Bangkok

Our cab driver from the airport took us by some tanks upon request. There wasn't much else out of the ordinary or coup related.

We did see some soldiers with big guns though.

This is Khao San road, backpacker central in Bangkok. We stayed here our first night, adjusting to the different country. We did a bit of shopping, but saved most of our purchases for when we returned on our last day.

After a long day of travelling and lots of walking, we relaxed with some Thai beer at a place on Khao San road.

Brian's suit

The first thing we did when we got to Bangkok was to get Brian fitted for a suit. Custum made suits are very cheap in Thailand. He had a few made a couple years ago, and wanted more. Here he is choosing the fabric for his two suits.

Later that night we returned to see how the jacket was shaping up.

Phuket

After one night in Bangkok, we flew to Phuket, an tourist island in the south west of the country.

This is a view of a few of the popular beaches on Phuket's west coast.

The waves at these beaches were too powerful to swim in. The weather was more cloudy than sunny, so we didn't spend much time on the beaches in Phuket.

Phuket

Our friends from Korea, Josh and Michelle also had a Thailand vacation that week. They met up with us for a couple days in Phuket.

The guys rented big motorbikes (750's ... compared to the 250's they drive in Korea) and we drove all around Phuket.

Here are Brian and I at the waterfall that we stopped to see.

Interesting scenes along the way

The gas station

Some Thai boats
Elephant crossing (I'm thinking it wasn't wild elephants - there were elephant riding places nearby)

Sunset on Phuket

View of Phi Phi Don

After two days in Phuket, we took a boat to a smaller, more beautiful island called Phi Phi. We stayed here for two nights.

One morning we hiked to a look out point on Phi Phi. It was worth the long hike to see this view.

The beach on the right side is where we spent the rest of that day. Well, after the morning rain, that is. It started to pour just when we got back to our guest house following this hike. It rained every day there, morning and evening, for about 20 minutes before it would clear up again.

Phi Phi guest house

From the beach looking inland, our guest house in the highest one, halfway up the hill in this picture.

It boasted a beautiful view...

even at night. We spent a lot of time on the balcony in the evening, enjoying the view.

The downside to this guest house was the construction site just below us. We were surprised to see that Tsunami rebuilding was still going on. It was sad to see photos of the Tsunami destruction in both Phuket and Phi Phi.

And another downside was having to flush the toilet by pouring water down it.

Day on the beach

We spent the majority of one day on the beach on Phi Phi. We sat under a beach umbrella and watched the tide go out.

And we went swimming a couple of times - that's me walking, with Brian's knees in the foreground

Hired boat

Phi Phi has two islands - one of which we stayed on(Phi Phi Don), and the other a national park(Phi Phi Lay). Phi Phi Lay is where they filmed some of the scenes from the movie, "The Beach". We hired this guy, Moustaffa, to take us around Phi Phi Lay for 3 hours in his little boat.

Here I am snorkelling in a cove at Phi Phi Lay

Brian and I on the boat in a cove of Phi Phi Lay

Our boat entering a cove of Phi Phi Lay

Here I am in the boat heading toward another cove of Phi Phi Lay

Because of rough waves, our boat could not enter the cove in which "The Beach" was filmed. Instead, we would have to swim under this rock and enter the famous beach from the back side. Unfortunately for us, we had to wait for the tide to recede a bit. This picture looks calm, but waves were crashing into that recess every minute. With our hired boat time running out, Brian attempted to go through this entrance (I knew the limits of my swimming ability and opted not to try it). Brian had the camara bag swept out of his hand and into the rocks twice (cameras were fine, luckily) and he cut his foot when a big wave took him into some rocks. Thankfully he gave up and came back to the boat at that point. We decided that buying some postcards would be a much better idea.

Monkey Beach

We snorkelled in to this beach on our first day on Phi Phi. We were disappointed that our underwater camera didn't work and we couldn't get pictures of the monkeys. We stopped off there again when we had the hired boat.

The monkeys run around among the tourists. There was a Thai guy there with a stick in case the monkeys got rowdy, which they sometimes did. Many people fed the monkeys bananas, which the monkeys took out of their hands.

Seafood

After two days on Phi Phi, we boated back to Phuket for one more night before flying back to Bangkok. Here is Brian about to partake of some yummy, cheap seafood on our last night in Phuket.

Back in Bangkok

We returned to Bangkok for an afternoon of shopping before our midnight flight back to Korea. Boy did I have fun shopping..... knockoff t-shirts and sandals, bathing suits, sundresses, jewelry ... funny enough - my favorite stores were the drug stores ... I was able to get familiar makeup and personal hygene products that aren't available in Korea.

Brian tried on his suits and they had a few hours to make some alterations. This is Rocky, the not pushy and very friendly salesman, marking the places that need altered.

Brian in suit

Here's Brian looking sexy in one of his suits.

Brian eating a Scorpian

The last thing Brian did in Thailand was eat a scorpion. He'd eaten one before, last time he was in Thailand. This time he wanted to have it on video. He ate most of it, and I nibbled a leg. It was soaked in soy sauce, so it didn't really have any other taste, besides 'crunchy'.