Made it back home!!

Well. Once the photos app on my computer died, I really lost motivation to write in my blog. But after taking a month and a half to rot at home, I realized I’ve left all my loyal fans hanging!! To be fair I’ve seen most of those who frequent my page in person to debrief, but it’s only right to give this era of travel a proper close out on the blog. Be it nearly 2 months after my journey has come to an end.

We last spoke around when I left Australia. I spent 6.5ish weeks in Southeast Asia starting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Frankly, I’m not a city girl and KL is a bustling, growing, cultural melting pot. Amazing city, but I mostly ate McDonalds as I was feeling fearful of my allergies.

From here I flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia, still one of my favorite destinations of the trip. I stayed in arguably my favorite hostel that maybe 20 people were staying at, half of which had stayed there for minimum a few weeks. After a somewhat isolated few months. I was really grateful here to feel a sense of welcoming community. I saw Angkor Wat, a Hindu-Buddhist temple that is the largest in the world. Meandered one afternoon to the floating village and frequented the $1 beers in town. From here I went to Mondulkiri to hang out with some of the last Cambodian elephants in their natural habitat. The jungle mud devastated my already destroyed sneakers. The quick trip led me then to Phnom Penh, the capital. This began “no fun weekend” :(. My focus in Phnom Penh was to learn about Khmer Rouge and visit the prisons and killing fields. Absolutely devastating truths that I was shocked I never learned about in school.

I call it no fun weekend as I travelled from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam where again I had really only planned to see the Vietnam War Museum. Seeing the entire room dedicated to the victims of Agent Orange was once again devastating. Feeling overwhelmed by city, I made quick work to a 16 hour bus to Hoi An. My plan was to travel Vietnam from South to North.  Love Hoi An. Town of lanterns and coconut boats and custom tailors. I felt a calm here that I really needed and similar to Siem Reap, was able connect with other travellers I met in town. Some popular backpacker spots are filled with an amazing sense of community, often across a variety of hostels, and others have none at all. From here I went to Phong Nha and saw CAVES. Big ones.

From Phong Nha I made zoomed to every backpackers highlight of this region: the Ha Giang loop because I wanted friends to travel with in North Vietnam. 4 days on the back of a motorbike enjoying the incredible landscapes with even better company. Unfortunately 1-2 days into our journey, we found out super typhoon Yagi’s path was passing straight through North Vietnam. And we were in a region especially prone to landslides. Zoinks! We tracked the storm closely and decided to cross our fingers and carry on. We were lucky to really only cross a little bit of rain. Just South of us, Hanoi, Cat Ba and Sapa were devastated. I returned to Hanoi after this trip and at least 80% of the trees in the city had been uprooted. I definitely got super lucky, and it was upsetting to see how seriously Vietnam had been impacted by this storm.

The storm unfortunately derailed my “travel North Vietnam with friends” plan, so I flew from Hanoi to Chiang Mai, Thailand. By the time I got to Thailand I was pretty burnt out. Frankly, I did a poor job of exploring this country. Oh well guess I’ll have to go back! I laid pretty low between Chiang Mai, Pai, and Bangkok.

I began the return home, flying from Bangkok to Honolulu, Hawaii where I met up with bestie Kelsey. Boy oh boy was it a relief to see a familiar face. We made leis and shnorkelled and surfed but mostly just hung out which was so joyous. Kelsey is so cool and inspired me to keep doing cool stuff.

From Hawaii, made a pit stop in San Francisco to see bestie Scully. So many epic laughs. Shockingly epic city. 10/10 epic weekend.

Then I flew home! The end! I’ve been home since the beginning of last month which has been chill, but also not at all. Every weekend is spent seeing a different circle of family and friends I haven’t seen in over a year. While overwhelming, I feel so lucky to have so many amazing people in my life that I can pick up with where we left off.

Come December, the adventure continues. Next chapter: Aspen, Colorado. Goal: continue my legacy of being the best skier on the mountain.