Third World Veggie

Photos: New Zealand - May 2017

mtd5116 — Fri, 26 May 2017 12:20:00 GMT

Photos: Cambodia - April 2017

mtd5116 — Fri, 12 May 2017 19:54:00 GMT

Islands and Temples in Cambodia

mtd5116 — Wed, 3 May 2017 18:17:00 GMT

We took a bus from Ho Chi Minh (which we thought was insanely hot) to the even hotter city in Cambodia - Phenom Penh. When we arrived in Cambodia we learned that the city was celebrating a holiday which meant that practically every restaurant and shop in the city was closed. Our few nights in PP were not so great because of the heat and lack of food options.

PP did have some of the most moving museums I have ever experienced, though. SE Asia was a history lesson for us a lot of the time. In Laos & Vietnam we learned so much more about the Vietnam war than I ever learned in school and the damages caused by bombings are still very real for these countries. Cambodia was no different and this was the first time we really learned the horrific things that happened in their country.... and it wasn't even that long ago. The way that Cambodians have arranged the killing fields and the prison in PP is very moving. The craziest part to me was that the world didn't really know or understand just how bad things were in Cambodia during this time.

On a happier note, the city does a decent job with their riverfront and there were a lot of nice places to walk or to have a drink along the water. The bad news is that they have a serious issue with trash and the entire city is just lined with trash bags at all times.

Following PP we headed to Sinhanoukville area of Cambodia and stayed along the beach called Otres. We were able to meet up with Mark's friend, Chris, who is a flight attendant and is really hilarious. We went out for a night at one of the bars where we were promised live music. The live music turned out to be a 70 year old guy playing the saxophone.... but thank goodness we stuck around because a few hours later we found ourselves in the middle of a proper hippie party complete with hula hoops, glowing light ropes, shamanic chanting (learned what that was that night) and fire spinners sans fire. We also met James & Rachel that night. They are the sweetest couple from England and we traveled with them through the rest of Cambodia before they headed home. The next night we all went to a Cambodian jungle party where you can drink, dance, and ride shady carnival rides that are literally operated manually by locals.

The next day we decided to take a boat to the island of Koh Ta Kiev. The island is beautiful and the Kactus guesthouse had adorable bungalows and amazing food. We ended up extending our stay here for a few extra days even though there was no hot water or electricity. At night, we would swim in the ocean where you can see the bioluminescent plankton. We were so happy we picked Koh Ta Kiev over the more popular backpacker island of Koh Rong.

Kampot, Cambodia was our next stop and we really enjoyed the town. There is nothing major of note but we took a great scooter ride up to a viewpoint that was too foggy to see any view. Instead, we stopped at an enormous Chinese casino that we thought was abandoned but turns out it is open & operating.... but no body appeared to be staying there. We also noticed that this town had a very large number of older white men and Cambodian girlfriend/wife combinations.

Siem Reap was our last Cambodian city. This is where the famous Angkor Wat temples are located. The city also has a large backpacker presence and a cool "pub street" where every place seems to offer 50cent beer!

For foreigners, the temples are actually expensive to visit so we opted for the 1 day pass which was the perfect amount of time for us. The temples are stunning and even though Mark & I claim to not be "temple people" we still enjoyed our time there. We caught sunrise at the main temple and took a motorbike to a lot of the other temples. We watched a YouTube video about Angkor Wat which helped us learn a bit more of the history and made us appreciate the experience even more.

After Siem Reap we headed back to Bangkok to complete our SE Asia "loop." We enjoyed the city a lot more this time around. This may have been due to the fact that my mother offered to treat us to rooftop bar drinks at the Sofitel :) We revisited Lumphani Park and I was so excited that I was able to take part in their 6pm workout class.

The Vietnam Motorbike Experience

mtd5116 — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 21:02:00 GMT

The short story is that Mark & I bought our motorbikes (Otis & Shimmie) in Hanoi and drove them South through the country ending in Ho Chi Minh. Susie joined us for the first part of the trip and rode on the back of Mark's bike while I took her luggage. We all survived and we saw some of the most amazing views along the way.

Overall, we drove around 1200 miles on the bikes over our 3.5 weeks traveling south.

Mom - I am pretty sure you are the only person that actually reads this blog regularly. You should consider skipping the rest of this post. #sorry

First off, some road rules of Vietnam:

Don't hit me & I wont hit you
Driving on the right side of the rode is merely a suggestion
If you wish to overtake someone, drive on the left side, or just want to let someone know you are driving, honk many times over and over again

We had set some of our own ground rules before we departed Hanoi to keep us on track such as no driving at night, try to avoid driving in the rain, and watch your gas tank so we don't run out because that is just a stupid mistake. We managed to break all of these in the first 3 days of driving.

We left Hanoi for our first stop - Ninh Binh- a trip of about 60 miles. We figured we could make it there in about 3 hours. We started driving through the city and as we entered the biggest roundabout of traffic Mark's bike ran out of gas. This was the first of many issues on day 1. Before we reached Ninh Binh I also ran out of gas (on a highway), had to be redirected through the city by locals because we were about to enter a non-motorbike highway, had my bags fall off my bike TWICE, and Susie managed to get an exhaust burn her one inch of exposed skin. I think it took us about 7 hours to finally reach Ninh Binh. The plus side was that Ninh Binh is gorgeous and our home stay was really lovely. But honestly, after day 1 on the bikes I wasn't sure there would be a day 2.

We did decide to continue on and the next few days brought us some beautiful scenery and it was so cool having school children run along the road after you screaming "HELLO!" And waving. We also had a scary 40 km ride in the pitch black dark to Pho Chau which could also be called "middle of nowhere, Vietnam".

Aside from day 1, our most awful day was driving from Phong Nha to Hue. It had rained a lot that morning and we almost considered not leaving but then it cleared up and figured we would be fine. And for 75% of the way it really was ok. Maybe a bit of rain but we had ponchos and rain jackets. We were about 20 miles from Hue when Mark's bike literally just broke. Stopped running completely. On a major highway. After locating a mechanic (1 km away thank goodness) I then had to tie Mark's bike to mine with a rope and pull him down the road to the mechanic. On the wrong side of traffic. We left Susie to sit in a local family's house/restaurant/business and said we'd be back "soon." Soon meant about 2 hours and at one point we debated everything from sleeping on the mechanics floor to sending Susie to hail a bus or car into Hue with all of our bags. Thankfully, Vietnamese mechanics are magicians and fixed Mark's bike and we just had to drive to the city in the rain, on the highway, in the dark - just the usual.

After Susie left us the ride was significantly less exciting but we did have many drives up and down mountains in extreme fog and rain.

I wish Susie could have joined us for central - southern Vietnam because we really loved a lot of the cities. Highlights included:

Hoi An - an adorable city/beach town where you can get clothes fitted and made for you in 1 day. We had a lot of fun on the beaches drinking 50 cent beers and we finally had a few days off from driving the motorbikes.

Helping Vietnamese students with their English homework They needed to practice speaking with real live white people!

Dalat - Getting here was a really scary and cold drive that again took us hours longer than expected. But, we were met with the friendliest people at Mr. Happy's homestay where you shop together and cook family dinners together. Mr. Happy is a young Vietnamese guy who successfully opened his own hostel after working for many others in the area. His assistant, K, was also amazing and we had a lot of fun hanging out there for a few days.

Family dinner night 1 with Mr. Happy

Hiking with K - our local guide and friend.

Ho Chi Minh - A completely different world from Northern Vietnam. While it was super hot we did have a lot of fun at the 3D art museum, visiting the Cu Chi tunnels, and drinking cheap beers to celebrate the end of our motorbike trip.

3D Art Muuseum

Celebratory beers in HCM

Otis was sold to an 18 year old Brit who had no idea how to ride a manual bike. I couldn't even watch the transaction because I was scared to see him attempt to ride out of the parking garage. Thankfully, Mark told me he rode it out for the kid and he decided it was best to walk to down the road to his hostel.

UPDATE: 18 year old Brit DID survive his drive north. But Otis was left in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle when it broke down 20km down a dirt road.

Shimmie was sold to a local mechanic 1 day before we left Vietnam. We celebrated by walking to a McDonald's in 100 degree heat and getting an ice cream. As I was ordering, a lady came up to me and started having her husband take photos of the 2 of us which still baffles me to this day.

This journey on motorbike has been a highlight of the trip and I'm so happy we decided to do it even though there were moments that I was completely terrified.

Mark & his co-pilot

Shimmie girl

Photos: Vietnam: March 15 - April 15

mtd5116 — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 20:24:00 GMT

Photos of our time in Vietnam

Northern Vietnam

mtd5116 — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 21:06:00 GMT

The best part about Northern Vietnam was that Susie was able to visit us there. I can't pretend that I loved Hanoi and it didn't help that it was raining and cold the first few days we were there BUT it did manage to clear up for when Susie was there. We ended up having a good time doing an overnight trip in Ha Long Bay and then we casually stuck her on the back of Mark's manual motorbike with his luggage and we headed south!

The adventure of us buying motorbikes and actually getting out of Hanoi will be a different post :)

Susie was a trooper and minus a nasty exhaust burn she was unharmed! And while I don't think she had the best weather for the entire trip I know she had some of the best scenery traveling down the Ho Chi Minh trail.

I think Mark appreciated having her on the bike because it gave him someone to talk to while I trailed behind. I appreciated having someone to accompany me while I ((finally)) got a mani/pedi and facial. I wish she could have stayed with us through the end of the trip because I really loved southern Vietnam and the weather was amazing but I think it was a good intro to Asia for her.

Our best day (I think) was when we were in Phung Nha, Vietnam. We had free bicycles from the hostel and took them out into the countryside to a local restaurant called Pub with Cold Beer. Here, you can relax, have a few beers, take an inner tube and float in the river, and casually pick and kill the chicken you'd like to eat for lunch. We opted to stay out of the killing process and just ate it instead along with the best peanut sauce I've ever had.

Having Susie on the trip made me realize that it is really fun to be so close to your sister but I will NEVER kayak with her again.

Views of Ha Long Bay - we slept on one of those boats!

Who's who? Napping on our boat trip

Susie pretending to not be terrified that we would die in the kayak

Really good hair day in Hanoi

Views on the HCM Trail

Photos: March 2017

mtd5116 — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 17:36:00 GMT

Laos & Vietnam

Thakhek Loop

mtd5116 — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 19:25:00 GMT

While in Northern Laos we kept hearing about a 4-day loop done via motorbike through central Laos. We decided to do it as a test run because we thought we might want to buy bikes in Vietnam. The loop starts and ends in this little town along the Mekong River called Thakhek. The coolest part about this place is that it was barely on the backpacker map a few years ago but this motorbike trip has made it popular and created businesses in the town.

It takes about 6 hours via local bus to get to Thakhek. The local bus itself is a highlight because the bus literally blasts popular music videos from Laos. Topics of these videos include teenage love/breakups, sort of slutty 14 year old dance parties, and more teenage love/breakups. Yes... we listened and watched for SIX HOURS. We did attempt to listen to our own music but the bus only seemed to play their music louder when we did.

Overall, the 4 day experience was amazing but I was absolutely terrified to drive the bike the first day. It actually went pretty well minus the first big mountain pass where i decided to stop the bike and lay it down in the middle of the road because it was too heavy to walk. Soon after I discovered the magic of the kickstand.

We were so lucky to do the loop this year as they have just finished paving nearly the entire loop - if you google the loop there are stories from 1-2 years ago of the roads being horrendous but now it is far easier. We also had some great driving buddies and I think our 5 person group was the perfect size. Photo highlights below!

Noodle shop - we stopped here for lunch and it was the best pho!

Me crossing a well kept bridge

Cow conveyer belt

Mark playing soccer with some local kids on day 3

Finally enjoying the ride

Last day of the drive - all 5 of us and our bikes made it!

The Adult Playgroud - Vang Vieng

mtd5116 — Wed, 8 Mar 2017 18:02:00 GMT

Vang Vieng is one of the strangest towns we have stayed in. Here, we managed to find the best pizza in SE Asia, river tubing, caves, and pretty much every person from our slowboat from Thailand.

Vang Vieng used to be a crazy party city in Laos that got a bad rep when they had over 20 tourists die there a few years ago. Today, it is way more tame and appears to be a bit run down. Still an awesome time to see some amazing views, caves, and relax on the river. We got a group of our slow boat friends together to spend a day river tubing. There are only a handful of bars and most close by 11pm.

River pub crawl:

Mark & I decided to have a date night meaning we could eat western food. I have become quite the tripadvisor expert over the past month so I was able to find us some real Italian pizza in the middle of Asia. That pizza might was almost the highlight of our stay but it was beat out by views like these:

We were also lucky to stumble upon a local swimmig spot while out exploring some caves. We were originally looking for a lagoon listed on tourist maps but this was so much better. The kids didn't speak much English but we did get them to understand that we wanted a photo with them.

Slow boat to Laos

mtd5116 — Fri, 3 Mar 2017 16:52:00 GMT

Continuing our "loop" through SE Asia, we decided to take a slow boat to Laos rather than a painful 24+ hour bus ride. The slow boat was described to us as more of a party scene where people are really social and daydrink while on this cool boat. The boat was fine but I would not describe it as a party scene.... instead we casually sipped on warm drinks while I read an entire book. I think it was an upgrade from what I thought the experwince would be like. We also managed to make some American friends on the boat who became our future hostel roommates. Aside from having an excuse to finally do absolutely nothing but read for two days, the boat offered some amazing views of Laos along the Mekong river.

The boat tour states that it takes you to Luang Prabang which is sort of a lie. It takes you to some city 10 km away from Luang Prabang then you must hire an overpriced tuk tuk driver to take you to the city where you are instantly bombarded by local people asking if you want to stay at their hostel. Laos is such a beautiful country, far more beautiful than I found the views in Thailand. But, they haven't figured out how to be as successful with tourism. Things cost twice as much (OK, yes. I mean $2 instead of $1 but STILL) but the quality is not there. We have also noticed that everything costs money. Want to walk across this bridge that may collapse as you cross to the other side of town? That will be $1. Interested in climbing 50 steps to the top of this hill? Another dollar. We did sit along the river and watch people decide not to cross the bridge once they learned there was a fee. Free for locals though.

Here is the bridge... That hut you see is where you would pay to cross. Unless the bridge keeper is napping. Then it is your lucky day!

Luang Prabang did have one of the most incredible waterfalls, though! And it was worth the long tuk tuk drive to get there and early wake up to beat the crowds.

The final highlight was the night market which had some amazing food and lots of totally useless knickknacks. I still felt the need to buy some things because I am my mother's daughter :) The boys found some snake liquor and the lady selling allowed them to sample!

Finding Ourselves in Pai

mtd5116 — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 22:29:00 GMT

Almost our entire hostel boarded a super windy bus to Pai, Thailand and we made it to hippie city turned completely westernized tourist town. Here, I can do things like eat eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast, eat $2 Thai food for dinner, and lay in a hammock from 1pm-4pm and people find this acceptable. Because it's hot. Really hot. And there are about 4 tourist places to see and you can see them on a motorbike in 2 hours and be done.

Here's me trying out some local cuisine: $0.30 Panda ice cream from 7-11!

I took 2 motorbike lessons and was able to successfully drive one through town and on some roads outside of the city. As long as there are no hills or turns I am totally set!

Pai is the kind of place where you go thinking you'll spend 2 days and then you stay 2 weeks. We would have but we needed to catch a boat to Laos. Otherwise, we might have stayed forever. Cheap & beautiful accommodations along with cheap & delicious food makes for an ideal spot. And since our hostel friends from Chiang Mai were all in Pai with us we didn't have to go through the effort of making new friends.

#NoNewFriends

Women Drivers

mtd5116 — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 22:03:00 GMT

Standouts in Chiang Mai include our elephant experience and Mark's first time driving a motorbike.

I uploaded the many elephant photos that I collected over our full day elephant experience. BF points to bae for letting me have my dream full day experience even though he was happy after a 1/2 day (and probably after 10 min).

As for the motorbike, Mark drove it perfectly for 6 hours and I tried to drive it for 2 minutes in a parking lot and managed to crash it. Honestly, I should barely have a license in the US so this wasn't a huge surprise but we thought it would cost us a bunch of money and somehow the people at the bike place DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE. They made us pay 60 Baht (less than $2) for gas so I happily threw the money at them and ran away. Got a pretty sweet battle wound though:

Cheers to me being stereotypical.

Forced to Make Friends

mtd5116 — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 22:00:00 GMT

We made it to Chaing Mai, Thailand and Mark & I (mostly Mark) decided it was time to really join the backpacking world and stay at a hostel in a dorm room. Due to Mark's good Hostelworld skills we ended up having the potentially nicest dorm room I've ever seen. Stamps hostel I love you and I would stay here forever!!

We managed to make friends here by joining the hostel bar crawl on night 1 and I was almost able to stay up until midnight. Our last night at the hostel we went bowling (because what else would you do in Thailand?) and I was battling for lowest score until I somehow magically rolled 2 strikes in a row.
OK, I'll say it..... I don't hate being social. Sometimes. For small increments of time. Having another girl to shop with at the markets is fun and makes me feel less guilty when I take 4 hours to hunt for the perfect pair of $3 flowy pants.

Photos: Feb 2017

mtd5116 — Sun, 19 Feb 2017 19:39:00 GMT

First month of our trip. Photos from. Hong Kong, Bangkok, Khao Yai National Park, Chiang Mai, and Pai, Thailand.

The Time We Followed Lonely Planet Advice

mtd5116 — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:45:00 GMT

Khao Yai National Park: I don't have much to say about this other than thank goodness that I followed this lonely planet advice. Minus our trip to a bat cave, this was a super awesome trip complete with wild elephant spotting. The bat cave was actually fine minus the bats ;)

Also, the guesthouse had the best $1 pad Thai I think I'll ever eat... worth the trip right there.

After the national park trip we had to make our way to the overnight train to Chiang Mai. To do this we had to get to Lopburi, Thailand which is Mark's personal heaven - a town filled with monkeys. Not joking, there were monkeys everywhere. See photo albums for pics and Mark's insta for video!

One Night in Bangkok

mtd5116 — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:26:00 GMT

I'm too old for even one night in Bangkok. The drinking scene is too intense for my 25 year old self but 21 year old me would have loved it. The high note was the fact that Mark & I spent Valentine's Day here and I got to plan the entire day including meals. Hello Mexican restaurant in the middle of Thailand! I also convinced him to rent a swan boat for 1/2 hour for the equivalent on $1. Huge win.

If you ever go to Bangkok I would reccommend doing a simple google search "What can I do in Bangkok, Thailand?" because it took us an entire day of wandering around before we thought to do that. Thank goodness for Nomadic Matt's blog which has actual travel advice!

At least I got my steps in for the day and everyone who knows me well will understand the importance of this. The other positive is that we registered to volunteer though the workaway site (thanks for the $30 registration fee, mom!).

Moral of the story is that I have no desire to move to Bangkok so no competition with HK so far.

Pho Everyday

mtd5116 — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 21:17:00 GMT

We managed to make it to Hong Kong after 1 cancelled and 2 delayed flights!

I'd say we're having a rough adjustment to the time change. We wake up early, find an activity for the morning and return around 2pm to nap and watch Human Planet on Netflix. The show tells you about different people around the world who live in different environments such as extreme heat or cold, the jungle, islands, etc. One episode featured a 10 year old girl who lives in the dessert and who led a group of women on camels. She used the night sky and counting brushes to find the one well with water within hundreds of miles. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, I couldn't be bothered to walk down 2 flights of stairs to fill my water bottle using the filtered water cooler. Benefits of traveling with someone....

In other news, Hong Kong is pretty cool and I have had a fun time looking at real estate prices and imagining my life here. The ideal neighborhood is Happy Valley so I can say I lived in a place called Happy Valley not once but twice in my life. I eat Pho pretty much everyday but really all I want is to hit up the McDonalds that exist at EVERY METRO STOP. They serve potato wedges there which I feel is reason enough to move to HK.

See albums for tons of touristy photos!

The Best Air Mattress

mtd5116 — Tue, 7 Feb 2017 20:06:00 GMT

By far the best air mattress I've ever slept on was in SF. Thanks to my best gal pal Abby & her boyfriend Joe for letting their unemployed friends live in their living room for 5 days.

Some of my most favorite people live in SF. That, combined with the fact that you can get really cheap flights to Asia, made it a great starting point for the SE Asia adventure. I think Mark & I managed to do most of the touristy things & had the opportunity to scope out some potential real estate options. If Mark gets a job then we can totally afford a small studio as long as we have another roommate. Joking but not far from it.

The main point of this entry is to say that I really liked SF and I really love my friends there. Thank you, Abby & Joe for making us feel so hashtag blessed :)

Photos: Misc

mtd5116 — Tue, 7 Feb 2017 19:29:00 GMT

Profile pic