Travel Diary - Thailand

This post is mostly for my own benefit later on, so there might be a plethora of details you don't care about. Feel free to skim or just look at this pictures. At some points, this became stream-of-consciousness more than anything.

First, a geography lesson. I didn't know that Thailand was in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is. 

Bangkok is at #1 and is where I started my trip. Eventually I took a night train down to 2, then west to 3, and then back east to 4. The tour stopped at 4 and we all had to get back to Bangkok to get home. There were 46 people in my group, 7 of whom where boys.

Day 1 - Arrival

    Arrived in Thailand a few minutes early after a 10 hour, then 2 hour flight. Went thru customs and grabbed my bag, probably the fastest I've ever done. I was with a group of 5 already but we found some more people they knew at baggage claim so we all walked to the meeting place together. Waited there for 20 minutes then got picked up and put 10 at a time into mini-buses. 40-ish minutes to the hostel while we got told about the schedule for entire week. Paired up for rooms. Wow it is so hot, but it's really the humidity that kills you. But the aircon works amazingly. Dinner with everyone, then out to a bar. Alcohol is crazy cheap. Huge drinks

A drink bigger than my body.

I think this is 3 liters, but not really sure

 I left before they went to second bar. Showered, slept. 

Day 2 - Temples

    Up at 9:30 for 10am breakfast. Info meeting from 11-12 after buying some elephant pants for 200 baht ($6). They were much cooler than anything I brought. Walked to river boat, toured Bangkok via river. 40,000 tons of sewage goes in this river daily.

Boats like this one

 Saw lots of temples, 2 river dragons (giant lizards) , and old ladies selling stuff. 

Ladies selling stuff to us on the boat. They were so nice.

Also fed some fish outside Buddhist temple. Arrived at temple as it poured (and thundered). No one seemed concerned, the entire trip, when it thundered/lightninged while we were on boats.

Temple from afar

Walked up tower went across ever via ferry to other temple. Lots of Buddhas. So many Buddhas.

entrance to first temple

view from the top (well, as far up as we could go) 

View in other Direction 

A look a the detail on that tower 

Lots of guardians everywhere. Also, note the white wall behind him. That's around every single Temple.

The second temple was Wat Pho.

Rows and rows of these Buddhas. Each one is sponsored by a family. It costs $20,000 each time they get it cleaned up/gold replaced.

Me and the Reclining Buddha. He's 43 meters long and 15m high.

A view down his entire length. That's real gold on the surface. 

A woman retouching a painting near the Reclining Buddha.

Sitting Buddha

A close-up of Sitting Buddha

There was also a giant Standing Buddha but my picture of it was terrible and blurry.

Another creepy guardian

Got tuk-tuks (3-wheeled motorbikes with seating area in back) back to hostel. Pad Thai from a street vendor was both amazing and cheap. Shopping for pjs and stuff. Dressed in pjs for group dinner at Indian restaurant. Which was amazing. I tried Shisha. They also had these wands that you could blow into and make smoke-filled bubbles. Walked to bucket bar: literally a place where you can get buckets of cocktails, ect. Got lewd wristbands. Went home via tuk-tuk with Sara, one of the (awesome!) guides. 

Day 3 - Cooking

   Checked out of Wild Orchid hostel. Cooking class.

#selfie

 So good. We made 3 things: Tom yam soup, Pad Thai, and Massaman Curry. It was all amazing. We did a little traditional dancing with the woman who owns the place: May Kaidee.

They dressed some of us up :)

Shopping on way back to hostel. Then foot massage, facial, and pedicure. All for about $12. Grabbed some spring rolls from street vendor and back to hostel to leave for train. Chill and eat KFC at train station, board for a 12 hour ride. 1.5 hours in, seats turned into beds, with one where the seats where and one folding down from the ceiling I took top. Reading, cards, talking until maybe 1. Lots of people hated this part, but I kinda loved it.

 Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the train, but I'm sure I'll get some from someone on FB.

Day 4- Kaoh Sok National Park

   Wake up at 6am. Leave train to minibuses. Stop at 7-11 for breakfast. Drop big bags off at a guide's house. Take long, skinny boats through national park for ~45 minutes.

These were the cliff-things lining the lake

Stop to swim and climb up/jump off rock. Then to floating bungalows. Swimming. Lunch: amazinness. Swimming. Chilling on giant logs. Swimming. Kayaking with Gemma to cliff to find an even better spot to climb and jump. Swimming. Short boat ride to see some monkeys. They were really high up so it was more like looking at the silhouette of a monkey. Swimming in the rain. Dinner: fried chicken and good curry. Cardboard box game (don't worry about it). Some people swam some more. I read some so I could stay up for lights out (11pm) to see amazing stars.

Looking out from my bungalow

looking at my bungalow.

The bungalows where in an L shape with bathrooms on either end. The larger building is the dining area.

cliffs beside the bungalows

Sunrise. There were multiple large logs like this one which we sat on and did flips off

low clouds in the morning

the other boat full of people as we headed out of the Park

Day 5 - to the beach 

    Up for early breakfast. 1 hour boat back to dock. 1 hour minibus to mall. Auntie Anne's (!) and DQ. 1 hour minibus to ferry. 2.5 hour ferry: music, reading, watching kids tumble around. Taxis to Thaintro-owned bungalows: Sarana. Taxis were benches (sometimes with roofs) in back of truck.

so I suck at panoramas but I tried.

Swimming in (shallow) beach and pool. Amazing sunset. Mexican buffet at Dutch restaurant in Haadrin. Buckets! Beer pong. Fluorescent painting. To a Thaintro-owned bar. Pirate themed. To beach bar. Fire twirlers with sticks and chains. One was ~8 years old. They were amazing.

This is the youngest kid, and he dropped it a few times throughout the night, but still more amazing than I am at anything.

 To half moon party. Dancing, lights, music. So many people. Left around 3am.

Day 6 - Elephants 

     Woke up with worst hangover of my life. Breakfast, elephants: fed them, rode them, gathered food. Went in the water with them a little, but it was pretty dirty and a lot of us had cuts and scrapes from various things by this point.

Naturally, I wore my new Elephant/Thailand flag shirt

They gave us scythes to cut food for the elephants

 Back to Sarana for lunch and chilling. Thai massage: good but wouldn't repeat. Reading. Nap in the sun: probably a tactical error but it felt good. BBQ dinner on the beach: so much good food. Released lanterns into the air from the beach. Bonfire. Chill. 

Day 7 - Snorkeling

    Early morning woke up because went to bed early night before. There was serious thunder at night. Breakfast then walk to boats. 45 minute ride to snorkeling reef.

This is art...or something

Storm incoming! Luckily, we managed to avoid this one

So many fish! especially when I had bread. One girl stood on the coral and got some embedded in her foot. Short ride to beach for lunch and chilling. Ride to another beach to see waterfall. Broke (?) my ring toe jumping out of boat. Don't worry, it's not really a problem.

This is a day later - it turned purple immediately.

Waterfall was so muddy and angry. Couldn't cross or get to cave.

Back on boat for 45 minute ride back to Sarana.

Group picture. Realized I'm burned even though I put on sunscreen 3 times. Pack. Dress for farewell party. First aid: taping toes together. Check out. Group meet to tell where we went. To farewell dinner: Thai food buffet. Happy memory: Mark, one of the guides, getting a job. Apparently this week had been his trial go. I love other people's happiness. To Same-same, the restaurant/bar with florescent paint. Buckets and beer pong. To beach with fire twirlers. The fire people lit on rope on fire and did jump rope. So naturally I joined that. It was very cool. Lost my UNC sandals :(  Back to beach at Sarana.  

Day 8 - the Return

     Up early to pack and get a taxi to Haadrin Ferry to Koh Samui. Taxi to airport. Best airport ever! No walls, beautiful gardens.

So hungover

Free food, drinks, wifi. Flight to Bangkok with Bangkok Airways. Which had amazing food.

Bye, southern Thailand!

 Trouble at Bangkok airport getting my boarding pass because the machine read the number of my passport wrong and couldn't find my Australian visa. But they were super helpful and printed me out a confirmation of visa. Which I really should have had with me anyway. Oops.

Plus, they have these awesome guardians all along check-in

 

btw, Malaysian airlines have the smoothest descents I've ever had. Never feel the descent until touchdown. So 2 hour flight to Kuala Lumpar then 10 hours from there to Sydney, when I actually managed to sleep, yay!

Got home, did laundry, showered, and then I slept for 13 hours. Might have been the best week of my life.