So Squire and I just made it to the train station. We are supposed to meet the person with our tickets in eight hours. Right now we are eating an early lunch of Thai food.
I haven’t gone into the bathroom yet but I know it will cost me two baht.
It seems like there are a lot of things we can try to walk to. If the rain lets up, hopefully we won’t have to spend eight hours at the train station.

Taking a train to get to another train to get to the train station.

Right now Squire and I are sitting outside the Gate to head back to Bangkok. Chiang Mai was amazing. We had a great taxi driver that took us to all the places that we wanted to go to and then some. So as a brief recap, we:
-pet tigers.
-saw a snake show and took pics wearing a python.
-hung out with a couple of monkeys (real ones).
-fed the elephants.
-received blessings from Buddhist monks.
-went on a night safari.
-walked the hardest zoo I can imagine.

Pictures to follow when I have dedicated Internet in Koh Samui.

Monica-

Squire’s there for perspective.

Part of the airport and the freeway on the left. It reminds me a castle drawbridge although I’ve never really seen one before.

Wow.

So yesterday (wednesday) evening we arrived in Thailand and by the time
I got my first stamp and we retrieved the luggage it was already about 10:30p.

Originally we were going to try to rough it and stay at the airport till the next day because our flight to Chiangmai was relatively early the next morning but we ended up not wanting to spend any more time in the airport and bought a night’s stay at a nearby airport hotel.

Couple things I noticed right off the bat:
1) The weather doesn’t seem to be cooler in the evenings and everyone likes air conditioning to the point where your glasses fog up and stay that way for a good three minutes.

2) Driving on the left side of the road and having the driver on the right side is going to take some getting used to. I knew it was coming but I didn’t realize that the exits and everything (all towards the left side) were also different. I may wait to drive until I’m in another country and I get a little more used to the idea. Yes, I entertained the idea of driving in Thailand folks.

3) Stray dogs are every where. My dad told me to expect to see them but I didn’t expect to see so many. It seems that once people are unable to take care of them they just release them. I’ve see about eight dogs on the little road we’ve walked down to get to the 7-11.

4) Roaches exist in Thailand. I really don’t have to say more about this one but it will probably be the one negative that will linger. They look and are as large as the Hawaii ones. Luckily I haven’t seen them fly though.

So far, so fun!

When Squire and I were walking to our gate at the Philippines airport we stopped to use the bathroom and we got a bite to eat. I noticed two things in those two stops that I’m wondering are considered normal here.

1) I ordered an egg salad sandwich that looked as if it were sliced in two halves, but it turned out that I had only three slices of bread. I’m calling it the big Mac of egg salad sandwiches.

2) When I went to the bathroom there was no toilet seat. Someone had come out of the stall before me so I thought this was just normal, but as I left the bathroom I wondered if it wasn’t normal and my stall was missing the seat and I’m dumb for thinking it was normal . . . .

After our 11 hour flight I have the feeling Squire won’t be sitting during the five-hour layover in the Philippines.