Chasing the Sun- Thailand

I will never again have to say that I've never been to Asia! Our honeymoon journey to Southeast Asia began January 4th. We spent a night in Seattle with our dear friends Amanda and Kevin, then followed the daylight for an unusually long time to Korea and finally arrived in Bangkok, the night of the 6th. One thing I have to add here: for our fellow NFL fans, we had no knowledge of how the playoff games had gone that day, so we decided to let the color of our taxi determine whether the Packers or the Vikings had won their game. There are many colors of taxis in Bangkok, and, low and behold, our taxi was literally yellow and green. No joke. We found out the next day that indeed, the Packers had prevailed. Sad day for Minnesotans, but, back to Thailand.

Until now, Asia was a land I had never experienced. My first impression of Bangkok was that it reminded me a lot of Latin America, and I suppose that comes from the similarities of third world "architecture," bustling big cities, and the occasional smell of sewer. Although I must say, Thailand takes the cake for worst rancid smells I've ever experienced (and all too often) walking down the street. Bangkok is a huge, sprawling city. Honestly, we came for the beaches and only spent a day in Bangkok to recover from our flight, so we went straight to Kao San Road (a popular tourist area), also proving to be a most interesting place to be introduced to Thailand. We got amazing foot massages, and then survived a fish spa (tiny sucker fish "cleaning" your feet, it was almost more than I could handle!) We would return here for a half day layover at the end of our trip, and I personally think that was enough time in Bangkok.

We have officially graduated from overnight buses, so we hopped a short flight to Krabi to stay a few days in Ao Nang. This was a fun little beach town just a long-tail boat ride away from Railay Beach, one of the most renowned beaches in Thailand, and quite beautiful with its white sand and crazy cliffs surrounding. We actually saw some slack-liners just having a ball up in those crazy cliffs, apparently this area is world-renowned for crazy climbers too! We happily enjoyed the area from the ground, indulging in foot massages, fresh fruit juices, and dinner on the beach of course.

One of the highlights of our week in Thailand was the kayaking tour we took the next day. I used to think mangroves were slightly boring. But THIS mangrove forest that we kayaked through was incredible. Actually we started kayaking through some beautiful ocean canyons that led into a mangrove forest. It was so narrow that we had to go single file, making tight turns. Much to our surprise, part of this forest was inhabited by monkeys, one of which actually jumped on the kayak in front of us. They were close enough to touch! This made for a much more exciting and unique experience than we had expected. To top off the day, we rode an elephant named Khamun, our elephant driver's name was Khamun too, so I'm not sure the poor animal had a name of its own. After the quite amazing morning we had kayaking, the elephants turned out to be the boring part. They are big, slow, and do what they want, regardless of where you might want to go. We meandered through a river and foraged around a rubber tree forest for a bit, and that was pretty much it. It was exciting, but only good for about half an hour or so. We can now say we've ridden an elephant in Thailand, check!

After a few days in Ao Nang we hopped a ferry to Kho Phi Phi Don, one of Thailand's many many islands along its west coast. Kho Phi Phi (pee-pee) is sort of a crazy place. Upon arrival, we were swarmed with companies wanting to help us find accommodations. Each company has walls and walls of photos of all the different places to stay, and the entire place was buzzing like the stock market floor. You want bungalow? A/C or fan? This beach or that beach? Cheap or no cheap? Ok I call, no not available you take this place? This one! Is room with view. No, is room with no view, no view available. So we ended up on the other beach in a room with "no view." Whew. We ended up thankful to be on the opposite end of the other beach because it turns out this island likes to party, and since it's so small you can hear the bass everywhere. You have to see a picture of this island to understand how small and awesome it is.

We arrived by ferry on the left side, and our hotel was at the end of the beach, just out of view, on the right side. You walk everywhere, there are no cars on this island. Apparently it was devastated during the 2004 tsunami, but you wouldn't know it today, beautiful and bustling as ever. Our little beach at the end of the bay was so beautiful and calm, like a pool, but waaaaay better. We really just relaxed here, ate on the beach (it's kinda hard not to), and arranged for a snorkeling tour the next day.

It turned out to be more of a boat tour to Kho Phi Phi Leh (the smaller of the two islands) and also home to the famous beach from "The Beach," the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. We made a few stops to swim and snorkel, although after being stung several times by nearly invisible jellyfish, I was done. I still thoroughly enjoyed the scenery and long-tail boat ride though. I'm glad someone told us to watch "The Beach" before we went, because we were at least able to understand why we had to pay an extra $3 just to be on that beach, which is now a national park. As Nate said, "Only in Hollywood can they create a national park in Thailand.." The unreal (as in, I really thought they did some photoshopping in the movie) beach is in fact called Maya Bay, and it is very real. It was quite unbelievable. Save for the hundreds of people on shore of this rather small bay, it was one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen. I loved the row of long-tail boats that lined the shore as well, it made for such a beautiful and colorful scene. We spent about an hour on shore, and I loved every minute of it. Leonardo DiCaprio himself would have made it better but... I mean I was with my amazingly handsome husband so it was perfect ;)

After Phi Phi, we ferried to Phuket, just for a night, in order to get our flight out to Singapore in the morning. During our quick stay we happened upon a bustling weekend market in Nai Yang Beach, what a treat for the senses! Nate had one last pad thai, whipped up in under a minute from a man with a cart and a wok, they seem to abound in Thailand. Gangnam Style blared from some speakers somewhere, and there seemed to be everything you could need at this market from household goods to DVDs to spices to dinner. We stopped for a beer at what you could hardly call a "corner store," basically a concrete stall with a fridge, and met a man named Lui. He was overly excited to practice English, and taught us about the Thai motto of "nai nai" (no idea if I spelled that right) anyway it means "take it easy." You have a wife and 4 children at home? Nai nai! You have to put the chickens to bed? Nai nai! Have another beer, you see something you like, you take, nai nai! For him it was all nai nai. Needless to say it was an exciting and unexpected end to our week in Thailand. And in the morning, we were on our way to Singapore!