A great trip to Thailand!

Matt and I took a 4 day excursion to Bangkok, Thailand. It was incredible to say the least! It was actually only 2 days in Thailand, and 2 days flying. Longest flight ever, but totally worth it. Luckily, thanks to Matt's benefits, we got first class roundtrip. Holy cow. If any of you are totally loaded, take a first class flight to Tokyo. That was half the vacation for me, literally and figuratively. You get so pampered up there. The second you sit down, they have a goblet of champagne or orange juice for you. We were this close to taking the champagne. It just felt right in that setting. We settled for the OJ, though.

The first day was spent in Bangkok. What a crazily insane city. It reminded me of Gotham City in The Dark Knight. Totally ghetto and run down, but chuck full of tourists. We went to the Chatuchak market. It was like 30+ acres of like 8,000 stalls of people selling jeans, yo-yos, purses, shoes, and everything else you can think of. They don't speak great english so they just hold calculators and show you the price when you look at something. If you say no, they hand you the calculator and you type in what you are willing to pay. Its all a game of bartering. Some are so desperate for a sell. I asked a lady about a Gucci handbag and she said, "800". I shook my head, and within 2 seconds she said, "450? 400? 350?" I didn't get it, but I loved that she cut the price in half before I even tried to barter. We got lots of goods at the market.






That night we headed out for some green curry. Yum. Then we went for some Thai massages. Calling it a "massage" is totally misleading. Its no massage at all. A 90 LB lady spends an hour mangling and stretching your body in ways you never though possible. At times, it was relaxing and felt good, but other times I actually gasped in pain. The only thing that kept me going was picturing Matt in the same uncomfortable positions in the stall next to me.




Our last day was spent on a day trip a few hours outside of Bangkok. It was so green and lush. Such beautiful scenery. We visited a WW2 cemetery and museum dedicated to the POWs who were forced to build a bridge over the River Kwai, most of which died from starvation or the bad conditions. The bridge, which from what I understand, was later bombed anyway. I am definitely going to do some more research about it. There is now a replica of it. We took a train ride through the country side. It was interesting to see the houses there. They are teensy huts with grass roofs. Exactly what you would imagine. It really put into perspective how lucky we all are living in the situations we were born into.
There was a Japanese couple sitting across from us on the train that whispered and giggled the whole ride. Matt and I both got the feeling they were talking about us. I checked my fly 12 times, I think.







After the train ride, we ate a delicious Thai lunch on the River. We were with group of about 10 or 11 people from all over. They were all really cool and made the excursion extra fun. We took a ride on a bamboo raft and then visited a pretty waterfall. Everyone played in it except for me and our British friend. I don't know why I didn't have my swimsuit. I was in Thailand... Who knows. After the falls, we got to ride Elephants. This was for sure the best part of the entire trip. It wasn't just walking in a circle. We played on the elephants and then went in the water, and trekked around the jungle. It was so awesome! After the trip we spoiled ourselves with more massages. Not the Thai Massage again. Matt got a hot oil and I got a facial. The spa treatments are dirt cheap over there. Like 5 bucks each.
We headed to the airport that night to catch our flight home. I wish we could have stayed 4 more days and visited the beaches, but we had to keep it short. We made each second count, though. It really was such a blast! Matt and I haven't been on a vacation with just the two of us since our honeymoon in 2005. It was fun to getaway and not worry about anything.










(Milli, I know you love Thailand, but just to make you a little more jealous, one of the guys in our tour group was the spitting image of Clay Aiken. I thought of you multiple times.)