Farewell SE Asia!

We stayed in Bangkok for our last week in SE Asia and it's gone by very quickly.  We first arrived in this gigantic city and headed straight for the backpacker district, also known as Khao san road.  I guess we've been working our way up to larger cities, by spending time in Siam Reap and Phnom Penh but nothing prepared us for the craziness, traffic, people and just general congestion of Bangkok.  Khao San road, which is not representative of all of Bangkok, is full of tourists and people trying to sell you stuff.  It was pretty cool to just walk around and take it all. However, sensory overload would soon kick in and we would usually need to retreat back into our hotel room to get away from it all.

Khao San Road

I had been nagging Pete to check his Marriott reward points to see if we had enough for a free stay.  After John left, he got around to doing it and we were shocked to find out that he had enough points for our last three nights.  We left our hotel on crazy Khao San road and made our way to the serenity of the Marriott.  I have to say the last three days have been a blur of sleeping in, shopping, watching movies and eating.  It's been very relaxing and exactly what we needed!  Pete was better than I as he actually went for a run in the morning and a swim in the pool.  I exercised by dodging traffic on the way to an air conditioned mall.

Typical traffic on the roads of Bangkok

The police in Bangkok are better than superman!

I have a hard time believing that we are done travelling through SE Asia and that the cycling part of our trip, for the most part, is over.  The thought is so overwhelming that Pete is already talking about cycling Angola and we are also discussing the options of a two week cycling trip somewhere in Zambia or Zimbabwe.  I think we might be addicts.

A huge thanks to Krist, B and John - cycling SE Asia was tons of fun thanks to you!!  Also, thanks for putting up with crazy us along the way :)

A few pics of the group...

John and B

Kris, Pete and I