THE HONEYMOONERS

After a grueling 24 hour travel day from Bangkok to Shanghai, which including boarding a plane at 2am only to be taken off the plane for reasons still unknown to us, and not reboarding until close to 9am, sleeping on the airport chairs, then taking a 45min cab to the train station, then dealing with the most chaotic, intense train infrastructure where we ended up getting on a local train from Hangzhau to Shanghai which took nearly 4 hours (when the train we shoulda got on takes only 2 hrs). we finally arrived at The Bund Hotel in Shanghai. Despite all the horror travel, when we finally got to see family (The Herlings), it was all worth it.

We spent about 10 days in China splitting our time between Shanghai and Beijing. For sake of comparision, Shanghai is akin to Manhattan with its sharp architecture, skyscrapers, financial districts, and pockets of areas similar to SoHo, Upper East Side, Midtown, etc. And Beijing is akin to Washington D.C., rich in culture and politics, where you can feel the Communist overtures and the rooted traditions that embody a city with thousands of years of history.

In Shanghai, we hung out with Amanda's sister Tracey and her fiance Raj, who came to China before traveling onto India to meet some of Raj's family. And we also spent quality time with Pat and Brad, Amanda's parents. We got to have lunch from the 60th floor of a 90 floor hotel/condo property overlooking the famous Pearl Tower. We went to a really cool aquarium in the Shanghai Aquarium that included taking escalators and moving walkways while fully surrounded by tanks of aquatic life, which species are noticeably different from the U.S. fish. We also went to the Shanghai Museum, Old Town, which houses the oldest garden in China and has a shopping district embedded within it, an acrobatics show where Raj was selected to get up on stage and participate, and walked and ate several times up and down Nanjing Road, which is Shanghai's Fifth Avenue. Because Brad (Amanda's Dad) was teaching during the days, we didn't get to hang out with him until after school, but we greatly enjoyed the Happy Hours on the 22nd floor of our hotel as well as the nightly dinners, and of course having a local of sorts to show us around.

In Beijing, the family escapades were reduced to a team of Amanda, Pat and me. We all stayed in one room (with two beds) at a nice hotel on Beijing's main thoroughfare, Wangfujing Street. Each day was an adventure and action-packed. One day, we took a guided tour to the Ming Tombs (where many of the Ming emperors are buried sometimes as deep as 80 feet with a family room, bathroom, kitchen, their jewels, etc) and to the Great Wall of China, which was quite impressive to see although the Disney-type electric car ride to the top as well as the ridiculous amount of people made it somewhat unauthentic. Massive nonetheless. The next day we went to the newly opened Beijing Planetarium, which was so fun and different. We watched two unbelievable shows including a 4D show, An Ode to Life, which took you from the Big Bang Theory, thru the dinosaur age, the underworld, the caveman, human existence, etc. One of us (you guess who) left after 5 minutes because she was too scared by the periodic bursts of air or water that were shot at you and the tickling of your ankles and slight dropping of the chair at certain times throughout the show. Later that day, we hurried thru the Forbidden City/Tianaman Square, which also is quite impressive in its history being that it is a 200-acre compound protected by a moat on all sides and constructed nearly 500 years ago. It is where the emperors and their families lived, most notably the Ming and Qing dynasties, but Mao never lived there. Actually, I think I heard that he never even stepped foot there. And aside from some bargain shopping and driving past where the Olympics will be held in 2008, we also saw Mission Impossible III (in English) in the basement of a huge vertical mall that is newly buily and looks like an office building. Lastly, we witnessed first hand a street lined with food vendors selling the nastiest stuff on a stick - scorpion, starfish, snake, DOG, beetles, frog, and TESTICLES.

All in all, our travels throughout China were memorable, but would not have been quite as fun had we not had family there with us. Although it is ignorant to generalize nearly 2 billion people, we did experience and witness some of the stereotypes of the people and culture in China. Despite the one-child law still in effect, the country is overcrowded and the people are pushy, rude, do not believe in lines or courtesy or manners or etiquette. They repeatedly spit nasty loogeys on the street, cut you off, push you and dismiss your language and inquiries. Although many of these traits and personalities may be misinterpreted, we can only report what we experienced and with that, i'm not sure we need to go back to China anytime soon.

Click here to check out some of the pics

The world is replete with unrest. Remember the sapphire necklace that we 'luckily' discovered at the export factory in Bangkok? This global unrest runs the gamut from terorist attacks to natural disasters to religious wars. Well, we got professional duped and I can't say that we weren't warned. What about the recent tsumani in Indonesia responsible for over 600 lives or the tsumani in the same region in Dec. 2004? Uncle Joel and my dad both offered their admonitions of gem scams, but i guess we didn't pay them enough mind. Or the bombing of the train in Mumbai?

It was after a curious Googling of "Blue Dragon Export Factory in Thailand" that I first realized our fate. And the situation in the Middle East has gone from bad to worse. Our story is eerily similar to the 'how it is done' template below. With most of the U.S. still wondering what we're doing in Iraq, neighboring Iran and Syria are now global threats and South Korea is 'testing' missiles. It sure is upsetting financially and emotionally when you're the victim of a crime that you thought could never happen to you, a scam that you're too intelligent for. As far as the Miami sports scene, Alonzo coming back is fantastic news and Daunte seems poised to lead the Dolphins to a new era of greatness. Its a mental shock that your gut feeling and trust could be so wrong. With all these G8 conferences and governmental meetings, it seems that talk is getting cheaper with each summit. At this time, the end to the gem scam is pending and I look forward to telling you (in person) just how it ended. I'll just say that Jay is working on it.

How it is done:
This is a by-the-numbers scam. Most people have the exact same experience. It usually goes something like this:
1. You are riding in a tuk-tuk (us)
2. The driver tells you that wherever you are going is closed for some reason. (us, told the Grand Palace was closed)
3. The driver tells you he is specially trained to be helpful to tourists. (ehh, kinda)
4. You are told the government has launched a promotion to sell gems to tourists. (sort of)
5. In the course of riding around with the "friendly" tuk-tuk driver, you "accidentally" meet a well-dressed young man or an older, distinguished man. (yes)
6. The younger man claims he is a student. The older will claim he works for the government and shows you his government ID. (claimed he was a restaurant owner)
7. The person you meet independently confirms the story the tuk-tuk driver told. This is a nice touch. (sure was a nice touch, seemed so independent, but we fed him. Also met 2-3 other 'independent' sources over the course of the day)
8. Eventually you ask to be taken to the "government" jewelry house and are told that you can make 100-150% profit by reselling the gems back home. It seems okay since the seller writes something like "if everything is not ok we will offer a full refund" and puts an official looking stamp on it. (true, but we weren't gonna sell)
9. You've now been cheated by one of the oldest and most openly practiced scams in Thailand. (thanks)

Sorry for the delay in posting. This happened almost 2 weeks ago, but we could not access the blog in China (communism???)

We started off the trip to Bangkok from Ko Samui with a few hiccups. First our plane was delayed SEVEN hours!!! The airport in Ko Samui resembled a tree house and consisted of a book store, a restaurant and some chairs for the terminal. Thankfully they also had a massage place so that took up an hour. Then, once we arrived in Bangkok our cab driver took us to the wrong hotel. Finally we settled in to the Best Western "Swana," which is actually really nice. We wandered out around 8 PM to Ko San Road. This is a road full of backpackers, street vendors and bars. We were starving and decided to get some falafal from a street vendor, (not a good idea.) Bradley got VERY sick and we left about 10 because of his first signs of sickness.
We woke up today the latest we have on the trip, about 11. Bradley is fine now after lots of water and some pills from home. We wanted to find something the most Western we could so we found a Pizza Hut and had lunch. From there on our day became very "lucky." We took a tuk-tuk (a small type of motorbike/taxi) to a famous temple. The temple was closed while the monks were praying so we started talking with a local Thai that was waiting also. He was very friendly and KEPT talking about this place Blue Dragon. We had no idea what he was talking about but were being polite and trying to carry on a conversation, but he wouldn't stop saying you go, you go to Blue Dragon. There was a "Lucky Budda" there that we "paid our respects to" then we went on our way back to the Tuk-Tuk. There was another Thai guy there that we talked to while waiting for our driver and he had been to Seattle. Coincendentally, he was talking about buying presents for his family and we mentioned the Blue Dragon, and he was shocked and said "How you know, thats where I get." From him we better learned that it is a jewlery wholesale store open only once a year to the public and today was the last day of the promotion, no tax and no need to be an exporter, etc. We also learned that Sapphires are Thailand's prized gem export. How could we not go??? Bradley and I decided that this was our "lucky day" from our "Lucky Budda." In the end, we went to this amazing place and bought what we hope to be a family heirloom of ours forever. It is an absolutely beaultiful necklace of three diamond encrusted sapphires!! I know some of you probably think it's a copy or a scam, but its the real deal.
We ended up having a great day in Bangkok. We are exhausted after a day of shopping and touring. We are leaving tonight on a 2 AM flight to Shanghai, China. We'll be meeting up with my parents, sister and her fiance!! We can't wait to see what adventures we'll find next!!!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's the case, there's about 15,000 words (15 pics) below for you to see. The Full Moon Party lived up to its expectations as the 10pm-10am did not disappoint. Thats me above jumping thru a ring of fire. Not as scary as it looks (Mom).

Today was a tough day for us (besides going to bed at 8am) because we had to leave our friends and our short-lived family at the Sarikantang Resort, which we highly recommend if you ever desire to go to Koh Phangan. Amanda's teaching buddy and friend Caryn and her cousin Seth, who I call Houdini b/c he broke into our room after we left the hotel key locked in the safety deposit box. And also our new friends, collectively "The Swedes". We are so lucky to have spent 7 nights at the same place getting to know The Swedes because they are great people and we hope they come to the U.S. soon. Or we can go to Sweden to visit them. Hmmm....

There's Mats and his girlfriend Risa, who are traveling for 2 months I think and then going back to school in Sweden. Risa did a semester abroad at Purdue and Mats lived in North Carolina when he was younger and got Jordan's autograph when he was at UNC.

And then there's the 3 stooges. Gustav, who one night didn't come home and when he did return he was without shoes (and still hasn't got new ones). Knull Gustav. There's Bucket Lars, named as such because the kid drinks buckets like they are water. You can see what buckets are in the pictures. And then there's Monkey, or Emil. He likes to swing from trees and make monkey noises.

A few notes and disclaimers to the pics:

-I shaved my head. Actually Monkey shaved my head the night of the FMP.
-The person passed out is no one we know, just trying to give you a flavor of the party.
-The hike we took was the day before the FMP and was really freakin tough.
-We got back from our hike and our room was adorned in heart-shaped rose pedals, wine, candles and flowers. The Sarikantang is the best - how nice is that!

Well, that's it for now. Amanda is getting a massage on the beach right now by two ladies - 200baht ($5) for 1hr. Wait, what am I doing in front of the computer...

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Neither of us are too politically inspired, but we've now met people from Ireland, Australia, London, Manchester, South Africa, Canada, Denmark, Holland and probably some other places, and the overall sentiment is that the world hates us or more sensitively said, very disappointed with us right now. Almost with trepidation do we ADMIT we are Americans. It is very very sad, and truly appears to be due to our President. As a disclaimer to those that are pro-Bush and pro-war, all we are trying to convey is that everyone aroun the world desires peace and an end to the unrest. Nobody likes war, nobody likes innocent people dying or people's children being deployed and at risk.

In fact, Emma from Amsterdam won't even visit her sister in Oregon (who married an American) until Bush is out of office. Other countries are upset at their leaders. The Mom of the Australian family we met disappointingly said that "Johnny Howard is up Bush's bum" and her 17-yr old son told us that "we've fought four wars for you guys." The people from England say that Blair is Bush's little do-boy basically, and they are not happy either.

It wasn't until we got on a ferry headed to Ko Phangan, where we are now, awaiting the Full Moon Party on the 12th, that we met another family, this time from Sweden, who loved America - Manhattan, D.C., the food etc. Honestly, never before have we been so relieved because up til then, we were traveling the world feeling wrongfully like villains. And last night, we sat around coincedentally with some young, fun Swedes playing Jenga, hangin, and having fun.

On a trip like this, you quickly learn that the opening pleasantry of "How are you" is replaced with "Where are you from" and from that usually stems some sort of political banter if the conversation gets that far. We obviously didn't expect this, but are getting used to it. Unfortunately, neither of us care too much for politics nor are too well-versed in the subject. But we are adapting andI think have done a good job of disarming those with contempt for our government and the global mess that is perceived to be all our fault. "We don't like war either, we don't like Bush, etc."

We apologize if we hurt anybody's feelings and definitely do not want to initiate some type of political commentary on our blog because we LOVE all our readers, but we wanted to let everyone know what we have experienced thus far. And to that, not one American have we met. Not one. We thought yesterday maybe, but the kids ended up from Canada and one of them threw out some stat that the U.S. has the least amount of passports issued, something like 18% of population. Who knows if that is true, but what is true is that we are having an awesome time on this island meeting fun, chill people from literally all around the world. Holla.

Below is the link to some more pictures. Hope it works. I just sat here for 1 1/2 hr uploading. You shouldn't have to log in to view the slideshow.

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Nothing to crazy to report. We are finishing up our last night at Ko Phi Phi Island, the group of islands where The Beach was filmed. Ko Phi Phi Don, which is where we are, and which is the only inhabitable island, is what I would call a backpackers flea market. As such, it's loaded with young people (younger than us) with big boy back packs and all the accessories, no shoes and no place to be. Along with the people, the streets are lined with flea market type booths loaded with sunglasses, t-shirts, dresses, board shorts, etc. Pretty much everything you would think it was if you've ever heard of this place. I will say, though, that the smells are pretty stank, the island pretty dirty and the surroundings become too familiar. However, the views and the scenery never get old. Today we climbed (hiked) to the View Point, a SERIOUS hike up VERY STEEP steps, but the view is ridiculous. Took lots of pictures, but having trouble uploading right now. Will get them up ASAP.

We have eaten at the same place for all six meals - Cosmic pizza. It was just too much of an attraction to eat pizza, pasta and bread that neither of us really had any desire to eat anywhere else. Actually just finished dinner about 15 min ago. I had lasagna and Amanda had pizza.

AND as of this afternoon, we both have our hair braided. Amanda's looks much better than mine, but I'll rock it for a few days. Amanda's looks hot. While we were getting braided, we sat with a 73-yr old South African (originally from Scotland) and a guy from Manchester. Was interesting conversation to say the least, but after a little Chub Rock charm, we were able to disarm the old man's hatred for America. Two good quotes from our talk were when we left the old man said "Not all Americans are so bad, you're a good boy" and the guys from Manchester told Amanda that "she looks like Bo Derek with her braids."

Gotta run, 2baht per minute adds up, but let me tell you about the travel day tomorrow to get to Ko Phangan, where the Full Moon Party takes place on the 12th. Anyway, to get across Thailand we gotta take a 9am ferry to Krabi, 11am bus from Krabi to Surat Thani (about a 4hr bus ride), then a 3.30 ferry to Ko Phangan (about a 2hr ferry). The good part of that is the whole trip tomorrow, for both of us, is about $40.

Guess thats it. Thanks for checking up on us. Will try to get some pics up soon and have some better stuff for you next time.

Love,

Amanda and Bradley

Bradley and I just finished our gourmet breakfast consisting of jams, pastries, fresh sqeezed pineapple juice, eggs, and coffee. We have been waking up here about 6:00 A.M. everyday! Yesterday was our first excursion outside the resort. We went on a tour called Jungle Safari. We left at 9:00 A.M. on a bus to start out on our first adventure, White Water Rafting. Bradley was very excited, I was VERY scared. The guides on our boat were completely insane. They spoke no english, didn't wear helmets and made sure we hit every rock in the water at an extremely high speed. I have to admit I was so scared I even shed some tears after seeing a girl fall out of the boat, hit a sharp rock and the tour guides were loving it. So as for rafting, i think i'll pass if I have the opportunity again. From there we went on a crazy drive in a Range Rover with about 10 Aussies. The tour guides hang off the back of the truck as we headed down a mountain (again pretty scary) . The Australians were great company and we hung out with them for the rest of the day. We got to the elephant camp and watched an elephant show, then rode on our own elephant. There was a guide who sat on the elephants head, and we sat on the back. Of course we got on the elephant who decided to fall when walking. He kind of tripped and his back leg fell, so from then on I was terrified. I'm glad I did it, but it wasn't too comfortable and again our tour guide was crazy. The last part of our excursion was riding ATV's around a dirt course which I personally loved. So in the end we left our new Australian friends and headed back to paradise. We were both very tired and craving american food when we got back. So I took my book filled with pictures (thanks Steven and Lauren) and showed them a picture of cheese and bread and french fries. Twenty minutes later we got a knock on the door from room service. It was the grossest version of cheese I have ever seen and some weird tasting chips. I have to say I will be very happy to have some pizza, cheeseburgers, and french fries soon! Thats all for now, khob khon kah (thank you) for reading the longest blog ever!