The Islands of Thailand Have so Much to Offer

Hi everyone, and happy new years, I can't believe it's 2011 already! 2010 was an amazing year for me and being in Thailand right now, I can't imagine 2011 getting off to a better start than it already has!

The day began with our being awoke by monkeys on the roof, causing quite a racket. They seemed a bit less hostile than the other day, which was nice, but you don't want a monkey bite, nor monkeys in your room, so I try to be careful around them. Nick of course had the same concerns, but was more interested in playing with them, first handing them a water bottle to play with (which they fought over) and then a (empty) can of Chang Beer. When we'd returned later, I found the can full of bite marks and ripped in half, haha.

After breakfast at our hotel (the provided breakfast is eggs and toast, I guess they assume that is all white people want to eat in the morning, I prefer Thai breakfast though...) Jeans surprise was revealed (though it was already sort of blown a bit earlier by Ellen) to be a little hike over the hill top to the other side of the island to snorkel, so we went into town, gathered supplies, and headed off.

Naturally the beginning was quite steep, and we were all sweating within short order, but the views were more than worth it. This is the best viewpoint of the island, and I think shows why this is such a popular tourist destination. The main 'town' is that sandy bit connecting the two hillsides, the main bay with the pier for larger boats is on the left, and the sandy beach with all the bars and long-tail boats is on the right.

On the other side, the hike took us through the jungle, where we saw a large lizard, some birds, and interesting insects. The weather started to turn a bit unfortunately, and it was rather overcast once we had arrived on the beach. The wind was blowing a bit as well, and the sand was stirred up, meaning the snorkeling wasn't great, and I ended up just falling asleep on the beach while the others actually did some snorkeling.

This picture is of something we often find ourselves discussing: sewage. Officially, this is called the “Wastewater Collection and Constructed Wetland System” but the graffiti on the sign was a better name I think, the “Poo Garden”. Open sewers are a common site around this part of the world, and big whiff of the stink is a common experience. This is a Dutch (if I remember the sign correctly) project to use a 'wetland' to help filter and clean the sewage using natural methods, and we ended up with a nice view of this “poo garden” from our room!

The next day, all of us hopped on a boat for an all day tour around the island. From the boat we would stop a number of places to look around, snorkel, kayak, and so on. The weather still wasn't perfect, a bit overcast, but it was not a problem, and did clear up a bit as the day went on. The snorkeling we were able to get to on this boat was vastly better than what we had been able to get to on our own previously, and we all saw some pretty neat things in the water.

Of the many stops the boat made over the course of the day, this was the last: Maya Bay. It is a very pretty little cove, and was used in the Leonardo DeCaprio movie The Beach. From there, we watched the sunset from the boat, and motored back in. Quite a nice, full day. On shore, we got dinner, and headed back to our rooms to clean up and rest for the new years celebration.

I know I was getting down on the party-scene in my last post, but this is new years eve, this is the night to party! One very nice feature of this area, and a great money saving tip, is you really don't need to buy drinks at the bars. We bought all of ours in the little stores along the way to the beach, and then you just walk along the water, watch the fire-shows, and dance on their dance floors. This was a pretty crazy scene. There were so many people out, the bars were packed, the music was blasting, and once the clock struck midnight-ish, the sky erupted with fireworks. I'd say this is probably the most fun new years party I've ever had.

In the morning, the sun had finally come out, but it was time to move on. After relaxing on the beach for a while, everyone else caught the ferry to Phuket. Nick and Ellen are starting a month long volunteer program at a monkey rescue center, while Colin, Jean and Chris had a flight to catch up north to Chang Mai. I know I said it before, but after my own family, I've spent more time with the Jones-Clan than anyone else. To get to spend Christmas and new years with them here in Thailand has been a special treat, and I am very grateful for the hospitality they have shown me during our time together. I do hope to meet back up with Nick and Ellen in about two weeks however on my way back north to meet Brendan in Bangkok, so this isn't goodbye to them yet!

It was also my time to leave Phi Phi and after some rather typical confusion regarding schedules, I caught a different ferry to another island, Ko Lanta. It is closer to the mainland, farther south and a much more mellow place than what I was leaving behind. This gives me about two weeks to travel alone again, which will be interesting. I began alone in the Philippines, but within a day had travel partners, and ended up spending only about 2 days alone. I'm not sure what will happen here, but while traveling with Nick and Ellen has been a total blast, I'm also looking forward to some alone time, haha.

Ko Lanta isn't like Phi Phi, it is a long island with 5 main beaches on the west side. Because of this it lacks a central area and is a bit more difficult to negotiate. The boat I caught was later than I expected, so in a bit of a hurry I went with one of the guys who waits for the arriving ferries to some bungalows on the beach which are a pretty good prices, but higher than I want to be paying for more than a night or two. At the time it worked out very well however, and was a pretty good find.

The next morning, I slept in, and went for a walk trying to figure out what I actually want to do while here. As I said, there is no centralized town here, other than a collection of shops by the pier, and walking around made that quite clear. I walked for about an hour in one direction, and honestly there isn't much besides a few shops, hotels and restaurants. With a vague plan in mind, I went back to my room.

This is laundry time! While there are plenty of laundry services on the island, they charge 30 baht a kilo, so I choose to do it on my own. (the laundry services do it my hand and sun-dry as well) I bought some soap for 10 baht at the 7/11, and used a plastic bag I had with me. You can wash in the sink, but they can be nasty and it didn't have a stopper anyways. This bag method actually ended up working out very well. After laundry, I laid out on the beach for a while, relaxing and trying to build a solid base tan finally so I don't need to worry so much about burning!

In the evening, after sitting on the beach, watching the sunset and writing up most of this post, I headed off for some dinner from one of the local restaurants along the road. Food here is 'expensive' compared to the street-food of Bangkok. The cheapest meal is 50 baht, rather than just 30 baht, which is a bit of a bummer. Anyways, no one at the place spoke English, and they didn't have a menu, but a neighbor translated for me. Something must have been lost in translation however, because I asked for stir-fried noodles with veggies and chicken, and instead got veggies and chicken, and a huge plate of rice. Oh well, that's how things go around here!

I decided to spring for an evening of muay thai, or Thai kick boxing. I've never been to a fight before in my life, but this seemed interesting, and 'only' cost about $20. It consisted of 8 fights, starting two kids who looked to be about 8 years old, then moving up in age and size, ending with the main event between an Australian guy and a Thai guy. The crowd was mostly tourists, but there were a decent number of locals who were very into it (and I'm sure got their tickets for a fraction of the price). The whole thing ended up being a lot of fun actually, and was defiantly worth it. Oh, and the Aussie won, but it wasn't very graceful.

That's it for now. Tomorrow I will probably rent a scooter and explore the island, maybe go caving, then go to this weird carnival thing they have setup. In the coming days I'm looking into doing some more scuba diving, maybe an elephant trek and a home-stay with local fisherman. Take care everyone.

Falling In Love With Thailand

Hello to everyone, it's been an exciting last few days, so lets jump right in.

Still in Bangkok, this was Christmas morning. We headed downstairs for breakfast at the hotel (which was always quite good) and a few gifts were exchanged. From there, we headed out to the 94 hectare, 100+ building compound that encompasses Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace, where the king used to live. This is the most popular tourist attraction in Bangkok, and the reasons are pretty clear: the place is simply amazing. The architecture is wonderful, intricate, and well, very shiny. Haha... It is truly overwhelming, every way you look more buildings like these seem to appear each more impressive than the last.

This is Wat Phra Kaew, the primary attraction of the site, which holds the Emerald Buddha, an object with a long and interesting history. It was originally covered in plaster and it's 'emerald' (it's actually quartz or jade, and just 66cm tall) self was not discovered until an accident, it was stolen by Laotian invaders in the mid 16^th century, and was not returned to Thailand for two hundred years, when it was won back in a later war.

Street-food is, in my opinion at least, the best way to eat in Thailand, and in southeast Asia as a whole. For about $1-$1.50 you can buy some wonderful Thai dishes and eat them on plastic chairs while sitting on the street corner watching the world go by. For Christmas dinner we all went out to a restaurant where we had a lovely dinner, and shared our dreams of spending future Christmases in other far off lands.

That evening Nick, Ellen, Chris and I went back out to Khaosan Road where we met up with two friends of theirs from the University of Oregon, and met many other fellow travelers as well. The band here was no surprise, a cover band, but quite good and we all had a good evening and a rather unusual Christmas day.

Do to the time difference between Bangkok and Seattle, I'd set my watch alarm for 5:45am to wake up and video-chat with my family back in Seattle while they were having their Christmas brunch, but I ended up sleeping through my alarm. I got a hold of my aunt and uncle who were hosting the brunch, but I'd missed my grandmother and the rest of my family, and felt pretty bad about that. However I was able to video-chat with the Christmas dinner event on my dads side of the family, and since I'd already seen some of my family in Cambodia I still managed to see most of the family, which was a lot of fun to be able to do half way around the world.

In the early afternoon, we all headed off to a big weekend market via taxi, which in itself was a bit of an adventure. We told the taxi drivers where we wanted to go, and they wouldn't just do it. They refused to use the meter, then offered to take us to some “factory” where the driver said he could get free gas (and would be paid for taking us) and we would get a reduced fare, but we were not in the mood for such shenanigans, and when they still refused to use the meter we all just got out and walked away. This is illegal for meter-taxis to do, but it still happens and is rather annoying. If the driver just did his job, he would have made some money, instead he tried to screw us over and got nothing. We ended up walking to a gas station where we picked up a taxi (squeezing all six of us in a sedan) and got to the market on the meter and without hassle.

The market itself was a very unusual one. It was really fancy, and extremely overpriced. Walking around was amusing, but we didn't buy much. We did however spot this shirt for a store in Seattle, which was pretty bizarre. We got lunch at some food stalls, and moved on.

Beyond the market, we wound up in Queen Sirikit Park, a very nice park that felt nothing like the rest of Bangkok we had seen up to that point. The park was built for the queens 60^th birthday in 1992, is 56 acres and 'the biggest and most complete botanical garden in Thailand' containing over 2,000 different species, including over 60 different types of banana. In this park, we saw turtles, fish and a 3 foot long lizard.

At this point, we were heading out of Bangkok, and I had to get the process started on my visa for India. It takes 6-7 working days, and the whole process was rather confusing. Prices were all over the place. According to the Indian Embassy in Thailand website, it was going to cost 6800 baht ($226!), but every travel agent I asked did it for between 4000 and 4500. To confuse things further, our hotel also did visas, but for only 3100 baht, less than half the official price! After our experience in Cambodia, and given the price difference, since I trusted our hotel, I used them. Since I didn't want to wait in Bangkok for another 10 days or so, as Nick and his family were heading south where I also wanted to see, I left my passport with the hotel and will pick it up when I return to the city in mid January to meet with Brendan when he arrives.

That evening, we caught an overnight bus to Phuket, which was a fun and rather interesting experience. The bus is a massive 'two floor' affair, the bottom level having exactly 6 seats. We lucked out and got it to ourselves, so we basically had our own little party room on the bus for what was a 13 hour ride. They brought us drinks and a snack, put on some new movie with Tom Cruise dubbed in Thai (which made it much more amusing than your typical Tom Cruise movie) and we set off. At 11:30pm, we were woken up by the bus blasting Hotel California (Thailand's favorite song I think) which was somehow the signal to wake up and get ready to eat! After more strange musical interludes, the bus stopped off at this massive bus stop, where we were utterly confused, then shuffled into some room where that sat us at big round tables with other Thai's and a built-in lazy susan for a family style meal, before getting back on the bus for the rest of the ride. None of us slept well, and upon arriving in Phuket, we hopped another bus to Krabi, ate at the bus stop then hopped a song-thaew (seats in the back of a pickup truck) to Ao Nang beach.

Ao Nang would be an amazing beach by normal standards, but in Thailand it's just OK, haha. We checked into our hotel, relaxed on the beach a bit and then hopped on a long-tail boat for a little day trip out to the real attraction in the area, Railay Beach.

Right away, we were all impressed by Railay, and after walking around and checking out the area, we headed off on a little scramble up to the top of one of the limestone cliffs. It's a steep, slippery and somewhat treacherous little journey made worse by only cheap flip-flops for footwear, but a lot of fun.

Here is the view from the top, totally worth it, and exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to see and experience here in southern Thailand. Just wonderful.

Also on the same trail, is another leg that heads off to the lagoon. While the trail up to the viewpoint was a bit treacherous, the hike down to the lagoon could be downright dangerous, and precisely the kind of thing that simply wouldn't exist in the 'developed world.' Climbing down sharp rocks, free-hanging from old rotten looking ropes tied to rocks and other such features makes it all the more fun though!

The lagoon was amazing. A beautiful pool of water surrounded by jungle covered cliffs maybe 150 feet straight up in all directions and fantastic limestone stalactites gave plenty to look at while enjoying the water. I chatted up a few other people swimming about travel in India, and we then headed back long before I'd had my fill. I could have stayed there all day.

After laying out on the beach a bit more, watching some rock climbers, and marveling at the area, we caught a long-tail back to our hotel, had dinner, and went back to the hotel. We opted for a relaxing evening, gathering in Chris and my room and watching some TV. (wow, a room with a TV, living in luxury while traveling with momma and poppa Jones!). On TV happened to be the movie Tomb Raider, which while a rather bad movie, had a part filmed at Angkor Wat and the surrounding ruins, and it was pretty fun to see that in a movie just days after we had seen the sites in person!

The next day, we headed down to the beach, and after much confusion and hassle (which is somewhat common traveling here in southeast Asia) we managed to rent three kayaks and head out to explore on our own.

Along the way was a rope hanging from a cliff Nick and I had spotted the day earlier, and naturally we had to play. I climbed out of the kayak and using the foot-lock technique I use back home at work tree climbing got up the slippery and worn out rope, (barefoot, giving my ankle a rope burn in the process), then got onto the rock. I tried to get up a bit higher, but it just wasn't happening, so I jumped off into the water, and we went on our way.

Further down the beach is one of the things Railay Beach is famous for: rock climbing. With over 700 bolted routes, including cave ceilings, massive stalactites, sport climbing and 300 meter cliffs, it is a climbers paradise. We hung out for a little while watching people (mostly Europeans) doing some amazing climbing right there on the beach, and having my own little dreams about being that good some day. I expect to come back here after Nick's family take off, and Nick and Ellen begin their volunteer program, but for now I just have to wait.

That afternoon we took a bus to the dock, and boarded a ferry for Ko Phi-Phi Don, an amazing island around 50k off-shore, and a very popular tourist draw. The first few minutes were a bit off-putting however, as upon arrival, they were charging every white person 20 baht as a 'clean up' fee for litter on the island, had some guy dressed in camo to intimidate people, as well as blowing a whistle in your face. Sure the 'fee' isn't much, but I guarantee they are just pocketing that money, and here in southeast Asia, it seems the locals litter like it's their job. After that, it was a serious gauntlet of hucksters, bars, junk shops, tattoo parlors and so on to get to our room. On top of that, it had gotten quite overcast on the boat and started to rain. Not what you have in mind when arriving at a tropical paradise.

Once we climbed the massive number of stairs to our rooms however, our moods were instantly lifted. Again, traveling with the Jones family we are staying at much nicer places than we would usually, and this place was an exceptionally nice room. The very highest hotel on the island from what I can tell, we have not only a very nice room, we have a serious million-dollar-view out the window and from our own private decks over the town, the cliffs and the water! I'm ok with jail-cell size rooms, and shared squat toilets, but a place like this once in a while is pretty hard to argue with! A big thanks to Colin Jean for the hospitality!

Outside of our room, which butts up against the jungle essentially, the monkeys got curious, and started emerging from the trees en-mass. At first they just seemed curious, and there were maybe 5-8 of them, but for some reason they got really riled up, and at one point there were about 15 of them watching us, some hissing, growling and showing their teeth. At one point I climbed up a tree to see how they would react, but it didn't seem to gain me any new friends, haha. Later on, we had dinner on the beach, and watched the sun go down on the cove.

That night, as seasoned travelers here in southeast Asia, it was our job to take Chris out to check out the beach party scene. We got some beers at the little stores for way less than at the bars, and walked down the beach watching fire dancing, listening to music and dancing. It's fun sure, but honestly I'm growing tired of it already, and I've only done it a handful of times. There are so many 20-somethings in places like this that as far as I can tell are just 'drinking-tourists' and go to a foreign country full of amazing history, culture, nature and people, only to hit the beach parties that are the same everywhere. Seriously, if you have been to one of these party scenes, you have just about seen all there is to see. Party, sure, but see the country as well! Let me tell you, I don't see these kinds of people in the historical sites and in the local restaurants... anyway, enough of that. To each his/her own.

This finally gets me caught up to today. This morning, we rented kayaks again, this time adding snorkels, and headed off to a beach down the island to do some snorkeling. It was cloudy again and actually rained a bit as well, but it didn't put a damper on my spirits one bit. As for the marine life, maybe I was spoiled by Alona Beach in the Philippines, but where we went today just didn't compare. There were some nice fish, but the coral life seems to have been destroyed by the dual-200 horsepower speed boats that choose to rev their engines in the shallow cove... a shame. The rock of course was cool, and I did have fun though. We then paddled on to another almost empty beach, where I poked around the sand looking at all the amazing shells, then we headed back to town. In town, I was in an eating mood, and went on the attack. I ate a banana-coconut pancake, quail egg fried won-tons, a vegetable spring roll, fried curry with seafood, then finished off both Chris and Ellens noodle dishes. When food is so cheap, and so good, it's hard not do eat yourself stupid.

Whew, that's it for now. We are staying on the island through new years, tomorrow doing a snorkeling trip on some better sites, and then Jean has some kind of surprise, but of course she won't tell us what it is.

Goodbye for now, everyone, and happy new year! (by the way, I hope your new years resolution is to travel!)

Angkor Wat and A Buddhist Christmas

 Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well, and that you have a wonderful Christmas holiday. As of now, Cambodia is in the rear-view mirror, and I am in Thailand, writing from the roof-top deck looking at the lights of Bangkok listening to the song 'One night in Bangkok', hahaha!

Our day began early. We met the tuk-tuk driver outside of our guest house at 5am in order to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. The $20 day pass to get into all the temples is a bit steep (the second most expensive thing I've done after the diving class actually), and we paid the driver $5 each, but it was well worth it. Arriving early, we followed the masses of other tourists through the dark to the edge of the reflection pool and waited for the sun to come up in spectacular fashion. We then explored the inside and outside, snapped a few more pictures of the sun and headed off to the next site.

All three of us ran into camera issues here: low batteries. I came prepared, with two spares, but I got a little shutter-happy during the sunrise, and forgot how bad my generic batteries were, having left the real Canon battery back in the room for some reason. By the time I'd left Angkor Wat, the first site of a day we thought was going all the way until sunset, I was on my third battery and both Nick and Ellen were receiving low battery warnings! What this meant was that we didn't take nearly as many pictures of the next sites as we (and I in particular) normally would, and we were freaking out about our batteries dying the whole time. It ended up being ok, but I wish I hadn't gotten into that situation. Oh well.

From Angkor Wat, we headed to the next site, Bayon. While Angkor is in drastically better shape, and is the major draw, I immediately found Bayon to be a more beautiful space. I'm not sure I can explain why, but I found the shapes and layout more appealing, and I guess I almost like the fallen apart look better than the pristine look. That said, international teams are working constantly to rebuild and repair nearly all of the ruins, and the Japanese, through UNESCO were working on this particular site. Something I really enjoy about these sites is something you experience in southeast Asia as a whole from my experience: freedom. What I mean by that, is unlike a western historical site, where you would probably just have a roped off path through a predetermined route, here you can walk and climb nearly everywhere. Certain areas are off limits of course, and signs tell you not to sit certain places, etc, but overall you can really do your own thing which I find wonderful.

Next, we walked to Baphuon. This particular site had been in a major state of disrepair and was in the process of rebuilding during the 1970s. An international team was working to restore it, which involved documenting and numbering every stone, taking the whole thing apart and then rebuilding it. The Khmer Rouge however disliked this idea when it came to power, and destroyed the plans to put it back together, leading to what is described as 'the worlds largest jigsaw puzzle.' This particular picture is of the back side of the site, with a never completed image of the Buddha laying down. Had it been completed, I believe it would have been the largest such image ever created.

We then visited a number of the smaller and lesser known sites before heading to Ta Prohm famous for the trees that grow over the ruins. The truth is many if not all of the sites had similar trees growing in and through them, but at this site the largest and most spectacular trees were left intact. The effect is stunning: trees and their roots appear to entangle and flow down the ruins like water. The trees are also huge, some probably 100 feet tall. Obviously since I work in trees, this site was of particular interest to me and I also liked it more than Angkor Wat. Walking through it was somewhat torturous however, I wanted to climb to the top of the trees so badly!

We walked through this site a bit longer, and were continually blown away by what we saw. We then went to a few other sites of varying degrees of impressiveness, and overall had a long (~6am until ~2:30pm) but excellent day in the area.

At some point, the driver took us to a restaurant for lunch. We looked at the prices, $4-$5 for a meal, and told him it was much to expensive and that we didn't want to eat there. Instead, we wanted to go to the food carts we had passed earlier, and eat for $1-$2 as we had usually done. He insisted we eat where he took us, and the place agreed to let us eat for a discount, $2/$3. I am sure it is a very common scheme drivers pull on tourists, and it turned out the driver got to eat free for bringing us. On top of it all, it was the most disappointing dish I'd eaten in a long time, the fried rice tasted like what you would get at all all-you-can eat buffet. Ugh. Even worse than that however, was the next place he took us: some stupid Chinese owned junk store, that sold a bunch of jewelery that was probably just colored glass, and the same tourist junk as the markets, but for 5 times the price! At this point he also told us we had to pay more to go see the sunset, when we thought we were getting that all along. At this point, we were all rather annoyed, but also tired from getting up at 5am, so we just went back to the guest house.

It was later this night that Nick and I ran into Steve, Kathrine and Eric on Pub Street (the picture I included in the last update) which of course was quite a surprise. We'd agreed to meet up the next evening for dinner at their hotel, and surprise Aunt Wilma!

The next day, we really didn't have any plans, and were mostly just going to relax. The morning got off to an interesting start however, when I awoke to find I had acquired two ticks while I'd slept. Nick had actually found one on him the previous day, and we assume they got on our cloths in the jungle the other day and we had brought them with us, but you can never really know. We spent the rest of the afternoon laying about, catching up on internet business, getting another full body massage (this time $4 for an hour, however mine paled in comparison to the earlier massage) and walking about the markets.

The plan for meeting up with the family for dinner was simple enough. At 5:30 I'd call their hotel to see if they were in, and if not leave a message saying where to call me back. Due to various problems with communication, we gave up on the phone thing, and just decided to show up and find them. Upon arriving, Aunt Wilma was brought out not knowing I was there, and the look of surprise on her face was priceless! She was thrilled to see me, and it was a wonderful treat for me as well to get to see her and some of the family around Christmas time.

The plan of course was to have dinner together, but despite the fancy accommodations, the service was remarkably poor. I think it was the first time in southeast Asia when it seemed like someone DIDNT want to make money. Service was horribly slow, and by the time we finally sat down and ordered, they didn't have half the dishes we had wanted. By the time food finally came at 9pm or something, a few of the dishes were delicious, the fish amok in particular, but the noodle dish used instant noodles, one dish was missing and the beef skewers were cold and chewy. I don't mean to sound like a whiner, because despite this it was wonderful to see everyone, and it was a very enjoyable evening, it was just a surprise to receive service like that at such a (relatively) expensive place, but hey, I guess that's Cambodia for you!

After dinner, we headed out to the night market. In all honesty, it sells the same things as every other market, but it was fun anyways, and I ended up buying some t shirts: one as a gift, one to send home for myself, and one to wear out here. This town is full of the same 'massage fish' that we had experienced earlier, and I just have to share one of the signs with you: “$2 All night long. You have ever tested only the people to massage before. But now day Garra Rufa Dr. fish can make surprise better performance the people. They can absorb cell of dead skin and make the fresh cell appear.” Hahahaha...

The next morning, at 7:30am, we left our guest house to get on a bus to Bangkok, Thailand (cost: $8). We were told the bus left at 8am, was 6-ish hour ride, and we would be in Bangkok around 3pm. Thus began our rather irritating twelve hour bus experience. The bus finally left around 9am, and drove in a manor that seemed intentionally slowly. We hadn’t eaten breakfast before getting on the bus because all buses make food stops along the way. This bus however, took us to a stand with no real food, but rather just overpriced drinks and snacks. We bought some bananas and decided we could wait until lunch. Lunch was even worse. The bus took us to this massive 'bus terminal' place that was nearly empty and only had a few overpriced and disgusting looking dishes. I refused to give in to these type of scams the buses run, and continued to go hungry.

This photo is of the boarder between Cambodia and Thailand. We had to get off the bus, go through the departure process with Cambodia, go to a different line, and show our visas to get across the boarder into Thailand. From there, we were supposedly getting on another bus and finally getting to Bangkok. The boarder for some reason took two hours, and while on the other side food was for sale, they put us in the back of a pickup truck, and drove us to yet another overpriced restaurant for another break before getting on the bus, ugh!!! Maybe this was the difference between this company and the $13 bus...

At about 7:30pm, twelve hours later, we arrived in Bangkok. We had no idea where it was going to drop us off at and were rather worried we would be miles away, requiring a fairly expensive taxi ride to get where we needed to be and find a room. This turned out to be the only good thing about the bus besides the low price, it turned out we were dropped off exactly where we wanted to be! Coming into Bangkok was quite interesting, as it is much more developed than the other cities I've been in thus far. We were driving on one of the only modern highway systems I've seen this entire trip, the road was full of cars instead of motos (scooters, etc), we passed expensive hotels and condos, and it generally felt like a modern city.

Once off the bus, we went in search of a place to stay, knowing Bangkok is an expensive city. For the first time since meeting up with Nick and Ellen, we had to buy two rooms, which cost about $5 and $7. My room was about 5.5x8 feet, has no window to the outside, and just has a bed and little table. Not fancy, but it does the job. With our room sorted out, we headed out to finally get some food, walking down the famous tourist street that is Khaosan Road, grabbing some cheap (35 baht, about $1.10) and excellent dinner from a street vender, walking through the extremely busy district, and generally being thrilled about being in Thailand.

The next morning, we slept in, left our room, prepared for Nicks family to show up late that night. We checked into a new hotel, one we had booked earlier, and a place much nicer than anything I've stayed at this trip and probably nicer than anything I'll stay at again. Personally, I don't mind a dark and ugly room with a shared bathroom with only squat toilets, especially when the price is only a few bucks, but we figured Nicks parents would want a little more, and that's just fine with me too. This picture is from the rooftop overlooking the city of Bangkok.

In the early evening, the three of us headed out to meet up with a friend of Ellen's from college who is spending a year here in Thailand teaching English at a school outside of Bangkok. We ended up also meeting one of her fellow co-workers as well, from West Virginia, and later meeting some Canadians from British Columbia who we hung out with.

At around 2:30am or so, Nick's family showed up, Colin, Jean and Chris, and after hellos, we went to sleep.

In the morning we awoke, and had breakfast downstairs in the hotel. Seeing Nick's family out here is a ton of fun. After my own family, I've spent more time with the Jones family than anyone else, since we have been friends since 5^th grade or something like that. They are a bit of Seattle 'family' for me here in Bangkok on Christmas.

After eating, we headed out into the city and took a short ferry ride down the river.

Our first destination for the day was Wat Po, an amazing temple complex that houses a gold reclining Buddha, the largest around at something like 150 feet long. It was a really amazing sight, and Ellen remarked while she had seen a lot of wats on her travels thus far, this was a truly impressive sight.

The reclining Buddha is just one part of this complex. Along with the Royal Palace complex in Cambodia, this is the most intricate and ornate places I've ever seen. We walked around the grounds for a good while, seeing the hundreds of other gold Buddhas on display, marveling at the architecture and generally just looking around in awe.

After a bowl of noodle soup, we headed off to the National Museum which went over Thailand's early history, and had a great number of artifacts on the large grounds. This particular photo is of a funeral chariot that was used in the 1800s I believe, and just like the Wats is quite a thing to behold.

Returning to my room to rest, I opened the box of cookies from my grandmother Oma, that the Jones brought from Seattle and dug in. I've had these cookies from Oma for so many years it was the first thing out here that has made me feel like it is really Christmas! After a bit of a rest, we went out to dinner and are turning in early for the night.

Tomorrow, we will do more exploring of the city, I need to figure out my visa situation for India, and shortly we are headed south towards Phuket and back towards the beach, can't wait!

Until next time, merry Christmas everyone!