Bye Bye Phuket

Now was our time we had to say goodbye to Phuket, Alex and Mark and welcome ourselves into Bangkok. We woke up fairly early so we can get some chores done. Alex and Mark went to go rent the Bean

for one more day while Jourdan, Carley and I packed up our stuff and did whatever other miscellaneous things we could do to throw under category "productivity". We all did make sure that we hit up the continental breakfast at our new hotel. We compared this breakfast at Karon Beach to the breakfast we had at Patong beach and of course the Patong beach won, not saying that Karon beach had a bad breakfast, theirs was still a 4 star in my book but Patong hotel breakfast was pretty much just unbelievable (like this whole trip).
We made sure that we got our plane tickets at an appropriate time so we would get to experience Bangkok and enjoy our last day in Phuket together. I think we left Phuket around 4:30 to make it to the airport for our departure at 6pm or something like that. Once we got done with all of our important things we spent some of our last couple hours at Patong beach because Alex and Mark needed to scope out some cheaper hotels for some of their last days in Phuket. They did talk about just sleeping in the Bean but I really don't think that happened : ). While we were in Patong we walked down the "hip strip" one last time with the beach being our final destination. We decided to spend a few hours here before we had to get on the plane and since we were going to be here for awhile we just rented some chairs that were in a row all together. They were 100 Baht each (ish) which means that they were a little more than 2 bucks each. Also, included in the $2 you pay for the beach chair you get an umbrella and unlimited speed service of anything you want. Pretty much you can put up your arm to snap your fingers and before you even snap you will have any service brought right to you, at your convenience. You will not even have to get up from your seat to get anything. When I say speed service of any kind I mean it. You can get a hot dog, popsicle, drink of choice, manicure, pedicure, facial, massage, jewelry, clothes of any sort, a degree from any college of your choice and if you need a fake id- you got it! This did make me consider dropping out of college and just paying this dude 500 baht ($15 Australian dollars) to get any degree of my choice. I mean. . . Why spend hours upon hours studying and learning when you can just go to Thailand and get a degree for 15 dollars? If only I would have known this 4 years ago! Anyways I decided to pass up that "opportunity" and go with a 150 Baht ($4.50 Australian dollars) Pedicure instead. This was way more worth it because I got a Pedicure, on the beach, in Thailand, while soaking up the sun, with a free flower included, all for under 5 bucks!

The flower alone in America would have been 5 bucks! So unfortunately, that was enough of a screaming deal for me that I had to go with it and skip the diploma from Harvard University. I think this choice was to my best interest.
After we spent a few hours at the beach we had to pack up our things and leave to the airport. Our personal GPS (Alex) brought us all the way there without getting lost. His brain really is a GPS, I am not even kidding you! So we made it to the airport safe and sound and caught our flight to BANGKOK (yikeess)!
Our plane ride was really short so pretty much we got up in the air, got the thumbs up to unbuckle your seat belt, and turn on your electronics, and go to the bathroom if you wish and then by the time the electronics were turned on and ready to go you could use them for. . . maybe 10 minutes before we heard the "DING" to return to seats and fasten your seat belts. Since we were flying with Thai air we got a snack box but we were too full to eat them. I just read my book during this flight since it would have been a waste of time to do anything else.
Once we landed in Bangkok I would guess it was around 7:00pm and our only goal was to try and figure out where exactly we were going to sleep for the one night we were there. We stopped at the desk and spoke with a lady that gave us some instructions. For some reason we thought it would be appropriate to just make our own plans and not listen to the strict instructions that we got from Alex and Mark. . . This was a bad idea. When they gave us the strict instructions on where to stay we didn't listen to them because we thought we would just write it down before we left, but then we never ended up writing it down so we thought we would figure it out on our own. The lady at the desk recommended we stay at this hotel in the certain area. She said it was an alright area and we wouldn't be bored so that sold us. She showed us pictures of our nice hotel that we would all share in this little booklet thing and so we said, "alright, we'll do it". I asked her if she would let her child stay at this hotel and she said that the only way she would let them stay here is if she was really poor. Her english was not the best so we just decided to go with it since it was for one night only. Split between the 3 of us we each ended up paying $12 each.

The thought of that scared us all but we still went with it. When we were loading the cab I suggested that we actually don't stay here and we call Alex and Mark right away and figure out what we really should do. So we called them at the perfect time because they were waiting for us to call and I told them what happened and Alex pretty much said we were dumb for not listening and making plans before we called them but it was too late. We paid for the hotel already and it was a done deal. So we went on with our lives and I kept saying that we needed to listen to Alex and Mark and just change our plans last minute and call the 12 bucks a loss. We decided nope, we will have the cab driver take us to our hotel and we will enjoy our night in Bangkok.
Once we got to our hotel and saw our room we FINALLY all came to an agreement that we will not stay there and we will go to where Alex and Mark told us to and just deal with the fact that we paid for the room and didn't get it. We didn't even try to get a refund because we knew the answer to that was going to be a big fat NO. Our first sign was that a real man, dressed up just like a woman led us to our room. He could have tricked you if you just glanced but once you heard the vocals it was the real deal. So we got a cab and drove for about 20 minutes until we got dropped off at Khao San road where we now needed to find a different accommodation for the night. Once we got here it was like a whole new world and we found a room for four bucks each! We thought the 12 dollar room was a steal but we found a whole new level. We thought we were going to splurge for our new place and spend more and get nicer but we found an alright place for 4 bucks each so we went with it. Plus we didn't want to waste much time looking for a place because we wanted to explore. We just pushed the two twin size beds together and made it a big king and all shared that. The only problem here was that the town doesn't shut down until around 5am and so we got the luxury of loud music and people all night long. It was right above a restaurant and above one of the busiest streets, Khao San.

We went to this nice bar when we got there and got a few drinks. It was a really cool bar and it was up these stairs and when you got up there you were inside a bar but if you walked to the end where the "wall" was then you could just peak outside and stick your head out and see the street below you. We spotted this bar from the street and we thought we would go check it out. It was a great idea because they had live music and cheap drinks and that's pretty much what we were looking for.

(I had absolutely nothing to do with that bucket drink on the table, just for an FYI, lol).
We stayed here for a while because it was such an awesome bar but then we had to leave because Jourdan was too ancy to stay and she wanted to go to a dancing bar which I could have cared less but it was cool to see I suppose. I could have just stayed at the other bar and walked around the streets for awhile and been fine but we had fun and saw a lot. No ping pong shows though, don't worry. We just looked at all the crazyness going on around us which was the most fun thing for me. I watched some break dancers in the streets and got to practice my Thai language, mostly just "mai ka, mai ka, MAI KA" though.
When we were done exploring we just went to 711 and got a some water bottles since you cant drink the sink water there and then went upstairs to our hotel and went to bed. It was really hard to fall asleep because the street we stayed on was so loud but eventually we did it and slept in till around 11 or something. Since the town doesn't close until so early in the morning things don't open till around 11 or noon again. Some places like 711 just stay open all night I think though. I don't think it got quite until 5 in the morning.
This was our little night adventure in Bangkok but we still have one more day and night to talk about in Bangkok and then I will move on to "Adventures with Shawna".
Read on :)

Thailand- What's Next?

We only booked our hotel until the 7th because we were not really sure what we wanted to do after that and the boys only rented their hotel for 10 days in Phuket and their last day was the 7th. After this we all had to get together and discuss where we wanted to go after next; if we wanted to stay together and do something or plan things separate and go our separate ways. The boys still have a few more weeks in Thailand and we only had 2 more days so it was kind of tough to make a decision.

All we knew was we all had to be out of our hotel by noon on June 7th. We got all of our stuff packed and decided that we would go on an adventure to track down the TAT travel agency in Thailand. This is the only travel agency in Thailand that is owned by the government so we assume that they are pretty trust worthy. We were going to book our plane tickets back to Bangkok through them and then see what other options we had for the next two days because none of us wanted to separate so if we could do something together than that was going to be our best option.
So us girls spent the morning packing up our whole room and showering and getting ready and all that fun stuff and then the boys came and picked us up in our rental car (the bean) so we can begin our trek. We needed to find this place and in order to find it we just had to ask around and figure it out. I think Alex (our very own, special edition GPS- with a brain) had somewhat of an idea but. . . . the rest was a surprise. Alex got us in the right part of town (a sketchy part) and then from there on out we were on our own.

We had the address in the Ipad and followed that to some extent but I don’t think that all of the addresses in Thailand are as reliable as when you put an address in there in America. So after asking about 40 NON English native speakers and 2 hours later we finally found the place we needed to be. Once we got there it was air conditioned and very nice, most importantly it had a bathroom. We all had to take off our shoes before walking into this building and once we got there we pretty much didn’t even know why it was so important that we got there. Our plan was to get plane tickets from them because it was cheaper that way but once we got there we learned that we could not do it through them so the whole adventure to find this place was pretty much just to use their bathroom. It was actually really funny once we got there because we really didn’t have an urgent reason to be there because by the time we got there we kinda already knew where the next few days was going to take us.

Since it took so long to find this place we figured out what we wanted to do while we were trying to track down this place. We were all just decided not to waste our time on traveling and just utilize the little amount of time we had left and fly to Bangkok to give us a night in Bangkok to experience that and the rest of the time just stay together and have fun in Phuket while we could. Alex and Mark thought about going to Bangkok with us again so they could show us the ropes but then they had to meet some other friends in Phuket so it didn’t work out. So we all just stayed together as long as we could.
After our adventure to find TAT travel agency we were all hungry and tired so we went to eat (of course we ate amazing thai food again) and then went back to Karon Beach which is where the boys hotel was at. We got a room at their hotel for the night and they extended their stay there another night also. There beach was a lot nicer than ours because it was a lot more quite. Ours was still really nice but there was so much going on that it was just crazy. We hung out on their beach for a little bit after we ate and just had a pretty relaxing rest of the day.

I know we played some cards and I also know that we took shots of vodka because we had a bottle to make drinks but we never drank it and we didn’t want to travel around with it and we didn’t want to waste it so we just drank some of it. We hung out in our room for a while since it was bigger and better than theirs and there was more room and a better view since it was up stairs. After sitting around and talking for a while we just went on a walk around the beach until it was dinner and then we found somewhere to eat and then ate and then did our evening swim in the ocean and then looked at some night markets and went home and went to bed. This day pretty much just revolved around planning the rest of the time there and getting lost. Getting lost is the most time consuming thing and it is a waste of time but it was actually pretty fun because we got to see parts of Thailand that we would have never got to see if we didn’t get lost.

There are absolutely no driving laws here. I guess the police are more focused on other things then the speed limit or passing any cars at any time. There are a lot of crazy things that I saw in Thailand, some of which involve their driving rules. No kids are ever buckled up, there are motorcycles passing through cars in the smallest spaces, cars passing you when there is a blind spot around the corner, elephants hanging out on the side of the road, and every once in a while you will be honoured to see a family of four all piled on a motorcycle to get from point A to B, for example; we have the mom, dad, young school child maybe around the age of 5 and then the mom holding the 2 month old baby in her arm. None of the members of the family will have helmets on or have any protection. This is 100% appropriate in Thailand. . . . So are a lot of other things that we would maybe question but no room for questioning anything in Thailand.

Even though this day was a little stressful dealing with getting the car for a couple more days and with hotel stuff, it was just fun because we were all in Thailand together and even though this part wasn’t as much fun, it was stuff we had to do in order to be there. So besides all of the busy work we still got to do our evening swimming, look at more night markets and explore this crazy country with no driving laws at all. And even though we did all of this we still got to experience trying to tell the Thai people in a nice way that we don’t want a tuk tuk, massage, DVD, sunglasses, shirt, shoes and anything else they reem you to buy.

MAI KAH, MAI KAH, MAI KAH!

Island hopping in Asia :)

We got up early and went to our awesome magical breakfast before our shuttle picked us up for the tour. We waited outside for a while before they finally came and got us. This tour was really awesome and we all had a great time but it did not compare to the tour we did on our own the day before. We went had a full bus by the time everybody got on and the guide took us to this little park where our boats picked us up. They gave us a sticker for lunch and the sticker also said the number of our boat. We could not forget this information because so many boats go to the same location and since we got on and off the boat all day and all of the boats look alike we had to remember to get on our boat. We all took sea sickness medicine before we drove off which was a very good idea even though Alex would argue this one with me but he still ended up taking it finally. The people who didn’t take the tablet got sick and we didn’t! But if Alex didn't take it he strongly believes that he would not have got sick, he is pretty much all wrong though.

We were on the boat for about 20 minutes before we saw our first stop- Koh Phi Phi. While we were on the boat to get here, there was a huge tornado in the distance that looked like it was making its way over to us.

It never got that close to us but I thought it looked like it was getting closer to us. Nobody else seemed to care but me so I just got over it and hopped for the best. It was really cool to see but it was a little adrenalin rush because we could see it so clear and it was really strong. At the bottom of the tornado where it was touching the water, the water was splashing up so high. You can’t tell in the pictures but the water was just spraying so high up into the air. And I can tell I am not explaining this good enough so I will leave it there.

Even though there was a tornado, it was a beautiful day. Our first stop was a beach with two big, tall islands on each side of us, this is called Koh Phi Phi. The beach water was amazing and a beautiful green colour (my aussie spell check is making me put a U in colour even though it doesn’t have one in the English dictionary). This stop was awesome and the sand was so nice.

The tour guide told us to leave our shoes on the boat because we didn’t need them. We only had about 45 minutes here so we wanted to see as much as we could. We went on this trail walk where we saw some other beautiful islands from here and did a little circle walk that brought us back to the beach.

. I played with my camera again and took some pretty cool pictures where the colour of the water stood out really well and everything else was black and white. At the end of our “bush walk” we swam in water for a little bit. Just enough time to pee and get out.

From inside this little cove we could not see the tornado anymore because it was behind these little island mountains.

After walking around this island for a while, our next stop was on this coral. We got to feed the fish here and go snorkelling. This was so amazing except the fact that the mask we got really sucked and leaked so we had to come up above the water every 1 to 2 minutes to empty our masks out.

We saw a ton of these yellow and blue stripped fish and we also saw some colourful clown fish. We got to snorkel for a while here. It was cool when you fed the fish under water they would just come gather around you every way until all the food was gone.

. It was a cool slimy feeling because there were so many fish touching you and racing to get the food. This is my favourite picture of Alex because it looks like this clown fish is posing for this picture also. He is looking straight into the camera with Alex, hahaha!

It was so cool because when we were under water we got to see the underwater life with the coral and the fish and when we came up to rinse out our masks we got to see the most beautiful land scenery ever so either way you couldn’t lose. My underwater camera was a great investment for my study abroad experience and I am glad I get to share the photos with all my readers!

Once we were done swimming with the fish we went to the monkey island. Here there were so many wild monkeys everywhere and we fed them bananas and one of the employees gave a monkey a cup of juice to drink.

It was really cute to see all of the monkeys and baby monkeys eat and drink like humans. They peeled the bananas open faster than a machine could ever even open a banana. One of the fat grandpa monkeys ate like 5 bananas and his cheeks were so full of bananas he didn’t give himself any time to swallow. He was soo funny! It was cool to see the baby monkeys latched on to their moms.

The parent monkeys were so greedy though and when they were getting fed bananas they didn’t even share the food with their babies that were holding onto the mom’s stomachs. They were latched on so tight, it was cute.

Once we left here we stayed on this other beach for about two hours. People were coming up to you every 2 minutes selling ice-cream, jewellery, soda and whatever else you can think of. Swimming here was awesome also because the colourful fish were not even scared of you at all. They swam around you like you were just another fish.

We could snorkel here if we wanted to but none of us wanted to. I just wanted to lay on the beach and take a nap. I think I fell asleep for maybe 20 minutes and then Jourdan, Carly and I went to the different shops and walked around for a while. None of us got anything here but it was just something to do to get out of the sun for a while.

The water here was the same green as the other two places we were before and was so beautiful. Again, this was just another experience that I can’t waste my time to explain because it will not be worth it.

I am trying to give it all I got though. Not sure how it’s going but I hope you are kind of getting the gist. The pictures should help a little bit at least.

At some point during the day we also stopped off at this beautiful island and had lunch. The lunch was just okay, nothing too spectacular but at least we got fed. It was like a buffet but… not a magical buffet like our hotel breakfast. Once this tour was over we drove on the boat for about a half hour until we got back to Phuket.

When we got back we were all tired and hungry again because it had been awhile since we ate. We ate somewhere that I don’t know where but it was probably some delicious, amazing, $3 Thai meal that made me full. And then after that I am sure we went swimming again at our special spot at Phuket beach.

We all had a great day out at Koh Phi Phi and exploring the different islands around Phuket. This was our last full day together in Phuket. After this day it was time to arrange our plans to head North again to catch our flight to Bangkok.

Also we went swimming this night also! We did really good at keeping up on our tradition because it was always so hot and humid, even at night time so the swimming was a great way to cool off and wash off all of our sweat :)
Sa-wat-dee Kah (just for now)
:):)

24 hours in Thailand- CHECK!

We finally met up with Alex and Mark and hit the road around 1pm. Our plan now was to go to the James Bond Island. This was the most amazing day we had and the views were jaw dropping! The whole tour was perfect and it was such a great Thai experience. We went with some locals and it was just our group; Carly, Me, Jourdan, Alex and Mark.

Usually there are a lot more people but since we didn’t sign up in advanced and the tours usually go in the morning and it was already 3pm the guys took us anyway. Our boat was awesome, our tour guide was the nicest guy-his name was Son and the boat driver’s child came with us also and he was the cutest little guy.

He was really shy and didn’t speak English so we just hung out with him and he loved Alex. I wanted to be his favourite but he loved Alex more than me, boy power I guess, haha- oh well.

Our tour guide Son loved us and took us places that the big groups don’t get to go to. Our first stop was this island that is owned by the government and is controlled by park rangers. Usually they don’t get off here but since we had our own little personal tour we stopped off at this island and had to keep quite so they wouldn’t find us and take our money.

We just whispered the whole time while hiking and got to see some of the most amazing views I have ever seen in my life! This tall Island with the small bottom is the James Bond Island and was in the movie. We just hiked around here for a little bit and then left so we didn’t get caught by the park rangers and have to pay.

We loaded the boat again and stopped at two different caves and went caving. This was the coolest thing- we felt pretty lucky to get to do all of this and that they took us out even though it was so late.

The caving was really awesome and I didn’t get many pictures because it was so dark but it was amazing. We walked through some water that was almost up to our waists. The little guy came caving with us also and he was so good the whole time. His dad was the driver who didn’t go inside the caves with us, he just stayed with the boat. He didn’t know English either but our tour guide Son had great English. He didn’t think it was that good but he was really good. Both caves were like a tunnel and had another side that we went to. Once we got to the other side of the caves the views were so awesome, I am not even going to try and explain them to you because it’s impossible but they were amazing and something I will never forget. I couldn’t stop thinking that I was in Thailand, with some of my good friends, and nothing could possible get better!

Anyway we looked we were surrounded with amazing views. It was so much better because we were all together and it wasn’t a big touristy event with 20 other people and we had our own little Thai adventure. Son gave us the best tour and we all were speechless almost throughout the whole tour. He was such a great person and never stopped smiling.

Once we got back we said goodbye and walked on the dock toward the car. None of us had eaten since noon so we were all staving since it was like 6 or 7 or something. We got to see the sunset from the boat which was awesome. My camera didn’t take good sunset pictures but Alex had some great ones that I will try and steal to put on my blog. We drove back to Phuket and automatically were on the search for a place to eat. We ended up eating at this place where they grabbed us off the street and into their restaurant.

All the workers from the restaurants stand outside and try and get you to eat at their place. They are also all outside but still have roof. Since it is so hot and humid there, there is no need for walls. The food there was only good because we had not eaten anything all day long but that’s the only credit they are getting from me. Oh yeah, and we got our food fast which was important by that time.

Since I am writing this blog so late I don’t really remember what we did that night so I am just going to say that we went swimming and then went to bed. I think that Alex and Mark just dropped us off at our hotel because we were so tired from the long day we had. We had to go to bed early anyway because the next day we signed up for an all day tour and we were going island hopping.

Our shuttle picked us girls up from our hotel at 7:45am and then we drove to the boys hotel and picked them up around 8:15am so I remember not wanting to stay up too late.

Our shuttle picked us girls up from our hotel at 7:45am and then we drove to the boys hotel and picked them up around 8:15am so I remember not wanting to stay up too late.

^ ^ At this rock we saw a huge lizard on the top enjoying the sunset and also we saw many monkeys in the wild checking us out.

These are just a few of my favorite pictures from this trip and sadly I can't show you all of them because there is not enough room. It is really hard to choose because they are all so awesome. These pictures just give a small taste of the experience, but actually cannot even come close to showing the real deal! Hope you like them and sorry I can't put more because this was truly one of the most amazing things that I have ever experienced.

Hope you enjoyed and still more to come : )

Long random morning

After everything that we’ve done we finally survived in Thailand for 24 hours! That seemed so crazy because we did so much for such a short time of being there. After everything and even the sunset walk we talked about it and figured out that we have not even been in Thailand for 24-hours yet. We knew that since we were only able to stay there for a week that we had to jam pack in our days and make sure that we got a good experience out of this trip. There is absolutely no way that we would have been able to not get a good experience there because there is so much to do and it is so different and even learning about the culture made it fun.
I woke up early our second day in Thailand and Carly and Jourdan are both sleepers so they aren’t the best at mornings, but I’ve seen worse. I woke up and had a feeling that neither of them were ready to get up but I thought I would at least try. So I said, “Morning guys! Are you ready to wake up yet?” I didn’t get very far with that one but earlier in the week Carly and I talked about bringing our gym shoes so that we would be able to work out and she said she for sure wanted to and I knew I for sure wanted to so I knew if I threw out the “gym” word then Carly couldn’t say no because she already committed and I really knew deep down inside that she wanted to go. So I asked her if she wanted to go and she said that she didn’t because she needed more time to sleep. But Jourdan said she wanted to go so I was a bit thrown off by that because I knew she didn’t bring any shoes but I went along with it. So I got ready and she said, “wait where do you want to go?” and I told her to the gym and she immediately changed her mind and didn’t want to go. She thought I had said go get a massage so she was all about that but then when she realized it was to the gym, sleeping was a much better option for her. It was still pretty early so I understand how she got the words mixed up. Plus we had talked about getting massages because they are only $3-6 so we pretty much had to. By this time Carly charged up and said, “okay, I have to go to the gym and I will regret it if I don’t go so let’s just go right now and I will wake up on the way over”.

So we walked to the gym and found out pretty fast that a 20 minute workout in Thailand is equivalent to an hour workout in Australia. There was no Aircon in the gym and it was so hot, most of the machines were broken but we still figured out how to get a good little workout in. We were both dripping in sweat within the first 1 minute of being there. We did a little bit of cardio and a couple weights and then we were done and ready to go to breakfast, (there was no way we were going to miss out on this breakfast again).
We went back upstairs and grabbed Jourdan and changed and went downstairs for this magical breakfast. They had everything you could dream of and more. Even lunch and dinner stuff. They had toast, hot pad Thai, potatoes, juices, the best fruit ever, eggs if you wanted, omelettes cooked to order if you wanted… Really, they had everything! So we stayed here in heaven for about 30 minutes and then we still had time before the boys were coming over so we decided we better go get $6 dollar massages.
We said we only wanted to get a massage for 30 minutes because we didn’t have that much time before Alex and Mark were going to come to our beach to pick us up. When we said we only wanted a half hour massage and pointed to the one that we wanted they gave us an hour massage anyway because that meant more money for them. So they pretty much tricked us. I think they just have the half hour option as a trick but it was still under 6 bucks each so it didn’t really matter. Time was the only thing that mattered. We all got in the same room (bad idea with Jourdan) but we all had our own beds and our own Thai massagers. It wasn’t that relaxing because it is pretty much impossible for Jourdan to be quite for more than 10 minutes. Once she hits the 10 minute mark its outta control. She started laughing because I think that she was ticklish or something but then that just turned into another laugh fest. And when she started laughing the Thai ladies started laughing which made Carly and I laugh and it was just a really funny awkward massage. Can’t say I have ever had a massage like that before. Although we didn’t speak much Thai it was kind of cool to see that laughing is a mutual language no matter where you go, and no matter what you can always be on the same page through laughter. We pretty much made their morning, they thought we were the best and loved us. So even though our massages were interrupted from the laughter we still got a good 25 minutes of peer massage relaxation in between the laugh fest, haha!
Since the Thai ladies decided that we needed an hour massage instead of the half hour that we requested we were late meeting the boys. They were at our hotel waiting patiently for us and we didn’t feel bad for being late because we had waited a long time the day before when they took so long to come get us. We were even after that.

I am cutting this blog off here and finishing the rest of the day on a new blog post so I will be able to post up lots of pictures of the rest of this day because the pictures are amazing and I want to try to put lots up... So the rest of this day is TO BE CONTINUED ON THE BEST BLOG POST NAMED: "24 hours in Thailand. . . CHECK!"

Explorin' the Thai Scenery

We woke up around 10:50 and walked to 711 and got some water and Gatorade and just waited around for the boys to call us since they knew what our plans were for the day already. We bought food at our hotel since the continental breakfast was over and the lunch we paid for wasn’t that good but we had to make the mistake at least once. The hotel food is not nearly as good as the places on the streets and it is a little more expensive. When I say expensive I still don’t mean going over a $5 limit for a meal. I am pretty sure that all the meals we got were under $5 and that is really unlucky. Usually you pay about $3-5 for a meal and it is a huge delicious meal, unless you get beer with it then your ticket adds up fast, but that happens everywhere. We just ate lunch and learned that we should always eat at a close by restaurant instead. However, we did not take advantage of the full free breakfast that we got complimentary with our hotel. This was also a mistake that we didn’t make again. Once we realized what we missed out on we never missed that huge buffet again! We just slept in way too late the first night and had no interest in diving into that breakfast.
We just walked around and wasted time until the boys came and they ended up being like a half hour late because it takes them as long as us three girls to get ready so we had to wait for them. Finally they showed up and we were ready to go. Our first stop was the big Budda on the top of the mountain. It is a big huge white big budda that was in the process of being built.

When we walked up the street to start walking up towards it this Thai lady stopped us and she had these scarfs and skirts to wrap around us but we kind of just tried to walk past her because we thought she was trying to sell us something. We only got about 20 feet ahead of her and she said, “you need this to go to Budda” so we turned around and realized that she wasn’t trying to sell us anything and it was part of the religion to be all the way covered in order to go see the Budda, so she gave us the right outfits for free so we were appropriate and formal enough to go to the Budda.
So we put on our colourful, new, cute little outfits and continued our walk up to the Budda. Just the girls got lucky to wear the outfits, boys did not have to wear anything.

This place was a really sacred place for the people who lived there. They go up there to pray and meditate. It was really cool to get to see. We walked around up there for a while and looked at the views from there that were just amazing.

We also took time to look at all of the other little statues and art they had there. I bet we spent about an hour there before we had to do our next stop on our tour. Alex and Mark were the best tour guides ever! They did all of this stuff before we got there and thought it was cool so they took us to the same places that they went to.

Our next stop was a little hike that was famous to go to during the sunset. We went there and hiked around for a while. It was beautiful and the hike was nice. It was a little rocky at some spots but for the most part it was all easy hiking. It was right on the ocean and the views from here were also amazing. Once again the pictures are crap to real life, but that is how it’s always going to be.

We spent a lot of time here because we wanted to get to the end where all the scary, big rocks were. We didn’t make it all the way to the end but we made it far enough. I was able to play around with some of my settings on my camera here and learned a lot of stuff that my camera can do. So that’s why some of these pictures are a little different.

By the time we were done here it was getting a little dark out and none of us had eaten since we woke up so we were all starving. We ate at a cute little diner that had a pug dog there, pretty much the host of the restaurant. He was adorable and cute and you can tell that he was a well fed, healthy puppy. He hung out with us a lot because he loved company and was excited that we were there. I ate the best meal that I had eaten in Thailand here. It was my all-time favourite meal here. I think my meal was 150 baht which is about $3. We were all so tired by this time from not eating, staying up too late the night before and walking around all day long so we didn’t want to have a big night.

. The first night we went out and went swimming in the ocean we made it a tradition to go swimming each night we were there so we followed through and swam in the ocean again. The water was amazing and warm and felt so good at the same time. We only hung out at the beach for a little while before we all went home and went to bed.

After swimming Alex and Mark dropped us off (in "the bean", our cars name) at our hotel and they went back home and our plan was to meet up at 12:30 the next day again so we could go to the James Bond Island and do a little tour that we were going to drive ourselves too. Carly, Jourdan and I all got ready for bed and laid in bed for a long time and talked and laughed for a while.

By the time we were so tired and done talking and said goodnight, all of a sudden we had a huge laughing session over NOTHING. We all just could not stop laughing. We laughed so hard that we couldn’t even talk to figure out what was so funny and what why we were laughing so hard. It just happened for no reason and it was the best feeling, hahaha! We laughed so hard until we cried and until we could not even breath anymore. This lasted for like 20 minutes and it was the weirdest, best thing that has happened. It was a good ab work out for sure!

we were finally able to calm down enough to talk we never figured out what was so funny but it was the best thing so we didn’t need a reason, haha! Maybe it was just because we were all so tired and instead of being grump asses we just needed to have a big ole laugh session before bed.

So that was our night and we ended up having an earlier morning the next day and got to do lots of cool things!

Stay tuned, cus it’s about to get GOOD!