How Do You Vacation During a Year of Round-the-World Travel?

I guess it all depends on how you define vacation. For me, vacation is about relaxation and fun. It’s about not having chores and not having expectations. So, on this round-the-world trip, how do we tell the difference between travel and vacation? The main criteria is to stay in a place where we feel no pressure to sight-see. Our first vacation of this trip was in Paros, Greece. We had a beach house and no expectations to do anything but look at the beach, go to the beach, and eat by the beach. It turns out we did some sight-seeing, but more out of a playful curiosity than an expectation of learning anything.

Our second - and much anticipated - vacation was in Phuket, Thailand. We stayed at a luxurious resort. We had a private pool. We spent a day at the spa and several days in our swimsuits. We did no travel planning, no school work, no caring, and we had a blast.

We also got out of the resort. We took a cruise into Phang Nga Bay where we would have guided kayak tours of the caves and hongs. We splashed and swam and paddled and squealed at the sight and smells of bats. We ate delicious Thai food and made a traditional kratong and saw bioluminescent plankton. Sea sparkles! What vacation is complete without sea sparkles?

Like all vacations, this one gave me plenty of time to reflect on what has passed and what lies ahead. The word “wow” kept popping up for me. I mean, what an audacious thing we are doing with this round-the-world trip! The people we’ve met and learned about, the wildlife and landscapes we’ve seen, the foods and arts and daily life we’ve experienced have changed us all, already. It’s incredible, especially considering what a homebody I am.

Oh, and there was even a rainbow.

Three Days in Bangkok

Our stay in Thailand began with three days in Bangkok. I was still recovering from a nasty GI bug when we arrived in Bangkok, so I spent hours in bed while Theo and the girls spent hours at the pool. They had so much fun and came up to tell me they had met a really interesting couple who wanted to go out to dinner with us. I felt well enough to accept, so we met them in the hotel lobby and walked together to the pier where we could take a boat across the river to the restaurant. The couple - a German man and a Japanese woman - lived in Japan for decades and just recently moved to Germany. Their careers brought them to Bangkok several times a year, and they love to visit even now. We had a delicious dinner by the riverfront, but as I was still somewhat ill and not yet adjusted to the heat and humidity of Thailand, I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Still, they gave us good tourist advice for our short stay in Bangkok and wrote down some notes to help us plan our future visit to Japan.

Wat Po is the temple famous for the Reclining Buddha, but there is a lot more to the complex. The entire space and is beautiful and peaceful. If you arrange it ahead of time, you can even get a massage there! We did not, so we just walked around taking pictures before sitting in the main temple for awhile in contemplative silence.

We took the public boat up the river to the temple, not realizing the fare was such small change. They couldn’t give us change, so we asked around and had our too-large-for-the-boat bill broken by some very nice British tourists. People are so helpful if you just ask. To get back to the hotel, though, we took a tuk-tuk, which gave us a nice first glimpse of one of the markets, passing through the garment section and automotive parts section before reaching the produce section and street food vendors close to our hotel.

On our last day in Bangkok, we decided to walk to and through a market. There are many markets in Bangkok, and we went to the one in Chinatown. Normally, I don’t like walking with the kids in crowded streets and markets. I feel uneasy when I can’t see ahead of me. In this market, however, I was taller than most of the other patrons. At 5-foot-2, that’s not a common experience for me. We ate some street food (grilled meat on a stick) and bought some flip-flops for Tori, then went to a Chinese restaurant for a sit-down lunch and some air conditioning.

That night we had dinner in the hotel. After we finished, we heard some kind of party going on in the bar. While Theo spoke with the concierge about something, the girls and I went to check out the party. The bar area was filled with women in party dresses singing and dancing to an Elvis impersonator. Before I knew it, I was right up there with them dancing and singing to “All Shook Up”. I later learned that the women, who were from China, were in Bangkok for a cosmetics convention. My children completely failed to record the event (“Mama, but you said no phones at dinner!”) but I am sure video of my smooth moves made it into the social media feeds of a few of the partiers.

Singapore: Just What We Needed

Theo and I knew that after three weeks in India, with all of its sights, sounds, and smells, we would need to go somewhere very different to let the experiences of India settle in and to prepare ourselves for more travel adventure through Asia. We picked Singapore, and it was just what we needed.

Our hotel was on the 37th floor, and our rooms looked out over the docks. It was sky and sea as far as the eye could see, and that expansiveness helped clear my mind a bit. We had no agenda here, which kept us open to following our instincts instead of forcing ourselves into seeing it all.

We swam in the hotel pool, ate at the market down the street, took a nice walk through downtown early in our stay and didn’t sweat the monsoon rains later in the week.

As nice as it was, the hotel wasn’t where we wanted to spend all of our time. So, in addition to that walk, we rented kayaks at the Singapore Sports Hub, went to the zoo for the Night Safari, saw The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 in theaters, and visited Gardens by the Bay for their nightly Christmas light and sound show.

To end the week, we met a friends of a friend for dinner. They were incredible hosts, with three kids of their own. The kids played and ate pizza and watched Elf while the adults talked and drank wine and ate home cooked Thai food. We heard about their travels as young adults and we shared about our travels with kids. We connected over our East Coast roots and swapped travel tips. When it was time to leave (at almost 1 a.m.), Tori pleaded to come back the next day. I truly hope we see these new friends again.

On our very last day in Singapore, I fell ill with a nasty GI bug. Bone pain, low-grade fever, the whole nine yards. Thankfully, it was short-lived and I was able to convalesce in a very comfortable hotel. Although we had no agenda, we experienced quite a bit of Singapore. I can see us, though, planning a return visit. It’s easy to be a tourist here, and its charm surprised me. Singapore was just what we needed for this stage of our travel, and a little more.