Southeast Asia

I had been wanting to go to Southeast Asia for ages. My sister-in-law is from Thailand and my brother had gone a few times, and raved about it. I also got cool souvenirs from them, and was told how fun it was to haggle and get stuff way cheaper than here. I have mainly toured with Contiki since it tours for 18-35 year olds, since the one time I took a tour with another group, I was one of three people under 55. So I went back to Contiki, and I found a tour called Asian Adventure that takes you to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia…like you, I was thinking what the heck is going on in Laos. But trust me when I tell you that you will fall in love with the place and people. Cambodia has Angkor Wat, which was always on my bucket list (it’s quite extensive).

The journey to get to Southeast Asia is not pretty. I arrived at the airport around 9am on a Friday, and did not reach Bangkok until 1130 pm Saturday, so a day was lost  in travel. The good news is that you will time travel when you return. It took 14 hours to get to Seoul and then another 6 to arrive in Bangkok. Maybe I should have taken a sleeping pill and drank some wine, but I didn’t, so I barely slept. I had a book and movies to pass time(The Fury: good, and Dracula: The Untold Story: bad). Plus I sat next to these ladies going to the Philippines that kept offering me snacks, and they were nice and chatty. I had to wait for my sister in Bangkok since she was arriving an hour later (her journey was even crazier since she had three connections). We had paid for a car service to take us to our hotel since I wasn’t going to get into strange cab at midnight. The airport was pretty far from our hotel the Viengta, and you can imagine how crazy the city is on a Saturday night. Our driver couldn’t even get through, so he circled around and went in the back way through the garage. It was 1:30am by the time we got there so we decided to go to bed (yes, we are exciting people)…I don’t know how we did that with all the music blaring from the streets.

 

The next day we woke up refreshed and ready to explore. We started with an amazing hot breakfast buffet to get us going. It was fantastic because it was a combination of American breakfast with Asian staples, like veggies, rice, and noodles. It was Sunday, so we decided to check out Chatuchak Weekend Market. We got a tuk tuk, which I’ve included a photo of…now even in February it was hot so we wore our best Jackie O hats since you can never be too careful about sun burns. Riding a tuk tuk was lots of fun, and especially weaving through the crazy traffic of Bangkok. I wish I could pay $3 here and have someone take me wherever I want to go… Now we fell for a tourist trap thing where your driver takes you to a store…he did knock off the price of the fare, and we bought pretty silk scarves, which of course  were much cheaper at the market. We fell for his sob story…lesson learned, so don’t do that.

The market was so huge you could get lost in it…you could also buy anything from food, oils, clothing, luggage, etc. We also got a lot of our souvenir shopping done since silk scarves make great gifts and are easy to carry. Of course looking back, I wish I had bought a tea set, but the idea of carrying it around for a couple weeks didn’t appeal to me (I have a thing for tea). I was also in paradise since I could drink delicious Thai iced tea for under a dollar. And we had coconut ice cream that was eaten out of a coconut shell, which we topped with corn and pineapple (sounds weird but it was amazing). Did I mention that I have a thing for coconut? Love the way it smells and tastes…people either love it or hate it. So if you like coconut, Thailand is your place.

Kristina was really into clothes shopping,  and this is a snippet of a conversation between us:

Kristina: Is that Spiderman on that shirt?!

Maria: No, it’s a heart with a mustache (both start cracking up…)

That’s the kind of crazy that typically passes between us as you will learn if you keep reading… I  had no plans to buy clothing since I do not have a thin, Asian physique. I have a much bigger ass and hips than is standard there, so the only thing I got was the elephant pants everyone wears since they are stretchy and made a little larger for the tourists. The great thing about the clothes is how light the fabric is since nothing can prepare you for the heat. I still wear the pants back home since they are comfortable and remind me of the trip.

After we loaded ourselves with as many scarves as two people could buy…and Kristina went nuts when she saw a purse with an elephant. We both loaded up on magnets as well, which by the way, is the best souvenir you can buy people. It’s light and easy to carry, and people look at their fridge every day, and our reminded of what a great friend you are, and how exciting your life is since you get to go to these exotic places. So its win/win.