The last few adventurous days...

Hello!!

Hopefully you all can ready this!! Thanks to Deb who gave me the heads up that the site was crashing. I think I disabled something to help out. Thanks Deb!! You tech expert you.

John and I are writing from Bangkok. It is 7:48am and we recently got off a sleeper train (which I hardly slept on) from Sukhothai, Thailand where we motorbiked and walked through ancient Buddhist ruins and temples. All of which were incredibly spectacular. Very impressive. I think both are world Heritage sites by UNESCO. http://www.thailandsworld.com/index.cfm?p=120 Check it out. http://www.thaiwaysmagazine.com/thai_article/2211_sukhothai/sukhothai.html
At one point, we were walking around an area that was supposedly used for pottery, where they fired pottery in the 13th century. There were pieces of pottery EVERYWHERE!!! They were scattered all over the ground and you could tell that not all the sites had been unearthed. Incredible. We took a sample! Hopefully the gods won't be too upset at us.

The last time I email I think we were on Ko Phi Phi, which is were the beach was filmed. It was beautiful, however, we were quite mifted by the tourists. There were several twenty year olds that were drunk ALL the time, treating the locals like shit, and acting blatantly ridiculous. I was so disappointed, and realize now, why in that part of the country, tourists are moved around like cattle. We get lugged from one place to the other, with limited smiles and not much interaction, which of course, I LOVE, and miss when travelling. So I was disappointed in the sense that some people represent the tourists that way.

Anyhow, we jumped on a boat and headed to the mainland where we then got on an overnight bus to Bangkok. HORRIBLE!! I did not sleep and we arrived in Bangkok SO early and the trains were all sold out to Chiang Mai and I had NO interest in getting on a second overnight bus, so we flew! It took about 2 hours when it all came down to it, when the train is 14! So it worked out well.

We were pickd up at the airport, with a man with a sign that said JOHN in large block letters. He drove us to Winners Inn, a shady, but clean Thai hotel in Chiang Mai. We slept when we arrived and then roamed around for a portion of the day. The following day we booked a tour to some waterfalls and some temples. It was great, but I dislike tours. I'm a do it myselfer, so I wanted to rent a motorbike and tour around. John was not really FOR this idea, so then next day we walked the city and the following day we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day, who drove us around to an elephant camp where we watched elephants perform various tasks, like painting, playing socceer, etc. Yes, I know. We headed to some botanical gardens, more waterfalls and some temples. The day cost us about $10 in a hired driver!! Incredible. We're not sure how they live off the money. And we had to pay for our expenses at the various locations, but it was REALLY cheap.

Each night in Chaing Mai we visited the night bazaar which is a section of a large street that is dedicated to people having little booths and shops set up around the road, so we did a bit of shopping. We haven't really purchased as much as I thought we would because some things that I do want are not much cheaper than we could get them for in Canada and then there is the travel factor to take into account. How do we carry these things around? Or do we ship them? Neither of us were bothered to really worry about these questions enough to purchase much. And also, our condo right now is so small!! We'd just be buying stuff to buy it and we wouldn't beable to place it in "our" house for a year. No need.

Anyhow, the following day, we woke up early and were taken to the bus station to get to Sukhothai, Thailand where we stayed at a little quaint, family run guest house, for a night. We rented a motor bike on Wednesday and drove to the Sukhothai Historical Park and scooted around everywhere. It was a great day and the ruins were incredible. On Thursday we also rented a motor bike and rode 1.5 hours North to another Historical Park which is set in a beautiful forested area and the area itself seems untouched. We felt like the only people there. The bike ride was part of the adventure too and was fun! Our butts were sore though. We scooted back the 1.5 hours and arrived at the guest house, ate, picked up our bags, and took the bus to "somehwere" where we got the sleeper train to Bangkok. The "somewhere" town we arrived in had a little bar, and because we had a few hours to kill, I went and purchased a bottle of wine and we used the swiss army to cork it, but I broke the top off the bottle!!! There were little glass shards everywhere and the wine slipt a bit, but we also couldn't recork the bottle, so we had to drink the whole thing!!! It was quite an entertaining situation to say the least.

And so here we are now, in Bangkok at 8:37am now, waiting for our room to be ready so we can crash a little. We have two days here, today and tomorrow and then we fly on the 18th to Hong Kong. We are there until the 21st, and then it's off to perth!! Jennie's parents are waiting our arrival and are looking forward to them taking care of us for a few days.

We get he laptop back today too, so I will download our pics to it and then put them online.

We love you all very much and miss you lots!!!

Love the emails we are receiving from you all as well. Brings us warmth each day. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE you all!!

cristen :o)