Maya in Asia!

thailand/laos

2005-10-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

The picture is from Thailand, but across the river is Laos!

Namaste!

2005-10-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone

I am in Nepal and love it! More than any other place I have been so far. The air is clean, the people are nice, and there is absolute chaos everywhere! It's great. This feels like the prelude to India. As we landed 2 days ago I could see huge mountains and so much green! The airport felt like we were sent back in time 30 years. We waited to get our visas for an hour and throughout the taxiride that took us to the Thamel area where we're staying I felt like we almost died a few times--traffic rules are non existent here pretty much. There are animals in the street, some chickens, goats, and the occasional cow, and I'm surprised more people are killed by getting runover by all the crazy drivers in the streets.

We met up with some friends here from the jeep trek we did in Chiang Mai and took a busride to a town in the east (took 3 hrs to get there and 1.5 to return, don't ask me how!) to see the sunset and sunrise. Unfortunately as we got there it started raining and when we woke up at 4:30am to walk up the hill to see the sunrise we couldn't see 3 feet ahead of us because it was so foggy. So we went back to sleep and returned to Katmandu.

All the Nepalis I've met so far have been great. I sat next to this businessman on the flight and we talked the whole 3 hour flight about life and everything, and at the end he gave us his cell phone number and told us that if get into any sort of trouble here to call him. Hopefully we won't have to but it was such a nice gesture.

Also, everyone I introduce myself to here is very happy about my name. Apparently in Nepali it means love, magic of love, and illusion.

Finally, before we left to Nigrapan (the village with the sunrise), I went around the Thamel to buy a fleece and scarf. After Bangkok I feel like my bargaining skills have improved a billion percent, so when I went to exchange money (you get more for travelers checks than cash here..) I bargained with the guy to give me a better rate, $1= roughly 70 Nepali rupi. Then I went and compared prices.. I ended up buying a Northface fake fleece for 460 rupi, along with a fleece scarf and warm socks to sleep with for 150. Altogether I spent 610 rupi.. Under $10 for half a wardrobe of clothes that will definitely keep me warm.

That's all for now. I'm at a place where I can add pictures so I'll try to do that soon.

Bye for now!

PS: another strange thing about Nepal. The time difference here is 1 hour 15 mins from Bangkok. I'm not sure that it means for the US, but I think this is the only place in the world whose time is 15 minutes plus something..

Back from the islands and on to Nepal!

2005-10-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone and welcome to my blog!

So... last I wrote I was on the way to the South, to Koh Tao and Koh Pangan, 2 beautiful islands. We arrived to Koh Tao on an overnight bus and boat and I signed up at a scuba school right away and spent the rest of the week learning how to dive to 18 meters, and let me tell you, it was AWESOME!! The feeling of breathing underwater is incredible, plus all the fish we saw were so cool. Our first dive we touched a sea urchin (porcupine) and saw millions of other fish, and we didn't even have to dive too deep!
For our last dive we even shot a DVD of us diving, it was really fun. Each time we dove we jumped into the water a different way, once from the front of the boat, once from the back, we jumped in backwards, and the final dive into the water was the "James Bond flip".. now, you may know how completely uncoordinated I can get, and when I tried it (despite being totally nervous) I did a half flip and landed flat so my mask flew off and my nose hurt a little, but I'm ok, it was no big deal. IT was much less worse than 2 dives earlier when I accidentally let go of my weight belt and my instructor had to jump in the water to recover it! Yea yea, I'm clumsy but I'm ok with it :)

After the 5 days of leaving Reut to sunbathe (and get a little bored--she's afraid of the water) we continued to Koh Pangan, the next island to the south. It was a little bigger,a little cheaper, and absolutely gorgeous! We met some nice people, a Canadian teaching English in Japan and an Aussie (those guys are everywhere!) and had a blast enjoying our little bungalow just a minute from the quiet beach we were at. We ended up returning to Bangkok after just 2.5 days in Koh Pangan and made it in time to go to Beit Chabad (a religious center in Bangkok) to celebrate Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year) with 700 other Israelis/Jews.
I never considered myself very religious but it was such an incredible feeling to be with so many other travelers all celebrating the same holiday, blessing the different foods and singing together. It was very intense to say the least. We will be doing Yom Kippur in Nepal where I heard there were even more people attending each holiday.

So now we're getting ready to leave Thailand. We went to MBK,the biggest mall I've even been to in my life--7 floors!!! I couldn't believe it, and even more, I couldn't believe we did it all. And it was tiring! We fly to Nepal tomorrow and will be heading out to Tibet a few days later (after Yom Kippur).

Thailand has been fun, but I have to say I'm not too fond of it. Its natural beauty is unbeatable, but I haven't found the people to be very nice. It feels like all they want is my money and if they don't get it they are rude. Also, from what we keep hearing, the travelers here much different from the ones we will be meeting in Nepal and India that are doing a long-term trip and not a 3-week shopping extravaganza. So I'm glad to have been here, this month went by faster than I could ever have imagined, and I'm even more excited to be heading on to Nepal/Tibet/India.

So Shana Tova to everyone, and gmar hatima tova. I hope this new year brings happiness and wonderful things to all of you.

Sending you my love,
Maya

My first blog!

2005-09-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

I came to the conclusion that it was time to start a blog. Instead of flooding your emails, I will post what I've been up to on my trip instead whenever I can get to use the internet. Don't worry, I'll still respond to emails, but this just seems easier, so we'll see how well it will work.. So here goes!

Right now I'm back in the smelly city of Bangkok. I don't have many nice things to say about it here, except that we have to come here to take care of everything trip-related (booking tickets, buying gear), but other than that this city sucks.
This morning we returned from 6 amazing days in Laos. We took a slowboat from Chiang Kong (Thailand) across the Yangtzee River to Laos. The boat ride 2 long days of about a 6-7 hr ride each day. The first day, we were with a bunch of locals on the boat and it was super crowded. The second day was much better, each person had their own little bench to sit on and everyone was talking and playing cards. The night between the2days we spent in a small village on the river, where we paid $1.5 for the two of us for a room with a shared shower/toilet, no cold water, and a rat that came to greet us in the middle of the night..Plus it was raining from the time we got there until around 3 the next day, but it was all good.
we finally made it to Luang Prabang, a city that used to be the capital of Laos, and it was beautiful! We stayed there for 2 days, walked around to the many temples around town, saw Buddahs and spoke with 15 year old monks. We also visitd the small waterfalls, which werent small at all!
From there we continued on to a town called Vangvien. Getting there took 6 hours and we passed so many small villages on the way that had makeshift walls but here and there we spotted giant satellite dishes, it was very weird to see that contrast.
Anyway, Vangvien looked like the Wild West: no paved roads and houses that looked just like the old black and white movies. After kayaking and tubing (we made a stop and I jumped off a sliding rope thing into the river) which were all way fun and I got super sunburned on my legs, we pretty much spent our time relaxing--watching movies and way too many Friends episodes for me to be proud of... that's all there was to do there, pick a restaurant to eat and watch a movie at. It was awesome. They had "special" drinks and pizzas on the menu, if you catch my drift. The smell of pot was all over Laos anyway, it seemed pretty unregulated when it came to weed and opium.
That's pretty much Laos. We made a really brief stop in Vientiene, the capital city on the way back to Bankok, but it was for about 30 mins and there really wasn't anything to do there.

Now we are back in Bankok but heading down south to the islands tomorrow afternoon. I want to learn to dive in Koh Tao, but it all depends on the price at this point. Maybe I'll just snorkel instead. I'm really excited about the islands, should be a lot of fun, everyone we've met here has had great things to say about them.

Well, I'm off for now. Let's see how well I can keep this blog deal going..

Maya