Day 24 - Mini Golf and Pool

Today was a much more relaxed day to say the least! I woke up late and got almost 12 hours of sleep! I definitely needed it though, I felt so much better this morning. We laid around and got breakfast downstairs, I had some scrambled eggs and bread. We didn't have anything planned for the day so around 1130 we decided to walk to the mini golf course which was about a mile a way.

The place was called Angkor Wat Putt and it had 14 holes all of which were based around the temples at Angkor. It was a pretty cool course that had some ridiculous holes where the par was 7! It was literally impossible to get a hole in one let alone a 4 on some of then holes. 

- Angkor Wat Putt

At the end of the round I ended up shooting 4 over par and beating my dad by 1 shot! Apparently they keep track of the low score for the day and ours were no where close to the low (I'm 100% sure the low score cheated though). 

After mini golf we got a tuk tuk back to the city and decided to get lunch at this restaurant that had a pool! The food was pretty good, I had the phad Thai. After we ate we went for a quick swim. It was quick because the water was FREEZING!! It was refreshing though since it was so hot outside!

- The Pool/Restaurant

We laid around the pool for a few more hours and I got caught up on my blog. The we decided to walk to the center of the downtown which was a little less than a mile away. 

Once we got there we walked around a bit and got dinner at a Mexican restaurant. The food there wasn't that great (I suspect because there were no actual Mexicans working there haha) and the service was soooo slow! After dinner we walked around pub street for a while. 

- Pub Street

It literally took my dad 5 try's to take that picture and NONE OF THE WERE FOCUSED! I don't understand how hard it is to take a picture that isn't super blurry, 3 year olds can do it! But anyways we also walked to the night market which was cool but the shop owners would not leave you alone and tried to sell you anything they possibly could. We didn't stay there too long and then finally walked back to the hotel. Tomorrow is our last day in Cambodia! We leave for Thailand around 930 pm. 

Day 23 - The Bus Ride From Hell and Angkor Wat

Here's the story/rant of our overnight bus ride from hell. 

Alright so here's the back story, when we booked the bus originally (2 days in advance) we were told that it was a hotel bus. This meant that everyone had there own private little 'room' that had a bed, tv, headphones, wifi, power outlet, and air conditioning. They also said there was a bathroom on the bus. This sounded awesome and the pictures looked really nice too so we figured we might as well give it a shot. Our only other option was to take a bus back to Phnom Penh, stay the night, then take a bus the next day to Siem reap. Since we didn't really want to stay in the city another day we figured the overnight bus would be a perfect option! We even checked at our nice hotel and asked them if the bus would be comfortable for us since we're so tall and they assured us that it would be. Boy were they wrong...

The bus that came to pick us up was 30 minutes late which was off to a bad start, but since everything in Cambodia is late we figured it was normal. We couldn't prepare ourselves for the bus though. When we got on the bus we could immediately tell this was not the bus we had signed up for that was in the pictures. Not only was there no tv, no wifi, no charger, and no bathroom but the seats were literally made for midgets! I was okay without having most of the frills but the fact that there was no power outlet REALLY PISSED ME OFF! I obviously didn't charge my phone before hand because I figured there would be no point to since I could do it on the bus. My phone had less than 20% battery and was gunna die in an hour or so and that if I hardly used it. I was planning to write my blogs on the bus to waste some time but there was no way I had enough battery to do that. That's also the reason why I didn't take any pictures of the bus since I didn't want to waste any battery. Anyway my dad and I crammed ourselves into the "beds" (they were more like seats). The bus of course was full, they actually overbooked it I think because someone had a ticket with the same seat number as us. It was miserable

There was a light at the end of the tunnel though, we had heard that the bus was stopping in Phnom Penh, which meant we go get off and stay the night or that the bus might not be full and we could have our own two seats! After a grueling 4 hour ride to Phnom Penh we made it and tons of people got off the bus! My dad moved to his own two seats and I stayed. However, less than a minute later a bunch of more people got on the bus. It was after 1 in the morning! Who the hell books a bus that leaves at 1am?!! There are TONS of busses that leave during the day from Phnom Penh at reasonable hours! Anyway everyone loaded on and I Managed to keep my two seats! Maybe this trip wouldn't be so bad after all! 

I couldn't have been more wrong. No more than 20 minutes later the bus stopped again (I guess just outside of the city), they picked up more people! I knew the seats on the bus were running low and I wanted to make sure I kept my double seat so I spread out and faked like I was sleeping. I could tell they were trying to wake me up since they were tapping on the seat. I thought that if I just kept pretending to sleep that maybe just maybe they would pass me and find somewhere else to go. Unfortunately that plan failed, a few minutes later this little Asian guy was shaking me and asked me to move over. I told him to find another seat but he said there weren't any left. I looked around and saw he was telling the truth, Damn! Oh well a tiny Asian guy would be so bad I thought, better than my dad at least. Well here's the thing the little Asian dude was actually asking for some Asian lady who was huge! And apparently didn't speak English! Not only was she ginormous but I swear she smelled like dead fish rotting in seaweed. I nearly gagged when she got into the seat. I spent almost the whole rest of the way (more than 6 hours!) curled in the corner. 

Thankfully about an hour away from Siem reap some people got off and I was able to switch but it was only for the last hour of the trip. When we finally arrived we were picked up by tuktuk and brought to our hotel. It was a miserable experience! Later I looked up the bus company and found that people had reported that they were scamming customers, it was the exact same thing that happened to us! Thank god that's the lat bus ride we have to take for the rest of the trip!

Hopefully I didn't bore you too much with my rant! We got to the hostel around 8am and I finally was able to charge my phone and eat some breakfast. Our room wasn't ready yet so we decided to hire a tuk tuk driver to take us to Angkor Wat. 

For those of you who don't know Angkor Wat is a huge famous temple in Cambodia. Apparently it's one of the largest Hindu and Buddhist temples (it was originally Hindu then changed to Buddhist), a picture of Angkor Wat is even on the Cambodian flag! Needless to say it's kind of a big deal here. We decided to do the 'mini tour' which was getting driven around to around 8 temples or so and ending at Angkor Wat. The whole area with all the temples is HUGE! Our tuk tuk driver drove us to the area which was about 5 miles away. Our first stop was a gate to get in. 

- The Gate

Once I we got dropped off at Angkor Thom. I really have no idea what it was, all of the temples all look basically the same to me but I think Angkor Thom was the capital city or something like that. 

- Angkor Thom

After exploring the area a bit we walked down to the next temple, which was called Baupon (I'll admit I had no idea I had to look that up). To get up the temple there was one staircase which sucked. The whole place was incredibly crowded in general and this temple was no exception. It probably took 25 minutes just to get up to the top of the temple (which wasn't very high) since there were a bunch of old people who could hardly walk, let alone climb up stairs, going painfully slow which was making the line take forever! Nevertheless it was a cool view. 

- Top of Baupon

After climbing back down we walked to the terrace of elephants which was right next door. It was basically this really long wall with a bunch if elephants carved into haha it was kinda cool. 

-  Terrace of Elephants

Afterwards we met up with our tuk tuk driver who was hard to find since there were literally hundreds of other tuk tuks there and they all look exactly the same!

Next our driver took us to a few more small temples and one large temple that was under construction and still being restored. It's actually pretty amazing how they restore the temples it's basically a huge puzzle rebuilding them piece by piece. Anyway after those few temples our driver finally took us to one of the ones I really wanted to see called Ta Prohm. 

Ta Prohm is another large temple in the area and is also where they shot some of the scenes from Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie. It was a really cool temple that had huge trees growing over some of the ruins, it was really incredible!

- Entrance to Ta Prohm

- Trees growing on the Temple

- Supports they use to reconstruct the temple

The temple was really cool and after a half hour or so of exploring it we went back to the tuk tuk and he drove us to a place to eat lunch. The food was alright but nothing amazing. Afterwards our driver took us to two more small temples and then finally to the main attraction, Angkor Wat. 

Angkor Wat is huge!! It has a moat around it that is over 2 miles long. On our way over the bridge to get to the temple we saw a Popsicle vendor and decided to get some. When we asked what flavors the lady mentioned they had durian flavored. Durian is a spikey fruit that I've heard smells bad, like really bad, like so bad that they actually have laws that make it illegal to bring on public transportation bad. Haha anyway I've been wanting to taste it ever since coming to Southeast Asia and this was the first time someone even mentioned it. So of course I decided it was worth a try, the Popsicles were onlyl 50 cents anyway. Well you know what they say "you win some and you lose some" and this was a time I definitely lost! The Popsicle didn't smell bad since it was just the flavor, but the flavor was awful! Haha it had the worst after taste I have no idea how to describe it besides bad. I ate about half of it and then threw it in the garbage. 

- Durian Popsicle, disgusting

The temple itself was pretty incredible. The onlyl thing I didn't like was that there were so many tourists!

- Bridge to Angkor Wat

- Inside the Temple

After walking around the temple for an hour or so we made our way back to our tuk tuk and got driven back to our hotel. The whole area was really cool but I don't know how some people can spend a week looking at temples, one lady I met said she was going for 4 full days and was upset she didn't have more time! One day was plenty for me! Haha

Once back at the hotel we finally got our room and rested until dinner time. For dinner we went to a nearby restaurant where if had fried rice and chicken that was served to me in a pineapple! It was pretty cool and very delicious!

- Pineapple bowl

After dinner we got back to the hotel and got to sleep in a comfy bed!

Day 22 - Flyboarding: When you combine Aquaman and Ironman

Sorry for not keeping up with my blog lately, there have been a few setbacks that I'll explain later. I actually already typed this blog out then blogger decided to close and erase everything I wrote so now I have to rewrite it! Ugh, so frustrating!

Anyway we started the day off around 830 or so heading down for the buffet breakfast in the hotel. We got our things packed and checked out, putting our bags in storage till our bus ride. We decided to rent motorbikes today so we could check out the other beaches in Sihanoukville. We got the bikes around 930 or so and filled them up at the nearest gas station. Our first stop was otres beach which is right next to the beach by our hotel so we figured it would be easy to find. Well after a few dirt roads with cows and some dead ends we decided to use my phones GPS. We finally made it to the beach around 10. Otres beach was very similar there were lots of restaurants nearly touching the water. 

My dad and I decided to take a walk down the beach and a quick swim. After we walked to the other side if the beach where we discovered a small shack with a sign saying "the ultimate Flyboarding experience". We had read about this on tripadvisor and it was the number one rated activity. Even though I had no clue what it was my dad convinced me to give it a shot. For those who don't know what Flyboarding is, google it, I'll try to explain it quick but it's easier just to see it. Basically it's a skateboard with bindings for your feet and a hose that is attached to the jetski's jet so that the water shoots out and you can fly above the water on the board. I had no idea really about what it was when I decided to try it. 

The shop was owned by two French brothers and after I said I wanted to try the Flyboarding they gave me "training" on the beach for 5 minutes. However I would hardly call it training! I had no idea what the guy was saying with his thick French accent! All I could hear was him saying "Okay my friend" after every sentence so I just nodded my head and went with it. Before we went to the water he told me "don't go to close to ze jetski" otherwise I could fall on the jetski instead of the water and get really hurt. 

After the training we got I. The water and I got strapped in to the flyboard. Once I was in he had me float on my back and steer the jetski out away from the shore. Since the jet comes out of the board the jetski gets pulled along wherever it goes, the only control he has on the jetski is the throttle which controls the rate of water coming out of the boards jets which effects how high off the water you get. Once we were far enough out he told me to flip onto my belly and we would begin. 

My first time trying to get out if the water failed miserably! My knees were bent which made me fall back in the second I got out of the water. The next time I tried he told me to keep my legs straight. This time I got out! But I was very wobbly and unstable. My success didn't last too long and I fell backwards toward the water and hit my back on the water hard, it hurt like hell! I remembered from the training he said something about diving in if I started falling. Next time I started to fall I turned and dived in and I didn't hurt at all. After a few minutes I got the hang of it and was able to fly around with ease. It was so freaking awesome!! It was like wearing an ironman suit and being able to fly around the water. I went for around 20 minutes or so (which was plenty because I was exhausted!). 

- Flyboarding

After we got back to shore I found out that the flyboard was invented at the end of 2011 so it's only been around for like 2 years! Apparently it was invented by this French jetski champion. If you ever get a chance to try it I highly recommend it!

After the Flyboarding we decided to head to victory which was about 10 miles away. On the way there we drove down monkey road, which as you might have guessed, was FILLED WITH MONKEYS!

- Monkey Family

They were so cute and awesome! I really wanted to steal one and bring it home but I settled for feeding them. The shop on the street sold peanuts so we handed them out to the monkeys. They were so adorable! They would come up and grab your hand and take the peanuts out and eat them! 

- Feeding the Monkeys!

After playing with the monkeys for 30 minutes or so we continued on our way to Victory beach. The beach was similar to the others but less crowded. We needed up eating at one of the restaurants near the beach. The food was alright but nothing too special. We stayed at the beach and enjoyed our last day in paradise.

We left around 4 to go to the hotel pool and hang out there for an hour or so before we showered and got dressed. We decided to go to a nearby restaurant called Mc Guinness restaurant which was run by an Irish man and his Cambodian wife. I had the ribs and they were amazing! The meat fell right off the bone. After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and waited for the bus to take us to Siem Reap, since it was an overnight bus I'll write about it in my next blog. But I'll give you a hint THE BUS WAS AWFUL!! I'll try to get my next blog up soon, thanks for reading!

Day 21 - Koh Rong Island Snorkeling Trip

We got up around 8 this morning and got breakfast downstairs in the hotel. It was a huge buffet breakfast with tons of food, though a lot of the food seemed to be more lunch and dinner type foods like spaghetti haha. Nevertheless it was a delicious breakfast. After we waited in the lobby for our tuk tuk. The tuk tuk came around 930 and drive us about 15 minutes to the pier our boat was leaving from. We shared our tuk tuk with a Canadian man, his son, and his Vietnamese wife. They were really nice. It's kind of strange how many Caucasians there are here who marry southeast Asian women, who most of the time are much much younger than them! Haha. The boat itself was huge! Three above water levels with tons of seating, a full bar, and the upper deck was full of mats for sun tanning. 

-The Boat

The boast left around 10 am and was heading for Koh Rong island which was about 2 hours away. We were on the top deck for most of the trip there. About half way through the trip there the boat stopped at a snorkel spot right off one of the nearby islands. The snorkeling was alright, the water didn't have the best visibility and there weren't too many big fish or anything awesome like that.

-Snorkel Selfi!

We snorkeled for 20 min or so then went back to the boat to jump off the top deck. It was really high and tons of fun! My dad went first and I was really surprised he actually did it haha. 

After a little more messing around on the boat we took off towards are final destination, Koh Rong. On the way we were served some lunch which was a small serve yourself buffet, the food was alright nothing to brag about. While they were serving the food the staff kept saying how there would be a big surprise on the way back when the bell by the bar rang. 

Once we were a little ways off shore from Koh Rong they anchored the boat and we jumped off and swam to shore. The island was incredible!! The water was crystal clear and the sand was pure white with absolutely no seaweed or rocks. It was literally a pool with sand! Definitely one of the best beaches I have ever been to!

- Koh Rong Beach

There was also a small rope swing on the beach so of course I had to give it a try! The 12 year old in me was very happy haha. 

-Beach Rope Swing

After a little while on the beach we took a trek through the island. It was a pretty short trek, maybe 30 minutes long or so, the guide explained some of the plants and what medicinal uses the Cambodian people used them for. 

After the trek we got back to the beach and had about an hour and a half to relax and enjoy the beach. My dad and I decided to walk the length of the beach, there were hardly any people and only a few small guesthouse scattered on the shore. It was truly an awesome place!

Once the time was up we swam back to the boat to head back to Sihanoukville. About 20 minutes into the trip back the bell at the bar rang for our 'surprise'. It was free shots as well as drinking beer through a snorkel mask! Haha, of course I had to try it!

-Cambodian Snorkeling

I did two beers (I was peer pressured to do the second! Haha). It was kind of hard to do since you couldn't really breath at all and you had to wait for the guy to pour the beer, so half of the time I was getting gulps if air with my beer which made it hard to drink. Afterwards I made my way back up to the top deck to relax.

- Relaxing

Once we got back to the pier we shared a tuk tuk with the Canadians again back to the hotel. At the hotel we showered and changed and headed to the main strip for some food. We stopped at a random restaurant where we ate on the balcony overlooking the street which was pretty cool. I had spaghetti and meatballs, the food wasn't the greatest but oh well. After dinner we went across the street to Top Cat, which is basically a theater that plays movie this guy pirated haha. We ended up seeing The Wolf on Wallstreet which was pretty good (ridiculously long tho, almost 3 hours!)

-Top Cat Theater

It was a pretty sweet setup actually. A huge screen with good speakers in an air conditioned room with really comfy seats. After the movie we made our way back and got ready for bed. Tomorrow is out last day in Sihanoukville!

Day 20 - Sun and Sand: Sihanoukville

Today we got up early for our 7:15 bus to Sihanoukville I felt a million times better than the other day. The bus driver was actually 20 min early to pick us up so we weren't able to grab anything for breakfast before we left. The bus was fairly small compared to the other ones we've taken holding about 15 people, of course we were put in the seats with the wheel well which had no legroom! Once we got going tho we were able to move around so it wasn't that bad. Other than that the bus was pretty nice, it has wifi and played the dark night and total recall on the tv (without sound). The ride took about 4 hours which wasn't bad at all. The bus stop was about a 2 blocks from the hotel so we quickly made our way over and checked in. 

The hotel was awesome! It's huge and has a really nice pool and is literally 2 blocks from an amazing beach! I was in heaven. 

-Pool from our room 

Once we checked in and got settled we figured that after almost 3 weeks it was about time to do some laundry, I know you were worried Cathy! :P. With that taken care of we headed to the beach for some much needed rest and relaxation!

-The Beach!

The beach was awesome! I'd say one of the better ones I've been too, probably even better than the Bahamas! The weather was perfect and the water was so warm!

Much like Spain there were people walking around bugging you for a massage. After an hour or so we decided to eat at one of the beachside restaurants. I had a chicken burger and strwaberry shake which was alright nothing special. The food was very inexpensive like the rest of Cambodia. One thing interesting was there were so many foreigners here (white people) most of them seemed to be from Europe, which is weird because I've never heard of this place as a good vacation spot before planning the trip. After staying at the beach for a couple hours we went back to the hotel pool for a bit. The pool was nice but the water was a little colder than the beach and since the sun was going down we didn't stay too long. 

After the pool we decided to book a snorkeling trip to one of the islands that was highly recommended by a few people to us. We went back to the room to shower and got our laundry back! It was nice to finally have clean shorts to wear! We decided to go to dinner at one of the restaurants across the street from our hotel. I had a grilled fish that tasted so good! Everything is so fresh!

After dinner we walked around the town for a while. There were tons of restaurants and bars. We stopped at one of the mini marts and got nail clippers! It was getting ridiculous how long my nails were haha. We made our way back to the hotel again and got ready for bed. Tomorrow we leave for the pier at 9am it should be a really fun trip! The weather is supposed to be in the 90s again and sunny, stay warm Midwest friends! :P

Day 19 - ATV tour and Killing Fields

Today was a somewhat early day we got up around 7 and went down to eat some breakfast at the hostel. Not only was the food awful (they some how managed to screw up toast, how hard is that to make seriously?!) but I was feeling like I was about to puke. I'm pretty sure I ate some bad street food in Laos or maybe drank some bad water on accident, whatever it was I felt awful! We got picked up by tuk tuk which took us just outside the city to the atv tour place. The guy who ran the place was French. It was just me and my dad on the tour and we drove around the countryside following the French guy. 

We rode for about an hour through some villages. The tour was fun, little kids would run up and say hi when we passed by. We didn't get to go very fast though which was a big disappointment, the dirtbike your was much much better. This was my first time riding an atv though so that was fun! Once we got back after riding the atv our tuk tuk took us to one of the killing fields where we did an audio tour. 

It was a very interesting history lesson about Cambodia. Here's the basic overview: in the mid 1970's this super evil guy Pol Pot came to power, his group was called the Khmer Rouge, he took over Phnom Penh and forced everyone to the countryside to work in labor camps. Pol Pot was also very paranoid and had a philosophy that 'it is better to kill an innocent by accident than to spare an enemy'. This resulted in mass killings and genocide of the Cambodian people. At the killing field we were at literally thousands of people were killed overall it was estimated that 2-3 million Cambodians were killed out of a population of 8 million! That's over 25% of the population! The guy was insane! Anyway at the killing field we got to see some of the mass graves and skulls that were uncovered when the field was discovered. 

-Mass Grave

-They would kill babies by bashing their heads against this tree :(

-Skulls in the Stupa

It was a truly sad experience to see this place where so many people died just over 30 years ago. The tour didn't help my stomach whatsoever!

After the audio tour our tuk tuk took us back into the city to our hostel. At this point I had to go rest since I was feeling awful. We stayed in till about 330 or so and then walked around the city. We stopped at the royal palace but didn't go in because they wanted $7 which was outrageous! We also saw the independence monument and a few wats. 

 -independence monument 

After our sightseeing we took a tuktuk back and started to look for a place to eat. We walked into a restaurant called Malis, which was really fancy but had great food!! It was good to I finally eat something since I hadn't had any food all day! After dinner we went back to the hostel and went to the bar since we had free drink cupons. The bar was really cool on the top floor with a balcony overlooking the city. After the beer we went back to the room to try and get some rest. Tomorrow we take a bus to Sihanoukville (on the coast) I can't wait to relax on the beach!

Day 18 - Cambodia

Today we were leaving Laos and heading to Cambodia! Woke up around 730 and got everything packed up then headed to breakfast in the downstairs lobby. I had scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast again (there aren't many options). We got a tuktuk to the airport around 930 or so and made it to our gate with an hour to spare (the security was minimal, the airport isn't very large even tho the city is). While waiting at the gate a Cambodian monk started talking to is and asking us about our trip. He was very friendly but it was somewhat difficult to communicate with him with his very limited English. 

Once we arrived we got our visas and got through customs very quickly. There were tons of tuktuks outside the airport so we grabbed one and it was about a 20min ride to our hostel near the center of town. Our room is actually in the back if a restaurant/bar it's kind of weird how it's set up but the room is pretty large. 

I wasn't feeling very good when we got in (possibly from the street food we had the other day) so we took it easy and decided to stay in till dinner. During this time I finished the last book I had left on my phone (now I'm outta things to do in the plane!) around 630 we went downstairs to the restaurant for dinner. I had the bacon cheeseburger with fries, it was delicious. 

After eating I felt much better than before but we didn't want to push it so we stayed in the rest of the night. Overall it was an uneventful but much needed day to rest, tomorrow we have an atv tour in the morning then will explore the city and then the next day we head to the coast for some sun and sand!

Day 17 - Gold Temples and Fake Legs

Since we didn't have to much to do today we decided to sleep in and take the morning easy. I had some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast at the hostel. Around 1030 we left and headed for Patuxai (this big arch in the center of town). It was about a mile away from the hostel so it was a little bit of a walk. The temperature was awesome 80's all day and really sunny! After maybe 20 minutes of walking we got to the arch. It was huge!

-At the arch

We were able to climb up to the top of the arch for like 50 cents, which gave us a pretty cool view of the city. 

-View from the arch

After hanging around for 15 minutes or so we went back down and headed farther north of the city to this huge golden temple called Pha That Luang, the temple is the national symbol and most important temple in the country. 

It was pretty cool looking but you couldn't go in it which was kinda lame. We walked around it for a few minutes and then headed back towards the city to our next destination, COPE, a place where they make fake legs for people who lost their limbs. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post Laos is the most bombed country in the world. During the Vietnam war era the US had hundreds of bombing runs over the country. Many of these bombs failed to detonate and became buried in the Laotion countryside. Still to this day many Lao people are accidentally serting of these bombs while farming. This has caused a high number of people needing prosthetic limbs. 

-Me and a bunch of fake legs

The mueseum was really interesting, and it was sad to see the long lasting effects of the war. 

After the mueseum we walked back toward our hostel in search of ray's grill, it was the number one rated restaurant on tripadvisor so we figured we'd give it a shot. The place was hidden and once we finally found it they were closed on Saturdays! We ended up going to a place close by, I had lasagna which was a nice change of pace from all the Asian food I had been eating.

After lunch we went back to the hostel to rest. We walked over 6 miles around the city in the heat so we were exhausted! We stayed in and looked up so activities for the rest of our trip and finally headed out for dinner. On the way to the restaurant we passed a pagani zonda (didn't get a pic sadly) there have only been 206 of them made since 1999! Extremely rare car and also extremely expensive! (Upwards of $1 million). We searched for the restaurant for a while with no luck so we decided to try a random place that was pretty crowded. I had the beef hot pot (fondue esque) and it was delicious!

After dinner we stopped at a highly rated fruit shake place. I had mango and passion fruit, it had a very strong flavor and was really good! We walked back to the hostel with our shakes and got ready for bed. Tomorrow we leave for Cambodia in the morning! Sad to say goodbye to such a cool country but excited to see what Cambodia has to offer!

Day 16 - Bussing to Vientiane

Today we got to sleep a little longer than normal, 8am. We got our stuff together and had some breakfast at the hostel. The van picked us up around 950 to take is to the bus station which was like 5 min away. The bus ended up leaving a half hour late at around 1030, they never seem to be on time here! The bus ride wasn't too bad, only 3 hours with one stop so I got some reading in. I'm running out of books tho! I'm halfway through my 4th and final book and we still have half the trip left! Once we got to the bus station we took a tuktuk to the center of the city. When they dropped us off we had no idea where we were (there were virtually no street signs) so we walked south and found the river and quickly oriented ourselves. It took about 15 min total to find the hostel. Once there we got settled in and went to lunch at a place called max'a grill. I guess this place was trying to be American food but it failed, I had the BBQ chicken and it wasn't that great, and the worst part was there were only like 4 pieces of chicken! I was still starving by the time we were done! We walked around exploring the city some more then went back to the hostel to rest until dinner. 

We decided to walk down through the night market and then find somewhere to eat. The night market here was much different than the other cities. There were much more locals and the stuff they were selling was more practical things rather than touristy souvenirs. Vientiane is the capital and is much larger than both of the other cities we visited in Laos, it was also clear that there was much more money in the city. After the night market we found a small little restaurant on the street where I had some fried rice with beef and also Laos sausage. It was really inexpensive and good! We got about 4x the food we got at max's grill and it was much cheaper!

-Had to have at least one pic for the blog

After dinner we walked around some more then made our way back to the hostel. We played a few games of pool in the lobby and then went back to the room to sleep. We weren't able to get a tee time for the golf course tomorrow so we'll probably just end up exploring around the city. 

Day 15 - Getting Dirty in Vang Vieng

Today was another early day, we got up at 630 and went out to the street in order to catch a bus to Tha Huea, where the dirtbiking place was (17 km south of Vang Vieng). The only problem was we had no idea how to catch the bus... We stood outside for literally 30 min trying to stop any car or bus to take us to see if they could take us there, no luck. Finally we were able to stop a guy in a mini bus who said he could take us for 100k (about $12). We said screw it and took him up on the offer. The van was pretty big, about 12 seats. We started with just my dad, me, another passenger and the driver. However as we kept driving he kept picking up more and MORE people!! Before we knew it we were PACKED into the van with 17 people! Seriously! We drove for 5 more minutes like this until we finally stopped and the driver told us to get out. He then ran across the street, ditching the other 14 people in the van, to get a truck! We had no clue what was going on. He told us to hop in the back and drove us down this dirt road to the dirtbike place. 

-The truck

Once we arrived we were greeted by Tom (the owner of the dirtbike shop). We were early so we had some breakfast at the resort restaurant. There was a little pet monkey and bird that were so cool!

-The monkey!

-Bird waiting for me to finish my food

After eating the bird attacked the left overs, it was kinda funny, I guess he does it all the time. 

After eating we went down to the bike area and Tom showed us how to work the bikes. I had never ridden a manual bike with a clutch before but with minutes I was comfortable and ready to ride!

-Dad practicing on the dyno

After getting our gear we got on the bikes and started up the dirt road to the street. We road for about 20 minutes to an open dirt field Tom called 'the playground'. Here we got to practice some different maneuvers on the bike and got comfortable with the bike. 

-Dirt biking at the playground

We stayed there for another 30 mintites or so then headed by to the road. We drove to a small shop on the side of the road where Tom bought us a drink and told us some stories about how he ended up in Laos. Tom's from Wales, it's pretty amazing how some people can just pick up and move to a new country and start a life. After chatting we got back on the road and headed for a small village near the lake. The views along the way were incredible. The roads would wind back and forth with huge mountains and lakes in the distance, pictures and words really don't do the beauty of the landscape justice, it's just amazing. We went on a dirt road to this tiny village, Tom had bought some candy at the stop and told me to hand it out to the kids. As soon as I brought the bag if candy out about 10 kids swarmed over to me with their hands out wanting some. They were all incredibly cute! It was so much fun. They have a much more relaxed life without so many worries, it's a much more simpler way to live just enjoying life. And the view from the village of the lake was so amazing! 

-Handing out candy!

After hanging out for a while and listening to some more stories from Tom, we drive back out to the road and headed to this place called 'the jungle'. This was an off road track with lots of twists and turns and hills, it was so much fun to ride! Once we got to the end of the trail we took a break and then headed back to the resort where the bikes were kept. 

We decided to have lunch there, I had the Lapp penin which is a type of fish that they catch fresh from the lake everyday, it was delicious! 

There was one problem, when it came time to pay Tom for the tour we found out that they didn't accept credit card and the nearest ATM was 12 km away (almost all the way back to vang Vieng!). We didn't have enough cash on us to pay it either so Tom said I could take one of the bikes and find the ATM. Of course I jumped at the chance to ride again! I had no idea where I was going but there was only one road so I followed it until I reached some of the landmarks Tom told me to look for and sure enough there was the ATM! I rode back and we squared up with Tom. Btw all this riding makes me want to get a motorcycle even more once I get settled in savannah!

Now came the problem of finding a way back to vang Vieng. There are little tuk tuks that ride back and forth between the towns (sort of like a shuttle) Tom waited with us to get one however it was packed. After talking with the driver Tom said we could ride STANDING ON THE BACK! Haha, it was kinda crazy but screw it! So we rode all the way back to vang Vieng hanging onto the back of this tiny tuktuk it was a blast!

-Hanging on the back of a tuk tuk

Once we got back to vang Vieng we stopped in the hostel then went out to the town. I got some new Havianas (flip flops) since mine broke. After we went to Le cafe de Paris where I had some boeuf bourguinon, this was literally the best food id had all trip! I definitely need to learn how to make it!

-Awesome food!

After dinner we went back and chilled in the hostel watching some reruns of how I met your mother and checking my phone. I want to give a shoutout to Rachel, she just got offered and internship position at Boeing in St. Louis this summer. If you don't know Boeing builds commercial jets and is one of the largest manufacturers in the world! It's an amazing opportunity and I'm so proud and excited for her! :)

After a few episodes and some time writing my blog I headed back to the room. Tomorrow we leave on a 3.5 hour bus ride to Vientiane (the capital of Laos) at 10am! Only a few more days till Cambodia! It's gunna be hard to too these last couple of days!

Day 14 - Getting High in Vang Vieng...Literally

Wow where to start with this day... So much happened and there were so many highs and lows. To day was definitely the most exhilarating day for me on the trip!

We started off waking up around 530 in the morning and got picked up a little after six by a bus to take us to the hot air balloon launch location. When we got there they were unpacking and starting to inflate the balloons, it was so interesting to see!

-Inflating the balloon

We were in the second balloon so we got to watch the first take off before we left. The take-off was the easy part, the balloon slowly ascended above the tree line as we started to cruise over the town. It was awesome, so calm and peaceful floating above everything. That is besides the roar of the flamethrower every so often to keep us up. Although it was cold out the hot air balloon was...well filled with hot air...which kept is pretty warm which was nice! The balloon ascended to 550m which I think is around 1800 ft! We were really high! 😝

We were up just in time to see the sun rise over the mountain which was awesome! After floating around for about 30 min we began to descend. Then came the hard part, the landing. The balloon pilots have very little control where the balloon is going however at different altitudes the wind blows different directions, so they use that to somewhat steer the balloon back to where they want to land. I'm not sure how experienced our pilot was but we started heading for the middle of this random farm field. We saw the landing crew drive their truck through the field and rush out of their truck in order to secure is when we landed. This didn't go as smoothly as it could have. When we hit the ground we were still moving sideways fairly fast so when the crew tried to hold us down they got carried a ways with the balloon. To make matters worse the field had a some big bumps that we managed to hit which made everyone in the basket bump around. The landing was rough but we survived! We loaded up back onto the truck which took us back to our hotel. 

-Me in front of the balloon

Once we got to the hotel we rested for about an hour and then moved our stuff to the hostel we had originally booked (5min walk closer to town). Once we got our bags situated we went to the bike rental place about a block away to get some motorbikes for the day. 

We got the bikes around 9am and headed to Poukham cave and blue lagoon. The cave was approximately 8 km away and to get to it we had to drive the motorbikes over two brides and a 7 km on a really bumpy road. The ride was somewhat uncomfortable on the tiny scooters but it was much better than walking! When we arrived we parked the bikes and went to the cave. It was a short but very steep hike up the mountain to the entrance of the cave. 

-Dad hiking up the mountain

After the 15 min hike we finally got to the cave. It was ENORMOUS! It was really cool and filled with big rocks. You had to have a headlamp since the farther you went it became pitch black...my dad's headlamp finally paid of mom :P! 

It was tough to get good pictures inside the cave. To get to the main area of the cave required some climbing over rocks that really weren't all the difficult, but of course my dad complained and said it was too tough. After about 20 min of convincing he finally agreed to move on. We explored the cave for about 40 min and I went off on my own to climb some of the bigger rocks that were in the cave...it was awesome!

-Cave selfie

-Crevasse I had to jump over at one point...the fall was probably 50 ft down at least!

After we finished exploring the cave we hiked back down to this lagoon (more of a river in my mind but whatever). The water was an awesome turqouis blue and there was a large tree overhanging the lagoon with a rope swing and branches to jump off of. 

-About to jump off!

The jump was pretty high I'd say 25ft at least! It was tons of fun! I even convinced my dad to do the rope swing and jump off the smaller branch. 

After we were done messing around in the lagoon we ate lunch. I had the beef laap which was tasty! After eating we went to her on our motorbikes and head back to town in order to go tubbing, but there was a problem...my bike wouldn't start, it didn't even make a sound like it was trying to start. We messed around with it and tried to kick start it with no luck. So we thought we might have to double up and ride back on the bumpy road to the town to let them know. Luckily however, we were able to get one of the locals to help us. He quickly called over some of his buddies and after chatting in indiscrenable Lao they were able to get it started! So we started back to town! However the bike I had was really crappy (as you might have guessed) and the key would fall out of the key slot when riding (it still ran without the key in it). This wasn't a problem when we were riding earlier since the key was tied onto the bike, however I untied the key when we were planing on leaving the bike at the lagoon and forgot to tie it back on after we got it started again. Well sure enough after about two minutes of riding after we left I remembered this and looked down and sure enough the key was gone, it fell out on the bumpy road (just my luck!). So we decided to drive back and look for it...nothing. 'Alright let's just get the bike back and explain what happened' we thought, so we left again. However, This time on the way out my dad spotted the key on the road and was able to pick it up! So we got the bike back to the rental shop as quickly as possible and got another bike! We were really lucky everything worked out!

-Dad riding, notice the cows, it's common for them to walk on the road here

After getting the new bike we went and changed and got ready for tubing. The tubing rental was in town and they would drive you out with your tube about 5km upstream on the river. Once you started tubing down the river there were 3 bars (really close to the start) that would throw a rope out and pull you in. It was really cool. My dad definitely felt out of place since he was probably the oldest one there haha! We stopped at each of the bars and had a beer. 

-Dad looking out of place

Unfortunately I didn't take many photos with my phone so you'll have to look on Facebook for the rest. After the three bars we got back on the river and headed toward town. Well it turns out that it's the dry season right now and there's not as much water in the river (only 4ft deep at the most) this meant the trip into town would take 3 hours instead of 1 hour (during the rainy season). This is due to the fact that the current is slower with less water. Well we didn't know this prior to leaving so we left the last bar around 3 and figured we had plenty of time to make it back in...we didn't...not even close! The temperature starts to drop around 4pm as the sunsets, at this point we had been tubing for a good hour (and not just lazily, we were full on paddling and kicking to try and speed up!) with no end in sight we saw a random latter with a sign saying tuk tuk service to town, we jumped at the opportunity to get out of the cold water and get back. Of course the tuk tuk riped is off and charged us double what it should have cost, but we were in no position to haggle being sopping wet and cold! Such a scam! It still only cost about 4 dollars for the 5 min ride, it was totally worth it! We got the tubes back just as the sun was setting. 

After returning our tubes we went back to the hostel and decided to ride the motorbikes around town for a while before we had to return them. After an hour of ridding we went back and returned the bikes then went looking for a place to eat. We settled on a place down by the river. The seats were kind of bed like so I hopped on up and noticed they had wifi so I went to grab my phone but it wasn't there!! I panicked! I had no idea where it could've been! My whole life was on that phone pictures, books to read, texting, Skype, email, blogger, music, the thought of losing it made me absolutely sick! I figured it must have fallen out while we were riding! We decided to check back at the hostel to see if I left it there...no luck. We went back to the motorbike shop to check..nothing. We searched everywhere and asked shops if they had anything. After an hour and a half I figured I'd never see it again. We happened to be by the riverside restaurant again so we decided to go back there again. Thoroughly depressed I walked into the restaurant and headed towards the same booth, I say down, and sure enough MY PHONE WAS SITTING IN THE BOOTH!! It must have bounced out when I sat down, I felt like a complete idiot, but I was a very happy idiot! :) we ordered and ate and the food was delicious!

-Dad at the table

After dinner we walked back to the hostel. I chilled in the lobby for a while to use the internet and got to Facetime with Rachel :)! It turned out to be someone's birthday and they were celebrating in the Libby and have me some cake and ice cream! My day got so much better! Around 10 I went back to the room and to bed. Tomorrow we go dirtbiking!

Well that was a long post! Sorry I was late too post it, super busy lately! Thanks for reading! I hope my rants aren't to confusing!