Our last days in Africa…first days in Bangkok…
Saturday, August 18th, 2007We decided to spend a few days in Kampala before our flight just to do some shopping, and just relax before our trip to Bangkok.
We had one last dinner with John’s friend Cephas – the Indian food at this place Haandi was AWESOME! And so different than the stuff in Seattle – not as rich but more flavorful without being so HOT!
Africa was good. But we’re ready to head east. Asia is calling.
It’s kind of funny that the 2 things that I didn’t thing we’d be exiting Africa with from our original stash from America is: sunscreen and bugspray. I’m telling you – coming in the winter is the way to go. Granted we kind of let nature take it’s course since I’m pretty tan and John’s, well, pretty tanish for him but the bugs weren’t super-bad and the weather was pretty temperate. I think we came with 3 bottles of each and left Africa with 2 bottles of each. But I’m sure we’ll use them here in Asia.
Kenyan Airways is what we flew. Entebbe, Uganda to Nairobi, Kenya to Bangkok, Thailand. 4 hour time difference. It was actually a really good couple of flights. Lots of legroom, those little mini tv sets at each seat – the food was pretty awful, but how good is airplane food REALLY?
Anyway, now we’re in Bangkok for 10 days. Yeah, I know – kind of a long time in a city but we’re restocking. As you might have guessed, Africa is not really a great place to find “stuff”. In our opinion, anyway.
If you can imagine, wearing 2-3 changes of clothes over 4 months kind of wears them out. Plus the selection of toiletries is much better here (it probably helps that we’re just about to run out of stuff like shampoo). Once I got over the hurdle that I went from a size S/M to L/XL (on the streets they sell a lot of one-size-fits-all stuff – I think I could fit only one arm into some of these shirts). Of course John didn’t run into any of this because men seem to be immune to vanity sizing – he actually went down a shirt size from M to S if you can believe it. We finally found some semi-quick-dry stuff today — most everything is 100% cotton which takes FOREVER to dry if you’re hand-washing or on a trail somewhere…oh and John found some nike sandals for cheap to replace the African ones that I had to stitch back up just so he could wear them after a couple of wearings (Uganda has these MASSIVE HOLES on their sidewalks and one of them was covered by apparently a sketchy piece of wood because he went straight through – luckily the only casualty was the sandals).
Bangkok is pretty darn cool. We’re staying in a HOTEL. With our own bathroom. And Air Conditioning. We had wanted to splurge a while back but just couldn’t justify spending $200 for a Holiday Inn in Africa. So we decided to just do it for the 10 days we’re here since we’ll be volunteering in Nepal (staying with a family) and then trekking after that…
Great food (then again, I LOVE THAI FOOD!), huge shopping malls (and lots of them – kind of overwhelming, really). I’m no longer “white”. It’s a kingdom here – we went and saw the Bourne Ultimatum and before the movie starts you stand up and honor the king and they play a little video of the king. Good movie by the way. I think we have had our fix of movies between Entebbe and Bangkok – we saw the Transformers in Entebbe (I couldn’t get the sound where the cars change into robots out of my head for days)…oh and did I mention ice cream – it’s everywhere. And not the kind of bumpy ice-cream we saw in Uganda…and snacks. Oh and cake – that’s moist. Did I mention that John is in heaven (except for the necessary evil of shopping – WAY too much going on)…
Oh, and fast internet. GLORIOUSLY FAST INTERNET. John is downloading pics as we sit here. Since it’s been like 3 months since he’s actually been able to do it.
Oh and we saw my friend Jeff who I used to work with and sort of took over my job after I left! So good to see him! And saw his new pad (okay, actually they’re building it so it won’t be finished for a year and a half but it’s a very cool condo from the model).
Anyway, we’re off to Nepal on Wednesday…we start volunteer teaching for a month and then who knows from there! I think we’ll be ready to leave this busy city knowing we’ll be coming back to tour the rest of the country at a later date!
JohnCin