Snakes and Leeches and Scorpions, Oh my!

What a day! We spent 12 hours on a jungle trek in Khao Yai national forest. Reading through our guidebooks, they "strongly suggest" taking a guided tour through Khao Yai as tourists guiding themselves have a tendency of getting lost in the 800 square mile forest and needing to be rescued. After our tour, we have to agree that this is sound advice.

The trek itself was amazing though. We saw fields of monkeys by the side of the road, a few hornbill birds (as neat as birds could be, though they were still birds), and barking deer.

The forest had its host of dangers though. During the course of the day, we had to dodge a zillion leeches (really, a zillion, no exaggeration), a white-lipped pit viper, a pissed-off burmese python (our guide ended up picking this guy up by his head and tossing him away from the trail), a giant spider, and the piece-de-resistance, an 8 inch scorpion that somehow (thanks to our clever guide) ended up on Miah's shoulder.

We can't really do the experience justice in any way other than the photos, so we've posted a few here and there are some up on flickr as well. However, if you ever make it to central thailand, we can recommend a tour guide.

Hugs!

TeamWander

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/31348233@N05/)

Geez, 5 days...

We're sorry, Thailand is just amazing, and we haven't been as diligent about blogging duties. So we'll try to post two or three tonight to get everyone back up to speed.

First things first, after we got to the end of our harrying travel adventure in to thailand, we somehow stumbled on one of the most fantastic places that we have seen so far on this trip: Ayutthaya, Thailand. It's the former capitol of thailand and super rich with cultural history (lots and lots and lots of temples). It is a manufactured island of maybe 8 sq miles that sits at the confluence of 3 rivers. Everywhere you turn there are ruins of ancient temples and fortresses as well as all of the modern day ones that have been built alongside. One of our favorite places had a tree that had grown around the head of an old Buddha statue. We were able to climb down to the crypt and up to the top of these ancient structures. One of the modern temples had a tremendous Buddha (6+ stories tall) seated inside. He filled most of the main sanctuary of the temple and it was evident that the room had been built around him.

This was our first foray in to local thai food. and it's incredible. with few exceptions, everything we have eaten has been fantastic, and cheeeeeeeeeeap. One of the food pics we actually remembered to take before devouring our meal was from our favorite restaurant so far on the trip... Liza this one's for you:

A funny story about this meal is that for the most part, the portion sizes in Southeast Asia have been much smaller than everyone in the states is used to. It's kindof refreshing actually to leave a meal and not be completely stuffed. However for this meal, everything looked so good and we were so very hungry that we decided to order three dishes. Coincidentally, this is the one restaurant we've been to where the portion sizing rule didn't apply. Needless to say, we ended up with mountains of food on our table and "had" to force our way through every bit of it. Rough life.

We've posted a bunch of the pics related to this post that can't fit in the blog on our flickr site.

Hope everyone is great!
TeamWander

And We've Made It To Thailand (easier said than done)

We commented back to you guys to answer some of the questions we got from the last post (keep them coming, it's awesome).

But to the story... Yesterday we managed to crawl out of bed super early to try to catch the bus from Kuantan to Kuala Lumpur. Little did we know that it was the Sultan's birthday, which is apparently quite a big deal, and a four-day weekend for everyone. So they were all at the bus station trying to head somewhere else, there was not a single bus seat to KL (five hours away), and we had a flight to catch that afternoon.

As is customary, we were mobbed by the taxi drivers as we left the station and when they asked if we wanted a taxi and we responded, "yes, across the country," they didn't look at us like we were crazy. They just said, "I Know a guy..." and proceeded to drive us to the taxi driver hangout and invited us to join them for breakfast. (By the way, the Malaysians make the most incredible coffee we've ever tasted). Their "guy" then drove us on windy back roads through the jungle (which has sadly now been mostly turned into palm tree plantations) at 90+mph. Needless to say, we made the trip in 3.5 hours and were plenty early for the flight.

We thought that might be the end of the adventure, but of course not. Apparently they don't book seats on AirAsia flights so there was just a mob of people, in what used to be a cargo terminal, trying to fight to be first in line so they can sit where they want in an extremely hot plane. We were definitely ill-equipped for the struggle.

Anyway, upon reaching Bangkok, we somehow managed to get a bus across town (which also takes a couple hours since the traffic rivals NYC at rush hour), catch a train from a station where we could not understand any signs or anyone, and make it to the town of Ayutthaya where we are staying. The best part of the trip was the last five minutes where we got to ride in a tuk-tuk to the hostel, which is a little three- wheeled truck that you climbed in the back of...looking a lot like a cross between a tricycle and an open-topped VW van. But we're here and so excited!!

The Camera Works Underwater (Leslie's new do)

Yay! The camera that my dad loaned us for the trip is actually waterproof. At first, we couldn't believe that it was true. But apparently, it is (it still turns on at least). This is a cool, cool thing. Team wander gives two thumbs up for things that work underwater, especially since that's where we spent most of this past week.

This is the pool at the resort, a comfy swimming temperature. We don't however have any pictures of us in the ocean because we're pretty sure the ocean water is boiling. It's a solid 85-90 degrees in the ocean. It's the craziest thing ever, but needless to say, when it's 100 degrees outside of the ocean and 90 inside the ocean, the ocean doesn't turn out to be all that refreshing.

The resort is set about 15km from the nearest town, but the restaurants inside are very boring (and expensive), so each night we've been trekking down the road to find these tiny restaurants whose menus (and owners) we cannot understand at all. So far, this plan has not failed us at all, although we have ended up with some crazy dishes (we'll start taking pictures for you Liza, that's a great idea.) One icy dessert that's worth noting is called cendol and at first glance looks like a regular snow cone, but as you start getting into it, you find black beans and strange green noodles. Delicious though!

We braved the bus this morning just so we could get to the internet cafe and write a message to everyone. The comments waiting for us made us sooooooo happy. Somehow we got lucky and only had to wait half an hour, apparently they only come by 2 or 3 times a day. The driver just slows down and as you are climbing in, he starts going again. It was so full we were standing on the steps driving down the road.

Aaaaand, for those of you asking about the new travel 'do, here you go....


We hope everybody has a great next couple of days, we miss you all!!

Love,
TeamWander

Post Flood

Finally a chance to write a little bit when we're not fighting back sleep or sketchy, slow computer labs. We spent one more day in Kuala Lumpur, more than enough time in such a big city for us. We hit the proper tourist center of the city and went up in the Petronas Towers for a birds-eye view of the city, 170m or so up in the tallest set of double towers in the world, complete with an 8minute glorification of the oil company who built them. Then we headed to an amazing market and just got lost in rows and rows of fruits, veggies, and whole animals (think splayed chicken legs and bulging fish eyes). Eat your heart out Anthony Bourdain. We ended up with some unknown curry food for lunch that was excellent.
Yesterday morning we made a cross country trek to Kuantan on the east coast. Here we're having our "proper honeymoon" aka, not having to straddle a toilet in order to take a shower. We're staying at a nice resort on the beach (thanks Mom!) and plan on having a very relaxing week. Might be another week (and on to a new country) before you hear from us again. Jumpa lagi!

Flooding in Kuala Lumpur

We made it to KL (yay!). It's a crazy melting-pot of a city and though we've only really seen about 6 hours of what it has to offer we've been lost at least once in each of those six hours.

It's late and we've been chugging away at a computer for 1.5 hours trying to tickets up to thailand booked, so we won't be too verbose here, but here are a few of the highlights...

We spent a few wonderful days hanging out in Chinatown in Melaka, Malaysia, eating all kinds of crazy food and hanging out in life-sized pirate ship replica museums (pictures to come in the next picture post). It was hot there. Verrrry hot, and sweaty. And our hostel, though run by the most gregarious of people (we'll call him Howard, for the sake of brevity) we have met here to date, did not have any A/C. So we had three sweaty days of awesomeness. From the first moment we were there, he insisted that we (along with every other hostel guest he ran across) join him for a food adventure that evening. Picture seven westerners (and howard) having fondue... except the fondue is actually a boiling pot of satay sauce, and the items put in the satay sauce are gathered from a giant buffet full of skewered (and sometimes unidentifiable)goodies, including, but not limited to the biggest shrimp we have ever seen. Again awesome, and amazing that we escaped food-poisoning free.

On our first day in KL we met up with the Rain. I thought I had seen rain before, down in florida, on a muggy summer night. But compared to this, that floridian rain was a sprinkle. We were standing at a corner, waiting for a break in cars to cross a street (dry, at this point). We made it half-way across the street and stopped in the median to wait for a break in the cars coming the other direction (a mild sprinkle at this point). By the time we got to the far side of the road, we were both soaked to the bone... completely. Somehow in the amount of time that it took us to wait for a break in the cars and cross the road, the bladder of heaven opened up and we were caught in the deluge. It was ridiculous.

Last note, before we turn in for the night (and we apologize for the lack of editing and coherence in this post, we're sleepy). Today we went to a mall. It was ten stories tall and had a theme park included inside. Within the theme park was a roller coaster that stretched over at least 5 of the interior stories and did a loop-de-loop. Mall of America, look out.

Hugs,
Team Wander

PS. Miah convinced Leslie to chop all her hair off. He has a hot wife.

Flickr

We started a flickr site to satiate your curiosity. The entry for today is a pictures only entry, mostly because it's 80 zillion degrees and we're sweaty and lazy. A lot of them are from the ones my dad took at the wedding. Dad, hopefully I took out the ones you weren't as proud of. Everybody, have fun!! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/31348233@N05/)

No 2

We're on our last day in Singapore. We think it might be too overwhelming to try and pack all the stories from the past few days in to a single blog entry, so instead we're going to choose a select few.

... Meant to be ...
We were about 22 hours in to our 24 hour journey to Singapore (hooray for Ambien), curled in to tight little balls of sleepiness and restless energy on the back of the plane. All of the sudden the stewardess materialized right in front of the two of us with a tray carrying two glasses of champagne, two pieces of cheesecake, and a card saying happy wedding day. Awesome. We don't even like champagne, but it was still uber cool. When we asked how she knew she leaned in and replied, "I know everything about you." After that we thought it best to quit with the questions and just enjoy the champagne and goodies.

... Lunch ...
Our first meal in signapore, we set off, sweaty already (90 degrees-ish and as humid as possible) in to little india. Little did we know we were about to embark on an epicurian adventure of fantastic proportions. After letting a few restaurants fall to the wayside for various reasons, we found a place in a small, unidentifiable, lunch spot. We sat down, a little confused as to what we'd need to do to get food and then all of the sudden it appeared. Mounds of rice, curried veggies, chicken, lamb, all served to us sans utensils (right hand only, zeke) on a giant palm leaf. Also awesome. The food was incredible, and just kept on coming. The total, with drinks, was a pittance for what we got. Best of all, neither of us got food poisoning.

... Aminals, so many aminals ...
Yesterday, we decided to brave the singaporean public transport system and make our way up to the Zoo. Best decision ever, until the thunderstorm. And even with that, it was only relegated to possibly the second or third best decision ever. We have mixed feelings about zoos, kindof like pancakes. Here's why: when you receive the promise of pancakes, you're absolutely stoked. Ready for the stack to come your way. The first bite is like heaven. By the time you get halfway through the triple-stack of flapjack goodness, you've realized that maybe a plate full of pancakes has it's downsides as well. The downsides of pancakes being that they just get boring; the downside of zoos being that sometimes it's pretty easy to feel bad for the animals. Here's where the true awesomeness of the Singapore Zoo comes in. These were the happiest zoo animals I have ever seen. They had tons of room and we're all energetic and entertained. We watched a young elephant spend 30 minutes playing with a giant bouncy ball and a log the size of leslie. They also had one hell of a collection at the zoo. Monster snakes, asian otters, the biggest tortoise we've ever seen, and three white tigers (funny note about this one: 1 in 10,000 tigers is a white tiger. there are 7,000 tigers in the world. we were looking at 3 white tigers yesterday, can anybody help with that one?). At any rate it was killer. ... Only downside is that I forgot the cable connecting my camera to the computer, so until we can find a sophisticated internet cafe (with a card-reader for xD cards) your imagination will have to suffice.

We hope everybody is doing great, we miss you all!

The most amazing day ever

Sounds trite, doesn't it? But it's not an exaggeration, we promise you. Every single person, every vendor, every friend, every family member involved in last weekend deserves the largest possible thank you we could muster. The presents all went the wrong way. From setup of the barn in the morning, to the biggest cry-fest we've ever been a part of, last saturday was the most memorable experience of our lives. We want to send you all a million thank yous, followed by a million invitations to whatever country we might be in at the time you want to visit.


There's no rest for the weary though, so true to TeamWander form we are on our way. The flight to Singapore leaves in about 18 hours, and for the most part (complete lie) we're packed. We're going to do our very best to update this blog, but I'm going to tell you kiddies how you can get us updating it more often than not.... ready for it? comment back. make fun of us. tell us (and everybody else) about your most recent booboo. anything. We promise that we'll miss you guys more than you could miss us and we want to hear from you too!

With love, may the road rise to meet you,
Team Wander