My first morning in the Bokeo Nature Reserve in Laos, I woke in a treehouse to the distant hooting of Gibbons. The monkeys release a high, rising call. As they wake up, their excited calls reverberate across the empty quiet of morning. Although intellectually I knew that the villagers running the Gibbon Experience lived nearby, …
It feels like just yesterday that I was fearful and a bit panicked about the prospect of traveling solo for a year. And yet, three months have passed and the experiences have been like nothing I had anticipated beforehand. I loved my two months in Australia, but the real magic of this trip picked up …
After traveling from Thailand into Laos, and then taking part in a few adventures around Vang Vieng, I settled in the ever-so-charming Luang Prabang, with an eye toward unlocking good food, good hikes, and the best daytrips nearby. Between my first trip and several subsequent ones in the following years, I’ve spent a lot of time …
I knew it was inevitable that I would get sick at some point. When you travel through Asia it’s less a matter of “if” than “when.” I didn’t consider what it would mean to get violently ill in a region of the world so untouched by Western medicine. Just a few weeks into my five months …
Luang Prabang is a beautiful city, it’s like the adored child who is the apple her parents’ eye. The city crawls along the Mekong River. The gilded tips of temples peek above the palm trees. In 1995, UNESCO designated the entire city as a World Heritage site. Key aspects of the city are now protected from tourism, time, and …
Once upon a time the main activity in Vang Vieng, Laos centered on tubing the Nam Song River and partying. In the years since the tubing scene was shut down, Vang Vieng has sprung back to life as an ecotourism hotspot. When I visited on my round the world trip, I partook in the tubing …
Can we be frank: Vang Vieng has never been unknown to backpackers in Southeast Asia. And it’s never really been “off the path,” either. This small riverside town has a reputation, and for better or worse, it’s long been part of the Southeast Asia backpacker mythology. That notoriety is exactly what first pulled me in. …
With just a handful of hours left in Bangkok before our night bus that would start our travel adventures in Laos, my friend Laura and I hopped a public bus to Thailand’s massive Chatuchak Weekend Market. Chatuchak is open on the weekends, and since we were in town on a weekend, the market was a …