After almost three weeks of wandering around Thailand, eating amazing food and getting some alone time with my lovely Eva, I’m back on Guam and back here at Zen Habits!
While I had an amazing time in Thailand, and truly enjoyed the break from blogging, it’s really great to be back, and I did suffer from blogging withdrawal. Having my daily discussion with all of you turns out to be addicting.
I Fell In Love With Thailand
So I could write a book on Thailand, but I won’t bore you with every last detail. Let’s just say that I really loved Thailand — so much so that actually considered living there for awhile. I spend most of my time in Bangkok, which is just an amazing city, so full of life and activity and incredible restaurants.
Of course, I’m just a small-town bumpkin, hailing as I do from a small tropical island where the capital city has only a few hundred actual residents. So a city like Bangkok, with its 8 million residents, is quite overwhelming for someone like me. My wife and I stared in awe at all the huge buildings, the crowded streets, the intensity of life, when we first entered the city. We spent most of our trip exploring Bangkok, and the more we did so, the more we realized we were only scratching the surface.
We also spent a little less than a week on a small island called Koh Samed, an island whose chief activity is tourism, and where there is nothing else to do but lay on the beach, eat, drink, swim, read, and be merry. We did all of the above, and lots of it. I really loved Koh Samed, and by the time I left the people who served the restaurants at our bungalows knew us for our frequent margarita orders. :) The sand is powdery white, the sea is jade, and the weather was perfect.
Bangkok isn’t so simple to describe, but I’ll offer a few highlights:
- Many of the streets are just filled with tiny stalls and carts, selling everything from clothes to souvenirs to electronics to DVDs to all kinds of Thai foods. The food is excellent. The DVDs are not.
- Bangkok has not only a big river going down the middle of it, but also numerous canals that until recent decades were one of the main thoroughfares of the city. We took a slow motorboat tour (just the two of us driven by an elderly gentleman) and saw some very interesting views of the city, missed by many tourists, though the canals.
- Bangkok is such an international city, and this is reflected in the people (every kind of language and accent fill the air) and in the wonderful food. We sample various kinds of Thai restaurants (from the fancy to the working-class diners) along with all kinds of European, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern food and more.
- Great shopping, from luxury malls to gigantic outdoor markets to MBK, which can only be described as a cross between a mall and an outdoor market.
- The people are so interesting, from the overly friendly touts trying to get us to go places for lots of money, to the many nice people we met who are very generous when you show an interest in their country and culture.
Again, I could go on and on, but let’s just say I had an incredible time.
Most of all, I missed my six kids. We were heartbroken to be away from them for so long. We’re really babies when it comes to being separated from our babies. We actually cried for them on a few occasions.
Back to Zen Habits
I rarely got a chance to check in with Zen Habits while I was gone, as I didn’t take a laptop and only used the Internet every 3-5 days. But from what I’ve seen, everyone was very understanding of my absence, so thank you for your patience!
I’ve just started going through all your comments of the last several weeks, and it looks like it’ll take me quite awhile. But I’m looking forward to it! The “Ask the Readers” features, in particular, look like they’re filled with amazing input from all of you. So thank you for that!
I’m doing a lot of catch-up right now, with email and comments and administrative tasks, as well as with my house (we did a massive grocery trip today) and other errands. I’m also doing a bunch of revisions to my book manuscript.
However, I’ll be checking in as often as I can, so feel free to ask questions about my trip or the blog — I’ll do my best to answer, though if I don’t, please forgive me! :)
I’m glad to be back!