Wanderlust

Our hostel offers two main tours of the Angkor Wat temple complex. We already did the sunset tour on Tuesday and did the sunrise tour today. The sunrise tour includes going to the real jewel of the temple complex, the actual Angkor Wat temple, to watch the sunrise then go to 4 other temples. After that, we would pack up and go back to Bangkok. We were completely exhausted from the motorbike tour yesterday so we went to bed pretty early (like 9pm or something) so we could sleep enough before our very early wake-up call of 4am. For the sunset tour a few days ago, we did a private tour where it was just us and a driver in a tuk-tuk. This tour, we decided to do the super cheap ($12 total) sharing tour for sunrise. We thought we would be getting into a white van with a bunch of other people and driving around to everything. Turns out the sharing tour just means sharing a small tuk-tuk with 2 other people. Needless to say, we wish we would have just done the private tour again. The ...

We started the day by getting up just before breakfast. The common room and breakfast were much busier than the day before. It was the same food but still delicious. After that, we got our stuff all packed up because we had to check out before we left for the day's adventures. Our only real plan for the day was to walk to a ferry terminal on the river and take the ferry to Wat Arun (the 3rd big tourist place in Bangkok). Wat Arun as seen from the ferry The walk to the ferry was overall pretty nice. We walked through a neighborhood called Banglumpoo and it has a ton of hostels mixed with regular residential housing. It was nicer than the areas we walked through yesterday. The ferry terminal was easy to find but we were kind of at a loss on which specific boat to get on. There was a family with a tour guide so we just followed them. The boat ride was pretty busy but we missed rush hour so it wasn't too bad. Seeing the city from the river was really cool. Main Chedi o...

What a wonderful, crazy day. I honestly don't even know where to begin. Bangkok is just... so much. Like so many sounds and colors and smells and tastes and people, ohhhhh the people. It's just a lot to take in and makes everything kind of a blur. I've read about that and I've seen some YouTube videos about it too but nothing really prepares you for it. We saw it a tiny bit yesterday with the train/taxi ride but really experienced it in earnest today. WARNING: This is a very long post. Breakfast at Hostel The day had an inauspicious start. As I mentioned in the last post, I woke up at around 1am or so because we were dumb and didn't plan our sleep schedule well. So I was awake for a long time this morning just hanging out at the hostel. The hostel has a really cool set up and I like the location (in a quiet neighborhood but within walking distance of major sites). Lacey woke up at around 2:30am too so we were both wide awake in the middle of the night. We deci...

So we made it! We traveled across the Pacific Ocean and are in Bangkok now. It's about 2am here (still 75 degrees out) and I'm writing this blog post at our hostel common room. This is going to be a long post because I don't have anything else to do at 2am so sorry for that. You'll see why I'm awake at 2am in just a bit. Waiting at Chicago Airport Our journey started with 3 flights to get us to Thailand. Our first flight from Minneapolis to Chicago was extremely uneventful and short. We took the airport train to the international terminal and found that our airplane company didn't have a desk set up for checking in. We got a little worried so I asked the information person what was up. He said they normally don't start staffing the check-in desk until 3-4 hours before the flight (we were 6 hours early). We found some chairs to hang out in and watched Netflix on my laptop (Great British Baking Show is awesome btw). Nervousness about eating was beginning...

For most people this won't be that interesting to read about but I wanted to post the planned schedule for where we'll be each day for family or friends wondering. This is the longest trip I've done since Europe in college (Lacey went to Europe this summer for 5 weeks so this is old hat for her).  Sunday, December 31 - Fly to Chicago at 3:55pm Monday, January 1 - Leave Chicago at 12:20am Tuesday January 2 - Land at 10:40am, find our hostel, explore a little, and rest up Wednesday January 3 - Bangkok (historical sights, canal tour, lots of food, khao san road) Thursday January 4 - More Bangkok, fly to Krabi at 6:15pm Friday January 5 - Beach Time, Phi Phi Island tour? Or other tour? Saturday January 6 - Ao Phang Nga National Park (Boat tour and canoe trip) Sunday January 7 - Beach Time, take boat to Phuket Area Monday January 8 - Elephant Jungle Sanctuary, more beach time Tuesday January 9 - Fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia at 6:20am, find hotel, explore temples? Wedn...