I'm back ;)

Good morning everyone!!

I just wanted to send a quick e-mail and let everyone
know what I got up to the last few days in Bangkok and
to confirm that I am back in cold, grey Toronto!!

I went to the Chatuchuk Market on Sunday. I was there
early and it wasn't busy so I wandered the market
checking out the stuff they had and deciding what to
buy as souvenirs. The market is more for locals than
tourists and it's huge!! When I finally decided to
actually purchase items, I couldn't find anything I'd
wanted to buy and the market was a zoo. I found a few
of the items and went home exhausted - shopping is
such work ;)

My second day I headed to Ratanakosin. This is a
collection of buildings that were built when Bangkok
became the capital of Thailand in 1782. There were
more than 100 buildings in the complex but many of
them are closed off to visitors or under renovation.
I checked out the Grand Palace, a couple of wats
(temples) and saw the Emerald Buddha which is an
important image in Buddhism. From there I headed by
ferry to a teak museum which was interesting. It was
filled with artefacts given to the Kings of Thailand
by other countries.

The third day it poured and so I went shopping. Ended
up at this mall called MBK (Sam recommended it). It
was almost double the Eaton's Center with six floors
of shopping!! They had an entire floor designated for
cellphones - I had never seen so many styles, colours
and shapes. I bought a couple of other things and
then headed to Patpong, Bangkok's notorious sex
district. I was a bit disappointed as it seemed more
touristy than a sex district should be but it needed
to be seen. I can imagine it's hopping around
midnight but I wasn't motivated to stay!!

My final day I headed to the floating market which is
about 2 hours south of Bangkok. Canals were built
years ago by one of the kings to facilitate trading by
boat. There were locals selling produce and others
had pots with boiling oil for fried bananas or soups.
It was neat to see but a bit too package-tourism for
me!! I had a foot massage, had my last authentic Thai
green curry and got a bus to the airport!! Sad to
leave but knowing that I'll be back :)

I just wanted to say thank everyone for their e-mails
while I was away as it's always nice to hear from
home!! I had a great time away and will get the
pictures on Friday for anyone who's curious for a
viewing. I will also be putting some of the digital
ones on a site somewhere. Sean/Dan, maybe you could
offer up some suggestions on a free/cheap website? :)
I hope you enjoyed my tales!!

Until next time,
Sarah

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Sihanoukville and deep sea dives ;)

Good morning everyone!!

I did the stupidest thing when arriving in
Sihanoukville but it turned out okay!! For those of
you who don't know, N.H. Sihanouk is the King of
Cambodia and it was his birthday on the 31st of
October. (I'd read this in Lonely Planet but not
actually registered that I'd be arriving on his
birthday in a resort town named after him!!) Anyhow,
Cambodians are given a three day holiday to celebrate
the King's birthday and EVERYONE from Phonm Penh seems
to come to the beach in Sihanoukville!!

I arrived in Phonm Penh and went to another bus
station to take me to Sihanoukville where I discovered
that I'd missed the last bus (I watched it pull away)
and that it was full. I ended up in a minivan
(designed for 9 passengers) with two Dutch guys and a
local who was travelling with them (we four took up a
seat designed for 9 Cambodian people). The remaining
minivan contained 25 people at it's peak - 5 in the
front seat!! It was a cramp 5 hour ride and when we
arrived it was dark (around 7pm). If it'd just been
Cambodians, then they would have fit in up to 30
people in a 9 person minivan!! Absolutely nuts!!

The local lady works for the port here in
Sihanoukville and didn't want me to travel across the
city alone so I got an air conditioned ride to a local
guest house. Turns out that most were full - a
motorbike driver trolled around looking at four
different places before we finally found a spot with a
room!!

Since my arrival in Sihanoukville, I've completed my
PADI diving certificate which is exciting!! It was a
lot of fun to dive underwater and see the fishes,
sometimes in the thousands though the visibility was
not always great (5-7m only sometimes). We saw
something comparable to mini sharks (they swim and
look like sharks anyhow) which was kind of neat but
disconcerting all at the same time!! I'm going to
have to dive again in some different locations. I
also spent a brief period at the beach - brief because
an hour and my skin is pink and I hate salt water :)

I'm heading off to Thailand today by boat (the roads
in the rainy season are near impassable). From there,
up to Bangkok for a bit of a mozy around before
heading home. I'll proably send on last e-mail before
heading off home!!

Take care everyone,
Sarah

P.S. Sam - it turns out that the PADI course was only
3 days so I could have spent one more day at the
village - instead it'll be one more day in Bangkok!!

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Angkor Archaelogical Park

Good morning everybody!!

I've spent the last three days visiting the Angkor
which contains, most famously Angkor Wat (because it's
the largest religion building in the world) and Ta
Prohm (because Tomb Raiders and another movie were
filmed there). There are over 100 temples built
between the 8th and 12th century at the historic
complex and many of them were amazing to look at!!

I cycled from Siem Reap (it's a little over 6km to
Angkor Wat) where I spent the better part of a day
exploring it's many levels, towers and reveling in the
sculptures/engravings on the side of the walls of the
temple (over 800m of engravings throughout this one
temple). It was a beautiful place. I then continued
along to Angkor Thom which is not an actual temple but
a collection of temples. There I checked out the
Terrace of the Elephants, Phmeanakas (we had a
tropical storm while I was there) and Bayon. Bayon
has over 200 faces of the same person. Supposedly the
face of the king so that he can look down on his
subjects!! I then headed home, 6 hours of temples was
enough for one day!!

On the second day I cycled again to the temples but I
went around the short circuit (17kms in all) to check
out some other temples. I was cycling along until the
road turned to mud and then to squishy mud with roads
to give the trucks traction. The bumping was horrible
and I was filthy with their red mud before I'd gone
15m!! I checked out Prasat Kravan (not interesting),
Banteay Kdei and Ta Prohm. As mentioned above, this
is a popular site due to the filming. I arrived at
11am and waited for the tour buses to head out just
before noon before venturing into the temple. It was
beautiful to see how overrun the temples could be if
the jungle was given free rein. Some of the trees
were simply massive with the roots tearing apart the
structure. According to an inscription, it took
80,000 people to maintain the grounds and the
temples!! I took some photos and headed for Ta Keo
and Thommanom which were both neat but far less
visited temples. My butt was getting tired and I'd
had my fill of temples again so I headed back,
stopping briefly at the Khmer people's museum.

Today I relaxed in the morning and watched the news.
Very interesting things going on with Libby Scooter
and the Iranian president before heading out in the
afternoon for the temples. I wanted to see Angkor Wat
at sunset (too lazy to get up for sunrise though I'm
sure it'd be beautiful as well). I took a tuk-tuk (my
butt was sore) to Phnom Bakeng which is supposed to
have great sunset photos but it wasn't a good view so
I headed over to Angkor Wat itself and took some good
photos of the sunlight on the Wat itself.

All in all, a very good trip out to Angkor - my only
complaint about Cambodia is that it's expensive.
Everything's in USD and it's more expensive than
Thailand or Laos. A man from Chile told me otherwise
but it's certainly not true :(

Hope all is well and those of you who've been curious,
I've found someone with a card reader so I'm now going
to attempt to upload some photos onto my blog. We'll
see how this work :)

Miss you all,
Sarah

P.S. Sam, for a bunch of stones, they were
breathtaking, especially at sunset!! You would have
loved it and I highly recommend that you make the trip
next time you're in Laos!! The sun when it set
tonight actually had those rays that you draw as a
child, emanating from the sun - it was awesome!!

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Laos to Cambodia

Good morning everyone!!

Things have been hectic since my last e-mail!! Sam,
the guy from Laos, was sweet and stuck around as I had
a bit of a fit about how I was going to accomplish
everything I wanted in the little time I had left!!

After coming up with something of a plan, it was
almost noon so we went tubing as it was too hot to do
anything else!! It was really a float/drink down the
river with occasional zip-ropes to go flying into the
water. We had a lot of fun, hooked up with a pile of
other travelers and drank too much!! (Lao Lao, the
local moonshine, is beyond too strong but everywhere
we went they were giving it away for free with a
beer). A beer (the size of two in Canada) is about
$1CDN so Sam and I would split them to avoid getting
too buzzed.

Sam left the following day to the village and I went
cave splunking. We did three real caves and one
cavern which, if you possess a lot of imagination, is
shaped like an elephant :) The going was slippery and
wet and sometimes quite tight but it was nice to spend
the day out of the sun. Word to the wise, once you've
seen one cave, they all look the same :) The fourth
and final cave was a water cave so we got tubes out
and floated/paddled about 5km into the cave. It was
cool and the water was very refreshing!!

I traveled to the village to meet Sam's family and
stay in a small, quaint little town. There were about
150 people in the village and everyone was more than
curious about me. Some of the stares were hysterical
when we drove around the rice fields on the
motorbike!! (I have to say, my first time on a
motorbike was with 16kg of luggage, not ideal but Sam
didn't go too fast!!). We couldn't go anywhere in
town without someone wanting us to sit and chat or
"rest"!! They had a traditional going away
celebration for him on the 25th and they wanted me to
stay but it didn't work into the new plans!! When I
left, his grandmother gave me a bracelet for good luck
and safe travels and said that I was always welcome
back. It was sad to leave them as they were all so
nice!! Funny, no one spoke a word of English, yet we
still communicated well together ;) I then headed to
Vientiane with Sam and his cousins. We checked out
the capital - they have something that looks like the
Arc de Triomphe and hung out. We then had dinner on
the river and went to a discotheque!! An interesting
experience :)

I caught a night train from northern Thailand to
Bangkok. It's ironic but I wouldn't pay a travel
agent/hotel person to book the train ticket for me
because they wanted twice the price of the actual
ticket (it included border crossing). I did it on my
own last night, got to the station and all they had
left were 3rd class seats which means no reclining, no
sleeper, no sleep!! I was kicking myself for most of
the night but it was an experience and definitely
better than the train from Chile to Bolivia, at least
this one travelled better and they were kind of
padded!!

I'm now in Siem Reap, Cambodia (caught a flight over
today). I'll be spending three days checking out the
Angkor Wat and the surrounding ruins before heading
down to the beach.

Hope everyone's well back home!
Miss you all!!

Sarah

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Thailand to Laos

Good morning all :)

I traveled from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong (a small
border town in Thailand) and spent a day on the
river's edge, relaxing and relaxing some more. The
Mekong River splits Thailand and Laos here so across
the river, I could see Laos.

After going through immigration I headed on a slow
boat ride from Huay Xay to Luang Prabang, with an
overnight in Pakbeng. The trip was split over two
days, seven hours each day. The first day we were 80
on slates of wood for seats with one toilet (it was a
long, hard journey) but the views were fantastic. The
second day was better as we actually had cushions but
by the end, I was pretty ready to get off :) On the
boat, I met up with the Norwegians that I'd met in
Chiang Mai so we had dinner together and chatted -
they're a great pair!!

In Luang Prabang, we happened to get quite lucky as
they were celebrating their Water Festival. They had
races on the water the one afternoon, a parade of
fancy floats and then last night we watched as they
lit floating flowers pots and floated them down the
river. There were also very extensive dragon-looking
boats with lights that were put down the river as well
- it's all to celebrate the end of the rainy season!!
It was quite a pretty event and the town was all lit
up and excited in celebration - it was great!!

While in Luang Prabang I also visited a waterfall and
had a great swim and climbed up to see a temple/view
of the city. I've met up with a guy who's a refugee
from Laos (left when he was two and now lives in the
States). He speaks Laotian and English - it makes
travelling a bit easier. He'll be heading to his
mom's village tomorrow though so I'll be on my own
again :)

I'm currently in Vang Viang where I'll stay for a few
days (they have lots of outdoor activities) before
heading to the capital. All is well here and it's
amazing that my holidays are more than half over. I
had to actually sit down yesterday and figure out
exactly what I wanted to do for the next three weeks
as time's going too quickly :)
Carol, how do feel if I stay an extra couple of weeks?
Don't worry, I'm kidding - I can't afford to stay
much longer!!

Miss you all!
Sarah

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Trekking

Good morning!!

I got back from my trek this afternoon and had a great
time!! There turned out to be 11 of us in total, two
English, four French, two Dutch, two Norwegians and me
(as you can see, everyone's travelling in pairs but
me).

We headed off on the first day to start at a
waterfall. It was once a hotspring and is now covered
in sediment. We climbed up the waterfall in barefeet,
it was surprisingly non-slippery and loads of fun!!.
We then drove to a hill tribe village where we had
lunch. Afterwards we hiked about 4 hours, almost
entirely uphill, through very dense jungle to an
elephant camp where we spent the night. (Communal
sleeping arrangements for 11, very simple conditions
but the food was fantastic!!).

The next morning we got up and went elephant riding
for 1.5 hours. It was a cool experience, they put a
chair on their backs for sitting but we were also give
then chance to sit on the elephants' necks. All I
have to say is it was wobbly, bumpy ride sitting on
their necks, especially on the ups and downs - I often
had the impression that I might fall off!! After our
elephant ride, we hiked in further dense jungle on the
edge of a cliff for much of the afternoon (about 4
hours). It was a challenging hike with lunch in the
jungle, using banana leaves as plates :) Our second
night included similar accomodations but this time in
a Palong village. We had a great dinner and then the
girls of the village (about 80 people, no electricity)
got up and danced and sang for us. There we learned
the Ping, Pang, Pon drinking game from our guide :)

This morning I woke earlier than everyone else and
wandered the village (I'd intended to take some photos
but the lighting wasn't good and I felt bad asking the
villagers). I played with some newborn puppies and
watched the locals interact with one another. The
tribe is a group of refugees who fled from Burma over
10 years ago and have been living in Thailand, growing
corn (and opium once upon a time) since then. We
hiked out, had a nice lunch and then rafted in bamboo
rafts down a river. Bamboo rafting is great fun as
they sink (and come back up again) very easily so we
had wars as we went down the river on our rafts!!

I've decided to stay in Chiang Mai one more day, most
specifically because I needed to do laundry again.
The clothes returning from the trek were so disgusting
that I couldn't even pack them up!! I will leave the
morning after next. The group of us are having dinner
together tonight and I'm guessing it'll be a late
night of drinking - luckily the English girls are
staying in the same guesthouse as I so we can come
home together a bit tipsy :)

Take care and thanks to everyone for their fall
stories!! I'll check back in when I'm in Laos

Sarah

P.S. For those hoping for pictures, you may be in
luck, one of the English girls thinks she has the
right USB plug so I might be able to download some to
the blog site...if I can it'll be tomorrow so give it
a check the day after ;)

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Chiang Mai

Good morning!!

I hope that everyone enjoyed their long weekends and
ate a bit of turkey for me :) There was no turkey for
me but I did have a nice bowl of Thai Green Curry to
celebrate!! (Dad, I hope that whoever's name I got
for Xmas is a good one!!)

Chiang Mai is a great city in the northern area of
Thailand. It's great for shopping, touring and there
are beautiful parks/sights nearby. That said, there
are also a lot of tour operators and more travelers
but it's a nice atmostphere compared to Bangkok. I
spent my first day here shopping (I had to buy a new
outfit so that I could do laundry :) and getting a
feel for the city. Yesterday, I headed out to Doi
Suthep which is a very special temple for the Thai.
According to legend, the King at the time, put
important relics on the back of an elephant. He
climbed to the top of this hill, circled three times,
trumpeted three times and then died. The temple is
now in this location. After the temple, I headed down
to the national park area for a 3.3km trek to the base
of the falls. There were 9 clustered together but I
only saw the first three as it was a very steep climb
upwards and after I'd finished my viewing, I still
have 3.3km to walk back to the main road.

I got back to Chiang Mai and they were having their
Sunday night bazaar down the main street near my guest
house (called Sarah Guesthouse :). I bought two
pillow covers for the couch (hopefully I can find
pillows to fit inside) and some CDs. There was so
much for sale but I don't want to overload my pack
with stuff, though Chiang Mai is supposed to be "the"
shopping city in Thailand!!

Today I cycled to the Tribal Museum to get a bit more
information on the hill tribes in the area as I'm off
tomorrow on a three day trek through the jungle.
(This time there are 8 of us in the group). When I
get back I'm off to Laos!!

Miss you all and wish I was there to see the fall
colours - it's my favourite part of the year!!

Sarah

P.S. Mom, can you send me the link to the Federal
Government travel site please? I believe there was an
advisory about a road in Laos that I'm interested in
reading about.

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Didn't trek

Good morning!!

Unfortunate news that I may regret....or not!!
I waited a day and a bit in Umphang, (a town that you
can walk through in 20 minutes) bored out of my mind
for some other travelers to come so that we could go
on a group on the trek but no one came. I approached
the owner and mentioned that I didn't want to wait any
longer. He offered, slightly begrudingly, to have me
go alone but I didn't want to be alone in a jungle
with three strange men from a safety perspective so I
got a refund.
A positive note: I discovered that the falls are
actually only 30KM from Umphang and are completely
assessible by car/public pick up truck but not until
after the rainy season which means Nov 1st, I doubt
I'll go back but who knows!!

I left with two Americans who'd just come back from a
trip and had a rental car. We zoomed through the
hilltop highway at speeds that were slightly beyond
what most people would call "safe" but it meant that
the four hour bus journey was cut almost in half!!
They dropped me off at Tak to catch a bus to Lampang.
Humourously, from this bus station, you can go to
"Lampang" which is actually spelt Lamphaeng (the "ph"
in Thai is pronounced like a p) or you can go to
"Lampan", spelt Lampang. I got on a bus going to the
wrong place. I actually even thought so when we left
the bus station and didn't head directly to Hwy 1 but
I didn't see how I could have mispronouced such a
simple city or that the bus driver could be wrong, so
I sat and read/rested.

Upon arrival in the wrong city, everyone was very
helpful getting me into town and trying to locate the
"Riverside Guesthouse" which no one knew. Oddly, on
my map, there was a river and everything was a bit
off, but not completely. A tuk-tuk driver drove me
around for almost an hour, chatting with people and
trying to figure out where I wanted to go. It wasn't
until I gave someone the number of the guest house
that we realized I was in the wrong city!!

I got on a bus and headed to Lampang which is where I
am now. Lampang is 90KM south of Chiang Mai and
because of the typhoon and the breaking of the dam,
has been flooded for almost a week. The hotel room
where I am staying was almost completely underwater
and you can see the mud marks most clearly in the
shower, it's almost to my mouth. It must have been
quite incredible. (Brings to mind New Orleans after
Katrina).

Today I've visited the elephant conservation center
and a temple. I may try to squeeze in a thai massage
as well. The center was filled with cute elephants,
let's just say that I took an entire roll of film!! I
fed them sugarcare which was a cool sensation and just
relaxed for a bit.

Not sure what I'll be up to in Chiang Mai but I'll
keep you posted!! Take care everyone and thanks for
writing to those who have - it's nice to log on and
have messages from home!!

Sarah

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Sukothai

Good morning everyone!!

I've headed up from Bangkok by train to Phitsanulok
where I then caught a bus to Sukothai. About 15km
outside of New Sukothai is old Sukothai which was once
the capital of Thailand around 1100-1300. I rented a
bicycle and cylced around the old city. There are a
number of old temples to view and it was a peaceful
place to lounge around and relax for a bit. They even
had a temple called "Wat Chang Lom" which means
elephant temple, with 36 elephants fronts around it.

After Sukothai, I have headed west to the Burmese
border, around Mae Sot. From there, I took a pick up
truck/bus contraption 4 hours through the mountains.
The views were spectacular and well worth the trip but
my butt was completely sore by the time we arrived
(don't think there was much padding). The unfortunate
part is that the pick up truck bed was so cramped with
people, produce and a motorcycle that I was
hardpressed to manage to get any photos. Maybe on the
way back - I might off for the rooftop option for a
bit of the way. Roomier but I imagine buggier too :(

I'm in Umphang now, waiting to go on a three day trek
tomorrow. The plan is to raft, camp overnight, a bit
of a jungle trek to Lee Lor Su falls and then some
more trekking and possibly an elephant ride. I'll let
you all know how it is when I get back!! You can
check out the website at www.umphanghill.com, the
place is the nicest that I've stayed at so far ;)

Miss you all,
Sarah

P.S. Turns out that "waterfalls" in Chiang Mai
actually meant typhoon which killed 43 people last I
checked in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, I believe.
Glad I didn't plan to head there first. Will be going
up that way in a few days though....

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Arrived!!

Good morning everyone!!

I just wanted to send a quick e-mail and let everyone
know that I have arrived safely in Thailand, exhausted
but no worse for the wear :) The taxi picked me up
from the airport late last night and I spent my first
night in Chinatown.
I'm now in the tourist area of Bangkok called
Banglamphu. (There are too many farangs for me - Tug,
it's worse than Cuzco).
I don't know how long I'll stay in Bangkok before
heading onwards - I must plan out my trip and buy a
train/bus ticket!!

Take care and I'll write soon when I have a better
idea of where/what I'm doing :)

Sarah

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I'm off

Hey there,

I'm off on another travelling adventure, this time to
Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos and Cambodia).

I'll be gone for six weeks and have decided to do a
blast e-mail journal or a blog option, depending upon
people's preference. The website address is
http://sixweekadventure.blogspot.com/ and it will
automatically be updated with my e-mails.

I would obviously like to hear from all of you so
please write often. Please feel free to reply to
either the blog or my e-mail address as I'll be
checking both!!

Happy trails,
Sarah

Anyone uninterested in hearing about my trip can
e-mail me directly and I'll have them removed from my
list :)

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