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HIGHLIGHTS

- Was my sister's bday!!!! Happy Bday Katie! :) (Played soccer that night w/ fam and friends, ate good food, etc.)

- Made bff's with the two Indian kids on my plane. Pretty sure a road trip to Bakersfield to hang out with them is in the works. Sure makes the 1/2 day plane trips shorter when you have good buddies to sit next to!


LOWLIGHTS

- Couldn't adjust to Western culture and when waiting for my ride at the airport, layed down on the cement outside instead of sitting on the bench.

10-hour layover in Seoul

HIGHLIGHTS

- Saw Seoul, Korea!

- Ate some super random noodle/slug dish from some street-side stand. The woman who sold it to me pitied me so she gave me some extra soup.

- Found some amazing treasures in their shopping area. Even found the American Embassy, aka Gap.

- Discovered an AMAZING giant brown sweater with stars to calm my woes (see "lowlights"...).

LOWLIGHTS

- Took me an hour just to get out of the airport cause I kept getting super sketchy info from the "information" booth ladies.

- Forgot that it was actually winter in some places. Too bad I gave away all my remotely warm clothes before I left Thailand...

- Spent the first hour and a half wandering the streets of the shopping district FREEZING cold in my short fisherman pants and flip flops waiting for stores to open so I could buy a sweater.

-Shopowners eyeing me suspiciously as I crept around their stores wrapped in the grey airport blanket and misc. scarves looking for something cheap enough and warm enough to purchase.

- Learned never to try on jeans in a city of people who are built without curves. Tough on the self-esteem.

Last day in Thailand! :(

HIGHLIGHTS

- Took Muay Thai class. AMAZING! I'm pretty much a champ.

- Went on hour or so bike ride around the perimeter of the city. Way cool.

- Found a random temple and a monk gave me some incense to light and I got to write my "wish" on some banner thing they wrap around the temple.

- Took an amazing nap at this random park.

- Made BEST FRIENDS with the taxi driver. Love him! Exchanged gifts and hugs and then I was on my way to the airplane.

Arrive in Chang Mai

HIGHLIGHTS

- Rented bike for $1.50 for 24 hrs to cruise around the city by myself.

- Ate great "California-style" burrito. I know, I know. I'm only in Asia once, but I figured it'd help me reacclimate to the food back home. Plus, they had free potable water.

- Spent a couple hours chillin in the restaurant at the hotel having deep discussions with fellow travelers from France, Sweden, and Germany. I feel more cultured by the minute.

- Saw Muay Thai Boxing match to see what I'd be getting myself into for the next day.

LOWLIGHTS

- Carried on the tradition of getting the top floor of the hotel.

- Spent more time by myself than is healthy.

Bangkok Day

HIGHLIGHTS

- Went to CHURCH again. Weeeee! Loved it! It was an int'l branch so there were people from all different countries. I got to interview a couple for another story. She's Thai and he's from Nepal and they went through a lot in order to be baptized. They were really an inspiration. Loved it! (Did I already say that?)

- Took a gamble and showed up at the train station at 9:30pm with no ticket and no hotel in case I couldn't get a ticket. But the train gods were smiling on me and I got a ticket for a fraction of the cost of what it would've been earlier that day.

- Riding in "third class." I didn't even know they had a third class. Turns out it was these nasty old benches that really were way more comfy and gave you way more room than regular. (see pic).

LOWLIGHTS

- Got into Bangkok at 4:30am instead of 5:30am. Eesh. Painful. Wandered the streets with the rats and the stray cats until we could find a place to crash.

- Said goodbye to Cakes in the morning and Blair in the evening. Left all alone. Very weird.

- Don't actually know what I'm doing with the next 2 days.

Happy V-day. Spent it on a bus.

Traveled back up to Bangkok

HIGHLIGHTS

- Sat next to a Scotish guy and had lots of interesting chats about the church and Scotland and I learned all sorts of random things.

- Found amazing banana chips.

- Did the standard transportation thing from bus to boat to taxi, etc. How they herd you though is that they give you little stickers you wear. That way, when you're sitting on the sidewalk, they can just yell your sticker color at you and that's what gets you on the bus/boat/whatever. I guess if it works well for 5th graders, why change a good thing.

LOWLIGHTS

- The fact that we spent the whole V-day on a bus. :)

Happy Fri the 13th. Chill on beach.

HIGHLIGHTS

- Kayaked to this cool rock formation thing and climbed around.

- Went on solo hike to cool viewpoint. Got to run up a crazy hill, which always makes me a little happy.

- Got oil massages on the beach. I tried not to let the Jack Johnson make me feel like I wasn't in Asia. :) It was a dream.

- Cake's ATM card was eaten by the machine and then miraculously recovered a few hours later. Yay for answered prayers.

LOWLIGHTS

- Enjoyed sunrise on the beach to the company of several stray dogs. I think there's a karma thing where the more you dislike dogs, the more they hang around you. Cakes was surrounded and not entertained about it.

- Spent an eternity at the internet place trying to burn our CDs of pics. Only semi-successful.

- Last day enjoying the sun/islands.

NE Kho Phangan

HIGHLIGHTS

- Went to a way more low-key beach. Floated in the warm, clear water and it was like heaven.

- Ran along the beach until my feet were raw. I was so happy.

- Ate Thai food (obviously) sitting on the floor up to our table.

- Rainbow tie-dye hammock at our bungalow. (Did I mention we were spending $2.50/night each?)

LOWLIGHTS

- Let's be honest. Nothing's ever totally perfect. The warm, crystal clear water was actually filled with thousands of invisible "water fleas." Who's ever heard of water fleas? So as we were floating around enjoying the beach, we'd have to give out occasional yelps of frustration. The fleas weren't enough to keep you completely out of the water, but definitely a noticeable discomfort. I experimented though, and found that the more I flailed, the less they bothered me. Real relaxing. :)

- Blair and I bought food from vendors across the street from each other then both got reprimanded for not eating at a table in front of THEIR restaurant. Short of eating in the middle of the street, we couldn't think of a way to appease them. It was tense.

- Took bus ride to this island. It was a dirt trail and I'm pretty sure was handled in 1st gear the whole time. Impressive to say the least.

Day of pooling it

HIGHLIGHTS

- Just chilled at our MTV pool all day. With sunscreen. Promise.

- So there are smoothie stands everywhere. The best kind to get is the "mixed fruit." Or as this place we went to most recently called them, "many, many fruit." I'm also, esp as an editing nerd, endlessly entertained by typos and mistranslations in foreign lands. So to the place that sold my best fruit shake ever, I'd have to credit them with the yummiest "smooty" of the trip so far.

LOWLIGHTS

- Again, not so much my lowlight, but others. At this Full Moon Party there are many burning rings of fire, burning limbo sticks, etc. Lots of flame. Why anyone thinks this is a good idea to mix with tens of thousands of drunk twenty-somethings is anyone's guess. Then again, perhaps they're in cahoots with the dozens of emergency clinics that line the streets of this relatively small tourist town. Hmmm.... Really makes you think.

Full Moon Party

HIGHLIGHTS

- Surprise reunion with Cakes on the ferry to Ko Phanang.

- Met up with Guy and Jules again and joined them at the resort they were staying at that's straight out of MTV Spring Break.

- Watched fireworks and floating Chinese lanterns from the balcony.

LOWLIGHTS

- So there's this giant party on this island every full moon. We went just to witness it. It's like 80,000 ppl on the beach or something ridiculous. Anyway, backpackers in swimsuits everywhere and neon body paint and techno. Eesh. An experience, to say the least. The lowlight, which is secretly a highlight, was that my tummy wasn't feeling the best so I got to go back to the hotel and chill instead. I enjoyed the party from afar.

- Yet another day o' travel to get there. Boat to tuk-tuk to bus to another bus to ferry to tuk-tuk. The last tuk-tuk was straight out of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, made worse by the fact that driving on the left side of the road makes it look even more like head-on collisions will be the result of every sharp curve.

Phi Phi

HIGHLIGHTS

- Oh my goodness! The entire day. This was what the other boat cruise gone bad was supposed to be. We snorkled and kayaked and watched an amazing orange sunset and an equally amazing orange moonrise. Got to swim from the boat over this crazy coral stuff onto different islands. Went to the island where the movie The Beach was filmed. Less impressive, I think, when you haven't seen the movie. But we got to go through a cool cave thing to get there.

- More on snorkeling. The COOLEST fish. Amazing visibility and so many colors. The fish we're like the coolest irridescenty things. And there were ones with like neon leopard print and ones with huge fat heads and ones that were rainbow/see-through and then i saw some sharks. Yeah, dangerous, huh? They were just little guys. Maybe like 2-3 ft long. SOOO cool though. Loved every second!

- So Blair's a closet picky eater. For as low-key as she is about most things, not about food preferences. So we went to this place that sold Italian food and she got bruschetta. Displeased, she ended up basically eating a bagette as she dumped the toppings off on her plate. The men at the table next to us looked at her with sad faces, feeling bad that she didn't like it. Turns out they were Italian, ironically. They, on the other hand, were eating amazing chocolate sundaes. She made big eyes at his sundae and turned back to her bread. Soon a long spoon with chocolate fudge covered chocolate ice cream appeared in front of her face. He was sharing. She tried to turn it down but I told her she couldn't and that we needed the experience for our highlight section. So, Highlight: Random Italian man feeding Blair ice cream.

LOWLIGHTS

- Sleeping on what was the equivalent of a gymnastics mat.

- Inadvertantly started dred locks with our unkempt hair that is washed only in pools and oceans, then blown around to perfection by the wind on boat rides.

- Want to hear an all-time hygene low? I know, you thought they couldn't get any worse. So almost none of the restrooms have TP. True story. So occassionally, desperate times call for despeate measures and necessity is the matter of invention so who says that the last few pages of a good paperback don't do just as good of a job. Certainly not Blair Pettijohn. Man, never a dull moment when traveling with this girl.

Railay Beach-- rock climbing

HIGHLIGHTS

- Went rock climbing. It was stinkin amazing. We did a few climbs and one really huge one where you could climb in this little cave at the top and just watch the blue, blue ocean and ponder.

- Sunset swim. The water was amazingly warm and we were just floating in these beautiful, glassy swells that reflected the sun. Can't do it justice describing it.

- Watched the rad sunset over the ocean and then an amazing moonrise over the cliffs. SOOO cool. Then Blair shared an epiphany about how it's like God and He never leaves us without some sort of light for very long. The sun went down and then the moon came right up. :)

- Blair and I planned our futures. This was done as we were sitting on some floating bar/lounging thing at a reggae place. It entailed writing all 50 states on a piece of paper, closing our eyes, and pointing. So the big news is, I'm moving to VA and Blair to KY (or KS. She kinda pointed right in between.) Ha! We'll let you know how it goes.

LOWLIGHTS

- Frustrations rock climbing. There was an extra hard part during the long climb and we each had our own struggles as the Thai guides were shouting fairly incomprehensible instructions. "Lef! Little mo lef!" The number of bruises on my leg is indicative of how inexperienced I am though. I don't think my knee was supposed to play as big of a role in the process as it did.

- Since our sunset swim was unplanned, we ended up in an odd assortment of clothes. This meant that Blair spent a good portion of the rest of the night with just a shirt over her swimsuit. Incidentally, we decided that same night to splurge and eat at a fancy beachfront restaurant on the rich-kid side of town ("splurge" meaning my entree was $5, but still...). The waiter comes up and Blair, though he couldn't understand her, mutters, "I know, I have no pants on."

- At the nice restaurant, they brought Blair steamed rice she didn't order and then tried to charge us for it. We brought it to their attention and in this case they decided "the customer is kinda right" and split the cost with us 50/50. Ha!

- Tried to shower off from the beach. Isn't super effective when your shower is actually SALT WATER.

Beach day- Au Nang and Railay

HIGHLIGHTS

- Slept until we woke up. (Best feeling in the world!)

- Laid on the beach most of the day.

- Checked into a bungalow thing with a hammock. It's been too long.

LOWLIGHTS

- Cakes had another competition between her foot and a sharp object. She's 0 for 4.

- Gapping hole in my only pair of shorts. It's not a backpacking trip if you don't rip your pants.

- We went to Railay Bay for the night. The beach you pull into is full of, as the guidebook puts it, "dream on" resorts, meaning not the kind backpackers stay at. But it's just a few minutes walk to the other side of the track. We basically followed our noses as we walked behind the fancy resorts to the other beach. The more it smelled like sewage, the closer we knew we were.

- Did I mention the bathroom? It's only so bright in the pic cause the flash is on. And the shower was a nozzle on a pipe right above you.

Au Nang (Beach in Southern Thailand)

HIGHLIGHTS

- Made it to the beach finally! Now to begin the wonderful process of the tar-and-feather effect of alternating between sand and sea water. Ahhhh.

- Ate a Thai omlette (how often do my highlights involve food?) It was amazing. Fried omlette over rice basically. Everything's over rice. Brother, you'd love it.

- Let's talk about the water temp in the ocean here. About what you'd take a bath in. And thus far it's really shallow all the way out. We'd swim on the surface about a football field out and sort of just float there. Then occasionally we'd stand up and the water would be at our theighs and we'd say, "yep, just checking."

LOWLIGHTS

- Took an airplane to Southern Thailand. It left at like 6am and was about 20 degrees on board. Then they ran out of blankets. The high/lowlight was Blair's mini temper-tantrum when her seat didn't recline. "I'm UNCOMFORTABLE!" before passing out into a comma. Despite the rough transportation situations, we keep coming back for more.

- What we affectionately named the "Chinese water torture fan." We couldn't turn it off cause it was so miserably hot but apparently if you were in the bed next to it, it was pretty brutal. Just a big gust up and down all night.

- The girls suckered me into buying a "real" backpackers backpack when we saw some North Face ones on the black market. After the 3rd thing that broke on it in 3 days, I've determined it's not real. Luckily, I refused to throw away my little black backpack, so I'm not totally out of luck. Just out about $15.

Day o' travel (another one? Weird.) Cambodia to Thailand

HIGHLIGHTS

- Arrived back in Bangkok. It was very hot and sticky. Had 2 bottles of their famous OJ made from Clementines.

- Stopped en route at some very American looking gas station. It has A/C (miracle #1) and PB Oreos. Life is good!

LOWLIGHTS

- So I don't know if a blog description of this event can really do it justice but I'll try. It'll give you a little taste of how the tourism industry works out here. We had a 10-hr bus ride this morning to Bangkok. The first bus we got on was jam-packed with people. It was like a small school bus and the whole back and the aisle were all full of luggage. We were all squished together and it was hot and sticky. Despite how full it felt, we kept stopping to pick up more ppl. We pull over into some parking lot and a taxi meets us there. These 2 girls get off and one of them is already quite upset about something. She's arguing about the price of something relating to her bus ticket. Anyway, she's bugged but under control. Then the driver is in the bus counting seats and counting ppl. Soon a scooter pulls over with a plastic chair on the back (like the flimsy kid ones at Wal-mart with a generic character on the back). The chair is put onto the bus and the driver asks if anyone would mind sitting in the chair. Of course the ppl (all tourists) just laugh and say no way. I was trapped in the back corner of the bus in a space much smaller than the chair anyway. So then the driver goes back outside and the girl just starts screaming. "Absolutely not!!! I am NOT sitting on a plastic chair. We paid for 2 seats! I am NOT sitting on a plastic chair!!" So this goes on for a while, and eventually she has no choice b/c the bus just pulls away, leaving her and her more reasonable friend standing in the parking lot. For reals? We pull over about a block and a half later and just wait. Turns out it was a scare tactic. A scooter pulls up with the girls and their luggage. They sheepishly get on the bus and the quieter friend takes her place in the plastic chair and enjoys the 4-hr ride. Ha! Eesh. That whole "customer is always right" idea really doesn't fly here.

- Blair and I were hired to schlep the luggage out of the back of the bus through the window to the driver below. Awesome.

- We decided we're making an "uncomfortable sleeping positions" montage. See pic below.

Angkor Wat

HIGHLIGHTS

- Rented mtn bikes for $2 for 12 hrs and biked all around these ancient temple ruin things (where Tomb Raider was filmed, if that helps...). It was an AMAZING work out and so cool to just be sweaty and dirty and see beautiful things. I had about 1 mth of not working out pent up inside me so it felt GREAT! And the temples were way rad.

- Back to that no safety code thing...things like these ruins are so much more fun than if they were in the US cause you can just tromp all over and through them. Helps you really get a feel for them.

LOWLIGHTS

- So remember how I said the water works on and off? Lowlight when Blair marches to the front desk in a towel and barefoot (keep in mind we're staying way back of a hotel, down a dusty little road to emphasize her point that the water was NOT working (we were filthy from the bike ride and the girl was ready for her shower, dang it.) It'd guess this was a lowlight for us, highlight for the hotel guy.

- So this isn't my lowlight, so much as a kid I overheard in the internet place. The poor kid checked into his hostel earlier today with his friend, then I'm assuming, went out to see the town. Lost his friend. Lost his hostel. All he remembers is that there were 40 crocodiles in the backyard. What the? This isn't necessarily croc country out here. So he's between the internet and asking around he's trying to get back home. Everyone's just looking at him like he's a little crazy. Poor sap.

Siem Reap, Day #1- Just chillin

HIGHLIGHTS

- Got to do another interview. This time it was with a family who are some of the first members in Cambodia and the parents were little kids during the Pol Pot era. I won't ruin the end. You'll have to wait to see it in print (hopefully) but they're the stinkin coolest. I love getting to know the members in these others countries. It's so cool to be able to learn so much from them! :)

- Reuniting with our British buddies (a lot of the backpackers are doing essentially the same route so we see people over and over). We love these kids!

- Found a Swensen's in the middle of Cambodia and had our first truly satisfying ice cream in all of Asia. Truth be told, we had a sundae/shake extravaganza. It was sickening and delightful all at the same time.

LOWLIGHTS

- Did I mention the part where I'm molting. Quite literally. I was shedding skin so bad from the sunburn that at one point Blair and Cakes and I were all peeling one shoulder. And my shirt sleeves are perma-green from the Aloe. I know that all of you want a detailed update of my skin status.

- We hit up another market. Every once in a while I try to buy things for other people but just keep getting stuff for myself. Sorry everyone. You wouldn't like the stuff they have here anyway. Promise.

- At the markets we find ourselves getting really into haggling over 1000 riel and then have to step back and remember that it's just 25 cents. Oh, the life of having everything be so, so cheap.

Phnom Pehn to Siem Reap

HIGHLIGHTS

- Got to interview more people for potential stories. So fun. Love it!

- On bus ride, sat behind this way cute fam with 3 little girls. They looked Mormon and lo behold, it wasn't very long until they asked if we were LDS. They live in China with the military and go on crazy adventures with their kids. They gave us lots of tips on Asia and helped pass the time cause we got to play with their kids. One of them sang us "Ï am a Child of God" in Mandarin. No big deal, I could do that too when I was 4.

- Sitting in an internet cafe (right now) that's playing soft hits from the early 90s and convincing Cakes that they're my fav songs that I'm pulling up on youtube. That's right. Unbreak my heart!

LOWLIGHTS

- Had to say bye to our Aussie buddies after traveling with them for almost a week. :(

- Yet another sobering experience going to the Killing Fields. I feel really blessed to be able to be learning about all of this and be right where it happened. The country has come a really long way to recover from these things and in such a short time but you can still definitely see the scars.

- Bathroom highlights: Sink drains onto floor and water only sometimes comes out the faucet.

Phnom Pehn

HIGHLIGHTS

- Got to go to CHURCH!!!!!! :) Yay! It was all in Cambodian but Heavenly Father is looking out for us and there happened to be an American there who's totally fluent in Cambodian and translated for us. It was fast and testimony mtg and just a little branch but full of people getting up to share their testimonies. It was a huge struggle the night before getting the info for the church but through a series of little miracles (that were quite big ones for me at the time) we got it all sorted out.

- A random Cambodian kid that was helping us find the church and one of our Aussie friends both came to church with us who we've been talking to about the church a lot. He's a really good hard-core, church-going kid. Were all on spiritual highs for the rest of the day.

LOWLIGHTS

- Went to the Tuol Sleng Museum. It was a high school that in the 70's was converted into a torture prison for Pol Pot victims. Very eye-opening and again, made me think of the depth of the Atonement and the love that God has for His children. A medium-light really.

- Squeeze the 6 of us in a tuk-tuk and we were so heavy it could barely move, then ran out of gas.