Thailand

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> Thailand
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> It is Chinese New Year - year of the Dragon. If you know our family, you know that this is a big year for us.
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> (We are actually a family of Dragons, with a few animals sprinkled in between. Hannah, my mom, Uncle, cousin's husband and myself are all Dragons. We are expecting another Dragon cousin this year too! )
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> Because of the holiday, we decided to travel. It was only 3 weeks after the Cambodia trip, but it was 5 straight days off without having to take pto time for Jonathan.
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> We started the time in Bangkok and decided that that we were going to get a tour. Where should we go? What can we do in Thailand that we can't do any where else? Well, let's go to the Tiger temple and then see some Elephants in the afternoon. Sounds good right? Right!
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> We woke up around 415, to make sure we met the guide at 5am. In the car for 2.5 hours to the "Bridge over the river Kwai". Take some pictures, get some coffee and get back in the van to make it in time to give food to the Monks before heading to the tigers.
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> We barely make it in time to give the Monks our offering to them. The Monks don't make money, so they don't buy food. They are given food as an offering from the people of the community. It really is a pretty amazing thing.
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> After the offering, we head to the temple, grab a bottle of milk and find the closest baby tiger. The one that we got was about 1 month old. He was a cryer too! The girls feed him, I try to hold him and he cries the whole time. I put him down and he finally calms down.
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> We get some pictures of Gabby holding the small one. Hannah was a different story. Hannah is a bit shyer than Gab and has to take things a lot slower. So, as we hand her the tiger, he claws her or bites her and she freaks out and starts tearing up. We have learned to just take it from her, remind her that she may regret not doing this, and then just give her time to get it together.
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> As the monks were having breakfast, they asked us if we wanted to eat. But because we asked the hotel to make us "take away" breakfast, we ate in the car and just wanted to stay with the different tigers. We found a 2 month old that wanted to chew everything! During the Monk's chants, she tried to chew my camera strap, then went to my pants, my socks then finally my fingers.
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> While taking pictures of Gabby petting a bigger tiger - probably around 4 months, it's neighbor decided my butt was too big and tried to take a nibble. Jonathan saw it start to happen, and just kind of laughed.
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> After breakfast, we got to pick what tiger we wanted to walk. Hannah - small baby; Gabby - big one (around 1 year). The rules were, the tiger actually walks you and you don't pull it and you stay behind the shoulders. For Hannah and myself, this wasn't a problem. In fact, we ended up carrying our babies. Gabby, got a little close to the front and the tiger took it's rather large paw, swiped up her knee and put it in her mouth. Oops. Gabby decided she was done walking her then.
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> After the walk, we got to bathe, feed them chicken and play with them. The really beautiful part was when we were put in an enclosed fence area and got to watch the tigers play with each other in the water. They were so big and so powerful, it was amazing!
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> We stopped for a nice Thai lunch and then it was off to see some elephants.
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> We rode them down to the river ... and let me tell you that staying on an elephant going down stairs, bare back is NOT an easy thing to do. I thought I was going to fall off for sure! We got to ride two, Miss Universe and Fu Moon.
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> Fu Moon was the star of the show. She is the one who's trunk we sat on and who is in most of the pictures. She has been with her "trainer" for over 10 years. Our guide Lily told us that she only listens to him. When he has to go back home to Burma, they actually have to beg her to do the things that he only has to tell her once to do. She misses him, and I'm sure he misses her too!
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> Elephants are really amazing animals. They are so smart, so big and really pretty graceful.
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> The next day we took a bike tour around Bangkok. We tried to get a taxi to a specific spot, but the driver really didn't know where he was going. Jonathan had him just drop is off and we ended up walking - at a brisk pace - to the place to be there by 9am.
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> Something happened and they didn't have enough helmets for everyone. The other couple who was taking the tour with us had them, Jonathan and Gabby had them and Hannah and I didn't. I was told, "oh you don't need them". Oh really, do you wear one? Yes? Then I guess I do need one. I told JC that if we make the girls wear them in our neighborhood, then they have to wear them through Bangkok! The owner actually went home and got his wife's helmet for me and someone came in selling their bike and two helmets. Score! We are now in business.
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> 4 hour tour on bikes when you haven't been on one in 2 years is really long. We all did really well. We got to see a lot of back ally's and streets, that was pretty cool!
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> After the tour, we get a taxi back to the hotel, check out, then another taxi to the train station to try catch the 2:45 train to Hua Hin. We were told they were sold out of 2nd and 3rd class seats and they only had 1st class which was $US 100 for all fourmof us. We could wait until 3:10 and it would only cost us $USD30 to sit on "wood benches" . Jonathan told me to stop being cheap and just pay the damn money. He was right. It was nice to have two compartments and couches to sit on. We were also able to order a dinner and have it brought to our car rather than going to the dining car. It was a really nice 4 hour tour of Thailand from Bangkok to Hua Hin.
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> Hua Hin
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> It has been pretty relaxing. Most people go to Phuket, Koh Phi Phi or many of the other beaches of southern Thailand. We didn't want to spend more time traveling and tried to stay close. It is really pretty nice here. We do see that we really are pretty young tourists for this area. This town seems to be catering to the older European traveler. No big deal ... that means that the girls are in the pool by themselves and we don't have to hear loud music when we are winding down at night.
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