Irritated in Bangkok and back home!

Only way out of Rayleigh was to take a longboat to Krabi and a taxi to the Krabi airport.  Something I noticed in our travels - the people bent over backwards to get us to tour offices, cooking classes, events.  They sent taxi's, helped us load luggage, negotiated prices on our behalf.  BUT once at the end of the event, we were on our own to get back. The harshest was getting in and out of Rayleigh - we had to walk quite a distance, sometimes through the water with our bags to the longboats.  This may sound like the complaints of a pampered tourist but Michelle and I spent quite a bit support the Vietnam economy and our bags (yes pleural!) were HEAVY!!

But we managed our bags and flew to Bangkok.  Bangkok was our last port of call prior to heading home.  At this point I was some what ready to head home...ready to catch up with friends, do some proper laundry, get back into the kitchen and actually kinda excited to get back to work (don't judge me, my work is cool!  Cool-ish)

Our first night we headed to Khaosan road, about a good 40 mins from our hotel.  This would become a regular hike for us!  Coles notes of history tells me that Khaosan road translated to "milled rice" was a major street for the rice market in olden days.  But now it's famous for being a Backbackers ghetto, everything from cheap hotels to crafts to clothes to tailors (oh tailors!  Michelle and I may have once again succumbed to clothes shopping!) to pirated...well everything.  You can get fake IDs (of any sorts) and even handicap parking signs.  I will admit I was tempted for a whole half second (imagine all the parking spots that become available?!) but I figure karma would swiftly kick me in the butt.  Well if not karma, definitely my father, he has this whole honesty thing going...it may have rubbed off on me...

On our first full day in Bangkok, we decided to hit up the sites, which basically translates to pagodas.  We were told Bangkok has 450 pagodas within the city.  As we were checking out a street map, a tuk tuk driver (3 wheeler taxi) offered to take us to see all the major sites for just 30 baht (approx 1 CDN dollar).  Of course we should have been suspicious but we agreed.  He took us to see 2 or 3 pagodas, including the standing Buddha...



to lucky Buddha

Every place was very elaborate and dripping in gold...

Check out the details on the doorway...

Then things became a bit dicey.  The driver started taking us to export centres and tailors.  Even though we said we won't buy anything he wanted us to just go in and look around.  It became quite obvious that we were not the free spending tourists he expected.  The breaking point came when we refused a 1 hour boat ride that would cost us close to 30 CND.  He raced back to where he picked us and basically told us to get the heck out of his taxi!!  We later learned that the drivers earn 200 baht if we go into the shops and browse and commission of up to 50% of whatever we buy!

Rest of the day became frustration in convincing taxi drivers to take us to our destinations without shopping side trips.  "50% discount in fair for one stop, just one stop!"

One of our taxi's took us to a restaurant for lunch.  It was obviously one of these commission places as the prices were about 50% higher than other places (still cheap!) and during the meal at least 5-6 taxis pulled up with foreigners.  The food was good though.  Michelle tried red curry.  I am still not sure how she ate this as I found it quite spicy!

I stuck to my usual green curry...oh green curry how I love thee!

Next day we went shopping!  Chatuchak market in Bangkok is one of the largest markets in the world open only on the weekends.  We were lucky to leave Bangkok saturday night as it meant we could shop to our hearts content during the day.  It's a 35-acre space home to more than 8,000 market stalls.  We shopped for a good 4-5 hours and I am sure we only covered 10% of the stalls.  This place had pretty much everything from clothes to antiques, apparently to animals (we didn't walk around to see this).  Basically if you can dream it up, Chatuchak probably has it.  If not (and this is highly unlikely!) Khaosan road probably has it!  We were too busy shopping to take pics, so I nicked this overhead shot from the net...

Despite the transportation frustrations, Bangkok was wonderful!  Full of energy, crowds and so much to see.  In just the two days I am sure we only saw a teeny tiny slice.  At some point I would love to go back to explore more.

End off all this we hopped on one of many aircraft for the 26 hour travel to get back to cold wintry Ottawa.  Luckily all the flights were of pretty much on time.  There is nothing worse than anticipating a long trip and seeing the delayed sign flashing up!! 

All in all it was a fantastic trip, full of experiences.  I was very lucky to travel with one of my best friends!  I am happy to report that the trip was pretty drama free and yes we are still talking!  Well more like emailing like crazy, but that's us back home.  Probably helped that we are both pretty laid back, took things as it came (i.e the COLD in Beijing!) and had very large margins of what freaked us out!  At some point will have to throw a dart at a world map and see where to explore next!

Rayleigh - Paradise with a view...

Ever since we got to Thailand we were told we have to visit Rayleigh before we head home.  So from Koh Lanta we hopped there for 2 nights.  Rayleigh totally lived up to all the hype! It was what I expected Koh Phi Phi to be.

 The beaches were magnificent!  The sand was as smooth as flour.  The ocean was gorgeous shades of blue and more fantastically no oil!  The beach filled  to the brim with people but still fully enjoyable.  One of my favourite parts (that I hope Michelle has pics of) was the long boats that operated as restaurants.  They cooked everything from pad thai, to fried rice to simple cut fruit.  My fav was grilled chicken that you eat of the boat.

Best part of the island was this monkey forest you walked through to get to the beach.  There were tons of baby monkeys running around...super cute!  Seriously look at these faces and tell me evolution isn't a sound theory!!!

We ate seriously well there (not that we were deprived any where along the way!)  Our second night I went a bit coconut crazy...drank coconut and had fried riced stuffed in a coconut!  Yum!

Our plan to stay way from fried food got waylaid when we saw coconut shrimp!

Elephant Trekking!

One thing I really wanted to do in Thailand was to ride an elephant.  Originally we intended to fly to Pai but between time and finances (mostly time!) we nixed that trip and decided to hop islands instead.  But luckily Koh Lanta seem to have a number of tours.  We wanted to find a place that treats the elephants well and didn't have baby elephant shows and such.  Our travel agent seemed to understand this and pointed us to an outfit,

 Now I may have my rose coloured glasses on but this place seemed to treat their elephants well.  The trekking was through a shaded grove of trees, the guides allowed the elephants to stop to eat a bit and be playful with other elephants on the trek and for the most part let the elephant travel at his own pace.  I was happy that there was no hitting the big guy...

 At one point we got to take turns to slip of the seat and ride "Nookiay" (our elephant's name, at least I think!) bareback.  It was really cool to feel his legs as he shifted from one leg to another. 

 At the end we got to thank Nookiay and feed him pineapples!  Made all three of us happy! 

Later Michelle read on a guide book that once Thailand banned the use of elephants for logging and such, there were a number of out of work elephants and handlers begging for food/money in the streets of Bangkok.  Eventually someone got the bright idea to move the elephants to touristy areas for treks.   So hopefully the elephants are treated and fed well in their new career.

Paradise in Kho Lanta...

An hour ferry ride from Phi Phi got us to the door step (or should I say the pier) of paradise.

This time around we lucked out on our blind booking as this is the view from our little lodge...the view makes up (mostly) for the smell in our bathroom!

Kho Lanta is super quiet compared to Kho Phi Phi.  The beaches are proper beaches (if a bit rocky) with space to lie around without a motor boat in sight.  The ocean stretches fore miles, sparkling shades of blue without the thin sheen of oil.  Though to be fair, the beach at Kho Phi Phi is really a bay so here more ocean to absorb all the crap.  Our first night we picked a restaurant at random, ate with our feet immersed in smooth sand and sat around to watch a fire show....

 There were so few people, it almost seemed like a show just for us...

On our second day here we went snorkeling, about 45 min speed boat ride from Lanta.  I am proud to say I actually learnt to breathe with one of those snorkel thingies.  Felt very much like Darth Vader!  The fish were beautiful, I thought i saw nemo but it turned out to be the black and yellow clown fish...was that Dora?  The coral still creeps me out though.  Some were so huge it practically made it to the surface.  I scurried away from those as fast i could....

Between snorkeling expeditions, lunch was at one of the most gorgeous beaches I've ever been to!  This is saying a lot considering i am from Sri Lanka!  The sand was like flour under our feet.  Even in the hottest sun it some how remained cool to the feet.  The colours of the water...all I can say is wow!  The pic below shows teeny tiny stretch...

These days life is as follows...roll out of bed, change into the day uniform - swim suit and sarong.  Walk on the beach, run for 2 minutes (exercise for the day!), put on a tank top for breakfast, lounge in the water, read, nap, have a fruit shake, lounge in the water, have lunch, lounge some more until the fingers seem pruny and force myself out of water, then stroll in search for dinner.  I am debating offering my engineering services to Thailand government and finding a hut...

Food is also out of the world.  First night we splurged a bit and tried snapper...it melted like butter in our mouths.  Halfway through we gave up on utensils and went at it with our fingers!

We childishly giggled over our menu as you can get "no name" for a starter...

followed by a "pineapple smut" for a drink...I tried this the next day, do not recommend it...too sweet!

Coffee is rich and dark, smells delicious but way too strong for me.  When you ask for milk comes in this cute little jug.  I need about four more of those so have stopped asking for coffee. 

But hey if the only thing I have to complain about is the coffee, i think I am doing well and hardly likely to get any sympathy eh?!  :)

Next post elephant trekking...let me just say OMG!

Sun (finally!) in Kho Phi Phi...

We got up ridiculously early on new years day (one of us never slept, it wasn't me, I had a hearty 3 hours of sleep!) to make our way to Phuket via Bangkok (holy Bangkok airport is huge!) We were in Phuket for just one night as we were making our way to Kho Phi Phi the next morning.  I was quite concerned that it poured the whole evening and into next morning.  But as Michelle says our trip karma held up and it was all blue skies on the way to Phi Phi...

Hellllloooo Phi Phi!!  Picture below you see basically all of the living space.  It's built up into the mountains, on top of each other and just plain crowded.   I wasn't expecting this.  It was cool in it's own way once you get used to it.  Also it's all foot traffic and the ocassional bicycle.  No cars, no motorbikes, no horns!  Bliss!

We definitely did not lack sun shine or warmth!

This was our beach for two days...

Our last two nights we went a bit cheap on our accormodations and well it was a life experince.  More on Michelle's blog.  But meh, can't complain too much, we spend most of the day on the beach and one afternoon took long boat tour around the islands...the scenery was just magnificent!

Check out the colour of the water.  It was so clear you could easily see to the bottom of the ocean floor...

At one point we jumped out for some snorkeling, but really you could see the fishies from the boat (pic from the boat as my camera isn't water proof)

We hung around for a gorgeous sunset and then back to land for food...

When in Thailand what else are you going to eat but curry?!  The menus are full of western food though - BLTs, burgers, pasta...seriously?!!  Why would you come across the world to have this?  and at an inflated price?!

I may have even had curry for breakfast!!!  With the essential fruit shake of course.  In this case banana.

I saw seafood salad on a menu and was obsessed till I tried it.  But sadly it was a bit disappointing.  All the elements were there just not dressed well.  Still it felt good to have some veggies that were not slathered in oil!

 I love love love Kho Phi Phi for it's various bbq (or fried) meat on sticks.  We tried shrimp and chicken but ran out of time for crab.  I KNOW!  We just didn't plan our time or stomachs properly.  Hopefully there are opportunities at the next island and if all fails in Bangkok.  Though Mish and I have made a pact to tried grasshopper and frogs in Bangkok.  Urrmmm...could someone call my doctor and make an apt for the day I arrive please?

So Kho Phi Phi was great to see in that the scenery was fantastic.  BUT I was sorely disappointed in the beaches.  On one side of the island the boats come right up to the beach at any given point and it's a pretty narrow beach to start with.  There was also some brown debris that I couldn't identify.  On the other side of the island big ferries and power boats pulled in.  There were designated swimming areas (sans the mystery debris) but up close the water had a thin layer of oil.  :(  I was quite disappointed at how commercial and polluted this area is becoming.

I suggest Kho Phi Phi for a day or two, just for the scenery, beach parties and general meham in the village but definitely not for lounging about the beach or swimming in the ocean. 

After three days we packed up our crazy heavy bags and beat a path towards Kho Lanta...

Living it up in Saigon...

Each morning in Saigon started with a mango strawberry shake from a fabulous french bakery.  Outside of France, Vietnam has the best freaking bread (and pastry!)

 Our first night we got caught in the rain and slipped into a restaurant that had Hotpot that we've been wanting to try for a while.  Due to some questionable service we got pointers from the service across from us...yes put in all the veg now, keep the lid open etc etc.  Quite delicious and amazing to think it's hot broth with veg and seafood.

New Years eve was sent at a bit of an high end restaurant...all right at this point considering we've been street fooding it up any sit down restaurant would seem high end, but the prices confirmed it!

But meh you only ring in 2012 once right?  So we indulged.  Menu was very western (so foreign to us, especially to our stomachs now!)  We had lamb wrapped in phyllo on a bed of something green and mashed.  We think beans...

I had a burger...now doesn't this seem like the ultimate burger?!

One of the many drinks was called traffic light...for obvious reasons.  No no not those reasons, the colours of the drink silly!

On our last night in Vietnam, Michelle and I finally discovered Vietnamese Ice coffee aka Ca she sua da. On our last night!!!  Where has this been all my life?!  It's a concoction of espresso and condensed milk.  Hmm...maybe it's a good thing we only had a fleeting affair with this...

Happy New Year from Saigon...

Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City - HCMC) was crazy for all things New Years!  The streets are lighted up - at least on the posh side of town, lighted dragons run the side walks (after all it is the year of the dragon soon) and concert stage to rival NYC was set up.

 It seems all of Vietnam was sponsored by Heineken to celebrate the new year!

 We met one of Michelle's friends in Saigon to ring in the new year.  The crowds were insane!  Hiked about 45 mins, all dressed up, as traffic was pretty much at a stand still.

 It was worth it as the company was fantastic, as was the venue and food.  All in all an awesome beginning to the new year!  (Look ma I bought new clothes and actually paid for a sleeveless blouse!  I may be growing up.   I know it's been a while, I am the brown one...) 

 As Adidas demanded we released our inner dragon (well a bit...)  More here.

We flew to Thailand on New Years day and celebrated the Canadian New Year with pad thai and overpriced chocolate...