My husband loves to drive…I think he envisions himself in “Fast and Furious” some days as he weaves in and out of the 2 lanes of traffic on the way to work.  When this trip starting shaping up, I realized we were going 6 weeks without driving a car…and the entire month in Europe without even getting into a car.   I questioned him several times on if he could handle this…and while I think he got the shakes of withdrawal a time or two, a glimpse of something else old and crumbly shook him right out of it again.  But when we got to Thailand on the halfway mark of our trip, he was ready to get behind the wheel again…so ready in fact that he tucked himself into the lefthand side of the truck we rented and sat there for a moment before he realized that was not in fact where the steering wheel lived in this country… [Ed. note: seriously guys. It had been a very long day.]

Our plan for the next 24 hours wasn’t our best logistically, but we ended up with less days in Thailand than we originally wanted due to the flight fairies and we added in that (totally worth it) stop over in Cambodia, so we had to be adventurous. This adventure started with renting a car at the Bangkok airport and driving 3 hours west of the city to a tiny town called Sai Yok…in the pitch black of night.

Any drive in a foreign country can be challenging.   Add in the wrong side of the road, street signs in a language with an entirely unrecognizable alphabet so there was no option of figuring those out, and a flight delay which led to Avis giving your car away, and you find yourself leaving a city during the pitch black rush hour and going the wrong direction on a toll road…twice.  We are really good at this travel thing by now, aren’t we?  

We finally turn ourselves back around and start heading out into Thai suburbia…and the creepy miniature animals.   Every grassy median from 20 miles outside Bangkok to almost the border had clusters of elephants or giraffes or sheep or horses staring at you.  It was the oddest thing I’ve ever encountered and since some of the only other street lights were from the 7-11s lining the route, these glowing welcoming committees made it feel like we were driving into some B list horror movie…[Ed. note: Ever driven while tired? Imagine that feeling, only the things you are sure aren’t real really are there in the median. And super creepy.]

Thankfully, just before 11pm we got to our hotel…which was also pitch black. Apparently they decided to close early.  So we were now 3 hours from Bangkok with a rented truck as our possible sleeping option and the need to be awake again at 6am for our adventure we drove so far to experience.   The last bit of serenity from those Cambodian temples had trickled out of my body and I was ready to say screw it all and go find a Four Seasons…but then the sleepy Thai girl answered my call to the handwritten cell phone number posted on the door and 5 minutes later she rode up in her pajamas on the back of a motorbike to hand us a room key,  I explained to hear how early we were leaving and tried to give my credit card to pay, but she wouldn’t take it and just told me to leave the key in the room in the morning.   I was too tired to argue, so I think we spent a night squatting in a very nice river hotel…