Livin La Vida Laos (and Vietnam and Thailand)

Six weeks in Vietnam flew by. After Rose and I parted ways I reluctantly booked a tour to Sapa. I hate doing organized tours as they are never as fun as exploring a place on your own and don't allow for much spontaneity but I found an insanely cheap price and decided to take a chance. Upon arriving in Sapa at 6am after 8 hours on the bus, there were a few local guys ready to pick up passengers for their various tours. Naturally, my name was not on any of the lists they had and after sitting on the curb for an hour after the last person had departed I was starting to wonder what the hell I was going to do. I'd met a German guy on the bus the night before who was smart enough to only book the bus and instead rent a bike and explore the town on his own. So I counted my losses and joined him for 3 days of motor biking through misty muddy mountainside rice paddies. We stayed in the tiny valley village of Lao Cai and met the sweetest locals I've come across. The husband and wife at our guest house were so friendly and helpful and ended up contacting my tour company for me and getting them to fund my stay. I swear I have the best karma. We spent the 2nd night across the street at another guest house and I'm still regretting not taking a picture of the old lady who ran it. She was toothless and adorable and the only sentences she said were "tea Vietnam" when pouring our tea and "Sapa brrr" when accurately describing the weather forecast. 

After experiencing the cold in Sapa I was excited to get to Cat Ba island where it would hopefully be sunny and slightly warmer. I had no such luck, the island was chilly and foggy and more or less deserted. Once again being on my own, I found the place eerily quiet and decided to spend only one night. I made the most of my time on the island by renting a motor bike and finally after 6 months I drove one all by myself!! It was shockingly easy and I'm now contemplating buying a scooter to zip around on Cape Cod this summer. And despite the fog I still had stunning views of Halong Bay and the enormous limestone karsts.

{Ignore the selfie stick and instead focus on the crazy limestones in the water and the fact that I'm on a bike by myself}

Back in Hanoi the following night I knew that my time in Vietnam had come to an end. Saying goodbye to my favorite country wasn't easy and I was nervous that the rest of my trip wouldn't compare. With sadness and excitement I boarded a flight to Laos, deciding that the 30 hour bus journey was too much to handle, and jetted off to my 7th country of the trip. 

{Flight got cancelled 10 minutes prior to departure though and I got one final night in Nam!}

Arriving in Luang Prabang I had no idea what to expect and was very pleasantly surprised. The city was quaint and quiet with a touch of a French influence. April is dry season, hot season, and the end of tourist season so the city was quieter than usual but I enjoyed a few relaxing days after being caught up in the hustle and bustle of Hanoi. I visited the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen, ate at a $1 vegetarian street food buffet every night and did yoga overlooking the river and mountains. I found myself a little bit bored after 4 days of relaxation though and booked a bus to Vang Vieng. 

4 hours in a mini van winding through mountains was slightly torturous and once I arrived in Vang Vieng I was so nauseous I had to go straight to sleep. I planned to spend 4 days in VV and ended up getting stuck for a full week as often happens on my travels. The landscape in Laos is beautiful and there is no shortage of activity in Vang Vieng. A pub crawl on tubes down a river, swimming lagoons, cycling, rock climbing, hiking there are lots of adventures to be had in that town. There's also lots of cheap street food and bars that play marathons of Friends and Family Guy all.day.long. It's a stoner's paradise so being lazy is quite easy as well. I found a nice balance of active days and lazy nights and was lucky enough to meet a group of friends in my hostel who quickly turned to family.

Two weeks came and went in Laos and before I could blink my eyes I was back in Bangkok, eating pad thai, drinking Chang, and spending hours at the spa. After 2 days in Bangkok, I reunited with a Dutch boy that I met during my travels in Vietnam and we headed north to Chiang Mai for Songkram (Thai new year) celebrations. The city shuts down for 4 days for this water festival and it turns into an all out war zone. You can't walk down the street without locals dumping buckets of water over your head and foreigners strapped with water guns spraying you down. It's really difficult to describe it, I don't know any country that has any sort of similar celebration but it is quite literally a 4 day water gun fight with an entire city. I spent every day roaming the streets armed with my hot pink Hello Kitty super soaker seeking revenge from every person that aimed in my direction. 

We just arrived in Pai and are planning to rent bikes and explore the surrounding area. I only have two weeks left on this amazing Southeast Asian journey and I plan to spend them all in Northern Thailand relaxing by a pool, doing yoga, eating delicious food, trying Muay Thai boxing, and of course spending the last of my budget on unnecessary clothing and accessories. It's going to be very difficult to leave this continent but knowing I have an excited welcome crew of friends and family will make it a bit easier.

Hello 2015!

I spent the last day of 2014 laying on the beach and rang in 2015 watching the fireworks and partying on the beach. It's hard to believe the year is over. 2014 brought some major life changes for me. I quit my job and moved out of the apartment in Boston where I lived for 3 years, broke up with my best friend who I dated for 5 years, and I bought a one way ticket to Southeast Asia. I moved home to the Cape and waitressed to fund my dreams of traveling the world. In the meantime I strengthened old friendships and created new ones. I fell in love with my home all over again and learned to appreciate the beauty that constantly surrounds me. I became a certified yoga instructor, I swam with sea turtles, I got scuba certified, I bathed in waterfalls, and I danced for hours on the beach under a canopy of stars. I lost friends and I made friends. There were highs and lows, as is usual, but one thing is for sure it was a year of transformation for me and I don't think 2015 will be any different. I'm not dwelling on the past nor am I anticipating the future. Instead, I am focusing on the present and living in the moment.

After treating ourselves to a bottle of wine and a fancy dinner for Christmas Eve on Koh Tao, Laura and I took off for Koh Phangan. Known for the famous Full Moon Party, the island is filled with 20-somethings in neon shirts and body paint, ready to rage at any hour of the day. We went to the full moon party on Christmas and had an absolute blast. Thailand being such a popular destination for Europeans, I found myself speaking Italian, Spanish, and a mix of other languages all night. I was fascinated by the fire shows, with young Thai boys tossing flame colored ropes into the sky, twirling them around and managing to not get burned. Then there were the fire jump ropes which are exactly what they sound like. A massive jump rope engulfed in flames and the brave souls who risk a 3rd degree burn to get a good picture.

Koh Phangan was fun and there is a lot more to do than party. The farther north you go on the island, the prettier the beaches get and the more yoga and health centric spots start popping up. We stayed on the island for a few days, zipping up and down the coast on our motor bike, before deciding we wanted to explore the Indian Ocean side of Thailand. So now we are on Koh Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee) and have been doing little more than sunbathing everyday. This island is stunning and the weather has been perfect so we are taking full advantage and getting our tanning time in. Made famous by the Leo Dicaprio movie, The Beach, Phi Phi is a tiny island with no cars and a mixture of backpackers and vacationers. 

I am so sad that our Thailand adventure is quickly coming to an end and Laura is leaving me in a week. She has been the perfect travel companion, always on the same page as me, and I'm going to miss her so much when she goes! As for me, I have 8 days before they can legally kick me out of the country and I don't quite know where I'm going yet. If the Myanmar website would work and I could secure my eVisa then I would say I'm going to Burma but so far I've had no luck. As always, I have faith that things will work out the way they are supposed to and the universe will nudge me in the right direction. :)

Bangkok, Boats, and Buddhas

I've been having far too much fun in Thailand and its been awhile since I've had a chance to write anything. Laura and I fell in love with Bangkok, such a cool city. There are sky high shopping malls mixed in with temples and giant buddhas, and delicious food stands on every corner. Its quickly become my home away from home as its the perfect travel hub for all of SEA. We spent way too much money, ate way too much pad thai, and maybe drank a little too much but we had a damn good time doing it.

Oh Bangkok, where to begin? The food. The food! What an improvement from the Philippines, the food in Thailand is unreal. Everything is delicious, there are tons of vegetarian options, and you can easily get an entire meal for $1. The shopping is unavoidable. Clothing, jewlery, home decor, electronics, beauty treatments, you name it, we bought it. You can literally buy anything in Thailand. I had to leave an entire backpack behind while we travel the islands and I plan to stuff it full before I mail it home next month. Laura and I both agreed we could have spent the entire month in Bangkok but our bank accounts would have dwindled quickly. 

We booked tickets on an overnight sleeper train headed south where we would hop on a bus and then a ferry to get to our first tropical destination: Koh Tao. Again, my naivety has me thinking that this overnight train is going to be like the Hogwarts Express with our own private room, beds, and food carts periodically going through the aisles. Laura is excitedly telling me that she LOVES traveling by train. Me too! I took the Eurorail all over Italy and it was wonderful. Let me tell you that it was NOT like anything we were expecting. When we first got on the train we exchanged confused glances and proceeded to ask every worker we saw if we were on the correct train. Excuse me sir, there must be some confusion, we purchased tickets for the sleeper car? After being assured many times we finally accepted that we were on the right train and took our seats on the urine scented car. It turns out the two leather seats we were in slid together to make one bed and the metal cage above us folded down into a top bunk. We decided to sleep together on the bottom "bed" and used the top one to store our luggage. I refused to drink anything because there wasn't a chance I was going to use that bathroom again and by the time we reached our destination 10 hours later my mouth was so dry I could barely talk. I wish I could say that chapter ends with us getting off the train but it has only begun. We got to the deserted train station at 3am and waited until 6 for our bus. The bus was a quick 30 minutes to the pier and I slept the whole time. And then was what I can confidently say was one of the worst experiences of my life- the ferry ride. Its high season in Thailand right now and everyone is spending the holidays on the islands so the ferries are at full capacity. The weather last week wasn't ideal and made for some choppy seas in the gulf. Why they didn't warn us or cancel the ride all together is beyond me. Two hours on a catamaran rocking so violently side to side that the only thing you could see out the windows was the wave washing over it. Women shrieking as if they are on a roller coaster. Nauseous passengers vomiting into plastic bags every couple of feet. And me with my eyes closed tightly, hands gripping the seat in front of me, breathing deeply and picturing myself meditating on a calm beach with the horizon in front of me. It was horrific. How I managed to hold it together and not puke is a miracle. There were moments when I was questioning whether or not we would even make it to the island. I think I almost cried when the boat finally pulled into a harbor and the announcer said the name of a different island. I thought we were the first stop!! How long to Koh Tao?!?! Thankfully only 5 minutes away or I would have found myself vacationing on this other island I'd never heard of.

Aside from the terrible transportation experience, life in Thailand has been great. We've been on Koh Tao for 4 days now and just completed our Open Water scuba diving certification! The weather is beautiful and we plan to spend the next few days relaxing on the beach, hiking, doing yoga, and exploring the island. Time to lay low and enjoy the holidays :)