anotley
Ashley Notley Joined: December 28th 2008
Logged in: April 26th 2010
Logged in: April 26th 2010
Travel Blog Posts
Wow, what a trip its been. I cant believe its almost over!! Home in less than a week? Back to work? YIKES. But, I can't say I'm not anxious. My bed. A clean shower. NEW CLOTHES that dont smell like backpack. OMG. What a treat. And of course I'm excited to see you allll! Haha. Alright, so. Down to business. Bus ride to Laos was pretty long....not as brutal as I had anticipated though. We got to the border around 6, but it didnt open until 7 so we had to wait around and play cards until then. Back on the bus, we had another 7 hours or so to go. We met some nice people on the bus which helped pass the time during stops here and there. We finally made it to Vientiane and ... read more
HELLO All! Hope everyone is enjoying the above average temperature! I hear its been pretty sweet back home. I wish I could say I was jealous...but...alas, I'm enjoying the real heat here. The sand dunes in Mui Ne were suuuper cool! Like nothing I've ever seen. Parts of it sort of reminded me of camping as a kid at Sandbanks. But waaaay more impressive. We rented motorbikes and rode out there - we basically had the road to ourselves the whole way. It was pretty nifty. We rode to the white sand dunes first and chilled on a completely secluded beach before heading to the red sand dunes, where we rented these plastic sheets to slide down on. It was lots of fun! Our 15 year old guide was quite the character - he took our ... read more
Hello! Well...my take on Cambodia has changed somewhat, and I'm not too pleased about it! As much as the people were so nice and friendly, the amount of beggers and people selling stuff became unbareable... From Siem Reap, we headed to Sianoukville, a small town by the beach. We took a night bus (the most horrid experience of my life - it was a regular bus, so the seats didnt recline whatsoever, and the ride itself probably would have only took 4-5 hours, but to justify it being a "night bus", the ride took 10 hours. It stopped SO often to make the ride longer, so of course every time is stopped, I'd think we were there and wake up from my not so great sleep...ugh). Needless to say, once we arrived in Sianoukville, we were ... read more
Hello from Siem Reap! We spent a few days in Kuala Lampur (KL as they call it) before our flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia. The day we got there, it was raining and pretty cloudy. We wanted to do the tour of tower (can't remember its name) but you're supposed to be able to see evvvverything from up there. When we arrived, the lady said it wasnt worth our time and money because of the rain. So from there, we walked to the shopping mall (I know, I know...of all places). This mall was UNREAL. Everything from Tiffany's to Body Shop to SUBWAY (we were really excited about having a real sandwhich...boy did it hit the spot). We spent way too much time in the mall...and then headed back to our hotel area. We went ... read more
Hello again! Its been a while, I know. So. Last I wrote, we were heading to Railay beach, in Thailand. We took a speedboat over from Krabi and arrived at one of the most beautiful beaches I think I've seen yet. Crystal clear water, white white sand. Wow. We went on a kayaking tour of a nearby area, through mangroves and caves. We saw monkeys doing their thing...and getting really close to us, when we were eating watermellon on the shore. I guess they're really used to people...and not afraid. The rest of the time on Railay, we relaxed on the beach, went to a bar and watched a local guy play guitar, played some pool with some randoms, and then headed to Ko Phi Phi island for some diving. Ko Phi Phi was beautiful, but ... read more
Hello from Krabi! We are still in Thailand...feeling the heat. Most days in the city its about 35 degrees...and boy am I ever feeling it. We're drinking lots of water though and staying hydrated...so all is good. So we did some scuba diving at Sail Rock and off the beach in Ko Phangan for 2 days and although the visibility wasnt great, it was still really nice to get back out there. Cristina and Chantal are now certified divers, so we're going to do some diving when we head to Ko Phi Phi in a few days. We left Ko Phangan a few days ago (I'm sooooo losing track of days haha) and headed to Khao Sok national park. We stayed 2 nights at this place called Art's Riverview Lodge (for nature lovers only!) which was ... read more
Hello from Ko Phangan! I arrived safe and sound after a looooooooong but very comfortable flight and Cristina was there to meet me at the airport. She paged me over the intercom ahaha. It was rather funny to hear a Thai woman attempt to pronounce my name. We managed to find Chantal the same way as well a half hour later and cabed to our very odd hostel in Bangkok. It was certainly not what we were expecting but it was a bed with AC in the room...so who can complain for $4. I woke up the next morning feeling kinda funny..I was sick to my stomach and basically stayed in for the rest of the day. The girls went out exploring and I slept and slept and slept. Maybe I ate something funny on the ... read more
SO! Much to tell...and its going to be hard to put it into a big blog....so bare with me. From Santa Teresa, we headed to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica to Puerto Viejo. Biggest tourist town ever! We had to transfer buses in San Jose and we had our first experience with being ripped off. Nothing huge, but we had to transfer to another bus terminal so we took a cab. We were chatting with this guy that was on our first bus, asking where he was going, and he said the same terminal as us. So we decided to share a cab. Once we found a cabbie, they started conversing in spanish and we didn´t have a clue what was being said. All of sudden, we were in the cab, and the cabbie was ... read more
We headed to Monteverde from Liberia since I last wrote, which is essentially a cloud forest/rain forest. It was freezing and raining pretty much the whole time we were there but still beautiful as the sun would come out and spread a rainbow across the sky every now and then, making everything just peachy keen. The town itself is almost like banff - very small and quaint. We stayed in a hostel that was part of a tour company downstairs, however this helped since we wanted to do a canopy tour. We went to a little cafe upon our arrival for a bite to eat...I had one of the best coffees I've had since been here. Wow. Blew my mind. We bought some groceries for that night...I made delicious guacamole. Mmmmm. We just lazed around that ... read more
I dont even know where I last left off with the blogs...I think in Granada? Anyways, from Granada we headed to San Juan del Sur which is on the pacific coast of Nicaragua. It was fairly nice there, a real surfer town with looots of tourists. We stayed in a nice enough place overlooking to beach and met some aussies and canadians on the beach who we later met up with at the local sports bar to watch the Super Bowl. Wooooo! Before leaving San Juan, we went to Playa Maderas which is about a 45min drive from there. It was beauuutiful. Very secluded and only a few spots to choose from to stay at. We ended up camping at a place called the Hideout...what an experience. The owner was a 50yr old guy from California ... read more
