Visakha Bucha Day and Other Recent Festivities

We were surprised not to get any comments on the King Cobra entry. You all must just be getting used to seeing strange things on here. Well this post is not promising to be too exciting, just an update on what we've been up to in the past month. 

Starting today and working backwards.

Today is actually a major Buddhist Holiday called Visakah Bucha Day. I learned all about it in my kindergarten's Thai class yesterday at school. It's a day that recognizes when Buddha was born, enlightened, and died, the full moon of the 6th month (yes this all is believed to have happened on the same day). Click here for more information and about things that will go on today in Thailand. Greg's actually working today (lots of people here from the US right now and he needed to go in although a few of the Thai's said they could not because the important day) and I plan on skyping, doing some report cards, and seeing a movie.


Last weekend we went to the beach again. Jomtien, if you remember when we posted about it a long time ago. We went with a group here from the US for Greg's work. We even took a boat out to an island. It was the most beautiful water I've ever seen!

The beach at Jomtien, a view from the table where my sand-dollars were drying out

The beach at Koh Larn, much more beautiful. The water was at low tide, so it was very far away!!!

Now this is life!

A few weekends ago, we went and saw Muay Thai. Muay Thai is the unique sport of Thai-Boxing. Lots of knees, elbows, and kicks. There is a famous stadium about a 5 minute walk down our road that we went to with large group of people. I was surprised when I loved it! The atmosphere, the people, the cheap beer and fresh peanuts, you can't go wrong. Our friend Melanie also blogged about it, read here for her take. If you come visit, we will take you!

Outside you get a picture of the line-up

We had the bleacher seats!

Some video of the fights! Do you here the band playing in the background? With each round it got louder and faster. The crowded area to our left was filled with locals betting on the fights. Lumpini stadium is one of the only places in Bangkok where gambling is legal.

More video, this was a staged fight, but it was pretty cool!

Easter in Bangkok was nice. Saturday Greg made a roast. We enjoyed it with veggies and a bottle of wine.  I even got out my Easter basket! We were joined by two of my co-workers for church on Sunday evening. It was nice weekend!

Ok! That's the update from Thailand! Hope you are doing well. The next two weekends we'll be on the beach...

Snakes on a Plane!

Indeed there are snakes on the grassy planes surround Hutchinson Technology's factory outside of Ayutthaya Thailand.

This juvenile king cobra was found outside the factory on Wednesday. 

King cobras are increadably dangerous.  A good bite can kill an adult human in 15 minutes.  The nearest hospital is 20 minutes away.  Although the the one shown above is quite dead (thank you security guards) none of the Thai staff had any interest in going anywhere near this thing!

A slightly larger juvenile cobra was killed by our plant security guards a few months ago.  This one is about 5 feet in lenght.  Adults typically reach 12 feet in length.

1°17′N 103°50′E

Our final stop in our trip was to the Republic of Singapore. We arrived Tuesday evening and checked into our hotel located in the heart of the business district, just south of Chinatown. During our 3 days in this modern city-state we did many things. A top highlight for both of us included visiting the Singapore Zoo where we watched the white tigers get fed (Greg's favorite), spent a half an hour watching the baboon's interact(my favorite), being frightened of the flying fox, and watched the world's most colorful mammal get it's lunch. Another day we used our Lonely Planet guide to take a walking tour around the cities colonial district and marina area during the day and at night enjoyed a dinner with Ryan Anderson a friend from high-school now living in Singapore. Dinner that night ended up to include our friends from Bangkok, Katherine and Anonth. They were in Singapore too and they just happened to walk by where we were eating! Our last day started with another walking tour through Little India, then getting educated at The National Museum of Singapore, and ending our trip with a night out on the town.

When we were in Singapore it felt like we had left Asia. It was clean, organized, and expensive. However we did enjoy some good food, good beer (Brewerkz was our favorite where Greg could fine a good IPA), and great sights.

Our hotel had a Czech microbrewery.

Singapore Zoo.

Mandrill during feeding time.

White Bengal Tigers during feeding time. These two are not in cages by the way!

Up close with a crocodile.

The flying fox is one huge bat.

Exploring the marina. That's the Marnia Bay Sands Hotel in the background.

Greg thought Singapore would be a great place for aliens to live. Example 1 & 2: The cross walk sign that included strange beeping sounds.

Example 3: UFO Building. That's the oddest looking supreme court building we've ever seen!!!

Taking cover under the tail feathers of a statue during an afternoon storm.

Enjoy a cold Mt. Dew in our hotel room. FYI: You cannot find The Dew in Bangkok.

Little India. Much cleaner than Little India in Penang. 

Lunch in Little India. I had no idea what I ordered, but it was basically a delicious omelet.

Greg's lunch was a little more traditional, Tandoori Chicken with rice,vegetable dishes and curries. Indian restaurants have a hand washing station because you eat this with your hands!

Our night out started at the Red Dot Brew House. Yes, that beer is green. It's brewed with  spirulina, which is commonly used in drugs used to fight AIDS. 

Nightlife area, we actually walked through this area the night before with Ryan Anderson.

An amazing view of The Marina Bay Sands. To the left is the Helix pedestrian bridge designed to look like human DNA. Sticking up on the right is a art/science museum. 

The view from on top of The Marnia Bay Sands.

The Ekspres Sinaran Selatan

Before leaving KL Sentral station for Singapore we fueled up at McDonald's.  Although you can get McDonald's in Bangkok it was still a delicious artery clogging treat.

The trip to Singapore was not as spectacular as our previous train trip, but was still pretty cool.  Lots more mountains, jungles, and endless palm oil plantations.  The old Federated Malay State Railways train station in central Singapore dropped us just a few blocks from out hotel.

Good-bye Kuala Lampur

Welcome to Singapore

3°8′51″N 101°41′36″E

The second stop in our vacation was in Kuala Lumpur. KL is the capital city of Malaysia, not a country as we've discovered many people believe. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and left Tuesday morning. Our time in KL was spent getting a birds eye view of the city up the Menara Tower, seeing monkeys in the city's rain-forest, sitting out a down pour in the unique KL Railway Station,watching the worlds tallest twin towers Petronas Towers light up the sky,  and indulging in the local street food. Except for our visit to the railway station, this was all done within walking distance of our downtown guest-house.  KL was a beautiful city filled with people from many different backgrounds wearing traditional wear from their culture. Here's some photos from our day's adventures.

Greg enjoying the night on Jalan Alor (a street). This well know street hawker road was just one street over from our guest-house. 

View from the top of Menara Tower.

Menara Tower is located in the middle of this park, that just happened to be a rain-forest with giant bamboo.

There were also monkeys!

Petronas Twin Towers

We used the city train to get to old KL Railway station. Just in time to see the afternoon storm roll in...

Cool old railway station is still used for commuter trains.

We were thankful for the shelter of the train station.

Inside the station is a fascinating place to people watch 

The Twin Towers at night. They sparkled like diamonds.