Day 12 & 13 Pai
The next morning we decided to head up to Pai. Pai is a little hippie town that should have been 2 hours drive away but it ended up taking our mini bus 3 hours to get there. It was also a super curvy ride so everyone’s tummies were a little upset with them. On the ride up we met Matt from Santa Barbra. He seemed fine and talkative on the bus but when we got to the hostel the boy passed out. Maggie and I ended up having to stay in a different bunk room than Nora, Katherine and Matt. We made friends with Mark from Manchester. While Mark spoke English he had the thickest accent and I had to have him repeat himself so many times. Luckily he found it humorous and not annoying. Mark and my bunks were facing head to head and apparently Mark likes to sleep with his hands above his head because I got hit in the face a few too many times that night.
At the hostel there was a drinking board set up and split by country. The way the game works is for every shot you can give a point a country or take one away. When we arrived USA was at negative 9 and Canada was up 10. I don’t know the rest of the score because those were the highest and lowest scores. The bar tender told us that the Canadians were the one feverishly taking points away from USA. The damn Canadians we always thought they were SO nice well we just had to help fix this. By the end of the 2 days the score was USA 10 Canada -3. Don’t worry we had help form others…Mags and I would be dead if we did that ourselves. We went to the night market because we love ourselves a good market and ate such good street food!
The next morning we woke up early to go and rent some scooters, this meant we had another 7/11 breakfast. Turns out I was the only one out of the group that had ever driven a vespa like thing so Katherine and I had to go prove we could drive because we would be the 2 drivers of the vespas. It was fine except for when the people drove us back on the vespas it was terrifying. I’m pretty sure they were driving like lunatics on purpose. We got back to the rental place picked up our passengers, Nora and Maggie and we were off! Mags was a little concerned at first but then she was a pro passenger didn’t need to hold on at all. She was able to navigate while I drove and got some cute snaps of the girls driving!
We went and saw the white Buddha and tree house, where there were swings. Then we decided we should switch drivers to let everyone have a turn at driving. Nora picked it up pretty fast Mags on the other hand…not so much. She struggled with steering and when she wanted to break she would give it gas. Maggie did not drive on the road; we were trying to prevent any lawsuits. We made it to the Pai Canyon and then a big tree that we don’t know the significance of.
White buddah
Real treehouse
Pai Cannyon
We went back to the hostel to pick up our bags and guys Matt from Santa Barbara might be dead. He hasn’t left his bed since we arrived yesterday. We got back to Chiang Mai and met up with Nora’s brother who is also traveling!
Day 14 15 and 16
Mags and I had to wake up wicked early to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur. And in the rush of trying to pack in the morning I forgot my rain jacket. I’m not even furious I just hope the person who finds it gets some good use out of it, it is monsoon season over there. We grabbed a quick 7/11 breakfast. And we were off to the Lexis Hibiscus. We found this magical place because it was advertised on the plane that we took to Chiang Mai. So score one for advertising.
Guys this place is amazing. We are not people that usually do resorts but man after living in a van and not staying in one bed for more than a night for 3 weeks, we couldn’t wait. We each got our own king size bed which is unheard of especially because we haven’t slept in separate bed for more than 8 months. Not only did we get king beds but we lived like kings. The shower had 4 shower heads. I know so wasteful resorts in themselves are so wasteful so yeah I used all 4 shower heads. The only downside, that’s not even really a downside, was I was the only white person in the whole resort for the full time we were there. I got a lot of strange looks…oh well.
The Lexis hibiscus is also has 2 Guinness World Records one for most swimming pools and one fro most overwater villas in a resort. That’s right folks we got our very own private pool inside our hotel room right along side the sauna. This along with free drinks and snacks you can’t go wrong.
This was also the 1st time Maggie had ever called room service so she was super excited. Essentially we didn’t leave our room for 2 days and that’s just how we liked it. We got to watch a television for the 1st time in 8 months and we didn’t even care what we were watching. We did end up watching The Great British Bake off. This show is hilarious the competitors are so calm and move so slowly and then the judges are so nice…its not really even a competition, I love it!
The main reason I was excited to stay at the Lexis Hibiscus was for the free breakfast buffet. There was everything and we ate so much! We did end up leaving the room and headed to the beach where we had the beach all to ourselves. I guess when everyone has their own pool they don’t need to go to the beach, so more for us! That night we actually got dressed and went to a restaurant but they only had chopsticks, so I had to use them. My hands just were not cooperating. So after our long dinner we went up to the sky bar and grabs a few drinks like the classy people we pretended to be. That night we found out the movies were also complimentary we were a little upset with ourselves because had we known this we would have really never left the room. We watched the Intern and we had both seen it before but I’m pretty sure I was tearing up from start to finish. That old man is just so sweet I can’t stand it.
The next morning it was time to check out so we picked up a cap and headed to Kuala Lumpur.
Day 17
We spent the day mucking around Kuala Lumpur. We stopped by the Central Market to pick up some souvenirs. We also did more eating we got some more kuih ketayap and I finally found my Apam Balik. Apam Balik was my absolute favorite thing I ate the whole time we were in Asia. It’s a street food that is kind of like a pancake but they put filling in it, which is a mystery to me. And they top it off with honey and corn juice. I know doesn’t sound great but that’s not what matters. What matters is the magicalness it is in your mouth. But by this time we were so tired and so ready to go back to Paggie Waggie we ended up taking naps.
The next day our flight wasn’t until midnight so we had a whole another day to spend. Mags looked up some coffee shops and we had a leisurely day. We also thought we should probably see the twin towers because it’s the number one thing in Kuala Lumpur and it’s a defining emblem for them. Little did we know they were right next to a mall. This mall was giant, it had 6 levels and each level was huge. We spent some time just wondering around. We didn’t actually buy anything because our bags were already packed.
I mean come on how was I not suppose to be distracted by all those lights.
Day 18
Sleep is overrated anyway.
We traveled and we traveled and we traveled some more. We were in so many airports in the span of 28 hours and of course only 3 hours of sleep, lord only knows how we actually made it back. When we showed up at the Kula Lumpur airport in order to take a flight to New Zealand we had to show our visas. I of course didn’t bring that slip of paper so I was mad panicking. Then they said I could looking it up online but I couldn’t find the email they sent me. Then I finally found the website by excessive googling and then I couldn’t open the pdf on my phone that had my visa. So much panic I might have had a heart attack right then and there. I was finally able to download an .html file and I took so many screenshots it was a little over the top. Then after all that the man looked at my visa and my passport and said I should be going to France. I panicked so hard but just for a brief 5 seconds because I was headed to Auckland not France. But then I remembered I get this fantastic joke almost every time I show my passport, it is just because my name is Paris.
This is apparently just something NZ does they don’t like people staying too long in their country so unless you can show your visa or show your ticket out of NZ you are not allowed on the plane. This happened to the guy behind me he was only going to stay in NZ for a week and then figure out where to go next but because he didn’t have a plane ticket he couldn’t get on the flight. The flight attendant told him just to buy a ticket from NZ to Australia he didn’t actually have to take that flight and he could change it whenever. But just so he could have a through ticket to even get on the plane. It was madness.
Then in our layover in Australia I went to the restroom and I was washing my hands and a man walked in, so I automatically assumed I was in the wrong bathroom. Said I was sorry and it was ok I was just leaving and he could use the bathroom. Turns out he was the one in the wrong bathroom and I semi force this man to use the lady’s toilet.
We finally made it back home at 11pm on some day that we don’t even know because time travel is messed up.
Endnotes
If you ever want to live like a king go to Southeast Asia. Everything is so cheap.
I finally had a legitimate reason to wear my elephant pants. Not that I need a legit reason I wear those bad boys everywhere.
7/11 s are life in Thailand and kind of Malaysia. You need anything and they direct you to 7/11.
We for sure want to go back and do Vietnam, Taiwan, Laos, Nepal, and of course Bangladesh to visit our food truck friends!
There were so many white people and American people in Southeast Asia it was crazy!
Uber is very prevalent in Kuala Lumpur. They even have Uber on scooters so that’s fun.
There is immensely more wifi in Kuala Lumpur than in all of NZ. And even more wifi in Thailand than there is in Kuala Lumpur.
We still can’t figure out why they don’t stamp our passports in NZ but we just want the god damn stamp already.
Waze. Oh my god we forgot how much we love waze. It’s the best app around and they have it in both Malaysia and Thailand. Come on NZ keep up you don’t even know what you are missing. I know waze is user dependent and there aren’t that many people in NZ but if they just tried it, it would be a game changer!
No matter how much we loved the unlimited wifi, uber, cheap food, warm weather, and waze we did miss Paggie Waggie a lot. We started getting excited to come back to NZ out 5th day in Southeast Asia. I guess that mean NZ really feels like home now!