We're coming home!

For our last day in Bangkok, we woke early to go to the Floating Market. It's where you float through these narrow canals along with a ton of other wooden canoes. People are off to the side of the river selling items, some even in canoes selling. We had heard a lot of great things about it in our guide books and on the internet, but I have to say, we were some what disappointed. It was a neat experience. Just not all what we thought it would be. After the trip back, we grabbed some lunch in a rush, on our way to Mandara Spa. We got a couple's massage! We've gotten one in every other place we've been, so it wouldn't feel right to leave Thailand and not get one! ha. It was fabulous. We've never done a “couples” massage...our first experience couldn't have been better. It was a great way to end our trip.

It's Friday evening in Bangkok and we leave late tonight like after one am. So we had a few hours to waste after our check out time. Jordan wasn't really feeling up to going back into the city, so he hung out in the member lounge and read, while I went into the city by myself. It was weird not having J with me in this big city, but I did it! Just went to this market for some last minute souvenirs. I just got back and we are in a Starbucks now using their internet.....our last blog! :( We hate to go, but we leave with such great memories! It'll be tough but we're looking forward to getting back to the routine of things at home. We LOVED all the places/countries we visited. You guys should go! Cambodia was my favorite place....Siem Reap especially. I loved the small town, our guesthouse, the people and the culture their was just so amazing to experience. Jordan's favorite place was Luang Prabang, Laos. He liked the little village feel of the town and the mountain scenery. We both enjoyed Bangkok. It felt a lot like being in Atlanta, the big city feeling! We can't say enough...the words just don't do it justice.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blogs. Can't wait to share our pictures. Pray for our safe travel! God willing, we'll see you guys soon.

Our last couple of days...

Oh yea, we forgot to give a shout out Nick Chaplinski for telling us about wearing yellow in Thailand on Mondays. We were right there with the locals wearing yellow...we felt good about it. Thanks for letting us know that Nicholas! :)

Yesterday, which was Wednesday, we woke up so late! I don't know what getting into us. Since we've been in bangkok, we've been a bit sluggish. With half the day wasted we went back to the shopping center to get Jordan's suit fitted for the last time. I think it's going to look great! My man was looking sexy! :) Anyway, afterwards I had to walk around some more to see three of the floors that we missed the day before. I can shop forever, but with Jordan getting a little tired of it, we went for a late lunch at the food court then headed back to our hotel.

While Jordan caught up on some emails, I went shopping again! There is a shopping center with a few little stores right outside our hotel. I couldn't t resist...it was right there!

Jordan made reservations for a dinner cruise. It was nice. We road the boat down the river, which left right from our hotel. It was a beautiful night, with the breeze, it was perfect. We got to see some great sights along the way as well. The food was good. We had three different Thai desserts, one being mango and sticky rice...which I had heard a lot about. Oh my...it was so good. Their fruit here is just so delicious. We talked about going back out into town, but both of us looked at each other and had the same thought....getting into bed early, sounded great!

Now it's Thursday morning for us. This is our last full day! We woke early to go to the floating market. But Jordan doesn't feel well, so we'll probably wait and go tomorrow. We have all day and night and then tomorrow, we pretty much have all day because we don't have to be at the airport til later. Our flight doesn't leave til like 1:30 A.M. Crazy! We hope to get in the floating market and a nice thai massage, and a little more shopping before we leave. We'll write again soon.

Shopping In Bangkok!

Sa wat diii! (Hello) from Bangkok, Thailand. We're trying to keep up with all the greetings. It gets a little confusing after a while. They have all been kinda similar. Here in Thailand, when people greet us, they greet us with huge smiles and say “Sa wat dii” and they also put their hands together in front of their chest and while bowing. It really makes a greeting more meaningful! I love it. So we're really trying to remember to do that every time we greet people here.

We were a little shocked upon arrival when we walked into the Marriott Resort and Spa. We've gotten used to the small guesthouses and just being in Laos with no a/c, the Marriott was like paradise. It's kinda a great way to end our trip, though me and Jordan were just talking about missing the guesthouse experience. We are being so spoiled here. The staff is super nice. Since Jordan is a member through his job, we get all the extra perks. Food, drinks, chocolate truffles and flowers on our pillows each night. It's wonderful.

We got to Bangkok on Sunday afternoon around 4:30ish. We indulged in their delicious spread that had prepared for us before heading up to our room. Our room is great! It's ice cold, but we're not complaining. We have the river right outside our balcony and a great view of Bangkok.

To get anywhere, we have to take the boat across the river and then walk, grab a tuk-tuk/taxi or ride the air train. With not much time left in our day, we went to town to this huge night market called Suan Lum Night Bazaar. We took a tuk-tuk, but we didn't realize that the tuk-tuks here in the big city go just as fast as the cars. We nearly put our lives at risk! I was holding on for dear life. We won't do that again. This particular night market was really cool. It was huge and it had this big food court that we ate at, as well as an entire row of different beer choices. Once we got our food, we sat down and watched this lady sing, then they put down a big screen and played the soccer games. The market had a ton of stuff for sell, but we wanted to wait and see the other markets and the going price for certain things before we bought.

Day 2 in Bangkok...our first full day. We kinda took our time getting up and going. We were lazy. Once our tummies were full, a breakfast buffet that nearly offered everything, we made our way to the Grand Palace. We read that we were suppose to wear closed toe shoes and that our shoulders had to be covered. So we were prepared for that. But once we got there, we found out Jordan had to wear pants. Luckily they expect people to dress inappropriately, so they gave out pants, skirts, etc. we just had to return them of course. So Jordan walked around the Grand Palace in these cute blue draw string pants. Ha. (along with a ton of of other people) The palaces were magnificent. Wow, the detail was incredible. The murals, statues and columns were all amazing. We saw the Emerald Buddha. (quick history – this buddha was covered in some type of gold material and when it was being moved, a man noticed that the nose of the buddha was chipped and they realized underneath the material was emerald.) It was really cool to see. We continued on to Wat Pho, another temple....seeing a few more Buddhas, one being the declining buddha. It was huge and laying horizontally. That was pretty neat.

We wanted to see the Golden Buddha, so we headed to Chinatown. We grabbed lunch at some random restaurant on our way. It started pouring down raining once we got to the temple. Were heard other people talking and realized that the real Golden Buddha was inside a near by temple under construction. So we were looking at a fake one for the time being. We were bummed, because how many times will we be in Bangkok to see this! Oh well. It was raining hard, so we sat looking at the fake buddha until the rain slowed down.

Wet and tired, we arrived at out hotel in time for the afternoon feast! We ate up, showered and got ready for the night. When we were getting dressed, downstairs outside our balcony, Aspara dancers were performing. So cool! We went to the Pat Pong night market. Lots of name brand stuff for cheap. We weren't really hungry seeing as how we eat so much free food at our hotel! So we each grabbed a kabob from a street stand. Yummy! We went to this little bar and listened to live music for awhile. It was really good, I could have listened longer, but the boat stops running after midnight, so we had to make it back in time.

Tuesday...Day 3 in Bangkok. Oh my goodness....our trip will be over soon. We don't want to think about it! We went to see Jim Thompson's house, which is a guy who really initiated the silk industry in Thailand. He was really wealthy and pretty much made silk what it is today in this country's economy. He mysteriously disappeared some time ago and now after being moved and restored somewhat, his house is a staple attraction in Bangkok. It was nice to see. The house was unique and it seemed like everything in it had a story, which was pretty cool.

For the rest of the day, we had planned to see all the shopping malls that are such a big talk here in Bangkok. They are all right there together. They are huge, some like 6 stories high. So needless to say, we weren't going to walk through them all, but we went in and out of them for the rest of the afternoon. One of them was more of a bargain market type setup but the other ones were basically a normal shopping mall. We had heard that the prices were lower than normal and brand names were cheap. We didn't see that though at the shopping malls. Same stores and same price in USA. But it was still fun to walk through them. At the market type one, Jordan decided to get fitted for a suit...the price was right! So he'll get a suit and a shirt. He's excited!

After a long day of walking and being on our feet non stop, we went to the pool and enjoyed some drinks while hanging out in the hot tub! I love a hot tub! It felt so good! Later, we took a taxi to this neighborhood we had read about in our guide books. It's where a lot of tourist go and hang out...lots of restaurants, shops and bars. It was weird because the taxi dropped us off in the wrong area, so we walked the rest of the way and all of a sudden we turn on this street and it's full of people and interactions. It was really cool. We ate at this little random street restaurant. The food was good. Jordan finally had a taste of the Pad Thai. He was pleased! We spent the rest of the night walking up and down the street, shopping, stopping at little places to get a drink and people watching (our favorite thing to do..ha) It was really a fun place to be. So many people just enjoying their time in a different country, all in the same place, experiencing the same thing...and the locals working hard to make it a great experience for us. The people are really what have made this trip incredible to me. They are just wonderful! :)

It's Wednesday morning now and we are about to head back to the suit place for Jordan to get his last fitting before they complete it. They will deliver it straight to our hotel for us this afternoon. Oh yeah...They do it right in Thailand! :) Just three more days...

Our Time in Luang Prabang, Laos!

Luang Prabang, Laos was awesome. We could have stayed a couple more days there. It's a small charming town, set in the mountains. It was so cool to get off the plane and be surrounded by those beautiful mountains. We got there sometime early evening, so we really didn't have much time to do anything when we arrived. Our guesthouse people picked us up from the airport. We stayed at the Thongbay Guesthouse. It was so cool! They were little individual huts, facing the river. So cute! But there was no air condition and no internet. It really was ok though, it wasn't as humid and HOT in Luang Prabang as it was in Cambodia. Our house was a little further out from town, so we always had to take a tuk tuk into town. We went to town that night for dinner at a french restaurant that offered free internet to the customers...so that's why we chose it! We got on quickly to blog and change emails before heading to the night market. Oh my goodness....there night market was awesome. The best yet. It was really unique. They had many handcrafted pieces made by the locals and other fun items and sovenirs. I just love looking. It's forever long, down the street, so I kept looking while Jordan went to a bar close by to get a taste of the Laos beer! We spent the rest of the night walking around the down town area, scoping out all the restaurants and bars we wanted to go to before our quick 3 day visit was up!

We woke at 7:30AM by a knock at our door, which indicated that our breakfast was ready for us on ou patio! Yes...they brought breakfast to our room. It was nice....we rolled out of bed and went to our porch where they had little mats to lay on and a try for the food. We sat there and ate our breakfast while watching the local Lao people across the river working hard in the fields and the children running around playing in the dirt and water. The weather was actually nice. There was a little breeze and it was overcast skies, so it wasn't hot hot!

A van picked us up from this tour company in town to take us to a spot where we trek up this mountain to view the Kuang Si Waterfalls. Near the entrance we saw black bears, in a cave of course and we were supposed to see this tiger...but there was a sign up on his cage, he had passed way. Oh well. So we keep trekking through the trials. It started raining. so the trails were really slippery. We saw smaller waterfalls as we kept going. It was so neat to see. We were surrounded by this forest with lots of tall tress and little streams everywhere. The water was a turquoise color, it was so pretty. Once we got to the big fall, you could feel the mist on your face. We actually got really close to it, it was so thrilling! We were able to take a swim in the lower level of the falls. It was ice cold, but well worth it. On our way back to town, stopped at this Khamu village where local people lived and selled items. We walked through the village, watching the children run and play. The place was really sad. They didn't have much at all. I kinda got a weird feeling walking through there because I felt like we were like spectators, looking at them, etc. Once we were back at our guesthouse, we hung out there for awhile. It was mid afternoon, so too early for dinner, but to late for a big lunch, so we just ordered some spring rolls and sticky rice and ate it on our porch. Yum Yum! That night we walked through the markets again, buying little things here and there. It's a little different here in Laos. In Cambodia, we used the american dollars, but in Laos, they prefer you use their money, which is called Kips. So when we bargained at the market, it was always a challenge to figure out the money thing. I usually just leave it up to Jordan to figure out. ha. We have to use the ATM machine to get Kips and the thing is, is it doesn't let you take out but so much at a time. At one point we were walking around with a million dollars....in kips that is. It was funny to say that we had a million dollars in our pockets though! We ate at a restaurant called The 3 Nagas. It was a 5 course meal. It was different, some of the food was a little strange, but it was a cool experience. Afterwards we went to this cool bar that we read about in our guide. It's laid out like stadium seating kinda where it gradually goes up. Tables being on each section and foliage just everywhere. It was a really fun spot. Very cool atmosphere, lots of people hanging out. It made us miss our group of friends!

The next morning we woke at 5:30AM to go into town to see the Monk's alm ceremony. It's a ceremony where the local people sit on the side of the streets and give items to the monks. Items were like sticky rice, flowers or fruit. At dawn the monks, dressed in orange robes with their heads shaved, walked in a line to all the people, receiving their gifts. We noticed that the monks gave to the children, instead of the children giving to them. It was interesting. It was cool to see and worth getting up at the crack of dawn for sure. We went to breakfast at this cafe called Saffron, known for the best coffee in Luang Prabang. It was on the river, so that made it even better.

Since it was still like 7:30 AM, we went back to our house and rested a bit. I sat and read on the porch and Jordan joined me, but quickly fell asleep! After his quick nap, we were ready for a full day of adventure. We rented bicycles from our guesthouse and rode them into town. We planned to just cycle around the town and look at different sights and kinds just see what we wanted to see of this happy little foreign town. Getting on the bike was a little weird at first. It'd been a while since I'd been on a bike. It got easier after we got off the beaten, rocky path our guesthouse was on. We rode everywhere, up hills, down hills, looking at all the beautiful mountain views. We stopped for a break and I got a Oreo smoothie and Jordan got a fruit smoothie. We continued on, going to the riverfront. We saw this row of massage places, so we stopped for a Lao foot massage. It was so good. We enjoyed it. And it was even cheaper than Cambodia. Laos foot massage was 40,000 kips, which translated into about 5 bucks for us. :) We ate lunch on the river, went to the main street and went into a couple of shops. Around mid afternoon, we were beat. Cycling is great exercise! We went back to our house for our daily afternoon down time.

For sunset, we walked up the Phousi Mountain, now that was some exercise, I was about to die! Once at the top, we could see all of Laos. It was amazing. So beautiful. We watched the sunset behind the mountains. It was a better sunset than the one we saw at Angkor Wat. The trek down was much easier than going up. Since it was our last night in Luang Prabang (it went by so fast), we decided to go through the market one more time. We went to eat dinner at a place on the river. We ate some traditional Lao food. Once again, very pleased!

To end the night, we both had a traditional Lao massage together. We dressed in the same outfit and laid on the mats side by side. The ladies did their thing. It was a different kind of full body massage...definitely not like what Jordan had experienced in Siem Reap. They did a lot of pushing down, standing on and really deep motions. Sometimes it kinds hurt, but for the most part, it was relaxing.

That's it from Luang Prabang, Laos. It was incredible. We didn't want to leave of course. But we were so excited about our time in Thailand. We expected it to be much different than the places we've been. We hope to keep you updated ASAP from Bangkok! We are beginning to see the end in sight...it's so depressing. :(

Luang Prabang, Laos

It's Thursday and we're in Laos! Just got here and figured out that our little hut doesn't have internet. So we probably won't blog while we are here. That's too bad! From the little bit we've seen, this place is amazing! It's completely different from Cambodia. We're excited! We'll try to keep you posted.

Last Day In Siem Reap, Cambodia

Our last full day in Siem Reap was a lazy one! We really haven't had a day yet of just relaxation...not really doing much. So today we had breakfast at our guesthouse and just kinda relaxed by the pool. We had lunch at the Red Piano on Pub Street. We walked around town recording all the action on our camcorder so we can remember this place forever! In the afternoon around 4ish, we got a tuk tuk to take up to the Phnom Bakheng temple. We road an elephant up to the top and watched the sun set. It was really cool. The elephant ride was fun. I was a little scared at first, then I just felt bad for the elephant, he seemed to be struggling a little - - he does this all day everyday...poor guy! After sun set we headed back to our house, showered and off to dinner. It was my pick tonight, so I choose to have dinner at the Cambodian BBQ place. We cooked our meat on this cooker thing in the middle of the table and they provided broth, noddles rice, sauces, etc. We cooked and ate our own chicken, cow, squid, SNAKE and CROCODILE! It was all very yummy, actually. The snake was a little chewy and the crocodile was a bit like chicken but a different texture. It was interesting.

To end our time in Siem Reap, or I guess Cambodia as a matter of a fact (wow, i can't believe we're leaving Cambodia already) Jordan got a traditional thai massage and I got a manicure and pedicure. Full massage = $6 Manicure and Pedicure = $5 each :) My manicure and pedicure was great....pretty much what you would expected! Although for Jordan, his experience was much different. His traditional thai massage got a little too personal for his taste. Nothing too crazy, just a little uncomfortable. We laugh at it though. I think it's funny. :)

We hate to say goodbye to Cambodia. We've had such wonderful experiences here. The people have been great. I can't say enough good things about this place. It's hard to leave, but knowing that there are more fun places to go, we are excited. We look forward to Luang Prabang, Laos!