A destination wedding

The previous post in this series is here..

The main reason for this entire trip during and after Thanksgiving was our friends son’s wedding.

Most of Cupertino descended in Phuket at the JW Marriott to celebrate.

The kids (they will always be kids to all the uncles and aunties) show a level of maturity that made us think “were we like this at that age?”

There was a sense of calm with the bridge and groom that was amazing to watch. There is a lot happening around them and they are actually tying to direct the groups to the right people, interact with everyone, check on people. At one point I told the groom “You should just not have to check on anything!” and he just gave his usual smile.

We have attended a few weddings in the recent years given the next generation in our extended family is all growing up. This was our first destination wedding outside of the US. So it made for an interesting experience. The other recent weddings we attended all had the boy and girl from different cultures within India.. Tamil-Telugu, Tamil-Gurarathi.. etc. but here both the kids were from the same community, but still there were subtle differences in their family traditions when it came to wedding ceremonies. Our local priest from Cupertino who also flew in to conduct the wedding did an outstanding job of juggling everything, explaining things to the audience and made the entire event memorable.

I was strictly told to keep my hands off cameras and leave it to the pros.. and there were 5 photographers running around in circles making it difficult for anyone else to get photos anyways.. Did capture this candid shot of the kids from the iPhone.. Sincerely wish they stay as happy the rest of their lives. They have all their Cupertino uncles and aunties watching them.. the next generation has a lot more challenges than us as we are definitely leaving the world in worse shape than we got it.. or so I feel.. but inspite of all our attempts to screw things up for them, they are in every way better than us. They have what it takes to navigate things. Saw it in their eyes and the way they handled things.. had happy tears watching them go around the fire… blessed them with all my heart!

There were people on boats from the sea taking pictures of the mandap as were tourists walking on the beach.. think they photobombed a lot of the pictures. They must not be used to seeing the groom show up in a decked up horse to the mandap for a baraat..

We had an amazing time.. got to sing songs during the wedding ceremony. We had practiced for a few weeks before the wedding! San got to dance with the other “aunties”.. (I will get flak for this sentence alone but it is what it is).. We got to dress differently for the different events..

There was a short gap between the wedding and reception and we finally spent some time as a group walking around the beach and taking pictures.

My friend gave a speech but sadly we had to leave mid way into the reception as our flight was late that night and it was a 90 minutes drive to the airport. We did catch the video later. He is still giving me crap for missing his epic speech. I had to get back to work Monday morning and literally dropped suitcases at home and went to work to take care of a few things. Phuket airport is not anywhere close to the other airports we visited on this trip.. It could seriously use some more disciplined people. The airport was dirty, there was no crowd management at the lines, no proper lanes, airport and restrooms were not clean.. Thankfully we had to spend only a couple of hours there. Our stop at Seoul aiport was much nicer. We enjoyed the three hour break there before flying back to SFO.

We said bye to everyone and Phuket to wrap up a fantastic 10 days in southeast Asia!

Will summarize all these stops in one blog post to share the entire trip itinerary.

Wedding vibes in Phuket

The previous post in this series is here..

Day 8 of our trip saw us say bye to Chiang Mai and go to Phuket.

Air Asia was interesting. The lines were long but moving along. When it was our turn we found the one checked bag was 4 kg overweight. The lady at the counter said we would have to pay 40 bucks anyways, so might as well adjust and check in the carry on bags for that price. So we checked everything. This was a direct flight and we were hoping that our bags show up with us when we get to Phuket.

We got picked up at the airport and had an almost 2 hour drive to the JW Marriott Khao Lak resort and spa.

After checking in we realized it was already time to join the Mehendi party.. so we cleaned up, took some pictures and walked to the beach where I was treated to smiling familiar beautiful faces. The whole gang was there and we were just so happy to be there! Accidentally ended up twinning with my buddy, the grooms dad! He keeps his social media profile at near zero levels.. but at least I get to post one photo! We were also so happy to see the bride and groom! These two kids made us so happy with the way they kept it cool for all of us!

There was a fire show and dinner and we called it a night when it got a little chilly. We had our first argument on the trip after 8 days when the smell of the mehendi shut down my nose and lungs and San refused to wash it off before coming to bed citing that the redness of the mehendi had a higher priority over my lungs.

One evening back with her friends and my lungs went down on the priority list.

Had to resort to a vicks inhaler to just breathe again and sleep. The next morning she was very happy with the end result and given she was smiling from ear to ear, I temporarily let go of the animal cruelty..

Many of my friends from Cupertino also told me to put my camera away and just enjoy the wedding.. so I took a few photos with my iPhone and that was it.

Here is a video highlight reel..

My screen time for this week is through the roof.. but it looks like I will finish writing about the Thanksgiving trip before Christmas and that is a good thing!

A morning in Hanoi - Thanksgiving 2025 trip

We just got back from a 10 day trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. The last part of the trip was planned in January. We knew our friends son was getting married in Phuket and we were going. It was post thanksgiving week given the stars aligned for the kid and his bride to be a week after!

Having put in for the entire week after thanksgiving off, our planner in chief had plenty of time to decide what to do in the run up to the wedding in Phuket. She did change things a few times and came up with a Hanoi-> Angkor Wat -> Chiang Mai -> Phuket plan. 2 days to 2 1/2 days tops for each location. I was asked for a wish list of places to see and apparently my plan would need a month, not to mention underground caves needed permits that were not available. As usual, all I had to do was follow instructions!

One tip before going to anyplace these days. Do not bother looking at facebook feed. Had barely checked in and was waiting at gate when FB told me that Ho Chi Minh city was under water and what we need to do to prep for it. This was not a one off thing. Before we went to any place or as soon as we landed we got the worst negative fake news about each place be it floods, fires, wars, etc. Total BS! Facebook needs to do something about this nonsense soon. or folks should take them to task for this blatant misinformation. At this point these bastards maybe responsible for most wars around the world if they stream this type of fake news and create unnecessary panic. It was good I turned off my wifi and having no international data plan also helped. used the phone pretty much as a video camera for the trip.

There was no direct flight we could find. So we went SFO -> Seoul , Seoul-> Ho Chi Minh city with a very tight connection on Korean air (gladly we made it as did our luggage). We had a 6 hour wait in Ho Chi Minh city and took a taxi to a airport hotel (5 min ride from the airport). We took a shower, had some wagh bakri chai at 3AM local time and took a 45 min power nap, charged phones and were back in the airport to check in bags on a domestic flight in Vietjet to Hanoi.

Given our crazy plan, we had arranged a personal car/driver. The driver was supposed to speak English but he knew 4 words and used google translate. It was painful as he would drive and use his phone which made us really nervous throughout the trip. Our suitcases were in the back of the car and we went straight to sightseeing. The plan was to see the main places.

1. The lake area and the temple with turtles in the middle of the lake in the old quarter

2. Temple of literature built for Confusious

3. drive by Ho Chi Minh memorial

4. One pillar Pagoda

5. drive by the railroad street

The time budget for all this was 4 hours. This was to be followed by a max one hour lunch break and then we were to drive out of the city for 2 hours to HaLong bay in Vietnam traffic.

We actually did everything in spite of a 45 min waste to try and find the entrance to the one pillar pagoda. Our guide was told he cannot park near pagoda entrance. He had also said that given the security check and crowed we would only drive by the memorial. Turns out that the entrance to the pagoda is through the same complex and we had to go through the security check. We walked around all over the place and leaving voicenotes in English for the driver did not help. The cops on the roads had no idea either till we showed them the image of the pagoda. Finally a cop directed in sign language that we had to go through the check to see Pagoda! No English anywhere. These are the most interesting experiences in stretching our communication limits. The highlight of the morning was watching toddlers walk through the temple of literature as part of a school tour. They were sooo cute and adorable!

Here are two sets of pictures from the morning (haven’t edited them either). I am severely jet lagged and writing is post is keeping me awake. It is also refreshing my memory a bit. The heat and humidity, rickshaws, the lake, the agarbathies, the pagodas, the street vendors, the red sickle flags, kind of felt like a cross between Mumbai, Chennai and Cochin all at once.. Hanoi was very clean!!

First photo is an example of the bullshit fake posts that we saw at every location. Truth is dead!

Here is a video highlights reel of the morning..

Was still scared of getting allergies on day 1, so played it safe and ate pizza while san tasted local veggies cuisine. Then we were off to Halong bay!

Will write about that tomorrow..