Hello again from Thailand!

We are now in Khao Lak, a very small town on the western coast of Thailand (north of Phuket). We spent the last few days visiting the Khao Sok National Park where we slept in tree house bungalows, hiked thru the jungle, and rode elephants. It was awesome! And so so beautiful! We have lots of pictures up, so take a look at the new postings. A few highlights are sleeping in mosquito netted beds, Rachel getting her blood sucked by a leech that crawled in to her shoe while hiking, making friends with a great kid (Sunthi) who we met at the Morning Mist Lodge, and Rachel jumping in to a waterfall in her underwear. Comments under the pictures with more detail about each one will be added shortly, so stay tuned!

Most of the resort areas in Thailand, which is where we've been up until now, are on their way to being completely restored, so until we drove thru Khao Lak on our way to the National Park we hadn't seen much of the devastation. Something about Khao Lak really struck us as we passed thru, so we are back and getting ready to volunteer. More people died here than anywhere else in Thailand and this little town is still suffering greatly from last year's disaster. They've received little to no funding from the government to rebuild and help the people who survived here. We aren't sure what kind of work we'll be doing, but we have met some really nice people who are working on projects re-building playgrounds, schools, and homes. All sound like great ways to help to us!

We know we still owe you stories from Bangkok, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Phuket. We've included highlights of our last day in Bangkok below and are working on the rest so keep an eye out for our next entry.

**Remember...You can drill in to the pictures for more details too!

Our last day in Bangkok:
Steph #2 came to join us on our last day in Bangkok. We all thought 3 traveling together would surely be better than 2.....well...not so much. For the first time in our travels we got scammed! Luckily it was a minor scam and we didn't lose anything or get hurt in any way, but we still fell for it and couldn't believe it! So, here's what happened....We took a water taxi up to see the Grand Palace. Upon entering - or trying to - we were stopped at the gate by a man who was nicely dressed in slacks and a button down. He told us that the palace was closed for a few hours due to the Buddhist holiday and no visitors were allowed in to see it until 3:00 (it was 1:30 when we showed up). We were a little hesitant to listen to him, but there were monks walking around everywhere and it didn't look like other visitors were being allowed in at other entrances either, so we believed him. He offered to map out some other temples, shops, etc. that we could go to while we waited for the Palace to re-open. He was even so nice, or so we thought, to help us negotiate the "locals" price for a tuk tuk to take us around to the sights he recommended and wait with us at each one (Giant Golden Buddha, Ruby Market, and another small temple.) We thought how nice, finally someone who is not trying to sell us something or harass us! Um, yeah right! We thought was a really nice afternoon and met some really helpful people, but later realized that every "nice" person we met was in some way part of the scam. Luckily we didn't buy anything, but unluckily we missed our chance to visit the Golden Palace - it was closing as we got back. The guards chuckled when we asked them about the Buddhist holiday and closure of the palace. They said...sorry, but you were scammed - the Palace is never closed for religious holidays. We should have known better! We laughed it off and headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and Muay Thai Boxing.

Muay Thai Boxing is a big deal in Thailand and we were told you MUST go if you want to really experience a big part of the Thai culture... so we did :) The only tickets left through our hotel were ringside so we sat right in front and watched these little guys kick the "you know what" out of each other. Thai Boxing is much different than American boxing! It's much more of an art, it's more intense, it's focused on kicking more than punching, and there seem to be no rules! The boxers extremely small and most seem very young because they are trained from the first day they can walk. The matches are religious and begin with a ritual specific to the school where each boxer was trained. Each boxer begins wearing a lei made of the same flowers that are traditionally used for religious offerings and the winner boxer takes both leis at the end. The experience is heightened by the hundreds of Thai men yelling and screaming not only to cheer on the boxers, but also to place their bets. Being women, we were definitely the minority in the place, but still very glad we went!

Ok, this is a long enough entry and our fingers are cramping from typing! We are coming back tomorrow to finish the rest so you should too :)

Miss and love you,
Rach and Steph