6 weeks in Nepal went fast!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0616_050616_nepalporter.html
Sunday, April 3, 2011
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0616_050616_nepalporter.html
Saturday, February 12, 2011
We're in Kathmandu! We were lucky on the plane ride and could clearly see Everest. This place is great, nice change from Thailand. The cool air feels great.
Chiang Mai was great for temples, but I have some high hopes for some of the sights around here. Numerous interesting shops in the Thamel tourist district, many selling mountain clothing knock-offs for the trekkers. After a few days of sight seeing, we'll be heading off for a trek.
Chiang Mai was great for temples, but I have some high hopes for some of the sights around here. Numerous interesting shops in the Thamel tourist district, many selling mountain clothing knock-offs for the trekkers. After a few days of sight seeing, we'll be heading off for a trek.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
I'll start from where the last blog post left off, catching a sleeper bus to Bangkok from Ranong. This bus had massaging seats! We arrived at Bangkok at 5am, caught a ride with the only taxi-shark lurking at that time, and headed for the train station. Luckily, or so we thought, we were able to catch an 8 am train to Chiang Mai. Things went well for about 8 hours. Then the train broke down. After that, the replacement bus broke down. I was dissappointed with the train breakdown, a nice way to travel afterall, but when the bus broke down? After 20+ hours of traveling? We didnt care; we lingered a little longer as travel zombies, arriving in Chiang Mai around 11pm, awakening from the travel coma to a unique city.
Bangkok is not an ancient capital city, you need to visit CM to get that flavor of Thai culture. And since this is Thailand, it is of course a very strong flavor - around every corner in the central old city of CM there is another temple, another stupa, another huge Buddha.
We booked our tickets for Nepal and headed back to Bangkok, stopping at the ancient capital city of Sukhothai. Now in ruins, 45 sq km worth, this was a highlight of our trip. Much, much quieter than CM, this was a very enjoyable stop before arriving back in Bangkok.
We visited a private hospital so Chris could have a full check-up and ultrasound. The baby was crouching, so the sex will remain a surprise! Aside from some crippling pickle cravings, Chris is doing fine travelling while pregnant, at least from my perspective. I know it isnt easy for her!
We've just had 3 days of sight seeing here and are leaving in a few hours for Nepal. I'm looking forward to some cooler weather, after a few weeks of tropical heat with no ocean relief, this will be a nice change.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Hard to believe a month has passed already!
From Ao Nang we travelled to Khao Lak to catch a boat to the Similan islands, one of the top diving/snorkeling destinations worldwide. We spent 4 nights here enjoying some more of the beach lifestyle. The water was perfectly clear, 30m visibility under the surface. If you go, beware that the food is dire and the 'Chomview' suites are the best. We spent two nights in a tent and two nights in a fan room. In the fan room a little mouse startled me by sneaking up onto the bed and brushing against my arm. Christy thought "Oh god, Evan is jumping off the bed that fast, it must be bad!" "What is it? A big spider??" she screamed.
Yesterday we caught a bus north to arrive in Ranong. More on that later.
Today we visited the Andaman Club, in nearby Myanmar, in order to update our visas and give us an extra couple weeks in Thailand. A swanky 5 star resort, this was much better than some of the horror story visa runs we've heard of people enduring.
Now that we have another couple weeks, we're taking a 'super-VIP' bus to Bangkok tonight, leaving at 8pm. For the first time, I have some time to fill in the blog with some words, to match some of the photos!
After we arrive in Bangkok tomorrow we plan on heading north to Chaing Mai and seeing some of the cultural highlights of the kingdom. We came to Thailand without any plans or expectations, except perhaps to really enjoy one place and spend a couple weeks there. What we found instead, was the enjoyment of discovering a new place every 4-5 days. Here is a quick run down of the places we visited.
Ko Lanta: beaches that stretch for kilometres, plentiful restaurants right on the beach with staff that literally run to filfull your order. Really, the highlight here was wandering down the beach to find a different place to eat. The island has some unique diving/snorkeling options, as well as some different sights inland to see. We did none of them. Instead, we found this to be a peaceful retreat that lacked anything to do but read a book and go swimming. Maybe go for another fruit shake, yes definitely, never enough fruit shakes! The island lacks dramatic scenery, this is what lead us to:
Ko Phi Phi: We visited at the height of the busy season, amid hordes of people, many of them young and looking to party. We stayed far away from the crowds, on quiet and secluded Rantee Beach. The snorkeling was excellent in front of our room; we swam with, what seemed like, hundreds of fish here. This island was the scene of our first serious misadventure. Our beach was a hike of about 40+ minutes from the town. We decided to walk into town one day and have lunch. After walking all over wide-eyed, checking out all the stalls, finally choosing a place to eat, once our food arrived we looked at each other
"Hey, is the sun going down?" "Yep, CRAP!"
We slammed the food and walked *fast*. We followed the trail in dim light, which crosses the spine of the island and descends, quite steeply, over rocks and big jungle-style roots, to our beach. When we got to the steepest section it was pitch black. I told Chris, "Uh, just close your eyes for a minute to improve your night vision" while she crept closer to hitting the panic button - "I'm pregnant in the jungle! At night! And I cant see anything!". This is when I remembered the MP3 player in the backpack. Sure enough, it provided just enough light for us to descend the trail. We decided it was time to visit a different island:
Ko Yao: This is it. An almost perfect place. A place we could return to and spend a month. At high tide, the beaches are great for swimming and completely deserted! This is where we began to tire of Thai food. Cue misadventure #2. We decided to have a pizza the night before we left for a 4 night kayak trip. Thai food is delicious, but super strong- like other asian foods, meant to be eaten with a group and consumed with small portions of each flavor. Ordering a plate full of curry to yourself gets old. The pizza provided some pretty grim stomach cramps, paddling a kayak was difficult. Otherwise, visit Ko Yao if you get a chance, but avoid the pizza. Cheap, yet good quality accomodation. Most importantly, the scenery offshore is much better than Phi Phi or Ko Lanta. We gave ourselves a pinch and took a boat to:
Ao Nang and Railay: After spending the majority of our trip staying in quiet areas, the mild hustle and bustle of Ao Nang was a welcome sight. It would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful place, the scenery here is as good as it gets. How could it be better? Not overdeveloped in the slightest, this place put Phi Phi to shame in my opinion. Ao Nang has some huge beaches, they stretch far into the horizon. Railay was mindbogglingly beautiful. Beyond superlatives, even comprehension, this place is sick! We didnt really want to leave, but we knew the visa run was quickly becoming imminent, so we headed to Khao Lak to hit the Similans before going to Ranong for the visa run. OK, well, actually... misadventure #3 was about to sneak past you there, but time to fess up. If you're in Khao Lak, trying to get out, and you will, because it really is not a very nice place, beware of the bus ride out of Ranong. We asked maybe a dozen people "what time does the bus come" and got a dozen different answers (there are no tour vans heading every direction and destination here, unlike other places visited). Maybe you've had this experience before? We tried to wave the bus down, this is what the locals do, it should work for us too! Bus after bus drove past us. Hmmm... what do we do? Keep waiting, in the pouring rain. No problem, eventually a bus stopped for a us. A milk run. It stopped every 10 minutes to load or unload. We actually enjoyed this day, we were in no rush, enjoying every step of our journey.
And now you're caught up with us!
From Ao Nang we travelled to Khao Lak to catch a boat to the Similan islands, one of the top diving/snorkeling destinations worldwide. We spent 4 nights here enjoying some more of the beach lifestyle. The water was perfectly clear, 30m visibility under the surface. If you go, beware that the food is dire and the 'Chomview' suites are the best. We spent two nights in a tent and two nights in a fan room. In the fan room a little mouse startled me by sneaking up onto the bed and brushing against my arm. Christy thought "Oh god, Evan is jumping off the bed that fast, it must be bad!" "What is it? A big spider??" she screamed.
Yesterday we caught a bus north to arrive in Ranong. More on that later.
Today we visited the Andaman Club, in nearby Myanmar, in order to update our visas and give us an extra couple weeks in Thailand. A swanky 5 star resort, this was much better than some of the horror story visa runs we've heard of people enduring.
Now that we have another couple weeks, we're taking a 'super-VIP' bus to Bangkok tonight, leaving at 8pm. For the first time, I have some time to fill in the blog with some words, to match some of the photos!
After we arrive in Bangkok tomorrow we plan on heading north to Chaing Mai and seeing some of the cultural highlights of the kingdom. We came to Thailand without any plans or expectations, except perhaps to really enjoy one place and spend a couple weeks there. What we found instead, was the enjoyment of discovering a new place every 4-5 days. Here is a quick run down of the places we visited.
Ko Lanta: beaches that stretch for kilometres, plentiful restaurants right on the beach with staff that literally run to filfull your order. Really, the highlight here was wandering down the beach to find a different place to eat. The island has some unique diving/snorkeling options, as well as some different sights inland to see. We did none of them. Instead, we found this to be a peaceful retreat that lacked anything to do but read a book and go swimming. Maybe go for another fruit shake, yes definitely, never enough fruit shakes! The island lacks dramatic scenery, this is what lead us to:
Ko Phi Phi: We visited at the height of the busy season, amid hordes of people, many of them young and looking to party. We stayed far away from the crowds, on quiet and secluded Rantee Beach. The snorkeling was excellent in front of our room; we swam with, what seemed like, hundreds of fish here. This island was the scene of our first serious misadventure. Our beach was a hike of about 40+ minutes from the town. We decided to walk into town one day and have lunch. After walking all over wide-eyed, checking out all the stalls, finally choosing a place to eat, once our food arrived we looked at each other
"Hey, is the sun going down?" "Yep, CRAP!"
We slammed the food and walked *fast*. We followed the trail in dim light, which crosses the spine of the island and descends, quite steeply, over rocks and big jungle-style roots, to our beach. When we got to the steepest section it was pitch black. I told Chris, "Uh, just close your eyes for a minute to improve your night vision" while she crept closer to hitting the panic button - "I'm pregnant in the jungle! At night! And I cant see anything!". This is when I remembered the MP3 player in the backpack. Sure enough, it provided just enough light for us to descend the trail. We decided it was time to visit a different island:
Ko Yao: This is it. An almost perfect place. A place we could return to and spend a month. At high tide, the beaches are great for swimming and completely deserted! This is where we began to tire of Thai food. Cue misadventure #2. We decided to have a pizza the night before we left for a 4 night kayak trip. Thai food is delicious, but super strong- like other asian foods, meant to be eaten with a group and consumed with small portions of each flavor. Ordering a plate full of curry to yourself gets old. The pizza provided some pretty grim stomach cramps, paddling a kayak was difficult. Otherwise, visit Ko Yao if you get a chance, but avoid the pizza. Cheap, yet good quality accomodation. Most importantly, the scenery offshore is much better than Phi Phi or Ko Lanta. We gave ourselves a pinch and took a boat to:
Ao Nang and Railay: After spending the majority of our trip staying in quiet areas, the mild hustle and bustle of Ao Nang was a welcome sight. It would be difficult to imagine a more beautiful place, the scenery here is as good as it gets. How could it be better? Not overdeveloped in the slightest, this place put Phi Phi to shame in my opinion. Ao Nang has some huge beaches, they stretch far into the horizon. Railay was mindbogglingly beautiful. Beyond superlatives, even comprehension, this place is sick! We didnt really want to leave, but we knew the visa run was quickly becoming imminent, so we headed to Khao Lak to hit the Similans before going to Ranong for the visa run. OK, well, actually... misadventure #3 was about to sneak past you there, but time to fess up. If you're in Khao Lak, trying to get out, and you will, because it really is not a very nice place, beware of the bus ride out of Ranong. We asked maybe a dozen people "what time does the bus come" and got a dozen different answers (there are no tour vans heading every direction and destination here, unlike other places visited). Maybe you've had this experience before? We tried to wave the bus down, this is what the locals do, it should work for us too! Bus after bus drove past us. Hmmm... what do we do? Keep waiting, in the pouring rain. No problem, eventually a bus stopped for a us. A milk run. It stopped every 10 minutes to load or unload. We actually enjoyed this day, we were in no rush, enjoying every step of our journey.
And now you're caught up with us!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
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