Thailand

Mimi and I flew into Bangkok and needed a few days to recover from Cambodia. Our taxi driver from the airport couldn't find out hotel and started yelling at us, which wasn't exactly the warm welcome we wanted, but having been to Thailand, and Bangkok specifically before, I wasn't surprised. We finally arrived at our hotel 2 hours later, but our room was very nice, especially for the price, so we were happy. (By the way, if anyone ever needs a hotel we've been using Agoda.com which has great rates and the hotels are always as nice as they say.) We decided to go to a mall for the day, surprisingly that is what my mom and I did last time we were in Bangkok, but this mall was much nicer than the one I'd been to 3 years ago. We saw the movie, Valentine's Day, which was fairly awful, and I was appalled that they called it the American version of Love, Actually. I did find an amazing dress though, so please inform me if you're getting married or there is a party I should attend once I get home because I'm going to need somewhere to wear it.

The next day we took a sleeper train up north to Chiang Mai. I had never been in a sleeper car before and it was much more comfortable than I imagined. They came in and made our beds for us and gave us blankets, etc. We did make the mistake of ordering breakfast though and were woken up at 5 am and forced out of our room. When we were allowed back in our beds were gone and our breakfast didn't arrive for a half hour after that. All in all though it was a painless process and we were happy that we had the whole day ahead of us once we got to Chiang Mai. Our first night there we met two Australian girls and went with them to Mui Thai, a Thai Boxing match. It was a lot of fun to watch, not violent at all, and we started putting down bets with the people sitting behind us. After the match we were walking around looking for somewhere to go and decided to jump on some motorbikes who took us to the rasta area. We went to one bar where a cover band was playing. I begged the lead singer to let me sing on stage and when he finally agreed and played 'Sex on Fire' I obviously forgot all of the words. My energy level was up though so it wasn't a complete failure and everyone was self involved enough not to throw things at me. The next day we went on the "Flight of the Gibbons," where you zip line from tree to tree, flying through the air like a Gibbon might. You dont actually see any gibbons on the trip, but it was a great experience, flying from platform to platform. Each group had 9 people in it and although we had been told it was a lot of waiting in line, it seemed to go pretty quickly. It also felt very safe which I liked, as I'm not the best with heights and risky activities.

The next day we took a bus back to Bangkok to apply for our India visas and then flew to Koh Samui. After our flight we took a ferry to Koh Phangan, where the famous full moon party was. It wasn't for a few days but every night leading up to it was a huge beach party. The day of the actual Full Moon Party Ashley met up with us again. By that time we had met a lot of people at our hotel and so we all went togther, but quickly lost each other once we got to the beach. Having been there for days in advance the Full Moon Party seemed overwhelmed with people and completely claustrophobic. I felt as though I could be trampled at any minute. The next day was our last on Koh Pangang and so we decided to go out, one last time. Every night we were there there were fire activities on the beach; fire jump rope, fire high jump, fire limbo, fire twirling, etc. I had always avoided the fire, knowing no good could come of it, but saw other people doing it every night and coming out really without a scratch. So, on our last night, when there were fewer people on the beach than we'd ever seen before, I decided to give the fire high-jump a try. I figured I was a great high jumper in 4th grade and probably nothing had changed, right? WRONG. Aside from gravity deciding it was no longer my friend, many other things went wrong. As I was running toward the high jump they raised it and re lit it, causing me to misread the height and the heat, and run into it rather than over it, very badly burning both of my legs and ruining the rest of my time in Thailand.

The next day, bandaged up and barely able to walk, we took a ferry boat to Koh Tao. It was very very beautiful there, but by the doctors orders I couldn't go near the sand, water or sun, so I enjoyed the view from my hotel balcony and got some reading in. As much as I dont LOVE snorkeling, I was very jealous of anyone who could do water activities. A few days later we went back to Bangkok to pick up our visas. We saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D, which I think distracted me from the movie itself, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. As I was still in pain and recovering I decided to go to the hospital in Bangkok, and aside from some mandatory errands I had to run, spent the rest of my time resting and recovering before India.

The moral of this story is, don't play with fire.