Out of the Jungle

trevorweiss — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:41:00 GMT

Yesterday we came back from the jungle of Chiang Mai. We went on a 3 day/ 2 night trek and stayed with the tribal villages about 2 hours north of the city. We had a group of about 12 people total and the cool thing was that there were tourists from all over world with us (England, France, Holland, Italy, Canada, Greece). Besides the accents, we all communicated pretty well. At night the villagers cooked us Thai food in these sweet looking treehouses and we all drank and shared stories from our different cultures. There was no electricty and it was pretty crazy to see the way these people live. We hiked about 3-4 hours each day and it was mostly uphill...amazing scenery! We also did elephant riding and bamboo river rafting. Our last night we stayed at a waterfall campsite. It was maybe the sweetest campsite I have ever seen! You could swim in the pool at the bottom, climb up the waterfall and jump into the pool from above. You could also drink beer on the waterfall and it proved to be the one of the best beers I have ever enjoyed.

It felt great to come back from that jungle, we felt extremely dirty from all the activities and the rain. It rains periodically for about 30 minutes to an hour then the sun comes out. It is really humid here and it affected us at first because we would get light-headed, but I think we have adapted to it now. In about 2 hours we have a plane from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and then another plane shortly after from Bangkok to Kao Samui. We are stoked to get out on the beaches! If it is anything like the pictures we have seen we should be in for a great time.

I am going to try to upload some pictures on Picasa (a google program for pictures) as soon as I can. We have some cool ones from the temples of Ayutthaya, and of us petting tigers and going to monkey shows in Chiang Mai. Hopefully everything is going well back at home...this place makes me realize how lucky I am to live there (aside from the tourist aspect of the country). I will write again when we are on one of the islands! I will send the picasa album invite to Mom and Grace, you guys can forward it to everyone else.

Love you all,

Trevor and Brent

Arrival

trevorweiss — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 18:16:00 GMT

Well our first day here had its ups and downs. When we first arrived at 2am in Bangkok we walked around for a while in the airport and decided to go to Khao San Road (the backpacker's street). We ended up getting to the street at 4 in the morning, which was pretty freaky after not sleeping on the 20 hour plane trip/taxi ride. We got to Khao San and it was deserted, with degenerates and stray dogs eating trash left over. We found a place that was pretty expensive (70 bucks) because we were kind of scared of the people out so we wanted to get off the road.

Today we found a new place that is 14 dollars for the night and off of the crazy street. We took a tuk tuk all around bangkok and got some good pictures which we can't post on these computers. We also went to the tourist center and planned out the whole trip here in Thailand. The entire trip costs about $850 and includes all trains, treks (including elephant rides and bamboo river rides), planes, and housing. Brent and I also got suites, I got a pretty sweet one for $200...once back in Bangkok we will have them ready before the trip back.

Tomorrow we take a short train ride to a city not too far from here to see some temples...Not sure how long it is until we are able to get internet again but I will put up some pictures when I get a chance. Hope all is well in the US. Miss you all and love you so much!

Finally out of America

Out of the Jungle

Arrival