Highlights of Thailand
~ On the island of Koh Phangan, we rented a motorbike and drove up and down monstrous hills in the rain all around the island. During our adventure, we found a beautiful waterfall, saw some elephants, and visited old fishing villages. We also got a special tour from local monks who were at a retreat nearby!
~ During our stay in Phuket, we visited PhantaSea, which is a cultural theme park. We had delicious Thai food including Panang Curry, and then saw a special show that included tigers, elephants, puppets, magic, and traditional dance that was performed in conjunction to a Thai fairytale. We even got to feed a baby tiger!
~ During our stay in Chaing Mai, we went trekking in a local jungle for three days. After climbing an entire day up a very steep mountain and seeing a forest fire, we spent a night in a mountaintop village and ate traditional foods. We slept on bamboo floors that we shared with numerous types of bugs. The next day we swam in waterfalls with village children, learned how to make a slingshot, cooked over a traditional stove, and learned a traditional patty-cake game as taught by village girls. Our third day consisted of white water rafting, bamboo rafting, and a game of Sepak Takraw. (Sepak Takraw is a soccer-volleyball that uses a hard bamboo ball, a net, and only your feet.)
~We celebrated the Thai New Year (Songkran) with the locals and were soaked for four days! We had lots of fun having water fights with complete strangers and had plenty of laughs with both adults and children.
Village girls teaching Casey how to play the Thai version of Paper-Rock-Scissors
What we learned in Thailand...
Simple products that we use everyday in the USA such as hand sanitizer and lotions are considered a special luxury to Thailand villagers.
Songkran is the worlds biggest water festival and takes place yearly to celebrate the Thai New Year. Locals and tourists purchase water buckets and water guns and soak all and anyone that walks or drives by. The festival lasts four days.
Haggling (the art of bargaining over how much something costs) is really stressful, but necessary. The locals expect tourists to bargain to buy a product. Sometimes, the bargaining seems pointless because its over a few cents, but the locals respect you more.
The Raffleasia, possibly the world’s largest flower, blooms for only seven days and can be found in Khao Sok National Park in Thailand.
Buddhists monks in Thailand are very friendly people and are often eager to practice their English. However, it is against the rules of Buddhism for a monk to accept anything from a woman or stand next to one. Out of respect, the female must place the item she wishes to give to the monk in front of him, but cannot touch him.
