Bangkok and home

From Sukhothai to Bangkok it was a 7.5 hour bus ride, then a ride across town in a taxi.  Our hotel was a converted from a old school and about .5 miles from the Royal Palace.  We did a foodie tour with Bangkok Foodie tours the night we got in.  This one was on tuk tuk.  We had to get a taxi to the meting place first. The food was not as good as the other foodie tour we toke in Siagon.  The food we got was Thai comfort food, sort of plain, but the places were busy.  The food included rice and chicken, pad Thai,and a chicken omelet. We toured the kitchen of the omelet place which was in the alleyway behind the restraint, open air.  We stopped at Wat Pho to look at it at night, but the Sleeping Budapest was closed.  We also toured the flower market, it's the largest in Bangkok and open 24/7, the busiest at night,  Then we did a rod top bar to see the river at night, that was nice.
The next day we walked to the Royal Palace and joined the crowd, it was packed. At the Palace we had to rent cloths to cover our legs.  Alicia got a Thai wrap and pants for me.  The royal family, King and queen have their pictures posted all over Thailand, plus statues of him.  You can not creticies the king or you will end up in jail. At the river front Alicia found Durian ( also known as Stinky Fruit, and banded in hotels and buses) at a fruit stall, precut, we liked it.  It has a different texture and taste.  In Sukhothai we had Durian ice cream and like that also.  We then found a place for lunch from Trip Advisor, and it had good Thai food.  Then toured Wat Pho with the Sleeping Buda, the largest in the world.  After a short nap we headed to a night market, ended up going through the flower market again.  The night market was not that great for us as it was geared toward Thai teens.  But we had street food there that was good.  We went back to a barbaque place at the flower market also.  The next day we took a taxi to Church a crossed town, then back to the hotel for lunch, good food. Then out to the airport for home.  We left Bangkok at 5:15 pm and got to Seattle at 6:15 pm the same day then home at 11:30. It was the longest Sunday I have ever had being 38 hours long.  At least the flight from Taiwan to Seattle was 2 hours shorter than the way over.
Over all we had a great trip.

Sukhothai Thailandn

After a 6 hour bus ride we arrived in Sukhothai to nicer weather, a little warmer but no rain.  The Thai Thai hotel that we stayed in was right down from the temple grounds.  We rented bikes and toured the grounds in the morning for about 4 hours.   There is one main temple site and some other small ruins.  After a nap we just rode the bikes down a country road then had diner, followed by a massage.  I had a Thai massage and Alicia had a foot massage.  The Thai massage was great, as it is a deeper muscle massage.  I had had one also down in Phuket out next to the beach, outside.

Chiang Mia

Chiang Mia, cold wet and miserable.  We got there and they were experiencing the coldest day of the winter I think. Our home stay Chiang Mia House of Dreamers is out of the old town a few miles and our taxi driver had a hard time finding it.  When we got close I talked out ahead with a flash light to find the sign.  It's a nice place ran by a single lady who is very nice.  The place was cold so we had to sleep in our thermal under wear and coats and two blankets.  The next morning it was raining so we waited to 11 to head out to explore old town in the rain.  We were dropped of by tuk tuk and I showed the driver a map to find out were we were and headed for the market.  After about an hour following the map things did not look right so we asked a shop keeper were we were on the map and found we were a ways from were I thought we were.  From the map I followed the mote did one turn followed the mote again and was looking for the road going to the market, all in the rain and cold.  What happened is the tuk tuk driver showed us the wrong spot she dropped us off at. We headed back into old town and got a bite to eat and warm up.  Visited a museum that was warm inside then headed for the market again.  It finally stopped raining around 5 pm when we got to the day market that was closing up.  We then headed to the night market that was just opening and shopped there and had dinner.  The food was from street vendors were each one sold something different. So I had a whole barbaqued squid and shiska  bobs, fried spring roll and Alicia just had a fried spring roll.  We then headed back to our cold room for a Luke warm shower and hot tea.  The next morning we caught the bus to Sukhothai.  Chiang Mia might have been nice if the weather was better.

Phuket 2

I don't know what all came through on the last part.  But we finally made it to the boat and headed to a new spot and did some water rescues with Andy ( he is a certified kayak instructor ). Then paddled back to the main town on the island were we were staying.  Had a shower and headed back to the airport via fast boat taxi and flew to Chiang Mia.  The Phuket airport is the most crowded I have ever been in.

Phuket

We crossed the Cambodian Thailand border after leaving Seam Reap at 6:30 in the morning to avoid getting caught at the border for hours when the toirist buses show up.  We had only a short wait.  But were caught by a tout (some selling minibus services) and ended up paying more than we should have to get to Bangkok and the airport.  I should have written down the rates before hand when I read about them.  He also sold us a taxi to take us from down town Bangkok were the minibus dropped us off to the airport and we ended up paying double.  Then the taxi driver said they did not pay and we had to pay him, I saw some money Bing exchanged but I did not know how much so we ended up paying 3x the normal rate of about 4 dollars.   Any how we made the plane to Phuket on time and arrived in Phuket about 8:45 pm and stayed in a hotel near the airport.  In the morning we were picked up at 7:30 and taken to a fast boat taxi and taken to the island of Ko Yao to begin our kayak tour.  We changed in our bungalo and boarded our kayaking mother boat ( about 30 foot long) this boat carried the kayaks to the different areas we were to kayak in.  It was powered by one of the engines that is mounted on a swivel and runs to the propeller.  We did a series of island straight out from our resort.  We got there late as we did not realize we were supposed to have been dressed to go kayaking straight from the water taxi, the other couple in our group were not ready either.  When we arrived at the island there were a lot of other people there already.  We paddled around then had lunch on the beach, good Thia food. Then paddled to some other islands, then back to the resort fro dinner.  Dinner the first night was sort of bland so we asked for more spices for the other meals.  There was the other couple in our group and another man.  The couple was from England, about 65 years, Andy and Barbra, real travelers and the man Sigmand, was from Australia and had just

turned 60.  All were experienced Kayakers.   The next day we headed up the bay to the mangrove swamps and it was really pretty and no other tourist.  The next day we did another set of islands and a fish farm, again no tourist.  The last day was real windy, but our guide tokes out to an area he thought would be calm but when we got there the wind changed and it was blowing straight into us.  We gave it a try but we're forced to turn around as were not making headway plus it was getting a lot rougher.  The mother boat came back for us and tried to anchor but the anchor was dragging and they were heading fro the rocks. Our guide Burt went out to help and tied his kayak to the boat and when the boat was dragging the anchor the boat ran into a small piling and smashed the guides kayak. It had a good crack on top of the kayak, we later found out it was totaled. When the boat skipper tried to back up he got the anchor rope rapped around the prop shafted.  We had to grab the forward anchor line to try.