Having the travel bug.
If you don't know, no you know.
We have the travel bug. Personally, I have had it since 2008 when I first went to Paris with my Dad. I have always wanted to see the world. Luckily I married someone who also wants to see the world.
We just got back from Thailand, putting us at 10 countries this year. 11 if you count being in Beijing, China for the hours in the airport
(which was enough for me with all that damn smog).
Want to see another take on our travels?
Awesome, you can check that out on my shop blog:
First off....today is the first day in 10 days I have add strong coffee & more then 1 cup of it. I am so shaky and uneasy right now! whoa.
Thailand was amazing, breathtaking, eye opening, exhausting, sad, overwhelming,
and full of adventure all in one. We saw amazing things both breath taking in beauty and heart breaking with sadness in conditions. The landscapes of the island are as you see in photos. Living conditions are the ones the break your heart. Seeing adults & children with worn dirty clothing, no shoes, frail, and still working hard as ever.
I totally see how people travel there and get sick. Ryan & I both experienced sickness during our travels. Ryan from food and me from probably the poor air quality in Bangkok. We are still fighting some sickness currently...not the funniest thing ever. The street food you hear of totally grossed me out...just being honest.
It is hot at hell and raw meat just sits outside in the heat and than get cooked and handed out. Ryan's stomach couldn't handle the chicken. I lived off mangoes and sticky rice. The one salad I had didn't stay in my system for very long. Typically I ate breakfast at the hotel, found fresh fruit somewhere ( which is amazing and so much better than here in America) and would eat chips or nuts for dinner to be safe. Being gluten free and vegan is supposedly easy in Thailand but I wasn't risking anything already not feeling the greatest and constantly being on the move.
oh, if you ever go, get Tiger Blam = amazing! It helped us to clear up to be able to breathe.
The Floating Markets
Made a stop at a coconut farm, We were able to try pure coconut sugar....
I could eat that stuff all damn day!
Dogs are everywhere in Thailand. All over the streets. In markets, parks, alleys....dogs roam around. Some in good health well other look like they are on their last leg of strength.
I gave in. This little guy was so stinking cute. I paid 100B to hold it. The eyes and little fingers- ah! I just couldn't handle it. This little thing was so soft and cuddly... I really hope it is treated well.
Look at it holding my finger!!!!
We watched this artist at work. Take a good look. It is amazing.
Being Dairy- free was no problem here! Coconut ice cream is everywhere & amazing! Way better than coconut ice cream here in America. You can get it freshly made just about anywhere you go. We even watched it get made most of the time. Def a daily staple for me.
Ryan saw this floating little bat market and got super stoked for the pineapple so we made out way to find them again!
Mad house! Everything is pretty cheap. You can ALWAYS get a lower price. If you ask how much and start walking away they will follow you offering lower, and lower. I think we normally ended up paying 30% price drop at any market. The weekend market in Bangkok doesn't lower as much. Fisherman's Village in Koh Samui was the cheapest if you make it there.
ELEPHANTS!
I got spanked/massaged by a baby elephant.
I can't say that I left feeling as if the elephants were treated how I thought/ read they were. All I can say is that it was an amazing experience to be interacting with elephants and I will not do it again.
Thailand has the funniest toilet signs... made me smile.
haha.
Bridge River Kwai
We went bamboo rafting down the River Kwai.
We were able to jump in an swim along the rafts as we made out way down the river.
We also got to walk to the bridge over the rive Kwai.
You can read about the bridge and its history
here.
We started our trip off in the city of Bangkok...where my allergies drove me INSANE!!!!
Besides not being able to breathe clearly or comfortably it was obviously hot. We still enjoyed ourselves though :)
We went to various temples, roamed the city streets and even thought Ryan was sick he toughed it out knowing I wanted to hit the weekend market. Brownie points.
Wat Traimit Temple
3 meters high
5.5 tons
18KT Gold
Wat Pho
Reclining Buddha
Associated with King Rama 1
lotus flower
10-11 people combine money to get one of these statues to hold their remains if I remember correctly...
The weekend market. If you are ever in Bangkok, go because for the experience. Prepare to sweat just because and push your way through people. You don't push, you will get pushed.
The market was like all the market in Thailand just huge and has different sections. One of the sections was Pets, which Ryan really wanted to see. We made our way and stumble upon it. I was too sad to even take photos. The ones I took were towards the start of where we started...when I was able to still think...
MASSIVE dog...at least it was in A/C
Most of the animals we saw were on top of one another crammed into tiny cages. Dogs, cats, fish, ducks, chickens, turkeys, squirrels, owls, snakes, monkeys, rabbits turtles and so many other animals. Most would just lay there panting in the heat looking like they were a few breathes away from their last. Dogs were roughly 200B ...around $6.00. I wanted to buy every damn one. There is an area that the animals are in A/C, some even able to just roam around a small room all together but sadly most, outside in the heat. The smell was terrible, I was begging Ryan to get me out of that area. It just kept going and going.
Koh Samui
Beautiful views full of happiness and sadness.
We saw the beautiful landscapes and views of the island along with the sad views of poo living conditions, human health/hygiene and run down, brokenness.
Storms rolled in daily which were nice at times.
Shortly after (most of the time) the sun would be right back out!
Some of the brokenness...
Pretty intense spider web we came across while we hiked up to a waterfall.
Known as Waterfall 2
We found an area with a little "pool". Ryan went for a quick swim and sat under the crashing waterfall.
Waterfall 2 also sadly offer a zoo...which we did not pay to go to but we did come across of the animals on our walk back to meet our taxi driver.
Seeing these elephants chained up made me sad....we grabbed bananas to feed them. Luckily we also got to see a trainer or whatever you want to call them playing with the baby elephant as I fed it bananas.
This elephant would gather all the bananas in the curl of it's trunk so it could eat them all at once.
Poor little baby elephant. It was fun ato watch it fumble around and play.
We also came across the cutesiest baby elephant that I think Ryan fell in love with. It just played with its paw as it laied there playing back. I can only hope that these babies are given the chance to live a good tiger life.
We took a boat trip of a life time out to some other islands to go hiking & snorkeling. The boat ride there was adventure enough....little did I know that the ride back was going to be 10 times more of an adventure. We hit multiple heavy rain storms on a speed boat. We were flying in the air as we hit at least 15 ft waves. The day before we got Thai massages/were groped by Thai people. That massage went to waste after the death grip I had to the bar on this speed boat. Of course we sat outside on the front of the boat...we got drenched which I mean, we were going snorkeling so whatever but the waves and bouncing in the air ever 5 seconds I could have lived without. There was a point where the crew just handed out life jackets without saying anything. I looked at them an asked, are these to wear or covered us from the pelting rain. Luckily, it was for protection from the rain.
Look closely, there is a dog biting a girls towel.
The dog was guarding its area and was pretty good at it!
We stopped here to eat...Ryan and I choose to avoid the food. We went to the toilet before eating and saw the people cleaning dishes on the ground near the toilets with some dirty water and decided we would avoid the risk.
We finally made it to Turtle Island = Ko Tao
The start of the hike was on this old wet wooden board walk...an adventure in itself haha
the "sand" waws broken coral which is pretty neat but also not the nicest to walk on.
The never ending stone stairs took us up to a beautiful view of the across and surrounding islands
The view point.
Not eating before this was probably a poor choice. I am not afraid of heights and started getting dizzy and loosing my ability to focus...a tinny bit of vertigo kicked in and Ryan quickly made sure I was down and safe considering I was just standing up on top of loose rocks.
The path less traveled this day was an adventure and a half.
Later that day we hit Fisherman's Village. It is the island hot spot for tourists on a Friday night. It was our last night on the island so we felt we had to get out and experience it. WE are glad we did!
I fell in love with little little store, Blue Vanilla. Super cute! Really good coconut candy.
If I had space for these little guy I would have got it! I loved the coloring.
We ate at the Smile Restaurant. a cute little outdoor restaurant. We ate outside on the beach under a beautiful large tree that had hanging lights through it. Ryan had a pizza and I order the Avocado Salad. Both of our meals were good...mine didn't last too long in my system but that id my fault for orering a salad. They did however works with my allergies and were great! I didn't get sick from gluten or dairy, it was more the vegetables which I was warned to stay away from but wanted a salad so bad!
Coco Tam's is the perfect place to sit, relax and grab a drink. It is down at the end of the village. They have a swing bar, hammock, beer pong, pool table, large screen showing a movie and giant pillows along the beach for you to sit and hang out.
We only drank bottle water of course and Ryan took a photo of this at the Family Mart were bought water from on a daily basis. Super cheap there, just make sure it is sealed. Resorts and hotels will over charge, they will admit it too. At least they are honest? This goes for rides too. Ours charged about 100B more than taxi drivers. You always read ONLY take taxis with meters....it is true. They will rip our off without you even knowing it. Ask for a meter, they will act like they do not understand, they do. Ask again, if they won't use it, move on to the next.
We had some friends that would join us for breakfast every morning.
Same Same but different. You will find this pretty damn funny if you have very been anywhere that the people say same same when referencing two things.
People as me what my favorite part of the trip was. I do not have an answer for my favorite part. The trip itself was an amazing experience. Each thing we did during our trip was same same but different, ya know what I mean? ;)
I will tell you thought that my least favorite was the damn long ass flight and not feeling
well the entire time :)
Well, that was the short version of our trip.
Thinking of traveling to Thailand? Feel free to ask questions. Have you been already? Feel free to share your own photos and experiences with me.
Don't miss out on my shop blog! You can see the findings I gather from the trip that will be for sale in our
Travel Trends Section.
Happy Monday!
Can't beleive it is already December 7th!
Which reminds me
Happy Birthday
Kristina & Nana- Love you ladies!
