Bangkok, Thailand - Day 2

As we awoke on our second day in Bangkok, the reality of the weather really hit us hard. We were prepared for heat and humidity, but we weren't prepared for quite this level of it. Living in the mid-Atlantic, we're no strangers to hot summers. It's normal for temps to be in the 90s with high humidity. Just about anyone reading this can imagine the summertime (even though it's winter today). Walking outside after you've been in a highly air-conditioned building and the wall of heat hitting you instantly. Your breath catches in your throat for a minute as you struggle to adjust to the thicker air. Your sunglasses steam up from the sudden humidity change. You walk a short ways feeling the sun rays heat your skin. At first, you're still cool enough from just being inside that it doesn't bother you as much in the beginning, but then...then you get to your car that's been sitting out all day. You pull open the car door and an entirely new level of heat slaps you in the face. You pause briefly, but eventually give in and take a seat in the hot box knowing that the sooner you do, the sooner you can blast you a/c in the car. But for a few torturous moments, you sit in that car thinking that hell itself couldn't be much hotter.

Now...imagine going from inside a nice, cool building immediately into that boiling car, and you have just a small idea of the intensity of the weather in the South Pacific. To give you an idea of numbers, the average daily temperature while we were in Bangkok was 96-98, with a heat index of 115. A few days later when we were in Chiang Mai, the temps soared up near 103 with a heat index of 120. It got to the point where it was so bad, we started altering our plans to simply avoid being outside. Remember 2 blogs ago when I was so excited to do during "off season" because hotels were cheaper and crowds were smaller...now I understood why. No one with a sane brain or a true comprehension of this miserable heat would intentionally do this to themselves.

Right, so back to the trip. The first sentence in my journal from the day says, "The heat got the best of me today, and our 2 hottest days are up ahead." What foreshadowing! Haha. We had a lovely breakfast in the executive lounge of the Hilton before setting out to find the shrine to the Goddess Tubtim. I'm not going to say too much more about this except that it's a unique shrine with a handful of phallus statues that's a bit of a challenge to find. We thought it would be funny to see based on the internet photos we saw, but when we finally found it, it looked like much of it had been taken down.

Hopelessly sweaty, we continued on to the Jim Thompson House. This wasn't much cooler (except for a handful of air conditioned gift shops that we lingered in a little too long with no intention of buying anything). I really enjoyed learning about this American man who moved to Thailand and revitalized the Thai silk industry. Tour his home gave you a good idea of the traditional/historic Thai architecture and the lifestyle of someone with a plethora of disposable income.

Gardens of Jim Thompson House

Jim Thompson House - Bangkok, Thailand

After the Jim Thompson House, we cooled off in the Siam Center with some more Japanese food. (2 days in Thailand, and we have yet to actually have Thai food yet.) We then walked around the Siam Paragon shopping center for a little while which contained very expensive, high-end designers. We then headed for the Interchange 21 Citibank building. What a strange building. We easily got lost walking around this place trying to find our escape room.

Let me pause here to talk about escape rooms for a moment. For those of you reading this now, you're thinking, "Escape rooms! Those are fun!" And you would be right. But when did you first go to an escape room? Last year sometime? Maybe...maybe the year before that? Certainly not before 2016. And that's right. Because they didn't exist in the United States until 2016. But my trip to SE Asia was in the spring of 2015. That's right! The Escape Room phenomenon got its start in Asia. We stumbled upon them purely by accident, and thought they were so fun we ended up doing 2-3 more before our trip ended. (Sad side note: we knew during this trip that if these ever came to the United States, they would take off like gang busters! We could have...we should have opened our own and made the big bucks before anyone else did. Double sigh...)

The first one we went to was called Escape Hunt. We needed 2 hints but were still able to solve the mystery in under an hour. What I really liked about the Escape Rooms in Asia was that you could do the room with just two people. They didn't stick random strangers in with you or make you pay for the whole room just to have a private group. We booked the room for 2, and enjoyed it all on our own.

Escape Hunt - Bangkok, Thailand

After the escape room, the temperatures outside kept us from being able to do much of anything. We toyed with the idea of going back to the Grand Palace, but we just couldn't handle the intensity of the humidity. Instead we went back to our hotel. We arrived just in time for afternoon tea/happy hour in the executive lounge which was awesome. They had all sorts of sandwiches, small meat plates, fresh fruit, and cakes. We ended up just eating that for dinner and then spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how to minimize our time spent outside which proved to be very difficult.

We packed up our things and turned in early because the next day we headed back to the Bangkok airport and headed north to Chiang Mai. What a great two days those ended up being and all thanks to a little bravery, a little luck, and perhaps a little bit of naivety. That place definitely force me to crack my timid shell just a little bit with the help of some tigers and elephants!

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Bangkok, Thailand - Day 1

Greetings friends! Thanks for joining me on my journey across Southeast Asia. This story is filled with exciting tales, wild beasts, ancient wonders, and very very high humidity. Without any further delay, I'll jump right into it. My previous blog talked all about my planning and budgeting process. I did spend about 3-4 months planning. We left on Sunday, May 3, 2015. It was good leaving on a Sunday because we had the entire day on Saturday to do any last minute packing, shopping, etc. and double and triple check our reservations and flights. And spend some extra cuddly time with our kitty cats.

We booked a 1:00PM flight from Washington DC to Narita, Japan (Tokyo). Having done this flight already, we knew we were in for a long long flight. About 13 hours. No flight this long is ever even remotely enjoyable. And our hopes of being upgraded to business class were squashed immediately. (Apparently, they don't give free upgrades on international flights unless they're oversold. Bummer.) This flight was not oversold. As I said previously, thanks to extensive travel for work, we enjoyed United Gold status, and at least sat in Economy Plus with an empty middle seat between us. We also got TSA pre-check which means we didn't have to take off our shoes or take out our liquids while going through security. Unless you pay for the service, you just get randomly chosen for the perk when you check in.

At 4:00PM on Monday, May 4, our flight landed in Narita (yes, you're reading that correctly. 27 hours passed thanks to the time change and the long flight). Thanks to our travel status (you're going to hear that A LOT throughout this blog series), we could access the United executive lounge. They had showers which we planned on utilizing, but upon arrival, we changed our minds. Not because they were dirty or inconvenient. Quite the contrary (if you know anything about Japan, the one thing they're not is dirty), but we only had about 2 hours, and to rifle through all of our things to find clean clothes and shower supplies...we just decided it wasn't worth it. Instead, we ate our fill of the free lounge food before boarding our 6:20PM flight to Bangkok. (Bangkok and Tokyo are in the same time zone but Bangkok is much farther south. So even after a 13 hour flight to Tokyo, we still had another 5 hour flight ahead of us).

Unlike our flight from Dulles to Tokyo on United Airlines, our flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was on ANA Airlines, and we were unable to select our seats prior to the flight. Fortunately, they sat my husband (we'll call him J) and I together, though the flight itself wasn't nearly as nice. The plane was much older, the flight was crowded, and my diary from the time says, "J had a man of questionable morals sitting next to him." That makes me laugh. I only wish I remembered the details of that story.

We did our best to sleep on that flight not really having any clue what time our body clocks felt. All I knew was that we were landing in Bangkok at 11PM, and probably wouldn't be in bed until past 1AM.

As soon as we landed, we found an ATM which unfortunately didn't give us the best exchange rate for Thai Baht. The going rate at the time was about 33.00Baht to $1.00. We just divided everything by 3 to give us a rough estimate of relative cost. Even more annoying was that the ATM gave us a bunch of high denomination bills. We knew from our experience in Dubai that we would have a hard time changing these if we didn't do it at the airport. We immediately found a small duty free store, bought the cheapest bottle of water we could find, and paid for it with the largest bill we had.

We then navigated out of the Bangkok airport, but not before getting trapped for what felt like forever on the third floor. Before arriving in Thailand, I read a lot about the Thai taxi system. In short, insist that any driver use the meter. They won't want to, but just insist and don't back down. I've encountered warnings about taxi fraud in other foreign countries. It's sadly too common, and Thailand is no different. From the airport we knew to look for the "public taxi" stand. They have a nice system where you tell a clerk where you're going, pay up front, and then they communicate to the driver where to take you. You never exchange money with the driver except for a tip at the end. The driver took us the 45-50 minute journey from the airport to central Bangkok to the Hilton Sukhumvit.

This is an extraordinary hotel. Thanks to our Hilton Diamond status, we got free bottled water, access to the executive lounge (which came with a complementary buffet breakfast, afternoon tea, and happy hour), and a room upgrade. We also opted to pay using half points and half money (an option that is sometimes available to reward members), so we ended up paying about $50/night for this $250/night hotel.

Day 1 in Bangkok, Thailand we designated as "historical" Bangkok day. Our hotel was not in the historical district, but we were less than a 5 min walk from the BTS Skytrain (same as London Tube, Boston T, Paris metro, etc only it's above ground). We took the BTS from the Phrom Phong station to the river pier and then the tourist ferry up to the Grand Palace. The tourist ferry didn't have any sort of guide or anything, it was just a designated ferry for tourists that fewer locals used.

Bangkok, Thailand from tourist ferry

Wat Arun from tourist ferry - Bangkok, Thailand

Our plan worked out well for the most part with a few exceptions. The Grand Palace that we planned on touring for most of the morning was closed for the Coronation Day holiday (error in my planning) but because of that, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha had free admission. First, however, we decided to see the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. This guy...is HUGE! And there are signs everywhere warning tourists of scammers, pickpockets and other petty thieves, so we made sure to hold tight to our possessions...except our shoes. You can't wear shoes inside any temple.

Temple interior near the Temple of the Reclining Buddha

Temple of the Reclining Buddha - Bangkok, Thailand

From there, we took a cheap ferry directly across the river to Wat Arun. (By cheap, I mean it was 3 Baht or the equivalent of 10 cents.) We didn't get too up close and personal with the Wat because it was undergoing restoration and covered in scaffolding (see above). The reviews I read ahead of time were very mixed. Some said that the whole thing was closed while others said that just part of it was closed while the rest of it was open. When we got there, high chainlink fences surrounded the entire area, so we didn't even try to find a way in. What a waste of 10 cents. <<giggle>>

Instead of hurrying back across the river immediately, we entertained ourselves with some street food. We got chicken skewers...if you can call them that for 20B (less than $1.00). I guess it's true that you get what you pay for. There was no part of these grilled balls that resembled chicken. They were crunchy, and when you bit into them, you saw no trace of white or dark meat. You saw tendons or some other part of the chicken that would result in a crunch when bitten into. Eww gross...I can't even talk about it without making a funny face. You'll just have to make an "eww gross" face yourself and pretend I'm making it with you. lol

Bangkok Street Food

Too timid for Thai street food. I guess I won't be on Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman or that Anthony Bourdain guy. I helped choke them down with some fresh watermelon from another vendor (fresh fruit is all over SE Asia). After walking around the scaffolding-covered Wat, we found ourselves suddenly in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. We easily took cover under a pavilion which had picnic tables. J took the opportunity to grab a fancy coffee and cookies from a small stand nearby.

Do you see the froggy?? 

After waiting for over an hour, the rain let up enough that we decided to make a dash back to the ferry. We got a wee bit wet. I had my camera tucked under my shirt, and as soon as we stepped onto the ferry, a little old Thai lady took me gently by the elbow and offered me a small plastic bag to use to cover my camera. She didn't speak any English, and I didn't speak any Thai, but it was a very lovely moment. I used that little plastic bag to protect my camera for the rest of the trip.

The rain shower cooled things down for the duration of the storm but not a second longer. The chokingly dense humidity prevented our clothes from drying, and we found ourselves in this perpetual state of uncomfortable dampness.

Back on the main side of the river, we headed back toward the Grand Palace. Though the palace was still closed, they opened the grounds after the holiday ceremonies ended. On the grounds of the palace is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (aka the temple of the really really small JADE buddha). Compared to the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha left a lot to be desired. I think my pictures make it seem nicer than it was. You can't take pictures inside, so my pictures were taken through the window. (That was probably still not allowed, but oh well). From inside the temple, we couldn't get very close to the jade buddha at all because there were so many people in the temple praying. I didn't want to be that obnoxious tourist that paraded to the front of the temple to gawk and awe at the pretty altar disturbing those around me. The grounds of the palace were lovely though, and I enjoyed walking around despite the oppressive heat and humidity.

Temple of the Emerald Buddha exterior

Emerald Buddha - Carved from solid jade

These guys stood guard outside the temples

Temple near the Grand Palace - Bangkok, Thailand

Sacred Elephants - Bangkok, Thailand

For dinner, we went to the Siam Center (giant Japanese-like shopping center), got some Japanese food for dinner and retired back to our hotel for the evening.

I'll continue our tour of Bangkok in my next post. For now, I'll leave you with the words I wrote in my journal after our first day.

"Thai people confuse me. Some of them are so friendly like the ladies who gave us plastic bags or the strangers who offered directions, but there are also scammers all over. Oy! If only it wasn't so hot!"

Sunset - Bangkok, Thailand

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Planning a trip to Southeast Asia

For my next blog series, I'm going to share the good, the bad, and the ugly about my trip to Southeast Asia in the spring of 2015. I thought I would start off with an introductory post explaining my planning process, budgeting, and packing in case you find these tips helpful for your own planning (or simply for you reading enjoyment). When I first looked at traveling to the Southeast Asian area, Bhutan was my original destination of choice. I like the idea of exploring places that aren't very common or popular. I've been to Disney at least a half dozen times. I've done the Paris thing. I've done the popular Alaskan cruise. (I haven't been to Iceland which is all the rage right now, and for that very reason, I have no interest in it at the moment.) For future traveling, I want to be a little more adventurous. You may think I've outworn my "timid traveler" mantra, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. I am still a very timid traveler. Just because I work up the gumption to travel to places like Dubai, Cambodia, and the Galapagos doesn't mean that I'm not riddled with anxiety and constantly worry about everything going wrong. That's why I plan, and that's why I'm not afraid to spend a little bit more money on comforts.

So, what happened with Bhutan? Well, for starters, the Bhutanese government only lets in so many tourists a year, and you have to petition the government for permission to visit. Not a huge obstacle though admittedly a slight deterrent. But then, I learned that in order to get the right entry visas to visit, you have to provide evidence of a licensed guide. I'm not entirely sure how to explain this or that I even fully understand it myself. The Bhutanese government charges all tourists a daily fee for visiting their country. And it's not a small fee. When I was doing my research in 2015, the fee was on the order of $250/day per person. Seems like a lot, right? But this fee was supposed to include full room and board. However, you can't just travel across Bhutan on your own. Their government doesn't want tourists just traipsing about their sacred landscape unaccompanied, so in addition to paying this fee per person, per day, you also have to hire a guide to be with you the entire time. Many American tourists get around this by joining a group tour that has preplanned itineraries and such. Maybe I'll be that sort of traveler some day. I can see myself going with a group tour on an African safari or to visit the Egyptian pyramids, and maybe someday I'll join a group tour to Bhutan, but as a traveler in my 30s, I'm just not that interested in spending several hours a day on a bus with strangers making small talk.

The final nail in the Bhutan coffin were the flights. In order to fly into Bhutan, you either have to do a layover in Bangkok, Thailand or Nepal. After really thinking long and hard about the aforementioned conditions of visiting Bhutan, I figured...if you're already flying through Bangkok...why not just go there instead? See how you like the region, and if you think it's worth going back some day.

With a starting point in Bangkok, I then started researching the region. We had exactly two weeks, and I wanted to make sure we used that time efficiently without running ourselves ragged like we did in Germany. I already decided that we wouldn't rent a car (after reading about how difficult and dangerous it was to navigate roads in that region), but I also knew I didn't want to spend the entire time in Bangkok. After a little bit of research, I found that commuter flights to other nearby cities were short and relatively cheap. That would enable us to see much more of the region than we otherwise would have. And thanks to my husband's extensive work travel the year prior, we had airline miles and hilton reward points galore.

I found about 2-3 days worth of activities that I wanted to do in Bangkok, and I knew I wanted to see more than just that city in Thailand (though I wasn't terribly interested in Phuket - Thailand's beach resort island). I, instead, chose to visit the north of Thailand; a place called Chiang Mai. I looked into busses and trains but those were long, bumpy and came with hefty safety warnings. Nope! No thanks! Too timid for that. They're super popular with backpackers because they're cheap and relatively safe, but I am not the backpacking world traveler. Instead, I discovered that there was a quick 50 min flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai with very reasonable price options.

What really made this financially feasible for us was the fact that our international flights were cheap (thought we did end up splurging on a totally amazing luxury right at the end), and hotels throughout Southeast Asia (Singapore being the exception) were really inexpensive for the time of year that we visited.

Take a look at my budget for a trip. If you've read my earlier blogs about budgeting (feel free to read them now by clicking here), then you know that I recommend having a cushion of $10,000 for planning a 2 week international vacation. If you do your planning in advance, you should only wind up spending between $7,000-$8,000, but I still like to have that buffer.

Flight               $2,500.00 (for 2 people)
Hotel                $3,000.00 (assumes $200/night for 15 days)
Food                $1,000.00 (this assumes about $65/day for 15 days. If you're a big drinker, you'll want to double this)
Activites         $1,000.00 (always a random guess. usually end up sending less than this)
Souvenirs $1,000.00 (so I don't deprive myself of something special, but I never spend it all)
Transportation $1,000.00 (including any small flights, taxis, trains, subways, etc. etc.)
Misc              $1,000.00 (includes pet care, visa fees, foreign transaction fees, etc.)
------------------------------------------------
Total        $10,500.00

Like I said above, thanks to lots of Hilton points, we ended up only spending a little over $1,000 total on hotels for the entire trip. We also booked international flights for only about $800/per person, which gave us a lot of wiggle room for spending more money on transportation between the cities.

Ok, so we would start our trip in Bangkok, then fly north to Chiang Mai. What next? Well, Thailand is tantalizingly close to Cambodia and the famous Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is a world wonder and one of those places that I only ever dreamed of visiting. Cambodia is a very destitute and unstable country. I knew I was too timid to plan an actual trip to Cambodia itself, but I couldn't help but wonder if there was a way to squeeze in a little side trip just to visit Angkor Wat without getting in over our heads. And...I did!

Having visited Japan in 2012 and Dubai in 2013, both my husband and I remembered tons and tons of TV advertisements for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I knew from the start that I wanted to end our trip in Singapore, but even after factoring in enough down time (unlike Germany) we still found ourselves with an extra couple of days. Oddly enough, the flight from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur was one of the cheapest I found, so it seemed like a no-brainer. Then instead of flying, we took a train from Malaysia to Singapore to finish out the trip.

So at first glance, everything seemed to fit nicely. Here's how the trip outline looked initially:

May 3-4 - Fly from Washington Dulles to Bangkok via Narita, Japan (yep...took a day and a half)
May 5-6 - Full days in Bangkok
May 7-8 - Day and a half in Chiang Mai
May 9 - travel back to Bangkok
May 10-11 - Day and a half in Cambodia
May 12 - travel back to Bangkok
May 13-14 - Day and a half in Kuala Lumpur
May 15 - Train to Singapore
May 16-17 - Full days in Singapore
May 18 - Fly from Singapore back to Dulles via Narita, Japan

Seems like a lot...I know. And it was. But each of those days that says "travel back to Bangkok" included a morning flight from Chiang Mai or Cambodia followed by a full afternoon/evening with no plans. That sounded good at the time, but it still resulted in us doing a lot of hotel hopping. Looking back, the itinerary worked out very nicely, but we didn't anticipate how annoying all of those little commuter flights would be. We flew all of them on Air Asia, which ended up being perfectly fine. The flights felt safe, and they were on time, but this trip was right around when the two Malaysian Airline flight crashes/disappearances happened, so that made us very uneasy about flying a small Asian airline, and I think we worried too much.

Packing for such a long trip was somewhat of a different beast. Packing is always a beast if you don't intend on checking luggage. I almost never check luggage unless I'm forced to (foreshadowing our trip to the Galapagos), so that means I'm limited with what I can take.

For Southeast Asia, we traveled in May which was (very, very unfortunately) summer, so we stuck to shorts and t-shirts. No bulky sweaters or anything like that was necessary. I chose this time of year for 2 reasons (and looking back...they were both bad reasons! Please, please, learn from my mistakes and don't travel to SE Asia in May!) First, I started planning in January and thought I needed a good 4-5 months to really plan such a big trip well. Second, summer in SE Asia is considered "off season". Fewer crowds, cheaper rates, what's not to love? And we have hot summers here in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA, we can handle the heat and humidity.  Boy oh boy...I have never been more wrong about anything! More on that later...

So, packing. A few things to note if you're traveling to the SE Asian area. They have very similar rules as European churches about modesty for women if you're visiting a Buddhist temple or somewhere sacred: knees and shoulders covered. Also, Malaysia is a Muslim country, so I knew I would want to dress modestly there as well. That means I didn't pack any short shorts or tank tops (as much as I wish I could have). Also, prior to the trip, I read in the review of our Cambodia hotel, that they offered ridiculously cheap laundry service. And since that was pretty close to the middle of the trip, that would benefit us significantly. I've come to learn that is a really good way to pack light. If you can find a way to launder at least a few pieces of clothing during a trip, it will really help you in the long run and will be worth spending a few extra dollars.

In the end, this is all I took with me.

With passports in hand (and visas for Cambodia), we embarked on another adventure filled with exotic beasts, majestic temples, mysterious ruins, and incredible culinary delights. Join me friends as I share with you my journey across Southeast Asia.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Odense, Denmark & returning to Copenhagen

Today's blog wraps up my 2+ week adventure across Denmark, Germany, and Austria in the summer of 2013. We saw and did so much over these last few weeks that it's no wonder it took months and months of planning. Toward the end of any vacation, however, especially one that required so much effort at the front end, you get many mixed emotions. Travel fatigue sets in for sure, and the excitement of going home increases exponentially. You relish in the idea of sleeping in your own bed, having a normal shower, and eating good old American pizza or Chinese takeout. (Though we did have some pretty good "German" Chinese food in Nuremberg). At the same time, you're also sad. Sad that vacation is ending. Sad that life and all of the reality that comes with it (work, bills, etc) will soon be returning. Sad that the months and months of planning are done. And also, you feel more cultured, more worldly, and you have a greater appreciation for society in general and all of the different life walks people make.

As we neared the end of our European adventure, little did we know that the worst was yet to come. Sometimes that happens. Nobody plans a trip and intends on a having a bad time or things going wrong, but sometimes the best laid plans still go awry. We averted a potentially bad day in Frankfurt by planning a little side trip at the last minute. We laughed off our little run in with the red light district in Hamburg, and continued toward our final destination in Denmark before flying back out of Copenhagen. Denmark is a strange place. Copenhagen had enough classic European flare (and we were only there for a day) that we weren't spooked off. We stayed in a big, modern hotel in and only the strange cuisine wrinkled our eyebrows slightly. Western/central Denmark, however, is another story entirely.

We crossed the border from Germany into Denmark in the middle of the afternoon on Monday, August 19. Thanks to minimal traffic and no speed limits, we cruised through Germany, lickety-split, but as soon as we crossed into Denmark, we had to obey those pesky speeding laws again.

For the evening, we stopped in the quaint Danish village of Broby on the Island of Funen. This place couldn't have been more picturesque, and we had beautiful weather. Our hotel, Brobyvarek Kro, seemed more like an quaint, historic inn set on gorgeous grounds. Unfortunately, the rooms themselves left a lot to be desired. The hotel didn't provide any in-room amenities like soap, tissues, or drinking cups for water. There was, however, no shortage of BUGS in the room. Spiders galore and all manner of flying insects (no doubt potential spider supper).

Stream out the back of Brobyvaerk Kro - Denmark

Brobyvaerk Kro - Denmark

We arrived late in the afternoon and enjoyed walking around the hotel grounds and the little town. We stopped in a small market store, and then ate dinner at the hotel before turning in for the night. Dinner was surprisingly good, though they gave us an English menu with many German options, so we knew what we were ordering.

After killing yet another spider in the morning, we were glad to leave this rustic, yet charming guesthouse. Our activities for the day were all on the central Danish Island. Denmark is a series of islands; the far eastern island being the location of Copenhagen and the ferry that we took to cross into Germany at the beginning of the trip. The previous day, we drove up through the larger western island before stopping near Odense which is the largest "city" in the big, center island.

We drove about 25 minutes away from our hotel to Egeskou Castle. We arrived before they opened, so we went through an open hedge maze right at the entrance. I mentioned above (and in a previous post) that travel fatigue sets in toward the end of a long trip. We really felt it by this time. After the hedge maze, we didn't even feel like going into the castle. So, we just got back in the car and left.

Another 20-30 minutes away was one of our main activities for the day: the Funen Village. They advertised this place as a town representative of where famed Danish author Hans Christian Andersen may have grown up. They took historic buildings from elsewhere and deconstructed and reconstructed them in his place to create an outdoor living history museum. Truthfully, this town looked more like a primitive village. If someone had told me, these dwellings and buildings dated back to the fifteenth or sixteenth century (Medieval or Renaissance period), I would have believed them. Instead, the signs and literature they had on the village, claimed that it dated back to about the 1800s. Imagine, in 1850, the United States was merely 10 years away from the Civil War. We had railroads, factories...brick! This place looked like what I imagined the first American settlers might have lived in or like a historic medieval time capsule.

Clog Maker Funen Village - Odense, Denamrk

Funen Village - Odense, Denmark

We ate lunch at the little restaurant they had though after spending nearly 2 weeks in Germany/Austria, the language on the menu really threw us. I thought I ordered stew but instead received some sort of fatty, gelatin ham loaf. The others in my group got a bleu cheese platter and a mayo glazed pulled pork sandwich. No one's plate looked terribly appetizing to me.

Gelatinous Ham Loaf - Odense, Denmark

From the Funen Village, we continued driving clear across Denmark. Between the two islands we drove across a gigantic bridge and (unfortunately) paid a gigantic toll. After about 1.5 hours, we arrived at a viking ship museum. This place intrigued us because we always thought of the vikings as  Norwegian. The museum itself wasn't anything too amazing, but the 3:00 English tour was fantastic. The guide explained that the Danish people always felt a little bad about their ancestry because they lacked archeological evidence that they descended from vikings. That changed when they excavated a few viking ships on Danish soil. Our guide was funny and gave a very entertaining tour with brilliant English.

Viking Ship Museum - Denmark

Within another hour, we found ourselves just north of Copenhagen at our last stop of the trip: Kronberg Castle (think Hamlet). Absolutely unable to stomach another Danish meal, we gladly stopped at McDonalds for dinner and ate along the water with the castle in our view. We took a walk around the castle itself and looked across the coast to Sweden. (We had to resist the urge to drive across the bridge into Sweden just to tell ourselves we've been there.)

Kronberg Castle - Denmark

It took about an hour to get to our final destination for the evening, the Copenhagen Airport Hotel, AKA the Dragor Badehotel (it has the word BAD in its name...should have been a giveaway). Never in my life has the expression "if you can survive one night here, you can survive anything" been truer for me! I have never stayed in a worse hotel or written a more scathing review. It astounds me that this hotel still has a 3.5/5 star rating. You can read my full review if you're curious about just how bad it was, but I'll give you the highlights. Bugs. Dirt. Mold. Noise. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Take a look at this picture. It's lovely, isn't it?

Worst hotel EVER - Copenhagen, Denmark

This isn't where we stayed. Our room was in an "annex" off to the side of the building that was no better than a glorified trailer. Hmm...perhaps glorified isn't the right word. There was nothing glorified about it. The single worst part was that our room had a door that adjoined to the room next door. When we arrived, we noticed the door and thought (like we'd seen in all other hotels with adjoining rooms) there would be another door on the other side protecting the privacy of the individuals staying there. Because the room itself had been a complete shock, and we were simply stunned by the appearance, we unlocked the adjoining door see what was on the other side. Instead of seeing another door (or perhaps a closet of some sort?) we found ourselves staring right into someone else's room. Apparently the lock was on our side of the door, and the other room had no second door. We closed the door, re-locked it, and then when we heard someone enter (clear as day because the walls were paper thin) on the other side, my husband knocked and opened the adjoining door. We just thought we should mention to the British gentleman on the other side that we could easily access his room and that if he was staying another night, he should complain about the lack of security. We laughed because as soon as we closed the door and locked it again, we heard him call someone on the phone and relay our conversation to them...which we heard word for word. But think about how scary that could have been if we were the ones on the other side. When we first opened the door, we saw his briefcase and laptop. We could have robbed him blind. If we were in that position, I would have raised hell on the hotel until they changed our room. Fortunately for us, we were on the side with the door lock.

Honestly, it was so bad we would have just packed up and gone somewhere else if it hasn't been for 2 things. First, it was the first day of the Pride festival in Copenhagen and all of the hotels were either sold out or ridiculously expensive. That's what drove us to pick this hotel in the first place and not the Crowne Plaza where we stayed upon arrival in Copenhagen. And second, we did a thorough inspection of the beds (bed bug fears!) and the sheets and mattresses seemed ok. We laid towels down everywhere in the bathroom and didn't take off our shoes until we went to sleep.

The next morning, we complained to the front desk as we checked out, and they literally laughed at us. "No one has ever complained about our rooms before," the lady said. Yeah...right! We couldn't leave that place fast enough even if it meant getting to the airport 5 hours early for our flight home. We just didn't care.

Adios Denmark! What a bad note on which to end an otherwise great trip! Few lessons learned from this experience. Even if you have 2 weeks...and even if there are so many amazing things are within "close" driving distance...do not run yourselves ragged like we did. Spend a couple of days in one place.

Did I learn my lesson? My next blog series will feature my trip in 2015 to Southeast Asia (specifically Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore). Clearly, my friends, I still have a lot to learn. :)

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler