We jumped right in to experiencing the local cuisine as Julie downs the juice and innards of a fresh coconut.
We made it to Bangkok! After over 23 hours on planes (which all went smoothly) we landed in Thailand with temperatures well into the 90’s. We were immediately thrust into the hustle and bustle of busy city Asian life. Bangkok is happening, with a huge population, a major urban setting, and plenty of smiling faces to welcome us. We knew within the first few hours of landing that this is exactly what we were looking for.
While Thailand is a big meat eating place where everything seems to taste a little fishy (fish sauce is a main ingredient here), we have found the vegan hotspots already and are loving the food here. (This meal for two also only cost a little over 3 dollars!)
We spent the first 2.5 months of 2013 primarily east of the Mississippi and above the Mason-Dixon. For the two of us, having not had much in the way of cold winters for over 10 years, it has been a little rough. Motivation for running plummeted and our desire for new learning experiences began growing stronger by the day. With that in mind, we sought out a place either on the equator or south of it in order to get back to summer, and we looked for a place that would be challenging in both its unfamiliarity and its newness. After a little deliberation and some input from our traveler friends, Thailand was the final decision.
This place is packed! There are so many people, cars, and life in this city; it’s exciting and a bit exhausting at the same time.
Our decision was also motivated in another way by our friends. Along with those that encouraged us to visit this part of the world, we also have some wonderful friends that provide us with travel perks. Karla works for Delta and she graciously has passed on flying discounts to us. While we have these available, we feel like we should use them to their utmost abilities by going about as far as we can possibly fly. This is true not only because of the lower prices, but also the possibility of flying first class. Basically, if seats are available on a plane, we can get them, whether those seats are coach or first class. How could we not travel?! It worked out that we both sat in first class from Cincinnati to San Francisco and then from San Francisco to Tokyo. We didn’t get first class from Tokyo to Bangkok but we did get an entire row of four seats to ourselves in coach that afforded us the opportunity of laying down and sleeping fairly comfortably for the final 7 hours of our trip.
Within two days, we have found the running center in town through K and his wife. They run a vegan restaurant near where we’re staying and they also are part of nearly every running group in the city. We’re so fortunate to meet good people everywhere we go.
We also have Jed. In looking at potential layovers, getting stuck in San Francisco was one of our favorite options and it happened to work out that we had an overnight layover in SF. We had time to get some of our favorite Indian food with our good friend Jed and sit up for a few hours catching up before crashing for the night.
The streets are packed with all sorts of vendors and food carts. New smells, new experiences, and new perspectives; some of the major benefits of challenging the status quo and being a little uncomfortable.
So with all those cards aligning, we felt pretty well obliged to go to Thailand. Funny thing is, while we knew we were going, we never actually did any planning, and we did very little research apart from finding out what the weather was like in Thailand this time of year (hot, humid, and not rainy season). We literally got off the airplane at midnight in Bangkok without a hotel and without a plan. Thus the adventure of living a challenging, unfamiliar life that forces us to think on our toes and problem solve began anew as we scouted out a trusty hotel and taxi guy to get us out of the airport and into our Thailand adventure.