It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged and I thought it was time to start up again! And, what better post to start it off than a personal post about my time in Thailand this past November. There will most likely be more than one post because I don’t want it to get too long!
So one of my best friends was over in Thailand helping out at an orphanage for 6 months. I remember when my friend (Lo) told me and one of our other friends (Amanda) that she was going to go to Thailand and she told us that we should come and visit her. At the time, we both said that would be so fun, but it probably wouldn’t happen. As a little bit of time went on the idea of visiting Lo in Thailand became more and more appealing and so in the beginning of June I told Amanda that I think I want to go to Thailand to visit Lo when she’s over there! There wasn’t anything stopping us from going and we both had the funds to go. And, I am so glad that we went! It was a trip of a lifetime! And the story of our Thailand adventure begins…
Our plane left Kansas City at 6:50am on Friday November 9th. We were all packed and ready for the 28 hours of travel ahead of us!! Yes, you heard that right 28 hours including layovers. We were literally going to the other side of the world! Our flight from Kansas City to Seattle was little delayed, but it wasn’t by much. Our next flight from Seattle to Seoul, South Korea was supposed to be around 14 hours of flying. Our flight was once again delayed, but this time we were already on the plane and we were waiting for a few passengers from another flight; so we ended up being on that airplane for over 15 hours!! It didn’t help that there was a lady with a little dog that sat right in front of us and the dog barked the entire time for the first 5-6 hours!! Now, we knew once we landed in Seoul that we were going to have to hustle to make our next flight from Seoul to Chiang Mai because we left an hour later and our flight got moved up by about 45 minutes. Once we landed in Seoul there was a group of about 15 of us that needed to be on this flight and so we were running through the airport. We ended up having to go through security again and then our gate after security was of course the farthest one away. I’m sure we looked crazy running through the airport, but we were determined to make the flight! And we ended up barely making it! We landed a little after 11pm on Saturday November 10th which would be around 10am on November 10th. Laura met us at the airport and took us back to the orphanage where we would be staying for the next two weeks!
The next morning, Sunday, we got to meet the kids at the orphanage and they are so sweet! We got to play with the babies for a little bit and then we got to teach the bigger kids Sunday school. It was such a fun time! That afternoon we went out to a Thai market that was close to where we were staying and got to see and experience the Thai culture and even got to try some Thai food! We played outside with the kids in the evening and just got to love on them some. After that we started packing for our next adventure…
On Monday we got up before the sun and we were headed back to the airport, but this time Lo was with us! We were headed to Phuket for a few days to relax and hit up some beaches! We got to watch the sunrise from the plane which was pretty awesome! Once we landed we got our luggage and then we waited for our car that was going to take us to our hotel. Now our ride from the airport to our hotel was quite the experience! I don’t think Lo, Amanda and I will ever forget it! Now driving in Thailand is way different than driving in the United States.There’s lots and lots of scooters and there’s a lot of sudden stops and twists and turns. There were multiple times where we thought our driver was going to hit somebody! He didn’t, but we were very close to people and people were very close to us! Our hotel was also only 16 miles from the airport, but it took us over an hour to get there because of all the twists and turns and you can’t drive as fast. We made it though! That day we just spent relaxing at our hotel playing games and watching movies; we went for a swim at the pool also. We explored around our hotel as well and we ended up getting a little lost and we couldn’t find the way back to our room, but we eventually found it!! It may have taken us close to 10 minutes, but we didn’t have to ask for help! We watched the sunset from our balcony that evening which was beautiful and we feel asleep around 8pm that night! We were so tired!
Tuesday morning, we grabbed the shuttle from our hotel and went to Paradise Beach in the morning. We felt that Paradise Beach was a little too nice for us! They gave us welcome drinks when we arrived and wiped off the sand from our beach chairs. The water was very blue at Paradise Beach though! The water was pretty warm which we enjoyed very much while we swam. We stayed at Paradise until around noon and then went back to our hotel and hung out for awhile and then hopped on another shuttle headed towards the Patong area where we had a late lunch. After we ate, we explored around Patong and headed towards Patong Beach. There were lots of shops along the way as we headed towards the beach. At Patong Beach we just relaxed by the water and spent sometime people watching! 🙂 We headed back to our hotel in the late afternoon and grabbed dinner and went for a swim at the hotel later that night.
The next day, Wednesday, we got a grab–which is basically like an uber or lyft in America–and we headed towards Kata Beach. We spent the morning swimming and relaxing and then ate lunch around Kata Beach and then we walked towards Karon Beach which wasn’t too far away. Karon Beach was probably our favorite beach! There were HUGE waves at Karon Beach that we spent hours in the water jumping them! It was like going to a wave pool except it was just a continuous thing there wasn’t a break every so often of 10-15 minutes! It was a blast!
Kata Beach
Karon Beach
Our last day in Phuket was Thursday. Our plane left around 7pm and so we went to Tri-Trang Beach which was just a short walk away from our hotel. There wasn’t nearly as many people at this beach at the others, but it was a nice way to end our time on Phuket. We headed back to the hotel in the afternoon to change and get a grab to take us back to the airport. Our flight from Phuket to Chiang Mai got delayed around an hour so we got to hang out in the airport for a little longer than we expected, but our flight from Phuket to Chiang Mai was around 2 hours. We landed in Chiang Mai shortly after 10pm and grabbed our luggage and then headed back to the orphanage. We spent the rest of our time exploring Chiang Mai and I’ll write about that in another post coming soon! 🙂
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