Bangkok and then goodbye South-East Asia

I've stayed one day in Bangkok and have managed to have 3 massages. I'm here on a Sunday so I think the city is more relaxed but there were still tones of visitors at the Royal Museum and Wat Pho. So I was templed out. These temples, unlike the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, are not ruins therefore they are still being used by local monks and local buddhists who come to pray. Wat Pho is also where they have a massage school so guess what I HAD to do once I finished visiting? You guess it... had a massage but this time only foot massage because I wanted to continue my tourist trail. After that I had to find a lunch spot. Since I was a bit tired of the crowds of tourists (not that tourists are bad but you kinda want to see the real stuff sometimes), I wandered off to nowhere land and found a nice street stall where there were many Thais having their lunch. That's usually a sign that it's good. Indeed, it was good but don't ask me what I ate. The only question I was asked was "soup of fry noodle?". I said fry noodle and got a delicious plate. Let me tell you a bit about street food, although I haven't experienced much in Thailand but mostly Vietnam. They usually have one dish which they make in a soup or with rice or noodles, and it is cheap. I know they charge more for me than locals but still 40 baht for my plate and a sprite. That's like 1.50$ Canadian, good price, good for you good for me, good for everybody. After that I went on to Soi Ban Baat which is a sector of small small streets where monk bowls are made old style. Monks live by the food offerings of the people and they have this one bowl (one of the few possessions they are allowed to have). These days many monks have plane bowls but some still want to go traditional and buy the hand-made, 8 piece steel bowl made by artisans. So, that's where I went, and a monk also came in the middle of my bargaining with the craftsman. I wanted to stay and see how much the monk got it for but as my Thai isn't good (read: non-existent) I didn't want to be a voyeur and I understand that monks as well as many locals have better prices than us "tourists", "travellers" or however we are called. It's a small price to pay for having much more money than the majority of locals anywhere from Vietnam to Thailand. It may sound condescending but it's not, I prefer to have more money and pay a bit more than to live in some of the conditions that I've seen throughout this trip. Not that we're any better but I appreciate what I have and hope that even those that I've seen in worst conditions also appreciate what they have, even it seems so little to us. I think they do.

With this I leave you all friends and my journey back to Montreal is only in a few hours. I've enjoyed and lived this trip to almost it's maximum and wish you all a wonderful year of the buffalo and hope it brings you luck!

Ko Chang - paradise island

OK for some Ko Chang can seem busy but when you find a nice quiet beach it is wonderful. For my part I have a hut at a quiet resort on Bailan Bay which is 15 minutes walking to Lonely Beach (which is not so lonely because many many resorts). In Bailan Bay there are only a few resorts, maybe 5 therefore the beach is not crowded and I would say that it's even lonely. Although I didn't do any beach time, other than having my daily massage on the beach at sunset ... yes yes... life is hard. For the last three days I've had a massage on the beach at sunset, life is hard ;-) To be honest the massage are the best I've ever had. It's a Thai massage so they do a western style massage with what I could call assisted stretching and cracking of the bones. Sounds hard but once you get the touch, it's pure magic! Add to that the sunset and the sound of the ocean and I call it paradise. Other than having massages every single day here in Ko Chang, I've gone elephant riding in the jungle and that was a first for me. There I thought I was going to ride in the seat (that looks like a ski lift) but no no, on the way to bathe the elephant I was on that seat and it felt ... well... different, unlike horse riding the elephant is more like if you would take your upperbody from left to right slowly. After the bath (which I didn't go because I saw an elephant take a HUGE dunk in there) we returned to the camp and I sat on the elephant's neck, right behind the ears. That was such an experience, I was alone on the elephant and the trainer was taking pictures. The day after, which was yesterday, I went scuba diving and the first dive was nice but the second dive was great. A lot more fishes and playing with a porcupine fish, so funny! I know we're not supposed to annoy or play with the fish, so I said sorry to the porcupine fish. My punishment for having played with the porcupine fish was having a sunburn ON MY KNEES! Not so nice and a little painful. Bad karma isn't it. My hut is nice except I keep waking up at night because I've got this hunter (don't know what animal it is but it's bigger than a cat) that jumps on the roof of my hut and then I go back to sleep and all of a sudden "squeak squeak" a poor animal get caught by this hunter and eventually dies and I go back to sleep. So I now call it my hunter versus squeaky toy moment. It's very rustic but I like it. It's pure nature. Today I went for a jungle trek, or at least I thought it would be the jungle. Well actually it was the rain forest, the thing is on Fridays it's the long hike up the highest peak of the island (750 metres) so we don't go on the side where there are monkeys. Which I would've loved to see but I still had a tremendous day, a bit exhausting but nice and right in the middle is a waterfall in which I got to bathe. This is dry season here so the waterfall doesn't have much water now, still refreshing enough for our tired bodies and since the temperature was 28 celsius we appreciated it and tried not to think of what was in the pool. I'll miss this place, as I will miss all the other places I've been to. It's the hard part to leave someplace where you've experienced so much in just a few days, everything is so much more intense. Tomorrow is Bangkok where I shortened my stay because I wanted to stay in Ko Chang longer. Unfortunately, after it's back home. Where all the effects of the massages will be crap because of the 20 hours on plane. I must find a place where they give thai massages in Montreal.

About the pictures well, it's long to download them and I'm so busy that I'll download them at my guesthouse in Bangkok... or maybe not. :-)

Cheers to you all!

Phnom Penh & Siem Reap (Cambodia) to Ko Chang Island (Thailand)

In Cambodia was quite fast for my trip but quite slow for internet therefore I didn't take the time to write here. The Mekong Delta overnight trip was a challenge but it was all worth it. A challenge because I had my luggage to transport from bus to boat, then boat to bus, then bus to boat to another boat to another and the story could go on and on. Actually one boat I had to go on I really wasn't sure how I'd do it with my luggage meaning that I had my backpack plus additional luggage and the small wooden plank was less than 1 foot wide and I had to cross it. I first did it with my backpack and then thought I'd have to go back for my luggage but a crew member just took two big luggages on each side (to balance it out) and went carried them successfully on. I think we all were seeing a disaster ahead. The overnight on the boat was just awesome for me who likes boats, slept part of my night on a hamac outside then it got a little chilly so I went to the bed (dorm beds). Everything was wonderful on that boat. In the morning we were crossing the Vietnam Cambodia border by boat which took not too long (maybe 2 hours to check everyone). The delta is wider on the Cambodian side and it is cleaner. Children waving at the boat, children washing the buffalos in the mekong, it really is very friendly in Cambodia. After the boat it was another bus to Phnom Penh the capitol. The roads in are bad here and there are more cars than in Vietnam. Curiously, the country is one of the poorest in south-east Asia but I saw riches that would make Vietnam jealous. There is a big gap between the population in Cambodia. It is a Kingdom here therefore most riches are with the king compared to communist Vietnam which seems to be more equal (compared to Cambodia). In Phnom Penh I visited the red light district (inadvertantly of course) where a ladyboy took me by the arm saying something quite joyfully to his/her friends. It honestly looked a bit like a shopping mall with the prostitutes lined up. The worst was when I saw 2 young girsl (maybe 8 and 10) dirty and with A LOT of makeup on. I didn't see anybody go towards her but I have my idea as to how they are used. That was at night where the streets change from nice to heartbreaking. In the day you see the royal palace where everything is grande and at night you see women with children sleeping on the ground. You also see many monks and beautiful temples and then you visit the S-21 (prison from Khmer Rouge regime) with the rooms where detention, torture and interrogation took place, then you go on to the killing fields where you see thousands of skulls of Kampuchean's killed after the torture and interrogation. Many contrasts here in Cambodia.

After Phnom Penh I took a bus to Siem Reap where there are many more tourists and where I saw the glorious Wats including Angkor Wat. That is once again a beautiful site for the eyes! Probably one of the beautiful wonders of the world. A whole day of visiting ancient temples that were used during the angorian times. They were also discovered because they had been hidden by the forest who had taken over of these temples. We visited from sunrise to sunset and we still haven't seen all of it but I'm still satisfied with what I got to see. Angkor Wat, Thom City, Elephant Terrace, small temples which I can't remember their names, Bayon (where there are close to 1000 sculptures of the face of bouddha) and one temple which was really taken over by the forest. Through this is the jungle therefore I got to see monkeys that go around freely and working elephants that take people up the mountain to see the sunset. I didn't want to take an elephant therefore I walked up the mountain where there was no beautiful sunset, I at least was able to capture a mini sunrise so not all is lost. There I was thinking I had only seen beauty in Siem Reap... mistake to think that. Although there is less poverty in the tourist area I still had a woman with her baby begging for milk. I was thinking of being strong and just going my way without looking back but then I went to the ATM and saw her from the window and I literally had to hold back big tears. There I was confronted to my own thoughts so I just went ahead and bought her some milk formula and she seemed very grateful about it. It got me thinking a lot. I won't go on and on about how it has changed me but this trip has changed many of my views.

I'll skip the part about my awful crossing from Cambodia to Thailand. I had the impression that it would never end. Now I'm in Ko Chang, a island in the south of Thailand. It's very peaceful and I have my own littel hut. This afternoon I'm going in the inner island to see the rainforest and jungle on an elephant. They are rescued working elephants which cannot be sent back to the jungle because they don't know how to live in the wild. We can ride and bathe them.