Thailand (Bangkok 1&2)

We made it back from Thailand! We had such an amazing time there! For the first week we were back we kinda felt like even though our bodies were walking around Utah our brains were still in Thailand. Now that we've gotten back into our normal work/sleep routines I'm ready to post a few of the 3000 pictures we took while in Thailand. I posted about 30 pictures on Facebook that I took with my iPhone. The pictures I'm posting on the blog will all be from Christian's big camera.

With so many pictures to post I'm having a hard time narrowing it down so I've decided to break up the posts into categories. The categories will be Bangkok (our first and last day in Thailand), Cambodia (four days), Chang Mai (three days), Ko Lanta (six days), and Railay (five days). We were gone for 3 glorious weeks and looking back I cant think of a single day where we didn't look at each other and marvel at just how much excitement we were experiencing. 

The travel time to Bangkok took about 24 hours. We went from SLC to San Francisco (2hrs) to Taipei (14hours) and finally to Bangkok (4hours). This was my expression about 18 hours in realizing we still had another 6 hours to go.

Part of the problem was that the plane ride was really long but MOST of the problem was that we were seated in the worst possible seats anyone could be seated in. I booked our tickets through Hotwire so we could get the best deal possible but the downside was that China Air wouldn't let us choose our seats because we purchased through Hotwire. This meant that Christian and I were both seated in the middle two seats of the four seat middle section of the plane for fourteen exhausting hours. The elderly Asian man on Christian's right preferred to sit with his legs spread open as far as possible thus encroaching into Christians already small leg space area. For a tall long-legged boy this was very uncomfortable. The adorable lady to my left decided that her giant purse needed to be in my foot area instead of her own and so I really had half an area for my feet. Just when I had finally started to drift off to sleep I felt something scratch my elbow. I looked down and saw red painted toes... the lady behind me had propped her bare feet up onto my arm rest. Disgusting! I poked Christian who had been glaring at old Asian man's encroaching leg for the past three hours to show him the feet.  Christians eyes got big, he inhaled sharply,  and threw his airplane pillow on top of red toes and propped his arm on top of them. Moral of the story is as Americans we like to keep our personal space. Some of the other cultures we encountered have a different idea as to what personal space is.

When we arrived in Bangkok we were exhausted but excited. It was still morning when we arrived so we decided to search out our hotel room take a quick shower and go see the sights of Bangkok. Knowing we'd be extremely tired when we arrived we booked a stay at one of the nicer hotels in the area. Its called the Dream Hotel and it was gorgeous! It had decorative lights in the room that made the whole room glow blue. It also had the most delicious breakfast buffet in the morning that we took full advantage of.

Our shower made us feel awake and ready to explore. We started walking up and down the streets near Siam Square where we were staying. There was tons of street food and shopping booths littered up and down the sidewalks. We tried some mystery meat on a stick (tasted like ginger pork sausages) and were very impressed. Getting around Bangkok was really easy once we figured out how to use the BTS Skytrain. It was much cheaper than taxis and tuk-tuks and made the trip from the airport into the downtown area super easy. 

Waiting for the Skytrain

The area near the river and temples was one place that the Skytrain didn't go. I was really excited to ride in a tuk-tuk so we hailed down a bright pink one to visit some of the Wats (temples) before it got too late. We went down to the docks and rented a private long-tail boat to take us on a tour of the Chao Phraya river. This was a really neat experience and gave us a riverside view of some really pretty Wats.

Pink Tuk Tuk

Wat Arun

Riverside house on stilts

Giant River Monitor Lizard thing

We took the long-tail boat to Wat Pho and got out to tour at least one Wat before sunset. Getting there just before it closed was actually great because it meant that there were almost no people and we got to hear the monks chant before sunset.

Wat Pho

Ceremonial cloth draped over bronze Buddha with gold leaf 

Giant reclining Buddha. When I say giant, I mean 3 stories tall and takes up a whole building.

The toes were beautifully inlaid with Mother of Pearl.

Close up of gold leaf on the Buddha

Someone (ahem) sent Christian a Birthday card where I was referred to as a Julie creature. Since then Christian has taken great delight in calling me a Julie creature. He also thought it was fun to take pictures of all the creatures engraved out of stone. He'd say "Hey Julie creature! Look at this cute creature... It's not as cute as you but... It's a pretty cool creature."

The Creature

Farang Statue

Farang is Thai for "foreigner." The Portuguese visitors that came here in the 1600's were pretty funny looking.

Some close ups of the intricate detail

Buddha's all in a row

More Buddha's

Wat Pho

Now fast forward to the last day of our trip when we come back to Bangkok for a day before heading home. There were a few temples that we didn't have enough time for our first day so we made sure we had time for them on our last day. This first stop was the Grand Palace. We'd heard rumors of scams where you'd ask people to take you to the Grand Palace but they'd tell you it was closed and offer to take you to another more beautiful Wat but they would also drop you off at all these shops where retailers would scam you out of money by selling you fake gem stones or ridiculously overpriced souvenirs. Our first day in Bangkok we didn't really have any experiences where we felt like anyone was trying to do that to us but on our last day it happened three times! One fellow after we told him we knew the Grand Palace wasn't closed and we we're going there anyway yelled at us and said, "you are  stupid!" This kinda made us laugh because everyone in Thailand is very friendly and we'd never heard a Thai yell in anger before. We even saw a couple across the street from the Grand Palace being lead away by someone saying the Palace was closed while a recording from the Palace came over the loud speaker saying that it is never closed and it is open everyday.

We made it to the Grand Palace

Giant gold Chedi

Another Buddha... there are a lot of Buddhas

Buddhas with detail

A miniature replica of Angkor Wat located within the Grand Palace

The Angkor replica with the gold Chedi behind it

Creature

Wat Phra Keow -

You can see me on the stairs if you look close. I'm wearing a blue shirt with a black pack on

Guardian creature

Gold Chedi spire with tiled Guardians surrounding it

One of thousands of detailed paintings on the temple walls

The tile work is so pretty

The Grand Palace

The guards who guard the Grand Palace

Statues of the Kings of the Funan Dynasty

Gold Buddha

Guardian Statue... and me

View of the Chao Phraya river from the top of Wat Arun

Wat Arun towers were decorated with lots of tile

It almost looks like candy!

More Wat Arun

Wat Arun

This was my favorite Wat to visit in Bangkok. The Grand Palace was really crowded while Wat Arun was more quiet and peaceful. You could also climb the stairs of the Wat which gave us spectacular views of the river and city.

Elephant

Some street food in Bangkok. This looked like a bunch of different dried fish jerky snacks. I loved perusing the selection. Christian didn't much care for the smell of dried fish so I was surprised he got close enough for this shot.

Christian loved walking the streets of Bangkok. I loved eating food and people watching while others walked the streets of Bangkok. Notice the woman drinking soda from a bag with a straw. They sold soda from the bottle but would pour the soda into a bag so they could collect the glass bottles back for recycling.

Souvenir statues

Doing some street shopping

We walked the streets for several hours doing some shopping and eating more mystery meat on a stick. We also got my favorite Thai fried chicken with sticky rice one last time before heading to the airport. Our flight left bright and early in the morning with check-in at 5:30am. The Skytrain didn't start running until 5:30am and with our visas being expired we decided it would be best to stay the night in the airport and be the first ones to check in so if there was a problem with our visas we wouldn't miss our flight. 

Waiting at the airport...

This sounded like a great idea in theory and in the end we'd definitely do it again but the 7 hours we sat on those hard plastic seats and then wooden benches trying to sleep were so uncomfortable! There were two positive things that made this last airport ordeal worth it. First, was the really nice desk agent who changed our seats on both China Air flights so we were no longer in the middle and were either in the emergency exit (so Christian's long legs could breathe), or towards the back where the plane narrowed and there were only room for two seats (a window and aisle) with a lot of leg room by the window because of the missing third seat. This made the flight home oh so enjoyable! And second, getting stamped out of Thailand. We were pretty worried about having overstayed by two days (see upcoming Cambodia post) but the Thai Visa lady was very friendly and even apologized for taking up so much of our time. It's a small fine and then they smile and say goodbye. They're just glad you had a good time and hope you'll come spend money in their country again.

Now I know I left out most of the vacation that happened in the middle comprising pretty much three weeks but look how many pictures it took to describe two days in Bangkok! Holy Crap that was like 50 photos!! Tomorrow I shall do the post on Cambodia... I promise!