Hi all…
We’re on Koh Tao now.. have been for a few days.. and we’re enjoying it a lot. Started our PADI Open water course yesterday and it’s going really well, but is pretty scary sometimes. There’s so much more to it than I thought there would be, but its pretty great. Today we had our first dive in the actual ocean – only went to about 6 meters so not too deep, but still pretty scary. The visibility was really poor because of the high tide season and many boats in the bay where we were. Hopefully tomorrow as we get further away from the island and a little deeper (12 meters) it will clear up and we’ll see more interesting fish and coral. We’ll see…

More soon, and I’ll try again to upload some photos maybe tomorrow of the next day. The card readers built into these computers won’t read my camera card so I need to remember to grab my camera cable when I come next time.

Hope all is well on the other side of the world… we’re living it up over here and are doing really well.

—-Chad & Kate

Hello all!
I’m sitting in an internet cafe near Koh Saan Road in Bangkok. We’ve got about 2 hours before we head off on an overnight bus and boat journey to Koh Tao (our island getaway off the east coast of southern Thailand). There we will be doing scuba Diving and relaxing – so excited!… but with the down time I thought it would be a good idea to let you all know that we’re alive, doing very well, and having a great trip! It’s only day 3 but we’ve already done a LOT and are really loving all the places we’ve been.
We’ll try to do more involved posts later on, but I’ll give a quick overview and post a few pictures just to make ya a little jealous

We arrived without any hassles really at 2:30AM on the 8th. Got through customs in a breeze and soon were off to our hostel in a cab.. about a 45 minute trip but we arrive and were settled in to our beds by about 4AM. Got up the next day and walked around Koh Saan a bit… this area is known as the backpacking/travel HUB of Thailand. LOTS of foreigners lots of character, crazy atmosphere.. it’s fun but a bit overwhelming. It’s close to all the major touristy stuff so we walked over to the Grand Palace and spent a few hours taking in the amazing sights. Some fantastic architecture and history here – lots of fun and very humbling.

After some food Kate and I left to go visit her friend Marlie who lives just outside of Bangkok (an hour away :). Got there and had dinner with her went to a crazy Thai bar and then stayed the night in her place and came back with her in the morning after she taught her one class. Spent the day traveling around – visit the reclining Buddha, traveling on the canal water taxis and taking in the sights and sounds of Bangkok.

Today we’ve spent mainly shopping around Koh Saan road.. there are street venders and small shops everywhere so we stocked up on bags/sunglasses/clothes/etc.. all very cheap and very interesting.

Soon we’ll leave for Koh Tao – start our diving on Monday and spend a week there. More on that as it happens!

Off I go to get a quick thai shoulder massage and then we’ll head down the street to get on the Bus!

More soon!
Love you all – and can’t wait to tell you more about the our travels… It’s truly going amazingly well and we’re loving every minute!

-Chad (and Kate … but she’s in the midst of a facial massage on the side of the street soo.. more just Chad She says hi though….)

PS.. sorry the photos never finished uploading and I have to leave.. I’ll post more later… Sorry!!

Last weekend, Kate and I decided to go hiking. We talked about it earlier in the week and decided to go back to Hwanson-gul (the massive cave about an hour from our city) to hike the mountain trail that we saw leading from the paved path up to the caves. The leaves are changing now and it’s a great time to do the hike before it gets too cold. Friday night we were out with a friend, Mark, who suggested that we join Ben and him to go to Odaesan instead. We thought, why not – it’s a bigger park with more hiking and more adventures to be had with more people. Little did we know…

We all decided to get an earlier than normal start because had an hour and half bus ride and wanted to get some good hiking in so we all met at the bus terminal at 9am. None of us had a clue how to get to odaesan (bad idea #1) so we called 1330, the local tourism phone line which usually has an English speaker, to find out which buses to take. We got the advice, and tried to get tickets but the ticket lady had different ideas on how to get there and after some time got the tickets we needed (we hoped) and hopped on the bus which arrive a half hour later. Usually buses cost about 2-4,000 won- – not much and is dependant on the destination/frequency/and distance. It should have tipped us off that the tickets were 9,000 won each. We sat on the bus to Jin-bu, half unaware and half asleep, wondering where we were being taken. Eventually we saw Gangneun – the other big coastal city about an hour north of Samcheok. We then learned that we had merely bypassed getting off the bus and transferring by getting the more expensive, less frequent trip. So, 10 minutes later with a new set of passengers we took off again, expecting to arrive in Jinbu in about 30-40 minutes. An hour later we finally arrive at a dark and cold bus station. Most are this way, but it ads to the dramatic effect of the story. There, we learn that we need to take another bus to Odaesan and we had just missed the once hourly trip by about 5 minutes. Perturbed the longer than anticipated trip, cost of the tickets, lack of adequate breakfast, and an increasingly frustrating trip we decided to just take a taxi and deal with the extra cost. 10,000 won later we arrived in the park.
Here’s where the story gets even more exciting.
We arrived to a busy temple at the base of the mountains with beautiful statues and perfectly restored buildings.
After trying to avoid getting in the way of peoples pictures, and taking a few of our own, we left and went down the path that we thought would lead us to the trails and other areas of the park. This ended up not being the right path so we headed back up to the temple and out the other side to see if we could find our way to something that resembled a hike.

Passing the Temple, we found only a road, with backed up traffic on it’s way up the mountain. After talking (with motions) to a passerby we were told to start walking up the road to find the hiking.
We walked… and walked.. and walked.. and finally found a sign that said 6.2 km to the next temple (where the trails are). We decided we didn’t have time or patience to hike up the road to get there so we headed back via a small trail we saw on the other side of the stream parallel the road.
Finally something more like hiking. (then it started to sprinkle, of course…)
I snapped a few shots of the beautiful mountains and changing colors.
Mark wanted a new zen photo for his facebook
We walked back down the trail and then the road again when the trail ended to the temple where we started. We walked back to the parking lot area and asked the information lady, who spoke English pretty well, where to get the bus. She directed us to the bus stop. Once there, we realized.. to our dismay, that she was directing us to the bus UP the mountain.. to the top temple where all the trails start. What would have saved us an hour and a half of walking, and enabled us to do some hiking. Slightly bitter, but mostly amused at our ineptitude we had her call a taxi for us to get back to Jinbu… we didn’t have any more patience to wait the hour before the next bus back. We finally got home and had a nice night of movies and food at Eve and David’s apartment. A nice end to a frustrating day.

We ended up spending over 55,000 won for 5 hours on a bus and few hours of walking on a road. Oh well.. You win some, you lose some, and considering this was the first legitimately unsuccessful trip we’ve had while being here – we can’t complain too much. And we laughed a lot at ourselves – so all is well….

Well, Kate has fallen asleep reading her book, and I’m up way past my bedtime, so I must go… Enjoy this last weekend of unrelenting political ads –it’ll be a year and half before you see them again — I’m sure you’ll miss them.

-Chad