A Milestone - 1,000 Geocaches!

I am really excited to announce that I finally hit 1,000 geocache finds!  I thought it might be fun to go through my find logs and upload a bunch of photos that show the progression of all of my finds.  I have had the opportunity to geocache in multiple countries, meet some amazing friends, and almost die on multiple occasions.  I have had the chance to go on hikes in the South-Pacific, find caches hidden in temples in Japan, walk around ruins in Thailand, and go around various beautiful places in California, and other places in the U.S. Geocaching has been the cause of me being able to find amazing places on both sides of the date-line, and both North and South of the equator.  

Needless to say, this hobby has been the cause of many great adventures and led to me meeting some amazing new friends.  

Thanks for the great memories, and I am looking forward to many more to come!  

More Geocaching!

This was an all-around great day of geocaching.  The weather was beautiful, and the temples were amazing - as they were all decked out for the previous day and the New Year. 

One of the great things about geocaching is that it forces you to go see many new places and wander around areas that many tourists might not find.  

For this adventure, we rented bikes again (about $1 a day) and rode around Sukhothai finding temples and caches.  Needless to say, it was absolutely beautiful.  

Geocaching Kamphaeng Phet

Whenever you see a bunch of tourists fishing through the leaves while trying to avoid any potentially lethal animals, they might be geocaching.  Recently my friend Eddie and I have been into trying to raise our total find numbers and thankfully, all of the UNESCO sites in Thailand are riddled with caches.  We had a fantastic time wandering the ruins and looking for little boxes hidden among the cobras and leaves.

Well, maybe cobras.  

For the sake of my imagination, I am just going to guess there are cobras everywhere in Thailand.  

One of the best things to do at a historic site is to rent bikes and tour around the area.  This totally beats walking for a few reasons:
1. Most of them are flat.
2: It is a lot cooler than walking.
3. You can run over shit on bikes.

There is something pretty amazing about wandering around ruins from  a long-past time and just enjoying the cool breeze (which is rare in Thailand) as it comes through the trees.  While Kamphaeng Phet is quite out of the way for just about anyone visiting Thailand, It really should not be discounted as a premier tourist destination.  The best part is that since it is quite out of the way, there are not a lot of people there.  For most of the places we stopped on our biking adventure, we were the only ones wandering around.  It makes for a much better experience in my opinion as we did not have to fight busloads of tourists for any vantage points.

Not to mention the cobras...

Just kidding, these kind of cobras...

Sadly, we did not see any cobras... Oh well

Geocaching around Ayutthaya

I am not going to try to explain the historical or cultural significance of Ayutthaya, Thailand, nor am I going to try to explain the differences in temple structures.  Everything that I know about this complex is based on one book, a few websites, and some perusing of the UNESCO website.
Suffice it to say that Ayutthaya is very deserving of the UNESCO recognition.  While I cannot say that I have been to many world heritage sites, I can say that there is a real feeling of depth to visiting Ayutthaya.  The area is a bustling modern city with ruins that date back to the 1300's.  There is a mix of modern cars, tuk-tuks, and other "normal" looking settings, with the temple complexes playing backdrop to the typical Thai city scene. 

We were lucky in the sense that we had a lot of time in the early morning to explore the area before the typical crowds started to arrive.  

My suggestion for visiting any site like this is to show up early and leave early.  There is a real sense of beauty when you are wandering around the ruins by yourself.  For the first small portion of time, the only sounds that I heard were the calls of birds and my own feet moving along the rough gravel paths. That serenity was shattered when the first school group turned their children loose on the area.  For a few glorious minutes though, there was a real sense of calm and beauty.

The only complaint that I have about the whole trip is how many people do not understand the fragility of places such as these. There are signs in multiple languages asking people to not deface the ruins, leave rubbish, or climb all over the steps.  There are areas that are lower and are OK to walk up, but there are many places that you can tell would be both perilous to the person ascending, and destructive to the irreplaceable cultural artifacts. 

Sadly, I saw a few people ignoring these signs.  I wish I could say that it was just one or two tourists, but it seems that Thai and foreign alike want to take that extra special selfie on top of a set of 700 year old crumpling stairs.  

An interesting thing that I learned is that when you take a picture with any statue that depicts Buddha, you are supposed to be lower than the head of the statue.  This makes total sense when thinking about the cultural values, but just a connection that I had never made before.  

So, without further rambling, here are some of the better photos that I captured today.