New Blog
Nathan
On the third day of the beach trip, we split up into 2 groups to go rock climbing. While I've done some rock climbing indoors back home, this was climbing with real rocks. I got to do 3 climbs, which were a lot of fun but not terribly difficulty for me. Nevertheless, it was cool to have to figure out my own hand and foot holds rather than just following the colors in an indoor rock climbing gym. Here are a couple action shots of my backside while I was on the rock.
After the rock climbing, we went to a cave and climbed up to a point from which we rappelled about 15 meters. There were some spectacular views, and the rappelling was really fun although a bit awkward at first.
On the 4th day we went scuba diving. Because only 3 of us had actually been certified (not me), we basically did a resort course that consisted of some basic training and 2 dives under close supervision of a dive instructor. It was awesome to breathe underwater, and I felt pretty comfortable during both dives. Somebody on the boat made a DVD of the whole day's adventure. We watched it at the end of the day, and apparently there are some incredibly beautiful fish down there. I didn't see quite as much as I would have like to because I was focusing on my technique and looking at my instructor a lot of the time, but in reality I did see a ton of beautiful stuff under the sea. Here are some above water pictures that I took while on the boat.
Although I've seen water like that many times in movies and magazines, today was the first time that I've actually seen it for real. Quite beautiful. This next picture is of a place called chicken head island. We didn't actually go there, however.
As you can see in that picture, it started to get a bit cloudy. There was a pretty big storm, but came after we were done diving thus not interfering with the day's activities. Here is a picture of the storm (from the inside part of the boat, of course).
The 5th day of the beach trip was the last full day that our entire group would be together. About half the group was heading back to Bangkok the next day before flying back to the US in a couple days, and the other half was extending their stays in various places throughout Asia. In the morning we all got together to take some final group pictures at the beach. Here are the pictures of all the girls in the group and then all the guys in the group.
Since I had finished my Secret Buddha project last night and also my gift for the group leader Scott in the morning, I was able to enjoy myself the rest of the day. Richard, Carolyn, and I went on a little hike to a lagoon in Railay. We thought it would just be some walking with maybe some steep parts, but it turned out that we actually had to climb up and down some really steep rocks sometimes with the aid of ropes and rope ladders to get there. It was probably a bit dangerous, but we made it there and back intact. It was a really awesome adventure, and the lagoon itself was cool as well. Here is a picture of the lagoon.
I got to play some more ultimate frisbee in the afternoon, and then it was time for dinner, which would be our last dinner together. Scott ordered all the food from a restaurant. While I helped pick up the food, I caught these great sunset shots with my camera.
The feast of Thai food was awesome, and after dinner we presented our Secret Buddhas. Everyone did a great job, and many of the gifts were really creative and impressive. After the Secret Buddha stuff, Scott split us into 4 groups and gave us a quiz over stuff we may or may not have picked up on the trip. My team won. Yes. We didn't get anything, however. Just satisfaction. After the quiz we just sat around for a while reminiscing about the trip. We all knew it would be difficult to split up the following morning.11/2/2006-11/4/2006
We left Siem Reap on the morning of the 2nd at 6:30 am on a journey leaving Cambodia and returning us to Bangkok, which had been our initial stop in Southeast Asia. It was important to get an early start because the roads in Cambodia are pretty awful. Our group leader Scott told us that in 2002 his group left at a similar time and ended up getting to the Cambodia-Thailand border at 4:50 pm, just 10 minutes before the border closed. The border town would not be a very fun place to stay the night, so we wanted to do everything possible to prevent that from happening. Fortunately, our trip went perfectly and only required just over 3 hours to get to the border. It was quite a relief, even though are butts may have not felt too relieved after traveling via Toyota Camry on some of the potholed, flooded, and dirty dirt roads I've ever seen. You'd think a developing country like Cambodia would have a better road system, but they might try to inhibit that system in order to force people to use air travel so that they can make more money. Regardless, it was pretty impressive how our Toyota Camrys could handle such rugged terrain. We passed through the border without any problems in an hour or so, and then we had a 4 hour drive to Bangkok on wonderful, flat roads. We arrived in the afternoon, and had ample time to explore some of the city that evening.
Bangkok is an incredibly huge city with a population of over 6 million people. The first evening we were there I just wandered around the area near our guest house, which only covers a small area of the city. We were staying near Khao San road, which I guess is the backpacker mecca of the city. That road has tons of shops and food stands. I had some wonderful pad Thai for about 50 cents. However, the rest of the street was full of touristy shops of which I have seen more than enough. It was amazing how many westerners are here. It definitely did not feel like I was in Asia.
The next day most of the group went on an excursion throughout the city. We became acquainted with 2 modes of public transportation in Bangkok, the riverboat and the sky train. A large river runs in the north-south direction of the city, and we used it to get from our guest house area to a place where we could pick of the sky train. Here is a picture of a bridge on the river.
We then took the sky train to a part of Bangkok called Siam, which has various shopping centers that make most American shopping malls look outdated. Here are a few pictures of one shopping center.
They even have Outback Steakhouse here (see above). Where am I again? Another picture that I thought was funny is the following one of a building I saw while walking around the downtown area.
The last thing we did on our excursion was go to the Golden Mount, which is a temple on the top of a hill. There were some great views of the Bangkok skyline. Here is one of those views.
Since we would be on a van all night on November 4th (Rebecca's birthday), we wanted to celebrate the night before on the 3rd. That evening we went to a place called the Vertigo Bar on the 61st floor of this incredible hotel. I saw a sign describing it as "the tallest open-roof hotel restaurant in the world." Although the taxi ride took over an hour causing us to miss the sun actually setting, we still had some awesome views and a great time. Here are some pictures.
The last day in Bangkok was fairly uneventful. In the morning I decided to try out the public transportation by myself and go to Chinatown, which I had read was an interesting place. I made it there without any problems, but it was hard to find the main Chinatown street for me because there weren't really any road signs. I found what I though might have been the main street, but even that wasn't too interesting. Maybe it was because it was a Saturday morning. After lunch I went with some other members of our group to the supermarket to buy some food for our 5 day stay at a beach in southern Thailand. I picked up some breakfast and lunch stuff, and the supermarket traffic jams got pretty crazy while we were there. After packing up my stuff in the evening, I headed out with the group to the bus station for our all night bus ride down to Railay Beach in southern Thailand. I had some pad Thai for dinner, but I'm convinced a better option would have been the KFC a block away from the station.