Proof of Life

Been a little bit since I posted, sorry about that! We took a trip to Phuket which is about 3-4 hours thru the jungle by van. Phuket is akin to the Las Vegas of Thailand, total party city. Which, even though I'm not a big partier, I LOVE the energy and accessibility of a party city. We arrived there about 4pm, checked into our Marriott hotel in the Patong district and then took off for some nightlife which included a fun (tasteful) cabaret show. Afterwards we hopped in what is probably the coolest tuk tuk I've been in yet... Phuket tuk tuks are a whole different breed. They're all themed, we took a Toy Story one, a Transformers one, the one pictured above was Tiger themed. Really massive labors of love by these drivers and so fun to experience. Our dinner that night was actually a pizza joint which was REALLY good and the pizzas were massive... The next day we had a sightseeing tour, which was interesting because the itinerary was actuall...

Today we started around 9am, heading out with a 1.5h van ride to Ao Phang Nga Nat'l Park, which is home to our ultimate destination - James Bond Island. But BEFORE we get there, we stopped at "Monkey Cave Temple", which is like a local religious cave system with a lot of golden Buddha statues. It was pretty cool but I was excited about the monkeys and the fortune I received. Unfortunately, my fortune told me I have trouble getting married because of my big mouth. Arriving in Ao Phang Nga, we hop on a traditional Thai Longboat, which are interesting. Essentially, they are long wooden boats that have a captain in the back who powers and steers with what is essentially a car motor on one end and a propeller on the other. image credit: Easy Day Thailand image credit: Reddit, user deleted This is the traditional type of watercraft here, and these things can a...

Ok guys! First day back in action since the food poisoning debacle. It was real bad, but I didn't let it beat me. Missed out on a beach day yesterday at Railay Beach but the alternative was me going and that was a worse option haha. Started today with some French Toast at a cafe called Cafe 8.98 owned by an Australian woman. Seemed very legit, food was well cooked, and I haven't gotten sick yet so I call that a win! We were originally supposed to go to a place called Phi Phi Island, but opted out considering we had a few people get sunburned on the beach adventure yesterday. So, in the spirit of giving everyone's skin a break, we grabbed a tuk tuk and schlepped it about 20m to "Old Krabi Town". There wasn't a whole lot of interesting things to capture here. Some open food markets, a muddy river and a mall. I'm not sure why it was necessarily a place we wanted to visit and most others seemed confused as well, to be honest. But the tuk tuk drive there was BE...

Upon landing, we spent our first night in Bangkok. Kicking it off with our departure from the airport, we hired a van to haul us and our things to our hotel, Best Western Sukhumvit 20. The first thing I noticed was that Thai driving is INSANE. I can't make sense of any of the traffic laws, people are driving motorbikes with women sitting side saddle on the back, tuk tuks race to and fro, it is MAYHEM. We arrive at our hotel and get a much needed shower after almost 24 hours of straight travel.  Next we headed down to 7-11, yes the convenience stores, which is extremely popular out here and VERY different. You can get almost anything you need at 7-11s, including hot food. After picking up some snacks and water and storing it in our room, we took off for appetizers at the 64th floor of the Marriott in Bangkok, called the Yao Skybar. The view was spectacular: After the sky bar we grabbed tuk tuks and headed out to a seven story mall - the MBK center...

I'm sitting in the Singapore airport, having made it through a relatively stressful start to my trip. A 4+ hour delay out of SLC had me growing increasingly concerned about whether I'd make it to LAX on time (thanks again, Dad, for helping talk me off a ledge!) I was finally able to get there, but completely missed my day hotel reservation that would allow me to get some valuable shut eye and the even more valuable shower prior to my 17.5 hr flight across the Pacific Ocean. So, as is common when traveling, I had to call an audible. What I thought was a moment of refreshing solitude in the only handicap stall, of what seemed to be a quiet terminal restroom at LAX, turned into a panic. I was in the middle of changing my clothes and watched in horror as the wheels of a walker strolled into the restroom. So I scrambled to vacate the handicap stall as quickly as possible while also making sure I was dressed enough. I didn't like having to do it at the airport, a handicap stall i...