While Southeast Asia can be a laidback adventurer's paradise, it's also home to some pretty chaotic cities (Bangkok, Saigon, Kuala Lumpur). Escape the crazy and be sure to add these six charming towns to your next SE Asia itinerary for a little calm and a whole lotta charm.
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A Sonoma Saturday: The Perfect Day Trip Itinerary
Many moons ago, my friend Lianne was in town from NYC/Austin/the world and said she wanted to go eat oysters and drink wine and basically be spectacular and live the good life that California is famous for. Along with our friend Jessica, we piled into a ZipCar and I took them on what I should patent as my very own "Townie Tour," where I take visitors to my favorite hotspots outside of San Francisco. We had one of the more epic day outings I've had in recent years as we bopped around Marin from one bucolic setting to the next.
One day after I got back from my SE Asia travels, Jessica announced that she'd be moving to London. Once I got over my initial bummed-out-ness (and realized that one less friend in SF now meant one more person to visit in London, hopefully with a decent sofa!), I knew the only way to celebrate her departure was with another epic outing to check out more of the glories north of The City.
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Perfect Perfect Portland
I said to my friend Catherine before meeting up in Portland for the weekend that my only impressions of the city were of "some brick warehouses next to a river." This is because a lot of my family's trips growing up were spent driving around the Pacific Northwest on routes that often took us to or through Oregon, and all we ever saw of Portland was flying by on the freeway getting a quick glimpse of those brick warehouses along the river en route to the woods somewhere.
I was right, of course. Driving on the freeway heading to dinner on the first note, I pointed out all those brick warehouses with excitement. My childhood impressions had not been incorrect! Portland did have brick warehouses next to a river.
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Same Same But Different
In Thailand, you hear this funny expression from the locals when they're trying to sell you something that's similar to something else: "same same but different". It's such a widely-used expression that it's now on flourescent over-sized tanks sold at tourist shops and cheekily used to name restaurants and cafés. And it sort of sums up how I feel about myself post-trip right now. I'm same same. But different.
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