Steampunk Fashion: asia

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It was my fifth visit to Bangkok in the past six months, and I didn’t intend to stay for long. I had planned to finish my time in Thailand with a day trip to the ancient city of Ayutthaya before heading down to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party.

Well, if you’ve been reading this site for any amount of time, you won’t be surprised to hear that once again, those plans went out the window!

As always, it was because of my awesome friends. They made me want to stick around, and/or injured themselves so badly in Vang Vieng that they couldn’t go to Koh Phangan.

Not that that actually happened.

It made sense to stay in Bangkok. Honestly, by this point, I was getting tired of the act of traveling — I wanted nothing more than to settle in one place for awhile and not have to deal with catching buses, finding guesthouses and coordinating schedules.

I just wanted to hang out and enjoy my last few days as a backpacker, while I could still wear hippie pants and a tubing t-shirt and drink Chang beers on the street and make dozens of friends instantly.

So I did that. 聽I couldn’t have had a better time. Having spent my first nine days of the trip in Bangkok as well, it felt like I came full circle.

This time around, I had a lot of friends in Bangkok. Friends from travel, friends from home, friends from the travel blogging community — and their friends!

Predictably, this led to quite a few crazy times. Like the day that began with running into a friend at the mall and ended with cotton candy, grocery store drinking and a ladyboy bar. 聽Seriously.

And let’s not forget about Songkran in Bangkok — a truly unforgettable festival and some of the most fun I’ve ever had in Asia!

I also needed to shop. After losing everything in the shipwreck, I basically replaced my entire wardrobe in Bangkok, which I now believe to be the world’s greatest city for shopping. 聽And then there were souvenirs for everyone at home.

There were also lots of interesting religious amulets in the market by Thammasat University — and let’s just say that I found some hand-carved objects that will become, um, perfect accessories for my friend’s bachelorette party.

There was sightseeing. Low-key, low-pressure sightseeing. 聽I took Ste to see the Golden Buddhas at Wat Pho — still the tourist destination in Bangkok I recommend the most, and definitely worth 50 baht ($1.67).

And, most importantly, there was Khao San Road.

You know what? 聽I’m done feeling guilty over spending so much time there. God knows there are enough travelers turning their nose up at it. 聽(For the record, a LOT of them stay at Lub*d Silom . 聽By all means, stay there if you hate Bangkok. 聽You’ll fit right in. 聽But I digress.)

Khao San Road might be garish and cliche and inauthentic and full of backpackers and buckets — but it is SO much fun.

In fact — you want to know why I loved Khao San Road so much?

Because my nights were spent like this:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4NJnmtD9k8&w=560&h=349]

That’s what it was like. Just pure happiness, living in the moment, singing “I Shot the Sheriff” on the street with a bunch of people we had just met.

So, how did I spend my final full day and night in Asia?

I finished up my souvenir shopping. 聽I ate some pad see euw on the street.

I played with a kitty. 聽He belonged to the guesthouse, and I named him Tom Yum.

Yes, as you might be able to guess, Ste and I had gone shopping for hippie pants earlier that day.

That night, Ste and I went out for a banquet of sorts, ordering everything that sounded good. 聽Plus a big bowl of Tom Yum Kung — if nothing else, this has become my Thai food addiction.

We did the usual Khao San Road thing — strolled around until we walked smack into a group of our friends.

And after a few drinks with Ste and Darren, our friend Klara from Sihanoukville, and a slew of new friends, we hit the club for house music, dancing and buckets. 聽And yes, Darren never misses an opportunity for a hilarious photo pose.

My final day in Asia was fun, casual, and steeped in backpacking goodness. 聽But most importantly, I spent it with people who mattered.

I stayed up all night, spending time with my dear Ste and Darren, with whom I created enough memories for a lifetime. At 5:00 AM, the shuttle came to sweep me up from Khao San Road and off to the airport.

Several hours later, still clad in hippie pants, I landed in London.

As our bus hurtles down the road to the beach town of Mui Ne, Vietnam, my friends and I have abandoned the laptops and guidebooks in our laps.

The reason? We’re unable to drag our eyes away from the landscape unfolding before us.

How can this place exist? In Vietnam, nonetheless?

It looks like the American Southwest. The landscape is bright orange, covered with dust, shrubs and cacti.

And then, in the distance, a brilliant azure peeks out — these desert dunes are pushed up to the edge of the South China Sea, the bright colors shimering against each other.

I know right away — this is nothing like the rest of Vietnam.

Mui Ne is a hippie beach town in southern Vietnam. The biggest attraction in town is kitesurfing — people come from all over the world to kitesurf at Mui Ne!

(After Mui Ne, kitesurfing has definitely earned a place on my bucket list! Lessons were a bit out of my price range this time around, but I will return and learn!)

Check out the beach:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA35mRn7mgc&w=560&h=349]

Mui Ne is low-key, relaxing, and not one bit pretentious. In fact, it’s a lot like Koh Lanta , one of my favorite places in the world.

And just like Koh Lanta, it’s much more than just the beach — and best explored by motorbike.

The seven of us rented motorbikes from the guesthouse and spent a few days exploring Mui Ne’s countless gorgeous landscapes.

Just north of town, there were jaw-droppingly beautiful beaches…

Traditional fishing villages, where the way of life hasn’t changed for decades…

And endless white sand dunes, looking like they’re straight out of the Sahara.

And you can still get a bowl of pho bo at the end of the day. It’s still Vietnam, even if it looks nothing like the rest of the country.

But this is only scraping the surface of Mui Ne. Everywhere you look, the town is full of beauty.

To explore this town would take years — but I think we did pretty well in five days.

Stay tuned for more.

This post was sponsored by TravelGrove. At TravelGrove, you’ll find an excellent resource for cheap flights . Whether searching for cheap flights to London for the Royal Wedding or cheap flights to Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day, TravelGrove has you covered!

It’s no secret that I wasn’t a fan of Kuta , the most popular beach resort town in Bali.

But if you want to escape Kuta, you don’t have to go far — just visit Seminyak. Seminyak is part of the Kuta area, but it’s so different that it could be a different island.

Instead of stores selling homophobic bumper stickers, you have designer boutiques and art galleries. The Bali holiday packages often include quieter, nicer hotels. Instead of beer-soaked bars, you have sexy cocktail lounges.

And the beach, while being as good for surfing as Kuta, is much, much cleaner.

If Kuta is the degenerate little brother who just can’t kick that crystal meth habit, Seminyak is the gorgeous older sister who made straight A’s, captained the lacrosse team AND landed the hottest guy in school.

Kuta is Jesse from Breaking Bad. Seminyak is Ellen from Damages. You know, before all the murder and corruption and stuff.

Nightlife establishments in Seminyak don’t feel like they’re in Bali or even Southeast Asia — more like Miami or Las Vegas!

Best of all, Seminyak is close enough to Kuta that you can take part in the same activities. It’s no big deal to take an ojek (motorbike taxi) to Kuta for shopping or dining, and if you book transportation or adventure tours , they’ll gladly pick you up in Seminyak.

Backpackers and budget travelers tend to avoid Seminyak for their Bali holidays because it’s a bit more expensive than Kuta. And with Bali already being more expensive than Thailand, Cambodia, Laos or Vietnam, it’s hard to justify adding on the cost.

But there are a few places in Southeast Asia where spending a few more dollars can get you exponentially higher value. Seminyak is one of those places.

After four months on the road, I’ve learned which kinds of destinations I like the most: gritty cities, hippie beaches, small towns that have yet to be discovered by the masses.

I’ve also learned what I don’t like: any place that caters to wealthy, upmarket tourists. By the time the upmarket tourists arrive, a place has usually been toured to death by everyone else.

Hoi An, an adorable little town in central Vietnam, is like one of the towns that I would be inclined to hate. But against all odds, I loved Hoi An anyway.

Look at how pretty it is!

Hoi An is most famous for its custom clothing shops. You can have formal wear, casual wear, traditional Vietnamese clothing or even shoes designed for you and priced far cheaper than you would pay at home.

Hoi An is also the best place in Vietnam for buying quality souvenirs, from artwork, furniture and antiques to cloth products and jewelry.

There’s a beautiful riverfront, and there’s no better way to explore it than to take a boat ride!

But I think that I like Hoi An because, unlike Luang Prabang or Siem Reap, it has a genuinely local feeling to it. Hoi An is a destination for the Vietnamese as well as international tourists. It helped that we stayed several blocks north of the main touristy area, where we met more locals.

Hoi An also has lots of delicious culinary specialties unique to the city. My favorite dish? Cau Lau Heo, wheat noodles in broth with slices of pork!

And it’s hard to find a town more photogenic than Hoi An. There was a beautiful moment around every corner.

Go to Hoi An and enjoy it. You might stay longer than you think.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say in passing, “Everyone loves Chiang Mai.” Each time, it makes me wince — because it’s not true.

Not everyone loves Chiang Mai.

YIKES! Someone finally said it.

I can understand why people would think that everyone loves it. Chiang Mai is home to a sizable travel blogger community, and as a result, receives almost universal praise. Those who love it are very vocal about loving it.

Do you think many bloggers, especially new bloggers, want to challenge that? I didn’t. Last year, I wrote truthfully about my experience in Chiang Mai, but steered clear of critical commentary. I still felt like a newbie blogger and I didn’t want to lose the support of more established, Chiang Mai-loving bloggers.

Time has passed. Now that this site drives most of my income, I should be more worried about what I say here; ironically, having so much more at stake has given me the greater confidence to speak candidly.

To start, let me tell you all the wonderful things about Chiang Mai.

Good Reasons to Live in Chiang Mai

It’s cheap. While Thailand is cheap to begin with, northern Thailand is the cheapest part. You can live in a great, modern apartment with internet and cable TV for less than $200 USD per month.

There are lots of Western amenities. The internet is excellent, the hospitals are quite good, you can find many Western products, and there are many Western and ethnic food options, including the elusive Mexican food.

There is so much culture. If you love festivals, this is a great city. Songkran is reportedly better here than anywhere else in the country (though I can’t imagine anything better than Songkran in Bangkok !), and the Yee Ping lantern festival is beautiful. Plus, there are tons of cooking classes and treks you can join.

The weather is cooler. If the Bangkok heat is too much for you, Chiang Mai is in the mountains, where the weather is much more bearable.

The street food is amazing. Chiang Mai is my favorite city in the world for street food, and the street stalls at Chiang Mai gate every night are amazing.

There are tons of expats. You won’t have to look far for an expat community, and the travel bloggers in town have a special community.

And still…I didn’t quite get it.

On paper, Chiang Mai looks pretty damn perfect. But paper wasn’t enough — I wasn’t feeling the magnetic pull that so many travel bloggers before me had felt.

Every now and then I see a traveler about to leave on a trip and say, “I might stay in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for a while.” For no reason other than the fact that lots of travel bloggers stop there.

So many bloggers have waxed poetic about Chiang Mai that I think it’s time to get some alternate views out there. Here are the things not to love about Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is isolated.

Want to go somewhere different? You’ll have to fly via Bangkok. It’s either that or spending twelve hours on a bus or train to get to Bangkok. You can fly to some international cities, like Kuala Lumpur and Kunming, but these are quite limited.

There are some nice northern towns, like Pai and Chiang Rai, as well as the undervisited ruins of Sukhothai, but to go elsewhere overland, you’ll be traveling for several hours. Overland visa runs more or less demand Laos visits, and it takes just as long to get to Vientiane as it does to get to Bangkok.

Chiang Mai is far from beaches.

If you moved to Thailand because you love beaches, Chiang Mai is one of the worst places you can be. If you want to get from Chiang Mai to a beach, you can fly to Phuket or to a few other beach towns.

If you’re going by bus or train, it will take you one 12-hour bus or train to Bangkok, followed by another 12-hour bus or train to the Andaman Coast or the Southern Gulf Coast. The beaches on the Eastern Gulf Coast are slightly closer — 18 hours or so by bus as opposed to 24.

Chiang Mai is FILLED with creepy old men.

All over Chiang Mai — from visiting the temples to strolling the markets to sitting in restaurants — you see older Western men with young Thai women. While I don’t mind these relationships in general, I DO mind them when the girls are young enough to be their grandchildren and the men speak to them like they’re babies.

Is seeing these relationships just a part of visiting Thailand? Absolutely. You see this throughout the country — but after traveling extensively through Thailand, I can say without a doubt that it’s more prevalent in Chiang Mai than anywhere else I’ve been, including Bangkok.

At least in Bangkok it’s mostly confined to certain neighborhoods. In Chiang Mai, it’s everywhere — not just its designated neighborhood — and the girls seem to be far younger. It was Chiang Mai that inspired me to write my post, Young Thai Women and the Western Men Who Love Them .

The strange thing? Though I’ve talked about this with some of my Chiang Mai friends (some of these men are their neighbors), I haven’t read one blog post that references this facet of the city.

Chiang Mai has no edge.

This last part is the most significant factor to me, yet the most difficult one to articulate.

When I visited, I kept thinking to myself that Chiang Mai was nice, Chiang Mai was pleasant, Chiang Mai was peaceful. And it bored me out of my mind.

I tried to see more of Chiang Mai. I explored different neighborhoods. I tried all the markets. I had a memorable night out at some wacky bars .

Could I have done a better job of filling my time in Chiang Mai? Could I have scheduled more activities and spent less time working? Of course. But I don’t think my opinion is irrelevant.

The thing is that the extreme nice-ness of Chiang Mai made me realize that I need to live in a place with an edge — somewhere a bit more difficult, somewhere a bit less forgiving. Somewhere with a bit of drama, somewhere that pulsates.

I started to explain to one like-minded travel blogger. “I think I’d be happier complaining about the traffic in Bangkok–” “YES!” he cut me off. He knew exactly what I meant before I even said it. (That’s yet another secret — some of the travel bloggers who have lived in Chiang Mai feel the same way I do!)

Some — though not all — of the people I know who live in Chiang Mai like to put down Bangkok on a regular basis, citing its pollution, traffic, and heat. Sure, Bangkok is a big city, and God knows Bangkok has its problems.

But Bangkok is one of the most fascinating, electrifying cities I’ve ever visited. Every day is starkly different than the one before. There’s something charging through the air that you would never be able to find in Chiang Mai.

Living in Thailand

If I were to settle in Thailand for a while, it wouldn’t be Chiang Mai. I would probably choose Bangkok, one of my favorite cities in the world, or a beach community — likely either Ao Nang or Koh Lanta.

The difference is that Ao Nang, Koh Lanta, and especially Bangkok have an edge to them. They have a dark side. Hell, even on peaceful Lanta, I ended up spending the night with the Thai Mafia !

My advice to those of you considering visiting or living in Chiang Mai:

Keep an open mind. Don’t think that because so many travel bloggers love Chiang Mai, you need to love it as well. It wasn’t for me and it’s not for everyone.

Listen to your heart and not just your mind. Sure, Chiang Mai is cheap, and easy, and home to tons of expats. But does it make your pulse race?

Think about it.

Thailand is a fantastic country, and there are so many great places to live. Explore enough and you’ll find the place that’s right for you.

When you’re constantly on the road, you make a lot of friends – and because of that, you end up saying a lot of goodbyes.

For the most part, these goodbyes aren’t so bad. You hug, you find each other on Facebook, and you spend the next few months laughing at each other’s status updates and tagged photos.

But what about saying goodbye to the people who mean more to you than just a casual friendship?

It’s awful.

It was bad enough saying goodbye to Chris, Jon, Mona and Anthony . I knew it would be even more difficult to say goodbye to my friends from Vietnam , my dear friends with whom I traveled for nearly a month. The seven of us danced around the subject whenever it came up.

So when our final night together in Saigon arrived, we dealt with it the best way we knew how.

And we made one of our usual goofy videos.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho6Hm8FjBwA&w=560&h=349]

But when saying goodbye to the close friends I’ve made from travel, I find it better to focus on when we’ll see each other again. God knows that’s better than the tearful “I’ll Never Forget Yous.”

And so we planned to meet up again:

To Ste and Darren, on their way upward through Cambodia and Laos as I headed west for Thailand: “See you on Koh Phangan.”

Ste smiled sadly. “Kate, we should give you something to remember us by.”

I grinned. “You already did.” I reached into my purse and pulled out a perfect spiral of a seashell. Ste had given it to me three weeks earlier while the three of us were taking a walk on the beach in Nha Trang.

I’ll see them again at the Full Moon Party in April.

To Chris, getting ready to return to Beijing as I prepared for his favorite Southeast Asian city, Hanoi: “It’s been awesome.”

Chris: “It’s been f*cking awesome traveling with you.”

Me: “See you somewhere around the world. Maybe Beijing? Or London…”

Chris: “See you at Glastonbury!”

We’ll see if I make it to Glastonbury. Prince is closing the show this year!

To Matt, taking a longtail boat and half a dozen flights back to Iowa as I planned to move on to Southern Laos: “See ya when I see ya.”

“See ya when I see ya.”

Clooney and Pitt? Not exactly.

I’ll see him when we finally decide to start the million mostly insane Thailand beach-based businesses we dreamed up.

And to Dave, our Vietnam visas nearly expired, him returning to the UK in a conical hat as I booked a bus ticket to Phnom Penh:

Simply, “See you soon.”

This is probably as good a time as ever to reveal that I’ve chosen an end date for The Asia Jaunt.

On April 21, the six-month anniversary of this trip, I fly out of Bangkok and out of Southeast Asia.

But I’m not returning to Boston just yet…

I’m flying to the UK first.

Swimming in the Mekong.

It just sounds wrong, doesn’t it?

I hear Mekong and I think Vietnam War. I picture Forrest Gump wading through chest-deep water in full military gear, the rain coming upwards.

Even Lonely Planet warned that the Mekong would be muddy and disgusting through December, not turning bright turquoise until early in the New Year. Swimming in a sewer would probably be more pleasant, the book said.

Yet here I was, on a sunset cruise on Don Det, Si Phan Don, amongst a jovial bunch of Brits and Germans, sipping on Lao Lao and contemplating jumping into the glassy, green-gray river.

“I wonder if it has those deadly microscopic fish,” one of the English guys said. “The ones that swim up inside you when you pee and then stick their spikes into you.”

“Pretty sure that’s just the Amazon,” I replied. “No specific warnings about swimming in the Mekong, other than it’s a bit gross.”

Which was true. It wasn’t dangerous. It was that it could possibly be borderline unpleasant. Why would I let that stop me?

And then it hit me.

Most people who warned me about traveling in Asia were the kind of people who wouldn’t dream of taking a trip like this themselves. So why would I let them decide what I would and wouldn’t do?

There were innocuous worries like, “How will you find tampons?” And there were more serious warnings like, “What will you do when the Khmer Rouge rises again?” For the record, I’ve managed just fine, and Pol Pot is dead.

I wasn’t going to let these worries stop me from enjoying the trip of my dreams. And that water looked good.

I dove into the Mekong. The guys followed suit.

The worries? Unfounded. Swimming in the Mekong is a blast.

Since leaving Japan, I’ve been asked several times what my favorite place in the country was — and I honestly can’t put my finger on it. I loved Japan, but I think I loved the country overall more than any particular destination within the country.

Tokyo was a great city, and it would be a great place to live for a year or so, but there was no quality that made me crazy about it. Kyoto was gorgeous, and traditional, but I’ve never been a fan of cities that seem to be dominated by the tourists more so than the locals.

But then there was Osaka. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it my favorite place in Japan — but it made my heart beat a bit faster. These days, recalling my time in Japan, I feel great affection for Osaka, something that I don’t feel for anywhere else in Japan.

Well, how do I describe this city?

Tokyo is sleek and sophisticated. Kyoto is traditional and beautiful. They are perfect, immaculate representations of life in Japan.

Osaka, by contrast, is LOUD.

While both Tokyo and Kyoto can often feel like a majestically choreographed art piece set against the unblemished porcelain backdrop that is Japan, Osaka is brilliantly unpretentious by comparison. The fashion isn’t quite as on point as Tokyo. The markets are shabbier. And “sophisticated” certainly wouldn’t be the first word to come to mind.

It’s just fun. And bright. And casual.

While baseball may be America’s sport, it’s incredibly popular in Japan as well. Huge crowds stopped to watch the latest game on the screen. (Now, are we ever going to get an actual World Series? That would be interesting…)

I had seen a few goth loli (gothic Lolita/zombie Marie Antoinette) girls roaming the streets, but where do they actually buy their costumes? While wandering Dotonbori Arcade, we found ourselves in a costume shop filled with crazy dresses, six-inch platform shoes, crinoline miniskirts, neon tights, and wigs in every shade of the rainbow.

The shoes were pretty interesting.

Goth loli love their super-high platforms.

Next door was I guess what one might call an arcade — but instead of games, it was filled with giant photo booths where groups of girls went in to pose, then used the computer to change their makeup, hair, even their outfits!

They also had lots of crane games with seemingly unattainable prizes — like these giant spellbound teddy bears…

And then there was SANTA. Peace, Japanese Santa!

Soon the sun began to set — and soon Mario and I learned that visiting Osaka in the evening was one of the best decisions of our trip.

The wild and brash neighborhood of Dotonbori lights up at night with neon all over the place, easily making it the best visual spectacle we saw in Japan. The sunset was absolutely spectacular.

Even without color, though, it’s still a sight to behold.

Giant papier-mache fish dominate the streets. They’re actually signs for fugu, or pufferfish, restaurants. Fugu is actually safe to eat when prepared safely (and chefs go through extensive training in order to serve it), but it still causes occasional deaths — mostly to fishermen who don’t prepare it correctly. Read more here.

As for food somewhat less likely to kill you, Osaka has a fabulous street food scene! One thing to try is tako yaki, fried octopus balls. Believe me, they’re delicious. Okonomiyaki, a savory pancake filled with everything from pork and shrimp to vegetables, is another Osaka specialty.

But more than anything, Osaka was a city where I felt like I could relax more than anywhere else. Perhaps it was because Osaka isn’t as formal or fancy as Tokyo or Kyoto. Maybe the street food made me feel like I was in Southeast Asia. Either way, I completely fell for this neon-drenched city.

If you’re visiting Japan — and especially if you’re visiting Kyoto, a short train ride away — don’t miss Osaka. Simply don’t. Go to Dotonbori at night and you’ll be as dazzled as I was.

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Steampunk Fashion

My Final Days in Asia