Cambodia

After Vietnam I decided to take five days to hop over to Cambodia. I took a bus across the border and after hours of handing off my passport, waiting, switching buses, more waiting, and more handing off my passport I eventually arrived into Cambodia.

I visited Phnom Penh to see the killing fields. In the 1960s and 70s the Khmer Rouge, a communist party, ruled Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge saw themselves as a superior race and held onto commuist ideas to diminish a bourgeois class. This lead to a mass genocide in the late 70s of Chinese, Vietnamese, and anyone who "wore glasses" including doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. The genocide grew to a mass killing of around 2 million people including women and children. The killing fields site is a memorial to this tragedy.

(Spirit House)

After only a day in Phnom Penh I head to Siam Reap to see another historical site of Cambodia, the spectacular Angkor Wat "City of Temples."

Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious sites in the world and can take several days to visit all the different ruins and temples. The site was built in the early 12th century by King Suryavarman and is a sanctuary for both Hindus and Buddhists.

I spent an entire day starting at sunrise to visit as many temples as I could including where tomb raider was filmed. I hired a tuk tuk driver to take me around to the different sites. I explored many of the temples and ruins under the hot sun and enjoyed a lunch consisting of rice and stuffed toad with my tuk tuk driver by lake. The temples were incredible and massive.

That night I was able to hang out in a village with some local Cambodians. They cooked fish while occasionally scooping out a cup of whiskey from a giant bucket. Later that night they joined a bunch of us backpackers for some dancing.

(Sunrise at Angkor Wat main temple)

(Monks chillin)

(The tourists flock in the main site gate)

(bandaged up at the temples)

(tuk tuk for the day)

(Tomb Raider Tomb)

Good Morning Vietnam!

Off to Vietnam where I decided to take three weeks to do the hop on/off bus route from the North to South. Advice for travelers going to Vietnam--whether or not it is the rainy season..be prepared for rain.

Halong Bay--Hanoi--Hue--Hoi An--Nah Trang--Dalat (Easy Riders)--Mui Ne--Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon)

My friend from Colorado, Andrea, had been working in Bangkok and came with me on a two day cruise around Halong Bay. We spent the night on a rustic wooden boat where we were able to enjoy good food, kayaking, cruising through the bay, and of course karaoke!

(Halong Bay)

Spent a day in Hanoi. The city is busy with more motorbikes zooming around then I have ever seen. We spent several hours enjoying just crossing the streets. You literally have to just start walking out into the middle of the zooming traffic and just pray that nothing hits you. After playing frogger in the streets we enjoyed a steaming bowl of Pho. Pho is a delicious Vietnamese noodle soup that is best enjoyed on the street sitting in itty bitty chairs while enjoying a bottle of Bia Ha Noi beer.

(Hanoi Traffic)

(Vietnamese famous Iced Coffee)

(Bowl of Pho)

From Hanoi I experienced my first sleeper bus in Vietnam. These buses are the cheapest way to travel through the country and are quite the experience. With sleeper seats that are at the worst possible angle, crazy bus drivers who swerve and speed and randomly blast cheesy music videos and turn on the lights (no matter if it's after midnight), and locals who sit in the aisles between the bunks it is a very relaxing journey. If you are lucky to have a bottom bed you might even get the treat of having a local rest his head on your shoulder or an old woman keep insisting on you trying all her food, everything from tasty ginger candy to not so tasty treats. And don't forget the 4am pit stop to the middle of nowhere food shacks.

Eventually I made it to the city of Hue. Not too much to see or do in this city. Walked around and saw the historical sites and made friends with the Hostel staff who took me out dancing that night. I sat in a park one day enjoying a snack off the street. Couldn't tell you what I was eating except that it was brightly colored yet tasted like meat. Anyways, a local college student came up to me and started talking to me to practice her English. She was so interested in America and had so many questions for me. It was interesting to see all the similarities and differences between our cultures. For example, we want straight silky hair and tan skin whereas they love blonde hair (they don't believe it's real most of the time) and do everything they can to have light skin using skin whitening lotion and keeping themselves completely covered from the sun. On the beach you will see locals wearing pants, jackets, gloves, and socks even if it's hot and humid out.

(Day boat in Nah Trang)

From Hue I visited the city of Hoi An. Hoi An is a picturesque town with laterns lighting the streets. I enjoyed the warm water at the beach, peeking in all the tailor clothing shops, and going out with all the backpackers to enjoy food and drinks.

Once in Nah Trang I took an Easy Rider tour with a Brazilian girl and a German girl. We spent three days on the back of Harleys riding through the mountains and countryside. It was a great way to see some rural areas of Vietnam off the tourist path. We saw coffee plantations, passion fruit farms, a silk factory, visited the city of Dalat, and rode through many small villages where the kids would chase after our bikes. The last two days of riding it poured down freezing rain as we rode on. It was a really cool experience!

(Local kids near a pepper farm)

(Easy Riders!)

(Awesome view after the rain stopped in the mountains)

Onto the beach town of Mui Ne. I hung out with several guys from Scotland, Ireland, and England for a day. We went ATVing in the sand dunes and hiked up a muddy river to a small waterfall. The next day I rented motorbikes with a few friends. We were having fun cruising around until someone slammed on their brakes forcing me to turn sharply and ending with me crashing. I was lucky that nothing was broken and I only had some scrapes and road rash on my feet, knees, and hands. When I returned the moped all bandaged up the guy only charged me $15 for the damage done to the bike since apparently "Bike have bad brakes." Thanks for the warning.

(Walking through the mud in Mui Ne)

(Bandaged up after my accident)

My last stop in Vietnam was in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon). I was able to visit the War Remnants Museum and do a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels where Vietnamese soldiers hid and ambushed from during the war. It was interesting and sad to learn more about the Vietnam War and visit these sites.

(Fermented Snake drink in Ho Chi Minh City)

I was the the only young American I encountered while in Vietnam many backpackers were curious why I was there and asked if the Vietnamese were rude to me which they were not. The people, places, and food of Vietnam were all great!

Buckets in Bangkok to Playing in Pai: Northern Thailand

Cancelled flight. Ten hours in the Cape Town airport. Ten hour flight to Dubai. Missed flight. Twelve hours in the Dubai airport. Meal voucher for McDonald's cheeseburger, fries, and apple pie. Eight hour flight. Hot muggy taxi ride. Finally...Bangkok, Thailand.

Backpackers. Street Food. Ladyboys. Tuk Tuks. Temples. Buckets...Welcome to Koh San Road in Bangkok.

A loud, hectic, exciting place blanketed with the thick heat and smog of the city. A place where backpackers come to enjoy cheap food and drinks, buy knock off ipads and gucci, be culturally immersed by visiting the Buddhist temples, and where creepy businessmen go to watch Thai ping pong shows (you don't want to know).

I just arrived at NapPark Hostel after over 40 hours of traveling when some other backpackers invited me to join them to see the temples. So I grabbed a fresh pineapple on a stick, which cost about five cents off the street, and shoved into a tuk tuk with a few other people and we were off.

After spending the day visiting Wat Arun, The Grand Palace, and Wat Pho (temple with the giant reclining Buddha) we went out for some Pad Thai noodles and the famous buckets that night. A couple days in Bangkok was plenty of time. My stay included a night at the Sky Bar--shown in Hangover 2, and a day at the MBK Center complete with going to see a movie in the nicest theater I have been to and browsing through levels and levels of knock off designers and electronics.

I was soon ready for a break from the hectic city and crowded streets of Bangkok so some fellow backpackers and I took the twelve hour train North to Chiang Mai. Hoping to stay at Julie's Guesthouse we were disappointed when it ended up being full, so we settled for down the road at Mamma's. For only $2 a night it  seemed alright..that is until we found there was a single fan in a sweltering room of 10 people and when I lifted the sheets--bed bugs. We switched to a bug free room which was fine except for the shared shower: a freezing trickle of water with a mysterious furball clogging the moldy drain and a pretty nasty smell that had begun to develop. However, the city of Chiang Mai was amazing.

One day I spent on a full day jungle trek. We hiked to a waterfall where we ate lunch off banana leaves and cooled off in the waterfalls. The trek also included making our way up a hillside through a farm picking oranges (which happen to be green) and crawling down into a bat cave. By the time we returned to the hostel we were sunburnt, covered in filth, and utterly exhausted. I'm just glad I walked away free of any mosquito bites while others were covered head to toe with red itchy bites. 

Another day in Chang Mai I spent at Woody's Elephant Camp. It was really incredible to be able to learn the commands, ride the elephants, bathe them, and even swim with them! Apparently Woody's opium grow operation provides a nurturing home for the elephants.

After a wonderful time in Chiang Mai I took the bus up to Pai.

Pai is a small hippie backpacker town. Friends and I would spend our days meeting up for breakfast sitting in swings as we enjoyed fresh fruit shakes. Then we would ride our motorbikes to one of the nearby waterfalls or swimming pools. At night we would walk around the market looking at trinkets and eating everything on the street. My personal favorites were the banana pancakes, pad thai, green curry, papaya salad, catfish over a spit, and milk tea in a sugar cane cup. I tried many different dishes that were not so delicious including pig's brain and chicken stomachs. Gross. At night in Pai we would go hang out at the Ting Tong bar with a mix of backpackers and locals watching the occasional poi fire spinner.

My friend Emma (South African), and I stayed at Mam's Yoga Retreat our last few days there. We stayed in bungalows overlooking the valley and did two and a half hours of yoga each morning and enjoyed the vegetarian meals prepared for us.

I was originally planning on staying in Pai for a couple days. I ended up staying for almost two weeks. Northern Thailand was really beautiful, friendly, and cheap although I had a bad incident with losing a bunch of my photos when I tried to upload them onto a 90s dial up computer. Will not be doing that again.

After I had a taste of Thailand I knew I would be back to travel the South!

This is Africa

Wow! It has been weeks since I last blogged thanks to the difficulties of trying to blog from an iPad and the ever so reliable wifi service that exists outside the Western world. So once again I need to backtrack...to the beginning of October where my Eurpoean journey ended and the next part of my adventure began.

Welcome to the beautiful continent of Africa! Although my first few hours spent on this continent were not so beautiful...after hearing that my parents flight had been canceled and not knowing when they would arrive, buying what I thought was fish and chips for one and looking ridiculous carrying what ended up being enough for the entire Meek family (all 8 of us), and having to pay off a shady man to get me to the front of the line in order to make my flight it all ended up being alright.

Soon enough I was in a van driving up to Zambezi Sun Resort in Livingstone, Zambia with giraffes and zebras casually standing around grazing on the lawn. After checking in I decided to explore a bit since my parents were still hopping flight to flight country to country to catch up to me. I walked around the property along the electric fence by the river that had signs warning of crocodiles. Then walked through the gate after a nice chat with the security guard, John, and followed the path with the hot beating sun to the grand Victoria Falls.

(Victoria Falls)

My parents still hadn't arrived and as I got into bed that night and as I looked up at the ceiling..right there above me was a gigantic spider! Knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep with this spider in my room (not knowing if it was dangerous or not) I proceeded to attempt to catch the spider with a glass cup and piece of paper which ended with me jumping on the bed and the spider panicking and escaping to hide beneath the bathroom sink. So I stuffed a towel under the bathroom door and hoped that I wouldn't wake up in the night to a spider on my face.

The next day my parents finally made it! We went ahead with our plans enjoying a gorgeous sunset cruise along the Zambezi River where we were able to enjoy drinks while watching hippos in the water. We did an elephant back safari on giant African elephants (tusks and all) where we saw lots of baboons playing and slowly sauntered down to the river.

(Zambezi River Sunset Cruise)

(Baby Elephant that kept grabbing my feet with his trunk as we rode on a larger elephant)

Our next stop was a safari near Kruger National Park in South Africa. After being the only 3 people in the airport and on our 20 passenger plane we were off. We saw water buffalo, hippo, black rhino, bush buck, as well as many other African bush species. It was exciting riding through the bush in our open jeep wrapped up in blankets in the bitter morning with our rugged safari guide.

(Donald, our Safari guide standing on a termite mound)

On the evening safari we passed a herd of elephants. Our guide didn't hesitate to get us as close as possible to them. Our spotter, Difference, who sits in a chair connected to the front of the jeep was charged at by an elephant while an elephant attempted to whack me with its trunk as I sat in the back. 

After the excitement of staying in the lodge and going on safaris we headed to Cape Town. We did a Peninsula tour getting to see the penguin colony, seal island, Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Point (the most Southern point of Africa where the Indian ocean meets thePacific).

One early morning we set off to go shark cage diving! The boat that took us out to sea rocked and swayed deeply in the rough waters with a majority of the boat leaning over the sides emptying their stomachs. We went in four or five people at a time in full wetsuits and they would use bait to draw the shark close to the cage. We saw three great whites and my dad even got hit in the face with a shark's powerful fin. It was an exciting trip!--too bad I only realized after that my camera was not working so I have no way to show that we were there.

After shark cage diving we took the long steep cable car to the top of Table Mountain where we were able to witness some spectacular views of the city and sea from far above.

(Top of Table Mountain)

Cape Town is a beautiful city, very similar to San Francisco in a lot of ways. We went the movies, enjoyed seafood, saw the District 6 museum, visited the old palace, and even experienced a dinner and show complete with drummers and dancers. I can't wait to go back someday and explore more of Africa! Maybe even find a film job in Cape Town??