DISASTER!

Our beautiful little camera spent the day sightseeing around bangkok on its own yesterday. Left in the back of a cab... #$&*

We spent just under a week in Cambodia. After an overnight, 22 hour journey from Northern Thailand we made it to Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat. The temples were stunning and we thoroughly enjoyed bicycling though the vast complex.

From there, we made our way to the capitol city of Phnom Phen. We met up with a Canadian we had met in Bangkok and he introduced us to a little community of expats (mostly teaching english). At the killing fields and S-21 museum, we were shocked to learn what the country had been through in the late 1970's. The picture of the tower-like structure is a monument to all the Cambodians who were killed during the genocide and it is actually full of 8000 skulls. We ate omelette's on baguettes with Cambodian coffee (we loved the french influence!) every morning at Veasna's litte restaurant near our hotel. He enlightened us more on life in Cambodia and we had a great time talking to him. He is definitely one of the nicest people we have met.

ELEPHANTS!!

WE RODE ON ELEPHANTS! THEY WERE BIG!! IT WAS AMAZING!! BEST THING WE'VE EVER DONE!!

We are now Thai Chefs

Well... sort of. We took a day-long cooking class at least! Hopefully you can catch us before we find jobs in the fall and we'll have time to cook for you! We make a mean curry or Pad-thai with homemade spring rolls.

Hong Kong

Flying into to a new Country at night is never very comforting, so as we landed at 9 pm in Hong Kong, we decided to book a room in advance. We chose the Maple Leaf Guesthouse, mostly because of the name (it turns out, that other than stealing the maple leaf meats logo, it had nothing to do with Canada). The directions to our new home were long and confusing but we succeeded in the first step: finding the right bus at the airport. The Maple Leaf was located in a converted office building that now housed hundreds of hostels and guesthouses, so our search really began once we reached the right address.

Getting off the bus in a new country, especially in an area known for cheap accommodation, is always fairly stressful. People are always hassling you to get you to choose their hotel or to get in their cab. We are more or less used to this routine now, but nothing prepared us for the Tsim Sha Tsui region of Hong Kong. People were literally coming into the bus so they could be the first to yell at us: "you need accommodation!?!" We did our best to ignore everyone and march off in any direction, just to get away. As business cards were repeatedly shoved towards us, I plowed through the crowd with Miranda close behind. Just as I started to see some space open up through the crowd a very persistent man blocked my way and shoved a full page within inches of my face. In frustration and anger, I pushed away the mans hands and shuffled by him only to realize half a second later that the paper had my name on it. My name! Mike Donald! This guy was our host at the Maple Leaf and he was waiting outside for us... that has never happened! He had our flight number, but he didn't even really know if we would take the bus, subway or a cab! After a lot of apologizing, we learned his name was John and he showed us the way through the maze to our room. It was definitely the smallest and most efficient room we have had, complete with 2 custom made beds that fit exactly into the nooks and crannies. We had about 4 square feet of floor space and a tiny bathroom with the shower over the toilet. Real estate is valuable in Hong Kong!

Tom, Gwen and Gili Air

We met a fabulous couple during our roadtrip around Bali. Tom is a software engineer (who also bears a striking resemblence to James Taylor) and Gwen has had lots of experience working for different organisations like CIDA and VSO. She's been everywhere, man! They are both from San Fransisco, but Gwen is originally from the Guelph area in Ontario. I guess it is a small world after all.
Okay, so the point is, is that they were the catalysts for us taking a boat trip from Bali to a tiny little island called Gili Air. They had just visited and sold us on how small and quiet it is. After bombing around Bali and crashing through the Kuta chaos, this island sounded like just what we needed.
And it truly was. There is absolutely no traffic except for the tinkling of horse-drawn buggys and squeeking of rusty old bicycles. The obligatory snorkelling, sunning and cocktail drinking were on the itinerary for sure but attending a local wedding was not something we expected to be doing. I've never crashed a wedding before, but people seemed to be happy to have us there. Well, everyone except the bride and groom who, if you take a look at the picture, are looking bored at best.

Bali

Bali is a relaively small island... you can drive around it in a day they say! So, starting in Kuta, we decided to take them up on the offer and rented a litle Jimmy. Wow! Driving over here is insane! I swear we were passed by 1000 scooters with families of 4 on them in laneways that were actually smaller than our car! After geting lost many times trying to leave our town, we decided one day around the island was unlikely. We eventually got into the open (relatively, still a whole lot of scooters!) and saw some of the countryside, and it was gorgeous. Terraced rice patties lined the volcanic mountains as far as we could see. And, like the stupid tourists we are, we decided to go see the biggest temple in Bali, during the biggest festival of the year! We didn't even get close the traffic (or parking lot) was so heavy.
Nothing a little kicking back, surfing and $5 massages won't fix though!