On The Road Again – South East Asia Style
After a couple of months back in our hometown, we are back out exploring. This time, we are happily wandering through bits of South East Asia. Without a real itinerary. Minimal planning. And no idea where exactly we will go or when we will return. WHO AM I BECOMING??
First, a little background story about my thoughts on South East Asia:
When I was a teenager I had the biggest girl-crush on Claire Danes. I faithfully recorded every episode of the show “My So-Called Life” on our (ahem) VCR. So when her movie Brokedown Palace released a few years later I HAD to see it. Spoiler Alert: complete travel napalm. It tells the tale of two young adults visiting Thailand where they were wrongly accused of a crime (drug smuggling) and sentenced to 33 years in a foreign prison. And believe me, that prison made American prisons look like all-inclusive resorts. Cue my terror to travel to South East Asia! Nope. Not going!
Kevin would sometimes express interest in checking it out. He would tell me about the beautiful tropical beaches. Although I am a sucker for a great beach, I had also seen the movie The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. Another story of an American tragedy in Thailand that took place on beautiful tropical beaches. Uh Uh. Not happening to me.
Of course, none of these movies were based in fact but I was convinced there must be a general basis for their existence. I mean the reason the movie The Wizard of Oz was based in Kansas is because there ARE tornadoes in Kansas, right?!
Anyways, after many years of traveling together without incident, my wanderlust kicked into full gear and my mood towards South East Asia softened. “Well, maybe someday we’ll check it out but NEVER with the kids.”
Well. Here we are. With kids. I’m still a little bit shocked about it myself but finding that I am doing a lot of things lately that would have been shocking to me a year ago.
While traveling in Europe this last year, people we met along the way would recommend we travel to South East Asia next. In addition to that, I follow many other stories of traveling families and was surprised to hear that this area is one of the most recommended destinations for families, expats, and digital nomads. The food is great. The people are lovely. The beaches are beautiful and the weather is generally pleasant. The cost of living is insanely affordable and after a budget-breaking few months in Europe, that sounded like just what we needed. In addition to that, we are exposed to cultures that are so radically different than our own that it provides a great basis for an enriching educational experience.
It piqued my interest and I started to soften even more.
So when it was down to the wire and we needed to book a flight change with Norwegian airline, I found that the only option in January that was NOT back to Europe was a flight to Singapore. I swallowed my fear (Michael P. Fay, anyone?) and hit ‘Book’. As life does, our attention was given to more pressing matters at home and no other travel plans were made. So here we are. Winging it.
I hope that you will follow along and see how we all fare and where we end up visiting. It’s bound to be an interesting journey. Hopefully, by the end of this adventure, we will actually make it to Thailand and I will stop scanning the crowds for the shady person that wants to plant drugs in my bag. I doubt it though.
Got my mind on my bag and my bag on my mind.
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