It’s really quite difficult to know where to even start with this one, since the past 24 hours in Bangkok have been insane. I’ll do my best of trying to communicate the chaos, the charged frenetic energy, and fascination we’ve experienced here thus far.

We began the day with the quest to get our Visas for China obtained, since we didn’t do that back in SF. The trek of getting there alone was a nightmare, but got worse when we walked into the Visa room where there were literally hundreds of people all waiting for the same thing we needed. We grabbed a number to begin our time in line – we were 365, and they were on 150. The wait alone in this room of endless energy got me a little on edge. Just a little over an hour later we were ready to hit the streets, hoping for the best that we’d get our Visas the next day.

From there we walked to the subway, and took it to the last stop on the system figuring it would be an easy walk from there to the river, where we were then planning on catching a boat to the Grand Palace (we came up with this plan on our own). Let’s just say it didn’t quite happen that way. As we were walking in the direction we thought the river might be, this local Thai man named Nick started talking with us and led us to this local temple that he thought we just had to see. He must have spent at least 45 minutes with us showing us around, just chatting, (I think he liked practicing his English), and then he was off since his lunch break was over. He was so nice and hospitable, and although I kept waiting for the scam to come or for him to sell us something nothing happened – just a nice guy wanting to share some of his culture with us.

He suggested we take a Tuk-Tuk to get around town, a little mini open air cab/motorcycle thingy, since they are incredibly cheap and you hire them by the hour – we negotiated 50 Bat per hour for 4 hours, which translates to about $1 US/hour. We actually felt kind of guilty at how cheap this was, but that’s apparently the norm here.

I wish I could say that our driver alone was the only nut case out there when it came to maneuvering and driving about town, but really every single driver in Bangkok must have a death wish. Let’s just say that bungee jumping didn’t even come close to the fear we felt in the Tuk Tuk. Definitely fun at times, kind of like roller coaster fun, but mostly lots of “oh my god’s, I can’t believe he just did that!” The video clips hardly do the chaos of the drive justice.

The whole Tuk Tuk is a brilliant concept, although it would never work in the US. This driver takes us where we want, waits for us while we eat, see a temple get a massage, etc, and then takes us to our next destination. You don’t pay them until the end, so it’s blind faith on their part that we’ll return – that’s the part the sadly couldn’t fly in the states.

So with the aid of our speedy driver we managed to check out a whole bunch of temples, all of which were gorgeous and ornate, filled with lots of different Buddhas in different poses and stances, and all of which kind of began to blur together by the end of the day. The Grand Palace definitely stuck out as the most opulent of the temples we saw. It’s size, grandeur, and attention to detail was amazing. It even gave us some inspiration for some décor in our home maybe someday (minus the gaudiness!)

After about 4 hours of the pandemonium of the Tuk Tuk ride, we decided to get dropped off at the Skytrain, and take that back to our hotel to regroup and try and figure out a plan for a Thai massage (our attempts to find places earlier in didn’t come to fruition). We checked the Ananda Spa at our hotel, and low and behold they had availability for two 90 minute Thai massages for both of us that evening.

When they put us in a room together with two tatami mats on the floor, had us change into these weird looking outfits and then had two little, tiny girls come in who would apparently be our masseuses, we were a little skeptical. Let’s just say those next 90 minutes were pure ecstasy! The way I’ll describe this, since there are no words to explain how incredible this felt on our bodies, is kind of like spiritual experience. It was truly amazing. . .

We couldn’t get over the way these petite girls manipulated our bodies in positions we thought we’d never be able to get in– Jason apparently was hoisted onto his girls back and was air born at one point. Of course one of the greatest things is how cheap the whole experience was -- $30 US/person for a 90 minute Thai massage was a deal (although by most standards in Thailand this is considered overpaying). This was a really nice place though and so worth it (our second experience of Thai massage confirmed this!) We both don’t know how we’ll ever go back to the over-priced, Swedish massages we used to get at home.