Hello Blog land! I realize my absence has been a little long, but I have been in the South of Thailand for a week :-P .
Our Trip was amazing. A much needed break from our busy and exhausting internships!
Our first stop was at a home-stay on an Island
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| We had to wade out to our boat! |
The home-stay was a lot of fun because we get to see how people actually live and they take really good care of us. Including feeding us meals like the one above. They also took us squid fishing that night. About half of us got seasick (yours truly included) so we laid down and watched our better half catch the squid. We had to do it at night because they are attracted to a large green light the fishermen have on their boats. It made for some creepy/cool pictures.
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| The night's catch! |
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| Cabin 6: We may never actually know |
The rest of the week was comprised of two nights in a cabin at a National Park with our own private beach. The local rumor was that the Park we were staying at was haunted by victims of the Tsunami. Some spooky stuff was going on there too, so I think I believe it! The locals were shocked when they found out that we were staying there for 2 nights, let alone 1! Weird.
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| On the bright side it came with an awesome private beach! |
We went on an extreme (In my opinion. It was my first time hiking so cut me some slack.) hike up through the woods along the beach. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery that was worth all the bug bites and gallons of sweat!
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| Our fearless leader |
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| Chelsea living on the edge |
After more hiking, we hit the jackpot.
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| Isn't that a sight for sore eyes? More private beaches! |
We only had a quick jump in, because we had more hiking to do! Which also led us to this little gem.
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| I'm not makin' this stuff up! |
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A private waterfall. Really? The water was so cool and refreshing. We had time to whip up some classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches too!
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| Hermit crab holes. Even those are beautiful. |
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| Notice almost naked man. Vom in my mouth |
Our next day was spent in the infamous Phuket. This was a part of the trip I was really looking forward to. I have heard so many wonderful things blah, blah, blah. It turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of my life. It was completely overrun with farang. Old, fat, leather-skinned Europeans covered the shoreline. If it wasn't covered with them, then it was covered in trash. You could literally smell the stench. I didn't even dare go swimming in the water. It was unfortunate we had to waste an entire day there. I would have rather just visited to see what tourism can do to a place and head back to one of beautiful private beaches! ;-)
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| Group photo of course! |
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| So trippy! |
That night we went to a place called "Phuket Fantasea". It's hard to describe this place. It was a mix of Chuck E. Cheese's without games, a county fair, and Ponderosa. We had a delicious buffet and got to walk around to check everything out. There is a big performance at 9 that we went to see which was amazing. It told the story of the Good King beating the Evil King for the Princess.
Visiting a rubber tree farm/handicraft center was next on the agenda.
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| Sap |
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| The rubber is ultimately smoked |
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| Chelsea becoming a master basket-weaver! |
Another home-stay followed! This one happened to house one of the cutest old ladies I've ever seen!!
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| So much willpower to stop from stealing her |
We did a lot of fun things at this homestay, like take a river tour in the daylight, a Thai cooking class, and a firefly cruise at night. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
The river cruise
took us to a local fisherman village, where we met an interesting bunch.
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| This was mid- "Dance Battle". They performed for us, so we tried to One-Up them with the macarena. |
The women here plant mushrooms, small plants, and farm catfish for extra money. They're also fans of hula-hooping. They kept hugging us and holding our hands, it was over-whelming but in a good way. We kept making jokes that they were going to steal us. Then one woman went up to Jordan and hugged him for 5 minutes saying "I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!" Then the possibility of being stolen seemed to get more real. Just kidding. But we did later find out that we were their first group of farang to visit, so they were excited and wanted to make a good impression on us. They also took a ton of photos of us, so who knows where you'll end up seeing my face. Roadside billboards perhaps? Haha.
The cooking class was a lot of fun. We ended up making Green Curry (I'm not a huge fan of eating it, but cooking it is fun!), and a clam dish. Thanks to Pi Nat's awesome translating skills the cooking got turned into our own little cooking show. We all got to do something to help and then chowed down on it!
The firefly cruise was incredible. There is a certain tree along the shore that fireflies like, so all we had to do was get on a boat, sit quite, and watch. Looking at them was surreal, like I wasn't looking at something that could naturally be that beautiful. Thousands of them would sit in a tree blinking their "family light pattern" at the same time over and over. Unfortunately, it wasn't something I could capture on camera. First of all, there is NO way a picture would do any justice. Secondly, a camera's flash actually sterilizes a female firefly. Interesting right?
Our last day we went to Ben's internship in the Chumporn province. Let me tell ya, he has it rough.
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| He works at a resort. The work days are actually long and demanding, but he totally loves it |
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| they're also self-proclaimed "Plearners" |
Our first stop was at a home-stay on an Island
The river cruise
The home-stay was a lot of fun because we get to see how people actually live and they take really good care of us. Including feeding us meals like the one above. They also took us squid fishing that night. About half of us got seasick (yours truly included) so we laid down and watched our better half catch the squid. We had to do it at night because they are attracted to a large green light the fishermen have on their boats. It made for some creepy/cool pictures.
The women here plant mushrooms, small plants, and farm catfish for extra money. They're also fans of hula-hooping. They kept hugging us and holding our hands, it was over-whelming but in a good way. We kept making jokes that they were going to steal us. Then one woman went up to Jordan and hugged him for 5 minutes saying "I love you! I love you! I love you! I love you!" Then the possibility of being stolen seemed to get more real. Just kidding. But we did later find out that we were their first group of farang to visit, so they were excited and wanted to make a good impression on us. They also took a ton of photos of us, so who knows where you'll end up seeing my face. Roadside billboards perhaps? Haha.
