Temples, Monkeys, Monks, and... Justin Bieber?

After Vientiane I was pretty determined to get down to Cambodia, but it wasn't going to be a quick bus ride. Because of money/planning purposes I had to unfortunately sort of rush through this part of SE Asia. I was aiming to get to Australia with enough money left to make it worth traveling to and visit some old friends there, so although cheap, I didn't wanna spend too much time/money in SE Asia if I was going to make Australia (and hopefully New Zealand) feasible. So after over 24 hours of travel consisting of an overnight bus, a couple minibuses, tuk tuks, and a border crossing, I was in Cambodia on my way to Siem Reap to check out Angkor Wat; one of the top places I've wanted to see for a long time now in this part of the world.

The incredible Ta Phrom temple. My favorite temple at Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is one of the most famous temple complexes in the world, and after seeing some pictures of the place a few years ago I knew it would be on my list. So now was the best opportunity to tick it off and I was looking forward to checking it out. After getting in late to the town of Siem Reap and coordinating with my Airbnb host, I made it to a more local style homestay a bit outside of town. It would be a quick three night stay in Cambodia, so I spent the first day just checking out Siem Reap. It's a cool, more modern town that's mostly been developed straight from the tourism that Angkor Wat brings, but I enjoyed riding around by bike. One of the highlights of the day consisted of dinner, and one of the more bizarre foods that I've had on the trip: Dog. Dog was interesting. The meat quality wasn't all that great and there wasn't a whole lot of taste either, but there was these sausages that had a bit more of an exotic taste. Wasn't horrible, but wasn't great. It was one of those foods you'd rather not think about while you're eating it.

So after that meal capped off my day I was ready to check out the temples the next day. It's a $20 entry fee for the day so I thought just renting a bicycle and checking out the main sites for the day would be enough. I started off in the morning and made my way to the complex to check it out. Overall, the day was a success but IT WAS EXTREMELY HOT. Hadn't sweated that much in awhile, but I survived.

The temples were nice but I need to admit, I think at this point I was definitely getting templed-out on the trip. People will typically spend at least a couple days exploring most of the complex, but one day was enough for me at this point. Don't get me wrong, the temples were impressive, but I think I could've gotten more out of it if I hadn't traveled through temple-ridden India, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos beforehand.

I LOVE TEMPLES...

Unfortunately, I only had Angkor Wat planned for Cambodia which means I obviously didn't spend enough time in the country and didn't get much of a cultural experience, but it's all the more reason to come back and see more of it the next time around.

After departing Angkor Wat I was set to go back to Bangkok for a week before flying to Australia, and there was one last thing I really wanted to do in Thailand while I was staying in Bangkok...

I stayed in a homestay when I returned to Bangkok after my Myanmar detour. While I was staying at this homestay, the owner had encouraged me to check out another homestay in the countryside. This was a special place because while staying there, the guests had the opportunity of volunteering and teaching English to some of the local kids in the town, including some young orphan monks that come once a week on Sundays to interact with volunteers and learn English. It sounded like a pretty special opportunity, and it was something that I really wanted to do. I didn't really get the chance to do it until now, so I took that chance and headed up north a couple hours to the province of Singburi to see what this place was all about.

I arrived early on a Friday morning, and as I was messaging the owner of my arrival, she had asked if I could teach alone because they were short on volunteers for the weekend. I told her I had never taught English before and was a little intimidated, but once I got there she gave me some basic instructions I ended up being okay. I started with a group of teenagers in the morning which ended up going pretty well. We went through a quick vocabulary crossword puzzle and went into basic conversation practice before it ended up being drawing time and we each just ended up drawing something for fun. They each had their own cartoons that they wanted to draw and I decided to do a portrait of Justin Bieber. They all knew who he was which I think was the inspiration for me to give it a shot at a portrait, and it ended up turning out pretty well for my standards. It was hilarious. They were all good drawers but I've never been an artist myself, and they all got a kick out of my portrait. At the end of it they each gave me their artwork with a nice message and a thank you, and I got myself some souvenirs from Thailand thanks to them.

The Biebs - A Masterpiece

It was a good start to the day, and after a lunch break I got to pair up with one of the two German girls, Nathalie and Ti Mea, who were also volunteering and we took on the young kids; a wild group of over 10 kids ranging in ages from about 5 to maybe 8 years old. It was hilarious trying to teach them and I had a blast. We would go through some basic words and after a few minutes they'd be off and running somewhere or trying to pick playful fights. It was great, and we did some fun activities with them after teaching time. I was exhausted by the end of it but it was a really cool experience and we finished up in the afternoon. We spent the rest of the day visiting a small farm feeding baby goats and even riding a buffalo. It was a great day and the homestay experience was off to a good start.

Teaching English for the first time with these fun and crazy kids.

The next day was a day filled with monks and monkeys. We started the day off visiting a monkey temple in nearby Lopburi. I had been to a couple monkey temples before, but this one had by far the most monkeys. They were everywhere, and at one point I had about 4 of them crawling all over me. It was pretty fun actually and a good start to the day. Shortly after that it was time to hang out with the monks. So we headed over to the orphanage/monastery and got ready to do some more teaching. They all showed up and we grouped together to go through some more crossword puzzles. I think there were almost 40 of them and they were a blast to hang out with and teach. They were all between the ages of 4-13 and they were really interested in learning and interacting with us. We went through some more games with the whole group, and after the lesson they got some candy as a reward and they walked us up a hill to show us an amazing view of the surrounding area. After that, we headed back down and into a cave pagoda which was really cool. It was funny having all these little mini monks leading us through these caves and showing us around. There were monkeys on the property as well, and after feeding them we headed to a local market to buy some food for dinner. We went back to the homestay for dinner and the next thing I knew I was back on a bus to Bangkok to finish up the rest of my stay in Thailand.

Ti Mea and I having fun with the monks. How and why they know about flipping
off the camera is a mystery to me, but it added a bit more hilarity to the moment.

Although it was short, I had an amazing stay in Singburi at this particular homestay. I've got to give a huge shout out to Peetim, the owner of this place. She is a truly incredible person, and talk about generosity. She specifically designed her home to not just be a homestay for guests, but it's an entire facility with multiple classrooms and other amenities for the local children to enjoy when they come here to learn. It's sort of a sanctuary for these kids, especially the monks, who grow up with very little and don't have a lot of opportunities right now in their lives. It was such a rewarding experience being here and was definitely a highlight of Thailand for me.



I more or less relaxed during the last few days in Asia and hopped on a plane to the next continent: Australia, readying myself for an entirely new batch of experiences.

Couchsurfing, Beer, and the Power of Generosity

Nearly everyone I had met on this backpacking circuit who had been to Vientiane, Laos didn't have much to say about it. They mentioned that there just wasn't much to do there and it wasn't all that exciting of a city (the capital city, no less). This was the perfect description I needed to justify for a couchsurfing experience. If you can't find much to do somewhere, just stay with a local who will show you around and give you a better experience than you can have in a city with tons to do. This is what I did in Vientiane.

Leonard was my host, a retired American expat nearing his sixties who's been living in Laos for about 10 years now. He lived in a village outside of central Vientiane where you don't see any foreigners. This was always a recipe for my favorite kind of traveling experience; outside the city with locals constantly staring at you in utter confusion, with no idea why you are where you are thinking that you're probably lost. This was a common look I got on the way to Leonard's house, but I made it and had a great couple nights stay there. The first night he took me out on a little bar crawl that he likes to take guests on, and we had a great time touring some of the local beer gardens that he frequents.

The entrance to one of the many festive beer gardens that Leonard frequents, this one being his favorite.

Leonard is one of the most generous people I've met. He's worked in hospitals most of his life and specialized in criminology, counseling troubled juveniles and various other criminals during the better part of his career. He truly cares a lot about the well-being of people, and it shows when we're out at the beer gardens. Most of the servers at these beer gardens are teenagers that have left their home villages in search of work to earn a very small amount of money for their families. They live in very poor, dorm style accommodations in the back of these establishments trying to get by. So Leonard always tries to bring some light in their lives by showing up with plenty of character, offering them drinks and giving them tips, knowing full well that in this part of the world tipping actually goes a long way.

He calls these boys his "sons," and treats them as such. It's a pretty cool thing to see and it's easy to tell that Leonard is making a difference in these kid's lives, just giving them something to look forward to and putting a smile on their face. It was pretty special to just be part of it and contribute for a couple nights, and I thought it was a pretty memorable part of the experience. We had a lot of fun and even did a bit of karaoke. I couldn't tell how well I did because most of the people there just sort of stared at me, probably in confusion, after I finished singing "Hotel California" by the Eagles on stage. I thought it was hilarious and it was one of the more memorable karaoke moments I've had.

One of the particular things that happened that really displayed Leonard's generosity and overall care for people was when he received a couchsurfing message from a young Korean kid that was looking for a place to stay in Vientiane. Apparently he had never couchsurfed before and had almost nothing on his online profile. No pictures, no info, no references, hardly anything. He also mentioned that he was flying in just after midnight and needed a ride. To me, this would've raised numerous red flags and I probably would've stayed away from it. But for Leonard, he saw this as an opportunity to help. So he messaged the kid back, but with no reply we weren't sure if he had found a place to stay yet or not. So under Leonard's decision-making, we decided to drive about 40 minutes to the airport late the second night to see if we could find this kid as he got off the plane. We didn't know exactly what he looked like, so we would just say "couchsurfing! couchsurfing!" as we saw each young-looking Asian male walk by. It actually ended up working, as the kid noticed us and asked us if Leonard was the one on couchsurfing. Miraculously, we were able to pick him up from the airport and go back to Leonard's place to give him a place to sleep. He was really thankful for our help and turned out to be a real person after all. I saw this as a pretty respectable thing that Leonard did, just because I probably wouldn't have done it because of all the ambiguity behind who this kid was. But Leonard's instincts saw someone that genuinely needed help and he ended up being right.

The Presidential Palace, one of the few interesting buildings that there is to see in Vientiane.

So Vientiane ended up being a pretty cool place after all. It would be hard for me to recommend it to someone if they weren't staying with Leonard, but it sure was a memorable experience for me. And I'll be sure to take something away from that experience.

The Crazy, Muddy, Sketchy, Horrible, Laos Motorcycle Rally

Once I got into Laos, I took the locally famous 2 day slow boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang. I had heard about this boat ride from various other tourists and it sounded pretty interesting to me because I hadn't been on a boat in awhile and wanted to mix up the forms of transportation a bit, rather than be stuck on another bus for hours and hours. I knew about Luang Prabang because it's probably the most visited town in Laos by tourists, so the boat was a good way to get there.

It was a beautiful boat ride and I'm really happy I decided to make it happen. You're basically on the boat for about 5 hours the first day as the river meanders its way through the lush green mountains of northern Laos, dotted with small river villages and communities that you would otherwise never even know existed. At the end of the first day, you stop in the small sleepy town of Pakbeng, which basically thrives almost solely on these boat rides. It's the only place where you can sleep for the night, so you get off the boat, find a guesthouse and some food and drinks, then call it a night and get up early the next morning to catch the boat again for day 2. On day 2, the boat trip is about 6 hours with more beautiful scenery before you finally arrive in Luang Prabang.

The slow boat lineup, with Thailand sitting on the other side of the Mekong river.
I spent the better part of two days on one of these bad boys.

Overall, the trip was extremely scenic and I'm really happy I did it. 11 hours in two days on a boat is a little long, but I still think it's worth it and would recommend it to people, especially if you have a good group to go with and you wanna bring some drinks along the way :) I was happy to finally be in Luang Prabang and see what this little town was all about.

Luang Prabang is a pretty amazing little place. It's the most visited town in Laos for a reason, and has a pretty incredible charm to it. It's one of those places where you just get there and walk around and enjoy the vibes of the place. There's a night market and a nice hill that you can climb to get some great views of the area, and of course there's a beautiful waterfall about an hour out of town that you can see. Overall, it was probably one of the nicest places I visited in SE Asia and I would recommend it to anyone to check out if they're ever in the area.

After Luang Prabang, a French guy I met, Vincent, and I teamed up and went down to Vang Vieng, which is another small backpacker town a few hours away via extremely windy and horrible roads. It was probably the worst road I've ever been on in my life. Extremely windy and bumpy for a solid 6 hours. It sent me airborne in the back of the minibus countless times and I absolutely could not wait to get out of there. When we finally made it we were pretty exhausted. Vang Vieng is well-known for being a party town, so when we got in late everyone was out drinking and it was a little entertaining to see the state that everyone was in when we arrived sober looking for a place to stay. We were too exhausted to join the crowds so we just showed up to a guest house, woke up the owner to ask for a couple beds, and slept in the hallway before getting an actual room the next night.

Vang Vieng provided me with quite an experience.. That next day we decided to rent motorbikes because Vincent knew of a nice loop to do around some villages outside of town that would give us a good glimpse of the area and take up most of the day. The semi-automatic bikes were half the price of the automatic ones, so even though we didn't have any experience using one before, we decided to wing it and rent a couple bikes for the day. It definitely took some getting used to, but after an hour or so of riding around we got the hang of it pretty easily. The catch here was that it was rainy season. And it would rain pretty consistently throughout the day each day, especially in northern Laos. So when we embarked on this loop it wasn't long after setting out that the roads quickly turned to dirt. But with heavy, interspersed rain storms the dirt turned into mud... a lot of mud.

One of the better-conditioned parts of the horrible, muddy road we spent most of our day on...

There was so much mud that I ended up slipping out early on in the drive. The left side of my body was covered in mud but I was fine, however, it looked like my bike had leaked some oil. We rode on and asked some local people nearby for a place that we could get the bike looked at. When we got to a place, we tried to explain the situation to some of the local people but they couldn't understand. Coincidentally, the place we stopped at was at the entrance of a short hike Vincent had read about. So we gave up on getting the bike looked at and went for a hike. We got to the top of the hike and had some amazing views. After that we were feeling pretty good and decided to keep going and hoped that my bike would hold up.

We kept going on the horrible, muddy, and slippery road, got lunch at a small local joint, and continued on. We were at least getting more comfortable driving on the muddy roads, and as we continued a local Lao guy rode alongside us and invited us to have a drink with him. We thought, "why not?" and agreed. So we followed him for a bit on the road and finally stopped at a place to grab a couple beers. This was a really nice guy. We chatted for awhile about Lao culture and learned a bit of the language. He was a tour guide and rents out kayaks to foreigners while taking them out on the river. He just finished up for the day when he invited us for some drinks. We had a great time with him. So good, in fact, that we had probably stayed a little longer than we should have and got a late start to head back to Vang Vieng. The guy suggested that we keep going and complete the loop, as it would be faster than doubling back the way we came. So we decided to continue, and it wasn't long after we started off that it began to get dark. This is when things would get interesting.

So it starts getting dark, the rain continues to fall in heavy bursts, and we continue down this stupid road in the mud and rain. Vincent suddenly mentions that his bike is running really low on gas, so we've got to keep an eye out for a place to fill up (which is very scarce where we're at). We ended up completing a small portion of the loop and got to a place where we needed to double back to get back into town. I remembered seeing a gas station a bit down the road on the loop we came from, so I go on to find it and ask for some gas while Vincent waits behind. It started to rain extremely heavily at this point and the road conditions weren't improving. It was also completely dark now. I couldn't find the gas station so I turned around and finally caught up to Vincent. It wasn't long after this when my bike suddenly won't go anymore. I didn't know what was wrong with it but it stopped working just before I got to Vincent. So I walked the rest of the way back to him and told him about it. We were in a pretty bad spot at this point.

One of the amazing views we got during the day that made at least part of this motorbike trip worthwhile.

We found someone to take a look at my bike and he pointed out that the chain had just come off on the back tire. So a quick reset fixed the problem and I was extremely happy now. We continued on the road but only for a few minutes before the chain popped back off again. This was disappointing, but it wasn't hard to reset and continue on. But then it happened again and again, and now we were beginning to worry a bit. Then it happened to Vincent's bike, and now things were really looking bad. His chain was not accessible from the outside, as it had a protective plate covering it. And to make things worse, the next time my chain came off it was on the front, which was also inaccessible from the outside. So we had two bikes with chain issues, one of them nearly out of gas, and we were stuck walking on the muddy roads in the pouring rain at about 10:30pm somewhere outside of Vang Vieng, still much too far to walk.

So now the only option was to basically leave the bikes on the side of the road and walk to a nearby village to find someone to call a tuk tuk for us and give us a lift back into town and grab the bikes in the morning. So we left the bikes on the side of the road and just as we began walking to the nearby village, a car came. Better yet, it was a pickup truck, and a godsend. Vincent waved the truck down and we explained to him what was going on. He spoke enough English to help us out, so long as we paid him for it. So we threw the bikes on the back, hopped in the truck, and miraculously got ourselves a ride back into town. It was the best possible thing that could have happened, and I was so happy and relieved when we got back. I couldn't believe it, and properly celebrated that night. The whole thing really sucked at the time but obviously looking back at it, it was one of the more memorable stories that I'll have of the trip as being a very bad situation that we somehow got ourselves out of.

After that interesting day in Vang Vieng I was ready to leave the next day and hopped on a bus to the capital, Vientiane, where I found someone to couchsurf with for a couple days.

Thai Times

I'm back with another blog post that will briefly cover some of the incredible adventures and experiences that I've had over the last month as I continued my travels through Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

I'll start by saying that Southeast Asia in general seems like it was essentially built for backpacking. From my experience this seems to be the best place in the world for backpackers. The people are extremely friendly, it's very easy to get around, and the prices are CHEAP. If I came to this part of the world at the beginning of my trip, I probably could've hung around here FOR A FEW YEARS. No joke, but of course there's a few other parts of the world to see too.

When I got back from Myanmar I got stuck in Bangkok for over two weeks. I don't know what it is about that place but it's one of my favorite cities in the world. I really can't give you any good specific reasons for it, but I met some great friends there and had an amazing time. I really found it difficult to leave. It was also really the first time I had gotten "stuck" anywhere, which can be a pretty common thing among long term travelers, but usually it's in beach towns or something like that. For me it was Bangkok, and I was okay with it.

Near the end of my long stay there one of the Thai friends I had made invited me into the countryside about an hour and a half outside Bangkok to meet with his mentor. His mentor is an older man in his mid-sixties who is a university professor and a well known local artist. He said it would be a good experience to meet him and talk to him about my travels/life in general, just to gain more insight from a more experienced person. I thought this was a really interesting invitation. From my experience growing up it was never common to befriend an older person simply to have good conversation about life experiences and try to learn a few things from them unless they were a relative or something. But my friend, Nut (who's my age) did just this and essentially looks up to this guy as a mentor. I thought that was a pretty cool thing, so I happily accepted.

So Nut, our friend Goop, and I headed out to the Nakhon Pathom province west of Bangkok to stay a night and become more wise. When we arrived we met Winai, the mentor, who also had a friend from Paris visiting. His friend, Gilles, was one of the smartest people I think I've ever met. Both of these men were very well educated and had been in academia most of their lives, and of course they spoke very good English. Gilles in particular spoke 9 languages! He also had 3 or 4 Bachelor's degrees, 2 or 3 Master's degrees, and I think 2 P.h.D's. Let's just say that after spending an evening with these guys over some Thai whiskey at a beautiful property I learned a few things about life and can say that this was definitely a great experience. We returned back to Bangkok the next day but I was so happy Nut invited me to do this, and I was more than ready to move on from Bangkok.

My friend, Nut, and I in Nakhon Pathom at his mentor's property.

Once I convinced myself to finally leave Bangkok (and to avoid any visa issues) I headed to northern Thailand, up to Chiang Mai. I heard so many great things about this place from other tourists, claiming northern Thailand as their favorite part of the country, so I knew that this would be the next destination. I really liked Chiang Mai. It had a nice, smaller city feel to it. While there I also checked out the Muay Thai traditional Thai boxing and rented a motorbike to explore the rest of the city.

A quick stint in Chiang Mai led me to see the small town of Pai next. Pai is a very small town in the mountains about 4 hours from Chiang Mai, but a very popular destination for backpackers. However, to make things interesting I decided that it had been too long since I last hitchhiked in Myanmar, so I made sure I would give it a shot on my way to Pai.

So once I got outside of Chiang Mai I stood on the side of the road for maybe 30 seconds before a car pulled up and a white girl rolled the window down and said "you must be going to Pai!" I said, "Yes!" and they let me hitch a ride with them in their car. Pien (the Dutch girl) and Sam (her Swiss boyfriend) had rented a car in Chiang Mai and were on their way to Pai for a few days. The timing could not have been more perfect, and it was by far the quickest ride I've ever hitched. They were such a nice couple and had been to Pai a few times before which is where they first met a few years ago, so when we got there I hung out with them for a bit and they gave me the basic rundown of the small town.

I stayed in Pai for about 3 nights. It was a nice little place, however, it was overrun with backpackers and there were far more tourists than locals. But somehow it still managed to be a pretty great little town with a really nice atmosphere. While in Pai I sort of reached a point in my mind about my take on the travels so far. I was at a point where I was caring a bit less about "what there is to do" in a place and focusing more on "what I wanted to do." For example, in Pai just about everyone rents a motorbike and rides out to a couple of the nearby waterfalls, goes to the canyon view, the caves, etc. etc. But I didn't do any of those things. At first I was starting to contemplate if this was me "burning out" on my trip or not. After all, I was about 10 months into the trip and this was the point I had heard about most people wanting to go home and take a break from it all. But on the other hand, I simply saw this as me exercising my right to just do or not do what I wanted.

The beautiful rice fields of the Pai countryside

Just because there's something that everyone does or wants to do at a certain spot doesn't necessarily mean that you need to do it too. Traveling can be a very selfish activity, but it needs to be because it's about self-growth and experiences that you have in order to learn more about the world and yourself, to develop your own take on what life means to you. This might be getting a little deep for a short visit to little old Pai, but it got me thinking, and I was totally okay with not visiting the waterfalls or the canyon or whatever. So I left Pai, happy that I visited but also with new ideas in my mind on this travel mentality.

Since I had so much success in hitching a ride to Pai, I decided to do it the other way, too. Once I got a bit outside of town it took maybe the same or even less time to hitch my ride out. It was amazing. A pickup truck with a couple local Thais pulled up and picked me up straight away. They didn't really speak any English but that was okay, I just told them I was going to Chiang Mai and we figured it out. It looked like a brother and sister but they seemed really nice. The best part was I got to hop in the back of the truck and ride in the back of a pickup through the windy, mountainous roads of northern Thailand for about 4 hours. It was a great ride, and after spending a couple quick nights in Chiang Mai I decided to head further North to Chiang Rai on my way to Laos.

Again, with all this success hitchiking I wasn't gonna let up any time soon so I decided to hitch up to Chiang Rai as well. It was a bit more challenging, but I eventually worked my way up to a small town via small payments of truck-taxi-things and got a real ride the rest of the way. The guy that picked me up was funny and a little flamboyantly creepy, but he dropped me off at my hostel in Chiang Rai without a problem. A couple nights in Chiang Rai and then I'd be on my way to Laos. Highlights of Chiang Rai included the White Temple (which was honestly one of the coolest temples I think I've seen) and the Black House (which is a really cool outdoor museum of a collection of bones, skins, and various other animal remains and artworks).

After my quick stop in Chiang Rai, I planned to make my way to Laos and then hop on a slow boat and ride the Mekong River for a couple days en route to the next main destination: Luang Prabang.