We just arrived in Bangkok this morning, and I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling really overwhelmed and a little sad. Our overnight bus dropped us off at 5am this morning on a random street in the pitch dark, and we took a taxi to our hostel, only to wait for six hours until check-in. I fell into a sort of half-sleep on a wooden bench outside of reception, hugging my backpack to me so I wouldn’t get robbed, and felt very, very homeless. Not only am I sleep-deprived, with an upset stomach and a very strange rash breaking out on my arm, but I’m also slightly depressed because I absolutely fell in love with Pai – the tiny, hippie town where Kelsey and I spent the last few days – and that’s the only place I want to be right now.

Last weekend, Kelsey and I took a mini bus through the winding roads up north of Chiang Mai to Pai – a tiny town in the mountains, filled with cute little tea shops, prayer flags, tie dye, and young travelers. It was so easy to meet people there because everyone was doing the same thing – taking a break from their busy travel lives to do absolutely nothing in Pai. It’s the type of place you find and immediately begin to unwind and relax and settle in. It felt like home. There was nothing not to love.

Welcome to Pai

A few minutes after getting off the bus and checking into our hostel, Common Grounds, we were walking down the street and heard a girl on a motorbike yell, “KELSEY!!!” It was a girl she went to university with who’s been living at the Circus School in Pai for the past two months. Talk about a small world. She pointed us in the direction of the Sunset Bar that night for a fire show she’d be performing at.

So that’s how we found Sunset Bar. We rolled up on our first night to the hidden little tiki bar that you could only get to by crossing a sketchy bamboo bridge since it was on the other side of the river. When we got there, it was empty. No fire show. The only person there was an older guy sitting at the bar, and on second glance, we realized he’d been at our hostel in Chiang Mai, so we stopped to say hello. And then we just got sucked into Sunset Bar. We had a couple beers with our Chiang Mai friend, Mike from South Africa who’s now living in Reno, Nevada, and on a six-month trip at a sort of transition phase in his life. He introduced us to the bartender, Sanpet, half Thai-half Canadian, covered in tattoos with gauged earrings, the sweetest, kindest, wisest twenty-five-year-old I’ve ever met. Our new best friend. We chilled with Mike and Sanpet for hours and decided this was our new favorite spot.

We settled in to the Pai lifestyle, doing nothing. Our first couple days looked something like this: Kelsey and I lying in hammocks, sipping coffees, chatting with our new hostel friends from Denmark/Canada/Ireland/Germany/England, with dogs at our feet who were all named after Thai curries, taking breaks to walk five minutes down the street to all the food stands that strangely sold burritos, ice cream, pizza, and burgers instead of traditional Thai food. On our third day we were antsy for an adventure, so Kelsey and I rented a motorbike for the day. We paid 100 baht (about $3) for the day, and set off on the winding roads through Pai. We had a map, but no destination, which was absolutely fine because everywhere was beautiful. We got caught in the rain and searched for hours for some hot springs to swim in, only to find that the ones we stumbled upon were literally boiling (I burned my toes), and we nearly ran out of petrol on the long drive back to town, but it was still one of the best days of our trip so far. Green mountains, rice fields, waterfalls, wind in our hair.

Moped selfies

That night as we sat at a burger joint – Burger Queen – inhaling some of the best burgers we’ve ever had, we had this overwhelming feeling again of how small the world is. Pai seemed like a university campus that night, because every other group of people that passed us had familiar faces. We ran into at least fifteen people who had all been at our hostel in Chiang Mai – everyone traveling separately but ending up in the same place. We made plans for everyone to meet at Sunset Bar, and because Kelsey and I spread the word and brought so many new friends, Sanpet hooked us up with free drinks all night. We befriended a couple of the other bartenders, two Aussie guys from Byron Bay, who made me really homesick for Australia. We stayed at Sunset until 4am that night, well after closing time, just hanging out with Sanpet, the Aussies, and their Thai tattoo artist Jeanne, who promised to design a tattoo for me the next day. So that’s what I did on our last day in Pai – I got a tattoo (sorry, Dad). I’d been wanting one for ages, and what a great souvenir/story to tell! Jeanne designed a compass with my first initial in the middle – to center me, to make sure I am never lost, and to guide me all over the world.

Inked

After spending the day at the Magic Monkey tattoo parlor, Kelsey and I met up with some of our Chiang Mai friends to go watch the sunset at the Pai Canyon. I hopped onto the back of a motorbike with Martin, a cute guy from Chile I just met who just finished a semester in New Zealand, and we loaded our other friends onto the backs of a few other bikes, stayed until the sun went down, and then rode back to spend our last night at Sunset Bar with our “travel family.”

It’s going to be such a strange feeling to go home and not be surrounded by travelers. In the past thirteen months, I’ve found that I could walk up to just about anyone and have a day-long conversation with them by asking the same three questions: where are you from, where have you been, and where are you going? Even when I was living in Brisbane, working, I was meeting people from all over the world. Once I stepped outside of the bubble that is America, I found that travel is such an important part of life in so many other cultures. Now, spending nearly three months in a constant wandering state, I can’t imagine what it will be like to go back to a place where people have jobs and addresses and phone numbers. It’s going to be such a culture shock. I don’t know how I’ll possibly find anything to talk to anyone about.

Our last night in Pai was almost surreal. Here we were, surrounded by a group of nearly twenty people who we’d only just met, but we honestly did feel like a family. We took over the entire Sunset Bar, trading tales about where we were from, where we have been, where we are going, and feeling so close because we’ll all always share this particular overlap in our stories. I was nearly in tears at the end of the night, giving hugs to my travel family, to Sanpet and Jeanne and the other bartenders who I don’t think I’ll ever forget because they made this week the most awesome. I love you all, and I really don’t think it’s goodbye forever!

Travel family at Sunset Bar

Today we did a full did cooking class at the Thai Kitchen Cookery Centre in Chiang Mai. I can’t get enough of the Thai food, and today the cooking school took a group over to the markets, taught us about and picked out some traditional Thai ingredients, and took us back to the centre to cook and eat all day. We made Prawn and coconut milk soup that was so spicy I broke out in a sweat and my nose started to run; green curry paste to use in our green curry chicken; cashew chicken stir fry that was salty and sweet and made my mouth water; spicy papaya salad that, again, made my nose run; mango sticky rice for dessert; and finished off the day with shots of Thai whiskey with our Thai cooking teachers. I just woke up from a food coma, but my belly was so happy today. Here are a few recipes from my favorite dishes from today.

Cooking my chicken curry

Green papaya salad (sumtum)

Ingredients

3 cloves of garlic with skin peeled off

2-4 small “Thai chocolates” (chillies)

½ tablespoon coconut sugar

30 centimeter long beans broken into 4cm pieces

2 tomatoes

2 cups green papaya grated

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 tablespoon fish sauce

2 tablespoons of skinned dry roasted peanuts

Preparation

1. Peel the green papaya. Shred into strips and keep separate.

2. Take the skin off the garlic and put into the mortar.

3. Add chillies and pound with the pestle.

4. Add coconut sugar, long beans and pound again.

5. Add tomatoes and gently squash with pestle.

6. Add papaya, lime juice, fish sauce, peanuts.

7. Bring the ingredients into the middle of the mortar with a spoon in one hand and pound with the pestle in the other for about one minute.

8. Eat!

Stir fried chicken with cashew nuts (gai pud met mar mooung)

Ingredients

2 tablespoons soy bean oil

4 cloves Thai garlic crushed and chopped with skin on

250 grams chicken sliced finely in 3cm strips

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 tablespoon salty soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 brown onion sliced

4 spring onions cut in 4cm strips

2 large sundried “Thai chocolates” (chillies) cut in 3cm strips

10-15 pre-roasted unsalted cashew nuts

Preparation

1. Heat soy bean oil on medium heat in a wok for 30 seconds.

2. Add the garlic and stir until it becomes fragrant.

3. Add the chicken and stir fry until it is three quarters cooked.

4. Add the oyster sauce, salty soy sauce, sugar, onion, spring onion, and sundried chillies. Fry until fully cooked.

5. Switch off gas and stir in cashew nuts.

6. Serve hot with steamed jasmine rice.

Mangoes with sticky rice (kao neow mamuang)

Ingredients

Rice:

1 cup sticky rice

½ cup thick coconut cream

4 tablespoons sugar

½ tablespoon salt

Topping sauce:

4 tablespoons thick coconut cream

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon corn flour dissolved in 4 tablespoons water

Accompaniments:

1 large ripe sweet mango

1 teaspoon deep fried mung bean seeds or toasted sesame seeds

Note: white sticky rice must be soaked – overnight in cold water or for 5 hours in warm water or for 15 minutes in boiling water prior to making dish.

Preparation

1. Drain the rice. Rinse and place inside wet cloth sack (pillow cases are fine) and then inside a bamboo or vegetable steamer. Bamboo is preferable. (Use 2-3 wet cloth sacks if using a metal vegetable steamer or a Chinese bamboo steamer).

2. Steam over boiling water for 40 minutes until rice is tender.

3. Make the sauce for the rice by placing the thick coconut cream, sugar and salt in saucepan on medium heat until sugar is dissolved.

4. Using a rice paddle or large spoon, massage this mixture into rice, spoonful by spoonful. Set aside while you make the topping sauce.

5. Make the topping sauce by placing salt, sugar, coconut cream and corn flour and water mix in a small saucepan on medium heat until sauce thickens.

6. Peel mango and slice into 12 pieces. Arrange on two plates. Beside the mango, place a spoonful of rice, top with a dribble of sauce, and sprinkle seeds on top.
7. Eat by placing a little of everything in each mouthful.

I love Chiang Mai. After some much needed rest, Kelsey and I wandered around the city, exploring some of the temples. So many Buddhas. At night, we headed over to the Night Bazaar where they have heaps of tents set up market-style every night and you can haggle with vendors to buy anything you can imagine – watches, sunglasses, head phones, purses, pants, singlets, shoes, artwork, jewelry, etc. We did a lot of our souvenir shopping and walked away with lots of flowy elephant pants and very little money.

But today was even better… we got to play with ELEPHANTS!!!

We spent the day at Baan Chang Elephant Park, where they rescue all of their elephants from situations of abuse. Kelsey and I had our very own elephant for the day, to feed, ride, bathe, and play with. Our guide, Best, taught us some commands in Thai before we hopped on our elephant Long Mey’s back.

Non long – Lie down

Pai – Go

How – Stop

Kwey – Turn

Di – Thank you

Long Mey was the sweetest elephant. We fed her bundles of bananas and sugar cane sticks in the morning. After lunch, we climbed up on her back, held onto her ears, and rode her around the park and she picked flowers and handed them to Kelsey with her trunk, while the little Thai elephant trainer picked fruit off the trees to feed to me. At the end of the path, we rode Long Mey right into the lake. She was ready for her bath! She lay down in the water and we scrubbed her and she squirted water all over us with her trunk. I can’t even describe how happy I was at the end of the day. Kelsey and I rode back to our hostel in Chiang Mai, grinning ear to ear.

Bath time with Long Mey

I know it’s nearly a week late… but thought I’d let everyone know that we survived the Full Moon Party! Kelsey and I spent three days in a bamboo hut on Koh Phangnan last weekend – a day to get there, a day to party, and a day to recover. When we got to the island, we soon realized that partying is the only thing that happens in Koh Phagnan. They have the Full Moon Party every month, and there’s a party every day of the week leading up to it – beach parties, boat parties, jungle parties. And then there’s the Half Moon Party… and the New Moon Party. So naturally, everyone on the island last weekend was a backpacker looking to get a little wild. We made friends with a few British girls who were staying in our neighboring bungalows, and on the night of the full moon we decked ourselves out in neon and face paint and headed to the main beach that was basically a strip of bars backed up to the sand, every one playing different music, and people dancing chaotically and drinking buckets. We danced our butts off until 6am, and made it back to our bungalow as the sun was coming up.

Kels and I at the Full Moon Party

After a day of recovery, we made a last minute decision to say goodbye to the Thai islands and head up north to Chiang Mai. Talk about a long journey… it went something like this:

TUESDAY 15/6/14:

11:15am

Kelsey and I walk up the road to wait for a taxi. Emily and Anne Marie (our British friends) are already here. It’s the first day in a week that the sun is out and shining, and we’re sweating our balls off.

11:35am

Emily and Anne Marie are getting nervous that the taxi isn’t here yet, but we’re calm. Classic Thailand. Nothing is ever on time.

11:50am

Our taxi arrives 20 minutes late, bumping country remixes of love ballads, and there’s a baby in the front seat.

12:10pm

We arrive at the pier. There are literally hundreds of backpackers lined up, fleeing the island after the full moon.

12:25pm

We realize everyone is confused and the “line” is not for anything. We sit down to wait for the boat.

12:45pm

Turns out we were actually supposed to be in the line. We’re chatting to the cutest British girl, Nina, about her travels.

12:55pm

It just started raining.

1:00pm

We’re finally on the boat, sitting next to Nina and her cute blonde man friend.

1:40pm

Nina’s man friend is a Dutch boy she met diving last week. It looks like they’ve known each other a lot longer, if you know what I mean.

3:55pm

Boat is slowing down, it’s time to get off.

4:20pm

I’m soaked. Of course, the ten-minute monsoon would hit during the exact ten minutes it took to get off the boat, get our bags, and find our bus to Suratthani. We don’t even know if we’re on the right bus. I could be crying right now, but instead I’m laughing because I know there’s gotta be someone up there laughing and saying, “hahah I made it rain!”

5:35pm

We just turned down a dirt road and stopped at what looks like a broken down shack. The bus driver yelled, “Everybody off!” and started throwing our bags. Apparently we’re at a major bus terminal.

5:55pm

Kelsey’s waiting in line to get us some food. It looks like the only things they’re serving are massive servings of Pad Thai, Pringles, and Chips Ahoy.

6:35pm

Just paid 5 baht to use the toilet and change into some dry clothes.

7:00pm

Good thing we changed because our overnight bus to Bangkok is here a half hour early.

7:10pm

We made some Canadian friends on the bus – Julia and Denise – so we grabbed four double seats near each other. Our first stop is in four hours, so we’ll have double seats to ourselves until then.

8:05pm

That was a short four hours… we just had our first stop and these two obnoxious ladies asked Kelsey and I to sit together since we’re friends. I think our matching pants must have given us away.

WEDNESDAY 16/7/14:

1:05am

I finally fell asleep and then the bus driver stopped and yelled and turned the lights on for a 45 minute food break. No thanks, I’ll go back to sleep.

2:10am

Break is over. The guy in front of me just stared at me while he reclined his seat all the way back. Now he’s laying in my lap.

6:45am

We’re off the bus and in a tuk tuk to the Bangkok train station. Kelsey haggled the driver down to half the price.

7:00am

Just bought our train tickets – the last two available – to Chiang Mai. Twelve hours on the train to follow up our twelve-hour overnight bus.

7:50am

Just had to poop in the hole in the ground that they call a toilet. When I got back, Kelsey looked bewildered. Apparently I just missed some impromptu national anthem and weird march/dance by all the security guards.

8:40am

Our train is finally here (late again). We convinced a Thai man to switch seats so that Kelsey and I could sit together.

9:30am

I found the toilet on the train and it wasn’t as scary as the one in the train station. Now I’m wondering if we’ll get food because I’m already starving. Good thing we have a couple leftover Pringles to hold us over until we get there tonight.

10:00am

Just got our first free snack – black bean filled roll. So gross.

11:30am

Second snack – rice and chicken and fish.

3:30pm

Third snack – some sort of sweet pastry that oddly tastes like shrimp.

8:00pm

I have no idea how I managed to entertain myself for all those hours but we’re finally to Chiang Mai. Hopping off the train and into a van to find a hostel.

9:30pm

Thirty two hours later… a taxi, boat, bus, overnight bus, tuk tuk, day train, van ride, and panicky hostel search later… we are finally at J.J.’s Guesthouse in Chiang Mai. I’ve never been happier to see a dirty hostel bed.

Last night I chatted with my Mema on her birthday, and she asked all the typical grandmotherly questions...

"So are you having fun, baby?"

Yup, a blast.

"Do you miss Nate?"

Yea, a lot.

"Weellllllll. Are there lots of cute boys in Thailand?"

Haha, so many. There's that Lithuanian guy who speaks the most broken English ever and won't stop trying to hold my hand no matter how much I yank it away. And the Kiwis who want to meet up at the Full Moon Party this weekend for a night swim in the ocean. And the eighteen-year-old British boys on their gap year (after high school) who follow us around like puppy dogs and insist on calling me "Elizabeth."

But the ones that stand out to me the most (and not because they're cute) are the ladyboys. I'm not kidding, they're everywhere in Thailand. Working in the travel shops or for the airlines, hanging out outside of the bars at night, and of course, dancing in cabaret shows. The other night, Kelsey and I went on the Koh Tao pub crawl - it took a bunch of backpackers around to some of the best bars on the island and fed us free shots and buckets, and we ended the night at a Ladyboys Cabaret Show.

This might sound a little weird, but the ladyboys are actually pretty stunning. They have perfect figures and faces and they move in a way that is so feminine. But then you start to look more closely and you see that they're a little too tall, their bodies a little too plastic, their voices a little too husky, and the hint of a mustache and Adam's apple are appearing through the layers of makeup. I watched them dance at the show the other night and was confused and horrified and fascinated all at the same time, and I couldn't help but wonder how they hide their junk so well...

One of my first memories of Australia: sitting on a couch in some guy's backyard, next to a bonfire with my new man friend Ben, game three of State of Origin projected onto a screen on the back of the house. I was so lost. Not only have I never really been a big sports fan, but I'd also never seen a rugby game in my life. I just cheered and booed whenever everyone else did...

A year later: Kelsey and I stumbled into an Aussie pub for dinner in Koh Tao last night to find game three playing on every TV, and we were so pumped. It kind of occurred to us in that moment how long we'd been away from home - it's been a full year and we're still going. We sat near the bar to watch the game and realized the place was filled with big Australian guys rooting for New South Wales. So intimidating. We were probably the only Queensland supporters, and two little American girls at that. But once the game started and all these guys were yelling obscenities and banging their fists on the tables around us, we felt really homesick and happy at the same time. I felt like I understood the game better than I ever have - Kelsey and I were so proud being able to explain the rules and point system to a couple of our American friends who were clueless. We skulled a couple beers, and all of a sudden we were the ones cheering the loudest, talking shit to these guys who thought they were tough as they buried their faces in their hands because Queensland killed it, 32-8. We may not have won the series this year, but it was a pretty awesome feeling cheering on the Maroons last night. I felt so Aussie.

Sitting on the beach in a big red bean bag chair, flowy pants, elephant singlet, under palm trees wrapped in fairy lights, DJ bumping, nursing a Singha... #Thailand

Update: Koh Tao is just as relaxing/beautiful/heavenly/amazing as I thought it would be. As predicted, we've spent all day every day soaking in the sun and playing in blue waters... whether it was the pool or the ocean.

Today I ate breakfast in a cute little cafe around the corner with Kelsey and Brianna, and Bri was telling us this theory about two types of fun. Type 1 Fun consists of the little things that make you feel good, like reading a good book, watching your favorite TV show, listening to some music, hanging out with friends. They aren't the most exciting things, but they make you happy. Type 2 Fun consists of the big things, the adventures. It's not always fun in the moment - sometimes it's uncomfortable or scary or overwhelming - but it's fun to look back on and gives you an awesome story to tell.

So far, this trip has been full of Type 2 Fun - sleeping in shacks without electricity in the middle of the jungle, shitting in holes in the ground, overnight buses, language barriers. Koh Tao has brought us some much needed Type 1. Yesterday Steve, Bri, Kelsey and I spent the 4th of July hanging out on the beach with a bottle of rum, laying in the sun, and playing in the water with a couple of golden retriever puppies who liked the look of our frisbee. Could not have been more content with life!

Poolside chillin

Thailand = Paradise.

Our first few days here have been amazing. We spent a day in Krabi Town, eating street food, exploring markets, and hiking 1,237 steps up to the Tiger Temple with massive gold Buddhas at the top to accompany the most amazing view.

Tiger Temple

From there, we headed to Tonsai with our new American friends. Who knew a place like Tonsai existed – a tiny, secluded beach village only accessible by boat, where everyone knows everyone, and all anyone does all day is lay in hammocks, rock climb, and smoke weed. The only bad thing about Tonsai was that we got there in the middle of monsoon season, so we spent a lot of time inside, waiting out the massive storms. But even with the rain, Tonsai was amazing. We could hike to beautiful beaches with blue water, mountains emerging in the distance. On our last day, we hiked/rock climbed down into a hidden lagoon in the rain and swam around in our sneakers.

Jon, Kelsey, Bri, Steven, and me on Railay Beach near Tonsai

Right now, I’m sitting in my hotel room in Koh Tao, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. Kels and I are in a three-person room, next to the infinity pool on the beach. And we’re only paying about $13 per person per night. I feel like I’m in heaven. Plan for the next week: lay by the pool in my bikini all day every day.

Kels and I in Tonsai