9/21/2013 - And then there were 3 - Adventures in Thailand

For the past week, the family had been occupying an entire row of 6 airline seats, now we were down to just 3.  Tim and Caitlin had to go back to Wisconsin and Sarah had to continue her internship.  It was now just up me to play tour guide for the next few days in Thailand.  The success of this would be interesting, I had already been made fun of the night before while sprawled on the floor, trying to map out the week.  If it looked like I was trying to read a map in a foreign language, its because I was.  Its possible we could end up in a Thai prison or hopelessly lost in the streets of Bangkok, but I would put the chance of that at less than 10%.  

Unfortunately we were arriving in Bangkok on a Monday, so the weekend market was not open.  The next best option seemed to be the MBS mall, which turned out to essentially be a vertical, 7 floor market.  Not quite the selection of the weekend market, but still plenty of trinkets to keep you happy. We could have gotten a good deal on a slightly used cell phone, but no carved elephant end tables, which is what we were really after.  Looks like Bangkok will be on the return trip city list again.

After shopping and a quick stop back at the hotel, we grabbed a taxi to head out to dinner.  We had found a little hole in the wall place on our last visit to the city and I was looking forward to dining again at the P Kitchen.  Unfortunately, Bangkok's winding streets proved to be more formidable than our taxi's driving skills and it took almost an hour to get there.  I had though it was closer to the hotel, but given I'm constantly lost in Bangkok, I gave him our 150 baht and hopped out.  Fried noodles, spring rolls, spicy beef salad, fried rice and steamed vegetables had us feeling pretty good and happy that we had made the trek over.  The fact that the bill was somehow only $12, was even crazier.  A taxi was close at hand outside and offered to take us back for 100 baht.  I thought we had found another good deal given that it was cheaper than our trip over.  Of course, I should have known better, 2 turns and 5 minutes later we were back at the hotel.  I don't know what our first guy was thinking, either he was horribly lost or that was another Thailand donation from the Court family.

We spent the next day at the Royal Palace, the Reclining Buddha temple and having lunch overlooking the Chao Phraya River.  I had never been to the Reclining Buddha temple and was shocked at how large it was, it would barely fit on a basketball court. Totally worth the sweaty walk over from the Royal Palace.

Although it would have been nice to have blue skies for our photos, the overcast sky kept us from being too sweaty and smelly on the flight that evening to Phuket.  The domestic flight for $30 was quite the treat, we zipped right out of the airport, avoided the independent taxis with the promise of a 'same same' taxi fare, trust me, its never 'same same'  its always, little bit different, and found what turned out to be our race car for the evening.  The windy drive from the airport to the beach was completed in record time.  The speed limit was 80 KPH and he was doing at least 140 KPH, using all three lanes of the road for his banked turns.  Somehow we had found a Thai Ricky Bobby who abided by the "If you're not first, you're last rule."  At least we made it to the hotel quite quickly and in one piece, so consider us first.

It was low season so they upgraded us to a rather large suite for the few days we were there, almost bigger than our current apartment.  To celebrate this bit of good luck we wandered over to the open air lobby bar for a late night happy hour before calling it a day.  Our bartender for the evening, Sunny, turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip.  He turned the late night happy hour into the late night 'happy hour as long as you are here.'  After showing him pictures of snow in Minnesota and complaining about Singha prices in Singapore, we were becoming fast friends.  He left us with a little nugget for the evening, "Don't drink Chang beer (the other Thai beer).  You wake up in the morning feeling like the elephant on the bottle is kicking you in the head."  We laughed and called it a night, promising to see him the next day.  Sadly, that was the last of Sunny for the trip, we wondered if the elephant may have won a few battles with him and kept him from his post.

Speaking of elephants, the final hurrah of the trip was an elephant trek through the hills of Phuket.  One poor elephant got the two large male Americans on his back while the other lucked out with my mother.  As you can imagine, after coming in first in the taxi to the hotel, we came in dead last on the trek.  We lucked out as most of our time in Phuket it rained off and on, but it held off long enough to ride an elephant, learn about rubber, curry and coconuts and top it off with a dinner cruise..... which made it about half way out of the harbor before the rain started dumping again.  We certainly owed the hotel for giving us a better set-up to at least sit on the patio, enjoy the greenery and relax.  Great contrast to the hustle and bustle of the week before.

Well - we've reached the end of the two week trip.  We had a few last nights in Singapore that gave everyone the opportunity to get a little more of their favorites - $1 ice cream sandwiches, sugar cane juice and dumplings. The last stop at the market had my fruit guy asking if my father and I were brothers.... this guy should be teaching marketing at Sarah's MBA program.  We even had dinner on Satay street where the least likely of the 4 of us ate more satay than anyone.  Who would have thought that satay and fried rice could become a staple diet?

Stay tuned - the adventures continue in the Maldives next week, its F1 weekend right now and we swung through Arab Street and a turn back the clock jazz club last weekend that all deserve some air time.  Plus, before you know it, the Muller Family Journey Through Asia (rumor has it I get to tag along if I promise to behave) is rapidly approaching.