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Final Thailand Update.

It's official; I have a fear of old planks. 

We arrived at the ferry dock for Ko Samet after a 3.5 hour bus trip from Bangkok.  We had to walk a NYC block out to the boat.  The dock was built of 2 x 4's with about an inch space between each of them.  Many of the boards were broken.  You have to look down as you are walking across them, or you could trip or step on a soft spot and put your foot through the board.  It took me about 10 min to walk to the end....it took everyone else about 5 min.  Had there been someone available to carry me, you better believe I would have opted for that.  It got worse.  Once we had to board the actual ferry, we had to walk a plank to get onto the boat!!!!  My mouth dropped when I saw the old plank and I considered turning around.  Kalia (my traveling partner) told me to take a deep breath and just go.  I did, but only because the other option was a 3.5 hour bus trip back to Bangkok.  The board was moving around on the other side of the boat and it was flipping scary!  Once I was safe on the boat, Kalia asked me what the worse thing is that could have happened.  I could have fallen in between the dock and the boats in the water!  That would have been terrible!  Anyway, I was safe.

The boat headed towards the island, but made a pit stop at a barge.  None of us had any idea what was going on.  The hotel staff grabbed nets and started walking around on the barge looking in the water.  We realized they were catching our dinner.  It was really incredible!

We arrived at the hotel and got our stuff sorted.  It's a beautiful place!  It was raining, so we went to the open air restaurant and had lunch.  We ordered french fries for an appetizer and I had spicy noodles and Kalia had Green Curry.  Delicious!    By the time we were done, the sun showered us for a short time. We walked a long the white sand beach and picked some shells.  The water is crystal clear and as warm as bath water. 

After our beach walk, we took a short walk down the road in front of the hotel.  This island reminds me a lot of Jamaica.  I suppose a Tropical island is a  tropical island.  The people all live similar.  The biggest difference here in Thailand is the shrines that everyone has outside their homes.  Oh and the massage parlours everywhere!  Of course Kalia and I didn't miss our opportunity for a cheap massage.  I had a one hour leg/foot massage and she had an oil massage. Neither of us are sure how we are going to continue to support our massage addiction once we get back to the states.

Kalia is an amazing woman!  She is going to be 29 on Saturday and has been traveling with CCS for the last four months.  She started in Brazil, then Costa Rica and is finishing up in thailand.  This is her last week here before heading home.  We have a lot in common and have been able to share our Costa Rica and Brazil stories and now experience Thailand together.  She lives in Houston and I'm certain we will remain in touch.

It's 7am here Sunday and there still isn't any sunshine.  My fingers are crossed.  Regardless this is an incredible island and I'm enjoying listening to the rain on the trees and listening to the roosters crow. 

Monday evening......

The last two days were spent in the sunshine, getting massages, eating great food for about 50 cents, reading, doing SOME homework and walking around.   Oh!  and I cannot forget to mention the bats!  At night thousands of bats swarm together and fly through the sky; they must come out of some caves in the middle of the island.  I can't describe how amazing it is to see them.  The first time we saw them, we didn't know they were bats...and thought they were birds.  Kalia mentioned that she had never seen any birds that looked so calm.  Now that I know they are bats, it's a really interesting observation and very true!  Bats fly in a flock at night as they leave their cave and are extremely peaceful looking.  anyway, probably doesn't sound as amazing as it was and unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me as they were flying over us.  However,  I have attached a few pictures from the last couple of days that should tell you more about my few days on the island.

I'm heading back to Bangkok tomorrow  (unfortunately, I can't get back without walking the planks again)  at noon for one last night out on the town with the staff.  My flight leaves at 5am on Wed morning and gets back to Portland at 830 am on Wed.  I love gaining a day!  too bad it's not my birthday.

I'm off to enjoy my last Thai dinner on the island.

Love you all and I'll be back on the cell phone map soon! 

Progress! I slept until 7:30am!

Thursday.  Managed to sleep until 5am today.  Decided to get out of bed at 7.  It was a cooler morning than it has been and it felt great.  I sat outside with a cup of hot green tea and read.

Once the rest of the house started moving, I got up and showered.  I visited two different volunteer placements; both day cares.  The children were absolutely adorable!  I had my one big embarrassing moment at the second day care.  The children were all starting at me while they started singing a song.  The song sounded beautiful and I started dancing a bit.  The country director for Thailand was standing next to me.  She looked at me and told me they were singing their national anthem. I can't remember the last time I've been that embarrassed.  I'm a terrible example!!!

After visiting the volunteer placements, I went back to the home-base and had lunch with all of the staff.  I had drunken spicy noodles and they were simply amazing!  I had the rest of the afternoon off.  The first thing I did was walk to the massage parlour.  I had a two hour Thai massage.  I couldn't think of any better way to spend those two hours.  It started to downpour during my massage and hadn't let up by the time I was done.   I hadn't learned that no matter where you go in Bangkok if it's October, you need to grab an umbrella.  It was a rainy walk home, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. 

AFter dinner, I headed out to do a little exploring.  I ended up in an area of Bangkok that reminded me exactly of time square.  Needless to say, I wasn't the biggest fan of that area.  An hour of that was enough for me and I headed back to the house.

I'm proud to say it was the first night that I slept until 7:30 am when my alarm went off.  That is a milestone when traveling to the other side of the world!  I'm finally adjusting with five nights left. 

Today.  gosh, it was a wonderful day!  Fridays are Cultural and Learning days for CCS Thailand.  We drove about 2 hours outside Bangkok to a small, local floating market.  Every boat either had flowers, vegetables or food.  My new favorite Thai dish is something I've decided to call Rice Flower Corn Cup.  I was told the Thai name, but It is something so ridiculously difficult to say, that I've just decided to give it another name.  It's a very simple dish.  It starts with a pan is similar to a cupcake pan but much more shallow and the edges are rounder - you put a drop of coconut oil in each cup, heat it up, and then drop in the rice mixture.  The mixture is rice flower, coconut milk and a tiny bit of sugar.  Once you drop that in, you add a few fresh corn kernels (or you can use green onion) and in a few minutes, you have a delicious cup of goodness.  It's the closest thing to eggs I have found since I haven't been able to eat eggs!  I think it's the texture that reminds me of eggs, but it's much sweeter than eggs. Yum. (picture attached)

After walking around the floating market for about an hour, we got into a little wooden boat and headed on a boat tour.  We floated by about a dozen different Thai style homes that can only be reached by boat.  The water was very swampy, but great for lotus flowers as they were everywhere.  Not only did I see a lot of lotus flowers, but there were also about a dozen different orchids.  We stopped by a home and were given a tour.  This is what a traditional style home looks like:   Traditional Thai Home

I was afraid to walk through the home as the boards supporting the home were over fifty years old.  I could feel many of the boards were loose,  plus there were huge holes in many of them.  One of the boys that lived in the home (he was about 6) kept laughing at me.  He thought it was hilarious that I was so nervous and tried to show me that I had nothing to be afraid of.  He kept  jumping up and down on each board and would run back and forth from wall to wall.   He had a beautiful smile.   

We headed back down the river to another home where they made some type of sugar for a living.  I'm still not exactly sure what the difference is from regular sugar as I asked, but wasn't given a straight answer.  All I know, is that it is practically impossible to get anything in Thailand that doesn't have sugar in it.

After the boat tour, we headed down the road to the next small town.  We stopped for lunch and the Country director ordered for us.  We had all types of great Thai dishes.  Attached you'll see one of my favorites.

It was a long ride home in the rain.  Sadly, I spent the evening packing up my things.  This last week has gone by so quickly!  Tomorrow morning I'm off to Ko Samet with Kalia - a girl I've been sharing my room with for the past week.  She is wanting to do nothing but lounge as well, so it should be perfect.  However, I haven't gotten any homework done on this trip and I am in serious trouble!  I'm really behind and have some catching up to do.  If I'm staring at blue water and don't have any other plans, I don't think homework will be so difficult. 

I look forward to sharing my pictures when I get home.  I have about 1000 so far and I'm sure Ill get quite a few more over the next five days. 

Happy Friday everyone!  Enjoy your weekends.

signing off at 11:30pm Friday evening - my last full night in Bangkok.

xo's