a life worthy

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that it took me eight years to visit Phuket. It’s not like it’s a hidden jewel or anything; after all, almost 9.3 million people visited Phuket in 2017, making it the 12th most visited city in the world that year. I just didn’t go to Phuket because I’d heard it was really expensive, and it can be, but, as I learned, it doesn’t have to be.

Phuket is Thailand’s largest island and the flight time from Bangkok is only an hour and twenty minutes (yes, we’re already planning our next trip). After doing some research, we decided to stay at Kata Beach — or was it that I found a cute hotel on Agoda and wanted to stay there? Either way, the first thing we had to figure out was how to get from the airport to Kata, which is on Phuket’s southwest coast and is about an hour’s drive from the airport. I knew that taxis are incredibly expensive so they were never an option. I read in Lonely Planet’s Thailand guidebook (Lonely Planet is my go-to source for reliable travel information) that a shared van (or a minibus, as it’s often called in Thailand) from the airport to Kata was 200 baht per person. It was too easy. We saw the stall as soon as we walked out of the terminal — a ride to Patong was 180 baht, Karon or Kata 200 baht.

So folks, we find ourselves with another holiday (and another three-day weekend, at least this year) in Thailand. On May 14th, the birthday of the newly-crowned Thai queen, June 3rd, was declared a public holiday. Since we got out of Bangkok a couple of weekends ago and learned how bad the traffic is on three-day weekends and just found out that June 3rd is a holiday on May 31st (we’re not often the first to find out what’s going on here), we decided not to waste the day but to spend it in the sweltering heat of Bang Kachao.

Bang Kachao, otherwise known as Bangkok’s Green Lung, is actually an island formed by a sideways U-shaped bend in the Chao Phraya River and a canal at the mouth of the U. It is accessible by car, but it’s more fun to take a boat.

If you can handle the traffic, it’s best to get out of Bangkok on a three-day weekend. Which we have a lot of in Thailand (though contrary to the belief held by expats in Thailand, Cambodia, at 28, has the most public holidays — Thailand apparently has only 16).

So this past weekend, we got out of Bangkok. We made the mistake of going to Cha-am instead of Hua Hin, though I should have known better. I’ve been to Cha-am twice, including a solo trip my first Christmas in Thailand. I blame nostalgia.

So now that you know that Worchihan, his family and his villagers were 100% responsible for the preparations for our wedding, let’s move on to the wedding. Which was INCREDIBLE, a word that actually means unbelievable, not amazing, but it was that too.

If I had known what our wedding was going to be like (I didn’t really because Worchihan left for our wedding more than a month before me to prepare and the internet in his village is terrible), I would have invited National Geographic (is it too late, NG?). It was beyond words, so we’ll show you plenty of pictures. (All photos were taken by Wren Raleng — thank you, Wren!) Continue reading “Our Wedding PART 2”

I’m pretty sure Worchihan and I had one of the easiest weddings ever. Well, at least it was easy for me. I did ALMOST nothing.

How is that possible, you might ask? To be fair (to myself), the location determined pretty much everything — especially the fact that I wasn’t going to be a lot of help — and made the decisions easy.

When to get married? We got engaged on November 4 (Worchihan had a pretty sweet reason for asking me on this particular day) and visited Worchihan’s family in the village that Christmas. Our next shared holiday was Songkran, the 3 days + a weekend mid-April Thai new year celebration, so that was the obvious choice. When you are as old as we were when we got engaged (Worchihan was 29 and I was 30), you gotta get married. Fast.

If you travel to Bangkok, don’t miss Ayutthaya. The second capital of the Kingdom of Siam, Ayutthaya was founded in 1350, prospering until it was razed by the Burmese in 1767, leaving its temples and palaces in ruins. The Historic City of Ayutthaya was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1991. As Ayutthaya is only about an hour north of Bangkok and is easy to get to and get around, it makes for a perfect day trip. (For more about Ayutthaya, visit https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/576.)

I have been to Ayutthaya 3 times and have had a different experience each time. The first time, I went with 2 fellow foreigners. We took a (very fast) van to Ayutthaya and then rented (very old) bikes to ride around the temples. I’m pretty sure this is the hottest way to see the ruins. The second time, Worchihan and I took the (rather slow) train from Hua Lamphong with a group of Thai and Naga friends. Since we didn’t buy our tickets in advance, we got 3rd class standee tickets (can’t complain when they’re only 20 baht!), but fortunately we were able to sit all the way. On the way back to Bangkok, we ended up with 3rd class standee tickets again on a pretty full train; Worchihan and I ended up standing outside between two cars, which was a little scary. Anyways, on that trip we rented a long tuktuk (and driver) for a price a little bit cheaper than what foreigners would pay. The third time, this past Saturday, our friends Ping and Som took us, so we drove to Ayutthaya and then drove around to see the temples, which is the most comfortable way to go. Going with Thai friends in a car is the best way to go! Continue reading “Ayutthaya”

When Worchihan and I meet new people, their first question is often how we met. It’s a good question, because Worchihan and I ourselves are often surprised by the fact that we are together.

Continue reading “How We Met”