaving happenned to be Sunday morning, around 10am.

Bad timing for a couple of non-religious Jews to visit what we soon realized was a Southern Baptist missionary. It was an interesting service to say the least -- first came some beautiful gospel/rock sung in the Shan language; then the Australian preacher stood up and began by saying how honored he was to have Jews visiting the church, and then the rest of his sermon seemed to be pointed directly at us, informing us that we were heathens unless we accept the word of Jesus and convert. We were even offerred a Gideon bible before leaving.

On the upside, we did get to meet many of the kids who are all really amazing and resilient. The missionaries are doing good work to give these kids a full education and teach them Thai and English, so that they will have future job prospects across Thailand. One of their main goals is to assimilate the Shan kids into Thailand so that they do not have to return to the oppressive regime in Burma. Which left us wondering why can't these kids be raised Buddhist so they will blend in a little easier in this mostly Buddhist country.

The band playing at Sunday service:



We were off quickly enough to catch the river boat to our next stop, the amazing My Dream Guest House, half way between Tha Ton and Chiang Rai. We spent 3 nights in a very quiet river-front bungalow. We highly recommend this to our fellow travellers. We had at last gotten "off the beaten path" in Thailand, a very hard thing to do in this touristy country, as there were only 2 other foreigners with us.

Mandy enjoying our luxury bungalow on the side of the Mae Kok river:



Our first night there we were invited to a Lahu New Years celebration of dancing, music, and drinking "whiskey Lahu". We kept expecting a tourist bus to show up but again we were the only tourists there.

Lahu girls getting very excited about being photographed by a digital camera, they were literally pushing to get infront of the camera!:



Drinking Lahu Whiskey with Marsaline (Canadian), a Lahu guy, Gon (from our guesthouse) and David (Irish):



The next day we went on a strenuous walk uphill to two more hill tribes, one Lahu and one Akha. We also made it to a beautiful waterfall and a really nice hot-spring along the river.

Mandy dying from the exercise on the steep slopes!



Who was the marketing idiot at this company?



The next day found us relaxing from our hike and floating down the river on inner-tubes, and enjoying a special dish prepared, by Nan the owner, for just the two of us in bamboo stalks on the fire.

Nan preparing our bamboo cooked dinner:



Today we went to an elephant camp and rode on an elephant, and hand fed them bananas and sugar cane -- they are such gentle giants! Again, not many tourists around so we really enjoyed it.

An elephant with 2 trunks?? ;)



Now we are in Chiang Rai, catching up on internet and city errands, but tomorrow we head off to Laos, down the Mekong river. We'll let you know how it goes.

Saturday, January 24, 2004

Job Wanted: Masseuse and Cook


We've now finished our Thai massage and cooking classes, and are looking for work. Unfortunately neither job pays much here, so we'll keep travelling for now ;)

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Massage anyone?


Today was the first of 4 days in our Thai massage course, here in Chiang Mai. We're feeling good, although a little tired from the exhausting techniques.

Andre the Giant with Michiko the Minute:



Our massage class celebrating the end of the course, Michiko, Midori, Rachel, Sonya, Mandy, Andrew, Yoshi & Miki.



Now onto cooking, at the Somphet Thai Cooking School:

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Monsoon Season?


Yesterday on the ferry to Ko Pha Ngan, a friendly tout was trying to convince us to stay at her hotel on the island. We kindly declined and told her that we planned to stay at Bottle Beach on the other side of the island. She explained to us that because of the monsoon, there would be no boats going to Bottle Beach for the next 3 months (ie. we should just stay at her place). We found the whole conversation most entertaining - just adding to our list of lies from touts around the world.

We arrived on the island after dark and caught a cab to the top of the island, where we intended to catch a long-tail boat to Bottle beach. However, they wanted to charge us $15 for a boat ride that should only cost $3, so we decided to walk along the beach to another quiet area (recommended by many friends). After struggling to see anything in the dark, crossing a knee deep river, and discovering the beach ahead was scrambling-over-rocks terrain - we decided to take the road. But again, after a few minutes walking in the darkness in a jungle surrounded area, we wimped out, and spent the evening at a nice bungalow chatting to some other long-term travellers until after midnight.

Today it is raining (pretty heavily) - maybe the tout was right? Monsoon season? Let's hope it improves so we can enjoy bottle beach in the sun tomorrow.

The only way to get to Bottle Beach - by long boat, here are some fisherman we passed enroute:

Ko Jum


We took the ferry from Ko Phi Phi to Ko Lanta and then boarded the boat to Krabi immediately. We had heard that Ko Jum was 1/2 way between Ko Lanta and Krabi, and assumed we'd be dropped at a pier, met by touts and would then chose a place to stay.

Of course one should never make assumptions. After an hour on the water in the middle of the ocean, the boat slows and all of a sudden we're surrounded by 6 long boats. A tout who had spoken to us about his place while on the boat, grabs our packs and throws them to a guy on the boat below, we climb down into the boat chasing our packs and are whisked away to our new accomodation!

We ended up staying in Ko Jum for a couple of nights, in a brand new bungalow (with flush toilet!) for only $7 per night. The Green Bungalow (next to the expensive $10-15/night Season Bunglow) was great, as were the lack of people on the island. Finally some quiet time.


Saturday, January 10, 2004

No more Pee Pee


We are about to leave ko phi phi. This island is hardly paradise (not compared to goa at least). I'm sure it was a few years ago, but now it's so developed, there are just crowds of people everywhere, not fun at all. It's also way too hot! (I know, we're such complainers - but you would not believe how packed this place is!)

Yesterday we did a boat tour around the two islands (including the island where "the beach" was filmed). Every place we stopped was swarming with boats, some nearly running over people snorkelling. People standing on (and ruining) the coral in their fins - just not a good scene. However, the fish were amazing, and apart from the odd fish bite we had a good time, and met some cool chicks from california - Seema and Aparna.

We're heading out towards Ko Lanta, and plan to catch another ferry to a fairly undeveloped/unknown place called Ko Jum. Hopefully there'll be less people and we can enjoy the place by ourselves.

Mandrew at "The Beach" in Koh Phi Phi

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

Bangkok Photos


Here they are - finally!:


Mandy with Uncle David (who happened to be vacationing in Thailand!)



Andrew and the Reclining Buddha



Mandrew at the Grand Palace



A stand at the Chatachuk weekend market:



View from the back of a "Tuk Tuk"

Tuesday, January 06, 2004

Happy New Year from Bangkok, and Q2 Awards from Mandrewadventure


Hope everyone had a great New Years and holiday season! We ushered in the New Year with huge smiles on our faces: after stuffing ourselves with our first sushi in five months (delicious too), we proceeded to watch Frodo save middle earth in "The Return of the King". (Sorry if we gave the plot away ;))


Bangkok is an oasis of Western delights and things we miss from home. Today we're lounging around the hotel pool waiting for our overnight train to Ko Phi Phi, an idyllic island paradise in the south. Hopefully we'll do some sea kayaking and recover from a string of colds & stomach bugs we've had in the past 2 weeks.


Our Turkey and India photos and travel logs are up to date and ready for your viewing pleasure at http://www.wiggenout.com/mandrewadventure.html


For those of you who haven't checked the site in a while, India basically turned into one long yoga and beach holiday in Goa, capped off with the wonderful south Indian wedding of Kim & Anand in Chennai.


And after all the commotion of the bombs in Istanbul, we managed to have a fantastic time travelling around Turkey with none of those annoying tourists to bother us or drive up prices. In fact, we found it an easy and friendly country to travel around, and we'll have to come back in the summer sometime to enjoy the Meditteranean beaches.


In fact, Turkey started the gradual recovery of our budget, as things started to get incredibly cheap, and got cheaper in India, and I daresay even cheaper in Thailand. In these parts of the world it is quite possible to live well for about $25 a day for two people. We even heard of one guy who managed to go for 11 months on $1000 in India and still live decently. We highly recommend it to anyone with a little spare time and change!


Q2 Awards


We are now at 7 months on the road, so our over-due second quarter statistics & awards are as follows:

  • Number of Countries Visited: 17

  • Cheapest night of accomodation (apart from free camping): $5 at Dunes in Goa, $7.50 at Mustafa's in Pammukale, Turkey

  • Best reason to take your wife with you to India: "Ladies lines" at the train station is 100 times shorter than the regular line

  • Most easily mistaken for a toilet flushing mechanism: David McSherry's crystal ball which Mandy yanked off the bathroom ceiling thinking it was the flusher

  • Most Original Bathroom Design Award: The classy Hotel Veneto (Florence) where you couldn't close the bathroom door while seated on the toilet... which made for some great photo opportunities ;)

  • Easiest place to be a millionaire: Turkey, where $1 buys you 1.5 million lira!

  • Largest hazard surprisingly avoided by Team Clutzes: large hole in Valerie's kitchen floor which drops straight to the lower floor

  • Best value for money on air ticket: Royal Jordanian provided us lunch, buffet dinner at hotel, bed, shower & TV at hotel during stopover, + dinner again on flight + free alcohol.

  • Cheapest flight: Ryan Air, Milan to Barcelona for 1 cent + taxes.

  • Most thorough list of banned carry-on items: Amman, Jordan (see "No Laughing Matter?" chapter on the website)

  • Best bus service: Turkey where long distance buses have a steward who serves tea, water, cakes, hand sanitizer, and movies.

  • Worst Bus Ride: 4 hour minibus ride along windy Turkish coastline with some guy puking his lunch up behind us the whole way

  • Worst place to play chicken in traffic (or be a chicken crossing the road): Tie between Istanbul & Chennai

  • Most difficult bus-company name to say with a straight face: Kamilkoc (Turkey).

  • Most heavily defended fortress in Istanbul, the seat of the Ottoman Empire: US Consulate

  • Most versatile food group (can eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner): Chocolate crepe.

  • Best value for money at the famous Cafe Flore on St Germain Boulevard (Paris): not ordering anything (but sit and enjoy the view for 30 minutes before deciding not to order anything).

  • Make that two reasons for Mandy to not buy this product: Australian Cilantro Surprise potato chips (for purchase in India)

  • Country with highest per-capita "Ham Museums": Spain

  • Country where ham is most likely to apparate on your "vegetarian" dinner plate: tie between Czech & Slovak republics.

  • Cheapest & best beer: Czech Republic, 25 cents a pint at stores, 50 cents at local pub

  • Best (pre-Goa) chill-out day: Paris sleeping til noon then wine & cheese the rest of the day.

  • Most ironic sickness: after a month of eating in India with no problems, Mandy proceeds to get "Bangkok Belly" despite her raving about how clean and Western it is here

  • Best recent dizzy Mandy quote, while scoping out sushi restaurants in a local Bangkok neighborhood: "it must be a good restaurant -- it's full of Asians"


Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2004!