Thailand

Let me tell y'all a little about our trip overseas. My husband's first out-of-the-country experience besides our honeymoon in Vancouver, BC. What a crazy fun adventure.

Day 1: We travel standby. I make the flight out of Seattle, but Jake has to take three planes to even get down to LA. The trans-Pacific flight is almost eighteen hours. Total travel time: 27 hrs. Yet it was just seven AM when we arrived and we needed to stay up for the rest of the day. When we arrive another traveler mistook Jake's bag for his own. It takes an additional two hours after customs to figure out the mess. We get hosed on the taxi. (We had no idea that Bangkok was so big! Only to find out the return trip was about ten minutes.)

We wandered around town desperately trying to stay awake and thwart jet-lag. That night we checked out the weekend market. I'm sure it was fun, but I don't remember much of it I was so tired. Just remember someone trying to swipe my bag.

The guest house was pleasant. We were treated like royalty.

Day 2: We took the skytrain (lovely air-conditioned and quick) down to the very dirty river which runs through the city and hopped a water taxi up to the royal old city.

The temples were beautifully ornately carved and gilded and over-touristed. Unfortunately we picked a day filled with ceremonies for some lunar celebration and weren't allowed inside a majority of the areas.

We spent the day wondering the old town peeking into temples and observing the devout (must have walked a good few miles until Jake just about killed me). I enjoyed climbing to the top of the golden mount.

Day 3: Jake woke up at five in the morning to watch the Superbowl. I slept in till seven, but still managed to see the second half of the game. (Actually a pretty good one if I'm being honest.) I got to watch another group of devotees having steak and eggs and beer in the wee hours of the morning yelling and jumping and cheering at the TV. (I think all the Americans in the city were crowded into that tiny bar.)

Jake and I had a lovely day exploring a little museum of Southeast Asian artifacts, a textile museum detailing the differences between the many tribal weaving patterns, as well as an incredible aquarium.

Day 4: We hopped a plane down to Krabi for some sunshine (first class. Wish we could have done that over the ocean.) From the airport we took a taxi and then a long-tail boat to an out of the way beach with some amazing rock-climbing. The limestone cliffs dropping straight into the ocean were breath-taking! The bungalows were quite rustic with sometimes working fans, water flushing toilets, mosquito nets, and monkeys jumping on the roofs.

I wasn't feeling too well, so we just hung out on the beach eating rice and tropical fruit and always bottled water. Jake being Jake we met about half the tourist on our beach who could speak English, most of whom came from Europe. Incredibly we didn't find a single American except a crazy left-over hippie from Seattle who'd been there for months.

Day 5: A perfect day (at least it started out that way) At low tide we hiked from Tonsai beach down the sandy, rocky, slippery water's edge to Railay beach, a much more developed and touristed area. We wondered along the gorgeous beaches and then up a little ways into the trees. We walked through a cool little cave and up to a tiny resort with an incredible view of the ocean below from one side and jungle from the other. We spent the entire afternoon in their open-air restaurant enjoying a breeze, daiquiries, and board games. Unfortunately that evening my husband got horrendously sick. He was so miserably uncomfortable with food poisoning all night in our rustic little bungalow (and of course our electric went out). Poor guy.

Day 6: Jake was weak from expelling all his liquids, and still not feeling well. All he wanted to do was leave. So we headed for Au nang which is a little tourist town on the water. We found a room with air conditioning and Jacob slept the time away while I did my first shopping of the entire trip. There were little stands of locals selling there wares and mass amounts of Americans. I couldn't believe how many people had swamped this tiny town.

Day 7: Flights out of the country were looking fuller and fuller, so we decided to head back. We made it into Bangkok, but then spent the entire day in the airport desperate for any flight out to no avail. What a bummer of a wasted day. I know that airport inside and out. We had to head to a local hotel to recoup.

Day 8: We were pretty sure we could make it out today, so I headed downstairs to call my mother and tell her when we'd be back to pick up the baby. (Sammy did superbly by the way)

On the phone I started feeling sick. I passed out (probably from the heat and exhaustion and a couple of days later I did come down with a head cold). But the problem was the floor was marble and I hit my head pretty hard. I couldn't remember who I was, who I was with, which was my room, etc. I kept floating in and out of consciousness. All I remember is a see of Thai faces and excited jabbering.

They ended up taking me to a Thai hospital to get checked out. They found Jacob and as soon as they knew we'd just arrived from Krabi they started talking about Malaria. Poor Jake was totally freaked out when they started doing tests (I was kind of out of it with a killer headache so I wasn't worried at all).

Four hours and $30 later I was discharged, told to drink lots of water and take a mass amount of pills, but no Malaria was found. Yeah.

We managed to get on the late night flight out of Bangkok (Only fourteen hours this time and we arrived before we ever left!) and got into Coeur d'Alene around one in the morning. What a long exhausting trip. Sammy woke up at five and I just couldn't leave him alone to self-soothe. We played and caught up for about an hour in the dark. Too bad I had to get back to Seattle and work the same day. No time for relaxing in this life.

All-in-all it was a fun exciting adventurous trip which will provide stories for a while. Okay, until our next one (Maybe Fiji or Scotland or Costa Rica or Mexico)