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January 31, 2019

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We have a situation!! Alert! This is not at all a test or practice run! We seriously are next to a building that is on fire. Sirens interrupted my worrying on this morning. We'd just eaten free breakfast in the hostel and now we were in our rooms plotting on the day. Kiana and Olivia were in their room (they made it back from the market last night, I found out) and I was texting them trying to get a feel for what they wanted to do with the hours ahead. It was our last full day in Thailand- root of my worry. But then the sirens! Sirens are normal all over the world, so they got the cold shoulder from me at first. But then it was just too loud and consistent. Too many new sirens were coming into the mixture. The melody became dramatic, so I had to get outta bed. As I looked over our room's balcony, I almost realized the severity of the situation. The entire street below us was jammed with emergency response vehicles. People were hustling around frantically. Firemen were su
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January 30, 2019

On this day we wake up on the jail train much earlier than we should have. The train man came around to shimmy-shake our bunk beds into couches for the remainder of the ride, and we still had a ways to go. Looking back it was a pleasant ride; we opened the door between our two rooms so that we could chitchat and laugh back and forth. We were just so hungry! So we were itching to get off that moving 12-hour prison sentence. Once we docked, Brooke could absolutely not tell that we'd already been in that train station before. I found this fairly hilarious. We were back in Bangkok! We had an engaging tuk tuk haggle that I wanna note. Of course, as soon as you walk outta the train building there are fifty-five hundred men hollering "tuk tuk?" at you. I see this as pure excitement and sweet adrenaline, but the others are supremely annoyed. Drooling, I approach two men thinking they are taxi guys, but as they turn to me and their pupils dilate, I realize they are tuk tuk dr
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January 29, 2019

We did one thing on this day and I could sum it up in one sentence and move on to the 30th if I wanted to. However, I don't wanna do that. I'd rather drag it out. We woke up and jolted to attention! This was travel day! Get all your stuff and check under the beds! We're off to Bangkok! I booked the joint ferry+bus ride the night before at precisely 9:08pm. It was a disaster. I'd gone over the travel packages the day before with the nice Aussie girl who worked the front desk at our hotel. She's a nutso planner like me, so we had fun scoping out the options. I had a plan and I was juuuuuuust about to buy the perfect concise tickets package, I was checking out any everything. I needed Kiana's passport info, so I texted Olivia at 8:57pm... by the time she responded my browser refreshed and the tickets were GONE. Not just those tickets, but all the tickets for the 29th were now unavailable for purchase. Turns out, as the clock struck 9:00, you could no longer bo
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January 28th, 2019

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Okay here we are, big day! Wake up! Drink Nescafe! Grab watertight bags! Google to make sure my GoPro can be submerged in water! Towels! Thank GOODNESS I was feeling so much better! We needed to be on the side of the street in front of our little hotel by 7:50am, knowing a van would be there to pick us up by 8:00am. At 7:45am I'm running down the street in a bikini top trying to get to the 7-Eleven and back before 8. We needed sunscreen and water. "Brooke, if they get here before I get back, JUST GO WITHOUT ME! Have a great time!" Of course I made it. The van door slid open and we hopped inside. Twenty minutes later we're on a pier on the northeast of the island signing a waiver. Seventy five other tourists were with us here. A few younger Thai guys ran about tying different color yarn around each of the tourists' wrists. These yarns told you which boat you were to get on. The boats go to different places. Brooke and I were pink and green. This was anothe
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January 27th, 2018

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I really enjoyed this day. So did Brooke, I think. I woke up early and sat out on my little porch with my instant coffee and maps to plan out what we'd be getting into. I could see both mountains and ocean from the little nook or a balcony. It wasn't blistering hot yet, it was perfect. This was the first day that Olivia and I would have a separate day. Kiana expressed concern that we were spending too much money, understandably. See, her situation was quite different from ours. She'd been traveling for five months and still has a couple of months to go. Brooke and I only had two weeks and had to do everything we could before we had to leave... Then we'd have to wait another year to go anywhere else. So, with different money strategies we decided to split up for the next couple of days. It turned out for the best! Koh Samui is a loungey place to begin with. There's no hustle and bustle, nor any serious MUST SEE spots. It's a vacation destination. I chose it
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January 26, 2019

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Today was a relaxation day! My travel buddies were so excited for this!! The joy it brought to their faces made me joyful. Besides, I was sick and needed to rest. A day at the beach would be perfect for that. We sprang up and found a taxi to the beach. Haggling with these taxi drivers had become my new favorite hobby. I kid you not, all we did this day was lay on the beach. This isn't my teacup, but I really actually enjoyed just being still and relaxing. We got drinks and french fries and pad thai. The beach was beautiful. Only bad thing- The sand wasn't the like the sand from, say, Destin, Florida. It was hard and hurt your feet! Also, it would sink under the weight of your body. These two things together made it very difficul to take a stroll on the beach. But we'd taken so many strolls on the trip already that we were fine to take a stroll break for a day. Olivia and her pale skin laid in the sun for several hours. I laid up further inland under a palm tree. From
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January 25, 2019

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I'm home now! I'll be finishing the blog from home. I think that's okay! On this day we were moving on to our next destination: Koh Samui. At this point I'm sick as a pup. It didn't really bother me the day before because the elephants were a major distraction. I was sniffling a lot, but other than that I was okay to go go go. This day, the 25th, I am a very sick pup. And I was about to get on an airplane. We got a Grab from our guesthouse and made it to the airport in good time. We split up for lunch because the line for security was so tiny that we figured we'd have no problem splitting and meeting soon before boarding to go through security together. This changed dramatically pretty soon after this decision was made. Brooke and I noticed the flood of people lining up and quickly tried to message the other two... But we never got a response! We got in line hoping they'd see the message and come quickly to line up. I'll say, this was a tight situat
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