Post #129 - February 17, 2013 - Chiang Mai, Thailand

What we did: relaxed, trip planned, Sunday night bazaar
Budget: 1800B/$60; Spent: 1944B/$65

Needless to say, after a very late night last night, we slept in until noon. We eventually made our way down to our hotel's restaurant area shortly after. We both enjoyed some Tom Yum soups with rice for breakfast.

We talked a lot about yesterday and Patty suggested we extend our stay in Chiang Mai, despite having booked our bus ride to, and our hotel in, Bangkok. Normally, this would have caused a large amount of anxiety in me, because I have a phobia of changing plans, but I talked myself through it for a couple minutes and came to the same conclusion. Why not stay in Chiang Mai? We had made several good friends, we have "discovered" Muay Thai, and we can spend our time in any way we choose. It was a good decision I think.

The lady who runs our hotel during the day changed the day of our travel to Bangkok for us and called our hotel in Bangkok to talk to them about changing the date, since we had already booked online through Agoda for one night in a couple days' time. The bus was no problem to change, but the hotel was a little more tricky. We had to get in touch with Agoda, but another of the hotel staff, a French guy named Hugo, suggested we email Agoda because they often reply within an hour. In true form, Agoda did in fact respond to us within an hour and, although they told us to contact our hotel, we emailed them again stating our hotel had told us to get in contact with Agoda, and when Agoda emailed us a second time, they had changed our booking for the day we wanted. So everything was fixed with no additional fees! Lovely when that happens.

So, we will be staying in Chiang Mai for an additional seven days, and we plan to do another six Muay Thai lessons, starting tomorrow. The lady at our hotel said she would try to get us a deal for six days of training, rather than pay the single day price six times.

For dinner we grabbed some kebab wraps from a street vendor, and they were delicious. Hugo told us he gets them almost every day. We will definitely be getting more of them!

Yesterday, Gabby had recommended we check out the Sunday night bazaar, so we went there. Unfortunately, nearly as soon as we got there, which was a two minute walk from our amazingly located hotel, it began raining. We rushed into a nearby shop to escape the rain, which didn't let up for half an hour or so.

The shops all covered up when it began raining. It looked like they were prepared for rain. We headed back to our hotel to wait out the rain and then returned to the bazaar once the rain stopped for good. Patty bought a necklace, scarf, Thai pants and a pair of workout shorts for Muay Thai for $1! All were quite cheap, but nice.

We briefly bumped into Gabby and Martin who said we would probably see them tomorrow at Muay Thai. We also bumped into the the Singaporean couple, Jerry and Yvonne, who we did the cooking class with. They were so nice. They gave us their contact info and told us to get in touch with them if we make it to Singapore.

It was a slow, but nice, day.

Post #128 - February 16, 2013 - Chiang Mai, Thailand

What we did: Muay Thai lesson, watched Muay Thai matches, went out with fighters
Budget: 1800B/$60; Spent: 3942B/$131

We slept in wonderfully late this morning. There was no rush because our Muay Thai class didn't start until about 3pm, and we had no other plans for the day. We decided to try the restaurant we had had a beer at our first afternoon in Chiang Mai because we had noticed it had good breakfast prices. Turned out the food is really good, too!

Afer breakfast, we came back to hotel to do some blogging and trip planning. Around 2:45pm, we went out from of our hotel to wait to be picked up to be taken to our Muay Thai. We were picked up and driven to the class in the back of a pickup truck; we shared the ride with an Argentinian woman, named Gabby, and her son, Martin, who is 11 years old. Gabby has been living in Spain for the last 13 years and regularly comes to Chiang Mai to buy jewelery to sell in Majorca. It’s apparently quite a lucrative business. Martin was taking classes, not Gabby, although it seemed like Gabby might be interested in trying.

When we arrived at the gym, we were warmly welcomed by the trainers and fighters, alike. We started off training by skipping for about 10 minutes, then we stretched, and then one of the trainers, named Samart (pronounced ‘Samat’), began by teaching us the stance and then how to do some of the basic hits, including the jab, kick, hook, uppercut, knee, and elbow.

We had regular water breaks, which we were very thankful for. It was extremely hot, but actually keeping moving kept us a little cooler. Plus, we were in the shade.

Next, we put on some boxing gloves and climbed into the ring to do some one-on-one training. I trained with Samart and Patty trained with another trainer named Wimbledon. We don’t think that’s his real name...  Anyway, we practiced all the moves we had learned on the trainers who were wearing padding. It was really fun and really intense. It was exhausting. I did much better than I thought I would, but Samart is an excellent teacher and a stickler for technique.

Patty had a similarly good experience with Wimbledon. He apparently made fun of Patty whenever she made a mistake, but she had a lot of fun with him anyway. She even almost elbowed him when he called out punch and she elbowed. Probably would have deserved it for making fun of her so much...

All of this was interspersed with push-ups and sit-ups. They really kept us busy! But we weren't worked to the point of exhaustion other than when we were training one-on-one in the ring. That was by far the hardest part.

The two hours passed by very fast and all too quickly it was over. We stretched with Samart and that was it.

We talked with two fighters at the end, Alan and Landon. Alan is from Argentina and was fighting tonight. Landon is from the US, though he hasn't lived there for years. He hasn't had his first fight yet, but he’s been training regularly for four months. He’s a teacher in between teaching positions. They invited us to the fights tonight, which happen to be at the venue directly beside our hotel. How convenient is that!? Here's a pic with Alan.

We talked with Gabby on our ride home and she got us thinking about maybe spending our time in Spain in Majorca, since it will have good weather in April, which is we plan to be in Spain.

We took our time after the Muay Thai class. We were very tired and very lazy and just had dinner at our hotel. Our hotel cooks very nice food, although a little pricey.

We were late to the fights, but arrived just in time to see somehow get knocked out by a kick to the head. That was intense. We then saw two women fight, but unfortunately the fight was cut short because one of the women got injured in the first round. She looked like she had hurt her knee, unfortunately. We then watched the oddest things we'd ever seen: blind boxing, where five fighters put on blind folds and just wander around the ring trying to hit each other. We winced at several points when people got hit behind the head. Seemed kind of dangerous, but we learned later that they were given instruction to only use their hands and not punch properly. There were a couple times when some of the boxers started attacking the referee, thinking he was another fighter, but then the referee would give them a pretty firm kick to the stomach to set them straight. Landon was one of the five fighters and he definitely won the match, if you can say anyone won. I guess this is supposed to be like the half time show.

We watched the matches by ourselves, and saw Alan win his fight easily. That was the last fight of the night.

We then saw Landon and wandered over to say hello. He introduced us to his friend, John, who is a mid-thirtiesh guy from England. He was very intoxicated, and had apparently been so since the previous night!

We ended up buying Landon a drink and then he invited us to play some pool, since it’s free after the fights. We played for a while and chatted with Landon and John, and then Alan joined us after cleaning himself up. By the end there were seven of us playing: a cute Thai kid, Samart our trainer from this afternoon, and then rest of us.

We then decided to go grab a bite to eat. We went to a nearby place with Landon, John, and Alan. They were all really nice and we had a great meal with them. John was still quite intoxicated, but somehow still very quick-witted. He mocked Landon most of the night.

Alan, it turns out, is the gym’s prized gem. He is expected to do very well and apparently has lots of potential. He just loves fighting. John ended up buying dinner for Alan. Sounds like they treat Alan like a baby. He is only 21 after all. Makes us wish we were that age again!

From there Landon took Alan on his motorcycle over to the most popular bar in Chiang Mai. The three of us took an auto-rickshaw there to meet up with them. John kept forgetting Patty's name and where we were from, and he knew he kept forgetting so we had a couple laughs over that.

We all found each other outside the bar and headed in. A German girl also met us outside the bar, named Isabelle. She's Landon's friend. When we walked in, it was just this big open courtyard with tons of hippies and young kids sitting around picnic tables in the dark for the most part. Surrounding most of the courtyard were actual roofed bars that were open to the courtyard. Landon introduced us to a bunch of people. We also saw many of the trainers from today along with some of the fighters, including Wimbledon the guy who trained me in the ring. We all agreed we needed some drinks if we were going to enjoy this atmosphere. I think Landon, Patty, and I were feeling a little old for this crowd! The music was loud but it wasn't too crazy, though apparently there had just been a fight a couple minutes before we arrived.

We met some of the American girls who do a fitness "Muay Thai" class every evening. They are also English teachers in Chang Mai and they hang out with all the fighters and trainers. They’re like one big happy family.

Landon recommended buying this drink that came in a huge pail with multiple straws, so we shared that. It was interesting. All five of us then had a couple drinks together at a quieter bar. From left to right it's Landon, John, Isabelle:

We then chatted with Lewis, an English fighter who will begin teaching English and fighting on the side. Nice and friendly guy. Patty somehow got chatting with him about whether he liked any of the girls there. Patty pointed at one and asked him if he liked that one...strangely, she was right! He simply responded saying “maybe”. But then went on to admit he liked her. Patty then spent the next 10 minutes trying to get them together to talk. At one point they both even agreed to go on a date together! But who knows if that will actually pan out.

We ended up leaving shortly after to go to another bar that stays open after 2am. We didn't stay there long, though, and we ended up taking a taxi back to the guesthouse. It was a great day!

Post #127 - February 15, 2013 - Chiang Mai, Thailand

What we did: Thai cooking class, blogged, planned
Budget: 1800B/$60; Spent: 2744B/$91

We were picked up for our cooking class around 9:15am this morning. Pretty early by our standards but we made it! We didn't eat breakfast beforehand because we were told to come hungry. I love to hear those words.

We were the last people to be picked up, so there were seven people already in the truck who we would be doing the class with. We said a brief hello to everyone, and then remained in a tired stupor until we arrived at a local market, where our guide would be showing us some of the vegetables and herbs we would be cooking with.

Our guide is extremely charismatic. His name is Sim, and he took about 30 minutes showing us some of the food most often used in Thai cooking. He is a real character and made it a really fun experience. He then gave us 15 minutes or so to walk around the market on our own before leaving.

Another 20 minute ride later and we were at the cooking school. What a difference compared to India! We were cooking outside under some large tents. There was a table for eating, a food preparation area, and cooking stations, with a gas stove and wok for each person. There was also free water and coffee.
He started off by explaining how the class would work, and he got us to choose the dishes we would like to cook from a menu of choices. Patty and I chose to do the half day, so we got to choose a soup, noodle, and curry dish. For soups we made Tom Yum and Coconut Chicken; for noodles we made Pad Thai and Drunken Noodles; and for the curry dish we made Green Curry and Red Curry.

Once we had all decided on the food we wanted to make we were led to the food preparation area to cut up semi-prepared vegetables. First up were the soups. We were given a wooden cutting board, an intimidating looking knife, and a cloth to wipe stuff down with. Everything was very neat and clean. It was a nice surprise!

I sat at the table next to a man named Eric. He is originally from the US but is now living in Beijing with his family. They were on vacation in Thailand for a couple weeks, but I guess he was the only one with any interest in cooking. He was an extremely nice guy and I got along with him very well. He is maybe in his mid-forties. I talked to him a lot about where we have been on our trip so far. He's also done quite a bit of traveling. We also ended up standing next to each other at the food preparation table, and that was a good time. He seemed to know quite a bit about cooking, especially all the Asian spices and vegetables that I've never seen back home.

Once we were done preparing our food, we moved over to the cooking station. Sim flawlessly managed to direct all nine of us in cooking different soups. He is an excellent teacher and loves to joke around. His English is quite good and he was pretty hilarious.

Once we were done mixing everything together, we tried our soups. I wasn't crazy about mine, but I should have known that because I'm just not a fan of the coconut soups. Patty enjoyed hers. We then set our soups aside on the dining table and then started on our noodle dishes. Once again, we chopped up our ingredients, which weren't so radically different from our first dish, and headed over to the cooking area.

I was cooking a dish called Drunken Noodles, and the beginning of the dish is pretty spectacular. Sim told the three of us that were cooking this dish to stand back while we threw our chicken into the wok. Immediately, a huge flame leaped upward from the wok. It was really hot and we had to continuously stir while it was flaming. That was the extent of the excitement, though, and after that we all got down to the serious business of making our noodle dishes.

Once we were done we headed back to the dining table, except to eat our first two dishes. While we sat and ate we learned a little more about the other people we were with. Beside Eric, there was a German couple and an Australian couple, whose names we have forgotten, and also a couple from Singapore, Jerry and Yvonne. Everyone was extremely friendly and many asked about where we had been and where we were going. Everyone else was on a much shorter trip than us, so they were all interested in our experiences so far and where we were planning to go. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the Drunken Noodles, but not so much the Coconut chicken soup Patty really liked the Tom Yum and thought the Pad Thai was good.

After about 30 minutes, it was time to move onto our curry dishes. I was cooking the Green Curry and Patty was cooking the Red Curry. Interestingly, we ended up chopping up very similar vegetables. It's too bad we chose such similar dishes!

Once again, the cooking was fun with Sim telling everyone what to do and when. The Australian lady next to me was cooking Jungle Curry and I think it made everyone jealous. It's a very different kind of curry that includes pineapple. It looked amazing.

We weren't even remotely hungry by the time we started eating our curries, but they, too, were very tasty. We ate them with some white rice that had been prepared for us. Everything was very nice. They were even selling beer for us to buy, so we bought one to share. Amazingly, the beer wasn't even overpriced! What a great place we found.

We had signed up for only the half day class, so we left with Eric, who was leaving Chiang Mai today with his family. It turned out that there was another class going on at the same time as ours and we were driven back to our hotel with the other 'half-dayers'. The other group seems to have been made up of mostly young people. It would have been a very different dynamic being in that group I think. We got lucky!

When we got back to our hotel, it was around 2pm. We bought some coffees at our hotel and blogged and did some research. We’re looking for a place to stay in Spain to learn Spanish and salsa. It turns out that there are many schools that actually offer both, simultaneously! Hopefully we can find something that’s in our price range.

For dinner, we headed to an interesting restaurant that’s on the roof of a three story building. Dinner was OK, nothing special. Oddly, the restaurant was playing some Thai music that I think was putting people to sleep. I can’t imagine that’s good for business…

After dinner, we returned once again to our hotel to blog and research. We’re finding we’re spending way too much time sitting around on the internet, but we really have to catch up on our blog!

Post #126 - February 14, 2013 - Chiang Mai, Thailand

What we did: arrived in Chiang Mai, planned, blogged
Budget: 1800B/$60; Spent: 1496B/$50


We arrived in Chiang Mai this morning at 6am. We had slept no more than a couple hours in our less than comfortable bus seats. At first I was a little concerned because the streets were deserted, but we ended up taking a taxi with a couple other people. The taxis here are trucks that have had their truck beds converted into a sitting area. It’s a good idea. They're basically like small buses.

The driver didn’t know the location of our hotel, but we knew it was next to a Muay Thai centre and he happened to know where that was. No more than a two minute ride later, we were dropped off at our hotel. Unfortunately, our hotel wasn't open yet, so we decided to go next door to a large hotel that had a buffet breakfast.

Patty and I spent a lazy hour or so enjoying the nice buffet and trying to wake up. We noticed many people in what looked like army-type workout uniforms, and we later learned that people from the US army are here in Chiang Mai. We're not sure what they're doing here, though.

I went to our hotel around 8am and checked in. Our room wasn't ready, but we were able to store our stuff until it was ready. We ended up just staying in the restaurant of the hotel anyway, because we were so tired. We pretty much accepted we wouldn't be doing anything much today due to our all too brief sleep.

I Skyped with Ivan and Izabela while Patty had a little rest. Although we've been able to chat with Izabela a couple times in the last few months, we haven't talked with Ivan for what seems like forever. So it was really nice to finally get a chance to chat with him. We talked a little about meeting up in Europe in May, and we're really hoping that we can make that a reality.

A little later, we enjoyed a nice lunch at our hotel’s restaurant, while we blogged and surfed the internet. We also did a little research on cooking classes and found one on Trip Advisor that had a ridiculously high rating, so we asked our hotel to call and book the class for us tomorrow. We’re really looking forward to that!

We're also having a small dilemma with regard to where to go next in Thailand. We definitely want to find a beach, but there seem to be so many options we have no idea what to choose. We've read some opinions online, but it's always impossible to know people's expectations and we're often looking for something a little different than most travelers. I suppose there are worse dilemmas to have...

In the afternoon we wandered around town for a bit looking for a bookstore. We're planning to head to Spain for a month to study Spanish and take Salsa lessons, so we were hoping to fine a Lonely Planet Spain book, and also to trade in our Lonely Planet New Zealand book, since we don't think we'll be needing that anymore. We went to about five bookstores, but couldn't find a reasonably priced book anywhere.

On our way back home, we stopped at a nice looking corner restaurant for a beer and to escape the  scorching temperature. Chiang Mai is even hotter than Bangkok, I think. Unless I have a fan pointed directly at me, I'm sweating. Our the heat definitely didn't help how tired we already felt!

When we got back to our hotel, we started researching Muay Thai schools in Chiang Mai because we wanted to take a class before we leave. It turns out there are Muay Thai fights literally next door to our hotel and we were able to book a class from there. We will be doing a class the day after tomorrow, since we are already doing our cooking class tomorrow. That should be awesome!

A little later, we decided to try a recommended restaurant from Lonely Planet for dinner. It looked pretty straightforward to find on Lonely Planet’s map, but as usual the map was terrible. It took us about 20 minutes to discover that the restaurant was only open for breakfast and lunch! Anyway, there was another recommended restaurant on our way back to our hotel, so we stopped there. It was a small place that served vegetarian dishes. The meal was pretty tasty, though not really filling.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel, extremely tired. We stayed up blogging and doing some more research, before finally heading to bed. We were getting picked up for the cooking class around 9am, so it is going to be a relatively early morning tomorrow.

Post #125 - February 13, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: MBK mall, skyped with Frank and Dan, bus to Chiang Mai
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 3918B/$131

This morning we enjoyed our last buffet breakfast at our hotel in Bangkok. It will be sad to leave. A One Inn has treated us well. After breakfast we Facetimed with Dan and Frank and then spent some time on the internet.

We left our hotel in the early afternoon, after packing our backpacks and getting ready the things we wanted to ship home. We had more stuff to ship home today than any other time we have shipped. We had two huge bags filled with stuff!

We stored our backpacks at our hotel and then set off for the post office. The first couple taxis couldn't understand where we wanted to go, and then we found someone who knew where it was. We actually got a pretty fair price too.

About a 10 minute ride later, we were at the post office. I keep comparing things to India, but I can't help it. Compared to India, this post office was a palace. It even had a washroom!! Anyway, first we boxed up our stuff and then grabbed a ticket to wait for someone to help us. We waited about 10 minutes and then we lugged our stuff up to a counter.

We explained to the guy that we wanted to ship the stuff as cheap as possible, and he nodded in understanding. He couldn't speak very good English, but we were mostly able to communicate with him. We ended up shipping home about 12kg of stuff, and it cost quite a bit more than we expected, though still much less than in India! Sorry, I can't help myself.

We felt so relieved to have sent all that stuff home. We were practically giddy to have gotten ride of all of it. We hopped into another taxi and took it to MBK to do some last minute shopping... oh how quickly we forget. Of course, we stopped by our favourite place for lunch: the food court. We've been really enjoying the papaya salad we tried a couple days ago. I guess they use unripened papaya so it's hard, and it's amazing. It's super spicy though, so be warned. We also had a decent Tom Yum soup and some mediocre spring rolls.

We found me some awesome beach shirts for cheap right near the food court and then went to check out the street market when 5pm rolled around. Patty had noticed a black dress yesterday and today she decided to take the plunge and buy it. She also picked up a white tank top for about $3.

We were supposed to be at the train station at 7pm, so we didn't have much time on the street market. We went back to our hotel, grabbed our stuff, and then hopped into the first taxi that offered us a decent rate.

We arrived at the meeting area in the train station approximately on time and then we left a couple minutes later by mini-bus to the area where we would pick up our bus. When we arrived at the bus stop, we jumped off with four or five other people also taking a bus and we eventually found our bus. The buses were just lined up right on a street in Bangkok. It's an interesting way of doing it.

All the buses looked very nice...nothing like India...and ours was nice as well. When we were directed inside, we were unfortunately given seats right at the front of the second level of the bus. There was very little foot space and we were really unhappy about this especially considering we paid 2100B for the supposed VIP seats.

When the bus got moving, we noticed that there were some empty seats so we moved to those. We enjoyed about 10 minutes of fully reclining seats with amazing leg room before the bus stopped and more people got on. We were unceremoniously kicked out of those seats and sent back to our former seats. We knew then that it was going to be a long ride.


We were told that we would be served dinner, but that didn't happen. We did get a very decent snack. Had they just told us we were going to get a snack as opposed to dinner, I would have been very happy with the snack they did give us!

We had a nice view out of the front of the bus from the 2nd deck where our seats were located, but it was too dark for most of the ride to get to appreciate the view.

We stopped once at a place where we could go to the washroom and pick up some food. It was a really nice stop. There were some restaurants, a convenience store, and then other food carts to buy from. Nothing like China or India. I was very impressed. We grabbed some fresh fruit and yogurts as a snack, since we had been denied dinner. It did the trick.

We then spent the rest of the night in a state of semi-sleep because we were so uncomfortable. At the very least, it was a nice, clean bus, so we can’t complain too much. A hell of a lot better than India!

Post #124 - February 12, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: MBK mall, skyped with Frank and Dan
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 2440B/$81

We woke up for our usual buffet breakfast at around 9am. The breakfast is delicious and we usually stuff ourselves quite full. I think it has to do with not having any semblance of a solid well-rounded western breakfast in India. I guess the buffet in Munnar wasn't so bad, but nothing like this feast which has anything you're in the mood for: fresh fruit, waffles, fried eggs, toast, cereal, yogurt, orange juice, ham, sausage, mashed potatoes (with gravy!), fresh vegetables, etc., and it's so nicely presented! The cleanliness and sanitary improvement in Bangkok vs. India is remarkable. You can just tell by the rooms, the curtains, and the floors...everything is well-maintained and cleaned everyday. What a breath of fresh air for us Bangkok has been. It's like returning to civilization again.

After breakfast, we Skyped with Dan and Frank for a bit. I recounted the abuse we received the day or two prior while buying some of the stuff they asked for. My sister found it all quite amusing, and it is quite funny now. At the time though, I was shocked at how nasty some of the vendors can be. No where during our travels have we been mistreated in such a way. Being sworn at, yelled at, made to feel so unwelcome, and they all behaved so consistently. It's important to remember the good ones you meet, but here in Bangkok they're few and far between.

We spent another while on the Internet, blogging and doing some research/planning of the remainder of our trip. I can't believe we're more than half way through!

We pretty much just took our time all morning on the internet. We were in no rush to get anywhere so we didn't end up leaving the hotel until early afternoon.

First stop of course was our beloved MBK mall for lunch and more shopping. We bought a very cute pillow we've been seeing all over Bangkok. We paid a little more than we wanted to, but it was OK. We also looked at a chop-stick set, which was nice, but we didn't buy it. The lady selling it was quite nice too and was willing to lower the price for us by quite a bit. This is a rarity in MBK mall and Bangkok where there's only very small discounts, if any, offered. The only place where we managed to barter a lot was at Chatuchak Market. For anyone going to Bangkok, this is the place to shop. It's the best market we've seen during all our travels. You'll find anything and everything being sold there and it's a lot of fun.

After MBK, we went to another mall across the street and entered a nice department store there called Siam Paragon to pick me up a bando top.  We searched around quite a bit for one and got lucky on the fourth floor. While scouring the floor we came across and interesting article in the women's section. Can anyone guess what this is?

If you guessed it's a pair of derriere enhancing undies then you are correct! We think these are quite popular in this corner of the world. Turns out they're in most department stores in Thailand. Has anyone ever seen these sold in Winnipeg, or North America for that matter? I haven't.  We found these pretty amusing to see them for the first time.

After MBK we crossed the street to walk passed the vending stalls lined up on our way back to the hotel. The street is set up with stall after stall selling everything from clothing, to shoes, to jewelery, to electronics, to sunglasses, to food. I found a really cute dress for $6, but we were at our budget for the day so I didn't get it. We decided we would try to come back tomorrow, since it opened at 5pm and we didn't have to be at the train station until 7pm for the bus to Chiang Mai

We spent some time looking for Frank’s denim dress shirt she wanted, but no luck. Once we got back to our guesthouse, Jeff worked on the blog while I started packing and getting some of our stuff organized to ship home tomorrow.

It'll be nice to get out of Bangkok tomorrow. I think we're ready to do some more exploring and travelling again, and Chiang Mai seems like a great place to do it. Bangkok has been a nice break though!

Post #123 - February 11, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: skyped, planned, MBK mall, patpong market, 
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 4923B/$164

We skyped with Frank and Dan this morning after our breakfast buffet. They want a bunch of things from Bangkok, so they sent us a list. Should be pretty easy to find everything they want. Most things are pretty easy to get. It's just a matter of bargaining everything down to the right price.

I also skyped with my brother Chris before we decided to do some trip planning. We've been putting off planning for what we will do after Bangkok. The first thing we realized we needed to do was book a train to Chiang Mai, our next destination located in northern Thailand.

We took an auto-rickshaw to the train station to see if we could get a train ticket. A lady approached us at the front of the station and started telling us about our options for getting around Thailand. We were on our guard, but she turned out to be pretty innocent; she was just working for a travel agent around the corner. She gave us some advice, although nothing special.

We went inside and it turned out that all the overnight trains were booked for the day after tomorrow, so we were led by a worker to the travel agency inside the train station where we could book an overnight bus ticket. We were offered two different bus options, one for 2100R and the other for 2400R, which seemed high, so we declined. We decided to go to the agency recommended by the lady we talked to outside the station.

When we left the station, the lady approached us to ask if we had booked our train. We told her we wanted to see the travel agency, so she led us there. She obviously makes commission on this place, but she wasn't pushy or anything. Once we were there, we sat down with a guy who proceeded to try to sell us on a packaged deal that would take us to all the places we wanted to see in Thailand. Once he had broken everything down, we realized that it would be much too expensive if we booked through him, so we left. We were very proud of ourselves for making that decision. We decided that we had done all this before, and there was no reason we couldn't book everything ourselves in Thailand. Unfortunately, the guy wouldn't book an overnight train ticket for us, even though he had some, because he only books packages. Nice. So we left and went back to the travel agency in the train station and tried to get the cost of the bus trip down a bit; we succeeded in getting the better bus for 2100R instead of 2400R, which we felt was a small victory. We still had a nagging feeling we were getting ripped off, though.

We left the train station on the same auto-rickshaw that had brought us there. We gave him a tip for waiting for so long, even though we're pretty sure he kept busy while 'waiting' for us.

We went to MBK mall for lunch and browsed around. We shopped a bit for Frank and Dan and bought designer underwear for Dan from a very nice lady for 80B each. Just before this another lady had refused to give us any discount.

Around 7pm, we took the skytrain to Patpong market, which is located in the red light district. Just before entering the actual market area, we bought me a cool-looking tanktop, that ended up not fitting!!, but we only spent 100B on it, so we’ll give it to someone as a gift (Dan??).

We proceeded to have some awful experiences with vendors, many of them swearing in Thai at Patty. Meanwhile, guys everywhere were standing around showing sex show menus. It was an interesting experience.

I wanted to buy a fake watch, so the first watch vendor I saw I started looking. On a fake Rolex, the first price was 2500B, which is crazy. I bartered it down to 1000B, which still seems expensive, but it's a fine looking watch! I'm very pleased with it. As we were walking away from the first watch vendor, we approaches a second watch vendor and found a really nice Rado watch. I wasn't interested in buying another watch for 1000B, so after the lady offered it to me for 1800B I threw out 500B as my offer. Interestingly, she wasn't even surprised by my offer...makes me think I overpaid by a lot for my first watch! Anyway, we finally agreed on 700B. Whatever, these watches are awesome!

While I was bartering with the lady, Patty went to the next stall over and started bartering with the lady there. I guess there was some confusion over prices and Patty ended up walking away. This made the lady really angry and she started swearing in English at Patty, like she had been personally offended.

Patty shook it off and started looking at watches where I had bought mine. When she decided against buying a watch and started walking away, the lady I bought my watch from started swearing at her in Thai, and said something about her being a "bad person", or something stupid like that. My response: "Be nice!" I really wish I'd given her a piece of my mind.

Patty was pretty unhappy at this point and I don't blame her. She really wanted to find sunglasses so we found a vendor and started looking. She offered a price on some sunglasses, but the lady didn't budge and wasn't treating Patty very nicely, either. Patty asked that I barter with the lady, but I was so annoyed at this point that I didn't do a very good job. We ended up paying a less than great price for the sunglasses, although Patty really liked them.

Patty was now beyond upset, so we decided to grab a cup of coffee at a nice coffee shop nearby.

I bought 2 watches, argued with 2 ladies, one selling sunglasses the other was the one we bought the 2nd watch from. We talked about how awful some of the ladies were to buy from and we laughed about how I told the watch lady to “be nice” after she was swearing at Patty in Thai, especially after I had just bought a watch from her. Unbelievable!

After cooling off a bit, we ventured back into the war zone that is Patpong market. This time, we approached people very differently, mostly with a cold neglect. It’s unfortunate, but this seemed to provoke better reactions from people, which is also bizarre. We tend to be pretty friendly with people, but that seems to backfire for some stupid reason!

We wandered down the street looking at various things until we came to a small shop carrying electronics. I wandered inside and was immediately drawn to some headphones called Beats by Dr. Dre. These are pretty fancy headphones and we gave them a listen using our iPhone. The smaller ones were good, but the larger ones were amazing. The guy offered them to us for 850B and we ended up buying them for 550B, which is about 7% of their cost at FutureShop. I’m also pretty sure we could have gone lower, which is crazy. I can’t believe we got them for that price!! We've always wanted headphones like these, and I really didn't think we'd ever get any!

After this we got lucky with some shirts for Patty. She bought a white tanktop with a Panda on it that we had seen before. We were just waiting for the right price…finally we got it! She also picked up two other tanktops, one with sunglasses on it and the other with ear phones on it. Bangkok has some really cool shirts.

Speaking of shirts…remember the Mr. Men children’s books? There is one shirt that plays on these books, with the title Mr. Jihad. The typical-looking Mr. Man is wearing a headpiece of some sort and has explosives strapped onto his back! I was torn between laughter and mild outrage. I realize that it’s meant in jest, but there’s also not too much funny about someone blowing themselves up to kill other people. It’s a pretty cruel joke… Humour is a funny thing, indeed (pun kinda intended).

We were pretty hungry at this point and thankfully saw a McDonald’s right across the street. It was one of those moments when the stars were aligned and we asked for a place to eat and it was provided. It’s so wonderful when things like that happen!

We unfortunately didn't enjoy our meal as much as usual (probably because how good Thai food is by comparison!), but it filled our empty tummies, so the food succeeded in its most basic function. By the time we finished, it was nearly midnight, which is when the skytrain closes, so we rushed to the nearest stop and jumped on a train bound for home.

In no time at all we were back in our hotel and jumped into bed, exhausted from a grueling day of shopping. Sometimes it’s really tough to be us!!

Post #122 - February 10, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: Chatuchak market, wedding cruise
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 3649B/$122

Today was a busy day. We wanted to check out a famous market in Bangkok before heading to the wedding cruise this evening. I would just like to start by saying I can't believe we are going on a wedding cruise. How ridiculous is that? Sure, it's just down the river in Bangkok, and sure it's not like a luxury ocean-liner that we'll be staying on for days, but I mean they rented an entire ship for the evening! We're feeling pretty damn lucky today!

We woke up to our typical breakfast buffet, checked emails, and Facetimed with Frank and Dan. We actually left the hotel fairly early this morning, and got going around 11am.

The Chatuchak market is super easy to get to by skytrain. This was a familiar stop for us because it's the closest station to the Don Mueang International Airport, and the station we bused to both times when arriving in Bangkok.

The market was a short walk down the street from the skytrain station. The street leading up to the market was lined with vendors selling all manner of stuff. Patty picked up a cute little toothbrush holder and then we bought some fruit. The fruit vendors here are awesome. They have pineapple, guava, papaya, mango, watermelon, and more sometimes. They cut up the fruit for you and put it into little bags with some sticks to use to eat the fruit. They tend to have pretty high-tech looking carts that they keep really clean (at least it looks clean!). Anyway, the fruit they sell is unbelievable. Best fruit ever. The mango was actually the best mango I've ever eaten. It was like candy. This is making me hungry...

We then stopped for lunch at a busy street food vendor and ordered some mediocre pad thais. It was pricey considering it was street food. We actually paid more than what we pay at MBK mall! It reminds me why I don't like really touristy areas. The guy operating the place was a pretty interesting character, though. He was yelling this way and that, inviting people in, and just generally being loud.

We then entered Chatuchak, which is basically just a more organized set of street vendors. It was definitely the best market we've been to so far in Bangkok. The range of things they were selling was impressive, and good deals were to be found around every corner.

We bought branded men's underwear (CK, D&G, Armani, etc.) for less than $3 each, where at home a pair can reach $15 or more. Patty bought a pretty awesome bathing suit for cheap and two dresses for $13, and I bought two casual dress shirts for $10.

We wandered around the market for several hours and it was scorching hot. Fans were everywhere, but as soon as you got out of the blowing range of the fans, it quickly became unbearable. I would typically just position myself right in front of a fan whenever we stopped at any store. The stores with AC were a blessing and I think we probably would have died without them. I can't imagine this place in the summer!

We weren't sure exactly what time the cruise tonight would start because Mala hadn't Facebooked us yet, so we left the market early to give ourselves enough time to get home and get ready. The ride home was uneventful, except that Patty found jean shorts for $3, and when we checked Facebook, Mala had messaged us the location and timing of the cruise tonight. We were worried that he would forget about us, but truthfully he's been such a good host that that would be wildly out of character for him.

We had plenty of time to get ready for the cruise, since he had told us to meet at the pier at 6:30pm. Around 6pm we caught a taxi to River City Mall where the pier is located. It took about 20 minutes in traffic and we nearly arrived on time. About 2 minutes after arriving at the mall we saw Mala, Pummy, and one of their relatives, Jay, through a window eating in a restaurant, so we joined them.

We chatted while they ate before heading toward the pier. Mala had told us that the attire for the cruise would be casual, so that's how we dressed. Meanwhile, they are all in suits. Awesome. At least Patty was wearing a dress; I was wearing shorts, a very casual dress shirt, and sandals! Sigh...

The cruise was not departing until 7:45pm, so we had some time. We took some pictures with other people we met, as well as Mala, Pummy, and Mrs. Kamboz. This picture includes Pummy, Mala, me, Mata (Mala's brother), and Pinki (Mala's mom):

When we boarded the ship, it was beautiful and the entire ship had been rented just for the wedding. We took our seats on the second level of the two story ship and were provided with welcome drinks. Once the ship got moving, the bride and groom said some words, thanking everyone for coming and their families for arranging such a beautiful wedding. Then, people were invited to ask the bride and groom any question they wanted. It was a really nice idea!

We hung out with Mala and Pummy at the front of the ship for a bit. It was an amazing view of Bangkok. It was nice to be able to just hang out with them for a bit. It also looked like Mala and Pummy were becoming closer, which was nice to see.

Dinner was a buffet and was delicious. Dinner was a buffet and it was delicious; it was a combination of Thai and Indian food. My favourite part was the fruit: it was delicious, just like everywhere else in Thailand.

After dinner, the DJ started playing music and people started dancing out on the deck on the second level and also in an air-conditioned compartment on the first level of the ship. We spent some more time with Mala, Pummy, and Mrs. Kamboz out on the front of the ship and danced a little bit, though Indian people all have a way of dancing and we kind of feel awkward doing it…but we did it anyway.

I ate so much food, mostly fruit, that I was so stuffed; it was a very nice party. We spent most of the end of the night in the AC compartment because of how hot and humid it was outside. There was a bit of a lip walking into that compartment from the front of the ship and Patty tripped over it...twice! The first time she fell really hard and hurt her hands. Nothing serious, but she got a blood blister on one of her fingers from the fall. The second time it happened she didn't fall, she only stumbled. Poor thing. They really need to have a sign there!

Around 11pm, the cruise was over. The ship returned to where we had departed and we got off. The bride and groom were waiting near the exit to say goodbye to their guests. It was a nice gesture, and Patty and I both got to say our “thank yous” and “goodbyes”. We then chatted with Mala and Pummy, while the bride and her sisters and friends took what must have been hundreds of pictures near the pier. It was so hot and muggy that Mala and Pummy were getting impatient to leave! Unfortunately for them, we waited for the picture taking for about an hour.

At last, said our final goodbye to Mala and hopped in an auto-rickshaw. We arrived at our hotel shortly after and went to bed. It was a good day!

Post #121 - February 9, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: wedding ceremony, shopping
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 2891B/$96

We woke up this morning around 7:30am to get ready for the wedding ceremony. I went down for breakfast while Patty stayed in the room getting ready. She wanted me to say she straightened her hair with her $4 straightener and it actually worked! Apparently she was quite pleased to see her hair straight again after months of frizziness. She also used her fake MAC makeup, which is apparently of impressive quality. She was surprised...we're just waiting for her face to turn blue.

Surprise, surprise, by the time 9am rolled around, which is the time Mala told us to get to the Gurdwara (Sikh Temple), we were just finished getting ready. Unfortunately, it turned out that the kurta I had bought for myself for this very day had been tailored poorly in Kolkata, and I had been too sick to try it on. The sleeves had been made ridiculously short. It doesn't even make sense how short they made them. I was pretty annoyed. It's not like we spent a great deal of money on it, but it did look really good and we had bought it for this very occasion!!

The first few cabs we approached were asking an insane amount of money to drive us to the Gurdwara. One really annoying thing about staying in the touristy part of town is that taxi drivers won't turn on their meters and ask for crazily inflated prices. The first guy we talked to was asking for 300B, but he didn't even know where the Gurdwara was, so we had no interest in hiring him. Finally, we found a pretty nice guy who actually knew where the Gurdwara was and he offered to take us there for 200B. We were in such a rush we didn't even barter with him...we just jumped in.

About 15 minutes later we arrived at the Gurdwara terrified of walking in late...again! When we walked in Patty realized she had forgotten her dupatta (matching lengha scarf). Everyone needs to cover their heads inside the Gurdwara and women usually use their dupattas for this. Luckily a guy passed Patty a nice pink chiffon scarf to use instead of the orange handkerchief I used. The pink scarf definitely went much nicer with her lengha than an orange bandana would have! Turned out we ended up having to wear these most of the day...so that worked out.

We were directed upstairs to the 3rd floor. When we walked out of the elevator we saw nobody, until we peaked inside the windows of a big room and saw Mala and his mom, with Robin and his parents. We were worried we had missed the whole ceremony. Turned out we were one of the first people there! We had to laugh when Mala told us he tells everybody to be places hours earlier than they need to be so that they're on time. This was definitely the right strategy to use on us! Even at 10:30am people were still just arriving. Mala said that basically in India they have to lie to people about what time functions will begin. Patty remarked that she really feels that she must have been Indian in a past life.


We felt a bit awkward being the first ones there, but Mala is such a good host and he made us feel welcome. There was a breakfast buffet sitting out so we had a few things and as we ate more and more people arrived. They had potato pakoras, which is a fried Indian appetizer. It was delicious. All the food at this wedding so far has been very good. We've been really lucky!

During breakfast we mainly stood around with Mala, Pummy, and Mrs. Kamboz. We said hello to the few people we met at the reception, but aside from that we sat to the side just watching it all. We got our picture taken with the groom, Robin, again. It was kind of awkward when Patty handed him our gift (maybe it was not an appropriate time to do it?), but Robin's mom made us feel better because she was extremely appreciative of our gift.

Near noon, the wedding ceremony began and Patty sat with the women and I sat on the other side of the room with the men. I don't think either of us are very comfortable sitting on the floor, especially since most people sit cross legged. But Patty couldn't even cross her legs with her lengha on so she had to sit with her legs to the side, leaning on one hand. This apparently got very uncomfortable so she frequently alternated between positions. I don't have much to complain about, but sitting cross legged is not really my thing, even without wearing a dress!

The wedding ceremony was similar to the one we saw in Delhi. The groom waited in front of the shrine holding the Sikh holy book, while the bride walked down the aisle toward him with her entourage of female family members. Then, the couple walked around the holy Sikh book four times, with the groom leading the bride. This is essentially equivalent to the Western tradition of saying wedding vows. The Gurdwara itself was beautiful. There were Persian rugs where the people sit, huge crystal chandeliers hanging the entire length of the room on both sides, and windows letting in sun light on both sides of the room as well.

The ceremony was about 45 minutes long. When it was almost done a lady walked up to Patty and told her she looked pretty, but that she shouldn't be sitting with her feet toward the alter where the holy book sits. She apologized and was slightly embarrassed, but said the lady had been very nice about it.

Men came around with bowls of the sweet substance they feed you at the end of ceremony. It's similar to taking communion. They pass it to you with their hands and you eat with your hands. It tastes really good, but naturally for Westerners we have questions about sanitation. Especially considering our hands were touching the rugs...

When Patty had finished the first piece, another guy came by her with more. She tried to politely explain she had had some already, but he stood there a moment and said have some more. They both laughed and she plopped another blob of the stuff in her mouth. I was watching the whole thing with Mala on the other side of the room. It was pretty funny.

Once the ceremony had ended the bride and groom walked down the aisle with the photographers and guests snapping pictures of them left and right. They made quite the stunning couple. Indian outfits are really quite beautiful.

At this point, we went back down to the third floor where we had eaten breakfast and people began taking pictures with the bride and groom. Mrs. Kamboz eventually pushed us into taking a picture with them, and that was kind of awkward. We still hadn't really communicated much with either of them, so we can't imagine what they were thinking when we got our pictures with them!

After the pictures, we went downstairs to have some lunch. We couldn't believe how elaborate everything was. There was both Thai and Indian food, and it was all delicious. I dumped a huge pile of what looked like chicken stir-fry on my plate, only to realize halfway through that it wasn't chicken at all: it was tofu! I have never eaten tofu that had such a meaty flavor and texture. It was excellent.

We sat with Mala, Pummy, and Mrs. Kamboz while we ate and chatted with them. I was unfortunately very tired and didn't have too much to add to any conversations. We had had such a late night and such an early morning...I think we were both feeling a little out of sorts, though I was feeling it more than Patty.

Mrs. Kamboz told everyone at the table that Patty had learned a few phrases in Hindi and she made her say some of the ones she knew. When she said them out loud everybody laughed. We laughed too assuming they were mocking her pronunciation, but they actually said they were surprised to see a white person speak Hindi so well... so that was nice! Patty then taught Mala and some of his friends how to say “what’s your name” in Spanish. We all had some laughs about that.

They also told us about the various languages in India and the middle east and which ones were similar. It was an interesting conversation.

When lunch was over and we began walking out, the bride said "hello" to us and began asking about our trip. Turns out she is a real sweetheart and was actually appreciative of us coming to the functions! I think this really made us feel, for the first time, like we were part of the wedding. It was a nice feeling.

We took the elevator to the ground floor and said our goodbyes. Mala told us he'd get in touch with us about the cruise tomorrow and we left it at that.

We hopped into a taxi and got home for a much better rate than we'd come. I think we paid about 100B, which average out our previous ride to something a little more reasonable.

We got dropped off just outside MBK mall and we began walking back to our hotel. On the overpass (the way to cross the road and access the Skytrain), we realized that we hadn't taken any pictures of just us! We asked two different people to take pictures of us from two different locations on the overpass. It would have been really sad if we hadn't gotten any pictures of us together with Patty in her lengha, so we're both glad we did that.

Back at our hotel, we changed into more comfortable clothes and then made our way to MBK to have dinner. I'm somewhat surprised we were hungry after all the food we had eaten, but we were!  We had a quick and delicious bite in the food court before going to look for something for me to wear to the cruise tomorrow night. We had been told that it was going to be casual, so that's the kind of clothing we were looking for. I found some nice shorts on the same level as the food court for about $8. They are navy blue and quite fitted. We thought those would be appropriate for a boat.

We then went looking around for Patty, but didn't have much luck. She found a makeup brush for her eyebrows, but that was it.

We then made our way back to our hotel. We were tired and hoping to do a little blogging. Blogging about India has been a grueling experience. There is so much to talk about and so many little details are very important to us. It has been mentally exhausting!

Post #120 - February 8, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: shopped, fixed lengha 
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 2480B/$83

What got us out of bed this morning was definitely the breakfast buffet. We dragged our butts down to the lobby before breakfast was over at 9:30am. The breakfast was definitely worth it. It's nothing amazing, but what they do, they do well.

We did a little research, blogging, and email after breakfast, and we got a message from Frank and Dan to Facetime them. We spoke to them a bit about Italy and what's going on in Winnipeg. In case we didn't mention this earlier, we'll be meeting Patty's parents and Frank and Dan in Italy in May. That should be a lot of fun.

After a couple hours, we went back up to our room. I took a shower and Patty fell asleep. Patty looked so comfy that I couldn't resist joining her for a nap so we just slept for a while. It was a much needed nap.

We eventually woke ourselves up around 2pm and, as usual, made our way over to MBK mall. Patty bought some fake MAC makeup (that hopefully does not burn off her face) out of desperation and stinginess for the wedding tomorrow. The fake makeup is so cheap its difficult to resist.

We then went looking for a belt for me, but instead I got a much needed hair cut. It was such a relief. I almost shaved my head like I usually have it, but instead opted for a little longer on top, on Patty's suggestion.

We then went back to the hotel to see if Mala had sent us a message. It turned out he hadn't, so we sent him a message to see what was up for tomorrow. Honestly, it was a relief to not have any wedding functions today. We were still pretty tired from the night before, and honestly we're still recovering from Kolkata.

So we decided to head to the street markets to find me a belt that I can wear with my new dress pants. In the area we're staying, vendors are set up everywhere selling all manner of things, from men's and women's clothing, to electronics, to beauty products... it's really quite convenient.

We had also decided we were going to buy food on the street tonight for dinner. We first bought some meat-on-a-stick type of food that wasn't great. At least we saw it cooked right in front of us. Actually, the pork wasn't bad, but the chicken had a funky taste to it. We just hope it was actually chicken.

The streets were packed with people. The temperature outside was about 35 or so and humid. It’s pretty uncomfortable at times. I feel like the only way I could be anything but uncomfortable would be to be completely naked. We’re getting a little more used to it, but it's pretty intense at times, especially when there's no wind blowing!

Patty ended up buying a little hair straightener for a couple bucks, a leopard skin belt for $2, and some knock-off OPI nail polish for $1. There were tons of vending stalls, but not much food. And we were hungry! The only thing that had kept us going to this point were some dim sum-like food we had found.

Finally, there was a break in the clothing stalls and we found some street food. The first one we came across we went with. We were desperate and very sweaty at this point. We approached the girl who was just finishing packaging up some guy’s dinner to go. When she finally looked at us, Patty pointed to what she had packaged for the guy, to communicate that we wanted to order what he had, which looked super tasty. She just shook her head and looked down and pretended she was busy. We stood there for a minute trying to gauge what just happened. Then the older lady, who we assume was her mother looked at us and asked if we wanted chicken. We just went with it. The daughter fried some chicken and put it on some white rice for us and it cost us over $2. We felt pretty ripped off and quite unhappy with the whole situation. People from Bangkok are nothing like Indians -- many of them are just not friendly at all! Makes us miss Indians.

On our way back through the stalls we saw a guy we had tried to barter with for some sunglasses on another day. He was rigid and refused to budge... again! That was annoying, especially because Patty really liked one pair of sunglasses he was selling.

When we got back to our hotel we saw a message from Mala saying the wedding was taking place at the only Gurdwara in Bangkok at 9am. That didn’t leave us with much time to get ready for tomorrow. Patty still had to fix the mistakes with her Lengha made by the tailor, and they were pretty serious mistakes. An entire side of the dress bulged unnaturally in the hip area and a little hook fell off the choli (the top) so she needed to also sew a hook back on.

We watched Life of Pi as soon as we got upstairs just to unwind. Once the movie finished, which we somewhat enjoyed, Patty got started on her Lengha. I helped out where I could. She finished about an hour later. It's always impressive to see Patty do something she's never done before and do it well. She tends to do that quite a bit.

After she was done with the lengha, I passed out while she painted her nails. She apparently stayed up about an hour after I went to sleep. Poor thing. Early morning tomorrow!

Post #119 - February 7, 2013 - Bankok, Thailand

What we did: shopped, wedding reception
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 7116B/ $237

Both of us woke up for our very enjoyable breakfast this morning. After we ate, Patty spoke, separately, to her parents and to Frank and Dan. There was a lot of talk of Tiny Tim, the sweet little puppy we met in Kolkata. Seems like he's now touched more hearts than just ours.

We checked email and did some blogging before heading to MBK to do some more shopping. First things first though: pad thai in the food court! As usual, the pad thai was delicious and the perfect start to a day of shopping.

We shopped mostly for shoes for me to wear to the wedding reception tonight. Mala got in touch with us today over Facebook to let us know about the location and time of the event tonight. So, now we have somewhere to be!

We looked all afternoon for shoes for me and ended up buying a pair of shoes at the first place we looked! They were a little pricey so we didn't buy them right when we saw them, but they are a beautiful pair of shoes. I'm pretty happy! We bought them from a department store in MBK called Tokyu.

Patty was also looking for a dress to wear to the reception and found one at Tokyu as well, after trying on a bunch. It's actually a really nice department store that sells all kinds of things. A little pricey though. We were just glad we had something to wear! Patty also bought some eye-shadow from Tokyu, which she mentioned she hadn't worn in months.

We got back to the hotel in something of a mad rush because it was already past 5pm and we had to get to the reception at 7pm, and we still had to shower and get ready. Not surprisingly, by the time we were ready and had figured out where we were going, it was nearly 7pm. Thankfully, it looked like we could get there very quickly by the skytrain.

We left our hotel and were at the Holiday Inn in no time. We walked in and asked where their Grand Ballroom is. They told us that we were in the wrong hotel and to check out the Intercontinental hotel located just across the parking lot. We thought this was odd, but that maybe Mala got the location wrong. So, we walked over to the Intercontinental to ask about the Grand Ballroom. The front desk directed us to the Grand Ballroom, but when we got there, it was empty! This was not looking good.

We confirmed with reception that there were no weddings tonight, and then walked back to the Holiday Inn to ask about their other locations. They didn't really help us at all, which was really annoying, so we walked back to the Intercontinental and asked to use their phone to call Mala. Thankfully, they let us use their phone and when I spoke with Mala he told me we were at the wrong hotel. His message had included the word "silom" which we assumed was just a misspelling of the word "salon", so we didn't think it had much importance. Turns out it was important and it described which Holiday Inn he was talking about!

He suggested we hop in a cab to get there, but, we being cheap and seeing that traffic was crazy anyway, decided to take the metro as close to the hotel as we could and then hop in a taxi at that point. This turned out to be a good decision and we arrived at the correct hotel around 8:30pm. We were very embarrassed but there was nothing we could do. At least we had some sort of an excuse for being so late!

We were very nervous walking into the ballroom so late. Our worst fear was that the room would be packed, soft jazz music would be playing, and everyone would be seated for dinner, and, when we entered, all eyes would look up at us as we interrupted. Thankfully, this didn't happen. When we walked into the reception people were eating, mingling, and otherwise just enjoying themselves. Many people were looking at us curiously, but that was the least we expected. We wandered around for a bit feeling very out of place until Patty spotted Pummy, an old classmate of hers from Linden Meadows and Shaftesbury and Mintoo's brother. She quickly went to the table and tapped him on the shoulder to say "hello". No sooner had she done this than we realized that Mrs. Kamboz, Mintoo's mom, was sitting next to him! It was a great reunion and we were very happy to see people we knew!! After talking with them for a couple minutes, we saw Mala who basically chastised us for being late and not making it to the event yesterday. I think he was disappointed that we had missed the events yesterday and that we were late. But the disappointment quickly disappeared and the start of a great night began.

We spent most of the night with Pummy and Mrs. Kamboz, and Mala was coming and going the whole time. He seemed to know many there and was being a real social butterfly. He was acting much differently than at the wedding in Delhi. I guess he feels more comfortable with the people here. Mala comes to Thailand at least once a year to visit the groom, Robin, and his friends. He seems really close to all of them.

Apparently it was a last minute decision for Pummy and Mrs. Kamboz to come to the wedding. We learned Pummy literally got his passport rushed and received it less than 24 hours before his flight was scheduled to depart. The passport people told Mrs. Kamboz she had to buy his ticket to Bangkok first before they would rush his passport, but they would also provide no guarantee that Pummy’s passport would arrive on time! Bloody ridiculous! Fortunately, everything worked out for them.

Mala's mother and brother were also there and we said "hello". Mala's mom really likes Patty, and vice versa, so it was a really nice meeting for the two of them.

We ate a fantastic dinner that consisted of Thai and Indian food and then watched close family members perform choreographed dances for the bride and groom. That was a lot of fun. Mala danced with four other guys and we videotaped it. They did a really good job, and it was hilarious to watch.

Bride and Groom dancing

From there the night went smoothly and was a great time. All guests got picture with bride and groom. We approached them for a picture even though they didn't know who we were. That was a bit awkward. We later learned that they did know who we are, and that Mala had told them about us. I wish we had introduced ourselves better!

Once the dancing started, it was relentless. Robin's friend had a famous Indian singer from the UK flown in especially for the reception. He performed for about an hour. Needless to say the floor was packed with people dancing.

We danced most of the time with Mala and Pummy and all their cousins. We even danced with Mrs. Kamboz and Mala’s mom for a bit. It was a lot of fun.

I got picked up a bunch of times and paraded around the dance floor. I didn't think much of this until near the end of the night when the guy who kept picking me up began getting very friendly with me. It was kind of awkward. From the get-go he was an odd character. He told us about how he has 2 wives and 1 girlfriend, but that he’s still alone. He had a small guy with long hair with him the whole night and nobody seemed to know him and he didn't seem to speak with anyone.

Anyway, once the guy literally tried to grope me, I pushed him away and stayed away from him for the rest of the night. It might sound worse than it is, though. It really didn't detract much from the fun I was having. Everyone else definitely noticed what was going on. Meanwhile, apparently Pummy was making some hilarious comments to Patty about the guy’s interest in me.

When 2 am rolled around, we figured we should get going. We had to take a taxi home and we really didn't want to be wandering around Bangkok at night. Mrs. Kamboz just told us to let the front desk know we needed a taxi and they would help us get one. We ended up paying about 60B ($2) for a taxi ride because we finally got the driver to turn on the stupid meter!! They like to rip people off by refusing to turn on the meter. That being said, we still had to insist on several different occasions for the guy to turn on his meter. He even blatantly turned it off at one point! Man, these guys are ridiculous.

Anyway, we got home safe and sound and went straight to bed. Another great day!

Post #118 - February 6, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: pad thai (!!), shopping
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 7545B/$252

I went down for breakfast by myself this morning. Patty didn't have it in her to get up before breakfast ended at 9:30am. I don't blame her, I was a zombie as I ate from the nice buffet breakfast our hotel had provided for us. I stayed down in the lobby until nearly 11am, working on blogs and catching up on email, when I wandered back upstairs Patty was jut on her way downstairs.

Around noon, we left our hotel to go shopping because we desperately need clothes for the wedding we're supposed to attend while here in Bangkok. We were a little desperate this morning, especially because Mala had told us there was a wedding event today.

Patty stopped at two street food vendors on the way to the mall. The first to buy a coffee and the second to buy what I can only describe as chicken-balls-on-a-stick. I think she regretted the second one. She took a bite, found out it was cold, and didn't eat the rest. I think we’ll stick to stuff we have seen cooked right in front of us from now on.

We went to MBK mall and went straight to lunch in the food court where we finally got our pad thai! It was delicious and really hit the spot. Looks like India can't deny us forever!

One unusual thing we noticed today is the number of older men with young Thai girls. There is something about it that really just leaves the stomach in an uncomfortable place, especially because the girls look miserable.

We looked around the mall for a couple hours, but didn't have any luck. We decided that we should call Mala, so we thought we’d pick up a SIM card from 7-Eleven for my iPhone so that we could use it while in Thailand. What we didn't realize is that my phone is locked and can’t be used here. Unfortunately, we realized this after about two hours of trying to get the SIM card to work and then going back to MBK to ask them if they could get it to work. It was very frustrating, and we still couldn't get in touch with Mala because there are no payphones around anywhere! We considered buying a new, cheap phone for about $20, but it seemed like a waste considering we’d only be using it a handful of times.

After this, we went looking through other nearby malls where we found Patty an awesome dress at a store called French Connection. It wasn't cheap, but looked like a million bucks on her. I found a pair of pants and a dress shirt at H&M for really good prices. We then walked through the street vendors on the way back to our hotel. It was here we picked up a belt for me, which was cheap and looked pretty nice.

On our way home, we stopped by the restaurant near our hotel again for some sandwiches. They were OK, but too pricey. We vowed never again to eat there!

Back at our hotel, we messaged Mala on Facebook to ask about the wedding. We assumed we had missed today's festivities, but thought it was a necessity given that we didn't have anything to wear!

Once again, we worked on our blog until about 2am…we really have to catch up!!!

Post #117 - February 5, 2013 - Bangkok, Thailand

What we did: flight to Bangkok, MBK mall
Budget: 3000B/$100; Spent: 2532B/$85

This morning we woke up with a purpose: we were leaving India!! As sad as it sounds, I was practically giddy at the thought of getting the hell out of that country. We have certainly had mixed experiences in India, with some very important highlights, but it was time to go. Both of us felt this way, though I think my desire to get on a plane was greater than Patty’s.

We were packed and out the door approximately on schedule. We had no problems getting a taxi and soon enough we were at the airport. The drive took a little longer than we thought it would, but we still had plenty of time. We’re learning!

We checked in and waited about an hour for our flight to board. Unfortunately, the international section of the airport in Kolkata is extremely small and there were few food options. This was disappointing since we had counted on eating breakfast at the airport! Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the flight to serve the food we had ordered online at the time we booked our flight. The food was actually pretty tasty and filled us up quite nicely.

Air Asia is pretty comfortable if you’re willing to pay for everything. For instance, we paid about $8 total for both our meals, which, in the grand scheme of things, is nothing, especially if you consider how cheap our flight was. The two coffees we bought, however, for $2.50 each, were not so reasonably priced…and I’m talking instant coffee, here, not the good stuff. But, we were able to use some of the Indian rupees we still had kicking around in our pockets, so we thought we might as well.

Our flight was only about 2 hours. I slept most of the time, while Patty worked a little on the blog.

Arriving in Bangkok was literally like coming home. We arrived at the smaller Don Mueang airport that we had arrived at from Vietnam, which is unfortunately not connected to public transit other than buses. But, since we’d done this before, it didn’t feel daunting at all. We quickly asked at the tourist counter for the bus number we should take to the nearest skytrain stop and were on the bus in no time. Thankfully, everything in Thailand is air-conditioned, including our bus.

What a difference between India and Thailand. The streets are clean, the buses are clean, things make sense, there are always helpful people around…oh man, arriving somewhere never felt so good. And what a city to “come home to” after India. When the bus dropped us off, we got slightly lost and entered the subway system instead of going to the skytrain, but we quickly realized our mistake, and in no time we were riding the skytrain to the centre of town.

The skytrain in Bangkok is one of the most pleasant experiences we’ve had on public transit on our entire trip. Everything is clean, efficient, and easy to use. Not to mention the experience of the ride itself. The skytrain runs along some of the busiest streets in the city and the view along the train is unbelievable. Ever wondered what a massive city looks like from four stories high? Bangkok can show you.

We had to switch lines once, then take the train to the next stop. The ride was short and easy. Turns out our hotel is located about two minutes from the skytrain stop called “National Stadium”. More importantly, however, our hotel is located about a two minute walk from MBK and Siam Square, which are two of the biggest malls in all of Bangkok. It was these malls we had come to on our initial one-night stay in Bangkok before heading to India. Nothing like a good location for a hotel!

And then, as if things couldn’t get any better, it turns out we have free internet at our hotel because we booked through Agoda! It’s always such a pleasant surprise to receive things for free..., although “free” isn’t the right word to use; we’re actually just getting a lower rate for unlimited internet access because we paid slightly more over Agoda than the walk-up fee for the hotel, which doesn’t include free internet access. We were also presently surprised by our accommodations. It is recommended by Lonely Planet but has some pretty negative reviews on Trip Advisor. We could understand why people might have a negative opinion of the rooms, which are quite cramped and have the tiniest washroom we’ve had so far on the trip. But this is where it matters: it was clean, the beds are comfy, the bathroom works (even if it is slightly uncomfortable), there’s AC, cable TV, useful furniture, and enough space for all our things. I think another blessing India has bestowed upon us is some PERSPECTIVE. We know now how bad things can get and we know what we need. This room is PERFECT for us. We are very happy! Whoever had written the negative comments on Trip Advisor had clearly never been to India before.

Anyway, none of that really matters…because what truly matters is that we are in Bangkok and can’t wait to have our first pad thai! And for this, we knew exactly where to go: MBK mall, where we had had an excellent pad thai our first time in Bangkok!

We rushed to MBK mall, starving, and made our way to the food court. We actually found our way there no problem, even though the mall is gigantic, but learned that it was close to closing time and they were out of pad thai! This hurt our souls. We felt like India was reaching out from beyond the grave to curse our stomachs once again! So, we ended up getting some decent fried rice. There’s always tomorrow.

On our way home, we saw again all the little street shops that pop up in the evenings. There’s a really fantastic vibe this city has; it’s so alive and vibrant, not to mention clean and, well, not India!! It’s a wonderful big city, that is so very inviting. Or maybe I’m just so excited to be out of India my perspective is wildly skewed. I guess we’ll never know.

We were still hungry and stopped at a restaurant close to our hotel to grab a snack. Patty ordered some sort of papaya salad, which was very odd: it was super spicy (like, Patty-could-barely-eat-it spicy) and it came with wonton-like chips. It was actually delicious. Bangkok is a little pricey though, especially compared to India, so that’s something we’ll have to get used to.

When we got back to our hotel, we stayed in the lobby where there is a small internet café with tables. It’s actually quite nice. We worked on the blog for a couple hours and ordered two very cold beers because it is hot even at night! We worked on the blog until about 2am…we have so much catching up to do!!