southeast asia or bust......

so, i'm a tad late in updating oh the last month or 2, but here goes....

my sister amber is in her 1st year of grad. school at the "U", getting her master's in education. needless to say, for the first time in forever, she had a nice long break over winter, which happily coincided w/mine and we decided to capitalize on it and take a little vacation. it's pretty funny how easily we came to the decision of where to go and both decided on thailand, vietnam and cambodia. here's a quick re-cap of our vacation. they were all such amazing, beautiful, cheap, fun places!! i would easily go back for more.

bangkok, thailand: 2 nts.
got dropped off at 2 a.m. in the wrong sketchy alley way where are hotel was supposed to be located, but no fret there were plenty of them to go around. we ended up walking around a bit and found our 1/4 of a star hotel (which they claim was 3 stars ha!). we could not stop laughing when we saw the 3 beds pushed together, shower w/no curtain over the toilet, etc... we ended up meeting an awesome family from montana w/1 son and joined up w/them to explore the city: touring the temples, visiting the largest reclining buddha, going on a river cruise, eating some of the yummy food and experiencing one of many massages (at $6/hr., "no massage" is not an option). overall, we both thought bangkok was nice and cool how oriented it was to the water, but another big city and probably our least favorite of the trip.

chiang mai, thailand: 2 nts.
hopped on a flight to chiang mai and got checked into our hotel. already such a huge improvement from our last hotel, it's not even funny. it does make me laugh looking back on our pics how we totally derived inspiration from our wardrobe from the "amazing race": hence the running pants w/t shirts and sweatshirts in multiple shots :) we went on an amazing tour that took us up into the jungles to see a unique tribe of thai people, on an elephant ride, a hike up a beautiful waterfall and lastly to go on a ride down the river on a long bamboo raft. it was a small, really fun group on our tour that day, a mom and her son from england and 2 couples from the netherlands, plus me and am. after getting back and getting the obligatory massage :), we hit up the night bazaar market. you would've thought we had just heard we no longer need to attend another single's activity, it was the happiest feeling ever being surrounded by such bargains :) my only regret now is not getting more. i only wish i had a video of amber offering the salespeople such ridiculously low prices that they would just look at us in disgust, but it did score me a $2 fake pair of ray bans.

siem reap, cambodia: 2 nts.
hands down this place was the highlight of our whole trip. everything about it was amazing: scenery, people, adventure. we took a tuk tuk (a little carriage hooked to a scooter) around the town to scope things out and to hit up shopping at the market at night. the next day we went on a quad tour: (an aussie couple started these 4 wheeler tours through the rice paddies and decided to take the earnings and open up an orphanage in the area). after going through the fields and passing through small little villages, we ended up at the orphanage. wow! such a lesson to me about the resilience of little kids. it broke my heart to see how little they had, but to see how proud they were of their school, their dorm area, the garden they were growing, etc... and such smart kids, they were learning japanese, english and cambodian. it really had an impact on us. here's their website if you want to check it out: http://cambodianorphanage.org/
after that we hopped on another tuk tuk to angkor wat: the largest religious monument in the world. in a word amazing! so extensive and so much detail, it's so neat to think of everything that's been preserved.

ho chi minh city, vietnam: 2 nts.
and welcome to the land of motor scooters. oh my gosh! such a shocker, they were everywhere, we had never seen anything like it. and it was kind of funny b/c everyone drives w/the face masks on and it's almost like those and their helmets are their way of expressing their fashion sense, there's every style under the sun. am and i were joking that now one of the biggest accomplishments in our lives is being able to cross the street in vietnam. people do not stop or even slow down. we would just link arms, say a prayer and try to find a group of natives to trail. it was like playing a game of human frogger :) we took a tour in vietnam of this beautiful temple about 1 1/2 hours outside the city then went to the cu chi tunnels, extensive tunnels used during the vietnam war. very cool, but very claustrophobic. we ended the day by hotel hopping: happening in to fancy hotels around the city to check out their amenities :)

highlights of the trip:
1) being together-it was such a bonus being able to travel w/amber, b/c we just get each other, we have similar tastes in things/activities and it was just so easy and fun.
2) all of the amazing people we met on this trip: our friends from montana, peruvian cousins, an aussie couple and their daughter, the 2 couples from the netherlands and our friend and her son from england. it is so fascinating to hear what draws people to places and just to hear their backgrounds.
3)surprisingly, i know, the food! i wouldn't say am and i are the most adventurous eaters, but oh my gosh, the food was sooo good! especially in vietnam and so incredibly cheap.
4)4 wheeling through the rice fields and seeing the orphanage in cambodia
5)walking around downtown ho chi minh, with the whole city decorated for christmas