It’s official. I’m out on the road now.
Halfway around the world, to be exact.
As I write this, I’m sitting at a big, open wooden table in Vietnam, at a place that is half hostel, half straight-up Irish pub.
I'm currently 4 countries in on this big, year-long adventure, but what I really wanna talk about today is my FIRST leg of the trip...
Thailand.
As a very brief refresher for those just jumping in here, I’m going to be spending 2019 on the road -- learning, exploring, connecting, and seeing the world. My youngest sister Hannah (who dropped out of school for a semester to travel) will be with me through May. She originally wanted to study abroad in SE Asia, but then realized she could travel ALL OVER that area (instead of being confined to one place) for 3 months instead and way less than what study abroad would cost her. So she and I will be traveling together for my stint through SE Asia.
My other sister, Brittany, got married last October and really wanted to come visit me/us once or twice this year. Since much of the thrust of this big, year-long journey is to be FLUID and not really plan much… it put her in a little bit of a pickle as far as figuring out where and when she might catch us in country “x.” So she and her new husband, Aaron, decided to come out with us to our first destination (since we had know where we were going to be then, haha) and see us off.
We decided on Thailand.
The four of us (Hannah, Brit, and Aaron, and I) left the apartment at 4:00 AM on January 18th, and headed to the Minneapolis airport.
We knew that there may be some delays with security (with the government shut down and all), but weren’t ultimately sure what to expect. We walked into airport and saw a line. Not bad, we thought. Well, we walked a bit further and kept tracing that same line around corner after corner, bend after bend, until we were LITERALLY TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT. I’m not kidding. We were literally FEET from the other security line going to the other terminal. I thought we were going to miss our flight for sure, but luckily, despite its length -- the line seemed to be moving pretty fast. We successfully made it through security, and boarded around 6:15 AM.
Our flight itinerary included a short hop to Chicago (1 hour), one lonnnnng flight to South Korea (14 hours), then a final leg to Bangkok (6 hours). With layovers in between we had prepared ourselves for a 27-30 hour travel day, start to finish. The flight honestly wasn’t terrible with 4 people. We had two rows of two-seaters, all to ourselves near the back of the plane, which kind of gave us our own little area (with extra leg room) to claim as our own. We played cards, read books, watched movies, laughed and slept A LOT. Honestly, the 14 hours leg wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. I’d really LIKE to think that’s because I’m a total badass and can endure anything, but yeah… it’s much more likely the flight felt short because of the excellent company was enduring it all with.
We arrived -- delirious AF -- in Bangkok at 9 PM on Saturday, the 19th.
I wanted to celebrate our momentus arrival and capture the moment, but my travel mates were less enthused.
We tried to take out some local currency at the ATM, hailed a cab, then showered and crashed as soon as we got to our hotel.
It’s laughable to recount now, but SOMEONE (cough, cough Aaron) thought it would be a great idea to board another flight literally 12 hours later. So, we took cab back to the airport and headed for the coast. From there, we took a short ferry out to the Phi Phi Islands. Brit really wanted some fresh air, so we decided to sit on the upper deck of the boat. Seemed like a good idea at the time, until we got to our hotel and realized we had gotten TOTALLY FRIED. I’m not talking any Joe-Shmoe sunburn. Hannah and I had gotten so sunburned in a friggen one-hour ferry ride in MODERATE TEMPERATURES that we had to wear t-shirts and a hat to the beaches for the next 3 days.
Hannah was still recovering (read: peeling) three weeks later in Laos.
Needless to say, we severely underestimated what an hour at the equator will do to upper Midwest, Scandinavian skin.
Whatever. It peeled, and we’re fine now. Moving on.
Phi Phi was a cool island town -- much of what you’d probably expect. Beach. Party. Food. Lots of tourists. The best part of this section of our trip was waking up early to have coffee at this SUPER cute little shop on the beach, followed closely by our longboat cruise out to some other islands to swim and snorkel for the day. The water was a crazy shade of bright blue… and was salty AF. I think a few of us ended drinking too much of it while swimming and ended up feeling sick later.
(This was obviously on accident, don’t judge…. we CAN swim...)
After 2 days in Phi Phi (which was enough of beach party scene for me...), we headed out on the ferry back to Krabi -- back to the mainland. We hit Railey Beach that day, watched the sunset, and then showered and headed out for dinner later that evening.
For those of you who don’t know us all that well --- the Cochlin girls like to eat.
I mean… we’re really into food.
So Brit had conducted some extensive research about where we should go to eat that night, and we set out, on foot, to track down a good restaurant. Well long story short, we proceeded to find each one of them through some dark, poorly lit alleyway -- only to be told that they were full for the evening. After walking for what seemed 16 hours (okay, I’m exaggerating but when you’re hungry it feels like that), we made our way down another alley that seemed to have a decent amount of people-traffic.
Ladies and gentlemen… WE FOUND OUR FOOD MECCA.
We had stumbled upon a huge night-market with tons of food stands all arranged in a big horse-shoe shape, with a ton of tables and chairs seemingly strewn all about in the middle. We all took turns, one by one, getting up from our highly coveted seats to go buy a few dishes and bring them back to the group to share. This was, in retrospect, the BEST FOOD we had in all of Thailand. We tried EVERYTHING, and all together, it only ended up costing a few bucks for each of us. Super cheap, super delicious. One of the best parts of the trip.
<< *I wish I had pics of our epic meal here, but this was a leg of the trip I decided to rarely carry/have my phone on me…. sorry fam. >>
We received free breakfast at our hotel the next morning and nearly peed our pants (not joking) when we saw there was SALAD at the buffet. Hey -- don’t get me wrong-- I’ve been loving the food here, and it still feels, on the whole, healthier than eating out all the time in the US. But GOOD GOD I miss fresh vegetables and giant-ass salads. The hotel staff graciously restocked the salad bar three times during the hour we were at breakfast, and we were definitely appreciative of it.
Shortly after breakfast, we took off for Khao Sok National Park.
AKA -- the jungle.
We pulled into the national park, checked in to our little hut / cottage / room / whatevertheheckthatwas, and immediately went to go get some food. We needed to fuel up before our jam-packed afternoon with elephants. Let me tell you: I had an idea in my head about what an elephant would be like up close, but honestly -- when you see one in real life, it’s a totally different thing. I understand, logically, how big they are, but in real life -- they’re crazy big. It’s shocking. There was 6 of us total (the four of us, plus a super cute French couple), which made for a pretty cool experience since it was such a small group. We fed Sinu (the female elephant we were with all afternoon) some sugar cane, gave her a mud bath, and walked around the sanctuary with her.
We ended up making friends (go figure...) with the French couple that was on our excursion and meeting them for drinks later. We talked about politics, rock and roll, student debt, taxes, the inherent beauty of the French language, whether or not French people call them “French” fries or just “fries”, and if they got a 3 week, FREE, all-expenses paid vacation -- where they’d pick to visit in America.
(I was totally bummed when they picked Vegas...)
Later that night, we walked to this other resort that had some sort of network of suspended treehouse-like structures all connected by (shakey) metal bridges. We timidly walked up a metal, super steep, spiral staircase to get up to one of the first towers. I’m not the biggest fan of heights, and apparently neither is “Jungle Aaron” (who’s idea this whole thing was) or Hannah -- but Brittany on the other hand kept basically running around this (seemly unsafe) infrastructure, which proceeded to make the whole thing shake CONSTANTLY.
(Yayyyyyyyy…...)
We eventually made it to the top, and were able to see for miles and miles into the National Park.
The view definitely made the death-climb #worthit.
The next day we left early in the morning for a overnight excursion on Cheow Lan Lake. As someone who hails from the Land of 10,000 lakes and has spent most of my life in and around the Great Lakes in the US -- I feel like I know lakes pretty well. But this lake was unlike anything I’d ever seen. As I understand it, Cheow Lan is a manmade lake that they created basically for transit purposes to boost the local economy, mostly to the benefit of local farmers. They purposefully flooded the area -- which now totals over 70 square miles.
We headed out on a long boat to tour the lake, and made our way to our camp for the night. We were told we’d be sleeping on a “raft.” None of us really had a clue what that meant, but we were game anyway.
We pulled up to find that the “rafts” were actually small thatch huts on the rim of the lake, connected by a big dock. No fan, no A/C -- but you could get a nice breeze if you opened the windows on both sides. We had some free time to swim and kayak -- then had dinner in the community area which was basically this other “raft” with a giant roof over it.
Dinner boasted a variety of local dishes, but my favorites were a whole (and I mean whole) deep fried fish with a sweet and spicy chili sauce, and a pumpkin curry over white sticky rice.
Our excursion out to the Lake was the 4
of us, plus 3 other Americans our age, which was was super fun. We all became quick friends. (Again, big surprise...). One of them very casually mentioned that she worked for NASA, another one had just finished up graduate school in computer science at Penn, and the last one was a traveling nurse who takes major international travel stints in between assignments to see the world. Yeah, I know… impressive. They were super, super nice and really funny. And honestly, there was a type of kinship that’s tough to describe, seeing and hanging out with fellow Americans.
(When we were in Krabi, we ran into a pair of women travelers outside one of the restaurants we tried to get into, who politely informed us we would need reservations to get in -- and I’m pretty sure ALL of our eyes lit up when we heard their -- seemingly “normal” for us -- Midwest, American accent).
I woke up early the next morning to write and read along the lake in the community area. The sun hadn’t risen yet, so it was still pretty dark out. (#morningpeople). There were two other people up and at it in the community area -- men who I pieced together, were on some sort of fishing expedition and had just stayed the one night. Our guide had told us there was coffee available 24 hours a day, so I mosied over to the area I thought he had pointed to the day before. In front of me were about 15 big, colored thermoses. So I grabbed a cup, opened one of the thermoses, and poured some into my cup -- only to realize that it was just hot water. I sheepishly looked around (confirmed that no one was watching) and then pitched my cup of hot water into the lake. I proceeded to open and pour from four more thermoses, only to find hot water in each and every one of them.
By this time, one of the fisherman guys that I mentioned before came up alongside me, presumably to grab some more hot water? I tried to watch what he was doing from the corner of my eye, but then, in a moment of impatience, just turned and said “hey -- I think there’s supposed to be coffee over here -- do you know where it is?” Seemingly a bit confused, he pointed to a clear canister of brown grounds on the shelf above all the colored thermoses and said “yeah, it’s right here...” in a thick German accent.
At this point, I’m slightly embarrassed -- in large part because that feels painfully obvious and I can’t believe I missed that, and partly because I now realize how handsome this German man is.
I must’ve still looked confused because he proceeded to demonstrate by pouring hot water into his cup and then lifting two heaping spoonfuls of the brown stuff into his cup, then stirring it in.
“Oh my God, it’s instant!” I exclaimed.
“Whoa, cool -- I’ve never had instant coffee before...”
(Real life. I seriously LOVE coffee, but am not a total snob about it --- I've just never had instant. Sue me....)
The handsome German man laughed. And not the I’m-laughing-WITH-you kind of laugh.
Honestly, I had to laugh at myself too.
I made my coffee, and walked back to my spot to read and write as the sun came up over the water.
We went on a hike in the jungle later that day, and by hike I mean -- we were literally climbing on all fours, up slippery vertical rocks and, at times, clung to vines hanging from trees as leverage to pull ourselves up.
This was not an average hike.
Gorgeous! But not average...
We left Khao Sok later that day, and headed to the closest airport to fly back to Bangkok for the last few days of the Thailand stint with Brit and Aaron. We were staying in Chinatown (which apparently is one of the largest in the world...) at this super cute, boutique hotel.
All I really remember of that night was that all of us were really excited to shower and see a real toilet.
We ate street food in Chinatown that night, and hit the hay early for a big day of temples and markets the following day.
The next morning, Brit and I woke up early to have coffee together and then once the Sleeping Beauties (Aaron and Hannah) woke up, we took a cab to Chatuchak Market.
This is the world's largest and most diverse weekend market, with over 200,000 visitors every weekend. If you’re thinking to yourself -- whoa, I bet that’s big and slightly overwhelming and overrun with tourists! …. you’d be right.
Most of the stalls are clothing or product shops -- and though I was personally less interested in those things ( since I can’t take much more with me) Brit and Aaron found a few souvenirs and Hannah bought a cute purse.
We ate our weight in chicken wings, crispy fried pork belly, and all kinds of local fruit that was insanely cheap.
We stayed at the market for just over 5 hours, and were understandably exhausted when we got back to our hotel. We napped for an hour or so in the A/C, then hit the rooftop bar at our hotel for a drink or two before dinner. Earlier that day, Brit had said (and I quote): “I NEED VEGETABLES ASAP.”
The food has been amazing, but it has mostly consisted of meat and rice, with a few vegetables here and there. So Brit spent some time that afternoon looking up a few places we could maybe get some veg-heavy fare. She settled on a place called “Broccoli Revolution.”
I’m not kidding.
So we took a cab to this fancy mall that looked like something straight out of the movie “Crazy Rich Asians”, and walked upstairs to the nicest food court-type area I’ve ever seen in my life. We paid like $8 each for this meal (which I realize is not expensive in the US, but is hella expensive for food here), but got a shmorgesboard of options to choose from. #worthit
We left dinner and headed to another rooftop bar that apparently overlooked the entire city. We decided to hoof it, which proved to be a really interesting experience considering there’s rarely a sidewalk on these very narrow roads, and we seemed to be dodging taxis, trucks, and a brigade of motorcycles constantly. We finally arrived at the hotel the bar was at, took the elevator up to the 14th floor, and walked out to some swanky bar, rave music bumping so loud you could barely hear yourself think. None of us were that enthused to be there at this point, but we chuckled and relented because of the harrowing trek we had embarked on to get there.
We, reluctantly, paid $10 for a mojito (#notworthit) and squeezed our way into the only free corner of the rooftop that wasn’t totally crowded. We all pretended (albeit poorly...) to have a good time and snap a few photos of impressive city skyline of Bangkok. Overall… that’s not really our scene, but it was fun to check out the view!
The next morning, I woke up early to read and journal, and when everyone was eventually up -- we decided to go to local floating market that we heard was more low-key and food-forward then Chatuchak.
Taling Chan Market was MUCH more our scene. Quieter, less crowded, more local, and way more food than clothes or products. We tried a ton of new dishes (our favorite was a thin, crispy omelet of sorts that had spiced, ground pork and vegetables in it), and enjoyed our last morning together.
Post-market we set out for some local temples.
At most temples, you’re required to cover shoulders (no tank tops), and your knees, and often, ankles (wear long pants). We went to The Grand Palace first, but they turned Brit away because her pants were too short. She ran across the street to by a sarong to throw over her jumpsuit (her outfit, at this point looked amazing…). We were permitted to enter through the main gate, but then were eventually met by ticket office where we understood the price of entrance to be just over $15 a person, and we quickly decided that we didn’t care $15 worth to go in. We then walked a few blocks to the temple we could see a huge golden, lying Buddha. We paid a small entrance fee into the temple (it came with a free bottled water!) walked around the premise for awhile, until we eventually stumbled upon the building everyone seemed to be coming in and out of. You see pictures of this thing, and it looks big, but when you see it in-person -- it seems larger than life. The whole thing is brushed with gold, and is housed in this building that’s BARELY bigger than the statue itself -- which I’m sure adds to the illusion of its grandeur.
We left the temple and headed back to our hotel so we could eat (go figure) and Brit and Aaron could shower before their long flight home.
I got a little emotional during lunch after realizing they were really leaving. I mean, I knew they’d eventually leave us, but I guess I hadn’t really thought much about it until it was actually real. To clarify -- I’m not scared about this upcoming year and I’m not anxious. I’m not. I think I got emotional because just love them so much and was just sad to see them go. We’d had SO MUCH FUN together.
We all gave big hugs, shed a few tears, and piled into separate cabs -- Brit and Aaron to the airport, and Hannah and I in route to our next adventure: our very first experience at a hostel.
Now… I don’t know who of you all have stayed in hostels before, but if it was anytime before the last 5-10 years… yeah -- they’re different now. I’m pretty sure my mother thought we were planning to stay in run-down, dirty bunk rooms with mold all over the shower, where everyone is constantly vying to steal all of your stuff. Actually, I think this is a lot of people’s (dated) idea of what a hostel is.
I’m here to tell you... per our (albeit, limited) experience at this point, this description (for the most part) couldn’t be further from the truth.
We stayed at Yak House Hostel, which was basically a glorified hotel -- but maybe better. The kind man at the front desk showed us to our room (two big fluffy beds with clean, white linens, accessible only by keycard access), informed us that there was 24/7 security and support at the front desk, pointed us to the laundry room, showed us the comprehensive kitchen and coffee shop next door, and provided us snacks.
NOW THAT’S ACCOMMODATION!
We stayed up late that night, FaceTimed our mom and dad, did our laundry, and researched flights for our cousin, Dominique -- who is visiting us in North Vietnam and India in early March.
The next day I woke up early for some work calls back in America, read and wrote a bit, and crushed two, large Americanos.
(DYK: this coffee drink is called an Americano because during WWII, American soldiers over in Europe would water down their espresso in an attempt to make it taste more like the drip coffee they were used to back home?)
We went down to Khao San Road to explore and snag some lunch. Khao San is also known as “backpackers alley” and is basically a long stretch of road dedicated to bars, eateries, and lots and lots of touristy shops. Apparently this place is pretty much a straight RAVE at night.
So we (obviously) went at 11 am.
We decided to play rest of the day/night pretty low-key, as we were eager to get some R&R from our whirlwind adventure with Brit and Aaron.
We wanted something quick and easy to eat for dinner, and joked about the McDonalds a block away. (It’s absolutely hilarious to me that McDonalds locations -- and other American fast food joints for that matter-- abroad are like straight PALACES abroad). I’ve rationalized that visiting a McDonalds’ abroad is good “field research” for me -- to see (and intake) American fast food abroad. So we went. Duh.
Notable observations: (1) they have regular ketchup but also offer some sort of chili, spicier ketchup too that most people seem to prefer; (2) some entrees get physical plates; (3) the hamburger meat (and cheese) looks questionable.
We ordered spicy chicken sandwiches and a large fry. I’m not ashamed to admit that I THOROUGHLY enjoyed every bite of this meal.
Our last night in Thailand, we had planned to stay with friend of a friend, who lived just outside Bangkok. One of my favorite restaurants in Madison, Ha Long Bay, is owned by a guy (and his family) named Peter. Apparently I’m there so often (or maybe I’m just that damn talkative) that Peter and I have become pretty close. He invited me (and my entire family!) to his son’s graduation, and he always -- ALWAYS-- takes really good care of me and my friends or family whenever we come in. Long story short, he not only gave me incredibly thoughtful parting gifts for my journey, but also connected us to his niece, Sonjai, who lives in Bangkok. I had been messaging Sonjai on Facebook to arrange a meet-up, and despite the broken English, we were able to arrange a time for us to go stay with her. We took a cab out to her place (which ended up being a condo in a gated community), and were met with big hugs and some of the most generous hospitality I’ve ever experienced. She order Thai food from her favorite local place, made us homemade “buttercake”, and served us coconut ice cream. We FaceTimed with her husband who was out of town for work, and then she turned on an American movie channel and proceeded -- for the next 45 minutes -- to try to change the audio to English, just for our viewing pleasure. We watched the remake of Romeo and Juliet -- where Leo Dicaprio is like 12 years old -- and it. was. awesome.
The next morning we woke up at 4:30 AM and caught a cab to the airport, to get to Laos.
And that’s where this (long) chapter is gonna end, folks.
More from my Year of Adventure coming soon.
Next stop: Laos.
xoxo -- LC
Things I learned in Thailand:
Making plans with 4 people on vacation can be challenging (even when you really, really love each other)
I love toilet paper (some bathrooms don’t have it in Thailand)
I love shower curtains (bathrooms are called “wet bathrooms” in Asia because the shower is literally inches from the toilet, and when you shower… the entire bathroom gets wet)
Connecting with total strangers is intoxicating (but I already knew I felt that way)
Locals or fellow travelers are really eager to help you find your way
Learning to say “hello” and “thank you” in the local language seems to mean a lot to the people who live there
I love nature more than cities (already knew that)
I’m still a morning person, despite a 13 hour time difference
Drinking just isn’t worth it for me, unless I really love it (Chang blows… I miss IPAs…)
Nobody runs or seems to care at all about working out here (#sadface)
Most coffee shops open much later here than US (honestly, who the hell waits till 8 am to drink coffee???)
Creating space to be alone in the morning to read, journal, and reflect (my usual morning routine) makes me an objectively BETTER HUMAN BEING and does wonders patience level throughout the day.... :)
Best Food:
Night market fare (Au Nang)
Crispy pork belly and deep fried chicken wings (Chatuchak Market)
That one omelet-thing with spiced, ground pork and fresh herbs (Taling Chan Floating Market)
Pumpkin curry with sticky rice, and whole, deep fried fish w/ sweet chili sauce (Khao Sok National Park)
Best Run:
N/A -- I didn't run or workout the entire time I was in Thailand
Best Coffee:
Instant. Early morning, in our hotel in Bangkok. With Brittany.
(not because of the coffee, but because of the company I shared it with...)
Thank you for taking me along your journey. I really enjoyed reading every line and am inspired to journal. Looking forward to what's next. Have fun, enjoy every day!