By Way of Asia

Bangkok, Thailand: Our next stop on the temple circuit was Wat Pho, which houses the famous Reclining Buddha. The Buddha is known for its size - coming in at a whopping 150 feet long and 50 feet high. Now that’s a big Buddha.

Bangkok, Thailand: Our second day in Bangkok happened to be a Saturday, which was very lucky (for Ash at least) because Saturday is the best day for the Chatuchak Weekend Market, one of the largest outdoor markets in the world and the largest in Asia. The market spreads out over more than 35 acres and contains an estimated 5,000 stalls. With that many stalls, you can buy almost anything (and we mean almost anything) - clothes, accessories, food, handicrafts, motorcycle parts, fine art, even baby bunnies and squirrels. A portion of the market is even dedicated to young Thai designers and artists, who decorate their small booths so they look more like miniature trendy boutiques than your typical market stall. Given that there was no way we could cover the entire market in a full day even with our early start, we resigned ourself to throwing aside the map and just wandering through the small alleyways wherever our feet happened to take us until - suffering from total shopping exhaustion - we gave up in the late afternoon. Unfortunately we have no good pictures to share, as we decided that any we took simply did not do justice to the enormity that is Chatuchak. But Ash has plenty of new shoes and dresses as proof.

On Sunday, we took in the sights as tourists should. First was the Grand Palace (which is sort of a confusing name because it houses not only the actual Grand Palace, but lots of other things too).

Bangkok, Thailand: Hello from Bangkok! After nearly a week of relaxing in Chiang Mai, we decided it was time to move on and made our way on an overnight train down to Bangkok to meet up with our friend John for a few days of fun. And what do three soon-to-be-business students do shortly after they arrive in a city known for dirt cheap tailors, you may ask? They go buy a custom-made suit, of course! Well, Zach and John did at least (the tailors here aren’t supposed to be as skilled at making women’s clothes so Ash mostly watched and supervised). 

Based on glowing recommendations from some wonderful friends we met along the way in Vietnam (hi James and Judith!), Zach and John decided on a place called Empire Tailors. Sunny, the owner, now runs the shop after his father unfortunately passed away two years ago and has recently moved it into a beautiful new building in the heart of “tailor row.” 

After a short introductory meeting with Sunny, Zach and John picked their fabric and lining, as well as decided on an overall fit, lapel, cuffs, and all the other bells and whistles. Two hours (or two beers at a pub around the corner) later, it was time for the first fitting, where Sunny made some minor adjustments to the rough body of the jacket and took a boatload of measurements. The following afternoon, the boys went back to see a first draft of their suits. Another round of tweaks, and their suits were ready for pick-up at 8pm that evening! 

Since the suits won’t really look their best with a t-shirt and flip-flops, we’ll have to save the final pictures for when we get home…

Chiang Mai, Thailand: The Chiang Mai zoo is way better than the zoos at home - they let you get so close to the animals that we almost had a giraffe lick our faces. And they have lots of funny gibbons with ridiculously long arms. And a baby panda too!

Chiang Mai, Thailand: Tired of sitting around and eating, we decided to spend one of our next days rock climbing at Crazy Horse Buttress outside of Chiang Mai. We got to try our hand at some pretty nifty climbs. Oh, and we also got to abseil 60 meters into a humungous cave. It was pretty fun. 

Chiang Mai, Thailand: Although the plan was to spend a few days in Chiang Rai trekking to hilltribe villages in the surroundings mountains, upon arriving in Chiang Rai we found out that we were, in fact, trekked-out. So, we spent the remainder of our day in Chiang Rai relaxing and got up early the next day to catch the bus to Chiang Mai.  

We celebrated our first night back in a semi-westernized city with a good old fashioned date night: burgers, ice cream, and a movie. It was one of the best nights we’ve had in a while.

The next day, we enrolled in a day-long cooking class with Baan Thai Cookery School to test out our Thai culinary skills. The class involved a trip to a local market to learn about (and shop for) ingredients and then a 6-dish course where we got to make each dish and then - of course - eat it. Needless to say, we skipped dinner that night.

Chiang Rai, Thailand: When we asked the owner of our guesthouse what we should do in Chiang Rai, she said “see the White Temple, of course.” This struck us as odd, because we hadn’t heard of the White Temple - turns out that’s because it’s brand new.

Brand new isn’t something you think of when you’re thinking of temples in Thailand, but this one is a contemporary work of art that is still under construction by the eccentric Chalermchai Kositpipat. The temple was beautiful, and looked almost like it was covered in snow, but it was also very odd; many of the images were not beautiful and serene, as they are in most Buddhist temples, but scary and horrible, representing the world that must be escaped to achieve Nirvana. Inside the temple there was an unbelievable mural that showed the evils of the world, represented by a giant demon with the Twin Towers in his mouth, Osama Bin Laden in one eye, and George W. Bush in the other. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures inside the temple, but check out the shots we got of the outside - beautiful and bizarre.