Wheels up from Bangkok, down in Laos

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Travel is hard work. Often it's tiring, even though we only had a 2-hour flight with no time change, it still took all day. By the time we gather luggage, trek to the airport, deal with various lines, get to our gate, wait at our gate, actually fly, it takes a long time. On the other end we had long lines for immigration (this line to drop off passports, this line to pick up visas in passports and pay, this line to stamp passports...) The kids are great overall, but they are not perfect. Travel is truly a test of patience and endurance and stamina. It's about not always getting to eat exactly what you want when you want it, not having the comfortable bed you're used to, and lots of other concessions. For all of these reasons and more, it would be easy to not do it at all. Certainly that would be the easier plan.

So why do we do it?

For too many reasons I can't list here. But for all of the less glamorous moments of travel, there are scattered random moments of wonder, things that take you by surprise and will be remembered forever. There is something extremely enriching about being outside of your comfort zone, away from the familiar, and connecting to a new place and new people. It's really quite magical the way a place can instantly go from somewhere on a map to somewhere you've touched and experienced. It's fun to be a little family unit, adrift in the big world but a unit, cohesive, the only people in the entire country of millions of people who know each other. I watch the kids be each other's best friends, to play and laugh and make memories together. We do all this so they can know there is more out there than just them, there is good and bad to any place, that America's ways are not the only ways, and that they have a global responsibility to give back in someway.

We are now in Laos, and as my son put it, "We are not in Bangkok anymore." Luang Prabang is a bit of a sleepy town in the middle of Laos and we will be here for two days. I will write more on this unusual little stop later, but tonight we ambled through the night market full of incredibly unique items I can't decide what, if anything, to buy. We'll have to go back when my mind is clear.

I ended the day with a 60-minute foot massage with reflexology and a short head/shoulder/neck massage. Much needed. The best part is that it cost me, including tips, $5.