Chiang Mai

I just got into Chiang Mai and fell for a taxi trick at the airport. It cost me 160 baht to get from the airport to my hotel where in Bangkok it cost me 180 for a trip three times as long. Lesson learned. Next time I'll walk waaaaay out of the airport before saying yes to someone who looks all official with her smart little clip board. Oh well...it's only $5 after all. The owner of the company running the tour I am going on tomorrow, Jungala, came by the hotel to prep me for tomorrow. After informing me that I will be going on a completely different (but cheaper) tour than the one I booked, he warned me to bring mosquito repellent since Chiang Mai is known as the part of Thailand most prone to dengue fever. I could feel them biting me as he was talking and promptly ran upstairs to apply bug spray when we were done. Since I'll be out from tomorrow morning until 5 o'clock the next afternoon, I ventured out towards the river from the charming Sri Pat Guest House to see what all the Chiang Mai hype is about. First stop was Ginger & Kafe, a short walk from my guest house for some delicious red curry before a relaxing massage and calling it a night. I may not have seen much of the town, but at least I enjoyed my first evening in Chiang Mai!

Elephant riding in the river

The guide came for me at 9 AM the next morning to begin a two-day overnight trek into the jungle. We started off with a visit to a local market for any last minute necessities before heading to an elephant camp. After a leisurely ride for about half an hour which took us through a river while on elephant-back, we hopped back into the truck to go see a waterfall. My traveling companions for the weekend are two Belgian girls, a guy from Japan and an English guy. I'm glad I'm not the only solo traveler so I have someone to talk to. 

After the waterfall, we began our 7 mile hike to a Karen village. The Karen people are one of Thailand's hill tribes that still live very traditional lives away from the cities. The only way to get into the village is by foot or a treacherous scooter journey on steep trails. When we finally arrived, we were greeted by a group of boys and young men playing a game similar to volleyball but without using their hands. It reminded me of the way Brazilians play on the beaches of Rio. The Belgian girls and I watched as the two guys in our group attempted to join them. After about five minutes, the villagers demoted them from the court to playing with the kids on the side. 

"Home" for the night

As it got dark, a number of other villagers stopped by our tree house to sell bracelets, visit us (probably out of curiosity) and say hello to our guide who is from the village. He invited his "uncle" - which I gathered means literally every man older than him unless he has fifty uncles - to come play an instrument made out of a coconut attached to a bamboo shaft that resembled a banjo of sorts. After he played for about half an hour, the silence was broken by the sound of children singing in the distance as part of a honeymoon ritual going on in the village. The hike really exhausted me, so I turned in for a night under a mosquito net on a mattress in our tree house. 

Karen villager getting water from the river

The next day was very busy! Starting off with a two hour hike back to "civilization," we reached the starting point of a trip down the river in a bamboo raft. This is Thailand's version of floating the river like we do back in Texas, complete with drunk people partying and all! After our rafting trip, we ate Pad Thai for lunch and headed back into Chiang Mai. 

Wat Chedi Luang

My flight wasn't for another three hours, so I decided to walk around the old city a bit to check out the Sunday Walking Street and some of the temples. I managed to see Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Phra Singh and some other smaller one I don't know the name of. While I was at Wat Chedi Liang, I got a blessing from a Buddhist monk. He gave me a bracelet to wear to resemble the blessing and splashed some holy water on my head. Not a bad way to cool down! The temple was in the midst of a big offering ceremony to bring on a good monsoon season. It was packed with people offering flowers in masses for a good harvest. Sadly, after spending some time strolling through the Sunday market, it was time to head back to Bangkok. I think I definitely made the most out of my weekend though!

Koh Samui

Sarah's last stop on our Thai journey was Koh Samui. I'm gonna be so sad when she goes!! Dad was very generous with his Marriott points, so we got to live a little more luxuriously for a few days while staying at the Renaissance Koh Samui. The hotel was really amazing. It doesn't hurt that we received a free upgrade to villa with private pool. After walking into the room, Sarah exclaimed "this is the best place ever!" I'm beginning to wonder how many best places ever there are. 

Our honeymoon resort pool

We had a delicious seafood dinner overlooking the sea at the hotel restaurant after making ourselves comfortable in our villa. Then it was off to bed because we had another early morning of scuba diving ahead of us in Koh Tao. 

Koh Tao - view from the dive boat

Across Thailand, we've heard mixed things about which place is best for diving. Though it was dark in Phi Phi, so we couldn't really see, I'm going to have to agree with those who give the vote to Koh Tao. It was truly incredible diving. I finished my advance open water scuba certification doing a 30 M deep dive and fish identification adventure dive. Sarah is going to finish hers on Saturday after I leave and we'll both be Advanced divers! We really loved our dive master, Steve, from Discovery Divers. The boat was one of the nicest I've ever been on, the service was amazing, and the food they served us was even good. I've never eaten curry on a dive boat before!

Blue-spotted ray

After diving, we relaxed by the beautiful infinity pool drinking delicious coconut cocktails before dinner. For dinner, we went to this thing called the Thai Experience run by two (really cute) British guys. The whole idea is about bringing together travelers to teach them about the Thai culture over a long, lubricated five course meal. It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious!

Enjoying the Thai Experience

On my last day in Koh Samui, we took a cooking class at Island Organics with Lat. Her class is held at her home in the hills of Samui where she and her husband Cameron have an organic farm. We picked vegetables from the garden before getting started. The menu for the day was a ginger and tofu stir fry, followed by Tom Yum soup, yellow chicken curry and a spicy larb salad which Sarah made the traditional way with pork and I substituted for chicken. The food was really good. I'm looking forward to my first few dinner parties when I get to Seattle!

Beach-side fish stand

We returned to the pool after the cooking class and witnessed the hotel restaurant literally catching people fish-to-order for their dinner. There was a little stand set up on the beach and a fishing boat not too far off in the water. About every 45 minutes or so, a guy in a kayak would go from the beach out to the fishing boat and return with fish to take to the restaurant. I wish I was here for another meal! After some more pool time, it was time for me to say goodbye to Sarah and head to Bangkok to start my volunteer work for the next three weeks. Lucky Sarah still has two more days in paradise and the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan ahead of her. I can't complain though, I still have seven weeks in Southeast Asia!

Khao Sok

In front of our lakeside bungalows

After waking up super early to fly from Bangkok to Surat Thani, Sarah and I met our driver to take us to the Morning Mist Resort in Khao Sok National Park. It was well worth the early morning because by 11 AM we were headed out to go elephant trekking. Our elephant was named Samboon and had spotted ears that he kept flapping to keep himself cool. The guide let us both move down out of the saddle and onto his neck to get a more upclose and personal feel for elephant riding. We needed to cool off (and nap) after our ride, so we went to the hotel pool to relax a bit.

Khao Sok National Park

After a light lunch, we had our first of hopefully many Thai massages down the rode at Country House. After the massage, Sarah proclaimed "This is the best day ever!" Sounds like the trip is off to a great start to me! We had drinks at a place on the river before another delicious Thai meal before hitting the hay early in our little treehouse hut. 

Inside our tree hut

The next morning, we were picked up at 8:30 for a two day-one night jungle trek. We drove about an hour into the park to a pier and boarded a longboat to venture further into the jungle. When we arrived at our lodging for the night, we found a row of bamboo bungalows hovering above the lake. We immediately dove into the lake for a swim and some kayaking before lunch. 

The longboat we took to the bungalows on the lake

After lunch, we hopped back into the longboat to begin a three-hour hike through the jungle to a cave. Imagine all of the creepiest, crawliest creatures you can and that's what was in the cave. We saw loads of bats, spiders the size of your hand, snakes and apparently there were also leeches milling about. Fortunately, none of our leech checks detected a leech so the heebee-jeebees I had the whole time might have been a little unwarranted (aside from the giant spiders, bats and snakes). As we ventured further into the cave, we trudged into deeper and deeper water in this underground river until the point that we were literally swimming because you couldn't touch the floor. In any other country, you'd have to stop before you even reached the water, but not in Thailand! You just swim right on through. I felt like a true spelunker. 

Incredible sunset over the lake

When we got back to the bungalows, Sarah and I felt like we deserved a beer (or three) and tossed back a few with our new German, Dutch and Canadian friends while having another swim in the lake. Sarah announced again at this point that this was "the best day ever!" It might be hard to keep topping such awesome days for ten days straight, but hopefully Thailand won't let us down. 

Creepy cave