hello from pai!
it is i, carson, you're not so faithful blogger saying hello to you from southeast asia. i am sitting in this internet zone in a huge padded leather chair relaxing. the chair slightly reclines, and so i'm taking advantage of that and slouching down slightly just to be the most comfortable that i can be. i have no sandals on, as you don't wear sandals in this particular shop. it is cooler up here in the mountains and so at 8 pm i am wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and my bamboo jacket that i purchased at same-under-neath in portland during the mississippi street fair (20 bucks! normally 110 what a bargain!) my head is shaved...i did that in chiang mai last week. on my wrist is a red coral bracelet that i got during the sunday market from a really nice girl from holland. each piece is fire red and about 1 inch long. there are 34 pieces strung vertically. i also purchased a really amazing ring that is all silver on the band, with a black pearl from southern thailand on one side, three really small horizontal stones one on top of the other, (moonstone, a deep black one, and an orange one) and then a vertical turquoise stone on the right side of the ring. i wear that on my pinky on my left hand. i am slightly tan, and like i said...really comfortable right now! today was a very nice day and pretty typical of what we are doing right now. we woke up in our beautiful bungalow, hung out for a little while. we walked a few blocks, and then sat down at the wheatgrass bar that we frequent daily, having a delicious shot and some tea. there we met steven from victoria b.c., who was really nice. then we walked down to this great organic restaurant that is situated right on the river. we sat in big plush bamboo chairs on an open terrace and talked, eating delicious breakfast. then we walked back to the bungalow, hung out during the hot midday sun, ate some cookies with peanut butter from a great local bakery/restaurant. we decided to go out for a scooter drive to find another place to stay that is a little out of town, and so upon leaving we met another person from holland and chatted with him for awhile. we took the bike out and rode up hills and on the left side of us had an amazing view of pai valley, and on the right side we checked out some really funky places, and some amazing pristine places. all ranging from 5-70 dollars per night. next, we started driving back to ginger's secret garden. we rode the scooter up a hill to the cafe' and sat down in the sun in some really nice reclined bamboo chairs, i drank iced coffee and melissa a smoothie. there, we met claire, from france who we had seen the night before at an acoustic bar. she was hilarious and really nice. then we met jim, from england, who has lived here for 4 years and has lots of connections and owns a bar in town and is really friendly and helpful. he's in his 20's, and had just gone into the jungle with a machete knife and come out with some orchids. he cuts off a section of log that they are growing on and then puts chains on either end and hangs them in his house. i guess they get huge! he asked how long we are staying in pai and we said maybe a little while, because we love it here. and he offered to find us a place to live. so now we are looking at renting a house in pai for a month or so, to really soak it in here and take advantage of the mecca that it is. we came back to town after watching the sunset and ate fresh fish and curry at our favorite restaurant with coconut mango smoothies (for 8 dollars) and now we are here!
righttttttt. i have only been in pai for just over 4 days, but it feels like i've been here for a couple weeks. my life feels like a dream here...i think about what i do and it is all so idyllic. i wear an easy smile on my face, and i just relax and let life happen and enjoy the familiarity and unfamiliarity of it all. i wonder a lot how long it can last for?? does it just keep going while i'm in pai and able to do all of these amazing things, how do you keep it going and going... some people get here and it seems like they never leave. some people travel and they never want to stop, or they never do stop! i thought i would be here for a week or two and now we might rent a place for a month or two. (for 100 dollars/month!) there is definitely a circuit of travellers and once you tap into it it's easy to see how people just keep it going and going. sometimes in the states though it's so hard to see how it might be possible or how to step out of that routine! soooo, i wonder and ask and right now i just know that i am very fortunate to be here and that when i do come home it'll be the perfect time! and the lessons that i'm learning i'll just take with me forever and tell you all about my experiences often so that i willl always keep them alive!! so get ready to here stories and maybe repeat stories a lot!
well, i guess that is all for now! i hope that everyone is enjoying the holidays, they are somewhat surreal over here being in hot weather and a buddhist culture.
much love to you all!
carson
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
pai in the sky.....
(walk down the path, take a left, and there is our little bungalow at breeze of pai!)
do you remember that scene in the movie "Amelie" where she takes the blind man's arm and steers him across and down the street for a minute and, as fast as she can, tells him everything she sees, describing every color and expression and detail that she can to his eyes who cannot see? sometimes these blogs remind me of that scene, i want to recall everything i can to all of you who are reading, so that you can see what we are seeing and can be connected to where we are.
first of all, the sunday market in chiang mai, where we left off last time....wow!!!! i had a dream that night that i wrote a blog about it and all i could write was wowwowowowowowowowowowow! it was so amazing, expansive, and huge, you can't even see everything in one night because it goes on for blocks and blocks and down side streets, everyone selling traditional thai foods and clothes and jewelry and handmade fabric beadspreads and pillowcases and paper lanterns, foot massages, thousands of people strolling, locals and tourists alike, street musicians, blind men singing, some of the most amazing photography i've ever seen....we met two wonderful women by the bee pollen stand that we hope to get together with when we return to chiang mai....and this market goes on every sunday! it's like a festival!!
we spent a couple more days in chiang mai, mostly drinking delicious fruit smoothies at Juicy 4U, and eating good food, and walking around our little area, and visiting the sweetest internet cafe owner ever who always said hello and thank you so graciously and each day had a sweet little offering outside his door, a fresh cup of water and a piece of banana bread or a roll, or an orange...i love all the little offerings by the doorways, or on the other altars that are everywhere here. we also walked up to a temple in the evening as monks were chanting, and sat outside on the steps looking through the open doors and being almost hypnotized by that chant, it's so beautiful and soothing and rhythmic and familiar and new, the orange robes, all of them facing the buddha, so strong and holy. we circled this beautiful golden monument outside that pointed up to the sky and had buddhas looking out in four directions, under the moon.... wow.
we took a bus to pai yesterday, it's a 3.5 hour ride with over 700 curves in the road, up higher into the mountains (but still warm, it's not chilly in thailand for the winter here :) and met two great guys from israel that we ended up running into two more times in pai (it's quite small) and we had lunch with them yesterday too. it's so nice to be here, much smaller and surrounded by nature, hills all around that look like they have fall colors on them, a river...our little bungalow at breeze of pai is so nice! we walk through the little path covered in huge leaves and have our own little porch, it's new and clean and comfortable, just for the two of us (we are both quite tired of european 8-bed dorm hostel living and shared showers!) so far, we have been walking around the town and eating the delicious food. we just found the best thai restaurant, called na's kitchen, and it is so cheap and so good, run by these three sweet (everyone we meet is sweet) thai women. we had a red curry with coconut milk, local eggplant (nothing like the eggplant we have at home, more like a zucchini), fresh basil, and pumpkin which was so yummy just like a kabocha squash! and we also had a salad with little slices of onion, carrot, cucumber, lime, tofu (made fresh in pai daily, somehow we are both enjoying tofu here) little chilis and fresh mint...wow!! and the best coconut shake ever for 70 cents! yum yum, i think we will go there every day. we also found an all organic restaurant called the sanctuary, which is more expensive but delicious, and a cute coffee shop called 'all about coffee' that has the sweetest little art gallery upstairs and some art by a local 5 year old boy on the walls. we are also taking a daily wheatgrass shot at this little cafe down the street, they serve unlimited tea with it, carson's first wheatgrass :)
carson just rented a little motorbike so we are about to go cruise up into the hills...there are hotsprings nearby, and waterfalls, and much else, i'm sure...i feel a little nervous to jump on the back of it, but we both have helmets too :) i'm sure it will be fun to feel the wind in my hair!
my birthday is tomorrow and i think we are going to try to find a yoga class in the morning and then have dinner in the evening, i don't know what else yet :) i'm sure it will be a nice day though! my birthday is the first day of winter, the solstice, and it feels strange to be in such a warm place for that day!
i will write again soon! we're off to cruise the road!
love,
melissa
Sunday, December 16, 2007
thailand.....
what to say (there is so much!)
i've had little blog entries scattering around in my head for the last few days, and i wish i just had an automatic computer to download them onto. in the moment, you know, they can be quite poetic and very observant and beautiful, and then i get to a computer and have to recall them from somewhere back in time.....
well we're in a different place in time than europe, for sure. we automatically settled here in a way we have not on our entire trip....even in bangkok, which is a crazy big city, we slept a lot (14 hours the first night!) and stayed very central to our little room near khao san rd. (but not as crazy as that road, which , as kira said is the "times square of thailand"....not nearly as big obviously but signs everywhere and a tourist mecca, with so many people selling clothes and jewelry and little food carts and bars and live music, like thai cover bands playing "one" by U2 and tuk tuk drivers at the entrance to the road wanting to take you somewhere, as long as they can drop you by their connected travel planning establishment or custom made clothing store first to get you to buy something and them to have a commission....all that was fun for about a day, and then too much, so we just stayed on our little three block strip that was a little more mellow, and slept a lot....the last day there we wandered across a little river and through a local neighborhood and just happened to find (how do we do this?) the only "99% organically grown restaurant in bangkok" (!!!) how great! i had a fresh carrot/beet/celery/ginger/apple juice and carson had his first thai iced coffee and we had a delicious coconut milk/lime leaf/galangal root veggie soup with Brown and Red!! rice! oh it was so delicious. we then took a taxi over to the station and bought the last two seats on the bangkok to chiang mai train, we were so lucky to get them...oh but the train ride....at several points i thought, if there was a hell than it might involve being stuck on this train forever, having it be eternally dark, and humid, and hot, with nothing to do and no way to get comfortable...well we did experience that for 13 hours, SO LONG to sit on a train, and it felt like an earthquake, much more bumpy than the queens to manhattan subway ride we went on, like is this train going to stay on the tracks? because it sure felt like it would rock off at any moment....we had to sit in separate cars and didn't see each other for the whole time, i think it's the longest we haven't seen each other on the whole trip, even though we were quite close in distance :) but the train-attendant woman was so sweet, they had a food service on board for free which we didn't eat but just it being there was nice, and as the sun rose i could see out the window, rice paddies and hills and green and farms and dogs at each stop (the thai dogs we've seen so far are so mellow, like little people walking around)....so much nicer than a big city... and chiang mai, where we are now, in the north, is much nicer though we still want to venture more rural so we are going to go to pai (kira's favorite (? at least one of them) place in the world....on tuesday. we might just stay there for a week or more and just CHILL. that sounds lovely. thailand feels to us all about chilling out and relaxing after so much sight seeing and 10 hour walking days in europe....now it is warm and easy going and just time to relax. which is very nice! i am loving all the fresh fruits, coconut papaya dragon fruit (so beautiful! it's like the color of beets, but pinker!), mangoes, bananas, passionfruit, pineapple....all of these things made into smoothies, or lassis with fresh yogurt, or breakfast sundaes with yogurt and muesli.... we bought some clothes the other day and it felt so great to put on something different than what we've been wearing for three months straight...tonight is the sunday market in chiang mai, where for blocks and blocks the street closes to traffic and everyone sells all of their wares, and clothes and silk scarves and food made on the spot, everything...we might just go on a shopping spree and say good bye to many of the things we brought with us, adios, sayonara, ciao (did you know we can say "thank you" and "hello" and "good day!" in 7 or 8 languages now!?)
so far the strangest food item that i've seen here was as we walked by a little outdoor food market yesterday....deep fried chicken heads...hmm..and by the end of the day they had all been purchased!
for the next three nights we are staying at julie's guesthouse, which is very cute, backpacker-like and cheap, we have our own room again (thank goodness for affordable private double rooms!) and they have a couple of nice hang out areas with their own little cafe and several journals of all of their former guests who write reflections, words of thanks, travel tips, etc. i'm going to read through those later to get ideas of what we should do here....i really can't wait to go south to the islands and coast, but we're thinking of waiting until after christmas for that because a lot of europeans frequent that area (we've been told) for the christmas holiday. for now we will explore chiang mai and pai and maybe do some little trips around here, or go to laos (kira and flora and fred and cimon--what did you most enjoy here? where did you stay? what trips did you go on?) carson just got his hair buzzed, now he looks like a monk, we see many of them walking the streets in their beautiful orange golden robes. tomorrow we will visit some temples for the first time, how beautiful, there are more temples in chiang mai than in any other city in thailand.
we are getting better at bargaining and at knowing what something should be worth, versus what you are told it costs at the beginning of the transaction. we took our first tuk tuk ride yesterday morning as we were tired and delirious from the train ride.....they are quite the experience, but fun, and everyone drives crazily here, you just kind of fit in somewhere and go, all the motorbikes and tuk tuks and taxis and converted pick up trucks with covered back areas that act as taxis too....the thai people we have met are really so sweet, i bought a t shirt from a woman who didn't speak a word of english but just made all of these cute little noises to indicate that she thought the one i got was the best one for me, it was such a sweet exchange! we got a juice from another woman in a little booth that she owned, and she took so much care in chopping up each vegetable and juicing it for us...we see so many travelers like us, with their "Thailand Lonely planet" books in their hands, searching out the spots, trying to make their way in such a different place. all of them either have a silk scarf or some thai pants, something they bought here, like us, which is cute and also redundant...but alas we are tourists too, aren't we! and we look just like them and we're finding our way just like them. i wonder if you can ever escape the tourists if you are a tourist...i guess that's why helpx is so nice, a chance to live with a local family and be with them for a while instead of so much sightseeing and going to all the hotspots all the time. that's why pai will be nice, to be in one small place for a while and just BE there. :)
last night we slept for 16 (!!!) hours straight, fell asleep at 5 for a "nap" that turned into an all night rest, but it felt so great...catch up from our train ride and our plane ride and everything in between....we both feel caught up. i feel really healthy right now, all the smoothies and fruits and juices and yogurt, and we are both taking probiotics and have some grapefruit seed extract to help keep us intestinally sound...let's pray that our food choices continue to be good and that we don't have to go through any hard times with it, if you know what i mean :)
other observations and thoughts...hmm let's see...in thailand they drive on the other side of the road, like in ireland and the UK...it reminds me a lot of maui, with birds of paradise and hibiscus and plumeria and little dove's cooing in the trees and all the fruits (morgan today i said to carson, doesn't this feel like Hui F road?!)...coconuts are one of my new favorite things....so many new smells, walking by the food markets or little food carts, of course the strange things like the deep fried chicken heads or toasted grasshoppers and grubs, or little pieces of meat grilled and stretched out on sticks (now what kind of animal is THAT, i ask myself, and i don't know)....lots of fresh vegetables in little stalls, fresh orange juice from little thai oranges like mandarins (or mandarinis, as they say in italy)...chiang mai has a ton of coffee shops, and lots of western food is advertised everywhere, across the street is an 'authentic italian restaurant' with homemade pasta and a wood fired pizza oven....carson got measured today for a pair of custom fit shorts....i have seen a few western men walking around with younger thai women...that is strange, i don't know what the situation is there but i can only guess...so many motor bikes with at least two people on it, sometimes a mom and two kids or a whole family....sunny and warm, humid in bangkok and thankfully not so much here...little altars everywhere with fresh glasses of water and little juice box or oranges for an offering, yellow flowers....so many temples....so many honorings of the king everywhere, i could even see them from the train, all lit up in the night, white and yellow, large sparkly constructions with the king's smile and waving hand, and offerings to him there...the beautiful monk robe colors....languages everywhere, thai and also german, french, people traveling from everywhere....oh so much....i've been on this computer for too long, but thankfully i can frequent them much more often now, as the price is around $1 at the most per minute, where there was one day in italy we spent like $12 on internet time! it is so relieving to be in a cheaper place and to be a little more extravagant with our living costs...because even better things here cost way less than they did in europe. europe was so wonderful, no regrets at all, but we both feel ourselves relaxing in a way that we didn't there. we are enjoying each other a lot here, taking everything in, a new phase of our journey together, which has been so rewarding and challenging at times, but continuing to be patient with each other (and with ourselves) to appreciate the travels we are having, to remember to be present continuously!
we miss everyone so much! i'll write more again, absolutely!
love,
melissa
i've had little blog entries scattering around in my head for the last few days, and i wish i just had an automatic computer to download them onto. in the moment, you know, they can be quite poetic and very observant and beautiful, and then i get to a computer and have to recall them from somewhere back in time.....
well we're in a different place in time than europe, for sure. we automatically settled here in a way we have not on our entire trip....even in bangkok, which is a crazy big city, we slept a lot (14 hours the first night!) and stayed very central to our little room near khao san rd. (but not as crazy as that road, which , as kira said is the "times square of thailand"....not nearly as big obviously but signs everywhere and a tourist mecca, with so many people selling clothes and jewelry and little food carts and bars and live music, like thai cover bands playing "one" by U2 and tuk tuk drivers at the entrance to the road wanting to take you somewhere, as long as they can drop you by their connected travel planning establishment or custom made clothing store first to get you to buy something and them to have a commission....all that was fun for about a day, and then too much, so we just stayed on our little three block strip that was a little more mellow, and slept a lot....the last day there we wandered across a little river and through a local neighborhood and just happened to find (how do we do this?) the only "99% organically grown restaurant in bangkok" (!!!) how great! i had a fresh carrot/beet/celery/ginger/apple juice and carson had his first thai iced coffee and we had a delicious coconut milk/lime leaf/galangal root veggie soup with Brown and Red!! rice! oh it was so delicious. we then took a taxi over to the station and bought the last two seats on the bangkok to chiang mai train, we were so lucky to get them...oh but the train ride....at several points i thought, if there was a hell than it might involve being stuck on this train forever, having it be eternally dark, and humid, and hot, with nothing to do and no way to get comfortable...well we did experience that for 13 hours, SO LONG to sit on a train, and it felt like an earthquake, much more bumpy than the queens to manhattan subway ride we went on, like is this train going to stay on the tracks? because it sure felt like it would rock off at any moment....we had to sit in separate cars and didn't see each other for the whole time, i think it's the longest we haven't seen each other on the whole trip, even though we were quite close in distance :) but the train-attendant woman was so sweet, they had a food service on board for free which we didn't eat but just it being there was nice, and as the sun rose i could see out the window, rice paddies and hills and green and farms and dogs at each stop (the thai dogs we've seen so far are so mellow, like little people walking around)....so much nicer than a big city... and chiang mai, where we are now, in the north, is much nicer though we still want to venture more rural so we are going to go to pai (kira's favorite (? at least one of them) place in the world....on tuesday. we might just stay there for a week or more and just CHILL. that sounds lovely. thailand feels to us all about chilling out and relaxing after so much sight seeing and 10 hour walking days in europe....now it is warm and easy going and just time to relax. which is very nice! i am loving all the fresh fruits, coconut papaya dragon fruit (so beautiful! it's like the color of beets, but pinker!), mangoes, bananas, passionfruit, pineapple....all of these things made into smoothies, or lassis with fresh yogurt, or breakfast sundaes with yogurt and muesli.... we bought some clothes the other day and it felt so great to put on something different than what we've been wearing for three months straight...tonight is the sunday market in chiang mai, where for blocks and blocks the street closes to traffic and everyone sells all of their wares, and clothes and silk scarves and food made on the spot, everything...we might just go on a shopping spree and say good bye to many of the things we brought with us, adios, sayonara, ciao (did you know we can say "thank you" and "hello" and "good day!" in 7 or 8 languages now!?)
so far the strangest food item that i've seen here was as we walked by a little outdoor food market yesterday....deep fried chicken heads...hmm..and by the end of the day they had all been purchased!
for the next three nights we are staying at julie's guesthouse, which is very cute, backpacker-like and cheap, we have our own room again (thank goodness for affordable private double rooms!) and they have a couple of nice hang out areas with their own little cafe and several journals of all of their former guests who write reflections, words of thanks, travel tips, etc. i'm going to read through those later to get ideas of what we should do here....i really can't wait to go south to the islands and coast, but we're thinking of waiting until after christmas for that because a lot of europeans frequent that area (we've been told) for the christmas holiday. for now we will explore chiang mai and pai and maybe do some little trips around here, or go to laos (kira and flora and fred and cimon--what did you most enjoy here? where did you stay? what trips did you go on?) carson just got his hair buzzed, now he looks like a monk, we see many of them walking the streets in their beautiful orange golden robes. tomorrow we will visit some temples for the first time, how beautiful, there are more temples in chiang mai than in any other city in thailand.
we are getting better at bargaining and at knowing what something should be worth, versus what you are told it costs at the beginning of the transaction. we took our first tuk tuk ride yesterday morning as we were tired and delirious from the train ride.....they are quite the experience, but fun, and everyone drives crazily here, you just kind of fit in somewhere and go, all the motorbikes and tuk tuks and taxis and converted pick up trucks with covered back areas that act as taxis too....the thai people we have met are really so sweet, i bought a t shirt from a woman who didn't speak a word of english but just made all of these cute little noises to indicate that she thought the one i got was the best one for me, it was such a sweet exchange! we got a juice from another woman in a little booth that she owned, and she took so much care in chopping up each vegetable and juicing it for us...we see so many travelers like us, with their "Thailand Lonely planet" books in their hands, searching out the spots, trying to make their way in such a different place. all of them either have a silk scarf or some thai pants, something they bought here, like us, which is cute and also redundant...but alas we are tourists too, aren't we! and we look just like them and we're finding our way just like them. i wonder if you can ever escape the tourists if you are a tourist...i guess that's why helpx is so nice, a chance to live with a local family and be with them for a while instead of so much sightseeing and going to all the hotspots all the time. that's why pai will be nice, to be in one small place for a while and just BE there. :)
last night we slept for 16 (!!!) hours straight, fell asleep at 5 for a "nap" that turned into an all night rest, but it felt so great...catch up from our train ride and our plane ride and everything in between....we both feel caught up. i feel really healthy right now, all the smoothies and fruits and juices and yogurt, and we are both taking probiotics and have some grapefruit seed extract to help keep us intestinally sound...let's pray that our food choices continue to be good and that we don't have to go through any hard times with it, if you know what i mean :)
other observations and thoughts...hmm let's see...in thailand they drive on the other side of the road, like in ireland and the UK...it reminds me a lot of maui, with birds of paradise and hibiscus and plumeria and little dove's cooing in the trees and all the fruits (morgan today i said to carson, doesn't this feel like Hui F road?!)...coconuts are one of my new favorite things....so many new smells, walking by the food markets or little food carts, of course the strange things like the deep fried chicken heads or toasted grasshoppers and grubs, or little pieces of meat grilled and stretched out on sticks (now what kind of animal is THAT, i ask myself, and i don't know)....lots of fresh vegetables in little stalls, fresh orange juice from little thai oranges like mandarins (or mandarinis, as they say in italy)...chiang mai has a ton of coffee shops, and lots of western food is advertised everywhere, across the street is an 'authentic italian restaurant' with homemade pasta and a wood fired pizza oven....carson got measured today for a pair of custom fit shorts....i have seen a few western men walking around with younger thai women...that is strange, i don't know what the situation is there but i can only guess...so many motor bikes with at least two people on it, sometimes a mom and two kids or a whole family....sunny and warm, humid in bangkok and thankfully not so much here...little altars everywhere with fresh glasses of water and little juice box or oranges for an offering, yellow flowers....so many temples....so many honorings of the king everywhere, i could even see them from the train, all lit up in the night, white and yellow, large sparkly constructions with the king's smile and waving hand, and offerings to him there...the beautiful monk robe colors....languages everywhere, thai and also german, french, people traveling from everywhere....oh so much....i've been on this computer for too long, but thankfully i can frequent them much more often now, as the price is around $1 at the most per minute, where there was one day in italy we spent like $12 on internet time! it is so relieving to be in a cheaper place and to be a little more extravagant with our living costs...because even better things here cost way less than they did in europe. europe was so wonderful, no regrets at all, but we both feel ourselves relaxing in a way that we didn't there. we are enjoying each other a lot here, taking everything in, a new phase of our journey together, which has been so rewarding and challenging at times, but continuing to be patient with each other (and with ourselves) to appreciate the travels we are having, to remember to be present continuously!
we miss everyone so much! i'll write more again, absolutely!
love,
melissa
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
3 continents in one day
wow! 24 hours can happen so many different ways, and for us, it was touching upon 3 continents. we left italy, landed in egypt, and then flew on down to thailand. the trip went very smoothly with confusion occuring trying to figure out how to interpret arabic and thai characters. but it seems like the world (for the most part) is set up these days for most anyone to navigate it..and we are now sitting in an internet lounge in bangkok after having just received hour long thai massages (to the tune of 5 dollars each). it is still 80 degrees, the sun now sets after 6... we had a luxurious dinner at a restaurant eating phad thai and coconut green curry with a beer for 9 dollars, listening to two thai men sing old classic songs with guitars. we are both pretty tired, pretty culture shocked, in a really nice island feel kind of way, and enjoying this new leg of our journey.
(carson)
on our stopover in egypt, we felt quite out of place and not sure what to do with ourselves under those glaring lights, and we wandered up stairs and what did we find but a....starbucks! (mom, i thought of you for sure!) it was such a little haven, so welcome amongst everything unfamiliar, and we ordered some food and mango juice (mango juice is everywhere in the egypt air planes and airport) and proceeded to meet the most wonderful egyptian man, zayed, who came over every chance he could when he was not making coffee drinks and wrote two pages for us of arabic translations, like "i want to kiss you" and "my love" and "horse" and "melissa/carson you are so beautiful"....it was so amazing! so wonderful to meet this person, and all three of us were touched by the experience....then on the plane to thailand we sat by two italian men and made conversation with them, so fun, each of us speaking some italian and some english and being able to understand each other for the most part....
of course arriving to thailand, we had absolutely no idea where we were going or where we were staying or for how long, etc....we took the bus in and walked two blocks and miraculously found this guest house called the wild orchid that we had read about yesterday online...went up, looked at a room, very nice, and for $8 a night we are staying here...it's right by a lovely night market with all sorts of foods like carson mentioned, fresh fruits, fried bugs if that's your taste, lots of clothes and silk scarves and jewelry and whatever you could imagine, massage places everywhere, it feels like a little burning man, morgan we are thinking of you and know you'd love walking around these streets and meeting people from all over the world!! lots of music (most of it in english, like sweet home alabama or house of the rising sun) and djs and wandering....we don't know how long we'll stay in bangkok, tomorrow we will just explore for a long while like we always do on our first day in a new city, and probably sample some yummy food>>>could you have guessed?! :)
the last day in italy was lovely too, walking around with jennie for the early afternoon across the river, and getting lost in a park at night, and eating a delicious little meal at a tuscan restaurant called terra de siena, a real authentic lasagne and the best bufala mozzarella caprese salad we've ever had!
love to you all! write us emails!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(carson)
on our stopover in egypt, we felt quite out of place and not sure what to do with ourselves under those glaring lights, and we wandered up stairs and what did we find but a....starbucks! (mom, i thought of you for sure!) it was such a little haven, so welcome amongst everything unfamiliar, and we ordered some food and mango juice (mango juice is everywhere in the egypt air planes and airport) and proceeded to meet the most wonderful egyptian man, zayed, who came over every chance he could when he was not making coffee drinks and wrote two pages for us of arabic translations, like "i want to kiss you" and "my love" and "horse" and "melissa/carson you are so beautiful"....it was so amazing! so wonderful to meet this person, and all three of us were touched by the experience....then on the plane to thailand we sat by two italian men and made conversation with them, so fun, each of us speaking some italian and some english and being able to understand each other for the most part....
of course arriving to thailand, we had absolutely no idea where we were going or where we were staying or for how long, etc....we took the bus in and walked two blocks and miraculously found this guest house called the wild orchid that we had read about yesterday online...went up, looked at a room, very nice, and for $8 a night we are staying here...it's right by a lovely night market with all sorts of foods like carson mentioned, fresh fruits, fried bugs if that's your taste, lots of clothes and silk scarves and jewelry and whatever you could imagine, massage places everywhere, it feels like a little burning man, morgan we are thinking of you and know you'd love walking around these streets and meeting people from all over the world!! lots of music (most of it in english, like sweet home alabama or house of the rising sun) and djs and wandering....we don't know how long we'll stay in bangkok, tomorrow we will just explore for a long while like we always do on our first day in a new city, and probably sample some yummy food>>>could you have guessed?! :)
the last day in italy was lovely too, walking around with jennie for the early afternoon across the river, and getting lost in a park at night, and eating a delicious little meal at a tuscan restaurant called terra de siena, a real authentic lasagne and the best bufala mozzarella caprese salad we've ever had!
love to you all! write us emails!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Monday, December 10, 2007
words of encouragement!
hey everyone!
read on for a very long complete post from melissa...the postmaster. in the meantime, hi from me! i am currently wearing a big puffy jacket, long sleeve shirt, tshirt, undershirt, jeans, and very soaked shoes and socks. in less than 48 hours i will be wearing, shorts, a tshirt/tank top, and flip flops! that's right, the sun is calling my name and we are leaving for thailand very very soon. i am excited to lay my belly to rest with all this pasta and bread and cheese and move on to the fruits of tropics. i feel melancholy to leave italy, especially tuscany where i had such a great time meeting nicola and his family and other helpXers along the way. i have my 'learn italian' book handy though and will continue to bring it on my journey and hopefully have picked up a fair amount by the time i return to this part of the world. if anyone has been itching to learn another language, i would highly recommend it!! travelling brings out so many things and one for me has been how important it is to appreciate the many languages that are spoken, and so many people in the world speak at least 2 if not more. so go out there, get a language book and look on craigslist for people who are looking for language buddies! ciao, bonanote, mille grazie for looking at our blog and much love to you all!
carson
read on for a very long complete post from melissa...the postmaster. in the meantime, hi from me! i am currently wearing a big puffy jacket, long sleeve shirt, tshirt, undershirt, jeans, and very soaked shoes and socks. in less than 48 hours i will be wearing, shorts, a tshirt/tank top, and flip flops! that's right, the sun is calling my name and we are leaving for thailand very very soon. i am excited to lay my belly to rest with all this pasta and bread and cheese and move on to the fruits of tropics. i feel melancholy to leave italy, especially tuscany where i had such a great time meeting nicola and his family and other helpXers along the way. i have my 'learn italian' book handy though and will continue to bring it on my journey and hopefully have picked up a fair amount by the time i return to this part of the world. if anyone has been itching to learn another language, i would highly recommend it!! travelling brings out so many things and one for me has been how important it is to appreciate the many languages that are spoken, and so many people in the world speak at least 2 if not more. so go out there, get a language book and look on craigslist for people who are looking for language buddies! ciao, bonanote, mille grazie for looking at our blog and much love to you all!
carson
roma
what can you really see in one day? if you are carson and melissa, you see all you can in a city on the very first full day you are there by walking endlessly for hours and hours till your shoes are soaked (one of the only rainy days of the trip!) and nearly every point of the map has been covered. this is rome for us today. we have seen the colosseum, the roman ruins surrounding it, some over 2000 years old (!!!), meandered narrow streets, went to campo de fiori and piazza navona, where there were carnival like booths set up, the kind where you shoot little moving targets to win colorful stuffed animals, and everyone was eating grilled dough with nutella spread on it...we watched people scurry around in the rain, all of these men trying to sell umbrellas, "nice price" and we finally bought one, carson bargained a big $8 one for $4.94, all the change left in his pocket...we went into a coffee shop with coffee beans from brazil and had both a delicious cappuccino and a ciccolati, hot drinking chocolate, rich and perfect, where we met a wonderful woman from santa cruz area and we spoke to her about traveling, she was here visiting her daughter who goes to school here and was just so excited about her opportunity to be here and to see the sights and to just be in such an old place, to be out of her routine...after being here for five days she was already convinced her and her husband should sell the house and start visiting more places...it was so cute, and so great to meet someone and connect, we shared pictures of slovenia with her from our camera and she told us of some places we should see while we are in rome...we visited the pantheon and went inside, such a enormous dome, with an open circle at the top, the rain was falling down onto the beautiful marble floors...we walked through the (pouring!) rain to vatican city where the clouds started to glow and a full rainbow ended there as we walked into saint peter's cathedral, the largest and most beautiful (absolutely stunning) breathtaking cathedral in the world....wow is it huge, entirely marble, immaculate, and an honor to walk through....how many beautiful catholic cathedrals have we witnessed....so many here, so many in all of the cities we have visited, all with that smell of incense and tall cielings and tribute to those who are worshipped. it was amazing to visit it.... we walked across the river again in search for the best pizza in rome (yesterday in florence we had perhaps the best pizza of our lives, it rivaled the one we had in NYC, it was at a place called il pizzaiuolo on via dei macci, we got one to-go with capers, onions and olives with buffala mozzarella...neopolitan style crust....we ate it messily in the park with our fingers and every bite was utter perfection....it's so amazing to eat something so balanced and perfect, where nothing is missing, there's nothing to add or take away, every bite is heavenly...) we followed a guidebook's recommendation tonight to the best pizza in rome...it was good, but unfortunately not matched up to the one of yesterday. the roma style crust is even thinner and a little crunchy, where the neopolitana style...bellisimo! we tried another pizza at a different restaurant that was semi'ghost shaped with two olives for eyes, we ate it by a fountain tonight...the fountain water is so beautiful, a glowing light blue color. we went to the trevi fountain (threw a coin over my shoulder for a wish and good luck!), to the spanish steps, walked by countless other cathedrals and through the streets, so many ristorantes, so many gelaterias, so many pizzarias, so many stylish stores, so many men trying to sell roses or umbrellas or little glow in the dark discs that you toss up into the air and catch on a stick.... unfortunately our hostel is not quite where we want to be, we arrived in rome last night and the one we had originally booked, which felt so cozy and nice, was overbooked and they sent us to another one which was too full and loud. two of our roommates though are from israel and they are also traveling around the world, they were very nice and we talked with them for a while last night.
florence (firenze) was great too....of course the pizza....but the beautiful duomo in the center, the huge outside so colossal, with white green and pink marble...so many amazing tuscan restaurants, you could spend weeks trying them all...we ate at a little panini and wine place that our friend jennie recommended to us, it was so cute, you drink your piccolo (small) glass of wine out on the little street, there are little wooden shelves extending out from the wall that you put it on, and they make a fresh little panini for you to eat too...it's been a gradual adjustment to cities again after our lovely time in tuscany. it was hard for both of us to leave nicola's, such a great life we had created there, with that family and the trees and the wonderful food we ate every day, with nina and tomaso who also lived there, with the dogs, and alex the woman who worked with the horses, and colleen who was the new helpxer and former international fight attendant who has been to over 50 countries and had so much to share....florence felt big, and rome is bigger, and i just can't imagine what bangkok will be like, we are flying out on tuesday afternoon!!
is there anything anyone is wondering about or would like to hear more about? there is really so much both of us could share about our travels so far, what we have seen and experienced, what it's like, and i hardly feel like i can cover it all in these little blogs. it would be neat to have some questions or guidance to write by! we have one more day in italy, tomorrow we are meeting jennie (she was living at nicola's for a week, the one who cooked us thanksgiving dinner!) for lunch here, how neat!, and then wandering around for the rest of the day, of course scoping out a couple more pizza places, we have some in mind! :)
love to you all!
melissa
florence (firenze) was great too....of course the pizza....but the beautiful duomo in the center, the huge outside so colossal, with white green and pink marble...so many amazing tuscan restaurants, you could spend weeks trying them all...we ate at a little panini and wine place that our friend jennie recommended to us, it was so cute, you drink your piccolo (small) glass of wine out on the little street, there are little wooden shelves extending out from the wall that you put it on, and they make a fresh little panini for you to eat too...it's been a gradual adjustment to cities again after our lovely time in tuscany. it was hard for both of us to leave nicola's, such a great life we had created there, with that family and the trees and the wonderful food we ate every day, with nina and tomaso who also lived there, with the dogs, and alex the woman who worked with the horses, and colleen who was the new helpxer and former international fight attendant who has been to over 50 countries and had so much to share....florence felt big, and rome is bigger, and i just can't imagine what bangkok will be like, we are flying out on tuesday afternoon!!
is there anything anyone is wondering about or would like to hear more about? there is really so much both of us could share about our travels so far, what we have seen and experienced, what it's like, and i hardly feel like i can cover it all in these little blogs. it would be neat to have some questions or guidance to write by! we have one more day in italy, tomorrow we are meeting jennie (she was living at nicola's for a week, the one who cooked us thanksgiving dinner!) for lunch here, how neat!, and then wandering around for the rest of the day, of course scoping out a couple more pizza places, we have some in mind! :)
love to you all!
melissa
Sunday, December 2, 2007
cinque terre
sitting in a little internet point overlooking....the mediterranean!! si, we made it to the ocean, walking along the absolutely gorgeous cliffs and little trails through the cinque terre, five beautiful little towns all connected by little walkways along the northern italian coast, colorful buildings, little winding streets, and so very quiet for this time of year! we arrived yesterday via train and walked out on to the sand....apparently all the little markets take a 5 hour siesta in the afternoon from noon to five, so we were quite hungry for a while! but the place is so beautiful, we walked from monterosso to vernazza, 3km of thousands of stone steps and little terraced vineyards and lemon and orange trees and olive trees....sooooo beautiful and like a little road to hana (maui) for walking...last night we ate at a little restaurant and drank some wine that was produced on the very slopes we walked upon....the towns are all so sweet. it's nice to be here in a non tourist season.....we stayed in riomaggiore last night, and will walk through the trails today through manarola, corniglia, back to vernazza, and then take a train back into cecina where we will be at nicola's until thursday. it has been so wonderful at nicola's, really you can't imagine the view, the rolling tuscany hills and all the olive trees we know so intimately now (we are becoming quite good pruners, hours of practice now!) and we eat so much olive oil there, produced in last year's harvest. the three golden retrievers (blue, alba and penny who is pregnant and very emotional) follow us down to the trees every day and hang out while we prune, blue always wanting us to through sticks, pinecones and sometimes rocks! there are two little kitties, stella and simba, who love human food and are so cute as well. we are studying italian and are picking up more words every day, we bought a 'learn italian in 10 weeks' book and are going to continue studying it in thailand! we are going to florence on thursday, our friend jennie who was WWOOFing with us at nicola's told us of a few great places (ie. restaurants) to hit up in florence/firenze....then we are stopping in abruzzo national park for a night and off to rome for a couple of days before we fly to thailand on the 11th (with a stopover in cairo, egypt for 4 hours, i can say i've been to africa [sortof])....
yesterday we said good by to simona, the other wwoofer we have been living with, she is so wonderful, she's from brazil and led ashtanga yoga with us for a few days, the three of us moving together in sun salutation and breathing together and stretching together...she inspired me a lot about eating fresh brazilian fruits and cooked a wonderful coconut milk rice pudding! lots of wisdom, i felt like i got a new little teaching every day that i would write down in my book to share with others and remember for later. carson and i finished our first page a day book a few days ago, it is so beautiful!!! we look forward to sharing it with everyone! hopefully we can find a way to post more pictures soon, especially the ones from the cinque terre it is such a beautiful place!!! google image search for pictures of it, absolutely breathtaking!
much love to everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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