Wanderlust

Our original plan was to go to a church about 3 hours outside of Paris called Mont St. Michel but we didn’t get tickets far enough in advance so the price was too high. We also didn’t want to sit on a train for 6 hours in one day. So we decided to go to Versailles Palace and see more of Paris.   We slept in later than normal because we were up so late the night before. My mom and Greg had been to Paris earlier this year and they suggested we see a church called St. Germain des Pres. They also suggested we try to see Versailles Palace later in the day to avoid the crowds. We took both pieces of advice! The day started with a stop at a different bakery. I got a raspberry beignet (French for a donut) and Lacey got another croissant. Both were delicious but not as good as the ones on Friday. We hopped on the metro and made our way to the south side of the main area of a neighborhood called the Latin Quarter. It’s called the Latin Quarter because the universities were based here...

Lacey and I slept pretty well considering we were basically sleeping on plywood. We had blanket issues (turns out we had it turned the wrong way….) so we alternated being cold through the night. After more food debating (this is one of the most frustrating parts of traveling, deciding where to eat), we decided to get some croissants at a chain bakery. They were sooooo good. We love our carbs. Our first stop of the day was Chatuchak Weekend Market. It’s one of the biggest markets in all of Southeast Asia. There are 1000’s of stalls of people selling all sorts of things. We took the BTS Sky Train (above ground, modern subway). It was very efficient and pretty cheap. Simply by chance, we got to the market just a little bit after it opened so it wasn’t all that busy. We walked around A LOT. Lacey ended up buying a pair of sandals. The market reminded me of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, lots of stalls and tight quarters in the walkways. Another comparison: it’s like Mall of America...

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 ...