Wanderlust

Off to Cambodia! I was surprised at how few people we talked to in the islands area and Bangkok had planned to go to Cambodia. I have read that it is a beautiful country and they use US dollars as their currency so it's easy to navigate. There's one primary reason we intended to head there: Angkor Wat. It's a giant area of temples, some reconstructed and some left in disrepair. ***This is a long post*** Famous Tree at Ta Som Temple When we booked our flight at 6:20am we were concerned about how early it was. Turns out that on this trip we just get up really early all the time no matter what so it was easy haha. Our hotel was only about a 10-minute walk to the airport but they have a free shuttle so we took it. Getting through security and stuff was easy (after 5 flights so far this trip, this is old hat). We got pastries for breakfast and my almond croissant was delicious.  The flight was uneventful (no one leaned their seat back this time!!!). The sunrise was...

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...

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...