The Travel Tales of Julia Sheldon

June 10: Bangkok We landed around noon, got to our hostel, and decided we wanted to see Wonder Woman. Grabbed an Uber and headed to the Paragon Siam, which has a theatre on the 5th/6th floor. Baller. We had a couple of hours to eat before the movie, so went to one of the many food courts in the mall. Bangkok is expensive, yo! Wonder Woman was a great date night! June 11: Bangkok We slept in, and went wandering about our neighbourhood. We stumbled upon a really cool, hipster cafe; think Anthropologie meets hipster coffee shop (concrete, exposed brick, wood, multi-level, delicious baked goods). If that doesn't make sense, it's a hipster houseware store/coffee shop. Getting back to the hostel, I really wanted to chill out and watch some movies. So, I introduced Andy to Monsters Inc. and Monsters University (he had only seen the first).  For dinner, we went to a little restaurant on the main street near our hostel. I had pad thai, Andy had a sweet n sour stirfry. Yum.

I suck right now. Hard. And I am writing so that my peeps know what's going on with me, but also so that others going through the same kinds of things know they're not alone. Most importantly, I am not fishing for compliments. I know that I am great, and deserving, and awesome, and wonderful, and hilarious, and loving, and all of the other fantastic things that so many incredibly people tell me regularly. Thank you all for that. Unfortunately, right now my brain just doesn't care about all of the compliments and the things that I know. I am super anxious, jumpy, and easily overwhelmed. I don't know if I want to be traveling right now; this has never happened before and it has taken me a while to figure out why it is happening. I miss working and find it hard to relax/enjoy myself. I know that I don't really love the big cities the way I love smaller places, and I need a lot more down time than I used to, but I never thought I would have had my fill of my travel af

June 4: We had to walk up 5 floors, but Central Hostel was awesome: 6-bed dorm rooms, private bathroom, air conditioning, under-bed lockers, and a balcony for $3USD/night each! INCREDIBLE value. Whoa. And we met a super cool Canadian in our room, who knew we were Canadian when I said 'frickin' haha. Turns out, we know some of the same people! Small world! I was still feeling kind of off from the bike crash, and had a severe anxiety attack, and Andy was also having a really hard time, so we decided to have some self-care time: sleep in, reading, ice cream, naps, and cuddles. A very easy day. June 5: Angkor Wat. These pictures do NOT do the place justice.                         Hilariously, and unsurprisingly, the driver of the Tuk Tuk dropped us off at the back of Angkor Wat, and we thought we were going to Bayon first, so we were thinking 'damn, if Bayon is this big, how big is Angkor Wat going to be?!' Such fools. Also, not one person, ever, told m

May 28: Phnom Penh THERE ARE SO MANY CARS! It's very polluted and smelly and hard to breathe. And it's really Westernized in an unexpected way: Around our hostel there were at least 4 organic vegetable shops within 3 blocks. Shocking. Seems there's a huge French expat community in Phnom Penh, and there are many vestiges of French colonialism. Oh, and they use USD and Riel ($1USD = 4000 Riel). So, if something costs $4.50 and you give them a $5, you get 2000 Riel because coins are dumb and they are not used.  We arrived around 4pm, checked into our hostel, grabbed a bite in the restaurant downstairs, showered, and went to bed around 9. May 29: Phnom Penh Overnight buses really take their toll on us, so we slept in. We wandered about for breakfast and spent the morning learning about the city and what we wanted to do. Cafe Soleil was a lovely place for both breakfast and lunch, and we managed to find a free Lonely Planet book that we were hoping to find onlin

May 23: Ninhvana Arriving in Nha Trang at 5am, we were ripped off by some bike riders. We could’ve very easily walked the distance from where we got dropped off to the Iced Coffee shop where we were to be picked up. Now we know to be more prepared, and we had a nice place to nap until our pickup. We had a nice, 90 minute van ride with two Brits, and arrived in paradise.  Nihnvana (said Ning-vawna) is the name of an all-inclusive Backpackers Hostel just outside of the west village of Ninh Vanh. Two pools, one slightly deper chlorinated and the other a shallow fresh water, options for swanky individual bungalows (we said yes) or private rooms or beds in a dorm of 8-12 people, various activities to do throughout the day, a spa for mani/pedis or massages, and really delicious meals. Oh, and a free-flowing bar replete with deliciously fresh-squeezed/pressed juices, iced coffee, rum, vodka, and beer. This big wooden thing is the yoga pavillion We stayed in one of these