Oh, hey, travel blog! I promise that I don’t keep trying to quit you but it definitely does keep happening. You're not making it up in your head. But here I am at the tail end of 2023 and I’m going to attempt to recap what you’ve missed.* I owe you that much.
The remainder of the spring semester was filled with sunny beach trips to get out of the Hanoi AQI. I went to Da Nang, Nha Trang, back to Phu Quoc, and to Hoi An as many times as possible.**
And, finally, I flew back to Atlanta for the world’s fastest long weekend to see Dad get hitched! It was a whirlwind 72 hours in the US and I’m so glad I was able to be there with the family.
I feel incredibly lucky to be able to travel this much and to see all of these beautiful places. I swear that I do show up and teach the children when I am supposed to and also spend quality time sitting around my apartment or walking around Hanoi. No one comes here to see pictures of that, though.
Looking ahead to 2024, I am beyond excited! I am on a mission to get to 200 TCC country points before I move back to the US so I am really applying myself. Current plans include:
***My team kept their win streak going, obvs.
Jessie and I went to Brunei and Koto Kinabalu, Malaysia, for a long weekend at the beginning of May. The capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, is a giant tribute to their Sultan. We were there for a day and, honestly, I feel like we saw all there was to see. Maybe more?
When TEACHER SUMMER hit, I flew back to Atlanta to see all my favorites. We had a volleyball tournament*** and mostly I hopped around town visiting folks and getting free drink refills.****
Atlanta-times were punctuated with a few trips. I met AT in Mexico City and we ate as many tacos as we possibly could, looked at beautiful art, and were conveniently in town for the pride parade.
The Endless Text Chain took a road trip to Nashville to stay in a hotel we have been talking about since pandemic times. It was Dolly-themed and appropriately fabulous! We did touristy Nashville things, line danced, and did many photo shoots with everyone mid-laugh so we could be just like the influencers.
AT and I rendezvoused again in NYC- this time with Ptarcie and Zack! There were shows! There was art! There was Matt!
Not pictured were even quicker hops to Gainesville and Baltimore before I flew back to Hanoi. I was back early before school started to Hanoi for all of 48 hours and then went to Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh with a fellow TCC counter for the remaining few weeks before school started.
Kathmandu, Nepal, was lots of stupas and then a fly over Mt Everest on our way to Bhutan.*****
Bhutan was incredible!! You pay a pretty high tourist visa fee to get in but they are using it to protect their land and culture so I think it’s totally worth it. We visited palaces and shrines and buddhas. I climbed to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery.****** We felt like the only tourists at almost every place we went, including at a hotel where we really were the only guests and the staff was so bored they offered to dress us up in their national costume.*******
After Bhutan, we traveled to Bangladesh. We spent most of the time in the eastern tea plantation area touring around and answering questions about why we chose to come to Bangladesh. That ended the official Teacher Summer and it was back to Hanoi and school!
Fret not, though, there were still some holidays and chances to travel in the new school year. The first one was at the end of August- I went to Okinawa, Japan, via a layover in Taipei, Taiwan. Okinawa is billed as the Hawaii of Japan and did not disappoint!
For Fall Break, Robert took his harem to Uzbekistan via Kazakhstan. He first mentioned it almost a year earlier and asked if anyone would be interested in going because he had always wanted to go. I did almost no preparation for this trip and was so blown away! It was baby’s first -Stan and we had a great time! The architecture, the track suits, the celebrity train conductors—there was so much to take in! I am a Stan stan now.
What else? The gang popped over to Chiang Mai, Thailand, for an exceptionally low key weekend of walking around the town between coffee shops. There are elephant sanctuaries and many outdoor activities to be done there if you go. We did exactly none of those things and have no regrets.
And, finally, I flew back to Atlanta for the world’s fastest long weekend to see Dad get hitched! It was a whirlwind 72 hours in the US and I’m so glad I was able to be there with the family.
I am currently in Australia but will write more about that in an upcoming blog post.*********
I feel incredibly lucky to be able to travel this much and to see all of these beautiful places. I swear that I do show up and teach the children when I am supposed to and also spend quality time sitting around my apartment or walking around Hanoi. No one comes here to see pictures of that, though.
-Tazania and Zanzibar for Tet!
-Jeju, South Korea, for a school field trip!
-TAYLOR in Singapore!
-Sri Lanka and the Andaman-Nicobar Islands for spring break!
-PARIS 2024**********
-Mongolia!
-Oh and, just because why not? Maybe a quick pop to South America before the end of the year so I can have gone to 6 continents in the same calendar year.
Is this too much? Is it even possible? Am I Icarus and one of these VietJet flights is going to fly too close to the sun??? STAY TUNED, friends!!
-KT
*As always, for no other reason than one day when I’m old and grey*********** I can look back and remember the places I went and things I did.
**This continues in the fall for the sun and the sandwich, of course. The sun brings me out of seasonal depression but that sandwich brings me joy year-round so it’s very hard to turn down. Also, sometimes we do completely stupid things just for fun.
****I will always maintain that this is the finest thing America does.
*****Just want to take a moment to apologize for how fast I’m flying through this recap and make everyone aware that I am aware that I just relegated the entire country of Nepal to one sentence that also included a name drop of Mt. Everest. We’ve gotta be quick or we’ll never get through this, people.
******My fitness tracker still talks about it!
*******I maintain that this photo and ominous sky look like I am plotting to take over in some kind of Handmaids Tale dystopian fantasy.
*********I absolutely promise it will be written and published in a timely fashion because Dad is a real task master and has asked about it more than once.
**********Honestly, it is the most bananas dream of my entire existence to be attending the Olympics and I am over the moon about it. I still see you, #Tokyo2020.
***********JK, I’ve seen what I look like before the dry shampoo is rubbed in so I will be dying or highlighting my hair until my bitter end.
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