Thailand Adventure 1: Old and New Friends

In January 2026, we had an amazing trip to Thailand with my old roommate Darren, his siblings, and others. I'll begin by turning back the clock to introduce some of the people from our trip.

Prologue

After my first year of college, I served for two years as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Taejeon, South Korea.

Seven days after returning home, I was back at Brigham Young University, living at the Glenwood Apartments with a randomly-assigned roommate. I had a list of things to do that first day, written in Korean, sitting on my desk. When I returned, I found a note jotted on the top in Thai. Apparently, my new roommate Darren served his mission in Thailand.

One of Darren's mission buddies was named Steve Stevens, but we always called him "Steve 'Steven' Stevens", just for completeness. Here is a group of people giving Steve a haircut before he went into the Marines the next day, since it was just going to get shaved off anyway. (Darren is seated on the left, and my sister Sharon is in pink on the right).

Darren grew up in Boise, Idaho with a friend named Devaughn. He accompanied our roommates on a spontaneous trip to L.A. Here is me, Devaughn and Darren wearing matching T-shirts we got near Long Beach.

Devaughn was dating a girl named Kim, and they both hung out with us quite a bit, especially when Devaughn moved into our apartment the next spring. Here is a funny picture with Darren, my sister Sharon, Devaughn, Kim, our friend Amie, and me. (Taking the picture was my idea. Jumping up on the counter for it was Darren's).

We had a lot of fun in college. For example, one time we did an "ice cream mash", where we opened a few cartons of ice cream directly onto the table, added our favorite candy bars, and mixed it all up. Then a girl named Karla said, "What if I just...flip some..." Well, an ice cream fight ensued. In this picture are several people related to our trip, including Sharon (second from the left), Steve Stevens (fourth from left), Darren (next to him), and the rightmost three are Kim, Devaughn and me (Randy).

It's not like we left the apartment a mess, however. In fact, I'd say we went above and beyond! When we had our monthly cleaning check, they explicitly said, "A simple mop job just won't do." So, we did a slippery slide, where we poured water and soap on the floor, ran from the back hallway, and slid on our feet across the floor. Here is Devaughn taking a turn.

Darren and a girl named Marka were going opposite directions when they collided. Fun times.

Devaughn & Kim got married soon after that, and a bit later, Darren met Valerie and they were married as well. It was a fun 2 years having Darren as a roommate. Apparently Darren's brother Landon was planning to be his roommate the next year, but both he and I were out of luck, because Valerie called eternal dibs.

The Fellowship of the Trip

Over 35 years later, I was working at FamilySearch, and got an e-mail from Steve Stevens. He was working at FamilySearch as well, and was living in Thailand. He sent me an e-mail about something, and I mentioned that my wife Linette and I had always wanted to visit Thailand. So he recommended that I reach out to Darren and drag him and Valerie along for a visit.

I checked with Darren in early 2025, and he needed to check to see if they could pull that off the next January. The next thing I heard, he had reached out to his mission buddy Tyler Prock, who facilitates tours to Thailand, and then invited all three of his siblings (Lance & wife Lesa; Landon & wife Jen; and Dayna & husband Robert) plus Devaughn & Kim. So I signed up while I could, and invited Sharon and her husband Roger. We were also joined by Greg (one of Darren's mission friends) and his wife Kelly, as well as by Paul (a friend of Darren's and Devaughn's growing up in Boise) and his wife Becky.

We started booking flights around April 2025, and were looking forward to the upcoming trip.

In August, Devaughn and Kim invited me and Linette up to Boise to go rafting on the Payette River, along with Paul and Becky, who we had not met before. They were a lot of fun, and it was nice to get to know them a bit before the trip.

It turned out to be an awesome group of 18 people, and we had a blast getting acquainted or reacquainted.

Our daughter ended up having a baby two days before we left, and we were so glad we got to meet our new little grandson for a couple of days before we had to take off.

Gathering in Bangkok

On Saturday, January 17, 2026, Linette and I joined Sharon & Roger and drove up to the Salt Lake City airport. There we met Landon & Jen, and had a great time getting to know them while we waited for our flight. We flew to Seattle, where we met up with Darren & Valerie, and then took a long flight to Taipei, Taiwan, which had an interesting airport with various themes throughout.

Finally, we arrived in Bangkok.

This group came a day early in order to see the city a bit more and to visit the Bangkok Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which we saw out the window on the way to our hotel.

We stayed at the Eastin Grand Hotel Sathorn Bangkok, and it was a beautiful hotel with a great view (at least from the 23rd floor).

Several of those in our group walked over to see the colorful Sri Maha Mariamman Temple nearby. It is known locally as Wat Khaek (วัดแขก), where "Wat" means "temple" in Thai. Most temples in Thailand are Buddhist, but this is a Hindu temple built in 1879 by some people who came from India to avoid British rule.

In Thailand, scooters are amazingly popular. They are way cheaper than cars, can park more places, and can go in between cars in bad traffic, making it possible to get places twice as fast. And we've seen at least 5 people riding on one at once, so it serves as a cheap minivan! You can also get killed on them, so our trip host told us not to ride them, even if he did.

We walked over to a tall building with blocks "missing" from it, which looked like a video game had blasted pixels out of a Minecraft structure or something.

The Maha Nakhon building is 314 meters tall (almost 1000 feet), and is the tallest building in Bangkok. Here is how it compares to other buildings around the world.

It offered a panoramic view of the city in all directions.

The building had a net you could lie on and look straight down from 314 meters up (almost 1000 feet). We chose not to pay extra for that.

It also had a clear platform you could go out on, which did things to your brain. Here is Linette looking down.

The sun started to set during the time we were there. You can see here that there is a layer of smog over Bangkok, which makes for pretty sunsets but unhealthy breathing. There are 11 million people living in Bangkok, and the air pollution is equivalent to smoking 3-4 cigarettes per day. Still, it was cool to look out and see this massive city from such a high vantage point.

Inside the building is a series of rooms with interesting light displays that was really cool.

One room had animated lasers shining down from the ceilings, with mirrors on all the walls to make it look like it went to infinity.

There was a triangle mirrored hallway that made it look like a kaleidoscope.

Linette & Randy

Roger & Sharon

Another room had a boat with a diagonal mirror above it and mirrors on both sides. When you walked on the water, it would react with little splashes.

Valerie & Darren

Linette & Randy

Roger & Sharon

Here is a 10-second video of Darren and Valerie getting on the boat:

There was another room where you could color an animal, place it in a certain spot, and it would automatically get scanned and then animated on a huge wall. For example, I colored this elephant:

and then it walked across the wall, along with animals colored by everyone else. Sometimes it would flap its ears or pause and raise its trunk to trumpet.

Here is a 30-second video, starting with Sharon telling how it works:

Another room had cool stuff displayed on all the pillars, and mirrors on the walls to make it look like it all went forever.

Here's a 30-second video of what that looked like:

We enjoyed our visit to Maha Nakhon tower in Bangkok. And we hope it doesn't disintegrate the rest of the way.

Darren served his mission in Thailand, mostly in Bangkok, and he wanted to eat at a cheap hole-in-the-wall place like he used to in his mission. We ended up picking a random place that was a little fancier than he used to frequent.

It was tasty, but the chicken in my dish still had bones and fat you had to work around, and it was painfully spicy, so I didn't actually enjoy it much. We love Thai food, and this meal made me worried that it wouldn't be as enjoyable as I had hoped. (As it turned out, every meal after this was great).

In Thailand, there are 7-Eleven stores all over the place. We needed to get some change for our large bills, so we hit the one across the street from the restaurant.

 

I bought two ice cream bars to calm down the spiciness from dinner.

Thailand uses the "Baht" as its currency, and it was about 31 Baht per dollar, so we did a lot of "divide by 10 and then by 3" in our heads during the trip to see how many dollars something cost. One fun thing about being on vacation is that when you buy stuff, it seems like you're just using "play money".

As we walked back to the hotel, we went over a pedestrian bridge, which gave us a nice view of the awesome traffic in Bangkok. You can see why people would want to ride scooters, since they can go in between all the cars, which have a hard time moving much at times.

The view from our hotel room looked magical at night.

The hotel breakfast buffet was incredible. It had Asian dishes (curry chicken, soups, fried rice, sushi, etc.), American dishes (waffles, eggs, bacon), fruit smoothies, and lots of other things.

Greg and Kelly (shown here on the right) arrived by that morning, so it was fun to meet them at breakfast. They spent the day just wandering around to see what there was to see and eat.

The hotel had an "infinity pool" with an edge that seemed to disappear into thin air.

There were also fun pods by the pool to hang out in.

The Grand Palace

Tuesday morning, while some of us lounged at the pool, Sharon and Roger went to see the Grand Palace, which has been the official residence of the King of Siam (and later Thailand) since 1782.

The king, his count, and the royal government were based on the grounds of the Grand Palace until about 1925, after which they moved elsewhere, especially after the government transitioned to a constitutional monarchy in 1932. Several royal ceremonies and state functions are still held here each year.

Here are several pictures from Sharon's camera, showing the ornate and gorgeous grounds of the Grand Palace.

This is the famous "Emerald Buddha". It is made of jade or jasper (the "emerald" refers to its color), and legend has it that it was created in 43 B.C. (!). It was discovered in northern Thailand in 1434, and made it to its current location by 1785.

 

I'm glad Sharon & Roger got to experience that cool place.

Bangkok Temple

Around noon, several of us took a "Grab" (the Thai version of "Uber") to the Bangkok Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Along the way, it was entertaining to me to see how much stuff people piled onto their scooters.

Brigham Young sent missionaries to Thailand (then Siam) in 1853, but by 1961, there were still only a half dozen members. The first stake was organized in 1995 (a few years after Darren was there), a couple more since then, and a temple was announced in 2015. The temple was finally dedicated in 2023, so it was pretty new.

Behind the temple is a building that is used as a Missionary Training Center, two mission offices, a stake center, and some FamilySearch offices (where Steve Stevens works).

Steve met us and gave us a tour of the facility. Darren and Steve were mission companions for several months as assistants to the president back on their missions.

We got to see a group of MTC missionaries who were taking a break for lunch.

Linette and I talked to a senior missionary couple there. It turns out that they were in the same stake (church organization with a few thousand people) as Ryan Heaton, a guy on my team at FamilySearch.

Here is Linette and me, Valerie and Darren, and Steve, on the balcony overlooking the temple.

Our daughter Kelsi had a dear friend named Kimber when she was in junior high and high school. Kimber spent a lot of time at our house and was like a member of the family. So when we found out that she was living in Bangkok, we arranged to meet her at a mall called "Terminal 21" near the temple.

It was so fun to see her there!

Kimber showed us where the food court was at the mall, and we got some really tasty food.

We got a couple of smoothies to calm down the spiciness of the food. Food in Thailand is tasty and inexpensive, and I usually don't feel overly bloated after eating it, so eating was one of the highlights of the trip.

One sad moment of the trip was when Linette's suitcase didn't arrive in Bangkok. We filled out a form with the airline and they said they'd look for it and deliver it to our hotel, but we didn't know if it would arrive before we flew out to Chiang Mai a couple days later. Airlines are required to reimburse you for necessities you purchase while waiting for your suitcase, so we went on a shopping spree!

Kimber said, "I love to shop!" and had fun helping Linette find a dress appropriate for our temple visit that night and another outfit or so.

The mall we were at was very cool, with escalators going up and down all over the place, and worldwide themes for each area of the mall.

Even the bathroom area looked fancy in the Japan area.

While we were shopping with Kimber, Darren had arranged to meet up with a lady who was one of the converts from his mission over 30 years ago. She made some wonderful food, and Darren's siblings joined them for the reunion. They said it was a wonderful experience.

Landon & Jen, Robert & Dayna, Darren's convert, Lesa & Lance, and Darren & Valerie

Meanwhile, Devaughn and Kim had arrived in Thailand with Paul and Becky.

Devaughn & Kim

 Becky & Paul

At 5pm, several of us gathered back at the LDS Temple, and did an endowment session. Steve Stevens was the shift coordinator, so we got to see him in action. We had a beautiful experience there. By the time we came out, it was dark.

Darren and his siblings:
Lance & Lesa; Robert & Dayna; Darren & Valerie; Landon & Jen

Me and my sibling:
Roger & Sharon, Linette & Randy

After the temple, Linette and I took Sharon and Roger back to Terminal 21 for dinner, where we got almost the same thing we got for lunch. (It was tasty).

My food was pretty spicy, so I got an ice cream cone to calm down my mouth.

Then I had another one for "dessert." (They were cheap and small).

It was almost 10pm when we got back to the hotel, but we had fun helping Linette do her shopping spree.

We were even more excited when we saw that her luggage had arrived at the hotel!

(If the airline had sent any sort of notification that the bag had been found and was on its way, we could have avoided buying a couple things.)

The next morning, I had a nice time sitting by the pool for my morning reading.

It was evening back home, so we chatted with Kelsi for a few minutes from the poolside pods.

Breakfast was delightful again.

It was fun to get a little acquainted with Bangkok before our official tour began.

In the next episode, we visit the temple of Wat Pho, and take a bike ride through the neighborhoods of Bangkok.