Going to Cuba!

It’s been a long time since I’ve written in my travel blog, but I have reason to bring it back – Becca and I are going to Cuba this week!

I’m so excited; it’s a place I’ve always wanted to go since it’s so untouched – it’s going to feel like we’re stepping back in time to the 1950s!

I’m going to go to Ernest Hemingway’s house, and drink a Cuba Libre – and honestly, I don’t even know what else since I know so little about what’s there!

The last few years I’ve kept up my traveling, with my first trip with my (at the time boyfriend, now husband) to Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar. Spain was insanely cheap and I loved not having to care how many tapas I was eating and glasses of wine I was drinking – and the Gaudi architecture was unlike anything I’d seen before.

I moved to Newport, Rhode Island in May of 2015, so our trips became local New England destinations – North Conway, New Hampshire (where we got engaged!), Boston, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Camden, Maine..and so on. I thought I would miss living in NY, and of course I miss my friends and family, but I love living here!

In May of 2016 Pete and I got married in the Dominican Republic – of course a destination wedding was in order J Our honeymoon was a 2-week trip all around New Zealand – all of these adventures will be detailed in future posts! For now, I can’t wait to see Cuba in a few days – La Buen Viaja!

Airports - a myriad emotions waiting to be checked in at the gate

Travel elicits responses in most of us, especially those of us who live for it and are constantly discussing our last adventure while simultaneously planning our next journey.  Regardless of where we're going, there's something about the whole entity of the airport that manages to bring out the largest range of feelings in all of us.

There's anxiety that you might sleep through your alarm and miss your 6am flight. Internal battle over whether to fork over the $70 for a cab or stick to public transit. Second guessing yourself -  what if there's traffic? What if the train is delayed? What if there's an accident and I get stuck in a standstill and I never get to leave London (or are stuck in Heathrow Airport for 12 hours with not a pound to your name, damn Brits!)

Then you get to the airport.  You encounter annoyance. At the people at the gate who can't seem to move any faster when you're late. For the ones who go too fast when you got there early. At security - why don't people know how to take off their shoes? Have they never left the confines of their apartment before? The TSA employees. Do they really think my Fage yogurt contains harsh chemicals that are going to blow up the place? Or is it a ploy to get me to spend triple the price to replace it once I cross the threshold of safety.  I won't even bother highlighting all the annoyances in the airport post-security, because from weather-related to mechanical delays, my Facebook feed has proven that every airline is incompetent and people will only take Amtrak from now on.

Then we move on to fear. What if my delay means I'll miss my connection? What is that noise coming from under the wing? Why is there so much turbulence? Is it normal for the plane to be plummeting in the air like this? As someone who is severely terrified of the helpless feeling of having zero control over my situation, being on an airplane during take off and landing is not fun for myself or anyone near me. Combined with my desire to frump around in leggings and mismatching sweaters and uggs, I typically prefer to travel solo, as to not offend my travel companion this early in the trip. Every single one of my rinkydink flights around Asia sounded like the engine was about to spontaneously combust, and landing in Vietnam I actually walked off the plane with tears streaming down my face. It could have been the lack of sleep too, and the zero food I'd eaten since Air Asia doesn't feed you, but I'm glad that experience is long  behind me.

But then there's the fun parts. There's the excitement when you first step off the plane and you're there. About to embark on your adventure. About to reunite with a family member or loved one.  The gratitude when you're returning home and someone volunteered to pick you up so you don't have to wait on the cab line in the cold (really, do people bring coats with them to tropical destinations even if it is winter again when you land?!) Happy recaps of the wonderful place you're returning from, that you can hardly wait to get home and start uploading pictures from your camera.

Everyone has a story about their trip, but everyone also has a story about the encounters getting there. I've met people on my flight, sharing our little 4 feet of $500 a seat space, that have become lifelong friends.  I've met strangers who have given me priceless tips that have significantly improved my trip. And I've been stuck next to that crying child that had me swearing off kids forever. But no matter how the flight went, or how near you were to missing it in the first place, all of that disappears once you're at your final destination.

So sit back, but don't forget to keep your seat in an upright position, and just enjoy the ride.

Stick a Chopstick in me, I'm Done!

Back safe and mostly sound from my 6 weeks in Asia. Since my last update, I fell in love with Hong Kong, and wanted to kill both myself and everyone else in all of Beijing. This was by far the most difficult trip I've taken, with the combined language barrier, food situation, solo travel for the majority of the trip, and little to no planning for most of the places. In total I made it to 15 cities in 7 countries, all in all a success. Immediately upon coming back I started talking about where to go next. There are friends in Spain, Germany and Portugal. An upcoming Christmas trip/African safari. A friend with an open invitation to Seattle where I'm long overdue for a visit. While contemplating what the next step should be, an acquaintance from my weekly trivia night drunkenly asked me what I'm running away from. I (much less intoxicatedly) tried to explain that I'm not running away from anything, that I'm trying to see the world when I'm in a situation that allows it. As many of my friends and family ask, what are my plans for the future? What do I want out of life? I continue to insist that I'm very content in this situation - everyone is different, and to live a little bit unconventionally doesn't make me wrong, it just makes me have different goals in life. But the fact that the questions I get daily are 'are you looking for a job?' 'When are you going to have kids, you're 31 now?!' and 'How are you going to settle down if you're never here' - it makes me wonder if I really am the crazy one. Is it so wrong that I get my thrills out of exploring a country where I don't understand the language? That hiking for days on end makes me smile more than the thought of making a seating chart or changing a diaper? The older I get, the more sure I am of my decisions, but the more conversations I'm forced to have that occur in this fashion. But the more defiant it makes me too, because there are more adventures to come. Running away or flying home...

But now, some more info on China....

I arrived in Hong Kong and had one of those moments where I knew when I got off the plane I was going to love it there.  The airport had a Starbucks, people spoke English, and there was a bus (with wifi!) that took me right into Kowloon, up the block from my hotel.  Hong Kong was a really easy city to navigate.  There are two sides, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.  I had no idea where to stay, but it turns out it didn't really matter because there's so much to do on both sides, and they're really easy to get back and forth from by a short train or ferry ride.  My first day I wandered around, taking in the sights.  Hong Kong isn't like the rest of mainland China, which I was to soon find out for definite.  It felt like an Asian version of New York, but in Disneyland, if that makes sense.  People were cordial but mostly ignored you.  Signs were in both Mandarin and English so it was easy to navigate. Maps were easy to follow.  I went to the Asian version of Hollywood's Avenue of the Stars, which was hysterical because people were jumping up and down and screaming when they found the handprints of 'celebrities' whose names all sounded the same.  Flashes went off left and right, which isn't out of the ordinary compared to anywhere else that you find Asian tourists, peace signs and all.  I passed by the HK Cultural Center, and discovered that Swan Lake was playing a 3 day stint, just the 3 days I was there.  I've always wanted to see a ballet, but in New York it's so expensive, and no one ever really wants to go.  I never thought I'd like the ballet, with my inability to sit still and concentrate on any one thing for more than 20 minutes.  But the ballet was fascinating!  I didn't really know the premise of the story, I just watched the ballerinas jumping around the stage, but I got lost in the music and had an amazing time.  

Everything in Hong Kong was exciting - there was an energy in the air that was impossible not to feel.  I took a night cruise of the harbor, where 40+ buildings perform a laser light show synchronized to music.  The night market went on for kilometers, full of objects with more practical uses than the heinous elephant pants in Thailand or artwork that I could never get home in one piece in Cambodia.  I had really held back on buying much my whole trip - the main bad part about backpacking - but here I couldn't resist picking up a dancing Gangam Style doll for my dad when the market lady saw me, eyes lit up and she screamed "you! you like gangam style!" and proceeded to hit the buttons on every single doll on the table - some replicas of Psy and others random animals like chickens, which simultaneously Irish Jigged across the table and had me laughing so hard I was prepared to carry this thing around the airport if I couldn't fit it in my bag!!

My days in Hong Kong are kind of a blur - I packed so much in but I'll try to hit all of the highlights.
Lantau Island is home to the Big Buddha, one of the tallest buddha structures in Asia.  I'm more accustomed to seeing giant statues of Jesus on hilltops (Rio, Cochabamba...) so it was interesting to see a different figure after climbing and taking cable cars up through the clouds.  There were a ton of hiking trails up top that I sadly didn't know about ahead of time, and would have loved to go had I been dressed properly or had more than 3 sips of water left in my bottle.  Lantau Island was also home to, none other than Hong Kong Disney!!!  Having grown up going to Disney in Orlando nearly every year for probably the first 16 years of my life, I was ecstatic to see Mickey speaking Mandarin.  Much to my surprise, Mickey does NOT speak Mandarin.  I had the best day at Disney, had a strange emotional experience at the fireworks that I won't get into that had me crying, with strange Asian families looking at me rather strangely, but I was so happy to be there, in that moment, not caring about anything but how fortunate I was to be able to be in Disneyworld, a place so close to home in my memories but as far away from home as I've ever been.  I treated myself to an early birthday present by checking out of my traumatically tiny 'hotel' on Kowloon Island, and staying in the Disneyland hotel.  I've always wanted to stay on a Disney property, and even though it was 5x more expensive than the hotels in town and I had no job to come back to, it was the best night's sleep I had the whole trip.  

I was so sad to leave Hong Kong, but excited to go to Beijing and see the Great Wall, one of the 7 Wonders of the World that I've always wanted to make it to.  Since Hong Kong is officially China but not REALLY China, I didn't feel right about checking it off that I'd been there, without going to Beijing or Shanghai.  In hindsight, I wish I wouldn't have cared so much, because I ended this whole trip in the worst place in the world.
I won't use this blog to rant and rave about just how awful Beijing was, or how I will never in my life go to Lucky Star again for wonton soup, but I HATED Beijing.

The Great Wall was cool.  I'll give it that.  Here's a photo of me in the 3.2 minutes I had fun in China.  I won't mention the 3 hours I had to spend touring the Forbidden City when all I wanted to do was sit on the emperor's throne, take 4 pictures and move on.  I won't mention the Jade Factory tour they threw me on, or the Tea factory tour, or the 'special Emperor' tour where they tried to get me to spend $800 on AUTHENTIC emperor artifacts.  I won't mention how I asked to go to the less touristy part of the wall, the part you get to toboggan down, but they took me to Badaling, otherwise known as the Great Wall of Tourists, where I snuck off to find what I thought was a tobaggan but was really a slide that brought you down to the OTHER side of the Great Wall, not where my group was, and then I had to pay triple and beg in my non-existent Mandarin to go back up where you're not supposed to go, so that I wouldn't be stranded 2 hours outside of Beijing where not a single person seems to speak English.

Other things I probably shouldn't mention about Beijing, for those of you who have the slightest interest in going there.
-Pandas aren't real.  If they are, they will not be found at the Giant Panda exhibit at the Beijing Zoo.  For an extra fee, you can go to the exhibit to see 2 pandas, one of which I couldn't find and the other that I'm pretty sure was dead.  But better than the elephant exhibit, where at the entrance was simply a pile oh elephant bones. Hi, we don't feed our animals at this zoo.
But really, we don't feed anyone ever, unless you're looking for cockroaches or starfish.
No, I'm not kidding. Chinese people are sick and this is what they eat!

I desperately tried to find a restaurant with an English menu, which was impossible the first night and I would up at a McDonald's.  I knew not eating soy would be a problem, but to not be able to read the menu, I would never have thought.  EVERYWHERE ELSE in Asia, people spoke English. Isn't it the universal language? Not here.
But on night 2, when I found English menus, I wished I hadn't, because they contained lovely delicacies like pig blood, cow udder, testicles, and a million other things that made me think I was on some sick Chinese version of Candid Camera Fear Factor Survivor rolled into one.  Annnnd night 2 I ate at a Sizzler.  Somehow despite not eating their food I managed to still get sick, and spent my third day crying in my hotel, praying I felt better for my 9 million hour journey home the next day (I felt better the second I got out of that godawful country).

But the worst part of all of it? I couldn't even post snarky statuses on Facebook, because FACEBOOK IS BANNED IN CHINA.  Which I completely forgot about until after 2 days of the same statuses reloading I realized that I was cut off from the world.  Instagram shockingly worked, and when I posted a picture of the 'no drug trafficking' sign in my hotel and captioned it #chinayourekllingme, I was pretty sure Mao's nephews were going to come and arrest me, I'd overstay my 72 hour visa free entry and be forced to spend eternity in this miserable, swine-flu filled country.  Luckily, I made it to the airport (5 hours early I might add, that's how much I didn't want to be in Beijing) and made it home safe and sound! 

I'm hoping since I didn't have time to cover each country individually that I'll come back to revisit them in the next few weeks, so stay tuned :)

So many countries, not nearly enough time

I've tried to write again 100 times since the islands, but whether it's been running to a new city or country every 48 hours or lack of sleep from not sleeping properly in the hostels in each place, I haven't been able to formulate a thought. Southeast Asia is a really different place to travel than I had anticipated. This trip is also very different this time around for me too though. In 2011 I had dreamed, saved and upon making it to South America, I felt I was actually living a dream. Places i had stared at pictures of and stories from blogs I had subscribed to and read every word of. It was different. I was looking for an experience. Asia is more of a rite of passage, a place mostly everyone I know has traveled through at one point or another, so I felt the need to see all of these places up close - albeit this trip came at a weird time in my life. I hated what I was doing - my job description changing incessantly day by day. Having to work for people that shouldve been fired before they even started (well, at least one of those). Feeling like I was in a real-life version of Atlas Shrugged, dealing with brainless second handers daily. Constantly fighting to do things that shouldn't have been a battle, but were exactly that, withh my only solace being my daily coffee breaks with the select few people I grew close with during the last year. I was burnt out. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Not to mention my personal life being stagnant, after finally eliminating a couple of bad repeats from my past that should have been buried long ago. This didn't help me to figure out who or what I'm looking for any more, and at 30 I'm supposed to know this. But years of letdowns and trust issues have bubbled together to make me not even want to try anymore. So my obvious answer is leaving. Now that I'm here, whether I like a place or not is greatly determined by my mood. There are countries I think I'm going to love because everyone had told me I would. And then of course my expectations are too high and I can't leave fast enough. And then there are the places that I've spontaneously decided to go just to deviate from the backpacker route, and have felt more at peace. I'm questioning things about myself on this trip. Everywhere I go that I planned I seem to want to be somewhere else. It's been hard to just sit back and enjoy things, so I've had to continue to not plan ahead and have any expectations, which allows my ADD - ridden self enjoy things. There have been a few occasions where I've found myself grinning from ear to ear, fascinated by my surroundings and truly living in the moment. Watching elephants paint masterpieces, taking a cooking class and creating my own Thai curry, and bike riding through the Temples of Angkor have made this journey worthwhile. But once Becca left, I found myself not really trying too hard to meet other people, which makes other experiences kind of boring, since there are places you really can't enjoy solo. It's crazy, because back in NY I savor the times my plans cancel, thrilled to have a moment alone to do something like take a yoga class or just wander aimlessly through the park with Foxy. Here, when im by myself I don't seem to know what to do with myself most of the time. Ive been fortunate to meet a few people, but the times I haven't have made me realize that solo travel isn't really for me anymore. Asia is hard for me to navigate. I get frustrated way too easily. Certain places, like Vietnam, I think i would have despised myself. I luckily hadAdams roomie from college who's been living in Hanoi for the last month to bring me around and navigate through the streets of the Old Quarter. It was wonderful to not have a clue where I was or where I was going, and whether we were looking at Ho Chi Minh's preserved dead body, chilling with locals at a nightclub that I graciously described as a recreation of my high school spring break with the cast of Miss Saigon, or pulling up plastic stools on the sidewalk amongst the locals to eat dishes that i couldnt be positive of their contents, I had a fantastic time exploring northern Vietnam. I loved witnessing the differences between North and South Vietnam, as well as the lovely little towns in between (ok, the one town Hoi An that I went to. I would up skipping all of the rest in lieu of going to Beijing to see the Great Wall and a panda or two, which resulted in a day long fiasco of having to rearrange all of my plans once I realized I didn't have the required visa to enter China but could play around with their 72 hour visa - free scenario. I will say the nicest thing about this trip is really having zero expectations and simply going with things, trying to entertain myself as much as possible and not give any thought as to what I might do once I get home. I've played with driving cross country with Foxy, starting my travel site for real, working part time at Lululemon on smith street, meeting my friend in Spain after his 500 kilometer bike ride from France, or popping over to Seattle since I've never really seen it minus my dinner at the space needle. So since I haven't really provided any highlights from the trip aside from a handful of pictures on Facebook, here's a quick run-down of some of the things I've loved and hated over the past month:

Love:
Angkor wat temples
Authentic Thai food
Masea elephant camp
Night markets everywhere
Getting up close and personal with tigers
Zip lining in Kanchanaburi
Bike riding to the beach in Hoi An
Learning how to eat every food imaginable with chopsticks
Cooking class in Chiang Mai
Eating an entire meal and realizing I only spent $2
Climbing to the highest point in Luang Prabang to watch the sunset
Relaxing one of the most beautiful beaches in the world
Figuring out how to navigate an entire country in under an hour
Singapore Universal Studios!
Going to the Bangkok airport 4 times and refusing to venture into Bangkok
Pizza hut trip in Hanoi!
And most recently, tutti fruitti self serve froyo in saigon!!

Things I could have lived without:
A pathetic attempt at a purse snatching in Kuala Lumpur
Getting ripped off by taxi drivers with rigged meters
Feeling like a walking dollar sign as I walk through any market
Crossing streets in Vietnam. I don't know how I haven't been hit by a motorbike yet, or why they don't believe in traffic lights!
The lack of chocolate everywhere :(
Some of the Thai islands being way too commercial
Missing Breaking Bad and PLL!
Hostels with roaches and lizards crawling around. I'm too old for this!!
A monsoon in Laos that caused a hole in my hotel room
Chinese people. Sadly, mostly all of them traveling. No offense to any of my Chinese friends!
The constant layer of dirt on me at all times the second I walk outside. Mostly in Vietnam. I know NY isn't the cleanest place in the world but this is insanity.

After Saigon I head to Hong Kong and then Beijing, and then home!

Whirlwind Asia adventures

This week has been such a blur there hasn't even been time to attempt to write it all down. I've been in SEAsia for less than a week and it feels like months. We haven't stopped moving since the minute we stepped onto the train at Penn station. After a 24 hour and 20 minute multi-plane ride, we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Now I have to say, before I even left the airport I realized the desperate need to make my travel site come to fruition. The notes I had were thrown together bits and pieces from emails from friends who've been to the area, and crossed out itineraries that others informed me made no sense. My vaccination doctor graciously informed me that my trip was backwards since I was in and out of Malaria zones and had to keep going on and off meds (oops).

So we arrive in Phnom Penh, after taking way too many Cambodian Reals from the ATM and finding out they are actually on the US Dollar. We checked into our hotel and went straight to the Killing Fields. Sounds like a somber way to begin a trip, however Cambodia has a sad, recent history of genocide by the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields is now a memorial to the 3 million Cambodians who were slaughtered in the late 1970s. It was awful to see up close; I felt terrible for not knowing more about it but truthfully it just want really covered in school. This is part of why I love traveling, learning more about the world and history of different regions. We

went from there into the town centre, found someplace to eat, and then jet lag got the better of us. I'm pretty sure we slept for 18 hours but with the time difference I can't even be sure what time my body assumed it was. We wanted to be refreshed for Angkor Wat, and truthfully since I eat practically nothing, skipping dinner here isn't the worst thing in the world.


In the morning, we flew to Siam Reap, home of the Angkor Wat temples. This was one part of the trip that everyone yelled at me I screwed up. My most trusted travel advisers swore I would need 3 full days in Siam Reap. We had 23 hours, due to mine and Becca's combination of a tight timeframe (until I quit and had all the time in the world) and our ADD. We rented mountain bikes and set off for the temples. Angkor Wat was breathtaking. The temples were spread out for miles, which is where the bikes came in. There was so much attention to deail in the carvings and images, we were in awe. Now I did comment on Facebook that Angkor Wat rivaled Machu Picchu to me. I have to make a correction here. Machu Picchu changed my life. It seems tacky, but I never cared about history or foreign civilizations until the enigma of Machu Pichu was laid out before me after our 4-day adventure where I physically, mentally and emotionally challenged myself, and met my travel guardian angel who opened up my eyes to all the possibilities I has before me but was too blind to see.  It started to downpour while we were there, so we ended up hiding near one of the 'restaurants' I.e. shacks which chickens running around that small Cambodian children assumably killed in the back to serve in our curry dishes. I've heard claims that Cambodian children will melt the heart of even those terrified of children, and safe to say the stories are true.

I fell in love with a 4 year old Cambodian girl who could count from 1 to 10 to show us all of the dirty postcards she had for sale. Becca gave her 5 real - 25 cents more than the asking price -and she ran back to her sister elated at her newfound riches. The smile on her face both made me smile and return but also feel a pang of guilt, because this child was doomed to poverty and 25 cents was really a small fortune to her, and here we are on the other side of the world just taking another extended break from our not do unfortunate lives back home. But I don't think I'll be adopting any Cambodian babies anytime soon, despite my little epiphany that some kids are alright.
We spent the rest of the day riding through muddy puddles from ruin to ruin and exploring the temples. One was where they filmed Lara Kraft Tomb Raider. Another had monkeys on the road there which made me jump off my bike in the middle of the road screaming in joy. I freaking love monkeys and after seeing Cohen's 8000 pictures of every monkey species in all of Asia it finally convinced me I had to go! We loved Angkor Wat, pictures to follow if I ever find a computer.
The rest of Siam Reap was quite nice. We went to the night markets and I had a 'massage' where little fish came and did something along the lines of bite you. I had no idea if this was a good or bad idea but it was $3 and came with a free Coke Zero.
The next day we were off to Kanchanaburi. This place I should have realized was far when the hotel quoted us a price of $180 to have a taxi pick us up at the airport. And no one I know has ever been there except Adam who thinks he has been but isn't really sure and doesn't remember it. We got in a cab ready to go on our 2 hour journey. 4.5 hours later we were still in the car, completely lost, and accidentally drove over the border to Burma. We had arranged to stay the night in a floating hotel, which cost us more than our entire trip combined, but it sounded amazing so we tried in our nonexistent Thai to explain where we were going. Eventually we got dropped off at a dingy dock, where someone called for a canoe to bring us to our hotel boat. We were at the end of the world (I mean, BURMA?!?) but the hotel was pretty and since we were in the middle of nowhere we had to accept it. My debit card didn't work at the airport which was slightly concerning since there was no wifi to contact anyone, but it all got sorted out. We were able to do the Treetop Adventure, which was a series of zip lines/swings/wooden bridges through the woods at the Burmese/Thai border.

The next day of Kanchanaburi we spent hiking through Erawan National Park to the waterfalls, petting tigers at a Tiger Temple, and riding an elephant (reminder to self, google what it means when an elephant vibrates. We're pretty sure he didn't love me sitting on his head like the guy forced me to do for a 'good photo'. We were meant to stay in a tree hotel the second night, but since the 'quaint' town of Kanchaburi was actually larger than the state of NY, we said f it and hopped on a bus back to Bangkok. I have nothing to say about Bangkok because all I've seen of it is the worst traffic in the world and the inside of both airports. Their taxis are pink,  which is great, but I'm fairly certain after the islands I'm going to head straight to Chiang Mai and avoid Bangkok entirely. We are currently in Railay beach which was voted one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world, which it is, but I'm too tired to write about it now. I have to go back to my research on if I should spend the week I had allotted to heading to Kho Tao to get scuba certified, or skip it, hike a bit in Khao Sok national park and add a couple days in Malaysia. Big decisions here. I wish I could stay longer than the 6 weeks! Maybe I can figure something out for after I get back. I wish I hadn't bought this stupid apartment and could just teach English for a while in Buenos Aires, or just keep traveling. Bad move trying to be a grown up :) off to bed, more pristine beaches await us at the Kho Phi Phi islands tomorrow!

It's Official!

Round Two of my world travels is right around the corner! I put in my notice with SHAPE yesterday, and in two weeks I'll be on a flight to Cambodia.  Followed by Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Hong Kong!  I didn't know if I'd be able to swing doing this again, but after a lot of thought and realization that it was time to part ways with work, my two week vacation got extended.  I'm so excited - it will definitely be shorter than last time but I'm thrilled to finally learn to scuba dive, sleep in a treehouse and visit a tiger temple and elephant camp! 2 years to the day that I came back from South America, I'll be back at the airport starting my next adventure :)

I hope they have llamas in Asia...

...because that's where I'm headed next!  Since I've mostly maxed out South America (minus Venezuela, which I'll get to at some point), it's time to start hitting up a new continent. So in July/August, I'll be heading to Cambodia, Thailand and potentially a third destination. Most likely Laos.  Since planning a trip to this part of the world which I know little about is difficult, it's made me think even more about starting that travel site I've been obsessing over since 2011. One of my travel friends who's also been super invested in the idea has potentially found someone to help build it out. So maybe the next time I plan a trip, it'll be that much easier. In the meantime, Wikitravel and my group of SE Asia backpacker friends will do the trick. Hopefully someone can teach me how to say "I'm allergic to soy" in Thai ;)