Holiday in Thailand

For winter vacation, Jeremy and I ventured south to where the warm weather was beckoning us, Thailand.  Complications with vacation schedules caused us to minimize our time there, but after spending a week there, I have decided it is definitely a place worth visiting again.  We took so many pictures and experienced so much that Jeremy and I decided to split up the work- I wrote the blog post and Jeremy posted and labeled the pictures.  For those stunning pictures, go to doctormanislost.blogspot.com and on the top of the page are the pictures.  If you click on them, it will take you to his Flickr account where all of our pictures from Thailand and also South Korea are. 

For Thailand, we skipped from China to Bangkok arrived late in the evening on the first night.  After waking up in our hostel, the very friendly owners cooked us breakfast before we headed out the door.  We congregated with some fellow English teachers that we met in Korea.  All four of us headed off to explore the amazingly warm and bustling area, after consuming a morning snack of coconut milk- chopped right before our eyes.  Tuk-tuk was our preferred form of transportation.  If you don’t know what that is, you have probably seen one and just didn’t know what it’s called.  

Inside the tuk-tuk

It is a motorcycle with a bench seat behind it for passengers and covered on top. 

First stop was the Grand Palace.  

One of the many stops in the Grand Palace 

We walked around and gawked at all of the buildings covered in gold and jewels.  Aside from being worn down from the immense heat and wear and tear from the high tourist frequency, the buildings and art surrounding it were kept in good shape.  They had men working on touching up the paint and tending to the grounds. 

After the Grand Palace, we scrunched back into a Tuk-tuk and scurried back to our hotels.  The heat was already affecting us.  When we left Korea, it was about -12 Celsius, so the temperature was a drastic jump from what we had been used to.  We all re-grouped before meeting up for dinner. 

A stall in Chinatown selling just about any type of dried products you could ever want

Flattened duck.  A delicacy in Chinatown?

Dinner in Thailand mostly consisted of walking down the street and choosing what looks most appealing from the street vendors.  Price was of course a major factor.  Haggling is how Thailand operates.  Dinner was an array of different Thai cuisines from different stands.  While looking for a place to eat, we browsed in Bangkok’s China Town as well.  The roads were packed and the sidewalks were crowded with tables set-up outside of restaurants and workers trying to lure in customers.  We haggled to get cheap Thai leg massages, which I didn’t know were supposed to be so rough until about 5 minutes in. 

The next day, Jeremy and I left to head up north.  We arrived in the city of Chiang Mai.  The weather was a little bit breezy and the streets were much calmer compared to Bangkok.  After arriving we were immediately taken to a Thai cooking class that we booked in advance.  We arrived to find ourselves welcomed by the hosts, Nancy and Pot (both spoke English well).  We chose 3 meals (appetizer, main dish, and dessert) to prepare and cook ourselves.  

The ingredients for making curry paste- a tough task. Men choose wives depending
on how well they can make curry paste, something that takes a lot of muscles.

Nancy would tell us what to use, and show us how to prepare the ingredients before throwing them into the wok.  The hardest part of the meal was preparing the curry paste.  I think that’s something I will leave to the experts from now on.  The food we prepared was indubitably the best Thai meal we ate all vacation.  The taste was on point, and creating it ourselves was even better.

Carrot flowers we made during our break between our
appetizer and main dish.  Can you tell which ones are ours?

After the cooking class, we headed home and relaxed before heading out to the famous night bazaar which was just a short walk away.  There were stands lining the sidewalks on both sides of the street for miles. This was our first taste of Thai markets, soon would we find out that most of the things sold all across Thailand are the same (they even sell t-shirts that say “same same, bit different.”  We made our way through the stands and collected some interesting souvenirs. Dinner consisted of grilled prawns and Pad Thai at a large seafood restaurant. 

The next day, we rose bright and early to be escorted to an elephant farm located in the mountains.  This isn’t any old elephant farm- it’s highly acclaimed and even Samantha Brown did a piece about this place on her show.  Patara Elephant Farm was where we would be elephant caregivers for a day.  We arrived and hopped out of the vans in front of an area where a 3-week old baby elephant and his mom lived.  We fed them bananas before we headed down to meet the other elephants.  The morning started off with some introductions, information about the farm itself, splitting into groups (about 15 people in our group), and getting dressed for the day ahead (they supplied clothes for us to wear over our own).  The day was full of exciting events and once in a lifetime occurrences.  

Jeremy and I's elephants drinking water before getting baths in the river

The first task was to check the elephant’s health.  There were certain steps for this which included: checking for flapping ears and tail (good sign), seeing if they had slept on their sides during the night (checked for dirt on their sides), counting the number of droppings they had (6 or more is healthy), and actually smelling and touching their poop.  Elephants are constantly eating so their bodies chew up and spit out their vegetarian diet quickly- meaning the poop smells like wet hay, not bad at all. 
Fun fact: Elephants only excrete sweat from one part of their body- their cuticles.  We crouched down to feel the moist skin around their fingernails which concluded our health check. 

Jeremy and I by the waterfall where we swam with the elephants
(wearing our caretaker outfits)

After the health check, we dusted the dirt off their backs (which they threw on themselves to keep cool in the heat) with palm leaves- which we fed to them after we finished, led them to the river, and bathed them.  After they dried, we mounted them with no saddle, just a rope for support.  We stomped up and down hills by steep mountains and through the forest before we arrived at a waterfall.  Lunch was situated on the rocks by the water, which was some of the best food we had in Thailand (aside from what we made ourselves of course) filled with fruits and scrumptious homemade croquettes and pastries I have never seen or tasted.  After we finished, the clean-up crew came in.  The baby elephant trudged over and slurped up everything he could before the rest was given to the other elephants.  We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming with the elephants in the river, riding them back to camp, and saying our goodbyes.

Us and our group who camped on Maya Beach

That night, we skipped down to the southern beaches via air.  We arrived late at night and went straight to our hotel after grabbing a midnight dinner of street vendor kabobs.  We woke up early the next morning the grab the morning ferry over to a small island named Koh Phi Phi.  The morning was spent walking the crowded streets, basking in the sun, and wading out to sea.  Mid afternoon, we clambered onto a Rasta-colored boat with about 20 other people.  We were all headed to a one-night stay on the island where Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie “The Beach” was filmed.  We started off with a little snorkeling, exploring the beach, 
and playing games before the hosts treated us to a fire-throwing show and a couple full meals.  They used flaming sticks and nunchuck-like balls- one of their younger (probably about 12) family members marched his chubby behind out and did a couple of tricks himself.   We broke out some sleeping bags and pillows, for the night ahead of us would consist of a blanket of stars and the soothing sounds of the waves to send us to sleep. 

On the beach just before leaving.  An extremely beautiful place.

 We woke in the morning to a quick breakfast before the other tourists arrived.  It seemed to hit 8 o’clock and about 10 boats puttered onto the island at the same time.  We headed off to sneak a peek at Viking caves- occupied by islanders but are not allowed to be entered by anyone else and another snorkeling spots filled with jellyfish big and small.  This wasn’t enough to coax Jeremy and I out of the boat.  From there, it was a straight shot back to Koh Phi Phi island- where we spent all but 20 minutes picking up our luggage before getting onto another ferry to take us to Krabi.

Aonang was where we ended our trip around Thailand.  We arrived at our hotel from the Krabi pier in the afternoon and hung around there for the rest of the day- Jeremy was feeling pretty sick from what we think was the chicken liver he so bravely ate in Bangkok.  

A lantern being sent into the sky at sunset

Jeremy and I at the beach on the last day's sunset

The next day we ventured out into the city.  We walked up and down the streets shopping and eating before going down to the beach for some more much-needed sunning.  The small amounts of rain didn’t deter us from staying there for the afternoon.  

Sunset off the coast of Aonang

We spent the night walking the stand-filled streets before retiring to our comfortable hotel room.  For meals, we ate some delicious western food that seemed to be the only thing we were craving after having Thai food all week. 

We couldn't resist getting some grilled corn from one of the many people
walking the beaches trying to sell things.  This was so cheap yet so delicious!

 During the day, when we weren't on the beach, we would walk the streets and look at the shops lining the sidewalks.  Every building was either a restaurant, souvenir shop, or pharmacy (like in Korea, there can never be enough pharmacies).  The last day was more beach lounging before packing up and leaving for the airport.

The main road in Aonang at night

We set up our trip perfectly.  Large amounts of activities in the beginning of the week and ending with some relaxing on the beach.  If we were to ever journey back to Thailand, the northern cities and the southern beaches is where we would spend our time.  One week in Thailand definitely was not enough!