Well I'll keep this entry short. I flew from Luang Prabang to Bangkok early in the morning after one last hurrah at the famous bowling alley. Once in Bangkok I met up with my friend Kenneth's mom who lives in Bangkok. She took me out for an amazing buffet lunch at the intercontinental hotel. I don't eat much fish but this was the best sushi I have ever had...plus the dessert buffet wasn't too shabby either. She then took me around Bangkok to the river, on the skytrain, to a Buddhist statue...about as much Bangkok you could see in one afternoon. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sabaidee! The last couple of days in Luang Prabang have been full of amazing activities. Yamil and I decided to take a half day elephant tour. We took a minibus out to the "elephant village" about 30 minutes away from town. All of the elephants are former working elephants, mostly from the logging industry. They now live a much more comfortable life, giving people rides through the jungle and allowing people to feed and bathe them. Sure beats the dangerous hauling of logs from the jungle...Since the elephants cannot be feasibly re-introduced back into the wild after they have been trained, [View Full Entry]

---

---

The last entry I wrote we were waiting for the rain to clear to go tubing. We went to some booking places to see where to rent a tube but they all seemed closed. Apparently you couldn't rent them because the water was too high. We all knew that you still could but we were convinced by a tour operator to go on a kayaking trip instead. We (Yamil, Daniel, Johannes, and I...the people I went climbing with) headed off in a jumbo to get north of town. We put our double kayaks into the Nam Song River and headed off. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well things have remained interesting in the last couple of days. After writing my last blog I did indeed get my Laos herbal massage. It was a mix of stretching, aromatherapy, chiropractor, massaging, and placing bags of hot herbs over my body. Obviously enjoyable. Then I had one of the most romantic dinners of my life....by myself. Picture a little french bistro overlooking a fountain in central Vientiane with light French music in the background. One of the better oven-baked thin crust pizzas I've ever had too. The next morning I took the bus up to Vang Vieng about 4 hours [View Full Entry]

---

---

Phnom Penh So I took the 6 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. The bus lets you off in a busy part of town and you are instantly greeted by dozens (no exaggeration) of screaming tuk-tuk drivers. All are your "friend" and want to take you places. After a mad scramble to get away we found a quiet street. According to the lonely planet (my travel saviour on many occasion) there are two main backpacker areas in Phnom Penh and we had landed just about in one of them called Psar O Russei. There were a ton of [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our next day was an unexpected surprise. Kyle had met what he described to be a very friendly Cambodian the day before in an internet cafe. He said he was between jobs and would love to show us around if we wanted. He didn't want any payment, just our company. When Kyle told me I was skeptical at first. You're never sure with certain scams etc. in SE Asia. Kyle had gotten his phone number so that morning we gave him a call. The girls wanted to have a shopping day around Siem Reap so we split up. Our Cambodian friend [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sorry about the delay between posts. Apparently I scared my parents a bit by not writing after I'd said I would post soon. So we landed in Siem Reap on one hours sleep. Waiting for us at the gorgeous Siem Reap airport were two tuk-tuks, a kind of motorcycle pulled carriage that are all over the place. We headed right into town and found our hotel. Our room wasn't ready for a couple of hours so we decided to go have breakfast and then exploring a bit. A fresh and warm baguette (common in formerly French controlled Cambodia) was a pleasant [View Full Entry]

---

---

Mount Kinabalu So last I left off I was heading, pantless, towards Mount Kinabalu. The mountain dominates the landscape and, at just over 4,000 m tall, is the tallest mountain in SE Asia. I, along with my travel mates, had certainly never climbed a mountain that high, but we thought we would give it a try. The hike consists of two parts, a 6km trek to Laban Rata where the guest houses are and a 2.7 km jaunt up to the peak that is usually done the next morning in the dark to reach the top for sunrise. I have certainly [View Full Entry]

---

---

The Journey around Borneo So we flew from Kuala Lumpur into the city of Sandakan of the far east coast of the province of Sabah in the Malaysian part of Borneo. We had nothing finalized but knew that we wanted to do two main things in our week here, dive and mountain climb. Things began to fall serenditously into place and we headed first for the south coast of Sabah and the world famous dive destination called Sipadan. A short taxi ride took us to the long-distance bus stop in Sandakan so we could catch a bus to Semporna, the main [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hello again! I last left off having just returned to Penang from Pulau Redang and getting nice and cozy again in our Hotel Vistana. Unfortunately, the work had just begun (we are in school after all). The first thing to finish was the paper and corresponding powerpoint presentation. My topic was the Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), a peculiar rhinoceros/horse relative that lives in the jungles of Malaysia. I won't get into it now but needless to say an interesting topic for me. The biggest issue with writing the paper was internet and computer access. The USM campus was a short ways [View Full Entry]

---

---