Lost in a big world

Headed Back to China

jsherdc — Fri, 5 Aug 2011 02:40:00 GMT

I am going back to China for a vacation. I need advice.

Here are possible iteineraries, starting August 20th:

1.5 days beijing

3 Days Baoji

3 Days Pingyao

1 Day Chongqing

6 Days Shangrali-la

1.5 days beijing

3 Days Baoji

3 Days Pingyao

3 days Chongqing (Including Dazu Carvings)

4 Days Shangrali-la

1.5 days beijing

3 Days Baoji

3 Days Pingyao

1 Day Chongqing

6 Days Shangrali-la

1.5 days beijing

3 Days Baoji

3 Days Pingyao

1 day Chongqing

4 Days Shangrali-la

2 days Lijiang (I have been there before, but its nice, and there are great Mushrooms!)

D: like C but add 1 day in Taiyuan and subtract 1 from Shangrali-la

E: like C but add 1 day in Chongqing and subtract 1 from Shangrali-la

etc.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

A Guide to the US

jsherdc — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 01:34:00 GMT

I have lived in quite a few cities, so I thought I would share some of my favorite things from each of these cities and maybe from a few more as well. I have lived in (or near) NYC, Middletown Ct, Boston MA, Washington DC, Albuquerque NM, Los Angeles CA, Philadelphia PA and Miami Fl. I dont think Middletown will be of any interest to people (and I left there 20 years ago), so I will probably skip that one. I might throw in a few other cities that I know pretty well at the end and other places that I have visited.

My focus will be on the acvities I enjoyed in that city, and especially on food...

Welcome to Miami

jsherdc — Sun, 3 Oct 2010 22:37:00 GMT

I just moved to Miami for a new job. Miami is quite unusual for a US city. When I first arrived, I went to a restuarant (Catch of the day, which was pretty good) and the waitress spoke to me in Spanish. I think Miami is something like 70% Spanish speaking.

I am living just outside the downtown area of Coral Gables, which is a latin influenced (I think many wealthy south american live here) upscale suburban town surrounded by Miami (somehow, it avoided incorporation). It sort of reminds me of Bethesda, MD. I live in a high rise with a nice pool, on a busy street, with a supermarket across the street and a good cuban restuarant next door and a 3 block walk to "the miricle mile" which is the downtown Coral Gables. Its about a 2 mile commute to work. Which may sound short, but in terms of exposure to bad drivers, its a lot. This is because Miami drivers are the worst I have seen in the US. By far! After dealing with cars weaving back and forth on 2 lane streets, all of them making illegal turns, few of them aware of the other drivers around them, cutting them off not letting them in, etc. But yesterday, I saw something I had never seen before. I was driving in the lane closer to the middle on a busy divided 4 lane street (2 lanes going each way, with a double yellow line in the middle), and a car turns onto my street by makinbg a left turn into the right most lane (with multiple cars going the other direction in the left lane that I was in), going up the street 30 feet in the wrong direction, before cutting across 2 lanes onto the correct side of traffic. Oy vey. I suspect car insurance rates are going to be very high here...

Gallery: Luang Prabang

jsherdc — Sun, 1 Mar 2009 03:53:00 GMT

Melbourne

jsherdc — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:17:00 GMT

I booked a room at this beautiful victorian hostel, the Nunnery, in the Melbourne neighborhood Fitzroy, which is funky neighborood filled with great resturantsand shops. Across the street from my hostel was carlton gardens and the melbourne museum (I think this is a world heritiage site). The biggest problem is that there is no place to park. So I actually parked illegally for my 3 days in melbourne, and was very lucky to not get a ticket! (Although I was stressed about it the whole time). My first evening, I went to a good veggy resturant on Brunswick street and walked around the neighborhood (great Victorian buildings are everywhere).

The next day I tried driving through the city to the royal gardens on the other side of the river, but I could not find any place to park. I kept driving, and soon enough I needed to go to the bathroom, and I still could no find anyplace to park. In fact, I could not find any place to even turn! Eventually I ran into a highway, got off at the next exit and found someplace to park and attend to my business. Whew.

After driving around a different park of the city, I drove out to Nicks Wine Merchants, a store I have ordered wine from a few times before, which is located in one of the suburbs. After looking around the store for an hour, and chatting with a women who works there, she gave me a free bottle of wine! You just don't see this occurring in the US...

That evening I ate at a very good afgani restaurant on Brunswick Street and drank the wine. The following day I drove around a bit and then met my friend, Mark Joshi, from grad school for lunch at the Melbourne University faculty club. I visited Melbourne University 8 years earlier when another friend was a professor there, but I had not remembered hw asian the school was. It seemed like a large majority of the students were asian. Interesting. Mark said thats because they can get full tuition out of students from abroad and it sounded like Melbourne university does a very bad job getting donations from alumni (MIT's Math department raised more money last year than the entire Melbourne University).

In my last full day I went to Victoria Market in the morning and bought some bread and cheese and some good wine from a discount place that refills your bottles and has absolutely amazing value wines. (Most of the wines were great, and under $10 a bottle, and 20% less for a refill). I visited the excellent melbourne museum, and then met my friends Tom and Aich (who I met in Laos) for dinner where we consumed 2 bottles of wine and some good african food.

The next day I had a few hours to kill in the morning before a mid afternoon flights. So I decided to have a picnic at a famous site northwest of melbourne. Yes, I visited the hauntingly beautiful hanging rock. I always thought that the cinomatagraphy of the film ("Picnic at Hanging Rock") was a work of absolute genius. Now I know that there was pretty good material to work with. Its really a great place.

All in all, I still love Melbourne, but transportation there sucks. Parking is a nightmare and I think trolley's are a completely outmoded
mode of transportation. Oh well. The food is amazing. And I just rremembered that I forgot to mention that I saw a great band in one of the Brunswick street pubs as well. Its just a fun place.

On the Road

jsherdc — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:16:00 GMT

After visiting the Barossa, I drove to Mildura which is close to the triple border of Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. Mildura is on the Murray river (Australia's biggest river) and is the breadbasket for Australia, with lots of bulk wine and fruits produced there. I was expecting to find Lodi, CA. I was wrong. Mildura is a very nice town, with lots of restaurants, and hotels. There are a few nearbye national parks (I really want to go to Mongo NP, 2 hours north of there but I did not have time). There was also plenty of hotels, including some moderately priced ones. The other thing to note was how friendly everyone was in Mildura. Its probably the friendliest place in Australia, and that says a lot.

My first day, I went to a popular pizza place downtown. The pizza was quite good and the place was packed with families. Right in front of me this guy was sitting at a table for two with a women. And well, his pants were halfway down his butt. And well, he was not wearing any underwear. So I was sitting there eating pizza, and staring at his crack wondering if I should go up to him and say something. The wait staff just ignored it. Eventually I went around, behind his date and started making a motion of pulling my own pants up, to try to give him the hint without embarrassing him. he paid me no heed. Oh well. I never have any idea what I am supposed to do in those situations...

The next day I took a cool paddle steamer ride on the murray. The murray has a system of locks (like the panama canal) and we went through one of them, so we pulled up to one lock and the one behind us closed, our water level dropped and 5 minutes later we were able to continue on our way. It was pretty cool. There was lots of birds and boats on the murray and even a swimming beach. I enjoyed that ride.

I then drove in the direction of Bendigo, and stopped about 1 hour south of Mildura at another national park. It was the desert, but there were amazing numbers of trees and birds there. I have no idea what those birds were doing there, and where exactly was the water? Anyway, I had a nice hike and also saw some emu's while driving around.

Next I drove to Bendigo, where I had trouble finding cheap housing (I ended up paying about $80 US for a mediocre hotel). For some reason this former gold rush town (1850's), was still prospering. There were great victorian buildings, including an incredible church (with amazing stain glass windows), and a downtown area with a bunch of yuppy restaurants. I also visited briefly the site of one gold mine. Note that Melbourne (75 miles away) was a town of 20,000 until the goldrush started in 1850, and 10 years later it was city of 500,000. That whole area just exploded during that period.

On my way to Melbourne I stopped at 2 more wineries near bendigo. I especially enjoyed visiting Blackjack. I had a nice hour conversation with the wine maker (Ian?) at Blackjack who was also running the tasting room.

Barossa

jsherdc — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:22:00 GMT

Before driving up to the Barossa, I did a tour of Heighs chocolates in Adelaide. The chocolate was quite good, and I was ready for some wine. Sadly, I had trouble getting out of town. The signs were terrible and the roads were not straight. Imagine that you were in calfornia, and you wanted to drive north to Santa Barbara, you came to a highway and it gave you the choice of calabasas and encino. Not LA and San Francisco. Not north and South. Just 2 small local towns. Well those are the road signs in South Australia. Eventually, I found my way and first went to Grennock Creek winery, which was closed since they had completely sold out 2 months earlier. After 2 more stops, I went to my hostel, Doubles' D'Vine, which was a very nice place with two rooms, in a vineyard (they used to use the house to house seasonal pickers when they owned the vineyard). After an early lunch I had 1 more winery stop, then went back to the hostel for a nap. For dinner the women who ran the hostel suggested I go to this pub in Angston, where I had a bad meal. It turns out that there was a weekly (free entry) texas hold-em poker tournament there. I was too late to sign up, so I went over to see what was happening and soon I was drafted into the game (about 30 people). Three hours later, I had all the chips, and had won $50 worth of gift certificates to eat the bad pub food at this pub. The funniest moment was when we were 6 handed and I had about 2/3 of the chips in play. The player on my left goes all in blind, a call on my right and as dealer I call with a suited Q8 (to increase the odds that we knock out LHO). RHO and I keeping checking it down until finally the board is an unsuited 76543. I bet. One of the players who was not playing that hand starts lecturing me on strategy ("you don't want to bet here since you want to knock out the all in guy"). The tournament host responds "you know, look at his chip stack, he just may know what he is doing". Anyway, RHO folds after a long thought (what the hell was he thinking about? Only 98 or an 8x matter.). And LHO, who had gone all in blind, well he had a 98! Now that was funny. That evening, I got back to the hostel about 11:30, and there were 2 narrow posts in the driveway. I don't have great depth perception to my left (everything is opposite in Australia from the US, so the driver sits on the right side, etc.), and I dented the passenger side door on the wood post turning into the driveway. Shit. The next day I visited a couple of wineries in the morning, and then rented a bike in the afternoon, and visited 3 more wineries. At the last one (Kaesler, which was 100 meters up the road from my hostel), there were two guys from my hostel (one was a chef from Germany) who were getting a private tour and a barrel sample of their top wine (Old Bastard). I got to smell it (amazing!), but they would not let me taste it. Pure torture. :( The area was pretty flat and so good for biking. That evening I went back to the pub, had another bad meal with my poker winnings. The next day I went back their for lunch on my way out of town. I got ill from that meal. I think I lost at poker....

Adelaide

jsherdc — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:12:00 GMT

I flew from Perth to Adelaide and took a shuttle to my hostel. Adelaide seemed quite empty. There were nice wide streets. There were parks. There were not many people. But it seemed like a nice town. After checking into a pretty good hostel (and cheaper than perth) I went to Chinatown for dinner. And wow, what a dinner. Ying Chow! They make a form of Guanddong cooking, and there is a symphony of flavours in their dishes and large portions and main courses are about US$6. They also had a great wine list (also cheap), and corkage is $2Aus (=1.40) if you bring your own.

The next day I went exploring after making reservations for a hostel in the Barossa. Well almost. I was cut off on the phone, and was told I had no minutes left. After lots of yelling I finally discovered that when I bought my phone it did not come automatically with the minutes I had paid for, but instead there was a code on the receipt (which I no longer had) and I needed to dial some number and type in that code to get my minu8tes. I had been operating on the 5 minutes that comes complimentary with my phone. Well this was all news to me, and the store I bought my minutes from was back in Perth, so I had to repurchase a code with more minutes to get my phone to work. Oy.

After wondering around Adelaide for the morning, I took a trolley to Adelaide's beach. It really was a pretty nice beach, and the main street had lots of shops (along the lines of the Jersey shore or Venice beach). That evening I came back to the city and went to the Adelaide Casino, were I had very bad luck at Poker and lost about $80.

The next day I picked up a rental car and drove down to the Florieau Peninsula. And what I day I had. First I went to McLaren Vale, one of the many great wine regions near Adelaide. I visited a few wineries and then went to the coast (5 miles away) for some mediocre snorkelling. I then drove to the southern end of the peninsula, near the ferry to kangaroo island, and took a short walk past some kangaroos. I then drove to Victor Harbour and walked across a causeway to Granite Island, a lovely little Island with good views, nice rock formations (guess what kind of rock) and some animals. I saw quite a few dolphins swimming off the shore, but it was getting chilly, and the fairy penguins do not come on to land until after sunset (9 PM!), so I didn't stick around to see the penguins. Instead I drove back to Adelaide and went back to Ying Chow. My meal this time was even better than the last! Wow. I have to say, that Ying Chow is in the top 50 restaurants I have ever been to (probably in my top 25), and everything else on the list is at least twice as expensive (actually most are more like 5-10 times as expensive). So if you ever go to Adelaide, visit Ying Chow (on Goucher St).

Margaret River

jsherdc — Mon, 9 Feb 2009 08:45:00 GMT

I decided to rent a car and head south to Margaret River which is 3 hours south of Perth. I was excited since its a famous wine region. But its also a very popular escape for the folks from Perth. I could not find any hotels on the internet down there, and everyone said that it was going to be totally packed, and I may not find a hotel room. I went anyway. On the drive down I stopped in the seaside town of Belmont for lunch (this was January 1st). Well it was a ghost town. No one was there. The shops were all closed. I finally found a Greek place and had a very small falafel for $6 (US). I didn't see any beach, and I couldn't figure out why I heard this was also a tourist spot. Hmm.

Another hour or so, I arrived at a tourist information center about 40 miles north of Margaret river. After about 1 hour of calling around they found me a motel for $80 (US) a night 25 miles south of Margaret River. Feeling relieved. it was time to hit some wineries before they closed. I visited Leeuwin and Cape Mentelle. Both were beautiful properties with great wine. Leeuwin (known for the best Chardonnay in Australia) had a huge place with a band shell, picnic grounds and a fancy restaurant. It was all very upscale, and yet the tastings were free (as they turned out to be everywhere in australia). The chardonnay's at Leeuwin were great (I actually liked there Prelude Chardonnay even better than their famous art series), but the wine overall at Cape Mentelle was even better (their reds were also very good).

Anyway, I will give an australian wine report in a separate posting...

Cape Mentelle was less than 10 miles from the coast, so I went to the coast, which was stunning white sand coral beaches. There were surfers and even a kite surfer. I hung out with some brasilians there for a while, then found another spot where the margaret river meets the indian ocean. Truly stunning. These were almost perfect beaches with one caveat, but its a big one. Ok, maybe not physically big but there were lots of them. The fly's were constantly attacking me, so I could not stay at the beach very long.

I got a nice dinner in Margaret river, checked into my hotel (a little bit worse than motel 6 quality), and then went to the lighthouse at the southern tip of the cape (Cape Naturaliste?). Its here were the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean, although how someone tells where one ocean ends and another one starts, I will never know. Anyway, I watched sunset from this spot which was kind of cool. Anyway, this area was a major improvement on Perth. And unlike Perth, it actually cools off at night....

The next day I visited 4 wineries and had lunch at Vasse Felix (nice spot but bad food, actually I did not like their wine either). I had first tried to eat lunch at Voyaguer Estate, but when I walked into their empty dining hall at noon, they told me that they were completely booked out. Hmm. In the mid afternoon, I found a lovely beach where I could snorkel right off the shore. 50 feet from shore I saw an eel and lots of fish and coral. How awesome is that for a snorkeling spot accessible from shore.

After 2 days in Margaret River, I drove inland to Pemberton, home to some very tall trees and 3 nationals parks. The Karri forests their were amazing! I got to do a waterfall hike, near a lake and in a beautiful forest filled with tall trees and birds and crickets singing. At another spot I climbed up the top of a massive Karri tree that had stairs built in a spiral around it (it is used as a fire watch station, they have a few of these. I went up the tallest of them the bicentennial tree). from the top you can see down on the entire forest which was incredible.

I wanted to get even farther south, to the famous tree top walk between walpole and denmark on the south coast, but ran out of time. But the area was amazing- I need 3-4 days for this area and I only had 1.

On my way back up to Perth I stopped for the night back in Belmont. This time I found a fun seaside town, thats a lot like Ventura. And yes, I found a very nice beach a few blocks from where I had eaten a few days earlier. I walked around a bit, hung out at my motel and chatted with some locals and went to bed, since I had to catch a flight from Perth to Adelaide in the morning.

Perth

jsherdc — Sat, 7 Feb 2009 19:40:00 GMT

I flew into Perth (Australia) the day before new years. But even before I arrived I made a discovery. Perth was rediculously expensive. I even found a dorm room in one of the hostels going for $55 (US)/night. Wow. Actually, everything was expensive in Perth. Food was about 50% more expensive than in the US.

Anyway, it was 40 C (104 F) in Perth, and did not cool off in the evening (it was still 37 at midnight). I managed to find a private room with shared bathroom at the YMCA for about 45 US. But I did not get much sleep. Perth seemed like a nice enough place, but I found it rather boring. My first night, I had dinner and hung out in Northbridge and had an excellent pizza and truely horrendus service.

The next day I took the train to freemantle (the orginally port, which is 12 miles west of Perth at the mouth of the swan rier) for the day. It was a pretty nice town, filled with vicroian buildings and lots of great art deco buildings. I didn't find all that much to do there, but I did spend a few hours at the decent maratime museum. I also had some good fish and chips, and a very pricey breakfast. After heading back to Perth, I bought a cell phone with some prepaid minutes from a store, and went back to Northbridge for dinner on new years.

Northbridge was alive that night. There were 3 stages with live music. I mostly watched a variety of swing bands. For the most part people were not very friendly in Perth (although in fremantle they were). People kept on crashing right into me, and almost knocking me other or sending my camera flying. And they just kept on going. Oh well. The one nice thing to say was that I liked the diversity of Perth with many asians living there.

After 2 days in Perth, my reaction was pure and simple. Don't come here. As a backpacker, don't even think about coming here. There is no value ofr money here.

I do need to comment on hotel prices in australia. Australian 3 star hotels are roughly the quality of 1 star hotels (well a bit worse, the 1 stars in the US always have cable TV and HBO or similar, and AC, and none of those are guaranteed in Oz) in the US but cost MUCH more. In the US a Motel 6 or similar costs in the $30-$50 range depending on location. These similar hotels in Australia start around $100 Australian (=$70). On the other hand, 5 star hotels are priced much closer to the US prices, although much deeper discounts are available in the US (for instance on priceline).

So if you are on a 5 star trip, maybe there is decent value for money, but not on a lower budget. I was dreading my 6 weeks in Oz.

Gallery: Angkor

jsherdc — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:26:00 GMT

Another KL stopover

jsherdc — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:03:00 GMT

After Phuket I flew down to Kuala Lumpur for a 1.5 day stopover on my way to Australia. After having a lot of trouble finding my hotel, I eventually found it and it turned out to be a nice and friendly place just behind the new mall (Times Square). There were in fact 4 large malls within 3 blocks, which was good for me since I had to buy another Camera. I spent all of the first day shopping for a camera, but I eventually settled on one. I then had a lot of fun taking photos in the mall. Kuala lumpur is so multicultural that the outfits and mix of peoples are fun to photograph.

The next day I went to Batu caves, a hindu site in some caves near town with a guy from my hotel. The caves were very cool, but the best thing was that there were all these small monkeys all over the place. There even was one carrying a tiny baby.

After the caves, I got lunch and went to the Islamic art museum (very nice) and then walked around town a bit.There was a lovely lake and park near the museums, but for some reason there was almost no one there.

But alas, my time in Asia was over for now. I was ready to head to Australia for new years.

Phuket

jsherdc — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT

I was oringally planning on going to Ko Phi Phi on the way from Krabi to Phuket, but instead took a bus directly to Phuket. Now Phuket gets a bad rap on the backpacker circuit. Like bali, its a place where the highenmd resorts have taken over much of the best beaches and the main beach area (Patpong) is over developed. But Phuket is huge and diverse...

I got into the main town on Pucket (Phuket town which is not on the beach), and immediately started walking around with all my stuff looking for reapir shops, with various cabbie's harassing me to get me to have them take me to a hotel on the beach. After visiting the Apple store, and 3 camera stores, no one thought they cought do anything. The apple store would open up my ipod for $30, but didn''t think it was saveable, so I didn't bother. Then I found a cheap hotel in town for 400 baht ($11) a night with AC and a slightly uncomfortable bed. The town was a decent place. There are a few scattered resturants, 2 large malls, lots of shops, street markets, and even a lot of people who don't speak english (the tourists usually head to the beach). I actually liked the town.

The next day I rented a motorbike with foot petal gears for 150 Baht ($4). Driving it was quite fun. I drove to Patpong which was over developed as expected. I then drove north past Kamala Beach to Surin beach. I love Surin beach. Everyone was friendly there. Overpriced resturants rent beach chairs and umbrella's very cheaply (some for 50 baht/day) to put you in there territory when it comes to selling drinks and food. But there is also some cheap food stalls. I drove up the cost a little farther to the next beach north of Surin, which was also very nice, and then came back to Surin beach, bought a grilled fish (70 Baht=$2) and a coconut (30 baht) and had a great lunch, and then rented a beach chair for 50 baht and enjoyed the day on the beach.

Later I drove back to Phuket town, stopped at the fancy mall and went to the movies (100 baht), filled up the tank with gas (40 baht) and drove back to my hotel. Not a bad day, especially considering my transportation and gas cost me only $5.50, and a hotel near the beach would have cost an $15 or so, and even more if I was someplace as nice as surin beach. Driving around on the motor bike was also fun, although a bit dangerous for someone like me not used to driving them.

The next day I went back to Surin beach, but this time by bus (30 baht). Someone from my hotel was on the same bus, so we hung out for the day. When it was time to go back, we went to the main road at 4:20 and was told my the cab dispatcher that the buses don't run after 4:30 (strange lie, given its 4:20). We didn't believe him and waited for a bus, which came at about 4:45. We then had dinner at a good place in phukettown.

The next day, I got up early and got a package 1 day trip to Koh Phi Phi. Actaully there are 2 Islands there, a developed one (Koh Phi Phi Don), and one where no development is allowed (Koh Phi Phi Leh). It is on the smaller one, that you find the stunning beach and lagoon featured in the movie "The Beach." Our boat did a quick loop around the smaller island, where there where many yahts docked in the various lagoons, and people snorkleling and so on. We also stopped for some snorkeling off the shore one the main beaches on Koh Phi Phi Don, had lunch on the beach when it started to rain hard. Finally we went back to the main tourist area, which was pretty developed. All, in all, a very nice island. But since it has a very mountainess interior, it looked like you need to keep hiering expensive boats to actually get around. I personally prefer Rai Leh Beach.

For my finaly day in Phuket, I rented a motor bike again. I first tried to kill myself because when I tried to give the bike some gas to get it started I sped off into the street. Luckily, no one was coming. The rest of the bike ride went smothly. I circumnavigated the Island. First I went to a Gibbon rehibilitation center in the north part of the Island. They only had a few Gibbons that you can see, since most of them they are trying to minimize human contact. Sadly, many Gibbon's in Thailand are trained to drink and smoke in bars to get money from tourists. Why do people keep doing these things to animals?

Anyway, I saw a few other nice and moderately quiet beaches as I drove around the Island. I also saw quite a few elephants (plenty of companies offer elephant rides) and even some elephant crossing signs. At the southern part of the island, there was an especially pretty spot (supposed to be great for sunsets), although the beach was not good for swimming. There was also a rather large buddha which you can see. And the 65 mile ride cost just over $1 worth of gas. I may need to get myself a motorbike!

Overall, I quite liked Phuket. But now it was time to go.

Gallery: PP

jsherdc — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:35:00 GMT

Gallery: KL

jsherdc — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:19:00 GMT

Gallery: Jobja

jsherdc — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:58:00 GMT

Karst III

jsherdc — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:08:00 GMT

I could not decide if I should:

a. Fly to Krabi

b. Take a direct bus

c. Take the sleeper train to Surat Thani and then switch to a bus

While I was dilly dallying, a became expensive. I eventually went to the train station on my last day in Bangkok to book the sleeper train. Sadly, there were no AC cars available, so I took one with only fans (the problem turned out to be that it was very noisy having the windows open, so I got almost no sleep).

I was planning on taking a cab to the bus station in surat thani and then taking the local bus to krabi, but "luckily" the train station offered a combo ticket for foreigners only (maybe that should have been an alarm) so my train whioch arrived at 5:15 AM hooks up with a bus. I asked when did the bus leave, and was told 6 AM. I asked how long was the bus, and was told 2 hours. Well, when I arrived in Surat Thani everyone heading to lots of different destinations got put on the same bus. As we pulled out, I saw a sign for Krabi in the opposite direction from where we were going. We drove to some private depo, and I was told I had to wait until 8 for the bus for Krabi. I chewed out a few people (since this company deserved to be punished, and despite the fact that nothing constructive could occur). Eventually we left for Krabi. It was a beautiful drive, with Karst hills all around, and beautifully lined up trees in forests near the road (at least when they deforest, they replant). Instead of going to Krabi the bus took us 5 KM outside of town to another depo, where they had cabs waiting. I was steaming, and walked to the main road with a women that worked for a NGO in Bangkok, and we quickly caught a shared taxi for under a dollar into town. After walking around town for 15 minutes with my bags, I then found a nice hostel (recomended by lonely planet). I got a room with a fan and shared bathroom for 250 Baht ($7) but the place was very clean and comfortable.

I then caught a sea taxi to Rai Leh beach, which cost 150 Baht. Rai Leh beach is called by some the nicest beach in Thailand. I can beleive it. Rai Leh beach was stunning. Great limestone cliffs, a few small caves, a white sand beach with very few waves. A great place. After hanging out on Rai Leh for a while and listening to some music on my Ipod, I then decided to go around the cove to what looked like a secret beach. There were two ways there. I could walk in the water, or over a hill. I opted for the hill, which was a bit difficult in my sandles. The other beach (Toi Son beach ?) was equally stunning, and a mecca for rock climbers. In fact I ran into the women from the Bangkok NGO that was on my bus over there. Anyway, after hanging out a while, and taking some great photos of the cliffs and the beach, it was time to get back to Rai Leh. I asked someone how deep the water was, and was told it gets to chest deep around the bend, but you can go on the rocks. So, with bag held over my head, I went via water. At about the 2/3 point in the trip, it got deep. Hoping that it would not be deep for long, I continued. Disaster! The water got to chin level, the rock on the side were very sharp and I could not climb on them, and a wave knocked me over, leaving my bag floating in the water and shreading my hand on the rocks (15 small cuts). Well I made it to the beach 5 minutes later, but my camera and Ipod stopped working. I was depressed.

I then crossed Rai Leh to the otherside of the pinninsula, where the boat had left me off. I was about to catch another boat back (at 4 PM), when the guy who had taken me appeared and told me to wait until 5 for him. A pair of girls had told me earlier than they had paid 160 for a round trip, so perhaps I had paid for a round trip. So I asked, did I pay for a round trip? He said, yes round trip. Well, after waiting an hour and getting a ride back, I got charged another 150 Baht. Man I hate that....

Then next day I took a kyacking trip to see some of the caves in the area. The trip was a bit lame (although maybe I was just in a bad mood from my camera and Ipod no longer working), but there were a few cool caves, with cave painting in them and also some interesting prehistoric amphibians (as old as the dinos!).

In other news, I just found out that my mom's friends in Phenom Pehn had an even bigger disaster. There sponser for their center had eliminated their names on the account and obsconded with the $24,000 worth of grant money in it. I always said that PP makes me want to cry. Man, stealing from kids. I actually had been warned to not give money to most NGO's in cambodia without checking them out first, since they are often currupt.

I actually wrote this blog entry a week ago, but accidently deleted it. Its really hard to psych myself up to redo something you already did. I hope Anne and Georges are able to psych themselves up to restart, since it looked like they were doing a great job with the kids from that local village.

I also have to say, that despite losing my camera and ipod (and 4 days worth of photos) I am so lucky to be on this trip at all, so that is small potatos in the grand scheme of things.

The Temples of Bangkok

jsherdc — Mon, 5 Jan 2009 17:48:00 GMT

I mostly came to bangkok to visit with two college friends. Ironically, I only saw one of my closest friends from school, Rolondo, who was on my hall freshman year, and was also a physics major, once. But I got to spend a lot of time with Paul, who was also a physics major , who I really did not know all that well at school. Also, for some reason, they didnt know each other.

As I arrived in Bangkok, I played Rush's "A Passage to Bangkok" which confirmed all my exotic images of the city. Instead I found a partial modern hectic asian city, and a partial old city. Where wealth and poverity were side by side.

Anyway, Paul, who is in Thailand as a Christian Missonary showed me around the city. One day we went to see the three great temples along the river. The grand palace at the emerald buddha, which was cool, but you could not take photos from inside the temple. Wat Po had a reclining buddha, and lots of other stuff and was also great. And across the river was Wat Arun, which had a nice climb to the top and great views and well as cool reliefs.

Another day, I took an organized trip up to the old capital of aruthya and saw a few more temples (some great stuppas!) and the King's (from The King and I) country residence and grounds, including lots of interesting and pretty chinese style buildings. The trip was not great since we only had 45 minutes or less at each stop and these places required a bit more time. Also, the boat trip back to Bangkok was boring. I did run into some LA area bridge players who played bridge on the boat all the way back.

But the real temples in Bangkok were not these old temples. In bangkok the metro only goes to the new temples and not the historical temples, and by that I mean the shopping malls. Each year a new one opens, better than the last. I got to see Paragon Mall, with its pourche and mazerati dealerships on the 2nd floor. Paul and I paid $15 to see a movie in the special movie theater, which reclining lounger chairs and only 40 seats for a big screen and modern sound system (normal modern screen theaters are $3/movie). They also had a lounge with free drinks and a massaging chair that you can use before the movie. Now that was cool.

Finally, I bought a suit. Actually 2. For some reason, I didn't like the first one that much (the material itched), so I bought another one with a different material. I don't really need 2 suits, but thats the thing to do in Bangkok.

Finally, I met up with Rolando for lunch. He is finishing up his MBA, after finally discovering his PhD in comparative literature had negative economic value. It was great to see him :)

Later, after picking up my new suits and shipping them home, Paul took me to the "old town (Kao San Rd), with some signs there in hebrew and lots of places to eat, and then

to see the "nightlife" in Bangkok, much of it now family friendly. When you go to Patpong, there is a streetside market where the women can shop while the men go back into the go-go clubs. I don't know what is funnier, the scene I saw there (including a go-go club next to a mission), or being taken there by a missionary! We also went to Soi Cowboy, which seemed a bit nicer, but maybe I just like those scantily clad women wearing the ten gallen hats.

My last day in Bangkok I went to the famous weekend market, where prices were even better than on the streets in chaing mai, but I was shopped out. I did run into Tom and Aich (Tom was from my cooking class in Laos) and chatted with them for a while. Hopefully, I will see them in Melbourne.

I had a great time in Bangkok. It was not dirty and smelly like people kept telling me. But just seemed like a good place to live and I had a really nice time hanging out with Paul. Though, it definitely feels like Buddhism got run over by Capitalism...

Underwear

jsherdc — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:20:00 GMT

I traveled back to Chang Mai on my way down to bangkok, but I planned to stay over 1 more night in Chang Mai for Logistical reasons. The first reason is to insure that I could book a sleeper seat in the night train to bangkok (which had to be done at the train station for some reason), without too much hastle lugging by bags all over the place. The second was to recover a pair of underwear. Ok, this was not any old underwear. This was special, non-cotton, quick drying, $15 underwear that I bought at REI in the US and would have trouble replacing. These are amazing to travel with since I can wash them in the sink and just wear them again. Ok, but what happened to my underwear?

Well, at the Elephant Nature Park I changed out of my pants and into a bathing suit to wash the Elephants in the River. On the ride home in the van, I put my pants on over my bathing suit, and apparently my underwear fell out. I noticed this the next day at the Nest and emailed the ENP about it. They said, yes they had it, and they would deliver it to my hostel. I quickly emailed back saying no I was not at parami anymore, I was up in Chiang Dao, just keep them at your office I will pick them up next week. They emailed me back saying, its too late, they already dropped it off at Parami. Well to prevent them from throwing out my underwear I emailed Roger the owner of Parami to warm him that the ENP dropped off my underwaer and to please keep them until I get back in town. Roger emailed back saying that sure he would keep them.

Anyway, after dropping my bags off at a new hostel (MD house, great location, with a nice pool and TV for $20, oh yeah and a scale - I weighed in at 184 Pds down 14 on the trip), I took a shared taxi to the train station, got my AC 2nd class, lower bunk sleeper ticket, and then took the same shared taxi back to Parami. Well no one there (including Roger) had seen the underwear and was not sure if it was ever delivered. I said of course it was delivered, it was delivered BEFORE I emailed you. Roger called the other staff person who was off duty at the time, to find out if she knew something. Well the underwear did come and she threw them out the next day. Roger then wanted to put me on the phone with her, so I could "work out a deal with her to pay for the underwear", which I did not do and left.

Personally, I thought the fault was Roger's. I had emailed him in order to get them to keep the underwear and he didn't let his staff know. I don't know. Even if I got the $15 (A huge amount of money in Thailand), I still would not be likely to be able to replace the underwear. Anyway, you can all stop laughing at me now (well a few more minutes is ok). But maybe leave comments below about how you would have handled the situation. I tend to avoid conflict unless I think that there is something constructive to be gained...

I spent the evening, for the second straight sunday, at the sunday walking street, where I bought a few random silk products and a shirt, and then I spent half the night on the internet (I kept waking up, and the internet room was right by my room and unusually was open all night and was free). The following day I went for a long walk out of the main part of town. It got dirtier, and at one point I had to turn back as I walked down a smelly street (a dump was next to it) filled with wild street dogs. There were 4 dogs up ahead, and I was warned by some locals not to go. The walk was interesting, since I would often see very nice homes near very poor neighborhoods. There is a real mixing of the neighborhoods in Chiang Mai. Finally I went for a massage at a massage school in one of the wats. It was 120 Baht ($3.50 US)for a 1 hour foot massage. It was excellent so I got a 1 hr full body massage next for another 120 Baht and then tipped an extra 100 baht. Finally, a great massage! (oh, but the Thai style sure hurts...)

Finally, I took the sleeper train to Bangkok. The trip was uneventful, but I did run into Krissy and Katie on the train, and I did get some sleep (the car was pretty comfortable) although I did wake up 5-6 times during the night, and finally got up at 5, 2 hours before we arrived in Bangkok.

The Nest

jsherdc — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:39:00 GMT

Tired of city life, I headed North to Chiang Dao in the Mountains. My
typical trip, started with a shared taxi across town for 20 baht to the bus
station, a 1.5 hour bus ride for 40 baht, and then a 10 minute ride in (an
empty) shared taxi for 150 baht. The bus ride was interesting, since there
were 3 local women in traditional outfits that came on board (one sat next
to me and helped me figure out where to get off), a few monks, and in the
middle two military officers came on board and checked everoye's ID. That
is, everyone EXCEPT me. I was booked for days in Chiang dao Nest, a
beautiful resort in the mountains, that is known for its food. The Chaing
dao caves, a tourist attraction, is nearby. My first day, I went 10 minutes
up the road and then 500 steps up to a monastery in the side of a mountain.
At about 300 steps, you got to a viewpoint and.... wow, what a stunning view
of a wat in the side of the mountain! I did not even know about this place
and here is one of the best views in Asia. I laid down to enjoy the setting
and was relaxing, and contemplating the universe until my serenity was
finally disturbed... by a monk on a cellphone! How strange. Having my moment
disturbed, I continued to the top of the steps and looked around the wat,
which was nothing special. On my way down, I ran into Dave (of Dave and Mel)
for the 5'th time in a week. He and mel had driving motorbikes up top the
caves and then were told to go to see this monastery but Mel stayed at the
bottom, since she was not feeling well. So I went to the bottom, showed her
some photos, and sent her up for the view.

Next I took a 1 hour hike through the woods and over a small mountain to
another wat, some sacred fishes (I have no idea....), and the chiang dao
cave, which contained both cool stalactite/mite formations, neat rocks in
the shapes of things, and various Buddhas including a statue of a sleeping
Buddha. I was taken around by a guide with a candle and, after seeing the
Buddha, I reminded another group to be quiet since the Buddha was sleeping.
:)

Finally I went back to the nest for dinner (an amazing salmon with tapanade
dinner), booked myself on the 3 day trek that was leaving in 2 days, and had
a relaxing evening.

The next day, I contemplated climbing the Chiang Dao mountain (3rd largest
in Thailand), but instead just wrote 6 blog entries since I was so far
behind and I wanted to rest for the trek. For dinner, I walked over to nest
2 with a couple from the Netherlands, had a drink with them (which they paid
for without my even noticing), and then I sat down and had dinner with two
friendly british women (Katie and Krissy), who turned out to be on my trek
the next day.

On the "Trek" was myself, a guy from san fran (Toby), and the women from
dinner. I say, "Trek" since it was not quite a long walk in the woods. On
day 1 we were driven to some elephants. There were 3 large elephants owned
by one of the hill tribes. One of the mahouts, had a hook blade. I announced
that I was not getting on if he uses that, and the mahouts agreed to not use
the hook. In fact the, one with the hook left, so we went 2 and 2 on the
elephants. I still think we were too heavy, but these were much bigger
elephants than I had wridden in laos.

Anyway, after the elephant ride through some nice scenery, we had lunch and
got on some bamboo rafts. These were rafts that they took apart and put back
together everyday, so we were semi-submerged. But the rafts held, and we
had a relaxing ride down a river with only locals around. We visited 5
villages that day,. A few people were selling stuff, but mostly they were
going about there business. At one school, the kids kept jumping on katie.
It seemed spontaneuous since they ignored the rest of us, and their were no
adults around (where exactly was the teacher?). We spent the night in a
large bamboo hut, that leaked cold air, and were kept up by the roosters who
for some reason started at 1 AM. The next morning, one young guy from the
village with a long sawed off shotgun, kept passing bye, and eventually the
gun was fired, and a pig was killed. We were told it was a crazy pig, I just
think they were hungry.

I should note that there were lots of cute pigs on this trek!

On day 2 we hiked to a cave. The women did not go in, and our guide led us
through an interesting cave where we had to crawl on our bellys for much of
the hour. We came back to the village, had lunch, and then hiked for about 3
hours with our backpacks (the ONLY hiking we did with out packs), including
a visit to a waterfall where Toby and I took a shower.
Finally, we arrived at a village in a stunning location in the mountains. In
fact some local teachers came up there for the weekend also. I got drunk on
local whiskey and beer and went to sleep (with all my clothes and socks wet).
The following morning everything was still wet, and I was freezing, but I
got up, sat outside from 5 AM to 7 in my bare feet, and took photos as the
fog slowly moved. the sun had not yet come out (it didn'y come up until well
after 8) but the scenery was stunning. Almost as stunning as Angkor wat.
What a show.

A few interesting things happened the last day, when we hiked for 4-5 hours and visited a cave. At one point we visited a local school. Toby taught english for a little while and then toby and I taught "Row Row Row your boat" to the kids. One kid wasn't singing, so I singled him out to sing alone. Well he didn't sing alone, but when we started as a group again he sang. Thai's really do not like being singled out, I think...

Since the hiking was not serious, both toby and Krissy were hiking in flip flops the entire trip (I was told that my Tiva's were good enough, and were preferable to shoes since we will be going through lots of streams). Krissy's flip flops broke during the last day, so she switched to my socks. Imagine, trekking in Socks!

At lunch time, our local guide took a knife and made us brand new bowls (tube shaped) from bamboo, and cooked us some food which we ate in our bamboo bowls. How cool.

Anyway, after the final day of hiking I returned to the nest (ahh, comfortable beds!) ate a goat cheese souffle, slept, and headed back to Chang Mai the next morning on the bus. Again, the bus got stopped by military. But this time a women was taken off the bus. Hmm.