...part 5

And the story continues...

Thailand

I've heard stories about Bangkok's traffic and have even seen pictures...but it's really like that in real life!  It's awful!  What we thought was going to be a short way to our hotel tuned out to be a very, very long walk.  And when asking for directions, we've never encountered such unhelpful Asians before.  "The Land of Smiles" was quickly becoming a flat-out lie to us.  I was slipping because of the slick sidewalks, light rain, and serious lack of tread on my slippers (flip-flops) that were so thin at this point that they were transparent at the heel.  So, needless to say, I wasn't in a great mood as we attempted to find our hotel.  By the time we checked in the light rain had become a downpour so we were completely soaked and I was grateful that I changed the way I packed our bags with dirty clothes and the plastic toiletry bag on the top so most of our stuff that was important and clean was still dry (lesson learned from experiencing Cambodia's rain storm).

Where we were staying had so little English around that it made finding food difficult.  We hadn't yet learned the phrase "not spicy" in Thai yet, so Jordan was a bit nervous if he could find anything to eat at all.  Seeing as how we were really hungry and the rain wasn't letting up any time soon, we trudged back out to a street that caught our attention on our aggravating walk earlier.  I wasn't really feeling like eating much of what I saw so I bought a bunch of bananas, but Jordan found a rice dog (similar to a hot dog, but made from rice...which I'm sure you can figure out by what I called it).  We stopped at a 7 on the way back so I could get instant ramen and drinks for the two of us.  I don't mind spicy food at all, but there's a limit to the amount of spice I enjoy since I still like to taste what I'm eating.  That being said, I chose one that didn't have the pepper symbol on the packaging to be on the safe side.  After purchasing said ramen, I went to get the hot water for it and began pouring in the seasoning.  Noticing that the contents were mostly red, I thought, "Well, I can probably handle it," and was going to leave it as is, but Jordan said to take some of it out.  Jordan's stubborness won over mine and I took out about half.  He was so right.  I was about to sip and slurp a bowl of liquid death.  I had to eat a banana after every two or three bites to recover.

We took the boat on the river into the city instead of braving Bangkok traffic in a cab and decided to see as many temples as possible.  Apparently we arrived during the time where the government was sponsoring tours around the city via tuk-tuk for only 20 baht, provided we make one mandatory stop at a place called Thai Factory.  We thought that was a pretty good idea, so we hopped into one.  I was excited at the prospect of having some tailored clothes for cheap, so I talked Jordan into thinking it was a good idea as well.  Off we went to temple number one.  A huge, 25 meter tall Buddha was there.  There were smaller Buddhas around the courtyard, and there were colorful lanterns overhead to decorate the open space.  Super impressive.

Next, we saw the reclining Buddha.  The caretaker's English was really good so we asked him how to say  common greetings as well as "little spicy" and "no spicy" so as not to kill Jordan with culinary carnage.  He also explained that for only five minutes of looking while in Thai Factory, the tuk-tuk drivers get a 5L fuel voucher, so both of us get something good out of the stop.  Along with the reasoning behind the stop as explained by the caretaker, both Jordan and I felt even better about a slight detour to Thai Factory.  Our apprehension subsided.  Yeah...not so smart.  When we stopped at Thai Factory, I was kind of surprised that it was a really small place that looked like any ordinary tailor's shop.  I was expecting a factory of some kind where you could pick and choose among many tailors (or ignore them altogether), which styles of clothes, either western or eastern, that you wanted.  Not so.  We spent way too much time there looking at material and patterns only to realize at the very end that each item was going to cost very close to what you would pay an American tailor.  Even after talking the price down considerably, it was still going to cost upwards of $58-65USD per piece!  We finally left, me apologizing profusely to Jordan for having wasted so much time, and we headed to temple number two.  We were duped into thinking it was just one mandatory tailor stop...we tried talking our driver out of stopping anywhere else, but he repeated the same thing over and over, "No buy, just looking looking!  We go."

We go, alright...  We stopped at a temple where they collected Buddhas from different styles, places, and eras.  After taking our shoes off and wandering around a bit, we decided to head out.  The sky was getting grayer and grayer, and the time later and later, so we tried to hurry our driver along to the next temple.  Well, apparently he wasn't in the mood to listen to us and definitely in the mood to use less English as well as driving to another tailor shop.  Okay...homie don't play dat.  Once we got to the next shop we saw other tuk-tuks heavy laden with sadly suckered whiteys.  We hopped out and I walked down the street to hail a cab and Jordan gave our driver 20 baht, despite his obvious irritation, and hurried to catch up with me.  Our cab driver spoke great English and took us exactly where we wanted to go, no questions asked.  He made great conversation with us too.  He also informed us that we probably wouldn't make it in time to see any more temples for the day since they were all closing at 5pm.  So we rushed over and they told us we couldn't enter for two reasons: 1) I wasn't wearing long pants, and 2) it was closed...10 minutes ago.  Nice.  With only one day in Bangkok, we were glad that it was pretty much over and annoyed that we didn't get to see more.  We'll skip Bangkok the next time we're in SE Asia...well, I'd go for the sweet-glazed pork and sticky rice we ate after missing the visit to the last temple.  It was heaven on a styrofoam vessel.

Trying to take the right bus to where we were going was a nightmare.  It was inconvenient, signs were inaccurate, people were unfriendly, and generally clueless about how to get anywhere even when they were friendly.  So we finally hailed a cab after two hours of attempting public transit.  Once home we went back to the street from the night before where I got more heaven bananas and Jordan his rice dog.  We also used the internet to print out our boarding passes for the next morning's flight to Chiang Mai.

With another pissy dude to drive us to the train station and awful, horrible traffic, we made it to the airport where we left for the best part of our Thailand trip.  We ate and wandered and enjoyed our evening.  A crepe cart, a huge night market, and finding a great deal for a rafting and elephant ride trip made the day complete, so we called it a night and went back to our hotel for a shower and some sleep.

Chiang Mai is full of super nice people and the tourists don't even piss me off, so that's a huge plus already.  Our elephant ride and rafting trip was amazing!  The elephants were definitely not starved or beaten, in fact, when they wanted a snack, they got one and the men with reeds to keep them on the trail just stood there until they got their eat on and needed to catch up to the others before whacking their thick hide on their ankles.  I got to ride on the neck, so I was immensely pleased...incredibly happy...thrilled...whatever extreme word combination you can think of to describe sheer joy and excitement.  The rafting part was awesome too.  Our raft leader was fun and we got along really well, so when it was time to swim and I was hesitant because I was wearing contacts, he pulled me in by the life jacket to have a swim with him.  Needless to say, we were happy and tired by the time it was over.  I want to do it again...right now.  Well, maybe not right now, being 8 months pregnant and all, but if I weren't currently pregnant, I would want to do it again um, yeah, right now.  When we got back to town we decided to hit up the night market again to narrow down what we wanted and where we could get the best starting price before haggling down further.  I had a list of things I wanted that I made before we started the trip so Jordan could be prepared for what I wanted, and so I could keep myself under control.  Pleased with our finds of a table runner, a square plate/bowl, baby shoes, and coin purses, we went back to our hotel and packed up for our flight to Phuket.

Okay, let me sum up Phuket for you.  Lots of drunk foreigners, stunningly beautiful sunsets, more he-shes than I've ever seen in one place, expensive food, rubbish on the street and beach and in the ocean.  Yep, that's pretty much it.  We didn't go to any of the outer islands, which I'd do if we ever decide to head out that way again, but we probably won't for quite some time...like maybe ever, but you never know what the future holds.  We found a cute Chinese couple that had great noodles at a cart, so we ate their most nights.  And we swam in the hotel's pool aaaaallllllllllll the time.  It was a really great pool.  Almost like being in Bali again where we swam every morning, afternoon, and night in our pool.  We also watched a lot of Asian MTV.  Oh, and after 5 weeks, I finally took out my cornrows.  They lasted as long as they could and my scalp could take no more.  They were becoming loose and I had this unbearable scalp itch going on that it was starting to become super unpleasant.  So out they came!  I left the crazy fro for a day and a half before we got to our Tune hotel in KL on our way to the Philippines...it took 4 washes to get it back to normal and a lot conditioner.  Enjoy the final pictures before reading part 6 to come soon...

...part 4

Cambodia

And here we are in Cambodia.  The Phnom Penh airport was super clean!  Not that I was expecting squalor and filth, it was just cleaner than most airports I've been to in SE Asia.  The driver we had was super nice and chatty, which made the hours and hours it took to get to the guesthouse in Siem Reap where we were staying.  We stopped once for some dinner where we had beef lok lak (so delicious!!) and then continued on.  I was so sleepy by the end, and the roads were so terrible that I wished I had taken a Dramamine.  But the conversation was great, and the scenery was even better, so I wasn't upset by the road conditions.  Day two in Cambodia were the temples.

Angkor Wat was first.  Huge!  An amazing structure that has seen so much strife; they were renovating the main portion of the temple around the time that we were in Cambodia.  Not sure if that's done yet.  Having seen only pictures in Professor Emmett's SE Asian Geography class while in college, seeing it in real life was wonderful.  I got to see the murals of the Ramayana, the thousands of Apsaras (only one of which is smiling with her teeth, by the way), all the many bullet holes in the stone.  When lunch time came, we decided not to eat at the restaurant across the street, we wanted to go back to the Apsara Market by our guesthouse since it was cheap and super tasty...and where we wouldn't be surrounded by children selling postcards, bracelets, and anything else they had.  I don't mean to sound callous, I just don't like being nagged by adults or children to buy souvenirs or anything else.

Angkor Thom was second.  The city was so large and relatively self-sustaining for so long that the evidence of their daily activities were carved into the walls and structures everywere.  Even though Angkor Wat is the impressive one that everyone knows about, I found this temple way more interesting.  Maybe because I'm in love with every-day life (I fell in love with Jordan and decided marrying him would be a good thing while in an aisle in a grocery store, for goodness' sake).  We found a "window" and had Kara take a picture of us framed in it and thought it was hilarious that a bunch of Koreans in a tour group saw us do it and then copied the idea after Greg and Kara had their turn.  4 white Americans in Cambodia started a trend among Koreans for a minute or few.

Day 2 began with the Tomb Raider temple, which didn't look much like it did in the movie since the weathering of the stones and the growth of the trees and plants have seriously altered the appearance of the place.  The super famous tree was "eating" it's way through the temple's entrance so much so that they had to cut it's roots and the top to kill it and prevent it from collapsing entirely.  The area that this temple is in is much wetter and covered by lots of trees and forest growth, so weathering occurs much faster here and, though restoration work was going forward, they will never be able to completely restore it.  Another temple had a library just to house a special sword.  There were no stairs, just holes used in conjunction with ladders that could be removed so there would be no access to the second floor where the sword was when they were removed.  The second to last temple we visited that day was Banteay Srei, a pink sandstone temple that had been used as "practice" before beginning the carving on Angkor Wat.  Carvings here were deep, ornate, and amazingly preserved for being far, far older than any of the more famous temples.  Last was Pra Rup, the oldest of all the temples we had seen both days.  Dinner on Pub Street again, and then a walk through a night market rounded out the evening.  We bought decorative pillow cases and two paintings (we have yet to mount them, but someday it'll happen).

The next day was the day we separated from Greg and Kara who were off to spend the rest of their time in Asia in the Philippines and our time in Cambodia was not yet over.  We were off to Battambang during a huge downpour that flooded the streets.  Stores along the street to the bus stop were attempting to sweep the water out of their shops and when we got out to walk to our hotel, we were in water just about up to our knees.  Needless to say, we were in the shower as soon as we checked into our hotel.  You never know what's floating and suspended in the SE Asian streets during a flood...well, actually, you can make a pretty educated guess, hence the need for a thorough scrub down.  Oh, and the shower was awesome.  One shower head for scalding, and the other shower head for icicles.

Battambang was nice, but there just wasn't much to do...and for those of you who read this and ask, "But what about the Bamboo Train?"  I'll ask you, "Why?"  And I guarantee that you won't be able to come up with a decent reason as to why we should have ridden the Bamboo Train.  So we went back to Phnom Penh.  We met up with a man we met while in Super China Mart (now Ocean Mart) in Sandy, Utah.  Of all places...he handed Jordan his business card and told us to come see him when we were in Cambodia, and that's just what we did.  We had a good visit with him and his wife and then a good lunch with him the following day.  Church in Cambodia was super nice.  An all-around good feeling during each class.  And then, the highlight, albeit a depressing highlight, of our time in Phnom Penh was Tuol Sleng.  There was such a pervasive feeling of depression throughout the entire school, incredibly humbling and sobering.  Even though this was such a horrific event that occurred in their not-so-distant past, Cambodians are generally happy people.  A little too much alcohol consumption with little care for where they dump their rubbish, but still a cheerful nation.  We were glad to have had a week to explore, but the time had come to fly to Thailand...

...part 3

Almost a year later and I'm finally on to part 3 of our Asia trip. With a baby on the way (she's due Feb. 24...more on that in another post, hopefully before she arrives) and a move to Canada (more on that one too...but later. Let's not get too distracted just yet.), I figured it's time to "clean house" and finish all those unfinished to-do lists I have everywhere. So here goes:

Malaysia

Finally in Malaysia.  Our stops were designed to rush through the busy, city-type places so that we could relax on the beach for a while before rushing off somewhere else.  We had also been there before, so we knew what to expect and what things we definitely wanted to revisit as well as what we didn't want to spend a lot of time on.  That proved to be a bit problematic with the other couple that was with us.  While they're great traveling companions, the rushing was too much and the resting was too little.  Also, we didn't really allow for naps and just slowing down in the city places.  I think we lost sight of the fact that Kara and Greg had never been there before and what they might want to spend more time on may have been different from our ideas.  We just kept going with the mindset of, "Trust us, we've been here, these are the cooler things to do."  That made us not-so-great "tour guides" and we would do things a bit differently if we knew then what we do now after the whole experience.  That being said, we did have a great time together and saw some really great stuff!

Johor Bharu is really like Tijuana.  Instantly different, a little jarring, and a place for transition between two very different countries.  We were still trying to get in touch with Seow and tried finding an internet cafe.  The mall we ended up in didn't have one, so we asked a group of boys for directions.  They kept contradicting one another, so they just led us to one.  We followed them out of the mall, across the street, into another small mall that winded down and around until we finally found what we were looking for.  Jordan was just chatting away with the one that new English well and I was following behind (common to do in a Muslim-dominant country where the man gets the attention) and wondered the whole time if they weren't just "taking us for a ride."  As we parted company, they were super nice and took pictures with Jordan.  As for getting in touch with Seow, it never happened.  No idea what happened there, but no calls or e-mails would reach her, so we decided to wander around JB for a while before heading off on the train late that night to KL.

An old Malay man made friends with Greg and offered to show around a bit.  He got a security guard to store our bags for us.  We left the mall and walked up a hill toward a large, beautiful castle/fort type place was, but he passed right by it and went to a small open-air restaurant.  Okay...so we had drinks and bought a rice thing for the security guard as thanks, and the Malay guy was babbling about something that I was having a hard time understanding.  We paid and left, then walked back up toward the big building...but stopped at a cab.  He negotiated in Malay about seeing a house on stilts and whatever else we wanted for a certain price, the price was too high, we didn't have a ton of time, and the house on stilts they mentioned wasn't really capturing our attention, so we declined.  Kara and I had a feeling the cab driver and this old "well-intentioned" guy were giving us the nice-to-your-face version of screwing us over for a lot of money.

We went to the big building and found out it was a government building and at the time that we were there, they were holding some kind of fair-type thing.  Youth were skateboarding at a make-shift skate park, motorcycles and scooters were lined up like a car show, there were a few food and craft stalls, 100+ had a table, and there was entertainment as well.  Punjabi dancers were there.

Hunger was setting in, so we left and tried to find Ah Fook street (a suggestion from the cab driver in Singapore) but decided to eat at the mall food court since we could each get what we wanted and be fast.  We then bought our train tickets and found a place in the train station to camp out.  Keeping the airline blanket and pillow was SO the right thing to do...I tried to take a nap but was woken up by Greg and Kara who said the security guard told them "no sleeping."  So with contacts plastered to my eye balls and dry as freak, we took turns going to the bathroom to brush our teeth.  Thank goodness for the eye-watering power of menthol toothpaste, my eyes watered enough to revive my contacts until we got to KL.

Once there, with an embarrassing-to-scratch mosquito bite on my butt (thanks, long-as train ride and loose shorts), we went off to find our church.  We found the train station closest to where our church meets, but once we got out of the station, we had no idea where to go.  After some very confused faces when we asked around to see where the street was that we were looking for, a man said he didn't even know if that street existed.  Great.  He decided to take us as close as could after he took food to his wife.  Turns out his wife was in the hospital with their young baby who spiked a really high fever that wouldn't break in the night. Out of his good kindness he was willing to take us to church.  I definitely prayed in my heart for his family during the trip.  When we first asked him for directions, he asked us what was there where we were headed, Jordan said a church, and he said the area didn't get a lot of foreigners, and the foreigners that do come don't ask for churches...and that there were no churches in that area.  I clarified by saying that we were Mormon and our congregation usually meets on a floor of a larger building.  With the mention of "Mormon," it seemed that things clicked because he was aware enough of Mormons to know that their numbers in Malaysia are very small and that we meet in buildings above stores usually.  He took us to where we needed to go, found that the street did in fact exist, and we thanked him profusely while wishing him and his family well while we unloaded ourselves and our bags.

Church was pretty good...usually I love going to church in other countries because it's a non-American perspective on the same gospel and the same Jesus, but this was apparently a Sunday for the American transplants to speak in church, and so it was more of the same stuff I've heard for the last forever that I've been Mormon.  That being said, I didn't hate it, and they had some good points, but it seemed stale to me with the same testimonies and the same issues all white-American Mormons have and face.  Oh well.  Jesus is still the Savior, that part doesn't change.  And for more religious opinions, experiences, and doctrine, see my other blog (which I will also someday update...maybe...hopefully).

A lady at church invited us to dinner the following night, so that was super nice.  But dinner for our first night in KL was going to be with a couchsurfer that Jordan befriended on the website.  While waiting for Chris at KLCC we encountered a crazy Indian man who thought Greg had autism (he most certainly does not and displays no sign of anything on the autistic spectrum...except he was tired and kept quiet) and scolded Kara for interrupting (which she did not).  Once Jordan and Chris met up with us, the five of us left the crazy and went to eat at a Mamak eatery.  So I'm a bread lover.  Crazy bread lover.  If it's bread, I'll eat it.  Probably. The naan, roti canai, roti pisang, and roti tisu made up most of what I ate, but we did have meat in the form of chicken tandoori and a spicy beef dish.  Chris was a really awesome guy and Jordan and he chatted for most of the dinner; we definitely hope to see him again whenever we are in KL next.

Batu Caves was great!  The monkeys were everywhere and the monkeys on the stairs leading up to the caves were crazy.  They threw things and were little theives, but they didn't steal our stuff, thank goodness.  We almost got pelted by a coconut shell, a water bottle, and anything else they were finished or displeased with they threw down the stairs, humans be damned, though.  Many of the monkeys actually ran away from the humans, which is a good sign, so we weren't too worried about being assaulted by the primates while trying to enjoy the scenery which had not yet been marred by the traffic pollution or the Indonesian fires that would surely cloud it up later in the day.  Inside there were vignettes of Hindu gods and events from the Ramayana and other various somethings that a bunch of the deities had done.  Monkeys mated as we left.  Oh the excitement.

With a visit to the night market after dinner with a few couples we met the previous day at church, our night was complete.  I got fruit, of course (I can never get enough when we're in Asia), Jordan got a Malaysia jersey, and Kara and I looked at some cute shoulder bags.  We had very specific ideas in mind for what we wanted our bags to look like, so when we didn't find what we wanted, the young guy tending the stall yelled at us for wasting his time...while I wanted to shout "Screw you!" with middle fingers raised, I refrained and we just ignored him as we walked away.  Can't say I'm enticed to buy something to save you from having wasted your time which you spent not talking to us other than to tell us the white-guy-special price of a bag that isn't even close to what I want...but I digress.

We finally arrived in the Perhentians after missing a bus, catching a train, a flight, a super long wait for a bus, almost missing another bus, and another long wait for our boat (but during this wait we got to watch a herd of cattle take a leisurely stroll through the town).  I love the Perhentians...I love it...I love love love it.  If you couldn't tell, I love the Perhentians.  This was Greg's first time snorkeling ever, so we gave him a few tips and off he swam.  He had a great time, from what they told us =].  We went diving at three places, The Pinnacle (Tokong Laut), T3 (Terumbu Tiga), and Sugar Wreck.  STUNNING.  There were schools of cuttlefish, Bamboo sharks, turtles, Jenkin's Whipray, Emperor Angelfish, Bumphead Parrotfish, Nudibranch, jellyfish, squid, eel...a ton of stuff.  Jordan saw a young octopus while he was snorkeling, they are such amazing creatures.  I was super jealous.  Last time he saw a black-tip reef shark, this time he saw an octopus...both I didn't get to see.  Way jealous.  But I've mostly gotten over it.  Kind of...

After our 3 days in the Perhentians, which never seems long enough no matter how many days I'm there, we wandered around Kota Bahru with Haza, another couchsurfing contact, and took a bunch of pictures before parting ways to wait for a bus to take us Penang.  Our bus got to Butterworth with quite a bit of time to spare before the ferry arrived to take us to Penang, so we tried to get a little more sleep, but that pretty much failed for me.  Same thing when we got to our hotel in Penang...sleeping in the lobby until they'd let us check in doesn't work very well with a mosquito flying too close for comfort and me without enough bug spray on, a ton of Chinese people talking (sounds more like yelling) to one another, children running around, and super noisy massage chairs that beep when you sit in them for too long without paying.  Jordan took a walk to get some breakfast around 4am while the rest of us tried to nap.  He found a Jewish cemetery in a predominantly Chinese area tended by an Indian Hindu lady too.  Church in Penang was much better than when we were in KL, so that was a nice treat.  A tour by a super friendly local, good food, lots of waiting for a free bus that never came, and many leisurely walks later, our time in Penang came to a close and we headed back to KL to catch our flight to Cambodia.