I didn’t do much in Bangkok, but I had to leave Cambodia because of an expired Visa. Traffic in Bangkok is crazy. It takes an hour to go a few miles. At one point, after moving about 50m in 30 minutes, I got out of the cab and walked to my hotel.

I got a really nice hotel room for $27 a night and a typically cab ride that would take about an hour was about $4.  Street food is really cheap and good as well.  And Grab Food has some great deals with food delivered to your door.

Malls in Bangkok are incredible.  Just as impressive as anything in Singapore.  8+ floors, 1000’s of stores in the mall.  Movie theater that was the largest I’ve every been in.  Asian movie theaters are way ahead of the a typical US theater.

Huge malls in Bangkok.

One of a favorite chicken place in Siem Reap. I found one in Bangkok.

Huge billboards too.

Riding around Phuket

Snorkeling and private beach at Racha Island

Private Beach

Took a boat ride ride around some islands and some canoe riding through sea caves.

Canoeing riding through island and sea caves

James Bond Island. This island was featured in The Man With The Golden Gun, a 1974 James Bond movie.

Muslim floating village. Almost entire village is over the water.

Swimming on another island beach and heading back.

We visited Elephant Jungle Sanctuary in Phuket. It didn’t really feel like a sanctuary, it was definitely more geared toward tourist than the elephants. But their  elephants have been removed from logging industries, riding tours, or other animal shows, so getting fed, bathed, showered, and not having to do physical work all day is a definite improvement.

Annika will always be the first one finding a dog.

We did a jungle walk with one of the elephants, Lam Yai, an almost 60 year old elephant. She spent 40 years working in logging camps, and then 14 more in riding camps.  So she has spent most of her life around people.  She was very calm walking through the jungle. She was constantly stopping to eat some greenery. This was after being fed 2 large baskets of watermelon and a dozen plus stalks of sugar cane.

Walking with Lam Yai

We got the wrong visa when we entered Cambodia back in January, so we had to leave Cambodia and re-enter to get the correct visa. So we made a week trip to Phuket, Thailand. Not a bad place to do a border run!

We’ve been use to riding 30 mph tops for the past 2 months, so getting in a Thai taxi going 80 mph was a little concerning.

Four out of my first 5 meals were Pad Thai.