Our primary reason to come to Ranong was to make a "visa run" by crossing the border into Myanmar briefly and re-entering Thailand. This common practice for tourists in Thailand is actually a misnomer since we had received a free 30-day entry stamp rather than a formal visa. We haggled with the boatmen at the dock to get the going price (for tourists at least) on a decrepit long tail that would motor us half an hour across the inlet separating the two countries. As the boat pulled in to the Thai departure stamping station, the boatman announced we needed to hand over an additional 50 baht per person. We said, "No thanks... Nice try, buddy!" and ignored him since we were not aware of any legitimate departure fees. The older Scottish couple also in our boat complied without protest though, so he tried again with us. I get particularly worked up about scams during times when travelers are at their most vulnerable, such as border crossings, so I got off the boat and walked up to the official in his office window with our boatman following behind me. I politely but firmly said, "I'm sorry, but I thought it was free to leave Thailand." He just looked at me and smiled, but remained silent, so I added, "I'll take that as a yes then." I returned to the boat and we were not pestered to pay any more mysterious fees for the duration of our trip. We docked in Myanmar and efficiently took care of the formalities. During a quick look around town, the hilariously naive Scottish couple had bought some off-brand cigarettes that were promoted as top quality American ones. They were a bit disappointed when they showed them to us back on the boat and we didn't recognize them. Now let's think about this, why would there be any American cigarettes in a border town in Myanmar!?!
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After returning to the mainland from a week spent on the little dive island of Koh Tao, we were hit with a full dose of Thailand's heat as we cycled north. April is reputedly the hottest month of the year. After melting along the roadside despite our proximity to the beautiful coastline, we don't disagree with that statement one bit.
Of course, the drawn-out dread of taking the night boat turned out to be much worse than the voyage itself. Instead of the nice big boat docked the night before, we were instructed to load our bikes on to a smaller older-looking boat, adding insult to the injury of not directly rolling on to the Koh Tao-bound boat twenty-four hours prior. Nonetheless, the sleeping berth was cozy without being over-crowded, although a bit warm since our designated mattresses were at the opposite end of the one air-conditioning unit. With tourists on one side and locals on the other side of an aisle lined with motorbikes plus our two beasts, to our great surprise everyone was quiet and went to sleep immediately. Before we knew it, we were docking at Koh Tao early the next morning. Still in a daze, we cycled to the southern settlement on the island of Chalok Baan Kao where we checked in to the budget-friendly Tropicana "Resort" and waited for our pre-researched dive shop to open. We had singled out New Heaven for their extensive conservation efforts and investment in the local community, but unfortunately their customer service was severely lacking when we made a simple request for a 15-liter tank for Matt. Fortunately, our back-up choice came through for us as the amiable staff at Big Blue Diving casually responded, "15-liter tank? Got it, no problem, free of charge." While they also engage in conservation work, we had some reservations about going with one of the bigger and busiest companies on the island, but we signed up for two dives the next day as a test run. Despite missing a whale shark sighting by opting for sleep over early-morning dives, we had a good experience with some easy shallow dives the following afternoon. We got a sense of the dive scene in Koh Tao as we boarded the biggest dive boat we have ever seen. This was followed by quite a surface swim to get to the actual dive site because of the queue of equally-large boats strung behind one actually tied to the mooring line. Nonetheless, our dive master Nick was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and particularly good at finding miniscule nudibranchs. Big Blue may be a mass operation, but it didn't ever feel impersonal. While the dives sites themselves were not too impressive, we were satisfied enough with the company to check out deeper and more famous dive sites with them the next morning. While the whale shark sighted at Chumphon Pinnacle the previous morning had already moved on, we found the site to be one of the most dramatic places we had ever seen underwater. With excellent visibility, we could see "anemone fields forever" covering the angular rock walls, many of them the size of table for two. Little did we know at the time that that would be our last Koh Tao dive with clear water. Our second dive, at the HTMS Sattakut 742 wreck, introduced us to the murkiness of the plankton blooms allegedly timed with the approach of the full moon. Fortunately, our dive master Steven was a character both above and below the surface and kept us entertained with his humor and antics while searching out the small stuff. The following day, we optimistically committed to an all-day boat excursion to the premier dive site in Gulf of Thailand known as Sail Rock. Unfortunately, the visibility was so poor that our dive master Ben missed the entrance to a vertical swim-through chimney as we descended. Again, our strategy was to stick close to the wall and look for the small-scale diversity of life, but it was a shame to miss the renowned beauty of the big picture. The crew adapted the day's schedule and opted to try Southwest Pinnacle rather than do a second dive on Sail Rock, but the visibility wasn't much better there either. We wrapped up the day at Shark(less) Island, supposedly named for the shape of the island resembling a giant dorsal fin. Having adjusted our expectations with the lack of good visibility, we wrapped up our diving experience with a couple more pleasant afternoon dives followed by a night dive. Some new and favorite species we spotted over the course of all of our dives were blue-spotted rays, titan triggerfish, scrawled filefish, brown banded pipefish, and my personal favorite--the yellow box fish! While overall Koh Tao may not be the best quality of diving, it certainly is some of the most affordable. After just seven dives, we reached the cheapest price bracket of less than $25 per dive. All of the diving combined with a hilly bicycle commute between our hotel and the dive shop at opposite ends of the island had not left us much time for relaxing or energy for exploring. We decided to take a non-diving day for some beach time and snorkel time. Somewhat ironically, the snorkeling led to our only sightings of a black-tipped reef shark and tremendous green turtle while on the island. Later that night, we even rallied to stay up past our bedtime in order to go to the Koh Tao institution of the Queen's Cabaret, a nightly show by extravagantly done-up kathoeys, referred to as Thailand's third gender and also known as "ladyboys." From serious to seriously sexy, we were enthralled with the variety of performances. Matt was super relieved that an obnoxious bachelor party group eliminated his personal risk of being selected for any audience participation numbers. The next day, we put our bikes on a boat for the last time in the foreseeable future and said goodbye to Koh Tao. While we certainly enjoyed our week there, we didn't exactly fall in love with it either. With a younger party crowd vibe, we may have been more enamored had we visited ten years ago. That said, had we stuck around longer--perhaps for a full-length conservation diving course or dive master training program--we may have connected with the established dive community and changed our perspective as well. With the sheer numbers of divers in the water and one-in-the-same tourists consuming scarce water while generating waste on land, Koh Tao is far from pristine. However, with the multitude of dive shops and local economy so dependent on diving, there seems to be a general "before it's gone" awareness. It seems organized efforts are largely spearheaded by dedicated longtimers who have witnessed Koh Tao's exponential development firsthand. Beach and reef clean ups, artificial reef construction, and tree-planting for erosion control might not be enough in the face of rapidly warming and acidifying oceans, but it is more than one might expect from a popular backpacker destination.
As it turned out, putting the bikes on a bus was far less traumatizing than on the boats. Our ride toward Bangkok was uneventful until the bus began dying a slow death on the highway. It crept along at maybe 15 mph on the shoulder for what seemed like a couple of hours before another bus came to rescue us. Of course, we were the last ones on the new bus after dealing with re-situating our bikes and bags and had to sit at opposite ends of the bus from each other, since apparently previously assigned seat numbers go out the window if an unexpected transfer is involved.
We took this breakdown, combined with what seems a disproportionately high rate of motorized transport issues during the rare times we have used them on this trip, as karmic punishment for not staying true to the pedal power. However, the important part is that we eventually arrived. I have to admit that until the day we get run over, which does seem inevitable, I actually enjoy the adrenaline of cycling through Asian mega-cities, especially at rush hour. We survived the gauntlet one more time and made it to our pre-booked Chinese-style hotel, which did indeed feel like we had somehow found our way back into China. We had planned to take our bikes in to one of the city's many quality shops for an overdue tune up, but we soon became fixated on the idea of complete overhauls for a bargain price. We didn't have the required week to spare, so we begged our bicycles to hold up until our return to Bangkok when they could be properly rewarded for all of their hard work. Instead, we went on an all-day across-the-city scavenger hunt for propane gas canisters compatible with our camp stove, finally finding success at a strange flea-market style shopping mall. After marveling at the accuracy with which the shop owner had recreated a mini-REI, we bought four of them just to make our efforts worthwhile. The most painful part of the ten-hour bus ride from Bangkok to Krabi was getting up at 5:30am to cycle to the southern bus terminal, but at least the deserted streets made for an easy ride in our grogginess. However, I didn't think it was possible to sweat so much before the sun had even risen. About twenty-four hours after arriving in Krabi town, my little sister Danielle and her boyfriend Erik found us eating dinner at the night market after flying in and checking in to our hotel. The reason we had come to Thailand was finally a reality! The next day we took a longtail taxi out to Railay, a peninsula accessible only by boat due to its dramatic karst formations rendering road construction unfeasible. The beauty and intrigue of Ao Nang lived up to its reputation, despite being by far the most crowded beach we had ever seen in Thailand. We respectfully appreciated the caves lined with hundreds of wooden phalluses next to flower-laden shrines where Thais in tour-boat life jackets knelt in prayer, not far from beginner climbers awkwardly picking their route up limestone cliffs. We swam beyond the reach of the sand under an imposing overhang to a wooden walkway that led in to a complex of cool caverns. Leaving this beach to continue our exploration, we witnessed the sad habituation of a troupe of macaque monkeys as one tourist stuck a GoPro in their faces while another couple donated their piƱa coladas to the assertively grabby primates. In contrast, while wrapping up lunch at an inland cafe, Erik noticed a Dusky Langur monkey whose dietary preference for vegetation makes them much more aloof concerning human activities. This species immediately became my favorite when I spied a precious baby with bright golden fur that was such a contrast to the dark coats of the adults with remarkable white patches on their faces. After scrambling over some rock outcrops to get to the hippie haven of Tonsai beach, we were lucky enough to see an extended family of them hanging out in an as-of-yet undeveloped tract of land amongst all of the Rasta-colored mushroom milkshake bars. We just stuck to a boring ol' bottle of beer to accompany some sunbathing and swimming before making the scramble back over to West Beach. It was quite an iconic sight as the late afternoon sun hit rows of longtails tethered in the shallows with karsts pointing skyward as book ends to the powdery white sand beach. But the low angle of the sun indicated we were overdue to catch the last taxi boat of the day back to Krabi. Luckily for us, the boatmen operate on island time as well. After some careful consideration of the many tempting options for our next destination, we headed to Koh Yao Noi, minimally developed for tourism compared to its famous and overrun neighbors Phuket and Koh Phi Phi. A taxi, ferry, and another taxi brought us to the nicely furnished bungalows of Coconut Corner. The place is owned by an outgoing and smiley young Muslim couple who seemed representative of the general population of the island: very friendly, very laid back, and almost entirely Muslim. Koh Yao Noi has likely been passed over by the crowds because locals have opted to stick to traditional island life over developing and promoting their little slice of paradise. That is slowly changing, but the shallow murky waters off of the beaches, especially at low tide, will likely protect it from the impacts of reaching world-class status. On the other hand, we easily worked around this limitation with the generous sponsorship of Mom and Dad Fagre by taking an all-day boat tour with Captain Bao, a friend of the Coconut Corner's owners. In his longtail, we visited at least five different karst islets with gorgeous beaches, but the highlight was motoring through a narrow gap in the cliffs to enter a turquoise lagoon surrounded by mangroves lining the towering walls on all sides. It was perfectly still, at least until we jumped in from the bow of the boat, and perfectly peaceful, at least until the other boats started up their engines to depart. Other highlights were the authentic Thai-Muslim meals we enjoyed al fresco with sand between our toes, such as the amazing concoction of Mussaman curry. For Dani and Erik, it was a birder's dream right from their front porch and Erik even got to fulfill his goal of seeing an impressively-horned water buffalo, with the bonus of a calf by her side. With so much to do and so little time, we left Koh Yao Noi after two nights. Dani had decided to get a scuba diving certification on Koh Lanta with their remaining time in Thailand. Matt and I would also join them there, but first we had to stay an extra day in Krabi town to get an extension of our initial entry stamp in our passports. We accomplished this without complication and then proceeded to do what we promised to Phallus Belt that we would never do again: we put our bikes on a boat. We were not given any grief, but we did have to bargain down a surcharge that was simply disproportionate to the amount of space a bicycle takes up on a spacious passenger ferry. Perhaps it was actually helpful that we had endured the abuse of Phallus Belt early on; after him, dealing with anyone else is hardly a hassle. Erik met us at the pier on Koh Lanta and after lunch at a stilted restaurant over the water in Baan Salidan, we popped in to Hidden Depths, an excellent environmentally-proactive dive center, to check on Dani's studious progress getting through her Open Water manual. They were staying not far from the dive shop, but with having our bicycles, we opted to commute back and forth for meet ups from Klong Dao, the first beach south of town. We settled in to a place that we really wanted to like, but being located right next to a stinky canal of putrid water that slowly trickled on to the beach made it difficult. We felt bad for the friendly owners as maintenance of the canal was under the jurisdiction of the local government and their petitions had thus far gone unacknowledged. Pity alone was not enough to compel us to stick it out though and the next day we relocated to a lovely place appropriately called Hans' Bungalows, since Swedes mostly made up the first wave of tourists to wash over Koh Lanta back in the day. With Dani in her dive course all day and Erik doing some fun dives as well, we met up in the evenings for dinner and sharing about our respective days. On our last day together, we joined them on the boat for our first dives since our honeymoon in Hawai'i in 2012. Once we passed our refresher course skills and were reoriented to breathing underwater, it felt great to be diving again. Our dive master Erika was a joy to follow, the coral was vibrant, and we spotted many new species for us, the most notable being a couple of resting leopard sharks and a black and white banded sea snake. On the boat ride back after two dives, we got to congratulate Dani on her new certification! The exciting day also had a melancholy undertone for all of us. For the previous week or so, our mom had been keeping us updated on the status of our Uncle Rocky who had been suffering from long term damage caused by radiation treatment of laryngeal cancer. That morning we received the news that he had peacefully passed away after two days of at-home hospice care following an intensive hospital stay. While we breathed from air tanks as we voluntarily immersed ourselves in water, it seemed particularly poignant to consider how his body fought for every last breath of supplemental oxygen with his fluid-filled lungs on dry land. It was far from fair, a fact of life that neither tropical paradise nor travel protected us from. Uncle Rocky, one of the most genuinely caring souls to ever grace the planet, is certainly missed, to say the least. This was also our last evening together, so we made a grand finale of it by taking a truck taxi to the other side of the island to wander the streets of Koh Lanta's historic old town. Matt was finally successful in his quest to order pineapple fried rice that actually came in a carved out pineapple and Danielle finally settled on an elephant t-shirt that didn't look like it was sponsored by the Republican Party, being that Thailand's national flag colors are also red, white, and blue. Our time together had gone by quickly, but the week we spent with Danielle and Erik was without question a fun and memorable one. We departed from the Lumbini Buddha Garden hotel with thick fog limiting visibility, our goodbye from the Terai, I suppose. It was not until we began our ascent through Nepal's middle hills that we rose above it and could see the winding road before us. We had an early lunch in the town of Tansen, where the streets rival the steepness of the steepest in San Francisco. A little way down the road, we were stopped at a police checkpoint. We watched through the car windows as our driver handed over his papers and the police chief stuck them at the bottom of the pile, and was then ignored for a long time. We came up with all sorts of scenarios about how much trouble he must be in and why. After waiting somewhat patiently for almost an hour, we were suddenly on our way again. As it turns out, our vehicle did not have the proper license plates for transporting tourists. The fine was a nominal $10, but the delay arose from the police not having the proper version of a paper ticket to issue and having to ride a motorbike somewhere far away to bring back the correct form! Oh, Nepal... A couple of hours later, the car began lurching and sputtering, giving Ramas just enough time to pull over to a relatively wide spot after a hairpin turn. A quick assessment revealed that this was a classic out-of-gas situation, but why it had happened in the first place made less sense. Ramas hoofed it back to the town that we had fortunately passed only a few kilometers before--without stopping for gas--and we pieced it together. For whatever reason, he did not have any money with him, having asked us to front the police ticket fee and then asking again for money to buy gas. He was hoping to make it to Pokhara before filling up, but perhaps due to the engine leaking some gas the day before, subsequently fixed with a string, it was lower than expected. He returned with a gas canister and the car started right up. (We later learned that our travel agency had given him sufficient cash funds before departure, but he somehow forgot it at home. Regardless, we were easily reimbursed for the ticket and gas!) As we eventually approached Pokhara, I began eyeing the sinking sun. We had only one night to stay at the Peace Dragon Lodge up on the ridge line overlooking Phewa Lake with an imposing panorama of peaks beyond it. To arrive in the dark would defeat the entire point, which was why I was so insistent we got a much earlier start than I ever imagined would be necessary. It looked like we were going to be okay until Ramas drove right past the road leading up to the World Peace Pagoda, despite me telling him that our hotel was up there. Wondering if there was another approach to the ridge line, I waited until it was clear that he was taking us in to town before inquiring again. Rather than taking my word for it, he wanted to call the hotel, so I dug up the reservation, but of course the phone number on it did not work. I finally convinced him that his instructions to take us to Lakeside were a mistake and that I was sure the hotel was up on the ridge line. I do understand why he was hesitant; only certain vehicles are licensed to take tourists to sightseeing locations in the Pokhara area and our hotel drop-off point was the parking lot of one of those attractions. We had had enough trouble with that already that day! It was still daylight as we unloaded the car, but the golden hues indicated that sunset was imminent and we were not at the hotel yet. We still had hundreds of stairs to climb! Kindly, a cafe owner, who had the correct phone number, rang the hotel and they sent down two strapping young men for the luggage. I raced ahead with the remainder and Matt cracked the whip behind Esther and Mike. They would see this sunset if it was the last thing they did! Once at the Peace Dragon Lodge, we forced them up three more staircases without pause. If they had not already been breathless, the view they were hit with from the rooftop terrace would have definitely made them so. The mountains were the clearest we had ever seen them, bathed in subtle yet gorgeous sunset colors that were reflected on the lake. Perhaps because it was literally an all-day uphill battle to arrive at this moment just in the nick of time, it felt that much more valuable. We rose for sunrise as well, beautiful of course, but not nearly as stunning as the sunset the evening before. Phew! After breakfast, we climbed up to the World Peace Pagoda that can be seen from Pokhara and learned a little bit about the movement to build these monuments across the globe. Then we enjoyed the rarity of a leisurely morning until our sanctioned transport arrived to take us to the Annapurna Eco-Village in the village of Astam, tucked away in the foothills at the base of the grand peaks looming over the region. It was a pleasant surprise to get stuck behind a small street parade promoting organic agriculture as we left Pokhara. Astam was one of the few places on our Kohncation tour that is not designated as a UNESCO site, but I believe the charming village would be deserving of the title. The team of brothers and their wives running the Annapurna Eco-Village are certainly doing their part to keep village life vibrant and self-sustaining, which we would learn from our hosts is an ever increasing challenge in the face of urban and international migration of primarily young men to take exploitive work in Kathmandu, India, the Middle East, and beyond. With little to no support from the government for basic services, increasing cost of living with limited opportunities to generate income, and technological connectivity creating a dissatisfaction with traditional rural life, the integrity of villages throughout the Himalaya is at risk. With pro-active efforts to strengthen the village's assets, perhaps Astam will become an example of not just adapting to inevitable change, but ending up the better for it. After enjoying a tasty lunch featuring produce from their own garden, Bishwo Adhikari, one of the founding brothers, toured us around the property to point out eco-friendly features such as a sand water filtration system, solar panels, and the aforementioned organic garden. All the while, a front-row view of Macchupuchre, Nepal's sacred Fishtail Mountain, competed for our attention. It seemed so close that one could reach out and prick a finger on its pointy double summit. We then continued down the hill to the local school to which Annapurna Eco-Village lends support. This was particularly exciting for Esther and Mike who spent their entire career as dedicated teachers and school administrators. The younger grades had already been dismissed, so we got to peek into the basic classrooms and meet some of the teachers, as well as play with a couple of youngsters hanging around outside. A basketball court, of all things, was under construction, and a relatively well-equipped computer lab was the after-school hang out where kids surfed the web and practiced typing using a program. Both of these resources, as well as a library of donated books, are the result of collaborating with international groups for aid. "Government schools," as they are called, are typically the only option in rural villages, yet the inept government can not be relied upon to provide adequate or consistent funds to operate. The success of a school and quality of education falls to resourceful teachers and committed community members to pick up the slack. No doubt, this sounds all too familiar to underserved communities in the United States and around the world, but considering Nepal's government is believed to one of the most corrupt in the world, I would hazard that they take educational injustice to an unfortunate extreme. It is amazing how quickly the time passes when relaxing in a peaceful place. It seems we were just getting in to the rhythm of greeting the day with sunrise on Macchupuchre, sipping the signature herbal "Eco-tea," taking walks through the village, and playing bagh chal--a Nepalese board game involving tiger and goat pieces. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Pokhara, where we had a day of being typical tourists doing what tourists do best in Lakeside: eating! Much to Mike's delight in particular, Pokhara abounds in some decent Western food options that we did not hesitate to indulge in. We did take a break for some "exercise" by taking a hilarious pink paddle boat out on the lake, followed by a nap-inducing happy hour along the sunny lakeshore, as well as the inevitable T-shirt shopping that comes with traveling with Mike. Mid-bargaining session, a minor earthquake shook the shops and many people ran out into the street. We waited for aftershocks, but everything returned to normal. However, the last time we had traveled with Esther and Mike, we had also felt an earthquake. If it happens on the next trip, it will be an official tradition! We completed our counter-clockwise loop through central Nepal the next day when we returned to Kathmandu, only wishing we had longer than our lunch break to spend at Bandipur en route. The side trip to the historically preserved gem of a town resulted in our arrival to Kathmandu in the thick of rush hour, which was eye-opening as to just how congested the city can get and how there are really no rules of driving conduct whatsoever. Luckily for us, we had Ramas to calmly negotiate the chaos. The next three nights were a treat to spend at the eco-conscious completely plastic-free Kantipur Temple House, serving as a safe haven from the craziness of bustling Kathmandu. It was a full day of sightseeing the next day when we took a local taxi to neighboring Patan to compare its Durbar Square with those of Kathmandu and Bhaktapur. It was "same, same, but different," to borrow a ubiquitous pan-Asian phrase that appropriately describes our reaction. The compact square had more densely clustered temples, which resulted in a more dramatic effect. We were equally fascinated with the multitudes of plastic jugs lined up behind a barely trickling water spout at an adjacent public tap in use for centuries. Young girls and women must have been waiting for hours for their turn to fill, indicating that many homes lack running water despite being in the center of Nepal's urbanity. After some street wandering that led to a lovely modern-meets-traditional lunch at a boutique hotel, we were ready to move on to Swayambhunath, more commonly known as The Monkey Temple. Esther and Mike dubbed it Mt. Everest, and there were indeed as many steps as monkeys, which to say there were a lot of both. Conveniently, watching the antics of the urban monkeys provided a good excuse to stop every few steps, as long as you have nothing that resembles food or food packaging in which case you had better run up the stairs before the monkeys attack you. Even without this form of motivation, we successfully made it up to the stupa which was also "same, same, but different" from the one we visited in Boudha three weeks prior. However, the views of the expanse of Kathmandu capped in its own layer of smog were captivating and as always the people-watching was half of the experience. That evening we invited our trekking guide Dawa to join us for dinner at the Thamel House, which features Newari food with a traditional dance show. He brought his adorable six-year-old son Karma Dorje who added to the entertainment of the evening as well. It was particularly fun for both Dawa and Matt's parents to meet in person since they had seen each other via FaceTime when we were trekking and had a good enough internet connection for a video chat. Kohncation was soon coming to a close and we were all feeling a bit worn out, but we pushed through the next day with some Kathmandu street exploring heading toward Durbar Square. By the time we actually reached it, we were on sensory overload and instead opted to take one last form of transport for the trip. Esther had joked about our multi-modal journey: planes, minivans, hiking, horse riding, elephant riding, jeeps, tiny taxis, canoes, bicycles, and a paddle boat. The list would simply not be complete until we added the bicycle rickshaw. With Mike and Esther in one and Matt and me in another, the guys pedaling seemed to be racing until their dude got off and began pushing the rickshaw on the slightest of inclines. Whether Big Mike was actually too much to handle or this was a ploy to get sympathy for charging extra money, I'm not sure. (We were already paying a generous "tourist rate" and our guy ruined any chances of a tip for either of them by unsuccessfully trying to switch the total price we had agreed upon to the price for each rickshaw when it came time to pay.) The rickshaws dropped us off at the Garden of Dreams, restored with historical accuracy in mind from its glory days during the reign of the Ranas. While we could still hear the horns of traffic blaring on the other side of the wall, the garden felt like we had suddenly stepped into another elegant world of yesteryear, at least for royalty and the elite. Mike and Matt relaxed on cushions spread out on a terraced lawn, I wandered and Esther took it all in from a classic park bench. That evening we celebrated Esther's birthday at an eclectic sort-of-American-sort-of-European themed restaurant. Totally unprompted, the staff put on a recording of the birthday song in English and clapped along while bringing out a dessert on the house. The accuracy of the tradition surprised all of us. After running a few last minute errands around Thamel the next morning, Mike and Esther squeezed in to one of the more decrepit tiny taxis we had ever seen and we waved goodbye, hoping that they did indeed make it all of the way to the airport. It had been nearly a month of amazing adventures that had gone by so fast while at the same time each day felt so full. We were impressed with how wholeheartedly Esther and Mike took on the challenges of travel in a country very different from our own, whether it was trying spicy food, using squatter toilets with a bucket flush, or say, riding an elephant. Their willingness to try anything we put them up to resulted in a rewarding and enriching experience for all of us. Simply put, we were proud of them. On the other hand, we had been so focused on living Kohncation in the moment that we had not made any plans for what would happen when it was over. That same afternoon, we settled in to a cafe to begin to figure out our next move. I opened a very timely email from my sister Danielle and read, "Hey...Erik and I are going to be traveling in Thailand in a couple of weeks. Want to join us?" I looked over at Matt and said, "Well, our decision-making process could be very straightforward if we want it to be. My sister is wondering if we can meet up with her in Thailand." Matt was quiet for a little while, then simply said, "Sure, why not?" I guess we won't be needing those three-month visas for Nepal after all... |
Casey and MattIn search of threatened places, cultures, and species…before they're gone. Archives
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