Halloween in Thailand

Saturday, October 31

(3rd) First official blog entry. By that I mean, this is the first one I’m sitting down to write for the purpose of our travel blog. I’ve jotted notes down for earlier days, or sent anecdotes as emails, and those might get added to the blog, but with this entry, I’m starting with today, which is not necessarily (and not actually) the beginning.

First, the facts of food and activities (daytime).

Breakfast was the free one provided by the hotel again. No pancakes today, but instead they served a Chinese-style breakfast of rice with a white sauce, with vegetables and chicken or pork mixed in. I had some, Ryan didn’t. We both had omelets made, and juice, and coffee with toast.

No brunch, as we were working on scheduling the next week in our room during the brunch hours. We snacked on mint chocolate wafers from Trader Joe’s that Ryan’s mother packed while we worked.

For lunch, we headed back downtown to Pak Do, which has curries and other local dishes set out in pots in the front of the restaurant. We lifted the lids and picked out what we wanted. I had the egg and pumpkin dish combined with a very spicy fish curry. Ryan had a hot chili beef and some not very spicy chicken curry. Aloi means tasty in Thai. These dishes were definitely Aloi. (Pronounced ah-roy or ah-loy, with a brief pause between the words.)

Walking around snacks: En route to lunch, we had smoothies from Juice Box. I had Ryan’s mixture from yesterday: Dragonfruit and mango. Ryan mixed lemon with green apple. Both were very good. Aloi for this place.

After lunch, we went to the paper store and picked out handmade paper for ourselves, then we walked over to the Chiang Mai history and culture museum. Right outside the museum is a statue of thee Thai kings, set in the center of the city. The plaza around the statue was gearing up for the festival and many, many paper lanterns had already been strung about. We got ice cream for 10B from a street vendor in the plaza (the ice cream machine is mounted on wheels and pulled about). She was about the scoop the ice cream into a bowl when I saw some slices of sponge cake and asked about them. So we got our ice cream scoops in a plastic bag sandwiched between two slices of … bread. It turned out to be plain ol’ white bread, not cake at all. Other local people got some after us, so it must be a legitimate serving style, unless we just invented a hot new trend (I doubt that).

Immediately after the ice cream, we went to get Shaking Milk Jelly drinks (20-25B each). Ryan had green tea + black sesame, topped with a double helping of gummi bears, plus blue jelly slivers and red jelly slivers, and more black sesame seeds sprinkled on top. I had Shaking Milk Thai Ancient Coffee with Pipo Jelly. It’s basically an ice blended coffee (which, btw, is far better than those from the gas station outside the Kona airport, Alana), but then two jello-like fruit pods are added and pulse blended for about a half second, just to shred them to slivers. It’s an odd combination. The texture is fine, but towards the end of the drink when the jelly is in high concentration, the flavors really conflict with each other. Except for Ryan’s bizarre topping choices, his green tea and black sesame went together very well. I give this place an Aloi.

Ice Cream & Bread Sandwich

Green Tea and Black Sesame Shaking Milk Jelly

With our shaking milks still in hand, Ryan bought some pork satay (maybe chicken, but we guessed pork) from a street vendor (5B each). He got two skewers with meat, green bell pepper, tomato and pineapple (a single item of each per stick), brushed with very yellow butter (lard or margarine?) and dressed with a generous sprinkling of pepper (?) and chili sauce. They were very good. Aloi.

No sooner had we finished the satay than we bought some roast banana and coconut milk, too (10B). Our single order got us three bananas (short, squat ones, like apple bananas, and with a dense texture), stacked, squashed, and sliced wide and a scoop of thickened coconut milk. This was also very good. Aloi, again.

Activities:

HQ Paper Maker – Beautiful paper, not too expensive. Despite all the advertising for the place it didn’t feel terribly like a tourist trap. At least there was no sales pressure. I notice that the paper lanterns for the Loy Krathong festival are all made of similar textured, hand-made paper. I wonder if it’s provided/made by this place.

Historical & Cultural Museum of Chiang Mai (or whatever name – I just made that one up [Oh, it’s the Chiang Mai City Arts and Cultural Center]) – A lot of reading, exorbitant air conditioning in some, but not all, rooms. Some of the interactive displays were in Thai only. Others had an uninspired English narrator. The information was sometimes interesting, but also often got bogged down by names of places and people without enough context or familiarity to distinguish them. The life-size recreation of an old village on the upstairs level was pretty cool. The downstairs area made me sleepy, but we did learn some things about the history of the town.

Evening food & activities

Supper was at a vegetarian restaurant, Taste from Heaven. The dishes there were hit or miss, and overall I was disappointed. Best dish: My Thai chili stir fry. It was both beautiful and delicious, with sprigs of peppercorns, black and green; crisp beans; red bell peppers; and tofu (or textured soy protein – I don’t know the difference). Ryan’s main dish, Sour curry, was the most disappointing. I don’t like hot & sour soup, and this had a similar flavor to me. (Ryan says it’s not like hot & sour soup at all, so I don’t know what I’m talking about.) We both liked Ryan’s salad (which deserves a picture but we didn’t think of that in time) – I don’t recall the name, but it was a crispy salad with flash-fried morning glory (the flower? Or a coincidence of translation?) leaves in batter and a tasty sweet & sour dressing. The only flaw in the recipe was that there was a too much dressing. My summer rolls (called “fresh spring rolls” here) weren’t that great. The ingredients were fresh and tasty, but the rolls were too lean. I still like the ones in Hawai`i better. Maybe they’re a southern Thai dish? I haven’t seen them anywhere else in Chiang Mai yet. [Later I asked someone who's been living here for a couple years and she said they're Vietnamese, and called either Vietnamese spring rolls or fresh spring rolls.]


Thai Chili Stir Fry

We stopped briefly at the Tha Phae gate to launch a sky lantern and watch some wacky Germans tie too many fireworks to theirs, so that it was too heavy to get off the ground and carried a payload of fireworks into the crowd of people, who properly ran away. The lantern sat on its firecrackers while they exploded until the thing was light enough to get off the ground. The event was hilarious because no one got hurt, and pretty much killed our thoughts of tying firecrackers to a balloon. (Others did it much more successfully, and we might still have a go at it.)

Back to food: We wandered along the Saturday Walking Street (a Saturday evening street market) and bought some cheap desserts that caught our eye. They were glossy and colorful, shaped like little vegetables, the way marzipan creations can be. These weren’t marzipan, but instead they were sweet white bean paste surrounded with some sort of corn syrup-esque sheet that was shaped and dyed or painted to resemble the treats we saw. They were tasty, and worth the 1B apiece. We had two each.


Bean paste candies

We eyed all sorts of street food but were too full to buy any. Pad thai, satay, black jelly (yes, a big, quivering mound of black agar. The sign said it was made from vegetable – seaweed, I guess – and to be eaten with sugar, so I don’t know if it was sweetened yet or not), fruits, chocolate cakes and so on. We got a bottle (too big) of passion fruit juice for 40B. It was too much for us, but she was sold out of the small size. It also wasn’t 100% passion fruit juice, so we were chagrined when we found a fruit juice stand selling 100% juices, including passion fruit, in smaller quantities. Well, it was tasty anyhow. The bottle was gross to open, though: The foil was glued on with some sort of waxy paste, and I had to peel it off and then squeeze my hand around the waxy bottle cap to twist it open. I got paste all over my fingers.

More pictures of food in Chiang Mai Read more!

First day in Chiang Mai

Friday, October 30

On the first real day of our visit to Thailand, we woke early – 7 am, after nearly 12 hours of sleep. Our sleep clocks might not be fully acclimatized yet, but after all the time confusion and sleeping on the airplane followed by this, they’re close. The hotel included a daily breakfast in the rate, so we went upstairs to investigate it. The food looked appetizing – tiny pancakes with honey, fruit, made-to-order omelets, tea, coffee, juice – and so we ate our fill without overeating.

After breakfast, we strode out into the city. Our hotel (The Small Hotel) is on the main east/west road [Tha Pae Road], but outside of the old city gates, closer to the river. We walked up the main road towards the inner, moat-encircled city, stopping at numerous Wats (temples and temple compounds) along the way.

Wat Phra Sing	Wat Bupparam
Inside Wat Chedi Luang	Inside Wat Bupparam

The Wats in Chiang Mai (probably in all Thailand, but I can only say so for Chiang Mai thus far) are ornately decorated with elaborate carvings and generous use of gold paint and gold plate. Colored mirrors and ceramic tiles are popular, as are certain mythological creatures (dragons, naga, toads, lions, peacocks – I guess those last ones aren’t mythological, but I’d guess they are at least legendary).


Colored mirrors and ceramic tile in mythological creatures (at Wat Bupparam)

There are so many Wats in Chiang Mai that, despite their awesomely exotic look, they quickly* become part of the usual. Still, it’s fun to be walking through a city with so many ornate buildings, and the monks strolling in their saffron-dyed robes, and the ubiquitous street carts selling fruit and noodles and chicken and sticky rice. Actually, the carts aren’t ubiquitous – try finding something to eat after midnight or early in the morning – but there are plenty of them in the daytime.
*(over several days, really)

Despite spending nearly the entire day walking around looking at pretty temples, we managed to squeeze in two lunches, a supper, dessert, and smoothies for an afternoon snack. I’ll do a food round up at the end of this post, and continue talking about the city for now.

It becomes trite to say of a place, the people there are just so nice, and then more so to add that you really mean it about this place. So I’ll do my best not to do that. However, I will mention that I’ve received a lot of smiles from strangers – shopkeepers and passersby – and it’s delightful to be able to smile back and say "hi" or "good morning." I learned a smattering of Thai language before coming here (probably 50 words or so), and so I’ll usually say hello in Thai (sawadt∙dee krop – though the "r" in Thai is often flipped, like in Spanish, or pronounced like an "l," like in Japanese; thus, sawadt∙dee klap works as well).

I’m writing this after having been in Chiang Mai nearly two weeks, so my impressions are somewhat corrupted with familiarity and complacency. When I get the chance and can think of the words, I’ll speak Thai – usually to shopkeepers, as most of the vocabulary that I can remember easily is shopping related. Because being nice seems to be a national pastime, it’s hard for me to tell when I’m being received more warmly when I speak Thai, but I can tell that it happens. (For example, two weeks hence, the night before I’m sitting down to write this, Ryan and I were at the market buying a tasty donut with bean filling, and as the merchant and I bantered about in Thai (not really saying much, but still making small talk), he kept adding extra donuts to our bag and then pointing to them and saying "free," or "for you.")

Anyhow, enough on the people for now. Suffice it to say, I feel very welcome here, very safe, and I think that learning a few words of the local language makes everything more fun. There are times when we’ve needed to rely on my limited vocabulary, because it exceeded the English vocabulary of the other party, so there’s that, too.

Weather.

The air temperature is quite warm and balmy. During the day in the sunlight, it gets hot, and for the first several days I was taking about three showers a day, just to cool off. Towards the end of the festival (Loy Krathong, which starts the day after tomorrow from the perspective of this blog entry and will thus be dealt with in a different post), the night air became much cooler and long pants were not as uncomfortable. The rainy monsoon season has supposedly ended by now, and in the next two weeks we will in fact have no rain (sprinkles one night, but not enough to get a person wet).

With so much muggy heat, it’s perhaps surprising that Thai people dress so modestly. Long dress pants and button-down shirts (short-sleeved) are the typical dress. Furthermore, exposing one’s knees or shoulders is rare among Thais and I think it’s considered immodest. For these reasons, Ryan and I’ve been wearing long pants and collared shirts (button down or polo style), despite the heat. This type of clothing is also a requirement for visiting the Wats, although some of them have shawls, wraps, or fisherman’s pants to wear if you’re inappropriately dressed.

Slippers, or easy-off shoes are typical as well, since one removes one’s shoes before entering a house or temple. I had thought that open-toed shoes were shunned, so on the first day we both wore regular lace-up shoes, which was very inconvenient for visiting so many Wats. After today, we will have switched to Tevas and been quite comfortable, both in temperature control and in modest appearance.

(A stark contrast to Thai dress is the common attire of western tourists. Western women here are often wearing tank tops or even strapless shirts and very short shorts. Western men are often in board shorts and a t-shirt.)

I probably have more reflections of Chiang Mai, but I’ll have to work them in to future posts, since we have to leave on a mini-bus today (the day on which I’m writing this) and I still need to talk about the food here.

Food.

I mentioned that we had two lunches. The first lunch was at a sidewalk café (a generous term) at which something smelled good and we could point at pictures of our desired dishes on the wall. I got some pad thai, and Ryan got a noodle soup with fish or pork meatballs. I tried speaking Thai with the vendors and learned the word for spicy (phet, with a silent "h") and tasty (aroi or aloi). Both dishes were aloi. I think they cost 20B (baht) and 25B, respectively.

Our second lunch was at a recommended (by Lonely Planet) restaurant, Yok Fa (I think it’s called "Nayok Fa" in the LP). Here, I ordered a shredded mango salad, spicy, with crispy dried anchovies tossed in sugar. It was quite tasty, if unusually flavored to me. Ryan ordered pad see ew and liked it. I don’t remember the prices for the dishes.

Between lunches, we bought smoothies from Juice Box, a couple blocks inside the walled city. Ryan ordered the better flavor: dragon fruit and mango. Mine was good, but not as good as Ryan’s: Dragonfruit, papaya, and guava. Both were exorbitantly magenta, and cost around 45B each.

I don't have it in my notes, but earlier (perhaps before our first lunch), we got drinks at another smoothie/coffee bar. Being new here, but wanting some Thai Iced Tea, I tried to order some off the menu. I had learned the Thai word for it (cha-in) and asked for some. The girl seemed surprised that I knew of this drink and admitted that it wasn't on the menu because she didn't know what westerners called it. Later, I discovered that everywhere else puts it on the menu. I don’t know what she was talking about. That was at Mr. Juicy, a smoothie vendor set in the front (and sidewalk) of an auto parts and repair shop. That’s typical here.

For supper, we attempted to go to a local food court at the Kalera Night Market, as recommended by Lonely Planet. We missed, and ended up at an adjacent, temporary food court that was just closing up when we arrived. I think there may have been some event or show there, giving purpose to the temporary food stalls, because there was a stage with some karaoke going on, and the girls working the noodle booth where we ate were dressed up and wore make up. (Face make up is not common here, we have observed.)

We split a bowl of yellow noodle in soup broth with cilantro. I think it may have been kao soy, a local dish for which we would soon go on a quest to find. If so, we ate it all wrong, bypassing entirely all the different mix-ins which make kao soy what it is. More on that later. Our soup was 20B.

After supper, we wandered into the actual Kalera Night Market food court, where everything was closed, except a waffle cart, which suited us just fine. We split a rum raisin waffle for dessert.

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at a bar because the patron or the bartender there hailed us and waved us over, and I guess we were in a social mood. We ordered a couple of drinks there (the Chiang Mai Paradise – a variant on a Mai Thai) for the high price of 120B each, and I had two to Ryan’s one. Everywhere we’ve been, alcohol is very expensive, even beer and wine, but especially mixed drinks.

That’s pretty much the end of Day One, although our last gasp before bed was to wander by the river and watch an early kom loy being launched, and see some fireworks, as the celebrations for Yi Peng (the local name for the Loy Krathong festival) began ramping up.


Launching a khom loy on the banks of the Mae Ping

Good night!

More pictures of Chiang Mai Read more!

The Missing Day

Or, the Case of the Suspicious Scissors

On Tuesday, October 27, 2009, Ryan and I woke up. That in itself was auspicious, since it means we went to sleep, a feat we thought beyond accomplishment on the night before our Big Trip™.

Our adventure really began months before, when we began packing everything up at 9983 Braddock, separating what we’d need for an 8-month homelessness from the things that could be safely packed away in Ryan’s parents’ spare room while we were abroad. Things started getting hairy about three of four weeks before D-Day (Departure Day) when we started skimping on sleep to get more things into boxes, to sell off nearly all of our furniture and trim what we could, and to make all our last minute purchases of global band cell phones, travel clothes and packs, anti-malarial medicines, vaccinations, and so on. Shorter nights became short nights, and eventually we were cycling through insomniac nights of cat naps, double espressos and dozing off whenever there was time to stand around. We picked up the first moving truck on Thursday (October 22) and knew we would run out of room by the end of the day. On Friday, we rented a second moving truck (fortunately much smaller). On Saturday, we finished loading both trucks and picked up a tow trailer for the car (now lacking a spare driver) and I took off with truck number 1, the big one. That excitement is written about elsewhere, but it suffices to say we were sure that it would take nearly as much time to unload as it had to load the trucks, and we would be dashing to stack the last box and return the truck Tuesday afternoon on the way to the airport. Instead, Ryan’s family came though with amazing efficiency and both trucks were unloaded and swept out by Sunday night. That is why it is incredible that on Tuesday, October 27, 2009, Ryan and I woke up.

Tuesday morning was spent with the final errands and adieus. Ryan’s whole family assembled for lunch at a Mongolian Barbecue restaurant, and although traffic made us a little later to the airport than I’d hoped, everything turned out just fine … meaning we made the flight.

First flight, Phoenix to Los Angeles.

This was a short flight, and I think I slept the whole way to LAX.

Second flight, LAX to Taipei, Taiwan.

Because we were switching to an international flight, we had to exit our terminal and walk to the international departures terminal, which meant going through security again. No biggie, I had expected this and was prepared for it. I dumped my water out (I’d filled an empty water bottle at the water fountain in Arizona) and filled the bottle fresh after breezing through the checkpoint.

We were served several meals on the plane. I’d signed up for the vegetarian meal as I usually do—(1. I would rather avoid meat from whatever unknown source the airlines gets it, and 2. I think the vegetarian meals on airplanes are usually – not always – more creative.)—but there was a problem. About a week before we left, Ryan was informed by Expedia that China Airlines had changed our flight and a new paper ticket would have to be issued, after mailing back the current paper ticket. Because we were due to leave LA so soon, the new tickets were sent to Arizona (and that turned out okay, despite a false alarm that the flights were being changed again after our tickets were already switched once and were no longer available to us until we arrived in Phoenix), but apparently during the swap, my vegetarian meal request was dropped. So when the meals came and we had a choice of meats, I asked for the vegetarian option, and had to wait to see if any of the crew vegetarian meals were left over. One was, and it was fairly tasty. I don’t remember what the meat options were (chicken or salmon?), but mine was a plate of rice with a white gravy and bits of tofu and vegetables. My request also extended to breakfast on the same flight, and they said they would contact the next leg of my flight and pass the request on there as well.

So for breakfast, my vegetarian meal came early, and it was … rice with a white gravy and bits of tofu and vegetables. Great. Then when they came to Ryan, he was offered a choice between Chinese culture breakfast and eggs + sausage. He chose the eggs because the Chinese culture breakfast was … rice with a white gravy and bits of tofu and vegetables. Yay again.

After a 14 hour flight in which the sun never rose, and we had breakfast at midnight and supper at 4 in the morning (8 hours later?), we arrived in Taipei.

Scissors, episode 1.

After landing in Taiwan, we had to catch a connecting flight to Bangkok. Our original flight plans put us on a direct flight to Chiang Mai, Thailand, from here, but the flight was cancelled and now we had to go through Bangkok (this was what required the paper tickets to be reissued). That flight was in a different terminal, so we had to exit security and go back through it again. There was a bit of confusion finding the right check-in desk because China Air is not the same as Air China.

In the United States, the TSA restricts certain items in your carryon luggage. Among these restricted items are scissors over 4 inches long. Shorter scissors are okay, and both pairs of my sewing scissors had made it through two security check points thus far, as had my utili-key knife (an ingenious pocket knife in the shape of a key so that it can go through security x-ray machines). The Chinese, however, had more active imaginations, and apparently someone had thought of a way for me to do devastating damage with a 2-inch pair of scissors. Admittedly, I had worried that the short scissors would be confiscated because they would violate the airline safety regulations, but the guidelines set forth by the TSA said they were okay, so I went with that. The Chinese checkpoint guard said that China had a different policy, and thus, no scissors. In addition to stealing my scissors, they took my passport to log my transgression, and then made me sign a receipt of my loss (at least that’s what the guard seemed to be saying).

The security guard also took out and set aside my second pair of scissors (red plastic with a thin strip of metal for the cutting blades), but eventually decided that sharp scissors (the ones in question here) were dangerous but blunt, rounded nosed scissors were not. After warily eyeing my red, blunt scissors (tied shut with spare sewing thread, even), the guard returned both passport and plastic scissors to me with an admonishing air, and I was on my way again.

Scissors II: Taiwan to Bangkok, with a stopover in Hong Kong.

With my pack lighter by a pair of scissors (but thankfully not by a dual pair of scissors), we boarded the flight to Bangkok. The ticket gate had some unwelcome news for us: our flight to Bangkok (supposedly direct) would be stopping in Hong Kong along the way. I assumed that this was like other supposedly direct flights I’ve had in the States, on which the airplane touches down briefly to disgorge some passengers and take on their replacements, while through-riders just stay on the plane during the short stop. Oh, silly assumptions. On this direct flight from Taipei to Bangkok, we disembarked at Hong Kong and walked to another terminal, which meant yet another security check point. I had no pointy, less-than-four-inch scissors for them to swipe anymore, but they still wanted me to open my bag and take out my little red, plastic, blunt-nosed scissors, wrapped in black thread, and they still set them aside while pawing through the rest of the stuff. After group consultation, however, they returned them to me and we could board flight #4.

Scissors III: The Possible Trilogy (Hong Kong to Bangkok.)

The sun finally rose while we were in Hong Kong, and on either this flight or the previous one we were served breakfast. My vegetarian request had been relayed, and so they were happy to bring me another plate of rice with white gravy and bits of tofu and vegetables. (Note that I was definitely getting tired of this dish at every meal, but I also didn’t envy the meat dishes Ryan was getting. I guess it was a bad hand dealt all around.)

Perhaps I slept on this flight – I think I did, and soon enough we were in Bangkok, Thailand. This meant switching from the international arrivals terminal to a domestic terminal, passing through customs, and, of course, another security check. I don’t remember if I had to show off my red scissors again, but I think so. I am wondering if the thin metal blade (just a strip of metal) on these scissors would be little enough to set off the metal detector, or if I could save a lot of trouble by just wearing them in my pocket. Or presenting them at the gate each time? Whatever it is, it’s tedious to guess at.

Bangkok to Chiang Mai, final flight.

I was so relieved to be done with airport foibles that I wrote nothing about this flight. I think I napped, as well, since it was supposedly getting close to evening on Thursday. Somehow Wednesday had slipped into the ether, waiting until we passed by this way again next February. (On that return flight we’ll arrive in Los Angeles before we leave New Zealand, making for exciting investment schemes!)

When we landed in Chiang Mai, it was night again, and we did nothing but take a taxi to our hotel. I’ve decided that it can be useful for prospective visitors to Thailand (any who stumble across this blog) to know the prices of things, and since things in Thailand are rather inexpensive, I’m including prices where I can. Anyhow, the taxi ride was 70 baht, plus a 50 baht airport origination fee. That’s about what the guidebook advised, so everything was fine so far.

Ah, Chiang Mai – we are so excited to see your mystery, your splendor, your history – tomorrow, after 12 hours of sleep!


Our room at The Small Hotel
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Welcome

A blog post about our blog. I'm supposed to be uploading our first posting - of events that now took place three weeks ago - but this beast requires its own introduction, so here ya go.

I think we thought at first that blogging would be easy. I still think it will be, but what is apparently not easy is setting up a blogger page. It's like thinking that building a prefab house will be easy, but then realizing that in addition to picking the layout, the number of rooms, the color of the paint or wallpaper, and so on with my analogy, you still have to fill the house with content. (Plus, apparently even with everything prefab, there are occasional plumbing issues where various pipes don't meet up right and you have to tinker with the HTML anyway.)

So, setting up our blog was something that, having been assumed to be simple, was given a low priority and ignored until we arrived in Thailand. Of course, once we got here, there were more important things to do, like see Thailand, and the blog still got ignored. Well, not completely ignored. We worked on it a bit, and worried about getting it set up and blog entries written. We nearly (but not that nearly) nixed the project because it was eating up so much of our vacation time (we haven't gotten it into our subconscious yet that "vacation" is our life for the next 8 months), but now at last, I think we're ready.

I'm not promising any posting schedule, but we will try to keep up for our own sake, lest too many new experiences pile up and overwhelm our memories. For the record, this is probably the third "first post" I've made - the first was the first one I wrote (3 days in), the second is the airplane rides to get here (first chronologically) and now this introductory post. And Ryan's already put up several test posts, including a brief outline of our travel plans. So I'm in no way "first," but uncaring. Another first post follows... Read more!

Guestbook

Use this to say hi to us. Read more!

Photo Albums

Here are our photo albums...


2009
Thailand - Ryan and Danny
Thailand - Chiang Mai 
Thailand - Food 
Thailand - Loy Krathong
Thailand - Elephants 
Thailand - Cave Lodge
Thailand - Sukothai 
Thailand - Phitsanulok Caving
Thailand - Phitsanulok
Thailand - Khorat
Thailand - Ayutthaya
Thailand - Bangkok
Thailand - Lopburi
Thailand - Phang Nga and Phuket
Thailand - Ko Phi Phi
Thailand - Diving
Thailand - Krabi

2010
Australia - Zoos
Australia - Sydney
Aus / NZ - Food
New Zealand - Bungee
New Zealand - Franz Josef Glacier
New Zealand - Mount Owen
New Zealand - Buskers' Festival
New Zealand - Routeburn
New Zealand - Tongariro Crossing
New Zealand - Coromandel
New Zealand - Lake Waikaremoana
New Zealand - misc

Argentia - Buenos Aires
Argentina / Chile - Patagonia
Chile - Torres del Paine
Argentina / Brazil - Iguazu Falls
Argentina - Perito Moreno

Morocco
Spain - Sevilla
Spain - Granada
Spain - Dali
Spain - Ibiza
Spain - Barcelona
France - Carcassonne
France - misc

Cruise - On the Boat 
Cruise - Ports 

USA - Burning Man

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