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Trekking from Kalaw to Inle Lake in 3 Days

Trekking from Kalaw to Inle Lake in 3 Days

Planning The Trek The trek (aka hike) from Kalaw to Inle Lake is about 40 miles and is one of the more popular tourist activities in Myanmar. This is the only region in Myanmar where overnight trekking without prior permits and approval from the government is needed, so it’s easy for your average traveler to do it without too much planning. We learned there are over 80 tour companies operating the trek out of Kalaw, a small mountain town of about 20,000…

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Temple Hopping in Magical Bagan, Myanmar

Temple Hopping in Magical Bagan, Myanmar

Bagan is, hands down, our favorite stop on the trip so far. Located about 8 hours by bus northwest of Yangon, it’s a region with over 2,000 temples concentrated in a small area. The highlight of any trip to Bagan is exploring as many temples as possible, especially the ones with second and third stories that offer panoramic views of the thousands of temples dotting the skyline. We arrived in Bagan just in time for dinner on December 31st and…

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Scuba Diving with Big Blue Diving in Koh Tao, Thailand

Scuba Diving with Big Blue Diving in Koh Tao, Thailand

Our trip to Koh Tao started with a 5:00am taxi ride to the Lomprayah bus stop near Khao San Road where we took a 6 hour bus to Chumpon and a nearly two hour catamaran ferry to Koh Tao island. It was a long travel day and recent bad weather made the ferry ride particularly rough. Ferry staff started passing out plastic bags as soon as we sat down and many passengers around us put them to good use. Thankfully…

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Chai Lai Orchid: Hanging Out with Elephants in Thailand!

Chai Lai Orchid: Hanging Out with Elephants in Thailand!

Chai Lai Orchid is about an hour’s drive from Chang Mai in northern Thailand and is situated right along the Mae Wang river. It’s run by a woman from New York and staffed by locals who are in most cases refugees or at-risk women learning hospitality skills they can use to tap into the area’s booming tourist industry. Chai Lai’s mission has expanded from supporting local communities to providing ethical elephant experiences and saving elephants from some of the harmful…

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Exploring Chang Mai, Thailand

Exploring Chang Mai, Thailand

After a quick stop in Bangkok, we arrived in beautiful Chang Mai. We had three nights to explore this incredible city and had some of the best experiences (and food) from our time in Thailand here! Some of our favorites were: Cooking Class We took a cooking class with Asia Scenic Cooking School. We arrived in the morning and met our teacher, Marin, and our 6 other classmates from Denmark, South Korea, New Zealand, and Germany. As a group, we…

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Bangkok!

Bangkok!

Our friend Terri, who I’ve known since high school, joined us for nearly two weeks in Thailand and we had so much fun together! We met up in Bangkok to start our journey and spent some more time in the city at the end of her visit. Bangkok is enormous and a city it would take forever to get to really know. We had a blast scratching the surface to learn more about what it has to offer. Our first…

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Yehliu Geopark: A Taipei Day Trip

Yehliu Geopark: A Taipei Day Trip

After seeing a handful of photos from Yehliu Geopark, we knew we wanted to see it ourselves. Located about an hour from downtown Taipei, Yehliu was a great escape from the city and a chance to see some beautiful, unique coastal scenery. We took the bus from Taipei Main Station. We asked the folks at the information desk in the main station how to get there and they quickly pointed us in the right direction. It only cost a few dollars…

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Four Fantastic Days in Taipei

Four Fantastic Days in Taipei

We had four fantastic days in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital city. We saw some of the city’s historical temples and shrines, visited the newer downtown area (home to Taipei 101, the world’s 5th tallest building), and sampled lots of local food at several of the city’s night markets. We also did a day trip to Yehliu Geopark. Taipei Temples We started our day with an attempted trip to Confucius Temple but quickly learned a lesson about checking which days of the week…

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Kenting: Exploring the Beach in Taiwan

Kenting: Exploring the Beach in Taiwan

Kenting was recommended to us by my cousin Carolyn who lived in Taiwan for a year. We were originally thinking of staying in Taipei for a week and doing some day trips from there, but are so glad we instead opted to spend some time in this fantastic beach town! We arrived in Kenting around 6pm on a Wednesday to a bustling night market lining the main street where we stayed. After dropping our bags in our room, we went…

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Stepping Foot into North Korea: Our DMZ Tour Experience

Stepping Foot into North Korea: Our DMZ Tour Experience

Visiting the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea is one of our top travel highlights so far. We took a DMZ tour from Seoul with Panmunjom Tours, an agency we picked based on positive reviews we’d seen from other bloggers. This was one of the most expensive things we’ve done to date at about $100 USD per person, but was absolutely worth it for such a unique experience. Here’s a rundown of our DMZ tour: Q&A With a North Korean…

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