final blog

Alright so, i have been asked to update the blog....Well, we are now home in beautiful Victoria and although it is cold and raining we are happy to be back in Canada where price tags mean something and the air smells fresh and clean. Our last day in Bangkok was pretty uneventful, it basically consisted of us shopping for the entire day. We woke up early and were pretty much the first people into the mall, we of course feasted on a delicious breakfast, otherwise known as a foot long Turkey sub from Subway (we are really adapting to Thai cuisine haha). After a few hours of shopping we thought we better try and explore Bangkok so we hailed a "metered taxi"- thankfully this one didn't look like the sled we took the the night before and we felt confident it wouldn't break down. The taxi driver was great and spoke pretty good English. We wanted to go down to koh san road and then check out the temples but as luck would have it there was a HUGE political protest and the streets were blocked off so we couldn't make it to our destination. Our cabbie suggested we check out the wholesale market mall, it was apparently much cheaper than the mall we had been shopping at. We got to the mall and it was a zoo, it was a huge building with not much rhyme or reason to the shops- basically there are thousands of stalls with clothes piled ontop of each other- its kind of like shopping at nordstrom rack MINUS the cleanliness, quality products, and friendly customer service. We took a few laps around this mall but it was too overwhelming and none of the shops would even let us try on clothes so we decided to head back to the mall we had been shopping at earlier. We shopped for the rest of the night- stocking up on tee shirts, pashminas, and other little tourist trinkets.

The next day we headed off to the airport nice and early and as much as id like to tell you that our taxi died on the highway and our flight was delayed, unfortunately I can not- this was probably the smoothest travel day we had yet. We were happy to be leaving bangkok- its crowded, stinky and dirty and we dont plan on visiting it again any time soon. The plane ride home was long but we entertained ourselves by watching movies and it went by relatively quickly. We are now back home and extremely jet lagged and i can already feel my tan starting to fade. Our trip to Thailand was fantastic and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it (even with all the bumps along the road), it is definitely a trip we will remember for the rest of our lives. It was fun keeping this blog and it will provide us with a good diary of everything that happened during our trip to Thailand. I hope everyone enjoyed reading it and thanks for all the comments along the way.

 

Until our next adventure......

 

CK & CK

 

 

brutal bangkok

Alright, so let me update you on our "wonderful" experience getting from phuket to Bangkok. We arrived to the airport with plenty of time to spare, the van that our travel agent arranged for us on phi phi was fantastic (air conditioning, leather reclining seats and just the 2 of us on board). We got to the airport, checked our bags and had some subway while we waited for our plane to board. we were supposed to board the plane at 2:00, however, 2:00 came around and no one was boarding...we checked out the boarding info in the terminal and it now said we needed to go to a different gate to board- so we rushed to the other boarding gate only to find mass chaos, hundreds of people all confused all packed together trying to figure out where their flights were boarding- it was an absolute gong show- we stood in the crowd of people for about 40 minutes and then we heard an announcement saying our gate had been changed again- therefore we were herded like a bunch of cattle to another gate to wait another hour to board our plane. with all this time we are spending in airports im starting to feel like Tom Hanks in the movie "the terminal". Thankfully, we finally boarded our plane and eventually landed in Bangkok (however, we were now 2.5 hours behind schedule). Our bag was of course the last one to come off the luggage terminal and then we walked to find a metered taxi.
There is a convenient little stand outside of the airport offering metered taxis (we couldnt believe it!! finally a metered taxi we thought!). we could see rows upon rows of little green and pink toyota metered taxis. We gave our hotel information to the woman at the stand and she flagged down a driver to come get us. As he started escorting us towards the sea of taxis I noticed one of the taxis in the flock was not quite up to par with the rest of them. I thought to myself, there is no way out of all these taxis we will be in the one that looks like it was just towed here from the salvage yard. However, sure enough he opened the trunk of this red 1970s toyota camry  and asked us to get in. So we settled into this beater of a taxi and went to reach for the seatbelts as we could remember clearly what driving in bangkok is like- however, to our surprise, this sweet ride did not have seatbelts (i guess Tin Lizzy was too old to have seatbelts). I looked at candice and smiled and she honestly said to me in all seriousness, and i quote: " we should get this guys card, so he can pick us up again and bring us back to the airport"! hahah, i couldnt believe my ears, i looked at her with a face of absolute shock and said "are you kidding me?".  the ride was going pretty smoothly considering the vehicle we were in when all of a sudden we got to the second toll booth.  Suddenly the radio cut out as well as the rest of the electrical in the vehicle, the driver muttered something in thai as he tried to fix the problem. within a few seconds, the engine also cut out- so here we were stalled on the bangkok highway rolling towards the toll gate.  The taxi of course came to a hault and the driver asked me to get out and push us through the toll booth. haha, so i jumped out of the cab (with my flip flops on) and started pushing the cab towards the toll booth (laughing the entire time). I got us through the toll booth and continued pushing us towards the side of the highway where they have mechanics stationed to help out (i guess this happens quite often). The mechanics were very nice and were laughing with us and kept saying "good luck"- i guess they could tell this taxi wasnt a very good one. haha. Finally, they seemed to fix the problem and we were on our way again, we made it about 5 mnutes when all of a sudden the engine died again. So once again I was out in the middle of the highway in rush hour pushing this piece of crap to the side of the road. A traffic police officer was near by and he started to help the cab driver- he radiod for a police truck to come help out. They then proceeded to engage in the thai method of towing a vehicle....this consists of hooking a rope up to the bumpers of each vehicle and and pulling the broken down vehicle the way you would pull a toboggan through the snow. As you can imagine this isnt the safest method of towing and it felt as if our bumper was going to be ripped off the vehicle.  The police towed us for a little ways and then gave up and a tow truck came- the tow truck used the same method of towing (a rope) and eventually towed us to an auto yard of some kind. the cab driver then flagged down another cab for us to take us the rest of the way- we sat in standstill traffic for about 30 minutes before finally getting to our hotel. Our first ride in a metered taxi was AWESOME (heavy sarcasm). when we got to the hotel i said to candice- "i bet they are sold out" and sure enough they were, unless we wanted to stay in a more expensive room. By this time it was 8:00 at night and we didnt want to sit in traffic for hours looking for somewhere else to stay so we bit the bullet for one night and forked out the dough. The room is gorgeous and the bed was super comfortable and after pushing cabs on the interstate all day it definitely felt good to have a nice place to sleep. It is now saturday and we are going to spend the entire day shopping and bartering....wish us luck!

we are ready to come back home to Canada!

The search for the blue lagoon

We got up bright and early to start our day in search of the secret lagoon on Railay Beach. We had a quick breakfast, where we feasted on banana pancakes and fresh fruit and then took off for the mountains. The sun was out in full force today so we were glad we were starting this hike early while it was still relatively cool out. Like I said in an earlier blog, the plan was for me to rent some climbing shoes (since everyone advised against doing the hike in sandals). However, island life is different from regular life and no shops are open before noon so i was forced to tackle the mountain in my flip flops. The hike is not really a hike at all, it is more of a rock climbing expedition- there are old ropes dangling from the cliff side which you use to help scale the mountain. IT is actually quite difficult and a minute into it candice and i were sweating and breathing heavy. The rocks are covered in a red clay and are smooth to touch but also quite slippery. It took us about 20 minutes to reach the viewpoint and the climb was definitely worth the effort- the view was amazing and we got a couple good pictures of us at the top (id attach the pics but im at an internet cafe in bangkok and unfortunately we have had some bad luck since railay beach that i will touch upon in a later blog). We spent a few minutes at the view point admiring the view and then decided to try and check out the secret lagoon. WE headed back to the trail and found the entering point to the lagoon (straight down a bunch of jagged rocks). Candice and i made our way down the first portion of the decent, however, it was quite difficult and candice even took a little spill haha, but she was ok (just a bit dirty). I went a little further on my own and then called it quits- the sandals were going to be my demise on this adventure and from what we could see, the tide was out and therefore the lagoon was just mud. It was fun looking for it and it was a good workout, which we needed since we havent done anything active in 2 weeks.

When we got back to the resort we decided to go to the beach to go swimming in the ocean. We grabbed our masks to do some snorkeling and candy and i headed out into the emerald water. WE swam out a fair distance but both realized quickly that the water on krabi was very murky and you couldnt see anything. Also, I think the water is infested with jellyfish because we kept getting stung by them. We got out of the water quickly because our skin was burning from numerous jellyfish stings (I miss the water off phi phi). We ran back to our pool and dove in the cool water to sooth our stings. thank god we splurged and had a hotel with a clean pool, it would have sucked having to dive into the leech infested pool on the east side.

We ended our last night on Railay beach with a 4 hour spa package (facial, body scrub, massage)- it was fantastic!! In the morning we caught a long tail boat over to Ao Nang to meet up with our taxi driver to take us to phuket airport. The boat ride to ao nang was nice and i felt sad to leave the beautiful beaches of thailand. We both werent looking forward to the concrete jungle of Bangkok.

We are now in bangkok and I am at an Internet cafe, i have run out of minutes so i need to log off but just to keep everyone in suspense- we have encountered a symphony of disasters since we have gotten here- our bad luck continues- I will tell you all the details later but lets just say it involves delayed planes, broken down taxis, and no hotel rooms- i cant wait to leave this damn city!

Resorts or roaches?

Okay, at the risk of sounding like a total snob, I'm about to get real with everyone for a minute here. Throughout our trip to thailand we have been staying at a mix of nice places, average places and garbage dumps.  I can understand why budget travelers would stay at alot of these places, they provide a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in and for the most part you don't spend alot of time in your room. However, we are not budget travelers, we are 30 year old adults and are only in Thailand for 2 weeks and I'd prefer to go back to Canada without bedbugs and scabies if possible (although it might be too late for that now). Having spent several nights with cockroaches, mosquitos and frogs that sound like they are ribbiting through a megaphone. we decided we wanted some luxury.

this is a video of the sound of the frogs outside our bungalow in phi phi- I now have a serious hate on for Kermit the frog. 

So we headed to West railay beach and found a resort right on the beach. It is beautiful (approximately double the price of the one we are staying in the first night but we cant wait to check in and finally be able to sleep without worrying about our skin touching the sheets. Just for the record: Im glad i normally sleep like a vampire (flat on my back with my arms folded across my chest)- it has come in handy on this vacation. Candice however, sleeps on her stomach, face buried in her pillow (haha, she has probably eaten 16 insects and gotten numerous rashes during her sleeps here).

This is a picture of the stairs up to the hotel we stayed at on day 1 on Railay

We woke up early and checked out of the "bates motel" and ran as fast as we could to our new resort- it is unreal, although i have already found myself not wanting to explore the island (because its so nice by the pool and in our room and we have free wifi). However, we are going to go do some exploring in a few minutes. We wanted to try and hike to a "secret lagoon" this morning but i threw out my runners in phi phi because they were taking up to much room and smelled like cheese. everyone we have talked to says sandals wont be good for the hike (but  i might try it anyway....since when do i listen to peoples advice?). The weather is overcast today and it looks like it might rain but we need to make the most out of our time here so we arent going to let that stop us...off to explore!!!!

this is a picture of our new resort on Railay- notice the clean bed and no cockroaches

Well we are back from our little day exploration and all i can say is that this area is beautiful! We walked along the beach on the west side and the sand is soft and white and looks striking next to the emerald green water. the bay is surrounded by huge limestone cliffs covered in lush tropical plants. We hung out on the west side for a little bit and then made our way to the east side to see "diamond cave" . it costs about $2 to go inside the cave and its definitely worth it. the limestone cave is massive and you walk along a man made boardwalk when inside.  stalagmites hang down from the roof of the cave and you can hear bats chirping as you navigate deeper inside. at a few points in the cave the limestone walls shimmer as if they are adorned with diamonds (hence the name "diamond cave") we took pictures and video but it doesnt do it justice.

After diamond cave we walked to try and find the viewpoint and the access point to the "secret lagoon" (which we will explore tomorrow)- when we got there we were pleasantly surprised by a bunch of monkeys! Finally, some monkeys!!! we must have seen close to 30 of them, they were walking along the top of a bamboo fence along the trail that we were on. They were swinging on vines and jumping over each other and one even tried to pee on candices head. hahaha, but he missed by a couple of feet.  we are going to try and catch the sunset tonight, have a nice dinner and then enjoy our first comfortable sleep in a long time.

Well it has been a few days since we last blogged so i guess i have a bit to catch up on. yesterday, Candice and i switched hotels and moved to a bungalow on the opposite side of phi phi. We were excited for a change of scenery and also a change of pace-  the old hotel was closer to the hustle bustle of phi phi and the new bungalow we are staying at is much quieter. We checked into the new bungalow and realized we might want to go to a new island since we had already seen everything phi phi had to offer. we met up with a travel agent on phi phi and after a lengthy discussion he organized us a trip over to Railay beach in Krabi. He was very helpful and assured us that everything would be fine. after our last encounter with a thai travel agent we thought it might be wise if we only book one night accommodation on railay beach just in case the place was gross. The travel agent kept assuring us that the hotel was great but we decided to go against his suggestions and only book the first night (i will tell you how that worked out for us later in the blog). So we were now all booked up and ready for Railay beach the next day so we decided to spoil ourselves our last night on phi phi. We walked into town and found a beach front restaurant where you get to select your seafood from a big buffet and then they cook it for you. Candice debated for a while between lobster and prawns but finally opted for 2 GIANT prawns (i think she made the right choice), i got a steak. Dinner was great and then we headed back to our bungalow for some rest. We got back to the bungalow and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed and were greeted by some old friends: 3 giant cockroaches! I grabbed candices sandal and hit one of the cockroaches on the wall (he thanked me by spraying his guts all over me when he died). I made short work of the other 2 roaches and then went to bed thankful that we were only here for the one night.

We got up early the next morning and rented a kayak to tour around phi phi before we left for Krabi. The kayak trip was gorgeous, we toured along the coast line stopping in at various little inlets and coves to take pictures and hang out. we kayaked over to monkey beach to see if we could finally see some monkeys but to our disappointment there were still no monkeys there .It wasnt a total loss though, because monkey beach is beautiful and we played around there for a good amount of time. We voyaged out further into the ocean and realized it was getting pretty rough on the water so we decided to head back.  we were exhausted from kayaking and it took quite a while in the choppy water to get back to the beach. Thankfully we made it (burnt and exhausted).  Now we just needed to wait a couple hours to board our boat to railay beach.

We got to the ferry and found a spot on the outside at the very front of the boat (it was supposed to only be an hour long ride). I laid there and listened to my ipod and candice read a book ( you will be happy to know that I have not caved and read a book yet- even though my dad supplied me with numerous true crime books to read during our trip). The ferry ride started out nice but shortly into the journey we heard some booming thunder and saw lightning in the distance. In a matter of minutes we were being hammered by a massive tropical monsoon. we staggered to the back of the boat but there was no room inside so we stayed outside and got pummeled with water. I felt like Mark Walberg in "a Perfect Storm" (minus the 6 pack abs) - i was just hoping the ship would make it to our destination safely. eventually we arrived to Railay beach cold and sopping wet, now we just needed to find our hotel. We were greeted on the beach by a hotel worker and he escorted us through the jungle for what seemed like 15 minutes. Railay beach is much smaller than phi phi, not as many tourist shops here and is heavily focused around mountain climbing. we walked right passed the nice area of town and entered into what can best be described as the penticton indian reserve of Thailand. We quickly realized we were staying on the esquimalt side of Railay beach and were now quite leery about what our hotel would be like. We got to the base of our hotel where we had to climb an enormous wood staircase (probably about 5 flights straight up) we were used to climbing stairs on our trip but this staircase was more rickety than any we had been on so far.  We got to the top and checked into our room, we walked passed the pool (which im pretty sure was home to about 40 leeches and possibly one of the water monsters from star wars) and entered our room...the room was pretty gross (similar to the "49er" hotel in Spokane where i stayed with my parents when i was 10 years old).  We breathed a HUGE sigh of relief that we only booked the one night here! That was definitely our best decision to date. It wasn't all bad though, the view from up there was pretty spectacular. We decided to head to the nice part of town and look for a fancier hotel to stay at for the rest of our time in Railay.

More to come soon.......

beach life

So last night we ended up going back to the fish doctor to give me a try with these little fish. After about 5 minutes of cleaning my feet i was instructed to dunk my kicks in the fish tank. Im embarassed to admit it but Candice handled this experience much better than me. I hated it at first, all these little fish swarming my feet was so ticklish and it kind of feels like a bunch of electric shocks. After about 5 minutes of sitting uncomfortably my feet numbed up to the experience and it wasnt that bad.. After the fish doctor we of course hit up another massage- we were so burnt from the snorkeling tour that we opted for an aloe massage and it was just what we needed.

The next day we didnt really have a plan so we went for breakfast at our hotel ( where i fed bacon to another little kitten- I love all these cats). I dont know if it is the heat or what but we are finding ourselves unable to eat as much as we normaly do in Canada- for anybody trying to lose weight i reccomend a trip to thailand. We usualy have 3 or 4 fresh fruit smoothies per day and then maybe 1 or 2 meals. We ended up realizing that our hotel is only a minute from the beach (dont ask me how we didnt realize that sooner) so we walked along the beach and found  a great little restaurant right on the beach and we sat there for the majority of the day drinking chang beer and eating pizza. It was awesome, i think we will probably do the same thing tomorow.

After the beach we went back to our bungalow for a little nap and then headed out for dinner. Before dinner we stopped by the spa and Candice got a pedicure and i got a manicure ($6 each). The day before we discovered a cute little thai restaurant called "pum" it is also a cooking school- we are going to take a class in the next day or so (candice cant wait to brush up on her thai cooking skills). The food there is delicious so we decided to go back, its definately the best thai food we have had since getting onto phi phi. after dinner we wandered around town and got another massage- i think we might have to take a breather from all these massages because they are starting to lose their appeal. on our way back to our bungalow we stopped by a bar that had thai kick boxing- it was pretty cool and these guys were beating the crap out of each other. time for bed!

phi phi life

Alright....so i guess we last left off with us trying to figure out what to do for the remainder of our first night on phi phi? well, we didnt do anything too crazy, we ended up staying at the restaurant a while and took down a few beers. In this heat it didnt take me too long to get buzzed (although im a pretty cheap drunk most of the time).  then hit the streets to look in shops, we stumbled upon a little place called the "fish doctor" -basicaly you stick your feet in a tank with hundreds of fish and they eat all the dirt and bacteria off of your feer. Candice decided to give it a go and dunked her feet in the tank- instantly these little fish swarmed her and started nibbling away, it was funny and neat to watch. she said it tickled at first but then got used to it and said it felt kind of good. ( i think i will give it a try tonight)- those fish will be heaven munching on my dirty cheese feet.
we contemplated having another massage but decided to go to bed instead, we are still jetlagged (im pissed that Hartsi was right about that). in true form i woke up at 6am, much to candices disapointment, and forced her out of bed because i wanted to climb up to the viewpoint. the hike up is pretty steap and there are hundreds of steps (it makes the temple in chiang mai seem like a step ladder). needless to say  our legs were burning after only 5 minutes. It was at this point that i wished i had quads like Rykers (my chicken legs werent made for this). However, we ended up getting to the top and it was well worth the effort. the view was spectacular, you could see the entire island, and the weather wasnt scorching hot yet so it was the perfect time to do it.

Once we got back down from the view point we searched around town for a tour to go on for the day. I wanted to go on a tour that included some cliff diving and snorkeling but candice was worried i would kill myself so much to my dispointment we opted for the half day snorkeling tour. we were excited to do something new and possibly meet some cool people (i know most of you are probably thinking..|"as if ceeks wants to meet new people"  but believe it or not i actualy did). we got to the boat and saw the people we would be on the day tour with, it was basicaly a boat full of girls and then me. Some guys might enjoy this experience but i was disapointed and to top it off no one on the boat spoke english, they were all french or german or something. i dont know and i dont care- this is what i get for wanting to meet people. we sat in the middle of the boat and these 3 young french girls sat behind us (all wearing noise canceling head phones and ipods), i dangled my arm  in the water and accidently splashed these girls and they acted like i had just thrown acid on them. they were not impressed with me (looks like this tour was off to a good start).we toured around the islands and did some snorkeling and swimming...the water was so warm and clear and it felt great swimming in it. the snorkeling was average, nothing spectacular but still quite nice. the final stop on the tour was monkey beach- we were excited to see some monkeys but when we got there there wasnt a single monkey ( a bit of a disapointment). The tour killed about 4 hours and now we are back in town eating and blogging. no plans for tonight but Hart has suggested we check out a kickboxing match so we might try to do that.  at this point i just want to stay out of the sun for a bit- it is scorching hot here right now.

p.s- i forgot to mention i made a friend at breakfast- i probably gave him diareah from feeding him so much bacon (but he was loving me at the time)

Phuket to Phi Phi

Alright....so i know i missed a day but I unfortunately didnt have time yesterday to blog. so I will do my best to catch you up on everything. We spent yesterday in Phuket.....it is an interesting city...we flew into phuket around 1:00 and were picked up by a nice old thai lady and her english husband. For the record, I found it much easier to understand the thai woman than the old english guy...he sounded like chewbacca when he talked , but we did our best at communicating with him anyway. it took about an hour to get to our hotel and we werent very impressed when we got there (keep in mind, this is the place the chiang mai travel agent booked for us). the place was ok but for the price we got ripped off. we wandered around the town and checked out nicer hotels and they were pretty much half the price. Oh well, we were only going to be there one night.  We tried to catch a taxi from our hotel to the mall but not a single cabbie had a metered cab and they were all trying to rip us off. For all of you thailand veterans who have told us to "make sure you get metered cabs" i say: "they dont exist"!! Oh well, we walked to the mall and did some shopping (no bartering once again) and had some dinner. After dinner we walked back to our hotel and stopped in at a spa, after our chiang mai experience we were excited to get another one. \the spa looked really nice and we headed upstairs to get our massages- candice got a nice young thai lady and i got a 60 year old thai lady who looked like a cross between rosanne bar and connie chung. I tried to stay optomistic but to my disapointment, this womans massage skills were equivalent to her looks. I wanted to leave halfway through but i laid there and bared it. Heres a note to anyone getting a massage in phuket...if you get a fat old thai lady, hit the streets running, im pretty sure she was suffering from arthritis and her massage skills felt like the equivalent of a harbour seal slapping my back with its flippers. To make things worse, candice said her massage was unreal! haha

we woke up early the next day and were shuttled off to the ferries- everything went smoothly and it was nice to finaly see some water!! the ferry ride was great, the weather was gorgeous and we met a couple people from the states who we chatted with to pass the time. The ride took about 1.5 hours and was well worth it....arriving in phi phi is sureal, the water is bright turqouise and there are long tail boats everywhere. the limestone cliffs surrounding the island are spectacular, its truly an incredible place. When we stepped off the ferry we both gae a sigh of relief... after spending the first part of our trip worrying about flight transfers and hotels etc... we could finaly relax. There are no vehicles on phi phi and you walk through a very cool little town to get your hotel. Our place is about a 5 minute walk from the ferry and is in a good location, central to everything. the bungalow we are in is pretty nice but there seems to be quite a few mosquitos hanging out in our room, i loaded up on some more bug spray but with our luck im sure one of us will get either malaria or dengai fever.  the weather was gorgeous so we walked through the town and went to the beach, the water is like a hot tub and crystal clear ( i could get used to this place). we laid in the sun for a few hours and then headed back to our room for a siesta. After our nap we hit up a spa (haha, we are addicted now). This spa was not as fancy as the ones we had been to earlier, you basicaly all lay in one area and they have curtains that they pull closed for privacy. we opted for a coconut oil massage which typicaly entails no clothing...you would assume that they would close the curtains but not here. hahah, me and candice were pretty much laying in the middle of the shop with our goodies out for everyone to see hahaha. However, i got my revenge on candice, becasue this time her maseuse was the shits and mine was great. Candices girl even left halfway through to go to the bathroom. I have a feeling we are following a pattern here...for every good massage comes a bad one, but for 10 bucks a massage im not going to complain to much.
Our bungalow doesnt have wireless internet so we are currently at a restaurant using their free wifi and enjoying some chang beer and pad thai. we are scheduled to stay on phi phi for 4 days but might extend our stay depending on how much we like it.  Not sure what we are going to do for the rest of the  night but it might involve some drinking.

talk to you soon!
CKs

Day 3 and was it ever busy!
we woke up VERYearly ( 4am- our inner clocks still arent adjusted- I think Hart was right about getting over jetlag in aprox. 2 weeks). we spent the morning walking around the city and visited a budhist temple where we got a couple picture of us pretending to pray. we realized quickly that no stores were open yet because it was still too early so we called the cab driver who we met the night before to inquire about hiring him to take us around for the day. He agreed to pick us up and show us everything chiang mai has to offer. For $30 this cab driver (his name was Kai) escorted us around for almost over 12 hours...talk about value! it costs us $30 for a 10 minute cab ride from downtown victoria to our house.

first on the agenda was a trip out to an elephant camp in the north of chiang mai- it took about 45 minutes to get out there but we killed the time learning a few thai words from kai and buying fresh coconuts off the side of the highway (delicious and thirst quenching). once we got to the elephant camp we watched the elephants put on a show where they did tricks etc... following the little show we hopped on an old rickity buggy pulled by two white oxen and went for about a 20 minute ride to a hillside tribes village. the village was pretty lame and consisted of dirt, chickens and a few people trying to sell us trinkets. However, in a short amount of time, a pack of elephants arrived and we hopped on for our jungle elephant trek. we lucked out big time  with the guy controling our elephant as he turned out to be the best guide out there. All the other guides had long sharp axe-like devices that they hit the elephants skulls with in order to keep them in line. However, our guy ( who looked like the thai version of Tweets) didnt even carry one, he just had a couple of little nails in his hands that he nuged the elephants with every so often. For those of you who have never been on an elephant, let me assure you , they are not comfortable ...its like riding a mechanical bull for an hour. we rode on the elephant through amazing jungle terrain, up steep hillsides, through valleys and finished off by riding through a beautiful river. It was amazing and definately something we will remember forever. After the elephant trek we were treated to a delicious thai buffet lunch and then boarded a bamboo raft where we cruised down the river for close to 40 minutes admiring the beauty of the area.

After the raft ride our cab driver drove us out to the Tiger village where we had the chance to spend some time in the tiger pens petting the cats. We first went into the pen with the 3 month old tigers and it was awesome...the tigers were so cute and a couple of them were pretty playful. It reminded us of our cat Tye when he was a kitten . After the babies we headed into a pen with some very large tigers...i think they might have been drugged as all the did was lay there but nonetheless it was still pretty cool.

the day was scorching hot so we headed back to our hotel for an hour to refresh and then our cab driver picked us up again to take us to the budhist temple wat senthemp ( i totaly spelled that wrong - but im tired so cut me a break). to get to the temple you have to drive about a half hour up a steep winding road and then when you finaly get there you have to climb over 300 steps to get to the top. it is well worth it, the temple is beautiful and the view is amazing.

on our way back into town, our cab driver suggested some massages and took us to a spa not far from our hotel. It was the perfect ending to an amazing day, and for the record, i think i plan on getting a massage everyday for the rest of the trip ( cheap and so goood).

tomorrow we say good bye to Chiang mai and fly into phuket! we cant wait for the beautiful beaches. we wont be staying in as nice accomodations for the rest of our trip so the blogs might start to slow down but we will try to keep it up.

talk to you soon
CK 1 & 2