The week leading up to my wedding in Bangkok (we had a small private Buddhist ceremony in the US a few years back, but thanks to COVID our church wedding in Thailand got delayed), was one of the busiest of my life!
The day after returning to the Big Mango from Malaysia, I arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport around midnight to pick up my younger brother and best man, Kyle who had flown in from Boston.
I helped him get checked in at his hotel, and we enjoyed a late-night snack of steamed pork buns and Chang beer.
The next morning we were up bright and early for a morning walk and some birding at the park. A little sunshine and fresh air early in the morning is a great way to help get over jet lag!
After visiting the park we stopped in at the Or Tor Kor Market (the Marketing Organization for Farmers) for breakfast.
It's a great place to have breakfast, because you can find pretty much any Thai dish you want.
It's also just cool for visitors to Bangkok to explore the aisles and shops of the market to see all of the amazing fresh produce and food products on sale.
I introduced him to some traditional Thai snacks that he immediately took a liking to. He asked me what flavor they were, but didn't believe me when I said that these sweets, along with many traditional Thai sweets, were "candle flavored". In the past, a special scented candle was used to smoke traditional desserts to give them a sort of perfumed scent and flavor. Now, it's added as a flavorful extract.
The first day was spent helping Kyle beat jetlag by keeping him busy. After leaving the market, we walked around the local mall for a while.
We had our wedding rehearsal in the afternoon. Kyle and our maid of honor, Nun, were both able to be there as we did the walkthrough of our service.
After leaving the church we paid a brief visit to DonDonDonki, the fantastically overwhelming Japanese department store located just down the road from the church.
That night Kyle and I met our mom at the airport at midnight and booked a CABB (one of Bangkok's new, modern London-style taxis that offer a more comfortable ride than the normal cabs that drive up and down the streets of the city) to take her to her hotel. It was so nice to have my family in town. Even though I was totally exhausted from this week, I was just so excited to have visitors!
On Saturday we had to run more errands. First we went to pick up my suit from the tailor.
I've used Jhasper Fashion before, and I don't think I'll ever go to another tailor but them again! They do the most phenomenal job making wonderful bespoke suits! Kyle was so impressed by the attention to detail that Dave and Pinky (the tailors who made my suit for me) put into my order that he ordered a really cool custom shirt of his own on the spot!
In the afternoon we finally had a brief moment to relax.
It may not seem like a ton from reading this post, but this week was really non-stop from the moment that I found out I needed to take a border hop. All in all, the entire month of August was just insane (in a good way)! A relaxing stop at my favorite secret coffee shop, however, was very much needed!
I am so happy to have family visiting! I've been looking forward to their visit for months, and was so happy that my mom and brother could be here in town for my wedding. We had a great time together in Thailand, and I'll be writing about it (with a few guest posts here and there) over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!
I recently had to get a new passport. I had actually meant to take care of it when I was back home in the US, but due to the pandemic finally winding down and lots of people trying to travel again, the State Department was really backed up with applications and there just wasn't going to be time to get a new passport before I had to fly back to Thailand. Instead, I used the last remaining empty page of my passport to take a visa run to Cambodia a few months back, then submitted my renewal application at the embassy in Bangkok.
The new passport arrived in the mail. It's very freeing to have a passport with lots of empty pages again! I was getting a little bit stressed about traveling on my old one, since some countries won't let you enter if you don't have a certain number of blank pages.
When my queue number came up, the immigration officer told me that they could not actually transfer my old visa to my new passport without me applying for a visa extension. They said that I would have to just fly out of the country on my old passport and then fly back in on my new one. The problem is that my wedding ceremony was going to be just eight days later, so you can imagine how stressed I was about all of this!
I rushed home, booked a two-night trip to Kuala Lumpur (the cheapest flight I could find), and hurried to pack a backpack with my computer and two clean pairs of clothes. It was going to be the weirdest and most boring visa run I had ever taken.
I landed in Kuala Lumpur, the multicultural and vibrant capital of Malaysia. It had been an early morning, and I hadn't eaten anything, so I headed to Old Town Coffee, a popular Malaysian chain with a branch inside the arrival hall, for lunch.
Old Town Coffee at KL Airport
First, I ordered an iced white coffee.
Malaysian white coffee is a popular coffee beverage originating from Ipoh, Malaysia. It is characterized by its unique roasting process, where Arabica coffee beans are roasted with margarine and then brewed with condensed milk to create a creamy and slightly sweet flavor profile. The term "white" refers to the light color of the coffee, as it is not heavily roasted. The result is a smooth, mellow coffee with a distinct aroma and a hint of caramelization from the roasting method.
Malaysian white coffee
I also ordered some nasi lemak, the national dish of Malaysia.
Nasi lemak with crispy chicken is a traditional dish known for its complex flavors and textures. It features fragrant coconut rice, often cooked with pandan leaves for added aroma, served alongside crispy fried chicken. Accompanying the dish are condiments such as sambal (a salty, savory, and spicy chili paste), hard-boiled egg, roasted peanuts, crispy fried anchovies, and cucumber slices. This combination offers a harmonious blend of savory, spicy, and sweet elements, making it a beloved meal in Malaysian cuisine. The flavors are very strong, and it's a surprisingly filling dish. No visit to Malaysia is complete for me without at least one meal of nasi lemak!
I also ordered a chicken curry puff, which was way more food than I expected! The curry puffs were delicious, but one serving came with two curry puffs, each of which was the size of my fist!
The curry was sweet and rich, and the puffs were extremely crispy, which is exactly how I like them. It was a wonderful meal to start my short visit to Thailand's neighbor to the south.
The room was tiny but functional. It was bigger than a Japanese capsule hotel - but just barely. At least it had a private bathroom and shower! This would be my home for the next two nights. It's an airport hotel; a place for transit where the Air Asia cabin crew and short-stay travelers passing through KLIA stay for a very short time. I am certain that only a very few people stay more than one night!
my tiny hotel room
The hotel was located at the back of the airport. Even though it was geographically nearby, it was still nearly a 20-minute taxi ride from KLIA to the airport. When I say it was in the middle of nowhere, I'm not exaggerating! The airport itself is already decently remote. It's located outside of Putrajaya, the administrative and judicial capital of Malaysia (a constructed city built in 1999).
Note: Kuala Lumpur remains the de facto capital and legislative capital of Malaysia. The relationship between KL and Putrajaya is really interesting. KL is still, by all intents and purposes, the capital of the country, but the King and the judiciary reside in Putrajaya. Putrajaya is also the home to the Masjid Putra, the famous and exquisite Pink Mosque.
There wasn't much to look at, save for the expansive palm fields and the notable prayer room, complete with the wudu station; the area designated for Islamic ablution.
prayer room
I started to get hungry in the evening, but I realized that there wasn't any food to be found (except for snacks at the front desk), and the airport was a good twenty minutes away. I used the Grab app to order nasi goreng, another one of Malaysia's most iconic and popular dishes. It took a solid 40 minutes to arrive way out where my hotel was, but the meal was worth the wait,
nasi goreng with chicken
Nasi goreng is a popular Malaysian fried rice dish known for its vibrant flavors. The dish is cooked with stir-fried vegetables such as carrots, peas, and onions, along with proteins like shrimp, chicken, or beef (in this case, fried chicken topped with sweet chili sauce). The dish is traditionally seasoned with soy sauce land sambal.
I worked hard during my full day in Malaysia. I barely had time to leave my room except to go downstairs to the lobby for a bottle of water.
The next morning, I woke early. The hotel offered a grab-and-go breakfast for travelers, so I picked up my boxed breakfast and my coffee and sat outside to wait for the shuttle to the terminal.
5am breakfast at the hotel
It was a humid, rainy morning.
I wasn't in the mood to travel, but I knew that I had to get back home.
At 6am the shuttle arrived, and I boarded it along with the handful of business travelers and transiters heading back to the terminal.
waiting for the airport shuttle on a rainy early morning
I intentionally arrived at the airport early, and after checking in and passing through security, I had quite a bit of time to spare.
I decided to pass the time at Old Town Coffee again. This time they had their morning menu out.
I decided to order another white coffee with a kaya butter toast. I had no idea what to expect, but I'm always excited to try something new, even if I'm just traveling for a short time.
Kaya, as it turns out, is a coconut palm jelly.
The toast that I ordered arrived at my table alongside my coffee. The toasted brown bread was spread with a smear of sweet coconut jelly. What made it really unique, however, were the small strips of cold butter sliced and placed upon the bread. It was a really strange texture, and something new for me.
I liked it, but I have to admit that it's nothing what I expected! But isn't that the adventure of travel?
While we were visiting Koh Sichang, my wife and I decided to stop by the Royal Maritime Research Institute, which is located along a rocky coast on the island.
The institute is operated jointly by Chulalongkorn University (my wife's alma mater) and the Royal Household.
When we arrived, we spent a few moments admiring the fish tanks (which held a number of remarkable exotic clownfish and other rare fish from the Gulf of Thailand). Presently, a representative of the organization arrived offering to show us around.
The intern told us all about the conservation efforts of the royal project, which is instrumental in the breeding and rehabilitation programs on the island.
She asked if we would like to help a rare local sponge propagate. Of course, we said yes!
The intern gave us a small concrete pot with a tiny clipping of the rare local sponge affixed to its top. We wrote a short message on the pot...
... then we placed the sponge and its pot into a nursery tank where it could grow and thrive.
This organization both releases baby crabs into the gulf and rehabilitates and repropagates native baby sponges in order to heal and restore the Gulf of Thailand.
sponges in the nursery
Specifically, the institute focuses on reintroducing the native crab population to the Thai gulf.
Overfishing is a big problem in Thailand, but this institute is doing what it can to solve the issue. It offers incentives to fishermen who haul up pregnant crabs in their nets. The institute will reimburse fishermen who haul crabs with eggs and will take care of the crabs until the babies are born and hatched.
After the crabs are old enough to survive on their own, the institute releases them back into the gulf through a long chute. This is a way to be more sustainable both to the local fishing industry and also to the conservation of the gulf.
