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  • Author Archives: jasminedesirees

    • blank

      Posted at 7:53 am by jasminedesirees, on June 26, 2014

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      This is a photo I couldn’t take of swimming in the ocean with phospholuminescent plankton last night.

      We watched the sunset from the boat and then pulled into a little bay to wait for it to get dark.

      About half an hour later we started seeing little glowing spots in the water.

      I jumped in to swim with them, the more you move and splash the better you can see them.

      It was pitch dark outside, the ocean was inky black except for the plankton, but the water was tepid and inviting.

      For once in my life I wasn’t worried about sharks.

      The air was warm and there were thousands of stars in the sky.

      It was truly lovely, and I hope I never forget it.

      Posted in Thailand, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged ocean, phospholuminescent plankton, swimming, Thailand, travel
    • may I quote you on that?

      Posted at 1:25 am by jasminedesirees, on June 26, 2014

      A few words I’m loving lately:

      “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” ~ Franz Kafka

      “I don’t want to be afraid to take risks. I don’t want my tombstone to read “She hid her flaws well on the red carpet”- Mindy Kaling

      “You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club”.- Jack London

      It is not the fear of moving on that scares me, it is the fear of never going back. They never told us just how much it would cost to choose in life. They never told us that even though you can move on from certain things, it may in turn cost you your heart. These decisions we face may turn us into either saints or monsters, but it has to be worth more than becoming nothing at all.
      – Mary Kate Teske

      Posted in loveliness, quotes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Kafka, Mindy Kaling, quotes, words
    • floating market

      Posted at 7:10 am by jasminedesirees, on June 25, 2014

      On our second day in Bangkok, we kind of wanted to get out of the city and see something cool, so we booked a day trip to go see the floating marketplace. I’d heard about it somewhere a few months before, and one of the doormen at our hotel came out for breakfast with us that morning and told us it was worth seeing as well.

      It is about an hour and a half drive from Bangkok in a ten passenger van, and it was just warm enough in there for every single one of us to fall asleep.

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      We had about an hour and a half at the marketplace, to walk around (there are pathways in case you don’t want to go on a boat) and shop. We decided to go by boat, because that’s kind of the point, and we were paired with a sweet lady (she yelled at us every time she thought she was accidentally in a picture we were taking, apparently they charge extra for that) to pole us around.

      It’s pretty cool, a lot of the vendors are selling the same thing, and you can tell that they have previous agreements with the boat drivers to bring you to their stalls, so you have to say no a lot, and people will just grab on to the side of your boat and hold you hostage for awhile to show you things, but it’s definitely a neat place.

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      My favourite thing was the food vendors, there were a lot of people selling fruit and other snacks from their boats, and then there were people with full on restaurants, serving rice, noodles and BBQ meats right in the middle of the canals. They must be very well prepared (you wouldn’t exactly be able to run home if you forgot the pepper) and have impeccable balance.

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      Not only do the canals house the floating markets, they are also the roadways among the villages in that area. Once we left the marketplace we got a ride in a longboat to see the houses, stores and local restaurants where the village people live and work. There are no cars, they go everywhere by boat. There are 19 canals in total, and I would be totally, helplessly lost if I needed to navigate them on my own.

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      In addition to all the vendors selling things, there was also a man with a bunch of huge pythons that you could get your picture taken with. I’m not afraid of snakes, but wasn’t that interested, until I noticed too late that he also had a finger-tip monkey.

      I almost capsized our boat gesturing to our driver to take us to the other side of the canal, but she wouldn’t (she was very charming) so I didn’t get to play with it.

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      Probably for the best though, I saw the way the snake was looking at the monkey, and the lady holding it, and I’m pretty sure that ended in tears.

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      Posted in Thailand, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged floating market, shopping, Thailand, travel
    • cast away

      Posted at 5:13 am by jasminedesirees, on June 24, 2014

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      Arrived at Phi Phi today. Noticed quite a few job postings for bartenders.

      In unrelated news, I can open a beer like nobody’s business.

      If I go missing, no need to come find me.

      Posted in Thailand, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged beach, island, koh phi phi, Thailand, travel
    • chang

      Posted at 7:56 am by jasminedesirees, on June 20, 2014

      In Thailand, elephants are known as Chang’s. As part of our 3 day jungle trekking expedition (more on that later) we got to ride elephants.

      It sounds reallllly fun, and it was, but it was also terrifying. First, you get to cross the ricketiest old Indiana Jones-style wooden bridge to get across the river to where the elephants are. Then, because they are so big, they can’t get that close to the platform where you’re supposed to get on them so you have to step precariously onto the back of their neck and hope they don’t move while you’re doing it.

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      You are settled into a wooden/metal chair that is tied to the elephant around his neck and tail (with about 40 blankets between you and them, so they have tons of padding) with no seat belt, so you are basically trying to enjoy your ride, maybe take a few pictures, meanwhile holding on for dear life.

      The area where they were riding was pretty hilly, and also really muddy, so when you are going downhill you are clutching the back of the seat with every ounce of strength you possess, trying to avoid falling forwards and being trampled to death, and when you are going up hill, you are nervously eyeing the incredibly slippery looking muddy path and hoping the elephant in front of you doesn’t slide and fall backwards on top of you.

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      To make it even more enjoyable, the elephant is huge, and seems to have no clue at all that he is actually carrying anything on his back, so he’s going about his business as usual, ploughing through bushes, and using his trunk to pull leaves off of branches that then snap back and hit you in the eye.

      It’s a super fun time.

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      After we finished our ride, we got to hang out for awhile and observe them eating and wandering around. I was taking pictures of the baby and mom and happened to glance behind me as a huge male came marching through, I dove out of the way just in the nick of time.

      The baby was super adorable, I’ve had an obsession with baby elephants ever since I saw Ducktales the movie (Webigail was a pretty huge influence on me) so it was neat to get to see it and be so close to it. It may have been small, but it was far from defenseless, a German guy got a bit too close, and it shoulder-checked him. Hard. He almost fell over. It was amazing.

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      It was definitely a cool experience, and I’m glad we were able to do it. I was also glad to see that the elephants were treated pretty well, they had a lot to eat, and a really big area to roam around, although I’ve been told that some of the companies that offer elephants rides don’t treat their animals very well, so be sure to check into it a bit before you book anything.

      Posted in Thailand, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged chang, elephants, Thailand, travel
    • king’s palace

      Posted at 6:11 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 19, 2014

      The same day we checked out Wat Pho, we also went to see the King’s Palace. It was gorgeous, one of the coolest things we saw there was the temple of the Emerald Buddha, the outside of it was amazing, completely covered in intricate mosaic tile work. The inside was probably the most beautiful temple we’ve seen so far, but unfortunately, some of the temples don’t allow photography inside, which makes sense, as there were a lot of people praying inside.

      Outside the temple of the Emerald Buddha was a small scale replica of Angkor Wat, which made me even more excited for Cambodia than I already was.

      The palace itself was pretty neat, they had a “weapons room” that you could go inside to see all of the different weapons that the Thai army has used over the years, some of them were pretty vicious looking.

      The bad thing about the palace was that women had to wear long pants, and a long sleeve shirt. I had a pair of light harem pants, so that wasn’t really the issue, but my top didn’t have long sleeves so I had to put on my sweater. It was so hot and humid out (just check out my hair in some of these pictures, it’s got a life of its own) that by the time we made it through most of the palace complex, I was feeling very faint and I thought I might pass out.

      By the time we got close to the exit I was actually sprinting to get out, I’m sure the guards thought I had stolen the crown jewels or something. I stripped down right outside the gate (I had shorts on underneath) but the guards looked a little freaked out for a second.

      I’ve never been so glad to take my pants off.

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      Posted in Thailand, travel | 1 Comment | Tagged bangkok, king's palace, temple, Thailand, travel
    • wat pho

      Posted at 6:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 17, 2014

      For some reason, even though we travelled 19 hours to get here, we weren’t jet lagged at all. We got to our Bangkok hotel at 11:30 p.m., and woke up the next day ready to go out and do things.

      We ate some random street food for breakfast, and then found our way to the SkyTrain. The only thing I really had in mind to see was the King’s Palace, but you need to take a water taxi to get there, which was pretty cool in itself, and there are lots of different stops along the way.

      We ended up jumping out to see Wat Pho, a really beautiful temple, most famous for its reclining Buddha sculpture, which is completely massive, and completely gorgeous, but it had lots of other neat things too, including rows and rows of gold Buddha statues that we stumbled upon by accident while we were looking for the exit.

      The ornate detail that goes into these temples is astounding, it takes hundreds of years to build them, and then it’s constant maintenance to make sure they stay that way. There were people re-doing the mosaic tiles on little areas all over the massive temple complex.

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      Posted in Thailand, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged bangkok, buddha, Thailand, travel, wat pho
    • shop bangkok

      Posted at 9:45 am by jasminedesirees, on June 16, 2014

      I haven’t been doing much shopping here, since my backpack is one additional item away from exploding, it’s basically being held together by chewing gum and hope.

      But I did stop in at the mall in Bangkok to try to find another battery for my camera.

      It’s always so interesting to see the differences between cultures, and a shopping mall is definitely a place where those things can be seen.

      In addition to having the most awesome food court I’ve ever seen, mirrored ceilings and maze-like hallways that made you feel like you were in the final scene of the Labyrinth, it just had some neat things for sale, and neat ways of displaying everything.

      Those mannequins will haunt my dreams.

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      Posted in travel | 0 Comments | Tagged bangkok, shopping, Thailand, travel
    • loveliness

      Posted at 12:04 pm by jasminedesirees, on June 13, 2014

      A few lovely things for today, when I am in Chiang Mai, probably meeting my elephant soulmate as you’re reading this.

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      Posted in art, photography, poetry, quotes | 1 Comment | Tagged art, loveliness, photography, quotes, travel
    • back packed

      Posted at 11:34 am by jasminedesirees, on June 11, 2014

      Since I started telling people we were leaving, one of the questions I get asked most often (I’ve definitely asked myself a few times) is how we’re going to pack everything we’re going to need in just a little backpack.

      We ordered these backpacks from Amazon, and they are pretty great, they completely zip open so you aren’t futilely fishing around in a tiny backpack opening trying to find the thing you want, and they have lots of different compartments. The zippers also have a spot to put locks on them, so if you’re going to be in an area where pick pocketing is a concern, it’s pretty handy.

      Here are a few shots of everything I’m bringing:

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      I’m bringing 3 dresses, 2 pairs of shorts, one pair of pants, 5 shirts, and a light kimono-sweater, a pair of converse, and pair of flip flops. I bought some packing cubes to keep things organized, I fit all of my clothes in ONE cube. It’s a miracle.

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      For practical things, we  brought laundry detergent sheets, a clothes line and plug so we can do laundry at the hostels, baby wipes, silk sleep sheet in case some of the beds aren’t very clean, combination lock so we can lock up our backpacks in lockers, a flash light, and some carabiners for keeping random things attached to our bags, or attaching our bags to bunks or seats, and a money belt.

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      For unpractical things, I brought a very paired down make up bag, including BB cream, bronzer, blush, eyeliner and roll on perfume. For my hair, I bought Wen, even though I’m not positive I like it, but it takes up a lot less space than bringing both shampoo and conditioner, and Morrocan Oil, because it is a non-negotiable necessity for my when it’s humid, unless I want to spend the whole trip looking like Howard Stern.

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      We brought tons of sun screen, hand sanitizer, a first aid kit with Advil, bandaids and anti-nausea meds, anti-malaria pills, insect repellent, a travel towel (they dry super quickly so other stuff in your bag doesn’t get wet), and inflatable neck pillow, and all our documents, including copies of our passports.

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      And that’s it. I’m sure there will be things I didn’t bring that I should have, and things I brought that I’ll never use, but this is our first time doing something like this, so we’re definitely learning as we go.

      I also got this camera for the trip, I love my DSLR, but it would have taken up the whole bag pretty much, I’m really excited to try it out.

       

      Posted in travel | 4 Comments | Tagged backpacking, packing, travel
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