Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Todd and I will be livin' it up Thai style in Koh Samui. We have really been looking forward to this island. We keep hearing such great things about it. Not much new to report here though. We've been enjoying Koh Tao. It's mostly a divers' island so turns out there isn't much beach for us to explore. But we have been enjoying the local food and european style cafes. Todd and I have been taking advantage of the lazy life the Thais enjoy. A typical day starts with us waking up late and heading to our favorite cafe, Cafe Del Sol, to return emails over espresso and pastries. We've spent every afternoon here. It's also a prime spot to people watch. (Which Todd and I are both addicted to doing.) They also happen to have some of the yummiest Italian food. Earlier I had baked eggplant parmesan. It was heavenly. Todd enjoys the American breakfast with yellow leaf tea. We didn't expect such a wide selection of cooking here, but the Thais are much more worldly than we thought. Another place called Pranee's is our other favorite lazy spot. Last night we watched Kung Fu Pand with a mix of other travelers. I'm telling you, someone needs to start showing movies at their restuarant in Anchorage, it is so much fun. This is the place where Todd and I discovered the most amazing desert of all time! Bananas in sweet coconut milk. It sounds so simple but it is so complex in it's flavors. I wish we could share it with all of you. Well, other than soaking up the sun by the pool, we haven't been up to much. Take care eveyone. Have a wonderful Christmas and a crazy New Year! Think of us when your drinking your champagne!

No really, we're not dead!

Hey everyone! Yes, we are alive and still in Thailand. Currently Todd and I are shacked up in Ko Phangnan at the First Villa "Resort". Unfortunately we have been experiencing a lot of bad hotels with little to no internet. First lets catch you up. . . .

-Ko Phangang- (Dec 10-current)
So I had mentioned earlier in the blog that we hated our current hotel, First Villa. Mainly because we were given their smallest room that looked like it hadn't been tended to in years. Everytime we flushed the toilet water would spit out the back onto the floor. The shower head was directly above the cammode which created alot of fungus build up on the floor. Yuck! The safe was a laugh because the lock had been disassembled and left inside of the safe itself. And we had giant super beatles coming up through the drains and zooming through the room. Anyways, I could go on, but you probably wouldn't believe me.
Also, I shouldn't complain about being here. I know there are many people who would put up with giant super beatles just to be here in Thailand. So I'm going to stop. Seriously, I'm very thankful to be here. Moving on . . . things have really turned around though. Since the island's famous
Full Moon Party ended a few days ago, most of the tourists have left. Our hostess upgraded us to a Garden superiour Room, free of charge. It has been a god-sent. Now we are the only
tenants left in the whole resort. It's nice having the pool and kitchen all to ourselves.
What is the Full Moon Party, you ask? Rumor has it that it first started in 1987 as a going away party for an Australian hotel guest. The hotel owner told him he could invite whoever and it
grew into a large beach party with one boom box and a few boxes of beer. Apparently the party was on a night of a full moon and the locals felt like it added a special energy. Since then
it has become a global dance music festival attracting upwards of 30,000 travellers. (In the peak season, which is now.) There are two main beaches, Sunset and Sunrise. Both are lined with
bars and booming techno music that feeds the appetites of the hungry partiers. Unfortunately, poor Todd came down with a nasty case of food poisoning that afternoon and we were unable to go.
This time. We did visit Haad Rin the next day though. Haad Rin is the area of the island where this party takes place. It was very entertaining to people watch as we sauntered down the beaches.
Some people played frisbee tag, some were eating lunch at the beachside restaurants and the rest were just passed out drunk in the sand. Very entertaining. Other than the once a month Full Moon Party,
Haad Rin does not have much to offer. The entire town is catered to these traveling party people and is actually a very unattractive looking place. We haven't been back since that day.
Some of you may have already heard about Todd's and my little accident. We decided to rent a motorscooter, as this is the cheapest and most common method of getting around. I was already a
little skiddish in the bike and to make things worse the roads to Haad Rin are ridiculously steap and winding. It's like mountain trekking but the trail is paved. SO SCARY. Anyways, with both of us
piled on one bike, we ascended the first hill. (One of the steapest) Half way up the hill the bike stalled, I freaked out and tried to hop off the back into the ditch. But this caused the bike to swerve hit my leg and then fall into the ditch. Todd attempted to pull it out and then it fell ontop of his legs and smushed his ankle. I had to try to hold the bike up as he freed himself and then take it from me. All of this being done on a very dangerous incline. We are so lucky that the bike didn't go backwards down the hill,
with us on it. We are okay, a few burns and deep scrapes, but mainly I was really shaken. I have since refused to go up those hills unless I walk myself. Todd said that our bike just isn't
powerful enough for two people and that we can make it up with a bigger bike. But I just can't bring myself to do it. Oh well. I did however get on the bike and drive it by myself today.
I'm slowly overcomming the fear. Stupid Fear!!! Hi-ya!!! Take that!!!
Todd's mom had stayed here in Ko Phangan seven years ago and had recommended we visit her resort. So we made a day out of it. We hopped on the scooter and drove to the
opposite end of the island. The drive was beautiful. Big lushess trees, local farms and little to no tourists. We found the resort tucked away at the end of a white sand beach. But it was no
longer the backpacker haven, Deb used to describe. It had been renovated into a gorgeous villa resort with a huge pool and very inviting staff. Todd is in love and wants to look into
staying there for a while. We stayed for lunch and chatted with the owner about the recent change. It was a good day. Sadly though, this lunch was the cause of Todd's
food poisoning, but I'm sure that won't keep him away from the little treasure we found. We befriended a cat here as well .She is awesome she naps with us and doesn’t care that we don’t feed her, all she wants is attention and some scratchin. We had to give her a name and so Todd thought that since she was a little skinny, we should name her bones. Bones is a little kitten and isn’t bigger than a loaf of bread, she is a little crazy as she sometimes goes from sleeping to waking up in a second and then jumping on angleas lap and licking Angleas stomach. Bones is a cuddler for sure and Angela would like nothing more than to have her de-wormed and and givin a bath so we can keep her and take her home with us. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! We checked out a local paintball field. It's funny because the locals laugh at Todd when he says he will play against them. Little do they know he used to play professionally. (Todd wants me
to add that he will keep you updated as the story of his Paintball Domination unfolds.)
We have a few more days in Ko Phangan and we plan on spending the rest of it by the pool and the beach, as they are right next to each other, and enjoying the 90 degree weather and sunshine. Then it is on to Ko Tao, a smaller and more remote island designed for divers. We are a little unsure about this island, but we wanted to see the islands and so we are going. Then it is on to our long awaited stay on Ko Samui. Where we will spend Christmas and New Years. One of the things we are wondering is if there will be some good champange for dinner on those nights. We certainly hope so.
-Koh Lanta- (Dec 4-Dec 10)
Here we stayed at a wonderful, bug infested, very remote resort, called Lanta Full Moon Resort. This place was a lesson in picking your battles for sure. We were greated when we first arrived, by our host, who was a man, who had recently become a woman, who named herself asia. She was extremely nice to us. For instance, we ordered pina coladas to sit and watch the sunset on the fist night, around Thailand drinks are very small, about the size of a childs cup. Here we asked for a large glass, and she hooked it up! Very nice!! After Angela’s second glass of smile juice, she was…. feeling it. We stayed here for 6 nights. It was interesting because there was this local bob marley wanna-bee that was always around. We weren’t sure if he worked there, because he never did anything that resembled work, but he would hang out there every night and played music over the stereo and tried to hook up with any female guest he could. This became quite annoying, as we had the bungalow right next to the pool, and he would play music at a ridiculously loud level, til about 3 in the morning.( that’s about the time he would pass out.) On one of the days we tried to walk out to where the shelf is in the water. The shelf, is where the sandy beach part ends and then drops off into a much deeper part of the water. Angela stayed back for this part and I went out exploring, and I saw some pretty cool stuff, I saw a bunch of sea cucmbers and a lot of crab and little fish and some clams too. The best part was that I saw a huge eel, which I tried to catch, it was not having it. I managed to trap it under a rock, not hurt it, just scared it into a place that it hid till I could go and get angela, so she could check it out. She came out to see what it was, the eel was about 3 feet long and looked like a rainbow covered chekerboard. The colors and design on this eel were amazing, the I tried to get it again and the damn thing snapped at me then swam over to the rock that angela was standing on, she freaked out a little and so I had to give her a piggy back ride back into shore, as the eel might attack. The food we ate at this resort made up for the bug attack I received while sleeping.( I had massive bites on my feet and legs) there was this pinapple that they hollowed out and filled with chicken and shrimp fried rice… amazing! Angela and I ate some really good soup and also some dynomite chicken sate. We also made friends with the local cat, we named her Maoew, she hung out around us a lot, until we wouldn’t give her any food, then she left, to a different hotel guest with food.( not a good friend, just a hungry cat) we would also like to mention that Maoew is the thai word for cat, so when we thought it was their cat and asked for its name and they said maoew, we thought it was her name. That’s about the equivilent as telling someone your cats name is cat, and then they call her that for 6 days straight. Man we are really stupid sometimes.


-Ko Phi Phi- (Nov 30-Dec4)
We stayed at the Phi Phi Casita, right in the heart of Ko Phi Phi . A Bungalow style surounded by lush tropical trees and blooming flowers. I think this has been one of Todd's favorite places so far. It was a block away from the beach and perfectly placed in the middle of all the action. The beach in Phi Phi has been our favorite so far. The water was so warm and you could walk a half mile out and the water would only be at your chest. It was crowded but with lots of people our age. Everynight we were able to find new things to do. We ate at a tourist favorite, Breakers Bar, a "Cheers" type, There I experienced the tastiest Massaman Curry in all the land. (For those of you who have never had this delicious concoction,
it is a light curry dish made with cinnamon, cardamon, chicken, cashews, onions and yams! Served over soft sticky rice, it's heaven.) We found ourselves frequenting this bar. I think it reminded us the most of home and being surrounded by friends. In case we hadn't told you yet, Todd and I are on a search for the best Tom Kah Gai soup and Pad Thai. The soups have been very different everywhere we go but the Pad Thai has been the same. I hate to say it, but I prefer the Pad Thai dishes that we have in Alaska. Even the pad thai that I get from the street vendors do not compare to back home. So I am know searching for the best Massaman Curry! Also, on Phi Phi I tried a fried pancake. It was mouthwatering!
These were very popular and I a became so jealous when I saw people eating them. I looked like they use a thick philo dough and fry it in butter, then add whatever ingredient you could think
of. I chose Nutella and fresh bananas. Oh it was delicious! One night we found a bar that shows American comedies with dinner. That is big thing here. Very often you can find restuarants that have big flat screens viewing Family Guy or Friends. We sat down that night and watched Old School and played Connect Four over a round of Singha beer.

-Patong Beach or Karon Beach, Which is better?- (Nov 25-Nov30)
After a 5 hour bus ride from nowhere, we finally arrived in Phuket. Because we missed our transfer in Surat Thani to Phuket, we had to pay another 450 Baht for a taxi to our hotel in Patong Beach. (450 Baht is an outrageous price to pay for a taxi, but the locals have learned how to back the white man into a corner and we have heard horror stories about the Taxi Cab Mafia. Seriously, I wish I were joking.) The Arimana hotel, won first place prize for best looking brochure and then later finding out that nothing was what it was set up to be. The brochure gave the impression of a newer upscale place that was “close to everything”. On the contrary! The pool was a glorified bathtub which was out of order. We were set up in a standard but very dirty room and come to find out we were over a mile from the beach and in the middle of, what we’ll call it “The Red Light District” to be kind. Todd made a call and raised hell with Peak, our travel agent. If we haven’t told you yet . . . at the beginning of our trip we hooked up with a travel agency and ended up signing and paying up front on a non-refundable “all-inclusive” trip that would last the first two months of our vacation. Everytime we check into a new hotel, it is evident to us that we have been taken advantage of. But, this has been a huge learning experience for us and we are trying our hardest to get everything we can out of the package. So, you may hear a lot about crappy hotels. Sorry, but we need to vent.
Thankfully we were transferred to the Karon Princess Hotel. Lovely!!! It has been the best hotel we have stayed in so far. We were greeted with a smile and a refreshing glass of fruit juice. We could relax, finally! Across the road was the long picturesque Karon Beach. A little nightlife and well recommend restaurants were within walking distance. Todd and I agreed that this place had the best breakfast, best pool, and really welcoming service. This served as a great place for us to spend our Thanksgiving. Though we were only able to stay for four nights and then it was off to Ko Phi Phi.
-Sleeper Train to Nowhere- (Nov 24)
We took an 12 hour overnight sleeper train from Kanchanaburi to Surat Thani. This town is the main port city for the East coast islands. We were scheduled to have a transfer pick us up to go to the West coast town of Phuket. Stupid us, we had stayed up late on the train playing poker and forgot to set an alarm. We ended up sleeping through our connection ( which was at 5 in the morning) and found ourselves in a place that to this day remains nameless to us. The best we could guess was that we were somewhere near Trang. Trang is in the deep deep south of Thailand and there isn't much to do or see. When we told a police officer on the train that we were waiting for surat thani, he promptly went to ask what he should do over the radio. When he came back, he advised us that we had missed the connection by two hours. We were going to pay him 400 baht to stay on the train and get off at the next stop. We had no luck getting ahold of our travel agency, so this local man got off the train with us, hailed a taxi and took us to the nearest bus station. This guy saved our bacon, if it weren’t for him who knows where we would have ended up?( in hell most likely!) So off we were to Phuket!
-Kanchanaburi- (Nov 23-24)
We had a great time at the Tiger Temple. My good friend Chelsea advised us to spend a few hours there and we did just that. It is a huge reservation that is home to numerous animals
and the monks that run the place. Horses, wild boar, cows, waterbuffalo, and peacocks! Peacocks are beautiful up close, their colors are so brilliant. Also, we met a group of kids close to our age who were volunteering for a few months. One of the girls was from California, a few from European countries and
one guy from Australia, who had been spending most of his time with the baby tigers. It was so interesting chatting with this particular volunteer. He told us that he was an ex-cop who moved to the
temple just to volunteer for three months. He fell in love with the animals and ended up staying. Apparently the monks had invited him to become a monk so that he could live with the baby tigers full time.
due to a staff shortage, he got the job anyway and has been playing "mother" to four of the cubs for the past three months. They all live together in a small cage. The cubs even sleep in the tent with the guy!
They were adorable and very playful. Todd and I orignally thought that the tigers were heavily sedated in order to be so relaxed around the crowds. But that is not the case. Tigers are very lazy animals,
as we were informed. They sleep up to 18 hours a day, we were told not to make any loud noises and only pet their tummies, so they weren't scary to be around. Todd on the other hand hand an issue when he went to pet one of them in the veiwing area and they told him to pet the tiger harder on the tummy, when he did she growled and whipped her head aroud. Todd was shuffled away from that beast.
We spent one night in Kanchanaburi and that was more than enough. We spent the night in a "floating hotel", which turned out to be a nightmare. After traveling for 12 hours, spending three hours at the tiger temple
and going on a short hike, the last thing we wanted was to sleep in this boat house. The bed was aweful! It was made of straw and felt like a huge rock. The walls and floor had holes in them. (The better to see
the river, I guess.) and Todd wasn't able to sleep because there was a giant rat raising hell in the wall! Not all had been lost though, that night we met a lovely couple from Sweden.
Goran (pronounced Yohan) and Ingrid, were so interesting to talk to and Todd quickly made friends with them. He is so good at that. They had retired and had been traveling around the world by
sailboat.( the SS. Yvonne) They had just spent time in Spain, where they have another home and had decided to come to Vietnam and Thailand. They had great stories and very wise advice for us about traveling.
The following morning we traveled with our new friends and the group from our hotel to a National
Waterfall Park. I cannot recall the name of this particular place because we forgot the camera and now have no record of even being there. Oh well. It was beautiful
though. Very different from the waterfalls we visited in Chang Mai. This park had seven very large waterfalls, all connected by a winding jungle path. We started at
the bottom of a mountain and spent the day trekking up to the top, stopping at each blue green fall. When we got to the top we jumped in the pool at the bottom, and as this waterfall feeds the seven other waterfalls, we sat at the edge of the pool, that turned into a waterfall, and overlooked the area. AMAZING! Angela did get a little skiddish when there were little fish in the pools that nibbled on your feet. There were the occasional water spider, that were about the size of my palm, that was not enjoyable. I found a stick, and then sent them flying, baseball style. When we finished it was finally off to the train that would take us to our long awaited vacation in the islands! The first two and half weeks of our trip, Todd and I kept joking that we couldn't wait for our vacation to really start, as we had been in Thailand for almost three weeks, and hadn‘t seen a beach yet.. :)
This is what we have been up to for the past month. Sorry we haven’t been able to keep in touch as much as we hoped. So far Todd and I are not showing signs of coming home earlier than planned (for those who were placing bets). We were finally able to put together a care package and send it off to our families for Christmas. More than likely though, they won’t be showing up until mid January. Oh well! Take care everyone and enjoy life as much as you can. It’s way too short for us not to.

We're not dead!

Hey everyone!!! Sorry it's been so long since our last blog. Todd and I are down in the islands and there is very limited internet access. No need to worry though! We have been working on a very long a detailed blog to bring you all up to date. But for now you will have to wait a bit longer. Hope you all are doing well.

Jungle Trekking, Elephant Riding and Room Lizard

Salutations from Thaiplace. Angela and I have returned safley from our jungle trek. The trip started off by us arriving in Chang Mai and crusing the sunday night market, where after riding on a train for 12 hours, a massage was in order. After the massage we found a nice burrito joint by our hotel and got ourselfs some grub. The next morning we were picked up and then we headed off into the dirt roads and side street markets of Chang Mai til we were in the jungle. Angela and I were in a group of 11 people. We quickly befriended a guy and a girl by the names of Francis and Mahnoh, they were from Holland! Also included in the group was another couple from Holland, two friends from Switzerland and a German girl. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier we didn't get to know the rest of the group until the end of the trekk. Francis and Mahnoh proved to be fantastic traveling partners for us. They were just lovely.

We started our trek by riding elphants for quite some time, this was amazing. The minute we got near them they loved Angela, they all came near, which freaked her out because they tried to grab the bananas she had in her hand with thier trunks. I had to swat them away. Seemed to work just fine. I was having a blast and Angela started to warm up to them when I learned that our elephants name was Bucow. (Knowing your elephants name is very polite- thank you Diana.) For the first half of the trek we sat in a seat on our lady elephants back, then I decided that if the the main guy could ride on his elephants head, so could I. So I tried standing, Bucow wasn't having it. I was content with sitting and so was Bucow, as long as I kept giving her bananas.

Then we left there and went to our first of many water falls.

This was very refreshing as the temp was around 90 to 100 degrees and very humid, so to swim in a pool at the bottom of a waterfall hit all the right spots. I even got Angela to climb into the waterfall with me and stand underneath it. Then, in sandals, we went deeper in to the jungle. The first day was mainly hill climbing. We climbed what felt like a mountain, well for me anyways. We brought one bag, full of mine and Angela's stuff. My stuff: a water bottle, a toothbrush, deoderant, soap, long pants, long sleeve shirt, swimtrunks, towel, flashlight, bugdope. Angela's stuff: 3 swimsuits, a personal bag, 2 long pants, a water bottle, 4 boxes of pockie (an asian cookie), a bag of nuts, a tube of pringles, three pairs of underwear, pair of socks, two sunglasses, a sorong, three shirts, and her toothbrush. (Angela would like you all to know that we were instructed to bring most of those items.) The contents of this bag weighed about 60 pounds total and after three days of trekking with this, my legs are feeling GREAT! On a side note, I lovingly carried this bag as Angela is amazing to me and and I would gladly do anything for her. She even offered to carry it at some points, and I told her no and that it was not a problem.

Now where was I . . . after what felt like the Cambondian death march up a mountain for three hours, we stopped at our first camp and ate dinner. It was about 7 pm and it was already getting dark. My flashlight/headlamp was amazing to them. They built a fire and that we sat arounnd all night singing songs. Our guides must have been in a band some where, cause they played the guitar very well. In the broken english they knew, they sang from an American song book. But the group favorite was "Wonderwall" by Oasis. The guides also tried to sing `Celine Dion's, "my heart will go on", "Santeria" by Sublime, more Oasis and some oldies. All mixed in with a few Thai songs. At the camps there were water bottles, tea, coffee powder and beer. So we went til about 1 in the morning or so (this was what we did every night) then at 9 the next morning we set off on another 6 hour jungle trek.T his was the easiest day, suprisingly enough. It was mostly flat land and we stopped at three waterfalls. We saw massive jungle spiders that were the size of my head and some nice water buffalo, hundreds of rice fields and a few wild elephants. Then the eating and singing and drinking contiued again. The last day we trekked for about 4 hours and returned to the base camp where we went rafting down a river on bamboo boats. Really fun except for the incredible amount of trash that lined the banks of the river.

That night, back in Chang Mai, our guides invited us to hang out and have dinner, as they had alot of fun with our trekking group. So . . . a little more beer, someone brought rum, Angela and I brought pizza and we had a party. We left the hotel and went to an oudoor bar that was having a reggae conert. This was amazing.The band, in the broken english they knew, sang alot of Bob Marley and some Sublime and even The Police. So much fun! The next morning was rough. While I nursed a small hangover Angela spent the entire morning in the potty with food poisoning. She was feeling very brave last night and ate a burger. (She also wants me to add that it was totally worth it because it was the best tasting burger she'd ever had.) I brought her toast from the lobby and then later in the day she had a craving for chicken nuggets from McDonalds. (Her appetite never ceases to amaze me.) Armed with Thai Baht, loose change and my walkie talkie, I left the room and ventured out to find the one mcdonalds in town. This took a while so I chatted with Angela over the walkie talkie as I searched the city. Success! McDonalds! On my way back to the hotel I was walking through an alley and some guy in normal clothes came up to me, grabbed my free arm and said something in Thai. He said the word money in English. Not thinking clearly, as I was hung over, I thought he was a begger so I reached in my pocket and grabbed some change. As I was bringing it out it clicked that I might be getting robbed. Immediately I tossed the change on the ground and continued on my way. The man seemed pissed and tossed my arm aside. Not going for the money in my other pocket or my walkie talkie, or the mcdonalds. Very... weird.... Anyways, I got back to the room and hung with Angela for the day. We watched movies as she recovered from the night before.

She also informed me that we have a gecko living in the room. He is nice and small and keeps to himself. He pays the rent by eating any random bugs that may enter our dwelling. Nice guy, I think I shall call him Phil.

So you are all now up to date and we shall keep you all informed of our next adventure. In two days we will be heading, by way of a 15 hour train ride, to the tiger temple in Kanchanaburi. Playing with live tigers. FUN!! As always thank you to our families and friends for all of your love and support.-Todd and Angela

Bangkok Dangerous

Holy Bangkok!!! I can see why people prefer the islands. This place is big and confusing and so polluted, but also one of the coolest places I've been so far. What an awesome first couple of days we've had!
First day we did and saw almost everything there is to do and see in Bangkok. After a, long overdue, sound night of sleep on the stiffest bed in the world . . . we kicked off our day with a delicious vegan breakfast, compliments of our very upscale (to Thailand standards) hotel.

SIDE NOTE: All of the food here is just as flavorfull and aromatic as we hoped it would be. We may have had reservations about eating certain items, but it's so worth trying new things.

We began the day's adventure with our first tuk tuk ride. The driver was being very difficult because he wanted to take us arould to different jewelry shops. All of the tuk tuk drivers have contracts with tailor and jewelry shops, to bring tourists there in trade for free gas. After much debate with Todd, the driver wouldn't address me, he conviced him to take us to Kaoh San Road. Kaoh San is the backpacker mecca of Bangkok. A long narrow road litered with street vendors, neon signs, beer gardens, guesthouses, blarring music and young foreigners. Score!!! We walked up and down and through as many allies and sidestreets we could find. We came across and spa called Angela Beauty!!! The girls that worked there loved me. :) As we wandered towards central Bangkok, we saw a temple to check out. But a local man stopped us just as we walked through the gates because, first I needed to be completely covered and secondly, the King was there celebrating his upcoming 81st birthday. This very kind gentlemen proceeded to list off many other temples and sights for us to see. He hooked us up with another tuk tuk driver and told him we would only pay 20 Baht (about $.80 US) for the entire tour. This was a huge deal, as many drivers would have charged us 200 Baht (about $5.50 US). Our new driver's name was AT and he quickly became our bestest friend and spent the next two days with us. (We miss you AT!) He took us to a government issued travel agency, where we met with a lovely Thai lady that helped us assemble our travel itinerary for the next two months! It was awesome! Our trip now consistes of us traveling to nine different cities and islands in Thailand. Everything came at a discounted price due to the fact that it was a holiday. Loy Krathong(Loi Kratong) is a festival held on the night of Novemeber 12th where Thais symbolicly release their "wrong doings" to the gods. They construct mini boats out of banana leaves, flowers, candles and incense and then set them afloat down a river. The government and large corporations make life size versions of these and parade them down the main river while fireworks errupt in the sky above. The whole city was buzzing about this event and I was soooooooo excited to see. Unfortunately, later we had seen so much of Bangkok that we didn't make it to the festival. . . .I was very bummed and have vowed never to give up another opportunity like that to the "sleepies".

We spent the rest of the day with AT. He took us to Standing Buddha, Black Buddha and The Golden Mountain. The Buddha temples were so ornate and beautiful. There were monks everywhere! AT showed us his home and introduced us to his family. They were very welcoming. AT's 2 year old nephew loved Todd and all the funny faces he made. AT guided us through this huge carnival where we had pad thai, fishy deserts and fried grasshoppers! Then we trekked 400 steps up the famous Golden Palace , ringing every bell on the way for good luck. At the top, we followed buddhist tradition and gifted 20B, wrote our full names with wish/prayer on the community cloth and then paced around the golden tip three times. Hopefully, all of our dreams will come true.

You would think that after all of that sightseeing we would be ready to head to the hotel. But not us! We said good night to AT and planned to meet him again the next morning bright and early for another adventure filled day. Todd and I then braved the oversized MBK super mall. It's exactly what you think it would be. Too many of the same shops and young teeny boppers jammed into a loud and bright neon building resembling an ant farm. We got out as soon as we could find the nearest door. Although, not before we stopped for a quick bowl of yummy Tom Kar Kung soup, Todd's favorite.
The next morning we met up with AT again and immediately jumped into smoggy traffic. Most of this day was spent shopping in the Pratunam District. Pratunam is where the locals buy wholesale and retail at "local" prices. Todd and I had our first Thai foot massage and attempted to haggle with some merchants, but we were very quickly laughed out of the stores. Literally. Then, a very sad cloud hovered over as we had to say goodbye to AT. It sounds silly to be sad about a tuk tuk driver, but he really was so cute and generous with his time.
We found out that he was the same age as us, we learned all about his girlfriend he taught us some general Thai to speak. He thought Todd was so funny. We all had very sad faces as we parted ways. Todd and I ended that night with more night shopping and Thai beer, back at the hotel.

Tomorrow we leave, bright and early, for Chang Mai. That is in the northern part of Thailand. There we will take a guided trekk through a national forrest by way of elephant. Can't wait! But before all of that, Todd and I decided to give Kaoh San Road another go. We spent our entire day haggling (very successfully) for clothes and goodies and also ran into a fellow Alaskan couple from Ketchikan. Small world, right!? Then we sat outside at Siam Oriental and enjoyed a Singha beer and a banana pancake while chatting with an Australian couple. They were on their honeymoon and had lots of advice for exploring this place. After that, we scouted out guesthouses for two of our close friends who will be joining us on the last leg of our trip. Sheron and Will: wait till you see this place! It is now Friday night, we are relaxing in our room with 4 pieces of fried chicken, 2 ears of salted corn, and 3 large Singha beers from a street vendor, all for under 100B. (Todd wanted to make sure you all now how much food he got for such little cost.)
Bangkok has been very good to us but I wouldn't recommend more than two days here. It is so busy and too smoggy. We are ready for the jungle!

The eagles have landed, IN THAILAND

looks like angela left her account logged in and now todd has all the control. Hello party people in the place to be. Our plane ride has finally ended with us landing in thailand.it is 10:30 in the morning here, angela and i just checked into our hotel. it is really nice. they gave us a king room on the corner of the building so we have a good view. The flights were nice and the plane from san fran to hong kong was incredible. we had our own tv, with games movies tv shows. all the new releases movies that still in movie theaters. the meals were prepared and presented to us 3 times during our 14 hour flight, they gave us ice cream. sooo nice. we had our first stop in hong kong, which was alot like a shopping mall. the entire main level was shopping in a macey's and then then upper level was a food court the likes i have never seen. it was huge. When we arrived to thailand we got off of the plane and went immeadiately to immigration and then customs. the second we stepped out of security s goverment lady insisted she was trying to help us, so she tried to sell us tickets from our hotel to some arty and guided tour for the king of thailand, which if we bought anywhere else it would have been 60 dollars, she was going to give aus a very special government rate od 20 dollars. now i have a pretty good patience for peole, when angela is really tired, this is not the case. she looked at me, then her, then let out a nice , aughhhhh, and then wlaked away. really funny if you ask me. our cab was a metered cab, this is very important mind you, because alot of these cabs are privately owned by the people who drive them, so they can make their own prices, metered is the best way. we watched some al-jazeerah tv before falling asleep in our suite with a king size bed. very nice. we shall keep you updated as our adventures continue.

thankyou to all of our friends and family for all of your love and support.

todd and angela

p.s. to our family, we have made it here very safely and we are trying to figure out how to do the international calling. should be getting calls within the next few days

Lift Off!

Major Todd and Major Angela to Ground Control . . . We are now leaving Anchorage!!! Wish us luck on our 25 hour flight across the Pacific. While all you people are so soundly sleeping, I will be nervously anticipating our arrival in Bangkok. Todd has a lot of energy and ,as always, is entertaining our fellow travel mates. He never dissappoints. I'm sure he will be zonked out by the time the captian introduces himself. . . . . "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now boarding for flight 30." That's us! Time to take our sexy traveling asses, load up our packs and begin the first of many life changing adventures.
Love you all!

The countdown begins . . .

Welcome all family and dear friends! We are officially on the countdown, less than seven days until lift off. For those of you who don't know, Todd and I are headed to Thailand for three months! Why three months you ask? It's to save my sanity really. After we both had an intense year of work, show after show and putting up with that disgusting gray summer, we felt it was time go. Why Thailand you ask? Because it's CHEAP! It has some of the world's most beautiful beaches and it wil be easy to travel to neighboring countries. Thus maximizing our three months abroad.
A word to the wise: for those of you who are like me and have never left America, learn from our mistakes. Try to get everything in order a couple of months before you leave. Todd and I learned the hard way and almost cut our trip short, by not applying for a 90 day visa early enough and not recieving our immunizations early enough. Luckily we've got some good mojo workin' and have been meeting all of the right people to help speed up these processes for us. By the way, I'd like to send a shout out to that awesome British nurse who so kindly injected and pumped our bodies full of virus killing drugs; and thanks to that cool dude at the Thai Consulate in Chicago for actually picking up the phone!!!
Todd and I are leaving late late Sunday night, November 9th. (What I don't doubt will be another cold and dark Alaskan night.) We have tried our hardest to spend as much time with all of you before we leave. If we are not able to meet up with you, we are sorry and please rest assure that we will be thinking of you as we lay oh so peacefully on those beautiful white sand beaches. Our love to all of you. We both will miss Alaska terribly, but this is something that we have been dreaming of for a long time, so there is no turning back now! Check back in every now and then, as this may be our only way to share this with most of you. :)