Well, as our millions of supporters out there know by now, we have left the sunny pastures of Thailand, and moved on to Indonesia. We have been here about a week by now, and things are going swimmingly(without actually swimming yet.) We spent a grand total of 5 nights in Jakarta, and managed to get Jin a Singpaore visa in the process.
Overall, Indonesia is another world from Thailand. There are MUCH fewer tourists, and the college break, gap year crowd has all but disappeared. The scene here is much more subdued and entirely non rowdy. The vibe of Ramadan was much more serious in Jakarta than Yogyakarta, which is nice... but still very quiet.
Jakarta was a huge city, spread out over miles and miles. There is a business district, a shopping area, an edge of town shopping area, and an old town(kota) area that we went to.
In our five days in Jakarta, we went to the embassy/edge of town shopping area 3 times to visit the Singapore embassy and get Jin her visa. We explored around the JL Jaksa backpacker area, tried lots of street food, and also managed to make it to the Kota and check out the colonial, old town ghetto while we were at it.... Plus we sat around in our AC room a couple days and relaxed after our hectic exit from Thailand.
Kota was by far the most interesting part of Jakarta. The old town center is now very rundown and old, but has much more character than the shopping mall business district. We saw a Van Gogh-esque 300 year old dutch drawbridge, went to the famous cafe Batavia, saw the train station, old mansions, canals, etc on our last day. Probably the highlight of the day was an epicly strong cup of Java from Batavia, relaxing in the AC and surrounded by original art deco stylings. Later on in the day, on our way home, we hopped off at the central Gambir train station and went to the largest mosque in town to scope it out. It turned out to be quit interesting. More than just the largest in town, the mosque we went to is the most impressive in SE asia and holds over 200,000 people on the busiest days of the year. We got a free tour by an english speaking guide. It was quite interesting to see such a large mosque, especially since it was the first mosque i've ever been to.
We left Jakarta three days ago, taking a nine hour train to Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is a much more low key city, and much more touristy, although that includes Indonesian tourists, so it is still a far cry from Thailand. We did a dual temple day yesterday, heading to the awesome Borabadur and Prombanan one after the other. Today, we walked down the main tourist street, Malioboro, ending at the Sultans palace. Yogyakarta, while being much more of a tourist destination than Jakarta, is still lacking in many ways that would entertain the western mind(and apparently the Eastern mind too!) The food here is much better, and cheaper though, and that goes a long way! The main thing here is Batiks. Batik is everywhere, especially on Malioboro, and so predominant that even beginning to look at them is mind numbing!
By far the highlight of Yogya has been our trip to Borabadur. The site is compact, yet mightily impressive, with carvings rivaling those we've seen at Angkor and with a prominence and air of importance and mystery that goes along with any other impressive temple or site i've been to anywhere in the world. The stonework, design, and execution are awesome, along with the ideas and design. The thought of walking through a life sized mandala, climbing your way up the steps towards nirvana is really cool, and the carvings really bring you there. I loved seeing the buddhas perched inside the bell shaped stonework... Making it even more special was the fabulous Garung Merapi volcano looming in the distance! pictures to come soon! The stupa/3d mandala/temple was awesome, and it would be impossible to say that it was better or worse than anywhere else we've been, all I can say is that it is up there with Chichen Itza, Angkor, and Cahokia(north america.)
Ok, our Wifi bar is closing... Its ramadan, and nothing is going on here...... at all! we are off to bed. sweeet dreams out there in the abyss!
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Pictures left from Bangkok...
In the temple of the Emerald Buddha inside the grand palace.
Jim Thompsom's house in Bangkok
The roof of grand palace remind us how much Thai people love 7-elevens
Wat Pho
Aside of Wat Pho, people donate coins in the metel bowls. It sounds really nice.
Building in Grand Palace. A mix of Thai and Western architecture.
Street food.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Chiang Mai
A view of Chiang Mai from Wat Phra That Doi Suthep (A temple on the top of Suthep Mountain)
A golden umbrella in the temple over looking Chiang Mai
We finally tried a fish massage! There were hundreds of little fish tickling our feet...
A golden umbrella in the temple over looking Chiang Mai
We finally tried a fish massage! There were hundreds of little fish tickling our feet...
Koh Phi Phi
Arriving the pier
At the view point look down the isthums of Phi-Phi Don
Looking at Phi-Phi Leh from Phi-Phi Don
The best sunset we saw!
Sunset at Phi-Phi Don
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Pai, elephant riding
Pai view from a small hill.
Start a touch on elephant
Riding around soy bean filed
We had no idea what is playing with elephant in the water...
until he was trying to throw us to the muddy river!
And he successed.
Friday, August 20, 2010
The Beaches, Koh Phi Phi
Well, we have officially found paradise in Thailand. Despite being a bit more expensive and a lot more touristy, Koh Phi Phi is definitely the ever elusive top 10 in the world beach paradise much argued over via online forums, top ten lists, and trip planning partners.
We successfully survived our trip from Pai to Koh Phi Phi. It only took 2.25 days, 2 overnight bus rides adding up to 1578km, plus a 2 hr ferry ride from Krabi to Phi Phi. When we got to Krabi, I new it would be awesome here once we saw the steep cliffs lining the ocean. It is very similar to Halong Bay, only much cleaner, and with much clearer water and prettier beaches. The island is dominated by a long skinny stretch of land with beaches on opposite sides that connects 2 mountains. Our hotel is in the backpacker area, at the base of the hill on the NE section of the main town. There are no roads and no cars or scooters on the island, only bicycles and boats. The more exclusive resorts are all located among the mountains on private beaches accessible only via a short longtail boat ride.
We spent our first evening walking around the island and eating a huge italian meal. We were so exhausted from our bus rides, that we could only manage to find a hotel, lay on the beach a little bit, and eat a gigantic italian lunch/dinner before falling asleep around 8:45! The highlight of the day, by far, was the sunset we saw over the mountains on the main northern bay of the island. It was absolutely spectacular. The sunset got better, worse, better again, faded away and then came back with a stunning finale. we were shocked by how pretty it was, and that was after spending 2 months staring at the Thai sun from islands and mountains!
Yesterday, we got up and visited the beach for some more swimming and relaxing in the morning... after another huge thai italian lunch! We ate a green beef curry pizza the first time, and a masaman chicken curry with potato pizza the second time, which were awesome! After 2 months of thai food, it has been great to eat some good western food here! The thai food here is a lot more expensive, but western food is a lot cheaper and better than most other places we've been, so we have embraced it, and turned on to the 100 baht pasta(3 dollars), and 120 baht pizza deals that are omnipresent here. After the beach, we climbed the eastern mountain to the view point of the island where all the classic pictures are taken. It reminded me of the view from the top of the main mountain of Machu Picchu, staring down at the narrow strip of buldings far below. Only on Phi Phi, it is beaches on either side of the town, whereas M.P. it is cliffs. Either way, the view is awesome and it was fun seeing the island from above. After hurrying down the mountain, we set off on our "sunset" tour for the afternoon.
The sunset tour was fun. We hopped in a longtail boat with 10 other tourists, and sped off from the bay towards the other phi phi sister, Leh. This island has no hotels, bars, or anything besides a small state park like campground and ranger station. This is the island famous from Leo's "the beach." It is really spectacular. It is a circle shaped island with large cliff laden mountains on all sides and little bays and lagoons scattered on all sides. We took a quick trip to swim in a few of the secluded lagoons and private beaches. The beaches have huge cliffs on all sides, so they are only accessible via swimming from your boat. Later in the day, after swimming in a few of the private bays, the boat dropped us off on the far side of the island, and we got to swim our way to a stairway leading out of the water. The stairway had waves crashing in to it and a spider web of thick ropes criss crossing above it. We managed to not get smashed in to the rocks, then climbed the wet stairway up over the rocks, then back down the other side, leading to a trail through a beautiful forrest pathway. The forrest was lined with palm trees, banana trees, pineapple plants and other really pretty foliage. We walked about 100m, by the campground, and suddenly ended up spilling out in to the famous ma ya bay. This bay, the example used by holiday as the ultimate "beach," is certainly that.... no let down at all. It has enormous cliffs on all sides, beatiful clear water(with a few pesky rocks), and a gorgeous green backdrop of palm trees and flowered covere bushes behind the white sands of the beach. It was awesome! me and jin swam around for an hour or so, and soaked it all in, then hopped back on the boat to go home. No one else on our tour wanted to see the sunset, so we just stopped at a small beach with tons of monkeys on our way home. A bit of a letdown to not see the sunset from the water, but it was great seeing the beach in perfect weather.
Today, we are relaxing at another italian restaurant, waiting for our ferry to leave in an hour and a half to Phuket. Jin's passport is being held there, and we have a flight leaving in 48 hours, so we must leave! Sorry for slacking on pictures here, there are few easy places to relax, the beaches dont have wifi, and internet is expensive(2 dollars an hour.) Ok, back to the beaches!
Ben
We successfully survived our trip from Pai to Koh Phi Phi. It only took 2.25 days, 2 overnight bus rides adding up to 1578km, plus a 2 hr ferry ride from Krabi to Phi Phi. When we got to Krabi, I new it would be awesome here once we saw the steep cliffs lining the ocean. It is very similar to Halong Bay, only much cleaner, and with much clearer water and prettier beaches. The island is dominated by a long skinny stretch of land with beaches on opposite sides that connects 2 mountains. Our hotel is in the backpacker area, at the base of the hill on the NE section of the main town. There are no roads and no cars or scooters on the island, only bicycles and boats. The more exclusive resorts are all located among the mountains on private beaches accessible only via a short longtail boat ride.
We spent our first evening walking around the island and eating a huge italian meal. We were so exhausted from our bus rides, that we could only manage to find a hotel, lay on the beach a little bit, and eat a gigantic italian lunch/dinner before falling asleep around 8:45! The highlight of the day, by far, was the sunset we saw over the mountains on the main northern bay of the island. It was absolutely spectacular. The sunset got better, worse, better again, faded away and then came back with a stunning finale. we were shocked by how pretty it was, and that was after spending 2 months staring at the Thai sun from islands and mountains!
Yesterday, we got up and visited the beach for some more swimming and relaxing in the morning... after another huge thai italian lunch! We ate a green beef curry pizza the first time, and a masaman chicken curry with potato pizza the second time, which were awesome! After 2 months of thai food, it has been great to eat some good western food here! The thai food here is a lot more expensive, but western food is a lot cheaper and better than most other places we've been, so we have embraced it, and turned on to the 100 baht pasta(3 dollars), and 120 baht pizza deals that are omnipresent here. After the beach, we climbed the eastern mountain to the view point of the island where all the classic pictures are taken. It reminded me of the view from the top of the main mountain of Machu Picchu, staring down at the narrow strip of buldings far below. Only on Phi Phi, it is beaches on either side of the town, whereas M.P. it is cliffs. Either way, the view is awesome and it was fun seeing the island from above. After hurrying down the mountain, we set off on our "sunset" tour for the afternoon.
The sunset tour was fun. We hopped in a longtail boat with 10 other tourists, and sped off from the bay towards the other phi phi sister, Leh. This island has no hotels, bars, or anything besides a small state park like campground and ranger station. This is the island famous from Leo's "the beach." It is really spectacular. It is a circle shaped island with large cliff laden mountains on all sides and little bays and lagoons scattered on all sides. We took a quick trip to swim in a few of the secluded lagoons and private beaches. The beaches have huge cliffs on all sides, so they are only accessible via swimming from your boat. Later in the day, after swimming in a few of the private bays, the boat dropped us off on the far side of the island, and we got to swim our way to a stairway leading out of the water. The stairway had waves crashing in to it and a spider web of thick ropes criss crossing above it. We managed to not get smashed in to the rocks, then climbed the wet stairway up over the rocks, then back down the other side, leading to a trail through a beautiful forrest pathway. The forrest was lined with palm trees, banana trees, pineapple plants and other really pretty foliage. We walked about 100m, by the campground, and suddenly ended up spilling out in to the famous ma ya bay. This bay, the example used by holiday as the ultimate "beach," is certainly that.... no let down at all. It has enormous cliffs on all sides, beatiful clear water(with a few pesky rocks), and a gorgeous green backdrop of palm trees and flowered covere bushes behind the white sands of the beach. It was awesome! me and jin swam around for an hour or so, and soaked it all in, then hopped back on the boat to go home. No one else on our tour wanted to see the sunset, so we just stopped at a small beach with tons of monkeys on our way home. A bit of a letdown to not see the sunset from the water, but it was great seeing the beach in perfect weather.
Today, we are relaxing at another italian restaurant, waiting for our ferry to leave in an hour and a half to Phuket. Jin's passport is being held there, and we have a flight leaving in 48 hours, so we must leave! Sorry for slacking on pictures here, there are few easy places to relax, the beaches dont have wifi, and internet is expensive(2 dollars an hour.) Ok, back to the beaches!
Ben
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Chiang Mai to Pai
Hello!
We are now in Pai, up in the NW corner of Thailand. We have been here for 2 nights now. It is a really small little mountain town, not unlike most of the smaller towns nestled among the rockies in colorado(nederland?) There is nothing much really going on in Pai, just lots of tourists and places selling tshirts and funny design stuff, restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. The town is really quaint and is right next door to a very muddy river. The highlights so far are the really quiet vibe, the terraced rice fields(with rice blooming), and our Elephant Ride!
Just to fill in the past 10 days or so, we took a boat from Ko Pha Ngan to Surat Thani, then a bus up to Bangkok. We spent 2 nights in BKK, before hopping on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is unofficially known as the culture capital of Thailand, and has tons of things to do. It is a small college town, kind of like Boulder. It is really pretty, and there is a nice, central old town area that is surrounded by a moat and wall. There isn't a whole lot to do in Chiang Mai. We mostly walked around and checked out the old town and the Wat's(buddhist temples), went to the markets, we rented a scooter and drove around the town, read our books, and cooked Thai Food! Yes, we actually got to cook something!
Our first night in Chiang Mai, we stayed in the most popular guest house, the Julie Guest House, lol. That was fun, and there was tons of people hanging out, but it was a verrry young scene, and most of the people were just kind of rushing about, not really trying to relax and kick back like us. We were wandering around our second day, after going to the market, and I saw a cool reggae bar, and just wanted to take a look. We walked in and bumped in to a really nice guy from England, named Dan, and soon made friends. We found out that the Giant Guest House, where Dan was staying offered free water, WIFI, coffee and tea, free bicycles to ride, and often times free rides to fun places. We were sold immedietely, so we switched hotels, and moved to the slightly more expensive Giant Guest House. Julie was 180 baht, Giant was 250(6dollars vs 8.) The extra money was well worth it, as one of the owners(?) of the place was an experienced professional Thai cook, Mama! Mama was really funny and spoke almost no english, but her thai cooking was amazing! every day, she would give someone a list of things to buy at the market, then we would go, buy them and come back. Once home, Mama would cook them for us while we watched, or instruct us on how to cook them. Often times, we even made things two or three different times in a row just so moma could make sure that we followed along. Sometimes Mama would cook something, then watch while we cooked it immedietely after. It was so fun, and we really learned a lot! It was very impressive and interesting being in the presence of someone who so easily cooked such amazing food! The market was great too, having bean sprouts for 15 cents(a strawberry container size), baby corn for 15 cents, and enough crushed peanuts for 15 pad thais for 15 cents.... Eggs were 10cents each,a pound of fresh noodles was 15 cents, and a pound of chicken or shrimp was roughly 1 dollar! So, we could make Pad Thai or Pad Se Ew for 6 people for about 3 to 5 dollars easy!
It was so nice to have a kitchen for the first time in months, and Jin and I really took advantage of it(esp Jin!) We saved lots of money on cooking and didnt have to go out to eat for a few days, which was great! The highlight was the Masaman curry that we made from scratch. It took about an hour just to crush up the curry paste in the mortar in pestle, but it was welllll worth it! Mama told us before hand that it was lots of work, but we wanted to make it anyways, and it was lots of work, but we had curry for about 4 days straight.... We were both so happy to finally get sick of Thai Food after 6 weeks of nothing but.
So, we had a great time relaxing at our reggae wifi cooking school guest house, but after 8 days, we decided to move on to Pai, 4 hours up in to the mountains from Chiang Mai. We are now in Pai, and it is really hot! Today is super sunny and we are currently sitting in an air conditioned internet cafe trying to figure out our next moves. We are hopping on a bus to Chiang Mai tomorrow, then another overnight bus to Bangkok tomorrow night. Tuesday, we will wake up in Bangkok, and then catch another bus for 14 hours down to Phuket. We are hoping to spend 2 nights or so on Ko Phi Phi before our flight to Jakarta on the 22nd. As I have been writing this, I just booked us 2 tickets from Bali to Singapore on the 20th of September, thus fulfilling our requirements to get Indonesian Visas(proof of departure.) So, all is now in place, and we are thinking about coming back to Thailand for another month or so to study more with Mama, or whether to go back to China.... Details to come.
However, it is worth noting that our trip to Singapore almost perfectly corresponds with the F1 night race going on on the streets of Singapore from the 24th to 26th of Sept! So, we could be in for another bout with the F1!!!!
Ok, we are now ready to go back to the heat! Pictures to follow!
We are now in Pai, up in the NW corner of Thailand. We have been here for 2 nights now. It is a really small little mountain town, not unlike most of the smaller towns nestled among the rockies in colorado(nederland?) There is nothing much really going on in Pai, just lots of tourists and places selling tshirts and funny design stuff, restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. The town is really quaint and is right next door to a very muddy river. The highlights so far are the really quiet vibe, the terraced rice fields(with rice blooming), and our Elephant Ride!
Just to fill in the past 10 days or so, we took a boat from Ko Pha Ngan to Surat Thani, then a bus up to Bangkok. We spent 2 nights in BKK, before hopping on an overnight bus to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is unofficially known as the culture capital of Thailand, and has tons of things to do. It is a small college town, kind of like Boulder. It is really pretty, and there is a nice, central old town area that is surrounded by a moat and wall. There isn't a whole lot to do in Chiang Mai. We mostly walked around and checked out the old town and the Wat's(buddhist temples), went to the markets, we rented a scooter and drove around the town, read our books, and cooked Thai Food! Yes, we actually got to cook something!
Our first night in Chiang Mai, we stayed in the most popular guest house, the Julie Guest House, lol. That was fun, and there was tons of people hanging out, but it was a verrry young scene, and most of the people were just kind of rushing about, not really trying to relax and kick back like us. We were wandering around our second day, after going to the market, and I saw a cool reggae bar, and just wanted to take a look. We walked in and bumped in to a really nice guy from England, named Dan, and soon made friends. We found out that the Giant Guest House, where Dan was staying offered free water, WIFI, coffee and tea, free bicycles to ride, and often times free rides to fun places. We were sold immedietely, so we switched hotels, and moved to the slightly more expensive Giant Guest House. Julie was 180 baht, Giant was 250(6dollars vs 8.) The extra money was well worth it, as one of the owners(?) of the place was an experienced professional Thai cook, Mama! Mama was really funny and spoke almost no english, but her thai cooking was amazing! every day, she would give someone a list of things to buy at the market, then we would go, buy them and come back. Once home, Mama would cook them for us while we watched, or instruct us on how to cook them. Often times, we even made things two or three different times in a row just so moma could make sure that we followed along. Sometimes Mama would cook something, then watch while we cooked it immedietely after. It was so fun, and we really learned a lot! It was very impressive and interesting being in the presence of someone who so easily cooked such amazing food! The market was great too, having bean sprouts for 15 cents(a strawberry container size), baby corn for 15 cents, and enough crushed peanuts for 15 pad thais for 15 cents.... Eggs were 10cents each,a pound of fresh noodles was 15 cents, and a pound of chicken or shrimp was roughly 1 dollar! So, we could make Pad Thai or Pad Se Ew for 6 people for about 3 to 5 dollars easy!
It was so nice to have a kitchen for the first time in months, and Jin and I really took advantage of it(esp Jin!) We saved lots of money on cooking and didnt have to go out to eat for a few days, which was great! The highlight was the Masaman curry that we made from scratch. It took about an hour just to crush up the curry paste in the mortar in pestle, but it was welllll worth it! Mama told us before hand that it was lots of work, but we wanted to make it anyways, and it was lots of work, but we had curry for about 4 days straight.... We were both so happy to finally get sick of Thai Food after 6 weeks of nothing but.
So, we had a great time relaxing at our reggae wifi cooking school guest house, but after 8 days, we decided to move on to Pai, 4 hours up in to the mountains from Chiang Mai. We are now in Pai, and it is really hot! Today is super sunny and we are currently sitting in an air conditioned internet cafe trying to figure out our next moves. We are hopping on a bus to Chiang Mai tomorrow, then another overnight bus to Bangkok tomorrow night. Tuesday, we will wake up in Bangkok, and then catch another bus for 14 hours down to Phuket. We are hoping to spend 2 nights or so on Ko Phi Phi before our flight to Jakarta on the 22nd. As I have been writing this, I just booked us 2 tickets from Bali to Singapore on the 20th of September, thus fulfilling our requirements to get Indonesian Visas(proof of departure.) So, all is now in place, and we are thinking about coming back to Thailand for another month or so to study more with Mama, or whether to go back to China.... Details to come.
However, it is worth noting that our trip to Singapore almost perfectly corresponds with the F1 night race going on on the streets of Singapore from the 24th to 26th of Sept! So, we could be in for another bout with the F1!!!!
Ok, we are now ready to go back to the heat! Pictures to follow!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Koh Phangan
The place we stayed had a pretty cat. One morning Ben grabbed it when it was passing by our bungalow.
It hung out on our porch the next morning!
Our room is super cool. From the bed we can see the ocean through the window,
except there was two juicy lizards (including the tail at least 1 feet long) that lived in the broken aic-con.
Our bungalow.
A walk way went around the cliff to other resorts by bigger beaches. But on the way to the first beach, we saw a gaint lizard going back to the mountain from the rocks by the beach. It was about 4 to 5 feet long. I was shocked.
We had some good meals and ice cream through here.
Koh Tao
The best thing of Koh Tao, is at this private island...
We saw sharks!
When we walk by the beach, we saw some fish with black fins stick out of the water.
Ben went in the water with other 2 guys and got excited when he saw shark swam by.
Then we changed to another location to have a closer look.
Ben loves those sharks.
It was a terrible day for snorkling boat trip, but this shark experience made us much happier!
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