Trip to Thailand

The first thing I want to say is how absolutely beautiful Thailand was. I missed it the second I stepped onto the plane to leave. My friend who I traveled with shared my sentiments as well.

Bangkok - June 26-29

Every night in Bangkok we went to a different night market. Even though we went to 4-5 markets we still made almost no dent in the amount of markets there are in Bangkok. One of the days we were in Bangkok we went around some of the temples. At the biggest temple we decided to rent the traditional thai clothes which came with a nice photoshoot around the temple. This was beautiful and amazing to see the massive temple. It was so much more colorful than I was expecting. My only other reference was a temple I went to in Yogyakarta, Indonesia which was mostly stone and rock colored. However, these Thai temples were incredibly colorful. We went to another temple after that that is known for the laying down Buddha which is huge.

During one of the days, we did an organized tour to the market that a train goes through and to the floating market. We road the train into the market and then got to watch it leave as well. This was so interesting... I don't think I've ever been so close to a train going by. I got probably the best smoothie I had ever had just waiting for the train to go by. It might have had something to do with the fact that it was so hot out but it was still the best. Next we went to the floating market and took a boat around the market to see everything. I didn't buy anything there because we were advised that everything on the water are much more expensive than other places. We had lunch by the water and that ended the tour. It was great to go on this tour because the floating and railroad markets were a couple hours outside of Bangkok city. It would have been difficult to get there on our own. We also had an opportunity to meet a bunch of other people on the tour. My friend and I and one other person were the only Americans but we were able to meet people from all over the world. Bangkok was really fun for a few days, but I am not a big city person so a few days there was perfect.

The best thing was by far the food. I never had a bad meal while in Bangkok. The first night we arrived around 7/8pm and when we got to a night market we had the best pad thai just from a seller we chose by random. That same night we had the best pineapple fried rice that was served in a pineapple. The food experience was just amazing. I really liked the Thai pancakes as well.

Krabi - June 29- July 3

The islands near Krabi are some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen before. I do want to say that I haven’t yet visited similar islands in Indonesia like Bali, Lombok, Flores, etc. but I’m sure they will be similar levels of stunning.  It’s hard to put into words how beautiful it was. And although the photos look amazing they just can’t do the real thing justice.

We stayed on Railay Bay which is a small island about a 45 minute boat ride from Krabi where we flew into. The boats that are used around the area are called Longtail boats and are what was traditionally used. The island we stayed on was not super big but there was plenty to keep us busy. There were many resorts and a lovely walking street with restaurants, bars, shops and activity planning stores. Our resort has two entrances, one on each side of the island. It took about 15 minutes to walk from one side to the other straight through the resort. The island wasn’t very wide but it was definitely longer as there are also people who live there full time and the village is a bit away from where the tourists have most of the activities.

The island is definitely quintessential island living, including watching out for the monkeys who will take food, shoes, etc.  we were advised to keep our door locked regardless of if we were in the room or not. At breakfast one morning we saw a monkey hop down and drink someone’s juice and steal some food from their plate. These monkeys are incredibly smart.  The hotel had a little slingshot to shoo the monkeys away. The monkeys would stay out of sight on the roof then lean down over the roof to see if the employee with the slingshot is gone before going back down to get food.

In addition to monkeys, monitor lizards were very prevalent on the island. Although the monkeys were kind of cute as long as they didn’t try to take my food, the monitor lizards were a bit freaky. While on la d they were perfectly fine because they couldn’t walk that fast and mostly keep to themselves. However, when they get in the water that’s a different story. They are incredibly fast in the water and look exactly like a crocodile in the water with only the top of their head visible. One day we went to explore a swimming cave on the island and it turns out some monitor lizards live in the cave. At first they didn’t come out and everyone was just swimming. All of a sudden I noticed a bunch of people pointing near the back of the cave. I definitely had a bit of a jump scare when I saw the head sticking out of the water, moving quickly. Luckily it seemed to leave people alone. My friend and I ended up moving to a different beach because although the monitor lizard was leaving people alone we couldn’t really have a relaxing swim knowing it was swimming near us.  It’s like sharks, sure I know they live in the ocean but I definitely feel a lot better swimming when I can’t see them.

The itinerary for Railay Beach was pretty chill and relaxed. We had general things we wanted to do but other than 2 things we didn’t really have to plan things in advance.

The first day we got to the island around 2 pm so we just explored a bit and swam and grabbed food.

The next day we went to a place called Diamond Cave, which was on the island and did not in fact have diamonds. Its name came from the sparkle of the rocks when they shine onto the surface of the lake that appears during flooding season.  We walked around the island and just explored that day. During the evening there was a reggae band playing at a bar and we had a great time chilling and listening to that. We ended up traveling during one of the slower seasons because it was the beginning of rainy season but it was great for us because it wasn’t as crowded.

The third day we did an island hopping trip with a private longboat. This was great because they take you to a few different islands to explore and it was about a 6 hour trip all together. 1 hour of boat ride there and back then the rest of the time is spread out between the 3 islands we went to. They have a bunch of different island hopping tours depending on which islands you want to go to. The area is pretty famous for being the filming site for many movies including a James Bond movie that now has a rock named after it. This was a great time. Unfortunately towards the end I happened to eat something that made me a bit sick. Once we got back to our hotel I ended up resting a bit and then I was all good to hang out more.

The day after we went to Krabi and had a trip to an elephant sanctuary.

This was truely my favorite part of the entire trip. This sanctuary had 7 female elephants, no male elephants because male and female elephants sometimes create chaos together. Each elephant has there own caretaker as elephants are apparently jealous at times. This sanctuary is very interesting because it's unlike a zoo or anything else. There were no fenses, or barriers and the elephants just walked around whereever. This was the closest I've ever been to an elephant. The visit centered around the elephants, learning about what they did, how they lived, how they got to the sanctuary. We joined their typical day activies. We started by feeding each elephant a snack so they could all learn who we are. We spent some time with them there before it was time for their first bath of the day. These elephants have multiple baths everyday and they also do mud baths as a way to moisturize their skin. We followed the elephants as they walked to the water for the bath. While in the water we were given buckets and handheld scrubbers. We helped the elephants take a bath. One of the elephants- who is apparently the "mischievous" one- used their trunk to splash us with water. After the bath we took them to a shower area to rinse anything left off. One of the elephants kept wanting me to fill their trunk with water so they could throw the water over their back. This was an amazing opportunity and we were in a pretty small group, with less than 20 people. This was hands down the best part of the trip.

If I even make it back to Thailand and Krabi I would love to go to this elephant sanctuary again.