Loy Krathong and Yee Peng Festival

Today started out with a great little breakfast at our hotel's outdoor restaurant.  We had eggs, toast, fresh fruit, chicken sausage skewers, fruit smoothies, and coffee.  As a bonus it has an excellent view of the rehab clinic across the street.....

After breakfast we set off to see some temples- it would be irresponsible to come all this way and not get some culture.  Lauren took charge of the map and making sure we had all our belongings & sunscreen on, earning the title of Mama-San for the day, and led us off through Thapae Gate.  All the temples were ridiculously beautiful and ornate.


Wat Phan Tao

 

  

Because of the festival there were also lots of additional lantern decorations around the city and at the temples themselves.

 

  

 

 

Wat Chedi Luang 

 

We saw lots of people worshipping, including monks, which was pretty special.  This is probably one of my favorite photos of the trip, if not of all time.

 During our snorkeling excursion back on Phi Phi, I scraped the top of my foot against some coral.  Since it was conveniently located in the exact location of my flip flop strap, it subsequently became a red, angry, mess so we stopped at the pharmacy so I could bandage it up.  Amanda is apparently allergic to Thailand itself, so we also picked up some cream for her plethora of rashes.

We decided it was time for some curry so we stopped at Henry (I hear that is a very traditional Thai name, almost like John in America) next door to the pharmacy for some lunch.  Preston took a tuk tuk over from his hotel to join us & we ordered what I believe in America is called "an irresponsible amount of Thai food."  Everything we had was really amazing, we got a curry of each color, an extra masaman curry (which was beyond amazing, even if it did have pineapple in it & caused me to get a couple hives- totally worth it) and two orders of some of the best spring rolls I've had in either country.  And of course we had an assortment of lassies (fruit smoothies) to wash them down.

Lauren had used the bathroom in the pharmacy during lunch so I headed over there before we got going again.  I asked the woman if I could use her bathroom and she looked at me a little weird but gestured through the door.  I walk back into what is clearly- her house!  She had a bed, a TV, a little area to make food and the bathroom had a shower in it.  I was mortified I had just invited myself into this woman's home- she is probably expecting us to come back later and invite ourselves over for dinner.

After that little fiasco, we took a trip to the Museum of Culture and Art, conveniently located next to the women's prison.  It was two floors with interactive exhibits and dioramas, plus they had a photography exhibit with pictures from all over Thailand, which I was excited about.

After getting all knowledgable about Chiang Mai's history, we walked back to the hotel, stopping for some fresh coconut ice cream off the street cart and to take some photos of some more lanterns being set up in the square & at the monks residences.

 

 

 

We went to our respective hotels with plans to regroup and check out the parade in a little bit.  As soon as we stepped out onto the street, we could see the full moon over the rooftop (of the psych center lol) and a handful of lanterns floating way up in the sky.  It was so beautiful and I had no idea how much better it was going to get.

We walked up to the end of our street to find we were right on the parade route.  We grabbed a banana pancake (it had been about 4 hours since I had eaten one, so I was overdue) and watched the parade go by with all the costumes, floats, and music, as more and more lanterns were going up into the sky behind them.

 

 

 

After awhile we walked toward the river, stopping at temples where the monks were helping people launch their lanterns.  It was really like nothing I have ever seen and it was so stunning that it's hard to put it into words and I don't think the pictures really do it justice either.  It felt really peaceful, but joyful and celebratory all at the same time.  I can't even believe that I got to have this experience, I'm just really thankful.

 

 

 

 

We were lucky enough to catch a couple monks launching their own lanterns in a parking lot across from one of the temples.

 

 

The scene at the river was crazy!  Hundreds of people were launching lanterns off the top of the bridge, while others launched unregulated fireworks over the sides, basically towards the crowds of people on the riverbanks trying to make their way down the fairly steep embankment to float their krathongs, which were also lit with fire, into the river.  There would not be enough waivers in the universe to allow this to happen in America.  There were also people wading into the river to steal the coins and offering that people put on their krathong, which I'm not sure I would do since they were also selling fish and snakes that you could release alongside your krathong.  Amanda managed to get down to the water to release her krathong unscathed, I got my arm grazed by a bottle rocket trying to take photos and and we decided it was time to head for a safer ground.

 

 

  

It was pretty awesome to see the thousands of lanterns clustered together in the sky over the bridge but I really wanted to launch mine with the monks and have a quieter experience with it so we headed back up the street.  We got a four pack of lanterns and found a temple close by.  Lighting the lanterns and releasing them was kind of a surreal experience.  They help you get it all set up & lit and let the hot air build up underneath it, then they let go and you get to send it into the sky with a wish attached to it.  There's something really magical about the idea of thousands of wishes floating together, lighting up the night.

By this time we were starving so we stopped to get some dinner & drinks at a vegetarian restaurant on the main street.  Afterwards we got a recommendation for a place to go out and headed to Rock Bar in old city for some buckets.

We made friends with Emily and Toby, who were just coming from doing a week of silent meditation training and did not make friends with the little Thai boys who were running around the bar, trying to sell stuff, using foul American language and throwing fireworks under people's chairs!  After a couple buckets it was time to go home & we had our first ride in a tuk tuk, which we of course had take us to the 7-11 next to our hotel so we could get Thai potato chips.

Leaving Paradise

Today we enjoyed our final breakfast on the beach here in Phi Phi then packed up & headed into town.  We had a little time to kill so we stopped at our go-to massage place for some more awesome abuse at the hands of our thai torture masseuses.  This time I went for the straight Thai massage, (because I figure Thailand is probably the place to do this), and was contorted around even more than the previous one- still in a good way.

After an hour of that we headed to our go-to Thai place on the island, Khun Va where I got to have my first thai iced coffee of the trip.  I probably would have had one earlier in the trip if it had occurred to me sooner that looking for "thai" iced coffee on the menu wasn't necessary- in Thailand, it might just be called iced coffee.  I'll blame that on jet leg, which ironically could have been helped by a "thai" iced coffee.

 

 

I also picked up a spicy papaya salad from my lady at Pung Pond.  She let me try the sauce before she put it in the box to see if it was spicy enough & I immediately had a coughing fit so I was pretty sure that it was.  Since we missed the first boat- which may or may not have been due to Amanda's obsession with looking over the side of the dock at the fish- I had plenty of time to enjoy it before our 2 1/2 hour boat ride to Phuket.

The boat ride was awesome! Since we were an hour early for the next one, we got great seats in the top level at the very front of the boat.  It felt so good to lean against the boat in the sunshine with the wind blowing, listening to our headphones and the occasional wave splashing up to cool us off.

When we got to Phuket, we hopped in a little shuttle van to the airport.  Since they were having some sort of parade in the street, the ride took about 45 minutes and we had plenty of time to get to know our new friend Preston, who was also traveling to Chiang Mai for the festival.  He works everyday for 6 months flying surveillance planes for the military in Afghanistan and then gets 3 months in a row off to travel & do whatever.  I'm not sure if I'd be cut out for that schedule but it's a pretty cool concept.

At the airport we got some food while we were waiting and I was really excited to see that they had cracker coated peanuts because they were one of my favorite things when I was living in Mexico.  There they were flavored with lime & salt and called Japoneses, these were coconut which I also love so I thought I was all set.  Unfortunately I would be willing to give somebody $500 if they could correctly identify the flavor as coconut, and an additional $300 if they could figure out there were peanuts in there- they tasted just like cardboard....Mexico 1, Thailand 0.

Our plane took off late, obviously, and when we landed in Chiang Mai it was about 10, so we just checked into the Thapae Boutique and are going to call it an early night.  On a side note, the option to add a third bed to our really cute hotel room turned out to really mean "add something sort of like a mattress to the floor" but I don't mind sleeping there because it is actually probably more comfortable than sleeping on the bed- all the beds in this country have been rock hard.  And with that, we're going to do our best to rest up for the festival tomorrow.

Even more Phi Phi

With all the fun we had the night before, we had just enough time for a power nap before breakfast.  We had signed up to do a snorkel and sunset tour so I paired some excedrine with my malaria meds and we were off.

The first stop was monkey island where there were monkeys of all shapes and sizes chilling on the beach, waiting for some tourists to come by and feed them- rough life.

Next we scooted by the Viking Cave on our way to Pileh Bay.  There we hopped off the longtail and into the water where we snorkeled around and saw all kinds of tropical fish- it was like a scene from Finding Nemo down there.  We then went further into the bay over some very shallow water (the guy driving our boat actually had to get out and push at one point like it was a stalled hoopty) and into this gorgeous lagoon.  It was probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen- the sun was shining and the water was basically glittering and green.  The boat went back into deeper water and we got to jump off and swim around for awhile.  Even though there were a few other boats and people around, it was still very peaceful and just floating in the water and looking up at the cliffs surrounding us was surreal.

 

 

 

 

I probably would have been content to just float there and get picked up the following day but I reluctantly got back on board and we motored over to Maya Island, where The Beach was filmed.  The fact that you that you have to dive off the boat and basically do a ropes course over the slipperiest rocks in South East Asia to get onto the island and may almost be eaten by a giant crab during the process is not included in the brochure.  On your way to the other side of the island, you also have to pass through a campground that you could not pay me to stay in because it is permeated with the smell of restroom.  I am pretty sure Hell smells like a Thai toilet.  Not that bathrooms usually smell great but the ones here really are their own special level of disgusting.

We got to spend about an hour on the island and then swam back to the boat for some pineapple and mixed drinks- or just mixed drinks for those of us that are allergic to Thailand's favorite fruit.  Our boat driver mixed us up some Sangsom Thai whiskeys with redbull and coke.  Fun fact: Red Bull originated in Thailand and has even more caffeine here than in the states, and is therefore even more likely to make your heart stop.  This however didn't stop us from drinking an actual bucket of it, because another awesome thing about Thailand is they serve their drinks in mini beach buckets.

We got to enjoy our drinks for about 10 minutes before our driver took off, sending our wooden boat hurtling across the Andaman Sea at warp speed, as giant waves came splashing into the boat, adding a refreshing salt water mixer to our beverages as we white knuckled the sides.  Being on the receiving end of nature's bitch slaps didn't make for a very relaxing sunset watching, but it was fun!  It was pretty beautiful but we have yet to see the kind of mind blowing beach sunsets I have been envisioning- there's always this hazy low hanging cloud cover that blocks the sun as it sinks to the horizon.

Back on dry land we headed to the main strip for dinner.  We went to a BBQ attached to the Banyan Tree hotel where you can basically point to a skewer of raw whatever you want and they grill it up for you.  Given my limited love for seafood, I ordered some traditional thai- or at least I thought I did, as the Pad See Ew I got was angel hair with a different kind of sauce but at that point I was too starved to care.

We were pretty exhausted but managed to rally for another fire show at the beach.  These guys are just my type; exotic looking, skinny, and appear to be about 15 years old, which they probably actually are lol.  We did a couple hours of dancing at the beach, where there really is some excellent people watching- and called it a night.