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*Photo accompaniment for step 81: #3 - stolen from http://matatouille.tumblr.com/

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81. Coming home

I left Bangkok early this morning. After a fun night out with one of my favorite home-townies, a real life sea captain, rock climber, scuba diver, hardcore adventurer and my 8th grade crush: Matt Brienich who now teaches english to Thai college students. (mattjourneys.tumblr.com)

  I was glad to be delirious with exhaustion, and emotionally numb when I left Bangkok this morning. Leaving asia feels like the end of an era, 7 weeks of wanderlust and a lifetime of memories.

  What I bring home with me (aside from a backpack of clothes that should all be burned and a few more pages of passport stamps) is the following:

 I will practice showing gratitude everyday, like the flower offerings that sprinkle beloved Bali

The courage I never knew I had but manifested when I needed it alone in the jungle in Borneo, oh wild Malaysia 

A sense of religion that comes specifically from a moment standing under a tree trunk in the ancient temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Peace and quiet and calm, just knowing that it exists on the earth is what I take from lovely Laos 

And from Thailand: New friends in Chiang Mai, a tattoo from Koh Phi Phi and the hugs and kisses with elephants that now occupy a permanent place in my soul 

So now that I'm miles up in the air flying over the Baltic Sea, watching the plane icon putz across the globe on the screen Ive been staring at for 11 hours so far, listening The National album. Now that I've gotten used to the baby screaming a row over from me. It's all settling in and I'm getting bit soppy... what a trip, what a year...

  This year I've covered more ground than any in my life (and I've been moving around rapid speed for a decade now). But oh my stars, this year I travelled up and down the east coast, had scallops cliffside in Maine, baked on the beaches of New Jersey, lived a rockstar month in Los Angeles, drove top down through the California desert, ran around my hometown lake 10 times, swam at Walden Pond. I left my career, my boyfriend left me, I packed my best friends car with camp gear and we drove for days towards purple mountains majesty, camping new grounds, hiking the Rocky Mountains along the way.  I lived on a farm. I lost my brother, I reconnected with my sister. I flew around the world and covered 5 countries in Asia. I've watched the sunrise in Montana and Cambodia. I checked 8 things off of my bucket list. And I've never felt more alive or grateful to be. 

  So what's next? After I hug my family super tight & sort my thousands of photos, I will return to the workforce and start skeming for my next adventure. 

  Thanks for reading if you got this far. And that, in 100+ posts and 81 "steps" is how I kissed an elephant.

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80. One rainy day in Bangkok I had one day in Bangkok so... Stuck in a deluge in Chinatown, I made the most of it by browsing the markets, eating all sorts of street food out of bags and hiring a tuk-tuk driver for a speedy tour of old Bangkok and a cruise around the Grand Palace. *most photos taken on real camera to be posted soon*

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79. Hello Bangkok Glowing growling traffic, trains full of fashionista teens fresh from the mall, that pulse like NYC with the soundtrack of rain all day. It's my last day in Asia!!!

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78. Journey to the Krabi airport

The photo journey rocking the frontpack/backpack, hop a 1.5 hour boat *always sit on the top deck of these ferries* and cruise past the islands. Catch the bus to the airport, just in time for one last purple sky down seaside.

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77. Enjoy one more coconut smoothie, one more bowl of tropical fruits, one more glimpse from the bay of the Andaman Sea with a frosty coke light

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76. Send off your travel partners at the koh phi phi pier **Goodbye my beloved family (www.BrooklynNomads.com)!!! I'll hope to meet you in Portugal again. SNORKEL 4 LIFE

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75. Retire the sole pair of pants you brought on the trip

(I still regret not bringing them to the beach to burn in the fire show)

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74. Overcome your fear of heights by jumping off cliffs @ Pi-Leh Bay

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73. Swim in the Andaman Sea

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72. Celebrate the moon

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71. Catfish

the best I’ve ever had

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70. Watch a stunning sunset

At the lookout on Koh Phi Phi

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69. Party like its Koh Phi Phi in 2013 

and you’re jumping double-dutch under a flaming rope in between sips from a bucket cocktail.

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68. Skip Phuket and island hop over to Koh Phi Phi ... Despite the terrible reviews, it's at least 2X as stunning and 1/10th as crowded

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68. Feed the elephants It is as incredible as it looks.

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67. Hold an elephant tooth Elephants have 4-6 of these massive teeth, each weighs about 5lbs. Some of the old ladies at ENP had no teeth, when an elephant loses all of their teeth they can no longer eat and so they die. The center will peel their bananas and watermelon and pumpkins and even juice for them to make sure they live as long as possible. They also wash every fruit in the piles of the thousands of pounds of pumpkins, watermelons and bananas in case they are grown with pesticides. That's love.