Phuket

We found the land of lady boys! But I forgot to take pictures. Darn. Too bad for you. We didn't make it to Petong which is where all of the crazy stuff happens but we aren't too upset about that. I guess we'll have to start you off with some Phi Phi island photos. We took the tour on our first full day. 

Ali bought a waterproof cover for her iPhone which may inspire a new Instagram filter.

We made some friends. This was an English couple. The husband works disarming searching for and disarming bombs. He had been busy with the recent IRA activity. 

This is an Indian finance dude that lives and works in Singapore. He said it is easy to get a visa if you are in the business. Mentally noted my friend. This photo has really good lighting. 

And now are Malaysian friends. 

Some how our Auzzie couple didn't make it. Anyhow these folks were discussing the ping pong and animal shows in Petong. Ali asked what was wrong with playing ping pong with birds around. Anyways, we saw some animals on the islands. I saw a reef shark while snorkeling and we went to Monkey Island after lunch. Here's my buddy eating a little fruit I gave him. 

This guy didn't look very patient.

But we escaped without rabies so we got to enjoy more beautiful scenery. 

That's the view from the beach from The Beach. The Aussie girl on our tour may have taken some sand to add to her Leonardo shrine.

Then we snorkeled for a second time here, where I saw the shark.

Ali stayed on the boat and did some modeling.

And we took one last swim in the shade as the sunw as going down. 

That was a long day. We took one more tour of the island. We saw some good views. 

But we also saw two young elephants chained up for tourists to take photos with. Our group all thought it was a real shame. Then a massive tour bus of Russians showed up and stormed them. Maybe they  thought the elephants were Ukranian. Russians seemed to be the biggest tourist group here by a long shot. Anywho here are all of the photos from that tour. 

Here's where we saw another piece of Buddha's bone or tooth. We saw a tooth in Singapore.

We spent the other three days hanging on the beach and at the pool. I catched up on some investment reading and Ali planned the rest of our trip.i did so e of the grunt work on that front too booking the Hong Kong hotel and flights home. I got us from HKG to SFO for $600 each all in on Singapore Air, booked on their website. No idea how this happen as I thought I was getting $1200 each and even then a damn good deal. I like to talk about this a lot and I'm no longer dreading that flight since I'll have a couple more inches of leg room on the best airline in the world. Anyways then SFO to AUS for $100 each worth of credit card points on United. Hopefully I'll sleep through that entire leg. But now, beach time, Kata beach time.

Koh Samui

We have switched to island time, including for this blog. Not really much to report on. Koh Samui and Phuket have really been our break from non-stop exploring. Here's where we spent most of our time in Lamai on the island of Koh Samui.

Above was taken from the shade, where we were most of the time, especially between 10:30 and 2:00. This is probably the main reason that-brace yourselves- Ali has not been sunburned this entire trip. (Neither have I.) Well except for 1 sq inch where she forgot sunscreen one day. We had dinner on the beach the first night and saw two fire dancers perform. One of them was especially awesome.

Then there was some of this.

Then more of this.

And when we were hot there was this.

Yeah, this wasn't exactly the cultural immersion I imagined, but I'll have you know I was drinking a Thai beer above. And we've been eating lots of Thai food and all that time relaxing is near a Thai beach. And yes we did go into town a couple times. So I guess we'll call it even and have a Thai coconut, or maybe even a dorky Thai coconut. 

 As you can tell, I'm getting plenty of use out of that $10 shirt I picked up in Little India Singapore, though it now sounds outrageously expensive from my perspective in Thailand. 

Ali doesn't think I'm special

Ali doesn't think I'm special.

She knows it. 

If you saw Ali in this pose on Facebook, now you know why I wasn't in the picture.

Chang Mai!

Chang Mai is a popular destination for westerners, Chinese, and domestic tourists to explore Thailand's outdoors. There's a nice whiff of granola culture in the air as you browse all types of woven goods, crafts, and Bob Marley shirts in the Sunday night market.

You can pick up some real handy pants to put on the next day when you visit the local temples (a few require pants, all require no shoes).

Thai architecture is very ornate. They'll decorate anything and everything.

When you're done visiting the sites you can get a fruit and ice blend anywhere. Our guide's favorite restaurant was Whole Earth so we stopped there. They had Thai and Indian food which we found at lot of places.

After a great meal we saw a great sunset. Chang Mai has all of the natural beauty that you miss in the Bangkok streets.

Our next meal we cooked ourselves with a little help from our teacher at Asia Scenic cooking school. They took us to the market and told us all about the ingredients we would be using (still not sure what pig face is used in, we didn't see any here).

While we were at the market, I figured out how to tell who's who in Chang Mai. Apparently, all you have to do is look at the pants.

Ali talks about how she must have rabies now (she doesn't) because she couldn't resist petting this guy who didn't bite or scratch her.

Turns out that little guy was not on the menu. Thai people don't eat dogs. They told me that is more common in some Korean and Chinese cultures. Ali stuck with chicken in her pad Thai and khao soi.

 Everyone made their own dishes except for the spring roll filling. I volunteered Ali to be master chef so she got to make it for everyone that chose those. I made green curry for myself. The Thai chef sad it was spicier than she liked it and wished me good luck with the elephants tomorrow. This was the first time I have had my stomach ache from spicy the next morning.

Here's a picture of me the next morning.

But I felt great after breakfast and this city is all about the outdoors. That means we were off to see the elephants. On the way out to the country you see the mahouts carrying metal picks like these as they ride the elephants.

That's about the time you'll start feeling good about going to the sanctuary where you just feed and bathe saved "Eles" (el-ees).

Oh and you gotta hug 'em too.

Below is Ali's fav Ele, Meadow. She had her hip broken when her owner tried to mate her (bound) with a bull elephant that was too big for her. A lot of the eles have sad stories before they came to the happy elephant home. The Elephant Nature Park has rescued 38 elephants and you can google them to find out just how super cool they are.

This 10 month old baby spotted me from a few strides away and came over and grabbed my hand. 

The next day we were going biking around suburban and rural southeast Chang Mai. I was going to wear the same shirt for a fourth day, I'm not sure why I didn't. 

We visited an elementary school for low income families and refugees (mostly from Burma). The kids were all really friendly, a gang of kids came up and shook my hand and said "nice to meet you" one by one before I could take off my shoes. I captured a video of a line of them giving me high fives but alas I don't know how to post video here. It's on Facebook. Ali made friends too.

Chiang Mai was our favorite spot with our favorite happenings so far. Now for some quiet island time....