Final Countdown to the Big Two Three

My birthday is in four days.  I feel like I am counting down for a bomb to be dropped..  this is the first birthday I am not looking forward to.  Turning 21 was even more exciting than turning 18, a whole new door of opportunities was opened and I loved every second of it (minus all the money I began spending).  Turning 22 wasn’t great but I was still in college, so it was just 21 + 1 year.  23.. The awkward age between college and the “real world”.  No one wants to hire us (or anyone for that matter) so many of us are living at home with our parents or applying to grad schools to put off job searching.  I feel like 23 is the age it is expected for us newly graduated people to get our act together.. should I be on some road establishing myself in a career or figuring out the rest of my life instead of running around Thailand for a year? What the heck am I going to do when I’m done with Thailand?  If I come home to the states, I sure hope mom has an open room for me!

I just started doing conversational tutoring on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after school with Sumo (yes, like Sumo wrestling), he’s eight and in the second grade.  For an hour after school, I basically take him on the songtell wherever he wants to go which will normally be to eat a snack, then to meet his mom at Central in a store where she works.  He is such a sweet boy and his English is pretty good and I really actually enjoy his company.  He is a bit shy but when he does talk, he cracks me up.  Yesterday after eating at some Japanese restaurant (I didn’t order anything, Sumo informed me that everything on the menu was spicy.. hey, I wasn’t in the mood for octopus balls anyways), I told Sumo my birthday was coming up and I was looking for a good place to get ice cream or cake.  After determining I’d probably just get a milk shake at Central from Swansen’s ice cream, I asked Sumo a question.

“Sumo, how old do you think Teacher Chelsea is turning?”

“Umm, 35??”

“AHHHH!  NOOOOO! Younger, MUCH younger!”

“25?” (He was very hesitant this time)

“A few years younger…”

“23?”

“Yeeees, 23!  So old”

After the shock and horror of being mistaken for being 35, I realized that 23 really isn’t that bad.. I could be having a worse birthday year.  I’m still at my prime, and now-a-days no one is really considered old (or looks old) until their 70s anyways! But I am looking forward to going to bars back home and being carded again, it’ll make me feel young! (They never card here, I don’t even know what the drinking age is.. probably 12).

NOTE: I don’t mean ANY offense to anyone who is 35 or older!!  All of you probably have a job/family/home and are very beautiful.. I’m just NOT ready to be 23 yet.

Khon Kaen International Marathon!

I am a very goal and future oriented person. Some of my favorite things to do are planning for events/adventures (ex. Vegas and now Asia travels) and checking items off my life bucket list. I love having something to look forward to (I love anticipation!) and if I can merge this with accomplishing a goal, I love it even more. About two months ago, I googled “marathons in Thailand” and a few different events popped up. One near the top of the search was “8th Khon Kaen International Marathon”.. that’s right, an INTERNATIONAL marathon in my very own city! I took this as it was meant to be and instantly decided that I was doing this! At first I was aiming for the half marathon, I mean heck, I had two months to train! After going to the gym for two weeks I realized the “mini marathon” which was 11.55 km (just a tad over 7 miles) was much more realistic. After my Christmas/New Years travels (in which I didn’t move faster than a steady speed walk for two and a half weeks), I had firmly decided on the fun run/walk which was 5km. The website claimed that the first 20,000 finishers of the run race would be awarded medals.. yes oh yes decision made, 5K it is!

It was a week before the race and conveniently, I went to the gym the same day I was planning to sign up online and they had forms for the marathon out and ready for participants to sign up. I had seen a entry fee online for both Thai and non Thai residents, but the gym staff assured me that “Farangs free” (free for foreigners? Yes please!) I talked Jess into doing the race also even though she wasn’t entirely thrilled. Three days before the race, the gym handed us our large size singlets (Thai sizes, sesh) and racing number. We were able to get details on where to go and what time the race started. I was getting pretty excited. I had been running all week and had done some thinking.. I am much taller than most Thai people, therefore my legs are longer meaning I could take one stride for every two of theirs.. Easy peasy!

Before the race!

RACE DAY: I woke up at 6am for the 8am race. Very excitedly, I threw on my neon yellow racing shirt, pinned on my number, and armed with my new playlist on my ipod including BSpears’ newest, Jess and I hunted down an 8 blue songtell to take us to the university. On our walk to the songtell, we saw numerous other people with the same yellow shirt, about to participate in the race too! However, most of these people were bundled up, wearing jeans, and in sandals or just normal tennis shoes, they did not look ready to run. When Jess and I got to the university gate which was where our race was to start, we realized we were surrounded by Thai people.. one reason I gave Jess that helped in my convincing her to do this with me was this.. an international marathon, maybe we can meet other westerners!! Soon, we realized any white person would not travel to Khon Kaen to do the “fun run”, they would be busy running the marathon! We got lots of looks, hollers, and many smiles from everyone around us and I was still very excited. (Note: we did see two older western men later running our same race). I was feeling good this morning and very happy/excited for the race.

By 8am, we were at the start ready to go. To “warm up”, a Jazzerciser-like woman was up on stage getting the crowd moving and bumping loud beats including some Korean pop songs and others like Shakira’s “Waka Waka”. I was having a blast and dancing along with the crowd instead of doing the stretches like the lady.. we were closely packed into the starting area and there was not much space to do these moves of hers. A few minutes after 8, we started! Here is the thing I was a little confused about.. in general, Thai people aren’t too big on exercising. Running is generally not an activity they enjoy and when Jess and I tell people that we walk everywhere, they are stunned. I don’t exactly understand it but exercise isn’t in the average Thai persons daily activities (maybe because its HOT here and they are already so small and thin that they don’t need to exercise). This was apparent in the race. Most of the people walked and wore jeans and many children were barefoot, but it seemed like the majority sprinted for the first three minutes then stopped. There were no markers of distance or time and I really had no idea what the course was until we ran it, all instructions were in Thai so Jess and I were a bit lost (not too international there!) It ended up that the route was a there and u-turn back straight shot and I found myself running with different groups of children who were some of the few people running the race. I was using these barefoot kids as someone to stick with and I think they just enjoyed running with one of the two non Thai girls at the event. On the run back after the u-turn, I could see all the people that were running the other direction (to the halfway marker, the only marker of the course), and also witnessed dozens of people cutting the race! I understand that this was a “fun run” but as greedy as it may be, I was in it for a medal. I needed evidence of my accomplished goal. I used this frustration as motivation to run faster, and finished the race without even knowing I went through the finish line. I grabbed my medal at the booths down the hill and even though technically I was probably within the first 1000 people who actually ran the whole course, metals were running out! I’m sure the other races of the longer distances were more on top of the timing, marking the course, and recording finishers as well as more international flavor, but I had a GREAT time participating in a huge event in my city. For weeks, the streets have been lined with billboards and flags promoting the big “international marathon” and it was fun being a supportive community member and temporary Khon Kaen resident. 

Finish line with my medal!

After the race, I felt so accomplished and proud of myself for completing another goal, I ran in a race in Thailand! Turns out this goal maybe just another small step for completing a bigger goal.. when I got home from the race, I googled more marathons in Thailand.. Half marathon in Pattaya in July!! Okay, maybe the  11.55 K.

Sabaadeepiimai! Happy New Year, Ko Phi Phi!

FINALLY!  The best part of my travels!  Be prepared.. this is a long one!

Jenna and I arrived in Bangkok around 1pm ready for our 6pm bus that evening.  After we trekked around the city with our ridiculously heavy bags (I over packed.. what a surprise), we made our way to the travel agency where Jenna had booked our tickets.  They let us leave our bags there and we wondered around Khao San Road for a while.  Khao San is very well known amongst the backpacker community, it has cheap accommodations, travel agencies, inexpensive clothing, and various other items for sale.  Since I don’t get to go to Bangkok very often, it was fun to wonder around and see all the things to see.  We stocked up on snacks and splurged on subway so we were ready for the 15 hour bus trip.  We were waiting at the travel agency for our bus to be called and were excited when the guy yelled “Krabi!”.  (We needed to take the bus to Krabi, then the ferry to Ko Phi Phi).  We showed him our tickets, he shook his head and gave them back to us.  Very confused, it turns out he didn’t have our receipt number on that bus list.  He kept telling us “Wait one minute” and Jenna and I began to freak out.  It all ended up working out because they just stuck us on a bus leaving at 8pm, but we had to anxiously sit around for another 2 hours.  

The bus wasn’t exactly comfortable.  My seat didn’t recline at all and I got very little sleep.  Luckily, my body doesn’t need much sleep to be functional and 11 hours later, we arrived in Surrathani.  Again, a little confused because this wasn’t Krabi, it was 3 hours away from Krabi.  But this little hub in Surrathani sends people off for the various islands around Southern Thailand.  A guy went around asking where people were going and stuck stickers on everyone accordingly.  About 15 minutes later, Jenna and I jumped in a van with six other people to Krabi.  Lucky for me, I was able to sleep the entire van ride to the ferry dock.  With our ferry tickets in hand, our van driver told us we needed to run to make the ferry, so we did!  We plopped ourselves down in some seats and prepared ourselves for the last hour and a half of traveling until we get to the island.  Jenna surprised me with some Chang beer to celebrate the last leg of the race.  It was 11am but its always 5 o’clock somewhere!

We arrived on the island and got off the ferry and after paying the 20 baht “clean up fee”, we were thrown another curve ball.  For the past 15 hours, Jenna and I had been dreaming about spending our time in the sun and getting tan in the sand, only to find that it was drizzling!  AHH!  After getting over the fact that the clouds were thick and there were actually drops coming down, we accepted the fact that it wasn’t sunny only because it was still warm.  I had made the hotel reservations at a place called Tropical Gardens two months ahead only because it was New Years and he heard that the island gets full fast, and we were easily able to find our hotel representative waiting for us at the dock to lead the way.  Thank goodness he had a little cart thing with him for our bags, I was SO over my heavy bag at this point that I considered ditching some of my stuff so it was lighter (I learned my lesson for the future, the less the better!).  We entered the town which is basically a mini city, and I was amazed to see not only see so much going on, but how many westerners there were!  I had no idea that the island would be so  touristy and filled with so many people from around the world!  The streets (which are only for pedestrians and bicycles, there are no cars on the island because its too small) are more of wide cobblestone paths and lined with restaurants, bars, guesthouses, dive shops, and internet cafes and the beach was lined with longtail boats.  I was in aw of this place and after Jenna and I threw our bags in the room, we explored!  It reminded me of a mix of Cabo, Hawaii, and IV.  The water was blue and clear like Hawaii, the bars and restaurants were a lot like what I experienced in Cabo last Spring Break (which was AMAZING!), and the people were a lot like those in IV, looking to meet other travelers and just have a good time!  This is hands down my favorite place I have ever traveled to (okay, tie with Cabo because Cabo has the Mexican food!).

Jenna and I spent the next day relaxing on the beach even though it wasn’t sunny yet, and exploring more of the small town.  We checked out menus for different restaurants and I was so thrilled to find a huge variety of menu items!  Along with Thai food, salads, chicken burgers, sandwiches and pizza although a little pricey, were available on the island!  So different from Khon Kaen and I was determined to eat everything my heart desired on this trip.  There was a good mix of bars and clubs including a sports bar (the first time I have watched sports since I’ve been in Thailand!), a Reggae Bar with boxing (Thai boxers and they let people from the audience box and participants get free buckets!), and a few beach clubs right in the sand on the water!  Amazing.

The next morning was New Years Eve, and Jenna and I woke up early to hike up to the Ko Phi Phi Viewpoint to see the sunrise.  In my travel book, it mentions that it is a long hike of stairs and that some people need to rest on the way, I didn’t think much of it but boy was it a workout!  The viewpoint is 186 meters above sea level and you can see much of the island from the top.  Jenna and I went to all three viewpoints and even though it was too cloudy to see the sunrise, it was beautiful!

After our hike, we had just enough time to change to go snorkeling with our tour at 9:30!  Jenna and I picked an all day tour that took us to numerous destinations around Ko Phi Phi and Ko Phi Phi Leh, an uninhabited island next to the big island we were staying on.  Our longtail boat held about 20 passengers, and it just so happened there was a couple on there that did our same program 6 months before Jenna and I, and the girl graduated from UCSB!  What a small world.  While snorkeling, I saw the most amazing fish I have ever seen and spent hours in the beautiful, crystal clear, turquoise water, and the sun even made an appearance!  At one point while I was snorkeling, a French man on our tour boat (he looked like a professional snorkeler/diver, his underwater camera was intense!) waved me over to check out an eel he was taking shots of!! The eel looked a little creepy but it was amazing to see up close!  We also made a stop at Monkey Beach and Maya Bay, which was the location for the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo Dicaprio.  Of course it was nothing like the secluded beach from the movie and was overrun with tourist, but it was amazingly beautiful.  At our last beach destination, there was a sudden downpour and we all had to sprint back to the boat as our day trip was coming to an end.  We weren’t able to snorkel at Shark Point since it was now too dark to see the sharks, but we were all ready to start our New Years Eve celebrations.

New Years Eve was amazing!  The girls (Jess was there with her sister so we all met up) and I spend the night watching muy thai fighting matches at the Reggae Bar, drinking buckets, dancing on the beach, watching fireworks, and an ocean swim while the sun was rising.  My most amazing/fun New Years yet!  It’ll be hard to top it!

After sleeping for about 4 hours, Jenna and I hit the beach again because it was finally sunny!!  That’s basically what we did for the next two days, sat in the sun, drank banana smoothies, and lived up the island life.

Jenna needed to head back to school while I still had another week off.  So she trekked back to Bangkok and I stayed on the island and switched guest houses so I could stay somewhere cheaper. I never wanted to leave the island!  I was on the island by myself for two days and I had a blast.  I went to the beach, read at the coffee shop, hiked the viewpoint for sunset, went to the bars, and met a ton of other travelers!  I met this older couple who sailed to Ko Phi Phi unintentionally, they live in New Zealand travel on their boat and the wind brought them to the island instead of Malaysia.  I also met a guy from Sweden who went to an English learning school in Santa Barbara when he was 18 and lived in I.V. in 1997!!  I had an amazing time and I’m so much more confident now when it comes to traveling alone.

On Tuesday, my friend Brandon Feria and his brother met me at the island.  Feria (I have quite a few friends that I call by a nickname or last name, Feria is one of them) graduated from UCSB with me in June and worked hard all summer so he could now travel the world.  He left the states a week or two before I left for Thailand and he’s already been to so many places in Europe and Asia and it just so happened that his time in Thailand would begin while I was on the island!  It worked out great!  He and his brother met me at Phi Phi and it just so happened my guesthouse gave me a room for three people so the boys went in on my room with me.  The day they got there, we hit the beach and enjoyed the night with Thai boxing and more buckets. 

I had been telling Feria that we should do a snorkeling tour and that I was interested in doing one with cliff jumping.  Cliff jumping is something I am normally totally not into and I’m not sure why I was so hooked on doing it (maybe because of my Twlight obsession) and Feria was very onboard for doing this activity.  So the next day, we did a snorkeling/cliff jumping tour!  We booked through a company called Spidar Monkey which has great reviews and also provides a tasty lunch and English speaking guide.  When I realized that we were actually doing the cliff jumping, I regretting ever suggesting it.  I was getting real nervous, but luckily we started off the tour with snorkeling at Shark Point, which I missed out on during the last tour.  We saw a few sharks and even though we were told they never attack humans, we kept our distance.  We made a stop at Monkey Beach again, where Feria got slapped by a monkey for petting it, and again to Maya Bay.  Finally.. cliff jumping.  We were given shoes to wear because we actually had to rock climb to get to the cliff.  It was a windy and chilly day and Feria had to walk me through where to put my feet and hands to climb up the rocks (I know now I am NOT a rockclimber).  I was basically freaking out and couldn’t believe what I was doing and didn’t realize that I was physically shaking while climbing.  With Feria’s help, I nervously made it to the top and watched everyone else jump from the 8 meter cliff into the choppy water below.  Finally, it was my turn.  Luckily, our guide, Bell, got me all set up to jump from the lowest point which was 6 meters (like 20 feet ). I literally stood on the edge of the cliff for 15 minutes with our whole tour crew and Feria cheering me on and encouraging me to jump.  After shaking and near to tears, I finally made my plunge into the water.. and surfaced back up, I DID IT! I know now that I like the idea of cliff jumping more than actually doing it, but I’m proud of myself for doing something out of my comfort zone.  Because the water was so choppy, swimming back to boat was almost impossible for me and I asked someone to throw me a life jacket.  After settling back on the boat and able to breathe, I was real happy I did it. 

The next day was finally my time to leave the island.  Not only had it wiped out a lot of my January paycheck but I needed to make the 20 hour travel back to Khon Kaen so I could teach on Monday.  I said goodbye to Feria who is making his way to Singapore then Australia where he will spend some time and find a job, I’m SO glad I got to see him! I took the ferry to Krabi to take the bus to Surrantani to take another bus to Bangkok to take a cab to the skytrain and skytrain to another cab and cab to another bus to Khon Kaen.  All in all it took me about 28 hours to get home!  But it was an amazing vacation and an awesome way to start the new year.  Ko Phi Phi is high up on my list of places to go back to. 

Jenna and I enjoying a sunny day!

Snorkeling Trip

Jenna's AMAZING underwater camera captured these!

The Beach that "The Beach" is filmed at

Maya Bay

Beautiful Beach

Rain quickly rolling in

Happy New Year!

Feeding the monkies at Monkey Beach

Not wanting to jump (its higher than it looks!)

Taking the plunge!

 See you in March, Phi Phi!

Monkeys and Sunflowers

I cant believe that I was just starting my traveling just about a month ago and I still haven’t blogged about it! This week, I have been bogged down with Parent Teacher Conferences and writing an almost essay on my 24 students and analyzing their fine and gross motor skills, problem solving ability, cognitive development, attitude, and social skills and discussing these areas with the parents. Meeting with the parents is a little nerve –racking especially since nearly all of them speak English, some better than others, but I guess many of them liked me since I got three tutoring jobs from the process! Other than that, nothing too new going on here! We did have a teacher party which I’ll talk about once I’m caught up with my travels. Also, I will be the princess for the end of the year show in March. I might have already mentioned that but I’ll get into that later.

Waiting for the train

So after Ayutthaya, we woke up early the next morning to get to the train station to take the train to Lopburi. Lopburi is just threeish hours outside of Bangkok and is most well-known for being overrun by wild monkeys! Jenna and I didn’t choose this destination particularly for the monkeys though.. we decided to go here because on the outskirts of Lopburi are beautiful sunflower fields. Jenna and I thought trains left for Lopburi about every hour and we got to the station just as one was slowly pulling away. When the attendants realized that was the train we wanted, they were shouting for it to stop so we could hop on, and it actually did stop! However, there were three different people telling us to go different directions. I think it went something like “HURRY JUMP ON THE TRAIN!” “No, you need a ticket!” “Hurry, get the ticket and jump on the train!” (but in Thai). We rushed and threw money at the ticket booth and ran to get the train and we literally missed it by seven seconds, if we didn’t have our backpacks we probably could have lunged on but we didn’t want to risk it. Oh well, we ended up having to wait two hours for the next one, but it was really reassuring to have people trying to help us in our voyage. The train was only 13 baht (less than 50 cents) and was about a two hour ride. I wasn’t too sure what to expect for Thai trains, but for some reason I honestly pictured something like the California Amtrak train like the one I’ve taken to and from Santa Barbara. Well, let me tell ya, that wasn’t it. It was extremely crowded, no open seats, hot, and because the windows were down and trash is often burned here, we zoomed by piles of burning trash and the ash flew into the train getting in my eyes and mouth. It wasn’t exactly pleasant. But the most annoying part of the ride was that there were people who would walk up and down the isles every 30 seconds trying to sell different food and refreshments. Because Jenna and I were standing in the isle since there were no seats, they were constantly squeezing by us which was a little uncomfortable.. But we did make it!

We arrived in Lopburi and went to a hostel that we had heard of from a friend. This hostel was run buy the cutest little Thai couple who had the most adorable baby. They were so nice and helpful and gave us his cell phone number just in case we got lost going to the sunflower fields. At first, I didn’t notice any monkeys around the city and when we checked in, I asked where they were and they replyed “they are everywhere!” When Jenna and I were walking to the bus station to go to the sunflower fields I finally saw them and it was true, they were EVERYWHERE! Hanging from the wires, running free in the streets, hanging off buildings, snatching food.. Everywhere! Jenna and I hopped on the city bus to get to the fields. The bus dropped us off on the main road and we needed to walk a short distance to the fields. Boy, were they beautiful! Thousands and thousands of sunflowers on an extremely beautiful and sunny day. We took lots of pictures and checked out some stalls near the field. We picked up a three little bag of sunflower seeds of three different flavors, chocolate, strawberry, and honey, for a snack for later. One of the women at the stall offered to give us a ride back to the main road on her motorbike, and we gladly accept! Once we got to the main road though, it was about 4pm and we were a little unsure of how to get back to the city. The owner of our hostel encouraged us to hitchhike but we were a little unsure about that one. We stood there for a while someone would stop and offer us a ride or that the bus would drive by, but no luck. About 20 minutes later, we finally stuck our thumbs out (only to non sketchy cars) in hopes of hitching a ride, but luckily after only a few minutes of doing that, a big bus stopped and drove us back into town.

That night, we grabbed some street food and called it a night. We had a long adventure ahead of us the next day, our trek to the islands! In the morning, we woke up to little monkeys right outside the screen of our window and running around the common area in our hostel. I was caught very off guard to be greeting by monkeys on the way to the shower and I bolted back to my room. A few seconds later, I heard the owner shooting at the monkeys with her BB gun an they quickly jumped back out the window. We decided to give the train another shot and took one to Bangkok. Trains are a lot cheaper than buses and we are on a Thai teacher budget! We were able to snag seats this time and made the easy three hour ride to Bangkok.

Next up, the good stuff!! Check back to hear about my ten days in a tropical paradise. 

Christmas in Bangkok!

So I’ve been back in Khon Kaen for a few days now!  Coming back from two weeks of traveling was interesting, everything is exactly the same other than the house next to my apartment building has a few liter of puppies, making their total count of pups in between ten and fifteen.  I’ve also been in Thailand for three months now!  On day 90 (deadline day!!), Jess and my work permits still hadn’t come in, so we had to go to immigration to get a seven day extension.  Luckly the school took us and paid for the fee, and the next day our permit arrived.  We made another trip to immigration and now have our work permit/year visa!  We gotta check into immigration every 90 days but we’re good to go!  Also, I have signed up to participate in the Khon Kaen Marathon next weekend!  Well, not the marathon, just the 5K.. my travels put me very behind any sort of training schedule I had before the break. 

My travels!  Here we go!

Christmas Eve margs and tacos!

I woke up bright and early Christmas Eve to catch the first bus out of Khon Kaen into Bangkok to meet a group of girls to celebrate Christmas for the weekend.  Two of the girls had booked us spots in a cheap hostel.. we are on a Thai teacher budget!  This is the very first hostel I had ever stayed in, and I have to say it wasn’t too bad.  All six of us shared a single room which had 4 bunk beds making that 8 places to sleep.  The bathroom was down the hall but very clean.  The first night we had two random dudes filling up the two other spots but had the room to ourselves Christmas day.  I arrived to Bangkok early afternoon on Christmas Eve and explored the city with my friend Olivia since she had the day off school too.  Many of the other girls had to actually teach on Christmas Eve, so I’m lucky I had the day off.  Olivia and I had been brain storming about places to go to dinner that night; the girls originally wanted to hit up a Christmas theme buffet but they were all SO expensive. We then had a genus idea of checking out a place that Jenna had found online and sent me as the best Mexican food in Bangkok according to CNNgo.com.  Olivia, another girl Allie, and I went there for dinner that night since the other girls were still traveling in, and it was AMAZING! I’m not sure if I’m getting desperate or if it really was good, but cali shrimp tacos, chips and guacamole, and a strong margarita was all I wanted for Christmas and this place gave it to me.  We found out that the owner graduated from Berkley with a degree in Chemistry and is from Oakland and has since moved to Bangkok and opened up this restaurant.  It was so good that we took the rest of the girls there for Christmas dinner the next night!  We finished up Christmas Eve by checking out the Bangkok night life and some good clubs.  The next day, we celebrated Christmas with Starbucks, more Mexican food (the owner was there again and gave us all free tequila shots.. Merry Christmas to us!), and Christmas lights at the Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok.  It was great to be with friends; definitely a unique Christmas but one to remember!

Famous Buddah Head

The next morning, Jenna and I started our week long adventure! Our first stop,  Ayutthaya!  Since Jenna lives near Bangkok, she knows A LOT more about the city such as where to go and how to get places, so I basically was following her lead. We hoped in a van that only cost 60 baht (2 dollars) to take us to Ayutthaya which was about an hour and a half away from Bangkok.  In short terms, its a city with a whole bunch of amazing ruins. But for those more curious.. "The beautiful city of Ayutthaya was founded in 1350 by King U-Thong and was the capital of what was then known as Siam. Over the next 417 years it was ruled by 33 kings and repelled 23 Burmese invasions, before the Burmese finally succeeded in razing it to the ground. At its height, Ayutthaya was surrounded by a 12-kilometre-long wall which was five metres thick and six metres high and boasted 99 gates, brick and clay roads and canals to transport water into the city.  By all reports Ayutthaya was stunning and rivalled most European capitals of the time and portions of this grandiose past can be re-experienced through its ruins scattered throughout the province, but for the relics and records from this period, the Burmese obliterated almost everything in 1767 -- even melting Buddha images down for their gold."  Jenna and I bought an all day pass for admission into a whole bunch of different ruin spots and rented bikes and biked around the city, which brought us back to our college days at UCSB!  It was a very warm day but we saw some amazing sites.  We talked a restaurant owner into letting us rent bikes again later that night for an hour so we could see the ruins illuminated at night.  It was beautiful and interesting to think about how these amazing ruins must have looked before the Burmese came in and destroyed much of it.  After our bike ride, we called it a night so we could wake up early the next morning!

Next up is the monkey city, sunflower fields, and island paradise! 

Free Hugs in Bangkok!

Christmas Bangkok traffic

HUGE Buddah