Thailand 2009
It’s not that I feel like I need beer and bacon. But when you can’t have something, it often leads to a craving. So it was nice to spend December break in Thailand where we could enjoy bacon-wrapped shrimp washed down with local Chang beer just about any time we wanted.
Thailand is a very busy place. With over 67 million people, it has roughly double the population of California in just a slightly larger area. Bangkok itself has a population over 8 million, similar to New York city. So we shouldn’t have been surprised to find ourselves in a traffic jam from the airport to our hotel when we arrived during the evening rush hour. Luckily, even with almost an hour and a half in the taxi, our fare was only about $15.
Arriving in time for dinner, we dropped our bags in our hotel room and headed downstairs to Khaosan Road - a bustling hub of restaurants, bars and tourist shops. A plate of pad thai sustained us as we strolled around, scouting out the wares for purchase. Cheap and colorful clothing, artwork and jewelery was everywhere we turned and it was with some reluctance that I avoided buying everything in site. Over the course of our vacation, though, I picked up enough to need the extra backpack I brought for our return trip. During the next few days we visited several sites including Buddhist temples and the king’s palace. One night we even caught up with two ASK couples also spending the break in Thailand.
On December 22nd, we packed up and took a taxi south to a marina where a boat took us on a 30 minute ride out to Ko Samet Island and the Silver Sands Resort. While it was quite warm, the near constant breeze and shade trees made our stay quite comfortable. Lazing on the beach, reading and just enjoying the view became the default activity of the day. An afternoon ATV tour of the island provided beautiful, panoramic views of the island and the mainland in the distance. Christmas Eve was spent on the beach for dinner and entertainment including fire dancers.
On Christmas day, we packed up again and headed back to Bangkok to fly up to Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city in the mountains to the north. Here we toured silk, umbrella and lacquerware factories as well as a Buddhist temple on the highest point in the country and an elephant ride and show. It was also in Chiang Mai that two of us got sick after eating pizza. We had used the “if there are a lot of westerners eating there, it’s probably safe” yardstick when looking for meals. But this apparently isn’t a stringent enough standard in Thailand. So Lindsey and I spent 30 hours in the hotel, tag-teaming it to the bathroom every half-hour or so. Thankfully, Chris was well and willing to run out for water, Gatorade and food as we recuperated.
A couple days later, we flew back to Bangkok for a few more days of shopping and sight-seeing. At the MBK mall, we took time to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. Interestingly, before movies in Thailand, the audience stands for an anthem-backed video honoring King Bhumibol Adulyadej showing the King from his childhood to the present. They sure love their king in Thailand. His birthday is the biggest holiday in the country and there are posters, billboards and shrines everywhere.
Sadly, on New Years Eve, we once again headed to the airport to return to our desert home. With luck, the last day of the year is one of the best to fly as traffic is sparse. We each had our own row of four seats allowing us to stretch out with first-class comfort in economy seats. While we reached home before 5:00 pm, I was asleep well before midnight as my body was still on Thailand time, four hours later than Kuwait. Now, we have a couple days to prepare for school which starts up again on Monday.
If you’d like to see some more pictures of our trip, I’ve created a Facebook album that you can access by clicking here.
admin @ January 2, 2010
