First day in Bangkok

After a pretty insane 20 hour journey from LA to Bangkok we were picked up from the airport at 3AM, in the pouring rain, with a taxi driver who enjoyed incessant swaying through multiple lanes the entire 30 minute ride to our hotel. This morning we woke up pretty early, 8am, and decided to head over to the Grand Palace via the skytrain (like the monorail). The city was a little intense at first, so many people, the smells (it smells just like taiwan!!), the pollution, and the tuk-tuk drivers (a mix between a golf cart and a motorcycle) who follow you around trying to convince you to go to places you never needed to go in the first place. The Grand Palace was beautiful and ornate, we found the front entrance after multiple people outside told us it was closed and we should go to a different place in their tuk-tuk until it opened. Nevertheless we tried to find the entrance and it was open, despite their invented "holiday." Oh and the weather is a solid 90 degrees with 100% humidity : ) The Grand Palace had the amazing bejeweled gold buildings. One of the temples had a solid gold buddha, and another had a green jade buddha (which is a national pride). After exploring the palace we headed over to another temple, Wat Po. Along the way we met an Australian couple (Grant and Susan) who were looking for the temple as well. We ended up sticking together throughout the temple and the rest of the day. Wat Po has the largest Buddha in the world (I think...). It is known as the reclining Buddha and its feet are about 12 feet tall. On the way out of the temple we bought coins to drop in many buckets along the walls in the temple. We have absolutely no idea what it meant (I'm thinking it's going to bring us good luck?) but we just followed what everyone else was doing : ) A big group of cute Thai school kids were taking group photos and I jumped in with my asian peace sign, and they all squealed and were super excited and wanted to take more photos. Afterwards David, Grant, Susan, and I, went searching for another temple, Wat Arun, and instead walked the polar opposite direction and found Khao San Road (aka the backpackers mecca). It was super crowded with tons of Europeans, stalls, shops, and taxis. David and Grant got Chang beers, which were great. David was super stoked to drink with an Aussie haha. Then we decided to reserve a tour for Thursday to see a floating market, the bridge over River Kwai, and the Tiger Temple in Kanchaburi (about 2 hours outside of Bangkok). We then tried to get a taxi back to the skytrain and the taxi told us there was too much traffic so we should go a different way. So we walked in the direction of the river and found a river ferry that went the entire length of the river for only 30 cents! As we were getting on the ferry there was lightning and thunder right across the river in front of us, it was beautiful! The ferry was a really fast ride down to the skytrain station and we proceeded to take the train to the MBK mall (It is huge! We got lost trying to get out of the department store into the main part of the mall) to eat Thai dinner with our friends. David and Grant decided to get "spicy" Thai food, Susan and I got "not spicy at all" Thai food. Several minutes later, Grant and David were bright red, with eyes watering, chugging their waters. I was choking on my noodles because I thought they were so spicy : ) When we left the mall, there was a Muay Thai boxing match right in the front. We stopped to watch a few matches (men and women). It's a lot like kickboxing. David says it was a really good fight. I looked away most of the time : ) Now we are back at our hotel and super exhausted, not quite ready to wake up at 5:30 for our tour tomorrow but it will be a great time!
Miss you all! xoxo, David and Kristen