Travels with a Burnt out Do Gooder

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So I haven't made an entry here since July as I was busy preparing for the most part. All kinds of shots (Hep A and B, tetanus and polio, typhoid, and more to come). Until last week when we were hit so badly with Hurricane Sandy, I was working on my Thai itinerary and Indian visa. The application for the latter took me 2 and 1/2 weeks to figure out and send in which I finally did yesterday.

That was the same day I finally got my electricity back after a week without. I am lucky to live in a town which harbored the regional FEMA and Red Cross shelter for the region. I would go there during the day for food, warmth, and wifi and phone charging, and then home at night to sleep with Bela, my poor pussy cat. But the last night was so cold so I stayed at the shelter and ran home in the morning to rescue Bela from the cold, and apparently during the night , God had said "Let there be light," because there it was ! YEAAAAAA.

Now back to the Thai itinerary. I have opted to go in the opposite direction that most tourists to Thailand go. Instead I will go from Bangkok, first south to Phuket, then to Chiang Mai and back to Bangkok before I fly home on Feb. 13. I am going in this direction so that I can be at the Chiang Mai night market on Sunday night...........it is supposed to be mind bogglingly enormous, possibly the largest in the world with EVERYTHING.

There are 3 legs to the loop. For the first one, Bangkok to Phuket, I have flight and accomodations. Now I am dithering over how to divy up my time between Phuket and Chiang Mai. Then I will book the next legs. I'd hoped to have this all done by now but the research is amazingly slow. Ahhh I miss the good old days when travel agents took care of everything. Alas this is what comes of being an indie traveler.

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