The Journey Begins...Southeast Asia in 45 Days!

On Nov. 3rd we began our journey of what we like to call 'Southeast Asia in 45 days.'

Day one went very smoothly. A couple of our friends dropped us off at the airport, and we had a hassle free flight to Bangkok. One down about nine more to go! Everything was going great until we got in a taxi and realized the driver didn't speak any English. However, through pointing and hand motions we were able to figure everything out. We stayed on the famous Khaosan Road, but the traffic in Bangkok is horrific and it took us over 90 minutes to get there.

Khaosan Road is a very popular destination for backpackers and the atmosphere is a little crazy. The street is glowing with neon lights, load music booms from the nearby restaurants, and there are cheap "designer" clothes being sold everywhere you look. The first night we were so overwhelmed that we ended up falling asleep rather early. On day two we went and toured some temples around the city. I am pretty sure that we had pretty confused looks on our faces when we started the day, but a local man immediately asked us where we were going, told us some of the best temples to see, and the price we should pay for a tuk tuk. The temples were gorgeous, but I am positive that by the time we leave Asia we will have had more than our fill of Buddhas.

We also took a long boat ride that skimmed the murky gray water. A lot of the local houses were along the river, and it was eye opening to see the living conditions for these people. Lets just say it made us think of our $10 a night hostels look like five star hotels. Later that evening we met a group of English people and spent the rest of the night hanging out with them. It was fun, but we were more than happy to have only been apart of the chaos on Khaosan Road for a couple days.

On Wednesday we took the over night train to Chiang Mai... a famous city in northern Thailand. The train ride was 17 hours! Thank goodness we opted for the sleeper! Some memorable things about the train ride would be when we realized that not only did you have to squat to use the bathroom, but that you simply just went on the train tracks outside! Of course this was an absolutely horrifying realization for the both of us. However, we really enjoyed being woken up in the morning by a Thai man peaking his head into our cubby, "Morning, fresh squeezed orange juice for you?" By the time we arrived in Chiang Mai we were obviously in desperate need of a shower, and found a wonderful guesthouse called Julies for $8 a night. We booked a trek for Friday and Saturday, and hit the hay early on Thursday.

Oh the adventure we had on day 4 and 5. There were 12 of us on the trek. Two nurses from England, a couple from the Netherlands, a couple from Canada, two Americans who had been working in Sudan the past two years, a half American/Swiss women, our guide and the two of us. As you can imagine this was quite an interesting group of people. Luckily we all got along great! We started the adventure by riding on elephants.

We found it very entertaining, but at the same time we felt very guilty for contributing to keeping these animals in captivity for our pleasure. Our elephant was not particularly happy about giving us a ride either. After elephant riding we started the trek into the mountains. Oh man was this tough. In the beginning we were like "sure no problem, we live by national parks we can handle this." Yeah right we were eating our words about half way up when we were huffing and puffing, dripping with sweat, and our legs were shaking.

We really shouldn't complain though, because the higher up we got the more gorgeous the views became. The pictures really don't do it justice. After about a four hour steep climb up we reached the Shan Village. Ironic...yes we thought so as well. We spent the night here out in the middle of the jungle in a bamboo bungalow.

The tribe made us a delicious dinner... chicken curry. It was difficult for us to spend quality time with the locals being that we can't communicate, but we had a great time getting to know the group we were with and our guide. It wasn't the best night of sleep being that we were pretty much sleeping on the floor, with dirty blankets, terrified to go to the bathroom, and the animals starting going crazy at about 3 am, but hey it's all part of the experience.

The next morning we are all ready to go because we were thinking it was going to be a piece of cake, the hard part was making it to the top. What a joke that turned out to be. We spent about two hours slipping down the mountain laughing at each other as our legs were shaking like jello.

To conclude our final day of trekking we went whitewater rafting and bamboo rafting. Needless to say we were a little scared going into the whitewater rafting. The first thing they told us was "you have to have good teamwork or you WILL tip over!" If that wasn't enough to make us want to turn around and climb the mountain again we then walk over to where we are suppose to be starting. When we get there we see a raft full of people completely submerged in water. Apparently they didn't have good teamwork. Despite our initial thoughts we did make it out alive and continues onto the bamboo rafting. Turns out you really shouldn't have more than two people on a bamboo raft. We spent about 20 minutes floating down a river that literally looks like chocolate milk and the raft served more of a submarine purpose than actual raft.

We wanted to add a few extra pictures because there are some signs in Asia that are far too good not to take a picture of....

We also wanted you to see how protective we are being over our passports...yes that is correct Shannon has been caught wearing them under her shirt a few times, and Michelle you thought that passport holder would never be used!