Browse Author: beakatude

and then there were 215

I managed to weed through my photos and uploaded 215 photos from Thailand. They simply don’t do the trip justice but this will have to do for now. My brother and dad took a grip more and some of them can be viewed on my brother’s site: www.chimmytime.com.
I also think I’m over the jetlag. I actually got over it very quickly. I suppose going to work right away wasn’t a terrible idea. It forced me to sleep normal hours and prevented the 8-hour daytime naps. However, I am very happy that today is Friday already. I need a weekend badly.

a little perspective

OK. I just got back from lunch with Jes at Wahoo’s. We ordered the usual fish taco combo and a side salad, which came out to about 8 bucks for the two of us. I’d say this was a pretty cheap meal – that was until I went to Thailand.
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I couldn’t get over how cheap the food was there. I had breakfast that consisted of rice porridge with Chinese doughnuts and a cup of coffee for 12 bahts…uh, that’s about 30 cents. For lunch, I could have a bowl of noodles and a Coke for about 30 bahts…that would be about 75 cents. Dinner? Let’s go a little crazy…I’ll have a family-style meal consisting of fried fish, tom yum goong (spicy shrimp soup), papaya salad, rice, fried fish cakes, and a Singha beer for about 100 bahts/person…that’s $2.50. Can someone explain this to me?!

home sweet home

Our last days in Thailand were in Bangkok where the weather was really mild and much drier than usual. We spent much of our time shopping and eating before we had to leave the land of Tuk Tuks and Singha beer. Our flight home was really short, only 13 hours!
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I will post photos of the trip as soon as I find some time to sit down and sort through all 1400 photos (not counting my brother’s and dad’s). I can’t believe I’m at work already…luckily I was able to get some sleep on the plane and last night when we got back.

bumpity bump

After the 7-degree weather and modest accommodations in Chiang Rai, getting to Phuket was a nice change. We flew straight down to Phuket from Chiang Rai on Wednesday afternoon and checked into a 5-star golf resort (got a discount from a family friend). First of all, the weather was super hot and sticky. Secondly, the hotel shower was awesome. The temperature was nice a hot and there was a rain shower above in addition to the regular shower head. I finally feel clean again.
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On Thursday, we all got Thai massages in our hotel rooms. That was very relaxing and long overdue with all the car riding and cramped quarters from the past week. We also went to Patong Beach where all the European tourists hang out.
On Friday, Jes and I took a day trip to Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea. We travelled about 75 km by speed boat, which is quite an experience. We sat in the front of the boat and got bumped and jostled quite a bit. The ride was over an hour long and it was pretty tiring trying to keep myself from falling out. I just gotta say that Dramamine works wonders though. I’m super prone to motion sickness and I managed to ride a small boat all the way to the islands, snorkel all day, and hang out on a rocking boat for most of the day without getting sick. The island that we had lunch on was so beautiful. I had never seen such sparkling blue water (not even in Hawaii) and such powdery white sand. The fish and corral were a bit dissappointing but it was fun just being out on a boat and in the water.

a different world

We drove up even further north to Chiang Rai to visit some of the villages and see the “Golden Triangle” where Thailand, Burma, and Laos meet. We stayed overnight in this bungalow up in the hills where the temperature dropped to about 7 degrees Celcius. There was no heat and the bungalow was one large room with 10 small mattresses lined up on the floor. We had 10 people in our group so it worked out. We stayed near a village that was made up of Chinese refugees who ran away from China. As we were shopping for some tea, I watched the children who were playing on the roadside near where their moms were selling their wares. There were a few children that caught my attention.
One little girl was using a plastic Coke bottle that was filled with water as a doll. She wrapped it up in a jacket and carried it around like a baby. There was another little boy contently playing with a piece of string tied to an empty spool as he ate his breakfast. I also watched a couple boys no older than five years old building a fort or tent out of wood and a plastic sheet. It was so interesting to watch and really gave me perspective of our different their lives are.

Are there peanuts in this?

We drove about 8 hours to get to Chiang Mai, which is in Northern Thailand. The weather is milder and the people are very nice here. We had dinner at this outdoor place and got a Singha Tower, which is a large beer dispenser that holds about 3 liters of beer and has a spout at the bottom. We’ve had so much to eat and Jes is getting his fill of spicy foods. Johnny is also having to ask all the time, “are there peanuts in this?” I think the joke never gets old.

Anyway, we went to visit an Elephant Camp today and got to hang out with them up-close and feed them bananas and sugar cane. They also had a baby elephant that was born December 22nd so he wasn’t older than a couple weeks. He walked kinda funny but already knew how to use his trunk…very cute.