Kirsti Mathiasen

After a full night's sleep - but still not long enough - we woke up early to catch the sunrise from a Hot Air balloon! That was a very cool experience.

We were split up into 3 different balloons and took off at about 6:30 am. The entire ride was but 30 or 45 minutes long which I guess was a good amount of time to be up there. I've never seen a balloon up close before and they were much bigger than I expected. The basket itself was just made from wicker, looked exactly like you'''d expect from a wicker basket except bigger. Each "half" carried 5 people, we were packed in very tightly though! Like sardines haha. The center of the basket was reserved for the "pilot" and his gas canisters. He was a pretty chill dude and was just listening to his music the entire time, and he laughed when some of us decided to pull out beers and shotgun ;) That'll be a good one for 'Never Have I Ever' haha. What a way to start the day! The views were fantastic. We could see the entire countryside, rivers, and mountains unobstructed. It was quite peaceful really. When we finally came down we landed in a random field and there were workers down there who caught a rope our pilot through over and they guided us down to the proper landing spot. Before we were allowed to get out we had to wait for the next tuk Tuk load of passengers to arrive. One out then one in so that the weight stayed balanced and the balloon didn't take off.

After our balloon ride we got back to the hotel and went out for some breakfast. Everyone else went to bed but I took advantage of the down time to do some reading and writing. And to go shopping with my partner for our theme party in the afternoon. The theme was "Korean Couples" and we were randomly assigned a partner, then randomly given the name of another couple to shop for. As you can imagine the costumes were quite ridiculous! Crazy hats, shirts, dresses, etc. It was fun! At least we all looked silly together.

We were dressed up because we were going on a Tubing Pub Crawl down the Nam Song River! That was a hoot. I didn't bring my phone because of course I didn't want it to get wet or lost, but thankfully there were a few go pros in the group that captured a few candid moments ;) There was less Tubing involved than I thought there would be, and less drinking too actually. For myself anyway, I think I was the most sober person there. All that practice down at the lake really paid off today!! There were two bars open and we stayed at the first one for quite a while. There was a game of musical tubes that was played, beer pong, flip cup, etc. I recognized all the staff from the bar the other night, I guess they're employed at multiple places. And they seem to be paid to be drunk.... And they're all foreigners. I've decided that this city reminds me a bit of Whistler, transient population and lots of partying. But it's cool! It's also so pretty and lots to do aside from partying. Anyway, we eventually tubed down over to the second bar which was also fun. Again, I was the most sober one there even amongst some of the staff and had a great time watching people mingle. We played a game of giant Jenga too which had different dares written all over them. So funny to watch people do them! And clearly only very drunk people would actually do them... Like motorboating a stranger, lacking someone, playing spin the bottle, etc etc. When a few people had clearly had tooooooooo much to drink the entire group took off in tuk Tuk back to the hotel. Somehow the entire group aside from myself fit into the first tuk Tuk so I took one back with some of the staff members. It was cool to hear their perspectives of living in town and why they moved their. Again, similar to the folk I've met living in Whistler.

When the tuk Tuk dropped us back off at the tube rental place I got my deposit back, caught up with the group, ate a street sandwich - best things ever by the way!! So delicious especially the chicken bacon cheese on a baguette - and found a few people at the hotel who were still interested in hanging out. The majority of the group went immediately to bed, but some of us hung out in the hotel for a bit before making the move back out to Sakura Bar. We didn't stay for too long there as we were all exhausted, but it was good to just relax by the fire pit out back. In bed by 10:30 pm ;)Okumaya devam et