Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Day 4 continued - The one thing I had my heart set on while in Thailand was to eat right on the beach with our feet in the sand. So we wet out to Chaweng Beach and walked up the beach. We found this super cute bar. They had bean bag chairs set out on the sand with small little tables, so we enjoyed a drink while watching all the other tourists light off fireworks and Thai Lanterns. The lanterns are basically a form of a hot air balloon...the thought it that it is supposed to bring good luck. After our drink we moved on to a cute resturant with table set up right in the sand! Loved it! I think these are some of my best memories of the entire trip.

Day 5 - New Years! Today we were able to change our flight to an earlier flight. So we got back to Bangkok around noon. We reserved 4 nights at the Sofitel. For some reason we were given corporate check in and our rooms were upgraded to a suite! Not bad, huh. The location was great for new years since there were lots of pubs on the street and a huge new years party was just 2 stops down on the skytrain. So Dave and I had dinner, some drinks, then headed to Central World for new years fireworks. Our friends arrived at 11pm on new years, but we must have missed them by like 5 or 10 minutes at the hotel.

Day 6 - We planned to meet our friends in the lobby. We had breakfast then wandered to the train station. We took a train to Lop Buri. The train was interesting, but I'll write more on that later. Lop Buri is known for the ruins and monkeys that totally run the town. It was insane...3 of us had monekys jump on us while we were there. My firend Branda had 3 monkeys on here at one time! Photo coming soon!

Day 7 - We took a tour to the floating markets (a Thai market done on long tail boats), the death railway bridge, and the Tiger temple. That was awesome as we got to pet tigers. The downfall was they wouldn't let me take my own photos of Dave with my camera. They took my camera and took photos...of course they don't meet me standards at all. I was kinda disappointed in that.

Day 8 - Time to go to the Ancinet Capital of Ayythuya (sp?). This used to be the capital of Bangkok a long time ago...so know there are lots of ruins there. We took a lunchtime boat ride back to the city.

Day 9 - This was a day on our own to explore Bangkok. We saw the Grand Palace and the reclining Buddha, along with some other sights. We also ate dinner at this hotel on the 17th floor overlooking the city. The food was great! That night we were supposed to travel by overnight train to Chiang Mai, but after our Lop Buri train we decided we would rather fly...so we cancelled the train tickets and booked a last minute flight to Chiang Mai for the next morning.

Day 10 - We go up early and flew to Chiang Mai. Lesson learned...ask your taxi driver how much the fare will be before getting in the car...we got charged a very high amount...pretty much double what we paid on other cab trips to and from the airport. We checked into the DeNaga hotel, which was super cute. Then wandered the city to see some sites. Later we hired a cab to take us to some of the handicraft places...silk factory, wood carving, and umbrella making. At the umbrella place, the artists will paint on pretty much anything for you. So I got one of my lens hoods painted with an elephant. We'll see how long it lasts...but its super cute! I also got an umbrella painted to.

Ok, enough for now....I'll post more later.