Pendulum Edges of the Island

For those who will ever visit Koh Lanta: rent a motorbike - cruise from morning til after sunset. Drive to each of the end of roads, kin to Juneau's isolation. We moto-crash-coursed on the dirt road south from our bay, sticking our lines and avoiding major potholes so as not to crash our uninsured moto. Ups and downs and many bends later, we came to a National Park headquarters. We swam in sweat by the time we hiked the short way to the peninsula lighthouse with sweeping views of the ocean and surrounding islands. Monkey sightings abound... Next stop, trail to a waterfall. A seemingly deserted parking lot/restaurant at the trail head; we followed a meandering creek "trail" through dense jungle, encountered a giant lizard of some kind. We cruised to 100 year old Lanta Old Town - houses, shops and restaurants on stilts over the ocean - reminded us of Pelican, tropics style. A picturesque, laid back fishing village.

We strapped on our helmets (unlike the locals) and biked to Mae Kaew Cave where we bought tickets from a couple sitting near a hand written sign for cave tours. Our guide sauntered out from a nearby bungalow in flip flops, smoking a a cigarette and holding 3 headlamps. His name was Hek. We felt the familiar travel mantra for us: go with the flow, suspend judgement, see what happens. We followed him on a mostly silent 2 hour trek through jungle and then through the tunneling cavernous limestone caves. He didn't speak much English, and our Thai doesn't really apply to spelunking, but he knew the important stuff such as "watch your head", "slippery", and "picture?". The nimble guy scrambled through the muddy, slippery caves in his flip flops like it was nothing. We squeezed through narrow passage ways and crossed somewhat sketchy bamboo bridges and ladders, sometimes squeezed through little passageways on our hands and knees, only to come out into a huge awesome cathedral-esque cave with amazing rock formations. (And bats!) In the end, upon emerging into open air, our clothes and skin had acquired a nice muddy outer layer - which didn't stop us from driving to the supermarket and hitting up a nice restaurant. Let's hope that cave mud doesn't stain...

We're very much enjoying the laid back atmosphere of island life here and our little bay in paradise...we think it suits us very well.

Happy Alaska Day

NOTE: WE HAVE NOT FIGURED OUT HOW TO FORMAT OUR BLOG. CAN YOU TELL?

Yo Ho! Long tail boat
Wooden tradition afloat
Tropics life for me!

...We heard them before we saw them. In the complete dark of the narrow cave, their voices were boisterous and loud, echoing off the walls. As the cave narrowed, the water pushed us into their envoy. It was a chain of swimming Thais. Two wide and at least 75 long, their heads bobbed in their lifevests as their chain snaked past us. They cheered and laughed, flashlights illuminating their smiling faces. They were headed in to the pirate cove where they once kept treasure. We had been, and were swimming back out the the long tail boat waiting for us in the ocean. Watch out for the stinging jelly fish! (No, really.)

BUS RIDE TO SOUTHERN THAILAND: 25 hours
We have devised a new way to evaluate a bathroom's cleanliness: how many toads are there in the porcelain?

Also, we've discovered life in a bungalow on the laid back island of Koh Lanta can be quite difficult. Should we go snorkeling today? Maybe just hang out on the beach in our seemingly private bay? Or maybe ride a motorbike around the island? It's stressful, to say the least.

Nation - Religion - King

We took a trip to Cambodia for a few days - which turned out to be quite the journey. First the bus from Bangkok to the border, then on to another bus to Siem Reap (where Angkor Wat is). The contrast between Thailand and Cambodia is quite striking - as soon as we hopped off the first bus - children ran up to us begging. One boy was pulling on my arm because I was carrying a bag of fruit. Poi Pet (border town) is dusty, has bumpy dirt roads, it's full of little kids begging and people everywhere hanging around. The bus ride to Siem Reap was on a bumpy dirt road that they are apparently working on, as is evidenced by the little bumpy detours every couple of minutes (the rumor is that an airline is paying the gov't not to develop it). The road goes through a rural area with green flooded fields with people in the water the whole way - men throwing their fishing nets, children swimming and even two kids riding a yak. There are rural towns of sorts with houses along the road; very minimal sort of shack-like bungalow kind of structures - some over water. Food carts, people on bicycles, people washing dishes, gas stations (carts with racks of glass and plastic reused bottles filled with gas), beasts of burden, children playing and dogs lined the road.

We arrived at night to Siem Reap to find an abundance of 5 star hotels, but turn a corner and you find evidence of the poverty so rampant in Cambodia--people sleeping on their motos and food stands lining the streets - the contrast was amazing.

We spent two days biking through the temples of Angkor - we ended up biking around 67km total (not an easy task in scorching heat/when it's raining cats and dogs - we experienced both).

There is a huge amount of kids near the temples. As soon as they see you, they run after you "Lady, you buy my water!", "You buy my pinneaple!", "Ok, you buy on the way back", "You buy my postcards, 10 for 1 dollar, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10". One boy counted to ten in English, French, Spanish and something else. "Where you from?" - United States- "Capital Washington D.C.". Their English is good considering these children are savvy salespersons not students. Beneath their rehearsed roles as profit-slingers, they are sweet and fun kids--our Belgian travel friend Jeroen won a temporary hiatus from the onslaught when he bought a round of icecreams for them all!

Also quite captivating about Cambodia is its recent genocidal history. Something like a third of the population, and most of the educated, were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975-79. These atrocities have left a scar on the country, and the current government is struggling with choosing long-term benefit over short term profit, thus much corruption.

Did we mention how long the bus ride was? A day there and a day back. But worth it for the enchantment of the temples and ensuing adventure. Angkor Wat at sunrise with mists rising from the rainforest within the temple walls...slurping fresh passion fruit inside the temple where Angelina Jolie's 'Laura Croft: Tomb Rader' was filmed...drinking coconut juice straight from the nut...dodging yaks, tuk-tuks, motos, hot clam carts in highway traffic on bicycle...

Welcome In Bangkok

Hello. Lena and I are in Thailand. If you are reading this, you know the two of us. You can imagine that Lena is more curious to Thai people because her hair is blonde, while mine is dark like theirs. Anyway, we are happy to be at 14 degrees latitude after spending the last while at 58 in Juneau. Temperatures and spirits are high and the food is, as the Thais say aroy mak mak (delicious very very).

In preparation for our journey, Lena & Alida had the wonderful pleasure of meeting Poranan Hammet, a Thai woman in Juneau who graciously welcomed us into her home and her life after learning we were vacationing in her home country. Every Sunday through a rainy, cold Juneau summer we visited Nan in her Auke Bay home, learned poot Thai nit noy (to speak Thai a little bit), heard tales of this land of smiles in the East, and ate P-Nan's delicious food. We were met at the Bangkok airport by Nan's niece P-Puai and spent the first couple of days here with our Bangkok family. This has been a truly lovely introduction to the country, and though we know we will always be considered here farang (foreigners), we feel at home!

Today another of P-Nan's friends, P-Kaew--who has been acting as our travel advisor, released us into the anonymity of Bangkok's international backpackers' Khao San Road, from where we take a bus into Cambodia tomorrow morning. We took a jaunt to the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha (see attached photos).

-A