So my first day in Thailand was the most stressful day that I have had on this whole trip. We did not clear the ship until about 2:15 pm. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal except for the fact that Tyson was going to meet me in Bangkok at 12:30 pm. Unfortunately, the clearing process took much longer than expected. I finally got to Bangkok around 4:30 pm and began searching for Tyson. The funny thing is that SAS chose a drop off point for the shuttle that is literally the largest mall that I have ever seen. I began searching for Tyson, thinking that it would be a quick thing and soon found out that it would take a while. Luckily, my friend Nick was there to stay with me and help me look. If it wasn’t for him I would have been freaking out big time. All in all, it took us until about 9pm to find Tyson. After finding him, we went to the hotel where Nick had reservations and Tyson and I got a room there. After checking in, we went to a market, ate Burger King and returned to the hotel.
The next day, Tyson and I got up early to head for the airport. Some of my friends met us there to fly and travel with us. We took a morning flight from Bangkok to Phuket. Even from the air, Phuket was beautiful. We flew over the northern part on the way down and could see the limestone pillars of Phang Nga. It was beautiful. We arrived at the airport, booked a hotel and caught a cab to Karon Beach, where the hotel was. The hotel was nice and the beach was pretty. We checked in, ate and went for a swim. The water was so clear. Even though it rained for a bit, we still had a blast that afternoon. We searched for sea shells and took a walk on the empty beach. This was not peak tourist time, mostly because it is right in the middle of the rainy season. Unfortunately, we had to deal with this rain most of the time we were there. After swimming, we cleaned up and went to dinner.
The next day, we took a tour to the Phi Phi Islands. It was the most beautiful place. The ferry ride was less than enjoyable because a storm was coming in as we were traveling to the islands. This meant rocky seas and rain, so everyone crowded inside on the ferry. If you ever go to these islands, take the speedboat. It is a little more expensive, but apparently you can go to a lot more places on the island. This is the option we wanted to take, but some of the people we were traveling with did not. The first stop was Monkey Beach, where we could swim to shore or snorkel. We chose to snorkel. It was absolutely amazing. This is the first time that Tyson had ever snorkeled, so it was really fun to swim next to him. I also snorkeled in Hawaii, but this was much better. The reef was colorful and alive and there were tons of fish. The water was so clear, too. I also took my camera with an underwater case, so I hope that I got some good pictures. This was awesome and it made me want to get SCUBA certified.
After snorkeling, we went to another island for lunch. After lunch, we rented kayaks and kayaked to another small beach with monkeys on it. The monkeys were curious and wanted to take things from our bags. In fact, had Tyson not caught one of them, it would have gotten away with my camera. We walked on the beach for a while, which was nice because we were the only ones there. The sand was so white and fine, it was unlike anything I have ever felt. The water, again, was so beautiful, too. It was clear and blue and just like the pictures.
After our adventure on the island, we took the ferry back to Phuket and returned to the hotel. That night, Tyson and I went to dinner and then we decided what to do the next. We decided to go to Phang Nga, which is a naturally beautiful water landscape with limestone caverns and mountains in the ocean.
The travel to Phang Nga was not bad; we took a bus. We got to the dock and rented a longboat for the day. Our guide was this sweet Thai man that told us, with broken English, as much as he could about the sights. We rode the boat in a cave and around many of the islands. We visited the James Bond Island, which is where one of the movies was filmed. Rain came as we were leaving the island, so we waited it out for a while. For lunch, we stopped in a Muslim fishing village and had a great lunch. Then, we returned to the dock. From there, we took a tuk tuk (essentially, a truck with the back made into a covered seating area for passengers) to an elephant village. We rode elephants and took lots of pictures. Finally, we returned to the bus station to head for the airport.
The last day, Tyson and I spent exploring Bangkok together. We went to a market, to a monastery/temple, and walked around the city. It was nice.
I really enjoyed visiting Thailand. The people were very respectful and kind to tourists. One thing that I loved is a greeting that the Thai people have. One holds their hands together in front of their chest and bows slightly. This is accompanied with a greeting, sawatdeekaa (the spelling is probably wrong, but this is how a female would say hello). This greeting is known as a wai and is quite respectful and common. I grew quite fond of greeting people this way and when I said hello in Thai, I was often asked if I actually spoke Thai, which I sadly had to respond with no. In the two days right before port, we have 2 pre-ports, one for culture and one for logistics. These get us prepared for everything we need for the next port. The cultural ones are very helpful because they generally give us instruction on a few greetings in the native language of the area that we are visiting. I have enjoyed picking up greetings in the various languages and have been met with a great deal of appreciation from the locals because I have made an effort to greet them in their language. I think this is important to remember when traveling because too often tourists visit a foreign country and expect standards to be at a Western level and expect people to all speak English. This ethnocentric attitude is rude and disrespectful. The reaction I got from attempting to speak their language was warm and appreciative and I got the impression that few people attempt this.
Finally, I will say that it was so good to see Tyson. It was very nice to have someone fly half way around the world to visit me. It was great to have someone here that I am so close to and comfortable with. So far, I have seen and done so much and I just wanted someone to listen to it all – I needed to emotionally vomit, I guess. That’s not to say that I don’t have good friends here because I do, it was just nice to have him here. It was also great that we got to do all of the things that we did and travel together. There are so many things I have done and seen that I want to share with people from home – my family and friends; I am glad that I got to share some of this.
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