Ko Chang!

Our most recent adventure took us to Ko Chang, which in English means Elephant Island. We spent a few days lounging on the beach and exploring the island.

For the first 3 nights, we stayed in a little bungalow literally feet from the beach. It was very basic, but worth it to be so near the ocean.

We rented a motorbike and drove up and down the island. We found this "massage hut", if you will, right on the beach. Hearing the waves lap while being rubbed down by an old Thai lady is what paradise is all about. The best part was probably being forcibly disrobed by the masseuse while other tourists were walking by.

Wednesday we rented a kayak and paddled out to a few of the islands. One of us may have spent half the time leaning back in exhaustion and asking if we were there yet. But no one needs to point fingers. This is one of the islands we rode to (don't be fooled, it's farther than it looks).

Thursday we went snorkeling. The crew on our boat was very energetic and would often find things like a sea cucumber, an octopus and a sea urchin for us to hold.

We also got to just play in the water, which Ben took full advantage of.

That night we moved locations to a nice hotel with an equally beautiful, but slightly more distant view. I was ecstatic that they had a blow dryer in the room--such luxury. We spent one night there recovering from our busy week before heading home.

Tomorrow we leave for Chiang Mai, the last of our adventures before we head back to the US on Thursday. It's been a great trip, and we're sad to leave, but excited to see our family again.

Update

We have been remiss the past while as far as blog writing is concerned. For some reason, Blogger decided to delete all of our pictures, so we put our blog in a time-out. But recently we've been uploading pictures again, but we should give you an update of the many things we've done the past couple of weeks. Just a warning, we have been very busy, so this is quite a long post.

Ben spent a few days in Taipei for his internship. He spent most of the time at the food fair, but he did get the chance to see a bit of the city and even go to the temple.

He rode to the top of the second tallest building in the world.

The weekend he got back, we were invited to the house of a woman he works with, Daun (pronounced Da-gun).

We visited her village where we watched the monks get fed and participated in a party celebrating her cousin becoming a monk.

The family we're staying with left that weekend, so we've spent the past couple of weeks finishing up our jobs and seeing the surrounding area.

The children Megan taught at the kindergarten were so fun and quite enthusiastic.

Ben finished his internship by working at Thaifex, the Thailand food fair. There were many delicious samples and a bit of food carving. Yes, this is all made of food.

For our two-month anniversary, Ben surprised Megan by taking her to a nearby beach, Hua Hin. We had fun playing in the water and exploring the town.

We rented a motorbike so we could get around easier. Ben had fun driving it, but it made Megan quite nervous, to say the least (but NOT because of Ben's driving, that has to be made clear).

Back in Bangkok, we have been able to make quite a few small trips downtown.

We went into town one night to check out Backpacker's Road (locally called Kao Sahn Road). It was interesting, but considering all of the tattoo parlors, dreadlocks, and bars that could be found, we were not quite at home. However, we found a night flower market that we loved. We took advantage of the cheap prices.

We also visited Lumphini Park, which is home to joggers, high school band players, and monitor lizards.

We walked around and rode a paddle boat around the pond. We got to see many monitor lizards up close, including these two that seemed to be having a territory battle. Please note the accuracy of Ben's imitation.

Yet another trip we made was to a nearby floating market. It rained most of the time we were there, but it was still fun to walk around.

We ordered Pad Thai and cocoa yen from boats. Both were tasty. Unfortunately we didn't have time to stay and watch the fireflies.

The most recent trip we made was yesterday. For only 120 baht apiece ($4) we took an all-day tour on a train.

We stopped to see the Bridge on the River Kwai and were able to walk across it.

The train continued over the bridge and took us to the end of the line, where there was a waterfall. We ate our lunch there and then continued back. Plus we saw the Burmese/Thai border (though from a distance). It was a long day.

We were planning on going to the beach today after church, but we were both so tired that we decided to take the day to rest. This was lucky, because we were invited over to another couple's house for lunch, and we've enjoyed getting to know the people here. So tomorrow morning we'll leave for Ko Chang, where we'll be for the rest of the week. We'll be sure to keep everyone updated. Oh, and for more pictures on all of the above-mentioned activities, please see the photos link over on the right.

Visa Run

It's been a little while since we've written anything, so I thought it would be a good idea to update our avid readers on our recent visa run. When traveling to Thailand, tourists don't have to buy a visa to enter, but they are only allowed to stay a certain time before leaving and getting your passport stamped again. For stamps in airports it's every 30 days and for stamps at the border it's 15 days. Our 30 days were up, so we had to leave the country. The cheapest and quickest way we found (with the help of Pi Maam at Ben's work) was to wake up at 3:30 in the morning so we could catch a 5:00 bus to the Cambodian border. It was a double decker bus that was taking a bunch of Thai people to the casinos on the border. Neither Thailand nor Cambodia allows gambling, but they have an agreement to allow casinos between their borders. We had been warned of the likelihood that officials would try to trick us into spending way more money than necessary. Right as we stepped off the bus, we were taken by someone to an office to fill out some paperwork. When we took it up to the window, the man tried to charge us twice as much as we knew we should pay. When we told him we knew what the price was, he became furious and stormed out of his office and started yelling (in English) at the man who had brought us over, saying he should settle on a price first. That was quite an experience. Shortly after that we made our way through the Thai border and over to the Cambodian one. We also had to argue with the officer there because he kept increasing his price. But we held out. All in all it wasn't too much of a hassle. We then had all day to kill because the bus we came on didn't leave until 3 that day. We spent about an hour walking into Cambodia. It was an extremely hot, dusty road, but it was interesting to see the differences between Cambodia and Thailand. It is obviously much poorer. We bought some water there (so Ben could officially say we'd been in Cambodia) and then when we turned around to head back to the border, a man offered to give us a ride on his bike. We then spent the rest of that day in a casino in the middle land between Cambodia and Thailand. We ate some free lunch, I got a foot massage, and we watched people gamble. We actually had fun with that, trying to figure out how the games worked and what people's strategies were. To end this adventurous day, we got to walk back to Thailand through pouring rain in order to catch our bus on time. All in all, it was quite an exhausting day. But we enjoyed ourselves, and we'll be headed back there in about a week and a half for a real trip to Angkor Wat and Phnom Penh.

Mon adventure

As Ben said, we spent Saturday walking around the Mon settlement, Ko Kret. Here's a little history lesson for you--a few hundred years ago, the king put this group of people, the Mons (from Burma), on this piece of land. He didn't want them taking jobs away from the Thais. So they lived on this land making pottery. It eventually flooded and became an island and is now a pretty popular tourist sight for Thais. Now you can all walk away smarter and enriched. So we caught a taxi from our house to Wat Sanam Neua in Pak Kret where we took a ferry over to the island. It was a short trip but really pretty. We ate some amazing pad thai and walked around the entire island. We saw some potters working and bought a few pieces of pottery. The entire walk took about 2 hours. It was beautiful, and it really did feel like a honeymoon for the first time. We highly endorse this island to anyone visiting the city.

The ferry over to the island

The most delicious pad thai we've had yet

A shot of the market where we ate

The making of the pottery

A kiln

Potters carving by hand

These kids were helping out--they were adorable

A couple of old women talked us into buying these treats, which we did. They were disgusting.

Ben's first coconut tree

The path on the back side of the island was much more rural

The biggest temple on the island

Pictures, pictures, pictures

It's been a busy few days, so I thought I would put up some pictures so everyone can get a glimpse of our day-to-day lives.

Ben, Adele and Alaina working on the fort we built in Adele's room. We watched The Kid inside the fort.

At Villa, a shopping center, for 10 baht you can have a machine spit out fish food and then these huge catfish come up and fight for the food. It's crazy.

The bus/truck thing that I ride to work every day. It's pronounced "Song-Tau" and basically it's just benches and a roof put over the back of a truck bed. And it only costs 6 baht.

Anvida Kindergarten, where I teach English three times a week.

The Pinvises' house, where we are staying. The window at the very top that you can barely see is our room.

Spa Blah

Today we had the pleasure of visiting the Jatujak (or J.J.) weekend market in Bangkok.  It's row after row of shops and stands and restaurants, and it's the biggest market in Thailand. Plus it's attached to the J.J. mall, which is huge in and of itself.  We (meaning us and the entire Pinvises family) spent all day there.  Megan came away with a couple of skirts and Ben bought some lovely ties for only 10 baht apiece. After lunch and more shopping, Ben, Megan, Ariel, Adele, Alaina and Alex visited the foot spa. But this was no ordinary foot spa; you put your feet in large tanks of water and tiny fish nibble the dead skin off of your feet and legs. It was quite an experience; and it worked, our feet were so soft.  An interesting side note--the Thai word for fish is pronounced "blah".

The J.J. market

Megan, Ben and Alaina, feet submerged in flesh-eating fish

A close up

The other tanks had bigger fish--we all took turns putting our feet in there

Life of Luxury

We've had a lot of family and friends worried about us with all this rioting going on. We just wanted to let everyone know that we're perfectly safe.  We're about an hour away from downtown, so we haven't seen any problems firsthand. Church was canceled today though because the church building is downtown. But as long as we stay in this general vicinity we should be fine.  In fact, we are more than fine, because we have been living quite the life here in Thailand. Friday Megan got her hair done and had a pedicure. Such a hard life. Yesterday we went to a fancy Thai restaurant that was beautiful.  It is called Suan Thip, or the garden of Thip (the goddess of water).  Delicious food, beautiful gardens, and they even put your napkin on your lap for you.

The restaurant

another view

our coconut smoothies came in actual coconuts

the view across the river

One night in Bangkok and the world's our oyster

Ben and I arrived in Bangkok last night at 1 am after a day and a half of traveling. We're staying with Ben's old roommate Alex and his family; they've been really nice to us. Today was for recovering from jet lag, so we didn't do a lot, but we did go out to lunch with Alex and then to a mall this evening with his dad and sister, Adele. For those who haven't been to a Thai mall, it was quite large. 8 floors with a grocery store in the basement. That's what I call shopping. We're excited to get to see more of the city. The only complaint I have right now is the jet lag, which is to be expected.  More specifically, I mean the fact that I have been struggling not to fall asleep while Ben is wide awake.  A person should not be allowed to adjust so quickly.  His crazy sleeping habits (or lack of sleeping habits) might have something to do with it.  I knew he was good at almost everything he did, but how can one have a talent for not being tired?