Back in Canada! It is a beautiful spring day! it is sunny and the snow covered mountains look gorgeous. We have a hour until we board our 20 min flight to Nanaimo. All of our moms will be waiting for us on the other side! We are very tired and have almost been up for 24 hours already. I slept for an hour and a half, Kevin for about 40 min, and Dustin zero. Not sure if I will be going straight to bed, or too excited to see my family to sleep.
xo
Jade
I can’t believe it is already time to go home. I am way too used to this lifestyle, and love having no responsibilities. It is going to be difficult to adjust to everything at home. Although Dustin and I are excited to move into our townhouse on April 1st, so it has given us something to look forward to. It will also be nice to see my family and friends. Three months seems like the perfect amount of time for a trip, long enough to get totally comfortable and change your way of things, yet short enough you don’t miss too much at home, like Maddi, Colton and Callia growing up. Also, with 3 months, you can keep your job, and have stability to come home to. It flew by, yet we got to do so much, that Christmas seemed like ages ago. I am excited to go through our storage locker and find my Christmas presents over again, as we left so shortly after Christmas. I am going to be really busy when I get back, trying to get everything back to the way it was before I left. I will need to get my cell phone back running, and insurance on my car, and will be staying with my parents for a week while I get caught up and get keys to our new place on the 1st. It will be fun to hang out with my family!
Yesterday was our last day in Southeast Asia, and we spent the whole day shopping on Khao San Road. I couldn’t close my bag and decided to leave behind some toiletries, old clothes, and my flip flops. I left them in a pile in the room and hope that one of the maids takes it and someone in need gets use out of my items.
This morning we got up early to catch a taxi to the airport. Our first flight was at 10:30 from Bangkok to Hong Kong, and it took half an hour on Sunday for Kevin and Ava to get to Khao San Road from the airport, so we left at 8:00 am, as they suggest 2 hours for international flights here and expected to arrive at 8:30. Huge mistake, we hit traffic all the way to the airport, and the ride ended up being just over an hour and a half. We ran into the terminal and straight to the Thai Airways check in area, and the line was HUGE! Luckily an employee came up to us and asked where we were going and when we said Hong Kong he said “YIKES” and brought us straight to the front of the line, we were obviously the only ones left to check into the Hong Kong flight. We then rushed through the long departure line and then security and finally to our gate. When we arrived at our gate they were already boarding. We made it!
We are now in Hong Kong and have 3 hours until our flight to Vancouver. Our bags have been conveniently checked all the way from Thailand to Nanaimo, and we have all our boarding passes for each flight already. I am looking forward to the next flight as it is Air Canada, and we get the entertainment screens. I can’t wait to see what new movies have been added. Hope I can stay up for them, as we will be flying through our night-time.
Xo
Jade
Yesterday we were on Khao San Road in Bangkok, Thailand when elephants came parading down the street! It was so awesome and they were painted with Japan flags on them as a campaign to help raise money for Japans major earthquake. There was music playing and it was really exciting. One of the elephants even extended his trunk and touched my plastic bag i was carrying. We saw a news camera filming us and I said after “hey looks like we might get on Thailand news”, but it turns out we made it all the way to Canada news on Global News. Ava’s mom just happened to be watching the news when her daughter, Kevin, Dustin and I popped up on the screen. A few people now have told us that they saw us on the news. Too funny. Check it out, we are at 14:10.
My Thai cooking class was so fun! I did it through Thai Asia Scenic Cooking School, and am very happy with my choice. I had a wonderful Thai instructor Ma’am, who was so friendly, funny, and helpful. We took a tour of the market and herb garden, and I learned to make seven delicious Thai dishes. I got to choose my favourite 7 to learn, out of 25 dishes- one from each course. I chose spring rolls, pad Thai, sweet and sour stir fried vegetables, Tom Sum hot and sour soup, curry paste, red curry, and deep fried bananas. It was a full day course from 9am – 3pm, and we cooked and ate all day, it was so fun. I learned so much and we received cook books with all the recipes in them so I can bring my Thai cooking home with me.
We unluckily booked our 2 day trek on the 2 stormiest days of our entire trip. I woke up every hour the night before the trek, only to hear rain pouring on the roof, it never slowed down. We got picked up in the back of covered pickup truck, and picked up the rest of the trekking group. There was another couple who were only doing the hiking, and a group of 10 joining us. Of the group of 10, only 5 showed up for the trek because of the weather, and the other 5 took their losses on the cost of the trek to stay warm and dry. We all had bought $1 rain ponchos from the market, and they were the best! Although I had a great waterproof rain jacket on, the poncho covered down to my shins and kept my shorts and everything dry, and kept the heat in, as it didn’t breathe at all. We started the trek with a hour elephant ride through the muddy jungle forest and through rivers and creeks. Mine and Dustin’s elephant was so cute, but he was a little brat and liked to stick his trunk in the mud and then face it upwards and blow the mud at as. We then had a huge 3.5 hour intense hike through the Thailand jungle, and it was outstanding. It was so beautiful, even through all the mud and rain, it felt so amazing to be so rural in the middle of it. The hike was no ordinary trail walk at home, it was a steep and muddy intense hike, which required the help from branch vines to descend or ascend up a steep muddy slope without slipping. About 15 minutes in, the only other girl in the group began to fall behind and slip a lot, being very frustrated she even came on the trek. I kept well ahead of the group at the front, and never felt tired or like giving up, I was filled with excitement and energy after my 2 big bowls of pasta at lunch. After crossing creeks, rivers, and waterfalls, Dustin and I were the first to reach the camp. We were soaked and muddy and you could no longer see the colour of our shoes at all. It was so cold at the top of the jungle mountain, and Dustin had no dry clothes. He brought the T-shirt on his back, which was soaked with rain and sweat, and his Columbia rain jacket that we now know is only a windbreaker, as it was soaked. We were very limited on space, as we only had my tiny 15 litre backpack to share on the trek. That meant neither of us could bring sweaters, or much clothes at all. We sat around the bon fire to warm up that night, where they cooked us a delicious dinner over the fire. The 7 other people on our trek were all from France, so the bonfire conversations were all in French. I didn’t blame them, we were the only two that couldn’t follow, and none of them spoke English fluent enough to have a thorough comfortable conversation. One of our French friends translated to us about every 10 minutes to update us on what they were talking about now. Dustin and I listened for words we recognized within the fast conversations and often picked up on comsee-comsa (my favourite French word).
We spent the freezing rainy night in a shared, unsealed, windy, bamboo hut. We all pilled on as many blankets we could get our hands on, Dustin and I had 3 each and still had the coldest sleep of our lives. It was so cold that you HAD to sleep with your head under the covers, and every move you made you could feel new cold air rush in and took another 10 minutes to warm that spot up again enough to go back to sleep. When we all woke in the morning, breakfast was cooking over the fire for us, and it was still raining. All of our wet articles we hung to dry were just as wet as when we arrived the day before. We had to put our wet clothes and shoes back on and pack up for another day in the jungle. We hiked another good two hours down to the river where we had a tasty rice with egg lunch cooked over another fire, and played some Thai Karaoke with our awesome guide Max. It was so much fun and I now know some Thai pop hits!
After lunch we went white rapid river rafting which was absolutely a blast. We froze as we were not allowed to wear out jackets or ponchos and only had our shorts and t-shirts on. We were given wet helmets and lifejackets and it was still raining out. It was quite funny because the helmets were a standard head size, and they were too small for Dustin’s larger than average head, so it sat on top of his head and he did the straps up anyway. Within minutes we were completely soaked from head to toe, and began going down crazy rapids! It was so much fun and the adrenaline warmed us up right away. After all the rapid riding, we all switched rafts to a bamboo raft and took it easy floating down the jungle river. We even saw a elephant on the side of the river, so cool.
The trek was unreal and the rain actually made is so much more adventurous and trekky! I am so glad we took time away from the beach and went to Chiang Mai; it was an experience I will never forget.
We are now in Bangkok back with Kevin and Ava. We fly home in 2 days, it’s so weird. We went to the “Mother of All Markets” yesterday to shop like crazy, as there are over 15,000 stalls and 200,000 visitors every Saturday and Sunday. However, it was not what we expected and Ava and I ended up getting lost for 25 minutes in the live animal section, which sold everything from buckets of live worms, to the cutest little puppy dogs. When we did finally find the ladies clothes and shoe section, we were disappointed to not see the things we had expected and saw elsewhere at tourist markets. I did manage to pick up 2 cute pairs of shoes, and a blazer, but the boys and Ava didn’t have much luck. The tourist clothes were not at this market, and only Asian style clothes, so it was quite annoying to find that I was a large in mostly all of the clothes.
Today we are going to try a different market, and spend some time in the sun at our hotel pool.
Xo
Jade
Chiang Mai has been 33 -37 degrees Celsius and sunny for the past few weeks, until the day we showed up. Saturday it was still 32 and hot, but it was overcast and wasn’t long until it began to rain. We took 2 planes to get here from Vietnam, and now the weather forecast calls for rain and clouds for half the week we are here. Yesterday we had no rain after all, and the sun came out around 3:30 pm, but today it was overcast and has been sprinkling periodically. We hope it turns around to sun earlier than forecasted.
We are staying at the Malak Guesthouse, and it is very clean and comfortable. It is only $8 a night for our room, and has a hot shower, and free wifi. The toilet is the first toilet we have encountered that does not have a flushing handle or mechanism. To flush the toilet, you must fill a bucket of water and pour it into the toilet until everything disappears. haha. It’s not so bad though, its sorta neat.
I read in my lonely planet book that there is a great Sunday Market on Sunday nights in Chiang Mai. After dinner, we headed to the street it said it was on, and there were about 8 blocks of closed off streets crammed full of thousands of vendors and thousands of shoppers. It was the best market we have seen the entire trip, as each vendor has unique items than the rest, and all had unbeatable prices that seemed like robbery to barter with even though expected by the seller. Dustin and I picked up a few souvenirs and lamps for our new place. There was entertainment on the street performed by blind men, who were amazing sings, drummers, guitarists, etc, one blind band in particular had a crowed surrounding them the entire hours of the evening. $2 half hour foot massages were offered down one strip and packed full of about a hundred sore feet shoppers. Many of the items for sale are unique to Chiang Mai as they are hand crafted. It was the most amazing shopping experience ever, and we spent 3 hours there.
Today I visited the spa to get an underarm wax. I searched out a few of the local prices, and the going rate seemed to be 150 baht ($5). As we neared out guesthouse, the one closest to our place was only 100 Baht ($3), so I went for it. The ladies spoke little English, and sat me on a chair, covered me with a towel, and began to wax. You could tell the one had little experience, as she tugged away at the strip slowly removing no hair several times over. And the wax was just a cold wax, probably not very good, as it didn’t seem to work. The more experienced older lady tried and again tore away at my underarm removing about half of the hair. Finally after my arms are asleep above my hair, they said the hair was too short to wax and each got a pair of tweezers and tweezed each hair 1 by 1 for over half an hour. It was painful and tortuous, and went on for over half an hour, sometimes clipping my skin. They finally came to an end, and somewhat gave up, but I was fine with that as I could no longer feel my fingertips and my underarms were stinging like crazy. I paid them my $3 and got the heck out. I guess that is why we pay more at home.
Tomorrow I have a full day Thai cooking course, where I learn to make 7 different courses. I am really excited to bring my new recipes home, and make them for my friends and family. On Wednesday, Dustin and I do a 2 full day overnight trek into the jungle. It includes long hikes crossing rivers, elephant riding, visiting tribal villages, staying in a bamboo hut in the village, cooking and eating thai food, river-rafting, and a bamboo raft, and more hiking. It’s going to be a blast and I cannot wait! I will tell you all about it when I get back with the internet. 🙂
xo
Jade
After leaving Hoi An, we took a taxi to the city of Danang, 50 km north. Danang is the main port of Vietnam, and is set up for business travellers. There are many beautiful resorts along China Beach, but the cheapest accommodation was in the city for $15-20 a night. Our budget room was beautiful though, and included a large room with a large bathroom and big bathtub! The beach was too far to walk to so we took a taxi, and it was beautiful! We were the only tourists on the beach that spread for miles and miles. However there was not much to see in Danang, so the next morning we headed to Hoa’s Place. I read about Hoa’s Place in my Lonely Planet book as well many positive reviews online. It was 100 meters from the ocean at China Beach in-between Danang and Hoi An. In addition, it was a 5 minute walk to the beautiful Marble Mountains. Most reviews of Hoa’s described it as a homey backpacker spot where people come for a few nights, but end up staying for weeks. That is exactly how it was! Hoa himself is an amazing Vietnamese man who welcomes you like you are family. His wife makes the most delicious Vietnamese meals, including nightly Family Dinners at 7:00 pm every night. When you get to dinner they sit you all together at one main table making it easy to make friends with fellow travellers. They put out a spread like you wouldn’t believe and you dish up your own food at your seat just like dinners at home. Every night I ate until I was stuffed, it was so good. Dinner usually included rice, noodles, fried beef, spring rolls, scallops, BBQ chicken or fish, salads, and a really good potato soup. For lunch, you order off the menu, and mine and Dustin’s favourite became their delicious guacamole bacon burger, on the common Vietnamese baguette bread. Also, mine and Dustins room only cost $7 a night! $5 for 1 person rooms, or $9 for AC rooms. China Beach at Hoa’s place was just amazing. It had the softest sand, and went for miles either way. It was also very quiet and private, without hawkers or other tourists.
We went to Marble Mountain one day, and it was unreal. The mountains are all made of beautiful natural marble, and have natural caves you climb through and up to get to the top of the mountains. Many of the caves have Muslim shrines, temples and unreal carvings. The view at the top of Marble Mountains is stunning. You can see for miles and miles along China Beach, without seeing it end. You can also see all over the local town. One thing that stands out is all of the construction going on in the area; especially along the China Beach Coast. Beautiful local coast land is being clear cut and turned into large resorts. Where Hoa’s Place is, is still a very local, quiet piece of land surrounded by trees, and locals who have been living there for dozens of years. There is much talk about the people in the areas eviction, so that the land can be developed, but it is something Hoa feels strongly against, and so does the thousands of tourists that visit him every year. On March 6th we read on the internet that he had 10 days until he had to leave, so we may be one of the lucky last few tourists to get to enjoy Hoa’s welcoming hospitality, but for now, we hope he doesn’t have to give it up, and we can visit him again. Hoa keeps journals of all the guests that pass through his way. This morning before we left, Dustin and I filled out a page thanking him so much for the wonderful stay, and delicious family dinners, and attached our photos and a City of Nanaimo card showing our hometown.
We are now on our $40 flight to Ho Chi Minh City as Ava is arriving tonight.
xo
Jade
We arrived in Hoi An, a small heritage town in Vietnam, last night, after a long 12 hour bus ride. It used to be a major international port in the 16th and 17th centuries. It still preserves a lot of it’s heritage and is now world famous for their tailor shops. There are hundreds on tailor shops in this town, AT LEAST every second store is a tailor shop. People come from all over the world to get new custom wardrobes made, many prom dresses and even wedding dresses. They are able to make duplicates of samples they have in store, copy a article of clothes from magazines, make clothing you bring in a picture of, or find on the internet, and even will duplicate a favorite article of clothing you bring in, and make alterations that you request.
This morning after breakfast at 10:30 I walked down the street and checked out the tailor 2 doors down from my hotel, called “Sunny”. The staff was friendly and their samples looked great, I asked how much a sundress is and they asked what material, I wanted it cotton and that turned out to be the cheapest, it was only $15. I did not bother to try to barter as it was a great deal already in my eyes. They tried to talk me into adding cotton trousers for $12 and a really cute business dress made of cashmere and wool for $35, but for now I only came in for a sundress and was not looking for a custom wardrobe, more the Hoi An experience and a personalized souvenir I can wear again and again. I also knew there was not much to do in this town for the boys, so I wanted to leave the next morning, and ordering more will only require more time.
I found the picture of the dress I wanted on their internet off google images, and showed the ladies, they said no problem, that can be done in half a day, for $15. PERFECT! I then chose the colour and fabric I wanted and how long etc. They measured me up, and jotted down a sketch of the online photograph, and told me to come back at 5:00pm to pick up the finished product.
When I arrived back today at 5:00pm I was getting a little worried when the dress was not their and the lady kept calling the young tailor girl on the phone and asked me to keep waiting. After 25 minutes of waiting the young girl arrived by scooter with a bag with my dress in it, it is exactly what I had asked for and it fits great! I am really happy with it!
xo
Jade
I was so excited to post about my dress that I forgot to write about our fun day on Kevin’s birthday. We woke up early so we could get to the all you can eat buffet breakfast in the morning, Kevin’s favorite meal, and it was delicious!
In the afternoon, we headed to the Thap Ba Hot Springs and it was amazing. Admission was only $5 and we got access to all of the amenities. It started with a mud bath and it was so funny, they filled the tub up with fine clay mud and it was really cool we all dunked under and got totally muddy. Then you get power washed off under powerful showers, and walk through a hallway of multi-angled jets massaging you at all angles. Then time for the hot mineral bath, and the artificial hot waterfall you stand under and it massages your back! There was also a cold regular swimming pool, and a larger hot mineral pool. It was so fun, I have always imagined having a huge pool with hot tub temperature, and there it was. We all said we had never been so relaxed in our lives, it was amazing!
We worked up a appetite for a big dinner. Kevin wanted to go to the Texas BBQ Steak & Steak restaurant for dinner. We had had it the other night and it was amazing. All of the meat is imported from the states and is AAA high grade meat. We all enjoyed the to die for BBQ Memphis Burger, which was stuffed with shredded rib meat and their signature bbq sauce. Kevin always eats double what we eat, so he had a foot-long chili cheese dog too. hahaha.
We went to the “Why Not” Bar for drinks in the evening and had a lot of fun. We met a really cool couple from Holland, who we pulled their table up to ours and partied with them until bedtime.
Good times!
Jade
The bus ride to Nha Trang was a long 5.5 hours. When we were waiting for the bus, I heard music coming from what sounded like a near by store. I said to Dustin, “Hey Dust, hear that? They are playing Adam Lambert!” after waiting over half a hour for our bus, humming to Adam Lambert, it finally arrived and was already packed of other tourists. I found a seat and got my iPod out of my backpack for the long trip only to see it was ON and almost out of batteries, after I charged it that morning. It was ON and playing Adam Lambert from the exterior iPod speaker, Adam because A is the first artist at the top of my alphabetical playlist. Darn-it! A nearby store had not been playing him at all, and now I had a long noisy trip ahead of me, as the bus driver insisted on honking the horn every 2-5 seconds.
After arriving in Nha Trang, Dustin and I checked into our $10 a night hotel, in the backpacker area across from the beautiful Nha Trang Beach. We were so hungry, as our only stop on the bus ride had overpriced Pringles cans we refused to pay $10 for 2 Pringles tubes (as we couldn’t agree on the same flavour), and ran and put them on the shelves after finding out the price. We went for a walk in our new area, and saw many of our favorite meat sandwich carts on the corners. We picked one and the local lady barely spoke English. I was a little hesitant because all the meat in in the window of her cart and is not kept refrigerated through the heat of the day. But i ordered a pork filled bagette anyhow, and it was delicious. It was stuffed with tomato, cucumber, pork, cilantro, soya sauce and hot sauce. They only cost $1, and are the tastiest sandwich ever, and I felt fine regardless of the warm window meat.
Kevin arrived the next day, after a long full day bus ride from Ho Chi Mihn City. We were all excited to be back as a 3, and went for dinner and a beer. By the way, beer is mostly 7,000 Dong which is a little less than 40 cents Canadian, and even at the most expensive marked up restaurants, it is 20,000 Dong, which is $1 Canadian dollar. Oh and often restaurant give you a free beer if you get a entrée or large pizza etc. Last night, we went for drinks and they were 2 for 1 cocktails, and everyone gets a free Mojito with a drink order. Cocktails were less than $4, and you recieved 3 for that price. The prices here are nuts.
Tomorrow is Kevin’s 23rd birthday! He has requested an all you can eat breakfast buffet in the morning, and the Hot Springs in the day time. I think he wants to go to the Texas BBQ Steak bar for dinner, and the -9 degree Ice Bar for drinks at night! Should be a fun day!
xo
Jade
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jadeinasia 