South East Asia trip - December 2022 to February 2023

February 12th, 2023 Do these guys look rested, or what? We woke up February 10 and grabbed breakfast, then checked out of our room in Koh Tao and stored our bags. We headed to the beach and swam and read our books. Around 1pm, we rinsed off and changed into dry clothes, got some lunch, and headed for our shuttle that would take us to the ferry. The ferry took us to Koh Samui. We got in around 4pm, and by the time we took showers, we were ready for dinner. We ate some curry and then walked along the beach. It was a very chill day! ...

February 9th, 2023 Max's dive gang Max and I woke up, got coffee and breakfast, then headed to the dive center for our courses. He did his open water refresher with Perry, one of the dive masters, since it had been more than six months since his last dive. I had my open water course, which was a total of six students with my instructor, Martin. Two of the students are from Vancouver, and Max and I met them in a restaurant in Hoi An a month ago and had exchanged recommendations when we recognized the accents! Max and I couldn’t believe we had run into them again. ...

February 5th, 2023 Islands everywhere you look On February 1, we got up early and caught a taxi to the airport, driven by the most stand-up driver ever. I felt so safe. Our flight to Koh Samui was relatively smooth. It was so exciting to look out the window and see the islands and the aquamarine ocean. We caught a shuttle to our hotel for 400 baht; seems like this place is going to be more expensive. As we drove through the island, it felt like the entire industry of this place was tourism. We checked in, got some laundry done, ran some errands then went to a restaurant called the pink orchid for lunch. We got massaman curry and larb, with pina coladas!! It felt like we were celebrating a new stage of the vacation. We walked to grandmother and grandfather rocks, a lookout over the ocean. Max forgot his sunglasses so we went back to the restaurant, then headed to the beach to swim and read for multiple hours. ...

January 31st, 2023 Waterfall near Akha village When we woke up the morning of January 28, Max’s stomach was still pretty unsettled. We packed up and checked out of our hotel, and started walking to the bus station to go to Chiang Rai. Max decided to stop putting anything in his stomach besides water, but here’s the thing: his body doesn’t seem to protect him from cravings when he is sick. When I feel sick, the smell of food might make me nauseous. Not so for Max; he is starving and sad, but if he eats, he is in pain. We stopped to get a coffee for me and Max just stared longingly at my coffee. It was heart-wrenching. I decided I would need to hunger strike too! Haha. ...

January 27th, 2023 Can I take one home Max, can I, pleeeeease? I apologize in advance, but this post is going to be me gushing about elephants. You have been warned, please feel free to skip. We grabbed a croissant and some coffee, checked out of our hotel, and were picked up the morning of Jan 26 by a van which would take us to “Elephant Nature Park”, apparently the oldest elephant sanctuary in Thailand. ...

January 25th, 2023 Dragon dancing and exploding kiddies Well, our last night bus of the trip is OVER. Thank goodness. The bus was a double decker, and initially eight of us were on the lower level where the bathroom was. The bathroom smelled absolutely horrific, and four people immediately requested to be moved upstairs. We remained downstairs and it sucked, but they stopped for food and by the time we got back on the bus, someone had cleaned the whole bathroom and it smelled totally fine. So we ended up with two seats each between the four of us, and we all managed to catch some zzzs! ...

January 22nd, 2023 😅 F%&#$%^ tourists Well, the second night bus in three nights was awful. Luckily the driver didn’t do much honking, but it was very cold and the seats didn’t have any neck support or fold back all the way. We left around 1am, and were “woken up” (not that we were sleeping) at 530am for the border. We had to walk our panniers and bikes through the Cambodia departure gate, than on to Thailand arrival, then through Thailand customs and the Thailand military check. It was probably just under 1 km of distance, but with the bikes we kept having to circle forward and backwards to get stamps then go run our bikes around the building, then get stopped by officials who wanted us to go get a stamp and we were like “we already got one!” Oof. But we managed to get through the border unscathed and still had all of our bribe money with us! ...

January 18th, 2023 The intrepid explorers The night bus to Siem Reap was pretty good in the end. We got to stay in a double sleeper cubby, and it was nice and dark. Unfortunately, I really had to pee but the bus driver kept stopping and closing the door, then disappearing for long periods of time. I was so confused and kept getting up, checking for him, going back…. Then at 5am I figured out there was a bathroom on the bus. Whomp whomp. ...

January 16th, 2023 Palace park We got on our bus Jan 14 around 8am to go to Phnom Penh. We immediately realized this was not like the local “cargo” busses we had been taking so far - they gave our bikes their own compartment and gave each person water, coffee and a snack. There was a stop for a bathroom every two hours - it was different. We got to the Cambodia border around lunchtime and they handled everything for us pretty painlessly, but it took a while. Finally, we were back on the bus and we made it to Phnom Penh around 5pm. We checked into our hotel, had a quick shower, and went to get food at a place called David’s Noodles where they made the noodles fresh in front of you. We headed up to the Palace park and then walked along the water, and then all the way out to a cool bar strip called Bussar Street. It was a really fun night! ...

January 13th, 2023 The tree named Dong Well today (January 11) was a lot. We decided to do the hike to crocodile lake, so we woke up early and ate breakfast, then took the ferry across the river to the national park with our bikes. To do the hike, we had to bike 10 km through the jungle path to the start of the crocodile lake hike, then it was about 5 km to crocodile lake. ...