afternoon.

elephant rides and depressing monkey shows made our afternoon. then to a traditional thai massage where they moved and cracked our bodies in ways i didn't know possible. it was wonderful. then strip shows made the night...except we didn't go. i was too excited over the elephant rides and too relaxed from the massage to care that we had nothing to do. and i finally got to finish the book i'd been reading. [a long way gone, memoirs of a boy soldier]

morningtime.

first we went to a lovely temple where we couldn't take pictures inside. or understand the tour. we think that the dalai llamas are buried there, but we still aren't completely sure.

then to a buddha mountain. start taking silly pictures now.

next to a winery, where we drank delicious grape juice and took plenty of stepford wife-esque pictures to match with the immaculate greenery.

and then an elephant show! one of the highlights of thailand, where i fell in love with elephants. one of the best parts was that these guys totally loved entertaining, which made me feel like they actually enjoyed their situation in life. jeff found a new girlfriend and i tried to take one home.

waterplay.

wednesday was water day. we took a bumpy boat ride to an island of wood. it was like a huge dock floating in the gulf of siam. from there, we were hooked to a rickety (again with the rickety) parasail and literally swept off the ground by a fishy looking boat driver. the whole operation took about .5 seconds per person. before we could catch our breath, we were whisked off (okay, totally romanticizing that) to another real island where we jetskiied and banana boated for approximately 2 minutes each.

we played in the ocean for a while, ate the same meal as the first night [crab and bok choy] for lunch, and got kicked off a chair for sitting on it. who knew they charged you to sit in a chair! we met a nice iranian man that spotted us as american and came up to take a picture.

him: america!
us: yes!
him: iran! america! friends!
us: uhhhh yes?
him: bush.
us: ......
him: obama!
us: obama!
him: friends! picture?
us: okay!



love it.

after we took the necessary ridiculous pictures, we went back to the mainland and got lovely massages. wish i had gotten pictures of the silly suits they made us. [actually lack of suits...awkward see through underwear]

then we walked "the strip" of thailand. note how happy we were before we walked down it.



and then on to day three...

dreamworld.

let's backtrack to the first day in thailand...
we had biked to the bus station at 130am on monday morning, sneakily locked our bikes behind a bush, and headed to taipei to take our 8am flight. after three hours of good airplane sleep, we arrived in thailand! we boarded our frilly laced-out bus and took a long bumpy road to dreamworld.

wait. dreamworld? what's that? let me tell you. think an imitation disneyland--thailand style. mickey mouse was replaced by a chipmunk. space mountain was replaced by space mountain [just a little more rickety]. costumed characters were replaced by elephants. splash mountain was replaced by super splash. and the castle was replaced by a giant's house. 2 hours was the perfect amount of time to spend there. and we got some great pictures thanks to ivan perez for giving amy her dream gift.

the phanties.

ELEPHANTS. phanties, according to ally.
versatile creatures.
have silly hair.
hilarious.
seem to enjoy entertaining.
very distinct personalities.
can pick us up with their noses.
well-trained.
poop in the middle of their shows.
we can ride on their heads.
can tell the difference between money and food.
photogenic.
symbol of thailand.
will dance with all four legs..and their trunk.

my new favorite animal.

i'm back!

elephants? check.
asian tourists? check.
beaches? check.
sweatshops? check.
monks? check.
fried bugs? check.
cool architecture? check.
transvestites? sadly, check.

and more to come later...

off we go to thailand! be back in a week.

taken from friscdude's flickr. can't figure out how to site it better.