My Life in Words

This is my last blog from Asia!!! I'm going to miss keeping a blog. I really like writing. Maybe I'll have to find another topic at home to write about on a weekly basis. I'm writing this from the plane home; only about an hour and a half out of Vancouver. DAY 75: so we arrived in Hanoi early from the overnight train. There was an organized breakfast at a really good restaurant. The restaurant is a program for street teens; if accepted they live and train at the centre for 2 years, learning English and service industry skills. By the end of the program, most get jobs in 5 star hotels and such. The breakfast was probably the best one I've had on my trip. A bunch of the group went to some "local village" for the day.....but neither Kelly nor I could be bothered. Instead we went to the "Hanoi Hilton" which is where US pilots shot down during the war were held as POWs. Before that, it was used as a prison by the French for communists. I think w...

DAY67: we left Phnom Penh this morning for Vietnam. We crossed into the country via boat. It was a four hour trip and I found it a bit of a waste of a day. We could have gotten a bus directly from Phnom Pehn to HCMC in 5 or 6 hours, but instead we took the boat to Chau Doc for the night and then had to get a 6 hour bus from there to HCMC the next morning. So stupid. But a few people In my group thought the hot, uncomfortable, sticky boat ride was "fantastic", so I guess that's why they do it that way; to see more of the country. Maybe I'm just travel weary, but I thought it was a huge waste of time. Anyway, we arrived in Chau Doc in the late afternoon. Not a touristy place in any way. Very "authentic" I guess. We did a trip on "motorbikes" up the "mountain" for sun set. It was more like a scooter ride up a large hill, but it was still good fun. We had drivers for the scooters so we just had to sit on the back. Traffic was a litt...

This is another long one, but I think it's interesting. DAY 61: my last day in Thailand. Craig left first thing this morning, so I am alone from now on. Today was a lazy day as I had to change hotels and meet my tour group in the afternoon. I went to the mall for lunch, before going to the new hotel; my joining point for my 18 day tour though Cambodia and Vietnam. The hotel was ok, but really the $10 per night hostel I stayed at with Craig was much nicer and newer. Anyway, I met my group for the next 18 days. There are 12 of us; 10 going all the way to Northern Vietnam and 2 leaving us after HCMC. We may be getting a few new people in HCMC- we are definitely getting a new guide. My group is a very strange mix. Other than myself, there are 3 other girls traveling alone; another Canadian, an Aussie and a Scot. The four of us get along, so that's nice. My roommate is the Scot and she has a similar sarcastic sense of humour as I do, so that's good. Otherwise there are t...

This is a long one....lots to say!!! DAY 54: this was our last day down south, but it was pouring rain when we got up, so we couldn't have one final beach day. So instead we went and checked out neighboring Ao Nang for the day. Despite the fact that it's only a 15 minute boat ride away, it's completely different than Railay. Ao Nang had roads and cars and stores and a variety of restaurants. Very different compared to carless Railay. I wish we had spent a night or two there, as it would have been a nice change. Anyway, it was raining so we went for a massage. Craig was massaged by a man and was super uncomfortable. LOL. By the time the massage was over, the rain had stopped and we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and such. We once again had a quiet night in Railay. DAY 55: this day was a travel day to Chiang Mai. We flew out of Krabi airport and had a stop over in Bangkok. All went smoothly and we arrived in Chiang Mai around 5pm. The day was filled with ...

The last week has been a lot of beaching, so I don't think I have much of any interest to say.....but I'll give it a go. DAY 46: our first full day in Lanta. Unlike Phi Phi, there are roads and cars on the island and everything is more spread out, so we rented scooters for two days. They were sooooo cheap ($7 a day?) and were actually decent bikes (125 cc) It was funny when we rented them; we asked for two and the guy looked at me shocked "you're going to ride one....haha....show me you can ride." Sexist jerk. He ended up making Craig do a little circle in the parking lot too, so that made me a little less angry. We then were told how to use the horn, and that pretty much summed up our thai licensing experience. The roads in lanta were great for scooting. Other than the main street (which was not that busy) the roads were pretty deserted. The most challenging parts were remembering to stay on the left side of the road and not getting distracted by the beaut...

DAY 38: as Sanur was kind of a sleepy place we decided to go into Kuta for the day. Kuta was about 15-30 minutes away by taxi, depending on the traffic. At first we had considered staying there, instead of Sanur, but I am glad that we didn't; because for the most part, I hated it. It's really a dirty, touristy, crowded, horrible place. The beach was ok (decent surf) but it was so crowded. You couldn't really swim because there were so many people with surf boards everywhere. We spent part of the day walking around the city. One decent thing was there was some decent boutique shopping. I bought a few little things. Otherwise the stores were awful. All the owners would stand outside and say "come look at my store" or "best price. Cheaper!" What is cheaper? Cheaper than what? What are you talking about? Some of the stores had the worst stickers and t-shirts for sale. You could buy stickers with just about any offensive, offside, gross expression o...

DAY 31: we arrived in Bali the night of day 30. Our first 3 nights were in Ubud, which is in the middle of the country. It's not a beach destination; more of a country side retreat. Our hotel is very nice and a very good deal. We paid for 3 nights and the cheap price included an airport pick up, daily breakfast and a 90 minute massage for each of us. The room is nice (with a view of rice fields) and there is a nice pool. Anyway, day 1 (of 10 in Indonesia) was spent exploring Ubud. We started by walking though the monkey forest which is right by our hotel. There were so many monkeys everywhere. At first it was kind of cool....and then one attacked me. I was walking along, minding my own business, when it jumped onto me. It scared the shit out of me. After that, armed with the knowledge that the monkeys might jump at me at any time, the monkey forest was no longer fun. In fact, it was scary....especially when we came across about 20 monkeys having a bit of an orgy (which in turn led...

DAY 23: chris and i started the day at an internet cafe uploading pics and watching the stupid Canucks lose. Good to see the Sedins playing so well though.... Once the score got to be 4-1 for the kings, we gave up and went to an outlet mall by the airport. Nothing too special, but it was something to do. At this point we had spent so much time walking around the city that we needed to get away. There was some cable cars that you could ride up a mountain and at the top was big Buddha (of course...) but the line was too long so we passed. Craig arrived in the evening looking very hot and tired. After some room reorganization we dragged him out for dinner at an Irish pub, where we had the most expensive beer of the trip to date. I guess they figure the Irish will pay whatever it takes for beer and potatoes, so the prices are excessive for both. Oh well. DAY 24: by this point I was getting pretty tired of hong kong, but as Craig needed to see the city, i re-did a number of the key attrac...