Another year gone by....
We're leaving at 6am to do this 3 day/2 night trek and I wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Holidays and all that good stuff. Eat plenty of tasty food for me as I'll be stuck on a rice and veggie diet, maybe some fish if I'm lucky.
I'm really excited about the trek, we're doing the floating market here in Bangkok in the AM then heading to Kanchanaburi province to stay in floating huts on the River Kwai. We'll be doing some hiking around the area and visiting a waterfall....There is also the option of elephant trekking but that all depends on how they are treated, I don't want to aid or encourage any mistreatment of animals. Side note: Last time I was here I was very distressed by the dog situation all throughout Thailand but it's completely reversed itself. There is the odd mangy, starving dog here and there but nearly 95% of the animals I see now look healthy, well-fed and have collars. When I was in Koh Phangan I met up with a friend from my last trip here (she's a British woman who runs a Mexican restaurant on the island) and she said that King Rama has really done a lot to encourage his people to have more respect for dogs, etc. And it worked. It is really awesome to see.....
But....On the other hand - one that that I DIDN'T notice last time but am seeing everywhere I look now is butt-ugly Western men with young Thai girls....In Pattaya it's the young boys who are being sought after by the fat and repulsive German geriatrics. I am so disgusted I can't even explain. I just want to punch these men in the faces and spit on them. These women and children are being exploited and what is there to be done about it? Some of these women have no other option for supporting themselves or their families...I mean, you can say, "There is always another option" but in places like this......Where the average Thai makes a total of $100 a year.....It's fucked up...
We've been finalizing our plans for the next couple of months....We have a ticket from Bangkok to New Delhi on March 1st. We'll be on this trek until the 26th then back to Bangkok for 4 nights. The Chronicles of Narnia comes out on the 29th so we wanted to catch that here in Bangkok. (We saw King Kong a few nights ago, for $6 you get to see films in the special "Gold Room". They have THE most comfortably plush chairs w/ a remote to recline it to full-on lying position. You get a pillow and a blanket. And there's a full bar/food menu. Crazy shit. Yeah. So not a bad way to see a film!) Anyway, on the 30th we're taking a bus to Cambodia. It brings us to Siem Reap where we will stay throughout the New Year, we think about 3 days for seeing Angkor Wat. Then we'll cruise around Cambodia for a few days before crossing the border into Vietnam. We have about 2 weeks in Vietnam then another couple of weeks in Laos. After that we come back through Northern Thailand and from there we're trying to figure it out. We won a 7 nights free stay at a 5 star resort in Phuket, that's an island on the western side of the peninsula in the Andaman Sea. We were thinking of that over Valentines Day originally......but now we're trying to work in a week in Myanmar (Burma).....but getting the visa is difficult and obviously it's a very, very sketchy and dangerous place so we're going to just wing it and decide when the time approaches.....
We just spent 3 nights on Ko Samet, an island about 3-4 south of Bangkok in the Gulf. Nice and quiet. After spending nearly 3 weeks chasing the sun down in the more southern islands (the rain was incessant b/c of monsoons) we decided to try up north and were successful. We went on a day-long boat ride yesterday with snorkeling and fishing. At the end of the day they brought us to a shark farm. Picture this: An area of about a quarter mile in length with two 1ft. wide boards serving as walkways amongst netted "tanks" of various sharks. They pulled the boat up and you navigated your way on these walkways which were bobbing all over the place since it was rather windy and the waters were rough...Absolutely nothing to catch your fall if you lost your balance (which many came close to doing, myself included). Okay, now most of you know about my crazy death fear of sharks! But I did it and survived. They were also handing out little fish which you could feed to the sharks. That seemed a bit crazy to me, it's not like this was a fucking petting zoo! I watched, absolutely horrified, as this little boy of maybe 4-5 yrs. was sitting on the planks dangling the fish over the sharks, his hand way to close to the water for comfort....His dad was taking pictures. Yeah, buddy, good luck with all that.
Okay I'm going to stop rambling on now....
I hope everyone is well and has wonderful holidays!!
I'm really excited about the trek, we're doing the floating market here in Bangkok in the AM then heading to Kanchanaburi province to stay in floating huts on the River Kwai. We'll be doing some hiking around the area and visiting a waterfall....There is also the option of elephant trekking but that all depends on how they are treated, I don't want to aid or encourage any mistreatment of animals. Side note: Last time I was here I was very distressed by the dog situation all throughout Thailand but it's completely reversed itself. There is the odd mangy, starving dog here and there but nearly 95% of the animals I see now look healthy, well-fed and have collars. When I was in Koh Phangan I met up with a friend from my last trip here (she's a British woman who runs a Mexican restaurant on the island) and she said that King Rama has really done a lot to encourage his people to have more respect for dogs, etc. And it worked. It is really awesome to see.....
But....On the other hand - one that that I DIDN'T notice last time but am seeing everywhere I look now is butt-ugly Western men with young Thai girls....In Pattaya it's the young boys who are being sought after by the fat and repulsive German geriatrics. I am so disgusted I can't even explain. I just want to punch these men in the faces and spit on them. These women and children are being exploited and what is there to be done about it? Some of these women have no other option for supporting themselves or their families...I mean, you can say, "There is always another option" but in places like this......Where the average Thai makes a total of $100 a year.....It's fucked up...
We've been finalizing our plans for the next couple of months....We have a ticket from Bangkok to New Delhi on March 1st. We'll be on this trek until the 26th then back to Bangkok for 4 nights. The Chronicles of Narnia comes out on the 29th so we wanted to catch that here in Bangkok. (We saw King Kong a few nights ago, for $6 you get to see films in the special "Gold Room". They have THE most comfortably plush chairs w/ a remote to recline it to full-on lying position. You get a pillow and a blanket. And there's a full bar/food menu. Crazy shit. Yeah. So not a bad way to see a film!) Anyway, on the 30th we're taking a bus to Cambodia. It brings us to Siem Reap where we will stay throughout the New Year, we think about 3 days for seeing Angkor Wat. Then we'll cruise around Cambodia for a few days before crossing the border into Vietnam. We have about 2 weeks in Vietnam then another couple of weeks in Laos. After that we come back through Northern Thailand and from there we're trying to figure it out. We won a 7 nights free stay at a 5 star resort in Phuket, that's an island on the western side of the peninsula in the Andaman Sea. We were thinking of that over Valentines Day originally......but now we're trying to work in a week in Myanmar (Burma).....but getting the visa is difficult and obviously it's a very, very sketchy and dangerous place so we're going to just wing it and decide when the time approaches.....
We just spent 3 nights on Ko Samet, an island about 3-4 south of Bangkok in the Gulf. Nice and quiet. After spending nearly 3 weeks chasing the sun down in the more southern islands (the rain was incessant b/c of monsoons) we decided to try up north and were successful. We went on a day-long boat ride yesterday with snorkeling and fishing. At the end of the day they brought us to a shark farm. Picture this: An area of about a quarter mile in length with two 1ft. wide boards serving as walkways amongst netted "tanks" of various sharks. They pulled the boat up and you navigated your way on these walkways which were bobbing all over the place since it was rather windy and the waters were rough...Absolutely nothing to catch your fall if you lost your balance (which many came close to doing, myself included). Okay, now most of you know about my crazy death fear of sharks! But I did it and survived. They were also handing out little fish which you could feed to the sharks. That seemed a bit crazy to me, it's not like this was a fucking petting zoo! I watched, absolutely horrified, as this little boy of maybe 4-5 yrs. was sitting on the planks dangling the fish over the sharks, his hand way to close to the water for comfort....His dad was taking pictures. Yeah, buddy, good luck with all that.
Okay I'm going to stop rambling on now....
I hope everyone is well and has wonderful holidays!!