Thailand is Thai-rific!!!

Hullo, hullo,

I know, I know, it's been nearly a week! Where has she been, I'm sure you've all been a-wondering - did she fall into the River Ganges? is she stuck in Calcuta?

Nope!

I've been soaking up the sun in stunning, beautiful, clean and lovely Phuket, Thailand, and man has it ever been nice. Brad's sister Andrea and her husband Eric have been in Thailand for a couple of weeks already, and have been renting an AMAZINGLY beautiful and very, very swank apartment right on Kamala Beach in Phuket. And, being very weary from our India travels, we were more than ready for some 5* beach action... So, we flew from Calcutta to Bangkok on the 20th of November, oohed and ahhed over the imaculate, stainless steel beauty of the new Bangkok International Airport, got a pretty new stamp in the passports and zipped upstairs to the domestic terminal where, at 2:40pm, we bought $50 tickets for a flight to Phuket which departed at 3:00pm!!! Gotta love capitalism, eh?

We landed in Phuket, got our bags super quickly, got in very conveniently located taxi and showed up on Andrea and Eric's doorstep at about 6pm. So, within about 10 hours of travel time we left dirty, smelly, crazy India and were imersed in 5*, clean, fancy accomodation in Thailand. Cheers to the ease of travel in the 21st century! Andrea and Eric even had welcome signs and balloons up for us when we arrived, which was so nice:)

After having been here for several days, I can see why people love to come here for vacations; it is different enough to feel a bit exotic, but same enough to feel comfortable. For example, there are 7-11 convenience stores, Boots pharmacies, and everyone in the tourist areas speaks at least some English. The weather is georgeous and sunny (but VERY hot and VERY humid) all throughout the day, the beaches are covered with silky soft golden sand and the people are super friendly and welcoming. All in all, things have been so easy here, for the first time in months Brad and I actually feel relaxed! It's great.

So far the highlights of Thailand have numerous. Yesterday, we all went on a really, really fun Elephant ride (we even got to feed our beautiful, happy elephant some bananas!) and Brad and I also had a fantastic Thai massage, where I was twisted in all kinds of wierd and whacky directions, but walked out of the massage place feeling like a happy blob of goo. And today the four of us rented a boat and went snorkling and beach-sitting for most of the day. The snorking was great and we saw about 6000 completely fearless fish - seriously, they must be so used to people snorkling in this particular area, because they let us swim in amongst the schools of fish which is a neat but wierd experience.

Summary: Thailand is niffty and I like it!
Will have some photos up soon and hopefully some interesting updates from Cambodia and VietNam over the course of the next two weeks.

TK

- Tim the cat working hard at one of Andrea and Eric's favourite local bars!

- The AMAZING view from A&E's bea-U-ti-ful balcony.

- Gorgeous sunset shot, taken about 30 minutes before a cool and crazy storm that had all kinds of thunder and lightening set in.

- Me, drinking a Singapore Sling, which is now officially my favourite drink*. SOOOO yummy.

The below pictures were taken on our day of elephant treking. It was SOOOO much fun. Especially when we got to feed them bananas! They are such amazing creatures. Gotta have one or two on the sanctuary:)

*Apart from Tim's coffee, of course.

India Photos Batch 2

- The Red Fort in Jaipur
















- View of the Floating Palace from our hotel room in Udaipur



















- Roger, Owen and Brad learning how to make yummy Indian food at the excellent cooking class in Pushkar.
















- Pigs don't get to eat yummy Indian food...This was taken in Pushkar, but the scene is the same everwhere; this is what cows, dogs and pigs eat every day.

















- Yet another amazing picture taken by Brad. This one was taken on a sunrise hike to a hilltop in Pushkar.
















- Sun rising over the smog in Pushkar
















- Owen, having the time of his life driving a tuk-tuk.















- Celebrating my b-day at a fantastic restaurant in Jaipur. Thanks again for the cake Jitu.

- The Birthday Goat! The Birthday Goat! The pic didn't turn out all that well due to the bumpy-ness of the bus ride, but you get the gist. That is a real live and true goat. And it's on a bus!

Below are shots of the Taj Mahal; no description necessary...

- Me and B sitting on the onyx slab that used to hold the shah's throne at 'parliamentary' decision making sessions at the Red Fort in Agra.

















- Neat veggie stall in Varanassi















- I was happy to see the garbage shed, 'cause it meant that some garbage actually got off the road, however, I was not happy to see that the cows were allowed into the garbage shed to eat all the rotting food and plastic bags.

- Nightly Hindu ceremony with fire torches along the banks of the Ganges in Varanassi

- Funeral pyres along the banks of the Ganges

- This photo is of me having an Indian 'crazy' moment. We were at the train station in Varanasi, waiting for the train to Kalcuta. The tuk-tuk ride from our hotel to the train station had almost killed us 6 times; the worst incident being when we passed the cycle rickshaw carrying 4 cans of propane almost get smoked by a passenger bus...Anyway, as we stood on the platform waiting for our train to arrive a circle of men gradually formed around our group. At one point the circle was about 3 people deep and they were all staring at us! Full on, unashamed STARING at all the wierd white people. It was probably the most surreal moment of my life. Hence the photo!

- Sad goodbye photo from our final dinner in Kolkata; this one is of all the Canadians on the trip. From left to right, me, Michelle, Brad, Lisa and Jen.

- Me and Brad with Jitu; the best 'friend and facilitator' we could have hoped for. Thanks for everything.

India Photos Batch 1

- My first (of many) Shahee Paneer meals in India!

- Family of 4 on a motorcycle in Delhi. Because, of course, motorcycles were designed for family outings...makes one wonder about the necesity of the mini-van doesn't it...

- Ghandi's memorial in Delhi.

- Walking around the back streets of Delhi.

- The very memorable 17 hour train journey from Delhi to Jaisalmer.

- Pimped out Tuk-Tuks!

- Sunset at the Monsoon palace in Udaipur

- The crazed tuk-tuk driver and his 60 year old tuk-tuk that tuk us (hee hee) to the Monsoon Palace in Udaipur.

- Heading off for a camal safari in the Thar Desert

- Brad, either about to rob a bank or go on a camel safari!

- Camels' feet are cool.

- Having some one in your group doing Fire Poi at night in the desert is even cooler.

- A particularly photogenic monkey in Udaipur