• The Sweetest Thing

    I thought I was going to be able to get away with skipping a post about my last three days in Bangkok, but of course a lot of nice things happened in that time and maybe it’s best I write to inspire others.  Lucy and Mark, a couple that had gone to karaoke with us…

  • Are you tired?

    “I’ve been meaning to go and see Ayutthaya. You wanna go see Ayutthaya with me?” I asked Ricarda. “Are you tired?” “Huh?” “What did you say?” “Ayutthaya.” “Ohhhh! Okay.” It’s easy to say you’re making plans, but when you have days on days to carry them out, it’s hard to make them happen quickly and…

  • You Can(‘t) Sit With Us

    The bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok takes about 9 hours and costs $8-10 depending what bus company you go with. And it’s a tiny bit misleading to say “the bus,” so allow me to explain a bit. At 7AM, you wake up to catch your tuk tuk or van to the bus station. The…

  • Return to Dust

    While deciding what to do for my birthday, I headed back for Phnom Penh with the volunteers of “Project Abroad” and chose to book another three nights in the City of Dust. I’m starting to find out just how much of a foody destination this city can be, with literally any kind of food you…

  • Everything is gay forever

    By the time I was back in Bangkok, I was ecstatic to see Joy again. Not only was she there, but she said, “If you stay a couple day extra, Tor is coming back!” Yessssss. I’m writing this post quite long after the fact of it happening, and I didn’t really see anything new aside…

  • With A Little Help From My Friends

    Last week while doing some research on special days in Thailand, Phi Ta Khon came up. Phi Ta Khon is a spiritual festival that mixes Buddhist tradition with animist elements and takes place over several days in an otherwise boring mountain village in Northeast Thailand called Dan Sai. Due to some confusing language and a…

  • It’s all good… Karma

    Patrick came to hang out with us at the hostel for dinner since it was his last night there before heading south. That was also the night Angie, Nick, and Aiden made it back to Chiang Mai and made a convincing case to go out clubbing despite exhaustion from ten total hours on a bike…

  • Elbow Grease

    Back in Chiang Mai, sick as a dog, I planned to spend my evening doing very little but seeing the new Jurassic Park movie, and that’s exactly what I did. Sometimes people can be fickle, so a group of six people that were going to see it with me dwindled to just myself in a…

  • Try the Pai (it’s terrible)

    A lot of other travelers had been raving about Pai to us for several days.  “It’s just so peaceful!” “It’s beautiful!”  “It’s just a hippy little town in the middle of nowhere!”  After having been in the city for a bit too long I thought Pai was the way to get away from all the…

  • Yin and Yang

    Nick, another Californian, joined us the next day at the hostel just as Tom and Josh were headed out for a 2-day jungle trek (a very popular activity around here). This is was Nick’s first time doing the backpacking thing and his first time in Asia, so we were quick to include him into the…