Ayuthaya

Ayuthaya was the capital of the kingdom that makes up present day Thailand and more for 5 centuries before it fell, violently, to the Burmese in 1767. A short period after that, king Rama I regained control of the kingdom and moved the capital to Bangkok where it has been ever since. Abut hays is about an hour and a half north of Bangkok and many of the temple ruins can still be seen. Unfortunately most of the Budda statues have been destroyed and/or stolen and melted for their value. Our impression is that the Burmese were Hindu and did not respect Budda like the people of this kingdom did. I admit though we could have done a better history lesson before coming over.  It wasn't taking over as a colony but did trade with many western countries.

Anyway, Ayuthaya is incredibly interesting. The Grand Palace and surrounding buildings were leveled and only their foundations remain but the palace temple as well as some of the larger temples were  partially reconstructed so you can see a small glimps into what they once were. You'll see one temple that looks similar to famous Angkor Wat in present day Cambodia. That was the common architecture style of Khmer which was the period before that of Ayuthaya and seen more whe nthe capital was in Sukothai - our next post. The rest of the temples are laid out and have similar structures to present day Buddhist temples. The Buddha statuesw without heads is very eery but even more so is the head of a Buddha tangled in tree roots of a Bondhi tree (the type of tree Buddha was under when he found enlightenment so very common around temples).

Continuation of food - the Thais love fruit smoothies - though unlike st home they don't add any sugar or other "stuff"....just blended fruit and ice. SO DELICIOUS in the heat. We've had pineapple, banann, strawberry/banana, strawberry/pineapple and watermelon but our absolute favorite was kiwi:

Sukhothai

Sukhothai emerged as the Khmer empire was crumbling in the 13th century is considered the first independent Thai kingdom for just 150 years before it was taken over by the king who moved the capital to Ayuthaya where it became a large and prosperous kingdom. My impression was this was a smooth transfer - not a take over or the result of some battle. The interesting thing about Sukhothai is that the architecture is more like the Khmer style which is the era of Angkor Wat and other famous temple locations around southeast Asia. It is not as big nor as glamorous as Ayuthaya was but some of the structures are a litte more preserved including a massive Sitting Buddha (15m high).

We're heading to Chiang Mai tomorrow - super excited to see it!

Putting Kerry to work

Bangkok

First impression of Thailand - it's hot....and getting hotter. At least it seems that way. We're trying not to complain because we'd both rather be hot than cold. We thought we could handle heat but at home that's alot easier going from our air conditioned homes to ac cars and ac office buildings. The only time were usually in the heat is when we're at the beach where we can get into the water to cool off. I'm not complaining but it's hot - 100 degrees hot! We luckily can afford to pay for AC cooled rooms - a hefty $18-20 as opposed to $10-12 rates. :)

Ok on to Bangkok. A few sights around town... As you can see, they don't hide from color in their architecture, or anything really. Kerry loves the color! Bangkok itself is not particularly beautiful but the grand palace and some of her temples really are nothing but elaborate! 

Wat Pho: home of one of the largest Reclining Budda statues - 46m long and 15m high, covered in gold.

Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace, temple and residence of the monarchy for centuries. Still the base of many government offices but we believe the monarch family actually resides in a newer palace across town.

Interesting things we learned: the Princess's birthday anniversary (as the Thais call it) is April 2nd - she is turning 60 which is apparently a huge deal though we didn't quite understand exactly why, something with circles. Anyway, the entire country is setting up to celebrate, Bangkok of course the biggest. We saw them setting up for the festival but these "booths" are massive structures that they are building and painting - they are going all out. Also interesting, the day of the week you are born is more important than the date. So although they celebrate on the day of your birthday, your color will also be the color of the day of the week you were born. The princess was born on a Saturday so her color is purple so everything - signs, banners, shirts, ribbons, etc are all purple to celebrate her. 

Street food eating continues. It's so good and cheap and easy here that we havent even bothered seeking out peanut butter which with bread has been our lunch very often in the past when sight seeing. My absolute favorite has been a crepe cooked on a cart with banana and then covered in chocolate!

Markets - the first is from the Chinatown market - huge, confusing alleyways and small streets covered with tarps so you feel like your inside a building. It was a bit overwhelming. The other is the flower market. Much more pleasant experience. We are guessing fresh flowers are a strong part of daily life since this market was several street blocks big. A common use for the flowers is the offer to the Budda statues and place in temples as offerings.

Welcome to Thailand

Yesterday we made the trek from Istanbul to Bangkok, Thailand.  While on the topic of flights, we have to recommend flying Emirates whenever possible...food on every flight (surprisingly good), personal movie screens (last flight in economy had 15" lcd screens), great movie slection and of course free drinks...

So during our last flight I may or may not have spilled my wine all over the back of the seat.  Kerry enjoyed this way too much, hence the photos below.  Sorry Emirates.  For the record, thio was just moments after catching Kerry's cup that had slid almost down the entired tray and into my lap.  Luckily, I somehow avoided getting a drop on my clothes!

Koa San Road in Bangkok (very popular with the street vendors)

Chai-yoh (cheers!)

Impressions of Istanbul

After 7 days here, we've made a few observations and have had a few interesting experiences.
1. The mosques play the call to prayer music 3 times a day (at least) BUT everything is closed on Sundays. Can't figure out which religion/culture is actually at large.
2. We were told we "WALK like Americans" - what do Americans walk like?? And no, we did not have our pants sagged nor were we walking with a swagger. We were approached by a man in a square who didn't seem to be selling anything - he seemed to genuinely be curious if he had tagged us correctly as Americans. We didn't find out his motive since we pretended like we didn't understand English like we usually do when called American.
3. That being said, we realized that we definitely stand out. Something we didn't realize until we were here is that a trend in the states is that rain and down jackets are super bright colors - like my aqua blue and Scott's bright red jackets. EVERYONE here - other tourists and locals alike - wear black jackets exclusively. Plus side, we can find each other very easily in a crowd.
4. Scott has forgotten how to listen. To anything....or maybe just his wife's voice.
5. We have no concept of history. Our country was founded in 1776. The center of the Roman Empire - renamed Constantinople - was founded in 332 ad or something like that. The Ottoman Empire took over around 1200-1400. And that's just one of two major empire with capitals here - there was plenty of history before that. There are records of people existing in this area as long ago as 8,000 BC. I can't even wrap my head around that!
6. This sounds stupid because of course we learned about it in school but also eye opening to see reminents cultures like Greek, roman, ancient orient and ottoman all in the same area.
7. This dude Sinan was very busy in his lifetime designing every major Mosque, tomb and fountains in this city and surrounding areas as well converting major churches to major mosques - like Hagia Sofia/Aya Sofya.
8. Istanbul is amazing and many historic sites have been restored and are very accessible to tourists. That being said, the city is surprisingly run down in areas and some former buildings have just collapsed. Many more that look like they are about to. Many other sites - churches/mosques/important looking buildings of the past - not renovated some being used as cheap shops and such. That being said there are many obvious areas of reconstruction and active renovation so I'm sure it's just a matter of time before it's beautiful at every turn. It's an old and big city so I shouldn't be surprised but it's just different from places we've been before which are either entirely "pretty" or entirely "run down".
9. The stray dogs here don't beg and actually look pretty healthy. They are the chill-est strays I've ever seen. Apparently they tag them to keep track of them so they much feed and take care of them somewhat too.
10. The subway system is the 3rd oldest in the world after London and New York. There is an underground vehicular that is even older - one of the first underground public transportations in the world.

I'm sure I'll think of things I meant to add and forgot but here's a good start!

Turkish Bath and Dinner

I was able to convince Scott to go to a Turkish Bath. It's a bit touristy and a little expensive but we won't get the experience anywhere else. Take note all, he agreed that he enjoyed it a lot more than he thought he would! We obviously couldnt take photos inside the actual bath but we took some in the area of relaxation which we have attached. We chose this one because it is in the neighborhood we are staying, is relatively affordable, still has some history and allows for mixed sex communal areas so we could be together for most of it.

Here's some history of the place we went:
The Historical Ağa hamamı (turkish bath) was constructed by Fatih Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (the 7th Ottoman Padishah). Ağa turkish bath was used as a private hamam by Mehmed the Conqueror and his sons. At that time, Beyoglu District was not a settlement area and the Padishahs would come to Beyoglu District for hunting. Mehmed the Conqueror constructed this building as a hunting house in 1454. Ağa hamamı was designed as a hamam below the two flats above. It underwent a large-scale renovation in 1844 by Abdulmecid (the 31st Ottoman Padishah). It was used by the Padishahs and their sons until the final years of the Ottoman Empire. Ağa Hamamı is first mixed turkish bath in istanbul.

So here's how it goes: we walk in and they give us a private changing room. We put on a "pestamel" -  a sarong type thing - and went into the main area which is an octagon with a large dome and heated with a even hotter large stone in the middle and several mini tubs (sinks) along the walls with separate (fancy) hot/cold knobs and a small metal bowl sitting on the side. We "showered" - used the sinks and metal bowl to rinse ourselves. Then we went into a separate and very hot sauna. All the rooms are made of marble on the floors and walls with small ledges around the edges of the rooms to sit on. Once we couldn't handle the sauna anymore, we returned to the main room and relaxed on the hot octagonal  stone in the middle. Then we were separated and went to enjoy the actual "bathing" - man for Scott and woman for me. The women go into a separate room since they completely remove the sarong. The woman who bathed me was also naked except for some granny panties. A little strange, yes. She first used an exfoliating glove and rubbed off all the dead skin (bc of the heat it was removed very easily - its gross how much I could see!). Then she used a tshirt like material rag that was in a sudsy bucket which she filled with sir and then squeezed which created a ton of foamy, sudsy concoction which she spread all over while also massaging a bit.  Scott's guy not only massaged him but fiercely cracked his back which had been bothering him. They also washed our hair! After, we got back together in the main room to relax as much as we wanted. Rinsed off with cold water and felt great! We went out into the relaxation area where we were given dry pestamels and real towels which they arranged on our heads as you'll see in the photos. They also gave us apple tea  which was very good. We just did the traditional package but another very common thing is to also receive an oil massage afterwards. All in all, very relaxing! 

We followed up a traditional practice of the Ottoman Empire with a very traditional Turkish dinner. Scott order the Minced Sandwich which was minced lamb and I got the chicken.. Both were cooked on skewers over fire and then put in a wrap. The best part was the sides brought out on a huge platter. There were just two of us and we got wraps but the 5 people next to us had a platter that was completely full with sides including tortillas with the skewers of meat as is. Pretty cool. I didn't get a picture but a common drink here (besides coffe and tea) is this  whipped yogurt/milk concoction out of a machine that looms like a cotton candy maker. It tasted like whipped Greek yogurt! 

Turkish tea is extremely popular and they drink it all day long. We finished our dinner in style.

One block over from where we are staying is Istikial Caddesi which is a very wide pedestrian Road which is a life line of the city. Shops, restaurants, bakeries, coffe shops (including two Starbucks) and more. It's been wall to wall people every time we've been on it. There is an old-time Trolley that goes the length of the street. I took a few phone pics that don't do it justice, but gives an idea.

Turksih delights...

We'll hopefully catch up on more pics from Istanbul soon!

Grilled cheese and tomato soup (from a packet) - first "cooked" meal after eating out for a few nights.  #winemakeseverythingbetter

Pictures

Quick stop in Dubai - Burj Khalfi (tallest building in the world)

Then on to Istanbul...

Inside the Hagia Sophia

Artsy sink

Egyptian Obelisk

Hagia Sophia (Byzantine church turned mosque)

Street food (chestnuts and roasted corn)

What Day is It?

We survived the 30+ journey to Istanbul (who bought these flights!?) with a quick sight-seeing stop in Dubai, fell into bed after an authentic Turkish meal of lamb and meatballs (very good actually!) and slept for 12 hours. We have been putting off posting because we like to include pictures but haven't done a good job of taking any with the phones for easy upload. We'll get better - promise. We've had two good touristy days in Istanbul and are already exhausted - um, are we too old for this? Nah, it's just the time difference! At least that's what we keep telling ourselves. Pictures to come of all the beautiful sights - a lot of mosques, think Churches in Rome, Italy. Our first day out, our sustenance came almost completely from street vendors - kebabs, rolls with Nutella, chestnuts, corn on the cob, some kinda pizza wanna-be thing that we called a "cheese boat" but actually turned out to have a lot of onions (that was the only failure). We've learned a ton of history and Kerry's learned some geography - a lot we didn't know and/or realized was based here or in close proximity.

on on

"This is it, don't get scared now...."  ~Kevin McCallister

Southeast Asia here we come!

With our South American blog unfinished (sadly almost 5 years later), we begin our next adventure…Southeast Asia!! 


It’s with fireworks and cork-popping that we unveil our new unique blog title…Scott and Kerry’s Southeast Asia Adventure. 


Yes that’s right…we are traveling again.  This time its 3 ½ months of trekking through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong.  On the way there we are stopping in Istanbul, Turkey for a week of sightseeing as well.  It should be a great trip and we are very excited to get started!        


Our plan is to update this blog with pictures and witty commentary to entertain our friends and family back home and selfishly as a way to document our trip. 


Of course, we may post on Facebook from time to time as well since as we all know that has become the best method of making your friends jealous of all the cool stuff you do.  **Notably absent from our posts will be the tiffs, the wandering, the sweating in severe heat, the cramped bus rides, and the language barriers. 


But rest assured, you will see the beautiful landscapes, the massive temples, the incredible food, the indigenous cultures, the clear blue waters and the amazing sunsets. :P


Think of our blog as Anthony Bourdain meets beautiful woman and her triathlete husband…with slightly less production value.