Blue Dot Explore

  March 16, 2023. View of the Skycab from the Sky bridge, Langkawi Island, Malaysia After 40 days in Thailand (the second time around), we finally found ourselves in a new country when we entered Malaysia March 14 via ferry. We didn't know what to expect doing a customs crossing via boat, but it will probably go down as the easiest immigration/customs stop of the whole entire trip. Our speedboat left Koh Lanta a bit late, which made for a tight connection to make the switch from the Thai to Malay ferry. As we pulled into port on Koh Lipe to get our Thailand exit stamp, I was mentally preparing for not making the next ferry when a man hopped on before we were even fully docked and shouted with urgency "Who is to Langkawi?", to which I panic yelled "THAT'S ME!" as I ran towards the man with renewed hopes of making our transfer.  We ended up making the next (and last) boat departing for the Malay Island of Langkawi and walked through the ferry terminal customs ...

  February 21, Montha Than Waterfall in Doi Suthep National Park, outside Chiang Mai. From the start we'd planned to spend a good amount of time in South East Asia. With the inexpensive living and the tropical islands, it's not hard to see why, but here we are, 70-something days into our trip and we've only managed to hit two countries so far. We are enjoying ourselves so much that we just want to stay everywhere we land (added bonus; I don't have to move my still-too-heavy bag as much). And although there are still so many Thai islands to explore, we are finally ready to head to our next country, Malaysia.  To accommodate the slower pace and stretch the trip we've embraced a more budget approach, although I think we've reached an agreement that A/C is always worth the few extra baht. We have also learned that Johnny prefers a sleeping temperature of 23 Celcius without either of us having the foggiest idea what that is in Fahrenheit.  The end of February still f...

February 11, View from the White Budda in Pai. Unfortunately, many of our Northern Vistas were affected by all the smoke from the ag burning. After a relaxing week and a half or so of chilling on the islands, we knew we had a big travel day ahead of us to get to our next destination, Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. What was supposed to be one big travel day, turned into two when things did not go as planned.  We had an uneventful night in Sihanoukville in which we mostly just hunkered down in our hotel room; a decision guided by travel advisories for the city and some harrowing tales from the googles (who knew that blood slaves were a thing?). Our bus departed at 8am and was scheduled to arrive in Bangkok around 6:30pm (according to the booking site), plenty of time to then take a night train to Chiang Mai….However, as we rolled into Bangkok after 11pm, after multiple delayed transfers, we just grabbed the nearest hotel room rather than getting on another cursed vehicle for up to ...

  After the go, go pace of hitting so many tourist spots and the larger cities, we were ready for some downtime. From Phnom Penh, we headed to the town of Kampot. This place was recommended by several other backpackers we had met and served as a nice waypoint on our way out to the islands. We originally had three nights booked, but ended up adding on another two. This isn't a spot with any particularly notable tourist stops, but we found some mini-adventures nonetheless.  We took out a motorbike to visit the pepper plantation and the nearby Kep Crab Market, where we learned that you can eat green peppercorns off the plant. And also that they are delicious. After several attempts at trying to explain to leave out the fish sauce and a shaky understanding that he got what I was saying via google translate, I YOLO'ed and tried the Crab with Kampot Pepper sauce.  Another outing included Bokor Mountain and National Park, which utilized Johnny's amazing moped skills to get us up...

Our next two cities were quicker stops, Battambang and Phnom Penh, the two largest cities in Cambodia. We arrived in Battambang from Siem Reap via a minivan, which was comfortable for the 3-hour or so ride. I wanted to take the boat between the two, but it was almost 3x the cost and would take at least 8 hours, so ultimately we opted for the much less adventurous, but much more convenient, mini-van.  Arriving in Battambang, we spent our first evening strolling the city and visiting the night food market. It had a very different feel from Siem Reap, which was equal parts tourists and locals. Walking around Battambang, we really didn't see any other tourists, and I feel like we attracted more attention. The next day, Johnny and I parted ways for our own tours. He did a full-day guided bike tour of local culture and I took a Cambodian cooking class where I learned how to make Fish Amok, fried spring rolls, and green mango salad. One of the highlights of Battambang was the chance to to...