last days in thailand and thoughts on a honeymoon

after our big adventure with the elephants, we spent the last couple days at the hilton in bangkok.

we toured the grand palace and emerald buddha,

{that glowing thing inside is the emerald buddha, actually made out of jade - he's gorgeous!}

took a boat ride,

and hung out around the hotel.

that night we got to see the most amazing lightning storm i've ever seen from our giant window on the 22nd floor. it felt like we were right there in the clouds with the lightning! {random story which is sort of related - when we were flying into hong kong on our way to thailand our plane was hit by lightning. scary!!} we also got drinks and danced in the beautiful bar at the top of the hilton that night. it was the most romantic way to spend our last night on our honeymoon!

the next night we were off to the bangkok airport, which was such a bizarre place! we made it through the security gate to find we were in a mall. and not just an airport with some shops - a full-on MALL, with all the stores you would find at a real mall and a food court and perfume girls spritzing you when you walked by. it was very confusing.

a few random things:

* the toilets in newer, nicer places were regular toilets, but we came across several in our travels that were the old kind - a hole in the floor with feet pedestals on either side and a bucket of water with a ladle. oh ladies! i faced my challenge with aplomb and emerged victorious! thankfully i've had lots of backpacking trips in the woods to prepare me.

* everyone drives scooters in thailand. it was scooter heaven! i probably pointed to a couple dozen of them proclaiming, "i want that one!" it was strange, however, to see young children driving them on the highways and in the city. and by children i mean 8 year olds! all by themselves. or entire families of 5 on one little scooter. it was also typical to see a couple adults with a 2 year old perched on the front. i was so nervous for them, but they all seemed to be just fine.

* the thai people LOVE their condensed milk. they make it into a thick paste and put it on everything with sugar. i was a little skeeved out at first, but when we ate our pancakes from a street vendor one day i realized that it's actually pretty good.

{a street vendor making dannon a banana pancake... which would become smothered in condensed milk!}

all in all, we had an amazing time and i can honestly say that thailand is crazy cool!

we don't regret anything we did on our honeymoon. BUT, we decided that a honeymoon full of adventure and travel, while super fun, may not exactly be the best idea. it's hard not to pack as much as you can into a trip to the other side of the world. i mean, how often will we be able to go to thailand? but looking back we realized that we didn't actually do much honeymooning.

so my advice for those of you who are getting ready to be hitched and honeymooned is this - choose a honeymoon that will allow you to be a little more deliberate about celebrating and working on your first couple weeks of marriage. don't let your honeymoon serve as just an excuse for a cool vacation. make sure your honeymoon can provide a nice balance of fun and adventure, along with comfort, relaxation, working out relationship ruts, and being romantic.

in the end we wished we had been able to experience a little bit more of these things... so i guess we'll just have to take a another vacation to the beach right away! :)

and that, friends, was our honeymoon!