crack! plunk, plunk, plop!

thats the sound my camera made when i dropped it on a waterfall hike.
i dropped it while standing on a boulder... crack! it hit the boulder,
then plunk plunk, it skitted down the boulder, and finally plop! as it
dropped into the fast moving stream under my feet.

besides that, ko pha ngan has been awesome. met up with marian and
kevin morton and crashed for one night their sweet bungalow with a
porch overlooking the hat salad beach. yesterday we did the waterfall
hike from the bottom of a stream, climbing higher and higher through
larger and larger pools of water finally to find pretty big waterfall
and swimming hole to hang out in. ask morton for the pictures. my
camera is dead.

obama stickers

From thailand!

we met this nice couple on a long tail boat from ko ngai ("ko hi") to the mainland. they we thais on a weekend trip, very nice, and asked us a few questions. they conversed in thai for a bit, then asked if they could give us a ride to trang (40 km away), the town where we needed to catch a bus to krabi. so we gave them an obama bumper sticker. they didn't seem to have any reaction when we tried to explain who obama was and why his presidency is so special, but they seemed to like the sticker.

also, if you haven't heard of this, check it out: hungry for obama. our friend louis had a great and simple idea for a grassroots fundraiser and he raised over $50K for obama.

ralfting

From thailand!

cow socks

khao sok is awesome. we went to the gigantic lake shown in the google
maps previously. spent the day boating around the limestone cliffs,
jumping into the lake from floating docks, hiking through some serious
mud and jungle, and finally exploring a cave with a small river
flowing through it... it was awesome.

pics to come, but to get a sense of it, check out tall dirty
backpacker's account of his trip:
http://www.geocities.com/tall_dirty_backpacker/khao_sok.html
actually, you can just read thompson's site to find out what we'll be doing in the future. it has far more descriptive MS Paint drawings than i can muster:
http://www.geocities.com/tall_dirty_backpacker/

krabi

met up with ksenya in krabi yesterday and we've been eating delicious cheap street food constantly. there's some sort of festival in town so the night market has turned into your average american county fair, complete with a big performance stage, rows food and craft stalls, and tons of school kids. we've been eating at this festival, so i guess we've been eating the equivalent of corn dogs, funnel cakes, and kettle corn for every meal the past 2 days. its been good (and rainy).

From thailand!

From thailand!

From thailand!

today we took a ride to a temple outside of town and climbed the 1200+ steps up the limestone mountain to the gigantic golden buddha up at the top. it must have been 20 ft tall... we've been seeing it from krabi as a giant gold thing at the top of the mountain in the distance, but didn't realize that it was a buddha we were looking at till we got up there today.

headed to khao sok tomorrow, a national park with waterfalls, a lake, tons of hiking, and the possibility of canoeing or tubing. if anyone's been there before and has some suggestions, shoot me an email.

here's where we're going:

View Larger Map


View Larger Map

ko ngai

we took a day long snorkeling trip from ko lanta and ended up loving the beach at one of the stops. we came back to that beach - the island of ko ngai - and spent 3 nights. it was pretty foul weather, but incredible nonetheless.

we kicked around with andy - a londoner on holiday - for most of the days. he was great... always up for a beer. and the beach bar was stellar. we also found a premier resort on the beach and snuck up to the swimming pool for a dip.

waterfall hike

took a short hike up to a waterfall on ko lanta. we hiked up through a stream for half an hour, found a sweet cave and some giant leaves, and found some evidence of elephants. check the picasa page (link on the right) for more pics.

ko lanta

ko lanta is a beautiful island that we spent a few days on.

sparse accomodations for sure, but good enough for a few days.

tiger balm is weak sauce

white monkey holding peach balm is much much stronger.

passed!

July 2008 California Bar Examination
Application Number: 578
Name: LAURA ELIZABETH KENT-MONNING

The name above appears on the pass list for the July 2008 California
Bar Examination.

ko lanta

we're on the beach. staying on ko lanta on the andaman sea (indian ocean) near krabi. its obscenely beautiful and has limestone islands jutting out of the ocean. no fancy maps to post... blogger doesn't do well with thai text. hopefully this map will work:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=th&geocode=&q=ko+lanta,+thailand&sll=37.744184,-122.418777&sspn=0.007958,0.013733&ie=UTF8&ll=7.730043,99.0905&spn=0.30278,0.439453&t=h&z=11&iwloc=addr

landed

got in yesterday morn. bangkok is awesome and terrible. its hot and sweaty, has tons of traffic and trash, but also has amazing street food, cheap beer, and beautiful hyperactive street markets.

here is a tuk tuk:

khao san road in its neon brilliance:

hard to see, but my hand is covering a giant sweaty pit stain. its balls hot here. even harder to see is the wedding ring on the finger. we got bands to travel with. picked them up this morning for the same price as a large beer.

obama-mania has hit the streets of bangkok. seems they haven't gotten over teen-wolf mania yet.

got pics up on picasa... hope it'll be this easy to update throughout the trip.

taipei hours

just landed from our 14 hr flight from SF to taipei. we were greeted
by a life size Hello Kitty doll and free internet use for our 2 hour
layover.

the flight was surprisingly good. as in it wasn't as terrible as a 14
hr flight could be. one weird thing: we were in SF as the sun went
down around 5 last night. we took off in the dark at midnight from
SFO. 13.5 hrs later, we saw the first crack of dawn on the horizon
behind the plane... so we were in the dark for 20+ hours. our plane
was racing around the globe to keep hidden from the sun. or from
another perspective, we got up in the air and stood in place as the
earth rotated beneath us. that thought kept me entertained for a half
hour on the plane. also, i have slept for total of 5 hrs in the last
48 hours... so take it with a grain of salt.

asia when & where

we're getting the trip mapped out in broad strokes. here's the map. each of the blueish boxes represents an area for a length of time... click on them. better yet, click on the "view larger map" below.

we've got an open invitation to anyone who can join us on the trip. we'd love some company if you're able to get out there.


View Larger Map

the big trip outline looks like this:
-SE Asia: Nov-Mar
-New Zealand: Mar-May
-S America: Jun-Sep
(all of which is subject to change)

at home with the family

spent some quality time with my folks in bluffton last week. most of the time was spent getting beaten in donkey balls and card games. my parents may look docile, but they are vicious gamers...

...with bad celebration dances.walked around to hilton head island and savannah too.
here are the other pics...

south cakalaka

the trees are ridiculous in south carolina. huge old gnarly oaks with tons of spanish moss.

portland + seattle = portattle

lkm and i were in portland, seattle, corvallis and manzanita for most of october. here's the proof.

spent some time biking around portland and walking around seattle, looking at all the neighborhoods. great towns. they seem to have a brewpub every other block and most everyplace has some sort of happy hour special.

found the morrison hotel in portland. not the real morrison hotel, just an exact doppelganger. This is what the wikis have to say: "The cover photo was taken at the actual Morrison Hotel located at 1246 South Hope Street in Los Angeles. The band asked the owners if they could photograph the hotel and they declined, so the band went inside when nobody was looking and took the photograph."

here's how lkm cuts loose:
went out to manzanita on the oregon coast. got to try our hands at crabbing. we didn't catch a damn thing. but we did manage to convince ourselves that if we ripped open the fish heads, the crabs would "smell" our bait better.


granger loved it out there.

yes we did!

last night was awesome. couldn't imagine anything better.


lkm's dad got some great news too.