another blog to follow

Hey everyone! We will send an updated blog post Sunday night that will recap our amazing Thai cooking class with photos and our upcoming weekend in Railay and Ton Sai. In the mean time, we wanted to share with you all a link to the blog of the Home & Life Orphanage we have been working with. It is an amazing organization and the link is on our blog, but you can also find it at this link: http://homelife-thailand.blogspot.com/
If you or your office has anything extra laying around that you don't need, think about donating it to Home & Life. The kids could really benefit from tons of stuff that we just throw away.
Have a great weekend!
xoxo,
T&L

Concerts, lady boys and scuba galore!

It's been a fun filled few days since our last blog! We have fully immersed ourselves in the volunteer project, in fact we are even on the website! Scroll down to see pictures of us enjoying some of the best things Thailand has to offer; dancing with crazy Thais at a reggae concert and sampling grilled insects at a Thai carnival! We feel quite honored to have made the cut. Speaking of reggae concerts, we spent Thursday evening at a JOB2DO concert, they are Thailand's most famous reggae band, watch this video and you'll be hooked! We are currently sitting here singing along. The concert and surrounding carnival were a lot of fun and a great glimpse into everyday Thai life. We danced and sweated up a storm, but not quite as much as Barbara, our sassy 60 year old fellow volunteer. She is a hoot! As are the other volunteers we have been spending much time with, Sarah and Oliver. Sarah is a 27 year old hot ticket with a heart of gold from London and Oliver is an 60 year old Irish gemstone, not to mention Lauren's future father-in-law. Don't let Oliver and Babs' ages fool you, they drank us under the table, especially Babs at Friday's night lady boys cabaret! We can't stress how great and fun this bunch is and how we hope we are as fun, adventurous and giving when we are in our 60s. And FYI those lady boys had moves that we've never seen and we're not sure we need to see them again! Although Trish would like to take some dance lessons from them and we both want their abs and we really getting there with all of the banana pancakes and beer!

This weekend was devoted to scuba diving. Lauren successfully completed her open water certification and we celebrated by going diving in the Similan Islands. Just picture what scuba diving should be and that is what is was like, straight out of a dive magazine. The only thing you might not see in the magazine that we encounter were all of the men in speedos and all of the smoking, we thought smoking after scuba was a death wish but apparently divers of Thailand didn't get that memo. We saw tons of cool fish, turtles and really cool coral, it was simply divine! And we both got tan while doing it, what could be better?! Lauren's sunburn has made a turn for the better and hopefully she will catch up to Trish's golden hue. We both aim to look Thai-ish by the time we leave for Laos.

This week is all about volunteering. We are skipping the full moon party to fully dedicate ourselves to the project because it is so fun and the kids are worth it. We also have plans for a Thai cooking class at one of our favorite local restaurants on Wednesday and if all goes well, we plan to host a Thai family dinner to show off our skills when we return to SF so get your chopsticks ready!

We are currently exhausted from all the sun and scuba and are off to bed. Hope all is well worldwide with you all and we will post again later this week. Still working on getting some of Lauren's pics up, fingers crossed for this week!

xoxo
T&L

Everything happens for a reason

Greetings from Khao Lak! It's been a hot and sunny 2 days in paradise. We were supposed to start our project yesterday, but Steve had fallen ill so we headed to the beach! We did a long walk, discovered many fun beach bars and massage huts and got some good color slash Lauren is living off of aloe since she got a nice sunburn from Trish doing a poor job putting sunscreen on her back. Thanks Trish! But the beach was heaven regardless! Our lunch consisted of ice cold Chang beers and nuts at the Freedom Bar (actually spelled "Freeom" on the sign) and ice cream, delish! Last night we discovered that Steve is actually quite ill and is shutting down Fun 4 Kids for the month of February. Lucky for us, the volunteer network is so close knit in KL that we were able to hook up with Volunteer Teacher Thailand and will be teaching in schools and orphanages for the next 3 weeks, we couldn't be happier! The kids are beyond joyous and the other volunteers are so lovely and fun to work with. This situation is turning out to be better than we had hoped, clearly everything happens for a reason!

Life in KL is beyond laid back and lovely. It is a quirky and quaint town with a nice slow pace. All of the locals couldn't be friendlier, our favorite so far is Lin the barman at Everyday Bar who makes us special shakes and understands that we split EVERYTHING so it all comes with 2 forks and 2 straws. Our diet is consisting of fruit shakes, banana pancakes, Chang beer and thai food (we'll order any dish under $3 and have gotten to try many new yummy foods!). Luckily, Lauren's iron stomach is holding strong and Trish has faired much better than she thought she would. Lauren is starting her dive certification class tomorrow and if all goes well, we will head to the Similan Islands this weekend for some world-class diving! We will update you on that next week. Can't wait to share many fun stories from the classroom, we are sure there will be many, these kids are clowns! More photos to come soon if the hex that has been placed on Lauren's camera connecting to the computer is lifted. We have some gems to share! Trish thinks it's all in Lauren's head, but we all know that technology and Lauren don't really mix. Fingers crossed it works out!

Hope all is well with all of you and that you are enjoying reading the blog as much as we enjoy writing it.

Time for cards and a small beer which we share, obviously.

xoxo
T & L

Bye Bye Bangkok, Hello Beaches!

So much to report we don't know where to begin! Let's start with what just happened to us. We are now in Khao Lak and just treated ourselves to our first thai massages. Have any of you ever had a thai massage? It's not your run-of-the-mill rubdown. We came from the beach and couldn't get into the place we wanted to go so we settled for the nearest parlor that could accomodate us for a 10 dollar an hour massage. We're speechless. And we have never felt so limber. We believe they used Icy-Hot as the lotion which is why we are both slightly burning right now. They put their legs in odd places on our bodies and some of the poses resemble those of the Karma Sutra. It's safe to say Trish went to second base with her lady and ended up topless........But all in all a joyous experience which ended with sweet tea and watermelon......We're hooked.

Now back to Bangkok. Our final meditations:
1. You must stay on Soi Rambuttri Road right off of Khao San. It's more laid back and filled with joyous people and scrumptious street food.
2. You must eat at Gecko Bar and Mr. Yim's Vegetarian cart. They are across the street from each other and Gecko offers Pad Thai for 25 baht (less than a dollar) and Mr. Yim's makes the best pineapple and veggie fried rice on earth.
3. Visit with Joe, the friendliest travel agent around. He keeps post at New Siam 3 and is a complete gem.
4. Only cross the street when a Thai crosses the street. Bonus if you can cross the street with a monk, no one is going to hit a monk. It's important to make sure you get as close to them as possible when crossing so that you don't fall behind and get hit. We had a few close encounters but are now street-crossing experts!!
5. Tuk tuks are a must. They are better than a roller coaster and you get to barter your price, although you get forced to visit the "best" tailors in town and pretend to look interested in purchasing custom clothing. (Taylor Stitch, you should get in on this!)
6. Cabbages and Condoms is a must splurge. The food is delicious, the atmosphere incredible, and it is all for a good cause.
7. If you have the time, the Tiger Temple is a interesting excursion but we still can't decide if it was really cool or kind of sad. Regardless, Lauren got to spoon a tiger.

We have had a busy day, having gotten up at 4 am for our journey to Khao Lak, but we couldn't be more happy to be here!! We've already signed up for scuba and made friends with the owner of the dive shop. We probably don't need to tell you that the beach is incredible, but it is!! We have to go shower off all of this Icy-Hot before we meet up with Steve and get the low down on our volunteer project which we will begin tomorrow. We'll try to post pictures soon and hope everyone is doing well!!
P.S. Who won the Superbowl???

xoxo
T & L

2 days in Bangkok and still alive!

It's been a jam packed 2 days in Bangkok with many adventures and near death experiences! We really hit the ground running and started exploring right away. We saw the Grand Palace, took a river taxi, walked many miles, ate at the delightful Cabbages and Condoms restaurant (a MUST for anyone visiting this wondrous city), took the sky train and metro, and booked train and plane tickets. Today we were equally as productive: we moved guest houses to the delightful Sawasdee House, proceeded to walk at least 10 miles all the while getting lost in Chinatown (1000x more stressful than SF Chinatown, we can't wait Shanghai!), wandered into shantytowns under the highway, drank many bottles of "government water" aka "G dubs," fell in love with Jim Thompson and his house, ate absurdly spicy tom sam (papaya salad), got free drinks at random Irish bar, went to a ping pong show during which Trish got hit in the leg with on object shot from a lady's nether regions and after which we almost got killed by the crazy scam artist lady pimps running the show who tried to charge us $75, and capped the whole night off with a death defying tuk-tuk ride across town! Clearly its been wild!

We have a few notes: 1) Bangkok is an Asian Buenos Aires 2) it's ridiculous that there are several Dunkin Donuts here yet none in San Francisco (side note, we spit a chocolate munchkin en route to the ping pong show and it was heaven) 3)we really can't stress how far we have walked in the past few days in absurd heat and humidity (we smell and look good!) 4) we passed up free MANY free shots are the aforementioned Irish bar with the owner in favor of going to said ping pong show 5)about the ping pong show; everything you may have heard about these spectacles is 100% true; ladies shot ping pong balls AT US with their vajayjays, tooted their own horns and blew up birthday cakes. 6)Trish would like to mention that our $15 a night room closely resembles a Kimpton hotel room (no roaches this time only weird markings on the walls!).

We will post pictures soon. You all need to come experience this absurd city for yourselves, its really hard to convey what it is truly like. Now we are going to go drag our weary, sweaty bodies to the bar next to our guest house after Trish thoroughly washes her foot from the ping pong show incident. Tomorrow its off to the huge weekend market and then Sunday we are going to the Tiger Temple then its off to the beaches in the south! We will post from the beach if we don't get eaten/malled by the tigers!

xoxo
T&L

PS random friends from our guest house gave us a random bottle of Thai whiskey, we are apprehensive about drinking it, any tips?!

Safe and Sound and Smelly

Greetings from Bangkok! We arrived late last night after many hours of flying, helped out by many sleeping pills and sushi at the Tokyo airport (It was good but Naked Fish Happy Hour is so much better according to Lauren)
Our little love nest, down a urine-scented alley, is quite cozy and clean, minus the gum on the sheets Lauren found when we got into bed. We were also greeted by a smushed cockroach on the floor probably left by the cleaning group as a "welcome to Thailand" present. Despite all this we are loving life, loving Ali the Guest House front desk man, the cab drive that sang Jason Mraz with us, and the fact that 7-11 has fountain soda and breakfast for $1.
Just wanted to let you all know we are safe and sound. Trying to book some flights right now, and debating heading to the Tiger Temple. We will be in contact in the next few days unless we get eaten by Tigers at the Temple.
Time to go sweat some more so hope everyone is enjoying the snow on the east coast and fog on the west coast. Sending you rays of sunshine and pad thai!
xoxo,
T & L

on the plane!

About to takeoff!! Will be eating sushi in tokyo in 11 hours, just in time for dinner. We will post once we get to Bangkok. If anyone has any trouble reading the blog or commenting on it please let us know since we're blog virgins. Gotta turn off the Blackberry now. Next stop asia!
Xoxo
T&L
P.S. No more texts please. We appreciate the love but can't afford the international charges with our $10\day budget.