Thailand: Bangkok

Grand Palace Bangkok

Bangkok river boats

Wat Arun

Bus tickets to Koh Chang

Grand Palace Bangkok

Tuk Tuk Bangkok

Grand Palace

Fish Pedicure Thailand

Fish Pedicure

We flew from China to Thailand on New Years Eve, spending the first moments of 2014 in the sky. As much as we would have loved to ring in the New Year at the city center of either Beijing or Bangkok we could not pass up the cheap ticket.

So we spent the morning of Jan. 1st running around Bangkok. We only had half a day to tour the place before we were to catch a bus to Khao Yai National Park. We tried to make the most of it and started our day by taking a river boat to the grand palace. The architecture was so different from what we saw in China, I was amazed at all the texture, color, paintings, and statues used around the palace. It was like walking into an art project, every inch adorned with color. 

After getting back from the Khao Yai National Park, we were able to spend the night wandering around a night market. We took the river boat again, this time at night, to get to Asiatique night market. There we window shopped and got fish pedicures. 

Lets talk about the fish pedicures a little. Put it this way, I've never seen Blake squarm, but the first minute of it he was in a panic. Although, when he finish, he then wanted to do his entire body with a fish cleansing. When you first put your feet in the tank, it's like a bombardment of fish covering every inch of skin under the water (or maybe that was just us because we just got back from camping in the jungle). It took all the energy I had to keep my feet in the water because it tickled, oh so bad! But our feet came out feeling soft and clean. 

Thailand is known for many things but my favorite thing about visiting was the wonderful people. Everyone was so nice and willing to help. Taxi drivers would go out of their way to make sure we knew where to go, shopkeepers did not try to rip us off with outrageous prices, no one was pushy or in a hurry and everyone was ready to meet us with a smile. We had a wonderful experience. We even ran into a government protest.... yet we had no idea we were in the middle of one. We thought we were just walking through makeshift shops of food vendors the just so happened to be blocking the street. Again everyone was lovely and happy.