ALL THE THINGS!

     I haven't even taken this trip yet, but I'm already thinking of the next one. I mean, this year it was a little difficult to come up with Thailand as a destination. I don't know what's going to inspire me next year. I want to go to France, but I'm getting delusions of grandeur right now about possibly visiting South Africa. I'm also getting a little intrigued with Russia, probably because I'm reading too much of The Exile. The thought of anywhere else kind of bores me right now. As a solo woman traveler, I'm not sure how do-able any of this is and for whatever reason the thought of going alone to these places seems daunting. If there's something you must know about me it's that I'm a huge flake. Next year I'll probably be here (if I haven't gotten too lazy about blogging) declaring I'm going to California and then change my mind and say I'm going to Turkey instead.

     Speaking of flaking, I've had a change of heart about one of my hotels. It was in Chiang Mai and really the most expensive hotel of the whole trip. I am only going to be there for 4 days, 3 nights...and really it's just 2 nights since day one will be a travel day. Considering that I would like to do a cooking class and an elephant trek that could take me out of the hotel for practically the whole day for each day, I don't think I'm going to have much time to enjoy the splendor of my beautiful room and lazy soaks in my outdoor tub.
I still wanted a beautiful room just maybe something less expensive where I won't come away thinking, 'Well that was really wasteful.'. After searching I finally found a happy medium, I hope, between pretty and inexpensive.

 

     In other news I went and got shots last week and quite frankly I don't know if I saved money on this or not. I called my health insurance company to see if they provided immunizations for travel. They were like, 'Nope.', so I thought well I guess I will have to go the travel clinic route. I called around to one place and the shots were $100 USD a pop, plus a 80 buck ''consult'' fee. Considering that I wanted to just get 3 shots (Hepatitis A&B and Typhoid), with the consult fee on top, this was looking like a 400 dollar proposition, which is ridiculous. I've gone to a travel clinic before when I went to India in 2003, but it was on my company's dime so I didn't really give a shit about how much it was. I do remember thinking it was really expensive just for shots, but I was really poor then. I am not sure if I could've trusted my recall. I'm now solidly middle class with a cheap old car. Ramen noodles are now strictly crave eating as opposed to an absolute staple in my cabinet.

   Now I realize the RENTS BE TOO DAMN HIGH and all, but jeezlouise! Four hundred dollars is a lot of  money. I know for a fact that immunizations aren't that expensive because I went through a whole round of immunization shots a couple of years ago when I was thinking of going back to school. I recall maybe paying 100 bucks at most for everything..both rounds included. Also it was pissing me off that I couldn't get these shots through my health insurance. The thought I could've gotten them for the cost of a 20 copay, I sure as hell wasn't going to go all out the other way and pay this exorbitant amount which is only high because of this hole in health insurance coverage..at least mine. So I thought why not go to the place that gave you the whole round of immunization shots for school. My local county clinic. Sure enough they have a travel clinic. Hep A&B were 43.00 total and Typhoid 28.00. The consult fee was 50 dollars. Boom!
By the way, the typhoid shot left me a tiny bit sore afterward. The Heps were fine.

     I also bought a new Kelty 50 internal frame backpack because, dammit, I really want to go with carry-on only this trip. I have been so lucky in the past in regards to not having lost luggage when traveling, but I think I might be tempting fate this time. So I opted for this smaller backpack and hoping that it's carry-on compliant. One thing that is troubling me though is liquids. What do women do with all the liquids?

    Oh maybe I should reveal a little something about myself. I am a black female and our hair has special needs, be it natural or processed (permed). I don't know if I'm going to be able to get a decent detangler or a leave-in conditioner in Thailand. I don't think Thai people, generally speaking, really have to deal with frizzy,kinky, curly/coiled hair. If shampoo and conditioner were all that I would need, then I'd just get it there, but that ain't all I need to tame this beast on my head. And from what I hear with rainy season plus the heat and humidity, my hair will be a nightmare to deal with and I'm not that great at twisting or braiding. That being said, I need my products and 3 ounces is not going to cut it. I'm sure I will be washing my hair at least once a week if not everyday when I get to the beach portion of my trip (7 days) because I love swimming. So I've found that a cosmetics company called Lush makes a solid shampoo and conditioner and they make a shampoo that doesn't sound too drying even though it's got sulfates in it. I really don't like trying a new product while on vacation, but I really dislike the idea of checking in more.

     Now that all my hotels and finalized and booked, I am also looking into activities to do while there. There are guides and elephant parks and cooking schools. So far I've got a guide for one day for Bangkok to take me to the temples.I am going to try to do the floating market on my own and also I plan on getting a guide for Angkor Wat. Otherwise everything is wide open and I plan on going with hotel recommendations on the cooking school. The elephant park is a thing I am most conflicted with. While I would love to ride on an elephant, I mean when am I ever going to do that in life ever, but I now realize what they put the elephants through to make them tame enough. As such I am leaning with Elephant Nature Park as opposed to Patara. I won't have a elephant ride experience, but I think it will be enough that I will be able to feed and wash them. Of course I've never gone to Thailand ever in life either so not bad for a compromise.