returning home. ..

on the 21st, josh and i flew out of thailand, spent a night in malaysia and landed in the philippines -- the first time my feet have been on the soil of my birthland since i was 12 years old. we spent a relaxing night in malate and randomly looked up an old friend of the family, tita patis (famous for her fashion designs: patistesoro.com), who whisked us away to southern luzon for the long weekend. we stayed in her lovely home near the town of san pablo, sleeping in the open air bamboo house and being treated to traditional filipino cuisine (conveniently, her downstairs has been converted into a restaurant!).

on day one, we took a long drive to see an 100-year old house she purchased, passing through small towns and a national park. it was refreshing to be out of the city and in the provinces, away from fast food and buildings and modern american-icities.



the next day we visited an old botanical gardens. we got to explore the place which must have been beautiful when it was upkept and bustling. even now, it was amazing to see -- wonderfully organized, beautifully arranged and housing exquisite plants. there was even a playground -- now old and kind of creepy -- that had giraffe and elephant slides!








finally, we took a trip to this new land that patis and a bunch of other people are cooperatively developing. they are working on planning a road and are currently in the middle of constructing a bridge. we hiked up the mountain on the top of the land and the view was breathtaking. we saw a few of the villages, a lake and the sacred mount banahaw.




we are now back in manila and are headed up to northern luzon (hopefully) tomorrow. i am excited to see the rice terraces!

miss you all!

heaven.. i'm in heaven...

ah, yes, i sit here in an internet cafe on the east side of railay beach where the song "heaven, i'm in heaven" is playing.. and yes, i feel so much like it is.

we have been back on tonsai in our qaint bungalow at the lovely andaman resort since our side trips to phi phi and lanta and have been loving it.



we spent a nice christmas evening at a beach bar watching fireworks and the obligatory fireshow with some people from california. we even went to this one place where they had a guy who can twirl poi and the firestick WHILE being on the slackrope. amazing! spent a quiet christmas day relaxing and going out for a nice dinner.

since then, we have been climbing and hanging out with bruce and smithy again (yay! they came back to tonsai for the holidays too!). i have been doing well and liking it. and i even did my first lead climb today! :) one day, we took a steep hike to the lagoon in the middle of railay. we also went to the viewpoint where you could see both beaches and, in the distance, tonsai as well!






for new year's we hung out with the boys and a swedish couple we met at wee's climbing shop and ended up on the beach where this really good semi-reggae band played the night away. we ended up seeing everyone we knew and it was a lovely way to ring in the new year.




we are thinking about headed back to koh phangan for a while to run out our visas and then heading on to laos or malaysia... or maybe to the phillipines.

side tripping...

after tonsai, we took a few side trips to koh phi phi and koh lanta. koh phi phi wasn't very interesting to either of us but we stayed there overnight to take advantage of the snorkeling there. we took a longboat in the morning to phi phi ley (the smaller of the phi phi islands) and snorkeled at the infamous "the beach" beach (from the film about the secluded beautiful stretch of beach -- you know the movie; the one with the guy from titanic.. . :) ). we saw some really beautiful fishes, coral and a moray eel! we also tried to go looking for sharks, but due to poor visibility in the water (it was a bit choppy that day), we didn't get to see any.

at night, we checked out the nightlife and found it was a bit reminiscent of a fraternity party. :-/ one highlight was the bar where they give a free bucket (see: picture below) to anyone who will "muay thai" fight in the ring. i use the word "muay thai" in quotes since it was more like drunken bouts.




after phi phi, we spent a few days on koh lanta. this was a nice big island with a long stretch of beach for relaxing and reading (oh, we have read SO many books!). we also went elephant trekking which was a tad kitschy but fun. we got to feed him bananas and pineapples whole!





as the holidays approached, we found that we wanted to spend them where we felt the most comfortable so back to tonsai we headed. :)

climber's paradise.. .

from koh phangan, we caught a 3-hour boat ride to surat thani and a 2-hour bus ride to ao nang - a nice little shoreline town on the andaman sea. then, we caught a longtail boat with a few other couples to haad tonsai, a nice quiet beach next to the popular railay beach.

here, we found an amazing place to stay, nice restaurants, and pleasant people. we called the andaman nature resort our home for almost a week -- cheap bungalows with an amazing restaurant (it got very popular at night, showing movies 'til 10, and having seating and cushions to lay out on the viewing floor). also, during low tide, we could walk over to railay, a pretty stretch of white sand beach, full of very pricey resorts.

haad tonsai is a climber's paradise. surrounding the waters are large steep cliffs that fall either to the beach below or straight into the ocean. one day, we rented kayaks and navigated through the cliffs and into caves.

one day when playing cribbage at a local restaurant by the shore, we met two other fellows playing as well. we met them (smitty and bruce), and their reading friend val, and spent the rest of the day playing cards and conversing. they were all from brighton in the u.k. and regaled us of tales of beach raves with fatboy slim and their random hatred of beckham. we met up again with them at night to play crib under the waning full moon.

leaving, we still felt like we wanted to return. and, even now, we're trying to figure out a way to get back and are hoping that andaman still has a bungalow for us even thought it's so close to christmas.

island living. .

after bangkok, josh and i headed for koh tao in search of some island life.
after a long train ride and an EXTREMELY rocky boat ride, we arrived tired and travel-weary on koh tao.
the island was quaint and small, with nice beaches -- but it turned out it was mainly devoted to scuba diving, which we, it turns out, cannot participate in.
after staying a night at a scuba resort, we traveled north to haad sanrei where we found a cheap bungalow close to two of the shore towns. the bungalows were nice and clean and were owned by a lovely motherly lady. we beach bummed a few days, reading and relaxing, and also took a long very steep hike up a mountain to two view (where you can see both shores of the island at once).





also of note in koh tao, i had the most delicious pad si yew i have had since i've come to thailand -- so far, nothing can beat it. (also pictured: josh's american breakfast)


after koh tao, we took a much more pleasant boat ride to koh phangan, where we ended up staying for about a week. koh phangan is a much larger island with more to offer than just scuba diving so we made it our home for a while. we stayed at the awesome haad rin thai resort, where we made friends with the front desk lady, mam. (we even took her out to dinner one night which made for a fun adventure since she spoke little english and we spoke even less thai.) haad rin, the beach we were staying at, was full of restaurants playing illegally copied movies all day long and random party buses cruising the town. we frequented a local bar/restaurant most days and also took a few trips on motorbike to other parts of the island to see other beaches and to check out waterfalls.













overall, it was a little more touristy than we would like, so we packed up and left for krabi.