After some much-needed recharge in Chiang Mai, Kent and I set off to the Chiang Mai TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand.. every bigish town has one) and explore our surround while we're at it. The old town of Chiang Mai, where we were staying, is a grid of wats and outdoor markets, and surrounded by a moat. The TAT office was dissapointingly unhelpful, but we did get bus scheduals to the Northern/Laos border towns, essential for the next leg of my travels. We walked back through town, and then Kent went off to do some computering and I wandered the streets [View Full Entry]

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After spending a single night on Khao San, I departed via minibus to Ayuthaya. I quickly found out that this bus was part of a tour which I was not entitled to given my one-way ticket status. After the first stop I decided not to partake in the tour, because a) I was feeling a bit under the weather and b) made up my mind that now every wat ever would pale in comparison to Angkor. So, I cut my day planned for Ayuthaya short and headed straight to the train station to find out when I could leave for Phitsanulok, [View Full Entry]

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So as I left you all last time, Amy and Erin were leaving me. I thought it was to be the dawn of my adventure by myself. Ah, how wrong I was. Before they departed, we met up with Rebecca and Laura, and I decided to bunk with them in a tiny guesthouse off of Khao San. Rebecca, too, was set to leave the next morning, so my plan was to hang with Laura and make arrangements to begin my trek northward. I went with Laura to her and Becca's trusted travel agent. I was very wary after the whole Lidia [View Full Entry]

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As you all may have gathered from the last update, the three of us fell -with a splash- in love with scuba diving. There is an inexplicable freedom and serenity to being able to breathe and explore underwater. Me being fairly quiet anyway, I lapped in the silence. Amy and I decided to extend our certification, and after 5 more dives became PADI Advanced Open Water Divers (now only 51 more dives until we're Masters!). We did our advanced with Alex and Bettina, the two Austrian girls who were in our first class. Turns out Bettina is from Innsbruck, which is [View Full Entry]

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LAST TIME, ON EMMA'S TRAVEL BLOG... We were leaving Krabi for the Islands... The bus ride didn't feel as bad as usual. At Surat Thani we took a ferry to Koh Samui. Samui is the biggest of the islands in this sweet little archipelago on the Pacific coast of Thailand. We arrived mostly without a hitch to bunglaows 10 steps from the beach. After a quiet evening of exploring the nearby town of Lamai (which makes me think of the "lanai" every time I think aboot it), we booked a sea kayaking tour for the next day. Sea Kayaking was awesome. [View Full Entry]

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We left Phuket happily. Between the bad weather and the blatant touristyness of Patong beach, it was a relief to get away. Unfortunately, my alarm didn't go off that morning, so when I randomly awoke at 7 am, I yelled "WAKE UP!" as we were schedualed to be picked up around 7. Luckily for us we weren't picked up until about 7.30! The minibus ride felt pretty short and by the early afternoon we reached Krabi, where we had to take ANOTHER truck to our hotel on Ao Nang beach. For some reason or another, our older Thai truck driver took [View Full Entry]

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After meeting up with Amy in Bangkok, the three of us boarded an overnight bus to Phuket, a small island on the SouthWest coast of Thailand. After a bus transfer and some waiting around, the entire took about 15 hours- most of which was spent napping or watching Pirates of the Carribbean. Out of Bangkok I was seated next to an Irish guy named Delwyn, who made good conversation and excellent eyecandy. "You know you're going to be in the North during monsoon season, right?" he asked. "Of course!" (which was true.) But that got me thinking about what "monsoon season" [View Full Entry]

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Greetings! Well after a very uneventful 20 hour travel time, Erin and I made it to one piece to Bangkok. After many smiles and offers for rides to the city, we managed to get into the more regulated metered cab line... though we still speculate we got a bit ripped off. Completely exhausted, we stumbled to Khao San Road, major farang (foreigner) hotspot and checked into the hotel Amy said she would be at in a few days. We were definitely ripped off here- but a cool room with breakfast and a pool sounded like a good way to recover from [View Full Entry]

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