Third Day in Bangkok

Today was our relaxing day (to catch up on sleep because I am majorly jet-lagged!). We woke up late-ish, around 10, ate breakfast at our hotel, then headed to a temple we were excited to see-- Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn). We took a riverboat across the Chao Phraya river to the temple. It consists of one massive tower with four smaller towers around it, with many steep steps to going up them. It was built out of stone, decorated with seashells and bits of porcelain. We loved how unique it was compared to other temples. We took the riverboat back across to the skytrain station, and went to lunch at the Siam Paragon mall in Central Bangkok. The mall was the "most awesome mall ever" haha. There were hundreds of stores, the large department store had sections dedicated to every store and brand I have ever heard of. It had a gourmet food market and tons of restaurants, and the sixth floor was dedicated to a huge cineplex. We decided to watch Avatar in 3D there. Our favorite part was at the very beginning (after the previews and before the movie), the screen says, "Please stand for our national anthem out of respect for our King." Then the national anthem played, with the words in Thai underneath in case we wanted to sing along, along with a video montage of amazing things the King has done. Afterwards we both commented on how we had the urge to laugh at certain parts but didn't want to get shot/arrested. Avatar was definitely an epic movie. I have never seen a 3D movie, and while watching it I found myself holding my breath if the characters were having trouble breathing and tensing my body during the fight scenes, because of how real it felt. The only thing was the Thai subtitles at the bottom, and when the natives in the movie spoke the subtitled what they were saying in Thai, so potentially we missed some good lines? After the movie we walked around the mall and had dinner. As we were walking back to our hotel, about a block away, we were passing a restaurant that had about 20 policemen surrounding it outside (we hadn't seen any cops up to this point). David asked one of them what happened, and he replied, "The King is inside, please keep walking." So that was pretty cool! Another great day. Tomorrow we are finishing up Bangkok by going to one of the largest outdoor markets in the world. Then we are off to Ayutthaya (the old capital of Siam/Thailand). Super excited for that, then tomorrow night we are taking an overnight train to Chaing Mai. Bangkok is awesome! Night Night!

Second day in Bangkok

Kristen: We woke up at 5:30 am Thursday morning in order to meet our friends at their hotel at 6:30 am (which is where our tour van was picking us up). As we were stressed out sitting in our taxi in bumper to bumper traffic at 6:27 am, we sadly came to the conclusion that we might not be as cut out for The Amazing Race as we once thought we were. But suffice it to say we made it 10 minutes later and our friends and van were there waiting for us! Grant and Susan were stressed that we wouldn't make it as well haha, especially because it was nonrefundable and we had already paid cash ; ) Our first stop on our tour was the Damnoen Saduak Floating market, about 110 kms west of Bangkok. As seen in the James Bond film, Man with the Golden Gun, it is a water market, made up of a number of small canals which are patrolled by small boats piloted by crafty ladies always ready to sell their wares and jockey for position with their competitors (they even have sticks with hooks on the end to pull your boat towards their boat or stall haha). In between boat rides we had the most amazing chicken fried rice at one of the vendors on the water, then I bought half of a fresh cut pineapple for 50 cents! My favorite part of the floating market was when we got to take a long-tail boat ride through the town's canals. We sped along shallow brown canals with old women scrubbing their clothes in the water, and old men sitting on their porches with toothless smiles. As we approached one hut, a man ran inside when he saw us and came back out and held up his little boy who smiled and waved to everyone on our boat. There was a giant lizard swimming through the water that looked like a snake and it scared the bejeezus out of me : ) It was a crazy adventure for us to be able to see how these Thai people lived in such a remote environment and worked in the fields behind their house and just sat on their porches on the river to pass the time-- it was definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far.

David: Our next stop was about an hour west of the floating market, the bridge over the River Kwai. We had a brief stop at this extremely pivotal battle scene during the WWII in which Japanese forces built a bridge and a railroad in order to secure a secondary trade route from Thailand to Burma in order to help win the war on India. We walked on the bridge which doesn't have any means for people to walk (only the tracks and wood planks for the train to cross) till the middle of the bridge. That alone was an adventure for us not to try and fall into the holes. We took some great photos from the middle of the bridge and then slowly walked back to the concrete pillars that held it up. The Allies bombed the bridge many times and sank it in 1945. The original arches still keep the bridge up (which was rebuilt after the war) and a museum was built in honor of the 100,000 POW's who died while making this extremely technologically advanced bridge during this time. The Jeath War Musesum still has bones from over 200 bodies that were never identified. I really enjoyed the museum and the bridge because it was so raw and unchanged much like it was in 1945. The museum also had a ton of old Japanese war motorcycles that I got a big kick out of. Outside the musuem I also almost stepped on an GIANT iguana that I had no idea was there. It was like a small dog. Kristen payed 3 bucks to take a "photo shoot" on a small shop on the side of the road with a live leopard that was either a cub or a smaller one but was really cute. She was both excited and scared as she layed next to it and it moved around. Totally an awesome stop!

Kristen: Our next stop on the tour was The Tiger Temple. This Buddhist temple is similar to a wildlife sanctuary. They have about 50 tigers, along with water buffalo, boars, deer, goats, cows, peacocks and roosters. We were able to take pictures with about 5 different tigers-- one was massive. He weighed over 400 pounds and was so beautiful. They were chained/leashed to the ground during their resting time (which was when we got to see them). We walked around the temple grounds and saw monks walking and running with tigers. When we were walking to see the tiger cubs, water buffalo created a small stampede coming out of the water nearby (the animals roam completely free where all the vistors walk). The temple has some controversy,which we are still unsure about, people think the tigers are sedated because they are so calm/sleepy when tourists are allowed to see them. This sanctuary definitely would never be allowed in the states, PETA would be all over it! We were walking along a dirt path and saw a deer and David went up and was able to pet it because it was so used to being around humans.

David: On the 3 hour drive back we talked with Grant and Sus as well as a British Couple who have been traveling around the world for two years. The girl looked eerily like Anna Paquin from True Blood. Like JUST like her. I thought it was awesome that a Brit an Aussie and an American all were talking about sports, TV, scuba diving, they talked a ton about Rugby (I didn't contribute much) and the British show Top Gear which I love. The way all three of us have different terms for things but mean the same is a really funny part of the conversation. For instance "Mates" are wildly used by the Brits and Aussies to descibe their friends and "Partners" is when you have been in a serious relationship as opposed to just boyfriend and girlfriend. Great drive back! After we arrived back in Thailand we went shopping on Khao San Road the backpackers heaven, and went to a bar for some drinks and some food. After a couple of beers (and a diet coke!) we went back to the street shops and venues and did the best we could to barter our way down the prices. It was an epic day and we did a ton of stuff that were all super fun and amazing. Second day down, couldn't have thought it would be this awesome!

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

Backpacks are way heavier than they look

Just mentally preparing for our 15 hour flight to Taipei, then 4 hour flight to Bangkok tomorrow. :)

xoxo,
D & K