Taking Thailand by motorbike

I think yesterday was our favourite trip-day so far.... it took a little bit of nerve, but we finally hopped on a bright orange motorbike and explored a little on our own! There's no feeling like climbing a winding mountain road, feeling the air get cooler, stopping for a vista (and photos) every so often, and getting to the top to find a mountain temple straight out of a movie.

We've been loving Chiang Mai-- we got some serious deals at the night market, found a hidden parking-lot area of after-hours bars (complete with Thai bands covering Metallica), and I've finally (!) figured out how to tie up these hippie pants. But it wasn't till we hopped on our "Mio" that we were free...

Adrian quickly taught himself how to drive the thing, and with the best road test ever- Thai traffic! We got halfway up the mountain to Doi Suthep (the temple) and saw our gas tank was 1/4 full, headed down, filled the tank for $2, and took a deep breath and went back up. There were 300 (i think) steep steps to get up to the wat (or Wat Phra That Doi Suthep), and we were huffing and puffing by the time we got up to the peaceful sounds of bells and chirping birds. Incense and orchids everywhere, there were little waterfalls and old and young monks. Strange-looking pines and palm trees together in this strange and serene mountaintop... I think we just could have spent days up there....

... if there wasn't the prospect of getting to ride back down! Whee!

We came back to town, completely chilled and unscathed (except for our spicy dinner). We were very sad to take back our bike today ... but for now, we're relaxing (it's mid afternoon) and tomorrow we may head to a different set of mountains-- a hippie spot northwest of here called Pai. When we get too cold, we're heading to Cambodia. So much to see, so little time...
Cheers,
D & A

Bussing our butts to Bohemia

Well we figured out how to get to the bus station, and how to get tickets to Chiang Mai... but we didn't figure on the sort of bus that would take us. Enter the VIP bus to Chiang Mai, a super 2 decker bus with fully reclining seats, TV & movie, in travel snacks & water, PLUS blankets and a pillow with "Hello Kitty". All for about $30 CAD, and 10 hours of our time (sleep time). We took the night bus so when we arrived it was about 6:30am, and explored other possible destinations.

We're starting to get our bartering skills back! It takes a little time and patience but you can talk down any price. Right now Dayle is grinning ear to ear about the 2 pairs of hippy pants she bought for 180 Baht ($6 CAD). I was going to get an orange hippy man purse or 'European carry all', but I didn't want to vomit blood when ever I put it on (Dayle says it looked cute).

We've been trying to figure out how to say numbers for better bartering over nightly beers. I kind of have a grasp on them if the vendor says them slowly, so I quiz Dayle from time to time. I like our night-beer number lessons.

We found a laid back and cheap, weird sort of Bohemian bar-nook. We sat and people watched with a Chang and a Leo in hand. This 'bar' looks like someone decided to empty out their garage and hang a couple of knick-knacks on the wall and play techno fusion of just about anything, (Madonna and Missy Elliot were the favorites).

We're loving Chiang Mai, it's a lot slower than Bangkok, and we're seeing more sights. Maybe we'll rent a moped and head up the mountain for a sunset or two!

Talk soon... Thanks for all your awesome comments we're giggling in the Internet cafe!
-Adrian & Dayle "?"

goodbye, Bangkok... hello Chiang Mai!

Today it's time to ship out of the bustling, noisy blur of Bangkok. Three days was enough for us... we explored a bunch of wats (Buddhist temples), peeped on praying monks, petted stray kitties seeking Buddhist nirvana (or just naps) within the decorated walls. It made for lots of great photos-- check out our album... Adrian was working hard at downloading some pics.

It's hot and sticky in Bangkok-- you blow your nose and it's black, and two showers a day are necessary! We're finally getting our way around the Khao San Road area (that hippie backpacker haven... it's a little bit Cancun, but full of Europeans). We stayed on a street nearby and it was much quieter. the five flights up and five down to our room everyday gave us quite the workout!

Things we've noticed lately:
-we've seen zero spiders so far (hallelujah!) and only two big red cockroaches. Most of the wildlife around here consists of stray cats and dogs (we see one orange kitty sleeping on top of stacks of CDs of a street vendor every night) and the odd rooster. There's a really annoying bird that wakes us up every day...
- There's definitely an invasive feel to this place-- esp. when you arrive, sweaty and jet-lagged. Every tuk-tuk driver (these little three-wheeled things with crazy drivers) wants to take you to see a "lucky Buddha" or a "tall Buddha". We got taken for a ride (sort of) once, for 20 baht (about 60 cents) and we had to turn down offers of cashmere suits and sketchy tours companies. On the bright side, we got whisked around the city in style and had a good chat with a local Thai man inside a temple. Basically, on our fourth day, we've learned to say "no thanks", firmly and walk away! We also know k\now that sometimes the locals just want to chat, and find out where we're from. We found out that golf is pretty big here in Thailand!
-We finally met someone who spoke English today (i'm talking travellers)... a lady named Linda who shared her Cambodia tales and tips on guesthouses. Before that was a night with a Belgan dude who only spoke French (my skills are bad! Adrian did a little better) who introduced us to street food... we had a rice porridge dinner with egg and ginger and green onions in it for about 50 cents! wow. No idea what it was called, but it was yummy....
-And the food! Plenty of yummy things to try... though the vegetarian thing is a little rough. Banana pancakes for breakfast and fresh pineapple off the street. It's good stuff. We're divided on the best beer though-- Adrian likes Chang and I prefer Leo. (Do they have this at the LCBO? maybe someone can tell us!)

We're learning some Thai vocab-- hello, thank you, some numbers, and the bill please! Street names are hard to remember, which doesn't help in this maze-like town. But the river taxi is loads of fun, and we've taken that a few times to head to the sights...

We hear Chiang Mai is amazing... full of temples and Northern culture. It's a 10 hour bus ride that we're taking overnight. The shopping is supposed to be great... I've been very good and bought one necklace today (had to practice bartering! Adrian was rolling his eyes). But we're gonna come back with some goodies from the north I think....

Miss you all! We'll try to respond the best we can, but let us know how life is in snowy Canada, while we're fending off mosquitoes and re-applying our deodorant.
Love Dayle and Adrian "?"

Good Bye Bangkok, pt.1

Hello all,
We're off to Chiang Mai in the north, so we're doing a 2 parter blog;
1st - we put up some new pictures (Click Here!).
2nd - some new videos, which I've put in order.

Miss everyone and stay tuned!
-Adrian & Dayle Questionmark



Getting into Hongkong airport on Vimeo



On the River on Vimeo



Spur of the moment commentary on Vimeo

Our first three days - kind of!

Hey everybody, we're well situated in Bangkok just off Khao San Road. Lots of hippies and travellers here.
We arrived in town 10:30am local time so we were shoved straight into the fray. It's a nice 25 degrees Celsius and it took us a while to get our bearings.

The airport bus took us to the tourist district (Khao San), and we found a great place to stay called the Bella Bella guest house. It was kinda sparce, just 2 beds that we put together, and a fan. Our bathroom is shared with the floor but it's readily available.
The bathroom is also the shower, it's a bit of a culture shock when you're showering above your toilet! Not that we need it but there's no hot water, which is great because you get so bloody hot and sticky walking around seeing the sight - a cold shower is very relaxing!

We've seen many Wats or temples, Buddhism is very big here and there are lots of monks. The food is great and spicy, plus the beer is cheap!
We've met another traveller yesterday named Patrick, he was from Belgium. We all had dinner for 15 baht (50 cents), it was a weird rice porrage with an egg and some onions and some ginger.

We're going to try to head north to Chiang Mai in the next couple of days, we hear there is a Flower festival going on.

We found this Internet cafe and we'll try to upload some of our pictures!

Stay tuned and travel safe,
Adrian and Dayle Questionmark

Idle Hands

We ship off in less than 2 hours, I'm all packed up and have nothing to do so I'm trying to keep busy.
Enjoy the video, it worked out well - usually they don't, given my record with computers. I'm sure I read that we need to be at the airport with 2 hours to go through customs and all that crap, but my mom called and she was sure it was 3 hours. Let the doubt games begin! Start double guessing everything - it's that .05% of doubt that kills you!
But I TRIPLE CHECKED the GTAA website and it's 2 hours before international flights - Adrian 1, Doubt 0.




vlogging test 2 on Vimeo

Love you guys, and travel safe!
-Adrian Questionmark

how to avoid packing... 22 hours till takeoff

So while Adrian's been a real travel-blog-devotee, I've been running around doing last minute meetups with relatives and friends... and buying those last little things that we may or may not need. But finally, time to write something!

What I've learned so far:
- Finding mosquito repellent in Ontario in January is next to impossible. (thanks a lot, Canadian Tire!)
- It's OK to change trip itineraries two days before departure.
- There will never be enough money saved up for all the things you want to do.
- And everything on that long to-do list takes WAY longer than you think it will.

But the good news is...
-I found some Deep Woods Off! in a pharmacy by chance today!
-I have thus far whittled my clothes selections down to two boxes... yay!

And since I can't seem to make decisions on what to bring, I thought I'd do the next best thing: dyeing my hair. It's important too!

Leaving for a year has resulted in some serious self-contemplation. Besides family, and friends, and my electric blue silk shoes, I've realized I'm going to have a hard time living without The Price Is Right, my laptop, and cheese.

Mmmm, cheese. I've been making a point of eating it whenever I can. Preferably while watching The Price Is Right, and maybe even whilst wearing my blue silk shoes. Something tells me there won't be a lot of brie in Southeast Asia. [Or cheddar, or marble, or mozzarella for that matter.] Kraft Dinner... there will be sad goodbyes for us as well. I admit, the vegetarian in me is a little uneasy heading to countries where they add fish sauce to everything (Thailand) and sell crispy tarantulas as a roadside snack (Cambodia) and where barbequed steaks of some kind are the staple (I'm looking at you, Australia). I guess time will tell if my brash generalizations have any truth to them at all...

OK, enough lamenting about food. Time to wash out the dye, buckle down and condense my life into a 75-litre pack (oh wait, pack my life into HALF a 75-litre pack. Ha!). But I can't wait to learn some Thai, besides the words for "crow" and "field." Bye for now!
Love, Dayle Questionmark

Pre-travel video diary test 1

So after hours of reading and scouring and setup...



Pre-travel vlog 1 on Vimeo

Some people have monkeys on their backs...

Some people have monkeys on their backs...
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

i'm trying to make three mediums collide to make the super-awesome-fantastic travel site ever

basically 1) vimeo.com - uploading video in quick little blurbs (30 sec max), by the awesome Dan Zen .

2) flickr for letting everyone SEE our awesome photo skillz (mostly me picking my nose on the Mekong River)!

3) And the blog that lets us spill our midless rabble onto the net!

Love you guys, and travel safe!
-Adrian Questionmark

T-Minus 2 days and counting...

Hey all, it's getting very, very exciting.

I'm 97% packed up, and shelved away my old life here in Canada. It's weird when you've sold off all your old stuff, everything about your old life seems to be paper work, taxes, and personal mementos.

Basically my Canadian life is sitting in two bankers boxes and an old GL2camera box. I'm keeping some old books that I recieved as presents, and such. Some of my clothes as well are in the same closet, but I'm taking my prized OK47 t's with me to Australia.
Packing was a real issue, not knowing what to take, but I found a great resource online, it's kinda hardcore, but practical. It all depends on what kind of traveler you are.

I've been going over my old list of stuff to do to! Here's a taste: 5 packages of our itinerary and personal info for each family, close bank account, get travelers' cheques, open credit card to ATM access, malaria pills (which I don't think we'll need - they cost $136 bloody dollars!), fix parent's computer, get rid of old phone contract, and the list goes on and on and on.

Now it's all done and I can relax for a little bit. In fact my parents met up with her parents, tonight at Boston Pizza in one of the malls by the 401. We chatted and it was all very nice to see everyone and share a meal, it also was a good chance to swap information with the families and give them all an idea of what we'll be doing and where we'll be going.

We've changed our route a little as well, Dayle called me last night and we had an emergency overhaul of our original travel plans. Our 1st trip route took us through 4 countries in less than 4 weeks, after breezing through some travel forums we've come to the conclusion that this is possibly 2 countries too many - so we've dropped Laos and possibly Vietnam from the trip.

On the Lonely Planet website someone similar was trekking through the same itinerary but with an extra stop in China, but the same time frame. There was an overwhelming number of people urging him to slow down and enjoy a few countries (1-2) at a leisurely pace rather than rushing through. I wouldn've hated to find a really awesome place on a Thailand beach and stay only for the night before rushing off to another part of the country. Besides Laos, and Vietnam aren't going anywhere.

I have a few days left and I hope to post some more before I go, something more useful to other travelers. Seems I just walk around my old neighbourhood and hang out with my parents before they go to bed, so I've started making some notes about what to blog next so it's a little more structured.
My first note to self: Don't ramble and post at 1am when your juiced on so much pop I can hear my teeth screaming to stop already! And from playing guitar hero all night!

Love you guys, and travel safe.
-Adrian Questionmark

Up and running; T-Minus 3 days and counting

Whew, all this setting up for blogging has taken my mind off the big trip. And here it is in all it's majesty!

Well what Dayle and I are trying to do here is to keep in touch with our friends and family back home, but as well , giving all those travellers out there the 'heads up!' on preparing for any trip.

First Advice: Plan well in advance, read up on the destination, and DON'T do any of that pre-planned crap. You know, the tours that all you have to do is show up and they take you everywhere!

Our trips have never been like that, our style is shoot-'n-scoot. Get off the plane and carve your own travel. You'll be happy you did.
Speaking of, we leave for our flight out of Toronto in about 3 days! It's getting exciting, and there's been some happy tears along the way. But we'll be back soon, (roughly 2 years from now *knock wood) you guys!

Love you, and travel safe!
- Adrian & Dayle Questionmark