Chiang Mai was a cute little town full of quaint and sagging old temples, late night carnivals, and even a Starbucks. We rented bikes and explored the old and new city, watched a parade, and learned the secrets to making the perfect dish of Pad Thai, but all of these wonderful things were dulled by the glory that was (and check this shit off the Things Kait Needs to do Before She Dies List) PETTING A FUCKING TIGER.

Excuse my capitalization, but DAG NABBIT, our visit to the Tiger Kingdom is this little town was one of the happiest moments of my entire life. Yes, I know what you are thinking: “oh those poor tigers, they are drugged and live in cages and have to put up with people bugging them all day long.” But you are wrong. First, go read that book the Life of Pi, it will explain a lot. After that, understand that these tigers are living the life. They don’t have to hunt, struggle to survive against the elements and predators (specifically MAN), AND like your very own cat, love getting their tummies rubbed on a lazy afternoon. These tigers were rescued as kitties and grew up amongst humans, and have no need for drugs. Just a patch of sunlight and they are as placid as a bottle of xanex.

Being the cat fanatic that I am, I was a bit apprehensive that my ecstasy would be too grand for the other people visiting the Kingdom. Luckily I was in the company of Kacie and Chris, two people who are almost equally (Kacie, maybe even a bit more…) fanatical about these creatures. So when we entered the tiger kitten habitat, our shrieks of joy,”ooohs,” “eeeeees!”, and “look at dis little tidden tats!” (that one is mostly kacie) were so loud we could probably be heard from Burma.

See pictures. Get jealous.

With a boil, our DM challenge, Kace’s open water course, and Turtle island conquered, Kacie, Chris, and I set off for higher ground. After cooly overnighting it by train to Bangkok, we hit our first and only roadblock to what would otherwise be a very easy trip to the Norther Province of Chiang Mai; we had to deal with a fucking embassy.

One of the least fun things I can think of to do on a Saturday afternoon at home is visiting the DMV to do something or other* (* the other being something as simple as updating an address, renewing a divers license, borrowing a pen)– we all know and loathe this activity from the time we are 15 and hopefully go into the place only to be faced with a 3 hour wait, a slew of grumpy staff members, and more than anything, the inability to provide the outrageous but necessary mass of information they ask of you, as if you knew all along you needed your high school transcript/netflix subscription/ bank statement/optometrists home address to prove to them who you are. I personally bring a best friend along to help me from murdering someone when I don’t have the essentials, which is always….So I was half prepared to visit Bangkok’s US Embassy with the same emotional acuteness I usually have for a DMV visit when I realized there was not one inch of space left on my passport to be stamped, and that would surely cause problems in the 5+ more countries I would be visiting before my feet landed on home soil. I’ve learned on this trip that sometimes you can get information via something called The Internet, which I now use quite often to do such a thing. I hopped on the Embassy website and sure enough, I got some answers:

1. The United States Embassy will see people by appointment only
2. Office hours are from 8-9 am and 1-2 pm, Tuesday through Wednesday
3. The United States Embassy is located in the middle of fucking nowhere. Like seriously, you can’t even find it on google maps.
4. We are in dire need of a new US Embassy web designer. Come on, people, where are our tax dollars going??

Our plan was this: arrive in Bangkok from overnight train and head straight to the Embassy. Drop passport off. In afternoon, pick up Passport. Get on overnight train to Chiang Mai and forget we ever had to go Bangkok (remember folks, I am not a city kitty.) We arrive at the BKK train station around the same time as the sun and stumble straight to the ticket counter, stark and sullen from the ride. Here we are informed there are NO seats left on the Chiang Mai, and accept the disheartening truth that we must stay in the city for a night. Though delayed, the new extended plan allowed us some leisure time to Get the Passport to the Embassy. Turns out, we would of needed all that time; somehow, when we turned up at the Embassy a few ours later, we discovered the add-pages-machine was out of commission until further notice. Instead of calling back to see when it WOULD be working, I was to turn up at the Embassy (situated in some random, far away place in the city) to check and see if it was ready, during operating hours of course. We had three disappointing visits to the embassy before our last attempt; we crossed our fingers that this visit would be our last, as we had optimistically booked train tickets for that night. And, if you wouldn’t believe it, just in the knick of time (and, in the midst of a full on torrential, flood-creating, car denting, arm stinging rain), I found myself SPRINTING across the 8 lanes of traffic, shoes off to avoid slipping, seconds from the 2 p.m. embassy cutoff, getting through the security screen and grabbing my passport full of new pages. I gave Grumpy Embassy Staff a smile so bright it would cure any monsoon, and we were on our way.

After lamenting the idea of re-visiting my blog after an overwhelming three month writing hiatus, and worrying (for some dumb reason) how I would go about starting again, I came across this beautiful paragraph in a worn book of short stories by my beloved Hemingway. It so perfectly expresses my absence of stories here, and how it is often difficult to balance the obscurities of adventure with the cage that words put around feelings. I do, however, want to share my life with those that are interested, so here we go, on the grindstone. I have two months left on this trip and will be as dedicated as one can be to letting y’all know I’m not dead.

So, Egypt in October till now, the beginning of February. I could go into a whole novel of goofy situations, misguided adventures, and interesting new friends, but for lack of short-term memory and time, I’ll just go over the highlights. As plans often do, my original concept of staying in Asia for a mere month and a half changed the minute I set down in Thailand and realized what a majestic and inexpensive place it was. October was spent zig-zagging through southern Thailand with my best friends (i.e. Friendship Club); we climbed rocks at Railay beach until the Monkeys chased us off them (literally…), we spun buckets on Koh Tao, we floated down rivers and rode elephants in Khao Sok, and ended up in Bangkok for a few days to giggle wildly, eat scary objects (SCORPION), and eventually wave each other goodbye after 3 weeks of ecstasy. As the gang loaded into a cab to head to the airport, Chris, one of th Friendship Club founders and long-time job hating American, decided he had too much fun to leave so soon. He didn’t get in the cab, and instead hopped on Skype and promptly quit his job.

And that’s how I ended up spending the next 4 months sharing my life with Chris.

We headed back to Koh Tao, a little island off the east coast of thailand renowned for it’s scuba diving community, where we whimsically decided to become certified Divemasters, rented a house (complete with blanket-sized towel as a bedspread…?), found some friends, and settled in for what could later easily be described as Scuba Camp.

Dive schools littered the island, but after much deliberation decided to do our diving internship with a diving outfit called Big Blue, which was an overflowing cornucopia of instructors, students, and other Scuba Campers (DMTs) like ourselves. We fell into routine in no time, experiencing what any real thailand-living expat does: we figured out where the best pad thai could be found, learned how to survive the nauseating 48 hour soul-sucking visa runs to Malaysia, how to walk barefoot for 3 weeks because someone had stolen your shoes, how to pee hovering over a treacherous hole in the ground, how NOT to drive a scooter correctly (and oh, how I paid for that lesson.), and in between all of this even learned how to manage ourselves and others in the underwater wonderland known as the Gulf of Thailand. At night, after a day in the beautiful sunshine and even more beautiful ocean, amongst hammocks and wild island kittens, harmonicas, ukeleles, and guitars would appear from nowhere and all us campers would have wild sing-alongs and trade stories and sit happy in raillery– things coalesced into perfection.

The winter holidays were celebrated as a happy and hilarious mix of a million cultures. Thanks to my stepmom and her astute ability to plan things well in advance, chris and I were able to show our swedish/canadian/australian/swiss/brittish/blahblahblah friends the glory that is Thanksgiving. Yes, we all gathered around and ate my greatest (and my first) homemade Thanksgiving feast. I even made everyone go around the table and say what they were thankful for. For Christmas, we introduced the concept of a “potluck,” in which everyone was encouraged to bring their own favorite traditional plate, which was especially hilarious as the Thai grocery stores are very “simplistic” and people had to get “creative” trying to recreate their dishes from home. New Years was lots of shitty pop music, but of course, a lot of silliness and fun.

As great as the free time at Scuba Camp was, it was nothing compared to the mandatory activities I was required to do in order to get my certification. Yes, there was a lot of unpleasantness (swim tests, exams about physiology, etc.) but it was well worth it to get underwater and DIVE DIVE DIVE. The cool thing about this program is the minute you sign up, you get to dive as much as you want FOR FREE and FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY. For those of you that haven’t been diving, it appears to be a sport made specifically for rich people. I have found a loophole, however, and encourage you all to take advantage and sign up for a DMT course in Thailand. In the time I was on the island, roughly 2 months, I went on over 120 dives in the happy warm waters off the islands. Once I got the hang of things underwater, they actually let me be in charge of paying customers- taking them on underwater adventures and showing them things that at one point would have scared the regulator out of me (sharks, sting rays, scorpion fish…). We divemaster trainees were also allowed to go on dives with each other, where we quickly developed a highly elaborate and extensive vocabulary of underwater signage. Oh yeah, and we played underwater Quidditch, complete with brooms. It really was the best.

Alas, all great things must come to an end. After probably a lot longer than it should have, Chris and I finished our last bits and pieces of the DMT course and decided that for now, Koh Tao had become a bit too comfortable. It was time to hit the road again, and after a 8-year-old birthday themed going away party where we were forced to perform things I cannot even begin to write about on this blog, we waved goodbye to our little island.

So here I am, ready to go where i have to go, do what i have to do, and see what i have to see. SE Asia, look out. And you too, blog readers– I will have so much to blog about I’ll be hitting the grindstone hard.

love youz, and sorry for not blogging in a million years.

Dahab, in almost every sense aside from the harrowing heat, could not have been more different than Cairo. Opposed to the disquieting chaos of Egypt’s capital, I stepped off the mini van to find nothing but a dusty, deserted street. I wandered seaward to a lazy path that ran parallel to the water, across from which you could see the shimmering lights of Saudi Arabia– when I did find people, they seemed to be eternally relaxed and living in a utopia. It was then that I realized where I was–the Arcadia of Scuba Diving. I learned quickly that Dahab, as well as many other places on this peninsula, were world renowned for their exquisite and easily accessible dive sites, relaxed and international.  There were open-air restaurants that served exotic (and edible!) foods lining the beach, well groomed stray cats you actually WANTED to pet hanging around all day, and a handful of wonderful, likeminded travelers that all seemed to be addicted to this place, staying indefinitely. Because of the recent conflicts in Egypt, Dahab had been struggling with tourism, so aside from being almost completely empty, there seemed to be a serious price cut in food, lodging, and activities. You could essentially choose your price of everything– dinner? Yeah, I’ll pay $2 for that. How about $4 for a night to stay in a private, air conditioned room? Cool. It was then that I abandoned all other potential travel plans around Egypt, booked a week at the first decent looking hotel, sat down and pet a cat that had simultaneously curled up in my lap. 

I decided, after 2 days of book-reading, cat-petting, fish-eating, and sun-burning, i was ready to get back in the big blue sea I had last visited in Portugal. In hopes of getting more confident underwater, I sidestepped my overwhelming oceanic fear and signed up to get certified as an Advanced Diver, which is a 2 day crash course in things like deep diving and night diving– activities that sounded terrifying to me. The next day, geared up and ready to go, I was introduced to my instructor, Roland, a chain-smoking German man whose face was almost entirely hidden behind the most prodigious and massive mustache i have ever seen (and I live in Portland, so that is saying a lot). And the diving went GREAT. The sites we visited were bustling with fish and landscape I had never seen, and whenever I felt a glimmer of anxiety, Roland need only look back towards me, and the hilarity of his mustache framed against his regulator and mask would ease me back into comfort and remind me of the fun i was supposed to be having. By the end of the week, I felt like I could take on the world. Though I imagine I could have stayed for another lifetime, my exit back to Cairo was bittersweet–the next day I was to get on the plane to meet a handful of my very best friends in Thailand- Friendship Club Asia was about to commence.

The streets in cairo are INSANE. No lights, no lanes, no crosswalks, no rules– just the constant drone of horns honking, tires screeching, and the wild desire to survive. Crossing the street is practically a death wish, and in order to cross you must abandon all hope and blindly throw yourself into the stream. Hesitation is certain disaster, and I found after a few close calls the best way to survive is to pair up with an Egyptian and stick by their side no matter how hard they try and shake you off. It’s like drafting in a bike race, but instead of headwind you are eluding a bloody, broken mess. It’s simply thrilling.

I met Russel, an aussie expat now living in Rome, and together we planned to conquer the city. We realized in seconds that planning something and doing something are two very different things. Our first mistake was leaving our hostel without a map or a clue, but decided that we could rely on the help of the wonderful Egyptian people bustling about the neighborhood to get us pointed in the right direction. That was our second mistake. What would have been an almost direct, 3-block jaunt to the Egyptian museum became a frustrating, scorching, 3 hour labyrinth where we “helpful friend” after “helpful friend” led us farther and farther away from our desired destination and into a myriad of perfume shops. We finally gave up trusting people, but unfortunately by the time we made it to the museum on our own, our willpower was completely exhausted and we went home. Sleep was much needed, for we were engaged to attend an Arabic metal concert that evening.

The dudes working in the hostel took us to some weird community center to listen to a wild mix of your typical heavy metal getup seamlessly linked with haunting Arabic wailing and a slew of flutes, chimes, and screamcore. Aside from the lack of anger and drunk people (remember, beer is hard to come by in this crazy city), the strangest thing I observed at the show was a bunch of chicks head banging in a rage circle still clad in their Muslim burka head wraps. Definitely weird.

In another long chain of scams, Russ and I somehow arrived at our days final destination: Giza, just outside of the city, to check out THE PYRAMIDS! I was forced, through a slew of objections, onto a horse, which angrily carried me through the sweltering, sandy desert to the big old structures full of mummies and what I can only hope to be something like the Alien vs. Predator scenario. They were EPIC, so colossal and awe inspiring…and the coolest thing about this tourist trap is that they just let you climb all over the big things. it was weird and perfect, scrambling up the giant stone legos that make up the immense structures. So totally worth the hype.

The city was taking a toll on me, my self-esteem as a woman, and my tummy, and I’d heard whispers of a magical place on the Sinai Peninsula that had some of the best dive spots in the WORLD, so I hopped on a night bus for 8 bumpy hours en route to Dahab.

I almost forgot! When I first started traveling, I got this wild idea that by the time I was 25, I wanted to visit 25 countries. Sure enough, when crossed the border from Slovakia to Hungary, I DID IT! Yey for dreams!

1. United States
2. France
3. Italy
4. Mexico
5. Canada
6. Samoa
7. Fiji
8. China
9. Indonesia
10. Australia
11. Argentina
12. Chile
13. Ireland
14. The Netherlands
15. Morocco
16. Spain
17. Portugal
18. Germany
19. Denmark
20. Czech republic
21. Austria
22. Slovenia
23. Poland
24. Slovakia
25. HUNGARY

That’s the whoop.

Traveling with your best friend can be fun (like boobs), but it can also be dangerous (like fire boobs) and in some cases could seriously test the entire entity of friendship. This is because most people are different, want different things, travel different ways, and often are worried about speaking their mind. But when Jessie and I are traveling together, it is like the planets are aligned and the universe is wholly in our favor. Turkey was no exception, we ruled that country.

Our first night was spent in the bar of our hostel, where I had been stationed after agreeing to participate in a beer drinking contest with the owner, Onur (yes, pronouned the same. yes.). Jessie shows up wild-eyed from the airport, bagless but ready for fun. We spent the night acting much like we did in college, making friends with strangers, laughing at jokes impossible for anyone else to understand, and whatever the turkish equivalent of slow walking your bike home would be. Needless to say, we made quite an impression, and after night one in Istanbul we were notoriously American Girls.

Seeking refuge from hangover, the next day Jessie and I went to the Blue Mosque, a beautiful and old piece of work. I realized, as we huddled in a corner under blue headscarves we were made to wear for decencies sake, that people love dressing like each other. Hundreds of people filed into the building clad in blue skirts and headscarves to look at the place, but most peoples attention were not on the old mosaics and sacred history. Instead, they were just really excited they were given the opportunity to wear matching blue outfits and took pictures accordingly. Business Advice: figure out a way to get people to dress up in matching outfits and they will be happy.

We left the Mosque after seeing how many pictures we could get in, and went on our way to plan out the upcoming 12 days of our Turkish Adventure. We looked to Istanbul to show us the way, but instead we got something much more tangible: apple tea. We learned quickly that apple tea was everyone’s pick up line. Not just to get us in bed, or their ice cream shop, but really, just to get a hello (and tell us how pretty we are and how cool jessies tattoo is and sometimes even propose marriage). And, as jessie and I are both very fond of Apple tea, we were surrounded by a myriad of new friends. We also learned NOT to promise people you will go back to visit them, because if you don’t they will shower you with guilt.

In the midst of kebab, weird ice cream, apple tea, and backgammon, we ventured into the gigantic retail heart of Istanbul, the Grand Bazaar. We didn’t know how grand it was until we were in it’s epicenter, and it took us almost an hour to find an appropriate exit. Dazed, we stumbled into the tea garden, a place apparently reserved for old dudes that smoke hookah while play games on their ipads. We chilled out there, spirographing and drinking apple tea/turkish coffee (sooo delicious– like hot chocolate mixed with espresso) until we were approached by a handsome turkish man who not only read my fortune, but also gave us some much needed travel advice. Then, of course, he invited us back to his family’s shop for some apple tea. We became fast friends with this dude, Burham, and agreed to let him take us out for a night on the town, across the river in Taxim.

The rest of the night is better left to your own imagination, but it involved a turkish Gaga cover band, awkward dancing, serenades, and at last, someone playing Everybody Hurts by REM on their cell phone speakers. It was weird, and hilarious, and I could not have survived it with anyone but jessie.

Having exhausted our attentions in Istanbul, we hopped on an overnight terror-bus to Cappadocia, the Flinstones inspired wonderland in the middle of the country. The town we stayed in, Göreme, was the European version of Moab, full of adventure tourists, rocks, and dust. It was weird and beautiful. We slept in a cave. We drank cave-made wine. I even danced on a table inside a cave. ¿Porque no? We took an epic bus journey to a neighboring town, where we visited some underground cave village. Jessie, daring to be wild, went off the beaten trail in the spooOooOooOky chambers, tested her luck climbing into a tiny tunnel, and proceeded to get totally stuck. The next 15 minutes were trying to pull her out of what was later realized as a garbage chute or something, dancing between hysteria and hilarity as we attempted to regain some pride and get all the dirt of jessie.

After the hole incident, for some reason we decided it would be a great idea to go on ANOTHER terror-bus ride to Olympos, which we managed to survive. Olympos apparently used to be the doobie/treehouse/acoustic guitar/hippie capital of turkey, but in recent years has become just another destination for people who want to chill on the beach and drink apple tea. Fortunately, we love doing that. It was a great place to retreat from the things that were haunting me back home, and with Jessie there, everything just seemed perfect. We had a boat party with a hilarious group of Kiwis, convinced some dude to do a cartwheel over a fire pit, and took turns beating each other at cards and backgammon. Did I mention there was about 1000 wild cats that would come eat breakfast with us every morning? Because there was.

We stayed in Olympos until pretty much the last moment, avoiding another bus ride and eventually, catching a last minute flight back to istanbul. we spend our last evening in a rug shop getting treasures for Jessie’s BRAND NEW HOUSE, which I think was the only thing from keeping her from traveling with me for infinity.

Anyway, it was the best. J-Bomb, I love you.

photos courtesy of jessies awesome new camera.

I turned to my trusted method of decision making, which had once taken me to Samoa on my very first traveling adventure…I closed my eyes and dropped my finger on a map.

The finger landed in the High Tatras, the mountain range on the border of Poland and Slovakia. I had never once in my entire life imagined that I would go to Slovakia. In all honesty, until this I wasn’t even sure if Slovakia was a real country. Imaginary or not, I was bound by my self-conceived rules of the finger-on-a-map technique, and was required to venture onward. And if you can believe it or not, as chance adventures often are, my time in Slovakia became one of the best parts of my entire trip.

The night train deposited me in Poland, where I wandered around Krakow for the day. I had more Goulash, which I’m starting to now require daily. After dinner, I was swept into a hostel crowd going to a nightclub, much to my objection. The thing is, I’ve been avoiding clubbing in Europe since the minute I got here. It’s not that I hate dancing or fun, I just hate dudes in collared shirts sweating on me. And I hate cover charges. And I hate €15 shots. Hate them. About 99% of the travelers I’ve met cannot survive their euro-trip without the following: Getting black-out drunk, going on walking tours when it’s 90 degrees outside, having one night stands with strangers, seeing boring museums, and most importantly, clubbing. They absolutely cannot understand how I have survived without checking off every “must see” thing in the guidebook, or why I would choose dangling my feet off a bridge at sunset over seeing yet another statue of someone old nobody has ever heard of. Just get over it people. Life is about doing what you want, not what you think you’re supposed to. And I don’t want to go clubbing in Europe. No!

Well, I went anyway, thinking I should probably get it over with or at least see what all the fuss is about. After handing over the required entrance fee (probably somewhere around $25 and an invaluable heap of pride), I was lead upstairs where i was instantaneously swarmed with collared shirts and dude sweat. I attempted to buy a drink but found out that $10 was not enough, and since my boobs weren’t hanging out of my shirt I couldn’t even get a glass of water. I watched a guy puke on himself. I listened to some chicks cry angrily at each other. I humored the situation for about 3 Passion Pit remixes before some bros got in a fist fight and everyone had to leave. Whoop! Somehow, I was then magically transported from the shitty club to a park, where me and the best of the hostel crew sipped our beers in calm, sweat-free splendor. Thank Bob! I regained my sanity, and prepared for the next day’s journey to the country I wasn’t sure existed.

I caught a train, and another train, and then a bus, until finally I was dropped off at the edge of what appeared to be the tiny village of Ždair. Following directions, I went past the gas station and the church, and ended up in complete and utter Happiness. I wish I could rightfully describe the enormous joy this place brought me– it was as if my finger was magnetically charged to this town when I did the map game, knowing exactly what I needed to make life even better than it was already.

The Golden Monkey was a tiny log cabin/hostel/skihaus tucked amongst mountains, run by a never-tiring dog, Wally, an aloof but secretly affectionate cat, Kevin, and two of the most wonderful dudes on earth, Jake and Dan. I was greeted by Dan who then took me into the kitchen to meet ‘everybody,’ a small group of other travelers who were gathered around a big wood table, cooking dinner like a proper family. It was the most welcoming place a girl could find. I slipped into the GM culture almost immediately; the people were wonderful, the mountains epic, the air cool, and the Goulash, if required, only a few doors away. I hiked, read, hammocked, pet Kevin, lounged, frisbee’d, and feasted. It was my private heaven, galaxies away from train schedules and stuffy dorm rooms and clubbing.

It was only when the onesies came out that i knew i was home.

For those of you that went skiing in the 90s, you know exactly what these are. The one piece semi-waterproof treasures that sprinkled the mountains with neon hilarity for the better part of a decade, since making an annual return on Gaper day or really whenever Texans come to Colorado. Every cabin in the mountains seems to require a forgotten box of these somewhere on the property, and the Golden Monkey was no exception.

I love a themed party as much as any sane human being on Earth, and to entertain the idea of a onesie themed party in the middle of nowhere in the middle of europe in the middle of summer seemed almost too awesome to handle. Within hours of learning of their existence, we had coaxed everyone (even the old, old german man) into one, and the night turned into one of the Greatest Parties of All Time. I think the lude photos can tell you the rest of the story…