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I have decided to stay in Koh Tao until I go back to work and begin my divemaster training. I have a long way to go since I just started diving but it has been such an amazing experience so far. I have rented a place for my stay here and a motorbike which is just to much fun. Today was an extra special day, and sometimes getting up at 5am is worth it to catch the morning boats. I saw a 3 meter (10′) long whaleshark. It was a very magical experience however I am looking forward to the day when I get to experience this creature with just 2 or 3 other people rather than the 40 others that were coming up from dives and checking out the whale shark on the surface! So grateful for how I am currently able to live my life!

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Koh Tao has been all sunrises, scuba diving and sunsets. I have been here for about a week and half now. So far I have gone through my PADI open water certification and my advanced dives as well. The PADI was a lot of learning and practicing skills but it was enough to push me to do my advanced training as well.  I began the advanced course on my birthday and it consisted of learning more buoyancy control, such as maintaining control while even floating upside down! We also had a navigation course in order to learn how to get around divesites on our own. Then to top of the end of my birthday we went out for a nightdive. This was probably top 2 of my dives so far, it was so amazing to go from just when the sun was setting and then out of nowhere you look around and its almost pitch black except for everyones flashlights! The amount of colors that reveal themselves during this time compared to the day time is unreal. I couldn’t have imagined a better way to spend my birthday! The next day we continued the course and did a 30m (100′) dive just to learn how to get down that low and see how it feels. The visibility wasn’t great but it prepared us for our final dive which consisted of going down between 25m and 30m in order to explore an old US warship from WW2. The visibility again was not that great but we got to see something from a very important time in human beings history. We also got to swim through a small section on the top of the ship! Very fascinating so far! 

I am continuing my training with a rescue course tomorrow and have been contemplating just staying here and continuing to learn until I go back to work sometime next month! 

I wish I had some pictures of the underwater section of this but I don’t have a gopro or anything so I will be trying to get footage off of other travelers that I dive with over the next few weeks!

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It has been awhile since I had internet connection in my room that was good enough to upload photos to tumblr. I haven’t been up to a whole lot since then but here are some photos from my last stop in Kampot, Cambodia. I spent a few days motorbiking around and going hiking. It was a very nice relaxing town on the river! My first night there had a music night at the place I was staying, which I really enjoyed sitting next to the river listening to. From Kampot I headed back to Thailand in order to get on down to the islands!

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Stopped in Phnom Penh for a couple of nights in order to go to the Killing Fields and S-21. I had very limited knowledge of these events prior to visiting them other than the basic facts about what happened. For those of you as unfamiliar as I was about 1 million people (1 in 4 at the time) were killed whenever the Khmer Rouge was in power from about 1975 to 1979. I don’t think I ever realized how recently this happened until I was standing there reading the dates. I was just recently talking about how amazing human beings are when it came to creating. Coming to the killing fields reminded me that humans are equally capable, if not more, of destroying things/other people. All it takes is a few people with an idea and it really can just turn into a disastrous event. 

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Woke up at 4am to go see as many temples as I could in a day in Siem Reap. Its amazing to imagine the amount of people it took just to get all of the building materials to this place. Then you move on to the actual construction and the carvings into the stone. Lately I have been finding myself very impressed with what human beings are capable of doing. 

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I spent a week visiting a Karen hill tribe village near Chang Mai and I can easily say that it is a memory that will stick with me for the rest of my life. The area had 7 elephants including a 2 month old baby. The elephants are able to roam free around the jungle near this village. The people helping these elephants are trying to remind them what life was like before they were taken and turned into workers. 

We spent the week just observing these amazing creatures in a more natural environment. I really was in awe after introductions were made with the elephants. Its hard to actually process how big they are until they are standing just a few feet away from you. Such an amazing experience to just be with them. Elephants spend a majority of their day eating, roughly 20 hours, leaving only 4 hours for them to sleep. What a life right? The amount of knowledge we were given about the elephants was very eye opening. I encourage anyone planning on traveling around to do more research on the types of places you are going to. I don’t want to preach to much but the way these animals are treated in places like elephant trekking/bathing etc is absolutely horrendous and if people really knew the whole story I don’t think many would ever go.

We spent nearly every afternoon meeting with the hill tribes children; playing games and trying to help some of the older kids with their English skills. It really is amazing to see how some children really do crave an education and actually want to learn. I think its something we take advantage of in most countries and don’t always reap the full benefits from education. It was nice to see a different side of life and really gave us a lot of insight into how they live their lives. 

Yo, our guide, was amazing and he really wants to help teach people that we can be the change the world needs. That coming together will always be more beneficial for people everywhere! I recommend looking into the elephant nature park and more specifically the Journey to Freedom program they run if you are ever planning on visiting Thailand.

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Stayed in Chiang Mai again for a couple nights while waiting to go to the elephant sanctuary. I met up with a couple people and we decided to go to the water park at the Grand Canyon. I always enjoy activities that allow me to run around acting like the little kid that I still am! 

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My internet has been really bad and I haven’t be able to upload photos. So I’ll try to catch up on the past 2 weeks!

I decided to leave Pai a little early and go a little farther north near Soppong. I had heard alot about a place called the Cave Lodge. I was able to book a very simplistic bamboo hut which reminded me how much I enjoy simple living. Bamboo, a matress and a mosquito net were just about all that made up my new home for 4 days. The lodge had all sorts of activities which included a lot of caving, hiking, kayaking; basically everything I love to do. Unfortunately the water was a bit to low so I decided to skip the kayaking and just go caving instead. I ended up going on a 10 hour adventure in order to get to one of the largest caves in Northern Thailand, and it was beyond worth it. It was a great experience scrambling, wading and swimming through water in order to get through the cave. After that I decided I was just going to take it easy and relax for the rest of my time in Soppong. One of the days I spent about 4 hours walking up and down the river and reading. During this time though I seemed to have been adopted by a small pack of dogs. They insisted on following me for the entire time and actually came and laid next to me while I was reading. This of course really made me miss my dog back home, but it also reminded me how great a feeling it is to be around animals. It's perfect timing to be reminded of this because tomorrow I am heading to an elephant sanctuary to care for and play with elephants for an entire week. It doesn't seem real yet that I will be going but my level of excitement has been growing for almost a month now and its getting harder and harder to contain it!

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Spent my last day in Pai checking out a couple of the waterfalls in the area. The water was freezing but 100% worth it to swim in. It reminded me of swimming in Michigan Lake and feeling almost reborn after getting out of it. Coming to Pai made me realize how much time I spend constantly thinking I need to be on the go in order to not “waste my life”. Pai has helped me slow my life back down and enjoy all the little things that happen everyday!

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Haven’t had the best wifi so I havent been able to upload photos!

Holy homesickness. I am so happy that Pai was recommended to me by a few people that I have met over the past few months. It is such a beautiful place. I stayed in a hostel extremely similar to the lifestyle I had living in West Virginia. All I could think about was how much my raft guide homies would love to be here. If the river was just a little bit closer it would of essentially been the paradise I have been searching for since leaving West Virginia. Needless to say coming here has been extremely bittersweet and has left me with mixed emotions about ever deciding to leave Best by god not by choice Virginia.

Its been a fun trip up here though. I finally got up the courage to rent a motorbike today and it is such an amazing experience. I have also wanted to get a motorcycle while back home in the states and this experience has kind of reinforced that desire.

Today I went to Pai Canyons, which boast to be the grand canyon of Thailand. Not quite, but it was still beautiful.

Also stopped by and had lunch near this tree house that you have to book out in advance unfortunately to eat in. From a work perspective it was really cool to see that even in Thailand the methods used in order to put the tree house up were similar to the methods I have been taught.

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Today I got my sak yant tattoo. After the hour drive out of Chiang Mai we arrived to the temple. We got to meet the monk that would be doing our sak yants. I was very surprised to find out that he was only 21 and had been tattooing for 10 years! Apparently he comes from a family that is pretty well known for their sak yant tattoos. Nana was very helpful in being able to translate what me and Justin were looking to get out of this experience. Also with helping us prepare the offering made to the monk for his service. He was able to do my sak yant in about 10 minutes! It didn’t hurt nearly as much as I had been led to believe it would. It could be the placement but I would say this was the least painful tattoo I have received!

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Yesterday I went on an amazing hike leading to a little bit of disappointment but overall it was good. I started off from my hostel and walked to the start of the monks path that leads up to Wat Pha Lat. It was a great hike and passed by my first couple of waterfalls in Thailand! The temple had a serene feel to it, however I some how managed to get the day that they were shooting some type of film. Besides the film crew there were only about 3 other foreigners here so I can only imagine the magic of this place without the film crew there. I stayed here for a little while finding what quiet I could. It was a very magnificent temple though, it was much easier to enjoy since you are more secluded in the woods.

From here I decided to complete the trail all the way to the top to see Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. This hike was definitely underrated in physical exertion, about 80% of it was basically straight up hill. Definitely worth the effort for the feeling of satisfaction. 

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First stop out of Bangkok was Chiang Rai. The main reason I came here was to see the White Temple. It was so amazing and creepy. I was actually surprised at the amount of creepy stuff everywhere in this temple. The hands grabbing at you as you cross the bridge is very fun! From there I decided I was going to walk the rest of the day. I ended up walking 3.5 mi (5km) to Singha park and rented a bike to do a lap through the park! It was absolutely beautiful! From Singha Park I walked 8.5 miles (14km) back to the city center where my hotel was. I met what seemed to be a Thai version of boy scouts along the way and walked with them for about a mile. They were very intrigued to find me walking rather than taking a taxi. Which made me start paying attention to all the bewildered looks from people driving by. Oh well, I had a great walk!

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First night bus trip from Bangkok to Chiang Rai (about 12hours). I was a little hesitant at first upon seeing the seats and how much I would be able to sleep. I actually slept a majority of the ride and lucky me we had massage seats! First time I have every seen a bus with massagers built into the chairs. I actually ended up missing my stop (or at least the attendant thought i did), but lucky for me Daniel, who was sitting next to me, offered to take me to his house for breakfast and then drove me the 10 miles to my hotel! By far one of the best meals I have had so far since getting to Thailand and one of the nicest people I have ever met!

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Went to my first of what will probably end up being a million temples. I was pretty thrilled to find out that its ok for you to bang the gong. 

Its always exciting for me to go to other areas in the world and see what types of trees they have there. The tree growing back towards the ground from its limb was called a ficus religiosa. So incredible how nature can warp itself in so many different ways.

"A tree is a wonderful living organism which gives shelter, food, warmth and protection to all living things. It even gives shade to those who wield an axe to cut it down" - Buddha

Leaving Bangkok tonight and heading up to Chiang Rai!

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Bangkok Birthcontrol

In case anyone is looking for creative ways to keep their kids from making babies I suggest putting them on a 16 hour flight from New York to Taiwan surrounded by children. I think they were taking shifts just so we weren’t lulled into a false sense of security that there might be silence for a few moments. Sorry mom but looks like you’re going to be waiting a long time on those grand kids. 

I’m going to be trying to keep this up to date at least while I am traveling around. Figured it would be the easiest way to keep more people informed of whats going on. My grammar will probably be pretty bad, but thank god for spell check at least. 

Starting off in Bangkok, but as of now I should be traveling around Southeast Asia for 2 and half months then back to China for work!