The Mister Breaks his Silence

Greetings faithful readers, friends and family,
I am sure you are all shocked to know that Mrs. Adventure has been the storyteller thus far. The following is an account of our travels through the OTHER pair of eyes and ears. As there is no need to recap or restate what you have already read, I will try to focus on what might have been left out due to our innate differences.

THAILAND
For those that do not know, other than a one week trip to Bali when I was 13, this is my first time in Asia. I expected Thailand to be full of people staring at us, trying to beg for our money or get it via a "service" of some kind. I expected a "developing" nation where a lot of the comforts I was used to would simply be forgone or few and far between. For some reason, and this only seems to happen when I am with Marci, I was wrong. Thailand is a beautiful country where the cities are clean (in fact, every home or shop owner is constantly sweeping the sidewalk in front and around their stores), the food is of good quality (especially the pad thai vendors who charge 30 cents for a whopping plate), and the people are friendly and not overbearing (there is even a tourist police and a tourist authority that wears badges and seeks out foreigners to help them out for free at train stations, etc. One perk of Thailand that Mrs. Adventure loves are the 3 dollar massages. Let me give you my perspective. Now I am not against massages in any way, but my massage involved a 150 pound Thai man walking up and down my back, digging his elbows in to my kidneys, bending my legs in directions previously never endeavored, and then twisting and pulling my torso until my back cracked and popped. AHhhh, relaxation at his best. Nonetheless, the Mrs. obviously sees this experience differently as she had 3 more while I stopped at one. Overall, the country is not quite as cheap as this might lead you to believe. Travelling expenses (overnight buses and trains) plus excursions and purchases do quickly add up here. Then again, I think money is always spent the fastest at the beginning of a long trek.

Now for every male's favorite type of viewing...The Highlights...or (if you can stand them)...The Thai-lights

- First things first: Squat Toilets. Know what they are? I didn't and had to walk and sheepishly ask my wife how in the world you "flush" these after you manage to aim correctly.

- Bangkok is much larger than I expected, but public transport (elevated trains, buses, and my favorite-the Ferry boats) are easy and rewarding.

- A week on the beach anywhere in the world leads to the same activities and entertainments, but the view from Rai Lay and southern Thailand is one I have never seen. If you took the cliffs of the Mediterranean and chopped them into splinters and wedged them in the ocean standing straight up, that is about what these are like.

- The gulf of Thailand is EXTREMELY over fished and I may never eat squid again after seeing some of the offerings here.

- Bring sunscreen when you kayak for 5 hours (10-3pm) on a cloudless day

- Book trains in advance (but they give you much better views of the country)

- Our naturalist guide into the majestic Khao Yai National park is a perfect example of how one can profit from the environment by maintaining (and simply explaining) its grandeur. It also helps to be in the Lonely Planet guidebooks.

- In fact, Lonely Planet seems to make or break establishments/businesses of all kinds nowadays. Every traveller we came across had one, and every bookstore had them front and center.

NEXT STOP...INDIA

Holy Moly! Wow! Aaaaargh! You have to be kidding me! This is crazy! Wow!

Let's back up. Upon arriving in India we paid the extra 4 dollars to have our "hotel" pick us up. Best 4 dollars I have spent yet! This helped avoid the hordes of "touts" that are everywhere trying to get you to come with them. Not to mention the street/alley our place was in was the most challenging road to navigate with a vehicle I have ever seen in my life, anywhere. Imagine a small side street (paved with dirt) where vendors line each side, people and large cattle walking every which way, plus bicycles, bicycles with two-wheeled carts, three wheeled motorized vehicles, cars and our narrow minivan(-ish) . I wil just stop here and say to watch the video (I will hopefully get) of a day in traffic and you will see what I mean. There is NO WAY to put it in words.
The next morning we hop on the train from hell (8 hours on a hard wood bench) while everyone stares at us and tries to talk to me. In case Marci hasn't mentioned it, in India EVERYONE addresses the male. In EVERY situation. Thus every rickshaw driver, street vendor, beggar, curious passerby, etc. strolls up or keeps pace with me to get and keep my attention. As some of you know, normally I am OK with the spotlight but this was amazing. I actually point this out as I find it fascinating and not overly frustrating. It is just assumed that the man is the one to deal with. Conversely, we have found that women will approach Marci and try to talk with her but only when I leave or am not right there. Men stare at her whether I am there or not, but never harass her otherwise. I don't know how a single female traveller would do here though. Oh yeah, the train. So in the midst of staring out the window for 6 hours trying to avoid conversations, I am shocked to see men and boys on the train tracks (with a bottle of water in one hand), squatting and their pants around their ankles (hands are used for toilet paper here, thus the water for rinsing). What surprised me was not that this existed but that literally every 50 feet there was someone doing this.
The rest you know as that led to Agra and the Taj Mahal. Now we are working for Dr. Ram Boojh at the Center for Environmental Education in Lucknow, India (www.ceeindia.org) . Everyone here is GREAT and it is so nice to have people help you with the little stuff like train tickets, phone calls, grocery shopping, rickshaw prices and there is a FREE ROOM. We also get lunch and dinner brought to us in a large thermos that has four bowls inside (one with rice, one with 5 mini wheat tortillas, one with spiced potatoes, and the last with a vegtable puree/soup). Let's get this out of the way right now. Indian food is UNBELIEVABLE. Truly every meal is different and spectacular. All of that, and we haven't even ate a piece of meat yet!
The highlights I will save until we are further along here in India, so for now I will sign off (as the aforementioned Thermos just arrived with our dinner). If this ending comes abruptly, please blame it on my hunger. You what they say about men and their stomachs.

This was fun though, so expect more from Mr. Adventure!!!!

A Chance to Exhale in India

Now, I have done my fair share of traveling. I've ridden for hours and hours in the back of an old rickety truck filled with people, bags, chickens and smelly fruit while the monsoon poured down and turned the usual bumpy dirt road into a soaked, sticky mess. I have forcefully pulled myself, my bags and my sister out of a crowd of pushing, pulling taxi trivers (as she has done for me). But even with all this preperation, I must admit that visiting India has been a bit overwhelming. There are just so many people, and it seems that most of them are rick-shaw drivers! The roads are crazier than in Vietnam (the former "most challenging" place). There are precious few stop lights and it doesn't really matter because nobody follows the rules anyway. The only rule that seems to be universally obeyed is: the bigger vehicle gets the right of way! Drivers consitently go the wrong way around the round-abouts to save a few seconds. There are cows wandering down all the streets-not just in the country but in the big cities too, so you have to dodge them too. The bicycles, rick-shaws, busses and trucks and pedestrians all jockey for space on the skinny streets. Completing the simplest tasks here is completely exhausting. Eating lunch or finding a place to check email leaves you feeling haggard, sweaty and agrivated. So, after three days of trains and cities and traffic I was starting to wonder if I really was prepared (let alone excited) to be here for a month.

Luckily life has gotten much better. Before we left Agra we took a ride to see the Taj Mahal from the back. There is a little park across the river which gives you an amazing view at sunset. There weren't many people there, only a few goat herders and a couple of indian people who came to see the view (you dont have to pay from that side). We sat down on the grass and looked around at the views. There were water buffalo bathing in the river, a hindu temple on the far side where thick streams of smoke billowed up into the sky (a funeral), and then we saw the silhouette of a camel being ridden by a little boy. I scrambled to get my camera, because I didn't want to miss this picture; a boy and his camel with the Taj Mahal in the background! Awsome! As he got closer he called out, "You want to ride? Fifty rupees." "No thanks, I replied, I'm afraid of camels" (which was partially true), "Can I take your picture?" I asked. "No problem, twenty ruppees" he replied. Well, its not much for such an awsome picture, but I couldn't pay it. I have to say here that I am opposed to paying young children in general, I feel it give their parents more incentive to send them out to work (or to beg - a little girl in the train station last night just broke my heart, she was so cute, coppying everything I did, then putting her little hand out. She couldn't have been more than four. I've found that if you play with them they forget that they are there to collect money very quickly. The moms dont forget though, they watch from a far off corner waiting to see how much the child will come back with. It is tragic, the whole thing, its hard not to give a little. But I know it would be a temporary fix and my money is more useful if I invest in programs that really promote solutions). Ok, I've taken a tangent. Back to the camel boy. It was about this time that he noticed Dodge (For those of you who dont know Dodge, he is a plastic sheep who baaahs when you press his tummy. He was given to us by Ry's cousin Laurie and her husband Chris). As you can immagine our young camel friend was immencely interested in Dodge and wanted to look at him and show him to his friends. Even his dad was called over to have a look. I asked the boy his name and he told us it was Ana, he was 10 years old and he and his brother came out to the river every evening to see if tourists wanted their picture taken on the camel. We talked for a long time, his English was excellent. He told us about his family and his camel (who's name was Raja and was also a boy). We ended up getting some amazing pictures of him and his camel. He was very sweet. I promise to add a photo of the encounter.

That night we took an over-night train to Lucknow. We are doing an internship with an environmental organization here. Its a big organization, they have offices all over the country and work on very diverse projects, from the earth-quake in Kashmir to the tiger refuges to sanitation projects. We will be developing an ocean education program for them. I am extremely excited to be here. The people are all friendly and speak great english. They have provided us with our own room (which will really help our budget) and we now have evening access to the computers! The house is near a forest so it is quiet at night and we get to do something useful. I am very excited. Looking at the upcomming month now, I know it will go too quickly. But I'm going to make the best of it!

First Impressions of India

India is indeed intense...there are so many people and we look very out of place here so we are certainly getting a fair number of stares. We arrived in Delhi a couple days back in the late evening and the ride to our hotel was an adventure in itself. The streets are full of cars and cows and people. The women dress beautifully, just like all the pictures you've seen: reds, pinks, greens...it makes for amazing photos. We took a train out of Delhi the next day. We accidently got on the "local train" which meant that we stopped in EVERY possible town. What should have been a two hour ride became an 8 hour ride! I guess tourists dont usually use that train because we had a huge crowd around us, just staring. Luckily we sat next to a Nepali army man who took us under his wing.

Now we are in Agra. We decided to splurge and get ourselves a room with AC ($11). A good choice. Its turned out to be our safe haven for escaping the suffocating heat, dust and people. Every time we walk down the street men call from their rick-shaws "Where you go?" or "Where are you from?" or "Very good price for you!" I think that the whole country has an excess of taxi drivers because they will follow us for ages asking if we want a ride before they finally give up. Yesterday, we made arrangements to go for a few hours with a driver who would take us to all the sights. He took us to a shopping area (where he gets commssion, of course) and then to a restaurant (again, commission). We didn't end up buying anything, which was probably disapointing to him, but we did enjoy the restaurant he took us to. Indian food is delicious! The food is so flavorful and filling. We are enjoying meal-time immencely.

We also got to see the Taj Mahal yesterday. Our driver dropped us off at the entrance and cautioned us, "Dont buy anything from the people there, walk strait to the ticket counter and buy your ticket." It was good advice, the Taj is a very popular place for tourists and locals alike. Sellers will hound you relentesly to buy their postcards and Taj trinkets. But, once you get into the gates (passed the security that is divided on one side for women and the other for men), everything calms down and the views are just stunning! The Taj Mahal is just as spectacular in life as it is in the pictures. We got to walk inside and see the tombs where both the builder and his beloved wife (who died giving birth to her 14th child at 34) are buried. You probably already know this, but the builder built it as a shrine to his wife when she died. The whole thing is symmetrical with the exception of the addition of the husbands tomb (who died 30 years later after being overthrown by his son.)

We took lots of pictures, saw some monkeys and met some nice people there. A couple of sari-clad women asked if I would be in a photo with them, and we ended up talking for a long time. The two ladies (sister-in-laws) didn't speak much english but the younger woman's husband could get by with a few English words. We got some translation help from a young man sitting near by. The women spoke Bengali and a little Hindi. The boy's native language was Mavarati (or some word close to that) and Hindi and a little English. The family and the young man would speak Hindi to each each other when we ran into kinks with English. I didn't realize that there were so many languages spoken here. Only 20% speak Hindi as their first language, but it is used- along with English- as a bridge language between different groups.

We'll take an over-night train to Lucknow from here, but it doesn't leave until 11pm, so we are going to go to a little park across the river from the Taj to watch sunset. We have Dodge (the sheep mascot) with us and are planning to take his picture there. We wanted to take him onto the grounds of the Taj Mahal to get his photo, but he didn't make it through security (neither did our gum or our playing cards). So that is our big plan tonight.

Bangkok Coup & Wild Monkeys

It seems that news travels faster internationally than it does in Thailand. We are in a little town about 45 minutes outside Bangkok and hadn't heard a word about the coup until we logged online this evening and saw it posted on MSN. To be honest, absolutely everything seems normal here. We did notice that the power was out yesterday until 4pm, but that isn't so odd here. We also watched a little television last evening. We were disapointed that there wern't any international stations, but didn't realize that it was something unusual. (It was the first time we have had a television in our room). We did see the programs about the king (i.e. pretty images with music). It seemed in-keeping with the general presence of the royal family here. The king's picture is on every street corner and in front of every business in every town. We have seen no signs of the army, no tanks and nobody seems to be alarmed at all. The night markets are open, the women are doing aerobics in the town couryard's, and the kids are riding their bikes around.

We spent the afternoon visiting some of the ruins in this town. They are as old as Ankor in Cambodia (1100 AD) and just as spectacular! What makes these ruins especially interesting is the monkeys who have adopted them as their homes. It is no exageration to say that the monkeys have taken over this town. They are walking along the powerlines and atop the near-by buildings and there are literally hundreds of them! We got some amazing video of the little guys. It seems that the females and the babies stay nearest the ruins (its protected by a fence from the road) and there was no shortage of tiny, brand-new monkeys. They were so cute! They are all quite curious and will come right up to you if you let them. The young males are the most daring. At one point I had one swinging from my pony-tail! We managed to keep them at bay with a bamboo "monkey stick" that the park officer gave us with our entry fee. We decided that we would like to stay here for another night. Its much nicer than Bangkok and with the current events may also be a bit better. We promise to be careful as we travel, we fly to India on Saturday, but want you all to know that things are very calm here so don't worry too much. The news always shows the most sensational images they can find.

Pak Chong & Khao Yai

Monday, September 18, 2006
Pak Chong & Khao Yai Category: Travel and Places
I'm sitting in an Internet cafe in Pak Chong. This happens to be one of the all-too-rare ice-cream cafes, so I figured I had better indulge in something sweet and refreshing while I was here. I looked at the menu, which was written in Thai, and found a picture of a vanilla milk shake. I pointed to the picture and said, "Vanilla Shake?" She responded with, "Banana Shake?" "No" I replied, "Vanilla." OK. OK. Lots of smiles back and forth and it seems we are understanding each other. Sure enough a couple of minutes she hands me a delicious looking vanilla shake. Mmmmm. I continue to work (I'm downloading the pictures from my camera and it is taking a while since this computer is running on Windows 98) and after a minute she brings me over a banana milkshake too. I begin by trying to explain that I only wanted the vanilla milkshake, but quickly give up and say we'll take it anyway. Now Ryan gets to enjoy the punishment for my miscommunication. Not bad.
Yesterday we went to a national park east of Bangkok. This is a completely new area for me. We had talked about going to Chang Mai, but decided in the end that there was little reason to make the 13 hour journey if all we wanted to see was some animals in the jungle. So, we opted for a shorter trip out east and I'm glad we did because there seems to be very few tourists here. We hired a guide from the Green Leaf hotel to take us into the wilderness. He proved to be very helpful, finding us all kinds of animals. We saw gibbons, monitor lizards, porcupines, a toucan-ish bird called the horn-bill, and even a good sized python! We spend the morning walking through the trees looking for critters. I was feeling quite lucky to have a sunny day after so many days of rain. But the sun was short-lived and by mid-morning we could see the clouds rolling in. At one point we saw a flash (I thought that the French couple behind us had taken a picture) and then the light was followed by a massive CRACKing thunder! We all jumped and looked around to see what tree had been electrocuted. The forest seemed to be fine and we used the unexpected stop to pull out our rain coats in time for the downpour that followed. The rain only lasted about an hour, but we managed to get our shoes soaked (they are still drying today). The rain also gave the leeches an unfair advantage. I killed more than a few that had made their way onto my socks, shoes and pants. A couple resourceful leeches made their way onto my skin, I found one on my inner arm when we reached the look-out hut. He'd been happily sucking my blood for a while and left a little bruise with a round puncture wound in the middle. Ry came through unscathed, only one managed to reach his skin and he got rid of it before it could latch on.

Ton Sai Beach

Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Ton Sai Beach
We've been in Krabi for a few days now. We started out in a little hut near the beach that seemed perfectly fine until they started burning garbage down wind from us. Since the bungalow has wicker walls, the smoke came right it. We decided to splurge a bit and got a nicer hut down the beach. I think it was a good decision since the smoke is still billowing at our old place.
Yesterday we went for a hike to a lagoon near by. It's a pretty idyllic spot, warm emerald green water surround on every side by 600ft-tall, limestone cliffs. Getting there was a bit of a chore. First we had to scramble up a steep, rocky hill that was slippery from the morning's rain. That part was actually pretty easy in comparison to the journey down into the lagoon. There was a muddy slope which you had to skillfully slide down using a rope to manage your speed. At the bottom of that one there was a short, but slippery, walk around trees and under craggy stalactites over to the first of three cliffs that we had to scale down. It was tricky. The cliffs were nearly verticle and it took a lot of concentration to make sure that your feet and hands were able keep you from slipping off the wet rocks. Ropes had been placed at each of these sections to aid our descent. The third section was actually cliff you couldn't climb down. A rope latter had been set up to crawl down. The only difficult part was the rope's tendency to twist and twirl once you had entrusted it with all your weight! It was awesome! Finally we made it to the bottom and enjoyed a well-deserved dip in the lagoon.

Today we opted for a day on the water. We rented a kayak and a couple of masks. It was a gorgeous morning, lots of sunshine, a calm turquoise sea and a very light breeze. We lashed down our water and put the camera in a zip-lock and headed out with our aim on a nearby island. We glided along feeling lively and strong and made our way to the first little island quite easily. It was basically a little rock with a few trees growing on top of it. We decided to hop in the water to see what the reef looked like. We put on our masks and jumped over-board. We strained through the murk to see a few little fish that looked like sergeant majors and then there were the millions of little fish that school together here. The visibility was pretty bad so we decided to continue on our way. After much more rowing we reached the island. We pulled up the kayak and headed over to restaurant for some lunch. The weather was still sunny, but we could see a storm out on the horizon so we ate quickly and then made our way back to the kayak. We were making good time with the wind at our backs but could tell that the storm was catching up with us. By the time we reached our bay the waves had piling-up and the wind was really blowing. Luckily the wind was pushing us more-or-less in the right direction and we made it back without too much drama.

We have now had a delicious dinner of rice and veggies (our staple) and we treated ourselves to a banana pancake...since we did row hard. The only thing we're missing is a shower--the water was off when we got home. Such is life on Ton Sai beach. Tomorrow we plan to do a lot of relaxing in the shade. (Oh, I forgot to mention that we both got quite sun burnt...stupid! stupid! stupid!) We'll be smarter in the future.

Bankok Arrival

Thursday, September 07, 2006
Bangkok Category: Travel and Places
Well, we made it! We arrived in Bangkok yesterday afternoon after flying for hours and hours and hours. By the time we found a place to say (The Sawadee House...remember Mel?) we were pretty tired. That didn't stop us from accomplishing two very important tasks: Pad Thai w/egg, and a Thai Massage! The Pad Thai was exactly how I remembered it...it still costs 20 baht and the massage was even better than I remembered. She stretched and pulled and worked every muscle in my body! I think she managed to take most of the kinks from flying out. We're going to get massages again today. Why not wne they only cost $3.50?!
This morning Ry and I went on a little adventure. We had to pick up our plane tickets from a travel agency and didnt want to hassel with negociating a taxi ride. We decided to take public transportation over to the area. What a good idea that was! We rode along the river in a water taxi which allowed us to see all the temples along the way. The river is a muddy brown color, nothing you'd want to swim in, but it manages to look picturesque with golden spires along its borders and lots of floating green plants to add color. It was a nice ride. We took the sky train the rest of the way. I dont remember using the sky train last time. It is very clean and new and efficient. People wait in nice single file lines to get on and when the train comes everyone calmly enters! That is VERY different from trains I've taken in Korea,Malasia or even New York!
We are going to be taking a bus to Krabi tonight. I'm ready for some beach time! But first I have to go get another thai massage...and maybe a facial too

Opening Blog

Monday, September 04, 2006
Opening Blog Current mood: optimistic
It is Monday evening, Labor day. We have spent the day packing and took ourselves out to see "Little Miss Sunshine" - quite funny. We will be embarking on our trip around the world tomorrow evening at midnight. Our first stop will be Bangkok where we will waste no time getting down to business...having some Pad Thai on the street and then getting a Thai massage to work out the kinks from the no-doubt long flight over the Pacific. Not sure what direction we will go from there, but we do have two good weeks to spend in Thailand and will certainly make the best of it. I will be making updates to this Blog as we make our way through this adventure. Feel free to stop in any time and of course write back to us. (I think you can do that through MySpace) I'm new to this so if anyone out there has some good information for me, by all means pass it along.
Until next time.