You Promised...NO SNAKES!!

WORST CAST SCENARIO HAS OCCURED...I'M STILL ALIVE BUT...

2008-06-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

BARELY. No I wasn't physically harmed. Let me start off by saying I promise to never post a blog message that seems to indicate a trip is over until I'm home safe and sound. Its like the last run of skiing for the day: you never say it's the last run because your bound to get hurt if the powers that be know its the last run. The night went like this. Eric and I were hanging out at a club watching some tourists try to box each other. We were walking back to our room and I had the thought I should update the blog since I didn't want to get up early to do it. Eric didn't want to stay up so he headed to the room by himself. That was about 11:30. I worked on the internet for probably about 45 minutes and walked back to my room. That is when things went terribly wrong. TERRIBLY WRONG! We had an early ferry to the mainland so I started organizing some things to be ready to head out. I was probably home five minutes. Eric was stirring a little but still pretty much asleep. I zipped up my bag and turned toward the bed when it occurred. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something that didn't look right so I looked better. "Something that didn't look right" moved and I lost my mind. "Something that didn't look right" was a black and green snake hanging from a hole in our bungelow. When I say I lost my mind...people...(keep in mind snakes are the bain of my exsistance)....I LOST MY MIND!! Eric was sleeping well up to that point. Eric suddenly had a screaming person as a bed fellow. For whatever reason unknown to me I jumped into bed with him screaming profanities I thought I had forgetten. Eric kept saying "What's wrong?" "What's wrong?" I finally managed a "Snake!" and pointed to the wall. I'm not going to swear by it but there might have been a choice word or two come from Eric as well. The snake was black with green stripes. I estimate it was about 13 meters long about 8 inches thick. Eric says it was about a meter and big around as a thumb. It was all over for me at that point. I could't stand/sit anywhere without being convinced it was infestated with snakes. I managed to stand on the front porch for about fifteen minutes while Eric kinda shooed it back into its hole in the wall. It literally had come through a crack in the wood which I will include pics of in this post. Unfortunately, this wall was thick and it didn't go outside from there meaning it lives in the wall. The rest of the night was spent staring at the hole in the wall while I laid in bed. The littleist bug/mosquito got my full wrath as I was convinced everything was a snake. Keep in mind we managed this entire trip with ONE SNAKE....ONE SNAKE. It was in the jungle in Laos and was running for its life when it saw us. Now, here we are in the most touristy locale of the entire trip and we have this. No I didn't get any pictures of the actual beast but I did an internet search and found one somebody had in his bed after a night on Ko Phi Phi and it looks identical(I'll include that picture). If your not conviced I'm THAT afraid of snakes, ask Eric! Eric now understands that this is infact the worst cast scenario for me. I would have rather gone on a dinner date with Jason from the Friday the 13th movies than this. I REALLY DON'T LIKE SNAKES!! We did end up staying the night in that room since it was so late. We woke up the next morning and Eric got the ultra brave task of shaking our gear out to make sure we didn't take on a new friend. I wish I was kidding about this post but listen....this is my luck. You take the guy most afraid of snakes to Asia and your bound to have something freakishly eventful happen.

All said and done.....I'm still alive....I'm in Kuala Lumpur for about 12 more hours...and I'm catching a flight to Seattle tomorrow afternoon. I will never forget that two second glace that confirms that snakes really are the bain of my exsistance. I hope this made for an entertaining post because snakes have reopened the once scarred over wound which I live with everyday

This wont be the last post!(see the skiing reference from ealier)

Good Night!

Rob

2008-06-15T07:10:00.000-07:00

A cool pic I took on Ko Tao

Probably the coolest picture I've ever taken.

Just a local four year old fixing a boat engine with a machete....pretty normal for around here.

Monkey on monkey beach....they were aggessive little punks!

The bow of our longboat with a Thai island in the background. This island has the beach from the movie the The Beach. I've never seen the movie but the beach was really cool!

Last REAL day of Vacation!

2008-06-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

Well, its finally here. Even tho I'm not home for a couple days today is the the last real day of vacation. Starting tomorrow I will start the difficult task of finding my way home. I have a night planned in the Kuala Lumpur airport so that should be exciting(hopefully they have free internet!). Anyway for the last day I've planned a snorkelling/beach trip here on Phi Phi. We go out in a long tail boat and visit the big sites on and around the island. On of the beaches (Maya Beach is the beach they used in the movie "The Beach" so it should be a good day. Even tho vacation has been great I'm ready to come home. I'm ready to see Cindi, I'm ready to go mountain biking, and I'm ready to start planning for my next trip! :-) I'm definately not finished with the blog as I have hundreds of pictures that I will be putting on Flickr once I get a solid internet connection. I hope to see and hear from all of you soon.
Rob

I'm Alive!

2008-06-13T01:11:00.000-07:00

....but i only have 2 mins. to post before im out of time!....Dives went fine. On the way to Ko Phi Phi for the last couple days of vacation. Should be pretty exciting. Hoping to catch one more dive tomorrow in Phi Phi. Its been a blast. Thats all I have time for. Bye for now!
Rob

I figured out theres alot of fish in the ocean!

2008-06-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

I think the title says it all! Today we got to sleep in because our daily dive coarse didn't start until 930 am....YEAH! We headed out to Champun Pinnacle at about 12:30 after a good Thai Lunch. The weather was stormy and rainy today so that made for a bumpy 45 minute ride to the dive site. Champun Pinnacle is a formation in deep open water that is about 20 meters deep. The schedule called for our first dive to be a deep water dive. We decended the farthest I've ever been....30 meters. It's a bit unnerving to realize your almost 100 feet underwater but I managed pretty well. Anyway, back to the title of this post......Theres alot of fish in the ocean. HOLY CRAP!!!....that's all I can say. I would place the number of fish we saw on our 45 minute dive at approximately 123,763. There were just massive schools of various species of fish. We saw one small shark and several hundred Giant Barracuda that were upwards of 4-5 feet long. The quantity of fish is by far the most staggering part of being out there. At one point two massive schools of different kinds of fish passed under us. It was remarkable to see the precision which the avoided each other and worked out the lack of open water. It reminded me in alot of way to the traffic patterns of Bangkok. I would honestly guess that those two schools alone has more than 10,000 fish in them. And theres just more fish everywhere you look. It wasn't possible to look in any given direction and not see fish. Remarkable! The afternoon consisted of a navigation dive at about 15 meters because we were in a high "pressure group" from our previous deep water dive. In the second dive we were split into buddy teams of two and it was up to us to navigate around and find our way back to the boat. Although Cindi thinks I have a pretty good sense of direction....underwater is a different story to say the least. I made it back to the boat but not without alot of flipping the map around alot trying to figure out which way was which. I guess we could have just gone up but that spoils the fun!
I'm looking forward to tomorrow. We will visit two new dive sites: Southwest Pinnacle and Shark Island. We are hoping for either a sea turtle or a whale shark or both so keep your fingers crossed. Tomorrow night we have our night dive which should also be quite an experience. It's time to head to the Mexican restaurant because its buffet night on Ko Tao...WOOOO HOOO! I'll talk to you all later. Rob

Koh Tao life

2008-06-09T00:56:00.000-07:00

Hello from Koh Tao, Thailand!
Its been a few days since I checked in and I hope the photos that Rob has posted give you a little taste of the beautiful place that we have been enjoying for the past few days. It has been great to be able to settle down in one place for a few days and just take the time to enjoy it and try to take it all in. As Rob mentioned, he has been working through the diving certification course and I have been bumming around the island and getting some good R&R. I did go on a day long snorkling trip yesterday which we circumnavigated our way around the entire island and stopped at about 5 or 6 places. I saw about 6 reef sharks and many many more types of tropical fish of all kinds. We stopped at this small island that was definately one of the most beautiful places that I have ever had the pleasure of going to.
Last night we went to a restaurant/pub that had some amazing fire entertainment and the fire dudes were throwing the fire kabobs or whatever you want the call them across the people in the outdoor lounge area. One of the flying blobs of kerosene came about 12" away from my head and when one of the guys was walking by swinging the ball of magma around a small piece of debris went into my eya and I spent part of the night last night extracting the painful particle.
I may move on to Koh Pi Pi tomorrow or the next day depending on the weather and meet up with Rob before we head back home. All is well and we are having a great and relaxing time over here. They even have a cool sports bar where I can watch the NBA finals at tonight - I'm pulling for the Celtics! Take care everyone and thanks for the blog comments. I 'll try to post some photos so Rob doesn't have to show you all of the fun stuff. Bye for now. Eric

2008-06-09T00:17:00.000-07:00

THATS ME!!!!

It's Official!!!

I just graduated from my diving class and now have an Open Water Diver Certification. In fact, I like it so much I signed up for the Advanced Open Water Class. It is a two day coarse that starts tomorrow. One of the dives is a photographic dive so hopefully I'll be able to provide some pics!....I do have one pic tho. One of the girls on our boat had a waterproof digital so in the down town we were jumping off the top of our dive boat! It was amazing. Anyway, have to go, talking to my mom online! Later.

Shots from Ko Tao

2008-06-08T04:02:00.002-07:00

I just wanted to post some pics of Ko Tao. Sorry i don't have more but pretty much all i took was sunset pics from last night!

Sorry!!!

2008-06-08T03:55:00.000-07:00

Our resort on Ko Somui...you beach is just past the trees.

Me and Martin (from America)...and Libby (from Calgary, CA)....and yeah...i think I'm probably as tired as I look

Sunset from last night....just to give you an idea of Ko Tao.

Same sunset

Advanced Open Water?

2008-06-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

This morning was my first two dives. Its really remarkable....everything moves! You'd look at a rock and the rock would turn and look at you. You'd try to touch a plant and it would pull back into some coral. It amazing. It's so amazing that I'm very tempted to sign up for the Advanced Open Water Training course. It would be an additional five dives including a night dive. This is the least expensive place in the world to obtain these certifications so in addition to it being great it's also the most economical. On the dive this morning we went to 12 meters (36 feet) and tomorrows dives will take us to 18 meters (18x3 feet...?)(too lazy). The advanced course takes you to a depth of 30 meters (90 feet) and gives you the certification to dive alone with your own equipment. I'm just on lunch and need to return to "class" but wanted to say hi. I should have some pictures up tonight to give you an idea of where we are at the very least.

Take care,
Rob

P.S. Just to tell you the kind of lifestyle we're leading here....someone today asked what day of the week is it. About 10 of us worked together for about 5 mins and came up with the answer but it was a much heated debate. It's been pretty laid back!....Rob

So I've Decided Snokelling SUCKS

2008-06-07T03:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took the 2 hour high speed boat from Ko Somui. We arrived at Ko Toa about 4 oclock. We found a driver from the dive school I was interested in and he brought us straight to the hotel. Within 10 minutes of that ride I was sitting down in my orientation for my diving certification. Eric chose not to do the diving coarse. It is a 3 1/2 day coarse. The first day is orientation. We just finished the second day which was skills and drills in the hotel pool. It's frickin amazing and we were in a pool! Just the feeling of breathing underwater completely still and calm is the weirdest thing. We had class from 8 am to 430 today. Tomorrow the real fun begins. We meet at 730 am and head out to open water. We will do two dives tomorrow and two dives the next day. At the completion of the coarse i will have my Open Water Diver Certification. I'm not really sure what thats gonna give me but it'll sure look cool in my wallet. Anyway, i have to catch a quick shower before dinner we friends from the class. Sorry for the lack of pictures but I don't have my camera with me while in class so I really don't have many pics of Ko Tao yet (but trust me its amazing!)

Later for now,
Rob

2008-06-05T04:25:00.000-07:00

Last Nights Sunset from our Hotel. (Not too bad)

Days on the Beach!

2008-06-04T01:33:00.000-07:00

I can't put too big of a post down because I'm talking to Cindi online right now. Eric and I are still doing great. We're spending lazy days on the beach working on our tans. I'm planning on the three day diving course here in the next couple days. We're going to a Thai Boxing show tonight then probably going to Ko Tao tomorrow where the diving is. Anyway, have to get back to my conversaition.
Later,
Rob

New pics....

2008-06-01T23:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsamsel/sets/72157605196879509/

On the move again!

2008-06-01T23:39:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to tell everyone that were in Bangkok again. We're on the way to southern Thailand to the beaches on the night train tonight. Im uploading more pics to Flickr right now. Some are from various times throughout the trip and others are recent. The link is posted in the post above this one.

Later,
Rob

Jungle trek hang over!

2008-05-31T02:35:00.000-07:00

Not quite sure I can remember when I have been this worn out from so much fun. We just finished our two night/three day elephant, hiking, kyaking tour out in the middle of BFE Lao. What a crazy experience that was - we are glad to be alive! Its really not as bad as it sounds, but trekking up into the freakin mountains in 90-92 degree heat with 100% humidity is truly not for the faint of heart. Rob has posted some great pictures that will give you the flavor for what we did out there, and I have been cranking away with my dorky camcorder looking like a total dweeb tourist. I think that we are both seriously sleep deprived and have the serious need for some grub and sleep. It was pretty hard to sleep last night after getting attacked by a spider the diameter of a flippin softball. I won the battle fortunately - although I have to admit that as I gazed down upon the crippled spider corpse, I did feel a slight sense of guilt............that soon left with a feeling of relief that that would be one less critter to ward off during the night. I watched a couple of village dudes butcher the duck that we eventually ate for supper. It was a weird and brutal process - on that I will spare the details. Lets just say that most of the ducks blood was extracted before the poor thing died. The village experience was a definate eye opener for me and I think for Rob as well. The folks up in those mountains live so very simply and they really work hard in extreme conditions. The past couple of days have been the most thought provoking for me to say the very least. We enjoy so much in our country and going to a place like we have been makes me grateful for the what I enjoy at home. There is too much to write and I am way too tired to even make a dent so I will end right now and pick up later. Hope all is well at home. Take care everyone.
Eric

2008-05-31T02:11:00.000-07:00

Ready for a bath.

Our village for 24 hours.

A village family

Some of the little punks!

2008-05-31T02:02:00.000-07:00

Eric and I on the elephant...day one.

One of the many creatures along the paths. This little guy is a little bigger than my hand extended all the way out.

My elephant laying down so i can get off.

A monk at a small temple in a village of 75 people which we hiked to on the afternoon of day one.

Eric hitting on an elephant.

We Survived! BARELY!

2008-05-31T01:35:00.000-07:00

We have returned from our little mini expedition into the mountains outside Luang Prabang. After a short minibus ride we arrived at the Elephant Camp in the mountains. We put our packs down and were immeditately wisked across the river in the scariest motorboat ever and were right among 7 female elephants. Less than 10 minutes later off we went on their backs. It really is kindof a scary surreal feeling. Almost like a Disney ride with no rule or safety standards! We had two rides the first day; one with both Eric and I on one elephant and the guide on its neck. And one solo ride that afternoon with us on the necks and the guides back on the back. I have to say the real highlight came the morning of the second day tho when we were assigned to bathe the elephants in the river. I think somehow i ended up on the safest elephant in the group as I was allowed to ride with no guide. Just me and the elephant. In a way it's a bit like riding a trail horse where they will go the right way whether I do anything or not(or so I thought). I have to say they have a mind of their own as well. My elephant like to randomly stop and make me nervous while it decided what its next move was going to be. It wasn't the most settling feeling I've ever had for sure. We walked down into the river and were given scrub brushes like the king you clean your carpet with. Thats when the fun began. The guides told the elephants to lay down and we basically were climbing all over their backs rubbing them down. Mine had a nasty habit of spraying me with her trunk like she was helping me rinse....grrr..(women). After that we took a boatride up the river to another village about 12 kilometers away. There we began hiking a trail back. Everything was going well until IT came. IT was high as Everest, steep as a sheer cliff, and hot as the center of the sun. About 3/4 of the way up IT we were both wondering what the h#^%$^ we decided to do this for. Thats when the guide told us the school children make this hike to school everyday Monday-Friday(i wouldn't go!) . Anyway, we survived and arrived at a authentic Laos village to stay the night. I really was great. There were prob. 100 or so children all with too much energy and too few forms of entertainment. We had a very nice night with them and a very nice dinner followed by a night in our spider cages also know as our accomodations. Right as I was about to fall asleep, Eric has a battle royal with what he swears was the fastest spider he's ever seen. I just convinced myself there weren't any on my side of the room. The morning of the third day we hiked back to the original village and kayaked back to town. Even tho that seemed like fun the river was virtually a lake and it took way too much energy to find civiliztion. Oh well.

Anyway, we're not really sure of our plans for the next few days. When we figure it out I'll make sure I'll post some updates. Also, I'm burning a CD to free up a memory card now and when thats done I'll try to post some pics. Hope all is good there. Will talk to you all soon!

Rob

2008-05-28T03:07:00.000-07:00

The shuttle bus ride down to the river to meet the slow boat....a little cramped to say the least.

Cool pic of a boat similar to our slow boat except ours were open sides.

Our boat and some of Laos

There were some close action along the trip. A few rapids and lots of narrow sections but I don't think anyone was too worried. It was alot like jungle cruise at Disney with alot bigger boat...and no rails to guide the boat!

Our little group that formed during the ride. Front: Eric, Alex f/ Russia, Me

Back: were couldnt say her name so we called her M from Holland, Rory f/ Lethbridge, CA, Amanda f/Vancouver CA, and Amos f/ Australia.

Elephants here we come!

2008-05-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

Well as planned....today is a chill day. Eric chose to take a tuk tuk up to a waterfall about 3o kilometer from here to swim. I chose to take a day off and shop some and just relax....as well as update the blog. I had hoped to post some more pics of the boat ride but the memory card with those pics on it was left in the room (if i get motivated and run there and repost later this afternoon). Anyway, we will be completely offline for the next couple days. We booked a 2 night/3 day elephant tour/trek. Day one we head into the mountains to the elephant camp. We learn about the elephants, care for them, feed them, walk them, etc. After lunch we load up and take a tour on the backs of the elephants....not bad eh? Day 2 is a riverboat ride upriver then i hike back to a mountain village. We will spend the night in this mountain village. Day 3 is a kayak trip down the Kan River back into the city of Luang Prabang. We're both really excited for this part of the trip. We initially only planned on a two day tour but with the deletion of Angor Wat and all of Cambodia for that matter we have some extra time. As i stated in the previous post, the boat trip was awesome so if this even compares then we're in for a treat. The city of Luang Prabang is a really cool little place. Has a local population of about 20,000 and some tourists but not thousands like some of the other places we've been. We checked into our nicest hotel yet with air conditioning and a T.V. Eric even managed to watch the basketball playoff game so that was a treat for him.(I was shopping(again)). Things are working out pretty darn well. We left alot of souveniers with the brother of a person Eric works with in Bangkok. That has provided some extra space for more impulse buys as well as some relief from the ultraheavy packs. We will make our way to Bangkok by plane here in the next week or so. Then get some beach time down in southern Thailand before we head home. Cindi has decided to fly out when I'm scheduled to leave so we can get married in Bali. Well thats about it. Nothing else is new! Hope everything is well over there (everything other than the gas prices that is!) BTW...I'm kidding about the marriage. She has a concert in Vegas that she says she CAN'T MISS....so i guess we'll have to come up with another plan. Bye for now!

Rob

2008-05-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

A local boy on the slow boat. He absolutely love my ipod and pretty much could run it on his own by the end of the boat ride. He fell asleep for a couple hours and came to me right away to listen to more music. He was probably the coolest kid ever. I don't think he understood a word of english but we did some lessons like Seattle and ipod so he'll be fluent in no time. He stared at the picture of seattle for a long time. It was fun showing him the ferrys in the picture and having him understand that was a boat like we were on. We also had him playing UNO like a pro. He had the colors down pat and even tho I'm pretty sure he couldn't read numbers he could compare shapes and that worked perfectly fine. COOL KID!

We had to pull the boat up to this river side cliff temple. It was set in a cave on the rivers edge. Pretty dang neat.

Laotian girls in Luang Prabang.

Street vender in Luang Prabang.

Much older street vender in Luang Prabang.

Slow...and AMAZING!

2008-05-27T06:59:00.001-07:00

I dont have alot of time for a full update but we made it to Luang Prabang, Laos. We got off the slow boat about 6 pm this evening. Lots of card games....lots of amazing people...and the most laughs I've had since we started this trip. That and beautiful scenery to boot! It was one of the best two days you could ask for. Even the heat was moderated by the breeze of the moving boat! YEAH! We saw a wild elephant on the ride and cameras were clicking faster than you can believe but otherwise the jungle itself was absolutely stunning to see. I'm looking forward to our elephant tour in the next day or two. I think we planned a bum day for tomorrow so I should be able to provide a full update then. Bye for now!

Quick Hello

2008-05-25T04:57:00.000-07:00

Quick hello to tell everyone we made it to the bordertown of chang khong thailand. we board the slow boat into Laos tomorrow morning so that should be interesting. oh btw....i forgot to update everyone that i did see some snakes the other day. it was in a bangkok version of a pet store but snakes non the less! hopefully ill have more time for a good update soon.
Rob

New pics posted!

2008-05-24T04:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsamsel/sets/72157605196879509/

On the way to Laos - via slowboat

2008-05-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

Hey this is Eric,
As Rob mentioned, we have made our way up into northern Thailand and are staying the night in Changmai for one night only. We do have quite a bit of ground to cover and while I'm sure that Changmai has more cool stuff to check out, we are both ready to move onto more of the country and less of the city.
The train ride from Bangkok to Changmai was as Rob mentioned pretty bumpy and noisy, but really not that bad. The toilet was pretty dang sketchy even for me and that stuff typically does not even phase me. The pipe from the toilet dumps directly onto the train tracks which is pretty strange. You wouldn't catch me walking along those tracks - especially after I do my thing! Its amazing how some folks up here look at you when you try to ask a question or start up a very simple conversation. I feel like some people look at us like we are wearing big Gumby suits or something or that we are aliens from another planet. Its pretty cool actually to be the minority and try to communicate your questions etc. Trips like this always instill a level of gratitude for the comforts and familiarity of home.
We are trying to decide what we want to see with the remainder of our time and it is tough. Travelling is pretty challenging sometimes if you are moving around alot like we have been. Its a constant effort to locate proper transportaion, housing and food while making sure that you are not being taken to the cleaners or getting sucked into some kind of scam. I am slowly getting used to packing and repacking the bag and organizing my stuff trying not to lose anything along the way.
We are going to try to catch a Thai boxing match tonight and maybe take in a little more of this place before we move over into Laos. We will hopefully be able to post some more of our itinerary in the next couple of days as things develop a little further. Keep those postings coming!

On the road AGAIN!

2008-05-24T00:09:00.001-07:00

We made it to Chang Mai after our 14 hour train ride! The ride wasn't too bad...a little noisy and bumpy but nothing a sleeping pill couldnt deal with. We are seriously feeling the push of time on us. We know we have bit off more than we can chew with our schedule. We were ambitious with the timeframe but at this point were not sure how its all going to work!....Talking about cutting something from our travels but we have yet to determine what that might be. We're starting a 2 day "slow boat" tour tomorrow. Its supposed to be amazing. We start on a bus to the border tomorrow then will be on the boat for 6-7 hours for two days in a row. The boat will end up in Luang Prabang, Cambodia(sort of in the middle of the country). There we will get some time to rest and relax. We think!....We know we are taking a two day elephant tour there but thats about all we know. Here is a link to the elephant tour: http://www.laos-adventures.com/travels/travel.asp?t=C0A103C1-112A-490A-9ACA-B346AD8F1AA2

Looks like it should be great. Taking a scooter ride up to a temple and a waterfall now so ill catch you all later.
Bye
Rob

THIS LINK TO SEE MORE PICS!!

2008-05-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rsamsel/sets/72157605196879509/

Steamin' Bangkok

2008-05-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

Hey this is Eric,
Rob set this blog up so when I post something it looks like he is doing all of the writing! I hope that those of you who are checking in on our this trip are enjoying it and we will keep posting stuff as we move along. So I thought that I was prepared for the fact that Bangkok was going to be a veritable sauna, but this place is crazy hot! Walking around the city today, I thought that I was going to literally melt into the Grand Plaza courtyard. I have to drink a ton of water or else I get raging headaches that can only be eased by popping a couple of Excedrin. After we came back from the Grand Palace - I had "one of Those" headaches and had no excedrin and we were in the middle of one of those crazy Bangkok markets with every possible smell, sound, interesting foods and I was totally dehydrated. Surprisingly enough, after I downed a great fruit juice sith about 15 different ingredients, all of which I could not completely identify - and not really caring, my cranial icepick to the temple was gone. Gotta remember to stay hydrated over here or you are miserable! Once again, I find myself trying to put into words what we have been seeing over here and once again coming up short. I'm learning to survive on little sleep and sticky skin that often accumulates layer upon layer of sweat mixed with carbon monoxide. Its been interesting buying things on the barter system as well. At first I got taken several times in a row, but now I am slowly getting the hang of it with Rob's help. I am glad that the US is not on the barter system, I have a hard time with it over here sometimes because I know that the people in the shops selling stuff are working hard to earn a living. The people that I have seen in the shops and that drive us around and oh yea, massage us are very industrious and are always looking for ways to make a buck or two to take home. We have met so many interesting characters and had so many funny conversations - there is no way that I will be able to remember them all. I have been using my Camcorder quite a bit to capture as much as possible.
Well, once again I hope ya'll are doing great back in the states and I hope to see your comments. Rob uploaded some photos to the Blog so you can see some of the fun stuff that we have photographed so far. We will be taking off for Chang Mai tomorrow night on the night sleeper train which should be fun. I am looking forward to Northern Thailand and Laos too!

One night in Bangkok...Second Actually!

2008-05-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

Well after our flight trouble getting out of Kuta everything turned out ok. We were backed up to a flight at 2 pm on Wed. and made the connection in Kuala Lumpur without too many issues. Made it to Bangkok at about 10 oclock on Wed night. We had the funniest cabbie is the world bring us to downtown Bangkok. We had to video him it was so entertaining. I sincerely believe he was an extreme crack addict but hugely entertaining so oh well. His best advice was to check the ID of your massager because you can get life in prison if shes under 13...who knew!? Anyway....checked into a very basic room at the end of Kho San Road....an undescribeable backpacker meeting spot in t he center of Bangkok. What a far cry from Bali! We walked into "the mess" (a walking street at the center of it all) at like 10 30 pm to check it out. I ate Pat Thai(thats how its spelled here...who know again!), some spring rolls and a roasted corn cob. My advice is this.....if its your first night in Bangkok...don't jump into the food so hastily. My first stomach pill was soon to follow. It went away sometime this morning but having queezy feelings in Bangkok is not good with all the interesting smells! Did the major sites today....Grand Palace...lots of Budda's...lots more Budda's...the river taxi (amazing) and then went to a local market for dinner(risky but turned out ok!) We also went to train station to buy train tickets for tomorrow. We are taking the night train to Chaing Mai in northern Thailand. We booked a second class sleeper car which means we will have beds and airconditioning. The train leaves at 739 tomorrow night and arrives in Chaing Mai at 930 the next morning (quite a ride). Should be amazing tho. We didnt stay in Bangkok as long as we thought because we think we will enjoy our time off the beaten path alot more. The original plan was to spend more time in Bangkok because it would take time to get our Laosian and Cambodian visas squared away but it seems we can do visa on arrival like we have in all the other countries. The night was capped off the way all nights should end....a thai massage.(dont worry not that kind of massage!) Near as i can tell the same massage would be legal in the states but let me tell you they are amazing! Probably was the best 7 dollars I've ever spent (until i buy Cindi an engagement ring that is!) Anyway, I only have a few mins left on my timer. I am going to try to post many pictures here in a few mins on my Flicker account because its easier to upload a large quantity. If i succeed I will post a link to where i put the pics. This may be the best internet connection of the trip so ill try to post quite a few...ok cindis online ...gotta go....see you from Chaing Mai!

Bangkok? Not quite!

2008-05-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

So, we had our first real travel snag this morning..............our flight this morning that was scheduled to depart Bali @ 7:50 am to Bangkok through Kuala Lumpur was delayed by 6.5 hours. Kind of a bummer, but it is actually nice to have a few spare minutes to catch up with the most recent events. It was tough this morning because both of us had made a point to spend the last of our money (Rupiah) so when we got to the airport this morning and found out that we had about 6 hours to kill, we both realized that we didn't even have enough cab fare to get back into Kuta. You get charged an arm and a leg to withdraw cash out of the country so its kind of a rip-off, but neither of us wanted to spend 6 extra hours in a sweaty airport when we could go out on the streets and at least shop and see more cool stuff while we sweat! Rob was nice enough to get some cash and we headed back intop Kuta to blow some more Rupiah.
The internet cafes over here usually have AC which is a very welcome feature anywhere you go over here. Travelling by backpack is pretty tiresome so every minute that I can get not packing and unpacking my gear is very valuable. I'd like to think that things will get more relaxed as we go, but we will need to keep up a pretty crazy pace to hit all of our destinations. I am very excited o get into Thailand to see what it is like. Bye for now!

2008-05-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

Playing with the settings on my camera at a temple in central Bali!

Women placing offerings at the water temple.

A resort on the drive to Amed...We stopped for lunch here but did stay.....

2008-05-20T05:51:00.000-07:00

A gecko on the wall of the villa we tried to stay in in Ubud. You just have to get used to them!

Rice paddys and a volcano on the way to Amed

The sign at our Bungelow desk....read the bottom line..."Anything can be arranged" . The most accomodating people live here!

2008-05-20T05:43:00.000-07:00

Looks like Eric gave you the jist of our time in Bali....NEED MORE OF IT!! Its amazing here! i wish more importantly we had more time up north...out of the hustle and bustle of the city! The site of the 2002 bombing in Kuta is about two blocks from where I am and its reminders like that really make you appreciate the countryside. I am going to post one picture that really is a summary of our time here on Bali. It is the very bottom of the picture of the sign.....that pretty much says it all. This is the most accomodating/nicest place I've ever been and the world needs more places like this. I have to be up at 5:30 am for a morning flight so I better run. Keep the comments coming I love to know what you like and don't like so i know what to post. .......Oh wait one funny story. We are eating at a warung here in Kuta. The prices are about $2 for the better meals....being so cheap Eric and I both ordered two meals because we were surfing all morning and wore out! Some young Japanese girls at the table next to us saw our food and giggled like school girls until I finally asked them how to say fat American in Japanese. The laughed hard but Eric and I didnt quite see the humor. Anyway....all for now.

Bye Bye Bali.........sniff

2008-05-20T05:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight is our last night in Bali - dang it! This past week has been a blur crammed in with hours and hours of dodging scooters and beemos (little passenger vans). We saw a beemo today packed with literally 28-30 people, mostly kids, but still quite a feat for a van that is at least 3/4 the size of an average passenger van in the states.
So, we are off to Bangkok tomorrow at 7am. Bali has been absolutely amazing and really indescribable. I have been taking as much video as possible to remember some of the really super cool stuff. I was able to go surfing today on a long board which basically kicked my butt so I opted to boogie board for a while instead - I am definately a landlover! I'm not a big fan of being tossed in the surf like a piece of balanise driftwood. Oh - I also slipped on the stairs getting into our hotel pool today and landed on the steps. Talk about embarrasing and painful! I'm ok I think - I'll see how I feel in the morning.
Anyway, too tired to keep typing - gotta get back to the hotel and hit the rack.......tomorrow is gonna come awful early! Hope all is well at home. We are doing fine and ready for the next adventure in Bangkok!

It does rain here!

2008-05-19T02:47:00.001-07:00

Last night we went to dinner and then to our favorite club just to see if anyone was there. When we got there the locals were sleeping on a bench out front. They woke up for us and brought us in. Just then the power for the entire village went out and it was PITCH DARK. Oh well...they busted out some candles and one of the guys....Bola(the coolest guy in the world)...knew most of the cover songs from the night before so we got them all acoustically by candle light! It was great! It then started to pour down rain...we tried to wait it out but it looked like it might be an all night deal so off we went. It was prob a 5 km ride to the room but trust me...when it rains...it rains. We were soaked and a little cold which was a nice change but we made it home fine just as the rain was stopping.
Long scooter ride to Kuta today. Been making much better time on the scooters and it took about four hours to get from Amed to Kuta, about 100 k/m. We are still a little slower than the locals but dont tell the police that! We have a fine for a new crime....driving while white. We had a police van pull up beside us and make us pull over. He said we drive fast and hes going to write a ticket and we have to go to court....buuuuuut.....if we give him $20 each we could avoid that! Well we managed to talk him down to $20 total and got back on the road. Who knew that even the police would dicker!....Anyway....lessons learned....don't look like a non local when driving the scooter! Checked into a hotel with air conditioning(our first yet) and a pool. Taking some beach time tonight and prob trying to surf tomorrow before we head to Bangkok on Wed.

Its all been very rushed but its going good so far....next time i will spend the entire month in Amed!

2008-05-19T02:47:00.000-07:00

2008-05-19T02:41:00.000-07:00

Not sure what day 2008!

2008-05-18T00:56:00.001-07:00

You know that you are on vacation and you don't even know what day it is and even more you don't even care! I thought that I should add a few words of my own just to recap what has been going on thus far. The trip over was really not that bad and we made it with no flight or luggage problems. China airlines is not the most luxurious, but it gets you where you need to be - air asia is actually quite nice for a discount carrier.
We spent the first night in a town named Legion and I had the great honor of being propositioned by a prostitute in the little lane/alley where we rented our scooters. That was a first for me!
The first day out of Legion/Kuta, we were making our way north to Ubud and I was frantically trying to keep up with Rob who was practically born on a moterbike and can tell yo how many cc's any type of machine has and I tried to pull out onto the roadway and a truck was coming. To make a long story short, I laid the scooter down on the blacktop and got a good sized raspberry about the size of the palm of my hand on my right calf. About 10 very nice Balanise folks immediately came to my rescue including the horrified truck driver who just about ran over me. I was so embarrased that I had the scooter back up and was readjusting my backpack in about 2.5 seconds. I think that the people were pretty amazed that I was able to get back up so fast and keep cruising. I have almost gone through my tube of neosporin trying to take care of it so no worries mom. Snorkling in the Bali Sea today helped it I think.
Ubud was amazing but I was pretty frustrated because we could not stay longer. You would not believe how much there is to see in one place. There was a cool festival taking place and it was a bummer that we had to leave so that we can get to more places on this amazing island. Coming from a design background, this is pure heaven! Balinese art and architecture is mind blowing. Its somewhat like Italy in that the art and the sculpture and design is a huge part of the culture.
I have to remember that we only have about a month to see so much and that most of the time I will not be ready to move on but will simply have to in order to cover the stuff that we want to cover.
Overall, I have been so incredibly pleased with this place. It is one of those places that you have to experience personally in order to understand how amazing that it is. There are so many dogs and roosters here - its challenging to dodge those buggers. Its challenging to dodge most things as you are cruising down the road following Mario Andretti, but I am doing quite well considering we are driving on the left side of the road and most people don't seem to follow the basic rules of vehicular passing.
We made it from Ubud up to Amed in about 3 hours on the scooters and have been able to enjoy some lounging and a couple of massages. Today after snorkling, I got a massage right on the beach from not only one woman but two! It was a mother/daughter combo - I think that the mom was teaching her girl the craft. They did an amazing job and I was JELLO by the time I was done. Well, thats it for now - I will check in later. All is well and we are having a great time in paradise.

I Think We Found Heaven! Amed, Bali Northeast Corner of Island

2008-05-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

We got to our hotel last night after a long motorbike ride through the country side. Very nice villa right on the beach for $10 per night and that includes a pool and two breakfasts are included. You do have to put up with the lizards but i have yet to see a place that didnt have lizards! After check in the bungelow workers offered a massage and after a long scooter ride we couldnt pass it up. Was $5 for a one hour massage. We then went to a club with live music. WE ARE WAY OUT IN THE STICKS! Let me tell you....it was awesome! The band played cover songs of the American classics...Eagles...Leonard Skinner...ETC. The problem is he doesnt know English very good so he would just make the sounds like they sound in the song. Hillarious! he was perfectly on beat and sounded remarkably good but dont try to understand what hes saying. We also met a man yesterday that would take us snorkling out of his "junk"(boat) the whole day. He would take us to all the good spots etc. for $10 for the entire day so we did it. It was absolutely the highlight thus far. I expected some fish and some color and I literally felt like I was inside a salt water fish tank the entire time everywhere I looked. We saw hundreds of different fish including a Morey Eel and some 100-150 pound parrot fish. INSANE!!! All this within 500 meters of the shore...who knew. I had him take me to the shore to buy a underwater camera to take some pictures of it because i just couldnt get over it. Eric got another massage from two ladies on the beach. Both of them massaging at the same time for $6 for the hour...sorry i cant get over the costs here! Dont have alot of plan for the rest of today. Its midday now and VERY HOT today. Plus i got a little burnt in the water so i think its time to take it easy. Tomorrow we may go snorkle at the Liberty which is a US Warship that sunk near here. Might have to give up trying surfing because of the amazing snorkling! keep the comments coming...later..Rob

Back on the Road

2008-05-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we hired a driver for 300,000 rupiah...about $30.....he drove us about 2 hours north to a main attraction on the island...a very large volcano. Puta was the safest driver ive ever seen in these conditions and got us there and home safe and sound. He did have to bribe a police officer for having two white guys in a non licensed taxi but whatever! We took his toyata van....he paid for all the gas and parking fee at the various attractions and got us home all for $15 each. Had dinner with a married couple from boston who have been travelling on credit for 8 months. Today on the road to Amed and some beach/snorelling time. Did mess up yesterday and bought stupid heavy stuff so now im totally weighted down for the 2 hour mad scooter ride! oh well. anyway....back to the lizard and spiders and such...sorry for the lack of pics....dialup connections at best.

We've Set a anew Record!

2008-05-15T02:22:00.000-07:00

Up to this point I've told people the most dangerous thing I do is downhill mountain biking. I'd like to strongly amend that fact. The most dangerous thing I've done is ride a scooter in Bali. BY FAR. I can say i wasnt the first time to go down tho!....Eric took a small spill and has some road road to show for it. We'll get some video of the mass chaos also known as getting around. The internet connections are making it tough to upload but I'm going to try. We havent got many pics of the scooters yet because it takes all our focus just to drive! But we went to a tourist area known as the Monkey Forest. They tell you not to feed the monkeys but then they sell you banannas ten feet away. Thats prob the 2nd most dangerous thing I've ever done. As soon as the monkeys figured out where you were storing the banannas it was all over. You would have three to four monkeys working together to get your bag open...not fun! Im trying several pics. Tomorrow we hired a car to take us to a volcano up north. The pic of Eric is a restaurant his friend told us we had to try. Amazing food! Oh by the way mom....I'm being safe and going very slow on the scooter! Talk to you later!

2008-05-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

WELCOME TO THE SURFACE OF THE SUN!!

(otherwise known as Bali)

We're here safe and as of now have not been killed by a scooter. There are millions of them coming from every direction and just walking seems a bit on the risky side. Checked in to a small room with two beds in Legion, Bali. We're about 100 yards from the beach. Getting scooters tomorrw to check out the area. We have only been here about two hours anyway punctuation on computer not working so ill update later

by the way lots of lizards and craps but no snakes yet

And we're off!

2008-05-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

Short post to tell everyone that we made it to the other side of the world! First leg of three complete as we are now in Taipei, Taiwan.

Gotta catch a flight!
Later!
Rob

We may never come home!

2008-05-07T22:23:00.002-07:00

This will be the last update before we leave. I say we may never come home because when we got to looking at the end of our planned schedule we decided we were cutting everything very close timewise so we backed up our return date. We now plan on coming home on June 16th. I'm sure I'll be ready for a hambuger and some partly cloudy Seattle weather when I get home. I really home to see alot of comments from the posts as our trip goes along.... The next update will come from the other side of the world! (literally)

2008-04-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

As many of you know I am currently planning a month long trip to Southeast Asia. I will be travelling with a friend I've known for several years, Eric Hull. Eric is a Landscape designer here in Seattle and needed a diversion from the grind of everyday life and we decided a combined diversion would be best. This blog will be updated by both of us during our trip. We are taking about a month and have 4 or 5 countries on the agenda. From what we've seen we're cutting our time pretty darn short but we'll hopefully get to see all we desire in this time.

It was a very difficult decision for me to partake on this trip. I finally came to the conclusion, "If not now then when?'", thus the planning has begun.

Our initial itinerary is fairly loose. We both want to have freedom in our travels but not at the expense of misery so there definitely is some preplanning taking place. At this point our plan in this:

May 14 - Fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; continue to the small island of Bali; stay in Bali one week (scuba diving, snorkling, rafting tour, scooter tours of the island, BEACHTIME!!)

May 21 - Back to Kuala Lumpur; continue to Bankok; 3 day or so in Bangkok exploring

May 24ish - Travel to northern Thailand; Chang Mai, Chang Rai (exploring, river tour)

May 26ish - Travel into Laos probably by river boat (elephant tour, hopefully find locals to learn from)

June 1ish - Travel into Cambodia (Angor Wat; huge temple)

June 5ish - Travel to southern Thailand for more beach time before we leave

June 9th - Fly home

This itinerary is obviously very flexible. We basically are going with a list of activities we would like to partake in. Most of mine involve motorized vehicles and the dangers of dieing in a motorcycle accident. Most of Eric's consist of getting of the beaten path and dieing by snakebite. Eric has promised, even tho we are travelling to areas with huge snakes populations, that I will not see any snakes. Snakes are my #1 biggest fear and I'm finally convinced there is NO CHANCE I will see any on this trip.

The intention of this blog is to keep friends and relatives updated and in touch. My mother worries when I travel to the corner store let alone to the other side of the world. I will most likely post once or twice more before the trip and then will try to update everyday couple days while travelling.

Hopefully I can keep you all entertained!

Rob