Done and done.

After a smooth Japan Airlines trip (watched the Departed, Driving Miss Daisy, and Good Will Hunting) -- three days of apartment hunting, and a great graduation party at Kyle's house...

I'm home yo.

Homeward Bound

Yoooooooo! As hard as it is for any of us to leave (at least most of us), we are officially on our way home. We're currently at the free Yahoo internet cafe in Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan, painfully dealing with our five-hour layover before our flight to JFK. I could update you with the details of the last few days, but honestly, it's 7:15am Thai time and I slept for maybe 30 minutes on the flight from BKK. Though I am very sad to leave, I think I speak for everyone when I say I cannot wait to get home. Mom -- what's for dinner? I'm hungry.

Some of my favorite [non-anticipated] moments:

• Anthony sitting down on a squatting toilet not realizing that the grooves on either side were for your feet.
• Vas thinking that the chirping bugs at sunset in Angkor Wat were actually an alarm system designed to tell everyone that the park was closing.
• Ben talking off the ears of every person we had any sort of extended interaction with (maybe that's why we got bailed on so many times).
• My night of debauchery with Pipe and M in Chiang Mai, and the ensuing slap Vas suffered after trying to take care of me (Sorry, V).
• Anthony and I nearly having our faces washed by two small girls who wanted to clean our cab's windows for money (had to be there... or at least hear about it the next day...).
• My dosey-doh dancing skills in Siem Reap.
• Anthony and I 'singing' Bon Jovi on stage at a Thai pop star's birthday party with her famous actor boyfriend (stay tuned for more on that).
• Nearly eating fried chicken feet.
• Being cat-called by Thai hookers every 10 feet in Koh Samui ('Sawadeeeeeee. Sawadee Kaaaa. Where you from? Wha your name? Sawadeeeeeee. I like you.').
• Meeting a girl vendor in Angkor Wat that knew the capital of every state in the US (Did everyone else know the capital of Montana was Helena? Me neither.).
• Vas using my Lonely Planet guide to tell the waitresses at a restaurant in Bangkok without an English menu that he doesn't eat meat, their ensuing confusion, and our later realization that he was reading from the Vietnamese section.

I think that's it for now. I'm hungry, and this damn airport only has two places to eat - a noodles place, and another noodles place... I am in serious need of some fast food. We will all share some more final thoughts and an update of the last few days when we finally get home after this God awful 13 hour flight (It leaves Tokyo at 11:30AM and arrives in JFK at 11:25AM - We go back 5 minutes in time! Sweet.). SEE YOU ALL SOON!

Last day in Bangkok

Yo yo. We hit up some shopping today. I bought two "Polo" shirts. We'll see how long they stay together.

We ship out in 27 hours. It's been real, T-land.

Vas

Federer/Roddick

We hit the "Irish Pub" last night to watch the Wimbledon final. We may have been the only Americans there, but what a match...we went nuts any time Roddick scored on Federer's serve. Sadly, it was not meant to be....

Here is our itinerary for the remainder of the trip for those keeping score at home...

July 6th, 5:30PM: Bus back to Bangkok
July 7th, 7:00AM: Arrive in Bangkok
July 8th, 10:25PM: Fly.
July 9th, 11:30AM: Arrive in NYC
July 9th, 11:31AM: Start looking for apartments.

Vas

A Vacation from our Vacation

I hope you all have enjoyed our blog thus far, it's been great to hear comments from our friends and family. To everyone back home, hope you're having a safe and enjoyable July 4th weekend. Interestingly, I think we're missing the States more than ever right now. That being said, the trip is no doubt winding down...it's been a whirlwind 3 weeks, to say the least...we need a va-cay. So, true to our name...we've made it from Spruce....to Ko Samui.

It's the last leg of our trip, the namesake of this very blog, and a much needed respite from the site-seeing, temples-visiting, and ruins-trekking that dominated our time thus far. Ko Samui is a bumpin island off the southeastern coast of Thailand, replete with blue beaches and palm trees. I doubt we could have asked for a better way to spend our last 3 days on this trip...sitting on the beach, sipping mango smoothies, and rollin deep in sun, sand and surf. After a short ferry ride, we arrived yesterday afternoon to some nice bungalows, just yards from the beach. Kyle was of course the first to jump in the ocean, wasting no time while I instead generously applied SPF 70 before heading out into el sol. Tsk tsk, Kyle. We strolled down the beach to some cool rock formations, eventually landing in a small crystal-clear ocean pond, surrounded by massive boulders. It was pretty legit, and I'm sure Kyle will load pics soon.

After browsing the world wide web for an hour, we retreated to dinner on Chaweng beach, a beach a bit north of Lamai, where we are currently staying. Wimbledon was on EVERYWHERE (yeah Roddick!) and it was cool to enjoy the game with such a multifarious crowd of travellers and natives alike. My spaghetti dinner made me miss the Olive Garden though (when you're there, you're family), so I'm itching to hit that up when I get back state-side. We bounced around a few bars, playing pool for an hour before heading to the Green Mango, Ko Samui's consumate club. It was ill...good tunes, good moves.

All in all, a relaxing first day....only to be followed up by additional relaxing and beach-meandering today. I'm almost done with An Unaccustomed Earth, while Kyle finally finished The Beach.

The other fellas are kayaking tomorrow. I'll opt for a nice beach chair and my iPod, thank you very much.

Adios my peoples. Again, thanks for reading along with us...we hope you've enjoyed it as much as we've enjoyed experiencing it. Just a few more posts I think...hang with us.

Vas

I'm Bored - Additional Commentary from Siem Reap

Ant just gave the summary of today and yesterday, but I'm still waiting for my 417 pictures and videos to upload to Picassa, so I'll add a word or two (and some photos). First of all, though Ant thinks his new nickname is Lucky, he's the only one who refers to himself as that. Secondly, 'Crazy Girl' was easily the cutest child I've met on this trip, and I had no issue with buying ten more postcards for a dollar to add to the ten I already bought yesterday. Another interesting approach was the growling child that barked like a dog and chased me before begging me to buy his flute. I didn't want the flute so eventually he just chased me away and I never came back. Sorry, kid. It is really hard to face them all though.

Ah! Pics are finally up, so I'll make this quick. Sunrise over Angor Wat was easily one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen. I think the overall favorite though was Ta Phrom, the forest temple, where I had fun climbing stuff and getting lost. There seems to be a trend on this trip: Ben, Vas, and Anthony walking ahead or behind of me, as I stroll along aimlessly, stopping every so often to observe the most obscure things at my own pace. I'm also the only one who didn't buy a cell phone and a SIM card before we got here, so it's amazing that I haven't gotten lost yet.

Interesting piece of information: Last year, Angkor Wat was narrowly outvoted by the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the ruins of Petra (Jordan), the Great Pyramids, the Christ statue in Rio, the Colosseum, and Machu Pichu in a 'New' Wonders of the Ancient World competition (likely because few people have ever heard of it though).

Oh yeah, and the difference between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh is unbelievable. I've seen more legit hotels here than in Bangkok, and there's a whole street literally called 'Bar Street' lined with pubs, clubs, and restaurants. Definitely hitting the $1 Angkor draughts up tonight. In the mean time, enjoy the pics from today below.

I also created a new Picassa album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/thaikappblog/ThailandCambodia# - Should include everything from the trek onwards. If it doesn't work, I'll need to invite you to view them, so shoot me an email.

Angkorwat with Pharell

yo kids. after a long day (completed before noon) at Angkorwat, we all all wiped and pumped to get some sleep. quick update on the last two days.

Monday morning we caught the 7 30 bus to Siem Riep (after staying up to watch the heart braking US loss to Brazil in the Confed Cup final). After a painfully bumpy bus ride (which Kyle somehow enjoyed), we arrived at our guesthouse, Rosy's, in Siem Riep. Turned out to be a legit place with a pool hall and extremely friendly staff including the manager, Smiley. After some grub, we caught the sunset (aka cloudy horizon) from atop the Ba Keng, temple/hill. Although underwheming because of the weather, it was still worth the attempt.

Next was dinner at the Red Piano (nice place, decent food) and walking around the surprisingly nice and fun nightlife area in Siem Riep. We saw some of a Apsara dance show and played some pool (trying to become pool sharks before the trip is over) and then turned in for the night.

Today, we got up at 4 30 am to catch the sunrise over Angkorwat, which was definitely worth it and quite beautiful. Then, on to exploring Angkorwat, which was amazing simply for its enormous scale and a number of other temple ruins within the Angkor complex including Bayon (legit architecture with faces carved into the pillars), Baphuon (under renovation), Terrance of Elephants, Ta Keo (tallest wat in the complex with sweet views), Ta Prohm (jungle temple aka the Tomb Raider temple where some of the movie was shot, including some awesome giant tree/root/temple combinations), and Banteay Kdei and Sras Srang (the last wat ruin we saw and the adjacent lake/pool).

Another note from today was that the children and adults selling everything from water to large paintings were overwhemingly persistant and difficult to say no to. At almost every stop, we would encounter numerous locals, typically young children, attempting to sell them products with a variety of methods. The children were quite difficult to resist whether they tried to be happy and cute or very sad and pleading. We certainly empathasized with them, leading to a number of purhases, although we were never able to satisfy the abundance of sellers. The most effective selling method of the day was delivered by a young girl who said her name was 'Crazy Girl'. Crazy Girl was able to answer the capital of almost every state in the US and after naming Raleigh as the capital of NC, I couldn't resist buying from her, although I didnt need/want anything at the time.

Overall, the temple complex was really impressive and incredible to see first-hand. Also impressive was that we were able to complete all of this touring before 11am, along with the help and transport of our tuk tuk driver, 'Pharell', (everyone has American-esque nicknames for the tourists sake). Effectively watted out, we had lunch a Thai-Western restaurant, gotta please the whole fam, and are about to pass out of exhaustion and get ready for a night out on the town.

PS - the blog has covered everything so far but some of my highlights from the past week or so were: waterfall rapelling (my favorite day of the trip so far), getting a new nickname, 'Lucky', from one of the monks we chatted with, trying bamboo shoot soup in the Karen village where we stayed, our rafting guide named 'Jack Sparrow', and Mr. Sun's 'blue' steak (rarest yet cooked with love)