Last Day in Bangkok...for now....

We have made it 5 days in the big "b". Hot, loud, and delicious. We've visited a number of the major attractions, worn in our tender American feet, eaten delicious spicy street food for crazy cheap, been rubbed down and pulled apart by tiny Thai masseuses, and posed for pictures with uniformed Thai school girls. Currently, we are sitting amidst 15 screaming Thai boys who are sniping each other over the internet. We don't think they ever leave this little cafe...the big one just had food delivered to him and empty pepsi bottles are everywhere.

Thailand is definetly a mix of old and new. Everyone still eats at little street stalls and all the to go food is packaged in plastic bags bound with rubber bands. Wats (temples) are strewn throughout the city. It seems like almost every family in Thailand must own some sort of vending stall. Most of the little side streets and many main streets are lined with a mixture of clothing, food, trinkets, coins, etc. We will start uploading pictures as soon as we can.

The main tourist attractions, though touristy, live up to their hype. The Wats were all beautiful and awe-inspiring. The ceramic tile work is intricate, and the murals of Thai fables (kind of a guess that the pictures are fables due to the mythical beings and all the descriptions recorded in swoopy, loopy Thai) can captivate you as you try to figure out why the amourded dragon creatures are fighing unarmed monkeys. The reclining Budda at Wat Pho blew our minds. 46 meters of gold plated, peace lovin' Budda. The feet seem to be at least 6 feet tall and are decorated with designs laid in mother-of-pearl. We saw the Grand Palace and the Emerald Budda. We climbed the Golden Mount for a view of the city. During our ardous trek to the Golden Mount, we happened into a little Wat almost by mistake and felt like instant celebraties as little school girls approached us to ask questions and shake our hands. We posed for their pictures, but din't get any of our own. We visited a the enormous Chatuchuk weekend market and roamed the maze of stalls for hours. Afterwards, we aptly navigated the subway (not as difficult as it sounds) to an excersize park where Jessie got to use some pretty sweet work out equipment though she didn't venture into the "weight room" full of speedo- clad thai men. The river taxi is the best form of tanspotation: cheap and without the hassle of arguing about price. We even went to the zoo! Don't get too jealous...but Jessie got to feed and pet an elephant! Hopefully, we'll have more elepahnt stories later in our trip.

The neighborhood we are staying in is quite nice and outside of the crazy Khao San area. We lived like royalty the first couple days with an air conditioner and a huge room, but we've since down graded to save some baht. There is a great little eatery right down the road and we've tried almost everything on their menu. A big steaming plate of Pad See Eww only costs 33 baht (about one American dollar). In fact, the food costs less than the giant bottles of beer we use to wash down the spicy dishes. The people there are very sweet and even though we can't really communicate, we still find reasons to laugh with them and they make an effort to commiserate with us over MJ's death. The Thai people love MJ.

We are catching an early flight to Bali tomorrow and we'll spend the next month snorkling, surfing, and cuddling oranutangs throughout Indonesia. Hopefully, we will be much tanner by the time we make our next post!

first day in thailand

so after losing an entire day in flight (we left on monday and arrived on wednesday) we have safely arrived in thailand. we are getting ourselves acquainted with the area. the drive from the airport to the guesthouse was pretty insane with little mopeds and motorcycles riding in between all the cars and it wasnt just a couple here and there, but constant flow of them. so after getting ourselves settled in, we went for a great little lunch right on the river which was absolutely delicious. surprisingly the weather is not too bad. its definitely hot and humid, but 18 years on the east coast and midwest has prepared us nicely to cope with the hot and humid weather. being that we have only been on the ground here for about 5 hours, there is really not a whole lot to report. we do believe that as we travel and have more experiences, that we will be able to have much longer and more interesting posts. one thing we would like to note though, the closer we got to thailand the better the service in the air. what we mean is that the u.s. flights didnt give us very much food or snacks, but the other airlines served great food and beverages. thai air actually used real silver ware and we didnt have to pay for our heinekens! till next time,
leon & jessie

2 days before departure..

right now we are sitting on the couch in comfy bellingham....in 2 days we will be on a plane heading for s.e. asia! we created this blog as an easy way for all of our family and friends to keep up to date on whats happening during our travels. our next post will be from the other side of the world!