8 Months, 8 Weeks, 8* Countries

It is time for my 8 month update. I have been traveling for over 8 weeks straight and in that time I have been to 8 countries (technically 7 countries but part of me doesn’t like to count Hong Kong as part of China).  It was interesting to pack my backpack for weather ranging from 36°C (Bangkok) to -32°C (Harbin). How many people can say they have a bikini packed next to their parka and wool socks? My sister said she would never go to a place as cold as Harbin. (It was China's coldest winter in 28 years.) Sure, it is easier to pack if you go to places with similar temperatures. However, I hate to let something like the weather get in the way of something as unique as the Harbin Ice Festival. Ah, I am getting ahead of myself. 

I really shouldn’t wait such a long time between blog posts to update this thing. Let’s rewind eight weeks. 

At the end of our family winter vacation in New Zealand, we went to the airport together. My sister and parents were all on the flight to LAX. As I said goodbye to them, a teeny tiny part of me wished I was getting on the same flight. Yes, I love traveling but I miss home sometimes. (I mainly miss Whole Foods and REI. Mom, I miss you too.)

I have no clue how to write one blog post about the 4 country, 3 week adventure, I had with 2 of my friends. Maybe I should do what Kathryn did and write a detailed 6-part series. Ha, who am I kidding? 

Just before the New Year, Kathryn, 康凯, and I started our trip in Bangkok. To ring in the New Year, we went to Khao San (bar street) but it was different than any place I have been. On the street they had lounge chairs occupied by people getting Thai foot massages. There were tanks of those fish that eat the dead skin on your feet. There were people trying to get us to go to a live adult show. I’ll just leave it at that.

 After Bangkok, we took sketchy buses and a ferry to the island of Koh Chang. I am unsure how to describe this place. Half of the island is filled with pricey resorts meant for vacationing couples. We were on the other side of the island staying at Lonely Beach. Lonely Beach is the backpacker party area. It is a row of bars that double as hostels. 

It was the first and only time we showed up at a city without booking a hostel. After checking out some sad looking rooms (I know, you get what you pay for), We settled on a little bungalow with a hammock on the porch. The bathroom was not completely closed so hugebugs came in to shower with us. I like that every city we went to felt drastically different than the city before it. The temples and palaces of Bangkok were a sharp contrast from the ultra chill island vibe. One love, mon. We celebrated my 23^rd birthday kayaking, hiking, swimming, and listening to live Rastafarian music. I had one of my favorite desserts, sweet sticky rice with mango, in lieu of a birthday cake.

Following Koh Chang, we had an early bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. When we were waiting, many other vans passed us by. Some were heading to Bangkok and some were heading to Laos. 康凯 asked one of the drivers, “Cambodia?” Who knew you could just casually hop on a bus headed for Cambodia? We would later find out border crossings weren’t always simple.

However, our Thai-Cambodian border crossing went relatively smoothly. It was the first time I walked across a border. It’s not like you can or would want to do that on the U.S.-Mexican border. Kathryn was surprised that they did not check our bags for drugs or dangerous goods. In fact, the only time our bags were checked at a border crossing was at Vietnamese customs.

In Phnom Penh, we upgraded our bug infested bungalow for a wifi capable hotel room with a hot shower. One night we are in a mosquito filled bungalow and the next we are in a nice hotel room with air conditioning. Man, I love traveling. 

We went to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21). Ok, call me an ignorant American, but before this trip, I didn't know this genocide happened. I felt dumb and guilty for not knowing that 2 million Cambodians were killed during Khmer Rouge regime. Is this my fault? Can I blame the Texas public education system? I spent most of the time at the museum looking at the  photographs of the prisoners. I felt the sadness in their eyes. How did I not know about this genocide? 

I enjoy visiting museums while I am traveling. Besides looking at the content, I find it interesting to observe how museums are set up in different countries. I have yet to go to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., but I have been to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. The museum in Nanjing is filled with elaborate exhibits and there is a wealth of written information lining the walls. S-21 had minimal information and instead of looking at exhibits, we saw the prisoner's cells. We saw their dried blood stains on the floor tiles. 

After visiting the prison, we went to the Killing Fields where thousands of prisoners were dumped in mass graves. As we were leaving the fields, I heard children laughing at the school next door. Their playground shared a fence with the killing fields. It made me uneasy to hear laughter at a solemn place of remembrance. Kathryn felt the same way. She also found it strange to see many shops and restaurants surrounding S-21. 康凯 mentioned that he read an article on this issue. Building a school next door to a reminder of a terrible part of their history may be an effort to rebuild--an effort to not always associate that area with genocide. Although I think it is a valid argument, it still made me uncomfortable. Should sites like the killing field be separated from normal businesses?

Following Phnom Penh we went to Siem Reap, Cambodia where we visited the world’s largest religious structure-Angkor Wat. Some people have heard of it because Tomb Raider was shot at one of the temples here. Because it is too spread out to go on foot, we hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around the complex. I chatted with him a bit but the language barrier severely limited our conversation. When we first got to Angkor Wat, he pulled out a map and told us about each of the temples. He pointed out scenic spots and the temples he thought we should go to. He tapped his finger over one of them and said "have movie."

There are guides for hire outside some of the temples. I asked my friends if they wanted to hire one, but they just wanted to wait for the informational movie. When we got to the temple Angkor Thom, we searched everywhere for the room showing the film. We were tired and it was hot so we gave up pretty quickly.

So, I love language barriers. I think I just like the rare occasional moment when two people that don't speak a lick of each others language somehow find a way to communicate--the elusive "OH I GET IT!" moment. When we climbed back into the tuk tuk after visiting Angkor Thom, I had one of those moments. There was no movie playing at Angkor Thom, that is where Tomb Raider was shot. Oops. 

I hate that we did not have more time in Cambodia. I wish we had more time in every country we visited. It felt like every time we got settled in one city, we were on our way to the next. Siem Reap marked the end of our time in Cambodia.

After more sketchy buses which unbeknownst to us also serve as taxis (they would pick up random locals that would squish in the car with us), we were on our way to Vientiane, Laos. We were supposed to have a 24 hour trip but after some trouble at the border our travel time more than doubled. Amanda told me that every guide books recommends against doing the Cambodian-Laos land crossing. We attempted to do it at night. 

So, I have been meaning to type up "The Border Story" for weeks now, but I give in. It just isn't going to happen. Basically... this one time we tried to do a night border crossing from Cambodia to Lao and I may or may not have argued with an immigration official and an elderly gentleman took photos at the immigration office they would not let us cross the border and we ended up sleeping on a table next to game cocks. For the full story, see part 3 of Kathryn's blog. For my version of the story, you will just have to ask me one day. All in all, sleeping at the border was fun and I think it wasn't dangerous.

Following the mess at the border, we had to change our plans. In an effort to minimize more wasted time traveling, we decided to skip Luang Prabang. Instead, we headed to Vang Vieng, Laos. After 56 hours of traveling, we reached our hostel at 3:30pm. When 康凯 and I found out tube rentals stopped at 4pm, we dropped our bags, frantically changed, and ran to get a tube. (Kathryn decided to explore the city on her own.)  We made it just before 4pm. We ended up floating the river with two guys from our hostel. If you have four people, they don't charge for the tuk tuk ride. If you return your tube after 6pm, you have to pay a fee. After tubing, we ran to return our tubes and made it right at 6pm. Bam bam bam. Perfect. I love when things just work out.

Tubing was not anything like what I imagined it to be. They had to close many bars due to tourists dying on the river. Nonetheless, it was relaxing and fun to be in the water after being cramped on buses. The next day, we rented bikes to go to the caves. I was excited when I saw that our bikes were new. New new. I mean still have the plastic and cardboard on them new. The three of us set out with the two guys we went tubing with. For several hours, we biked on rocky dirt roads. Little by little, our brand spanking new bikes fell apart. Kathryn's basket fell off so I put it in my basket. But then my basket fell off. Chunks of Kathryn's bike came off at random intervals over the course of our ride. Just as we got back to our hostel, 康凯's bike seat fell off. Perfect timing. 

Enough about the bikes, the caves and scenery was unreal. 

(Who knows when my pictures will get uploaded. Here is a stolen one from Google images to tie you over.)

Vang Vieng was another strange place. The restaurants there show Friends or South Park on repeat and are set up so you can lie down on comfy pillows to watch. We may have watched an episode or two or ten... 

Lastly, we had a 24 hour journey to Hanoi, Vietnam on what other travelers nicknamed “The Machete Bus.” Bloggers made it sound much scarier and sketchier than it was. The border crossing was not nearly as exciting. We were on a bus through the night and we got to the border around 4am. They woke us up at 6am to stand in line for customs. We had to pay Lao in order to leave Lao. Weird, right? After getting stamped out of Lao, 康凯 and I waited outside for our bus. After running up and down the row of charter buses, we realized that our bus was gone. Oops. We couldn't find Kathryn so we figured she was smart enough to get back on the bus. It was misty, muddy, and cold and we were still dressed for the hot weather of Vang Vieng. We didn't have any other choice, so we just starting walking... to Vietnam. The fog was so thick that there was little visibility. I started singing Eye of the Tiger and I kind of felt like a badass. We had no idea how far the border was or where exactly our bus went. We passed a man walking in the opposite direction. 

He pointed ahead. "Lao?"

康凯 pointed ahead and replied, "Vietnam?" 

The man nodded and we were on our way. I guess you had to be there. 

We ended up finding Kathryn by the bus after we passed Vietnamese customs. She rode across the border on the bus. Lame. (Kidding! Love you!)

So, Vietnam. Our last country. We spent 5 nights in Hanoi instead of trying to bounce around extra cities. We visited many museums, searched for hours for John McCain's tiny statue, and sat on tiny chairs. 

We went to a Water Puppet Theatre show.

We went to a "snake village" where we had a seven course meal of a snake we watched them kill. After they sliced the snake, they took out the heart and the liver. We washed down each course with alternating shots of whiskey-snake bile and vodka-snake blood. I had a shot of snake blood with the snake heart in it. The heart is supposed to give you strength. It made me think of the Wizard of Oz.

There were jars and jars of different types of snake alcohol. The weirdest and grosses one we tried was snake penis whiskey. The taste is not anything I would like to experience again.

We also took a day trip to Halong Bay and went kayaking. We also explored the most touristy cave ever. 

I'm sorry but there shouldn't be purple and blue and yellow colored lights in a cave. We did have a hilarious tour guide though. He pointed out the different features of the cave. Apparently certain stalagmites and stalactites look like certain animals. He mentioned one that looked like an elephant and another one that was a turtle. Certain shadows on the wall look like certain things like a princess or something. As you can tell, I was not impressed. I thought it was kind of humorous. I just imagined a drunk Vietnamese man wandering into the cave and coming up with names and stories for the different stalagmites. However, Halong Bay was beautiful.

I was incredibly bummed to be leaving. I feel our short trip didn't do those four countries justice. We barely skimmed the surface. I hope to make it back to Lao, Vietnam, and Cambodia soon. I would also love to visit Burma. (I am actually writing this from Thailand but I'll talk about that in another post.)

Traveling in Southeast Asia redefined my idea of “dirty” and “travel time.” I probably became too comfortable being sweaty. I blame my years in sports. Ah, this is a super watered down description of our trip but I just wanted to get this post up. Maybe I will edit this post later and beef it up a bit. (Maybe...)

Three things I am grateful for:

1.       Travel buddies: Last summer I mostly traveled alone through the Netherlands and Belgium. At the beginning of my trip this time around I also mostly traveled alone. I thought going solo was my favorite way to travel.

“I am never bored anywhere: being bored is an insult to oneself.” Jules Renard, French author

My sister sent me this quote because she knows I don’t mind traveling alone. I can always entertain myself.

Although I do enjoy traveling alone at times, traveling with friends has been a fantastic experience. Before this trip, I had never traveled with friends for such a long people of time. For three weeks, the three of us were together practically 24-7. Poor康凯was also stuck with me for another week in China on our trip to Shenyang and Harbin.

Giggles and Kangky, I cannot tell you how much I loved every moment of our dusty sketchy van, bad pun making, beer and bananas, game cock冒险.

2.       Gratitude Journal app: I have been doing “3things I am grateful for” every day for over a year now. A few months ago I downloaded a Gratitude Journal app on my phone. It reminds me every 12 hours to make entries for things I am grateful for LINK. I have gratitude for my gratitude journal app. Ha.

3.       Spending Chinese New Year in Hong Kong
This is the first time I have been in Hong Kong for the Lunar New Year. Since I was a kid, I wanted to be here for New Years. When I was a kid I just wanted to be here to collect 红包. Now, getting red envelopes of lucky money makes me uncomfortable. I have even gotten lucky money from strangers. So awkward.

Now I am only four weeks behind and I have to blog about Shenyang, Harbin, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. I have been drafting them so it should be up... in less than a month. Pinkie promise.

新年快乐!