Football Archives · Bon Voyage on a Big Adventure!

November 28, 2018

Days 129 – 133: Closing Out Bali In Canggu

Are you tired of reading about us going to the beach yet? I’m not sure we will ever tire of being at the beach, and Canggu in Bali was certainly a beauty.

I will attempt to keep this post pretty short because a.) I’m behind like whoa on posts, and b.) we were total beach bums. Let me try to see what is worth sharing about being super lazy for five days in a beach town in Bali!

Day 129: Travel from Ubud to Canggu in Bali

We really loved our time in the hills of Ubud, Bali and were excited to see what going to the beach looked like in Bali.

I’ll spare you the details, but Ubud is decidedly anti-Uber. Apparently, there is a really strong taxi, umm, union, and we cancelled our Uber after our driver gave us the sketchiest instructions: “Go into a cafe to wait for me. Tell me your names, and when I come in, act like you have known me for a very long time. Very long. Do not, under any circumstances, wait on the street for me. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.” Umm, we’re good. Thank you, next.

After about an hour drive in a taxi, we arrived at our beautiful villa! This AirBNB is owned by a woman from New York, and we had a bedroom and bath that walked out on to a pretty pool and courtyard.

Yes. So Bali– this mural was in our villa’s driveway.

For lunch, we walked down the street to a yummy Thai place called Bangkok Hustle. And here I’m going to share what was probably our biggest frustration with Canggu: the sidewalk situation.

Bear with me. We really do not have the budget to rent a car or bike or pay for taxis except for very infrequently. We also love to walk and find it to be the best way to ensure we get enough exercise. When walking turns out to be dangerous or difficult, we get really frustrated because it makes getting around that much harder.

Canggu was filled with twenty-something kids on holiday who all rent motorbikes, to the extent that there is motorbike traffic. We also watched a very intoxicated woman run her bike off the road. Seriously. So being a pedestrian on these bike-filled roads was not our favorite.

For dinner, we found a place that served authentic banh mi. Well, authentic in taste; they were delicious. At about $3/sandwich, it was the cheapest meal we could find and at least twice as much as we paid while we were eating them in Vietnam. Vietnam spoiled us for authentic, inexpensive, delicious street food!

Day 130: Rich’s Third Haircut

(Of the trip.)

We ate breakfast cooked for us at our villa, and then Rich walked to get his haircut, and I read by the pool.

His hair looked good! The barber left it a bit long on the top, so we’ll see how it does for the next six weeks…Stretching the time between haircuts is one more way to stretch the budget.

We spent the rest of the day blogging and planning and spending time at the pool. If I were to name the place on the trip where we realized we were just worn out, it was definitely Canggu. Being on the move for the past five months caught up with us!

For lunch, we ate our second banh mi and ate dinner at Bangkok Hustle…again. It was during this dinner that we watched the young lady run her bike off of the road, and we bonded over the experience with an Australian couple next to us.

Bangkok Hustle in Canggu — Yummy Thai food at Bangkok Hustle

Joel and Jane, our new Australian friends, shared that many Australians treat Bali, and Canggu in particular, as their playground where they head to let loose. We really enjoyed chatting with them and sharing experiences of long-term travel. Joel and Jane are taking close to a year to explore Australia in a van. As in they are living out of a van. Hard core! Check out their blog if you are interested in learning more about what that’s like!

Day 131: Visiting the Beach at Canggu

We weren’t total beach bums; before breakfast, we jumped out of bed and did a couple of body weight workouts on my Aaptiv app.

We then enjoyed the breakfast provided by the villa and spent a few hours by the pool. We ate lunch at a nearby cafe. Bali has a plethora of amazing restaurants serving fresh, healthy food from around the world. Our budget limits where and how much we eat, but if you are looking for a vacation where you enjoy a smoothie bowl for breakfast, a huge warm pumpkin quinoa bowl for lunch, and practically anything you can imagine for dinner, I highly recommend finding a way to get to Bali.

Late in the afternoon, we walked to the beach to see it and catch a sunset. Our walk was a good thirty minutes– remember, the sidewalk situation– but it was worth every step. The beach was beautiful, with huge, powerful waves. And there were so many surfers! There were easily 50-75 surfers trying to catch a wave when we arrived. It was rather magical; I had never seen any kind of surfing scene like that. It could have been in a movie.

We enjoyed walking the beach, and watching the sun set over the water.

For dinner, we ate at a great pizza place called Luigi’s Hot Pizza. They had plenty of outdoor seating, white bistro lights, and lots of young male servers who clearly had a lot of fun working with each other. We split a tiramisu for dessert, and it was divine. Pizza + beach = great day

Day 132: Football + Work

The Georgia Bulldogs are enjoying a great season, and we woke up at 3:30 AM to cheer on the Dawgs against Kentucky. Thankfully, Georgia won, and then we kept watching football to see the beginning of the Alabama v. LSU game. Alabama quickly went to work against LSU, and we went ahead and ate breakfast.

And then, of course, we enjoyed our UGA victory nap.

We spent the rest of the day:

By the pool,
Followed by banh mi for lunch (again),
Followed by blog posting/trip planning,
And culminating in another dinner at Bangkok Hustle.

We are nothing if not consistent.

Day 133: La Brisa Beach Club

We spent our last full day in Bali– and in Asia!– at the beach. Bali has a number of beach clubs. Each club has a minimum spend on food and drinks, but then you get access to beach chairs, a pool, a pool deck, restrooms, and a restaurant and bar. Finn’s Beach Club is probably the most well-known, but we decided to head to La Brisa as it opened pretty recently, and we liked its aesthetic.

The amount you have to spend is a little lower if you arrive earlier in the day, so we made the sidewalk-less trek over at about noon.

The set up was perfect! We had chairs on the deck above the beach and were able to put our feet up on the ledge and take out our books. We enjoyed a beer, read for several hours, took a quick swim in the pool, and then ordered lunch. It was so relaxing and easy as all days at the beach should be!

For dinner, we grabbed, you guessed it, banh mi for dinner. Our new favorite restaurant had a loyalty program where when you bought five banh mi, you got your sixth free. In five short days, we had earned ourselves a free sandwich. Hot dog! Did I mention we are budget travelers?

Final Thoughts on Canggu

Don’t get me wrong, Bali is pretty amazing. It is one of the most visually stunning places we have visited, there is an abundance of delicious food, and it is really easy to navigate, even if you have not traveled abroad extensively.

We were pretty worn out by the time we made it to Canggu though, and one impression we had of Bali was just that everyone was trying to out Bali each other. It’s a place where you hear sentences like, “Surfing brought such fulfillment to my inner small child while also empowering me as a fearless boss woman. I really worked up an appetite so I cannot wait to devour my chi seed hemp milk with a side of raw organic sprouts. But it also dried my skin out so let me apply this new placenta coconut oil lotion I just picked up.”

It is totally cool if you have that kind of energy, but at that point in our travels, wearing the same clothes out of the same backpack and living on a budget, we just did not. We had a great five days, really, but we have come to realize that our favorite places are places that don’t try too hard to be who they are, or rather where the people who visit do not feel pressure to fit a certain mold and check off extravagant bucket list items. We enjoyed Canggu for what it was for us: five more days to rest and re-charge together, surrounded by beauty.

November 21, 2018November 23, 2018

Days 124 – 128: Ubud, Bali

Since Rich and I started planning this trip, Bali was one of the locations for which I was most excited. It didn’t hurt that in July and August 2018, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, and their children, Luna and Miles, spent several weeks in Bali, braving earthquakes, making friends with dangerous bugs, and filming headband of the day videos. What more could make you want to go?

To provide some geographical context, Bali is an Indonesian island, and Ubud, the first town we visited, is in the mountains. Ubud is incredibly beautiful– the terrain is lush, there are temples and offerings everywhere, and it is known as a place of healing. And there are monkeys! Read along to hear how we spent our five days here.

Day 124: Travel from Yogyakarta to Ubud, Bali

We had an early flight out of Yogyakarta which was a bummer because we had to leave the hotel at 5:00 AM, and the delicious breakfast at our hotel didn’t start until 6:00. Missing out on a free, good meal always hurts.

We took a Grab to the airport, avoiding the terrible walk we did when we arrived, and got checked in pretty easily. Our flight to Bali was also, thankfully, much smoother than our flight to Yogyakarta had been.

Our taxi ride from the airport in Denpasar to Ubud was not so smooth. For some reason, on the hour long drive, our driver kept falling asleep! It was about 10:00 AM there, so we were not sure if he might have been on drugs? Let’s just say we were more than a little concerned and very happy when we made it there safely.

Rich booked our villa, the Moksha, in Ubud through AirBNB, although it really ran like a small hotel with a pool, provided breakfast, and a full spa– all for the low price of $54/night! (I sound like an infomercial).

The Moksha allowed us to check in early, and we enjoyed laying by the pool for much of the rest of the day. For dinner, we ate at a Korean restaurant called Roots, and it was so delicious. I got a bibimbap bowl, and it was one of my favorite meals of the trip– which makes me think that we should add South Korea to our future travel list!

Day 125: A Busy Day of Football Fandom

So I matriculated at the University of Georgia for undergrad and am a second generation Georgia Bulldog. Georgia’s biggest rivals are the Florida Gators (boo), and on the first full day, we were in Ubud, the Georgia v. Florida football game was played at 3:30 PM. In America.

It was played at 3:30 AM in Ubud. Forever committed, we woke up to watch. When the game ended at 7:00 AM, our Georgia Bulldogs emerged victorious with a final score of 36-17.

Beating Florida feels so good, even when you wake up before the sun to watch it.

One of the very best parts of our stay at the Moksha was an incredible breakfast delivered each day. We elected to eat our breakfast in the garden, and I enjoyed a smoothie bowl, coffee, and bread basket.

Then we went back to sleep!

Upon awaking the second time, we spent an hour or so at the pool and then headed inside to crank out blog posts and trip planning, umm, things.

For dinner, we ate pizza across the street.

After dinner, we headed back to our villa for more football. The Philadelphia Eagles played the Jacksonville Jaguars in London, which was an early morning game in America, and a 9:30 PM game in Ubud, Bali.

When the Eagles v. Jaguars ended after midnight, the Eagles had squeezed out a 24-18 victory. Eagles victories being few and far between this season, winning made watching seven hours of football in less than 24 hours totally worthwhile.

Day 126: Salons and Monkeys

As mentioned in our fourth thirty days abroad post, I hold a special place in my heart for Gritty, the new and charming mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers. However, as much as I love Gritty, I did not love that months of being in the sun every day had given me orange hair resembling his.

Time for a trip to the salon!

Hair at Vive Salon in Ubud

So I did several months of research on where to get my hair colored in Ubud, and I landed on Vive Salon. Coincidentally, Chrissie Teigen and John Legend visited Vive Salon in Ubud for spa services in the summer, but we all know that Chrissy Teigen didn’t get her hair done there because only Jen Atkin is allowed to touch her hair.

(I don’t have a job so sometimes I internet stalk Chrissy Teigen.)

Long story long, the stylist Rikke dyed my hair back to brown. A few notes:

Rikke, from Denmark, was also a spiritual healer. She mentioned the Ubud has always been a place of healing, but that lately she felt that there were many more broken people coming to be healed and that the place just felt that much more sad. I found this observation totally fascinating.
Despite warning her that my hair was very dry, soaked up color very quickly, and had in the past turned out much darker than anticipated, she went a shade darker than I thought she probably should have and my hair came out very dark.

Could trusting someone other than your own hairdresser be the hardest part of an around-the-world trip? I kid. Mostly.

Visiting the Ubud Monkey Forest

As I shared in the post on Kuala Lumpur, Rich and I foolishly watched a YouTube video where a silly tourist gets scratched by a monkey and has to go to the hospital to get a rabies shot. As excited as I was to visit the monkey forest, I have to admit the image of that lingered a bit in my mind.

Still, a visit to the Ubud Monkey Forest is a must on a visit to Bali. There are hundreds and hundreds of monkeys, and they walk around among the tourists. We were warned that they might attack and that they might steal things, but all of the monkeys we saw– and we saw a lot of monkeys– seemed not to bother the humans unless they were disturbed. I would not call them docile for they were very active and very much wild animals, but they were definitely used to the human company. Note that the guidelines below tell you not to make eye contact with them as it is seen as aggressive behavior. Easier said than done.

Day 127: Yoga + Spa = Heaven

This day was one of my very favorite of the trip– less Chrissy Teigen, more Gwyneth Paltrow. It was quintessentially Bali.

Vinyasa Gentle Flow Yoga

This past spring, Rich and I signed up for a deal at a bikram yoga studio near our apartment in Washington, DC for 10 classes. For the uninitiated, bikram is hot yoga, known as hot yoga because you do it in a very hot (100+ degree) room and sweat like you have never sweated before. I had done bikram on and off for the past five or so years, but both yoga and sweating for 90-minutes without reprieve were a new experience for Rich.

Rich and I both wanted to do yoga in Bali as it totally seemed like a bucket list item. When Rich asked me how different vinyasa would be from bikram, well, all I could really answer was different.

For the first thirty minutes of our 7:30 AM vinyasa flow class, all we did was breathe. I am totally fine sitting, breathing, clearing out my mind peacefully, and even I started getting a bit restless.

Rich has self-diagnosed adult ADD. He told me after the class, he almost walked out during the breathing part. He just wasn’t sure he could sit there and stay still. All of the breathing and sitting seemed interminable.

But then it got better. We did a downward dog, then a cow, then a cat, then python, then child’s pose, and then repeated and changed the cycle several different times. And then class was over!

Yoga in Bali– check and check. Back to the villa for our smoothie bowls!

Spa Day at the Moksha

I can only imagine everyone is thrilled to read about us traveling around the world, enjoying spa day. I hope you aren’t reading this one at work. It was heavenly.

So here’s the deal. When we checked into our villa, there was a list of available spa services. The first one listed was a honeymoon package that for $24/person provided a three-hour experience which included:

A welcome juice
An hour-long massage
A facial
A body scrub treatment
A hot flower bath

We are not on our honeymoon but such affordable pampering was impossible to pass up! It was everything we hoped it would be.

Dinner at Ibu Susu

Special thanks to Deena, a friend from graduate school, who recommended Ibu Susu via an Instagram message. The atmosphere was super hip, and everything we ate was delicious. We were able to sit at the bar and enjoy tofu and shitake dim sum, pork belly steam buns, and the beef rendang. Yum!

Day 128: A Visit to the Rice Terraces

Have you ever thought a place was going to be one thing and then it was really something else entirely? Well, that was our visit to the rice terraces for me.

All of the pictures on Instagram from the rice terraces in Bali involved flowing dresses, passionate embraces, and maybe a dramatic swing over the landscape (see here, here, and here).

Welp, I put on a dress…and then got muddy and sweaty.

Turns out rice terraces, in fact, are not an elaborate Instagram background, but instead, an actual place where farmers grow actual rice. They are terraced, they are green ,and they are beautiful. But they are also hot and super muddy. I wish I had worn tennis shoes and saved the dress!

Rich and I had considered visiting a nearby coffee plantation instead (hey, we love coffee), but we learned that the incredibly expensive kopi luwak coffee is produced by feeding Asian palm civets (small, cat-like animals) cherries and then collecting their defecation to include with the coffee blend. We are adventurous, but we were not feeling that adventurous. We like our coffee poop-free.

Final Funny Story from Day 128

For dinner, we headed to Halal Ubud Burger. In case you are not familiar, halal refers to any meat prepared according to Muslim law. For example, this would exclude pork or any cut of meat from an animal’s hindquarters, and halal restaurants typically do not serve alcohol.

As Indonesia is a Muslim country, a halal burger spot is not unusual. It was near our villa, was cheap, and had high TripAdvisor ratings. Great!

We walk in wearing workout clothes (we obviously immediately changed into something comfortable upon our return from the rice terraces), and a young 20-something man looks at my shirt, and says, “Wow! That t-shirt is awesome.”

I’m wearing a City sports t-shirt that says, “Everyday I’m Mustling.” It’s the only t-shirt with writing on it I packed in my backpack, and while I’m not mustling everyday, I probably am sleeping in or relaxing in this shirt at least every other day.

My “Everyday I’m Mustling” T-shirt (from when we hiked the Cinque Terre a few years ago)

“Thanks,” I reply.

He turns to his girlfriend, “Honey, look at her shirt! Isn’t that great!” The girlfriend looks about as confused as me but nods. He then asks, “Are you <insert word I have never heard>?”

I shake my head no, assuming if I have never heard this word, I’m not it.

He then says, “Oh, you converted to Islam, then?”

I say, “Oh, I’m not a Muslim.” He says, “Oh. Okay. Well, it’s still a great shirt.”

I’m totally confused. They pay their bill and leave. And then it dawns on me.

He thought my shirt said, “Everyday I’m MUSLIMING.”

Final Notes on Ubud

Hopefully, the pictures have reflected this where my words have failed: Ubud was absolutely beautiful. The land was incredibly lush, and there were beautiful temples and sacred places everywhere you turn. It is really clear that thousands of Westerners flock to Ubud each year as it has every food and experience a tourist could want at prices that seem a bit high compared to the cost of other Southeast Asia countries but incredible compared to the west.

Looking back, we had a really nice and relaxing time in the peaceful hills of Ubud. We ate good, healthy food and took great care of ourselves. Isn’t that one reason why you get away? Being in Ubud was truly a treat!

October 10, 2018

Days 94 – 97: Birthday + Traffic = Bangkok

So Bangkok was great because we celebrated Rich’s birthday there, but Bangkok was also a bit of a #fail because we underestimated traffic and stayed a bit too far away.

You win some, you lose some. Every destination can’t be Chiang Mai. Sigh.

Keep reading to hear how we celebrated Rich’s FORTIETH birthday and what we might have done differently in Bangkok if we had a chance.

Day 94: Rich’s 40th/Travel Day

Our general approach to travel days– as you can imagine, we have a lot of travel days– is to endure and make the best of what we get. Sometimes we get airport lounges with free food and great WiFi; sometimes we just buckle up and hang on.

In other words, in retrospect, we might have rearranged our days so that we weren’t traveling on Rich’s actual birthday to avoid an early morning and having to adhere to a schedule to make our flight.

Travel from Chiang Mai to Bangkok

Travel from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, Thailand’s two largest cities, was easy enough. We took a tuk tuk from our apartment to the airport. Since the flight was domestic, there was no lounge available. The flight was a little over an hour, direct, and then we took a taxi from the airport to our AirBNB, which was in another high rise apartment building. We got our first taste of Bangkok traffic– the ride from the airport took close to an hour. Eeek.

Violating International Laws, aka Checking Into Our AirBNB

Here’s where things got a bit weird: Despite our host writing that “everything was fine with AirBNB and immigration,” we were instructed to “under no circumstances” communicate with anyone at the front desk of the apartment building and to walk directly to a mailbox to retrieve our key.

Based on the giant signs in the lobby declaring that short term rentals were against the law and anyone violating the act would be reported to authorities, I think that perhaps everything was NOT fine with immigration! Here we are, the only white people in the building, speaking about three words of Thai, with giant backpacks, trying to act like we lived somewhere we had literally never been before. We were not exactly thrilled with our host for putting us in this shady situation.

I guess we did okay because the authorities never came for us. Nothing says living on the edge like violating short term rental acts in a foreign country. I mean there are only about one thousand movies about Americans/Brits ending up in Thai prisons. Happy 40th!

The MASSIVE sign alerting us to our potential AirBNB problem…

Birthday Eating: McDonald’s and Mr. Food

It was rainy when we got to our apartment, and we didn’t really have getting fancy in us so we decided to postpone a true birthday celebration until the next day. We were HUNGRY though.

When we started googling nearby restaurants, reality sunk in that we weren’t close to much. We decided to walk to the closest mall, about 10 minutes away.

This. mall. was. creepy. It was HUGE, but we saw maybe 15 other people shopping in the hour or so we were there. Apparently, it was a very new Korean-style mall doing some sort of soft open so maybe no one knew they could go? It felt a bit apocalyptic.

The food court had NOT fully opened, but McDonald’s had! You don’t have to believe me, but we had not had any American fast food on the previous 93 days of our travel. Eating Mickey D’s on Rich’s birthday felt so right.

Honey, I love you so much I’m taking you to the Golden Arches for your birthday.

When we got back from lunch, epic storms rolled in so we vegged away the afternoon. Instead of going out in Bangkok, we talked about watching Hangover II in Bangkok. Then we wandered out for dinner at Mr. Food around the corner, and it was surprisingly yummy.

Mr. Food in Bangkok — Rich clearly enjoying Mr. Food

We were in bed by 10:30 PM. This is forty.

Day 95: Let’s Celebrate!

The next morning, we made it out for coffee and to buy groceries. The grocery store was huge and beautiful, so Rich was happy.

Yep, looking pretty everyday at The Everyday Cafe

We spent the afternoon by the pool and had it all to ourselves. In Thailand, there is a HUGE industry devoted to skin whitening (seriously– it’s scary) so tanning is pretty much an anathema to the locals.

And then we got ready to go out!

Dinner at Akira Back

While we have eaten out a lot in Southeast Asia, for the most part, we try to do it as inexpensively as possible. But this was Rich’s 40th birthday dinner, so it was time for a treat! We picked Akira Back, a modern Japanese/Korean restaurant on the 37th floor of the Marriott Marquis in downtown Bangkok.

Interestingly enough, SIX of the top 25 restaurants in Bangkok are all located in the Marriott Marquis. Go figure.

The distance from our apartment to the restaurant was only 4.6 km away (less than 3 miles). However, in a Grab (SE Asia Uber equivalent) through Bangkok, it took us 45 MINUTES to get there. Bangkok traffic is seriously no joke.

We arrived in time to enjoy one cocktail at ABar, the bar adjoining the restaurant, and the experience was wild, in a good way. The decor looked like it was from a movie set, and we sat on an outdoor terrace overlooking Bangkok below. Rich and I both took a minute to take stock of how amazing our life is and how grateful we are to be taking all of this in together.

Happy to celebrate my love. Rich asked me to point out that he was happy that I matched the decor.

Dinner was everything we hoped it would be. We enjoyed crab fried rice, wagu short rib for two, INCREDIBLE sushi, and fries made with duck fat along with an unbelievable view of Bangkok. Happy Birthday!

Day 96: Temples in Bangkok

Surprising no one, Bangkok has some amazing temples. A bit surprising to us, however, was how long it took us to get to them– temples that were just 12 km away (~7.5 miles) took more than an hour to reach via Grab. It’s okay, my husband loves traffic (bahahahahahahaha).

Wat Arun

I learned my lesson from the temples in Chiang Mai and had a scarf ready to go if I needed to cover up at the temples in Bangkok. Apparently I did because while Rich was paying to even enter Wat Arun, another visitor tapped me on the arm and said, “Cover your legs.” Yes, m’am. (Rich: “Does she even work here?). It’s bizarre to go from being someone who enforces dress code to being someone told to cover up! Not exposing your knees or your shoulders is tricky when the daily temperature tops ninety degrees– and when all of the outfits you brought fit in one backpack.

Wat Arun is a beautiful temple, covered in mosaics. It was also super crowded with people jockeying to get the perfect Insta shot, which sometimes included separate lights and multiple photographers! Being an influencer is serious business (my friend Sarah Jo: “I read all of your blogs. Are you internet famous yet?” Me: “Decidely not. But I feel super honored that about 100 people read my blog each week. That is a lot to me!”).

At Wat Arun– getting a picture with no one else in it took some work!

Wat Pho

From Wat Arun, we took a quick, cheap ferry across the river to reach Wat Pho. Wat Pho is home to a famous reclining Buddha and has been a temple longer than Bangkok has been the capital of Thailand. The reclining Buddha was cool, but I felt a bit boxed in with many other tourists and signs everywhere warning of pickpockets (of which we have seen none in SE Asia, by the way).

However, outside the temple with the reclining Buddha, there is a huge courtyard filled with phra phrang, or towers. They were all mosaics, like Wat Arun, and we enjoyed walking around that space which was a lot more open.

Full view of my scarf skirt– we call this “make-it-work” fashion

Khao San Road

From Wat Pho, we walked by the royal palace, which unknown to us closed at 3 PM. Ooops. It looked pretty spectacular from the road but was surrounded by high walls which prevented us from getting any good shots. We then walked another 15-20 minutes to Khao San Road.

Khao San Road is the center of backpacker life in Bangkok, and while we saw many hostels along the road, umm, we aren’t sure if any of the hostels have working showers? Sometimes we feel a bit grimy as we travel, but if we ever reach this level of grime, I’m going need one of the hundred people who read this to leave me a comment that it’s time to pull it together.

Rich and I got delicious and CHEAP pad thai from a street vendor, although she stuck us in a bit of an alley to eat it (maybe our cleanliness was going to scare the other customers away?). We then went back to one of the restaurants on the strip to split a big beer and do some people watching. Rich and I both could have sat there for hours– I would be hard pressed to name a better spot for people watching perhaps in the entire world. The New York subway, perhaps? It’s up there.

You can catch a bit of the scene behind Rich

Georgia had a 2:30 AM football game against the University of Tennessee so we went home and crashed so we could rise in the middle of the night to watch it. Dawgs won at 5:48 AM, and we went right to sleep.

Well, one of us made it until the end of the Georgia game…Not quite as glamorous as actually being in Athens. #thisisalso40

Day 97: Let’s Work!

We slept in post-early-morning football game, and then decided to get some work done. We had played with leaving the apartment to work from somewhere else, but it was pretty rainy, and our apartment had a HUGE couch so we burrowed in and got to work.

Not much to report here: Rich did some New Zealand planning, and I published our post on Vientiane, Laos. We ate rice for dinner at a spot about 100 yards from our apartment, stocked up on game watching snacks at a 7-11 across the street, and then threw a load of laundry in the apartment complex’s washer and dryer (hallelujah for every dryer we can get, even though one of my dresses definitely shrunk from a dress to a swimsuit cover up!).

It was now the Eagles turn for a middle-of-the-night football game.

Watching your team lose is bad enough. Staying awake from midnight until 4:00 AM to watch your Super Bowl champion team lose to the terrible Tennessee Titans (sorry Nashville readers, but you know this season it’s true!) in a horrendous overtime showing was BRUTAL.

Closing Thoughts on Bangkok

Bangkok is probably a lot like any big city globally. Everyone wants to be in the center of the action, but to get there, you have to pay.

We knew that we were going to be about 5 KM out from downtown, but we didn’t anticipate how long it would take to get into the city or how hard it would be to walk. I think we imagined Bangkok as being a lot like New York with pretty easy access to the city from the boroughs via subway– as well as the boroughs being pretty well developed themselves– and that just wasn’t the case.

After being there, it seems like Bangkok exploded population-wise and the infrastructure has not been able to keep up. If traffic makes you crazy, Bangkok is NOT the city for you.

The American couple we met in Chiang Mai told us that they had seen A LOT of old Western men with very young Thai girls in Bangkok, and thankfully, we didn’t see any of that. Also, while we might have encouraged our backpacker friends on Khao San Road to raise their bar for cleanliness/hygiene, we didn’t see anyone eat a scorpion or seem outrageously drunk, though we were there in the late afternoon. Maybe that was the trade off for staying farther out in our “legal” AirBNB: for better or worse, we had a much lower key, 40-year-old-appropriate Bangkok experience.