Robert and I recently returned from a 2-week vacation to Thailand! I had been wanting to go to Thailand for years, mostly because of the food. This year, we finally just decided to go for it. We had a really wonderful time. We spent a few days in Bangkok, and then headed south to Koh Jum and Koh Lanta, two islands in the Andaman Sea near Krabi. Bangkok was crazy and chaotic with people, animals, taxis, motorbikes and tuks tuks speeding by all around you in every direction. It was really fun and exciting but also a bit frightening for two people coming from a city where pedestrians and drivers compete to see who can be more polite. By contrast, life on the islands was peaceful and relaxing. We loved Koh Jum the most; everyone there was so friendly, and the beach where we stayed was really undeveloped and wild (although, electricity and a 7-11 are reportedly coming to the island next year so things may not stay so serene for long.)

My two favorites things about this trip were the monkeys and, no surprises here, the food. We saw monkeys nearly every day. One day, they even came up onto our porch to say hi (okay, really they came looking for a handout and, when that didn’t pan out, decided to try and steal my backpack and my book instead.) With only a few exceptions, the food we ate in Thailand was all really good. We had a couple of exceptional meals in Bangkok. But, even the food that would probably be considered average by Thai standards was much better than what you get in most Thai restaurants in America. I’ll be writing up food notes from the places we visited over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned.

Lastly, I would like to thank Cee, of the fantastic website, Real Thai Recipes, for helping me plan my trip. Without her sound advice, I’m sure we would have found ourselves spending way too much on cab rides and eating our fair share of bland tourist pad thai. If you are interested in learning to cook Thai food, be sure to check out Cee’s website. Her food photos are amazing, and the recipes are authentic yet very accessible.

Click here to see photos from our trip >>