Thailand - Modes of Transportation (November 28th, 2015)

As we have continued to think and talk about our recent Thailand trip and have completed the blog postings, we have laughed several times about the number and different types of transportation we used throughout or tour of Thailand. So we decided to do a transportation recap:

Our feet (We walked a lot!)

Airplane (Both international and domestic (within Thailand))

40+ passenger over-the-road motor coach

12-passenger van (Chiang Mai temple tour in the hills).

8-passenger van (to airport from Century Park Hotel and used by our friend Saovanee in Bangkok). 

In our November 15th blog, I mentioned shop houses, and how the person that owns the shop on the first floor, also owns, maintains and lives in the floors above the shop.  This picture show perfectly what a shop house in Thailand is.

Unmarked Automobile (Camry in Bangkok when we arrived from the airport to the Century Park Hotel)

Taxi (During our first stay in Bangkok…our taxi driver got so, so lost!)

Boats (Two tour boats and water taxi’s)

Ferry to Laos

Ferry to Laos

Tour boat in Bangkok

Water taxi with local commuters

Farm truck

Tuk tuk’s (three different styles)

Three wheeled tuk tuk with driver in the back

Myanmar, three wheeled tuk tuk with driver in the front

Chiang Rai, private tuk tuk returning to the hotel from the night market

Combi

Venicular

Elephant!!!!!

  
In total we used 19 different types of transportation...crazy and so fun!!!!

Thailand - Final Thoughts and Wrap Up (November, 28th 2015)

As an opening to this post we had an amazing trip to Thailand. It far exceeded our hopes and expectations in so, so many ways!

This was our first experience with Gate-1 travel. We were very impressed with them from the very first contact we made. 

Andra and I decided that now that I am retired and we have more flexibility, that we wanted to go into Thailand a few days early, before the tour actually was to start. This would give us a little extra time to acclimate to the 14-hour time change as well as we wanted some time to further explore Bangkok on our own. 

Initially I started to book these extra days online, but quickly decided that maybe a call to Gate-1 was the best way to approach it. I was so glad I did this as I quickly reached Leslie at Gate-1 after going through their automated voice response system. I explained to her that we wanted to go in anywhere from two to four days early and what tour dates worked best for us. What I told Leslie I cared about most was what was the best deal in terms of air and hotel rates (i.e. Cheapest combination!). Leslie took my information and said she would do some research and would call me back shortly, which she did. The upshot here is that we ended up going in three days (two nights) early and the incremental cost when you net out the reduced airfare and increase for the hotels was less than $125 for the both of us. We stayed at the same hotel that the tour used. It also included the wonderful complimentary breakfast that was offered during our tour. We really loved going in early and exploring so many things on our own.

We booked many of the optional excursions that were offered as a part of our package, although the base package was already very full of activities so the optional activities weren’t really necessary. We thought the optional activities were priced very fair, unlike what we have experienced with cruise lines and the prices they charge, which we work hard to avoid by doing our own thing! We also liked some of the special things that Gate 1 did such as having the separate truck and trailer with our luggage. This way our luggage went ahead of us and when we got to our next destination our luggage was waiting for us in our room. We also thought that the hotels that were used were really first class and were located in some really convenient locations for further exploring at night.

Both Andra and I feel that the price Gate-1 charged for the trip was definitely, definitely worth it. A very first class experience!

We flew over on China Southern. When we first heard that this was going to be our airline both Andra and I were a little apprehensive, so as I usually do I did some research and learned that they get very positive customer reviews and had a good safety rating. Well, our experience here was nothing short of amazing, especially given the price (we saw the rate in the Gate-1 detailed invoice we were provided). 

Honestly, they were much better than the US based airlines that we have taken overseas on prior trips. Their planes were fairly new, very clean and well maintained inside, comfortable seats and decent leg room (even in Economy class), good food and fabulous service from the flight crew. We try and drink lots of water when we fly to help with jetlag. Our flight attendant that was helping us learned this as I asked for fairly frequently for water and she then just continued to bring it to us every so often. Just great service all around! We heard from many of the other people on our tour that they flew over on Cathay Pacific, which they were also impressed with and would happily use them again in the future.

Mike, our tour director, was absolutely fabulous, we mean fabulous! He worked so, so hard to make sure our experience was top shelf. He is a real professional and it shows in every aspect of what he does. We had several special requests throughout the trip…he did everyone of them just as we had asked. Andra and I have had some experience leading travel groups in the past and know how hard what Mike was doing actually is. This ran very smoothly throughout the entire tour and we know this only happens with lots and lots of hard work by the tour company and especially the on the ground guide. Mike was nothing short of amazing……we so much appreciated all his hard work, caring and special guidance he provided. His “surprises” truly made the trip for us. We hope we have a new friend for life!

Thailand….we loved the people, the food and the weather so much. We never felt unsafe in any of our exploration. Getting through and across Bangkok traffic was a challenge but once you learned the ropes a bit it wasn’t bad. We did learn that, as a walker, you need to be very observant around roads, as unlike the US the cars and scooters really have the right of way. Pedestrians have to take responsibility for their own safely! We aren’t going to make a judgment on whether this is good or bad, but rather it is just different, which is part of why we like traveling and discovery.

The people, even though communication was a big issue, were very warm and caring. As we struggled to communicate they tried hard to help, and found humor rather than anger in the situation, which we appreciated. We have traveled to many other parts of the world where this has not been the case. A smile to a random Thai person on the street got a return smile at least 90% of the time. This is something Andra and I like to do and we generally do not get this type of reaction, especially in the United States. The food was outstanding. We really loved the ability to get quick healthy food. We used the food courts a lot and never had any issues. We wish this type of “fast food” would be available in the US, especially for the price!

Those of you who know Andra and I well know that we try to look for the good in things and in life, but be assured the positives we express in this post go well, well beyond just our attempted positive thinking. Our entire experience was truly incredible, and we mean incredible from cradle to grave, especially given the price!

In closing, we will definitely be using Gate-1 for some of our future travels. We thought that their price for what was offered was truly amazing. We really felt that the entire experience was first rate. Check out their offerings at www.gate1travel.com and you will see what I am saying!  We also fully expect to return to the amazing country of Thailand on our own and do some further exploration of this wonderful country!

Thailand - Packing, Communication and Technology Post Trip (November 27th, 2015)

In our post, Preparing for Thailand (Thursday, October 9th, 2015) we discussed several aspects of our preparations for our upcoming trip. Many of the things we planned to do this trip were lessons learned from previous experiences both from a good as well as bad perspective and research we have been doing. This write-up will be dealing with the communications, luggage/packing and technology items we highlighted in that previous post.

Communications:

We currently use one of the big two cellphone providers in the US for our cellphone needs. In preparation for the trip I went to their website to see what package/offering would work best to fit our specific needs for our visit to Thailand. After researching for a while on their website I came to the conclusion that it would probably be better to go to our local store for the carrier and just talk through things with them as I was getting more confused and the price just seemed to keep going up.

So Andra and I headed off, a benefit of being retired, to the carrier’s store. Upon arrival they took my name and phone number and after a few minutes a nice young gentleman came over to help us. We explained our upcoming plans to him and he started discussing various options, which both Andra and I thought, were very expensive and really didn’t meet our needs. We are fairly heavy IPhone users and the data side of things was just crazy expensive.

For those of you who use Iphone, you probably understand that the phone can burn many megabytes of data just making sure it is happy with itself and its’ surroundings! In additional our trip was going to span multiple billing cycles so we would have to pay the massive (from my perspective) up charge in two billing periods. 

In relatively short order I gave Andra the look that said to her let’s get the hell out of here before I let them know what I think about this whole thing! We came home and I looked one more time at their website and finally decided that we were not going to deal with this issue for this trip. So we decided to just leave our phones at home for the trip. 

Okay; we actually carried one but planned to only turn it on if absolutely essential and we would just deal with the consequences of that when we returned home. Thankfully we never needed it so no issues there.

What we decided to do was just carry my IPod and use WIFI in the hotels and if needed go to a coffee shop or other public WIFI location for our connectivity. We saw that public WIFI is everywhere in Thailand as we traveled throughout the country. Every store and restaurant have signs offering it. I am not sure how comfortable I would be using it for anything of significance but texting or video calling was just fine by me to us it.

All of the hotels that Gate-1 provided throughout the trip offered WIFI in public areas and all but one (so the other 4) offered it free of charge in our rooms. It was more then adequate for our needs. We texted with everyone and FaceTime’d several times. Sometimes the bandwidth wasn’t adequate to nicely support the full video offering so in those cases we did audio only. Again, it worked really well. And we talked to everyone as often as we wanted.

We were able to email and do other needed tasks fairly easily, although the bandwidth was a bit restrictive at times, which was fine as I wasn’t paying for it directly. As we previously wrote in an earlier posting the 14 hour time change between Thailand and Colorado really worked well. When they were getting up, we were done with our day, relaxing for the evening and visa-versa. During our day they were sleeping so not having true cellular coverage really wasn’t an issue for us at all.

Upon returning from the trip I received my usual monthly text from my carrier that my bill was ready and the amount was exactly what I was expecting, with no international fees. I feel certain that if I had elected one of the many offerings they have for overseas travel this would not have been the case, as we have lived through that on several previous experiences! So all in all we were very happy with our communications choices.

So what would I do differently next time? An interesting question that I still need to further think through. I could get a local SIM card for my phone although getting one to fit an IPhone can be an issue from what I hear. I could bring and Android phone or purchase a cheap one there at one of the many local phone kiosks…..not exactly sure. Or another option is to change our US carrier to T-Mobile as their international offerings are really much more appealing. One thing you can be certain of is that I will have researched it before I change anything!

Luggage/Packing:

Again in the Preparing for Thailand (Thursday, October 9th, 2015) post we talked a bit about a recent trip we took to Maine and Massachusetts and how our packing had not worked as we moved between locations. And also that the large suitcase we took was right at the 50 pounds mark so was on the edge of requiring overweight airline charges.

We always pack light, as both of us hate dealing with lots of luggage. So for this trip we decided to replace our 28 inch luggage with 25 inch as we felt we could easily fit what was needed in that size and it would be much easier to handle and not be pushing the weight limit issues.

We are big fans of Eagle Creek luggage as it is good quality and reasonable in price. They also have a great warranty, which we have used previously. Steve overloaded a day-pack coming home from Europe a few years’ back, which caused a seam to pull out. We sent it in and in just a couple of weeks it was returned in perfect condition.

We decided to try their Eagle Creek Tarmac 25. Upshot is we loved the bags. They were plenty big to easily fit what we needed to take. Best thing is that both bags were easily under 40 pounds each when we left and returned so there wasn’t any stress during check-in at the airports. We saw lots of people on the return flight trying to move stuff around between bags at the baggage counter…that did not look fun!

We also purchased the Eagle Creek Pack-it system, which included both clothes folders and packing cubes. When we made the decision to buy them (sort of expensive I think!) we committed to ourselves to make sure and use them throughout the trip. Upshot there was we absolutely loved them! 

Loaded Eagle Creek Tamarc 25 suitcase

The packing cubes fit easily into the suitcase, in many different configurations

All of the packing cubes, folders and miscellaneous items that were in Steve's Tarmac

Medium folder (18 inch)

All of his shirts and pants for three weeks fit easily in two folders

We came home after almost three weeks of traveling with our suitcases as organized as when we left and we wore everything we took. We were able to easily find whatever we were looking for each morning and evening. We liked that the cubes have a clean side and dirty side. You take the clean clothes out of the cube, wear it all day and then put it in the sealed dirty side when you're done with it.

As an example Steve brought along:

• 5 pairs of pants
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 1 swim trunk
• 5 tee-shirts    
• 6 collared shirts
• 16 pairs of boxers
• 14 pairs of shorty socks
• 2 pairs of dress socks
• 1 pair compression socks he wears on the long flights as he has poor circulation in one foot and these things really help with swelling!
• 3 pairs of shoes
• 2 coats (rain and light weight)
• 1 umbrella

Again, we were easily able to fit all of this in Steve’s packing folders and cubes, with the exception of what he was wearing (pants, shirt, shoes, etc.). We were also able to easily split our clothing up so Andra’s suitcase has half of each of our clothing and my bag had the other half of each of our clothing, just in case one bag was lost we could easily function with one. We also carried a leak proof bag of toiletries and another with first aid and medicines.

We are now huge fans of these packing folders and packing cubes, once we made the initial investment and commit to using them!

Technology:

This is always a very personal choice for each traveler. Some like to go really light and others, like me prefer to have something similar to what they have at home. For me it just feels more natural to have a good subset of my usual tech stuff along.  When I travel without it I always seems to wish it was along!

Given this we carried our 11-inch MacBook Air which, as usual worked flawlessly throughout the entire trip. We just love this very basic machine. Not lots of power or storage but it just works…always! Andra used this to capture the highlights of the day each evening and with the nightly WIFI we were able to begin each days blog post, which was really nice having it already out there, just waiting to be completed. I also brought a 1-terabyte external hard drive, which we used to backed up our pictures and other stuff each night. We carried this in a different bag from the computer, just in case.

One area that has been a problem for us previously, especially on cruises, is getting all our electronic and digital cameras charged. Even on modern cruise ships they usually only have a single or very few electrical plug(s) outside the bathroom area. We usually only have a single converter so that is also a restriction. Given this, we are constantly having our various electronic devises/cameras only partially charged as we never seem to get everything topped-off at night. Again, not a big deal but I thought their must be a better way. So off to Amazon I went where there are lots of various offerings to fill this need. I eventually decided on the BESTEK Portable International Travel Adaptor. 

This little gem will allow for three items to be plugged into the top of it plus it has two 1-amp USB charging ports and two 2.4-amp USB charging ports.

Close-up of the BESTEK charging station

Our charging station!

Using the BESTEK, I was able to charge all our electronics and cameras concurrently, which was so nice. As a bonus, the devise also conditions the incoming power which I see as an additional big benefit as this always makes me a bit nervous when charging in foreign countries and/or cruise ships! The units are currently selling for approximately $43 on Amazon, which I feel very strongly is money well spent. I was talking to one of the other travelers in our group about this item one evening….funny thing is he has also recently purchased the same unit and also was totally impressed with it. 

One tech item Andra and I decided not to bring along with us on this trip was a small blue-tooth speaker. We thought we wouldn’t miss it and could just use the speakers on the MacBook Air or IPod. This was a big miss for us!  We found that we really enjoyed relaxing in our nice hotel room each evening when she worked on the blog and I worked on the charging/backing things up and organizing for the next day with a little background music playing. This seemed to help prepare us to sleep after each busy but fun day and the speakers on the IPod and the Air just didn't cut it! The upshot here is we will be bringing our small blue tooth speaker on next trip!

The few changes that we made for this trip made a huge difference in our ability to stay organized.  This could easily be one of the busiest trips we will ever take, and we stayed organized and charged through the whole thing!  We are now very happy with our traveling setup, and hope that what we have learned might be of assistance to you.

Thailand - Flight from Los Angeles to Denver (Tuesday, November 17th, 2015)

We had a great time talking to our youngest daughter last night. We have communicated with both of our girls and our parents throughout the trip via wifi texting and face time, but it was great to finally have time to really talk to her on the normal telephone.

We took time to use the hot tub at the Holiday Inn Express in Los Angeles, and try to get ourselves very relaxed, and then we poured our tired bodies into bed.  We couldn't figure out how we could be so tired after sleeping so much on the plane, but we were able to sleep through the night, and didn't wake up until 5:00 this morning.

We enjoyed a nice complimentary breakfast the next morning, and still had some spare time before we needed to be at the airport, so we took a really nice walk through one of the neighborhoods by our hotel.  So many beautiful plants grow in California that don't grow in Colorado.  It makes we a little envious since I love to garden!  

We finally caught our shuttle and headed to the airport with hope in our hearts that our flight wouldn't be delayed or cancelled once we got there.  Our prayers were answered, and we took off on time. The flight went very smoothly and as we got over Colorado, we could see the beautiful snow that mother nature had dropped the night before.

Snow on the ground in Denver as we approached for landing!

More snow!

When we landed we picked up our luggage and headed out to catch our shuttle.  It was a little cold since I really had not brought any Colorado appropriate shoes, but we did just fine.  

Our car in the parking lot near the airport! 

I wasn't very prepared for the snow!

A front view of our car in the lot....no fun!  A little clearing and scraping required!

It took us a few minutes to clear the snow from the car and get on our way to our home.  We had to laugh about the welcome home present God had given us!

What a Great, Wonderful, Fantastic adventure we have had for the last three-weeks!  Now back to shoveling!