She says:

We are thoroughly exhausted and overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, temperature and smells (!) of Asia! It has been a busy 9 days of travel, complete with several time changes, five flights and over 24 hours in the air!

Our minds and bodies don't know what hit them and our "time travelling" has been challenging to adjust to. I have been really sick with a cold that I brought with me to Asia and have a head full of snot and a really attractive cough. Along with the cold, I've partially lost my voice again and am rocking a raspy version of my regular voice. On a sampan ride in Hong Kong, a fellow tourist (from the Phillipines) told me I remind him of an American, Minnie Driver. I'm not sure how much the voice factored in to that, but he called me Minnie Driver for the rest of our tour.

We are totally in sensory overload and I had a little bit of a breakdown yesterday when I called to get angry with Visa for putting a block on my card. I haven't been able to use my Visa since we left Canada and was unhappy because I had called ahead and told them my itinerary so that I would be able to access money while travelling. There is a collect number you are supposed to be able to use from international locations, but I couldn't get through on that line, so I called the regular customer service line, was passed between people, had to answer 10 or more security questions, all the while freaking out about my mounting phone bill. I finally got through to someone who said they'd been trying to call me because they suspected fraud. After reading me more than twenty transactions that all happened online when I was travelling, we determined that it was, indeed, fraud. Awesome. All charges as well as my credit card have now been cancelled. This ate up a huge amount of our only full day in Bangkok (yesterday) and I was pretty beside myself.

Fortunately, Matt kept a super positive attitude, put up with my diva behaviour and pulled the day out of the crapper.

We headed out to get a traditional Thai massage and as we exited our hotel, spotted a poster for "Fish Spa" in the window of the attached plaza and popped right in. I had read about fish spas years ago and always wanted to try one. I got my wish in Hong Kong, at "Wonderfish!" and it was incredible. My feet and hands have never felt so soft. I was thrilled to see one within steps of our hotel and signed up for another treatment. These fish were not nearly as plentiful or hungry as their Hong Kong brethren, but I had a relaxing 30 minutes of being tenderly nibbled.

As I was having my dead skin sucked off my feet by teeny, tiny fish mouths, Matt was across the hall gettnig a massage. After the fish had eaten their fill, I joined him in the massage room. I have heard that Thai massage is an acrobatic ordeal and it certainly was. Two itty bitty Thai women crawled all over us and our creaky massage tables and pushed, pulled, prodded, smacked and elbowed us into tender submission. The most surprising part of the massage came at the end when they pushed our weakened bodies into a seating position, took us each in a modified head lock, wrapped their legs around our crossed legs and with a mighty 1...2...3...yanked our torsos sideways and backwards. I was rewarded with several delicious cracks and pops and skipped out of the massage room feeling miraculously refreshed and giddy. I couldn't stop smiling for at least five minutes afterwards. The whole 90 minute ordeal for two people cost about $70.

We decided to take our oiled bodies for a little walk and explore the neighbourhood around Silom Road and had quite an adventure crossing the road. There are traffic lights, but they seem to be completely ignored. There are lanes for traffic, but they seem to be completely ignored. There are crosswalks, also ignored. We waited until a group of other pedestrians gathered and made sure to place ourselves in the middle of them for a buffer. If one of the crazy motorcycles or sparkling hot pink cabs wanted to get to us, they'd have to go through our protective layer of other people first. You have to have a lot of guts to get around here.

We stopped for a little street food snack of deep fried dough and as I stepped back to take a photo of our adorable chef, I stepped right into the path of a passing meat cart and have the lovely impression of greasy, raw strings of meat balls on the back of my dress now. What a souvenir!

I used my non-existent bartering skills to score a free amber pendant when I bought an awesome antique Afghani necklace. The guy working in the shop, rather than take advantage of my lack of bargaining, surprisingly threw in a pendant I had been admiring. Awesome.

We met a fantastic British couple in the room next to ours at the Lebua Hotel (or as Matt called it when trying to get directions, "The Kahlua") and had a lot of laughs with them. I went out the other night to take pictures of our amazing view of Bangkok and the Chao Phraya River and spotted newlyweds Criostoir and Julie enjoying drinks on their balcony, directly next to ours. There are probably a dozen or more balconies on our floor alone, and the only one with others enjoying the hot night was directly next to ours.

They shared their drinks with us, passed over the 54 story crevasse between our balconies and we chatted for hours. Criostoir (I very well may be spelling that wrong) is a passionate public school teacher in London and we had a lot in common. Julie is a bubbly, animated trainer (head trainer in the UK, that is) for Body Shop. We reminisced about Body Shop t-shirts that were all the rage in my grade 5-8 school years.

We planned to visit the seedy underbelly of Bangkok last night, but with the credit card debacle, we were exhaused and they had eaten some questionable Chinese food and were paying for it, we all stayed in. Fortunately, the view from our room afforded an incredible sunset and we were able to finally have a restful evening.

Julie and Criostoir are off to Koh Samui and we wished them bon voyage this morning. We booked our flights to and from Koh Lanta and will be heading there this afternoon. We just miss overlapping with them in Krabi at the end of next week, but have promised to see them sometime again in the future. Fast friendships are formed on the road!

Matt is on another computer in the artic-temperature business centre and has just booked our flights within Turkey. For those of you keeping track, that brings our flight count total to 14.

-Shauna