Thailand 2020

Wednesday, February 12

We got off work late and we hadn’t packed yet so we didn’t start heading to Salt Lake until about 9pm. We got to the Courtyard by the Vivint Smart Home Arena around 10:30pm and we watched some Parks and Rec and then went to bed! 

Thursday, February 13

We got up around 6:15am and we headed to the Sheraton to drop our car and keys off. Then we got an Uber to the airport. Our driver spent the entire ride talking about how bad Utah drivers are haha what a guy. Once we got to the airport and through security, we went to the Sky Club. I love not checking bags for international trips because it adds stress that isn’t necessary and it makes me pack less. Becs let me test out her Cotopaxi bag on this trip to see if I want to get my own. It packed well! Anyway, we got breakfast in the Sky Club and then we headed to our gate. We had a moment of panic when the gate on Jeff’s app was wrong but it was luckily only a couple of gates off ha our first flight was to San Francisco and we were in first class. We had Luis’s friend Danae as our flight attendant so we sent him a picture of all of us. Once we got to San Fran we had to leave the terminal and take a bus to go to the international terminal. When we got through security we went into the Korean Air lounge and hung out for a little while. We got food and comfy seats. I regret not downloading anything while connected to their WiFi ha the Coronavirus is raging right now and we couldn’t find medical face masks anywhere before we left so we looked at the stores in the airport and we couldn’t find any. So we bought some Pringles and boarded our flight to Seoul, South Korea. It felt like we had already left the US while we were in San Fran. Hardly anyone spoke English and everyone was wearing face masks. It was crazy. We asked a flight attendant for face masks and she actually had some! So we finally had something to “protect” us ha 

Friday, February 14

It was a 13 hour flight! I played games on the TV for a while, watched a couple of movies (their movie selection wasn’t great) and slept. It was such a long flight. My body ached almost the entire time and my feet were SO swollen. Eventually we got to Seoul and we had to go through security again. We also had to walk through a quarantine check for the Coronavirus. They kept announcing the symptoms on our flights and they would say to tell a flight attendant if you had any of them. Our flight had gotten in late so we were freaking out in security because our flight was leaving in 30 minutes. We talked to multiple workers and they were so stressed because a lot of us that were in line had flights leaving very soon. The guy that was running the security line we were in was taking his sweet time. He would only allow one person at a time to put their stuff into the crates and then he would take their boarding pass and go scan it and then once they were through the detector and their stuff was in the machine, he would call the next person. It was a nightmare! We finally made it through with 15 minutes until take off so we sprinted through the airport. Of course our gate was the furthest away. Jeff is in much better shape than I am so he went ahead to tell them I was coming. I was dying. Of heat. Of exhaustion. Everything. And it was too bad because the Seoul airport was so cool! They had GIANT statues of kittens surrounded by teepees. It was so crazy! I finally got to the gate and we boarded the plane. We actually weren’t the last ones in the plane. At least ten people came on after us. Which probably means that we didn’t have to sprint so much haha I couldn’t cool down. My leggings were super thick and we couldn’t find overhead space so we had to put our bags by our feet (the downside to not checking bags) and I felt claustrophobic haha I cooled down eventually and we played games on our TVs again and watched a movie. This flight was a little over 6 hours. Valentines Day didn’t really exist for us. The time change is crazy. Thailand is 14 hours ahead of Utah. We landed at 11:20pm and went through customs and another quarantine check and then we used Grab (the Asian Uber) to get a ride to our hostel. Yamyen Hostel. It was down some sketchy road so we were weirded out at first but we found it and checked in quickly. Once we got to our room, we got ready for bed. Our toilet made noises that sounded like a man whining haha it made those noises all night. We could also hear everything that happened in the hallway ha we didn’t get to bed until after 1am. 

Saturday, February 15

We had to be up at 6:15am to catch our flight to Phuket at 8:20am. So we got ready and packed up and went downstairs. The manager called us a taxi and we waited outside for it. We saw a few stray dogs and one was limping. It broke our hearts. Apparently the Coronavirus spreads through animal contact? So we can’t pet the dogs and we hate that ha once our taxi showed up, we loaded up and went to the airport. We went through one security check and we thought that was it so we went to McDonalds and got breakfast. We talked about how it was crazy they didn’t even check our baggage and everything haha and then after we ate we meandered toward our gate and found out that we hadn’t even gone through security yet haha as we were in line, we saw on the screen that it was a final call for our flight so we kind of panicked ha security went quickly though and our gate was right down the escalator so we made it. We scanned our boarding passes and then we had to board a bus to go to our gate. The bus ride took forever. We were on there for 15 minutes. And we were crammed! Then we got off and got on the plane. It was an old Wow Air plane haha I don’t know why I find that funny. Wow Air basically went bankrupt and they cancelled all of their flights with no refunds. They mainly went to Iceland so I guess I thought it was funny that their plane made it all the way over here. Anyway, on our flight there was a man that sat in our row and our plane wasn’t super full so Jeff and I bet on whether we thought he would move to another row or not. I didn’t think he would move because he was setting up camp! So if I won, Jeff would’ve had to eat a scorpion. But after the flight took off, he eventually moved. So I lost. So I have to eat some type of seafood while we’re here. The flight was quick. It was an hour and 15 minutes. The flight attendant got mad at me twice before take off haha first one was because my purse was on my lap. Second was because I was journaling on my phone ha also before our flight took off they played the same two songs over and over and over again. We loved them haha Jeff full on started singing them after the third time we heard them ha they’re called Proud of You by Fiona Fung and Only Love by Trademark. Also I hit strike three with the flight attendants. My window shade was down when we were landing ha after we landed we got a car through Grab and we had to meet him at the Grab pick up point. So we had to walk out of the airport to the main road and some guy beckoned us to it and acted like he was helping us but really he wanted us to cancel our driver and use him ha my phone doesn’t work in Thailand so we had to use WiFi for everything. I didn’t have WiFi out at the Grab pick up point so our driver couldn’t get a hold of us. I ended up turning on roaming for a second so we could see where our driver was at. He called me and we told him we were at the pick up point and eventually he came and we were off. It was a 45 minute drive to the Tarzan Jungle Bungy Jump. We hit some traffic because the police were checking random cars for signs of the Coronavirus. They didn’t check us. When we got to the bungy jump our driver decided to wait for us to finish. I think he wanted to watch us jump haha so we walked to the office and paid and I changed to a better suited outfit for bungy jumping and then Jeff jumped first. We had to use the place’s GoPro because we forgot the charger to ours and the clip that connects it to the selfie stick ha we weren’t very prepared. So Jeff got taken up the crane and then he jumped! It was a 165 foot drop. Jeff hung upside down for a while before they reached the stick out to him and he could grab it. Then it was my turn. They wrapped my feet up wayyyyyy too tight ha the blood definitely couldn’t get to my feet. On the crane ride up I saw a sign that said that they charge 100 baht for you to be pushed off by a worker instead of jumping haha the guy made me throw my gum off the crane so I didn’t choke on it ha and then we were at the top and he was like k go over so I had to sketchily jump with my feet tied together to the edge ha with the bungy hanging below me so it was dragging me down. And then he said arms out 3-2-1 jump and I jumped. It was awesome!! It happened very quickly. And I hung upside down spinning for quite a while ha I was super disoriented. I missed the stick the first try but then I got it. Once I was down, they handed us certificates and our SD cards and we were off! Our driver took us to our hotel that was ten minutes away. We stayed at the EcoLoft Hotel and it was pretty nice! It had this cool infinity pool that at the right angle it looked like you were on the edge of the building when you were in the pool. We laid on our bed for a minute just to relax and then we went to walk around and find food. We stopped at an ATM first and got some money and then we walked down the road until we found food. We didn’t see many food options at all so we ended up eating at a place called The Cook. We both got pad Thai. It was really good! The owner was there and he talked to us a lot. He had broken his leg on a moped. We could barely understand him though ha we got our whole meal for $8. Two pad Thais and two cokes. I love this place ha on our way back to the hotel, we stopped at Kim’s Message & Spa. We both got an hour and a half Thai massage. We took our shoes off when we walked in and they sat us down next to this giant aquarium and gave us a cold towel and tea. Then they took us upstairs and we changed into the clothes they provided and we got our massages in a room just for the two of us. I had this tiny little old Thai woman and I loved it. She was digging her knees and elbows into me but she was so tiny that it didn’t hurt haha Jeff said his was the most painful massage he’s ever had haha his lady was young and strong haha I felt amazing after! They walked us downstairs and gave us hot tea and a hot towel and then we paid and left. We paid $33 for an hour and a half massage for both of us. Then we walked around for a little bit and went to our room. We went up to the pool for a little while and then we went back to our room and we were asleep by 8pm. 

Sunday, February 16

We woke up at 7:15am and packed our bags. We went downstairs and checked out and ate some toast that they gave us and then we got a car through Grab and took it to the Rassada Pier for our 8:30am ferry ride to the Phi Phi Islands. When we got to the pier a guy came over and looked at our tickets on my phone, took a picture, and then walked away. Still not super sure what happened there ha then we got on our boat and sat right up front. I get very seasick and I got way sick last time I took this ferry so I took some motion sickness medicine and just let the wind hit my face while I stared at the land. On the boat there was this group of men and they were listening to very loud music ha they didn’t care at all that other people were around ha eventually they fell asleep and turned off the music though ha it was a two hour ferry ride to the Phi Phi Islands. The views were amazing! When we got to Koh Phi Phi we got off the boat and it was crazy! People were everywhere. We walked through the shops to the other side of the island and we got Jeff some new sunglasses. Then we went to our hotel. We were staying at the CoCo Beach Resort and we definitely splurged on this hotel. I thought of all of the places we were going, Phi Phi was where we should go all out. It was incredibly hot while we were walking around. Plus we had our bags ha our hotel seemed like it was so far away ha We checked in but we couldn’t go to our room so we decided to just wander around the island. We ended up eating at Haopuan and I got pad Thai. The service wasn’t great here. We watched a guy come in, sit down, try to get several peoples attention, never had his order taken, and he stood up and left haha After we ate we walked through the shops and we bartered for some bracelets and a crop tank for me. We got lost for sure. Well I got lost. Jeff was like I’m pretty sure we’re walking the opposite direction of our hotel. And we definitely were ha I got so turned around. We went back to our hotel and went to our little hut. It was so cool! We had our own hut and it was so cute. We chilled in our room for a bit and then we got our swimsuits on and we walked out to the pool. It was right on the beach. We swam in the ocean for a little while. The water was so incredibly warm! But not uncomfortable. It was perfect. Then we swam in the pool. They had this blow up duck and shark in the pool and every time the wind picked up, the duck and shark would fly towards us haha at one point a lady and her boyfriend were on the duck and they floated towards us like three times haha we went over to the bar after a little while and we ordered strawberry lime frozen drinks. They were huge! We were living the dream! Just sitting by the pool drinking our massive frozen drinks chilling. So relaxing! When the sun went behind the mountain behind us we went back to our room. We ended up staying in there the rest of the night except when Jeff ran to get us food from McDonald’s ha we watched Modern Family on repeat. Modern Family is on Netflix in foreign countries but not in the US so every time we travel we end up binge watching Modern Family haha it was super hard to fall asleep because there was music playing out on the beach. All of the parties were starting up and they lasted forever ha eventually I was able to fall asleep. 

Monday, February 17

We woke up to a freaking rooster around 6:45am. So pissed ha I was so stoked to just sleep in but nope. That dang rooster was doing his thing nonstop for about an hour and a half. We laid there for a while but eventually got up around 9am and went to breakfast. Breakfast was served in the restaurant by the pool. They had a chef making eggs in whatever style you wanted and a ton of other stuff. We sat by the beach eating breakfast and we even saw a few monkeys out on the beach! After we ate, we went back and packed up our stuff and watched a few episodes of Modern Family. At 11am we took our bags to the front desk so they could watch them while we did a snorkel tour on a long tail boat. Our guide’s name was Karim and we LOVED him. He was about 5 feet tall and he was so friendly! He took our picture constantly the entire tour ha it was a private tour so we could do anything we wanted and be on our own time. We took the long tail boat out to an island by Koh Phi Phi and on our first stop we snorkeled. It was only okay. My snorkel had a hole in it so I kept breathing in salt water ha we saw only a few fish. They we loaded back up and we went around to another stop but we told him we didn’t want to snorkel there. So he took us to an inlet/bay area and it was gorgeous! He said that it wasn’t for snorkeling because there weren’t many fish but it was for swimming and for pictures ha so we took turns jumping off the boat and we swam around for a little while. Jeff kicked a rock and cut his foot and I got bit by a fish haha so that made it interesting haha next stop was the Viking cave. We snorkeled here and it was much better snorkeling! We jumped in and we were immediately surrounded by schools of fish. Karim got in with us and showed us where Nemo was ha we saw a couple of clown fish and then he took us to another spot where we saw a different colored clown fish. I drank a lot of salt water ha but we had so much fun! I found a plastic water bottle at the bottom and I dove down and grabbed it and threw it in our boat. I never saw it again though? So I thought I was doing a small act of service but now I’m wondering if I completely missed the boat and threw it over to the other side? Still unsure. Haha once we were done snorkeling, we got back in and headed to monkey beach. There were about five monkeys in one area and everyone was crowded around them. I ended up sitting on a log and a monkey ran up to me and ran behind me on the log and sat down right next to me! Ha I petted him. Wasn’t supposed to but whatevs. Then Jeff sat down and another monkey came and sat by him and gave him a high five ha some people while traveling have zero cares for other people. There was this guy that kept pushing his way to the monkeys and he had a Thai guy put food on his shoulder and a monkey sat on his shoulder and then he pushed his way to the log and sat by another monkey. There were so many people trying to do the same thing and this guy just didn’t care at all ha we watched the monkeys for a while and then we left and went back to the resort. It was such a cool tour! Especially because we had it to ourselves. We went to the front desk and paid for the tour and they had a guy carry our bags to the ferry for us in a little cart. We found some shade by the pier and we got some rotis (Thai pancakes) and some Mirinda orange soda before our ferry took off. We loaded up on the ferry and we sat in the boat which I was nervous about because I get sea sick but it’s so freakin hot outside haha we ended up moving outside to the front of the boat because it was even hotter inside the boat. So stuffy and no air flow. We were the only ones out there for a while but then a few people came and went. We moved to the back of the boat towards the end because we were directly in the sun in the front. When we got off the boat we got a Grab car. He pulled into the lot on the pier and this random guy that worked on the pier we think came over and he wouldn’t let us get in the car. Him and the driver were arguing back and forth and we got in the car while they argued but then the guy made us get out and then our driver had to drive outside of the lot on the pier and then we could get in. It was seriously so stupid ha the drive to our next Airbnb was about an hour. It was in Patong. We also got stuck in traffic ha but eventually we made it! We stayed in an apartment complex called The Deck. Apparently there are laws against letting people rent your apartment ha so we walked in and got the key from their mailbox and you have to use the key to get on the elevator and all over the elevator are signs that say it’s against the law to rent out your apartment. We struggled getting into the apartment at first because we were supposed to light up the door lock and then use the key but we didn’t know how to light it up ha eventually Jeff got it to work. After we dropped our stuff off we went to the roof to watch the sunset over the infinity pool. It was beautiful up there! We saw a bunch of others that definitely didn’t live there so we didn’t feel so bad for breaking the law ha technically it wasn’t our fault though. We just rented the place through Airbnb. We went back to our room after the sun set and chilled for a bit. We watched Modern Family and then when we got hungry, we found a restaurant called Number 9 Restaurant down the road. At the restaurant we sat near this couple from England and man they were pretentious!! I was getting so mad just listening to them ha the lady hated her meal so she told every single waiter about it. She just kept saying it’s just not very nice. It’s so dry. So eventually they brought her another plate of the same meal and she tried it and hated it as well. She had like four waiters around her and she was like I am NOT paying for this. Stop trying to bring me new meals I can’t even be bothered. Ugh I was not a fan. I ordered pad Thai and Jeff got some sushi and a noodle dish. I had to eat a piece of Jeff’s rainbow roll because I had lost the bet with him about the guy moving seats on the plane. It wasn’t great but it also wasn’t terrible ha The waiters were SO nice! After we left the restaurant we walked through a few art exhibits and then we went back to our room and watched Modern Family until we went to bed. 

Tuesday, February 18

We woke up right before check out at 11am and we packed up and got a Grab car. We walked down to the road to find the Grab car and this driver tried to stop me and I told him we already had a ride and we kept walking. But then that guy called me through the Grab app ha so turns out he was our driver and I felt like the biggest brat. But his license plate didn’t match so I got nervous! Anyway, he took us to the airport to get our car rental. We weren’t in any hurry so we stopped at the 7-Eleven to get some food. We got this bread sandwich with strawberry jam in the middle and a bunch of other snacks. When we went up to the register to pay, she offered to toast the strawberry jam sandwich and so we took her up on it. After it was toasted she offered to put sweetened condensed milk in it and so I said sure! Cuz why the heck not! Ha then we went out and sat down and ate our snacks and holy calito that strawberry jam bread sandwich thing was SO FREAKING GOOD. We went back in and bought another one for each of us ha we loved it! I crave it now ha after we ate, we walked over to the domestic departures to get our car rental since that was where I had seen the rental places when we arrived. We had to go through security just to get inside and then Thai Rent a Car didn’t even have a counter where we were but other rental places did. But I had sworn I’d seen one so I thought maybe we were just in the wrong place so we went back outside and followed the car rental signs and it led us to nothing. It led us to another security point and I got in trouble trying to go that way ha so we turned around and we went out to the car lot to see if that was where we should go. We found Thai Rent a Car but they said we had to go inside first. So we went through security again ha once we were inside we saw that there were more rental car places but we had to go through another security to get there ha so we walked up to go through and they said we had to visit the information booth first. The lady there called someone from Thai Rent a Car and they said we had to go to the international terminal. So we walked back to the international terminal and eventually we found the counter ha once we got there, we filled out all of the paperwork and everything and then they directed us out to the car lot. Once we got there, they had our Nissan Almera ready to go. We checked for any scratches and then we loaded up. They drive on the left side of the road here. I drove since the rental was in my name. I had offline downloaded the Google Maps for the area so we pulled up our hostel in Khao Sok National Park, turned on some music, and we were on our way. My phone had been struggling in Thailand the entire time we were here. I tried to have service but it didn’t work and when I tried to use Google Maps it wouldn’t keep up with our current location. So throughout the drive we would see how far the next direction was and I would watch the odometer and when it got close, Jeff would turn on data roaming and our location would update for our next turn. It was super annoying but we figured it out! The drive was about two hours long and it went by fairly quickly. It rained on and off during the drive. Once we got to our hostel, we had to park our car on the road and I didn’t like that but there was nowhere else to go! We stayed at the CoCo Hostel. We checked in and they showed us to our room. We were sharing with three other people ha we each had our own bed with curtains. We dropped our stuff off and then went and walked down the Main Street. We walked down to the entrance to the national park and then turned around. On our walk we stopped at a mini mart to get bug spray and I bought some Thai pants for our night safari. On our walk back we stopped and ate at Wind Song Restaurant. I got pad Thai again ha we chilled at the restaurant for a while and then we went back to the hostel. We sat out on the balcony and just chilled until it was time for our night safari. We watched two geckos get it on ha it was super weird. When it was time for our night safari, we met our group downstairs. Paul was our guide and we met Ella from Australia and Daniel and Cornelius from Germany. They gave us headlamps and we hopped in the back of a truck and drove to the entrance. We paid the entrance fee (300 baht) and then our safari started. Paul was super cool. He knew a ton of stuff and his English was really good! He taught us what to look for and how to see it and then we were on our way. I saw the one and only monkey first :) it was sleeping in a tree right above us! On the safari we saw TONS of spiders, a couple scorpions, these cool stick insects that were massive, and a freakin viper! The snake was just sitting in a tree above us. I didn’t love that ha we also saw a lot of frogs. They had these huge geckos as well. It was sooooooo hot though ha I was sweating so badly. But I was glad I wore my Thai pants because I brushed up against a lot of plants and according to Paul, basically everything is poisonous ha we learned that the caterpillars in the jungle are also poisonous. If you brush up against one the hairs on their body will stab you. They’re like tiny porcupines. The night safari was fun! I talked to Ella a lot. She’s super cool! She’s traveling around for six months! So jealous of that. The German guys were kinda weird but they kept to themselves the whole time. Except when they did talk they would blind you with their headlamps ha after the safari we went back to the hostel and watched Modern Family and then went to bed. 

Wednesday, February 19

We woke up around 8am. We thought our roommates hated us because we kept turning the temperature down and they kept turning it back up but it was super hot in the room! Ha we packed our stuff up and went down to the lobby for breakfast. We had eggs and toast. It was really good! Then we waited outside for our tour guide to pick us up. Once the mini bus arrived we loaded up. We brought our backpacks with us but everyone else had tiny backpacks with just the stuff they needed for the overnight in the floating bungalows ha so our bags looked huge in comparison. We sat in the back row with our giant bags and we drove about an hour. We stopped at a market to buy water and headlamps for the cave tour later and then drove the last 20 minutes to the pier. Kef was our guide and he was a very serious man. He followed all of the rules and didn’t laugh much ha when we got to the pier we had a bathroom break. We had to pay 5 baht just to use the bathroom. The line for the women’s bathroom was super long so they sent some women to the men’s side. I ended up following those women to the men’s side and there was no line! This was the first squatter potty I had to use on this trip ha after the bathroom break we loaded up onto a long tail boat and we were off. Jeff and I got the front row and a guy named John from Florida. Kef made us all out on our life jackets or else we wouldn’t leave the dock. Our boat was leaking where we were at so John made a lot of jokes and comments about that and how that’s the reason we are required to wear the life jackets because the boat is sinking ha John talked to me the entire boat trip (an hour) ha he was talking about how seasonal depression isn’t a bad thing and how it’s good to basically hibernate in the winter and how nice people are in Utah and how he wants to move there and on and on ha despite the incessant talking, the ride was beautiful! Khao Sok is amazing. So pretty. We got to the floating bungalows and unloaded. Kef walked us to our bungalow and we dropped our stuff off. After that we met for lunch. We had rice and chicken and fruit. It was pretty good! The chicken was mixed with vegetables and some good sauce. No idea what it was ha we met Justuce (Joo-stoos) and Laga from Germany and they were so nice! I’m sure I butchered the spelling of their names but oh well ha after lunch we met at 1:30pm to go on a trek to a cave. Ella was on our tour so her and I hiked by each other and talked basically the entire trek. I met her bungalow mate Cherice from Ireland as well. The trek was about an hour through the jungle. We saw a ton of monkeys jumping through the trees on our hike. Not everyone in our group wanted to go through the cave so when we got to the end of the cave where those of us going in would come out, a bunch of people just chilled there while the rest of us went to the cave entrance. Right when we started hiking up a girl rolled her ankle. While Kef was taking care of her, John was talking to Ella, Jeff, and I about how now there was a weakest link to the group so if an animal was to attack us we just had to outrun her. He went on and on about it ha such an awkward guy. Then when we started hiking again, he made a comment about aboriginals in Australia to Ella that was super inappropriate. Ella did NOT like him haha he wouldn’t leave us alone. We got stuck at the back of the tour with him haha but he didn’t stop us from enjoying the cave. The cave was so cool! Except at the beginning where there were spiders as big as my hand and a ton of bats haha but we trekked through the cave and it was so fun! Sometimes we had to swim to keep following the path and that was so fun. We were in the cave for about an hour. We used those cheap headlamps from the market and they would start to fade so you’d have to turn it off for a minute and then you could turn it back on and it would be full power ha we came out the other side of the cave and joined the rest of our group and we hiked back down. We had some free time when we got back to the floating bungalows so we went swimming. We just hung out with Ella again! While we were swimming, monkeys came down to the beach across from us and they had a bunch of babies with them. So cute!!! Then we went on an evening safari right at sunset. We saw a toucan and monkeys. It was cool! Then we went back and had dinner. It was a combination of rice, chicken, vegetables, and fruit again but they added a fried fish to the mix. After dinner Kef told us about the next day and what was happening and then we went to our bungalow. We had downloaded some Modern Family so we watched that for a bit and then went to sleep. We had to sleep with the windows and door open to get some air circulation. Luckily we had a mosquito net around us. We thought it was going to be pretty hot during the night but it was somewhat chilly. 

Thursday, February 20

We slept through the morning safari. We were told it was only okay and we didn’t miss much. We woke up at 8am and had breakfast. I’m not sure what breakfast was? It was like a really thick pancake. But holy crap it was delicious!! We cut a banana on top and drizzled honey on it and I scarfed it down. It was seriously delicious. We watched them feed some of the pancakes to the fish and then we had free time. Everyone went swimming but we didn’t have towels and we didn’t want to have to dry out before we left so we just put our feet in the water while we sat and talked to Evelyn and Matt from England. I said the dumbest thing to them and Cherice ha I said that some people in our group were from the Netherlands and the others were from Holland. Cherice was like uh those are the same places. Haha I was so embarrassed! I got confused because at breakfast we all had to fill out this paper and some of them put Holland and the others put the Netherlands so I didn’t even think about it ha even though I know they are the same. Ugh. I was so embarrassed ha once our free time was up, we packed our bags and went to the boat and loaded up. It was an hour ride to this lagoon that makes for good pictures. I was getting so uncomfortable on the ride. I was in the middle and my butt was falling asleep. I sat between these two Dutch men and they were really nice! They shared their Oreos with me. Once we got to the lagoon everyone was taking pictures. Jeff got super annoyed because the guide kept changing the angles we were facing for everyone to take pictures except he never turned the boat so the right side could see. We were there for probably 15 minutes and then we went to our lunch spot. It was about 20 minutes away. We got off the boat and had fried rice wrapped in a bamboo leaf and fruit. The rice wasn’t great but the fruit was delicious. John kept trying to strike up conversation with Jeff ha I talked to some other Dutch people who were super nice (never learned their names haha) and then we went back to the pier. We loaded up in the mini buses and went back to the CoCo Hostel. Once we got there we said our goodbyes to everyone and then we drove to the Phuket Airport. Two hour drive and it went by quickly. We stopped and got gas and then dropped the car off. We ran over to the 7-Eleven and got more toasted strawberry sandwiches and then we went to our gate. We were chilling at the airport for like two hours before we boarded. The flight to Chiang Mai was about an hour and a half. We got there around 9pm and we took a taxi for 150 baht to our Airbnb. Our Airbnb was called the Chiang Mai Summer Resort and it was such a cool Airbnb! We had a quaint outdoor patio that we could chill on and the Airbnb inside was super cute. Our host was very talkative ha he took us inside, sat on the floor, and talked to us for like 20 minutes. We were planning on walking around the old city but we ended up just watching Modern Family and going to bed ha 

Friday, February 21

We had to be up by 7:45am because our elephant tour was picking us up at 8am. They were right on time. Our guide’s name was Sami and he was awesome! We were the only ones on the tour. A French couple was supposed to join us so we picked up a translator but they ended up not coming. We stopped at a market about an hour out of Chiang Mai on the way out to Thong Elephant Sanctuary. We bought some fresh fruit for breakfast and then got back in and drove another 45 minutes. For some reason there were a ton of mosquitos in the van we were in ha so we had to open the windows and get them out haha there were so many! When we arrived at the farm we walked for about five minutes to get to where the elephants were. When we got there Sami gave us shirts to put on and then we fed three elephants sugar cane. The elephants were called Dao, Tongua, and JoJo. Dao was the biggest and the oldest. She was 33 years old and she was also the chillest. She LOVED the sugar cane ha she would follow us with her truck when we were trying to feed the other elephants and she would try and steal the sugar cane ha if you held the sugar cane behind your back she would hug you with her trunk. I freakin loved getting hugged. But you had to be smart about it because she would very smart. If you held sugar cane in both hands and only put one hand behind your back, she would go for the hand not behind your back ha Tongua was 15 years old and she was about 12 months pregnant. She didn’t really like to be touched unless you were feeding her. She would turn around if you didn’t have food with you ha if you said toot toot and held the sugar cane up she would blow her trunk and make a noise ha it was the cutest! She would randomly just pause and stare at you and then she would leave ha then she always came back because of the sugar cane ha we were never told how old JoJo was but we did watch his caretaker grab his penis haha it was fairly uncomfortable ha JoJo was a bit more feisty than the other two but if you pointed at your cheek and said choop choop he would put his trunk to your face and suck in hahaha I was dying. We were in heaven! We fed them a ton of sugar cane and then Sami took us down to the field to cut a bunch of tall grass for them to eat. One thing I loved about this place was they didn’t control the elephants and make them do things and get mad at them. The elephants could leave if they wanted and they would let them. They wanted to be there because we were feeding them but they definitely wandered off a few times. The elephants would even go in to where they had huts built and the people would just laugh and let them. We gathered a ton of tall grass and took it back across this janky bridge to where the elephants were. Tongua was there to meet us and she wasted no time in taking the grass from me ha she just reached her trunk onto the bridge and took it. Their trunks are so strong! Watching them eat the grass was so cool. They would step on one end of it with their foot, grab the other end with their trunk and try to rip it. If it didn’t rip, they would kick their other foot into their trunk to help. We fed them grass for a while and then we went down to the river and one of the caretakers was up in the tree cutting branches down so we could feed them to the elephants. The elephants were up on a hill and we were below them so we had to throw the branches to them or try to reach them up far enough for them to grab the branches with their trunks. A family joined us for a bit but then we separated from them again. We found an injured bat while we were down at the river and it was really sad. We tried to put it by a tree so it didn’t get stepped on but it kept making its way towards the river. Not sure what happened to it? We lost it. Hopefully it was okay and it flew off or something. Tongua threw a bit of a temper tantrum and stormed over to this log contraption and knocked it over haha the caretaker just laughed and put it back together ha we made our way back to camp and on the way Sami told us about his tribe. He lived in the village we were in and there were about 300 people living there. They were a part of the Karen tribe. When we got back to camp we chilled for a bit while we watched the family go into the mud pool and the river with an elephant. Then we ate lunch. It was fried rice wrapped in a bamboo leaf, chicken, and fruit. This rice was super good. There were like six dogs there and two of them sat below me and Jeff and they were giving us puppy eyes so hard so we ended up feeding them some chicken. Then Sami came over and we made elephant medicine. It was a mixture of bananas, tamarind, brown sugar, salt, white rice, and this root thing. Jeff mushed it up in a bowl while I cut bananas. Sami said the mixture is good for the elephants’ digestive systems. Once it was all mashed together, we form it into balls the size of a baseball. Then we took them over to the elephants. You couldn’t just give it to them with their trunks because the balls would fall apart so you had to say bon bon and they would open their mouths for you. Their tongues kept touching my hand and it was pretty gross but SO MUCH FUN. Man I love elephants. We fed them the remains of our pineapple and watermelon as well. And a bunch of dried bananas. Sami even fed them the juice from the tray that all of the food had been on and they just sucked it up with their trunks ha after we fed them, we got into our swimsuits and we went to the mud pool. The mud pool was basically elephant urine and poop hahaha we tried not to think about that but Napen (a new elephant that we hadn’t met) just full on peed and pooped while we were in there ha so we tried to keep our mouths closed while we were in there. They had Napen lay down and we covered him in mud. Then they started yelling more water! More water! And so we had to splash him with the muddy pee water. One of the caretakers actually covered Jeff in mud as well hahaha when we first got in the mud pool, Napen started walking towards Jeff so Jeff started panicking because he thought Napen was going to step on him so Jeff kept trying to get out of the way but the mud got super deep so he couldn’t move haha it was hilarious watching him panic haha we also covered Dao in mud. Then we moved to the river to clean them off. They just kept yelling more water! More water! And one of the caretakers got in with us so we drenched him with water. It was a blast! We were living the dream. Then the elephants got out and it was over :( we grabbed our stuff and then Sami took us to a waterfall. We tried to clean off in the waterfall but honestly it was down river from where we were so the water wasn’t much cleaner there haha after the waterfall, we got back in the van and drove back to Chiang Mai. Sami dropped us off and we showered immediately haha then we walked down the street to the market. We got a ton of street food. We ate mango with rice (DELICIOUS), chicken on a stick (so good), pad Thai (so good), and pork on a stick (so good). Once we were full, we went and got a massage. It was amazing! They gave us tea, we paid, and we went back to our Airbnb and watched Modern Family ha then we went to bed. 

Saturday, February 22

We woke up at 6:45am and our jungle trekking tour picked us up at 7am. After they picked us up we picked up this Dutch couple. I was a big fan of them! They were so nice and funny. Then we picked up another Dutch girl traveling alone and a German girl traveling alone. We stopped to pick up a guide and when we did, his dog jumped into the truck and the German girl lost her mind ha she was like get him out close the truck! She was terrified of dogs. She was a bit high maintenance. Then we drove to the same market as the day before and got more fruit. The German girl couldn’t get over how much vacation time we get in the US. She was stunned. She wouldn’t stop talking about it ha her and the Dutch girl got in a couple arguments on the drive about random stuff. They argued about what Chiang Mai used to be like and they argued about the hike we were about to go on and how hard it was. Anyway, we picked up three boys from Denmark and then we started trekking. Our guides were named Bruno and Cum. We trekked for six miles and it honestly wasn’t bad. There were a couple of steep uphills and downhills thrown in there but not too bad. We stopped at a small waterfall in an abandoned village for a water break and then a little over halfway through we stopped at another waterfall for lunch. The German girl was pissed that the hike was harder than they told her it would be. She said she had broken different parts of her knee and she said they had told her it was easy and shown her pictures of the hike. So throughout the hike she would take pictures of the parts that weren’t easy. She was obnoxious. Dogs kept following us on the trek and she would freak out ha lunch was fried rice wrapped in bamboo leaves and fruit ha nobody swam at this waterfall because it didn’t look that fun and it was pretty cold. The Dutch girl kept trying to make me get in. She kept saying you’re already in your swimsuit just get in you made it easy for yourself to swim. I was like I don’t want to swim!! Ha those two girls were so annoying. The Dutch couple was hilarious though. We hiked behind them for the majority of the time and he kept cracking jokes. They were fairly old though so she struggled at a few different points on the hike. When we got to the third waterfall, we got in and swam. It was so cold ha we stood under the waterfall. Then Cum threw a bunch of pineapple pieces in the water and TONS of massive fish came out of nowhere haha it startled me and the wife of the Dutch couple ha after we went swimming, we hiked for like twenty minutes more and we came to a village. Everyone bought a cold beer and we got some Cokes. It was so refreshing ha Jeff and I were talking about how we wanted to buy some shirts like the ones we wore with the elephants and all of the sudden the lady selling the Cokes shows us a shirt haha it was a sign! So we both bought a shirt! They had dogs in this village and they were so cute! Bruno taught me how to say one of the dog’s names Mao ha apparently I wasn’t saying it right ha then we walked for ten minutes and made it back to the truck. We loaded up in the back and drove back to Chiang Mai. We were crammed back there and it was such a long drive ha they dropped us off first (luckily) and we said our goodbyes and went inside. After showering we went to the market. It was way busier than the night before! We bought Jeff a bracelet and me some Thai shorts and then we got a bunch of street food again. We got pork and chicken gyoza, these fried balls that were full of shredded chicken and cheese, pork on a stick, and three rotis ha the lady in the roti stand on the corner was the same one that had been here when I was here in 2014! We got a plain roti with honey, a plain roti with sweetened condensed milk, and an egg roti with sweetened condensed milk. They were delicious. We went back to our Airbnb, watched Modern Family, and went to bed. We really wanted to finish Modern Family haha 

Sunday, February 23

We woke up at 9:30am and packed up. We walked out to the main road and a taxi pulled over ha it was perfect. We loaded up and he drove us to the airport. Once we got through security we bought us some Cokes and this delicious vanilla and chocolate bread thing. Then we boarded. We took ThaiViet Jet Air on this particular flight and they have a song that is written for them. They played it over and over and over again hahaha we almost had it memorized by the time we got off the plane ha they didn’t play it during the flight but it played for the entire boarding process and unloading process. It’s called Fly with Love or something. “I feel so happy happy happy, it’s lovely lovely lovely to fly everywhere around the world with you.” The flight was about an hour and 15 minutes and at the end of it I asked the flight attendant if he was sick of that song and he said yes haha once we were out of the airport, we followed signs for public taxi and they send you to a machine where you’re given a parking stall number and you go to that stall and that is your taxi. It was a pretty cool process. Our guy was OLD. He could barely see the address on my phone. I had to take a screenshot and then zoom in. Even after seeing the address he didn’t know where it was ha he kept asking for a phone number to the place we were going and we didn’t have WiFi so I couldn’t find it. So eventually I had to pull up my unreliable Google Maps and direct him to our Airbnb. It was so scary. I kept thinking it was lagging and not following us and I didn’t want to get lost ha but we successfully navigated to our Airbnb haha we walked down the wrong road at first but then we walked back and our Airbnb was actually across the street. We were staying in these cool cabins right on a river. The host didn’t speak any English at all but she had the app where we could speak into the phone and it would translate what we were saying so we could communicate. The first cabin she put us in didn’t work. The AC kept turning off and it was soooooo stuffy in there and the tv was broken. So she put us in a different cabin where the AC was already on. After chilling for a little bit and watching Thai basketball on tv, we tried to get a Grab car but we were out in the middle of no where so there were no cars around. So we asked the host if she could get us a taxi. She said yes and so we waited out on the deck. We waited for like 40 minutes ha while we waited we noticed they had a cat in a cage and we were so curious why it was in a cage. We thought it was so it wouldn’t wander off but then we saw another free roaming cat and Jeff thinks they were fattening that cat up so they could eat it. I hated that. I really really hope that isn’t true. It was really sad seeing it in the cage. Finally our taxi showed up and we headed to Khao San Rd. I thought our taxi driver was scamming us several times haha I was just paranoid. First he kept making the wrong turns. Then he stopped at a gas station and i thought he was making us go somewhere but he just went to the ATM and then got gas, then he got off the freeway that we were on and he took us to another highway but this one had tolls. He said he needed 75 baht for the tolls so I gave him a 100. The first toll was 25 baht and he took 50 and then gave me the rest. I was thinking to myself what the heck!! But then we stopped at another toll and it was 50 baht ha then we got to Khao San Rd and he charged us 385 baht but I thought he was charging our host and us haha I was being so paranoid haha all we had was 1000 baht and he didn’t have change so he made us go to a 7-Eleven and buy something so we could get change. Then we walked Khao San Rd. We were STARVING. All we had eaten was that vanilla chocolate bread thing all day! So we went to McDonald’s and ate. Then we walked Khao San Rd. We got all of our souvenirs as well as a tank top and fanny pack for Jeff (this was Jeff’s first trip using one of my fanny packs and he loved having a small bag so he wanted his own). There were so many penis things everywhere. Decorations, shirts, someone had even gotten a penis henna tattoo at one point ha we got henna tattoos! Jeff got an elephant with mandala print inside of it on his forearm and I got this flower elephant geometric design on my upper arm. Once we had gotten everything we wanted, it was dark and we were tired so we walked over to a taxi and I showed him the address and he said 200 baht? And we said yes and got in. He handed me his phone so I could input the address into Google Maps so I put it in and I guess he had thought our address was much closer than it was because he said oh you’re by the airport?? And I said yes and he said you’re not getting there in my car. But then he said 600 baht and I pay for tolls? And we said sure because we were over it at that point ha on the drive he pulled up YouTube and watched videos as he drove haha he was so bugged that he was driving us 40 minutes away haha he dropped us off and we went to the deck at our Airbnb. It was covered in string lights! So pretty. So we petted their free roaming cat, took pictures, and then went to our room to watch Modern Family haha then we went to bed. 

Monday, February 24

We had to be up by 6:45am because a taxi was picking us up at 7am to take us to the airport. The taxi driver came to our door and walked us out to his car and we were off. Traffic was somewhat bad but we made it in good time. We went through passport control and security and then we went to the Air France lounge and got food and drinks. When it was time to board we went to our gate and got on our first flight to Seoul. I slept on and off and played games again ha I wish Korean Air had a better movie selection ha from Seoul we flew to Seattle then SLC. We LOVED Thailand!!!