How (not) to plan a vacation the mmm-yoso way….And yet another update on the (former) Vien Dong III Supermarket

One day after we returned from our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, the Missus was after me to start planning our next vacation. Our first idea was:

We both thought this would be a great idea……I’d get to eat my fill in Merida, and other towns, and the Missus has always wanted to visit Chichen Itza and Uxmal, and perhaps even get some beach time in at Tulum. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, something happened, and we thought that maybe we should do this some other time.

So up next was another bright idea:

Tikal is another site on the Missus’s list, and the areas we planned to visit were away from the paths of most hurricanes. As a plus, I thought we’d bus our way into El Salvador. But what stopped us this time, were the ticket prices….they started in the mid $300 range…and slowly approached $800!

About the time I was contemplating just calling it a year, some civil unrest took place in another country. Now the Missus knows not to trifle with Mother Nature, but a little civil unrest, in a Country that is known as "The Land of Smiles", and that we’ve always heard fantastic things about? The only thing that the Missus, a classic opportunist, thought was "lower ticket prices!" And so it came about, by the time I purchased our airline tickets, the Prime Minister of Thailand was forced to resign for taking payments for appearing on a cooking show.(!) There’s got to be some irony there somehow…..so maybe this is the trip that was meant to be.

We’ll soon find out. As many of you are reading this, we’re on the way to LAX. This may be a bit different than other trips. Other than making our first nights hotel reservations, we’ll be "winging it", with just a basic outline, and no real plans. I only know when we’ll be arriving in Bangkok, and when we leave, everything else is wide open. The basic outline is to spend a day or two in Bangkok, than head North, past Nong Khai into Laos, and Vientiane, and eventually Luang Prabang, before heading back to Thailand. I think I’m a bit old to be traveling by the seat of my pants, but what the heck…..

And even though I now have the largest collection of Lonely Planet guides in San Diego, at least we know where we are headed, sort of……

So I’ll now turn you over to Cathy, who I can’t thank enough for keeping our blog’s heart beating. I’ll try to check in every now and then, but other than that, we’ll see you in a few weeks!

One last update:

As mentioned by "Sam" in a previous post. Vien Dong Market is now going to be a location of Thuan Phat Supermarket.

I know there’s a Thuan Phat Supermarket in Westminster, so I’m wondering if they are affiliated?