Fansipan video uploaded (finally)

heres my video from fansipan finally. like i said in the description of the video its not the best video from our trip because i kind of just put together a bunch of random clips from our climb, but here it is anyway.

Also, heres another video kind of summing up our trip with random clips.

Bangkok

We've been busy these past few days trying to maximize the amount of stuff we could do while in Bangkok for merely two days. I'm impressed because we did a lot!

Yesterday we took the skytrain then a boat bus (not sure the proper term but it was cool) to same of the temples-wat pho, grand palace and wat arun. We did not go into any but admired from a far then took a tuk tuk to Khoa San road. From there we buses back down town and to kill time before the night market opened we window shopped through one of the city's massive malls. Then we headed of to the market where we spent a couple hours looking through all that the little booths and shops had to offer. By this point we were tired so we headed back to our hostel.

We started the day of today by going to a mall called Terminal 21, every floor has a different country's theme-Japan, Pairs, London, Istanbul...etc. It was great. After we scouted out the sky bar and then checked out another market. When we got back to our hostel I spent a good hour packing my bag trying to fit everything...oh the struggles of back packing...

The first few photos are still from our last night in Phuket at the food market down the road from us. We were finally starting to feel better and wanted to try some cheap local food. We fell in love with these chocolate/banana crepes that they make for less than $2 and the fresh fruit smoothies.

Don't worry, we did not try any of the seafood...not sure our stomachs were ready to handle that anyway. 

 

Bangkok has awesome sky trains like Vancouvers which we used most of the time to get around.

But we couldn't resist taking a tuk tuk. 

Today we were on a hunt for a view and read online about some awesome rooftop bars. Drinks were insanely over price but the view was amazing and was a good way to end of the trip. 

Heading home tomorrow! Since I'm flying standby who knows when ill be back or what flights I'm taking but fingers crossed that the HGK-YYZ then home. Sadly Jim and I will be going separate ways. :'(

Hope to see you all at the barbecue on Tuesday. Jim and I are both looking forward to getting home and sharing our stories.

Phang Nga Elephant Park!

Patong Beach 

Here are some photos to go along with Jim's post from a couple days ago. It is too bad that we came during the rainy season because the weather has not been that great. However we still managed to squeeze in some beach trips. 

Ao Sane beach 

As you all know I haven't been feeling well but slowly I've been getting better. We spent Sunday and Monday just relaxing at our hotel and sleeping most of the day which was exactly what my body needed. Just when I started feeling better Jim got sick! We had booked to do this elephant park a few weeks ago and were both really looking forward to it and of course with our luck thats the morning that Jim woke up ill. We ended up still going, poor Jim powered through it. We cancelled our original plans for today instead so that he can relax and get better. We were going to go on a day cruise to Phi Phi islands but I think that the weather would have been miserable anyway. 

The park we went to is called Phang Nga Elephant Park. http://phangngaelephantpark.com/tours/elephant-experience-2-half-day/  It was a really cool park and really well organized, they also really love and take good care of the elephants which was nice to see. Our elephant was really stubborn because she wouldn't listen to the guide and kept going off track to eat plants. It was cool ridding them bare back cause you can feel their bones and muscles move under you but it was also a very uncomfortable ride since their skin is so rough and their wasn't much to hold onto. Feeding our elephant was the best part in my opinion. She just LOVED bananas and would chuck 6 of them in her mouth at a time and make the funniest slurping noises while doing it. The guide told us that we could feed the bananas directly in her mouth where you can see how big her massive tongue is. After, we bathed the elephants in freezing cold water but it was a lot of fun. They are such cool animals, its a shame that the tourism industry takes advantage of them. 

Here is a mom and a baby. Apparently they didn't know the mom was  pregnant and she had the baby completely on her own in the woods this past December. She had to be caged up because she gets very aggressive towards others because she tries to protect her baby. The baby was super cute, looked really happy and playful. 

Thailand Update

Hi again, we have settled in to Thailand and made it to our hotel here in Phuket. It’s so luxurious compared to the hostels never been staying in and having a pool and beach is a nice change. The first day wasn’t so nice as it rained and was cloudy the entire time but we still found some time to go down and check out the beach (its really quiet because this is their low season).

On Saturday we took a taxi out to a more secluded beach on a remote part of the island. Ao Sane was the name of the beach but we walked back and passed lots of other more popular ones which were nice as well. 

After driving all the way back across the island we took a little nap and then went out for dinner in a busier more touristy area of town about 20 minutes away by walking. After dinner we walked through the markets and what we thought was the busy part of Phuket. We soon stumbled across Bangla road which is the famous (or infamous) street for bars in Phuket. It was certainly less ‘PG rated’ then the rest of the town - walking through the busy crowds and past the bar advertisers was hectic to say the least. We then started to walk back to our hotel and it started to rain again… of course. 

The weather seems to be slowly getting nicer though, we spent yesterday by the pool and in the room just relaxing. Anna hasn’t been feeling great and was sick Sunday but was feeling well enough to dip in the pool around lunch and go for a popsicle after. 

Today she is doing a bit better and had a light breakfast and gatorade but is still trying to rest and get better. another somewhat sunny and warm day in Phuket so hopefully we can spend some time by the pool again and maybe go down to the beach by our hotel. 

Tomorrow we will hopefully go to Phang Nga for our elephant paradise experience where we get to help with washing and feeding elephants at an ethical park in a more northern part of Thailand. It looks really amazing in the pictures we’ve seen. We also have a boat tour around the smaller islands planned for Wednesday (our second last day here). 

Anyway, just wanted to update everyone back home because it has been a while since either of us have posted and Anna figured we should let everyone know we made it to Thailand safe and sound. 

Also, we’ve booked our flights from Bangkok to Hong Kong finally so here is the flight information:

Thai AirAsia flight no. FD  508

from Bangkok to Hong Kong - June  26th 

DMK (bangkok) 6:35 AM --> HKG (hongkong) 10:15 AM

(the internet has been too dodgy so photos will have to wait for now)

Cat Cat photos

Just wanted to share some photos from today. We got to see such a peaceful and different side of Vietnam. Being able to walk through the rice fields as though we were farmers and really see first hand this lifestyle and scenery was a great experience. I loved ending off the hike by walking through the river and resting by the shore while listening to the waterfall and rapids. I've also thrown in some pictures from out tour around the mountains yesterday, such beautiful scenery here.




















This was our breakfast this morning (or at least what was left of it when i thought to take a picture). BEST OMELETTES EVER!

P.S. I have lots of video from fansipan and Cat Cat so there should be a video of one of those trips coming soon.

Gorgeous Cat Cat Rice Fields

Today was incredible. We walked to Cat Cat village which is about 2km from Sapa's town centre and explored the rice fields, they were beautiful. We walked through them for a couple hours admiring how peaceful the valley was. To top everything off the weather was perfect. What a great day!!! :)