BANGKOK
After our drive to New Orleans, we had a 45-minute plane
ride to Houston, short layover, then a 12-hour flight to Istanbul. We had
enough time during our layover to stretch our legs before our 9-hour flight to
Bangkok. Our driver and guide, Nat, met us at the airport and took us to
our hotel, Chatrium Hotel Riverside in Bangkok. We had a beautiful
view overlooking the Chao Pharya River and the
city. We got to our room around noon and took a 7 hour
"nap" (Thank you jet lag and the 12-hour time difference).
After our "nap" we had dinner at the hotel.
Our first meal in Asia and Julie orders a hamburger, but in her defense, she
didn't know if this would be her last chance! After dinner we walked to a night
market, Asiatique. There were tons of shops with a huge ferris wheel,
Mekhong. It was HOT! We found some hard ice cream type treats that
looked like a pastry. Trying to ward off the heat, we found a drink
called Sai (grape juice with floating chunks of aloe vera). Sounds gross,
but it was actually refreshing!
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel at 6am.
Our hotel offered a large variety of items. Omelet station, pastries,
noodles, Asian fruit, etc. Our guide "Pete" picked us up at 6:30 and
we were off for the day for our Bangkok bike tour. We had to take the
boat taxi, then the BTS (subway), then a short walk to get there.
We met our bike guide, Ja, grabbed some bikes and took off
for a 12-mile ride. Ja took us down busy city streets, market lanes, and
narrow crowded sidewalks. We then loaded the bikes on a long tail boat
and headed to the much quieter side of the river. We rode over a very
narrow sidewalk/bridge that in some areas had a 4 foot drop into water.
We were all nervous to fall and Mary came close (gopro footage will be in the
video lol). It started to rain so we took a break under a canopy and at
local fruit, Rambuten and Mangosteen. They were both delicious!
The next day Pete picked us up and we were headed to
the Grand Palace which is a complex of buildings at the heart of Bangkok,
Thailand. The palace has been the official residence of the Kings of Siam since
1782. The king, his court and his royal government were based on the grounds of
the palace until 1925. Several royal ceremonies and state functions are
held within the walls of the palace every year. The palace is one of the most
popular tourist attractions in Thailand. We had to dress appropriately by
covering our shoulders and ankles. It was HOT and not like Louisiana
hot... a whole different ballpark hot! We also visited the Emerald Buddha and
the Reclining Buddha. Then had our first experience with street food!
After lunch, we got on a long tail boat on the canals of
Thonburi. During the boat ride we saw homes, temples, huge river lizards
(our guide said, "good news is we don't eat them"). We stopped
at the Royal Barge Museum.
After our boat ride, we visited and toured the Temple of
Dawn (Wat Arun). This magnificent and VERY TALL structure was beautiful
with VERY steep steps. We all climbed to the top... Holly was
terrified. At the top we enjoyed a beautiful panoramic view of the city
and river. They also had a yellow cloth wrapped around the top tower
that visitors signed. We signed "Sister's Trip 2014 - Louisiana
USA."
We had another early start today. "Pete"
picked us up and we were off to the Summer Royal Residence in Bang
Pa-In. This was built to honor the place where the kings boat was
capsized and he swam to shore here. Because of the heat Julie and Mary
wore shorts, and Julie a tank top. Little did we know we had to cover our
shoulders and couldn't wear shorts! So, the nice people at the gate lent
us some very fashion forward (NOT) garments to wear over our clothes.
Keep in mind it was already super-hot and humid! We then went to see the Royal
Palace Ruins in the old capital Ayutthaya. This was built in 1350 and
burned by the Burmese in 1767. All the Buddah’s heads were cut off
by thieves. One was placed under a tree and since then the tree has grown
and the roots have lifted it. We had lunch at a buffet in Ayutthaya where
"Pete" encouraged us to try some local favorites such as sticky rice
cakes and papaya salad. Most of it was delicious!
Crossing the river to the European inspired Royal Monostary, Wat Mchathat, we took a cable "car" that was operated by young monks. He we learned more about the monk’s way of living and their sacrifice. Not many stay monks their whole lives. They are very well educated and have to live by monk rules. The children have 10 rules and the adults must follow 227.
After our tours, we went to the shopping mall
Platinum. We were not that impressed and it was super busy so we walked
to another, Central Mall which was more of our style with 8 floors. After
a little window shopping we decided to get our first Thai massage! Holly
and Julie got 1.5-hour foot and leg massage and Mary got the full body.
We were also shocked that a hour and a half massage was only 600 Baht ($21USD).
We did not know what to expect of the massage. Half way through I heard
Holly offer to marry the guy! LOL After the massages we took a tuk-tuk
back to our hotel and got ready for our last night in Bangkok. We ate
dinner at Happy Fish at Asiatique then had a pedicure at the fish spa! We
put our feet in large tanks and the fish are supposed to eat the dead
skin! This was a very weird feeling! Asiatique closed at midnight
so we took at taxi to the night market. We had a few drinks and did some
people watching. Boy, did we see some sights!
CHIANG MAI
We boarded an afternoon flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.
We arrived in Chiang Mai and was greeted by our guide Sunchit (or as
Julie would accidently call her "sum-shit". After checking into
our beautiful hotel Rachamankha (below), we hit the night market. We
found a beautiful restaurant after walking around a bit, had a Thai dinner,
then did some shopping at the night market. Our hotel is located within
the old city walls, which is surrounded by a square moat.
Today we drove out to the Maetaman Elephant Camp.
We were able to feed the elephants bananas and sugar cane at one point.
We had a rough ride through a small river, the jungle and
a village, then got off and shopped at a local village
market. We rode back to camp via Ox cart. When we got
back it was just in time to see the elephants taking their afternoon
bath. We then stayed for the show. The elephants did everything
from paint pictures to play soccer. We enjoyed a buffet style lunch at
the camp under a canopy while it rained. After lunch we took a bamboo
raft down the Taeng River. Our guides let Mary and Holly
"drive" for a little while.
On our way back to Chiang Mai we had time to stop by Tiger
Kingdom. After signing a waiver and agreeing to not make any sudden
moves, we were allowed to go into the cages. We decided to visit the
small, smallest and big tiger. We started with the baby tigers. It
was a little scary (even with the babies) at first and took some getting used
to. The smallest tigers are only 2-4 months old. They were so cute
and playful!
Next, we went to visit the "small" tigers that
were only 10 months old or so, but this was pretty scary for us. The
tigers were a bit frisky and wanting to play so the trainers thought it would be
a great idea to hold a toy over the pool and let them have fun... made for some
great pictures but we got soaked! :)
Then we moved on to the BIG tigers! Now this was
scary! They were pretty docile animals, but we were also fearful to wake
them. We were instructed that if we sat next to them we needed to pet
them firmly on their back so they would know we were there and not startle
them. It was a bit nervous when I noticed the trainer only had a small
twig to protect them/us! They had 4 big tigers in the cage all about 2 years
old. These creatures were massive!
After our Tiger Kingdom experience we stopped off at the
Orchid farm. We each purchased some jewelry. They had dipped the
orchid petals in glass. We had another round of massages and some
shopping at the night market once we got back to town.
After breakfast at the hotel we drove up the mountain to see
Doi Sutep, which is a temple on top of 309 stairs. This temple contains
ashes from Buddha. Over 2,000 years ago they did not know where to build
this temple so they tied the ashes to an elephant’s back and let him roam until
he died and the temple was then built.
Later that afternoon we walked through the local
markets. The meat/seafood market had a unique smell. So I was happy
to visit the flower market shortly after!
The next morning, we were picked up bright and early drive
deep into the rainforest for our zip lining tour, Flight of the Gibbon in Mae
Kampong. We first signed our waiver, then got suited up for zip
lining. We hiked through the forest and saw a family of gibbons
gliding from branch to branch. If only we were that graceful! :)
At times, it would seem as if we were going to take our poor guide out during
our landing so we would scream in a laughing voice "coming in HOT" They
got a kick out of it!
We had lunch with the group then headed to hike up the Mae
Kampong waterfall. We climbed for what seemed like hours and every time
we thought we were almost there we found another trail!
That night we rode in a tuk-tuk until we found a restaurant
that may have some good food. Low and behold, we stumbled onto Loco
Elvis, an Elvis themed Mexican restaurant! We enjoyed the band that sang
American music in a heavy Thai accent and enjoyed several cheap margaritas (not
sure if it was the cheap alcohol or the ice in the drinks made with tap water,
but we later decided that may not have been the best idea.
KOH SAMUI
We slept in a bit and had a late breakfast at the
hotel. Sunchit picked us up and brought us to the airport for our flight
to Koh Samui, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. While waiting at the
airport we got a quick 30-minute foot massage for 200 Bhat ($6 bucks). We
had a couple hour flight and landed in beautiful Koh Samui. Next
stop was our hotel, Centara Grand Beach Resort. The grounds
were beautiful! We rested for a couple hours then decided to
take off on foot to check out the town. We did some shopping, dinner
and got pedicures.
On our first full day in Koh Samui, we had the breakfast
buffet at the hotel, then had a very relaxing day at the beach. For lunch
we walked to a small deli and had delicious sandwiches. We continued
walking and shopping, the decided to get our hair washed and styled (its hard
having three girls get ready with only one bathroom in the hotel room) for $10
each... When we told the ladies at the salon how much people charge back home
for hair services, they were ready to catch a flight to the US! We made
reservations at a restaurant for dinner at Dr. Frogs. We had no idea what
to expect, but when we got there we were in awe over the view from our
table. We enjoyed a long delicious dinner and drinks and watched the sun
set over the water...
After an early breakfast the next day we headed to the
marina for 7:30am. From there we took a speed boat to visit a few of the
islands. We did some snorkeling (well Mary and Julie did snorkeling,
Holly couldn't figure out how to breathe out of the tube so she just held the
gopro under water and said she would watch the footage later!) We passed
many beautiful small rocky islands and stopped at one and climbed way to
many steep stairs to see the Green Lagoon! We took the speed boat to
a small local fishing village for lunch. The next stop was a small white
sand beach where we went kayaking and relaxed in the wave less shallow
water.
That night we decided to hit the town. We hopped in the back
of a red taxi (the back of a small pickup truck) and went to Restaurant
Samui. They had a nice acoustic band and good food and drinks!
While walking we found a traveling bar, so we decided to serve drinks for a
while! :) There was seriously a 2-year-old sleeping in the van! After dinner,
we walked around for a while and stumbled onto a Lady Boy show... of course we
had to see what all the fuss was about! We enjoyed seeing the
"ladies" lip sing in their over the top outfits to some well-known
songs. We even each tried their specialty drink called "Lady
Boy". It wasn't great, but they weren't cheap, so we drank
them. After the show, we hoped back in the red taxi and headed to Bar Ice
Samui. Julie had seen it advertised and after melting for the last 2
weeks or so, she was going with or without the sisters! When we got there,
they gave us hats and coats and escorted into the bar (meat freezer) and
complete with ice sculptures that was 14F... it felt sooooo good after being so
hot for so long! Mary didn't last long in the cold, however Julie and Holly may
have set a record for how long tourists stayed! :)
We slept in the next morning recovering from our night out. Once we got out of bed we walked around and got massages. We went back to the beach, took a yoga class at the resort, hung out by the pool and then watched a movie in the room, calling it an early night!
KOH TAO
We had to be up and packed super early the next morning to
catch our Seattron (3-hour speed boat) to Koh Tao. On the boat they
played two movies, Ghost Ship & Poseidon, both about sinking ships... The
Thai apparently have a sense of humor! After arriving in Mae
Head Village, we took the hotel shuttle (pickup truck that we rode in the back
of and Holly almost fell out of) to our hotel Haad Tien. We stayed in
bungalow style rooms and the grounds were beautiful! We had lunch on the
beach and played in the shallow water where Holly got cut several times by the
coral. Mary and Julie took a free scuba lesson in the pool. Wishing
we were there for more than one day and actually got to go in the ocean.
That night we took a taxi to Sai Ree Village did some shopping and had dinner
on the beach watching a fire sinning act with all of the local divers.
After several hours, we took a taxi back to the airport to
board our long 13-hour flight back to Houston, small layover, then to New
Orleans where mom was waiting for us! Another successful Sisters Trip in the
books! Now to start planning for the next....