One night, in Bangkok ... Michelle & Megan Guest Blogged!

So, we (Megan and Michelle) arrived in Thailand on April 29 and spent a couple of days on our own in Ayutthaya. Then we met up with Arli and Sarah in Chiang Mai for the annual Songkran festival, which involves everyone and their mom (literally) skipping work to throw water at passersby all day long for three days to purify things for the New Year. We spent many days getting soaked to the bone, looking at Wats, and eating and drinking our way through the country side. After a two day excursion to Chiang Dao (where the locals didn't get the memo that the water throwing should have stopped), we all returned to Bangkok. We chose to spend two nights in an area safely away from all the conflict between the gov and the Red Shirt protesters and focus on having some fun. A night out to a local gay bar seemed to be a good option. It took little time for this to (d)evolve into an impromptu early birthday celebration for Arli and a rather lengthy dance-off between Michelle and a Bangkokian chica (guess who won). That's the short version-- we'll let the pictures and captions tell the rest of the story....

This is us in a tuk tuk (motorcycle taxi) in Chiang Mai. Meggo's godfather's girlfriend, Nok, is Thai and insisted on sending us everywhere with her favorite tuk tuk driver. Where is Arli, you might ask? She's riding shotgun on the jumpseat (aka small board on top of battery).

Nok actually hooked us up quite a few times. She was able to get us discounted seats to a Muay Thai (Thai Boxing) match, where we founds ourselves entertained and occasionally a little disturbed. The fighters were mostly young men, until the end, when some older guys came out, but their match was just a show fight.

Here we are sitting with Nok and her friend at the Muay Thai match.

This might have been the weirdest part of the experience. Yep, you guessed it, that's a child and a dwarf ... getting ready to fight each other. The child was 14 and the dwarf was 20. Poor kid, that 20 year-old really punched the crap out of him. Eh, they seemed like friends when it was over and they stopped by our seat at the bar to ask for tips.

Best buds, all around.

Just taking a leisurely stroll along the Chao Praya river in Bangkok.

Say cheese! Aren't they cute. Still on the river, waiting for the local water bus. That's some big crazy bridge that no one cares to recall the name of.

Photo from the boat of Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn.

Here are a couple of photos of the giant reclining Buddha at Wat Pho (they do not sell soup). And we do mean GIANT. In the first pic, Arli is basically standing in the equivalent to a medium sized church, which is entirely filled up with His Goldenness. Arli, btw, had to borrow a scarf b/c she wore a TANK TOP to a TEMPLE. Shaaaaame!

We are just posting this because it makes us look so attractive. We're eating food.
Michelle got distracted from her din-din by a baby Morris. It was so wee.

These are our new best friends at Zeta. Obviously we took this picture through beer goggles. Michelle's dance-off rival is at the right in the plaid shirt.