Ephesus

Thursday, May 27 - Ephesus

Remember when Edward, Peter, Lucy, and Susan returned to Narnia in the book Prince Caspian? But it was many years later and they don't remember their lives as kings and queens at first, even as they stand amongst the ruins of their former kingdom?
How I felt walking through Ephesus reminded me of the part of Prince Caspian where they start to "wake up" and remember the grandeur of their lives in Narnia. What amazing splendor existed in antiquity and what incredible ruins still exist to help you imagine what it must have been like to walk those mosaic tiled halls and marble columned walkways. The Romans really knew how to make beautiful and lasting monuments to their empire! The day was really sunny and aside from gawking the amazing sites and thinking about the Chronicles of Narnia, I spent most of my time at Ephesus hustling from one shady spot to the next to stay cool and avoid a burn.
We left Ephesus and headed back to Istanbul late Thursday and have spent Fri and Sat here enjoying our last few days in the city. We are about to go out to dinner and do some final shopping before we come back to pack and sleep well before our 9 AM flight. When we're back in the hotel later I want to write more about Istanbul because I'm in love with this city!

Pamukkale and Cleopatra's pool - Weds, May 26

At Pamukkale on Wednesday we did an amazing tour of the "Cotton Castle" cliffs and Hieropolis (sp?). The highlight of the day for me was taking a swim in "Cleopatra's pool" at the top of the cliffs. We literally swam and climbed over and around Roman columns and other ancient ruins that rest on the bottom of this beautiful pool of warm iron-rich natural spring water. After a sweaty walk at the top of the cliffs through the remains of Hieropolis, a swim in this exotic setting, even at 25 lira extra (about $15), couldn't have felt better.
Our trip down from the cliffs was memorable too as we walked through the Cotton Castle pools along one edge of the site. The wide terraces create a natural stepping stone type decent to ground level. The setting is so unusual and surreal that we saw many aspiring "next top models" striking poses against the white mineral rocks or in the shallow water, while their friends took countless glamour shots.

Cappadocia - Tues. May 25

I wrote this entry Tuesday on my blackberry while on an 11 overnight bus ride from Cappadocia to Pumakalle, but haven't been able to send it! We are back in Istanbul now for the next 3 nights and so we have wifi again, hooray!

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Tues, May 25:
Cappadocia is a magical land of "fairy chimneys" and underground cities where 2,000 years ago the earliest Christians fled in order to escape persecution from the Roman Empire. Everywhere you look you see sandstone cones left behind after a million years worth of wind and rain carved the structures out of a lake a solid lava. Swept away were the softest, most easily corroded sandstone particles and left behind are these towering beehive cones in which the people dug caves that stayed cool in summer and warm in winter. The "fairy chimneys," as the sandstone cones are called, rise up from the earth in all directions creating an environment reminiscent of some planet in Star Wars.
The underground cities, more than 20 of them in the region, are a web of carved out villages extending 80 meters below the earth's surface, where the hidden communities had stables, wineries, bedrooms, kitchens, ventilation systems and round stone doors that could only be opened from the inside (to keep unwanted persecutors out). They lived in these subterranean labyrinths for as many as 5 years at a time, until the danger had passed.
We are leaving the Cappadocia region now and heading back west. We're on an overnight bus towards Pamukkale where on Wednesday we'll explore the famous "cotton castle" (the translation of Pamukkale), cliff terraces of pools flowing into one another all turned white from the calcium deposits in the warm spring water. At the top of these cliffs are the ruins of the ancient Roman and Byzantine city of Hieropolis and it's famous amphitheater. Then we'll continue on to Kusadasi Weds night for a Thurs tour of Epheses, before returning to Istanbul for two more days (Fri and Sat) and Sunday we come home! Unbelievable how quickly time passes, even when on an overnight 11 hour bus ride across a bumpy terrain, with frequent stops!!
Speaking of the bus ride, before I go back to sleep... There seemed to be a rally going on when we arrived at the bus station. Crowds of men, women, and children, music, dancing, tears... What in the world (literally)!? Well we found out that this is the time of year the young Turkish men of a certain age go off to serve in their military (for I'm not sure how long and I don't know if it's mandatory?), but the send off that their loved ones give them is so touching. They practically won't let them go, and yet they send them off with such national pride, singing their anthem, waving their flag, FOLLOWING the bus and riding alongside the bus hanging out of their cars waving and honking and cheering. One group even STOPPED our bus after it had left the station (surrounded it with their little jettas) and pulled their two men off to sing and salute to them one more time before letting us continue on. The reason I'm awake now at 12:39 AM was the third or fourth joyous sendoff of the night woke me up at our last stop. Enrique has some great videos of the revelry.
I decided to write this while it was fresh in my head, but who knows when I will have wireless again and be able to post it.
Signing off now at 12:44 AM Weds morning on a bus filled with patriots heading west towards the coast! Love, Meagan

May 25 - Cappadocia

(I wrote this entry Tuesday on my blackberry while on an 11 overnight bus ride from Cappadocia to Pumakalle, but haven't had wireless to send it until now! We arrived tonight in Kusadasi and tomorrow we go to Ephesus, but here is an update from yesterday before we arrived in Pumakalle, which I'm sure I'm spelling wrong!)

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Cappadocia is a magical land of "fairy chimneys" and underground cities where 2,000 years ago the earliest Christians fled in order to escape persecution from the Roman Empire. Everywhere you look you see sandstone cones left behind after a million years worth of wind and rain carved the structures out of a lake a solid lava. Swept away were the softest, most easily corroded sandstone particles and left behind are these towering beehive cones in which the people dug caves that stayed cool in summer and warm in winter. The "fairy chimneys," as the sandstone cones are called, rise up from the earth in all directions creating an environment reminiscent of some planet in Star Wars.
The underground cities, more than 20 of them in the region, are a web of carved out villages extending 80 meters below the earth's surface, where the hidden communities had stables, wineries, bedrooms, kitchens, ventilation systems and round stone doors that could only be opened from the inside (to keep unwanted persecutors out). They lived in these subterranean labyrinths for as many as 5 years at a time, until the time of danger had passed.
We are leaving the Cappadocia region now and heading back west. We're on an overnight bus towards Pumakalle (sp?) where on Wednesday we'll explore the famous "cotton castle" (the translation of Pumakalle), cliff terraces of pools flowing into one another all turned white from the calcium deposits in the warm spring water. At the top of these cliffs are the ruins of the ancient Roman and Byzantine city of Hieropolis and it's famous amphitheater. Then we'll continue on to Kusadasi Weds night for a Thurs tour of Epheses, before returning to Istanbul for two more days (Fri and Sat) and Sunday we come home! Unbelievable how quickly time passes, even when on an overnight 11 hour bus ride across a bumpy terrain, with frequent stops!!
Speaking of the bus ride, before I go back to sleep... There seemed to be a rally going on when we arrived at the bus station. Crowds of men, women, and children, music, dancing, tears... What in the world (literally)!? Well we found out that this is the time of year the young Turkish men of a certain age go off to serve in their military (for I'm not sure how long and I don't know if it's mandatory?), but the send off their loved ones give them is so touching. They practically won't let them go, and yet they send them off with such national pride, singing their anthem, waving their flag, FOLLOWING the bus and riding alongside the bus hanging out of their cars waving and honking and cheering, and one group at one of the stops along the way even STOPPED the bus (surrounded it with their little jettas) and pulled their two men off the bus to sing and salute to them one more time before letting us continue on. The reason I'm awake now at 12:39 AM was the third or fourth joyous sendoff of the night woke me up at our last stop. Enrique has some great videos of the revelry.
I decided to write this while it was fresh in my head, but who knows when I will have wireless again and be able to post it.
Signing off now at 12:44 AM Weds morning on a bus filled with patriots heading west towards the coast! Love, Meagan

One of our favorite treats

Pita with cheese... Ridiculously good.

Mosaic of Jesus at Hagia Sofia

Amazing

Hi from the Galata Tower

Which is where we ended our day of sightseeing at sunset! What a way to close out day 2, looking out over Istanbul and two of the places we explored today from ground level... Hagia Sofia and the Topkapi Palace, home for centuries (in the 17th-19th c.) to Sultans, their grand queens, and concubines, eunichs, princes and slaves. There was no mention of princESSES sadly, the girls born to the Sultans weren't mentioned (booo!). But besides that sad, cold reality of life (in certain times and certain parts of the world) the Topkapi Palace was an extraordinary view into the lavish lifestyles of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire. We saw every jewel you can think of, encrusting everything from baby basinets to daggers, to flasks, to thrones. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, saphires, topaz, onyx, pearls, you name it... They made the Hope Diamond seem very lonely and almost (almost) small.
And the rooms of the palace shouted "SPLENDOR" with their dome ceilings and mosaic tiles. But to live there (unless you were the Sultan) was for most of his harem, to live a life of imprisonment. A beautiful prison, but a prison none the less. The concubines, eunichs, and princes were not allowed outside the gates, to protect the Sultan's hold on power.
I'd love to write more, because the Hagia Sofia blew me away, but it's late and tomorrow we wake up early to go to Cappadocia! I will upload a couple photos if I can from the rest of our day. I don't know if our next hotel will have internet or wireless but since it's in a more remote area I'm thinking possibly not. So until next time, love from here to you!!

The Blue Mosque, ancient Byzantine art, and a little rain

We had a somewhat rainy day today, but a $4 umbrella from a street vendor and some incredible sights made up for it.
We started out at The Blue Mosque, a 5 minute walk from our hotel. The intricate mosaics and beautiful frescos covered every inch of the walls and domes. With the predominat color weaving everything together being blue, the fav color of the Sultan who built the mosque in the erly 17th century. It's the "young" mosque in our neighborhood! Tomorrow we visit the OLD mosque, Hagia Sofia, originally a church of Constantinople, built in the the 6th century, and way later was converted to a mosque by the Turks (shout out to Mrs. Fender!). Tomorrow we will visit Hagia Sofia right when it opens because today by around 11 the place was packed. We also visited the Grand Bazaar today, and we plan to go back later to make a few purchases! We also made our way by public bus (yay us for figuring that out!) to the Kariye Museum, which has really incredibly preserved mosaics and frescos from the 14th century. Ironically the reason for how well they've held up stems from the church's conversion to a mosque. All the scenes from the New Testament were plastered over and thus protected until they were uncovered in the 1940's!!! They are (according to Fodor's) some of the finest examples of original Byzantine mosaics and frescos in the world. That's all I can report tonight because my thumbs are tired! These entries are coming to you from my blackberry courtesy of the free wireless at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Love, besos y abrazos! Meagan

Dinner in Istanbul on night 1

View of Blue Mosque from hotel

Arriving just in time for rush hour (bad) and sunset (good!)

After flying out of Atlanta yesterday at 5:30 p.m., we arrived at about the same time the following day in Istanbul. Our connection in Barcelona had a short delay, and that plus the 7 hour (I think) time difference had us arriving at the Istanbul airport at about 6 tonight. We are staying in the "Golden Horn" also known as "old Istanbul" or as Enrique just called it "the center of the action." Our "pension" hotel has the most amazing rooftop views of Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque (which is why I picked it!). We haven't done too much tonight, exxcept eat some great Turkish food around the corner from our hotel. We are jetlagged and worn out so I'm going to sign off for now! I will try to post a couple pix that I took if I can figure out how from my blackberry. Love from Turkey! Meagan

Turkish Delight

Tomorrow we embark on our trip to Turkey! We'll arrive on Friday, May 21 and spend the first three days exploring Instanbul. I'm really looking forward to seeing Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque (we'll have views of both from the rooftop of our hotel!), and exploring the Bosphorus waterway, which separates Europe from Asia.
Then we'll take a 4 day tour to Cappadocia, Pamukkale, and Ephesus, come back to Istanbul for a few more days before we head home.

Here is our itinerary the 4-day Tour:

24 th May 2010
NORTH CAPPADOCIA TOUR
08:00 We will Pick up from Cosmopolitan Park Hotel & transfer to Ataturk Airport.
10:05 Depart from Istanbul.
11:15 Arrive in Kayseri. Met on arrival & transfer to Cappadocia.
11:45 Full day tour of North Cappadocia. In this day you will be able to see:

DEVRENT VALLEY: Devrent is situated on the northern slopes of Aktepe, 1km from Pasabaglari (Monks’ Valley) and 5 km from Avanos. The ruins at Devrent are spread over three valleys, which also house several pointed fairy chimneys with large stems.
MONKS VALLEY: The best place to see three-headed fairy chimneys. Pasabag, the Pasha's Vineyard, is surrounded by incredible natural rock formations; a spectacular scene.
AVANOS: A center of terra cotta work of art since 3000 BC, it is a town where you will be invited to visit a traditional pottery workshop, which is possibly set deep into the hillsides. The clay, which comes from the Red River passing through the town, gives life both to the land and to the local economy.
GOREME OPEN AIR MUSEUM: Goreme was an important Christian centre in the early years of the Middle Ages, was a bishopric administered by Mokissos near Aksaray in the 11th and 13th centuries. Despite the vast numer of monasteries, churches and chapels in the vicinity of Göreme, there are not many inscriptions bearing dates. For this reason, these religious buildings are mainly dated according to the iconography or architectural features.
UCHISAR: Uchisar is a troglodyte town situated right in the middle of Cappadocia. It is named after the enormous piece of rock in the center of the town, which was once used as a castle. This extraordinary rock is the highest peak of the area with the view of whole Cappadocia and Erciyes (Argeus) Mountain.
After the tour, you will be transferred back to your hotel at around 18:00. Overnight in Cappadocia. Sos Cave Hotel (Included meals: Lunch)

25 th May 2010
SOUTH CAPPADOCIA TOUR
Breakfast & check out the hotel.
09:30 You will be picked up from your hotel for Full day tour of South Cappadocia. In this day you will be able to see:
KIZILCUKUR: is an isolated valley behind Urgup. It has beautiful rock formation with some great hidden rock-carved churches. The most interesting part of this area is the countless tracks connecting the small villages and towns through vineyards and gardens like a spider net. It is always possible to see villagers working in the area and offering grapes, apples or apricots to you. CAVUSIN: One of the oldest settlements in the area, Cavusin is situated 2km from Goreme, on the Göreme-Avanos road. The Church of St.John the Baptist offers a panoramic view of the village. This church and its paintigs date back to the 5th century, making the oldest church in the region. It had a large courtyard which is unusual for Cappadocia, this has been eroded away however.
HOSPITAL MONASTRY: One of the oldest monastries in Cappadocia.
KAYMAKLI: Kaymakli and Derinkuyu underground cities are the two largest and deepest of the 40 others in Cappadocia. They both have eight floors, although not all are open to the public.
PIGEON HOUSE: Visit the pigeon houses and rock formations.
After tour overnight bus to Pamukkale with non smoking, fully air-conditioned bus at 20:00 (duration 11 hours).There are three breaks on the way for your personal needs. (Included meals: Breakfast & Lunch)

26 th May 2010
PAMUKKALE & HIERAPOLIS TOUR
Arrival in Pamukkale and transfer to hotel to fresh up before start tour.
You will be picked up from your hotel for Full day tour of Pamukkale & Hierapolis. In Pamukkale, you will see the Cotton Cliffs, one of the natural wonders of the world formed by deposits of calcareous salts. Also visit the ancient ruins of the City of Hierapolis with its basilica , theatre and Roman Baths. At the end of the day, we will drive to your hotel in Kusadasi for dinner and overnight stay in Kusadasi. Derici Hotel
(Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner)

27 th May 2010
FULL DAY TOUR OF EPHESUS & THE HOUSE OF VIRGIN MARY
09:30 You will be picked up from your hotel for Full day tour of Ephesus & The House of Virgin Mary. First you will visit The Temple of Artemis, which once was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Then you will visit the world famous ancient Greco-Roman City of Ephesus, the most well preserved example in the world. After visiting this impressive site, you will have a lunch break. After lunch, you will visit The House of Virgin Mary, where it is believed she spent her last days. This is a holy place for both Christians and Muslims. After tour transfer to Izmir airport then flight to Istanbul at 21,30 pm . Upon your arrival in Istanbul we will meet you at the airport and transfer to Cosmopolitan Park Hotel. End of tour and services. (Included meals: Breakfast & Lunch)

2.5 years later...Egypt post continued

So I realized tonight, while I uploaded some photos from past trips, that Egypt's entries drop off a ledge out of nowhere. I remember what happened... no internet for the last week of our trip, but so much of our trip... Agra, Abu Simbel, Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, our Nile Cruise... I know I kept a written journal of those days, and at some point when I have some free time I should transcribe those days, plus the trips before I started keeping an electronic "diary" of our travels... China, South Africa, and a lot of days from our Russia trip, when we rarely had internet access. But for now, here are some photos from the rest of our Eygpt trip at least, only 2.5 years late.

One last night in Bangkok

I had to add one more post, if only for my own memories, when I come back to read this blog months and years from now. Our last night in Bangkok we went to the rooftop patio of a skyscraper with the most amazing views of the city way down below. As the entire country celebrated their beloved King's 82nd birthday, we toasted him too, watching NO LESS than 22 fireworks displays going off all around us (I tried to count and lost track) ... fireworks everywhere from boats and docks along the river, to a huge public gov't sponsored celebration, to small village celebrations far in the distance... the "Sky Bar" was an expensive 5-star hotel/retaurant/bar/etc. -- expensive even by U.S. or Euro standards (!!) but so worth it for the views and for one last look at the city on our last evening. We made it back to the hotel around 10 PM and slept for 4 hours before taxi'ing it to the aiport at 2:00 AM for our 5:30 AM flight. Which is why I am now GOING TO BED!! But what a wonderful last night in Bangkok and what a way to go out with the King's birthday celebration.

Home sweet home

After 24 hours in transit from Bangkok to Tokyo to Atlanta, we are home safe and sound! Two weeks was just enough to see what we wanted to see, not feel rushed, and return just before we probably would have started to really miss the comforts of home. For a first trip to Thailand I think we spread it out just about right, spending the right amount of time in all of the various places we wanted to see. Were I to spend a month in Bangkok, I'd love to spend more time everywhere - it would be easy to chill out for a week at Ko Raya, snorkeling every day, and hitting the water and beaches before the tour boats arrive on Ko Phi Phi; and I'd love to do a Mahout training course in the northern country (Mahout's are the elephants' caretakers, and all the camps offer 1-2 week courses where you stay and liver there, and Enrique and I both said one day we think that would be awesome); and I'd love to see other parts of Cambodia - although for only having two and a half days there, I can't imagine I'd love anything throughout the country more than Angkor Wat, so I'm so glad we spent our time there exploring those temple ruins.
Speaking of Angkor Wat, which I never had a chance to post about... the temple complex is set in the middle of a jungle, complete with monkeys roaming around on the sides of the roads. When the temples were discovered in the 1800's, most of them were overrun with all sorts of jungle growth, expecially Sponge Trees, which have above-ground roots that drape and wrap over and around walls and monuments, eventually pulling sandstone blocks down and crumbling the structures, with the help of other forces, like time and monsoon season. Well one of the temples, which has a Cambodian name I can't recall and is also known as "The Jungle Temple" they left in tact with the sponge tree and their roots climbing the walls and draped around doorways and relics... and it is BEAUTIFUL. They have to be careful to cut back and remove any growth that puts the site in too much jeopardy, but what they are able to leave behind leaves plenty of opportunities for insane photos that look like they're from an Indiana Jones movie or an elaborate Disney ride. Actually, I think our tour guide mentioned that the movie "Tomb Raider" (the final scenes maybe??) were filmed in this temple (Angelina Jolie starred in it - I never saw it), which was no shock. The other two most famous temples in the complex are the actual "Angkor Wat" temple (which the entire area is named for), which is the one you see in most of the photos when you google the complex, because it is the largest by far and most well preserved. Centered with five towering hives, shaped to look like a closed Lotus bud, it reminded me on Kajuraho in India and no surprise, though Cambodia is mostly a Buddhist country today, this temple was built during the reign of a Hindu king almost 1000 years ago. All of the many temples ruins at Angkor Wat fluxed back and forth between Hindu and Buddhism, depending on the King at the time. That is why in many of them, Buddha's image and face has been meticulously destroyed (likewise many the Hindu symbols of God are also marred from the times of Buddhism)... but in the third most famous temple (along with the Jungle Temple and Angkor Wat), these huge faces of Buddha are remarkably preserved and it's amazing because they pop out at you from all over these towering structures and amongst all of these ruins, these faces still remain. Even though Angkor Wat itself was by far the largest and most well preserved, I loved the Jungle Temple and the Buddha face (my own name for it) temple more. We did go back to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise as well on our last morning in Cambodia, before we went to visit a water village about an hour outside of Siem Riep (the town where Angkor Wat is located)... and that was definitely a postcard moment.
Our driver took us about an hour outside of Siem Riep to see a local water village. We took a boat out on a huge lake that grows by miles and miles during monsoon season and recedes again during the dry season. Our guide pointed out on dry land where this collection of floating homes had been during rainy season... they all have to move their homes when the rains stop and the lake shrinks, to deeper water... they are almost all fishermen and so go with the water and the fish. A collection of about 100 one-two room houses floated together on bamboo docks in the middle of this lake, and we were lucky enough to see a group of school children (the lucky ones who go to a private school) in their uniforms going from their floating classroom back to their homes (or maybe to lunch?), and we took some really amazing pictures of these Cambodian children in their uniforms, rowing their longtail boats (sort of like we'd see students leaving school on their bikes!). They all loved to wave at us and say "Hello"!
Our guide told us rather than give money to the children we'd see at the village (some of the children around the temples areas would ask for money or try to sell us postcards, etc.) we could buy them candy, something that wouldn't encourage them to beg, but that they'd still love to receive... so for about $1 we bought an entire bucket of lollipops and candies. We passed them out to the children who just LINED UP and smiled at us like we were Santa and Mrs. Claus, when we arrived by boat at a local Buddhist temple on the lake. And we threw candy to the children close enough to us while we were in the boats as well. One little boy from his house boat even jumped right in the water to go after a piece that had fallen in. We made sure after that point to only throw it where we knew we wouldn't miss!!
Anyways, it's 10:45 and I'm going to try to get back to our EST time zone and sleep through the night. I only took a 2 hour nap this afternoon, so it shouldn't be a problem.
I'll post a few pix here and more on Facebook soon!!
Love to everyone - thanks for staying in touch via the blog, Facebook, and email - it made us feel very close to home while we were far away! Love, Meagan

Ko Racha

Since I didn't have time before, I have to say a few quick words about Ko Racha, which I could not have loved more. It's also known as Ko Raya (not sure why the different spellings, but it is listed both ways, even within the area of Phuket, on local maps).

We decided to take a tour there on our last day because the beach sounded very much like Ko Phi Phi Lei ("THE"Beach) except a little less "discovered." Hardly any books mentioned it much at all (Fodor's, etc.) and the 1009 tour shops along the strip in Patong didn't really advertise it a lot. There might be 1 brochure out of 100 about Racha, while there were 90,000 posters/brochures/flyers about Phi Phi and James Bond Island. Which we LOVED and would not do anything differently, but it was time for a change!

Ko Racha was perfect. A whole day on one beautiful beach, with a 90 minute boat excursion, to go snorkeling by the coral reefs that surround the island. Where as Phi Phi had uncountable # of tourist boats lined up coming in and out (so many so that they had to rope off an area safe for swimmers, so you wouldn't have to worry about the boats), this island had no need to roped swimming areas... because there were only a handful of boats all day, and they all pulled up to the same floating dock. I stayed in the water most of the time, except for a few minutes here and there while I reapplied my 30 SPF sunscreen and let it soak in really well. We rented an intertube for $1 and two beach chairs with an umbrella for $2 and enjoyed peace and quiet. There were a couple of resorts situated on the island, and if I had to go back, although it's somewhat remote (about 45 minute speed boat ride from the south end of Phuket), I think it would be a wonderful place to call home while in Phuket.

We're at the airport now and many people are waiting for this computer, so I'll have to save Angkor Wat for another time, but we really are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy that we worked Cambodia into our trip. A 1 hour flight from Bangkok, Siem Riep was so worth the trip. Enrique compared the complex of temples ruins hidden in the jungle to the lost city of Atlantis. Our pictures from there MIGHT be the best of the trip, because the sites were so surreal; you really couldn't take a bad picture there.

I hope to post more tomorrow, either from Bangkok somewhere or from the airport when we get settled at the gate tomorrow night/Sunday morning! Our flight by the way leaves at about 5:30 AM Sunday morning (or 5:30 PM on Saturday EST in the USA). We'll arrive back in the ATL early on Sunday afternoon, and Sarah and Hank are picking us up from the airport (Sar, are you bringing Hank, Enrique would like to know? He really misses you too!!! hahaha).

Love you all!
Meagan

Koy Phi Phi, James Bond Island, and Koy Racha

I really want to talk more about our time in Phuket, before I move on to Cambodia... there has been so much to see and take in on this trip, and I feel like I really haven't done any of it justice with the short amount of time that I've had at the computer. I have 30 minutes right now, before our driver comes to take us to the airport, so I'll try to at least catch up through Angkor (with a G - I misspelled it before) Wat, where we've spent the last 2.5 days exploring in Cambodia.

Really quickly first... with minimal time to spend online, I just caught up a little... and I have to say TIGER WOODS WHAT???? WHAT??? And BILLY WAGNER, WHAT??? GO BRAVES! WOW, it is time for me to come back home and plug back into society I think!

OK, back to Phuket! On our first full day, we went to THE BEACH. Like, duh. No, I mean THE Beach, as in, the beach that was the set of the movie "The Beach"... if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, here is a quick synopsis... it's about a group of tourists who grow tired of well... other tourists and crowded, commericialized beaches (see: Patong) and are in search of the perfect, undiscovered beach in Thailand... there is a legend of one, but no one knows if it really exists until Leo Dicaprio is given a handdrawn map by a drugged out crazy person, just before he (the crazy person) kills himself and so Leo and a couple fellow travellers go off to find The Beach.

WELL, Ko Phi Phi Lei would fit that description (of paradise) perfectly, IF it were undisovered, because it is a crescent shaped cove of soft, white sand; perfectly clear and warm waters; and soaring limestone peaks, covered with tropical greenery. BUT, it's unfortunately been discovered for a long time, and because of the movie the Beach it's more popular than ever before (it was a popular site to visit before the movie too) and boatloads (literally) of tourists are dropped there for 30 minutes at a time, before reboarding their boats to go to the other side of the Island (Phi Phi Don). Despite the crowds, I still LOVED it because for some insane reason, not everyone wanted to swim, and I was in the water in about 2 seconds. Give me clear ocean water, and I want to be in it. So as long as I looked away from the beach iteself, and looked out on the limestone towers and ocean, I could forget for a while about the throngs of tourists snapping pictures behind me.

The following day we took a tour to James Bond Island (It has a "Ko"Thai name, that I can't remember at the moment). The thing to see in this bay is again the limestone towers that rise from the ocean and dot the landscape all around, instead of around just one bay, like on Koy Phi Phi. They're all around, rising up out of nowhere, like a giant chess set in the ocean.

I'm not even to Koy Racha, also known as Koy Raya, which was my favorite of the three days in Phuket, and our driver is here to take us to the airport!! I'll try to post again from Bangkok about Koy Raya, and the last few days in Cambodia - Angkor Wat is really a magical place!!

Love you all!
Meagan

Sa-Wa-Dee-Kah!

Or if Enrique said the same thing... Sa-Wa-Dee-Khrup! Which means, Hello or goodbye... It's a greeting we hear constantly! Men say "khrup"
at the end and women say "kah"... Same thing with "Thank you" which I would say... Kop-kum-ka and
Enrique would say kop-kum krap... Or something like that!!
I'm spelling these how they sound of course,
I've never seen them written down. I promised Mom a few days ago to share some of the words we'd learned, so there you go! Those are the two
we use every day. I'm typing from Enrique's blackberry whcih found the free wireless at the hotel, so this will be very brief so my thumbs
don't fall off. Phuket and the islands we've explored (or Ko - word for Island... Ko phi phi, etc) have been beautiful beyond words.
We have visited Ko Phi Phi, "James Bond Island" (where The Man with the Golden Gun" was filmed) and Ko Raya aka Ko Racha (my fav) today. We have
been snorkeling three times (twice today) and have spent more time in the ocean than on land I think. I wish I had an underwater camera to take pictures of the coral formations we've seen.
Amazing colors... Purples and oranges and bright blues, really incredible, like swimming in an aquarium. A really pychadelic aquarium. My thumbs now are about to fall off so that's it for now! We fly to cambodia tomorrow to see Ankor Wat (google it, I don't have time to go into it but I promise it is really neat)! Love you all! Xoxo!

In Phuket! But first, back to those Tigers...

We are at THE BEACH!! Actually, so far we haven't seen too much of the beaches that the legends are made of, but we will tomorrow when we take a boat to Phi Phi Island (possibly where they filmed "The Beach," the Leonardo DiCaprio movie??), which is supposed to be spectacular with perfect white beaches and clear water, limestone pilings, etc! Our hotel is beautiful, but in a very busy area of Phuket that reminds us of a mix between Cancun and South Beach... not necessarily a good thing!! But the hotel itself is soooooo peaceful and beautiful that we'll be just fine hanging out here in the evenings and spending the days at the beach.

So back to Chaing Mai, the northern part of Thailand we flew out of this morning. Yesterday we visited the "Golden Triangle," most well known throughout history for the Opium trade... now a days, a conviction of harvesting/selling/dealing Opium in Thailand will get you a DEATH sentence... they are not kidding around. Anyways, now it's known for great views and a popular market that sells goods from Burma, Laos, and Thailand. We also visited the the place where the 3 countries all come together for a nice photo opp.

The day before yesterday was our favorite day in Chaing Mai, for two reasons: Elephants and Tigers. We headed to an elephant camp in the morning, where we had some really close encounters with some really huge elephants. They are such sweet animals, and reminded us a little bit weirdly of dogs, because once they knew you had a treat (in this case the treats were bunches of bananas or sugarcane) they would do anything to please and you couldn't hide them anywhere... they knew you had them behind your back and would reach their sniffers right around you looking for the goods!! The sugar cane was tied together with grass in bundles of about 6 cane logs at least. Those elephants would crunch them all in one bite (did I already say this in the last post?? b/c it really blew my mind) like a peppermint candy. These bundles were at least 8-10 inches in diameter, of solid sugarcane and they had NO problem obliterating them with one bite. They could also easily handle a whole bunch of bananas in one gulp. We would feed them just one at a time, to try to make our stash of treats last longer, and took some really great pictures in action.

After feeding them, watching them bath in the river, and seeing a show where they played soccer, painted, and performed other cute tricks (again, kind of dog-like!!), it was time to go for a ride! We climbed on to a tall platform and "boarded" our elephant (which we named the Hankster, after Sarah's dog, because he was so damn cute) while a "Mahout" (elephant trainer) sat bareback in front of us, and led the elephant for a beautiful walk through the river and on trails through the hills. To say the views were scenic doesn't do them justice. Back at camp we had a buffet lunch and then went shopping at the elephant painting gallery, and picked out a painting just like the one we had seen our elephant paint during the show (soon to be seen at Casa Fiallos!). We also saw a HUGE spider in a web stretched above one of the trails, and in my panic to run underneath it quickly, I almost ran over a 9 year old Swiss boy who unfortunately for him blocked my way. I felt really badly about that.

On the way back to the hotel, we decided to swing by the "Tiger Village," just outside of town. For $30 for both of us (cheap compared to what it cost to see the baby Cheetas in South Africa a few years ago!), we bought tickets to pet a 7 month old "Medium" Tiger We signed a waiver, promising not to sue them should we lose any fingers, etc. and were escorted back to where our medium tigers were playing. We were made to first read all of the rules, which I'll try to remember as best I can:

Only approach the tiger from behind.

Do not make any sudden movements or gestures.

Do not play or run around the tigers.

Do not pet the tiger's head or tail.

There had to be more because basically it might as well have said "DON'T MOVE!!". Oh, and my favorite one that was posted on all cages: : Do not put ANYTHING in the cages, ESPECIALLY FINGERS OR HANDS!!!!! And I'm thinking: that is until you walk right in with them, then it's OK?

So we go in with our medium tigers (there were 4 in the grassy caged area we were at), and the trainers corral one that seems a little feisty to me. Let's just say none of my pictures turned out well with this cat, because he was not happy to be taking part in this photo session and I was up and away from him in about 2 seconds. While the trainer was trying to force the now kind of pissed off tiger to sit back down so we could resume our session, I had to speak up, "No, that's OK! How about that one over there? You know, the one sprawled out on his back passed out? That is my kind of tiger." I didn't say ALL of that, but that is what I was thinking. Because I really don't need my picture with a mad tiger. So we went over to the sleeping cat, approached it from behind, knelt down, and took some great pictures. It's amazing how much easier I can smile when I don't have a snarling tiger threatening to leap at my throat at any minute (don't worry Mom, we were never really in danger... he was just a brooding teenager I think, too small still to do any major damage). So while we're with Mr. nice guy tiger (the passed out one) pissy cat decides to misbehave some more and go over to the door and leap on it like he wants to get out now and go explore the rest of the park. The trainers had to remind him who was boss, and that was my cue to go back to the other side of the fence!! Again, why they charge the most $$ to get into the cages with the adults is beyond me! I mean, I get it that it's the most popular, so they charge more... but it's the WHY is it the most popular??? that I don't get!! I would think as the risk to your life goes down, the price would go up, not the other way around. But anyways, on our way out we saw a couple, literally lying down in the grass, practically cuddling with an adult tiger (as it slept)... I sure hope that tiger didn't have a bad dream and wake up with these idiots draped all over him, because I wouldn't want to be them if he did!

OK, that's all for tonight! More about Phuket over the next few days I'm sure. Tomorrow we're doing Phi Phi Island, and then James Bond Island the next day.

Love,
Meagan

Rules of petting a Tiger coming soon

We just finished an amazing dinner in Chang Mai of grilled chicken skewers with peanut sauce and rice (for $4 including drinks for both of us!), and it's late... 10 PM our time (about the latest we've stayed up yet, and so I'm too tired to go into this tonight, but yesterday we saw an elephant paint, took a great potential Christmas Card photo on said elephant, in a river, and we pet a tiger (only a 7 month old tiger but he was plenty big enough), and did so much more, which I will write about next time. Did you know it actually costs MORE to pet a full grown tiger, which I think is just CRAZY... both that it's the most expensive option (people would pay MORE to risk their limbs and lives??) ... and that people line up to do it!! People who apparently have never heard of Sigfried and Roy.

But more on that tomorrow!! I just wanted to write a quick post to say that tomorrow we leave Chang Mai for Phuket.... this trip is going by way too quickly, but out of all the places we are visiting I might be most looking forward to Phuket. We will have internet access there, so I'll write more as soon as I can!!!

Love to everyone!
Meagan