THE JUNGLE TEMPLE

This temple was conquered by trees. There's no other ruin around Angkor Wat quite like this, it's awesome.

We left Cambodia after a few days, it was a fun journey. Pete left us and took off to head back to the States. Nick and I are now on our way to Laos...

THE TERRACE OF THE ELEPHANTS

This is just one of the many beautiful places that surrounds Angkor Wat. We hung out here for a while and enjoyed the afternoon. Cambodia is beautiful...

ANGKOR THOM

Our next stop was Angkor Thom. This place was rad, it had a bunch of huge faces built into the sides of the ruins. I think Angelina Jolie fought off a bunch of bad guys here in the movie Tomb Raider, or something... Well, I don't really care about that, but still, this place was awesome.

ANGKOR WAT

Pete and Nick and I left the islands last week, and after a brief layover in Bangkok we took off for Cambodia. Crossing the border was like stepping back in time, it made me realize how modern Thailand is compared to its southeast Asian neighbors. We stayed in Siem Reap, a town that has grown rapidly in the last fifteen years due its proximity to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat has been on the map for a long time, but because of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge Regime, the ruins were basically closed down to the rest of the world until the mid 1990s. Siem Reap is growing rapidly along with its influx in tourism, but the juxtaposition between the old Cambodia and the new wave of foreign visitors is still very apparent.

Angkor Wat was immaculate, and it looked as though there had been a lot of time and energy put into its preservation. I really liked all of the sandstone carvings, there were tons of them, huge murals that spanned entire corridors, all with extreme attention to detail. It was amazing. There's not really that much I can say about a place like this, it's a lot to take in, and you really just have to experience it for yourself...

LAEM THIAN

Nick and Pete and I stayed on the east side of Ko Tao for a few days, at a place that was pretty far removed from the rest of the island. They ran a generator at night so that we could use lights after dark, but during the day there was no power. The snorkeling was amazing, and we basically had no choice but to do a lot of relaxing...

KO TAO

Traveling around Thailand is great, and sometimes getting from one place to another is half the fun. After a few days on Ko Pha Ngan, Pete and Nick and I took off for the next island...

MANGY DOGS AND 7 ELEVENS

If there are two things that come in abundance in Thailand it's mangy dogs and 7 Elevens. That is the premise of this video... that, and a little bit of whisky. Feel free to skip over this one.

BACK TO KO PHA NGAN

Last week Nick and Charlie and I left the mountains of northern Thailand. Charlie took off for Myanmar, and Nick and I headed south to meet up with my friend Pete on the island of Ko Pha Ngan. It was my second time on the island, and we had some good adventures...

THE CURRY SHACK

This place was delicious. So delicious that Nick decided that he couldn't leave Pai without learning some of its secrets...

TRAVEL COMPANIONS

Our self-guided motorbike tour of northwestern Thailand took us on a loop that started and ended in Pai. By the time we got back to our starting point our gang of traveling buddies had more than doubled. The other night we all rode up into the hills overlooking Pai to enjoy the evening, here's a little video that I shot while we were up there. Today we will return our motorbikes and head south, Charlie will catch a flight to Myanmar, and Nick and I will head down to the islands to meet up with my friend Pete.

DOI INTHANON NATIONAL PARK

Doi Inthanon National Park has the highest peak in all of Thailand. The ride up was chilly and when we got to the top we found ourselves surrouded by clouds. So much for the view. But close to the top is a temple with beautiful gardens, it was a great place to stop and rest before heading back down the mountain.

We're in Chaing Mai now, and tomorrow my friend Pete gets in. He'll be joining us on our adventures for the next couple of weeks...

ACCOMODATIONS

This video is really dark, but I thought I would post it anyways. We put in a long day after we left Mae Hong Son and didn't stop for the night until after dark. We stayed in a small town, and after a tasty meal and a vicious downpour, we set out to find a place to rest our heads...

MAE HONG SON

The ride to Mae Hong Son from Pai is a little over 100 kilometers, and they say the road has over 1,800 turns. It was a fun and beautiful ride. Wat Phai Doi is a temple that sits on a hilltop overlooking the town, we took our motorbikes up there to watch the sunset.

In Pai we met a guy named Jesse, and we bumped into him again in Mae Hong Son. He was rolling solo on his motorbike so we invited him to join our gang. He's been with us for the last few days now. He's heading off to Laos pretty soon, but he's been a great travel companion.

NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE

Nick and Charlie and I left Pai a few days ago to explore northern Thailand on our motorbikes. The countryside is beautiful. The roads twist and turn through the mountains and the views are amazing. The traffic is light in the countryside, sometimes we go for miles without seeing anyone...

RICE PADDY

There's no other color in the world like rice paddy green. I discovered this in college when I spent a semester in Vietnam. Rice paddies are beautiful. Not only are they extremely vibrant, but they also sound wonderful - it's like a trickling stream in surround sound, water flows from terrace to terrace through little dirt canals and the entire field sits in a pool of running water.

THAILAND ON A MOTORBIKE

Driving a motorbike in and around Bangkok is like flirting with death, but once you get out to the countryside it's the best way to explore Thailand. Here's a little video I cut together after a day of touring the countryside around Pai, it's way better in real life. The song in this video is by my friend Joe.

PAI CANYON

On the morning of our second day in Pai we took off on our motorbikes to explore Pai Canyon. The trails in Pai Canyon are like natural tightropes, some parts are only shoulder width with cliffs on both sides that drop down hundreds of feet to the valley below. We hiked around on the trails for a while and then wandered down into the valley and followed a dried up stream bed through the forest. It was such a different landscape from the jungle that we had hiked through the day before.

MAE YEN WATERFALL

We rented motorbikes when we got to Pai. On our first day we took off to find a waterfall...

PAI NIGHT MARKET

Pai is a tourist town, but it attracts both foreign and Thai tourists. In the evenings they shut down the two main streets to cars and open up the night market. The food carts roll out and the restaurants and bars let their seating spill out onto the streets, gift shops stay open late and live music can be heard coming from bars all up and down the strip. My favorite vendors are the ones that have converted their vehicles into little shops. I got a delicious iced cappuccino from the Volkswagen van-turned-cafe in the bottom right picture. The power goes out every now and then in Pai. The other night it cut out for about an hour and the night market ran on candle light, it was a beautiful.

PAI

Nick and Charlie and I left my neighborhood last week and took off to explore northern Thailand, and here we are in Pai. This place is amazing, I'm not really sure what to say about it. It's the kind of place that people come to visit and never leave. The town is nestled in the mountains and is surrounded by rice paddies, quite a nice change from the hustle and bustle that I left behind in my little suburb of Bangkok...

MY NEIGHBORHOOD

I will miss the neighborhood that I lived in. I made some good memories there. Here's a little video that I cut together before I left. The little girl in the video is Punc (pronounced Pon), she is my friend Oot's daughter, I will miss them both very much, they have been wonderful friends.

MY STUDENTS

I took my camera to school during my last week so I could take pictures of all my classes, I took a little bit of video too, here's a little something I cut together. My job was really fun, I will miss it.