Drunk on sunshine

I am drunk on sunshine.

It blinds me and makes me think of all the good things. Makes me remember all the better things. Makes me crave all the best things.

It dances upon me and makes me shiver. Makes me feel a little lost. Makes me feel a little risky.

It warms me and distances me from winter. Distances me from salt. Distances me from ache.

It kisses me and makes me consider forgetting. Makes me consider forgiving. Makes me consider returning.

I am drunk on sunshine. And all I want is more.

Around the world in 30 days

Well, its hard to believe I've been back a month. Not so hard to believe, however, is the fact that my blogging kinda fell off the face of this earth. Sorry about that. Its been a big month. I just sorta hit the ground running and somehow summer just filled right up.

I'll be back to the insomnia soaked rambling soon (slightly different than trip blogging), I'm sure. But until then, here's the final compilation of photos from the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/saracwatson/AroundTheWorldIn30Days

Week in Review: yep that just happened....

Ok, so as any of you who know either Megan or me (and even more so if you have the honor of knowing both of us) would guess, there were way too many "yep that just happened" moments to include in detailed blog posts. "Hey, just think… it's material for the blog" quickly became the quote of the week. And so, as we get ready to leave Bangkok, we have compiled a Week in Review for your entertainment. It's a long list, so grab your popcorn, tequila, and mangosteens, and enjoy!

PHNOM PENH

• Saturday 5am - wakeup call from Himawari hotel front desk. "Ma'am, I find driver for you to Siem Reap today. Only $70. He here at 1pm." Awesome. Thank you for calling us at this ungodly hour.
• 10 mins before we are to meet our driver in the lobby, Megan decides she must see Phnom Penh's Royal Palace. "I'll be right back!" 20 mins later, a running Megan returns to the lobby just in time to make us only fashionably late. This also marks the point of possible heatstroke number 1.
• Two hours into our drive to Siem Reap, Sara yells "Stop! Stop! Stop!" at our frightened driver who screeches to a halt just in time for Megan to jump out and leave her breakfast (mmmm, mangos...) in an unsuspecting family's yard... all 8 of them watching the event. (Also known as The Mango Incident)
• "You wait 3 mins" our driver says to us, while apparently he takes care of the real reason he is coming to Siem Reap today: a special delivery of several boxes of surely benign goods. (Also known as The Mules Incident)
• Driver informs us he does not in fact know how to get to where we are staying. But! His friend "Richard" does. So, doing exactly what our mothers would advise us not to do, we transfer our bags to Richard's tuk tuk (in the dark). Richard chants USA! USA! USA! all the way to our guesthouse.

ANGKOR WAT

• Guide Cha Cha educates us on Cambodian ancient history. We educate him on Nirvana, Brangelina, and a variety of American slang. I really wanted to explain "that's what she said" but I managed to hold back. However the fact that he loved "let's make like a baby and head out" leads me to believe he'd also love a good TWSS.
• Halfway through temple 1 of 7, Megan and I become more than a little concerned about possible heatstroke number 2. When we simultaneously sit down in the middle of one of Cha Cha's explanations, he smiles and asks "What? You hot?"
• Mid-lunch monsoon: decidedly better than possible heatstroke number 3.

SIEM REAP

• Dinner at Red Robin of Siem Reap that included a "Cambodian traditional dance show" and a bucket of a drink called "the aloha screwdriver" which earned us a t-shirt that says "Khmer and proud of it" (HH group: watch for a debut from Megan in the weeks to come...).
• “You want fish massage, madam?" (you sit in a tank and let fish suck on your feet...). Uh… no, thanks.
• "Wardrobe malfunction" in guesthouse pool. You may now refer to Megan as Janet Jackson.
• Yet another example of "America is everywhere": there's a Dairy Queen at the airport. IN CAMBODIA.
• Bangkok flight cancelled, booked on the next one leaving in 5 hours. Good thing there's so much to do and see in this airport.... Food and bevvie voucher for quite possibly the most disgusting noodle dish ever to have touched our lips.
• On the flight to Bangkok, Sara decides to move to one of the completely empty exit rows. She is quickly informed to move to a different seat by a very bossy flight attendant. Apparently we don't need anyone to assist in the case if an airline emergency, those doors will open on their own.

BANGKOK

• After 5 hours, 3 travel agents (one of which we went to twice) and an hour in the hotel's internet café we decide to go to Koh Samet.
• Enter new BFF, Sherry from Canada. Directionally challenged (even more so than us!), she asks for directions every 3-4 mins. Each time, her informant wouldn't even wait for her to specify where we were going. "Jim Thompson House… that way!" Apparently, 3 sweating white women could only be headed to one place.
• Bangkok nightlife: approached by several men hoping to pique our interest with "Sex show for you? Pussy pingpong?" We can’t help but wonder what type of consumer branding bracket we fell into on this one.
• Sara is called a "bad bad woman, a bitch" in the Patpong Night Market, after explaining very nicely that she didn't want to pay more than $3 for a pashmina (because I know you get them for 40 cents!). Oh c'mon, lady! Like she hasn't been called THAT before!

KOH SAMET

• After a four-hour joy-ride with “fun” people (ahem, enough character for a hit tv sitcom) in a minibus (ahem, 9 passenger van), we board (ahem, jump on) a ferry (ahem, old fishing boat) with 30 cases of liquor (and God knows what else). On other side, we climb into taxi (ahem, back of a pickup truck) with 9 backpackers (ahem, dirty 22-year-olds who think they are living the dream).
• First massages of the trip… DO. NOT. LOOK. AT. SARA. DO. NOT. LAUGH. DO. NOT. LOOK. AT. MEGAN. DO. NOT. LAUGH.
• Megan is challenged to a game of Connect Four by the owner of a beachside bar. He wins. Over and over.
• After dinner fire dance show by 10 hot, half-naked men (also known as Sara’s “kid in a candy store” moment).
• Sara orders a “Bicardi Breezer” thinking it’s a cocktail. Its not; it’s bitch beer. After 3 of them, she decides they aren’t too bad.
• At another beachside bar, Megan is challenged again to Connect Four, and again gets her ass kicked... over and over. Sara paints her nickname on the bar with neon paint while enjoying tasty 2 for 1 margaritas.
• Megan leaves for 3-hour tour, returns 6 hours later, sunburned and telling strange stories of “wild bunnies on islands.”
• Race to the other side of the island to see sunset. Completely cloudy, leaving no sunset, only 2 white girls suffering from possible heatstroke number 4.
• After pulling away from dock, Megan asks gentlemen next to us: “This boat is going to Ban Phe, right?” His response: “No idea.”
• Mini bus driver thinks he can scam us by dropping everyone off on a random Bangkok corner and requiring us to pay and extra 300 baht for ride to our hotel. Via a mixture of playing dumb and being American bitches, we get him to take us to the hotel (as originally agreed to and paid for). Upon arrival, he asks for money. We get out, yell “We already paid!” and run off.

BANGKOK, ROUND 2

• Pedicures fuel small anxiety attack. “Uh, yeah… I’m guessing those tools weren’t sanitized….” Thank god for the two tubes of Neosporin Sara brought.
  
• Last massages of the trip…. How can a woman that small be that strong? And are we supposed to cry and do Lamaze breathing through it? And, the bruises… are they normal?
  
• Flower market at 7am: perfect photo opp… complete with rats the size of cats.
  
• Last stop before airport: Wat Pho to see Reclining Buddha. Sara plays stick game with old man at foot of standing Buddha, resulting in following fortune: Just like an uprooted tree, life seems cheerless. Watch for mismating. No lucks. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Oh what a week! What a perfectly exciting and nothing-but-fun week!

American Bitches

Saturday marked our last full day of vacation (imagine sad face here). We started the trip back from Koh Samet to Bangkok around 11am. It consisted of a trip almost identical to the trip over, save for a few small exceptions, and a rather dramatic ending.

The boat was packed with travelers this time. After we pulled away from port Megan had the thought to confirm that this boat was in fact going to Ban Phe. Perfect, right in front of us was a gentlemen whose chances of speaking English seemed quite high. "Excuse me, this is going to Ban Phe, right?" "No idea." Fabulous. I suddenly felt like the 2 German guys on our ride here who couldn't be totally sure the van was going on to Cambodia. Luckily for us, we did end up at the right place and jumped off the boat onto the dock like pros. Psh... 22-year-old backpackers have nothing on us.

After locating out mini bus driver, we were informed that we had about an hour to wait until the van would leave. Now some would suggest we walk around a bit, but we had a plan (we've done this before!): we were going to be the first 2 people on that bus if it's the last thing we do. No back seats for these ladies (we don't need another mango incident afterall).

So we waited and politely engaged in conversation with our competition while I kept one eye on the driver at all times. As soon as he moved an inch, I was on my feet and Megan and I were at the van door. Bam! Take that bitches!

Unfortunately a 130 departure time meant that we didn't get into Bangkok until the height of rush hour (yeah on a Saturday). Just inside the city, the driver pulls over and says "Ok! We here!" Uh, no we not. We paid for a ride to the hotel, thank you. As the rest of the van piled out, Megan and I made the decision not to be nice (dumb) tourists on this one. Looks like our American Bitches hats will need to come out. I must give most of the credit to Megan though. She led the conversation that got our driver to start driving us to the hotel. As he drove he started explaining in a mix of very little English and very grand hand gestures (he'd be a good charades partner...) that he had a small baby to feed, and that we should pay him an extra 300 baht. The minuscule amount of sympathy I had for him quickly vanished when he started yelling at traffic and driving like a crazy man. Damn it! How can there not be seatbelts in here?!?!? When we got to the hotel, it was my turn to wear the AB hat: as we got out of the van and he turned and said "money", I yelled "We already paid!" and slammed the door. We quickly walked away (me shaking, both in relief that we didn't die in a car accident and just because I always shake when I have to yell) and megan reassuring me it was ok. After crossing the street, we looked at each other and said "good blog story."

Sssssssssssunset

The rest of our time on Koh Samet wasn't much different than the first day: laying in the sun getting up only to go get a massage or ice cream (or both!) during the day and going out to a beach bar for dinner and drinks. And it couldn't have been more perfect. We would be ultra-relaxed by the time we got back to Bangkok the next night.

One day, though, Megan decided to mix it up and take a tour to see some neighboring islands. "Have fun!" I yelled from the comfort of my beach mat where I was at the mercy of a Thai masseuse yet again. I was perfectly happy seeing just this island, from just this spot.

Seven hours later when I woke from my sun-soaked slumber at 6pm and saw that there had been no sign of my travelmate, I assured myself everything is fine. Megan had been talking about wanting to watch the sunset on the other side of the island; I had assumed she would stop in and get me first but given the sun would be setting in about 20 mins, maybe she decided to go on her own.

Fifteen minutes later, just as I'm starting to go through the possible next steps for a Thai-Island search and rescue, I see Megan speed walking up out of the sand and saying something in a frantic matter about the ridiculously long time it took for that tour. I start to ask more when she speeds past me saying we have 5 mins to climb this hill to the other side of the island to see the sunset. Ok! Here we go! About halfway up, I have flashbacks to our Angkor Wat climbs (you know, when we thought we might have a heatstroke). At the top of the hill we start back down through a forested trail. Now some of you know of the one major phobia I have and if you are of that lot, you can probably guess the level if panic that starts running through my blood at this moment. Hmmm... a forested jungle-like setting on an island in Thailand. Fabulous. I'm sure there aren't any snakes hiding out in here.... Oh God, just breathe Sara, just breathe (which, by the way, would be much easier to do had we not just booked it up this hill). 90 seconds into our jungle trek, and about 60 seconds into my failing panic-reducing breathing, we see the west side. I have no doubt that the view at sunset would be amazing here. However, it seems that tonight the west side of the island is under a bank of clouds leaving the sun nowhere to be seen. That's it! I'm not going any further... In minutes it's going to be dark and the thought of walking back through this surely infested area with no light is not doing anything for my current state of panic (Megan: "Don't worry, I have my keychain light." Uh....). I hand Megan my camera and tell her to snap away. I'll see her back here in a minute. So much for "ultra-relaxed"....

Shockingly (I know!), we made it back to our beach bungalow without any snake sightings and a few hours later my breathing and heartrate returned to a more normal state. We enjoyed our last night on the island with... yep, you guessed it: a nice meal and tropical drinks on the beach, followed by a riveting game of Connect Four.