I have been traveling for almost 2 months and this is my 2nd blog post…I must say, I fail at blogging. I had a netbook when I came here, but after Samantha arrived and we were on a ferry in Koh Phangan, we were caught in a torrential downpour of rain, and my little laptop never came back to life. Since then, I have purchased a tablet, first a fake one that worked terribly, then a real one which I’m typing on now. It’s hard for me to type long messages (with hard being a substitute for the word lazy), but I will try harder in the future!
So many things have happened since the last post! Samantha came, and we journeyed to Koh Phangan on a sleeper train and arrived just in time for the Full Moon Party. If you’re curious as to what it was like, the images that will pop up when you Google it are pretty self-explanatory; it was crazy! Everyone had glowing shirts or body paint or buckets in their hand, and on the tuk-tuk ride there, Samantha and I met 2 guys who we ended up hanging out with most of the night. I would advise all females to NOT GO ALONE. I was separated for a little while when I was dancing in the rain, and so many people were asking if I came alone, a group of guys pulled me and started kissing my cheeks, and a random guy who was dancing with all of us followed me into the ocean and got extremely handsy, in which case I ran away.
But it was so much fun, I’m contemplating going again in January! It was pretty rainy the rest of our stay, we climbed up to the top of a peak and up a waterfall, motorbiked around and got some sun. Then we headed north to Chiang Mai, saw some movies in the cinema on our lazy day, soaked our feet in a hot spring and bathed in a mineral pool, pet tigers, and rode and bathed elephants bareback. I loved interacting with the elephants the most, and since I am planning on going to Thailand again in a month or 2, I may try out volunteering at an elephant camp for a week or 2 weeks, just so I can have more time with them (while also getting the opportunity to clean up their poop, which are almost the size of my head).
On the bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, I became so terribly sick, I don’t know how or why, but I ended up vomiting on the bus 2 or 3 times. It was an overnight VIP bus, so I’m thankful I got sick on the most comfortable one, but I’m sure the people around me minded as I retched uncontrollably into a trash bag and made the whole downstairs of the bus smell like a pile of sick. Even after I got off the bus in Bangkok, I fell to my knees and vomited again into a small plastic bag, sweating and struggling to catch my breath in front of the entire bus terminal…I’m sure I did America proud.
When we went back to Bangkok, we researched what temples around us would do a Sak Yant (sacred tattoo done by a monk) for us, and found out about Wat Bang Phra in a town a couple of hours away. It was such an experience to get one, especially since it was my first tattoo, so I will post a separate blog describing it, but I did get one and I love it and have no regrets!
Once Samantha left, I went to Siem Reap in Cambodia after overstaying my Thai visa for 2 days, resulting in some confusion with my Vietnam visa. After a cramped minibus ride where we were stopped by Thai police and and our driver was fined for something expired, avoiding a border scam at a restaurant, and a 1000 baht fine for overstaying my visa, I arrived in Cambodia! I spent 2 days exploring Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm Kell, and other smaller temples, I was templed out, and spent the rest of my stay in Siem Reap meeting people and drinking. A girl I had met in the hostel, Petra, and I went to Battambang together, where we saw millions of bats fly out of a cave at dusk, kayaked and swam in the river while local children gawked, witnessed the Killing Fields, visited a crocodile farm, and rode the Bamboo Train, among other things.
We traveled to Phnom Penh together and separated when she went to Sihanoukville and I stayed to explore the S21 (Tuol Sleng prison) that was once a high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison. It was indescribable and heartbreaking and incomprehensible to understand why this recent time period in Cambodia occurred, and why the US never even taught us about it in schools. I only spent a night in Phnom Penh, then went off to Otres Beach, where I met an awesome group of people, and spent my whole stay there pigging out, bumming on the beach, and drinking at night. I had to leave because my Vietnam visa arrival date had already arrived, and Vietnam’s visa cost way more than Cambodia’s, so I plan on returning to Cambodia to explore the islands more after my 2nd round in Thailand.
After the most terrifying sleeper bus ride ever, I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City and had to stay at a dodgy guesthouse, since the hostel I forgot to book was full. I met up with a friend I met in Bangkok, Kris, and we decided to be travel buddies through Vietnam. Our first reunion day, we drank way too much in a 12 hour time span, and I almost had to sleep outside of my guesthouse because the metal gate was down and no one was answering. I ended up failing at trying to sleep, so I pulled up the heavy gate and snuck underneath it, tiptoed behind the desk to grab my room key, and crept past the 2 sleeping bodies in the lobby. I have never been more proud of myself. Kris and I explored the city and took a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were amazingly well thought out and created. We even got to go through 200 meters of cramped tunnels, which at one point, became so narrow and stifling that I had to crawl on my hands and knees to fit through. There were escapes throughout the tunnel, but I ended up being 1 of 5, out of the 45 people who attempted it in my group, to make it to the end!
We went to Mui Ne after Saigon, and got a cheap deal on a wonderful hotel, but we did not do much except sled down the red sand dunes and get sick, me from drinking and Kris from a soup he had. We took the bumpiest, most uncomfortable bus ride to Da Lat, which is a beautiful hilly city with incredibly beautiful architecture and gorgeous mountain scenery, that went down to almost freezing temperatures (for me) at night, since it sits 2000 meters above sea level. We went to the Crazy House there, took a cable car in the mountains, explored the waterfalls there, rode a toboggan down a mountain, and tried our hand at archery (not doing terribly bad either)! I managed to lose both of my debit cards, one in Ho Chi Minh and the other in an ATM in Da Lat (which I was able to recover the next day), but I will have to rely on poste restante in Hanoi to get my original debit card back…I am such a terrible traveler.
What appalled me was witnessing 2 employees of the waterfall and roller coaster place trying to catch a duck. We walked up on an asshole in a cream suit throwing rocks the size of my fist at the duck, only stopping after I yelled “stop” continuously and after his friend told him to. I followed them after that, because I knew they only stopped for our sakes, but the friend of asshole caught the obviously injured duck and carried it up the mountain. We followed him, and after the many ugly faces I threw in his direction, he followed us further up the mountain and motioned for me to follow him and watch as he let the duck go in a gaggle of fellow ducks by a pond. I stopped being angry at him, because now I’m pretty sure he was just trying to rescue the duck from the waterfall, and his asshole friend was just being a dick, which is basically what the duck rescuer was miming to me since he didn’t speak English. I hope the duck is okay and that that indeed is the real story, but at least the duck did not get its head smashed in )= It took a lot for me not to punch either of them in the face.
But now we are on a bus to Nha Trang, where we will celebrate Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day (which I gather is an English holiday from my English travel buddy, Kris), where we will hopefully meet some people to go out and party with, while also hunting for a traditional Christmas dinner. I promise I will write more frequently, more for my sake than anything else! Have a Happy Christmas/holidays to everyone!
P.S. It is way too complicated and frustrating to crop and resize and place photos on this tablet, so I will post them in separate posts. First world problems!
KZinSEA 