Rough Ride

The 5 hour, 228 km ride to Vung Vien today was brutal in the little minivan. Kelly puked three times even though she was wearing her patch, which has worked well so far. I also thought we were going to fly off the road on more than one occasion. We’re resting now. Kelly is enjoying [...]

I Got Mad Skills, Baby!

Right after we got to the Mon village, where we were staying, the kids challenged us to a game of something that looked like a badminton.  They made this little bouncy thing by using banana leaves for the base and chicken feathers.  Here’s a couple of videos:
Diesel, Cathy, Scott and Steve play with the kids:

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Wed, Jan 28 – The Revenge of the Exhausted Body

My body is angry.  It’s protesting.  I’ve puked twice in two days and I have hives on my neck from sun poisoning.
I’ve just realized that this has been our schedule for the past week:
Tue and Wed: 2-day trek and village homestay north of Chiang Mai
Fri:  6-hour bus ride to Chiang Kong (on the border of [...]

Tue, Jan 28: North of Luang Prabang, Laos – Too Much Lao Lao and the Search Party

After a long trek up and stops at a couple of the villages, we finally made it up to the Mon village where we were going to stay.  Children half naked and barefoot, chicken, pigs, dogs and rats (as Cathy and I found out later) alike ran wild.  Sita told us that there were about [...]

Tue-Wed, Jan 27-28: North of Luang Prabang, Laos – Our Second Trek

LP Trek -
We had a great time on our first trek in Chaing Mai. Yea, it was pretty touristy and we did have a spend a night with a few drunken Welsch kids and one really drunk French seductress, as Kelly says, but they were actually really nice people and the experience and scenery very [...]

Wed, Jan 21: North of Chiang Mai – First Hike, The Welsh Boys, the French Seductress, the Germans and the Ozzies

If you know me, you’ve probably heard me say at some point that I hate hiking.  I do.  I HATE it.  But I am also a very good wife and had promised Diesel I was going to give it a go because this is the only way to get a peek at what life is [...]

Our First Trek

For the next two days, Kelly and I are going trekking up in the northwest of Thailand, hopefully in an area that isn’t SUPER touristy but we have our doubts. This is our first “trek” and is a test. If it goes well, we plan on doing a lot more tres in Laos. Wish us [...]

How Much Does This All Cost?

I’ve been keeping a very basic spreadsheet on how much money we are spending per day so we can track our expenses and make sure we have enough money for the entire trip. The spreadsheet just tracks meals, transport, lodging, tourist activities and misc stuff (like visas, etc). This does not include any expenses back [...]

Watted Out

Chiang Mai is the northern capital of Thailand and its cultural center. Almost everybody who comes to Thailand, goes to Chiang Mai at some point. Generally this is done before they go to the beach and probably in an effort to either earn some karma up front for all the atrocities they’ll commit down in [...]

Mae Sot, the Burma Issue, Visit to Orphanage

(Kids playing. The white stuff on their faces is a paste made of tanaka tree and used both as sunblock and decorative)

(Beth teaching kids how to play bingo.  The game was an unexpected hit)

After the ride of death with a crazy driver in a crammed minivan, Diesel and I finally arrived in Mae Sot. This [...]