We're back!

We are back from the land of Thai. We had a BLAST!

The trip began with class! Randy surprised us and upgraded our seats to first class on our flight to Bangkok. That was awesome! It was our first (and maybe last) time to fly up front and experiencie how the "other half lives" (to coin a phrase from the band U2). I'm sure no one would have guessed by the number of pics we took and the fact that we played with our reclining, massage seats for the first 1/2 hour of the flight. I kept worrying that someone might complain about the Clampets being in the wrong section and have us booted to the back.

We spent three very interesting and busy days in Bangkok. We packed alot in and enjoyed every minute of observing the people and lifestyle there. Our new Thai friend, D'wan (Randy's co-worker's wife) really made it easy for us. She was our personal tour guide and translator-- a huge benifit. We went to animal shows, shopped at the world-famous floating market, ate lots of yummy Thai food, and saw a beautiful and very entertaining cultural/historical stage production called Siam Niramit. http://www.siamniramit.com/

The people were so friendly and the products and services were so inexpensive. I had a one-hour foot/lower leg massage for $2.50. It was oh-so relaxing. We also experienced the traffic jams caused by the protests you probably saw on the news. A cab ride to the cultural show from our hotel, which usually takes 20-minutes, took 2 hrs and 45 min. But it still only cost approx $7.

After Bangkok we flew to the Laguna Beach Resort in Phuket (an island off of the SW coast of the Thailand). It was seven days of paradise. The beaches were the first we've been to since living in Hawaii that actually impressed us and the resort was just as beautiful. Our activities in Phuket included relaxing, riding Anna the elephant, relaxing, walking on the beach, relaxing, swimming in the pools (although R didn't do much in the pool except walk around and hold his arm up to keep his cast dry), relaxing, having massages, and relaxing. Notice the theme? It was wonderful.

We did actually do something productive while we were there... the kids learned to swim. They also spent some time at the kids' club making crafts, parading in the Thai New Year water festival, hunting Easter eggs, etc.

I won't bore you with any more details but check out our pics by clicking on the link below or copy and paste it into your browser.
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaNmzFk5bNmTiI

For those of you not very familiar with these things (you know who you are):
When you get there, scroll to the bottom and click the "view album" button. If you want to view it as a slide show that option will then be at the top of the page. Pay attention to the captions at the bottom of each pic if you want to know what you're looking at.