At Cathedral Rock, Sedona, AZ

At Cathedral Rock, Sedona, AZ

Quote from Into the Wild

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Pai, Thailand: have we just found the chillest place on the planet?

An anticipated 3 day stop, quite easily turned into 11 days. I wouldn’t call it getting stuck in Pai, it was just you get sucked into the rhythm of doing nothing. :) This place is awesome. Neither Christina or I have experienced such nice people in pursuit of just “living and being”. Nobody was chasing their tail here and life just seemed to slow down. Definitely a fun hip/hippy vibe, a little bohemian but that was a large part from the tourists in town. The locals were just simply nice working folks tending to their guesthouses, small restaurants and pubs and living a slow life. It was intoxicating, very picturesque everywhere as well. Pai is in a valley surrounded by beautiful hillside country (much like what you see in “Vietnam/War movies” except without the helicopters and bombs exploding). Little slice of heaven. We loved riding our little motorbike around the area, just sucking in fresh air and views.

Not So Hot moment: Getting locked in the bathroom by my own wife for about an hour :(
(was I being punished? I may never know...hmmmm, suspicious)

Todd and Christina’s tops in Pai, Thailand.

-Visited 2 local waterfalls-


-spent 3 full days using a 5 star facility pool and hot springs mineral spa (cost $1.50 per person per day-wow!)


-getting to know our guesthouse owners and staff at Mountain View Lodge; Mike & Tip, Soi and Chrissy, and permanent guest and party buddy Lil Ben. They were just genuine great people and we appreciated time getting to know them better. Bungalow was quite simple and very inexpensive (about $6.50 per night) but we had hot water shower and private bathroom. The place is really a joy because of the owners and you get free access to their huge Pool in town also if you stay. Must highly recommend them @ Mounain View Lodge.


-crushing some great books and reading and relaxing in our bungalow hammock and pool side at Fluid Pool.

-Fishing for Piranha at local owned pond, somebody show my cuz Jason Coomes this picture please. He’ll love it. Let’s just say we didn’t remove the hook with our fingers, more like pliers. About 3.5 lbs.



-Enjoying too many of the very best Gin and Tonics I’ve ever had at “Almost Famous Bar and Club Ting Tong”

-Taking the moped out of town to Sapong


-Taking 3 amazingly tough but good Yoga classes overlooking the river (2 hrs each session, wheewwww)

-Riding a moped and sounding “rmmm rmmmm brmmm brmmmm” like on South Park episode of the Harley Davidson guys. Gotta say, it sure was a fun time,"me and my old woman on our mini-hog." (Krista and Ben can relate to this :)

-Seeing all the Buddhist monks and getting great Karma for our next lives



-Sampling our favorite sandwich stand “Big’s Little Place” (Owner nickname is Big). I didn’t realize sausage, onion and fried egg on a baguette could ever taste so good. Wow! You gotta get one here, great guy also!



-Having an Aussie Burger at “Burger House”. An Aussie burger is a quarter pound: topped with melted cheddar cheese, onion, bacon, fried egg, tomato, lettuce and mayo. After many gins the night before and skipping breakfast, I couldn’t have been more in heaven throwing this town with some French fries, ugghghhghghghghgh!!!!!!!!!!! Good.



Pai, we’re gonna miss you a bunch, we can definitely see coming back here and staying for a while or a long while. What a place to enjoy. We can see why our guesthouse owner Mike, came to Pai for a week and ended up staying 6 years and calling this his home. We will surely be back. Wish the best of luck to Mike and Tip and gang on all their business endeavors and work.

Heading to Laos now, crossing the border finally and the slow boat down the Mekong River, it’s going to take 3 days to get there (Luang Prabang, Laos) and should be quite a travel experience we hear.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Chiang Mai Flower Festival


Chaing Mai- Chinese New Year, Street Scene.

Here’s a few minutes of the “street scene” only about 1 block from our hotel.  It was quite an active area filled with just so much during this time of year

Chaing Mai, Flower Parade and more Food. (part 3 of 3)

We hung around Chaing Mai a bit more than anticipated, but we just had to check out the Flower Parade and Festival on Saturday morning and sample some more great food.


Maybe our favorite dish so far is deep fried whole river fish with garlic, shallots and pepper served alongside a big fresh plate of spicy papaya salad and sticky rice to soak it all up, throw in a few big Chang Beers and you’re stuffed to the hilt and sweating just ever so slightly from the thai chilis involved. The salty fried goodness of the fish mixed with the sweet but very spicy papaya salad is just off the charts good.

fried whole fish, w/ shallots, garlic, black peppers and spicey dipping sauce...mmmm

The flower parade started at 9am Saturday morning, so we hustled down a few blocks and snagged a couple seats to watch the big show.  Basically a small version of the Rose Parade back in the states, but very elaborate, very beautiful floats….it appeared each township, school, or organization could submit a float for consideration and then accompanying the floats were typically a marching band or group of elaborately dressed folks to add some spice to their section of the parade.  Along with the parade was your typical “beauty contest”, so each float had a few pretty girls vying for title of Queen of the Parade.  I believe that the winner would represent the province for Ms. Thailand, who would then go on to compete in the Ms. Universe Pageant.  It was impressive to see all the costumes and designs on the floats.   Quite possibly more fun was making fun of the rude old touristy tourists who insisted on getting out of their seats, running up to each and every float to have their picture taken while getting in the way of the floats, the people in the parade and pissing off the rest of us spectators and locals just watching things go by.  We got quite good at making fun of them, they were rude and ridiculous and when accompanied by some satire made for a funny morning.  We’re both tourists for sure, and we stick out like sore thumbs also, but we try hard not to be obnoxious.  Note to old tourists:  if you will just sit still the float will come right by you and when the parade is done the floats are parked and you can take all the pictures in front of them you want.

Well we had a great time in Chaing Mai, particularly lucky to be there during Chinese New Year and festivities and the flower parade, but we are going to head 3-4 hours more north to Pai, Thailand, we’ve heard very good things about Pai and looking forward to checking it out.  We’d have to recommend Chaing Mai: good mix of activity, people, sites, tours and combination of being less chaotic than Bangkok.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Hello to the girls!

OK, I think this video works now finally.
Hope the girls enjoy

Muay Thai Boxing, doh....

So, it looked like this hurt.
We got a chance to check out some authentic Muay Thai Boxing in Chaing Mai also.  Very Closeup.
(This one's for you Chase Mudd)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Chaing Mai, Doi Suthep Temple and cute moment… (part 2 of 3)

We spent half a day touring Doi Suthep (the temple on the mountain). If you’re touring this, I suggest not taking a tuk-tuk truck up. The road is winding, winding, winding, and in the back of a covered truck, even holding onto rails, you get a little sea-sick swaying around in the back. Opt for a daily moped rental (1/2 the price of the tuk anyway) and more chances to stop and soak up the scenery with less quesiness. Doi Suthep was very impressive and the views awe-striking. The camera just can’t capture the height and depth and color from 3,500 ft. We even got lucky-blessed bracelets from a Buddhist monk in one of the temple areas. Well, I got a one from the Buddhist monk, Christina had to get one from his side-kick, "no ladies in the Monk’s line please", nothing like a little discrimination in the world’s churches. We both thought of our loving sister Krista at this moment and how the next day’s headlines might have read “Buddhist Monk tackled by Feminist Westerner in attempt for string bracelet”, It’s ok Sis, it’s just the way it is here, dohhhhhhh. On a side note, we did have to walk on our knees the length of a good size room to get to the little place where they were putting on the lucky bracelet strings, damn that hurt on marble floors!!!!

Christina at Doi Suthep, gettin her Karma on.

Official Buddhist Monk cotten string :)

Maybe one of the funniest moments was the tiny little girl dressed in authentic celebratory clothing on the steps leading up to the temple. You basically tipped her a bit of money (or a lot) and you could snap your picture with her. Let’s just say this is the hardest working woman in Chaing Mai, and quite possibly the best money making scheme I’ve ever witnessed. You just couldn’t resist, and the kid was a pro, she’d tickle your ear to get you to smile right at picture time. Christina was a bit jealous when she found out about the ear tickling, but it was quite a moment. She couldn’t have been more than 3 years old and adorable. Nothing wrong with a little child labor I always say.  Absolutely every traveler fell for her and her sisters as well. Mom was clever figuring out this income earner for the family. People were pouring baht ($) into their hands, anxious to get a pic. We watched them a while and even found the little girls had a “break” area, where they’d go freshen up their powdered faces and put on more lipstick, absolutely hilarious. We called them “the workin girls of Chaing Mai” after that. No selling chicken on a stick happening in that family. Very touristy thing to do, but just had to.
getting spiffy for the tourists

the only other girl allowed to tickle Todd's ear
More on Chaing Mai coming…..(including a Thai Boxing knockout on video)

Friday, February 11, 2011

A bumpy 4 hours later... Chaing Mai, Thailand (part 1 of 3)

Well, we left Sukothai and continued heading north to Chaing Mai. The route was quite a bit bumpier. We grabbed another big air/con tour bus for the trip, but the road itself left us just a bit bounced up by the time we arrived in Chaing Mai. But we made it none-the-less. Bus ticket- about- $5 a piece. There were a few moments I wanted my $5 back. I had been using the bus trips to update the blogs, so that’s one reason this one is running behind, there is definitely no accurate typing on the road to Chaing Mai, the other reason(s)- wellllll- we’ve been busy you know, eating, sleeping, sun-bathing, massages, eating, sightseeing….a guy’s day can get quite hectic it seems.


A good friend David Xiong from Kansas City, helped us get in touch with a friend of his in Chaing Mai and we were greeted at the bus terminal by Pusit (a local Christian minister) and his cousin Abraham, who were very gracious and took us and our big packs to the city center and helped us find a good value hotel. Thanks David and Pusit! Good hotel, great value (we had all the hot water we wanted and comfortable beds, although we weren’t in the room that much). We ended up staying in Chaing Mai about 6 days, it’s kind of like a mini-Bangkok: Pretty busy, touristy, not as many cars, not as much debauchery, and just a bit more chill. The city itself is surrounded by a moat, but is now basically a pretty water feature that goes all the way around in a big square, en-circling the city limits. If you don’t mind 15 to 30 minutes walking, you can pretty much walk about anywhere you want here.

Chaing Mai is a city with a couple million people, so it is quite bustling and full of activity, tours, and travel scene. The “big” draws of Chaing Mai are its famous Northern Thai Cooking Schools, Doi Suthep (a Buddhist temple atop a 3,500 ft mountain with spectacular views), its many “treks” for meeting longneck hill-tribe villagers, elephant riding, bamboo rafting, zip-lining and anything else the locals can think of to coordinate for westerners visiting and make money on it appears. We were lucky enough to be there during their once a year Flower Festival also (the first weekend of each February), so that was kind of a big deal there (more on flower festival in part 3). It’s coordinated along with the Chinese New Year Celebration, so there was a big influx of travelers which made for some crowded streets during the evenings. (Think O’boro Bar-B-Q Festival on the river, except every night and day). Let’s say there was a lot of dried fish sticks being sold. The China Town section which we stayed really close to was buzzing all day and night with street food vendors, little shows/dancing, more food vendors, and people selling every trinket imaginable, so there was never a lack of something to see, eat, walk to, take a picture of or laugh at. I even squeezed in a yoga class nearby which was cool.




Christina was pumped about the cooking school, so we did partake in a full day of that, venturing out of the city by train to the crop-land where we saw organic fields of everything, and then spent the entire day learning to cook 7 different dishes each, in an outdoor kitchen with our instructor and a few other students. Big Day, Big Fun, learned a bunch, got a great little cook-book and pretty much stuffed ourselves eating all day after each couple of dishes and found some great new dishes we can share. Mae was a fun young teacher and very patient and sharp. One of our gregarious Lebanese/Canadian/Dutch/Chef/Rockstar/Recovering classmates was a bit off her rocker which added for quite an interesting cooking class we must say and she also had a stream of never-ending kooky stories. We did meet a wonderful couple from Cincinnati, Ohio in our class (Len and Marshall). They were off backpacking and venturing for about 30 days taking a long holiday which appeared very wise given the mid-west’s winter this year. Really enjoyed time with them and they impressed us so much that they were in their mid 60’s just out there doing the travel circuit like any youngster with a backpack. Awesome people!


More to come on Chaing Mai…..

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Ayuthaya Thailand, slideshow


Ayutthaya, Thailand- 1 day

Ayuttaya, Thailand (sightseeing mission)

We spent 1 day on a whirlwind site-seeing mission in Ayuttaya, and 3 days in Sukhothai site-seeing and then a chill day at a gem of a guest house we found for cheap.  We are getting to see older ruins now (wish we had our “Indiana Jones” 10 yr old. niece Grace along- she would be in love with this, but we took many pics and are really looking forward to sharing with her).

Ayutthaya
Was the Thai capital for 417 years (Bangkok is currently) and is one of Thailand’s major tourist attractions. The impressive golden Buddha we saw in Bangkok was copied from the orginal stone one that rests in Ayutthaya actually.

original reclining buddha figure they cast the golden one in Bangkok from

Highlights of day in Ayutthaya:

• Learning that 3rd class tickets on a train in Thailand weren’t that bad ($1.50 each) seemed really really cheap, so we weren’t quite sure what we might get, we were thinking maybe Slumdog Millionaire’s riding on top of trains for a bit
• Meeting Hans and Roelle from Holland and sharing a few too many beers.
    Hans and Roelle new friends from Holland (many beers night)
  • Christina getting to pet a 2 month old baby tiger
he was pissed he was waken from a nap actually
• We enjoyed Wat Yai Chaimongkhon the best of all temples we’ve seen so far, including those in Bangkok. This was more old school. Wat Yai Chaimongkhon was Absolutely beautiful, impressive and definitely the highlight of our excursion in Ayutthaya. Climbing the stairs to the top and just overlooking the grounds from up high was worth it, great place to breath in the fresh air and pause……………….

Constructed during the reign of King Uthong it’s just outside the city to the southeast. Many monks come here to worship still. Admission was 20 baht (about $.30 cents per person). Worth every penny, literally.

Wat Yai Chaimongkhon