Thailand

ok - my turn.

Sawat dii ka, everybody!
Yes, the snorkeling adventure was great. 5 islands in 8 hours and a lunch of squid, chicken, rice, and freshly cut fruit on a white beach island. It really was a lovely day - the sky was overcast, and so the view underwater wasn't as pleasant as could be, but it was still amazing. The variety of corals were unbelievable, the schools of fish were plentiful and surrounding our every move, and the weird creatures like clams and wierd mouth things were everywhere. I think Amy and I held up the whole group at the first (and biggest) island we went to because we decided (accidentally) to swim all the way around it. Ah well, its vacation - they can wait. Anyway, it was just like any underwater, Jacques Cousteau documentary you've seen, minus sharks and jellyfish. The last island, Koh Wai, had a resort called paradise - very nice. Amy and I decided to enjoy yet another Singha and some oreos instead of snorkelling. Yum. The evening ended early as we were pretty exhausted after that trip.

Today is the real Songkran. The street is littered with all kinds of people - young, old, Thai, not Thai - dumping water, white powder, and yes, even white lotion on each other.

Amy and I went and bought some super awesome water guns and joined the fun for a while this afternoon.

Soaked and oddly white is how we arrived back at the hotel - quite a sight to be scene, but not out of the ordinary. We will probably venture out again after a while. Its really a party scene out there. Unbelievable! We are lucky to be here at this time.

And about my bites - mine don't itch as much as Amy's do. I chose the bed by the window in our bungalow - probably a mistake. Maybe my bites are from a different gross insect. But they are little puss filled sacks and i look a bit like I have scabies. Gross.

Tomorrow we are back to Bangkok. And Monday we leave for Vietnam where I'm pretty sure our internet access will dwindle quite markedly. We have a woman named Mrs. Moon who has taken care of ordering our train ticket from Ha Noi to Ho Chi Minh City. We will stop for one night in Da Nang. I have no idea what to expect...

More later

--oh, and the sun has arrived, once again.

Amy Says:
Sawaat dee ka! Sorry for the brief intermission. It costs about 30 cents a minute for internet here and our recent expenditures have cut into our budget.

Here's a contest for you! All who read this are welcome to join in. Not sure what the prize is yet - but do take a guess.

So, we can't post pictures as we have no laptop to download them. Instead, I'll describe. You google symptoms. Get back to us with your diagnosis. Needless to say, the malaria medication I've spent 90 bucks on probably won't help any.

Okay - first night we were here, we fell asleep in our cute looking bungalow which appears to us now to have been the gatehring place for every bug known to man thanks to the lagoon nearby. When we awoke, little red marks everywhere. Not in any patterns really. Just everywhere. Not too itchy. That was day one. Day two - itchy and then the little bumps became blistery and started to ooze. Yay! Even itchier today and now have become little crusty scabby things. Bigger Yay! Luckily I'd brought hydrocrtisone cream. Combined with the benedryl I just took, things are a little better. Though the benedryl has made me quite sleepy. Christina has won out with 50 bites. Me only a paltry 35. So, what do you guys think?

Okay on to the fun stuff. Wednesday night we stopped in at the Cha Cha bar to have a couple of Singhas (local beer) and watch some street fire dancers spin their flaming metal poi balls and batons. It was quite impressive. Especially when the littlest one caught hers T shirt on fire. She slapped herself out - but I'm sure it was a scare. There was some joking with the bartenders who were all young skinny and scantily dressed thai ladies, about the thatched roof catching on fire. Ha! Yeah, that would be bad. During the second set, a very nice German man came over to tell one of the scanitly clad ladies that the roof above our heads was indeed on fire. No worries though, it is so humid it didn't burn fast and the littlest one again, patted it out. Yay! Oh - the official song here is anything Cher. Thorugh the thin walls of the bungalow, we've heard that terrible "Do you Believe in Love" song at least three times in one night. Cher fans, we are not.

Yesterday was spent on a too small but fast moving motor boat on our way to snorkel five of the many little islets littering the ocean here. We were crammed like sardines (fish joke!) into this boat with a plethora of annoying tourists who did things like try to light their cigarettes on said fast moving boat. I'll let Christina continue the snorkeling adventure in the next blog story since it is quite lovely.

Today is Friday - the official Songkran. Thai New Year! We just bought our water guns and have chosen our outfits to wear since the white powder is a little tough to get out. It has thundered and rained for a few days now. The sky and water have become about the same color, all gray. I'm sure the mosquitoes and frogs are having there hey day though. We've left our bungalow, by the way. Opted for a cush room in the hotel part and away from the swamp. Seems about 20 dollars more will get you a luxury room complete with robes, paper slippers and SCREENS on the windows. Funny how quaint it all was only a few days before.

Love to all!

---Amy

Ha-its not that bad - just woke up with an arm fulla red marks. They don't itch, so I'm not bothered.

Yesterday, Amy and I did manage to find a room for Friday night at a place that is not nearly as nice as where we are staying, but its not bad. Not on the beach, but we can still hang out by the water, so it will be just fine.

After a sweaty day yesterday, Amy decided pizza sounded awesome, so we went to an "Italian restaurant" and got some little pizzas and drinks - Amy had rum and coke and I had gin & tonic. The food was NOT delicious, but the drinks were and we had a nice time. We walked home in a rainstorm and when we got to our room we laid down to dry off. Well, that was at 7:30pm and we didn't end up getting out of bed until 6 this morning! It was wonderful. We didn't put the mosquito nets down (until the middle of the night) like we shoulda, since we had the windows open to listen to the rain. So we both have a number of bites. Amy started taking her malaria medicine today! I didn't bring any. So, we'll see what happens there...

This morning we rode an elephant for 2 hours. A thunderstorm approached as we boarded the topless truck that took us to the elephant place, so we got wet. But it wasn't all that unpleasant - at least we weren't sweating. The elephant's name was Rambo - we prefer to think his name is pronounced Rahm boh and means something stately in Thai as opposed to thinking of Sly Stallone. You should too.

Today will be a relaxing day. It is the first day we don't have to wonder about what's next or bothered by figuring out some detail. Amy is getting a massage now, and I'm off to find a hammock.
Here's a link with some pictures of the bungalows we are staying in. Just scroll down to the Bungalows section. But, imagine them looking not quite as nice...

I'm pretty sure Amy mentioned the peafowl in a different post. Since I can't get to her posts to put pictures, here's a picture of that stately guy either trying to scare us or get us to go back to his place..

I think that's it for now. And, thank you for commenting.

At 6:30 am, Christina and I found our way to the airport for an impromptu plane ride to Trat, the gateway to Koh Chang. We arrived without a place to stay and within a few minutes of getting off the plane, had found a beautiful bungalow just off the beach for three nights. One more night accomodation missing, but we'd worry about that later.

Lagoons, poolside bars, little bridges and pea fowl pepper the resort. Our bungalow is sparse but cute and comes with AC which is REALLY necessary since it is hotter than all get out right now. It feels about 110 and is sticky and we are tired but happy to have found a place. Sorry doggies! Oh, tank tops allowed here just fine. Although locals do not wear them either.

Christina has just about mastered the language. Her inflection is excellent. Mine on the other hand, has something to be desired. I still try though.

Tomorrow we are taking a two hour elephant ride into the mountains. We may be able to bathe them. No monkeys to be seen yet, although Christina has spotted the sign for the Orchid place.

Too hot to continue. And Thank you Sherman for being the only one who comments. We check this daily and appreciate your support. Hint hint.

Its way too early to be up - but like Amy yesterday, I can't sleep. Now it is just after 5am, and here I am - awake. We have to be up and ready to go early, and whenever I have to get up early, I can't sleep because I am afraid I won't wake up on time. Today will be an adventure for us.

As we've already mentioned, we are here during the Thai New Year - Songkran. This makes booking hotel rooms and travel nearly impossible, especially on the 11th - 13th. We had to be creative with our travel plans, and after consulting a couple of people (thank you Cee, Jett, and travel agent lady), we came up with something a little scary, risky, and exciting.

We booked a flight last night (it leaves in 3 hours) to Trat, which is a town on the Gulf of Thailand. From Trat, we will travel by taxi, ferry, and songthaew to an island called Ko Chang. When we get there, we hope to be able to find a room, and will walk up and down the beaches looking for one. Booking anything over the phone is nearly impossible, and, well, we just don't have time or knowledge to do it any other way. We talked to a travel agent yesterday who told us she'd try to find us a room for Thursday, but since then we've changed our plans. Originally, we had planned to go to the island on Thursday. But our new, nice aquaintances Cee and Jett told us that Wednesday is probably the last working day for Thais and that we'd have better chances (still slim) of finding a room if we left earlier. So, last night we booked a ticket and are planning to just wing it. We can always sleep on the beach, say Cee and Jett - and if we do, the local stray dogs will sleep with us and protect us. Jett has done this before, so we believe it.


--as you can see, they were ready to accomodate us!

We chose Ko Chang because it has everything we both wanted - beautiful, clear water to snorkel and swim in for Amy, and elephants, monkeys, kayaking, and bicycles for me. Cee tells us that there's a woman who owns an orchid farm who will even let me hold her monkey. Jett says the place may not be so easy for us to find, but I feel pretty determined!

We plan on coming back To Bangkok on Saturday night. We hope to find a place to stay - it seems that most people leave Bangkok for the holiday, so I am not completely worried about that. We have reserved another room (204 - the haute couture room) at the Reflections Hotel for Sunday, our last night in Thailand.

This reminds me of another potential problem. We have applied for our Vietnamese Visa - which means that we are without our passports right now. We have been told that a copy of our passport will work as ID, and we are hoping it is true when we try to fly and/or book rooms!

Oh - and we had a fun day yesterday - we travelled by boat up and down the river, and went to the Museums of Forensic Science, Parasitology, and Thai Medical History at Siriraj Hospital. That was really quite interesting - we were most interested in the Forensic Science part - there were displays of things nobody should see like decapitated heads, blown-off arms, and mummified rapists. We loved it! We weren't allowed to take pictures, although we seriously considered it (there were too many people around!)

We also went to China Town. We ate dim sum at a tiny little hidden restaurant that was divine. China Town, especially where we went is not very touristy so Amy and I felt a bit odd.

All in all it was a good day. Saw the biggest reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. Which started off a brief snowball of Abbot & Costello jokes.

It is unfortunate that we have this stress of having to find a place to stay. We take the blame, a bit, for not planning everything ahead of time, but our travel agent should have told us how difficult it would be for us to find lodging too! We will make the best of it, and keep you all informed. I have to go wake Amy up now - its going to take us longer to get to the airport than we thought... Love to all of you! Write some comments! We are missing all of you like the dickens. COMMUNICATE WITH US!!!!