First week in Thailand

I think pictures do a lot more for the country of Thailand that I can put into words. This place is beautiful. Eric and I began in Bangkok, October 20th, after enjoying, as mentioned before, being pampered in first class. Eric was a bit sick in Bangkok so we spent the majority of our day at the doctor trying to to get him some medicine. Luckily the "x-lay" showed nothing that a little zpack couldn't fix. Bangkok seems like a great city. It is very modern city and most people speak some English. Our hotel, Sam Sen Sam, was adorable and the people that worked there were great. We will have a lot more time to explore the city because we will be passing through two more times before leaving this area on Thanksgiving day.

First class pampering before I fell alseep

From Bangkok we took a short flight to Phuket. The town near Pucket, Patong, we had heard was much like Cancun so we decided to stay there for a night before hopping on the ferry to Koh Phi Phi Don. I think Eric and I were both a little disappointed with this town. There were so many hawkers trying to get you to buy every item imaginable including tuk tuk rides, suits, tours, clothing, massages, and even women. The she-males were definitely interesting to watch. They have no shame strutting their stuff around the town and participating in "she-man" shows. By this point in our trip I had come down with a stomach bug, so Eric and I both were feeling a bit under the weather. We attempted to get a good night's rest at our hotel, C & N, but the bed felt more like wood floor than a mattress. We packed up quickly the next morning and booked afternoon tickets on the ferry to Koh Phi Phi Don.

I had heard that Koh Phi Phi was paradise from many of our friends who have visited this island. They were right. The beaches are beautiful, with clear shallow water for about half a mile out. There are no motorized vehicles allowed on the island so it is all foot traffic or bike riding. Diving, snorkeling, and rock climbing are huge here and their shops, along with boutiques, restaurants, and bars, line the winding streets. Eric and I are staying in a private bungalow on stilts called Phi Phi Casita. It's amazing. In fact, we like it so much we keep adding on more days to our original 3 day stay.

A view of the beach

Our days have been spent relaxing on the beach, eating Thai and Italian food, going on adventures and watching HBO in our comfy room. Our first day on the island we took a half day trip that included snorkeling, kayaking, visiting the Koh Phi Phi Leh (where the Beach was filmed), monkey beach and watching the sunset (the best I have ever seen) on a boat while eating dinner.

Monkey Beach where lots of monkeys gather to eat bananas out of your hand
(or bite your hand if you are unlucky)

Kayaking into a cave while visiting Koh Phi Phi Leh

Sunset from our boat

Our nights have mostly been spent eating delicious meals followed by watching flame throwers on the beach or checking out muay thai boxing at the reggae bar. There is something for every type of person here. There are some relaxing bars (Banana Bar is my favorite so far) that play great music or clubs that rock late into the night.

Sharing a bucket while watching some muay thai boxing
(we saw a tooth knocked out, a bloody nose, and a dislocated shoulder
all just for a free bucket of liquor)

Eric watching people jump through the ring of fire

More fire

We have also done rock climbing, which I highly recommend through Cat's Climbing company. The instructor is great and the rock wall overlooks the water. It's beautiful. Eric is planning on doing as many dives as possible now that his cold is finally clearing up. I am going to take a day off from rock climbing and let my sore arms rest before trying again tomorrow. We are planning on spending a total of about 6 days in Koh Phi Phi, although I am sure we could stay LOTS longer, and then heading to Reilay for some more climbing and relaxing.

A great view from the rock climb that we did

Me taking a breather

India, a truly colorful experience

The last few days have opened up my senses to this world more than any country thus far. Looking back, the only comparable experience was in Palestine. After arriving in Delhi on Tuesday night, beth and I were pleasantly surprised to discover that this city appeared to be in better condition than Mumbai. The following morning our friend Eric, from Dubai, was to meet us for an early morning tour of Delhi. Then we would head to Agra for the great Taj Mahal.. and eventually hit Jaipur to complete our tour of the "Golden Triangle."

Heck yes. Thats my name up there

Starting in Delhi was a great way to get our feet under us for the next few days. We visited the Shah Jahan mosque, the largest in India, then took a bicycle rickshaw ride through one of the older markets. THIS is where you really get a taste of India. Blank faces of half naked men gazed at our rickshaws as we fought to squeeze through the narrow streets. The children were the ones begging for money while the adults just looked at us as if we were from another planet. Once we got back in our luxurious air conditioned van we reflcted for several moments about different tidbits each one of us had seen. Some include: a naked man walking comfortably down the street, a man getting a straight razor shave from another man in the middle of the street, and many people hawking produce such as roots of the lotus flower. We had a total of about 6 hours to tour Delhi before heading to Agra, which was plenty.

Beth and I at the Shah Jahan Mosque in Delhi. Shorts were a bad choice for the day.


Once again, I wasn't kidding

Around 3pm our driver picked us up from lunch and we set sail for Agra. My friend Adam Weinstein made this trek last year and told me to make sure I stayed awake for the 5 hour journey from Delhi to Agra; boy was he right. Sure, leaving the city you see less motorbikes and much less air pollution, but there are a whole set if different things to see that made horrific stories of poverty suddenly come real. Once we scratched the outskirts of Agra we were suddlenly let down to see some unusual gridlock traffic. We sat with the van in park and off for about an hour. We later came to find out that what was apparently a car accident turned out to be a riot. Many police officers lined the streets all weilding some sort of giant night stick, while riotors came by screaming Hindi chants. Welcome to Agra. No less than two hours later after a wonderful impromtu dinner at reataurant Maya, we saw around 200 people in the street outside our hotel. Evidently a kid dropped a gun and was shot in the head on accident. Not sure about this one. We went inside to decompress and get ready for the Taj Mahal the next day.

Is that Ketchup on my forehead?

Eric and I at a "beer bar"

Taj Mahal: a memorial for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan's favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It took 22 years to complete and the help of over 2000 people. Words cannot describe how magnificent this structure really is. One cool thing that we learned was that there were plans for another Taj Mahal, a black one, built for Shah Jahan himself. The foundation and garden were complete but Shah Jahan's son, the succeeding Emporer, had him arrested for spending too much of the peoples money on himself. Shah Jahan was said to be the richest ruler in the world by a landslide. Out of the many wonders of the world that I have now seen, this one rivals Petra and Machu Picchu closely.

Breathtaking view of the Taj.

This guy got a little too close to the monkeys that roam around the Taj Mahal.

A view from the Guest House.

Jaipur was a great city as well; with many forts and other important sites to see. The market square was particularly interesting with a small herd of people following us around. Indian kids that looked like miniature men, gawked at Beth and didn't even ask for anything. They just followed us on every street, through every alleyway. We spent two days here, visiting more historical sites, and more textile factories.

In Jaipur at a wood block stamp factory. Beth is using her art skills to finish this piece.

One more shot of the trio at the Amber Fort in Jaipur.

Beth and I on Shanti, the elephant that took us to the top of the Amber Fort.

Eric riding solo on Hema. Eric started behind us but the started yelling "chela" which means Lets Go! At this moment our elephant jockies decided it would be fun for us to compete in a full on race to the top. This is was one of the funnest momemts in my life. No Joke.

Gorgeous

Monkeys are everywhere in India. I find this particularly funny because Eric is absolutely terrified of them.

The last important part of our stay in India was Diwali, India's festival of lights. This is similar to the 4th of July celebration in the US where everything revolves around lights and fireworks, except Diwali celebrates a significant Hindu holiday. I had read somewhere that Diwali outdid any other firework celebration in the world. Beth and I certainly confirmed this. For a solid week everyone and I mean EVERYONE is lighting some sort of "cracker" all day and all night. What we first thought were gun shots in Mumbai, were actually just M80s. It was such a great coincedence to be in India for this gigantic festival and to spend it on the rooftop of our hotel, Cabana.

A view from the rooftop of our hotel in Delhi for Diwali

Leaving India was sad, but we had Thailand to look forward to. The stink of our last day in India was that I came down with a bad cold, which came with a fever. Luckily Beth and I somehow got upgraded to First Class on our flight to Bangkok which made everything much better.

Mumbai, short and sweet

A beautiful mix of chaos, history, culture, and proverty is the only way I can think to explain India. Eric and I arrived early in the morning to Mumbai. We were both very skeptical about the next week we were going to be spending in a country that rarely sees Americans and that seems to have more starving and homeless people roaming the streets than either of us have ever seen.
Upon walking out of the airport doors we began being hussled and had cab drivers swarming us. After hopping into a taxi that was prepaid (so we knew they couldn't scam us) we arrive at our hotel, Chateau Windsor. The hotel was very nice for the price, although I became a little bit worried about the shower situation when I saw the dreaded bucket near the shower. Was this the infamous shower I had heard about that is freezing cold and only includes a bucket of water? To my relief the bucket was only for rinsing the floor.

A street view of Mumbai

After our long nap we arranged a driver through the hotel who was going to drive us around the city and show us all of the highlights of Mumbai. The first stop, the Gate of India and the Taj Hotel (the hotel that was bombed last year) were both impressive. We took a miserably hot boat ride around the bay. The temperature had to have been over 100 with 100% humidity. We found the people in India to be very curious about the out of place Americans that had hopped on their boat. We got lots of questions and lots of strange looks. One guy, who was overly friendly, followed us around for a good half hour asking us where we were going next and basically inviting himself along on our tour. We nicely had to wave him off and jump into our cab and zoom off.

A boat ride around the bay. This is at 2 pm and temoeratures neared 100 F.

From the boat ride we continued our tour (mostly site seeing from the car because the heat was unbearable). The Gahndi museum was one of our favorite stops along with a garden that had locals frolicing through the grass. We continued our day with a nice view of the sunset over the Indian Ocean.

Indian kids love two things: saying "hello" and having their pictures taken

Inside a ghandi Museum. He spent a significant amount of time in this guesthouse before his assassination.


After a long day of site seeing we went to eat at the "famous" restaurant Leopold which we still can't really figure out why is so popular. The food was nothing special and the crowd wasnt particularly exciting. A little dissapointed with our meal we wondered the streets for a bit before deciding to retire to our room.

Tuesday, October 13th we woke up to a knock at our door bringing us breakfast (a nice little suprise consisting of toast and eggs). We had knocked out most site seeing the day before so we wondered towards the gate of India while checking out a few cricket games on the way. We sat down at lunch and as we began eating we noticed "swastikas" painted on the coolers and cabinets. There was a strange group of people in the corner of the restaurant that offered us some brucetta which we found even more odd (later to find out that this guy is a model and has posters all over Delhi). We sped up our meal and bolted quickly from the restaurant. Later in the week we found out that this "swastika" is actully the Hindu symbol for peace (a nice contrast from the Nazi symbol). After reading further about this, there is a constant battle about the symbol and lots of countries in Europe want the symbol banned from the religion.

One of atleast 25 games of cricket going on in the oval park centered in Mumbai

Another cricket game. Eric wanted to take too many pictures here.

Our flight to Dehli was later that afternoon so we gathered our things and took off for our next adventure. Dehli, Agra, and Japiur, also known as the golden triangle of India, were our next three stops to see the famous Tajmahal and other historic sites. Our friend, Eric Rymraz (that we stayed with in Dubai), was meeting us the next morning to join us on our journey through India.

Dubai

A four hour over night flight was all it took to cross out of Europe and into the United Arab Emirates.  What we thought would be a quiet, peaceful alternative to sleeping in a hotel, was in fact a loud, party of a flight.  Everyone was in the aisles, chattering on at a volume above what most American consider discrete.  I guess 4 hours of micro sleep was gonna have to do.  

We arrived in Sharjah (a smaller airport outside of Dubai) at 5 a.m. on Friday morning.  It was great planning on my part to schedule our trip on Friday, because after my first trip to the middle east, I learned that the weekend begins on Thursday evening and ends on Saturday evening.  Our friend Eric Rymarz, who moved out to Dubai 10 months ago as a project manager, was going to put us up for the weekend.  He picked us up around 6 am and we headed into Dubai, a place I had been dreaming about visiting for years.  Even after getting info from fellow travelers about how large and glamorous Dubai was, I was still very impressed.  Eric took us back to his place so we could nap before we headed out to "brunch."  We had no idea what we were in for; and let me tell you, it was unbelievable.

Dubai Brunch Defined:  In Dubai, 5 star hotels have done an incredible marketing of their brunch. Every young to middle aged expat professional living in Dubai has been to a brunch at some point.  Some go every Friday.  Basically, a hotel, or even one or several restaurants in that hotel, feature an all you can eat & all you can drink brunch for at least 4 hours.  The food is a 5 star set menu and the drinks include featured cocktails, select quality beer, and spirits.  

We woke up around 10 a.m. from our nap and started getting ready for brunch.  Eric informed us that we had reservations at Le Meridien for their Mojito brunch.  Evidently some of the better brunches require a reservation and a name on the guest list, we had both.  When we arrive to the hotel it was a journey just trying to find the right brunch. Expats dotted the hotel lobby in their finest cocktail attire. We knew we were getting close to our watering hole when we saw the sign, "get drunched at the mojito brunch." We sat down ordered 1 of 9 different flavors of mojitos and started our feast with unlimited sushi.  Then came chicken spring rolls, lamb pops, chicken yakatori, salmon, and many many other delicious items.  Although this brunch cost around 300 Durams (about 75 bucks) each, I feel that I consumed well over 3X that amount.  After the brunch wrapped up, everyone moved to the nearby hotel club and danced to 80's music until the sun went down. From there, it was fair game,  we decided to head to the beach for the chill environment of a beachside bar. If you ever come to Dubai, a Friday brunch is a must.  

I wasn't kidding

At the Warehouse for brunch

Beth and Eric made up some danced called the Chinese Alligator dance inspired by an Asian 

man wearing a Lacoste shirt that danced particularly strange.

The following day we had plans for a desert safari that took place in the dunes somewhere between Dubai and Oman. The tour began at 3pm and lasted until 10pm.  The first part of the tour was dune bashing.  This was very similar to the dune buggying that I did in Peru except the bashing used a toyota land cruiser, and a crazy sheik driver.  For some stupid reason I decided to eat a ton of chocolate before the bashing.  This was a TERRIBLE idea!!  The first 15 minutes of sliding, hopping, and popping over the dunes was awesome.  The following 20 minutes I could not tell if I was about to toss my cookies on beth or out the window.  Finally we stopped and after several prolonged moments of nausea, I felt ok. Next, we pulled into a camp ground with about 40 other Toyota Land Cruisers for dinner.  They served up bedouin food consisting of Pita, Chicken, Lamb, rice and other local dishes.  There were other activities to participate in as well. We chose camel riding, and belly dancing.  We were terrible at the ladder.  A Desert Safari from Dubai is certainly worth the trip.  Just don't eat too many sweets beforehand.  We returned back to Eric's place, went for an evening swim in the persian gulf and called it a night.

Enjoying a beautiful sunset from the dunes.  Even though I am smiling, I still was a little rattled from the ride.

Eric and Beth going for a ride

The cutest Arab girl i've ever seen

A good look?

Camels are nicer in the UAE than in Jordan

Our last day was spent sightseeing.  Ski Dubai, Gold Souk, and the large Emirates Mall were some of the places we checked out before heading to the airport for our flight to Mumbai.  

Beth and I taking a dip in the Persian Gulf

Pretending to drink underwater.  These new waterproof digital cameras are heaps of fun.

Scrabble, Motor Bikes, and Beaches Oh My

The ferry to Naxos was nice. We sat on the top deck and found a new and fabulous use for my iphone...Scrabble. Eric and I passed the 3 hour ferry ride quickly and arrived in Naxos before dinner time on Saturday, October 3rd. We stayed at a place called the Windmill. It reminded me a bit of the Clermont hotel but had a burner and fridge in the room(clearly making it a little more classy).

Naxos is a quaint little town with lots of restaurants and nice greek people. On our hunt for dinner we came across a mexican restaurant and decided that no matter how wrong it was to eat there we were going to do it. It was the best decision we had made all day. Delicious margiritas, tacos, and enchiladas. Such a good break from feta and cucumbers. After dinner Eric was dead set on finding the UGA football game on tv. We sat at a bar for a long time flicking through every ESPN station possible. The nice greek owner refused to believe it was not on her satilite tv. To Eric's dismay we finally had to call it a night after looking for the game for over an hour (which prob was for the best since UGA lost to LSU). By the way, Eric did follow the rest of the game by watching the scores tick by on my iPhone.

Sunset at the temple of Apollo in Naxos

The next day, October 4th, we rented a motor bike and cruised around the island. Our goal was to find Mt. Zeus and climb it but once we found it we quickly decided that was a little too ambitious. It was prob over a 2 hour hike and bees were swarming all around the trail. The beach made for a much better afternoon. The rest of the day was nice and relaxed. We cooked some pasta on our burner in the room and made a nice little candle-lit meal (the candle being my head lamp).

This bike was crucial for getting around Naxos. 

This cost around 10 Euros a day and only 3 Euros to fill up.

Mt. Zeus

"candle" lit meal on our balcony in Naxos

Just a little monkey business

The following day, Monday, we hopped on a ferry to Paros, a small island about 30 minutes away from Naxos. It was a great way to spend our last day and night in the islands. This island was beautiful with lots of beaches and amazing people. Our hostel, Blue Paros, was great. The family that owned it is Jewish and of course loved to find another Jewish friend in Greece to chat with. We again rented a motor bike and discovered 2 of the best beaches I have seen. One was so secluded that only a few other people shared the beach with us. It was surrounded my mountains. The next beach was surrounded by these amazing rock forms that you could climb on and lay out on. It was really neat.

One of many frequent stops to look at the map. Unfortunately just being an eagle scout would not suffice for Eric this time.

Koumbithres beach in Paros

Once we got back to our side of the island the owner of our hostel showed us an amazing restaurant to eat at that was across from their hostel. We dug into some saganake (friend cheese recommended by Eric's dad) and a pork dish (kontosouvli). They both were fantastic. The remainder of the night was spent battling over scrabble again on my phone (which I have proven to be way better at than Eric).

Tuesday, October 6, we hopped aboard another boat and made the 4.5 hr journey to Athens. IT took us a few hours to find our hostel and settle in to our room. The first night was spent ordering Dominos and relaxing. 

Our time spent in Athens was good (although we had heard quite the opposite from many other travelers). The acropolis was very neat although all of the construction kind of kills the mood. We spent the remainder of the day getting lost in the winding streets of Athens and cooking ramen in our hostel. Our french roomates taught us how to play a dice game called Yam's that is a chinese game a lot like poker. 

The Parthenon. 

This would have been much more enjoyable had scaffolding not been present in every view.

View of Athens from the Acropolis platform. The lady who took this photo was a complete moron by the way. For some reason she really wanted her friends in the photo.

At the top of the Acropolis

Our final day in Athens was a blur of wondering around the city, grocery shopping, strolling around the market and using the internet. We knocked out most of the site seeing our first day so the second was more relaxed. I had read that the Agora Athens market was a must see while in the city. We found this market and eagerly we began walking through it. I had no idea that this was a meat market and the dead lambs, rabbits, and chickens would we hanging in plain site with blood dripping from them and their eye balls bulging from their skull. After about 2 minutes we both felt extremely sick and pretty much ran the rest of the way through the market. On the other site we were happily greeted with the produce section. Of course we found it necessary to cross back through the meat section so we could snap a few pictures. Needless to say I don't want lamb or chicken for a long time. 

Not happy

The rest of the day we spent in a little hidden gem of a cafe that was tucked into a side street near the market. It was a brewery/coffee/internet place that was cozy and had wifi. We headed back to our hostel a few hours later and made more ramen and headed to the Athens airport. Next stop Dubai and we can't wait for another taste of the middle east!