Back to vacation mode in Khao Lak

We said goodbye to the Aussies yesterday and went to Khao Lak, which is the city where the boat from the Similans trip (in January) was departing from, North of Phuket. We spoiled ourselves with a little stay at a five-star hotel. The next day, still in hyperactive mode from racing, PV and I went elephant-trekking in the nearby Ko Sok National park. Our elephant was a 34 year old female named Thandee; she used to be a wood-logging elephant somewhere in the North of Thailand; there were still scars on her forehead from when her old trainers used to hit her (with spears and knives!) to make her work more. Thank God she is here now at an elephant-trekking facility!

We learned a few things from the little guide who accompanied us in the Songthaew to the elephant trek site. Back in 2004, they had 8 elephants at the time; the morning of Dec 26 2004, at 5 o'clock in the morning, 2 elephants started crying, which was very unusual. Then 10 minutes before the first tsunami waves hit, some elephants managed to get out of their chains and climb up the hill. Business has been bad ever since so they had to rent out the rest of their elephants, but it is slowly picking up. They are acquiring new elephants slowly - only 2 right now. Each elephant usually has his own 'mahood' or trainer to whom he responds best. Thandee's trainer was out of town so there was another guy who was doing it, but we could certainly feel how passive-aggressive she was - she was really lagging behind going uphill.

thandeecorrected, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

This is the end of my stay in Thailand this time and I am saying goodbye to RP, Vini and PV to head off to Malaysia with other diving friends in my other favourite playing ground: Sipadan. My housing disappeared in the fifth dimension in my new apartment so you will have to put up with pictures taken with the old camera which will hopefully still work.

A little interlude

My friend SCG from Malaysia has sent me this link. It is horrible to watch; all the worse for all of you my diving friends. Please sign the petition, for the Japanese government has been breaking international law about this for a while.

Dolphin killing in Taijin

Please sign the petition here

The end of the Amazing Race

Greetings from Khao Lak!

The Amazing Race ended yesterday with a very busy day. We basically spent the day at Railey Beach, near Krabi. The day consisted of a lot of physical challenges. The first involved swimming 400 m out to sea. Then there was a time challenged based on a (supposedly) Thai game where the teams were attached by the feet and had to perform various acts like finding Menthos in a pile of corn starch, eating a whole bunch of Durian-flavoured cookies, cutting a pineapple the Thai way and then tying it to a tree, then eating it without using hands. Here are a few pictures.

Trying to eat pineapple without hands

mapineappl, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Corn starch and pineapple on RP

rpineapple, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

I didn’t do so well, not having trained for a while (yes my LiveWellFit friend, I will get back to it!) . Poor Vini had to eat all the Durian-flavoured cookies followed by a complete chili pepper (!) and was sick twice afterwards, quite understandably so. PV impressed us by swallowing a WHOLE chili pepper in less than 5 seconds.

Then we had to hike in jungle between two beaches, climbing up and down. Finally we had to attempt rock-climbing a practice wall (none of us had climbed very much before). RP managed to get to the top on both sides, and made it look easy although it was his first time rock-climbing! PV managed to beat me and get the first stop! Finally we had to sea-kayak across the bay with one partner being blindfolded. Apparently PV was paddling blindfolded while speaking loudly “this is the stupidest thing I’ve done, I can't believe I'm doing this” etc etc… Other sea-kayakers on the bay were baffled at seeing us do so, let me tell you! We had to go to the Princess cave, realize that it was a Linga that was the symbol there (a phallic symbol!), paddle blindfolded back to the main beach and then run on rocks to the flag. The final bonus was that throughout the day, we had had to carry an egg around with us all the time and not break it while doing all these fun-filled activities! That was kind of funny, especially during the rock-climbing and sea-kayaking part!
Overall it was an exhausting day!

Railey Beach was also very pretty. The clouds came in the afternoon to give us a nice sunset:

railey, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

At the end of the day, we had the pleasure to submit our tour organizers Tina and Damian to our own little Race. We had them running all over the hotel with clues. It was quite fun to sit on the other side for once! Vini had the Jackfruit Food Challenge for them.

In the end, well, I must say that we finished sixth. Mostly because we hadn’t played our Wild Card very well and that the last day was mostly physical challenges that we weren’t really up to. But really, it was all in good fun! And the winning team, McHappy, will buy a brick at the Ronald McDonald’s house in Melbourne with the winning prize and put all of the trip’s team names on it. So really it is all for charity!

We all talked about the highlights of the trip. It was a nice contrast to two weeks ago in Saigon when we all introduced ourselves and had mentioned the craziest thing that we’d done. Most people had outdone the craziest thing in their life – need we compare skydiving/bungee jumping vs. eating locusts and tarantulas???

Racing in Bangkok

Greetings from Southern Thailand,

After yesterday, the Tortoise and the Hare finished in first place, won the Cambodia segment, and we slipped into fifth. Since all the other teams haven't used their Wild Cards yet (doubling your points for the day) and we have, we can only expect to fight for our spot. But hey, it's all in good fun!

So when we got into Bangkok, there was a manifestation anti-coup on the streets of Bangkok. The democratically voted government of Thaksin was ousted in January by a military government, but then again, the coup had been approved by the King and Thaksin's reputation was mostly of corruption, so it's not that simple. Since the 1930's, Thailand has seen its share of peaceful coups...

anticoup, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Everybody's favourite colour is the royal yellow, to wish King Rama IX, age 89, a long life. I hadn't noticed it in previous stays in Thailand but the yellow t-shirts were everywhere!

The day of racing in Bangkok had us run and sweat everywhere, from Khao Sarn Road all the way to Siam Center and beyond. We had to use boats, tuk-tuks, buses and skytrain.

At the Grand Palace.

grand palace, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Crossing the Chao Phraya on a ferry

chao phraya, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

A monk on a cell phone at Wat Pho. We went around the Reclining Buddha about... three times looking for our checkpoint!

monkcell, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Offering garlands at the Erawan elephant shrine.

magarland, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Required photo of a "Khatoey", who is, of course, a ladyboy. We found (with some help) the only ladyboy in Khao Sarn Road! Yellow Royal T-shirt again!

khatoey, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

And Vini had to paint his nails for the bonus points:

vininails, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Because of several detours and because we didn't plan well, we arrived last today. But we shot many of the required pictures and paid attention to the answers, so maybe we can gather some points there.

We took the overnight train at Hualamphong Station last night to head towards the beaches of Krabi, which is located in my favourite playing (diving) grounds: Southern Thailand.

Crossing into Thailand

We left Siem Reap by taxi one hot morning and had to race to the border. The checkpoint was just past Poipet at the Cambodian border into Aranya Pathet into Thailand. The road within Cambodia was awful, pure unpaved dust with tons of holes. Remnants of the Cambodian Civil War, I assume. Here are some of the required pictures that we needed before our checkpoint in Thailand:

Eating roasted frogs in West Baray, just out of Siem Reap. These Cambodians eat anything!

frogs, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Fisherman on the way, on the highway

fisherman, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Fixing the (very bad) road

vini road, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

A vehicle that we wouldn't ride for the life of us!

vehicle, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Riding pushbikes

pushbikes, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Poney and cart, still common in Cambodia

poney, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Scene of Cambodian countryside

cambodia, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Crossing into Thailand at Aranya Pathet was a huge contrast. Paved roads, new vehicles, food without keratin exoskeletons on the streets, and less poor-looking people and no omnipresence of the war or genocides. Cambodia was the country that I knew the least on this trip and on which I've read and learned the most. I wouldn't mind coming back whether to explore Angkor Wat or to do some humanitarian work, which I'm sure they still need.

Angkor Wat, the pride and symbol of Cambodia

After the day racing in Phnom Penh, we rested during the evening and took our chosen mode of transport to Siem Reap, the touristic city next to Angkor Wat and probably by now Cambodia's main source of income. Our two teams chose the luxury public bus, the Mekong Express. The bus was nice and comfortable, it came with its own hostess wearing a Cambodian silk uniform, and they fed us Western-style pastry. We stopped in Skuon, a town famous for its crispy deep-fried spiders. Yup, the same ones that Rob crunched into very happily in Phnom Penh. Apparently the spiders aren't captured, they are bred somewhere close to town. Brr… I didn't try them this time either.
We made it to Siem Reap in one piece after 6 hours on the bus. One of the pictures required was a monk holding our mascot - we had to drive into the Wat in Siem Reap and caught young monks washing their tunics in the sun - this is the picture for the other team, the Turtle and the Hare

littlemunk, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

The next day was the race challenge around Angkor Wat. We started the day very early with the sunrise on the main Angkor Wat temple.

angkorsunrise, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

This leg wasn't timed, we just had to answer the clues and find the appropriate bas-reliefs on the temple, and shoot a few Tomb Raider style pictures. I thought of adding pomelos under my t-shirts to be more Angelina-Jolie like but we didn't come across any. Angkor Wat is indeed a HUGE site, with temples in all styles and sizes, and getting around isn't easy in the scorching heat. We had to climb all the way up the major temple of Angkor Wat:

pvclimbing, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

We took the time to appreciate the details of the bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat like all the pretty Apsara (dancing nymphs of the heavens)

apsara, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

My favourite temple, aside from the huge Angkor Wat complex, was Ta Prohm and its temple half-eaten by the forest.

taprohm, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

taprohm2, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

We shot a few Tomb Raider piccies:

angelina, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

We had to do some Khmer Classical dance at the Terrace of the Elephants:

terraceelephants, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Looking for pictures of tourists in strange outfits (required for the race) we stumbled upon a few wedding parties shooting pictures at the entrance of Angkor Wat:

cambodianwedding, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

And this is our winner for the worse-dressed tourist!

worsetourist, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Vini also found and played for his latest orchestra, the Landmine Survivor's band:

landminemusician, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

We finished the day by visiting the Landmine Museum, opened by a local Cambodian called Akira who was forced to work for the Khmer Rouge, then the Vietnamese army, then the Cambodian army, then the UN. He is now raising money to teach people how to de-mine the country as there are still 1 million landmines around Cambodia, and they claim lives and limbs on a daily basis. Some decommisionned mines:

landmines, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Akira trains civilians to de-mine the country. It costs 30 USD to train 1 person to remove mines for 1 month, including food and board. This is his website for donations:
The Landmine Relief Fund

The next day, I wanted to return to Angkor Wat for more history but my gut started acting out. So instead, I am taking it easy, updating the blog, lounging by the pool, and reading a bit. We are leaving Cambodia by taxi tomorrow to cross into Thailand.

A very dark piece of recent history

I thought that this deserved a post on its own. On the last leg of today's race, we had to go to Choeng Ek, the Pol Pot killing fields where a lot of the Khmer Rouge genocide was carried out between 1975 and 1979. We walked around a little to honour the souls of those innocent killed. Notice the monks who came to pay their respects.
I can't even begin to describe the horror that we all felt when we walked amongst the shallow graves, or when we saw the tree against which Pol Pot's soldiers beat children.

genocide1, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

genocide2, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

I bought 'Surviving the Killing Fields', a first-hand account of the genocide.

The long awaited food challenge!!!

Cheers again from Phnom Penh!

I forgot to mention that yesterday, we finished our tour in a really nice restaurant where streetchildren are taken in by a nice couple of Northern Cambodians, fed and lodged, and they get to work in the restaurant to help out. At the end of the supper they all decided to come sing and party with us, because one of the members of the group had had her birthday celebrated with a very special cake. It was quite a sight to have all of us dancing, foreheads covered with sweat, on a terrasse along the Tonle Sap river in Phnom Penh, along with very happy Cambodian children singing... Jingle Bells!!!

Today was another race day, after our 'off' day yesterday. We started at yet another orphanage ran by restaurant owners since 2004, where they teach the kids the traditional Khmer dance along with school, English and Japanese. During Pol Pot's brutal communist regime, around 2 million Cambodians were slaughtered in the killing fields, most of whom were intellectuals, guardians of the culture ie. dancers and artists, and educated people. So it turns out that very few people are left to teach the traditional Khmer dancing. One of the legacies is that the street addresses in Phnom Penh are not at all in order - number 124 could follow number 33 follwed by 543. Thankfully this particular orphanage, called NCCLA (New Cambodian Children's Life Association) has the resources and the children have been on tour dancing in Japan and elsewhere in the country. We, on the other hand, had to entertain them and teach them something by singing and mime; Vini and I picked the Passe-Partout song 'Brosse, brosse, brosse, j'me brosse les dents' and handed a few toothbrushes along the way. I had had some training dealing with such kids in Peru in 1994 and it all came back. I also was not surprised at all to see lents in most kids' heads, to our poor Aussies' dismay :).

nccl, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

More about the NCCLA can be found on their website: The New Cambodian Children's Life Association.

Then we had to race through Phnom Penh the rest of the afternoon. The 4 of us teamed up and did the course, which involved the museum, the market and... eating bugs. My dad had mentioned that he'd eaten grasshoppers when he was a kid and well, now I know what it feels like! 10 points were awarded for any bug - bamboo worm, locusts, grasshoppers, coackroaches... and 30 points were awarded for black spiders. All insects are like, deep fried or baked, and really only taste crunchy. I was able to take in 10 locusts and Vini the same number, and we ended up the wimpiest team!!! PV crunched into a bunch of locusts as well, and Rob took 3 spiders! Kudos to him!!! Photos are here to prove it.

locust1, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

malvbug, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

rpspider, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

First leg of the race done!

Greetings from Phnom Penh!

Phew! First leg of the race done, we've now left Saigon. If you want Vini's account, check out our (his!) blog here.

Saigon was interesting. On our off day we joined the friends from PUV and Chin and PY who were here to visit; I managed to gather enough Vietnamese to get my new zipper pants shortened and had time to go fix myself a new pedicure (royal metallic blue, to match my Teva's!) and manicure. Of course, because of who I am, a visit to Viet Nam is always odd and stirs weird stuff. Compared to Hanoi in 2004 though, less people came up with the comment that I spoke bad Vietnamese and how come I have a hard time counting money when comes the time to pay... It's hard to explain to them that my Vietnamese stopped at age 3 and that at the time I only knew how to count until 20... So we saw mostly district 1 of Saigon, I looked around for stuff to buy but it resembled more touristy stuff from Bangkok than the traditional craftsmanship and silks that I had found in Hanoi, and this time we went to the Vietnam War Museum and the Reunification Palace with the helicopter in the background, where the Southern Vietnamese were finally defeated in 1975. The Reunification palace was bland, some non descript architecture from the 70's with the matching phones (Vini would always notice the phone colours: pink, beige, khaki, which were matching the walls...); the basement was a bunker full of old maps and artefacts, by and large the most interesting part of the museum. The Vietnam War Museum was a little more difficult to digest, with some pictures from the 60's that won Pulitzer prizes - a mother dragging her children across the Saigon river to avoid American attacks, and the famous little girl running around naked after having been burnt by napalm - she now lives in Toronto apparently. There is a horrible picture of an American soldier looking very satisfied lifting the remains of a Viet Cong - namely a head, some skin and an arm all attached together. The torture rooms under the Diem regime were also atrocious-looking, but I can *only* imagine what the communists are NOT telling us about their own, probably even worse, tortures - they spend their time depicting the tortures under Diem (free South before 1975) regime and mention nothing of their own means of obtaining information. The whole museum is anti-American propaganda and there is absolutely no mention (of course) of the communist-led concentration camps and the millions of boat people who fled after Saigon was defeated in 1975. It's as if us Viet Kieu (expat Vietnamese) do not exist. Of course I did not live the war; and yet, the strange thought comes that I wouldn't be who I am and where I am if it hadn't been for that atrocity. Like I was telling jokingly RP and PV, maybe I would be the girl selling them jackfruit on the street!!! I suppose most of us second-generation immigrants go through a roots-shaking phase like this when we visit our parents' original country.

Onto a lighter topic. To answer the questions, this is a real Amazing Race although it is not filmed on television. The teams are all competing against each other and we have no clue what we have to do until we open our first envelope in the morning. There are 4 other Australian teams, all of whom have fundraised $AUD 5000 to join this trip. We got away with just paying for it (and 500$ went to an Australian charity) because we're foreign. And there is a 1000$ prize at the end for the team who comes in first; we of course are planning on giving it away to a charity as well... we're really here for fun (as you may have guessed!). The real bottom line according to PV and I is that RP and Vini are basically competing against each other and the rest of us are just there for the ride and to keep them away from killing each other. :)

The first day was a half-day race only through the streets of Saigon. It consisted of riding the city in a cyclo, as shown...

vinicyclo, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

We used that mode of transportation all day to find a few landmarks. We also went joining a hackeysack game with the Saigonese at Tao Dan park, and then we ended up in the Vietnam Museum of war again to answer some specific questions about some of the war photographers. Vini and I came in first this time.

1stsaigon, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Then we were brought to a restaurant where we observed some cooking by a lady called Chi Nghia who teaches to expats and local private cooks. I must say her cha gio (imperial rolls) was excellent and her shrimps in tamarind were delectable as well. The banh trang (rice paper) used for the cha gio is very different from the one back home and is flexible, so I had a good time rolling it before she deep fried my (still ugly) rolls (scuze Mom, j'ai pas le don!). Then we were off to the My Khanh resort, next to Canh Tho in the Mekong delta, where we spent the night.

Shores of the Mekong delta

cantho, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

At supper there was a food challenge which involved mango with chili, dried squid and bird's nest drink; I was the designated Hoover vaccum but had to chew so came in fourth. The bonus challenge was incubated duck eggs, which of course I am used to eating, so I had to do for my team; the strange thing is that they did supply me with the appropriate leaf (rau rau) but put lime in it, which was very strange. Everybody else was grossed out by it but RP did it! I had to tell the gang that my sister has a Cambodian friend whose Quebecois boyfriend is now trained to appreciate incubated eggs, but somehow, they didn't seem to believe me!

The second day of the race was a little hairier. Because of my slight advantage of having a very bad Vietnamese, Vini thought that it would be a good idea to play our Wild Card ie. to double our points for the day. Well, we didn't complete half the photos that we were supposed to take; at least we made it to the checkpoint, and left the hotel at a decent time. We were on long longtail boats on the Mekong to a floating market in Cai Rang, looking for qua chuoi (banana) and dragonfruit, and water buffalow. Vini had to perch himself atop a Monkey Bridge (cau khi; I had forgotten the word for Monkey so had to mimic it to the boat driver who understood!);

Vini perched on the cau khi

caukhi, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

We found a few 'I can't believe it's still floating' boats.

stillafloat, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Then we took xe om (jumping behind some guy on motorcycle, with the backpack on his knees in the front) back to Can Tho and took the local bus to Chau Doc. We didn't know that they'd stack twice as many people in the minibus, and it was hot and not very well air-conditioned - it made for a most unpleasant ride, even for a seasoned one like me. Vini must have lost half his weight in sweat, there was a little Vietnamese girl who threw up on the ride (was it the stench of all the white people at the back???!) and there was an Ba Gia (old lady) who kept on making funny comments at the white people's too-long noses. We ended the day atop Nui Sam, the only mountain in the Mekong Delta - some 300m in steps climbed at the hottest time of day. Because we thought that we had all day to shoot the requested pictures, we missed some of them. Oh well, you live, you learn. So again we came in first, but only because we used our Wild Card. It's been quite an adventure so far!

Today was an 'off' day. Yeah, right, 'off'. Intrepid wants to use 'local' transport as much as possible so really our day off consisted of getting us to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We had breakfast in Chau Doc, my last Vietnamese soup, and then took 2 boats on the Mekong and a very long bus. A total of a harrowing 10 hours in a lot of heat, and a good 2 hours on the Mekong wondering why the Cambodian boat driver keeps on looking backwards in a worried fashion. We had already planned our swimming exit in case the boat sank - I was to drag PV just in case using my divemaster training. Vini was all sad about the clothes and electronics that he was about to leave, and I had put my Ipod in its waterproof bag, just in case. I'm just kidding of course, but it was strange. After our harrowing boat ride and acrobatic entry and exit on the boat (on little planks, fully loaded with our packs!), we made it to yet another minibus (with reasonably functioning AC) to Phnom Penh and took the VERY bad Cambodian roads for 20 km = almost 2 hours!!! Cambodia looks significantly poorer than Viet Nam and reading the LP about the Khmer Rouge and its horrors put me again in a very contemplative mode about the atrocities of humanity and of sociopaths like Pol Pot in particular. Phnom Penh used to have 500 000 inhabitants prior to the Pol Pot regime; well now they're down to 300 000. (compared to the 8 million in Saigon). The estimated genocide is around 2 million. Medecins Sans Frontieres got started in Cambodia if I remember well, with the human war disaster here. I don't think that our tour will make it to the Genocide museum but all my friends who went earlier this year (DB from Chisasibi, PY and Chin, JS and Dom from Piouvi) told me that it was extremely difficult.

Presentation of the teams

c/o RP

This is a charity challenge. We paid the land only portion for the trip plus a $500 donation to a charity of our choice linked to Intrepid. The other teams raised $5000 each, their trip paid from the proceeds with the balance for charity. The prize: AUD$1000. All of us from Montreal, if we were to win, are planning on giving away the prize.

Meet the teams:

Team 21: because they are both 21 years old - the babies of the group. Lagging in last place mostly because Erin was sick and could not participate in several of the race days. Erin is a senior at Uni - studying Sports Admin and Kinesiology. Gavin is a bartender who is between jobs. They are not a couple. They are racing for the Mental Illness Foundation of Australia.

McHappy: Chris is a personal trainer and a blackbelt in karate. He owns a gym/school. Kylie was his client and now runs the gym. They are now a couple. They are both actively involved with Ronald McDonald House. They are probably the most competitive of the teams here.

Deaf South Australia Daredevils: Mark is a music teacher in primary school. Kerry works for Deaf SA, a charitable association. She is paid to be here as a faculty development event for her so that she can put together similar type events to raise money for her organization. Mark eats more than anyone I know and assures that there are no leftovers on the table. And unlike VP who is another walking stomach, Mark will eat ANYTHING. He even beats me (Malv) on that one.

The Stokers: Adele is a clinical nurse specialist in Stroke and Neurosciences. Geoff was a neurosurgical nurse until three years ago when he quit to start a gardening business. His business is a little hampered by the drought in Australia. They have both travelled extensively, but not in SE Asia. They are running for the Stroke Foundation.

The Princess and the P: Vini and MALV. MALV is am the Vietnamese princess and the P is, well, ViniP. But Vini can sometimes be a princess and MALV am Petite. They have donated to Oxfam Australia. This is our mascot:

princess, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

The Tortoise and the Hair: RP and PV. The tortoise is slow and methodical; the hare has bad hair days. Guess who gave to Oxfam Australia and who gave to the Seeing Eye Dogs of Australia.

Finalement à Saigon!

Greetings from Viet Nam,

Phew, we all finally made it here. By chance we all found each other on the Bangkok-Saigon flight. I had booked a business class ticket because it was the only thing left from the Thai Airways counter that day, and after dozing off and sleeping in the Royal Orchid Lounge for a few hours, took the evening flight to Saigon. I was half asleep when I sat down on my seat and ignored my neighbour, an older well-fed looking businessman reading a book in Hebrew. A few minutes before we take-off, I see the back of two heads on the opposite side of the plane who look strangely familiar. Stretching my head off I recognize no other than Vini and RP!!! And PV was sitting two rows ahead; she gladly switched seats with my Israeli neighbour and we caught up on the adventures that we'd all had already getting to Bangkok - they had been stuck in some ice storm and had to drive an unsafe car between New York and Montreal, and then were ushered very precipitously between planes in Bangkok knowing that their luggage had stayed on the previous plane. All this time she kept her 'smiley face'. So we all landed luggage-less in Saigon two days ago, too tired to be upset and just happy to find a bed to fall into!!!

But Thai Airways is a good airline, as discovered by Al last month when his luggage appeared magically on the dive boat - my backpack appeared magically on my hotel doorstep as I was stepping out yesterday to meet out the gang at their hotel. And theirs made it too. The only mystery is if my dive gear will make it to Khao Lak in a few weeks. We'll find out.

So yesterday we visited Saigon along with some friends from... Puvurnituq that both RP, Vini and I knew and that they had planned to meet here. We saw the Reunification Palace which was a big jump in to the seventies. I enjoyed the French Colonial atmosphere of Old Saigon:

Bureau de Poste de Saigon

bureaupostesaigon, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

And today my mission is to meet up with another couple from home (PY and Chin) who are here for a friends' wedding. Thank God for text messages working well here. The Intrepid group lands today and the race starts tomorrow. We are getting ready. PV has her smiley:

pvsmiley, originally uploaded by Galadryel.

Greetings from Bangkok (again!)

Greetings from the new international terminal at the Vancouver airport!

I've left cold Montreal for my second trip to Asia this year... Am stuck in Vancouver already with an Air Canada plane delay... I don't even know where I'm spending the night, Bangkok or Hong Kong! But hey, travel delays are part of life now... As long as my luggage makes it, I can live with delays. But of course I've already packed just as if my luggage wasn't going to make it - Malorone, dive computer and bikini in my cabin bag. Just in case.

Vini has started a blog here.

For now, I am *just* trying to get there!

The team a few days ago, still in the cold and stress:

A few days until the Amazing Race

06/03/07


Greetings from Bangkok!

I wonder if the rest of the group made it; last I heard, they had to drive down to New York City instead of flying because all flights were cancelled due to a blizzard. Then they would catch their super-long flight to Singapore. Strange, because when I left Montreal on the same day, it was nice and clear. So in the end we are all delayed!!!

Well after my 9 hour delay in Vancouver and an unexpected dinner out there, the saga continues. We landed in Hong Kong at 3 o clock in the morning and I had to sit around until 7 am in an empty huge airport. I got the first flight out of Hong Kong to Bangkok. Then, guess what? NO LUGGAGE IN BANGKOK! Yay! My usual luck!!! I don't even get upset anymore, I am just full of joy when it doesn't happen; hence with a big sigh of resignation I headed towards the Thai Airways lost luggage department.

So the very nice and professionnal guy at Thai Airways tells me that he can forward the two pieces separately - the square luggage to Phuket (and I gave him the address of our Khao Lak resort) and the backpack to Saigon. There are two other flights from Hong Kong before I leave for Saigon so hopefully one of them will have my stuff on it. The most likely explanation is that they never made the connection in a sleepy Hong Kong airport at 3 o'clock in the morning. However, if they got stuck in Vancouver, then they may not make it till tomorrow; at which point hopefully they will make to me in Saigon. This makes me a very seasoned traveller, I suppose.

The only ticket left on Thai (because I wouldn't trust Vietnam airways - on whose ticketing counter it says to call downtown, or Air Asia, notorious for charging extra for freight) was business and since I've got close to 5 hours to kill I figure that the extra 3000 baht was worthwhile to get free food, free internet and a comfortable lounge access. Anyways it was better to get a ticket than a place on standby, so I ain't complaining.

I can't even begin to imagine the state of my hair - Eugh! Thank God I do not have a B.O problem thanks to my Vietnamese genes.

So wish me luck and a happy reunion with my two favourite pieces of luggage, somewhere in Asia. May the God of Thai Airways be with me, since I hit the wrath of the God of Air Canada!!!