Wednesday 14 January 2015

Thailand Take 2

This weeks throwback Thursday is all about the second leg of our journey through Thailand! With all the alternative Thai traditions we loved getting into the thick of things and enjoying the Thai culture. There were so many traditions I think other parts of the world should take note of and use in their countries. For example, when saying thank you people put their hands together in a praying position and bow as they would say sawadee ka (thank you). The higher they held their hands the more respect they had for the person which usually means they are older. They also had a lot of respect for their royal family and it was deemed rude to scrunch up the Thai notes as it was like you were scrunching the Kings head up. God forbid you stepped on a coin to stop it from rolling away!

After Koh Phangan we caught the ferry over with Trisha and Gracie to Koh Tao. The rest of the ThaIntro gang was heading over to the island in the next couple of days. This was like ThaIntro2- we would all meet up after our days relaxing by the beach or exploring more of the island. Koh Tao was easily my favourite Island in Thailand. This was where I scuba dived for the first time. It has always been something I was keen on doing and heard Koh Tao was renowned for diving. So along with some guys from ThaIntro we booked up a days course. There is so much more that goes into diving than I expected. After getting our scuba gear together and heading out on the boat we were taught breathing techniques and hand signals by the shore. As we was waiting little fish came to say hello by nibbling our legs. It was then time for our group to go down under water. Forgetting my lungs would act as balloons I struggled to stay close to the sea bed at first. After the help from the instructor and a few extra weights added to my jacket I was good to go. I must admit I wasn't as overwhelmed as I had expected to be once diving down to 6 metres. I had expected the corals to be full of colour with hundreds of pretty fish swimming by. It wasn't until we went out on our second dive down to 12 metres, thats when the sea bed came alive! It was such a freeing feeling being weightless under water exploring the sea beneath us. Koh Tao was packed with so many other fun exciting times such as, all you can eat pizza, Muay Thai boxing, big al's famous pancakes and a swimming pool over looking the island!

This was me scuba diving for the first time!

After Koh Tao we traveled for 12 hours, took two boats and one bus which landed us in Koh Phi Phi. I was hoping after a long days travelling we'd be able to get a taxi to our hotel and a good nights sleep. This was not the case. We had to walk 20 minutes in the stifling heat to the other side of the island as we did not realise there was no cars on the island. Then to arrive at our worse accommodation in Thailand. Folks if your heading to Phi Phi do not stay at the flower bungalows! We did visit the beautiful view point though which was breath taking, well worth the sweaty walk to the top. We took an afternoon boat trip to visit the famous Maya Bay where "The Beach" featuring Leanardo DiCaprio was filmed. The skies opened up and for the whole of our journey it poured with rain, but our spirits weren't dampened. We were visiting a famous beach where Leanardo Dicaprio stood, visited and acted! Ahhhh! We swam in the rain and wandered through the rainforest exploring more of the tiny bay. We also visited monkey beach where we witnessed a monkey drinking a can of coke, as well as juice! It was a lovely island, well worth a visit. We were even lucky enough to recieve our wedding photos while we were there. One morning we headed to a restaurant for breakfast and oooo'd and awwww'd reliving our beautiful day! 

This was us at the famous Phi Phi viewpoint!

Phuket was something else! The whole island was utter craziness. We thought Bangkok was insane, Phuket was like Bangkok on Steroids! People were partying left, right and centre. You had more lady boy's than you could shake a stick at. I loved the atmosphere and have promised the girls we'll go back for a girls holiday as there's so much more I could have explored. We visited Tiger Kingdom and got to play with the cutest baby tiger cubs. The big Tigers were a lot more intimidating; I still to this day cannot believe we got in the cage with these humongous creatures. They were so alert and wide eyed, my mind was telling me to pull out and not to go into the big cage but my body kept walking me towards the enclosure!


After Phuket we headed over to Malaysia, that's a story for another week though!

Love Chailey xxx








 

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