Pics from Chiang Mai and Pai

Ok so here are some of the pictures I promised my mom.

From Riverview Bar in Chiang Mai. From the left Flo (Germany), Roy (Israel), Martian (Quebec).

From a rooftop bar in Chiang Mai. Just thought it was a kewl picture.







Breakfast with the group of people I met here in Pai.


Flo with his pink motorbike.









Waterfall here in Pai, that we swam to. I don't remember the name though.



A different waterfall. I was playing with the colors on my camera.

Elephant camp!

Scenery from the motorbike in Pai.

The extremes of Thailand

So, the more I see of Thailand the more I realize the extremes here. Here's my experience from the other night. I start in Bangkok on Khao San rd. where there are so many backpackers that people don't even approach you in Thai they start talking in English or in Hebrew. I go to buy a bus ticket to Chiang Mai in the north, and I know that the ticket should cost 350 Baht but sales lady talks me into buying a ticket for 550 because she tells me the other bus company in unreliable, and the buses are dirty, and break down all the time, and so on and so on. So I show up to the bus and find I bought the 350 ticket for 200 Baht too much, ok i understand its only 6 dollars but still. And so everything the woman told me was right, I'm so surprised we actually made the entire 14 hour trip. But after being cheated I meet some of the kewlest backpackers yet, from Israel and Germany. And I ended up traveling for the past 4 days with them and absolutely had a blast!

So we get to Chiang Mai and find a nice place to stay for 180 Baht. Then at night we go out to the bars and hop around a little b4 finding ourselves in a bar called Spicey at 4am. Well, to say the least this was the saddest most disgusting place I have ever seen with my eyes!!! I was shocked!! It was a club with maybe 3/4 Thai girls from the age of say 15 to 40 all working to get money from the foreigners. Well all the men in the club were dirty old Europeans that had absolutely no respect (and y should they if the girls are working that way) and just grabbing at the Thai girls (thank g-d they were leaving all the foreign girls alone) and half un-dressing them on the dance floor. Then there was one Thai girl who must have been on some crazy drugs jumping all over the place and almost attacking my friends. It was just disgusting, and she must have been 4 foot 10 or so and less than 100 lbs. Alright, so that experience was too much for me I wanted to vomit!!!

Then the next day me and my 2 friends decide we need to get out of Chiang Mai and book a minivan ticket to Pai. The drive up here was 4 hours and through these thick rain forest covered mountains with every other turn up the mountain showing an amazing view of layers and layers of dense green mountains. I could not believe I was in the same country!!! It was breathtaking and the mountain air was so fresh! Then we arrive to Pai, an amazing little town where it seems everyone knows everyone and the locals are in love with the backpacker community. Everything here is crazy cheap and you can rent a motorbike for $3/day and dive less than 15 mins in different directions from the center to visit amazing waterfalls, and a little canyon, and elephant village and fruit orchards. Then end your day at one of the local bars with all the backpacker friends you've made and share your stories from the day.

It's just incredible how you can have such completely different experiences from this crazy country!

Stuck in Bangkok!

So, last time I posted I was leaving Koh Tao and I thought I was on my way up north to Chiang Mai with a friend but that didn't happen. So I stayed in Nakhon Pathom for a few days with my buddy Ba Dang... She was a little too excited that I came back. She kept feeding me about every 2 mins and taking me places. She is so nice but I think her hospitality is a little too much for me, so I bought a ticket to Chiang Mai and am on my way! Yay!

In the past few days I went with some friends to the old capital of Thailand, Ayuthya, then hung around in Bangkok a little (not too much), and went with Ba Dang and her friends to the mountains in Kanchanaburi.

The Emerald Buddha in Wat Prat Kaew in Bangkok. This little Buddha has been through a lot, it was stolen a few times after wars between Laos and Thailand... I guess he is really important!





Peh and I in Ayuthaya. It used to be the capital of Siam and these are the ruins! Very awesome! I felt like I could see the Thai people hundreds of years ago going to pray at these temples!




Peh and I took an elephant ride around Ayuthaya! And wow they are huge animals!

The Wat in Kanchaniburi (?) with the great Monk's from Burma remains.






So anyways, I did make it to Chiang Mai after a very scary bus ride up here. But it turned out good because I met an awesome German and an Israeli on the way (who would have thought?). So I will probably travel with them for a few days. We are all single travelers that don't have any plans for at least 3 weeks... So we will see how this goes. So far they are too funny for me to watch, they just make me laugh!! If you would see these two together you would think they came to Thailand as best friends...

I'm off!

Funny, Smart, and Stupid (FSS)

I'm seeing so many things here in Thailand, I just want to look back later and be able to remember all the funny, smart and stupid things I see here in Thailand.

Funny:
- The bank employee whose job it is to direct traffic with a whistle in the bank parking lot in Bangkok, even though the bank is tiny and there are only 10 parking spots!!
-The tall, skinny, beautiful (sometimes) Thai women. They often wear dresses and high heels and lots of make-up. Just talk to them a little to realize they are all men...
-The scooter bikes that hold a family of 4 or 5 including the little toddler in front hanging on for dear life to the handle bars. Most the time they are also clutching onto their groceries. (Maybe this one should go in the stupid section!) Not to mention they like to ride on the wrong side of the street because its more convenient.

Smart:
-The ramps on the highways that are explicitly for making u-turns
- Take off your your shoes before entering any home, small shops, restaurants, other small businesses. Bangkok is a bit of an exception where everything is dirty.

Stupid:
- The buses don't fully stop for the people to get on the bus. You just hope that the people can move enough in time for you to squish in before you get run over!

Scuba diving

So I just finished my open water scuba diving certification, with Crystal dive, here on Koh Tao. And I love diving!!! I don't know why I waited so long to get my diving certification!

Left: My open water diving class. Elena, me, Claire, Hannah, and Joe. Yoni is missing... thats ok he doesn't need to be in the picture anyways, lol.

Right: our awesome instructor, Agnes!











Me and my scuba partner, Elena.

We graduated! I don't think I could've been in a better group, I'm really gonna miss these people so much. Joe, me, Elena, Hannah, Yoni, James (Dive Master in Training), and another DMT.

I love Koh Tao so much, I feel like I could just stay there for the rest of my trip. Its a pretty small island, therefore its quiet, but still plenty of stuff to fill your time. After my scuba courses a friend and I rented a motorbike and just cruised around the tiny island. I was pretty crazy because most of the roads arn't paved, and they are really, really steep!!

Rob the Canadian.

View from the north point of Koh Tao.

Then we went to the closest island to Koh Tao, to Koh Pangan, for the full moon party. Basically its a huge drinking party on the beach where people have way too much to drink and end up passed out on the sand with cut up feet from broken bottles at 6am. Well I'm not really the one to lose controll while drinking, but I guess if anything it was worth it just to see all the stupid people... lol.

The original bar for the Full moon party, Paradise Bungalows.


The stands on the beach that sell mixed drinks, aka buckets. Just imagine a few hundred of these lined up for almost 2 km.





Rob, Luke, Neil



Mary, Jess, me, at the Full Moon party! Everyone was from the same scuba school.

Beautiful Koh Tao

Sorry for the short posts!! The internet here is quite expensive per min and slow!!

But to start, this island is nothing short of heaven! I have a private bungalow with a view over looking the beach and a perfect view of the sunset for $9 a night! I'm just afraid I will get stuck here forever! Ahhhh its just too relaxing to wake up whenever (which happens to be 7am every morning) stroll over to a $2 breakfast feast, lay on the beach, and go for a short hike in one of the islands 2 mountains :), then end the night at lotus bar to see the Thai fire jugglers! I'm doing what I can to post pics but it may be a few days... sorry. Left: view from the porch of my bungalow

Left: My favorite hammock :)
Right: Sunset from my favorite hammock






The fire jugglers. The kid in the middle is so talented and he looks about 8 years old!






Yesterday I moved from my private bungalow to start a scuba diving certification course! Eh I guess its worth it, I meeting some awesome people! Tomorrow we go out on the boat for our first real open water dive. I'm a bit nervous. Anyways off to bed I need to be up early.

Leaving Bangkok!

So I'm finally out of here, and off to Koh Tao (Island Tao)! And I'm glad to be leaving too! Its way too busy and touristy for me here. And everything here is so cheap I ended up buying a lot of things I don't need, like a Thai beer t-shirt just because I was able to bargain it for 2 dollars. Anyways I got a bus and boat ticket to Koh Tao, for 600 baht ($18), I leave at 6pm tonight and should get there at 10am tomorrow... :)

Th Kao San

Now I'm currently staying in the most touristy rd of Thailand!! Yuk!! Well, it is an experience!

Anyways, I went to the airport today to buy my ticket to the Philippines and I also wanted to change my flight home in January so that I could stop for a couple weeks in Taiwan to see a friend. Well neither of those happened. The flight to the Philippines is way too expensive, and the China airlines ticketing counter wasn't open. So I ended up booking a flight to Singapore on October 10. Yay! No flight back to Thailand yet because I still hope to go to the Philippines. :):):)

Here are a few more pics:











Left: Pii Liew, Me, and her cousin Boat before we went to the floating market (Dalet naam)
Center: in the skinnist shop in the floating market
Right: Ba Dang (behind me) treated us to a firefly boat ride. Its a boat ride along the river of the floating market and you see millions of fireflies lighting up the trees and its my favorite thing so
far.

Left: We went to a flower market in Bangkok with more flowers than I've seen in my life. And bouquets that would cost a few hundred dollars in the US cost maybe $15!!
Center: Tuk Tuk, the three wheeled way to get around Bangkok.
Right: My last dinner with Ba Dang we went to a Japanese style restaurant. Japanese soup: just put everything you can fit into the soup.


Left: Wat Rachanadda in Bangkok
Right: Bangkok from the top of Wat Saket (Golden Mount) And the Wat was not really what I was expecting so I forgot to take a picture of it all together...lol.






This is a post from yesterday that I could not get published, so here it is!

Into to Thai 101

Thai food: Very, very cheap but make sure to ask for mai pet (not spicy) other wise you won't be eating much else for the rest of the meal. Don't ask what you're eating, only after. You may not want to try it. If its white and taste like rubber, its squid.


Left: Fried squid and something else you can find on the streets of Bangkok
Right: My host Pii Liew and Nee (her friend). They took me to a Thai resturant for dinner

Thai language:

Pi Liew trying to teach me Thai. Pi Liew: rice is kaow.

Me: kaow?

Pi Liew: No, its kaow

Me: kaow

Pi Liew: No! kaow

Me: kaow

Pi Liew: That means white, rice is kaaaaaaaaaoooooooooow

Me: Kaaaaaaaaooooooooow

Pi Liew: :)

Thai praying: Pay daily respect to the Buddha

Thai mopeds: 4 adults on a moped is no problem!

Dalet (market): Try a piece of everything b4 you buy it. If you look american you must bargain at least 50%. "Paang kah! Lot noi dai mai kah?" Expensive! Can you make it cheaper?

Left: Ba Dang at the local market in Nakhon Pathom
Right: floating market








Thai home: take your shoes off outside. House the most friendly people on Earth.

Thai toilet: still trying to figure this one out

Traditional Thai wedding dress