Spring Break 2011 - Thailand: Bangkok

There comes a time in every trip to Thailand where you have to experience the necessary evil of visiting the capital city of Bangkok. Known as "Krung Thep" to the locals, Bangkok has a metro population of about 12 million and is everything you could wish for in a busy, crowded, polluted, yet interesting city. The name means "city of angels", which basically makes it Thailand's equivalent to Los Angeles. Bangkok became the capital of Thailand in 1768 after the Burmese destroyed Ayutthaya (see previous blog post). We spent about two days here altogether, which was plenty of time to see the Grand Palace, Wat Pho with the famous "reclining Buddha", and the bustling Chatuchak Market.

Marisa protecting herself from the sun, since pale skin is IN here.

Buck and I had to cover our legs with these less-offensive MC Hammer pants during our visit to the Grand Palace.

Part of a mural surrounding the Grand Palace depicting ancient Thai history. This looked like the infamous Halloween Battle of 1126, but I'm not sure.

Nice to see that the folks at the Grand Palace still use velociraptors for protection of their valuables.

Marisa shows textbook squat form here, just like the jeweled characters behind her.

Grand Palace

Grand Palace

Grand Palace

Grand Palace

One of Bangkok's finest holding it down outside the palace.

The Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho - he was a big mo fo

Longways shot of the Reclining Buddha - somewhere around 40 meters long.

Wat Pho

One of my personal highlights in Bangkok was having a couple of suits and fitted shirts made. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of tailors all over Thailand that make suits and dresses on the spot. It's a huge industry that serves businessmen the world over, the casual wedding goer, brides-to-be, and the occasional physics teacher. Before coming to Bangkok, Buck recommended a place that he'd used before and worked out a deal for me so that I could get fitted for suits in a day and pick them up within a week. The whole process was really easy: pick the material for suits and shirts, have measurements taken, come back 6 hours later for final fitting, and pick up finished product one week later. These people work fast and were able to finish an entire shirt, pants, and most of a jacket within 6 hours. The best part had to be the price though...............two suits (Italian wool), four fitted shirts, two ties...........about $500. Beat that Men's Wearhouse!

I recommend the navy with subtle pin stripe for evening functions and power lunches.

The light brown is perfect for summer weddings and first impressions.

We were told beforehand to only spend one day in Bangkok and that advice turned out to be sound. One should see the Grand Palace, maybe a temple or two, and experience the Chatuchak Market and move on to greener pastures. Taking our own advice, after Bangkok we headed down south to the Krabi province for some time on the beach. Before that..............more pics.

Street food. Not that this was everywhere, but this is a nice display of fried crickets, roaches, and baby birds. Yes, baby birds (front left). Holy crap where's PETA?

Buck found Jack Sparrow at the Chatuchak Market. This guy was a little too good.

Dinner at "Cabbages and Condoms" - a birth control themed restaurant that began with the owners desire to see more protected sex in Thailand. Instead of after dinner mints you get........well, I think you get the idea. This was the Tiger Woods memorial at the front of the restaurant.

Group shot at Cabbages and Condoms

You'd never guess who we ran into at the mall!!

The only time my stomach was tore up was after a greasy American-style pizza by "Pizza Company". Thirty minutes later I had to bolt from our taxi and make my way to a gas station with one of these bad boys. Don't adjust your screens...........the toilet IS that close to the ground. Let's just say it's not for sitting, it's necessary to remove all clothing from the waist down, there is typically no toilet paper provided, and the one I used did not have that fancy garden hose mounted off to the side. Most don't come equipped with a flusher either - you're supposed to use water from a bucket to wash everything down. It was quite an experience.

--Justin

Spring Break 2011- Thailand: Chiang Mai

After a great start in Thailand we hopped an overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai (14 hours in total). To be fair I have the say that sleeping on the train wasn't that bad and I actually got some sleep. Thank God for earplugs and an eye mask!

Enjoying some of the candy Justin helped to make. It was a long train ride we had to do something.

Upon arrival we met up with one of Buck and Mae's friend Jeff. He works in Chiang Mai helping the local people develop self sustaining methods such as farming. They both work for CMF and it was awesome going to breakfast with him and hearing about his ministry and getting to know him. The rest of the day we hit up the pool and wandered around the city before it started to rain.

Lots of dragons in Thailand

More sights around Chiang Mai

The Thapae Gate

The second day in Chiang Mai goes down as legendary. We got picked up from our hotel for an adventure of a lifetime. Thanks to a tip from our boy, Trey, we made reservations with a company called Flight of the Gibbon. This is a zip-line course through the jungle hoping to see gibbons, but definitely feeling like a gibbon.

I love the gibbons!! I loved seeing them in the wild too. 

Straight out of Avatar

Buck showing us how it is done

Superman!

Mae smiling through the fear

Having way too much fun

The whole crew

To understand the full awesomeness of this event check out this little video I put together with live footage.

After flying through the jungle we also venture to a waterfall.

That night the boys headed to some muay thai boxing and the girls hit up the night bazaar for some shopping. Justin will further explain below. 

Buck and I were pumped to see some real Muay Thai fighting and much to our dismay, the first "fight" pitted these two 12 year olds that weighed maybe 100 lbs. each.  We were thinking that we had been swindled, but it got better after a couple of fights.  All we could do was laugh, knowing that it would at least be a funny story.  I will say that this is at least a little more hardcore than playing little league!

So I'm no expert, but what makes Muay Thai different from normal boxing is that each contender may also kick, knee, and elbow their opponent.  It means you have to be ready for a lot more possibilities of getting walluped.

For some live action check out this video!

Night Bazaar. We definitely hit this up every night.

The following day turned into a girls day and a guys day. The boys rented some motorbikes and rode out to a cave. Long story short, the cave was not found, but both boys came back with farmer tans. At least they found a waterfall, so the whole trip wasn't a total bust.

The sweet waterfall they found

Justin wondering where the cave was

The ladies on the other hand had a day full of fun starting with a Thai cooking class and ending with a massage.  I want to do a separate post on Thai food so these pictures are just a preview of more to come.

Check Mae out with that huge knife

Cooking up some chicken coconut milk soup

For dinner our last night in Chiang Mai we headed to this awesome little joint. We sat out by the river and loaded on the bug spray and had some incredible northern thai food.

Our last day in Chiang Mai we all loaded up on the motorbikes and headed up to the temple Wat Pra Thart Doi Suthep. The motorbikes couldn't take us all the way. We had to hike up about 300 steps (nothing compared to what is to come).

The view halfway up

The 300 steps we had to conquer

The Wat 

Buddhist wipe golden leaves of paper on Buddha as a type of offering

This was one of the tribe children and she was so cute. She took my glasses off my head and put them on and then asked Buck and Mae if they were married. She was adorable.

Don't we look so cool on our motorbike?

Chiang Mai was definitely my favorite city in Thailand and if you are ever in Thailand it is a must see. Totally worth the 14 hour train ride or you could just fly from Bangkok in about an hour.

--Marisa