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Thailand – Day 5 (off to Krabi!)

I woke up to pouring rain, packed up and headed to the airport for my morning flight to Krabi. The rain clouds made for some nice scenery up in the air, and a bit of turbulence, but we landed safely. I couldn’t figure out where the heck the taxi stand was, and eventually gave up and jumped on a discount group bus to Aonang. I couldn’t check into my hotel until after 3pm anyway, so I wasn’t in a rush and it was nice to look at the scenery and see where other people were getting off at and going to. Eventually I did make it to my hotel, which is a pretty basic 3-star place with no frills, but it was cheap at $20ish a night with a king bed, balcony, and less than 5 minute walk to the beach. I quickly changed into my bathing suit, lathered up in sunscreen and bug spray, and hoofed it to the beach before the storms could roll in. I was able to shell hunt for about half an hour or so before the storm hit, and took shelter under the roof of a nearby massage place (seriously in Thailand if you close your eyes, spin around, and throw a stick you’re either going to hit a temple or a massage place). Once the rain eased up I went back out onto the beach and made my way to the monkey trail, but soon realized I wasn’t equipped to deal with mischievous monkeys at that moment and I was just looking to get the stuff in my hands stolen, as is known to happen on that trail. So I turned back around and will do that another day. I slowly walked back down the beach, looking for shells and watching the sun set over the horizon. The entire sky was a reddish orange for a long time, and with the storms passing through a beautiful rainbow popped up behind the cliffs. The sky shifted from orange to peach after the sun went behind the clouds, and then quickly turned blue afterwards. There are shells everywhere here, and the water is lukewarm like pool water.

After the beach I changed out of my bathing suit into regular clothes and walked down the street to a Thai restaurant where I noticed a lot of locals were eating. I decided to be a bit more adventurous with my food choices, so I ordered a local fish (no idea what it was) cooked in lemon and lime sauce stuff. What I didn’t expect was to get the ENTIRE fish, although I’m not sure why…this is Thailand after all. The waitress was really concerned, because I had asked for not spicy and the chef practically drowned the fish in spices and chili oil, but it really wasn’t that bad. I guess I’ve gotten used to chili oil since I put it in my ramen and udon all the time, but she was worried about me not liking it and kept checking in. I ate all but the head…sorry, I’m not that adventurous. Then of course I gave chin scritches to the resident restaurant cat and headed back to the hotel. I think I’m already falling in love with this place. I could totally retire here.

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Pompeii and Positano

I woke up at the ass-crack of dawn and hiked over to the meeting point for my trip to Pompei and Positano. The trip out to Pompei was pretty cool, since you got to see Mount Vesuvius and pass by some great views of Naples on the way down. It was honestly a perfect day. It was sunny, warm, relatively low humidity, with a light breeze. And yet, when we arrived in Pompei it wasn’t busy at all like we were expecting. We were able to walk right in and hit all of the highlights right on time. We visited a small house that had a lot of the original frescos intact, a nobleperson’s big house with cool floor tiling, a bathhouse, the famous brothel with their more R-rated frescos still in place, the main shopping street, and the main courtyard. We also got to see the casts of some of the people who died there, and we were guided by an active site archaeologist who works on the modern excavations so she was able to tell us about some cool things they’ve found just in the past few years. For example, all the old books say Vesuvius erupted in August, but now they’re sure it must have been at least October from the fruits they’re finding and some new graffiti they found on a wall where the person dated it to what would translate as October of 79 A.D. That’s the cool thing about science, you can always adjust based on new information.

After we left the ruins I pet a cat, and ran back to the bus. We drove over to Sorrento, with gorgeous views down into the bay and of Sorrento itself, and continued under the mountains and to the Amalfi Coast. We drove along the coast, which is pretty dang gorgeous, all the way over to Positano. At which point, we were given a couple hours to just hang out and wander around. I went down to the black beach first and stuck my hand in the lukewarm water, which surprised me, I thought it would be cold. Then I went to a pizza place that had a wood burning oven and ate probably the BEST Margherita pizza I’ve ever had before. Then I wandered back up to the top of the houses along the shop roads and got a lemon slushie, since lemons are a big crop in this area. Afterwards, we all hopped back on the bus and made the long trek back to Rome. I’m going to the Vatican tomorrow so maybe I can get someone to bless this cold I’m developing away…that’s how that works, right?

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Rome – Day 1

I got up and had breakfast, checked out of the hotel, and took a ferry (now that they’re running again!) to the train station. Now, originally I was going to go to Athens after Venice, but dang Athens is expensive and difficult to get to and I’d have to go to Rome to fly to Thailand so I figured I’d save two days of travel and travel expenses and just go visit Rome since I had to be there anyway. Woe is me! The train ride was uneventful, it goes about 155 miles per hour (250 km/h) and a lot of it is in underground tunnels.

After arriving in Rome I took a taxi as close as he could get to the hotel, then walked it from there. It’s not that he couldn’t drive me to my hotel, there were roads, but they were absolutely PACKED with people, and the time spent trying to push through wasn’t worth it. Getting my suitcase over the old cobbled roads was interesting, but I made it to the hotel and checked in. I was starving, and wasn’t up for playing charades for communication, so I went to the Hard Rock Café right around the way from the hotel for a club sandwich and English conversation. By the time I was done eating it was sunset, so I hiked up the Spanish Steps to watch the sun go down. It was a bit crowded, so I meandered over to the Terraza de Pincio, which overlooks the entire city and Piazza del Popolo which is Rome’s oldest obelisk. The sky exploded into pink and purple, and I wandered around the big park looking at all the cool statues including entire rows of prominent Italian people in that area while stopping by the lookout areas to watch the sky change. After it was dark, I headed downstairs and found a pharmacy for some cold meds (I’ve had a sore through these past couple days, fingers crossed it doesn’t turn into anything worse!) and some groceries, then turned in for the night. I have a big walking day tomorrow!