Woo hoo – our vacation is finally here! Tomorrow morning we set out for our 2-week trip to Thailand. It will be 15 days of warm weather, amazing food, sunny beaches, and relaxation. After more than 16 months in Mongolia – albeit with a brief respite in California this past summer – we deserve it!
We’ve been in UB for the past few days now. While we have been doing our best to enjoy it – we finally got to see the newest Harry Potter movie in theater – the weather has been a real drag. Although it has been a relatively mild winter so far, the temperature this morning was about -20F. No bueno. I just checked the forecast for Bangkok this week: 80 to 90F! We are planning to leave the bulk of our winter gear here at our guesthouse in UB and practically go to the airport in our skivvies to avoid having to cart that stuff all over Thailand.
While this trip has been a long time coming – our old Olgii sitemate, Laura, planted the idea in our heads last year – we only bought our airplane tickets a month ago. Ashlee, as usual, has spent the past 3 weeks planning our trip to the T. We will be in Bangkok for a few days before doing a bit of island-hopping off the west coast. From Bangkok we’re taking an overnight train and then a bus to Phuket, then a ferry to Ko Phi Phi, another ferry to Krabi back on the mainland, and then another train/bus combo back to Bangkok.
Money-wise, we are really planning to do our best to be responsible on this trip. We – er, I – need to balance our desire to splurge and treat ourselves with the reality that aren’t making any money at the moment and this whole trip is coming out of our meager savings as well as the love and generosity of our family back home.
Splurging is something I’m really bad at. I’m the one who likes to set an overall budget but then I get a little extravagant on the day-to-day stuff and then complain about going over budget. It’s sort of like when I set out to make a modest burrito: a little beans, some rice, fajita peppers, oh chicken, cheese of course, maybe a little extra cheese, hot sauce, GUACAMOLE, salsa, a dollop of sour cream – and pretty soon I’ve got a 3-pound burrito bowl. I’ve promised Ashlee that I’ll be better on this trip – or at least I won’t kick up a fuss if we go over our budget.
The plan tomorrow is to fly out of UB at 8:40am, enjoy a 6-hour layover, in the wonderful Seoul airport (Subway and Starbucks, here I come!), and then get to Bangkok a little after midnight local time. Here’s hoping things go smoothly!
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