6/15 Final Post
Well, I have plenty of time to reflect now on the last days of my trip. I am currently waiting at the Phuket airport to board my flight to Bangkok. Only 31 hours, if my calculations are correct, until I arrive in Portland. At that point Jeff will pick me up and we'll drive straight to Lewiston, Idaho to see grandma and start our Dworshak camping trip. That should be a seven hour drive, so that puts me at 38 total travel hours approximately. Luckily I'm only 6'5" so planes are very comfortable for me. Spending the night in the Bangkok airport tonight is a generous portion of that time.
I'd be lying if I said the last days of our trip went smoothly and as planned. I last left off on my blog saying that we were planning an elephant safari that day. Those plans were first foiled when poor Chris woke up sick and rested that morning in bed postponing our trip to the following day. However, we all felt up to riding scooters to a nearby waterfall that day. Unfortunately a loose pile of dirt on a downhill curve had it out for Chris on this particular day. Chris's tires hit the dirt and slid the scooter out from under him. Chris broke the fall with his chin, which I think he would recommend against at this point. So you all don't worry tremendously throughout the rest of the story, let me tell you that chris is on his feet now and traveling with Zach and Rachel, and still plans to go to China afterwards as far as I know. Long story short, we got Chris to the hospital in Pai and they stitched him up and sent him to a better hospital in Chiang Mai. We bussed to Chiang Mai as well and spent our time there while he waited for his surgery. Chris was a brave lad throughout the whole endeavor! They finally did his surgery after a couple of long days. His mandible was broken so his jaw is wired shut for the next couple weeks. He consumes his necessary nutrients through Chang, our favorite Thai beer, and any other liquid. Chris insisted that we continue with our fun while he waited it out in the hospital. So we had our fun in Chiang Mai and visited Chris regularly.
Our first full day in Chiang Mai we visited the Tiger Kingdom. Oooo Ahhhh. It was pretty awesome I must say. The story is told better through pictures which I've posted on Facebook. Even more of the photos are posted on flickr.com on my page chad0304. I've never used flickr so I hope it works out okay. Basically we spent time with both baby tigers and very large year-old tigers. The experience was incredible. I had to keep an especially close eye on Rachel for fear that she might slip one of those babies into her bag. Surprisingly no one felt any sense of fear with the large tigers, even whilst spooning them. We were the big spoon though, it might have been scary to be the small spoon. I hope that paints a picture. The pure joy and excitement takes over when you're with the tiger and fear isn't even an afterthought for me. We had a professional photographer with us so the photos are really excellent. I encourage you to check them out.
That night Zach and I went out to experience a Muay Thai match. For those of you who are unaware, Muay Thai is a type of martial art and is Thailand's national sport. We had an absolute blast watching eight matches throughout the evening. Most of the fighters only weighed as much as my lower body, but they were extremely athletic. The dance they perform as a ritual before the match is also nearly as entertaining as the match itself. There was one large white boy, from England, who quite literally got his ass kicked by a much smaller Thai opponent. The obviously more experienced Thai fighter was probably 6 to 8 inches shorter. The English chap could not defend the Thai's kick to the left hamstring, which by the end of the fight was all shades of red, blue, and purple. After the matches we met up again with Chanon, who's name we discovered is actually Tanom. Anyhow, he took us out for "just one beer" again and we had just a slightly less crazy night. I was a good boy though and made it back to the guesthouse by my curfew :).
The following day, after checking up on Chris, we departed for an elephant trek just outside of Chiang Mai. On the trek we floated down a river on a bamboo raft, road an oxen-pulled cart, watched an elephant show, road an elephant through the jungle, and finished off by visiting a famous orchid farm. The elephant show was quite impressive, my favorite part featuring an elephant shooting a soccer ball. Obviously the highlight of the day was riding the elephant, which might even take the cake on the coolest thing I did during my whole trip.
Rach and I flew south to Phuket late that night. The following day we checked into a nice resort just minutes by foot from Kata beach. Our first days in Kata were spent enjoying the sunshine and beach. I managed quite the sunburn the first day even though we were only out for 2 hours and I applied sunscreen more than once. I suppose I'll never learn that I'm a fair skinned red-head.
Chris and Zach made it down for my last two days in Phuket. We chilled again on the beach together the first day. On my final day we took a tour of Phang Nga Bay, famous for being the location of James Bond Island from Man With The Golden Gun. The tour consisted of a fairy ride that took us to wonderful islands and limestone caves which we then explored by sea canoe. It was a tremendously fun last day.
I'm wrapping up this final post while waiting on my last flight from Vancouver to Portland now. The traveling has been less exhausting then expected. Hope anyone who read my blog enjoyed it, because it was a chore to write :). Hopefully I'll look back on it someday and appreciate that I took the time. It was an extremely memorable vacation and one that I'll want to remember every detail of. I'm very thankful of the people I traveled with and am glad we'll have these memories to share forever. Sorry for the sappy stuff. That's all.
No comments:
Post a Comment