Friday, April 19, 2013

Water festival and Krabi

QOTD: "The trouble is, you think you have time." Buddha

 So this is our Last vacation, the idea is crazy. I feel like I just got here to Thailand, but at the same time, like I've lived here my whole life. I'm horrified at the thought of leaving the kids I've come to love so much, but excited to start a new adventure of working in Yellowstone National Park with my best friend. Anyway, I tried to savor every second of this vacation.

We drove to Bangkok and found ourselves in the airport since the best beaches are far south. It felt to weird to be in an airport again but it was great because we found some missed treats like Krispy Kreme! I had almost forgot completely about the water festival that brought in the Thai new year and ment a country wide HUGE, Intense water fight. I remembered this important fact when the worker in Starbucks pulled his water gun on me after I order. Still unarmed, he got me haha. I love Thai people.

 When we drove into Krabi town we saw loads of trucks like this. They were full of people who had barrels of water and threw buckets of it at anyone they passed! We all got more and more excited with every truck we saw.
When we got to our bungalow's, they were a lot further civilization than we realized, but luckily, they had a tuk tuk service to take us there for free. Turns out the guy who drove us knew ALOT of people in town and brought us right through the action at his friends houses. It seriously felt like a dream. He would be driving on the rode and then slow down as we approached a huge group of people. these people would kind of cheer at the sight of us and run at us with buckets and bucket of water, and water guns and water hoses. haha we were drenched! and then they would run up with these buckets of white gooey stuff and slather it on our faces and necks saying Happy New year! One of the guys told us it was for good luck so we welcomed this stuff in any color it came. Yellow, Red, Orange, Lime Green (this one actually kind of burned) but it never lasted long because you would be pelted with water in five seconds anyway. We were so surprised with was this big that we just laughed and laughed every time we got a new water poured on us. 

When we got to town the same thing happened but we were on foot and there was a lot more freezing cold water, Idk where they got it haha. We bought the first water guns we could find and played all day. 

On the way home Michaela and Lindsay manned the back of our Tuk Tuk like A military jeep and pelted all the people in the back of trucks passing by. 

 The water festival was SO much fun but considering it was cloudy all day, and you were never Not wet, we were pretty exhausted and cold by the end of the day and spent the night relaxing in our hammocks and whatnot.
The next day was just as cloudy and it was so weird because I'm honestly kind of used to the 110 degree weather with loads of humidity so I was cold and I bought a cup of hot chocolate. I never thought I'd find myself wanting any form of hot drink here.

Our beach was pretty empty so we decided to take one of the long tail boats to another beach. I'd always seen pictures and wanted to take a ride so I was surprised, for some reason, to see how big they were. 


I was falling out of the boat, nbd. 

We found the limestone cliffs and floating mountains even more beautiful that the last beach and spent most our time in and out of the water. (surprisingly still cold most of the time, but definitely a nice change to the burning heat we usually experience in Phichit)


This was our longest vacation (five days) so we decided to splurge on nicer rooms for our last couple nights, and it. was. awesome. I forgot what it felt light to have all those extra silly frills of a nicer room (like AC and room service)

The beach here was awesome too. It was on a really secluded beach where I hardly saw anyone else and it was nice because then I would play in the sand and look for seashells like a little kid singing the little mermaid. Just kidding....maybe. 

All these little sand ball things were from the crabs coming out and I have no idea how the sand forms like that but it was incredible because there were thousands of these tiny crabs! thousands, running to the water like a swarm of walking sand ants!

And there where loads of starfish too! I'd never seen a starfish so it was pretty exciting for a long time. 

We got to go sea kayaking too. It was really relaxing but hard at the same time. Kayaking in the ocean is way different to what I'm used to but I loved it.

The tide went WAY back at sunset. So far that I we walked to one of the floating mountains and explored all around it, finding cool seashells and sand-dollars. 
A few of us really wanted to try out rock climbing since people come from all over the world the climb the limestone floating mountains here. We decided on whats called "Deep Water Solo". They take you out on a boat to one of the floating mountains, obviously in deep ocean water, you climb up it with no ropes, no chalk, just your climbing shoes, and then when you slip or or to tired, you jump into the ocean from the wall! After a long ride in a sailing boat, he stopped here and we realized, Oh Crap, what did we get ourselves into. 

We met some really cool people who came too, like these guys from Vegas. But when we saw them, we just got more anxious at how embarrassing this was going to be haha.
It ended up being WAY more fun (and much less pressure) than we'd imagined. after the "guide" hung up a couple rope ladders off the rocks, he pretty much just told us to jump into the water and go at it  :)



It was so much fun to go climb over and over again and fall into the water. I honestly have a HUGE fear of really deep water and haven't ever stayed in water this deep....well....ever. So I thought I would have a huge issue when I got in there. But facing my fears wasn't hard when it was so much fun. 
Oh and I got to go snorkeling for the first time! On the way back to the beach, we were all sitting on the front end of the boat when we got caught in the rain! He had to pull up the sails and it all seemed so mystical,   sailing through the storm towards the foggy floating mountains. It was really cold, but I loved every second of it. 

After rock climbing, we were trying to find our way back to the right beach when we say this rope going straight up through these steep red rocks. It wasn't hard to decide we wanted to try it out, so Mekenzie and I left our flip flops at the bottom and started climbing! It was this steep for most of the hike, which was longer than I anticipated but it was probably my favorite hike I've done cuz I felt like tarzan :)
After the steep rocks, There was thick jungle and it was the best feeling to walk through bare foot. After a while we found a breathtaking view point that we could never capture. 


On our last day we sent a message in a bottle. A bucket list for all of us and I'm sure it's washed up on the same shore by now but it's the thought that counts ;)

Right before we left, I got to play with this adorable little boy (son of one of the cooks at the Bungalow's) He  loved my sunglasses :)

I loved all of our adventures in Krabi and the relaxing days spent in a hammock on the beach. Sigh. Sometimes I crave the beach bum life. 
Love from Thailand,
Nesha <3

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