Poor Transportation Choice?

Happy Monday!

It is mid afternoon in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Motorcycle Rental

My theory of going back to the motorcycle rental place Monday morning after the weekend proved to be fruitful.  They had lots of motorcycles including three 150cc’s.  By the time we left there was only one left because another guy rented one right after we did.

Blaise is a motorcycle guy from way back.  He rode one as a teenager and until he had his first child (at age 23). Blaise is also a safety kind of guy so I felt comfortable with the motorcycle rental choice. 

We wanted to rent a motorcycle here because we thought it would be a fun, easy way to get around that wouldn’t cost as much as using Grab all the time or renting a car.  They don’t have the comprehensive public transportation here that Bangkok has.

We arrived at Mango Scooter rental about 9:20. They opened at 9 AM.  We selected our motorcycle and two helmets, then we were on our way.

We are toddling along in lots of traffic on our way to gas (the gas light was on when we drove off), getting a feel for the bike and enjoying the wind in our helmets.  They have lots of motorcycles here so when you are stopped at a light, there are tons of them with and around you.  We had been driving for less than 10 minutes (maybe 5 minutes) and we had been waiting at a light for at least a couple of minutes (it was a looooong light) when it all happened.

We are in the far right lane to turn right - remember they drive on the left side of the road here so this is like a left turn back home - when we hear a crunch off to our left. Then, in the lane next to us, two motorcycles go sliding by us on the ground and on their sides and into the intersection (barely into the intersection).  Another guy on a motorcycle with 3 tanks of some sort of fuel attached to each side, slid by us on the left, grazing Blaise’s left leg (no injury) but stopping upright directly in front of us.  Stopping just behind the two guys on the motorcycles that crashed into the intersection was a black Volvo.

The Volvo, for reasons unknown, hit (from behind) one or both of the motorcycles that ended up crashed in the intersection.  I never did see one of the riders get up but the other one was clearly injured where his leg was under the bike as it slid across the pavement.  Both walked away but the one was hobbling fairly badly.  He was a young kid, probably in his 20s.

The Volvo driver was an elderly man.  I will not call him a gentleman, because he was not.  He got out of his car, stood next to the car for a few seconds before he went to the front of his car to check for damage.  Then he got on his phone but we never saw him check on the guys on the motorcycles that he hit.  His lack of concern for anything other than his car was appalling!  And frankly, he didn’t seem that concerned about his car.

Best we can speculate is Volvo guy’s foot slipped off the brake and onto the gas?  Or he wasn’t paying attention well enough and thought the light turned green?

Not even 10 minutes riding that motorcycle!  Ten minutes!

This shook us both.  There but by the grace of God! And we aren’t young tots.  Something like that would have been way worse for us than someone in their 20s.

After the accident, we got the gas in our motorcycle and on the way back, the Volvo was gone but they were still wrapping up the cleanup from the accident.

We went home and parked the motorcycle and walked to breakfast.

We are 3 hours from the accident that happened right next to us and we are still debating if we want to keep the motorcycle, return it, or even ride it at all, other than to return it.  We don’t know what we are going to do.  We have debated keeping it and just staying on side-roads and off major thoroughfairs.  I doubt since we signed a contract, they would consider giving us our money back for the remaining days so we may just eat the cost.  We decided to mull over our options for a day or two after the scariness wears off a bit so we are processing with less emotion.  Will we feel the same in the morning?  I don’t know.

We have also wondered if that was God warning us “Hey, don’t ride this motorcycle; it’s not safe.”

We can be as safe as we possibly can be, but we could have never prevented that Volvo from hitting us had we been the ones in front of it.

Right now, I’m blaming Dana who texted me last week “What could go wrong with renting a motorcycle in Thailand?”

You have an experienced motorcycle rider and one who has maybe been on one 3 times for short distances who are both questioning this choice of transportation.

Blaise at our stop for gas after the accident.  Might be the last picture of either of us on or near that motorcycle.

AirBnB Update

Our host felt badly about our not having water for a couple of days (about 12 hours one day and about 5 hours the other) so he offered us a refund so we could find another place to stay.  A pretty stand-up offer but we declined.  What a pain to have to find a new place, then pack up and move.

Other than the couple days without water, it’s been a nice stay.  We love the location and the condo is perfectly fine.

And we are both sleeping fairly well here.  That may be because what stress at this point in our lives do we have?

Rooftop Bar

Last night we spent some time at a rooftop bar about a 10 minute walk from our condo.  It was a lovely bar with a swimming pool and a big elephant sculpture on the 8th floor of a hotel .  I had what is my new favorite drink, passion fruit amaretto sour.  OMG, it was delicious!  We had a beautiful 360 view of the city lights with a crescent moon and a brief unexpected fireworks display.  

The beautiful elephant sculpture at the rooftop bar.  You can see his reflection in the pool at the bottom.  The line bisecting the elephant is the light running across the top of the Plexiglas separating her from the pool.

Guy in the Park

Yesterday morning, we went to the park that is about a 20 minute walk from our condo.  While sitting there, an older man (older than Blaise or me - appeared to be in his 70s) sat near us and struck up a conversation.  Turns out he was a Canadian who lived for a while in Oregon.  He came here from Turkey, where he had lived for 5 years but got kicked out because some employee of his screwed up some immigration/customs paperwork.  Now he is going back to Canada in a couple of months in hopes of later starting a business in Wyoming. 

We chatted with him for probably an hour and a half but never got his name.  Best of luck Canadian Guy In The Park!

Condensed Milk

I just have to mention this in case I some day forget:  The Thai people love condensed milk.  We in the US call it sweetened condensed milk, but they just call it condensed milk.  They put it in lots of beverages, drizzle it on things like toast (which is delicious by the way), and they make a slew of sweet treats with it.  I approve of their use of condensed milk in sweet treats, but not as much in drinks.

What Year Is It?

Did you know it is not 2025 in Thailand?  It is 2568.  Thailand uses the Buddhist Era Calendar to determine their year, rather than the Gregorian Calendar.  The starting point for the Buddhist calendar is the death of Gautama Buddha, which is believed to have happened in 544 BC based on our Gregorian calendar.

While Thai New Year’s Day (Songkran) is celebrated on April 13th, the calendar year actually moves forward on January 1st.

I had no idea, until we visited Thailand, that other countries might have a different year than we do. Did you?

This Week

This week, we are going to do a guided tour to Chiang Rai to see three temples, a hot spring, and a village where it is customary for women to put rings around their necks to stretch them.  It is an 11 hour tour so we will be gone all day.  Not sure what day we are going to do that but hope to get that scheduled for this week.

Now I am off to wash our sheets so we can have a nice, clean, fresh-smelling bed to hop into tonight.  See, even when you travel, you still have to do chores.

Chiang Mai, Thailand - Week One

 Hello from beautiful Chiang Mai!

Today is Saturday, November 22 - Blaise’s birthday!

We have been in Chiang Mai for a week now.  I really like it.  I think it is too soon for a definitive thought.

Chiang Mai, Thailand is very different from Bangkok.  It is a slower, less hectic pace.  It also seems more touristy.  There are lots of tourists, digital nomads, or expats here.  It’s hard to tell which are which but you know they are not native to this area. You can include us in that mix

Accommodations

We are staying in the trendy hipster neighborhood of Chiang Mai, Nimman.  It is not intentional being in the hipster part of Chiang Mai - totally happenstance.  We got a good price on an AirBnB that we liked the look of and that ticked all of our boxes so we booked it.

What are our boxes, you may ask?

• Guest Favorite in AirBnB

• Clean

• Safe area for travelers - we do some research on the area of town when we find a place we like.

• Queen bed or bigger (this one has a king)

• I prefer the reviews that say the bed is comfy but that doesn’t always work out.

• Kitchenette

• Clothes washer in the AirBnB or very nearby (In this case, we have washers and dryers downstairs for 50 baht each (approximately $1.54).

• A clothes dryer is nice but not necessary since we have found many countries don’t use dryers; they just air dry.

• Hair dryer

• A private bathroom that is not one of those wet bathrooms where there is no delineation for the shower versus the rest of the bathroom so you get water everywhere including on the toilet.  There is just something about the toilet being part of the shower area that is yucky for me.

• We steer clear of places where the reviews say there are hot water problems.

• AIR CONDITIONING!!! If it is a colder locale, the place must have a heater.

• A TV (although we have booked without one for the right situation - we can still stream on the Chromebook)

• If we are going to stay there for several weeks, we prefer it not be a studio - we would rather have a separate bedroom.  We don’t always get this but we try.

• Reasonably priced - this is location and season dependent.  What is reasonable in Chiang Mai, might mean you are in a by-the-hour-hotel in London.

Our go-to apps/services are booking.com and AirBnB.  We will explore other options from time to time, but we go to these first.  If the stay is a month, we try to use AirBnB since some stays will give you a discount if you stay a month or more.  If it is less than a month, we open up to booking.com.

Anywho, we really like the Nimman area.  Lots of bars and restaurants to choose from and many services - hair, nails, massage.  We have a grocery store just a few blocks from our condo and many options for coffee.  There is even a place across the street from the grocery store called Mother Cows that has fresh milk.  I love me some ice cold milk!  That’s probably weird to many folks but there is nothing more comforting and delicious than a glass of ice cold milk!

Hipster Blaise.  This is in a square in the middle of a shopping area.  The guy in the background is singing Another Brick in the Wall.  Very hip.  It's hipster to say "hip," right?

We are about a 30-minute walk from the old town area and 15 minutes from a park.

We have an ice cream shop across the street from the condo building and I am happy to report I have only been there once.  If I’m being honest, we did try to go on Thursday too, but it is closed Thursdays.

The AirBnB itself is comfortable, However, we have had two days (out of 9 days) where we had no water.  Last Saturday and today (Saturday).  The host is very responsive when asked about the situation but water is out for the whole building so there is not much he can do about it.  Last Saturday it was about 8 AM until 6 PM.  We were told a pipe broke.  Today we were told the pipe that was fixed last weekend had another problem but the water should be on by noon.  It is 1:11 PM and we have a trickle.  Last weekend they started putting in new washers and dryers downstairs and Blaise and I both think something happened during their installation preparations.

The bed is a little hard but that isn’t bothering me too much this time around.  I can sleep about 5 hours without waking up and that is a big deal for me.  This was the case in Bangkok too so maybe I’m turning the corner on the whole waking up every 2 hours situation. Maybe.

Motorcycle Rental

We have been trying to rent a motorcycle the past few days.  Blaise says we need a 150cc motorcycle so we can ride in the mountains.  We have had multiple issues with getting one:  No 150cc motorcycle available or no motorcycles at all available or they only rent daily (we want at least 2 weeks).  What we have found out is that this is the high season here, thus the lack of motorcycle availability.  The places that allow you to book online either cost way more than the others or only rent by the day. We gave up for the weekend and will try again on Monday thinking if someone is visiting for the weekend, we will have better luck trying to rent one on a Monday.

When researching motorcycle rental businesses online, I found quite the dichotomy in two of the websites.  The first website I went to had a huge warning about the dangers of motorcycles:

But the second website took a more fun approach to motorcycle rental:

Weather

The weather here is so much more tolerable than Bangkok.  The temps have ranged from the low 60s at night to low to mid 80s during the day.  Midday gets warm but the mornings and evenings are lovely!  Wednesday it rained all day long but that was the only rainy day.

Living in One Place for a Month

When you stay in one location for a month, it is not all about sightseeing every single day.  You have to live.  In addition to sightseeing and exploring where we live, we grocery shop, do laundry, clean, run miscellaneous errands.  Blaise gets his haircut, I get my nails done, get my hair taken care of (color and cut), and avail myself of spa services. I also do a lot of reading and we both watch Netflix.

Tuesday, I got my hair done for the first time while on the road.  For me, this means getting rid of the gray with a root touch-up including cut and style.  My roots turned out a bit red which is odd since my hair is not red.  I am hoping with a few washes, it will turn more brown.  The result is no Shannan or Rachill.  Shannan did my hair for 25 years until she retired and Rachill has been doing my hair for the past few years.  The cost of this was approximately $70.00 including tip.

Places We Want to See

While we are here, our goal is to do and see the following at the minimum:

• Ethical elephant sanctuary

• Doi Inthanon National Park, where the highest mountain in Thailand is located

• Trip to Chiang Rai to see the White, Blue, and Red temples

A couple of the smaller things I want to see (not necessarily Blaise) are the photography center we found on the first day and the botanic gardens.

Next Up

We stay in Chiang Mai until December 15, when we leave for Da Nang Vietnam.  We will spend Christmas and New Year’s there.

Bangkok to Chiang Mai Thailand

 Sawatdii kha! (from Chiang Mai, Thailand)

Today is Sunday, November 16, 2025.  Friday we left Bangkok via air on Thai AirAsia to Chiang Mai, Thailand. 

Last Thoughts on Bangkok

For me, Bangkok was not my thing.  It was much more so for Blaise than me.  I think if it was 20 degrees cooler, I might have liked it better.  I hate the heat and get pretty miserable.  I do not handle heat well and the more I sweat, the crankier I get.  I feel like I went from one hot place to another without the break of at least a Texas winter - from the Texas summer heat to the surface of the sun that is Bangkok.  And this is the cooler time of year for Bangkok.  We were in the high 80s, lower 90s with a heat index ranging from high 90s to well over 100 degrees. Ugh!

The first part of our trip was in the rainy season.  We did not see much rain during that time, but more rain the last part of the Bangkok time.

Bangkok is huge! Google says the 2025 population is 11.4 million.

The skyscrapers seem to go on forever.

Street food is HUGE there.  I was always concerned about the cleanliness of the street food vendors so we did not partake of the literal street food.  In most malls, they have areas that are street foodesque.  They are inside and, according to Blaise, are often subsidized by the government, so they are cheaper than restaurants.  In many cases, you have to buy a card and use the card to buy the food in these areas of the malls.  You get the card from a little kiosk.  You tell them how much money you want on the card, pay them that amount, and they put it on the card.  You then go to any of the stalls/booths, order your food, and pay with the one card.  The great thing about this method that I don’t think they would ever do in the US is, if you don’t want to or can’t use all the money on the card, you take the card back to the kiosk where you bought it and they will give back your money for the unused portion!  I was pleasantly surprised.  I also have to say, I presumed it was a use it or lose it proposition until Blaise told me he saw on a YouTube video that you could get your money back.  We had to do this because we got one for the food court in the Terminal 21 mall and didn’t go back as often as we thought we would when we put money on the card.

I have to be honest here - we did not see some of the big sites in Bangkok - The Grand Palace and a couple of the big temples.  My cough was a problem for a week or so.  (I still have the cough, but it is not near as bad - It is greatly diminished now)  Why didn’t we see them?  The heat.  To see these places, you have to have your knees and shoulders covered.  The thought of wearing pants and a shirt with sleeves in that heat was torturous!  I know that is bad and I should have sucked it up, but I just couldn’t.

The Grand Palace, however, was closed to the public except for the last 5 days we were in Bangkok because of the Queen Mother’s death.

It was great to experience life in the constant busyness that is Bangkok.  Talk about a city that never sleeps!

Movies

Because of the heat, we went to see 2 movies while in Bangkok.  It was also convenient that the movie theater was right next to our train station.  Add to that - it was CHEAP - both of us could see a movie for under $8.00 using their 55 and older discount (for the “happiness of the elderly” as the sign said).

One interesting feature of the movie experience is having to stand after the trailers and before the movie for the “King’s Anthem.”  They show a picture of the king on the screen and play a song.  It is a rather modern-sounding song.  It really didn’t sound like it was some ancient song that had been used for centuries or like a national anthem.  We saw the movies during the day so for the first movie we saw, there was only one other person in the theater.  He stood, so we stood too.  The second movie, we knew what to do!  We stood, but the other person in the theater did not stand.  I just figured, we stand out of respect for their monarchy and don’t risk getting in trouble. Yeah, I’m a rule follower.

The movie theaters here show movies in several languages, from several countries.  We saw that they were showing movies in Thai, Korean, English, and French.

The two movies we saw were Hollywood movies subtitled in Thai:  Good Fortune and Running Man.  Good Fortune was no Oscar contender but was entertaining and made us chuckle from time to time.  It was a nice break. Running Man?  Neither one of us liked it.  Blaise said it was the worst movie he’s seen.  I didn’t like it either.  I thought it was weird but certainly not the worst movie I’ve seen.  I could name a few worse.

Transportation

We mostly rode the BTS - the elevated train.  While we thought the BTS was owned by the city or some sort of government entity, Blaise said he read that it is privately owned.  The cost varied from 30 baht ($0.93) to 94 baht ($2.91) one way for the both of us.  The $2.91 was for a trip where we had to switch lines.  Fairly reasonable.

We only had to use the Metro (subway) one time - to get to and from the flower market.  On that trip, we used the BTS and the metro. I can’t remember the cost for that metro ride.

We used Grab (their version of Uber/Lyft) a few times, including to the airport on Friday - so I (not Blaise because he didn’t care) didn’t have to lug luggage around in the heat.  The 45 minute trip to the airport was $9.50 including tip.

The trains were very well air-conditioned; to the point Blaise’s glasses fogged up as we exited the trains.  I loved that coolness.  He hated it.

In the morning the trains were packed but everyone was very polite about it.  Because the trains’ air conditioning is so good, you never could get hot on the train, no matter how many people were on it.  In the mornings, the trains were so quiet, you could hear a mouse squeak.  People don’t talk on their phones or to each other but everyone is looking at something on their cell phones - watching videos/shorts, scrolling on Facebook, or playing a game.  But no one appeared to be working on their phones or checking e-mail.

The trains were always clean.

General Thailand Observations

• The people here are so polite and kind, with genuine smiles.

• Thailand, particularly Bangkok, loves air-conditioning.  It works well, and businesses keep their places nice and cold.  Too cold if you ask Blaise but a welcome respite from the heat for me.

• Lots and lots of motorcycles, including the Grab motorcycles shuffling people here and there like Uber.

• The motorcycle drivers are crazy, weaving in and out of traffic.

• Everyone seems to take great pride in their work/businesses.  They are always sweeping the outside of their business/parking lot.

• The Thai people are hard workers.  We would get iced coffee and tea from a hut across the street from our Bangkok condo.  We were there for 3 weeks and the same lady worked the hut every single day - 7 days a week from 8 AM to 6-7 PM.  I think they have to work that hard to earn enough money to live.  They are not making a great deal of money and Bangkok is an expensive place to live compared to their income. 

• This is not a tipping society.  It happens, but not often.  You don’t tip at all at restaurants.  We did notice that some “Americanized” locations had tip jars.  When you do tip, it is very much appreciated.  I tipped for my pedicure and my nails.  It just didn’t seem right not to.  For example, the fill and gel color for my fingernails was only $18 (a $60-$70 proposition at home).  I tipped 100 baht ($3.10).  She spent over an hour doing it and $3 is not much for me but is probably the cost of a meal for her.  $18 is not a lot of money considering the time and the cost of materials).

• We saw two European men (they were speaking what sounded like an Eastern European language so that is my guess) last week on a motorcycle and the guy on the back (not the driver) fell off in the middle of the street.  Don’t know if the driver stopped abruptly or what - I didn’t see that part.  The guy who fell off bonked his helmet on the street and his laptop slammed on the ground.  His buddy, the driver, thought this was hilarious.  Blaise and I looked on in horror and talked about how very bad that could have been had that guy not had a helmet.

Travel to Chiang Mai

Friday we said farewell to Bangkok.  As mentioned, we took a Grab to the airport late morning for our flight that left at 3:25 PM.  We wanted to get there early because it was very unclear after lots of Googling exactly which terminal we needed to go to.  Apparently there is a “general” terminal where everyone checks in.  We found things rather easily including checking in our bags.  We have a CapitalOne Venture X card so we have lounge access just about everywhere so we hung out in the lounge for a while and had some food and drink.

The domestic area of the airport was weird.  The security was very close to the gates.  For example, gates A1-A9 had its own security line.  This resulted in lots of security lines. We had to wait about an hour in the lounge outside security before we found out what our gate was and that was about 2.5 hours before the flight. You can’t go through security until you know what gate because there were separate security lines for about every 8-10 gates.  I am not sure I am explaining it well.  It was weird but I guess it works for them.  After security, there were no restaurants and the only food and drink you could get was from one small kiosk or a couple of vending machines.  Good thing we ate and drank in the lounge outside security!

This was our second time using Thai AirAsia.  The first was from Osaka to Bangkok.  The price was about $100 a ticket plus about $15 per checked-20-kilogram (about 42 lbs) bag.  You only get a 7 kilogram carry-on so we both checked one bag, even though they were carry-on sized.  AirAsia is one of those budget carriers where each thing costs extra but with much more comfortable seats.

Just so you know, whenever we use a new airline, we research the safety history of each one.  One of the cheapest ones we looked at for this part of the world was China Eastern.  When researching it, we found that some Chinese government entity said it was extremely safe after some big crash in 2021. We are steering clear of that airline.

The flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was about an hour and 20 minutes.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is in the northern part of Thailand.  We arrived in Chiang Mai a few minutes before 5 PM and by 6 PM, we were at our Airbnb after a Grab drive through brutal traffic.  The temperature was not too hot and not too cool upon arrival.

AirBnB

AirBnB

AirBnB

It appears we are next to a mountainous area.  For some reason, neither of us realized that.  After all the research Blaise and I did (but mostly Blaise), we didn’t track it being near mountains.

Proof we are near the mountains

Groceries

Our first stop after our host left was the grocery store.  While the host was kind enough to leave a couple of bottles of water, it wasn’t enough for the night since the water from the faucet is not drinkable.

The first trip to the grocery store after arriving somewhere is always interesting.  You never know quite what you are going to get.  What will you find there?  Will anything be familiar?  Will it be expensive?  Reasonable?  Cheap? Will it be comprehensive with things for personal hygiene or just food.

This store was only a few blocks away (we walked) and had extensive produce and meat/fish.  We always like to get things for sandwiches and we found everything we needed for sandwiches except mayonnaise so we got mustard instead.  We usually get eggs too but this Airbnb does not have a stove, only a microwave so no eggs.  We spent a bit more than $30 on water, bread, sandwich meat, some sort of bratwurst/sausage, cheese, mustard, juice (which turned out to be some weird syrup stuff), and Skippy peanut butter.  The failure was not getting any jelly or jam.  Today we have to go back to the store for toilet paper and paper towels so I’ll grab some jam.

Weather

Our first impression of Chiang Mai is that it is not as oppressively hot as Bangkok.  It is about 10 degrees cooler and this Tuesday, the high temp will be in the low 70s (also known as a little slice of heaven for me). 

While it is much cooler in the mornings and evenings, the afternoon yesterday (Saturday) was quite hot with the sun beating down and the high humidity.  In the shade, it wasn’t too bad.

Population

Chiang Mai is much smaller than Bangkok.  Google says the 2025 population is 1.24 million but it seems way smaller than that to me.  Yesterday we walked 6.5 miles, according to the pedometer on my phone.  In Bangkok, on our most-walked day, it was about 4 miles since we took the train everywhere.

Transportation

There is no train system here.  They have a bus system and something called a baht bus.  A baht bus (they had them in Bangkok also) is a publicly-shared taxi, which runs on fixed routes for a low price. They are pickup trucks with two rows of benches and a roof in the back for passengers and they operate as a hop-on, hop-off service.  The tricky part is figuring out their routes.  It’s not like there are route and time charts like you get with regular buses and trains.  They appear to be privately owned.  Blaise is fascinated by them and wants to try one so I suspect we will.

Blaise has talked about renting a motorcycle while we are here so that might happen.

The Vibe

I like the vibe here more than Bangkok so far.  We are only 2 days in so that might change.

The one thing I don’t like is that there is more graffiti here than Bangkok.  I did not expect that.

First Day in Chiang Mai

Yesterday was our first full day in Chiang Mai and we WALKED.  The morning was pleasant but in the afternoon, the clouds burned off and it was sweltering on the walk back to the Airbnb.

We went to the part of town known as the old city.  The old city originally had a wall around it.  Most of the wall isn’t there anymore, but we did see some of it still intact. We were able to go through one of the gates in the wall which was built in the 13th century.  The thing to do at that gate was to get your picture taken with pigeons landing on you and pigeons all around you. Also known as my personal nightmare!

My nightmare scenario. The wall is from the 13th century!

The old city was a cool area with several temples and cultural sites.  I found a photography museum I want to go back to - it is not open on Saturdays and Sundays.

One of the cool temples we saw

We stopped to rest for a bit across from the Three Kings statue and saw school-aged children milling about (some in tutus - maybe for a dance presentation?) and listened to a band nearby practicing (it sounded like a school band, maybe high school).

Three Kings Monument.  If you were in Italy, you would say this is in a piazza.  Not the offerings on the table.  If you zoom in, you will see pigs' heads.

Random, Mostly Unimportant Things I’ve Learned on this Trip Thus Far

• A good yogurt bowl with granola is a wonderful thing.  I’m fending off yeast infections, one yogurt bowl at a time.

• I LOVE passion fruit and passion fruit juice!

• To me, juice is the most refreshing drink when I am hot.

• There is such a thing as a toilet that is too low to the ground.

• I am very sad not to be home for the holidays.  Since my sister passed away in August 2016, we have hosted Thanksgiving at our house every year.  I will so miss cooking for everyone and playing board games with the family.

• I miss cooking and baking the things that I love.  Many times we have no oven and it is hard to find the ingredients you need for what you want to cook.  And then if I bought the ingredients (things like flour, sugar, and spices), it would be a waste because I would leave so much of it at the airbnb when we leave. No pumpkin bars this year.  I can’t remember the last time I didn’t bake them.

I hope to write at least once more before Thanksgiving but if I don’t, I wish everyone a Thanksgiving full of love, happiness, laughter, family and good food!  This year, I am thankful I am able to take this trip, experience new cultures, and see new places.  I am blessed!