Watch out this is really long.
So a couple months ago the two of us ventured out to this place called Thailand, where everything from
snails
to beehives
to bugs
to geckos
and to fruit are much, much bigger..
but doorways & ceilings & aunts are not.
Where baby elephants walk the streets
and cows play soccer
and the stray dogs are AWESOME.
and cats join you for dinner.
It definitely started out well when we found out that all 5 of our seats had been upgraded to FIRST CLASS!!
It made the 17-hour flight feel much, much shorter.
We landed at 5:45 AM, which was really 3:45 PM the day before in the US. So I guess you could say we were pretty jet-lagged when we went to the Chaiboonma family reunion that night.
There was karaoke. Enough said. (And they wanted me in every picture of the family.. I think I fit in pretty well.)
That's Saroj, Kira's cousin who drove us around everywhere in Bangkok and Hua Hin. He barely spoke any English but he was awesome.
The next day we went to the Grand Palace, which is where the king used to live.
Then we went to the annual memorial service for Kira's grandparents.
5 monks came and chanted for like 30 minutes straight, which was reallllly cool (but really long).
We had to sit there for a while, which was pretty tough because we had to make sure our feet weren't facing the monks at any time.
This was around the time when we discovered the joys of being able to speak a language that no one understands, which Derek took advantage of by saying that the kids were smelly whenever they didn't let us play with them.
Bangkok felt really foreign, because the weather was pretty gross (humid and HOT and stormy allll the time) and traffic was unlike anything I've ever seen. But we still had a good time there.
During the first few days we took a ton of pictures from the car..
http://www.youtube.com/v/ZzjZ49OeMW4
We were stuck in traffic in the back of an 8-seat van.. what would you do to keep yourself entertained?
http://www.youtube.com/v/XIR5qgLrkQU
this was taken just after a storm a couple houses down from the one we stayed at.. we pretty much had to yell over the sound of the frogs.
Kira's cousins took us out to Khou Sanh (spelling??), which was a street where all the tourists go. It took like 2 hours to get there, after being stuck at one light for, no joke, 30 MINUTES. But It was really fun because there were people from all over the world there. And the world cup was on, so we watched the Germany game with the Germans and the England game with the English (who were all crying afterward).
Derek made some friends at a pub during the England game
The person we asked to take this picture was, of all things, ARGENTINIAN, right after Argentina lost to Germany. She wasn't too happy.
We left Bangkok after 4 or 5 days there, and went to Hua Hin, which was a really touristy place on the coast.
We stayed at a condo that was part of a hotel facility right on the beach but full of snooty, sunburned Europeans.
You can see the European man in the background laughing at us trying to call to the bird.
That's what the weather was like 99% of the time.. cloudy & rainy but still hot enough to be able to walk around in a bathing suit (and still be pretty hot).
In the back of that first picture is Kira's cousin Oat, who was really nice but we kept forgetting that he couldn't really speak English. He took us to a pub in Chiang Mai, where we met the band that was playing a whole bunch of covers of American songs.
We went to a couple malls to see Pirates of the Caribbean and Superman. The malls there were definitely better than the ones here.
Then we went to Chiang Rai, the northernmost area of Thailand. It was BEAUTIFUL.
We sent out all of our clothes to be washed when we were in Chiang Rai, thinking we'd get them back the next day, but we didn't, so we were all stuck with the same clothes for 3 days.
This is what happened every time the Chaiboonmas tried to take a family picture.
http://www.youtube.com/v/H0yuT9Gy70M
This one pretty much sums up Chiang Rai. The music playing in the background was coming from loudspeakers in the middle of the really un-developed, rural area we were staying at. I think it was to honor the king.
That's the view from our room.
That's the part of the house with all the rooms
And that's where we ate every night, by the RIVER that ran through her house. Kira's aunt had a cook that made Northern Thai food that ROCKED. (minus the fish)
Ok that's a horrible picture of us, but THAT'S THE VIEW from the eating area!! It was gorgeous.
The place we stayed at was pretty cut off from the rest of Thailand.. there were plants growing in the telephone box.
There's the pack of cocker spaniels/ labrador that pretty much attacked us.
That's Kira's aunt's sweater.. um, yeah.
at a tealeaf plantation wayy up in the hills with hilltribe farmers.
awkward pictures taken by Kira's mom in the hilltribe village..
We wanted to buy just ONE bracelet from the hilltribe kids, but as soon as we showed interest they ALL ran over.
We went to some gardens where our shorts and tank tops were too revealing so we had to walk around in jean scrubs.
That's the opium museum, which we drove for a reallly long time to see. Kira's dad wanted to see the Golden triangle, which was where the drug lords ran from the cops..? I don't even know I was confused.
We went to Burma.
This place was really pretty, and there were a whole bunch of Burmese girls that sold little birds in handmade cages.. if you bought them you could free them for good luck. But the rest of Burma that we saw was pretty disgusting.. like Tijuana but with much more poverty and moms with ill babies begging you for money.
Then we went back to Chiang Mai, where Kira's parents and Derek stayed with us for a couple days to see the sights.
the kids in front of us (to the left) were part of a teenage travel group that was on our flight to Bangkok.. we saw them 2 weeks later in Chiang Mai.
the elephants painted those.
You can't see it but there's an elephant trunk wrapped around us and another one putting a hat on me.
Yet another European laughing at us.
Just us kids had an adventure to the snake farm and monkey show.
Then we started working at the school and Kira's parents and Derek left. But I'll post pictures of the kids later. These ones are from the weekends when we weren't volunteering.
(at another elephant camp)
That's Kira's Aunt Saisunee, whose houses we had been staying at the whole trip, and who we stayed with for the last 2 weeks.
yeah, those are men... We were tricked into paying 5 bucks for this picture.
We were pretty much on our own in Chiang Mai, which was really fun (but kinda sketch looking back, considering that Karr was wandering around Thailand at the same time).
We did A LOT of tuk-tuk riding. and shopping
And that's about it (minus the highlight of the trip.. the school!). I applaud you if you got through that all.