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| We have been having an amazing time in Thailand and love everything about it. |
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| Who can ever get enough of playing in the tide pools? Not us, obviously. |
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| ... or looking at the fishing boats... |
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| Travel tip: the more dilapitated the seating, the better the food. |
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| sunset is my favorite time of the day... along with sunrise... |
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| back to that good food thing... banana milkshake, beachside... |
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| yum! |
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| Our favorite restaurant, Tonsons, no shoes required. |
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| Maybe our new FB picture? |
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| These are purely for pepere to use as a screensaver, everyone else can just skip ahead :) |
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| Our independent girl. |
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| Everything here just looks so cool. |
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| Walking home we came across a bunch of hermit crabs, some pretty big and ferocious. |
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| Pooks loves to pick them up. |
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| R-Man, not so much. This one brushed R-Man's finger and he started to freak out (in a good way). |
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| The next day we set off for Phuket, not pronounced the way you might think. It's Poo-Get. |
| You know us, we LOVE factory tours, so on the way we stopped at a factory where they make cashews and cashew juice soda, called Cashewy. Of course every good factory offers samples so we had cashews dipped in chili, chocolate, garlic, BBQ, honey, sashimi, coconut, butter, any spice you can think of, they were dipped in... and of course Cashewy soda, which tastes like a sweet apple soda. |
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| Miraculous. |
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| On the road again. |
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| Because of it being the monsoon season, Phuket was not as crazy as they say it is in the dry season, but it was still very busy and HOT, god it was HOT! |
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| Looking away from the ocean towards the mountains. |
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| I can not get enough of these electric poles. I can not even figure out how they charge people for electricity here. It seems like anyone could just jump up here and put on their own cable, who would know??? |
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| Ah, the live fish massage. This is truly an experience beyond words. Put your feet into these fish tanks and the fish massage begins... |
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| The fish just swarm onto your feet and start biting the dead skin off. Yes, it is probably just what you imagine. |
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| If you can get through the first 100 seconds it turns out to be not that bad. But I screamed for the whole 100 seconds, and had a crowd of curious Thai people come running to watch. Of course I did that just for the video... ahem... sure.... |
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| Fish massage over, this is the beach of Phuket, as seen on the way out of town. |
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| Everywhere in Thailand you see these tiny little houses built outside of homes and businesses. They are put there by the owners to give shelter to the good spirits or to give a place for former owners of the land to live. They put out drinks, fruit, and light incense for the spirits. They are so cute and amazing and signify that the owner of the home or business is a Buddhist. http://www.thailandlife.com/thai-culture/spirit-houses-san-phra-phum.html |
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| Next day, we are on a tour of temples around our area. Thailand is about 94% Buddhist, and the men in the country each are encouraged to be monks for at least a few months. Our guide on the tour had been a guide for about 6 months, before that he was a bungee jump instructor, but in his youth he was a Buddhist monk for 6 months. http://www.marimari.com.my/content/thailand/general_info/religion/religion.html |
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| The first temple was built into the side of a cave. |
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| Climbing the 200+ stairs. |
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| The shrines here are different than the shrines we see in Korea, much more humble, but still very dedicated. |
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| This shrine was just INSANE with the gold, the ornate sculpture, the sheer vastness of everything. I'll stop commenting and let you just enjoy the pictures... |
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| (ok, whisper... there is one tooth from the actual Buddha in this shrine...) |
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| This is another temple, built like a huge ship complete with dragon head. Can you see me, Pooks, and R-Man on the steps by the front door? Pretty big, huh? |
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| There we are! |
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| Lovin' these roof tops. |
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| OK, lunchtime. Luckily we all had our Hep A and Hep B shots because there was NO sink in the bathroom. Just saying... |
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| Our lunch was typical Thai food, and it was great. |
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| Next temple. Nice to know the only thing worth putting in English is "No Whisky Area". Nice... |
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| Again, this is a temple built into a cave, complete with bats and dripping water. The water is collected just like at Lourdes, and people take it home in little bottles. Luckily there are not crutches and walkers hanging all over the place. |
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| Outside of the temple are these wild monkeys that come up and you can feed them peanuts and bananas. |
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| This monkey stole R-Man's WHOLE bag right out of his hand! Then he just sat up there and stuffed his face! Some nerve. In his next life he will probably work for FOX News. |
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| After that R-Man was a little more timid with his peanuts. |
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| Pooks had them holding hands with her. That girl was not giving them up easy. |
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| Looks like someone we know... not saying who! |
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| Last stop of the day... waterfall... ahhhhhhhh.... |
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| Hiking towards the jungle pool... always a little bit scary... |
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| We've all seen too many movies, where all of the friends are walking through the jungle.... just having a great time... |
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| OK, so after one week I still can not read this sign, but I think it might say... "You know those fish that give you the foot massage, well, we have to get them somewhere, and, this being Thailand, we don't import them, we get them right here, from our own rivers and streams, YUP, the one you are about to swim in, RIGHT NOW!" |
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| So we didn't last long in these waters... |
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| ... because those fish don't just bite your FEET! xoxoxox :) see you all soon... 6 days! xoxoxo |
