Chiang Mai 2/24/13 - 3/1/13

DISCLAIMER:  Chiang Mai provided us with lots to do, so this post may be a little lengthy ;-). Sorry.

We got into Bangkok just after midnight and headed to a hostel to rest our heads before heading north the next day.  In the morning Matt went to the train station and got us tickets on an overnight sleeper car that evening, so we had all day to lounge around and figure out a few activities for Chiang Mai.

Even though Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, it was a city with charm, culture, history, and one we quickly grew fond of.  We also enjoyed the overwhelming amount of brochures and information that our guest house provided, which was a much welcomed feature compared to the Philippines.  The guesthouse we stayed at was pretty nice and was in a quiet, serene setting.  The city and surrounding area has wats (aka temples), biking, hiking, zip lining, cooking classes, massages, elephants, tigers, and the list goes on.  

The first day in town we did a lot of walking around and got acquainted with the city.  Thanks to one of the guesthouse brochures we made it to a well known tailor at Fashion King for Matt to get a white shirt custom tailored.  He only wears a suit about 5 times a year, but when he does, he wants to look GOOD!  That and his neck is so big that he can't find shirts which fit him well AND button all the way for a tie.  And he got a new tie :-).  

That evening we walked over to the Night Bazaar.  The bazaar is a bargain shopper's/tourist's paradise.  There's everything from t-shirts, purses, shoes, watches, sunglasses, luggage, perfume, souvenirs, etc.  Stalls line the roads and vendors are waiting for people to glance at their stuff so they can give them a "special price, just for you".  Sadly, we weren't really their target audience and walked away with just a pair of flip flops to replace Matt's broken ones. 

 
We love Thai food, so the next day we jumped at the opportunity to take a Thai cooking class.  Our guesthouse lady got us a sweet discount, and we were "upgraded" from the full day cooking course in the city to the course out at the school's farm which included a tour of the 1 acre homestead.  To start the day we were taken to the local market to check out the different foods used in cooking our dishes, and to buy the ingredients they didn't grow out at the farm.  We would like to have our own garden (even if just a very small one) one day, so it was really nice to be able to see how their garden was set up and hear about the different foods they grow.

We made a variety of 6 dishes including:  Pad-tai, pad-see-ew, papaya salad, coconut milk soup, tom yam soup, curry pastes, spring rolls, our main curry dishes, and of course desserts- sticky rice with mango plus bananas in coconut milk. YUMMY!  After basically eating a five course meal throughout the day, we were thoroughly stuffed.  Our teacher was amazing and we had a nice small group of just eight people which contributed to our great experience.  We had the best time at our cooking class and are excited to try cooking the foods on our own since we were given recipe books with pictures and detailed instructions on how to make each dish.

 

The next activity on our list for Chiang Mai was visiting elephants.  However, we found out that the Elephant Nature Park we wanted to do was booked out for a few days, so we had time to kill.  Kristin also wanted to go see tigers at Tiger Kingdom, so we made it there the next morning to check it out for ourselves.  The word is that it is a tiger breeding program and has opened its doors to tourists to help fund it.  It feels like an interactive zoo.  We chose to see the smallest tigers and went in to see them and interact with them.  The little ones were so cute and it was crazy how much they seemed like young puppies.  Jumping around and ready to play with people.  We had to remind ourselves sometimes that they were definitely not puppies, but tigers!  We only got to play with the smallest tigers for 15 minutes, but we spent the next hour walking around the Kingdom and enjoying the different aged tigers.  The bigger tigers were beautiful, huge creatures.  

Later that day we borrowed a bike form the guest house and rented one for Matt so that we could ride around and visit some of the wats amid the old city.  Some of the wats were huge, other parts small, but all of them remarkably decorated and tremendously beautiful.  It was quite the experience seeing the Buddhist temples.

After a day full of fun, Matt made himself a dentist appointment for the evening.  It had been awhile since his last cleaning because he hadn't bought dental insurance last year, shame on him.  Luckily he could get a cleaning in Thailand for a mere $24.  His pearly whites are still in great condition!  To top off the long day we decided to follow suit and get massages on the street.  Kristin got a 30 minute foot massage and Matt got a 30 minute back/ neck massage for only $3 each! And yes, the men love the massages as well.  We couldn't pass up that kind of deal.  

The next day was a productive day for us working on pictures, blogging, and completing some other tasks.  That evening was our fun time.  Chris and Annie (from the Flowtrells blog, know them though mutual friends and fellow travelers- Jon and Jenn, and we randomly met them in Brazil) were going to be in town for the night.  Kristin and Annie have kept in touch as we trek the world, and it finally worked out that we were in the same town together, even if just for one night.  Once we met up with them, it was like an explosion of conversation.  Chris and Matt chatting up the things they have done and seen, plus of course some football talk, Annie and Kristin talking about girl stuff and sharing experiences, and all four of us comparing how our trips have been up to this point.  We were all very glad to see each other and it felt like seeing old friends, despite our only brief prior meeting.  Our late night (okay not that late, just late for us oldies) made our early morning the next day a little rough, but totally worth it. 

Finally, the event we had been waiting for:  elephants.  Kristin saw her penguins, we saw our turtles, and now it was time for Matt's animal- the big, social giants.  Elephant Nature Park isn't what you may be thinking.  Perhaps you have seen tourists riding on baskets atop elephants, or elephants performing tricks?  Well, this particular park is actually a sanctuary with over 200 acres created to save those very elephants, and tries to create a natural as possible lifestyle.  The domestic Asian elephants are used for tourism, and used to be used in the logging industry before the logging ban in 1989.  

There are currently 35 elephants in the park, 31 of them female.  The founder, Lek, founded the sanctuary in 1996.  The organization's history and success of rescuing these elephants was truly inspirational and very moving.  We were lucky to be able to see Lek interact with her elephants.  Her love for these creatures was so apparent and touching.  There's lots of information, history, stories, and pictures at the park's website:  www.elephantnaturepark.org.

Lek and Hope.

We spent the day out at the park and were able to feed, watch, touch, bathe, and enjoy the elephants.  It was amazing to be around the elephants all day.  In the afternoon they played a documentary for us on the Asian elephants in Thailand and it was eye opening, particularly the part about the traditional Thai method used to "train" the elephants for work in tourism or logging .  There are only 30,000 Asian elephants left and these animals have a long way to go, but Lek and the Elephant Nature Park are definitely doing their part.      

Matt's first encounter with the elephants.

Baby Navaan, born at the park only 2 months ago.

The park's pantry- each elephant eats 10% of their body weight every day.

One of the elephant's story.

Cooling off by playing in the mud.

Bathing the elephants in the river.

A mahout, elephant caretaker, giving his elephant some love.

They eat the WHOLE fruit, banana bundle and all.

Kristin feeding the elephants.

We had both been craving some Mexican food for a while, so when we heard there was a decent Tex-Mex place, we decided that might be a good way to end our time in Chiang Mai.  And, surprisingly it was much better than expected.  Homemade chips, salsa, guacamole, margaritas, and burritos... Maybe not the same as back home, but it hit the spot.  Next up, head north to relax in Pai.

Philippines Recap 1/15/13 - 2/23/13

Recap of the Philippines:

Time in country:  40 days
Money spent: approximately $1450 USD each
Currency:  Peso
Conversion Rate: 40 Pesos to 1 USD

Food:
Typical food was pork or chicken with rice.  Rice was served with most dishes since it's cheap and abundant.  Sometimes they'd throw in some cucumbers and tomatoes for the side dish.  

Chicken/ Pork adobo, with rice, is one of the popular dishes and it was delicious.  The sauce was made up of soy sauce, vinegar, and black peppercorns.  

Another Filipino dish was Pancit Bihon, which was a combination of a few veggies like cabbage, green bean bits, carrots and a little meat mixed with thin glass noodles.  This dish could be found almost anywhere for pretty cheap ($1- $2 USD).

image from google

Mangoes in the Philippines are extra delicious because they're sweeter than most.  Other tropical fruits are abundant as well.

With all the tropical fruit, naturally, comes smoothies.  The smoothies are usually made with condensed milk, and although not nutritious, they're delicious.

Overall, the food in the Philippines is fairly bland and nothing to write home about.   

There are only two kinds of Filipino beer- San Miguel (Pilsen and Light) and Red Horse (similar taste as San Miguel just a higher percentage alcohol).  The beer isn't that great, but it's usually cheap.

Places Visited (in order):  Sabang (Puerto Galera), Boracay, Sugar Beach (Sipalay), Dumaguete, Apo Island, Siquijor, Puerto Princesa, Port Barton, El Nido

Random Thoughts:  
The Philippines is comprised of over 7,000 islands, roughly 2,000 of them are inhabited, and we barely skimmed 15 - 20 of them.

We read from a government agency that there are over 90 million people living in the Philippines (over half of the population lives on the island of Luzon) and over 50% of them live in poverty.  The majority of the population is poor and has a very basic means of living.  

Filipinos are some of the nicest people we've encountered so far on our journey.  They were excited to see foreigners and would say "Hello, how are you, today?" as much as they could.  We'd walk down a street and everyone, especially the kids, would say hello to us and smile big.  The adults were very welcoming and helpful as well.  I think we got more curious looks than most due to Matt being a much larger guy than the typical Filipino.  It made it almost impossible trying to find shoes or shorts that fit him.   

Filipinas really love their westerner foreign men.  A few times, girls/ women even told us that they wish and hope to find themselves a westerner one day and move away.  Lots of western men live in the Philippines and have restaurants, hotels, businesses, etc with their Filipina wives.  The women told us that generally the Filipino men are no good.  It was interesting to hear these sentiments.

Unlike most Asian countries, the dominant religion in the Philippines is Catholicism due to hundreds of years of Spanish rule.  

As mentioned in previous posts, transportation in the Philippines was always interesting.  From the questionable boat trips and rough waters to the packed non-a/c buses on unpaved roads.  As the marketing tourism slogan says, "It's more fun in the Philippines" and that includes the transportation as well :-).

www.tourism.gov.ph

El Nido continued (Dagmay beach) 2/20/13- 2/23/13

While walking around El Nido we found a place, called Verde Safari, which had information about a beach 45 mins north of El Nido, off the beaten path.  It included an in town pick up with round trip transportation, tents on the beach, and a hot breakfast.  This sounded excellent to us.  The property turned out to be run by an American ex-pat, Doug, from Arizona.  He picked us up in town and we had a chance to chat with him on the drive out.  He had his house with common area on the bottom, a nice back porch, a couple of nice rooms to rent out back, and a few tents for cheap backpackers like us.  He was only a month in getting things under way, but we thought he had a gem of a place.  It was great to get away from the noise of El Nido and out to a beach that was so quiet and empty.  

Dagmay beach

View of Doug's place from the beach

Doug's place

View from the patio area

Our beachfront tent

View from our tent window ;-)

Doug's cute dogs- Dinky and Pepper

Not only was there a secluded beach with no other buildings on it, and perhaps 4 tourists staying the night at a time (a number of people came out for the day and made a lunch stop at his place while riding motorbikes out to some of the nearby waterfalls and beaches), but there was also plenty of activities:  football, frisbee, body surfing, skim boarding, volleyball, and a rock climbing wall with all the proper gear (our FAVORITE).  Doug had a portable rock wall back home so he showed us the basics and taught Matt how to belay so we could do it as much as we wanted during the day.  Plus hammocks for taking a nap, books/ magazines to read, and plenty of time so stroll up and down the beach.  In addition to all of that, the food was delicious.  He had a garden out back where he was growing vegetables and watermelons among other things.  Watermelon with every meal and fresh green veggies = happy campers :-).

Matt giving it a go

Cheese

Kristin's turn

Matt perfecting his skim boarding

The cook grilling up the tuna for our dinner

Kristin loved being able to walk up and down the beach in peace and quiet.  The only people she saw along the way were the locals from the fishing village.  The kids were so curious at seeing us because they don't see many foreigners in their village, and Doug's place is still fairly new.  The locals she saw on her walks were so funny because they really wanted their picture taken!  They spoke very little English, but enough to say, "Take my picture" and then they'd pose.  The man took his shirt off and said, "show people in America" ;-).  She had to oblige.

Empty beach

Villager's fishing boats

Typical Filipino boat, aka- banka

Peaceful setting

Peaceful setting again

Local kids posing :-)

Man posing for his picture

We really enjoyed our two nights out at Doug's place.  It was great getting to relax in such a serene setting while getting to know Doug and the other travelers.  Plus, we loved all the activities at our disposal.

Thanks Doug!

We left Doug's place and headed back to El Nido to catch a bus to Puerto Princesa where we stayed the night before catching our flight onward to Bangkok the next afternoon.  We were sad to have to say bye to the Philippines.