One orangutan, two orangutan, three orangutan four...

So far this vacation has been incredibly memorable! Our first stop after arriving in Sumatra was the jungle town of Bukit Lawang, home to the Gunung Leuser National Park. We signed up for a two day, one night trek in the jungle. The other trekkers were sporting some pretty flashy backpacks and trekking gear while Shane and I hiked the jungle in crocs (on me) and chucks (on Shane) but we made do.

Gunung Leuser National park was home to an orangutan rehabilitation centre, and is now home to wild and semi-wild orangutans. A semi-wild orangutan is one who was originally in captivity but was rehabilitated at the center and now lives in the jungle. At this point they are no longer taking rescued orangutans as the park has a healthy and stable population. The park is also home to other monkeys and even some Sumatran tigers (although it is VERY rare to spot one of these).

Our guide was a charismatic fellow named Thomas who has been leading treks into the jungle for over 20 years! He was really knowledgeable about the jungle and a great guide. We were impressed with his commitment to keeping the orangutans and the forest healthy as he asserted that even our fruit rinds had to be packed out with us so that the orangutans don't get used to following around tourists for food!

This is a Thomas Leaf Monkey. They have hilarious hair.

 After a long day of trekking we got to our campsite which was near this beautiful waterfall. What a great way to wash off the grime from a day of walking in the jungle! After a delicious camp supper of various Indonesian dishes our guide told us some interesting stories about the differences between Western and Indonesian cultures.

During our trek we saw a total of 11 orangutans, including a bit of a close encounter with one named Jackie. She was one of the orangutans who was released into the wild by the rehabilitation centre so she isn't shy of humans. Jackie is a clever girl and has figured out that she should go for people's backpacks in the hope that there will be food inside. If that fails, she grabs a hold of a tourist... luring the guides into bribing her with food to make her go away. Although our guides do not normally feed the orangutans, this was a special case as they were holding us hostage! Shane noted that the orangutan's grip is surprisingly strong...

We also saw several other kinds of monkeys in the park, as well as birds and some beautiful plants. Thomas showed us all kinds of plants and trees that are used for food, medicine or other things in the jungle. We even got to taste the bark of the quinine tree (not advised, it is VERY BITTER) which helps to keep away malaria.

It was definitely an experience that neither of us will forget, it isn't every day you get to see an extremely rare ape in the wild!

Time for Vacation!

Yes, the semester is done and after we finish our weekend classes this Saturday and Sunday we'll be headed off to Sumatra, Indonesia. Sumatra is a big island right on the equator, but has fairly mountainous terrain so we may be in for a little bit of refreshing cooler weather. This is one of only two places in the world where Orangutans still live in the wild so we're really hoping for a sighting. There is a national park where apparently sightings are very common so we are definitely heading there for a visit!

We'll try to update while we're there but aren't sure about the internet access so it might have to wait.

If you're interested, more information on Sumatra can be found here and here.

Places we've been!

Looking at the map of our roadtrip made us realize that we should start a map showing all the places we've been... luckily google in its infinite wisdom has a way to do just that! Take a look!

Our Map

Songkran

Imagine Times Square in New York City at New Years, people packed into every square centimeter of space on the streets and all in a festive mood. Now picture all these people armed with water weapons. This should give you some idea of what the Songkran festival is like in Central and Northern Thailand.

Over my parents' visit, we got to see Songkran in three different cities: Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Ayutthaya. In Chiang Mai they take the holidays very seriously, turning a three-day festival into a five-day water war.

In Bangkok the downtown area ground to a halt as sidewalks were FILLED with crowds (mostly teenagers) all spraying each other like mad and generally celebrating.

In Ayutthaya there was a street party, complete with the usual spraying of water coupled with loud music and dancing.

Sometimes we liked Songkran, when it was festive and fun and people were shooting water guns at us. Sometimes we hated it, when we were just about to catch a plane and had ourselves soaked with buckets of ice water... Overall it is definitely a one-of-a-kind Thailand experience that is not to be missed! 

Overall, Songkran is a holiday that we would love to bring back to Canada, although it would probably not be best to celebrate it in April (too cold).

 Rambo with a watergun... This kid was serious!

 Getting thoroughly soaked in Chiang Mai

 View from the skytrain platform in downtown Bangkok!

Talcum paste, another Songkran tradition!

We Love Trunks

 As part of our trip to Chiang Mai, we decided to check out the Elephant Nature Park. This is a sanctuary for domesticated elephants who have been rescued from their previous lives as beggars on the street, as illegal loggers, or working in unsafe trekking camps. Many of the elephants are scarred (mentally and physically) from their previous lives, and some of them have broken legs, or even broken backs, that make it difficult for them to walk (and heartbreaking to watch). Over our day at the centre we got to feed the elephants, bathe them, and just generally hang around watching them and seeing what happy elephants do on their days off.A wonderful trip and an amazing experience!

 

Tourists in Chiang Mai

From Bang Saen we flew to northern Thailand, the city of Chiang Mai. This is a beautiful city with a charming old-town surrounded by the ruins of the 100s-of-years-old ancient city walls. We splashed out a bit and stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast in the heart of the old town, close enough to all the action but peaceful and comfortable for sleeping (it even had hot showers!). This time we decided to really get into the tourist spirit and try to do as much sight-seeing as possible over our short visit.

In Chiang Mai we got to visit some beautiful temples, our favourite of which was Wat Chedi Luang (right next to our B&B). It had beautiful dragons and elephants and was the temporary home for a whole crew of young novices who were staying at the temple. It is customary for Thai men to don the robes for at least a short period in their lives, and for these kids it appeared that it was some kind of summer-camp.

From the temples in the city, we headed up into the mountains for another temple and a hike through the jungle. On our hike we were followed by an adorable puppy (for the whole 3 hours!) and by the end I think everybody wished we could have taken him home with us.

We also enjoyed lots of yummy nothern Thai food, walks about the city, checking out the botanical gardens and touring around the markets (lots of neat souvenirs for people back home). We even got the chance to go on a lovely river cruise, a perfect way to relax after a long day of sight-seeing.

Bang Saen

From the sleepy beaches of Koh Mak it was off to the Thai holiday town of Bang Saen. This is a bustling little waterfront town where many Thais come from Bangkok on the weekends to enjoy sitting under rafts of umbrellas so that the sun doesn't actually ever touch their skin. We spent a couple days here visiting my father's PhD supervisor from long ago, who has moved out to Thailand.

While in Bang Saen we got to visit some great places like a big Chinese buddhist temple (couldn't fit more dragons on it if you tried), a mangrove swamp restoration project that is being led by the princess, and the busy pier where they sell 1 million kinds of squid. 

 Beautiful Chinese Buddhist temple. Note all the dragons everywhere (basically every pillar has a dragon wrapped around it)!

 A dog guarding "his" fishing boat at the pier in Bang Saen. He makes sure nobody sneaks aboard while the owners are selling their squids...

 Walking in the mangrove swamp. A mangrove swamp is a salt-water swamp that is muddy at low tide and covered with sea water at high tide. This was possibly Mum's favourite part of Thailand??? Upon arriving she exclaimed "wow! Look at this swamp!Look at this boardwalk! We don't have boardwalks this long in Canada!" Sadly you can't see all the gazillions of mud skippers who were fighting each other in the mud. Since they are the same colour as the dirt, it is pretty hard to get a good picture.

A Thai Buddhist temple in Bang Saen. Many stairs!

It was a great visit, enjoying some AMAZING home-cooked Thai food and some new fruits (now have a fridge full of mangosteen) courtesy of our hosts. It was neat to see a part of Thailand that is off the beaten path for English speaking tourists and catch a glimpse of what the Thais do on vacation.

Parents' Arrival in Thailand/ Koh Mak

Mum & Dad arrived safely in Bangkok after their long flight (part of which we were able to track through the Tokyo airport!) ready for all kinds of adventures! We thought we would start them off with a bang, and took them to Chatuchak market (as mentioned in an earlier post). We shopped for a bit but Chatuchak can be daunting for the most experienced, let alone two jet-lagged Canadians whose busiest city experience is probably Toronto...

After the busy first day in Bangkok we retired to the rather more peaceful Koh Mak... an island we visited early in our travels and totally fell in love with. Koh Mak is a lovely little island, fairly close to Bangkok (close enough for a long weekend visit) which is only about 16 kms away from the more famous Koh Chang. While Koh Chang is full of bars, parties and wild times, Koh Mak is teeny tiny and is home to a much quieter lifestyle. It is near the Marine National Park so is home to some pretty good snorkeling and the beaches are quiet and beautiful. To us, it is paradise. We stayed in the tiny and basic, but charming, Suchanaree resort in little thatched wooden huts where you could lie in bed under your mozzie net, listening to the sounds of the night and the sounds of the waves.

As expected, Mum is a big fan of snorkeling. She says that she is giving up terrestrial ecology to become a marine biologist and run an ecotourism outfit in Thailand. We spent a glorious day with our faces in the water, watching the antics of the reef fish.

 A jellyfish we found in the water!

 Evidence of my Thailand tan...

 Mum enjoying snorkeling!

Beautiful sunset at the end of a great day!!

Wine and Wild Animals Weekend

Well, it was definitely a different sort of holiday from the island retreats we have been on recently! This weekend we headed northeast to the National Park, Khao Yai. We started off the weekend by waking up at "sparrow's fart" (a term introduced to us by our friends) and taking the first bus up to Pak Chong where we rented motorbikes. Then the fun could begin! We biked up into the mountains and immediately noticed the cooler temperatures and the clean jungle air, as well as the monkeys hanging out on the road! For our Friday in the park we rented tents, blankets and a "mattress" from the park office. Unfortunately the "mattress" was just a THIN woven straw mat, more useful for laying out on the grass for a picnic than cushioning your rest!

Once we had our tents set up we enjoyed some lunch, and got to see what Thai people do in a national park. Unlike National parks at home, where you would get fined for so much as THINKING about feeding the animals or dropping garbage, the national parks here are a little more relaxed. This picture is of some Thai people taking pictures of a deer, they then proceded to bring it all kinds of treats, including ice cream and bananas.

These kids thought that they wanted to feed the deer, but then they got scared.

We had a great day, hiking around following traces of elephants (elephant poop). In the evening we went out on a night safari. This seemed like something that we should do as tourists in Thailand, but we weren't expecting much. We boarded the noisy old truck and headed off with a Thai man holding a spotlight as our guide. Although we didn't expect to see many animals, we saw a ton! We saw: 3 kinds of deer (including a tiny baby barking deer, about the size of a cat! so cute) 2 civets, 3 porcupines, a wild dog called a Dhole and for the finale... 8 wild elephants at a salt lick! It was so amazing to see elephants in the wild, especially since there were quite a few resorts on the way up which has some pretty sad looking elephants that they were using for tourism... sad elephants are a really hard thing to see. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

That night was a bit rough, since it was a long weekend the place was packed and there were people talking ALL NIGHT LONG! We woke up groggily in the morning and headed out on a long jungle hike. We were hoping to see some gibbons (another kind of monkey) but unfortunately they seemed to be hiding. No matter where we walked we always heard them 1 km or so behind us! However, we did have a great hike and saw some more signs of the elephants, although no luck seeing an actual elephant.

This second photo is from the observation tower at the end of our walk!

That night we headed out to a hotel, needing a little more comfort. After a much needed night's sleep we went for a tour around Thai wine country. We had no idea that this place even existed! We went to two different wineries, one of which had some really good wine! Hannah even took a turn driving the motorbike. We bought a bottle and then had to head back to check out and get back to reality... a great weekend overall!

Questions to consider when travelling in Thailand

Happy New Year!

We have just returned from ringing in the new year with a little island vacation full of reading, relaxing, snorkelling and taking pictures with our new underwater camera! We spent the long weekend on the island of Koh Tao in a beautiful little resort away from the party beach (time for some peace and quiet!). This place was ideal for spending our entire weekend just staring at fish and other sea creatures.

Sting ray!

 Snorkel mask rings...

 Diving

 Sea horse!!!!

 Our bus on the way to Koh Tao

Shane diving

 Christmas tree worms

 Parrot fish... or as Hannah has called them "Rainbow fish"

A lonely yellow fish... mostly these little guys travel in pairs.

After such a wonderful relaxing weekend we shouldn't have been surprised when we encountered a few tiny mishaps on our way home...

First of all we wondered, what do you do if it starts to rain while you are riding on a songtao (a pickup truck with two benches in the truck bed)... well, we found out that you just get wet. Luckily the rain wasn't too torrential so we arrived at the pier to meet our ferry in relatively good shape.

Unfortunately on the ferry we found out the answer to another important travelling question, does Shane get seasick? Sadly the answer to this one is yes. However, he wasn't as sick as many of the other passengers, particularly one poor girl whose sickness seemed to follow her (and us) from the boat to the pier and then even on to the bus. To get to (and leave) the island, the most economical option is to take a night bus, leaving late in the evening and arriving early in the morning, coupled with a ferry to or from the island.

On our way home we were finally being lulled to sleep (sick girl had finally settled her stomach) when suddenly there was a POP and a hiss, and the bus pulled over with a flat tire. Now, you might be wondering, what do you do if your bus has to pull over with a flat tire at two in the morning in some small town in Thailand? Why, drive slowly down the road stopping at every garage-looking place and knocking on doors of course! Our bus drivers spent the better part of an hour yelling at houses and getting barked at by soi dogs as they attempted to find someone who could fix the busted flat. Luckily they were eventually sucessful and we got safely back on the road no worse for the wear.

Long Weekend in Paradise

Wow, these Thais sure do love their holidays! This weekend was another long weekend in a row, this time we had Friday off for Constitution day. Our friends suggested that we head down south to the beach and we were more than happy to agree! After a long bus ride followed by a ride in a songtao (basically a pickup truck with two benches in the back) a long wait for the ferry and a speedboat ride over to the island of Koh Mak, we arrived in paradise.

Koh Mak is a small island near the more popular destination of Koh Chang. It is home to more beachside resorts than convenience stores and as such has a fairly small resident population and a healthy dose of tourists. It is a quiet beachside getaway, unlike its nearby neighbour Koh Chang which is renowned for its nightlife! We decided on Koh Mak because we felt like we could all use a little R&R.

Arriving in Koh Mak was like arriving in exactly what we pictured Thailand to be like. Turquoise blue water (so clear that in some of our pictures it LOOKS like we're standing on a beach when really we're in the water!) white sand and coconut palms everywhere. We spent the remainder of the day of our arrival checking out the area around our resort and figuring out where we could get some good snorkeling in on Saturday! We had a relaxing evening, some dinner and drinks and then went out for a nighttime walk on the beach where we found one of the most interesting things on Koh Mak -bioluminescent plankton! When water is disturbed near these little guys they give off a bioluminescent liquid which apparently is designed to attract other predators that will eat whatever is trying to eat the plankton! This results in really cool effects when you move your hand or feet through the water. We managed to get one of these little guys on film -not an easy feat as they seemed to be a little camera shy!

Saturday was snorkeling day and we set off at 9 in the morning with Steve, the island's resident hippie farang dive instructor. His employee Anuk -a colourful dutch hippie, took us out to the dive spots and we dove in to a whole new world. There were all different kinds of fish, big fish, little fish, colourful fish etc. They were swimming around by the thousands on top of rocky outcrops covered in coral and beautiful sea worms (look like neon coloured christmas trees). We could have sat and watched fish all day... but sadly eventually we had to head back to the resort. Equally sadly, we do not yet have an underwater camera, that may have to be someone's Christmas present since it looks like it is something that will really come in handy out here!

We spent the rest of our weekend in paradise relaxing on the beach and enjoying our new favourite treat -coconut fruit shakes. We also got to taste some of the delicious fruits of the ocean -freshly caught prawns by the kilogram! We weren't aware that you had to order ahead so we had to take a half a kilo between the bunch of us and eat them as an appetizer, and they were delicious! We dipped them into a chili lime sauce and spent the walk between the seafood place and the swiss restaurant (where we had dinner) licking our fingers. Yes, that is not a typo... there is a Swiss restaurant on Koh Mak. A Swiss man recently moved there with his Thai wife and they have opened up a little restaurant on top of a hill serving absolutely delicious Swiss, European and Thai food. We shared a plate of Jager Schnitzel and a tomato salad and then Shane and Harry split a spaghetti bolognese for dessert while the girls shared some fried bananas and iced cream. Then it was off to play in the plankton again (less spectacular the second night) before bed and catching the ferry home early the next morning... :(

At home we could travel for around 7 hours and go to Ottawa, Michigan or possibly nearly to Sault Ste Marie. Here in Thailand we travelled for around 7 hours and ended up in Paradise. We wish that we could bring everybody over to share this with us!!!!


The boat ride on the way in... other islands near Koh Mak!

The water was so clear! This is a picture of some tiny fish right off the pier.

 In this picture Shane's feet are actually under water but it is so clear you can hardly tell!

 A fishing boat. They use the lights to attract the fish at night.

 Our first snorkeling spot of the day. This island is surrounded by rock formations and coral reefs and tons of beautiful fish!

 The pier down to the beach where we had lunch :)

 Beautiful swing... so peaceful!

 Delicious delicious prawns!

 Beautiful emerald beetle :)

 Melly Thai Clissmas :) Shane with the coconut santa

 Hannah pointing at a huge crab!

 Morning beach walk :)

The inside of our little bungalow.