Thailand

If there is a country with 2 totally different sides to it, then Thailand is it. On one side the flith and poverty is hard to comprehend. But then the beauty of the place overwhelms you, the golden budda's, the elephants and a beautiful countryside splashed with palm trees, is just amazing. We got picked up from the airport and taken to our hotel, 'The Bangkok Palace'. It was very nice and quite comfortable, everything that you would need. But the first thing you notice is the heat, yep it was hot... After the 12 hour flight i went straight to sleep. We got up in the morning to a beautiful breakfast then decided to have a walk around, try and find the markets, well that was the plan. That's when i saw it!!! The poverty and flith in the streets, brings you back to reality quite fast. And then you hear it... Took took, i'll take you everywhere for 20 bart. I think i heard this sentence 100 times a day. We learnt quickly if you dont want a tok tok, do not engage in conversation with a tok tok driver under any circumstances, ha ha ha... We had a good first day, we just wandered the streets and the markets for hours. Then we did the Took took thing, wow, i enjoyed that. He took us to about 6 different places where we didnt want to go and eventually dropped us off at the Grand Palace liked we asked 2 hours later, ha ha ha, quite an experience for only 20 bart, $1. By this time we were exhausted, the sun was at full strength and we had drunk over 4 bottles of water. We had a look at the Grand Palace and caught a took took home for 160 bart, $8... man did we feel ripped off. Well that was our first day. Over the next 6 days we did heaps. We went to an elephant and crocodile show ground. I cried at the elephants, they are so amazing and lovely and wonderful. And the best part for me was being able to feed and touch them. Mike was taken by the crocodile show, he loved it! We had our photo taken with 2 huge thai tigers. We did a canal river trip, the water was so green and yucky and we have photos of the local kids swimming in it. We visited the reclining budda, WOW!!! We saw a budda the size of a house, maybe bigger, made of solid gold. Mike had a Thai massage nearly everyday, and i had a fantastic foot massage. We stayed in Pattaya for 4 days. Lots of older men with very young Thai girls everywhere.
So Thailand to me was a very mixed place, even if you thought you'd have a lazy day, you seemed to be busy all the time. I think that's because there are so many people constantly at you, "Took Took, buy this, hey miss" and at the end of each day i was very happy to be back at the hotel.