Operation: “The World” is a Go

(12/15-12/30)

We enticed another one to cross the seas and join us. My sister, Elizabeth, elected to spend a portion of her winter break with us in Thailand. It originally was going to be Australia, but since we had to cut out the South Pacific she thought Thailand would still do the trick. The plan was to spend our time mostly on the islands in Thailand and soak up the sun.

We made our way back to Bangkok to pick up Elizabeth who was expected to arrive at midnight on Saturday. We had made reservations at the place we stayed at last time since we were familiar with the area and knew how to get around. We turned down three higher priced cabs before one finally decided to take us and use his meter. We knew their argument that there was traffic was bogus at this time of night. We arrived shortly there after at the airport and staked out a spot to look for Liz. We decided she was going to be harder to spot than we thought since her long dark hair and slim figure seemed to fit right in among the other young Asian females. I was starting to get a little worried as the time quickly passed after her plane landed and still no sign of her. Eventually she founds us there was another exit that we didn’t know about.

The next morning we took Liz to the crazy malls because Brian and I were crazing some western food. We felt bad that Liz’s first meal in Thailand was Burger King but we figured she would get plenty of Thai food on the rest of the trip. We then took the sky train to the riverboats and the boat to the Grand Palace.

After the Grand Palace we took a tuk-tuk to Chao San Road to do a little shopping and get a fruit smoothie. It was a hot day out!

The next thing on the list was to do a little island hopping. We flew to Krabi where we picked up a ferry to go to the island of Koh Lanta. Liz was super excited to get some sun and sand. We had a great time on the island laying out in the hot sun during the day and dancing with the locals at night.

We also did an elephant trek to a nearby waterfall. The boys in charge of the elephants were quite fond of Liz. I think they took more photos than we did!

The day before Liz’s birthday we took another ferry to Ko Phi Phi Le Island. We had read that this was supposed to be one of the most beautiful islands in Thailand and has the famous beach from the movie The Beach.

The island was gorgeous but not the paradise that we were expecting. It was overtaken by Swedes. We planned on staying on more of a secluded part of the island but changed our mind when we got there. The secluded parts of the island were only accessible by long tail boats and so it made it difficult to get to and from the main town which had all the entertainment and restaurants. We didn’t want to make Liz hang out with an “old married couple” on a romantic beach on her b-day so we stayed in town to liven things up a little bit.

On her birthday we went on a great snorkel trip! It was Liz’s first time snorkeling. We visited several different locations to snorkel and saw large amounts of tropical fish. Some very strange looking! We also visited Maya Beach where Leonardo Di Caprio filmed the famous movie “The Beach”. We did our best to re-create the scenes…

The snorkel trip was complete with dinner and a sunset aboard the boat. We then spruced ourselves up and went to the beach hang outs for the night.

We went green with Liz’s birthday gift this year and used leaves for the wrapping paper.

The next few days were the Christmas Holiday. We had a great Christmas Eve buffet at one of the western restaurants and planned to go scuba diving on Christmas Day.

This year’s Christmas picture was a little different for us.

We think eating all the western food on the island made Liz and Brian sick since the ingredients were most likely imported and not as fresh as the local cuisine. We woke up Christmas morning and Brian wasn’t feeling well so we postponed scuba diving for two days but then Liz wasn’t feeling well. Baking in the sun all day can definitely run the body down. Minus the sicknesses we had a great time on the island and we were able to get a nice tan.

We took another ferry back to Krabi and then boarded a bus to Surat Thani. We spent the night there and flew back to Bangkok the next day.

In Bangkok we visited the weekend market, which is the largest in the city. It has roughly over 25,000 stalls! I think we barely made a dent in it before it started to get dark and close down.

Here is what the street looked like as we were leaving the market.

Liz found some souvenirs for herself and friends to take home. Briand and I had to refrain from buying anything since our two small bags couldn’t fit another toothpick in them at this point. We made one last jaunt around the city and then back to the hotel for a couple of hours of sleep before we put Liz on a plane at 4:30am.

It was so great to have someone traveling with us especially over the holidays. It helped us to feel a little closer to home. We also enjoyed having someone else to play cards and exchange gifts with.