We were excited to check out the big market, since we missed the weekend market (getting here too late on Sunday), once we arrive at the ‘market’ and realize we asked to go to the mall. So we decided to check it out, see if there are any inexpeisive shops. The mall was so busy with all of the after Christmas sales, similar in that way to the US, but the shops themselves were about 1/8 the size of the shops in US malls. And they fit so much in the stores. We looked around for about an hour and realized this is not what we were looking for, so we asked a women where the nearest market was, she gave the directions, then we noticed it was close to the Lumpini Park we wanted to go check out.

We headed over to the park, probably walked a few miles, understanding how big Bangkok really is…. We get to this park, it is one of the larger parks in Bangkok from the map, we had also read that at this park there is the big aerobic class. We walk into the park and see so many things going on. It reminded me of Wash Park in Denver, lots of people running, picnicing…making me really miss Denver and our volleyball days. There are so many difference activities going on, people rollarblading, music playing and kids playing. We keep walking through the park and find the aerobics class, it was huge!!! So many people, I joined in for a while Alan took pictures (that is me in the red pants). We then found people playing basketball and this kind of hacky-sack game called Sepak Takraw. Sepak means ‘kick’ in Malay and Takraw means ’ball’ in Thai. They play it everwhere. It is fun to watch too, the men are really impressive on how they can kick the ball.

After checking out the park, we headed over the music in the park. It was an orchestra with two singers, they were singing lots of songs in Thai and also a few others songs like Mama Mia and Hero from Miss Mariah. I think the park was exactly what I was looking for, I felt like we got experience what urban living is like in Bangkok, there were some Westerners but not that many, many people just off work, getting their workout and taking their families to listen to music in the park. This experience was probably my most favorite of the trip, thus far…

After the park we headed to another market that a women from the mall told us about. It was a night market in the middle of the redlight district…we mainly window shopped which helped us get an idea of prices for shopping in the future. We were there for about 2 hours which felt like forever, I was over the night market scene since every other step you had someone in your face asking you to buy something or showing you a flier about a ‘peep’ show. I would just tell the guys talking about the peep show to talk to Alan…Alan really appreciated it. We opted out of going to one of the peep shows and headed back to Koh San Road for dinner and bed. Koh San road was just as bad with people trying to sell you stuff minus the peep shows. We grabbed food from one of the food stands, I had fried noodles and Alan had a falafel with lamb, he was so excited for something different to eat. We headed to bed luckily we really couldn’t hear much of the noise on Koh San, except for a bar near by that had a really good acoustic guitar singer. I feel asleep listening to the song Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, which is nice since made me think of Kristie, it was one of the songs we played at her funeral service.

The next day we tried to go to the Grand Palace and some temples but we started out too late and they were closed for the day. We ended up walking around and checking out Chinatown and a local market where the store and restaurant owner buy their food and supplies. Alan took some more pictures, below is a picture of some women preparing Garlic to sell for the next day.

That night we went to a Thai boxing match at the big stadium. It was an amazing scene. There were so many people 99% men at the sadium. I only saw about 10 women the entire time, just not a place women go to I guess, unless your son or boyfriend is fighting. There were so many rituals with the fighting, showing respect to the fighting rink, each other, etc. I was so amazed. Then there was the side betting in the stands. People were going crazying, yelling in Thai, holding their hand out for betting, usually with four fingers, sometimes one. We think it meant the person will go down in the 4th round or in the 4th minute of the round. Overall lots of noise and people pointing at the rink and making hand gestures, like he should of done this or put his hands there and kneed him here.

The next day we headed to check out the Grand Palace. We were stopped by a Tuk Tuk driver offering to take us there for really cheap. They said that the Grand Palace doesn’t open until 140pm because of a Monk ceremony, and we should go see something else first. I wanted to see the Golden Buddah, so we talked to him about going there first then the Grand Palace. The Tuk Tuk driver started to tell us we need to go to Golden Buddah and another temple before the Grand Palace. Then we got uncomfortable and got out and started to walk to another area where there were more Tuk Tuks. We then went to the Golden Buddah, I bought a little bird cage with birds where you are suppose to free them in front of the Buddah giving freedom and hope. Alan bought a flower and incense as his offering to the Buddah. After we were done with our offering we stood for a while and saw the worker go and pick up the flowers off of the buddah and throw them out and the guy that we bought the flowers went and pick them up out of the trash and put them back in his bucket to sell. We are tourist suckers!!! After the Golden Buddah, we heading to the Grand Palace. We found out it had been open the entire time, and these Tuk Tuk drivers tell you that it is closed (even put their umbrellas in front of the hours of operations sign in the front of the palace), so they can take you to other temples and along the way to a tailors shop and hope that you buy something. We were tourist suckers again!!! But besides that, the Golden Palace was amazing. I was impressed with the detail and craftmanship, it was so magnficant to see and the detail of the buildings and temples is something I will never forget.

That night we booked a train to head up to Chiang Mai. Except for not seeing the floating market, we felt we had seen enough of Bangkok and wanted to head up to Chiang Mai to complete our tour of Thailand. We booked an overnight train with a sleeper car, it was a 14 hour train ride…yikes! But neither one of us had ever been in sleeper car, so we were excited to see what it was all about.

First off, we finally got to ride in a long tailed boat. We had seen so many but it hasn’t been the right time to ride in one. We got into Krabi and headed to An Nang and took a long tailed boat to Railay. We were told it is busy season and we wouldn’t find any rooms available and it would be really expensive, but walked every inch of the beach (east and west Railay) and we did find a cheaper room. It was a beautiful beach on West Railay. This is where all of the pictures of Thailand seem to be taken. The limestone cliffs right against the water with a beautiful sunset right behind the cliffs. Alan was in heaven taking pictures.

We have been able to enjoy to water a lot here. We went kayaking, snorkeling and rock climbing, and of course laid out on the beach. The main attraction is rock climbing, there is a lot of it and tons of guide companies. They all wear these cool fisherman pants, so we finally broke down and bought some on our last day. We took a crazy amount of climbing photos, we had a lot of fun with our guides and the Cambodian kids that were climbing in our group.

I think our best experiences thus far have been our dinners, the first night we decide to splurge a little…all of the restaurants lay out their fine food in coolers right at the restaurant entrance. They have fish, lobster, crab, kabobs and you order it right there and they start grilling it and bring it to your table for you. So we both decide to get the steak kabob, the kabob outside has these big juicy looking peices of meat…we are both so excited. I know Alan was so happy to get some steak finally – he was eating a lot of pork and chicken. They finally bring us our food, and the steak is soooo tough, I am pretty sure it is not steak…not sure what it was but it was the toughest, most horrible thing I had ever eaten. I think my teeth moved trying to eat the first piece. I let Alan have it and enjoyed the vegetables from the kabob…Alan did finish all the meat, it only took him an hour. From then on, no more steak in Thailand. I keep having to remind Alan, he almost ordered it again the other day.

For our next 2 nights we stayed on the main beach at Krabi called An Nang. We went to dinner up the street away from the popular crowds. This dinner was another interesting experience. We had definitely noticed the Western men with Thai women, but this night it was very obvious about the sex trade that goes on here. The couple was sitting next to us in another booth, they were fighting but then a Thai man walks up off the street asking if everything was ok. They both quickly say yes, and then I look over and she is under the table doing @$#%^@$^ to the man as he just sits there smoking his cigarette looking around. Alan and I finished our meal as quickly as we could and just wanted to get out of there. The restaurant workers just acted like nothing was going on and the other couple that was there quickly left as well, but we had just gotten our food, so we couldn’t leave right at that moment….something I will never forget!

After dinner we went in search of ginger tea, and found a coffee house that made it from scratch for me. It was the best ginger tea ever. Alan mentioned it to the hostess and she had Alan go in the back and tell the cook. All I saw was a lot of bowing and Alan talking with his hands, but the cook seemed happy so I am sure he understood Alan. After a few days in Krabi, we decided to head up to Bangkok to try and meet up with our friends, we booked a fight for the next day and headed to bed. Thailand makes it so easy to travel, just walk up to one of the many travel agents and they can help you get whereever you want to go next!

We got to Koh Sok very late, they took us directly to our hut in the ‘jungle wonderland’. It was a great place with our own bathroom and a little bug net over the bed which made me happy…although there were not many bugs with the weather being so dry. The next morning it was fun to wake up and see the hut. I probably took 10 pictures of it, but my camera acted up and they were deleted, luckly Alan took one pic on his camera. We went over to the local restaurant in the hut compound and I had my banana pancake with condensed milk and honey on top, and Alan ordered the ’American breakfast’ – eggs, ham, toast, OJ, and tea/coffee.

We must have been one of the few that didn’t do one of the tours, because as we walked out to go to the National Park, we were stopped by one of the workers who showed us a map of the park and asked us to stay away from a certain road so we wouldn’t scare the elephants. We hardly saw anyone and there was no one hassle us to buy anything, only the workers at the restaurant suggested a few tours but then never asked us again about it. I really needed the break from being hassled, and Koh Sok was just the place.

After our breakfast/lunch, we headed over to the park. We were hoping to see some wildlife, maybe some monkeys and a few snakes, etc. When we entered into the park we checked out the visitors center. The big flies that were as big as my hand, now I was happy for that bug net over our bed.

No such luck on the animals. We saw a  butterfly that seem to follow us for most of the trek then we found the first waterfall which was a little disappionting – I guess I was expecting the waterfalls that we saw in Portland with Shylo and Jade. We walked up another trail and did find one of the swim holes. It looked a bit yucky, so I was hesitant to get in. Especially since some guys at breakfast/lunch had just got back from camping and told us to watchout for leeches… As we entered the swim hole area, we ran into another western couple where the women had gotten in and said she didn’t have any leeches..I still wasn’t convinced, but Alan jumped…literately. We have some jumping shoots of him diving into the water. Alan didn’t end up with any leeches, so I guess I missed out on a cool swim hole in the park, but I am ok with it….and we had fun treking through the jungle of Thailand.

It was starting to get dark so we headed back toward the entrance of the park. We walked up and down the main street of Koh Sok (or the only street I should say). A lot of hut compounds and guesthouses, and a few restaurants all decorated very nicely outside with flowers and plants. We ended up at one of the restaurants on the main street instead of eating at our compound. This was the first time we really expereince difficulty interacting with someone who didn’t speak english. It seems that most people spoke english, but just with a heavy accent so you just had a hard time understanding them. I tried to change up my order from the menu at the restaurant, wanted fried rice with cashewnut and pineapple (they had the nut and the pineapple seperate on the menu), then when they brought it out to me I had two dishes. From then on I learned to not change what was on the menu. Plus the best part is that I was trying to tell Alan we need to simmer down on the food ordering to stay on budget…I learned my lesson.

The next day we headed out to Krabi, back to the beaches!!

When we arrived in Ko Phangan, the pier area with really dirty and nasty. My intial reaction was that I didn’t want to stay very long.  Like most ports tons of people trying to give you a taxi ride or sell you a place to stay. We walked over to the boat information office to see when we could get the next boat to Surat Thani, since our plan was to stay only one night just so we could break up the boat rides for Alan. A women with a lot of brochures walks up to us and starts telling us about different resorts where we can stay for 400 Baht (which was really cheap). We saw on the brochure that there was a free taxi to one of the resorts which would get us to the area of the island where most of the resorts are located. I was still really skeptical of this place because the women suggested it. As we waited for the free taxi, I suggested we just get our own motor bike (scooter) and head up to the resort just in case we need to find another resort. Alan gets us a scooter, all the women that were near the bike shop were saying "You Crazy to take Luggage, wait for Taxi", but again we head out with 2 people, 2 bags, 2 backpacks and purse on a scooter. As we take off down the street on the scooter with our luggage, the six women were standing in row starting at us. I turned and waved and they all waved back with a few still shaking their heads.

We arrived at the resort, and a German man greets us. He asks us what we are looking for in price, and I say “Cheap!”, as soon as the words came out of my mouth I was not happy with myself, I think it was the skeptism I had about the entire island. Alan quickly says “less expensive”, the German looks disgusted with us and takes us to the bungalow. It was clean and right on the water – we were both thinking – we hit a jackpot!!! We put our luggage in the bungalow and then walked out to watch the sunset, the place felt like we were the only ones there…so quite.

We have dinner in the resort, Alan orders spicy, spicy squid…all the ladies are laughing at him, asking are you sure? I had a coconut juice, and of course my ginger tea. We head to bed and I had one of the best night sleeps since we started the trip, which was great cause my cold is really bothering me.

We decided this place was our time to relax so we planned to stay two nights. I woke up and did some yoga in an open hut overlooking the water, and Alan had a Thai massage. After breakfast, we mediated in the same hut I did my yoga. We also laid around in the sun and Alan snorkled. We enjoyed our second night as well, but realized it was not the paradise we thought… The German man – who also did the travel coordinations was really rude (not to just us), and bungalow had a lot of ants too. Yucky!! But the first night was very relaxing!!!

Our ride back to the port was nice, riding up and down the hills with the fabulous view of the ocean. The taxi guy for the resort took our bags to the main travel office near the port, where we rented to the scooter. We then hung out by the pier and did some yoga until we realized we were at the wrong pier…but we were early (again…surprisingly) so we had enough time to jump on the boat to Surat Thani then off to Koh Sok National Park.

Boat Ride to Ko Tao

We got to Ko Tao around 3pm and took a break at a local coffee shop for Alan to get his bearings, then we rented a scooter and headed for the other side (more quiet) of the island. I was truly impressed with us riding the scooter with my big bag as a backpack, Alan’s suitcase between his knees and his backpack around his chest. We were getting a lot of stares and a few whistles too. Here is a picture of Alan taking our luggage to our second hotel.

We found this amazing bungalow off this quiet bay. We went for a evening swim after we had a dinner and yummy ginger tea. The next morning we woke up to the sunrise, we got up and took some pics, and then almost slept past our check-out time. We were happy to finally be adjusting to the new time zone. After getting a full night of sleep, massage by the beach and finally pooping – I am definitely a much happier girl.

Also in Ko Toa, I experience my first interaction with wildlife. We took the scooter to the other side of the island and checked out a few other resorts, there was this one resort that was newly built and was breath-taking. Everything was built off of the rocks and it was only 4,000 Baht a night…just a little out of our budget. But I strongly considered making it our night of splurging!

We then went hiking, trying to get to the highest point on the island 177m. We didn’t get up to the top but has some great views of the island. The trail only went up to about 150m. I had my first encounter of wildlife. I saw this area on top of a big rock where you could look out and see the entire west side of the island. It had a little old ladder that someone had built, so I began to climb to the ladder and was ready to put my hand on the rock – then I looked up and saw this snake right where I was going to put my hand. I let out the crazy sound something like “Ewwwkouwwweee”. Alan was laughing so hard. We were both surprised by my shriek, I have never heard myself yell like that…it was also Alan’s first picture of wildlife. The snake was huge!!

Tomorrow we are planning to go Ko Phangan, an island just south of Ko Tao. We did go to the clinic and pick up some anti-nausea pills for Alan…we will keep you posted on how he does on the next boat ride.