By , May 7, 2013 6:07 pm

I was lucky enough to meet up with my mom abroad not once, but twice during our RTW journey.

First, she and her partner, Terry, joined us in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.  They had originally told us they would meet us wherever in the world we happened to be in February and we had left home thinking it would be somewhere in South America.  We didn’t make it that far, of course, but we had a great time together and appreciated their flexibility.

With Mom & Terry in Leon, Nicaragua

When they told us they wanted to meet up again this February (making it perfectly clear they wanted it to be in Southeast Asia this time) we decided to be the flexible ones and changed our itinerary to work with theirs.

Seeing my mom after a year apart was fabulous.  We had had our challenges travelling together in Central America (mostly due to very different travel styles and budgets), so this time we opened up our budget and let them choose our hotels.  We ended up paying about double our typical rate, but it was worth it to be close to them without the hassle of searching for  accommodation that everyone could be happy with in each new place.

We met up with them at a less than favourable hotel in Bangkok (the thing with booking hotels online from home is you can never be quite sure what you’re going to get) and explored some of the city sights with them – the Royal Palace, the Reclining Buddha, China Town and Khaosan Road.

Khaosan Road at night

Duck, shark fins (awww…) and more in China Town

China Town

Mom, blessing Mike with some Buddhist “hocus-pocus” (at least that’s what they called it at the Buddhist monastery we later stayed at)

Asian tourists crack me up!

Me, Terry, and Mom…. all taking pictures at the Royal Palace

Mom and I, dressed in the traditional Thai dress

The reclining Buddha

Then, we all caught a bus with them to Hua Hin.  The beach here was ok, but there was way too much development and too much city encroaching on it for my tastes. When I picture a Thai beach, there definitely aren’t any skyscrapers to be seen.  Large swathes of the beach were littered with “pay-for-the-privilege-to-sit” beach umbrellas – they took up so much space that at high tide there was actually no beach left to sit on.

City encroaching on beach

A whole lot of beach umbrellas

We all beach-bummed around, explored the malls and night markets, and just enjoyed being together again.

Mom & Terry at night market

Rice pudding balls at the night market

Walking the beach… a daily ritual

Reflections in the sand

Hua Hin restaurant

It’s always windy in Hua Hin… perfect for kitesurfing!

Way too soon, our time together was up.  Mom and Terry caught a train back to Bangkok to catch a flight to Bali and Mike and I took a fabulous (yes, this is sarcasm) night bus/ferry combo to Koh Tao for some diving.

Saying goodbye to Mom at the train station

One Response to “Meeting Mom in Bangkok & Hua Hin”

  1. Jennifer says:

    Must have been great to see your mum after such a long time. Great pics 🙂

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