Taking the Scenic Route

HCC: By far the biggest reason to visit the Cambodian town of Siem Reap is to climb the Indian-Jones-esque temples of Angkor Wat, some of the largest religious buildings on earth. And that's just where we headed when I reunited with my fellow Lost Girls after going home for the holidays. Rather than take a packaged tour, we opted to grab a free guidebook and rent $2-a-day bikes to fit some exercise in with our sightseeing. The 40-kilometer route around the religious ruins proved so amazing that we did it all over again the next day— despite needing to toss back a few Tylenols as a prescription for aching muscles post-ride.


Created by Khmer kings, Angkor is the name of an ancient empire and wat means temple. Made up of a hodgepodge of sprawling shrines, carved pillars, stone bridges, and massive gates, we parked our bikes to climb on this adult jungle gym. Our playground was littered with statues of Hindu gods and Buddha relics, thanks to Cambodia’s central position on the trade route between India and China. Here are some shots from our days as explorers (and a few of us on “Pub” street refueling).

Full Moon Dance

When it comes to certain famous cities around the world, most people tend to paint a romanticized picture in their heads about the specific type of experience they’ll have. You know, like dancing ‘til dawn in the streets of Rio with elaborately beaded and feathered revelers during Carnival or heroically rescuing a baby from a wild dingo in Australia’s Outback, or jetting off to Paris with a gorgeous man for an all-expense paid weekend of boutique shopping, wine tasting and romantic strolls down the Champs Elise (OK, OK, I’ve digressed to a specific Lost Girls’ fantasy, but you get the point).

On a much smaller (and more realistic) scale, the majority of backpackers making the popular pilgrimage down South to explore Thailand’s vast chain of islands have a very specific image of what each floating hotspot has to offer. And while some of the island’s reputations are based solely on urban travel legends or cliché descriptions handed down from one generation of Lonely Planet readers to the next, this much is true…whether you’re looking an uber chill hideout, a raging party scene or an unlimited offering of water sports, there’s a locale to satisfy everyone’s tastes.

As a general rule of thumb (and in case you haven’t caught up on all our recent entries – shame on you!), you should head to Ko Tao for world-class dive sites and cheap certification courses, to Phuket for a first hand encounter with lady boys and other ubiquitous street walkers (Readers: please refer to the multiple comments under Amanda’s “What the Phuket” blog before piping in on this one! :)) and to Ko Phi Phi to relive Leonardo DeCaprio’s “Beach” life. And, most importantly, if the timing works out and you don’t mind sharing the sand with thousands of overzealous ravers, it’s definitely worth a trip to the most notorious island of them all, Ko Pha-Ngan, to rage at the famous full moon party.

With a little less than two weeks to go before our reunion with Holly (yes, she was still freakin’ meditating in India – poor thing), Amanda and I planned our final days as a duo to coincide with Ko Pha-Ngan’s legendary lunar event. Joining hoards of other backpackers with the same idea, Amanda and I began the long and arduous bus – to another bus – to ferry boat– to yet another bus – to tuk tuk journey. For those of you out there who plan to follow in our footsteps at some point in the future, I have two critical pieces of advice. One: plan to arrive in Ko Pha-Ngan at least a week in advance and Two: the second you get to Hat Rin (ground zero for the big moon bash) …RUN! Run like hell, seriously! Any slow pokes in the bunch will end up sleeping with their backpacks on the beach as accommodations are notoriously difficult to find without a reservation. Although there are always exceptions to the rules, it’s up to you if you want to take the chance.

As the ever-resourceful Lost Girls that we are, Amanda and I hatched a grand scheme to guarantee our spot on the island. We stopped at the first hotel we saw, paid them a few baht to watch our bags for an hour or so and proceeded to sprint down the side streets inquiring about vacancies. With no weight to carry, we left many other hopefuls struggling to drag their packs across the sand. Oh well! It’s a cruel world, right? As luck would have it, we secured what we're certain was one of the last available shacks for miles, which incidentally came with a huge mold covered bolder growing in the middle of the room at no extra charge (don’t ask!). We also had to share the space with a few gargantuan spiders and slimy slugs, but, hey, we’d arrived in one piece, had a place to dump our stuff and a semi-comfy cot-like structure to sleep on for a few hours a night. We couldn’t expect much more during full moon time anyway, especially on our measly daily budget. We were here, though, and that was what counted, right?

So, lux accommodations aside, was our experience in Ko Pha-Ngan all we hoped for and more, you ask? Does a Lost Girl look twice when a hot guy walks by? Absolutely! In terms of party points, the island scored high across the board. We quickly learned that Hat Rin provides visitors with many opportunities to practice their full moon party skills ahead of time. A few days after we arrived, Amanda and I, along with half the island, were escorted deep into the nearby forest via shuttle buses (a clever euphanism for rickety trucks driven by locals) to pay homage to the half moon with a requisite trance dance around neon painted trees.

Before barely having time to recover, New Year’s Eve was upon us. We rang in 2007 on a packed beach with an insane number of tourists that rivaled any seen in our hometown Times Square, not to mention tons of locals, including a colorful cast of fire twirlers, tattoo artists (think day glow paint, not needles), bucket peddlers (huge sand pales filled with your choice of liquor, mixer and bendy straws), the best DJs in Thailand and a hearty police presence. As cheers (and beers) erupted at the stroke of midnight, bonfires blew misty rings of smoke into the jet black sky and fireworks boomed overhead to the rhythm of the pumping base, Amanda and I couldn’t imagine how the actual party we’d come here for could be much better. Well, let’s just say we were proven wrong.

Without going into too much detail (we can’t be expected to remember (or tell) everything after all! :)), Ko Pha-Ngan’s full moon rave more than lived up to its infamous reputation. It offered all the craziness and fun of the half moon party and New Year’s Eve beach bash, but with an even greater presence of ravers (seriously, people come in by the boat load from nearby islands), trance and house spinners, pyrotechnic artists, beach bar specials and, of course, a much brighter sky.

Although a bit exhausted and sweaty (our room rock emits an odd heat wave) Amanda and I woke the next morning (well, it actually was the same morning, but whatever) feeling satisfied and happy. While we were more than ready to lead a normal life again on the mainland, we’d always look back at our nine day stint in Ko Pha-Ngan with fondness - and a newfound appreciation for full moons!

- - - Jen

TO BE CONTINUED…Think the story ends here? No way! Stay tuned for my next blog entry “Beyond the Full Moon” for other fun tales, quirky observations and random ruminations about our time in Ko Pha-Ngan.

Happy Birthday To Me!

HCC: I may be a full-fledged adult, but I felt like a kid playing dress up when I put on high heels and red lipstick for my big birthday celebration in Hanoi, Vietnam. I didn’t even own heels, so we spent the day wandering through the shoe market while Vietnamese women pointed at our feet and laughed out loud at our big “farang” (slang for white people) size eights.

We went to dinner at the fancy Hilton Opera Hotel, then wore out our new dancing shoes at The New Century Club before getting shots of Baileys and pizza at a tiny lounge called Dragon Fly. Not a bad way to kick off the last year of my twenties. I hope the rest of my birthdays are as good!

Home for the Holidays

HCC: Okay, it’s no secret that we’re a bit behind on our blogging. Readers keep writing me to ask why I wasn’t with the girls on the islands. Well, while they were practicing hedonism and downing 2-for-1 drinks on the beaches, I was practicing self-discipline and meditating at the ashram. (Um, I’m just a tiny bit jealous:)

And after leaving yoga school I sort of “cheated:” I missed my family so much that I went home for the holidays. This is me with my two sisters and my sister’s boyfriend’s daughter, Liz. When it comes to being homesick, it’s less about longing for a specific place than for those that I care about most. My year on the road has taught me that, no matter where I may wander, my real home will always be with the people that I love (including my fellow Lost Girls, of course!).

Blame It on “The Beach”

ADP: Long before there was a Sex in the City tour highlighting Carrie Bradshaw’s favorite cosmo-sipping spots and a DaVinci Code tour tracing Robert Langdon’s quest for the Holy Grail, backpackers were following the footsteps of their own unlikely hero—Leonardo DeCaprio—who stumbled upon a white sand utopia in the 1999 cult-classic The Beach.

In Alex Garland’s best selling novel of the same name, the mythical Beach lies in a protected marine reserve off Thailand’s east coast. But don’t tell that to the millions of travelers who storm the country’s west coast year. Ever since a Hollywood director filmed Leo jumping off a waterfall, beating up a shark, getting it on with a French girl, having a mental breakdown and nearly getting executed by drug dealers on the ruggedly beautiful island of Kho Phi Phi—that’s where Beach bums have been trying to recreate movie magic.


And so, perhaps swept up by the hype like everyone else, Jen, Beth and I found ourselves boarding a ferry boat bound for Phi Phi, praying we could find a dirt cheap hotel with a vacancy. From the rumors, the island (pronounced “pee-pee,”) had been sold out for months, so we didn’t have a prayer of spending our holidays there.

Another Lost Girl lesson: When everyone from burnout wannabe hippies to the anal-retentive reservation makers tell you that a place is “totally and completely sold out,” that’s usually when you’ll stumble upon an ideal room that someone bailed on at the last minute. Our ferry boat had barely bellied up to the pier when the girls and I leapt ashore, trying to outpace the other unprepared arrivals seeking shelter. We quickly found our crash pad at the Phi-Phi Don Chukit—a triple room that might not have had air-con, hot water or an ounce of charm, but did offer clean sheets, towels and daily maid service, all for the bargain price of just $13 per girl. Boo-yah.

By now we’d learned that Leonardo’s cinematic stomping grounds (known locally as Maya Beach) lie just a long-tailed boat ride away on uninhabited Kho Phi Phi Leh, but our goals were more shortsighted: After getting up so early and racing around to find a hotel, we just wanted to crash on a lounge chair—preferably in the vicinity of an all-male beach volleyball game.





Changing into bathing suits, tank tops and dousing ourselves liberally in SPF 30, we backtracked along the path towards “town” and stumbled upon a veritable backpacker nirvana. The walkway leading to the island’s second most popular stretch of sand was lined with cheap massage parlors, internet cafes with flat screen monitors, dive centers promising shark sightings, ticket agents with walls of low-low prices, all-you-can-eat restaurants, second-hand bookshops, double-decker bars with 2-for-1 drink specials, pharmacies advertising everything from pain relievers to “preg tests,” and an endless stream of gorgeous, lithe and perfectly bronzed 20-somethings.

In my non-OC-Laguna Beach-Real World-MTV Spring Break life, I’d never seen so many attractive people with six-pack abs clustered into the same small space. Guys accessorized their fuzz-free chests with beaded wooden necklaces and an assortment of tattoos they supposedly designed themselves. The girls observed a strict dress code of stretchy striped skirts, floaty beach tops, Reef sandals, cotton headbands, big hoop earrings and the kind of bug-eyed sunglasses that even Nicole Richey would acknowledge are out of style. As a group, they chain smoked packs of cigarettes bought at the island’s one and only 7-11, drank sand-pail sized containers of alcohol (known everywhere in Thailand as “buckets”), recovered from the previous night’s debauchery by downing mountainous stacks of banana pancakes and watching Borat, Casino Royal and Wedding Crashers at one of a half dozen outdoor cafes.

In short, exactly the sort of crowd Leonardo was trying to escape from when he went searching for The Beach.

After getting a little sidetracked by cheap (yet shockingly flattering) bikinis and sundresses, we finally made it the water to discover that there was, in fact, an all guy’s volleyball game in full swing. Beth, who’d played competitively in high school, wasted no time in jumping in; Jen and I grabbed chairs and started making plans for our first night on the town.

As it turned out, there wasn’t much to plan: No matter where the night began, almost everyone rolled down to Apache Bar--a multi-tiered, Indian-themed joint with a nightly fire-show--or Carlito’s--a huge, Swedish-run place with fairy lights, tons of chairs and tables on the sand, a big dance floor and great mix of reggae, house and old-school tunes. We initiated ourselves into the mindless mayhem of Kho Phi Phi by ordering our first round of buckets, Beth toasting to her long vacation and Jen and I toasting to unemployment. By the time we got to the bottom of our drinks, we’d magically made friends with half the people on the beach and were already planning on where to go tomorrow (not a tough choice, as I mentioned).



Hangovers not withstanding, our week on Phi Phi turned out to be just what the travel doctor ordered. We surrendered to the local mindset without a fight, shopping for stretchy dresses, watching pirated movies, eating stir-fry lunches and taking afternoon naps on the beach. We went out ‘til all hours at night and still managed to get up early the next morning to spot sharks, moray eels and scorpion fish on scuba diving excursions. We even broke down and watched The Beach, which I realized, was actually a pretty crappy movie with one really great thing going for it—the spectacular setting right outside our door.



Blame it on the buckets or hitting the six-month mark of this yearlong journey, but it became as clear as a vodka tonic that not every experience we have on this trip has to enhance our view of the world—sometimes, blurrier is actually better. I may not have grown intellectually during our week in Kho Phi Phi, but I did have two alcohol-inspired insights: Sometimes, taking a break from culture is the very thing you need to learn to appreciate it all over again. And occasionally, even travelers can use a vacation from their vacation.

What the Phuket?!

Nearly every backpacker we’d spoken with in Thailand vehemently recommended we skip Phuket in favor of one of the islands that hadn’t been choked to death by concrete and commercialism. Unfortunately, having not done enough advanced word-of-mouth research, we’d already advised Beth Frey, our college friend and NYC roommate, to meet us there to kick off her winter vacation. Incredibly, the three of us actually ended up bumping into each other in the massive domestic check-in area of the Bangkok Airport as we prepared to make our connecting in-country flights (insert typical squeal-filled girlfriend airport reunion here).

During the 45-minute drive from the Phuket Airport to our hotel, our taxi weaved through a series of narrow streets dominated by sprawling super-resorts, each one hemmed in by a massive concrete wall designed to give the impression of safety and seclusion. I’d been warned that Phuket had been transformed into a theme-park for package tourists more eager to immerse themselves in bowls of rum-punch than Thai culture, so the fortifications weren’t a surprise. I wondered though, if there were any locals still left in the area to keep out.

After Beth recovered from her jet-lag (and Jen and I took turns removing 27 layers of traveler grime in a much-missed hot shower) the three of us decided to take a shuttle bus to Patong Beach, the epicenter of the island’s nightlife. When we pressed our hotel manager for a description of the scene, he told us with a heavy French accent that it was “all shiny and glittery, with lots of the blink-blink lights and the sounds and the constant activity.”

Hmmm. This sounded more like a description of the Vegas strip than a beach town, but seconds after arriving, we realized that our man had been dead-on.



In Patong proper, night had been blasted into day by enormous neon signs, floodlight ATM terminals and the artificial glow of cheap restaurants, sports bars, tour companies, travel agencies, nightclubs, pirated DVD stalls, tattoo parlors and by-the-hour hotels. Little kids trying to sell cheap crap were unflaggingly persistent, but try as we might, we couldn’t escape from the three hardiest space invaders: Starbucks, Haggen Daaz and McDonalds.

As we walked, we saw gaggles of lady boys parading in their spandex, nylon and taffeta down the main drag (so to speak). British and Aussie teens on gap year poured huge buckets of Red Bull and vodka directly down their throats, then moshed spasmodically to alt-rock music pouring out of Buick-sized speakers. We guessed there was a two-for-one special on hookers, because almost every middle aged man we saw sported a barely dressed, under-aged Asian prostitute on each arm.



As Manhattan girls who’d long since learned to push through the commercialized mayhem of Times Square without batting an eyelash (without even looking up, really), the three of us were struck speechless by what we witnessed in Patong Beach. By comparison, old 42nd Street seemed downright provincial.

A few cocktails did nothing to enhance our perspective, so we called it a night.

When I got home, another shower seemed in order.

Below, a few more photos from our neon safari:

The Lost Girls Won the Travvies!

We want to give a shout out to all of you who voted for The Lost Girls for the first-ever travel blog awards, the Travvies. Thanks for all your support! We won for "The Best Travel Blog Written By a Group." For more travel inspiration, tips and advice, you can log on to Upgrade: Travel Better.

And for all you armchair travelers, here is a list of the other travel blogs winners:

"Best Travel Blog" went to National Geographic Traveler

"Best Destination Blog" went to Newyorkology.com

"Best Practical Blog" went to The Cranky Flier

"Best Single Author Blog" went to (again!) The Cranky Flier

"Best Photography Blog" went to Exposed Planet

Happy surfing!

How We: Quit our Jobs to Travel

One of our readers recently wrote us to point out that this section our sidebar had been "under construction" for the last eight months. Oops...guess we were trying a little too hard to forget about our lives as working women! Office life might be little more than fuzzy memory now, but here's what we have to say about giving our job--and yours--the old heave-ho.

How We: Quit our Jobs to Travel
ADP: Initially, Jen, Holly and I worried that it would appear a little flakey to take a working hiatus after only five years on the job—would leaving be occupational suicide in fast-paced, career-centric NYC? To our great relief and surprise, our bosses seemed to recognize, as we did, this it’s not everyday you find two friends willing to travel around the world with you. They were sad to see us go, but supported our decision to leave.

In the end, it’s actually pretty simple put the old grind behind you (just two little words will do the trick), but telling your boss that you’re giving up a steady paycheck to backpack across the globe can require a certain level of finesse. So, based on our own experiences with bosses, HR and exit-interviews, here’s how to quit with a little panache—and perhaps, one day, to get your old position back.

1. Give Plenty of Notice: Nearly everyone advised us to give the standard two-weeks notice, as it could be uncomfortable sticking around the office longer. While it can feel a little awkward to be the lame duck employee, your superiors will likely be grateful if you give them four full weeks to prepare the department and start interviewing candidates for your position. If your job is technical and fairly hard to staff, you may want to consider offering even greater lead time. Give your boss a little courtesy now and she’ll remember you when it comes time to write a reference or recommendation later.

2. Find the Positive Spin: Whether you’re taking off for three months or three years, present your adventure as an opportunity too incredible to pass up. Explain how the experiences you’ll have abroad—learning foreign languages, immersing yourself in new cultures, volunteering in developing nations, etc—can increase your skill set and make you a more valuable employee upon your return.

3. Negotiate long-term leave: When Jen told her boss that she’d be hitting the road with us, he surprised her by offering to hold her position—provided she return within three months. While she couldn’t take the offer (she had her heart set on a year abroad), it taught us that anything job-related is up for discussion—even quitting. If you’ve got a good relationship with your boss, consider asking for 6-12 weeks of unpaid leave. That way, you can have your extended vacation and keep your position, too.

4. Finish with Style: Once you’ve officially given notice, it can be incredibly tempting act as if you’re already a free agent, but few things put a damper on years of hard work and dedication quite like slacking off at the very end. Make your boss’s life easier by creating a “cheat sheet” to your workspace and paperwork. Include any computer log-ins and passwords, a status report of your pending projects and instructions for locating digital files and their hard copies. It may take a little time to get the document together, but you’ll probably save yourself a few emails from your frazzled replacement.

5. Be grateful: You probably sent a thank you note to your boss after she interviewed you, so don’t forget to show your appreciation that she actually gave you the job. It’s not necessary to make your departure a Hallmark moment—a simple, heartfelt “thank you” will suffice.

6. Keep in touch: When you’re finally living the backpacker life in Argentina or Thailand or New Zealand, take a few minutes to send a postcard or email to your former boss and co-workers. It’s a great way to ensure that you’re gone—but not forgotten.

Making a Run for the Border

ADP: After experiencing life at a languorous pace for nearly two weeks in Laos, Jen and I procrastinated as long as we could in booking the taxis, tuk-tuks, buses and plane flights we’d need to meet up with our friend Beth several hundred miles south in Phuket.

With several tight connections ahead of us, Jen and I decided to pay the extra two dollars to ride the “VIP” bus, which was scheduled to arrive in Vientiane (the capital of Laos) an hour earlier than the standard coach. We hardly complained when the AC refused to cough up cool air, the windows wouldn’t open and the humidity shot up to a level somewhere between “greenhouse” and “dishwasher,” but once we realized our driver was operating some profitable side-scam (stopping the bus every twenty minutes to transport cargo between roadside towns), we started to get a little prickly. Rolling along in the mobile sauna, it seemed we were going nowhere—and as slowly as possible.

Finally, more than ten hours after we’d departed from Luang Prubang (and nearly three hours late), we reached the Northern Bus Station in Vientiane and learned our troubles weren’t over. If we had any hopes of catching the final bus over the border, we now had to transfer to the Southern Station, completing the twenty-minute drive in about six minutes. Throwing almost all of our remaining currency at a delighted tuk-tuk driver, we raced across town and spotted the very bus we needed just as it was pulling out of the depot.

“That’s our ride!” I screeched, pissed that we’d come so close just to watch our carefully laid plans go up in a cloud of carbon monoxide.

By now I knew that there are several things a backpacker should never count on, with responsible bus drivers, on-time schedules and working air-con topping the list. But I was also learning that for every local experience that frustrates the hell out of you, you’ll have one that blows you away.

Hearing my screams from the back of his vehicle, our tuk-tuk driver rammed his foot into the gas paddle like Dale Earnhart, Jr. coming down the home stretch. He chased the bus down the road, pulling up alongside so he could scream up to the operator and gesticulate wildly with his free hand. I’m not sure how he managed to convince the guy to open up both the passenger door and the cargo hold in the middle of a four-lane highway, but the next thing I knew, my bags were being tossed underneath the bus and Jen and I were dodging between cars to jump up on board.

“No forget shirt!” the tuk-tuk driver shouted after us, then proceeded to send the long-sleeve top I’d left across the road in a Hail Mary pass. Jen lunged to catch it, then leapt up to join me on the bus just as the stalled cars and trucks drowned us in a cacophony of honking.

Once the doors slammed shut, we started walking down the aisle and noticed every single passenger gaping at us like we’d suddenly transformed into Ed Rooney at the end of Ferris Buller’s Day Off.

So much for trying to blend in.