Last few days of paradise

Boarding the plane on the 15th is gonna be a toughy! Just a little recap of what we have been up to over the past week. We took a boat to Phi Phi Island and kayaked over to Maya Bay, it was 6 kilometres of some pretty rough waves. Maya Bay has to be one of the most beautiful beaches ever! We did a bit of snorkeling and then hitched a ride back on a long tail boat with an Italian couple with our kayak...(the waves were a little to rough for our liking) fed some fat monkeys on another beach on our way back to Phi Phi and then headed back to Kata Beach the following day. The waves are calmer in Kata now, so no more surfing. The sun has been blazing and we are lovin' it. We leave for Bangkok tomorrow and are little bit sad to be leaving the beach here, but Bangkok will be a new adventure.

Hopefully by the time we get home, the snow will be melting and we won't freeze our butts off when we get off the plane. I guess we will have to trade in our flip flops for some boots. We will post pictures of our adventures when we get home, internet connection has been slow.

That's it for now, thanks for reading!

Sun, Sun and More Sun

OK, it's offical - the New Year has turned us into beached whales! While most people's New Years Resolutions includes getting back into the gym - our's is quite the opposite. We have been lounging in some pretty outstanding places over the past week or so. We spent several days on the small island of Koh Samui at a resort right on the beach where we kayaked daily and worked on our 'base tans'. From there we flew to Phuket and hunkered down for several days on Kata Beach which has been our favourite beach so far. Huge waves that allow for wicked body boarding and surfing, pearl white sand for just as far as you can see and the hot sun from 7:00 until 6:00 everyday. We actually feel like we're in paradise. While we thought we'd hate Phuket we actually love it. We rented a scooter which gets us to any of the surrounding beaches or attractions and the roads are truly outstanding. Riding here is amazing but the road either goes straight up or straight down....mountain bikes would be much easier. Oh well, no complaints.

Today we took a boat from Phuket to Ko Phi Phi Don which is an absolute masterpiece. While its more crowded than we like, the water is the clearest yet and the views are breathtaking. Tomorrow we're zipping over to Koh Phi Phi Lay which is where the movie "The Beach" was filmed...supposed to trump this place. We're excited. We've found a kayak to rent and we'll also get some snorkelling gear and make our way into one of the many, many secluded bays (with beaches) and make a day of it.

All in all, we're having a great time and maxmizing our VACATION! Look forward to sharing some of the funny side stories when we get back!

Adios

Fire Crackers and White Sand

Hello from Koh Samui...this is where we have been now for a few days. We had a hellish time getting here, especially with the bikes with numerous buses, a train and a ferry which added up to 24 hours of sleepless stress, oh and another sketchy shifty hotel dude named "Mr. Joe"....BUT we made it and it is all worth it. We are in full-on holiday mode, which includes lots of beach time (we are a hotel right on the beach), some form of water activity, relaxing on lawn chairs in the evening people-watching and unfortunately hearing fire crackers blown off every 3 seconds, it is quite something, in every direction imaginable. The weather has been mix of sun and cloud which is fine. We are getting into the routine here of what every one else does....except we drink about 25% of what they do and only have about 5% of the tatoos that they do.

After the drama of getting to this island with our bikes, we have decided to fly out of here to Phuket on New Years Eve, which is going to be nutty, we hear that Phuket is even crazier than this place, so maybe we will have two more beer each and get some Henna tatoos to fit right in.

Happy New Year, and hope that everyone is enjoying the last few days of 2008. Woooo hooooooooooo!!!!

Merry Christmas from Thailand!!

Whoo hooo!!! We are in Thailand and in a very nice place called Hua Hin. It's kinda like Wikiki, Hawaii. We landed in Bangkok the other day, and drove 150 k.m. South East to a place called Kranchaburi. We decided that a beach resort was in order for Christmas, so we hopped a few trains yesterday and landed here. What a treat. The hotel that we are staying in is brand new and very nice. Today we are hitting the beach and working on our tans. We wanted to send a very Merry Christmas to everyone, and we will report back soon!

Marni and Cory.

Click on December and you'll get a new post!

Caveat Emptor

Well buyer beware is an understatement! We will try not be negative here but it's gonna be hard based on some less than ideal things we've got into lately. We rode into HaLong Bay (they are trying to make it the 7th wonder of the world - it really is amazing) by 10km outta town we were already being followed by motorcycles trying to lure us into their hotels. After riding around for a few hours we found a great hotel with an overly helpful guy. Bonus was the room had an amazing view of the ocean and surrounding city. The guy who sold us the room also had a great deal on a boat tour of Ha Long Bay....sure. Basically Ha Long City is on the edge of the ocean and everyone goes there to explore the limestone outcrops/mountains by boat. Well the boat tour WAS great due to the spectacular scenery, and we spent a lot of time in some really cool caves. The downside was we got ripped off so badly that the other guests on our same boat paid one tenth the price (no joke)and they had a waaaaay better lunch served. Well this same bastard also arranged a bus ride to Hanoi where we would go for our last few days in Vietnam. No word of a lie...it was the absolute scariest thing we have EVER done in our lives. The driver was going soooo fast and swerving and missing on-coming buses and dump trucks by a matter of feet. All of the people in the row in front of us puked in the first fifteen minutes and we were literally hanging on for our lives and they wouldn't stop the bus or slow down despite us begging them to. It was 2 hours where we honstly thought we were going to die and we were so happy to finally arrive in Ha Noi. We spent 3 days in Hanoi exploring the cities unique regions and eating lots of good food. Had a scare yesterday when a guy pick pocketed my wallet right outta by shoulder bag but LUCKILY Marni kinda saw him and we were able to grab him right away. Definitely a good reminder to be more careful. It also left us ready to get outta dodge and experience a new country.

This morning we flew into Bangkok and then rented a cabbie to take us to Kranchanaburi (east of Bangkok 130km) where we'll hang for a day or two. We want to spend x-mas day on a warm beach so we gotta get our asses in gear and start pedaling south soon. It's pretty hot here...like 30 and high humidity so we're looking forward to the hot sun again. I'm thinking that's probably about 65+ degrees warmer than the ski trails in Saskabush so no complaints from us.

Hope everyone is getting geared up for a white x-mas and some quality relaxing. We miss y'all.

Cooky Rooky and Co Fo

Scooters, trains and bicycles

We are now in Hai Phang en route to Halong Bay. We spent two days in Hoi An, toured the city, rented a scooter and zipped up to Marble Mountain which was a pretty cool journey. We met a war vet from Canada, it was his first time visiting since the war. He shared some of his stories with us as we were looking outward to China Beach from Marble Mountain. Last night we took a 15 hour train ride from Da Nang to Ninh Binh, they are always entertaining! Today we did our longest ride yet, we found a hotel and ate Thai food for dinner in preparation of our next adventure in a few weeks:) The traffic in this area is pretty insane. We are both looking forward to new scenery, looks like we are climbing big mountains tomorrow and now I am wishing I didn't buy those shorts and 2 dresses in Hoi An! When we arrive in Halong Bay we are going to do a boat tour of the majestic limestone islands. Apparently they taped part of the 007 "Tomorrow Never Dies" there (what useless information you find out in a 15 hour train ride. Hope all is well and you're enjoying the snow.