Up, up and away

D-day is almost here. That is, after waiting several long months, my vacation time in Thailand is now only a few days away. This will be my fifth visit to Bangkok, my fourth to Chiang Mai, but my first to Pattaya which is where I will being this journey. I will end it in Bangkok which is normally where I begin the vacation. After much rainy weather here in the Bay Area it appears that we will have a dry Sunday so I can push or pull my suitcases down to BART without much fear of rain. A week earlier that would not have been possible. Today, in fact, was the first day in nearly a month with a completely blue sky. Hallelujah!

While our weather has not been unusually cold for this time of the year, it will still be nice to get to a warm climate where I can just wear a short sleeve shirt or t-shirt, even late at night. This is the dry and "cool" season there so I don't expect daytime temperatures in Pattaya or Bangkok to go over 90 degrees and they will be a few degrees cooler in Chiang Mai where morning lows are now close to San Francisco temperatures of around 60 degrees.

Getting away for three weeks will be great as usual and I look forward to seeing my friends there. I will also take a couple of side trips out of Chiang Mai with Ben to Doi Suthep and Lampang/Lampuhun and at least one out of Bangkok with Poj to the ancient capital at
Ayutthaya. In Pattaya I expect to vegetate for six nights. Or is the correct term "beach bum"? Actually, not being a beach person I may spend more time inland at such places as the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo and Ripley's World of Entertainment. My hotel, actually a guest house,
has its own private sauna area so I may use that a lot as well.

The downside of this is the thirteen hour flight from San Francisco to Taipei. From there it is another three hours down to Thailand which is not bad following the layover in Taipei although there is really not much to do there as one is still inside the secure areas. Also, it is fairly early in the morning so not all the vendors in that area are open while I am waiting for my connecting flight. Oh, the hardship of it all! hahaha Anyway, I am not sure what, if anything, I will post to this site for the rest of the month. My daily schedules are still pretty much up in the air except for the previously mentioned tours.

So this concludes this post for now.