Best of Asia- stuff Lonely Planet doesn't tell you.

When deciding on what my final travel post should consist of, I thought it would be appropriate to do a "Best and Worst" compilation. However, in efforts not to offend anyone out there, I decided it was more globally friendly and conscious of me to just include the best of the best.If you want to know the worst of the worst, email me.

Friendliest people as a whole: Indonesia. A Hindu and Muslim country that has much misconception around it, its people were still the nicest and most welcoming, especially on Java. It didn't hurt they thought we weren't just tourists, we were special visitors to be revered. Everywhere else, most locals look at foreigners either with disdain or as though we have dollar signs over our heads.

Best beaches:  Hoi An, Vietnam & Karon beach, Phuket, Thailand. Most of the Thai islands also compete as they have some of the most beautiful turquoise water- just like in the movies. Also, the Vietnam beaches we went to reminded us a lot of Southern California's best shores.

Beach front, Hoi An, Vietnam

Best food: Thailand (Curries! Stir fries! Spring rolls!) Seriously, as soon as we left Thailand we realized how much we had been taking Thai cuisine for granted. I think we assumed the Massaman Curry, Cashew Nut Chicken, deep fried spring rolls with no weird ingredients in them (cough cough, Vietnam & Cambodia), and Thai style pancakes would be everywhere else on the Asian map. They weren't.

Most precious children: Vietnam. I was this close to stealing 2 babies from a guesthouse in Hue. One's name was Potato. Plus, if the parents have any sense of style, they dress their kids to the nines, therefore making them even more precious.

Best shopping: Bangkok, hands down. I wish I could go back for one more day of pure, unadulterated shopping bliss. I know it's cliche, but the knockoff bags, trendy clothes, and cheap knick knacks made this place heaven. MBK- by far the largest shopping center I've ever encountered- took up a full day of our time.

Best beer:  Tiger & Beer Lao. Sidenote: Cheapest beer was 7 glasses for $1 in Hoi An, Vietnam. Since wine is hard to come by over here, and super expensive, I had to acquire a taste for beer I had never developed until this trip.

Guesthouse with the best bang for our buck: Chiang Mai, Thailand @ the Little Bird Guesthouse. I think we paid $3 each for a double room, in the best location. Plus, since most of the place had dorm beds, it was easy to make friends and mingle downstairs. The staff there was so helpful too.

A Little Bird Guesthouse

Best room:  Pineapple Guesthouse, Phuket. Stayed here at the beginning of our Thailand travels. It was cheap, had maid service, a fridge, cable TV, fresh towels, hot water, and free wi- fi. After Indo, this place was a godsend. 

Best locals to hangout with: Our gang in Pangandaran, Indonesia. We miss you Hilman, Araf, and everyone else at the Mini Tiga Homestay!

Best site to see: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia. So cliche, but so true. Also, the Big Buddha in Phuket, Thailand. The many simple wonders of Asia also have a top spot: cows on the side of the road, watching herds of water buffalo out of the bus window, 3 year old children carrying their baby sisters and brothers...the list goes on.

A normal occurence

Best sunset: 4000 Islands, Laos. Did you catch our 10 pictures of it on Facebook? Also, Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia. The sunsets everyone raves about really are that beautiful. The sun looks gigantic, orange, and blazing all the way down to the horizon.

Best day trip: Pai, 5 hours north of Chiang Mai by motorbike. The most beautiful, winding roads leading up to a small hippie town. The stats leading up the mountain? 162km (about 100 miles), and over 700 curves. We had a great group, which made the journey even better.

Best bike ride on an island: 4000 islands on my birthday. Meandering through dirt roads on our way to see dolphins, we saw about 10 cows, 6 goats, 4 pigs, 11 chickens, and 100 dogs. When we finally reached our destination, there were no dolphins. So we got a coke and rode back.

Best drink: Pink Gay @ Lao Lao Gardens, Luang Prabang, Laos. 2 for approx. $1. They were so yummy. I think those two drinks alone got me ready for a night of dancing at the local club. We only left when they stopped playing dance music and put on the Laos tunes.

Best nightlife: Koh Phi Phi, Thailand. Beachfront bars with fire shows? Check. Bars with live Thai boxing? Check. $3 buckets (see Thai-light Reel post)? Check. With enough energy, travelers, and bars on this little island to last a lifetime, this is hands down the winner of Asia.

One of the many outdoor beach bars on Koh Phi Phi

Best birthday breakfast we didn't eat: French Toast in a bag. Ross being the loving boyfriend he is thought he would "surprise me" with breakfast in bed on my 24th birthday morning. Unfortunately, on an island with approximately 10 standing structures this proved difficult. The bakery had no baked goods (he was thinking a cinnamon roll) until "later" and the restaurants had no take away boxes. So, he returned with french toast. In a plastic bag. 

Best meal had on a beach: Pangandaran, Indo on the "White Sandy Beach". The local guys cooked up fresh fish on the fire, while we chilled on the sand and watched the sunset. We ate the fish & sticky rice with our hands and loved every minute of it. They brought a case of Bintang, a few towels, and an iPad. When it started pouring down rain an hour later in true Indo fashion, we all scurried under the trees for cover and hiked in the dark through a monkey infested forest back to civilization. 

Well, that about brings me to the end of our journey here. It has been filled with so many exciting, happy, and beautiful moments...& we've also had our fair share of unluckiness and horror stories. The past 4 months have flown by in a heartbeat and have made us contemplate so many aspects of life. I think the main thing we are taking away from this trip is: we can't wait to do it again.

Any suggestions for the next journey anyone?

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and following my blog from the beginning! Knowing people actually read it made it way more fun to write. :)

See you all soon! 

xoxo,

Linds

'Bodia, Snooky, and 'Nam

With only 10 days left (EEK!) of traveling throughout Asia, I wanted to give a quick recap of where we've been over the past few weeks. November was a blur to me...it came and went seemingly within only a few short days. The entirety of Laos and Cambodia were accomplished within this month. Ironically, the month that went by so quickly started with a slow boat into Laos, and ending with taking an even sloooower night bus out of Cambodia. For the past 10 days, we have been in Vietnam soaking up city life and the beach. Despite a nasty strep throat bout for a day or two, things have been peachy but we are still anxiously awaiting the holidays at home!

Some highlights:

1. Cambodia- Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. (This is an obvious one.) What can only be described as "majestic," these sites made me feel as though I was back in time, thousands of years ago. For some reason, seeing Angkor Wat at sunrise heightened this feeling immensely--seeing the sun come up over the ruins and the tall trees made it seem like nothing had changed since it's inception. Bonus: Most of the temples were virtually empty when Ross and I viewed them. That made climbing in, out, and around them even more fun. It's not like in the US where there are ropes around every corner--it was free reign.

2. Cambodia- Sihanoukville (aka Snooky). Despite having to bribe a police officer with our lowly $5 "police fine", Snooky was amazing. The beaches- top notch. The beer- .25 cents a glass. This smallish beach town is what Thailand's most popular beaches were 15 years ago. Glad to have happened upon this little gem.

3. Vietnam:

a. Women dressed in matching outfits. All. The. Time. They look like pajamas, but are way more unnatural in daylight hours. (This photo comes after searching Google for 20 minutes..Apparently, the real outfits just aren't heard of online. This is a pretty good depiction though!)

b. Shirts that say, "Vietnam- I came back." Also, being able to say, "Well, back in 'Nam...."

c. Ho Chi Minh. Very cool, leafy green big city in the south. I may be biased about this one because we met a guy from Encinitas who opened up a Mexican restaurant, Gringo's, and fed us delicious California burritos and nachos for 2 days. Other than the fact that you may as well walk across the street blindfolded because the motorbikes are that insane, and the fact some bi**ches tried to steal my purse, unsuccessfully of course, I loved this city.

d. Hoi An- It's Paris on a smaller scale meets Tuscany meets Asia. A beautiful town on the river, as well as the beach. Had one of the best beach days in my life today; the beach and weather are a lot like San Diego on a beautiful day. Hoi An is known for having 200+ tailor shops that will custom make anything- from suits to shoes to evening gowns for super cheap. Unfortunately for them, and me, I have no more room in my itty bitty backpack. 

e. Christmas everywhere! Vietnam is the first country we have been to that celebrates Christmas. So, it is very fitting and lucky for us that we get to spend our December actually getting into the holiday spirit.

Hoi An, river view

Tomorrow morning we leave for Hue, our second to last stop on this 4 month long journey. After that, we will be in Hanoi for a few days before leavin' on that jetplane.

Our one request for post- airport pickup? California burritos.

In the tubing- Vang Vieng

What was once thought as a watersport reserved for weekends at the river (or Lake Mead in my case) is Vang Vieng's tourism cash cow.

Thousands of young travelers head to Vang Vieng in Northern Laos every month to shed their baggy pants, backpacks, and Birkenstocks for nothing but a bathing suit, tank top, some shades, and a plastic pouch around their necks (for money, toilet paper, and sunscreen). Some were daring enough to bring cameras, but after our boat capsizing incident, we were not.

Bright colors are mandatory. We don't complain about that! :)

Ross and I, along with the new gang we accumulated on the sloooow (2 day long) boat from Thailand into Laos, got our Beerlao goggles on and bought our "In the Tubing" tank tops (or vests, as British Faye affectionately called them) and got ready for the festivities.

Laos doesn't realize that "In the tubing" is not a grammatically correct sentence.

Typical day of tubing:

9- Wake up and get ready

10- Have breakfast of fried eggs and toast

11:30-12- Stand in line at tube rental place and hop in a tuk tuk to the beginning of the river

Q Bar with the group..Ross and I are next to the guy in the pink shorts (Anthony)

12-5:30- Drink at various bars lining the river. When done drinking at one bar, hop into the river inside your tube and float to the next one. When you get to the next appealing bar, a kind man will throw you a line so he can reel you in to the bottom of the stairs. Also, zip-lining, rope swinging, and high-diving ensue.

6- Tubes must be back or you don't get your deposit back. 

6:30- Nap. Or, keep drinking.

All in all, tubing was amazing. Our philosophy in terms of how much tubing we could manage was "one day on, one day off" (it can be pretttty intense, folks!) but there were some people who had been doing it for 2 weeks! These people are what you'd call alcoholics. 

Many people along the ride enjoyed body paint, a few consumed illegal substances, and a lot of people congratulated Ross on his mustache.

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We have been in Laos now for about 10 days (beautiful Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, and currently relaxing in the capital of Vientiene). We leave tonight for 4000 Islands, where we will be spending my birthday weekend and hoping to spot a rare freshwater dolphin. 

In other news, it's officially one month  until we are leaving on a jet plane back to the states!  At this point in the game, we are definitely hitting our stride but we still can't wait for Christmas dinner.

Cooking, Trekking, & Motorbikes

We've had an amazing and eventful week in Chiang Mai (northern Thailand). Chiang Mai is one of the best places to go for courses of any kind (cooking, yoga, massage, etc), as well as jungle treks, zip line adventures, and day trips to small towns surrounding the area. It's a small, unique town that still has an old-Thailand feel (still has a large brick wall surrounding part of the old city from back when it needed to be protected from invaders).

I decided the second day I was here that I wanted to partake in a cooking course. After some deliberation between the ten different school's advertising fliers sitting around at our guesthouse, I decided on the Thai Kitchen Cookery Center. I felt like a kid on the first day of school, a little nervous, hopping into the back of the school's transport truck and saying hello to a few strangers who soon became my new "friends". Linda (from Australia), Hayley & Ross (both from England) and I spent all day slaving over the wok together and bonding over our travel experiences.

By the end of the day, I had cooked Pad Thai with prawns, Chicken with Cashew Nuts, Massaman Curry (a sweet curry with potatoes, onions, and chicken), spring rolls, coconut milk chicken soup, and fried banana in a toffee sauce and vanilla ice cream. SO DELICIOUS. I can't wait to try the recipes at home--that is, if Albertson's carries curry powder and strange Thai vegetables.

That night, the four of us, plus my Ross and another girl we had met, Bridie, decided to go to Pai (a small,hippie mountain city about 100 miles north). We rented manual motorbikes and headed up. Thank God Ross knows how to handle a scooter. 5 hours, 1 decent lunch break, and 6 sore butts later, we had arrived. We spent the night drinking rum, playing King's and other drinking games, and had a great time wandering around Pai. Despite running out of gas pre-Pai (word to the wise- don't rent from Mr. Beer's Motorbikes!), and waking up to a mysterious flat tire on our bike, all in all it was a great time with some fantastic new friends.

On November 5th, Ross and I joined with about 10 other travelers set out for our jungle trek, something that we had been looking forward to since we began our trip. It was a two-day, one night trek and the first day consisted of visiting a butterfly/orchid farm (which was alright but made for some great photos), and a long, difficult, ardous 10 km hike. A little stressful, but we did it! We then ate some delicious food, enjoyed the company, and spent the night by the fire in a hilltribe village with no electricity...The "cabin" we all slept in was completely made of bamboo and wood, and we slept on mats on the floor covered with mosquito netting...An interesting night for sure.

The following day, we awoke to toast and a hard boiled egg along with some Nescafe (the coffee of choice over here), followed by some more light trekking until....drumroll....we got to ride on the elephants! Ross and I lucked out and got a mama elephant, so her baby was walking with us the whole time. We just walked around the hills for 40 minutes or so and fed her some bananas..It is definitely a wonderful experience. Being that close to these creatures is just surreal. We had heard some horror stories about the animals being badly abused and mistreated, but the extent of abuse we witnessed was a firm swat on the head with a stick if the elephants did something wrong (ie. turn the wrong way, get naughty, etc.). We hope that's all the punishment they receive.

Then, we rode a bamboo raft down the river, which was eh. Next, we white water rafted down another river which was amazing...Complete with helmets, life vests, and paddles. It was pretty intense at some points but I loved it..I could have done that all day! Finally, we ended our trek with a trip to a waterfall- pretty cool but nothing to write home about (ha). Next time we find ourselves in Chiang Mai, we would love to go to the Elephant Nature Park (both Bridie & the other Ross did this) where they got to bathe, swim with, ride, and play with the elephants all day. A lot more expensive, but completely worth every baht.

Now, as we say goodbye to Thailand and continue our journey to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam we are very sad to say goodbye. From the beaches and islands, to the quiet green hillsides, and especially all of the amazing friends we have met, Thailand has been very good to us. We can't wait to see what the next month and a half has in store for us!

Here's to the best of the best!

I dedicate this post to 3 people whom I consider some of the best friends on God's green earth: Chelsea Becker, Bonnie Berridge and Stephanie Kramer. The stars must have been aligned between October 25-26th, 1986 because that's when all three of these beautiful ladies were born! Coincidence? I think not.

Chelsea & me: Summer 2008

Bon Bon & me: August 2010

Steph & me: 4th of July 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU GIRLS! 

Sawadee Ka!

Sawadee Ka/Kap means hello (ka=woman, kap=man)...That and thank you are about the only phrases we have picked up in our 3 weeks in Thailand...Whether it's because we are lazy or because the Thai people are just better English speakers in general, I don't know. :)

Perhaps we'll get a little better at our Thai though, because we have decided to extend our stay! We are heading to Burma (aka Myanmar) on the 25th to basically get our passports stamped there, and then hop on a ferry back to Thailand. This little maneuver will cost us a little more than we expected, but we figured it's worth it to have the option of being in Thailand another 30 days.

So, after that hop, skip, and jump to a country I've barely heard of, we will head to the island of Ko Chang for a brief visit just to get one last glimpse of beautiful ocean before heading on up to Bangkok.  I haven't been too excited for Bangkok, but after the past couple months of traveling with the same 2 shirts, dress, and shorts, I am excited to do some cheap shopping! And to buy a couple books (damn you, Kindle.....). Hoping that Borders or Barnes & Noble have some sort of Thai sister store that actually sells English books. 

A little glimpse of where we are, and where we're heading

 Then, we will trek north into Chiang Mai- affectionately known as The Rose of the North- and Chiang Rai (two supposedly beautiful and authentic local towns). That's where we are going to climb on some elephants and ride around like real foreigners. We have heard some horror stories about certain elephant "sanctuaries" being nothing more than glorified abuse centers, so we are going to have to do some research and go to a legit place.

We figure we will be in Thailand until the first or second week of November, and then we head into Laos, where we will go tubing down the epic river, Vang Vieng, sleep in some huts, and then go into Cambodia...Angkor Wat and maybe another beach await us there, and then it's onto our final destination: Vietnam! 

I can't believe it's been almost 2 months since we left (October 26th (Happy bday Chels!) is our halfway point of the trip)...Time has really flown by here, and we are just trying to enjoy all of the little moments. When they hit you, they really hit you. 

Exhibit A: The other night, after dinner, we went for a stroll on the beach and ended up underneath this horizontal palm tree, and just took it all in---how beautiful the dark hills were all around us, with little lights glowing from the houses nestled amongst the palm trees, the dark ocean as far as we could see..and just how lucky we feel to be on such an incredible adventure.

Same tree, but in the daytime (not quite as majestic as at night but you get the idea :)

The Thai-light Reel

We've been in the lovely, cultural, jaw dropping beauty of Thailand for a couple weeks now. We've had a pretty swell time so far, lollygagging around and taking it all in. The islands are where we've spent the majority of our time so far here, and we have no complaints. In fact, we are debating about extending our visa in order to spend a couple more sweet weeks on the sand before heading north to Bangkok and beyond.

Just a few of the highlights so far:

1. Buckets. Anyone who has been to Thailand knows what these beauties are. Just take a small bottle of whiskey, add Sprite & Red Bull, 2 straws, and drink up! (The best way to do it is find bars who have specials or free buckets at certain intervals and bar hop to hit up each one at their designated time in order to get the most free booze possible.)

2. Thai food. Masuman curry, you are my new favorite thing (Google it, people). Sweet & sour chicken, always a front runner. Banana pancakes, the thing keeping me from losing weight on this damn trip.

3. Beaches. The shores I've seen only in movies prior to coming to Thailand. Crystal clear waters, sand that is so soft and spongy under your toes you just can't wait to take your shoes off & frolic in it, and lush jungle as the backdrop. Not too shabby.

4. Street vendors. They sell everything from deep fried spring rolls that melt in your mouth to handmade leather bags (I may or may not have bought myself one) to $1 beaded bracelets and everything in between. I've been collecting bracelets now for the past few weeks and have 4! My hope is to keep all of them on my left wrist until at least Christmas. 

5. 300 baht rooms. $10. We love spending $5 each on accommodation- especially when wi- fi, soap, and fresh towels are included.

6. Misspelled words on signs, awkward signs, and funny signs. They're everywhere. It seems like a child drew half of the storefronts entry signs. Examples: "Callect calls." "We have coffee and American breakfarts". Not to mention EVERY restaurant sign proudly declares they serve: "Thai Food, Italian Food, Swedish Food, Western Food, American Food, and Dog Food." (Just kidding about the dog food....I hope.)