Railay Beach - Krabi - Bangkok - HOME

Our last day abroad, running and few errands in Bangkok and figuring out how to get home the extra luggage of various fun stuff we acquired while away.... If all goes as planned, we'll be back stateside in about 24 hours (although, in a quirk of international dateline stuff, it will only be a few hours after we left Thailand even though we're flying 16 hours or so) to meet our new nephew -- a healthy new son born on Monday (yea!!!!) to Verna and Josh. We can't wait - it's time to come home...

Barry Manilow's "Mandy" is playing right now in the guest house cafe next to me...too funny. So here are a few last thoughts of SEAsia before we fly out (*I'm trying to reacclimate to stateside time, so have a few hours on my hands this morning :) Forgive the indulgence in one last blog of final thoughts while still fresh...*).

- Noodle soup for breakfast
- No coffee shops open in the morning
- River taxis in Bangkok rule
- If you go to the Oriental Hotel, wear pants
- Wish I had a nickel for every tattoo on a traveller i've seen
- Cilantro
- "I like your pants. They are very SPEcial!"
- ML rappelling for the first time down from Diamond Cave!
- Fresh fruit juice everywhere
- Bodysurfing shorebreach waves at Lanta
- Endearing, and often humorous, English translation misspellings
- Sandals and flip-flops as footwear of choice
- "Sawatdee kop"
- Watermelon shake for ML, Mango shake for me
- Big Chang, official drink of khao san road
- Don't eat the phad thai on side streets in Chiang Mai
- "Thank you one million times."
- Flawless knock-off Bathing Ape, Diesel, and Paul Frank tshirts
- So so smiley and so so friendly... even to clueless farangs
- Hugo the Thai star next to me on the plane
- Karaoke at the laundromat
- "We buy everything"
- Gilded horn curlicues on the points of wats
- Red, yellow, and green tiled roofs
- Email, no 2 after backpack, as most convenient travel innovation
- Climbers in Railay without shoes heading up limestone faces
- Limestone stalactites on Thaiwan wall
- Pineapple slices in plastic bags on the beach
- Andaman sea, where it's possible to live without shoes
- Vented sidewalk sewers and the occassional hot waft of nastiness
- Plastic water bottles: environmental scourge of developing world (they should charge more, for recycling costs, we decided)
- Cheap haircuts
- Kid friendly, esp the beaches!
- Buddhist monks in orange robes packed on to a rush hour Chao Praya river taxi
- Funky snack food flavors (Nari Sea Weed chips weren't a big hit at Railay minimart)
- Fire spinners on the beach: cheesy but cool
- Gold spire of Wat Phra Keow
- "Beware fake monk" sign
- Mosquito nets (no longer so 'romantic' anymore!)
- Plastic buckets, the workhorse of street food stalls
- 125 cc scooter-motos, the workhorse of seasian transportation
- Great food, smiles, more English spoken everywhere than we farangs deserve, living the good life cheap cheap cheap!

My final thought of this adventure of service work and travel is how incredibly lucky and fortunate Mandy and I are to have been able to have this experience together. As we've remarked to each other often during these past few months, and many of our friends and fam have noted as well, what an amazing and special and memorable way for us to begin our lives together as spouses and life-partners... I love Mandy even more after these experiences together than I thought I could before, and that's saying a lot. I'm proud of her for all the new challenges we had and faced together, and most especially I'm amazed and so happy that we could start our married lives together in this way. It may take some more time for it all to sink in, and for us to "process" (as ML says) all that we've done and seen and heard and tasted and smelled and moved through together on our extended honeymoon --- but the lasting impression I'll have from the end of our journey together is one of a deeper appreciation for my wife (it's still fun to say, and hear, "husband" and "wife"! when does that go away?) and a stronger love for her presence in my life and for our lives together after this little adventure.

OK< enough --- thank you thank you thank you to all our friends and fam who've kept in touch with us by email, kept us informed, done all kinds of errands and favors for us on our behalf while away, and generally reminding us often of what "home" is really all about for us during these past many months. We love you and we are as excited as we've ever been to see you and re-connect without keyboards and internet connections.

Much love to all, congratulations especially to Josh and Verna and all the Levenbergs on the addition of a new Leven-baby to the growing family.... we'll be home very soon.
xoxo CM/ML
Thursday, Dec 18, 2003


- posted by Mandy and @ 4:35 PM

 
Phuket - Ao Nang - Ton Sai - Railey Beach - Ko Lanta

Love to all from the island of Ko Lanta, southern Thailand. Esp. love to my grandpa Art, who just turned 89!

We are doing a whole lot of nothing and generally re-living all of our experiences and places visited from here on the beach. Although the weather has been a bit up-and-down, we've only had one real day of late monsoon season rain and despitea few clouds it's warm and very very relaxing. We keep remarking that it's hard to believe we are going home in less than a week - and for the first time in a long time, we're actually aware of the month and the date, as we have started talking about what's going to be happening with us at later dates in December and January back in SF, Florida, and eventually in Seattle.... and by contrast, it makes us aware of how close "Dec 11th" is to "Dec 19th"!

We spent 3 days on Railey Beach before coming here to Ko Lanta 3 days ago. It's very nice and although the beach is quite small, it's a very dramatic place since there are huge limestone cliffs covered in green trees, caves, big hanging stalactites, and such all around... The monthly "full moon party" was happening one beach over - on Ton Sai - so we went and tried to convince ourselves that we weren't among the oldest people there, sipping vodka and red bull and watching a bunch of dudes spin flaming balls around on chains above their heads all night long...
Railey is world famous for rock climbing, as all of the limestone cliffs are perfect for climbing and have had routes put up on them in the hundreds through the years. Any time of day, no matter which direction you look at the cliffs you can see climbers slowly making their way up multi-pitch routes on the yellow rock, or quickly rappelling down in pairs. I hired gear and a climbing partner/instructor from one of the many climbing shops on Railey and practiced lead climbing and tried to improve my belay technique in prep for eventual return to the gym (winter) and Exit 38 back in Seattle (summer) climbing with Bruce, Jack, and the gang. Mandy is now convinced that it is as fun as I've been saying it is, and I think we're going to get her on the rocks for a day or so (no worries, parents - it's very safe, I'm ensuring that!) when we go back to Railey in 2 days for our last couple of days of chilling before we head back to Bangkok and then SF...

So now we are spending 4 or 5 days on Ko Lanta, a small island south of Krabi and Railey. It's definitely a little older and sleepier here, which is fine with us! Big long beaches have allowed us to start running again, after many months off. Legs are a bit sore, but it feels good to start some cardio again and our new best friend, Tou the massage therapist, is getting the kinks out of our long-unused muscles each night for the modest fee of $5 an hour --- we highly recommend Ko Lanta to all of our friends, both younger with little ankle-biters (this island is very family and kid-friendly), and parents, for whom Ko Lanta is a 1/10-cost alternative to Hawaii.

All in all, it's a very lucky thing that we are amazed about each day here that we are able to be here, have the time and mental space to think back through and talk about everywhere we have been these past 4 months... and remember all the while the Africare experience, the fact that this is still our honeymoon (albeit a long one!) and we haven't left the year in which we got married yet, etc. We feel really lucky, and so thanks to family and parents and friends who have been our emotional, financial, logistical, and everything else safety net while we've been away.

Happiest of holidays to all -- we've not exactly gotten into the "holiday spirit" this year, given our location and temperatures, but we are more excited than any year to get back together with our families for the holidays and new year very soon and start the process of hearing -- first-hand! -- how YOU are all doing these days too!!!

Much love, probably not much more to say until we're on the way back to SF and home... so until then if any of you want to send us a brief email to our shared address with your cell-phone/contact info over the holidays, that would be great (our palm pilot died long ago on this trip).
We'll probably do one last post with our cell #'s somewhere around Dec 22 after we've gotten back and plugged back in to phone lines again....

Love, xoxox Clay and Mandy

- posted by Mandy and @ 8:48 PM

 
Pai - Chiang Mai - Phuket - ??Beach

Pai -- a little town of Lisu, KMT, and Thai people northwest of CHiang Mai about 4 hours up into the hills, almost to the Burmese border -- was small, settled in a valley surrounded by green hills all around and plateaus of rice farmers who are harvesting this years crops. We rode a motorbike all throughout the Pai valley, and generally did a lot of nada. Hiked and biked around the hills one day, visited a cool Wat halfway up one of the many hillsides to get the view of the whole valley. Many "farang" (i./e. westerners) have adopted Pai as their spot to "drop out" and hang out, many with Thai partners. It's very very laid back - Tom and Christie, you'd be amazed at how many new guest houses are opening every day - apparently, Pai is no big secret as a northern Thailand destination anymore! But it's pretty sleepy still....

Last night we killed an evening in Chiang Mai sipping cold beers at a sidewalk cafe and treated ourselves to a rare departure from local cuisine - a pizza and gnocchi, which wasn't half bad (but nowhere near as legit as the gnocchi at La Spiga, which we missed as we ate last night!). Took in the spectacle of Dec 5th, the Thailand King's Birthday, a national holiday and absolutely the most important day of evening celebrations here. Gigantic gold-and-multi-colored lighted pictures of the King all over town, including a huge stage and celebration in the main square. Ah, to bask in the glow of royalty....

Today we're off to Phuket and then transferring somehow, boat or minibus or something, down to Krabi and hoping for a good bungalow somewhere in the RaiLeh area. Happy day to all, much love and everyone wish Dick Levenberg good luck and "break a leg" in your big piano concerto coming up soon!

xoxo Clay and ML

- posted by Mandy and @ 6:18 PM

 
Hanoi - Bangkok - Chiang Mai - Pai (soon)

Hi and love to all,
today we had our first full day cooking class on the delights of thai cuisine, it was fantastic and i only wish we could have had second helpings of the Mango and Sticky Rice dessert we learned. I'll be making it for you all soon.
Chiang Mai is full of many centuries of the ornate, curvy, beautiful (mandy might say "gaudy", i say "colorful and detailed"...) Wats which show how this region of Thailand was the center of Theraveda Buddhism for all of SE Asia for many many years during the mid-2nd-millennium. After more cooking learning tomorrow, we're heading up to the small town of Pai near the Burmese border to hike and see the northwestern hills and the "hilltribe villages" of Karen, Hmong, and other lesser-populated peoples which dot the Thai border areas near Myanmar (Burma) and Laos here up north. After stretching our legs for a while, we're down to Andaman coast to find a (relatively, this time of year) remote beach with cold beers and fresh fish and chill with a sack full of books until we return home to the fam and the holidays.

Sending our love, all is well and aside from a few brief stomach traumas (which are now, thankfully, over for both of us!), we are safe and happy and learning new things and enjoying the last few weeks. Happiest of Holidays to you all --- xoxo


- posted by Mandy and @ 5:23 AM