8.28-29.09 Rain rain go away

There was a lot of rain these two days so there wasn't a lot we could do. We went to go see a giant Buddha statue on top of a hill, but it was really foggy and rainy so the view wasn't that great. Later at night we went to Bang la road and went to a few bars. It was rainy all night and actually a bit cold and we ended up getting matching jackets. So dorky.

The next day we got a late start because Jenn got food poisoning - strangely enough not from a food cart, but from a seemingly clean sit-down restaurant. The rest of the day continued to be comically bad. Jenn stepped off the motorcycle to look at the map and her foot somehow lined up with a sewage slit in the road and her entire leg went under and got scratched up. Later, she made Kyle pull over and vomited in the middle of the street. Eventually we made our way to Cape Phrom Thep, which had a nice ocean view. We had dinner and tea at a Chinese tea house in Phuket.

Later we stopped by a really cool beer garden for some drinks.

8.27.09 Elephants, Getting Lost, Winery, and Beach

So we started out our day taking an elephant tour. They said it was $30/hr/elephant, but then we get there and it's per person. We should have said we wanted seperate elephants then and watched them say fine and give us just one elephant for 30$ instead of 60, but Kyle didn't think of it till after. So instead we just did 1/2 hour which was fine. It was pretty fun, so some good views of the city and even went in the water where the elephant's head was underwater and he had to breath with his trunk. Then we say a litte show where the elephant did some tricks, played music, and painted. Then the elephant pointed to the tip jar, but we just laughed and left.

Then off to a winery about 40km away on our scooter. We ended up missing the turn, but once we realized it, it was OK because there was a waterfall out that direction that we wanted to see. However after going a long ways and seeing signs stating "danger wild elephants" we were running out of gas and eventually turned around. We found out later we turned back about 3km short of the waterfall. Oh well. We ended up getting gas from a hand pump out of a barrell. The drive was scenic and it always feels good to feel the wind on your face, so it was not in vain. So we found the vineyard and it had great views and we had lunch for quite cheap, especially for a vineyard. 3 meals, 2 drinks, and 2 wines for ~15$. Also so free wine tasting. Good times.

We had checked out our hotel, so we just went and hung out on the beach and waited for our night bus to Phuket. Oh and Kyle found the tickets we lost earlier where Jenn was blamed, but they were in Kyle's shirt pocket. We had checked all his pants' and shorts' pockets, but regretably not the shirts. Oh well.

8.26.09 Monkeys, Beaches, and Temples

We went to Wat Khao Takiab in the morning, which is a temple on a cliff overlooking the beach. There are monkeys everywhere on the temple grounds. They swim around in the fountains and chill out in a hammock. They play like children in the water and are really cute! They are also mischievous. They tried to grab Jenn’s bag twice. Kyle was afraid to take his shoes off to go into the temple for fear they might take them. The temple had a great view of the beach.

Next, we went down to the beach and waded in the water. We got some massages in a cabana overlooking the ocean. It was very picturesque. It was only $10/hour/person.

After the massages we went to another beach on the other side of the cliff and had some yummy food and Thai beers (Singha). The ocean water was about 85 degrees. Kyle liked it but Jenn prefers cold water. Warm water reminds her of pee and she does not find taking a warm bath in the ocean very refreshing when it’s 90 degrees outside.

It started to rain, and we rode the scooter to a remote temple which featured a giant statue of a monk. It is allegedly the largest monk statue in the world. The statue was rather ugly but the grounds were beautiful. It started to pour and we had a really wet, cold, dark and long ride back to our hotel on our scooter. It wasn’t too bad because even though it was raining, the temperature outside was still quite warm. The hardest part was that Kyle couldn’t wear sun glasses because it was too dark, but then he nothing to keep the wind and random particles out of his eyes while driving.

8.25.09 Hua Hin

We were quite happy to get out of Bangkok. Beautiful sights, but a little too hectic for vacation. We (probably Jenn) lost our train tickets to Hua Hin (a beach city about 2 hours south of Bangkok), and rushed over to the train station to buy more tickets. The train tickets we had bought before were sold out, but there were some super cheap ones for 88 baht (about $1.50 a person) left - the non-A/C train which took about 1 hour longer.

The non A/C ridiculously cheap train wasn't too bad. The windows were down the whole time, and there was a nice breeze. We actually kind of enjoyed it. We arrived in our hotel in Hua Hin, and immediately went to the beach. We had some Singha beers, pad thai and papaya salad and a stir fried green vegetable that Jenn loves and always eats but does not know the name of.

We did some horseback riding on the beach, and went to the local night market afterwards. We hit up a few bars and ate a late dinner from a cart across the street from our hotel. On the street, cut pineapple and mango was about 30 cents and delicious shish kabobs were the same price.

Hua Hin is a cool beach city, more laid back, nice people. We rented a scooter which only cost about $4 for 24 hours.

8.24.09 Grand Palace Finally

So we made our way back the Grand Palace today, not to be sidetracked by tuk-tuk drivers. You basically have to pretend they are not even human

and completely ignore them, because even if you say no, they just keep talking. Even later we helped some other tourists and told them to never go with tuk-tuks and he got offended asking why why?

Our first stop was the Wat Phra Kaeo, which was the King's temple and it also housed the emerald buddha. It was nice, but we had to sneak a picture, so the picture doesn't quite capture it. However the entire temple area surrounding it was quite amazing. It was basically about 10 temples all shoved in next to eachother, so everywhere you turned there was an amazing temple.

Then to the Grand Palace which was grand, but not quite as grand as the temple area. The Emerald Buddha Museum had a ton of buddha statues and some history, but again, no pictures allowed. Then to What Pho which is combined with a school, so the kids playground is some ancieant temple. Jenn played with some cats there. This is where the giant recling Buddha lies. Then off to Wat Arun where it cost 9 cents each to cross the river on a ferry. Also cool with absurdly steep steps to the top. We saw one tubby young white guy with 2 Thai girls who just kind of followed him around. It was kind of funny. Then to the City Pillar which wasn't too spectacular but nice, and at this point our batteries had died in our camera. Off to our dinner cruise on the river, but somehow it could not be found and we ended up just going back home and having some good Thai food across the street from our hostel. Overall a very sight filled day. The Thais know how to build temples.

So the rascism/nationalism at the temples is pretty weird. When you take off your shoes, they have a place for Thais to put their shoes, and a place for foreigners, as if they don't want dirty foreigners touching their shoes or something. Also when entering the grand palace the Thais go in free and foreigners pay, yet they don't show any ID or anything, so it's basically just if your Asian you go in free. If we had known, Jenn would have just walked seperately from me and got in free.

8.23.09 Massage, Cooking Class, and Rooftop Bar

We had another massage today, but this time at a more expensive place ($10 each). Another Thai massage, and we were even more sore after this one. It's almost more of them stretching you than massaging you. This place was much nicer inside with a better atmosphere. From there we went to a 4 hour cooking class where went to a street market to pick out the food and then went back and made a 5 course meal. He also gave us a recipe book. Tom yum kai, pad Thai, chicken salad, green curry paste, green curry, and a water chestnut dessert. It was all quite good. The best tasting pad Thai we've ever had.

Back to the suit place to do another fitting. They were almost perfect this time. They look really good on both of us. Traffic is Thailand is pretty bad, so it's a bit frustrating how long things take some times. However the cab rides are always super cheap and usually $2 and never more than $4. We attempted to go to the snake farm, but it was closed, so then we went back to our hotel for a bit and then off to a rooftop bar. It was a great view. You could see the whole city. Overall a very fun day.

8.22.09 Short day

We had a short day today. We were

hungover from the night before. We took care of erronds like getting train tickets and plannign the rest of our trip.

There were scammers inside the train station as well. And when asking our hotel taxi to drive us to the train station, he attempted to drive us to the travel agency instead.

Then we went to Khoa San road and had a $6 1 hour thai massage. They bruised us, they are quite brutal, but it felt good. When we got out, it was pouring outside and the street was completely flooded about 6" deep. We some some rats run up out of the street and hide under some chairs. We decided to have dinner and wait for the rain to stop. Later we had a drink ata bar at night. Just one drink each though. 6 guys from 4 different bars all ran across the street and swarmed Kyle to get him to come into their bar. They literally were grabbing him to pull him in. We had to yell at them to get them to stop. Short, but fun day.

Also we went back to fit our suit and have them re-stitch some areas.

8.21.09 Temple day and lots of scams

We ate at a charming restaurant with lots of flowers that was walking distance from our hostel. It was good food, pretty cheap. Really good basil chicken and red curry.

We saw temples all day. We went to a temple including a standing Buddha and the Golden Mountain temple which overlooks the city. We also went to a temple and watched some monks chant. It had a large sitting Buddha but we couldn’t take a picture because we didn’t want to interrupt their chanting. They were beautiful and made good use of the color gold. We took a tuk-tuk most of the day, which is a crappy little motorcycle with a passenger carrier in the back. We also bought matching pin stripe suits at a nice tailor establishment.

We had dinner at the hostel which was surprisingly good and made our way to Khao San Road for some drinks. We hung out with some people from Chicago and realized that this city is full of scam artists involved in ridiculously intricate webs of deceit.

In fact, we were the targets of two large scale scams which involved elaborate rings of people posted in various stations throughout the city, trying to get us to buy random things (jewelry, tourist packages, etc.) “Random” people who had come up to us pretending to be helpful with directions had in fact been in cahoots with our tuk-tuk driver and various fraudulent establishments.

The first guy walked out of the grand palace temple, and told us we couldn’t go in because we were not wearing appropriate attire – this much was true; we assumed he was an employee because he walked out of the temple and told us where to borrow free appropriate clothes. Then he said it was closed until 2, so we should come back, but in the mean time he directed us to take a tuk-tuk to see some other sights around the city. These sights were nice, but were also filled with random attempts to direct us to expensive rip-offs. One was supposed to be a government tourism “authority”, which is actually a real place, but they just ripped off the name and no one seems to care about trademark infringement or fraud here. It was actually just a travel agency, but we neglected to purchase and found out later online that the packages they sell are overpriced, fraudulent, and misrepresent what they are selling.

Then upon getting back to where we started, we were standing in the park and a “nice” guy asked what we were looking for and then directed us to some other places around the city. Then called a tuk-tuk driver over and “negotiated” for us a cheaper price. Also he told us how we were lucky because a suit exporter named Voglee was open to non-thais for only this week due to some govt decree.

At our next temple destination the tuk-tuk driver left to go to the bathroom and a guy sitting next to us smoking a cigarette started making small talk and then asked where we were going and what we had seen. When we mentioned that we might go to Voglee, he confirmed that it was a must see.

Later that night when discussing with other Americans and after searching online, we discovered that every one of these people were all working together, including the random guy smoking a cigarette. And their tuk-tuk drivers also “had to go the bathroom.”

Here’s some advice for Bangkok – don’t trust anyone. Don’t listen to anyone who is offering advice or trying to be nice. Everyone is trying to cheat you, screw you or take your money. No one is nice. DO NOT TRUST ANYONE. They are all in on it. Ever seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre? It’s just like that. Just when you think you are meeting a normal person, you are wrong. EVERY ONE OF THEM IS IN ON IT. They are not just trying to sell you a product; they are full of lies and crafty schemes. People who have been ripped off have reported this to the police, who do nothing and don’t care.W

We stayed at a hotel and their cabbies were always trying to offer rides without turning on the meter and to sell us more “Tourist authority” bullshit. It never ends. It makes you want to hide out in a hotel all day because everyone on the street is always trying to con you. But then again, the hotel is in on it too.

8.20.09 Bangkok

We arrived late, around 11 pm. We took a hot pink taxi driven by a dude on drugs. First he attempted to drive without the meter on and charge us over twice as much as it cost to get to our hoste. Next, he tried to kill us all. He was going half the speed as every other car on the road and started swerving in and out of lanes. Jenn looked at his eyes in the rearview mirror and noticed he was falling asleep at the wheel. When we finally arrived, he tried to do a 10-point turn in the parking lot. Nutjob! Great start to a trip.

8.18.09 Jenn's shopping spree

We parted ways in the morning coming back from Wu Lai because Jenn wanted to shop at Wu Fen Pu, basically a fashion district that has endless rows and rows of clothes and accessories. It's pretty much an impossible maze.

She only had limited cash so was careful to spend wisely. She spent almost every last penny of it on 5 shirts, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 skirts and a dress. She was starving and wanted these snacky cake things but she didn't have 30 NT (90 cents) so she asked the lady to give her a half serving. She stopped by Eslite (bookstore) to buy a Thailand travel guide in English, which was not a problem because they took credit card there. She made it home with only 3NT (9 cents) to spare on her metrocard.

We went to Jenn's Aunt Amanda's house for a dinner party, and consumed a lot of really good red wine.

8.17.09 Wulai

We got a late start on the day, due to the late night hiking. We went to Wulai, which is famous for its waterfalls. We walked around on Wulai Old Street and had some food that was less than impressive (this seems to be a recurring thing at touristy areas).

We took a cable car from Wulai up some mountain. There was a large hotel on the otherside with huge grounds, which were not visible from the other end of the cable station. We were surprised to find so much stuff on the other side when we arrived. We had afternoon tea at the hotel. The waffles were the best waffles Jenn has ever had. Kyle had some fruity drink made from these small green citrus-looking things, and Jenn had an iced coffee while they enjoyed the view.

We walked the hotel grounds afterwards, and played around on a random obstacle course. When it started to get dark around 7 pm, we noticed that no one was really around anymore, so we went back to the cable car, which was supposed to run every 10 minutes until 10 pm. There was no one at the front desk or at the cable car, so Jenn called the hotel to see what was going on. The hotel transferred her to the cable car operator who insisted that he was standing at the station - but clearly, no one was there. It was like something out of a ghost movie.

Anyways, turned out the cable car guy we talked to was at the station down below and we had to press some random button on a pole on our side to get some dude in his wifebeater and slippers to come down and operate the cable car. Very interesting.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast-ish place in Wulai for the night, which had a huge tub for soaking in hot springs. Who knows if it was really hotspring water, but it was nice.

In the morning they brought us a yummy breakfast of sandwiches, kiwi, a sweet roll and some coffee.

8.16.09 Cousins' birthday party and hiking

Three of Jenn's cousins have birthdays really close to each other, so they always celebrate it together. Usually, when my brother is here, we throw him in there too, but he isn't because he's lame. We had some good food at my cousin's place in Xin Dian, and played with their cats and dog. They are pretty much running an animal shelter there. They have 4 indoor cats, a dog, and one outdoor cat in a 3-bedroom apartment. When leaving we say a wild pig and dog hanging out on the street. They seemed to be togehter as if they were friends.

After the birthday dinner and cake, we went on a hike. My mother said it was "easy" because she had only done 1/8 of the hike before and thought the trail ended there. So I didn't change and wore a long dress on this hike, which turned out to be ridiculous. We hiked like 3 peaks, up a bunch of really steep stairs, for about 3 hours. Only one of us had a flashlight, and some parts had rather sketchy footing. Everytime we thought we had reached the top, there was more to go. It was an adventure.

Each peak had a really good view of the city, and we could see Taipei 101 in the distance. When I came here before Taipei 101 was built, I always felt that Taipei was filled with skyscrapers. But viewed from a distance now, Taipei 101 dwarfs EVERYTHING.

The hike back down was considerably faster since it was all down hill - about an hour. Our hike ended at about 11:30 at night. Then we got some great street food right at the bottom of the hike. Mmmm good, as Jenn's dad warned us of hepatits outbreaks. We had some Taiwanese porridge (xi fan) afterwards and made it home really late.

8.15.09 Shi Fen and Going out

We met up with some old friends, Michael's mom and dad, and then met up with more old friends. We took a drive to Shi Fen, which was an old gold mining town with lots of scenic spots and small waterfalls. We walked around there, then went into the actual mining town afterwards.

A tradition there is to light up these paper air balloons and to release them into the sky. You're supposed to draw pictures and write your wishes on the balloon, and they are supposed to come true if your balloon flies away without bursting into flames. Jenn's dad bought her a balloon and she drewa cats and other random stuff all over it. She wrote "Aaron is GAY" on one corner of the balloon so she could tag her brother on facebook later (inside joke).

At night, we met up with Jenn's cousin Julia to go to bars. We first went to the Taiwan alcohol and tobacco corporate headquarters, which had some warehouse in the back where they had lots of Taiwan beer and live music. We were there for a while, mingled with some locals and drank a bunch of Taiwan beer. Afterwards, we went to some other bar, and then to a hookah bar. It was a fun night.

8.14.09 National Palace Museum, CKS Residence Park, and crazy food

We went to the National Palace museum with Jenn's parents first. The museum looks like a palace, thus the name. Like most museums, it's full of history and art, and can be rather boring unless one is interested in the minute details of history and art.

However, going to Taiwan and not going to the Palace museum is kind of like going to Vatican City and not seeing the Sistine Chapel. The museum is full of ancient Chinese artifacts and art that the KMT (previous ruling party) shipped over to Taiwan after they were chased out of China by the communists in 1949. After the Communists took over China, they burned and destroyed tons and tons of art and historical artifacts because communists are nutjobs - so what's at the National Palace Museum is basically the best of Chinese art and history.

We went to the Chiang Kai Shek Residence Park afterwards, which was the home of former President/Dictator Chiang Kai Shek. It was only opened to the public in recent years. It was beautiful and had a bunch of gardens. There was also a private chapel which had been visited by Nixon and other American Presidents (before the US decided to adhere to the one-China policy).

We walked up to the top of a small temple and Jenn was attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. She got like 10 bites in 3 minutes and itched like crazy.

For dinner, we found some random Japanese restaurant in an alley. We had to take our shoes off to go in, and the tables were low, for traditional Japanese seating. It was dugout underneath the tables, so you didn't have to sit Indian style. The food was really interesting. I now have a better understanding of what authentic Japanese food is. We had a plate of sashimi, and while the tuna and salmon were good, there was also some raw shrimp and squid, which were incredibly fishy, squishy, chewy, and odd. Another dish we ordered was some starchy root (like a relative of the potato maybe) and it was really sticky and slimy. It was definitely a memorable experience, but I don't think I'll do it again. I'll stick to the sushi rotating on conveyer belts, probably.

At night we met up with Helen and Judy at the Shi Lin night market. It was insanely crowded, with people and vendors flooding the streets. The police came at one point and a lot of the illegal vendors who didn't have a license started fleeing the scene. Jenn always laughs when that happens. It's a funny sight.

After shopping, Helen came home with us and we drank some beers outside on the lawn furniture.

8.13.09 Danshui, Bali and Beitou

We went to Danshui first. It was raining again. We walked around in Danshui, which is a city by the sea. We took a ferry to Bali, a nearby peninsula, and rented bikes there. We biked around the peninsula and stopped at an archaeology museum. The peninsula was pretty lush and we had a nice bike ride in the rain.

We came back to Danshui on the ferry, and ate some street food. It was unimpressive. I was fooled by the number of people eating there, but learned after we got our food that it was a mere tourist trap.

We went to Beitou afterwards, which is in the northern part of the city. This part of the city looks kind of quaint and charming. We ate some sushi at a place that has a bunch of plates of sushi circling around on a conveyer belt and you just pick the plates you want. It was pretty good sushi for the price. We soaked in some hot springs afterwards at a public hot springs bath house. It was all locals!

08.12.09 Taroko Day 2

There was a 6.2 earthquake at about 2 a.m. Jenn pretty much slept through it (and the aftershock), as she does with all earthquakes.

We went back to Taroko today because it was so beautiful, and we had more to see and do. We had grand aspirations to climb the Da Li Da Tong trail, whic h required the application of a permit at the police station. The park police and the park information desk people told us the trail was rough because of the Typhoon, but we paid no heed.

The trail was insane. It was extremely steep, and there were spiders/webs everywhere. We saw a spider the size of Jenn's hand (including the legs) just hanging about, right next to the trail. There were signs warning of "venomous snakes and wasps." Jenn screamed everytime she ran into a spider web or saw a large bug (frequently). Taiwan is basically a tropical jungle. The trail was full of weird and large bugs and loud bug sounds.

About 30 minutes in, we both had sweat so much it looked like we had just gotten out of a pool. It was sweltering, and the end could not be fathomed. This would have been a doable hike in the winter, but it was rather unpleasant in 95 degree 90 percent humidity. We turned around after we had finished half the trail and opted for a trail that had a water source at the end.

The Sha Ka Dang trail wasn't much of a workout, but the view was gorgeous every step of the way. The river water was aquamarine and we took a dip at the end of the trail. We left Taroko gorge after we finished the trail and went back to Hua Lien. We checked out of our hostel, ate some more street food for lunch, returned our scooter and got back on a train to Taipei.

The death toll of Marakot in Taiwan is now at about 113. We don't really see the worst of it in the north, but many people's houses have been washed away. Sad.

8.11.09 Great day at Taroko Gorge

We rented a scooter and rode it out to Taroko (Tai Lu Geh) gorge. We had trouble getting where we wanted to go because we wanted to stop every 30 seconds to take pictures of the beautiful scenery. Kyle wouldn't mind moving somewhere like that.

We spent the day weaving around the narrow mountainous roads and looking for hiking trails. Most trails were closed due to the rains, but there was still a lot to see. We saw some waterfalls, a bamboo trail, temple, and stopped by an aboriginal village (Bu Luo wan). We also hiked one short trail that was not closed (Lu Shui), and had lunch in a quiet little redneck mountain town (Tian Xiang). We drank a Taiwan beer in a gazebo overlooking a waterfall, and a suspension bridge over the river (like Indiana Jones style).

All in all, the scenery and fun ride through the mountains made for a great day.

We had dinner in Hua Lien, and are now drinking beers at the hostel and waiting for other hostel people to return. Of course the dinner was great and cost about $5 total.

We went to a night market on the beach later at night and walked around. A lot of night markets in Taiwan are open nightly and are like a year-round fair. All of them have lots of food, some have carnival games and others have lots of clothes and accessories. This one in particular had an outdoor karaoke bar and drunken singing could be heard from afar.

We watched some kids light fireworks and contemplated eating more food, but some of it was too weird for our tastes.