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. :)