2nd half of Thailand

We arrive at the island and I am sort of refreshed, now running on maybe two and a half hours of sleep. I am awakened, however, by the beauty of this place. I am way late on meeting the guys, but I make my way over to the bar anyways. It is, of course, empty, and they are, of course, not there. Okay. Well I knew this might happen, time to make a day of it all on my own.

I walk around for about an hour, get a smoothie, explore the island which takes like ten minutes to walk all the way around. I’m getting bored being alone already. All of a sudden I see three SAS kids. I walk up to them, tell them I’m alone, and ask if I can hang out with them. They were really nice and said of course, and I ended up spending the rest of the day with them. Penn, Jake and Adrian. We all actually really clicked and ended up having a great day. By the end of the night we were drunkenly telling each other how happy we were that we found each other.

First we went and got Thai massages on the beach for an hour. Amazing. Six bucks. Then we hang out and lounge in the ocean for awhile, which is perfect and like stepping into the most comfortable bath ever. Next we eat delicious pad thai and fried rice. I always got pad thai and fried rice, and it was always too much food, but I always kept getting because I always wanted both.

Next we got a four hour private tour of the island by boat for 1500 baht, or about 45 dollars. We went all over the place to a bunch of different islands. We went snorkeling and saw the most amazing tropical fish. Tons of parrotfish. Love them, my favorite fish. We climbed into caves and explored oases in the center of islands. We climbed up a very precarious ladder and jumped off a 60 foot cliff. It was really fun, but I landed a little funny and my knee has been hurting ever since. Hope it feels better soon… anyways we had a great day, we all bonded, they are great people. Ate some spring rolls and had some drinks before headed back to main Phi Phi.

We were walking around when we turned the corner and… THERE WAS STAS!!! And his friends! Stas ran up to be and gave me a big cheek on the kiss and told me he was hoping he would see me. We made plans for all of us to meet up later that night and g out for a raving St. Patty’s Day. All of the bars were prepping for the big night and had all sorts of free drink deals set up, which we did indeed indulge in.

We went back to Penn and Jake and Adrian’s hostel, K House, which they had graciously allowed me to crash in, and put down our stuff before going on a hike to the top of the mountain’s island. The view was magnificent and there were about thirty other people up there. I sat in awe and listened to the fifteen different languages around me, all at once.

We headed back to shower and get ready before going out. I, however, had no clothing, and so set out to buy a dress. On my way, I got caught in a torrential downpour/flood/tsunami/hurricane/typhoon. It was nuts. The streets were a foot deep with water within five minutes. I was drenched to the bone, so I needed a dress more than ever, but unfortunately, now I was wet and no one would let me try anything on and looked at me anxiously when I walked in and started getting their floors wet. Eventually I got fed up and grabbed a simple black dress, bought it for 300 baht, and hoped it would look okay without a bra since I didn’t have one because I hadn’t known I would be spending the night until about two in the afternoon.

When I walked into the hostel room everyone cracked up. I had been walking in the rain and puddles for an hour now, and I was totally soaked, and I had gotten lost. I was a pretty funny sight. I showered and put on the dress, which magically fit me perfectly. Sometimes life just works out…

We headed out and met up with Stas and the guys, who were all dressed up for St. Patty’s day. They were crew Mother Russia, none of them had shirts on, they had green paint all over them and green string. Basically broin’ out big time. But I didn’t even care because these guys were so hilarious and awesome and entertaining I would hang out with them anytime. We ate another delicious meal then headed to our first bar, The Irish Pub.

The rest of this night was a blend of shots and buckets. Buckets are kind of what they sound like, drinks in a bucket. I was coerced into a couple of tequila shots, even though I hate the stuff. We hit up a few bars but the last one we were at was my favorite. I think it was called Tiger Bar, but I’m not sure. Anyways, the dance floor was great, the music was perfect, I distinctly remember all of us screaming YMCA and Penn and I pole dancing and Penn falling on his face hahaha. I danced with Stas and all of his friends and Penn and I was loving life. Andrew is pretty much the best dancer in the world, maybe the best person in the world, he took me out on the dance floor and was tossing and flipping me everywhere, it was fantastic. Jake had finally had a little too much, so Adrian took him home, and Penn and I stayed out for a couple more hours after I said my sweet goodbyes to Stas. I told him he will forever be a part of my Thailand memories, and he said we should definitely hang out when he gets back to the US in April. Awesome. Same with Andrew, I will DEFINITELY be calling him up when I get home, I mean he lives in Laguna, we have to hang out.

Back in the hostel, we crashed out hard before having to wake up at 8 to catch our ferry at nine. The three of them slept the entire ferry ride, but for some reason I wasn’t too tired and I sat with my feet dangling over the edge of the boat, watching the islands and water and boats go by. I couldn’t even believe it was already my fourth day in this island paradise or that my little adventure had turned out so amazingly perfect, better than I could have ever expected. I listened to good music and thought good thoughts and I was totally loving life.

Once back at the dock, they took off to catch a noon flight, and I hopped in a minibus to get back to the SAS buses that were leaving my hotel at 11:45 am. Thank God I have good friends… Lexi gathered all of my stuff from the room for me and took it to the bus. Minibus was a bad option for me for this trip… he stopped at two hotels before mine before I yelled at him that I was supposed to be at my bus in two minutes and would he please drop me off now. There was also a huge traffic jam. I almost got out and caught a motorcycle but I was patient. I got to the buses at 11:47 am… they left five minutes later. Wow.

Back to the airport, flight back to Bangkok. Transfer to the hotel, Hotel Tawana. Gorgeous, once again. Took a much needed shower, changed, went out to dinner at a Mexican place with Lexi, Taylor, Rosalee, Caitlin, and Lynsey. This dinner was my splurge dinner… it cost us over 20 dollars each. Kind of ridiculous, but we didn’t know they tacked on an extra 20% for tax and tip, but the food was amazing anyways.

Back to hotel, change into sexy dress and sexy heels, meet up with Lexi and we head out for another night in the big city. This night was pretty blah, especially compared to my last adventures. Everywhere we went ended up kind of being a dud, especially since we didn’t head out till 12. The whole city closed down around 1 or 1:30, which I guess isn’t too surprising for a Tuesday night but I thought because it was Bangkok it would be crazy all night. Oh well, I got a full five hours of sleep this night and that sure was a nice change. We went to a bar called Vertigo that was on the 59th floor of a swanky hotel. The charges were way too much to buy anything, but the view was definitely worth the dollar taxi ride over there. We went to one sketchy place our concierge had told us to go, but we were the only white people there listening to a terrible Thai band cover American songs, and we quickly left. Later our concierge told us our taxi driver had taken us to the wrong place, which I believe because taxi drivers have done that to us all over the world.

Oh and that night we saw two baby elephants walking on the streets, chained by ropes. You could buy food to feed them. It made me so sad.

The next morning, up at 7 am again to go do a little Bangkok sightseeing. We went to the Royal Palace, which was amazingly beautiful, then Lexi and I headed over to the Golden Reclining Buddha. Both places were gorgeous but I can’t really write about them, you’ll just have to wait for pictures. The reclining Buddha was HUGE though, 5 and a half tons of pure gold, with the soles of his feet pure mother of pearl.

We headed back to the hotel, checked out, plopped our stuff in the lobby, went and got a final Thai meal, then headed to a massage parlor for one last massage. They had us put on little clothes outfits and I got my first real Thai massage. They were stretching me and bending me all over the place, and I was SOOO sore from the day of physical activity I had had before and my hurt knee, so at times I was in severe pain, but I knew it would make me feel better the next day, which it did.

Hop on the buses at 2, hitch a two hour ride back to the ship… and my five days of bliss in Thailand came to an end all too soon. It is amazing how time flies.

In conclusion, I loved Thailand, what a beautiful place, I felt completely comfortable there, the people were amazing, some things were sad, some things were AMAZING, and it really taught me to trust in myself. I went for it on this trip, and you know what, I want to go for it in life, always. I want to say yes, I want to take that leap, I want to make the right decision that might be a scary decision, but will in the end be worth it. And I am blessed that my life has taken so many surprising turns and directions, but they always lead me to where I was meant to be all along. I am truly blessed. I had a love tryst in Thailand! What more could you want?

I apologize for not finishing my India blog, it might remain a little bit of a lost blog for now, I only have one more day on the ship before I get to Vietnam! CRAZY! Tonight is the crew talent show that we are expecting will be thoroughly hilarious. Tomorrow I really need to get some schoolwork in, I just haven’t really done enough of that in general.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! MAI PEN RAI!