Although we still have about two months left, we've been fighting this feeling that our trip is over. Most likely, this is because we're headed back to the States in a few days for Christmas (yay!). Still, having time to relax on the beaches of Koh Phi Phi and Phuket has given us a chance to ponder how this trip will affect our future travel. First of all, I think we've gotten over our fear of non-english speaking countries and are looking forward to exploring...

More than two years ago, we came up with the crazy idea to take this trip. During our research, we came across a Globe Trekker episode on Thailand in which the hostess did a kayaking/camping trip with John Gray's Sea Canoe. While we still knew very little about what our trip might look like, we knew with certainty that we HAD to go out with John Gray's! Now four months into our trip, the time finally came for our 2 day/1 night kayaking and camping trip around ...

After working hard at the elephant camp (see previous blog), we returned to Chiang Mai with a laundry list of to-do's to take care of. Here's a taste of the "hardships" we've been enduring! First on our list was the Chiang Mai zoo. We were a little hesitant after our horrible experience with the Beijing Zoo, but we were pleasantly surprised. Most exhibits were comparable to their western counterparts. My favorite exhibit was Gibbon Island, which was really ...

Imagine for a moment that you're a working elephant. You spend your days laboring hard for the logging industry. It's a dangerous job, but it's certainly better than begging on the streets of Bangkok. But then one day, your luck takes a turn for the worse and you break your ankle. You're basically useless to your owner now, except for the purpose of breeding. You're tethered to a tree with a short rope and a huge bull elephant is brought in. If you struggle...

We've never been big city people, so it came as no surprise to us that the first half of our time in China was a little tiring. We were really looking forward to our time in the Guangxi province, where we hoped to find more of a countryside feel. Guilin is much smaller than Beijing but is still a sizeable city, so we didn't waste any time getting out to Yangshuo. While Yangshuo is also a fairly big town, it's perfectly situated to escape it all, so we rented s...