Life is slow and rainy down here in Sihanoukville, Cambodia- a little coastal town south of Phnom Penh, so I decided to do a top 10 (so far) of my trip highlights. I still have nearly two months to go, so this is a bit preemptive, but why not?

10. Buenos Aires

9. Rickshaw rides in India, especially with Harish (Mysore) and Vicky (Jaipur) or when Dee and I would serenade the drivers with American pop hits

8. Songkran Festival (Thai New Year) aka city-wide water fight

7. Trekking the LangTang region of Nepal for 7 days

6. Soaking up the sun on the Thai beaches with Madison

5. The Taj Mahal in all her wondrous beauty

4. Mahout School outside of Chiang Mai, Thailand (elephant training)

3. The Sivananda Yoga Ashram in India (will be wanting to do another yoga vacation in the Catskills- who will join me?)

2. The Inca Trail- Machu Picchu, the trail itself (completing it), and finding new friends along the way

1. Snorkeling with tons of playful sea-lions in the Galapagos, on three different occasions, alongside sea-turtles, reef sharks,gorgeous fishies and blue-footed boobies flying overhead

I’m sure that I’m missing a ton of top-10 worthy things and will think of them later and feel foolish for not including them, but oh well. Also, a huge highlight was just traveling with Deirdre. We are definitely even closer now than we were before we left, which is certainly saying something as far as travel partners go. I talked to so many people, and know so many people, whose friendships became mangled after trips like ours. We are lucky we decided to do this together. Between Ali (in Australia) and Dee, I’ve been completely blessed.

Now, how about a top-10 list of things I could do without:

10.  My G7 Canon camera getting stolen in San Jose on day #7 of the trip

9.  Days topping 100 degrees constantly. I have been in the summer season since October 27th…with only London and Nepal as my heat saviors (13 days total) and it will be summer when I get back to the states…

8.  The fact that you cannot, or should not, trust anyone because they’ll most likely be lying to you or trying to scam you. It’s heartbreaking to go through counties with that attitude, but it seems essential

7. Drivers in India telling us they’d take us to our destination for the price we had agreed upon, IF we went to 6 shops for them so they got commission. The worst was the driver wanting to take us to a shop on the way to THE AIRPORT TO CATCH OUR FLIGHT!

6. People asking if I like George Bush (goes hand-in-hand with #5)

5. Being told how idiotic we Americans are and how we are all brain-washed

4. Being constantly harassed by drivers, shop-owners, and tour-guides

3. Having to throw toilet paper in the garbage, instead of into the toilet

2. Squat toilets

1. Feeling like a walking ATM machine everywhere I go just because I have white-skin

Trust me, it was a lot harder coming up with the bad times than the good. This trip has been incredible and I can’t wait for more… :)

xoxox