Thailand - Part I

Yes, my parents voluntarily chose to take two small children on two twenty hour plane rides - crazy, I know. Lucky for them, Gates and I were pro travelers and both flights went smoothly.

I've seen Thailand on my world globe; I have to spin it to the other side to find it because it's pretty far from America. It's much closer to China and India. It's on my list of places I wanted to go, and so we went. (Mom note: He really has a list and it includes - and no, I'm not making this up - North Dakota, South Dakota, Hawaii, Thailand, New Guinea, Senegal, South Korea, Brazil, Sierra Leone, Mali, Chad, India, Algeria, and Greenland.)
We started in Bangkok. While it's a big city, it has so many unique things to the Thai culture. There are tons of huge temples with gigantic Buddha inside. They have canals running throughout the city with homes on the canal. People were doing dishes, washing clothes, swimming, bathing, and selling goods. And the Thais have endless types of transportation.
Speaking of transportation, here's a list of ways we traveled during this trip - by car, plane, elephant, taxi, long tail boat, airport people mover, bus, tuk tuk, foot, shuttle, and by the side car of a motorcycle (just don't tell my Nana we did any of these because none of them had seatbelts!).

We visited the city of Ayutthaya. It has a lot of history and was founded in 1350. They had several battles with the Burmese and eventually the city was destroyed in 1767. While the fighting left many things damaged, the ruins that remain are pretty cool including a Buddha head inside of a bunch of tree roots. You can tell this city was very important, even 800 years later. Of course my parents were respectful of these ancient ruins and only did jumpers when no one was looking - good grief!

While in Bangkok, we also got to visit The Red Cross Snake Farm - seems a bit ironic, huh? The people saving lives own some of the most deadly snakes on the planet. I guess a doctor wanted them for the venom so he could help people who had been bit. I sat in the front row, about three feet from the snakes, (again, don't tell my Nana). Gates sat a few rows back and didn't find the demonstration as interesting (notice the snake in the background).

 

We went to the coolest kid place on the planet, Kidzania (http://bangkok.kidzania.com/en-us/). My mom says someone could make a zillion dollars if they opened these across the U.S. It's a giant indoor city for kids. Kids can try out 50+ occupations (really, anything you can think of). We got uniforms for that job, they trained us in the skills, and then we did the job - SO COOL! Parents aren't even allowed into the shops, they just sit on park benches in the pretend town and wait for the kids. Some of the jobs I did included working at a radio station, McDonalds, a gas station, a construction site, 7-eleven, a bank, a photography studio, a barber shop, and a disco tech. Kids could be firefighters, dentists, Coca-Cola bottlers, designers, dancers, juice makers, car mechanics - it was awesome. 



 We then headed south to the city of Krabi and the Ao Nang beaches. LOTS of fun there too. We'll post more about that shortly so stay tuned...