India: Flies, Poop, and People - All vedy cheap!

Time for another update on the goings on here in Asia.  As Nicole talked about last time, the Indian subcontinent has been a face-full.  It has been very different than any place either of us have been and just like our guide book said, we have been both enchanted and overwhelmed by it.  The last little bit has definitely brought its own adventures.

Last Friday after having gone to the Red Fort in Delhi we went across the street to the Jain temple to check things out.  It's interesting because India is an extremely religious country, but they have many different religions here, especially in Delhi.  In Thailand and Cambodia the religion is predominantly buddhist, and they were all excited to have us in looking at their sanctuaries and their holy places.  We feel a little bit more like intruders in India at these places.  The places of worship here are more than just monuments to their Deities, people actually come there to worship.  Even more, many of the places we have visited are pilgrimage sites, so they are even more serious about the homage they pay at these places.  Still it has been interesting to observe and talk to people.  The Jains have an attached bird hospital, highlighting their belief that every living creature is precious.  The most devout Jains have only a few possessions, and among them a broom to sweep bugs out of their path so they don't step on them, and a cloth to cover their mouth with so they don't accidentally inhale bugs.  The Hindus don't seem as strict on this philosophy, but enough that Nicole and I are dying for some non-vegitarian food but couldn't find it anywhere in the whole city of Varanasi last night!  But I do have to say I'm impressed at how good food can be with no meat at all.  We've really hardly missed it.  

After the Jain temple we wandered down the main bazaar by the red fort and got talked into looking at cloth for indian clothing.  Nicole thought it would be fun to have some, so we humored the hagglers constantly yelling "Hello! Hello! Mista! Mista! Madam! Wachoo looking for? Come see my shop!  Vedy cheap! I give you good pdice!"  The shops are fun because you go in where the floor is all covered with a thin, crappy, canvas pad and sit cross legged on the floor across from the merchant.  Around are walls of fabric stowed in cubbies like the library in Beauty and the Beast.  Before you know it they've laid out a mountain of fabrics of different design and price that quickly overwhelm you.  After Nicole had been greeted as a guest at a few different shops we bought her fabric at an especially dingy place down a dark, very scary alley for about $6.  Next we were led by fabric man's buddy about 1/8 mile to the their preferred tailor who took Nicole's measurements and said he'd sew her salwar kameez for about another $4 and that we could pick it up in the morning.  

We hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we decided to take a seat at the restaurant next store that looked like an open Doug and Emmie's from hell.  The menu on the wall was all in Hindi except where the sign said 45 and 65.  The kid who waited on us didn't speak any English, but said something pointing to the 45 and we said sure.  Pretty quickly he set a platter of food in front of both of us that included two curries, some vegetables, rice, and a bunch of naan bread (like pitas, only way more delicious).  It looked like a monstrous meal to us and we suddenly felt very conspicuous like the extravagant americans that came into the place and ordered the whole menu.  Thankfully another group came in and got the same thing, so we didn't feel so bad.  From then on we have noticed that there actually are big people in India, unlike the places we've been till now.  The dish we got is called a Thali (Tah-lee) and we've eaten it probably 7 times since because it blew our minds.  Absolutely the most delicious food we've had since traveling; so much flavor, such variety, all vegetarian and all less than a dollar per platter.  India has been a delicious experience.

The next day (Saturday) we got an auto-rickshaw (the smallest enclosed motor vehicle you've ever seen) to take us all around Delhi for sights.  This was surprisingly hard to do, because most of them will tell you whatever lie it takes to get you to let them take you to "travel agencies", restaurants, hotels, and shops where they get some commission.  For example, the first guy we rode with said the first site we wanted to visit wasn't open till later in the morning and that he wanted to show us some "sites" to kill time.  Mind you, we were already in the car and he had already agreed to take us to the place.  We knew from our guidebook that the place opened at dawn, and we've learned the hard way to trust the book more than the locals.  (an unfortunate reality)  After arguing with him for way too long we just got out and were somewhere in Delhi without a plan.  The next guy we talked to insisted that he didn't play games and he could take us to the tourist office where we wanted to go.  Mid-route we told him where we really wanted, and we ended up contracting him for the day to take us all around the city.  We saw Hamayun's tomb, which is the burial place of a Mughal emperor, constructed by his beloved and grieving wife.  It was totally spectacular, as all the other Mughal places we have been.  We got some incredibley delicious street food for lunch for about 20 cents.  Fried pastries with a bit of curry sauce served on some broad sturdy leaves as a plate.  We went to the Gandhi museum which was really cool and the Lotus temple, which was built by the Bahai religion.  The purpose of the religion is to bring all people together and people from any religion could pray in their beautiful building.  It was interesting, they had some literature with snippets of truth in it.  It will be interesting to see how all people will be gathered together one day.  

Our taxi driver almost resisted the temptation to take us to a bogus tourist office for the whole day.  When we   got there it was the same thing as we had seen before, overly nice staff trying to talk us into train tickets and packages that we knew were way overpriced.  We told them our plans and they said "No you don't want to do that.  That's what those girls wanted to do and we talked them out of it."  I looked back at them talking and laughing with another agent, obviously oblivious that they were getting scammed and I felt bad for them.  Fortunatey I looked at my watch and realized the real tourism office was closing in a few minutes and we jumped out of our seats, ran down the street and got there just in time.  When we went in it was totally peaceful and the staff was helpful and informative.  There was no selling, no commission, just free, accurate information that would prove invaluable in the next phase of our journey.  At our next stop we payed our taxi driver and bid him farewell.

The last stop was another Hindu temple, and Nicole and I are absolutely baffled by the religion.  It is so dense and complicated, riddled with mythology and 3,300 different deities (which are technically just manifestations of the different characteristics of Brahma, the one all powerful, incomprehensible god).  We aren't really able to follow any of it, or talk to anyone who can explain it to us in depth, but it has sure been interesting to observe.

Outside the temple we ran into a woman in a beautiful sari who was born to Indian parents in Maputo, Mozambique, grew up in Portugal, was currently living in England and visiting Indian on holiday.  Go figure.  Anyway, I enjoyed speaking portuguese with her and we got a ride with her and her driver to the nearest metro station.

We took the metro to the train station to buy our tickets to Agra and then on to Varanasi, and went to pick up Nicole's finished salwar kameez.  It was beautiful and fun, definitely worth doing, and surprisingly straight forward process for this crazy country.  Next we went to the Muslim behemoth, Jamah Masjid, which is Delhi's biggest mosque.  It can fit something like 50,000 worshipers at once.  Unfortunately it was dusk and Ramadan to boot, so when we tried to go through the gates we were shooed away by a guy wearing eyeliner in a white galabeya.  We strolled down an alleyway packed with muslims and we nick-named the area Little Pakistan.  They had translation services, money changing, and money wiring services to Pakistan like we have for Mexico in Utah.  We also ate some mutton Qorma, which was kind of funky, but still good.  Doesn't beat vegetarian stuff.

Sunday we took a long, long metro ride to try to find the most accessible chapel.  We only got there after wandering the blazing streets with a kind old man who was determined to take our notebook with the address in hand and lead us to our destination.  Surprisingly, there was no sign, and no one to greet us when we got there, but we found the chapel on the bottom floor of an office building.  It was a sweet meeting with only about 20 in the congregation.  They asked us to bear our testimonies, which was sweet.  Nicole's was especially cool, I thought.  She said that since being in India, trying to get around and find our way was difficult.  Many people and many different voices try to deceive us and lead us down paths that will be good for them and harmful for us.  It's hard to find someone that would be honest and lead us to the right place.  Many people get lost and led astray.  We even went to some bad places.  But when we finally got to the "true" travel office, they gave us information freely.  We didn't feel pressured, we didn't feel conned, we were just able to ask the questions that we had and were given accurate, helpful information that would take us safely to our next destination.  This was a lot like life, where there are many voices pulling us in different directions, and it's hard to know which way is the right way to go in this unfamiliar place.  But if you find the people that will lead you to truth, it feels right.  And that truth comes without a price, it's offered freely.  This of course is something we talk about all the time in the church; that we can wander aimlessly in life, or we can learn of Jesus and follow the gospel, and we will be lead to safe and happy places, but I never expereinced the 'being lost' part of that situation so strongly as we have been as we have traveled.  So here's a little push to anyone reading, that you trust in God and His Son Jesus Christ as the only source of truth, and follow their teachings and see if it does not lead you to a happier, more clear, more peaceful life.  Secondly, make a renewed effort to seek out and recognize those who are lost, and help them find their way.  We ran into many frustrated travelers after we had been to the correct tourism office and were able to direct them there and share the truth that we learned there, and they were very grateful to have the help.

The train ride to Agra that afternoon was insane.   When Nicole and I were crossing the Cambodia border, I laughed as I saw a truck roll past that had three stories of pigs crammed into it.  The back of the truck was squealing and reeking heinously, with dirty snouts and legs and curly tails sticking out of it in every direction.  The trains at the train station were pretty much the same, only with humans.  The lowest class train ticket is unassigned seating, which translates roughly to "You can take the train for dirt cheap if you can manage to squeeze yourself onto it within the furious two minutes the train was stopped at the platform.  The train would sound it's horn as it approached the station and everything started to get tense.  Once it slowed to running speed, the hoards would start chasing down the train doors, cramming themselves into the already packed train.  By the time the train stopped, it seemed that hope for getting on was pretty small, but it was just like the pigs: yelling, shouting, stinking, limbs and faces sticking out the windows and doors.  Totally mind blowing.  Luckily, Nicole and I had one class level above that, (we toyed with the idea of taking the lowest class for the short trip to Agra (3 hours), but I'm glad we didn't.  After watching the process I knew it was not for India novices like us).  Sleeper class was still no picnic-- I still felt a bit like we were on our way to Auschwitz, but at least we had assigned seats.  It was sitting on the bench with our bunkmates that I had perhaps the weirdest experience of my life.  I was snoozing on Nicole's shoulder when I heard someone very close shouting "Hello hello! 20 rupees, 20 rupees"  I ignored it since there were several yelling vendors walking up and down the train, but to my surprise the person grabbed my head and started tossing it around like Matt Sherwood would have done to me when I was 6 or 7.  I looked up at my assailant and it was a not young, light-eyed India woman (I think) with a stack of bills in her hand.  "20 rupees" she insisted again and started mussing my  hair and pinching my cheek like an unwelcome grandma.  I of course had no idea what she was talking about, but before I could object too much she lifted up her shirt exposing her bra and started saying something in a sultry voice.  I said "Oh my word" and turned away towards Nicole and the window.  She made another attempt by pulling down the waistband of her trousers way too far and I was thoroughly freaked out at this point.  Nicole saw everything she was offering.  I turned back to her after she was covered again and stared her in the face and repeated "Go!" several times to which she objected "Shut up! Shut up!"  Nicole just said to look away and ignore her, which worked like a charm.  After she left  The guy across from me just shrugged and shook his head.  He was traveling with his mom and was probably as distressed as I was.  Fortunately we didn't see her again!  The rest of the trip to our hotel in Agra was relatively uneventful (thankfully).

Well that brings us up to last Sunday night, but we've already been at the internet shop 2 1/2 hours so we're going to call it for now.  Hopefully we'll get another chance to tell you about the Taj Mahal and the river Ganges soon!

Monkeys and Dancing Naked Ladies

Wow, there is A LOT to say... We've done so much in such a short amount of time. It feels like a lifetime since we last wrote. So last time I wrote, we had gone to church in Bangkok and eaten dinner at June's home. Well, the next morning, Grant and I went to the bus station and took an OFFICIAL bus to Cambodia. It's funny, the scam tourist buses were about 10 times the regular price and about 5 times as disgusting. This REAL public bus was NICE, even including a complimentary water, snack and hygiene pack. It was a very comfortable ride to the border. We got to the border town of Aranyaprathet where we wound our way through a big market looking for border control. We caught a yummy bit of fried rice from the street and sat down on a curb to eat. As we ate, we saw three 8 year old-ish boys digging in a dumpster. Grant had an "Alladin Moment" (you know the part where he steals the bread then sees the little orphan children digging in the garbage?) and gave them his rice. It was cute because the boy he gave it to was confused, pointed to himself and made the motion to eat, Grant nodded and the kid smiles as if to say "yum!" It was cute and heartbreaking. 

One thing that we've learned on this trip is DON'T TRUST ANYONE. Even the "nice" people. ESPECIALLY the nice people. We finally found the border where Grant talked to some guy who said that to cross the border and get a visa to Cambodia it was 1600 Thai Baht (about $50). We had heard differently so we just headed down the little walkway toward passport control and the man said "Uh, actually, I had to tell you $50 because i was on the Thai side. But actually, I work for the Cambodian Government, and it's only $20." It WAS only $20, but this man kept pestering us under the guise of "assisting us" until we were out and officially on the Cambodia side. The man told us a very convincing story and took us to a bus station on a "free shuttle" to a "tourist bus terminal" so we could head to Siem Reap. Still feeling very suspicious, we remembered the Lonely plant book we had on my kindle and looked up info on border control. The book basically said "don't trust the government operated scam at such and such station, it will rip you off" and it was the exact place we were at. So we marched out of there as fast as we could before the man could chase after us and walked all the way back in the BLAZING heat, swarmed here and there by begging children and taxi drivers all the way back to the border. We found a kid who barely spoke English to drive us the 2 hours to Siem Reap in his car for $20. Grant road in the front, and I rode in the back with a huge load of mangoes. Haha. It was great. 

Cambodia is MUCH different from Thailand. Cambodia is considerably poorer. From the border to Siem Reap it was mostly green countryside with fields, palm trees and shanties on stilts. Siem Reap was actually a pretty decent place though. Pretty small still but definitely cleaner, more modern and about as filled with tourists as Thailand. We found a little guesthouse that had a huge room for $8 a night. The room was full of tiny bugs of every variety and occasional quarter sized cricket, but after the mando spider it was do-able. We ate our first Cambodian meal, which tasted already but had a sort of wet cat aftertaste. Then we rented a couple bikes from a little shop (with adorable little girls with great English) for $1 a day.

The next morning we road our bikes to Angkor Wat. It was pretty darn cool, I'd say! Our favorite part of the whole district area was Angkor Wat itself, which was breath-taking. It's a huge Hindu/Buddhist temple thinger built around 1100-1300 AD. It was like walking into a strange, ancient civilization. On the grounds we looked down at a bush and saw a funny looking dog...but soon realized it was actually a monkey! We decided to follow the monkey down a little path until it just sat on a low tree branch, looking fat and lazy. I came about 3 feet from it but it didn't move or do anything. We thought it was kind of eery...wondering if he had lead us to some sort of monkey ambush. But we finally got bored waiting for more monkeys and moved on. The rest of the complex was pretty cool and swarming with pitiful children selling postcards. We went into one temple and were accosted by a tiny girl who looked about 6 and said "postcard, postcard. Please, just one dollar. You no buy, I cry." Haha. Good one little girl, good one. She was pretty angry at us when we didn't buy, but if we purchased from every one who asked, we'd be broke. At one point, Grant gave me the map and let me lead us out to another temple area. We decided to take a short cut on a smaller road...but the smaller road got smaller and smaller until we were basically biking down a bumpy, sandy jungle path. Some teenage boys who happened to rumble by on their own bikes pointed us down the correct path which was actually MORE jungle-y than before. It was blazing hot and we both took our opportunity for seclusion to pee in the jungle but eventually the trees parted to an big stone gate to another temple complex. This one was largely just piles of rubble, but still cool nonetheless. There were dancing somewhat-naked lady motifs etched all over the walls. There were also the coolest trees the had just taken over, their roots growing over and on top of the rubble. It's was way cool looking. We had a moment in one of the temples where a woman gave us incense to burn at the Buddha statue and gave us good luck bracelets. This lead us to an interesting question: Is it offending God to participate in religious ceremonies or "ordinances" of other religions to other gods? Even if we are only doing it to be polite? Hmmmm...food for thought. On our way out of Angkor Wat, which although everyone told us one day was not enough to see we were perfectly satisfied with, we saw a troop of the same monkey we'd seen earlier! Except there were about half a dozen baby monkeys the size of squirrels. They were so stinking cute and there was a small crowd around them feeding them lotus roots. We had a mango pit in a bicycle basket with us so I threw a couple chunks at the babies. I was trying to decide who to throw the big pit to, when a big FAT monkey, about twice the size of a Popple but just as round waddled over and started pawing my shorts. Then he started getting more and more desperate, nearly pulling my shorts OFF. Then he was climbing up my arm, which he scratched in the process. I finally gave him the stupid pit and started freaking out that I'd been scratched by a sick, rabid monkey. Grant said I was fine, but was very patient while I freaked out and biked to a couple pharmacies just to get an opinion on whether or not I'd die from a monkey scratch. The pharmacist said I'd be okay and I'm still living so I guess it didn't matter after all.

The next day we changed to a bug-less little inferno of a hostel. It was nice, although hot. We stopped by an internet cafe for a moment and ran into a chatty Canadian girl. We ended up reserving a tuk-tuk to a "killing field" site (which was really only a box of the bones of many Cambodians killed in Khmer Rouge prisons) and a war museum. The war museum was actually very stirring. Look up the Khmer Rouge when you can. I had thought it had ended in the late 70s, but apparently Cambodia had been fighting this violent war with the Communist party until 1999. The Khmer Rouge (Commies) was secretly supported by the Chinese. They fought some sort of jungle warfare and because of that there are over 5 million active landmines still hanging out through-out Cambodia. So therefore you still have many people missing limbs from landmine explosions. He said that before Pol Pot's regime there were 8 million Cambodians but now there were only 5. The tour guide was a volunteer who had fought the Khmer Rouge himself and had multiple scars on his face and was missing several fingers. He told his story about the war he experienced and was very intense about us understanding what kind of a war this was and how lucky we are. He joined the army when he was 16 because he needed food. He showed us many landmines, explained how they worked, and told us stories about how his friends had died from these landmines. Another tour guide was missing an arm. The man was said many things that were surprising to hear spoken so honestly. He said that the UN had given a ton of money to Cambodia to clear the landmines but the government had pocketed the money. He said the government was a democracy but "Communist and Chinese" at heart. In the end he asked for a tip so he could have surgery to remove some ball bearing still embedded in his shoulder from a landmine. It was a very haunting tour but the most incredible war museum tour I have ever experienced.

That night we bought some street food, which was a funny experience. Sometimes, you buy street food--the legit stuff that the locals eat--and it's delicious! But this was NOT. It was like fishy, bitter, ammonia flavored slop. Grant was more of a trooper than I was...I couldn't swallow much of it. 

The next day took a bus back to Bangkok. It was full of Chinese people who were pretty hyper. At border control, one girl came up to me, speaking Chinese saying, in a strange secretive way, "are you Christian?" Strange thing to ask someone you've never met...but still kinda cool. They were from Beijing with their preacher and were all learning how to be missionaries in China. I told her I served a mission in Taiwan and she seemed somewhat disappointed by that. Haha. But it appeared the whole idea of them being missionaries was some sort of secret. Probably because it's illegal. Haha. When we got to Bangkok, there was some sort of argument with the taxi drivers and the little troop of Chinese tourist missionaries followed us for a little bit until they found their own way. That night we slept in a guesthouse close to the metro. 

On July 21, we went to the airport to fly out to India! We rushed but barely got the airport less than an hour before take-off. But the check-in ladies couldn't find our tickets! "Your flight is tomorrow! Today is the 20th." They said. We felt pretty dumb that we didn't even know what day it was. But we were determined to leave so they got us on the next flight out. The flight was only  hours long and then we were in Delhi!

Now, here is where everything began to blow our minds. India is almost like another planet. On the shuttle bus to the New Delhi train station we met a nice guy named Haj who told us "don't trust ANYONE. Only trust cops." When we got the the train station, we saw that we were in a very different world. There are SO MANY PEOPLE. The streets are full, all the time. We walked past delicious smelling (and tasting) food stands, garbage heaps, swarms of flies, beggars, tuk-tuk drivers, roadside urinals of the foulest stench in sweltering heat. The hostel we finally stumbled into and bargained down the price for is down a greasy, fly filled ally that would be terrifying were it not always full of foot traffic. After dumping off our stuff we decided to see a couple sites while we could. We shortly ran into some fascinating cultural oddities. At the metro station there was a line to go through the security detector thingy but I was shewed out of line because I was in the "men's line". They have separate lines for men and women, which I VERY much like, since the line for men can sometimes before 30 feet long but the women's has not a soul in line. This is because there are literally 30 men to every 1 woman out on the street. It's like this is a country of just men. It's crazy. The men where either button down dress shirts with tan slacks or traditional Muslim/Hindu garb consisting of various types of white robe. They also have many kinds of hats, from turbans, to stretchy black beanies with little knobs on the forehead, to Muslim Alladin-esque hats. The ladies look AWESOME! They where beautiful, colorful, sometimes jeweled and shimmery saris and shalvar kmeezes that look so enchanting. You very seldom see women in Western style clothes. Another cool thing about being a lady in India is that you can butt long lines (when they aren't separated by gender) and you get your very own 2 cars in the metro. We found THAT out when we stumbled into the metro and Grant found himself being glared at by dozens of beautiful red-dotted Indian women. He immediately realized the error and retreated to the male car, which is tanner, sweatier, and stinkier than the colorful, perfumey lady's car. 

We are quite the oddity here...there really are hardly any tourists here. We went to the Red Fort which was an amazing red fort built many years ago. While there people took discreet and not so discreet pictures of us on their cell phones. We also went to a cool Jainist temple. Later we went to a bazaar where I chose fabric and was measured for a Shalvar Kmeez (I think that's how you say it). We picked it up tonight and it's gorgeous! I'm excited to dress like a real Indian lady. We ate a HUGE dinner for 90 cents a piece the consisted of 3 different kinds of curry, plus naan bread on the side. Apparently, you eat with you hands, using the naan bread as a utensil. And you can only use your right hand. Strange and difficult. The food is to DIE FOR. It is SOOO good. Every bite. 

Well, the internet cafe is closing, so I have to go, but we will tell you next time of our rollercoaster through the scams of Delhi and our trip to the Taj Mahal! 

The Blubs, the BLUBS!!!

Before coming to Thailand, Nicole said that she imagined it being a land of gold and exotic animals and so forth.  I think it's definitely turning out to be like that, along with some of the foreign location standards, such as the occasional swindler, funny living conditions, and the smell of fecal matter warming in the sun.

We'll pick up the story on last Wednesday when Nicole and I were gung ho about trying some of the world class diving, or at least snorkeling since that's all we knew how to do.  We got on our trusty rented scoot and headed over to the Northwest corner of the island, which is supposed to be the prime snorkeling spot.  Always determined to get the best deal, we him hawed about where we wanted to rent our gear, and finally got suited up in our goggles and flippers.  The beach with snorkeling is absolutely gorgeous, with a little island off the coast only connect by a sand bar.  The water is a beautiful blue and is shallow for some ways out, there are already lots of snorkelers in the water.  One way that someone told us to do it was to commission a water taxi who would have the gear.  Since we weren't about to pay someone to ship us to a place we could very well swim to, we spotted a place were the taxis were stopping with passengers and started wading/swimming in that direction.  It was the worst idea ever.  Turned out the water stayed about two feet deep for about 300 yards, which is just barely enough to swim in, since walking in flippers is ridiculously difficult.  The further away from the shore we got, the scarier became the scenery just inches below our bellies.  It started out as a funky plant here and there, then we started seeing these sausage-looking things.   I thought, 'huh, sea worm, thing....not the most attractive underwater creature, but that's okay.'  Pretty soon there were lots of them, and they were getting bigger.  I was trying to just ignore the weirdness and swim, but it was getting harder to paddle with my hands and not be afraid that I'd swipe the nasties with my hands-- keep in mind, still two, maybe three feet of water.  

I finally decide to stand up and look for Nicole.  She was still swimming head down, but her movements were getting more and more erratic.  Pretty soon she started flailing and her head came up sputterring "Aaahhpppfpfpf.... Grant! pfpfpppff.... What are you doing?!!!..  pfpffp.... the Blubs! prpffp! SO DISGUSTING! Aaahhphppfpfpfp...Grant!pffpppfpfp!"  All while trying to stand up in her flippers, and, as I found out later, terrified of stepping on or touching the "Blubs" (the black sausage creatures I mentioned earlier).  When we were both standing and had regained a bit of our composure, we found ourselves about halfway to our destination.  In order to avoid more blubs, we changed route to the sand bar that went out to the mini-island.   We got there and walked out to the island on the sandbar and thought it looked like an abandoned pirate treasure island.  It really was kind of creepy.  

Our 'ideal' snorkeling spot was just off of the island, so we were going to try to get there by land.  We walked along and the trail got crappier and crappier.  We were barefoot walking on shards of seashells and coral and it was not fun.  We got to an empty broken down beach bar at the end of the trail, and the way out to the water was over a field of jagged rocks.  I went ahead to see if there was any saving the trip, but found that the jagged rock continued under water, but it was also camouflaged and slippery.  Again, the water stayed shallow for a long while before the real water.  We decided to forget the whole thing, and started walking back on the rocks, also not fun.  Nicole sliced her foot on a particularly malicious rock and I fell over and cut my hand on another, and we found ourselves very discouraged with blubs to our right and jagged rocks to our left.  We opted for the blubs and when we finally got back to precious land we concluded that there was no saving the snorkeling experience on Koh Pagnan.  I ventured out where there we other snorklers just to make sure and pretty much found coral, blubs, and an occasional fish.  I guess Cabo just spoiled us.

To recover we went for a long scooter ride and did some window shopping.  We eventually got back to our beach and rented a sea kayak from a weird dutch lady that ran a bar for all her dutch friends.  She was casual and called me 'Love'.  We kayaked as far out to the ocean as we dared--still without leaving our bay, but we did draw some funny onlookers from the anchored fishing boats.  We finished up the day reading our books at a restaurant that had a seaside bamboo patio adorned with Christmas lights.  I was a nice way to end a grueling day.

The next day was our trip back to Bangkok, and we were not looking forward to it.  Luckily this one turned out much smoother than the last.  We were sitting at the pier waiting for our bus when this guy in a red tank top, short shorts, and at tiny pony tail that the length of his hair didn't merit drive up on a scooter and drop of an 11-year-old kid and a suitcase, then drive off.  The abandoned boy looked like this wasn't ideal, but also not unusual.  He looked at us and said "Parlez-vous francais?"  I said "Un peu" and laughed.  I spent the next 15 minutes racking my brain for memories from my class time with Monsieur Le Prof, but hardly anything came.  So we sat the 3 of us in relative silence, until we figured out that we were at the wrong pier.  The kid's dad came back and they traveled together, which was kind of relieving for us.  We ran into another lady Spaniard we had met getting lost on the island who introduced herself as Sara.  She was super nice and said that she didn't participate in the infamously unsavory half moon party that had happened the night before, which many of our fellow travelers were obviously still recovering from.  We all sat together on the ride, and when she found out that we were married she was really impressed.  We started talking about the church and just happened to have a pass along card in Spanish!  She seemed really interested and was excited to stay in touch.  It's nice to meet people like Sara and Calem (the British kid I gave my Book of Mormon to on the way to the island) in our travels.  There are people who are just good.

We found ourselves back in Bangkok and went to see the remaining sights there.  The grand palace and temple of the emerald Buddha that is here were absolutely stunning.  This is where the whole land of gold thing comes in.  You'll just have to see the pictures, but the place is incredible.  Huge, ornate structures intricately elaborated in every cranny, all accented with gold leaf.  The predominant belief is Buddhism, with strong Hindu influence.  It reminds me of Peruvian Christianity, which ends up being a Christo-Incan creole.  Lots of donation to the temples and monks going on around here, but from what I understand, giving to the church is one the most effective ways of getting good karma.  We also saw a museum dedicated to the current queen, who became responsible for re-defining traditional Thai dress, since most of it was driven out with colonialism.  I'm constantly impressed by the Thai people's pride in their heritage, culture, and tradition.  They have thousands of Wats, hundreds of museums, and writing and art everywhere.  We took a round about way home and inadvertently found a chinese dessert shop where Nicole could reminisce in Chinese with some folks there and introduce me to some Chinese food.  We also took a bus out to a random location, saw a communist party rally at the capitol and walked a long, long way home.  I had us take a wrong term and we were a long way from home, desperately wanting to not walk any more and needing a bathroom.  I prayed in my heart that God would help us make it back when it started to rain, and then as if a desert oasis, we saw the glorious golden arches come around a corner.  McDonalds had American food, but more importantly it had a bathroom.  We said a prayer of thanksgiving and drowned our sorrows in cheeseburger combos.  The rest of the walk home didn't seem so bad.

The next morning, early we set out on another trek, this time to Ayutthaya, where supposedly the inspiration from King Louie's hangout in the Jungle Book came from.  We opted for a train ride, which turned out to be very quaint and fun.  We found bikes to rent right outside the train station and were soon pedaling around the ancient capital city of the kingdom of Siam.  We got through about the first ruin site before we felt like the sun had beat us to a pulp.  This was the hottest day we've had yet in Thailand, and the sun was brutal.  We stopped somewhere for lunch, but weren't really even sure if it was a restaurant.  They didn't speak English, and their menu was in Thai without pictures.  The owner guy had me talk to someone on his cellphone to place an order, which he translated to the owner.  Meanwhile Nicole was becoming more and more frightened by the things she was seeing in the kitchen, and the fact that no one else was eating there.  They didn't have what I ordered since I had to shoot in the dark anyway, but we took that as an excuse to leave.  We still both woke up in the middle of that night with crazy diarrhea anyway--which was kind of funny since we had to run down the hall of our guest house in our underwear just to get to the bathroom, take turns, and share toilet paper.  We bought a bunch of weird fruit from what I would stereotype as a Thai hippie and made our way around the village, sweating our heads off.  The ruins really were incredible, and we had fun riding around and watching the people take elephant rides near the grand palace ruins.  I liked thinking about how you only usually see elephant from 100 yards off in a cage, and here they were walking in the street, Nicole almost even got run over by one while she was taking a picture of something else.

Today has been a lot of fun.  We took a bus, then the metro to church since the bus that Google suggested never showed.  The meeting was way fun, probably the most international ward I've ever been to.  Everyone's story was really interesting, and it was great to be with the saints.  We found a yummy dim sum restaurant right after the meeting (ha! ironic, right?  We managed to not buy breakfast and dinner today, though) with wi-fi and tried to plan getting out to a Bangkok suburb to see June, a Thai exchange student that Nicole's sister, Heather, had become good friends with last year.  Nicole was facebooking with her--we had no other way of communication-- when her Kindle died.  We kind of thought we knew how to get out there, so we headed toward what we thought was the bus terminal.  There actually was no bus terminal, but various Thai people on the street pointed us toward a bus that might get us close.  We got on board and drove for a while.  When I showed the fare collector lady the address that we were going to, she told us to get off and get on another bus.  The fare collector on the bus asked us where we were going, and I said "Rattanathibet"  She said something in Thai that I interpretted as "We're in Rattanathibet,  Where in Rattanithibet?"  I showed her the address in our book that June had sent us over facebook and she had no idea where it was.  She didn't really know what to do with us.  She asked some people about the address, a few people passed our notebook around, all of them handed it back and shook their heads.  Nicole and I just looked at each other and laughed.  We had spent about 2.5 hours getting this far and now no one could tell us whether we were even close.  We just told the collector that we'd get off at the next stop and she wouldn't charge us.  We wanted to find an internet cafe or something.  The closest thing was a Toyota dealership.  We walked into the service office and they scrounged up someone that spoke English well enough to communicate.  He came in and asked what he could help us with and I said "We're lost."  Thai people are really friendly and willing to help, and soon we had the whole office arguing over directions, what bus we should take, etc.  We were pretty sure we could take a bus, but the English speaker offered to talk a cab driver into taking us for 100 baht, which is about $3.35.  When he saw that we were determined to save money by taking a bus, he asked us to wait and disappeared out of the office.  When he re-emerged he said that he'd arranged a ride for us, and he and one of his buddies took us to June's house in a brand new Camry.  I laughed the whole way.  I said "You are too nice!  Don't you have work to do?"  He replied "No man, it's Sunday!"  They drove us down the freeway, into a neighborhood, through some winding roads, past the guardhouse at the entrance of the community and right up to June's front gate.  When the guards were asking the drivers where we were going we realized we didn't even know June's Thai name, or her last name.  Anyway, by a great miracle we arrived at their house, and they treated us to a tour of the neighborhood and a Thai feast with some of their extended family.  Luckily everyone knew at least a little English, except for her old Aunt who fortunately knew a bit of Mandarin!  We had a great time with all of them and they were so wonderful.  Probably one of the funnest things we've done since being here.  We found out that June asked her dad to go wait at the bus station for us, which she messaged us after Nicole's Kindle had died.  He said he didn't wait too long, but he also offered to drive us back home.  We stopped by the grand palace in Bangkok and took some great pictures of it lit up at night.  They gave us some heartfelt hugs and 'Sawadee's when dropping us off, so thanks Heather for sharing their family with us!

So tomorrow we'll be trying to get over to Cambodia, the details of which we haven't quite figured out.  Obviously God loves us, but hopefully we don't learn the hard way to not press our luck one of these times.  

                 Our first real day in Bangkok we were walking around scratching our heads and gawking at a map and looked like quite the tourists. A tuk tuk (rickshaw) driver came up to us and BEGGED that we take his tuk tuk around to a couple buddha sites for only about 75 cents. We finally relented, which I still have mixed feelings about whether or not it was a good idea. Basically he paced impatiently at the sites he took us to while we took pictures, then took us to a couple of travel agencies and a suit shop so he could get some perk or whatever. Very annoying, especially since Grant and I got snookered into buying over-priced tickets to various destinations around Thailand. As we have slowly figured out, we could have saved a bit by just going to the train station and doing it ourselves. It's okay though...it's been a little while since we both traveled and there's always that first day or so of getting your feet wet so getting a little ripped off at first is natural. Later that day we went to the National Museum and took a ferry down the river downtown but realized all the public transport was closing in an hour so we just went home again. ha. It was fun ride through Chinatown Bangkok on a bus with our heads hanging out of the windows and our tongues out like dogs. The next morning we ate a hot dog in honor of the 4th of July (a day late, but that's okay) by the river and had some sicky yogurt shakes that were probably totally full of parasites. Then we took a bus to Kanchanaburi!

            Well, the general appeal of Kanchanaburi were the waterfalls, tigers, elephants and monkeys. We stayed at a pretty nice place there that was booked by the travel agency. We rented a couple bikes and visited the strangest museum. It had super creepy paper machet like mannequins portraying WWII scenes. So Kanchanaburi is actually the location of the "Bridge Over the River Kwai" which I knew absolutely nothing about until this vague museum. Apparently, the Japanese ravaged SE Asia and built this huge railway and bridge over the river using 60,000+ Allied POWs. Then the Americans came to bomb the bridge so the Japanese put a ton of POWs on the bridge to try to deter them from doing it. But (in the words of the museum plaque) "Alas! the bombs were dropped and bodies rank, laying higgledy piggledy in the river." Hard not to laugh, even though it was sad...

Then we biked over the bridge and biked through back roads and villages, which was awesome. In the town, there was a man charging a few bucks to take a picture with a baby leopard, so I got to feed and play with an adorable leopard for a couple minutes. 

          The first couple days in Thailand I was feeling some extreme stress and was very overwhelmed. I felt crazy with some sort of culture shock and it made it kind of hard to function at times. Culture shock sure is interesting. Fortunately, that faded and I'm feeling more adjusted. Grant was very patient with my stick-in-the mudness. 

The next day we rented a motor scooter and went out to the popular sites around. The goal was to avoid spending hundreds of Thai "baht" on planned tours. Some of the sites included a Tiger training school, Elephant riding, and beautiful waterfalls. But in the end, we spent a ton on gas, turned down the Tiger Temple and elephants because they were lame and expensive and didn't make it to the waterfall before it started pouring rain. We had to shiver under at a noodle stand until it let up. It was kind of funny because we already looked like wet rats coming in from the rain but we slid and fell in the mud too. Grant was a little frustrated that although it was cool to cruise through and get lost in a Thai jungle, we didn't end up doing anything we wanted to. Kanchanaburi was a little bit of a bust in the end, but it was still interesting in its own way. 

          The next day we at least were able to see a Buddhist temple (the life of a monk must be totally boring...they were all just sitting around chopping up wax candles and listening to ipods) and cave (full of bats, dive bombing at our heads). We also so a big WWII cemetary which was really neat. It was an English and Dutch POW camp cemetery and it was pretty beautiful and kept up. All the soldiers were pretty young, so it was a sobering event. We tried to go to another "Wat" or temple, but got lost and got some funny directions from a couple at an agricultural college. We just ended up getting lost and losing the strap to my bag. (Yes, we get lost and we are still alive.) 

            That day we returned to Bangkok where we had a couple hours of "layover" until another bus would take us to southern Thailand. In that time we saw a crowd was heading to the river and our bus driver told us that the King of Thailand was passing by on a boat! So we got in with the crowd and a man gave us a couple flags of Thailand and the King's special flag. A nice couple taught us how to say "Song Pha Chaloon" or something like that, meaning "long live the king". We were caught up in the excitement of the crowd but Grant was a little disappointed that the king passed by on a mammoth yacht instead of the golden boat with dozens of oars that he was imagining. Definitely not the same as Anna and the King. 

           We then had one of the longest nights of my life. We were picked up by a bus at 6 pm in Bangkok which was full of backpackers like ourselves. Thailand, by the way, is FULL of backpackers. Tourism is the country's #1 industry and it seems as if everywhere you turn there is an organized tour and a hippy-like restaurant. Anyway, so we took the bus for 6 hours with little sleep then stopped for half an hour at a dingy expensive restauranty thing where pringles were $10 a can. Then we went on for another 3 hours until we reached our port. The bus basically dumped off about 60 backpackers in a tiny, deserted boat station and said our boat wasn't coming for another 3 and a half hours. So everyone sat around smoking, drinking and mingling. Grant and I ended up chatting with a nice English kid named Callum the whole time. It's funny, I told him that it was my dream to ride a double-decker bus in London, but it was his to "drive on a long, straight, flat highway--like the ones from the movies". How boring. Haha. Since then we've heard other Englanders second that dream. Weird. Grant gave Callum his Book of Mormon. He's such a great missionary! The boat finally picked us up at 6am. The boat was LOUD and smelled like gas so I got pretty queasy. But finally we got to our island, Koh Pha-ngan. Since then, it has been a dream! We took a taxi to a tiny little beach on a nook of the island and stayed at a private "bungalow" for $13 a night. We swam, sunned ourselves, read, slept on hammocks, ate pineapple and just lazed. It was good after that long bus ride.  We stayed there for 2 nights. It was like paradise and a second honeymoon.

Today we moved to another part of the island, which is also fairly quiet. A lot of backpackers go to another part of the island for some boozefest party which leaves where we are pretty peaceful. Today we ate lunch while watching a lady lay our hundreds of little squid on dozens of screens on the beach to dry. Then rented another motor scooter where we met and accompanied a nice Spanish girl to a couple waterfalls (which are just trickles of water, unfortunately...must be a dry summer). On our ride through this jungle-y area we saw a few elephants on the side of the road and got a great deal on an elephant ride! Our elephant was 49 years old and HUGE. His trunk was maimed from some sort of accident so the end of it was kind of blubby. Grant got on first, by holding the elephant's eyebrow bone thingers and walking up the trunk. He sat on the elephant's neck. Then I climbed up the same way but sat on the elephant's head with my feet dangling between his eyes. So unbelievable! His skin was so leathery and thick and the black hairs on his head were about 4 inches long and super bristly. The Thai guide lead us around for 20 or so minutes through this jungle-y path, taking pictures all the while. At one point he started eating a bunch of bamboo and Grant and I were getting stabbed by all the shards above his head. IT was so cool to kind of see through the eyes of an elephant in a way. He walked SO slow. Afterwards we slid down his trunk and fed his bananas (by basically sticking our hands in his mouth which was soggy and gummy). Then we were allowed to hold and take pictures of this little rascal of a 7 month old monkey. When he saw Grant he went crazy and was attacking him and jumping all over the place. When it was my turn to hold him, he LOVED my head. He snuggled into my hair and started picking at it, looking for bugs just as you'd think they would do. It didn't ever want to leave. Then I held it a little like a baby. When I tried to finally put it down it went CRAZY clinging to my neck then jumped down my shirt then through my sleeve. He was chained up, so I could only get him out of my sleeve but he was crawling all over my in my shirt. Finally I had to yank the chain and pull him out of my sleeve. I was sad to part with him. He was super adorable. 

             Afterwards we scootered over to the western side of the island to see the sunset. Our swimming suits were under our clothes so we took a dip in the water which was WARM and only a couple feet deep even pretty far out into the water. We watched the sun set which was pretty but had to skeedaddle because I storm came blustering in.

          Some other side comments/stories:

Strange Oddities: Homosexuality is rampant. There are a breed of trans-sexual men called "ladyboys". Prostitution is also huge. Many of the women are either sex slaves or were forced into the business by desperate situations. We often see sleazy middle-aged white men with Thai women. It's so gross. Apparently another part of Thailand has child sex slaves. 

            They drive on the opposite side of the road! Which can get confusing when riding a scooter.

Strange Creatures:

         Hog: We were wandering up a hillside looking for the entrance to a restaurant when we found a really big hog in our path.  

         Komodo Dragon: Grant and I climbed some big rocks by the beach looking for a place to jump off and bumped into the biggest lizard you have ever seen! It was basically a FAT Johanna. It slithered out of our path, flicking his black tongue as he went.

         Rat: We saw and heard a large rat nibbling a coconut high up in a palm tree.

         Spider: So I was brushing my teeth in our bungalow when out of the corner of my eye, I see Shelob on our bathroom wall! This spider was HUGE. The body was a bit smaller than a tirantula's but its legs were twice as long. It was about the size of my hand. It was yellow with a red head and was hairy with terrifying mouth pincher thingers. And it was fast! I ran screaming out of the bathroom and saw it run the same direction toward the door at about 60 mph. I jumped on the bed and the spider stopped at the bathroom doorway and Grant just said, "Oh my word, that's a BIG spider." We debated somehow shooing it out the door, but we were afraid it would run into our luggage or find its way back in. So Grant heroically went for the squishing method, which wasn't a good thought. He tried a shoe, but didn't feel comfortable getting that close to it. Surprisingly, a good whack with a broom was all it took and it splatted on the floor. He flushed the carcass down the toilet and I haven't had a good night's sleep since. I sleep with one eye open and have raging spider nightmares all night. 

         Geckos: These little lizards also run around our hostel room, but since the spider incident, they are welcome guests. 

Food: 

          It's ALL delicious. No complaints. All spicy, saucy, and yummy. It just gives us the runs, that's all.

          

We are safe in Thailand! Our flights were super long and exhausting. We had a 5 hour layover in LA where I started my Gluten binge and have decided that gluten is not delicious enough for the pain. Our 12 hour flight to Beijing was good. Grant and I watched "the King's Speech" and "the Incredibles" and played games on the screen in front of us. It's usually at about the 9th hour that I start going crazy on flights. My knees swell and I feel claustrophobic and tired. We only had an hour layover in Beijing then we had another 6 hour flight to Bangkok. This flight we slept most of the time and my ankles swelled huge. When we got to the Bangkok airport it was about midnight. It's strange, Grant and I have both never been here and neither of us know the customs or the language, so we kind of stumbled into the street in some sort of doe-eyed daze. Some sleezy dude in a black and gold shirt with a rat-stache smoking a cigarette came up to us and said, "I pay hefty fee. 800 baht to khao san." (Khao San was the part of Bangkok we wanted to get to and 800 baht is about $25.) We thought that was a little expensive and diddn't really know what was up, then he said, "yes, I pay heft fee. 600 baht." I told him we'd do it for 300 but he just wandered away. Then this official lady came up to us and said, "you want taxi, you come here. That man mafia. No good." Ha! Sly dog. It only ended up being 450 baht to get to where we wanted to go, which is a corner of Bangkok full of hostels and close to the sites. I admit, my heart kind of sunk at first, because Bangkok at 2 am wasn't the most magical place in the world. Everything looks a million times dirtier and huge cockroaches wandered the sidewalks. But as soon as the sun rose, it looked much cleaner, livelier and beautiful, in a way. We stayed at this hostel that is pretty ghetto but only $7 a night for the both of us. It's just a box springs and mattress on the floor in a tiny room with a balcony. No AC, just a fan in the ceiling. But it's awesome. It was hot and sticky last night, and the sheets were definitely not clean since it had plenty of hair on it, but i vigilantly picked it off and we slept a few hours. Jet lag and the load traffic outside our window kept us from sleeping very late. We woke up at about 6 and took showers in the communal bathroom then had a piping hot bowl of beef rice noodles for breakfast. It was awesome.

Love, Coley and Grant