Our first day there we met a woman named Toom, who owned a Travel Agency. She invited us to go with her and her friends to a tiger sanctuary and bamboo river rafting. She gave us a smokin’ deal and we made some new friends. We picnicked with many Thai people near a waterfall. We witnessed Thai people give each other the wink to buy food at local prices. And we got to see some really cool sites.

Check out our photo page and sound off in the comments!

We had a great time blasting around Southeast Asia when we left South Korea. We toured through four countries in about three weeks. In the video, we start out in South Korea at The Welton School, then quickly leave. Next, we tear through Thailand, hang out in the mountains of Laos, tour Halong Bay and take a motorcycle tour in Vietnam, and finally end up in Cambodia. Angkor Wat was really amazing and where we took most of the pictures.

If you haven’t pressed play yet, or even if you have, I recommend going to the high-quality version on YouTube.com, hitting the full-screen button and cranking up the speakers! Also, because of the nature of the video, I recommend watching it twice to really enjoy all the shots.

This video was made from piling every single one of our 1,250 photos into iMovie. The inspiration for the video came during a long bus ride while I was looking through pictures on our digital camera. I held down the next button and watched all the pictures fly by, and thought it would make a pretty good video. Don’t worry, we will still post more galleries and blog entries to keep you entertained for a while longer. Thanks for stopping by!

And if you do actually make it to this page, and you do actually read this far without just skimming, then leave us a note in the comments saying how badly you want to see new content on the blog and in the photo galleries!

We will leave you with this collage of black-and-white prints. All of these pictures were shot with a Canon PowerShot SD750. All post-processing was rendered easily with iPhoto ’08. If you want my advice on a great camera, go with a Canon.

I provide these images to you in their full resolution for download with no obligation other than to please leave a comment if you enjoy them, or better yet, pass the link on to a friend who has not seen our site. (If you’d like to save the file to your desktop, you can Option-click the picture.) We really appreciate the many people who come to give us warm wishes on our blog. It really can help to have an encouraging word when you are thousands of miles from Western civilization.

NOTE

This page is not yet transitioned to our new WordPress site yet. Please enjoy the collage in its original form on our old iWeb/DotMac site.

In order to make up for this totally lame post about cute animals, feel free to make LOLcats jokes, or just visit these fine links:

http://icanhascheezburger.com

http://lolcats.com

http://lolcat.com

Once on Long Beach we began our search for the perfect place to stay for the next five days. After finding every place too expensive or completely booked, our search quickly turned from the perfect place to stay to any place to stay. It had been a few hours of walking along the beach inquiring at every resort before I suggested we go check out the resort I spotted from the longboat.

We hopped on another longboat and asked to go to Ma Prao beach, which we guessed was about the location on our map that the resort had been. As the longboat passed the cove, we wondered where we had asked to be taken. We rounded the corner and were dropped off on a beach. We knew the resort was on the opposite side of the mountain so we decided to hike over it. We found a small trail that took us through a tiny local village. The way the local people live on Phi Phi was something I will never forget. A family lived in a small bamboo bungalow the size of a most Americans bathroom. It was around dinner time and many locals were cooking on their front steps. Don’t worry though, many of these bungalows I noticed had working televisions.

As we made our way over the mountain we saw a few bungalows nestled among the trees. We had made it! We walked down to the beach front to try and find a reception. We lucked out, one bungalow left. As we stood there paying for our room, several other groups descended over the hill only to be turned away. We had come at the perfect time.

Our bungalow had bamboo floors, a bed with mosquito net, a fan, and a hammock out front. We didn’t really use the hammock on our porch because the resort had hammocks set up in trees all over the property. Our favorites were a pair of hammocks we found nestled in the trees atop a hill overlooking the ocean. The picture to the right was taken from these hammocks. We spent many hours relaxing in the hammocks, reading and staring out at the water.

The resort staff was very friendly and many of guests had been staying at the Viking for months. The beach was never crowded and the water was calm. It took us about twenty minutes to walk over the mountain and into town. We could walk over the other side of the mountain and reach a much busier beach (Long Beach) if we got bored of ours. All in all we had found the perfect place to stay during our trip to Phi Phi.

Check out the new Viking Resort photo gallery.

The only way to get to the island of Phi Phi is by boat. We took the earliest ferry out of Phuket and once aboard realized most day trippers wanted the earliest ferry as well. The boat was packed! We threw our backpacks inside the boat and managed to snag a spot on the boat’s deck. For two hours we enjoyed the sun and sea. Despite the herds of people, it was actually very peaceful. As we approached Phi Phi from a distance the island was the only thing on the horizon. The closer we got the more amazing the limestone cliffs became.

When we reached Phi Phi there was only a very small dock for all boats to take turns using. Concrete pillars sticking out of the water were all that remained from Phi Phi’s larger pier that was destroyed in the Tsunami. Once on shore we wanted to find a place to stay before doing any exploring. We knew how few resorts there were on Phi Phi and saw other backpackers scurrying around as well. There are no roads on Phi Phi. The only means of transportation are by foot or by boat. So, we headed over to a row of “longboats” next to the dock.

“Longboats” are a small wooden boat used as a taxi around the island. We used longboats several times during our stay on Phi Phi. They had a very authentic and romantic feel to them, much like a Gondola. I guess this was our little piece of Italy in Asia. That and the excellent pizza we found on Phi Phi.

Each longboat trip is about $2 a person. We were asked to pay upfront before the driver would take off. We soon found out this was because the boats would pull up onto the beach and we had to jump off the end, before the tide pushed the boat offshore. The boats have a huge motor to power a tiny propeller attached to a long piece of wood used to direct the boat. The driver stands on the back of the boat maneuvering the long piece of wood. It seemed like it would be very difficult to steer the boat this way, but the men did it effortlessly. The motors were extremely loud and can be a little disturbing when reading in a hammock, nestled in the trees, atop a cliff, on a secluded white sand beach, overlooking endless ocean and plunging limestone cliffs (but that’s a story I will have to save for tomorrow).

To explore the Bungalows of the Viking Resort, turn to page 57. To get an hour-long Coconut Oil Massage in a bamboo hut on the beach, turn to page 32.

Just kidding, for more of our stories just check our blog tomorrow. For now, check out our picture page of our trip to Phi Phi and more pictures of the Longboats.

As soon as we got our luggage we figured we had better consult the Rough Guide to tell us what was our best bet. The largest tourist concentration, and the closest destination from the airport, is Patong beach, and from what we saw it didn’t look very relaxing. If you’re looking for a place to party though, that is it. Patong has some pretty cool bars up on the hill.

We decided on the second beach from the airport, known as Karon beach. We found a cheap place called the Brestol Hostel, which runs 200 Baht rooms in the off-season (about 7 dollars). But when we asked for that price, the lady scoffed and told us 400 Baht. Still not that bad considering we only needed a place for one night.

In Karon, we also found the best deals for souvenirs and gifts of anywhere on our trip. The market in Karon is large and the people seem very desperate to sell. Just keep a smile on your face and you can get prices that are a third of the price quoted elsewhere. The people are very happy to bargain with you but don’t seem to understand how much it weakens the effect when everyone gets a “special” price.

We went to dinner as we were craving some Mexican food. We met a deeply-tanned Norwegian couple who I swore owned the restaurant. They acted like they owned the place and were tattooed with Thai characters and Norwegian flags. Turns out they didn’t own the restaurant but they have been to Thailand almost 30 times.

What drew us to Karon beach, however, was its long sweeping beach; uninterrupted sand that stretches for two and a half miles and squeaks audibly beneath your feet. Phuket is a very large island, and is connected to Thailand by a highway, which makes it a great jump-off point for travelers who want to experience both beaches and jungles. Karon is a very beautiful beach and the limited amount of time we spent in Karon we enjoyed.

If you like the pictures on the side of this, or any other blog entry, go to the Photos page and click the Blog Photos album. Sometimes there are not enough pictures to necessitate an entire album, so I add them together in one big album. The album has recently been updated, so you might see others that you missed full-size the first time. Scroll to the bottom for these pics.

It was a perfectly clear night with the full moon looming overhead as we made our way to the north shore of Koh Samui. Suddenly, from across the island, we were transfixed by huge fireballs heading into the air.

They glowed like giant orange flares. I thought they might signal the beginning of the full moon party. We kept watching them ascend into the sky, and waited for them to arc. They moved much too slow to be fireworks or flares and instead kept climbing higher and higher unimpeded.

Later, where these pictures were taken on the island of Phuket, we solved the mystery of these slow moving rockets. They are actually large paper lanterns with a wire frame and a large candle inside. Street vendors call them ‘lucky balloons’ and sell them for about 100 Baht, which is about $3 USD. You light them and make a wish and they float into the air. Often, large parties of tourists will be enticed to buy many at once and you can watch twenty float into the air over the islands. The effect is breathtakingly beautiful. The memory of seeing them for the first time floating over Koh Samui will stay vividly in my mind. I hope you enjoy watching the image sequence.

Our elephant’s name was Dumbo, and he had the ears to fit the bill. He was about 45 years-old and we were told that an elephant’s lifespan is as long as humans. We were glad we got Dumbo; he looked like one of the biggest elephants. We rode through beautiful, lush jungle and open grassy areas with nothing but palm trees as far as we could see. The ride is bumpy up top and you have to hold on to keep from falling off. While we rode, we would pet the elephant’s tough hide with our bare feet.

The elephant would stop to eat plants but not stop to poo. It was incredible to see the elephant’s large and agile trunk swing down to pick up some grass or even pull a whole plant, roots and all, out of the ground. The most amazing thing, however, was leaning over the side to see the elephant nimbly place its foot on a coconut to crack it open, then pour the milk into its mouth.

The elephant rider, or mahout, would give the beast pokes above his eye on the left or right side to encourage him to move. The mahout could also give verbal commands. After a while, we had reached a small stream in which the elephant needed a drink and some shade. The elephant fills his trunk with water and sprays it on his sides and belly. Then he fans himself with his gigantic ears. We got soaked!

After the ride, we were able to feed the elephant whole bananas. There are around 40,000 muscles in an elephants trunk, making it sensitive enough to pick up a blade of grass, but strong enough to pull branches off a tree. It is definitely weird to touch!

Go ahead and follow the link to look at the pictures! Enjoy!