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   If the title of this post seems a bit um…for lack of a better word, schizophrenic, understand that internet has been a bit shaky for us for awhile, so we must catch up in one fell swoop. After visiting the magnificent Ko Phi Phi (which you, as our loyal reader, BETTER have read about in our last post..ha ha…), we headed north. Not too far north, just to Phuket. Phuket was another city, not unlike all of the other ones we have seen since entering Thailand. Then we made a possibly life altering decision: Jen would have to visit an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor while here. You see, her ears have been bothering her a lot lately and she is worried that she has ruptured one or both. She has had trouble with them since childhood and it’s time to give them their timely tune-up. So off we go to the local hospital. It is called Bangkok International Hospital on our map, so we hope that the “international-ness” of it will also allow some sort of a “real” doctor. Not the type that the American news has encouraged us to believe we will find in this 3rd-world land. We arrive at the hospital after what turned into quite a long walk. The nerves start to jump inside of us in the opposite direction from the hospital, trying futively to pull us away from our impending doom at the hands of the dreaded Thai doctors…We press onward, though part of us wants to allow our nerves to win this battle. We enter into the dreaded underworld that is the Thai…Wait a minute! Stop right there! This hospital has a reception area with nice, leather sofas. It has FREE hot chocolate, coffee, lattes, and water. The nice ladies who greet us speak perfect English and look like they stepped directly from the pages of a magazine selling only the neatest, nicest business attire available in the United States. Where are we? Have we taken a wrong turn and landed in some sort of convention for royalty (as only Thai royalty can have these nice things, we hear)? Nope! We are in the Bangkok International Hospital (BIH) it seems. The next minutes whizzed by as we hurriedly got ourselves a cup of hot chocolate, filled out a short form, received Jen’s new hospital identification card (with her picture on it, thanks to the cameras set up at every registration desk), and were immediately escorted away to the Ear, Nose, and Throat Clinic. Minutes, I said. Not hours. No waiting in a jam-packed waiting area with every sort of coughing, bleeding, gagging human imaginable. Once in the clinic, Jen and I sat for seconds before a nurse took Jen to get her vitals. What!? They take VITALS in Thai hospitals? Would Jen get the dreaded “other end” thermometer, I wondered? Surely they have not acquired an oral thermometer way out here in Thailand. Upon her return, I notice a twinkle has replaced the doubt and fear in her eyes and ask what happened. It turns out that not only does BIH not have an “other end” thermometer, but they have an infrared thermometer that they shoot between your eyes to check temperature! Never seen one of those? Head over to Phuket. They’ve got them! Soon we are both led into a spic-and-span exam room where we find a young Doctor awaiting our arrival (notice I didn’t say that we waited 45 minutes for the doctor to arrive). Ah, this is the catch, I thought! The doctors are fresh out of high school! Well, it turns out that she is not fresh out of high school. Nor is she untrained. She is pleasant, speaks perfect English, explains the parts and functions of the ear to us to perfection, and is able to explain ear issues specific to scuba diving with us beacause she is a diver as well. Then comes the exam. First, Jen’s ears are systematically cleaned. Then the Doctor looks at Jen’s ears and reports no holes or infection in the ear drums. Perhaps sensing our nervousness, she pulls out a small camera attached to a computer screen and shows us the inside of Jen’s ears while explaining everything we are seeing. Amazing! Jen has never had the option of this equipment in all of her 26 years of ENT appointments until now. The Doctor (Physician may be more appropriate since it sounds more regal) then explains that there may be some inflammation in Jen’s ear canal and spreads a topical antibiotic inside her ear. We never even knew there was an antibiotic that could be placed there! Jen has only gotten oral antibiotics or drops in her previous appointments in the US. We are then told that Jen can definitely scuba dive again (which is music to our ears, no pun  intended) and that she only needs to rinse her ears with fresh water after diving because the pressure over the extended time causes the ear canal to thin and the Swimmer’s Eardrops that we had been instructed to use could cause damage. We’ve never gotten that little bit of information before! After saying goodbye, we are ushered to the payment counter where we dread the bill since out travel insurance only covers emergency visits. It turns out that the appointment costs $1127. Before you have a coronary, remember that we are in Thailand. That means that the $1127 is in Thai baht. That means our total is really only around $35 USD. On our way out, we discussed how this was the most amazing and cheapest doctor appointment we had ever had…And we grabbed another cup of hot chocolate!

    Now on to the “Dishonesty” part of the title. The people of Thailand are of another sort. Well, let me say the people that the average backpacker runs into, anyway. They are amazingly dishonest. We arrive at any bus station, ferry dock, or train station and are immediately bombarded by people wanting to take us here or there or sell us tickets to anywhere. They tell us that tickets cost a certain amount and that the only way to travel from point A to point B is by First Class. We shuffle past, ignoring them as if they are not human because if we do not, we are followed and harrased further. Eventually we find our way to the 2nd class counter where we are charged a “premium” in addition to the standard cost. We cannot talk them into alleviating this “white” tax, but at least the tickets are still cheaper than 1st class. Then we get on our bus, train, etc. and find that the 1st class and 2nd class bus is the exact same bus! We were on an overnight bus recently and noticed that the 1st class passengers had blankets and we lowly 2nd classers had none. The bus started moving and before 30 minutes had passed, a man brought blankets to every passenger aboard. We are still unsure of the difference between 1st and 2nd class in Thailand.

Then there is the dishonesty found in places such as restaurants, guesthouses, and trekking (hiking for all you Americans) companies. We ate at a restaurant a few days ago where we ordered an omelet with cheese, 2 fried eggs, and a slice of bacon. We got our food and ate before asking for our ticket. The ticket came to 20 baht (not much money, but still) more than we had figured. When we asked about the discrepancy, we were told the following: “Oh. I gave you 2 pieces of bacon and 2 pieces of cheese on your omelete.” But we did not order 2 slices of bacon or 2 pieces of cheese. We pointed at the menu and said “one of these and one of these”.  Just a bit crooked of her.

We went to a gueshouse (which will remain unnamed) on our first day in Chiang Mai where we found a really nice, big room with a hot shower and a refrigerator. Scared to ask the price, we asked the lady how much it was per night and were happy to hear $250 baht (less than $8 USD) to which we said “YES!!!”. We unloaded all of our things, made ourselves at home, then went to pay for the room. We almost passed out when the lady told us our bill was $350 baht. “What?”, we said. A minute before it was $250! She denied saying $250 and asked us to pay the $350. We got our things and moved on. Crooked I tell you. Crooked.

We recently took a guided trek in the jungle in Chiang Mai. It was advertised as $1400 baht per person for a 3 day, 2 night trek with one night spent in a village and visits to 5 hill-tribe villages, a 1.5 hour elephant ride, and a 1 hour bamboo rafting trip. Sweet! We thought. Once we started trekking, we found that the couple trekking with us paid $1400 per person, we paid $1300 per person, and the couple taking the 2 day, 1 night version that started out with us paid $1500 per person. At least we got the good end of this rip-off. The trek was definitely worth it, but here are a few of the discrepancies from the advertised trek: We visited only 1 village, which had only 2-3 people in it and rented fancy bungalows to tourists. Not exactly our idea of a hill-tribe village. Our elephant ride was amazing, but was only 45 minutes long. Our rafting adventure was a bit scary and a bit fun, but only lasted 15-20 minutes. You getting the idea here? Not exactly what we signed up for. Oh, and as an added bonus, I got bitten by a leech! Yes. A slimy, black, fat, blood-sucking leech! The trek was quite an adventure.  Just a little bit dishonest, but good fun anyway.

    Well, as you can see, our time here in Thailand has been interesting. Most of it has been amazing, beautiful, and absolutely the most interesting place we’ve ever been because of the differences between here and home. Next, we head off to Laos where we hope to find the beautiful Mekong, friendly people, some amazing tubing through caves, and a bit of French colonial charm with any luck…Until then!

   

The Lonely Planet says it’s beautiful enough to evoke tears and it consistantly ranks among the top three most beautiful beaches in the world. Now that we’ve had a chance to form an opinion…We Agree!!! Ko Phi Phi Island, Thailand has to have the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen. There are huge limestone cliffs jutting high out of the emerald water and sunsets that turn the sky bright red and orange. We  have spent seven days here and are a little sad to be planning our departure tomorrow but we must go on with the trip.

Our time in Thailand began in Hat Yai where we quickly caught a bus to Krabi, the jumping off point to the islands. Because the boats were a bit expensive from Krabi, Craig and I took a saengathaw (truck with bench seating in the bed)  to Ao Nang where we’d planned to leave right away on a boat to the islands. However, we found the place to be quite nice and decided to stay a day or two, soak up the sun in the sheltered bay and indulge ourselves in a traditional Thai massage…a treat that cost us only $5 USD!

We arrived on Ko Phi Phi Island two days later and found it to be every bit as amazing as we’d hoped it would be.  We spent the first few days just swimming and snorkelling around in the bays of Lohdum and Long Beach.  We found a fantastic deal on a kayak rental (thanks to a couple Couchsurfers we met here) and took it around the island for the day. We visited Monkey Beach where we saw about 10-15 monkeys (several babies). They were very cute but charged our boat in an attempt to get food as they are used to being fed by the tourists. Since we had been warned they could bite and since we had no food with us (for them, anyway), we chose to stay in the kayak and watch them from afar. 

We were also lucky enough to find “our own little secluded beach”! Between two cliffs, we found a hole just big enough for our kayak to fit through. We pulled it inside and found a great white sand beach completely hidden from the passing large boats. We discovered amazing snorkelling along the cliff walls and spent a few hours exploring our new found paradise. Later in the day, we found snorkelling on the reef off of Long Beach to be quite interesting as the fish were so abundant that they swam right into our masks.  We fed them some bread from the kayak and they came by the hundreds to be fed. Craig and I were both able to touch them as they jumped out of the water in search of more food. 

At some point during the week, we found it necessary to catch the sunset from a higher altitude…much higher! We had been told about the “view point” and warned that it was a HIKE. We had no idea what we were in for when we began our trek but 345 steps and a one mile steep climb later, we began to understand the emphasis placed on the hike. We sweated and panted and swore not to hike the treacherous path again but as we reached the top and saw our first glimpse of the sunset over the island, well let’s just say it took our breath away….even more than the walk up did! We sat on a rock, had a picnic dinner and watched the most amazing sunset either of us has ever seen.  We are now planning to do the HIKE one more time in the morning to see the sunrise before we leave.

The other main highlight of our trip to Ko Phi Phi Island has been the snorkelling and diving trip we took this morning. Craig went on two dives while I spent some time snorkelling around the area. We both saw tons of colorful fish and had a great time but the most amazing thing was the sea turtles. Craigs dream for diving, since he was a little kid, has been to see a sea turtle in the wild and today that finally happened…five times to be exact. He took pictures of his expression (huge eyes!) that can be viewed on flickr.com.  There were also sea horses, box fish, and octopus on view, all first time sights.  The landscape was also amazing, we were swimming right up against the massive limestone formations. It was hard not to enjoy their towering presence as we explored the underwater world they help to support.

The trip took us to Ko Phi Phi Ley Island just south of Ko Phi Phi Don Island where we have been staying. Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Ley is the sight of the Leonardo DiCaprio film “The Beach”. We saw the bay where the movie was filmed and found it to be disappointing as it has been ruined by Hollywood seekers that come by the thousands just to see it. It was littered with boats and people  and we were told they charge you 200 Baht ($6USD) just to step on the beach. Other bays on the island, however, proved to have the same beauty and ambiance of the rest of Ko Phi Phi.

To sum it all up, Thailand in general and especally Ko Phi Phi Island is an amazing place that we can see ourselves coming back to many times over the course of a lifetime. The area is filled with secluded beaches just waiting to be discovered and claimed as our own!   

   

  

  Well, we’ve found ourselves in Malaysia at last. We didn’t know what to expect before coming. Would it be difficult to travel here? Would we starve to death for lack of a decent meal? Would the army herd us about mumbling things about the insolent westerners? Well, if you’ve been to Malaysia recently, you know that none of these are true. If you haven’t been recently, we hear that there are a few airlines that fly Singapore to all over the world (probably somewhere close to your hometown) direct, then take the train for a few hours and you will find yourself in beautiful Malaysia. We have travelled to Melacca (Malacca, Melaka, etc. It seems to have many different spellings for some reason.), where we found a charming old Chinatown with local shopkeepers, blacksmiths, tailors, and a centuries old church on a hill overlooking the city.

   Next we travelled to Kuala Lumpur, the largest city in Malaysia with 1.5 million people, where we found friendship, a long-awaited taste from home, and much needed rest. We Couchsurfed (www.couchsurfing.com

) with two separate people in KL. The first was a nice lady and her son who hosted us on the spur of the moment and carried us around for a night on the town. Then there was Ken, our second host here. If you were wondering about the title of this post, this is where it will all make sense. Ken is a Chinese Malaysian who is an avid Couchsurfer and a college professor who lived in the United States for 10 years. Much of this time was spent in Arkansas and Ken has told us much about his “redneck” ways while there. He has the straw cowboy hat, can do a good hick accent, and knows his way around a farm, we’re sure. Ken provided us many laughs, several nights rest, assistance around KL, and even a taste of home (sort of) when we got to cook fried chicken, mac-n-cheese, and fried okra at his house. We got to meet many of the local expat community (which is rather large here) and were truly amazed at how “user-friendly” Malaysia is.

   Our time here has been nice and though we head off to Thailand soon, we will remember the friendliness and intelligence of the Malaysian people and the beauty of Malaysia for many years.  

 ***Recently featured in Malay Mail Newspaper in Malaysia on Oct. 13, 2008

            

Us with our Batik painting, the Petronas Towers, and the group from the Couchsurfing gathering we attended

1. A few nice beaches with blue water and palm trees.
2. Trash everywhere!
3. Beautiful ornamental architecture.
4. Hardly any intelligible road signs.
5. Police officers who tell you to do illegal things and then expect a bribe when you’re caught doing those things.
6. Grungy hippy-types searching for good surf.
7. A total lack of intelligent governmental oversight.
8. Hindu temples and Muslim mosques everywhere.
9. A total lack of Christian churches.
10. Rat and bug infested living arrangements.
11. Post-Ramadan price gouging.
12. Cheap food!
13. Bottled water for 0.13 - 0.44 a liter.
14. Craig and Jennifer going absolutely mad because of the people trying to sell us things!
15. Everyone trying to sell you (the tourist) something.
16. Major roads that have no names.
17. Australians on vacation!
18. Monkeys rambling about on the side of the road.
19. Volcanoes (and trekking guides that won’t leave you alone, even when threatened).
20. Cheap accommodations.
21. Slow internet.
22. Motorbikes that swerve in and out of traffic at alarming speeds.
23. Whole families (mom, dad, and children) piled up on a single motorbike with no helmets.
24. A people that are far behind modern society in almost every area of life, trying to catch up as tourism reeks havoc upon their homeland.
25. A million shops, restaurants, and accommodation options, all fighting for the tourist dollar.
26. Very few people above about 30 years old.
27. Beachfront resorts, with absolutely no beach anywhere nearby!
28. Cheap bootleg DVD’s.
29. Gasoline cheaper than any we’ve seen in years in the US.
30. Beautiful rice terraces and coffee plantations cut right into the mountains and volcanoes.
31. People expecting to bargain with you when buying almost anything.
32. Nasty, awful looking food made of things we could only imagine. We could not force ourselves to stray far from the “Western menu” offered at most places. Shame on us.
33. Women carrying multiple concrete blocks and Honda generators on their heads.
34. Signs at stoplights that read: “Straight through on RED”.
35. Dogs that stay in the road, and people who dodge around them like the road is theirs.
36. Cats with bobbed tails.
37. Cars and motorbikes passing one another in curves causing oncoming traffic to slide to a stop.
38. Dirt and huge rocks piled in the major roads (on purpose, mind you) with ladies carrying it away in baskets on their heads.
39. Squat toilets with no toilet paper!
40. Women who offer “massages” at a very cheap rate.
41. Offerings to this or that false god everywhere trashing up the streets.
42. Men who refuse to let you drive up public roads without a special fee and guide.
43. Cheap vehicle rentals.
44. All road signs (the few that exist) conveniently located directly behind trees.
45. Black volcanic beaches in Lovina.
46. Wonderful expats, like Gary at Ari Homestay in Candi Dasa, who offer solace, friendly conversation, and tips and tricks learned from living in this crazy place for years and surviving.
47. Gas stations and convenience stores that are not connected for some reason.
48. Men going pee-pee on the street in the middle of the city.
49. No English-speaking people outside of main tourist areas.
50. Beautiful flowers growing everywhere!