The Grand Palace in Bangkok

Jim's BBQ Thai Spare Ribs
One of the many demon statues protecting the Buddha at the Grand Palace.

Kids in front of the Golden Stupa and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (on the right).
Monkey statue at the Grand Palace (good mythological character).
Another demon statue.
Chinese soldier statue that used by chinese as ballast in their trading ships.
One of the thousands of street vendors in Bangkok.

Tonight we leave Bangkok on the train for Chiang Mai. We sure have had a wonderful time in Bangkok.

Yesterday we went to the Grand Palace which is where the King use to live. It is also where the Emerald Buddah is located. It sure is beautiful with lots of gold.

We have had some wonderful food over here, but have not been brave enough to try the street food except for some grill meat and fruit. There are street vendors everywhere selling Thai food. I bought a couple of bags of Pad Thai in the grocery store last night for $0.30 each. You can eat pretty cheap. The most that we have paid for Thai food in a restaurant for all of us is $20. It is a lot cheaper than eating Thai food in Fairbanks.

We love walking the streets and seeing all the people and street stalls. It is so different than the U.S. I think the kids have learned to appreciate all that they have especially when they see the people begging. It is such a different way of life over here.

The Chatuchak Weekend Market

We are sorry that we have not been able to call anyone. I am able to post to the blog at an Internet Cafe that we found down the road, but we have not been able to find any place to get WiFi. I am hoping that we will have better luck in Chiang Mai.

Yesterday we went to the huge weekend market which the tour book states has over 15,000 vendor stalls. I believe it. What an amazing experience. I don't think I have ever been so hot and sweaty in my life. On top of that there were thousands of people. There were so many things to buy. What I found the most interesting were the pet squirrels (I assume "pet") that they were selling. There is a picture of them in cages and they all had strings tied to their legs. We also saw snakes and lot of live animals.

I felt brave after eating the "spicy" food the day before in Ayutthaya so I order my food a little spicy at the market. I sure did learn my lesson. Wow, was it hot.

We will be catching the train to Chiang Mai tomorrow night. We have had a wonderful trip in Bangkok, but I must admit I am ready for a smaller town. I still can't get over how friendly everyone is in Thailand. I don't think we have met an unfriendly person yet.

Today, we are going to visit the Grand Palace and some of the last places that we want to see in Bangkok before heading north.

Ayutthaya

We hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas. We spent ours going to Ayutthaya which are ruins from the 1300s about one hour north of Bangkok. We also went to the summer palace for the King. It sure was beautiful. Since 95% of the people of Thailand are Buddist, there are very few signs of Christmas here. With it being 94 degrees and very humid it really did not feel like Christmas. It sure beats darkness and -20 degrees though.

We had a wonderful tour guide and she took us to a great local restaurant for some good local food. It sure was great. I asked for my dish to be a little spicy. I thought I had little green peas in my dish as I continued eating them when our tour guide, Pai, told me that they were young chilis. She was surprised that I ate them. It sure was good food.

Today, we are off to the big weekend market. We hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas.

Bangkok - Damnoensaduak Floating Market

Merry Christmas Everyone!! At least it is Christmas in Thailand. We are having a wonderful time. I can't get over how friendly all the Thai people are in Bangkok. On Christmas Eve, we took a tour of the famous Damnoensaduak Floating Market. We took a long boat trip down the narrow canals where people live. This was my favorite experience for today. What a wonderful experience...so different than the US. I just love the traditional Thai houses. They are so beautiful with all the Teak wood. We also went to a local Park where they had a crocodile and elephant show. It was fun to watch the elephants play soccer and dance. The kids really enjoyed this.

Because 95% of the people in Thailand are buddist, signs of Christmas are very minimal. It makes it good for traveling, but very different than the feeling that we would have in Alaska right now. We all tried the durian fruit which is famous for being very stinky. In fact, in many hotels they don't even allow the fruit. We all really enjoyed it, but we all thought it tasted like something different.

Because it is in the 80's here and very humid we find ourselves taking showers every early evening to cool off. Emma and Ben enjoy taking a nice swim every evening. Today we are off to the ruins of Ayutthaya.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas today.

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Bangkok - Wat Pho

We made it to Bangkok!! Because of the jet lag, the first day we made the mistake of taking a nap at 3 pm in the afternoon and decided to not get up. We all got up at 1:30 am. Oh well, we had a wonderful time at the Wat Pho which has the largest reclining budda. The weather here is nice and humid...a welcome change from the -20 in Fairbanks. Tomorrow we are off to spend Christmas Eve at the Floating markets and Elephant show. The Thai people are wonderful and very friendly. We have just had a wonderful time experiencing the Thai culture. We hope everyone has wonderful traditional Christmas. For us, it is quite different this year.

Taipei, Taiwan

Well we finally made it to Taipei. We had one heck of a tail wind and got here in 9 hours. Unfortunately, we had quite a bit of turbulence. We are looking forward to getting to Bangkok. Emma tried to be brave and try something different to eat but she was disappointed. Ben and Jim opted for the ham and cheese sandwich. That is always a safe bet.

The start of the Thailand Trip - Anchorage Airport

The beginning of our trip to Thailand.... The drive to Anchorage was pretty uneventful, but we are pretty tired and we just found out that our flight to Taipei is 2 hours late. Hope we make our connection. It all comes with traveling, right? It's going to be a long night.....