Cambodia

Merry Christmas.
About a week ago we crossed the border from Thailand into Cambodia and immediately we could notice a difference. Cambodia is much less developed and there are many landmine victims. The public transportation is very interesting also as the roads are an extremly bumpy mixture of dirt, rocks and big holes. Also one of our buses broke down on the side of the road last week. However we have been having a great time with many new expereinces. Last week we seen Angkor Wat which was incredible, its one of the wonders of the world I was told and probably the best architectural structure I have ever seen. Also last week we went out for supper one night and ended up eating some Kangaroo and Crocidile meat.

For christmas Brent and I decided to go all out and get a super nice hotel room where we are treated like kings, have hot water, no bed bugs, ac and even a tv. We spent christmas day relaxing by the ocean and playing frisbee with some cambodian kids and a middle age speedo clad french man who loved diving for the frisbee. I purposely through it away from him so he would chase it and dive for it, it was extremely funny. Tomorrow we are doing a little boat cruise to some island where we can do some cliff jumping or something. Happy Holidays.

PICTURES

Here is a select few pictures from the past month in Thailand, hopefully some will be of interest to some of you. Enjoy

My belongings.

Maya Bay

Brent looking like Tom Hanks.

Monkey beach (Tyler...yeah, it was better)

Ko Phangan

Greatest shower ever (also the first in days probably).

Brent and I riding daddy elephant.


Lots of temples.

Lots of palaces (BLING!!).

Holding a PYTHON.

On a totally unrelated note...while travelling I read alot. If anyone has any good book suggestions for me please let me know. Happy holidays.

The Beach.

Right now I am on the island of Ko Phi Phi. For anyone who cares Leonardo DiCaprio made a movie here. Wow! Its incredibly beautiful, but also very touristy, as is many of the beaches in southern Thailand. It will be nice to get away from these super resort areas soon as it doesn't even feel like Thailand alot of the time. We have done alot of fun things though like solid frisbee sessions everyday on beaches till our shoulders ache, getting a killer suntan (yes, I have a killer suntan), eating lots of street pancakes and a couple days ago we did a kayaking tour down a river through some water filled caves. Tomorrow we are doing a boat tour around the island to some of the best snorkelling areas here. In a couple days we are going to head south all the way to Malaysia to renew our visas and possibly spend a couple days there before heading all the way up to Cambodia.

I would like to put up some pics, but haven't been able to hook up my camera to any computers lately, I got alot of pics though - all good ones.

I seen a christmas tree today and it was real strange. I totally forgot it was that time of year.

Never eat a club sandwich.

We made it to the south.

We are now on the Island of Ko Tao and have spent 4 days here. We did a one day introductory scuba diving course that included one dive at the end. It was definitely one of the funnest things I have ever done as we got to see a reef, alot of fish and have a slow motion matrix battle way under the water. The pancakes down here are incredible, but never have the club sandwiches - Brent and I both had them and ended up real sick. That was unfortunate, but other then that relaxing on the beach and getting sunburnt has been a real good time. Tomorrow we are leaving Ko Tao for another bigger island called Ko Phangan.

I just got an exciting email from a orphanage in Cambodia telling us that we are accepted as volunteers for a few days in early January. I am real happy about this as it will be a nice break from travelling and will give me the oppurtunity to do something to help someone else as travelling sometimes feels like a real selfish and self centered act when I think about it. Ok, all the best, hope everyone is drinking lots of eggnog cause I'm really missing it.

Thailandish

Yes, we are in Thailand. Yes, we are very safe.
We arrived just before the airports closed and spent a few days in Bangkok seeing some sights. We watched some Muay Thai Kickboxing, seen some amazing temples and palaces, did some aerobics to techno music with alot of thai people in a park, I held a python around my neck and Brent stepped on a big fat rat by accident on the street. However, Bangkok was to busy and crazy so we left.

We are now in Chiang Mai, which is northern Thailand. We just finished doing a 3 day mountain trek which included visiting and staying in mountain villages, riding elephants, swimming and showering under huge waterfalls and alot of hiking and trekking through some pretty legit jungle. Our guide was using a machete to open the trail in alot of places. At the end of the trek we also got to do some whitewater rafting which was incredible.

Tomorrow we are going further north for a couple days then starting to head south so we will be hitting beaches just in time for christmas.

Movin' on.

Later South Korea, you treated us well. Bangkok tonight!

Mountain Snakes!

This last week we spent some time traveling around the east coast. We spent two days hiking in Soraksen National Park. The first day we arrived around 10:30 and decided to do a real long hike - 22kms. It was to the top of Mt. Soraksen which is the highest point in the area. The hike took much longer then expected as the last few kilometers to the top were snow and ice covered and very physically taxing. The view was spectacular and worth the walk, but as we came down we noticed that the light was quickly fading. We ended up hiking the last 3-4kms in the dark with only the stars to guide us. It was incredibly peaceful, calm and relaxing when we were not tripping over rocks or stepping in puddles.

The next day we did another hike, this one much shorter. It ended with the longest, steepest and sketchiest staircase I have seen in my life up a granite cliff face. Something like this would definitely not be aloud in Canada. The view from this hike was amazing as well and it was a great two days of hiking with some real sore muscles to show for it.

On the east coast we also went and visited one of the largest limestone caves in Asia. It had cathedral sized openings, waterfalls and lots of interesting cave formations. It was definitely one of the highlights of Korea.

Tomorrow we are touring the Demiliterized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, then on Sunday we are done our time in Korea and fly to Bangkok where we will try and learn a new country and a new way of living.

Island living.

In my first week and a half in Korea I met many locals and asked them where the best place was to visit in the country. Almost all of them would say Jeju Island. So Brent and I went and got some plane tickets and flew down to the southern most part of South Korea to explore this much praised Island and it did not disappoint.

On our second morning on Jeju we rented bicycles and started our journey of going around the entire coast of the island. It was 250 kms with a decent amount of climbs and some real good downhills. We covered this distance in four days at a relaxed pace, stopping whenever we wanted to look at something or take a break to grab some fresh Christmas oranges right off of a tree. The first two days were wonderful weather and shorts were needed, however the last two days were pouring rain and we were drenched from head to toe and peddling so hard. This was one of the funnest moments of the ride as we made the best of a bad situation and had a good time being soaked.


Along the coast we seen some of the most beautiful places in the world (according to me). There was many incredible lava rock formations as the island was made from many volcanos. We also seen some amazing waterfalls and the worlds longest lava tube cave. One morning we were even so ambitious to wake up early enough to climb a volcano crater (see:Seongsan Ilchulbong) and watch the sun rise over it...but it was cloudy so all we got was a slight purple glow.


The day after our biking was done we got up real early again as we planned on hiking up Mount Hallasan, which is South Koreas tallest mountain. It was raining again, but this did not stop us as we made it to the top to see the famous volcanic crater of the dormant volcano mountain. The hike altogether was 20kms and that night we had some real sore muscles from 4 days straight of biking and then hiking for 7 hours.


We left the island early the next morning by ferry to the city of Mokpo, then onto the city of Gwanju for the night. The next day we seen some countryside around Gwanju and some of the most incredible fall colors were on display. We then took a bus to Jeonju to spend the night at a Hot Spring Spa...or so we thought. We took a taxi out of town to this 'highly recommended' spa as we had high hopes of relaxing in saunas and hot tubs all night. The taxi driver dropped us off, snaked us and overcharged us big time and then left real fast. There were three buildings around, two with lights on and one totally dark and abandoned...and of course the abandoned one was where the spa was supposed to be. We now realized we were way in the middle of nowhere, it was 9:30pm and totally dark. We had no way of getting back to the city but our own two feet. So we started walking back towards Jeonju, we tried hitching a ride for awhile but it turns out Koreans aren't very receptive to the outstretched thumbs of foreigners at night time. We ended up walking the entire 15 kms and getting a real dirty hotel room just after midnight.

Our first excursion to smaller towns and villages around the country was a huge success with it being some of the best 8 days of my life. Trying to communicate with people who know no english except for 'hello' and a couple words from a Justin Timberlake song is definitely interesting. Lots of school kids would yell and point at us and a middle aged male cab driver told me I was handsome and looked like Tom Cruise. There was also an elderly man who owned a hotel who hand fed us cooked potatoes, slapped my back real hard and rubbed Brents beard. He was one of the coolest old dudes and we were friends even though we could not understand a word from eachother. Travelling is great.

Quick update.

Today I ate some octopus for the first time. Tomorrow I am flying to Jeju Island. We will be spending about a week there biking around the whole island then climbing a volcano.

Gaining some culture.

Walking on top of a fortress wall.

City view on rainy day from N. Seoul Tower

Tyler and Brent celebrating FC Seoul goal.

Palace ceremony.

Jumpin' out of a pocket! Best picture of the trip yet.

That's just a sample of a few things that we have done. Yesterday we almost got stuck in a riot of blind people. We walked down a street and ended up being surrounded by blind protesters yelling into microphones and megaphones, hitting drums and cheering. There was lots and lots of riot police around. It was kind of exciting. Today we were going to climb a mountain but we got rained out so we went to the National Museum of Korea. Its the 6th largest in the world. It was very good. Tomorrow we will climb that mountain then in the evening we are going to the jjimjilbang. If you don't know what that is, then look it up, we have been very excited about it and heard lots of stories about it since we got here.

We are leaving the city next week and have big plans.


ps. Check out Brent's blog from the link on the side...he just made a great post about the POWER STANCE. It is taking over Korea.

Mashin' knucks in Korea.

After getting off the plane from Vancouver to Seoul it took me about 10 minutes to make a bad impression on Korea by smashing a girl square in the face with my backpack. Other then that incident everything has been top notch though. In the first two days we met so many of Tyler's friends and students and I believe that Koreans are the friendliest people I have ever met. Also they love style and cellphones. Some of them text with a cellphone in each hand to two different people at once.

Some of the tourist stuff we have done in the last 4 days include walking up to N. Seoul Tower twice. This is apparently the most famous place in Seoul and its only about a 45 minute walk from Tylers. It has a great city view. On Sunday we went to a FC Seoul soccer match at the World Cup Stadium. They had some real wild fans and ended up winning the game, giving us lots of chances to cheer. Then yesterday Brent and I did our first full day of touring by ourselves and mastering the subway system here. We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace, Korean Folk Museum, tried hiking up a mountain but got blocked by the military, hiked along a Fortress wall and famous river and then learned how to order food by pointing at pictures of something we have no clue about on a menu.

Finally, I will leave you with this story. On Sunday we went to church with Tyler, after the service a guy named Tim Hwang came and introduced himself to us and we talked for about 10-15 minutes. He was a super rad dude and very friendly. After returning to Tylers place we looked him up on the internet cause Tyler thought he had heard of him before and it turns out he is a HUGE KOREAN POP STAR! He used to have his own show on MTV Korea called Tim's World and has had many smash hit power ballads, his most famous being a song called 'I Love You.'

So thats the update on the first few days, hopefully I will put some pictures up here on the weekend.

South Korean Reunion.

Flying out of Winnipeg tomorrow morning.

I will be travelling with my good friend Brent Gerbrandt. For the first month we will be gaining some culture in and around Seoul, South Korea with Tyler Sommerfeld. Tyler has been living in Seoul for a couple months already. Upon arrival Brent and I have to make our way to Tylers place by taking a bus and then the subway. I'm pretty sure we will get lost and things are bound to get exciting right off the start.

Here is an old photo of Brent, Tyler and I from 2 years ago. Its going to be a wild month.

ASIA.

October 23rd, 2008 - Winnipeg, Canada - Seoul, South Korea
November 23rd, 2008 - Seoul, South Korea - Bangkok, Thailand
March 2nd, 2009 - Bangkok, Thailand - ?, Canada

In one weeks time I will be departing on a 4-5 month journey. This is the itinerary of the flights, but the travels will not be limited to only the listed countries. I have created this blog to keep people updated with some stories and pictures. However it may not be updated every week as using the internet is definitely not my main priority while travelling. I am very excited. I have already packed my backpack and am ready to go. 4 tshirts, 2 pairs of pants, no shaver and no ipod. Time for some adventure.