Chiang Mai

The sun coming up as we approached Chiang Mai was beautiful. It feels great to be leaving the craziness of Bangkok.
Today we arrived in Chiang Mai, took a “taxi” to our hostel. For $9 a night we got our own room with a shower. The bathroom is around the corner, but it too is “private”.

bangkok

We arrived late last night (early this morning) and still don’t know what time or what day it is. Bangkok is crowded, hot, busy, humid, friendly, dirty, sacred, and has lots of cheap food. I weighed myself this morning because I am afraid that I might lose a lot of weight here. The first place that I sat down I thought that I was getting chicken curry. I still can’t feel my lips and it has been 8 hours.

I eventually got a soda that tasted like shave ice syrup. A soda, white rice, and curry. Less than one dollar. Seeing Rory nearly cry for an hour because his innards were frying...priceless.

The next thing that I ate I thought was chicken satay. One of my favorite Thai foods. The stick was about 10 cents. We finally guessed it to be chicken liver. The look on my face is just before I realized that. I nearly lost everything in my stomach.

Danielle however, loved everything that she got. A very friendly toothless lady made this fresh green papaya salad for her. She put it in a plastic bag then, handed her a fork and it was less than a dollar. Papaya, lime, tomato, peanuts and one chili. Still too spicy for me.

We went to Wat Po this afternoon. It is a temple that has the largest laying Buddha. 65 meters long. She is about to achieve nirvana. There were no monks, but lots of foreigners!

last day in Sydney

Here are some pictures from our last day in Sydney when the weather finally cleared. We went to Sydney’s version on Coney island called ”Luna Park”.

We found some wild Cockatoos that I thought that I could tame. It kinda went like this:
I fed them. I knew that I shouldn’t.

I had them, I was the dominant one. I was in complete control. Then they turned on me! I panicked and had to bribe them with more food. It was a chicken sandwich. How sick are they!!

first walkabout

Last night, we arrived in Sydney. Someone was supposed to pick us up when we arrived, but it never happened. We met Tobin who was on his way home. He had been out exploring Southeast Asia as well as North America. He had lots of good information and was a good new friend to make. We waited for an hour until nobody showed up. Then we jumped on a train and made our way to Sydney ourselves. It was only a couple of wrong turns before we found our hostel. It was raining the whole time.
We dropped off our bags and got some Indian food. Everyone seems much nicer here than in America. Maybe I am biased. We fell asleep about 7 PM and woke up at about 4 AM. Jet lag at its finest. We forced our eyes closed until about 6. We got up and were running around Sydney at 6:30. Still raining. It was beautiful. We ran around botanical gardens, hugged the coastline, and arrived at the Sydney Opera House. It really hit us that we had actually arrived. One of our roommates is Tomas from Finland. The three of us went exploring Sydney after our run today.

Our other roomates are a brother sister combo from Canada. Anders, the brother, has been hitting on Danielle. He invites her up to his bed, then says that I might hit him in the nose or the butt. However he makes sure to tell me that he is not gay. (Anders has Down’s Syndrome.)

We just made reservations for a hostel in Bangkok.

Additional info: One kilogram of sliced chicken is a lot. Even if it is cheap. Half a kilo of “sliced Australian cheese” is enough for the 30 sandwiches that the chicken will make. I still don’t know what kind of cheese it is. 10 oranges for about $4 is a good deal, but hard to eat in 2 days.

8000 km to go

Last night we had dinner at Cholo’s on the North Shore. Today, we are on our way to Sydney. Sitting on a plane for 10 hours leaves me with nothing to do but play on my computer. (Until the battery runs out.) The airline that we chose to get from Honolulu to Sydney is a no frills airline. No food, no blankets, no movie, nothing. If you want some water, you go to the back of the plane and get a drink at the tap. Of course you can buy anything that you might need once the flight is under way.


Being a 10 hour flight I opted to buy some of the comforts. I got us the comfort pack which consists of a blanket, pillow, eye cover, and ear plugs.

Danielle immediately went to sleep and left me to talk to our flight attendant, Weenie. She was very nice.
I got my first Australian dollahs on the flight. They are small gold coins and look like pirate treasure.
Here you can see my 8 dollah sandwich, the movie player and my booty, I mean pirate treasure, I mean one Aussie dollah.


Now all that we have to do is arrive, get our giant backpacks, go through customs, find the bus, get to our hostel, maybe get some dinner, and start exploring.

Ok, we made it to our hostel, it is raining and I will tell you the whole story when I have more time. We are exhausted.

somebody sponsor this kid

I have been putting this off for a long time. I have a friend with a really big blonde afro. I have heard that he uses his hair to prevent anyone from seeing his head swell. I don’t think that is true. He is fairly level headed...most of the time.

I must admit, for such an athletic guy, he isn’t the best at leapfrog. I expected a little more height from him. His distance wasn’t very impressive either. However bad his LF technique is, his triathlon accomplishments are exceptional. He has won numerous races in Hawai’i and the pacific northwest. (Where he chooses to live.) He recently won the national championship then went on to the amateur world championship where he... that’s right, he won that as well. I didn’t believe that this was possible by someone that doesn’t shave their body hair, but now he is in Sports Illustrated so it must be true.


So I thought that he was a good athlete. Then I heard that he was helping a visually impaired guy break a world record. So now he is a good person too. Check out his website here: BenCollins.Org

6 days

I have been swimming at the Kona pier a lot lately. Kurt taught me about free immersion.Parker and I swam half of the Ironman course. Here he is at the turn around buoy. I can’t get over how beautiful the water is here. We see bright fish everyday. We saw a pod of dolphins the other day.
The feeding tube came out today. Here is Dad enjoying teriyaki steak from Big Island Grill. Now that he is on the road to recovery, I can travel the world knowing that he will be fine.

I put my bike together. Hopefully, it won’t be mad at me for neglecting it for so long. I just got an email from Amy with a huge cast on her arm. Being typical Amy, she might still race this weekend. Swimming without bending her elbow, pushing (not riding) her bike uphill, both ways, then running the grueling 10k.

Good luck at XTERRA World Championships everyone!