First of all, I apologize for the past month's blog slackerdom hole that I fell into. I spent most of my time bumming around beaches and islands in Thailand, and although it was fabulous, it was not super conducive to blogging. Slow/pricey internet with too much draw to the outside world (aka the beach). I have many stories of the past month, but you may just have to wait to hear them in person(ie evil lady throwing my friend's camera into the 30m deep ocean and telling us how to recover the pics on the memory card even though the camera was obviously gone; falling every time i went for a run; overnight boats where I had to share 2 tiny spots with 3 people; taking care of my 2 adopted 22/23 year old British daughters; ... read more
Yesterday and today were great days. But first, last I updated, while I was using the internet, I had seriously itchy ankles from bug bites and ofcourse I had been scratching them. When I got back to our guesthouse, I took off my shoes and jeans and my entire foot was covered with blood. How did I not notice that? Weird. anyways.... Yesterday, we (Liz, Catriona and I) went on a 4 island longtail boat/snorkeling tour. It was amazing. The water was crystal clear and we visited some beautiful beaches. the snorkeling wasn't the greatest for some reason (there wasn't a huge variety of fish and the coral was mostly dead), but the rock formations and beaches made up for it. And the mango. and the icecream that we got when we begged the truck driver ... read more
Sorry...its been a week...being on an island, on island time, with island internet and a beautiful beach. I just couldn't be bothered with being inside for more than 2 minutes. So... My bus from Bangkok was meant to leave at 6pm. This actually meant that at 6pm someone came to my hotel and walked me to a dark dingy alley. In the pouring rain (Thanks again Jackie for the bag cover!). I waited in this dark dingy alley for quite some time with a bunch of other people and then we were brought to another alley and then had to dodge traffic to get to our shiny pink bus. I remembered how I had said 1 year ago that I would never take another overnight bus in Thailand. I got on the bus and confirmed the ... read more
The morning I flew to Bangkok, I got up to help give food out to the monks. This occurs everyday around 6am since the monks are not allowed to cook for themselves. They walk around and many people sit out on the streets to give them rice and other goodies. It was a really cool thing to participate in, but even cooler to see just how many people do this each and every morning. I then returned to the hostel as I was supposed to be getting a ride to the airport. Apparently the driver was still drunk from the New Year's festivities the night before, so I had to venture into town to find a tuk tuk. I found one easily and headed to the airport. Flying is such a civilized way to travel when ... read more
I have pretty much officially moved to Luang Prubang. Tonight will be my 10th night here and ever single one has been fabulous! To be honest, I can't really recall every single detail of my stay here (is it too much Lao Lao whiskey or my old age???), but I will try to capture some of the highlights for you... (and I just typed up the whole thing...and then it got lost...ahhh!!!) The beginning of my stay here, my friend Jen who I had been traveling with and I took one day to journey out to the big waterfall which is about 30k outside of town. We found a tuk-tuk driver to take us there, but he made us wait for awhile. He promised he had other people to go and as soon as they were ... read more
We took a bus to Vang Vieng and once again got very lucky in that the bus wasn't very full. This time there were not even any poultry or crustaceans. The bus was only about 3 hours which at this point seems like it is right around the corner. We arrived in Vang Vieng and I was so surprised to see that the streets were lined with restaurants and bars catering towards westerners. I had read about the "Friends" tv bars, but was not expecting it to the extent that it was. Every restaurant had ongoing episodes of "Friends". It was amazing. Not true Laos experience but something that I needed when I was feeling pretty down. Some places chose to show The Simpsons, but most stuck to Friends. Crazy. We found a guesthouse that was ... read more
I have had a crazy few days. like seriously crazy. ok so it started out like this... After the night of not sleeping in Pakse because I was paranoid about critters, the next night, I slept super soundly (thanks to the eye mask, ear plugs and Nyquil-I started to get a cold). We woke up in the morning to head out on our trek and had grabbed our ziplocked bag of food to find a hole in the bag. Oh gross. Oddly, the actual food bag didnt have any markings, but something made a whole in the zip lock. I convinced myself it was some really eager mosquitos, dropped the bag and left the lodge immediately. We were met by our guide and were excited about our trek. We had to be brought to the beginning ... read more
I spent a night in Pakse which was a pretty boring little dusty town and then headed out to check out the sites along a plateau along town. We saw a few waterfalls, some villages (including one that makes coffins), a tea plantation and some other things. It wasn't all that spectacular of a day, although the waterfalls were pretty nice and I did enjoy swimming in them. The next morning I went to the 4,000 islands which was great! I took a few hour bus and then hopped on a boat. I arrived and found a little guest house that was run by 'mama' who turned out to be insane! It was located right on the river and had tons of hammocks to just veg out on! The islands were so nice because although there ... read more
I arrived in Phnom Penh after many many hours on the bus and found a guesthouse (pricey one...4 dollars a night). It was located right on the lake with many hammocks just asking to be lounged in! i met 3 Canadian girls who were traveling together and we all went and got some dinner. they had the same next few day plan as me, so I ended up exploring the city with them and then traveling onward with them for a few days. The next day, we went out to the killing fields and the genocide museum which were super depressing, but interesting. It is unbelievable to learn about all the torturous things the people of Cambodia have gone through. And it is even more unbelievable to learn that this was not that long ago. crazy. ... read more
This is all actually a lie...I am not actuall still on the island. since I was on Phu Quoc Island, I have been on 2 planes, countless buses, many tuk tuks, 1 lion statue, multiple bikes, a plethora of boats, a few motorbikes and have moved on to 2 more countries, but have not had the time to actually sit down and write about it. I will attempt to remember my few days in Phu Quoc and then maybe just maybe will fill you in on my last few days which I have spent in Cambodia. Or about the place I am now in in Laos.... Getting to Phu Quoc Island was an adventure in itself. I walked down to the ferry terminal even though my hotel thought I was crazy and should get a taxi. ... read more