Thailand

I have a real love hate relationship with Thailand. I love how cheep EVERYTHING is and how good the food tastes. I love the shopping, beaches and crystal clear water. I love getting a massage or two everyday. I can not live with out fruit, it's my favorite food in the whole world. The fruit in Thailand is so abundant. We would drink 3-4 fruit smoothies a day, what I would give for a papaya guava smoothie right now. Oh and the orange juice, if I were Oprah I would have this delivered to my set every morning. 

But there are a few things that keep this far from my favorite country. Because EVERYTHING in the county is catered to tourist the people seem so unhappy and jaded to it all. They're all missing something. Nobody was particularly kind, helpful or just generally happy. I know this sounds so below shallow, but the people are not attractive at all and the language is the harmful to the ears. The average tourists traveling to Thailand is about 17-24 and their objective is 2 things: alcohol and women. I had tears in my eyes for all the mother of these lost children. They would be on the street at 7 am in the middle of the road with their face in their own sickness and clothes half way on, just heartbreaking. I will leave the not so good things for a while, on with the good. 

Banana Pancake, now this is goodness!

Ko San Road, translates to hell on earth. There was just enough good (food, shopping, cheep lodging) to make you stay and all the bad would slowly effect you. At first it was heaven on earth and by the end I was ready to pay anything to leave. 

The Thia have some AWESOME temples. We got this tut tut driver to take us around at night and we were the only ones walking around these massive lit up temples. No heat and no tourists, I highly recommend it!

Budget Guest House. I love this place. One night when we returned from Nepal we realized our credit cards have been counter fitted at the ATM. No not stolen, we had them in our hands. But someone did some magic trick and made new cards after we had withdrawn money. Anyway, we had NOTHING! Well a I guess 2 baht, but that's less than 5 cents. We have not anything to eat since breakfast and it's not 1 am and we're walking the streets of Ko Sun Rd. If you ever have seen The Beach with the most talented Leo (and I'm sure most of you have not unless you've been to Thailand) that's what it was like only with out drugs. The lady at this place let us stay here and loaned us money to get some food, this is unheard of here. So yes there are a few nice Thai. 
So so many knock offs. I'm now instantly happy. We found a mall with like 8 levels. It was cut short when you realized everything was the same. But still a few good finds for sure!

We left the madness of Bangkok to go and find some beauty in the island of Ko Tao. The main reason we choose to go here is because it's the cheapest place in the world to get scuba certified. For less than $300 we got PADI certified, 3 nights hotel and 4 dives! Yes these are the reasons everyone loves this country!

We're such scroungers, we don't even have a beach towel. How can a 1 hour massage cost $6 and a hotel cost $8 but a beach towel is $20? 

Walking on these beaches at night is so beautiful. The sky gets so blue and all the restaurants light candles and torches, so romantic. 

Ko Tao has a few hidden gems for beaches that are less crowded. 

Taking advantage of our underwater camera. We find each other more interesting than the fish. 

The view from our bungalow. The beauty of these beaches is the solidarity. But for 2 days solidarity can turn into boredom. 

On the beaches they have these fish bbqs. You go pick out your fish and they cook it and bring it to you, so good! 
A little bored.

So yeah, Thailand is bittersweet. But go go go!!! In other words, we had a great time and loved it. 

Nepal

Dan and I were set off to travel various countries in Asia this summer and were set back in time so we happily settled on Nepal and Thailand (and Korea for a day). I was REALLY sad we didn't make it to India and Tibet, but I REALLY loved Nepal. I loved Nepal the most so I will blog about it first, because I might never get to the rest the way I'm blogging lately. Nepal is like NO other country I've been before, even though I was constantly comparing it to India it was still so different. 

There are tons of knock off mountain gear stores selling all kinds of stuff for cheap, too bad we had to carry everything on our backs or we would have taken orders.

The kids would follow you in the taxis selling you Nepali goods.

At the top of Monkey Temple, the view of Kathmandu the countries capital city. It's very polluted so it was nice to escape to the mountains.

All the buses would stop at the local tea shops for breaks. The rides were 6-7 hours and I was always so sick from traveling (I get motion sickness doing anything) so they were nice breaks. 

I love all the road signs!

SO BEAUTIFUL

One morning we woke up to these mountains! They were breath taking. We went during the monsoon season (beauty of traveling on a school schedule) so we were considered lucky to have seen the Annapurna's 

Checking in for our trek to Poon Hill, 3 days/2 nights.

The whole trek was beyond beautiful, amazing! There were countless waterfalls, lush green hills and I could only imagine how it would be in October with those beasts of mountains shadowing over you. Next time, because there will defiantly be a next time!

This is when is started to get into the forest area. Leeches, watch out!

We slept and ate at local tea houses in the mountains. This was my favorite part about the trip. I love to see the real life. These people have to hike 2 days to reach town, everything is like traveling back in time. They're so friendly and charge less than $2.00 for a nights stay! This is our favorite family making dinner.

Yes we got attacked by leeches, many, many leeches. This was my life's worst moment (I guess things are going pretty well)! If you remember Temple of Doom and how the blond chick was freaking out when she saw all the cockroaches in the cave, that was so me and maybe a little worse. I have NEVER acted to horribly in my life. We were lost and couldn't find the trail. We opted for no guide, which was going well until we got lost and were attacked by leeches and ran into dead carcases, ahhhh it was horrible. At one point I had at least 20 leeches crawling in and out of the netting of my shoes and socks. We were soon rescued by some Danish girls and their guides with salt rags, oh yea salt!

Poon Hill

So supposedly there is this amazing view of the Annapurna's Mountain range behind Dan, so sad. Oh well, you always have to leave something so you can have a reason to come back.

Chit wan National Park

Chit wan was great minus our guest house. We were able to take an Elephant ride and bathe the elephants, see wild rhino, go on a nature walk (not my fav, too many unfamiliar insects) and get suckered into taking the "tourist bus" that was actually the local bus. After that we reference this place to *&$#wan. 

And there she is, the beautiful Everest. We took a mountain flight to see her. It was scary taking the little plane, but so peaceful being surrounded by clouds and mountains.