A travel segue

There is nothing like some travels with a friend to new lands to ease the anxiety and stress over moving on from one chapter in life to the next (though admittedly, the stress/anxiety levels have not tapered off considerably...though that's pretty much my doing). Since the last post (packing up and driving north to wakayama city) Christina (a friend from studying abroad in Italy) and I have toured three cities in Japan, Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto and then headed to Thailand. We flew into Bangkok, where we spent a few days shopping and temple touring, before heading north to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is one of those towns that sucks you in, and we ended up staying there for four days instead of three, wandering aimlessly for hours, getting caught up in markets, afternoon beers and thrift stores. And we also managed to fit in some rafting(white water and bamboo, with Star and his friend, two of the most attractive Thai men I have ever seen) and waterfall trekking trips. From Chiang Mai, we headed down south to Ko Phangnan (via Ko Samui), home of the famous Full Moon Party, which was fun, but all together too crowded and not my ideal. Still the island was most enjoyable and the beaches were absolutely gorgeous. Yesterday, we came from Ko Phangnan to Khao Sok, where I am now writing from. Kao Sok is a National Park/Rain Forest, home to the largest flower in the world (though it is't the season to see it). Today we went trekking into the jungle and saw monkeys (one of which tried to shit on me and missed by mere inches), chameleons, funky looking spiders and I got bitten by my first leech. For anyone wondering, tobacco juice wards off the blood suckers. It was a great, though tiring day, and we returned to our tree house (yes, tree house) muddy and exhausted, ready for some spicy Thai food. Tomorrow it is off to a Lake in the Forest and then on the 14th we head to Cambodia.

Apologies for this very short and bare bones summary of my travels thus far. More specifics as well as photos to come.