After five heavenly days on Ko Samet, we’re back on the mainland en route to Cambodia. Our last stop (for now) in Thailand is an overnight in the pretty riverside city of Chanthaburi.

Gems are the business of this town. Apparently people from all over Asia come to buy and sell gems here. It’s not a touristy thing at all. In fact you hardly see any tourists here. But everyone everywhere seems to be involved with gems. People rent tables to show their wares.  Practically every storefront seems to have some gem angle. When you walk past the humblest house you might just see someone looking intently through a magnifying glass.

And when you are not dealing with gems you can take a break in one of the lovely little cafés that line the riverfront and enjoy great Thai cuisine and hospitality. In fact our dinner last night was the absolute best we’ve had in Thailand. Intense flavors. Crazy spicy. And dirt cheap.

Wow, it’s been a long time since I wrote anything here. I guess I’ve been on island time (yes, I know, even before we got to the island…).

We came here from Bangkok and have been taking it easy. Really easy. A bit of a long walk one day, a little poking around, but really a lot of not much besides beach, beach restaurants, laying around reading, cards and vodka in the evening before dinner. Some of it, of course, has been the joyous reading about Democrats actually winning a battle in Congress; how often does that happen? But while there’s not much here, we’ve enjoyed our stay – so much, in fact, that we’re staying an extra day!

This is practically the definition of flexibility: we’re at breakfast at 8:00 AM yesterday, and are scheduled to get on a truck at 9:30 to take us to the port where we’ll catch a boat to the mainland. It’s been raining for a couple days, but the morning sky was mostly clear so I asked Mark, “Should we just stay another day?” Within 30 minutes we’d changed our reservation to just one night instead of two in Chanthaburi and added a day here.

We love our hotel – a little low key, but right on the beach, nice pool (that I haven’t been in … why would you go in a pool when you’re on an island in the Gulf of Thailand?), very relaxing. Except it appears as though someone took Mark’s sandals when he left them outside the door to keep from bringing sand in the room. Strange.

On the other hand, the good news is that Mark’s shoulder and back problems are much better. It’s probably some combination of just time, affordable massages, and tiger balm. Apparently the charge is about $8 for a 40-minute massage. Between that and the $12 lunches (that are really good), we can’t afford not to be in Thailand…

From here we’re moving inland, first to Chanthaburi, a small town where they sell gems, mostly just as a stop en route to the Cambodia border. Then we’re off to Battambang, Cambodia, an old colonial town that we’ve heard good things about. In fact, when we were chatting with a manager at the hotel and told him where we were going his eyes lit up and he told us he’s always wanted to go there. Well, that’s where we’re off to soon!

Before taking off to explore some Thai islands, we spent four days in Bangkok, which served as a colorful pitstop where we shook off a little jet lag, stocked up on toiletries, and went to the dentist. Each of these three areas is symbolic of the big transition we’ve made in our lives this year.

For years our wanderlust has been coupled with the seemingly necessary evil that is jet lag, especially on visits to the far east. Flipping a dozen or so time zones is pretty rough on the body, and recovery can eat up a good chunk of a two-week vacation in Asia. On one ten-day trip to Japan, I was so unable to establish a normal sleep pattern that I was physically sick for half the trip. I especially remember two weird days in Hiroshima, where I was up all night, desperately wanted to sleep all day, and felt a weird revulsion to any food except for hamburgers or pizza — not my normal travel diet by a long shot!

So one of the things we love most about our new travel regimen is that we don’t fly nearly as much as we used to. With minimal constraints on our time, we overwhelmingly prefer to travel by train, bus, and boat. We move more slowly, see a bit more, get a better sense of how places are connected, and, of course, avoid the trauma of jet lag. Compared to our usual commute to the far east, this little hop from Rome to Bangkok, involving a five-hour time change, was a piece of cake. It’s nice to start a visit to Thailand with minimal sleep trauma.

Shopping can be a big part of the travel experience, but for us it’s totally impractical. Having to carry everything we acquire, we have zero tolerance for excess. For five months now, we’ve stuck to a hard-core principle: Every acquisition must be offset by getting rid of the same or more in terms of weight and volume. I have indeed bought a few things — new shorts in Latvia, a sweater in Italy, water shoes for the rocky beaches in Croatia. And each time I’ve seen my bag shrink a little as I’ve shed extra socks, shirts, cables, sweatshirts, and shoes to make up for it. I never miss anything I get rid of, and frankly, I love being unburdened by possessions. It’s convenient physically, and it’s entirely liberating on a spiritual level.

So routine shopping is pretty much limited to that which we consume on a regular basis — meaning toiletries. So I relish the quest to stay stocked up on toothpaste, dental floss, deodorant, shaving cream, and soap. These little challenges get me into grocery stores, mega malls, tiny local shops, and street markets. Living on the road, little routines like this provide a weird sense of ‘normalcy,’ which is somehow comforting.

In months past, when we were pondering the concept of permanent travel, we always saw dentistry as one of the barriers that seemed scariest. We have gone to the same dentist in Cambridge religiously for 15 years, and we have a very small tolerance for risk when it comes to healthy teeth. So we knew that we had to make ourselves get our teeth cleaned on a regular basis.

We both had our last regular check ups in April, so I’ve been determined to ‘deal with’ this issue come October, and Bangkok seemed less intimidating than, say, Phnom Penh or Rangoon, to see a dentist. So I made an appointment as soon as we got there, and we got it over with. I’ll admit, the first few minutes felt like water boarding, but after that it was OK. So that’s another barrier overcome, and yes, we’ll make ourselves do it again in April.

So now we feel especially ready to tackle a winter of travel in southeast Asia. From Bangkok, we spent a day of travel by sky train, bus, and boat to the lush green island of Ko Samet, where we celebrated Jim’s birthday yesterday.