Our journey here was quite long – which you would expect, really, but when I say long, I mean ridiculously LONG…. With the Fall Festival looming (a huge Chinese celebration and holiday) Curt thought we should get to the airport very early to make sure traffic wouldn’t set us back, etc. Good plan, but of course when you put a huge time buffer in then you usually don’t end up needing it right? So we got to the airport at about noon, I believe, for an 8:50 p.m. flight…. Hmmm… AND we got up around 6 a.m. so we could go into his office so he could finish a few things, so the day was one of those that never seemed to end… I almost did a jig by the time it was actually time to board our flight, only to remember that we still had hours and hours until we actually landed in our connecting city in China at 1:30 a.m., and then back on the flight and more flying until we got to Bangkok at 3:30 a.m. – yes, a.m. as in the morning… We got into bed in our hotel by 4:30 a.m., and woke up at 9 a.m. to make our free breakfast before it was time to head right back to the airport to catch our flight to Phuket.
Everything past this point was smooth sailing… we agreed Thailand is great – we love the food, the people are SO friendly, and we are looking forward to seeing more of it!
When we arrived in Phuket we were shuttled to our resort, the Palm Garden Resort which is a dive resort owned by Germans, and it’s beautiful here! We were given our dive debriefing, which we will start tomorrow, so spent the rest of the day exploring, resting, and relaxing. One of the ways in which we relaxed was by spending an hour getting an amazing Thai massage in the yoga hut for about.... $15 for the pair of us, haha... love, love, love!
This morning we headed out for our elephant tour at the Island Safari. There we saw a monkey show/demonstration where they showed how the monkeys assist in picking coconuts (they are very highly trained, cute, and talented!), a rubber demonstration, a rice demonstration, rode in an ox cart, went canoeing down a river, saw a Thai kickboxing demonstration, rode on the elephants for about 30 minutes, fed the elephants bananas (they are quite cheeky but so adorable that it’s overlooked – I LOVED every minute spent with them), watched the baby elephants perform a very sweet show and fed them bananas, watched a Thai food cooking demonstration, and enjoyed a wonderful traditional Thai lunch… it was a jam packed day!
Today was also the day that we pulled out Flat-Ninja-Stanley-Cameron! Notice he's in the above kickboxing picture... don't worry, Ashley, we have tons more, I just thought Cody would want to see his Ninja with two authentic 17 year old Thai kickboxing CHAMPIONS! haha... for those who don't know what "Flat Stanley" is, it's a project where kids color a buddy for others to take along and take pictures of around the world - it teaches them about international things, I guess, so we always have him with us!
This picture (above) is during the baby elephants show where this elephant (4 years old) gives a massage and some kisses which I absolutely loved... he's SO CUTE!
When we were finished we came back to spend the rest of the afternoon by the pool where I read and Curt played with his camera housing and camera, had a wonderful Thai dinner, and now are chilling out... tomorrow is our first dive day which I’m pretty excited about – will have more to write then but for now I’m unbelievably exhausted so forgive how short all of this is!
The rest of our trip is up in the air at the moment – Cambodia and Vietnam experienced a typhoon which may throw a wrench in our plans, so we’ll see what happens there, I guess? Regardless, we’re in this for a great adventure, and so far, it is that…
2 comments:
Cody is so excited!! He loves watching him do all these fun things. But now he keeps asking why he can't go instead of flat stanley-cameron! I guess there might be some jealousy going on :)
Awww... tell him when he gets a little older but for now we are missing him (and all of you) a ton! I hope he is having fun seeing the pics - if you get on Skype in the mornings or afternoons there is a chance to maybe catch us which would be so fun!
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