Route taken
This is a bit all over the place, since we had an accident, flew home, flew back, and came back 2 more times. But here’s how it went:1st trip: Bangkok – Ko Tao (accident) – Ko Samui (hospital) – Bangkok – home

2nd trip: Bangkok – (flew to) Chiang Mai – Koh Chang – Laos (through Hua Xia)

3rd trip: Bangkok – (flew to) Chiang Mai – Pai – Krabi (via Chiang Mai and Bangkok, trains and buses for 2 days) – Bangkok – Hawaii

4th trip: Bangkok – Chiang Mai – Bangkok – India

Total number of days: 42 (See below for breakdown)

Budget
(Budget calculations do not include the 9 days we spent the first time dealing with accidents and hospitals.)

Overall Average: $26/day

Interesting Expenditures:

• $6.67 total on water – yay for 5 Baht bottles of water!
• $137 total on hotels
• $67 on elephant sanctuary. Big splurge, but worth it. Proceeds go to care for the elephants.
• $5.41 on food per day (average)

Food and Drink
Food in Thailand rocks. Believe the hype. $1 fried rices, $1.50 curries, and $1 soups. And they’re all heaven.Must eats:

• Tom Ka Gai soup – number one favorite of Thailand. Cocunut galangal soup with chicken, tomatoes, onions and mushrooms. So good. 
• Pad Thai – the street food I did try, and it was consistently good and CHEAP
• Kao Soi – found in the North. A curry, noodle and veg dish with crispy noodles on top. You can get it with meat if you want.
• Fried rice – a staple, and good one at that
• Curries – my fav was the yellow curries and Indian curry… which seems to be different in Thailand than in India
• Thai Ice Tea – only they don’t call it that. Order Chai Yen (literally, “Cold Tea”) or you’ll get Lipton.
• Rice, fried egg, and soy sauce – best breakfast

Highlights

• Elephant Sanctuary near Chiang Mai,
• The beaches
• Swimming in a giant Jacuzzi in Pai
• Chiang Mai will always hold a special place in my heart, since I spent so much time there and had such a great tour guide
• If you need it, you can buy it in Thailand.  English language books, t-shirts, crocks, a new backpack. If we had to do it all over again, we would have brought less, since we started in Thailand, and bought anything we needed while we were there.

Best deal
Daret’s Guesthouse in Chiang Mai. Great, clean place, right by Thae Pae gate, the center of town, with a restaurant downstairs, and 180 Baht per night (about $4). The Tom Ka Gai is superb.

Calendar of events

September
9 – 18, Bangkok, Ko Tao, Ko Samui, Bangkok, home

October
7 – flew into Bangkok
8 – flew to Chiang Mai
9 – Chiang Mai
10 – Chiang Mai – Hua Xia, left for Laos

November
23 – flew to Chiang Mai (from Vietnam)
24-30 - Chiang Mai

December
1-6 – Chiang Mai
7,8 – Pai
9 – Pai to Bangkok
10 – Bangkok to Krabi
11 - 15 – Krabi
16 – 18 – Bangkok, left for Hawaii

29 – flew to Bangkok
30, 31 – Chiang Mai

January
1-4 - Chiang Mai
5 – left for India