On the plane now from Bangkok to Chiang Rai - the last leg of our adventure! Four seasons tented elephant camp here we come baby!! Rick is eating a quite questionable bologna sandwich next to me. Its 8:45am. Hmmm.

Susie, our trails of Indochina guide just dropped us off at the airport and wished us well on the next leg of our trip. I cannot say enough good things about our guided tour with Susie and Tan Tan (the driver). Susie is one of those people who takes such pride in her job. She was hell bent on making sure we enjoyed every minute of our visit to Bangkok, saw as much as we could in the limited time we had, and made sure to sprinkle in good luck wherever we were to bless our honeymoon and nuptials. The minute we arrived in Bangkok Susie was talking a mile a minute about how she wanted to rework our itinerary to make sure we could fit it all in, this while walking faster than me (a notorious fast walker amongst family and friends) despite being 4'11", max. This women was efficient. I liked her immediately.

Through our sightseeing Susie made sure to show us the hidden gems of Bangkok. The places only the locals know about. At the temple of the dawn Susie showed us the best spots to get pictures of the reclining Buddha ( a difficult shot to take) and she gave us baht to drop into 108 bowls in the temple. This practice was a symbol for making a wish, one for Rick and I to make together. We had to join hands and then think of that wish as we dropped the coins into the 108 bowls. We made a good wish:).

Susie took us through the grand canals and gave us bread to feed the catfish, an extra loaf for good luck. She took us to the flower market and bought us jasmine, rose, and orchid bracelets. They smelled so sweet. She took us to the most authentic Thai restaurant for lunch and ordered dish after dish of the best food we've had since we've been here. She insisted we have the first taste of each dish, and try every one. She made sure we would have breakfast this am despite our early checkout, handled our VAT tax dispute when buying silk scarves, and made sure our itinerary for Chiang Rai was locked and loaded. She was like our mommy on our Bangkok visit. I feel like we've had our moms in spirit with us on this trip. An agent named Suzanne checked us in in Newark and handled the debacle we'd created when mistakenly switching flights when we thought ours had been cancelled. Jaruwan reminded me of my own mom with her gentle smile, warm nature, and grace. And Susie was our tenacious, passionate and constant caretaker. I swear she was channeling my mother-in-law. Makes me feel closer to home and must be good luck.

One final thing that Rick wanted me to blog about in our Bangkok experience. He had planned on doing it himself but not sure if you noticed his abrupt sign off in yesterdays blog. That was about the time he was cursing out the iPad and travel app "who builds these effing things!" I believe was his direct quote. Thailand is a monarchy and it's actually kind of creepy the amount of propaganda there is for the king and queen. Apparently the royal family's income comes directly from the Thai people's tax dollars and it's clear from Susie that it's a sore subject. Mainly because they have no idea how much the royal family actually makes, which is not the case in other monarchy's like the UK. And at lunch yesterday we dined close to the royal palace and were next to government officials. We noticed they were eating when we got there and still yuck in it up we left and Susie complained about how they're notorious for taking long lunch breaks and being quite lazy. But she shared she has to be careful about saying too much in public as shed be thought of as a communist. I just find it ironic that there are such hardworking people like Susie, and devout people like the Buddhist monks who must serve their religion at least 3 months of their lives. All of which work under a monarchy that is living off of tax payer dollars and have billboards galore all over town like some Justin Beiber concert is in town. I guess all nations have their challenges.

Ok Rick has moved on to tuna fish. Need to sign off before he makes any more culinary decisions he is going to regret.

More to come when we check in at Elephant camp!