India

We arrived safe and sound in Delhi on June 25, 2014 and made our way by taxi to our hotel - Hotel The Royal Plaza. It is probably one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed in. There was marble everywhere and they inspect every car that goes in/out of the hotel for bombs. Haha. They use a mirror to look under the car, then pop the trunk and sometimes the hood of the car also. It was crazy! I was actually shocked with how much security there was in India in general. We weren't meeting our friends Heather and Adam until June 26th when they arrived so we had our first day in India to ourselves. We hung out in the hotel for a little bit and then decided to go and explore the area we were staying in, which was called Connaught Place. Connaught Place is a huge round-about in the middle of New Delhi, with a few markets, parks and tons of restaurants and shops around it. We basically walked around the entire round-about before stopping at a little restaurant for dinner. We stumbled onto Gino's; an Indian restaurant owned by an Indian man who currently lived in Michigan. He was in Delhi visiting family and checking in on his restaurant so we had the chance to meet him after dinner. He was very nice and gave us his card and told us that if we had any issues while we were in India to call him. After dinner we continued our walk and we discovered quickly that India was very busy, very hot and very crowded.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then waited in our room to hear from Adam and Heather. It took them longer then expected to get to the hotel from the airport so we didn't meet up with them until early afternoon, but it was so nice to see friends. After a quick catch up in the lobby of their hotel, we made our way to find some lunch. We had originally decided to walk back to Connaught Place and grab some food but as we were walking there this gentleman stopped us and told us there was a protest going on and that we should avoid the area. He suggested we go to a street that had a bunch of restaurants on it near India Gate. He even got a tuk tuk for us and made sure the driver knew exactly where to take us. We thought he was so nice and thoughtful looking out for us. It took us a few days to realize but he was actually lying through his teeth and he had a scam going with the tuk tuk driver. We saw the whole thing in action a few days later. Again, someone stopped us and told us their was a protest. By now we didn't believe him so we declined his help and kept on walking. We then saw him get into the tuk tuk that was conveniently waiting by the side of the road and drive off together. But we totally fell for the scam the first time! Anyways, we had lunch at this suggested restaurant and then made our way back to the hotel for a swim in the pool. Once we felt a bit refreshed from our swim we walked back up to Connaught Place for dinner and had an awesome meal at a place recommended in the Lonely Planet, Pind Balluchi.

The Water Temple - one of the sites our tuk tuk driver brought us to

 

Adam wasn't feeling great the next day. He seemed to be developing a cold, so we decided to take it easy. We went to visit the Red Fort in Old Delhi, which was pretty awesome to see. Tons of history there, but so hot!! And we stupidly decided to make our way there at 11am so we were walking around outside when the sun was the highest in the sky. We quickly learned our lesson and agreed that the majority of our sightseeing would now be happening in the morning! We decided to walk through our first bazaar in Old Delhi after the Red Fort. It was so busy and there were so many people trying to sell you things; it was madness! We lasted about an hour walking around and then decided to have lunch. We ended up at a restaurant recommended to us by the taxi driver who dropped us off at the Red Fort - Punjabi By Nature. The food was awesome and it was so reasonably priced that we ended up there a few more times while we were in Delhi. We relaxed the rest of the day and treated ourselves to another swim in the hotel pool!

The four of us at the Red Fort

 

We were heading to Agra the next day and we were supposed to go by train, but there was a bit of a mix up between the train tickets and the train was going to be over 2 hours delayed so we ended up deciding to take a taxi to Agra instead. And, to be honest, with 4 of us in the taxi, it wasn't much more expensive then all of us on the train. But the time we spent at the train station was so interesting. There were hundreds of people coming and going constantly, everyone was staring at us white people, no one respects the 'line up' at the ticket window and they are constantly jumping in front of you and the people watching was amazing. At one point a drum band came into the station and into the ticket office and then pretty much turned around and left. It was hilarious. But it was so amazing to see how the women dress - so colourful!!

Our day in Agra basically consisted of the Taj Mahal. We hired a car and a tour guide that took us to the Taj Mahal at sunrise. It was spectacular! First of all, it wasn't that busy and it wasn't that hot. But also the Taj is just so beautiful! We spent a few hours there just checking out the grounds and the mausoleum itself. Having the guide was awesome because he could tell us so much about the history behind it. I didn't want to leave - I just wanted to stare at it all day. Unfortunately Agra doesn't have much more to offer than the Taj Mahal so we took it easy the rest of the day and hung out at Adam and Heather's luxury hotel!

Early morning at the Taj Mahal

 

We left Agra the next day. Again, we meant to take the train, but it was full by the time we tried to book it so we ended up back in a taxi again. The drive from Agra to Jaipur was long, but it was neat to see some of the country. I think it was good that we had a sort of lazy day in the car because although Adam was feeling better by now, Heather had gotten his cold from him and wasn't feeling very good. We made it to Jaipur around 4pm and had a cooking class booked that night at 5pm. We quickly checked into our hotels and changed and then made our way to the Jaipur Cooking School for our cooking class with Chef Lokesh. It was such a fun night. Chef Lokesh taught us so much about Indian cooking and we got to make so many delicious dishes. Honestly, there was so much food! It probably could have a fed at least 10 people, but the 5 of us managed to put a pretty good dent in it!

Steph making some naan with Chef Lokesh overseeing

 

The next day was July 1 - Canada Day! I even wore my Canada sunglasses that my mom sent me away with almost 10 months earlier to celebrate! In the Lonely Planet book we had, had outlined a 3 hour walking tour of Jaipur that hit a lot of the major sites so we decided to do that for the day. Our first stop was Iswari Minar Swarga Sal, which is a tower in the middle of the city that has a spectacular view from the top. Then we made our way to the Tripolia Gate and the City Palace. The City Palace was beautiful and I think my favourite was the Peacock Gates inside. They had 4 different doors leading to this courtyard, each decorated in a peacock theme and dedicated to a different season (Summer, Spring, Winter and Monsoon). From there we made our way to Jantar Mantar which is an an observatory that is full of tons of different astrological devices. We hired a guide for the tour and I am so glad that we did because we would not have known what one thing was without him. We finished our walking tour off at the Temple of the Wind and then hopped in a tuk tuk to take us to the Water Temple just outside of the city centre. We also got to see some camels along the way. We were going to make our way back to the Johari Bazaar but instead stumbled upon a jewellery store near the Water Temple and spent some time browsing and shopping in there. That night we took a taxi to another temple - I'm honestly not sure what the name of the temple even was because everyone called it the Monkey Temple. There were hundreds of monkeys there, it was crazy! We spent a couple of hours just walking up to the temple and watching the monkeys. We even saw a monkey steal a pair of shoes from someone who was inside the temple...little buggers!

Us in front of the Spring Peacock Gate

 

That was all the time we had in Jaipur, which was a shame because we all really liked the city. But we had to make our way back to Delhi the next day because our time in India was almost up. On our way back to Delhi we stopped off at the Amber Fort, which was absolutely stunning. We had an awesome tour of the fort and spent a couple of hours there. The detail, the architecture and the history was just amazing. It was probably one of the highlights of our trip to India. Then we hopped back in our taxi and made our way back to Delhi. I am pretty sure we also saw the first of the monsoon rains to hit India. It was raining so hard and the winds were just crazy. It sure was a sight to see. And most people told us that that was nothing compared to what they would get in the next couple of months.

On our last day in Delhi we basically just shopped till we dropped. Adam and Heather needed to get some souvenirs for family and friends and I just like to shop so off we went. We had a lot of time to kill that day because we didn't have to get to the airport until 11pm for our 2am flights. So, we walked around Connaught Place, shopped, had a leisurely lunch and dinner and hung out at the hotel before making our way to the airport. Then it was bye bye India and hello Canada - that is after almost 24 hours in transit. We arrived home in Toronto on July 4, 2014 and were greeted by our parents - they actually clapped and cheered.

It is hard to believe that our travels are over. We have had a year full of the most amazing experiences. We have challenged ourselves and grown so much individually, as well as as a couple. I look back on the experiences
that we have had over the year and I smile. I cannot believe it is over already, but I am excited to see what the future has in store for us in TO. Thank you to everyone who has read and followed along with our blog. It was been a really amazing experience writing it. I can't wait to share even more stories and photos with you all when we see you next.

Thanks for reading

xoxo

The south of Thailand

Thailand #2

On Monday, June 16 we flew from Chiang Mai down to Krabi. We spent the night in Krabi Town, which turned out to be a dump... sort of. It was just a city, without much to do and it was kind of boring. Plus it rained most of the day. So, luckily we had only planned to stay there for a night and then take the early ferry over to Koh Phi Phi. We spent 2 nights on Koh Phi Phi and had a really nice time there. On the first day we took a walk around the main part of the island for a couple of hours exploring, then hit the beach for a little bit. But, man was it HOT! We probably only lasted an hour and a half before we had to retreat to the A/C in our room. Then we went out for dinner that night and people watched for a while - there sure were a lot of drunk young people there. I guess Koh Phi Phi is known as a huge party island, so there were tons of people watching to do.

On our second day on the island we decided to take a walk over to a more quiet, beautiful, less busy part, Long Beach. The beach here was so beautiful. The sand was white, the water was crystal blue and there was barely anyone there..it was heaven. We spent pretty much the whole day there and then made our way back to the main part of the island. We went out for dinner and then made our way to one of the many fire shows that the island has to offer. It is outrageous some of the things people do with fire. There was even a boy who was probably 7 or 8 years old twirling fire. It was crazy! But they sure do put on a good show. There was even a part with audience participation and Dave and I got involved. We limbo'd under a stick on fire and then I jumped rope while it was on fire...it was crazy but I was a little bit tipsy so I was up for it. We decided to keep the party going that night and had a few buckets. And apparently I decided to try and keep up with Dave, which was definitely not a good idea! Needless to say I was not feeling so good the next day.

A couple of youngsters spinning fire

Luckily, the next day was a lazy transit day. We hung out on Phi Phi for most of the day and then made our way by boat from the island back to the mainland, but to an area you can only reach by boat, Railay. We spent 3 nights in Railay and it was spectacular. It was this little town with these huge limestone cliffs pretty much surrounding the entire area except for a few beaches dotted along the coast. And we found the most amazing place to stay on agoda.com - it wasn't very expensive and it had an infinity pool and an awesome restaurant. And we stayed in this beautiful little bungalow. It was awesome!

We spent our first night exploring the island - Railay East, Railay West and Phra Nang Beach. We also discovered that there were a ton of monkeys in the area. We were walking down this one path and I guess someone had just been feeding them because there was close to a hundred monkeys running on the roof tops and the wires. I was a bit terrified of them - afraid they would try and steal our sunglasses, etc. but they really could have cared less about us. We finished the day off watching the sunset on Railay West before making it an early night. On our next day we spent most of the day at Phra Nang Beach. It was a beautiful beach. A cave at one end and beautiful sand and water. We spent the rest of the day at the infinity pool at our hotel. We went out for dinner that night and i'm not sure if it was something that I ate or if I got a bit of a virus, but I felt terrible that night. I honestly spent the entire night trying not to throw up. It was not fun. And I was definitely not looking forward to getting on a boat the next day and heading back to Krabi. I was feeling a little better by the next afternoon, so the boat ride wasn't too bad, but it took a few days before I was feeling back to normal.

The view of Railay from a lookout on the island

 

From Krabi we flew back up to Bangkok for 2 nights before we had to say goodbye to Thailand and goodbye to SE Asia. We didn't do much while in Bangkok. Dave started feeling sick our first night there. Sort of the same symptoms I had while we were in Railay, so I guess it was probably a virus. But he wasn't feeling great pretty much the whole time we were in Bangkok so we made it a low key couple of days. We did a little bit of shopping and bought a few souvenirs and another triangle pillow to send home. But other then that we kept it pretty low key.

We left Thailand on June 25 and made our way to New Delhi, India to meet up with some familiar faces. We had an amazing time exploring Thailand and SE Asia. We ate our faces off and got to see so many beautiful sights. It was such an great few months, but we were excited to see India and start making the long journey back to Toronto.

Thanks for reading

xoxo

Thailand

We flew from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Thailand on June 6, 2014. We weren't really sure where we were going to start but after we had heard about the coup that had happened a few weeks earlier, we knew we did not want to go to Bangkok. So, we flew immediately to the north of Thailand, to Chiang Mai. Neither of us have ever been to the north of Thailand and we were both really excited to see what it had to offer.

We were only meant to spend 3 nights in Chiang Mai initially, but we really loved the place. By the end of our time in the north we had stayed 7 nights in Chiang Mai. On our first night there we thought we would play it low key since Dave's back was still bothering him, but then we heard about a Muay Thai boxing fight going on and Dave quickly felt much better. Haha. So off we went with a few other people from our hostel to see a few hours of Muay Thai. I was not prepared for how intense it was actually going to be. There were 5 rounds of fights. The first 2 were female fights - one was a beginner fight, which wasn't too bad, but the second one was a legit fight and one girl pretty much kicked the crap out of the other one. Then there were 3 male fights and 2 of them finished in a knockout! It was so brutal watching it, but sort of like a car crash - you don't want to look but you can't take your eyes off of it. The final fight finished in a decision, but it was as vicious as the knockout fights. Needless to say, I don't really ever need to watch another night of Muay Thai boxing.

In our first full day in Chiang Mai we decided to explore the city and go on a little 'temple tour'. There are so many of them in the city alone so we had the woman from our hostel tell a few good ones to go to. It ended up being a pretty long afternoon of walking around, but we got a good sense of the city and we were able to check out some beautiful temples. I still can't get over how much colour and detail some people put into their architecture. We had heard that one of the most beautiful temples is located up on a mountain just outside of the city, so we hopped into a taxi and made our way up for sunset. That was probably the best idea we've ever had. To see the temple in the daylight is awesome, but to see it in the dark all lit up was breathtaking. It was so beautiful to see, not only the temple, but the city all lit up in the dark.

The Mountain Temple at night

On our second full day we decided to take a Thai cooking class. Again, the woman who ran our hostel (Stella) recommended one and she was right on the mark. We took a class through the Thai Secret Cooking School. A Thai woman has opened her own cooking school at her house after having worked for other companies for years. We ended up being the only 2 who signed up for the class that day so we basically had a private cooking lesson from a Thai chef. It was awesome and so delicious. We each got to make 4 different dishes, so we learned how to make 8 dishes total and the the cook books are so cute - they have our pictures on them! Little touches like that will definitely make her business a success.

Cooking up some shrimp

 

The next day was a bit of a lazy day. We walked around the city again and checked out a few other areas we hadn't already seen. We also stumbled upon this little restaurant that probably has the best smoothie I have ever had in my entire life! It tasted exactly like a piece of apple pie - it was amazing. Then it started to rain so we decided to try a Thai massage to pass an hour. It was hilarious. We were in the same room together and it was amazing to see this little Thai woman sit on top of Dave and try to put him into these pretzel positions and basically just kick the crap out of him. My arm was hurting me so they took it easy on me and I actually had a nice massage, but seeing Dave with this Thai woman on top of him jumping on him was amazing! After our massages we were walking back to our hostel when we ran into an English couple (Ash and Daniella) that we had met in Koh Rong Samloem. We stopped and chatted with them for a little while and exchanged contact info because we will probably run into them again in Thailand. That night we went to the Sunday Walking Market in Chiang Mai. They close down one of the main streets in the city and hundreds of stalls pop up out of nowhere. It is the biggest market I have ever seen. We spent 2 hours walking around and only saw about a quarter of it.

Dave making friends at the Sunday Walking Market

 

Our next was a pretty cool day - we went to The Elephant Retirement Park. In Thailand there are a ton of places were you can go to see elephants for the day. A lot of them involve you riding them and some of the conditions they live in are terrible. Dave and I talked about it before booking an elephant adventure. We both agreed that we didn't care if we got to ride an elephant or not, but we just wanted the conditions that they live in to be safe and healthy for them. After talking to Stella again we decided to go with a new company - the Elephant Retirement Park. They just opened in February of 2014 so they're still a pretty small company, but we had an amazing day. They have 5 elephants right now - 2 female elephants came from work camps where they were used for logging, but recently the Thai government has made it illegal to use elephants for logging work. The third female elephant was purchased from another elephant camp in the city that didn't treat their elephants very well - using hooks on them and making them do tricks for tourists and other things like that. What they didn't know at the time of purchasing these 3 female elephants is that they were all pregnant. So they now have a 7 month old male baby elephant and a 2 month old female baby elephant, and one more is still pregnant - due in November. It was such an amazing experience to be able to interact directly with the elephants, while letting them hang out in their own natural habitat. We had a chance to feed them, take a mud bath with them and then wash them. It also included tons of time to just hang out and watch/play with the elephants, as well as a delicious lunch. All in all, it was an awesome day and I really appreciate what the company is trying to do for the elephants. We ended up meeting up with Daniella and Ash for dinner that night. We really got along well with them so it was nice to spend a bit of time just chatting and hanging out with them.

After giving momma a nice mud bath

 

After our elephant day we made our way by mini-bus from Chiang Mai to another town close by, Pai. We were warned by many travelers about the road to Pai - apparently it is very windy and the drivers sometimes go really fast and often people get car sick. Overall, it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating, but it definitely was a windy road! We stayed in Pai for 3 nights in a 4 bed dorm and we lucked out with our roommates. We had 2 other Canadians from Calgary staying with us, Chase and Kelsea. They were awesome! They had both just finished their undergrads in Calgary and were travelling together for a few months before starting work. We got along really well with them and spent most of our time in Pai with them.

On our first night in Pai Dave and I went out for dinner and ran into Ash and Daniella again. We went for a few drinks with them and then called it a night. The next day the six of us (Daniella, Ash, Kelsea, Chase Dave and I) rented scooters for the day to tour around and see the sights. I was totally against the whole renting a scooter thing, but everyone else was doing it, the roads weren't very busy and all the attractions were a few kilometers out of town so it just made the most sense. All in all we had a great day. I survived without any scratches or bruises, but I had definitely had enough of the motorbike by the end of the day. But it was an awesome day. We went to a canyon close by, then stopped off at a hilarious roadside stop dedicated to strawberries...totally random and hilarious. From there we made our way to a couple of waterfalls and then back to Pai, just as the rain started. We had a great time cruising around and seeing the beautiful scenery that Pai had to offer. After the rain stopped we decided to check out the nightly market that took over the main street. We did a little shopping around and ate our faces off before having a few drinks. We got a message from Daniella that she and Ash were at a local jazz club. We made our way but I guess we were a little too slow because apparently Ash was up on stage with the band playing the guitar and we missed it. But we did have a chance to have a few drinks with them before calling it a night.

The random strawberry rest stop

 

Our last full day in Pai was a lazy day. We went out for breakfast to this amazing little restaurant called Boomalicious (I'm pretty sure we ate there 3 days in a row actually), then we spent the afternoon teaching Chase and Kelsea how to play Euchre. We played for a few hours then went back to the night market for dinner. There were so many stalls with so much delicious food. I had a burrito, corn on the cob, and a Nutella pancake...not very Thai, but delicious none the less. After dinner Kelsea told us secretly that Chase was apparently a really good singer, and we knew by now that Ash was a good guitar player, so it then became our goal to try and get them to have a little jam session that night. We were successful and it was so amazing! Chase had this amazing, soulful voice and Ash could pretty much play anything on the guitar - and if he didn't know the song, he only had to hear a few seconds of it before he could pick it up and play it. It was just amazing to see the two of them go at it. Oh, and if you want to hear Chase at work then you can check out his youtube channel: Iamchaseharvey. Such an awesome night with some pretty cool people!

We left Pai the next day and made our way back to Chiang Mai for 2 nights before flying down to the south of Thailand. On our last night in Chiang Mai we hit up the Saturday night walking market with Chase and Kelsea then had to say goodbye to our Canadian companions. They were making their way to Laos the next day and we were headed to the south. We absolutely loved the north of Thailand and were sad to leave, but excited to hit the beaches of the south.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo