Grand Palace
The Grand Palace is home to many buildings and consists of 4 sections:  Outer Court, Middle Court, Inner Court, and Defensive Walls.  There are several guided tour options you can buy around the Grand Palace.  We opted for a self
The Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Wat Phra Kaew,  is located inside the Grand Palace and is regarded as the most sacred Buddhist temple.  They're very strict on no photos of the Emerald Buddha, which is carved out of a single jade stone.
Wat Pho  is located right next door to the Grand Palace.  "Wat" = Temple. The most popular temples are in the same general vicinity in Bangkok.  
Inside Wat Pho is the Reclining Buddha , which is flaked in golf leaf.  
Across the Chao Phraya River is the Wat Arun , or the "Temple of Dawn," which has a great view of the Grand Palace.  
Token photo with one of the thousands of Buddhas throughout the temples.  
View from Lebua Sky Bar , where the Hangover 2 was filmed.  Night settings are continuously improving for my insufficient camera skills.  
Through Trip Advisor, I found Bangkok Day Tours .  After checking out their site, I knew we had to try the "Tiger Temple Breakfast + Elephant Bathing."  Hands down, one of the coolest days of my life.   First stop, Bridge over the
Second stop, the Tiger Temple, which is run by monks and is a rescue facility for tigers.  The morning starts with our food "offerings" to the monks for allowing us to view the tigers and have access to their temples.   Appropriate dress
It's incredibly sad for me hearing this news because I was one of those tourists who believed the monks were truly helping the tigers.  Turns out, I was wrong.  
Next stop, elephant bathing.   Elephants are revered throughout Thailand, and daily bathing is an important part of their lives.   ***As far as I still know, this facility is rescuing elephants.***
Never-have-I-ever had a water fight with an elephant's trunk in the river Kwai.  Oh, wait.  Yes, I have.   Our guide, Nan, took over 1,000 photos of our tour with the tigers and elephants.  She was absolutely amazing and kn
BUT, when you are swimming in the river Kwai with the elephants, do no think for one second that it's filtered, potable water.  I swam like I was in a swimming pool; meaning, I was blowing water out my nose and ingested some of it.  That n
Floating markets are a big deal in Bangkok.  Some of them are only open on the weekends.  We found a few of them by accident.  But, this was one of the days I was on my death-bed, so I don't remember much of it.
Next stop, Phuket.  Of all the islands in Thailand, I chose Phuket because it's one of the most popular.  A friend strongly suggested we stay on another island, but I didn't listed.  Mistake #1.   Phuket is like driving alo
I knew I wanted to check out the Ko Phi Phi islands because of the movie "The Beach."   We chose a guided tour in the airport.  Mistake #2.  There are tons of options for tours, but we chose the first one we came across.  It c
Bird Cage Island.
Long-tail boats docked at the main beach from the movie "The Beach."   Basically, the same as any Pinterest photo you may find and think, "Amazing!  I must go here."  What you don't see is the thousands of other boats and tours docke
We still made the most of it, obviously.
While in Phuket, we stayed at the Le Meridien .  This place was killer because it had a private beach, and you could get away from the nonsense.  Plus, they offered cooking classes.  With Thai being my favorite cuisine of all time, I
The Le Meridien offers wind surfing, yoga, massage, etc.  Being the athlete that I am, I tried out the wind surfing.  Harder than it looks.   And if you need a massage, go anywhere else.  It's $10 USD for an hour almost everywhe
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