7.01.2010

Cambodia and Vietnam prep time


Usually our trips are relatively last-minute, where we buy out plane tickets a couple of weeks before we leave, and we start packing the night before we leave.
This time around it's different, and strange. And i can't decide whether it's good or bad. Well, there are definite perks: we have enough time to figure out our visas, and time to buy specific things (like mosquito nets). And we can browse our travel guide before, well, before the plane ride there. The biggest upside so far is that we were able to coordinate with Sean's best friend, so the three of us our going together :)

But living through two months while having a potentially amazing trip in the near future... well it's just a really big tease. Most of my working day is spent daydreaming about what it might be like to be traveling right now. I'm not too keen on doing too much travel-guide reading, or too much thinking about the trip at all, because it's way too easy to ruining the whole thing with too-high expectations.

Well, it'll be a few weeks before I can legitimately start looking forward to leaving. So until then, I'll daydream of the pictures I've seen, and hope with all my heart that it doesn't rain the whole time.

1.20.2010

how is it still the 19th?!?!

thirty some hours later, and i'm still living in the 19th of january...

well, i made it to victoria safely. and i only have one, well two, things to say. first off: there are so many white people in this country. it's way more distracting than i ever thought it would be.
AND really long flights eastbound across the date line SERIOUSLY SUCK. i don't even know what time my body thinks it is... all iknow is that it's tired, very very tired.

i found out recently that my dad is taking the next few days off so we can hang out!!!!! :D

1.19.2010

to canada!


heh, i think it's funny that i can write a travel blog for a trip to canada... ha!

well, in a couple of hours i'll be going to sean's school to pick him up along with my contract, and we'll head to the bus station. that's when we'll part ways, and say goodbye for a month or so. skype relationship times begin once again!
three hours later i arrive at the airport and kick around until my flight leaves at 6. and then 19 hours later i arrive in victoria at 1pm the same day - five hours earlier! i gain a day! which sounds all fine and dandy until i realize that i lose a day on the way home. poops.

five days in victoria, and i get to ottawa and start the paperwork. i get in on sunday, and get the ball rolling the next day. i'm hoping to have my schedul filled with time with friends, and i'm hoping for beautiful weather.. everyone's going on about the unusually warm weather, maybe i'll last another month! uhhhh, it won't...

well, i'm gonna run around the house like a madman for a little while to make sure i'm not forgetting anything.

1.10.2010

leaving thailand

well, i've got to say that overall this has been a pretty damn awesome trip. my only complaint is that it's just too short.
chiang mai is a great city, what with the moat and the city walls, the sheer number of temples kicking around hidden down short alleyways or open on main streets. and the alleyways, oh the alleyways. one of my top favourite things about travelling is finding networks of meandering and beautifully decrepid alleyways.

and koh chang. i'm looking forward to returning to thailand just for the sake of seeing other islands, to see if they're all this amazing, or if perhaps sean and i hit jackpot. the luck we had getting there, and finding a guesthouse with a free room.. and an amazing guesthouse at that.
see, on the island there's only one road that does the circumference, and the entire middle of the island is protected jungle. the island itself is longer than it is wide, the ferries bringing you to the far north. along the long west side is where everything is, and along the east there's pretty much nothing except some waterfalls and a mangrove forest at the very far south. the nice thing about our location was that it's at the far south of the west side - and there's this one stubborn man who owns a chunk of land at the south tip, and he absolutely refuses to have it developped. so, as is, the road around the island ends at either end of his land, and nothing, not even paths, connect the two ends of the road. so our location was relatively secluded - end of the road kind of deal.
and of course there were the beaches, the cozy restaurants, the sandy tourist towns...

but one of the most stricking things about thailand is the way people embrace, and don't feel contempt for, the number of tourists who flow through the country. it's seems to be across the entire country, too, that once you've spoken a few sentences with anybody, they're you're friend and you can talk for hours. Annie, the wife of Danny who tattooed us, and their two young girls spent an entire afternoon with us just hanging out not doing much.
i think that it's almost always the people who make trips so fantastic, and in this case it's phenomenally fantastic. the instant friend is something i truly enjoyed about travelling around in east and southern africa, and it was awesome to have the same welcome in thailand. well, not as energetic and spontaneous... people didn't rush to us while we got off buses, wanting to show us around and take care of us.

anyways, i'm rambling yet again.. and i know how boring really long blogs are...
well, i think that's it for thailand, unless i think of something else to write...

oh yeah, we made it back to wonju safely. after a 6am wake up, and hour bus, six hours flying interrupted by a layover in hong kong, and another two hour bus... we're here! and today we reorganized to house in order to make room for all this stuff we got :)

miss all of you!

1.08.2010

Bangkok, less briefly

alright!
it's mid afternoon now, the sun is shinning brightly through the leaves of the trees, and sean and i have decided to have a sit down before we head out to explore again.

i mentioned before that this city isn't so bad after all... the more time i spend in it, the more i enjoy it. the winding and confusing sois (alleyways) are criss-crossed with tiny and huge canals; a massive meandering river cuts through the city, creating the only mode of transportation that doesn't involve traffic jam. large boats power up and down the river, picking people up at frequent wobbly and scary docks. a man on each boat courageously lunges off the boat at each stop to tie it down quickly while whistling orders to the driver. two short whistles - back up; funy whistle, pull in towards the dock; one quick whistle, okay let's go!
and once you're on the large boat packed with all sorts of people, the river that looked so chaotic from the shore suddenly opens up infront of you, much more expansive and open than it ever could appear from land. and there you have it, a cheap (13 baht; 40 cents to go anywhere) ride that locals and tourists alike use to get around.

and then the fancy stuff. well, this is the kind of stuff that's easier to describe with pictures. we'll post those on face-crack when we get back into Wonju, but but simply the expansive temple grounds are a massive slap in the face with sparkling gold, turquoise and red, tall and fat buildings that all somehow seem very light, a good number of tourists but not chockingly so, and a very good number of people who work constantly to keep the place looking meticulously cultivated and clean enough to lick any surface safely.

that's pretty much all we've done today so far. a relatively uninspiring trip to the grocery store is probably going to be sean's most memorable part of the day. we spent a while looking for all the right sauces and stuffs to be able to recreate thai food when we're back home. i was excited about the plum sauce, and sean went ape-shit for the sweet soy sauce, mushroom sauce, sweet chilli sauce, palm oil, tamirand juice... a box full of goopy delicious stuff, all for the price of 206baht - 8 bucks!!

oh, and yesterday we hit jackpot and found some sort of earring paradise. the prettiest jade, metal, sparkling.. tunnels and flares and plugs.. you name it they had it. i'm thinking of popping back in there today, for the sake of getting cheap earrings, especially considering the fact that a "discount" in canada means you'll pay 'only' 40 or 50 bucks for one single earring. bs. anyways, i'm getting ants in my pants and my belly is starting to grumble. time to see what other cool things we can NOT spend our money on in this city full of colourful and shinny things. we're gonna have to take pictures of all the cool things we've found here once our house is decorated with them. damn good thing we're moving into house bigger than a shoebox!

my love to all of you. hugs!

Back to Bangkok

I'll keep this short because we're running out the door to check out the boat-taxi...

but just for a quick update, we left Koh Chang yesterday... feeling quite sad that our time on this beautiful island was soon to be behind us... and arrived in Bangkok in the late afternoon.
after unloading our bags at a beautiful guesthouse that sean had booked for us a week ago (so glad he did!!) we spent the evening on the famous Khao San Road and found more neat things for us and the family. Donna, you're going to LOVE what we found for you!!!

next time i update, i'll tell you all about the sensory overload that is Khao San Road, from the multitudes of people to the colourful and noisy shops, from the delicious and cheap street-foods to the bright lights of dozens of tattoo shops on second storeys... a fantastically well designed tourist attraction and trap.

well, sean is done studying the map and finding neat things for us to see today: boat taxi to the Imperial palace, a chinatown and a market where we hope to find spices to add to our collection.

i hope everyone back home in canada and korea and uganda is doing well, i miss you all!! hugs and kisses :)

1.03.2010

still on the island

nothing too epic has happened since the last time i've posted.

we've made a habit of starting our day on a lazy beach. well, perhaps this beach itself is pretty epic - it's one of the rare places in this entire country that isn't covered, infested even, with tourists. every single hostel, guesthouse, treehouse, hotel, resort, and cottage on the island is fully booked, yet we managed to stumble upon this one deserted beach...
scooting around the island, i spotted a long winding staircase from the road which led to a nice looking beach... after sean pulled a u-turn we checked it out to find a misteriously empty, yet meticulously landscaped beach. surrounded by a 2-foot tall wall of stone and concrete, with bandas and an amazing deck with lounging chairs... the place looks like your standard picture from a spoilt-rich person's beach vacation. and is much more lonely than Lonely Beach just a few clicks north.

after chilling (of burning, more like) at this deserted spot, we decided to checkout a waterfall - eight dollars admission, no fun - and it turned out to be worth every penny. not the waterfall itself, really, but the fact that every fun person on the island seemed to be congregated at this one point. and that there was a very deep, very cold, rocky basin at the foot of the falls, where everyone jumped in and swam around. and the fact that there was a 500m walk through the jungle to get htere. granted, it was a proper path that had been trampeled by many tourists, but it was still very much worth it, as there are few other places to trek through jungles.

we also found an amazing restaurant, that is impossible to describe other than through pictures. oh, by the way, sean posted pictures of our trip so far (not this exact restaurant, though, we're working on that).
nadine and byron - and anyone else really- feel free to add sean (capstick) on facebook so that you can see the pictures :)... if you're not his 'friend' already, even though truly you are

we're running away to get some food in our bellies,
miss you all,

and thanks for the responses, it's great to hear from all of you!
i hope from the depths of my hearth that i get a chance to travel with all of you

1.01.2010

good news!

looks like i haven't updated since before we went to the farm.
well, the cooking classes were fantastic, fun, and absolutely scenic. they inspired sean and i to consider doing something similar in uganda. but, considering how bland the local foods are, we thought we could gather cooking knowledge from around the world, and do a sort of international cooking class. all veggies and herbs grown organic on the property.

neat thing, these guys used tobacco plants as pesticide... dried the leaves, soaked them for an hour, and sprayed the water on all the plants. the bugs don't like the bitter taste, and they leave the stuff alone. cool, huhn?

anyways, we got back into town at around 4:30 and checked into our hotel - lucy had two other guests coming and taking the spare room.
then: the night bazaar. we found shittons of ridiculously cool stuff. daytime markets and nighttime tourist market alike, this country has amazingly beautiful stuff kicking around. from furniture to spices, doodads to jewelery, stuffed animals to weapons... anything you could possibly need. so we found stuff to decorate our house with - really fucking neat stuff at that! and a few things for the fam. sean and i have been trying to find beads for aunti-jo for a LONG time, and didn't find anything interesting until now. and we didn't just find something, we found tons of beautiful beads. i know she's probably not reading this, but i'm really enjoying the keychain bead thing she gave me for christmas.

okay, i'm rambling,,,
long story short, sean and i are now on Koh Chang, a sprawling island in the Gulf of Thailand, after having spent twenty hours in some form of transport - bus to another bus, then shared taxi, ferry, then another shared taxi, and then 15 minutes of walking. well, we're on the island now, we scored the last room in one of the few places around that aren't entirely booked - it's high HIGH tourist season right now, and the place is scenic beyond description.
all i can say is wooden cottages and shared area, open to the sun and moon, on stilts on the shore.

we just got back from checking out the market, and walked quickly to get back here for sunset. we caught it, just in the nik of time.
and this is the time that sean chose, perfectly at that, to propose. sweetheart that he is :)
there couldn't have been a more ideal time. and that makes me the happiest.

january first, 2010, sean and i have simple stainless steel bands on our fingers, we've just watched the sun set over a beach, and we've got a few days of lounging around in this tropical paradise ahead of us. i don't think either of us could be happier