copy of email sent during trip to Thailand, December 2003 - January 2004
I have to make this quick as I just waited in line 10 minutes to use the pc! in bangkok now, love it. so much to see & do.
Last day on lanta we rented a motor bike & drove around the island. other than the flat tire (luckily in town!) it was great. sat at a cool little restaurant for lunch (had a prawn baguette, yummy, $2!). zipped around & took lots of pictures, I’ll tell you more when I show you guys the pictures. we were sad to leave lanta but excited about bangkok. the train ride was great. 13 hours seemed like about 2. we had dinner & then read and put our beds down. didn’t sleep great, but the beds were CLEAN and we had A/C!! whooooo!
Packed mom & glenn off into a cab at the train station. No hotel reservations, just told the cab driver to take us to Khao San, which is the “backpackers mecca”. Got dropped on the street and roamed around with big packs on and asked a few questions and found a great guesthouse. hit khoa san the first night - the best part is you meet tons of great people, chatted for several hours. Had dinner off the the street vendors and no, I didn’t get sick!!
Went to Wat Po, a great temple with a HUGE reclining buddha. I mean HUGE. Then off to see the Grand Palace, but a guy on the street gave us some tips on other temples. went to about 4 more via tuk tuk. one of them had NO tourists & we were just about to walk in when a guy told us the entrance was for monks only. whoops. he spoke very good english and we sat in this empty temple with him & he told us all about the different buddhas. so cool. went to go back to grand palace but it was closed for the day, so we went to a market at the pier and ate - yum that night we got DRUNK DRUNK DRUNK just off khao san at this VW bus that has been converted into a bar (60 baht a drink). bought tons of stuff of the vendors (it’s so much easier to barter when yuor’e drunk!). Oh Nicole, we got Jeff’s giant Zippo….at one point I had to get up and leave because they had to move the bus so someone could park - too funny.
OK, I’m being long winded….yesterday was Ayyutya, must be seen to be believed, sooooooo cool. Lots of temples & ruins from when the burmese invaded thailand. lots to show & tell you about. I got brutally sick at one temple, but other than that, it was fantastic went for dinner with mom & glenn last night. they were a bit worried because theire flight was delayed and so they were going to miss their connection in China, so they had to catch one aat 1:00am this morning. Oh and they tried to come to Khoa San yesterday but the cab driver told them it was closed. They believed him. Needless to say he took them to an upscale shop, so they never did grand palace, khoa san, whaat po, etc. Too bad, I wished they’d seen it.
Went to Grand Palace today. Again, amazing. Saw the emerald buddha (have seen sooooooo many buddhas, but he’s pretty cool!). Absolutely great. Lots of pictures. Going to go to Pat Pong tonight, the “adult” section of town. Supposed to be interesting but disgusting…gotta see though. Probably won’t have time to email again, see you all soon…
