Lily's Travels

After our 14 hour red-eye flight we landed in Taipei, Taiwan for our first layover in route to Chiang Mai, Thailand. While drinking my $9 iced coffee and bottled water with my travel companion Ashley, we were approached by a fellow traveler from the states. Leslie proceeded to share his travel trips from the crowded streets in Bangkok to the deserted Southern islands where his sailboat was lost to the tsunami. We soon found that he and Ashley both lived in New Mexico and Leslie's partner was undergoing medical care at the hospital where Ashley works in Albuquerque. Leslie showed us pictures from China to Cambodia on his laptop and advised us how to sweet talk the Thai authorities with our one-way tickets. No questions asked and no bags searched, we arrived at our hotel in Chiang Mai that evening to eat bananas with my sister before bed...