Thailand, Day #2

On day 2, we headed up north to Chiang Mai. Our tour hadn't started yet, so we spent the day exploring the city. Here we are at another temple...

This is the typical scene inside these temples... you can find people praying or being "blessed" by the monks at all times of the day. We obviously were saddened by this, especially as we saw small children or our tour guide praying to Buddha. They follow a ton of rituals in the hopes of receiving good luck.

One thing that Thailand is known for is their Thai massages. While we weren't crazy about the traditional Thai massage, (which is a serious of stretches to help relax your body, but it hurts in the process!), they also offer all kinds of full body oil massages, foot massages, facials, etc. They were so cheap that we couldn't turn them down!! The average 1 hour foot massage was about $6-7! Needless to say, we hit up a few of these places, which are all up and down the streets.

Another popular thing for tourists to do in Thailand is hit up the night markets. They start around dinner time and often go to about 11:00. People there spend so much of their time making crafting, carving, painting, etc. and then sell their products at these markets. You can also buy delicious food there and often the markets are really long.

This one happened to open in the afternoon, but continued into the night hours.

Here I am posing with a couple of cute little Thai girls. All of the vendors at the markets will bargain with you, as they're pretty desperate for you to buy their items. These little girls were bargaining with Chris to try to get him to buy a t-shirt. Of course he caved, as he couldn't resist how cute they were. I tried to get him out of there before he bought everything under their tent!

Vacation to Thailand!

Since Chris and I have been living all the way across the world, we've said since we moved here that we want to visit some countries over here since they're so much closer now.... well, we finally got the chance. We spent 7 days in Thailand (Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai) and then spent 2 days in Singapore....

It was nearly a fiasco getting out of Okinawa (our dog ran away from her sitter's house, we forgot to get my passport stamped, we missed our first flight, and then they told us we'd have to buy new tickets for $2200). Miraculously, they ended up putting us on the next flight for free, but here we are exhausted...

Finally, we make it to Bangkok, where Chris is a happy camper because he's discovered that Thai food (from a "restaurant" or right off the street) is delicious and ridiculously cheap (about $3 total for 3 full plates of food.

Our first day in Bangkok, we roamed the city by tuk-tuk (which are also really cheap). These little motor bikes will take you all over the city for less than $1 per ride.

In addition to the tuk-tuks, we occasionally took a boat for transportation.

In general, Thailand is very poor, especially Bangkok which seemed really hot, dirty, and crowded. But, in the middle of this poverty, they have these beautiful and elaborate Buddhist temples everywhere. This is a picture at the Grand Palace Temple (which is one of the largest in Bangkok).