January 24th, 2008

My mother has alerted me that some of my readers are afraid that I may have fallen off the face of the earth, I apologize. I will try to catch you all up as best I can as to what i have been up to for the past month.
On the 30th of December I met up Pat and Brad (two of the men on my trip) in Bangkok for a little new years trip to the South East. The first night, we caught a bus to Pattaya, which was less than enjoyable. A little background on pattaya, it is the sex business capital of Thailand and the main city is full of go go bars and dirty foreigners. Luckily, we had connections to the christian orphanage in town and got to stay in their guest house, far away from the grossness of the city.
The next day we hitched a ride to Si Racha, a small fishing village about 1 hour north of pattaya. In Si Racha, we lucked out with a clean, friendly hostel on a pier. Pat, Brad and I spent new years by the water teaching american card games to a few thai 20 somethings we met at our hostel, it was quite an interesting experience and I cant imagine having spent my new years here in thailand any other way.... Si racha was definitely a small sleepy fishing village and Brad and I were excited to get on a boat to Ko Si Chang on the 2nd.
Ko Si Chang is a small island off of Si Racha, it doesn't have the idyllic beaches of the south west but it's an island that a lot of thai's vacation to. The ferry ride over to Ko Si Chang was maybe one of the most terrifying experiences I have had here in Thailand. The water was extremely rocky, the ferry was taller than it was wide so when we rocked we rocked and to make matters worse we were weaving our way through huge ocean liners. Brad and I sat on the top deck, thinking it would make the trip more enjoyable, but after I almost fell out of the boat (ie the moment we realized our chairs were not secured to the deck), I realized we had made the wrong choice. After the boat ride, Brad and I found a really beautiful villa type guest house (we think we got the honey moon suite) looking out onto the ocean... We spent a day exploring the island, nothing too exciting but it was very pretty. The next morning we woke up to monkeys roaming around outside our window, not an everyday occurrence.
We got back to Bangkok on the 3rd, and to say the least I wasnt very happy about that because Bangkok is one of my least favorite places in thailand... On the day of the fourth, Brad and I spent an excellent day exploring bangkok by public transportation. First we took the boat bus ferry down the Chao Phraya delta, caught up to the sky train, took that across town and then caught another boat bus down another river which flows horizontally through the city and finally walked our way back past the palace and democracy monument to kao Sarn Rd (where we were staying).
That night we picked up my girlfriend Alex at the airport. The next day we all took a 12 hour train up to Chiang Mai. It was really amazing to ride through the rice bowl (ie central Thailand) but 12 hours on a train is kind of pushing it.... Alex and I did a whole handful of wonderful exciting things in chiang mai, ex. went to the hot springs, tons of temples, waterfalls, hiked up doi suthep, etc... Alex and I also went on a 5 day trip to the north west to Mae Hong Son and Pai. In Mae Hong Son, we rented a motorbike and just drive into the country side and explored (waterfalls, fish caves, mud baths, etc....). We then took a crazy bus up to Pai, I almost fell out of the bus door a handful of times but we got to see some of the most beautiful views I have seen here in Thailand, so far... Pai is an interesting place, to say the least.... It's a town in the middle of the mountains inhabited by foreigners (young and old), thai Muslims and native thai's. Much of the time alex and I felt like we could be in some hippy town in California, it was quite odd...
Tomorrow is my birthday (although it doesn't feel like it, ie weather etc...) and sunday my parents arrive, we will be touring around Chiang Mai and then we are off to Ankor Wat in Cambodia (extremely exciting!!!). When my parents leave I will be heading off to the north east for a trip focused on sustainability and organic farming, once back I will begin writing my final research paper. I have a lot a head of me and I will try to not to forget to write but if I do I am sorry and I will try to keep in touch as much as possible.