Well, the trip was a little disappointing. I got food poisioning and spent the last two days inside. But the beginning of the week was quite nice. Some highlights:
1. Preston gets grumpy when he travels.
2. Thailand is warm and pretty.
3. A bus ride on the public bus from Bangkok to Hua Hin will stop at every town along the way to pick people up or drop people off. We got to see a lot more of how Thai people live because of that ride. It was a rickety bus with Thai karaoke videos playing. We were on it for 4 hours I think. Which is 1 hour longer than the taxi ride back to the airport- without all the stops.
4. Preston loves the new video camera my parents sent us for Christmas. Before we left, I suggested getting one- he said he didn't want one. Now he does all the recording.
5. Hua Hin is a nice resort town. It's got a nice beach, tons of places to eat (gotta be careful with that), lots of nice hotels for cheap, lots of everything for cheap. In Thailand, you can get pretty much anything super cheap. Preston got a Rolex for about $10, I believe. We wanted to buy a lot of stuff, but we only took our backpacking packs, so we didn't have a lot of room. We did come home with some beach towels that say Thailand, a bag for carrying stuff to the beach with elephants on it and some other little stuff.
6. We were on the beach Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday by 9am. The water was perfect but the sun was coming at us from an angle, so we got a little sunburnt on our right sides. We rented lounge chairs for about $4. So we stayed at the beach from 9am to around 1 or 1:30 then went to get lunch. Then we would either go back to the beach and hang out in the shade or walk around the town.
7. Hua Hin has cool night markets. There are a few of them, same stalls every night, but it's still cool to see. And Thais are hard sellers! They are constantly trying to get you to buy something from them. Most of the restaurants have someone standing out front, trying to get you to come in to eat.
8. Speaking of restaurants... There are TONS of Italian and Swedish restaurants in Hua Hin. Even all the Thai restaurants serve Italian food. Funny thing is, we didn't hear or see any Italians the week we were there. Lots of Germans, lots and lots of people from Scandinavian countries, many Brits, didn't notice the Italians though.
9. And back to the sales people of Thailand... it seems that about every few yards there was a shop selling men's suits or women's dresses. And there was always a well dressed Thai man with his hair slicked back, trying to get us inside. For a while we said no thanks, then Preston started saying we don't speak Engilsh. One night, one of the guys said, "Why not today?' and Preston and I started to laugh. The guy replied, "You liked that?" and Preston said, "Yeah that was a good one." As we continued to walk away.
10. On food poisioning... Thai food is really good. Really good. Especially compared to Korean food where everything is just kind of spicy and tatses mostly the same. Unfortunatley, at some point on Tuesaday, I guess, I ate something I shouldn't have. Wednesday I was fine, I noticed something was wrong, but it was easy enough to ignore. Thursday, I could ignore it no longer. I was constantly in the bathroom and didn't leave the hotel room at all until about 6pm that night. Preston rented a scooter and we drove to the end of the town. But more on that later. Friday morning at about 5am, Preston insisted I go to the hospital. Ugh, they gave me an IV and an injection. The medicine worked and I wish they would have just let me go. I really didn't need the IV, or to waste our last day in a hospital, or to spend nearly as much as we did on the hotel for the week on a hospital bill. Freakin food poisioing.
11. So Thursday night on my hour out of the the hotel room, we found this huge shopping mall. There were Thai kids- little kids- dancing and singing Christmas songs in front and inside there was a high school marching band playing and singing Christmas songs. It was kind of strange because - these kids do not speak English as a first language and they are most likely Buddist. But it was fun to see anyway. So we walked around there for a while until I felt sick again and then we drove back to the hotel.
12. Saturday morning we took a 3 hour taxi ride to the airport. We made all our flights and arrived safely in Seoul around 10pm. We got on the train and tried to get into center city, but the subway was closing so we had to stop at Hwagok and find a hotel. Luckily, one of the tallest buildings right outside the subway said "Hotel" so we walked there, paid 70,000 won and had the nicest hotel of our trip. Actually of our entire time in Korea. The bed was actually comfortable. There was a whirlpool tub, a huge screen tv and a computer. What else could we ask for for about $50? Nothing. This morning we got on the subway, went to the bus station, then took the 4 hour bus ride home. And here we are.
