a year of white rice: 2013-01-13

So we spend the rest of our week in Thailand :D. first we spent 5 days in Bangkok and then another 5 days in Chiang Rai trekking. the first 5 days in Bangkok we saw some temples, went on boats, saw the hobbit, Chatuchuk market, and got fat eating too much food. anyway the getting fat part wasn't that bad since the food was pretty amazing. hehehe. anyway we got around bangkok by the "BST" aka the train thingy thats over ground. our stop was called "NaNa" which is kinda ironic but i dont think the thais named it after their grandmother. anyway we enjoyed posing by the sign anyway.

Our 1st full day in Thailand we decided to visit some historical temples along the river
to get there we had to travel along the river for a little bit on a local transport boat. the boat we were put on was just a locals transport boat so it was pretty ugly. but we passed some gorgeous tourist boats on the river with beautifully decorated colors :)))

As we entered the temple place (idk it was some sort of entrance thingy) everybody started bombarding us with clothes. like seriously. i'm not kidding. Apparently there have very strict rules for what kind of clothes you can wear in the temple and i was the only one in my family not wearing the "proper clothing" so i just had a shawl that i draped over my tank top and then we walked toward the temples (which btw was way too long of a walk- like 10 minutes). anyway once we got there the guard declared that my shawl was too inappropriate to wear inside the temple which, personally, i thought was inappropriate of him to say. i dont even know how i could have been dressed better. that shawl covered like half of my arm and back and he says "no you must wear an actual shirt." what does he think im gonna do just where the shawl in to get passed the guards and then take it off, tie it around my waist and start belly dancing so we were forced to go back to the entrance and wait in a 45 minute line for me to get a shirt and not just like a t-shirt. no im pretty sure these people picked out the ugliest shirts in the history of shirts except like 10 times worse. so no i will not be including any pictures of me in the temples with that shirt on. anyway below is a picture of all the things that were forbidden to wear inside the temples.

after whatever that annoying first temple was, we went to the reclining buddha temple which was pretty awesome. and in case youre wondering, they did let me wear my shawl. anyway this buddha was like 100+ times the size of me but idk i was just really really cool :D

the next place was just more temples but it was amazing how well constructed and decorated they were. every single inch of these 200+ feet temples are covered in intricate designs. its beautiful.

on another day we visited some market called Chatuchuk market which was pretty cool although it was over 27 acres which is just, ya know, a little bit overwhelming. http://www.chatuchak.org/ it has pretty much everything from cute clothes, to books, to wood carvings to food. and its pretty cheaply priced which is um a bonus for us :) so the first thing we do is step into this market and there are these weird crocs. and normally i hate crocs but theres were like in the shape of animal claws. and i kinda almost died they were so cool.

so gabe has developed a new love for these things called tapioca balls in his drinks. personally i think its a bit weird when youre drinking some refreshing drink and suddenly theres like some kinda tapioca ball in your mouth. its freaking weird. but i guess he seems to enjoy it so whateverrrr :)

this is the view overlooking the market entrance from the bridge to the train.... and thats not even the market. its just the entrance surrounded with people. cant get anywhere without being stepped on. fantastic.

of course while we were in Bangkok mom could resist but to see the hobbit in theaters. so next thing you know we're at some theater watching a movie about goblins and trolls and what not. see we could have been watching les mis and enjoying the romance, drama, and suspense, but noooooo it had to be creatures and violence. but i guess it wasnt that bad. i think i enjoyed it more than mom actually cuz she read the book and apperatly the movie was horrible compared to the book. benefits of not reading lord of the rings.

^^ the ronald mc donald (ew what a gross name) guy doing the Hindu sign thing with mom and dad. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

^new outfit :)))) haha im in love with itttt <3333

our last full day in Bangkok was just kinda a chill day which was nice to relaxxx :) we went to china town and ate foooooooood haha and yea. thats pretty much it hahaha

Buddhist Monks just... randomly chillin on the street. why oh why cant i be that cool....

i know i know... its cuz i cant pull off orange. saddly.

i just thought this was a pretty picture of our lunch noodlesss

so i had this thing where i just had to get a ride in a tuktuk (a thai kind of taxi) it was extreamly fun although a bit bumpy and even though the picture below shows otherwise, it was, um, uh, worth the money.

and then obviously we had to ride in a pink taxi well, just because... it was pink and pink is preeeetty damn cool for a taxi. we took a picture and the driver looked at us like we were wacko. im sure in his mind he was thinking ".... and i do this for a living."

After Bangkok, we flew to Chiang Rai and headed towards the mountains to a jungle lodgey place called Akha Hill house. saddly our driver was overworked and had to stop on the way to help out at some other hotel. apparently he works 20 hours a day. ouch. it was a bit annoying that we had to stop though since we were just sitting on some random porch for an hour. but it was deffinately well worth it because we finally got to Akha Hill house and spent the night, and in the morning this lovely view was our of our window to admire. it was insanely gorgeous <333 so pretty sometimes i wish i lived in the mountains.

we set out on a 3 day trek our first full day in the mountains and in the morning we were all pumped for lots of hiking and beautiful mountains. the first day we went fishing for lunch and cooked food in bamboo :) it was sooooo cute :) and the food was very very good for being cooked in the middle of the jungle. haha they stick the food in the bamboo and then cook it over the fire. our guides seemed to make everything out of bamboo actually they even made gabe some sort of hand gun. which was a bit weird.

our first night was spent in some random place in the jungle....

where our hut was made out of bamboo and banana leaves. lets just say it wasnt the comfiest night ive had.

the next day we headed towards a local village as our final destination for the day. we arrived at this village after like 4 hours of hiking so it was pretty tiring, since it was all uphill hiking in the sun. so we get to this place and all we want to do is take like a really nice cold shower and feel clean again and then fall contentedly onto our mattresses to sleep for days. unfortunately it didn't exactly turn out that way. there were gross animals there, which, really werent that bad. but then the shower wasnt really shower it was more of a dripping leak and then the beds were these tiny like quarter matresses over a raised bamboo floor that felt like it was going to break under our weight everytime we stepped on it.

^bathroom.

on the bright side we did have this beautiful view from our porch

and then mom decided to explore the village area in the morning and took some absolutely adorable pictures of some of the local children

so after breakfast, mom bought some cute little purses and stuff from some ladies and we set our on our final day: destination back to the Akha Hill house yayyyy

^one of our guides with his new puppy

so we ended our trip with elephant rides that werent the least bit comfortable and some kinda hot springs that really wasnt that refreshing after our hikes cuz, well, it was hot.