Thailand: Really Paradise?

For our 3 day weekend, me and 3 other girls decided to go to Thailand! We were very excited because we had heard such great things from everyone here. However, this trip was definitely not what we expected..We arrived into Bangkok late on Thursday night, Bangkok defintely wasn't what I was expecting. I guess coming from Hong Kong every city is going to be dirty and not up to the standard we have been living at for the past 2 and a half months. I just felt like the streets were gross, everything seemed so dark compared to the bright neon lights in HK. We got up early the next morning and took a tut tut to the Royal Palace. I didn't realize how bad the traffic was in Bangkok until that ride.. basically there are ZERO rules. It was a ride for your nerves, i felt like we were going to crash every time we turned a corner! Finally we arrived and toured around the palace. It was amazing beautiful, I hope the pictures capture it! They even had a dress code, you had to wear long pants and no sleeveless shirts. There were guard stationed at the entrance that called you out and made you put on a sarong if you had indecent clothing on. But it was beautiful!

Thai Guards in Formation

Beautiful Palace

This is all we really had time for because we had to make our next flight to Phuket so we walnered around the city a bit more, then headed to the airport. We made it into Phuket that night, our hotel was quite pretty. It was right on the water (all we cared about when we booked...) but it was a little far from the town. It was quite and had a great pool!
The first day we were in Phuket we went on a tour to see the James Bond Island. I honestly don't remember what movie it was actually in... but it was cool to see. My favorite part was definitely just riding along the water in the long-tailed boat there and back. It was just beautiful, after the island we went on a crazy kayaking ride through caves. We had this crazy guy that steered for us, who took a liking to speaking English with us.. he made the ride memorable!! haha, but again just more breathtaking scenery everywhere.. i kept thinking we were in postcards!!








For lunch, we went to this fishing village built on stilts. It was some of the best seafood i have ever had! There was this great spicy seafood soup - I just couldn't get enough!! We all wished we could have gone back for a meal or two but clearly there was no way.. After this, we headed back to our hotel for a much some much needed beach time. We also got a massage and headed into town for dinner. Khao Lak was a cute town, just based off tourism. There weren't many people there yet because technically the diving season doesn't start until November 1st.. Similan Island tours are really big here because it is the closest land point to the Islands.
On our second day in Phuket, we tried to go snorkling at the Similan Islands. However, things didn't work out the way we had planned them to..Technically the tours weren't going yet because the islands didn't open until november 1st. But we figured if someone would take us, we would try..I now understand why they don't open until november 1st...The water was so rough that after being basically thrown around a boat for 2 hours trying to get to the islands.. we had to turn around and come all the way back.. It was so depressing, when we turned around we could literally see the Islands in the distance. The Similan Islands are considered one of the top 10 places in the world to snorkel...guess i will just have to go back and actually go at the right time!! Instead we just hung by the hotel pool for the remaining afternoon. It was a good time, very relaxing but just would have been amazing to snorkle!
Our last day in Phuket we went to ride elephants! I really didn't realize how big elephants are....they are huge. really. We rode them for a good hour and then got to feed them bananas! They are just really cool animal and so sweet natured.

Feeding it bananas!

On our way back to the hotel the car that picked us up, took us to the pretty picture view of the beach we were staying at. They also told us that this was one of the places that was hit the Tsunami in 2004 the hardest. All of the resorts including our own were destroyed and most people died. I hadn't thought of the amount of people that had died before this but it was hard to imagine the sea that had looked so calm that day could have killed that many innocent people so quickly.
This was a tree on our beach right outside the resort we stayed at with pictures of many of the victims. It was incredibly sad to look at the pictures and read the letters from their loved ones telling them that they were missed. I walked out to the beach and couldn't even think of what I would do if there was a tidal wave coming for me and I could not escape. As much as this place was paradise and just so beautiful, it was hard to forget that so many people had died there just five years before and they were in Phuket for the same reason I was, a vacation.

My trip to Thailand was not what I expect by any means, I did come away with a good tan and some beautiful pictures. However, I came away with more than that, a new, real understanding that life can be taken at any moment, so we should enjoy it while we are still here.