Happy National Sunglasses Day!

Hope its sunny wherever you are :)

Life Rules 1 to 9

I guess its my turn to post my own set of life rules. Jess, Jill, and Sash - love yours. here's mine...

one - eat something green everyday
two - work hard at the things you love.. like really hard.
three - dont be afraid of looking dumb, asking a stupid question, getting rejected, falling on your face, or being otherwise embarrassed.
four - wine is always a good idea
five - go outside.
six - be different. But always be yourself.
seven - happy girls are the prettiest girls
eight - DIY
nine -  sometimes its good to be bad, am I right?

Where the heck does time go?

I spent 99 days in 22 cities in six different countries. I boarded 12 planes and literally flew around the world. I rode an elephant, took part in a national waterfight, learned how to cook thai food, rented scooters, discovered the most beautiful natural hot springs in the world, and ate my fair share of street food in Thailand. Crickets, gyozas, steamed curry buns, spring rolls, crepes, and an endless amount of pad thai. I rode tuktuks and ate fresh pineapple on the steps of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the largest hindu temple complex in the world, built over 900 years ago. I rode the worlds highest gondola, drank snake blood (and ate the snake along with its pulsing heart), sailed through the islands on Halong Bay and took a 24-hour train across the country of Vietnam. I climbed to the top of the worlds highest twin towers, watched a fashion show and was chased off a beach by some crazed monkeys in Malaysia. I turned 22, got a tattoo(!!!) and relaxed on the beach for weeks in Bali. I hiked the trails of Cinque Terre, ate the best pasta of my life in Rome, explored several little hill towns and the Vatican City, and drank floods of red wine in Italy.

99 days is a long time and its so nice to be home. I missed Cat, my bed, kale, hummus, good coffee, hot showers, real toilets, my girl army. Obviously.

So I caught up on the things I missed. And now I'm ready for the summer! I'm ready for summer potlucks. Messy braids. Bright lipstick. Dancing in the sun, sangria in hand, girls by my side. More waterfights. Cut-off jeans. And lets go on some road trips, shall we?

The end is near

Bali is already behind us! The last 3 weeks flew by so fast it feels like a dream. We spent lots of our time laying in the sun while in Bali. On the beaches, at our pool. All we wanted was to be lazy in the sun everyday and relax. After 3 months of fast paced traveling and always on the move this was the best place to end off our trip. Other than soak up the sun we did some fun things while we were here. Like our private cooking class taught by a tiny Indonesian lady named Maria. She taught us in her house which is only one small open room. The kitchen was outside and it was so beautiful! She taught us how to make our own coconut milk, fish pepes cooked in banana leaves, peanut sauce, and a few delicious spicy dishes that I dont know how to pronounce or spell. We left with our bellies full and our mouths on fire!

I turned 22 in Bali! And we ate lots of treats.. Chocolate cake, apple-banana crumble, tirimisu, banana splits. And surprise! Cam flew all the way to Bali to hang out with me on my birthday!!! Well, thats not entirely true.. But how cool is it meeting up with friends on the other side of the world!? We ate a fancy dinner. I had swordfish! And we drank a tower of Bintang (my favourite cheap Asian beer). Later we found a bar giving away free drinks for one hour!! Obviously we consumed as many of the surprisingly strong and sugary drinks as we could and continued the night with some live music, mojitos, Sara high-fiveing every taxi driver on the walk home, a late night swim in our pool and popping popcorn at the 7-11 at 3am. It was perfect.

We left Bali for awhile and headed to a tiny island called Gili Trawangan. Its so small you can bike around the whole thing in one hour, and more stray cats live on this island than people! It was beautiful except we spent four out of five days watching movies, playing crib and waiting for rainstorms to pass. Luckily our last day was sunny so we rented bikes and went exploring!

And now our 3 months of traveling is over! Well almost.. We only have a couple days in Bangkok to eat all the pad thai and fresh tropical fruit that we can and drink lots of cheap beer while getting $3 foot massages.

A bit of Bali

I'm sorry! I haven't been posting anything lately. We've been so busy laying on the beach everyday and I've completely forgot about my blog. I only have a few minutes so I'll just share some pictures of Bali so far. Enjoy!

This takes my breath away.. and makes me want to do cartwheels.

 

green tea pringles!

Get me outa here!

The other day Sara and I were in Georgetown. A smallish town on the tip of an Island off the West coast of Malaysia. We left Kuala Lumpur (the capital city) quite spontaneously, in search of a town that would offer a little more adventure. Beaches? National parks? Some hiking trails? Count us in!
I dont know how to say this nicely.. We hated it!
After being quite disappointed with the food, the beaches and the lack of anything going on in the city we headed to the national park. Hiking! I was so excited.
Well, the hike was a nightmare! Climbing over massive rocks and through overgrown trails with spiderwebs constantly in our faces. Bugs attacking us from everywhere. There was also a very terrifying loud screech coming from somewhere in the jungle. It was such a relief when the hike brought us to a nice little beach so we could relax.10 minutes later we were surrounded by monkeys. It was so scary! They were all jumping around with eachother and screaming and watching us, one actually stole Sara's granola bar from her. They basically chased us back into the trail. It was the worst experience! I think the minute we arrived back to our guest house we booked bus tickets back to Kuala. Which is where we are now.. Waiting for the day a little plane will take us to Bali.

North Seeth Oust and West

When Sara and I were planning which countries we wanted to visit prior to our trip, I wasn't too excited for the Thailand part of it. I was looking forward to Vietnam, Malaysia and the less common places to travel. 'Everyone goes to Thailand!' is what I was thinking..  I half expected the cities to be full of young backpackers who are just here to party. But I have been pleasantly surprised and the last 2 weeks in Northern Thailand were AMAZING! Ive definitely been having way more fun than anyone reading this blog!

I found these two along the way! YAY!

We discovered some natural hotsprings in the middle of the jungle just outside of Pai. It was actually the most magical place I have ever seen. The little city of Pai was also incredibly cute. It is just like Nelson, one of my favourite cities back home. And we rented motorcycles!

For the Thai New Year they celebrate (for 5 days!) by having a massive, never-ending water fight. Here in Chiang Mai everyone is equipped with hoses, buckets or waterguns attached to water tank backpacks and I havent been dry in almost a week!

Annnnd, we rode elephants, and hiked in the jungle to a village where the people cooked us amazing pumkpin curry and gave us a few too many shots of their homemade rice wine.

We went rafting down a river on a long bamboo raft. It was only a few peices of bamboo tied together so I was slightly terrified. I decided it would probably be illegal in Canada.

We danced our faces off at a live show. A fun Thai jazzy band. Awesome!

We learned how to make curries and pad thai and soups! And we were allowed to eat everything!! 

We floated paper sky lanterns!

We spent HOURS walking through markets, buying funny socks and making sure we tried every food stall. Steamed buns shaped like farm animals, gyozas, spring rolls, mini fried quail eggs, VERY spicy mango salads, cupcakes, lots of food on sticks, crunchy tubes that taste like kettle corn, deepfried sandwiches, and fried Crickets!! Which didnt taste bad with our seaweed chips and Chang beers.

 Jack and Jill chips!

Today Jess and Jill left for Laos. Have so much fun I MISS YOU ALREADY! And tonight Sara and I are heading to Krabi, in the southern part of Thailand. YAY beaches!