Thailand GRRRRR

So upon arriving home, utah was hit with some horrible snow storms which i'll be honest, almost killed me. Its hard to leave such a beautiful place and come to an area of the world where its snowing and freezing cold. I was in denial the first week home and wouldn't change out of my Chacos(sandals) and actually got caught walking through 3 foot deep snow when my friend travis and I got his truck stuck in the mountains. Thats when I gave in and started wearing shoes again.

Also upon arriving home we've planned out our next trip to Guatemala. Our departure date is may 7. We decided taking motorcycles down the coasts of mexico is the best way to travel the 2000 miles to GUAT.

I've also decided to start a blog for this trip and it will be up and running very soon. keep checking for updates here and i'll post the url for all to know!!!!! and surf.

surf on all you interwebers!!!!!

Live in the now

Part of our lessons at the meditation retreat talked about "living in the now," which I'm having a really hard time doing knowing we have to leave Tonsai and return to the States. our trip is winding down and were trying to soak in as much of Thailand as we can before we leave this week. this little cove has been really good to us. we've made some great friends with the locals and will really miss them. I had planned on venturing out to some other islands and place close to Tonsai but the word on the street has been that Tonsai is really the gem of this area so we've stayed put realizing it can't get much better then this. My camera broke one day when we were snorkeling so I've borrowed one and will add more photos next week when i return home I will also be adding tons of stories from our trip. To all my friends I'll see you soon!!!

THE BEACH!!!!!

What more can i say other then "paradise," I"m getting some pics up by popular demand, Internet here is pretty slow and expensive so its tough getting up as much stuff as I want to on the blog.

We arrived here in Tonsai and instantly fell in love with this place. the ocean here is so warm which makes for some great swimming even in the middle of the night as we did a few days ago. It was quiet amazing cause the moon is almost full so as we were swimming we could see the plankton light up as we swam through them. It was a pretty great welcoming down to the beaches here. there's endless routes here for climbing which makes these gorgeous beaches even better. There are hundreds of routes with in a 2 or 3 mile radius. and at night in Tonsai a small restaurant shines a spot light on the face of the rock and can climb well into the night if you please. we've been living it up here in the sun since we've been here in Tonsai. we took a snorkeling tour to four different Islands which all had pristine white sand beaches, and some pretty wild snorkeling. As T and shawny climb Greg and I go off and discover new beaches, caves, and girls this place really has a ton to do and still feels like you can relax all day on the beach if you want to. We're planning on going deep sea soloing. which is such a rad thing out here its a pretty famous place for it, check it out on youtube or something. not being able to climb is a pretty hard pill to swallow(broken Foot) here on tonsai, but I 'm still excited to watch T and Shawny take some pretty good falls on these cliffs into the water. watching a climbing movie called"first accent" really made me want to come to Thailand and climb these amazing cliffs, bitter sweets really tasting bitter but motivates me to return and experience the climbing on another trip. Greg went home today so were moving into tents that are set up by a business called green valley and we'll be saving a ton of money for the next couple of weeks on lodging. we've also found some pretty amazing food here in Tonsai, we've all became food critics and finding the best dish seems to be a competition for us. It's pretty funny because were always finding the best of what ever were having in this new city.which probably just because the foods been amazing everywhere we've ate on this trip. take care.

Meditation for the mind

We just finished a two day meditation retreat hosted by buddist monks, We were transported to a retreat in the country with about 25 foreigners. the retreat was free and was hosted by the MCU university in Chiang mi. It was a free retreat, all inclusive to be exact with great accommodation's and some great instructors. we learned several different techniques of meditation and really enjoyed our time there. I immediately felt relaxed and happy to be there even though I had a few hesitations before arriving. We were all dressed in white and kinda was waiting for them to serve us up some special punch and pass out the nikes, but it turned out to be a great retreat. Meditation is a huge part of buddist and monk traditions of clearing the mind and focusing on the present and being happy with where we are. I can see why this is apart of there lives. I've been a little infatuated with monks since we've got here, You'll see them everywhere here in southeast Asia. At first I was a little scared to talk to monks be cause the seem so serious and mystical. they are so calm and quiet all the time. I've come to learn that they are amazing people who in my mind have really grasped on to finding peace in there daily life's. I respect them fully in there pursuit for finding themselves, and there dedication to the society here. Our days here in chiang mi have really opened my eyes to the great culture of Thailand.
It is sad to be leaving Chaing mi tomorrow especially for Greg who has fallen madly in love with every girl in this city, and for T who has been working on a 12c climb. Our fingers are crossed that he got it today so we don't have to see a grown man cry.
If anyone has any questions regarding expenses, lodging or are planning a trip to this region feel free to ask we've been lots of places and have been trying to find the best, cheapest and everything in between in our travels, so feel free to ask I'd love to be of some help. My next blog I plan on writing some more traveling tips and facts about the region and I'd love to have some input. take luck,....and care!!!

Chiang Mai

Chiang mai has proven to be a great city to stay in, the activities are endless and is truley the art capitol of Thailand. the atmosphere of the city is great we've been able to find so many activities for some pretty good prices. we took a cooking class the other night which was one of my favorite things we've done, I'm excited to start cooking Thai food upon arriving home. We also floated down a river today on bamboo rafts and visited a tribal village where the women where rings around there neck to elongate them for beauty, it was really interesting but I felt I would be doing them a injustice by taking pictures even though the tour said we could. Meeting new people is by far the greatest thing about traveling weather they be native to the area or fellow travelers from all over the world. I would love to travel alone and solely meet new people in each city to travel around with and get to know, but this desire in no way means I have not enjoyed traveling with the 4 knuckle heads I'm with now, there all great guys and I even had a friend tell me last night that we were all lucky to be traveling in such a great group. We finally met up with the 5 person of our group Aaron yesterday, it was a great reunion since we haven't seen him for 9 months or so. All is well in the land of smiles, and heading to the south to live on some of the greatest beaches is getting us ancy. we'll leave here in a few days.

bambo Rafting

Farewell Laos

well we've left Laos and hopped on 5 buses yesterday and traveled for 26 hours straight. I though I was going to die since the night before we left I got only a few hours of sleep and absolutely can not sleep on buses! were in Chiang Mai now which is in north Thailand. We all miss Laos it was such a great country. we don't miss having everything stolen from us though, within a couple of days we had two cameras stolen one while T was sleeping on the bus , he was practically using it as a pillow when it got stolen. we also had 3000 baht (100us) stolen out of our room and shawnys Ipod. ya we got served. were a little more careful now. were back to the land of persistent Tut tut drivers always wanting to take us somewhere, but were excited to be in this city. It supposibly has a lot of climbing and some great sights to offer. I'm never taking a night bus again I can't see straight and need a massage thankfully I'm in the land of 4 dollar massages. well I'm off God bless!!!

Glad we missed that ride.

Vangviene

today's supposedly our rest day, our slow day. we've been everywhere in this crazy little town for the past 5 days we've been living in a Laos paradise. we call it our "Adventure base camp to Laos" We've spent hours discovering villages searching for caves and swimming holes, T and Shawny have climbed every minute we've been here. This town is addictive, keeping people here for weeks and even months longer then expected. I feel a horrible pit in my stomach thinking that the day will soon come when we as well will have to leave this town. It's the Hub of backpackers here in Laos and for good reason. the streets are lined with every restaurant and bar you could ever want, and the sky line with shear cliff mountains for miles in every direction. It's colder here at night, we've even had to pull out hoodies a few nights. We haven't stopped for even a second since we've arrived here in Vangviene. Vangviene being the mecca for backpackers I've met so many amazingly fun people here, I met a Dutch girl who I instantly fell for. I spent some great days with her but we'll be parting in different directions which is how this traveling circus out here works I suppose. I keep running into friends from other sections of our trip which is quiet fun. We have a friend who was coming out to meet us on the 16 of this month and I received an email that he decided to come early on a whim and now he's in Bangkok, apparently he's already got a date with a pretty girl on Friday night so he will meet us in a weeks time in Chang mi. p.s. It's Aaron and I really can't wait to be hanging out with him in Thailand. seeing how its our slow day I'm going to find some time to put up some pictures as well. I had someone tell me before I left on this trip that I would come out here and then come back home and everything would still be the same in my life. that traveling or "running away" for awhile wouldn't change a thing. I beg to differ, no no I will differ. This trip this experience will in fact change the way I see and feel about the whole world, my whole world. I was walking through a village yesterday with no running water, no electricity watching children play with there sticks. watching mothers cook over a camp fire and old men sitting around talking of who knows what the weather, the rice fields, there 300 pound pig, who knows, but the point is, How can that not change how I live, how I perceive this world and even my existence in it. More then loving this place and more then having endless nights, and crazy adventurous days, I will never forget how small we really are and how huge we really can be!

LAOS

Well t and I finally made it to laos with some difficultys hitch hicking through the boarder towns. we would hitch a couiple of rides then hit a wall when we got close to the boarder so we finally paid a little money and got to pakse. I want to put some pictures up but the internet out here in the small citys are so painfully slow that I can't afford to sit and wait an hour for one pic to up load so soon I will get more up. Laos is really pretty, and quiet clean, I feel like I can relax now after 2 days of border crazy towns trying to get all my money. I have one regret and that is, I wish I would of bought a scooter or motor bike to tour these country, theres just to many random buses and taxis that try so hard to rip us off. When I return to southeast asia I will buy one a guy told us today we could get a good used one for 350 which sooooooo worth it. when we were hitch hicking yesterday(to save money of course) we tryed to catch a truck that was speeding away, but we missed him and got picked up buy a car with three police man, they were super nice and willing to give us a ride so we cruz'd down the road about 30 kilo and there was a truck scatered all over the road the same one we were tyring to catch a ride with, It had rolled a few times, the cops stopped and we got out so they could use there car as an ambulance. The truck was transporting beer and cigarets the cops before helping anyone of the three people that were hurt took what beer they wanted and then helped the people, which was kind of a crazy sight to see. I thank God we didn't catch that truck. who knows maybe we would of been the reason they didn't roll, who know! I'm just grateful to be safe in laos where we'll probably get buses from now on, cause we only have like 5 weeks left and hitching would take 8 at this rate. well i'm off, oh ya so we stayed on the makon river which is a pretty amazing sight to behold, I sat a the peir for about an hour by myself as the sun set last night and felt so peaeful and happy to be here. God bless from Laos

Traveling through Cambodia

we've really been on the move since we left Bangkok. Ankgor Wat wa such an amazing place to go we walked around ruins over a thousand years old, if ever in cambodia or near by I recomend making this apart of your trip. each temple that we saw that day were so unique for being so close to eachother. After leaving Ankor wat we traveld by bus six hours to the Capitol Phenom penh, I was really suprised to see so much french influence in the buildings It's quite a unique city, the video on the page below is of me riding a scooter taxi through the city, and that was even one of the calmest streets in this city. We came here to the capitol primarily to get our Laos visas. Which took longer then we expected so we had to spend an extra day here, This day has turned out to be pretty important to really understanding Cambodia for me. We toured the killing grounds of the Khamer Rouge and a school that was converted into a prison during the Genocide that took place here in the 70's. I was amazed at how little I knew about these mass killings that took place in this amazing country to these very polite and simple people. I found my self asking " Where's the justice? Who paid for this? but I find no compensation for the lives lost." IT was a very complex situation I'm sure but it left me sad to think that humanity can fall so fast to killing and to think that it's still occuring today in other countrys. I hope to find more awensers as to why the world consistantley does this to each other.
Cambodia may be in a hard spot these days trying to recover from there hardships, however the people here are amazing so happy to see us and talk. were a pretty rag tag group of travelers but a benefite of that is that the locals feel they can talk to us which I love. We get laughed at alot and probably made fun of more then not, but making people laugh is pretty fun most of the time.
tommorrow we'll take of to laos which will probably take a about three days to make it to the boarder from which we will start our "Amazing Race" to the north of Laos. the route to the north is choped up into like 8 different sections by bus, so we've been reading up and discovered that hitch hiking is more then possible. So we'll split up into twos and race to the north, we anticipate it taking a couple of days to get up there and a lot of random rides. I'm sper stoked for this part of our journey for I'm feeling to much like a tourist riding around with all these old folks on tour busses.(mom if your reading this calm down we'll be safe I PROMISE!!) well I'm off to eat some more amazing food,.........ILOVE RICE!!!!!!!

Cambodia

Cambodia!!!! Fantastic

Every day here Trumps the one before it, when I woke up today after only one hour of sleep and realizing we had to travel 12 hours to ankor wat, cambodia by train, bus, taxi, and tut tut I was not excited. To my amazement I did not sleep on any leg of our journey the train from bangkok to the cambodian boarder cost us about 1.15$ which blew my mind for a 6 hour train ride. when we hit the boarder we were thrown into some crazy boarder games with scamers and currupt boarder officials, which turned out to be fun with little loss. As we actually walked into cambodia we were hit with a huge shock. The road turned to a bombed out dirt/paved road and we got swarmed by taxi drivers pulling us to there cars to ride the next three hours with them. we finally found one in our price range and jumped into his severly beat up 87 toyota. the ride to Ankor wat was unbelievable, I felt as if we were in an enduro rally care race. our highly skilled cambodian taxi driver cruzed through the country side weaving aroud busses, trucks, scooters, children, dogs, bulls, and any thing else that was running the road every secound of this three hour ride had my eyes glued on the sides of the road anticipating what amazing national geographic moment that I would see next. The poverty in this country is very wide spread and at times hard to swallow, but this culture is so differant and amazing. Any words I use are so inadequite at explaining the things we are experiancing. so many times we all look at each other and say " holly hell how is this all happening, this is so amazing" I find my self with chills more often then not. When we arrived we searched town for a place to eat and as we wer walking a street a two year old girl ran to me and grabed my had and pulled me to here familys curb side restuarant. I have never seen a cuter kid in my life Greg got a picture of us i hope to be able to add it soon. we will tour the world famous Ankor wat tommorrow, which I'm so gratiful to do as were mearly passing through, to see such amazing places by chance truley is such a great thing. The people of cambodia are happy great people who have only treated use with the greatest hospitality and respect. I'm overwhelmed every day I spend here!!!!!

Today was such a great day in Bangkok, we rushed off early to find our buddy Greg ewho had just arrived from the air port and to find a church to attend. we found Greg but no church so we decided to go explore Bangkok some more. our first destination was the Dasin Zoo we took a bus and got lost. while wondering around who knows where a funny old Thai guy directed us down a road and gave us a magazine with a horse on the cover on tonz of crazy numbers inside when we reached the end of the road we found this huge horse race track packed with hoards of thais. I along with everyone else couldn't of been happier to have stumbled upon such a rad sight we stayed for five races all won some money( like 400 baht) and by some i mean like 6 dollars american but none the less I felt like i won the lotery. we werer the only foreiners in the whole stadium and found that no one bothered us to buy stuff no one cared to talk to us seeing how no one could profit off our tourism. I could not be happier to be here right now, every where i look Im super amazed at the culture of this country along with all the travelers from all over the world. I already feel that a month and a half will go to fast. tommorow mornig we'll take a 14 hour trek to cambodia for a week or so going to ankor wat which is supose to be really fantastic. I'm still in shock that I'm here and am loving every moment of it!!!

the Temple of the rising sun was the most amazing structure I have seen, the exterior is made of old china that was on a british transport ship. Climbing to the third level and looking out over the whole city is truely a work out with abroken foot, but the most amazing sight I could of ever seen on my first day in Bangkok. we will only be here in Bangkok for a few days but i could easily spend much more time exploring this amazing city

Bangkok

Well i've been in Thailand for 24 hours at this point, I havent slept but only a few hours here and there. I love this city it feel so sureal sometimes that i'm here it may be the lack of sleep or the fantastic heat that i've been missing so much, but i'm so happy right now to be here. If only I had the words to explain what this place is really like. I had to meet up with T and shawny today and my flight arrived to late for any busses so I slept in the airport where I met a couple of thai girls who made fun of me for meeting up with guys and not girls, they said" your coming here to see two guys....hmmm you are gay, right" other then the fact that they were threatining my sexuality they were so friendly and funny one even let me use here stuffed animal as a pillow. I took a bus to the center of Bangkok to meet up with t and shawn, I was almost certain that we would hit every scooter that we swerved into but amazingly not one was hit. Upon meeting shawn and T we got some food from a street vender paying only 50 cents for it. Man what a deal concidering the night befor I left I spent 60 dollars on sushi(thanks to brandon....mooch).
we took a water taxi walked the town , found a room on a backpackers street call koh san road which is really just an amazing street for travelers, we got some more food, which was just amazing and so cheap. I ended up buy stuff I did't want but i couldn't pass up the great price as the street vendors were swarming us to buy there junk. I'll have t say i'm a little overwelmed with things to write as of the moment so i'll keep it short. I love this place and definatly recomend coming here, in my mind i'm already planning another trip back so get you passport ready and make sure your with me next time!!!!!!

preperation

As you can imagine planning for a month and a half long trip to thailand takes a little time and a little money but is very possible. here are a few things that I would recomend doing before departing on any trip out side of the country

• passport, license, birth cirtificate (make copys and give to a family memeber incase lost or stolen)


• atm card (call the bank and let them know where you'll be using the card)


• malaria pills (a must for thailand and most southeast asian countrys)


• shots (county heath building or doctor can let you know what you need. Don't forget the rabbies shot!!!!!!)


• visas (30 days no visa in thailand)

these are only the essentials theres much much more that you'll want to plan and i hope to be of some a ssistance as this trip matures.

The Purpose

Mid February I will start my month and a half trekking trip to thailand and the surrounding areas. This is where I'll post pictures, information on all the adventures I'll be having. I hope to blog on a daily or every other day basis. Upon planning for this trip I found it hard to find pictures and information about traveling throughout thailand. For the most part iI would find pictures of resorts, hotels, and the beautiful their pools. I'm hoping that this may help future travelers of thailand to see a different side of this beautiful country. as well as give my family friends and anyone else who stumbles upon my blog to track my travels and experiences. Enjoy!!