I’m happy to say I’m back from our family vacation after divorce and trying desperately to adjust back into my work/blogging routine but this jetlag is very challenging. I’ve been back for four days now and I’m still waking up at 3 a.m. My boss told me today that the guideline is one day for every hour of time difference. Thailand was thirteen hours ahead of Colorado so does that mean I’m going to be feeling like this for almost two weeks? Really?
For today’s post, I thought I’d share some reflections on our vacation. Just to recap, I traveled for three weeks with my two children who are aged eighteen and fifteen to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. I planned the itinerary myself with a lot of input from a couple of friends and posts on TripAdvisor. With my daughter off to college in a few weeks, I had wanted us to do a “big” trip because I suspect that scheduling a long trip will be more difficult in future although I half-joke that as long as I’m paying, I’m sure they’ll vacation with me, even when I’m eighty! I also wanted us to go somewhere that was culturally very different and it was definitely that.
The planning took many hours and that wasn’t even including choosing the destination. Initially, I had hoped that the kids would be able to agree on a location; I asked for three suggestions from each of them hoping there would be an overlap. No such luck and whatever one suggested, the other one came up with some objection. That made it difficult for me to choose one of their suggestions for fear of being accused of favoritism. So in the end the choice of destination was mine.
Itinerary: I was pretty pleased overall with our itinerary. Although we did move around a lot, for the most part we had enough time in each place to feel that we had seen what we wanted to see. There was one place we stayed were we all agreed we were bored and could have done with fewer days there. We finished the trip with a few days chilling out on the beach and both kids said they appreciated that. By then they were done with sightseeing and they just wanted to be. That being said, I think the hotel I chose was a little too tranquil for them – they kept retreating to the hotel room to watch a DVD. I really didn’t want them to do that but I kept quiet thinking this was their vacation and there was no harm in doing that if that was what they most wanted. Had there been more on-site activities that required minimal effort to arrange there may have been less of that.
My daughter had said ahead of the trip that she didn’t want it to be just temples and museums and I think we had a good variety of activities including quad biking riding, cooking school, orphanage visit, tea plantation and elephant ride. With hindsight, I realize that we didn’t have many nature activities like hiking or seeing wild animals which is something we have typically done on vacations. I don’t know why I didn’t spot this before – possibly it didn’t come up as a must-do with the friends who’d already visited and I just didn’t see it.
Adjusting to the Culture: The biggest shock for me was the traffic which didn’t seem to follow any rules – motorcycles traveling both ways on the same side of the street and intersections are routinely more chaotic than what happens here when the traffic lights are out. That meant we had to be super careful crossing the street. As we walked the streets, we saw lots of food vendors and frankly watching them prepare the food made my daughter and I more cautious about where to eat. It was tempting to just stick with the hotel restaurant but I learned that the hotel staff had great recommendations and that made my daughter comfortable.
Tour Guides: I had hired tour guides for quite a number of days and they all really helped us, especially at the start of the trip in Bangkok, to get a feel for the culture and the way things worked. They also helped with restaurant choice and their recommendations were generally less expensive than what we would have found left to our own devices. The tour guides were all a good investment, sharing so much of the cultural, religious and political knowledge of their country and I’m convinced that they each saved us more than what their fee was.
Getting around: This was never a problem, tuks-tuks abound. They’re like motorcycles with rickshaws attached although they were a little different in each country. Initially, I had visions of getting in a tuk-tuk and being driven off down some country lane never to be heard from again. So again, to start with we asked the hotel staff to arrange a tuk-tuk which they were happy to do. In Siem Reap, we happened on a very friendly driver who became our personal chauffeur. We’d tell him where we wanted to go and then what time to pick us up, where to go to next, what our plans where for the next day. He was charming and my daughter decided he had the best, most comfortable tuk-tuk of all.
Money: I’m not used to carrying cash in the U.S. I use a credit card for almost everything although I pay it off every month. I was advised to pay cash in most places and to keep the card mainly for hotels. This was primarily for security reasons but also because many places were not likely to accept cards. I was also advised to take new $100 bills and that money exchanges offered better rates than banks. I also knew that we would need U.S. dollars for Cambodia and that these would need to be small bills in good condition. So I was nervous about carrying a large amount of cash but fortunately every hotel with one exception had a safety deposit box so I ended up only carrying it all around with me when we were traveling between destinations and on those occasions I just never let go of my bag.
Budget: With limited access to credit cards, I was nervous about running out of cash and I also didn’t want to overspend. The first few days in Bangkok made me anxious and then I thought about Suzanne Cramer’s Budgeting 101 tips. I ended up keeping a little tally each day of what I had budgeted, what we spent and what our running surplus/deficit was. This worked really well with the kids joining in, understanding the limitations on extras and the pricing of restaurants without me having to continually belabor the point. We ended up going over my budget by $46 which I’m really happy about.
Family Dynamics: It’s probably a statement of the obvious but family dynamics don’t magically change just because you’re in a different location. I guess I was hoping that my kids would get along a little better than they do at home but that didn’t really happen. The difference that being on vacation made though was that there was no running away from it and we had to talk about the blowups. I’m still hoping that those discussions will have a positive impact in the long term.
Travel Arrangements: Everything went well with these until our last connecting flight home which we missed. We were connecting though Houston which I haven’t done before and will be reluctant to do again. Getting through immigration, customs and rechecking our baggage was just a nightmare. Then trying to rebook our flights, we could only get one confirmed seat and my son and I had to go standby. We did all get on the same flight in the end but while we were waiting we made plans for what to do if we didn’t – my daughter has flown on her own before but son hasn’t and he was definitely nervous about having that possibility thrust upon. While all that proved unnecessary, it was a valuable learning experience for my kids.
Cell Phones and Internet: We did have free wireless internet at all the hotels excepting one which was great. It meant that we were able to message my ex and let him know we’d arrived safe and to wish him happy birthday. What also worked out great was that we had disconnected our smartphones because Verizon (our U.S. carrier) didn’t offer affordable options for where we were traveling. That meant that our days were uninterrupted by text messages or Facebook updates and I appreciated that. I did have an old international phone for emergency use and peace of mind. I ended up using it twice and was very glad I had with me.
Hopefully, if you’re traveling with your kids this summer, there’s one or two tips here you can use. And if you’ve been traveling and have a tip about something that worked really well or something to avoid, please do leave a comment.
Photo Credit: Gravitywave