Welcome to The Wedding Travelers!

Hello everyone!

We haven't posted for a while, and that's because we have been on the move, as usual. We left Krabi, Thailand and took another 12 hour bus ride (that was blessedly uneventful) back to Bangkok. The fates were smiling upon us, and at 5AM when we rolled into the Khao San Road, a kind taxi driver pointed us to a hotel with a room. A clean, nice, and comfortable room right on the Khao San. It was certainly a very different experience from our arrival in Thailand!

 A busy day was had after we woke up. We mailed things home, which was a very simple process (it is not always that way!). Then we treated ourselves to a bit of pampering. We each had a half hour foot massage, Rob got his head shaved, I had a half hour Thai massage, got my hair shampoo'd and cut, and my eyebrows waxed. Total cost for all of that: 790 Baht. A whopping $25.50 Canadian dollars.

 Seriously.

 If I could get an hour long massage for $6 back home I would certainly have one every day....everyone sigh with me now as we imagine that.....

Ok, moving on.

We fly from Bangkok into Kolkata (Calcutta), early the next morning. A lengthy wait for our bags to come out, a harrowing 2 hour taxi ride in which we both were certain we were going to die numerous times (note: we both were hit, and hit someone else, both times not hard at all, but I guess that is quite common here!), and finally we come to the "backpacker district" of Calcutta. I use quotations around "backpacker district" because really we see hardly any other travelers at all! The hotels were still mysteriously all booked up, and we finally found a seedy place complete with a cockroach in the bathroom (as I write this I hope that it is still trapped under the water glass that we utilized this morning).

It certainly has been an incredible shock arriving in India, and even a month of traveling South East Asia couldn't prepare us for it. The poverty is all around you, and it is very hard to comprehend. Even the street we're staying on looks like a movie set, and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it is not pretend, but shockingly real.

 But, the purpose of The Wedding Travelers is soon to be fulfilled, as we have already found a wedding to attend. It is in the North East, in a town called Jorhat, and we just finished booking some tickets to make our way there in a couple of days. We have no clue what to expect, but elephants are rumored, so we've excited.

And now we take our leave to go find something to eat. Although Calcutta has scared us and startled us, the food we have had is fantastic enough to make up for it all, and a good cup of chai in our bellies calms us right down.

 WIFI has been non-existant, thus the lack of photos, but we're going to do our best to figure something out. Until then, just use your imaginations :)

Rob & Lauren

Category: Adventures

Tags: Airplane, bangkok, calcutta, food, india, street life, travel

Hey everyone!

Well, we haven’t gotten a good blog post up in a long time, so I bet you’re craving some pictures and some videos! Especially all of our friends and family back home in Edmonton who are enduring temperatures of -50 degrees Celsuis right now. I can’t imagine you guys are going outside, so here are some photos and videos, dedicated to you! I hope they help you try and think of warmer places!

I’m going to keep the chatter to a minimum here since there are really a ton of photos and videos to get through!

We’ll start with our last day in Vietnam, which was spent in Hoi An. First we have a rooster that we came across. I absolutely love how he is the one splash of colour in this shot.



And before we left we had to go back and visit our good friend Chompsky. Here we are having a good last snuggle.



We made our way to the Central Market in Old Town, which provided some fantastic photo ops



And some nice light as we were walking home



We got up incredibly early (4AM) to go to the My Son (pronounced Mee Son) ruins just outside of Hoi An. They were built by the ancient Cham people, and were Hindu temples, which was surprising and also very cool. In the end we were very glad that we got there so early, since we didn’t have to try and work around hundreds of visitors to get some great shots.





And then we were out of Vietnam. We had originally planned to visit the North, but in the end chose to cut it out of our itinerary. We ended up spending 10 hours in the  Hanoi airport, and saw that the weather looked absolutely dreadful. We actually wore a couple of the winter coats we had made for us, as well as scarves, because it was so cold! So we were happy with our choice for sure!

When we got to Bangkok we headed straight for the Khao San Road. I would say that it could be considered the center of the backpacker universe. In the morning after a good nights sleep we were up and exploring. We had some absolutely amazing Phad Thai from a street vendor



Breakfast of Champions: Street food, Red Bull, and Coke…mmmmm



There were some really cute kittens at our hotel



And here’s the Khao San Road at night. It’s really a crazy assault on the senses!



They have these things here in Thailand that they call “buckets”. It is essentially a small plastic bucket that they fill with alcohol. The “traditional” mixture is cheap Thai whiskey, Red Bull, and Coke. It’s potent, to say the least!



And while on the Khao San pretty much anything can happen. As we were sitting there this women came up and just plunked this weird hat on my head. Clearly I was a bit surprised!



And then we made our way to Ko Phi Phi, nothing less than an island paradise.



Our first night there we wandered around and came across a wicked fire dancer show



They make just amazing patterns



Here are a couple of videos that will hopefully give you a better idea of the madness of these dudes than pictures can. In this first one if you just saw the end, you would definitely think it was on fast forward. But no, he’s really just that fast.



And then the finale consisted of about 6 of these guys just going at it. It was way too cool.





Then the next morning we went snorkeling. Now in Vietnam the snorkeling we did blew our minds, and we were hoping that Thailand would measure up. I’ll tell you right now that it completely blew all of our expectations right out of the water!



This was the sight we saw when we first jumped in to the nearly bathwater warm water



The visibility was incredible, you could see way deep down beneath you!



The variety of sea life we saw this time around was mind blowing. Check our this enormous eel we came across



This is a giant clam, and you could see it opening and closing if you watched for long enough



A sea cucumber



A rather scary looking sea urchin (I think the thing in the center is it’s eye…..creepy!)



And perhaps one of the coolest things was seeing these clown fish (think of Finding Nemo!).



They were hiding in the sea anemone and if you wiggled your finger they would dart in and hide, then pop back out, ready to play some more!



Other strange creatures? No, just us! I’ll tell you, it’s rather hard to smile while wearing a snorkel!



Our snorkel tour even took us to Maya Bay, which was where the movie “The Beach” was filmed. Back when Rob was here 4 years ago he had the whole place to himself. Unfortunately we had to share with 100 other people. But we still really enjoyed the white, soft sand and the clear blue waters. Here’s a shot of one of the long boats inside of the bay.



Then on the way home we saw an incredible sunset. Here’s a shot of Ko Phi Phi Ley in the gorgeous evening light (which is the island that is home to Maya Bay, we stayed on Ko Phi Phi Don, a short boat trip away).



And one of that sunset (straight out of camera, no Photoshop to this one. The colours were really spectacular)



And to finish up our time on this island we headed off to a local bar to watch a bit of Thai Boxing. It was definitely intense!







Ouch!



So you might wonder why we only spent a couple days on such a gorgeous island? Well, I shall tell you. First off, Ko Phi Phi is actually really expensive now! We were paying roughly $100 dollars a night for our room, and it was not as nice as I was expecting! It was really quite standard. And we were lucky to even find it, everything on the island was practically fully booked! So with our traveler’s budgets there was no way we could afford to stay there very long.

Secondly, Ko Phi Phi has become something of a Cancun of South East Asia. The number of young, tanned beach beauties around was astounding and they were all there to just party and lie on the sand. As we were wading in Maya Bay, easily one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, I overhead a girl say “This is fantastic. But if only it had a bar!” Can you believe that?? The chilled out travelers vibe is totally gone, and the place is just packed. Not exactly what you want for a place to relax, since it’s tough to even walk down the street without having to push through crowds! Not exactly our scene.

That being said, we honestly thoroughly enjoyed our time on the island. We had some incredible food (easily the best sushi we’ve ever had) and indulged in a Thai massage. We don’t have any pictures of that, since we were too busy getting massaged, but it’s so very different from a typical Swedish massage! It involved a lot of pushing and pulling on your limbs, and has been described as “passive Yoga”. It sounds very strange, but I assure you it was fantastic!

So that’s the scoop with us. Right now we’re in Krabi and are very happy to have found a simple room for $10 a night. We’ll be spending a bit of time here catching up on our work, and then preparing to arrive in India. So get ready for that, and we’ll talk to you all soon!

Think warm thoughts ☺

Lauren

Category: Adventures

Tags: bangkok, clown fish, coral, eel, food, hoi an, khao san road, ko phi phi, landscape, longtail boat, my son, ocean, photography, snorkeling, street life, sunset, thailand, the beach, travel, tropical fish, vietnam, wildlife

Hello everyone!

Our apologies for not having posted sooner, and for the lack of pictures. We hope you guys haven't been orrying about us! We're currently safe and sound in Ko Phi Phi, Thailand (the place where the movie The Beach was filmed, although a different island a few kilometres away). So you can just imagine the scenery. And if you haven't seen the movie you should watch it right away and then just picture us there!

We have a ton of new stuff to post up to show you the beauty of this place, we just need some time (and some WIFI) and then you'll be able to take a peek!

Anyway, so far our time in Thailand has been rather trying. We arrived in Bangkok around 11PM after having been on the move since 5AM. All the guidebooks said that this wouldn't be a problem, to just make our way to the Khao San Road (the main backpacker district, also in the movie The Beach) and we'd find something. Well after getting a taxi ride there (which ripped us off) we began walking around looking for a place. About 45 minutes of searching turned up nothing at all, so we took our bags and started to walk to another road that was just a few minutes away. We trudged down this road for probably another 45 minutes searching, and finally found something. It was expensive (30 dollars a night) and not very nice, but it had a bed and air con so we were happy. But we weren't too happy with Thailand!

The Khao San Road is crazy and busy and just teeming with people from all walks of life. I'm pretty sure this is the best place in the world for people watching! But it's a pretty large assault on the senses, and one that we can't take for long. So we planned to make our way to the islands in the south. We found a travel agent, booked our tickets, and thought all was well.

Well we got onto a bus after waiting for about an hour and half after they told us it would leave. At least it was a nice bus! We left Bangkok at 7PM. Around 7AM (yes, it's a really long bus ride) the bus stops at this little out of the way place that consists of nothing more than a thatched roof structure selling cold drinks, and a building that seems to think it is a travel agency. All the people in the bus were told to get off, and take all of our stuff. Then we were sent into the "travel agency" one at a time. Rob and I sat there wondering what on earth was going on in there, since people would be in there for quite a while. When we finally got in there we found out, and were none too pleased with it.

They tried to tell us that we needed to buy another ticket so that we could take a mini-bus to Krabi (the place where we catch a boat to Ko Phi Phi) right then. Otherwise we would be waiting for 3 hours until the next one came, and we would miss the first ferry. One thing they should have known is that you do not mess with Rob & Lauren early in the morning. After we've had a good nights sleep and some food, we're totally chilled. But when we've only had a few hours of sleep, we're a force to be reckoned with. We really gave them hell for trying to rip us off like that, demanding that they phone the travel agent in Bangkok.

Eventually after refusing to pay for the fake tickets, and raising our voices a bit (the rest of the bus was still waiting outside, and I'm pretty sure they could hear we were upset) they put us on the mini-bus, but not without a slew of Thai that I'm pretty sure wasn't "Thank you for your business".

After all that we were hoping that we'd just get there without any more hassle. But no, not in Thailand! We had one more stop at a random travel agency, a wait there, some more Thai yelled at us, and finally we made it to the port, just in time to miss the ferry by half an hour. 4 hours of waiting, and we got onto the boat and made our way to Ko Phi Phi. Total travel time from Bangkok: 24 long, hot, hassle-laden hours.

But was it worth it? Well the scenery here is probably the most beautiful we have ever seen, the water is clear, turqouise and sparkling, and the food so far has been great. We're off to go snorkeling in a few hours, and I pretty much know that is going to be mind blowing. So even though Thailand hasn't been so kind to us so far, we're still optimistic that we'll see some beautiful scenery and have a great time.

And we don't mean to give Thailand such a negative review so far, and hopefully things will pick up. But Rob was here 4 years ago and he feels like things have really really changed here. It's easy to see that the massive increase in tourism (we see far more travelers than Thai people) has spawned a slew of unscrupulous travel vendors, and we have unfortunately have had far too much experience with them so far. It's funny because the Vietnam we saw seems a lot like Thailand was 4 years ago. Perhaps that makes it a better bet to travel to, though hopefully they cope with the increase in tourists in a more honest manner.

Category: Travel Tips

Tags: bangkok, bus trip, khao san road, ko phi phi, thailand, the beach, travel