Thailandia

Sunset on the ferry
Muy Thai Boxing...sort of?
Bunnys in Tutus!

Crazy Frog Sellers
Yummmmy

Hungry?
How about now?
Hello Buddha
Cheesy Tourist photo
Crazy Thai buildings
It's a Monk Tree!
Elephantes!
Stup-as!
Boiling in a long skirt and long sleeves
Hu-ah!
Ohhhhh lala
Airport Shenanigans Waterfalllllllllllllll
So strong it knocked me over

Sweet helmet
He's coming on my raft!
Walking to the river
Raging rapids?
Rice fields along the river

After the beautiful weather in the Gilis, the weather turned sour and decided to be cloudy and rainy everyday in Kuta. Seeing as that the big attraction in Kuta is the beach, our plans were shot. We bummed around and didn’t do a whole lot until the last day when we went rafting. Rafting turned out to be awesome! They strap you into some helmets and life jackets and send you down class III and class IV rapids. There were about 25 people or so going, and somehow we managed to be the only ones who didn’t have to share our raft with other people. Our guide was this cool little Indonesian dude who decided that we were going to race all the other rafts and go as fast as we can down the river. It was ridiculous! We went flying over the rapids, almost completely flipped out, got sloshed around the raft, flew into the air, and loved it! Our raft came in first and we even beat some of the rafts from the other companies who started like 25 minutes before us. It was brilliant.

After leaving Kuta, we flew to Jakarta, hung out all day in the airport, and then arrived late night in Bangkok. Before going to Bangkok, I have heard plenty of stories about the insanity of the place and when we pulled up onto Khoa San road at 11 pm, we were smacked in the face by it. Khoa San Rd is the backpacker hub of Southeast Asia and the streets are filled with everything you can imagine- lady boys, fried cockroaches, blind people karaoke singing to stereos that are way too loud, pad thai venders, drunken white people, tattoo artists on the streets, dogs, Thai teenagers, and general debauchery. It was extremely overwhelming. We found a little hole in the wall, tiny, and not too terribly overpriced hotel with a crazy land lady who demanded “you pay now!” every time we saw her (whether we had paid that day or not) and went to the streets to people watch. Needless to say, it provided hours of entertainment.

Woke up bright and early the next morning to head over to the Brazilian embassy so I could get my visa, the reason we were staying in Bangkok. For some reason Brazil hates Americans and tries to make it as difficult as possible for us to go visit. I already had bought my flight to and from Brazil, filled out the application forms, gotten special passport photos made, and pulled out the 200 dollars that it would cost me to get my visa. After taking a boat, a metro, and walking in circles for about 10 km, finally found the Brazilian embassy, only to be told to go back and get more stuff. I had to go to bank, direct deposit the fee, get copies of my bank accounts to prove I had suficent funds, get a letter from Renan, Renan’s passport copy, dental records, the Holy Grail, bone marrow tests, letter from the Pope, 5 gold coins from 1782…ok well maybe it wasn’t THAT bad, but was still pretty ridiculous and stressed me out quite a bit! Not to mention the fact that my camera go stolen, and the stupid credit card company voided my credit card with out telling me and were sending me a new one to Michigan! Grrrrrr

After many stressful hours on the phone and computer with my mother, the bank, the insurance, Renan, the credit card company, Fed Ex – everything finally sorted it self out. I went back to the Brazilian Embassy, they accepted my application with a smile, and even commented on how cute my boyfriend was. J Things were finally starting to work out. I bought a new camera, pretty much like my old one only newer and awesomer (yes it’s a word!).

Went sightseeing around Bangkok, visited the beautiful Grand Palace (it was 110 degrees and you have to cover your elbows and ankles- I was dyinggggggggg!!!), went to Patpong- got hit by a banana (haha ummm?), browsed around the massive weekend markets, ate lots of yummy Thai food, and decided Bangkok wasn’t so bad after all. Yes Khoa San Rd is ridiculous, but the rest isn’t so bad...for a big city anyways.

Because my visa takes a week to process, we decided to head north up to Changmai for a week while we waited. 12 hours on the bus, at midnight was John’s birthday..finding a cake was impossible so instead found some goodies at the gas station to use it its place – aka a bun filled with red beans, and strawberry flavored pokey sticks for candles. It’s kind of the same?

Changmai is a beautiful city. Its quite clean and is filled with history. Our first day, walked around Changmai, visited some of the temples, and browsed the MASSIVE Sunday markets, tried all sorts of crazy street food, and booked a three day trek into the jungle where we will visit hill tribes, ride elephants and bamboo rafts, and sleep in bamboo huts! Today the plan is to roam around some more, maybe try and find a pool (the temp in Thailand during the day is wicked hot, and pretty sticky and gross) and go to the dentist L until we leave for the trek tomorrow.

Saudades Renan! xoxo