Bangkok

Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho

Bangkok is a crazy place.  One of the largest cities in Southeast Asia, it is an exhilarating attack on the senses. Food vendors line the streets as motorbikes and tuk tuks whiz by your nose.  There are stunning golden temples everywhere and streets filled with bars and restaurants all ready to get you drunk.  Crowds are a mix of tourists, locals, ladyboys and monks.  And with temperatures in the upper 90s and above, it’s enough to make your head spin (and sometimes your stomach turn)!

Upon arrival from a long day of travel from Turkey, we were swept up in our first (and only) tuk tuk.  Hold on to your butts!


Our first order of business was to escape the heat and eat delicious food. We headed to the MBK mall food court.  Here’s our first authentic pad thai and fried chicken, which made even the best Thai takeout in NYC seem like P.F. Chang's.  This first course was followed by about 5 more dishes.


We were staying close to the “backpacker’s ghetto” which is situated in and around the famous Khao San Road.  This photo doesn’t quite do the street justice.  It’s a pedestrian street lined with vendors of all types.  It seems to gather every single (drunk) tourist in town, so we did a quick walk-through and headed elsewhere.


Bangkok bottle service!  We started with some Thai whiskey, which is actually rum, but as they say in Thailand, "Same same but different."  After over a month of rarely talking to strangers in Turkey (since they didn’t understand us), we finally made some friends.  The first guy we met was a Brit living in Abu Dhabi who had traveled to Bangkok on a spur-of-the-moment decision to drop in on his flight attendent girlfriend and propose.  We asked how it went, and he told us that it didn’t go at all - upon arrival he had found out she was here with her other boyfriend!  Joe bought him a drink and tried to give him a pep talk, but fortunately a couple on our other side (Dan and Suzi), passed us two shots and rescued us from the awkwardness.


An enterprising young lady selling roses challenged Joe to a game of rock paper scissors.  She cleverly took advantage of his inebriation and rigged the outcome in her favor.  If she won, it was 5 roses for 200 baht (about $7).  If Joe won, it was 5 roses for 100 baht.  The Thai performer singing Bon Jovi's "It's My Life," in the background of the video really amps up the excitement.


Like many young men in Bangkok after too many drinks, Joe and Dan dared each other to indulge in a Thai delicacy – fried scorpion.  They took those suckers down while the horrified girlfriends looked on.  Crunchy.


The heat never let up in BKK, so Joe decided to shave his head.  After his lovely locks were shorn, the hairdresser said: “he look better before.”


There are over 400 Buddhist temples in Bangkok.  We stumbled into this one on an evening stroll and were amazed that a temple of its size, beauty, and popularity barely garnered a mention on our map.

Bangkok is famous for its street food.  Carts literally pop up around lunch and dinner time, set up tables and chairs and voila.. you’ve got yourself a restaurant.  We set out on a street food tour one night, which ended in Chinatown.  Here’s our first dish of fried rice. We promise we got more adventurous as the night progressed - we were just too busy eating to take photos.

The next morning we took our still-full bellies for a walk to the Grand Palace.  There is a strict dress code, as outlined by this sign.  Please note skin-color tops and husky man legs in mini skirts are not allowed.

The Grand Palace is a complex of buildings that has served as the official residence of the Kings of Siam (and later Thailand) since 1782. The king, his court and his royal government were based on the grounds of the palace until 1925. The Grand Palace is currently partially open to the public as a museum, though it remains a working palace as several royal offices are still inside.

Scattered in the temple grounds are numerous interesting sculptures of artistic value, including the fanciful animals in mythology, the fierce-looking giants standing guard at the gates, the six pairs of Cambodian-style bronze lions and the stone figures from China.

Grand Palace

Grand Palace

To avoid heat stroke at the Grand Palace we took refuge in the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  We noticed a ritual where people were dipping flowers into water and gently dripping it on their heads.  We did our best not to dunk our heads right into the holy water.

On the inside walls of the temple's compound, there are extensive mural paintings with gold inlays depicting scenes from the famous epic Ramayana.  It is the longest wall painting in the world and was our favorite part of the Grand Palace.


This mythical elephant wreaked some havoc.

These muay thai monkeys are sporting some strikingly modern gear, including some nice tail-fitted boxing trunks.

Here’s Ashley in the standard issue blue button-up required to cover her shoulders.  She somehow got away with showing some leg.


Bhumibol Adulyadej – the King of Thailand.  He’s going on 86 and he’s been on the throne for 66 years.  His portrait is all over Thailand.  He’s a gold medal-winning sailor, jazz musician, boat designer, published author, accomplished photographer, patent-holding inventor and has a net worth of 35 billion dollars.  It's illegal to publicly criticize the monarch in Thailand, but what criticism could you possibly make against this badass?

Close-up on the face of the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, which measures in at 15m high and 43m long!

Another delicious food court meal of spicy papaya salad, Tom Yum and fried chicken at the Chatuchak market– the world’s largest weekend market with over 5,000 stalls.  Since we have limited baggage space, we bought nothing we couldn’t eat.

At the market we saw this amazing cat with a ridiculous expression frozen on its face.

You can tell people get up to some crazy things in Bangkok from this “do not” list on every taxi door.  From right: no smoking, no fruit, no beverages (standard), no coyotes, no sexy time, no assault rifles (I should hope not), and certainly no drugged-out horned beasts.

On our last night in Bangkok we met up with Dan and Suzi and found beer giraffes!  It was a glorious evening that ended with a sketchy walk down Khao San Road at the wee hours eating suspect street food and chuckling at some “ladies” with husky legs walking in mini skirts.

But the cat got the last laugh!

The rest of the Bangkok photos are here.

Antalya & the Lycian Way

Ucagiz, a fishing village along the Lycian Way in Southern Turkey

The final leg of our trip in Turkey brought us to Antalya and the Lycian Way. Antalya is a relatively big and bustling city on the Mediterranean Sea with an incredible Old Town area full of narrow cobblestone roads and boutique hotels. The Lycian Way is a 500km path winding through mountains, pine forests, and beaches along the Mediterranean. It’s named for the ancient civilization that once ruled the area, and the path still follows many of the ancient roads and passes by ruins dating back to 500 BC and before. The combination of Mediterranean scenery and culture with ancient (and often deserted) ruins make the Lycian Way one of the highest rated treks in the world. Still, it took sworn vows from Joe that the trek would involve no camping and plenty of beach chilling in order to convince Ashley to leave her pack behind and travel light for a 10-day excursion.

Seaside in Antalya


We found this great restaurant Castle right on the ocean that was a favorite among locals. Incredible views.


This was our hotel in Old Town. We were on our way to a cheaper pension loaded down with our backpacks, when a drunken Dutch man (pictured) literally grabbed us and demanded we check out a room at the Otantik Butik Otel.  Their normal rooms were out of our budget, but they happened to have a “roof” room that was very nice and within our price range. The one drawback was the low slanted ceiling in the bathroom, but Joe was willing to stoop while peeing to make sure that Ashley got the otherwise luxurious hotel she desired. It turned out to be a worthy sacrifice when we discovered an English channel showing the latest season of Game of Thrones.


With travel comes illness and Ashley caught the first bug. Joe spent the first day playing nurse, but when Ashley was bed ridden for the second day with a fever that refused to break, Joe stocked up the room with water and Turkish delight and set off to explore the ancient Greco-Roman city of Aspendos. The site is known for having the best-preserved ancient theater in the world. It seats 7,000 people and is still used for concerts and plays in the summer.


Aspendos was known to the ancient Greeks as “The city where beer flows like wine, and beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano.”


“What do you meeeeean? I always take a walking stick when I go on a hike!” With Ashley finally recovered from her fever, we set off on our journey on the Lycian Way from the mountain village of Gedelme. Our first day’s walk was a 9km, mostly uphill hike to the small mountain village of Yayla Kuzdere.


Upon arrival in Yayla Kuzdere, we were informed by a local villager that the owner of the only pension in town had recently passed away. The villager (Hussein) kindly offered for us to stay with him and his wife. Here we are with the missus on their porch/in their kitchen having a snack.  Ashley was clearly concerned with the sleeping arrangement.


We slept well at Casa Hussein (but swore we would call ahead for accommodation moving forward) and set off the next day for what was to be our longest day – 18km and a 1200 ft climb over the summit of Tahtali Daği and down to the next mountain village, Beycik. We got lost at one point, but this clever turtle helped us find the marking.


Here is the top of Tahtali Daği, which peaks at 7,700 feet.

Over the peak (and out of breath) with a view of the sea for the first time.


Descending into Beycik.  We have no photos of Beycik. We were so tired, we stopped at the first place we saw.  It was overpriced, the owner was a jerk, but the food was some of the best we had.


Our third day straight of hiking was supposed to be a short one – only 4 easy hours downhill and we’d be in the lovely seaside town of Cirali. Well the guidebook lied! It took us 8 hours and we were ready to collapse when we finally got to the sea. But we did see this cool tree!


And these goats!


And this mythical fire! In the crevices of the rock on Mount Olympos, you will find the Chimera. They are eternal flames on the rocky mountainside above Cirali. Over two dozen flames burn from a mass of rock with no fuel to sustain them. The flames are burning methane gas that has been venting from the earth for thousands of years. We even put one out with some water and it re-ignited almost immediately.


Some say that the geothermic activity of the mountain is the result of the ancient myth of Bellerophon. Chimera was the son of Typhon, himself the son of the fierce Gaia, the earth goddess. Zeus was so scared of Typhon he set him on fire and buried him alive under Mt Etna, creating a volcano. The Lycian King Lobates, then sent Bellerophan to kill Chimera, the fire breathing monster, part lion, goat and serpent, with aid of his winged horse, Pegasus. They say that he did this by pouring molten lead into Chimera’s mouth on Mount Olympos, thereby creating these spontaneous fireballs on the mountain side.


It was dark by the time we limped into Cirali (this photo was taken the next day) but we again took advantage of low season rates and found this amazing hotel tucked between mountains and the beach.


We hand washed our clothes with the hotel-provided body wash and hung them to dry on our back patio.


The beach in Cirali was great for adding to our rock collection.


Exploring some ruins on a day trip to Olympos from Cirali. Ashley would rather throw her body on this tree than look at more ruins.


This was the ad for fresh squeezed orange juice.  Mmmmmmmmmm orange juice.

Taking a Crazy 8s break at a spot in Olympos.

The pool at our hotel was too cold to swim in for very long, hence the Towelie appearance.

After a 4 day break, our legs were ready to walk again, so we headed off on the 25km hike to Karaoz. The hike followed a beautiful mountain ridge right along the sea. This lighthouse was one of the famous landmarks on our trek, but it looked suspiciously like every other lighthouse we’ve ever seen. 


Contemplating why we made the grueling hike to see a boring lighthouse.


We made good time to Karaoz – 8 hours. We stayed at a lovely pension and had a great fish dinner.


The next morning, Joe went for a walk with E.T. OK, that’s not E.T., but the mother of the owner of our pension, walking us to the bus stop.


Ashley convinced Joe to hire a private car to DRIVE to the next few sights. Here we are at the Myra ruins.


More Myra ruins

Noel Baba! Ashley was very excited for this part of the day. Saint Nicolas aka Nikolaos the Wonderworker aka Santa Claus was actually born in the city of Myra, now known as Demre in Turkey, and we visited his original church. Joe (only a recent Christmas-convert) doesn’t have the same love for Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, so he sat at a coffee shop muttering bah humbug while Ashley explored the church and gift shop.

Restoration of the church is currently underway, but there were lots of lovely frescos, including this one of a slimmer Saint Nicolas than we are used to. Like many Christian frescos depicting religious figures in Muslim Turkey, his eyes of course have been scratched out.

Our final stop on the Lycian Way was Ucagiz – a stunning fishing village. Rows of boats line the marina filled with incredible seafood restaurants. 

This was the view from our room.


We arranged a private boat tour around Ucagiz to see… yup, you guessed it… ancient ruins. The first antiquity of the day was our almost 80 year old boat captain.


Joe taking a look at the underwater ruins of an ancient city


The Love Boat


Joe went for a snorkel to explore some underwater ruins and water tombs like this one.


We made it back to Antalya after the trek and sat down for drinks with Kate Clow – the woman who first marked the Lycian Way and wrote the essential guidebook for trekkers. Her organization is currently developing an iPhone app to guide walkers through the route, so Joe turned on his work brain for the first time in months to discuss ways to improve the app through social media.

As usual, the rest of our photos from this part of the trip are here.

And that concludes our visit to Turkey. As many of you know, we had been intending to continue through the Middle East to see Israel, Jordan and Egypt before heading to Southeast Asia. As we sat down to finalize plans, however, we discovered that flight prices to Israel had doubled and ferries were closed for the next month. After a trip breakdown of epic proportions (yelling, throwing things, checking flight prices home) we decided enough was enough! We were through with the ancient sights, frigid sea waters, non-drinking culture and lack of pork products. It was time for Thailand! We booked a flight to Bangkok and off we went!