Vientiane Palace

Hello friends, I'm reporting today from Vientiane. Vientiane Palace is a restaurant I used to go to in Madison when I was in college. I recall the food there being more delicious than the food here....
Tonight I head to Bangkok. I'll get there in the morning. I need to pick up a new bank card, plane tickets and get my India visa in the works. After I've accomplished these things I have till March 11 to do as I please. I'm considering going back to the islands of Southern Thailand. Perhaps I'll dive again!
I think my entries have been brief lately because I've been meeting so many people in Laos. I was lonely in Thailand, but most of the travelers in Laos are backpackers and I've met lots of fun people.
I enjoyed my time in Laos, but I'm not sure I'd come back here. Vientiane reminds me a little bit of Chiang Mai, but quieter. I went to the National Museum this afternoon, and it was full of pictures of "US Imperialists and their puppets." Lots o' thinly veiled propoganda. Fun for the whole family.
Don't get stuck in the snow!
Love,
Lauren

Floating down the river

Hello friends, I had a really fun, but a really strange day. I rented an inner tube with some people I met and we spent the day floating down a river. The river is a mixture of people bathing and washing their clothes, water buffalo hanging out and tourists drinking and swinging from ropes into the water. I kept looking around, thinking "how did I get here?" It was so weird. It was also really, really fun.
That's all I have to report for now!
Lauren

Loogie Tunes

Hello friends, I'm not sure if I've spelled this correctly, but I listened to our bus driver hock loogies, almost continuously, for 6 hours today on my way to Vang Vieng.
It's really, really hot here. Sigh. I can't deal.
This town is kind of a weird place. It's mostly tourists who are here to party. Most of the bars are showing episodes of "Friends" on tv. Tomorrow, we're going tubing down the river. I'm sure it'll be fun, if strange.
Not much else to report!
Enjoy the icy weather!
Lauren

Early morning alms

Hello friends, I woke up early this morning to see monks receive alms from people on the streets at 6:30. Basically, they walk up and down the streets every morning receiving stick rice from the devout. It was interesting. Then I went back to bed.
Today's been a lazy day. We went out for a beer or two with our new Chilean friends last night. Didn't come home till 12:45! This was my latest night in quite a while. When you're alone, it's much easier to go to bed early.
I enjoyed a delightful breakfast, made some headway in War and Peace, and got a $5 pedicure! This evening we're going to sample some delicious local food by the river.
The weather here is a bit strange. It's nice and cool at night and in the mornings till about noon. Then, it heats up and stays hot till 9 pm or so. It's weird that it only gets so hot late in the day. I think I am acclimating to the heat, but I also think that when it cools down at night, I get some relief, so it's more bearable during the day.
George, to answer your question, I'm fairly certain I'm done diving. There's a remote possibility I can go in India, but I'll have to see where my priorities lie once I'm there.
Most of the tourist attractions are fairly easy to find out about and to get to. They're mentioned in the guidebook, but you also can't walk down the street without a million people asking if you'd like transportation to whatever local attraction is in that particular area. Also, I find out about things by talking to other travelers.
Anyhoo, I hope you all survive the snow!
Lauren

Waterfalls

Hello friends, I had another delightful day in Laos. I woke up this morning at 4 am to the sound of monks banging on drums and cymbals at the Wat (Buddhist temple) across the street. This was slightly unpleasant. I took a nap around 3:30 pm and was awoken by the same thing at 4 pm. They must have some sort of 12 hour, drum-banging rotation. I tried to ask the lady at my guesthouse what it was all about but she just nodded and smiled. It's lost in translation somewhere.
I met 3 Chilean guys somewhere along the way yesterday and had the pleasure of dusting off my Spanish again. For those who are unaware, I did an exchange in Chile in high school for a summer and in college for a year. Its nice to know my Spanish still exists in the recesses of my brain.
Me and my 2 travel buddies and the 3 Chilean guys visited a really beautiful waterfall today. It took about 3 minutes to get out of town on a pickup outfitted with benches in the back. We drove through rural villages for a while and got to the waterfalls. The water was a beautiful turquoise blue. We went swimming in one of the pools.
They also had a tiger and some bears that were rescued from poachers. The tiger was beautiful, although I'm glad there was a fence between us. In Taman Negara I wanted to see a tiger, till I thought I heard one in the underbrush. Then I really didn't want to see one. I'm going to a park in Nepal where over 60 tigers live. Maybe I'll see one there.
There are lots of Hmong handicrafts on sale here. Funny thing is, they remind me of home! It's all the same stuff we can buy at the farmer's market in Minneapolis and St Paul.
George, thanks for your comment! I'm glad my blogs aren't boring you. I think once the culture shock wears off, and things don't seem as new and crazy to me, I forget that they are still different and interesting. I guess it's funny to be so used to squat toilets, no hot water (or sometimes, as happened in our guesthouse last night, no water at all), not understanding what anyone is saying around me and monks beating drums at 4 am. I also don't feel that far of the tourist track, even though I'm one of 3 people I know from home who've been to Laos. There are so many foreigners everywhere, all the time, wherever I go!
I decided to book my 21 day Annapurna circuit trek in Nepal with a company called Himalayan Humanity www.himalayanhumanity.com. I asked them to send me email addresses of people that have gone with them before. Everyone I emailed responded in less than a day that they were terrific, could tell that they were having more fun with their guide and porters than other people and that the company is setting a new standard in the trekking business. Sounds good to me. It'll be nice to have my time organized before I get there. I'm there for a month, but most of it will be trekking. If I organize beforehand, I don't have to bother with spending my first few days organizing a trek.
Stay well, friends!
Lauren

The Great Phabang

Hello friends, today I'm reporting again from the Great Phabang. I had the pleasure of seeing said Phabang today, the most sacred buddha statue in Laos, for which this city is named.
I also visited the old Royal Palace and a contemporary art exhibit, after enjoying coffee and a chocolate croissant. All in all, an uneventful, but pleasant day.
I feel like my entries haven't been particularly interesting or action-packed recently. I think this reflects my change in travel attitude. I'm trying to slow down and chill out a little bit more.
My travel attitude can be summarized by the following points:
Priority #1: have a good time.
Priority #2: have a positive attitude.
Priority #3: be nice to people
I also went to a Wat this morning (a what?? just kidding)--a buddhist temple. It was pretty, but I gotta be honest, it's like churches in Europe. They all start to look the same.
Have I mentioned I can't seem to sleep past 7:30 under any circumstances? It's really annoying. I was excited to go to bed at 8:00 when I was in the tree house (it got dark, we had no candles) so I could get 12 hours of sleep. What have I become?
Stay well friends, and remember to comment every once in a while or I start to feel lonely.
TTFN,
Lauren

Laos on my mind

Hello friends, happy to report I am no longer on a boat. The slow boat was worth doing, but halfway through the ride today I definitely wanted OFF. They packed way more people than was safe or prudent onto the boat and the seats were hard wooden benches about 6 inches wide.
Some of the stuff on this keyboard doesnt work, like apostrophes and question marks. Please excuse.
Im currently in Louang Phabang and its a nice little town. Theres a lot of colonial French architecture. Tomorrow I will explore more fully.
Im traveling with a couple women I met on the gibbon experience. We got here and there were literally no rooms left in town. We looked for an hour and a half. Finally we found a room with a double bed and one of us has to sleep on the floor. Im just happy we found a place. These traveling trials are much easier to bear when youre with other people.
More about the gibbon experience. Basically, some foreigners came in and are trying to help local people earn sustainable income from the forest without destroying the forest. They build tree houses 30 meters in the air and take tourists to the outer edges of the Bokeo nature reserve. We zip line around the forest, hoping to see animals, but mostly just having a good time in the jungle. The project discourages logging, encourages preserving gibbon habitat and gives local people a sustainable source of income. It seems like a pretty good deal. And zip lining through the jungle was really fun. Id heard rumblings about it from people along my trip, but didnt realize I could do it out of Houy xai, the border town I was in. I heard some girls talking about it. I showed up in the office in the morning and asked if I could go too and they said yes, much to my delight.
Laos seems pretty low key. This is the second biggest city and its definitely a one horse town. People here are really friendly too. There was a whole lot of nothing on the Mekong. We stopped several times to drop people off at remote villages. One guy got off the boat with a chicken on a leash. I think Laos is the least densely populated country in the region.
Im pretty tired and I feel slightly incoherent. More thoughts tomorrow.
TTFN,
Lauren

The Gibbon Experience

Hello friends, my time is limited for blogging this evening. I just came back from 3 days in the jungle of northern Laos, swinging through the canopy on zip lines.
Here is the website so you can check it out:
www.gibbonx.org
It was really fun. I also met some really fun people, which made it that much better. We belly laughed for 3 days. I met another American girl who's also traveling on her own and I think we're cut from the same cloth. Unfortunately, we're going in opposite directions, otherwise we'd keep traveling together.
I'll post photos when I can. Internet in Laos is a bit spotty and I know I won't have access as I sail down the the river for the next 2 days.
Basically, I felt like a tiny kid flying through the jungle. Wheeee!
Hugs,
Lauren

Elephantitis

Hello friends, happy to report I had another eventful day of activity.
I visited the Royal Elephant Conservation Center today, just south of Chiang Mai. Elephants were used in the logging industry until logging was banned. Then there were a bunch of elephants without homes. The center takes care of these elephants. They have a little elephant show, elephant rides and an elephant hospital. They take care of elephants that are sick--from being mistreated, stepping on landmines (!), other elephant ailments--free of charge.
They treat the elephants well at this center, which is why I opted to ride an elephant, despite promising my aunt I wouldn't (the objection being most elephants used for riding are not well-cared for). There was a seat on the elephants back that I sat in...until we were out of sight of the main building. The elephant driver then had me sit where he was sitting, on the elephant's neck. I can list 3 moments where I have felt truly terrified on this trip (1. climbing down one of the temples at Angkor Wat, when the stairs were the width of my toe and sloped downwards from wear, 2. scary dive), and, sitting on the elephant's neck, wading through a pool of water, my hands on its giant head, was one of them. My fear was a unexpected...usually that kind of stuff doesn't freak me out. I think what made it scary was the gynormousness of the elephant, the lack of stirrups and the knowledge I could fall off at any moment. I don't think it was really allowed for me to be sitting there, because the driver had me switch spots before we got back to the center. He showed me how to tell the elephant to stop and go and turn right and left. It was fun after I got more comfortable with it. The elephant had tough skin and big, thick hairs coming out of it. While we were in the water, the elephant cooled off by spraying itself (and me) with water from its trunk. That was fun.
The elephants were really beautiful in general. They let us feed them sugar cane. Their trunks are really strong! They snatched the sugar cane right out of my hand.
Tomorrow, I plan to go to Laos. I have to take a bus to the border and then I'm going to take a boat down the Mekong to Louang Phabang (there seem to be many ways to spell this city name and I'm not sure which is correct). The slow boat takes 2 days to get there. I'm told there's a speedboat, but it's not particularly safe--they make you wear helmets and life jackets. If they give you a helmet in Asia, it's because they think there's a 95%-100% chance you'll need it. I prefer not to gamble with these odds.
As for recipes...I packed my recipe book in a box and shipped it home right before I sat down to write this blog. Also, they all involve fish sauce and cilantro, except the desserts. The best I can do is a bananas in coconut milk recipe from the web:
-2-3 slightly green bananas
-4 cups coconut milk
-1 cup sugar
-1/4 tsp salt
Boil the coconut milk with the sugar and salt. Add the bananas. Boil the bananas for 2 minutes. Serve. Voila.
Also, I forgot to mention the cooking school told me yesterday that the pictures won't be on the website till next week.
Stay well!
Lauren

More cooking

I'm still full.
Cooking class was really fun again today.
We made:
-Pad thai
-Tom yum soup
-spicy glass noodle salad
-more curry paste
-curry
-sticky rice with mangos
Delicious.
Last night I went out for dinner with my old acquaintance from high school. We gossiped about people we both know and generally had a nice time. It was definitely refreshing to hang out with someone I know and could have a less superficial conversaton with.
Cooking class today consisted of 6 French Canadians and 3 from the USA. We had a lot of fun.
Not much else to report right now. I'm trying to make some decisions about what I want to do in Nepal and possibly book a trek before I get there.
Stay well!
Lauren

Thai cooking

Hello friends, I'm very full right now. Not only did I do a lot of cooking today, but I got to eat everything I cooked! I was surprised at how simple to prepare the dishes are. For the most part, the food wasn't complicated to prepare. We cooked everything in a wok on extremely high heat. I think the key is understanding the key flavors and how they blend--fish sauce, keffir lime, ginger, basil, chili, tumeric, coriander (which is the same thing as cilantro--how was I unaware?), sugar, oyster sauce, coconut. I'm excited for day 2 tomorrow and to try out what I learned at home.
Today we made:
-spring rolls
-chicken in coconut milk soup
-papaya salad
-sweet and sour stir fry with chicken (secret ingredient: ketchup--this came as a surprise to me)
-green curry paste
-green curry
-banana in coconut milk
They post photos on their website of their cooking classes. You'll be able to seem me there:
www.chiangmaismartcook.com
Melissa, the lady here says she remembers you, but I'm not sure I believe her...not because you're not memorable, but because she sees 15 new foreigners a day, every day.
I'm making an effort to try new dishes here. It's not like the other countries I've been to, where there are 4 dishes and that's it. As some of you know, I have a tendency to get stuck in food ruts--I took the same thing to work for lunch for 2 and a half years, and ate one of 3 things for dinner when I cooked for myself at home. When I like something, I don't mind eating it over and over and over again. So I have to force myself to try new items. Last night I enjoyed a spicy fruit salad. The flavors were unexpected, but delicious. It was flavored in the same way as the green papaya salad, but had green beans, ripe papaya, banana, pear, strawberries, peanuts and garlic. I really liked it. I also enjoyed dessert: bananas in hot coconut milk. It was hard to pull myself away from the sticky rice with mango, but it was worth the effort. Moral of the story: take risks, friends.
TTFN,
Lauren

Close encounters of the high school kind

Hello friends, I'm writing to you from sunny Chiang Mai. The weather here is nothing short of pleasant, topping out at about 75 to 80 degrees at midday.
I've spent most of the day moseying around without purpose or direction. I tried to go to a museum, but it was closed because it's Monday. I'm feeling really tired and sight-seeing-ed out. So, I finished my book (The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen--really good) and arranged 2 days of cooking classes where Mo went last year when she was here, and had a massage. The Thai massage is where quality meets value. One hour for approximately $3.50. Can't beat that. I also bought a copy of War and Peace. If not me, who? If not now when?
There was a big night market last night. I bought some strawberries in a cup. Much to my surprise, they were salted! It wasn't as bad as it sounds, but it was definitely unexpected.
Today, while walking down the street I ran into someone I went to high school with. She graduated a year after me and we played rugby together. It is completely disorienting to run into someone so out of context. She's teaching English in China and is here during her semester break. We're going to get together for dinner tomorrow.
Did I mention that I met a guy on a bus into the jungle in Malaysia who went to college with some kids I graduated high school with? It's a very, very small world.
Also, have I mentioned that there are pictures of the king everywhere and people wear those "Livestrong" bracelets, but the say "Long live the king" instead? And twice a day they play a song over loudspeakers and you have to stand and be silent for the duration of the song. FYI.
Tomorrow, I will regale you with tales culinary in nature.
TTFN,
Lauren

Chiang Mai Thai

Hello friends, I forgot to mention that I have never seen the movie "Finding Nemo." This led me to be chastised by my fellow divers. The movie was referenced regularly during our dive briefings, when we were told what marine life we could expect to see during our dive. I didn't even know what kind of fish Nemo was! Now I do. We saw lots and lots of Nemos.
It's officially been 5 nights since I've slept in a bed that didn't double as a vehicle. I was on the VIP bus to Bangkok last night, which is not a terrible way to travel. The seats were wide and chairs recline most of the way back. I was able to sleep most of the night. Also, dinner was included. We stopped at 8:30 at a giant restaurant. We sat down at tables for 6 and at family style with complete strangers. I thought it was cool, and something you'd never see at home. Only problem with the bus: we got to Bangkok at 5:30 am. I could've used a couple more hours of sleep. I went straight from the bus station to the airport, where I waited for 6 hours till my flight took off. This sounds like a pain, but it was good I scheduled the flight to Chiang Mai for so late--I'd forgotten that you can't fly for 24 hours after diving or you risk getting an embolism mid-flight as the nitrogen seeps out of your system. You have to give your body time to off-gas sufficient nitrogen so that you don't arrive dead at your destination. Luckily, we stopped diving at 11 am yesterday.
I'm finding the act of getting myself from one place to another excessively tedious. I think I need to get over this. It is a fact of travel.
Also, for some reason the idea of Bangkok is overwhelming to me. Why? Unknown. I've already been in several other large Asian cities. Why should Bangkok be all that different?
I'm currently in Chiang Mai and back in backpacker-central. It reminds me a little bit of Hue in Vietnam--mostly because there's a moat around the old city like in Hue. Things seem pretty laid back here. I'm planning to take some cooking classes (I will try and learn to make a papaya salad as delicious as Mo's papaya salad--Mo, we can make papaya salad together on my return!). I can also take a class on batik-making for a day. This also sounds like fun to me. I'm going to try and chill for a couple days and sleep off the excitement of seeing a shark. Maybe I'll also have a look at some elephants.
Lots of people come to Chiang Mai to do treks into ethnic minority hill tribes (like I did in Sapa, Vietnam). I think I may pass on the trekking for now and focus on cooking and wandering and elephants. And getting to Laos.
I fly out of Bangkok on March 11 to Kathmandu (I think the Cat Stevens song will be stuck in my head for the entirety of my visit to Nepal).
Basic plan until then:
-hang out in Chiang Mai, learn to cook some delicious food
-make may way into Laos, get to Luang Phabang via the Mekong river; hang out there for a couple days at least
-go to some other cool places in Laos
-go to Vientienne
-go back to Bangkok--hang out in Bangkok for 5 or 6 days to complete last-minute SE Asia shopping, pick up my plane tickets, arrange my visa for India
Friends, I uploaded more photos for your viewing enjoyment. Unfortunately, my camera does not work underwater, so I can't show you any cool marine life.
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/laurenemilywinter27/

The Living Seas

First point of business: 20 bonus points to everyone who commented on my blog and made a funny reference to the Princess Bride. I fancied myself Wesley with the tiny pony tail before I climbed the rock face, and when I saw the pictures of myself, it sealed the deal.
Now, time to tell you about my un-freaking-believable 14 (!) dives in the Similan Islands and Richelieu Rock. This was some serious National Geographic "Living Seas" Special shit. Excuse the French (and my swearing), but "stuff" just doesn't cut it. This was some amazing, spectacularitous, inconceivable shit.
I wish I could adequately describe what it's like to be diving...I can tell you individual animals I saw, but that doesn't really convey the awetaculousness of free-floating in 3-D for an hour over a stretch of coral that goes on and on and on and on and on. And then all the stuff that's living on the coral! The different levels of scale are astonishing--you can look at a square inch of area and see a million little living things, then a square foot, then a square yard, then a square kilometer and the biomass and biodiversity are enough to make your head explode (or implode, if you go too deep).
Routine on the dive boat to give you guys an idea: eat, sleep, dive. Rinse and repeat. Doing 14 dives in 4 days made me very comfortable with my equipment and with being underwater. I had one dive on the 3rd day where the current was so strong I felt like a cow in a tornado. It really freaked me out. Luckily, we had 3 more dives after that. So, I got to have some good dives after the scary dive.
There were 16 passengers on the boat, 4 dive guides, and 5 crew members. We had Swedes, Danes, Hungarians, English, French, Swiss, and me. I was in a group of 5 people plus a dive guide that led us around each dive site. He was my buddy, since I was the least experienced diver in the group. One of the English guys in my group kept swimming into me. It was annoying, but he was nice, so I took a Minnesotan passive-aggressive approach and said nothing to his face, while I yelled at him in my head every time he bonked into me.
Now for the laundry list of amazing marine life we saw:
-Whale Shark (holy crap!) Big smiles on everyone's faces after seeing this one.
-Manta Rays (holy crap!)--our two dives today were full of them. We could even see them on the surface from the boat. They are absolutely MASSIVE. We're talking 4 meters of wingspan. They are also unbelievably beautiful. Seeing one above me, silhouetted by the sun was a serious National Geographic moment. On the downside, the song from that insipid Fanta commercial they play before movies got stuck in my head, "fanta" being replaced by "manta." (Manta, Manta, dontcha wanna Manta, Manta...).
-numerous octopodi, including 2 of them doing "it" on a night dive
-Lobsters
-Shrimp
-Seahorsie
-Ghost pipefish--like a seahorse, but it looks all feathery
-Lots and lots of lionfish--red ones, black ones, baby ones, big ones. They're way cooler in the ocean than in a tank.
-Bearded Scorpion fish--they look like the rocks and have deadly poison in their spines. No touchy!
-Hermit crabs
-parrotfish, barricudas, tuna, angel fish, sweetlips, batfish, etc--lots and lots of tropical fish
-Hawksbill turtle just hanging out in the coral
-2 Ridley's turtles doing "it" on the surface
-lots and lots of moray eels--in hidey holes during the day, swimming about at night--yellow ones, zebra striped ones, purpley ones
-Nudibranches/sea slugs--these don't sound cool, but they are. They are brightly colored and very cool
-jellyfish
-lots and lots of hard and soft coral and anemonies
That's all I can think of right now.
I would consider my dive trip a great success and lots and lots of fun. Also very relaxing.
Tonight I take a bus to Bangkok and get there in the morning. Tomorrow I fly to Chiang Mai. I'm looking forward to slightly cooler climes. It's really hot here.
TTFN,
Lauren

Caving

Hello friends, one last clue for the movie quiz: "the cliffs of insanity." If no one gets if from this clue, I will be forced to reveal the mystery.
I had a lot of fun yesterday in Khao Sok National Park.
I was staying in a bungalow (read: bamboo hut). I didn't think I was scared of bugs till I saw a scorpion in my bathroom!!!! I smooshed it with sandal before I could take a picture of it. In the morning it was covered with ants and by evening it was gone, without a trace! The circle of life, friends.
I went on an organized tour yesterday. We went to a huge , man-made lake (hydroelectric power). We had lunch at a floating house and a nice little swim. The water was perfect temperature. We took an easy jungle walk. It's dry season here. I can honestly say that hiking in the jungle in dry season is a lot more pleasant than in the wet season. No humidity, no leeches, no mud. I'm glad I was able to see the jungle in the dry season and contrast it to Taman Negara. We hiked to a cave that is inaccessible during the rainy season (it's full of water). We hiked through the cave, spotting bats and giant spiders and crickets on the way. Then came the fun!
There's a river running through the cave that we waded through. At some points we had to swim the water was so deep. It was so fun! I can honestly say I'd never swum through a river in a cave before. It was pitch black except for flashlights.
We were on a boat on the lake, going back to the pier. I was dozing on the prow of the boat. Every once in a while I'd open my eyes and see how really beautiful the scenery was.
We got back to our bungalows really late and I was really hungry. Luckily, I enjoyed my most sublime Thai meal yet! Some you are aware of my love for cucumber salad. I tried Thai cucumber salad last night and it was transcendent! It was spicy and sweet, there were peanuts. Sigh. Then I enjoyed a delicious red curry with tofu. A perfect punctuation mark for a very nice day.
There was a guy on my tour who'd just come back from the Similans on a liveaboard dive boat. He said it was amazing. He got within a meter of a manta ray, said another group saw a whale shark and he saw a million fun fish. I'm really excited! I leave tonight at 7 and will be diving in the morning!
As I'm running out of time for everything I still want to do, I decided to fly to Chiang Mai on Sunday. That way I'll have plenty of time to take cooking classes and learn to make my own delicious cucumber salad, etc.
Hugs for all! You will not hear from me for several days--probably not till February 11.
TTFN,
Lauren

Khao Sok National Park

Hello friends, I made it to Khao Sok National Park today after some difficulty finding transport. It's easy to take getting where you want to go, when you want to get there for granted at home.
I had enough daylight to go on a little hike this afternoon to a river. It was very pretty. I've spent the last two weeks outside for the most part, and it's been really refreshing.
Tomorrow, I head to a lake and a cave in the park. They're supposed to be nice. Maybe I'll spot some wildlife. Unfortunately, I have to face the scourge of the leech once again. It's just for one day, so I'll be strong. I'm not looking forward to it.
Stay warm!
Lauren

Still in Southern Thailand

Hello friends, I spent most of my day on buses. It's frustrating to spend 4 or 5 hours to go about 300 kilometers, but now I'm fine.
I'm in Khao Lak and I decided to do a liveaboard dive boat. I wandered around to different dive shops. I was lucky to go into a sort of dive travel agent, who books with a number of different dive operations. The woman there had been on all the different boats she sold trips to, so she could recommend one over another. I leave Tuesday night for 4 days and 4 nights of diving fun!
Tomorrow, I'm going to go inland to Khao Sok national park for a few days of jungle time.
I'm really excited about the dive boat. I think it's going to be really, really fun. And they said visibility is about 25 meters right now--a lot better than the 2 I've experienced so far!
George, you get 5 bonus points for making a guess at the movie, but you are wrong. More hints: the movie was released in my lifetime, most people I'm close to can recite the movie by heart.
TTFN,
Lauren

Kayaking fun

Hello friends, I'm writing to you despite my extremely tired upper body. A day of climbing followed by a day of kayaking does a sore upper-body make. Yet, fun was had by all! I really love being on the water. I also love the feeling of paddling.
I was in the back of the kayak and a young English lady wearing copious amounts of foundation was in the front. Why put on make up to go kayaking? One of life's great mysteries.
We spent the day paddling through mangroves and karsts, and into lagoons. We encountered monkeys several times on the way. Unfortunately, it seems that people feed them. They were definitely waiting for us...and then they jumped into our kayak! And one ran across my leg! Monkeys are way cuter when they're not climbing on you. We saw them swimming, which was really, really cute.
In the afternoon we went to an area where salt and fresh water meet and there's an interesting ecosystem overlap. It was lovely.
I uploaded more photogs for your viewing pleasure. You reap the benefits of the high speed internet connection in Krabi! Ten bonus points to the person who can guess what movie I remind myself of in the rock climbing photos (hint: I'm sporting a tiny pony tail).
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/laurenemilywinter27/
Tomorrow I head to Khao Lak, where hopefully I can arrange some diving off the Similan Islands.

Spidey-girl

Hello friends, I had a really awesome day rock climbing the limestone rocks you saw in the pictures I posted. My only regret: my strength eventually gave out and I could climb no more.
It was really amazing to be climbing outside (I've only ever climbed indoors) and feel the breeze and see amazing views! We went as high as 30 meters.
The climbing guides were all really funny and friendly. One of them named me "spidey-girl."
I'm not sure what else to say, other than I had tons and tons of fun! I'm going to sleep well tonight.
TTFN,
Lauren