Thailand is a great introduction to travel in Southeast Asia. Quite accustomed to tourists, it received a whooping 26.5 million visitors in 2014, securing its ranking as the 10th most visited country in the world. For us, Thailand was the perfect place to acclimatize to a new continent while treating ourselves to some comforts that we hadn't experienced in months.
We settled into Bangkok for a week. What better place to get accustomed to the new (delicious) food, cool transport, and the pervasive religion, Buddhism, with its exquisite temples and orange clad monks? (Note this blog post covers our entire 3 weeks in Thailand, which was split up into two visits,( 1.Bangkok and 2.Chaing Mai), by our three week jaunt to Myanmar, covered in a previous post)
Since Kiko and I have spent a fair bit of time in our pre-kid lives traveling through Southeast Asia, entering Thailand was tinted with a bit of a "coming home" sort of feeling. A sensation that was no doubt amplified by our previous 2 months in Africa, which while being an utterly amazing and unforgettable experience, was althogher new ground for me, and to a large extent Kiko as well. But what surprised me the most about Bangkok was the ease at which the kids adjusted. Can it really be as simple as some parenting literature suggests; i.e. the kids simply reflect the parents' attitude? Hum, something to ponder when considering some of the rough patches on this trip...
We settled into Bangkok for a week. What better place to get accustomed to the new (delicious) food, cool transport, and the pervasive religion, Buddhism, with its exquisite temples and orange clad monks? (Note this blog post covers our entire 3 weeks in Thailand, which was split up into two visits,( 1.Bangkok and 2.Chaing Mai), by our three week jaunt to Myanmar, covered in a previous post)
Since Kiko and I have spent a fair bit of time in our pre-kid lives traveling through Southeast Asia, entering Thailand was tinted with a bit of a "coming home" sort of feeling. A sensation that was no doubt amplified by our previous 2 months in Africa, which while being an utterly amazing and unforgettable experience, was althogher new ground for me, and to a large extent Kiko as well. But what surprised me the most about Bangkok was the ease at which the kids adjusted. Can it really be as simple as some parenting literature suggests; i.e. the kids simply reflect the parents' attitude? Hum, something to ponder when considering some of the rough patches on this trip...
Or maybe it just boils down to the fact that Thailand is super traveler friendly. I think what captivated us first and foremost was the delicious food. Street food and local restaurants all seemed to delight. One exception would be the food aimed solely at the backpackers, which tends to be super cheap and rather bland.
