Thailand - 7 - Last day in Thailand

We woke up nice and early on our last day to a very nice day. We took the subway and sky train to the tourist's boat, which we road up the river to where we could start the Grand Palace walking tour listed in our Lonely Planet.

We walked down the Amulet market, which had every Amulet Thailand offers, as well as an abundance of other random things, such as health powders and teas, and even people trying to get us to buy Tiger pelts and claws. We just shook our heads quietly to these requests and walked faster, since it was not only sad to see these pelts displayed so openly (they bribe the police to let them sell illegal thongs), but it's just as illegal to kill Tigers and possess Tiger pelts in Thailand as it is in the US. Even if we wanted such a thing (which we absolutely did NOT), we would never have even gotten one out of Thailand.

After the Amulet Market, we wandered into, and about the Grand Palace for awhile. The grand palace was amazing. All of the wats in Thailand are so big and bright, with roofs covered in colored glazed terracotta tiles , but the Grand Palace is almost blinding. Books recommend not to visit there mid day, and it was no wonder, because at only 10 am it was already sweltering among all the reflective surfaces of the Palace.

After the Palace, we went to visit Wat Pho, which has the world's largest reclining Buddah. This Buddah is huge. We tried to take some pictures showing just the massive scale of this things, but it was hard. I was barely as tall as the Buddah's second smallest toe, and it is 15 meters high. It's also 46 meters long, and the building housing it rings with the sound of people constantly throwing prayer coins they had purchased into each of a long row of prayer containers.

After we were done at the wat, we went to a local restaurant for a lunch of a chicken, beef and veggie dish, a appetizer plate with shrimp cakes, spring rolls, tempura, and chicken wings. We also had pineapple and Mango smoothies.

After lunch, we hopped on the boat to China Town for our China Town walking tour.

China Town was either a shopper's dream, or a shopper's nightmare. It was shop after shop, open to a long and cramped alleyway. There was barely any space to squeeze past all the people, let alone the people with cartloads of goods and food for sale and the motorbikes that would periodically attempt to squeeze past the throng.

When we finally made our way out of the China Town alley, we decided to head back to the hotel to get ready to check out as well as to relax a bit from the heat and all the walking we had to be doing. I was excited to find a camera shop on the way back to the hotel that had the new lens cap (with the strap to keep it attached to my camera strap) for my camera, because I was afraid that my camera lens would be ruined at any moment without the lens cap (which it could have been, and that would have been a disaster for a less than two week old camera).

After we packed and checked out, we still had a few hours before we needed to be at the airport, so we decided to have the hotel's dinner buffet. It was probably the best buffet I have ever had. They had Indian food, a ton of lamb dishes and sushi, Thai food, western food, delicious cheese, and just all around good food. My favorite dish was steamed sea bass with chili, lime, garlic, and cilantro. It was probably my all-time favorite cooked fish dish, and I should remember to e-mail the hotel to see if they'll give me the recipe.

After dinner, the hotel called us a cab, which took us to the airport. We got checked in without any difficulties, but due to technical difficulties, our plane was canceled. We then spent the next hour running around to get re-booked on a new flight to take us back to Korea, and ended up having to go through security three more times due to all the running around and confusion with the planes. Luckily, it ended up working out, and we got on a plane about an hour and a half after our original plane was supposed to leave, and we arrived back in Korea safely and with no other incidents.

All in all it was a pretty awesome honeymoon, and if I could do it again, the only thing I would change is perhaps the length of time we were there. otherwise, it was wonderful.

Thailand Day 6 - Back to Bangkok

Our last day on Koh Samet, we woke up pretty early to have breakfast and get packed so that we would have time to swim and relax. Even though I was still a little afraid of stepping on another Sea Urchin, Cody and I went back in the ocean, but we made sure not to go too deep, because neither he or I wanted a repeat of the day before.

At 12:30 we headed out to the boat, and as we waited to leav, we watched a swarm of small fish crowd the boat and eat food that some people were throwing off the boat for them. We also watched a small Pike swim around the fish, presumably trying to find any small stragglers to eat. Cody was relieved to have the ride back be less scary, but the boat was still rocking a lot more than either of us were used to.

When we arrived back at the pier, we debated on getting a cab back to the bus terminal so that we could catch the bus back to Bangkok, but the hotel told us it would only be 1800 baht, or $53.50 to have a cab take us back to Bangkok. Even though that's quite a bit of money for Thailand, that's cheap for a 2 hour cab in Korea, and ridiculously cheap for a cab in the US, so we decided to splurge and ride in comfort (instead of having to closely watch our bags the whole time on the bus) all the way back to Bangkok and to our hotel. It was a little annoying because our cab driver, Mr. Joe, kept bothering us about booking him for a tour of Bangkok, even giving us all of his brochures of places he would take us. It was pretty easy to say no though, especially since we only had one more day in Thailand, and so we just kept saying no, and when he gave up for awhile, we took a long nap.

Mr. Jo did get us to our hotel in good time, and so we checked in and changed clothes, and then we headed out to take the subway and then sky train to a local shopping area to eat and then go to a Hard Rock Cafe to try and get Bangkok drumsticks for Adam. We ended up eating at McDonald's, because we want to try McDonald's in every country we go to to see what the differences were. The main differences in Thailand McDonald's is that they have double fish sandwiches, and double Big Macs, but nothing really special. After eating, we headed to an internet cafe for a little while, and then went to the Hard Rock Cafe, but our luck hasn't been so great for drumsticks, and they were sold out. We also went to try to find a replacement camera lens cap, but we couldn't find one in the one camera store we were able to locate.

After we gave up on the lens cap, we headed back to the hotel to swim in their pretty pool with a magnolia tree planted in the middle, and a small waterfall running along one side. We also ordered a yummy Zombie drink and a Planter's Punch. After we had our fill of the pool, we headed over to the hotel hottub to soak and relax.

After our soak, we headed back to our room and decided to order room service for the first time. We ordered yummy Asparagus and Portabello mushrooms in oyster sauce and chicken rice baked in a Pineapple. It was all really delicious.

Thailand Day 5 - Koh Samet

We took day five pretty easy, as we had been going constantly for the first four days. We got up early (but not too early) for the breakfast and then we went swimming in the ocean and started looking for pretty sea shells to take home.

We swam out pretty deep and were diving to the bottom to pull up HUGE (like, bigger than our hands) mussels, to look at and just generally playing around, when I suddenly felt a horrible poke on my feet. I am a really good swimmer, so I immediately started swimming away and I pulled up my feet for Cody to look at, because it felt like I had been poked with chicken wire (for you country children who have dealt with chicken wire, you know how that stings), but then it hurt much, much worse than I thought it should have. Cody suggested that maybe I stepped on a sea urchin and to have it checked, so I swam to shore and limped to the restaurant to tell them that I stepped on something. They looked at my toe and one ankle and confirmed that the purple spots now on them were in fact, Sea Urchin punctures. It got both my feet, but luckily on only three spots, because the more stabs you have, the more dangerous it can be.

After confirming what it was, they called over one of the employees, who brought rags and a bottle of vinegar. He then spent a very agonizing 15 minutes rubbing my toe and ankle and pouring vinegar on them to disperse the poison so that my body could fight it better. It hurt SO bad and I spent the whole time sobbing on Cody's shoulder, and trying, successfully not to scream. I don't know why the rubbing hurt more than the the throbbing puncture, but I never want that to happen to me ever again.

After they finished, and my toe felt MUCH better (Thank goodness, or I would have been PISSED), we walked the two miles in to the nearest town to have a lunch of seafood Pad Thai and Traditional Spicy Jungle Curry.

After lunch, we meandered back to the resort to lounge on the beach and drink Pina Coladas and Pineapple Juice, and I decided to take a nap on the beach.

After my nap, Cody and I took a shower and went to play around in the pool some more (I was really not up to going in the ocean yet).

After the pool, we got dressed and then headed back down by the beach to get relaxing massages. We couldn't do it when we were supposed to though, because the hotel forgot to book it, and so we had to hang out in our room for an extra hour, but then we were able to have our massages. They were really nice, and I liked watching some large red ants climb a nearby tree while we were laying there, but unfortunately, the mosquitoes started coming out during the massage.

After the massage, we changed and were treated to a candlelit dinner where we happiuly munched on:
Fish soup (yummy, tender fish)
Chicken curry
Mixed seafood with fermented salted eggs (good, except for the eggs)
Pork with vegetables
Mixed tempura
Mixed fruit
and a Caiperinha and Planter's Punch

It was all very good and just thinking about it makes me hungry again. After dinner we took a walk on the beach and then headed to bed.

Thailand Day 4 - Back to Bangkok and to Koh Samet (Better late then never)

Ok, so I am finally going to finish these Thailand blogs, because I am so behind.

On day 4, we woke up at 5:45 am to check out and pick up our breakfast boxes so that we could get to the airport on time. The hotel shuttle then took us to the airport where we were able to check in and fly to Bangkok with no problems, we even arrived in Bangkok 15 minutes early. Unfortunately, we had to wait almost an hour for our luggage to finish being loaded on to the belt, but oh well.

We made our way without incident to the airport shuttle, which took us to the bus terminal where we were able to hop on the 2 1/2 hour bus to Rayong. We managed to avoid the illegal taxis and we made our way to a small street vendor where we picked two random soups. One was a duck and giblet soup, and the other was a fish ball soup. They were pretty good, but were interesting at the same time.

After eating, we had to pay a random "taxi" (we are pretty sure it was illegal... oh well) to take us to the Pier for our resort, but he got us there with no problems. We had to wait an hour for the Resort boat, but we spent the time wandering the piers, and just generally hanging out.

When we finally got on the boat, the water was so rough. We were convinced we were going to capsize twice, because the boat was pretty close to being half out of the water. The driver seemed to know what we was doing though, and we made it safely to our resort, where we checked in and we were given blue margaritas as our welcome drinks. Our room was beautiful, with raised floors, cathedral ceilings, and our bed covered with flowers and towels shaped like hearts. It was so nice.

We dumped our bags, took a quick shower and headed down to the open, beach-front restaurant to grab some happy-hour strawberry daiquiris and take a swim in the ocean. After a quick dip, we decided to have dinner. I ordered fried sea bass with vegetables, and Cody ordered a spicy papaya salad with shrimp and pork . We also ordered sticky rice and I ordered a yummy happy hour Mojito (I love Mojitos).

After dinner, we went for a walk and then we decided to go swimming in the pool for an hour. After swimming, we got dressed and then had dessert of fried pineapple and banana with ice cream, and then we headed off to bed for the night.