The plan with Lummi was that I would go to Singapore a few days before her, so I flew across the Pacific, arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and subsequently had a Welcome to Singapore, bitch moment when I got trapped in the local grocery store by a sudden downpour. I took my bags and waited it out at the neighboring coffee shop, then went back to the Airbnb, made instant noodles for dinner, watched the thunderstorm from the patio, and passed out from exhaustion.

On Sunday, I worked on my blog in the morning, then met my friend Laurie – who moved to Singapore from San Francisco – for a hawker center lunch. We went to Maxwell Food Center for Tian Tian chicken rice, dumplings, bok choy, sugar cane juice, cendol, and passion fruit juice.

Afterwards, we met her friends for coffee at Merci Marcel, a cute French cafe in Tiong Bahru, before I set out for my Airbnb walking tour in Joo Chiat. Jonathan (the host) took me around several of the neighborhoods, interleaving the city’s history with modern history and, of course, lots of eating: Katong laksa, roti prata, Nyonya sticky rice dumplings from Kim Choo, and putu piring, Malaysian (Halal/Muslim) sweets with palm sugar and shredded coconut.

Monday was a workday, so I checked into The Hive and had a pretty productive day, publishing a blog post and catching up on actual work. After work, in the interest of immersing myself into the city, I went to a data visualization tech talk at Google HQ. No networking happened, but it was a really interesting talk and also really nice to walk around the Google campus and surrounding area. While walking back to MRT, I stopped in a mall food court and had some surprisingly good, surprisingly spicy curry mee. Of course there’s a mall on my route, of course there’s a food court, of course the food is amazing, and of course it’s cheap.

On Tuesday after work, I took MRT to the airport and picked up Lummi, then we had wine and dinner with her old roommate at Ginett. The next day, Lummi and I took MRT downtown so she could get her bearings and go to Din Tai Fung for lunch. After I was done with work, we went to Marina Bay Sands for cocktails, then the Gardens by the Bay to see the supertrees and the Christmas light show, then Newton Food Center on the way home since it was only one MRT stop away. Upon arriving, we realized it was outdoors and the food center from Crazy Rich Asians! Clearly we hadn’t done our homework here, so this was a pleasant surprise. We had fried crab, an oyster omelet, and “carrot cake”.

Thursday evening, we had hotpot with Laurie and her boyfriend, then cocktails at Lantern, then super fancy cocktails at Operation Dagger, a great cocktail lounge with real mixologists. The bathroom has a fake CCTV camera and monitor for an extra bit of WTF.

Friday evening after I was done for the week/year, we walked around Joo Chiat, sort of trying to recreate my walking tour from Sunday. We had dinner at Guan Hoe Soon, the oldest Peranakan restaurant in Singapore (Anthony Bourdain went there in the Singapore episode of Parts Unknown). We wandered around the neighborhood afterwards, went to the always excellent Cat Socrates, ate some vegan soft serve, then turned in early.

See Singapore for more!

Koh Lipe

Our time in Singapore was over, so we hopped on a flight to Hat Yai, checked into a surprisingly nice local hotel just for the night, then treated ourselves to some cheap eats and shopping at Greenway Night Market. The next morning, the minibus picked us up thirty minutes before we were supposed to be ready. The subsequent speedboat to Koh Lipe was as expected, including a stop at some kind of lovers’ arch on a neighboring island. Once we were set up in our hotel (Cabana Lipe Beach Resort) adjacent to the gypsy village, we had the usual routine of lunch, massage, walking around, reggae bar, and dinner.

Our first morning on the island (Christmas Eve), we joined locals, expats, and other tourists for the weekly Koh Lipe trash cleanup. The armada of long-tails took a while to get to a beach on the north side of Koh Rawi, so we had plenty of time to check out the wrinkly package of an old man who sat at the front of the boat and wore trunks that were a bit too short. Once we arrived on the island, we worked up quite a sweat picking up garbage for an hour. So much trash! Mostly plastic and foam, but also a lot of light bulbs for some reason. The garbage trucks hauling away the trash spewed a ton of smoke into the air, so I guess we’re trading trash for air pollution? I accidentally stubbed my toe in the jungle and it was bad enough that it was bleeding for a while, required attention for the rest of the trip, and was still healing weeks later.

On Christmas Day, we had some morning beach time, massages, and then lunch down the beach. For dinner, we went to Forever Restaurant on the other side of the island and had a fantastic home-cooked meal. The rain on the tin roof was really loud, the stray dog in front got really happy when the husband came home, and the bathroom in the woods required a flashlight and a sense of adventure. We had a blast at Maya for the rest of the evening: a party family with terrible DJs, “El Max” tequila, fire poi, fun house music once the real DJ started, and some G&S teenagers (glitter and shots).

Wednesday was a classic beach day – sun and sand and surf all day long. We went to the reggae bar in the evening and smoked a joint of crappy who-knows-what and watched the light and shadows of the fire poi in front of us.

On Thursday we hired a boat for a private trip to three beaches and saw this awkward French-Thai foursome (two couples) at two of them. We took lots and lots and lots of photos at Monkey Beach, then had a photo session back on our beach at sunset, which was the best of the trip.

See Koh Lipe for more!

Bangkok

On Friday, our last day on the island, we woke up early to catch the sunrise and take lots of great photos before our transfer to Bangkok. Funny that on the way to the island, there’s a rest stop and a stop at the lovers’ arch, but on the way out there’s nothing. Basically: “You’re not spending money here anymore, so GTFO!” Once in the city, we checked into our Airbnb, ate really good duck red curry at the hotel restaurant next door, then walked to Vanilla Sky for a couple of cocktails.

Before heading out on Saturday, we stopped by li-bra-ry (yes, that’s the name) and had our first taste of pandan, in the form of curved, three-dimensional waffles. Afterwards, we went downtown and wandered the malls around Siam, making sure to check out Yayoi Kusama’s art installation at CentralWorld as part of the Bangkok Art Biennale.

We had our big party night that evening, which started with a few drinks – including a coconut negroni! – at Havana Social, a Cuban-inspired cocktail lounge with a secret entrance that requires entering a password into a phone booth. We then walked to our main destination of the evening: Sing Sing, a gorgeous nightclub decked out with dark wood and red Chinese lanterns.

On Sunday, we basically spent the entire day at Chatuchak Market, one of the largest open-air markets in the world. We bought some clothes and incense and other little things, had a lot of snacks and drinks, and even had an “emergency” foot massage in one of the aircon tents nestled amongst the shops. After making it back to our Airbnb and resting for a bit, we got dressed, headed out, and rolled up to the Banyan Tree Hotel in a tuk-tuk – like a boss! – so we could go to Moon Bar for drinks. It was surprisingly busy on a Sunday, even late.

On our final day of the trip, we went out to Terminal 21 for some more shopping and ended the evening/trip with a deadly 2-hour massage. We ended up staying in after dinner and having a low-key evening since Lummi was basically half-dead at this point from all her injuries. We watched some local Bangkok NYE coverage, watched the fireworks from the balcony at midnight, then went to bed. It was a wonderful, very memorable trip and ended with a reminder that Bangkok is not for the faint of heart!

On Sunday, Nock went shopping and I had brunch with a friend before spending the afternoon researching NYE parties and calling around to different bars. Not for the first time, I was amazed at the level of high society that can be found in that city. I called up one rooftop champagne bar and they said the entrance fee was $500 a person and included only a half bottle of champagne. Damn!

We settled on Amorosa (slash Eagle Nest slash The Deck), which had reasonable prices and a fantastic view of Wat Arun across the river. A pleasant surprise of the evening was that a friend I had met in Tokyo during my sabbatical, Nisha, saw my Thailand posts on Facebook and reached out. She was traveling with a friend and was also in Bangkok for NYE, so we all met up for dinner, then went to the river for drinks and music and fireworks over the water. I was able to shake the gross feelings of the cold for a few hours and enjoy myself, especially after I won a pair of Singha sunglasses in the raffle, conveniently replacing the cheap sunglasses I had broken during my sloth on Koh Phi-Phi.

Getting home after midnight was a bit of a hassle since taxis and ride-sharing services were either overloaded or nowhere to be found. We decided to walk to the closest major road and found ourselves strolling past late-night flower markets, bustling with workers mostly oblivious to western New Year’s celebrations. Scattered among the markets and carts of flowers were a few expats and tourists, including us, still in their party clothes. It was a delightfully Bangkok way to end the trip.

Speaking of ride-sharing services, I felt they were much more prevalent and useful on this trip compared to last year. I used Uber or Grab (a service specific to Southeast Asia) in almost every city on this trip and the service was exactly the same as back home. Grab even offers the option of paying in cash, so I didn’t have to link a credit card to my account.

On another financial note, I’ve kept a spreadsheet of expenses and savings for my Southeast Asia trips for the last two years and I thought it would be interesting to share:

Now I think you understand when I say that traveling in Southeast Asia can be very inexpensive!

Much to my dread, here’s the part where I try to write down some meaningful thoughts or at least a worthwhile summary about yet another life-affirming adventure, which is always impossible.

Vietnam was particularly rewarding on this trip, not necessarily because of anything that happened, and not even because it was a last-minute addition that worked out really well, but because I’ve been making more of an effort to learn about the country’s recent history, especially since it is saturated with acts of terror and violence from my own country. Most Vietnamese are too young to remember the war, so Laurie and I weren’t expecting to encounter any hostile attitudes, but I wouldn’t really blame anyone for having one. The war museum in Saigon was shockingly eye-opening and after I returned home, I downloaded the entire Ken Burns documentary about the war and watched the whole series (more than seventeen hours) over the course of the next week. On a much smaller and slightly lighter note, Anthony Bourdain’s Hanoi episode (the one where he eats noodles with President Obama) is incredibly touching and I found myself watching it before and after the trip. I even re-watched his Laos episode because it deals with really similar issues: recent political turmoil, the consequences of war, unexploded ordinance, and a third-world country struggling to move forward. I highly recommend all of these shows as a starting place for learning about that part of the world, but better yet, just go there yourself.

Finally, on a more personal note, this trip was enjoyable and very memorable for slightly different reasons than years past. A lot of my international travel has been solo, but I was rarely by myself on this entire trip. If I wasn’t working, then I was with one of my travel buddies or meeting up with friends from years past or meeting someone new. And though I’m naturally an introvert, all of this was absolutely perfect for this year’s trip. I feel content with my living situation and job and friends and family, so I wasn’t really craving any alone time because I didn’t feel like I needed to meditate on anything. I was happy to be more social and extroverted and enjoy the company of my friends, especially Laurie and Nock, who are both sweethearts and excellent travel companions. I had an amazing time with each of them and I hope that’s not the last time we travel together.

And with that, another unforgettable trip is in the books. Looking at the timestamp of my final blog post from last year’s trip, I see that I just barely improved my horribly slow writing this year. Over two months to document everything! One day I’ll figure out how to do this faster. Or not.

After a short layover in Taipei and a (relatively) short flight to Bangkok, I met my friend Pantip, who was very graciously picking me up from the airport. We had first met on my trip to Thailand last year and kept in touch and she was more than happy to celebrate my birthday with me. After dropping me off at my hotel in Ekkamai (a part of Sukhumvit), she left to run errands for a few hours while I checked in, unpacked, and wandered around to get the lay of the land.

After I walked back to the hotel and went up to my room, I quickly became aware of a lingering haze inside my room, in the hallway, and inside the building in general. I stepped out on both patios and looked around at the neighbors to see if anything was clearly wrong or out of the ordinary. The family next door had a small grill lit for cooking dinner, but that couldn’t have produced the amount of smoke I was seeing. I went downstairs to talk to the woman at reception and she spoke enough English to explain what had happened. She was noticeably on edge and trying to coordinate activities with the rest of her staff as she told me that there had been a fire in one of the rooms.

You know how’s a bad way to start a 39-day, trans-Pacific trip? With a fucking fire in your hotel. On your first night.

As she was offering her best explanation – something involving a lit cigarette – she gestured towards the driveway. I finally noticed what had been sitting there the whole time: a fully packed suitcase, burnt to a crisp, with an electrical cord sticking out of it.

Holy shit, talk about a disastrous start to a trip! To this day, I still don’t know exactly what caused the fire, but I’m more inclined to believe that it was started by a small electrical device (hair dryer or curling iron or whatever) rather than a carelessly discarded cigarette.

As the staff hurriedly worked to salvage furniture and electronics from the smoky, ashy room, Pantip arrived and both the receptionist and I filled her in on what had happened. My request for a portable fan was denied, as the hotel had only one or two and needed them for airing out the fire room. My request to be moved to a different room was also denied, as the hotel was fully booked.

We went upstairs to my room to figure out what to do next. I opened both patio doors and turned on the fans in both aircon units to create as much airflow as I could. At that point, there was nothing much more I could do to improve the situation, so I turned to Pantip and said, “Look, there’s nothing more we can do. It’s my birthday and I want to go out, so I’m going to get dressed, and then we’re getting out of here.” She agreed.

We got some tom yum mama hotpot from a local spot in the neighborhood, then I requested that we go to Moon Bar, probably my favorite rooftop bar in the world. It was a very relaxing evening, which was totally fine by me after such a long day: 24 hours of flights and airports, 48 hours without a proper bed, and one near-disaster involving a mysterious fire. We caught up over mojitos while enjoying the warm weather and admiring the twinkling lights of the city. My cell phone photos never do the place justice, so I suggest looking at Google image results instead.

I slept well that night, but the bright morning sun and jet lag woke me up at 6:30 the next morning, much earlier than my usual rising time. Leaving the windows open and the aircon fans running all night had helped a great deal with the air quality in the room. (By that afternoon, the haze would be gone entirely.)

Blessed with a full day to work with, I once again wandered the neighborhood and the city, partially to pass the time and try some new restaurants, but also to run some errands. While I was packing the day I left America, I realized that I had lost both pairs of swim trunks I owned, so I made a note to myself to buy some new ones in Bangkok. I didn’t realize this would be so difficult! I bounced from mall to mall, looking for a shop selling men’s swimwear, but it being “winter” in Thailand, those kinds of clothes were very difficult to find. It took almost half the day, but I finally found a shop in Terminal 21.

While I was still in a shopping mood, which is rare for me, I opted to get a new pair of white kicks too; the pair I had brought with me had been on many an adventure already and looked the part. It wasn’t a cute look for being in a major, metropolitan city. I shopped around and bought one of the cheapest pairs of “import” shoes that they actually had in my size. Ironically, and poetically, the “import” Chucks I bought were made in Thailand.

While wandering the neighborhood that day, I stumbled upon an incredible Stranger Things 2 art installation/advertisement on the outside of an abandoned building. (Funny enough, that abandoned building used to be a music venue called Sonic that I had read about before the trip and even added to my list of places to check out.) Evidently, Netflix had commissioned a couple of local artists to make the installation, which included several massive murals, a statue of Eleven, and various props and decorations that will be familiar to fans of the show.

I was up early again Monday morning to start working remotely. The shifted sleeping schedule would become the norm for the next few weeks and worked out incredibly well, just like it did last year. When it’s 7:00 am in Southeast Asia, it’s 4:00 pm in California, so upon waking up, I’d grab my laptop and work in bed, syncing up with coworkers about anything that had come up during the day. After an hour or so, I’d close my laptop, get out of bed, get ready, and head off to my coworking space for 8 hours of completely uninterrupted working. Just like last year, I had a medium-sized project to work on, so I would hack away all day, send my changes to my manager and coworkers at the end of the day, and get their feedback the following morning. The end of my day also overlapped with the start of the day in Europe, so I could sync up with my Dublin coworkers too, if necessary. I swear these trips to Southeast Asia are my most productive work periods of the entire year.

For my week in Bangkok, I worked out of Mashmellow, a new coworking space that had just opened only a few months prior. While researching the trip, I had briefly considered going to one of the larger or well-known coworking spaces in the city, but was worried that they would be too full, which is more likely during the peak tourist season. Mashmellow was the exact opposite: though most of the private offices were occupied by small businesses, I was usually the only person in the communal working area.

Every day, after finishing up in the late afternoon, I’d walk back to my hotel and take full advantage of the rooftop pool, drying off easily in the warm evening weather and soaking up the sights and sounds of the city.

And that’s more or less how my week in Bangkok went: up early every morning, worked on my project at the coworking space, came home to a rooftop swim, then either met up with a friend in the evening or explored the neighborhood on my own. Ekkamai is very local, so I didn’t see many tourists or expats the whole week. Actually, I barely saw any farang; the vast majority of foreigners in Ekkamai are Japanese or Korean.

As with my trip last year, I tried to be better about taking photos of my food and drink, so here are a few honorable mentions from the neighborhood.

Khun Churn for vegan/vegetarian Thai food:

Mikkeller for fancy beer:

Uncle Jeff Kitchen for Malaysian food:

Tamnak Isan for Isan food:

Once I was on the ground, I got a taxi to my Airbnb in Sukhumvit, dropped my things on the floor, and was immediately enchanted by the scene from the balcony: a fiery sunset barely peeking out from underneath the moody late-afternoon clouds, a horizon of skyscrapers and high-rises, the rooftops of neighborhood houses, barking dogs and squawking birds, and a bizarre, fortified white mansion surrounded by a small forest in the middle of a concrete jungle. I ended up being out and about most of the weekend, but when I found myself back in the apartment, I made sure to take photos to capture the view.

That evening, I met up with a friend for an excellent tapas dinner on Soi 11, chosen because the restaurant was a short walk from Havana Social, a place both of us had been interesting in visiting. The Cuba-inspired lounge is beautifully decorated and has a great selection of rum-based cocktails, but also has a funny trick up its sleeve. To get in, you must walk to an unremarkable small soi off of Soi 11, enter a retro telephone booth next to a large wall mural, pick up the handset, and enter the passcode you received by calling the bar earlier that day. Upon putting the handset back down, the wall behind you clicks and opens a tiny bit, and you realize the wall is the door to get in. It’s delightful.

After a drink, we hit the pavement again so I could get my rooftop bar fix, something I’m sorely deprived of by living in San Francisco. My friend suggested Nest, which was just down the street, and that’s where we spent the rest of the evening. It was perfect for lounging, chatting, enjoying the warm weather, and looking at the blinking lights of the skyline.

One funny moment of the evening – for me, at least – was browsing the drink menu at Nest, which included a section of bucket cocktails. Sure, bucket drinks are popular in Thailand, but usually at beach bars pumping EDM and patronized exclusively by gap-year backpackers in “Full Moon” tank tops. This was a swanky rooftop lounge! One drink in particular caused me to immediately take a photo and text some friends back home:

Good. Lord. Talk about front-loading your evening. Or destroying it. “I really want a Long Island, but I don’t think a glass of it will be enough…”, said no one ever. Now that I’m thinking about it in hindsight, such a ridiculous libation makes perfect sense for a city like Bangkok. Sometimes you’ll find holes in the the classy facade and see the simple, down-to-earth, and sometimes ugly truth behind it all. Simple, ugly truths like a bucket full of alcohol.

Friday was my shopping day, so I took BTS downtown and immersed myself in the labyrinth of upscale, interconnected malls that define the main shopping district of Bangkok. I’m always amazed at how posh some of these places are. They’re more yuppie and more expensive than malls in America!

The only real discovery and purchase of the day was from a new shop selling merchandise for “Bloody Bunny”, a series of characters created by a partnership of Thai and Japanese design studios. When she saw the photo, my mom described it as the antithesis to Hello Kitty, which I think is a pretty accurate description. Parents were forcing their half-terrified children to take photos with the maniacal-looking, possibly murderous mascot who was standing in front of the store. After laughing at their discomfort for a bit, I went inside and bought a few notebooks for friends back home.

I found Terminal 21, another multi-level mall, particularly interesting because each floor of the mall is themed after a different international city. Most are European, but much to my surprise, the top two floors are homages to San Francisco. There are faux Fisherman’s Wharf statues and even a miniature Golden Gate Bridge that spans the floor, complete with model cars and even an accurate configuration of lanes and (lack of) dividers.

In the maze of endless hallways and escalators and pedestrian bridges, I quite literally got lost and disoriented. While trying to find my way back to a BTS station, I accidentally stumbled upon a small gallery dedicated to the late and very beloved king, who had passed away about two months before. Next to the gallery, a pianist played soft, sentimental music for the shoppers who were admiring the various paintings and photographs. I quietly wandered the gallery alongside an elderly Thai grandmother in a wheelchair who was barely able to power herself, but was doing her best to see all the works on the walls. It was a surprising dose of sweetness amidst the unbridled capitalism and noisy crowds.

That evening I was on my own, so I went out to a couple places in the neighborhood that I had heard very good things about. The first spot was WTF, a gallery and cozy bar just off Sukhumvit Road, which was a perfect first stop for the evening. After a couple drinks and funny exchanges with the quasi-intoxicated staff, I walked down the street to my real destination for the evening, Sing Sing Theater. The venue is most easily labelled as a nightclub, but based on what I’ve read, it seems to have a legitimate mix of live performances and genres of music. The night I went didn’t have anything particularly special planned, so I was treated to many hours of very fun, danceable house music played by a few of the resident DJs.

Normally I wouldn’t bother going into this much detail about a night out, except Sing Sing deserves special mention because it is easily the most beautiful club I have ever been to. I’d describe the decor as an upscale, romanticized opium den that you’d see in a movie: Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling, dark wood everywhere, lit candles on tables, and what parts of the club weren’t shrouded in dark mystery were bathed in beautiful red light. Every room and balcony felt small and intimate, giving the entire place a very cozy feel, which is rarely a word used to describe a nightclub. And to give the proceedings a little extra something, the club’s dancers wore gas masks along with their skimpy outfits.

The gorgeous crowd matched the gorgeous venue and there was a pleasant mix of people: small groups of girls, one large group of very single guys, couples, expats, Western and Chinese tourists, and some hi-so (“high society”) Thais. Speaking of which, as I was leaving around 2:30, I passed two very pretty Thai socialites who were just on their way in, looking way too fresh for that hour of the night, as if they had just finished getting ready. They could easily have been walking the red carpet at the Oscars with how fashionable and on-point they looked. One was pulling along the other by the hand, almost in a motherly manner. The girl in tow was clearly on something heavy because when I caught eyes with her, I saw a deer in the headlights looking back at me. Woof.

None of my photos or videos from that night do Sing Sing any justice, so the best imagery I can offer is the collage of Google Images search results.

The next day was New Year’s Eve. After a lazy day of sleeping in, wandering, eating, and a massage, I met up with my friend again for another fun night out. After a tasty dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, I took her to WTF since she had never been before. Once again, it was the perfect jumping off point for the rest of the night. After drinks and more funny stories from the same bartenders as the night before, we went out in search of a rooftop bar. Our first choice was absurdly expensive (6,000 baht per person! $170!), but my friend found another place (AmBar) that was much more reasonable (500 baht per person). The night was great fun with lots of dancing and even a live saxophone player to accompany the DJ. Months before I started planning this trip, I had decided that I wanted to spend NYE on a rooftop bar in Bangkok, and it was incredibly satisfying that the last night of my trip was my silly plan coming to fruition.

The next day was lazy and sad, if I’m to be honest with myself. My flight wasn’t until the evening, so I had plenty of time to go to a few of my new favorite local spots, get one last massage, and wander the neighborhood with my camera.

On this trip, I tried to be better about taking photos of what I ate, so here are a few photos of very, very delicious things I had in Bangkok. Nothing cost more than $4.

Since this will be my last post from this trip, I guess this is the part where I try to summarize everything.

For starters, value-per-dollar on this trip was exceptional. I rented out my apartment on Airbnb while I was gone and I cashed in a lot of rewards (Capital One and Agoda) that I had accrued from my previous international trips. Once those are taken into account, my out-of-pocket total for the entire trip was around $1,500, which is crazy for nearly four weeks of traveling, including an expensive flight across the Pacific.

Value-per-day was also phenomenal. I crammed a lot into a relatively short amount of time, especially compared to the speed of my travels in the past few years. Every place I went offered something wonderful and different. Pattaya and Bangkok, the bookends of the trip, were all about new friends and really fun nightlife; Chiang Mai was nostalgic, comforting, incredibly productive work-wise, and a chance to reconnect with old friends; Laos was a whole new country where I could really enjoy meditation, creativity, quiet reflection, and beautiful nature.

Viewed through the lens of these two metrics, this was the best trip I have ever taken. Everything – logistics, weather, activities, relationships, health, you name it – turned out exactly like I thought it would, or better. It was another life-affirming journey that left me feeling happy and motivated.

Goodbye to 2016 and hello to 35 indeed.

A few days after seeing Becca off, I linked up with a different group of friends (all from the States) in Bangkok for a few weeks through Thailand. Several had never been to Bangkok before, so they had the usual touristy days while I busied myself with some errands and much-needed clothes shopping. (My personal recommendations are Platinum Fashion Mall and MBK Center.) Nightlife included another beautiful trip to Moon Bar and another meh trip to Khao San Road (though without the stomach illness this time).

One of my favorite memories from this time around in Bangkok was an evening bike (as in bicycle) ride with Ayu led by Grasshopper Adventures, a tour company that I can’t recommend highly enough. The multi-hour tour took us through several neighborhoods and included after-dark stops at Wat Arun (bathed in ever-changing colors), Wat Pho, the flower market, and even a Christian church decked out in gaudy neon lights.

Spectacular religious structures aside, the best part of the tour was simply enjoying the atmosphere of Bangkok. We alternated between busy roads full of cars and tuk-tuks and dark, quiet alleys that felt completely removed from the city. The side streets were sparsely populated with lounging dogs giving zero fucks, twitchy cats darting across the road, and locals walking home or eating dinner at small outdoor tables. The bike tour was an incredible way to feel the energy of the city and is absolutely the best tourist activity I’ve done in Bangkok.

After several days in Bangkok, we started to move our way south: a flight from Don Mueang to Surat Thani, a night in town, a bus the next morning to Don Sak, and finally a multi-hour ferry to Koh Phangan. The otherwise boring night in Surat Thani was highlighted by a trip to the night market, which had seen the beautiful addition – since the last time I was there – of a makeshift outdoor canopy composed of colorful suspended umbrellas. (Thanks Scott for the beautiful photo!)

Koh Phangan

It had been about 16 months since I was last on Koh Phangan (see my other posts) and the island felt very similar, with a few new touches of development here and there. We stayed in the north-east part of the island, far away from Haad Rin, in a quiet ocean-side resort next to a quiet village. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t very cooperative and it stayed overcast and rainy for most of our time there, preventing us from committing to any excursions for fear of being washed out.

As a result, we all had an incredibly lazy and mellow week, indulging in the usual island business of eating, drinking, sleeping, getting massages, playing Jenga, and occasionally taking over DJ duties by hijacking the communal laptop at our favorite local spot, Sand Bar. Most of the group had recently quit their jobs and were starting sabbaticals of their own, so I think a week to relax and catch up on sleep was appreciated and necessary.

The highlight of the week – as it was for me the last time on the island – was renting motorbikes and cruising around. The main roads on Koh Phangan are paved, well-maintained, and thankfully sparse of traffic, so riding all the jungle roads is very fun, even for inexperienced riders. We spent hours taking the winding roads through the lush jungle, cautiously drinking in the views of misty mountains, quiet ravines, and beaches with calm waves.

Koh Tao

After a week on Koh Phangan, we hopped on a high-speed ferry to nearby Koh Tao. Our arrival wasn’t the most ideal, consisting of a slightly nauseating trip on the ferry and then a scramble in the rain to find rooms for everyone. After a couple hours, everything was settled and we could explore Sairee Beach, the most popular beach on the island and our home for the next few days. The beach is very developed and a bit overwhelming at times, but somehow the crowds are never that big and anything you could possibly want is a short walk away.

The weather was definitely better, allowing for some actual beach time, but it still felt very underwhelming for this time of year in Thailand. The skies cleared up a lot on my last full day there, which coincided perfectly with a snorkeling trip that took me and Ayu to a variety of spots around the island and also Koh Nang Yuan, a tiny island just off the north-west part of Koh Tao. The fish and corals were beautiful and it felt great to have nice weather again that was conducive to outdoor activities.

Koh Tao being a Thai island, there were the requisite Thai boys playing with fire poi on most nights; one evening, our friend Scott joined too.

We spent New Year’s bouncing around beach parties, watching the fireworks at midnight, and releasing khom loi on the beach with all the other partygoers.

The beginning of January marked the time for everyone to scatter: two people to (different places in) India, one to the Philippines, one staying in Thailand, one back to America, and me to Chiang Mai. I really enjoyed my time with everyone and was very happy to make some new friends. Some of them are staying in Asia for a little while, so hopefully I’ll see them again soon.

And with that, I am finally caught up with my blogging after being behind by more than two months. I wish I could say that this won’t happen again, but then I’d just be lying to myself. I’m back in Chiang Mai now for the rest of January so I can be productive and stay in one place for a while, both of which I desperately need. Also, I love it here during this time of year: the weather is cool and dry and I can wear jeans and a hoodie just about any time of day.

I anticipate I’ll be very busy this month as I need to catch up on multiple writing and photography backlogs, do a lot of travel research, deal with a couple visa issues, handle some logistics for my next country, update Bebee’s cookbook with some new material, take advantage of a few Chiang Mai educational opportunities, work out, undertake some professional (software development) hobbies so I don’t get rusty, and clear my plate of other random tasks.

Here’s hoping I have the time and energy to post again before the month is out!

Becca, Michael, and I flew into BKK on a pleasant Friday afternoon and the two of them were immediately introduced to the urban jungle of Bangkok as we suffered through the first of many hour-long taxi rides through the massive city with its dense, standstill traffic.

After finally reaching our hotel, checking in, and getting some food, we decided to go to the Chatuchak weekend market. Friday night at the market was very different from Saturday or Sunday; only a subset of the clothes shops were open and all the non-clothes shops were closed, there was very little food or drink, there were much less people than usual, and the clientele was almost exclusively Thais shopping for clothes. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the more relaxed atmosphere as we casually browsed the racks and got foot massages.

Saturday was the big tourist day. I took Becca and Michael to the usual spots – Chao Phraya, the Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun – and set them loose. The cliche continued into the evening as we went to Khao San Road to observe and partake in the spectacle. However, that plan came to a nauseating halt when both Michael and I started to feel ill about an hour and a half after dinner. Given that Becca was completely fine and that the content of her meal overlapped with ours, any potential theory (Was it the rice? Was it the chicken? Was it the Chang?) has a gaping hole in it. To our credit, we managed to make it to 1:00 or 1:30, which is when the junta started shutting down all the parties anyway, so we felt less bad about turning in “early”. We grabbed a taxi home and two-thirds of our group suffered through a restless night’s sleep filled with trips to the bathroom and the violent expulsion of partially digested food.

On Sunday morning we dragged ourselves to the airport for our flight to Siem Reap. On top of being tired and still partially sick, we had to deal with the worst immigration line I’ve ever seen. The “line”, a barely-organized throng of irritated travelers, took almost an hour to navigate. There were multiple rude Chinese tourists cutting the line, which resulted in another rude Chinese tourist scolding them loudly, which led to one of the Thai immigration officers losing face, standing up, pointing his finger, and yelling “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” at the top of his lungs. It was not a fun morning.

Once through immigration, the rest of the traveling was uneventful and a couple hours later we were in Cambodia.

Siem Reap

I’m going to be intentionally cursory for this part of the trip since I’ve written extensively about Cambodia before. We spent three nights and two days in Siem Reap, which is probably the minimum amount of time I’d suggest to anyone thinking of going there. Before arriving in Cambodia, I had messaged Dola, my tuk-tuk driver during my previous visit, and he agreed to be our driver for two days. The discounted rate for being a returning customer was nice too.

The first day we visited only Beng Mealea since it takes about two hours to get there from Siem Reap via tuk-tuk.

The next day, we woke up very early to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat, then went to Angkor Thom and Bayon, then called it a day in the mid-afternoon.

In the evenings, we enjoyed Khmer food and Pub Street, stopped by Asana for a drink and to see my friend Lala, and watched the always entertaining Phare circus.

The next day was a long and exhausting travel day: woke up early to get picked up by a minibus (with a temporarily flat tire), transferred to a coach, drove for several hours to the Thai border, disembarked and went through a slow-moving immigration line, waited in the sun for a while, got picked up by another minibus, drove several hours to the ferry landing at Laem Ngop, boarded a massive vehicle ferry, and took that for an hour to Koh Chang. The ferry ride was legitimately pleasant once we found a spot overlooking the bow, felt the ocean breeze against us, sipped beers, and watched the sun sink behind the horizon.

Koh Chang

Once on Koh Chang, we had to hire our minibus driver to take us directly to our resort, which meant another outlay on transportation and another 45 minutes of driving. Koh Chang is the second-largest island in Thailand (behind Phuket) and very, very developed, especially on the western coast. As we drove in the dark, I was amazed at the amount of businesses and lights that whizzed by before we finally reached our bungalows. After checking in, getting situated, and thinking the day was just about over, the staircase to Michael’s bungalow buckled and collapsed as he and Becca were standing on it. Luckily no one was hurt (too badly).

Just as with Siem Reap, we had two full days on Koh Chang. Though it’s highly developed on the coasts, the island is lush and gorgeous and very beautiful, especially when viewed from the water. We spent most of the time relaxing and going to the nice beach up the coast from us.

Our only real excursion was going to an elephant park (appropriate for Koh Chang, which translates as “Elephant Island”) on the second day, where we rode and swam with the elephants. I’ll fully admit that I’m not sold on the morality of such places – especially since the mahouts tried to secretly sell us pieces of ivory jewelry during our tour – but swimming with elephants and riding on the back of one in the water is pretty freaking awesome.

The next day we suffered through another exhausting travel day: a 45-minute minibus ride to the pier, a one-hour ferry ride to the mainland, an all-day minibus ride to Bangkok (with a borderline maniacal driver who made several mysterious package pickups and deliveries along the way), and then the obligatory one-hour taxi ride in Bangkok, mostly spent staring silently out the window in anger and frustration.

Bangkok

The reasons for going back to Bangkok were three-fold: Michael was flying back home for Thanksgiving, Erik was arriving from San Francisco, and Bangkok is where I wanted to be for my birthday since I had rooftop bar demands that had to be met.

We booked bunk beds at Oneday Hostel, a fantastic, upscale place in Sukhumvit that is a slice of San Francisco in Bangkok, complete with a fancy cafe and coworking space (of course). Normally, I don’t stay in hostels since I’m a light sleeper, don’t want to deal with strangers’ sleeping habits, and prefer my own private space, if only to have more security for my things. However, since there would be four of us, we could book an entire room just for ourselves and live it up slumber-party style.

The overlapping time of the four of us was less than 24 hours, but we managed to fit in a fun night out at a girlie bar on Sukhumvit Soi 4, a solid afternoon at the weekend market the next day, and a surprisingly delicious farewell dinner for Michael that night at an unassuming restaurant in our neighborhood. As per Erik’s request and custom, we got one last cheek to cheek (to cheek to cheek) photo.

After lots of window shopping at a couple malls the next day, we hit the town for my birthday. After a delicious Thai-Lao dinner, the first stop of the evening was Moon Bar for amazing views and an equally amazing rooftop experience. And just as astounding as the views are the prices, so after a drink we bounced to Maggie Choo’s, an underground spot that I’d describe as “opium den meets San Francisco cocktail lounge”. We had a couple delicious rounds while listening to a French jazz quartet, as you do in Thailand.

After Maggie Choo’s, I believe we went back to Sukhumvit Soi 4 for more shitshow-watching, but my memory is fuzzy so I’m not going to say much about that. I do believe we turned in shortly after the bars closed since we were traveling the next day.

Phuket

After a slow morning, tolerable taxi ride to the airport, and uneventful flight to Phuket, we checked into our guesthouse in Patong and began gearing up for Birthday Night Out Part II. As you do on a night out in Patong, we went straight for Soi Bangla, a bright, loud, chaotic, alcohol-fueled maelstrom of bars, clubs, touts, ping pong shows, thumping Vegas-style music, working girls, ladyboys, and drunk tourists of all types.

My demand for the evening was shisha, so we found a very fun shisha bar and spent many happy hours there indulging in the obvious, with a healthy side of beers, buckets, cocktails, and free tequila shots from some random guy at the bar. Our entertainment consisted of scantily-clad women dancing and showering on the bar and a room full of single white men and their Thai companions who had been purchased for the evening.

The culinary delights of the evening deserve a mention as well. The bar continually supplied us with snacks to keep us around, which was appreciated, but the foods themselves got weirder over the course of the evening. The initial goodies of popcorn and peanuts turned into cotton candy, which melted all over me within seconds due to the heat, then became hard-boiled eggs later in the evening. I’ve never considered eating hard-boiled eggs while drinking… but I will from now on!

The final, beautiful culmination of the evening – and also the perfect union of drinking, food, and entertainment value – was Erik devouring a bag of roasted bugs while totally hamming it up for the camera. Out of respect for him, I won’t post that video here, but you should bug him (hey-ooohhh!) to show it to you.

The next day (our last in Phuket) was much more mellow and our big accomplishment was wandering the night market by our guesthouse. The day after that, we hopped on a ferry to Koh Lanta, my recommendation for some very relaxed island time.

Koh Lanta

Upon arriving on the island and checking in to our bungalows, our thoughts turned to food, it being Thanksgiving. We walked the beach a bit from our resort and stumbled upon Moonwalk, a spacious, uncrowded seaside restaurant hanging over dark, rough rocks with beautiful views of the beach, the ocean, and the distant lightning that was flashing occasionally on the horizon. As we went around the table and said what we were thankful for, we enjoyed a terrific dinner of bruschetta, barbecued snapper, massaman curry, Thai beer, and mango sticky rice. The massaman curry was particularly full of spices (no, I don’t mean spicy), giving it a very autumn-like taste, which was appropriate and appreciated.

We spent the rest of the evening, as we did all our evenings on Koh Lanta, lounging in chairs next to a bonfire by the ocean, sipping on drinks, talking, and looking at the stars. We also had to dodge the daily thunderstorms when they rolled through, but they always passed fairly quickly.

After a few days of standard island activities, it was time to part ways with Erik since his time was at an end. As he took his transfer to Krabi for a flight to Bangkok, Becca and I took a ferry to nearby Koh Phi-Phi.

Koh Phi-Phi

First and foremost, Koh Phi-Phi is the most beautiful island I’ve ever been on. Before going, I was worried that it had become too developed and crowded and overpopulated with backpackers. These fears are validated if you stay in Tonsai Village, the loud, dirty party center of the island, but if you stay on a beach away from the village, the island is beautiful and peaceful. Our resort (Phi Phi Hill Resort) was two beaches away from the village and at the top of a hill, meaning it was peaceful, relaxing, and had stupid beautiful views of the island below. We could watch both sunrises and sunsets from the top of our hill.

That said, we did dip into the village occasionally – via either a delightful long-tail boat ride or a hot, sweaty trek through the jungle – for shopping, food, or sunset drinks. One evening, we went to the village and Lo Dalam beach, the nightlife center of the island, for drinks and people watching. Oh man, did we get what we were looking for and more. It felt like a smaller version of Full Moon, except this party happens every night. Becca and I grabbed some beers, buckets, and shisha and sat down to watch the show, which included, but was not limited to: the usual drunk backpackers, Thai boys playing with fire poi, full frontal male nudity (in conjunction with fire poi!), a drunken soccer mom in soccer mom clothes dancing by herself in the ocean, strip Jenga with what appeared to be a rugby team, and a backpacker soap opera that unfolded right in front of us for at least half an hour.

But wait, there’s more.

After we knew we were done for the evening, we found a road leading from the beach that was lined with stalls of delicious drunk food, so of course we stopped by. Interspersed among the restaurants and food vendors were a handful of tattoo shops, which were just as busy, as backpackers of various states of sobriety decided that yes, now was the time to get that tattoo they’ve always wanted. Unlike normal tattoo shops, which promote cleanliness and privacy, these shops were wide open and in plain view of anyone walking down the street. We took full advantage of this and gawked in amazement like children at a zoo watching the caged animals.

At one particular shop, we talked to a few of the guys who were getting inked. The man to our right took swigs from his bottle of Chang as he proudly displayed the large rain cloud and lightning bolt being hammered into his bicep. Yup, a rain cloud. The real gems though were the two kids to our left. The first one had just finished getting a hah taew tattoo (one of these), which are very popular in Thailand. In fact, they’re so popular, especially for backpackers, that this shop had a printout, making the process of getting a basic tattoo in Thailand as simple as pointing.

However, this kid didn’t want all five lines; he wanted only three. Because I guess he believes in only 60% of Thai proverbs? And he didn’t want straight lines; he wanted them arranged in a circle. Because… why not? When we asked him what the lines meant, his verbatim answer was: “Um, something, something, and… something.” Bravo, my friend. Bravo.

His friend wasn’t much better. We asked him about the tattoo he was getting, and he responded with: “It’s the tattoo from The Beach.” I was really confused about this initially – and for the rest of the night – since I had read that book fairly recently and didn’t recall anything about a tattoo. It wasn’t until a day or two later I figured out what he meant: in the movie adaptation, Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio’s character) has a small tattoo on his arm. I know this only because a Google search reveals a single frame where the tattoo is visible. In summary, this kid was copying a forgettable, meaningless tattoo – that was completely irrelevant to the story – from a shitty Hollywood adaptation of the most cliche Thailand backpacker book of all time. You get a slow clap too, buddy.

I’ll also mention that all the shops used the bamboo method instead of the machine method for tattoos, which is common in Thailand. I’ve read that the bamboo method is much less painful and supposedly results in better color and faster healing. I can’t vouch for the color and healing claims, but every customer we talked to that night said that the tattoos didn’t hurt at all. Granted, they were all liquored up, so I take their testimonials with a grain of salt.

At this point, we had seen enough and were ready for a long-tail boat ride back to our beach. As we were leaving, a round of tequila shots suddenly appeared and everyone in the shop – customers and tattoo artists – had one. That’s just perfect. Have a fantastic night, gentlemen.

Having gotten our fill of the party scene, Becca and I resumed our usual beach activities for the rest of our time on the island. On our last day, we split up: Becca went on an around-the-island boat trip and I went on a death march hike through the jungle to Hat Phak Nam, a beach on the eastern coast. I stumbled upon one of the island’s viewpoints on the way and stopped for a while for some photos and to change my sweat-drenched shirt.

After extending our stay for one more precious day in paradise, we boarded an early morning ferry destined for the Trang islands, a loosely-related clump of islands to the south-east that are a bit far from the normal tourist track. Based on Lonely Planet descriptions, we settled on Koh Kradan, a very small, quiet island that is still conveniently serviced by the Tigerline ferry. After a couple stops at other islands, the ferry stopped again at a seemingly arbitrary spot in the middle of the ocean, where we transferred to a waiting long-tail boat for an hour-long ride to the island itself.

Koh Kradan

Koh Kradan is a very small island with only a handful of resorts, the vast majority of which are on the eastern shore. The island has no permanent inhabitants besides those who work in hospitality. Upon landing, we walked nearly the entire length of the main beach to get to our bungalows, which were simple bamboo huts with no aircon, no hot water, and thin mattresses on the floor. Why would we pay $35 a night in Thailand for such a place? Because we were literally on the beach, heard nothing all day but the gentle sounds of small waves, and the water’s edge was only ten feet from our front porches at high tide.

Our four days there were awesomely lazy and once I stopped shaving, I felt myself really slipping into island bum mode. We spent all of our time eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, sunbathing, swimming, and sitting on our porches during the brief storms, not only because we wanted to, but because there was nothing else to do.

One evening, we walked through the jungle across the island (no more than a 15-minute walk) to catch the sunset over the rocks. Afterwards, we backtracked to Paradise Lost, the only resort not on the coast and home to the best restaurant on the island. As we devoured massive bowls of mouth-watering massaman curry, Wally, the American owner, played the role of “Dad” as he flipped through dozens of satellite TV channels, deciding what he – and therefore the entire restaurant – would watch. The iron fist with which he dominated the remote control was evidently a twitchy one, as he changed channels every minute or two, greatly disrupting the flow of whatever mediocre movie we were getting sucked into. That said, we were quite happy to hang out for a while and be couch potatoes, downing large Singhas until it was time to walk back through the dark jungle to our moonlit beach.

After four beautiful, lazy days, it was time to get Becca on the journey back to her first-world life. Since we were on a more isolated island, the trip back would have to be split into two days. The day before her flight out of Bangkok, we took a long-tail boat through a heavy storm to the mainland, then transferred to a minibus to Trang, one of the provincial towns in the south, where we spent the night. The next day, we flew from Trang to Don Mueang (AirAsia) Airport, took the free shuttle to BKK, and had a bittersweet goodbye in the departures hall.

Traveling with my friends from home – especially through places that I was familiar with and could be a tour guide for – was wonderful and perfect and something I had been looking forward to for a long time. I’ve had a great time making new friends and travel buddies everywhere I’ve gone during my sabbatical, but there’s something really special about traveling with good friends I’ve known for many years.

It was, of course, effortless and joyful to travel with Becca for so long and I’m excited about this new annual tradition of going on an international, multi-week backpacking trip. Where to next, boo?

With that, I’ll leave here a short montage of some footage I took on the islands with my phone.

Hong Kong

That said, my introduction to September weather in Hong Kong was not a pleasant one. After emerging from the airport train at the IFC mall and grabbing the keys from my Airbnb host, I made my way to the doors when I felt a blast of heat and humidity that just didn’t seem plausible, especially considering I had just spent nine months in Southeast Asia. Surely, I thought to myself, I’m in the vicinity of the exhaust heat from a really large aircon unit. I walked outside and, nope, it really was that miserable, even at 8:30 in the morning. I walked about 15 minutes to my Airbnb apartment, mostly uphill – the mid-levels escalators run downhill in the morning – with all of my stuff and way too many clothes on. The apartment was a fourth-floor (which would be the fifth floor in America) “walk-up”, a cute way of saying “no fucking elevator”.

By the time I made it inside, my clothes looked like I had just jumped into a pool and I had firmly decided that Hong Kong had been stricken from the list of places I’d consider living. I can deal with hot weather if I can wear shorts and tank tops and jump into an ocean or pool on demand, but if I have to dress professionally, I’m going to be a sweaty mess everywhere I go. Even though spending time in Southeast Asia has helped me acclimate to hot weather a bit, my genetics still dictate that I’m built for cool weather.

Since I had visited Hong Kong for nearly a week only a few months ago, most of the usual tourist activities had already been completed and were pretty fresh in my mind. I spent most of my long weekend exploring the city on foot, enjoying the atmosphere, taking photos from a couple skyscrapers (Bank of China and Central Plaza) that have high-numbered floors with public areas, spending time with friends, and meeting new ones.

Speaking of meeting new friends, I was heading back to my Airbnb one evening when I passed the corner bar on my street, which was filled with the usual assortment of professionals enjoying happy hour. As I glanced over, I caught sight of a familiar-looking man sitting by himself at the bar. I stopped on the sidewalk, looked at his profile for a few seconds, and decided to talk to him. The introductory conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hi, is your name Jess?”
Man: “Yes…”
Me: “Did you work for Riverbed?”
Man: “Yes.”
Me: “Holy shit.”

It turns out that, yes, this man was exactly who I thought it was: another former Riverbed employee, albeit one that worked in a very different department than me, so our previous interactions had been limited to faceless emails and pleasantries at company social outings. He had semi-recently quit Riverbed and was in town to attend a convention related to a new business venture. He invited me to join him for a beer, which led to another, which led to another, which led to me convincing my good Hong Kong friend Ka-Hing (another former Riverbedder) to join us, which led to barhopping, dinner, exploring the shitshow that is LKF, and ending up at a live music bar in Wan Chai until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. It was a really fun night, not least of which because a stranger-slash-former-corporate-acquaintance became a 9-hour drinking partner with a minimal amount of effort.

Speaking of LKF (Lan Kwai Fong, a popular nightlife area in the city), I ended up there again on Saturday night with a couple friends, which reminds me that this area deserves special recognition on this blog for being one of the shittiest shitshows I’ve ever seen. That’s high praise considering I’ve been – multiples times – to Bourbon Street, Las Vegas, and Khao San Road. By 3:00 in the morning, multiple streets were covered in broken glass and I had seen at least half a dozen works of vomit art and four or five people – party-goers, not homeless folks – actually sleeping on the sidewalk. The whole scene was such a caricature of drunken partying that I was half-expecting Peter Griffin to stumble out of an alley and faceplant in front of me. My crude explanation for all of this: lots of early-to-mid-20s professionals with disposable income, a youthful exuberance for getting completely shitfaced, and, quite frankly, only an Asian tolerance to alcohol.

The rest of my weekend was quite mellow and I made a point of spending a solid chunk of my Sunday afternoon riding a ding ding across the island – one of my favorite things to do in Hong Kong – and practicing videography with my new camera so I could put together a montage.

Bangkok

From Hong Kong, I flew to Bangkok, where I planned to kill a few days before heading to Phuket. This plan worked out nicely for me since I didn’t spend much quality time in Bangkok the last time around; whatever time I had was mostly spent in clinics or on Khao San Road. This time, I made a point of doing some proper sightseeing and exploring some more authentic neighborhoods. This was made quite easy by the fact that my Airbnb was in Ratchathewi, a very “locals” part of the city, and close to a BTS (metro) station, so I could move around the city center easily.

Tuesday was my big historical and cultural sightseeing day, so I took one of the Chao Phraya boats up the river and visited the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew (home of the Emerald Buddha, the most important Buddha statue in the country), Wat Pho (the massive reclining Buddha), and Wat Arun (the Angkor-style temple across the river).

That evening’s outing to Sirocco sky bar was filled with a lot of promise, but ended up being kind of a buzzkill. Sure, it’s the highest bar in the world and has a cool view of an endless expanse of twinkling lights, but all the couches on the patio face away from the view, there’s no skyline to see in that direction, and drink prices are astronomical. I paid $25 for a whiskey (one of the cheapest scotches I could find) and a water, which is more than I would pay in America at a rooftop bar, and this is Thailand! To put that in perspective, my drink was as expensive as my lodging for the night, which was a nice one-bedroom apartment in a skyrise, not a dorm in a hostel. When’s the last time one drink cost you the same as a night in a hotel? You can be damn sure I ate more than my fair share of pistachios and sweet olives while slowly, slowly nursing that drink.

Wednesday was very humid and rainy, so I spent most of the day strolling through a labyrinth of air-conditioned malls downtown. That evening’s festivities turned out much better. First, I stumbled upon a much cooler rooftop bar: Skytrain Jazz Pub (by Victory Monument), accessed by the same kind of questionable-looking, graffiti-covered stairwell I’ve come to expect in Thailand. Later on, I sipped cocktails and listened to live jazz at the Sheraton Grande’s Living Room lounge, courtesy of Randy Cannon, an American expat who’s been playing jazz for decades.

Not surprisingly, given that it’s September in Thailand, the skies opened up late in the evening and a torrential downpour rolled through, so I cut my night short, went home, and packed for my flight to Phuket the next day. I enjoyed my time in BKK a lot more than I thought I would (except the weather) and I know I haven’t discovered all the facets of the city yet, so I’m sure I’ll be back soon.

Singapore

Let’s backtrack a bit. About three weeks ago, twenty hours of flights and airports culminated in an arrival in Singapore, the city that’s somewhat famous for being the reluctant stopover for Southeast Asia backpackers. It’s not that Singapore is a bad place; it’s actually very clean and modern and safe. The reason it’s a less-than-ideal destination for backpackers is that it’s just not that interesting. It’s a city of transplants and mostly generic culture. It’s sterile. For travelers, it’s temporary. Fly in, stay the night, move on.

Nevertheless, we decided to stay the entire weekend and soak up some of the city’s famous nightlife. For me, Singapore was a great transition to Asia; it’s very much a modern city and it’s easy for Westerners (English is the official language). We rode the metro a lot, ate some good food (including some great Indian food in Little India), and stayed out late in Clarke Quay both nights. I really can’t think of much more to say; Singapore was fun but forgettable.

Bangkok

On Sunday we scrambled to barely make our flight to Thailand, where we had one night in Bangkok (yeah, for real). After wandering through Silom for a long time, we finally managed to find our guesthouse, owned by a very friendly American expat named Mac. We treated ourselves to some noodles and spicy tofu salad, which was legitimately amazing, something I never thought I’d say about salad. We considered heading out for a night on the town, but once we realized how tired we were, we opted for the massage recommendation from Mac. He walked us a few blocks to his favorite local spot, where we indulged in an hour-long session for the ridiculous price of $5 a piece. It was at this point that I realized how cheap Thailand was going to be and that I was going to be spending more time getting massages than eating. Game changer.

Koh Samet

We weren’t meeting Sabina’s friend Sonnie until the weekend, so we decided to head to one of Thailand’s many islands for the days in between. We settled on Koh Samet, an island close enough to Bangkok that it’s a popular weekend destination for Thais. The bus ride from the city was about four hours and our timing was accidentally perfect: our ferry ride from the mainland to the island (about 45 minutes) was just before sunset and was very picturesque.

Since it was a weekday (early in the week) and there had actually been an oil spill in the area only a few days before, we decided to play hardball a bit and shop around at a few of the places. In Thailand, the price of almost everything can be haggled and we felt that we had some leverage in the situation. I was more than happy to turn Sabina loose and sit with the bags while she visited a few bungalows and talked pricing. Eventually we settled on a small operation after she was able to talk them down to less than half of the starting price. It was a simple bungalow, but it was clean, close to the beach, and close to town.

The next morning I woke up at 5:45 to go for a sunrise run on the beach. It was overcast, quiet, a bit moody, and actually very pleasant. At the start of the run, I was a little lethargic and my muscles were tight, but after ten minutes I started feeling pretty good. That is, until I ran past a pack of resting dogs, evidently spooking one, who freaked out, lunged at me, and sunk his teeth into my leg.

Let’s stop here a moment. This is Day 7 of the entire trip, Day 5 in Asia, Day 3 in Thailand, and basically Day 1 on any kind of beach. Also, I didn’t get the rabies vaccine before we left because the odds were so low that I would run into any problems. Here’s a more accurate transcription of my thoughts on the matter:

IT’S MY FIRST DAY ON A THAI BEACH IN THE FIRST WEEK OF A MULTI-MONTH BACKPACKING TRIP AND A MOTHER FUCKING STRAY DOG JUST BIT ME. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!

I hobbled back to the bungalow and as I entered, Sabina asked “How did the run go?” My response was “Not good”, at which point she noticed that my hands and lower right leg were covered in blood and I was feverishly cleaning the wounds with antibacterial wipes. After stopping most of the bleeding and crudely applying some bandages, we walked to the international clinic, which was about fifteen minutes away on the other side of town. The clinic wasn’t open yet, so we called the emergency number, which went to the doctor’s cell phone. I could tell I had just woken him and once I said I had been bitten by a dog, he started mobilizing immediately. Luckily he lives above the clinic, so he and one of his assistants came right down and ushered me in.

As they started cleaning the two holes in my leg, they gave me a tetanus booster (slightly different than the one I received before leaving the States) and started me on the post-exposure rabies vaccine, which is a series of five shots spread out over one month. The doctor also explained that if I received immune globulin (basically a shot of antibodies), the odds of getting rabies would be “practically zero”. The only catch with this shot is that it’s expensive. In Thailand, a poorer country, the shot is $1,500; in a rich Western country, the shot could be anywhere between $2,000 and $7,000. Thank you Thailand for being poor!

Obviously I had secured a travelers’ insurance policy before leaving and I had even opted for the zero-deductible option because I had a feeling that something was bound to happen eventually. Knowing that I would be reimbursed for all expenses, I didn’t hesitate to order the immune globulin. It took a few hours for it to be shipped to the island by boat, at which point I went back to the clinic and they administered it. They also started me on ten days of antibiotics.

Here’s the synopsis of the situation: I am very confident that I will not contract rabies because the medical staff was able to take action very quickly and because the stray dog that bit me had a collar, implying that it wasn’t as wild as it could have been and probably doesn’t have rabies. I have received four out of the five shots of the rabies vaccine and will be immune in about two weeks when I receive the final shot. I have been going to a clinic every day (with one exception, see below) to have the wounds cleaned and the dressing changed. The injury has never really hurt that much except when I accidentally hit it or when it’s being cleaned.

It sucks that I have to go to a clinic every day and I can’t go in the water at all (for fear of infection), but I see two silver linings to this cloud. One is that I’ve gotten to see a part of Thai culture that I wouldn’t have normally seen. Before leaving the States, I had read that Thai hospitals and clinics are very good and very well respected and now I can see why: I have been receiving excellent medical care everywhere I’ve gone at a fraction of the price back home. Everyone has been very professional and helpful and most of them speak English too. It’s been a very positive and eye-opening experience, especially given all the talk of health insurance back in the States.

The second silver lining is that I’m now (or will very soon be) immune to rabies, which opens the door for previously unavailable volunteer opportunities for working with animals. Even though I’m a bit gun-shy now around stray dogs, I still love dogs in general and will be looking into some volunteer work next month at a Bali animal shelter. At least one of the dog shelters in Ubud requires the rabies vaccine, so I see this incident as something of a blessing in disguise.

Once all my treatment is done, I’ll be submitting a claim (and a lot of itemized bills) to my insurance company. I expect that everything will be completely covered, so I won’t be any worse for the wear, except for a couple small scars on my leg and a good travel story. And all the antibiotics has forced me to go into a detox, which is something I was hoping would happen anyway.

Aside from having my flesh ripped open by dog teeth, Koh Samet was actually very pleasant. We spent our days eating, sleeping, laying on the powdery white sand, and walking along the beach. In the evenings, we would sit on bean bag chairs a few feet from the water, smoke hookah under the stars, enjoy the perfect weather and the sea breeze, listen to music, and watch the local children put on fire poi shows.

Bangkok

Once the weekend came around, we caught a bus back to Bangkok and checked into a nice hotel in Riverside (Tongtara Hotel). The hotel was running a deal to attract tourists and we ended up paying only $30 a night. We spent the weekend exploring Riverside and Silom and hanging out with Sonnie and her husband Randy in the evenings. I would leave during the day to walk the city and go to a clinic while Sabina would visit temples. It was really nice to walk around Bangkok and get a feel for the culture, though I was often frustrated by the size of the city. I got lost several times because I thought I had overshot my mark, when in fact I hadn’t walked nearly far enough.

Both Friday and Saturday night we ended up on Khaosan Road, a Westerner-catering shitshow reminiscent of Bourbon Street. The road extends for several blocks and is filled with bars selling cheap beer and buckets of mixed drinks, hookahs, the same American party music played loudly and repeatedly, street vendors with piles of bugs (for eating), racks of cheap clothing, ladyboys, and hawkers trying to convince you to go see ping pong shows. The party goes well into the night and makes for some pretty fantastic people watching. The novelty wears off really quickly though; after one night, you’re pretty annoyed with the entire scene.

On Sunday, we ventured out to the Chatuchak weekend market, one of the largest markets in the world. We walked around for hours, looking at food, art, clothing, toys, and knickknacks, and probably saw only one-tenth of the entire market. It’s massive. Again, the people-watching was fun. The weekend market is a really great way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and be productive with some shopping at the same time.

Koh Phangan

After the weekend in Bangkok, we decided to head south to the island cluster of Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, and Koh Tao. Each island has its own reputation and all three are major tourist destinations. Spas, world-class diving, restaurants, bars, beautiful beaches, and the infamous Full Moon Party all beckon travelers from all over the world. Initially we thought of going to Koh Samui, but after getting an idea of how developed (read: expensive) it is, we opted for Koh Phangan instead. We hopped on a flight from Bangkok to Surat Thani, took a random bus to a random hotel, ate $1 pad thai at the night market while dogs and rats ran the streets, took an hour-long bus ride to Don Sak, hopped on a multi-hour ferry to Koh Samui, then took a 30-minute ferry to Koh Phangan. I fell asleep on the deck of the ferry to Koh Samui and treated myself to a pretty righteous sunburn.

We found ourselves some nice mom-and-pop bungalows (Blue Lotus) that were $14 a night. Yup, you read that correctly. A bungalow on a peaceful part of the island only feet from the water is $7 per night per person. Add to that $3 dinners and $7 massages and you’re starting to see why Thailand is pretty great. What’s funny is that we haven’t run into any other Americans on this trip, just Europeans and Australians and the occasional Canadian or Kiwi. I’ve had this same conversation with locals and other travelers and none of us can explain the absence of Americans. They just don’t come to Thailand for some reason.

The next week at Blue Lotus was very peaceful, filled with eating and walking along the beach and exploring the island a bit. It was at this point that something in me finally gave out and I succumbed to some tummy issues. Sabina pointed out that taking antibiotics for ten days probably killed off the good bacteria I needed to cope with everything, leaving me vulnerable to foreign stomach bugs. After vomiting some pad thai one morning (which did not taste nearly as good the second time around), I spent the better part of two days floundering in bed with stomach pains and nausea, feeling completely lethargic and dead to the world, and making some less-than-ideal trips to the bathroom. Luckily I had procured some Thailand-specific antibiotics before we left, so once I started popping those, I started to feel better very quickly. However, I didn’t make it to the clinic during those two days and without my daily cleaning, my wounds became infected. Uuuggghhh. When I finally did make it into the clinic, the doctor prescribed me four days of two new antibiotics, which I just finished up yesterday. Let’s hope this cycle doesn’t repeat itself.

After some discussion, Sabina and I decided we should split for the rest of the month (i.e. the rest of Thailand). While I was sick and praying for death, she went out and enjoyed the nightlife and was now sort of over it, so she wanted to move on to another island. On the other hand, I felt like I needed to settle down with a single clinic and a single doctor so I could more effectively close out my medical issues before moving on to the next country. Also, I decided that I wanted to be in Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party, knowing full well that it’ll be a sloppy, drunken mess filled with annoying 20-somethings. I figure that I’m here only once in my life, so I pretty much have to attend. Even if it is an annoying spectacle, I’d like to come to that conclusion myself. Besides, how often do you get to party until sunrise on a Thai beach with thousands of people?

I think that pretty much brings us current. Sabina is enjoying the island paradise of Koh Phi-Phi and I’ve recently moved into a bungalow at the famous Sanctuary, a holistic/wellness/yoga resort in the jungle accessible only by boat. I don’t think I’ll have the time or energy for any yoga or cleanses or fasting, but I will happily take advantage of their location and their restaurant menu, which is probably one of the best in the entire country. Full Moon is tonight and this feels a bit like the calm before the storm. After Full Moon I’m planning on bouncing to another part of the island since my current commute is annoying, considering I have to trek to the clinic once a day. More to come on that later.