Buh-bye Europe, Hello Asia!

After Smash and Stephen left we needed to leave the Schengen region immediately. So we made our way through Spain, flying into Madrid, taking a bus down to Valencia and then flying out of the Schengen. After a brief layover in Bulgaria, we flew onto Dubai. Dubai is a beautiful, modern and wildly diverse city. It was a blast, but a little more expensive than the places we like to stay so we only stayed one night. We did visit the mall with the ski lift inside (it cost about $80 for a one day pass, so we skipped the actual skiing).

We did, however, indulge in one of our US favorites that we ran into- Papa Johns pizza. We were amazed by how many of the familiar US chains we saw in Dubai (no Chipotle though!), everything from Cinnabon, Cheesecake Factory, and Hardee’s to Chili’s, Seattle’s Best, Krispy Kreme, Caribou Coffee and more! Interestingly, while we were at the mall we even heard the call to prayer in the mall. We also heard it in the airport and walked past the airport mosque and saw tons of shoes sitting outside the door. We didn’t hear it on the streets though, like we did in Istanbul. After the mall we went down to see the marina and some of the biggest, most impressive yachts we have ever seen. The buildings situated around the marina were also very cool and had some very fun, unique architecture, it was a cool place to look around!

 

Our next stop was Burj Khalifa, the highest building in the world. We had easily picked out the building from the plane flying in the night before, it is not only significantly higher than the buildings around it, it is also a very unique shape. We did not go up to either of the observation points, but had read that the top of the building sways 2 meters and that you can watch a sunset on the ground, then shoot up the elevator and see it again from the highest observation deck. Someday when we have more money and time we are definitely going back to enjoy all that Dubai has to offer, it was such a cool city!

We flew from Dubai to Mumbai (a three hour flight where we changed time zones by an hour and a half… Ever heard of such a thing? Me neither.). Incidently, we had at least 4 people get sick on that flight, far more than I have seen -total- get sick on a flight in my life! It wasn’t even a bumpy flight, but for some reason tons of people got sick. Odd. We had a 2 hour layover in the beautiful Mumbai airport before we flew the 5 hours to Singapore.

The Singapore airport is incredible, there are large gardens all over, and tons of activities, from a 7-11 to free usage of computers, a room for stocks (called the Bloomberg room it had several tvs with stock information and several computer desks with dual screens to check stocks), huge screens showing sports with large comfy chairs in front with individual speakers and there was even a rumor of a butterfly garden, but we were in the wrong terminal for that.

They do have extensive security at the airport and are very strict. The pilot on the airplane from Mumbai even announced that drug trafficking in Singapore carries a mandatory death penalty. After we got our bags we went through security again and they saw something they didn’t like- one of the pocket knives we have with us(in our checked luggage). They made us take it out and looked it over, but instead of simply taking it away, we had to go to the police station, fill out a report, sign something saying that they took it away and then we were able to go. It took about 30 minutes just to take the knife away.

However, we were then allowed to enjoy all that the Singapore airport had to offer and enjoyed a wonderful leg and foot massage before boarding yet another flight to Krabi, Thailand. We got in to Krabi at around 3:30pm.

Our first day in Krabi found us completely out of our element. By the time we got through the world’s slowest customs line and figured out where the bus left from it was about 4:30 and we could barely keep our eyes open. Neither of us had really slept on any of the flights. I slept for maybe an hour on the flight from Mumbai, but airplane sleep is never any kind of quality. So here we are, sleep deprived and in a completely foreign place. Most place we have been have been similar enough to the U.S. that we have been able to figure them out. We can sound out signs that point us in the right direction and many people speak fairly good english. That is not quite the case here. The English we hear is very broken and our Thai is pretty much non existent. Most of the signs are written in Thai. A very beautiful language but not one that we can read at all. We put our stuff down in our guesthouse/small hotel. It is a family run business and the two ladies we have talked to here are so sweet but there is definitely a language barrier. Our room only has a fan (no a/c) and it’s pretty warm here. Not a big deal, but our bed also has a light comforter on it and no sheet. We tried to ask for another sheet and I think we got that across, but there was a lot of pantomiming, pointing (on both sides) and finally a demonstration (on our part). Then we tried to go into Krabi, not realizing that our place is a good 2.8 kilometers from the town. We were planning to walk, but the daughter told us no, it was too far. So we asked how much a taxi would be. She said no, no taxis and then went to make a phone call. A few minutes later her mom pulled up and drove us into town and dropped us off at a scooter rental place. We looked at each other, nervously, but asked how much it would cost to rent a moped for six days- 1200 baht the man there told us (about $36) We decided to think about it. We had no desire to rent a scooter, we have not driven in months and the idea of scooting about town in a foreign country where they drive on the left was slightly terrifying to us. So we walked down to the market which was another mind boggling experience. Tons of stalls lined the streets, they were tented together with tarps that hung very low, I had to duck to get through them many times and Nick was practically bent in half the whole time we were in the market. There were fruits and veggies for sale, baked goods and tons of other foods, most of which I have no idea what they were. We observed several small makeshift kitchens with propane burners heating large pans of oil for frying or for use as make shift burners. The sanitation was questionable at best. Everything smelled amazing though. We had read that the best way to avoid getting sick was to only eat fruits and vegetables that had a peel and to eat at places that had lines as the food turnover was faster. We had also read that the bacteria here is different from the bacteria we were used to and so we would likely get sick until our bodies adjusted to the bacteria. So we dove right in, eating some awesome Pad Thai from a small stall in the market. Watching the guy make it was fascinating. He had two large burners that he stirred with spoons big enough to be shovels. It was amazing, absolutely wonderful and neither of us got sick. We figure we have been in training for a while- eating choripan of questionable origin in Argentina, doners everywhere and chicken bone pasta in Lisbon. We stocked up on yogurt to help keep our healthy bacteria going strong in ours guts, so we will see!

We decided to rent the scooter after all. One thing I have learned about myself is that I like to be in control. And when I am not in control I tend to get anxious and panicky. So when we rented a scooter and Nick drove (with me hanging on for dear life behind him) I got anxious. I was not at all in control and had to trust my life to him while he learned to drive on the left side of the road. Oh my stars, it was so terrifying. He was so nice about the fact that I was an anxious wreck though and never got frustrated at me for whispering doom and gloom into his ear the whole ride. At one point we pulled over to figure out where we were and he pulled over to the right shoulder, because that was what he was used to. Even when we were on the correct side of the road it was not as simple as staying in our lane and driving as the lanes here mean nothing. Cars swerve around each other and mopeds race between the cars in what can only be described as semi organized chaos – fascinating!
It was an exhausting and overwhelming first day and we were so happy when it finally seemed late enough to go to bed (8:45) and we happily gave our tired bodies some rest.