Whew! What a blast! I love Thailand! I love the people, the food, and the views it had to offer. If you thought my summaries from my Macau and Beijing trips were long, wait till you see one that summarizes 10 days!
Day 1 -
Pictures are found here.
Our trip started off a bit later than anticipated. We had planned to meet up at the subway station at 3pm (our flight was at 6). Well, as we were walking towards the station, one of our party members is coming from the opposite direction. She was neither packed nor anything else. Plus she had our tickets. LOL, we ended up chilling at the station for like 45 minutes while we waited for her to catch up.
The first thing I noticed about Bangkok was the heat. When we got off the airport, all we could feel was the humidity in the terminal. Mmm. Warm toasty humidity. The temperature for our 2 days in Bangkok was in the low 30s. Mwahahahahaa.
Unfortunately we started off our first 40 minutes in Bangkok by getting ripped off by our taxi driver. Instead of taking a metered cab, we somehow confused ourselves into bargaining with a driver. 6 people in one cab (FYI, NOT comfortable) for $500B (B = Thai baht - the local currency) to our hostel. Turns out it should have cost us less than $250. Doh. Oh well.
My first impression of Bangkok was not favourable. While walking around the district near our hostel (admittedly part of the backpacker's ghetto), we could see rats darting in and out of sewers and cockroaches crawling around. Not exactly an encouraging sight.
We ended up spending our first night walking around Bangkok trying to get our bearings. We walked to the King Rama bridge and back before settling into bed to rest for our first full day in Thailand.
Amazing discovery: Did you know you can eat room temperature eggs and not die? Apparently the Thais do. They do NOT refrigerate their eggs at all. Whenever you walked around outdoor markets or even into the local 7/11, the eggs were on the counter, warm as could be. I'll stick to the cold ones thanks. (But please realize that I did not die from the food in Thailand... Unless the bacteria is busy incubating as I type.
Day 2 -
Pictures are found here.My first full meal in Thailand was purchased at a local food stall near our hostel. That's the cool thing about Bangkok, you can find dozens of little stalls on the side of the roads selling full meals. Or, if you don't have time to sit down and eat, they'll put your food in a plastic bag so you can carry it away and suck it out later.
After a short breakfast, we made our way to a pier to take some of the local transportation - One of the express boats down the Chaya River. That's right, instead of having to take a bus, you can grab a boat down the river. They stop at various piers along the way. Luckily for us they have security at each pier to keep the peace and help dumbass tourists figure out how to use it.
Our first touristy destination in Thailand was Wat Phra Kaeo. It's a huge temple/palace complex right next to the Chaya River. It was B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. No other words can describe it. It was also massive. It was huge - it took several hours to go through it man. Every building glinted in the sunlight. Words can't describe how pretty it was. I was amazed by the amount of detail on each building.
After chilling at Wat Phra Kaeo, we left to find Wat Pho, the temple housing the world's largest reclining Buddha. Unfortunately that's when we began to get an idea about how easily preyed upon tourists are. A friendly man approached us and asked where we were going (we were looking at our map and where slightly lost). He was very helpful in explaining that Wat Pho was closed for prayers currently, but there were lots of other tourists attractions nearby. Then he mentioned tuk tuk prices.
The fucker was a tuk tuk driver and was trying to get us to rent his tuk tuks for an hour. I found out later than in Bangkok, there's a tuk tuk incentive program - if they take tourists to certain locations and they look around, the drivers can get a free gas coupon. Therefore this guy was trying to con us. I realized we were being had and we began to walk away. He then tried to kindly point us in the right direction for Wat Pho. I continued to ignore him and asked a police officer nearby, who promptly pointed us in a different (correct) direction. The tuk tuk driver followed us on foot for a good 10 minutes before giving up. Gah.
Anyways, we grabbed a quick lunch from a local food stall and headed to Wat Pho. The reclining buddha itself wasn't too exciting, but the rest of the compound was as beautiful as Wat Phra Kaeo. We walked around for quite a long time, but unfortunately the heat was taking its toll. We were used to warm weather in Hong Kong, but the sudden change still affected us.
We decided to go to Huamphalong train station to book our tickets to Chiang Mai. Well, this led to another discovery of the way tourists get taken advantage of. We got in line for the train tickets with the help of a uniformed man. Well, when we got to the front of the line though, we were told (by the clerk behind the window) that all the trains for the next day were full. Ack! This was not wholly unexpected considering it's peak tourist season.
Well, the uniformed man who helped us led us to the information desk who suggested we buy bus tickets from upstairs. We get ushered upstairs to a bus company who proceed to go into their spiel about bus prices blah blah blah. In a nutshell, turns out the man in uniform didn't work for the train station at all - he worked for the bus company! That's what they do here! They stand around the train ticket lines, and when you seem to be confused or in a predicament, they try to "help" you by finding other modes of transportation - bus in this case. *hiss*
Long story short, we thought we were down to two options, take a bus (it's a 10 hour drive to Chiang Mai), or take a 15 hour train ride, but there weren't enough bunks for us on the train. Just as we were about to cave and buy a bus ticket, Wenli and I tried one last time to ask about 6 bunks to Chiang Mai. Lo and behold, after being told 3 times there were no seats, there's a new train suddenly and has plenty of seats available! WTF?!?!?! Gah. Two hours had passed since getting to the station. Tickets in hand, we fled past the taxi and tuk tuk drivers and took the subway to our next destination, the night bazaar.
Our first dinner in Bangkok was at a Chinese/Thai restaurant. The staff were ridiculously stupid. I've never seen such a vapid waitress in my life. She spoke neither English, Chinese or Thai it seemed. Gah. Anyways, our meal was fabulous (once we finally got all of it). (Is it so difficult to provide people with rice? Apparently it is in this particular chinese restaurant.)
We then wandered around the Bangkok night bazaar. Unfortunately we've been spoiled by Hong Kong and China. We're so used to cheap prices that the concept of paying $100B for a pair of earrings was horrifying. ($100B = $20HKD = $3CAD) If you were a tourist coming directly from your own country, these prices were dirt cheap, but we knew better. That made it difficult to want to buy anything.
Amusing anecdote: Peggy has a sugar daddy in Bangkok now. While waiting for everyone to gather together to go back to the hostel, we went to the restaurant we ate again to ask them to write down our hostel address in thai (we already had it, but we wanted 2 copies in case one got lost or we got separated in groups). Well, while a waiter was writing it down, a waitress asked Peggy for her name and number. We were like, "WTF?" Turns out one of the managers thought Peggy was cute and spoke good mandarin and wished he had her name and number. This is the point where I should mention he was like 40 or 50 years old. Ha ha ha.
Day 3 -
Pictures can be found here.After a super busy and stressful the day before, we decided to make day 3 into a relaxing shopping day. We decided to drop off our luggage at the train station first and then wander around China Town. It was an amusing little jaunt, with many near death experiences trying to navigate Bangkok traffic. I shall suggest to the city they install more pedestrian crossings.
We got to see the Golden Buddha located on the edge of china town. It was a 3 foot tall seated buddha... That was about as exciting as it got. There wasn't much else nearby, so we moved on to our next destination, the MBK shopping centre.
MBK was again a semi-tourist trap. The prices were higher than local stores, but still cheap in comparison. Unfortunately we didn't know it at the time, so we bought a few things. (e.g. Antonette bought a purse for $140B and we later found the same style/colours available in Chiang Mai for $99B.)
MBK was amusing, but overall boring. It's just store after store of the same kinds of stores... 7 floors of it. However, lest you think I was unamused the entire time, rest assured that I found plenty to have fun with. MBK was the place were I remembered there were lots of crossdressers in Thailand. And once I started paying attention, I found all kinds in MBK.
The most amusing crossdresser worked at a jean store where Wenli went. I didn't even realize it was a guy until the girls working their began making a commotion. There were two dutch guys in the store trying on jeans and I guess the girls were making the crossdresser help the men because it either made them uncomfortable, or he thought they were cute. Dunno which, but either way it was funny. I wish I could do MY makeup as well as this guy did!
Amusing quote: We ran into so many dutch people in Thailand! It was crazy! Everywhere we went there were people speaking dutch. I finally asked Wenli if anyone was actually left in her country, or whether they were all out travelling.
After MBK, we had to return to the train station to catch our train. Maybe I've seen too many movies, but an overnight train is not what I pictured it to be. I thought there's be separate cabins with 4 people in each. Not so in Thailand. Instead, each car had bunks on either side of the aisle with a mere curtain covering the openings. Despite how this sounds, it was a very comfortable and fun trip. I managed to sleep most of the night away. Unfortunately our train was slow in arriving in Chiang Mai by like, 2 hours, luckily it gave me lots of pretty photo ops.
Day 4 -
Pictures can be found here.The first thing I have to say about Chiang Mai was that I love the public transportation. The main way of getting around is by songthaew. It's like a pickup truck with a covered back and benches inside. Drivers will stop when hailed and see if you're headed in their direction. If you are, you then bargain a price and hop in. Average cost for a 20 minute drive was like $15B each. (A local was amazed to find out we were paying this little - even locals only pay around $10B each - I guess it's normal for tourists for pay a lot more.)
Special "DOH" moment: On the train I realized I forgot my running shoes in our Bangkok hostel. This was not useful considering we wanted to go on a trek and therefore all I had were my sandals that are NOT long distance walking shoes. Whoops.
Again our first day in a new city was spent wandering around. We managed to get lost but ended up finding a temple (a NICE tuk tuk driver pointed us in its direction before we even knew he was a driver - my faith in tuk tuk drivers was restored by him) that was on a map. After a brief photo op, we proceeded on our way.
We managed to find the Wat Phra Singh (no Mr. Tuk Tuk driver, it was not a loooong way away as you indicated - maybe 30 minutes at a semi-brisk pace) on our own. It was supposed to be Chiang Mai's main tourist attraction inside the city. It was pretty. Dunno if it should claim anything else. It's old too.
That night we hit up the Chiang Mai night bazaar. Can we say tourist trap??? Wow, this was the epitome of prices being jacked up for tourists. I did not see a SINGLE local at this market - I felt like I was back in Canada for all the white people there!
Amusing anecdote: Despite my complaints about the prices, I did spend $450B on a pair of wannabe Puma running shoes. I needed something other than sandals for our trek the next day. Unfortunately, when I got home that night, I realized the lady sold me two right foot shoes. DOH! (No worries, I got to borrow a pair of
ghetto running shoes left behind by some other tourist from the hostel and get the right shoes the next night from the store.)
That night, we nearly lost Jen to Thai food. We were eating at a local restaurant and I glanced over at her. There were tears in her eyes and she was very quiet. Turns out she had bitten into a hot pepper - we later discovered it's one of the hottest peppers used in cooking. When I later tested the peppers, even a small slice could make your mouth burn. To quote her, "A kick in the face would have been better than that!"
Interesting architectural difference: One thing all Thai hostels/guesthouses have in common... There's no difference between a toilet and a shower kind of. Seriously, every shower I encountered was merely a spray thingie (the word escapes me right now) on the wall, beside the toilet. There were no ledges, curtains or any way of keeping the water from splashing over the entire bathroom floor. This made it a pain in the ass besides when someone goes for a shower, then you go to use the toilet, you need to find a pair of sandals to wear or get wet feet. This should be the point where I mention that Thais have a "no shoe" policy in their houses. You have to take off your shoes/sandals before entering the house.
Day 5 -
Pictures can be found here.The next day we arranged to go on a one day trek around Chiang Mai. These treks are standard tourist fare, but still a blast. The itinerary for the day was go for a bit of a hike, go for an elephant ride, go to a Karen people village, go to a waterfall, and then end the day by going for a bamboo rafting ride. Cheesy as it sounds, it was a lot of fun!
The elephant ride was a bit of a let down. Jen's and my elephant was fairly well behaved, so we kept getting ahead of the group and then having to stop and wait for them. There were also a gazillion little huts inside the jungle where little old ladies would try to sell us packages of bananas and sugar cane to feed the elephants. Our mahout was also very unpersonable (okay, he can be forgiven due to his lack of english.) But I was very amused when we stopped and had to wait on top of our elephant for 10 minutes while he rolled a cigarette. What the hell man?
Our next stop was the Karen village. Oh my gosh. What an eye opening experience. Take a look at the picture, and then as Jen reminded me, remember that this is a relatively well visited village - think of what the non-touristy villages must be like! After visiting this village, I'm no longer surprised by the fact that Thailand has avian flu. There were chickens walking around everywhere, and the villagers sleep ABOVE their livestock. I knew people lived like this, but it's one thing to know, and another thing to see.
The next stop was the Mae Klang Waterfall. It wasn't terribly impressive, but the rustic looking bamboo buildings beside it were amusing. I had more fun scrambling across the so-called "bridge" and across boulders than looking at the water.
After lunch at a touristy restaurant, we got to go on a bamboo raft ride. Can we say cool? I didn't know what to expect from the ride, but it was a blast. They were old fashioned authentic rafts made out of like, 7 pieces of thick bamboo. We each had to sit on it very carefully while the pole driver dude pushed us down the river. They failed to warn us there would be frickin' rapids though. As you may have guessed, we got a wee bit wet.
Not that it was a huge deal though - half way through our rafting ride, we caught up to another tour group and several rafts proceeded to have a water ride. Poor Wenli, Peggy, and Limin got completely SOAKED. One of the pole drivers even fell into the water. It was hilarious. I also enjoyed the view of one of the younger drivers having to take off his wet t-shirt. Mwahaha.
That night, Limin and Jen had to leave us to return back to Hong Kong. We bade them adieu then went to get a thai foot massage. It was remarkably good. I think our favourite thing though was being able to watch tv though. We were in charge of the satellite TV. Amusingly we watched chinese music videos and a Taiwanese show about a cantonese singers though. (I swear, we tried to find Thai music, but couldn't!)
Day 6 -
Pictures can be found here.Day number 6 was spent learning how to cook Thai food. If you ever get the chance to go to Thailand, I highly recommend taking cooking lessons. It was so much fun! We signed up with the Baan Thai cooking school. We got to go to a local market and learn about the various local fruits and veggies, and learn the equivalents/substitutes to the ones in our own countries.
Throughout the day (the course was from 9am-4pm), we got to learn hot to make:
We had a good time with our teacher too. She was our age and we had fun picking her brain about Thai culture and the like. We were lucky enough to make a rapport with her, because when we asked for advice on how to get to Doi Ithanop, the mountain about an hour and a half away, she managed to swing us a deal with her friend, a songthaew driver. Instead of having to pay $1000B EACH to go to Toi Ithanop, we paid $1800B TOTAL for a full day of having a songthaew at our beck and call. Swank.
Peggy and Wenli ended up going back to the guesthouse to sleep off the mass amounts of food we ate (they had actually fallen asleep at the school before we shooed them off). Antonette and I walked around looking at some random temples nearby that we happened across.
That night we hit up the Wualai Road market - a more local market than the night bazaar we had frequented before. It was a lot of fun, not to mention a helluva lot cheaper!
I bought so much food there. This is on top of the food I ate at the school in the morning. I had fresh strawberries, pineapple, coconut milk (very disappointing), waffles and so on. Soooo tasty. What wasn't tasty was the bag of creepy crawlies I bought. You know me and my need for shock factor - I bought a bag of grubs/grasshoppers/larva/etc. They looked better than they tasted. They were so freakin' deepfried, it was the oil that nearly made me gag rather than the creatures themselves. I ate a few more grubs then I gave up. It just wasn't worth it.
As we were preparing to leave, we had to do the generic thing of walking around to tuk tuks and songthaews trying to bargain prices back to the hotel. One guy made my night. I musta had "stupid tourist" stamped across my forehead, because that's certainly how he saw me. I asked him how much to get to our guesthouse - he looks me up and down before saying, $80B. WTF?! I actually laughed out loud at the ridiculously high price. It should only cost us $30B to get around. I kept laughing as I walked by him and promptly found a songthaew for $10B each.
Day 7:
Pictures can be found here.
The next morning was the day we had planned to spend at Thailand's tallest mountain, Doi Ithanop. We grabbed some breakfast (read: random foods from the nearby market - yay noodles in a glad bag!) found our chartered songthaew and proceeded on our way. The view from our songthaew was pretty.
Doi Ithanop was a blast. It was still heavily touristed, but this time by other thais/chinese/asians. There were fewer Westerners there than I had grown used to. We didn't know until we reached the top of the mountain that it was Thailand's highest point. Pretty nifty considering we had no idea where we were!
I don't really know what to say about Doi Ithanop. It was pretty. I think only pictures can describe it. It was very cold at the top of the peak (hence why Wenli is wearing my jacket around her legs in some photos). We got to see some nifty pagodas on the mountain, but they were small inside and very boring. The cool thing about the pagodas was watching the clouds come in. When we arrived, the sky was crystal clear but suddenly the mist rolled in and you couldn't even see the pagoda a few meters in front of you. Nifty. At the waterfalls, I kept running away from the other girls, finding places to go scrambling on boulders or running up stairs for a better view. (Okay, the stairs were a horrible idea. They didn't provide any great views and simply led me back to the road. Then I had sore legs for the rest of the day.)
Amusing anecdote: At our last waterfall, Antonette and I went ahead of Wenli and Peggy. We were waiting at the entrance to the waterfall and wondering where the hell the other two had gone. After 10 minutes, I decided to go search them out. They were sitting on the side of a river, staring at these paltry little wannabe waterfalls, thinking they were the main things we were here to see. Dude, I pee more water than these things did. LOL.
We arrived back in Chiang Mai in the evening and made our way to a nearby "Sunday Market." It was another huuuuge night market only a 5 minute walk from our guesthouse. It had the same stuff as at the Wualai Road market and even had the same people. Case in point, at Wualai Road market, Wenli and Peggy found a stall where a Thai lady made her own earrings. They were really pretty and we all bought a few pairs. Wenli alone bought around $1500B worth. Well, the next night just as the stalls were closing we found the same lady again. They sat down to get her to make some more earrings for them... I think the lady made over $3000B off of all of us together. Crazy.
Amusing anecdote: For the first two days in Chiang Mai our group got as close to an argument as we ever did. Over what? Our guesthouse secretary person thingie. We couldn't decide if it was a guy or girl. I thought it was a guy and so did half of us
Day 8: Day 8 was boring. There are no photos.
The next day was our day to leave Chiang Mai. I was sad to say goodbye. I really liked that city. We made our way to the bus station and grabbed our seats for the 5 hour bus ride ahead. Note to selves: Make sure the buses are equipped with bathrooms next time. Or if they lack in facilities, make sure they do make bathroom stops.
The city of Sukothai is divided into two parts. There's Old and New Sukothai. We planned on crashing in the New city and making our foray into the Old city the next morning. To pass the time, we wandered around New Sukothai.
I have to admit, Sukothai kind of disturbed me. It was a larger city, but had a very rural feel to it, like the the city had sprang up overnight, but the people were still moving around in old fashioned ways. Part of this impression was aided by the temple we visited first thing in the afternoon.
At first glance, the temple was old, but when you paid more attention, you noticed that it was run down and just dirty. There were chickens running around everywhere (by now, this was a normal sight for us) but along with them were cats and dogs. But all the animals appeared very haggard and diseased. There was a dying dog on the steps of a Buddha statue. It was very uncomfortable.
As for the rest of the city, it was boring. I don't mean "no sights to see" boring... I mean, small town, nothing to do boring. We ended up buying lots of food from 7/11 (I swear, 7/11 owns most of Thailand) and chatting outside our guesthouse for 3 hours before going to bed.
Day 9:
Pictures can be found here.The next morning we caught a local bus headed to the Old City of Sukothai. (FYI, Sukothai was Thailand's first capital.) For $15B I got to sit on an overcrowded pickup truck with 3 loooong wooden benches packed with people. There were people hanging to the outside of the truck even. It was crazy cool - I felt like I was on one of those travel shows you always see. :)
Upon arrival at the Old city, we rented some bikes and proceeded to wander around. The entire day was spent looking at ruins and trying to navigate them. It was amazing. I never expected to see ruins like these ones in my life. They were in fairly good shape too surprisingly. The area was huge - the central area covered 70 square kilometers along. Thank god for the bikes. (FYI, mom, dad? Blister Butt strikes back.)
For food we briefly left the park and wandered around near a local school. They were having some kind of festival and had a gazillion food stalls, but frankly, none of us felt comfortable buying the food because we had seen it out since the morning when we arrived. Plus you could watch the flies walking around on it. No sir, I'll pass thanks.
We ended up falling asleep on the grass in front of some of the ruins. It was really relaxing. We honestly slept for an hour in the middle of the park. However, this also meant that we had to rush off to catch the last bus back to New Sukothai.
The rest of our evening was spent walking around a pitifully small night market (can you tell our lives revolve around these markets???) and gorging on the delicious food. That night we had to catch a ride back to Bangkok (there was nothing else to do in Sukothai so we decided to return to the city of tourist traps instead). A nice tuk tuk driver (err, ghetto tuk tuk driver - the tuk tuk was more like a tricycle with a giant basket at the front of it for humans instead of goods. Very unsafe feeling, but had a great breeze) took us to the bus station for $40B despite the fact that he knew his buddy was trying to con us into paying $60B.
Day 10:
My paltry amount of pictures can be found here.The beginning of our 10th day in Thailand began by walking around Banglamphu at 4am knocking on guesthouse doors trying to find a place with room for 4 weary travellers. We managed to get into Tavee Guesthouse which was a very beautiful, but very thin walled hostel.
We wanted our last day in Thailand to be relaxing. I had already felt my stress levels rise 3 times from what they were in Chiang Mai just by having to deal with taxi drivers again. (I'm 80% sure that our taxi driver took us around for a ride - riding longer than needed to rack up the amount due.)
Luckily Antonette goes to a school with a high international student population, so one of her friends had returned to Thailand to visit their family for the holidays. She agreed to meet us and take us around Thailand. All we wanted to do was go shopping and see a movie.
Dude. I need to make friends like Antonette's. The girl's name was Jane. Her parents own a computer part company. After doing preliminary introductions, she said she knew a great place to go shopping. We were about to hail a cab when she mentioned that her driver was waiting for us. Wait. What??? That's right, the chick had a chauffeur! Oh my god! And a swank car!
We spent the day with Jane shopping. First of all we went back to her house to exchange cars - we switched from a nice 4 door to a van that sat 8 people. Her house was in the suburbs of Bangkok, its front entrance was guarded by security people who saluted as your entered/left the compound. She had a pool and lake. Oh my god. Her room consisted of a study, bedroom, powder room/walk in closet, and private bathroom. *drool*
We ended up going back to MBK simply because it was close and cheap. We had a good time. The girls spent most of their time buying candy for cheap that you can't get in Hong Kong. I honestly don't know how we managed to spend over an hour and a half at a store that's smaller than my room back in Canada. What the hell man?
Jane's mom and grandma happened to go to the same mall as us, so they offered to treat us to dinner. That was pretty cool, but very awkward because neither of them spoke English very well. They did speak Cantonese though, so Peggy and Antonette were able to practice their limited language skills on them. The Japanese restaurant (by now, we were sick of Thai food and ready for a break from it) was utterly swank. Great ambiance and the like. We ended up going to see Aeon Flux later that night.
Last day in ThailandOur last day in Thailand was bittersweet. We made one final rush to the local market for roadside food, fresh fruit and so on. I bought gum and chocolate from 7/11 they don't have in Hong Kong. Somehow we managed to get behind schedule, so we got to the airport just before the plane began boarding.
I had rushed off ahead of the group so I could use the washroom before boarding. However, when I got to the gate, none of the others had arrived, and by the time we started boarding, they still weren't there. I figured I'd either see them on the plane or wouldn't, so I boarded.
Well, I was sitting on the plane for maybe 5 minutes when Wenli appears. She immediately seeks me out and urgently tells me, "Maureen! You need to get off the plane. They found something beeping in your backpack! They searched it and found something." I thought she was joking, but she was convincing enough that I ran back to the entrance of the plane.
There was a ring of employees standing around one woman holding something in her hand. A weird sickly buzzing was easily heard from her palm. It was my frickin' personal alarm from my keychain. I had taken my keys out of my purse because they were too bulky and useless to carry around. The alarm had slipped off the key that kept it deactivated and it therefore began to sound. It must have been going on for quite some time because it sounded like the batteries were dying. I explained to them what it was.
The stewardess or whoever it was requested me to remove it's batteries. Of course, to be secure, you can't just rip the cover off the alarm to remove the batteries. I tried using a set of keys to unscrew the cover but couldn't get it off. We finally ended up throwing the thing out (I had volunteered to do that first, but they didn't understand my English). I was able to board after that, but I'll admit it took awhile for the adrenaline kick to wear off.
The most amusing thing was that when they heard the alarm in my backpack, instead of summoning security, they brought my backpack to the boarding tunnel/gate thingie. That's how Wenli knew it was my alarm - they recognized my backpack! There was only a single security person there - the rest were just staff gawkers and the like. Yeesh, America this is not.
Thus concludes the saga of my trip to Thailand. You can check out my Thailand photos (soon to be updated with the pics from my other friends) to get more info on my trip. I've included short descriptions for each page to explain a bit of what it's about. Toodles!
Our first stop in Guilin was Elephant Trunk Hill. As you might guess from the name, the hill/mountain thing is supposed to look like an elephant. I think the name was more influenced by the era in which Opium was very popular in China as opposed to the hill's appearance, but whatever.
The second day we grabbed a tour bus (err, oversized van?) to a nearby village located on terraced hills. Even though it's fall here and all the fields were pretty much dead, it was so pretty. This is how I pictured rural China to be. It was awesome seeing the paddies - it's one of the sights I've always wanted to see. (Well, I partially saw it. It was so foggy we could barely tell what was in the background.)
Yangshuo was a cute little town. The most amazing thing about it though were the Karsts everywhere. (I didn't know the term for them until I googled them 2 seconds ago.) They're these strange mountains/hills that pop out of the earth randomly. They're gorgeous.
