When In Thailand, You Have to Phi Phi

After the trek back from Cambodia and a short rest in the Phuket airport we headed off on a ferry to the phi phi islands. Contrary to the spelling, phi phi is actually pronounced pee pee.  But dont worry, the name is not descriptive of the place, but this picture will give you a little taste...of Phi Phi.

On an island like this we did everything you should do - boat rides, hiking around the island, drinking fresh island juices, snorkeling, cliff jumping in the dark, swimming in the water..which was actually so warm it was barely refreshing in the 90 degree heat and humidity!  But the color is so alluring, the clear greenish blue shades that light up brilliantly when the sun hits the water.

While we were there we did a boat tour around the island where we rode all the way around the island on this cool long tail boat as they call them.

Along the way we stopped at a place called monkey beach.  Not sure where the name came from but it could be due to the monkeys swarming this place, they own this part of the island!

Monkey and baby!!

Cousins??

Monkey takeover!!

Passing by some caves where they collect birds nest that are made by the birds saliva and many Asian countries believe it to have healing powers.  They make millions of dollars on this because it can sold for $2,500 per kg!  They sell birds nest soup anywhere from $30 to $100 a bowl.  Nuts! Im thinking of getting into the industry.

Then we went to the maya beach which is the famous beach over there where 'The beach' was filmed with our good old friend Leo. 

After the maya beach we watched the sun set over the ocean with these crazy shaped islands in the background.

Seriously how do islands take on those shapes??

We finished up the boat tour with one of our favorite parts- swimming with the plankton! In this bay there are a bunch of plankton and so we jumped out of the boat in the complete darkness and as you swim you see these lights dance around you like little fire flies.  If only pictures could capture it, it felt like an under water rave.  

***side note about Phi Phi for anyone planning to go there.  Very touristy and the food is terrible (unless you get seafood) everything else is definitely the tourist version of everything, which means a wide variety of bland food.  It comes with the territory when you have restaurants everywhere offering a menu of Italian, thai, Israeli, Chinese, american, and basically everything else.  But it's still a very beautiful place - I just stuck to the most basic of food so I wouldn't be disappointed.  And it's all pretty cheap (not as cheap as northern Thailand though) so what can you expect!

After phi phi islands we took another ferry to krabi. Krabi is a beach city that has a total local feel to it due to it's awesome markets with some of the most unique and colorful fruits we have ever seen and it's lack of tourists. We spent a couple days exploring krabi and even had crab on krabi! Not only did it seem like the right thing to do in Krabi, but it was only $7!

Krabi!! Just as us would suspect. 

When is asia, Eat this.

Not this:

Yes that's a hot dog wrapped in the pizza crust!! I mean, not even America has taken it that far!!

Trying all sorts of authentic fruits they cut up and wrap for you right on the spot!

Checking out the local markets and trying new foods there was our favorite!

Oh the mangos in Thailand...better than anything!!

Krabi was an awesome place to find your own authentic adventures, since there isn't a whole lot laid out for you to do due to the non-tourism place that it is.  And a great place for elephant riding - which was a highlight of our lives!!! Sooo much fun and sooo cool to trek through the jungle on this bad boy.  We each got to take turns in the captians seat! Our elephant was the best and in honor if Thanskgiving we named him Mr. Mashed Potatoes. And after much thought and consideration decided we would not eat him for our thanksgiving meal.

We got to feed him leaves and bananas!

One of our favorite authentic adventures we did was finding this place called the Tiger Caves.  Although surprisingly there are no tigers there (real ones), there is a gigantic 1,257 stair climb (but who's counting) you can do to the top of a mystical mountain where they have a golden temple built that monks come up to worship. Im guessing only the most dedicated and physically fit monks dare to do this.  We did, and it was worse than we thought! The stairs aren't normal stairs, no, each stair is a climb and probably about 2-3 feet high at times!! But the top has an amazing view that made it worth it.  And the eerie jungle sounds coupled with chanting monks down below us made for a cool atmosphere. 

This is normal decor in thailand...awesome

Proof!!

These were steep and high stairs!! Not even the stairmaster can compare.  I promise it looks and is worse in person!

The climb above the clouds 

At the top! So rad! Try to imagine crazy echoey jungle sounds as you look at this 

The daunting way back down 

Another thing that made the hike worth it was the fact that it was Thanskgiving and although we knew most Asian food was a far cry from succulent turkey and mashed potatoes, we knew of a McDonalds we could hit up to truly show our national pride!  We planned to pig out, and the long, strenuous hike beforehand made us feel that much more justified and ready for it!

Thanksgiving feast!!

Aww yeah!! Happy Thanksgiving!

On our way to our next destination we stopped off for a stroll in au ngong. The drive over there is so incredible as you go through this jungle forest right along the ocean and pass these awesome rocks that have jutted out of flat land high up into the air and are completely out of place making them look all the more radistical. 

We were heading back to Phucket, but on the way is a Phang Nga which is by a cool national park and the closest place to leave for a tour to James Bond island.  Not sure which James bond movie it's in or even if it is in one - maybe its a good gimic to get people to go to an island that's no where near anything else ;) perhaps someone out there will recognize it.  

Anybody anybody?

We were headed off to Myanmar/Burma next but before we headed off to that magical place, we had to hit up something that we had heard rumors of. What were these rumors, well, let me tell you, they involved can-canning elephants and that is all we needed to hear to make sure that we did not miss out on 'Fantasea', the show of the century. So the day before we flew out we made it back to Phuket purely for the fantasea show and hit that up all night. Were there can-canning elephants? Well, we were strictly not allowed to bring cameras in so I guess it will be hard to prove. But kind of. And the show was alright, things got a little weird, but the music and ambiance around the theme park reminded us of being in a tiny, weird, Asian themed mini-Disneyland. So we felt at home :)  Besides the big show they had mini stages outside that they had dance performances on.  Well after one had finished they still had music playing so we decided to jump up on stage and start dancing around...sometimes synchronized and sometimes doing cartwheels and whatever felt right.  Well it was hilarious because I don't know if some people really thought it was an actual show being put on, but we started to draw an audience and even had a couple people recording us like it really was a performance! Haha it was hilarious, but pretty sad if they really thought we were an act they had paid money to see.  

What kind of character is this?!

We are in there somewhere!

Now off to burma we go!

Fire in the Sky - Chiang Mai

I can just feel all the suspense waiting to find out if we made it in time for the Yee Pang AKA Lantern Festival launch.  Well it was VERY close.

This is what about 30 hours of travel looks like

So we landed in Bangkok and had a flight out to Lampang, which like I said was about two hours driving distance from Chiang Mai.  Well, our flight from Bangkok to Lampang was delayed!!! Every minute counted...so we were ancy.  But we finally got on the plane and ended up talking to this really nice man named Roland the entire flight.  He was a middle aged African American guy with an awesome sense of humor from San Diego! He was a doctor and he would come to Thailand from time to time to set up different clinics.  He was actually staying in chaing Mai too So he had some Thai friends that were picking him up when he got to lampang.  When we arrived in lampang it was about 5pm.  No way we would make it to chaing Mai by 6:30!! On top of that, the entire airport was about the size of a McDonalds, a small one, and there were no taxis anywhere.  We grabbed our bags and were walking around aimlessly for a second trying to figure out what we were going to do when I got a tap on my shoulder.   I turned around and it was Roland.  We had already said goodbye and he wished us luck on getting to the festival, but when I turned around he said "follow me guys, I checked with my Thai friends and they have room for you to drive up to Chiang Mai with us!"  We were so beyond happy to hear this!! The catch was that the pick up truck was full and we would be riding in the back with the luggage.  No problem!!  In fact, this turned out to be the best seat in the house! As we drove along to Chiang Mai and it got dark we could see lanterns spotted all over the sky being launched from different cities.  It looked so cool!!! Almost like giant fire flies flying everywhere or little flashes of actual fire gliding through the sky.  On top of that we were going through tiny cities with lots of cool little houses and jungly stretches with trees that smelled amazing.  I'm so glad we got to do that drive in the back of a pick up - even if it did look like we had been down a wind tunnell to hell once we got to the hotel. Roland and his friends drove us straight to the hotel, which we were a million more times grateful for once we realized it was miles away from a bus stop, down a narrow road with fields everywhere, and learned that no taxi will go there.  So basically what could've been a major disaster turned out to be one of the best and easiest quests we've had, all thanks to Roland.  We were so grateful for him! Id like to send him a Christmas goose. 

Chillin in the back if the truck - Wish you could smell the amazing trees and see the speckles of lanterns in the sky but unfortunately our camera can't capture that.  So you get to see our faces instead. 

So although we weren't able to make it for the initial launch of thousands of lanterns or light one ourselves that night, we got to see the after math! We got to our hotel around 7:30 and because it was so close to the launching point we were able to see this by a nearby field, it seriously looked like fireballs!!

Like a rocket blasting!

We found out it really didn't matter too much that we weren't there for the first lantern lighting, the festival continued for three days and lanterns were lit every night! Although just not as many all at the same time like they had the first night.  But we got to light our own lanterns and send all our burdens and cares up to Buddha in the sky!  We set it off over a bridge that was flooded with other people launching lanterns.  I have never in my life seen anything like this before!! It was nuts!! And so much fun! The lanterns were massive and if they didn't get released at the right time (once it was completely filled with hot air from the flame) sometimes they hovered right above your head.  A few times I was pretty sure my hair was going to catch on fire.  And soo many lanterns got caught on tree branches or electrical wires and then burned until they fell to the ground - sometimes almost right on top of people!! Haha so much chaos but so much fun.  We kept thinking - this would never fly in the US they'd have so many rules against where you could launch these.  Man I love foreigners! Oh and they had tons of huge fireworks that went off sporadically through the night too!! Fires all over the sky!

Lanterns dotted the sky

See how giant the lanterns are?!

See the ones stuck in trees and some would get hung over the electrical lines.  Not the smartest place for lighting stuff on fire. But it was above a bridge so we got to see candle floats floating down too!

And when masses lit their lanterns at the same time,..you'd get this!!

The city of Chiang Mai is nuts during the festival.  Day and night.  They had beauty pageants (which We were thinking would end up being a tranny show), parades, giant lit up floats and statues all over, markets galore, and way more people than the city is used to handling.  Some were tourists like us, but many were other Buddhists from other parts of Thailand that come to Chiang Mai to celebrate.  Hotels were sold out everywhere in the city.  

No idea what this is trying to say but I appreciate the colorfulness

We loved how everything literally lit up at night!

Asian parades are hilarious

Markets with rows and rows of awesome street food, and so cheap!

Even without the amazing lantern festival, Chiang Mai would still be one of our favorite spots in Thailand.  It feels less touristy and has way more of an authentic feel.  Really old, awe-inspiring golden temples laced the streets everywhere.  They have some crazy temples and crazy statues. What is the spiritual significance of a seven-headed dragon or a sharp fanged half lion half goblin?? I have No idea, but they look cool and make great guards for temples I guess.

Just random temples you can walk in and out of 

And of course lots of these!

We loved exploring this place and you really can't get around on their small streets unless you rent a scooter.  For about $8 a day.  We rode that hog all over - went to a tiger kingdom, saw monkeys on tricycles, all the stuff you gotta see when in Thailand.  This place had the most amazing street food ($2 pad Thai) and the best juice vendors - everything fresh! and of course five dollar massages which we did every single day we were there. It was by far the cheapest place we went to in Thailand.  And we loved that it had less of a touristy feel than other places - our favorite thing is exploring local markets, trying local foods and just blending in with our white skin, tan lines, blue eyes, and my blonde hair. 

Monkey just pumpin some iron!

Gettin cozy!

All we wanted to see was a monkey on a bicycle and finally we got it!

Feeling so Zen 

Seriously the best food and juices!!

We barely got out of Chiang Mai before it got buried under water.  The days consisted of beautiful sunshine and just enough humidity to feel like you were constantly bathing in sweat, But the last two nights we were there it rained hard. And non stop.  Which, in an area where the streets are narrow...this is what happens: 

Up to my calves!!

Scooter tires were half covered!!

Both nights we were out on our scooter and had to drive/swim home in the pouring (hot) rain! At least we weren't freezing but the worst part of it was that my unibrow and my mustache smeared :(

Crazy rain!!

Yes, I drew a mustache and a unibrow on myself and wore it around an entire day in Chiang Mai.  No real reason, but i do love social experiments.  It was funny to see what people did or didn't do.  I got some compliments on it, some confused stares, some people didn't even give a second glance, and my favorite was when old Thai ladies would just start laughing.  I don't know what it is but I think I look pretty good with a unibrow, I'm kind of getting hooked.  Robby says I look great so I'm considering making it a permanent thing.  

I had to compete with Robby's fast growing facial hair!

After Chiang Mai we hopped on a lovely night bus to Bangkok for just "One Night in Bangkok" before heading to Cambodia.  But don't worry, we would be back for more.