DEAN is telling you that he has lost ten pounds!

Pai in sky!

Greetings and Salutations!

Well we never made it Mae Hong Son, but that's fine cause we found its little offspring and have chosen to stay and take our time here in Pai.

Its hot, so we can't do much during the day, but that's fine cause there isn't much to do. It is a small place with a big heart. Many "hippies" come here relax and kick back with a wheat grass shot and shoot the sh@t. Our first night here was one for the books. We found a great place where bungalows covered the landscape. It was cheap (100 baht, which is under 4 dollars a night) and we thought, great we might be able to get our budget back on track. Inside the bungalow was a "mattress", mosquito net and a fan. The toilet and showers were shared with the other twenty or so bungalows. After relaxing for a bit we wondered through the town and found a quiet, little place for some dinner. I had spaghetti and Kelly a burger. We wandered some more then returned to our bungalow for some gin (cards that is!) I won of course! Kelly has yet to win in about 12 games :( its the cards people!! Any who, lights out and its bed time. Then it hit me, my stomach hurt something fierce, I layed there on our "boxspring for a mattress " for about two hours, Kelly would wake up and hear me moaning. Then that was it, out the front door I went and out my mouth it went! I believe I had food poisoning. For the next couple of days Kelly and I were not doing so well, it was hot out and we both were sick. It was about 38 in the shade (Christy, I'm not sure what that is for you, google it :)) We tried laying in the river to cool ourselves down, but again in a hour or so our core temperature was just to hot to feel good about anything. So we said enough is enough and rented a scooter to find a place with a/c. There isn't to many places here with A/C, lots of places though with a fan. We found a place that we loved, but unfortunately it was full. Back to our bunglaghetto for the night. The next day we tried again and success!! Conveniently with a PPPPPOOOL! Any who, now that we are staying at the Ritz we have new roommates. An all day alarm clock roosters, and because of this we have slept or walked in about 8 out of there 12 bungalows. Last night I found a crazy worm, cockroach and scorpion!!! in our bathroom. I offered my zest bar, but they refused to wash up. The beds and pillows are comfy and the staff is amazing! (I might have a couple love interests here, if things between Kelly and I deteriorate.. j/j, but I have noticed them talking and gawking at me. It is obvious, so I know that I am not making it up in my crazy little mind! )

Any who, back to Pai. It is a small town about 200 kms N.W of Chiang Mai. The drive here is 3 hours long, and like a ride at Disneyworld. In total I have been told, there is 762 curves. It didn't matter what your view was on your side, cause in three seconds it was on the other side. Luckily our driver wasn't part of the Red Neck Circuit (Nascar) out of the states and he drove rather slowly and cautiously. We have fallen in love with slow pace and relaxed atmosphere of Pai (pro. Pie) and like many others are finding it hard to leave this laid back scooter loving town.

About three days ago we booked our trek off into the jungle. (we came here to do a trek, much purer then the ones in Chiang Mai) We shopped around and found a great company that contributed a percentage to the tribe( Karon) that we visited rather then putting them up like a circus. Our trek began by boarding a local bus and heading out of town. The bus was JAMMED packed, only standing room and roof riding was left when we left Pai. We headed in the direction of Mae Hong Son and along the way picked up more and more people. On the bus I was able to get to know Christina the other person accompanying us on the trek, Kelly was shuffled to the front to stand the whole trip. The roads continued to be a roller coaster and luckily the journey was no longer then an hour. We got off in a little village just off the highway and to my surprise the guide and our new friend were road sick and needed to relieve themselves, leaving Kelly and I to gloat about how we were able to make it and not them. After a brief layover in the village we were off, accompanied by our new local Karon tribe guide. The five of us right away we were heading up, straight up a sun scorched, fire ridden hill side. It was hot and not a pleasant way to start. We thought we were entering hell. Luckily because one of our guides was sick (with a hangover) we were able to stop alot and enjoy the breeze and views. We were atop a mountain walking the ridge line for about three hours, it was awesome ( this mountain range is part of the Himalayans and stretches all the way to join with Mount EVEREST! ). Dom our Karen guide(who only attempted to speak broken english after a few shots of moonshine) led us a way no other groups had gone before us. It proved to be very difficult descending so they made us walking sticks!! There were lots of slips but no crashes. We descended to a creek and along the way Dom was gathering supplies for our lunch. Jungle noodle soup. He made everything we needed out of bamboo!! It was awesome, we had bamboo cups, bowls and even bamboo chop sticks! The soup was delicious and was fallowed by.. you guessed it, bamboo tea!! We had a couple hours to relax along the creek. Where we found a "boxing insect" as Dom called it in his best of english. A praying mantis, it was cooool. Last time I saw one was when I was in Thailand twenty years ago! After a relaxing couple hours we were off. We followed along the river bed until we reached the tribes village. We were welcomed right away in our home for the night with tea and snacks. We met our hosts and their son and began more relaxing. Kelly and I went for a walk to see the village of about 70 people and found it to be very clean and organized. Each dog had a collar and tag saying it had received a Rabies Vac. Although we did turn down a wrong side path and was greeted by a un-happy pooch. Kelly and I just kept our heads down and returned "home". The families cat had just had kittens and one still remained out of the litter of two. It was super playful and quite a source of entertainment. Some locals came over to join in dinner and some of the home made moonshine. They then took over for the entertainment, man they drink! Dinner was great Kelly, Christina and I cooked it!! With a little help from Toil, our guide whom we met in Pai. Dinner was a very fresh chicken, I mean fresh.. wink wink!! We had the option to try the kill ourselves, but opted for the veteran to make the kill. We had Spicy Chicken Jungle soup, Curried potatoes with Chicken and some sort of Vegetable and of course rice. It was delicious and plentiful.

The next day we wondered the village for an hour and half way through had a pack of dogs who just loved to be with us. We then returned home to pack and take off. We headed for a waterfall and we were accompanied by one of the dogs we had met in the village. It was an easy valley floor hike. Through the bamboo forest and into the oak tree hill sides, it was beautiful. The areas that were clear cut were HOT, these areas are being turned into rice fields, the sad part is that they just burn everything, even the hundred year old trees! Fire is used by everyone out here, whether to cook, slash and burn or even to hunt! Dom had caught a iguana some days before and offered it to us for a snack. Kelly says, it was the best meat she had ever had. The iguanas are caught when they climb into a tree. The hunters lights the tree on fire and smoke them out. We arrived at the waterfall in about four hours and enjoyed a three hour rest. Dom and Toil made more soup from the foliage in the surrounding area and the rest of us swam. After lunch a hunter came by to check on one of his fishing traps. We couldn't believe our eyes at the sight of this old timer. You could spit threw him, he was so frail and lanky but was eager to finish off our lunch. We learnt he was from a near by Lisu tribe. Somehow he knew that we were trying to guess his age, cause then he made attempts to tell us. Turns out he was 70!!! He carried a home made gun that I was given the privilege to shoot!!

From there we headed back STRAIGHT UP!! This time it wasn't so easy as both our guides were making short work of it all. When all was said and done we made it to the top. It was a beautiful sight again. We walked for about two hours until we reached a Lisu tribe. This tribe was much different then the Karon tribe. It was a large tribe and they covered a lot of area. Unfortunately animals were not as taken care of as they were in Karon. We walked past three or four boys forcing chickens to attack each other, one boy had a knife roped into his fingers, we weren't sure what it was for. The livestock was everywhere and filthy, a pig was eating a large plastic bag that was with the rest of garbage everywhere! It made us very grateful for the experience we received at the other Karon village. Toil had a arranged a truck to take us all the way back to Pai! Kelly or as the Thai's pronounce, Kalli was very happy to jump in the back and not take another step. She has six blisters on one foot!

We are about to book a trip to Laos, so unfortunately this is it for now in Thailand! It has been a beautiful place with large diversity. From the warm clear oceans in the south filled with many islands, to the bustling cities and then all the way north to its large mountainous, jungle range. We're sad to leave, but know that Laos is very unique and going to be a great experience. Laos population is much ,much smaller and the original rain forests are still strong! So until next time, same bat channel, same bat time !!!

Love to all!!

Kelly and Dean of kellyanddean at blogspot!!

And it goes.....

Our trip is continuing onward and all is good. We had a great time in Phuket after our very very long ferry trip and multiple bus transfers. We were excited to take a night ferry because we were told that we got our own beds and we could sleep through the night to our next destination. Well...it was quite the experience. You climb onto the boat and it is 2 levels. Each level is about 5 feet high at the most. The bottom one is for staff and bags the top one is for passengers. (My shampoo, of all things, got stolen out of my bag sometime during the night) Once you get to the top you'll find your number and a mat...squished between complete strangers. Your mat is your bed. We've never slept so close to strangers. Dean said the girl beside him was snuggling up... somehow I think that's more of what he wanted than what really happened! :0) Unfortunately the night we sailed there was a storm....we thought we were sailing to our death!! We both took 2 gravols which was a great idea...I slept....Dean didn't really....maybe it was all the people puking out their windows that was keeping him awake!

Once we arrived in Phuket we left the city and headed for Kata beach. We trekked to our next home through the pouring rain. I slipped on the sidewalk and scratched up my knee...I'm hoping for a scar so that I will match Dean!! (Dean says there is no way I'll match him and he is probably right) We lucked out at our place of residence because we were in walking distance of 2 beaches. Kata beach which had deep water but was calm and had a sandy bottom. And Koron beach which had HUGE waves...but was equally as beautiful!! We spent time at each beach but Koron beach was our favorite. Dean body surfed and I drank a lot of sea water! It was fun!!!

We said goodbye to the beaches and left sunny southern Thailand 5 days ago. We decided to treat ourselves and booked a flight that should have only taken about 5 hours. We were actually very excited about flying after our many many long and boring bus and ferry trips. Unfortunately, the plane didn't turn out to be as good as expected. We got to the airport early (the guy who sold us our tickets told us it would take about 1 1/2 hours to get there it only took about 1/2 hour) after waiting almost 3 hours for the plane to leave we were informed it was delayed...which then turned into a cancellation. This sucked because we had a connecting flight in Bangkok. They eventually put us on another flight which got us into Bangkok after our next flight had boarded. Thankfully they held the plane. When we arrived in Chiang Mai our bags had not. They were on a later flight that night due to the fact that there wasn't enough time to transfer them when we transferred. Sure enough the airline delivered them to our guesthouse later that night.....THANKFULLY!

When we arrived in Chiang Mai it was the New Year celebration. (It had started the night before we left Phuket but it was so much better when we got here. The kids in the picture were from Phuket and it doesn't do justice to what it was like here) They celebrate by having a massive water fight. It is actually hard to describe. There were well over 200 thousand people here participating. Picture the Red Mile in Calgary but 10 times as long...and with lots of vehicles on it! The nice part about celebrating in Chiang Mai is, that where we are, there is a huge moat (sp?) that runs along the road...endless water. The sidewalks are full of people scooping water from the moat (which is kinda dirty but after you see so many people swimming in it you get over it) The street is filled with pick up trucks, filled with people and giant tubs of ice water. You basically hit everyone and everything that you can. (Trying to avoid the ice water...it is bitterly cold) Everyone participates, young and old, and everyone laughs and smiles. It was so nice to see EVERYONE having good clean fun. We bought a huge water gun for Dean. He had so much fun with it. (Somehow though it broke on the second day..too bad) I just walked along having buckets poured on top of me. Everyone wears clothes no bathing suits so your clothes just hang off of you dripping wet..... You even get your face painted with this white paint by people walking by. (Still not sure what the significance of the paint was) Unfortunately, my favorite waterproof camera died in Phuket (I guess they are not made for being tossled around in massive waves...thankfully the memory card survived so we didn't lose over 600 pictures) So we splurged and bought a disposable waterproof camera...we can't wait to see if the pictures turned out!

Yesterday we did a Thai cooking class. There was only 3 of us and it would have been much more fun if the lady teaching us would have smiled once in a while...or at least pretended to be happy to have us there. Needless to say, the 3 of us made it fun and we made over 18 dishes all together! It was a lot of food and most of it was pretty good. We even got a cook book at the end which was nice.

Today we did "Flight of the Gibbon" It was a giant zipline course through the forest and was soooooooooo fun!!!!!!!!!!!! Unlike the cooking course, our guides on this were fabulous and we had a great time!! There were 2 kms of zipline, 18 platforms and 2 descents down massive old growth trees!! Although it was expensive (we shopped around a lot and ended up getting a cheaper price than most) and we had to get up super early (5:45 am..we haven't seen that time of day since....well a long time ago) we would recommend it to everyone!!!

Tomorrow we leave for Mae Song Ton. (not to sure of the spelling) We are going to take a bus and spend a few days there doing some trekking to local hill tribes. You can do it here but we have heard it is worth spending the money for a cheap bus ticket and a day of travel to go there. Less tourists and more authentic areas to see!

Time is starting to go quicker now and we are starting to realize that our time travelling is going to be over sooner than we'd like. There is still so much we want to see..Cambodia (although we hear you can see the main stuff in a week or 2) Vietnam, Laos and if time and money permit Bali!!!

People have told us that trips like these are life changing. We didn't see it at first but now that we are half way through, we are noticing things. We are more appreciative of what we have and the opportunities that are available to us. Seeing the kids here, who are always sooooo happy with huge smiles, makes us slightly sad and guilty, that we have so much and are still always wanting more! We know that they have almost nothing and will not get a chance to travel the world and see things that so many of us take for granted each and every day! Things like underground sewers, democracy, homes with no bugs or rodents (hehe), safety and education. It has been sad to see so many young Thai girls with old white foreigners. Although this is a choice for a lot of Thai girls we know that for many of them, they feel that this is their only option...it is sad! We met one lady on a bus. She had travelled for almost 2 days to meet a man that she met on the internet which is where a lot of the meetings take place. It's too bad that often the girl and the guys idea of what is to come is so different! In saying that....it is comforting to know that joy really can be found in the smallest of things and the cheapest of costs! Family is huge here and it has made us miss ours and our closest of friends...who we also consider our family!! Anywho....to make a long thought short.....I guess we are starting to have a life changing experience!!!

Hope you like the pictures and our blog.......we will post again when we can!!!

Oh yeah......I would have to say Dean is missing the flames playoffs more than anything...knowing the score is starting to consume him.....lol!

Just a couple pictures of tonights sunset. We leave for Chiang Mai for the Festival on the 13th, WERE FLYING!! WAHOOOOO! Hope all is well with everyone.

Mr J's Condom's, Home Made? 20 Years!! wow

Well this has been a adventure in itself. We started at 11:00, it was great, I was able to talk with Kyle and hear about how the ref'ing cost the flames the game. It is now 3 o'clock, we have stopped for lunch and spent about 300 baht by the time this is all done. This internet sight is slow at downloading pictures and a lot of internet places have too many computers on crapy networks. So in saying all that, we love posting our pictures to show everyone and will continue posting, we just want you all to know the hardship we endure for your love. So, we leave tonight on a night boat and bus for Phuket, Thailands third largest city (it is an island aswell.) We have more pictures to post, but this site is not allowing them..it just keeps freezing. Sign up for facebook as we may post more there.

Our last "home" was amazing. It was our third place in as many nights :0 We found the place on our scooter and were booked in the next day. It was located in Shark Bay. We didn't think much of the name and spent a good portion of an afternoon snorkeling around in the bay. It was amaznig, schools of fish everywhere. All sorts of types aswell. Later that day we were talking with a German bloke and he said that his dive instructor tells people to come here if they want to see sharks, only two meters long though as this was a nursing area for mothers!!!! We weren't afraid and went back into the water to look some more, needless to say we didn't see any. They take boat loads of people there to do some snorkeling and we had the place as our frontdoor step. Mornings were amznig there, the tide came almost up to our raised bungalows deck. It was the first time we were woken up to something other then birds or traffic!! Let me tell you, birds here celebrate the rising and setting of the sun, LOUD too. Koh Tao has been my favorite island that we have visited, its small and the tourist here are all about the diving, some of the best in the world. Most dive places say is an almost 98 percent gaurentee that you will see a whale shark on your dive. We have heard otherwise from the divers themselves. Not a one. But the water is clear and full of life. We did not dive, decieded to save it for Bali, if we make there to celebrate the finale of our trip!
I'll walk you through the pictures..
The first one, we ate! It was delicious. The sea life is much more colorful then Canadian sea life.

~Kelly with the flowers was at our last place. Our bunglow was at the bottum of the cliff and the street to leave from was at the top. The stairs we built out of cement and all varied in height. It was fun!!! kinda, not really!
~The one of me on the "motorbike" was the road to get to our resort.
~The sign, well it was funny and outside of our first place. Our first place was nice, really nice, so nice in fact that a rat or mouse loved our bathroom and felt the need to break in three times in one night to poo everywhere! We left in the morning.
~The one that looks smoggy, its rain. We were in Koh Pah-ngan and went to see the other side of the island when we got locked into a major storm. The locals say global warming is really screwnig things up. Its dry season now and should be for the next couple months, but its has rained hard at least once a day.
~Then of course, greetings from us to you. There aren't much North Americans here, most are english, french and german. The Germans seem to be the nicest.
~A sunset picture was a resturaunt in Koh- Pgang, great bananna shake, but it was weird, once the sun went down. A giant flight of moth type ant creatures laid attack on everyone on the beach.
~Kelly on the beach, not sure where, but it was beautiful, cause shes in it..:)
~ Me with the Rottie, it was our "five star resort" He was huge and just slept everywhere
~ Then some hunk on the beach, I give permission to download this pic and use as your screensaver
~ Me at our fun BBQ, it was cheap. We had no clue how to do it, but we managed to fill our bellies for cheap
~ The next four were at a "Zoo" in Koh Samui. It was were we fed the Turtles and saw Tigers jump through hoops. I'm saddend by all the imprisioned animals here, but the german guy said that it is a way to preserve them as their habbitat is being taken over. If you come here though, please do not take an elephant safari . Massive elephants are kept on a foot long chain in the sun until you arrive to jump on there back. There is other ways to interact with elephants. We'll keep you posted on how when we reach Chaing Mai.
~ Then me and Kelly at a "Waterfall" its our second time we reach one, and let me tell you, bring your trunks cause these ones are gushing!! Dry season still is in affect..
~ Then Kelly with the scooter/motorbike (they call them motorbikes here, haha) We hated this one, it was a double flat tire P.O.S

Time to go, we'll post more soonish! Hopefully more photos. We have better ones. Hope you all are doing well and keep your hopes and prayers going strong for ... the FLAMES. Stupid Canucks, stupid Louongo. HAHA, I do miss hockey, its all "Football" here, everywhere!

I love the pics, but man it takes forever to put them up..gonna have to pay to veiw :0