Off the beaten path in Kanchanaburi

Just a short post to tell you about a neat experience we had while in Thailand (our final real post is in the works!). As it turns out, one of my friends from high school, Jaclyn Bergamino, has made Thailand her home. She and her boyfriend are currently English teachers at schools in a city a few hours outside of Bangkok called Kanchanaburi. Being this close to an old friend, we had to visit! So a few weekends ago we took the (very slow!) train from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to visit Jaclyn and Sam. It was an absolutely awesome addition to our Thailand trip! In contrast to the touristy activities we'd been doing in northern and southern Thailand, visiting Jaclyn was anything but! Jaclyn and Sam live in a cute little apartment completely outside the tourist district of their town. They have nice neighbors, a friendly landlord, and great connections to the businesses, restaurants, and taxi drivers throughout their neighborhood. They have a simple life... working during the week and relaxing on the weekends. Sam makes time to do some extra, volunteer English tutoring on the side, and Jaclyn just got a side job as a travel writer. Their affairs are easy to manage, their local relationships aren't too complicated, and they love it. What a great life they've developed in Thailand! What's even more, Jaclyn and Sam gave us a more authentic look at the nature of Thai locals. Whereas in the tourist areas, there are always taxi drivers, travel agents, or hotel operators trying to rip you off, most Thai people Jaclyn and Sam interact with are extremely eager to help foreigners in any way possible. They give Jaclyn and Sam an incredible level of respect because they are teachers (a respect gravely missing from American culture!), and they regularly invite them to their homes to eat or just stop them for a friendly, albeit a bit broken, English/Thai conversation. While Amit and I had been on guard, constantly defensive when interacting with locals, Jaclyn and Sam are warmly-accepted members of their Thai community and have an easier time interacting with Thai people than even with some of the more aggressive tourists who visit their town. It was an educational, and incredibly unique, experience for us on our trip, and we came away from our relaxing visit with them with a completely different perspective on interactions with Thai people. This "education" was almost immediately applicable, as we were approached by 3 or 4 different people when we arrived at the Southern Bus Station in Bangkok. We had plans to buy tickets to head down south to Koh Phangan, and usually, when we're approached by locals acting like they want to help us, we quickly rebuff them in an attempt to avoid whatever scam they are pushing. After our weekend with Jaclyn, however, we decided to be a little more open to their help... and as it turned out, they were indeed just trying to help us get where we were going! Each person who discovered that we wanted to buy tickets to Koh Phangan would point us in the direction of the correct ticket counter until we finally got there and bought exactly what we were looking for... no tricks, scams, or other deception. So a big thanks to Jaclyn and Sam for a great weekend and a great perspective on the Thai people! While most of the rest of our visit in Thailand was within the tourist bubble, this unique departure from the beaten path was a real treat! Get ready for our final post... we're on our way home!!! Love, Dena & Amit

Sam, Jaclyn, and Dena at the river near their apartment The beautiful mountains across the river from Jaclyn and Sam's apartment Sam and Amit, relaxing on a bench at the river The sunset in Kanchanaburi

Adventures in northern Thailand

At long last, we finally made it to Thailand! We crossed over the boarder from Siem Reap on a tourist bus headed for Bangkok. The bus dropped us off at a famous backpacker area of Bangkok, Khao San Road, and from there, we had our pick of travel agencies from which to buy our ticket to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. With only 30 minutes until our next bus, we grabbed some falafel and hummus (yes! Thailand has been colonized by Israelis... on Khao San Road, there is actually more Hebrew signage than Thai or even English, and there are tons of Israeli shops, restaurants, and hotels!), and around 8 AM, after a mildly uncomfortable night bus, we arrived at a hotel in Chiang Mai (a side note: all tourist buses in SE Asia are subsidized by hotels that serve as the drop off or pick up location and hope to thereby get the business of the bus riders). After settling in at the hotel, we walked around the city a bit, investigating all of the many activities options in the area. If you remember our post from Pucon in Chile, Chiang Mai was a lot like that... an outpost for adventure activities to do all over northern Thailand, and the real challenge is to try and figure out which ones you are going to turn down! From a selection of playing with tigers, riding a 2 km jungle zipline, bungee jumping, a four-day jungle jeep tour, a three-day whitewater rafting trip, visiting a snake farm, a three-day jungle trek, elephant training, and cooking classes, we decided on the latter three. Fortunately, our trekking package included a short bit of whitewater rafting, and on the way to the elephant training camp, we also got to visit an orchid farm, so we didn't have to give up on too many good activities (although Amit is still mourning missing out on playing with tigers and the 2 km zipline). This first exploratory day also happened to be Friday, and Chiang Mai is one of the four cities in Thailand that is home to a Chabad House. So at night, we joined the mass of Israelis, as well as a few other Jewish travelers, at Chabad for Shabbat services and Shabbat dinner. After having spent several days visiting Hindu and Buddhist temples at Angkor Wat and being surrounded by people of such different faith (almost all of Cambodia and Thailand is Buddhist), it was relaxing and comforting to have an evening of Jewish activities and Hebrew speaking (for Amit), and to be reminded of our own family traditions. To keep up this sense of relaxation, we decided not to book any activities until the next evening, when we took our Thai cooking class (our final and most anticipated cooking class!). We took the class at a school called "Smart Cook," which was the most professional of all the cooking schools we attended on our trip. The teacher was a very smart (no pun intended!) and experienced Thai woman who knew how to make all sorts of substitutions in traditional Thai dishes for both vegetarian needs and American-ingredient needs. Among other things, we learned how to make Pad Thai (hurray!), red and green curry (double hurray!), and a delicious dessert consisting of coconut sticky rice and sliced mango. After obtaining all of our new culinary skills (Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Thai!), we are greatly looking forward to have many dinner guests in our new apartment in Chicago! The next day was our mahout training day! Mahout is the Thai word for elephant trainer, and as elephants are a major tourist attraction in Thailand, there are many mahouts and many elephant "camps" throughout the country. The camp that hosted us was a very primitive (and therefore, not touristy!) center that housed only five or six elephants. One of their elephants was pregnant and two others were "out in the field" with tourists, but there were two elephants (a mother and her 14-year-old daughter) there for us to work with. To skip ahead to a summary of the experience, this day of one-on-one interaction with elephants was without a doubt one of the most special things we've done on our trip! Nowhere in the US would an average tourist have the opportunity to engage hands-on with elephants like we did. In this program, we worked with the elephants on their obedience to commands (right, left, forward, backward, stop, head down... all in Thai, of course!), and we learned to mount them from the side (using their ear as a handle!) and the front (they lower their head for us to climb on). Then we took them on a walk, took them into the river, gave them a bath (which they promptly undid with a wallow in a huge mud puddle!), and then we went on a hike to collect grass to feed them. The elephants were surely domesticated, but I would add this to our Antarctica trip as another personal interaction with animals that are not behind a fence or in a cage at a zoo or conservatory. They were hugely impressive creatures and it was humbling to be so close to them and engage with them in such a mundane way! Highly recommended for anyone traveling to Thailand (although we came away with nasty bug bites or some sort of rash, so cover your legs with leggings if you do it!). The next morning, we left for our three-day jungle trek. It was not raining when we first set out, but shortly after entering the jungle area, it started to rain, and it rained for the entire first day. We did a little elephant riding on the first morning, but we were riding on big bamboo seats on tops of the elephants, two people to a seat. There was no contact with the elephant directly, and it was a much less personal and fulfilling of an experience than our mahout day. From the elephant riding area, we started our trek into the jungle, which despite the rain, was very beautiful. For both of the nights of the trek, we stayed in little bamboo huts (the entire group of 8 trekkers stayed in one long hut, with little individual/double mosquito nets and mattresses) in the jungle. The first night, we stayed in a village at the top of a mountain, and our host family built a fire inside the communal hut where we hung out all night, got to know our fellow trekkers (from Belgium, New Zealand, France, and Thailand), and enjoyed an impromptu magic show by our new French friend (he had brought a few of his magic show implements with him). It was amazing to hear all of the trekkers' stories... the Frenchman was a former Navy seal who had been injured in a climbing accident and was now retired; the Thai trekker had met the Frenchman a few days before and decided to join him on her first trek ever; the New Zealander was a perpetual traveler who only worked when he needed money to travel; one of our Belgian friends was at a transition point in her life (personally and professionally) and she was trying out her new found freedom and searching for some answers and inspiration; and our two other Belgian friends were employed back in Belgium as a bus driver and a social worker and were on their annual vacation. A great group that made the trek very enjoyable! On the second day of the trek, we got slightly better weather (no rain), and we got to enjoy two great waterfalls/swimming holes on the trail, and on the third day, we did terrifically fun but short whitewater rafting ride! All in all, the trek was good fun with interesting people and a good way to end our trekking adventures before we heading to the beaches for our final weeks of relaxation! Only a little time left on our Great Adventure, so we'll try to post a few more updates and then we'll be seeing many of you in person! Hope the summer is going well, and for our working friends, we'll enjoy a banana smoothie on the beach for you! Cheers, Dena (& Amit)

Amit and our fellow cooking students making spring rolls Dena and her beloved Pad Thai Amit at a bar in Chiang Mai that turned out to be run by singing and dancing "lady boys" Amit and a Thai Boxer at a match we went to in Chiang Mai Amit, rewarding his elephant with a banana for good behavior Amit learning the over-the-front elephant mount Amit, teaching his elephant to go forward Taking our elephants on a VERY muddy walk A final pose with our mahout leader and one of our elephants Our trekking group One of our Belgian friends with some Thai village children Playing in one of the waterfalls on the trek

Angkor Wat, a true wonder of the world

Wow! Dena and I just spent three awe-inspiring days wandering around the ruins of the Angkor temple complex, the pride and joy of Cambodia. It was such an amazing place, we easily could have spent another few days exploring. The temple complex encompasses an area about 200 sq. km., and includes around 50 different temples. They were built by the emperors of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and 13th centuries (note: Khmer is the name used to describe the ethnicity of the Cambodian people, and is also the name of the language in Cambodia). At its height, the empire ruled over all of Cambodia, as well as parts of modern-day Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. The largest and most famous temple is called Angkor Wat, the image of which appears on the Cambodian flag, label of the national beer, and just about everything else. It was built during the period when the Khmer empire was transitioning from Hinduism to Buddhism, and so this temple has clear influences of both religions. Some sources claim that Angkor Wat is in fact the largest religious building in the world. Our guidebook devotes 20 pages to the architecture, symbolism, and art of the temple, but I won't bore you with all of that. Hopefully the pictures on the right can begin to impress on you the beauty and majesty of the temple. One of the aspects of the temple we enjoyed the most were the bas-reliefs (i.e., carvings on the wall) that surround the entire temple (more than 12,000 sq. feet of carvings) depicting many historical and mythological scenes, in particular battle scenes. As is typical of Hindu imagery, many of the characters have multiple heads and / or multiple arms, and many creatures are part-human, part-animal. Our favorite scene was "The Battle Between Gods and Demons." This scene included sculptures of 21 different Hindu gods, each one riding their "vehicle" of choice (e.g., an elephant, a goose, chariot, five-headed snake, etc.). It's amazing how different these legends are from our own biblical stories. Another highlight of our visit to Angkor was having our very own Tomb-Raider experience. Several of the temples in the complex have been completely infiltrated by the surrounding jungle. A description from our guidebook summarizes the effect perfectly: "Everywhere around you, you see nature in its dual role of destroyer and consoler; strangling on the one hand, and healing on the other; no sooner splitting the carved stones asunder than she dresses their wounds with cool, velvety mosses, and binds them with her most delicate tendrils; a conflict of moods so contradictory and feminine as to prove once more-if proof were needed- how well 'Dame' Nature merits her feminine title!" One of the temples we visited was in fact the setting for the shooting of one of the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movies. Supposedly, the most beautiful times to visit the temples are sunset and sunrise. We've had a couple of failed sunrise experiences already on this trip (i.e., Torres del Paine in Chile, and Huang Shan in China), so we were a little skeptical and decided to skip the sunrise, opting instead for the sunset. Unfortunately, our first two attempts were completely thwarted by rain and clouds. On our last day, we finally decided to suck it up, wake up at 4:30am, and hope for the best. Fortunately, this time we were rewarded! The sunrise over Angkor Wat was very pretty, and we then got to tour several more temples in the early morning, when the lighting is at its best... We took some great pictures that morning! And with that, we finished our quick trip through Cambodia. We would have loved to stay longer, but we only have a month left, and all of Thailand left to explore. Stay tuned for an update in a few days on our trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand (sneak peak: Thai cooking class, elephant training, trekking, more hill tribes, and white water rafting!). -Amit (& Dena)

Angkor Wat in all its glory Me, leaning on the "serpent" balustrade at the entrance gate to Angkor Wat Dena, posing in front of some of the many "Apsara" (heavenly dancer) sculptures that adorn the temples A small section of bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat A particularly well-preserved bas-relief at the "Terrace of the Leper King" Giant ficus tree supporting and destroying a section of the Ta Prohm temple Roots! One of over one hundred such face sculptures at the Bayon temple Banteay Srei, a smaller, but exceptionally decorated temple ~25km from Angkor Wat Wider view of Banteay Srei Sunrise at Angkor Wat A temple on earth and a temple in heaven In between visits to the temples, we found time to take a Khmer cooking class. YUM! It is definitely the wet season It seemed like 90% of the cars in Cambodia were Toyota or Lexus models; I'd never heard of the Toyota CORONA model before :)