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We waited over a month to do our McDonald’s video for Thailand, knowing that if we did, we’d be able to wrangle our friends into trying it with us after they arrived.  That was a long time to wait to try a Samuari Pork Burger, let me tell you!  Was it worth the wait?  You’ll have to watch the video to find out…

Not much to say about Thai McDonald’s that we don’t already say in the video.  I will say that it’s darn difficult to find cover footage for editing when you’re shooting five people with one camera.  See if you can may spot any editing tricks I might have used to avoid a jump cut!

Thanks again to Wendy, Dusty, and Sarah for helping out (we certainly wouldn’t have tried so many things without them!)  We’ll eventually see them one more time when I put together a video about our shared experience at a Thai cooking school.  In the meantime, be sure to read about their take on Thailand on their blog, Roam the Planet!
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Out of all the countries we visited on our trip around the world, Thailand was the one in which we spent the most time. 61 days, over two visits.  It has since gone down on our list of places we want to return to someday, but when we first arrived, we were not impressed.

We had been traveling fairly quickly ever since Africa and by October we were both ready for a break.  While we were still in Russia, we planned out the last three months of our trip.  In order to conserve money – we had just officially gone over our travel budget – we wanted to find a place to sit down and rest for a while.  I sent out a request on Facebook and Twitter and asked our friends and followers for their recommendations in Thailand.

We received a lot of good advice, but ultimately had a hard time taking advantage of it because we were set on a month-long rental.  We checked Craigslist and various vacation rental websites, but the vast majority of listings were only available in the largest cities or most touristy areas.  We debated traveling out to the remote islands until we found a place to our liking, but ultimately took the easy way out.  We spent just a couple days in Bangkok, recuperating from our jet lag, before flying to Phuket and following up on some leads there.

The first place we stopped was in party central, Patong.  I can’t even remember why we chose that town, because foam-party nightclubs, seedy massage parlors, and plentiful weed are not on our list of travel necessities.  Nevertheless, Oksana found us a cheap hotel away from the beach, and we stayed there a week.

Prices were low, as October is still officially the off-season.  And no wonder – it rained hard just about every day we were in Patong.  That didn’t bother me especially much because I had just come down with my first cold since leaving home almost a year and a half before.  For the next week, all I wanted to do was lie in bed and sleep.  Easier to do during the day – night were miserable… at least until I visited the pharmacist, a real life anime character, who prescribed me some heavy sleeping pills.

Unfortunately, just as I was about to get over my cold, Oksana picked it up.  Most of our month off was spent battling head and chest colds.

Eventually, we left the Starbucks and McDonald’s behind by moving just four kilometers down the island to Karon Beach.  The oceanfront was prettier, the tourists more family oriented, and both of those things suited us just fine.  For about $19 per night, we stayed in a huge hotel room, venturing out once a day to the pool or to place an order at the on-site restaurant.  We caught up on some internet stuff, rested our travel-worn feet, and worked on our tans.

Prices went up on November 1^st with the official start of the high season, but we didn’t mind.  Our friends from Roam the Planet were due to arrive any day and, with our batteries recharged, we were ready to hit the road again.

Because of the record flooding that was going on in central Thailand during our stay, we didn’t get to see as much of the country as I’d hoped.  Most of the things I noticed about Thailand came from the few places we did spend some time: Bangkok, Phuket, the Phi Phi islands, Chiang Mai, and Koh Mak.

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View the same video in high-definition (720p) on Youtube.

• 00:00 – Introduction and Rules
• 03:52 – The Reveal
• 06:31 – First Round
• 16:23 – Second Round
• 26:22 – Credits and a Dare

The first time I walked into a 7/11 in Thailand, the sheer number of drinks in the coolers blew my mind.  There were dozens of brands and flavors and I because couldn’t make heads or tails of their swirly writing, I had no idea what most of them were.  I wanted to try them all…! but with my luck, I knew I’d end up with something like “Shrimp-Mussel Juice.”  Sampling a random drink in Thailand would be like Russian Roulette, only my taste buds would be at stake.

Knowing that our friends were on the way, Oksana and I decided to wait for them before playing “Thai Roulette.”  I mentioned the idea to Wendy and Dusty (from Roam the Planet) and their friend Sarah.  They were game!

We decided to film the whole thing, because it seemed like it might be entertaining for you to watch us taste all these mystery drinks and because  Wendy and Dusty had just brought us a new point-and-shoot camera (to replace our ailing Panasonic Lumix.)  It was a Sony TX10, which boasts 1080p video.  Since they had the exact same model, we shot with both cameras to see if the footage would match well in editing.  It was also a good test for me, to find out if our new camera could double as a camcorder in a pinch.  (Answer: No. You can read my thoughts on that after the jump.)

During one of our first meals together, I laid out the ground rules for the little drinking game I’d created in my head.   Then we hit the stores, buying our drinks in secret, and then revealed them to each other later that evening.  Unfortunately, when we did, it was raining outside our hotel and the cameras picked up a lot of street noise while we were recording.

This video turned out much longer than I expected — close to half an hour!  Now, I could spend many more hours whittling it down to just the funniest parts, but that goes against my self-imposed guidelines for these “Postcard Valet Extra” videos.  (Also, it sounds like a lot of work!)  So I left pretty much everything in, including some awkward jump cuts and blurry video.  On the plus side, if you stick it out, you’ll get to see every little grimace as we sample 10 crazy Thai drinks.  If half an hour is too much of a commitment, feel free to use the time markers above to jump to the section that sounds most interesting.

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You always feel like you’re getting short-changed when you’re only in a country for a day or two.  We had only 17 hours to spend in Dubai, but I’m surprised how much we got to see and do.  We wandered two gigantic malls, went snow skiing, walked the base of the world’s tallest building, road around the city on a tour bus, and of course we ate at McDonald’s for lunch!

Most of the menu in Dubai’s McDonald’s was the normal fare;  the stuff that wasn’t was almost exclusively vegetarian.  We tried the Veggie Burger, spring rolls, and a McPuff!  I could have trimmed this video down a little more — it’s one of the longer McDonald’s videos we’ve made — but there are a couple funny moments that I just didn’t want to cut out.  (Plus there’s a bit of background on that whole Orbitz fiasco thing we went through.  I forgot that by this point, we still weren’t sure if we were going to get reimbursed for our new plane tickets; we eventually did!)

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Going to McDonald’s in Russia was almost and afterthought for us.  We spent our first week or so in St. Petersburg without stopping by one, and then, a day or two before we were set to hop on a train to Irkutsk, we realized that we might not get another chance.  I wasn’t sure there was a McDonald’s in Irkutsk, but I knew for sure there wasn’t going to be on on Kamchatka.  We’d already eaten at a Russian McDonald’s in 2006, so it wasn’t like missing it this time would bother me.  Still, we weren’t making videos back then…

So, while we were on our way to buy a new pair of hard drives, we decided to stop off for lunch.  I remembered to bring the video camera, but it turns out I forgot to bring a battery for the microphone.  The on camera mic did well enough, even if it did pick up a bit too much traffic noise.

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Okay, I’ll admit it.  Sometimes recording these McDonald’s podcasts gets old.  After doing so many, back to back, I feel like they’re all the same.  Boring.  The last few visits we’ve tried to saying something new in each one, even if that’s just in the intro on closing.  Hopefully that’ll come through as we move forward.

Keeping to a weekly posting schedule has almost caught us up, too!  After this one in Estonia, we only have Russia and Dubai to edit.  However, by the time we get through posting those two, I’m sure we’ll have a recording for Thailand, too.

Back to this video:  As an intro, I tried to list off, from memory, the 25 different countries where I’ve eaten at a McDonald’s.  Fell three short because I forget Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico.  Also, yes, I know that Amsterdam is a city, not a country.

Don’t know if you know about it, but we have a page where we track all this: McDonald’s of the World.

Finally, we probably shouldn’t have tried to record this video outdoors on a day with such fickle weather, but the area was beautiful and I wanted to incorporate as much of old town Tallinn into the edit as I could.  Filming outdoors has its own set of challenges, however.  Have you seen the video yet?  Did you, like me, think you were hearing a horse trotting down the cobblestone street?

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We only really had one opportunity to eat at McDonald’s while we were in Helsinki and neither Oksana nor I were hungry at the time.  Unfortunately, I think that sort of shows in the video.  Hunger being the best spice and all that.

Anyway, we made a big deal about how incomprehensible the Finnish menu was for us, but we actually had a very helpful person taking our order.  He was an older gentleman with perfect English.  When I told him I’d have the 1955 burger, he nodded and said, “Good choice.  You’ll like that one, it’s very good!”  I’ve never had a McDonald’s cashier validate the deliciousness of my order before!

Just for fun, here’s the official Finland McDonald’s menu (at least for the Helsinki restaurant we visited.)  Can someone tell me what a Tuplajuustohampurilaisateria is?