Night Markets and Samoan Children



Slurpees!

 One of my chores growing up was to mow our sprawling lawn once a week using a push lawnmower. The task would take me four to five hours in the agonizing humidity of the Florida summers, going both up and down the hill in our backyard leading into the lake. Having finally completed my weekend duty, I would return inside my house, drenched from sweat and hating my wretched teenaged life more than ever, dying of thirst. I’ll never forget how refreshing the lemonades were that my mother always seemed to have waiting for me at the end of those days. They were amazingly delicious, made even the more enjoyable from my previous hours of physical anguish and exertion.

We got to Thailand on November 23. Our exodus from India and entry into the wonderland that is Thailand was, to say the least, just like one of those tall lemonades after our month-long of Indian chaos. Before entry however, India was reluctant to let us leave from its filthy grips. One late flight led to another and then after a horrendous two hours spent sitting in the stagnant air of the plane, not having left the gate due to the incompetence of some Indian airline employee having forgotten to get “some papers” that were apparently critical to our departure, we missed our connecting flight to Chiang Mai. I diligently recorded the whole debacle, ready to go all YouTube on their ass, fully expecting to wage a battle to fight for our money back. Somehow, miraculously, the Thai Indian Air employee who met us in Bangkok, even despite his limited English, swiftly took care of the situation, booked us a flight out for the next morning, gave us meal vouchers and even put us up at a luxurious hotel for the evening. This was our first taste of Thailand, a literal and figurative breath of fresh air from everything that is India.

We arrived in Chiang Mai the next day (after seeing what appeared to be Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen at the Bangkok airport- swoon!) and headed off to explore the city. On my previous visit to Thailand five years ago, I was unable to get to Chiang Mai, the former capital in the north of the country of which everyone has just seemed to rave about. After checking out a market and a few temples, we headed into a tourist office to inquire about some activities. Five hundred dollars later, we were booked up for the next couple of weeks.

We spent Thanksgiving in the middle of a jungle in northern Thailand during our trek into a Karen hill tribe village. We rode bareback on elephants and spent the evening drinking some beers with a couple of fellow Americans and a German guy hiking along with us and our Karen guide, the self-proclaimed “Michael Jackson” who had an affinity for John Denver’s hit song “Country Roads,” singing it over and over again. We had a great time, and I even recall eating a bit of frog Michael Jackson speared along the river’s edge. It was definitely a memorable Thanksgiving…at least what I can remember of it!

After two days and a night spent in the jungle (and a dozen beers later), we emerged back in Chiang Mai ready to embark upon our next activity, a one-day Thai cooking class, aka Kaitlyn’s most favorite day ever. I must admit, it actually was quite an enjoyable experience getting a hands-on lesson in the art of Thai cooking, a cuisine that I could finally throw my support behind. Along with two other couples, we each made our own portions of such dishes as spring rolls, chicken satay, pad thai, two soups, desserts, and thai curries. It was a deliciously filling afternoon.

Aside from trekking into the hilltribe villages and its famous cuisine, Chiang Mai is also renowned for its night market, an experience that I hate to admit, got the best of me. I was like a fat kid in a bakery, voraciously buying up everything I could, much to Kaitlyn’s delight that my reluctance to spend money was abating. Why the sudden change of sentiment? Prior to our night market splurge, we sat down and took a long look at our finances so far on the trip to better ascertain our current monetary status. After totaling everything up, including our return ticket home, we are on track to be far under budget for our trip, a cause worthy of finally being able to overindulge in some spending. We have taken 13 flights (including leaving and returning to the U.S., just prior to Christmas mind you!) totaling a mere $3,600 each. Not bad at all! That in conjunction with our daily budget puts us far under the $15,000 we budgeted for this five-month endeavor, which is a good thing by all accounts considering we have no place to live and no jobs once we get back! (So if you know of anybody in need of an awesome lawyer or handsome writer, let us know!)

With bad decisions made at the night market and subsequent Sunday street market, we now have an extra bag to tote around, about the size and girth of a Samoan child, which is just awesome. We haphazardly packed it all in, said good bye to Chiang Mai (one of our favorite places so far), and headed to Bangkok on a long bus ride. The net day we were heading to Cambodia to visit the ruins of Angkor Wat, a sprawling temple complex surrounded by lush jungle. After getting bamboozled by the dubious people in charge of our transportation from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia, we finally settled in.

Siem Reap, the town on the outskirts of the Angkor Wat ruins, was quite a bizarre little place. It had its own night market (curses!) and numerous massage/fish spas, where fish nibble at the dead skin on your feet while you are given a beer and sit atop said fish tank like a wading moron. ATMs in Cambodia also only distribute U.S. dollars, which is somehow their currency of choice and they use their own currency strictly as change from the dollars (4,000 riel = $1). Things were dirt cheap here, almost humorously so, as menu items were listed between less than a dollar to a whopping $2, yet still with the understanding that we were somehow getting ripped off because these were the tourist prices! Our glorious hotel room, complete with fridge, tv and air conditioning cost us a staggering $12 and our return bus trip back to Bangkok a dumbfounding $8 (especially considering we paid $40 each for the exact route there!)

After enjoying a much needed meal after our ten hour ordeal of a bus ride into the city (and eating it beside an older gentleman that appeared to be purchasing a Cambodian girl from two questionable males seated in front of him), we headed off to explore the Cambodian night market (so what…I like night markets, there, I said it!). Some $20 later (an exorbitant amount by Cambodian standards), our Samoan travel companion grew in size. The next morning, we rented bicycles and went off in exploration of the temples of Angkor Wat.

Riding bicycles all day for 30 kilometers or so didn’t at first appeal to me. However, thanks to Kaitlyn’s urging to do so, it turned out to be one of the most unforgettable experiences of this trip. It was absolutely amazing to first off, ride a bicycle through an Asian city with all the surrounding chaos. It was exhilarating to almost get run off the road at every traffic signal and watch your life flash before your eyes! Once we got to the temples however, nothing can really describe how incredible it was to ride through the peaceful pathways leading in between each ancient temple. It was surreal and tranquil to see these magnificent sights in such a natural way. Aside from being the second most extraordinary ruins we have ever seen (nothing can compare to the Pyramids), the cycling experience (for only $2!) was definitely one of those things we will always remember.

The next day we headed back to Bangkok and spent the following day exploring the city. This morning, we caught a plane to Phuket to begin our final descent southward towards Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and our return to America on December 18. It has been a long journey and I think we are both ready to get back home and embark on the next phase of our lives together. It’s been an experience we wouldn’t trade for anything in the world especially getting to share it all with one another and we have been happy to share it with you all. We really appreciate you following along on our (mis)adventures. We are both exhausted so I apologize for the lapse in posts. I will definitely post again before our final departure and probably again once more to sum everything up. We hope you had a great Thanksgiving and look forward to seeing you soon!