Thai Hospitality

If anyone is ever looking to do absolutely nothing for a week and just sit and relax on a beach, we have (with the help of our visitor Matt Loebman) discovered the place to go. The proprietors, Mr. Chai and his family, have built a remote jungle and beach bungalow on the small island of Koh Jum called Old Lamp Bungalows. To reach this island you board a ferry bound for Koh Lanta from Krabi and about halfway through the boat stops, some longtails pull alongside and you hop down to be sped away to the beach. I'm sure the longtail boat was developed for food fishing purposes but now they are being used for tourist fishing.

In the mad peak season rush to book a hotel in advance, we just picked this island and this hotel almost randomly (thank you KohJumOnline for your help) and we definitely got lucky. We spent 10 days and 9 nights relaxing, eating great Thai homecooking, hanging out with our new friends Jo-Jo and Mr. Mango, and being pampered by Mr. Chai's 5-star hospitality. The care and attention Mr. Chai's family put into the place really came across, whether by way of the freshly baked bread, homemade peanut butter or offers to make Coffee and Chocolate Shakes for us.

Thanks to Matt for coming half way across the world to hang out with us. We hope you had as much fun as we did.

Thailand So Far...

BANGKOK

CHIANG MAI

PAI

Thailand

So we've made it to Thailand and despite experiencing a bit of culture shock and a mutual desire to return to China (didn't see that one coming) we seem to have settled into the more relaxed pace of this country. One aspect that has really thrown us for a loop is the sheer size of the tourism industry in this country. Yes, we have arrived in the middle of the peak season, but we were not expecting to be greeted by this many tourists and tourist-centric activities, restaurants and hotels. In China we had to fend for ourselves, and here its almost as if everything is available at our fingertips. Neither is worse or better, its just different.

Currently we are in the small Northern town of Pai. Having spent our first five days in the bustling metropolis of Chiang Mai, this little riverfront town with its strong SF hippy/gypsy chic-vibe has provided us with the perfect locale to just sit back and do nothing for a few days. Aside from relaxing, we trekked for two-days to visit local hill-tribe communities (blog posting on the experience to follow), and tomorrow we take a ride with the Elephants!

In a few days we will head down South for a bit of touring near Bangkok before heading down to the islands for more R&R. I'm looking forward to that!

Asia's Sin City

Well, I've never been to Vegas, but something tells me they don't just give out free tea and coffee spiked with that dangerous ingredient, molasses. Genevieve has assured me that the real Sin City is much bigger and crazier than the ex-Portuguese island state of Macao. To get there from Hong Kong we took a turbojet ferry which takes about an hour of not so pleasant seas. After passing through immigration and getting over our sea legs we hopped on one of the free shuttles from the ferry terminal to the Wynn. Genevieve was initally disappointed by this place as the one in Vegas is supposedly much bigger.

It was here though that we discovered and learned the intricacies of what must be Asia's favorite gambling game, Sic-Bo. It quickly became our favorite as it allows low minimum bets and requires absolutely no skill. The whole premise is you bet on the outcome of 3 dice being rolled. The betting board looks similair to a roullette board, but with numbers and different dice combinations. The easiest bets, which pay 1 for 1, are even/odd and small (4 to 10)/big (11-17). You can also bet on specific sums, double dice rolls, triple dice rolls, specific combinations of the dice and all sorts of other silly bets. We became big fans of big, even, and the number 14. Somehow by playing this game at the Wynn, the Sands, the Grand Lisboa, and the Venetian, we were able to run our initial investment of 1500 HKD between the 2 of us to around 4000 + HKD and then lose it all. Such are the up and down swings of Sic-Bo.

Macao wasn't a totally losing proposition. We did manage to stuff ourselves twice. First for lunch we were tempted by the house specialty sandwiches at the Grand Lisboa cafe. Genevieve opted for the Monte Cristo sandwich while I went for the Monte Cristo Club. We also ordered the specialty of fried bacalao. You can see my great discomfort in eating our lunch of palm oil disguised as a sandwich and fish ball in the picture. We made up for it that night by finding a Fatburger in the Venetian canals (I believe they have one in Italy as well) and opting for that instead of one of the 30 various asian food stalls. Watching the guys behind the counter work make you appreciate a proper American fast food hamburger assembly line. While the burgers and fries were delicious, they were not exactly piping hot after the workers spent too much time perfectly placing pickles, lettuce and tomatoes. It was delicous though.

We turbojetted back to Hong Kong a bit sad we had lost money, but we made up for it the next day by going to the Happy Valley Jockey Club and winning it big - a whole $9 HKD.