thiiiiiis close.

our flight leaves tonight at like 1am. unbelievable. send good thoughts for safe travels, good plane movies, and lox and bagels once we arrive in nyc.

so close to home, i can taste it.

somehow thailand feels like home... but not quite

cambodia was aweseome. much updating to do. three nights in Phnom Penh, staying with Hayley's college contact, Mindy, who's living and teaching there. Did some really heavy sightseeing about the Khmer Rouge in the late 70's and the mass genocide that happened there. It was terrible. Absolutely necessary to see but something you never want to see again.

On to Siem Reap, which was almost completely under water in places due to the rain. Up to our knees walking in the streets at some points. Spent two full days at Angkor, seeing all the temples we could see. One rainy day, one sunny one. Absolutely breathtaking. Not to mention, one of the temples was where part of the first tomb raider movie was filmed, apparently (note to self, rent movies when you get home).

Our traveling over the Cambodia/Thailand border did not go as smoothly as planned, not by a long shot. Being sold the wrong ticket in Siem Reap, we were in a car to Bangkok when we realized something wasn't right. Hayley'd completely lost her voice because of a cold (not swine flu) that we both seem to have gotten. Everything got straightened out in the end, but we left Cambodia with a sour taste in our mouths. Beautiful place, would love to go back, but Siem Reap just seemed to be crawling with people willing to take the shirt off your back. Too bad.

Relaxing in our guesthouse that night we drank wine and watched a few movies we'd picked up at the market. And by the next day we were here, in Ko Samet, on the beach. The next few days look about the same. Couldn't be happier that this is how we are ending our trip. Then back to Bangkok for a few days, and then home. We can't believe it and now that our travels are coming to an end, it's great to be able to look forward to it with everything in us.

So a week from tomorrow we fly to JFK. A few days in NYC (still more new sights to see for me!) and then back home. Homehomehome. lovely.

Scoot Scooting in the Rain

We crossed over the Mekhong river, taking a fast boat. We'd heard a lot of stories about how scary this trip was, but our other option was a two day slow boat that would put us another day behind in travel. After talking to a bunch of people about it, it turned out no one had ACTUALLY taken the fast boat, or even knew someone directly who had done it. Travelers have a rumor mill that rivals PC, though not in personal info, stories get made bigger every day.

The trip took about 7 hours, with a little stop for lunch at a floating noodle place. Delish! We met a few Brits that were traveling together, Jemma and Ollie, and had a great time, though cramped on little "seats". Nonetheless we got to Luong Prabong safe and sound and found a hostel right away. The night market was beautiful, with lots of silk scarves, linen pants, figures, and even ornate opium pipes (the Golden Triangle used to be/is an Opium hot spot of the world market). The next day was chill, roaming around town, buying our next bus tickets, and catching up on some relaxing and journaling. The following day we went to a beautiful bear sanctuary and waterfall, just 30km outside of the city.

Opting out of the tubing experience, (which apparently equals drunk backpackers in tubes, drinking "buckets" of booze, jumping off rope swings into the Mekhong, often getting hurt and then remembering nothing the next day) we went right down to Vientiane, the current capitial of Laos. A cute little town on the Mekhong, we met Fred, a former RIM PCV. Renting motor bikes on a COMPLETELY rainy day, we set out to see the town. Apparently you have to bring your own gun to use at the shooting range, so that ended up out of the question. We did, however, go bowling. Hayley, strangely enough, ran into a girl she went to college with in Canada, who happens to be living in Phnom Phen (our next stop) teaching English and offered us a place to stay! Small small world it is.

Noodle bowls, street food, and temples, temples, temples. Tonight we have a night/sleeper bus all the way to Phnom Phen (24hours) where we have lots of siteseeing to do. Then up to Siem Reap and back to Thailand and a few beaches before heading home.

Also, if you need something to do and are feeling generous, check out this link for COPE, a local organization working with victims of unexploded cluster bombs from the Vietnam War. There are still hundreds of thousands of bombs sitting around the Lao countryside. It's a great organization and worth looking into.

more soon!

To Laos

Sitting on our little porch at the hostel, overlooking the Mekhong river to Laos.
Tomorrow we cross for another part of our adventure.
Scoot scoots, temples, tubing, and a visit from Fred Lam, RIM PCV.

The visit with Renee was beautiful and wonderful, and we really had a great time chilling with her host fam (and her house full of kitties!) We still have about three weeks left of travel and can't believe that there's still so much to see and so much time to do it in.

As Hayley says, "every day is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me".

chiang mai: snakes, tigers, monkeys, elephants

ho ly crap.

and, no. there is nothing between me and that tiger. nothing.

VACATION!!

don't worry mom, i'm still alive!!

i went to southeast asia and all i got was this spiritual enlightenment

this is the poohead that took hayley's wallet. we didn't see him, but i'm SURE this is what he looked like. if the font is too small, i'll recap. he says

i'm the jerk that stole hayley's wallet. too bad all i got was a little money and an expired peace corps ID

and then the pink lines are for karma smiting him down and the green squiggles show the loser suckface vibes that he eminates.

so there's that.

on another note, the street food continues! green papaya salad that had both of our jaws on the table. with little to no thai language abilities are p.r.e.t.t.y hilarious.

hayley: ~~pointing at a dish that someone's already eating~~ "we want 2" ~~making the number two on her fingers~~
thai lady: "sometinginthai"
hayley: ~~nodding~~ "yes, two. but one," ~~number one on her fingers~~ ~~she picks up a tiny hot pepper off the lady's cart~~ "no peppers, none" ~~sweeping X type gesture~~
thai lady: ~~laughs, nods~~
me: ~~nodding, smiling, points to hayley~~ "what she said" ~~smiling~~

and, turns out, that works pretty well here.

today we met a traveler named susan who was here for some business, but is now going to a monestary 250k outside bangkok to meditate for three weeks and do a major cleanse. she'd bought a buddhist nun's robes even. she said her life in germany was in all the wrong order, the priorities all mixed up. she just got a new job, so she said she'd have to go back after the three weeks. or maybe she won't, she said. only time will tell. we applauded her, congratulated her. and then laughed because as she left to search for enlightenment we were on our way to a mall to watch a movie.

...which was AWESOME. man, america's gotta get on this recliner in a movie theater thing. it's genius. we weren't the only ones there this time, but did enjoy a great showing of the movie "gamer" with gerard butler. did he become, like, uber-famous while i was in mauritania? that dude's got like 10 movies out right now.

anyway, tomorrow we're going to the pc office here to see if we can meet some staff, and hopefully i'll be able to talk to their medical officer and get some meds for my recently realized acquisition of shistosomiasis (yeah, thanks mauritania). then a night bus up to chiang mai to see elephants, tigers, and monkeys *oh my!*. and then, drumroll, we'll finally see renee at her site! and maybe ride an ostrich. so much more to come.

thanks for keeping up with all this! til next time!

sure, i'll have the best plate of pad thai i've ever eaten on the street for $1US.

our second day in bangkok hayley and i saw the grand palace in bangkok and then went to a HUGE mall (yes, we're getting better at this) to watch district 9, a new sci-fi flick, and sit in VIP seats (this means remote controlled leather reclining chairs where we were the only people in the whole theater and they give you complimentary pillows and fleece blankets (this only cost about $15US!). spoiled rotten, we were. and proud of it! back to our adorable little hostel where we have a room w/AC. hells yes.

cut to yesterday, roaming around the weekend market shopping for god-knows-what. browsing, eating delicious street food, trying to stay cool, and checking out the local tattoo shops (nothing new yet, mom, but it might be coming soon. don't worry!) grabbing bus tickets for our trip up to chiang mai the day after tomorrow and picking up tickets for the handsome furs. completely exhausted from our tromping around, we got more street food. street food, in thailand, apparently means the best padthai i've had in my entire life, by the way. unbelievable.

hayles bought us uber-adorable dresses at the market and we put makeup on for the first time in at least six months. okay, maybe not quite that long, but st. louis senegal doesn't count. dresses, mascara, lip gloss and model poses later, we flagged a cab to the culture club on si ayuttayha and got pronunciation lessons from our cabbie. by the way, silly difficult things to adjust to? cars driving on the left side of the street. not to mention how trippy it is to be in the passenger front seat that's on the left hand side of the car. stupid, but hilarious.

the show was great, with a few good opening acts. we met some americans living in thailand and danced til our legs were sore. the handsome furs put on a GREAT show, and it was a wonderful surprise for not really knowing that much of their stuff before the concert. sweet!

we're probably going to see another VIP movie tonight and the day after tomorrow we head up north. mashallah, vacation.