Koh Yao Island - Day Six - A Day Away from "Kill Me Now"

Having been guests of the Paradise previously, we planned our activities while on Koh Yao accordingly. The kayaking trip through the sea caves? Did it in 2004. Rock climbing in Krabi? Save it for the next trip. With our history on the island and the probability of us returning a third time already being sorted out in detail[1], we made the bold decision to do absolutely nothing all day.

Doing absolutely nothing sounds leisurely but takes a lot of sudden planning. It starts with the question of getting out of bed. Do we or don’t we? The desire to get early morning photos got our butts hustling by seven. Swimming followed, breakfast was had (coconut jam, oh glorious coconut jam) and we were back to our villa by nine. The next question we encountered was, “How many provisions do we truly need when our villa is just 40 meters away?” We decided on a lot and packed the beach bag full with four different sunscreens, two ipods, four books, one dominoes set, two headbands, four towels, one beach blanket, two travel journals and pens, Cubans, a pit viper and an array of fruit. You can never be too prepared.

Once set up on the beach, perfectly situated under a flowering frangipani tree, we headed off to the other side of the cove for some beach exploration. From the boat, we had spotted a nice beach and were determined to bushwhack our way over there. After climbing over painful limestone, we decided to have a go in the deep tide waters. As we were standing there, talking about our game plan, a large blue crab[2] found interest in David’s exposed toes. Waggling in his flip flop, his big toe looked to be a tasty meal to the crab and he started to sneak closer and closer. My instinct, of course, was to pick up the camera. I told David to waggle his toe a bit more. He said, “But the crab will attack me!” By this time, the crab wasn’t just scoping out his toe…he had his arms stretched wide ready to wield his claws. Being the loving wife, I answered “Don’t be ridiculous! The crab won’t attack you!” while I positioned myself with my finger on the camera trigger to catch the attack going down. Ever trusting of me, David waggled his toes. Sure enough, the crab made a sudden fast movement toward David who was, fortunately, a millisecond quicker than the crab. He had yanked his foot out of his flip flop, leaving the crab with nothing but a clawful of rubber. We shook the crab off of his shoe and watched it immediately attack a sea snail. After watching in awe while the crab devoured the snail, we decided that it was just too dangerous to continue on. This turf belonged to the crabs.

Back at our beach post, we read, we swam, we read, we swam and we were looking for something better to do by 11:30. I was able to schedule a Thai massage for four but needed a change of pace in the meantime. When in doubt, eat. We headed off to the beachside restaurant for a light lunch...fresh ahi sashimi and two orders of prawn caesar salad. The sashimi was perfect, the salads were tasty, but it was all upstaged by the appearance of Man, our dear island friend. He presented us with a baggie of yam thale rod ded, a spicy salad made with prawns, mussels, crab, and squid. His mother-in-law, known as the best cook on the island, had heard that we were looking for some truly spicy food and sent Man off with her famous salad and an invitation to come over to lunch the following day. Lunch at Man’s house? We couldn’t believe our luck. What a cultural opportunity this would be.

While we entertained ideas of the food we’d be served the next day, we dug into our initial sampling. The ingredients had been pulled out of the water that morning from Man’s very own fish farm. As we were eating it, staff members kept coming over to make yummy noises and to ask if it came from Man’s mom. When we would affirm, they would respond with “pet chin chin”, the ultimate in spiciness. We agreed. Covered in a green chili sauce with liberal additions of red chilis, the salad was definitely pet chin chin. Every single last bit of it went into our stomachs. If we had been alone, I would have licked the plate.

Back at the beach, it was time to head in for a swim before tide went out. A half hour later and it was gone, leaving some very fresh tide pools to explore. While David went back to the villa to grab the camera, I headed into the murky sand to find starfish. Boy, did I ever find them! By the time that David came back to the tide pools, he found me reclining on my elbows with starfish lined up from my belly to my toes. Big ones, little tiny baby ones, ones missing a leg, ones missing two legs, all difficult models. Those things can move. Frankly, that was half the fun, lying there while starfish crawled off my body. It’s like feeling all the legs of a millipede only way less grody. We crowned me “Natalie, Queen of Starfish”.

When the afternoon rolled around, we moved our operation to our pool. With no tide, we wanted to be able to take a quick dip. Both of us plopped into our recliners with books to enjoy some peace and quiet. Right then, two German women encroached on our turf. They started walking up our private beach with inquisitive looks on their faces. Once I spotted what they were looking at, I yelled “Grab the camera!” to David as I went to check out the monitor lizard that had walked onto our property. He was a beauty at about three feet long. The property manager had informed us that a five meter one lived in the next bay over…the way the little one looked at me did not make me want to venture over for a look at the large one. His eyes said, “I’m calm now, but one wrong move and I’ll thrash your leg with my tail and make you cry like a little girl.”

Just as I was about to hop in the pool, I realized that I had a Thai massage appointment to go to. I ran down to the spa pavilion and changed into my sarong in record time. I had spent the day mentally prepared myself for a dismal Thai massage experience. In 2004, I had the worst Thai massage of my life at this very location. It was like a terrible Swedish massage with clothes on, not the tugging, stretching, kneading experience that it should be. Brethney had tried it the previous day and stated that she kept having to tell the girl “harder” but finally got what she was looking for. As Brethney’s previous Thai massage experience had been done by a Russian woman in a Slovakian spa retreat, I quickly ascertained that she didn’t have any idea what Thai massage was supposed to be like. No matter how many times I asked “harder”, “firmer”, or “deeper”, it just didn’t come through and I found myself thinking about balancing my checkbook. You know that it is a terrible massage when you find contemplating finances more relaxing. Her actions were slightly redeemed by a proper Thai back-cracking at the end but I was ever so happy to come back to the villa to find David poolside with two pineapple juices with coconut rum awaiting my return. As we had picked up pineapple juice and Malibu rum in town a few days previous, he kept them coming, complete with pineapple wedges and orchids. Note - do not leave a fruity drink at ground level. The next sip you take may be filled with ants.

We headed over to dinner later than usual; the place was packed when we arrived. It was seafood buffet night. Or, in Natalie’s world, everything right in the world on a plate. Give me seafood for any meal every day and I will be eternally happy. A large boat sat at the very end. It contained quite the arrangement of seafood. Entire fish, some measuring three feet long, were laid out on the ice with rainbow lobsters, giant oysters larger than my fist, huge tiger prawns, blue crab, squid and other assorted sea creatures. Ma laughed when we put in our order: two giant oysters, one rainbow lobster, squid, and one entire fish. We snacked on steamed mussels, sucked down the oysters for hordes oeuvres, devoured every last bit of the fish and sucked the lobster dry. After we finished that round, we ordered another lobster. All of that for less than dinner for two at Bambara.

We visited with the Gokce’s afterward, getting tips from them on how to dress for lunch with a Muslim family the next day. I settled on a long skirt and a wispy long sleeved shirt. David opted for linen pants and a short sleeved linen shirt. With our hosts being Thai Muslims, we didn’t need to worry too much about modesty but erred on the side of caution anyway in a desire to be respectful to their home. Back in our villa, we couldn’t fall asleep. It was like we were going to Disneyland the following day. What was it like in a Thai home? What sort of deliciousness would we be served? What is Man’s wife like? Most of all, we were thinking, “Wow. What an honor this will be.” We couldn’t wait for the following day.



[1] Probability of Return: A wise Swedish woman on our trip gave us the wicked idea of giving birth in Krabi. The company would basically pay you to take a post-partum holiday. They say that it takes a village to raise a child…with a large network of support on Koh Yao, we would feel comfortable handing over our newborn to Ma or her family, Man’s family, or any of the staff members for a few hours while we could recover from baby. Babies are most precious in Thailand…Islands seem to have strong baby communities as well. While it’s a splendid thought, I figure that we will go back multiple times in our life anyway. Plus, that just may be to Brangelina.
[2] Large Blue Crab: There really are no large blue crabs. They’re all just so adorable…yet so aggressive!

Koh Yao Island - Day Five - From Elephants to Snakes

From elephants, we moved on to a local restaurant for lunch. The entire time, I was pretty depressed that it wasn’t street vendor food. I was even more depressed when more white people showed up to eat there. The bathroom, however, thrilled me. The last time we were in Thailand, almost all toilets were like this one...a simple hole that you perch your feet on both sides, do your thing, and then "flush" using a nearby bucket of water. In the past four years, Thailand has westernized most of the toilets. So, yes, finding this toilet was like finding an ancient Thai gem.

From lunch, we went into Ao Nang village for the “shopping” portion of our tour. It wasn’t my speed of shopping so I sat outside with Man while David went on a mankini hunt. Don’t worry, dear readers, it was unsuccessful. Man laughed at David, telling me that it is normally girls who like to shop. We then went on to discuss the finer points of Lady Boys until David came out bearing a new shirt.

It was hot. Hot. HOT. My body temperature quickly rose and steps were taken to cool me down immediately. Once I was good to go, we started to head back to the pier. Passing a long stretch of street vendors, I asked if we could stop. Man was incredulous that we wanted to stop for street food. Never in the history of the Paradise had a guest wanted to eat from street vendors when out on an excursion.

These vendors were awesome! Their carts attached to their motorbikes and they would just cook up food while sitting on their motorbike seat. We walked the length of the vendors and found two that looked delicious. The first was making som tom, green papaya salad. We ordered it “ped ma”, very spicy, and finally experienced some of our first truly spicy food of the trip. Of course, it still wasn’t spicy enough for us. The vendor’s husband was grilling up chicken so I ordered a large piece of that. It was served to me without the traditional spicy chili sauce…Silly Thai’s making assumptions. Man went to ask for some for me, arguing with the vendor that I could handle it. David had ordered tofu pad thai from another vendor and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced in the wonderful world of pad thai. We slurped down every last bit of our spicy second lunch and headed back to the pier.

By the time that we got back to the Paradise, it took all of my strength to stay awake until dinner. We both pulled through with a dip in our pool, a shower, and some reading. Arriving at the beach bar early, we found the general manager sitting alone. We sat down with him, ordered a drink, and enjoyed a cigar with him as he lamented about it being one of his last. The next day was his wife's birthday and it had been a promise a long time coming. He was a delightful individual to speak with, having a sound mind and an impressive business history. Retiring to Thailand to manage a beautiful resort on a small island was his version of paradise. Ours too. I'm convinced that David and I have twenty more years to make bigger names for ourselves so that we, too, can retire fabulously at 50 (or 55, if I want to totally morph into my father's mini-me). Being an orchid fan, I commented on the beautiful orchids growing on every tree. He explained their symbiotic relationship and how the orchid helps prevent a specific type of palm disease. All trees were numbered...David thought that it was so that you could figure out which villa was yours at night when you had a few too many drinks. Instead, they were numbered by the island's environmental police. Michael told us of the strict building laws, the strict nature laws (basically, you cannot remove any plant unless is has fallen), and how they number each palm tree to ensure that none have been removed. If one dies, it must be replaced within a specified time period. Thus, we learned that 40 does not say "turn right! This is your villa, drunkie!" but instead provides a way for the environmental police who randomly jump out of the forest to patrol the land keep track of the trees. In the meantime, nine year old girls in Bangkok are selling themselves.

Soon, the Gokce's showed up and it was drinks all around. Another honeymooning couple, Keith and Brethney (of Dublin), arrived. They had met the Gokce's previously, sat down, and immediately ordered us a round of drink. And another. And then another. Those crazy Irish. Brethney said that I completely looked Irish. If looking at her was any comparison, I totally do. We had the nose, the lips, the hair, the skin, the eyes. We spent the night drinking it up. Every round we tried to buy was refused between the Turks and the Irish. When on vacation, we develop bad health habits. At the same time, we're being active all day. I believe in a counterbalance there.

It was nearing nine when the bunch of us headed off to dinner. The five others walked through the sand directly to the restaurant. I, on the other hand, had to use the facilities so I took the dark path where the beach meets jungle to get to the restroom. While on the path, I noticed something up ahead about five feet.

Slithering, it made it’s way to the path. I hadn’t even completed the mental thought of, “Oh my god! Is that a COBRA?!!!” before three staff members ran up to the path with large sticks and started whacking away. My fear was confirmed. I was watching a five and a half foot long cobra being killed in front of my very eyes. As they picked up what I presumed was a lifeless body, I started to rush toward to ask if I could see it. No one would let me come near and quickly ushered it away behind a fence.

As I rounded the bathroom to the dining table, I couldn’t wait to tell everyone what I had just witnessed. As soon as they saw me, everyone started saying things like, “I’m glad your okay!”, “Good thing you came from that direction! There’s a cobra out here!” I related the cobra killing back to all the guests and got filled in on the parts that I missed. Apparently, right before our group headed from the bar to dinner, a three year old girl saw the cobra and said “snake” to everyone. The cobra went right past the restaurant and onto the path where I was coming up. The three employees that had killed it? Brave restaurant servers. Later on, one proudly came over to me with his cellphone bearing a photo of the dead cobra.

While the official hotel stance on cobras was “deny, deny, deny”, one staff member told us that there was another one that they had been trying to catch. It was currently taking up residence under the spa pavilion. “Don’t worry! Not king cobra! Only ngoo how si nooan! King cobra bites throat. Other cobra bite legs and ankles. You survive leg bites.” For some odd reason, this didn’t make me feel better. From then on, each step we took was a bit more tentative. Upon our return to the states, we discovered that the “ngoo how si nooan” (equatorial spitting cobra) is highly aggressive, straightens up and spits poison into your eyes from up to three meters away. That’s right folks…with three meters being over nine feet, that five foot distance between me and the cobra provided absolutely no safety from possible permanent cornea damage.

Koh Yao Island - Day Five - From Elephants to Snakes

From elephants, we moved on to a local restaurant for lunch. The entire time, I was pretty depressed that it wasn’t street vendor food. I was even more depressed when more white people showed up to eat there. The bathroom, however, thrilled me. The last time we were in Thailand, almost all toilets were like this one...a simple hole that you perch your feet on both sides, do your thing, and then "flush" using a nearby bucket of water. In the past four years, Thailand has westernized most of the toilets. So, yes, finding this toilet was like finding an ancient Thai gem.

From lunch, we went into Ao Nang village for the “shopping” portion of our tour. It wasn’t my speed of shopping so I sat outside with Man while David went on a mankini hunt. Don’t worry, dear readers, it was unsuccessful. Man laughed at David, telling me that it is normally girls who like to shop. We then went on to discuss the finer points of Lady Boys until David came out bearing a new shirt.

It was hot. Hot. HOT. My body temperature quickly rose and steps were taken to cool me down immediately. Once I was good to go, we started to head back to the pier. Passing a long stretch of street vendors, I asked if we could stop. Man was incredulous that we wanted to stop for street food. Never in the history of the Paradise had a guest wanted to eat from street vendors when out on an excursion.

These vendors were awesome! Their carts attached to their motorbikes and they would just cook up food while sitting on their motorbike seat. We walked the length of the vendors and found two that looked delicious. The first was making som tom, green papaya salad. We ordered it “ped ma”, very spicy, and finally experienced some of our first truly spicy food of the trip. Of course, it still wasn’t spicy enough for us. The vendor’s husband was grilling up chicken so I ordered a large piece of that. It was served to me without the traditional spicy chili sauce…Silly Thai’s making assumptions. Man went to ask for some for me, arguing with the vendor that I could handle it. David had ordered tofu pad thai from another vendor and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced in the wonderful world of pad thai. We slurped down every last bit of our spicy second lunch and headed back to the pier.

By the time that we got back to the Paradise, it took all of my strength to stay awake until dinner. We both pulled through with a dip in our pool, a shower, and some reading. Arriving at the beach bar early, we found the general manager sitting alone. We sat down with him, ordered a drink, and enjoyed a cigar with him as he lamented about it being one of his last. The next day was his wife's birthday and it had been a promise a long time coming. He was a delightful individual to speak with, having a sound mind and an impressive business history. Retiring to Thailand to manage a beautiful resort on a small island was his version of paradise. Ours too. I'm convinced that David and I have twenty more years to make bigger names for ourselves so that we, too, can retire fabulously at 50 (or 55, if I want to totally morph into my father's mini-me). Being an orchid fan, I commented on the beautiful orchids growing on every tree. He explained their symbiotic relationship and how the orchid helps prevent a specific type of palm disease. All trees were numbered...David thought that it was so that you could figure out which villa was yours at night when you had a few too many drinks. Instead, they were numbered by the island's environmental police. Michael told us of the strict building laws, the strict nature laws (basically, you cannot remove any plant unless is has fallen), and how they number each palm tree to ensure that none have been removed. If one dies, it must be replaced within a specified time period. Thus, we learned that 40 does not say "turn right! This is your villa, drunkie!" but instead provides a way for the environmental police who randomly jump out of the forest to patrol the land keep track of the trees. In the meantime, nine year old girls in Bangkok are selling themselves.

Soon, the Gokce's showed up and it was drinks all around. Another honeymooning couple, Keith and Brethney (of Dublin), arrived. They had met the Gokce's previously, sat down, and immediately ordered us a round of drink. And another. And then another. Those crazy Irish. Brethney said that I completely looked Irish. If looking at her was any comparison, I totally do. We had the nose, the lips, the hair, the skin, the eyes. We spent the night drinking it up. Every round we tried to buy was refused between the Turks and the Irish. When on vacation, we develop bad health habits. At the same time, we're being active all day. I believe in a counterbalance there.

It was nearing nine when the bunch of us headed off to dinner. The five others walked through the sand directly to the restaurant. I, on the other hand, had to use the facilities so I took the dark path where the beach meets jungle to get to the restroom. While on the path, I noticed something up ahead about five feet.

Slithering, it made it’s way to the path. I hadn’t even completed the mental thought of, “Oh my god! Is that a COBRA?!!!” before three staff members ran up to the path with large sticks and started whacking away. My fear was confirmed. I was watching a five and a half foot long cobra being killed in front of my very eyes. As they picked up what I presumed was a lifeless body, I started to rush toward to ask if I could see it. No one would let me come near and quickly ushered it away behind a fence.

As I rounded the bathroom to the dining table, I couldn’t wait to tell everyone what I had just witnessed. As soon as they saw me, everyone started saying things like, “I’m glad your okay!”, “Good thing you came from that direction! There’s a cobra out here!” I related the cobra killing back to all the guests and got filled in on the parts that I missed. Apparently, right before our group headed from the bar to dinner, a three year old girl saw the cobra and said “snake” to everyone. The cobra went right past the restaurant and onto the path where I was coming up. The three employees that had killed it? Brave restaurant servers. Later on, one proudly came over to me with his cellphone bearing a photo of the dead cobra.

While the official hotel stance on cobras was “deny, deny, deny”, one staff member told us that there was another one that they had been trying to catch. It was currently taking up residence under the spa pavilion. “Don’t worry! Not king cobra! Only ngoo how si nooan! King cobra bites throat. Other cobra bite legs and ankles. You survive leg bites.” For some odd reason, this didn’t make me feel better. From then on, each step we took was a bit more tentative. Upon our return to the states, we discovered that the “ngoo how si nooan” (equatorial spitting cobra) is highly aggressive, straightens up and spits poison into your eyes from up to three meters away. That’s right folks…with three meters being over nine feet, that five foot distance between me and the cobra provided absolutely no safety from possible permanent cornea damage.

Bangkok - Day Three - Part Three

We are terribly adept at accomplishing more in the morning before most people wake. David says that we're like the army. Keeping in tradition, we had already visited Lumphini Park and traveled to and from Ko Kret by 11:00 a.m. We were starving.

We had a leisurely lunch at our favorite sushi joint in town, sharing eight different kinds of sashimi. One interesting dish was some fish that I had never heard of. It was covered in kimchi[1] and taught me a valuable lesson…Kimchi still tastes like kimchi even if you wrap it in delicious raw fish.

From there, it was on to Siam Paragon for some shopping. We had barely done any shopping so far, spending nary an hour at the mall right next to our hotel. A mall in which I couldn’t even afford to breathe in some stores. A mall that taught me a hard, fast lesson that La Perla should be avoided at all costs as you will want something and you will justify buying something and then you’ll walk outside and realize that your impulse could have fed an entire Thai family for two months.

The last time that we were in Bangkok there was only one mall, MBK. David described it as a ten-story flea market. I’d have to agree as navigating MBK was like navigating Bangkok’s Chinatown, complete with food carts and cheap knockoffs. We had been in search of something to wear out on the town as our friend Sunny was taking us out dancing. We finally broke down and asked someone in the mess of MBK where we could buy nicer clothes. A round of us speaking Engrish[2] back and forth resulted in a lightbulb going on in her mind and she said, “Fat-in-a-bowl”? “Yes!” we replied, “Fashionable!” She smiled and said, “Siam Square!”

Siam Square was quite different than MBK. It was a side street with a smattering of nicely designed clothing and house wares, much more leisurely and up our alley. When it came time to finally put some shopping in this trip, we knew that Siam Square was our destination.

All the new things that I had read prior to this trip informed me that Siam Square had been renamed “Siam Paragon” and was now an actual brick and mortar mall. Imagine our surprise when we found that it wasn’t just a mall, it was the mall. Made up of ten levels, called “facets”, the mall had koi ponds with bridges, outdoor seating over the water, the most delicious-looking restaurants that made me regret eating sashimi earlier, and bathrooms that actually stopped me in my tracks and made me wish that I had a camera what with its super-sleek design and huge flat screen televisions everywhere and all. David, being all metro, loves to shop and I love to spend money so we set off to find anything worthwhile.

The mall was so huge that we couldn’t even make it to the Oceanarium which at least gives us something to do next time we are in town. After about two hours, we totally burned out on shopping, dropped off our packages at the hotel, and headed out for another Thai massage.

It was about six. We were getting hungry and went looking for my favorite noodle vendor. I got down to the ATM bank and she wasn’t there…drats. So we set off to find other food. It was seemingly too early for most vendors but we were drawn to a bustling cul-de-sac a few streets down Sukhumvit. Where people are, food is. Harmlessly looking for food, we had found ourselves in Nana Palace, the “good time” capital of Asia. Not being one to cop out of an experience just because very questionable women (and girlie boys) are offering my husband a good time, I just soaked in the sights. Girls sitting around tables playing cards, some smoking. Lots of young white men who had drank way too much leering at the women. One girl was polite enough to offer me a good time, at least offering equal opportunity prostitution. In the midst of this trashy hedonism, David found something that he had been looking for. Fortunately, it had more than two legs.

It was here that I found myself standing in front of a bug vendor. Bugs are a traditional food of the Northern Thai farming community. It is the daughters of these poor farmers that usually work in Nana Palace and the bug vendors work these streets to provide this comfort food of sorts to these girls. Giant or bite-sized cockroaches, fat grubs and extra-large crickets were all fried and selectively seasoned. David was thrilled to finally try some entomology cuisine, a quest he was not successful in completing on our last trip. I navigated him away from the grubs. He didn’t want to eat a cockroach because he thought it would be gooey but he was perfectly fine eating a lump of goo in the form of a grub. He finally saw my point and ordered a bag of the deep fried crickets as well as a scoop of what I can only describe as “an assorted ant stir-fry with green onion, basil, and peppers”.

We found that people stared at us a lot in Thailand and believe that it’s because we’re always parked at some food vendor of sorts. We pass the rest of the tourists sitting at restaurants with names like “The German Haus” , stepping over a puddle of what could possibly be urine in the process, to take a seat on a little plastic stool amid the filth and traffic to be fed the real thing. Thai’s take interest. If we catch their eye, they smile as if to say, “You different. You love our country.” Tourists look too but their eyes scream, “Don’t you know you shouldn’t eat that?! That water has ice in it. You could get a parasite! You don’t know what that meat is!” I don’t think that we’ve ever been looked at as much as when we were standing at the bug vendor. It seemed that every girl around had gathered to see if we were going to walk away empty handed. When David popped a large handful of crickets and declared them delicious, there was a collective gasp like, “Damn! The boy[3] did it!”

“Tastes like potato chips,” David said. Eating handful after handful, we strolled back down toward the Thai massage place. He kept telling me that they were like the tastiest potato chip he had ever had and that I just had to try one. As I am not a fan of potato chips, that was exactly the wrong way to lure me. I promised to try one when we got back to the room. I didn’t want to vomit in public.

It was down our little Sukhumvit Soi 11 that I was just tromping along, looking at the street, when the second of three things that I have always wanted to see/hear in my life happened. I almost walked into the back of what I thought was now just a myth...something that existed at one time but was now just a legend. I looked up just in time to avoid ramming myself into the back of an elephant's behind. That's right, an elephant on the streets of Bangkok. We've been around elephants before...it's just such a trip to see one on a street crowded with people and vendors. Street elephants are the elephants of poor famers who come into the city to beg for money with their elephant. Elephants are the pride of Thailand yet suffer much abuse by the hands of a desperate farmer who doesn't have any wood to farm for his elephant to earn its keep. Seeing it, I pulled out all of the money I had and just handed it to the mahoot. I didn't want a picture, I didn't want to feed it sugarcane (although I did), I just wanted to help this seemingly well-cared for elephant keep that way.

Two hours and another massage later, we were delighted to find that my favorite noodle vendor had set up shop. We filled our bellies one last time, memorizing her location in the hopes that she’ll be there upon our next return, and headed back to the hotel. As we walked into the room, David said that the crickets were spicy. That made all the difference to me. Tell me that something is spicy and I am totally down. As we set up the crickets for a photo shoot (and my eventual consumption), I noticed that they had beady red eyes, long fang-looking things, huge wings, and a two inch body. There was no way in hell that I was going to eat a single one. Besides, they were cold.

We spent the rest of the night packing. Going to bed at one only to be up at five, we made good use of our last night in Bangkok. In the morning, we put on our best in island wear. We were returning to our version of tropical paradise, Koh Yao, an island that David, when describing to locals how much he loves it there, waxed poetic with “It is what I see when I close my eyes and dream.”

[1] Kimchi: officially, a traditional Korean dish made with fermented vegetables and spices. Unofficially, it tastes like rotten vegetables in vinegar and smells just as bad.
[2] Engrish: a form of broken, grammatically incorrect, and often poorly spelled English that thrives in Asia.
[3] Boy: David sometimes gets carded for rated R movies and always gets carded for alcohol. No one thinks that he could quite possibly be 30 this Friday. On our trip, everyone thought that he was a student. It used to be cute. Now that I am married to him, I feel like a cougar and am kind of sick of people wondering if I am robbing the cradle.

Bangkok - Day Two

Before leaving, I had meticulously planned out the plane route in order to determine exactly when we should take ambien. Four hours into our 13 hour flight to Taipei would put us at 20:00 Bangkok time, what we considered an acceptable time to fall asleep. Our flight left at 02:00 Utah time and it proved to be a challenge to staying up the additional four hours as the previous night had been our wedding night.

After the wedding ended, we went back to the majestic suite at Hotel Monoco to relax in the jacuzzi tub. Afterward, we put back on our wedding clothes and met up with David’s family down at Murphy’s. We drank until last call then headed back to uncle Reuben and auntie Helen’s room at the Monoco. We partied down with David’s mom’s side of the family. His sister, Stephanie, and I tangoed with Uncle Rueben until three a.m. at which point Stephanie stopped to order two of every sandwich on the menu. For the next hour Stephanie’s husband, Mike, kept interjecting all conversations with, “Can’t a brother get a sandwich?” or “What’s a brother got to do to get a sandwich up in these parts.” Needless to say, the sandwiches took a long time. By the time we got to bed, it was 04:30 on the day that we left for Thailand.

We ended up taking ambien an hour early so our first night in Bangkok saw us asleep by ten. Our first morning had us rising at 4:30, showered by 5:30, and pounding the Bangkok streets by 6:00. We found the streets to be empty, the temperature to be cool and headed out with the mission to see monks on their morning alms route[1]. Heading in the direction of the Grand Palace, we stopped for bags of fresh pineapple chunks from the first vendor we spotted.

Moments later, we were completely lost. Whenever you find yourself in this situation in Bangkok, it is best to play what we call Follow that Monk! Wander until you find a monk, easy to spot in bright orange, and follow him because a) who’s going to jump you when a monk is around? b) he’s probably headed someplace that you’ve either been or want to see and c) will guarantee that you cross the road safely if you always position cars with a monk between you. Who’s going to hit a monk?

While the monk did help us avoid early morning traffic, he also lead us to a part of town where we immediately got even more lost. There was even a map near one building! None of the streets listed on the map were discoverable on our map of Bangkok, rendering the entire thing useless. After finding our way out of a twisted maze of streets, we hailed the first cab we could find and ordered it to the Grand Palace. Half a mile later, we were there. I had to laugh…If only we had kept walking.

Killing time until the Grand Palace opened, we headed over to Wat[2] Pho. As the origin of my beloved Thai massage, I was anxious to check the place out. We were steps away from the entrance when our path was blocked by a determined tuk tuk driver. “You need ride”, “Where you from?”, “Grand Palace closed today. I’ll take you to special clothing store instead.” I just walked away while David tried to shake him. When I could, I grabbed David’s hand and pulled him into the courtyard of Wat Pho.

We found ourselves alone, save twenty or so school children playing football on one side of the courtyard. There are three things that I’ve always wanted to hear or see in Thailand and the first occurred when we rounded a corner. From a building next to us came the deep monotone of thirty chanting monks and laid out before us were tables divided with equally offerings of their morning alms offerings. We stopped and took it all in. The chanting monks saying their morning prayers, the simple offerings, the temples glowing in the early morning light and not a single other tourist on the premises.

We emerged an hour and a half later, thirsty and starving. The hunt was on to find out which vendor would supply us with breakfast. Wandering up and down a main street in front of the Grand Palace, we settled on another soup vendor. This time, we were not only provided with beef balls and thin flank we were treated to crispy duck! The duck was from the crispy duck vendor across from our vendor, making it fun to see how they work together to make a livelihood.

After being harassed several times by tuk tuk drivers wanting to take us to “special clothing store”, our defenses were up when we were stopped by a man on the street. He introduced himself as a member of the Royal Thai Army and pointed to the nearby army building. He informed us of a few things we could do to not get ripped off by tuk tuk drivers and then informed us that the Grand Palace was closed to tourists until 1:30 that day. Damn tuk tuk harassers were telling the truth all along. He then pulled out our map and showed us several wats worth seeing that wouldn’t have many tourists. At that point, he called over a tuk tuk and showed him every wat that he wanted us to go to. The driver said “100 baht” and our guide said something in Thai about him being Royal Thai Army at which point the driver got wide-eyed, bowed a bunch, saluted him and said “40 baht” to us. This story is not only remarkable as it tells you how we got an entire day touring Bangkok for $1.18 but is remarkable as the Royal Army guy had the World’s Longest Mole Hair. Not kidding. The mole was just under his left eye and the hair went about ¼ inch past his chin. It wasn’t until afterward that I realized that David totally could have gotten a photo if I would have said something like, “Can I have a photo with our new friend?” A missed photo opportunity.

We were definitely not lead astray by our hairy friend. Temple of the Golden Buddha, Temple of the Golden Mount, Temple of the Four Buddhas, and one additional temple later, we were always by ourselves or the only foreigners. At the Temple of the Four Buddhas, the only other visitor was a 28 year old Thai man who was saying his morning prayers. He was fascinated that foreigners had decided to come there and ended up telling us the significance of all the monuments at the wat. He took us into a prayer room, explained the proper prayer method and then said a prayer with us. Being the skeptics that we are, we kept wondering when he was going to ask us to visit “very special clothing store”. All he wanted was to share his culture with two farangs who decided to travel off the beaten path.

By one p.m., the heat was stifling. As heat and I equal bad news, it was time to get me off the streets. Just as my condition was deteriorating, we were held hostage by our tuk tuk driver who refused to take us where we wanted to go. He just kept yelling at us that we must go to “special clothing store. You don’t need to buy. They give me coupon for gas.” After a shouting match between the three of us, David ordered him to pull over and caught us a proper taxi back to Soi 11 for another two hours of Thai massage. The ice cold room hit the spot.

We had planned on getting a bite to eat after the massage and then retiring to our room for a nap. We wanted to leave the crowded streets, people in every photo, and sweltering humidity to the inexperinced tourists. After all, the light was bad at that time of day anyway. What's the point of even taking out your camera?

Prior to our massage, we saw many street vendors right off of the main street, Sukhumvit. By the time we got out of our massage, all had packed it in as it was too hot to operate. Starving, we pounded the streets for a vendor, any vendor. We came across a green coconut vendor so we each stopped for fresh chilled coconut milk. After thirty minutes of finding nothing but more refreshments, we hailed a taxi back to the Four Seasons.

We deposited ourselves at their poolside restaurant and went hog wild. Mixed satay skewers, spring rolls, tofu pockets and plenty of Perrier. This story ended shortly with the heat putting me in bad shape. David got me back to the room and put me to bed. I slept until 20:00 at which point I woke David up for a dinner and a night in the Big Mango.

“No, I want to sleep.” He whined. “Come on, it’s a night in Bangkok.” I retorted. “Sleep tonight,” was his final word.

So I slept. Until 12:30 a.m. at which point I was wide awake and pretty irritated that he wanted to sleep through a night in Bangkok. I was thinking about all the missed opportunities. Would I have eaten the famed fried chicken in chili sauce from a vendor? Would we have ended up at that delicious Indian restaurant at Face Bar? Would we have spent a night shakin’ our groove thangs at Bed? As soon as he rolled over, I ensured that he was awake and miserable too. What could be done about it other than eat that yummy-looking congratulations cake that was put in our room and to get up early the following morning to enjoy the town without the rest of the world?

[1] Alms route: Thai’s make merit by providing food to the monks. Each morning, the monks come by with alms bowls and are provided with offerings. These offerings feed the monks for the day.
[2] Wat: Thai Temple.

Bangkok - Day One

Three plane changes, two games of dominoes, one book, and several movies later we arrived in Thailand without incident. Playing up the honeymooner card really helped out. It almost resulted in an upgrade to first class on the Air China flight to Taipei. At the last minute, someone paid to sit in those seats and we lost out. Just knowing that we could have flown first class pulled me through.

I think that we had good travel mojo going for us due to a good deed done in the SeaTac airport. We had already figured out where our gate was and went to explore the vastness that is SeaTac. On our way back, I saw a pilot trying to help out a Vietnamese family. I figured that he was attempting to tell them how to get to their gate and that they were probably on the same flight as us. That’s how we ended up adopting a six member Vietnamese family that spoke about six words of English, between the six of them. They latched on to us as we lead them to the gate. It was a very long distance from where we picked them up so they kept looking concerned. Eventually, the dad just handed David his luggage which was, we assume, packed with nothing but rocks. I looked over my shoulder and noticed that the young teenage girl was struggling along with her bag. As I had rollers, I just plopped hers on mine and soon discovered that her luggage was packed to the brim with rocks as well. Once we deposited them and their rocks at the gate, we sat down for a game of dominoes. It seemed to interest every Asian person in the terminal. The Vietnamese father even came over to offer David game advice. He was very disappointed when David lost to me. I, on the other hand, was happy to show my dominoes prowess to the world.

The last time arrived at BKK, we were among the throes of stressed out tourists trying to make sense of the maddening array of people offering you transport. At that moment, everything you read in the guidebook and filed away in the “come home alive” mental folder is lost. Was it the pink cabs with yellow license plates that have been known to murder people or was it the yellow cabs with blue license plates? Lessons learned last time (and the grace of picking the correctly colored cab) led us to book transport directly with the hotel.

We emerged from the baggage claim with all luggage in tact and was immediately met by a representative of the Four Seasons who took our luggage and called around the car. What a car it was. David says something about S Class Mercedes (or was that 5 Class…whatever). I just know that it was filled with ice cold bottles of water, chilled lemongrass scented towels, and these little coffee flavored hard candies that were to die for. He noted that the seats were fully adjustable by these five little buttons on the door. Want to recline like you are in a La-Z-Boy? Just touch a button!

As soon as we arrived, our bags were whisked away and we were sitting down to lunch at Spice Market, their Thai restaurant. Our choice of hotel this time around was due to a terrible hotel experience last time. During our last stay, our friend, Sonny, was staying at the Four Seasons and we would find refuge from our hotel hell by eating his daily fruit basket and relaxing on his non-lumpy mattress. This time, we wanted that for ourselves! We knew that it would be relaxing and that food would be good if we got there and had nothing available but room service. What we will do for a late night burger that doesn’t taste like dog food.

A leisurely lunch and a shower later, we were on the streets heading out to our favorite Thai massage joint. We found it easily thanks to my stellar mental filing system. Two hours and one fabulous Thai massage later, we had been smacked, thwacked, and cracked from foot to neck. Who knew that you could actually have your spine swung so far around that you could be staring at your own rear?

Emerging refreshed and starving, we headed up Soi 11 looking for a street vendor to fill our tummies. Right across from the ATM bank, we found what became my favorite vendor in all of Bangkok. It was the familiar smell of Vietnamese pho that lured us in but it was definitely its own Thai dish. We dined on a soup of beef balls, thinly sliced beef, and fatty flank. Self seasoned with fish sauce, chili peppers, sugar, and other spices it hit the spot. I shall dream about this soup until I return again.

The party animals that we are, we were back in our room by ten p.m. As we were about to find out, in Bangkok the early bird really gets the worm.