Cambodia, Cambodia, Cambodia

So Cambodia! After landing and waiting for our Cambodian visas to be put in our passports we waited to be picked up by our hostel…and waited…and waited. There was another girl waiting to go to the same hostel, and they did eventually come. We went to our hostel, the Lovely Jubbly Place (it was pretty lovely, haha), figured things out for the next day, and walked around trying to find something to eat. The next day we had two tuktuks booked for us for the day, and we started off by going to the Thai embassy to get new Thai visas. Our next stop was the Killing Fields, then to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which had been a high school that Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime used as a prison. It was a humbling experience, and definitely eye opening. I had had no idea of the genocide that had happened in Cambodia in the 70’s, killing anywhere between 1.5 - 3 million people. Not really a feel-good day, but it was still a good experience I guess. 

After lunch at the hostel we caught a van up to Siem Reap for the next couple days. Not the best ride, but by this time I should’ve been used to it. It was dirt roads the whole 6 ½ hour drive. Rough. 

And then we arrived in heaven. Haha. Well, the van dropped us off on the side of the road, cuz that’s apparently what they do, and we took a tuktuk to heaven, aka-our hotel. We had found a deal online for the Tara Angkor Hotel, a 4 star hotel for $20 per person each night, and man was it worth it. They gave us tea to welcome us, and the whole lobby smelled like lemongrass, it was great. We checked out the breakfast buffet area and freaked out, then we checked out the pool and freaked out, and finally saw our rooms and freaked out. It was really nice. We changed and went for a swim as soon as we could. 

The next day the same tuktuk drivers who took us to our hotel picked us up at 4:30am and drove us to Angkor Wat. We watched the sunrise, although, it was overcast, so it wasn’t as spectacular as some pictures I’ve seen, but it was still pretty cool. We also ran into some missionaries there and chatted with them for a few minutes.

Angkor Wat is huge, so we had looked online to see which temples we wanted to see, and so we also went to Bayon and Ta Prohm, which was used in the Tomb Raider movie. 

After seeing those temples we had our tuktuk drivers take us back to our hotel for the best breakfast buffet in all of Asia. This picture isn't even everything I ate that morning. The bread was amazing. There was an omelette bar. And cheese! And bacon! It was definitely a change from our usual breakfast of white bread and strawberry jam.

We ate for like 45 minutes straight or something, then went back to bed feeling very full, haha. We chilled for the rest of the day, layed out by the pool and swam for a few hours, then headed out to find something to eat for supper. We went to Pub Street and did some shopping too. We ended up finding a random lady-boy show in the back of a market there…kinda ghetto. It had an area of chairs in front with people giving massages, so me and a couple girls got foot massages and umm…enjoyed the show? hahaha. My favourite part was when they lip-synced to "If I were a boy" by Beyonce, just because it was so ironic.

The next day we had booked a tour to Kulen Mountain. We were picked up late because the guy had thought we were staying at a different hotel, but that rough start was quickly forgotten. Kulen Mountain was fantastic. Rattha was our tour guide, and his boss Richard came with us for the day too. We picked up some food on our way up the mountain, went to a Buddhist temple area and climbed up to the Buddha carving there, then walked to the river. 

We explored a bit and played around in the water a little then had lunch. It was all very delicious. They had bought chicken, fish, baguettes, vegetables, spring rolls, red bananas, and pink dragonfruit for us. We sat in our little cabana thing and ate with Rattha, Richard, and the driver, and swung around in the hammocks they brought. 

We swam some more after lunch and went down to the larger waterfall then too. 

We headed back in to Siem Reap after that (the mountain was about 2 hours outside of the city). They brought us to get massages once we got back into the city, and they were fantastic massages. I’d say the best all semester. We went back to Pub Street that night, ate, and did a bit more shopping that night. It seriously was just an amazing day. The next day we sadly checked out, rode in a van to the bus station, rode in a bus to Phnom Penh (stopping to change a flat tire in the pouring rain on the way), then took tuktuks to the embassy, picked up our passports, then went straight to the airport and flew to Chiang Mai, then took a taxi to our hostel. So lots of different modes of transportation used in one day!  It was a long day of travelling, and we were glad to get to our hostel in Chiang Mai that night, but missed Cambodia. Best. Vacation. Ever.

Bangkok!

After our trip to Chiang Mai we taught for a week, and then we were off again! This was our week-long vacation, and we were heading to Bangkok, Cambodia, and then back to Chiang Mai. We took a van down to Bangkok after class on Friday…that was quite the ride, haha. We got into a 16 person van and had room for another person or two…well, we made a couple more stops, and ended up filling our van with 17 people, a dog, plus our 7 backpacks and luggage for the week. 

We didn’t really understand how the other people could travel with literally no luggage, one of the great mysteries I guess. It was pretty cozy on our ride down, so we were happy once we finally arrived. And by arrived I mean the driver dumped us on the side of some random road in Bangkok and left. We took a couple taxis to our hostel, and settled in for the night.

We woke up the next day super early and got in the van we had booked for the day. It was much nicer than being squished into the van like we had been the day before. We drove to the floating market first thing to beat the crowd which apparently gets pretty crazy. It was a bit more expensive than we had expected, but we just sucked it up and paid. I bought some coconut water and mango sticky rice, but the souvenirs were waaaayyyy overpriced.

 We also made it to a temple around there. 

After the floating market we headed to the rose gardens and paid like the $2 to walk around. It was a pretty area, and ate lunch there. 

Our next stop was the Grand Palace. After changing into long pants we met up with our tour guide. Which we hadn’t realized we were going to have, and was another surprise price-wise. It was an expensive day in Bangkok to say the least, but he told us all about the area and buildings that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. 

He also brought us by boat to Wat Arun, and the Reclining Buddha. The Buddha hadn’t originally been in his schedule, but he included it for us when we asked. 

 The van dropped us off at Terminal 21, a giant mall in Bangkok, and we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant that we had heard about from the missionaries.

 We liked the Salsa Kitchen more, but they had a nice salsa bar. 

We hung around the mall that evening and ended up going to see a movie. 

Me and Abby also layed on the floor in the hallway of the theatre because…carpet. 

We went to church the next day. It was really nice being able to understand everything without needing translators. I love our ward in Phitsanulok, but it’s still nice to just be able to hear and understand everything without having everything translated. 

After church we headed straight for the airport for Cambodia!

Chiang Mai - Tiger Bites, Criminal Masseuses, and Incompetent Elephant Trainers

Our first vacation after starting classes wasn't until the middle of July, and we headed up to Chiang Mai with our 4 days off. We took a long rough bus ride to Chiang Mai on Thursday night and got there early on Friday morning. After having breakfast at McDonald's we went to our hostel and checked in. We were staying at Baan Arlhan, a hostel that was like a traditional Thai home with mats on the floor and mosquito nets. It was quite the experience.

We went to the Tiger Kingdom that morning. After signing my life away, we got to see the smallest and the biggest tigers. It was pretty terrifying, but totally awesome. 

I also had a bit of an experience while playing with the baby tigers. There were probably about 4 tigers in the one area, and one of the trainers was playing with a rather rambunctious one, but when he left him and turned for a second, the tiger lunged for the next closest thing...which happened to be my butt, hahaha. He latched on pretty good for a few seconds there, and it hurt a bit, but not enough to break through my shorts or anything. Plus I like being able to tell people I've been bitten by a tiger.

That night we ate some Mexican food, then some of us got massages. After our massages were done we were sitting in the lobby for a few minutes and while reading a pamphlet about the massage place realized that all the masseuses were convicted criminals, and that they started this massage place to assimilate them back into the working world. It had been a good massage, we were just glad we didn't know that before we got our massages. After our massages we met up with the rest of the group and did some shopping near the Tha Phae Gate. Our plans to go to the Night Bazaar were changed when it started pouring rain and we just ended up going back to our hostel for the night.

The next day was our elephant day! We got some training on how to give certain commands like Go, Stop, Left, and Right, fed them some bananas, and got to practice on the elephant for a couple minutes, and then after eating lunch we had our ride. Me and Abby were on the same elephant, with me in front and her in the back. Some of the other girls had the elephant trainers on the elephant with them, or at least right beside them walking, while ours was always like 20 metres away, just drinking his Sprite without a care in the world...so when the elephant started going down hills and tried sliding on her butt, almost making us fall off, he was of no use to us. He yelled at the elephant in Thai and we were able to stay on somehow, but the same thing happened at every hill we encountered. Abby's life flashed before her eyes and we were screaming/laughing/crying throughout the whole ride. It was a quite the adventure, hahaha. We also got to give the elephants a bath, which was good because mine and Abby's kept shooting mud at us/itself between it's sliding down the hills.

^This picture was taken before our elephant tried to kill us, which is why we're still smiling. ;)

It was a really great day, and that night we went to the Night Bazaar and shopped our hearts out!
We went ziplining the next day, and it was great. Our guides were funny and liked playing tricks on us and making us feel like we were gonna die, but a good time was had by all.

We ate lunch at the ziplining place then they brought us back to our hostel. The lady who runs the hostel brought us to the Doi Suthep park that afternoon as well. We didn't actually make it up to see the temple, but walked around the park a bit and enjoyed the scenery.

That night we ate at a Mexican restaurant that a member of the church had recommended to Lindsey that day, and boy were we ever happy with our choice. It was delicious. We all missed Mexican food a lot and the Salsa Kitchen hit the spot. If you're ever in Chiang Mai and craving Mexican food, this is the place to go.

That night we went to the Sunday market and did some more shopping, then got massages again, because when it's less than $10 for an hour long massage, you get them as often as possible, haha.

We left the next day on another bus ride home. We watched a few movies on the bus and even though everything was in Thai, we were able to figure out the plot lines pretty well. We had all fallen in love with Chiang Mai during our trip and couldn't wait to go back again.