The Final (Asian) Countdown!

24 deathly bus rides, 21 tuktuks swerving, 15 boats-a-rocking, 10 scamming taxis, 8 scooter rentals , 5 moto taxiiiis…. 4 yellow kayaks, 3 sleeper trains, 2 rides on elephants and a crapload of ziplining! (it’s not Christmas I know, but it just worked out!)

It’s been an amazing, eye-opening, educational and at times trying three months. We have seen both ugliness and beauty in different forms in all the places we’ve visited.  Thailand was hands down our favorite country for the food (we even took a cooking course!), Cambodia for the friendliest people, Vietnam for its amazing scenery and Laos for the laid-back mentality and awesome activities (i.e. Elephants and Gibbon Experience!).

It seems like we’ve been here for much longer than three months and I can’t believe we’re moving on! We spent our last couple of weeks in Thailand gearing up for the next leg of our trip. Translation: we really didn’t do much for the remaining time we had in Thailand.  We checked out Northern Thailand – Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Pai, each of which was awesome and unique in its own way.  

The Highlights:

1. We took an awesome cooking class with “Sammy”, a quirky Thai man who has an organic farm where he hosts a small cooking school. The day included making five dishes each: Tom Yam soup, Green/Red Curry, Pad Thai, Mango Sticky Rice, Papaya Salad, etc…  mm., my mouth is watering just thinking about them! We had a siesta in between making the mains and the appetizers, snoozing in the hammocks around the farm and enjoying the scenery.

This is a candid shot - act natural!

Sleeping off our food in the afternoon.. so cozy!

2. The delicious hippie food in Pai (the dreadlock capital of Thailand) was some of the best food we’ve had on the whole trip! The sightseeing definitely left something to be desired but we had a great time spending our final days on motorbike around the city.

Last motorbike ride in Thailand!! So hardcore..

One of the sights in Thailand, and a traditional jumping photo - don't think we've posted one yet!

Yes, motorbikes do cross this bridge - crazy!

We reunited for yet another final night with Pierre and Lucie.  It was one of these girls' birthdays so we got to share the delicious cake! Yum!! 

3. Chiang Rai was the jumping off point to see two of the craziest sights we’ve seen on this trip: the White Temple and the Black House.  The pictures say it all, but both of these places were created by rich Thai artists with extremely different tastes.  We were feeling a bit templed-out but the White Temple didn’t fail to impress!

The beautiful white temple.  The other side as well as the inside is not yet completed - I think it's 2050 or something it's supposed to be finished by.  Quite the long art project!

One of the sculpted messages at the temple - I like it!

The Black House - quite the contrast!

The Black House is adorned with hundreds if not thousands of animal skins and skulls, bones, etc. A creepy place to wander around in the dark that'd be for sure!

So tempting!

4. In Chiang Mai, one of the hill tribe women was extremely persistent and somehow Chris ‘accidentally’ got talked into buying her hat. She was trying to sell a bunch of other crap so Chris thought he was being a smart-ass when he asked how much she wanted for her hat.  Well, everything is for sale in Thailand! She then proceeded to spend close to thirty minutes bartering with herself.  She started off at 500 Baht (about 16$) and Chris said no.  Then we sat and chatted over a beer while the woman kept lowering her offer: “450… ok 400… special price, 300…”. Chris adamantly said he didn’t want the hat so it didn’t matter how much it was, but at this point we were stifling laughs as best we could.  Eventually she got down to 160 Baht and Chris bit the bullet and bought the stupid hat.  Little did we know that it would later feature in a McDonald’s photo shoot after yet another gripping game of Yanno!

The pro saleswoman - who knew she had another hat in her bag to replace the one on her head!

 

5. So Southeast Asia is home to innumerable stray cats and dogs and after having been in the area for a few months, one becomes rather desensitized to seeing them scattered through the streets, restaurants, hotels, you name it.  There is a general mutual understanding of “you don’t bother me, I don’t bother you”…, or so we thought! One night after perusing yet another Night Market in Chiang Mai, we got caught in a heavy rainstorm and were innocently making our way home when we crossed the path of two dogs.  It’s like it was a group effort- Chris’ attention was brought towards these two dogs who were growling unimpressed under their breath at him when a third dog came out of nowhere and actually bit him on the leg! To be fair, the dog wasn’t locked onto his leg in a death grip or anything, it was just a nip.  But it drew blood! If that wasn’t a rabid dog (hello, unprovoked vicious attack?!) then I don’t know what is! I barked angrily back at the dogs in my best intimidating voice and thankfully they retreated.  But we were left with the Rabies Dilemma – do we wait to see if Chris starts foaming at the mouth before we jump to any conclusions or do we get him treated? Well, apparently when it comes to dogs in Thailand there is a 0.01% chance that it may have rabies.  BUT, if it does have rabies and it bit you, you’re a gonner if you ignore it! So now we have to get a series of five shots for Rabid Chris – 3 in different cities in Thailand, one in Egypt and one in Amsterdam! Can you say pain in the ass (actually the ‘jab’ is in the arm)?!!

 6. We splurged for a sweet place in Chiang Mai and stayed there for 6 nights! It was like an actual hotel, where they cleaned our room every day and we got free water and breakfast included – deluxe!! Worth the $15/night!

7. In Bangkok on our second to last night we met up with travel buddies Frank and Cat to head up to Sky Bar, the one that featured in Hangover II. The bar is incredible – on the 64^th floor of a hotel, it opens to this super-posh expanse of patio with cool lighting and virtually hanging above the city with 360 degree views. Sounds awesome right? And I’m sure it would have been had we not chosen to go there on a night where it was raining! We had to sit inside for the full duration of our single 15$ cocktails (when beers cost less than $1 in some places, you can imagine how ridiculous this is), filling up on delicious bar nuts and olives, trying to get our money’s worth.  Too bad, but you can’t win ‘em all! Chris even had to buy pants in order for us to be able to go up!

8. We also, finally, entered to realm of bug-eating! We didn’t go all out – it actually wasn’t as readily available as we would have thought- but we did try fried crickets! A bit anticlimactic really, as they put so much oil on them that all you taste is fried oil with a crunch! Interesting, but definitely a box I am happy to say that I’ve now ticked!

To Southeast Asia: Kap kun kaa,.. Okun,.. Cam On,.. Kap Jai Lai Lai,..  or just Thank-You! It has been an unforgettable part of the journey.  We will miss the fruit shakes, pancakes and definitely the fried chicken! Each country we visited was so different and yet still, so Asian and somewhat similar.  In Southeast Asia, this is known as “same same… but different”, and it’s so true!

There are so many things we’ll miss, but at the same time we are ready to move on to new places where honking horns actually means something and you don’t have to walk for an hour to find a garbage can on the street! 

Our next stop is Egypt, we're pretty sure it's going to be a lot less same same and a whole lot more different. Bring on the camels!!

With love,
Lauren and Chris xo