THE ADVENTURE BEGINS!!!

As Jonathan burps out the title to our blog in my ear to get me to laugh or something....

Anyhow! We made it! Actually we made it a few days ago we arrived in Bangkok, Thailand at about 01:00 on August 16th. The flight was about 20 hours with a layover in Taipei, Taiwan. It included a lovely rain shower provided by Jonathan's Camelbak. Which had a bonus of clearing the seat next to me giving us the entire row to ourselves. Needless to say, if you have a camelbak, make sure the valve is set to off, so if you throw it up in the overhead storage compartment it doesn't pinch the bite valve and drip on your neighbor and every seat four rows back O.o;;
Bangkok has been great, between the intense heat and humidity and what Jonathan describes as the "cat butt smell" which is quite a good translation! No really it has been fun just a slightly difficult adjustment to the heat and way of life in Bangkok. We explored Wat Pho, which is the place where the reclining Buddha resides, as well as a variety of other Buddhas. It; however, does not smell like cat butt. It is clean and trash free.... Jonathan would like me to add that he does not like cats, except for his Grandma's cats... We found a lovely little park, which is part of the royal gardens complete with a wonderful reflexology garden. It has a series of small paths with different patterns and various sized stones cemented in the ground. You walk across the stones hoping that the pain isn't expressed in awkward facial expressions or seizing movements. Making the Thai people think that the foreigners are even more bizarre... We met a local man who moved to Thailand after retiring from the computer business in Silicon Valley about five years ago. He introduced us to the Thai bus system, fruit juice shakes such as apple with oreos,omelet with rice and showed us where to refill our water bottles. It was a great peak into the hidden inner workings of the city.
We have returned to the park and reflexology garden everyday since we have been here, reading our books for hours in the park. I just finished the book "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," which was given to me by my Aunt Terry and was an absolutely amazing book and a must read for anyone who enjoys losing themselves in a book. We have also been coming to Bangkok University to use their Internet and enjoy the inexpensive college snacks. Today we took a Tuk-Tuk, which is the local transportation in Bangkok. It is extremely inexpensive and they will take you anywhere you want to go as long as you stop at certain tourist traps along the way. My Grandmother suggested that I not ride in these things due to their unsafe nature; however it was a great time and much better than walking in the blazing heat.
Tomorrow we fly to Krabi, than take a boat to Railay Beach where we will be for possibly a few weeks. I am excited to be able to jump in the water when it gets to warm and to be out of the big city!
Tara and Jonathan