Thailand update

monkey at the temple
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Hi Everyone,

Went to the border and back, saw superman and talked with a 6 year old Thai girl all the while making sure my toe stays bandaged.

monkey jumped to the other side of the stairs and directly onto my head!

Hi Roxanne, I hope you enjoy this blog and all the pictures.

monkey face
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It’s Tuesday November 20^th and Thanksgiving is 2 days away. Josh and I felt a little sad for the coming holidays, so we decided that for this special Thanksgiving Josh and I will learn how to cook 6 different Thai dishes each and then have the chance to engorge our bellies full of our creations. Hopefully, if all goes well, we will bring home our Thai cookbooks and make a feast for all of you. Next blog we’ll add pictures of our Thanksgiving, feel free to send us some too.

So here is what we have been up to and some good photos.

very very steep steps
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Because we rented a motor bike for 33 of the 40 days we are here we have done a lot of inland sight seeing (which has saved us a bunch of Baht). One day we traveled north of Krabi to a national park, which ended up being 400 Baht (about $13) to enter, to much for us, so we went to a small open pavilion and had a picnic it started to rain so we read for a while. Once the rain started to clear I wondered around the entrance of the park, and what I found was LUCKY. Because the high tourist season wasn’t in full swing they had an unguarded entrance to the park, turns out it was too the best park of the National Park! I got josh and all of our stuff and walked on a small flooded path. It opened up to pools and small waterfalls, check out the pictures.

temple view
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We woke up another morning around 6am, turned out Josh had a bad case of the rhea (the spices our killing our cleansing our digestive track) around 8am we headed off for the “hot Stream” and “Crystal Pool” We first arrived at the hot stream (we were the first ones to enter the park) we walked along a steamy stream until it opened up to a hot pool (they put stones around the water to turn it into a pool) we sat there for about 20 minutes when the bus full of tourists came. Perfect timing we thought, but the tourists never came into the pool? Strange so we got out and were walking towards the exit when we noticed that all the tourists were sitting in a small “hot waterfall” duh we thought.

very very steep
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Then we motor biked to the crystal pool. So beautiful, after just 20 minutes of reading by the pool all the tourists got back on their buses and left. We had the whole pool to ourselves, the water was probably 85 degrees. Very Nice.

One morning (we never know the date anymore) I went out to the beach at 7:30am as usual to do my daily workout and yoga. Suddenly, Superman and a little Thai girl came running over with a glass bottle and a bucket of sand and banana leaves, they said something in Thai and then sat down. They were so darn cute, but we couldn’t communicate. So I picked up a shell from the sand and gave it to them to put in there, what I thought was a pretend bucket of soup. The little girl smiled and pretended to crack it open, scoop out the mussel and eat it. They both laughed, so I handed them another. Then I spelled out my name in the sand and said, “Carrie,” she did the same. It was very long! Then I drew a picture of Mickey Mouse she smiled, superman smiled and they shouted Mickey mouse, then I drew a bow on Mickey and they Yelled Minnie Mouse! She then drew something and laughed. I drew a fish and a crab and the girl yelled CRAB! Then Mom started yelling and they both ran off dumping the stew by me.

temple rest
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Yesterday we rented a car for 1, 100 baht because we had to run to the border to leave Thailand and touch Malaysia, this would then give us another 1 month stay visa. So Josh and I drove, 5 hours south with out a map at 4am. We looked for signs that said “To Malaysia Border” they weren’t there. I had one map before I left that I copied from a Lonely Planet Guide Book, it had on it 3 cities south of Krabi. So we searched for those 3 cities that got us close enough to the border where we finally found signs that said, “To Border.” We got lost for about 3 of the 14 hours we were driving, not bad huh?! On our way home we stopped at a beautiful western style restaurant that sat on a cliff overlooking the valley. Then we stopped at a Wildlife Breading Research Center, they allowed us in a we were able to see deer’s with fangs, toucans, mini deer’s, peacocks and other cool birds. We also saw a black animal that was tasting the air with his tongue, he looks like a cross between a badger and a Tasmanian Devil, there is a picture see if you can tell, please let us know if you can.

carrie getting ready for a motor bike trip, we must seem so strange to thai people.
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There are also pictures of a Buddhist Temple up on top of a mountain called Tiger Cave Temple. To get there we had to climb 1,237 stairs, the where very steep and skinny. The view from the top is one that is unforgettable if you ever come to Krabi you must take a look. We have now trekked up the stairs 3 times. The last time we were there and walking down the steps the monkeys (that normally stay at the bottom) came up onto the stairs blocking our path. We don’t have pictures of this time but it was scary! As I was walking slowly down trying not to spook any of them, especially the big, old grandpas, something was tugging at my pant leg, it was a baby monkey! His hands wrapped around my pants reminded me of a poor child begging for food or money. Then a woman with her Thai family had stopped because the mass of monkeys left no room to move. As I approached, they smiled and tried to communicate, but of course that was pretty difficult. So I just tried to squeak by the monkey pack, just then a big monkey jumped on the back of the lady, she screamed and then the monkey jumped to the other side of the stairs and directly onto my head! I screamed, it bounced off. The monkey was big and peculiarly light. The family started laughing, I started running. Once I reached the bottom where there were no more monkeys, I waited for Josh who was coming down after me, I heard but could not see him. He was clapping and saying HEY HEY HEY. I was laughing when he finally met up with me. We were the last ones there, it was crazy.

too much rice!
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Hope you like the photos.