One night in Bangkok

Well we are back in Portland now but wanted to post a bunch of pictures from our last few days in Thailand.

Here are the pictures, enjoy!

This is our bed – no bugs

Our boat/guides for our snorkeling trip

Amazing snorkeling around these rocks

These are the caves for birds nests

This is where the nest gatherers live (they were out)

AMAZING little cove

Jen’s sand creation – other people even took pics

Jen relaxing at the bungalow

Unreal seafood feast

Our crotch rocket – SCOOTER TIME

Rainstorm – we parked for the heavy part

Rice paddies on the other side of the island

This is the main drag around the island

We found this island and walked to it

Land bridge disappearing at high tide!

This freaked Jen out bad!

Bangkok from cab – new skytrain station

For Dave – air conditioner/speaker at airport

Got a green tea w/ almond Blizzard!

Farewell Thailand!

We had too much fun

Happy 30th Birthday, Joe!

Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate Joe’s 30th birthday before we left on our trip. Today we’re celebrating the real thing…

We spent our first night in Thailand in Phuket, an island on the Andaman Sea. Phuket was a good place for getting oriented and figuring out the ‘systems’ (i.e., where the heck do you go to catch the sarong taa, or inner-island buses, that take you to your beach?). We ended up staying on Kata Beach at the Kata on Sea Bungalows (for less than $40/night – not an unusual price). That night we walked down to the beach, which was beautiful, but not spectacular. We also had our first Thai meal, cooked by a woman and her son out of a small shop that seemed to double as their house. (See pics below.)

One thing that didn’t escape our notice on Kata Beach was the sex trade. Once the sun went down the place seemed to get seedier and seedier, with some lecherous men walking the streets. It didn’t feel unsafe at all, but it felt kind of dirty. To be fair, I should mention that once the sun went down I suspected any and all males walking around by themselves to be ‘looking for love.’ ) I should also mention that I’ve heard there are some really nice places on Phuket where this is not the case.

A note about the dinner… It was delicious! I got pad thai, and Joe got panang curry. Both dishes were great, and unlike when I cook them, they were cooked up in a flash. I couldn’t believe how fast the chopping, cutting, and cooking were all done. That lady was a pro. However, the standard of cleanliness left a little to be desired. In between my dish and Joe’s she cleaned the wok — that is, she bent down to a bucket of water sitting on the ground that seemed to have some soap in it, got a little out with a small bucket, put it in the hot pan, dumped it, and proceeded to cook Joe’s meal. While we were eating we also noticed a small dog walking around their restaurant/home. I had to force the thought out of my head that the ‘sink’ could also double as his water dish. Did I mention that the food was delicious?? Because it was. We woofed it down (no pun intended), and to date we have not gotten sick from it.

From Phuket we finally picked an island to hop to – Ko Yao Noi. It’s a very small, sleepy Muslim island that doesn’t get as much tourism as the others. We were looking for a place exactly like this. We are staying in a little bungalow on the beach – right on the beach. Today, for Joe’s birthday, we rented a tandem kayak and rowed our way out to a small island that for a while we had all to ourselves (see pics). It was a great day. We swam in the water, rowed around to another part of the island, and ate a lunch that was packed for us by the hotel.

Ok, this post is getting really long, so I will stop here and let the pics speak for themselves. Hope everyone’s well!

Has anyone gotten postcards from us??

View from our beach on Ko Yao Noi

The Ultimate Backpacker — note the roadside chickens

First beach — Kata Beach

Our dinner — bucket/sink not visible :o)

Joe picking me a plumeria

The inner-city bus — found it!

Some guys unloading rice into a store

Everyone rides scooters

Taking a long boat to our island

Unloading a scooter

Reception/restaurant at our hotel

View from our beach

Preparing to kayak!

Our semi-private island beach

Our bungalow

Gule Gule (goodbye) Turkey

Got a few more pictures from Turkey to post – and we can add some more commentary while the pictures are uploading.

So a note on the Turkish bath – it was definitely a bath. We were told to lie on a very large heated marble slab for about half an hour to prep. We were sweating pretty good by the end then two large hairy Turkish guys came in and in broken English (mostly grunting) moved us into position for a rinse and scrubdown. This was a serious scrubdown, layers of skin were coming off. After that the soap massage which was fantastic. They prepare the soap with these special towels – they soak them in soapy water, then when it comes out they blow them up (like a big cotton bubble) and then squeeze the air out, which produced tons of this amazing lather (trying to get Jen to describe it but we can’t). All in all it was a really cool and relaxing experience, it was like a cultural experience + bath + sauna + massage + tea ceremony (at the end).

Also we had a great time with some of the people that we met. We met Ali and some of his cousins who we shared some water pipe (hookah) smoking and had one of the best meals of the trip with. The water pipe was amazing – never done it before but it was the smoothest nicest smoking ever. The tobacco was apple infused and adding the water pipe just made it so nice. I recommend anyone to try it (using only legal substances of course).

The people that we stayed with were also awesome . . . it was truly like a home away from home. When we first arrived in Selcuk, we were lost and couldn’t find the pension (guesthouse), which was a pretty common occurrence in the car in Turkey. We ended up at a gas station where Jen was sent to find directions. She came back to the car and said „let’s just go, just drive, I think we can find it on our own“ as one of the attendants went to use a phone. As we were driving out of the station the attendants started gesticulating wildly and running after us. Jen was very nervous and wanted me to keep driving . . . “I couldn’t understand them but I think they are trying to set us up at another guesthouse“ We were still slightly in the “watch out for people trying to help too much“ mode from Morocco. I ended up rolling the window down – and these really nice station attendants explained in very broken english that they had called our guesthouse and someone was coming to show us the way, if we could wait 5 minutes. Dervish (the owner) ended up rolling up on a scooter about 20 seconds later and yelled “FOLLOW ME TO HOMEROS!!!“ Just goes to show that most people (to be fair – even in Morocco) just want to help. Also that the gas station attendants would know Dervish’s cell phone number and call him – this place just had a cool small town feel where everybody knew everybody. It was kind of a microcosm of the whole Turkey experience for us.

Dervish and the other people at Homeros were super nice, we ate some great food – cooked by Dervish’s “Mama“ (see photo below – she just went by Mama to everybody there). Osman also drove us around quite a lot and owned a carpet shop nearby – and served as our unofficial tour/cuisine/carpet guide. Coincidentally, we are now the owners of some carpets. A couple of very cool religious highlights were Mary’s House (supposedly the house where Mary lived out the rest of her life after the crucifixion of Jesus) and St. John’s Basilca (built over the tomb where he is buried). All in all we had a great time and saw some amazing history.

Jen also wanted to tell about Zeus’s cave – supposedly legend has it that Cleopatra swam in the cave and people who swim there will become more beautiful. Everyone told Jen she didn’t need to swim there (Osman said only two minutes max) J We didn’t end up swimming in it although it was tempting, it was a little too cold. Plus we are both beautiful enough already, I don’t know if the world could handle me being more beautiful.  However, the water was so clear that Jen stepped in it without even knowing it was water – so at least her foot was exposed . . .

Now we are in Thailand and will do another post soon . . . till then Gule Gule

Random – TCBY in Qatar

Joe with “Mama” Homeros

Joe with Dervish

Jen with Osman

Osman outside his carpet shop

House of St. Mary

Prayer wall at St. Mary’s house

Zeus’ Cave

Two Updates in One Day!

Update No. 2 is coming to you from Bangkok, where we have a layover before catching our flight to Phuket.  This has been a big travel day for us…  We started out this morning on a 10 a.m. flight out of Istanbul on Qatar Airways.  We just got to Bangkok, and now we have another layover until our fight down to Phuket.  We’re a little tired, so we’re chilling in the Bangkok Airways lounge for a few hours until our flight.

Just wanted everyone to know that we made it safely!  More to come soon…

Qatar Quickie

Just a quick post to say that we’ve safely landed in Qatar.  We have a layover here on our way to Thailand.

I see we’ve had a request for more commentary…  We will gladly comply.  We find that in most places it takes so long to post pics that we end up rushing through the commentary or not doing any at all.  We have a lot of stories to tell, so once we get to Thailand we will post some!

A few shouts out to some people really quick…

Chris, I tried to call you from the airport here in Qatar but found that the calling card didn’t work on the phones here.  Will call you later!  Love you!

Erin and Tony, can you believe they had a TCBY here?!  We didn’t eat any…  It just wouldn’t have been the same without you.  ;o)

Dylan, that hookah contained apple tobacco, for the record.  Joe really enjoyed it, and I liked it, too (though Joe would probably say I didn’t really smoke it!).

Hello to everyone else!  Hope everyone’s doing well.  Will post more soon!

-Jen

4 Days in Selçuk

Here are some pictures from our 4 days in and around Selçuk (Ephesus, Aphrodisias, Pamukkale).  We had a great time here seeing some history and meeting some great people . . .

Turkısh bath – very relaxıng

Lıbrary of Celsus

Shows way to ancıent brothel

Take note of watch sıgn

Chrıs and Ray – thıs ıs for you

Sunset ın Selçuk

Tomb of St. John the Baptıst

Baptısmal font at St. John

Home cooked meal at Homeros

Joe partakıng

Alı smokıng water pıpe

Dad – thıs ıs a squatty potty

Ancıent stadıum at Aphrodısıas

Travertınes ın Pamukkale

Delıcious meal ın carpet shop

Seeing some carpets

Amazing baklava

Enjoying some tea

Turkısh Delıght

We are now ın Turkey, and ıt ıs…delıghtful!  We flew here from Spaın vıa Rome and landed ın Istanbul a couple days ago.  Here ıs a gallery of photos from Isbanbul.  Lındy, Fatıh, and Can from the rug shop, these pıctures are dedıcated especıally to you!  )

(Dısclaımer on Turkısh posts: The keyboard here has ı where i should be, but sınce ıt looks close enough to an i, I’m not goıng to correct ıt.  Hope ıt makes sense!)

Our hotel

Joe gets a much-needed Turkısh haırcut!

Vıew of Hagıa Sofıa from our hotel balcony

Insıde Blue Mosque

Jen and Joe ın front of Blue Mosque

Vıew of Blue Mosque from Hagıa Sofıa

A bıg urn

Amazıng mosaıc at Hagıa Sofıa

Basılıca Cıstern ın Istanbul

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

In the Grand Bazaar

Brıng out the bıg guns

Joe drınkıng Turkısh coffee

If I had a palace, I’d want a waterfront one, too

Galata Tower from Bosphorus

Bosphorus Cruıse

Entrance to Topkapı

Topkapı

Topkapı

Topkapı

Topkapı

Lıbrary at Topkapı Palace ın Istanbul

Jen at Topkapı

Barcelona Photos

Thought we would catch up with some photos from Barcelona . . .

On the Mediterranean

Sunrise over the Mediterranean

Bullfighting ring

Spanish schoolkids

For Chris

Gaudi building

Another by Gaudi

Entrance to Sagrada Familia

Unreal

Breathtaking

Barcelona Tram/Lawn mower

La Boqueria (as seen on Bizzare Foods)

Oink

Joe enjoying Paella

Delicious

Flamenco dance

Sunrise on the way to Turkey

Hola from Barcelona

Trip is going great so far, we really appreciate seeing all the comments from everyone and hope you guys are enjoying the pictures.  We are having a great time!

Just to update you on where we will be, we are leaving EARLY tomorrow morning for Istanbul, Turkey and will be in and around Turkey for the next week.  Then it´s off to Thailand for the last stop where we will likely be resting on a beach for a week (looking forward to that very much).

Keep those comments coming and we will keep posting pictures every few days.  Email us anytime as we are checking that as well, and we can receive texts for free so that works too!  (Thanks Dave for trying to call us in Morocco, sorry we missed you . . .)

Hasta luego!

- Joe and Jen

The Amazing Race

So I´m familiar with the show The Amazing Race, but I´ve never been very interested in it because I´ve always thought, ´what assignment could they possibly give these people that would be so hard?´ I think I know now.

Location: Fes, Morocco

Assignment: Get a cash advance (which according to your bank should be easy and available from any bank anywhere in the world)

It all started in the medina.  When we first arrived (with so little cash that we couldn´t even pay for our hotel room) it was Sunday, so the banks were closed.  We decided to hit the bank first thing the next morning when they opened.  We started at BMCE Bank in the medina, where we were told a cash advance was something they could only do in the ´new town.´  With our dirhams dwindling, we sprung for the cab ride into the new town.

We went to a square in the new town that had about a billion banks all in one place.  One by one we visited each bank, getting turned down at each one.  BMCE, BMCI, Societe General, some agricultural bank of Morocco, etc…the answer was always no.  Finally we were able to get in to see a manager at BMCI — a manager who spoke English, no less.  After (almost tearfully) (Joe wants me to explain that I was almost in tears, not him) explaining our situation, he said that for 8 months they hadn´t had the right machine to do cash advances from credit cards.

Hold on a second…  In case anyone is unclear on why we were getting a cash advance, let me clarify.  Before we left we had decided to use our regular bank, let´s call it Bank 1, and to transfer a small amount of money into a back-up bank, Bank 2, for emergencies.  When we got to Morocco, Bank 1 came up at every ATM as “issuer unknown” or “accéss interdit.”  After spending about $20 trying to call Bank 1 from a very noisy street corner in Marrakech, we were told that it must be that my card had been demagnetized.  By the way, Joe´s card was also “demagnetized,” and both cards magically remagnetized the moment we landed in Spain.  But I digress…

In the end, after visiting 5-6 banks, many of which we visited multiple times, after hours of walking in the rain, after visiting the Central Bank of Morocco even, we were finally able to manage a cash advance at BMCE Bank “change window.”  (Not the BMCE we visited in the medina or in the other square.)

I think I´ll start watching The Amazing Race when we get back.

-Jen