A lot has happened since our journey to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After we left KL, we went to the small mountain town of Tanah Rata, Malaysia. This town was located in the Cameron Highlands where the weather was cool and crisp. We toured two of the main tea plantations while we were there, the BOH and BAHT plantations. We toured the factories and saw how they gathered the leaves, dried them, packaged, etc. We then had a nice tasting out on the terrace overlooking the fields where the tea is grown. We also went to an interesting bee farm, cactus garden, and a jungle walk through the native hillsides. We stayed at a really nice house called Kangs Lodge, and had a wonderful stay. We then went to the town of Georgetown (Penang), Malaysia. We stayed there two days, saw a lot of historical sites, ate a lot of street food, and went to Batu Ferrenghi Beach. This town is known as the street food capital of Malaysia. One rule of thumb…. Eat the local food and do not try to order a pizza. I got a pitiful excuse for a sausage pizza and was very disappointed. Our next stop was Krabi, Thailand which is located on the Thai coast. We took two mini vans to get there, and the journey lasted an interesting 8 hours. The driver kept stopping for breaks and picking up mysterious packages along the way. We finally made it, and had a good 3 days stay here. We went to Aonang Beach, and laid on the beaches for a day. Then on the second day, we took a 5 islands tour on a long boat. They took us to five different islands where we were able to swim and snorkel. They fed us a nice lunch on the beach, and we were exhausted at the end of the day. We then decided to head to Koh Lanta Island, and took a ferry for 2 hours across the ocean where we spent two days there swimming, laying out on the beach, and eating. We stayed in a very neat tree house for two nights on the beach called the “Chill Out House.” It was made completely out of drift wood, and there was a tattoo parlor attached in case we got a little crazy. This was one of our favorite beaches, as there were less crowds than other places. Once we left the island, we took an overnight bus to Bangkok, which lasted about 12 hours. Morgan got her phone stolen along the way by someone we think was hiding out in the baggage compartment. We finally made it to Bangkok at 5:30 AM, and they just threw our luggage on the road and said “last stop, get off the bus.” We tiredly walked to our hostel and dropped our bags, as we could not check in till 13:00. We spent three days in Bangkok, with the first day being the most interesting. We tried to reach many of the sites on one side of town, but they were blocked off with sand bags and barbed wire due to all of the protests that have occurred recently. There were many armed guards all around the city. We finally managed to find a tuk tuk driver who gave us a ride around town all morning. We were told it was Buddhist Day and that government tuk tuks were 20 baht that day (60 cents). He took us to the Blue Buddha, which is only open to the public 1 day out of the year. The driver then drove us to two suit stores, and they tried to sell me knock off Armani suits. We declined to buy anything, and then our driver took us to a travel agency where they tried to sell us huge trip packages all over the country. Our hunch was that the driver was getting commissions from these places if we bought anything. Lastly, our driver took us to a large Buddhist temple, and we walked around for about 15 minutes. When we came out, our driver was gone. He left us on the opposite end of town, and we had to make it back to our hotel by other means. It was kind of a win for us because we got a free ride around town all morning. The other days in Bangkok were spent getting massages, visiting the Thai National Museum, Victory Monument, eating various street foods, riding public busses all around town, and getting lost a lot. Bangkok was huge, and we are glad to be in Chiang Mai now where the weather is cooler, and the town is smaller. During our first day in Chiang Mai, we took a cooking class where we learned to make pad Thai, coconut soup, curry, spring rolls, and several other dishes. Then, we went on a 3 day jungle tour in the mountains outside of the city where we spent two nights with the hill tribes. We also got to ride elephants, went bamboo rafting, hiked through the jungles, and got a good insight into the everyday life of the locals. There was no electricity, gas stoves, or modern day niceties. We also got to see a Karen Hill Tribe, who are Burmese refugees living Thailand. We are off to Laos in the next few days, and will post photos soon as well as another blog post.

Cheers, David and Morgan