Merry Christmas, have some Jet Lag

So it's been a week since Charlotte and I got back from our trip. It's been a blur really. It seemed like the first couple days I wasn't going to have any problem with the jet lag. But then it hit me on Thursday and I think I slept for an entire 72 hours. Or at least those hours I was awake I was definitely not someone you wanted to talk to. I think I'm finally back to my normal self...I even joined the gym again and forced myself back on the bike. That was NOT pleasant let me tell you. I probably shouldn't have coupled that workout with lower body exercises...way to ambitious i tell you. I am, or should I say my ass is, paying the price.

The other night I put some of my thai cooking skills to test and managed to make an edible pad thai and papaya salad for my parents, and then last night my mom and I were able to conjure up some spring rolls. Not too shabby! Charlotte and I have our annual christmas potluck with all of our havergal friends and we are going to attempt to create some wonderful thai dishes. Although my pad thai had some kinks, I think we can do it. Wish us luck!

I will be giving this site a bit of a make-over after the new year. I will be heading out to Whistler to volunteer at the Olympics and Paralympics, and have had several requests that the blogs keep coming! So if you're interested in following my mission to find Sidney Crosby...I mean if you're interested in the Olympics and all the shinanigans that accompany them...then please keep reading and I'll try not to disappoint!

Signing off, Santa Hat and all,

J

This is it.

Well everyone. Charlotte and I are currently sitting in the lounge of the Abu Dhabi airport getting our moneys worth of internet, food and tea. I caved and am currently listening to christmas music off of youtube, although we both agree that I don't think there is any place that could feel LESS like christmas. We are both sooooo pumped to come home. I think I can speak for both of us when I say we've had the time of our lives, but we are Canadian girls after all and christmas just wouldn't be christmas without snow, family, and candy cane ice cream. We have 20 hours to kill in the abu dhabi airport (the perks of traveling budget....) so I will probably post several more photos within the next couple hours. For now, I'll tell you about our last couple weeks in Thailand.

First of all...both Charlotte and I failed to realize that November is Monsoon season on the east coast of Thailand....

thankfully we lucked out HARD CORE on the first island we went to. Our week on Koh Tao was unreal! We stayed beachfront, overdosed on fresh pineapple daily, and played in the ocean everyday. Koh Tao is mainly a scuba diving island, which is why we went there in the first place. I did a little intro course and was soooo gung ho to get down there. For anyone who knows me and my dorky love for all things Nemo you can picture the excitment. So we hopped on the boat with a bunch of other divers (taking various courses), geared up, and jumped in. As I started to go down my ears didn't equalize properly and starting feeling like how they feel when you fly with a sinus infection. Ouch. I wanted to dive so badly, but I really didn't like the prospect of a burst ear drum. I was super bummed I couldn't get down...but got to meet some hot dive instructors on the boat while charlotte was down hanging out with nemo. After a visit to the Thai doctor I found out I had an inflamed eardrum and was told I had to sit out for a couple days. We skipped two days of diving, and then after deciding just to pop a whole bunch of decongestant meds...I gave it another try and made it! It was unreal, and I am in love haha. Screw physio...I am going to be a professional ichthyologist.

After our week on Koh Tao we took the ferry over to Koh Phangan to meet up with Maria and Hecks who'd been in Laos for the week. Their journey seemed pretty eventful too. Hecks was covered in bruises from her drunken sports games, and Maria was full of her typical hilarious stories. Katie had booked us into this sweet spot away from the full moon party so that we would not be right in the middle of the madness. The weather could not have been any different from Koh Tao. It was cloudy, rainy and humid and totally not conducive to beach weather. We spent the day of the full moon party stocking our rooms with water and various hangover snacks, that we purchased by renting a scooter (yes Dad, a moped!) and scootering into town. After a near death experience, I was banned from the wheel and Charlotte did an excellent job of steering us to safety. Okay, it wasn't near death...it was just very evident I could not steer.

The full moon party itself was....insane. There is no other word. We met up with Kelli O'Rielly (an acadia girl) who had a place right on the beach. We were able to have a couple drinks at her place before venturing down...and let me tell you...when I first stepped on the beach it was like I was experience culture shock or something. First of all, there were stands spanning the ENTIRE beach that sold "buckets" of alcohol...there were people dancing, sitting, singing, crying, sleeping, swimming, peeing...hahah....everrryywherrree. The group of us litterally danced through the crowd holding hands so we wouldn't lose each other. Nine hours later...at 7am...we made it back.

Never. Again. I am too old to party like that. Give me my keiths and my fiddle player and I'm set. Well...thats about all I've got for now. The pics above are all from Koh Tao, except the last one, which is a pic of the shirts we made for the full moon party. The famous saying in Thailand is "Same Same, but Different".... so we made shirts that said "Same Same, But Canadian"

Witty eh?

Ho Ho Ho from the Middle East (i'm getting strange looks for blasting ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOUUUUUU)

J&C

This is my life??

Okay...so I have seriously been slacking on the whole blog thing but I totally have an excuse. Charlotte and I just spent a week...A WEEK...on the beautiful island of Koh Tao. It was unreal. We were like, "as if we are on the beach, and Mike and Caroline are writing exams" (haha suckers. ps. caroline - call your sister). Koh Tao is a scuba diving haven. Everyone there goes to dive so there isn't much else to the island, but that is what makes in unqiue. I can't go into much detail about the diving because we are on Koh Phangan now and TONIGHT IS THE FULL MOON PARTYYYYYYYYY. Lets just say Charlotte and I had a great time spending our days in the ocean (well, the days I didn't have an inflamed ear drum) and our nights either at cute beach bars or....the Ladyboy show. Charlotte was awesome putting up with an annoying newbie diver like me...even if I did have to keep my head above water for three straight days....
We are now gearing up getting ready for the infamous full moon party. Katie and Maria had a gongshow of a time in Laos, from their crazy tubing adventure (in which katie got injured playing drunk soccer...obvi) to their insane roadside rescue...and are ready to take on the last party plunge.
mom, dad, deb and ted...we will email tomorrow to say we are alive :)

Charlotte and I are really getting pumped to come home. We have had the most amazing two and a half months...but with christmas trees popping up in the 7 11's around town, and the green and red m and m's being sold in the stores, we're really itching to get home. One aussie asked us once, "you guys are canadian?? i heard canadian girls like snow more than men"...we miss our snow...but maybe not that much :)

Gearin' up for a night of Thai Whiskey,
J, C, K and M

I have built a tree house, it's a You and Me house...

Zipping out of our tree house!!

Not too sure whether she should try the bananas in coconut....

Charlotte, at the start of our class...rather overwhelmed.

Our second day in Chiang Mai we went to an organic farm and took a full day, 6-course thai cooking class. It was UNREAL and probably one of my highlights of the entire trip so far (other than everest, of course!). We learned how to cook three types of curry, soup, different types of stir-fry, pad thai, spring rolls...the list goes on! Even our little reject cooks, Maria and Charlotte, managed to cook scrumptous meals! They didn't even burn their noodles!

Well, I can't really remember the last time I blogged...but I'm pretty sure we've been in and out of two countries since my last post. Chiang Mai was a blast. It's such a great city. Kind of reminded me of the Thai version of Kingston, Ontario because it really had a university town feel. We got there on sunday night, which meant we got there just in time to experience the amazingly awesome night market. There were stalls filled with jewelery and more amazing street food, and TONS of cheap massage places. Anywho, the cooking class was UNREAL. So so so much fun and all four of us cannot wait to get home to cook for our friends and fam. Maria and Charlotte are going to need a little guidance, but Hecks and are I proud that they stuck with it and didn't blow up the place.

Charlotte and I are currently sitting in an internet cafe in Koh Phangan while Katie and Maria are off galivanting in Laos. C and I made the decision to come back to Thailand after our tree top excursion so we could get several days of diving in. But before I get into that, let me talk about Laos!

The first picture at the top of this post is from one of our tree houses. The 4 of us spent 3 days and 2 nights essentially living like monkeys. We did something called The Gibbons Experience where we were driven into the Bokeo National Park in the north of Laos, given a harness, gloves, and two guides who looked more like hobbits than humans. We trekked two hours deep into the jungle where we stopped to swim at a water hole with our monkey-men guides. This expedition is so cool because since it's in the national park, there is no human disturbance other than the ziplines and the tree houses. So we zipped for an hour until we finally reached the last zip which lead us RIGHT INTO A TREE HOUSE. It was so cool. That night we went to sleep with the creatures of the forest, witnessed a brutal murder of a mouse right outside our bug net and then woke up at 6am to our hobbit guides zipping into our tree house. The whole experience was so cool. Our guides spoke very poor english so we didn't learn that much about the forest, but it is called the Gibbon Experience because of the Gibbon Monkey that inhabits the forest.

Charlotte and I have now separated from Katie and Maria for a week while they frolick up in Laos. We are starting our diving tomorrow and CAN'T WAIT. We're on Koh Tao for a week and then Koh Phangan for a couple days, one of which includes the infamous FULL MOON PARTY.

Don't worry mommsie, I'll be safe.

We're starting to get excited to come home and see everyone. Charlotte literally has to tell me every time I turn my ipod on that it is indeed still too early to listen to xmas music.

Wish us luck with our diving, apparently the whale sharks around here are the "thing" to see.

xxoo,

J, C, M and K

Street food that puts scot skins and toronto street dogs to shame..

These last few days have been an absolute BLURR. Charlotte and I arrived in Bangkok after our 8 HOUR layover in the Dehli airport and we checked into our classy hostel at 8am. We treated ourselves to one of the nicer "guesthouses" because we figured we'd been living in the shithole of an orphanage, plus freezing our butttttts off on everest. Looking back, it was no grand hotel. But to us, it was paradise! There was a rooftop pool AND the rooms were air conditioned. Our first day in Bangkok was spent sleeping, tanning and swimming...with the odd venture out onto the street to purchase some fresh fruit, pad thai (which they make RIGHT on the street for you) or spring roll. The food here is UNNREALLL. There are all of these little street venders that make everything from pad thai to sticky rice & mango to fried rice to meat kabobs. The fruit here is also....i don't even know how to describe it because most of it i didn't even know existed! Our mornings usually consist of finding some fruit stand that will make us a fresh fruit salad with museli and yoghurt....all for the price of 30-50 (whiichhhh is like a dollar).
SO GOOD.
Charlotte and I had two days in bangkok because maria and katie were arriving at midnight the second day. So, to go with our "just do it" attitude we booked two days of activities. The first day we went to this floating market a couple hours outside of bangkok. We arrived to this little village of houses on stilts (because they're all built along the canal) and we were ushered into this boat, given massive hats, and the rowed along the canals. There were people in and around the canal selling EVERYTHING! You could even order freshly made spring rolls from a woman in a wooded boat.
unreal.
(p.s. i can't remember if i already wrote about this...my bad).
The next day we went on a half-day cycling tour of bangkok with a real tour guide. It was a really great way to see and learn about the city. I only crashed once...and it was into a motorcycle that wasn't really moving. I learned that city cycling is totally not my thing. Put me on a long, open country road and i'm golden. but dodging stray dogs, mopeds and vendors...all while trying NOT to fall into the canal? nope...not for me.

We finally met up with Hecks and Maria, and the 4 travelled 14h on an overnight train from Bangkok to Chaing Mai. The train was SO COOL. I had never been on one and I couldn't really decide if I felt like a refugee in the lower decks of the titanic, or Harry Potter on the hogwarts express...but regardless, it was WAY better than taking a bus. We all got beds, and were able to sleep for most of the ride. We're in chaing mai now for 3 days, and today we had a fun filled adventure that included going on an extremely sketchy elephant ride, a very sweaty, hot hike to a waterfall (where we played like 5 year olds) and then a hilarious white water rafting/bamboo rafting experience. Elephants apparently love maria, and she got snorted on quite a few times. We were deemed the "supermodels" when we were rafting (probably because we were the only raft with all girls)...and the guides were hilarious.
Tomorrow WE ARE DOING A COOKING CLASSS!!! I am so so so excited. It's an all day thing where we start off by going to this market where we pick out all of our ingredients, and then we go back to this organic farm where we cook a 6 course meal!

not exactly the best beach bod prep, but hey...i just ate rice for 5 weeks straight.

hope you're enjoying the LOVELY november weather.

LOVE
J&C...and K&M

BANGKOK BABBBYYYY

We made it! The first part of our journey has come to an end. It was sad saying bye to our little kiddies but we arrived in Bangkok and welcomed the crazy heat with open arms. We've done some cool stuff so far, which I will update on when the internet is less expensive. Katie Heckman and Maria McEachern made it safe and sound and the 4 of us are headed up to the north of Thailand to Chaing Mai on a 14 hour overnight train ride!
Wish us lucccckkkkkkk.

Love
J & C

Finally found some fast enough internet to upload pictures...

On the decent...charlottes lips were so sunburnt she decided to go all Taliban on me....

Mt. Everest BASE CAMP!

From the top of Kala Pathar (5500m). Feeling rather drunk at this point from lack of oxygen....but still able to hold Everest up with one hand. Below you can see Base Camp...or at least the glacier that base camp is on....

Betina (being forced to hold my flag) and Charlotte at 6am in Namche. This was day 3 of our trek where we had our first acclimitization day. We hiked up to this point where we we saw the sun rise and were able to get a glimpse of Everest....sooo far away at this point we were like howwwww are we going to make it there. But we did!