One Day in Bangkok

We spent our last full in Thailand exploring Bangkok. I had heard a lot of bad things about Bangkok from friends who have been which is why we only planned one day there and my expectations were pretty low. However I was pleasantly surprised by what we saw!
We started the day off by hopping on the amazing subway to the river where we got on a boat which took us on a mini tour ending at the sites we wanted to see.

We started at Wat Pho which is famous for it's enormous reclining Buddha.

From there we headed to the Grand Palace which was quite overwhelming. It was like a Disneyland of temples.

Complete with a miniature version of Angkor Wat

From there we headed to Koh San Rd for lunch (of course stopping for a shake on the way!)

After dinner with a friend of Matt's we called it an early night as we had to leave for the airport at 4:30am the next morning for our flight to Hong Kong!

Location:Thailand

Koh Samui and Koh Phagnan

From Koh Tao we spent the next 4 nights on Koh Samui. We hit a couple of different beaches and ordered fruit shakes multiple times a day (moms, if you have Magic Bullet blenders at home get them ready for us, we are shake addicts now! See it here)

This is the hotel pool. Its low season here so things have been pretty quiet.

This was the view from our hotel room. The day we arrived there was a wedding on the beach that you can see between the palm trees.

Our first full day we walked the beach and hung out at Chaweng Beach. It's busy and great people watching.

Fruit shakes!

The second full day we spent farther south at Lamai beach.

I ate lots of fresh fruit and veggies from beach vendors. Corn and pineapple with a mango shake makes a great lunch!

This was the best corn on the cob.

Our last full day there we just hung out at our pool. The beach in front of hotel was not the best as it is still recovering from the floods in March, so our pool made a good substitute.

That night we got to celebrate the recent wedding of Joe and Andrea Markey! They are friends of ours from the city that had just arrived for their honeymoon. Shenanigans!

From there it was off for two nights to Koh Phangan. Because we were only a 30 minute ferry away, we went to the island to attend the Full Moon Party (google it!). Picture thousands of people partying on the beach...it was amazing people watching.

The locals are very good with fire. They made jump ropes and people try not to get third degree burns while jumping. I'll refrain from giving my opinion of these people in case some of you reading this have actually attempted the feat. ;)

You can limbo...

And slide...

The vendors set up their bars on the beach and sell buckets of alcohol and food.

This was the same beach the day after. It is actually a really nice beach!

Bangkok and Hong Kong and then home!

Location:Thailand

Koh Tao

Unless you are able to pay a lot of money, there is no convenient way to get from Chiang Mai to the islands on the eastern side of Thailand. (Read corrupt governments in cahoots with corrupt airlines). We were going to have to fly to Bangkok, stay the night there and then the next morning fly to Koh Samui and take a ferry to our first stop, Koh Tao. At the recommendation of a friend, we decided to take the night train from Bangkok to Chumpon and then catch the 7:00am ferry from there. In theory it sounded like a great idea...we'd save a day of travel by taking the night train along with a lot of money and the train is the last form of transportation we had yet to utilize on our trip so we thought "why not!?!?". Fast forward 26 hours and we still hadn't arrived! Let's just say it is going to take us less time to get to San Francisco from Hong Kong than it did getting from Chiang Mai to Koh Tao. Our train was delayed 3 hours which caused us to miss the 7:00am ferry which caused us to have to wait until the next ferry at 1:00pm. We had to wait here though, so it could have been worse!
Once we arrived on the island they threw us in the back of a pick up truck to take us to our hotel. After being in the same clothes for 26 hours, we could not have been happier!
The next few days we just relaxed. A friend of ours from San Francisco and her sister happened to be on the same train as us and stayed at the same resort, so we hung out with them a lot. And relaxed some more!
On our last full day there we took a snorkeling trip around the island. Koh Tao is very small so within a few hours we had hit 3 snorkel sites and had already circled the island.
The day ended with a stop at a tiny private island called Koh Nang Yuan where we proceeded to hike to the highest point.
And then swam in the crystal clear water.
We then made it back to the boat for our return trip home right before "it" happened. By "it" I am referring to the perfect storm that caused me to think who I was going to leave the $.50 remaining in bank account to. Let's just say I have never been more happy to wear a neon orange life jacket in my life!
But here we are safe and sound in beautiful Koh Samui!

Location:Thailand

Chiang Mai

Our first three days in Thailand were spent in a northern town called Chiang Mai which is known for it's markets, trekking and cooking schools just to name a few. They have a world famous market every night however we skipped it and went to the weekly "Walking Street" market which is more like a street festival. Music, street food, homemade wares, etc. Of course Nelly was very patient with me while I looked at every stall. Luckily the rain saved him :)
The next day we participated in a full-day of cooking class. I love cooking and I love Thai food, so this was the perfect day for me! We started by going to the market with our instructor and learning about all of the produce used in Thai cooking. We were each given a list of ingredients we had to "buy" as well.

Nelly had to get big red chiles and tiger prawns.

And I was in charge of the big flat noodles.

Then it was time to cook! Our first dish was pad siewe with chicken. This was one of our favorite dishes!

We then made our lunch which consisted of yellow curry with chicken, steamed fish in banana leaves and chicken with cashew nuts (another favorite). This is Nelly wrapping up his fish (everyone's least favorite dish)
Next it was spicy prawn salad and bananas in coconut milk! I don't remember, but I am assuming we didn't eat dinner that night!
The next day was all about the animals! First we visited Tiger Kingdom where we got to play with cubs and 18 month olds.
Then it was off the night safari! Because we missed the famous one in Singapore we were excited to hear Chiang Mai had one too. They do not allow you to use flash so I didn't get a ton of pictures.

Moon bear! Can you guess why they call them that?

Now it's off to 10 days of beach time!

Location:Chiang Mai