After two lovely weeks in Thailand I'm back at home and trying to reintegrate myself into reality. It's a bit of a shock! Thailand was hot, humid, and sunny, and home is cold and wet and even after sleeping for 11 hours last night it still feels like the middle of the night.
We took over 2000 pictures, which turns out to be a lot to sort through all the duplicates, blurry ones, bad lighting, etc. But overall the trip was very awesome... after 24+ hours of traveling we arrived in Bangkok after midnight two weeks ago Sunday. We spent one day in Bangkok seeing the major temples and touristy sites. We then spent a day in Ayutthaya, an ancient capital of Siam, seeing temple ruins. After an overnight train ride we arrived in Chiang Mai, a city in the northern mountainous part of Thailand. We spent 5 days there, including eating lots of Thai food, seeing many temples, getting massaged (an hour of foot massage for the equivalent of $6! And also two hours of massage at a fancy spa for the equivalent of $50.), a full day Thai cooking course, a serious full day jungle hike including swimming at a waterfall, and a day at an elephant park that included bareback riding. We then flew to the islands in the south and spent about 6 days out there swimming, kayaking, snorkeling, and relaxing. And then back to Bangkok for a final day of sightseeing - including the giant sprawling shopping malls.
I'll have some pictures to share soon....definitely on facebook, and perhaps here too if I can figure out how to get them uploaded.
I hope everyone has been doing well over the last two weeks... I skimmed a little, but two weeks of internet is a little bit too much to catch up on!
How did you find the language barrier? Every time I contemplate a trip to Asia, the language part gets me nervous, since I have no real sense of how much English anyone speaks in the various countries.
How did you find the language barrier? Every time I contemplate a trip to Asia, the language part gets me nervous, since I have no real sense of how much English anyone speaks in the various countries.
We had no problem with it, and really haven't anywhere we've traveled. Everyone who works in a tourism related field speaks at least some English. Thailand has a huge tourism industry and English is the universal language (I was quite amused on several occasions when a native English speaker helped translate thick accented English between a Thai person speaking English and a Chinese or European person speaking English). I would say the vast majority of signs that would have any importance to us were in both English and Thai, or sometimes very tourist-oriented signs even only in English. Some people do it, but probably the biggest thing I wouldn't want to do in a country that doesn't use our alphabet is drive. It makes me feel like a bad American stereotype that I don't speak another language, especially after meeting so many people who speak multiple languages so well, but it's definitely not necessary in Thailand (or Japan, the other place I've traveled in Asia).
Cool, thank you. I've been trying to talk Jen into a trip to Japan for a while. I think if we did it we'd do a package tour kind of thing - not usually our style, but I think it would make her more comfortable with the idea.
I think this fear partly stems from having a friend tell me about how difficult it was to travel in Greece. She speaks French, Spanish, English, and some Guarani. I thought, "If she can't get along in Greece, we can never go there." :-P But Jen really wants to, so I am thinking maybe we'd do a cruise with day stops.
Of course this is all off in some distant future. At the moment I'd be happy with a trip to a pencil factory
Cool, thank you. I've been trying to talk Jen into a trip to Japan for a while. I think if we did it we'd do a package tour kind of thing - not usually our style, but I think it would make her more comfortable with the idea.
I think this fear partly stems from having a friend tell me about how difficult it was to travel in Greece. She speaks French, Spanish, English, and some Guarani. I thought, "If she can't get along in Greece, we can never go there." :-P But Jen really wants to, so I am thinking maybe we'd do a cruise with day stops.
Of course this is all off in some distant future. At the moment I'd be happy with a trip to a pencil factory
I used to think I'd need a package tour to go to Asia... but then we just jumped in and planned Japan and it worked out great, so we didn't even consider it for Thailand. (Though when we went to Japan we did have a little planning assistance from DW's friend who was living in Tokyo at the time). Neither of us has done a package tour since high school, but I can definitely see the appeal in taking some of the hassle out of transportation and coordination and planning. But I hate the idea of giving up the freedom to choose my own sites and get out of the pack of American tourists.
Incidentally we also went to Greece in 2011 and didn't really struggle too much with language. I did find that in Greece more signs were only in Greek (learning the alphabet helped) and joe shmoe people like on the street seemed to speak less English, but I still found that most people who worked in tourism spoke English. Did your friend go somewhere very off the beaten tourist track?
Having twin infants and the whole job hunting situation does sound like it would make traveling difficult.... but you well know which situation I'd prefer to be in right now if I had a choice. Does the pacific NW have any lovely pencil factories??
Post by seattlekari on Mar 19, 2013 16:02:03 GMT -5
Oh Kershnic I'm so happy to hear you two had such an awesome trip! I can't wait to see pics and I hope you'll find a way to share them here for those of us (me) who are slow to the FB world.
Post by awkwardpenguin on Mar 21, 2013 3:01:23 GMT -5
Welcome back! I still need to check out the pics. I thought there used to be a way to share FB albums with non-FBers, but I guess they got rid of that feature.