Getting ready to head north!

Yesterday Eric and I spent the morning hiking up into the mountain range that surrounds UB. On the top of the mountains there were countless Ovoos (piles of rocks, tree trunks, and prayer flags). As Eric explained the tradition - walk around the Ovoo three times and throw a stone on it - a bunch of Mongolians joined us and began to circle the Ovoo. When they finished they all began yelling towards the city below.

We hiked down the mountain leaving our Mongolian friends behind only to hear their shouts following us even as we reached the foot of the mountain.

Tired, we climbed aboard a bus and road it to the other end of town where we ate a late lunch and realized we were both getting sun burnt. Anxious to evade the sun we got a 2 dollar hair cut, and watched the new Terminator movie (the day previous we were talking about how disinterested we were to waste our time in a foreign country indoors... ha!)

Now that we've spent the past few days hanging out in the capitol, and are just now getting ready to head north to Moron, and a lake 200km north of it. We plan on camping, fishing, and trekking around.

Mongolia!

Eric and I made it safely to UB, Mongolia!
After arriving in a Chinese boarder town and unwillingly hiring a Chinese driver we attempted to buy some cheap motorcycles. We were, however, eventually discouraged -- the bikes were expensive and there was a huge fee to transport them across the boarder from China to Mongolia.

We ended up climbing onto a jeep with a bunch of Mongolian nationals and crossing the boarder just barely catching a train to Ulaanbaatar. The morning after we awoke to watch the sunrise and pull into the now bustling capitol of Mongolia (according to Eric the city has grown exponentially since he was last here 5 years ago). We will stay here for 3 or four more days before heading to the countryside.

Cheers!
Jon and Eric

No more freedom

I am going back to China today and I will not have access to the Internet.

Rough plans for the future:
In a few hours I will fly back to Macau with some friends I have been in Thailand with.
We will cross the border into Zhuhai where I will wait 2-3 days to board a train to Beijing to meet my brother Eric.
We will meet in Beijing and either loiter there for a bit or just head north to Mongolia.
Eventually in mid-July we will head back to Minnesota.

I will throw some updates up as the Chinese government (or eventually the Mongolian government) permits.

The Beach, Snorkling, and Sunburn

We woke up at 7 this morning and climbed on a long boat and cruised to a nearby island where 'the beach' with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed. I've never seen the movie, but ever since I set foot in Bangkok I have heard about it -- Every backpacker and tourist wanted to go there. Upon arrival at the secluded beach we lept off the boat and swam to a ladder which led us to an isolated campground looking area and further in was a giant beach (In the middle of the bay about 20 feet out was a beautiful 30 foot sail boat tilted at 45 degree angle - we concluded that the crew must have anchored and it slipped -- an expensive mistake).

After 10 minutes, 7 seven or so giant boats pulled up and unloaded a few hundred people on the beach... My small group of friends, 6 of us felt out numbered and lost the joy of being there. We returned to the long boat, to find 2 giant cruise ships and 6 other long boats anchored. We snorkeled (!!!) for an hour or so, and drove back to 'monkey island'. It reminded me of the parks in China where the monkeys would lurk the path and attack tourists.

Side note:
We have been touring Ko Phi Phi with a Canadian couple. Before joining us they rode elephants in southern Thailand where the guy contracted some sort of rash on his inner leg which pussed at night. The first day in Ko Phi Phi, his girlfriend sliced her foot open on a seashell requiring several butterfly stitches. Today the guy got sun burned and the girl was bit by a monkey on this monkey island.

This was their first trip together and they claimed that they were doing us a favor learning everything the hard way. They were real troopers.

Ko Phi Phi!

Yesterday morning at 4 am we woke up and went to the Bangkok airport and caught a plane to Phuket, and island in south western Thailand. We landed and took a taxi to the docks where we missed the ferry to Ko Phi Phi by 30 minutes and had to wait 5 hours for the next one. We ended up on the island at 3:30 with some new friends and began to look for a place to stay. We went to bed at 8:30 last night we were so exhausted.

The island is beautiful and I will be sure to insert some photos when I have more time on my hands.

Today we will hike around, swim a bit, enjoy the beach, and possibly swim with sharks.

Too much to write about!

Today I had some free time to explore on my own. I ended up exploring a firehouse and crawling into an attic, and meeting a few Thai people. They are extremely helpful. They will tell you where to go to get the closest razor, and what time a given museum closes. They will also cheat you, if you aren't savvy enough (we ended up getting dragged around the city the first day here).

I noticed that taxis around big hotels start at a few hundred baht, while taxis else where are in the ten digits. Even Tug-Tugs will look you up and down before offering a price. Usually in the morning/afternoon, if you are in a non-hotel area you can catch a tug-tug for 20/15baht per hour. After going to your first destination (if not before) they will take you to 'their sponsors' where they will expect you to buy a suit, tie, dress shirt, ring, or other piece of jewelry. If you are lucky, they will take you to a TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) shop where they will help you plan your trip and offer you free water. Towards the end of our time messing around with Tug-Tugs we would relax and throw out extravagant hypothetical situations while sipping on free water provided by the agents.

Tug-Tugs are a thing of the past, now that we are on day 3. We would just as soon walk 10 blocks before snatching up a Tug-Tug and driving in circles until they decide which sponsor to bring us to.

Anyways, the people here are kind, if you know the way the game is rigged. They will give you directions to the most isolated places with hopes that on the off chance you will chose them in your next journey.

A Brief Update and intro to Thailand

There is a 65% chance that I will be staying in China at United International College again next year helping the International Development Office or the Office of Whole Person Education (the on campus volunteer organization).

It is my hope that another year in China will allow me to increase my Chinese language proficiency as well as allow me to return to the US and land a job with an international company/travel abroad agency/study abroad agency (in reverse order).

I have become a Foreign Agent Specialist for an international modeling company in the Pearl River Delta. After working on for the Medical Device Sales Company I expressed my uneasiness to the manager and he suggested that I help him recruit western models to star in movies and various advertisements. I have since been in one movie as a wealthy westerner on a cruise ship, and a line of advertisements as a cook (with the white mushroom hat) recommending an expensive line of toaster ovens and steamer appliances. The pay isn't great, but it's fun to hang out on a movie set with a bunch of friends and watch a famous 12-year-old actor fake-play the piano while his mother (a famous Taiwanese superstar) watches sobbing.

Just today I flew out of Macau with Carl, Joel, and David (3 other T.A.s) to Thailand. We flew out in the afternoon and met a middle aged ex-pat who informed us of the seedy underbelly of Thailand -- unmentionables. He continued on to tell us that it was very common for middle aged men to visit Thailand on a business trip for a week or so, return home to their wives -- only to sell their assets and return to Thailand to start a new life. In fact, he admitted, he was one of these people, he even had a Thai wife. But, he justified the sudden switch to the fact that his wife was actually scheming to divorce him.

Anyways, the plane reinforced certain stereotypes we have already heard about from other travellers but only brought them down harder upon us. Even now sitting in the hostel I shudder thinking about the advice this man shared with us - he not only validated the darker reality but passed it off as casual advice from one traveller to another.

---Lost and Found---
Not letting it get to us, we evaded his company and claimed our bags and was falsely counciled by airport 'government staff' into taking a taxi for much more than the airport shuttle bus. The driver was a funny guy whole helped show us different temple guides and told us about upcoming Mui Thai boxing matches.
Due to our lack of cash we had to take a pit stop at an ATM to pull out more money - getting out of the car Joel unknowingly dropped his Ipod touch into the gutter. We climbed back into the taxi and found our hostel where Joel realized he had lost his iPod. Not letting it get to him, we went out and ate some pad Thai (amazing) and walked around the neighborhood. We actually found our way back to the bank where we pulled the money out of the ATM and Joel inspected the gutter to find his iPod face down in a puddle.
Excited at the find we went and ate some delicious homemade Coconut Ice cream at a nearby restaurant and shuffled home.

Whoa!

C'mon.
Really? Not posts for a few weeks?
I was just getting into posting rapid fire too, then -- poof -- nothing.

Well I am here to tell you all that I am OK! I did not fall off the Great Wall, or killed and sold for parts.

I AM BACK, for awhile at least. Ha ha - I am in Thailand and the Chinese government cannot block my blog access here.

So what happened was the Chinese government blocked all blogging sites for the past few weeks because it was close to a historical event that happened on June 4th in Tienanmen Square. I have heard murmurs that they were expecting a blog lash back.

I have tried to use proxies and sites to get around the blockage, just so I could let you all know whats going on but the page would always time out and the posts would never auto-save or post.

Here is my apology for my tardiness as well as my appreciation for your interest. I have even received a few e-mails asking when I would send an update... here it is.