koh phayam. 2009.

so this is the new year.. and 2008 sure was a good one. last night the four of us sat out on a table on the beach with a little bat friend flapping low around us, and reflected on the last 365 days.. it was great to sit there, all with smiles on our faces, and talk about what we've experienced and how amazing it was. once it was dark, we all walked down to the shore and set off a few lanterns.. it was rather "symbolic".. and very personal, watching them float off over the ocean until it's just a spec that could be mistaken for a star.. afterwards it was on to "my BBQ bar" with a live band, flame throwers, a huge bonfire on the beach, followed by a dance party. we rang in '09 well if you ask me.

so we're here in koh phayam after a series of not-so-unfortunate events which meant that every place we intended to go for new years was booked up.. on a whim, we caught a bus going up to ranong and took a boat out to the island, which is right off the south tip of burma. we arrived with no accomodation just hoping it would work out. and of course, it did.

the place is paradise.. there are no roads on the island, and therefore no cars.. only little paved pathways for bikes and pedestrians.. everything is ran on solar energy, with a few backup generators, and there's even a few windmills on the beach. trees everywhere, a few hills, serene beaches, other islands spotting the horizon..

we taught ave and darryl how to play 'euchre' - a card game that has turned into so much more for us on this trip.. leading to a competitive tournament which resolved itself in india.. although, i'm not sure it will ever fully be 'resolved'.. [melissa took the crown, and the rest of us secretly resent her for it..] one evening after some cards, we grabbed the flashlights and walked down to the beach to check things out. the tide was way out, and we walked out on the damp sand checking for shells and crabs and whatnot.. christine was the first to find a sand dollar, and within a minute and a 2-foot radius we had found 5 of them. the tide started coming in so we were forced back to land, where we witnessed - and no word of a lie - at least 200 hermit crabs.. every single shell on the beach had legs. it was amazing.

we've since moved to another beach with more people, figured it would be the place to celebrate. the waves here are massive, the boys are so thrilled with that.. we've been body surfing every afternoon.. catch a wave and it bullets you out to shore, it's a helpless but entirely exhilirating experience..

happy 2009 everyone. i only hope it can show up my 2008, it's a tough act to follow..

phuket.

so once our alleged 13 hour bus ride turned into 20, the four of us were quite ecstatic to finally arrive in phuket on the southwest coast on thailand.. clear skies, open ocean, sand so fine it's like whole wheat flour.. life is good.

we've spent the last 2 days on the beach, soaking up the rays, but being very conscientious of reapplying sunscreen (darryl and ave have a slight glow about them having been months into the canadian winter already..) we've done lots of walking around the town, it's very quiet regardless of the vacationers so it's a great place to do some relaxing. [all have agreed we do it well..]

our first night was spent down on the beach, sitting in the dark and having great conversation.. catching up on the last four months, and in christine's case, the last 6 years at least(?). fantastic. we were wading in the water and spotted small specs of blue light zipping past us in waves crashing to shore.. quite enthralled, we spent almost an hour trying to catch the damn things, getting a little light to see what it was all about (scared maybe it was jellyfish or something that you didn't particularily want to catch..) later realizing it was algae that glows at only a certain time in the evening.. pretty neat.

christmas eve was filled with mixed emotions.. exciting.. doesn't really feel like christmas.. with all of us used to surrounding ourselves in huge family gatherings, lonely.. except that we're all family.. and how can one complain when we're in paradise? we quickly sorted it all out, and went out for a nice dinner, cheers'd to our circumstances, went down to the beach and watched magnificant fire works coming from all sides, and again enjoyed the company. there's a cute little bamboo bar that we went to for a bit after doing a grocery run for our special christmas breakfast, and then we awaited santa's arrival..

waking early to grab some good seats on the beach we dined on the sand.. fresh bakery bread, croussants, brie, cream cheese, olives, tomatoes, cold coffees, with chocolates and nuts for dessert. then we read, swam and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon.. indulged again at lunch, and.. well, we've basically indulged every few minutes or so.. it's christmas!

just wanted to let everyone know that we are thinking of them and we appreciate our families and friends so much.. wish we could be together for the holidays, but, well.. i'm pretty content with where i'm at right now.. love love love, and merry christmas!

kolkata/bangkok.

days turn into nights turn into days turn into nights.. and suddenly our time in india has come to an end. i couldn't even explain what we've been up to the last week or so because it basically involved drinking tons of tea.. walking steep hills.. street food.. momo's.. bike rides.. jojo's juice shop.. it's ridiculous how quickly it went by and how unprepared i was to let it go, but also how happy i was to know that when we got through customs, i'd be chilling out with my brothers who are two of my favorite people. also, much to our surprise, and by no hint of our own, this man at the airport decided he would try to get us put into first class.. pop-up personal television screens, foot rests, and food on china plates.. not too shabby.

we've said goodbye to stacy who's off to LA to spend christmas with her family.. we say goodbye to bangkok at 6pm.. vip bus and 13 hours later, we'll find ourselves on the beaches of phuket. i am feeling rather scandalous in my dress, having kept my knees and shoulders covered for the past month and a half.. funny how a few hours on a plane can bring you into a different world.

darjeeling/it's a small world after all.

it was quite the adventure getting back into india after our little bout in nepal.. we got on the bus around 4pm and rode it through the treacherous mountainside roads for almost 15 hours.. at 7am, tired and grumpy, we grabbed our bags and took a rikshaw a kilometer down the sandy road to the boats.. [i think a dam broke?] seemed so absurd because the only thing you could see for miles was sand, and then there was this huge river with a strong current where the road used to be.. so we loaded up these wooden tubs and slowly made our way across.. the engine choked out a few times and i was pretty sure we weren't going to make it. on the other side, we got another rikshaw and went another kilo down the road where we caught our next bus which we rode until 12:30. then changing to a jeep at 2:30. then another jeep at 4pm to cross over the border and arrive in darjeeling at 8pm..

so we're waiting for our final jeep at this little border town, about to walk through the immigration office for a stamp when who do we run into? wilf and laura olson, ray and ellen mcmillan, and their two grandchildren, august and andrew. talk about a small world. i had wanted to get up to guwahati to visit with them and it just didn't work out with our time frame, and voila. our paths crossed. caught up for a few minutes before parting ways.. after 2 days travel, i'm sure i didn't smell very pretty, but they didn't resist any hugs. it was so nice to see them.

went on the infamous 'toy train' for a joy ride to see the sights.. it was quite the disappointment! it's in a book titled '1000 things to do before you die' - i plan on writing a strongly worded letter. although, it is the oldest and second highest train station in the world.. 7047 ft up.. guess it just takes a lot more to impress me these days, so spoilt.

yesterday was mike's birthday, as well as his last day with us. he heads off to calcutta this afternoon to catch a plane. so last night we went out to a little pub down the street to celebrate, and we ended up running into this guy, drew, that we met on our boat cruise in halong bay! two months and three countries later.. and here we all are. smallll world.

trekking/kathmandu.

we now have a 50km trek under out belts.. what a breathtaking experience (both literally and figuratively..) going up and down those mountains could be pretty killer, but the scenery was always such a treat that one couldn't help but be entranced..

we left pokhara early and took a bus a few hours out to start off the journey. we were told it was 4 hours to lunch, but we hiked 3 at a good pace and made it to the quaint little mountainside village where we stopped to eat. warmed up with some tea and loaded up on carbs (guilt-free.. [the joys of physical activity..]) then feeling both intimidated and challenged, set out for the 3,200 stairs that awaited us.. our guide, bharat, was amazing. he was a very warm, helpful character with tons of information about the area.. we crossed over freezing cold clear rivers (not safe to drink because of minerals and chemicals washed in from the rocks..) tons of green trees, huts, and small fields cut into the mountainside.. another few hours after lunch brought us to olleri which is where we stopped for the night, about 2040m. we ate supper and sat around a cozy fire before heading to bed.

the second day we woke early to watch the sun rise over the annapurna mountain range.. the clouds rolled in soon after, but we were able to catch the snow capped peaks light up under the sun.. seemed so surreal, they looked like paintings.. i constantly had to remind myself that this was really happening. after breakfast we hiked about 4 hours to lunch.. it was another 2-3 hours after to our destination, ghorepani, about 2860m. stacy, christine and i were all feeling extremely empowered. the whole day was basically up, but it had been so long since we'd done something this physical that our bodies were probably thanking us.. mike wasn't feeling so great, bit of a headache, so when we reached camp he went for a nap. the three of us and bharat decided to hike up to poon hill that afternoon.. great lookout spot at 3210m. it was almost an hour straight up from there, and the clouds were rolling in.. by the time we reached the top it was completely gray, we couldn't see a thing. climbed up the tower regardless, and waited it out for a bit to see if the sky would clear.. no dice. so we headed back down (which took about 10 minutes..) had some supper, and sat around a fire with some fellow trekkers visiting and sharing travel stories before bed.

day 3 was somewhat more relaxed because we had done poon hill the evening before (which meant we didn't wake up at 4am to do it for sunrise).. we had breakfast and continued the journey uphill to our highest peak at 3380m. the sky was perfectly clear and the view was phenomenal.. a little bit of frost on the ground that morning, but once we got walking we were all stripping off layers.. after that we worked our way down to 2500m, then back up to 2800, and then continued all the way down to 2000m, stopping to lunch on yak cheese pizza.. (an acquired taste, but not bad..) our last night was spent in a cute little hostel surrounded by bright orange flowers and overlooking the village below.

the last day was about 3 hours of trekking before dining on special nepali food (some sort of holiday, bharat didn't really explain..) then a half hour hike back to our bus, pokhara bound..

in those 4 days, we experienced rivers.. grassy plains.. jungle.. forest.. we saw monkeys.. barking deer.. a parrot.. mountain pigeons.. donkeys.. goats.. quite the eclectic landscape. i would love to go back and do some trekking in february.. it would be bitter cold, but that is when all of the trees are in bloom.. huge red, yellow, orange, blue flowers cover the trees, and i just think the contrast of that to the icy snow covered ground when be amazing.. but alas, i make too many plans.. maybe some day..

we've since left pokhara for a few days in kathmandu.. i miss the quiet simplicity of pokhara, this is city-paced and not as relaxing.. however, still nice to venture through the streets and have a look around.. yesterday morning we woke at 5am and headed to the airport. after a 3 hour delay because of clouds, we took off for an hour flight through the himalayans and saw an epic view of mount everest.. wow. 8848m of glory.. i also found out that there are only 14 mountains in the world that are over 8000m, and 8 of those are found in nepal.. pretty cool. (i think we saw 4 of them?)

this afternoon we begin the 24 hour journey to darjeeling.. india awaits us once again..

nepal.

we're back on the move.. spent 4 nights in varanasi and appreciated the time to relax and settle in to a place.. we went out to see a 'bollywood' movie, and were surprised to find quite a bit of the dialogue in english, so we could piece the storyline together.. laughed hysterically. the next night we went to check out a magic show. there were posters plastered all over the city and we figured the guy had to be good.. [not so much]. we left at intermission.. every sentence that came out of this over-the-top-sparkling-jewelled-jumper-guy ended with the last word echoing into the theatre. every time. it was really funny at first, but it got old fast. good thing it was only $1 to get in..

we took a few boat rides up the ganges river, once in the evening and once in the afternoon. got to see all of the ghats with people bathing and laundry hanging all over the place.. there is a second place on the river where people get cremated, but it is electric burning.. for people who cannot afford the alternative. we were also told that there are 5 holy people who do not get cremated.. brahmins (holy priests), people killed by cobra bites (shiva, their god), children under 10, women who die in childbirth, and lepars. instead they are wrapped and sunk in the river. apparently it is not surprising to find bodies resurfaced.. if they are on the ghat side of the river, they are re-sunk.. if they are on the far side, they are left for the birds and dogs.. in the evening there was a 'pooja' which is a religious ceremony. there were rituals with incense and candles and bells, men holding brass cobras.. it was pretty neat to see. we each got a lotus candle to make a wish and then set them out into the water.. it was dotted with light, i would even go so far as to say this disease ridden pool was pretty..

we boarded the bus to nepal.. 12 hours later we crossed the boarder and spent the night, leaving again in the morning for pokhara. the second day we met a few israeli's travelling together and made friends.. the roads were killer.. sometimes we were so close to the edge you couldn't even see the road.. everyone [excluding moi] went and sat up on the roof for part of the trip! i stayed in on bag duty.. (whew).

pokhara is an absolutely beautiful place and i'm excited to spend the afternoon checking things out. we are still gathering up some trekking information and will be doing that in the next few days! we wanted to do a 4 or 5 day trek but the prices and a little out of budget, so we'll see..