Things n' Stuff Thoughts about the universe in general

Hi Everyone!

Sorry there was no post yesterday, we were both too tired to find interent. (Oded is fine, by the way. He didn’t manage to write a post the last time but he’s having a good time, too!)

I had my first ocean dive yesterday. It was really nice. I had a lot of fun on the dive.. But the heat here is really hard to deal with, and today I didn’t feel well enough to dive.. I think I’ll leave it at that.. So I’ll join the group that’s a day behind us and everything will be fine. So far it seems that as long as you play it safe and don’t disregard the safety rules, diving is fine. And fun! So don’t worry! 🙂

On another note, we found the most incredible restaurant here – the Safari Grill. If you ever visit Koh Tao, you must eat there. Great food, great decor, phenominal service.. We had a blast. 🙂 Oded claims that there were the best fries ever, and I agree that they were certainly top quality.. 😉

I’m going to be an aunt! I just found out a few minutes ago! I’m so happy and excited! Take care of yourselves, Amir and Ronit! And congrats also on the new house! 🙂 Yay! 🙂
(They sent me ultrasound pictures! It’s *so* cool!)
(Oh, and regular pictures of the house, which looks amazing!)

Tomorrow, I hope I’ll be able to eat some crab, which I have been looking forward to the whole trip.. 🙂

Love you all!
Karen

The course started off nicely. They gave me a big book that the instructer told me isn’t worth reading other than chapter 4. 😉 We went over some of the basics, with many funny stories to make it fun (which it was) and many hand gestures, which are funny! 🙂

With me are Robyn and Olle – from Sweden – and Andrew, from Australia. They are all very nice (and rather nice to look at.. 😉 ) Our instructer, interestingly enough, is also from Sweden..

This afternoon we had our confined dives – in a pool. It was very strange, a little hard and hysterically funny. Especially since I didn’t have enough weights and every time I had to move I ended up all over the pool trying to get my balance.

After the dives Oded and I (after cruising around town for a little) tried the BBQ that our resort offers. Incredible. Absolutely wonderful food. We tried a Baracuda (it was a fillet and came out so-so) and a White Snapper – divine. It was probably the best fish I’ve ever eaten.. 🙂
Also really great is that there was actually food that I *could* eat. Everything here is way too spicy – including things like porridge and hash browns. Ugh! Spicy porridge!!!! Here at least they ask what we want on our fish, so I didn’t put any spicy and had a wonderful dinner! 🙂

Tomorrow is my first ocean dive.. I’m very excited.. 🙂

Have fun, everyone!
Karen

This is a really nice island.. Sort of.. On the negative, there is electricity only from 6PM til about 7AM, and it’s really, really hot… Oh, and there is no hot water..

On the other hand, it has incredible beaches and a rather nice blend of modernization (like motor bikes and restaurants – and internet, of course) and rustic authenticity (there is only 1 concrete road on the whole island, etc.)

The night boat was fine, I guess. I think I slept through most of it, which is probably good. Our room is one of those that doesn’t have electricity during the day, so we were pretty much steamed to death today, but hopefully this, too, shall pass.

I start my diving course tomorrow! Yay! 🙂

We found a nice Mexican cuisine restaurant run by a brit. It’s really nice and Oded claims that the food is actually Mexican, unlike usual. Except for the Guacomole, which (thankfully) is not spicy! 🙂

Happy Birthday Daddy! 🙂

Love you all!
Karen

Hi guys!

We woke up today in the morning (sort of) and looked around the ruins of the ancient capital. They are nice, but it was really too hot to enjoy it. The most interesting thing we saw was a strange yellow-headed bird. Pictures will be up as soon as we find decent internet again..

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היום התחיל בסיור בהריסות של איות’איה. למרות ששאר היום היה מעייף מאוד, ואנחנו כבר שלושה ימים בדרכים, אני מרוצה שבסוף כן שכרנו רכב – זה איפשר לנו לחרוג מהמסלול הקבוע של טיול בתאילנד: בנגקוק-צ’יאנג-מאי/צ’יאנג-ראי-אייים, ולראות עוד כמה מקומות מעניינים בדרך – כמו גבעת הקופים אתמול, או איות’איה.

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Hi Everyone! Sorry there was no post last night, but we didn’t find any internet!

We rented a hugs (at least for me) 4×4. It’s very strange to drive in such a car. It reminds me a little of the Isuzu Trooper my dad used to have, though that was much better! 🙂

At any rate, yesterday, since we started late and visited a temple overlooking Chiang Mai (and getting lost along the way!) we managed to drive only about 2 hours south, ending up in Lampang. There’s nothing there. Really! Don’t go there! It’s nice enough, but no one, incluing the receptionists on the phone of the guest houses, speak english. We ended up staying in what’s considered to be a top-of-the-line hotel, but the only thing top of the line was the wonderful water pressure in the shower! 🙂 And of course the worst thing possible – no internet!

Oh, well. It wasn’t as bad as I make it sound.

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We’re now in Ayutthaya – about a 100km north of Bangkok, where we stopped for the night. Ayutthaya was Siam’s old capital before Bangkok (the capital was moved to Thunburi – now part of Bangkok at 1767 when it was destroyed by the Burmese army). As the city was destroyed, they probably hadn’t updated their computers in the last 240 or so years, and all the internet shops are still running Windows 98 or ME – which aren’t unicode and do not come preinstalled with hebrew. Sucks to be me 🙂

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Well, we managed to do absolutely nothing in style after the trek.. We ate breakfast, then I went back to sleep and Oded went to the Internet.. So I joined him after I woke up.. And we stayed there for about 4 more hours…

Which basically means that we didn’t manage to do anything of what we planned.. Though we actually did try to go and talk to the Monks – they have an informal chat with foreigners so they can brush up their English and we can learn about Buddha – but it is open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This was Sunday, of course!

We did discover a nice Sunday Market, which we wandered around in quite happily..

All in all, doing nothing in style.

We’re leaving tomorrow for the islands. I hope we will be able to post along the way, but no promises.. At worst, we’ll post again on Thursday.

Hugs all!
Karen

אחרי שקמנו בבוקר עם המון תוכניות לעשות הרבה דברים, בסוף הוצאנו את היום בסתלבט.
חצי מהיום בזבזנו על אינטרנט (חסך של כמעט שלושה ימים 😉 ), ואחר כך לא נשאר הרבה זמן לעשות שום דבר. החלטנו ליסוע לאחד המקדשים שמחוץ לעיר העתיקה (שבתוך החומות) – זה מקדש שמארח, שלושה ימים בשבוע, שיח בין נזירים מתלמדים לתיירים דוברי אנגלית. הרעיון הוא שהנזירים יוכלו לשפר את האנגלית שלהם, ותיירים זרים ילמדו מקרוב על אורח החיים של הנזירים הבודהיסטים.

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רטוב. כל הזמן. היינו בטרק יומיים, וחוץ מכמה שעות שינה שלא היה רטוב אלא רק לח, הייתי רטוב מכף רגל ועד ראש, כל הזמן.
(Some trek pictures here, more pictures there).

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