Bangkok!

We arrive in Bangkok around 7 AM, just in time for the floating market, but unfortunately the floating market in Bangkok isn't much of a floating market. The real one was too far away though considering we only had a day in the capital. Since that wasn't that interesting, we headed straight for the temples and palaces. I have to admit that I don't know the names of the temples or the palaces that we saw. That's embarrassing. But anyway...they were pretty cool!

So we get there and we have to have our legs covered down to our knee for girls (pants for guys) and we need to cover our shoulders. Since the King's sister had just died, everyone was wearing black and was in mourning (the King is a BIG deal in Thailand), so I, trying to be respectful, did the best I could with what I had in my backpack. I wore my black yoga pants, a black tank top and the purple scarf I had bought the day before, around my shoulders like a shawl. Unfortunately, they spotted me and this wasn't going to cut it so I ended up having to "rent" a HUGE ORANGE men's shirt instead. Mind you it was hotter than HADES as Mom would say. I was not in a very good mood, but was trying for the sake of the beauty of the temples. I really did like those little temple guys that hold up the temples. (See picture, hard to explain)

Afterward we went to the Weekend Market. Oh child! (that's for you Wheels) did I do some damage and some good bargaining too! I managed to buy 3 really interesting pieces - a dark wood bowl thing, a cool shaped vase, and some wood elephants holding up a plate - for about 1,000 thai baht or maybe less? (there are 30 baht to a $1, you do the math, I'm really tired right now). Yeah! Freaking sweet. Afterward we all decided we were in dire need of air-conditioning so we went to Phil's favorite restaurant the Magic Chicken. It was seriously magic chicken. Soooooo good again! Thai food is SO good that it makes me eat spicy stuff and like it! If you know me and my eating habits, you know I'd never eat curry, but the Thai people make it so well that I don't even care it's hot! I eat curry now! Can you believe it!?! They are so good those Thai chefs...

Honestly, I don't remember what we did until we went out that night. I just know we had Subway for dinner and found out later that tuna in Thailand from a Subway should be avoided (as Caz was sick for about 4 days after our trip). Then we went to this sweet place to play pool and I freakin' won the game. How that happened I don't really know. I know many of you have tried time and time again to teach me and I never seem to get it, but when Matt said think angles, that was it! Me and my math/geometry head. Haha! So that was rather exciting. Then we rode in a tuk tuk (aka a little tricycle taxi that was pop-a-wheeling all over the place, so fun!) and I quite enjoyed it. And then we had some chocolate/banana crepe-ish Thai dessert off the streets and then went to bed, got up had a yummy breakfast once again and headed back to HK! I love Thailand!

The Land of Smiles (aka Thailand!) - Chiang Mai

Okay, so I first must apologize for how horrible I have been about updating the blog! In all honesty, I just got back from my third trip - CHINA!, but I'm going to tell you about Thailand first anyway because it is so wonderful and deserves its own post!

We left on a Thursday night, arriving in Bangkok around midnight. We had planned this trip much better than the Philippines, and we even had a "guide" (my good friend Phil) who actually SPEAKS Thai! Our group this time was also 8, but consisted of Laura and me, 4 USC guys, and 2 Austrians. That night we went to the LKF of Bangkok, Khowsan Rd or something (the bar/club street), had a drink then hopped in our van around 2:30AM. Phil's aunt was nice enough to hook us up with a HUGE, air-conditioned, 10 seater, DVD-equipped van and driver (affectionately known as "Hee Hop"). We drove through the night to our destination, Chiang Mai, a backpackers heaven in the north of Thailand (and I really was a "backpacker" this time BTW). I didn't sleep much given it was Eric's birthday and the boys wanted to "celebrate" on the way there, but how could I complain, we were on an adventure!

One of my first adventures was around 5 AM. I had to pee. We were at a gas station. Gas stations in Asia only have squatters. The time had come. I had to learn. I did! And what a feeling of liberation it is to be able to use a squatter as a girl! The whole world really opens up to you!

That day we checked into our perfect little hotel, Roong Ruang, after our first yummy $4USD Thai meal. Then we talked to the travel agent and booked an afternoon ATV riding excursion. It was a blast! I felt like such a bad ass. But I have to admit I wasn't very good at driving it because I don't like to go fast and my hand muscles would start cramping after like 5 minutes of holding the gas trigger thing. Luckily, Laura wasn't scared and she was very good at driving it so I enjoyed being passenger. We went through some jungles and past a bunch of beautiful vegetation terraces and small villages with the cutest kids you've ever seen on their way home from school, smiling and waving at you with their enormous backpacks. It was quite an experience! The whole journey was supposed to take 3 hours, but because of the boys frequent stops without the leader's permission, and one of the other group member's fall into a ditch, it took about 4.5 hours! Thank you Laura for driving all that way! We were going soooo fast on the highway!!, but for some reason, I kept falling asleep and my helmet kept banging into Laura. It was funny. I guess I did need that sleep more than I thought.

That night, we went to the night bazaar which was super interesting. We got fake LeSportSac bags for $10USD and new scarves for $5. Oh! Also, it was election time when we were there and they have a policy of no alcohol sales during elections. Nevertheless, there were still places you could drink, but it was a bit of a sketchy operation. Phil had made friends with some bartender who said to come back around 11 PM and she'd let us in. So we show up to this bar and the metal shades are pulled down and it's completely dark, but then one of the shades comes up, she lets us in and we just hang out in the bar with the shades drawn for a while with a few other foreigners.

We decided to turn in early because we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and had a big day ahead of us!

The next morning Laura, Phil and I had a delicious breakfast at the cafe next door for $5 (Matt was not very happy we hadn't woken him up. Sorry Matt!) before the truck came to take us to the white water rafting place. It was going to take about an hour to get to this place and the boys had been planning on sleeping in the car on the way there. They were rather disappointed when an open-air truck with some benches in the truck bed shows up to take us there. White water rafting sucked basically because the water level wasn't high enough so we just kept getting stuck on all the stupid rocks. The guides would have to get out and push the damn rafts through. I fell out twice. Jumped out once too to pee. Heard later there were snakes in the water... But the fact that the rafting was so bad just made it really funny.

Next, we had lunch in a small village and bought some Oreo's at a little local shop for dessert. (got to use the squatter again too!) We jumped back in the van and headed for the elephants! Now, elephant riding sounds like this elegant, grand, extravagant activity, but really it's a lot of animal begging for bananas and bamboo, trunk snot on your bare thigh and getting showered in snout water at the "watering hole." Even so, I still love telling people, "I rode elephants in Thailand!" because it just sounds so damn cool. Our final stop was bamboo rafting through some more forest/jungle and crazy tree house looking villages. The raft guides were so silly though. Our guide must have been 12 or 14 and got such a kick out of bumping our raft against the river bank so I would wobble and then he'd look back at me and snicker, so I would snicker back at him. Laura thought it was really funny.

That evening we had divine foot and back/neck massages fore $7USD, half an hour each. Sooo good! Then we packed up, jumped in the van, had another sweet Thai meal for $7 and headed back to Bangkok. We started to watch Bee Movie; it really sucked. We all slept well that night. Bangkok, TBC.