sexy thai spicy

I’m still having a hard time digesting the fact that only 9 days ago I was on the beach in paradise, and now I’m in the middle of the African Atlantic BUUUT I guess reality has to settle back in some time.  So I’ll give you my Thailand play by play...

My last night in Seoul (Friday), I woke up at about 3AM and realized that Courtney and I hadn’t necessarily made a plan about where we were going to meet in the Bangkok airport to catch our flight to Chiang Mai.  So I started looking up maps of the airport and realized that it wasn’t THAT big, and Courtney and I would for sure be able to just meet up at the information desk outside the baggage claim, right??  WRONG.  Long story short, Courtney and I both wondered the airport for quite some time before literally bumping into each other…luck was on our side ;)  We got checked in for our next flight, and were officially in vacation mode!

We arrived in Chiang Mai late Saturday night, got to our adorable hotel and hit the hay.  The next morning after a delicious breakfast, we hit the streets to explore the city.  What we ended up doing was sweating buckets, cooling down with my first (of many) coconuts, and getting foot massages….a very successful day. 

So back to sweating buckets…it was hot in Chiang Mai, VERY hot which I am pretty used to from spending the past (almost) 3 years wearing long sleeves and pants while working in Africa – Courtney, on the other hand, is not used to the constant sweat dripping from basically every part of your body.  Naturally, there was a bit of complaining about the heat, which I had no sympathy for (thanks Mom!), but eventually I agreed to head back to the hotel to take a shower and cool down before dinner and the Sunday night market.  To our surprise, we walked into a stifling hot hotel room.  Me with all my epic 3^rd world country knowledge just assumed that we were staying in a place that turned off power during the heat of the day to save on energy costs.  So I assured Court that the AC would FOR SURE be on by 5PM.  Rather than going down to ask about the situation, we took cold showers, opened the windows, used our cute little fans that we just bought from one of the markets, and waited (not so) patiently for 5PM to roll around.  Well, 5PM came and went and we were still just chit chatting in the heat (the cold beers could have been a distraction).  At some point, I got up and walked by the door and noticed a little master switch, flipped it on, and BAM….we had AC.  Court had a few choice words to say to me….wooooopsies!          

Our view from breakfast

My first coconut!

In the midst of our minor AC glitch, I got the most wonderful text from Lauren saying that she was heading to the hospital and baby Kennedy was on her way….this beautiful blessing arrived late on April 23^rd, and this picture gave be goosebumps!  I cannot wait to get home and meet this precious little girl!!!!

Braun party of THREE!!!!

After finally cooling down, it was time to head back into the heat and explore the famous Chiang Mai Sunday Night Market.  We were staying at a hotel right on the ‘walking street,’ meaning the market was literally right out our door step.  The market was amazing.  It was at this point that I started getting upset about the fact that I had ZERO room for souvenirs in my bag(s) because I could have furnished a house with everything that I wanted to buy.  So, we skipped through the market en route to an AMAZING dinner of spring rolls, fresh fish and plenty of cocktails that came out to a whopping $42 total.  We were too full to walk home, so we jumped in a tuk-tuk-taxi for an interesting ride home and were curled up in bed by 10PM.

Night market

It goes on foreverrrr

The next morning was an early one.  We slowly got ourselves up and out the door for out visit to the elephant sanctuary, which turned into one of the best days of my life!  I really fell in love with elephants when Chad and I got to sit and watch them for hours on our safari last year, but our trip to the sanctuary confirmed that they are the most entertaining animals on the planet.  We started off feeding them sugar cane and bananas just to get used to their magnitude.  As we got more and more comfortable with them, they would give us kisses, we sprayed them down and then got ready to learn how to ride the massive creatures.  Each elephant at the sanctuary has a keeper that lives on the grounds and is basically with the elephant 24/7.  They taught us basic commands for the elephants and then we jumped right on!  Court and I shared the biggest of the bunch, Lana.  At first, I was very uneasy but the longer we stayed on him the more fun it became.  Our walk ended in the pond and it was SO adorable watching the elephants get into the water.  They were like little babies splashing around in the pool.  We got in with Lana and started scrubbing him down.  I was sitting on top of him near his head and he just decided it was time to get up.  Luckily, I was pretty securely on, but Court was clearly not ready for his movement….

Beautiful Lana

PRICELESS.

We were pretty pooped from our day playing with the elephants, but we quickly got over it when we met our cooking instructor for the night.  Her name was Joy and she was just the cutest little Thai lady ever!  She explained the levels of spice in Thai cooking as...elementary, middle, high school, university, Thai spicy, and sexy Thai spicy (aka, burn your face off HOT).  She took us to the local market, walked us through her organic garden, and then it was time to cook.  I have to admit, I pretty much killed it in the kitchen, and I feel like I'm ready to give my Thai cooking skills are go when I get home :)

  

Spring roll

Tom Sum

Thai basil chicken

green curry!!!

Our time in Chiang Mai was already up.  While we were sad to be leaving, we were ready to get on the beach and soak up some sun!  We woke up at 4:30AM and started the trek to the airport to get down to Krabi.  Trying to figure out which beach to go to in Thailand is quite a task because they are all SO beautiful.  We somehow stumbled upon Railei Beach Club, which were little bungalows right on the beach, and booked immediately.  Railei is a peninsula near Krabi that is only accessible by boat.  I don’t think anything could have prepared us for just how beautiful everything was.  You see all kinds of photos of Thailand and just assume that the color has been enhanced or some type of photo shopping was done, but no – it’s THAT beautiful!  Our water taxi dropped us off, and after realizing that the hut we had booked was sans-AC (no wonder it was SO cheap) we headed straight out to the water.  We stayed at the beach until the sun was alllllmost setting and then relocated to the “sunset bar” at our place.  Essentially, everyone at the beach club gathered on the patio at sunset, so we got to meet several of the other folks there.  Turns out that most of the people there actually owned the beach huts, so needless to say, they were regulars.  We got a few tips on where to eat and headed out for dinner. 

First water taxi....we fell in love.

First glimpse of Railei Beach

Bungalow!!!

First Thai sunset

The next morning we headed out for breakfast and got ready for our 9AM departure to check out the islands.  There are a TON of little islands between Krabi and Phuket, the most famous being the Phi Phi Islands.  We debated on whether or not we should spend a whole day going to see the islands when we had (in our opinion) the most beautiful beach right in front of us, but it’s one of those things you just have to do – and we did NOT regret the decision to go!  We went to Bamboo Island, Ko Phi Phi Lei, Ko Phi Phi Don, and Maya Beach before heading back to Railei.  It’s so crazy how much everything (water color, temperature, sand) changes from one island to the next.  By the time we got back to Railei, the water looked green and mirky compared to the Phi Phi islands….ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. 

Bamboo Island

Koh Phi Phi Don

Hello, Maya Beach!

just floating around

We had scheduled to have a lady come to our hut and cook dinner for us that night (super romantic), so we when got back all we had to do was sit on the beach, watch the sunset, and wait for our dinner to be ready – tough life.  After eating too much (again), we decided to stay in, put our face masks on and go to bed….after all, we had had a reallllllly tough day ;)

The next morning, we decided to check out the View Point hike that everyone had been talking about.  There is an East and West side of the Railei Peninsula (we were staying on the West), and apparently you could see both sides at the top of the hike.  Since evvvveryone told us that the view is gorgeous, we figured that the hike would be a casual one – WRONG.  I would describe the “hike” as scaling a mountain and then repelling down.  If that hike were in America, you would have had to sign a waiver and a guide would have taken you to the top.  Shockingly, Court and I made it with only a few bumps and bruises along the way.  And everyone was right – the view was phenomenal, totally worth the swimming pool sweatiness that was happening.  After making it back down, we walked a little further to Phra Nang Beach to take a dip and cool off.  Phra Nang is also known to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Thailand, and we didn’t even realize it was right in our backyard!  We made the trek back to the West side just in time to have some lunch and a coconut before boarding our sunset cruise.

En route

Casual morning hike...

Definitely worth it!

Phra Nang beach

We spent the rest of the afternoon and into the evening making friends on our cruise.  There was lots of flips off of the roof, dancing, snorkeling and enjoying a delicious Thai buffet.  I swear everyone in that country can cook!  Our last stop on the cruise was nighttime snorkeling in a little cave.  Initially, I was like FORGET that, I’m not jumping into the ocean in the pitch black.  BUT there was a reason…this little area happened to have luminescent plankton.  So when you jumped in and moved around underwater these little particles lit up.  It was like swimming in stars…honestly, one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen!      

We got back to the island completely exhausted and went through our normal nighttime routine…cold showers and facemasks!   

Last taxi ride :(

EVA AIRLINES HELLO KITTY PLANE!!!
(if I ever run into you in an airport....this is what I look like.)

So, I’m back at work and things have actually been going really well.  I started off with ZERO jetlag, which was probably because my body had no idea what time zone it was supposed to be on.  I pretty much slept the entire 13 hours plane ride.  I got back to great news, I've got a new team working for me!  After 6 months of begging, I finally have my own little team of workers!  We have about 15,000 punchlist items to clear, and I now was a fantastic foreman and 4 guys to get all these little things knocked out.  Now, this hitch just needs to keep flying by :)

Small perks of flying...sunrise touching down in Luanda :)

Wishing ALL my favorite mommas back home a wonderful Mother's Day!!!!   

    

xoxo…