For our trip to Thailand, we spent half of the time in Bangkok and half of the time in Koh Lanta. I'll do the posts in two parts so they're not gigantic. Bangkok was a place that I think I appreciated more the longer we stayed. Nate and I both felt like the more we saw of Bangkok, the more we got the sense that there was a lot we hadn't seen. We had luxurious accommodations. We stayed at the Sofitel, where service was amazing and they had L'Occitaine toiletries! Only complaint: the bed was hard as a rock, but this is common in Asia. Check out some of our photos below.
One of the markets near the Grand Palace. Check out all that food at this vendor! Unfortunately, I had to avoid the street food this trip, because it could be really dangerous for the baby if I were to get food poisoning. That also meant not drinking the tap water (or ice), and only eating fruit and veggies that had the peel/rind removed or were cooked. Kind of sad, but not worth the risk right now. Instead, we had plenty of good Thai curries at restaurants!
These next several photos are from the Grand Palace. It is even more glitzy and intricately detailed than it looks in the photos!
I had read that there are strict rules about what you wear at temples in Thailand, but this place took it to another level. From what I had read, I thought I would be okay in a shirt that didn't show my shoulders, capri pants that didn't show my knees, and close-toed shoes, but alas the capri pants showed too much of my ankles. So, they lent me a long wrap skirt to wear over my capris. It was about a million degrees, mind you, so I was sweating profusely in all of these clothes.
Nate and I went to a gigantic weekend market on Saturday. I'm talking so big we got lost and couldn't find our way out. Seriously. Anyway, they sell anything and everything you could possibly imagine at this place. It was pretty incredible. They had trinkets, food, fake flowers, furniture, clothes (new and used), electronics (mostly used), soaps, fabrics, housewares, Thai massages, jewelry, and a huge pet section. The photo above is from the pet section (my favorite part, of course). Yes, those are tiny little baby bunnies dressed up in costumes. I'm not kidding. I'm not sure how much they were selling for-- I should have asked! The photo isn't very good, because there was a sign saying "no photo" so I had to snap it really fast when no one was looking. Really, the photo doesn't due justice to the hilariousness of the bunnies. There were also tons of puppies and kittens, fish of all sorts, reptiles-- even an alligator/crocodile that was about two feet long! Most of the animals weren't in proper cages, so you could just pet them all as you walked by. I'm pretty sure that the animals who didn't survive the heat were cooked and sold in another part of the market. (I'm kidding...kind of.)
Classic tuk tuk photo. We didn't ride in one, because taxis were plenty cheap. Taxis, interestingly, were all sorts of bright colors-- hot pink, green, yellow, electric blue, red, orange, etc. You can't miss them!
