Home Sweet Home!

An anonymous commenter pointed out that we haven't posted a blog since Nov. 5! (actually the message was more like 'how could Lesley stop being so long winded' ;) hee hee)

But fear not! We still have some blogging in us - in particular, we have tales to report from Cambodia, the gorgeous Thai island of Ko Chang, and Hong Kong. They will come soon (because not only has this blog been a great way to share our whereabouts with those we love but it has also served to document our trip for ourselves!) Here's a photo of us on Hong Kong island, looking across to Kowloon:








And enjoying the sunset in the warm, warm water around Ko Chang:








We are now back in the US... we arrived in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving morning after a 12-hour flight from Hong Kong. We're staying with our good friend Nate--very kind of him to open his home and let us decompress here. After a quick nap and some preparations we were whisked off to a jovial Thanksgiving feast at the home of friends Stuart and Laura (amazing host and hostess). Potluck style and a great mix of people. It was boisterous yet cozy; a perfect event to come home to! The next day we slept until, well... dark. Yes, the sun was setting when we finally got up. So much for resetting the internal clocks... finally today on Monday, I think we are approaching a normal rhythm.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we take a bus up to San Francisco. Lesley will spend a week there, head up to Seattle for one week, and then go to Michigan to see her family (yay!!! Can't wait! Hi Dad, Grant, Zoe, Vivienne, Natalie!). Russ will head to Minnesota to see his family for Christmas too. We just might be able to pull our final blog tales together on the bus tomorrow--it's a 7-hour journey.

So what now? The overseas portion of our travels is over but we're still living out of backpacks! We are refreshing our skills and job hunting while we enjoy reconnecting with our families and friends.

Elephants, Cowgirls and Temples

The rain held off just enough the next day in Chiang Mai for us to make it to our daytrip adventure, although Russ had a touch of the belly blues so he stayed back at the hotel for some rest and recovery. Good thing he did, too -- our "adventure" included an hourlong elephant ride (covered all of about 1/4 km--man, those things stop to eat constantly), a short walk in the woods rather than "jungle trekking," about 15 minutes of river rafting (with just three spots that were of any challenge), and about 5 HOURS sitting on a hard bench in the back of a truck (and two-plus of those hours soaking wet after our "whitewater" rafting). That would not have gone down well with a sensitive belly.

The day was actually hilariously fun simply because it was so consistently NOT what it was billed to be. For example, after our so-called "jungle trek" we chuckled that the rafting would probably be a float across a serene pond on an inner tube... When we arrived at the river, we donned life jackets and helmets and got into the water... things looked promising... and then about 8 minutes later we are guided over to the side, told we had to get out and hike past a dangerous section (because of all the recent rain) to the next drop in point. We did that, but then another 8 minutes of rafting later, we were... DONE! Yes, done. We drove for almost two hours to get there, and rafted for a total of about 15 relatively calm minutes. The absurdity of it all was almost too much to bear. We were clutching our sides with laughter. We finally made it back to our guesthouse 2.5 hours late but it was ok b/c our evening plans of a riverboat trip got cancelled for us due to high water levels. So, we (including Thuijs, a new friend from Holland who found the day as ridiculously goofy as we did) decided to go to a Muay Thai boxing match. Muay Thai is notorious for being pretty hardcore. We got tickets from our guesthouse, got in a taxi and... in the spirit of our already silly day... found that there was actually no event at all that night, in spite of the date on the ticket and everything. It was hilarious. We finally just got back to the guesthouse, got a refund, and called it a night.

We headed back to Bangkok the next day, where it was probably 10 degrees F hotter... the humidity here is stunning. It's even too much for Lesley, who loooooves the heat. If she's sweating it, you know the rest of the crew is extremely uncomfortable. While in Bangkok we figured we had to check out Soi Cowboy, a street known for its over-the-top blinking lights, loud music, debauchery (Thai-style Vegas ;) Perhaps the most shocking thing about the area was the number of very young children running around in the street, literally grabbing our arms and jumping up on us, trying to get us to buy things they're selling. Apparently it's common here for kids to have "pimps" waiting in the shadows to take the money they collect. One wonders whether the kids' mothers are busy at work inside the establishments that line Soi Cowboy?

Currently, we are in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We spent yesterday wandering around the temples of Angkor in the sweltering heat. We hired a licensed guide (a good way to contribute to the local economy) but probably could have done just fine without one. Several times during the day we were told of his extreme state of poverty, which was somewhat awkward. Cambodia has no social security of any kind, so it is good that systems are being put in place to help people make money from tourism in ways like licensed guiding (rather than pimping out children to hassle tourists--although this seems to be happening here even more than in Thailand). We are seeing victims of land mines everywhere... so many people with missing limbs, blinded... On the path to one of the temples, a "victims of land mines" band was playing for donations. They were wonderful musicians and it was good to see them enjoying making music while also making some money. Pretty much everywhere we go, we are approached by land mine victims and especially persistent children for handouts. We're happy to give but are trying to be cautious to not support the pimping-out of children. It's difficult and frustrating to know what the best thing is to do.

Today we are spending the day in the town of Siem Reap. We took two tuk-tuks to get to the silk farm/artisan shop (one of the many local establishments whose proceeds are used to train locals with skills or provide medical care). Barry and Jen took one and we took the other. Well, in spite of a lengthy discussion with our driver about where the place was, map and all (and it's less than 1 km away, just into the downtown area), he starts driving far away. We finally stopped him and rectified the situation... but we arrived at the silk place much later than planned, and there is no sign of Barry or Jen. We don't know whether they were driven to the distant location as well? Ah well. Hopefully we find each other; this isn't a huge town.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Phnom Penh. The Cambodian independence day is Nov. 9. We're looking forward to being present while this re-establishing nation celebrates their breakaway from French colonization.

Sobering note: About half of Cambodia's population is under 15 years of age... this is because the Khmer Rouge murdered so many people in just three years of terrible rule.

Love to you all
Lesley and Russ

WB=87 (we had a palm wine here in Cambodia, which tastes a bit like sake, and a wretched California Merlot [we ordered a French wine but that is what they brought to the table, hee hee!] and a cherry wine from Turkey that tasted like cherry pie. Yes, we are recovering our taste for wine slowly, but we lament the limited selection here :)

Rain, Rain Go Away

To get to our guesthouse, we must *wade* through calf-high water on the street. Yes, dear readers, we are here in northern Thailand at the very very very end of the rainy season. We thought we snuck past it, yes we did--with all that beautiful sunshine while we were at Tao Garden. An hourlong downpour each afternoon around 4:30 was a refreshing treat. Evidently it was an appetizer. We made plans to go on a daytrip for today: riding elephants, whitewater rafting, trekking through some jungle all in one day. But we awoke to more of the wet stuff and have delayed our daytrip until tomorrow...but now all the weather reports are dragging out the wet spell until the end of the week (when we will go get soaked in Cambodia).

Who, exactly, is "we" you ask?!? I delightfully report that "we" includes Barry and Jen along with Russ and myself! Yes, we all managed to meet up and we're getting lots of time together since we're, well, stuck in the rain. How do you make lemonade out of lemons? Just add water! Lots of it! Yay!

We did make it to the well known Sunday market and night market here in Chiang Mai. Beautiful Thai silk garments, handmade leather sandals, stunningly detailed woodwork such as intricate filigree carvings of scenes with Buddha, you name it. Other than that, our time here has involved sleep (yay!), reading books, eating fabulous spicy coconut milk curries and getting ridiculously cheap massages (one hour Thai massage=150 baht. That's about $4.25). In fact, if it keeps raining tomorrow, we will try to get our money back from our daytrip plan (minus deposit of just 200 baht each) and spend the rest (1000 baht each [$25]) on massages and curry. Sounds like a perfect rainy day to me.

WB=?? I don't know but it hasn't gone up - after our week of detoxing we actually haven't really craved alcohol. Even wine. I know, I know. This is serious. We promise to work on it.

Tao Garden Health Spa - Days 5 and 6

Day 5
Time to begin the second round of cleansing...

Detox Day 5 schedule (see past blogs for descriptions of repeated treatments):
8:00 - Breakfast
10:00 - Chi Nei Tsang (abdominal massage)
11:00 - Colon Hydrotherapy
12:00 - Banana Leaf, Herbal Steam Bath
1:00 - Lunch
2:00 - Foot Detox (50 minutes of foot soaking, scrubbing, and massaging)
3:00 - Thai Massage (50 minutes of deep pressure point massage with stretching)
4:00 - Five Elements Massage (90 minutes of heavenly relaxing massage and acupressure along with aromatherapy that is supposed to help bring balance between the five elements of fire, water, earth, wood, metal)
6:00 - Dinner

After Russ' first Chi Nei Tsang the masseur told him that he needed the Muscle Tendon massage (on day 3) to loosen his muscles so he could make the next Chi Nei Tsang more effective. Boy was he right! On Russ's second Chi Nei Tsang, the masseur was able to dig deep into the adomen, massaging each major organ. At the end of the day, Russ felt extremely tired as his internal organs were beginning their healthy recovery.

Day five was Lesley's turn-the-corner day. Instead of feeling wiped out from treatments, she felt absolutely radiant and energized (and realized how long it had been since she last felt that way).

In the evening, Russ went for some needed sleep while Lesley hung out with Jackie, David and Rae. All of us have major decisions coming up in our lives in the very near future, and so somehow everyone started telling sordid tales of decisions past (relationships, travel, jobs, etc.). Some of the stories were actually pretty tragic but generated peals of laughter from all, even the storyteller. (A testament to how much healthier and balanced we're all feeling after devoting so much energy this week to our well being.) David and Jackie are into jyotish, a method of eastern astrology which more or less says "it is written," so they seem quite peaceful about whatever their lives bring/have brought them. Rae, David and Jackie have all used a pendulum method to try to help them make decisions (hold a pendulum, or use your body as a pendulum, ask a yes/no question and see which way the pendulum moves). Rae prefaces her questions with "Is it good for my highest being to..." Just for giggles, I stood up and asked "Is it good for my highest being to... stay in Seattle?" Well, I won't tell you all what it said, mainly because I'm a skeptic. Nevertheless, it is enjoyable and expanding to hear others' ways of perceiving the world, life's challenges, and life's decisions. We also found out that David and Rae both make jewelry, and we pulled up Rae's website--she showed us some of the jewelry she has made (she even makes some for Hollywood) and clothing she has designed. She paints, too--very creative all around.

One of the most interesting aspects of our time here at Tao Garden is managing skepticism while trying to be open minded. We've signed up for some treatments and evaluations (such as the NES, see Day 6) purely out of curiosity. In the cases of actual treatments, we have been fairly amazed by the changes in how we feel. In the cases of evaluations, such as the energetic nutritional analysis we both did, and Russ's aura test, we remain cautious; nevertheless we are having fun and receiving information that is not only strongly upheld by the practitioners here but fascinating to contemplate as well.

Day 6
Finally--our last big day of detoxifying and cleansing our bodies. Its amazing how much better we look and feel. Our skin is glowing, our posture is effortlessly better, and our bodies are generally more loose and relaxed.

Detox Day 6 schedule (see past blogs for descriptions of repeated treatments):
7:00 - Chi Kung (Russ made it up for this; Lesley slept)
8:00 - Breakfast
10:00 (Russ) - Karsai Nei Tsang (50 minute genital health massage which is basically Chi Nei Tsang for the first 35 minutes followed by working the pressure points, tendons and other tissues in the genital area to release sediments in the reproductive system)
10:00 (Lesley) - Chi Nei Tsang (abdominal massage)
11:00 - Banana Leaf
12:00 - Ozone treatment
1:00 - Lunch
2:00 - Full-body far infrared (30 minutes of far infrared over the body [from the farthest segment of the infrared spectrum from the visible light spectrum]) and Chi machine (ankles are placed on a device that moves them rapidly from side to side to loosen up your body, move the energy around)
3:00 - NES-Nutri-Energetics Systems (Place hand on device and an electromagnetic reading provides information on the body's nutritional successes and needs, pesticide contents, enzyme sufficiency, vitamin and mineral sufficiency, presence of antibodies to various viruses and bacteria, and various other things)
4:00 - Sauna and herbal steam bath, fresh fruit
6:00 - Dinner

The NES was pretty fascinating, particularly since some of the results it returned confirmed some things each of us already knew from other sources. Russ was told that his body is low on B-complex vitamins, contains too much oil (fried food) fat and has had too much computer exposure. Further, his liver still needs to keep working on the long process of removing toxins from his body, and that he must work on cleansing and detoxifying his colon (made some progress there...) and kidneys first. Lesley was told that her body is very low on calcium and B-complex vitamins and that it's because she isn't breaking down food well enough to absorb those nutrients. Her report also said she has a high concentration of agricultural pesticides (typically used on non-organic fruit and vegetable crops). She was told she needs digestive enzymes, particularly lipase (body doesn't do a good job of breaking down fats to get rid of them, just stores them) and, interestingly, that she's technically lactose intolerant (!) and that she should think about that possibility whenever she feels fatigue, has emotional swings or has digestive difficulties after consuming any lactose. Food for thought--we'll let our inner skeptics and optimists continue their grappling :)

Another thing we enjoyed was the infrared sauna (different from far-infrared treatment). It was amazing how fast it made the body produce perspiration, and how much! Lesley lived in a house with a sauna for five years so she is accustomed to dry heat and doesn't turn into a faucet when the temperature rises, but she was surprised by the fast results of the infrared spectrum.

Over the week we saw some of the same healers several times, and warm connections have developed in spite of limited ability to communicate linguistically. The men and women working here are highly skilled, committed to their work, and kind-hearted. Lesley connected really well with Daeng, who gave her an abdominal massage and a Thai massage. Daeng was absolutely thrilled to feel how her work was successful on my body during the Chi Nei Tsang. It was so clear that she was personally invested in my health and well being. She even talked me through the Chi Nei Tsang so that I can use some of the technique on my own. Russ enjoyed working with John, a masseur who did the majority of his massages, since he took extra time making sure Russ's muscles were loose and without pain. John also taught Russ a few Thai words and a couple of different ways to tie the traditional light-weight Thai shorts we'd bought in Bangkok.

Our skin feels like satin. There simply isn't any more to slough off. We've been sweating and bathing and getting rubbed all over the place so much that all of our body tissues feel refreshed, healthy.

We've posted pictures Tao Gardens from this week online. Including pictures of our red blood cells before and after our detoxification. The clumped RBC's are oxygen and nutrition deprived while our 'after' pictures are healthy RBCs.) Please check them out http://carmichael.smugmug.com/Events/99386
(Lesley's are the first two pics and Russ' are the last two pics)

Final quick note: Rae keeps calling this place a "health farm" which is cracking us up.

Tao Garden Health Spa - Days 3 and 4

Day Three
Today's 7 a.m. Chi Kung class was abbreviated to 30 minutes so that we could all hike out to a big lake and dam nearby for a meditation. The "15" minute hike actually took about 40 minutes, but in fact that made it more enjoyable. The hike itself was done as a meditation, following these four rules:
1. Walk single file, evenly spaced (about 2 feet)
2. While walking, remember to breathe deeply in the abdomen
3. Maintain some kind of comfortable hand shape consistently for the whole walk
4. Walk in unison, in the same footprint if possible

Our morning was misty and humid, typical for this time of year here in the foothills of the Himalayas. We finally emerged from the greenery to face a huge sloped dam. Our meditation walk continued up the slope as we carefully, steadily, silently climbed the dam. The serene, undeveloped lake was beautiful in the soft early morning light. We meditated by the lake for a little while and then relaxed, conversed and took a few photos before heading back by a different route, this time all chatty and social.

Here's our Detox Day 3 schedule (see past blogs for descriptions of repeated treatments)
7am - Chi Kung and Meditation hike
9 am - Breakfast
10 am - Lymphatic/Rife machine
11am - Herbal Steam Bath
12pm - Colon Hydrotherapy
1pm - Lunch
2pm - Foot Detox (90 minutes of foot rubbing, soaking, kneading, sloughing and massaging heaven) & Reflexology (our feet never felt so light and healthy and the reflexology made our organs feel refreshed!)
5pm - Tendon muscle massage (Russ only - 110 minutes of theraputic massage stretching and loosening the body's major tendons and muscles from the head to the feet)
7pm - Dinner

The tendon muscle massage was the best massage Russ has ever recieved (sorry CA friends who've given him massages before). It wasn't a typical massage--it was like partner yoga with deep tissue massage loosening and stretching tendons as well as muscles in the legs, shoulders, neck, upper back and chest.

After dinner we hung around for a while with David and Jackie (a couple from Carmel, CA) and Dennis (a Tao Garden employee, who is from the Bay Area--wassup with all these Californians at the hippie farm here?!? ;-) David is a Transcendental Meditation instructor among other things and Jackie teaches ESL. They have just spent 9 months in Turkey, where Jackie was teaching English, and now they're trying to decide where to live next. They are scoping out possibilities in southeast Asia. Dennis has been "traveling" for 20 years now. Back in the day he used to work as a salesperson for IBM (back in the days of the marvelous blue chip) and currently he is a Tao master and at home here in Chiang Mai. People's stories are so fascinating.

Later in the evening we got online and got some fun news: Lesley's long-time friend Jason from Detroit is arriving in Phuket on the 27th! Jason visited Thailand a few years ago and really connected with the people, their culture and the way of living here, so he stayed for many months and even was trained in Thai massage in Chiang Mai. When the tsunami hit the Phuket area last December, Jason immediately got on a plane and came here to help (he is an EMS/ambulance health care provider), again staying many months. Now he's coming to stay for one year, this time employed by a health/wellness facility in Phuket. We have tentative plans to visit Ko Chang, an island in the southeast part of Thailand, but with this news, we are reviewing our plans because it would be excellent to spend time with Jason, see Phuket through his fond eyes.

Day four
Day four was a much needed day off. Russ managed to get up for the 7 a.m. Chi Kung class but slept for several hours after returning in a relaxed state. Lesley, often a mild ansomniac, burrowed deeper into bed when the alarm went off, acknowledging that serious rest is hugely important for the detoxification process. On her way to the pool for a swim in the morning, Lesley passed an outdoor satellite TV area, and found Dennis watching... the World Series! Dennis claims things like the World Series and the Superbowl are tendrils of connection to his old American culture (although he has lost his taste for beer during his life's quest).

After lunch, Russ, Lesley and Jackie took a Thai vegetable carving class. We made leaves out of cucumbers, a rose out of a tomato peel and other carvings, decorating a whole plate. It was fun! We'll have to bust out our new skills at a dinner party someday. We manged to squeeze in a swim and a few pamperings (steam bath, banana leaf treatment) before the usual 5 to 6 p.m. total downpour. Lesley bonded in the herbal steam bath with Rae, a friendly yoga teacher from LA who has been traveling alone for many months and is currently teaching yoga in the hills of Indonesia. She came to Thailand just to visit and ended up getting sick on some bad food somewhere, so she came to Tao Garden to recover. She decided to do a detox and it is causing some heavy emotional circumstances to bubble up for her, so it's great that she is surrounded by supportive people along with the thoroughly serene environment. We all attended the Tao Yin evening exercise together--a quiet, yoga-like floor-based series focused on the spinal core of the body. The Laughing Buddha posture was a blast: you lay on your back, put your arms and feet up (like a dead bug in an old cartoon), shake them around like crazy, and--laugh. Yes, laugh and giggle and chortle your heart out. You'd think it's hard to laugh on demand, but everyone found it so goofy that in no time we were all laughing for real, and Lesley actually couldn't stop giggling even though the posture was long over.

And that, dear family and friends, was our delightful day off. Tomorrow we go back to poking, prodding, rubbing, steaming, and so on. Phew!

Tao Garden Health Spa - Day 2

We're in better shape after today's detoxing than we were yesterday. Both of us notice our skin developing a healthier glow and our bodies feel better.

Here's the schedule for Detox Day 2 - (activities without descriptions are listed below in the schedule for day 1)
9 am Breakfast (We skipped the 7am Chi Kung since our bodies needed the rest)
10 am Abhyamga (50 wonderful minutes of a luscious warm oil massage given by two people - the oil was a detoxifying sesame oil with four herbal scents added; one for each element)
11am - Ozone treatment
12pm - Banana Leaf treatment
1pm - Lunch
2pm - Lymphatic/Rife machine
3pm - Herbal Steam Bath
5pm - Colon Hydrotherapy
6:30pm - Dinner
7:30pm - Tao Yin Evening Exercise (Russ only - The class consisted of breathing, stretching, and sound exercises intended to remove your body of bad chi (energy) and replace it with good chi)

Our bodies are feeling much better at the end of today than they were feeling yesterday. For Russ - it was the colon hydrotherapy which exhausted his body yesterday (making him feel like he had been snowboarding all day) however today's didn't nearly have the same impact on him.

Our skin looks amazingly healthy after the Abhyamga (oil) massage! After layers of oil were rubbed into our bodies, the masseuses scrapped the oil off of our bodies along with many toxins and unhealthy skin. Unfortunately we're not getting anymore Abhyamgas however we feel this massage served its purpose.

As they say here...Good Chi **Good Heart** Good Mind

Tao Garden Health Spa, Chiang Mai - Day 1

Tao Garden <http://www.tao-garden.com/> is a holistic health resort set amidst lush tropical greenery, a river, about 10,000 orchid plants (this is probably only a slight exaggeration) and crops that produce some of the organic food served here. We're a little tired from our first full day here so a real description of the place (with photos too!) will have to wait until later. We arrived on Saturday and will be here for one week.

The first step was to get a drop of blood visually analyzed under a microscope. We didn't do too badly (no evidence of serious disease or infection) but let's just say that this week of cleansing will be good for the both of us. In both of our analyses, our red blood cells were clumped together (stacked up like coins), which we were told can be a symptom of several things: not enough oxygen is getting into the bloodstream, the body isn't well hydrated, the person is experiencing a load of emotional stress or frustration. Other features on the slide (in the plasma) indicated issues related to poor breakdown of nutrients, which often shows up when a diet is too heavy in protein or alcohol, and evidence of bowel toxicity. You can read the gory details here <http://biomedx.com/microscopes/training/LB1.html>.

It's a good thing we had already arranged for a thorough detox program (three days) followed by a healing spa program (another three days), with a day of rest in between. At first we balked at the day of rest recommended by a practitioner here; but now, after our first full day of cleansing, it is remarkably clear why it is a good idea. Not only are we pretty tired right now, we are pretty crabby, too.

Here's the schedule we had today (Detox Day 1):
7am - Chi Kung
9am - Breakfast
11am - Chi Nei Tsang (serious adominal massage--painful but hugely beneficial)
12pm - Banana Leaf treatment (relaxing in the hot sun for 20 min. covered in banana leaves)
1pm - Lunch
2pm - Lymphatic/Rife machine (50 minutes of light lymph massage while a mild electric current is sent through the body to stimulate the dissolution and movement of lymph)
3pm - Herbal Steam Bath (four five-minute hot hot hot herbal saunas with brief showers in between to wash off the toxins secreted in sweat)
5pm - Colon Hydrotherapy (yup, just what it sounds like)
6pm - Dinner
7pm - Ozone treatment (30 minutes, full body except head in an ozone-enriched steam bath, cold compresses and massage to the head)

So - we are crabby and we have to be up for 7 a.m. Chi Kung again... so we're signing off!