Back to Thailand and a quick trip to the US

Hi there,

Sorry it has taken me awhile, it has been a hectic couple of weeks. Turned out I had messed up the date of my flight from Hanoi and I ended up with an extra day. Which was cool because I went with some Argentinians I met to the "Hanoi Hilton" or the POW prison that John McCain and other US POWs were held in. The prison has been used as a prison since the French were in power so most of the exhibits were about Vietnamese revolutionaries. The two rooms dedicated to the US POWs focused on how well they were treated and showed pictures of volleyball games and Christmas parties. No mention was made of torture or suicide attempts. It was interesting to say the least.

After Hanoi I headed back to Thailand for 5 days. I had a rather crazy morning hitting the US Embassy for additional pages in my pasport (but if you need to get them, much quicker to do it on the road than in the US) and then the India embassy to drop off my info for the Indian visa (process takes a week and 3 visits to their office). Once I had that out of the way I went to the island of Koh Samet which is 3 hours by bus and an hour by boat from Bangkok. Like all of the Thai beaches I've encountered, Koh Samet is gorgeous! Turquoise water, white sand, and a national park inland as well. Koh samet is a big weekend getaway for urban Thais so it is pretty busy but if you walk south, you can find some secluded spots. I spent 3 days chilling on the beach and hanging out in the very social restaurant at the Naga Gueshouse (definitely one of the most affordable places on the beach) and then headed back to Bangkok to catch my flights to Austin.

I spent a week in Austin and Fort Lauderdale. It was great to spend some time with my parents (thanks for everything mom and dad!). After a couple of days there I went back to Austin for the wedding. Congratulations once again Meredith and Andy! The wedding was lovely and I was so incredibly happy to be there! A few more thanks go out to Jaclyn for my accomodation the first night, Heather and Meredith for airport transit and Forrest and Cathy for providing accommodation, food, communication and transport over the weekend. I owe you guys big! I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the trip since well it is the US and all, but it was definitely a nice break. And I celebrated my 6 month anniversary there (which is weird since I was in the US celebrating 6 months of being out of the US...).

Anyway, I am back in Bangkok for the last time. Tomorrow I fly to India. I'm very very excited!! Also, you may notice that I was finally able to post pictures again. Here are the links to the pics from S Laos and Cambodia as well as Vietnam. I think the Vietnam ones especially came out well (not surprisigly, it is gorgeous there!). Enjoy!

S Laos/Cambodia-
http://picasaweb.google.com/stacyb/SouthernLaosCambodia#

Vietnam-
http://picasaweb.google.com/stacyb/Vietnam#

I didn't take pics at the wedding so any of you who are reading this who were there, please either send me some or send me links!