Thailand AGAIN!

Our school gives up money for professional development and this year the NESA conference that most teachers attend here was in Bangkok in April.  Yes, this is our fourth time back to Bangkok.  We went a few days before the conference and went out to a small island about 3 hours from Bangkok called Koh Samet.  We arrived just in time to take the last ferry out to the island where we were staying with the Gerber and Dodd families from ISG.  It was a nice break from Saudi Arabia.

 Jonny trying to look cool....

Vika always knows the right pose.

 These were two shots at sunset as we went out to the island from the ferry.

 Our hotel was right on the beach.  We were literally only 200 yards from the water.  This is looking out to the beach from the porch of our bungalow.

One afternoon on the beach we watched these Asian girls take hundreds of pictures of themselves.  What's up with that?  Franco decided to try to photo bomb their pictures.

 Even the European guy in the speedo got in the action.  We all watched these girls for nearly an hour.  It was rather funny to watch how vain they were.

 We spent a lot of time just lounging around.  The restaurant was right on the beach.

 As we walked on the beach one night we found this heart in the sand near one of the restaurants.

 
 Not quite sure what Franco is eating.  Don't think he knows as well.

 Breakfast each morning on the beach...who can ask for more?

 Spent lots of time at the pool...

 and at the beach.

Each night we were able to enjoy dinner with great company, the Gerber's and the Dodd's, right on the beach.

Loved our time together on Koh Samet.

The day came for us to leave.  The only way off the island is by boat.  We were sad to say goodbye!

We left Koh Samet for our three hour journey to Bangkok for the conference.

On our way to Bangkok the kids crashed in the van.  Too much excitement I guess.

7 Eleven is all over Asia just wish they had slurpee's.

We stayed at the Sheraton in Bangkok and had the best view from our hotel room.  Since we had been to Bangkok several times before we didn't do much site seeing.  We also had meetings all day for most of the time so we didn't have much time but we had an awesome view each night.

 Our flight back to Saudi had a 23 hour layover in Sri Lanka so we took advantage and explored a little while we were there.  Looks nice in pictures but it was insanely hot and humid.  Glad we were only there for one day because it was miserable.

We decided to take a tour around Negombo where we were staying the night.  I guess cows really have the right of way here.  They would just walk along the street with no worries at all.  Traffic had to stop and slow down for them.

One of the stops on the tour was to the fish market.  When we first stopped we didn't want to get out because it smelled so bad. We stepped out to just take a look and get a few pictures and this Sri Lankan man approached us and just starting talking to us.  He starting explaining everything about the market and showed us around.  It was pretty interesting.

 After talking to us for about 15 minutes he starting telling us his sob story.  It all sounded ligate and he kept saying that he didn't want any money for talking to us but it became pretty obvious that it was all a scam.  They see westerners and just start talking to them hoping that at the end they can get some money out of us which we didn't give in to.  He was really nice but it was rather annoying.

 The women at the market would prepare the fish to be set out to dry for a few days.  They would then ship the fish to other parts of the island and world to sale.

It was an interesting day but not sure we will go back to Sri Lanka unless we have to.  We are feeling that way more and more about any place east of Saudi.  It all sounds exotic and tropical but we would much rather just spend our beach time somewhere like Florida or California in the states. Nothing compares to those places.