Our Last Week

We underestimated how much travel can take out of a person. After four weeks of being in an Asian country, switching homes every few nights, going out for every meal, it can make a person miss the comforts of home. That being said, it’s not like we had a bad last week, it was quite the opposite. For the last four days before leaving, we got daily massages and didn’t eat a stitch of fried rice. We found the best Italian restaurant I’ve ever eaten at and made it our spot for dinner every night.

We did go on one tour, a boat ride to the Phi Phi Islands and Khai Nai Island. I will admit, I wasn’t excited about this tour because of how motion sick I get but it was surprisingly mellow and I was able to enjoy it. The smaller Phi Phi Island, Phi Phi Leh can be seen in the movie The Beach but apparently the making of the movie was hugely damaging. I guess paradise wasn’t perfect enough for the movie makers so they completely tore apart the island to reconstruct it, introducing plants that are not even native to the area as well as destroying many that were. In other words, Leo is such a jerk!

An interesting piece of history about Phi Phi Don, the larger of the two islands is that it was nearly completely destroyed by the 2005 Tsunami and it wasn’t until 2010 that the majority of it was finally finished being rebuilt. One of my regrets is that we didn’t stay on Phi Phi Don. After having about an hour to walk around the island it had a very relaxed vibe that reminded me a lot of Chiang Mai but in a compressed area. Despite all the tourist shops, it seemed like a place you could get a bungalow and relax.

Along the way to the islands we stopped at a lot of sight-seeing locations where everyone rushed up and plastered themselves against the windows of the boat. At this point, I was content to sit in the middle of the boat and let people fight to see rocks and take poorly angled photos with partial boat railings in them. I’m sure in week one I would have kicked my own ass and told myself to take a look but when you’re burnt out on week 5 it’s like, rocks? Monkeys? I’ve seen those. Plus, the guide stole B’s camera and took about 30 shots of monkeys in various positions so it’s pretty much like I saw them myself. I could even make a flip book for you.

On our last day we hit up the Big C for our snacks and of course, the best souvenir anyone could have, a legit Thai broom. You bet your buns I carried this thing on 3 plane rides and got countless stares. I'm sure they just regretted not buying one themselves.

Then we had to prep for the longest two days of our lives. Our first flight was a one hour flight at 11:30pm on Monday the 20^th from Phuket to Bangkok. We checked in at about 9:30pm and sat at our gate until boarding at 11:15pm only to be turned away because we were apparently at the wrong gate. Looking at our tickets, they actually said 10:30pm so we hit full sprint towards what we were told was the correct gate only to get to our seats on the plane to find people sitting in them. The flight attendant checked our tickets which definitely said some Russian people’s names on them instead of ours. B was in full panic but knowing that our next flight was in 8 hours, I wasn’t particularly concerned. Eventually they got it sorted and threw us in any available seat. The lesson here, don’t fly Air Asia!

Bangkok airport at midnight is bustling like a beehive, if all the bees were on strike and sleeping on the floor. We got some midnight rice followed by some save for later cake and went in search for somewhere comfy to have a snooze until 8am. Unfortunately, somewhere comfy does not exist in an airport. I think I managed one restless hour of sleep in a chair worse than the bus from hell and we ventured over to our gate at about 4 or 5am. We proceeded to eat our cake, because what else are we supposed to do at 4am?

Back on the lovely Japan Airlines, we had a 6 hour flight to Tokyo which was filled with more not-so-delicious foods followed by highly delicious ice cream. I actually read the other day that the owner of Japan Airlines not only gives up the majority of his income in order to increase the income of his employees, but he also takes the bus to work every day. This makes me like JAL even more. And their aprons are so damn cute.

A short 45 minute layover in Tokyo and my eyes were feeling like sandpaper. The air is so dry, seriously bring eye drops if you are taking a flight as long as this. Then our last leg of the flight, Tokyo to Vancouver, was a whopping 9 hours of sleepless flight. I did manage to watch In Time, 50/50 and Ides of March though. I’d skip In Time but you should watch the others.

And so, we finally made it home to the beautiful Vancouver airport where I was giddier than a hoarder on garbage day. My first trip to the bathroom and I could count at least 6 things in there I was thankful for: toilet paper, warm water, hand towels, hand soap, auto-flush, an actual TOILET!

So in short, as much as we adore Thailand, we are damn glad to be home.