Tag: Thailand
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The Beginning of the End
First, a confession: my blog posts have recently become less focused on writing and more focused on photos, for the simple reason that it’s easier for me to edit and post photos than it is to write, which takes a lot of mental energy. In short, I’m tired. As you might have guessed from the title of this post, my travels in Asia are coming to an end and I will be heading back to America soon. After nearly two years on the road, the burdens and hassles of constantly moving have finally gotten to me and I don’t have…
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Another Chiang Mai Winter
After a lot of fast-paced traveling over the last five months, I was craving some time to slow down and be productive with all my backlogs before starting the next adventure. Ayu is going through yoga teacher training this month, so this was a perfect chance for me to go back to Chiang Mai; it’s familiar and very livable, it’s cheap even for Thailand, it has coworking spaces, and the weather this time of year is absolutely perfect. Jeans and a t-shirt for days. It’s really no surprise that Chiang Mai is perpetually at the top of Nomad List. Since…
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More Bangkok, More Islands
Bangkok A few days after seeing Becca off, I linked up with a different group of friends (all from the States) in Bangkok for a few weeks through Thailand. Several had never been to Bangkok before, so they had the usual touristy days while I busied myself with some errands and much-needed clothes shopping. (My personal recommendations are Platinum Fashion Mall and MBK Center.) Nightlife included another beautiful trip to Moon Bar and another meh trip to Khao San Road (though without the stomach illness this time). One of my favorite memories from this time around in Bangkok was an…
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Bangkok, Cambodia, and Thai Islands
Bangkok Becca, Michael, and I flew into BKK on a pleasant Friday afternoon and the two of them were immediately introduced to the urban jungle of Bangkok as we suffered through the first of many hour-long taxi rides through the massive city with its dense, standstill traffic. After finally reaching our hotel, checking in, and getting some food, we decided to go to the Chatuchak weekend market. Friday night at the market was very different from Saturday or Sunday; only a subset of the clothes shops were open and all the non-clothes shops were closed, there was very little food…
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Chiang Mai: Halloween, Lantern Festivals, and the Bruggmans
The last two months have been filled with lots of fun times with friends, some relatively quick traveling, and many a poor Internet connection, resulting in zero blog updates. Now that I have time and a normal Internet connection, I can finally catch up. Here’s my best attempt at transcribing what’s happened since the end of October. After Australia, I flew to Chiang Mai so I could attend the lantern festivals again this year and to await the arrival of Becca and her brother Michael. You may remember Becca from our fun adventures through Chile last year. Becca had allotted…
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Phuket Vegetarian Festival (a.k.a. HOLY FUCKING SHIT)
Where to start with this one? The story of my attendance at this festival actually goes back almost a year. During my last trip through Southeast Asia, I had read about the vegetarian festival, but after it had already happened. Once I learned more about what happened there and saw some photos from it, I immediately put it on my list of things to see if I was back in Thailand at the right time. Conveniently, my last wedding obligation of the summer was only a couple weeks before the start of the festival, so I took it as a…
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HK ‘N BKK
It’s not lost on me that the two cities I visited initially are currently epicenters of political friction. Admittedly, Thailand has been quiet lately since the junta has oppressed the country into mostly silence, but not long ago there were large, loud, and violent protests all over Bangkok. And as I write this, Hong Kong is under siege by “Occupy Central” protesters looking to send a pro-democracy message to China by stalling business downtown. Luckily for me, the timing of my trip avoided all of this, so I was able to enjoy both places without any logistical headaches caused by…
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Thailand Once More
Krabi and Koh Lanta Before returning to Chiang Mai to finish my work for Bebee, I decided to take a quick holiday in southern Thailand, namely Krabi and Koh Lanta. Krabi is a smaller, fairly authentic Thai city that largely serves as a gateway for tourists to some of the southern islands. Due to the timing of my flights and the ferry schedule, I had to stay a night on the mainland before heading out to the island of Koh Lanta. Krabi was entirely pleasant, though it’s not much of a tourist destination by itself since it doesn’t have a…
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Chiang Mai Part III
Good god, has it been three months since my last post? Chiang Mai has been very busy for me, to the point where I didn’t have the time or mental capacity to sit down and write about it. It’s a story with two very different chapters, so here goes wrapping up the last 90 days. After the magazine internship ended, several of my FFA friends were still in town, so the rest of the year was filled with various fun activities and not much work (yet). From what I can remember and from what I have in my photo albums,…
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Chiang Mai Part II
As with my last post, I have to apologize for going so long between updates. Between working at Citylife and spending time with FFA friends, I have had zero time for anything else. The fact that I remembered to jot down notes of what I’ve been up to is impressive to me. Let’s backtrack to three Mondays ago, when Lindsey, my fellow magazine intern, and I went to the night safari outside of town to do some preliminary investigation on a possible story. The story didn’t happen as there were other higher priority things to be done, so it really…
