Chiang Mai Highlight...

Bangkok, Thailand

August 2, 2007

N 13°43.165
E 100°31.552

Even though our time in Chiang Mai was cut short due to our visa snafu we really enjoyed the city. Chiang Mai is the fifth largest city in Thailand, but still has a very small town feel; especially within the moat of old town. We had great time at our cooking class, but the best part of our time in Chiang Mai was meeting up with Elise again—albeit, shorter than we would have liked.

After a few missed connections in northern Thailand, we were finally able to connect with Elise for dinner and a few drinks. Elise is near the end of her trip and actually headed back to California in a week. It was very interesting to see how much she has grown and learned since we left her in late June.

As soon as we saw Elise I tried my best not to bombard her with a million questions such as where have you been? What was your favorite place? Have you met interesting people? Etc. I lasted a few minutes before I started asking the questions at a mile a minute.

Elise spent half of the last month with her brother Forrest in southern Thailand on the beaches where they completed their dive certification. The rest of her time was spent exploring northern Thailand. She used Chiang Mia as a home-base making a trip to Pai for a holiday weekend and a border run to Burma to extend her tourist visa. The highlight was meeting a few locals that became her close friends and helped her experience Thailand.

Of course we were curious to hear about her plans after she returns to the “real world” and her next trip, but didn’t want her to think about it too much and enjoy her last week on the road. Elise definitely has some great travel stories to take home with her to share with her friends and family. We figure she is planning her next trip in the back of her mind—something to look forward to as she starts her post graduation life.

Last night we said See You Soon one more time knowing we will see her during our visit in November. Also, we asked for occasional emails to hear what she is doing at home, and, of course, where and when she plans on taking that next trip.

We’re now in Bangkok hoping our stars align for our India visa…

A Minor SNAFU...

Chiang Mai, Thailand

August 1, 2007
N 18°47.209
E 098°59.602

We aren’t sure if we jinxed ourselves in our six month milestone blog when we mentioned no mishaps, or if we just finally ran into a stumbling block. I am sure this probably got your attention. You want to know what could have gone wrong for Marc and Laura after six months of pretty much nothing.

Well, let me begin by telling you about yesterday (7/31). Yesterday was one of the two days during the week the U.S. Consulate in Chiang Mai is open to provide services such as adding new pages to passports. This was our critical path item since Marc doesn’t even have a square to spare, let alone a whole page for his India visa.
The trip to the U.S. Consulate was a breeze… we arrived early, short wait in line, and in less than an hour we had several new pages sewn into our passports. It was still way before noon and we thought we would hit the Indian Consulate to apply for our visa.

This is when things started to get a little frustrating. We confirmed the address for the consulate on at least 10 different local Chiang Mai sites—they all had the same address. We walked the mile or so from the U.S. Consulate to the address on the Internet to find absolutely nothing at the location. There was a sign on the gate, in Thai, and of no use to us.

We had another address from a very old Lonely Planet that was nearby, or so we thought, and we staggered another mile or two to another dead-end. We were defeated at this point and the whole experience was very reminiscent of the ordeal in Sydney to get our Vietnam visa. Exhausted, hot, tired and thirsty we grabbed a tuk-tuk back towards our hotel, stopping at the tourist office on the way.

The lady at the tourist office gave us a map showing the new location of the Indian Consulate; nowhere near the locations we just visited. However, she was unable to provide a physical address, but promised it was located at the small red dot on the map. We put our trust into the map and solemnly walked back to our Guest House, not really convinced we were going to find the consulate the following morning.

That brings us to today where we started the whole routine over again, with the exception of the long walk; we jumped into a tuk-tuk right away. Marc pulled out the map and showed our tuk-tuk driver our destination. No problem, he knew exactly where the Indian Consulate was located (at least a mile north from the location we tried yesterday).

There wasn’t a lot of activity in the office and the only people waiting were a couple of nuns. We walked right up to the counter, got an application, filled it out, and walked back to the counter with our two passport photos and passport. We were asked to sit down and wait. Wow, this is going to be great, we will be out of here in an hour with visa in hand!

We waited twenty minutes before the lady called us back up the counter. She told us to pay half of the fee and the rest would be due on the 9th when we return for our actual visa. “What do you mean the 9th?” we asked, trying to stay calm. The lady explained the process takes at least five business days. We quickly asked if we could pay to expedite it. “No, no, we don’t expedite.”

Marc and I turned to each other trying to figure out what to do. We have a flight booked on the 4th to go to Krabi (far south Thailand) for 10 days… there’s no way we can fly back to Chiang Mai on the 9th. And, we definitely don’t want to stay in Chiang Mai for another eight days waiting for our visas.
“You’re sure there’s no expedite process?” “Yes, I’m sure. No expedites.” The lady politely asked us to step back from the counter and discuss this matter amongst ourselves.

The way I saw it we had two options: 1) Process the paperwork in Chiang Mai and change all of our flights; or 2) Fly to Bangkok ASAP (only changing one flight segment), go to the Indian Embassy in BKK and apply for our visas, and then pick up our visas when we return from the Krabi on 8/14.

I preferred the second option; however, the big unknown was if the Indian Embassy in Bangkok would keep our passports while processing our visas. If they kept our passports we couldn’t go anywhere and would be spending at least five “heavenly” days in Bangkok waiting for them. Marc went back up to the counter to ask this simple question. We were provided a piece of paper with the Indian Embassy’s number on it and told to give them a call. Gee, thanks for all your help.

After several minutes of back and forth, I made a quick phone call to the Indian Embassy in Bangkok and confirmed we could indeed keep our passports while they processed our visas. We advised the paper-pusher we decided to submit our application in Bangkok. She just smiled and said OK. We thanked her (for nothing) and walked out of the building, completely defeated. How could we let a mistake like this happen?

We got back to our room and changed our flight for tomorrow to Bangkok, found a place to stay for two nights, and called the Indian Embassy at least three times to triple confirm everything we were doing. We could keep our passport, go to the beaches in Krabi, and come back in 10 days for our visas.

Yes, maybe a phone call in the first place would have helped, but we never thought the visa process would take five full business days—never, ever! For example, our visas to Vietnam (a good ol’ Communist country) were processed in less than two days! And if two days wasn’t fast enough the Vietnamese Embassy was more than happy to charge you handsomely to expedite your visa.

We’ll let you know how the adventure goes in Bangkok on Friday. Thank goodness this is the last visa we need to apply for on our trip. Unless we add on a few more countries, who knows…

Now We're Cookin'...

Chiang Mai, Thailand

July 30, 2007
N 18°47.209
E 098°59.602

Since we arrived in South East Asia almost two months ago I’ve been dying to take a cooking class. Teddy and I talked about taking a class in Hoi An, but there was so much shopping to do that we never got around to it. I told Marc that we were going to take a class in Chiang Mai—regardless.

As soon as we arrived in Chiang Mai I started researching different cooking schools, grabbing fliers and finally deciding on a specific school, class and date. The Pad Thai Cooking School came highly recommended by our guest house (I am sure they get a kick back) and the menu looked very enticing with all of our favorite Thai dishes in a single-day course.

The class started with a tour at the local produce market where Nokkie, our instructor, explained the various types of basil, ginger, eggplant and tamarind. The majority of the items I had seen before and are available in Bay Area grocery stores or Chinatown. After about a 40 minute tour of the market, smelling curries, tasting fresh fruits, and collecting the necessary produce for the day’s class, we all climbed back into a taxi and made our way to the cooking school.

The class structure was very conducive to learning. Nokkie had a great sense of humor and was able to explain things in a way even beginner cooks could understand. The staff did an excellent job prepping all of the ingredients for each and every dish. We would simply perform some minor mixing and cutting for each dish, walk the ingredients over to our individual station, and watch a short demonstration by Nokkie before we made our own version. Each of us had to eat what we made, so we couldn’t mess it up!

The first dish was a classic Pad Thai, one of my favorite dishes, but I rarely order it in a restaurant because it tends to be gooey and drowning in sauce. However, when we made Pad Thai in the class, it was fresh with the perfect blend of sweet, sour, salty and spicy.

Following the Pad Thai we made fresh vegetarian Spring Rolls and Tom Yam Gong (Prawns in spicy coconut milk soup). I probably wouldn’t make the spring rolls at home, but we will definitely make the delicious spicy soup. In fact, I have made this dish in the past and loved it, but now I have a simple recipe where the dish takes minutes instead of hours. We were able to add us much spice as we wanted for our individual portions and had one of our first spicy meals in Thailand.

Next, after stuffing our faces on the soup and spring rolls, we prepared a Chicken Green Curry and Stir Fried Chicken with cashew nuts, again commenting on how simple the recipes seem and how fresh the dishes were. We probably won’t try the Stir Fried Chicken recipe at home since flames shot into the air, at least three feet above our wok, adding a little excitement to the afternoon.

After stuffing ourselves with the last two dishes, and being on our feet in front of a hot wok for about six hours (how do chefs do it?), we didn’t want to move. Just when we felt like we were ready to take a nap our instructors mentioned dessert. That woke us up! We had our option of three different dishes for dessert—mango with sticky rice, banana in coconut cream or black sticky rice pudding with young coconut.

Marc and I each tackled a different dessert to give us a little more variety when we serve these great recipes to our friends and family when we return from our travels. I took the mango with sticky rice (my favorite) and Marc was a trooper and conquered the banana in coconut cream. After we both finished, we got back together and shared our tasty treats.

I know Marc didn’t really want to go to the cooking class and I didn’t make him, he knows he’ll never really get to cook the dishes in my kitchen, but he was really happy he went and can provide input when I am cooking. I am sure that will go over very well!

The Six Month Milestone...

Chiang Mai, Thailand

July 29, 2007
N 18°47.209
E 098°59.602

As of today we’ve been on the road for six months, can you believe it? We know from some people at home that it seems like only a few months, or to our parents it seems like we’ve been gone longer. For us, Montanita seems like a distant memory, Torres del Paine seems like a long time ago, New Zealand just seems like awhile back. As we hit the six month milestone we believe we’ve accomplished a lot in such a short period of time, today we want to reflect on our relationship, the educational experience from our travels, some of the logistical challenges, the best food and the elusive question “What is our favorite place so far?”

24x7x365:
First, to spend 24x7 with someone for that extended period of time, with the exception of a few breaks, does take a lot of patience and compromise on both sides. Both of us are pretty flexible and easy-going, which helps, but at the same time one or both of us can make a quick decision when needed.

The first six months haven’t gone by without an argument here or there, a few tears, or threats of me walking in one direction and Marc in the other, but at the end of the day we pull together and know we made a decision to be in this together until the end.

Of course we’ve seen each other at our best and worst before this trip even started. However, as we trekked for nine days through Torres del Paine without a shower, or tromped through rice paddies in South East Asia, sweating like pigs, we pulled through and tried to make each other feel as comfortable as possible in what may not be ideal situations.

It’s important for us to continue to work together over the next six months, like we have over the previous six, to make the remainder of our travels as rewarding as possible. We’ll still have days we want to walk in opposite directions, but we'll pull through and remembering one of the reasons we’re together—we enjoy each other’s company… so much so, we decided to travel around the world together 24x7x365.

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History/Culture:
In the past six months we’ve visited ten countries, all with different customs, languages, currency and food. We tried our best to immerse ourselves into the local environment and truly understand what it is like to live in the different countries. Of course this is easier in places, like New Zealand and Australia, than in South East Asia where the war torn countries and instability in government can cause despair and desperation.

We can’t really understand what it’s like to suffer as some of the people have suffered, so we do our best to respect them and understand our differences. It's very apparent everyone wants to works hard and get through life with as little suffering as possible.

Many save their money with the hope to educate their children and provide them with a better life… others make sacrifices that seem immoral and unconscionable to us. However, this is when we need to remind ourselves that this is not our country and we will never be able to understand the despair many of these people endure everyday.

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Logistics:
As we hit the six month milestone we looked back to see if there were any logistical issues that could have been avoided. I think we both agree our intense planning really paid off in terms of avoiding logistical challenges. There have been a few minor hiccups that we’ve basically forgotten. The only little blip, taken care of with good ol’ cash, was Marc’s passport being out of pages, but we’re now in Chiang Mai where there’s a US Consulate. The problem will be solved during our time here; again, very minor.

We’ve used nine different currencies, five different languages, taken numerous buses, trains, boats and planes. Regardless of the language barrier or currency we're always able to figure out where we want to go. Most importantly, no matter where you are in the world, there’s always someone there willing to help you.

In terms of health, we’ve both been very lucky only fighting a few little colds and one stomach incident in Cambodia. For the most part we stay alert and make sure we don’t eat or drink anything we shouldn’t. It all comes down to common sense; however, there are times you want to live a little and eat with the locals (even if the meal includes raw vegetables).

Bottom line, our meticulous planning and discussion prior to our departure not only helped with logistics, but contributed to our ability to deal with each other 24x7x365.

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Best Food:
Laura:
We've definitely had a lot of great food on the road. My mother even asked me if I gained ten pounds since it seems all we do is eat. It might appear we eat a lot; however, with the heat in South East Asia our appetites have been curtailed. We still enjoy the tasty food of the area, but not as much (probably a good thing).

My favorite town for food was Hoi An, Vietnam. Every night, as we shared dinner with Teddy, Bob and Elise, we would go around the table and comment that this is the best meal yet in Vietnam, but the next night would top it. Also, since there were five of us at dinner on most nights, we could try almost everything on the menu. Hoi An also has a couple great regional specialties I really enjoyed such as their version of chicken and rice (rice with shredded chicken, fresh herbs and hot sauce) and Cao Lau.

Even though I called out Hoi An, Vietnam as my favorite city for food, I can’t forget to mention the incredible beef in Argentina that paired perfectly with the regional Malbec wine. The succulent beef pulled two part-time vegetarians back into the meat eating world. If I could get some Argentina beef tomorrow, I would not turn it down.

Marc:
My favorite food was found in Argentina… HANDS DOWN! As many people know, with minor exceptions, I swore off meat for at least four years for health reasons (cholesterol). It got to the point where I really didn’t miss meat or crave it at all. Today, I can’t make such a bold claim. I want, no I need, a perfectly grilled bife de chorizo steak! And while we're at it why don’t we crack open a delicious bottle of Malbec to wash it down. And for dessert I’ll be satisfied with a double scoop of ice-cream from Jauja!

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As for the question “What is your favorite place so far?”
This question is very difficult to answer….

When we put together our itinerary we created a blend of cities and sites that enticed us from a nature perspective, beaches, and culture/history. With that in mind, we’ve enjoyed the majority of the places we’ve been to, and we're actually surprised by how much we enjoyed a few of them. The beauty about our itinerary is, if we don’t like a place, we pack-up and leave.

Also, some of the places we visited are more special to us since we met up with friends or family. In New Zealand, for example, we were able to explore the North Island and part of the South Island with Shelby and Dustin. We visited some cool microbreweries, got lost by a lake, trekked through Abel Tasman National Park and created some unforgettable memories. Likewise, in Vietnam we cruised Halong Bay with Bob, Teddy and Elise. Enjoyed new food together, including Elise’s first lobster, and traveled throughout the country in a pack, like a covey of quail (according to Teddy).

After countless discussions, Marc and I agree our two favorite destinations are really a toss-up between the nine treacherous days in Torres del Paine and the visit to Ban Na, a remote village in Laos. There were a lot of comparisons between the two segments in terms of rugged, natural beauty and overall reward—physical challenge in Torres and giving hope to Roger’s adopted family in Laos.

We also agree that if we had to pick one, and only one, place to go back to it would be the region between Chile and Argentina near Patagonia. We loved the diversity of the overall region in terms of the big beautiful lakes, mountains and remote undisturbed nature. There were tons of trails for us to explore. Plus, the food and wine were absolutely amazing.

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With six months under our belts we haven’t found the next San Francisco, or a place that we think we could call home. However, we still have at least six more months to explore the world…

That is One Hot Mamma...

Chiang Mai, Thailand

July 28, 2007
N 18°47.209
E 098°59.602

After an uneventful three hour bus ride, we arrived in Chiang Mai to clear skies and temperatures at least 10 degrees (F) higher than Chiang Rai. The streets were sizzling as we set out to find a late lunch after our normal routine when we arrive in a new city—find a room, shower and then scope out the new neighborhood.

Hoping to relax outside before the skies opened up, we found a table outside in a triangle of bars where we could have a bite to eat and enjoy an ice cold Singha. It was a perfect spot to people watch.

Sitting at a table behind us was a woman that appeared to be in her late 50’s with unkempt, bushy, wild dark hair—like a perm gone wrong or maybe she put her finger in the light socket. She had the face and build of a bulldog and looked like she’d be happy to bite you. She was wearing a white cotton t-shirt with terrycloth baby blue shorts that hung mid-thigh. It was the legwarmers, also in baby blue, that really caught my attention as I glanced over my shoulder on occasion to take a quick peak. I told Marc, “that is a piece of work.”

After two or three beers, she paid her bill and got up as Irene Cara appropriately belted “Flashdance… What a Feeling” in the background—I kid you not! Marc noticed the legwarmers for the first time and I pointed out her high top leather Reeboks circa 1983. As she staggered away, with a Marlborough hanging out of her mouth, we could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra; as everything hung over the shorts—gut and all.

Now for the chopper… we saw it sitting there when we walked up, but not once did we think the big, red Harley Davidson with three flags connected to the back—Thai on the right, large American flag in the middle and an unidentifiable yellow flag on the left—belonged to this lady. We’ve seen a lot of motor scooters and a few motorcycles zipping around the streets in South East Asia, but this Hog was different all together.

When everyone realized the lady was headed towards the Harley, they turned around to take a closer look. I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised… she was probably a mama for a Hell’s Angel in her day. After securing her leather purse on the back of the bike, she kick started the Hog. This was when it got really crazy. The Harley was decorated with hundreds of red lights; the beast lit up like a Christmas tree, neon lights, rhythmically flashing on-and-off as it roared to life. It was a real spectacle and probably not the best rig to be driving after a several beers—at least not in the States.

The bulldog, Marlborough still between her lips, revved her engine one final time before pulling out into the traffic, flags waving in the wind and scooters dodging to get out of her way. “Wow, I want to know her story,” Marc said. Almost on cue the rain started and we figured that was the end of our evening.

Our first night in Chiang Mai made us feel like we were sitting outside a bar on Folsom Street in San Francisco—we felt right at home. It’s a good thing since we will be here for a full week.