The Travel Tales of Julia Sheldon

August 1: Jakarta Since we arrived at the hostel at 2am, we slept until about 11. We grabbed brunch at Cheesecake Factory, which did not look anything like in The Big Bang Theory, and then walked to the closest mall so I could get my haircut. Niken showed up! She was the Indonesian leader from last summer's Step Up in Ottawa, where I was staff. She took us to the Jakarta Cathedral, beside the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, and it just happened to be the Asian Youth Conference so it was full of Christian teens from all over Asia. Neat! This is especially interesting because Indonesia is a Muslim country. We went to Jakartakota, the old Dutch downtown, for dinner and wandered through a market along the bus transitway for a bit. The Dutch left Indonesia in the 1950s, so there is a LOT of influence here. August 2: Jakarta I had an awful migraine so spent the entire day in bed. Pod beds are great for avoiding a lot of noise and having relative darkness even

Fair warning: I am SUPER in love with elephants so have included all kinds of information and photos because OMGTHEYARETHEBEST. I cried several times because I was overwhelmed. July 26: Elephant Conservation Centre We ate breakfast at the hostel, and made it to the bus just in time. Poor Andy was feeling like absolute garbage; luckily, he didn’t barf but it was a close call. It was a 2.5 hour drive to Sayaboury, it was pretty and I saw wild elephants along the way (sadly, no pictures of those)!! We got to a boat (a small barge, really) where we met our guide for the 3 days, Kampet, and I was very pleased because he’s nice and funny, with a great laugh. As we were boating along, Kampet told us what we’d be doing for the few days and we saw the elephant garden full of sugar palms, banana trees, bana grass, and a bunch of other stuff. We got settled, and then met up to start our day. We had a tour of the site, first to the Enrichment Area where Suriya, a 6 yea

July 20: Luang Prabang We woke up stupid early to catch the first flight of the day, from Yangon to Bangkok. After grabbing our bags, going through customs, getting a silly passport stamp, and waiting a few hours, we caught the second flight from Bangkok to Luang Prabang. Such a little airport! I was dead set on finding a place with a kitchen we could use; I was ready to cook for myself again. Huzzah for AirBnb! We had a fantastic host, Sue, at Greenhouse Villa & Studio. We rented the Studio, which was absolutely perfect for two people. Sue arranged for a car to pick us up from the airport and Toui to show us around the place. Toui owns a cafe and homestay across the river, on the Luang Prabang side. Unexpectedly, there was a fresh loaf of bread, a basket of fruit, and a dozen eggs in the fridge. Awesome! We decided to have eggs and toast for dinner and take advantage of the INCREDIBLE wifi by streaming  Netflix. Whoa. July 21: Luang Prabang Holy poop, it's so