Hue is Way Boring

Hue (pronounced Hway as one syllable) is not so exciting. I'm not exactly sure why I decided to come here actually. haha. The bus ride down was as comfortable as it could be I guess, but definitely NOT like the sleeper buses in South America. The buses are 3 rows of two small beds set up like bunk beds. My friends Eden and Neil, and I were lucky to find 3 close to each other so we could chat. Once we saw the bus, we knew it was going to be a pretty long 14 hrs, and after doing the Halong Bay booze cruise, we were in desparate need of sleep since we were going straight from the bus back to the hostel on to another bus.  We were told the bus would pick us up at 5:30pm so when I finished showering and repacking my bag and it was 5:15pm, I figured I wouldn't have time for dinner, and I would just have to bank on the bus stopping for food like our hostel people said it would around 8 or 9pm at the latest since our lunch on the boat was at like 10:30 or 11am.  Well we did stop around 8 or 9pm, but it was NOT for dinner and there was no food.  Not cool. I was starving at this point but pretty much had to suck it up bc there was nothing I could do about it. I KNEW once I saw all the locals get on the bus with loads of food that I was going to be in trouble. The bus didn't end up stopping for dinner until 1:30AM. Umm. I got my butt up and ate though, and I had some of the best Pho Ga (Chicken Pho) EVER. So good out of a dingy little food place that seemed as sketch as ever. And so begins my Pho tour of Vietnam.  haha. I had Pad Thai everyday I spent in Thailand, and now I will sample Pho at every place I visit in Vietnam. I can't wait!

After arriving to Hue and dumping our stuff the next morning, we just wandered throughout the city taking in the sights and sounds of the market and the city itself.  We only planned on staying one night so we didn't do anything crazy since our next bus was at 8:30am the next day. We wandered through the Citadel, which was like a giant town for the Chinese emperors in the 1800s when Vietnam was under Chinese control.   Another set of cool buildings to see built when all people had were elephants to help them build collasol structures. The weirdest thing though was that there was a tennis court in the middle of this place. Like a brand new tennis court. The site wasn't as well kept as it could have been, but it was still a cool place to see I guess.

Next stop is Hoi An--CLOTHES CENTRAL!! Everyone goes here to have clothes made from scratch just for you! I can't wait!!! haha. It will be a nightmare for my credit card (aka my parents) but we'll see how well I can come out of this town without putting a massive dent in the rest of the money I have for my trip, which is rapidly coming to an end!! Ahh! How is my time up so quickly?? I don't even remember starting this trip, it seems so long ago! And now I'm down to my last 10 days, and no time to finish all the places I wanted to see!  I'm already planning my return though! :)

And last but not least,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! Hope you have the best day!! We'll have LOTS of cake/snicker's/ice cream when I come home!! :)

Hanoi and Halong Bay! Mountains Out of Nowhere!

Good Morning Vietnam!!

I heard that's a movie--I just see it on shirts for sale everywhere here. Didn't spend much time at all on Hanoi. Missed the mosoleum to see Ho Chi Minh, which was really disappointing, but it was because I was booked to go to Halong Bay, a candidate to be one of the 7 Wonders of the World. Definitely worthy of the title. This place was AMAZING!! There are limestone mountains that just come out of nowhere from the Bay. Such a beautiful site!!

I took a 4 hour bus ride to the Bay with a tour of about 60 people from my hostel. It's a pretty well known tour that keeps things fun at night, but great during the day. We ended up parking our 3 boats in the middle of  the bay so we could take a swim, and then we got to go kayaking around the bay to a cave where we walked around the the pitch black until we came upon a lagoon to swim in. Kayaking was so hard! My arms were like jello, and  I was horrible at steering us! We ended up crashing into several rocks and a ship in the bay before we got the hang of the kayak, and even then, my arms are too short, so I kept hitting my fingers btwn the oar and the boat. Ouch.

The next day we went to a private island where we'd be spending the night in little huts with no AC and holey mosquito nets. haha. It was fun though. We had this little beach to ourselves, there was volleyball, more kayaking, and we had the option of going tubing via a speed boat, wake boarding, or rock climbing. I decided to give wake boarding a try since I've never done it and it was so COOL! I got up on my first try!! I don't even know how that happened!!  I did fall plenty, but I managed to get up 4 or 5 times out of my 7 or so attempts which was great! There was one guy on our turn that didn't get up at all, so I was really glad that I at least got up since I was the only person who was a first timer. My tan is pretty ridiculous right now, so I might have to start easing up on the beach before I get home. haha...or not.

We got back to the hostel, and I became good friends with a Canadian couple on my trip, so I'm heading south with them for the rest of my trip I think. On a bus at 5:30pm so we can get to the next place in Vietnam called Hue. The bus should be interesting since it's a sleeper bus, but hopefully it's kind of like the buses I rode in South America.  It's a 14 hour ride, so I really hope that's the case!!

Full Moon Madness for my 25th Birthday!!

Full Moon Party (def) 

   -noun
1. Crazy rave on the beach which occurs once a month during the full moon on the island of Ko Phangan, Thailand
2. An excuse to drink far too much in the form of beach buckets
3. Art show in the form of body paint, neon clothing, black lights, and fire
4. My 25th Birthday Party!!!

How to begin to describe the madness that is the Full Moon? Well for one, I have been hearing about this party since I went traveling to South America last year. It was legendary. Everywhere I went there, people were either coming from S.E. Asia to S. America and talking about it, or people had tickets over to Asia after S. America and it was on the top of their list of places to visit! I figured, I have to check this thing out in my lifetime. A party cannot be THAT amazing and not be seen in my lifetime. haha.

After 38 hrs of travel from Siem Reap on a combination of buses and ferries, I arrived to the island with the intention of meeting up with my first good friend of my trip--my Canadian friend, Giang (in my elephant pics).  That was the intention. I arrived to the beach bungalow she booked us into to discover she wasn't there yet, and that I was the ONLY person staying at this place. Not exactly the way I imagined started my trip to the island, esp. after I saw the room we'd be staying in, but I figured once Giang got there we could leave and we could figure out another place to stay. I showered, I ate, I lounged on a pretty unattractive beach for hours, and still no Giang. Now I was starting to get worried. I did NOT want to stay at this place but without Giang there, I couldn't leave bc I had no idea when she was showing up. There was no internet at this place, and it was a 15 min walk down a road without any lights. In the end, I ended up making the walk to try to find some other guys we had traveled with a while bc I knew what hostel they were staying in, but I was unsucessful in my attempt at finding them, got chased by some dogs, and ended up trying to get into bed at 9:30pm. I say try because there was a spider as big as my hand on the wall next to my bed, a lizard inside my toilet, and after getting over those 2 things, there was some sort of animal on the ceiling of my bungalow that started to make noises once the light went off. OMG. I spent the night sweating away under the covers praying that nothing would touch me or try to eat me or something. haha.

The next day, I made it to the internet to discover a msg from Giang saying she'd be arriving later that day. As soon as she got there, we booked it out of that bungalow (after some arguing with the owner) and we went to stay with a big group of friends she had made on the last island she had been on for 2 wks. They were all really great, but I was really hoping they would become friends of mine in 2 days so they could celebrate my bday with me, and I wouldn't have to feel lonely. haha. Spent the next couple of days getting amazing Thai massages for $8, and spent the nights just going out and getting warmed up for the actual Full Moon.  Two of my friends from tubing in Laos were also on the island so it was so great to hang out with them and see them!

The night before full moon was my actual birthday at midnight and it was great! The people I was with bought me a rotee (the GREATEST dessert ever!) with banana, nutella, and peanut butter. Then they surprised me with a cake from 7-11 when we stopped off for some snacks for them.  And THEN they bought me a sandwich from a chicken stand on the street called Mr. K's Chicken. OMG SO GOOD! haha. I ate all that in about 30 min though, so I had to be careful after that.

The beach party that night was just a warm up to the real thing though. On the actual night, we all got dressed in our new neon clothes and started the night off with a body painting session.  We finally headed down the beach around midnight and it was crazy!! During the low season (which is now) there are about 10,000 on the beach for this party! I can't imagine what this would be like during the high season. You pretty much just walk the entire length of the beach and go from bar to bar and there are so many DJs and different kinds of music playing at each bar. It's insane. Not to mention the fire limbo, the fire jumproping, and the fire  slide. I wasn't stupid enough to attempt any of those (the slide actually caught fire and got shut down before anyone did do it), but I heard so many horror stories the next day of unsuccessful attempts at each and the burns that came with them. Yikes. I actually ended up getting lost with one of the guys in my group because the crowd was so big. We spent a good part of the night just wandering down the beach seeing if we could find anyone and checking out all the bars. I ended up seeing all of the people I had planned to meet up with at this party from my travels without even trying! It was so lucky! I still can't believe that I managed to see these people in a crowd of 10,000. It was birthday luck I think. :)

Ended up finding everyone at our planned meeting spot for the sunrise at 6:30am. The beach was still jam packed at that hour, and people were still being ridiculous. I saw one guy spill his entire bucket over another guy's head from the top of a stool.  The guy kicked the stool in retaliation and the guy on top went flying. It was pretty funny, esp. at 7am. Had some breakfast afterward with the people who managed to stay out all night, and attempted to go to bed after that, but was the ONLY person basically awake on the entire island with the exception of the locals. All I could do was lay in the bed and pray that the people I was with would wake up because I was so awake. Haha. Didn't happen--birthday luck ran out.

All in all--amazing way to celebrate my 25th with 9,999 other souls on the beach!! I would have loved to have my Laos friends around because we were much closer, but I had a couple with me and the people I was with were great, too, so things worked out! Definitely worth rearranging my trip for!

Now, I'm heading back on a boat to hop on a bus to get me back to Bangkok at 1:30am so I can sit at the airport until my flight to Hanoi, Vietnam at 6:45am. Can't wait. :)

Siem Reap: Angkor What?

I grabbed a morning bus from PP to Siem Reap thinking it would be a pretty boring 8 hour bus ride. I've been wrong a lot lately. haha.  For starters, after watching Kung Fu Panda from my assigned very front seat on the bus, our driver put in a dvd that had 4 movies on it that were basically an ode to Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. All of the movies had one or both of them. Obviously he picked Titanic for us to watch. Not my first choice, but fine--at least it's 3 hours long and will make the time go by faster. He mentioned how much he loved the movie during one of our stops. haha. When he wasn't telling me about how much he liked the movie, he was in control of the movie, while driving. So when our dvd started getting stuck, he didn't leave it to his helper guy to fix it, nope. He just started looking at the screen (straight above him) instead of looking at the road while he fumbled with the remote. Awesome. We played chicken with plenty of cars on a road that was only meant to fit one car.  When he wasn't trying to fix the movie, and he got bored of driving, the driver killed flies btwn his hands by clapping them to death above, below, and to the side of the steering wheel. Really?? Most ridiculous part of the ride?? [Yes, even more ridiculous than that]  Two women and small child about 6 yo getting on the bus with about 2.5 hrs left of our ride. The little girl had an IV bag attached to her wrist that was hanging off of a STICK. What the heck!? Omg it was terrible. And there were no seats bc in Cambodia even though a bus is full, we still pick up locals along the way to wherever it is that we're going, and they sit in the aisles or on the front stairs of the bus, which is to say, they sat by me. It was not sitting well with me watching these 3 squatting and sitting in the front of bus at my feet, esp. this poor little girl who was obviously ill.  So I ended up giving up my seat to them so she could sit on someone's lap who was at least comfortable on a seat. I figured it was only about 1.5 hrs left to Siem Reap anyway and my butt was hurting. The lady would not let me stand though, so she made me sit with her and the little girl, plus the other guy in the seat next to mine the rest of the way. It was way more uncomfortable than standing, but whatever. I'm glad I did something about it--I was shocked when NO ONE else on the bus stood up for them.  Not nice at all. And I would have thought about it for way too long afterward if I didn't give my seat up.

The hostel I went to was great, but I was put into a "mixed" dorm with 5 extremely stinky guys. OMG. The entire room just had this sweaty boy smell to it, so as soon as I walked in, I knew I was going to be the only girl staying in there. Besides the foul odor coming from the pile of things next to my bed that belonged to my bunk mate, the boys were so much fun and so nice! The welcomed me into room 302 with welcome arms and we had a great time together while I was there.

I went to see the sunrise at Ankgor Wat the next morning at 4:30am with two Canadians I met at the hostel the night before. It was a tiring morning, but the sunrise was really pretty when it finally happened at 6:10am.  We spent the next 8 hours walking through 10 different temples at the site which were all so amazing! It's so crazy to think that people could build things so large and magnificent without electricity and machinery!! And it was sweet that Angkor Wat, which is the biggest and most bad ass of all the temples, is the only Hindu temple! It was massive and unfortunately, I got too camera happy with the sunrise and pics of the temple and my camera died as we were leaving to see our 2nd temple of the day. Ugh! Of all the rotten luck!! I tried having my friends take pics of me at each temple I went to by just turning the camera on and off really quickly, but only one or two pics came out. Boo. I'll have to grab the pics off my friend's fb I guess. I did get to go see the temple that was featured in Tomb Raider.  The trees there are SO COOL!!! They just grow out of the temples it seems like!! Man I really wish I had my camera!! Ugh. I spent the rest of the day just hanging out at the hostel and just relaxing after a super hot and sweaty day walking through the temples.

I'm making my way back to Thailand via land to head south to an island called Koh Phangan to celebrate my birthday next! Seems a little ridiculous to rearrange my entire trip for this place, but to be on that island for my 25th birthday will be epic! :)

Phnom Penh = Educational but Depressing

Okay, it's been ages! My bad! I have been everywhere in just the last few weeks, so I will do my best to sum everything up!

As the title might hint, Phnom Penh was not anywhere near the top of my list of places visited. I last left off saying I was spending the night in the Laos capital of Vientiane. WORST NIGHT EVER!! I got into bed thinking I would be getting a beautiful 8 hrs of sleep after all the chaos that was Vang Vien, and I so far from right it was not even funny. I pulled my pillow away and saw a mosquito fly away, and I thought, "Not a good sign, but it's only one mosquito." WRONG WRONG WRONG!! I was in bed for maybe 10 minutes before I felt two bumps in a row on  my arm and it itched. I sprinted to the bathroom thinking it was bed bugs (bc I am ultra paranoid about that--no thanks to my friend Jess for that one!), but was actually relieved that it was just a couple of mosquito bites. I threw some cream on them and tried sleeping the other way. No luck. Within 15 minutes not only are both of my arms itching, but now my feet are, too! OMG! Then my face started itching and it just got to be way too much. I spent the entire night sweating away under a blanket and sheet with pants and a t-shirt on, constantly putting anti-histamine cream and 95% deet on my ever increasing number of bites while the girl I was rooming with slept super soundly in her tiny shorts and tank top (without a sheet, I might add) snoring and passing gas. I "woke up" and counted 80 bites--some of which were on my eye lid so that was now swollen. Like I said: WORST NIGHT EVER! What a horrendous way to end my amazing high point of fun in Laos. :(

Arrived to my hostel in scorching hot Phnom Penh only to realize that there was almost no one staying at my hostel.  I tried to make friends with this semi-American guy, but it didn't really work out and I ended up spending most of my day just wandering about the city on my own. I have never seen as many Range Rovers, Lexuses, and Mercedes as I saw in that city--not even in NYC. For real. It's insane how crazy the gap is between the wealthy and the poor here. I spent my afternoon at a high school that was converted into a the famous S-21 Prison, where far too many people were tortured or killed during the Khmer reign in Cambodia in the late 1970s. It was awful to walk through because the pictures in all the rooms were so graphic. It was literally like walking through another concentration camp in Germany. 

I spent the next morning at the Killing Fields, which is where they took prisoners from S-21 to be executed and buried in mass graves.  It was eerie to walk around a place where so many people had been killed so brutally. There were still remants of clothing and bone coming up out of the ground where graves hadn't been uncovered yet along the walking path. There was even this beautiful tree that was apparently used to kill children with. I won't get into the details of how that worked though--too ridiculous. There were pictures, left over bits of clothing, bones of the dead, stains on the walls of the cells--absolutely devastating. It's so crazy to  imagine this mass murder occurring so close to our lifetime. I mean, I know it is happening so much in other parts of the world as I write this, but to be around the remanants of it was really unsettling.

I did see other parts of Phnom Penh during my 2 day stint there with some other people I met from my hostel, but the really important part of seeing this city was to really try to learn about the history of Cambodia. I had NO IDEA about any of this before I even went there. So even though I had a miserable time here because of the depressing nature of why I came, I am really glad I did because I'm really interested in reading up on the history of the Khmer regime and how everything that came to happen was actually allowed to happen by the world community. (I read somewhere that the UN actually gave the regime a seat? What the heck??)  I'm on the lookout for a book called First They Killed My Father. It's a true story about what a girl went through during this time. If anyone has it, give me a shout!

Next stop, Siam Reap!

Vang Vien = SPRING BREAK!!!

OMG. Vang Vien. I can't believe I almost skipped this place bc some people died! This town is in the middle of nowhere, and it has the Mekong River running next to it. Best thing that could have ever happened. It put this town on the map! Vang Vien is 3 streets filled with guesthouses that play re-runs of Friends and Family Guy all day for backpackers who show up to go tubing down the river. To put it simply, you go tubing down a river that is lined with about 15 bars along either side of the river. The bar people throw out ropes, bottles attached to ropes, and tubes to reel you in and you just go down the river making however many bar stops you feel like.  What an AMAZING concept!! :)

It was raining like crazy on our day to go tubing which was pretty unsettling since the current would be a lot stronger.  I decided to share a tube with a friend, Cheryl, and we figured we'd switch back and forth on who swam in the river and who actually sat in the tube. I never once sat in that tube.  I swam the whole way down the river and just guided Cheryl to whatever bar we all decided to stop at.  They gave out free shots at every bar, and at some point there was spray painting on our bodies. We only got through 3 bars along the river before we broke the cardinal rule: Do not go into the water when it is dark out.

It was like Titanic in that river. A bunch of us floating and swimming down the river in the pitch black of night, and the water becoming so shallow at some points that the rocks were just cutting up our legs and butts.  Plus, not a single one of us was sober. What a bad idea. We got out of the water eventually and hobbled our way to a tuk-tuk to get back home so we could shower and go out again. Absolutely ridiculous. A spring breaker's paradise to say the least, and I was so sad to leave this morning while all my friends got to stay behind and do it all over again.

I am now in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It's a pretty lame capital, but I haven't heard anything amazing about from anyone. I needed to come here so I could catch a flight tomorrow morning to Phenom Phen, Cambodia.  No pictures to post from tubing, although that's probably better. People did have cameras though, so it's going to be interesting once those get posted. haha.

Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the summer sun! xx

In Luang Prabang Call Me Tamaal.

Luang Prabang! What a random city in Laos. It is really pretty--lots of French colonialism influence in the building architecture and stuff. Great market where people do not hassle you and harass you to buy things and REALLY spicy street food!

Once we got to Luang Prabang pier I had to find my hostel and I was now leading 5 more people to it.  Would have been no problem except for the fact that there were no directions what so ever to this place and all I had to go off of was a mental picture of the map with no labeled street signs. Not that my hostel had a street name for me to go off of. All I knew was that we had to walk up a few blocks and to the right. Great. This will take no time. Also didn't help that none of the locals had the slightest clue of any of the streets we actually were on. And there was no English being spoken to even try that path. We did make it eventually, and it was a fabulous hostel pick that I made. :) Huge comfy beds with super clean showers and toilets. Sweet. I was sad I only booked in two nights.

We went to grab dinner, and even though I wanted street food, I knew if I saw everyone else eating I would get major food envy so I decided to go halfsies with the crazy Canadian on a veggie pizza. I figured one day of eating Western food wasn't going to kill me. Little did I know that the pizza was only the beginning. haha. After a quick stroll through the night market we went to one of the 2 bars in the city to have some drinks. I was all for having a quiet night, but somehow the majority of the people I was out of with were quite keen to have more drinks so we had to decide between going out to the club or bowling because those were the only two options for more drinking. We decided to go out to the discotheque.  I guess that was reasonable since the bars close at 11pm. haha.  The Laos nightclub we went to was plenty of fun, although whenever the Laos music came on it wasn't as great. The dance floor was huge, but there were these massive barrels all over and we figured it was to prevent boys and girls from actually dancing with each other.  Having the barrels to dance around helped to prevent that I guess. It was still a pretty early night though, since the club closes at 1am.

We spent the next day at this beautiful waterfall park just outside of the city. It had all of these pools that we could stop off and swim in while we walked along a trail, and the water was this really pretty blue color. There was even a big pool where you could swing off a rope swing or jump off a cliff. I figured I would never be able to carry my body mass far enough over the water to use the rope swing, so I opted for the cliff jump. I thought it would be the easier of the two since all you had to do was jump.  Well I got over to the cliff, which was maybe 15-20ft high, and ended up holding up the entire line for 5 minutes before I could jump. It was so embarrassing! haha. I just got so nervous once I was actually at the edge! I kept trying to jump but my body wouldn't move.. It was like trying to tell me I was being stupid for flinging my body off a cliff. Point well taken body. The line was about 7 people long and no one would go in front of me, and I finally had to just go off a countdown (the 3rd countdown since I missed the first two..haha).  By then a massive crowd of people was watching from the water's edge. Awesome. haha. I ended up going up to do again after the first time. haha. It was easier the second time around but still not completely easy. There were even some sun bears at this park that were being taken care of. Really cute little things.

Since we went to the discotheque our first night out, it was only natural for us to decide to go bowling.  And the best part about bowling was that it was open the latest out of everything in town--we could be out until 3am bowling. I am so bad at bowling. Obviously I lost our game miserably. I think I might have scored 47 points. The worst part about bowling? I was hungry by 2am and decided to buy some Lays chips. I asked for the ones that were supposed to be "Extra BBQ" only to get BBQ squid flavor chips. Ughhhh. Really? Wasn't it enough to have maybe eaten pork testicles (which btw, could have just been balls of meat that were pork)?  Worst chips EVER. But I still made myself eat them while trying to share with everyone since I was so hungry. I just grabbed some gum afterward to make the fish breath go away. Ew.  The reason my name is Tamaal in Luang Prabang is because I was re-named by some Israeli guy who came up to me at the bowling alley because he thought I was from Israel.  I had literally just spent the afternoon telling a Jewish girl from London that I had met that I was somehow confused by people to be Israeli and she had the hardest time believing me.  She had spent the last 20 min talking to these guys trying to make them believe that she was Jewish and they came up to me and thought I was Israeli.  It was funny until the guy got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.  After I told him that couldn't work since he wouldn't have Jewish kids, he was like that's fine, we can move to London together and I can just come live with you! And I was like umm buddy...I'm American. Then he decided to rename me with an Israeli name, so I am now Tamaal. It means some sort of sweet fruit. So awkward. My friends gave me a pretty hard time about that one.

There are so many great people I met off the Slow Boat trip that we are getting our own minibus to take us to Vang Vieng, where we're going to go tubing! It is supposed to be a pretty rough car ride though, so hopefully it goes well!

The Slow Boat is SLOW.

Hey everyone!! It's been awhile since I've been able to jump on the internet! Thanks for all the emails and comments though! Glad you guys are enjoying all my pictures/blog! I'm having as much fun as I look like I'm having, believe me!! :)

So I left Chiang Mai to make an 8hr bus ride in the middle of the night to a place called Chiang Khong so I could catch a boat down the river to my first stop in Laos! Would have been great if I could have slept at all during the bumpy and super twisty road. A girl fell out of her seat while sleeping bc it got to be so rough! haha. We arrived to Chiang Khong just after 4am for our 3hr nap before breakfast, and of course I was one of 2 people left without a room.  The owner was a crazy Thai who loved singing everything he said and he took me and a Canadian girl down the road to another hotel he owned. He was really excited when I said I was from America, and proceeded to sing "America" over and over again until we got to our room. After breakfast (soggy eggs and toast) we headed over to the border for Laos.

Once we got onto our slow boat, I ended up meeting a bunch of really nice people from Scotland, and it was just nice to hang out while the river drifted by and get to know each other. Unfortunately for me, I once again did NOT sit next to my future husband. I sat instead next to a REALLY NICE guy from Ireland who had the WORST b.o. I have ever smelled. Ewwww. I had to pull my deodorant out and make an offhand comment about how I didn't want to smell so he would get the hint. It was the nicest way I could think of saying anything! Not that it helped! Ugh. I just had to wait until the boat started moving and pray that the breeze coming into the boat would never go away. haha. Basically I was surrounded by people from Scotland and Ireland though, and I was yet again the only American. Oh well. I ended up meeting a Canadian girl who said she started college in D.C. only to have to leave for Canada again because she hated America and all of our materialistic ways, our poverty, and the fact that anybody can't go to college bc it's so expensive. Umm...remember I'm American?? And remember how Canada and America and every other Western country is EXACTLY alike!? We are not the ONLY people who splurge on expensive handbags! Ugh..what an idiot.

We stopped over in a small town on the river after our first day out on the boat in a town called Pak Beng. A whole lot of nothing to do there, but I did have samosas for dinner. I love seeing how many random places I can find Indian people. One of the restaurant owners tried telling me where he was from in India--I had to pretend like I knew. haha. I'm a terrible Indian sometimes.

Second day on the boat was a complete 180.  On the first day we were all really chatty and super pumped to meet each other. On the second day we were over that new friend thing. haha. It was a nice 8 hour boat ride in silence until we reached Luang Prabang, the jewel of Southeast Asia apparently.