Kota Bharu and the Express train to Bangkok, Thailand.

We're in Thailand! We are exceedingly happy because our first meal in Bangkok today was the most delicious vegan organic Thai food on the planet! I feel like my vitality has been restored! I love good food! If you are in Bangkok, you MUST go eat at the Cafe Corner . . . Lonely Planet recommends it and for once they are spot on with their recommendation, kudos to you travel writers.

Ok, so Kota Bharu . . . . we stayed in Kota Bharu on the northeast side of Malaysia for a couple days to wait until the 18th when we could enter Thailand. While there wasn't much to do there, it was an interesting place to wander around. We stayed at Zeck's guest house, which we highly recommend. Zeck, Mama, and Sham are incredible hosts and the rooms are super clean. They were really helpful in calming the fears that Lonely Planet puts in your head about crossing the border on this side of Malaysia.

KB was interesting mostly because it isn't a touristy as all of the other places we had been in Malaysia. It's a Muslim country and so all the women are covered and there are no dogs . . . but so many cats! The cat population kind of creeped me out. It was also creepy because there were millions of birds who lived in the top floors of the buildings in "downtown" (I put this in quotations because KB is super small). They were all cackling and their songs would echo off all of the buildings. It almost didn't sound real . . . more like someone had recoreded a giant cement room full of birds and then played it over a loudspeaker in the city. We spent a lot of time searching out food we could eat and people watching. We enjoyed sitting in this park and eating ranbatans where a lot of boys were playing soccer. A gaggle of young boys kept riding their bikes past us and saying hello and giggling. They were funny, and I'm glad we could amuse them.

We left the next day in the morning and took a bus to the border of Thailand. We had been warned that this place was dangerous (sorry Ma, I figured I would tell you that it was deemed dangerous after the fact) because of the political unrest between the Muslim minority and the government in this part of Thailand. We crossed the border with no problems and everyone was super nice and it was just fine. We had to wait at the train station for about 4 hours, but it was gravy because Wes found us food and I was beating him at rummy.

We've been doing really well budget wise so we splurged and bought first class sleeper tickets for our 21 hour train ride to Bangkok. It was super awesome to have our own cabin and it made the trip go by really quickly. We both agreed that we're glad we bought those tickets, but we probably wouldn't do it again. It was worth it, but not necessary. There were two Malaysian kids, a boy and a girl who were super cute and kept peeking in our window. We made faces at them and they would giggle and run away. At one point the little girl opened our door and picked up her leg and put it past the doorway, just to test her boudaries. I laughed at her and told her to go away, and then I shut the door.

We arrived in Bangkok this morning feeling refreshed and made our way to a super guest house, where we are close to one of my new favorite restaurants in the world, Cafe Corner . . . did I mention to you how awesome it is? (Nutshell in Punkytown might still beat this place, but it's close).

So far we have been really fortunate on this trip. We've been to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, The Cameron Highlands, Pulau Perhentian, Kota Bharu, and Bangkok. We've stayed in a few shisty places: Wheeler's Guest House in KL and Aur Bay in Pulau Perhentian, but we've also stayed in some awesome places : The Hive in Singapore, the place NEXT to the Reggae House whose name I can't recall in KL, Twin Pines Guest House in Cameron Highlands, The Butterfly Chalet in Pulau Perhentian (it's definitely not for the faint of heart, but we loved it) Zeck's in Kota Bharu, and now we're at Sinad Guest House in Bangkok. I know that some of the people reading our blog are planning trips for this summer, so hopefully this is helpful! We haven't been staying in the cheapest places, but pretty close to it, and they're great. I wonder if hostels will ever be available in the U.S. like this for travelers?

Ok, time to check out some temples. We'll be here for a day or so more and then we're heading Khao Yai National Park fo a couple days to hike in the jungle (there are still wild tigers there!) before going to Wat Pah Nanachat in Ubon Ratchatani to visit Cullum and to do some meditation and help around the temple.

I'm going to try to post some photos later tonight or tomorrow! Toodles.