Happy New Year from Thailand!

I am currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand and have spent my winter school break thus far traveling around the southwest coast of India and the last couple days in Chiang Mai. Tomorrow my friends and I will go to Bangkok to celebrate New Years, then head back to Japan.

India was amazing until the very end of our stay. We flew into Bangalore where spent the night at nice hotel in a shady looking part of town rampant with stray dogs. This part of town was supposed to be one of the better parts , which we all found somewhat disturbing.

The next morning we caught a flight to Trivandrum, which is much further south, then took a train to Alleppey. We spent a couple days there and rented a boat to take us through the backwaters of that area. This was pretty amazing. We were there during a multi-day festival as well which was pretty cool to see. Everyone we encountered was very friendly and tried to speak with us.

From Alleppey we hired a cab to take us to Munnar where there are huge tea plantations. We discovered that Tetley Tea is grown and packaged there. The cab ride was terrifying as there don't seem to be any traffic laws and people constantly pass each other at high speeds and drive into oncoming traffic. Honking seems to be required when passing someone or making a turn in any direction. The constant sound of honking only adds to the terror. We made it in one piece though and it was worth it because Munnar is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We spent Christmas Day and Boxing Day there, then shut out our eyes and headed to Fort Cochin with the cab. Our cab driver went his own way after that and was overjoyed to be rid of us I think.

Fort Cochin was our favorite spot in India as it was much more touristy than the other places we had visited. In the other towns we had been nearly the only tourists, but in Fort Cochin we were part of the tourist mob and street vendors, adults and children, constantly came at us like flies. We had one night there and were happy to leave.

The next day we flew to Bangalore where I had an unfortunate encounter with a veggie croissant at the airport. The rest of my trip has been ruined because I became really ill a couple hours later with food poisoning and have not yet recovered. We took 2 flights to get to Chiang Mai, Thailand, both of which were hellacious for me. My body finally recovered a bit once in Chiang Mai, but I've not been able to eat much more than toast and have been dealing with stomach aches and nausea every day. I hope to recover somewhat by tomorrow as we will fly to Bangkok to celebrate New Years. After that it's back home to Japan, which will be a huge relief.

I hope everyone is well and had a great Christmas. Happy New Year!!!! I will post pics and more about my trip once I'm back in Japan.