We had a busy week of activity, and anchoring that activity was traveling from Vietnam to Thailand. However, there were a few other noteworthy events this week.

You can see our plans for our upcoming South Africa leg getting blown up, and then maybe put back on the table in Day 206 below. There is back and forth on that decision on other days as well, but no final determinations.

On day 209 you can learn a lesson at my expense about trusting AI when it comes to travel planning, or in general. Claude gave me a big scare with a stunning error it continually made over the course of days, and that I only caught because I double checked it against another source.

Our move from Vietnam to Thailand is documented on day 210. We ran into our first big travel mistake, and I’m not even sure what I learned from it.

Rounding out the week on day 212 I get the first signs of the Czechoslovakian Two Step (intestinal distress). At this point in our trip the two-step is something we know is a “when” not an “if”.

Travel Log: Day 206 (1/19), Vietnam

We had a normal school day today. JC and I lifted upper body during one of the self-directed subjects.

Most of my day was spent researching our location after Sri Lanka. That was going to be South Africa but now I’m not so sure. I started simply by looking at Airbnb options, and they are much more expensive than we had projected. We thought we’d find a place easily for $1K/month. From what I was seeing it’s more like $2,200 for something in the area where we want to be.

That lead me to look at other possibilities. The options narrowed down to Morocco and Turkey, which are both on the way from Sri Lanka to Europe. Either one of those would save us about $3K in total cost, and that’s mostly flight cost. That’s due to South Africa being so far out of the way. Morocco probably makes the most sense because it will allow us to visit Africa. My current mental hangup in switching plans is that South Africa was going to be easy, a victory lap for making it through so many months of language barriers. Neither replacement location will be easy in that way.

In the late afternoon we watched the Broncos win their playoff game. Bo Nix was injured for the rest of the season which put a cloud over that win.

JC made dinner at home. A rice and veggie stir fry that I would be happy to eat every night. It’s apparently easy to cook, very good, and it’s probably very cheap.

Travel Log: Day 207 (1/20), Vietnam

This morning was our normal pattern lately. Normal school day, and JC and I went to the gym during some self-directed subjects. We have split our gym days into upper and lower and we’re going four days.

Financial Planning

I spent a lot of time running future budget months for the rest of the trip to find out if we’ve priced ourselves out of South Africa, or if that still works given the higher than anticipated Airbnb prices we’re finding there. The good news is that financially SA is still in play, and we’ll end up with just barely over a 4% withdrawal rate. We may still choose to go to Morocco or Turkey to save $3K. That would allow us to do Europe a little differently, maybe roaming around for a month to see more of it.

Thailand Prep

After the budget calculations I went through an AI checklist of prep items for Thailand, and our usual homemade checklist of items. I submitted the travel notice to Schwab and the state department, downloaded offline maps, checked eSIM coverage, etc.

The last thing on my todo list today was working on Thai phrases. I got my notes transferred into Quizlet and verified I could say the phrases. Some of that required double checking the video to tweak the pronunciation. Thai is easier to get right than Japanese or Vietnamese were.

Mall and Night Cap

In the mid afternoon we walked to the Thiso Mall a couple miles away. We walked around it and the kids played for quite a while on $7.60 worth of tokens at an arcade. It must have been 45 minutes of play which is a bargain compared to US arcade prices. Then we Grabbed back to our condo and ate Tho. The food was disappointing on our fourth time. JC and I were done eating before the kids food arrived, so we were in there for nearly an hour. It was cheap however at about $11.

We rounded out the night with Stranger Things. JC and I are both wiped after our workout because we swapped in walking lunges instead of the usual leg press.

Travel Log: Day 208 (1/21), Vietnam

Typical school day with a gym session in the middle.

I spent some time learning Thai phrases and it’s coming along pretty well.

We did more research on our options following our stay in Sri Lanka. JC and I don’t really feel like spending much if any time in Morocco after we watched a video about it. It has lots of markets with pushy vendors, and plenty of scams to go with it. We may want to do that someday without kids, but it doesn’t seem like a great fit for us now.

I dug a little deeper on the garden route in South Africa and think a town along that will be a good option for us. We could fly directly to that route at George Airport, and rent a car to tour along the route. That area improves the safety situation a lot, and there will probably be more to see there anyway.

In the afternoon BC and I watched some Trent The Traveler, and then AC and I watched a Stranger Things. Lately with these two shows I’ve been watching TV more heavily than at any point since we’ve had kids.

Travel Log: Day 209 (1/22), Vietnam

School as usual with a gym run in the middle. JC and I were still too sore after our last leg day where we did walking lunges, so we just did core today. I think this was a good move because we both feel wiped out and I think it’s due to our legs recovering.

With this being our last full day in HCMC, we just hung out around the condo and ate Artisan for both lunch and dinner. AC BC and I watched Stranger Things. JC and I watched 11.22.63 in the evening.

We packed up as much as we could today, which is basically everything. Just the charging stuff and our toiletries will remain to pack in the morning.

I had a last minute scare after I double checked what Claude kept telling me about Thailand entry. It said nothing was required and we would fill out an immigration card on the plane. I checked on google and it said we needed to fill out a digital form before arrival. Claude basically said “oops, I was working off old data”. I filled that out and we have our QR codes. I ran the whole entry scenario by copilot to double check everything and it looks like we’re good now.

We have a Grab pre-booked for 5:45am tomorrow morning to take us to the airport. I definitely don’t feel like I’m dying to get out of here, and I think I’ll miss Vietnam.

Travel Log: Day 210 (1/23), Vietnam to Thailand

The day got off to an early start because our flight to Thailand was at 9:45am. I scheduled a Grab to pick us up at 5:45am with the drive to the airport taking 40 minutes or so. JC woke up at 4:45am and I got up at 5am. I should have followed her lead and got up earlier because we were barely out the door on time. It was uncomfortably rushed to the point where I didn’t even get to do my usual once-over of the whole place to make sure we didn’t forget anything.

SGN Airport

Once we made it to the Ho Chi Minh airport, we went to the check-in counter but we got there too early. They told us to come back at 6:45am, so we killed a little time and then came back. Check-in was no problem, and we checked our three biggest bags.

After that was immigration and we had to wait a good 40 minutes I’d estimate to get through that. I noticed the fast track lane where people were immediately going through, just like we did on the way in. While that would have been nice, it was not necessary since we had so much time before our flight anyway.

Security was next and it was one of the more annoying security lines we’ve been through. They treated phones and watches like laptops so we had to put those individually in the bin with the laptops. Other than that though it wasn’t too bad, and only took about 20 minutes to get through.

Flight From Ho Chi Minh to Chiang Mai

The flight was late to take off, and it seemed to be because our plane was late to arrive. It was pulling up to the tarmac at the time we were supposed to be boarding. We were at least 20 minutes late taking off, and I don’t think they said anything about it. They may have in a different language though.

The flight was one of the more disgusting flights I have ever taken. There were a bunch of people that were clearly sick, hacking up phlegm, wiping their noses with their hands, sneezing, etc. Probably some of that may not have been sickness, but rather the Vietnamese people just being kind of gross. I don’t know how to say that without sounding mean. It’s really just the men, who we regularly saw spitting, hacking, pissing with dicks in plain sight, etc. It was the same thing carrying over to the plane, minus dicks out of course.

The flight was only 1hr 40min, and with our 20 minute delay we landed around noon. We still had plenty of time to make our connection though because our connecting flight was pushed back by 30 minutes several days earlier.

Chiang Mai Airport

While we had plenty of time to make our connection, we almost blew it with our first flight related snafu of the year. We exited the plane into the Bangkok airport, exchanged some VND for THB, and then got in the foreign passport immigration line. We were in that line for nearly an hour, and when we got to the counter she told us we were in the wrong spot. She said we had to go further down the hall to domestic connections.

We started heading that way but got confused as to exactly where. We didn’t want to exit the area we were in, past the big line, because it took us an hour to get there. I called over another immigration agent and she clarified that yes we have to go out to the main hall and then over. We did that and figured we had another line to stand in, with only 50 minutes remaining until boarding.

Luckily there was no line at all at domestic. I mean zero people besides us. We went through all of the same steps of immigration passport check, fingerprints, security re-screening, but it all took under 10 minutes. We even got to our gate with time to eat lunch and drink coffee.

Flight to Chiang Mai and Chiang Mai Airport

The flight to Chiang Mai was much better with nobody visibly sick. I did have to sit next to a fatty who took up more than his allotted space, and dominated both armrests. Me and the opposite guy had to just lean away from him for the whole short flight.

As we walked off the plane at Chiang Mai, we were surprised to see an airline employee holding a sign with our names on it, among a few others. It had those of us arriving internationally with checked bags. We went over there and they gave us a sticker indicating we were international baggage claimers. That allowed us to bypass passport control which we had already done in Bangkok, and go straight to our bags.

We had to wait quite a while for our bags and switch to a different carousel eventually. I was able to get cash from an ATM while we were waiting, and I checked out Grab to make sure I could find our address.

Ride To Airbnb

Once we had our bags we found the Grab station, and I put the route in. It was going to be ~250BHT (~$8) which seemed a bit high. On the way there I saw the fixed rate Taxi stand for 150BHT, so I went there. We got a taxi and as we were getting in I mistakenly went to the usual passenger side. I was staggered and confused when I was greeted with a steering wheel, almost like I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Then it hit me where we were and that the driving is all reversed.

The driver just laughed and said he thought I was going to drive. He also does driving tours so we got his info. The drive went through Chiang Mai University which looked nice and bigger than I expected. It has almost the same student count as Colorado State at ~35K.

Airbnb and Night Cap

Upon entering our Airbnb we were really blown away by how unique and nice this place is. It’s the only Airbnb of the year were I wasn’t somewhat disappointed upon seeing it in person. This place was even more stunning than the pictures. They call it modern industrial and I can’t think of a better way to describe it.

After we settled in a bit, JC and I made a run to 7-Eleven to get water and dinner. On our way there we walked through a big market between here and there. It’s called Malin Plaza I think, and it has tons of affordable food options and clothing. We plan to eat there quite a bit because there’s almost every food option you could think of. The quality appears to be leaps and bounds better than the UDHO market.

The 7-Eleven food was actually delicious. I had a curry pork rice dish and I would rate it 9/10. Everyone else had similar things such as shrimp rice, and they all reported that it was great. I’d put this 7-Eleven more on par with Japan than Vietnam.

To end the evening the kids did screens while JC and I watched 11.22.63.

Travel Log: Day 211 (1/24), Thailand

We all slept good last night, but the kids slept great. They got about 12 hours straight through. I got an 81 sleep score and slept fine, but woke up at 5am and couldn’t go back to sleep. 

JC and I had the fancy coffee here which was really good. We’re going to run out of that by tomorrow though, at which point we’ll switch to instant. I don’t want to buy more of these and get back into the pod habit. Even though these higher end pod machines (nespresso, etc) are the best coffee possible, it’s a real financial drain.

With the kids still asleep, JC and I went on a walk around the university. We ran into a reservoir that had a nice path going around it. We looped around that and ended up with 7K steps just from our morning walk.

Food Hunting

Next we went to 7-Eleven to find breakfast stuff. We found good options again, and got a couple other things we needed. 

A big grocery store run followed breakfast. It was expensive at about $90, but we should have 30+ person-meals from that. That also includes movie snacks for tonight, and many things that will last most or all of our stay like coffee and peanut butter.

For lunch we went to Boat Bakery next door. We had confusion about whether to seat ourselves. After walking around the restaurant we found a local family walking in and just followed them. We watched and gathered that they asked the staff if they should pick a table, and the waitress motioned to sit anywhere, so that’s what we did too. Our food was really good and the total was under $10. 

Research and FAC Saturday Edition

In the afternoon I spent more time looking at gyms, and looking for protein powder. I found a good place to buy supplements and will probably go there tomorrow. There is also a gym that is cheaper and more spacious, but it’s just far enough we couldn’t walk there in a reasonable time.

JC made rice and beans for dinner and we watched Garfield A Tale Of Two Cats for movie night (BC’s pick). I really can’t wait for BC to get some testosterone and switch from kid movies to teenage selections. Something like X-men would have been a huge improvement over Garfield fart humor.

Travel Log: Day 212 (1/25), Thailand

Czechoslovakian Two Step

Through the night my intestines were churning a bit and I thought I might be in trouble. It could be any number of things, and I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint a cause. Possibly exposure to sick people on the flight out of Vietnam, new food in Thailand, drinking airport fountain water in Bangkok, drinking the water left to us in our Airbnb which was filtered by an unknown process, etc. In the morning I felt better though, so that was a relief.

JC and I had coffee, and then I watched Alex Honnold scale Taipei 101 on Netflix. My feet and hands were sweating the entire time just hoping he wouldn’t die.

Gym, Supplements, and Cash

A little later JC and I walked to the gym I found that I wanted to join. The lady at the desk said I might want to walk around and check it out so I did. The place is real tight, and there were quite a few people there, but it looked good to me. I think traffic will be lower during the week. The treadmills are up in a loft area and I just barely have the head room to run there. It cost 1,000 THB (~$33) for one month. They also had protein and creatine so I got that there to save us a trip to another store. That cost 2,790 THB (~$89) which is fine for 3lb of protein and 60 servings of creatine.

We went over to the mall to get more cash since I paid for all of the gym stuff in cash. We walked around all of the levels of the mall quickly and then went back home.

Lunch, Water, Spanish

For lunch we ate another very local (to our Airbnb) restaurant called T-Ten. We had some heavily sugared coffee there, and some really good food. I had Khao Soi which is a signature northern Thailand dish. I had medium spice with pork, very good. BC had spaghetti, AC had fish and chips basically, and JC had Pad Thai. It was a little pricy at ~$20, but the quality was better than Boat Restaurant.

In the afternoon I tried out filling up the water bottle from the laundry area filter. It looked like a better system than I expected, with a three stage filter and UV disinfectant. I ran it by Claude and it said as long as it’s being maintained it should be good. Given I have already drank 3-4L of that with what the host provided and presumably filled from that source, I think we’re good.

Rounding out the day JC and I went for a walk, and I got in a full hour of Duolingo. The kids and I also watched an episode of a Spanish TV show that we’re using for learning. The show was purpose built for learners, and is actually pretty funny in an intentionally self-defacing way. We also watched an episode of Stranger Things.