Thailand! first....Bangkok

Sooooo we took a little trip to Thailand! So many people asked us, "why thailand?" before our trip and even people we met on our trip. We never really could not answer it 100% why but we were definitely happy we made the decision to go! Jeremy and I decided we were going to take a trip to Thailand when we were on our honeymoon in 2012. We had met some people that went there and just heard around that it was a really cool place and had everything you would want on a vacation,even yummy food and you know thats our thing. So this year in August we decided we needed a vacation, yes I said august...we aren't planners. We were originally going to europe with Jeremys parents but last minute decided we wanted to wait and go to thailand in November. We booked our flights 5 weeks before our trip, again not planners. From there I did so much research on visiting Thailand, also jeremy and I had some friends that have been there so getting advice from them was EXTREMELY helpful, so thank you to all of them! Before leaving to Thailand we had booked only our roundtrip flight there and our hotel room in Bangkok. We are so not planners and do everything last minute but I think this was the first time in my life I was going somewhere I had never been and really had no plan. I was so excited but closer to our 24 hour flight I was getting a little nervous. So off we go!

LAS > LAX > TPE > BKK

We took China airlines, and can I just say I felt like a queen. Three full meals, snacks, coffee,tea and unlimited wine!!! WOOHOO!!! and this is not just coming from me but Jeremy too when I say the food was good!! I thought the flights would be miserable but it was not bad for how long they were!

Okay first day in Bangkok,Thailand : 

We got there at 3 in the morning and got a taxi to our hotel, totally got ripped off there. We paid too much for our taxi but it was 3 am! On the way to our hotel our taxi driver was driving so fast I felt sick. He also mentioned our hotel was really nice and we kind of giggled because we booked at Holiday Inn Express and it was half the price of what we would of paid for one in California( thank you Audrey for that recommendation!). We pull up to it and realized how nice it really was compared to what we drove by. Not until the next couple days did we realize how nice we really had it there, it was located right next to the biggest shopping mall, the sky train, which pretty much takes you everywhere you need to go and there was more than plenty massage places close by ( haha). Which we got a massage almost every day in thailand for about 7$ and hour.

The first day was awesome because we hired a Private Tour Guide , his name was Mr. George, he met us at a park near our hotel and took us on our own little tour around Bangkok. Mr George was seriously the coolest guy, gave us so much information, spoke good english, paid for us to eat from the food carts, our boat taxi and lunch. Our tour was based mostly on thai food in bangkok but he gave us a lot more information about bangkok like how to get around and where to stay away from and prices we should pay for certain things how to say certain words in Thai, which we perfected Thank-You by the end of our trip. Heres some pictures of our walk around Bangkok.

Food carts on EVERY street, no joke. Thai coffee stands every couple feet, I was in heaven. 

 Coffee was always given to us in a bag like this ^^^

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 Mr. George had us taste the hottest Thai chili raw at one of the markets.... I about lost my breathe

 Visited this temple/ funeral area. To be honest I cant remember what its called, so may things to remember.

Mr. George told us he wanted to take us to his favorite soup place, we were excited we were going to a local spot but we both were thinking how in the world are we going to eat hot soup in this hot humidity in a place where there is probably no air conditioner, because that is rare in Thailand. We did it anyways. It was seriously delicious scorching hot soup in humid hot weather in a place with no a/c, and extremely spicy! we like spicy! but thai spicy is dangerous! we thought our bellies were going to burn to death. Pretty sure if I were to eat anymore my lips were going to fall off.
Heres the soup, and our yummy sparkling green tea.

We didnt realize there was a huge protest going on in bangkok when we got there, during our tour we walked right in the middle of the entire protest with thousands of thai people crowded around standing, sitting, sleeping, eating, singing etc. hahah They were all very friendly to us. in fact this was pictures of the first day, but our second day after leaving the grand palace swarms of them on foot and motorbikes went by us trying to get us to rally with them.

Second Day in Bangkok:

Our goal for the day was to go to The Grand Palace Temples and Khoa San Road
These temples are goregous! It kind of stinked because we had clothing restrictions in there and it was so hot so sleeves and pants, most of the temples in Thailand are that way.
anyways here are some pictures, the real deal of being there is even more beautiful.

Khoa san road!

this is a huge tourist area! but in a good way! more travelers, lots of things to eat , lots of shopping and I guess at night its fun but we didn't get to check that out. Oh, and my husband decided he wanted to get dreads when we walked by this little salon that was doing them. He wanted longer ones so they told him he needed extensions pieces before I could even think about it, he was sitting in the chair getting them done. I was having serious anxiety, I'm not sure why. I did think it was super awesome that he was getting dreads but I had a feeling I wasn't going to like them to much on him. He ended up rocking them pretty damn well but by the second day of having them he couldn't take them anymore, way to painful and they started to smell. He ended up having me cut them out after a day and half.  I think he mostly took them out because of the pain. I'm just thankful he did because it was so hard to even take him seriously. I do think he is pretty bad ass for even trying it out.

hahahahaahah 

This was the best fresh ice cream we have ever had.

Coconut in a young coconut with young coconut meat with salted peanuts.

Jeremy would say "Straight deliciousness"

Third day in Bangkok:

Last day in Bangkok we did last minute shopping, before leaving to Chiang Mai. I think the time change caught up to us this day because we slept half the day after waking up super early. It was almost impossible for us to not wake up at 5am every morning in Thailand. towards the end of our day we packed up and took the sky train to the area we needed to be to catch our bus to Chiang Mai. We ended up walking down really dark streets in Bangkok trying to find this bus station, we were terrified because nobody speaks english there so trying to find places was very difficult even with a map because everything was in Thai. I think when we would ask directions we were more scary to them then they were to us. A man ended up trying to catch a taxi for us but the road we ended up on was so deserted that he offered to take us to the bus station for free, which was extremely nice we ended up giving him money. There was really no need for us to be scared, the people in Thailand are more than friendly, seriously. By this day I realized how unAmericanized Thailand really is, barely anyone spoke clear english, not a lot of americans were there, it seemed to me that mostly chinese, japanese and europeans traveled there. We were never frustrated that we couldn't understand anyone or they couldn't understand us, we were feeling bad that we didn't know their language. I ended up downloading a really cool app to help us learn some words. 

The bus ride to Chiang Mai was pretty sweet, 9 hours seemed long but because it was an over night bus, we slept through the entire ride, they would wake us up every few hours to give us snacks and drinks, next thing we knew we were in Chiang Mai.

Snack box on the bus^^

To be continued....