By Julia Gordon Heading to Ho Chi Minh city, a final bus ride I will never forget. After leaving our guesthouse in Dalat, also home to a wonderful family, whose son serinated us with his lovely performance on the piano each night, playing America’s “greatest” pop hits, and mom who greeted us each time we came in the front door with such excitement and interest, just like my actual mom,… Read More

By Eliza Patterson For about the past week, we have been exploring the cities of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. These two cities have offered us two very different, but interesting, experiences. Siem Reap is a city built for tourists. There were three different night markets within walking distance from our hostel and at least two fried ice cream roll stands on every corner. Chocolate croissants and even… Read More

By Grace Frances Nelson Do you find yourself questioning the monotony of the culture around you? Have you never experienced what it feels like to be a minority? Do you purposely choose to isolate yourself from the world beyond your precious city, state or country? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions you may be suffering from a mild to severe case of what I call… Read More

By Emily Chambers The time we spent at Plum Village was my personal favorite so far. I feel like I learned so much from our sisters and brothers that I know I will be able to hold with me as I make my own path and venture my way through life. To be more specific, we were taught the five mindfulness trainings. The first is the Reverence of Life. To… Read More

By Emma Willis For the last three days, our group has done our best to navigate Bangkok. We’ve made our way to the zoo, Lumphini Park, Khao San Road night market, Chinatown, an open-air market, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. With all these activities comes the challenge of transportation. Because our guest house isn’t in the middle of the city, we’ve used taxis, buses, and tuk-tuks to get around.… Read More

By Iona Yates During this program, I have found myself writing down at least one fear I want to conquer weekly. Four weeks ago in Mae Rim, it was overcoming my fear of learning the Thai language. Last week in Pun Pun, my fear was overcoming feeding the cows and getting in the chicken coop. This week, though, my fear was getting dirty, which is a very hard fear when… Read More

By James Stewart There is a certain sense of emotional and spiritual fulfillment that can only be obtained by walking barefoot along a rural, mud-covered road. It lies in the softness of the sand and muck beneath your feet. It dances in the chorus of birdsong that mingles with the singing of crickets and the constant tittering of chickens. To you, it is new, it is exciting, and you breathe… Read More

By Katherine Lord We have just returned to Chiang Mai after an incredible three-day long trek through the Thai mountains and jungles. Though very physically demanding, it was an incredible experience. On the first day, we drove two and a half hours in the back of pickup trucks to a national park north of Chiang Mai, where we began the trek. That day, we walked nine miles through the mountains,… Read More

Photos courtesy of Rachel Milito… Read More

By Ajenai Hampton This week was an adventure, to say the least. It feels like we just all got together, and we’re already splitting up to stay in homes with Thai families. It’s only our tenth day in Thailand total, and yet we all feel so connected as a group that it was hard for us to split up (even though we still see each other daily). We’ve started taking… Read More

Good Morning, Sabai! Greetings from Portland where the air is as dry as our humor, and if our Boddhisatva instincts are correct, the ashes falling from the sky can only mean one thing: there’s a forest fire nearby. And that we should go soon. Enough of this planning and packing, what we don’t have we don’t need. We’ll forge new friendships, build our own support system, and take deep dives… Read More

Sawadee! (Hello!) Sabai Crew and all who will be following and supporting us on this journey! Anya and Chris here, your OEs for Carpe Diem’s Spring Sabai Semester. We write from Portland, Oregon, where we are busy making all the final preparations for our trip to South East Asia. Can you believe in just two days we’ll all be gathering together for the first time at the airport in LA… Read More

Walking around Ho Chi Minh this morning felt quite different. Although we could still hear the incessant honking of horns, see the erratic van drivers and watch the millions of never yielding motorbikes, what we really noticed was how lonely it feels without all of you. Three months have come and gone in a flash, and as you all return to your lives back on the other side of the… Read More

Good morning, Sabai! And greetings from Portland! After a week of campfires, songs, skits, and learning new ways to build community, today we finally got to dive in to planning our trip and imagining what life will be like for the 14 of us as we explore the cities, countryside and waterways of Southeast Asia. We’re looking forward to meeting you, sampling Thai street food, and shopping for colorful gap… Read More

It seems like just yesterday we were arriving in Chiang Mai wide eyed and anticipating all of the adventures to come. A band featuring Thai Elvis serenaded us as we indulged in our first dinner before heading to sing karaoke. We began to immerse ourselves in a new culture, a new language and we learned the fine art of the shuttlecock. And now it is hard to express what has… Read More

We have received word that the mighty Sabai group has successfully checked in for their return flight to America from New Hanoi. We wish them traveling mercies on the long flight home and joyful reunions with their loved ones.… Read More

The plane ride to Hanoi took a toll on me. I felt home sick after getting on a plane for the first time after two and a half months and not heading home. We’ve been having so much fun I almost forgot about home. Taking a plane ride to Hanoi instead of heading home was hard but Hanoi is extravagant. The vibrant city offers amazing food, night life and a… Read More

Xin chao (hello in Vietnamese) world ! It is I, George Ruiz, ready to let the world know what the Southeast Asia group had done this past week. As student directed travel week continued, the group and I did made good planning with a ton of teamwork to have an awesome and successful Student Directed Travel. We started Wednesday morning in Dalat, Vietnam hyped up for the Crazy House. Yes,… Read More

We started off the week by travelling by van from Phnom Penh to Kampot where we worked with the mangrove conservation project. Being in a remote village was a nice change after the busy city. An awesome Cambodian guy named Sela led us through our week. On our ride to Kampot, all 13 of us along with Sela and our driver were jam-packed in a small van with our huge… Read More