Back in Thailand!

Well, we officially made it back to the great Kingdom of Thailand... I'll make this post a quick one... so here are a few hastily-chosen photos!


Top of Little Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka... we hiked to the top of Adam's Peak (had to start at 2am!) but forgot to bring an extra camera battery! ... so no pictures of that one :P


Tsunami damage on the southern coast of Sri Lanka... it was very interesting a couple years later:


Arrack! Distilled coconut spirits:



The giant, modern city of Singapore... Merlion park to be exact (haha... Mer-Lion... that's what that statue is behind me):



And the tallest twin-towers in the world! The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur:


Katie laughing at a monkey in Malaysia (see, I told you monkeys were funny):



Back in Thailand!


Best thing hands-down about Thailand? Beer Chang.


We even took a cooking class in Chiangmai, during the Songkran festival... Songkran is actually celebrating the Thai New Year, but it is one HUGE 4 day long water fight -- unfortunately, we don't have any photos of it, because digital cameras hate water...


No blog post would be complete without my favorite... ruins!

In.... Malaysia!

Hello! ... It's been awhile since the last blog update (and awhile since i promised more pictures... heh) -- but, here are both! (The pictures only go through southern India, by the way)

We flew out of India and into Sri Lanka for two weeks since the last post! Sri Lanka is a really beautiful place; basically one huge botanical garden. However, one strange thing was going to places where the tsunami hit... lots of half demolished buildings, piles and rubble, and foundations strewn around ... (oh, and avoid Sri Lankan cuisine ... short eats and hoppers... bleah)

After Sri Lanka, we flew into Singapore -- Singapore is an amazing city! It's on its own island on the very southern tip of Malaysia... the whole country is only 700 km square, but the cleanliness, efficiency, and ... well ... cleanliness after being in India and Sri Lanka is astounding!

And now, to Malaysia! -- we just got to Melacca a couple of days ago, and are going to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow! After that, we've come full circle back up to Thailand... crazy...

Oh, that reminds me! ... for all of those people who read this and want to know if we're coming back, we are flying into Vancouver on the 3rd of May :( .... uhhhhh .... not that we don't want to come back to real life or anything!



You can never go wrong with beach life:



Puja ceremony in Madurai:



Vendor selling all kinds of colorful goodies at a bus station:


Ancient temple in the south:


Hiking through the 'Scotland of India'!


Night trains, baby... after 12 hours of this, you typically don't look quite so happy:


Colorful sadhus!


A street in Mysore:


Katie with her new full-length-arm-tattoo!
(alright, alright... it's only henna :)


The ancient ruins of Hampi!

Banana leaves, thali, and a farewell to Southern India

(Another post from the lovely Katie! -- Marshall)

After lunch, full of thali, dirty fingers, sweating like no other, i wonder who is playing the drums outside and chanting... probably just another sadhu... is he on his way to a dhaba (roadside tea stall) for some chai?

So we have been here what, three months and I JUST now perfected the ability to eat my thali with my hands. You scoop it with your fingers, twist your wrist and pop it in your mouth with your thumb! Here in the south, they give you no silverware, since you are given your food on a banana leaf, and spoons/forks will just make a mess (haha). So you get down and dirty! Marshall told me that he mastered the "hand eating technique" about 2 weeks ago, thanks for letting me know!

So here we are in Mahabalipuram, just about 2 hours by bus... so that is like 30 km (seriously!) from Chennai, where we are flying out to Sri Lanka on the 7th. We visited many temples and, no joking here, more ruins! wheeeee! But one thing that we are taking care to do, is avoid the tourist traps and really indulge in India as much as possible. Days have gone by where the only other tourist I see is Marsh, who IS white enough to count for two...

Heard rumors that Sri Lanka is considered "diet india" so it looks like we are in for some smooth sailing from here on for the next two months before we head on home.

(PHOTOS COMING SHORTLY!)

Travel plans!

Alright, sorry for the lack of blog updates (ie. one in the last couple months... heh), but it really is hard to find internet cafes in india capable of reading SD cards! *grumble* *grumble* -- hopefully some new pics soon!

At any rate, we are currently in a city near the south tip of india called Mysore! Pretty nice place... full of the typical indian-city-insanity :) We travelled from Mumbai in a southernly direction, through Goa (beaches... ahhhhh yeaaaah), then through Hampi (extensive ruins in an environment straight outta the Flintstones (pictures will clear this one up!)), to Mangalore, then Madikeri and Kokkabe (did some hiking around the 'Scotland of India'), and finally to here!

Also, we *just* bought plane tickets to fly into Colombo, Sri Lanka for a little over two weeks! From there, we are going to fly into Singapore and travel up through Malaysia, into Thailand (all roads lead to Bangkok it seems) ... then ... i have no idea! -- possibly Myanmar?

For those who do (and do not) care, we're flying out of Chennai, India into Colombo on the 7th of March... from there, we're flying back out of Colombo on the 23rd into Singapore -- don't worry, this time, we went for SriLankan Airlines (as opposed to flying Bangladesh Air last time :))

'Til next update! Marshall

Photos of India! Finally!

(Here's a post from Katie! -- Marshall)

Look at that! Here is is, at 3 and 1/2 months into our fantastic adventures and i get to put a few words down on the blog!

Whoooo! TALK about cul-ture-SHOCK! i was so surprised to cross the border into India, and within minutes get into a yelling match and having THAT cost us an unreasonable amount of money - all that we had on us, in fact. So the introduction to India consisted of 10 hours on a government bus, with no food and no money... and NO ROOM! i have never had a sorer butt, or a worse headache! after that, we decided... never again will we take the bus - (that, and since we arrived, I think that the number of people that have died IN bus accidents has equaled the population of Bellingham.) That is, until we just about froze to death taking a train from Allahabad to Agra, where it was so cold that even my MP3 player, would not work. but never mind that, i couldn't see enough to work it anyway because my eyes were stinging so bad from the stench of urine! numm-y! so, back to the buses, we said! only now to feel that every ride, will in fact... be our LAST! but we have made it so far, unharmed. we have had friends who haven't been so lucky...

But after getting used to the extreme differences in culture that i will never understand, we are having one fabulous adventure after the next. I'll let you know that seeing Marshall step out of the dressing room in tight black leather pants for his breathtaking debut as bartender #2, in a Bollywood production, made all the woman swoon. Or how about, discovering that "no Katie, food on the bed WILL attract animals" after discovering rat poop all over the cement slab that the locals delightfully call a "bed." Or on new years, getting locked into our guesthouse grounds, because, as the owner said, "people will be d r i n k i n g ...we take no responsibility... if you leave .... you are on your own." BOY did he have ME convinced, it was a LOT of hair pulling to get me to say ok to even going outSIDE. yet we all did persuade him to let us out for "only 1/2 hour" come 11:30 pm. little did he know that we went, on the sly, to find some whisky a few days previous... but TRUST ME! i felt like i was buying heroin in the ghetto of New York City... was i going to be arrested? whatever i was doing felt SO wrong, just thinking about it makes me feel guilty!!

Our photos here are of some of India's coolest places... boy was the Taj one of the most amazing places! the "caves" at Ellora and Ajunta were 'rockin' awesome as well, these temples were carved out over the course of hundreds of years by thousands of lucky buddhists - but i think that it was worth it...

the food, as you can see Marshall munching on is colorful and flavorful, and has never gotten EITHER of us sick! we have found our favorite foods here tho, roasted soy nuts, Parle-Gs, and some good 'ol stikki chikki (peanut brittle). one thing that we never leave home without, a DO-RAG! that is so that we can wipe off those bhindis that keep getting dotted on our heads by the sadhus... sometimes a simple "NONONONONONO" just doesn't suffice. BUT, as you can see in the photo, sometimes it is fun to get one. like when we were invited into a holy man's home (the blue structure with the sun to the left... setting) and got our fortunes told while drinking chai (where i was thinking the WHOLE time, please don't be "special" chai, please don't be "special" chai!) So what did we learn from the non-english speaking sadhu? ahhhh, i am to have two children, and either Marshall and i are going to be together forever... or i am going to die soon and he is going to re-marry. whatever it is - the sadhu found it very funny and grunted a lot. but the chai was fantastic! Oh, and to let you know - we had a very wonderful christmas, complete with grease-stained tree, and newspaper cut out stars - we felt right at home ... in India.


Mumbai from the Arabian sea (Bombay to all us westerners):


Ellora and Ajunta caves -- fantastic caves carved in solid rock (ala Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade style):




Our christmas tree and typical lame-family-pose:


Making keg-cups New Years '06!


By the river in Omkareshwar:



A photo of the Sadhu's house and us with bindis on our heads:



At the ruins of Orchha and Mandu:







A puja ceremony in Varanasi (note the guy in white body paint... a devoutly religious sadhu):


Tomb in Allahabad:


Mmmmmmm... Thali -- all you can eat Indian food!


The infamous Taj Mahal... Without a doubt the most beautiful man-made structure I've ever seen:


View of the Taj from Agra:


Aaaaaaahhhh -- sweet relief:


On the tropical beaches of Goa!:

Taj Mahal, ruins, caves, and all kinds of goodness

Hello! I'm posting this to let everyone know that I am indeed still updating the blog! ... Unfortunately, we still haven't found an internet cafe in India capable of reading SD cards -- well, I did find one, but it was a 28.8 dialup connection -- kind of ironic, really

Anyways, India is an amazing place! ... We went from Varanasi to Agra (Taj Mahal!), then slowly south through a number of different places. As the title of the post suggests, through plenty of ancient ruins, 2000 year old Buddhist caves carved in solid rock, temples, an island shaped like the Om symbol, etc etc etc...we were even invited for chai into the house of a sadhu!

Next, we're going to Mumbai (Bombay), then south to the tropical beaches of Goa... Lazing around on a beach for the next couple of weeks doesn't sound half bad!

Hopefully everybody had a great christmas and a happy new year!

Made it to India

We made it to India! Actually, we got here a couple days ago, I just haven't had a chance to update the blog... And unfortunately, it's proving difficult to find an internet cafe that I can plug the camera into! So no more pictures as of yet.

Currently, we're in Varanasi (considered to be the most holy city in India). Despite the fact that the city is loud, overcrowded, and dirty, its been extremely interesting! We've seen everything from cows and monkeys in the streets, to elaborate wedding processions, fireworks, public cremations, and even a dead body floating in the Ganga River!

Within the next day or two, we are planning on going from Varanasi to Orchha -- so stay tuned for future updates! Hopefully with accompanying pictures :)