Old & Lost

From freezing windburn to scorching sunburn. Low 30s here this morning.

Because we got to bed so late, we didn’t get up until 1030. We had a western style breakfast (omelette and vegetables) at a restaurant, the Klong Lampoo Cocktail Bar (catchy, eh) about a block and a half up the street from the hotel (slowly working our way up to the exotic).

I had to double back to the hotel while breakfast was being prepared as I forgot the daypack (left it on the bed while a tech had to reset our safe combination as Joanne had somehow jammed it – not a good start!).  We then walked up to the canal and located one of Paden’s and Christine’s favourite restaurants, Saneh, which sits at the canal’s edge adjacent to a bridge.

Authentic local cuisine here, but didn’t try it until later in the afternoon. I had Green Curry noodles with chicken and Joanne had ‘Pat’ Thai with shrimp. That is how it was listed on the menu vice ‘Pad’ Thai. We split 1 large beer since the waiter never brought us the 2 we ordered. Instead we got 1 large with 2 small glasses. Our full dinner with beer cost us 179 Thai Baht, the equivalent of $7.00 Cdn.

After breakfast we made our way to a large Wat (Tai for Temple), Chana Songkram Ratchaworamahaviharn (OK – All together now!)

Sucker Alert! The guy at the Wat, who handed out the wraps to women to cover up bare shoulders and legs, talked to us about doing a private longboat tour. He warned us about shady Tuk-Tuk drivers and to use only ones with yellow signs. He just happened to have a friend outside the gates and took us to him to show us the sign. We saw it for what it was (REALLY, WE DID!!!) but, we ended up in the Tuk-Tuk heading to a friend of the driver at the canal who could give us a deal on a longboat cruise. The rate for the Tuk-Tuk was reasonable, 10 baht ($0.40) but we only went around the corner after being told it would be an hour walk. Oh well, we had planned on doing a cruise eventually, so why not? During the cruise, a small boat pulled alongside and somehow I ended up buying a beer, not only for myself, but also one for our tour boat operator. Here are a few pictures along the boat cruise.

And, the pièce de résistance, we had to pay a disembarkation fee as we were dropped off at a private dock. I’m beginning to think it was a mistake giving them our name and hotel – just joking. Total cost? I’ve forgotten. Not really but you don’t want to know.

This makes me want to say always know the exchange rate before you withdraw money from the ATM. Let’s say we should now have enough cash to last the month. Since the longboat captain dropped is off no where near where we started we had to make our way back to the hotel. We walked as we wanted to see some of the sights. That we did. We saw a woman getting her dentures ground down by the dentist on the street corner. More to come tomorrow. My iPad is having keyboard issues right now.

We were up at 2:30 AM as we had to be at the airport 2-3 hours before our first flight which was at 6 AM to Detroit.

Checkin went smoothly as did security and USA customs. We were officially on our way. Plane was delayed approximately 1 hour for take off due to de-icing and plowing of the runways. Yup it was snowing just for a change! We had lots of time between flights so no problems there.

Made it to Detroit where we now had a 2 hour wait before boarding., so we decided to grab some breakfast.The tunnel in the Detroit airport which goes from one terminal to another.

We had purchased premium class seats for the Detroit to Seoul leg of the trip since it was a 14 hour flight. As we got to our seats we were greeted with a choice of a glass of orange juice or a glass of champagne. I opted for the champagne. Have to say it was good!

All the food was delicious and placed on our trays on top of mini tablecloths. Even had little salt & pepper shakers. The wine flowed freely in this section for sure and the stewardesses made sure your glass was never empty. Can you tell we are used to flying in the economy cheap section? Movie selection was plentiful but I can’t even remember what I watched nowFlight was long….over 14 hours but we both managed to survive it somehow with just a few little catnaps here and there. Before we knew it (not really) we were in Seoul, South Korea

We had close to a 4 hour layover in Seoul which actually ended up being longer since our plane was delayed arriving in Seoul which in turn made our arrival in Bangkok even later than the scheduled 00:20 on Thursday, 8 February. We finally arrived in Bangkok sometime after 1:00 am. after departing Ottawa at 6:00 am Tuesday morning and 30 hours in the air. The line for immigration was INSANE. There must have been at least 1000 people in front of us. I think it took us over an hour to get through it and the line never shortened behind us. We gathered our travel backpacks and headed out to catch a taxi to our hotel, Tara Place Hotel. Grabbing a taxi proved to be more difficult than one would imagine. No one spoke English out there but we finally figured out that you had to go to a machine that listed the size of taxi you wanted and push the button. It then spit out a piece of paper with the slot number of your taxi. We got number 30 and headed to it. Taxi ride was uneventful and we arrived at the hotel around 3:15 am. They drive on the wrong side of the road here, the left side.

Check in at the hotel was a breeze. They even knew who we were. Guess not too many guests were left to check in tonight. I think we finally got to bed around 4:00 am Thursday morning.

So myself, Joanne and my husband, Doug are off to explore SE Asia.  Both retired and loving it!

As many know, our son, Paden discovered the world of SE Asia a few years back when his girlfriend, Christine introduced him to Vietnam.  Since they were going to be away for Christmas of 2016 we decided to fly over to Vietnam to meet them so we could all celebrate Christmas together.  After 5 weeks in Vietnam we were hooked on SE Asia and decided shortly after our return back to Canada that we would love to go back and discover more of the beautiful countries over there.

Our planning for this upcoming trip started in October 2017 when we decided we would go for 3 1/2 months and see as much as we can.  We plan to tour Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, which includes Bali.  Since the flights over are so long, 22 hours in total, we have decided to break them up for our return trip and will fly from Bali to Australia, Australia to Hawaii and then back to Canada.  We are planning to spend a few days in each of Australia and Hawaii.  We hope to return to Australia one day and tour many parts of it, but this trip will just give us a tiny taste of the country and a chance to re-connect with my cousin and to visit a cruising friend.

After spending many, many hours working on an itinerary we have a rough guide of where will be going and what mode of transportation we will require to get us to each place.

Thank you Paden as we couldn’t have done this without your help.  105 days is a lot to plan out!!  Visas have been obtained for Thailand and for Australia.  We will take photos for other Visas we may require.   We also picked up International Driver’s Licenses.  Don’t want to get stopped and fined for not having them.

Backpacks:

Last year I purchased an Osprey Aura AG 65 Women’s  backpack but found it was a little heavy when full for my old age.  Here I am with last years backpack.

This year I decided to get the Osprey Ozone 75L that comes with wheels and has the backpack harness packed away until needed.

Really hoping I don’t need it!!  To my surprise the 75L is actually really only 57L as the detachable daypack accounts for 18L.  Needless to say packing has been a challenge for me.  I also talked Doug into getting a wheeled backpack too.  Why carry a backpack when you can wheel one around?  Packing has NOT been a challenge for him!

In less than 48 hours we will be on our way!