Nic Trips

We returned to our hostel late that evening from our trip to the wall. As we started scouting out some dinner (which would end up consisting of tomato and egg soup with fried noodles), we decided to walk from our hostel all the way down to the Forbidden City in hopes of seeing the gate lit up at night. We were not disappointed. Although freezing, and we could barely stand to remove our hands from our gloves for more than a few seconds to snap some pictures, it was well worth the long walk. The following morning, we got an early start to the day, leaving our hostel at nearly 9 am. Our plan was to see as many things as possible, starting with the National Museum of China. To our dismay, however, we found that almost all of the popular tourist destinations in Beijing are  closed  on Mondays. Although the city itself was closed on Monday, the tourists are allowed to enter the front gate, called Tiananmen, which is the monumental entrance to the city that we saw lit up th...

Due to our late night the previous, our second full day in Chiang Mai had a late start. We renewed our stay at the hostel, go some breakfast and then headed to the bike rental place to return our bikes and rent motorbikes instead! It was incredibly cheap, just 6$ for a day, and about 2$ to fill the tank. (we thought we needed to fill it, but then ended up barely using 1/4 of it) After getting out of the main road and out of the city, we drove up the same street we had biked down the day before. Only this time, the traffic was much heavier and we went much farther. I had always wondered what it'd be like to be on a small moped or motorbike zipping in and out of cars in heavy traffic to race ahead, and we got to experience it first hand! Although nerve racking and slightly worrisome at first, the more our confidence grew, the more fun we had. We had learned the previous day that the cars, and traffic in general, are very respectful towards and patient with bikes riding on th...

We arrived to the airport in Bangkok on our first day around 8:15pm, and immediately took a connecting flight to Chiang Mai airport. From there we took a taxi to our hostel inside the city, called Tipsy Manor. After checking in and dropping our stuff in our room, we decided to take a little walk around the city close to our hostel. Although we were tired from all the traveling, we were eager to see the city of Chiang Mai. It was after midnight at this point, so nothing was open, but eventually we came across a small street bar, just a block away from our hostel. It was run by a small, Thai man named Bom. He was very funny and friendly, and we ended up returning to visit and have a few beers with him every night we were there. On our last night, he gave us a gift of a small Buddha pendant and we immediately learned that we were not allowed to put it in our pants pocket because Buddha is not supposed to be held or carried below our waist. The following morning, after a good ...