Northern Thailand

After a whirlwind stop in Cambodia and an overnight layover in Bangkok, we were finally on our way to northern Thailand. Chiang Mai and Pai had been on our bucket lists for a while so we were excited to cross these off!

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Chiang Mai

We were on the ground in Chiang Mai by 10 AM, so with a full day ahead of us we checked into our hostel, Thunder Bird. It turned out to be the trendiest, nicest hostel with a vegan restaurant, bakery, unbelievably clean rooms and bathrooms, plus a piano & guitar for the more musically inclined. It was the cutest. By the time we checked in and got settled, we decided to try some trendy vegan meals for lunch. Sloan got pad thai and I got a sandwich on a ‘charcoal broccoli quinoa’ bagel. Turns out charcoal is actually great for you and this bagel was tasty as ever, too. Win win!

With full bellies, we left our hostel to check out all the hype behind Chiang Mai. We walked around the old town for hours exploring back roads, small shops, markets, and I even got a pedicure and some other cool souvenirs. We’d been wanting to try the famous mango sticky rice in Thailand since my friend Lauren had recommended it to us back at the beginning of our trip. We were just hungry enough for a little snack now, so when we saw a small restaurant serving this dish we jumped at it. It was sooo good, the perfect combination of salty from the rice, and sweet from the mango/coconut milk.

We sat, ate, and watched as it monsooned outside for 30 minutes, then we headed back to Thunder Bird.

One of our friends, Cameron, with whom we’d spent the better part of our 3 weeks in Vietnam, was now living in Chiang Mai temporarily. He had just gotten to the city too and was still in the search for an apartment, so he ended up staying at Thunder Bird for the night with us. We all met up around 5pm and decided to check out the famous Chiang Mai weekend night markets.

Wow… I think I’ve written before that one of my favorite things about the SE Asian culture is their love of markets. Every kind of market you could ever think of exists somewhere here. Fish, flowers, souvenirs, clothing, wood carvings, pottery, and the list goes on. Sloan and I have loved exploring them all and seeing the outrageous things we can find. But holy wow, the Chiang Mai Weekend Market puts every other market I’ve EVER seen to shame, and that is an understatement.

There were two main roads perpendicular to each other that made the market up, plus many many side streets along the way. To put into perspective how big it was, one of the roads stretched for just under one mile and there couldn’t have been more than 4 inches between each stall. It took us easily three hours to walk down just *one* street along with some side streets to check out the food. It was the most amazing thing ever.

While I’m on the topic of food… if you’re into checking out authentic street food, Chiang Mai is for you. What was originally supposed to be a quick walk through the market on the way to dinner turned into the market’s street food becoming our dinner. We tried a little bit of everything we could find:

• Sheame – fried balls of rice and corn served with chili sauce. Sounds simple, but it was one of the tastiest street foods I’ve had.
• Pad Thai – the classic rice noodles with tofu, chicken, egg and peanut sauce.
• MASSIVE spring rolls – these were easily the size of a Chipotle burrito
• Grilled pork chop – served with the spiciest sauce, I think Sloan was sweating after his first bite
• Cake donuts – just when we got finished talking about how Asia didn’t really have any sweet desserts…
• A chocolate almond Belgian waffle – just wow

Needless to say, we were disgustingly full after eating all that food. We spent a while longer exploring the market, seeing what we could find and trying to walk off the food coma we’d just put ourselves into. We found just about every handicraft imaginable. If we had more rooms in our backpacks I know we would’ve taken home a handful of souvenirs, but that’s the downside of backpacking I suppose.

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Elephants at Home

One of our most highly anticipated days of the entire trip was finally here. We were going to play with elephants! We’d heard about the elephant sanctuaries in Chiang Mai back in May when we started planning this trip, but nothing could have prepared us for how cool this day would be.

The tricky thing about the elephant sanctuaries is figuring out which ones are humane and which aren’t. Rule of thumb is if they advertise riding the elephants, don’t go. From our research we found that those sanctuaries typically have really bad living conditions for the elephants and they’re treated as props instead of as pets. I spent a lot of time looking into this, as respecting animals is incredibly important to me, and we found a few that fit what we wanted to do.

The first one, called the Elephant Sanctuary, was filled for three weeks in advance and we were trying to sign up the day before. What normally would have been discouraging ended up being the best luck ever. We went to another place, called Elephants At Home, and had the most amazing day of the entire trip.

Elephants At Home is just what it sounds like, a place where elephants can live and be cared for while still feeling like they’re “at home” in the jungle. We took a 2 hour bus ride into the jungle outside of Chiang Mai and randomly came across a small little hut with a group of people, a few dogs, and four absolutely massive elephants. They weren’t tied up or restricted to a pen, they were very much free to go and do as they please. We knew immediately that we picked the right place.

There were only three other people in our group, which made us even happier with our decision to go to a lesser known, less crowded sanctuary. The guides, who were the 7th generation of caretakers to the elephants here, spoke to us for a while. We learned a lot about their sanctuary and elephants specifically, for example female elephants can live up to 100 years old, 20-25 years longer than their male counterparts. Girl power?

Now it was time for the fun to begin. The elephants had been poking their trunks into the hut we were sitting in the whole time, but now it was feeding time! All five of us dressed in traditional, brightly-colored clothing, grabbed a bucket of bananas, and were sent into this pack of very hungry elephants. Holy wow! First of all, you realize how small you truly are when you’re standing next to an elephant. They made Sloan look teeny tiny. And second of all, they are absolutely ruthless with their trunks when you bring out the food. I swear their trunks have a mind of their own! They’re like little snakes, wrapping around your arms and grabbing all the bananas before you even realize what’s happening. They are so smart! Each elephant had over a bucket of bananas to itself, peels and all, and I imagine they could’ve eaten much much more than that.

After feeding, it was bath time! We walked with the elephants alongside to a nearby river and they jumped right in with us. We washed them down with sugarcane and soap and they were loving every second. It was so fun splashing around with them. They sprayed us and gave us “kisses and cuddles” and it was honestly the best thing ever.

From there we hiked for over 45 minutes to our lunch spot, which was a big tree hut next to a waterfall. The elephants are surprisingly nimble! They were walking up really steep paths and never lost their balance which was super impressive to me. We had to keep pinching ourselves and looking around at what we were doing. Hiking through the jungle with elephants all around us. Are you kidding?!

The lunch they prepared for us was insane. All the fruit you could possibly ask for. We had clementines, bananas, mangoes, passion fruit, dragon fruit, watermelon, and the freshest pineapple I’ve ever tasted. Plus they gave us each fried chicken wings and sticky rice served in banana leaves. Ugh I wish I could eat it all again as I write this. Just look at how delicious!!!

After lunch we swam in the waterfall with the elephants. As amazing as it is swimming with these gorgeous creatures, you do have to remember how massive they are and that if they accidentally fell on you or pushed you under the water, well, you were probably a goner.

We had so much fun swimming, taking pictures and feeding them some more. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Even despite one of the elephants accidentally smacking me across the face with its massive ear. That one didn’t feel great.

We hiked back to their home and wished them goodbyes. We were both so sad for this day to end, but I have faith we will be playing with elephants again someday.

We returned to Chiang Mai just in time to grab dinner at Lemongrass for the best pad Thai we’ve ever had. I will definitely miss this city (and all of it’s incredible food) !!

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Pai, Thailand

So many people we’d met on this trip told us great things about Pai, and even though we only had two more days before we were meeting our parents in Bangkok, we made sure to squeeze Pai into our itinerary.

The road from Chiang Mai is 85 miles long and has 762 turns along the way. SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO. It took us over 3.5 hour on a bus with a Chinese tour group that wouldn’t stop yelling (or puking…) It was the worst bus ride ever.

BUT, Pai was more than worth it. We stayed in the Pai Circus Hostel which was awesome and stupidly cheap. We wasted no time checking in, renting a motorbike and getting out there to see as much of Pai as we possibly could.

Our first stop was Coffee In Love, an adorable little coffee shop restaurant overlooking the Pai countryside. It was adorable! From there we explored the Memorial Bridge, a few cute shops, and then went on to the Pai Canyon. This was like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life (though I know it doesn’t even come close to the Grand Canyon) but it’s basically that on a smaller scale. It’s a big open area where all the land has eroded over time, leaving just a few massive cliffs that drop off at a complete 90-degree angle on either side. It’s the type of place where you realize that you are actually scared of heights, even if you always thought otherwise.

We spent nearly two hours wandering around the cliffs, climbing up and down and feeling way too nervous near the edges. On our way out, we met a group of girls debating on climbing down the really steep path that we’d just come from. We got to chatting with them and they decided that it wasn’t worth it, so instead we joined the 4 of them to head to a bar for sunset drinks. The first two girls were Rosie and Alice, two sisters from the UK who had been living in Australia for the past year, and then Isla and Lauren, who the sisters had met on their travels. We spent a while chatting with them and getting drinks before we all split and returned to our hostels.

Sloan and I went to the Pai Night Market now, which was much MUCH smaller than the market in Chiang Mai, but we enjoyed how chill it was. We tried some more street food as our dinner (even risked street sushi, which in hindsight probably wasn’t smart, but it was tasty and we lived to tell the tale) and then retreated to our bungalow home for the night.

The next morning we woke up early with a plan to make the most of our half-day in Pai. We took our motorbike 14 miles outside of the city into the National Park, drove down some incredibly steep hills, and finally made it to the hot springs. These were the lesser known hot springs in the area so it was pretty secluded, and I think we were the only non-locals there. It was such a cool place, the water was crystal clear and surprisingly really hot, and the scenery was beautiful. We probably could’ve spent all day here if we weren’t on such a tight time constraint, but off we were to our next stop.

We made it to the Mo Paeng Waterfall after winding through incredibly remote paths and getting funny looks by the locals. The waterfall had some natural slides down them so of course we jumped right in and slid down in the freezing water before realizing that it was next to impossible to get out on the slippery rocks.

We had planned to meet Alice and Rosie for lunch, so we headed back into town and met them at the Rabbit Cafe for coffee. I don’t think I could love a concept any more: order a delicious iced coffee, and they serve you at your table with a bunny too! A real live bunny!!! Oh my heart.

We went across the street after a hard goodbye to the cutest little fluff ball and got lunch at Lemon Thyme. We all got bacon & avocado eggs benedict and I think I might still be dreaming about it as I write this 3 weeks later… wow. We really enjoyed Alice and Rosie’s company, so we spent a while chatting and laughing with them before having to say our goodbyes and leaving on a jam-packed bus with more Chinese people who refused to let us sit together for whatever reason. The ride back was more brutal than the ride here and I think both Sloan and I had moments of feeling nauseous, but we held it down and made it to Chiang Mai relatively unscathed.

After another delicious pad thai for dinner, we were ready to call it a night. The morning was going to be here before we knew it, and it was just about time to meet our parents! Here goes nothing…

Cambodia

With a few extra days before heading to Thailand, we decided that it wouldn’t be a trip to Southeast Asia without visiting one of the world wonders, Angkor Wat. We had originally planned to spend more time in Cambodia but rearranged our itinerary to include more of Vietnam (best decision yet) so we were left with just enough time to see the ancient temples. It was on our path from Ha Noi to Bangkok anyways, so we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia for what would be the quickest stop we’ve had in a country yet.

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Angkor Wat

Nothing like a solid 4 AM wake up call for tourism. After shedding a few tears realizing how much money we’d spent just to see these temples, we were ushered inside by our tuk-tuk driver Sam. We weren’t the only ones who planned on checking out the temples for sunrise. Actually, we were surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of other tourists anxiously awaiting the sunrise.

Sadly, the sun was hidden behind clouds and we could tell the sunrise wasn’t worth sticking around for, so we headed to explore the temples before the crowds had the same idea.

Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the world, covering a span of 402 acres to be exact. It was built in the 12th century and was originally a Hindu temple, but was later converted to be Buddhist. The temples are massive! They aren’t as tall as some of the pagodas we’d seen in Bagan, Myanmar but unlike those, which were individual pagodas spread apart from one another, Angkor Wat is more like a village in the middle of a Cambodian jungle.

The vast majority of the temples were preserved extremely well, and the ones with more wear and tear had a more authentic feel which we appreciated anyways.

Now, I’m not a temple guru by any means, but it really is incredible to see how intricately these temples were designed hundreds of years ago. It gives you an appreciation for their work ethic, that’s for sure!

The entire 402 acres are known collectively as “Angkor Wat” but there are multiple temples throughout which are individually named. The highlights of our day were Angkor Wat, which is completely encompassed by a moat, and Bayon, which sits in the center of the massive Angkor Thom. Each temple was incredible in its own way, but we particularly liked Angkor Thom. The ruins are massive, covered in bright green moss, and many had huge stone faces carved into the walls. It was crawling with tourists here, so it was hard to get a great picture without your average tourist dabbing in the corner, but it was beautiful.

We continued to walk around and look at temples for the rest of the morning. We saw the Ta Prohm temple, where the movie Tomb Raider was filmed, another with huge trees growing out of the top of it, and another with hundreds of bats chirping at us from the ceilings.

Being that we are not temple gurus, after a while the temples all start to look alike. (And we had only bought the 1-day pass, there are passed up to 7-days!) I really am happy we came and did this, but after 6 hours we were both ready to call it a day and head back to our hostel.

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Siem Reap

Once we finished our tour we had about 34 hours left in Cambodia. We stayed at the Siem Reap Pub Hostel, which was the cheapest place we’ve stayed and honestly one of the nicest. Big bar, private pool, and our room had 2 queen beds and an ensuite bathroom. It might not sound like much but when you’ve been sleeping on concrete dorm bunk beds in a room with 6+ strangers for a while, it was heaven.

Siem Reap (surely due to the amount of tourists that pass through) was a super trendy town. They had just about every type of restaurant you could be looking for, including a vegan cafe with chocolate&pb acai bowls and hemp protein balls (my prayers were answered.. God is that you?), and of course a Mexican restaurant for Sloan. It was the perfect place to chill for a few nights, eat good food, nap whenever we wanted, and feel no guilt.

That pretty much sums up how we spent our time in Siem Reap, plus checking out a really cute night market nearby our hostel. The abundance of night markets may be my favorite thing about this part of the world. Another funny thing about Cambodia (or at least this area) is a lack of their own currency. They price everything in US dollars and even when you take money out of the ATM, you get US dollars. It was weird and made it feel much less authentic being here, but I guess that’s what you get when you go to one of the most touristy places!

Next stop, Thailand!

Vietnam, Part II

Ha Noi, Vietnam

To continue with our journey in Vietnam, our entire group was coincidentally heading north. How lucky we are to have made a group to travel with for nearly 3 weeks! Our group was split between two overnight busses, and Sloan, Flo, Cameron and I were on one together. We had every intention to get off the bus at Ninh Binh, a supposedly beautiful region with national parks and more caves to explore. However… we all woke up in Ha Noi, an hour north of Ninh Binh. Oops!

So, since all of us decided that THIS was the one time we could all simultaneously fall into a deep sleep on a night bus, we rolled with the punches and started roaming through Vietnam’s capital city of 8 million people with no plans or accommodations. At 5 AM. Off to a great start.

We were lucky enough to find a great hostel, the Vietnam Backpacker Hostel, that let us check in early, so we got to sleep in until a decent hour. Once we were actually awake, the four of us decided to get coffee and wander around aimlessly. I decided to order an “egg coffee” which is apparently a delicacy in Vietnam, and to my surprise it was really delicious. Probably my favorite coffee I’ve had in Asia and we’ve been big coffee drinkers over here.

For being the capital city, we weren’t overly impressed with Ha Noi. As I’ve said before, neither Sloan or I are really interested in big Asian cities and walking around here was honestly more worrisome than enjoyable. For a city of 8 million people, there are more than 4 million motorbikes (that’s a fact, not a hyperbole). To cross the street, you basically have to close your eyes, run, and pray that you won’t get annihilated by oncoming traffic.

That night a group of us left the hostel in hopes of finding the Harry Potter bar we’d heard about. This was a bad idea for a number of reasons, but mainly that a moon festival was taking place, so the already ridiculous traffic was on steroids. See above pictures. Those are taken in the middle of an intersection that apparently becomes an absolute free-for-all at night.

Moreover, the Harry Potter bar ended up being only slightly Harry Potter themed and only served non-alcoholic butter beer… as a true HP fan, I felt slighted.

The next morning’s walking tour was just as underwhelming, so we decided to accept defeat and spend the rest of the day in a coffee shop keeping up with our journals. We’ve been loading so much into our days that we hadn’t caught up on journaling or blogging in a while. Then it was goodbye Ha Noi and hello overnight bus!

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Ha Giang Province, Vietnam

Unfortunately, Ha Noi was the end of the road for most of our United Nations group to travel together, but Sloan and I were lucky enough to get to stick with Flo a little longer. All three of us had heard about this amazing loop in northern Vietnam through the mountains and rice paddy fields that was off the beaten track, and a much more authentic alternative to the popular Sa Pa region. To explore this region, people rent motorcycles and set out for anywhere from 3-7 days. We knew we were interested, but that was the extent of our planning, so our common theme of getting on a bus with no real plan continued.

The overnight bus was an experience in and of itself. The seats are more like personal beds packed in tight and stacked on top of one other like bunk beds. We were the first ones on the bus and, with the assumption that few people would be heading to an area as remote as Ha Giang, the three of us sprawled out on the back row of five adjoining beds. It soon became clear that comfort was not a priority on this bus ride as they packed us like sardines. We ended up with two random Vietnamese men in between us, and there were people even sleeping on the floor, lining up and down the aisles. Imagine when we stopped for a bathroom break and you literally had to step on strangers to get off the bus… and that is not an exaggeration. This is surely not America. After a bumpy 6 hours, we were abruptly woken up by neon lights and were kicked off the bus at 3 AM.

Welcome to Ha Giang province! Thankfully, Flo had a slight idea of where to, so we lugged our bags through the pitch black night until we got to QT Hostel. After a minute of knocking on the door, a woman opened the door, and without a word or a question ushered us to bedrooms. These beds must have been glorified concrete slabs, but hey it was better than sleeping on the street.

Happy to finally see the sun after a rough night of sleep, we made our way to QT’s Motorbike Shop where we met our ride for the next three days, a Yamaha Sirius 110cc semi-automatic hot rod. As we were about to leave, we met an Australian girl, Ash, who was about to start this loop by herself so we invited her to join us. Not your average biker gang, but we played the part!

**Also, it turns out that Ash, who is from Sydney Australia, has a white pitbull named Rudy.  For anyone reading who doesn’t know, my two dogs at home are Willow, a white pitbull, and Rudy, the dog Sloan and I adopted in college. What are the chances of that?

With an already late start and 68 miles ahead of us, the last thing we wanted was the early afternoon rain that we got. Between stops to take shelter, two separate lunch breaks, and numerous stops to take pictures, we didn’t make the best time… 68 miles might not sound like much, but when the whole drive consists of winding roads through mountains and valleys, while adding in the frequent potholes and occasional wrong turns, it took us all day.

But damn, those views were unparalleled. I’ve never seen scenery like this before in my life. Between the rounded mountain peaks scattered along the horizon, the lush green rice paddies and dense jungle, and the huge valleys with small villages tucked along the river, these are views that I’ll never forget.

Our lack of urgency came back to bite us, but not before witnessing the most incredible golden hour as the sun dipped below the mountain tops. As we were gawking at the sky, we realized we still had 18 miles to go and no sunlight to guide us. Coincidentally, these were the worst road conditions of our entire three day trip, and more rain surely didn’t help. We drove through 100-ft. patches of washed away road that was replaced by uneven gravel, all while trying to cover everything but our eyes from the rain. Somehow we managed to get through unscathed. We made it to QT’s Guesthouse in Du Giu, Vietnam right in time for cold beer and dinner. Highly recommend using QT for anyone looking to do this loop; it truly made our first two nights seamless.

We were absolutely beat from the driving and the lousy night of sleep from the day before, so we had an early night in the unique loft-style dorm, where the beds were separated by large mosquito nets.

All four of us woke early the next day and got straight on the road for today’s 94 mile journey. Despite how incredible yesterday was, nothing could have prepared us for the beautiful drive ahead of us.

We had to backtrack a little this morning to get out of the Du Giu valley and it was the perfect way to start our day. Since we’d driven through this area the night before in the dark, we had no idea what we’d missed… particularly the several hundred foot cliffs that separated us and the valley floor. Lucky for me, while Sloan was busy trying not to drive us straight off a cliff, I had a wonderful time watching the breathtaking scenery go by.

Skipping breakfast left us hungry and desperate for a good meal. Flo, our Pho-fanatic friend, was craving exactly that. Pho is a typical Vietnamese soup with fresh rice noodles, cilantro, fresh vegetables, and your choice of chicken, beef and spices. It’s delicious and the best places to get it are usually little shacks that I’d hardly consider restaurants. Not to mention, it’s typically less than $1 for a massive serving. So that’s what we got today, and even Flo admitted that it may have been the best one he’s ever tried.

Update – we’ve been craving this exact Pho for the past two weeks and nothing compares.

With so much ground to cover today, we tried our hardest to limit our photo stops, but some views were just too good to resist, especially the Ma Pi Leng Pass. After the full journey, I would argue that this was the most stunning view on our entire trip. The road hugged the top of a mountain, cut through terraced farmlands with locals hauling off grain on their backs, and offered a birds-eye glimpse of the isolated villagers going about their lives hundreds of feet below. Sloan even found a way to make a friend all the way up here by sharing cookies with a local boy.

Ma Pi Leng Pass

Our home for the night was in Dong Van. We stopped just briefly enough to drop our bags, stretch our legs, and drink some water before setting out for an add-on drive to the Chinese border. We didn’t even bother finding a place to stay for the night before getting back on our bikes. The 38-mile round trip was quite the adventure. We circled through more 180-degree turns than we could count and dodged busses and cars whose drivers thought they owned the road and showed zero regard for motorcyclists. Unsurprisingly, things get more chaotic the closer you get to China.

We got within a few hundred meters of the border when we were stopped by a landslide that had covered most of the road with huge rocks and debris. The road was extremely narrow and was conveniently on the side of a mountain, so there was no alternative route. We had made it so close to the border, though, that we weren’t willing to turn around just yet. I got off the back of our bike and watched as Sloan inched his way along the cliff on a narrow patch of dirt, followed by Flo and then Ash. Sloan and Flo made it without issues. Ash, not so much. Everything was going fine until her bike stalled right before the final drop-down onto the main road. When she went to start it again, she gave the bike some gas, but since it was still in first gear, she took off down the steep decline with no control of the bike. In what was likely the most impressive ninja move I’ve ever seen, just as the bike hit a rock, Ash was somehow able to pull off a Jackie Chan barrel roll over the handlebars and come out relatively unscathed. I genuinely thought she was about to drive right off the cliff, but she stoop up, brushed herself off, and was a little shaken, but not stirred… Best news though, we got it all on video for our loyal followers back home.

Anyways, we made it to the actual border with the help of two local men, who spoke absolutely no English but communicated with pointing, grunts, and laughing at our lack of understanding. It’s funny how even after someone finds out that you don’t speak a lick of their language, they think that either repeating what they said or slowing it down will suddenly make you fluent in Vietnamese. Regardless, they were extremely helpful in leading us up a steep, unmarked path to a marker that physically divided Vietnam and China. So I guess you can say we were in China for a few minutes, that is until we saw multiple granite pillars with a black skull and crossbones on them… even with no border control, it took no further convincing for us to get out of there.

We found ourselves in the darkness again on the ride back to Dong Van, and despite a few aggressive bus drivers, we all survived the ride.

It took us a few tries, but we finally found a place where we could crash for the night.

We hooked up with another group of five travelers to go and grab dinner, which made things that much more difficult. For a remote city in the middle of nowhere Vietnam, we could not find anywhere to feed us all. It got to the point where it felt like they didn’t even want our money. I guess we missed the memo because it felt like every single person in northern Vietnam had converged in Dong Van for the weekend, so everywhere was absolutely packed. We must have tried 10 restaurants before finding a “western” restaurant that served strictly Vietnamese food… and French fries. My highly anticipated sweet potato fries were literally just French fries that had been… wait for it… sweetened. Well played, Vietnam.

Another early night was in order as tomorrow would be a long haul.

Ahhh nothing says good morning like our fifth consecutive breakfast of bread and flavorless, cold fried eggs. Luckily the coffee made up for it, so we had some fuel for our day.

Mentally, we were looking forward to another day of beautiful weather and great views, but physically our butts had taken a beating from the bumpy roads and uncomfortable seats. Thankfully, the road quality was in our favor today and we were able to make great timing.

The first half of our ride was going really well until we rounded a corner and saw a man laying on the side of the road next to his bike. We didn’t think much of it at first because we had seen this a few times before and it ended up being a man a little too tipsy to drive, but this time it was a little more serious. We pulled over and noticed his blood-stained jeans and immediately realized that this was not okay. He spoke no English, and to be honest he didn’t say much at all, but we started to go to work on him regardless. Luckily Flo travels prepared with a first-aid kit, so we were able to cut the man’s jeans at the knee which revealed a really deep gash on the side of his leg. Sloan, being the Eagle Scout he is, wasted no time applying a tourniquet and cleaning/bandaging the wound. It wasn’t pretty, but it was as much as we could do with a little roadside first aid kit. Luckily, the man was able to ride on the back of another man’s bike to find real medical help, so our job here was done.

The most confusing part was that no one else stopped to help this man! A fair amount of cars drove by and instead of offering the man a ride they’d slow down, stare, some would even take pictures.. and then drive off. That was a little disheartening to watch.

From there we continued the drive a little shaken up. We stopped for lunch along the way and chose a restaurant with a lot of locals enjoying their food. That’s always the best sign of a good restaurant, “do as the locals do.” The food we saw on everyone else’s tables looked delicious, but there was a clear difference between what they got and what we got. Sloan, for example, ordered rice and fried chicken and what he got was rice with diced up chicken neck with a significant amount more neck than meat. Think chicken wings, except instead of the wing, it was neck. Something about this concept just made it so unappetizing. We did get some really tasty snap peas with a chili soy sauce for dipping. These Vietnamese love their chili pepper flakes and we were not complaining.

After lunch, the rest of our drive was backtracking. We’d driven a part of this route on our first day, so we made great time and didn’t need to make any more stops for photo ops. As we made our way back to Ha Giang we felt the nice, cool mountain weather we’d been enjoying turn into intense humidity and we were forced into the realization that this trip was coming to an end.

I can truly say, without a doubt, that this was my favorite thing we’ve done on this trip, and maybe the most beautiful & exciting thing I have ever done.

Ash left earlier than us, so Sloan and I got what we thought was our last dinner with Flo to end our 3-week journey with him. It was actually quite sad to say goodbye to our last group member and officially be on our own again. Miss you already, Flo!

Sloan and I had another overnight bus to catch back to Ha Noi, and we waited for this at QT’s hostel. QT is an interesting guy.. not your typical Vietnamese man. He wears a big chain, has a lot of tattoos and basically seems like he runs Ha Giang. When we got to his hostel, he was sitting around with his family and friends enjoying a meal. He welcomed us in and encouraged us to eat, even though we’d just gotten dinner. As boisterous as he is (his catch phrase that he repeats quite often is “I’m not cute, I’m not a cutie, I am Q-T), he’s a very hospitable man. Almost too hospitable… right as we were getting on our overnight bus, he forced the whole group to take 4 shots of rice wine.. and you can’t really say no to QT.

The rice wine seemed to work on Sloan, who passed out before the bus even started moving. I, on the other hand, was up for over an hour tossing and turning. Another girl, Steffie, who had also been at QT’s taking shots was awake next to me, and all the drinks were catching up to us. We needed to pee so badly that I literally had to make our bus driver stop and let us go in a random home to use the bathroom. Damnit QT.

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Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Our overnight bus dropped us off in Ha Noi at around 4 AM and our bus to Ha Long Bay left at 7:45, so we definitely didn’t want to sit around in a bus station. We convinced Steffie and her boyfriend Gideon, who were from the Netherlands, to come with us to the hostel we’d stayed at here before, as they had a bus to catch at the same time. The four of us slept on the lobby couches until our wake-up call, and just like that we were off to another new place.

Ha Long Bay is Vietnam’s most-visited tourist destination, with over 2,000 islands shaped like mountains rising out of the ocean. Sloan and I were doing a 3 day 2 night tour here, and our first night we were spending on a boat. We signed up with a tour through Seasun Cruises via email the day before and had very little idea of what to expect, but we were promised a 3-star boat so we were just going with it. What we saw at the harbor not only looked like the furthest thing from 3-stars, but I was also slightly concerned that we’d be Vietnam’s version of the Titanic. We were hesitant, but learned firsthand not to judge a book by its cover when the boat’s interior was a lot nicer than we expected. Our private cabin even had a fully tiled bathroom. Not too shabby for a 3-day, $130 package.

The transition from Ha Giang, where we were getting a truly authentic experience, to the outrageously touristy Ha Long Bay could not have been more extreme or, frankly, more disappointing. Our first stop was the Surprising Cave, which wasn’t all that impressive after being in Phong Nha, but beyond that the tours made it that much harder to appreciate. This was the first organized tour that we’ve done in our entire 5 weeks, and after having so much flexibility and freedom in everything we’ve been doing, truth be told it sucked. It’s irritating being ushered along by tour guides, being told when you can and can’t walk, and having to wait for every member of your 20+ person group to finish taking pictures of the 18th consecutive rock formation. Within 30 minutes we both agreed that this would be the first and last organized tour we’d do on this trip.

Our second stop was Titop Island, another touristy area with a manmade beach. The weather was awful and within minutes it started to pour, but it was honestly the best thing that could’ve happened because the beach suddenly went from being packed to empty. A little rain never hurt nobody, so we made the most of it by carelessly swimming despite it and enjoying having a beach to ourselves.

Once back on our boat, we had a big seafood dinner with all the works: crab, fish, squid, and plenty of side dishes. We enjoyed dinner and taught a few other passengers how to play sh*thead, our favorite new card game, before calling it a night.

The next morning was an early wake up call, and it was also ~my 23rd birthday~ !!! Mother Nature didn’t seem to care about that though, because we woke up to more rain and strong winds that caused an itinerary change. We were still able to get in a little kayaking and a tour through Ha Long Bay’s oyster farm before the weather really worsened. One of only three oyster farms in Vietnam, they showed us how they cultivate and harvest oysters for up to 10 years in the hopes of getting a perfect pearl.

We were supposed to go to Monkey Island for the day, but because of the conditions our boat couldn’t get there, so we instead did a hike through the Cat Ba island’s national park. While some of the others in our tour group may have disagreed, specifically the woman who thought it best to wear a skirt, blouse and heels today, we were more excited about the hike than the beach.

The hike ended up being a lot more strenuous than we imagined. At some points we were climbing on all fours to get up the side of the mountain and, after an hour, we reached the top! What a gorgeous view. Cat Ba island was so huge that even on the top of this mountain, all we could see was endless mountains. Even with an incredible 360-degree view from the top, we didn’t see a glimpse of the ocean.

The hike ended up being the highlight of our 3 days, and it was a fun way for me to spend my birthday. We actually ran into Steffie and Gideon during the hike too, which was awesome because we hadn’t gotten their contacts before, so we made a point to do that now and we planned to meet them for drinks tonight.

The rest of the day was very relaxing; we sat in a coffee shop and people-watched for a while. Despite the weather, I was on a beautiful island, traveling the world with with my best friend for the second birthday in a row. It doesn’t get much better than that.

We had dinner and got drinks that night with a few couples in our tour group, plus Steffie and Gideon, and I couldn’t have asked for more.

The next day was just a full day of travels to get back to Ha Noi. We were woken up at 7 AM to have another tasteless fried egg breakfast, and to then be told that the weather was still so bad that the boat couldn’t get to the harbor to pick us up. Perfect. So instead, we spent the day waiting, then taking a bus across the island, then waiting, then taking a speedboat through the rain, then waiting, then getting on another boat, then waiting, and finally getting on our bus back to Ha Noi. A painfully long 4+ hours later through rush hour traffic, we were back in Ha Noi. All Sloan and I wanted was a solid western meal, so you better believe we searched out the best burger joint in all of Ha Noi and indulged.

Overall, Ha Long Bay was not a favorite of ours, but we made the most of it. We were sad to be leaving Vietnam and all of the friends we’d made over the past incredible 3 weeks, but we were fortunate enough to coincidentally meet Flo back in Ha Noi for one last meal (again)! Can’t wait to come visit you in Germany, Flo!

With that, our three weeks in Vietnam were over and done, and we headed to the airport for the next adventure.

Vietnam, Part I

Our stay in Vietnam is so long that I figured I’d keep the fans happy and write two blog posts. I’m definitely getting behind in these because of how much we’ve been doing so I’ll try my best to rehash the details…

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Hoi An, Vietnam

After finding a stupidly cheap flight from Kuala Lumpur to Da Nang (I’m talking $10 cheap), we decided to change up our itinerary a bit again and head straight to Vietnam. The reason these flights are so cheap is because they really skimp you on carry-on baggage allowance. For example, our big backpacks fit the measurement requirements with room to spare, but they were required to weigh under 15 lbs. When packing for 2.5 months of travel, this isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. Well, you better believe we put on half of our wardrobe in the middle of the airport, stuffed our pockets with as much as we could, and looked like glorified hobos as we walked through security. But hey, we saved that extra $30.

What was supposed to be a 2 night stay in Hoi An ended up being a 5 night stay, and that still wasn’t enough time. After a chaotic ride from the airport in the country where no amount of beeping your horn is enough, we made it to our home for the next few nights, the Tribee Kinh hostel. After a long day of traveling, we decided to take it easy for our first night in Vietnam, our home for the next three weeks.

What better way to start our time in Vietnam than a 4:30 AM wake-up call to watch USC defeat LA Tech?! The day continued to look up when our hostel had homemade peanut butter and honey buttered toast for breakfast. (After the security guard in the KL airport stole our most prized possession, a jar of peanut butter, this was a major win!) We spent the day exploring Hoi An’s Old Town via bicycles, which was historically the heart and soul of Vietnam’s trading industry. The town is a backpackers paradise, with colorful streets to get lost on, beautiful beaches, great (and cheap) food, and a fun night life with the most incredible drink deals you’ve ever heard of. Not to mention, some beautiful islands off the coast that are perfect for scuba diving… but I’ll get to that later.

Unfortunately we missed Hoi An’s famous lantern festival by just a few days, but we still saw our fair share of glowing lanterns being sent down the river by happy-go-lucky travelers, surely with wishes being made as they were released.

Although the bed was a major improvement from Langkawi, where we felt every single spring against our backs, the best part about our stay at Tribee Kinh was the social atmosphere. Not quite sure what we were getting ourselves into, we headed to the common area one night where the staff taught us (and 60 of our new friends) how to make a traditional Vietnamese spring roll. They were absolutely delicious, and so fun to make!

The best thing we found in Hoi An was our group of new friends and our bond over the game of sh*thead, a card game that brought everyone together each night. (And while it may not be Nertz, it gives the game a run for its money). We ended up playing this card game every single night of our stay here and gained a ton of new friends because of it.

The following day I made an exciting decision. I was going to spend the next three days scuba diving off the nearby Cham Islands to get my PADI diving certification! The first day consisted of the essentials, watching videos and learning basic scuba skills in a pool. Sloan, who already has his diving license, enjoyed his alone time by heading to My Són, a remote archeological site filled with Hindu temples that were constructed in the 8th century by the indigenous Champa people.

My next two days were pretty much replicas of each other. Each morning I woke up early, grabbed breakfast and was shuttled off to a boat to spend the day scuba diving. Luckily since I was just at the tail end of “high season” for diving in this area, I had my own private instructor, Anton. I spent the next two days with him, learning how to dive and experience an underwater world I’ve never seen before. For lunch we would head to Cham Island and enjoy a huge spread of food prepared by a local family for everyone to share family-style. Both days we spent the afternoon on the island before heading back to Hoi An.

Luckily, on the second day, Sloan was able to come with me and spend the day diving. At this point I had already practiced almost all of my skills, so we were able to dive and enjoy the ocean life pretty freely. We saw barracudas, trumpet fish, lion fish, a field of huge spiraled coral, and an eerie frog fish (look it up!) We descended to a depth of 18 meters (60 feet) and just like that, I officially have my diving license!

That night we joined our hostel’s pub crawl and got a taste of the night life in Hoi An. We discovered that a few of us were traveling in the same direction the following day, so we formed a group of six and stuck together. There was Nate, another American from Seattle; Flo, a German who quit his job to travel indefinitely; Cameron, a Canadian working in Australia; and David, the hundredth person we’ve met from the Netherlands. We all went out together and found what undoubtedly has to be the best drink deal in the universe. Here’s how it went: each person bought one cocktail and got another cocktail free, a shot for free, 2 bottles of vodka for the table, and hookah. All for the price of one cocktail each (which was approximately $5 USD per person).. Honestly, you just can’t beat that. We had ourselves a great night and a slow morning before setting off on our next exciting journey.

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Hue, Vietnam

As I mentioned, we were very lucky to find friends that were heading in the same direction as us (for almost the entire 3 weeks we’re spending in Vietnam, as we later realized!) Our newfound group of Nate, Flo, Cameron, David, Sloan and I, aka the United Nations as we nicknamed ourselves, all decided to rent motorcycles and head north to Hue via the Hai Van Pass, supposedly the most scenic drive in all of Southeast Asia.

Let me just say it did NOT disappoint.

Blessed with another day of absolutely perfect weather, we excitedly set off for the day. Our first stop of the day, just outside of Da Nang city, was the Lady Buddha. The tallest statue in Vietnam, standing 220 feet tall, this pure white Buddha sits on a hilltop overlooking the city and the ocean that surrounds it. Clouds were starting to move in over the mountains, so we pushed on to keep up with the sun.

From here, our drive was breathtaking. We crossed bridges that split cities and oceans, rode along highways that mimicked the curves of the mountains, and witnessed unparalleled views of the ocean the entire day. It was SUCH an incredible day.

Our next stop was the Lang Cô Beach, a narrow peninsula with a coastline that was untouched by tourism. It wasn’t anything amazing, but a beach is a beach, and on a backpacker’s budget, beggars can’t be choosers. We grabbed lunch here before heading to Elephant Springs, a mountain-fed stream full of natural swimming pools and mini waterfalls. We bought our entrance tickets and, without any further instruction, blindly started following a woman to what appeared to be her home along the stream. As we were about to jump in for a swim, the lady started saying “my water, my water” in broken English and beckoning for us to pay her. We didn’t understand as we thought we had already paid the entrance fee, but after stupidly realizing we’d been scammed, we handed over the whopping 30,000 dong ($1.50… a steal). It was so worth it to swim in these incredible springs!

We made it to Hue with very little energy left and within five minutes of being in this city we narrowly avoided more crashes than we have the entire trip. I swear, there must be no such thing as right-of-way, or really any vehicular laws in this country. If there are, people surely could not care less to follow them.

The only notable thing that happened the rest of the night was during our nightly ritual of sh*thead, when Nate confidently declared “don’t you just love when you start a game and immediately know you’re going to win?” He proceeded to lose the only two games we played that night and won the nickname sh*thead until further notice.

As amazing as the day was, I don’t think anything could have beat how comfortable the beds were, the fact that they cost us less than $6, or how ready we were for a good nights sleep.

While the following day in Hue didn’t end up being very excited (our own fault for spending the entire day journaling in a coffee shop)… it definitely made up for it that night. Somehow, we ended up being in Hue on the exact night that they were hosting their first trial street festival. There was loud music, a stage, more street food than you could imagine, and a wonderful game of darts in which Nate defied the odds by being the first person to miss every single dart he threw.

After some tasty street food, we got suckered into happy hour at a bar called Brown Eyes by a persistent street promoter. Despite being the only people in this bar, we made the most of it. More drink deals! Buy 1 get 1 free, plus free shots whenever they felt like handing them out, which was often. Half our group played pool while the other half joined a staff member to play an interesting game of truth-or-dare Jenga, minus the “truth” part.

After some liquid confidence, the stage was ours, quite figuratively and literally. That stage I mentioned earlier? Well it was empty now, and for whatever reason we thought it would be fun to go on it in the middle of a crowd and make a fool of ourselves. Apparently the Vietnamese locals found a few drunk foreigners hilarious and trustworthy, and they started sending their children up on stage to join us. One man even had Sloan spoon-feed his daughter ice cream on stage. Some locals jumped up and joined us while others stood by taking videos, but everyone was loving it.

We were drenched in sweat after hours of dancing and decided to head home when Nate, Sloan and David got peer pressured into singing the world’s worst rendition of Hotel California. Like, it was painful. What a way to end the night…

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Phong Nha, Vietnam

Well, the highly-anticipated trip to Phong Nha was finally here, and what do you know? Our entire group was heading the same direction again (minus David, bye David!) Sloan and I had booked our stay at the Phong Nha Farmstay MONTHS ago after reading about it online, and the rest of the group was staying at the Easy Tiger in downtown Phong Nha. Our hotel was in a very different setting; we were surrounded by rice paddy fields where water buffalo, cows, pigs and chicken wandered freely. Though a little more pricy than our $6 hostel in Hue, if you are looking for a truly authentic stay in Vietnam, this is absolutely the place for you. It is a stunning building with wonderful staff, great food, fun amenities including a pool and a nightly movie, and an invaluable, authentic experience in the remote Vietnamese countryside. We took the first night pretty easy, opting for dinner, drinks, and a showing of Forrest Gump on the outdoor movie projector. Vietnam is just like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re going to get. That especially held true today.

We rented bikes and rode through the countryside, dodging cows and the occasional muddy pothole while waving at the local children. We made our way to the Bong Lai Valley and found ourselves at The Duck Stop, one of the most interesting places we’ve been yet. Welcomed like royalty with ice-cold beers and freshly roasted peanuts, we were offered a tour we couldn’t resist. For $4, we got the following:

• Duck feeding – Exactly what it sounds like, but 10x more exciting that I would’ve pictured. As soon as we walked towards them, it was a symphony of quacks as they realized they were about to be fed. They chased us around the pen and ate straight from our hands (and toes?) After feeding them, we did as the Vietnamese do. Apparently throwing a duck into a pond is a symbol of good fortune in your future, and many farmers do this for good luck in their farming seasons. So, we did just that, we each picked up a duck and threw them up into the air over the pond. The ducks, to our surprise, ran straight back for more after being thrown.

• Donald Trump the water buffalo – Donald is a water buffalo that was rescued from being used as a workhorse in the jungle. Despite sharing a name, this Trump was very much a sweetheart. We actually got to ride this 1600 lb. beast straight into the river where he swam around with us on his back. He was a gentle giant if I’ve ever seen one.

• Lunch – Traditional Vietnamese pancakes and all the roasted peanuts we could want, plus that ice cold beer I mentioned.

• PUPPIES AND CHILDREN – We spent the afternoon playing with three of the cutest little puppies, and two adorable kids who just wanted to hangout with us.

After a while, we left our new favorite place and got a drink at The Pub with Cold Beer (yes, that is its name) before biking home in the dark.

The following day we reunited with the United Nation gang, and we actually found a new David! (His name was actually Nout, but he was from the Netherlands as well so we figured we would just call him new David. He seemed to like it.) Phong Nha is actually home to some of the biggest caves in the world, specifically the 1st, 3rd, 7th, and 8th biggest in the world.

We decided to check out the Phong Nha cave first, which was heavily used during the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the “American War”) as a hospital and militia base for the Viet Cong to take shelter from American bombings. We rode a dragon boat into the cave entrance and followed the river deep into the dark twisting cavern.

Disclaimer: None of the pictures I took inside any of the caves do them any justice whatsoever. Like, really, you can barely tell what you’re looking at. So for that reason I won’t add very many pictures, but definitely look each cave up online.

After that, we decided to take the long trek to the Paradise Cave. We rented scooters for the 14-mile drive through the most dense jungle you could ever imagine. It literally felt like Jurassic Park, winding up and down hills to get to this cave, and the rain pelting down on us and creating clouds of mist just added to this feeling.

The Paradise Cave, which extends for 32 km (almost 20 miles) in length was AMAZING. Honestly, I have no idea how anyone could’ve ever found this. It’s in the middle of this crazy dense jungle, and the entrance is at the top of a mountain. It was only discovered in 2005, which makes sense I guess. We only got to see the first 1 km (0.62 miles) and even this was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. At its highest point this cave gets up to 230 ft high.. it’s incredible.

After paradise cave we got caught in another rain storm on our ride home. Completely soaked, we headed back to the Farmstay to shower and dry off. We had another night in while watching Heaven and Earth, an Oliver Stone movie about a Vietnamese girl during the war.

What should have been an exciting last morning in Phong Nha ended up in sadness. We were enjoying our breakfast when we looked at our phones and saw the news back home, The Las Vegas shootings. At a time where we are meeting so many wonderful people and seeing the genuine, kind nature of strangers who come from so little, it’s heartbreaking to see that evil still exists in this beautiful world. What happened in Las Vegas is terrifying and horrific, and it goes to show that no day should be taken for granted. It’s hard being so far away when a tragedy happens at home, but I’m grateful that we are surrounded by such incredible people in an amazing country at a time where everyone needs a reminder of all the good that still exists in the world. Sending all of our love and prayers to the victims, their families, and everyone else who needs a little reminder that there is still so much good in this world.

Holding onto that mentality, we tried to enjoy our last day in this beautiful place. We ended up touring the Dark Cave with our group of friends today. This cave is not your typical experience in Phong Nha. After a 1,300 ft. zip line to the caves entrance, we swam the rest of the way until we were inside. From here we followed a guide into the cave with nothing but a helmet and a headlamp. Soon into our walk, the headlamps were our only source of light. We waded through chest-deep water in this pitch black cave, winding through narrow caverns until we reached our destination: a mud bath. One cavern opened up into a pool of mud and all 20 of us in the group jumped right in. It was hilarious and weird at the same time but no one questioned it as we caked ourselves in clumps of mud.

The Dark Cave tour ended with kayaking and an obstacle course outside of the cave. Like I said, not your typical cave experience, but it was so fun. Afterwards we decided to go back to the Duck Stop and show all of our friends what they’d missed out on. The people here were so grateful that we brought our friends that they gave us free lunch and drinks. And I wasn’t complaining about seeing my favorite puppy, Peanut, again…

Everyone enjoyed themselves and the day ended up being a good one after all. A few card games and some happy hour beers later, we were on the night bus to Hanoi, where the rest of our adventure in Vietnam continues…

Malaysia

For a country that was not initially on our itinerary, Malaysia definitely exceeded our expectations in a lot of different ways.

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Our first stop in Malaysia was the dynamic city of Kuala Lumpur, the country’s capital. We arrived with absolutely no knowledge of what to do in this city, and only a slight idea of how long we’d stay. Despite having planned our trip itinerary for weeks on end before arriving in SE Asia, we decided to ditch the plans and see where the wind took us. After Kuala Lumpur, we didn’t have a clue where we’d be.

Neither Sloan or I are very fond of cities. Ironically we find that there is little to do, since we prefer natural beauties like waterfalls and beaches. However, KL surprised us.

Our first day started out pretty slow. We visited the clock tower, Merdeka Square, and the Masjid Jamek (one of the oldest mosques in KL), all of which were within a 5-minute walk from our hostel.

We continued walking aimlessly throughout the city until we literally stumbled upon Central Market. We ended up spending a while looking through all the shops in the market and grabbing some delicious pineapple fried rice for lunch. Added perk: we each bought a pair of knockoff RayBans for $3 here.

Another huge plus about being in a major city is that you can typically find any type of food you’re craving. If you know Sloan and his choices in food at all, you know that he chose a Mexican restaurant for dinner (likely because there was no Zaxbys) so we enjoyed some red-wine queso and burritos. Gotta take advantage of it when you can, I suppose.

Afterwards, we walked to KLCC park and saw the Petronas Twin Towers begin to light up as the sun set. Pictures do not do it justice, and honestly neither do words, but it was spectacular. We decided to change our viewpoint and got drinks from the SkyBar at the top of Trader’s Hotel to watch the city illuminate as the sun set.

The following day we decided to go to the Batu Caves just north of the city, but not before we searched the entire city high and low for açai bowls (and successfully found them!) The caves were clearly touristy, but still awesome to see. Imagine huge limestone caves on the outskirts of a massive city… not something you see every day. We climbed the 272 stairs to get to the entrance and explored alongside all the other tourists.. and probably an equal amount of monkeys.

Unfortunately we didn’t have enough cash on us to check out the Dark Cave, but if anyone is visiting these caves in the future, make sure you do! It has over 200 species living inside it, including the world’s rarest spider, which can only be found in this one single cave. It honestly pains me to type that because of my irrational fear of spiders, but it still is a pretty cool fact.

Between the food, the skyline, and the caves, there wasn’t much more we could’ve asked for from this place, but we’d love to come back someday, KL!

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Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

While in Kuala Lumpur, we decided that our next stop needed to be somewhere slower. We settled on the island of Penang, Malaysia. Another place we had zero prior knowledge of, but decided to check out anyways. It’s already becoming a trend of the trip. After a literal 20 minute (and $10, might I add) flight, we were there. We checked into The Frame Guesthouse, which was a very trendy, minimalist-styled hostel. But the beds… wow, the beds were unreal comfy. Our first day consisted entirely of aimless wandering. There is an abundance of street art throughout the town, along with plenty of bars, cafes, and cute shops. Our favorite finds were a little gem called Wheeler’s Coffee, an Upside Down Museum, and the Chew Jetty which was perfect for people-watching.

We chose to check out the famous Yeap Noodles for dinner. It was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with only about six 2-person tables, and there was absolutely nothing special about the ambiance here. The restaurant was famous for making its own noodles, though, and for having good food and great prices. We didn’t expect to love it this much, but if it tells you anything, we ended up coming back here for a meal every single day that we spent in Georgetown.

We both agreed that the best one we tried was the black pepper chicken noodles. Each dish costs less than $2, you just can’t argue with that. On our first night, Sloan went with the spicy chicken noodles and discovered what it really meant for something to be spicy. They warned him…

Our second day was much more adventurous and planned out. We headed to the Penang National Park on the other side of the island and hiked through the jungle paths to get to Monkey Beach. It took us just over an hour to walk through, and along the way we saw some crazy 6-ft long lizards and a few Dusky Leaf monkeys, which are endemic to Peninsular Malaysia (pictured below).

Once we actually reached Monkey Beach, we noticed that it was filled with a different type of monkeys – the crab-eating macaques. We got a few pictures of them but not before one almost attacked Sloan for putting his GoPro too close.

The beach was a lot bigger than either of us expected for a so-called “hidden” beach, so we spent a while exploring and hanging out. We opted for a boat ride on the way home to save us from the hour long walk back in the heat, but it turned out that we practically got the Titanic as our boat. Every time the driver tried to accelerate, the engine would give out and stall. Not exactly what you want in the middle of an ocean, but it did eventually get us to shore I guess.

That night we got dinner and drinks before going to check out another hostel that was well-known for being the ‘party’ hostel in that area. Well, the Tipsy Tiger did not disappoint. Within five minutes of being there we decided to play a game. There were 53 cards facedown, tacked to a wall behind the bar (a full deck plus a joker) and if you guessed the joker card correctly, you won 5 free beers. I jokingly pointed one out to Sloan and said “that’s the joker” before I even knew we were going to play. He laughed it off, clearly doubting me, and picked his own card. Wrong. So I confidently pointed to the card I had chosen…

Guess who won us five free beers?

I felt psychic after that so naturally we enjoyed the night, starting off by drinking our prizes. We met a big group of other travelers and had ourselves a night.

The next day was more of a struggle, one could say. We couldn’t really beat the day we’d just had, so we didn’t even bother trying. This was our first day of pure relaxation and it was fantastic. We ventured out a little to see the Botanic Gardens, basically so we didn’t feel like complete bums, but we were content doing very little. We DID get another meal at Yeap Noodles though, of course.

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Langkawi, Malaysia

Way back when we were still planning this trip, we came across the tiny island of Langkawi and decided we HAD to put it on our itinerary. Upon more research, we saw that we’d be there during its peak rainy season, so we decided against it. Well, when we changed up our plans again in Kuala Lumpur, we decided that while we were here, we might as well give Langkawi a shot. Technically everywhere we’d been up until this point had been in “high rainy season” and from what we could tell so far, this meant it would rain really hard for about 45 minutes in the afternoon and then stop completely. We’d dealt with it everywhere else, so we could deal with it here, too. So we thought.

We decided to spend three nights in Langkawi. The first night, we were staying in a hotel right on the water with this cool concept of “tube rooms” which are exactly what they sound like: tube-shaped rooms just big enough for a bed with an amazing view of the ocean. Again, so we thought.

We got to our hotel with beautiful blue skies and checked into our tube room. For about 20 minutes everything seemed great. But then it started to rain, and I mean really really rain. It was an absolute monsoon and it lasted almost the entire day. Worse than that, our room was so small that if we opened the doors at all, everything inside – including our bed – got soaked from the rain pouring in. Our room also didn’t face the ocean as advertised. But still, that isn’t the worst part. No, the worst part was that there was no WiFi, meaning we couldn’t call an Uber to leave (there were no taxis here), we couldn’t communicate with the outside world, and we couldn’t even watch a movie on this rainy day. We couldn’t even leave the common room, or else our room and all our belongings would get soaked. When the rain finally did slow down a little bit, we rushed to our room and decided to try and take a nap. Unfortunately for us when we pulled back the sheets of our bed, we noticed something moving…

There was a snail. A SNAIL in our bed. With a nice, lime green trail of slime following behind it.

At this point, there was no other option but to laugh. We sat there, confused, but laughing at our entire sh*t show of a situation. The day was far from ideal, but we knew it made for a good story, and certainly one that we wouldn’t forget. That said, we were VERY happy to have only booked one night at this hotel. The first thing we did the next morning was pack our bags and head to the downtown area of Langkawi to find somewhere, ANYWHERE else to stay.

The rest of our days in Langkawi got progressively better. Our new hostel was much nicer and cleaner, and after taking a few tips from the hostel owner we rented motorbikes, ate delicious meals, and explored waterfalls and viewpoints. The weather definitely hindered us from doing as much as we’d hoped, but we still are satisfied with our Langkawi visit.

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We are now in Vietnam as I write this and we plan on being here for about three weeks! (Don’t worry, I’ll split this country into multiple blogs, otherwise I’d be writing a novel). Two fun surprises about our adventures are coming your way, so keep your eyes peeled!

Myanmar

Our first country is officially checked off our list. I can’t believe how quickly that happened.

Myanmar was unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before and probably unlike anywhere else I will go, at least on this trip. The people of Myanmar are genuinely surprised to see a tourist. And honestly, we even got to the point of being surprised if we saw another tourist outside of the few in our hostel. It was a very new feeling.

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Mandalay, Myanmar

Mandalay was our first stop of three in Myanmar, and it was easily the biggest culture shock. Before we landed, I read the directions that our hostel gave us from the airport. They literally said “find a bus and it will take you right to our hostel.” For a city of over 1 million people, I was a little concerned that it may not be so easy… but I was wrong. When we walked out of the airport, there was just one bus stand. We told them we were staying at the Four Rivers hostel, and without another word they loaded our bags and brought us right to the front door. That’s when we knew this probably was not a popular tourist destination.

The bus took about 45 minutes, and I swear about 42 of those minutes were spent driving through fields and passing roaming cows. Where were all of these people? Finally we arrived in the actual city, hungry and curious. Honestly, I was very apprehensive about what we would eat here. The area we were was a intimidating and there were no signs of any restaurants nearby. After searching online I found a restaurant called Mangia, which was closer to the more developed parts of town. Well, we soon realized that you can’t survive in this city without a bike or vehicle of some sort. It was NOT pedestrian friendly. Our 0.5 mile walk took us at least a half hour because there were no sidewalks and no one stopped for us to cross any roads. At multiple points we found ourselves sprinting across a street without a seconds notice, because it was the only break we’d seen. We held it together pretty well but I know both of us we’re slightly concerned at this point.

But alas, an oasis in the desert, we found Mangia. I don’t know how Myanmar ended up having such great Italian food, but we weren’t complaining.

Our second day in Mandalay was significantly better. We woke up, ate breakfast at our hostel, rented a motor-scooter and saw the few touristy things in the city. (Yet somehow, we were still the only tourists at them). We went to the Royal Palace, a few more pagodas, and watched the sunset from Mandalay Hill. It was our only full day in Mandalay, and that was enough, but we were happy we came.

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Bagan, Myanmar

BAGAN. After a really unpleasant bus ride, we made it. The culture shock hit us again, but as soon as we found our hotel we knew we’d be alright. Learning from our last mistake in Mandalay, we rented a motor-scooter right away and set off to explore and see the sunset. Bagan is the land of over 3,500 beautiful pagodas, most of which were built a thousand years ago. We could’ve spent a week here and not seen half the pagodas, so we made sure to see the three most significant (according to some of the locals we spoke to): Dhammayangyi, the biggest; Thatbyinnyu, the tallest; and AnandaPhaya, the most beautiful.

We were heading to a pagoda which a hotel employee had recommended to us for the sunset when we were stopped by a group of young, local boys. They told us that they knew the actual best pagoda to watch the sunset and convinced us to follow them there instead. In the pagoda, we had to crawl up narrow, steep and cracking stairs in the dark to get to the top, but it was absolutely worth it. The views were beautiful, and pictures don’t do it ANY justice.

The next morning we woke up early to watch the sunrise, and wow am I glad we did. It was 10x better than the sunset in my opinion. We watched from the Shwe San Daw pagoda; it was slightly crowded as it is a well-known pagoda, but still incredible. I can’t really find the words to describe it, but watching the sun display the silhouettes of hundreds of pagodas and illuminate others was something out of a movie.

After a huge and delicious breakfast, we spent the day exploring as many pagodas as we could. We also found a floating bar and, of course, checked it out. We sat on a bamboo raft as a very scrawny kid pulled us to the bar, but not before he fell into the water. Guess we’re a little heavier than he was used to.

After a perfect day exploring, we decided that we liked Bagan so much that we should extend our stay here. Despite already having booked a hostel in our next city, we cut our losses and stayed another night in Bagan. It is such an incredible place, I’d urge anyone to go there (and low season was great due to the lack of tourists and cooler weather!)

On our last day in Bagan, we actually decided to change things up and take a tour to Mount Popa, the “city on a hill”. Our taxi driver told us a lot about the history of Bagan and Myanmar along the way.

• Around one thousand years ago, 55 or so kings had these pagodas built to honor themselves and their families. Some were partially destroyed in earthquakes over the years, but most were still in great condition.
• Myanmar was originally named Burma, until roughly 100 years ago when it gained its independence.
• Myanmar was just re-opened to tourism only five years ago, so their tourism industry is still developing (which explains all of the shocked looks and requests for pictures that we’d been getting)

Something else that I think is worth noting – Sloan and I were pretty shocked to see a few KFC (yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken) restaurants in Myanmar. We started discussing this with our taxi driver and got onto the topic of McDonalds. If I would have expected to see any American fast-food chain in another country, it would have to be McDonalds and certainly not KFC. Well, our taxi driver confirmed that not only did Myanmar not have McDonalds, he had also NEVER HEARD OF IT. Considering McDonald’s international presence, this was so shocking to me that I had to at least note it.

We arrived at Mount Popa, and some 770 steps later we made it to the top. Personally I liked the view of the mountain from afar better. The top was just a few outdoor temples, and a beautiful view of the lush forests around us. The monkeys were really the highlight of our walk up… and the bathrooms were definitely the low.

All in all, Bagan was amazing, and we were sad to have to leave this beautiful place, but we were off on an overnight bus to the next city, Yangon.

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Yangon & Twante, Myanmar

Since we had paid for the previous night at our hostel and did not show, we were able to check in and eat breakfast as soon as we arrived to Yangon (about 6 AM). We met some fellow travelers who gave us great recommendations for parts of our trip, including a “snake pagoda” in a small nearby village, Twante. Of course we were intrigued and made it our mission to check it out. After a walk to the river, a ferry ride to Dalla, and some excruciatingly tough negotiating for a tuk-tuk ride to Twante, we made it to the snake temple.

And no, they were not lying about snakes. We walked up to a pagoda in the middle of a pond with a long, narrow walkway to its entrance. Upon entering the pagoda we noticed no less than 25 anacondas, casually laying around the Buddhist statues and in the windows. WHAT… Growing up I never had a fear of snakes, I actually liked them, but I was definitely pretty cautious here.

At one point, I heard a thump behind us. I don’t really know where it came from but suddenly a 10 ft. long anaconda was slithering around on the ground right by us. It wasn’t very happy, and the monks started trying to coax it underneath a blanket while ushering all the tourists (aka, just Sloan and I) out. It didn’t like that very much and started hissing/striking at the blanket. I watched through the window, but naturally Sloan did not leave the temple and watched it up close. Eventually the monks were able to trap the snake under the blanket, but that was enough for me. This place was so incredibly off the beaten path and we weren’t trying to get a snake bite with no hospital nearby.

Our day ended with a visit to the Shwedagon Pagoda, the second tallest pagoda in the world, and a fun dinner at an American expat’s restaurant. Myanmar was, as I said, unbelievably different than anywhere I had ever been, but I’m so so glad we came. The people were so kind and the places we found were unlike any other I’ve ever seen.

Next up: Malaysia!

Living abroad

Well, I am officially back in the States, which means I have to use the past tense and say I “studied” abroad. I can’t believe this life-changing experience has come and gone so quickly, but I have no regrets and certainly no complaints.

I spent 132 days traveling between 2 continents, 13 countries, and 22 cities. I ate escargot, foie gras, frog legs, Polish pierogis, trdelniks, and way too many patatas bravas. I drank liters of beer in Munich, became a fiend for freshly-squeezed juices, and tried absinthe more times than I should’ve. I shared my tiny bedroom and twin bed with up to 5 people at once, squeezed eight people into a 4-person Airbnb in Amsterdam, and sometimes got no sleep at all. I met some of the most incredible people I have ever met, and I also got to share my experience with so many familiar faces. This experience was everything I could’ve ever expected it to be and so, so much more.

I loved traveling to new countries and being a tourist in new cities, but even more than that I loved actually living in my favorite city of all: Prague. Living in a city and visiting it to do the touristy things are extremely different experiences. In Prague I went to the grocery store, cooked for myself on a regular basis, had to do laundry an unfortunate number of times, and got mistaken as a Czech citizen more often than you’d expect. Despite not understanding more than ten words in their language, I was able to get myself around and do absolutely everything I needed to without much difficulty. I learned to work around language barriers, how to rely on a map to navigate a city when your phone loses WiFi, and even how to give directions to the occasional tourist who mistakenly figured you were a local. But I guess in a sense, I sort of was. I may be biased, but Prague was absolutely my favorite city that I traveled to. I love the architecture, the cobblestone pathways, the Vltava River, and I actually really loved not being in Western Europe. I would choose Prague all over again if I could go back.

This experience taught me so much about the world, and to be honest I still have barely seen any of it. I am so fortunate to have seen what I have and to have done what I did, but it’s only ignited a flame inside me to travel even more. I have a dream to make it to every continent and understand as many cultures as I can. I learned that I can get up, move, and feel comfortable living in a place completely different than home, and I’ll be okay. More than okay; I enjoy every second of it. I learned that I don’t know if I’ll ever be content staying in one place. I like change. I like to learn by completely immersing myself in a situation I’m not entirely comfortable in. Most importantly, I learned how to really be independent. My mom can attest for me on that one – even when I went away to school in South Carolina, I’d still call her every other day at least. Sometimes it was just to talk, but a lot of the time it was to ask for advice or help. In Prague I couldn’t do that, and I learned that I can’t always rely on her, or anyone but myself really.

My classes may have been easy, and I may have cut class a little more often than I should have… but honestly I learned more in this semester than I have in the past 3 years of college combined. If anyone reading this is considering studying abroad, I urge you to go. It isn’t all fun and games; there are tough days, you get homesick, and you can’t expect anything to be the same as it is at home. But it’s worth every dilemma, every wrong turn, every miscommunication, every moment. It was the best decision I ever made, and I’m beyond blessed to have had this opportunity. If I had the option to do it all over again, I would a thousand times. And I FULLY intend on traveling like this again in my future.

Thank you to everyone that made this a possibility for me (Mom, Dad, both Mamies and Papa, and everyone else that would take forever to name) I can’t express enough how grateful I am for the opportunity. Thank you to all the new friends that took the world on with me, and the old friends that became my tour guides when I visited your wonderful cities. Thank you for everyone who supported me in this crazy endeavor, and for all of you who kept up with this over-worded blog all semester

Prague, I will be back for you. 

 

P.S. keep your eyes peeled, I have a video coming soon that won’t even do my semester justice, but I will try nonetheless. 

Italy

I was lucky enough to have my cousins Kiley and Mackenzie come visit me for 10 days in Europe at the end of my semester. While I wanted to show Prague off to them, we also wanted to book a trip to the place we’ve all talked about going to together since we were little: Italy. It’s been a dream of ours for as long as I can remember, and it finally became a reality. We did a lot of traveling through Italy and I could easily write a book about everything we did, but here are some short summaries of our trip…

Rome: Of course we had to start our tour through Italy in Rome.. with the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Vatican City, etc. While it isn’t my favorite Italian city, it definitely is a city that you can’t skip because of all the history it holds. And the Trevi Fountain is one of my absolute favorite sights in Europe. I truly can’t explain why, I just love it. By the time we checked in to our hostel, we had about 20 hours in Rome until we left for Florence. Luckily for us, Rome is one of the most walkable cities I’ve been to. We managed to walk the entire thing and see everything we wanted to see in about 3.5 hours time… and 11 miles later. We got Kiley her Pope t-shirt because she has an irrational obsession with him and it just made sense. We got the best panini I’ve ever had in my entire life. We almost killed the men trying to ruthlessly sell us selfie sticks. We got gelato from Fassi, one of the oldest and “most renowned” gelato shops in the country.. (and turns out this was the only time we got gelato all week, who would’ve thought) Our hostel also provided free breakfast AND dinner for us, so we had a delicious homemade pasta dinner from them. Overall we think we did Rome as well as we possibly could’ve in that time span.

Florence: Another day where we walked 11+ miles. We got to our Airbnb and were pleasantly surprised at the beautiful view of the Duomo, the nice balcony, and a perfect room for the three of us. We started our day off at the Mercato Centrale, eating delicious cheap foods and then walking through the leather markets towards the Duomo. We ended up frequenting these leather markets but that’s another story.. Later we met up with my freshman year roommate DANA!!! She took us to her apartment, across the Ponte Vecchio, out to get raspberry sorbet popsicles covered in dark chocolate, and then we all shared cheese, crackers and wine while watching the most incredible sunset I’ve probably ever seen in my life over the entire city of Florence. It was so much fun seeing my old roomie in Europe :’) Later that night we ran into two other familiar faces while out at a bar, Alexa and Sydney, who are also some of our friends from freshman year. The world is the size of a tennis ball.

Chianti Region of Tuscany: We woke up at 12:00, booked tickets for a wine tasting tour at 1:00, and were on the bus by 2:00. It was a last minute decision and one I definitely don’t regret. We got to go to two different wineries, try six different kinds of wine, and munch of cheeses, breads, olive oils and salami. Not to mention we were in Tuscany, one of the most picturesque places in Italy (in my opinion) so the views were incredible as well. We spent a short time in a little town called Greve, which literally consisted of just a center square. We tried a sandwich at one of the most well-known butcher shops in Italy called Macelleria Falornia (I highly recommend it if anyone ever finds themselves randomly strolling the small streets of Greve). That night we met up with Dana and her roommate Allegra again for dinner at ZaZa’s, a restaurant highly recommended by our Airbnb host. I had the most delicious eggplant parmesan of my life and probably will never be the same. That’s how good.

Getting to Cinque Terre: Traveling to Cinque Terre turned out to be an absolute nightmare for us. From Florence we took a train to Pisa, transferred to another train going to La Spezia, and were supposed to transfer to the last train going towards Monterosso. From there, we had a shuttle picking us up to transfer us to our hostel. Well, we missed our last train by barely a minute and then made the decision to get on the next train going the same direction. The stop was only 20 minutes away so we figured it HAD to stop there. Logical, right? Wrong. This specific train didn’t make any regional stops… and it took a while for us to realize that we were headed 1.5 hours in the wrong direction. So, we ended up in a town called Genova. Who even knows where that is to be honest. We had to get another train all the way back to La Spezia, missed our shuttle, and took a 40 euro cab up the mountainside to our hostel. We didn’t arrive until 9:45 pm. Great day.

Actually Cinque Terre: The next day when we ACTUALLY got to explore Cinque Terre we got so lucky that it almost made up for a day of misfortunes. The weather was absolutely beautiful and we spent our days going between the 5 cities that make up Cinque Terre, and on the beach in Monterosso. We were finally able to have a day relaxing, tanning, and drinking piña coladas on the beach. It was exactly what all of us needed. We headed back to our hostel around 6pm, watched the Real Madrid vs Atletica game, and enjoyed the delicious risotto our hostel made for us. Honestly this was one of the nicest hostels I’ve ever seen in my life, the only downfall was the WiFi shutting off at midnight and needing to take the shuttles (or overpriced taxis) to get down to the coastal areas. We really enjoyed our time here, but were ready to leave for Milan the next day.

Milan: Kiley’s 18th birthday! Unfortunately, it rained the entire day. And I mean the skies just really opened up. We barely ended up seeing any of Milan because of this. We did make attempts to go into the city center and to the top of their Duomo but the rain didn’t allow for this, so all we ended up getting to see of Milan was the inside of their main cathedral. It was beautiful, but definitely didn’t give us much of a taste of Milan. For Kiley’s birthday dinner she was craving “American food” and didn’t want to go out to eat. So we got as much junk food as we possibly could find in a supermarket and sat on our hostel floor eating it together. It was exactly what she wanted and we had fun doing it, although in retrospect it does seem pretty silly considering we were in Italy… The day was relaxing and we were all content, and that concluded our Italian adventures.

So beyond thankful that I got to travel this incredible country with these two by my side. Makin’ memories, right Uncle Chip?!

Santiago

Hola!

It feels weird to write a blog post about my trip to South America while I’m sitting on my bed in Europe… but, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I spent the last 8 days in Santiago, Chile. It was my first (but certainly not last) time in South America, and I absolutely loved this country, and my local tour guides made it that much better.

Landing in Santiago went unexpectedly because, despite the flight attendants telling us we were landing “right on time” at 8:42, it was actually 9:42, so we were an hour late. More than that, when I got off the plane I was greeted by Kelton, Sloan’s roommate who I had never previously met, holding this sign:

 

Turns out Sloan was still in Peru when I landed, but that’s another story. He met up with us that night and was able to show me the best week in Santiago. Writing just one blog post about a weeks worth of adventuring just doesn’t do it any justice, but I will anyways to give an idea of what we did. Our first few days started off late because we were both exhausted and I was definitely a little jet lagged. That was the longest flight I’ve ever taken.. it ended up taking 13 hours on the way there from Madrid to Santiago, but I had to take a bus to Munich and then fly from there to Madrid even before that. It was an extremely long day of traveling for me… I traveled between 4 countries and 2 continents completely by myself, and it was so incredibly worth it.

We spent the week adventuring the city that he’s called home for the past three months. We walked through various markets with the freshest, most abundant amounts of fruit I’ve ever seen, and others with more fish than I could ever imagine. We climbed the Santa Lucía Hill to see an unreal view of the city. We hung out with local Chileans and attempted to go to a carnival… but failed when we found out it was cancelled. We ate the most interesting sandwich I’ve ever had, a waffle sandwich. (Literally a waffle filled with turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato and BBQ sauce.. and it was delicious). We spent a night with other USC students drinking pisco and too much beer. Sloan made delicious breakfasts almost every morning, Garrett whipped up some amazing dinners, and we all made homemade margaritas. Thanks again for understanding my love of tequila, Sloan.

We spent the day at Los Dominicos Village, looking through all the souvenir shops and most importantly at the bunnies. We got ice cream at one of the world’s best ice cream shops, Emporio La Rosa. He took me to see his school’s campus, Universidad de Chile. We spent hours at Patio Bellavista getting happy hour drinks. We shared way too many top chocolates and churros… and I swear they got better each day. We almost convinced ourselves it was a good idea to take home the sweetest stray dog who we decided to call Brownie. Then we almost got attacked by 5 other dogs, but don’t worry Sloan pushed me into the middle of the road so I didn’t get hurt 😉 We had dinner on a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city and made friends with the two men sitting next to us who continued to tease us all night. I also got Sloan, Garrett and Kelton all to watch two scary movies with me and I considered this a major accomplishment of the trip.

I truly had such an amazing week and I can’t wait to get back to this city someday. Sloan Garrett and Kelton, thanks for being great hosts all week. Sloan, thanks for making me practice a little Spanish even when I didn’t want to, for eating dessert with me every night, and for sharing my love of spicy food. I can’t thank you enough for the week and for how much fun I had with you, but I hope you know how much I enjoyed it and how much I hated saying goodbye. I’ll see you soon 🙂

A few last hoorahs

Ever since my mom left, life in Prague has gotten crazy. Trying to balance studying for exams, doing all of the things I had left on to-do list in Prague (did not complete this list), planning out my trip through Italy when Mackenzie and Kiley come to visit, and preparing for my journey to South America… well it hasn’t been easy. On top of all that, the weather finally being beautiful was just pure temptation to ignore everything I just mentioned and spend some time outdoors. Somehow I managed to do all of it with somewhat success.

Studying for exams abroad is arguably worse than in Columbia. Yes, the classes are easier, but I am very much convinced that I developed temporary ADHD while studying abroad. It is literally impossible for me to focus on studying, ever. My mind just travels off to the 100 more interesting things happening in my life.

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The more enjoyable parts of my last few weeks:

Boat party. The university arranged another party for erasmus students that conveniently was a boat party down the Vltava River one night. It was Great Gatsby themed, and people took this to heart. I actually saw a couple guys in tuxedos which made me question if they brought them all the way to Europe with them, or if they rented them here for the occasion… Interesting either way. It was Lauren’s last real night in Prague, so we got our big group all together and literally just laughed all night long. (Oh, and waited in bathroom lines for over an hour)… I couldn’t even put my finger on what made this night so perfect, but I don’t think I stopped laughing for more than 30 seconds at a time.

Lemon Leaf. Last family dinner at Lemon Leaf, our favorite Thai restaurant. Weirdly enough I have eaten more Thai food in Prague than anywhere else in my life… and also probably more than any other cuisine here. But all 9 of us (Lauren, Taylor, Dale, Sonum, Austin, Lexi, Colin, Jacob and I) got together for one last dinner. I hate goodbyes, so luckily I didn’t have to say them that night, but the thought of leaving everyone really does suck.

Skydiving. The most exhilarating thing I have ever done. I’ve been wanting to sky dive since high school and just never went through with looking up the details, but now that I’ve done it once I 100% will do it again in the near future. If you haven’t already, watch my Facebook video to get an idea.

Paddle boating on the Vltava River. One of the last days in Prague, a couple of us rented a paddle boat (actually it looked like a car on water), grabbed some beers/ciders, and floated along the Vltava River at sunset. It might not have been so relaxing for everyone… shoutout to the guys who were pedaling because apparently it was more of a workout than a relaxing “float down the river”…. But seriously, the views from the Vltava are unreal and doing this just further confirmed my beliefs that Prague is the most beautiful city in the world.

Nation2Nation. One last N2N party… these are parties that our university organizes for all the erasmus/exchange students every Tuesday night. The last one was at Duplex, which was also where the first party was located. Duplex is a rooftop club that overlooks Wenceslas Square and it’s just so much fun. It felt right to end the semester in the same place we started it. My bus left at 8 AM the next morning to start my journey to Santiago, so staying out until almost 4 AM probably wasn’t the best idea, but then again, I made my bus and now I’ll be able to pass out for this 12 hour flight, so was it reallly that bad?

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I will be back to Prague but everyone will be gone by then, so: GOODBYE EVERYONE I LOVE YOU ALL. Seriously without getting sappy, thanks for making this semester even more unbelievable than it already was. Traveling with people definitely makes you get closer faster, and I’m grateful I got to share that experience with you all. Can’t wait to see you all again someday and visit your schools

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the Munich airport about to get on a flight to Madrid, and then from there I go to Santiago, Chile. You know what they say, once you start to travel you can’t stop….