Laos Border Crossing

We just had our most interesting border crossing yet. Earlier in Thailand, we handed over our passports and 1500 Thai Baht to a nice looking lady, and we were told she'll get us visas to visit Laos. It's a bit discomforting to not have your passport on you at all times.

I snapped this pic of the port as we left Chiang Khong, Thailand. Despite the lack of uniformed officials and plain old officialness, we were told not to take pictures of our border crossing. We walked down a wet sloppy road and stepped through the murky mighty Mekong River onto skinny ferry boats. A quick trip across the river brought us to Huay Xai, Laos. We were relieved to see our passports along with filled-in paperwork, including a poor imitation of our signatures. Thankfully, it worked, and we've been enjoying the friendly hospitality of the Lao people for a couple days now.

Molly and Brent enter Laos

That's a funny looking Harley

Far cooler than a pink taxi is hopping in a TukTuk for ride through town. They're basically a scooter with a couple wheels thrown on the back and a bench seat. If you can manage to hold your breath long enough to avoid the exhaust fumes, they're a fun ride. They make a great throaty two stroke kinda sound, but it's nothing like a Harley....

A little romance for the honeymoon

Nothing says love more than heart shaped fish cakes. Mmmmm....

Overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai

The first leg of our Intrepid Tour involved taking a 14 hour train ride from Bangkok up North. It was no TGV, but the train staff was very kind and kept the beer flowing. Probably to encourage everyone to sleep well in the short beds. Mol and I shared the cozy little sleeper bed in the picture. Not too bad -- we just needed to coordinate any movements and rotating around.

Chiang Mai's a nice town and not nearly as crazy as Bangkok. We had a Thai cooking lesson, and then we drove up to a beautiful temple halfway up the mountain. We even got to see some chanting monks. Tomorrow, we drive for 7 hours into Laos. Then we take a boat ride down the Mekong River for a couple days to our next big city. We'll check in again when we get there.

Cooking Class in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We started our day by going to the market with our guide which was wonderful because she could help decipher it all for us. There are stalls as far as you can see put up each day by the farmers and vendors in the valley. It is a strong agricultural center and the food is amazing. However, there was a TON of it that we never would have known about if Pui hadn't shown us what it was! So many things that we've never even seen fresh before.


We tried fruits like a mangosteen (sp??), a custard apple, rambutans...all amazingly good and sweet. We bought fresh ingredients for all of the dishes we were going to make, including fresh, hot coconut milk from this machine (see photos) that grinds up the entire coconut, then the coconut mash gets put into this other machine with water and turned into coconut cream and milk. delicious! but only lasts for a day so you have to buy just the right amount.

Then back to the cooking school where we made Pad Thai, coconut soup with chicken, hot & sour soup with shrimp, red curry with shrimp and massaman curry with chicken. We wrapped it all up with sticky rice with mango which was delicious! We're convinced that we're master chefs now. Brent's even stopped threatening to send me to wife school...for the day anyway. It was a great time!


Thanks to Pui, our teacher who was so fun, funny and helpful.



Ta da! Buon Apetito! (or however you say that in Thai - unfortunately, our Thai has not improved since everybody speaks great English and can't wait to practice wtih us...hmm..)

Molly and Brent enter Bangkok

That lucky couple should be completely overwhelmed by the chaos of Bangkok right now.  If they only had a sheep dog to herd them along...

Monkeys!

Our hotel in Ubud, Bali was just on the other side of the Monkey Forest from downtown Ubud. After a pleasant walk past rice fields (of course), a few shops, and some yoga retreats, we founds the monkeys. There were more little Macaques than you could shake a banana at. Families of monkeys walked amongst us with their little babies clinging to the bellies of their parents. Some got a bit feisty, even fighting for a baby and pulling it by its tail. They certainly didn't mind us a bit, which was good b/c we were warned they get upset when you don't have food for them.



Afterwards, we looked for the funky monkey bar, reminding me of the nights spent at the Barber's Closet in Madison. We couldn't find it, but I got my fix with a cinnamon banana lassie.

One Night in Bangkok

Bangkok - wow. We were initiated by our cab driver who picked us up from the airport and then proceeded immediately to fumble around with something on his passenger seat and then he popped in a CD and turned on a screen on the dashboard. KARAOKE IN THE CAB!!! Oh my god, I was in heaven. The worst, cheesiest, most incredible 80s love songs...many of which we didn't even knowm but they were all in English...blared into the air with our cab driver whistling and dancing along with each of them. And they were accompanied by the worst videos we've ever seen. Our driver loved it and was obviously excited by the music as he sped past billboards bigger than any we've ever seen, going over 150 kph at times (93 mph, Google tells me) and navigating his way into Chinatown to our hotel. Wow again. I couldn't stop laughing, but Brent was politely trying to hold it together until we got out of the cab at which point he lost it as well. We have arrived. We laughed for awhile about the whole experience then we dumped our gear in our hotel,



grabbed a 3 wheel death trap, I mean "tuktuk" (which actually makes the sound tuktuk with it's burping, belching exhaust) and made it to Khao San Road. Khao San Road is a combination of Cancun spring breakers, NYC night clubs, stereotypical Thai salesmen (one of whom we think was trying to sell Brent on a "Live Fuck Show" but we're not positive), street vendors galore selling everything from t-shirts to underwear to jewelry to bikinis, and food stalls.




We decided to just get right into it and we bought pad thai for dinner(2 orders), plus one spring roll for the total price of 50 Bhat, or about $1.20. haha. We then proceeded to get ice cream and beers for almost $10. Maybe we should stick to food that comes on carts.

Boreh Scrubbed

So I thought I'd do something romantic and signed up to get a volcanic (Boreh) body scrub and massage with molly. I was envisioning side by side massages by a couple of cute Balinese women...

When we showed up, Molly got the cute girl in one hut. I went to the next hut, and got stuck with a Balinese guy. Hmmm... I reminded myself of how masculine newly married men are as I got a pretty damn good massage. Then came the volcanic scrub. Interesting smell that I couldn't quite place. After putting the scrub on my legs and my back, the guy left the hut, and I started to feel the burn. Holy Shit. It was hot. I think the volcanic name came from the feeling I had of being dipped in magma. I kept waiting. Was he burning off my skin to make me a better offering to Brahma, the God of Fire?? The bath tub looked really tempting.

After an eternity, the dude returned, and I was able to shower, and then soak away my wimpers in a rose petal infused bath. More reconfirmations of my masculinity....

After escaping the hut with all the skin on my back still intact, I found Molly and discovered the secret ingredient -- Nitric Acid. (see black thing next to statue)

Temple Hopping

Molly and I visited Pura Besakih, the holiest temple in Bali. A friendly waiter from our hotel in Tulamben loaned me his prayer scarf for my head to go along with our required sarong attire. I received many thumbs ups from the locals. And a few giggles. Compliments, I am sure. Katut, our local guide, explained much of the Hindu faith to us. Molly will expound on this in a future post...

View from our Porch

We've settled in to Bali time quite well here. Sunrise at 6:30am. Sunset at 6:30pm. Lots of time for sleeping and napping after scuba dives. The view from our porch makes the sunrise worth waking up for.

Rice Fields in Bali

We were treated to incredible vistas of rice fields on our drive to the scuba resort in Bali. The Balinese are blessed with very fertile land, and they go to great pains to use every bit of it with the incredible terraces.

Reporting from Bali

Hi - we've made it to Ubud! we're at the Bali Spirit hotel....ahhh....it is built cascading down a steep slope to the Wos River so it is lush and green and tropical. Very different from Tulamben where we were on the beach and woke up each morning to the sunrise which we watched from our bed!

We dove and dove in Tulamben and neighboring Amed, both from the shore and from boats, we saw the Liberty wreck twice, and also, we went to see the Besakih temple about 1000m up the side of a 3000m volcano (Gunung Agung), and a huge, beautiful lake at the base of another large volcano (Gunung Batur), and had a few great dinners in the funny town of Tulamben (about 2 blocks long and largely deserted...we got great attention and service from everybody!). The roads here are hysterical and don't have a lot of traffic, but what traffic there is is dangerously close to each other, scooters seamlessly (and amazingly unscathed) zipping around moving cars, around parked cars, around people, children, dogs and chickens walking down the road...just hysterical. And people carry everything you can imagine on their scooters! construction supplies, huge bags of rice, motor oil, gas cans, sticks, full families of 4!! it's great. I can't watch most of the time so I close my eyes and Brent tells me when there is a pretty mountain, beautiful temple, or lush rice field, and I look at those. :-) it's terrifying, but they all seem to get along just fine driving like that.

We just got to Ubud and found that they missed part of our communication and thought that we weren't coming at all - whoops - but the Tantra suite is still available for the next two nights so we're in. We're just waiting for them to clean it and checking in with the world because this is the first computer we've really seen so far! It's been wonderfully remote, quiet and relaxing so far. I've had so many massages at our spa in Tulamben (including one couple's massage at the pool...ahhh again...) that I actually got sore! haha. what a life. I got a body scrub, body mask, 4 full body massages, head massages, foot reflexology, floral bath...really going crazy!! and loving it. :-)

Last night we took in a very funny, but very cultural shadow puppet play in Ubud. It took place in a small local museum (think BMOCA, Boulderites) and had amazingly loud music and singing to accompany the story of a kingdom being threatened by an evil demon who wanted a human sacrifice. The son of the queen offered himself up for sacrifice, but he was able to fend off the evil demon with his goodness (or, as Brent calls it - bad ass shadow puppet action!) and they all live happily ever after, free forever of the evil demon.

Now, back to the spa for more massages and a walking tour around Ubud to see monkeys, artwork, more singing, and dancing.

Check in here for a few photos if we ever get them uploaded on this slow connection.
http://picasaweb.google.com/molclar/BaliHoneymoon

First Class Treatment in Coach

Mol and I are in Hong Kong - one flight away from Bali. Had a little scare right off the bat. Our first flight was delayed 3 hours, which meant we would have missed our connection in LA. Luckily, we got to the airport plenty early and caught an earlier flight. The international terminal in LA was a mad house! We felt like foreigners as we snaked our way through crowds of passengers with large boxes waiting to cross the Pacific. And this was at 1am.

We scored seats with two empty spots on our 14 hour flight to Hong Kong. So we got to stretch out and lay horizontally for some much needed sleep. Our bodies have no idea what time it is. Either 7pm mountain time or 9am HK time. I think we're eating breakfast food here, but it seems more like dinner food. Hmmm....

A few more naps on a plane and we'll be in Bali!!!

Honeymooners out.

Molly and Brent are heading West

The honeymooners are heading West (to the Far East).  Since they're flying high above the Pacific, I, their dutiful dowry, thought I'd post an update to the blog.  

Molly and Brent are embarking on the trip of a life time.  First, they're easing into married life with a week of relaxing in Bali.  Then it's four weeks through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia.  Part II takes them down to South America for some Spanish lessons.  Two weeks of immersion school in Buenos Aires and then another couple weeks in Santiago.  Their trip finishes up in Peru with a hike to Machu Picchu.

Stay tuned for updates from the honeymooners when they find an internet cafe.  Bahhh!