The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

or however the song goes!

So sorry for the LONG delay in getting a blog entry. The last 3 weeks have been busy, busy!

We headed out to the BKK airport to pick up Ken & Wendy around 11pm on 14January. Thank goodness for Starbucks because we didn’t actually see their smiling faces until 1:30am! It took them forever to get through customs & immigration because the airline didn’t have any entry cards on the plane so everyone had to fill them out upon arrival (good planning United!)

They were thrilled to see us but reeling a bit from the flight. That was the longest travel day either of them had done before and it wore them down a bit!

We talked their ears off in the cab on the way to the New Siam II hotel and then, decided to go out for drinks! We found one little bar still open and they smuggled some beer over to us (it was past business curfew) and we did something we rarely do…stay up until 4:30am!

The next couple of days in Bangkok involved touring the Grand Palace and Wat Po, taking a half day trip to the floating markets and having them recover from their jet lag. On 17Jan. we had a VERY early wake up to head back out to the airport to fly to Koh Samui island. Jim & I hadn’t been there before either and we were all looking forward to some beach time!

The Samui Lagoon Bay did not (big surprise) look like the brochure. But, the bungalows were really large, had balconies in front and it was on the beach with a pool so we were all happy. Jim & Ken decided they needed to take up kiteboarding so spent 2 days taking lessons down on Lammi beach but, unfortunately, couldn’t complete the course for their certificate due to lack of wind. They can just take care of that back home in Hood River, however.

Wen & I didn’t do much! Read a few books, lazed on the beach chairs and bummed about. One night Jim & I did finally go to see Muay Thai boxing, something we’d been meaning to do for a couple of trips there and it was good fun. A very odd spectacle with 2 guys (boys really) trying to beat the crap out of eachother while really loud Hindu music was being played.

On our last night in Samui no one felt like going out so the boys went for pizza while Wendy & I got stuff for cocktails and , oh no, pre-sliced cheese to snack on. Big mistake. The morning of the 22nd , up at 4am for our flights to Bangkok and then on to Chiang Mai and Wendy and I were in full vomit mode! She definitely had it the worst and spent most of 4-5 hours in airports and on flights in the bathroom…so much so we were joking she should have gotten her money back on her seat! I was mainly dealing with horrible stomach cramps and only actually getting sick a couple of times. A 1 1/2 hr delay leaving Samui, then transferring and rechecking in at Bangkok and finally arriving at Chiang Mai at 11:30am. We could not wait to just get to our rooms and collapse. So…first day in Chaing Mai, Wen & I spent in bed and the boys had to go exploring on their own.

We had recovered the next day and had a great time in Chiang Mai. Very casual, mostly wandering about, some time at the tailor for Ken & Wendy to get some things made, a one day trip to see a hilltribe, do elephant riding and bamboo rafting, and of course, a trip up to the temple at Doi Suthep and some shopping stops at the Bo Lang villages.

We all flew back to Bangkok on 28Jan. with no issues and upon arrival all realized that, even though we had a night prepaid at New Siam we really didn’t want to have to drive all the way downtown when we were all flying out again the next day. So, we saved ourselves taxi fare and just got a hotel about 10minutes from the airport with free transfers. Of course, nothing is easy in travel so the van brought us to the sister hotel of the one we had seen the brochure on and booked. We had been very specific about wanting a restaurant on site so we’re not sure what prompted that but we complained and were immediately brought to the right hotel..which was only about 1 1/2 blocks away. Just another travel oddity since that hotel obviously had room available too!

We had one final dinner and some shots and that was the end of our 2 weeks in Thailand with Ken & Wendy. It was fantastic to see someone from home and we had a great time, in spite of the sickness! Hopefully they had an enjoyable first trip to SE Asia! It certainly revived us to continue on with our trip.

We’re now in India and that will require a whole other blog. Craziness squared for sure. More on what we’ve been up to the last 10 days soon.

Hope you are all well at home. Cheers! Jim & Rhonda

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008 at 1:44 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.