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 3rd 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!
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| Our view from breakfast |
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| 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 23rd,
and this picture gave be goosebumps! I
cannot wait to get home and meet this precious little girl!!!!
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| 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.
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| Night market |
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| 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….
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| Beautiful Lana |
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| 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 :)
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| Spring roll |
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| Tom Sum |
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| Thai basil chicken |
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| 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.
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| First water taxi....we fell in love. |
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| First glimpse of Railei Beach |
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| Bungalow!!! |
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First Thai sunset
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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.
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| Bamboo Island |
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| Koh Phi Phi Don |
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| Hello, Maya Beach! |
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| 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.
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| En route |
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| Casual morning hike... |
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| Definitely worth it! |
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| 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!
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| Last taxi ride :( |
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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 :)
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| Small perks of flying...sunrise touching down in Luanda :) |
Wishing ALL my favorite mommas back home a wonderful Mother's Day!!!!
xoxo…
