Moving To Laos, Becoming Professional Tubers

Once getting our act together after arriving in Vang Vieng, we booked a day trip to go kayaking and also some local caves (caves are a big thing here). we quickly realized tours here involve a lotof waiting. our guide was the only fat laos man we have seen and he was at least entertaining by eating bright blue bugs off the trees. we saw three caves in total. pretty generic, but fun because we needed flashlights to see and they were really big. The third cavewas by far the highlght of the day as we got to get on tubes and float through it. at the end there was a pool that we swam in "for youth and luck". we still had to keep our lights on when swimmng though because it was so dark.

After the caves we visited a village outside ofvangvieng and our guide described the type of living ofthe particular tribe members of the village. it was a nice change from "you have fifteen minutes to shop" type villages of most tours.

we also went kayaking along the Nam song river where there are bars lining the sides and where the cities main attraction, tubing, takes place. we quickly learned that our kayaking skills need some work so needless to say, there won't be full days of kayaking in our future but it was still a goodtime. we got a preview for our tubing day by stoppping at one bar. i (steph) did my first swing, in preparation for future river times.

The next day, with the news that Arie and Alex would be coming to Vang Vieng sooner than we anticipated, we decided to wait until the day after to go tubing. So with a free day, the brit boys who have joined us again decided they wanted to explore some caves nearby. The Lonely Planet said it was a 7km walk and I was feeling a little in need of some exercising so I (Natalie) went along. 7km didnt sound bad at the time. Steph, being the smart girl she is, opted to spend the day with Jacco and the many resteraunts around town playing non-stop Friends episodes. So off we went in the stifiling hot Laos day. The first cave was close by and only up a few bajilion stairs (first sign of a tough day ahead) but the view was worth it.

The first cave was really big and long but had stairs and railings and lights all along it so it didnt really feel authentic at all. We then had a swim in a little lagoon before heading off for our 7km walk to the next cave. Someone really should have told me how long that amount of walking takes. By the time we reached the lagoon and cave our feet were aching and we were covered in dust and dirt. And by the time we got outof the lagoon (NEEDED to cool down), we barely had any time left to explore the cave (which was a 200m rock climb, pretty rough after allthat walking). But the cave was beautiful and extremly big. I've never seen anything quite like it. Hard to see in pictures but i could have stayed there for quite awhile just enjoying it. Thankfully, we got a tractor ride home and made it back just before the sun went down.

The next day, our group was ready, overly excited, in celebration mode (alexs birthday) and most importantly, finally all together! Arie her boyfriend Alex, Arie's friend from childhood Kathy, Jacco, Steph, me and Anthony and Fred (the british boys we left in Koh Tao but who missed us too much to stay away for too long, obviously) had a nice big breakfast and then headed to rent our tubes and dry bags for the day. The wavers we signed stipulated that the tubes needed to be returned by 6pm and no one thought twice about this, afterall who tubes until it gets dark? Well turns out we do. but more bout that later. We got on our tubes and floated down the river for approxiomately one minute before stopping at the first riverside bar. Actually it was mostly a bamboo raised platform with a woman selling Beer Lao.

clockwise from left Kathy, Arie, Steph, Fred, Jacco, Alex, Anthony

After our first beer of the day and free shot of Lao Lao (we were celebrating a birthday so we had to do it but it still tasted like the worst thing that has ever been created) and getting aquainted with the zip lign, we were off again. Although once again we made it about a minute in the water then got out again to sample the beer at the next bar as well as their rope swing.

As you can imagine, the day pretty much progressed like this. Tube a bit, get stuck in the rapids (dry season water sports not so efficient), paddle with flip flops, stop at bars and drink and swing and eat. Before we knew it, it was suddenly very late. And we had a 30min ride to our final destination. We knew we were in trouble when we noticed the moon was already out. Somehow though we made it and just as it was getting way too dark outside we boarded a tuk tuk and ended our amazing, fabulous, wonderful day of tubing fun.

Now the boys have left us again, Jacco starts heading towards Cambodia tomorrow, Kathy, Arie and Alex are departing too and Steph and I will be back on our own again with no set plans in mind. After being in a group for almost a month now, we're not sure we remember how to travel by ourselves anymore! But oh well, lots to see and do so we must be on our way.

Same Same, but Different

We have finally made it out of Thailand and it was a very difficult farewell. Afterall, it had been so good to us. And there was a few loose ends to cover up before we could leave. Luckily Chiang mai is the perfect place for that. After recovering from our trek with an oil massage (1 hour for 8 dollars) we enjoyed some thai boxing at the arena. We missed the canadian guy that got knocked out but apprently put up a good fight, and made it in time to witness a norweigian knock out the thai, very dramatic.

Before leaving we needed to learn more about the culture, especially our favourite part, eating!!! at a cooking class with a cute little thai women named wendy, we each got to chose three dishes and then we cooked them. Then we ate them!That night we celebrated our second-last night in thailand AND Birthday week (Natalie and arie's, eventhough it was a month late) in Chiang Mai at a "roof top" bar that had cockroaches in the bathroom (i only found out at the end of the night, i was just happy the bathroom toilet flushed).
Making new friends of every species, as always:

The next day we visited the "must see" temple onthe chang mai mountain which was really nice. We got blessed by monks for good luck and it was chinese new year so there were a lot of people there.





After one more night of night-market shopping we left for the town Chang Khong, which really only makes money from tourists staying there before crossing the border to Laos. after getting to Laos and discovering what it feels like to be millionaires, we boarded our new home. The ENGINE room of a long boat. yes, there was too little space for the eight of us to sit on the spacious and very uncomfortable looking wooden benches lining the walls so we made the engine room our "university apartment" for the day. After settling into our fate we soon found it quite comfortable. everyone had space to lie down, walk around, play cards and drink "beerlao". We even managed to ignore the people coming to the back to take pictures of us like we were refugees and talking about reporting the boat to the tourist board. A very funny concept if you think about it. After a night of no engine noise but very rude company in the town of pak beng (cockroaches and no electricity after 10, oh, and a guy knocking on your door at 730 am asking for more money) we decided we liked our engine room better. I even got comfortable anough with the engine to sleep right next to it with only temporary hearing problems when we returned to it the next day.


Once in Luang Prabang we understood (finally) what the Lonely plant kept saying about Laos being relaxed and easy. Luang Prabang (our first stop) was like a monk town. we began to notice that everything revolved around them. The dress was more conservative, the mornings were earlier, and everything quieted by 10 pm, then stopped at midnight (the monks need their sleep). During the first day we simply wandered the town. Arie and Alex decided they would leave the next day so at night we went to Lao lao garden and met up with people from our engine room. The main discovery of this night was that lao lao (lao whisky) tastes like crap and subsequently all other lao alcohol tastes like lao lao. Beerlao is good though, at least they got one thing right.


The next day we went on a day tour to some villages with really nice jewelery and scarves, then to caves tat are now temples on the banks of the mekong. Finally we went to really nice waterfalls. they loooked almost like fake waterfalls in pools at resorts. Natalie worked up the courage to jump off one of the waterfalls while i discovered my lack of interest in jumping from high place into water...i was still proud of her though and played photographer.





After returning to town we taught english by dropping into what seemed like an after school program. the kids were really sweet. besides paying more attention to the toys most of the time, they were quite quick learners. I even had some time helping two 15 and 16 year olds to read.

The following day we took a private minivan through the very windy roads of the lao countryside down to Vang vieng. It was quite a good trip, especially passing through the villages and by people on the highway. One thing particularly interesting (put lightly) was the guys with guns, in civilian clothes, patrolling every so often on the side of the highway, to which our driver would toss a pack of cigarettes out the window. The only thing we could think of is that the men were protecting the stretch of highway and our driver was showing his appreciation. Apparently there are a lot of shootings there. I didnt ask any more questions, thought it best not to.

Now in Vang Vieng with our two amatuer (sp?) photographers jacco and jason, we are planning tubing and caving, maybe some kayaking and hoping to meet back up with Arie and Alex and possibly others in the coming days. We will keep you all posted with more stories!!!

xo

Oh My Buddha!

We have returned from the bush! Although we are definitly a lot less pretty than when ew first went in. The bug bites on us are disgusting - not just musquitos but gross blood sucksing flies that levae ur skin swollen and red, and ants that give u bumpy bites that hurt! Not to mention all the scratches and bruises all over us. But we did have us a lot of fun.

Our first morning the group of us (Steph and I, Arie and Alex, Jacko, and two new people Kym and Jason) got driven about an hour away. First off we got to ride elephants which we have been excited about since way before we left Canada!!! Elmer, our elephant, was much like us in that he couldnt do much without eating in between. It took us a very long time to go not a very far distance cuz he kept on eating and eating and eating. It was so much fun though.

We then hiked for awhile until we got to our first waterfall of the trek where we went swimming and cooled off. After a few hours of hiking in the jungle, we always ended up at a waterfall for cooling whcih was alllwaaayyss nice and very appriciated! We hiked for a bit longer after then played a game of football (soccer) on a dusty soccer pitch that was very slippery!!!

The first night we all slept on mattresses in a little bamboo longhouse-like room (very "THe Beach") after eating yummy green curry, playing a round of Kings and hanging out by the fire. The village was beautiful and a great place to stay although the showers were the coldest thing that exists in the world (and we have gotten used to cold showers!).

The next day was rough. Around 6 hours of hiking altogether with the last 30mins being absolutly brutal and almost killing us. WE finally got to our place for the night which was right on a waterfall which doubled as our shower. Unforntunatly we only had bamboo floor to sleep on that night and also this village seemed to be the coldest place in Thailand. None of us really slept at all, it was the coldest night of my life (and I have been camping in -40 degree weather!).

The final day our muscles were shot and going downhill was extremly painful! A faily of dogs followed us the whole way, they were so adorable and entertaining. Finally, we got to our rafting site where we piled onto bamboo rafts and went down the river where chaos ensued. There were many times when we thought for sure we were going to die. A lot of raft jumping and torturing each other in the freezing cold water. And we almost lost yet another pair of flip flops!!! But in the end we emerged alive, still with shoes, and very very very very very wet. *no pics cuz we didnt have our bags*

Last night we relished in being back to normality. Went out for a large dinner then Jacko, Steph and I finally had messages while Arie got herself a pedicure. It was fffaaabulous. And only 8$! Still hurting, we might have to go back tonight! After messages we headed to a Thai boxing match! Very cool, weird and kinda funny at times.

Now we are trying to figure out our next steph. Going to Laos either tomorrow or the next day. Its going to be very hard to say goodbye to Thailand =(

**picture uploading is not co-operating today so thats why the lack of pics**

From MTL to BKK

Well, well. After about a trillion emails, a handful of very expensive long distance phone calls, and mooonntthsss of missing her dearly we finally reunited with ARIE! Really, it feels like we have been seeing her all this time and that it hasnt been almost a year and a half since we last said goodbye at Korova all those months ago.

We all met on Khoa San Road where the group of us (Steph and I, the Koh Tao /Canadian-Sweedish pair, Arie, her boyfriend Alex and their friend) found a bar along the street and got ourselves caught up. Maybe it was the three of us being together again but it really felt a lot like St.Laurent and oh say the Vol patio. Actually I kinda feel like Khoa San Road is almost exactly like St.Laurent except dirtier, with pushy people trying to sell you things, drinks that come in bucket form rather than two-for-one, and with an earlier closing time (who woulda known khoa san shuts down so early?).

After a good few hours we headed out to finish off our previous nights plans. The tuk tuk ride to our next location of course turned into a tuk tuk race with lots of picture taking of one another and escalating rude gestures.

The next day the 7 of us took off to Chang Mai and 12 hours on a bus later we have arrived. Tomorrow we leave for our 3 day trek through the Northern Thailand jungle! So excited! Unfortunatly this means we won't be able to contact anyone much for a few days but we promise lots of pics to come after the trek. ANd if everything goes as planned, they should be the best pictures as of yet!

Miss you all!

P.S. Chang Mai is cold!

Tales of Flip Flop Theft

SORRY!!!! We've been horrible, and we know it. But i think we are going to have to blame this delay in posting on Koh pha ngan and its ability to suck out any functional human activity from all of its visitors. We did survive the full moon party! And what a party it was!!! However, its probably best described with pictures and unfortunatly they are being held hostage from us until our friend Kevin (our first American of the trip!) can post them for us. So deets of our amazing full moon night to come....

On the whole, Koh Pha Gnan can best be described by two concepts: insane partying and flip flop theft. We enjoyed the island with fred and anthony - one of who we met in singapore - and together we did a lot of lounging on Sunrise beach (where the full moon party took place) which had very wavy water finally, and enjoyed many a video and dinner resteraunt on the nights we took off from partying. We even managed to find a place that played sex and the city and served falafal - perfection! we stayed there for a good two hours...

just a little pic of the fun had on the island. please note that fred is also taking a picture of this and that neither of them was able to sip the undisclosed beverage for several tries as we were all laughing too hard. gooood times.

our home.

Seven pairs of flip flops and countless loss of brain cells later we packed up and took the team to Koh tao. or so we tried...on our first attempt at leaving the island we accidently missed the last ferry and so we rented a jeep for the day and drove around the island. its a very hilly and beautiful island with gorgeous views from the back of a jeep, not a day wasted at all. At one point we even came across 5 elephants at the side of the road, much like you see cows at home!!!

eventually the next day we made it to koh tao and fred signed up for his open water course as the rest of us are cool and experienced and certified scuba divers! thanks to him signing up we got to take advantage of cheaper accpmidation they provide....thank god as everywhere else on the island was booked up with the overflow of people continuing their travels from koh pha gnan and the party (as its the neighboring island). so once again we got to enjoy the splendidness that is koh tao except this time we always had a word of the day the boys would teach us as they say we dont speak proper english (our favourite was "pastings" tho we are still deciphering the true american english translation). the word could never be premeditated, it just had to come up in conversation. so this time around, we learned on koh tao and had a real cultural experience! or so we can pretend. we also filled our days with countless rounds of very intensely competitive cards. it got a little ugly sometimes.

sadly, after 11 days together, we said goodbye to the team. it was sad to go our seperate ways but Steph and i had to head up to bangkok to sort out vietnam visas and meet ARIE!!!! last night we went out with a friend from koh tao that we met one of our very first nights of traveling and his um girlfriend i guess...either way we went out for dinner on Khao San Road and then were heading by tuk tuk to a further location (we wont get specific but lets just say it involves a banana, a cigerette, and the writing of a letter) when suddenly a motor bike pulled up beside us as we were speeding down the street and grabbed the purse of the sweedish girl right off of her!!1 it was the quickest thing i have ever seen. Unfortunatly it was the second time its happened to her so she was more composed than either steph or i would have been if it had been us. sooo instead of cappiong the night off with a wild adventure and a good time, we ended up at the police station till 2am. ah well, we're meeting in 30mins to try to give the night a go again. anndddddd we will be seeing arie for the first time since november 2005............so gotta run!!! sorry for being so bad with the postings and we'll keep trying to be better!!!

to leave u, heres a sideways pic of mbk the best mall in the world that steph and i are probably going to live in forever here in bangkok. if u need us, look there.

xo

We love Singapore, but Singapore doesn't love us back

We have finally found some time on the internet AND a computer that uploads our pictures! So here we go....I guess first we should update you on our itnerary for the past week or so. Koh Phi Phi was super nice but too rich for our taste. We did find The Apache Bar though as you will see below. We left after two nights because of the high prices and too many rich Euro tourists. We headed to Koh Lanta which is a pretty island very much like Koh Tao in some ways but SO boring! We did find some Thai bartenders to play some intense games of Connect Four with though....yeah that was the highlight of our nights in Koh Lanta. Because we had to get new visas we had to decide which country to go to and for how long. We could have just done a visa run which takes you on a bus to the closest border (Malaysia) and then back in the same day or we could have gone to Kuala Lumpur but instead we got the sudden urge to go to SINGAPORE! Although we love this city - its beautiful, clean, modern, and a lot like home - it is SO expensive (we will NEVER complain about anywhere in Thailand again) and didnt leave us many options for eating, drinking, or entertainment. We did get to see the Night Safari though (baisically going to the zoo at night) where we met two other travellers and found ourselves a conspiracy about a missing rhino.....and then day tripped to Santosa island with them the next day. Here are pictures of our journey.....

Ta Da: Our first ladyboy show EVER!! this is still from ko phi phi, but we thought it was definately blog worthy. a cabaret show completely consisting of lady boys!!! Ko phi phi didn't have much going for it other than this bar and their nightly shows. The next night wasa fire show where we watched 10-12 year old kids, fling flaming sticks around synched to music. Note to parents: why didn't you ever get me started in fire twirling, there are limitless possibilities for employment here.

This is a picture of Natalie's gorgeous leg after ONE NIGHT of not using bug spray. We now have full belief that bug spray in fact does work. there were a total of 81 bug bites (just on her legs), and counting.... we'll keep you updated, don't worry.

Fact: Singapore was the first country in Asia to gain McDonald's delivery. As a result of hearing about this phenomenon, we immediately (i mean before our bags made it to the hotel room) ordered an obscene amount of fast food. This is us with the delivery man, they have a uniform and everything!!! In case your curious, the fries were a little off but the cheeseburgers were still good.

Singapore's widely reveered Merlion. In fact it's just a wierd looking statue facing no direction in particular that you can pay upwards of ten dollars to get to the top of. we stayed at the bottom. Sentosa island (the location of this beautiful creature) was dissapointing on the whole. the cable car ride over there was meh...like an elevator ride, but sideways, and not as cool. the highlight of the day was a fountain which was cool enough to stick our feet in for a substantial amount of time. great 30 minutes of the day. some other chinese tourists took our example and got right in there with us. See below.

This picture is depicting our extreme distaste for such bullshit tourist attractions being hyped up. #1: the southern most point of continental asia, is located on an ISLAND off of another ISLAND. #2: you can't even see water from the viewpoint, its all big ocean liners and crap blocking the view. #3 we had to start lowering our expectations of what Singapore terms "view points" any ways. most often they were just glorified benches with trees surrounding them.

The animal show on sentosa island was definately ripped off from the night safari, however flash scares the animals of the night (possibly causing at one point a rhino attack resulting int he rhinos death...if we're not mistaken the rhino is now burried in the "animal cemetary", but how would you bury a giraffe? would you need to fold it in half? who knows...) anyways the point is that we got to get up close and personal with the animals after...nat chose the snake, i got the husky!!! his namke was striker, i loved him.

After a long day of mostly dissapointing sentosa island stuff...we got over to another hostel in Little India and met up to play a completely non-sober game of Kings. When you're playing with a bunch of british people the "everyone needs to speak with an accent at all times" rule get a little shady. the pirate accent was the alltime best though. It was an english guy trying to be an american pirate, ayy matie!

Today we leave to go back home - Thailand. We are making our way to Koh Pha Ngan on the gulf coast to go to the Full Moon Party on the 2nd. We have convinced the two fellows in the back of this picture that its not to be missed and so now we will have a group to party with there which makes us feel a bit safer since our previous plan involved tying ourselves together with a leash so as to avoid losing each other in the crowd.

Updates of our full mooning to come, get excited!

A Quickie, "We Havent Forgotten You All, We Are Still Alive" Post

Yes, yes we know we have been away for awhile and we apologize! We were in the very secluded island of Koh Lanta and didn't really have much to report. Well in retrospect I suppose we do have a lot to update, but we can't do that right now! We had to get out of the country to get a new 30 day visa for Thailand and we randomly decided to go to Singapore. Super expensive, talk later!

A Quickie, "We Havent Forgotten You All, We Are Still Alive" Post

Yes, yes we know we have been away for awhile and we apologize! We were in the very secluded island of Koh Lanta and didn't really have much to report. Well in retrospect I suppose we do have a lot to update, but we can't do that right now! We had to get out of the country to get a new 30 day visa for Thailand and we randomly decided to go to Singapore. Super expensive, talk later!

In Phi Phi with Pictures!

ALRIGHT! success with some pictures!!! Unfortunatly we are currently on a very expensive island (Koh Phi Phi) so I cannot upload too many pics as they each take about 20mins to load and I dont have enough money for all this internet time but I'll do what I can...

This is our diving group in Koh Tao on the roof deck of our boat, coming back from our last dive of the course. It was so nice to warm up, get some sun and enjoy the view after spending 40mins deep in the water! I always got soooo cold down there!

In case any of you are still skeptical about our love for the island, this was our home there. It doesnt get much better than that! Especially when its only costing you 5$ a night!

This picture below is pretty much what you see from any point in Koh Tao. Its just so beautiful it almost seems fake! It reminded me of Typhoon Lagoon in Disney World except it was all for real.



This picture was taken from the strip of beaches where there are all the resteraunts and bars are located. Luckily Koh Tao is protected by lots of laws and environmental standards so it will never get developed past pretty much what is there today which is JUST enough!



So Krabi was very quiet and pretty boring although we enjoyed the very yummy and very cheap night market and took a day trip to James Bond Island and a floating village. The village is home to 200 families, has a school, a mosque and a hospital all floating in a tiny little area next to a huge cliff and surrounded by water! BUt day trips cost lots of money so we decided to move to Koh Phi Phi instead of just visiting for the day and although its super expensive for the worst accomidation to date (lets just say our non flushing toilet was an upgrade compared to what we've got now), we got to spend the day on Koh Phi Phi Ley, where the Beach was filmed. And although at one point in the day thousands of tourists clutter the tiny little beach area, we got to enjoy it without the masses once they all departed after their 40min or so stop. All I've heard about this particular place is that its ruined by the many tourists so it was nice to be there without them for a good few hours. Heres a picture of our surroundings for the day:

Okay i seriously just cut my dinner money in half! Hopefully we can get pictures on from now on, but as tomorrow we head to Koh Lanta for a few nights, I have no idea what we will be in store for us!

See you in Koh Lanta!

On the Road Again...

First off, yes we know it sucks that we dont have pictures. However, if one more person sends us an email, a comment, any facebook contact or any communication in any way that we should post pictures, we will come home just to hurt you slightly. Well no maybe not. But it is extremly impossible currently to post any pictures of any kind, believe me, we have tried. The most successful we have been so far is waiting patiently 25mins in total to get not one, but two, error messages. When we can, we will post so many pictures you all wont know what to do with yourselves! For now please take the lead of my suddenly brilliantly computer literate mother and go to the Koh Tao website and then cry with jealousy! Thank you!

Unfortunatly, yesterday we left our home on Koh Tao. We felt it was time since our diving group had left and our room was no longer welcome to us unless we did more diving (which we do plan to do in a few weeks so that we will not only be certified scuba divers but ADVANCED certified scuba divers!). We were extremly sad about this, the island had really become our home and we felt so settled there. Its suprisingly easy to get used to the lifestyle we had - waking up to spend the day 18meters in the water, meeting for dinner and beer at the Irish Pub with our group, walking to Karma for some relaxing then heading for 25mins walking to Sairee Beach (mostly with a banana nutella crepe either on the way there or home or both) and spending the rest of the night (often into the wee hours since time doesnt seem to exist or affect anyone on Koh Tao) at a place called Lotus bar. Sairee beach is really a strip of clubs, resteraunts and bars with Lotus being the most lively and central. They set out mats and Thai cushons and there is always one to three fire performers, lots of cute, well behaved dogs and really great music that enivatibly leads to dancing in the ankel deep water. Then once the night was over we'd trek back to our beach front bungalow, immidiately fall asleep and start the whole routine over again a few hours later. It was heavenly.

But alas, we felt if we didnt get out yesterday, we might never leave. Especially since most of the people we spent time with on the island where people just like us who went there one day and never came home. It seems waaayyy to easy so as a precaution we made a plan to return and booked ourselves on a journey to Phuket. 12 hours of travelling yesterday (two ferries, a tuk tuk, a wait for an hour in the middle of nowhere, and a minivan ride for 4hours) we arrived and hated it immidiately. It was vastly different then our idylic island life, a busy city with 5 cockroach sightings in 10mintues. In an effort to not hate anything related to Thailand, lets blame the dirtyness on the Tsunami...although truthfully you could not tell such a destrcutive event ever occured there, except for the many Tsunami evacuation route signs posted along the coastal area. Perhaps we didnt give it enough of a shot but today we woke up and got the hell out of there! We are now in Krabi where we plan to do a lot of day trips to neighbouring sites (like Koh Phi Phi where the Beach was filmed). So far so good, nice hostel with HBO in the resteraunt which is a nice destraction and time killer.

Sorry I've been slacking on the emails but its been a lot of travelling time and such. Promise to get better as I miss you all very much. Hope everyone is managing the cold as much as possible. We promise to pretend to care and be sympathetic if youd like to talk about it. We'd perfer however, that you all just quit the whining (and your jobs) and meet us here. Sound good?

Underwater Life

It seems Nat and I have become quite accustomed to our life here on Koh Tao. Waking up to a clear blue ocean may be the greatest thing in the world. Though i think we both miss warm showers a little bit. our scuba course is nearly over and its working out pretty well...rocky start though...who would've thought breathing underwater would be so difficult. There aren't any real updates since we're living the island life whereall you need is shelter, food, and drink but we have managed to be around the island from a boat and see it from that view which was beautiful. We have embraced the fact that picture uploading may take a bit more concentration and patience then we have allowed ourselves so we still have to wait on that...sorry... love you, miss you all

Puking in Paradise

So the night of our fabulous beach day in Hua Hin, we boarded an overnight bus which dropped us off at 530am to the port where we were to catch a High Speed Catmeran to the island of Koh Tao. At 7am of my birthday, we finally boarded. Due to some strong winds from China, the water in these parts were very choppy and rough and it only took us about 15minutes to realize this meant something very, very bad for all of us on board. 90% of the people on board, including us, utilized their complementary barf bag. For about two hours neither of us could so much as lift our head. It actually felt like torture, slow, slow, horrible torture.

Lukily we got to Koh Tao to find it amazingly beautiful. I dont know that we've seen anything quite like it before. Clear, bright blue water, everything along the beach front and mountains in the distance wherever you look. We had some lunch and decided to take a nap on the beach of our resort type living area (note: not resort in that the toilet doesnt actually flush but its still a bungalow and we like it!). Unfortunatly hearing the water was too much for me (natalie) and somehow i continuted to be sea sick for the rest of the day and night. Steph and I went to sleep at around 9pm as a result. Not much birthday celebrating at all. Thus we have moved my brithday to today and will celebrate tonight! There are lots of livelyplaces to go to so we are looking forward to a night out partying!

We also signed up for a four day scuba diving course. We start our first lesson tomorrow and then get to dive the day after that. WE shall keep you updated.

sorry for the lack of pictures but turns out these parts of thailand's computers dont seem to want us to upload our pics grrr. we'll keep trying though. If anyone one computer literate (ahem, lubna, we mean you) have any advice for how to post imges on this stupid website, please let us know! we always get to the "your picture is uploading" screen but then it doesnt. Boo.

Thank you all so much for your birthday comments, emails and wall postings, they were so wonderful. And keep posting comments to us, we love them so much and we miss you all so much that it makes us feel all warm and happy inside! hahaha. No, really though, keep posting!

Our only day in bangkok brought us the famed khao san road (after a mcdonalds breakfast that turned into just cheeseburgers at 10 am). there were shops lining the street seelling just about anything you couldpossibly want or need while travelling or in life. the bars were fairly full even though it was 1130 am, it was exactly what we expected, only shorter in length.

We left Bangkok fairly early because we wanted to start our travels down the coast of Thailand and to ease the minds of our worried families. We decided to go to Hua Hin about a 4hour bus ride away. Although its not what we were really looking for (mostly rich European tourists staying in fancy hotels on the beach and Thai vacationers), we found the loooong stretch of beach and had an excellent day of being beach bums.

Unfortunatly we had to start living the travellers life and checked ourselves into a guest house here. We shared a romantic double bed in a very thin walled room and showered over the toilet in the shared bathrooms. We missed the hotel life very, very much....but i suppose this is our lives for the next 3 months!

Although our rooming situation is gonna suck, the beach was beautiful. We bought cute jewlery, enjoyed a cold beer and, finaly, ATE THAI FOOD. it was yuuuummmmyyy and we are looking forward to more.

Tonight we are off to Ko Tao, a snorkeling and suba diving island that is supposed to be quite "zen". We are leaving on an overnight bus and catermeran tonight at 12am and should get there at 830am tomorrow morning (NATALIE'S BIRTHDAY! better not forget!). Not sure if there will be internet there or how long we'll stay but we'll do our best to keep in touch.

**Our impatience has returned and we have decided getting something to eat is more important that posting Hua Hin pictures so you will just have to wait!

xo

pics from beijing

Well, we had no idea our problems with posting pics was just due to lack of patience. here we go...

this bowl of noodles was our dinner, check out the fancy red wine next to it...yummm

Heres the picture we were supposed to put in last post -

Team photo before getting on our Thai airways flight (fellow Torontonian Will, there were about 30 of us Canadians stuck in the airport). Note: it is not a good idea to consume chinese beer at however many thousand feet in the air. If followed by cognac which is served by thai airways during ur meal you will go through several phases very quickly - giggly, tipsy, tired, fast asleep, groggy and thirsty, completly sober. This all occurs in the span of an hour.

Thia airways is not only the greatest, they also have purple/fushia boarding passes!!!

Stuck in Beijing!

Off to a bit of a rocky start seeing as two hours into our 14 hr flight we turned back to toronto because of a medical emergency. therefore, we missed our connection in beijing and were told that aircanada could do nothing for us. The next flight to Bangkok wasnt until 6pm the following evening...problem since we didn't have visas! After a lot of confusion, waiting, tierdness, etc we were issued 24hr visas and found an airport hotel. We didnt do much in China and didnt enjoy the country much at all. I know you cant really tell much about a country from their airpot and surrounding area but we were hoping Thailand would be a great deal different.

FINALLY, at 10pm last night we landed in Bangkok. Beautiful airport, first good sign! We checked into a very nice hotel since we thought we deserved it and finally had a god nghts sleep. Today we woke up, explored Kho San Road and fell in love with Bangkok. Now we are rushing this post to head towards our first beach town of Hua Hin! Gotta run but we'll update better soon! For now, heres a picture of us in our random Beijing hotel. Pics of THialnd to come when we dont have to check out of our hotel in 10mins!!!!