Day 2 - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Today we woke up bright and early at 3am for our flight to Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand.

Chiang Mai is much busier than normal this weekend as many people from other Thai cities and foreigners have come for vacation to celebrate the New Year. And whereas in the U.S. we celebrate New Year's eve for only one night, people here celebrate for 3 nights! That means the city is doing an official New Year's countdown tonight, even though New Years eve is actually tomorrow night (they will do the countdown again tomorrow night).

During the day we visited 4 temples, though we are already starting to get templed-out. There were definitely some cool and unique temples, such as a very old one made of brick (about 700 years old).

Bangkok Notes

Bangkok Notes:
-I like saying hello to people in Thai. It's very easy to remember. It sounds like you're saying, "So what the crap".
-There was a discotheque above our room in the hotel, or at least it sounded like it. Loud bass shook the room, curiously only between 4-11 pm.
-Thais love their king, Rama IX. He's everywhere! In the cab, on street signs, on menus, at the temples, everywhere are posters of the king. We were told multiple times that the king is 84 years old and has ruled Thailand for 65 years. Thais believe their kings are reincarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu (which is a little confusing since Buddhism is the state religion).

Day 1 - One Night In Bangkok

In the evening, we went to the night market on Khao San Road. We travelled there via Tuk-Tuk, a three-wheeled hell cab which is a common form of transportation in Bangkok, and usually gets you there sooner than a normal cab (especially in traffic). Tuk-Tuk drivers are very aggressive - the ride is an action-packed adventure of close calls and near misses. I captured a little bit on video (click on the following link):
Tuk-Tuk video

After dinner and a bit of walking around the market, we decided to grab another Tuk-Tuk back to the hotel (jet lag had definitely set in). We had been warned in the guidebook that some Tuk-Tuk drivers will try and drop you off at shops on the way to your destination because they get kickbacks from their friends who own the shops. This happened to be one of those rides. This driver was persistent, and would continue to ask us in different ways if we wanted to go to some tailor or some seafood restaurant (even though we told him we had just eaten). Since I could not understand the driver's english very well, I apparently accepted the seafood restaurant invitation a few times (I thought he was simply asking if I liked seafood, to which I would respond "yes!"). Kim, who understands broken English very well, would jump in and fix things before I got us into too much trouble.

Day 1 - Bangkok, Thailand (afternoon)

In the afternoon we visited the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. The Palace was once home to the royal family and is still the location of royal celebrations. Wat Phra Kaew was built by Rama I in the late 1700s to house the most treasured Buddha image in all of Thailand - The Emerald Buddha. The emerald Buddha is actually made of jade, not emerald, and is quite small. The Buddha wears different "clothing" depending on the season. Since we were visiting in the cool season (at a brisk 94 degrees) he was wearing his golden robe.

Our last temple stop was Wat Benjamabophit, a royal temple commissioned by Rama V (our favorite Thai restaurant in Atlanta, and also a celebrated king of Thailand known for uniting the provinces of Siam). Here we saw what else - more Buddhas. Buddha statues come in for positions: sitting, standing, walking and reclining, and the positions of the Buddhas hands symbolize different tenets of Buddhism.

At this temple, we also saw monks preparing for a New Year's celebration. Most Thai men are ordained as monks at one point of their life (our guide Maha was a monk for two years).

Day 1 - Bangkok, Thailand (morning)

After 24 hours of grueling travel, we made it to Bangkok at 11:30 last night. Our breakfast this morning included noodles and fried rice... which definitely hit the spot!

This morning we met our guide, Maha, for a Wat-a-polooza tour (a.k.a. a temple tour). We saw four different Wats, about 500 different Buddha statues, and got a crash course in the Thai flavor of Buddhism, which is actually a mix between Buddhism, Hinduism, and animism.

Our first stop was Wat Traimit in Chinatown. This Wat was newly constructed to house a 5 1/2 ton golden Buddha. The Buddha was covered in plaster for transport and only recently rediscovered when the Buddha was accidentally dropped during a relocation effort, cracking the plaster and revealing the gold within (most Buddha images are cast of bronze and then finished in gold leaf, but this one is solid gold).

Our next stop was Wat Pho to see the giant reclining Buddha. This Buddha measures 46 m long, takes up a whole room, and has feet made of mother of pearl. Each Buddha statue looks slightly different based on the period and place from which it originates, but many things are held common based on the 32 ways to recognize the reincarnation of the Buddha in Buddhist scripture - long ear lobes, curly hair and top knot, slender fingers and toes all of the same length, and bow shaped eyebrows to name a few.

Packing night

We are busy packing the night before we leave for our trip. As always, Brian has waited until the last minute. This trip we are going to try blogging without a computer. We are taking  our iPhone, iPad, and an iPad camera connector kit. We also have the Blogger app, which will hopefully make updating the blog easy along the way. This blog entry was even dictated using Siri. We've made it to the 21st century!

Scotland Day 8

We started the day by taking a 45 minute bus ride out of Edinburgh to visit Rosslyn Chapel. Rosslyn Chapel has magnificent architecture and history, and most recently was a major feature in the last part of Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code.

We got there just in time for the free guided tour, which I highly recommend, as the guide points out many of the interior features and mysteries of the chapel that we would've missed. And by tour, I mean everyone sits in the pews for 30 minutes and looks around as the guide gives an overview of the architecture and carvings. It seemed as though almost every carving had a some purpose or meaning (and they are still trying to figure out the hidden meaning of some features). After the Da Vinci Code came out, the chapel has attracted some crazies who believe the Holy Grail is inside the chapel (for instance, one visitor attempted to saw through the famous Apprentice Pillar believing the grail was hidden inside... of course they caught him before he could do much damage). One mystery I thought was interesting is that there are carvings of corn in the chapel. The crop was unknown in Europe at the time of the chapel's construction and was not grown in Europe until hundreds of years later. Does this mean others traveled to America before Columbus?

When we got back to Edinburgh, we did some walking around. We walked through the Princes Gardens, with views of Edinburgh castle and the Royal Mile in the background:

Later in the afternoon, we walked down to the Royal Botanic Gardens:

For our last dinner in Scotland, we ate at a nice restaurant nearby our hotel, Iris. For fun afterwards we found a nearby "dive" bar called The Black Rose. We were definitely way over dressed compared to the rest of the clientele, but we didn't care, and had a great time rocking to some 80s hair band music!

Since our flight home the next day was on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we were really hoping security would be enhanced at the Edinburgh airport. Well, we obviously made it home safely, and we can't wait to travel back to Scotland again!

Scotland Day 7

The forecast for today was rain (In Scotland? ...imagine that), so it was a good opportunity to do some indoor activities. We decided to start the morning off at the National Museum of Scotland. The museum is huge and very impressive (7 stories and free of charge). You could probably spend the whole day there if you had the time.

The roof of the museum also gives you some great views of Edinburgh:

After the museum, we grabbed some lunch and checked out a few other places, like the Greyfriars Church. We also stopped in at a huge 7 story department store, Jenners. They had a gourmet food section, which had food displays representing different parts of the world. We found the "Americatessen" section to be quite comical:

In the late afternoon, we decided to do our own self-guided pub crawl. Kim had already planned a route, marking our map with POI (Pubs of Interest). I think we ended up visiting 5 or 6 pubs, getting to sample a variety of scotch and beer.



We had dinner at a French restaurant near our hotel, Cafe Rouge, which I thought had outstanding food (though the lingering affects from the pub crawl may have played a part in my glowing review).

Scotland Day 6

We started the day off by visiting Edinburgh Castle, which was right up Brian’s alley. Not only is it a historic castle that has been in use since the times of Robert the Bruce, but within the castle are three different museums chronicling Scottish military history – a.k.a., Brian heaven. Thankfully I artfully negotiated with Brian to only visit 2 of the 3 museums. Also within the castle walls are St. Margaret’s Cathedral, the oldest building in Edinburgh (c. 1300s), and the crown jewels of Scotland. Since it’s perched high up on a volcanic rock, the castle also offers good views of the city.

Here’s Brian with Mons Megs – a giant cannon that could launch cannon balls 5 kms, but required 100 men to move it.

After finishing up the castle, we strolled down the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is so-called because it is almost exactly one mile stretching between the castle and the Palace of Holyrood House, the royal family’s official residence in Scotland. Along the way are many sites such as St. Giles Cathedral, Canongate Kirk, and the new Scottish Parliament.

In the background of this pic is Arthur’s Seat, the tallest point in Edinburgh. In another artful negotiation, I convinced Brian to climb Calton Hill instead, which thankfully is only half as tall.

Calton Hill is home to many of Edinburgh’s monuments and memorials and also provides great views of the city. Here’s Brian at the Robert Burns monument.



Here’s the Nelson monument, where they still drop a ball at 1pm as a maritime clock signal.

That’s Brian way up there on the Scotland monument. A moment of hilarity ensued when Brian tried to “hop” on up. There were all these girls up on the monument, so Brian thought it would be no problem, but they had all gotten a boost. Brian made it up eventually, but the monument put up a good fight. I would have gotten pictures, but I was laughing too hard.


That evening we ate at The Witchery, a fancy restaurant at the foot of the castle. I'm not sure why it's called The Witchery, but it's located in a 16th century townhome, and it was pretty awesome inside.
After dinner, we stopped in at a pub named The Malt Shovel (great bar name). The guidebook said there'd be live folk music, but instead it was a jazzy-rock trio. Brian got a kick out of their jazz rendition of Paranoid Android by Radiohead.