the land of smiles

Wow, it's great to be home!! I've been away in Thailand, as many of you know, for 2 weeks.  Unfortunately a bug followed me home so I've been very sick with salmonella poisoning for these past almost 2 weeks! Thank my stars I was home when it really kicked in, for obvious reasons.

If I'm honest, I've barely been able to look at these photos without wanting to be sick, let alone blog about it, but here I am back in the saddle :)  I'm not going to bore you all with a lot of fancy words and photos, just a summary and a few of my favourite photos.  I really didn't take that many as I just wanted to live in the moment and not be concerned about the 'set up' of the food to make it look good on here, but I'm sure you'll get a good idea from the few I've included.

So, my spin on Thailand? Well, not to state the obvious but geepers it is unrelentingly hot!! I'm a fan of cooler weather, nothing else needs to be said! We ate some amazing food, the people are so friendly and even though their driving is cray, cray, crazy, there wasn't a minute of road rage or a feeling of being unsafe.  Actually, I felt safe the whole time I was in Thailand.  We never had one bad experience nor did we see any abuse or hassling like you could even just in one of our capital cities.  

What did happen because of the heat is, we were really limited in the amount of time you had out in it as the humidity just zapped the energy from you.  Even so, we had some wonderful market experiences, both edible and merchandise.  We got to see tigers who were well looked after, fat almost, not drugged and in clean enclosures and the 3 month old cubs stole our hearts.  It is bitter sweet for me as I understand why they are kept in captivity but I wanted to let them all out to be free and not touched and stared at by what must be hundreds and hundreds of tourists a week.

I was lucky enough to cook some Thai meals with produce from the markets.  It made me realise how much I love the rhythm of the kitchen and how much I was missing my kitchen!  Although, having a maid to do your dishes and make the beds was hard to leave!

I did come home with a feeling of just how lucky we really are where we live.  We can clean our teeth without missing a beat, eat food without worry (usually :)) of hygiene standards, and live a beautiful easy life, if we chose to.  I had one middle aged Thai lady who did everything from massage, hair braiding and laundry, ask me why would you want to come here to this when you have the most beautiful beaches in Australia.  That really hit a cord with me, we really have so much right at our doorstep.

Lastly, a little shout out to our travelling buddies who live here and some that are living in Bangers, thank you all for making memories with me :D and remember, what happened on tour, stays on tour!

Ciao, Jan