Bangkok - Day 2

Today we went to the Grand Palace which is a complex of buildings in Bangkok. It served as the official residence of the Kings of Thailand from the 18th century onwards. Construction of the Palace began in 1782, during the reign of King Rama I, when he moved the capital across the river from Thonburi to Bangkok. The Palace has been constantly expanded and many additional structures were added over time. The current king lives in a different palace and this is probably the #1 tourist thing to check out in Bangkok. I would say it's definitly worth going to and it is absolutely huge! The detail of this place is amazing. Andrew wore shorts, which are not cool and he ended up having to "rent" these crazy hippie pants to wear while we were there. He was happy to get them off after the tour. I came prepared in pants and a t-shirt so I was good to go. Glad we went but again, it was extremely hot and we were anxious to get home. On the way there we took the Skytrain and transferred to a boat to get to the palace. On the way home we took the same way back but it was high tide and people water was up to people's knees. This was the first and only sights of anything having to do with the flooding there so it was pretty crazy. We were lucky not to have to deal with any of the flooding but you could see the impact that it had on people's homes just from this small glimpse. Really sad for everyone affected.

Bangkok - Day 1

We arrived at our hotel in Thailand at 11:30pm after a LONG 24 hours of travel. We were pretty exhausted and just went to bed. We had a great view of Bangkok from our window and excitedly went to sleep for our first day of adventures. Our first stop in Thailand was the Chatuchuk Weekend Market. I really wanted to check this market out as we were only there for that Sunday and this was our only day to go. We set out on the Skytrain (the best way to get around Bangkok, in our opinion) and it dropped us off right at the market. It really is unbelievably huge and overwhelming. There are up to 15,000 stalls and you could purchase anything you could possibly imagine. The sights, smells, tastes - sensory overload! It was quite incredible. This market was closed for a few weeks due to the flooding and one of the vendors told us that the water was knee-level not long ago, although there was no signs of water. We purchased some things for our family, but mostly just checked everything out. The prices are so cheap, but we were worried about buying too much and having to haul it all over the country. We ended up with a couple scarves, a purse for me, and a few other odds and ends before dying of a heat stroke. Just kidding (sort of). We hopped back on the train and went back to our hotel to jump in the pool and cool down. It was about 90-95 and 90% humidity everyday. Hard to get used to after coming from the cold winter weather in California.