Best Week Ever

You know that VHI show, Best Week Ever? Well, this is "Ellen's Best Week Ever" in Bangkok, Thailand. Before I get into how and why it is the best week ever, let me back track a little....

Part of the fun of travel is the unexpected adventures. Many people ask me how much I plan when I travel, and I would say it's about 50/50. I planned my flights before I left up to getting to India. After that, I have planned things as I've been going. My original plans were to go from India to Sri Lanka for the month, go back to India and travel a bit, and then go home. Well..... as I was in India I discovered that there was a change in visa's in that if you leave India, you have to wait 2 months before you can come back again. Hmm... well, I already had the month in Sri Lanka planned, but what to do the 2nd month? Then it came time for me to feel like a spoiled travel brat to find a place somewhat close where I haven't been. Then it started that I was having universal signs to take me to Bali and Indonesia. 2 books I read mentioned it (NO!! NOT Eat, Prey, Love!) a couple of random travel people I met randomly told me about it, and.... well, as you can imagine, someone wouldn't have to twist my arm too far to get me to go to Bali and Indonesia!!! Then it happened that when I was getting my ticket, the flight would connect through Bangkok. I have a friend that is doing a global MBA program there, so I thought, "why not make a week stop-over in Bangkok?" And although I have to say it is my 3rd time here (I still can't believe that),  wah-la! Here I am again!!

So what makes it the "Best Week Ever?" Let me break it down...

• Although it is technically called "service apartments," I am basically staying at a 4-star hotel. My friend is not only nice enough to let me stay with her, but she pretty much is giving me the place to myself and is staying with her boyfriend. Which leads me to...
• Privacy and my own place. I've pretty much been sharing rooms this past month and it feels sooo nice just to be free and have my own place!
• I can walk around barefoot and not worry about stepping on bugs or cockroaches.
• The mattress is actually a mattress and not a cot-like, which I have been sleeping on the past couple of months.

Example, last room I stayed in....

       

  and now this room!

             

BUT, although the latter is more than nice, is it really necessary? Traveling to so many different places and sleeping in soo many different beds, really, all I need is a roof over my head, a bed, maybe a mosquito net, and I'm fine. Not to say I'm complaining with places like this, he he!

• The bed is queen size!!! I've only been sleeping on twin beds for most of my travels.The pillows are actual pillows, and not like cardboard boxes. And the towels are fluffy and nice and NOT like rags. Seriously. 
• There is a BATHTUB! There is HOT WATER that isn't scalding hot than cold or that doesn't run out. And actually, just having hot water is luxury for me. 

For example, here is the last bathroom I have and yes, as you see, no toilet or sink. The toilet was outside and was a squat toilet.

                      

And this is the bathroom I have now!

                       

And as I said earlier, I'm not complaining about the former. As long as I have someplace to shower or use the toilet, I am fine! Being on the road I definitely become very relaxed about places to stay and I can really get comfortable and used to anything. 

• There is a TV.... which I can watch from bed! 

                 

• There is a maid. Yes, a maid, that comes to the room every day and makes the bed, does the dishes, provides fresh towels, re-supplies shampoos and lotions. AND we get the newspaper everyday. What? News! Wow! Now I can't pretend I am ignorant about world events. Or maybe I still can??
• Rooftop pool and hot tub. Enough said.

                

• There is A/C not only in the rooms, but pretty much every indoor place here in Bangkok.
• Bangkok is VERY VERY Western. There is everything from 711 on every corner to fast food chains like Auntie Anne's pretzels to Burger King to Haagan Daz ice cream shops to Pizza Hut. It's crazy!
• I can walk around... and NOT have people either stare me down or shout, "Aloooooo! Where you from? Where you go?" 
• The people here are polite and nice. They actually WANT to help you. They actually TRY to help you. If they don't know something, they will say "I don't know" versus the opposite experiences I had in India and Sri Lanka (not always of course, but often enough). 
• The public transport? Ahhhh-mazing! Sooo long rickity, always-late old trains and buses! The skytrain and metro are REALLY nice! Everything is labeled and it is sooo soo easy to get around. That probably has been my favorite thing of them all. I wish Chicago's "L" train was like that!
• I'm not risking my life either being in a car or tuk-tuk OR crossing the street. Here they drive civilized , they actually obey traffic rules, and it is nice!
• Cheap massages. Enough said. 

And I could go on and on. My friend is probably sick of me acting like this is the 1st time I've ever had anything nice. And I know many of these things are NOT exciting to you, BUT again, when you don't have something for awhile, you appreciate it much much more. 

My 1st day I fly all night and got to the apartment at 7am. As luck would have it, my friend from college Aimee and her husband were here also so we planned to spend the day together. Although that wasn't until 1pm, and any sane person would take a nap, BUT I was soo soo excited about all the luxuries as mentioned above, I couldn't even sleep! It was soo fun hanging out with someone from home! Yea!! We did some goofy stuff like pose with Jackie Chan at the Madam Tussauds museum,

             

and also some interesting things like having fish eat our feet. Yes, you read correctly. Okay, I shouldn't say eat, more or less, nibble, but it is a treatment by these special fish that literally exfoliate your feet.

                     
                   

It feels sooo soo funny! It didn't hurt, just literally felt like a fish is nibbling at your skin, almost kind of tickly. Hahhah! And after 20 minutes of that, I do have to say my feet felt VERY soft! We spent the day going through the Siam Paradom mall,

                   

which is 3 jumbo malls inter-connected and literally is known as the largest shopping mall in Asia! It has an aquarium and everything!

After "all that work," literally the next day I stayed in the apartment and just lounged around enjoying all the luxuries of normal rich life. Hahahha. Caught up on internet stuff, and just relaxed! I didn't leave the complex until dinner-time. No joke.

Then it was time to actually do something. One day my friend and I went to Koh San road, the famous backpackers district and got our haircuts (which I was in D-I-R-E need of!), did a little shopping, and were just goofy...

                 

                   

Another day I went to a snake farm, which produces anti-venom serum for snake bite victims nationwide. Glad I didn't need that!

                    

                   

and also Lumpini Park,

                  

where I was a little "sniff sniff" to see joggers and people being somewhat athletic because that is my "usual" life, not my "travel" life.

                  

Then after those 2 activities, and "all that work" decided to get a 1-hour foot massage for less than $8! Soooooooooooooo good! I think I even fell asleep!

                  

Thanks to cultural recommendations from a friend back at home, I went on a day trip to Ayutthaya, a Unesco World Heritage Site and former capital of Siam (for 417 years!, between 1350 and 1767!).

            

It actually has a fairly interesting history. Not only was this a former Asian powerhouse, but this former royal capital was a major trading port during the time of the trade winds, when international European merchants were regular visitors. It is known as a "fallen hero" because it was sacked by an invading Burmese army. Although there used to be over 400 temples, there are now a few remaining, but those that are are relatively unspoiled and it is a charming little town, which, I have to admit, it was nice to get out of crazy polluted Bangkok and have some fresh (ish) air.

          
         

                                                













The central region is pretty much an island because it is situated at the confluence of 3 rivers, and luckily for me because I did a lot on foot, many of the ruins were close to each other. In a hot sweltering day (no complaints as I am missing the grunt of Chicago winter), I wandered around to do "wat" or temple sightseeing. It REALLY reminded me of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but obviously on a lot smaller scale. My favorite wat's were the Wat Phra Si Sanphet which was built in the late 14th century and was the largest temple there and was used by several kings. I hear it once had a 16m high standing Buddha that was something like 250kg's in gold.... but melted down by the Burmese conquerors.

               

I also enjoyed Wihaan Mongkhon Bophit which houses one of Thailand's biggest bronze Buddhas, a 17m high one which supposedly has survived both lightening strikes and fire.

                   

BUT I would have to say the coolest one was the Wat Phra Mahathat, which was built in 1374. It is famous for a Buddha head that is embedded among a tree's maze of roots. HHmm.... nice way to mix nature and religion. There are plenty of rumors on how the head got there, one theory is that the image was abandoned after the Burmese sacked Ayuthaya, and trees subsequently grew around it. Or another idea is that thieves tried to steal the head, but found it was too heavy so just left it at the site. Who knows?!

                  

              

Here are some other pics of the former ancient Thai capital:

                
                


              

             

             
           

             
          

Another day went to Chatuchak Weekend Market, which is literally the largest outdoor market in Asia. We were there for about 5 hours and literally covered 1/09482304324th of it. Phew! They literally sell everything there.... and I mean everything!

          


          

          

Then came the time to pow-wow sightsee and do touristy things. Encountering a group a Serbians (20 of them!) in my group, it was fun to brush up on my Serbian and share stories of my 5 weeks there, and also meet Norwegians and talk about my travels there as well. But alas, back to the actual tour itself. We went to the floating market, which.... although it was nice and interesting to see, it was super touristy so hence hard to maneuver the boats through the throngs of tourists in these thin boats in a thin, dirty river. But again, cool to see life literally on small boats, from selling fruits and foods to watches. Here are few pics...

                  

                  

                  

         
        

Then we went to Kanchanaburi, the city where the famous Bridge over the River Kwai (which was actually a movie) is located.

         

       

They called it the Burma-Siam railway and was built by the Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war but was actually driven by the Japanese to improve communication between the large Japanese army in Burma. Unfortunately, more than 10,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. Then it's said that 80-10,000 civilians died from forced labour while trying to build it.  I guess while it was being built, there were 2 labour forces working their way towards the middle, one based in Siam and the other in Burma. Very interesting and moving and unfortunately, as we were with a group, we didn't have a chance to go to the museums, which I hear were nice. BUT we did get to pet a tiger! What? Yes, we were near "Tiger Temple" which is a sanctuary of wild animals, including obviously many tigers. BUT, as that was $$$ to get into, we decided the one tiger near the Bridge was good enough for us. We got to bottle feed the tiger and then pose with them. Yes, I admit, I was a little nervous because it is a wild animal, but I survived to tell the story. I just feel bad because of how they are chained and have .002 mm to move. The tiger liked the girls, but not so much guys as the tiger literally latched onto my friends' boyfriends shorts and it took a good minute or so to have him let go. He was fairly calm about it, I think I would have had a heart attack!

       

      


         

But it did have me reflect a little on all the wild animals I have encountered on this trip! The Big 5 in South Africa, then later a got to pet a white lion. A polar bear (did NOT get to pet that) from afar while I was on the Arctic Circle trip and now tigers in Thailand! Who knows what my other travels will bring!

Finally my last day besides lounging and watching stupid movies, he he, went to Wat Pho, or Temple of the Reclining Buddha which is a whopping 46 m long, and the feet taking up 3 meters! It is huge!

           
        

And funny thing is my friend had wanted to see it and although I had seen the Grand Palace twice the previous 2 times, I didn't remember seeing that. But then of course I got there and remembered that I had been there! Oops! Oh well, it was still cool!

Sniff sniff... BEST WEEK EVER has officially come to a close. BUT, I think I may have the Best Month Ever next month as I am heading off to Bali and Indonesia. Sweeeeeeeet!

The Tea Country

I don't often repeat countries I visit, but being that I was in Southern India and Sri Lanka "is so close," I thought, "why not?" Also, with the war ending somewhat recently I KNOW that it is going to be a top tourist destination and wanted to explore some places I didn't 3 years ago before it gets too crazy (seriously. Sri Lanka has been featured in at least 3 Travel magazines I have come across!). And I was right! It is a catch 22 sometimes, what I liked about Sri Lanka previously was that it was relatively untouched by tourism and authentic. But of course tourism can do wonders for local people and the local economy. So long are the days when the locals begged of me, "please tell your friends to come here." This time around I mostly had pleasant interactions BUT I did notice that there is a little more greed amongst the people and of course you always get the dishonest people ("yes, all the other hotels are full. Stay here"). And also it has gotten a lot more expensive. I think it is one of the most "expensive" of the Asian countries when you compare India and SE Asia, etc.

For some reason, like last time, what made this trip so wonderful is the people I met. I met such amazing and fun travelers! From a French Alps ski instructor to an Austrian entrepreneur to a Dutch dentist tech to a Belgium ophthalmologic and everything in between, the beauty of travel is the diverse and interesting people you meet. I can't emphasize enough how that is my favorite part of travel. Having known the country, I immediately went to one of my favorite places from before, Tangalle beach.

This area is fairly quiet and has a good mix of tourism but also local life. I stayed at place I knew from before, Mallika Guesthouse,

This family touched my heart last time because their guesthouse was destroyed by the tsunami and with the help of a very generous and altruistic Austrian, they are slowly but surely getting up on their feet again. Not like some guesthouses who I could tell are pocketing extra money, Mallika and her family work to improve and better the guesthouse. To say it was a wonderful stay with wonderful people and food would be an understatement. The days were lazy, yet eventful. Here are some pics of some of the things that kept me busy:

Going to fisherman's beach...

Watching amazing sunsets....

Eating a lot if delicious meals....

Having close encounters with wildlife...

Going on a day trip to the Dondra lighthouse,

And hanging out on the beach...

I also spent New Year's there and it was truly wonderful with lovely company and a great atmosphere. We were all just hanging out, just having finished a delicious meal,

and I heard what sounded like a fire cracker. I jumped and asked my friend, "hey, what time is it?" as I'm on holiday and hence don't have a watch. He looked at his watch, and .... there it was: 00:00! LOVE IT! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I hope this year is as good as last one. All the best in 2011!!

After about a month only on the beach, including India and Sri Lanka, I can honestly change I was ready for a change. So I packed the bags, grabbed a tuk-tuk,

and headed to the hill country to explore some new and old areas. Below are some pics on the way.... fisherman on a lake and one of many bat trees:

With a fellow travel friend, we went to 7 places in 2 weeks, phew! One of the new places were Una Walawawe to see an elephant orphanage...

as well as the national park, where we did a 4WD jeep safari

and saw peacocks, including one flying!!! Couldn't capture it en route, but got it on the branch!! It was exciting for me because I seem to have forgotten that they can fly, hehe :-)

We saw lots of birds (Sri Lanka is particular known for its birdlife),

as well as elephants with tusks (!!),

... and a herd of elephants!

Loved it!! There is nothing like seeing animals in the wild.

Then we were off to Belihul Oya to enjoy the fresh air, beautiful mountain scenery from the balcony,

some lovely flowers,

and finally, the best for last, Sri Lanka's tallest waterfall, Bambarkanda Falls....

We also saw the whole process of making string hoppers, from beginning to finish:

Then it was off to visit, or I guess for me, re-visit, Haputale. We thought we were just going to stay 1-2 nights, and we ended up spending 4 nights there, which you can see why with these kinds of views from the bedroom:

In Haputale, we explored tea plantations where we frequently had school kids or tea workers either follow us around or call out the usual, "Alo! Where you from? Where you go?" :-)

We enjoyed some spectacular views around the town (Haptule is known for its' misty days, but on a clear day, amazing landscape),

... as well as the local life,

One day we went to Ella to climb Little Adam's Peak, which was sooo worth the fantastic panorama views and local life!

And we also managed to go to Horton Plain's National Park for the day, which although we encountered a view of mist and clouds to the infamous World's End views, we did see some wildlife like the sambar deer,

And some great views of the landscape and cool rock formations,

As well as Baker's waterfall,

Then as luck would have it, as we were leaving Horton's Plains, we came across these REALLY funny looking mustache monkeys! Normally I have a little fear of them, but these were super cute:

Also near Haputale, we saw more waterfalls, the Diyaluma Waterfall...

The day we went to the fall's we saw it was a clear day, which is a rarity in Haputale. So we decided to take a risk and quickly get on a tuk-tuk to trek up to Lipton's Seat. I had been there 3 years prior and actually hiked up, which is 7km, and after all that work came to rain, cloud, and mist. So here I was, almost exactly 3 years later, BUT fortunately enough, to a beautiful clear afternoon. This Lipton's Seat is where the Scottish tea baron Sir Thomas Lipton used to survey his ever-growing empire, and wow, I can see why he spent hours here!

These are views on the way up...

And then on top!

I have to say, that the train rides to and from places were my favorite part of this trip. It is a great way to enjoy the local life as well as gorgeous scenery:

Onward we went by trains, buses, tuk-tuks! Next stop was Badulla, a small local town where we went to a few sites like St. Mark's Church where there is a plaque commemorating the elephant hunter, Major Rogers, who was killed by lightening. Legend has it that it was the elephant's retribution to the 1500+ elephants that he killed during a 4-year period AND his actual gravestone is in Nuwara Eliya and that is cracked in half, and some believe it is the elephant gods that had lightening strike it again. Interesting stuff.

We also went to the Muthiyagana Vihara Buddhist complex in Badulla,

Although the temperatures had slowly but surely been dropping as we were making our way through the hill country, I was NOT prepared for the cold of Nuwara Eliya. Being that I am ONLY going to be in HOT climates, I literally have 1 pair of pants with me and one long sleeve shirt and my rain jacket. I bought a thin cheap fleece in Haputale but in Nuwara Eliya I bought a nice thick windproof knockoff North Face and a hat to keep me warm... which I later donated to a fellow traveller. We didn't let the cold and rain damper our spirits though and still went to Labookellie Tea Factory,

saw more waterfalls,

ate rice hoppers (yummy!),

went to Victoria Park,

and walked around and saw why they call it "Little England," with the cute colonial architecture.

It's a cute place to be, but unfortunately, the weather was bad. Which, by the way, if you listen to international news, you would hear about the severe flooding in Sri Lanka. Here is a picture of the flooding in Tangalle and then elsewhere in the hill country.

The flooding was mostly concentrated in the North and East and didn't affect us too much except for some rerouting on public transportation and some hold-ups because of construction to fix landslides. Still, there were some deaths and unfortunately, the floods were more in the Tamil area and there was controversy that they weren't getting as much aide because of that, and then the political talk starts and then I tune out (sorry, it's true!).

We then headed towards Hatton to Dalhousie to Adam's Peak via train and bus,

Adam's Peak is probably one of the most famous holy sites in Sri Lanka, BUT now I can say it is probably one of the famous tourist sites.

EVERYONE you meet always asks if you have gone there. It has been a focus of pilgrimage for over 1000 years for all the religions of Sri Lanka. It is known as Adam's Peak because supposedly it is the place where Adam first set food on earth after being cast out of heaven.

It is also known as Sri Pada, the Sacred Footprint left by the Buddha as he headed towards paradise AND it is also known as Samanalakande, Butterly Mountain, where butterflies go to die. Some beieve the huge 'footprint' crowning the peak to be that of St. Thomas, the early apostle of India, or even the Lord Shiva. Soo... as you see, it pretty much accommodates everyone and hence is soo popular. 3 years ago I did the 5200 steep step climb:

to get to the top to be in rain and cloud. We saw nothing and were disappointed as we got up at 3am so that we could see the sunrise. Nope! I wasn't at 1st sure if I was going to do it again, more out of laziness than the saying, "first time one climbs Adam's Peak they are a hero. The 2nd time, they are an idiot." BUT if you do climb it twice, you get to ring the bell on top twice. Ah ha!

So yes, I did it again. To keep my friend company and I would just die if I was actually there and of course knowing my luck if I didn't do it, she would have a fantastic sunrise. So off we went. This time we got up at 1:45 am to leave at 2am and took our time doing the 5200 steps.

It was a beautiful clear night with beautiful stars. It was actually also fairly warm. We stopped at tea shops along the way (hehe, most of them were awake, except this one!), and just took it easy.

We got there at 5:30am, plenty of time to spare and da da dum.... were lucky enough to see a beautiful sunrise! It was soo beautiful and with the combination of fatigue and being in such a spiritual place as well as hearing the drum music, it literally brought tears to my eyes. It was amazing!

Then there was the "hard" part of coming down, which we also took our time so that we could take our usual 03248932098432 pictures....

NOT like last time where we came back, showered, ate breakfast, and then left for another city, no joke, we came back at 10:30am, took hot showers, and then lied in bed all day and read and enjoyed this view from the bed:

Well, I was having some stomach issues and was just tired, but it was the 1st day we really had a day just to relax and do nothing. 20 hours in bed later, we hopped in a train to go to Kandy, which again had amazing views.

Kandy, which I had been to before, it the 2nd largest city in Sri Lanka and it has a good atmosphere of local life mixed with tourist amenities, lovely people,

and nice sunsets:

We spent a couple of days there, staying at a lovely guesthouse, taking care of errands and also doing some sightseeing stuff like the Temple of the Tooth Relic,

which houses Sri Lanka's most important Buddhist relic, a tooth of the Buddha. There is a loong and complicated history of this tooth, it has adventures in India and in other Sri Lankan cities, but loong story short is that it is back where it belongs and is safe as can be. But it is somewhat anticlimatic because you don't actually see the tooth, it is kept in a gold casket shaped like a dagoba (stupa), which contains a series of 6 dagoba caskets of different sizes. Oh well, it still is an interesting thing to see and here are some pics from within...

From Kandy I left my friend (sniff sniff) and made the long bus journey back to the beach! Yea, back to warm weather! I made the trek to Weligama, the "surfer's beach,"

pretty much so that I would be close to see the famous fisherman on a stick. These fisherman literally stand for hours on a tiny stick and I've driven by them on buses, but never really got to watch them. Too make a loong story short, I met up with some Dutch travellers and made my mission their mission of seeing the fisherman. Well, we all failed. Wah wah. We never saw them and this is far as I got... the sticks.

But not all was wasted, I got to ride with them on their motorbikes and we drove around and saw some nice birds like the Kingfisher,

and had some nice interactions with locals, like these fisherman,

and when we stopped in front of a house to take pictures, and this man came running out saying, "you want King Coconut?" Okayyyy, sure! Next thing you know he is climbing the tree to get the coconut, cuts it open, and there you have it! The Sri Lankan hospitality is truly wonderful sometimes!!!

After that I made my way back to Tangalle back to Mallika's house where I enjoyed another 5 days of being lazy, relaxing in the sun, and just hanging out with her family.

And no, the white boy in the picture is not mine (as someone has already asked me), it is my friends son. Ha ha. Again, great people there so again, I had a lovely time and got to do cool things like go to the temple with Mallika to celebrate "poya" day, or full moon day, which is a holy day and all the shops close and kids don't have school (nice! Once a month to have a day off!),

As I had already been there for about 2 weeks, they knew my favorite foods and my last lunch, they prepared my favorite mixed salad, curd and yogurt, and papadam. Yeaa!!!!

And there you have it! A month gone by like it was 2 days. Again, an adventure. I loved being with familiar faces, seeing new and old things, and I guess I am happy for Sri Lanka that it has become more touristy because it is truly a wonderful place to be because it has soo much to offer. BUT, I am VERY glad that I not only had the experiences from 3 years ago but also now.

Next stop is Bangkok where I am meeting up with a friend from Chicago! Yea!!!