Day 28: November 21st

This morning the guys woke up before us…there’s a first for everything. J We cleaned up the rooms and got all packed up then headed down for our last breakfast at the resort. Brent ordered two meals what with it been our last good meal for a little while. After breakfast we hung out in the air conditioned room till it was time to go get on the bus. A mini bus picked us up and then took us to a bus station where we transferred onto another bus. They gave us one bathroom break stop and the toilets were the lovely hole in the ground style with no toilet paper. My favorite! We got to the airport around 6 or so and grabbed dinner. Boys ate at Burger King and girls ate at Subway. Crashed in the tourist lounge and worked on well…the blog =). It is now 3:45am here and everyone is crashed out beside me on the chairs. There is construction going on in the tourist lounge (it has changed immensely and we were only gone for one week) so I don’t know how any of them are getting sleep with all the tools running and paint fumes and constant chatter from the workers but they all wake up from hour to hour to readjust. I for some reason am not tired and probably will just stay up till we take of. John and Rose fly out this morning at 6 something =(. We are gonna be bummed!! Thankfully we fly out 2 hours later for Malaysia so they will at least give us a distraction from them leaving.  Well sorry about taking so long to update the blog! As you know we had some great company and have been soaking it up and putting off the blog. I will try to get pictures updated of our adventure soon. Also as I’m sure you all know…we got our tickets home!! The three of us were all talking about it and even Bruce is getting all excited about coming home!! It is nice having a day in mind to look forward to seeing you all again. Loves and hugs from Thailand! 

Day 27: November 20th

This morning we slept in, went to breakfast and then decided to find a new beach further south of the two beaches we had already been to. On the way we passed a spot in the road that was under construction.  We got to the bottom of that dirt section and saw a beach entrance. We decided to give it a try. It was gorgeous. The water was crystal clear and we couldn’t have asked for more beautiful conditions to snorkel in. There were rocks everywhere and tons of fish. It was so much fun!! We were so glad John and Rose actually got to see some real fish because our last few attempts had been pretty unsuccessful. We snorkeled for quite some time and then headed to a restaurant that was right on the beach by where we parked out mopeds. Bruce got green curry and the rest of us got Pad Thai. Brent also ordered a pancake that he never got. The Pad Thai was really different than normal and wasn’t a huge hit.  Ate at the restaurant after a long time of snorkeling but the food was not the greatest. They told us they were going to bring the pancake when we were done with our dinner but Brent just asked them to cancel it because everyone was still hungry and wanted to go find somewhere else to eat. So we headed back. When we got to the part of road under construction Rose and I each climbed off to make it easier for the guys to get it up the hill through the sand. One lady ended up helping John and Bruce when they got stuck. The workers all got a good chuckle. Also while we have been here we have noticed they have added tons of guardrail. Anyways we stopped at the little town we go through on our way back and ate at a restaurant called “Top View”. It had a steep rocky hill to climb but the view at the top was pretty spectacular. After we had hung out there for a while we decided to head back. The guys bought our tickets to go to Phuket airport tomorrow and then we all hung out in the room for a while. We went down for a really late dinner and then went back to the room where we all laid around. Sad and tired knowing it was our last day all together at this place. Eventually Bruce and I went for a walk on the beach and then came back and the rest of them had taken off. They came back a little later and come to find out they had gone for a walk on the beach as well.  We all decided to call it a night. 

Day 26: November 19th

This morning we got up around 7:15am and got ready to go. We had to be to the place where we bought the cooking tickets by 8:10am. The guy picked us up and took us to Lanta Thai Cookery.  The place was nice and clean. There were only three other people taking the class so us 5 were the majority. They had three different times that you could schedule for. An 8:30am, a 1:30pm or a 5:30pm. They are all 4-hour classes and each session has different food options available. Two of our favorite dishes so far have been the green curry and Pad Thai. We all really want to know how to make them so that hopefully we can make it for our families when we get back home. These two options were only offered in the morning so we decided to go with that. Plus the last class of the day was B1500 per person instead of B1000 like the other two options. We got to pick four items to make. We chose Pad Thai, Tom Yam Soup, Green Curry and Curry Paste. It was quite the experience. Everything we put in was fresh. Each potion we made was enough for one person so we all got to eat it after we were done. They had us chop up all the ingredients for each dish before we actually cooked anything off. Thankfully Pad Thai was the first meal we made. We all had skipped breakfast and were looking forward to it. It was really delicious. By the second dish we weren’t that hungry. Tom Yam Soup was our second meal and it was really good. None of us had had it before. It has a lime base that makes it distinct. Our 3^rd and 4^th choices go together. We made the paste and then used the fresh paste in the green curry that we made. It was amazing but once again we were all so full it was hard to eat much. We finished up and they took us back to our place. We paid rent for the mopeds and the rooms and then decided to go shopping again at our favorite market. Once again it poured for a little and we hid under the store covers till it passed. John decided it was his turn to get his hair done so we went to our same barbershop for John’s haircut. Got some fresh pineapple on our way out. We went back to the room and chilled for a little while. Some of us were tired from the unusually early start lol. How sad is that. =) Eventually Brent headed down to grab a bite to eat, followed by Rose and John, and then Bruce and I came down last. We all kind of ordered at different times. Walked on the beach again and then hit the sack.

Day 25: November 18th

We took a fairly slow this morning figuring out what to do for the day. We decided on riding elephants in the ocean like John, Brent and Rose had seen yesterday. When we got to the place where you sign up they told us it wouldn’t be till five so we had about 4 or 5 hours. There was an elephant there that we got to feed before we left. We went to the beach located by the Noon restaurant, which was the same beach that John, Rose, and Brent had climbed on the rocks to get to yesterday. It was a really quiet beach but gorgeous. There were little to no rocks in the water. We didn’t bring our snorkeling gear, which worked out perfect because there was nothing to see. Instead we had contests to who could hold their breath the longest or walk on their hands the longest or stay in the same spot as the waves came in and out. After we all had enough water time we walked back up to the Noon restaurant that we had parked at and ate a really late lunch there. We were all in the mood for American food so cheeseburgers it was. We each got one and a smoothie. It was delish even though the hamburger bun was whole wheat bread. J After that we still had a bit of time so we drove back to our place and got cleaned up before heading back to watch John and Rose ride the elephants. The rest of us decided we had already gotten to do it once and that was good enough for now. They got to ride them bareback for their bath time basically. There was one Thai with each elephant. Rose and John each got their own elephant and then another couple shared one. They constantly would make the elephant kneel down in the water and stand back up which looked like it created quite the workout for the abs. It lasted for ½ an hour. We got to see a 3-year-old elephant that was about ½ the size of the rest of them. So adorable! We headed back to our place and didn’t quite make it. Bruce and I manage to have a problem with picking the slowest mopeds. This is the third moped since we got to Koh Lanta and every time it is still slower than Brent’s or John and Rose’s. There is a governor on ours so most the time we drive around with it maxed out. Anyways we had forgotten to fuel up and ran out of gas. Thankfully John and Rose were behind us but Brent was long since gone. They headed into town to try and find some gas. In the mean time to Thai ladies stopped by and wanted to help us out. They were so sweet! Didn’t know a word of English but told us we could hop on and she would take us to get gas. We had to explain it probably 5 times before they caught on to the fact that we had friends bringing us back some gas. They took off but then after John and Rose got back and we were pouring the gas in the same lady drove back by and waived and yelled. Then 2 min later she went by again. Looked like she drove back to double check we had been taken care of. So sweet!! Once again we got ready and went to supper after it got dark. On the way to supper we signed up for cooking classes for tomorrow morning. After dinner we decided to walk down the beach and find a place to stop for drinks. There was a pretty nice hotel with a good restaurant that we decided to stop at. We all got a drink and laid on mats in the sand. A guy came along selling the lanterns and we had to get one so John and Rose could see how it worked. He had a permanent marker that you could use to write on it. They haven’t offered this with either of the other two times we have done it so that was pretty cool. We all signed our names and he offered to take group pictures for us. Shortly after this it started to pour so they hurried everyone inside till it passed. It took quite a while to stop raining but once it did we headed in for the night.  

Day 24: November 17th

This morning we went to pick up our laundry but apparently we had overwhelmed them cause they said to come back in the evening. We packed up our snorkeling stuff and headed to the beach we had found last night. We managed to find some big rocks where we were able to spot some fish but the water was still a little murky so visibility wasn’t the greatest. We swam around for quite some time. John, Rose and Brent decided to climb on the rocks and find out what was around the corner. Bruce and I stayed to watch the stuff. We swam for a while longer but they still weren’t back so we headed to the little restaurant right there on the beach. We shared spring rolls and Pad Thai Here on Koh Lanta everyone seems to put Tofu in their Pad Thai with the chicken. It is ok but most of us pick it out. We were finishing up our meal when we saw the rest get back. They told us there was a beach around the corner but it takes a really long time to get to. They some people swimming on elephants and found out that if we go a little further south there is a elephant place where we could sign up for that. We finished up our lunch and then headed to a different restaurant that we pass on the way to this beach in a really small town. The others got some food and Bruce and I just got some drinks. It was roasting.  We went back to our places and got cleaned up. If I remember right this is the afternoon that John decided to pay the extra B200 for the air conditioning in the boys room. Ours didn’t have that option so the boys room permanently became the main hang out spot. It felt incredible =). Oh and did I mention that this is the first place we have stayed at where they have warm showers!! This place is incredible =)!  We ended up eating dinner again really late. Shared some more spring rolls and fish and called it a night. 

Day 23: November 16th

This morning we grabbed breakfast and dropped off our laundry. We decided we need to hit the beach for some snorkeling since yesterday we were in town all day. We paid for our room and mopeds and then headed back into town to get highlights that Rose had decided on. While she did that we left for part of the time and did a little bit more shopping. After she was done we introduced her and John to Banana pancakes. We headed back to out place and found a little market close to our resort where they had good snorkeling stuff for about half the price we paid for ours.  We tried out the snorkeling at our beach but sadly the water was too murky to see much of anything. We tried for about an hour or two and then decided to call it quits.  Hung out in our rooms for a little while and then decided to drive the mopeds south of where we were at because we hear the southern beaches were nicer. The sun was about to set and we came across this gorgeous spot. Not to busy and the water was glassy beautiful. Conveniently we all had our swimsuits on and had an amazing swim. It was really unbelievable gorgeous…and sadly I forgot to bring a camera so your just gonna have to take our word for it. Once the sun had set we dashed for the mopeds to catch the remainder of light for driving back to avoid the potholes. Got cleaned up and then grabbed a late dinner at our restaurant. The food here is amazing and one by one we are getting to know the servers names. 

Day 22: November 15th

This morning we woke up fairly early and went down for breakfast at the restaurant at our resort again. John seems to love the Pad Thai now because this is his third meal in a row of it. We went and found mopeds to rent for B200 and then drove north till we found a shopping spot. There were tons of little stores all over the place. We started it out with Dr. Fish which was horrible but that is only my opinion. You sit and put your feet in this tank that is full of these tiny little fish that eat the dry/dead skin off your foot. The minute you put your feet in they start latching on and it is the freakiest and most ticklish feeling ever. They all seemed to get over the freakiness of it except for me. Bruce attempted to say everything he could think of to make me keep my feet it but it didn’t work to well. Pretty sure he tried the bribing tactic, the “you’re being such a baby” tactic and the others tried to help but it wasn’t until the last 2 min that I was able to successfully hold them in for a solid 30 seconds and sadly that was only because Bruce had joined me in my tank and the fish liked his feet much better. I’m sure it’s cause his weren’t wiggling all over the place but I’d like to believe it was just because my feet were so clean that I only had four fish on mine. It was a fifteen-minute ordeal but man it felt like much longer. Finally the torture was over and we all got to go start wheeling and dealing. John and Rose are natural bargainers. John was one of their favorite customers if you know what I mean. He is a great shopped and quite quick and making deals. One of the big successes Brent had in Bangkok was finding a pair of Dr. Dre beats and buying them for B900, which is $30.00 US. It wasn’t until they looked it up on the Internet later that they realized exactly how good of a deal he had gotten. On the Internet they sell them for $180.00 US, which would be B5400. Well when we got to this market we found two stands that sold them. The first guy wouldn’t go down any farther than B1100 but the second lady sold them to us for B1000. We purchased three pairs from her. After we had finished up shopping we found a little restaurant and grabbed a late lunch. John enjoyed is fourth meal in a row of Pad Thai lol.  Bruce had seen a hair place close by so we headed there after we finished eating. He wanted to get another hair cut as well as a shave. He had quite the whiskers and I was more than happy for him to get the long desired shave ;). Sadly it wasn’t everything he had hoped for. She did a great job but they literally just used bar soap and powder so nothing special. Brent got another hair cut as well and John and Rose debated but decided to hold off for now. There was this lady in the shop that had an adorable little baby flying squirrel or something similar. She carried it around in her pocket. John got to hold and it had the softest hair ever! It was so cute. By the time we were done there it was dark. We headed back on the mopeds and quickly realized it is a bad situation to drive these roads in the dark. There are potholes everywhere! Thank the Lord no one got in an accident but we defiantly got some adrenaline rushes. We made it back to our place and had some supper. John had some Pad Thai and the rest of us shared two orders of vegetable spring rolls and a smoked fish dish. The fish was actually pretty good and thankfully the eyes weren’t staring up at us. The spring rolls were incredible!! We chit chatted and then hit the sack.

Day 21: November 14th

This morning we woke up around 6:30am and decided we had had enough of a attempted nights sleep. LOL Gave us a little time to freshen up before John arrived. Craziest thing happened my sister came too!!! Wow that was amazing!! I didn’t have my contacts in so I only saw John the first glance. Turned around to grab our stuff and go say hi and the guys were like “is that Rose?” I had to do a big double take!! Oh man it was so awesome to see them… I may have even gotten some water in my eyes lol. We were all super pumped and had a great time chattering like crazy in the van on the way to the beach on Phuket. It was crazy busy on the beach and we quickly decided we would not be able to afford any thing that was located on the beach. We decided to get off the main road and try and find something reasonable for the night and…it didn’t happen. Either the prices were too high or they had no rooms left. It was extremely hot and stuff and poor John and Rose were still in their jeans from the flight. After lots of walking and being roasting we decided we would rather just get out of Phuket and find a quieter beach. We got the soonest ferry tickets we could which were leaving in a little under two hours. In the mean time we found an air-conditioned 7 Eleven that we had to stop by…mostly for the break from the heat but also to grab a Red Bull and M 150s to get John and Rose started early on them =). After that we found a little restaurant that looked good and had people eating at it (always a good sign) and grabbed a bite to eat. We introduced John and Rose to our way of picking who gets to pray for the food. “Nose Goes”, a game we learned from Friends lol. The rules are, you can’t do it till after the first smoothie or dish hits the table, but as soon as that happens it is fair game to put your pointer finger on your nose. One by one everyone catches on. Nobody says anything but that frantic look on the last person’s face that was distracted always gives a good laugh. Keeps us all remembering to thank the Lord for the food and adds some good chuckles when it happens to the same person 5 times in a row (not to mention any names…John and Brent). We told John and Rose the safest thing to get in Thailand is Pad Thai. LOL we couldn’t have picked a worse restaurant to say that at. It was by far the worst Pad Thai any of us had had. The noodles were big and unchewable and kind of made you want to gag. Brent had beef with rice, which ended up being amazing so they both ordered that to make up for the Pad Thai. From there a bus picked us up and took us to the ferry. It was a speedboat but was stacked to the gills. It was unbelievable how many people they packed on that thing. We found a little room on the deck where we all camped out. It was kind of rainy and muggy so in some ways a good day for traveling. At Koh Phi Phi we transferred onto another boat. Thankfully this one was a lot less crowded. A guy who wanted us to stay at his resort met us as we got on the boat. He was from the Lanta Nature Resort and the pictures looked really nice. He told us we could rent one room for B500 and that would give us two beds and a fan. It would include free transportation from the port to the resort when we landed and he said we didn’t even have to book it or pay for it until we saw it and then we could decide. Even if we didn’t want to go with it he said it would be no problem. They would drive us to another resort. It seemed to good to pass up. It turned out to be a hit and made the day start looking up. We were feeling bad up till then because we wanted Rose and John to be able to get in on as good of an experience as we had in Koh Samui. It seemed like everything we saw didn’t compete with Koh Samui and we mentioned it far to often lol. They were great sports though! =) We ate dinner at the restaurant at our resort and it was amazing. I think we all got Pad Thai, which was like we remembered it to be. After dinner we decided to go for a walk on the beach for a little and there were crabs running all over it. It was dark so you couldn’t seem them until they started moving. Brent managed to step on top of one and Bruce had to carry me for a portion of the walk lol. We found a restaurant that was having a grand opening and they told us they were going to have a fire show so we hung out there. We all chatted but John who bobbed his head every few seconds. Poor guy was exhausted from the time change and the long flights but Rose seemed to be running on adrenaline and doing just fine. Clearly John wasn’t going to make it to the light show so Brent took him back to the room and then came back and we all hung out. The light show was pretty cool. It was a slightly different version from the ones we had seen in Koh Samui and these guys didn’t seem as experienced. There were multiple times when it looked like they burned themselves and we could see spots on their backs. Then one guy got a little excited and almost hit one of the innocent bystanders with his fire stick. Finally our short night and Rose’s time change caught up and we called it a night. 

Day 20: November 13th

This morning we got all packed up, checked out of our rooms, and went and got shakes from the place across from where we ate last night. Our guys shop still wasn’t open. We were supposed to be back to the resort by 10:30am where we were gonna get picked up and taken to our bus.  We sat there till 11:10am and finally decided to go talk to the travel lady and find out why we hadn’t been picked up yet. She was quite surprised to see us and started calling people. Come to find out there had been an accident or something that was holding everybody up so our departure time got moved to 2:00pm. We were already all packed up and checked out so there was really nothing to do. The Internet was pretty slow and the beach was really rocky so we went to the same restaurant we ate at last night  (he had opened up). Got some drinks and all enjoyed some Pad Thai. Chatted with the owner for a bit……looked at magazines……..played on the iphone and pretty much just slowly waited for the time to pass. A nice truck came and picked us up and brought us to the minibus station where about fourteen of us loaded on. They dropped some people off and picked others up, and at one point there were 18 people of us in the minibus even though the seat capacity was 16.  They had initially told us we couldn’t  get dropped off at the airport, and that we would be taken to Phuket Town which was a long taxi ride from the airport. But then the minibus stopped at the airport and it seemed like a good idea to just get out there.  For some reason they said that they had to charge us an extra B100 per person if we got out early. We pretended we couldn’t understand his English in hopes that we could get out of the extra charge, but it didn’t work J. Unfortunately all we thought about was saving ourselves from a taxi fare the next day, and not about the increased food and sleeping costs. Apparently there was no lodging around the airport, at least not anything we could afford and the food costs were as bad as in American airports. We found a little tourist lounge where we decided to camp out for free and splurge on getting some good. It was probably close to 8pm and we were all starved. Burger King was the pick. The boys both ordered a double bbq bacon cheeseburger meal and I ordered a chocolate shake on the agreement that Bruce would share his fries with me. The cheeseburgers ended up being tiny and they were atrociously expensive lol. My large shake ended up looking like an extra large and so the boys had to help me out. There was probably half of it left and Bruce and I were sick of it. Brent volunteered to finish it up and literally slicked it up in a minute lol. Headed back to our lovely hang out and had a very restless night. We’d fall asleep and then a ton of people would come in and everything echoed like crazy. This happened off and on all night. The grand finale was when there was finally peace some Taxi driver decided to pound on the window and wake us all up yelling something we couldn’t make out. It was still completely dark out. He didn’t stop pounding until he had successfully woken every one of us up. He tried to come in the door but it was chained shut thankfully. =)