The Sea Life

A little of ourselves, and a little of what we saw. Unfortunately the pictures could use some touching up, but we'll have to do that when we get home. All this obviously looks much better in person! This is only a taste of our experience.
A nice little turtle... one 4 or 5 we saw I believe.
Spent almost as much time underwater over these 2 days as the fish.
Porcupine fish.
Scorpion fish... can be hard to find/see. Very well camouflaged with the coral as you can see, but very dangerous if you were to touch them.
Sea horse, a fixture on the Elephant Rock dive site.
Sting ray.
Just prior to going in, getting geared up...

Still down there...
Leopard shark.
Lion fish
Lots of fish!
And the highlight of the trip. We saw Manta Rays on every dive of our last 4. They were amazing, and just as curious in us as we were them. Our best dive included them circling us for 20 minutes. We have some great videos of this as well, which is a treat because they are so graceful to watch when swimming. Such a cool creature!That is it for Thailand... for now. We'll be back though. We're off to Cambodia later this morning. We'll talk to you then.

Khao Lak and Live-a-board

We ended up booking our trip out of Khao Lak, which was much nicer than Patong. We stayed in a great place, so nice that we had to include it on our blog. Below is our Bungalow.And here is the pool. Khao Lak has a nice beach, but we found ourselves relaxing by the pool and its swim up bar for the majority of our time spent here, while waiting for the departure of our live-a-board.The Similans! Did some great diving here. Similans is composed of 9 Islands, but we also dove 3 other spots. Ko Tachai, Ko Bon, and Richelieu RockOur boat. 4 days and 4 nights spent on board the White Manta completing 14 dives, 2 nights dives.Our cabin. Top sun deck The dive deck and all our gear.Tough life diving 4 dives a day...

Our dive group. Seitske (Holland), Sharon (Ireland), David (England), and us, the crazy canucks. We had great time with this group, and you couldn't ask for better dive partners.

Crazy Phi Phi and Patong!

Did a quick trip to Phi Phi after the quiet and tranquil time spent on Ko Lipe. We didn't have the same experience here, hence our stay was much shorter. Still some beautiful sights to see, but it is much more expensive and totally geared to the 'resort' travelling crowd. Between the construction and damage done by the tsunami, there are as many eye sores as beautiful sights.For example...A view from one of Phi Phi's beaches.

We did a snorkeling trip from Phi Phi and it allowed us to see some much nicer sites/beaches.

This is Maya Bay, the setting used when filming the movie The Beach.Still in Maya Bay, this was the long tail boat we took on our snorkeling trip.2 days and 2 night was more than enough in Phi Phi. We high tailed it out of there in search of a live-a-board trip for the Similans. Our search took us to Phuket (Patong beach) and we were greeted with one of the biggest tourist zoos we've ever seen. This is the beach! It was complete chaos, with para sailing, seadoos, speed boats, and swimmers operating without order in much too close proximity for our liking. I figure people must die here weekly... you wouldn't believe some of the debauchery we witnessed.
I am sure there is... these 2 pictures describe Patong well I think.

A little R & R in Ko Tarutao

After some interesting travels in Myanmar, we thought a little R & R was in order. Decided to do the west coast of southern Thailand and enjoy what the beaches have to offer. Started in the far south at Ko Tarutao National Marine Park. We stayed on 2 islands here. Ko Tarutao itself, and then Lipe afterwards. We spent 1 night in a Tent on the beach in Ko Tarutao, but decided to leave shortly after because we couldn't arrange any snorkelling trips from here. We needed to go to Lipe to do that...

Despite it being the 'dry' season over here, our tent proved to hold up in quite the rain storm!
View of the beach from our tent. Doesn't get much better than this. Upgraded a bit (if you can imagine that) to this beach on Ko Lipe. Absolutely beautiful beach. We planned on staying 3 days, but ended up staying 5. Very relaxing, and very quiet. Did some great snorkelling off the beach, and on a day trip to neighboring islands.When we weren't snorkelling we were either doing this....

... or this.
Not bad sunsets either.

Bago

An 80m budda in Bago. This reclining buddha blew the doors off of Wat Pho in Thailand. More buddhas in Myanmar... for one of the poorest countries in the world, it is really hard to come to terms with the fact that the people find it in their hearts/wallets to donate the money to build such amazing structures.
Golden rock, just outside of Bago. Another monumnent the people plaster with 'gold leaf'.

Jillene wasn't able to go near the Golden Rock - no women allowed - so she had to settle for this smaller substitute!
We visited a monestary in Bago, an this was the rooms in which the monks slept. The mats on the floor were their beds.

Inle Lake

Just one of our favorite pictures... Taken from the train enroute to Inle Lake.When you're in Myanmar, if you are ever out of eye sight of a temple, pagoda, or any religious monument, you're probably the only one. Clearly demonstrated by the fact that they find it necessary to provide a place to pay your respects to Buddha in the middle of Inle Lake.A lone fisherman on Inle Lake.The houses which are built above water the lake. The only way to visit your neighbor is by boat.

No child labour here... A young girl rolling cigarettes in a tobacco factory we visited. Just another one of those 'Kodak moments' in Myanmar.

Making Friends and Burmese Travel

While in Bagan we made some amazing friends. A family of 3 whom despite their poverty, opened up their home to us. We we were invited to dinner 2 nights in a row, and ate lunch with them every day we were there. I managed to give Pyisone a NHL T-shirt that I happened to have with me (acquired accidentally from another traveller earlier in our trip), but unfortunately it was one of Montreal! He loved in none the less. He also got my frisbee and anything else I could dig up for him.Jillene and San San Win - Pyisone's mother.The 5 of us. The father is Khin Moung Oo. Where we standing was their home... A dirt floor with a bamboo thatch roof and walls which they open up during the day/night to take place as a restaurant. I think it is a good day if they get more than a couple customers. We always seemed to be the only ones there.Travelling by truck. As the rule goes, women on the bottom, men on the top. Jillene is actually squished inside below me somewhere in this picture. The top is usually the better deal. We spent probably over 20 hrs getting around the country this way, and each time the trucks would carry more people than you could count! Interesting fact, this truck made it the 120km return trip from Bagan to Mt. Popa with no clutch. He did manage to burn out his starter though by the end of the day - which wasn't a surprise.


This is Mt. Popa. A monastery on top of a mountain a day trip away from Bagan. Was a pretty interesting place and a nice walk up some stairs all the way to the top. This was taken in Mandalay. The main Pagoda in town had this budda where the pay their respect by put 'gold leaf' on it everyday. Basically sticky microscopically thin sheets of gold. This is what they are doing in this picture.A group of monks taking in a show at one of the temples outside Mandalay. We actually didn't spend too much time in Mandalay as it was incredibly noisy/loud and not really appealing after the relaxing and beautiful atmosphere of Bagan. One night 2 days and we were out. We wanted to go to Inle Lake by train, little did we know the adventure that was in store...2 days to travel just over 200 kilometers! Yes you read that right.... I was an adventure and experience all on its own. But I wouldn't do it any different. Trains in Myanmar are about as unreliable as it gets, and if you haven't discovered patience, then I would stay away! First class travel is an option - nice carriage on same train with your own comfortable seat - but we opted to go with the locals! Didn't ride on the roof as you can see below, but we sure didn't have our own seats. These are our 'lady friends' whom we traveled with. A little tight fit, and they sure loved to sleep - we don't have a clue how - but they were as friendly as you get. Our first day was from Mandalay to Thazi where we waited in the train station for our 5:30am train to finally leave at 1:00pm. 1 hour out of Mandalay it broke down.

And this is how I spent a little of my time - when I wasn't checking up on the repairs. These are my friends in 1st class who like to drink and were determined that I do shots of rum with them. Well they were successful a couple times, but I had to refuse the chillies and boiled egg chasers they were also offering. If you ever travel in Myanmar, you'll shortly learn that you get so much attention you feel like a celebrity. If someone is drinking... they'll want you to join!

Anyway... we finally arrived in Thazi around 5:30 pm. Our 12 hour trip that was supposed to take only 3. The next day we were on a train - with above ladies - and it was suppose to be the long one, 7 hrs. Well our 7 hr journey turned into 16 after our train left on time, but still managed to break down again. But as always - as on every bus trip and truck trip - they managed to fix it on the spot.

This is awesome. This was the brake used while when we broke down in the mountains on the way to Inle Lake. Also a highlight, climbing the mountains. The tracks were actually switchbacks where we would drive up a hill forward, then back up on a different set of tracks climbing even higher, then going forwards up another set of tracks. Pretty cool stuff...
And to demonstrate the typical Burmese generosity which never ceased to amaze us, this picture was taken while we were broken down for nearly 5 hours on our way to Inle Lake. Villages whom lived along the tracks and of course are as poor as they come, brought huge bowls of rice, beans, and curry to feed the hungry/stranded passengers on the train free of charge. It would have been an opportunity to make money, but they just don't think that way...