Snakes, planes, and shitty busses

As our time in Taipei came to an end we decided to explore the night market one last time. We first sat down at crowded restaurant and enjoyed some delicious curried crab and tai beer We were once again in awe of the food. We wondered a little further down the road and found a hot dog stand. We are both huge fans of the state fair and a little sad we were missing it, so we had to get one. There were spicy, curried, cheese flavored and more. We got the smoked one, and they fired it up right in from of us.
     We wondered down a side ally and came upon some very interesting and disturbing sights. We found a pet shop with tea cup bunnies, mini pigs, and Ginnie pigs all shoved into little glass boxes, it made my hearty hurt to see this. Matt is lucky I couldn't take them on the plane or I would have bought them all. They were going for about 30 cents a piece. We kept walking and turned a corner to run right into a cage housing a HUGE snake, I involuntarily jumped back and screamed a little. As we looked around and realized what we had stumbled on we were shocked. This is where you could buy snake blood, snake eggs, eat snakes, or possible take one to go :) I quickly grabbed Matt's hand and ran by. He on the other hand wanted to drink some snakes blood, knowing full well snakes are one of the only animals with parasites in their blood. My response was " It is far to early in our trip for you to be getting sick."

    Our flight was leaving at 7am so we got up and left the hotel at 4am. We paid 1000NT to take a taxi to the airport. We got there before the check in counters even opened. Our flight form Taipei to Bangkok was 3 hours, but we each had our own tv and access to new movies, so we were very happy campers. We landed in Bangkok and hand about 3 hours to go through customs, get our bags, check in on a different airline, go back through customs an get to our plane. The up side to this, we got yet another stamp on our passport. We took a short fligt from Bangkok to Phuket which took about an hour. We hoped on the airport bus, told them we were going to Padtong beach, and she assured up they would be taking us there. An hour or so on a crouded bus later we arrived in a town, I dont know where we were, but it was NOT Padtong Beach. So we walked for 10 minutes or so to catch yet another bus, and I started to get very VERY cranky. We had less then 4 hours of sleep in almost 48 hours. We were hot, sweaty, and lost in a foreign country. Matt being the wonderful husband he is hailed a taxi cab, negotiated our fair and we were off to the hotel. We had been taken 45 min the wrong way from our hotel by the airport bus... I am writing a letter! ( Just kidding like anyone would care :)).
     Our driver pulled over pointed down a crowded one way street and told us it was down there. We walked, and walked, and walked and could not find it. I thought I was going to lose it. We asked about 10 people where our hotel was, and it was in fact down the road we had been directed to, down an ally we would have never found. We checked in went to our room, and opened the door....... it had all be worth it!
     We had the most beautiful, elaborate, magnificent hotel room we had ever been in. Our own modern kitchen, a message table in the room, jacuzzi tub, open shower that pours from above, flat screen tv's in every room. The hotel also has a pool on the roof, not that we will need it, we are half a block from the beach. I think that all of the shit, yes literally shit was went through to get here made it even more amazing, and we did it together. If we can get through that still in love and happy, we can get through anything!!!!
-Meagan Ceccato :) ( and happy to be)