Change of Plans

So one of the things you need to realize while backpacking is that plans change. You can come up with all these amazing plans and then one small thing can happen that changes everything. Kayla and I knew this coming into this trip and decided to be flexible. We had a "plan as you go" approach, which turned out to be perfect. After we arrived in Bangkok again (after leaving Cambodia) we decided to start finalizing the next part of our trip. Originally we were going to try and go back to Koh Phangan for the "Full Moon Party" which is supposed to be insane. However, after reading information on it and hearing people's stories we decided that it might not be something 2 girls want to venture into alone. So we put a pin in it for a future vacation...maybe with a big group of our friends (hint hint). After coming to that conclusion we decided that we would leave Bangkok the next day and head up to Chiang Mai. So we booted up the laptop so that we could book a hostel. This is when we were thrown a curve ball. None of our cards would work. We knew that it wasn't an issue of funds because we had been carefully budgeting and were actually ahead of what we thought we would have. We had informed the banks of our travel plans and because of the time difference we couldn't call. All we could do was wait. Luckily we had visited an ATM in the airport so we had some cash. So we sat around and ate very little, waiting for the other side of the world to wake up.


Once 5am (back in the US) rolled around we sent our mom a message letting her know that we were having a bit of a problem. (I am sure that she assumed that one of us had been kidnapped or developed some serious illness.) As soon as she realized what was going on she was on the phone with all different people at the bank getting it sorted out. This is the second time our mom has helped us out of a sticky spot while traveling. The first was when we had our passports stolen in South America and with the help of our Aunt Julie she helped us figure out what to do. So once again, thanks mom!

So in the end our plans were forced to change and that is how we ended up in Phuket, Thailand!