ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

Here are our pics from Thailand. We had a great time!

Saturday

-banana pancakes and fruit shakes at a local bakery for breakfast

-2 hour Thai massage for $10 (Thai massage is great and very different from any other kind of massage I’ve had)

-visited the tailor where Andy was fitted for his suit. He also picked out fabric and had two work shirts made that we picked up later in the week.

-At night, we went on a dinner cruise which gave us a great view of many of the sites along the river.

On our way to the dinner cruise via songtaew (small pickup with a shell and seats…not very easy for guys who are 6’4” and 6’5”!)

On the cruise:

Thai women stretch their fingers backward starting in childhood and are able to bend them back really far for traditional Thai dancing.

Dinner at Indian restaurant called Face which was so pretty and so yummy. I loved the architecture and use of teak wood here.

Monday

Tuesday

Next stop was the Grand Palace where the royal family used to live. It’s so fabulous. The pictures don’t capture the beauty of these buildings. They literally all shine like jewels!

First pic is view from the water taxi en route to the Grand Palace.

Doing our best impressions of the statues:

Next we went next door to Wat Po (Wats are temples) and home of the huge reclining Buddha statue. It’s unbelievably big!

The bottoms of the feet on the reclining Buddha are made of all of these mother of pearl drawings. Really pretty.

On the grounds of Wat Po, there was this tree covered in cloths that had been blessed by monks and then people would put offerings around the tree and pray. I thought it was beautiful.

Wednesday

We opted to visit the elephant conservatory (http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/) rather than one of the many elephant riding camps because of the treatment of elephants at those camps. It was so amazing and we were gone for 10 or 11 hours. It was like a religious experience (in that it was very moving and the people there are very committed) and we met so, so many interesting people there. Hanging out and just walking around, feeding and bathing the elephants was really great and it was weird how we got comfortable with these humongous animals. There are so many great stories I could tell about the elephants and the people here.

Our flight back to Bangkok was leaving at 2 so we just had the morning to see some of the Wats downtown.

Andy bought some jasmine flowers from this lady. Thai people would typically take them into the Wat as an offering but I love jasmine and chose to wear it as a necklace for the rest of the day.

Yeah, Andy thought this was hilarious.

One of the oldest Wats in Chiang Mai though I can’t remember the name right now.

Our tuk tuk driver for the day in Chiang Mai

Friday night in Bangkok, it was out to dinner at a mall (fancy food at the food court at the mall!) and then drinks. Places were packed because it was St. Patrick’s Day. I found out that I’m getting much older and ended up taking a cab back home by myself while everybody else stayed out drinking and watching basketball.