not going..

Decided not to visit Thailand.. Been planning for the trip for a long while.. had wanted to visit many of the famous temples.. had wanted to experience the water market.. had wanted to go for night cycling tours.. had wanted to go for Thai cooking classes.. had wanted to go for Thai massages and also learn how to do one.. had wanted to visit an elephant sanctuary.. had wanted to take a train up to Chiang Mai and enjoy the fantastic scenery along the way.. had wanted to try all the tasty local food.. had wanted to do lots of things, but in the end, decided not to go ahead with it..

Truth be told, Thailand was never in my "must-visit" list..  My main reason of visiting The Land of A Thousand Smiles was to meet up with a couple of Thai friends that I've made during my stay in Japan.. unfortunately, friends do drifted apart.. and the warm welcome that I was hoping didn't seem to be presenting itself at all.. Maybe I am being too sentimental (clinging on to those "good old times") when others have clearly moved on with their lives.. :(

With that main motivating factor gone, other concerns presented themselves more strongly and swayed my decision.. Money is always a concern, with me being jobless for most of the past 18 months, and even when I was gonna be on a fairly tight budget (especially for lodging), I would still be spending at least MYR$2K for this 14-day trip that I know I would feel better keeping them in the bank..

Also, you can call me a snob but I am never interested in visiting 3rd world or developing countries.. So no India, Indo-China or Africa for me, unless of course there are some special events happening or I have good traveling partner(s)..  I don't need to experience or "learn" about poverty and suffering.  I have enough experiences in those, thank you very much..

And the last "against" factor is that it is a huge chore for me to get to the airport.. with no  public transport available, I would need to drive or be driven to the Penang airport which is about 2 hours away (if there is no traffic jams along the way). I don't want to inconvenience anyone just so I can go traveling.. It just doesn't seemed right to me..

Anyway, I might have canceled my BKK trip but I have not stopped dreaming about going places.. :) :)